Alright. My sheep know my voice, and the
path that I take, they follow wherever I go. My sheep know my voice, and come
at my call, but a stranger's voice they do not know. My sheep know my voice, day by
day. My sheep know my voice, day by
day. They abide in the fold and go
not astray. They love me because I have made
them my choice. And they follow my call. My sheep know my voice. My sheep know my voice, and the
pastures of green, where I lead them so often to feed. My sheep know my voice, and the
cool sparkling stream, where beside it still waters I lead. ? My sheep know my voice ? ?
Day by day ? ? And day by day ? ? Day by day ? ? They bide
in the fold ? ? Not astray ? ? And go not astray ? ? They love me
because ? ? I have made it my choice ? My sheep know my voice in the
valley of death. ? Through which I shall lead
them someday ? But no danger, no harm can touch one of them
? For I will be with them always ? My sheep, oh my boys ? And
day by day live on They love me because I have made
them my joy, and they fall in love with me. Does it really have to be me?
I've been enjoying this so far. Hannah and I are both so delighted
to be here. Sincerely, thank you, Brother
David, for asking me to come. I'm so humbled and so honored. And I love and respect this man
so much. And I love and respect that man
so much. And I was just sitting there
thinking about how thankful I am that the Lord has kept his gospel. And he says in his word, generation
to generation, you and your children and your children's children
and this generation and that generation. And he is still continuing
to deliver his truth, and I'm so thankful, and I'm so humbled
to stand here, and we're so glad to meet all of you. This is my
first time here. I've wanted to come here for
a long time and meet you, but as you said, my desire is that
the Lord will be glorified this weekend. I'm looking forward
to hearing the gospel this weekend, and I pray the Lord will bless
that man and speak to all of us. And in everything, may he
be honored and praised for who our Lord is and what he's done
for us, sinners that we are. So if you would like to turn
with me to 2 Timothy chapter 1. 2 Timothy 1, two specific verses
will be our text, but let's begin reading in verse 1. 2 Timothy
1, verse 1, it says, Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ, by the
will of God, according to the promise of life which is in Christ
Jesus, by the will of God. Everything is by the will of
God, isn't it? Everything. Verse two says, to Timothy, my
dearly beloved son, Grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father
and Christ Jesus our Lord. He said grace, mercy, and peace. That's my desire for you. That's my desire for you, the
free gift of Jesus Christ. And is that not our desire that
Christ would be given to us? That Christ would be given to
us? Merciful salvation in the Lord
Jesus Christ. Peace and rest through the Lord
Jesus Christ, in the Lord Jesus Christ, with the Lord Jesus Christ. That's my desire for you. That's
our desire for as many as God will be pleased to give it to.
Verse three, he said, I thank God whom I serve from my forefathers
with pure conscience, that without ceasing I have remembrance of
thee in my prayers night and day. He said, I thank God for
you, and he said, I'm praying for you. I thank God for you,
and I'm praying for you. Verse four, greatly desiring
to see thee, being mindful of thy tears, that I may be filled
with joy when I call to remembrance the unfeigned faith that is in
thee, which dwelt first in thy grandmother Lois and thy mother
Eunice, and I am persuaded that in thee also." He said, I greatly
desire to see you and All of God's people say that about the
Lord Jesus Christ and about the people of Christ. That's what
we all said about this conference. Ever since he asked me to come,
I have been greatly desiring to see you. And we're all greatly
desiring to see Jesus Christ. He said, I desire to see you.
And he said, you're in my heart, you're in my mind, And he said
right here, I want to encourage you, verse six, wherefore I put
thee in remembrance that thou stir up the gift of God which
is in thee by the putting on of my hands. For God hath not
given us the spirit of fear, but of power and of love and
of a sound mind. Be not thou therefore ashamed
of the testimony of our Lord nor of me his prisoner, but be
thou partaker of the afflictions of the gospel according to the
power of God." He said, I want to encourage you to not be ashamed
of the testimony of our Lord, the testimony of truth, the testimony
that is so hard to find. Houston is a big place and the
truth is hard to find here. It's very hard to find. The truth that is so rare in
this world, a false religion, the apostle called this truth
the gospel of God. Not the gospel of man, but the
gospel of God. God's gospel. God's declaration. That's so hard to find. God's
doctrine, God's word, and God's way. That is so hard to find,
God's word. And the apostle declared it to
us in verse nine. In verse nine and 10, these are
gonna be the focus of our text. This is the gospel declaration
of God. The gospel according to God.
