Special Episode: Reformation Month

Rural Church Podcast 2.0

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Well, during the latter Middle Ages, Christianity had fallen on tough times.

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It's not that everybody was bad, but a lot of leaders in the church had become corrupt, and there had been some strange and some corrupt practices, and some of these practices still continue on today, but especially in the realms of how a person was saved, how salvation was understood.

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Salvation had been turned into something that we achieved. You gotta jump through these hoops in order to be saved.

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You've gotta confess your sins rightly, and then you've got to give alms, or do penance, et cetera, et cetera, in order to be forgiven.

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And so because of these things, during this time period, not a lot of people understood the gospel, and the church was dark, and holiness had fallen on tough times, all but forgotten.

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And so a simple definition of the Protestant Reformation is this, a protest against the corrupt teachings and practices that were taking place in the

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Roman Catholic Church. The Reformation wasn't something new, but it was a recovery of the gospel, and that's what

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I wanted us to see in our text, a recovery of the gospel. And even in the SBC, in the

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Southern Baptist Convention, we were founded in 1845, but we can trace our roots back to the

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Reformation. John Hannah says this about the Reformation. He says, the Reformation was a call for authentic Christianity, an attempt to escape the medieval corruption of the faith through renewal and reform.

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Its teaching, which swirled around a five -fold repetition of the word sola, means alone in Latin, was a radical message for that day, and it should be for ours, because it called for a commitment to an entirely

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God -centered view of faith and life. Christianity, during that day, and even today sometimes, can be all about me, can it?

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So a call to this God -centered view, and so these five solas are what undergirded the convictions of the

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Protestant Reformers, and what we're gonna do in this point is just show you from the text kind of where these come from.

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So the first sola here, and I'll put them on your sheet if you're following along there, sola scriptura means scripture alone.

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So the Roman Catholic Church teaches that God speaks to us in scripture and church tradition, but the

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Protestant Reformation was about recovering this biblical principle that the sole authoritative source of divine revelation is this book, it is scripture.

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Let's just read our text again. But now Paul says, "'The righteousness of God has been manifested "'apart from the law, "'although the law and the prophets bear witness to it, "'the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ "'for all who believe.

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"'There's no distinction, for all have sinned "'and fall short of the glory of God, "'and are justified by His grace as a gift "'through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, "'whom

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God put forward as a propitiation by His blood "'to be received by faith. "'This was to show

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God's righteousness "'because in His divine forbearance, "'He had passed over former sins. "'It was to show

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His righteousness at the present time "'so that He might be just and the justifier "'of the one who has faith in Jesus.'"

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Now, listen, if you're able to read and you're following that along, you say, that says nothing about scripture alone, right?

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That says nothing about it's only the Bible that's our highest and all -sufficient authority. But I submit to you this morning that the very fact that we're coming here and listening to a sermon is that we are affirming this truth that stemmed out of the

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Reformation, which was a recovery from Christianity at all times and all places. And that is that scripture alone is our highest and all -sufficient authority.

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There's not a higher authority out there that we appeal to, that trumps what God's word says to us.

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You say, yeah, we know this, why are we learning it today? Because it's not, well, the Bible says this, but I've always believed this, right?

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I mean, you hang out enough in Perry County or you hang out enough in the Bible Belt and that kind of teaching, you'll hear that, right?

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Well, you know, I mean, yeah, I know the Bible, but I just think God is this way, right? I know the

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Bible and I know this and that, but my experience kind of tells me something else. And really what we're doing when we say those things is we're letting other authorities creep in there and trump what the

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Bible says. Guys, the Bible is our highest authority. It doesn't matter how that necessarily, in a way,

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I'm not being harsher, but it doesn't matter how it makes us feel, right? Or how we feel about it.

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Like today, listen to culture today. Even, guys, even in Christianity, this is kind of creeping in.

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And that is, if it feels bad, then we can just kind of reinterpret scripture, right?

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And so one reality that happens, and it's not my goal to harp on this, but it's just a reality of what we're facing.

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So one reality is, okay, these two people, they're the same gender, but they really love one another.

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And you know what? I mean, I just think, doesn't God want us to love each other? And so I think that they should be able to get married because they love each other.

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And so that should, doesn't that just feel right? Well, it doesn't, honestly, it doesn't matter how it feels, right?

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It matters what God's word says because God's word is our highest authority.

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And we don't allow our feelings to trump scripture. Now, let me just add, that shouldn't feel right, right?

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I mean, it shouldn't because that's sin, but our hearts can deceive us. Jeremiah 17, nine says our hearts are deceptive.

