What Is God Doing? – Part 2
Luke 1:57-80
September 24, 2017

It is a little regrettable how the time fell for our study of this particular text.
With our Disciple Now falling last weekend, it has caused us to have to wait two weeks to finish this text, and that is tough because it is a pretty complex passage.

This morning, let’s see if we can’t quickly get our minds back into focus
So that we can accurately grasp the rest of this passage.

We have moved forward in Luke’s gospel.
• We’ve had the birth announcements
• We’ve had a baby shower

Now it’s time to see the birth of these two babies.
• The first is John the Baptist
• The second is Jesus the Christ

And when we broke down this text two weeks ago
We did so into two main points.

#1 THE QUESTION
Luke 1:57-66

While looking at the question we merely saw that
God had done a lot of peculiar things in and around the birth of John.

• It started with an angelic messenger (hadn’t happened in over 400 years)
• Next came the deafness and muteness of Zacharias
• Then came the near impossible pregnancy of Elizabeth
• Then came the bizarre naming of John
• Then came the miraculous healing of Zacharias

All of those things were uncommon to say the least,
And they all culminated in a social stir
That was sweeping across the country side.

In fact, we read in verse 66 the question:
(66) “All who heard them kept them in mind, saying, “What then will this child turn out to be?” For the hand of the Lord was certainly with him.”

In a specific sense the people wanted to know
The particulars about this new baby John.

But in reality the question was much larger than that.
Their question was: WHAT IS GOD DOING?

These people had just endured a PERIOD OF SILENCE
That had lasted over 400 years.

• No new revelation
• No angelic visions
• No prophetic announcements

The Old Testament closed with the promise of a coming Messiah and a forerunner to go before Him and then the people waited.

Now, we also noted that while the vast majority of Jews in that day
Had grown legalistic and apathetic in regard to the things of God,
THERE WAS A SMALL FAITHFUL REMNANT WHICH REMAINED.

• This remnant was those who feared the Lord.
• This remnant was the humble; those who were poor in spirit.
• Those who epitomized the attitude of that 106th Psalm we read.

Remember that Psalm?
It is where the Psalmist outlined the continual sinfulness and rebellion of Israel and then said:

Psalms 106:6 “We have sinned like our fathers, We have committed iniquity, we have behaved wickedly.”

That Psalm was written by a man
Who saw the continual rebellion of his ancestors.

But he also saw that regardless of the degree of their rebellion God never failed to show mercy when they humbled themselves before Him.

And this Psalmist, understanding his own wickedness,
Is now pleading for that same mercy.

Psalms 106:47 “Save us, O LORD our God, And gather us from among the nations, To give thanks to Your holy name And glory in Your praise.”

And we said that this Psalm could have been the battle cry
For that faithful remnant that was currently living in Israel.

Here they were Jews, living under Roman oppression, enduring the silence of God, and waiting for the promised Messiah.
Psalms 106 had become the battle cry of this small faithful remnant.

We know that because it is from that Psalm that Zacharias quoted in his answer.

SO… you have hear a group of humble, God-fearing Jews, who are seeking God, and when they see the peculiar events surrounding the birth of John they can’t help but ask: WHAT IS GOD UP TO?

What is God doing?
Their anticipation is at an all-time high.

The Question
#2 THE ANSWER
Luke 1:67-80

And we started this portion, but we didn’t finish.
If you will remember, we talked about how
A person could give quite a detailed outline to this answer if he wanted to.

In Zacharias’ response we have
• A General Answer (to the question, “What is God doing?”)
• A Specific Answer (to the question, “What then will this child turn out to be?”)

We began looking at the general answer.

And in that general answer we noted that Zacharias changed tenses as he answered.
• He started in the past tense (67-71)
• He moved to the present tense (72-75)

Zacharias wanted the people to know that it wasn’t just what God was going to do, but that God had in fact already been at work.

“He has visited us”
• This of course references those two angelic messengers.

“He has…accomplished redemption for His people”
• This of course references the conception of the Christ and God’s intention to save His people from their sins.

“He…has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of David His servant – as He spoke by the mouth of His holy prophets from of old – Salvation from our enemies, and from the hand of all who hate us.”
• And again, Zacharias references that in sending this Christ Child, God is sending the One the prophets spoke of.

He is sending that powerful “horn” who will sit on David’s thrown,
And will deliver us from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us.
Which of course was the plea of Psalms 106.

So the people wanted to know what God was doing, and the first thing Zacharias says is, “Let me tell you what He has already done!”
• He has visited us
• He has redeemed us
• He has raised up our Savior
• He has fulfilled His promises

In short, God has started the process of salvation!

And we saw all of that last time.
THIS MORNING we move forward as Zacharias has more to reveal.
We saw the past tense, now we move into the present.

NOW WE SEE WHAT GOD IS DOING.

(72-75) “To show mercy toward our fathers, And to remember His holy covenant, The oath which He swore to Abraham our father, To grant us that we, being rescued from the hand of our enemies, Might serve Him without fear, In holiness and righteousness before Him all our days.”

And again if we simply want to follow the verbs,
We can identify it pretty quickly.

He is:
• SHOWING (72) “To show mercy toward our fathers”
• REMEMBERING (72-73) “to remember His holy covenant, the oath which He swore to Abraham our father.”
• GRANTING (74) “to grant us that we, being rescued…might serve Him without fear in holiness and righteousness”

Let’s look at the first.

(72) “To show mercy toward our fathers”

What Zacharias is referring to here are those promises
That God had made through the mouth of His prophets.

God had promised to raise up a horn of salvation
Who would save us from our enemies (Psalms 106)
And Zacharias recognized that that was a merciful promise.

WHY?
Because we read Psalm 106 and we saw how wicked Israel was.
We saw their rebellion.

Things like:
• Grumbling at the Red Sea
• The Rebellion of the Golden Calf
• The Complaining at the waters of Meribah
• The Moabite rebellion and affair
• The Refusal to enter the Promised Land
• The Refusal to cleanse the Promised Land

One thing I know is that
If God did decide to remember His covenant with the “fathers”
It wouldn’t be done out of obligation, it would be pure mercy.

And that is what Zacharias point out.
GOD WAS BEING MERCIFUL
God was Hosea, welcoming back His wayward wife Gomer.

And this mercy, was clearly seen in that second verb.
“And to remember His holy covenant, the oath which He swore to Abraham our father,”

And surely you remember that promise.
It was THE promise as far as all Israel was concerned.

Genesis 12:2-3 “And I will make you a great nation, And I will bless you, And make your name great; And so you shall be a blessing; And I will bless those who bless you, And the one who curses you I will curse. And in you all the families of the earth will be blessed.”

Genesis 13:14-16 “The LORD said to Abram, after Lot had separated from him, “Now lift up your eyes and look from the place where you are, northward and southward and eastward and westward; for all the land which you see, I will give it to you and to your descendants forever. “I will make your descendants as the dust of the earth, so that if anyone can number the dust of the earth, then your descendants can also be numbered.”

Genesis 14:19-20 “He blessed him and said, “Blessed be Abram of God Most High, Possessor of heaven and earth; And blessed be God Most High, Who has delivered your enemies into your hand.”

Genesis 15:5 “And He took him outside and said, “Now look toward the heavens, and count the stars, if you are able to count them.” And He said to him, “So shall your descendants be.”

And of course it was there that God struck a covenant with Abram.
• It was the promise that Abraham’s descendants would always be God’s chosen people.
• It was the promise that He would never leave them or forsake them, but would always be present to rescue and deliver them.

And now according to Zacharias, God was honoring that promise.
God was remaining faithful to His word.

He didn’t have to, but He chose to.
In His mercy, He was choosing to go ahead
And honor the promise He made to Abraham.

And the consequences of that promise are what is seen next.

(74-75) “To grant us that we, being rescued from the hand of our enemies,
Might serve Him without fear, In holiness and righteousness before Him all our days.”

This is specifically what Zacharias sees being fulfilled.

For all those who had the desire to serve God in holiness,
They should rejoice, for God is granting that promise.

And I think that is important to understand.

I think this is one of the reasons Luke includes this passage
Where other gospel writers don’t.

AGAIN, Luke is all about revealing these “poor in spirit” people
As he reveals the type of people that God accepts
And the type of people that God uses.

DO YOU SEE THE DESIRE THESE “poor in spirit” PEOPLE HAVE?

Zacharias DIDN’T say: “Finally, One is coming who will grant that we can once again be the preeminent nation in the world! We can finally get out of this cesspool! Prosperity is on it’s way!”

That wasn’t what Zacharias wanted.
His economic state was not what grieved him most in life.

WHAT DID ZACHARIAS WANT?
He wanted to be able to better serve God.

Specifically, he wanted to be able to serve God “without fear, in holiness and righteousness before Him all our days.”

That is to say:
• He wanted to serve God CONFIDENTLY (without fear)
• He wanted to serve God PERFECTLY (in holiness and righteousness)
• He wanted to serve God ETERNALLY (all our days)

LUKE IS MAKING SURE YOU UNDERSTAND
THE HEART DESIRE OF THE POOR IN SPIRIT.

For all those who just wanted deliverance from Rome,
Jesus was not going to be what they wanted.

But for those whose sole desire was to “serve Him without fear, in holiness and righteousness before Him” Jesus was going to be exactly what they wanted.

AND THAT IS A GREAT REMINDER TO US ALL.
In a world that tends to look upon Jesus as more of a cosmic genie who grants wishes and fulfills desires,
You certainly need to understand what He came to do.

He came to make men holy
That they might serve God without fear forever.

Think about it.
All they ever knew of God was fear.

Do you remember the picture on Sinai?
The earthquake, the fire, the smoke…

Do you remember what happened when someone touched the Ark of the Covenant?

Do you remember what happened if someone tried to enter inside the veil?

If you learned nothing of God in the O.T., you learned to fear Him.
It was a steady diet of you’d better not mess up or else!

And consider a priest like Zacharias.
Here was a man whose very livelihood was to serve God in His temple.

Do you think he had much fear involved when he would embark upon that service?

Do you think he had heard of Hophni and Phineas and how fire from the altar had devoured them?

Zacharias served the Lord, but I promise he didn’t do it without fear.
Because he was not acceptable to God as he was.

And yet, Zacharias knew that God was sending One
Who would make him holy and who would make him righteous
And who would make him acceptable
So that he could serve God without fear.

SO DO YOU UNDERSTAND WHY THEY WERE EXCITED TO HAVE JESUS?
• It wasn’t so they could get rich…
• It wasn’t so they could get healed…
• It wasn’t so they could go to heaven…
• It wasn’t so they could have good days…

Zacharias was excited because God was sending the One
Who would equip him to serve God better.

Jesus makes us acceptable to the Father.
Jesus allows us to serve God perfectly.

Is that not what Paul said in Romans 12 after outlining for us the redemption that was found in Jesus?
Romans 12:1 “Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.”

Can you see that Zacharias was saying the same thing?
God has been merciful to us
God is making a way for us to serve Him better
So when these people ask what God is doing,
Zacharias first gives them a general answer.

He is sending the Savior who will allow us
To serve God without fear and in holiness, just like He said!

Now that was the general answer.
LET’S LOOK AT THE SPECIFIC ANSWER.

The specific question was:
(66) “What then will this child turn out to be?”

Well, here is the answer to that specific question.
(76-79) “And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High; For you will go on BEFORE THE LORD TO PREPARE HIS WAYS; To give to His people the knowledge of salvation By the forgiveness of their sins, Because of the tender mercy of our God, With which the Sunrise from on high will visit us, TO SHINE UPON THOSE WHO SIT IN DARKNESS AND THE SHADOW OF DEATH, To guide our feet into the way of peace.”

Now first, let me direct your attention to verses 78-79, because in those verses Zacharias once again speaks of the blessing of the coming Messiah.

Because of the mercy of God, “the Sunrise from on high will visit us, to shine upon those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.”

There Zacharias gives us three people with 3 kinds of problems.

• We have IGNORANT PEOPLE who “sit in darkness” which is to say they don’t know.
• We have HOPELESS PEOPLE who sit in “the shadow of death” where there is no hope.
• We have LOST PEOPLE who don’t know where they are headed and who need someone to “guide our feet into the way of peace.”

And the Messiah is going to accomplish all of that.
• He is going to be truth to the ignorant.
• He is going to be hope to the hopeless.
• He is going to be direction to the lost.

In other words, He is going to be LIGHT

Now the other gospel writers certainly picked up on that analogy.
Matthew 4:12-16 “Now when Jesus heard that John had been taken into custody, He withdrew into Galilee; and leaving Nazareth, He came and settled in Capernaum, which is by the sea, in the region of Zebulun and Naphtali. This was to fulfill what was spoken through Isaiah the prophet: “THE LAND OF ZEBULUN AND THE LAND OF NAPHTALI, BY THE WAY OF THE SEA, BEYOND THE JORDAN, GALILEE OF THE GENTILES — “THE PEOPLE WHO WERE SITTING IN DARKNESS SAW A GREAT LIGHT, AND THOSE WHO WERE SITTING IN THE LAND AND SHADOW OF DEATH, UPON THEM A LIGHT DAWNED.”

