Alright, let's open our Bibles
again to Romans chapter 15. I titled the message this morning,
Hope, Joy and Peace in Believing. The scriptures declare this glorious
truth. Christ Jesus came into the world
to save sinners, of whom I am chief. Since salvation is all
in Christ, it's all in Him, in His doing, in His person, The
sinners from all over the world, from different backgrounds, different
races, different everything, all those sinners can have a
good hope of salvation because salvation is in God's grace.
It's free grace to sinners in Christ Jesus. And a good hope
through grace enables us to have, to enjoy joy and peace in believing. This joy and peace comes through
faith in Christ. through faith, by believing.
Let's look here, beginning in verse 8. Those two or three sentences
are pretty much the whole message. If I just expand that to 40 minutes,
we'll have a message. That's why I hope that we'll
learn this morning. We'll begin in verse 8, where
Paul says, Now I say that Jesus Christ was a minister of the
circumcision for the truth of God, to confirm the promises
made unto the fathers. Now Paul here talks about Christ
being a minister of the circumcision, he means of the Jews. Remember
in Ephesians 2, Paul said the Gentiles are called uncircumcision
by that which is called the circumcision. Well, that's the Jews. Circumcision
are the Jews. And Christ came to fulfill those
promises to those Jews. The Son of God humbled himself
to come as a man. And when he did, he came as a
Jew. He came to the Jews. He came unto his own. And the
reason he did that was not because they were doing anything to deserve
it. They were as far away from God as they could be at that
time. But he came to those Jews to fulfill God's promise to Abraham,
that God, his son, the Savior, would come as a Jew. He came
to fulfill every promise made to the fathers. Christ came to
fulfill that first promise God made to the Savior, that promise
to Adam, that the seed of woman is coming to crush the serpent's
head. And that's what he did. Christ
came as the root of Jesse. He came as that righteous branch.
His name is Jehovah Sidkenu. He came to fulfill the promise
of righteousness to God's people. Christ came as the son of David.
He did that to fulfill the promise made to David that David's going
to have a son to sit on his throne forever. That's why Christ came. He came as king. He came to fulfill
that promise that Moses gave to Israel. God gave to Moses.
Moses told the people there's coming one day that prophet.
To him, you'll listen. You're going to hear him. All
those promises were made to the Jews, weren't they? And despite
how far from God their religion had gone, some of them were still
looking for him. Some of those Jews were looking
for him. But most of them weren't. Most
of them were looking to themselves. They were looking how well they
kept the law or the ceremonies. But some of them were looking
for the Christ who God promised. Some of them were, and none of
them were disappointed. Everybody who was looking for
Him received those promises. They weren't disappointed. But
you know what? It wasn't just the Jews that
God made promises to. God made promises of salvation
in Christ to the Gentiles too. Look at verse 9. And that the
Gentiles might glorify God for His mercy. As it is written,
for this cause I will confess to thee among the Gentiles, and
sing unto thy name." Now, nobody knew it. It seemed like the Jews
didn't know it, and certainly the Gentiles didn't know it.
But God did make promise of salvation to the Gentiles too. Christ did
come to fulfill all those promises to the Jews, but he also came
to fulfill God's promise to the Gentiles, that he'd have mercy
upon the Gentiles. Look back at Genesis chapter
22, and this is a very familiar story to all of us. This is when
God made a promise to Abraham concerning the Gentiles. After
this great picture that we have of salvation through the death
of the substitute. And this was the very time that
our Lord was referring to when he said, Abraham saw my day and
was glad at this time by faith, Abraham saw the sacrifice of
Christ. This is how God's going to put
away the sin of his people. And at that time, God made this
promise to Abraham. Genesis 22 verse 15. An angel
of the Lord called unto Abraham out of heaven the second time
and said, By myself have I sworn, saith the Lord, for because thou
hast done this thing and hast not withheld thy son, thine only
son, that in blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying
I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven and as the
sand which is upon the seashore, and thy seed shall possess the
gate of his enemies. And in thy seed shall all the
nations of the earth be blessed, because thou hast obeyed my voice.
