Universalism & Legalism: Two Wrong Answers to the Most Important Question

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How can a sinful person be made right with a holy God? Hey everybody, this is

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Keith Foskey, and this past Sunday I was invited to be the guest preacher at Mission Way Church in Jacksonville, Florida.

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I want to thank Pastor Kenny Roberts for having me there and allowing me to speak to his congregation. I was encouraged that he wanted me to speak on the subject of the gospel, primarily what was accomplished by Christ on the cross, and I want to share that message with you.

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So I'm going to do so in just a moment, but before I do, I want to remind you that this channel is a ministry of Sovereign Grace Family Church, and if you're in the

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Jacksonville area, we would love for you to come visit us at Sovereign Grace Family Church, and you can find us at sgfcjacks .org.

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Also, if you are interested in supporting the show, or you have questions, or you want to reach out to me about a show idea, you can do so by going to keithfoskey .com.

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There's a contact form right there. If you do want to show support to the show, there's ways to do that as well. We have t -shirts and other things that you can purchase, and again,

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I look forward to interacting with you. I love it when people reach out and tell me how they're enjoying the show.

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So again, I hope this sermon is an encouragement to you, and especially if you have someone in your life that maybe is having trouble understanding the gospel, this would be a great message to share with them.

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So thank you for listening, and here's the sermon. How can a sinful person be made right with a holy

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God? To understand the question, we have to begin by understanding the categories in which we are speaking.

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Most people would affirm in some way, shape, or form that they are a sinner. In fact, one of the most favorite

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Bible verses that people like to quote is, Hey man, all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

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Like, it's not a big deal. All have sinned, right? Well, the problem is that verse is not meant to be taken as no big deal.

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That verse comes at the end of three chapters of the Apostle Paul laying before us an absolute indictment against humankind.

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In Romans chapter 1, he tells us that all men have turned against God, all men have gone their own way, and he gives us this litany of what that looks like.

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And then in Romans chapter 2, he says even those who have the law don't do what the law requires and demonstrate their own sinfulness.

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And by the time he gets to chapter 3, he quotes over and over from the Psalms, and he expresses this great sinfulness of man.

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And he ends by saying, there's none who does good, not even one. There's none who seeks after God.

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There is none who fears God. And he's expressing the very nature of our problem.

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Man's condition is a condition of sin. And so when we ask the question, how is a sinful man made right with a holy

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God? We have to understand the weight of the first half of that question. Sin is not a small thing.

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Sin is high treason against the Lord of the universe. It is literally spitting in the face of our

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Creator. And we've all done it, and we've all done it a lot. If you were to count your sins, who could stand?

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None of us. Even if we only sin once a day in our life, how many days have you lived?

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My wife is celebrating her birthday today. I won't tell you how old she is, but I know how old

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I am. I'm 44 years old, and in 44 years I know I have sinned quite a bit.

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I know that my life before I came to Christ was marked by rebellion toward God, and since coming to Christ is still imperfect.

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And so when we start with the question, how can a sinful man be made right with a holy God? We really need to feel the weight of the first half of that question.

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But the second part of the question is even more powerful, because we're not just saying, how can a man be made right with God?

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We're saying, how can a sinful man, adjective sinful, be made right with an even more powerful adjective, a holy

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God? Now what does holy mean? Holy means that God is separated from sin.

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He is absolutely perfect in His being. He is completely different than any other thing in the entire universe.

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There are only two categories in this universe. There is creator and created, and God fits in the creator category, and everything else fits in the created category.

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And so God is Himself unique, the triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. That is our creator, and He is absolutely unique, and He's holy.

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And His holiness is demonstrated to us throughout Scripture. In just a few weeks,

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I'm going to be preaching a conference in Winter Haven, Florida, and I've been tasked to preach on the holiness of God.

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And I'm going to be looking at the text in Leviticus chapter 10, where Nadab and Abihu, the two sons of Aaron, the high priest, brought forth a fire before the

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Lord, and the Bible calls it in the King James a strange fire. In the more modern translations, it's called an unauthorized fire.

