Let's turn our Bibles again to
Romans 3. In the previous verses from the
beginning of this epistle, the apostle has showed us very clearly
that no matter who we are or what our religious background
might be, that all of us are equally lost in that. We're all
equally in need of Christ. No outward form of religion or
ceremonies can make any difference in that. None of us have the
ability to do anything to make ourselves righteous before God.
We can't do anything to make God happy with us because of
what we do. We're helpless, hopeless in ourselves. Now we can't have
any good news from God until that fact is established. That
truth is established that we're all equally lost in Adam and
nothing we can do can make us righteous. Once that truth is
established, Now we can hear some good news from God. I pray
that that's what I have for you this morning. The title of the
message is Salvation for Real Sinners. I have five points to show us
salvation for real sinners. The first point is this. Here's
the truth about what happened to us in Adam's fall, beginning
in verse 10, Romans chapter three. As it's written, there's none
righteous. No, not one. God requires perfect
righteousness. That's the only way God can accept
us, is if we're righteous. But there's not one son or daughter
of Adam who's righteous. Adam made us unrighteous. Adam made us what he is. So there's
nothing we can do to make ourselves righteous. It's impossible. Because
everything we do, everything we think is sinful, because we
have a nature of sin. Sin is mixed with everything
we do. It's impossible for us to make ourselves righteous.
It's 11. There's none that understandeth.
There's none that seeketh after God. By nature, what we perceive
from Adam is a spiritually dead nature. So we can't understand
anything spiritual. We're dead. We can't understand
who God is. We don't have the capacity to
understand who we are. We don't have the capacity to
understand what sin is. We don't have any understanding
of how it is God saves sinners. And since we can't understand
any of that, We'll never seek God because we can't understand
our need of Him. We can't seek Him. We're dead.
Dead people can't do anything but stink, can they? Verse 12. This is what happened to us in
Adam's fall. They're all gone out of the way. They're together
become unprofitable. There's none that doeth good.
No, not one. Every one of us has gone out
of the way. Out of God's way. Out of the
way of truth. Out of the way of life. Out of
the way of holiness. We've gone out of that way to
go our own way. We think we know a better way
than God. We're going to go our way. And our way will always
be the way of death. Look at verse 16. This is the
end of man's way. Destruction and misery are in
their ways. By nature, that's the way we
go instead of God's way of truth, life and holiness. And none of
us will ever do anything good. So there's no profit to us. There's
no benefit to anything we do because nothing we do is good.
If you took every son of Adam that ever lived and just put
them all, just add them all up, add all of their values up, you
know what you'd get? You'd just get a pile of worthlessness,
because that's what we are by nature. We're worthless. Verse
13, their throat is an open sepulcher. With their tongues, they've used
deceit. The poison of asps is under their lips. This is our dead nature. The
body's not dead. We have a physically alive body.
But the nature inside of us is dead. It's just like a casket.
When that casket's closed, they make them. They can look kind
of nice, can't they? What's inside of it? Corruption. Dead men's bones. That's what's
inside of us. And when we open our mouth, it's
like opening a casket. All that smell and that corruption
and that stench just comes pouring out because that's what's inside
of us, a spiritually dead nature. And it stinks. And what comes
out of our mouth by nature, it deceives and kills people. Just
as surely as the poison of a rattlesnake will kill somebody. Man's thoughts
and man's ideas about God are deadly. Never one time will they
ever lead to life because we don't have any understanding.
We don't know who God is. That's who we are. Now here's our ways
beginning in verse 15. The feet are swift to shed blood. See, this is what we do by nature. What we do is directed by the
nature that we have. Our nature is dead. So our way
is going to be ways to produce even more death. Our feet are
swift to shed blood. Our feet are swift to shed the
blood of Christ by putting him to death. Swift to it because
we hate it. We're swift to infect other men
with our thoughts and ideas about religion and put them to death,
send them to hell. We're swift, our feet are swift
to go murder somebody. If we don't murder them, we'll
murder their character. We'll say all kinds of bad things about
them just because we don't like them. That's what we'll do. That's
our ways. Verse 17, and the way of peace
they've not known. Now that's man's way. It's not
a way of peace. It's a way of war. We've declared
war on God, and we don't have any idea how to end the war.