God's promise to Abraham was not just to bless the natural
Jew, was it? God's promise to Abraham was that the Messiah
would descend through this son, through the seed of Isaac. And
the Savior will come from his seed and bless every nation. There's a people out of every
nation that God promised to save, God promised salvation to the
Gentiles too. Now, I know that might be old
news to all of us, but that ought to make the heart of every person
in this room jump for joy, because we're all Gentiles. God's mercy
is not just for natural Jews, but God's mercy is for sinners. I can fit in there, can you?
God's mercy is for sinners. It doesn't matter what the nationality
of your flesh is. It doesn't matter what the color,
shape, or size of your flesh is. God's promised mercy for
sinners. And regardless of what your flesh
looks like, where it descended from, you can fit in there. God
promised mercy for sinners in the Lord Jesus Christ. This is
one of the great mysteries of God's mercy, that it's for the
worst, the worst of sinners, the Gentiles. I don't think there's
a better word to encourage sinners to come to Christ other than
mercy. God's promised mercy. You know,
I can't be encouraged to come to Christ for salvation because
I've done something good to deserve it. I'll never find any hope
there. But God's mercy for the undeserving,
that gives hope for a sinner like me. God promised mercy to
sinners. Isn't that a good reason to come
begging for it? He promised to give it a pretty good reason
to come begging for it. Look at Exodus over a few pages,
Exodus chapter 33. God's mercy to sinners. Sovereign
mercy, sovereign mercy to whom he will, when he will. Exodus
33 verse 18. This is Moses here, he's speaking
with the Lord after he's seen all those miracles in Egypt and
all the miracles in the wilderness. He said, I beseech thee, show
me thy glory. There is a glory greater than
what I've seen, and I want to see it. Verse 19, and God said,
I'll make all my goodness pass before thee. I will proclaim
the name of the Lord before thee and will be gracious to whom
I will be gracious. And I'll show mercy on whom I
will show mercy. That's what God said is his greatest
glory. That he shows mercy to whom he
will. Now that's the definition of sovereign mercy. God gives
it to whom he will for no other reason other than he will. For the life of me, I do not
understand. I mean, I do understand why the flesh hates sovereign
mercies because the flesh is dead. But sovereign mercy gives
hope to the worst of sinners. If mercy was just for good people,
we'd be excluded. Well, let's be honest. If mercy
was for good people, we'd be excluded. You know your heart.
I know my heart. We'd be excluded. But God's sovereign
mercy is for sinners that don't deserve it, that he shows just
because he will. Now, what's our reaction to that?
Well, I'll tell you what it ought to be. Our reaction to that ought
to be, I'm going to beg God for mercy. God promised to give it. I'm not begging for it. God said
it's my greatest glory. My prayer is God glorify yourself
and show mercy to somebody like me. God said he delights to show
mercy to sinners. And God finds your delight in
showing mercy to somebody that needs it as bad as I do. That's
a good reason to beg God for mercy. Because his promise, his
promises are good reason for hope. And not only does God delight
to show mercy, but the objects of mercy delight in it too. Look
back in our text, Romans 15, verse 10. And again, he saith,
rejoice you Gentiles with his people. You Gentile, you're part
of his people. And again, praise the Lord, all
you Gentiles. Lord him, all ye people. All
of God's people have unity in this. Praising the Lord. all his undeserved mercy, objects
of mercy, love to praise the Lord for his mercy. God made
those promises of mercy. He confirmed this promise, this
promise of mercy to even the Gentiles is so amazing. He promised
it to David. He confirmed it to Isaiah. That's
what Paul quotes here in verse 12. And again, Isaiah said, there
should be a root of Jesse and he shall rise to reign over the
Gentiles in him. shall the Gentiles trust. Here
again, God's mercy is sovereign mercy. This mercy is promised
to the Gentiles through the Savior who will rise to reign, to reign
over the Gentiles. Always remember this. Christ
did not come to try to do something. He wasn't trying to do anything.