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However you translate it, it weren't supposed to be there. And yet they brought it before the

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Lord, and the Bible says the fire of the Lord consumed them. I don't think that's fair.

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That's our natural reaction. You know why that's our natural reaction? It's because we tend to side with the sinners, because that's who we are.

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We tend to go to their side. This is why we are so in love with the antihero. We all love

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Walter White and Tony Soprano and all these other guys, because we want to side with the sinner. We want to give them a justification.

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But in the reality of eternity, God stands as the Holy One, and we stand separated from Him.

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He is holy and righteous and just, and we stand as separated. And the

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Bible even says that we, before we are redeemed, we are God's enemies.

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That's not my words. That's the very words of Christ. We are at enmity with God.

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And what's the solution? Is there a solution? Is there anything that can be done to solve this problem of a sinful man and a holy

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God? Is there anything that can bridge this chasm?

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Is there anything that can bring these two separated back together?

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Well, that's what we're going to talk about today. And before we read our text, and I know I'm giving a rather lengthy introduction,

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I usually go right into reading the text, but I wanted to sort of introduce this idea to you, because I have so many thoughts about it.

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I want to also have you consider this. There are two primary ways people answer this question wrongly.

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Remember the question, how can a sinful man, or a sinful person, be made right with a holy

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God? The two ways that people generally get this question wrong. Number one is what is known as universalism.

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You know what universalism is? Universalism is the belief that ultimately everyone will be reconciled to God through some form of universal salvation.

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And you may not think people believe that, but that's what most people believe. If you don't believe me, listen the next time you go to a funeral.

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What do you hear at the funeral? Oh, he's in a better place. Oh, he's with Jesus. Oh, he earned his wings.

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I work alongside funeral directors. I actually grew up working in a funeral home, and now

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I do services for families that don't have ministers. So in the last 10 years or so,

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I've done over 150 funerals for people who did not have a church, did not have a minister, just needed someone to come and preach the service, and I offer the service to go and preach at the funerals, and I do this, you know, 6, 7, 8, 10 times a year, sometimes more.

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And every service, regardless, he's with Jesus.

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He's saved. He's in heaven. Because that's the default position we take.

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The default position is universalism. Hey man, unless he's Hitler, he's in heaven.

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And then some even make pathways for the Hitler too. Because universalism says everybody is on their way to heaven.

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And that's wrong. The Bible is so clear that that's wrong. The Bible is so clear that that's not true, that a sinful man is not made right with a holy

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God by default. But that's what so many people believe. Maybe that's what you believe this morning, and I hope to challenge you on that, at least cause you to think differently about that, because if that is the way that you think, your urgency for the gospel will be diminished tremendously.

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Because if you don't think the gospel is necessary to save, if you think that all men are saved by some virtue in and of themselves, you will not be urgent about taking the gospel to your neighbor, about taking the gospel to your coworker, taking the gospel to your family, or taking the gospel to the ends of the earth.

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Because it won't matter, because everybody is by nature saved. You understand? Universalism has serious consequences, theologically and practically.

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So universalism is not the answer. But the second answer is just as insidious, it's just as bad.

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In fact, I would say in churches it's even more common. And that is what's known as legalism.

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So on the one side you have universalism that says everyone is saved, and on the other side you have what's called legalism, and legalism says how you get saved is by following this list of laws or list of rules.

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And by the way, my rules might be different than your rules. My rules might include a certain way that people are supposed to dress.

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My way might include a certain music that people are supposed to listen to. My way might include a certain type of music that's supposed to be played in church.

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My way might be no jeans and jacket has to be on every Sunday. My way might have its own set of structures.

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But whatever you call it, it's legalism when you say this is what you do to get saved rather than, as Pastor Kinney said a few moments ago, trusting in what

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Christ has done. And honestly, that's the difference.

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The difference between legalism and the gospel is not the fact that there are things that we ought to do as believers, because there are.

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There are moral standards that we should uphold. There are things that we should try to encourage in ourselves.

