John chapter four. And I want to read from verse
five. John chapter four and verse five. We're speaking about the Lord
Jesus Christ with his disciples. Then cometh he to a city of Samaria,
which is called Sychar, near to the parcel of ground that
Jacob gave to his son Joseph. Now Jacob's well was there. Jesus, therefore being wearied
with his journey, sat thus on the well, and it was about the
sixth hour. There cometh a woman of Samaria
to draw water. Jesus saith unto her, Give me
to drink. For his disciples were gone away
unto the city to buy meat. Then saith the woman of Samaria
unto him, How is it that thou, being a Jew, askest drink of
me, which am a woman of Samaria? For the Jews have no dealings
with the Samaritans. Jesus answered and said unto
her, If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith
to thee, Give me to drink, thou wouldst have asked of him, and
he would have given thee living water. The woman saith unto him,
Sir, thou hast nothing to draw with, and the well is deep. From
whence then hast thou that living water? Art thou greater than
our father Jacob, which gave us the well, and drank thereof
himself, and his children, and his cattle? Jesus answered and
said unto her, Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again. But whosoever drinketh of the
water that I shall give him shall never thirst, but the water that
I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing
up into everlasting life. The woman saith unto him, Sir,
give me this water, that I thirst not, neither come hither to draw. Jesus saith unto her, Go call
thy husband, and come hither. The woman answered and said,
I have no husband. Jesus said unto her, Thou hast
well said, I have no husband. For thou hast had five husbands,
and he whom thou now hast is not thy husband. In that saidst
thou truly. The woman said unto him, Sir,
I perceive that thou art a prophet. Our fathers worshipped in this
mountain, and ye say that in Jerusalem is the place where
men ought to worship. Jesus saith unto her, Woman,
believe me, the hour cometh when ye shall neither in this mountain
nor yet at Jerusalem worship the Father. ye worship ye know
not what. We know what we worship, for
salvation is of the Jews. But the hour cometh, and now
is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit
and in truth. For the Father seeketh such to
worship him. God is a spirit, and they that
worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth. The woman
saith unto him, I know that Messiah's cometh, which is called Christ.
When he is come, he will tell us all things. Jesus saith unto
her, I that speak unto thee am he. And upon this came his disciples
and marvelled that he talked with the woman. Yet no man said,
what seekest thou? Why talkest thou with her? The
woman then left her waterpot and went her way into the city
and saith to the men, come see a man which told me all things
that ever I did. Is not this the Christ? Then
they went out of the city and came unto him. Amen. May God bless to us this reading
from his word. Early in the ministry of the
Lord Jesus Christ, the Savior visited Jerusalem for the Passover
feast. Likely, he probably attended
four Passover feasts during his ministry, and it appears that
he started his ministry largely with a Passover, and then, of
course, we know that he died at the Passover. And when we
think about those three years of the Lord's ministry, they
are, as it were, initiated and concluded with a Passover feast
with two in the middle. And so the Lord visited Jerusalem
for the Passover. And we discover that in John
chapter three. That's where we learn about his
time in Jerusalem at the Passover. He had been baptized in Galilee
by John the Baptist, and that really was the beginning of his
ministry. He had traveled thereafter to
Capernaum, after his baptism by John. And from Capernaum,
he traveled south through some pretty mountainous areas, about
120 miles. He traveled from Galilee in the
north, down to Judea, where Jerusalem was in the south. And see there
I've fallen into the trap that I wasn't going to do, because
he didn't travel down to Jerusalem, he travelled up to Jerusalem.