Here it is right here, verse nine. He said, who? That is salvation. That's salvation
right there. That's the gospel of God. Salvation is a person. If we want to declare salvation
in one word, it's this right here. Who? Speaking of God, speaking of
Christ. The Lord Jesus Christ. Verse
9 says, Who hath saved us? My desire is for us to very slowly,
very deliberately understand what is written right here. I
pray God will engrave this on our souls. Verse 9 says, Who
hath saved us? Hath means has, that's what the
word means, has. Who has saved us and called us
with a holy calling, not according to our works. but according to His own purpose
and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began, but is now made manifest by the
appearing of our Savior. Jesus Christ who hath abolished
death. That's one of my favorite thoughts. Do we realize that that's what
our Lord did for his people? He abolished death. How wonderful is that? and hath brought life and immortality
to light through the gospel, through this
means of preaching his word, declaring Christ from his word. And tonight I'd like for us to
just look at that declaration together for a moment, the declaration
of the truth concerning the Lord Jesus Christ, the truth concerning
Christ. The lie of false religion is
what man must do. That's the great lie of all of
false religion, no matter what denomination it is, no matter
what denomination it is. That's the lie of all false religion. What man must do. The truth of
the gospel is what Christ has done. It's not what man must do. It's
what Christ has already done. It's what Christ has already
done. Doesn't that bring happiness to your heart? The lie of false religion says
that man must do something in order to be saved. But do we see that everything
that we just read right here is in the past tense? It's all
in the past tense. The truth that God's Word declares
right here is that The work is done. It's all done. It's all
past tense. Verse nine says, who hath saved
us? I just love knowing that the
gospel declaration is an announcement of something that's done, and
at God's appointed time, he turns the light on. Who hath saved us? The work is
already done. Christ has already saved his
people. That's just an amazing announcement. How glorious it is to know that
when the Lord Jesus Christ cried, it is finished, it was finished. Verse 9 tells us that Not only
did Christ save his people, he saved his people, but it tells
us that he sovereignly saved his people. It says that our
salvation was not according to our works, but according to his
own purpose and grace. God's salvation is a sovereign
salvation according to his own purpose and grace. Did it scare
any of you the moment you realized that salvation was in God's hands
and not yours? And you had no say in the matter?
Did that scare you? It scared me. His salvation is a sovereign
salvation. It was a sovereign salvation
according to his own purpose And grace, he does not save according
to man's purpose. He does not save according to
man's will or man's desire. All that he saves desire to be
saved. They're all made willing in the
day of his power. But it takes his power. He saves
according to his own purpose and grace. Brother Henry Mahan
used to tell the story of the first time he heard the gospel
preached by a man named Ralph Barnard. It was in 1950, and
we heard this story. Everybody's heard this story,
but we heard it around the dinner table so many times. I'm not
going to scream like Henry did. He was a member of a Southern
Baptist church in Birmingham, Alabama, and in 1950, the Southern
Baptist movement decided to have a tent
revival meeting for the whole South, the whole Southern United
States, on the same week. It was going to be a one-week
tent revival meeting, and everybody was supposed to have a guest
speaker. The pastor wasn't going to preach, and the pastor of
the church he attended-no, I'm sorry, he was in Ashland, Kentucky.
He's from Birmingham, Alabama. He was in Ashland, Kentucky.
The pastor that he was under procrastinated and didn't call
a guest speaker. And the time came for him to
start making calls and everybody was taken. And there were no
preachers, you know, no Southern Baptist preachers. So he said,
what are we going to do? And a guy said, well, I know
a guy, but I don't know. He said his name is Ralph Barnard.
And this pastor said, well, call him, there's nobody else. So
Rolfe came, and the first night, Henry was sitting, Henry was
a song leader, he was sitting on the front row, and Rolfe looked
at him and said, young man, can you quote Romans 8, 28 for us? And he said, I think I can. He
said, well, stand up and quote it. So Henry stood up and he
said, and we know that all things work together for good to them
that love God. And he sat down. And Barnard
said, is that all? What about the rest of it? Can
you quote the rest of it? And so Henry stood up and he said,
and we know that all things work together for good to them that
love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.