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There are disciplines that we should try to follow. But ultimately, the difference between legalism and the gospel is legalism says by these things am

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I made right with a holy God. And the gospel says that the only way you can be made right with a holy

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God is through the work of Jesus Christ. That's the difference.

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And so I've given the answer. It's not universalism that all men are made right with God by virtue of simply being the default setting.

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And it's not legalism which says here are the things that you must do. You must follow this set of standards and this is how you earn your salvation.

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No, salvation is a gift. It is not a thing that can be earned. But the answer to the question how can a sinful man be made right with a holy

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God? And the answer is that God has done something.

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He has entered into his creation through the person of his son. He has interjected himself onto the scene of humanity.

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And he has done a work that we could not do in our place so that through him we can receive what the

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Bible calls reconciliation. Now in 2 Corinthians chapter 5

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Paul is talking about the subject of reconciliation and he is defining the new covenant which we are about to celebrate in a little while.

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We're going to take the table. And what is the table? Jesus said this cup is the covenant in my blood.

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He holds up the cup. This cup represents the new covenant. And Paul says I am a minister of the new covenant and the new covenant is a covenant of reconciliation.

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What's reconciliation? Two parties separated and being brought back together.

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Two parties that were at enmity, at war, at odds with one another have now been brought back together.

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The bridge has been made. And the two can reunify through this process of reconciliation.

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And so we read this final verse on this great chapter where Paul talks about reconciliation.

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We read this final verse. It says, For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

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Let's pray. Father I pray now that as I seek to give an understanding of this text that you would keep me from error.

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For God I am a fallible man and I am capable of preaching that which is not true.

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So I pray that by the power of your spirit you would keep me from preaching untruths.

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That you would tie me to the post of your word. That you would use your word to teach your people.

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That I would decrease and that Christ would increase. That the spirit of God would go out and that the words that are spoken would be mixed with faith and that they would go in through the ear and to the mind and even down into the heart.

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And Lord God that you would use this moment in the lives of these people to encourage the believers in their faith.

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To challenge the unbelievers if they have not yet come to Christ.

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But Lord may it be that at the end of this message there be no doubt that there is but one way that a sinful person can be made right with a holy

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God and that is through the work of Jesus Christ. And we pray it in his name.

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Amen. One of my favorite characters of church history is a man by the name of Martin Luther.

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Now Martin Luther and this is the 16th century

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Protestant reformer. Not the 20th century reformer.

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Martin Luther King. Two different guys. Sometimes I say Martin Luther people immediately think of Martin Luther King. That's fine. But I'm going back a few hundred years.

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Martin Luther's life is a tale which is I love to tell and I've actually

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I've gone many churches and just told Martin Luther's life story. I'm going to try not to do that here because I'll get lost and we'll be busy for the next hour as I kind of walk through his life.

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But I like to use him as an example when I talk about this text. Because what was the problem in Luther's life that caused him to begin to study to begin to look for an answer that would ultimately lead to the

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Protestant Reformation? Well the issue in his life was this. He was terrified of God.

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He was terrified of God. I can say that without any qualification. Luther was terrified of God.

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Luther was the son of a miner whose name was Hans. Hans Luther was his name.

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And Hans brought up his son with the hopes that his son would go and become a lawyer so that he would be able to support the family as Hans became elderly.

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And so he sent Martin to college. He sent him to university to become a lawyer.

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Well, at one point in Luther's life as he is returning home he gets caught in a violent storm.

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The wind and rain is beating around him. Lightning is striking the trees around him. And he literally believes he's about to die.

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And as a good Roman Catholic as Martin Luther was of course a Roman Catholic as a good Roman Catholic he cries out to the patron saint of miners,

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Saint Anne. And he says, Saint Anne, if you save me

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I will become a monk. Well, he did not die in the storm.

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And because he had made this vow which the Bible says not to make hasty vows but he did. Because he had made this vow

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Martin Luther returned home to tell his father that he had decided not to pursue law which was his intention for him.

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But rather that he would now take the life of a monk and that becoming a monk one of the things that you did as a monk is you took a vow of poverty.

