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Pastor David Mitchell
Good morning, everyone. Well, it's been one of those bubbly days so far.
I like that. I love it when Dave Heber cannot get your attention. It's fun to watch him try.
Did you try the Myron thing today? You didn't try the Myron thing. Myron said in a big crowd, if they won't pay attention, if you stand there and go like this and say nothing, eventually they all go, what's going on?
What's going on? They'll get quiet. It kind of works. Not so much in a small crowd though, right? They just think that's weird in a small crowd.
Anyway, wow. My brain is full of stuff to tell you today.
And so I shall not chat any further. I want to get right into it. But it's good to see you all.
Let's pray. Father, thank you for the service today already. Thank you for that beautiful music.
And we ask you to bless your word, the most beautiful thing that you've given us.
It is the only perfect thing on this earth. The perfect has come. Teach it to us today.
We ask in Jesus' name. Amen. All right. I didn't know you're coaching.
You're helping. Are you the head coach? Oh, to get like pre -season?
Is that kind of what they call it? What an opportunity. Yeah, I have a son -in -law.
It's not this one, but I have a son -in -law whose whole life was turned around by a man like you who took an interest in him at school and kind of brought him out of the stage he was in.
And so you never know, man, that's awesome. That's fantastic that God's given you that ability.
But I know it's a different world, but he's definitely equipped you to to go out there and come back away from it for a while.
So, all right, let me get my notes together here, because if I get them out of order, we're all in trouble.
Okay, so we I'm going to put it over here, so let's knock the water off.
We're still kind of stuck on Romans 15, 16 about how our offerings as Gentiles are made acceptable by the
Lord. And this morning, and we've worked our way, we've been talking about the believer priest and the fact that God has made us to be believer priests, and we've gone through quite an outline of topical things brought out of the scriptures.
Like Brother Myron says so much, he said, I wish more preachers understood that the message is in the Bible. The Roman numerals, the little a's, all that stuff, it's all right there.
You don't need other stuff. So true. So we've been, we've made a topical outline through some of these passages in 1 and 2
Peter predominantly, and we've made our way down to the last of the
Roman numerals that I have in this little part of the study, which all leads us up to the main part, where we go back in the
Old Testament. That's going to blow your minds when you see that, but you say, well, why do we stay so long on a topic like this?
Because we do a lot of doctrinal stuff in this church, don't we? So you need some practical things sometimes, and this is very practical, because it's teaching us what it means to be a believer priest and how to do it, what we're supposed to be doing.
So that's why I'm sticking with it for a little while. We'll be done with it pretty soon, and we can move on into Romans again to the next verse.
But for now, let's turn to 1 Peter chapter 1, starting with verse 3.
Okay, and let's follow along here, because what we're going to talk about today is how are we made to be believer priests.
You know, we've talked a little bit about the lost people, lost sheep and goat, lost goats in the last couple of Sundays.
Today, we're going to talk about how did he make us to be believer priests. So let's start with 1 Peter 1 3.
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible, undefiled, that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you, you who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.
There's a lot in that passage. And so let's look at it. Blessed be the
God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy has begotten you again.
Let's stop right there. What does that tell us when he starts out and saying that he did this according to his abundant mercy?
That tells us that it's not according to our works, does it not? But rather he made us to be believer priests according to his mercy.
So he didn't choose us to be a believer priest because we are good priests. He didn't choose us to be a believer priest because we are good people, are strong people, are wealthy people, are influential people.
Now God will raise up a few of those, but not many, the scripture says. Scripture says, look around us, there are not many noble among us, but some.
So he calls who he desires to be his children, and he makes all of them be believer priests.
How? According to his mercy. Now that reminds me of Titus 3, 5 and about 7, where it says this, not by our works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us.
Same thing, isn't it? The same thing that is said in 1 Peter chapter 1 verse 3. According to his mercy he saved us by the washing of regeneration and the renewing of the
Holy Ghost. Now we've had a theme that goes throughout all these passages in 1 and 2
Peter that we've looked at, and it's throughout the gospels as well where Jesus talks about it, and he talks about the fact that you can only be saved by with two things.
