Turn with me in your Bibles to
the Book of Jude. Titled this message, The Common
Salvation. Let's read our text here in the
Book of Jude. Jude, the servant of Jesus Christ
and brother of James, to them that are sanctified by God the
Father and preserved in Jesus Christ and called. Mercy unto
you and peace and love be multiplied. Beloved, when I gave all diligence
to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for
me to write unto you and exhort you that you should earnestly
contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints.
For there are certain men crept in unawares who were before of
old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men turning the grace
of our God into lasciviousness and denying the only Lord God
and our Lord Jesus Christ. Jude says that this writing was
necessary. It was necessary because men
had crept in unaware. They attempted to spread lies,
the lie of the false gospel. We know what that lie is and
what that lie does. It manifests itself in one of
two ways. It either manifests itself in
saying Christ was not enough in salvation and you have to
do your part or you have to accept him or reject him, or it inspires
lawless living. When the lie comes in, it says,
well, you're under grace, so you can live however you want
to live. You can do whatever you want to do. And both are
damning. Both are not the truth. The truth
is that we are taught of grace, how we are to live, looking unto
Christ, daily needing manna, daily needing the Lord to keep
us and bring us unto him, to feed us. I wish we could live
like we want to live as believers. We would never sin. Isn't that
true? I would never doubt the Lord
and His ability. Why do we doubt the Lord's ability?
He's God. Well, that's what we do when
we find ourself in unbelief. We begin to doubt. Not looking
to Him is what it is. Not looking unto Him. And so
Jude's warning us of these deceivers that come in to try to sow discord,
to try to sow the lie, to try to either watered down the truth
or to somehow manipulate it where it's more palatable to the flesh,
where men get glory in it still yet. And the Lord said, no, no,
it's either the truth or it's the lie. It's either the truth
or it's the lie. This is why Jude is writing. He says, it's needful for me
to write you. for the common salvation, the
common salvation. That's what Jude's focusing on
here as he begins to say all these things that these individuals
are doing and have done. One of the lies that are most
common is men say, I've accepted Jesus as my Lord and Savior.
A family member passed this particular week, and in the obituary it
read, he accepted the Lord as his personal Savior at the age
of 10, and he never stopped serving the Lord after that. There's
a couple of things wrong with that statement, and I know that
you all know this, but we don't preach that here because it's
a lie. The Lord's never offered himself to a man one time. Did
you know that? The Lord never said, never offered
himself. He asked the man that was needing
healed. He said, wilt thou be made whole?
Well, it wasn't an invitation though, was it? That man had
a need. That man knew he was the only,
the only one who could heal him. Of course he would. Why was he
laying there at the pool of Bethesda? Because he hoped when the angel
of the Lord would come down once per year and trouble the water,
that he would be able to get into the water and be healed.
And just as he needed healing, we certainly need healing from
our sin. And when the Lord comes by unto us and he says, seek
you my face. We're just like that. That man
that was that was impotent, unable. We're like, yes, Lord, I would
be healed. Please heal me. We beg him. We beg him. No, we don't accept or reject
him. That's the lie. What does grace teach us, brethren,
what teaches us to look to Christ, believing on his Lordship, resting,
resting in him, living, looking into him and not self. A lot
of men. Believe that we have to combat.
Preachers are combatants against lies, and that's certainly true,
but how do we combat it? Do we get up here and spend our
entire messages on don't do this and don't do that? No, we can
combat the lie one way, by preaching the Lord Jesus Christ, by preaching
it's finished, by preaching that Christ is all in salvation, that
he finished the work on the cross of Calvary. That's how we combat
the lie. It's that simple. It's that simple. 2 Corinthians 4-5 says, for we
preach not ourself, but Christ Jesus the Lord and our self-servant,
our self-servants for his sake. We preach Christ Jesus the Lord. We don't preach ourself. We don't
preach what we're doing. We don't preach what we're not
doing. We don't preach what we're going to do. We don't preach
what we've never done. We preach Christ Jesus. That's who we preach. He's the only hope for salvation.
We declare the same thing Jude is declaring. The same thing. Let's read verse three again.
