All right, let's begin our service
this evening, turning to the book of Colossians. Colossians
chapter 1. Julie Thornberry's grandmother
passed away last night at some point. We want to remember her
in prayer. I haven't heard any other arrangements
yet. No arrangements yet, but we'll
get the word out as they become available. Colossians 1, we'll
begin our reading in verse 12. giving thanks unto the Father
which hath made us meet, made it fit to be partakers of the
inheritance of the saints in light, who hath delivered us
from the power of darkness and hath translated us into the kingdom
of his dear Son, in whom we have redemption through his blood,
even the forgiveness of sins, who is the image of the invisible
God, the firstborn of every creature. For by him were all things created
that are in heaven and that are on earth. visible and invisible,
whether they be thrones or dominions or principalities or powers,
all things were created by him and for him. And he is before
all things, and by him all things consist. And he is the head of
the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn
from the dead, that in all things he might have the preeminence.
For it pleased the Father that in him should all fullness dwell.
And having made peace through the blood of his cross, by him
to reconcile all things unto himself. By him, I say, whether
they be things in earth or things in heaven and you, they were
sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works.
Yet now hath he reconciled in the body of his flesh through
death to present you holy and unblameable and unapprovable
in his sight. If you continue in the faith,
grounded and settled And be not moved away from the hope of the
gospel, which you have heard, and which was preached to every
creature which is under heaven, whereof I, Paul, have made a
minister. And we'll end our reading there. To God be the glory, great things
He hath done, So loved He the world that He gave us His Son,
Who yielded His life and atonement for sin, And opened a life-gate
that all may go in. Praise the Lord, let the earth
hear his voice. Praise the Lord, praise the Lord,
let the people rejoice. O come to the Father, through
Jesus the Son, and give him the glory, great things he hath done. O perfect redemption, the purchase
of blood To every believer the promise of God The vilest offender
who truly believes That moment from Jesus the pardon receives. Praise the Lord! Praise the Lord! Let the earth hear His voice. Praise the Lord! Praise the Lord! Let the people rejoice. O come to the Father, through
Jesus the Son, and give Him the glory, great things He hath done. Great things He hath taught us,
great things He hath done, and great are our rejoicing through
Jesus the Son. But purer and higher and greater
will be Our wonder, our transport, when Jesus we see. Praise the Lord! Praise the Lord! Let the earth hear His voice. Praise the Lord, praise the Lord,
let the people rejoice. O come to the Father, to Jesus
the Son, and give him the glory, great things he hath done. Let's turn back to 272. 272.
One of my favorite songs. It's full of the gospel. My hope is built on nothing less
than Jesus' blood and righteousness. I dare not trust the sweetest
frame, but only lean on Jesus' name. On Christ the solid rock
I stand, All other ground is stinking sand. All other ground
is stinking sand. When darkness fails his lovely
face, I rest on his unchanging grace. In every high and stormy
gale, My anchor holds with me. On Christ the solid rock I stand,
All other ground is sinking sand. All other ground is sinking sand. His oath is covenant, his blood,
Support me in the whelming flood. When all around my soul gives
way, Then is all my hope and stay. On Christ the solid rock
I stand, All other ground is sinking sand. All other ground is sinking sand. When He shall come with trump
and sound, O may I then in Him be found, Rest in His righteousness
alone, All blessed to stand before the throne. On Christ the solid
rock I stand, All other ground is sinking sand. All other ground is sinking sand. Let's open our Bibles now to
Psalm 105. Psalm 105. We'll read the first
12 verses. Oh, give thanks unto the Lord.
Call upon his name. Make known his deeds among the
people. Sing unto him. Sing psalms unto him. Talk ye
of all his wondrous works. Glory ye in his holy name. Let
the heart of them rejoice that seek the Lord. Seek the Lord
in his strength. Seek his face forever. Seek his
face evermore. Remember his marvelous works
that he hath done. His wonders and the judgments
of his mouth. O ye see of Abraham his servant,
the children of Jacob his chosen. He is the Lord our God. His judgments
are in all the earth. He hath remembered his covenant
forever. the word which he commanded to a thousand generations, which
covenant he made with Abraham and his oath unto Isaac and confirmed
the same unto Jacob for a law and to Israel for an everlasting
covenant saying unto thee, will I give the land of Canaan, the
lot of your inheritance when they were but a few men in number,
yea, very few and strangers in it. We'll end our reading there.
