Well, it's so good to see all
of you here. If you would open your Bibles
with me to Philippians chapter one. Did I do that right? As
you're turning, let me tell you this, kind of related to what
Todd was just saying. Many of you know my brother. I have a
younger brother. Uh-oh. Dress me up, can't take me anywhere.
I have a younger brother, Jonathan, many of you knowing. And Jonathan's
nine years younger than me. And 15, 16 years ago, I met a
man from this congregation. First time we met face to face.
And he met me, and he said, oh, you must be Jonathan's dad. I decided I would love him anyway.
But Todd, that's the thing Dave and I have in common. Both those
men knew we were the dads, didn't they? And I like that. I like having something in common
with David Edmondson. And I hope when I get done preaching
here in a few minutes, you'll see that Dave and I preach the
same Savior, the same gospel. And I want to thank you for having
this conference, all the work it took to put it on. And you
already know it, but let's never let it go unsaid how much I dearly
love your pastor in this congregation. I thank God for you. That's not
just words. I really do. All right, I titled
the message this evening, Four Confident Statements. My text
is verse six, Philippians chapter one, being confident of this
very thing. Now the only things that we can
be confident of are the things that come to us directly from
God's word. Anything else is presumption.
You know, faith is not believing what I think God might do or
what I believe God has the power to do, but it's what God promised
he would do. Let me see if I can illustrate
that to you. Being confident in something
that's not promised us in the word of God is presumption. Couple
years ago, I was very sick. First times I've ever been in
the hospital, I was in the hospital off and on for about three weeks,
and a lot of pain, very sick. And you can rest assured during
that time, I prayed that the Lord would heal me. I prayed
that he would give the surgeon some understanding of how to
relieve this and heal me. I prayed for that. But I couldn't
tell you I had absolute confidence that the Lord would heal me.
I know He has the power to. I'm absolutely confident of that.
But He didn't give me a promise in His word that He would. If
I would just say, oh, I'm confident the Lord will heal me, well,
that's presumption. But I'll tell you what I could pray for
with confidence, that God would give grace sufficient
for that moment, for that day. And you know why I could have
confidence in that? Because God promised in His word, my grace
is sufficient for thee. But that's what I'm talking about
here. We can only have confidence by believing what God says he
will do in his word. We can only have confidence by
trusting Christ alone. The only way we can have any
confidence for our souls is trusting Christ alone. If we're trusting
in our good works, or our morality, or our knowledge of right doctrine,
we're gonna perish in our presumption. Because we presume something,
That's not true. It did not come to us from God's
word. The only way we can have confidence and assurance and
peace for our souls is by trusting Christ alone without anything
that we've done to add to it. Not one thing. And there are
four things in our text this evening that every believer here
is absolutely confident in. Number one is this. I'm confident
that salvation is by grace. Paul says in verse two, grace
be unto you, and peace from God our Father and from the Lord
Jesus Christ. The apostles all begin their
epistles this way, grace and peace to you, or grace, mercy,
and peace to you. You know why they all begin their
epistles that way? Because there's nothing we need
more than God's grace. It's the only way a sinner could
be saved, is by God's free grace. Now, salvation by grace, in case
anybody's wondering, means this, that God does all the saving,
even though we don't deserve any of it, and he saves us anyway. Salvation is not a cooperative
effort between us and God, where I do as much as I can do, and
then God does the rest. Salvation is the work of God
alone. Isn't that what Jonah learned
in the belly of the whale? Salvation is of the Lord. I love to say
that. I love to think about that. I
love to hear men preach that. Salvation is of the Lord. And
what that means is simply this. The Lord does all the saving,
even though we don't deserve it. Everything that you can think
of about us, We try to bring our works to God. We try to bring
our morality to God. We're so dead and lost in our
sin, and God saves us anyway. That's grace. That's what grace
is. Salvation doesn't come from having
parents or friends who are believers. Salvation is by grace. Salvation
is us not having, you know, being so moral and having all the right
knowledge of the right doctrinal truths and having all this service
to the Lord. The salvation of a sinner is
completely undeserved. So salvation's got to be by grace.
