Hey, everybody, it's time. Good to see you out this morning.
Had some folks out for some reason. Maybe they're late coming in.
Huh? Who, Fred and Arlene? Well, that's good, I guess. I
remember those who requested prayer. Add to the prayer list
Donna James, Juanita Wilson, Judy Ruhle's daughter, or Julie
Ruhle's daughter, Teresa, Teresa Charlton, Carolyn, Pete Wilder,
and Charles, who was here Wednesday night. He's got stage four pancreatic
cancer, so he's in pretty bad shape. I haven't heard anything. I just got a little bleep on
D-Park yesterday. Christie's having to tend to
him all the time now. So remember him in your prayers.
And also, Kathy Robinson had the pellets, radiation pellets,
put in her tumors in her liver. And she, unfortunately, she had
shingles at the same time. She had to lay on the table for
a long time. So they give her a big dose of
Benadryl. and an oxycodone, and she was
out for two days. She can't take medicine. She's
not good at taking medicine. But she slowly regained her strength
from the radiation, which takes the juice out of you for a pretty
good while. Yes, Sharon? Oh, did they? OK. It's Inez. Inez, well, got her down there
somewhere. Inez Wolfe is in hospice now, and that's usually the last
stage of things, so remember her in your prayers also. Seek
the Lord's help for them. We'll begin our worship services
to the tune of the Doxology. Praise God, from whom all blessings
flow. I've got her, Juanita Wilson.
Yeah, okay. This is sung to the tune of,
it's on your sheet, Oh, Hearer of Sovereign Grace, a hymn by
Jim Byrd, sung to the tune of the doxology, you know. Praise
God, from whom all blessings flow. Okay. With thanks we gather in
this pledge sovereign grace. O may our God this very hour
send forth his grace and mighty power. Tis true we are but worms
of clay, yet for God's presence we will pray. ? And we will praise Him for
His grace ? ? Which sent Christ down to take our place ? ? Now
listen as these men proclaim ? ? The glories of the Savior's
name ? Let his praises now ascend, and
when the time shall Then let us be of kindred heart,
And wheresoever be our place, Still love to hear of sovereign
grace. After scripture reading and prayer,
we'll sing the other side of that paper, Complete in Thee.
Romans chapter 3, if you have your Bibles. In chapter 1 of Romans, Paul
deals with the Gentile mind and the end thereof. Chapter 2, the
Jewish mind. He ends it by saying that a Jew
is not a Jew as one inwardly, or one outwardly, but as one
inwardly, the circumcision of the heart and not of the flesh,
whose praise is of God and not of men. Then he says in verse
one, what advantage then hath the Jew, or what profit is there
of circumcision, that is, keeping the law, much every way chiefly
because that unto them were committed the oracles of God, For what
if some did not believe? Shall their unbelief make the
faith of God without effect? God forbid! Yea, let God be true,
and every man be a liar, as it is written that thou mightest
be justified in thy sayings, and mightest overcome when thou
art judged. But if I unrighteousness commend
the righteousness of God, what shall we say? Is God unrighteous,
who taketh vengeance? I speak as a man. God forbid!
For then how shall God judge the world? For if the truth of
God more abounded through my lie unto his glory, why yet am
I also judged as a sinner? And not rather, as we be slanderously
reported, as some affirm that we say, let us do evil that good
may come, whose damnation is just. What then? Are we better
than they? No, and no wise, for we have
before proved, both Jews and Gentiles, that all are under
sin. As it is written, there is none
righteous, no, not one. There is none that understandeth.
There is none that seeketh after God. They are all gone out of
the way. They all together become unprofitable.