It's really three things. First John mentions it's really three things, but Jesus was talking about a particular in generalities.
He said basically you have to have the water of the word, the word of God, and you have to have the
Holy Spirit. Those two things have to come into a person's life for him to be saved at all, and then you need the same two ingredients to grow.
Now first John adds the blood, which obviously what the Bible part, the word of God, the gospel talks about what the blood has accomplished.
So it's all about the blood, but then the Holy Spirit opens our eyes and equips us to be able to hear the word of God, right, for the first time.
So you have to have both to be saved. So let's stick with those two thoughts, but they're throughout this, and we'll see as we come to sort of conclusion on this part of this topical study we've been doing, it's going to come back to the same thing.
The Holy Spirit and the word of God, both. It takes both. So this part here in Titus 3 .5,
what is it talking about when it says he saved us by the washing? It says he saved us with his mercy is how he did it, but how?
What's the mechanism he used? He used the washing of regeneration and the renewing of the
Holy Ghost. What does that sound like? That sounds like one of those two ingredients that are being talked about here, and that is the
Holy Spirit, wouldn't you agree? I mean it names it, and he says the renewing of the
Holy Ghost. I always think it's so amazing how it talks about we are redeemed.
We are renewed. Doesn't it give you the thought that before we entered this life,
God already knew us as his own children, and we were perfect and had no sin in his mind and all that, and now we come down and we're born here in the flesh, and the minute we're born, we're born in sin and iniquity because we inherit that from our parents that goes all the way back to Adam and Eve, correct?
So the minute we land on this earth, and I know we started out the whole day with a bunch of babies on the floor back there before Sunday school and just playing with them, and it just makes your whole day, and I saw
Brother Ron pick up, I guess it was Fern, wasn't it, and she led him, and she just looked at him, and his there's that fly we were talking about right there.
Man, I knew it. They don't like the preach of the word. Satan is the lord of flies.
Somebody come spray him. We got any spray yet? I need hairspray. It's called raid.
Ah, totally lost my train of thought. Anyway, okay, so you just looked at her, and you said, ah, it feels so good, that love, right, and what does it have to do with my sermon?
I totally lost it when the fly like a dive bomber just nailed me. Anyway, it is distracting to me a lot.
So anyway, see if I can recollect my thoughts. I don't know.
Why was I talking about babies? Oh, yeah, yeah, okay. Maybe that relates a little bit.
I don't think that's where I was going, but it's good. It's a good point. It's even better than my point. So God saw us like that before the foundation of the world.
He loved us that much, even more, even more, if we can imagine, and so now he renews the
Holy Ghost. That's so interesting that that phraseology is used, and yet the whole world of religion today, among Baptists, Pentecostals, all of them, it's all about manishness, and it's all about what humans do to get saved, and what's the formula
I've got to follow to get saved, and all that stuff. It's nothing. I mean, all that's wonderful and good, and it is important because the human choices we make and our responses, all of that is real, and it's very important, and it means a lot to the
Lord Jesus Christ, because we're his bride. He wants us to respond, but it's not what saves us.
It's not what makes us be that bride, and what does that is called the re -washing of regeneration and the renewing of the
Holy Ghost. While we were yet in our sins, had he called us, now you're saved.
Everything else is in effect. Everything else happens because of that and has nothing to do with causing it.
None of those effects can be the cause of the cause, says Charles Spurgeon, and so true, so right. So, here we have the very kernel of salvation, and it's the washing of regeneration.
That word comes from the same word as the English word gene. You have been re -gened.
You no longer have the genes of your physical parents. You have God's genes. You are perfect. You cannot sin.
That's the real you. I said new because I'm thinking new man. That's the real you. The new man is the real you.
The old man, you don't even like him that much. Oh, he likes to do some stuff.