Let's bow together in prayer. Our Father, for we bow in your
presence this evening, seeking a blessing from thee, seeking
to hear more of your holy matchless name, seeking to hear more of
your wonderful, marvelous works, which you've done for your people
and our Lord Jesus Christ. While I pray this evening that
you'd cause your word to go forth in power, and the power of your
spirit. Bring glory to your name. Cause
it, Father, to reach the hearts of your people. Penetrate this
old, dead, hard flesh. Cause your word to penetrate
the heart, the heart that you've given, that will believe the
things of Christ that we hear preached, that will feast upon
the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. Father, cause your word
to go forth in power, to bring glory to your name and enable
your people to hear, to worship thee. Enable us to leave here
tonight refreshed after hearing one more time of Christ our Savior,
his perfect sacrifice, his sufficiency, that he really is all we need. And Father, what we pray for
ourselves, we pray for your people who meet together tonight with
the same heartfelt desire that we have to worship you. Bless
your word, where it's preached. Father, in this dark, dark day
in which we live, give glory to your name. Father, we pray for those that
you brought in the time of trouble and trial. We pray especially
for Julie and her family at this difficult time that you'd comfort
her heart. We continue to pray for our brother Bob as he recovers
and others, Father, who need you especially. You know every
case. You know what your people have
need of before we even ask. Father, we pray that you meet
those needs richly. And Father, how can we thank
you for all the blessings that you've given to us, how you've
blessed us in this life, beyond measure, and Father, we're thankful. And it is particularly humbling
to think that God Almighty would see fit to provide for people
like us, right here in this little speck of the map, that you send
your mercy and grace to people here, that you cause your gospel
to be preached in this place, that you'd reveal yourself to
your people here that you'd make sinful men and women like we
are here tonight, holy and righteous, perfect, unblameable in thy sight
in the Lord Jesus Christ. Father, how we thank you. Human
language fails to adequately express how thankful we are. We shudder to think where we'd
be and what we'd be without thy mercy and thy grace. intervening
hand to stop us on our mad rush to hell and reveal Christ. Father, we're thankful. We pray
that you would, for your namesake, continue to bless your word here,
continue to call out your sheep, bless and save them according
to thy will. All these things we ask in that
name which is above every name, the name of Christ our Savior. so My Lord, I did not choose you,
for that could never be. My heart would still refuse you,
Had you not chosen me? You took the sin that stained
me, You cleansed me, made me new. Of old you have ordained me,
that I should live in you. Unless your grace had called
me and taught my opening mind. The world would have enthralled
me To heavenly glories blind. My heart knows none above you,
For your rich grace I thirst. I know that if I love you, you
must have loved me first. Your love has been forever from
all eternity. Its growing power never shall
be withdrawn from me. I feel that I am kept by the
spring of love divine. And when I wake in heaven, All glory shall be thine. If you would, let's open our
Bibles again to Psalm 105. Psalmist begins in verse one. He said, Oh, give thanks unto
the Lord. Call upon his name. Make known his deeds among the
people. Oh, give thanks unto the Lord. I don't know how many
times that that is said in scripture, but it must be said often because
we need reminding. Oh, give thanks unto the Lord.
If anybody should be known as a thankful people, it's God's
people. And of all God's people that
I know, if anybody that I know should be a thankful people.
It's Hurricane Road Grace Church. Oh, how thankful we ought to
be for everything that God has done for us. And we should be
thankful at all times. Now, I know that's easy to say,
but it's so. You know, it's not in just what
we call the good times, but in the bad times, the trials too.
You know, it's easy to be thankful when we enjoy all the blessings
that God gives and it's easy. But we can also be thankful for
the trials that God sends. Now, you'll notice I didn't say
thankful for the pain. Thankful for the trials. Because
those trials teach us to be more dependent upon our God. And we
will be far better off the more dependent upon God we are. Trials teach us to wait for our
God. They teach us to trust Him. He's
going to bring His purpose to pass. And we can be thankful
the more that we learn, can't we? But human beings are just
not naturally thankful. How long did it take you to teach
your little ones to say thank you? We're just not naturally
thankful. So we should make the Lord's
deeds known. among his people. Let's tell
people what great things God has done for us. Tell people
what great things that God has done for his people. Tell people
how great God is so they'll be reminded to be thankful. And
we should use all of our abilities to thank the Lord. The psalmist
says, verse two, sing unto him, sing psalms unto him, talk ye
of all his wondrous works. Now we should talk. of all of
God's wondrous works. We should talk about them regularly
throughout our daily lives. We should preach them in the
pulpit, certainly, but when we go home, we should talk about
God's wondrous works to our children. We should talk about them with
each other. We should sit down at the dinner
table and sometimes just talk about what wonderful, marvelous
things that God has done so that we don't forget to be thankful.