From beginning to end, salvation is all of grace. We're saved
by electing grace. When the Father elected to save
a people who would never choose him, and he chose them anyway. We're saved by redeeming grace.
When the Son of God came in the flesh and he died as a substitute
for his people to save them from their sin. He took their sin
away from them into his own body on the tree and put it away by
his precious blood. That's redeeming grace. We're saved by regenerating grace.
When God, the Holy Spirit, he moves in power and gives life
to a dead sinner. Spiritual life, faith in Christ
where there was none before. Regenerating grace. We're saved
by calling grace. When again, the Holy Spirit moves
in power as the gospel's being preached. And he doesn't call
in this sense, he's begging you to come to Christ. Here's how
the Spirit calls God's people to Christ. He reveals the glory
of Christ the Savior, and you come running. That's calling
grace. Why'd you come to Christ? You
who believe, why'd you come to Christ? Because the Spirit enabled
you to see him. You saw he's all you need. You
saw his beauty, his sufficiency, and you came running. That's
why you came to him. We're saved by keeping grace.
And God keeps us from falling away from him. We would in a
heartbeat, but he keeps us from it. Keeping grace. There's many,
many folks I've seen a long time. Why are you still around? Keeping grace, that's why. And
one day, we'll be plumb saved in glorifying grace. When our
Father reaches down, takes hold of one of His children, and brings
them to glory with Him. And when we get there, you know
what we're going to sing? The song Saved by Grace. God saved
a people who would never choose Him, who would never choose to
be saved God's way in Christ. who would be nothing but dead,
stinking sinners, polluting God's creation, who would never come
to Christ when they're called, who would fall away from Christ
in a heartbeat if God had let them, and God saved them anyway. That's grace, isn't it? Genuine
sinners can only be saved by grace. Grace where God does all
the saving. I'll give you several reasons
for that. Number one is this, salvation has to be by grace,
because we can't earn it by our works. Remember, we can only
be confident in what the scripture says. What does the scripture
say we can earn by our works? The wages of sin is death. But
we can't earn salvation, we sure have earned death, haven't we?
So salvation has to be by grace. Look at Ephesians chapter two.
Number two, second, salvation has to be by grace, Because the
creature can never, ever boast before God the creator. I mean,
you just, what a thought, that man would boast before God? It
can't be. Ephesians 2, verse 8. For by grace are you saved through
faith. And that not of yourselves, it's
the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. Us boast before God? No. No,
the only thing we'll boast in is Christ our Savior. Salvation
has to be by grace because all the credit and all the glories
got to go to God. That's the way it should be.
He did all the work, that's the way it should be. Third, salvation has to be by
grace because the message of grace, the message of salvation
by grace, it's the only message that'll make us truly worship
God. I love salvation by grace. I love it. I love it. Don't you?
I love it. Salvation by grace fills me with
such awe, such wonder. I hope I never get over it. That
somebody as wonderful as God Almighty would do something so
wonderful for somebody as awful and vile and dead as somebody
like me. Salvation by grace makes me fall
at God's feet in worshiping. The only thing I know to do is
like that leper of old, Lord, if you will, you make me clean. And scripture says that man worshiped.
That man worshiped. Salvation by grace makes me thankful. To worship God, thank you, Lord.
