Certainly happy to be here with
you. I've already been reminded once since I came in that some
of you watched me in the nursery when I was a kid. So, two firsts here for me this
morning. First time ever speaking here,
and it's also my first time ever speaking away from Lexington,
so bear with me. We're going to look at the first
chapter of the book of Matthew this morning. Todd gave me a little advice
before I came up and said, you know, I said, well, you know,
what should I preach? And he said, well, he said, the
one thing that I want to have preached when someone visits
our church is that you preach a simple gospel message so that
if someone who had never heard the gospel before could come
and hear who Christ is. So that's what I'm going to attempt
to do this morning. And so I'd like us to look, starting
at verse 18, first chapter, Now the birth of Jesus Christ was
on this wise. When his mother Mary was a spouse
to Joseph, before they came together she was found with the child
of the Holy Ghost. Then Joseph, her husband, being
a just man and not willing to make her a public example, was
minded to put her away privately. When he thought on these things,
behold, the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a dream.
saying, Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary
thy wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost.
And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name
Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins." So the
whole sum and substance of this book is Jesus Christ. It tells us of his coming, before
the foundation of the world was, before man was created, Jesus
Christ was. It tells us that he's here. It
tells us that he was born of a virgin, holy, sinless. God manifest in the flesh, the
man, Jesus Christ. It tells us that he paid the
sin debt on the cross, everything that God required that I could
not do, he did. It tells us that he accomplished
and finished all the work that the Father gave him to do. It
also tells us that he's risen and coming again, and that he's
on high in glory, seated, because the work is finished, waiting
until the end of time, and he'll be coming again. He'll be coming
to collect his people, all those whom he redeemed with his blood.
And so the promise, his promise, is sealed in his name, Jesus
being He shall save his people from their sins. So the question
I ask this morning is how can I know if these promises are
true for me? Is this promise given to you?
And what confidence do we have in trusting this promise is ours? The promise of salvation from
our sins, the promise of eternal life. So this question can be
answered in the form of a question. Do I fit the description of the
one to whom the promise was given? And so the illustration I like
to give is, I look at it as kind of the reading of a will. If
one of your relatives left something to you, the last thing they leave
unto you is their will. And they say, you've been left
this. Now, I can't independently decide,
well, I'll take some of that too, because my name was not
read and it wasn't given to me. And so I can't expect the promise
to be for me unless I fit the description to one whom it was
given to. So to whom were the promises made? Well, in verse
21 it tells us. It says, She shall bring forth
a son, and thou shalt call his name Jesus, for he shall save
his people. It's his people. That's who the
promise was given to. Well, who are his people? Turn
over to the book of John, chapter 10 for me. The Lord here describes his people
as sheep. We're going to look at John 10
verse 24. Then came the Jews round about
him and said unto him, How long dost thou make us to doubt? If
thou be the Christ, tell us plainly. And Jesus answered them, I told
you, and you believe not. The works that I do in my Father's
name they bear witness to me, but you believe not, because
you are not of my sheep, as I said unto you. And so right here we're
seeing that first we see that there are those who are not his
sheep, those that believe not his word. And so going on, verse
27, my sheep hear my voice, I know them and they follow me. So we
see there are those who are his sheep and those who are not.
And those who are not are because they believe not, And those who
are his sheep are those who hear his voice, those whom the Father
knows, and those who follow him. So the question I ask now is,
well then, how do I become a sheep? Well, in short, you don't. The
sheep always were. So turn over to Ephesians chapter
1, we'll look a little bit at that. 3 Blessed be the God and Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual
blessings in heavenly places in Christ, according as he hath
chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should
be holy and without blame before him in love, having predestinated
us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ unto himself.
according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of
the glory of his grace wherein he hath made us accepted in the
beloved. And so this word us, I was looking
a little bit at this passage and the word us here, some of
the translations say that it means to emphasize antithesis
or the opposite of. So it's not just saying us as
an all-inclusive, it's saying there's us and there's them.