He or she likes doing stuff, and it's all sinful and leads away from everything
God wants us to do, but the real you is not like that anymore because you've been re -gened.
So, you have been washed by this regeneration. It means your mind is different because now a new man controls that brain, which is a physical organ.
A new man controls it now, not the old man, and the renewing of the
Holy Spirit. It is by the work of that part of the Godhead called the
Holy Spirit that you got saved, and he applied the work that Jesus Christ did, that part of the
Godhead when he shed his blood. That Holy Spirit applies that blood to you as an individual at the moment you're born again, and this is talking about that kernel, the very base part of the born -again experience when you were regenerated by the application of the blood of Jesus by the
Holy Spirit. Now, what's interesting about it is that you have to have heard the gospel somewhere.
The Holy Spirit won't call you without using the gospel that you've heard somewhere.
It could be spoken to you by a Christian. It could be a basketball coach that told it to you on a van coming back from Dallas.
It could be a radio preacher who's even wrong with most of the junk he says, but he got the gospel and said it, and you heard it.
It could be the Bible that a man wrote, a penman. The penmen were all humans. It has to have a human element.
God does not just... All right, think of it this way. Don't you think it's a little bit like physical birth?
Jesus said so, did he not? You must be born again. It's like physical birth. Okay, so let me ask you this.
Once God made Adam from the dirt of the ground and he brought
Eve forth from his rib, have there been any other humans made that way? So, every other human has been made through the instrumentality of humans.
Do you see that? Now, do you think though that two humans, if God didn't exist, could make a baby?
No, because they wouldn't exist. The two humans would not exist, nor would they have the breath of life, nor would they have the power of God to create that child who he already knew one way or the other.
He either knew him as a sheep or a goat, didn't he? It takes both man and God to create a baby, right?
Okay, that's just like the spiritual birth. Jesus said it's like physical birth. It's like that.
It works the same way. So, if that's true, it takes the mannish part, which is the creation of this physical book by human beings and the message of it, and it takes the spiritual part.
This is the man part, and then it takes the spiritual part to create a spiritual baby, and it talks about it throughout the
Bible. It's easily missed, I think, but it talks about it. Now, this part, when we go into the
Titus 3 .5, which sort of expands on the little phrase in 1 Peter verse 3, where it says that he begotten us again by the
Holy Spirit and by his mercy, well, Titus 3 .5 says, well, here's how the mercy works. Because he had mercy, he regenerated us by calling us by his
Holy Spirit, opening our eyes and our minds and so forth to the very gospel that we must have heard.
Now, it says that this washing of regeneration, I'm still in Titus 3, now
I'm going to verse 6, this washing of regeneration, renewing of the Holy Ghost, was shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our
Savior. Now, what does that mean? I thought it just said the Holy Spirit saved us.
Well, God is one. He subsists as three distinct, I say persons, because we don't have a better word, but it's not like us being different people, because he's one person in that sense, but he's three.
I don't know how to explain it. It's called the Trinity. He has three different ways.
He ministers through three different, it's more than a manifestation, but I can use that because the
Bible says that Jesus was God manifest in the flesh, doesn't it? So, Jesus is a particular manifestation of God.
The Holy Spirit is a particular manifestation of God, and the Father also is
God. So, when you look at it, Jesus is the one who sent the Holy Spirit.
Do you remember that? And Jesus is the one who did all the finished work on the cross to save us, and he sent the
Holy Spirit to administer that blood and place it upon us as pictured by the hyssop weed sprinkling it on the doorpost of the
Jewish homes that night in Egypt. But this was shed upon us abundantly through Jesus Christ our
Lord. Jesus Christ gets all the glory. I have got a really good friend from Tradeway around the country.
He used to live in California, I believe, and they've moved. I forgot where they just moved a while back, but he sent me a text.
He said he had a good book he wanted to send me if I wanted it, and he said it's on the Holy Spirit, and I'm thinking, okay, so I'm thinking, okay, how do
I answer that? For one thing, I don't like to read modern books much. I've got
Kuyper's book on the Holy Spirit. It's about that thick, and it was written, I don't know, I don't even remember, probably 1800.