John 1:9 “There was the true Light which, coming into the world, enlightens every man.”

John 8:12 “Then Jesus again spoke to them, saying, “I am the Light of the world; he who follows Me will not walk in the darkness, but will have the Light of life.”

That is a popular analogy regarding Jesus.

But REMEMBER, Luke is seeking to show you how Jesus is the expected One by linking His coming to the Old Testament.

So when Luke talks about Jesus as the light, he refers to Him as “the Sunrise from on high”

Malachi 4:1-2 “For behold, the day is coming, burning like a furnace; and all the arrogant and every evildoer will be chaff; and the day that is coming will set them ablaze,” says the LORD of hosts, “so that it will leave them neither root nor branch.” “But for you who fear My name, the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its wings; and you will go forth and skip about like calves from the stall.”

Specifically, Jesus is that “sun of righteousness”
Who is coming to those “who fear My name”.

• For all of those people who walk in fear of God and have no peace because they know that they are unworthy to stand before Him.

• For all of those people who have wandered in the darkness seeking to know more of God in His silence.

• For all of those people who have seen the utter hopelessness in all their efforts and attempts to be pleasing.

Zacharias wants you to know that God is sending the One
Who will bring light into the darkness.

He will give you truth
He will give you hope
He will give you peace

And certainly everyone should be excited for the coming of such a one.

But again, the problem is that not everyone is ready for Him.

And that brings us to the purpose of this baby.
(76-77) “And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High; For you will go on BEFORE THE LORD TO PREPARE HIS WAYS; To give to His people the knowledge of salvation By the forgiveness of their sins,”

So now we finally get to the specific answer of the question.
• What is up with this child?
• What is God doing through him?

First look at who he is.
“And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High”

He is not called “a prophet”, but “the prophet”

He is a specific character in the plan,
Not just one of many whom God will use.

This is the one Malachi spoke of.
Malachi 4:5-6 “Behold, I am going to send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and terrible day of the LORD. “He will restore the hearts of the fathers to their children and the hearts of the children to their fathers, so that I will not come and smite the land with a curse.”

This is the one coming before that Savior.

And again, I remind you that the presence of John the Baptist overwhelmingly teaches us 1 thing.

YOU, AS YOU ARE, ARE NOT FIT TO APPROACH JESUS

It has been a reoccurring theme especially in contemporary Christian music to sort of play this card that you come to Jesus “just as you are”.

It is this idea that there is no change needed at all, you can just approach Jesus and He will accept you in whatever state.

I think I’d like to clarify that.
Because if that were true, then there was no need for John the Baptist.

Zacharias was clear here about the purpose of John.
“For you will go on BEFORE THE LORD, TO PREPARE HIS WAYS; To give to His people the knowledge of salvation By the forgiveness of their sins.”

John had to primary jobs.
1) To PREPARE the way for the Lord.
2) To PROCLAIM salvation through forgiveness.

Now, if people were already acceptable, “just as they are”,
• Then why did Malachi warn that no one would be able to endure His coming?
• And why did God send John the Baptist to “prepare His ways”?
• And why did people need to first repent?

Are you following me here?

Here is the reality, Jesus accepts sinners.
Even filthy, rotten, vile, unthinkable sinners
In fact, He has to, because that’s what everyone is.

He’s the only One who can transform sinners and makes them righteous.
So no amount of sin disqualifies a person
From being able to approach Jesus.

But let me emphatically tell you who is NOT acceptable to Jesus.
THOSE WHO LOVE THEIR SIN.

Sinners have always been welcome to Jesus,
Those who love their sin are not.

Do you remember the beatitudes?
Matthew 5:3-6 “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. “Blessed are the gentle, for they shall inherit the earth. “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.”

These were the type of people who were acceptable to Jesus.
• It wasn’t sinless people, it was people who mourned over their sin.
• It wasn’t righteous people, it was people who longed for righteousness.
• It wasn’t good people, it was submissive people.
• It wasn’t religious people, it was humble people.

What “come just as you are” means is that
You can come in your filthy sinful state
So long as you are humble, and meek, and you hate your sin
And you hunger for righteousness.

But those who refuse to come like that cannot come to Jesus.
In fact Malachi said they would not be able to endure His coming.

And that isn’t some isolated verse.
John 3:19-21 “This is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil. “For everyone who does evil hates the Light, and does not come to the Light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. “But he who practices the truth comes to the Light, so that his deeds may be manifested as having been wrought in God.”

John 8:21 “Then He said again to them, “I go away, and you will seek Me, and will die in your sin; where I am going, you cannot come.”

The idea there is that they were unwilling to part with their sin in this life,
And in such a state they were not able to come to Jesus.

Matthew 7:21-23 “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter. “Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?’ “And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; DEPART FROM ME, YOU WHO PRACTICE LAWLESSNESS.’”

Religious works are not a substitute for humility and repentance.

Do you understand what we are saying?
You are welcome to come to Jesus,
But not if you want to keep your sin when you come.

That was the very purpose and reason for John the Baptist.

He came to “PREPARE HIS WAYS”
• That is, he came to expose the sin of the people and lead them to repentance
that they might be humble and ready for Christ.

He came to give them “the knowledge of salvation”
• That is, John pushed them to Jesus.

• John didn’t come to make you acceptable to God, only Jesus
could do that.
• John didn’t come to try and make Jesus acceptable to you.
• JOHN CAME TO MAKE SURE YOU WERE READY FOR JESUS.

He came to show you your sin and show you your condemnation.
He came to break your pride, and expose your darkness.

So that on the day when this Messiah would walk by
John could then emphatically say,
“Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!”

And you would desire Him!

What is God doing?
What will this child grow up to be?

• God has visited us, He has accomplished redemption for us, He has raised up a Savior for us from the line of David just like He promised to all the descendants of Abraham.

• This Savior will make us righteous and holy and able to serve God without fear. He will be light in the midst of darkness and will give us hope and guide us to peace.

• And in order to make us ready for Him, God has first sent John, who will proclaim the truth, and confront our sin so that we will be ready for this coming Savior.

(80) “And the child continued to grow and to become strong in spirit, and he lived in the deserts until the day of his public appearance to Israel.”

And with that friend let me encourage you.
Christ is the One who can equip you to serve God without fear,
But don’t assume you can come to Him will clinging to all your sin.

Repent of your sin, approach Him in humility,
And He will equip you to serve God.

What Is God Doing? – Part 1
Luke 1:57-80 (57-71)
September 10, 2017

Well this morning we are moving forward in our study of Luke’s Gospel.
• At this point we’ve seen two birth announcements and one baby shower.
• Now it is time to look at the birth of these two babies who were supernaturally announced.

First we get the birth of John the Baptist and then the birth of Jesus.

We are calling our study of Luke’s gospel “The History of Redemption”
And that because it seems very important to Luke (who was a historian)
To make sure and connect the Old Testament with what he is writing here.

And this part of the story is no different.

So before we dive into our text this morning
I think it is important for you to understand some background.

Namely, you need to understand the MINDSET of the people
Who are participating in this part of the story.

TURN TO: Psalms 106
• Psalms 106 can read like a very frustrating Psalm.
• In fact, in my margin I have it titled as “Israel’s Sin Hall of Fame”
• What it really is however is a cry for salvation from the perspective of those who are truly poor in spirit.

We talk about the importance of this attitude in our lives.
Matthew 5:3 “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

That being of course the first beatitude listed in the Sermon on the Mount,
And a tremendous reminder that no one is ever saved
Until they first come to grips with their extreme spiritual poverty.

• Until you grasp how filthy you are…
• Until you grasp how little you have to offer God…
• Until you grasp how spiritually destitute you are…
• You are not ready to seek the salvation which lies only in the pure grace
of God.

Being “poor in spirit” is essential to being saved.

Now you also know that this attitude of “poor in spirit”
Has been the very attitude which Luke has seemed to be highlighting.

We’ve seen Zacharias… We’ve seen Elizabeth… We’ve seen Mary…
These all come from that same mold of being insignificant in the world,
But those who are humble for God, and thus useable by Him.

Luke has definitely been highlighting those who are “poor in spirit”

Well that is precisely the mindset behind Psalms 106.

You recognize immediately that this Psalm is indeed A Cry For Salvation.
(READ 1-5)
• The Psalmist is praising the mercy of God…
• The Psalmist is acknowledging the power of God…
• The Psalmist understands the necessity of pleasing God…

And then in verses 4-5 he actually asks for God’s salvation.
“Visit me with Your salvation”

WHY DOES HE WANT TO BE SAVED?
(5) “That I may see the prosperity of Your chosen ones, That I may rejoice in the gladness of Your nation, That I may glory with Your inheritance.”

And so next we see that fundamental attitude of being “poor in spirit”

Trust me when I tell you that THIS PSALMIST GETS IT.
For verses 6-43 chronicle the continual pattern of sin
That has existed throughout the history of Israel.
(That’s why you can call it Israel’s Sin Hall of Fame)

And you will notice that this Psalmist recognizes that
He is just as sinful as his fathers were.

(6) “We have sinned like our fathers, We have committed iniquity, we have behaved wickedly.”

This is isn’t some lament about how bad his ancestors were.
This is a lament because he recognizes that
He doesn’t deserve salvation any more than they did.

And then he carries us through a quick list of just how wicked they were.

FIRST – Israel’s rebellion during the Exodus and God’s mercy to save them anyway. (READ 6-12)

SECOND – Israel’s lack of contentment with manna in the wilderness and God’s plague upon them (READ 13-15)

THIRD – Israel’s rebellion against Moses and God’s judgment that followed. (READ 16-18)

FOURTH – Israel’s building of a golden calf and inciting God to anger.
(READ 19-23)

FIFTH – Israel’s refusal to enter the Promised Land and subsequent death in the wilderness (READ 24-27)

SIXTH – Israel’s treaty with the Moabites under the influence of Balaam and the plague that came with it (READ 28-31)

SEVENTH – Israel’s grumbling about having no water and how even Moses stuck the rock and brought punishment on himself (READ 32-33)

EIGHT – Israel’s refusal to totally purify the Promised Land of the Canaanites and how that negatively affected them (READ 34-39)

NINTH – Israel’s continual suffering during the period of the Judges because of their continual rebellion even after their deliverance. (READ 40-43)

And yet, despite all of their rebellion
The Psalmist understands one thing about God.

They could not out-sin God’s mercy.
His mercy was in fact “new every morning”.
(READ 44-46)

• So Israel was super sinful and yet God remained merciful.
• And the Psalmist now says, “And we are just as sinful as they were, but we also are asking for your mercy.”

(READ 47-48)

So hopefully now you understand that Psalm.
• Israel (having been scattered among the nations) is recognizing their wickedness and asking God to once again be merciful and to rescue them.

Now, why do I bring that Psalm up?
Because that Psalm is the exact mindset of the current faithful in Israel.

Certainly that is not the mindset of all Israel,
But it is the mindset of the faithful remnant.

Do you remember what we learned about Israel when we briefly looked at Malachi at the beginning of this study?

Malachi said the Messiah was coming,
But very few people would actually be able to handle His coming.

Malachi 4:1-3 “For behold, the day is coming, burning like a furnace; and all the arrogant and every evildoer will be chaff; and the day that is coming will set them ablaze,” says the LORD of hosts, “so that it will leave them neither root nor branch.” “But for you who fear My name, the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its wings; and you will go forth and skip about like calves from the stall. “You will tread down the wicked, for they will be ashes under the soles of your feet on the day which I am preparing,” says the LORD of hosts.”

Most people were not going to be able to handle the coming of the Lord.
However, there would be a few; “you who fear My name”
Who would not be judged, but who would be saved.

We are talking about that small and yet faithful remnant.
People who fear God.
People who are poor in spirit.

People like Zacharias, Elizabeth, and Mary.

People who, like the Psalmist of Psalm 106,
Know their wretchedness before God
And are crying out for God to be merciful and save them.

This attitude will also be seen in:
Simeon
Luke 2:25 “And there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon; and this man was righteous and devout, looking for the consolation of Israel; and the Holy Spirit was upon him.”

Simeon was “looking for the consolation of Israel”;
Which is to say he was waiting for God’s deliverance of the nation.

We see this attitude again in Anna and those who were in the temple around her:
Luke 2:36-38 “And there was a prophetess, Anna the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was advanced in years and had lived with her husband seven years after her marriage, and then as a widow to the age of eighty-four. She never left the temple, serving night and day with fastings and prayers. At that very moment she came up and began giving thanks to God, and continued to speak of Him to all those who were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem.”

This was when the baby Jesus was brought into the temple, Anna and “all those who were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem” were rejoicing.

These were that small remnant who knew they were sinful.
These were that small remnant who knew they needed mercy.
These were that small remnant who cried out to God for deliverance.

These are the people Luke has been highlighting.

And I simply want you to understand their mood.
Their mood is that which is expressed in Psalms 106.