Christ is the successful Savior. That's how He came as the successful
Savior. Before He was even born, what
was said of Him? He shall. There's no doubt about it. Now,
there's no maybe. He's not trying. He shall save His people from
their sins. Christ the Savior is King. This man, the Lord Jesus, Jesus
of Nazareth, is your King. He's my King. He's King over
all flesh. And since he's king, now he does,
that's what we read that in our lesson this morning. That's what
Nebuchadnezzar learned. God does what he will. And since
he does what he will, and nobody can stop his will, then everybody
he determined to save shall be saved. That's why I love sovereign
mercy. Sovereign mercy cannot fail to
save anyone. Nobody can be saved because they
deserve to be. Sinners are saved because of
what Christ did for them, even though they don't deserve it.
Now the Gentiles, God made a promise, the Gentiles are going to be
saved. Christ the Savior is going to reign over them. But if any
Gentile is going to be saved, if any heathen is going to be
saved, it's got to be by sovereign grace, doesn't it? If any heathen
is going to be saved, it's got to be because God chose to have
mercy upon them. And that's the kind of mercy
I need. I need God to reign over me. I need Him to impose His will
upon mine and choose me because I'd never choose Him. Unless
He chooses me first, I'd never choose Him. I need God to redeem
me without any input from me whatsoever because I can't begin
to pay for the first sin. I need God to reign. I need Him
to impose His will upon me and save me against my will with
my full consent. That's what I need. I need him
to give me a new nature. I need him to impose that and
birth in me a new nature because I can never give myself life.
I need God to reign and impose his will upon me and make me
believe. Because of myself, I never will. And that's why Christ came, to
bring mercy to sinners. And that mercy is received through
faith, through faith. You must believe. If you would
be saved, you must believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. And that's
what Paul says the Gentiles will do. Those Gentiles who are glorifying
God for his mercy, they shall trust, trust in Christ. Faith is a great big subject,
but at the heart of saving faith is this, it's trust. It's just to trust. I don't understand
it all, but I trust. Saving faith is just this, it's
trusting. Christ is enough to save a sinner
like me. It's just trusting. Saving faith
is trusting that Christ is enough so I don't have to do something
to contribute to Him. I trust He's enough. And it's
that trust in Christ that produces hope, joy, and peace. Here, verse 13, this is our text
this morning. Now, the God of hope, fill you
with all joy and peace in believing that you may abound in hope through
the power of the Holy Ghost. Here's the first word, hope.
Now, hope, humanly speaking, when a person gets to the place,
they're without hope, without hope that the situation will
get any better. That is the worst. Isn't that the worst situation
you can be in? But what Paul's talking about
here is hope. It's not a feeling that, well,
everything's gonna be okay. Everything will get better. This
hope is an expectation. The word actually means to anticipate
with confidence. Now, the only reason that a sinner
had nothing good about themselves, I mean, I'm talking about a real
sinner now, not just somebody, I mean, I've done some things
wrong. I'm talking about somebody that's dead in sin, dead in sin,
can't do anything but sin. Filthy, defiled in their sin.
The only reason a sinner can expect salvation with confidence,
just one reason. They believe Christ. They believe
Him. My hope of salvation is not found
in a feeling. Well, I feel saved, so I must
be. It's not like a feeling that I feel like I believe enough,
so I must be saved. Feelings come, feelings go. Feelings
are deceiving. Just the slightest shadow going
across the room can disrupt my feeling. Brother Henry would always ask
his men, the elders would go out and preach and come back
and say, how'd it go? And he'd say, well, you know,
I think it went good. I feel like I had some liberty.