But coming from where I do, I always say that you travel up north
and down south. So there I've fallen into my
own trap. So he travelled up to Jerusalem,
although he travelled from north to south. About 120 miles was
that distance. But of course, as we've just
said, this was at the beginning of Jesus' ministry. And so very
few people knew him in Jerusalem. He had been baptized in Galilee,
over 100 miles away, about 100 miles away probably, before moving
to Capernaum. At Cana of Galilee, he had performed
a miracle. He went to a wedding. Who can
tell me what the first miracle was that Jesus performed? Yes,
he went to a wedding and he changed water into wine. Now that was
a great miracle and the people at the wedding were amazed and
they were probably his family, his extended family, his disciples
were there. But the point that I'm making
is this, that nothing had yet been done to give Jesus any kind
of reputation. And after he traveled these 120
miles from Capernaum up to Jerusalem, there was nobody in Jerusalem
knew who he was. Now the city was full of people
because the Jews were required to be present for several compulsory,
statutory feasts of the year, three feasts that they went up
to Jerusalem to participate in, and the city would be heaving
with people. Jesus was in Jerusalem also. Nobody knew who he was, but that
was about to change. The Lord went into the temple. Just turn over the page to John
chapter two. And look at verse 13. So this
is him going up to the temple in Jerusalem and we're told in
verse 13 of chapter two, and the Jews Passover was at hand
and Jesus went up to Jerusalem and found in the temple those
that sold oxen and sheep and doves and the changes of money
sitting. And when he had made a scourge
of small cords, he drove them all out of the temple, and the
sheep and the oxen, and poured out the changers' money, and
overthrew the tables, and said unto them that sold doves, Take
these things hence. Make not my father's house an
house of merchandise. Well, if they hadn't heard of
him before, they heard of him now. They'd heard of him now. The city was heaving, it was
packed. In these times, there was much
talk about the Messiah coming. There was much energised, Judaistic
fervour because the Romans dominated this people and everybody wanted
to overthrow the shackles of this military might that was
over and above them. And so there was much talk about
sedition and rebellion and what was going to happen when the
Messiah came. There in that rarefied atmosphere,
the Lord Jesus Christ announced his presence. Not by going up
to the temple and making a declaration that he was the Christ, but by
going into the temple with a whip and overturning the tables and
sending all the animals, pell-mell, out into the crowd of people. It must have been an amazing
scene. It must have been a terrible,
noisy, confused situation that the Lord Jesus Christ initiated. And yet we're told that he did
not do it for its publicity sake. The disciples knew why he'd done
it. He did it for the zeal of his
father's house. He did it for the glory of his
father's name. He looked at what these people
had done to the temple, made it basically a great big mall. And he said, get out of here.
This is not what the church of God is about. And we need to
remember that, that the Lord Jesus Christ has a passion for
his people. Because we don't worship in the
temple any longer. We don't even give too much thought
to the physical location that we worship in. We're going to
touch upon this later in the context of the woman at the well. Because we understand that the
church is the body of Christ, the people of God gathered together
to worship him. And the Lord Jesus Christ has
a passion for that people. just as much as he drove out
the merchants from the temple. So he wants to dwell with a people
who recognise their spiritual calling and the holy activity
upon which they are engaged. Let us be careful never to compromise
these privileges that we are given as the people of God. Let
us be careful never to merchandise. the activities of our worship
and make them into some sort of parade and some sort of formality,
which is really just to do with aggrandizing ourselves and building
our numbers and enriching our power by trying to be what we
were never designed or called to be by Christ. It was at this time that Nicodemus
came to Jesus. It was after he had sent all
these animals and money changers running from the temple. And
we're told that Nicodemus came to Jesus. And that tells us,
because Nicodemus was one of the leaders of the Pharisees,
he was one of the topmost men in the religious order of the
time, he was a Sadducee, in fact, and he was there in the high
council, and he came to Jesus at night. It may well have been
very shortly after this great event of the Lords in the Temple. And he says to Jesus, we know
that you are come from God. So by that, it appears clear
that the Pharisees and the Sadducees, the Jews as it were, they knew
what was going on in their own city. So there wasn't anything
hid from them. They said, we know that you have
come from God. So in verse two of chapter three, we read, the same came to Jesus
by night and said unto him, Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher
come from God, for no man can do these miracles that thou doest
except God be with him. What miracles was that that Jesus
had done? Well, if you go back a couple
of verses to 23, verse 23 of the previous chapter, what do
we read there? Now, when he was in Jerusalem
at the Passover, in the feast day, many believed in his name
when they saw the miracles which he did. So Jesus has gone on
up to Jerusalem for the first time to the Passover. First thing
he does is he rids the temple of all of this merchandising. And then he performs miracles
in the city at the time of the Passover. And the people see
him. The people are watching what
he's doing. And we are told that they saw the miracles. Do you
know we don't know what those miracles were? That's it. That's all that's said about
them. He performed miracles. So don't ever imagine that you
know all about the Lord Jesus Christ. There was a whole load
of miracles that were performed there that we don't even know
anything about. I imagine that he healed the sick. I imagine
that he opened blind eyes that the lame walked. Perhaps he did
even more amazing things than that, that aren't recounted here.