What could be more appropriate for you and me than to thank
God? Fourth, salvation by grace is
the only message that gives an accurate description of both
God and man. Salvation by grace, if we've
got to be saved by grace, God's got to do all the saving, that
declares man must be dead in sin. The only thing we deserve
from God is his wrath. Salvation by grace is the only
thing you and I can do is sin. We can't earn salvation, God's
gotta give it to us freely. Salvation by grace means that
man by nature is the natural born enemy of God. Now I see
that's true about me. So salvation by grace tells the
truth about me. Now I know salvation by grace,
this message declares the truth about all men. But what is of
much interest to me is it tells the truth about me. I'm lost,
I'm dead, I'm hopeless, Christ is my only hope. That's my only
hope. That tells the truth about us, doesn't it? And salvation
by grace is the message, the only message that tells the truth
about God. God is just. God is holy. I bet if you went out in Lexington
and just randomly picked 100 people and asked them, what is
God? I bet you'd go a long way before somebody told you God's
just and God's holy. They'd probably tell you God's
love, God's, you know, whatever. God is just and God is holy and
everything he does is just and holy. It must be. It must be. And God is also gracious. God
must be gracious, the same way God must be just. He must be
holy, he must be gracious. Well, can somebody please explain
to me how those things can all be done at the same time? God can, it's in Christ. God
shows grace to sinners in justice. So that he could satisfy his
justice, The father took the sin of his people and made them
to be his sons. He made him sin for us. And then he slaughtered his beloved
son because he was guilty. The father did that to satisfy
his justice. He did that to his son so he could be gracious to people
like you and me. Mm-mm-mm. Why would we want anything else
but grace? Look at Romans chapter four.
Salvation by grace. This is the only message that
makes salvation sure to any sinner that trusts Christ. Romans chapter four. Verse 16. Therefore it is of
faith that it might be by grace to the end that the promise might
be sure to all the seed. And not to that only which is
of the law, but to that also which is of the faith of Abraham,
who is the father of us all. Salvation is by grace that it
might be sure. Doesn't it thrill your heart?
Doesn't it drive you to Christ? When you hear he saved sinners
by his grace. you can be confident he does.
All right, number two. I'm confident that salvation
is an inward work in the heart of the believer by the new birth.
Back in our text, Paul says, being confident of this very
thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you. Now salvation
is a whole lot more than a legal transaction. Now the legal requirements of
God's law and God's justice, they must be satisfied. They
absolutely must be satisfied. But salvation requires a whole
lot more than a bunch of paper shuffling and stamping a piece
of paper. It's not a legal transaction. Salvation is not straightening
up and sending less and starting to be more moral. Salvation is
a heart work. It's not just the outward, it's
the giving of a new heart. Salvation is not to start observing
the right religious ceremonies and the right religious tradition.
Salvation is a work of God in the heart. And when we try to
make salvation an outward change, only an outward change, I'm telling
you, all we're doing is putting lipstick on a pig. And when you
put lipstick on a pig, what do you got? You got a pig. And quite honestly, the pig looks
ridiculous. If all we do is make salvation
the outward form of religion and the tradition, all you got
is a sinner. And unfortunately, the sinner
looks ridiculous because he's trusting his own righteousness. Salvation requires a work for
us. and a work in us, and only God
can do both. The work that God does for us
is the work of election. When the Father chose a people
to save, that's a work for us. The work that God does for us
is the sacrifice of Christ, making God's elect righteous through
his sacrifice, washing their sin away. That's the work of
salvation for us. But now there's also gotta be
a work done in us. There's got to be this work of
regeneration. And that's the work that God
the Holy Spirit does in the hearts of God's elect. When the Holy
Spirit causes a sinner to be born again, there's a new nature. There's a new creature. And that
new creature is holy. He's righteous. He cannot sin. He cannot trust the flesh. He
can only trust Christ. Now that's the nature God loves.
That's the nature that God accepts, so he gives it to us freely,
because we can't produce it ourselves. You don't have to turn here,
let me read it to you quickly. James chapter one, this is something
I'm very confident in, that this work of the new birth is a work
that's done by the will and pleasure of God. James says, of his own
will begat he us with the word of truth, that we should be a
kind of first fruits of his creatures. Now, unless you want to misunderstand
what that verse says, you can't misunderstand it. This is done
by the will and pleasure of God. When he's pleased, he takes the
preaching of the word and plants that seed in the hearts of his
people, and there's life. There's life where there wasn't
before. There's a new nature, a nature that was not there before.