Or, you know, he usually was like, I don't know. And Henry
said, why don't you fellas ever say it went great? You know,
I don't know. Well, because just the slightest
thing, somebody yawning, somebody dropping a pen, my stomach gurgling
can ruin my liberty. It's not a feeling. Feelings
come and feelings go. Feelings are deceiving. My warrant
is the Word of God. That's my warrant for believing
Christ. That's my warrant for expecting
mercy for sinners. The Word of God. Nothing else
is worth believing. The hope of salvation is Christ. And I can trust Him even though
I feel so sinful, even though I feel so lost, even though I
feel so blind and so inadequate, I can still trust Christ because
salvation is in Him. He's my hope. The hope of salvation
is not found in what I see about myself. If I see my experience
is good enough or I see, you know, some change in me, there's
no hope found there. The hope of salvation is simply
believing Christ. The only evidence that you'll
ever have that God chose you, that Christ died for you, is
faith in Christ. That's the only evidence. You
know, I don't have faith. I don't believe something because
I see it so, so then I believe it. That's not saving faith.
Saving faith is believing what I haven't physically seen. Look
back a few pages at Romans 8. Well, we're saved by hope. Now,
Paul says we're saved by hope. He doesn't mean we're saved by
the feeling of hope or the experience of hope. We're saved by the object
of our hope, saved by the Lord Jesus Christ. And we hope in
him. We're saved by hope. That's what
he means there. But hope that is seen is not
hope. For what a man seeth, why doth
he yet hope for? But if we hope for that we see not, then do
we with patience wait for it. If we have this confident expectation
that we expect salvation, we expect righteousness, we expect
holiness, even though we've never seen any of those things in ourselves.
If we expect those things in Christ because of who Christ
is, then we can patiently wait for it to be fulfilled. Now,
someone will ask, well, what reason do I have to hope in Christ? I see it's good for sinners.
That's their only hope. I see that. Well, what reason
do I have to hope in Christ? Now I can see that Christ has
saved his people from their sin. You read this book, you understand
that. Christ has saved his people.
And those people, every one of them has a good hope, a hope
that can never be lost. I see that. Here's my question. Is there any evidence? Preacher,
can you give me any evidence from the word of God? Not your
ideas, not your feelings, not what Gil or Matthew Henderson.
Can you give me some reason from God's word Is there any evidence
that somebody like me, that I should hope in Christ? Is there any?
Yes, there is. There is. And it's faith. It's
simply believing Christ. Look at Hebrews chapter 11. If
you believe that Christ is all it takes to save you, my friends,
you have a good hope. You have a good hope. If Christ
is the only hope you got, you got a good hope. Hebrews chapter
11, verse one. Now faith is the substance of
things hoped for. The evidence of things not seen. Faith is the evidence of things
not physically seen. I've never laid my eyes on the
Lamb's book of life. I doubt that it's even a real
book, but I've never seen it. Then why would I ever believe
my name's written there? There's only one reason. Faith. I don't see myself as righteous.
When I look at myself, I don't see any goodness in me. I don't
see anything qualifying in me. I don't see any change in me
that means I'm saved. Then what reason do I have to
believe that I really am righteous? It's faith. I believe Christ
is my righteousness. It's just trusting. He's enough.
He's all of my righteousness. That's it. God only gives faith
to those people he chose and those people Christ died for.
See, that's why Paul said this hope comes from God. He's the
God of all hope. That hope can only come from
God. What he gives, who he is, he
is the savior of sinners. Now, I can believe what God's
done. You? I believe what God's done. I
can't believe anything I do. I can't believe in anything I
feel. But I can believe God. I can believe what God's done.
He is the only reason for our hope. We have hope because through
faith. Hope because we believe Him.