And the moment Henry said purpose, Barnard started screaming at
the top of his screechy lungs, And he pointed at him and he
said, young man, if you ever learn anything about God's purpose,
you will learn something about God and you'll learn something
about the gospel. And Henry said, that night I
realized I need to learn something about God's purpose. Everything
God does is according to his purpose, his will, and his purpose. He does not save according to
man's will. Well, I decided I want to be
saved. Well, great. He does not save
according to man's will. It's his will. He is gracious
to whom he is pleased to be gracious. He shows mercy to who he is pleased
to show mercy. What that means is he saves whoever
he chooses to save. Salvation is of the Lord. Christ
sovereignly saved His people, His elect particular people according
to His own will and purpose. There's another story that I
know you've heard. I don't know, a hundred years
ago or so in England or somewhere like that, a man pastored a church
in his town or village and he was working out in his garden
one day and a woman saw him and came up and said, you pastor
that church in town, don't you? And he said, yes, I do. She said,
you preach election, don't you? He said, yes, I do. She said,
I don't know about that. She said, why do you do that?
I just can't see that. I don't think I can go along
with that. And he said, well, let me ask you a question. Are
you saved? And she said, oh, yeah. He said, well, who saved
you? Did God save you or did you save
yourself? She said, God saved me. He said, well, did he do
it on purpose or was it an accident? She said, it was on purpose.
And he said, well, honey, that's election. God saving whom He
will on purpose. Sovereign election. Sovereign
salvation. Verse 9 here also tells us that
Christ eternally saved His people. Christ sovereignly saved His
people and Christ eternally saved His people. The end of verse
9 says that our salvation was given to us in Christ Jesus before
the world began. All of God's people were chosen
in the Lord Jesus Christ before the foundation of this world.
It is so amazing to me to think of the fact that our God thought
on each one of us from eternity past. How many, you know, David
said, how great are your thoughts toward me? If I could count them,
it's more than the sand. Isn't that just precious? Individually, God the Father
elected every single soul that he purposed to save. And individually,
he gave every single one of those souls to the Lord Jesus Christ
to purchase and redeem and pay the debt of their Sin before
God in full. And that's exactly what the Lord
Jesus Christ did. He appeared to us in the flesh. How amazing is that? God came
to us. He left his high holy throne
in glory and he came down here to us as a man. How amazing is
that? God manifests in the flesh as
a man. He lived a perfect, spotless,
holy life on this earth. He lived a life before God that
no sinner like you and me could ever live. And then after he
earned a perfect life before God, God caused him to give that
life to his people. God caused him to trade places
with his people. people who lived nothing but
a sinful life before Him. He traded His holy life for our
sinful life. God the Father made His Son to
be the substitute for their people. God took all of that sin. You
know, we're all so ashamed of our sin. It's just more sin than
any of us can fathom. But to think of all the sin of
all of his people for all generations. Oh, the sin he bore. God made him to be the substitute
for his people. All of those sins were laid on
Him. They were all laid on Him. The things that we feel so guilty
about, I know you bear guilt, because I do too. And the only
relief of it is in the Lord Jesus Christ. That's the only time
I get relief from it, is when I think about the fact that what
haunts me haunted Him in that moment. In His guilt, He stood
before God bearing the shame. There are things that we bear
secretly, He bore openly before God. And God dealt with him. Christ literally bore our sin
in his body on the tree and with our sin in him, God the Father
poured out all of his judgment and all of his wrath on his own
son. And Christ died under the judgment
that was owed to you and me. He died paying the price and
enduring the condemnation that was owed to his people. And when he died for his people,
because he endured the death that was owed to his people,
the moment that he did that, he took death from his people. We all have lost loved ones in
the faith. They are not dead. He took death from his people. That makes me so happy and it
makes me so thankful to him for doing that for us. He took death
away from us. He took sin away from us. He
took the wages of sin away from us. He died for us. He abolished death. Ended death,
removed death. And when he arose from that grave,
that grave of death, he brought life and immortality. Immortality. Immortality. The one thing that
everybody on this earth wants, he gave it to his people. There's
an infinite source of life and immortality, and but for God's
