Thank you, Pastor, for those
kind words. And the little flock in Sylacauga
sends their regards to you. Will you turn with me to 1 Peter,
chapter 5? 1 Peter, chapter 5. Pray for me that God would give
me liberty to preach. I can't preach unless he enables
me to. I've learned that. I've learned
that. The believers that Peter wrote
this epistle to, actually both his epistles, were suffering
persecution at the time he wrote it. Severe persecution. The tyrant Nero had most likely
himself burned Rome, had it burned down, and he looked for a scapegoat
to deflect attention from himself because he was suspected of doing
it. You know, politicians are pretty
good at that. So he blamed Christians, Christians,
and people were more than willing to believe that lie anyway. They
held these worshippers, these followers of Jesus Christ in
contempt and suspicion anyhow. So Nero found a scapegoat in
believers, and they were hunted down. In chapter 1 of this epistle,
Peter refers to them as strangers and scattered. They were driven
from their homes. tortured, murdered, thrown into
lions, drugged behind chariots through the streets of Rome. They were even dipped in tar and used as human candles to
light Nero's garden. Now that's what they were experiencing
at the time that Peter wrote both these epistles. We'll come back to chapter 5.
Look in chapter 1 of 2 Peter. 2 Peter chapter 1. And what Peter says here is true
of both of his epistles, his letters to these suffering believers. Verse 12, he says, Wherefore,
I will not be negligent to put you always in remembrance of
these things, though you know them. Peter says, I'm not telling
you nothing you don't already know, but you need reminded of
it, and be established in the present truth. Yea, I think it
is me, it's just the right thing to do, as long as I'm in this
tabernacle, this flesh, this body. to stir you up by putting
you in remembrance, knowing that shortly I must put off this my
tabernacle, even as our Lord Jesus Christ has showed me. Moreover,
I will endeavor that ye may be able, after my decease, to have
these things always in remembrance." And here, back in chapter 5, Peter speaks that which is most
needful for them to be reminded of. He ends this epistle just
like he began it, reminding them of God's grace. To multiplied
sorrows, God gives his multiplied grace. In verse 2 of both epistles
in the first chapter, that's the expression Peter uses, grace
be multiplied to you and peace from God the Father and the Lord
Jesus Christ. Look at verse 6, verse 6 here
in chapter 5 of Peter's first epistle. Humble yourselves therefore
under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due
time, casting all your care upon him, for he careth for you. Be sober, be vigilant, because
your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about
seeking whom he may devour, whom resist steadfast in the faith,
knowing that the same afflictions are accomplished in your brethren
that are in the world. But the God of all grace, grace
be multiplied, but the God of all grace, who hath called us
into his eternal glory, by Christ Jesus, after that you have suffered
a while, just a little while, make you perfect, establish,
strengthen, settle you, to him be glory and dominion for ever
and ever. Amen. By Sabanus, a faithful
brother unto you, as I suppose I have written briefly, exhorting
and testifying that this is the true grace of God wherein you
stand, the God of all grace." These believers had lost property,
home, hundreds of them, even their lives. But Peter reminds
them of that which they can never, ever lose. They can never lose
the grace of their God, that which is most needful, that which
after all is most essential, can never be lost. God's purpose
of grace and His promise of grace cannot be altered by Nero's persecution
or any other man's. It cannot be defeated. Indeed, God's very purpose to
be gracious, God's very will to be gracious guarantees the
performance of it. If he wills to be gracious, grace
will be experienced by some people. Turn if you will again back to
chapter 1, chapter 1 here in 1 Peter, 1 Peter chapter 1. Look what Peter says to them
in verse 3. Blessed be the God and Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to His abundant mercy
have begotten us again into a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus
Christ from the dead to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled. They may have lost their homes,
what earthly belongings they had, but there is an inheritance
waiting for them in glory that can't be touched, that fadeth
not away, incorruptible and undefiled, that fadeth not away, reserved
in heaven for you, awaiting your arrival there, your certain arrival
there. I go to prepare a place for you,
our Lord said, and if I go and prepare a place for you, it won't
be for nothing. I'll come again and receive you
to myself that where I am, there ye may be also. And in the meantime,
in the meantime, verse 5, who are kept by the power of God
through faith unto salvation, ready to be revealed in the last
time. David in the 84th Psalm said,
the Lord shall give grace and glory. Bobby, God's grace guarantees
His glory. Heaven. Grace paves the way to
glory. Grace shall take everyone who
is a partaker of it. Shall lead them, shall keep them,
and bring them all the way, all the way to glory. Are you still
in chapter 1 here in 1 Peter? Look at verse 9. receiving the
end of your conversation, or the end of your faith rather,
even the salvation of your souls. Your eternal, everlasting salvation. Yes, multiplied grace from the
God of all grace. All the grace required. Now I
want you to think about that for a moment as an individual.