The common salvation. Beloved, when I gave all diligence
to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for
me to write unto you and exhort you that you should earnestly
contend for the faith. What made them be exhorted? What encouraged
them to contend for the faith? The common salvation. This contending
for the faith is not something that we do. We wrestle not against
flesh and blood. What Paul said, we wrestle against
the powers of darkness. We wrestle against that which
we can't combat. So how do we fight it? We preach
Christ. We preach Christ and we rest in him. He said, it's needful for you
to hear this common salvation. Boy, it's needful to be heard,
isn't it, by his people. It's needful for me to hear it
over and over and over. It's needful for us to hear of
the common salvation, the only salvation, the salvation of the
Lord Jesus Christ. See his name, the Lord Jesus
Christ. We had in that song and, and,
uh, brother Rob read, we hear his name, their salvation in
his name. It's the only name given among
men whereby we must be saved. If you have his name, you must
be saved. You must be saved. Now Jude here, Jude, I'm sorry,
Jude gives us common things. I know there's more than what
I'm going to look at this morning. I think at one point I got up
to like 14. I said, well, I'm not going to
be able to elaborate on 14 points. And even though we're only having
one service today, we don't want to combine an hour and a half
message. I'd get too tired and you'd fall
asleep. That wouldn't be good. But Jude gives us common things. in this common salvation. Now,
I'm not talking about common as in mediocre, or certainly
not universal. I'm not talking about a universal
salvation, a common salvation. I'm talking about common as in
the standard, the standard salvation. There's only one salvation. There's
only one. I'm talking about the only original,
the only one and the original. That's what common salvation
is about. It's the true salvation. It's common about of the Lord's
people. We know this one salvation that
the Lord has given. It's Jesus Christ and Him crucified.
He is our salvation. We have no salvation outside
of Him. But for the sake of time this morning, I wanna look at
seven common things that the Lord gives us in the book of
Jude. First one is found in verse three, the common salvation.
Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common
salvation, This is God's salvation for sinners. That song we just
sung is our hope. He was wounded and bleeding for
sinners pleading, but not unto us, O Lord, unto you. He did
it for his people. He did it to redeem. This is
the salvation that's not for everybody. Salvation by definition,
if it's for everybody, and yet some are not saved, some are
lost. then it's not salvation, is it?
No, this was not a salvation that was attempted. This was
not a salvation that was, he hoped that he would save his
people from their sin. No, his name, call his name Jesus,
for he shall save his people from their sin. There's our hope.
That is what salvation is, is the Lord Jesus Christ putting
away the sin of his people. It's the same salvation from
Genesis 1 to Revelation 22. It doesn't change. It doesn't
change. There's not many salvations.
There's only one. There's not many ways to God.
There's only one way. We know that way, don't we? Christ
said, I am the way. That's singular. I am the way. I am the truth. There's only
one truth. It's the Lord Jesus Christ. He said, I am the light. Lord, we know his light is our
life. Our life is in him. He's the only one that gets all
the glory in this common salvation. The reason is no man can come
to the Father but by him. He not only must ordain it to
be so, he must will it to be so. He must do the calling. He must do all the saving. And he did on the cross of Calvary.
It means he has to cause it. He has to permit it. He has to
make it so. In this common salvation, brethren,
it's the salvation of the Lord electing a people. It's not a
choice that we made. It's a choice that God made.
It's a choice that the Lord Jesus Christ made to become a man and
to die for his people. It's not our sacrifice, it's
his sacrifice in this common salvation. And it's also in this
common salvation, the Holy Spirit is the one that regenerates.
It's not a choice that we make to be made alive. How silly does
it sound that a dead man can make a choice to be made alive?
That doesn't make any sense, does it? No, it certainly doesn't. Well, how much more spiritually
us being dead in trespasses and in sin? Can't make a choice to
be made alive. We can't accept or reject. No,
it's the Lord. He says, live. And we're made
alive in him. That's the common salvation.
He does it all. And he gets all the glory. Our righteousness
is found only in the precious blood of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Only in his precious blood. You have any righteousness outside
of him? If you do, you don't have the common salvation. But
if you have your righteousness, if it's only found in what he
has done, if it's only found in his blood, if it's only found
in his life, his death, his burial, his resurrection, if your hope
is built on nothing left but Jesus' blood and his righteousness,
you have the common salvation, the common salvation. Second
thing we notice is the common sanctification. Look in verse
one. To the servant of Jesus Christ
and brother of James, to them that are, Don't you love the
word are there? Not going to be, not might be,
not getting there. You're on your way, but you're
getting there. Are sanctified. Well, if we are sanctified, who
did the sanctifying? That has to be the next question.