I don't remember when he wrote it. Long, long time ago. He's not a modern writer, right? And I'm thinking,
I don't know if I want a book on the Holy Spirit. There's not that much in the Bible on the Holy Spirit. You know why?
Because the Holy Spirit talks about Jesus, not himself. But there's some information about him, isn't there?
So you could just search Holy Spirit or spirit and find all of it and read it in a day easily, and that would be much better than reading a book about it.
So I'm thinking, I don't know if I want that book, but you're my buddy. I don't want to offend you, and so I just sent him one back.
I didn't even want to answer it last night. I didn't know how to answer it, so I sent him one back this morning. I said, well, what's the title of the book, and who's the author?
And great to hear from you, blah, blah, blah. So I'll wait and see, and then I'll go Google the author and see what the background is, what he believes about other stuff, and I might read the book.
And what it ends up when they're written by people that I can't respect because of their goofy beliefs.
Some people, you know, some people have really weird beliefs in other areas, and it's hard for me to, you know,
I usually end up critiquing that book more than reading it. So it may be one of those. It may not, but my friend is deep, so he may have found a good one, so I may read it.
I don't know, but I will tell you this. The main thing the Holy Spirit talks about is not himself, and so when
I find groups of people that, and I'm not referring to my friend now because he's not like this, but there are groups of people that all they want to talk about is the
Holy Spirit this, the Holy Spirit that. It's all they want the Spirit. The Spirit did this, and when they don't put the word holy in front of it,
I start to worry a little bit because I'm wondering which spirit are you talking about, you know, especially when they claim that that Spirit is doing stuff that he himself said he won't do anymore.
I don't know. I'm on a rabbit trail now, but it just drives me nuts. My favorite topic anyway, but anyway, so here we do see the work of the
Holy Spirit, but listen, it comes right back to Jesus in verse 6, doesn't it? It's amazing because it sounds like it says, okay, it's the
Holy Spirit that saves us, doesn't it, by the washing and regeneration of the Holy Spirit, and it sounds like, okay, so that's part of God that saves us, but the very next, it's not even a period in English.
It's a semicolon, which means the sentence continues in verse 6, which he shed on us abundantly.
Who's the he there? That's the Holy Spirit. He put that salvation on us abundantly through Jesus Christ, our
Savior, so he couldn't have even been at your house, your mental house, your brain.
He couldn't have even awakened you if Jesus had not sent him because Jesus already knew you.
You were his, and of them he will lose nothing, and he sent him to you on your spiritual birthday because Jesus has a mission.
He's a shepherd. His mission is to use that stick. He's either going to use the crooked end and drag you in the right place or the other end and whoop you in the right place, but he's going to get you right there in the flock because you were out there straying with the goats, weren't you?
If you were old enough before you got saved, a lot of us were straying out there playing with the goats and the pigs and all that stuff, and boom, he awakens us and just carries us right back into the fold, so it's the work of Jesus delegated to the
Holy Spirit. Do you see that? You go back and you read what a lot of our fathers wrote, and you got to remember all of them were
Catholics. They were Catholics. I mean, there's a theory that they weren't, but I don't buy into it.
They were all Catholics, and the great renaissance happened, and at the same time the
Protestant era happened. The Reformation happened, and all of a sudden light came in, and they began to say, wait a minute.
We're going too much into humanism and tradition. We need to go back to this book, and this is what the whole
Reformation was about, going back to this book as the sole authority for everything, practice and doctrine, and so we're brought back to it, but listen, when it comes down to it, it's just Jesus' blood applied to us when he sends the
Holy Spirit to apply it. Does that make sense? On your spiritual birthday, he's not going to lose a single sheep, and this is pictured in Titus 3, 5 through 7, where it goes on, which the
Holy Spirit shed upon this regeneration, abundantly through Jesus Christ our
Savior, that being justified by his grace, we should be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life, and that hope goes all the way back to the
Abrahamic covenant, which is what that's talking about, the Abrahamic promise. The whole gospel's right there.