I know this because in a minute
THAT IS THE PSALM FROM WHICH ZACHARIAS IS GOING TO QUOTE.

There is a remnant of humble, poor in spirit, God-fearing Jews.
(They certainly are not the norm in Israel, but they exist)
And Luke is telling his gospel story through their eyes.

Understand their mood.
• They are humble…
• They are broken…
• They are crying out to God…
• They are longing for deliverance…
• They are longing for salvation…

They are patiently waiting for God to move on their behalf.

Now of course you and I know that God is already moving.
But they didn’t because Zacharias was mute and couldn’t tell them.

In our story this morning this faithful remnant is about to find out.

There are two main points to the text.
#1 THE QUESTION
Luke 1:57-66

This part of the story is given to help you
Understand the background to the question which they ask.

You can see the actual question down in verse 66, “What then will this child turn out to be?”

And of course they ask that “For the hand of the Lord was certainly with him.”

That is what Luke is driving to.
First, he is simply giving you the back-story
So you’ll know why they asked that question.

And there are actually three reasons why they are asking that question.
1) A PECULIAR PREGNANCY (57-58)

“Now the time had come for Elizabeth to give birth, and she gave birth to a son. Her neighbors and her relatives heard that the Lord had displayed His great mercy toward her; and they were rejoicing with her.”

Now of course none of that is surprising to use.
That exactly what Gabriel said would happen.

Luke 1:13-14 “But the angel said to him, “Do not be afraid, Zacharias, for your petition has been heard, and your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you will give him the name John. “You will have joy and gladness, and many will rejoice at his birth.”

We should not be surprised that it is happening just like God said.
• Elizabeth did get pregnant…
• The baby in her womb was a boy…
• And everyone was rejoicing…

Of course you and I know why. IT IS BECAUSE:
“the Lord had displayed His great mercy toward her;”
• She was past the age of child-bearing.
• She was barren.
• She had dealt with the scorn and the shame of this problem.
• But God intervened and made the impossible possible.

And now, that group of faithful and merciful and compassionate friends
Are right here with her to celebrate and rejoice at her big day.
HER SON IS BEING BORN.

The point being that because of the peculiar pregnancy,
You have to understand that curiosity has already been planted
In the minds of the people.

But that’s not all.
2) A PECULIAR NAME (59-63)

“And it happened that on the eighth day they came to circumcise the child, and they were going to call him Zacharias, after his father. But his mother answered and said, “No indeed; but he shall be called John.” And they said to her, “There is no one among your relatives who is called by that name.” And they made signs to his father, as to what he wanted him called. And he asked for a tablet and wrote as follows, “His name is John.” And they were all astonished.”

Elizabeth had a group and intimate set of friends around her.
(they were the kind even willing to name your child for you)

“they were going to call him Zacharias, after his father.”

And this is not only normal and common, but a tremendous statement of respect and even vindication.
• For all those looks…
• For all those people who scorned them…

What better “last laugh” than to send young Zacharias off to school
So that everyone can see that they were wrong?

The plan of the friends here is certainly a positive one.
Beyond that Zacharias means “The Lord Remembers” and that seems like a super fitting name for a child of such remarkable origins.

But it is at this point that Elizabeth shocks them.
“But his mother answered and said, “Not indeed; but he shall be called John.”

Of course by now Zacharias had relayed to Elizabeth
All about the divine mandate and she was totally on board.

The humorous part of the story is the response of the crowd.
(61-62) “And they said to her, “There is no one among your relatives who is called by that name.” And they made signs to his father, as to what he wanted him called.”

It just wasn’t common that you would name a child outside of the family and it is obvious that the crowd thought Elizabeth was overstepping here a little.
So they all run to Zacharias.

• The fact that they had to make “signs” to him indicates that not only was Zacharias mute, but he was also deaf.

(63) “And he asked for a tablet and wrote as follows, “His name is John.” And they were all astonished.”

The point simply being that this was peculiar.
It was already strange that Elizabeth was pregnant
Even more peculiar that they would select a non-family name like John.

And then the final thing sealed the deal.
3) A PECULAR MIRACLE (64-66)

(64-66) “And at once his mouth was opened and his tongue loosed, and he began to speak in praise of God. Fear came on all those living around them; and all these matters were being talked about in all the hill country of Judea. All who heard them kept them in mind, saying, “What then will this child turn out to be?” For the hand of the Lord was certainly with him.”

This crowd might have remained in utter confusion
Were it not for what God did when Zacharias wrote “His name is John.”

“at once his mouth was opened and his tongue was loosed, and he began to speak in praise of God.”

• And remember, the state of muteness and deafness had been the norm now for 9+ months.
• By now people had just settled in with the fact that this was most likely permanent.

So when God opens his mouth the crowd sees a miracle.
The fact that God did it in response to the naming of this child
Caused the crowd to be even more awestruck.

In fact now “Fear came on all those living around them”

WHY? Because it was evident that God was personally involved in a way that they had not known in over 400 years.

And that was big news!
Those people instantly pulled out their smart phones…
And they started lighting up Facebook and twitter and Instagram!

“and all these matters were being talked about in all the hill country of Judea.”

And all of these peculiarities coming together at once
Caused a common question to be asked among the people.

(66) “All who heard them kept them in mind, saying, “What then will this child turn out to be?” For the hand of the Lord was certainly with him.”

• A old barren woman gets pregnant
• And gives birth to a child who is divinely named
• And all of this confirmed by a miracle
• …SURELY GOD IS UP TO SOMETHING.

And the question:
WHAT IS GOD DOING?

It is safe to see that the buzz had finally hit.
Everyone wanted to know what God was up to.

And at the peak of the people’s curiosity the Holy Spirit uses Zacharias to answer.

The Question
#2 THE ANSWER
Luke 1:67-80

Now as you read the answer of Zacharias you can see
THAT THERE ARE A LOT OF VERBS HERE
Indicating that there are a lot of things God is doing.

You also see the word “to” over and over
Nearly every time Zacharias says that God is doing something
• He tells us why God is doing it
• And then why God is doing that
• And then why God is doing that.

If you are an outline type person you could go nuts on these verses.
But let’s try to keep it simple.

First off you can plainly see that
Zacharias in effect gives TWO ANSWERS to the question.

• The people wanted to know “What is God doing?”
• More specifically, they wanted to know “What will this child turn out to be?”

So Zacharias gives a GENERAL ANSWER and a SPECIFIC ANSWER.
He will first tell us what God is doing in general
Then he will specifically answer how God is using this particular child.

What I want to look at first is the GENERAL ANSWER

You ask “What is God doing?”
And Zacharias answers:

(68-75) “Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, For He has visited us and accomplished redemption for His people, And has raised up a horn of salvation for us In the house of David His servant — As He spoke by the mouth of His holy prophets from of old — Salvation FROM OUR ENEMIES, And FROM THE HAND OF ALL WHO HATE US; To show mercy toward our fathers, And to remember His holy covenant, The oath which He swore to Abraham our father, To grant us that we, being rescued from the hand of our enemies, Might serve Him without fear, In holiness and righteousness before Him all our days.”

And as you can see, there is a ton there in regard to what God is doing.

Just look at all the verbs used.
• (68) “He has visited us”
• (68) “and accomplished redemption”
• (69) “raised up a horn of salvation”
• (71) “salvation from our enemies”
• (72) “show mercy”
• (72) “remember His holy covenant”
• (74) “grant us…rescue”

So one could ask what God is doing and WE COULD SAY:
He is visiting, and accomplishing and raising and saving
And showing mercy and remembering and granting rescue.

To put it mildly God is busily at work.

We can also help ourselves by recognizing THE TENSE of those verbs.
Some verbs are past tense, some are present.

So we can divide this out even further.

Let’s look at what Zacharias says GOD HAS DONE

(68-71) “Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, For He has visited us and accomplished redemption for His people, And has raised up a horn of salvation for us In the house of David His servant — As He spoke by the mouth of His holy prophets from of old — Salvation FROM OUR ENEMIES, And FROM THE HAND OF ALL WHO HATE US;”

He “has visited us”
And of course we saw that because of the two angelic announcements from Gabriel.

God had been silent for over 400 years.
• No vision…
• No angelic announcement…
• No prophetic dream…
• God was seemingly silent.

And now Zacharias says that God has broken that silence..
“He has visited us”

And His visit is for a purpose.
He has “accomplished redemption for His people,”

Now of course we understand that the redemption of God is not fully realized until the death of Christ, and even more so until His return,
But you understand that Zacharias is looking with eyes of faith.

The full plan may not yet be fulfilled but the plan has begun
And since Zacharias knows that God finishes what He begins
He can speak of it in past tense.

God has “accomplished redemption for His people”

“redemption” simply means “to buy back”
It carries the idea of those sold into bondage or slavery
And who must have a ransom paid on their behalf before they can be set free.

God’s people had incurred a debt and one which they could not pay off.
GOD WAS IN THE PROCESS OF SATISFYING THAT DEBT.

He had “accomplished redemption”

He was doing that through the sending of His Savior.
(69) “And has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of David his servant”

“horn of salvation” is common Old Testament analogy.

A “horn” represented power,
Like that of an animal’s horn used to crush and scatter the enemy.

1 Samuel 2:10 “Those who contend with the LORD will be shattered; Against them He will thunder in the heavens, The LORD will judge the ends of the earth; And He will give strength to His king, And will exalt the horn of His anointed.”

To fully understand the Messianic implications here:
TURN TO: Psalms 132
It is called “A Song of Ascents” meaning it was a song they sang on their way up to Jerusalem and to the temple during the 3 main feasts of the year.

And you can see from this Psalm that
The cry was that God would meet them there.
They recount David’s love for God and his desire to build God a house. (1-5)
And in the middle of the Psalm they cry for God to join them.

(8) “Arise, O LORD, to Your resting place,
You and the ark of Your strength.”

But this was more than just a symbolic song.
• It was meant to anticipate the coming of David’s descendant. (10-12)
• It was meant to anticipate that “horn” who would reign on David’s throne.

See (13-18)
• This is what Zacharias has in mind.
• God is sending David’s descendant.
• God is sending the “horn of salvation”

God is sending the One who will redeem us.

God is sending the One the prophets continually spoke of:
(70) “As He spoke by the mouth of His holy prophets from of old – Salvation from our enemies, and from the hand of all who hate us;”

And if you recognize it, that quote is taken from Psalms 106
Which we looked at to being. It is actually Psalms 106:10

Psalms 106:6-12 “We have sinned like our fathers, We have committed iniquity, we have behaved wickedly. Our fathers in Egypt did not understand Your wonders; They did not remember Your abundant kindnesses, But rebelled by the sea, at the Red Sea. Nevertheless He saved them for the sake of His name, That He might make His power known. Thus He rebuked the Red Sea and it dried up, And He led them through the deeps, as through the wilderness. So He saved them from the hand of the one who hated them, And redeemed them from the hand of the enemy. The waters covered their adversaries; Not one of them was left. Then they believed His words; They sang His praise.”

That statement was a reference to
God’s decision to save a people who did not deserve it.

• Israel had no sooner been delivered by God than they were already rebelling
against Him at the banks of the Red Sea.

• At that point God would have been more than just in simply letting the
Egyptians have them.

But instead God acted upon His great mercy and provided “Salvation from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us;”

That is what God did in the past.
And Zacharias says that is what God is doing again!
HE IS COMING TO SAVE THOSE WHO ARE HUMBLE AND BROKEN.

So (at least in part) to answer your question.
WHAT IS GOD DOING?

• He is sending His “horn of salvation” to save us from our enemies and redeem us from our slavery!”

• He is sending the One from “the house of David His servant”

• He is sending to us the Savior!

That is what God is doing.

These were a people who were poor in spirit
As they waited and prayed for God to save them.
Zacharias gets the privilege of revealing
That God has begun the process!

Now, there is much more to see in what Zacharias has to say,
BUT THIS MORNING WE ALSO WANT TO COME AND CELEBRATE
The redemption which Zacharias spoke of.

He rejoiced because the Savior was coming.
We rejoice because He came.

• He rejoiced because this “horn of salvation” would crush their enemies.
• We rejoice because this “horn” already did!

Romans 8:1-4 “Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death. For what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did: sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh, so that the requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.”

In that verse Paul speaks of our redemption which is in Christ.
• We were slaves of sin, held captive by our own sinful flesh.
• We had the Law, but it did no good. In fact, it only added to our condemnation.
• But when Christ came, He came as one of us, and He conquered our foe.
• “He condemned sin in the flesh”

What does that mean?
2 Corinthians 5:21 “He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”

He killed sin by breaking its power.
He took our sin upon Himself, bore the penalty, bore the wrath,
And then escaped the death that came with it.

Christ rendered sin and death powerless.
And the victory He won, He has now shares with us.
He took our sin, we take His righteousness.
• It is the very foundation of our faith.
• It is the center of the gospel.
• It is the most important event in the life of the church.

We glory in the cross.
We rest in the substitutionary death of Christ.
• It is there we find forgiveness.
• It is there we find mercy.
• It is there we find freedom.
• It is there we find hope.

