Good morning. I would like to
speak to you out of Titus chapter three. It's going to take me
a while to get there, but Titus chapter three would be the first
verse that I speak out of. And Brian, it was Vince Gill
who wrote that song. It's actually his pen. I would
like to highlight a couple of hymns actually, and then take
you to the scripture. The other evening I was listening
to a song called Go Rest High, written by Vince Gill. And he
made me really repetitive, and hopefully I'm repetitive today
on the same points of the message. And so I'd like to read to you,
starting off with some of the verses of Go Rest High. And as
Brian and I spoke just a little while ago, it is not specifically
based on Christ. If you listen to it properly,
it's sort of more based on the feel-goods of the author. His son had passed away and he
was singing of his son. However, since then, some authors
have taken it and made it an actual grace song. And the opening,
well not the opening verse, but the chorus reads, Go rest high
on that mountain. Son, your work on earth is done."
Now when Mr. Gill wrote it, he was speaking
of his son. That's not the son that these
other authors have fortunately taken and rewritten that to.
Jesus, go rest high on that mountain. The Son, your work on earth is
done. Later on in the verse it reads,
go to heaven a-shoutin' but for the Father and the Son." This
hymn speaks of the Lord, not us. That Son is capital S-O-N. It speaks towards a believer's
found appreciation through grace of what Christ has done. Lord,
go rest high on that mountain. Your work on earth is done. There
is an appreciation that has been put in through Christ into the
believer, and we know that His work on earth is done. So there
is a rest that comes to two people, two groups. The Lord gets to
rest. Everything is satisfied. And
through His work, done and satisfied, our undeserving rest is also
sure. True rest. That's a difficult
concept to understand. I struggle to sleep. I don't
rest. Some days is restful more than
others. What is true rest? When you go home, you got a chore
here and there. That's not rest. But through
Christ Jesus, there is true rest. Rest is enabled by the revelations
of the truth through Jesus Christ. We will want this rest only once
we have been shown to see what Christ has actually done. We
pray and fellowship and sing, and we are blessed to grow more
in rest. I told you I was going to be repetitive. You're going
to hear Christ and you're going to hear rest multiple times through
this message. Our want to do so is imputed by the saving grace
of Christ. Without that, we would never
know what true salvation and true rest actually is. So I use
several hymns throughout the message today. Page 16 in your
binders is one of our favorites, I think, to this church. It's
been blessed. Lord, with glowing heart, I praise Thee. And one
of the verses reads, Praise my soul, the God that sought Thee,
wretched wanderer, far astray, found Thee lost, and kindly brought
Thee from the paths of death away. Praise, with love's devoutest
feeling, who saw thy guilt-borne fear,
and the light of hope revealing, bade the blood-stained cross
appear." Several parts of that is blessing. Him who saw thy
guilt-borne fear. To the average person, I would
assume, fear means you're actually literally afraid. And that is
not the fear we're talking about here. It's a reverence towards
the Lord Jesus Christ. It's a love. Him who saw thy
guilt-borne fear, Only by mercy would we ever know of grace.
He provides the heart to not only hear, but believe. Our ears
fail to listen. When I talk in my classroom a
lot of times, I talk to students about their relationships with
their friends, and I deal with a very interesting age, 12 to
14 year olds, basically. And communication is very, very
poor at that age, if you can flashback. And you can understand
that there is a lot of mistakes that happen because we don't
listen at all. We can't hear because we're waiting
for someone to shut their mouth long enough so we can tell our
own stories. He provides the heart to not only hear but believe.
Our ears fail to listen until our Lord blesses our heart to
actually hear. Without that blessing, we don't
hear anything. We just believe what we want
to believe. We find a way to make it fit in our schedule and
make it fit into our own logic. Our Lord in that moment motivates
us in love. We see our nature to be needing
far more than what we ourselves can offer. We hopefully become
humble because we see our true condition. All rest, all peace
is through salvation. So we need to find a promise.