Apply that just to yourself. My soul, it takes a heap of grace
to keep you, Tommy Wooten. It takes a lot of grace. A lot of grace to keep this sinner
and God has all the grace that's required, that's necessary to
keep me here and to bring me to glory and to present me before
himself without a spot, a wrinkle, or any such thing. That's mighty
grace, isn't it? And that's not a problem for
the God of all grace. Now that's one thing. These suffering
believers, to whom Peter wrote, and you and I here tonight, that's
one thing we need not ever concern ourselves with. I don't say that
we don't, but it's groundless. That is. Is God's grace sufficient? Is God's grace enough? Again,
here in chapter 5, the God of all grace, verse 10. Oh, look
at the source of grace and you'll get some handle on why the supply
can never run out. flows from the throne of that
One who is Himself the embodiment of all grace. My, my, my! Would you look at Him? Would
you look at Him? The Lord Jesus Christ sits upon
the throne of grace. John said, we saw Him. We saw
Him. The only begotten of the Father.
full of grace and truth. Yes, with such a fountain flowing
from the throne of grace, the supply can never be diminished. It can never run out. Look again
what Peter says in verse 8. He tells them, be on your guard.
Be sober. Don't let your guard down. Be
vigilant. Why, Peter? Because you have an adversary.
You have a real adversary. And he never lets his guard down. He's always walking about seeking
whom he may devour. Watch and pray. I'm pretty sure
when Peter under divine inspiration wrote these words, he probably
thought of that night when he boldly and proudly said, they
all may deny you, but not me, not me. And our Lord said, Peter,
Satan has desired to have you that he might sift you as wheat,
watch and pray. Peter experienced personally
what he wrote of in verse 8 here. But that's not all that the Lord
said to him, did he? Satan had desired to have thee
that he might sit thee as wheat. But, but, I prayed for you, our
great high priest said. I prayed for you, Peter, that
your faith fail not. And Peter experienced this as
well that he wrote up in verse 10. But God of all grace, Peter
said, I'm telling you what I've experienced. But the God of all
grace who has called us unto his eternal glory by Jesus Christ
after that you have suffered a while, make you perfect, establish,
strengthen you. How comforting, how soothing. Peter's epistle must have been
to these suffering believers. It was a sweet song of grace,
is it not, from beginning to end. As the hymn puts it, grace,
God's grace, God's grace, is a charming sound, harmonious
to the ear. Heaven with the echo shall resound
and all the earth shall hear. So it's grace that wrote my name. Now this is amazing. This is
amazing grace. It was grace that wrote my name
in life's eternal book. It was grace that gave me to
the Lamb who all my sorrows took. He giveth and he giveth and he
giveth more grace. It was grace that taught my heart
to pray and made my eyes overflow. It is grace that kept me to this
day and will not let me go. Peter experienced that too, didn't
he? He saw a multitude one time that
had crossed the sea after being fed with the few loaves and fishes. And after hearing, or rather
after finding the master, they came in search of him. And he
says, you haven't really come to me. Pretty tough. You haven't really
come to me. Oh, my soul, you mean coming
to Christ is not something you can do with your feet? No, no,
they did that. But Christ said, you've not really
come to me. You can't come to me unless you're
drawn by the Father, unless you're taught of God, taught of God. And they said, well, now, we
don't like that and we don't have to listen to it, we don't
have to put up with that, and they turned. That multitude,
can you picture that? turning their back on the Son
of God, turning their back on He who is the resurrection and
the life, turning their back on the only mediator between
God and man, and they walked away. A multitude just walks away. And there's the twelve, and one
of them's a devil, the traitor, and our Lord says, You want to go away too? Now
listen, child, listen. The only reason you and I haven't,
the only reason we haven't turned our back on the Son of God is
because by His multiplied grace and being the God of all grace
and standing in this true grace of God, Bless his name that you
can answer as Peter answered. When asked the question, do you
want to go away? What did Peter say? Lord, to
whom shall we go? We've got nowhere else to go.