And that is why we are told to return there.

1 Corinthians 11:23-26 “For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus in the night in which He was betrayed took bread; and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, “This is My body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of Me.” In the same way He took the cup also after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in My blood; do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me.” For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes.”

We “do this” because we are commanded to always remember the cross
And what Christ accomplished there.

We are also commanded to do this “in a worthy manner”

1 Corinthians 11:27-32 “Therefore whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner, shall be guilty of the body and the blood of the Lord. But a man must examine himself, and in so doing he is to eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For he who eats and drinks, eats and drinks judgment to himself if he does not judge the body rightly. For this reason many among you are weak and sick, and a number sleep. But if we judged ourselves rightly, we would not be judged. But when we are judged, we are disciplined by the Lord so that we will not be condemned along with the world.”

That means that our attitude must be correct when we partake.
And I think Luke has been doing a phenomenal job
Revealing to us exactly what that attitude is.

• We are to be “poor in spirit” humble before God.
• We are to understand that there is nothing in us worthy of salvation
• But that we are all recipients of tremendous mercy.

And so, this morning (as we always do) I’m going to pray
And then we will have A TIME OF PREPARATION

For you to set your mind and your attitude right
As you focus on the victory that was won by our “horn of salvation”

Wrapping Up Sola Gratia
September 10, 2017

Well this evening, we nearly pushed on to the next SOLA which is SOLA FIDE, but as I contemplated it, I just had some nagging issues that I wasn’t quite ready to leave behind just yet.

Call them some loose ends that I felt needed tying up, or call them some fragments handing around my desk that I still wanted to address.

However you want to look at it,
I just wanted to clean up the remaining issues in regard to
The doctrine of SOLA GRATIA before we move on.

That being said, I’m going to apologize in advance for the random feel to this sermon and particularly that we don’t have a specific text to work through as the basis for it.

But as I said, through all the sermons we have had on the doctrines regarding SOLA GRATIA, these were some of the issues that just never seemed to make the cut.

These were issues that did not make it into the conversation of those sermons, but they were issues that I feel are of enough importance that
I don’t’ want to move on without addressing them.

So please forgive the unusual structure as we move forward.

The first issue that I want to address in regard to SOLA GRATIA is:
#1 THE ISSUE OF CHURCH DISCORD

I call it the issue of discord because there is no doubt to me at all that
The doctrines surrounding SOLA GRATIA
Are doctrines that have produced no small amount of division.

In particular when we bring up the issues of election and foreknowledge and actual atonement, the debate has become intense.

And no doubt we have had some (as we always do)
Who would much rather people on both sides just drop the whole argument for the sake of harmony and “unity” in the body.

There are some who see the entire debate
As detrimental to the purpose and work of the church.

They would be those who would state something like this:
“As long as we are all preaching salvation through Jesus, what does it matter?”

And so I just felt the need to address
Why we find it important to proclaim these doctrines
Even though they may in fact bring about a strong debate.

Now the simple cop-out answer would be: “Because it’s the truth!”
But there really needs to be a greater explanation than that.

The reality is that all of those doctrines we have talked about
Come together to enforce 1 truth.

Absolute Inability, Sovereign Election, Effectual Call, Actual Atonement, Preservation of the Saints are really just pieces of the greater message.

Each of those doctrines work together to reveal the main truth
Which is that salvation is by Grace Alone.

That has really been the main point to all of this.
That man is not just saved by grace a lot, but that he is saved by grace alone.

That is what we have been revealing and defending.

And the reality is that when we lose that understanding
We lose the gospel all together.

If you add any human work to the gospel then you lose the gospel.

And that can include massive and obvious perversions
But it also includes the less intrusive and more subtle perversions.
A distortion is a distortion regardless of its size.

What is important for us to understand is that as the church
We must uphold the purity and simplicity of the gospel
And that includes the reality that salvation is by GRACE ALONE.

And this must be done even if it does bring discord.

In fact, that is why we study this doctrine in conjunction with
Our study called 500 years of Reformation.

When we talked about SOLA SCRIPTURA
• We talked some about Luther and Zwingli and Tyndale and Rogers and how these men fought and even died for their belief that Scripture Alone is our standard for truth.

However, we have yet to link the doctrine of SOLA GRATIA to the period of the Reformation aside from the simple fact that Calvinism obviously bears a link to the Swiss Reformer John Calvin.

I want you to understand why the issue of salvation by grace alone
Is such an important issue and ultimately one
Worth risking a little discord in order to preserve.
We have talked some about the life of Martin Luther,
But there is more to his life and experience that you need to understand.

• I told you of his Lightning Bolt experience where he surrendered to become
a monk,
• I told you of his tower experience where he learned about justification by faith,
• And we even talked about his famous statement when on trial at Worms.

But there was another very important moment in Luther’s life
That helps us understand the protests of the Reformation.
THAT IS LUTHER’S PILGRIMAGE TO ROME

In 1511 (6 years before Luther nailed the 95 thesis on the church door) Luther was still very much entrenched in Catholicism.

And you need to understand the Catholicism that Luther practiced.
We actually talked about this some while studying through Zechariah,
But I want to mention some of it again to help in your understanding.

In the Catholic system they certainly believe that
A person must achieve righteousness
Before that person is fit to enter heaven.

As we have said,
To them justification was the process of being made righteous.

Until a person was perfectly righteous they could not go to heaven.
In fact, when a Catholic died they went to PURGATORY
Which was a place of purging.

It was in Purgatory that the person suffered in the flesh until all of their punishment was complete and their flesh was purified and thus were able to enter heaven.

Let me help you understand how this worked and what Luther had believed.

The first concept you need to understand is that of MERIT
MERIT is “the quality of being particularly good or worthy, especially so as to deserve praise or reward.”

Obviously then merit was something that was sought after.

Now, in the Catholic system there are 3 kinds of merit.

Congruent Merit is that which is given and is fitting, but is not required.
Meaning you do something good which could be rewarded, but doesn’t have to be.

For example; You clean the bathroom here at the church.
A reward would be fitting, but it is not required.

Condign merit is that which requires a reward and in fact, it is unjust not to receive a reward for it. Merit that is so virtuous that it obligates God to reward it. (Jesus work, some of the saints)

Meaning you do something that God owes you for,
And God would be unjust if He failed to reward you.

And in the Catholic church there four requirements that must be met here.

1) It must be morally good
2) It must be morally free (done with pure motive)
3) It must be done with the assistance of grace (beyond natural human ability)
4) It must be inspired by a supernatural motive (done in love or faith etc.)

And if you do something that meets those 4 requirements
Then God is bound to give you reward.

The third is Supererogatory Merit
Which are works that go beyond God’s requirement
And you actually obtain more merit than you need.

I got this from the Catholic.org website which explains Catholic doctrine:

The idea behind superabundant merits is that Christ and the saints did so many good works that they don’t need them all. The merit they have obtained with God that is beyond their need can be transferred to others.

The Catholic Encyclopedia says:
Since the satisfaction of Christ is infinite, it constitutes an inexhaustible fund which is more than sufficient to cover the indebtedness contracted by sin, Besides, there are the satisfactory works of the Blessed Virgin Mary undiminished by any penalty due to sin, and the virtues, penances, and sufferings of the saints vastly exceeding any temporal punishment which these servants of God might have incurred.

In other words, according to Catholicism, Jesus, Mary, and the Saints,
By reason of their holy living and in some cases martyrdom
Have racked up more merit than they will ever need
And that extra merit is put in “an inexhaustible fund”

That fund, by the way, is referred to as THE TREASURY OF MERIT
It is the Catholic spiritual bank account were excess merit is stored.

And that comes in handy for those who are lacking in merit
And thus expecting a long stay in Purgatory to be cleansed.

The question is how one comes to acquire some of this extra merit.

And that occurs through the Catholic system of indulgences
That the next big word: INDULGENCES

Again, from the Catholic.org website:

What Is an Indulgence?
There are two ideas involved in Roman Catholic teaching on indulgences:

1) Christians receive “temporal punishment” for sin, even after its guilt and eternal punishment have been forgiven by God. That temporal punishment must be paid either here on earth or in a temporary, after-death holding place called purgatory.

2) The Roman Catholic Church has a “treasury,” composed of the “superabundant merits of Christ and the saints,” which the Church, through the exercise of the “power of the keys,” can transfer to the benefit of those who are due temporal punishment.

During the Middle Ages, when pilgrimages were common and looked upon with favor, various Church authorities can be quoted as saying that indulgences were given in return for pilgrimages. In other words, the Church told people that if they went on a pilgrimage their sins would be forgiven.

So if you’re following along with me here, Catholic doctrine goes like this.

• In order to enter heaven you have to have accrued a certain amount of “merit”
• If you do not have enough, you will suffer temporal punishment both on earth and in Purgatory until your sin is satisfactorily purged.
• To shorten this purging/punishment you can actually acquire some of the “extra” left-over merit of Jesus and the saints through various religious deeds.

One of those deeds that would earn merit was to go on a pilgrimage.
A pilgrimage was simply a long journey to visit an important site
And to take the time for spiritual reflection.

Catholics have long practiced veneration of the saints
Wherein they travel to the grave of a saint and honor them.

And for certain pilgrimages you could obtain indulgences.

Now, one of the biggest pilgrimages you could take was to Rome,
Where they supposedly had the very steps
Where Jesus was tried before Pilate.

And as you went up those steps (presumably on your knees)
And as you recited certain prayers in veneration of Jesus there,
You could obtain indulgences.

Some have even stated gaining an indulgence
Worth 1,000 years of suffering in purgatory removed.

Now, with all of that bear in mind what student of Law Luther was
And what a keen understanding he had of guilt and judgment
And you understand why such an endeavor was inviting to him.

SO IN 1511 LUTHER SET OUT TO ROME.

But it did not turn out as he had expected.
• On the way he stayed in various monasteries where he was continually disgusted with the immorality and sinful living of those who claimed to serve God.

• This disgust grew even worse when Luther actually made it to Rome and saw the corrupt practices of the clergy there.

This however did not stop Luther from approaching those famous steps
And making his way up them.

However it is said that at the top Luther asked,
“Who knows if this even works?”

That event started the crack in Luther’s theology.

His theology would be entirely broken a few years later
When Johann Tetzel arrived in Wittenburg.

• Because the Catholic church needed money to build St. Peter’s Tetzel was sort
of set free to sell indulgences for money.

• He would offer years off of your own stay in Purgatory or even to spring a soul
of a deceased one out of purgatory when you gave.

• It was this event that finally prompted Luther’s 95 thesis.

Now, I show you all that because I want you to understand
Just how bizarre and corrupt a religious system can become
When works are added to grace.

I know that calling salvation a synergistic effort (cooperative work) between man and God
May seem like a very little thing and not worth dividing over.

But the question is: Where does it stop?

If you are going to hold that man must aid the work of salvation
Then you have to tell me “how” he must aid God
And eventually you have to tell me “how much” he must aid God.

Currently in our denomination the argument merely says that
Man must aid the process by responding to the call.

This response (they say) is the sole work of the individual
And by his own efforts and free will.

And many say, well that isn’t all that bad.

Well, other denominations say not only must he “respond” by his own free will, but he must also obey in the ordinance of baptism or else he can’t be saved.

And still other denominations say not only must he “respond” but he must demonstrate “initial evidence” by speaking in tongues or he can’t be saved.

Are you following where I am going with this?

Who is to say that tomorrow
It’s not climb the steps in Rome and put money in the pot?

If you are going to insist that man plays a part
Then you have to tell me HOW and HOW MUCH.

AND ALL OF THESE ARE A PERVERSION.

That is why we think holding to the monergistic doctrine of GRACE ALONE is worth any discord that it might produce.

We see in this the heart of the gospel, and it must be defended.

Are you familiar with the Galatian church?
They faced the same issue, only for them it wasn’t “response” or “get baptized” or “speak in tongues”

What was the requirement being placed on the Galatians?
CIRCUMCISION.

The message to the Galatians was this:
Acts 15:1 “Some men came down from Judea and began teaching the brethren, “Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved.”

And of course when the Jerusalem council met, they ultimately rejected that notion, and let me show you what Peter said.

Acts 15:6-11 “The apostles and the elders came together to look into this matter. After there had been much debate, Peter stood up and said to them, “Brethren, you know that in the early days God made a choice among you, that by my mouth the Gentiles would hear the word of the gospel and believe. “And God, who knows the heart, testified to them giving them the Holy Spirit, just as He also did to us; and He made no distinction between us and them, cleansing their hearts by faith. “Now therefore why do you put God to the test by placing upon the neck of the disciples a yoke which neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear? “But we believe that we are saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, in the same way as they also are.”

Did you hear Peter?
• Why are you trying to add something to grace?
• Anything you add is more than we can bear.

Salvation is either by Grace Alone, or it is not.
And even the smallest perversions must be protested.