And the psalmist here says, sing about God's deeds. Be thankful
for it. Sing about it. I think he says
sing about it because singing makes it more beautiful, doesn't
it? At least if somebody else sings it. Wayne and I were talking
about how we cannot sing. Maybe if somebody besides the
two of us sings it. Normally, though, someone who can sing
makes it beautiful. Well, even if we can't sing,
even if we can't carry a tune in a bucket, it should always
be beautiful. When we talk about our God, we
talk about his mercy, his compassion, his love. And the psalmist says,
give thanks for God's deeds, what he has done. They're marvelous.
He says, verse five, remember his marvelous works that he had
done, his wonders and the judgments of his mouth. Remember these
things. Now, God's creation, you just
think about the first, you know, deed that we read about there
in Genesis chapter one, God created the heaven and the earth. That's
marvelous. This creation is beautiful and
it does the beauty of creation. You think about even though it's
by how it's marred by sin, the beauty of this creation shows
us something of God's beauty and God's majesty. Creation shows
us something about God's wisdom. Whoever created all this and
whoever is running all of this has got incredible wisdom. How this creation works together.
That's marvelous. And that is nothing. That's a
drop in the bucket compared to God's redemption of his people. God made his people who were
born a sinful people, born with Adam's nature. He made them righteous. Now you think of that. He made
them righteous by sending his son in the flesh, in human flesh. to obey the law as the representative
for his people. That's marvelous work. God redeemed
his people from all their sin. He paid their sin debt by the
sacrifice of his only begotten son. What a marvelous work. And God keeps all of his people
by his grace. And not one of them will be lost. God provides everything His people
need in His Son. Because Christ is all we need. I wonder about my own self, how
much I know that so. I know that so. I'm ashamed how little I believe
it, I'm afraid. There's so many other things
we think we need in this flesh. But I'm telling you, Christ is
all we need. And God has provided him, his
son, for his people. That's marvelous. Marvelous.
And the psalmist tells us also, let's never forget this, to give
thanks for who God is. Verse three. Glory ye in his
holy name. Let the heart of them rejoice
that seek the Lord. Now verse one, the psalmist says,
call upon his name. The name of the Lord tells us
who God is. His name tells us what God is
like. Call upon the name of the Lord. Don't call upon the God
of your imagination now. Don't call on this God who needs
you to let him save you. Don't call on this God who wants
you to just surrender your life to him and wants you to Don't
call on the God of your imagination. Call upon the God of this book. Call upon God as he describes
himself. I wish we get this through our
head. God's not like we think he is. God's like he says he
is. In his word. Call on his name. His name is Jehovah Jireh. The Lord will provide everything
that he requires and everything that you need to stand accepted
before God. Now I ask you, why wouldn't you
call on him? Jehovah child, he'll provide everything you need.
Call on his name, Jehovah Sidkenu. The Lord, our righteousness.
We don't have any righteousness and we can't earn one by trying
to keep God's law. But the Lord Jesus Christ did.
And he is our righteousness. He personally is our righteousness. Now call upon him. Call upon
his name, Jehovah Shalom. The Lord, our peace. Peace. Peace with God. Peace of conscience
can only be had by the blood of Christ. Only the blood of
Christ can take away the sin that makes God angry. And only
the blood of Christ applied to the heart can give us a clear
conscience. Yes, we still sin, but the conscience is clear if
Christ has cleansed it. If Christ has paid for sin, peace
with God is had with Christ. Call on his name and have peace
with God. Call on Jehovah Raya. the Lord,
our shepherd, our shepherd, who doesn't leave it up to his sheep
to decide if they're going to take the first step to him or
not. But he goes where they are and he picks them up and he puts
them on his shoulder and he carries them. Call on that shepherd.