And I'm confident of this, if you wanna turn over 1 Peter chapter
one, I'm confident of this, that the new nature born of the Holy
Spirit is holy, because he's born from holy seed. Our nature
is determined by the seed that gave us life. An apple seed will
never produce an orange tree, never. It can only produce an
apple tree, because that's the nature of the seed. Well, the
seed of sinful man can only produce more sinful flesh, because that's
the nature of the seed. Well, the seed of the Word of
God can only produce a righteous, holy nature. 1 Peter 1, verse
23. being born again, not of corruptible
seed, but of incorruptible by the word of God, which liveth
and abideth forever. That new man born of the seed
of the word of God has to be holy, because the seed that begat
him is holy. I'm confident of that. And only
God can produce this nature. It's the nature he will accept,
and only God can produce it. And aren't you thankful he's
pleased to do that for his people? Only the Holy Spirit can cause
Christ to be formed in you, in you. Not just to you, but in
you. Christ in you, that's the hope
of glory. Paul said when God was pleased
to reveal his Son in me, not to me, in me. And since that's
true, the work of the Holy Spirit is just as necessary in salvation
as the work of the Father and the Son. And what a comfort to
know the spirit will move in power and cause a nature to be
born in God's people that he'll accept. Oh, I'm so thankful. If that was up to us, I thought
I'd close my bottom gong. But since that's true, that gives
me the desire, the willingness, Go preach Christ, because I'm
confident of this. The Spirit's going to give life
to God's people through the preaching of this gospel. I'm confident
of it. Here's the third thing I'm confident of. Not one, not
one of God's elect will be lost. Scripture tells us Christ died
to save a number that no man can number. How high can you
count? I think it's pretty big numbers.
If just one of them was missing, pretty good percentage still,
isn't it? Not one of God's elect will be lost. Our text in verse
six says, Philippians one, being confident of this very thing,
that he which hath begun a good work in you, he'll perform it
until the day of Jesus Christ. Almighty God purpose to save
a people the father chose to save those people and those people
shall be saved Because God's purpose can't be frustrated God
always does his will in the armies of heaven among the inhabitants
of the earth everywhere God does his His will shall be done but
you know what in order to save those people that the father
chose and The son had to sacrifice himself to put the sin of those
people away. They had to be made holy. They
had to be made righteous. The justice of God, the same
justice of God that demanded that Christ die, when he was
made sin for his people, God's justice demanded he die. Now
that Christ has died, that same justice demands everybody Christ
died for be in glory. God's justice demands it. So
he can't fail. They can't perish. They can't
die again. Christ already died for them. But God's elect, when they're
born into this world, they're born dead in sin, aren't they?
So God the Holy Spirit comes and gives those people eternal
life in the new birth. He gives them that gift. And
God's not gonna take that gift back. I'm confident of it. Because
of what Scripture says, the gifts and calling of God are without
repentance. God the Holy Spirit creates a
new holy nature in the hearts of God's people. God's justice
demands that nature cannot perish. There's no reason for it to perish.
It has no sin. Christ took it away. In Christ
the Savior, will bring every soul the Father gave him in the
covenant of grace to glory. You know why he can't fail to
do it? Because he's God, and God can't fail. Now here's a
question. I mean, if you wonder this, well,
could somebody be saved today, lost tomorrow, or, you know,
will God's people be saved or not? Let's ask a couple questions. Did the Lord Jesus Christ do
enough on the cross to save all of his people from their sins.
Did he? If he did, then all of God's
elect are eternally saved and not one of them can perish. And
let me just tell you, jump ahead to the answer, he did enough.