If you had Titus 3, verses 5 through 7, and that's all you ever heard, the
Holy Spirit would use that to call you. You see, it just can take little pieces, parts of it, but it has to be there, because you've got to have that side of it.
Now, let's go back into 1 Peter chapter 1, where we are. Blessed, verse 3, blessed be the
God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.
So, the first thing we learned is, is we got to be a believer priest because of his mercy.
It's not by works. The second thing we learned here is that he has begotten us again.
He gave us a new birth by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. So, I've got to ask you this.
How much bad stuff had you done 2 ,000 some odd years ago when he died? How much bad stuff had you done?
Well, that depends on the point of view. From your point of view, none because you weren't born yet, so you had nothing to do with your salvation because you were begotten again.
What does it say? Has already, in the Greek, has already begotten us again to a lively hope by the resurrection of the dead.
That happened over 2 ,000 years ago, and that's how he gave you this lively hope. It happened before you did or didn't do anything.
It's by mercy. It's not by works. Do you get it? Of course, you do. I'm preaching to the choir.
We should just sing today together, preaching to the choir. All right, so this is how it works by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, not by anything you did.
See, that was part of his finished work. Now, most theologians say the finished work happened on the cross, and when he died, he said it is finished, which means paid in full in the
Greek or actually Latin, paid in full. And so what does that mean?
He paid the sin debt. All the work that it took to get you saved was finished, but I'm not so sure
I would say that's where the finished work of Christ ended because he did need to come out of the grave, didn't he? But he did that three days later, and so at that point,
I mean, all of that work was done by him, not by you, not by me.
Now, did the Father and Holy Spirit play a role in that? Absolutely. And so anyway, that's where the work was done to save us.
So we were born again by the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. So it's all him that did it.
We didn't do it. Everything we do is an effect of that. It's not the cause of it. It's an effect of it.
Look at verse four. What are we born again to? We're born again to an inheritance. That's number one, incorruptible.
I don't like it when people teach you can lose your salvation because they defy this verse and about 5 ,000 other ones.
I'm jesting a bit. I don't know how many, probably 6 ,000, probably the whole
Bible, how many verses there are. Look that up for me directly. How many verses are in the Bible? But you can Google it probably real quick.
But anyway, it defies all of them. It defies the teaching of the whole Bible when you try to say that you can lose your salvation because it's incorruptible.
Listen, if what you had was corruptible and it ended, you didn't have it. You didn't have salvation because salvation is incorruptible to an inheritance, which is incorruptible.
What's an inheritance, by the way? It's something you get when your dad dies. It's something you could have only had if Jesus had died, but he has died.
He has died. That's why we have a New Testament. That means like a will. A testament can only be there if there's someone who died.
And so he died on the cross for us. Now we have an inheritance. We've inherited everything that he owns is ours.
I love the way Otis put it. He said, you know, it's not like we're, it's not like we're, what are the two words?
There's a co -heir and a joint heir. Yeah. He said, it's not like we're co -heirs.
That would be where the father gave half to this son and half to this one. A joint heir is when they both get all of it.
You see the difference? We're joint heirs. So everything he had, we've inherited. And guess what?
It's incorruptible. Can't go away. Even the life that we have cannot go away. Secondly, it's undefiled.
Do you know what that means? Listen, I'm not a proponent of you going out and sinning after we leave here.
I hope you don't. And I hope I don't, but we will. Won't we? Okay. You're not in a holiness church today, right?
They think you get to a place where you don't sin anymore in this life. Duh. Duh.
Like, man, I could never join that church. But anyway, so like, I'm not, I'm not proposing that you go out and sin, but I will tell you this.
If you do, it does not defile your salvation one whit because the father doesn't see it.
He will never know you ever sinned. God, the father will never know you ever sinned because that's what justification means.