Listen to the protest of Paul in this regard:
Galatians 1:1-9 “Paul, an apostle (not sent from men nor through the agency of man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised Him from the dead), and all the brethren who are with me, To the churches of Galatia: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for our sins so that He might rescue us from this present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father, to whom be the glory forevermore. Amen. I am amazed that you are so quickly deserting Him who called you by the grace of Christ, for a different gospel; which is really not another; only there are some who are disturbing you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. But even if we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to what we have preached to you, he is to be accursed! As we have said before, so I say again now, if any man is preaching to you a gospel contrary to what you received, he is to be accursed!”

Did you hear Paul there?
Those where harsh statements for sure.

But to that we must ask, what is so bad about circumcision?
I’d venture to bet that many in this room are circumcised.

• Did we not see Paul in Acts 16 (after that counsel in Jerusalem met) circumcise Timothy before taking him on mission?

Have we not heard Paul himself say:
Galatians 5:6 “For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything, but faith working through love.”

Galatians 6:15 “For neither is circumcision anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creation.”

Obviously then circumcision itself is nothing.

So why would Paul get so bent out of shape with these Galatians over something that would later admit doesn’t mean anything?

Because it wasn’t about circumcision it was about the gospel.
People were teaching that salvation was a synergistic effort.
In order to be saved God must do His part and you must do your part.
And regardless of what “your part” is, it’s still a perversion.

So, we may in fact have discord over this,
But the discord is well worth it
If we are talking about the purity of the gospel.

And in that note, let me say one more thing
That I think will help us understand the Bible’s call for unity.

UNITY IS NOT A HUMAN DECISION,
UNITY IS A THEOLOGICAL LOCATION

Unity does not mean we all just agree to get along and not fight.
That is called “harmony” and that is important.

But unity is not some decision to get along.
UNITY IS A LOCATION.

What do you mean?
Ephesians 4:1-6 “Therefore I, the prisoner of the Lord, implore you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, showing tolerance for one another in love, being diligent to preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit, just as also you were called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all who is over all and through all and in all.”

After calling for the church to unify,
Paul then gave the location of that unity.

“There is one body and one Spirit, just as also you were called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all who is over all and through all and in all.”

What Paul just gave you are the coordinates of our unity.
Those are the spiritual latitudes and longitudes of where our unity must occur.

Someone can come along and say “I believe there are two gods”
Someone else could say, “I just believe there is one, but that’s ok we can still have unity.”

No, you can have harmony, but you can’t have unity.
Unity is a location.
You can only unify at 1 place, and that is at the actual truth.

The question is, which is more important to the church…
Harmony or Unity?

Should we sacrifice unity to get harmony or should we sacrifice harmony to get unity?

Well, listen to the writers of the New Testament.
Paul just called those with a different gospel “accursed”

Listen to what Paul told the Thessalonians:
2 Thessalonians 3:14 “If anyone does not obey our instruction in this letter, take special note of that person and do not associate with him, so that he will be put to shame.”

Listen to what he told Titus:
Titus 1:10-11 “For there are many rebellious men, empty talkers and deceivers, especially those of the circumcision, who must be silenced because they are upsetting whole families, teaching things they should not teach for the sake of sordid gain.”

Listen to John:
2 John 10-11 “If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not receive him into your house, and do not give him a greeting; for the one who gives him a greeting participates in his evil deeds.”

• We could listen to Matthew 23 when Jesus confronted the Pharisees.
• Or we could listen to John the Baptist confront the religious leaders.
• Or we could listen to Stephen before the Sanhedrin.
The fact for a Christian is that “if possible, so far as it depends upon you”
We live at peace with all men.

But we never compromise true spiritual unity for harmony.
We never yield our position on the gospel.

That is why we are called PROTESTANTS
• We protest anything that adds to the sufficiency of Scripture
• We protest anything that adds to the work of grace.

I hope that helps you understand why
Even though it is a bit of a contentious issue,
We cannot stop defending the true gospel.

Beyond that, you should know that this issue of GRACE ALONE is directly linked to our next SOLA, which is SOLA FIDE (saved through faith alone)

Most Baptists would hold to SOLA FIDE,
But you must understand that if salvation is not by grace alone,
Then it cannot be through faith alone.

Because if salvation requires even the smallest human involvement,
Then you must add that requirement as an addition to faith.

And we’re going to talk about this more in the coming weeks,
But let me give you a verse that really links these two together.

Romans 4:13-16 “For the promise to Abraham or to his descendants that he would be heir of the world was not through the Law, but through the righteousness of faith. For if those who are of the Law are heirs, faith is made void and the promise is nullified; for the Law brings about wrath, but where there is no law, there also is no violation. For this reason it is by faith, in order that it may be in accordance with grace, so that the promise will be guaranteed to all the descendants, not only to those who are of the Law, but also to those who are of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all,”

Did you hear what Paul said?
“For this reason it is by faith, in order that it may be in accordance with grace”

To put it another way, the two are linked.
You can’t have one without the other.

That is another reason we preach this doctrine even though it offends.

When we talk about things like human depravity and divine election
We are not just trying to defend our view of grace.

WE ARE DEFENDING THE ENTIRE GOSPEL.
We are defending the sufficienty of Scripture, We are defending the sufficiency of grace, We are defending the sufficiency of faith, We are defending the sufficiency of Christ,
We are defending the glory of God.

It’s all on the line.
You lose one of them and you lose all of them.

So, these doctrines of grace that we have been studying
May in fact be controversial,
But that is a controversy we are willing to endure.

The Issue of Church Discord
#2 THE ISSUE OF CHRISTIAN DUTY

And by Christian duty I want to specifically mention
The duties of prayer and evangelism.

Some of the main statements we get against these doctrines of God’s sovereignty are statements like these:

• Well if God is sovereign and already determined who will be saved, then why evangelize?

• “If God has already decreed what is going to happen, what good does it do to pray to Him with your requests?”

First let me just answer that issue as simply as I possibly can.

We pray and we evangelize because we are commanded to do it.
Even if we don’t understand how it works or why it matters
That does not change the fact that God has commanded us to do it.

But I understand that people want a better answer than that.

Let’s talk about EVANGELISM for a moment.
(We already addressed it a little once when discussing the actual atonement)

Evangelism is the means through which God calls out His elect.

Romans 10:14-15 “How then will they call on Him in whom they have not believed? How will they believe in Him whom they have not heard? And how will they hear without a preacher? How will they preach unless they are sent? Just as it is written, “HOW BEAUTIFUL ARE THE FEET OF THOSE WHO BRING GOOD NEWS OF GOOD THINGS!”

Here is the mystery and the tension.
• Has God already elected who will be saved? Yes
• Are those elect going to come? Yes

That is true.

Can I tell you what is also true?
• No one is saved apart from hearing the gospel.

Together then those truths indicate that God has also ordained
For every one of His elect to hear the gospel.

Who are they going to hear it from?
Us.

Furthermore I remind you that while the Bible does teach predestination
It DOES NOT TEACH double-predestination.

That is to say that God does predestine some to heaven,
But HE DOES NOT predestine others to hell.

Any man who is willing to repent and believe can and will be saved.
Now of course we understand that apart from a work of grace that won’t happen,
But it doesn’t change the reality.

That means that every time you offer the gospel to someone,
It is a real and valid offer.
If they believe it they will be saved.

What we are promised is that eventually the elect will believe it.

What about the issue of PRAYER?

Again someone might ask, “If God is sovereign, then why pray?”
Let me give that to you another way, “Why pray if He is not sovereign?”

People think prayer is pointless if God has ordained His will,
But that doesn’t make prayer pointless.
Pointless prayer would be to pray to a god
Who can’t or won’t enforce His will.

That is pointless prayer.

But still I understand the question.
Why do we even present our requests if God has already determined what He’s going to do?

And again the answer is: Because we are commanded to.

But have you ever considered this: That maybe God is doing more through your commanded prayer than just granting or not granting what you ask for?

It’s the old Karate Kid analogy where Mr. Miagee asks Daniel to do seemingly dumb things like wax his car and paint his fence and sand his deck.

What the kid doesn’t realize is that through that discipline he is actually building the proper muscles and learning the proper moves for karate.

Did you ever stop to think that maybe the discipline of prayer is about more than you getting or not getting what you ask for?

Perhaps God is using that time spent with him
To accomplish his work on you by molding and shaping your desires
And your focus and your interests and your compassion, etc.

Consider that famous passage in Exodus:
Exodus 32:9-14 “The LORD said to Moses, “I have seen this people, and behold, they are an obstinate people. “Now then let Me alone, that My anger may burn against them and that I may destroy them; and I will make of you a great nation.” Then Moses entreated the LORD his God, and said, “O LORD, why does Your anger burn against Your people whom You have brought out from the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand? “Why should the Egyptians speak, saying, ‘With evil intent He brought them out to kill them in the mountains and to destroy them from the face of the earth’? Turn from Your burning anger and change Your mind about doing harm to Your people. “Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, Your servants to whom You swore by Yourself, and said to them, ‘I will multiply your descendants as the stars of the heavens, and all this land of which I have spoken I will give to your descendants, and they shall inherit it forever.'” So the LORD changed His mind about the harm which He said He would do to His people.”

Many have run to that passage to illustrate the power of prayer.
• The place where a level-headed Moses restrained an out-of-control and
hot-tempered God.

Are you sure that’s what happened?

Are you sure God was going to just wipe out all of His promises and faithfulness and throw it all aside and kill those people?
That would actually be inconsistent with the rest of the entire Bible.

Or could it be that perhaps God was working on Moses there?
As the leader of that stubborn people I’m sure Moses had the thought more than once
About how frustrating it was to lead these people,
And how nice it would be to get a different flock.

What did God teach Moses there?
• To be compassionate…
• Leading those people is also about the glory and reputation and faithfulness of
God…

When I read that story
I’m not sure God was the One who actually changed there.

But beyond that, we are commanded to pray
Because we are promised that God does in fact answer our prayers.

Now maybe He has first caused us to pray for certain things (that I don’t know) but it doesn’t change the fact that prayer works.

Luke 18:1-8 “Now He was telling them a parable to show that at all times they ought to pray and not to lose heart, saying, “In a certain city there was a judge who did not fear God and did not respect man. “There was a widow in that city, and she kept coming to him, saying, ‘ Give me legal protection from my opponent.’ “For a while he was unwilling; but afterward he said to himself, ‘Even though I do not fear God nor respect man, yet because this widow bothers me, I will give her legal protection, otherwise by continually coming she will wear me out.'” And the Lord said, “Hear what the unrighteous judge said; now, will not God bring about justice for His elect who cry to Him day and night, and will He delay long over them? “I tell you that He will bring about justice for them quickly. However, when the Son of Man comes, will He find faith on the earth?”

That parable is NOT JUST ABOUT teaching us that
If we are persistent then God will give us what we ask for.

Jesus uses that analogy to reveal to us that
God uses prayer as means of growing our faith.

• It takes faith to continue to pray even in the midst of painful circumstances that don’t seem to change.

• Perhaps through those circumstances the answer is merely delayed so that we will learn faith and have it grow.

Do you understand?

Now, to leave it here and to move on I simply want to point out that
If your understanding of SOLA GRATIA means that
You don’t think you need to evangelize or pray,
Then you have totally misunderstood what grace is all about.

That is not at all the point.
Grace Alone does not negate the necessity of evangelism or prayer
It enhances it.

• We don’t quit evangelizing because God is sovereign we evangelize more
because God is sovereign.

• We don’t quit praying because God is sovereign, we pray more because God
is sovereign.

I want you to understand that before we move on.

Well, there, I had to get all of that off of my chest before we moved on,
Next time we’ll look at that 3rd Sola…SOLA FIDE.

The Magnificat – part 2
Luke 1:39-56 (46-56)
September 3, 2017

Last week we began looking at the passage in Luke’s gospel
Commonly referred to as “The Magnificat”
That is a Latin word which means “to magnify”
Which is precisely what Mary does for the Lord.

However, last week we never actually got into what Mary said, instead we looked at the encouraging meeting that prompted Mary’s word of praise.

• Here was Mary (a 13 year old Jewish girl) fresh off of her visit from Gabriel where she learned that she would become pregnant and deliver the Son of God into the world.

• Mary ran to Elizabeth because Elizabeth was God’s appointed confirming sign that He could and would do what He said.

• And when Mary told Elizabeth about all that God had promised to do through her Elizabeth proved to be a tremendous source of encouragement.

• There was no negativity from Elizabeth…
• There was no rationalism from her…
• There was no felt need to explain the coming hardships…
• There was no jealousy or bitterness…

• Elizabeth simply praised Mary for submitting to God.
• Elizabeth helped Mary see what a tremendous thing God was doing.
• Elizabeth rejoiced in the entire situation.
• Elizabeth encouraged Mary to continue to obey God.

We could say that Elizabeth helped Mary
Find the proper perspective of the situation.

And that is evident because what Mary says next
Comes from the heart of a woman who is grateful.
Mary is not bitter…
Mary is not hesitant…
Mary is excited

MARY CHOOSES TO WORSHIP

And incidentally, Mary’s response to God here
Should be the response of all the redeemed.