I can speak to you plainly, but I think it would be more beneficial
if I actually preached you out of the Word of God. Titus chapter
3, in just verse 7, but if you look through Titus chapter 3,
it is a blessed chapter. And I only need to read to you
part of chapter, or verse seven, but I'll read to you the whole
thing. That being justified by His grace, not ours, we should
be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life. We are made heirs by our path,
by our opinion. That's not what that says. And
if you believe this to be truth, that's a promise. that being
justified by His grace, we should be made heirs. Heirs of what?
Eternal salvation by the grace of God. I take you to another,
one of my favorite other hymns, How Great Thou Art. You can find
this in the hymnal, page 37. And when I think of God, His
Son, and it is in there, S-O-N, capital S-O-N. His Son not sparing. Again, let me read that again.
And when I think of God, His Son, He's not sparing. Sent Him to die, I scarce can
take it in. And we scarce can take it in
because our eyes and our hearts are actually opened. And we know
what that actually means. To sacrifice your own Son. That
on the cross, my burden, gladly bearing, He bled and died to
take away my sin. Then from there, what do we do? Then sings my soul, how great
thou art. Psalms chapter 27, verses 1 through
10. And again, I'm gonna only read
to you partial of this. Psalms chapter 27, verses 1 through
10. The Lord is my light and my salvation. Whom shall I fear? The Lord is
the strength of my life. Of whom shall I be afraid? When
the wicked, even my enemies and my foes, came upon me to eat
up my flesh, they stumbled and fell. Though an host should encamp
against me, my heart shall not fear, though war should arise
against me, in this will I be confident. How great thou art! One thing have I desired of the
Lord, that will I seek after, that I may dwell in the house
of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of
the Lord, and to inquire in his temple. And it is beautiful if
you have time to read the rest of that through verse 10. There is a promise of permanent
salvation. His son not sparing, sent to
die, I scarce can take it in. That on the cross, my burden
gladly bearing, he bled and died to take away my sin. And we should
sing, our soul, how great thou art. By his mercy we are allowed
to hear and then know of his grace a believer sings a line
then sings my soul way differently. It's a beautiful song and many
people can sing it but a believer sings that verse then sings my
soul. At our most deepest condition,
we know the relationship between us and Jesus Christ. We know
our nature. We know His nature. We know the
final situation is eternal salvation if you're amongst the believers. We talked in the back just a
little while ago about a non-believer and how they will never know
that they're not a non-believer, many of them. but a believer
knows their condition. And we've also talked in the
back about several of us being amongst a great church entire
points in our life. There's a fear, a true fear that,
oh my gosh, we've been hearing it for how long? Do we really
believe it? And there's another fear of,
man, I've been sitting under this, how long do I really understand
it? There is a mercy that is bestowed
upon us that we actually, at any point in time, whether we're
a believer in a believer church or not, we should be very thankful
we're here, period. That we're hearing the actual
truth. And I'm hoping I'm giving you the actual truth. We know
actually how great thou art. There is only one sincerity to
say such a blessing. Many can get the feelings and
tingles it feels to hear of mercy that would allow them to walk
away from a message or group and be guaranteed heaven. It's
very comfortable. There's a group down the street
on our street that meets, I believe, on Wednesday, and it's called
Small Group. And basically, I guess the bigger
churches around the way can't reach everybody in time, so they
designate families to bring in these, how you should say, social
outcasts of the church. And they preach to them, hoping
to guarantee them heaven. And I've noticed when we pull
in a lot of times after either church or when I come home from
Racquetball on Wednesday, there's a lot of pep in the step when
they walk. But we've also caught them getting out of the vehicles
and there's not much pep in the step because they have never
been guaranteed actual heaven. It's just a band-aid. They speak
to them, make them feel good and send them home. Please don't
do that here. Please don't allow this building
to be a band-aid to you or the people to be a band-aid. or Drew
or anybody who's up here to speak to you to be a band-aid because
that's all it's going to be. Those things fall off and then
there's no healing whatsoever. It is very easily portrayed that
the Lord saves all if you do not know the gospel. Everybody's
saved. It's very simple to fall into
that trap. It's the ultimate band-aid of an unbeliever. That
is one of the believer's fear. We pray that we are not numbered
amongst those people. A believer knows true fear, and
this again is the fear that I'm talking about, the reverence
that's spoken in the Bible, a reverence and love of our Redeemer. And
if you're a believer, you do love your Redeemer. That love
comes from Him. Christ puts that love in us,
and from there we know the true gospel. It's not a sort of step-by-step
process, but understand, you can't love the Lord unless He
loves you first. And He loves you first, You love
the Lord. Christ puts that love in us and
we know the true gospel. We also are now aware of the
true nature of ourselves and the true nature and of the nature
of the only Savior, Christ and Christ alone. Romans 8, 32. I guess since there's a recording,
I should also say I teach at the junior high level and to
put a lesson plan together this late in the career is really
easy, but when you put together a message, it is more difficult
than I would have ever imagined because there are so many thoughts
and emotion that comes out, but it's not so much that that needs
to be put in the message. You have to find Christ in every
single thing that you do. You have to remove the speaker
out of the situation. And I find that I bounce around
a lot, and I'm really hoping that I can deliver the message
that hopefully all you hear is Christ. Please understand that
that is the ultimate message that should be being spoken up
here. Romans 8.32, He spared not His own Son, but
delivered Him up for some, some of the believers. He delivered Himself up for us
all. How shall He not with Him also
freely give us all things? I've been talking about how we
know Christ Jesus, but what about the fear that comes in also from
the world? All I spoke is eternal salvation. What about while we're here?