It's just as if you never sin in his eyes. Now, Jesus knows, you've heard me say it, Jesus sees it in time through his
Holy Spirit now, and he deals with it in time. Sometimes we get spanking when we sin. All of that's important because we are living in this space -time continuum in a body that's still the old man, and it'll cause us to sin.
But my message today is it doesn't defile you when it happens. Satan wants you to think it doesn't feel like that for days.
It doesn't. Like 1 John 1, 9 says, it's gone immediately as soon as you admit that it's bad. You agree with Jesus that what you did was bad.
It's gone, and so is everything else you ever did wrong. It's all gone, and you're fresh and clean, like a little better than a baby.
It's like the baby before it was born. It's like a brand new born -again baby.
That's what it's like. And so undefiled. I mean, how can you lose your salvation if the stuff you do can't defile you?
Duh, right? I mean, there's a million ways we can attack this, false doctrine of losing yourself.
There's a million ways you can attack. And they got like five verses that make them think you can lose it.
Five. We got like 5 ,000 that show you can't. So what should we do? Try to change our 5 ,000 to fit their five?
Or maybe they're not interpreting their five right. They need to make them match the other. I don't know.
That makes more sense to me. So here we have it. An inheritance incorruptible, undefiled, that fadeth not away.
Oh, it can't be corrupted. Nothing you can do can defile it, and it won't fade away.
But you can lose your salvation. You can just decide you don't want it anymore.
Jesus says, I've been I'm gonna lose nothing, and you can decide you don't want to be a sheep and turn yourself into a goat when you didn't even turn yourself into the sheep.
I don't get it. I mean, I just don't get it. I had to tell you this.
I don't say this from the pulpit, but I'll tell you there was an elderly lady that got led to the Lord one time when
I went to visit her. And all I did was just read to her about 200 eternal security verses from Genesis to Revelation.
All of them. I showed her all of them one afternoon that I knew, which was a bunch, because I had them all marked in my little pocket
Bible. I had a little roadmap from the first one all the way to the last one. Read them all to her, and she already was claiming she was saved, right?
She comes to visit church that next Sunday and said, well, I got saved after you left the other day. I said, well, you've been in church your whole life, sweet little lady.
You know, surely you're saved. Nope, because I didn't know. I didn't know. I believe this.
Whatever I had, you could lose it, right? This you can't lose. That's what she told me. So you have to wonder, these people that preach that and teach it, are they even saved?
What about your friends that think it? Are they even saved? Well, I'm not going to make that judgment either way.
I'm not going to bet on them being there, though. I'm not going to bet, because I'm a Baptist. We don't bet.
All right. That's right, little sister. That's right. We don't dance either.
All right. That's right. Amen. So, you know, my doctor wanted me to take this thing called a calcium score test to see if I had a bunch of plaque in my arteries, which they all predict, because I have, you know, over 200 cholesterol.
Not that bad. It's like 470. No, not really. It's like, I don't know, two. It's been going down for years.
It's like 210 now. So take this thing that supposedly shows you if you have plaque in your arteries.
Well, the test they used to do for that is like, what do you call it?
Stress test. They put you on a treadmill, make you walk for 15 minutes, and they increase the steepness and make you keep walking.
And if you live, you don't have plaque. I mean, that's maybe that's why they quit doing that.
Now they do the calcium test because all they do is scan it, right? But getting up here preaching about stuff this good,
I'll promise you, I just passed the stress test because my heart's beating really fast right now. And if I can do this,
I don't have plaque. Big laugh.
He hit the ground. The fly is going to get him now. Maybe that's why he's buzzing around.
He senses it. But to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled that fadeth not away.
Oh, wait a minute. There's more. Reserved. Reserved in heaven for just everybody.
What does it say? For who? For me? But I can lose my salvation.
Oh, I know it's reserved up there. And in father's eyes, I'm already there with him because he's there and I'm there with him.