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So the son that was going to be the one who was going to take care of him in his old age is now making a vow that he's never going to be a rich man.

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He's never going to be a man of means or substance. He's going to be a menial monk with nothing.

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So his father was not the least of which disappointed in his son.

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But Luther went to the monastery and he began to study about God. And the more he studied about God and the more he studied the

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Roman Catholic system and the more he became entrenched in this as it were legalistic form of Christianity he became more and more depressed.

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More and more overwhelmed with the fact that he could do nothing. And he would spend hours and hours in the confessional with his superiors.

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And he would confess sins. And again he's living the life of a monk. He's living on nothing.

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He's living among other men. He's living with the most menial food. The most menial things.

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And yet he's confessing to sins over and over to the point that his superiors said Brother Martin please do not come back until you have a serious sin to confess.

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But Luther understood even his small sins were an offense to a holy

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God. You see one thing about Luther he may have been a little problematic in some areas but one thing

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Luther understood was the holiness of God. And he understood he was separated from God because of his sins.

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And every one of his sins deserved the punishment of God. And he felt the weight of that. He felt the brokenness that he had.

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And there was no answer for him. His superiors even sent him to Rome.

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Thinking maybe if he goes to where the mother church is Rome, he can go and see the

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Pope and he can walk up the steps. And you may not know this but during the time of the crusades the steps that were supposed to be the steps

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Jesus walked up to see Pilate were removed from Jerusalem and taken to Rome and rebuilt so that you could go to Rome and you could walk up the steps and you could kiss each step and say a prayer and through that receive some form of reconciliation.

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Some form of satisfaction by walking the steps and on your knees kissing the steps as you go.

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And Luther did all of that. And you know what he said when he got to the top of the step? How can

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I know if this has done anything? How can I know if there's any value in this?

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I don't feel any different. There's no change. I've kissed every step. I've said every prayer.

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I've done everything I thought I should do and it didn't work. So Luther became more and more convinced that the system that he was so ardently seeking after had somehow missed the truth.

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Had somehow missed the mark. And so Luther began to study the scriptures even more.

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And he came upon Romans in his study of Romans he came upon Romans chapter 1 where Paul says

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I'm not ashamed of the gospel for the gospel is the power of God unto salvation to everyone who believes to the

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Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith as it is written the just shall live by faith.

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And so Luther, that's Romans 1, 16 and 17. I see some of you taking notes of Romans 1, 16 and 17. They didn't have numbers at that point so it wasn't

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Romans 1, 16 and 17 for Luther. It was just Romans 1. They had chapters at that point but not verses.

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The verses hadn't come along yet. But as he's reading this he says in his autobiography that it was as if the gates of heaven had finally been flung open.

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And for the first time he felt as if he had been born again.

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Because he recognized that his righteousness before God was not based upon what he had done.

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It was not based upon climbing those steps. It was not based upon a pilgrimage to Rome. It was not based upon his monkery.

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It was not based upon his celibacy. It was not based upon these things. But his righteousness with God was through faith.

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And this is why Luther became the champion of a doctrine called sola fide.

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Sola fide is Latin. Sola fide means justification by faith alone.

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Made righteous before God by faith alone apart from works.

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He would cite other passages. Ephesians chapter 2. For by grace you guys know it?

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For by grace are you saved through faith and that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God not of works lest any man should boast.

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For we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works. By the way, I don't have a whiteboard up here.

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I love to teach with a whiteboard. But I always like to do this when I look at Ephesians 2 .8. Ephesians 2 .8 gets it right.

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By grace through faith equals works. Because our faith will produce good works.

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But if you go by grace through works equals salvation, then you've got your math is wrong.

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Right? Your math is off. Because we don't add to our salvation by our works, but our salvation is demonstrated by our works.

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James chapter 2 tells us. So Paul understood or I'm sorry, Luther understood what

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Paul was saying in this. And so today what I want to do for you for the remainder of this time, because I know again you keep wondering why haven't we looked at 2

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Corinthians? Because what I'm trying to do is set in your mind what the issues are.