He would get evil spirits to leave people. Whatever it was,
the people were amazed at the things that they saw, and the
Pharisees were amazed. So amazed were they that they
sent their top man to speak to the Lord Jesus. Read verse 24. But Jesus did not commit himself
unto them, because he knew all men, and needed not that any
should testify of man, for he knew what was in man. So here's the point that I want
to make. The Lord Jesus Christ performed these miracles. It's
clear that he was getting attention. And yet he didn't speak to these
people or commit himself to them. He didn't reveal himself to them
because he was holding back. He knew what was in their hearts.
He knew that their interest was only because of the enthusiasm
of the occasion, the excitement of seeing these wonderful things
done. There was no genuine spiritual
interest in these people at this time. So Nicodemus comes and
he speaks to the Lord. For all the throng of people
that saw the Lord performing those miracles, the only person that it appears
that the Lord revealed himself to on this trip to Jerusalem
was Nicodemus. and he spends pretty much the
whole of chapter three explaining spiritual heavenly truths to
this man, Nicodemus. He didn't commit himself to the
common people, but he most certainly committed himself and revealed
himself to Nicodemus. And I just think that that's
a lovely thing to note. Our blessed savior revealed himself
Not to the crowd, but to the individual. Not to the mass,
but to one of his elect. Because Nicodemus was one of
his elect people, was one of his chosen people, was one of
those that had been committed into the care of Christ. I think
that the Lord probably had a great big smile when he saw Nicodemus
furtively creeping through the darkness to come and see him.
I think he said to himself, here's one of my little ones. Here's
one of my sheep. Here's one of my children. And
the Lord immediately starts to speak to him of holy and heavenly
and glorious things and tells him amazing things. And Nicodemus says, I can't understand
what you're saying. What are you talking about? And
the Lord says to him, Nicodemus, I'm telling you of the things
that I've seen and heard. I'm telling you earthly things.
If I really was telling you heavenly things, You could never believe
them, you would never understand them. And so he speaks to Nicodemus
and he reveals himself in beautiful terms. all the way to verse 21
of chapter three. So do you see what's happened
there? In one little verse, verse 23 of chapter two, we're told
that the Lord did miracles, but he didn't reveal himself to any
of the people there, the huge numbers in Jerusalem. But one
man, Nicodemus, came and he got nearly 20-odd verses dedicated
just to tell him amazing things about grace and about the Lord. Now it seems to move on a little
bit from verse 22 of chapter three, that the Lord spent some
considerable time in Judea. So remember what we said at the
beginning, how the Lord went from Galilee up to Jerusalem. Jerusalem was in Judea, that
was the province that Jerusalem was in. And it seems that he
spent quite a long time in Judea at this stage of his ministry.