No one else we want to go to. Because you have the words of
eternal life and we're sure that you're the Son of God. You're
a blessed man, Simon Peter, and I'm a blessed man as well. God
Almighty, in His sovereign mercy, opened my darkened heart and
dropped into my soul the gift of His precious faith. that enabled
me like Simeon to take up his son and say, I see, this sinner
sees God's salvation. That's amazing, isn't it? That's
marvelous. Yes, grace all the work shall
crown. Look what Peter says in verse
12 concerning this grace. How refreshing this must have
been to these suffering Christians to hear this. and testifying that this is the
true grace of God wherein you stand. Oh yes, that would stir
them up, wouldn't it? Being reminded of that, that
would be refreshing to them. I remember, I had to go on the
internet to find the date, but I remembered this in preparing
this message. You remember a program that used
to be on TV? Some of you don't, unless you
saw a rerun of it, and I don't know if they do. But it was called
the Tell the Truth. Remember that? There was a panel of four celebrities,
and of course they had a host. And they would have some someone on there that had an
unusual occupation. And the premise of the show was
that this person would be asked questions by these four celebrities
and they would try to ascertain out of the three, because there
were three claiming to be this same individual. So they would
try to identify. You remember that? And at the
end of the program, the host would say, now, would the real
Mr. Smith please stand up? Peter tells them that the grace
of God that keeps them, the grace of God in which they stand is
not an imposter. It's the real grace of God. despite persecution and heartache. And they felt it. They experienced
it. They weren't immune. They cried,
they hurt, they died. But Peter says, it's still the
true grace of God wherein you stand. We'll be brief. But just a couple of things I
want to consider in way of identifying the true grace of God. How do
you identify the true grace of God? By what grace does. By what grace does. By what only
grace alone can do. The true grace of God does underline
that. It doesn't attempt to do. Now
that's an imposter, like two of the three contestants on the
Tale of the Truth. No, the true grace of God doesn't
attempt to do. It does. God in grace doesn't
offer to do. He does. God will save you, we're
told, if you'll let Him. That's an imposter. That is not
the true grace of God. God's grace does not need my
assistance. God's grace puts us upon this
sure and certain standing, this foundation. Alan read about it
back in the office. This rock, this rock, capital
R, this rock, the rock of our salvation, the everlasting rock
of ages. That's the foundation on which
we stand. And oh, what a glorious place
to be found. God sees my Savior, and then
He sees me in the Beloved, accepted and free. This sinner stands
that way in the Beloved, before God, this grace of God wherein
you stand on this foundation of Jesus Christ Himself, sinner
stand before the Holy God, justified, reconciled, redeemed without
sin. Wow! Isn't that something? Christ did that for them as their
glorious substitute when He died. God had made Him Christ who knew
no sin to be sin for us. For us. You remember when Christ
joined Himself to those two broken-hearted disciples that day on the road to Emmaus. What's the matter with you guys?
He asked. Oh, are you a stranger? Have you not heard what's happened
in Jerusalem? How did Jesus Christ, a man approved
of God, going about doing good, was crucified, was put to death. And you remember what they said?