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And also then show you why this passage is so important to your faith. Originally when

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I was talking to Pastor Kinney, we were talking about what should the title of the message be.

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And I recently wrote an article for Clear Truth Media. And in that article, the title of my article was why we should not abandon penal substitution.

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That was the title of the article. And so that was almost my title for today. But then as I thought more about it,

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I said well that may be a little of an odd title and it's a little long for a sermon. I said so why don't we go with this.

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What Jesus did on the cross. But I do want to help you understand why what

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I just said about penal substitution matters to our understanding of the gospel. Okay?

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So as we look at 2 Corinthians 5 .21 it's two clauses separated by what's known as that word called hinnah.

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So you have a phrase or a clause and then you have a hinnah and then you have a second clause. Hinnah is just a Greek word which means for the purpose of or in order to.

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So it's called a hinnah clause. And it says this. God made him who knew no sin to become sin for us.

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That's the first clause. God made him who knew no sin to become sin for us.

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First of all let's ask the question. Who is the object of this clause? Jesus.

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It has to be right because who else in all of human history knew no sin? You? Me?

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None of us. The Bible says sin entered the world through one man and death spread to all men because why?

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All sin. Romans 5 verse 12. All sin. All sin and fall short of the glory of God.

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Romans 3 23. So when it says that God made him who knew no sin, it's referring to Jesus.

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The Bible over and over says Jesus knew no sin. He never sinned in thought, word or deed.

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Jesus lived on this earth for 33 years and he never sinned. I can't go 33 minutes without having at least a sinful thought, a sinful word or a sinful deed.

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Years ago a man came to my church and he was visiting on a Wednesday night and we had a guest speaker speaking that night so I got to sit with him and about halfway through the guest speaker's discussion he kind of shrugged and seemed very upset and he left and I was like well

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I can't let him go without asking why you're leaving because I'm just that guy. I'm going to go ask.

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So as he's walking towards the door and he gets towards our lobby, I'm kind of you know making my way behind him and I just said hey

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I'm glad you came. It was nice to have you visiting with us on a Wednesday night. Is everything okay?

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I don't know if he'd gotten a text message that said he had to come home quickly you know. What's going on? And he turned around and he looked rather frustrated with me and he said

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I want to know what you're all about. Okay. I said our church exists to proclaim the truth that all men are sinners and that there is only one

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Savior and that Savior is Jesus Christ. That's the simplest thing I could say in that moment you know that I'm sure

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I could go more into the purpose but that's it right? To tell sinful men that there's a Savior and that Savior is

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Jesus. That's why we exist. And he looked at me and he said I'm not a sinner.

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Ha ha. Well now you can't leave. Because we gotta have a talk.

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And so we bantered for a good ten minutes where he was proclaiming that he wasn't a sinner to the point that I finally said excuse me sir can

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I just ask you one question. I said have you loved the

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Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind and all your strength perfectly from the moment you woke up this morning?

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Well I didn't say I was perfect. No you did. You absolutely did. You said you weren't a sinner.

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And I'm telling you the greatest commandment is what? Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength. Love your neighbor as yourself. Have any one of you done that perfectly today?

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Not even for a minute. You see again where we are.

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Jesus did that every minute. He did it perfectly. Thought, word and deed.

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33 years. Never once did he have a hiccup in his love for God.

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Never once did he have a hiccup in his love for a neighbor. He fulfilled every one of God's commands and it pleased him to do so because he says it is my desire to do the will of him who sent me.

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It was Jesus' heart was to do the will of the Father. God made him who knew no sin

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Jesus to become sin for us.

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What does that mean? Jesus in the act of going to the cross was in that moment operating as a substitute for sinners.

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And the Bible says this in many different ways in Colossians. It says our debt was nailed to the tree.

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It says my written debt like as if you had purchased something from me and you purchased it on time and I wrote for you a debt and I handed it to you and that piece of paper represented your debt.