Because we are told in verse 22, after these things came Jesus
and his disciples into the land of Judea. That is, he went out
of the city of Jerusalem into the state or the county in which
Jerusalem was in. And there he tarried with them
and baptised. Now I'm not going to go into
it in too much detail, but it's probable that he spent about
eight months there in Judea and so he was ministering in those
eight months. We're told a little bit later
that it was his disciples that baptised. The Lord didn't actually
baptise anyone but the Lord was ministering during that time
that his disciples were baptising and we discover that at the beginning
of chapter four. But then after this period of
time, perhaps up to eight months, the Lord decided that he would
go back to Galilee. So he was heading back north
again and going to Galilee, where of course Capernaum was and all
the towns that he knew, Nazareth was, that was where he had grown
up and that was where his family was. And the Lord, we're told, returned
to Galilee by way of Sychar. So that was a town that he travelled
through. And when the Lord Jesus Christ
travelled from Judea to Galilee, John says that he must needs
go through Samaria. Now, whatever else that need was for, One of the reasons was that he
had an appointment to keep with a lady at a well. And this woman was at the well
of Syker. And I think that it is beautiful
the way that these two great sermons that John gives us in
John chapter three where the Lord speaks to Nicodemus and
John chapter four where he speaks to this woman at the well. I
think it's beautiful the way in which these two sermons full
of glorious gospel truth sermon about the fact that there has
to be a new life and a rebirth given to the natural man that
was explained to Nicodemus and then that water of life that
has to be possessed in the soul that was given to the woman at
the well. These two things are dedicated to individuals. This was the Lord ministering
to individuals. And just as there was much said
to Nicodemus of heavenly matters, so too to the woman at the well.
And what the Saviour said to both left neither of them in
any doubt but that they were speaking to God's anointed Messiah,
the Lord Jesus Christ. They both knew who this was that
they were speaking to. Nicodemus, the Lord Jesus Christ,
revealed himself to be the promised Messiah because he says in John
chapter 3 verse 13, Not which was in heaven, but is in heaven.
The Lord Jesus Christ was speaking about his omnipresence there. He was speaking about the fact
that he was in heaven at the same time as he was on earth.
Now how on earth did Nicodemus get his head around that? He realised that this one that
he was speaking to was God, was God himself. Nicodemus had that
revelation given to him. And so, to the woman at the well,
the Lord Jesus Christ reveals himself in the same way, and
he reveals this divine identity. In verse 25 and 26 of John chapter
4, he says, The woman saith unto him, I know that Messiah is cometh,
which is called Christ. When he is come, he will tell
us all things. Jesus saith unto her, I that
speak unto thee am he. So there we are, the Lord Jesus
Christ spoke to these two dear souls, these two elect people,
these two chosen sinners, and he revealed his true identity
to him. Now there's much that could be
said about both of these accounts. There are two fine sermons here,
we've spoken of them before. The Lord spoke privately to these
two totally diverse people. Could there have been two different
people? Nicodemus, the ruler of the Jews and a Samaritan woman who'd had
five husbands and was now living with somebody and came out to
the well at midday because she was too embarrassed because of
the moral state of her life. there could not have been any
greater difference between those two people. Nicodemus was a Sadducee. He was the highest in the religious
moral structure of that time. And this woman, we're not going
to be impolite about her and call her something that the scriptures
don't call her. But she wasn't, she wasn't the
most squeaky clean person. And she was a Samaritan. And yet the Lord Jesus Christ
revealed himself to these two individuals more clearly than
he did to all the masses. Why is that? Because the Lord
loved them and he was showing himself to his elect people. And here's the lesson that I
want to leave with us today from these two sermons, these two
individuals. I do love the diversity that
we have in these people, and I think that it's something that,
just as a general aside, we should relish in the church, is diversity. Right? Because you are all different. Some of you are really smart. And then there's the others. And some of you are really good
looking. And then there's the others. But you see, the point is that
we're all a mixed bunch, a mixed bag. And there's no two of us
have a life that's the same, either in our experiences or
our aspirations or where we've been or where we're going or
anything about it. Some of us are really very young
and tender. with so much potential, and others
are old and shriveled, and we're waiting on the end of our days,
wondering if we're going to get through another cold winter. And yet the Lord gathers us up.
He gathers us from all these different circumstances. The
diversity amongst the people of God is a beautiful thing because
he binds us together and he makes us all one. What is it that joins
us together? Well, first, we're sinners. And two, we're called
sinners. We are those that have been called
into the experience of grace as the Lord has been pleased
to minister to our hearts by his Holy Spirit, the gospel,
the transforming gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. So here's
the lesson I want to leave with us today. It's the key to the
Master's sermons, his message to both of these people, and
it's this, the necessity of spiritual life. the necessity of spiritual
life. To Nicodemus in John chapter
three, verse five and six, the Lord Jesus Christ said, verily,
verily, I say unto thee, except a man be born of water, that
is the gospel and the spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom
of God. You're not going to heaven unless
you've been born again by the preaching of the gospel applied
by God the Holy Spirit to your soul. Except a man be born of
water and of the spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.