So last week we looked at Elizabeth’s Encouragement
#2 MARY’S EXALTATION
Luke 1:46-47

Now first let’s just look a little bit at the MANNER of Mary’s worship.
(46-47) “And Mary said: “My soul exalts the Lord, And my spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior.”

I know we’ve talked about it before so this may be a bit redundant to some of you,
But it is important to understand.

If you want to really simplify it,
There are 3 types of worship we learn about in the Bible.

1) IDOLATRY
Idolatry is simply when we worship the wrong god.

Often times in idolatry the methods are way off as well.
• In the O.T. we have people sacrificing their children in the fire.
• In the N.T. we see fits of drunkenness or sexual immorality.
• We see states of mindless frenzy

You get the idea.
Certainly in idolatry we could take issue with the MANNER
In which the person is worshiping.

But the real problem with idolatry isn’t even a method problem.
The real problem with idolatry is that
People are giving glory to the wrong god.

God is crystal clear in Scripture:
Exodus 20:1-6 “Then God spoke all these words, saying, “I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. “You shall have no other gods before Me. “You shall not make for yourself an idol, or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth. “You shall not worship them or serve them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and the fourth generations of those who hate Me, but showing lovingkindness to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments.”

Isaiah 42:5-8 “Thus says God the LORD, Who created the heavens and stretched them out, Who spread out the earth and its offspring, Who gives breath to the people on it And spirit to those who walk in it, “I am the LORD, I have called You in righteousness, I will also hold You by the hand and watch over You, And I will appoint You as a covenant to the people, As a light to the nations, To open blind eyes, To bring out prisoners from the dungeon And those who dwell in darkness from the prison. “I am the LORD, that is My name; I will not give My glory to another, Nor My praise to graven images.”

Isaiah 43:10-13 “You are My witnesses,” declares the LORD, “And My servant whom I have chosen, So that you may know and believe Me And understand that I am He. Before Me there was no God formed, And there will be none after Me. “I, even I, am the LORD, And there is no savior besides Me. “It is I who have declared and saved and proclaimed, And there was no strange god among you; So you are My witnesses,” declares the LORD, “And I am God. “Even from eternity I am He, And there is none who can deliver out of My hand; I act and who can reverse it?”

Isaiah 44:8 “Do not tremble and do not be afraid; Have I not long since announced it to you and declared it? And you are My witnesses. Is there any God besides Me, Or is there any other Rock? I know of none.'”

Idolatry is a horrific sin.
It is to ascribe the glory that belongs to God alone
To another who does not deserve it.
(this could range from a demonic being to a block of wood)

Commonly in the Old Testament
This was done through literal worship of pagan deities.

We read about the high places and all the false gods that Israel bowed down to.

Idolatry certainly still exists in that form as there are many false religions,
But idolatry is even bigger than that.

Paul told the Colossians that even things like “greed” equated to idolatry.
• It is to honor things more than you honor God.
• It is trust things more than you trust God.
• It is to love things more than you love God.
• It is to desire things more than you desire God.

That is idolatry.
And it is certainly a condemned type of worship in Scripture.

In fact, all idolaters are consigned to eternal hell.
Revelation 21:8 “But for the cowardly and unbelieving and abominable and murderers and immoral persons and sorcerers and idolaters and all liars, their part will be in the lake that burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.”

So obviously Idolatry is a form of worship, but an unacceptable one.
2) HYPOCRISY
This is when we worship the right God, but we do it in the wrong way.

And the Old Testament is filled with examples of this as well.

Maybe you want to go back the sons of Aaron (Nadab and Abihu) who offered “strange fire” before the Lord and God incinerated them because they didn’t worship Him as He had prescribed.

Or perhaps you read through the prophets and listen to them over and over and over condemn Israel because their worship was all external and not from the heart.

Isaiah 29:13 “Then the Lord said, “Because this people draw near with their words And honor Me with their lip service, But they remove their hearts far from Me, And their reverence for Me consists of tradition learned by rote,”

We continually saw Israel engaged in a system of worship,
But their worship did not affect their heart
And God would not accept it.

Isaiah 1:11-15 “What are your multiplied sacrifices to Me?” Says the LORD. “I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams And the fat of fed cattle; And I take no pleasure in the blood of bulls, lambs or goats. “When you come to appear before Me, Who requires of you this trampling of My courts? “Bring your worthless offerings no longer, Incense is an abomination to Me. New moon and sabbath, the calling of assemblies — I cannot endure iniquity and the solemn assembly. “I hate your new moon festivals and your appointed feasts, They have become a burden to Me; I am weary of bearing them. “So when you spread out your hands in prayer, I will hide My eyes from you; Yes, even though you multiply prayers, I will not listen. Your hands are covered with blood.”

Amos 5:21-24 “I hate, I reject your festivals, Nor do I delight in your solemn assemblies. “Even though you offer up to Me burnt offerings and your grain offerings, I will not accept them; And I will not even look at the peace offerings of your fatlings. “Take away from Me the noise of your songs; I will not even listen to the sound of your harps. “But let justice roll down like waters And righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.”

It was in this understanding that Micah said:
Micah 6:6-8 “What God Requires of Man With what shall I come to the LORD And bow myself before the God on high? Shall I come to Him with burnt offerings, With yearling calves? Does the LORD take delight in thousands of rams, In ten thousand rivers of oil? Shall I present my firstborn for my rebellious acts, The fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? He has told you, O man, what is good; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your God?

And of course Jesus echoed those sentiments (especially to the Jews)
Throughout the gospels.

Later in the New Testament we hear Paul criticizing the Corinthians for they too were all caught up in the motions of worship without understanding the purpose.

We call that hypocrisy.
It is to worship the true God,
But to worship Him in a way which He does not desire.

3) SINCERITY
Worshiping the true God in a manner in which God prescribes.

We’ve been talking about this a lot with our youth on Wednesday nights.
Romans 12:1 “Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.”

If worship is not that which is “acceptable to God”
Then what is the purpose?

If you come and go through the motions but God isn’t pleased, then what have you accomplished?

Worship must be what God desires,
And if you want more on that just read the rest of Romans 12.

Jesus actually addressed this issue head on in John 4

When talking to the woman at the well:
John 4:21-24 “Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe Me, an hour is coming when neither in this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. “You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. “But an hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for such people the Father seeks to be His worshipers. “God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.”

You obviously picked up on the number of times
Jesus used the word “worship” in that statement.

And Jesus made that one statement which really jumps out to us
“the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth;
for such people the Father seeks to be His worshipers.”

In light of the false worship of the Bible we understand what Jesus means

People in idolatry worship in spirit, but not in truth.
• They are worshiping sure enough, they are just worshiping the wrong thing.

People in hypocrisy worship in truth, but not in spirit.
• They are worshiping the right God and doing the right things, it’s just not united
with love in their hearts.

What God desires is for people to genuinely love Him
And to then worship Him as He has prescribed.

NOW I BRING THOSE REALITIES TO YOUR MIND
BECAUSE MARY IS AN EXCELLENT EXAMPLE
OF ONE WHO WORSHIPS IN SPIRIT AND TRUTH.

First you recognize her “spirit” and then you recognize her “truth”.

“My soul exalts the Lord, and my spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior.”

• Mary isn’t just praising God with her lips,
• She is praising Him with her very soul.
• Her heart magnifies the Lord, not just her mouth.

She is not one who can sit through a church service and sing the songs
Without being moved internally.

There is no hypocrisy here,
What you hear from her on the outside first started on the inside.

She means what she says.

And what we’ll find is that all of this rejoicing in her heart
Rests upon the truth she knows about God.

Mary doesn’t just worship correctly, she worships the right God
And she knows why she worships Him.

Perhaps you’ve heard the statement in regard to worship:
The height of your worship is proportional to the depth of your theology.

That is such a true reality.
You will never ascend higher in worship
Than the distance which you have descended in understanding.

If you’ll remember that was the problem of the woman at the well.
Jesus told her “You worship what you do not know…”

That was a problem.
You have to know God to worship Him accordingly.

Mary’s worship isn’t some misinformed empty emotional cry.
Mary deeply rejoices in God because she has learned who God is.

She worships in spirit and in truth.

And THIS MORNING I just want to make sure
You understand the truth that Mary understood.

I want to make sure you understand why Mary worshiped.

Incidentally, the reasons Mary worships
Are also very important realities to Luke.

The things Mary reveals about God here
Are some of the very truths that Luke will reveal about Christ
Over and over and over throughout this gospel.

It’s no wonder Luke included this doxology.
Mary was saying exactly what Luke wanted to say.

So let’s look at the truths behind Mary’s worship.
Why she worships God with all her soul and spirit.

There are 4 reasons why Mary worships God.
1) HE REGARDS THE UNWORTHY (48-49)

“For He has had regard for the humble state of His bondslave; For behold, from this time on all generations will count me blessed. “For the Mighty One has done great things for me; And holy is His name.”

Now first I want you to recognize how she identifies God.
She describes Him in two ways down in verse 49
• She calls Him “the Mighty One”
• And she says “holy is His name”

The term we would use for that would be TRANSCENDANT
That is to say that God is above us and beyond us in every possible way.

Mary clearly understands God in that way.
And that is what makes Him even more remarkable.

Regardless of His might and regardless of His holy perfection,
God is a God who pays attention to nobodies!

“He has had regard for the humble state of His bondslave”

“had regard” translates EPIBLEPO
It means “to look on with favor”

Luke 9:38 “And a man from the crowd shouted, saying,
“Teacher, I beg You to look at my son, for he is my only boy,”

That is to say, “don’t just look at him, but NOTICE HIM.”

Mary said that is what God did for her.
• He didn’t just look at her, He noticed her.
• He paid attention to her.

He saw her…
• A 13 year old Jewish girl from Nazareth
• A nobody in the eyes of the world
• An insignificant person to both Israel and Rome

Based on Mary’s statement I kind of get the feeling
That Mary looked upon herself like the type of girl who could enter a room and no one would notice.

You wouldn’t see here when she arrived; you wouldn’t miss her when she left.
She was a member of the overlooked and unimportant.

But not to God…
• Despite her humility…
• Despite her lowly role as a servant…
• God “had regard” for her.

And of course implied is not simply that God noticed her,
But that God noticed her to the point
Of entrusting a tremendous purpose to her.

Mary was the type of girl who you might not have even thought of
To feed your dog while you were gone,
God saw her as the girl He would use to deliver His Son into the world.
• He saw what she was made of…
• He saw who she could be…

Of course this is characteristic of God.
I love the story of how Jesus looked at Simon and called him “Peter” (rock)
And you and I know that Peter was anything but a rock,
he was as fickle and wishy washy as they come.

Jesus didn’t see him for what he was,
But for what He would make him to be.

God did the same for Mary.
And He entrusted a tremendous responsibility to her.

And the result of that would be that “from this time on all generations will count me blessed.”

NOT “count me worthy” but rather “count me blessed”
(and not the “praise her” type of “blessed”, but the “happy” type of “blessed”)

Mary was not anticipating all the false worship that has been thrown her way throughout the centuries.

Mary was simply saying that
God has done things for me that are beyond what I deserve
And beyond what anyone else would have done,
And that will be forever obvious to everyone.

Mary was worshiping God because: HE REGARDS THE UNWORTHY
We call that: GRACE

God gives unworthy people what they do not deserve.
Mary recognized that
And because she understood God’s grace her soul magnified Him.

2) HE REPRIEVES THE FEARFUL (50)

(50) “AND HIS MERCY IS UPON GENERATION AFTER GENERATION TOWARD THOSE WHO FEAR HIM.”

This verse alone is enough to make Mary’s point.
Namely that God is merciful.

He takes those who have every reason to be afraid of Him
(namely because they know what they are and they know who He is)
And yet God gives those people mercy.

You can see that just from the verse that Mary quoted.
But there is even more there than the verse she stated.

TURN TO: PSALMS 103
(Mary quotes Psalms 103:17)

READ 1-14
Do you recognize that Psalm?

It is a Psalm that highlights God’s mercy
Toward people who do not deserve it.

You see people in weakness and brokenness and sickness and infirmity;
Why?
BECAUSE THEY ARE IN SIN.
They are transgressors who have
Brought enormous difficulty into their lives by reason of their sin.

And while God would have every right to just sit back
And watch them lie in the bed they made, He doesn’t.

He gives them mercy.
He doesn’t treat them as they deserve to be treated.

That is the theological fact regarding God.
And Mary knows that, in fact she quotes from that Psalm.

READ 15-18
There is the verse Mary quoted.

And we can learn a little there about worshiping in truth.
Mary knew God was merciful, not just because of what He did for her,
But because of what she learned about Him in His word.

What God did for her merely confirmed for Mary
What she had already learned about Him in Scripture.

Her worship was not just some misinformed emotional response.
Mary had read God’s word, she knew what Psalm 103 said, and when God entrusted this great work to her that Psalm came alive.

• She was one of those who had received His mercy.
• She was one of those who feared Him
• She was one of those who knew who He was and who she was and the problem that was.