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And so we wanna be careful of that. But the point here is we can all struggle with this. And so no creed, no counsel, no statement of faith, none of these trump what the

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Bible says. Even in the Baptist faith and message, I believe in the Baptist faith and message. But even that, we submit that, it's not

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Baptist faith and message, then the Bible, it's the Bible, right? The Bible is our highest authority.

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Now be careful with this, because I know we say, amen, be careful because what will happen in your life is, and it happens.

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I mean, this isn't just like, it happens to some Christians and not others. It happens to all of us.

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It happens to me. And that is when we read the Bible, sometimes we read something that's kind of hard and we're like, yeah, but I just know it can't be like that because of this.

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And when you say that, what you're saying is, this, whatever it is over here, what you've been taught, what your grandparents believed, whatever, you're saying that's higher than the

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Bible. So we wanna submit everything underneath the authority of Scripture. And when we come up on things that are hard or difficult, we want to say,

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God, help me understand, because I want all my life to be subjected to what the

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Scripture teaches. And it's Scripture alone. It's not church tradition. None of these things equal with what the

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Bible says. We put the Bible as our highest authority. Joel Beeky says this, the reformers taught that the

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Bible is the rule of faith that guides our intellect and the rule of practice that guides our daily duty.

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Scripture is God speaking to us as a father speaks to his children. We can trust Scripture for time and eternity.

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And we can look to Scripture to transform and renew our minds through the Spirit of God.

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So it's the Bible alone that is our highest authority and is all sufficient. It's from the

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Bible that we get these remaining four souls. And we'll talk about that in just a minute. But before we get there, let me ask you this.

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How are you treating the Bible? See, it was during the Reformation. If you were around during the

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Reformation, you would not have had this. You wouldn't have had it. And secondly, if you did have it, probably all of us in here couldn't have read it, right?

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Because it would have been in a language, it would have been in Latin, and none of us would have been speaking Latin. We'd have been speaking

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German or English or some other language. So how fortunate are we in our day?

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You think about this, right? I hope you brought your Bible to church, first of all.

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If you didn't, let me encourage you and plead with you. Make that a practice. Let's bring it to church and let's read it and let's cherish this book.

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Men have given their lives. William Tyndale died October 6th, 1536.

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And do you know why he died? He died, he was strangled. He was strangled, this is a way to go, think about it.

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Strangled at a stake and then burned. And do you know why? Do you know what his crime was? He translated the

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Bible into English. That was his crime. And he told the priest of the day that the person who drives the plow is gonna know more about God than you.

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And his point was, I'm gonna get the Bible in their language and they are gonna be able to understand it and they are gonna be able to read it and they are gonna be able to know

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God. So beloved, please, I mean, but just implore you this morning before we move on. So let's make use, men have given their lives that we can have this book in our hands.

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The word of God breathed out. So let's make use of this book. Read it, know it, spend time in it.

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Second, sola, sola gratia, grace alone. Grace alone. The reformers taught that salvation is by grace alone.

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Look back up in our text, let's start in verse 20. For by works of the law, no human being will be justified in his sight since through the law comes knowledge of sin.

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But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the law and the prophets bear witness to it.

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We cannot be justified by any works we do. If not for grace, none of us would be saved.

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Yeah, yeah, yeah, but preacher, you don't understand this or that. I'm pretty good at this or that thing. I reiterate my statement.

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If not for grace, none of us would be saved. All of us are at level ground when it comes to the cross, aren't we?

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If not for grace, we would not be saved. Look at verse 22. The righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe, for there's no distinction, for how many have sinned?

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All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and are justified, how? By his grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.

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Love, the Bible teaches, the reformers recaptured this, that mankind is in bondage to sin.

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And we're in bondage to sin in such a way that apart from the Lord's grace, we're unable and unwilling to take that first step towards God.

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Look at verse 10 of our text. Keep backing up. As it is written, how many are righteous?

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None, none are righteous. No, not one. No one understands. Okay, how many seek God though?

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No one seeks for God. All have turned aside. Together they've become worthless. No one does good, not even one.

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Their throat is an open grave. They use their tongues to deceive. The venom of asps is under their lips.

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Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood. In their paths are ruin and misery, and the way of peace they have not known.

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There's no fear of God before their eyes. Paul's making a case that all those Jews and Gentiles alone, he culminates it there in verse 23, all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

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If not for God taking the initiative, if not for God pursuing us, if not for God making the way of salvation, if not for grace, none of us would be saved.

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Salvation is by grace. All sinners are worthy of an eternal hell.