Call on that shepherd who calls his sheep by name on purpose
to follow him. Call on the Lord, our shepherd,
who gives his life Call, call on him, call on Jehovah Rapha,
the Lord who healeth. Not just the Lord who forgives
sin, but you know, a lot of times we think of forgiveness of sin
and just saying, well, we won't bring it up anymore. I mean,
it's still there. We won't mention it. Not to forgive sin like that. Although he forgives sin, but
he heals it. He heals the disease. He heals
the uncleanness of our sin. Call upon his name. And remember
this, his name, is holy. Holy. That means God's character
is holy. Now earlier, the psalmist said,
give thanks for his deeds. Now he says, give thanks for
who God is. Well, you know what God does. His deeds are controlled
by his holy character. Earl, he can only do something
that's holy. He can only do something that's right. God won't do one
thing that's wrong. Now you call on him and you trust
him. And if you want to know what
God's like, and you want to know what He's done for His people,
you'd be wise to seek Him. Verse 4 says, seek the Lord and
His strength. Seek His face forevermore. Now
seek the Lord because you need Him. Seek Him and His strength. You don't have strength to call
upon the Lord. Well, seek Him and His strength to give it to
you. You don't have the strength to come to Christ. Well, seek
Him and His strength to give it to you. You don't have the
strength to repent. So seek Him in His strength to
give you the strength to repent. We've got to have Him even to
be able to come to Him. Seek Him in His strength. If
you seek the Lord's face, the Word of God says you'll find
it. And you'll see the glory of it in the face of Jesus Christ.
Now the rest, that's a great introduction, by the way, isn't
it? Now the rest of this psalm could be called church history.
You know, people like to study church history. You know, they
like to go from the early church through the dark ages up to the
time of the Reformation and all through up to now. Well, if you
want to know church history, it's described right here in
the rest of this psalm. It's described by four deeds of God
for his people. We're just going to look at one
of them tonight. Lord willing, we'll look at the other three
in the coming weeks. But verses 6 through 12 describe God's election
of a people. That's a mighty deed, wondrous
deed of our God. Verses 13 through 26 describe
God's providence for his people. Verses 26 through 38 describe
God's deliverance of his people. And verses 39 through 44 describe
God's provision for his people. And tonight I want us to look
at God's election of a people. And I've titled the message Giving
Thanks for God's Election. The psalmist here gives us four
great and comforting truths about God's electing love. And the
first one is this, God's election of a people is an eternal covenant. Verse five, he says, remember
his marvelous works that he has done his wonders and the judgments
of old. Oh, ye seed of Abraham. So he's
telling somebody specific to remember his marvelous works,
which he has done. Oh, ye seed of Abraham, his servant,
ye children of Jacob, his chosen. Now, You who know God, you remember
this. The only reason that you know
God is because of God's grace to you. That's the only reason
you know Him. You only know God because He chose you first in
the covenant of grace. And in time, He revealed Himself
to you. You know that's the only reason you know God. And you
know it. God's covenant of grace is an eternal covenant. And we're
so full of ourselves, we think eternal means from right here
where I am all the way through eternity because it doesn't have
an ending. And that's not what eternal means. Something that's
eternal doesn't have a beginning or an ending. It's eternal. God's covenant of grace is as
old as God. It doesn't have a beginning and
it does not have an ending. God's covenant of grace is eternal. That means that God's covenant
of grace was formed and ratified when there was only God. That
means that salvation is all God's idea. Salvation is God's eternal
purpose for His people. Salvation in Christ is God's
eternal purpose for His people. God elected, He chose to save
a people before anything was created. God didn't choose a
people because of anything they did or did not do, did He? Because
they weren't here yet to do anything. God chose a people to save, not
because of what those people would do, but because of what
he would do. That's it. God chose a people
to save because in his love for his people, he would send his
son to redeem them from their sin. God did not choose anyone
because he looked down through the telescope of time and he
saw people would end up choosing him. So he chose them. That's
ridiculous. That would be God taking credit
for what man's going to do anyway. And why would God want to take
credit for anything a sinful man does? That cannot be. As
a matter of fact, just the opposite is true. Look at Psalm 53. God did look down through time.
And you know what he saw? He saw that not one single solitary
person would ever do anything good or ever choose him. That's what God saw. But God
chose to save them anyway. Now that is glorious good news
for sinners. Look at Psalm 53 verse 2. God
looked down from heaven upon the children of men to see if
there were any that did understand. Is there any that seek God? Every one of them has gone back.