How do we handle that? Well, it says right there that
first of all, He forgave all sins, every one of them. And
so, if you're going to have future sins, they're already forgiven. So flippantly go about your life,
right? Go ahead and do what you want to do, because they're all
going to be forgiven. That's not what a believer believes.
A believer now, once they know their own condition, understands
the Lord has rescued you from all of your sins, but we also
have the want to live as a believer. We want to handle the world as
a believer. We understand that the sins are
taken. Doubt comes in, and doubt is a sin. Doubt of the Lord's
mercy is a sin, but it happens because of our nature, and yet
it is forgiven. Neither is there any creature
that is just manifest or concealed in the Lord's sight that includes
the lost. Everybody is included. The Lord's
sight includes the saved and the lost. Salvation is not offered
to those who do not believe, and yet they have a purpose.
These souls are for the fall during judgment due to natural
sin. Hell is their reward. It is part
of the glory of God. To be the elect requires something
more. It requires a Savior willing to deliver a soul from hell.
Without the loss, there would be no glorification of the Savior.
What glory would there be if all were saved? Heaven would
be an open door. What elect would there be? What
need for a Savior? Page 256 in your hymnal. It is well. I believe that's
a blessed hymn to any believer. The story goes correct that the
author was on a boat, and he was across the Atlantic Ocean,
and when he came to the point where his family, and I don't
remember, I remember his wife and some children, had drowned
there due to an accident, He penned this hymn, and I read
to you out of that particular hymn, when peace like a river
attendeth my way, when sorrows like sea billows roll, whatever
my lot, thou hast taught me to say, it is well, it is well with
my soul. Another verse reads, my sin,
oh the bliss of this glorious thought, My sin, not in part,
but the whole. My sin, not in part, but the
whole, is nailed to the cross. I bear it no more. Even well,
praise the Lord. O my soul, it is well." The entire
point to make is there is nothing but rest to be had in Lord Jesus
Christ. Sacrificed His perfection in
order to save the lowest of the low. Only one who hears the true
Word of God knows that perspective and is truly grateful. How could I be so worthless according
to self-salvation and be provided such a perfect mercy? The better
promised path will not be created nor found if made by us. The Lord will make straight the
direction you will go. He will save you. You're one
of His. he fails not one of his souls."