We don't have any idea how to make peace because we don't know
Christ. In verse 18, this is what happened to us because of
Adam's fall. There's no fear of God before their eyes. We
are so dead in sin, we don't have any reference for, love
for, or respect for God by nature. There's no fear of God in our
eyes. Our eyes are blind. So here's
the summary of what Paul says about you and me. Because of
Adam's fall, I need a righteousness and I don't have any. I need
wisdom to know Christ, but I don't have any understanding. I need
the way of salvation, but if you show it to me, I refuse to
walk in it. I need God, but I refuse to seek him. I need a relationship
with him, but I don't reverence him, don't love him, don't respect
him, so that's just not gonna happen. I need life, but I'm
dead. I can give myself life. I need
peace, but I don't know where it's found. That's the result
of man's fault. And then after Adam fell, you
know what God did? He gave man the law. Now doesn't that seem strange?
Adam fell and gave everyone who would ever descend from him a
nature that hates God's law. that can't keep God's law for
even a second. Then why would God give man the
law? He can't keep it. Why bother giving it to him?
That's my second point. Here's the natural man's relationship
with the law. Verse 19. Now we know that what
thing soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the
law, that every mouth may be stopped and all the world may
become guilty before God. Therefore, by the deeds of the
law, there should no flesh be justified in his sight, for by
the law is the knowledge of sin. God never did give the law to
man so he could make himself righteous by keeping it. That
was never God's purpose. God gave the law knowing man
was incapable of keeping it. He knew it was impossible for
a man to keep the law. Then why would God give it? If
we can't make God happy with us by keeping it, why would God
give us the law? But Paul gives us three reasons.
One, God gave man the law to show us our guilt before God
so that we'll shut our mouths and quit making excuses for ourselves
and just come before God pleading guilty. That's the only plea. I've got nothing else to plead
before God but guilty. The law shows me that. Second,
God gave the law to show man the depth of our sins. You know,
we tend to think, well, you know, I'm not that bad. That's what
we think. I'm not that bad. God gave us
the law to show us, oh. I'm worse than I can imagine.
God gave us the law to show us the hopelessness of our situation
if we're trying to keep the law. The law shows us sin's not just
what I do. Sin's what I am. I can't not
sin. I can't quit sinning. That's
what the law does. The law shows us the depth of
our guilt. The law can't tell you how to
be righteous. The law can't tell you how to find righteousness.
All the law can do is make you shut your mouth. I'm guilty.
And show us the hopelessness of my situation because of how
the depth of my sin, the depth of my depravity. And thirdly,
and this is precious, God gave the law to shut us up to Christ. If God gave the law so we'd see,
I don't have any hope of myself. The only hope I can have of salvation
is in the Lord Jesus Christ, that he kept the law for me,
that he paid the penalty of the law for me. That's the only right
relationship any man, woman, boy, or girl can have with God's
law. It just makes us shut our mouths because we're guilty.
It makes us see the depth of our depravity and it makes us
see the only hope of salvation I have is in the Lord Jesus Christ.
All right, here's the third point. Here's how a real sinner is saved. Can't be by what we do, can we?
Can't be by what we do. Real sinners, first of all, are
saved by the righteousness of another. Real sinners are saved
by the obedience of the law to another, the obedience of Christ.
Verse 21. But now, The righteousness of God without
the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the
prophets. When Paul says here, the righteousness of God, just
like back in chapter one, when he talked about the righteousness
of God, he's not talking about the righteous, holy character
of God. In chapter one, he talked about
the righteousness of God being revealed in the gospel. Well,
here he's talking about the same righteousness. He's talking about
the only righteousness that God will accept. He's talking about
the righteousness that God produced as a man, that the Lord Jesus
Christ produced as a man. Now, the Lord Jesus is God. He is. It's not like he's God.