Instead of treating her as her sins deserved, God was merciful.
And Mary worshiped because of this.

Not only does God regard the unworthy, but God reprieves the fearful.
He has mercy on those who revere Him.

3) HE RECOMPENSES THE PROUD & REWARDS THE HUMBLE (51-53)

(51-53) “He has done mighty deeds with His arm; He has scattered those who were proud in the thoughts of their heart. “He has brought down rulers from their thrones, And has exalted those who were humble. “HE HAS FILLED THE HUNGRY WITH GOOD THINGS; And sent away the rich empty-handed.”

This is yet another fundamental truth
That Mary had learned about God throughout her life.

God does things that are peculiar to humanity.

“He has done mighty deeds with His arm”
• Mary knew about God parting the Red Sea
• Mary knew about God toppling that giant for David
• Mary knew about God delivering those Hebrew boys from the fiery furnace

Mary knew God had been at work,
AND that God’s work was always on behalf of the humble.

For “He has scattered those who were proud in the thoughts of their heart.”
• After parting the Red Sea God crushed the Egyptians
• After delivering Goliath into David’s hand, God scattered the Philistines
• After delivering the Hebrew boys God sent Nebuchadnezzar into a 7 year trip of insanity

God is in the business of crushing pride and exalting humility.

“He has brought down rulers from their thrones”
• Ask Saul…

“And has exalted those who were humble.”
• Ask David…

“He has filled the hungry with good things; and sent away the rich empty-handed.”
• Which is to say that time after time God honored those the world rejected and God rejected those the world honored.

WHAT DO WE CALL THIS?
Justice

• He is a God of grace to the unworthy…
• He is a God of mercy to the reverent…
• He is a God of justice to the afflicted…
• He is a God of judgment to the arrogant…

And Mary worshiped because she knew these truths about God.

And Mary knew this was true because God had chosen to exalt her.
Mary was not high on the world’s list, but she was on God’s list.

4) HE REMEMBERS HIS PROMISES (54-55)

(54-55) “He has given help to Israel His servant, In remembrance of His mercy, As He spoke to our fathers, To Abraham and his descendants forever.”

I love this final reason Mary gives for worship.
It reveals to us that Mary’s worship isn’t about her.

She’s not worshiping because she gets this great role.
She’s worshiping because
God is finally sending the Savior He has long since promised.

• Mary knew that the Messiah was coming as “help to Israel”
• Mary knew that God was sending Him “In remembrance of His mercy, As He spoke to our fathers,”

And instantly our mind runs with all of those Messianic promises.
• We remember Him promising Eve that her seed would crush the serpent’s head…
• We remember Him promising Abraham that in his Seed all the nations of the world would be blessed…
• We remember Him promising Moses that He would send a prophet greater than him to the people…
• We remember Him promising David that his heir would rein forever…
• We remember Him promising Isaiah that a child would be born to us whose name would be Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace…
• We remember Jeremiah promising that Righteous Branch…
• We remember Malachi promising that reigning King…

God had been promising this Savior for generations
Mary is worshiping because in Jesus
All of those promises are fulfilled!

God has maintained His faithfulness!!!

See Mary didn’t just see that Jesus was coming through her,
Mary saw that JESUS WAS COMING TO HER.

He would be her Savior.
He would be her Deliverer.
He was the One she had longed for.

Mary was here rejoicing
Because God was gracious and merciful and just and faithful.

He was willing to use unworthy people, so long as they revered Him,
And would humble themselves before Him.
And Mary is worshiping God for those things.

Now, if you can see it, Mary is actually voicing Luke’s very point!
Throughout this book these are the things
That Luke most wants you to see.

• He wants you to see that GOD REGARDS THE UNWORTHY
• He wants you to see that GOD REPRIEVES THE FEARFUL
• He wants you to see that GOD REWARDS THE HUMBLE AND
RECOMPENSES THE PROUD
• He wants you to see that GOD REMEMBERS HIS PROMISES

That is his whole point and he includes this exaltation from Mary
Because Mary perfectly voices it.

What is more, this is the worship of all the redeemed.
• Can we not see that if God did not regard the unworthy that we would not be saved?
• Can we not see that if God did not reprieve (give mercy) to the fearful that we would be in grave danger?
• Can we not see that if God did not reward the humble then we would be forever discarded?
• Can we not see that if God did not remember His promises there would be no salvation?

FRIEND, THIS IS WHY WE WORSHIP.
THESE ARE THE THINGS LUKE WANTS YOU TO KNOW ABOUT GOD.

And incidentally, all of those realities are rolled up totally in Jesus.
When God takes up human form and dwells among us, He is going to be the epitome of all of those things.

And it is Luke’s desire for you to know that about Him.

Amidst all the stories that floated around about Jesus,
These were the things that Luke most wanted you to know about Him.

And the implication is clear.
• Humble yourself before Him…
• Revere His holy name…
• Trust in His promises…
• And rejoice in the reality of His grace…

This is the expectation of the Savior that is about to appear before Mary,
And she nails the worship He deserves.

The Preservation of the Saints – Part 3
Romans 8:28-39 (33-39)
September 3, 2017

As you know we are working through our study of the 5 Solas of the reformation and currently through those Doctrines of Grace.

• Having learned about man’s absolute inability to come to God,
• We have seen that God has in fact chosen some
• And effectively called them to Himself,
• Having perfectly atoned for them through the death of His Son.

And now we are learning that those whom
God has chosen and called and justified
HE WILL MOST CERTAINLY GLORIFY.

(28-30) “And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose. For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren; and these whom He predestined, He also called; and these whom He called, He also justified; and these whom He justified, He also glorified.”

That passage reveals to us unequivocally that
God’s choice to save the elect is not a conditional choice.

What God has started He will finish.
What God has purposed He will accomplish.
The God who has called us to eternal glory in Christ will never let us go.

This is the theological point that Paul has been making ever since chapter 5.

Following that he has set out to defend his point.
And he is doing so by asking 5 questions
To help people logically work through this idea of security.

As we said last time when we started looking at these questions,
The only way a person can come to the belief that salvation is not secure
Is to answer “Yes” to all 5 of these questions.

We saw the first two last time:
#1 CAN ANYONE REVERSE THE SOVEREIGN DECISION OF GOD?
Romans 8:31

Here we simply see the reality that God can do whatever He desires.

Isaiah 43:13 “Even from eternity I am He, And there is none who can deliver out of My hand; I act and who can reverse it?”

If God has willed to save His elect and to save them forever
Can anyone thwart that plan?
And we believe the answer to be “No”.

I love the way the modern hymn writers Keith and Kristen Getty expressed this reality in their popular hymn “In Christ Alone”

“No guilt in life, no fear in death; this is the power of Christ in me. From life’s first cry to final breath, Jesus commands my destiny. No power of hell, no scheme of man can ever pluck me from His hand, ‘til He returns or calls me home, here in the power of Christ I’ll stand.”

That is the truth Paul confirmed there in verse 31.

From there we moved on to the next question.
#2 IS GOD’S GRACE LIMITED?
Romans 8:32

In short, we simply asked if there is a point at which God will finally say, “Enough is enough, I’m not giving any more”?

Paul already recognized that God had given and enormous gift
When He gave His very own Son to us.

The question is whether after having given His Son that God would all of a sudden grow stingy and refuse to give us lesser things?
Again, we say, “No”.

And not just because we believe God to be gracious and generous,
But also because God will not waste the death of His Son.

And those two questions we answered last Sunday night.

Tonight we want to take a look at the next 3.
#3 CAN ANYONE NULLIFY THROUGH ACCUSATION GOD’S DECISION TO JUSTIFY SINNERS?
Romans 8:33

Here Paul reverses the order a little bit.
This time he states the theological foundation last.

But you recognize the foundational statement: “God is the one who justifies”

That is a statement that we really need to make sure we understand.

First off the word “justifies” translates DIKAIOO (di-ky-ah-oh)
It means “to declare, pronounce, one to be just, righteous,
Or such as he ought to be”
And this is what God did for us.
We read it back in verse 30 “and these whom He called, He also justified”

Also important to note is what Luther found regarding this truth.
Luther had been accustomed to the Latin word for justification which was JUSTIFICARE which meant “to make just”

Under that understanding the concept of justification is simply
The process by which God makes sinners righteous.

The Roman Catholic system saw many things as part of this process. Things like the sacraments, indulgences, penance,
Even an undisclosed stay in Purgatory.

But that is not what the Greek word means.
The Greek word means “to declare righteous”

And it comes with the understanding of
Declaring someone righteous whether they actually are or not.

Important to understand is that God does not justify the deserving.
God justifies the undeserving.

God takes those who clearly are not righteous as they ought to be
But declares them righteous even though they fall short.

Romans 4:3-5 “For what does the Scripture say? “ABRAHAM BELIEVED GOD, AND IT WAS CREDITED TO HIM AS RIGHTEOUSNESS.” Now to the one who works, his wage is not credited as a favor, but as what is due. But to the one who does not work, but believes in Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is credited as righteousness,”

Paul reminded that God “justifies the ungodly”

So now we have learned that
• Not only did God send His Son to die for those who were sinful,
• But God has also willingly justified them.

He was not confused regarding what we were…
He was not deceived into thinking we were somehow acceptable…

God took men who did not measure up to the divine standard
And determined to treat them as though they did.

NOW THAT IS WHAT WE MEAN BY JUSTIFICATION.
And Paul said that “God is the one who justifies”

Based upon that foundational reality Paul has his 3rd question for us.
“Who will bring a charge against God’s elect?”

So here we are dealing with those whom God has sovereignly chosen;
The “elect”.

They are the ones that Paul earlier said God “foreknew”.
He chose them.

Now we are asking about the reality of
Someone brining “a charge against” them.

That is to say that someone would tell God
That those whom He has chosen have in some way
Failed to live up to what God has said about them.

Or to put it simpler.
God declares a person righteous and someone has risen up to point out to God that they are not.

They, in effect, approach God and say, “That Rory isn’t what you think he is. He’s not righteous at all, in fact, he’s actually pretty sinful.” And then commences to tell God about all the things I do.

Now, first of all, would someone do that?
You better believe it.

We call him the devil. And the word “devil” actually means “accuser”

Revelation 12 actually calls him the “accuser of the brethren”
Revelation 12:10 “Then I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying, “Now the salvation, and the power, and the kingdom of our God and the authority of His Christ have come, for the accuser of our brethren has been thrown down, he who accuses them before our God day and night.”

Let me put it plain.
• Even if God were not omniscient and even if He did not know all things.
• Even if God were limited in His omnipresence and not able to continually observe you,
• He would still know about every single time you fail.

How?
The devil would tell him.

You don’t ever mess up that the devil doesn’t run right to God
And tell God all about it.
(Certainly some of those accusations are false accusations like we saw with Job,
but the sad part is, a lot of what he tells God about you is true.)

You fail to live up to the righteousness that God has declared you
And Satan makes sure He knows it.

But the question Paul is really asking here
Is not just would someone bring a charge against God’s chosen, but rather can anyone bring an effective charge against them?

That is, can anyone bring a charge so severe against one of God’s chosen
That it will cause Him to cast them aside?

And to that question Paul simply reminds us that
“God is the one who justifies”

Revealing to God that I am a sinner is a pretty ineffective strategy
Since God knew that when He justified me to begin with.

HE IS A JUSTIFIER; THAT IS WHAT HE DOES.

Romans 3:23-26 “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus; whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in His blood through faith. This was to demonstrate His righteousness, because in the forbearance of God He passed over the sins previously committed; for the demonstration, I say, of His righteousness at the present time, so that He would be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.”

God crucified Christ (Paul says) for two reasons.

1) JUSTICE
• There had been centuries of sin left unatoned for.
• God had “passed over the sins previously committed” and that sin called for righteous judgment.
• Someone had to pay.
• God poured that wrath out on Christ.

2) MERCY (justification)
• Crucifying Christ afforded God the opportunity to spare you and thus reveal His mercy.

That is why after the cross we say God is “just and the justifier”
He is holy and merciful.

God chose to justify you when you were sinful.
And so when someone comes and tells God about your sin,
I don’t think He is surprised.
He just does what He always does; He justifies.

So thus far we’ve had 3 questions and 3 “No’s”.
#4 CAN ANY CONDEMNATION OVERTHROW THE WORK OF CHRIST?
Romans 8:34

I really like this question because I think it sort of plays off the previous.
I think Paul is almost saying here, “but what if there were a sin so bad that God would be willing to cast you out?”
What if there was something you can do that is so heinous that God would say, “that’s it, it’s inexcusable, kick him out!”?

Well that leads Paul to his next question.
“Who is the one who condemns?”

This is obviously the next step.
Someone brought accusation and now
Paul wants to know about the condemnation that would follow.

So let me ask you, “Who is the one who condemns?”

And according to Scripture, there is only 1 – God.
Matthew 10:28 “Do not fear those who kill the body but are unable to kill the soul; but rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.”

God alone has the authority to “destroy both soul and body in hell.”