He did enough. When he said it's finished, brother,
it's finished, wasn't it? Well, is the blood of Christ
alone enough to pay for my sin? Or do I got to get out my wallet
and give a little extra to it? I took a friend of mine a couple
weeks ago out to lunch for his birthday. I said, it's your birthday,
but let's go to lunch. We went to lunch. And I paid
the bill. He said, well, at least let me get the tip. I said, no. This is your birthday present.
Was the blood of Christ going to pay your debt, but you got
to get out your works to pay the tip? The blood of Christ is enough
because of whose blood it is. I'm confident of that because
of what the scripture says. The blood of Jesus Christ, God's
son, cleanses us from how much sin? All of it. All of it. It's gone. It's gone. God elected a people. The Bible
calls that foreknowledge. God foreknew, he foreloved the
people. Well, can anything happen to
make God change his mind and cast those people away? Well, say the scripture. God
will never cast away the people which he foreknew. You can be
confident in God's love for his people. The father gave a people
to his son to save. Look at John chapter six. Will
the son save him? I mean, you know, will he? Will
he let any of them perish? No, sir. No, I'm so confident
of that. Frank, why are you confident
of that? What sayeth the scripture? John six, verse 38. For I came down from heaven not
to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me. And
this is the father's will which has sent me. that if all which
he hath given me, I should lose nothing, but should raise it
up again at the last day. It's God's will that all of his
elect be redeemed. Then they will be. They will
be. And the Holy Spirit will draw
all of God's elect to Christ. The irresistible power of the
Holy Spirit That is the only way a sinner will ever come to
Christ. A preacher can stand up here, and I try to say it
in every single message I ever preach, you come to Christ. You
can hear me say that a hundred million times, and you'll sit
right there in your rebellion, right there in your deadness.
The first time the Spirit says it to you, you're gonna come
running. It's absolutely right. Look at verse 44. No man can
come to me except the Father which sent
me draw him, and I'll raise him up at the last day. But when
the Father draws him, he'll come, you'll come. And when the Spirit
draws a sinner to Christ, when I tell you come to Christ, I
mean you come to him begging for mercy. Do you have to worry that you'll
come to Christ and he'll say, no, ran out of mercy for today?
No. Look at you. No. Just no. My wife says, no cause
no. When she says that, what she
means is that the answer is obvious why I'm saying no. No. Will the Savior say that to you?
Will He say that to me if I come begging Him for mercy? I'm confident, you know why I'm
confident of that? What the scripture says, look at verse 37. All that
the Father giveth me, they shall come to me. I'll see to it, they'll
come to me. And he that cometh to me, I will in no wise cast
out. I've read this book, and I'm
telling you, there's not one person that ever came to the
Savior begging for mercy and got turned away, not one. And I'm not so special, and you're
not so special, that we'll be the first ones. I'm confident
of this. The Savior will give everybody
mercy that begs him for it. Because you know why you're begging
him for mercy? He's making you beg. He makes
you beg, and then he'll give you mercy. What a comfort to
our hearts to hear. Not one of God's people can ever
perish. It's because of who does the
saving, and who does the keeping. How do I know I won't fall away? Todd said he knew me from the
time I was a little boy. Todd's seen a lot of people come into
the building and leave, never come back. And then, later on,
I hear them say they believe something totally contrary to
the gospel that we've been hearing. How do I know I won't do that? Because God began a good work.