grace, no sinner will lay hold of it. But God, who is rich in
mercy in spite of us, He brought life and immortality, eternal
life in the Lord Jesus Christ, eternal life with the Lord Jesus
Christ. I want to live with Jesus Christ. I think about all the time, there's
gonna be a number there no man can number. How am I ever gonna,
I mean, how am I ever gonna see him in this, you know, all the
generations? I don't know how, but I'm going
to. I'm going to sit right next to him. I'm going to sit with
him. Every soul here is going to be right at the direct feet
of Jesus Christ. That's what Christ accomplished
in salvation. That is the salvation that Jesus
Christ finished and secured for all of his people, redemption
in him. Redemption with him. Our salvation in the Lord Jesus
Christ, it was a sovereign salvation. It was an eternal salvation and
it was a loving salvation. Why did the Lord Jesus Christ
do this for us? Do we ever really stop and think
about that? If God is self-existent in need of nothing, God needs
nothing. He doesn't need our praise. If we stop, all the rocks will
cry out. He doesn't need our praise. He
doesn't need anything. Why did he do this for us? Why
would he do this for us? It's because he loved us. How amazing is that? Even while
we were yet sinners, he loved us. He said, I've loved you with
an everlasting love. He loved us and gave himself
for us. He loved us and washed us in
his own blood. God commended his love toward
us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. He died for the ungodly. And that was us. We're just sinners
saved by God's amazing grace. This is amazing grace. Verse
nine says, who hath saved us? Sovereignly saved us, eternally
saved us, lovingly saved us, and completely saved us. There
is nothing left for us to do. Christ saved us in full. Colossians 2 verse 10 says, we
are complete in him. We are complete in him. I don't know the exact moment
I got a hold of that, but at some point I got a hold of that.
And I'll never forget getting a hold of that. We are complete
in Him. We're complete. So verse nine
says, who hath saved us and called us? If we know that God has an
elect people. If we know that God has an elect
people. God chose a people. And Christ
died for those people. and Christ only died for those
people. None of them are going to be
lost. All of them are going to be saved. God has an elect people. If we know that God has an elect
people, how can we know we are one of them? How can we know that we are one
of them? If he only calls his elect people,
how can we know if he's going to call us? If we have ears to hear this
word, if we have been given ears to hear this word and a heart
to believe this word, what does the word say to us? It says,
you're a sinner. That's what it says. You're a
sinner. That's what the word says everywhere
you turn. You're a sinner. And Christ is the only hope for
sinners. The blood of Jesus, there's one
hope. There's one way. If God has given
us a heart to believe that, ears to hear that, a soul to bow to
it, that says, like with David, Lord, whatever you do with me,
you're right in doing it. If you chose me, thank God. If you condemn me, amen. I'm
sorry. If God has given that heart to
us, then he has already called us. He has called us. With his call of salvation, he'll
give ears to hear the call of his word. He'll give a heart
to believe the call of his word. He'll give us a desire to bow
to the truth of his word. If we truly believe this word,
who is a person? And if we truly believe on this
certain word and cast our all on the finished work of Jesus
Christ and can say in our soul, the blood of Jesus Christ is
all I have to stand before God. That's all I have. That is the call to salvation. That is the call to the Lord
Jesus Christ. He has sovereignly and lovingly
called us. What has he called us to? Union with Christ. Union with the Lord Jesus Christ.
He's called us to peace with God. The moment the call comes,
the moment the call is realized, there is peace. There is rest. Peace through the blood of the
Lord Jesus Christ. He's called us to adoption into
the family of God. Does it amaze you to think that
we are members of the family of God? Does that amaze you? He has called us to justification,
justified in all your doings, justified. How? You substitute. He was justified. Sanctified. You are holy. No, I'm not. Yes, you are. In Christ you are. You're as
holy as you're ever going to be. That's amazing. Justification, sanctification,
glorification. He's called us to glorification
in the Lord Jesus Christ. That's what we've been called
to. The gospel means good news. And that's exactly what the gospel
is to a sinner who needs to be saved by the blood of the Lord
Jesus Christ. It is good news. It truly is
good news. I pray, my desire is that the
Lord will make his word to be good news this weekend. for Christ's sake, for His glory's
sake, I pray that we will truly bow to Him and glorify Him for
everything He's done. Amen. Thank you, Brother David.