But let’s be even a little more clear here.
When we say God is the one who condemns,
You need to know specifically who we are talking about.

John 5:22 “For not even the Father judges anyone, but He has given all judgment to the Son,”

So let me ask you again “Who is the one who condemns?”

And the answer is: Jesus
Many can try to bring condemnation,
But the reality is there is only One who can actually do it.

So when Satan brings an accusation before God
Hoping that God will refuse to justify and bring condemnation,
He is actually asking Jesus to condemn you.

But there is a problem in Satan’s logic there.
Christ is not in the business of condemning His elect,
What business is He in?

INTERCESSION

“Christ Jesus is who died, yes, rather who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who also intercedes for us.”

Christ isn’t condemning, He is interceding.

But that isn’t all of His work.
• First Paul reminds that Christ died to pay for the sin we are accused of.
• Then he reminds that Christ was raised proving that the justification He purchased was effective.
And then Paul reminds that
Christ now lives to intercede on our behalf when we fail.

SO…If you are going to condemn one of the elect
You have to be able to overpower the death, resurrection and ascension of Christ.

And the question is: Who can do that?
• Can anyone render the cross null and void?
• Can anyone disregard the resurrection?
• Can anyone convince Christ not to intercede, or God not to justify?
• Can anyone cause God to devalue the death of His Son?
• Can anyone stop what God wants to do?

You get the idea.
Security does not rest in the will or the strength of the sheep,
But in the sovereign prerogative and power of the Shepherd.

So thus far we’ve had 4 questions and 4 “No’s”
#5 HAS ANY TRIAL BEEN ABLE TO MAKE YOU QUIT LOVING GOD?
Romans 8:35-39

Now this 5th question is UNIQUE
Because it is the only 1 of the 5 that Paul actually answers.

Now the question is this:
“Who will separate us from the love of Christ?”

Now, most of the time when you hear that question referenced people do so as if to say, “Is there anything that can make Christ stop loving us?”

And if that were the question we’d still have to say “No”.
After all, God loved us when we were sinners.
Christ loved us when we were vile.

Certainly He doesn’t stop after we are saved.
John 13:1 “Now before the Feast of the Passover, Jesus knowing that His hour had come that He would depart out of this world to the Father, having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end.”

Literally, “He loved them to the max”
So, if that were the question, we’d definitely say “No”.

But I don’t think that’s the question.
And the reason I don’t think that’s the question is because of the explanation that follows.

If Paul were to say, “Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will our sinfulness, or our rebellion, or our fickleness, or our immorality, for it is written that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.”

But that is not what Paul says.

After asking about the strength of love
Paul doesn’t talk about all the pressures
That would cause Christ to stop loving us,
PAUL TALKS ABOUT ALL THE PRESSURES
THAT WOULD CAUSE US TO STOP LOVING CHRIST.

“Will tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?”

These are not the things Christ endures in order to keep loving us,
These are things we endure to keep loving Christ.

Those are genuine realities in the life of a believer.
Matthew 10:22 “You will be hated by all because of My name, but it is the one who has endured to the end who will be saved.”

John 16:33 “These things I have spoken to you, so that in Me you may have peace. In the world you have tribulation, but take courage; I have overcome the world.”

2 Timothy 3:12 “Indeed, all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.”

The world hates Christians and because of that hatred
The world even does unspeakable things to them.
And unspeakable pressure is placed upon them to stop loving Christ.

AND THAT IS THE QUESTION HERE.
Is it possible to inflict enough pain or hardship upon a believer to cause them to walk away?

And I think you will agree that this one is the scariest.
The first 4 all rested on the back of God and on His sovereign will and upon His divine power.
• Can anyone thwart God? HA!
• Can anyone disregard the cross? HA!
• Can anyone stop grace? HA!

To all of those we confidently say – “NO WAY!”

But now we come to the problem.
Can anyone make you stop loving God?

It implies the weaker side of the relationship doesn’t it?

I told you before about an Assembly of God preacher I heard who read the John 10 passage about no one snatching us out of God’s hand and then said, “But I believe we can walk out of God’s hand.”

If that is true, it is terrifying
Because I’m only as secure as I decide to be.

That’s all well and good during the days of prosperity, but what about when negative pressure is placed upon me?
• What about when they are threatening my family?
• What about when it’s a chronic illness?
• What about when it’s actual physical pain?

Can they make me decide to sever the relationship?

They might not be able to make God leave me,
But can they make me leave God?

And if you’re picking up on it, this was the very question at the heart of the book of Job.

Job 1:9-11 “Then Satan answered the LORD, “Does Job fear God for nothing? “Have You not made a hedge about him and his house and all that he has, on every side? You have blessed the work of his hands, and his possessions have increased in the land. “But put forth Your hand now and touch all that he has; he will surely curse You to Your face.”

Well that is the issue here as well.

And it’s an even more real situation because Paul notes that all of those hypothetical tribulations and perils and swords…well guess what?

IT’S HAPPENING!!!

(36) “Just as it is written, “FOR YOUR SAKE WE ARE BEING PUT TO DEATH ALL DAY LONG; WE WERE CONSIDERED AS SHEEP TO BE SLAUGHTERED.”

That list of hardships in verse 35 is no hypothetical, it’s reality.

And I think to strengthen your understanding:
TURN TO: PSALMS 44

Did you hear the despair and confusion of the Psalmist?
They were suffering and God wasn’t stopping it and they were struggling.
• They are suffering VIOLENTLY…
• They are suffering RELENTLESSLY… (never lets up)
• They are suffering IGNORANTLY… (don’t know why)

That is the Psalm Paul quotes here.

AND THE QUESTION IS,
Can suffering like that cause one of God’s elect to quit loving Him?

Now, I’m glad he didn’t leave this question unanswered,
Because quite frankly I think we could have quite a debate here.
• I know my weakness…
• I know my pain tolerance…
• I know my propensity to love comfort…

If you are asking me, do I think I could endure any measure of torment,
If I am honest, I have to say, “I don’t know”.

SO PAUL ANSWERS THE QUESTION.
• Now he doesn’t answer it based on what he thinks will happen.
• Paul answers it based on WHAT IS ACTUALLY HAPPENING.

(37) “But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us.”

Paul DOESN’T say,
“Don’t worry about it, if it happens, I’m sure you’ll be fine.”

Instead Paul says, “Well, those things are happening and it’s not working. Believers are sticking with Christ, in fact they are ‘overwhelmingly’ sticking with Him.”

And not to be lost in the explanation,
Paul even reveals HOW they are doing it.

And the answer is “through Him who loved us.”

Let me ask you again:
Why do you love God?
1 John 4:19 “We love, because He first loved us.”

The only reason you love Him is because He first loved you.

And might I also ask you where this love you have for Him came from?
Romans 5:5 “and hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.”

• The love you have for God did not originate with you.
• The love you have for God was given to you.
• It was “poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.”

The love you have for God is not a natural love,
It is a supernatural love.

Beyond that, (And I think you’ll appreciate this)
The love you have for God is the love that Christ has for God.

It is the divine love which the Son has for the Father
And it has been poured out into your heart through the Holy Spirit.

Let me jump ahead real quick to verse 39,
Nothing “will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

The love we have for God is the same love
“which is in Christ Jesus our Lord”

Do you see that?

And so now you understand
Why God’s people are overwhelmingly conquering affliction.

They have the supernatural love of Christ in them.
And that divine love for the Father
Causes them to love God through every affliction.

In fact, Paul told the Corinthians:
2 Corinthians 4:7-9 “But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, so that the surpassing greatness of the power will be of God and not from ourselves; we are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not despairing; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed;”

Paul says that no matter the hardship, we survive.
• It doesn’t matter if we are “afflicted in every way”
• It doesn’t matter if we are “perplexed”
• It doesn’t matter if we are “persecuted”
• It doesn’t matter if we are “struck down”

Even then we overwhelmingly conquer.

But that sounds strange that they would be able to endure such hostility
Being that they are merely “earthen vessels”.

I mean come on, you’re only human, and no human can survive such affliction, how do you do it?

And what did Paul say, “so that the surpassing greatness of the power will be of God and not from ourselves.”

• Do you know where they got the power to endure such hostility?
• Do you know where they got the ability to stick with God in such pain?

Well it wasn’t from themselves, after all, they’re just “earthen vessels” (dirt containers).

That strength, that commitment; that love came from God.
So do you see why Paul is able to give such a strong answer?
He knows that nothing can keep Him from loving God
Because nothing could keep Christ from loving God;
And that is the love which has been given to him.

And that is what leads Paul to that great closing statement.

(38-39) “For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

• Paul DIDN’T say “I would imagine…”
• Paul said, “I am convinced”

How could he say that?
Because he had himself experienced all of those things.

2 Corinthians 11:23-27 “Are they servants of Christ? — I speak as if insane — I more so; in far more labors, in far more imprisonments, beaten times without number, often in danger of death. Five times I received from the Jews thirty-nine lashes. Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three times I was shipwrecked, a night and a day I have spent in the deep. I have been on frequent journeys, in dangers from rivers, dangers from robbers, dangers from my countrymen, dangers from the Gentiles, dangers in the city, dangers in the wilderness, dangers on the sea, dangers among false brethren; I have been in labor and hardship, through many sleepless nights, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure.”

• “death” – stoned at Lystra and left for dead
• “life” – shipwrecked and chased and beaten and imprisoned
• “angels” – a demonic thorn in his flesh
• “principalities” – mentioning to the Thessalonians that “Satan hindered us”
• “things present” – Jewish persecution, constantly on the run
• “things to come” – Paul said the Holy Spirit continually reminded him that hardship was coming
• “nor powers” – like Rome or Satan
• “nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing” – like a violent storm in which he would be shipwrecked

“will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Paul was convinced because he had already walked through all of this.
And to that we either have to say that Paul was no ordinary human,
Or we have to say that God placed something in Paul which allowed him that strength.

Paul says it was the latter.

He kept loving because he had a supernatural love poured into his heart;
In fact he had the same love for God “which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

I hope you find encouragement there.
This the very essence of our assurance.

How can we be certain that the salvation we now enjoy will always be ours?

1) Because God willed it to be so and nothing can thwart His sovereign decision.
2) Because God’s grace is without limit and if He would not spare His Son, He certainly wouldn’t spare anything else.
3) Because God justifies sinners and therefore no accusation can ever hold weight against us
4) Because the only one with power to condemn us in fact died for us, justified us, and now intercedes for us
5) Because God poured into us a supernatural love for Him that will never fail regardless of the hardship.

That is the basis of our assurance.
And as you can see, it is all of GRACE ALONE

Not one single ounce of our security rests upon our strength or ability or fortitude, it all rests upon God’s gracious choice.

I WANT TO LEAVE YOU TONIGHT WITH A TREMENDOUS STATEMENT,
And one that links us to the period of the Reformation
So that you can see the final belief that came out regarding this doctrine.

It was written over a period of 4 years in the 1600’s by 151 leading theologians to be a final unifying confession of faith to reform the Church of England and to unify the various sects of Christianity.

It is one of the most important non-Biblical documents
In the history of the church.

The Westminster Confession
I want you to hear what these men said about the security of believers.

Chapter XVII
Of the Perseverance of the Saints
I. They, whom God has accepted in His Beloved, effectually called, and sanctified by His Spirit, can neither totally nor finally fall away from the state of grace, but shall certainly persevere therein to the end, and be eternally saved.[1]

II. This perseverance of the saints depends not upon their own free will, but upon the immutability of the decree of election, flowing from the free and unchangeable love of God the Father;[2] upon the efficacy of the merit and intercession of Jesus Christ,[3] the abiding of the Spirit, and of the seed of God within them,[4] and the nature of the covenant of grace:[5] from all which arises also the certainty and infallibility thereof.[6]

III. Nevertheless, they may, through the temptations of Satan and of the world, the prevalency of corruption remaining in them, and the neglect of the means of their preservation, fall into grievous sins;[7] and, for a time, continue therein:[8] whereby they incur God’s displeasure,[9] and grieve His Holy Spirit,[10] come to be deprived of some measure of their graces and comforts,[11] have their hearts hardened,[12] and their consciences wounded;[13] hurt and scandalize others,[14] and bring temporal judgments upon themselves.[15]

I love what those theologians said.
Because they certainly acknowledge the sinfulness of believers.
They knew we would fail.

But the statement they made at the beginning is so wonderfully profound and beautiful.

Namely that God’s elect “can neither totally nor finally fall away from the state of grace, but shall certainly persevere therein to the end, and be eternally saved.”

And what a great way to wrap up this doctrine.
We believe we will stay saved because the grace that saved us
Will remain upon us to secure us to the very end.

So whether you are talking about
• SOVEREIGN ELECTION
• Or God’s EFFECTIVE CALL
• Or Christ’s ACTUAL ATONEMENT
• Or the PRESERVATION OF THE SAINTS

One thing we are convinced of is that it is all by GRACE ALONE
There is no human element or worth added to it.
God has done it.
God is doing it.
God will finish it.

BY GRACE ALONE