1689 London Baptist Confession (part 22)

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Father in heaven, thank you for this morning. Thank you for Just 500 years of the recovery of the gospel
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Lord bless our time this morning as we look to the 1689 confession of faith and your word what your word says about justification about how you justify sinners like us
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Father bless each one here. We pray in Jesus name. Amen Well since we're on justification we started talking about it last week
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I Thought it might be. I mean, I have so many Catholic things running around my head.
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What's the Catholic? Definition of justification or how would they see how would they view justification?
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How does that contrast with what we believe I feel like I need to start.
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You know, what be good I I think what I'm going to do is senator BBC announced this week and I'm gonna ask six people to sit on a
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BBC grand jury and Then what I'm going to do is hand out indictments and we will indict people in the chairs and bring them up and have them testify, so Who could tell me what's what's the difference between Between Roman Catholic justification and Justification according to the 1689 or according to BBC or according to more importantly the
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Bible What's the difference? Catholics are by works okay, and And to put it even in even a greater
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Focus we could just make it really simple According to the Bible justification is a one -time act
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Okay, God declares somebody Justified he declares somebody righteous
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In Roman Catholicism, it is a process and it is a lifelong process they confuse justification with what we would call sanctification and So, you know, can anybody
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I don't want to spoil anything for this evening, but the reason you can't know That you are saved and that you're going to heaven is what if Justification is a process
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Then one little slip on the way and you don't know if you're justified or not You don't know if you're heading to heaven hell or purgatory or where you're going
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Because it's all dependent on you and how you are doing. Is that good news?
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I Should hope not if you've been listening to Pastor Mike, you know, that's not good news We said last week was the ultimate question that every religion seeks to answer yeah, you know and Bizarre religions like I just thought is there any more bizarre religion than Joe versus the volcano?
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Anybody ever seen the movie? Okay, and they're actually going to throw people into a volcano why to appease a
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God? So all religions want to know okay, we recognize that there's something greater than us
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How do we appease this God? How do we make ourselves right in his? sight
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Well, the Bible says That it's God who makes us right in his sight
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We talked started talking about the holiness of God the otherliness of God. We read through Revelation 4 and Leon Morris says that God is holy and it primarily means separate
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You know and I mentioned last week that so many churches so many
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So -called churches their goal is either to elevate man So that the gaps not so big or to lower
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God To make him seem less holy than he actually is because he's not so much different than we are
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Then we feel better about ourselves You know,
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I I think I was watching Probably Mormons or somebody singing amazing grace and I'm like, well, it's not really that amazing
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Because if you're like pretty much almost as good as God or he's almost as you know, he used to be just like you
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Then how amazing is grace? Amazing grace is that this holy God the one who just sends tremors through Isaiah when he sees him
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That God would stoop down and rescue us that's amazing and that's the picture that God presents in the
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Bible now when we think about that otherliness that holiness that Separation and how what
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Habakkuk says that his eyes are too pure to even Look at sin and yet here we are
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Immersed in sin, right? I mean we live in a world full of sinners We are sinners.
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We do stumble we do sin So, how is it that God could ever look on us how is it that God could ever
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Accept us even more than look on us accept us into his family into his kingdom and into heaven
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How can God do that? if God is really holy and If God is really just In other words if he must really punish every sin, how does he do that?
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I'm talking about the justice of God some religions solve this problem by making God less concerned about justice and more concerned with what?
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What's the preeminent thing we hear about in the world today in terms of attributes of God? Anthony God is love and It pretty much stops there, right?
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God is love and that's all God is Jesus used to hang out with bad people and therefore we should hang out with bad people
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Let's look at in fact if somebody would read Nahum Jonah Micah name, okay hint somebody would read
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Nahum one three, please Nahum one three,
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I think we maybe I also need to develop a yes. Go ahead Steve or mark or Your name is
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Paul Close I get there. Eventually. I apologize Paul. Thank you, Paul Okay, so he's not gonna leave the guilty unpunished
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Well, what does that mean if we think about our own lives and you know Even in the ways that we have failed to love the
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Lord our God Well, our hearts will mine and strength since we woke up this morning or our neighbors You know as we're shaking our fists on the way into church.