They are all together become filthy. There's none that doeth
good. No, not one. God did look down
from heaven and he saw there wouldn't be any righteous person.
He saw that every son of Adam would be completely sinful and
would make every effort that they could to go as far away
from God as they could get. Never toward him. But God chose
to save them anyway. Now that's a marvelous work.
Look at Psalm 102. Psalm 102. Verse 19. Here's what God did
when he looked down from heaven. Verse 19, Psalm 102. For he hath
looked down from the height of his sanctuary. From heaven did
the Lord behold the earth to hear the groaning of the prisoner,
to loose those that are appointed to death, to declare the name
of the Lord in Zion and his praise in Jerusalem. God looked down
from heaven and he saw all men. He saw they were all sinners.
He saw they're all guilty who deserve to die. He saw them in
prison. He saw them groaning in their misery. And God sent
His Son to set some of those prisoners free by taking their
place and satisfying justice for them. They're going to go
free from the condemnation of death because Christ Jesus, the
Son of God, is going to die in their place to set them free
and satisfy justice for them. That's a marvelous work. Oh,
it's a marvelous work. Don't you love to talk about
that? And God showed us that he elected, he chose to save
sinners. He gave us this illustration
when he chose Abraham. Verse nine, back in our text,
Psalm 105. Which covenant he made with Abraham and his oath
unto Isaac. Now, where was Abraham when God
found him? His name wasn't even Abraham
yet, was it? It was Abram. He was an idolater in the Ur
of the Chaldees. He was just like every other
son of Adam, going as far away from God as he could get, as
fast as he could go. And God called him one day. He
said, get out of that place. Go to a place I'll show you.
God chose to save Abraham out of that whole idolater's family.
I don't know how big his father's house was, how many people were
there in that compound. But God reached down and plucked
Abraham out of there. Sarah and Lot went with him. He did that
to confirm his covenant with Abraham. And you know God can
do that? God can do that. Because God
can call an idolater to come to Him and give that idolater
faith in Him, not that stone statue they're bound down to.
God can do that. Because He's the God of all the earth. Verse
7. He is the Lord our God. His judgments
are in all the earth. Now the Lord our God is our God,
but his judgments are in all the earth. He has a people in
all of the earth from every race and every generation. And those
people that he has, they're his because he chose them. He's going
to have every last one of them. He's going to call those people
to Christ just as surely, just as effectively, just as personally
as he called Abraham. Not one of them is going to be
lost. Because over time, God's never going to forget his eternal
covenant. Never. He will never forget the
people that he chose to save. Verse eight. He hath remembered
his covenant forever. The word which he commanded to
a thousand generations. God will never forget his people.
See, when God chose a people, He knew how sinful they'd be.
He knew how vile that they would be, but He chose to save them
anyway. And He's never going to forget
one of them because of their sin. He already knew their sin. He already knew their wickedness,
and He chose them anyway, so He's never going to choose to
forget them because of their sin. That's a marvelous work. And Christ the Son, in this covenant
of grace, the Father chose a people, the Son agreed to save Christ
the Son knew the sin of His people. He knew the awful sin debt of
His people. And He agreed anyway to be made
all of that sin for His people. He agreed anyway to pay for that
sin by sacrificing Himself and paying for it with His own blood.
He knew exactly what He was getting Himself into. And He did it anyway
for the likes of you and me. That's a marvelous work. If we
have any idea of our wretched condition by nature, that's a
marvelous work. The only way a person could not
love God's electing love is that they don't think they're a sinner.
That's the only reason somebody could not love, could not be
thankful for God's electing love. God's electing love is exactly
what a dead lost sinner must have if we would be saved. Number
two, God's electing love is for sinners. In case you didn't know
it before, he says here in verse 10, and confirmed the same unto
Jacob for a law and to Israel for an everlasting covenant.
Now here's proof positive. God will never forget. He'll
never disannul his covenant of grace. God made a covenant. He made a promise of grace to
Abraham. And God made that oath again
to Abraham's son Isaac. And Abraham and Isaac have their
faults. I mean, this is the way we naturally
think. Abraham and Isaac are no better than you and me. They're
just as sinful, just as wretched, just as lost as you and me. But
this is the way we think. Abraham and Isaac They had their
faults. I mean, you know, they made mistakes.