There is none that doeth good, no, not one. Their throat is
an open sepulcher. With their tongues have they
used deceit. The poison of asps is under their lips. whose mouth
is full of cursing and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed
blood. Destruction and misery are in their ways. The way of
peace have they not known. There is no fear of God before
their eyes. Now we know that what things
soever the law sayeth, sayeth to them that are under the law,
that every mouth might be stopped, and all the world become guilty
before God. Therefore, by the deeds of the
law, there shall no flesh be justified in his sight, for by
sin For by the law is the knowledge of sin. But now, the righteousness
of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and
the prophets. Even the righteousness of God, which is by faith of
Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe, for there
is no difference for all that sin to come short of the glory
of God, but being justified freely by His grace through the redemption
that is in Christ Jesus, whom God has set forth to be a propitiation
through faith in his blood to declare his righteousness for
the remission of sins that are passed through the forbearance
of God, to declare, I say it this time, his righteousness,
that he might be just and justifier of him that believeth in Jesus,
whereas boasting, then, it is excluded. By what law? Of works? Nay, but by the law
of faith. Therefore, we conclude that a
man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law. Is he the
God of the Jews only? Is he not also the Gentiles?
Yea, are the Gentiles also. Seeing it is one God shall justify
the circumcision by faith and the uncircumcision through faith.
Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid. We
establish the law. Let us pray. Our Father in heaven,
We are thankful for the clarity of your word, the purity of it,
the wisdom invested therein, which pictures our Lord Jesus
Christ on every page. It teaches us of his great work
and teaches us the reason for it, for your glory and for the
good of your people. It teaches us that we are sinners.
It catalogs all our sin here in this passage. Not one of us
is righteous. Not one of us has done good.
Not one of us in and of ourselves has ever sought God. Lies are
upon our lips. Poison upon our tongues. No fear
of God before our eyes. This is our selves by nature. We know it. For you have taught
us this truth by your spirit. We are thankful that we can report.
through the shed blood of Jesus Christ you are just to justify
those who believe on Jesus Christ those wretched sinners described
in the first 18 verses of this chapter are set forth as justified
because of the blood of Christ honoring the law seeking your faith help us Lord
today to worship you. We remember those who are sick,
those who have been added to the prayer list. Lord, we ask
your help for them. Pray for Tracy Wright, the father,
and she's been diagnosed with this cancer that is incurable. Pray for Bobby and his wife,
Bobby, as they minister to her. Pray for Kathy Robinson, for
Monita Wilson, for the others who requested prayer, Lee Parks,
These we ask in the name of Jesus Christ. You know what's in our
heart and what's in our minds. It's almost as if we would say,
Lord, forgive us for what we're about to say. We know your will
will be done, and that's what we desire. But inward in our
hearts, we also desire their healing, their strengthening,
and bring them back to a good measure of health. Thou knowest.
Help us now, Father, to remember these folks. Remember each other
in prayer. cause us to call out each other's
names, help us to think on the things of God and not the things
of this earth. Help us, Father, we pray to worship
you in spirit and in truth. We pray in Christ's name. Amen. Complete in thee ? Complete in Thee, no work of
mine ? May take, dear Lord, the place of Thine ? Thy blood hath
pardoned not for me ? And I am now complete in Thee ? Yea, justified,
O blessed Lord ? And sanctified salvation wrought ? ? Thy blood
hath pardoned both o'er me ? ? And glorified mine too shall be ?