But I can lose it because I'm a strong human and I am stronger than God. In fact,
I am God and I choose whether I'm saved or not. My eternal destiny is in my own hands because I'm a human.
I would lose it if I believe that. Yeah, I would lose it if I could lose it. Absolutely. But guess what?
It says it's reserved in heaven for me. Oh, wait a minute. You mean it's incorruptible?
It's undefiled by me? It can't fade away? And it's reserved?
And that's not enough. So he gives us the next verse. Look at verse five. Who? Me. Me who are kept by the power of humanism and Arminianism.
Amen, brothers and sisters. We humans have got to figure out this religion and keep all the points of it.
And if we do, maybe we'll make it. You won't know how many sermons I've heard at funerals where the
Church of Christ preachers were saying, this was the sweetest lady and if she makes it, she'll be a wonderful saint.
At a funeral, they say that if she makes it. If I were the family, I'd get up and walk out right there.
I almost didn't. I wasn't part of the family. I was sitting on the back row and I just almost left. But I thought, if the family ain't leaving,
I'll stay. Goodness gracious, who are kept not by the power of humanism, by the power of Arminianism, by the power of religion, by the power of a list you make that supposedly makes you more righteous than your brother and you kept it better than he did.
Not by any of that, but by the power of God. You're kept by the power of God, but you can lose it.
So how weak is God? Your God is weak, I'm telling you. If you believe that, your God is weak because his name is
Satan. Right? Now he's stronger than we are, but he's a lot weaker.
He's very weak when you compare him to almighty God, the creator of all that is. The one who existed before anything was, which
I've been listening to some physics things lately. Very interesting to think about the universe and all that.
So I actually have another sermon on the phone here. It's actually part of this one, but I don't know if it'll last long enough to get to it.
But think about the enormity of the universe that God has created.
Everything is small compared to God, and it's by his power that we're kept.
How are we kept? Through faith. Now what does that mean? Faith unto salvation ready to be revealed at the last time.
Do you think that Jesus Christ, who is held responsible by God the Father, to get you to heaven, and not only get you, but every saint that God knows, thousands of hundreds of thousands of saints, hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people that belong to the
Lord and have from Genesis to from when time started on this earth till now, and right up to the end, and he's got to get every single one of them to heaven or he fails, and Jesus cannot fail because he's
God. But he answers to the Father for that, and do you think really that he's going to leave it in the hands of any human, whether you make it or not?
Do you really think that he is going to even leave it to some human belief system in your brain where you work up a pep rally of, well,
I think I believe. I want to feel like I believe. That's the kind of faith you had before you got saved, when you were thinking you were going to save yourself, you know, that kind of junk.
That's not the kind of faith this is talking about in verse 5 here. This is talking about Jesus's faith,
Ephesians 2, 8 and 9 faith, the gift of God where he gave you the faith of Christ.
That's the faith that saves us, and that's why you can't lose it. You're not dependent on your own belief that's here today and gone the first time.
He doesn't answer your prayer, yes, when you doubt him a little bit, and don't tell me you haven't, and don't tell me you want again, because you will, but your salvation is not based on that, how you feel, that kind of belief, human belief, how you feel.
Oh, I feel strong today. I believe in everything. Well, today I'm just kind of depressed, just wonder if it's all true. Aren't you glad that's not the faith that saved you?
It's Jesus's faith. We're kept by the power of God through faith. You might as well say the faith of Christ unto salvation, ready to be revealed in the last time, because of them he will lose nothing.
Ah, I think we could title this eternal security today, couldn't we? The word kept in the
Greek, gureo, it really means to be a watcher in advance.
That's interesting. I mean, like only God has foreknowledge, right? Listen, long before you had your spiritual birthday, he was already watching over you in advance of that.
Long before he created the world, and the solar system, and the entire universe, he already knew you by name, and was watching over you in advance.
And that's what the Greek word means, and I doubt very many people can explain why it means that, and why it's there.