He's not some special manifestation of God. He is God in a human
body. And as a man, he obeyed God's
law perfectly. He never could have obeyed it
if he wasn't God. He obeyed God's law perfectly. And God gives
that righteousness that Christ earned as a man. He gives it
to his people. That's what we call imputed righteousness. God giving the righteousness
of Christ to his people. Imputation simply means this.
God the father takes the righteousness of his son and he reckons it.
He charges it. He gives it to his people. So
that the righteousness of Christ, the obedience of Christ to the
law, actually belongs to his people. It's theirs. It belongs
to them because God gave it to them. That's the only way sinners
like you and me can ever be made righteous, if God gives us the
obedience, Christ's obedience to the law. So sinners are made
righteous without the law, without us keeping the law. When Paul
says here, but now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested,
what he means is the righteousness, the sinners made righteous without
our obedience to the law. And we don't need to contribute
any obedience to it. Christ already kept it all. He
did it perfectly. That's the only way a real sinner
can be made righteous. And listen, this is not plan
B. This righteousness of Christ given to God's people, that's
not plan B. God didn't give Moses the law
in the Old Testament, hoping, trying to save somebody if they
keep the law. And then he saw, well, that's
not going to work. So then he sent his son to keep the law
and to be the sacrifice for sin. God didn't try to save people
in the Old Testament by the law and in the New Testament by grace.
No. It's always been by grace. Salvation,
righteousness has always only come in the Lord Jesus Christ. That's the message of the Old
Testament and the New Testament. Didn't Jeremiah tell us that?
Jeremiah told us the Messiah is coming. This branch, the root
of Jesse, he's coming. This is how you're going to recognize
him. His name is going to be Jehovah Sikhinu, the Lord, our
righteousness. Jeremiah never talked about our
righteousness because we kept the law, did he? He never even
talked about righteousness as a thing, did he? Jeremiah said
righteousness is a person. He's coming, the Lord, our righteousness. Look at Psalm 71. David knew
this. He wrote of this. I just bring,
use these two illustrations to show you this is the message
of the Old Testament and the New Testament. The only way God's
ever made a sinner righteous is in Christ. David said, here's
my hope. The man after God's own heart.
This is his hope. Psalm 71 verse 15. My mouth shall
show forth thy righteousness and thy salvation all the day. For I know not the numbers thereof.
I'll talk about them all day. I'll never run out of things
to talk about. I will go in the strength of the Lord God. I will
make mention of thy righteousness, even of thine only. David said,
the only righteousness I'm ever going to talk about is Christ.
because his righteousness is the only one worth mentioning.
It's the only righteousness that there is. That's how God saves
sinners. A real sinner is saved by the
obedience of another. Second, back in our text, Romans
chapter three, a real sinner is saved through faith, through
faith in Christ. Verse 22, even the righteousness
of God, which is by faith of Jesus Christ and to all and upon
all them that believe, For there's no difference for all of sin
to come short of the glory of God. Now, this is the point Paul's
been leading up to for two and a half chapters. None of us can
be justified by anything we do because everything we do is sinful.
The only way we can be justified is through faith in Christ. And
that's always the way God justifies people. He didn't justify them
in the Old Testament because they kept the law or because
they were circumcised. They were always justified through faith.
Look over at Romans 4, I'll show you that. Romans 4 verse 13. For the promise
that he should be the heir of the world was not to Abraham
or to his seed through the law, but through the righteousness
of faith. Abraham was justified the same way you and I are. It's
through faith in Christ. That's the only way God's ever
justified anyone. And that is such good news. We're
justified through faith in Christ. Because Christ is everything
the sinner needs. Remember what all those things
Paul told us we lost in the fall? We need righteousness. We don't
have any. Christ is our righteousness.
We need understanding. We need wisdom. Christ is our
wisdom. We need the way of salvation.
If you show up to me, I'll just refuse to walk in it. Christ
is the way of salvation. He's the way of eternal life.