? Complete in thee no more shall sin ? ? Thy grace hath conquered
pain within ? the tempter flee, and I shall stand complete in
thee. Yea, justified, O blessed God,
and sanctified, salvation wrought, thy blood have poured. Each wants a plight, and no good
thing to be denied. Since Thou my portion, Lord,
wilt be, I ask no more complete in Thee. Yea, justify no blessed
thought, and sanctify salvation wrought. God hath pardoned, God
for me, and glorified I too shall be. Dear Savior, when before
Thy bar, all tribes and tongues assembled are, among Thy chosen
will I be. ? And complete in thee ? ? Yea,
justified, O blessed thought ? ? And sanctified, salvation
wrought ? ? Thy blood hath poured forth for me ? ? And glorified
I too shall be ? Steven Stan to receive the office
this morning, please. Let us pray. Father, again we
approach in the name of Jesus Christ, our blessed Savior, who
is the ultimate, wondrous, and unspeakable gift that you have
given to your children, and with him you have given them all things. As we return unto thee that which
belongs to you, that which you have freely given us, let us
do so with joy in our hearts. We pray in Christ's name. Amen. you you so Scarcely can one preach the grace
of God, the free and sovereign grace of God. Upon doing so,
he is not encountered by the enemies of the gospel and accused
of many things. I have often said that if a person
preaches the grace of God and somebody does not call him an
antinomian, he is probably not preaching right. Paul in verse 8 of this said
this very thing. after setting forth the grace
of God and the salvation of sinners. In chapters 1 and 2, and as we
read the full chapter 3, he says in verse 8, And not rather as
we be slanderously reported, and as some affirm that say we
say, let us do evil that good may come, His damnation is just. What he's saying is, they're
saying if the grace of God is preached, Paul is saying these
folks say of us that we're saying that you ought to sin so grace
can abound. Because grace is given entirely
and completely to the sinner and no one else. In chapter 5
he says this where sin hath abounded, grace did much more bound, or
super-abounded." In this verse, Paul is declaring
back in chapter 3 and verse 8 that he is being slandered by those
who despise the doctrine of grace. The fact that salvation and justification
and sanctification is the sovereign and sole act of the unmerited
favor of God. The manner in which he is being
slandered is two-fold. First, those who oppose the gospel
he preaches accuse him of preaching that people ought to sin that
grace may abound. And secondly, and tied to that
first is that they are accusing Paul of saying that a man's sin
actually glorifies the righteousness of God. and the result of their
thinking the natural course of the pattern of their thoughts
is that Paul is making God to be evil if he punishes anyone
for sin because sin is the source of
his glorification and righteousness that's their argument this is the age-old argument
of self-righteous people that to preach grace pure, sovereign,
effectual grace would open the floodgates of sin. To tell people
that they have absolutely nothing to do with their salvation, that
God chose whom He would save before the foundation of the
world and didn't choose the best of the lot, but the worst of
the lot to save. is anathema to natural religion. The only way that my sin glorifies
God is that it's overcome by grace and does not hinder God's
ability to justify and save me even though I am dead in sin,
drink iniquity like water, come forth from the womb as soon as
I am born, speaking lies, conceived in iniquity, crippled, ruined,
undone, unclean, vile, you name it. You can think of a bad adjective,
that's what I am. That did not and would not and
could not hinder the grace of God. He has received full payment
for my sin by the blood of Jesus Christ at the hands of His dear
Son. I have made a recipient of that
grace. What has primarily caused the
ire of religious men here in this text to slander Paul is
he has put all men in the same boat. The Jews did have certain
advantages. They alone had this book for
thousands of years, and no other person or tribe on the face of
the earth had this book. Over in Romans chapter 9, he
says what advantages they had. He said in verse 4 of chapter
9, Who are Israelites, to whom pertaineth the adoption, and
the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and
the service of God, and the promises, whose are fathers, and of whom,
as concerning the flesh, Christ came, who is over all, Christ
being over all, God, blessed forever, amen. They had great
advantages, and he says this back in this text. He says in
verse 2, Much every way chiefly, because unto them were committed
the oracles of God, that is, the teachings of God. We know
what the Jews thought of the Gentiles, Paul being a Jew thought
of them that way one time himself. They thought them to be dogs
and not God's people, and never COULD be God's people. But Paul
says Jew and Gentile alike are the same. He's PROVED, he said
in verses chapter 1 and chapter 2, he has PROVED that they are
all in the same boat. The Jews, being the object of
natural election as a nation and following the right of circumcision,
declared themselves to be descendants of Abraham and adhered to those
things as tokens of the favor of God, refused to be put in
the same category as this bunch of pagan idolaters, these Gentiles. They cannot and will not accept
the fact that Paul says God has asserted specifically that these
religious staples have no value. Boy, that's a tough deal. You
tell somebody all this stuff you do has no value in the matter
of salvation. None whatsoever. You're going
to raise somebody's ire. Paul tells them indeed the dead
have advantages over people. They were given the word of God,
but through unbelief and disregard for the message of which throughout
declares the coming of the Savior, the Messiah, to come and die
in the room instead of His people, and according to Daniel, to put
an end of sin, to finish transgression and bring in everlasting righteousness
and seal the prophecy. He said their advantage had been
squandered, squandered away because they opted for their own obedience
as that which justifies them before God. The first two chapters
Paul puts an end to such things as he declares the gospel, the
power of God unto salvation. Chapter 1 and verse 15. The only
place where the righteousness of God is revealed is not in
a person, not in a human being. It is revealed in the gospel
of the Lord Jesus Christ. I am not ashamed of the gospel,
he said, for it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone
that believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek, to the
Gentile, For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to
faith." Therein, where? In the Gospel. You know nothing
of the righteousness of God, and I'm not talking about His
innate righteousness. I'm talking about the righteousness
revealed in Scripture, and that righteousness is Jesus Christ.