That which is born of the flesh is flesh. That which is born
of the spirit is spirit. To the woman at the well, he
says, chapter four, verse 23, 24. But the hour cometh and now
is when the true worshipers shall worship the Father in spirit
and in truth. For the Father seeketh such to
worship him. God is a spirit. and they that
worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth. And despite
being spoiled for choice, for verses that we might apply in
these two chapters, I want you now to turn to Philippians chapter
three. Philippians chapter three. Apostle
Paul writing to the church at Philippi. And look at verse one, finally
he says, this is only a four chapter book and he writes finally
here at the beginning of chapter three. So maybe he wrote a little
bit more than he expected to. He was getting so excited about
the message that he had for the Philippians. Finally, my brethren
rejoice in the Lord to write the same things to you. To me
indeed is not grievous, but for you it is safe. Paul's saying,
I'm happy to repeat myself. I'm happy to repeat myself a
hundred times, a thousand times, because it's the same lovely
gospel that we have to declare. And I know that it will do you
good. I know that it will keep you safe. People say to us, you've
only got one message. And I say, amen. To write the same things to you,
to me indeed is not grievous, but for you it is safe. Beware
of dogs, beware of evil workers, beware of the concision, for
we are the circumcision which worship God in the spirit and
rejoice in Christ Jesus and have no confidence in the flesh. Paul says, we are the circumcision. Remember what this message was
to Nicodemus and the woman of the well? the necessity of spiritual
life. And then he goes on to say, we
are the circumcision. Now circumcision was a great
badge of honour and of great pride to the Jews. It was a cutting
of the flesh of the male child as a mark of the interest that
that child had in the nation of Israel and in the promises
that had been given by God to Israel. And this testified of
the covenant God had made with Abraham many, many years before. Now properly, circumcision was
a mark which enjoined those circumcised to look forward to the coming
of the Lord Jesus Christ. But it had become a ritual, it
had become a rite. And the Jews considered themselves
heir of God's blessings, heir of God's promises, by their natural
descent and by the rules and the rituals and the religious
practices, that they performed and they proudly claimed that
they were Abraham's children. In John chapter 8 verse 39, they
answered and said unto Jesus, Abraham is our father. Jesus
saith unto them, if you were Abraham's children, ye would
do the works of Abraham. Your father Abraham rejoiced
to see my day, and he saw it and was glad. You see, Abraham
looked forward, properly understood the spiritual dimension of these
promises. He looked forward to the coming
of Christ. He saw Christ's day and he rejoiced
in it. These people weren't looking
for Christ. If they had been looking for
Christ, they would have recognised him and seen him instead of killing
him and putting him to death. The Lord Jesus Christ warned
believers not to be caught up in religious rituals. That's
the death of true spirituality. And Paul here shows in Philippians
chapter three that the concision, that is that the cutters, the
flesh cutters, and he calls them dogs and he calls them evil workers,
they had no true spiritual understanding. Any faith that they talked about
was simply an outward formality. They had no internal spiritual
relationship with God, no true faith in their souls. In Romans
chapter two, verse 29, he says, but he is a Jew which is one
inwardly, and circumcision is that of the heart. in the spirit
and not in the letter, whose praise is not of men, but of
God. Circumcision of the heart is
what is important. Now, remember what circumcision
was. It was a cutting of the flesh. So circumcision of the
heart was a cutting of the heart. And he goes on, he says, we are
the circumcision. What he's saying there in Philippians
chapter three, verse three, we are the circumcision is that
we are the true heirs of the promises. Who are? Not those
that have been cut in the flesh, in the outside of the flesh,
but those who have been cut in the heart, those who have been
broken in their hearts, those who have had their hearts opened