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In our natural state, our minds are bad, our hearts are bad, our wills are bad, our actions and motivations are bad.

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We're corrupt from head to toe apart from the Lord, but look what again verse 24 says, justified by His grace.

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What is grace? Well, we know, hopefully, been in a Baptist church a while, grace is God's unmerited favor.

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Grace is getting what we don't deserve. It is, in the words of Baptist William Newman, the free favor of God conferred upon the unworthy.

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If anybody says, I deserve grace, then you've misunderstood what grace is, right?

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Because grace is unmerited favor. Salvation is not what we do for God, but what

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God has done for us and what God does in us. Beloved, in His grace, the triune

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God accomplishes, plans and applies salvation to guilty, undeserving sinners.

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Amazing grace, indeed. Salvation is by grace alone. Thirdly, sola fide, faith alone.

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So besides what we talked about with scripture, sola fide may be the one sola that can kind of sum up the

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Reformation. I'm gonna read these verses again. I want you to listen for the word faith. Verse 21, but now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the law and the prophets bear witness to it.

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The righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe, for there's no distinction for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and are justified by His grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom

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God put forth as a propitiation by His blood to be received by faith.

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This was to show God's righteousness because in His divine forbearance, He had passed over former sins.

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It was to show His righteousness at the present time so that He might be just and the justifier of the one who, what, has faith in Jesus.

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The only way that a man stands justified before God is through faith.

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Justified means this, just as if I'd. Just as if I'd what? Not simply just as if I'd never sinned, although that's good, but justification goes beyond that.

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Just as if I'd always obeyed. Imagine a life where you had always obeyed God. You had never broken any of the commandments.

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You always did 100 % what God wanted you to do. Every motivation, every thought, every deed, every word that you said was 100 % perfect.

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You say, preacher, I could never do that. That's exactly right, but here's the hope of the gospel.

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Jesus Christ has done that for us. And by faith, God declares us righteous through faith in Christ because of what

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Jesus has done for us. Jesus is our propitiation. Use that at lunch today, especially if you gotta, if you're going out to eat, use the word propitiation.

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Impress your waitress. Verse 25, look what it says, that Jesus, God put forth

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Jesus as a propitiation. What in the world does that mean? Well, the word means a wrath satisfying sacrifice.

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Now, liberal scholars, they don't like this word. They don't like to talk about wrath and all of those things, but it's just what it means.

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It means that Jesus, by his death on the cross, placated the wrath of God, satisfied the wrath of God.

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You see, because of sin, God hates sin and because of sin, God is righteously angry, right?

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I mean, you get angry when someone sins against you, don't you? So can you imagine a righteous and holy

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God and his hatred against sin? What is he going to do with that? What he does is he punishes

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Jesus on the cross as our willing and all sufficient substitute. Jesus is our wrath satisfying sacrifice.

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The only way that we can be justified before God is looking to Jesus' perfect work.

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Look, if you're here today and you're saying, yeah, but God is really, I understand all that Jesus stuff, but God's really going to accept me if I can just get to this level, right?

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If I can just reach level 47 of Christianity, then God's really going to be pleased with me.

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You've misunderstood Christianity. God is pleased with us, not based on what we do, not based on who we are, based on what

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Christ has done in our behalf. And the call of the gospel is not to go out there and jump through hoops.

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The call of the gospel is to rest in the finished work of Jesus. By the way, could

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I tell you, when you think about faith, faith is not a work, faith is not you doing something as much as faith is receiving something.

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Faith is receiving the finished work of Christ, resting in the finished work of Jesus, listening to the call that all you who are heavy laden and burdened, cast down your cares before him and receive the finished work of Jesus.

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Martin Luther, who I mentioned earlier in the message, who nailed the 95 thesis, he said this about faith.

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He said, faith lays hold of Christ and grasp him as a present possession just as the ring holds the jewel.

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Are you resting in Jesus this morning? Are you grasping Jesus this morning?

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Leads us to our fourth sola, which is solus Christus, Christ alone, Christ alone.

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Look in verse 24. We're justified by his grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.

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I know this probably doesn't, you don't even feel like it has to be repeated, but I think it does.

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And that is where is redemption found? It is found in Christ alone. It is

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Christ alone who is our great high priest. It is Christ alone who is born of a virgin.

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It is Christ alone who fulfilled the law and the prophets. It is Christ alone who took our sin upon himself.

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It is Christ alone who drank that cup of God's wrath. It is Christ alone who never sinned, but still died for us.

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It is Christ alone who resurrected from the grave. Christ alone who ascended into heaven.