He puts His people in the way. We need to seek God. But it's
just not going to happen, is it? The only way we can ever
come to God is through the Lord Jesus Christ manifested in His
gospel. We're dead in sins. We need life.
Christ is our life. He's everything you need. We
need peace with God. We've declared war on God. Somebody's
got to make peace for us. Christ is our Lord. He came and
made peace through the blood of His cross. We've got this
horrible, horrible sin debt. The depths of it, the depravity
of it is too much for us. We need a sacrifice that'll pay
for that sin, that'll cleanse us of our sin. Christ is the sacrifice that
cleanses His people from all sin. And the way a sinner receives
everything that Christ is, is by faith in Christ. We receive
everything that Christ is through a union with Christ, a vital
union with Christ. We call this union with Christ
vital because there's no salvation, there's no life, there's no righteousness,
no justification, there's no blessing from God without this
union with Christ. It's vital. You know how a sinner
has union with Christ, you know, or joined him? by faith. We're joined to Christ by faith. Now, we can't do anything to
save ourselves. We can't do anything to even
help save ourselves. And that's just fine. I hope
you understand that. Because we don't need to contribute
anything to it. A sinner is made righteous by the faith of Christ. See, Paul says that in verse
22, even the righteousness of God, which is by faith of Jesus
Christ. Saving faith relies upon the
faithfulness of Christ. We rely on the faithfulness of
Christ to do everything that's necessary to save a sinner like
me. We're saved through the faith
of Christ. He was faithful to do everything
the Father gave him to do. He's faithful to obey the law
in every jot and every tittle. He's faithful to suffer and die
to put away every sin of all of his people. And if the Lord
Jesus Christ didn't accomplish all, all of my salvation, I'll
not be saved. If he wasn't faithful to accomplish
all of my salvation, if he left one detail, just one minor detail
for me to do to make his salvation, his effectual to me, I'm going
to go to hell. Saving faith believes, it relies
upon this truth. It relies upon Christ who was
faithful to do everything it took to make me righteous, to
make me accepted before the Father. He did it all. I don't have to
contribute any of my works. He's finished it all. He finished
all of the work of salvation. And I'm not just trusting in
that finished work. trusting in Christ who finished the work.
Faith is in Christ. It's in the person, the Lord
Jesus Christ. Now, this is salvation for real
sinners. There's a real sinner here. You
might be asking this question. That salvation sounds good. What
must I do to have it? What must I do to be saved? Believe. Believe on the name of the Lord
Jesus Christ. Believe on him to be all thy
salvation. you'll be saved. Just believe. That's the only way a sinner
can be saved. Don't care who you are, where
you're from, what you've done, what you haven't done. There's
no difference. We've all sinned to come short of the glory of
God. And there's no difference in this either. Every sinner
who believes on Christ will be saved. Salvation for real sinners
is found in faith in Christ. Thirdly, a real sinner got to
be saved by grace. Verse 24, being justified freely
by His grace through the redemption that's in Christ Jesus. God's
got to give us this gift of righteousness and this gift of salvation freely. It can't be earned. It's a gift
of grace given freely, received freely. Now, remember, I tell
you this often, I'm going to tell you again, justified. It's
not just as if I'd never sinned. justified as being made so that
I have never sinned. Well, the only way that's possible
for a real sinner is grace. God's got to give me the obedience
of Christ. He's got to cause me to be born
again with the nature of Christ so that I have never sinned.
If God gives a real sinner that nature, if he imputes that righteousness
of his son to them, that's grace. That's something we didn't deserve,
isn't it? That's grace. And this gift of grace, it's
free. The natural man, we cannot get
this through our head. It's free. It's free. You can't earn it by your law
keeping. You can't earn it. You can't make yourself more
savable through all your religious activity. You and I can't earn
what Christ already earned. Does that make sense? We can't
earn what Christ already earned. If we're going to have it, God's
going to give it to us as a free gift of His grace. Salvation
is by grace. Grace is God giving me what I
do not deserve. Grace is giving me what Christ
deserves. Grace is God giving me what Christ
earned as my representative. That brings me to my fourth point.