They did things not done. They showed weak faith from time
to time. But generally speaking, we would say, and boy, the Jews
would especially say this, Abraham and Isaac were respectable men.
I mean, these are the kind of guys, you know, we like to hang
out with, you know, down to Y. But now Jacob, he's another story. I mean, it's
just hard to see how Jacob, How in the world is Isaac his daddy?
I mean, how in the world is Abraham his grandfather? I mean, just,
ugh! Jacob was a cheat. Jacob was a weak and cowardly
man. And every time Jacob was faced
with a decision, he makes the wrong one first. I mean, just
every time. If anybody, I mean, Jacob would
just cheat you not to get any gain. I mean, just for the game
of cheating you. If anybody would cause God to
turn away from his promise of grace, surely it would have been
Jacob. Jacob knew the birthright was
his. He knew Almighty God promised him the birthright. Jacob knew
that full well, and he still deceived his father to get it.
He still cheated his brother to get it. Surely, if anybody
would cause God to say enough, it would have been Jacob. God did not change his mind.
This is an everlasting covenant. God confirmed the same covenant,
the same promise of grace to Jacob because God's covenant
is an everlasting covenant and nothing a man can do can break
it. Nothing a man can do can bring it to an end. It's an everlasting
covenant because God's faithful. He always remains faithful. This
is an everlasting covenant because God never changes. It's an everlasting
covenant because this covenant is completely conditioned upon
the Lord Jesus Christ. And he's perfect. He's perfect. He ratified this covenant completely
in his own blood. And in him, all of his people
are perfect. He's made them all the righteousness
of God in him. So there's no reason for God
to disannul this covenant of grace, is there? The sin debt
of his elect is gone under the blood of Christ. They're all
accepted in the beloved. Now, everything I said about
Jacob is true. But let's just not focus too
much on our brother Jacob. Let's set him aside and let's
be honest with one another. Jacob's got nothing on us. He's
got nothing on us. He's got nothing on our sin.
He's got nothing on our weakness. He's got nothing on our weak
faith. Jacob's got nothing on you and me. Here's the comfort
for God's people. God didn't choose his people
because he saw that they would sin less than other people. And
God will never cast away his people because of their sin.
God chose to save sinners. Christ came to save sinners. And when I say sinners, I mean
the worst of sinners, the worst of sinners. God chose to save
the worst of sinners on purpose, on purpose. And God did it that
way so that he would get all of the glory when they're saved.
God is going to get the glory in saving a sinner. You find
a real bonafide sinner. I mean, they're dead in sin.
Their nature cannot love God, cannot believe God, cannot love
the gospel. You find a real bonafide sinner
who can't help God. He can't help save himself. He
can't take the first step toward God. You find a sinner like that
and you see that God saved him. God's got to get all the glory
for it, doesn't he? This one thing I know. God is going to
get glory to His name. I don't know what all particular
acts He's going to do between now and the end of time, but
this I know. God's going to get glory to His name. Then a real
good cry for you and me is, Lord, get glory to Yourself by saving
somebody's violence. That'd be a mighty good cry for
us, because God's going to get glory to His name, and He's going
to do it by saving the worst of sinners. God chose to save
the worst of sinners. All right, here's the third thing.