Alright, the second word is joy. Joy. Now that's not a silly happiness. Even though you don't have any
reason to be happy. I mean, you see people just act silly. That's
not joy. The word means a calm delight,
calm delight. So true joy, a calm delight can
only come from faith, from believing Christ. Let me give you, be like
John Gill here, give you a list of things joy is not, where it's
not found. Joy is not found in anything
but the flesh. Now, some things about the flesh might bring you
some temporary happiness. But I promise you, it will be
lost. Because one thing about this
flesh, it's constantly changing. So any happiness you find in
this flesh, that's fine, but it's not going to last. And when
the flesh changes, our circumstances changes, then our joy is going
to be gone. So we don't want to have joy in the flesh. Certainly
joy is not found in sin, is it? You know, especially what all
of us do, but boy, especially young people. This, this world
is so sweet to this flesh. It has such an attraction to
it. And that really, it never really goes away, does it? The
draw to find pleasure in sin. I just enjoy that. Well, there's
no joy found in that. The pleasures of sin are just
for a season. They'll last a very short time.
And then what will it bring? It'll bring eternal sorrow. And remember, joy is not this
silly happiness. It's a calm delight. So joy is
not found in trying to make ourselves happy. I always shudder when
somebody says, I just got to do what makes me happy. I mean,
I see all this stuff. I just got to do what makes me happy.
Whenever somebody says that, you watch out. Just watch out.
Somebody's fixing to get hurt. Somebody close to them probably,
probably, is fixing to get hurt. If I just got to do what makes
me happy, I'm going to hurt somebody. And eventually, I'm going to
hurt myself. I remember, I saw this even in high school. I remember
just being young, but seeing this, I've seen it repeated.
I've seen a man say, got, you know, children at home, and a
wife, and a job, and he got responsibilities, and he said, I just got to do
what makes me happy. And he leaves them. He just leaves them, goes
off to some young woman, and partying, and just, you know,
all this stuff, you know, to 15, 16-year-old things Man, he's
having a lot of fun. Saw that fella, I mean not, four
years after that happened, less than four years after that happened.
I thought, he's not even a man anymore. He's just shallow and
just lonely. And I've seen that repeated over
and over and over again. Somebody said, I just got to
do what makes me happy. I promise you they're going to
hurt everybody close to them and they'll end up shallow and lonely.
There's no joy in that. Now, this is true of a believer.
I can't say to the whole world, but this is true of a believer.
Child of God, you'll never have any joy until you seek to make
others happy. That's so. Is that what our Savior
did? Excuse me. Catching my throat during my
liberty. Is that what our Savior did? Who did he seek to make
happy? Who did he seek to please? He
sought to please his father, honor and glorify his father.
He sought to please his people. He didn't do it, made him happy.
But what did he do? He endured the cross, despising
the shame for the joy that was set before him. The joy of making
his people happy, giving them eternal life. And then you won't find joy in
a lack of trials. We talked about trials in our
lesson this morning. I'm not going to seek Him. I'm
not asking for trials, but you won't find joy in the lack of
trials or the lack of heartache. If our joy is the ease of this
life, you're going to lose it. When the trials of our Savior
promise to see Him come, if our hope is in our joys in those
things, we'll lose our joy. So the only way anybody can have
this calm delight, this joy at all times, is by believing Christ,
by believing that Christ is my salvation. Here's joy to know
my sin is put away. That gives me a calm delight
because when I look at myself, all I see is sin. I have a calm
delight in knowing Christ put all my sin away. It's gone. Even
though that's all I see about myself, it's gone because I believe
Christ. I have joy in knowing my sin
is forgiven. That gives me a calm delight.
Actually, it gives me a little bit of a loud delight to know
my sin is forgiven. I have joy in knowing I'm righteous
in Christ. I am righteous and that gives
me joy. That gives me a calm delight to think about leaving
this world and standing before God. I have joy in that. in thinking that day's coming.
There's things of this earth that I'd like to enjoy, quite
honestly, between now and then. But if Lord's pleased to take
me away first and not never let me have any of those things,
take me away first. I have joy in knowing I leave this life
absent from the body and be present with the Lord because Christ
is my righteousness. Now, I can't see any of those
things. Can you? I mean, I can't see my sins put
away. That's all I see about myself.