We had hoped that it would have been Him that should have redeemed
Israel. He did redeem Israel. You remember
what He said to them? The Master said, Oh, fools, slow
of heart to understand. Ought not Christ to have suffered
these things and to enter into His glory? Ought not Christ to
have suffered these things? I'll tell you what. Lindsay, if anyone, if anyone for whom
He suffered these things, do not in time experience His grace,
and are not brought to glory, to stand before God perfectly
accepted, then no, he should not have suffered those things.
If those things don't result in everything intended by you,
then he should not have suffered those things. Do you hear how
ridiculous that sounds? Even the words, oh no, no, God
made him to be sin for us, that we might be made the very righteousness
of God in Him. The true grace of God wherein
we stand. You remember what we read of
in Ezekiel chapter 16? I'll just read a verse of it.
Here's the summation of it. I counted the eyes in these several
verses, beginning at verse 6, down to verse 14. Every one of the I's refers to
God himself. Eighteen times, I did this for
you. I came by and saw you. No one
else pitied you. No one else could help you. You
couldn't help yourself. You're a dying infant cast out
into a field to your loathing. When I, and God said, I, I, I,
I did all these things. And this is the result of God's
work of grace. And thou renown went forth among
the heathen for thy beauty. For it was perfect. It was perfect. It was perfect through my comeliness
which I have put upon thee, saith the Lord God, to him who is able
to keep you from falling and to present you faultless, perfect
before the throne of his glory." This afternoon, I was at my oldest
son's house, Larry Dale, and his two daughters have cameras
and they kept snapping a picture of Papa. The oldest one showed me a picture
she'd taken, and I looked at it. The camera don't lie. I said,
man, I need to go on a diet. And the youngest one, Allie,
was sitting over here, and she said, Pawpaw, what's a diet?
I said, well, honey, that means I need to lose weight. Don't
you think so? And she said, no, Pawpaw, you're perfect. I like that. Oh, not so. Oh, but concerning being accepted
in to be loved. This sinner is perfect. Perfect
righteousness. Perfect acceptance. Oh, God has
made him to be unto us wisdom and righteousness and sanctification,
perfect through his comeliness which he hath put upon thee,
saith the Lord. The religious world talk about
grace, don't they? Free-wheel churches Talk about
grace. Talk about man's will. They must
make God's grace effectual. That's not the true grace of
God. That's an imposter. That's a
lie. Because the true grace of God
wherein we stand does not offer to save, it saves. By grace are you saved through
faith. Saved. We are His workmanship. God's grace doesn't need my help. True grace is effectual grace
all the time. Like your pastor said a few moments
ago, God shall have all that His Son redeemed, all that His
Son was sent into this world for, by God the Father, he shall
have with him in glory. He shall see of the travail of
his soul, and he shall be satisfied. And all those gathered with him
in glory, by his grace, are going to be satisfied too. Everyone. Everyone. Saul of Tarsus, you rebel, you
blind religious Pharisee, you hater of Jesus of Nazareth. Is His grace effectual? Is it,
Paul? Well, Paul said, let me put it
like this, when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother's
womb and called me by His grace to reveal His Son in me, Saul
of Tarsus came down. He bowed before the King of Glory. And he said, I am what I am by
the grace of God. I'm not what I used to be. I'm
not what I used to be. And I never will be again. Never
will be again. pure grace in which we stand,
no mixture, no mixture. No, it's all of grace and not
of works. This grace in which we stand
is sovereign grace. It reigns. It reigns where sin
once abounded. It's free grace being justified
freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ
Jesus. I again repeat, this must have
been a sweet, sweet reminder to these suffering Christians
to whom Peter wrote. Listen to this. My name from
the palms of his hands eternity will not erase. Impressed on
his heart it remains in marks of indelible grace. Yes, I to
the end shall endure as sure as the earnest is given, more
happy but not more secure, the glorified spirits in heaven."