The Lord did. The Lord did. When he had by
himself purged our sin, we were made the very righteousness of
God in him. He sanctified his people. He made them holy. If
Jesus Christ, the Lord, shed his blood for you, then you are
just as holy as God is right now. Right now. Do you believe
that? I don't understand it. I see
the sin that's in my flesh. Well, we're looking at the wrong
source, aren't we? Our sanctification's not in us. It's in the Lord Jesus
Christ. And then it's Christ in you.
See, that's the mystery, isn't it? Well, we don't understand
this. but we believe it. We have a
common sanctification in the Lord Jesus Christ. We've been
born of his spirit. We've been born of his spirit,
bought with a price. Hebrews 10, 14 says, for by one offering
he hath perfected forever them that are sanctified. By one offering he perfected
for you're perfect. You're perfect. What a glorious
gospel. You're perfect right now in His eyes. And the way
God sees it is really how it is. Then He says, you are sanctified. How is it possible that we are
sanctified? How is it that we are perfect?
He tells us right here. Jude, the servant of Jesus Christ,
the brother of James, to them that are sanctified by God the
Father and preserved in Jesus Christ and called, and called. So we have a common sanctification,
we have a common preservation, we have a common calling, don't
we? There's more, I'm not gonna get into all those, but all over
this wonderful little book, the Lord has given us so many things
that are common. How is it that we are sanctified?
How is it that we're perfected? Not by works of righteousness,
which we have done, but his works of righteousness. We are born
of his seed, his incorruptible seed. We're born after his spirit.
We have that in common. Being born of his spirit, that's
something else we have in common as the Lord's people. Sanctified
by his blood, justified freely by his grace. That is what the
common sanctification is, being justified freely by his grace. The third thing I want to notice.
It's found in verse three again. Beloved, when I gave all diligence
to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for
me to write unto you and exhort you that you should earnestly
contend for the faith, which was once delivered unto the saints.
The faith. We have common faith. The. Doesn't say a faith, does it?
So important to notice some of these words that give clarity
to what the Lord is saying. need to know the truth and the
truth is there only one faith. That's what Ephesians chapter
4 tells us isn't it? One Lord, one faith, one baptism. See it's not your faith that
you exercise. Men pretend faith is something
that you exercise and it gets stronger or it gets better. You
do it by The same way you do something physical, you go to
the gym and you exercise it. So if I come to church more,
if I listen to messages more than I'm, I'm getting stronger
in faith, faith is the gift of God. He's the one that has to
increase our faith. What the disciples say, Lord,
we believe, we believe, help our unbelief, help our unbelief. The Lord has to do that. He has
to do that. Now I'm not deterring anybody. Listen to as many messages
as you can. I'm encouraging you to do that, but don't do it a
bit for your own righteousness. Don't do it a bit. in order to
say I'm becoming better or I'm getting more godly, I'm becoming
more spiritual. That's not what's happening.
That's just pride. There's only one faith and faith
does one thing always. What is it? Looks to Christ,
not self. It doesn't examine myself and
see how good I am or justify me because I look at you and
say, well, you're this bad and I'm not that bad. So that's not
faith. That's self-righteousness. Faith looks to Christ. Faith
believes on the Lord Jesus Christ always, no matter what you go
through, no matter what experience you have or experience you haven't
had, faith always looks to Christ as your only hope in salvation.
This is a common thing among the Lord's people. This is given
to all the Lord's people, this common faith. Faith is not a
decision we made. Faith is the result. I want you
to get this this morning. This is important. Everything
I'm saying is important, but this particular It's hit me between
the eyes whenever I wrote it down. Faith is the result of
life in Christ. Faith is the result of life in
Christ, not the cause of it. The Lord says live, and he gives
faith, and it's like taking a newborn baby, takes a breath. You've
heard me give this analogy before. The baby comes out, the baby's
alive, but the baby's not breathing. And what does the doctor do?
The doctor smacks it on the behind, and it takes the first breath.
That's like faith, isn't it? The Lord says live and breathe,
and what does faith breathe? It's the Lord Jesus Christ. That's
what we have to have. He's our life source. Faith believes
Him. It's also interesting to think
about what we exhale, physically speaking. We have to have oxygen
to live, and that would be Christ, what our need is. All we can
exhale is just, you get in a room with CO2, what's gonna happen? You're gonna die. All we can
produce is poison. Isn't that true? That's all we
can produce. We have to have the oxygen of the Lord. He has
to produce it. He has to produce it. Faith is the result of life in
Christ, not the cause of it. Faith is the result of being
justified. Faith is given because you've
been justified. Faith is the result of being
justified, not the cause of it. Christ is our justification and
faith looks to Christ. Common faith is the only faith
there is. And it's only given to the Lord's
people. It's when he chooses to do so.