And so this us is speaking directly of who the Lord sheep are. And
so this us are those who have been predestinated, those who
have been chosen, the us spoken up here, and those who have been
adopted by Jesus Christ unto himself, us, and all of those
are the sheep. So here we're given how the sheep
were chosen, and so that leads me to the question, well then,
why do I need to be chosen as a sheep in the first place? First,
God is holy, and God demands complete perfection. He demands
perfection within and without. I can't be just clean on the
outside. I have to be clean on the inside. And so God can have
nothing to do with sin. And as I was preparing this,
I was brought to the conclusion, how could God have chosen me
after me being polluted with sin? He can't. And so that's
why I had to have been chosen before foundation of the world,
because then I'm going to have been polluted. The only way that
I could have been chosen is before I had the opportunity to sin.
His sheep were chosen and secure in Christ before we had the opportunity
to even mess it up. So I'm thankful that it is that
way. So a little more on sin. God is holy, he's truth, and
he's right. The holy law he set up is a set
of commandments which are not to be broken. And if broken,
the only punishment that is suitable is death. Now this is how much
God hates sin. So where do we measure up, you
and I? Where do we stand up against this holy law? We measure up
in that we're guilty. We're guilty too cold. We're
guilty of the commission of sin, the act of committing sin. So
the wages of sin are death. So we're guilty now under the
penalty of sin, but we're also guilty by nature of sin. And
this we received from our father Adam. So by nature of sin, it
means it's all I can do. All I can do is sin because I
was born in sin. And what it brought to mind with
me is you've seen some of these programs on the, like the Animal
Planet where they're doing a new series where there are certain
people that have these strange attractions to wild animals and
they bring them into their home or apartment in most cases that
they show on there. Yeah, it's always good to bring
a lion into the apartment, not a thousand acre plot of land.
But the point I'm making is they take these monkeys that are strong,
these orangutans that are strong enough that they could literally
rip the limbs from your body. You don't even realize what kind
of power that is. And they put clothes on them. They put them
to bed in pajamas. They feed them. And they sit
there on the couch with them. And they're trying to make this wild
animal believe and be something that he's not. And that is what's
going on in worse religion today. They're trying to convince people
that there's something that they're not. And so we're constrained
by our nature. We can do nothing but it. And
so just as they try to keep these wild animals and convince them
there's something that they're not, they eventually turn. And
that's the same with us trying to convince ourselves that our
nature is anything but sin. Admission by the lips is one
thing, but belief in the heart that I am a sinner, unclean and
undeserving, is another. Let me give you an illustration
of this. And this is a true story. Megan and I were at Farmer's
Market in Lexington one Saturday. And they positioned it all around
the old courthouse in town. So we were kind of standing around
the courthouse. I said, well, what did they do
with this old courthouse? We kind of looked, and they turned
it into a museum of some of the history of Lexington. And so
they had a police and fire museum as part of it on the first floor.
I said, well, let's just check it out for a minute. And so we
read the story about this man. He was working for another man.
This is back in the late 1800s. He was working for another man
and working off a debt that he owed him. And evidently he walked
off the job. And so this man, the landowner,
called the police and said, this guy walked off this job. He owes
me this money. I need you to help me go find
him. And so they said, OK, we're going to help you go find him.
So they start walking around, going down one street and the
next, looking for him around this plot of land where he was
working. And they turned down one street and happened to be
this woman came up to them running, crying, very upset and distraught,
and said, my seven-year-old daughter is missing. She was supposed
to come home from school, and she's not here. And I can't find
her. I don't know where she is. Please help me find her. And
so the police said, well, we're looking for this man. We're going
to help you find her. That's more important. And so they start
walking down that same street. And they ask both about the man
and the girl. This other fellow was walking
up. And he said, yeah, I think I saw that man a couple hours
ago down this way. Met that description. So then
they started heading that way. And it's getting toward the end
of the day. They were about to give up and stood beside a field
and they heard somebody crying out in the field and they could
see kind of a shadow of something sitting down. And so the police
and this man walked out there and they see a man sitting there
weeping, blood in his hands, and beside him they see the little
girl. He had killed her. And the police said, we found