You know nothing of that apart from the Gospel. The Gentiles
did not guide by making themselves gods in chapter 1. The Jews denied God by saying
they kept the law when they did not, by claiming that they were
entitled to the blessings of God because circumcision tied
them to the blessings that God promised Abraham. But in Galatians
chapter 3 we find that those who believe Christ are Abraham's
true seed. The self-righteous always operate
under a sense of entitlement. Read Isaiah 58, read Luke 15
about the Pharisees, Isaiah 58 about those who worship God in
strife. putting chains on people's necks,
heavy burdens on them, not lift a finger to do anything, and
then saying, how come you ain't punished these people? How come
we've done all this and you haven't recognized what we've done? Paul puts an end to such thinking
by making a bold and scandalous statement that shuts both Jew
and Gentile up to the sovereign dispensing grace of God. Verse
28 and 29 of the previous chapter says, For he is not a Jew, which
is one outwardly, neither is he of the circumcisions. That's
two things that were really important there. Because that circumcision is
actually of the flesh, it's outward of the flesh. But he is a Jew,
which is one inwardly, and circumcision is that of the heart, and in
the spirit, and in the letter, and not in the letter, and whose
praise is not of men, but of God. He's saying true circumcision
is something else other than physical circumcision. Paul said
it this way in Philippians chapter three, we are the circumcision.
He was talking to Gentiles, Philippians. We are the circumcision who worship
God in the Spirit, who rejoice in Christ Jesus and have no confidence
in the flesh, have no confidence in the flesh. To the world, even to our flesh, as children of God who are both
spirit and flesh, the declaration of salvation and justification
and sanctification is by the grace alone of God and it is
to our flesh. Scandalous! That is the title
of my message, Scandalous Grace. It is a scandal! Our flesh resists
this completely. Think with me for a bit of the
grace of God. The word grace means, and you
know this, unmerited favor. That means God shows you favor
though you could never merit it. That means you could do nothing
to get it. You could do nothing to keep
it from coming. It's unmerited. That means simply that if you
receive grace, you had nothing to do with receiving it at all.
It means that no matter how vile and corrupt you might be, how
far you've delved into the depths of your own depravity, that your
sin cannot stop the grace of God. It means that though you
are a believer and saved by grace, there remains in you a wickedness
that, if displayed or known, would be worthy of ten thousand
hells and is yet no hindrance to the grace of God. It means
that though you may be morally upright and obedient and a good
citizen, that you pray and give and study the Word of God, that
has nothing to do with you receiving grace. It means that though you might
steal another man's wife, get her pregnant, get her husband
murdered, you may do all that while at the same time being
shown favor by God and being the apple of his eye and a man
after his own heart. That's David. That's what he
did. God never changed toward David.