God's electing love guarantees rest for his people. Verse 11,
saying unto thee, while I give the land of Canaan, the lot of
your inheritance, that God's promise to Abraham was a promise
of grace. It was completely of God's grace,
completely of what God would do for Abraham. God promised
Abraham when he's too old to have a son, he said, you're going
to have a son. and you're going to have an heir. And that son
of God's promise is going to have more descendants than the
stars of the sky. And you know, when God told Abraham
that he wasn't talking about physical descendants, although
I reckon that's true, too, but that's not what God was talking
about. He was talking about spiritual descendants. God promised Abraham
that the Messiah, the Savior, would come through his line,
through Isaac, and Isaac shall thy seed be called. And that
Messiah is going to save a number that no man can number. And every
last one of them is going to be able to call Abraham their
father in this way. They're all going to be saved
by the same grace, through the same faith that God gave to Abraham,
in the same covenant that God gave to Abraham. It's all going
to be faith in Christ. Abraham, our Lord said, saw my
day and was glad. I mean, faith is just not this
nameless thing, you know, well, I believe everything's going
to turn out all right. That's not faith. It's faith in Christ. That's
what Abraham had. That's what God's going to give
everyone that he saves. And God also promised Abraham
that he's going to give this land of Canaan to Abraham's descendants. In his lifetime, Abraham didn't
own a speck of it, except a grave plot. He owned that. But his
descendants were going to own it all. And that land of promise
is a picture of salvation in Christ. It's a land of rest. It's a land of peace. And the
picture is how we have rest and peace in Christ. We have rest
from our works of the law in Christ. We have peace with God. There's no more war. There's
no more animosity. There's no more separation. We have peace
with God through the blood of Christ. And sure enough, Just
exactly to the number of years when God promised it would happen,
Joshua led Israel into Canaan, the land of promise. God has
promised all of his people a spiritual rest and a spiritual peace in
Christ. Just like when Israel came into
that promised land, it was a land of rest. It was a land of peace. Now they didn't keep it because
of their sin and their rebellion going into idolatry. But God's
people are never going to lose this spiritual rest, this spiritual
peace, because it's all in Christ. See, we have rest. A believer
has rest in Christ. We have rest from all of those
works that we do to try to please God. We can just rest and quit
trying to please God by punishing ourselves and withholding things
from ourselves. We have rest from that. We have
rest from that bondage. because the Lord Jesus Christ
pleased God for us. He kept the law for his people.
And we have peace with God through the blood of Christ. There's
no more war. There's no more separation. When Adam sinned
against God, God thrust him out of the garden. But now, through
the blood of Christ, we're brought nigh, brought back into God's
presence. There's peace and there's fellowship
with God. Don't try to make a peace treaty with God. God's already
proclaimed the terms of peace. Don't try to make up your own
peace treaty and say, God, now I'll do this if you do this.
Christ has already made peace by the blood of his cross. Now
rest in him. God's people have peace and they
have rest right now. But while we're being honest
with one another, let's be honest about this. That rest isn't complete, is
it? It's pretty easy to make me feel
guilty that I don't have rest from worry and I don't have rest
from doubts. It's pretty easy to make me feel
guilty about that. But now let's be honest. We don't have it.
Not perfectly. We don't have rest from sin.
We don't have rest from pain and worry. My brother and sister, you're
going to have it someday. You're going to have it someday.
And you're going to have it right when God promised. He takes you
into his presence with exceeding joy. You'll have that. You'll
have complete rest. Rest from sin. Rest from fear. Rest from tears. Rest from doubts.
Rest from worry. Rest from pain. Rest from going
to a funeral. Rest. And we don't have perfect
peace right now in our minds or in our bodies. We don't have
perfect peace. We ought to, but we don't. I'm not excusing it now. I'm
just being honest. We don't have it. Not perfectly.
We don't have peace in the world in which we live. It's getting less and less and
less peace all the time, isn't it? But my brother and sister, we
will someday. We will someday. And we're going to have it right
when God promises. When He takes us home, to be with Him, oh,
what peace we'll have to awake in His presence. Oh, what peace.
So right now, you don't have, you have peace, now you have
peace. It's not perfect. You have rest, but it's not perfect.
You just keep waiting on the Lord. You just keep looking to
the Lord. He'll give you peace enough.
He'll give you rest enough for the journey till He takes you
home and he's pleased to make it perfect. You just keep waiting
on it. Because what did we just read?
He's not going to forget you. He's not going to forget his
promise. All right, here's the last thing. God's election of
a people is all of God's grace. And it's not, none of it's because
of man's works or man's goodness. Verse 12, he chose them when
they are but a few in number, yea, very few and strangers in
it. God told Moses he would have
mercy on whom he will have mercy. And that means that the reason
that God would have mercy on some poor sinner is going to
be found in God and not in us. You know, we don't have to be
good enough to make God happy with us, so he'll show mercy
to us. And I'm very glad of that because we can't, we can't do
anything good enough to deserve God's mercy. The reason that
God would have mercy on a sinner like you and me It's found in
the character of God because God is merciful. And the example
of that is the nation Israel. God chose a nation on earth to
be his nation. That nation would be a picture
of God's true spiritual kingdom. And when God chose a nation to
demonstrate his covenant of grace, to demonstrate his sovereign
mercy and to make his name known in the earth, He didn't choose
a great nation like Egypt or Babylon. He chose Israel. And when God chose Israel, there's
two of them, Abraham and Sarah. They had no might. They had no
power. They had no influence in the
world. Abraham and Sarah had absolutely no ability to go take
a vast land, fill it up with people and rule it. No ability
whatsoever. But God chose them to be his
nation so that he would get the glory when they were made a great
nation. And God blessed that nation Israel.