That's something that's different in our gospel than any other
gospel, is at the end of it all, the Lord has to do everything. And we say truth, Lord. We bow
to that. That is so contrary to the flesh.
It's so contrary to the will of man. We want something to
do naturally. Maybe it's part of the curse.
Maybe it's just our pride. I'm sure it's probably all of
that. But we want something to do. And the Lord says, there's
nothing for you to do. I'm not going to share my glory.
I'm not going to share my glory with you. And the Lord gives
faith that looks to Christ and says, truth, Lord, I don't want
your glory. I want you to have all the glory. That's what faith
does. This looks to Christ. Faith believes Christ. Faith
looks to him alone as all our hope, all our hope before God. Faith rests in Christ. This common
faith, that's what it does. It rests in Christ as all of
our righteousness before God. If that's not what our faith
does, we don't have common faith. Our faith must be resting in
the finished work of Christ alone as our salvation. If we don't
have that faith, then we don't have common faith. I'm thankful the Lord gives common
faith to his people, aren't you? Fourth thing I want to notice
is found in verse four. And I'll go ahead and tell you, I didn't
write this down in any particular order. I wrote it down as the
Lord gave it to me. So we're going to go back and
forth in this little book and it'll be all right. Verse four,
we have common enemies. Look what he says here. For there
are certain men crept in unawares, who were before of old ordained
to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our
God into lasciviousness and denying the only Lord God and our Lord
Jesus Christ. Certain men crept in unaware.
We have common enemies. Somebody, when I say that, our
minds immediately begin to think about those that would come in
and sow discord or those that would try to come in and stop
the gospel going forth. But what about the enemy that
you see every morning when you look in the mirror? We have that
in common, don't we? Oh, wretched man that I am. Not
wretched man that I was. Paul said wretched man that I
am right now. Who shall deliver me from this body of death? We
have a common enemy. And it's our flesh, isn't it? Our flesh
hates God right now. Everything about him our flesh
hates. But aren't you glad because he conquered the flesh. The Lord Jesus Christ being born
of the flesh did what we could not do in satisfying the law's
demands. That's why he had to come in the flesh is because
they that are in the flesh cannot please God. We can't. But because
he was the God man, he was perfect. He was perfect in every way.
And by the sacrifice of himself on Calvary's tree, he put away
the sin that we are and the sin that we do. He destroyed the
common enemy that we have. He'd conquered death, hell, and
the grave. He destroyed the flesh's ability. We have no ability before
him. We have no righteousness before him in and of ourself. Thank God he conquered the common
enemy. Now you'll notice these individuals
in particular he's talking about, he calls them certain men, they
crept in unaware. They were ordained. I find that word interesting.
Who were before of old ordained to this condemnation. That's
an interesting word. They were ordained. Who did the
ordination? God did. Everything happens by
his will or nothing happens. Everything happens according
to the determinant counsel of God for the good of his people
and for his glory or nothing happens. It's that simple. These
were ordained. These were ordained to come in
and to sow discord. If you believe the Lord Jesus
Christ, if you believe his gospel, you will be hated for it. Somebody
will hate you for it. How often do you talk to someone
about the gospel and They try to find a common ground. They
hate the gospel. There is no common ground. There's only one
gospel. There's only one Lord. There's only one faith. And that's
what I'm speaking of this morning. All the common things that we
have in the Lord. It's the same thing. Christ is
all you tell someone that they're going to hate you for it. They're
going to hate you for it. Men hate God's gospel. They hate
his choosing. They hate his electing. That
offends the flesh. You mean I didn't get to make
a choice? You mean I didn't get to do this or do that? God did
it all? That offends the flesh. But boy,
the new man just rests in that. Lord, you did the choosing? Thank
you. You did the saving? You did the
calling? You mean I don't have any obligation in my salvation?
You did it all? That's glorious. Because if I
had one thing to do, I would mess it up. And believing the
most glorious truth in this precious gospel will cause men to hate
you. They will hate you for it. Why? Because the flesh gets no
glory in this gospel. It strips men of all their self-righteousness.