He loved him. It means that you and I have
been graced by God and yet you deny him uh... deny him thrice
and having been delivered by the grace of God you go on and
turn your back on the recipients of grace and side up with those
who hate the grace of God as Paul did at Antioch and outside
the temple when he denied Christ three times what was and I mean Peter what
was Peter a recipient of the grace of God in fact Paul zoned in on that
when Paul faced him face-to-face, eyeball-to-eyeball, and said,
you despise the grace of God. You despise the grace of God,
because you're saying these Gentiles aren't the same as these Judaizers
that are coming in. You left the fellowship of these
Gentiles who were saved by grace and never knew anything about
the law, and you moved because these Judaizers were talking
about circumcision. That's the way you was raised, and you went
back to that thing. He said, that's despising the grace of
God. Because the fact is, whether you are circumcised or uncircumcised,
grace isn't hindered in saving you whatsoever. The fact is that our flesh even
now resists the idea of grace because we weigh grace in the
light of our own selves or our perceived notion of what a Christian
ought to be, which is usually based on how we extreme our own
worthiness. Somewhere in the deep recesses of our minds and
hearts, we've set up a scale, a measuring stick of our notion
of our own righteousness, and when we look at that, grace is
scandalous. With grace, what goes around
doesn't come around. Grace is the sovereign act of
God whereby He chooses, selects, severs, picks out, the vilest
of the vile, to be objects of His mercy, never considering
what they are, and the world and its natural religion sees
that as scandalous, and declares that if grace is preached in
such a manner, men will abuse it." Well, of course they will
abuse it. There are people who abuse it
every day. Men will abuse it anyway. But the true abuse of
it will be at the hands of those whom, even in the minutest detail,
seek to qualify grace by anything that either precedes it or follows
it, whether it's merit or responsibility. It doesn't have anything to do
with grace. Grace, true grace, pure, sovereign grace, is impossible
to believe apart from the work of grace. And even then, the
believer struggles to accept the fact that his salvation has
nothing to do with anything but God's free, unmerited favor.
Our flesh struggles against that. Our spirit does not, thank God.
But our flesh does. We wouldn't be so judgmental
if that weren't the case. We just wouldn't be. Why is grace
scandalous to the mind? Several things. Grace is scandalous
to the mind because it makes no distinction among men except
that it is exercised solely by God's choice. There's no distinction.
Who maketh thee to differ from another? And what is thou that
hast not received? And if you have received it, why do you
boast that you have not received it? race, color, creed, or religion,
morality or immorality, Jew or Greek, bond or free, Scythian
or barbarian, tribal or independent, moral or profligate, liberal
or conservative, republic or democrat, dictator or slave,
prince or pauper, or no consequences in who receives the grace of
God. He said to Moses that his glory involved this, that he
will be merciful on whom he will be merciful. gracious unto whom
ye will be gracious and Paul adds in Romans 9 and whom ye
will ye hardly. Men and women want their uniqueness
to matter. That's what people preach. There's
only one like you. No, everybody's like you. And
you like everybody. It's just so. We want to be unique. One person in this latest mess
that's going on says, God doesn't make mistakes. And that person
is, according to scripture, a pervert. And I thought, well, no he doesn't.
Evidently, if you say that, you must be of the lump of clay that's
made to use and throw away. I had a friend, a dear friend,
a dear friend. I loved him. I loved him. He
was just a little boy. He was a homosexual. I preached his funeral. There's
only two people there at the funeral. Well, three, counting
me. His family betrayed him, wouldn't
do anything to do with it. He asked me one time, he said, do
you think my proclivity is a choice? I said, you better hope it is.
I said, because if it's a choice, there's a chance of repentance.
If it's not a choice, if God made you that way, he made you
that way to destroy you. or the same lump makes one vessel into
honor and another into dishonor. What if God, willing to show
his wrath and make his power known and endure much long-suffering,
the vessels fitted to destruction in order to show glory, show
favor and grace to those whom he's before prepared to glory?
What if God did that? Well, he did that. Men want to be unique. We're
not. We're just part of a morass.
a cesspool called humanity. Grace, secondly, is scandalous
to the mind because it puts all humanity on the exact same level
as deserving the wrath of God and eternal punishment. Verse 9 of this text says, What
then? Are we better than they? No,
in no wise, for we before have proved, both Jew and Gentiles,
they're all under sin. Men and women cannot believe
that their philanthropy is the same as pedophilia before a thrice
holy God. That can't be. It is. Because all of it comes
from sin. They just can't believe that.