He blessed them with his presence. He gave them the tabernacle and
the priesthood, which are glorious pictures of Christ. He gave them
the ceremonies and the sacrifices, which are pictures of Christ.
He gave them the law to point them to Christ. He blessed them. The God didn't choose them and
he didn't bless that nation Israel because they were better than
anybody else. Because they weren't. I mean, how many times throughout
Israel's history do you read? God blessed them just more than
the heart could wish. And they go after idolatry. God
sends them into captivity and you think, I'm done with them
now. He brings them back. He brings them back. because
he remembered his covenant because his covenant is an everlasting
covenant. He blesses him. Same thing. What is it? Rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat
the same thing over and over and over again. And God didn't
cut them off. And it wasn't because they were
any better than the other nation. It's obvious that they weren't.
As a matter of fact, when Israel sinned, they sinned against greater
light, didn't they? They had the law. The Philistines didn't.
They had the ceremonies. The Amalekites didn't. They sinned
against greater light. But God chose that nation and
God blessed that nation because His covenant is an everlasting
covenant. Because God is good, not because Israel was good.
And the same thing is true of spiritual Israel. There's no
other significance to Israel, the nation Israel, the Jews,
other than this, that they were a picture in the Old Testament
of true spiritual Israel. What I'm getting ready to say
is tied very closely to what I said a minute ago. But it's
worth repeating, and it's a good note for us to close on. God
did not choose His nation, spiritual Israel, His people, because they
had some sort of power to sin less than other people. God didn't
choose a people who had some strength, had some ability to
help Him accomplish His purpose. No, God chose a sinful people. powerless people. People who
are powerless to stop sinning. People who are powerless to deliver
themselves from death. God chose those sinful people
to save. Well then, when those people
display their inability to quit sinning, God's not going to cast
them off. He already knew that. When they display an inability
to help God get His purpose done, God's not going to cast His people
away. He knew that when He chose them. You see, it's not our sin
that damns us. It's not our sin that keeps us
from Christ. Christ came to save sinners.
What damns us is our self-righteousness, is our insistence, I'm not that
bad, that there are some things I can do to improve this situation. Now, you all know that, and I
said that to get to this. It's the same thinking that makes
us think If I don't live well enough, God's going to cast me
off. And if I do live well enough, God's going to bless me because
of how well I lived. That's just putting ourselves
in a different kind of bondage. We need to remember this. God
chose to save sinners. God chose to save the worst of
sinners, and he did it on purpose. Now, I'm not giving any excuse
for our sins. But when we sin, here's our comfort. God gets the glory in saving
sinners. God saves his people. He saves
sinners by his grace without any of their works, without any
of their works. Then they're not going to keep
themselves by some of their works. They're going to be kept by God's
grace the same way God saved them. by His everlasting covenant
of grace. And let's just determine to live,
live our lives, begging God to get glory in saving and keeping
a weak, vile sinner like me. I believe that'd be a good hope,
don't you? Let's bow together in prayer. Our Father, how we thank you
for your eternal covenant of grace. How we thank you for your
electing love. They would choose to save such
a vile, sinful, unworthy people like we are. How we thank you. And Father, I pray you'd comfort
the hearts of your people with your glorious name, your mighty
character, and all the deeds that you've done for your people.
Comfort our hearts. by knowing you chose your people
in grace and you never cast them out. Father, cause us to cling more to you, to rest more
fully in you, to find our hope, our joy, our peace, our confidence
in Christ and Christ alone. It's in his precious name that
we pray and give thanks. Let's stand and sing that chorus. Christ is all. Christ is all. Christ is all my righteousness. On Him I'll cast, on Him I'll
cast my weary soul, my weary soul for time and eternity. He's all I'll ever need. Repeat after me, Christ is all. Christ is all. Christ is all my righteousness,
on Him I'll And eternity is all I'll ever
need. Thank you, Lord, for saving my
soul. to be thy great salvation so
rich and free. Thank you.