by God the Holy Spirit. Those who have had the Spirit
enter into their very being, their very soul, these are they
who are the true circumcision, the true Jew. The Jews cut the flesh but the
Spirit cut the heart. And the meaning of the heart
being cut is that it is pricked. with a true sense of sin. It's
made to realise that it is sinful before the holiness of God, that
it is unworthy to stand in the presence of God, that it is corrupt,
that it is iniquitous, that its pursuit is after sensual things,
wicked things, lustful things, that it pursues self-righteousness
at the expense of God's righteousness. And when our heart is pricked,
when our heart is cut, it is made to see that that will never
do. Not before God. It's cut, it's
opened to the presence of God, the Holy Spirit. The hardness
of the heart is removed. And like Lydia, whose heart was
opened, the circumcision is the work of God. and not of man. So Paul calls it elsewhere, Colossians
2, verse 11, circumcision made without hands. This wasn't somebody
that was a priest that came around and did a little flick of a knife
and cut off a little boy's part that brought him into some sort
of religious family. No, this is a work of the Spirit
of God in the heart of an individual, opening that heart and making
him see just how sinful he is before the purity of God. This work is not at all fleshy. All whose hearts are thus circumcised
are led to love the Lord their God, are led to fear the Lord
their God, are led into a relationship with the Lord their God. And they are called by Paul the
true circumcision. He goes on in that verse to say,
we worship God in the spirit. And this is the true people of
God, not the religious workers, not those who have an outward
display of their goodness and their religious practices, whether
it be Jew or any other form of religion in this world. And goodness
knows we've got plenty of it. But the true people of God are
a spiritual people. And so the Lord could say to
Nicodemus, that which is born of the spirit is spirit. And he could say to the woman
at the well, true worshippers shall worship the father in spirit
and in truth, for the father seeketh such to worship him. So the object of our worship
is God. We worship God in the Spirit. We look to God. We look to God
the Father. We look to God the Son. We look
to God the Holy Spirit. And the nature of our worship
is spiritual. For the author of it is spiritual. And the inspirer of it is spiritual. And the theme of our worship
is gratitude. for the great salvation that
has been granted to us, freely given to us. And the heart of
our worship is the Lord Jesus Christ for all the things that
he has accomplished for us. And while there is a public outward
aspect to our worship, because we gather here on the Lord's
Day morning and we sit and we stand and we sing and we pray
and we hear the gospel preached, there is a public practical aspect
Our worship is as a gathering of spiritually enlivened individuals
whose worship doesn't bounce off the ceiling or get heard,
perhaps, by somebody passing along the outside of the building,
but whose worship goes straight into the very presence of God.
That's what we believe. That Christ is here with us.
The risen Christ is here. That God the Holy Spirit hovers
over this place. That the angels of God look on
in wonder. And these things are spiritual
things. And they transcend our natural
faculties. And they lead us into a deep
understanding and appreciation of what Christ has done for us
on the cross. opening a door, making a way
between two worlds, two dimensions, and opening up to those of us
who are dead in our sins and constrained by our natural capacities,
a spiritual dimension that few in this world ever get to touch
or to taste or to experience. but which is granted to us by
the free gift and grace of our God. We rejoice, says Paul, in Christ
Jesus. We are the circumcision. We worship
God in the spirit. We rejoice in Christ Jesus. And it's a lovely sentiment that
the apostle Paul is setting forth here. As he warns the Lord's
people to beware of the outward fleshy work religion, he at the
same time encourages us to joy in Jesus Christ. And that's a
gospel principle. It's a gift. Religion brings
fear because there's always the question, have we done enough?
Have we given enough? Have we been committed enough?