That is so. That is so. The true grace of
God is identified secondly as to its source. Peter says, the
God of all grace, God's grace. mighty, free, eternal, is stored
in one place, can't be received from any place else. Paul, in
writing to Timothy, said, Timothy, my son, be strong in the grace
that's in Christ Jesus. There's that reservoir that fountain,
oh, that glorious Redeemer in whom, that One in whom is all
grace, all grace required to bring us to glory. Grace is not
obtained anywhere else or from anyone else. Grace is not in
the water. Grace is not in the Lord's Supper. Grace is not in the building.
Grace Baptist Church, where I pastor Fairmont Grace Church, that identifies
the message that is preached inside. The message of God's
free, sovereign grace is the only good news there is to sinners.
Salvation by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone.
But the church cannot bestow grace. It cannot confer grace
to the sinner. Only Jesus Christ Himself can
do that. No preacher can do that. No priest
can do that. The Pope can't do that. I was
telling Larry Dale about this before we left his house. During
Easter, man, the religious world, I mean, they're nuttier than
usual at that time of the year, aren't they? I was watching the
evening news. And the fellow says, did the
Pope perform a miracle? We're going to come back. Stay
tuned. After the commercial, we'll find
out. And I think, man, is this worthy? Is there nothing else
going on more worthy of national news than this? And here's the
Pope during the Easter. He's in his Popemobile, going
along there somewhere in Rome. And you know how it is. Thousands
and thousands and thousands of people just crowding around him. Somebody, here's the miracle
that supposedly happened, has a bottle with the blood of a saint, 300
years old in it. They hand it to the Pope, and
by the Pope's touch, the dried up blood becomes liquid again. He goes a few more feet. Some
fella is standing there with a pizza in his hand. He heard
that the Pope likes pizza. So he handed him a pizza. And
I watched that, Don, and I thought, my soul. They tell us that he's
God's voice on earth. He's the head of the church.
There he goes in his Popemobile. A bottle of blood in one hand
and a piece in the other. Man, they're in trouble. They're
in trouble. Oh no. Grace doesn't come through
him or any other man except the God man. He's full of grace and
he's full of truth. The only one. The one and only
Jesus Christ himself. God gives grace through the Lord
Jesus Christ. It flows abundantly, continually,
always through Him. Last of all, this true grace
of God in Christ Jesus, it's not imagined. Bobby, this is
not a figment of your imagination. Oh, no. You remember after our
Lord rose from the dead and He appeared to the disciples They had the doors closed. They
were fearful for their lives. Look what they done to the Master.
When will they come for us? And the Lord Jesus appears in
their midst. And we read in Luke 24 that they
were frightened, they were fearful. They thought it was the Spirit.
And He said, A Spirit had not flesh, and bones you see me have. You're not imagining this. It's
me. Yes, I was alive and dead, but
children, behold me. I'm alive forevermore, and I
have the keys of health and of death. I'm the mighty God, the
everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace. You've not imagined
this. Thank God, no. Christ is not
a delusion. He has revealed Himself to this
sinner and by His matchless grace again, I stand with Peter and
confess that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. Jesus Christ
is the Son of God. And I believe He's going to keep
me By His matchless grace and power, He's going to keep me
until the rivers roll their waters at my feet. And He's going to
bear me, Merle, safely over where I shall see Him face to face. If He doesn't do it, He'll be
the loser. He'll be robbed of His glory.
If this sinner that's in His hand can ever be plucked out,
it's not going to happen. It's not going to happen. I am
His and He is mine. John said, these things I write
to you, little children, that you may know you have eternal
life and that you may believe, continue to believe on the Lord
Jesus Christ. Let me close with a few lines
of a hymn. By God's sovereign grace united
to His Son eternally, I can never be divided from my covenant surety. God's free love from everlasting
made me one with His dear Son. Blessed union, strong, unchanging,
I am with my Savior one. Isn't that sweet? One with Jesus, one with Jesus
by eternal union one. One with Jesus, one with Jesus,
all the wonders grace has done. One with Christ from everlasting,
one with Him upon the tree, one with Him on high ascending, one
with Him eternally. This is the true grace of God
wherein you stand. God bless you. It's been a pleasure
to be with you.