Galatians 2 verse 20. Galatians 2 verse 20. I am crucified with Christ. Nevertheless, I live, yet not
I, but Christ liveth in me. And the life which I now live
in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God," that's capitalized
in my Bible again, Son of God, that's Christ, "...who loveth
me and gave himself for me." John 10, verse 11. You find in here where he fails his elect, I'll buy you dinner. John chapter
10 verse 11, I am the good shepherd, the good shepherd giveth his
life for the sheep. Spurgeon wrote on this particular
one, how are they his? by his own sovereign choice. It's talking about you if you
believe. He chose them and set his love
upon them. This he did all together apart
from any goodness in them at the time or any goodness which
he foresaw in them. Selection. He selected them. They are not only by his choice
but by purchase. Also his sacrifice. He has brought
and paid for them to the utmost farthing, hence about His title
there can be no dispute. Salvation is sure, His elect
are saved permanently, and we have been granted the ability
to reverence Him. The Lord Jesus Christ provides
the only salvation that exists. He allows the believer to hear
the only gospel that saves, grows them in faith, puts a hunger
in them to share the word of the Lord and provides them with
the rest that allows a believer to manage and advance past this
world. We doubt many times due to our
sin that such an accomplishment to conquer earthly things of
debt doubt and inability of our own successes. I mean, how many times have you
been short a little cash once a month? had an issue with a
co-worker, went into your own job and thought, man, I'm not
really good at this. Sometimes have an issue with a spouse or
even a sibling or a child, and you're like, I don't know what
I'm doing. I really don't. Those kids don't come with a
manual. Children sure don't come with a manual. So doubt comes
in quite a bit. He has already satisfied our
path and granted the believer full satisfaction and salvation
through Christ. Little things are pretty easily
distracted to a believer sometimes. It's very easily itemized to
work in this world and make sure that things bother us. It's very
easy to go to the negative, I've always found. That's the worst
case scenario we could go to is sort of our nature. I tell this story in my class.
I saw a young man go by, a young lady who he was very infatuated
with, and her head was in a locker. And myself and a coworker I'm
pretty close with were walking behind this young man, and we
know for a fact that he likes this young lady. And as he walks
by, he says, hi, so-and-so, whatever her name is, and she doesn't
even flinch. And in the junior high, that's like a car wreck.
And as he walks by, you can see in his body language, it's just
a slump and he's distraught. And myself and a co-worker who
has a young lady in our classes, we said, excuse me, you know,
to the lady, young lady, we said, did you hear so-and-so? And she
said, when? I didn't even hear him. But of
course, that boy, where does he go to the worst case scenario? And isn't that us? We think something
and we expect an outcome. When the outcome doesn't come
our way, we slide all the way to the negative. Not some, but
all the way to the negative. As we've gotten older, maybe we
can balance a little better, but it is so much easier to go to the
negative. And then you think you can fix the situation. So
maybe the boy on Friday night decided to go talk to her and
see if he could dig himself out of a hole and maybe she wasn't
available. Well, it's really easy to go negative again and
negative again. That's our nature. We love to
dig a hole. But in reality, he has already
satisfied our path. You don't like it sometimes,
and I don't like it sometimes, and it's really easy to get off
track. There's moments of clarity, isn't
there, though, where we can get a perfect balance for just a
little bit of time, and we can see his grace. And hopefully
it's not always when we're just in this building, not when we're
just around other believers, but also when he calls us to
go and read his gospel, and he calls us to go and reverence
him, and pray, and know him. And we ask him to grow. So, page
37 in the hymnal, and I close on this, how great thou art. Remember I spoke, then sings
my soul. When then sing outwardly and
eternally, his mercy to save our wretched soul makes us perfect. before our Lord, we are humbled
and cornered to see the relationship that we are perfectly delivered,
changed by His grace, dropped to the lowest of the low, to
be saved by the highest on high. So I say, we sing, my soul, with
glowing hearts we praise thee. How great thou art, it is well. Loved and Lord, Go rest high
on that mountain. We pray. Our Heavenly Father, we've heard
Your message this morning. We've seen You in the message,
how gracious and pleasant it is to know You. We've seen our
need and our need being such that we would turn to You that
You would draw us unto You how you keep us, how you keep us
and show yourself to us as time goes along and how pleasant it
is and how much we desire to praise you. We wish that could
go on every moment, but we know that doesn't happen. But Lord,
we know that you're there no matter what we do or in our life
in this world. You've got us, you've saved us,
and you'll keep us. What a wonderful, peaceful thing
to know that. Sometimes, Lord, we even try
to overthink it. And then we get ourselves back
to where we're religious and follow the law and trying to
do good things. And yet, what we remember is,
by grace, you have saved us. We rest in that. We desire to
be like you and live like you. And we know we can't do it. But
we still have peace knowing, Lord, that you've got us.