Also because the Lord told us in Luke 21 that we would be hated.
He said, you shall be hated of all men for my name's sake. But
he also said, except your righteousness exceed the righteousness of the
Pharisees, you'll in no way see the kingdom of heaven. It's not
possible. You have to have a righteousness
not of yourself. See, he's going to have all the glory, and the
only way that you and I can be as righteous as him is if he
does all the work, and he did, and he did. If our righteousness
is found in the Lord Jesus Christ, we'll be hated by the common
enemies of the gospel, but we have hope. The fifth thing that's
common, the fifth thing, look at verse four. There are certain
men, crept in unawares, who were before of old ordained to this
condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness
and denying the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ. Look
down at verse 25. To the only wise God and our
Savior be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now
and ever. Amen. These denied the truth. But you know what we have? We
have a common Lord and a common savior who we do not deny. We
don't deny him complete lordship in his sovereign choice. We don't
deny him complete lordship in successfully redeeming because
he chose to redeem. We don't deny him lordship in
anything. We bow to his lordship. Most men don't have a problem
with having a savior, a baby Jesus meek and mild. I don't
have to remind you that many people tomorrow are going to
be celebrating the birth of the Lord Jesus Christ and not having
a clue what that birth actually did. The Lord's birth meant that
he came to this earth in order to die for his people, not to
try to make a way. He is the way. He was the God
man. He was 100% God laying in that
manger. Men don't understand that. You
can, unless the Lord gives faith. But we don't deny his Lordship
at any time. We have the common Lord and Savior. He's both the Alpha and the Omega. He's the beginning and the end,
the author and the finisher. He's all these things. He's all
these things. He's both Lord and Savior. The Lord said, remember,
in the world, You shall have tribulation, but be of good cheer.
I've overcome the world." All these common enemies that we
have that would try to thwart God, they can't. They can't.
He's overcame the world. He's the conquering King. He's
the conquering Lord and Savior. As both Lord of all and Savior
to his people, we rest in him. I love the Lord being immutable,
don't you? He can't change. He can't change. We'll change from day to day,
don't we? Some days we'll be happy, some days we'll be sad,
some days we'll be this, some days we'll be that. He's constant.
He's constantly seated as the successful Redeemer of His people.
He doesn't have to do anything else. It's finished. It's finished. We believe that. We believe that. This is the common Lord and Savior
that we have, the Lord Jesus Christ. We rest in His ability,
don't we? Verse 24, we looked at it. Look,
you're right there at verse 25. Look back at 24. Now unto him
that is able to keep you from falling. He's able. And to present
you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy.
He's able to present you faultless before the very throne of God.
That's our Lord and Savior. He's the only one that could
have done that, and he did on the cross of Calvary. When he
by himself purged our sin, he sat down on the right hand of
the majesty on high. He's successful, he's seated,
he's sovereign, he's holy, he's true. As the sovereign, supreme, infinite,
holy God, he became a man. And that just is unfathomable,
isn't it? I can't understand how God could
become a man, but I believe it. Why? Because he said he did.
Why did he become a man? To redeem his people. Did he
do it? Yes, he did. How do you know that? I believe
according to his faith that he's given. I believe that Jesus Christ
successfully redeemed his people. We believe that, don't we? We
have that in common. We have that in common, that he is both
Lord and Savior. Being Lord means that his rule
has no end. His dominion is everlasting.
Being Savior means that he successfully redeemed. He put away the sin
of his people. He's both Lord and Savior. That's what we believe
in common, isn't it? That's what we believe in common.
Now, men have no problem with baby Jesus, meek and mild, but
they have a problem with him being God, being God. If you believe that Jesus Christ
is God. Now, so many times and there's movies and there's So
many things that portray gods. That's not what I'm talking about.
I'm talking about God as He is. If you've seen Him through the
eyes of faith, you understand exactly what I'm talking about.
He is the I Am. He is the eternal God. He has
all power. We have zero power. We believe
that. If we see Him as thus, We see
him as thus in the manger as well. No matter how he manifests
himself, we see him as God. And if you believe he is God,
if the Lord's given you the faith to believe, you're a believer.
If you believe he's God, Jesus Christ is God, and all that entails,
you're a believer. It's really that simple. Faith
believes he is God. Faith rests in Christ. We will
either see it now or we'll see it in eternity that He's God.