A real sinner and be saved in justice. Verse 25, not going
around the law and be saved in justice. Whom God has set forth
to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare
his righteousness for the remission of sins that are passed through
the forbearance of God, to declare, I say at this time, his righteousness,
that he might be just and the justifier of him which believeth
in Jesus. Now, when God saves a sinner,
God's going to have to do it in a way where God's still God.
He's going to have to save a sinner in a way that God is still just. Because God's holy. He's just
in all of His ways. God cannot violate His holy character
to save the likes of you and me. Dead sinful man, somehow, we
get... Aren't we full of ourselves?
Isn't it awful how full of ourselves we are? Somehow we think God's
going to make an exception to His character for me. No, he's
not. No, he cannot violate his holy
character for sinners like you and me. Then the only way God
can possibly save us is in Christ, in his person, in his word. And
God set him forth. God set forth his son for everybody
to see. Nobody can mistake salvations
in Christ. God set him forth. He set him
forth as a propitiation. Now, what's a propitiation? Well,
the word means mercy seat. It means a sin covenant. Now
you remember the Ark of the Covenant in the tabernacle in the wilderness.
That covenant was made of incorruptible wood covered with gold. There's
a picture of Christ, the two natures of Christ, his humanity,
sinless humanity, and the gold is his deity. They put that Ark
of the Covenant in the Holy of Holies. And one of the things
they put in that Ark was the Ten Commandments, the broken
law. They put it in there. That law was kept safe in the
ark. That ark is a picture of Christ who kept the law for his
people. But then you know what they did
after they put those things in the ark? You know what they did
then? They got a lid. Put that lid on top of the ark. That lid was the mercy seat made
of pure gold, a solid slab of gold. And every year, one day
a year on the Day of Atonement, The high priest would go into
the Holy of Holies, not without blood. They take the blood of
that sacrifice, and they sprinkle the blood on the mercy seat,
giving us a picture. The broken law kept safe in Christ,
kept by Christ. Not in Moses' hands to throw
it down and break in anger anymore, is it? No, it's in the ark itself.
The law is covered with the mercy seat, which is covered with blood,
giving us a picture that salvation It's in the sacrifice, the blood
of the Lord Jesus Christ. And they kept doing that on the
day of atonement for thousands of years. You know why they did
that every year? Every year they did it. You know
why? Every year that was God setting forth his son as a propitiation
for sin, saying look and live. Forgiveness of sin can't be in
these ceremonies of religion you're doing. If they were, You're
going to have to do them again next year. You're going to have
to do them again next year because this is just a picture. Look
to my son that I'm setting forth as a propitiation. That's what
God was doing. And when Christ came, he kept
the law for his people. He went to Calvary and he suffered. He suffered everything the law
demanded. All the wrath of God was poured
out upon him. And he died to satisfy the law's
demand. There's got to be death for sin.
And the father said, that's enough. Precious blood of His Son was
enough to blot out that sin. The death of His Son was enough
for God to be satisfied, for His wrath, His justice to be
satisfied. The debt's gone. Nobody can see
it anymore. Even the Father can't. Because
the blood of Christ blotted it out. Now God saved His people
in justice, didn't He? He didn't ignore the debt. He
didn't ignore the sin. No, sin was punished. The debt's
been paid. The justice of God is satisfied
because Christ the substitute bore all the punishment His people
deserve. God saved His people in justice. You see that? Now, what's more? Now, God is just. He's right. He's holy to justify
every sinner that believes on Christ. Through faith, if we
believe Him, we have that union with Christ. So we are given
everything that He is. Through faith, sinners receive
the blood of Christ applied to our hearts. Then God's just to
say our sins paid for. It's right for Him to do that.
Sinners receive the righteousness of Christ through faith. The
obedience of Christ is our obedience through faith. Then God's right
to say we're justified in Him. He's right to say we don't have
any sin because our obedience to the law is Christ's obedience.