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The Bible calls our sin a debt before God and the Bible says Christ when he was nailed to the cross, that was our written debt nailed to the tree.

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God made him who knew no sin to become sin for us. To take our place.

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Here's the part that's really wild. When Jesus was on the cross receiving the hate and the vicious rebukes of the

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Pharisees and the scribes and the Herodians of the Romans and all the rest.

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As Jesus was on the cross receiving this hatred, that was not the punishment he was enduring.

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The punishment Christ was enduring was the punishment that our sins deserves.

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Because the Bible says our sin stores up wrath. And the

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Bible says in the Old Testament the wrath that it stores up is like it's in a cup. And one day God will pour out his cup of wrath.

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You remember the night before the cross? Jesus is in the garden of Gethsemane. And when he's in the garden of Gethsemane he's down on his knees and he's praying.

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And what does he say to the Lord? He says, Father, if it be thy will, take this cup from me.

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The cup that Jesus is referring to is not the wrath of Pontius Pilate. It's not the wrath of Herod.

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It's not the wrath of the Pharisees and the Sadducees. But it is the very wrath of God deserved by sinful humanity.

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Christ is saying, if there's any other way, take this cup from me. And you know what the answer from heaven was?

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Silence. Because there was no other way. If anybody ever asks you, why is

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Jesus the only way? That's the passage I go to. You can go to John 14, 6 where it says, I'm the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the

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Father except through me. Great passage and use that. You can use that. But the one I go to when people say, why is Jesus the only way?

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I say, because he asked if there's another way and the answer was no. He said,

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Father, if there is another way, take this cup from me. And the answer from heaven is silence.

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So Christ gets up and he heads to the cross. There's no other way. This is it. The one who knows no sin must become sin for sinful humanity.

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Because only he in his sinless state could receive in himself the punishment they deserve.

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Because if Christ himself was a sinner, he could not receive the punishment they deserved. He would be receiving punishment that he deserved.

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But because he was not a sinner, he can now take the punishment that is deserved by sinners by acting as their substitute.

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And therefore, in theological terms, we have a doctrine. And by the way, don't hate on this doctrine.

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Doctrine's good. And don't let big words scare us.

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But the doctrine is the doctrine of penal substitutionary atonement. Penal refers to penalty.

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We think of like a penal institution, right? That is a penalty. Substitutionary.

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Christ substitutes on the cross for the sinner, receiving their punishment.

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Penal substitutionary atonement. What's the word atonement mean?

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It means to bring two separated parties back together.

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And we said earlier there's another word for that. It's the word reconciliation. In fact, in your

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Bibles, you may not even realize this. The word atonement is not in the

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New Testament. Now, if you have a King James Bible, you'll come argue with me later because it is in King James Bible, Romans 5, 11.

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But in modern translations, that same word is translated as reconciliation. The word atonement is an

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Old Testament word. And it's used all through the Old Testament. In the ESV, it's used 78 times in the

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Old Testament. So the word atonement is a biblical word. But it's a word that was used when all of these sacrifices were being made.

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All of these animals were being killed. All of these blood was being shed.

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That was called a blood atonement. But when Christ comes in the

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New Testament, He becomes the one and final sacrifice. By the way, aren't you glad this morning that we didn't have to bring a goat in here?

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We get to look at the bread and the cup and remember the once for all sacrifice made for our sins in Christ.

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We don't have to re -sacrifice an animal. We don't have to continue that bloody system.

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Because the one blood of Christ which all of those animals pointed to. The book of Hebrews tells us that the blood of bulls and goats cannot forgive sin.

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But that they pointed forward to the one sacrifice of Christ. And in His sacrifice, the final and perfect atonement was made.

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Penal substitutionary atonement. Reconciliation right here. Which we will celebrate in just a few moments.

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God made Him who knew no sin to become sin for us.

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In order that that's that clause in the middle or the Hinnah word which takes the two clauses and puts them together.

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In order that we might become the righteousness of God.

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So Jesus dies on the cross. He receives in Himself the penalty for our sin.

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A great transference occurs. Sometimes called the great exchange. Sometimes called imputation.