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Christ alone who is returning to come and judge the living and the dead. We're not saved by faith in faith.

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This idea of faith permeates all religions, doesn't it? I mean, people talk about, I'm a person of faith, or you just gotta have faith, or let's just hold hands and let's have faith.

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But we are not saved, I know it sounds confusing about what I just said. It's not that we're saved by faith alone.

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It's that we're saved by faith alone in Christ alone. You understand?

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It's not faith alone in and of itself that saves you. Like, you know what? You just gotta be real sincere in whatever you believe.

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Well, you can be real sincere in the things that you believe, but you can be sincerely wrong. You understand?

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I think that the people who flew the planes into the towers were sincere in what they believed.

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But they closed their eyes in death and woke up in an eternal hell. You can be sincere in what you believe and be sincerely wrong.

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So it's faith in Christ. Our faith must have the proper object.

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Only Jesus, only Jesus is our propitiation. Only Jesus is our intercessor.

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Only Jesus is our righteousness. Only Jesus is our substitute. This is why the false sects of Christianity, like Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormons who have a wrong view of Jesus, who do not see them as Jesus, they have the wrong object of faith, right?

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Our faith must be in Christ alone. To deny this is to deny the gospel.

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Do not cling to your works. Cling to Jesus in faith. He is our only suitable and all -sufficient

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Savior. He's our prophet, priest, king, reveals God to us, right? Bled for us, intercedes for us, rules our lives and the universe.

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The only way that any person can have a right relationship with God is by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone.

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How precious is Jesus Christ? How wonderful is

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Christ? How glorious? A lot of people give me a bad rap sometimes about I celebrate

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Christmas a little too early. I know, I understand. If you know me, you're like, yeah. Not like he's already got lights up or anything like that.

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But anyway, but here's one of the marvelous things, all kidding aside, one of the marvelous things about Christmas and getting to kind of celebrate this time of year, and don't let commercialism take over.

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I bemoan that as well. Commercialism has just, has tried to steal it.

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But here's the one thought. You can bemoan everything else about Christmas, but here's one thought to keep in your mind, that God Almighty stepped down into human flesh.

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You know, if you read the Old Testament, and especially the prophets, it says the word of the Lord came to, well, for example,

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Jonah. The word of the Lord came to Jonah. The word of the Lord came to Ezekiel. The word of the Lord came to Isaiah.

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The word of the Lord came to Daniel. The word of the Lord came to Elijah. But then you get to the New Testament, and what does it say?

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In the beginning was the word, and the word was God, and the word was with God. And then you get to verse 14 of John chapter one, and it says, the word became flesh.

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Even better than coming to the prophets is the fact that the word became flesh. He became one of us to redeem us.

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So our faith must rest in Christ alone. And then fifthly and finally this morning, the last solus, soli deo gloria, means glory to God alone.

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Look what Paul says in verse 27. Then what becomes of our boasting? He's saying, look, if you really believe that justification's by grace through faith, then how are we gonna boast?

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Well, this is what he says. It is excluded, verse 27, by what kind of law? By law of works?

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No, but by the law of faith. For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law.

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In other words, none of us can stand before God in heaven, and we can say, and look at someone else and say, well, at least

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I was good enough, smart enough, able enough to be a Christian, and I'm just better than you.

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There's no boasting, right? There's no boasting. We're all on that level ground, and we are saved by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, to the glory of God alone.

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And I want to submit to you this morning that the chief end of salvation, like what is all this about? What is salvation?

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It's not just about us, and it's not just about going to heaven, but the chief end of salvation is about the glory of God.

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You were saved. If you're a believer in here this morning, you were saved for the chief end of the glory of God.

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Listen, that's what you were made for. Have you thought about that? You were made for God by God.

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You were made to enjoy God and glorify Him forever. And then listen to this. There is no such thing as true happiness and pure joy and just pure, just purpose in life, apart from delighting in God.

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A lot of people try it differently, don't they? A lot of people try to find their ultimate purpose, their ultimate happiness, their ultimate joy, if their kids are successful.

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Like if my kids are successful, then I'll have that peace. But guess what? That's fleeting. Or maybe it's sometimes, maybe sometimes it's in a sports team, right?

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If this team does good, I'll find happiness. Or maybe it's in a job, or maybe it's even in a marriage, good things.

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We just say, if all of this works out, then I will have my chief purpose. I will be who

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I was made to be. But I submit to you this morning that who you were made to be is a lover of God, one who enjoys

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God and glorifies Him forever. And if you are trying to fill your life with things that are other than that, you are always gonna lead to misery.