See, salvation is of the Lord. See that? We didn't contribute
anything to it, did we? Christ did it all. God is both just and he's the
one who justifies his people through the person and work of
our Lord Jesus Christ. What a salvation for real sinners. That salvation can never fail.
All right, here's my fifth point. About the salvation of a real
sinner. We saw the natural man's relationship to the law. Christ came and kept it. He suffered
and died. The law is still there. What's
the believer's relationship to the law? There isn't any. There isn't
any. A believer has no relationship with God's law whatsoever. The
law is not our rule of life. Christ is our rule of life. We
don't have to look to the law to figure out, what am I supposed
to do? How am I supposed to live? No, a believer lives looking
to and following Christ. God doesn't justify a sinner
by faith and then leave it up to us to keep ourselves holy
by keeping the law. Now, if he did that, we'd boast,
wouldn't we? Look at verse 27. Where is boasting
being? It's excluded. By what law? The works? No, but by the law
of faith. See, the law shows us there's
nothing for us to boast about in our works. All our works are
shameful. Every work we do, the law just
says you're guilty. The law shows us the depth of
our sin, makes us ashamed, so we just shut our mouths and keep
quiet. The only thing a believer ever boasts in is this one thing,
Christ. We can boast about Him. We can
brag about Him. We can brag about how He accomplished
all of our salvation. We can brag about how He's everything
I need. Now, I have faith in Him. I do. I can honestly tell
you, I have faith in Christ. It's not the strength I wish
it was. It's not as strong as I wish
it was. But I can tell you genuinely, really, I have faith in Christ.
I can't even boast about that. We read it to open the service
in Ephesians chapter two. God even gave me that as a gift
of his grace. So none of my salvation is of
me, is it? It's all of Christ. Salvation
is of the Lord. So the only thing we can conclude
from all this is this, verse 28. Therefore, we conclude that
a man is justified by faith without his deeds, without the deeds
of the law. Is he the God of the Jews only? Is he not also
the Gentiles? Yes, of the Gentiles also, seeing
it's one God which would justify the circumcision by faith and
the uncircumcision by faith. God's gonna justify the religious
and the heathen one way. It's through faith in Christ. Now my obedience to the law never
enters into this thing of salvation anywhere, at any point. I don't
care who you are. If you're Jew or Gentile, you're
religious or you're heathen, the only way a sinner can ever
be justified is through faith in Christ. It can't have anything
to do with what we do or don't do because everything we do is
sinful. The gospel message of salvation for real sinners is
it's all in Christ. You lay hold on him by faith. Don't try to keep the law. Lay
hold on Christ by faith. Now, does that mean that we're
antinomians? Antinomians is just a big word
that means we don't care about the law. Just go out and sin
all you want. We'll say it by grace, that's an antinomian.
Does a believer think that? Does someone who's been justified
by faith, do they think, I just go out and sin all I want, who
cares about the law? Absolutely not, verse 31. Do we then make
void the law through faith? God forbid. Yea, we establish
the law. The law is established in a just
salvation in Christ. And a believer loves it. A believer
loves God's law. We can't keep it, but we still
love it. A believer loves to see Christ as my obedience to
the law. I love to see that the only way
the law can be viewed by a believer is glorious. It really is glorious. Because Christ my Savior kept
it. That's the only way I can view the law. So this is the
conclusion. Salvation is by grace alone,
through faith alone. If you believe on the name of
the Lord Jesus Christ, you shall be saved. Now I want you to answer
this question. Every one of us. Do you, do I,
do we, do we believe Christ? Do you? If I don't, I wanna know
right now, do I believe Christ? Do I? And some of them might
ask, well, I don't know. I'm not sure. What
is it to believe Christ? Well, I've got an illustration.