They can't accept that. But it's so. Scandalous to think
so. Isn't that scandalous? I said
that outside these walls, I'll be shot for saying something
like that, but it's true. Thirdly, grace is scandalous to the mind
because religious heritage is of no value whatsoever. These
claim to be Abraham's seed. Many claim to be a Christian
or so-called Christian because their mom and dad were Christian
because their granddaddies were Christian, or grandmothers were
Christian. Surely the fact that I've been raised and in practice
the religion of my fathers carries some weight. It means nothing. Even a believer who has done
all his duty must account that it adds up to zero. That's what
our Lord said. When you've done all you can
do, declare yourself to be most unprofitable. Surely it can't mean that it
does. And to the mind That's scandalous. Grace is scandalous because it
declares all humanity to be utter rebels and sinners against God. They, we, by nature and birth
are unrighteous and ignorant and bad. We're lying snakes and
vipers who destroy everything we touch. That's how we're described
in verses 10 through 18 in this chapter. Our lips are liars. Our tongue
is full of deceit. What we speak is poison. We don't
fear God. No peace in our life. Have you
ever seen a less peaceful world than the one just right now?
No peace before God. Even in religion, people are
just angry. They want to kill everybody. None righteous. How many? None. There's none that doeth good.
How many? None? There's none that seeketh
after God. How many? None? None? We're all rebels. And yet God, according to His will and good
pleasure, which he always does, has favored the like of us. Humanity cannot look at this
description and see themselves. They must assign the description
to others who they hold in low esteem. But even if they do see
themselves as humanity, as here described, it still has no play
in the grace of God. Even if you see that this speaks
of you, that don't make you fit for the grace of God. Your fitness
has nothing to do with it. Grace is scandalous to the mind
because it is a description of the recipients. This is the description
of the recipients of grace. grace is scandalous to the mind
because it's not bestowed on anyone who abides by the law.
That's what he says in chapter three verses nineteen and twenty.
For whatsoever the law saith, it saith them that are under
the law, that every mouth might be stopped, and the whole world
become guilty before God. Therefore by the deeds of righteousness
shall no flesh be justified. The law reveals sin. He said,
I had known sin except for the law. And he said this, by the
law is the knowledge of sin. What does that mean? You don't
know you've broken the law unless the law's been put in place.
How can you? No law exists. There's no sin.
But you understand what sin is because the law is in place.
The law is the knowledge of sin. The law reveals sin and keeping
it does not change the sinner or put it away. There is no righteousness
to be had by the law on any level. This is scandalous to think that
if I follow the Ten Commandments that it counts for nothing, but
that's exactly what it is. It does count for something.
It counts to shut your mouth and counts you as absolutely
guilty before God. That's what it counts for, but
it has no part in the grace of God. Grace is scandalous because it
declares that if you are saved, it is wholly on the merits of
the person of Jesus Christ. I'll go to heaven on somebody
else's merit, not my own, because I have done. Not your will, or your supposed
righteousness, not your decision, or your tears, or your mourning,
or your obedience to the law has anything to do with your
salvation by Jesus Christ. You see, it's unmerited favor. Your salvation was merited by
somebody else doing something for you. Because you couldn't do anything
for yourself. Dead men can do nothing. It's by His merit. That's what
it says in this chapter in verses 21 through 26. through faith in his blood that
God sent forth to be a satisfaction, a propitiation for sin. Further it is scandalous to the
mind because God declares that he is righteous in the bestowing
of grace to such that cannot on any level or any degree deserve
it. Think about that. God twice declares
his righteousness in the last part of this chapter in the salvation
of sinners. He declares his righteousness.
Talk to most folks They see good people and they see bad people.
And if God says one of these people they think is a good people,
they think, well, that makes sense. But then you go to the gutter
drunk or the whore. And God sees that person and
says, that person and this other person are exactly the same.
That doesn't sit right with people. It doesn't sit right with people. Finally, grace is scandalous
to the mind because there is no room EVER, EVER on any level
for boasting if God has shown you grace. Now most people who
hear people talk of sovereign grace of God or electing grace,
predestinating grace, all these things say, Well, you think you're
special. They don't know anything about grace. is granted the knowledge of God's
grace, by grace, what he finds out is that he is nothing and
could never have deserved it. To our flesh, to the natural
mind, to false religion, this is a scandal. And that's why we preach it.
Father, bless us through our understanding, we pray in Christ's
name, amen. Yeah.