And if he began it, he'll finish it. He'll perfect it. And here's
the last thing I'm confident of. This gospel that we've been
hearing preached this week, this gospel of Christ, is the only
gospel God uses to save sinners. And it's the only gospel he uses
to save sinners, because it's the only gospel. The only good
news there is to preach is the good news of Christ. In Philippians
1, look at what Paul says in verse 5. He says, I'm thankful
for your fellowship in the gospel, in the gospel, from the first
day until now. In verse seven, he says, even
as it's me, it's right for me to think this of you all, because
I have you in my heart, in as much as both in my bonds and
in the defense and confirmation of the gospel. You're all partakers
of my grace. Paul says it so many times, talks
about the gospel. There's only one gospel. I know
there's a lot of different messages and religions of men, but there's
only one gospel. Because there's only one message
that glorifies God. There's only one message that
saves sinners, and that's the message that reveals and exalts
the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, if Christ is gonna be revealed
to the hearts of people, Somebody has got to preach Christ. Somebody's
got to quit playing religion. Somebody's got to quit trying
to build a ministry. Somebody's got to quit trying
to build numbers and get a following for themselves. And somebody's
got to preach Christ and only Christ. Every single time they
preach somebody better be doing it because that's the only way
sinners gonna come to know Christ Brethren, I'm telling you talking
our preacher brother here. God's called us to be preachers
preachers and God's called the church on earth to be preachers
to preach the gospel not to be social workers and all the preachers
preachers preaching the word And somebody say, but what about
all the wrong things people are doing? What if somebody's doing
something wrong? They are. They are doing something wrong.
That's all we know how to do. This is a true story. You may
not believe this, but this is a true story. Earlier this year,
I was preaching at a place. And they had some songs, you
know. And I got up to preach. And there was a man who had been
sitting there the whole time, sitting there. And when I got up to preach,
He turned and turned his left shoulder to me and started looking
at the wall. And he looked at the wall the
whole time I was preaching. And he was wanting me to know
and everybody else to know he ain't listening to me. Just in the flesh, quite honestly,
I didn't really appreciate that. But what are you going to do
about it? I mean, what are you going to do about it? What are
you going to do about straightening somebody up? Whether it's that
or all the crazy things people are, what are you going to do
about that? By God's grace I'm not going to preach about what
people are doing wrong. I'm not going to try to make
them change. I'm not going to go out there
and say, you're all doing this wrong, you've got to change that. Because if we do
that, if they would listen, you know what we'd have? A bunch
of self-righteous Pharisees would have accomplished a blessed thing.
I'm determined to preach Christ to them. "'cause if the spirit
be pleased to reveal Christ to them, "'I'll fix their wagon.'"
It will. Well, what about some here who
are lost? Are there some here lost? Yeah, there is. In a group
this size, I would just imagine somebody here don't know the
Lord. What are you gonna do for them? You're gonna educate them?
You're gonna talk them into making a decision? What, are you gonna
use these psychological tricks on them? No, sir. Tell you the
best thing we can do for them is preach Christ to them, because
it's the only way they can know Him. I mean, doesn't that just
make sense? If I wanna know Christ, somebody
gotta tell me who he is. Well, what about some? Are some
here saved? Some here know the Lord? Oh yeah, yeah, there are.
Yeah, there are some folks, they love the gospel. They've been
trusting the Savior a long time. Well, you got a different message
for them, you know, you got a message for the lost, you got a message,
no, no, I have a different message. The best thing we can do for
God's people is preach Christ to them. In a group this size, somebody
here is rejoicing. I mean, Lord, it's just blessing
you. It's just physically, materially, just it seems like every single
time you're hearing the gospel, you just, it's like manna from,
straight from heaven, isn't it? You just be, oh, God's blessing
you. Somebody here's heartbroken. Somebody here's, Christ, I mean,
you're going through it. Maybe other folks know about
it. Maybe you're suffering silently. Somebody kind of feels like they're
in the wintertime. I know the Lord's there, but I can't hear
him. I can't see him. The best thing for all those
folks is to preach Christ to them. The only way God's people
are going to be edified, the only way they're going to be
taught, the only way their hearts are going to be comforted, the
only way their hearts are going to be warned is hearing of Christ
one more time. If you believe Christ, the Son
of God gave Himself, everything that He is, to redeem your soul. I promise you this. If the Lord
will make us faithful to preach Christ, only Christ and Him crucified,
and not get off on a tangent, God's elect are gonna be saved.
His people are gonna be fed. They're gonna be comforted. they're
going to be corrected. All by one message. Aren't you
thankful God's given us this message to believe? Aren't you? Lord bless you.