the man and we're going to take him in and you're going to pay
for what you did. And they take him into the jail. And about
that time that woman had gone home and told her husband and
everybody in the community, word started getting around what this
man did. And so the whole point of this is that there was a riot
in Lexington. And so all these people came and stormed the courthouse,
surrounded, burning things in the street, wanting this man
out, wanting immediate justice for this man. And so they weren't
going to try him for another couple of weeks. And so they
said, well, we've got to do it right now or else we've got a
real problem. They bring a judge in and he
says to the man, what do you have to say for yourself? The
man said something very interesting. And this is why I use this illustration. He said, I'm guilty. It's all
my fault. And I do not deserve mercy. Can
we say that as sinners before God? Can we look at ourselves
in what we are as sinners before God as we're guilty? I can't
blame it on anybody else. It's all my fault. And I do not
deserve mercy. I'm guilty. Later on, they took
that man out and they hung him. But the point was looking at
it in that way. Can I say the sin is my fault,
that I'm guilt? This is my guilt. Can I say that
all I can do is sin? It's my nature. This is my deceit
and my guile. Well, if you're someone who fits
this description, which is the description of a sinner, then
there's good news. Because where sin did abound,
grace did much more abound. Where sin's base of operation
was, grace did much more abound. So where you find the sinner
in his guilt and in his guile, this is the only place that we
will find grace. Turn with me over to Book I Timothy. Chapter 1, verse 14-15. And the grace of our Lord was
exceeding abundant with faith and love which is in Christ Jesus,
and this is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation,
that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, whom I
am chief. We only read of the grace of
Christ being extended to sinners, to no one else. And not just
to, it's to a destitute and bankrupt sinner, a real sinner, not a
part-time sinner, someone who's sometimes does good things and
then sometimes does bad things, or even a pastime sinner, someone
who's, you know, you've heard, you know, this preacher's on
kiosk, such a sinner, I was such a sinner. Well, what are you
now? And so part-time and pastime
sinners, this is not extended to, this is to men and women
who are sinners. I am only saved if I meet the
condition for being needed saved. And so that's what we're looking
at. The fireman only pulls you out of the house when the house
is on fire. And so it's not when it's in between. It's when I
can't save myself and I can do nothing else. That's being saved.
So I must meet the description for needing saved. Turn with
me to Romans chapter 10. Verse 13 For whosoever shall
call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. Whosoever, do
you meet this description? That's everyone. Everyone needs
this description, whosoever. So just call out audibly? Is
that all I have to do? Call upon his name? No. It's
to call upon through your heart. Well then how can I do that?
Well you can't. But he can. You can look at this
over in Ezekiel chapter 36. Let's start in verse 25. Then will I sprinkle clean water
upon you, and you shall be clean. From all your filthiness and
from all your idols will I cleanse you. A new heart also will I
give you, and a new spirit will I put within you, and I will
take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give
you a heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit within
you and cause you to walk in my statutes and you shall keep
my judgments and do them. So he says first up in verse
25 that he'll cleanse us. This is canceling the sin debt.
It's washing that away. Says secondly, that he's going
to give us a new heart and a new spirit. This is our new nature.
And thirdly, he says he's going to cause you to walk in my statutes. And that gives me some confidence,
because when we look to our experience and think, well, how am I going
to do this? I can't do this, and my flesh
can't. But he can, and that's what he causes, he draws us,
causes us to do it. This is Christ in me, and Christ
already did this. So go on reading here in verse
28. And you shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers,
and you shall be my people, and I will be your God. And I will
also save you from all your uncleanness, and I will call for the corn,
and will increase it, and lay no famine upon you. And I will
multiply the fruit of the tree, and the increase of the field,
and that you shall receive no more reproach of famine among
the heathen. Then shall you remember your own evil ways and your doings
that were not good, and shall loathe yourselves and your own
side for your iniquities and for your abominations. So he's
saying in this life, we will loathe ourselves for this. And
the reason is because we still have the old nature. We have
the new nature that he gives us, this new heart and a new
spirit. And we have the old nature still. And it's a war going on
in between us, inside of us. And we still have memory of our
sin and the things that we do every day. And we loathe ourselves.