What did He say? That every knee is going to bow.
Every tongue is going to confess what? Jesus Christ is Lord. Nobody has a problem with Jesus
being the Savior, the gift that was given, that all you have
to do is accept it. Men don't have a problem with
that. They have a problem with Him being Lord over salvation. They have a problem with Him
being the sovereign God over salvation. Every knee is going
to bow and every tongue is going to confess that Jesus Christ
is Lord to the glory of God the Father. Oh, for the grace to
bow right now in the heart, right this moment, and say, truth,
Lord, you are Lord. You are Lord, not unto us, oh
Lord, not unto us, but unto thy name be all glory and honor and
praise. It takes grace to do that right
now. But if we do, we have that in common. Grace, that's something
else we have in common, isn't it? We believe in his ability, not
ours. Paul didn't say, I know what I've believed. I know what
I'm resting in. He said that I may know him.
That I may know him right now. The power of his resurrection,
the fellowship of his suffering being made conformable unto his
death. To know right now that he is
the common Lord and savior of his people. But to know right
now he is your. Lord and Savior. What rest there
is in that? He's mine, my Lord and Savior. It doesn't do me any good if
he's your Lord and Savior. I need him to be my Lord and
Savior. He's mine. My beloved is mine and I am his.
This is what we have in common as the Lord's people. Now the sixth thing I want to
notice is found in verse 12. Verse 12 tells us, these men
that have come in creping unaware, says they are spots in your feasts
of charity. When they feast with you, feeding
themselves without fear, clouds they are without water, carried
about with of winds. Trees whose fruit withered, without
fruit, twice dead, plucked up by the roots. twice dead, plucked
up by the roots, raging waves of the sea, foaming out of their
own shame, wandering stars to whom is reserved the blackness
of darkness forever. They have no fruit. They're twice
dead, plucked up by the root. But do you know what the scripture
says about the Lord's people? He shall be like a tree planted
by the rivers of water. The Lord's people produce fruit. Now many I've heard in false
religion talk about how that fruit produced is something you
do in the flesh and that's not true. What we produce is what
the Lord gives. He's the one that produces it
and gives it unto his people. Now let me explain what I mean
by that. He said, I am the vine and you are the branches. I can
think of no greater example than what I've given before. Driving
down the road, you can see many tree limbs in the gutter. You
can see they're all dead. All the tree limbs are completely
dead. Do they have any hope? It doesn't matter whether it's
an apple tree branch or if it's a cherry tree branch or whatever
it may be. They're all dead laying in the gutter. Is there any hope
of that bringing forth fruit? No. None whatsoever. What if
you take it and you put it back to a tree? If it's completely
dried up, that's still not going to do any good, right? But what
does the Lord do by his grace? Well, he tells an old dead stick
like you and me to live, and he connects us to the true vine.
And therewith, fruit comes out. What is that fruit? It's produced
by the true vine. The Lord sees Christ in you,
the hope of glory. We can never get past the point
of saying everything the Lord requires, he must provide because
he's only pleased with what he provides. It's his fruit produced
in his people, in his people. What did the Lord say? Those
that didn't bear forth fruit under the Lord, they were thrown
into the fire, weren't they? They were thrown into the fire.
They were uprooted and thrown into the fire. But those that
brought forth fruit, the Lord was pleased with them. The Lord's
pleased with his people because he sees the blood of the Lord
Jesus Christ. See this thing of fruit, it's
the fruit of the spirit. That means that's where it comes
from, is the spirit, not the flesh. This isn't what we produce
in our flesh that the Lord's pleased with. This is the faith
that he's given to his people that believes Christ is all.
This is the love that he's given to his people that loves God
as Lord and savior. This is all the things that the
spirit produces in his people. In Christ Jesus. Men foolishly believe that they
can produce something that pleases God. When truly he's the only
one that pleases God, the Lord Jesus Christ, where the Lord
say, this is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased. Is that your confession? We have
a common confession also, don't we? Common confession, this is
Christ Jesus. I'm well pleased with him. I'm
well pleased with him. Man's mistake, brethren, is looking
at or in themselves for something that only Christ can produce.