I cannot see that I'm righteous because when I look at myself,
all I see is sin and reason for disappointment. So the only reason,
the only way I can have joy is by believing Christ, believing
that he is my righteousness, that his obedience is my obedience.
The only way I can have joy is knowing my sin is put away into
the blood of Christ's sacrifice. I can't be forgiven any other
way. I can't be made righteous any other way other than by believing
Christ. That's our joy, believing Him.
All right, third, third word, peace. Now just like joy, peace
is not a feeling. It's not a peaceful, easy feeling,
as the song goes. And peace isn't the absence of
heartache. It's not the absence of conflict or doubt. Your believer
lives a life of constant conflict. Constant. We have conflict always
within ourselves. It's that civil war that's always
going on between us. The old man and the new man warring
against one another. It's constant conflict. The believer
has constant conflict living in this world that hates our
Savior. Even if Somebody's not hating
you and ridiculing you for it. You've got to live in this world
where it's just obvious. You listen to songs on the radio,
shows on television, listen to people talk out in public. This
world hates our God and hates our Savior. And I hate living
in it. It's a conflict. The believer has faith in Christ.
But now let's be honest. Let's get right down here where
we live. We're full of doubts and fears. full of doubts and
fears, full of heartaches because of sin that's in us and sin that's
around us. So the life of a believer is
not this peaceful bed of roses. Actually, it is. I remember as
a little boy, we lived in Danville. And I remember hearing preachers
say that the life of a believer is not a bed of roses. And we
were somewhere, somebody at the church, we were at their house,
and they had a rosebush. And I went looking at that thing.
And I thought, well, I mean, it's pretty. We got a rosebush
in our backyard. It's pretty, isn't it? But I'm telling you
what, that thing's mostly thorns. I mean, percentage-wise, a very
small percentage of it is those soft, beautiful, sweet-smelling
roses. And the bulk of it's thorns. Maybe the life of a believer
is a bed of roses, isn't it? Thorns and all. It's a turbulent
life of trouble, which is exactly what our Lord promised us. Well,
Frank, I thought your point here was peace. The word peace means
quietness and rest. Quietness. You ever told your
children, just be quiet, just be quiet. Just be quiet for two
minutes. I have peace. That's what this is. The believer's
quietness. Quietness. Resting in Christ. He finished
the work. It's resting. Remember, go back
to trust. If I trust Christ is enough,
I rest. Because there's no more
work for me to do. I'm going to be quiet. The believer
has a quiet rest in Christ. Even though I feel the conflict
of my sins. I can have a quiet rest in Christ.
Even though I feel all these doubts over myself, I can be
quiet and rest in Christ. Christ has made peace by the
blood of His cross. It's the blood of Christ that
removed my sin. The sin that would damn me, His
blood's removed it. So I have peace, this quiet rest
in Christ. Even though I can still see my
sin, I have peace in believing Christ put it away by His blood. Look at Hebrews chapter 4. There's
only one way to have this quietness, this quiet rest. There's only
one way to have it. It's through faith in Christ,
by believing Him. Hebrews 4 verse 9. There remaineth therefore a rest
to the people of God. For he that is entered into his
rest He also has ceased from his own works as God did from
his. Let us labor, therefore, to enter into that rest, lest
any man fall after the same example of what? Unbelief. Unbelief. Now there does remain
a rest for the people of God. And that rest is Christ. He is
our Sabbath rest. We rest because there's no more
work to do. In verse 10, that is speaking
of our Savior. He has entered into His rest. You know why He
entered into His rest? Because He finished the work
the Father gave Him to do. He finished the work the Father
gave Him to do. He gave up the ghost. Three days later, the
Father raised Him from the dead. And a few days later, He ascended
back to glory. And when He got there, you know
what He did? He did something no Old Testament priest ever
did. Christ, our great High Priest, sat down. Old Testament priests
could never do it. Because His work was never done.