And that's the believer's experience. They loathe themselves for the
sin that they commit against their Lord whom they love. So
he says we'll loathe ourselves by nature and by whatever our
experience is. And this is the reason why Christ
had to do it all. If I had a part in it, it wouldn't
be done. For I never would have even been saved. He had to choose
me before the world was. This is his predestination. He
had to become my willing sacrifice to do what I couldn't do, to
stand before God and under the eye of God who demands perfection. If he sees one spot in me, I'm
gone. So this is his act of substitution. And he died bearing the sins
of his people, all their sin, and he abolished it, and he completed
his father's work. This is my justification that
makes me not guilty. I have no record of sin. It's
been taken away. He arose from death because death
had no more claim on him. And what made me think of this
is, and I'll tell a little bit of myself, from time to time
I've been pulled over for speeding and maybe more than once. And the one thing that they always
ask you for is let me see your license, license and registration. And the reason they do that is
they want to check to see, do you have any warrants? And so
even though I know that I've not done anything to have any
warrants, but yet when they're walking back there, you know,
they take a while and it's like, well, I wonder if there's something
and it's like, I wonder if they're going to come get me. And it's
just that moment in time where you're waiting for that. This
is this is not how we're going to feel when we stand before
the Lord. It's not that I wonder if there's a sin that he's going
to see in me. If I'm in Christ, it's taken away and I can have
that confidence. This is our sanctification. He
gives us this new nature. And the last thing that he does
is he removes me from the presence of sin. This is glorification. This is taking me, taking this
flesh. This flesh will die and with
it will die my old nature. And he'll take my new nature
and my new body that he gives me and I'll be with Christ and
be where sin is not and not be constrained by worried about
my sins that I've committed and not worrying about the ability
to even commit them because I've been given a new nature and I'm
in Christ. He did it all. My salvation was
complete, secure, with no contribution from me. And this is his promise
of salvation. The promise is to his people,
as we've read. So how can I know if I'm one
of his people? Lastly, how do I know if I'm
one of his people? Well, first, do I believe his
word? What is my response to the gospel? Do I receive it skeptically,
or do I receive it as truth? In receiving it as truth, we
reject everything else. How do I know if I'm one of his
people in believing his word? We're commanded to believe it.
When? Right now. No waiting, no waiting
until I get better, no waiting until I figure this part out
to see which, you know, to convince myself that this is God's word
and to believe it and believe it right now. I have no claim
to understand it all, but because my faith is in Christ. It's not
in my understanding. You know, if I had that attitude,
then I'd never get on a plane because I don't know how to fly
a plane. I don't really know what Bernoulli's
principle is to make it fly. But nonetheless, I trust that
the pilot does. And I trust that when I get on
a plane that says it's going to go to Chicago, I'm going to
get to Chicago. I don't have to know how it gets me there,
but I trust that it will. And that's what this is, trusting
in the Lord that he did what he said he would do, and that
his word's true. Lord, I believe. Help thou mine
unbelief. Give me faith and trust. And
secondly, so how do I know if I'm one of his people? Do I believe
his word? And secondly, do I love this person? One can give a sense
of the facts, the facts of these, but miss this part. The devils
believe he's God, but they don't love his person. So I was running
a couple days ago with Aaron Greenleaf, and he said, he asked
me what I was preaching on, and I was telling him some of the
points I was making, and I said this last one, do I love his
person? He said, oof, as soon as you say that, he said, that
makes me cringe. I said, you know, I understand that because
our love is so cold, it's so impure, in our experience it's
so cold. So I was looking, how do I love
this person? I've got to find some comfort
in this. And what comfort I found was in who he is. Do I love the God of predestination? Do I love God who beforehand
chose me so that I would not have the opportunity to sin and
screw it up. He said, I'm going to set them
apart and reserve them to myself. Yes, I do. Do I love the God
of substitution? That because of my sin, it took
the death of his son to purge my sin from me. Do I love the
God that would do that for me? Yes, I do. Do I love the God
of justification? that makes me not guilty. I have
no sin. Yes, I do. Do I love the God
of sanctification that makes me holy, that makes me have a
holy nature and puts me in Christ? Yes, I do. Do I love the God
of glorification that has secured my salvation so much so that
I'm already in heaven? He thought it out that far. Yes,
I do. Then you love this person. because
that's who he is. We can't look to our experience,
we can't look to how we feel at the time, we look to Christ.
The Lord's children love him and they believe that he'll do
what he said he'd do. And I'm persuaded that he's able
to keep that which I've committed to him against that day. Thou
shalt call his name Jesus, for he shall save his people from
their sins. And the Savior saves, says he
shall save his save His people from their sins, and you and
I are commanded right now to believe it."