But we know in this church, don't we? We know, and there's others that know. Charles Spurgeon knew,
John Calvin knew, to be a watcher in advance, to mount a guard, to mount a guard over something.
How do you like to know the fact that not only did Jesus save you, he is your guard that keeps you saved, that keeps the enemy from destroying you, keeps the world system from destroying you, even temptation from destroying you.
He is your guard. All of that is built into this word in the Greek, which is translated kept.
It can even mean hemmed in, like sheep with a fence around them, but you don't need the fence because the
Holy Spirit and the Lord Jesus are our shepherd, but we're hemmed in, like we're protected in that sense.
We're kept. Look at verse six. Because of all this stuff we just read in verses four, five, and six, we greatly rejoice.
Wow. We don't just rejoice a little bit, we greatly rejoice, even though for a season in this time in which we're living, if need be, we're in heaviness through many temptations and trials and sufferings and heartaches and arthritis and pains and getting older.
I got three out of four doctors telling me I'm a placopotamus, whatever that is. It's a medical term.
It's what they're calling me. I should look that up and make sure that's really a medical term, but that's what they're calling me.
It makes me think, oh man, a week ago I felt 18, now I feel like 92.
Thanks, doctor. I'm paying you money for this. This is awesome. Anything else you want to tell me to encourage me?
You're probably going to get cancer someday. It's probably already in your body. Oh, really? Okay. Thank you.
It's very helpful. I don't rejoice because of what is and isn't wrong or right with my body.
I rejoice because I have an inheritance that's incorruptible, that's undefiled, that's kept in heaven, and it's kept by the power of God for me with my name on it.
Therein, I greatly rejoice, even no matter what I go through. And we've had some serious prayer requests the last three, four weeks, haven't we,
Dave? I mean, if you really stop and you think about the people we're praying for, some of those, you're going, from the human side, they have little hope, but with God, they can greatly rejoice.
If they know Jesus, they can greatly rejoice, no matter how that comes out, and it can come out with a miraculous healing.
God still does that, and so He doesn't do it through faith healers anymore or through apostles because there aren't any.
They're all in heaven, but He does it through working together with us as we pray, and He chooses to do it, then that's how
He does it. That the trial of your faith being much more precious than gold, because gold perishes, though it be tried with fire, talking about your faith, it might be found unto praise and honor and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ.
Why would your faith get praise and honor and glory?
Because it's His faith, and it gets that praise and honor and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ when we throw our crowns at His feet.
There goes that fly. He's probably about half dead by now. So, whom having not seen,
I love this verse, like we didn't have the privilege of walking with Him 2 ,000 years ago on this earth, did we?
Jesus, that is. We didn't get to walk with Him, but it says, whom having not seen you love, in whom though now you see
Him not, yet you still believe in Him, you rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory, receiving the end of your faith.
Why do they call it your faith? Because once it's given to you as a gift, it is yours. You own it. You own the faith of Christ.
Isn't that amazing? What a gift. We can greatly rejoice even driving to Dallas a thousand times in a month or two, whatever.
It'd be just like it's not the main thing. However we're feeling on a given day is not the main thing.
Praise God as we get older, right? We praise the Lord as not the main thing anymore.
So, having not seen, we love in whom though now you see
Him not, you yet believing, you rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory, receiving the end of your faith, even the salvation of your souls, of which salvation the prophets have inquired and searched diligently who prophesied of the grace that should come unto you.
We better stop there today. We have a lot of great stuff left, though, if the
Lord leaves us here until next Sunday. So, we'll come back and let's stand and have prayer together. Lord, thank you so much for this beautiful passage that you brought us to today, this reaffirmation of our eternal security because we're kept by your power, not our lack of it.
And so, thank you for this, these great truths. Thank you for getting our attention on the main things in our lives, not the peripheral things.
And so, Lord, watch over us. Increase our faith.
Give us more of the faith of Christ. Give us more and more of your grace as we grow in the
Word and your Holy Spirit being our teacher. Lord, we ask you to go with us in our time of fellowship now.