Looking at or in ourself for not looking to Christ, because
Christ is the only one that can produce it. He's the only one
that can do it. Fruit of the Spirit is just that,
the fruit of the Spirit, not the flesh. Produced by Christ
Jesus alone. In this gospel, we have a common
fruit, Christ is all, Christ is all. Last thing I wanna look at is
found in verse 17. But beloved, remember ye the
words which were spoken before of the apostles of our Lord Jesus
Christ. We believe the common words that
were spoken by the Lord, that were confirmed to us by the apostles. We believe these common words
that are written in this book. We believe the common words.
To believe on the Lord Jesus Christ is to speak the same thing
he has spoken. To believe on the Lord Jesus
Christ is to speak the same thing he's spoken. What did he say?
No man come to the Father, but by me. We believe that, we speak
that, we know that. No man comes to the father unless
he causes it to be so. That doesn't mean that we have
to take a detour and go to him first. No, that's all we do is
flee to Christ to approach the father. Faith believes Christ. We know that we can't, they that
are in the flesh cannot please God. We know that we can't please
God, that Christ had to and he did for his people. And we believe
those words that he spoke. You must be born again. How can
a man enter into his mother's womb a second time and be born?
Nicodemus didn't understand that, did he? But we believe the words
of the Lord. What did he say? The wind bloweth
where it listeth. Thou canst tell whether it come or whether
it goes. So is everyone born of the Spirit. Oh, you mean that
the Spirit's the one that's gonna have to birth us. Yes, absolutely. He's gonna have to do it all.
These are the common words spoken by our Lord. What else are the common words
spoken by the Lord? Coming to me all you that are
labored and are heavy laden, I will give you rest. Those are
the common words we cleave to, isn't it? Lord said coming to
me. He commanded it. He commands
that we believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. It's not an invitation,
it's a command. Lord, you're gonna have to give life and you're
gonna have to give faith because I want to come to Christ. I must
come to Christ. I'm completely unable to come
to Christ. I believe your words, these common words, You're going
to have to cause me to do so. Heard me say this even recently,
but Ezekiel speaking to the Lord, Lord said, can these bones live? He said, Lord God, thou knowest.
I can't make them live. You know, that's what we would
have said. Lord, I can't make these bones
live. There's not possible for me to do it, but you can do it.
You can make this. rotten corpse into life giving,
or to give it life and make it alive in you. You can do that,
I believe that. Why? Because we believe the common
words of what the Lord has spoken. To believe on the Lord Jesus
Christ is to believe, is to speak the same things He has spoken
about God and about you. To believe He's Lord and Savior.
And to believe that you're the chief of sinners. needing that
Lord and Savior. There's nothing that's new. There's
no new words being spoken. It's the same thing. It's the
common words, the Lord's words. It has always been and always
will be His truth or it'll be the lie. These common words are
His glorious gospel, aren't they? That's what we cleave to. Men
despise this gospel, but to you and I, That's all we want to
talk about. Remember, maybe it was last Sunday
or last Wednesday, we were talking about Rebecca coming to Isaac. And we determined it was about
a month journey from whenever she was taken by the servant
and to be brought back to Isaac. What do you think her question
was every time that she got a chance to ask the servant a question?
Tell me more about Isaac. Isn't that what we do on this
journey, this desert, this wilderness that we're in? Tell me more about
Him. Tell me more about the Lord Jesus Christ and His gospel for
sinners. I see my sin, I see what I am,
and I have no hope of eternal life outside of Him. Tell me
more about Him. We have that in common. We wanna
hear those common words, don't we? We wanna hear those common
words. It's life and death. His common
words are His beautiful gospel, all about how He saves sinners
all by Himself. All about how he saves sinners
all by himself without our contribution, without our opinion, without
our choice, without our acknowledgement. We didn't even know we were being
saved, did we? We weren't even born yet. And
yet he did it. He did it all. These common words of grace say
that it's his salvation. It's His faith. It's His sanctification
in us. It's Him that justifieth. It's
God that hath made us and not we ourself. It's His salvation. It's His fruit that's produced.
He gets all the glory in this common salvation. And it is the
only salvation that there is. It's the only rest for the sinner. It's the only hope for eternal
life. He's the only thing that pleases
God. Lord, give us Christ. Make him common among us. Not
common as in mediocre, but common as in we've got to have him.
We've got to have him. Let's pray. Father, thank you
for your gospel. Thank you for grace and mercy. Thank you for your blood. Will
be with us as we depart. Keep us safe, we pray, looking
unto your son in Christ name, Amen. Let's turn to number 199. Christ
receiveth sinful men.