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My sin is imputed to Him. Charged to Him. His perfect life becomes my sinful life.

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And He receives the punishment I deserve. But might I tell you if that was all it was,

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I would still not be right before God. Because even if I were sinless,

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I would not be righteous. You see, there are two acts of Christ's atonement.

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The first act is God made Him who knew no sin to become sin for us. He takes my sin. But then,

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He who was perfectly righteous gives me

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His righteousness as a gift. Whereby I stand before God, not just sinless, but righteous.

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I stand before God, not just having my sin atoned for, but by being declared positively righteous before God.

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We sing about this. I actually do have this in my notes. We sing about this in some of our songs.

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I don't know if you guys sing this, but you know the song Rock of Ages? Rock of Ages cleft for me.

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It's an old hymn. Augustus Toplety wrote it, and he said this. Nothing in my hand

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I bring. Simply to the cross I cling. Naked come to Thee for dress.

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Helpless look to Thee for grace. Foul I to the fountain fly. Wash me, Savior, or I die.

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I don't bring anything to this. I must be clothed in Your righteousness. I must receive the righteousness.

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Nothing in my hand I bring. Only to the cross I cling. We have another song, The Solid Rock. On Christ, the solid rock,

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I stand. All other ground is sinking sand. Remember that one? It says this. When He shall come with trumpet sound,

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O may I then in Him be found dressed in His righteousness alone.

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Faultless to stand before the throne. You see, salvation has two pillars.

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My sin must be dealt with, and it was dealt with by Christ on the cross. My lack of righteousness must be dealt with, and it's dealt with by receiving the righteousness of Christ by faith.

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This was what gave Luther his great confidence. Because he realized when he read that verse where it says the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith, as it is written the just, the righteous, shall live by faith.

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I'll leave you with this thought. One of Jesus' parables is very enigmatic.

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It's the parable of the wedding banquet. And in the wedding banquet, there was a man who came who was not wearing a wedding gown, the wedding outfit.

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What did the master of the house say to that man? Depart into outer darkness.

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Now when you read that, it's really hard to make hide nor hair of what it means.

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What does it mean? This man has come to the banquet but he's not wearing the right clothes.

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Is this about clothing and what we're supposed to wear? What does this mean? Now here's what it means, and it's really rather simple.

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When we stand before God, we will either be dressed in our righteousness, which

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Isaiah says is like filthy, dirty rags, or we will be dressed in the righteousness of Christ, which is perfect, enduring, and eternal.

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That man who came to the wedding feast dressed in his own clothes was cast out.

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But those who dress in the clothes provided by the master, those who are covered in the clothes of righteousness of Christ, will be received.

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So how is a sinful man made right with a holy God? By grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, according to Scripture alone, and to God alone, be the glory.

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So I ask you today, you came here possibly a member of this church, possibly a believer.

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Have you been encouraged to understand even better why you are saved? My prayer is that you have.

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But maybe you came today and you didn't have an answer to the question I asked at the beginning.

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Maybe you came today and the answer to your question was either universalism or legalism. Both of them are wrong.

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Maybe you now understand that the only salvation that is available to anyone is through the righteousness of Jesus Christ.

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If that's you, I pray that by God's mercy and grace, He would open your heart to believe the gospel and that you would be comforted in the truth that your salvation is in Him alone.

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So I want to pray for everybody now. Let's bow. Father, your word tells us that you made

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Him who knew no sin to become sin for us, that we could become the righteousness of God in Him. I pray, O God, even now, that if there are those here who are not in Christ, who have not received

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Christ by faith, that by the preaching of the word, you would open up their eyes to see, open up their ears to hear, and open up their heart to believe.

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And, Lord, that if a person does come to faith in Christ today, that they would reach out to their pastor, that they would reach out to their

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Christian brothers and sisters, and that they would seek to grow in this faith. And, Lord, maybe as seeds have been planted,

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I pray, Lord, that those seeds that are planted, that you would water them and that you would bring the increase, for that is something that only you can do.