Have we been enthusiastic enough? Do we mean it enough? Religion
brings fear of whether we've done enough, but grace brings
joy for all that has been done for us. We look to Christ, we
rejoice in the Lord, and that joy is not a superficial pleasure. but it's a gladness, a gladness
in our heart, a delight in our soul. It's a realising what the
accomplishments of the Lord Jesus Christ on the cross really mean,
what they have secured. And we glory in the work of our
Saviour. We glory in the work of redemption
that has been won for us. We glory in the atonement. And
we boast, we boast of that satisfaction that has been made that Christ
is all in all and that there's nothing required of us. and we
boast in the justice that has been fulfilled and the peace
that has been secured, the reconciliation between God and man, the offended
God and the sinner, had been at enmity, all our lives are
brought into union and peace together. And that joy, That
joy endures the ups and the downs of life. Forgive me if you've
been through some terrible experiences of sadness recently, and I minimise
that by talking about the ups and downs of life. I don't mean
to say that these things that you're experiencing are in any
way other than devastating. And we've seen it in our own
congregation here in the last few months, the last few weeks. Hard things that have to be borne
and yet in the midst of those there is a joy that endures.
Tell me if I'm wrong. The Lord's people know what it
is to joy in the Lord, even in the teeth of these hard, harsh
experiences. We withstand the changes that
come, the changes that are all too frequent in our life as weeks
become months and months become years. We withstand that because
of the joy of the Lord. And it answers our doubts. It
might not answer all our questions. It might not answer all of the
questions of those who look from the outside and say, well, explain
this and explain that. We can't explain it, but it's
real. It's there and it sustains us
and it holds us up. When the bleak times come and
the cold times come and the wind blows against us. And it's grounded
in faith. And it's grounded in the promises
of God. And we're tried and we're sifted
and we fail and we fall. And we've reasoned to cry and
we've reasoned to lament. As Micah, remember on Wednesday
night, we spoke about Micah who said, woe is me. And yet in the Lord Jesus Christ,
our joy is exceeding joy. We're inadequate in ourselves,
but we rejoice completely in the Lord Jesus Christ. And the
last point is this, and then we're done. We have no confidence
in the flesh. We are the circumcision, we worship
God in the spirit, we rejoice in Christ Jesus, and we have
no confidence in the flesh. That's the four points of Paul's
Philippians chapter three, verse three. Nicodemus and the woman
at the well were brought to acknowledge that the flesh profiteth nothing. And every believer must echo
Paul's sentiment, for the Lord Jesus Christ will have no rival. 1 Corinthians 1, verse 29, we
read, that no flesh should glory in his presence. In 2 Corinthians
10, 17, but he that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord. This is the necessity of spiritual
life. Jeremiah 9, 23 and 24 says this. Thus saith the Lord, let not
the wise man glory in his wisdom, neither let the mighty man glory
in his might. Let not the rich man glory in
his riches, but let him that glorieth glory in this, that
he understandeth and knoweth me. That's it. That you understand
and know Christ. That I am the Lord which exercise
lovingkindness, judgment, and righteousness in the earth. For
in these things I delight, saith the Lord. Our trust is not in
the strength of men, nor in the power of men, not government, not presidents,
not kings, not armies. Our strength's not in those things.
Our strength is not, our trust is not in the strength of men
or the power of men. Our trust is not in the works
of our hands, nor in the force of our resolve and our determination
and our commitment. Peter, the apostle, the disciple
of the Lord Jesus Christ said to the Lord, Lord, I've got a
sword and I will die with you tomorrow. And then he got embarrassed about
a little girl saying that you've got an accent like you come from
Galilee. And he started to swear and he
started to curse and he started to deny the Saviour. 1 Peter 1, verse 25 says, Last
week in our sermon we closed with that verse, and I'm closing
with it again this week. We preach Christ crucified. The Lord Jesus Christ is the
word which by the gospel is preached unto you. Am I going to come to you and
preach to you, here's what I want you to do, here's what I want
you to give. Am I going to come to you and
say, this is what you need to fulfil, This is what you need
to do more. This is how you need to aim higher. Am I going to come to you and
say something like that in my sermon and give you comfort and
give you peace and sustain you in this life? Is that the message
that you would want to hear? Or do I preach grace and peace
by the cross of Jesus Christ? Proverbs 25 verse 25 says, as
cold waters to a thirsty soul, so is good news from a far country. And that is the word which by
the gospel is preached unto you. Amen.