He always had another sacrifice to offer. He always had another
ceremony to fulfill. Christ fulfilled them all. And
He sat down. He's entered into His rest. And
those who enter into rest in Christ, enter into that by faith. By believing Him. He finished
all the work that's required of me. And He sat down, because
the work was finished. I've never seen that. I've never
seen the throne of God. I've never seen Christ sitting
there on the right hand of God. How do I know he's sitting there?
How do I know I'm seated there in heavenly places in him? There's
only one way. It's by believing Christ. It's
through faith in him. And you know, this, this hope,
this joy, this peace that Paul is talking about here can be
effective. It can grow. This is a growing
grace. Now we speak of salvation. There's
no degrees of salvation. One's not more saved than another. Everybody who believes Christ,
everybody that Christ died for, everybody God chose, everybody's
spirit gives life, they're plumb saved, as saved as they can be.
There are no degrees of righteousness. Everyone for whom Christ died
is righteous. Christ died for you. Right where
you sit, here in this building, you're as righteous as you ever
will be. You lose this body flesh, but you are as righteous as you
ever will be. And there are no degrees of glory.
Nobody in heaven is going to receive a greater reward than
somebody else. We're all not going to be down
to slums and these great giants of the past up there in big houses
on the hill. No, everybody's the same. How can you be made
better than being made just like Christ? There are no degrees
of glory. But here on earth, there are
degrees of holiness. Peace. We can enjoy this hope
more sometimes than others. We have more joy and peace sometimes
than others. Paul says, my prayer for you
is that you might abound in hope through the power of the Holy
Ghost. See, the more I trust Christ,
the more hope I've got. And the more I trust him, the
more joy and the peace I'll have. If I got to think that I got
to do something to make my life better, to make my spiritual
life better, to make me more accepted of God, I'm not going
to have very good hope. I'm not going to have joy. I'm
not going to have peace. But the more I just believe Christ,
the more joy I will have in the midst of this troubled life.
The more I believe Christ, the more peace that I'll have, the
more quietness I'll have, that I'll be able to enjoy because
I just I believe Him. I believe that He really has
finished the work that He came to do. That He's all it takes
to save me. In closing, let me give you this.
Can I go back to a question I asked earlier? Someone might be thinking
this. I hope you are. What right do I have to believe
that Christ died for me? What right? I read from Scripture.
I know who Christ died for. I know exactly who He died for.
He died for God's elect. He died for sheep. What right
do I have to believe Christ died for me? The commandment of God. How about that? The commandment
of God. What does God command you and
me to do? He didn't command us to keep
the law. He didn't command that we keep the Ten Commandments.
That horse was out of the barn a long time ago. What does God
command us to do? To repent. to turn from all this
junk that we believe about ourselves, to repent from looking at ourselves
and turn. Repentance is a turning. Turn
away from yourself and look to Christ and believe Him. That's
what God commands us to do. You think for a moment that God
is going to reject you for doing what He commanded you to do.
Not on your life. You have the right to believe
Christ because God commanded you to. What are you waiting
for? Just believe. You have the right,
if you're a sinner, you have the right to come to Christ and
beg for mercy. You know why you have the right
to do that? He commanded you to come. He commanded you. Oh may God be pleased to give
us the faith, this powerful working of the Holy Ghost, to give us
the faith to believe. to believe and to rest in prayer.
Let's bow together in prayer. Our Father, how we thank you
for this declaration of our Savior. The Savior who did indeed save
all of his people from their sin. We know from reading your
word, we know Christ is enough. He's all we need. Father, I pray
Oh, I beg of thee for the faith to believe Christ. Don't leave
us to ourselves. Give us the grace, the faith
to believe Christ, to rest in Him, to find our hope in Him,
to find our joy and peace in Him. Make Christ preeminent in
every heart here this morning. Father, we ask this great blessing. We do ask for our benefit, for
our good, how we need your mercy. We ask for the glory of the Lord
Jesus Christ, that he would get the glory in saving poor, wretched
sinners like us. It's in his precious name.