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Sure, you may find seasons of like, this is working out, this is going okay, but you're eventually always gonna run into that brick wall because you were made to enjoy

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God. Believers understand we were made by God, for God, and that our greatest purpose is to glorify

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God with our lives. So second big point, and then just quick, just kind of wrapping up here.

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But why does all this still matter? Why does the Reformation still matter? Well, as we look at this text, as we think about what

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God has done, verse 25, second part of that says, this was to show

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God's righteousness. In His divine forbearance, He had passed over former sins. In other words, it's like,

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God, why haven't you judged the world yet, right? Think about the thousands of years in the Old Testament. God, why did you wait?

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Why didn't you just wipe out the world? How are you just in allowing sin? Well, the proof of that is the cross, to show

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God's righteousness. Because in divine forbearance, He had passed over sins. Not that He just swept them under the rug, but that this was leading to Jesus.

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And it was to show His righteousness at the present time so that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

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Where can we go? Like, where can we go besides there? What other gospel do we have?

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Salvation is by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, to the glory of God alone. And we know all this through the

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Bible alone. Like, where else are we gonna go this morning? What other truth is out there that you're going to bank everything on?

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I'm gonna tell you, I bank everything on this. I bank absolutely everything. My family, my life, this church, all that I am, and all that I hope to be,

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I bank on this truth, that the grace of God is found in the gospel of Jesus Christ.

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He has forgiven me of my sins, clothed me in righteousness. This is it. This is the light of the gospel that is shown in our hearts and that we must shine to the nations.

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Listen, it's the proclivity of every human heart to mess this up, to try to make salvation about something else, or to try to, like we talked earlier about the

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Bible, to try to trust other things besides the Bible. So we must be aware that the church always needs to be willing to submit to all that the

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Bible says. And furthermore, men throughout the history of the world have given, particularly since the

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Reformation, have given their lives for these truths. I wish I could share with you stories of men like Hugh Latimer, went to the cross, or went to the stake, burned alive.

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Men who gave their lives, who went and were burned at the stake as they were looking into the faces of their wives and children.

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They were given the opportunity, like, just recant. Just recant, just say all this is, just say you're wrong about the gospel and you can live.

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Just say the Bible's not that important. It shouldn't be translated into common language and you can live, and they wouldn't.

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They died for these truths. And so as we think about this, that we think about how they were willing to suffer beheadings and drownings and burnings and other cruel deaths.

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If they were willing to die for them, what I'm asking the church today is, are we willing to live for them? Because if this matters, like if this is true, like if we're not just playing games, we're not just showing up on Sunday just because that's what we're supposed to do.

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Like if this really matters, not only must we live for these truths, but we also must share them, right?

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Many went to their death for these truths and we need to be willing to go across the street for them.

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And be willing to share these truths with a lost and dying world.

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Must glorify God for these truths we've talked about today and share these truths with others.

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Let me ask you, are you one who's resting in salvation by grace through faith?

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Are you laying hold of Christ's righteousness? Have you truly received the gift of Christ's righteousness by faith?

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If not, I implore you today to rest in Jesus. The call of the gospel is to repent of your sins and believe these truths that we've talked about today.

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And then if you are relying on these truths, will we live our lives and our jobs and our families in the church, in all aspects of our lives, whatever we do, whether we eat or drink, will we live these things to the glory of God?

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So we conclude today. I know it's been a little bit different as we think about history and the importance of certain men that God has raised up.

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But the point comes back to this truth here. The righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law.

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Although the law and the prophets bear witness to it, the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe, for there's no distinction for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and are justified by His grace as a gift to the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom

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God put forward as a propitiation by His blood to be received by faith. This was to show

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God's righteousness because in His divine forbearance, He had passed over former sins. It was to show His righteousness at the present time so that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

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Astounding that God Almighty, who we have sinned against, is willing to be the justifier of those who have rebelled against Him.

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If you're not resting in that, the call is to rest in that today. Do not delay. And if you are resting in that, the call is to just give

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God the glory in salvation. Let's pray. Father, we thank You for this text.

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We thank You for just having the opportunity to pause today and think about the great truth of salvation.

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Now we're saved by grace alone, through faith alone and Christ alone for Your glory. Lord, I pray that if there's one here in the sound of my voice who is not understood,

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I pray You'd reveal it to their hearts. Lord, conquer every rebel power in their heart and let them receive this truth by faith.

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Lord, we pray that You would move and work and continue to work in our church as You have. We pray it in Jesus' name.