When I was a little fella, we lived in Danville, Brother Henry
was going to come preach in Danville for the first time. I'd never
seen him, didn't know anything about him. It was the first time
I ever remember hearing his name. But my mother told me, this man
is coming to preach. And children like to hear him
preach. Children understand him. She told me the story about the
little boy, says, I like hearing him preach. He preaches for a
while, and then he says something. Well, I've preached for a while,
and I want to say something. My friend, Terry Waltz, is a
fireman. He's a fireman in Lexington.
Now, suppose Terry goes to a, there's Big fire in Lexington.
They call out several trucks. Terry gets there, and it's a
three-story apartment building. It's engulfed in flames, just
completely consumed. And Terry, he starts to get out
the hose, you know, and think, well, we've got to put this fire
out, but this building's lost cause. He looks up there in the
window, third-story window. He sees a little girl looking
out that window. And Terry runs up to her and
says, honey, you've got to jump. You can't go back. Everything behind you is on fire.
You can't get through it. I can't come up those stairs
to you. Everything's on fire. I mean, you jump. I'll catch you. She don't know me. It looks like I can catch her,
but she don't know me. That's a long jump. She believes
the process. She's got faith in the process.
If he catches me, I'll live. But it's just hard to think,
I'm going to jump out this window, he's going to catch me. She's
just hard to bring herself to jump. Now, suppose that little girl,
Lindsey. There he gets, he sees Lindsey,
looking out that window. And he goes out there, he said,
now, Lindsey, honey, you jump to me, and I'll catch you. There
are some things I know about Lindsey. She never told me, but
I know this. I know this is so. Lindsey knows
her daddy. She thinks her daddy is the best
daddy in the world. He's the best. Lindsey knows
this. Lindsey, you know your daddy
would whip anybody. I mean, nothing's too big for
him. Lindsey knows this about her daddy. Lindsay knows there
are a lot of firemen in this world. Lindsay will tell you
my daddy's the best one. He's the best fireman in this
rank. You know, if there's something that needs to be done, my daddy
can do it. That little girl knows her daddy.
So she loves him. And she knows this about her
daddy. Lindsay, you know your daddy loves you, don't you? You
know that. So Terry says, honey, you jump too. I'll catch it. Leaps into the air. She doesn't
just believe in the process. She believes on her daddy. She
jumped in. She knows he'll catch me. That's saving faith. That's saving
faith. It's not just to believe the
process. It's not just to believe Christ's blood is enough for
me. It's to commit everything to him. See that? It's to put
all of my hope of eternal life on Christ because I know Him. I know Him. He's revealed Himself
to me. And because I know Him, I'll gladly put all my life in
His hands. I'd just rather have it there.
I'd rather have it in His hand, me jumping through the air to
leap to Him to catch me than trying to climb down the wall.
I'm going to leap to Him. I want it all in His hands. What's more, I want it in his
hands because he's proved he loves me. He's not gonna let
anything happen to me. Gary wouldn't let anything happen
to Lindsey if he could help her because he loves her so much.
Christ will not let anything happen to harm his people because
he got all power and he loves his people. You know how I know
that? He laid down his life for his friends. So saving faith,
He gladly rests everything on Christ. Not only do I believe
in him, not only do I believe the doctrine that his sacrifice
puts away sin, but I believe on him that he's all it takes
to save me. That's saving faith. That's believing
Christ. I pray God will give us this
morning before we walk out this door that kind of faith. Our Father, how we thank you.
Oh, how we thank you for the Lord Jesus Christ. We thank you, we praise you.
Our words are not sufficient, but we do thank you. We thank
you for this gospel concerning our Lord Jesus Christ, that there's
salvation in him. His righteousness, he is the
righteousness of his people. They were justified in Him, made
without sin in Him. Father, how we pray for faith
to cast all, just to cast every hope, everything about our eternal
souls upon the Lord Jesus Christ. Father, you told us in your word
that faith is the gift of God. How we pray in your mercy and
grace to your people, you give us faith. Give us faith this
morning to rest all upon the Lord Jesus Christ, to believe
in him and find in him everything we need and everything he requires. It's in his precious name, for
the glory of his name, we pray and give thanks.