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I love you How is it that God can leave us unpunished?
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How can he do that? Well, this is the act of justification one more little item on our agenda here the universal guilt of mankind
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And you know, I I think let's look at Genesis 6 5 when people first started using this, you know when
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I was a new Christian and I think I took discipleship evangelism and they wanted to use this to show the
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The universal guilt of mankind I just thought well this is not right This doesn't show that let's look at it though.
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Genesis 6 5 and we'll discuss that a little bit Genesis 6 verse 5
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Yeah, go ahead Simon. Okay. Now what makes that verse remarkable? And how could it possibly apply to us since this is prior to the flood?
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There really is no difference why because the nature of man hasn't gotten better You know did the flood give us some kind of spiritual vitamin shots
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Did everybody improve, you know after that? No and Apart from God apart from his saving grace.
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This is the nature of mankind The wickedness of man was great on the earth is a great now
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Yes Familiar in Romans 3 for all of sin and fall short of the glory of God.
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We know this is the natural state of Mankind so How can sinful man be made right?
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with a holy God How can those that deserve his punishment his wrath?
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be made right in his sight and this is The core of Christianity, let me just read what
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RC Sproul says Says Luther made his famous comment about the doctrine of justification by faith alone
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Being the article upon Which the church stands or falls John Calvin added a different metaphor saying that justification is the hinge upon Which everything turns?
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justification is the key and It's exactly where Rome was going wrong.
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I Mean if you recall the story of Luther and I don't want to get all Luther II on yet today but You know, he was somebody who had this
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Overwhelming sense of his own sinfulness. And so he would go and confess all the time and at the same time you have
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Tetzel this Roman Catholic monk running around and he's selling indulgences.
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What is an indulgence in the Roman Catholic system? free pass it's a get out of purgatory free card and You buy that either for yourself or for a relative and They were using the system to kind of finance the construction of st
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Peter's Basilica And when you think about that if you had say a parent or a grandparent and you're told, you know
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And they passed they've died and you're told that you know what Steve if you give $500 to the
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Roman Catholic Church Grandma will be sprung out of purgatory. The Pope will clear her record and she can go to heaven
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If you believe that aren't you kind of you're like boy $500 a lot of money, but grandma she's suffering in purgatory
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I love grandma There you go.
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And that was the system and this is a you know, Luther's just like well, how can this be? How can money?
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Spring somebody out of purgatory. How can money wipe away their sinfulness? What kind of a system do we have here?
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The truth is we cannot justify ourselves. We can't write a check. We can't justify somebody else In fact,
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I wrote here. I think this is really brilliant. We cannot declare ourselves righteous duh
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God has to do that. Let's look at Romans 3 Romans 3 and we're gonna read Well, we'll go ahead and recover 23 but verses 23 to 26
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Romans 3 verses 23 to 26 We're not gonna walk the
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Romans Road, but we will go down the Romans alley a little bit today. So Romans 3 verse 23 to 26 and Anthony, would you read that please now?
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There's so much here. I Mean we could spend a few a few hours on this but just look at verse 24
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Justified by his grace as a gift and then through what's the means of that through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus and then
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Down to verse 26 to show his righteousness Righteousness not that he's no longer overlooking sins.
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How can this be his righteousness? Because his wrath is propitiated verse 25 tells us
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By the blood of by the death of Christ and And therefore we are justified declared righteous because of the finished work of the
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Lord Jesus Christ and How do we know that justification is not a process that it's one and done
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I mean there are several places we could go but let me just read Romans 8 verses 32 and 33
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Romans 8 32 and 33 and Paul writes as he who did not spare his own son, but gave him up for us all
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How will he not also or also with him graciously give us all things and then verse 33?
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Who shall bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies?
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So here's the picture God looks at us. He sees Christ. He sees his perfection.
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He doesn't see our sin, right? I mean we could put it this way as the psalmist does when he looks at us
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He sees Christ and our sins are back here He can't even see our sins. Our sins are removed as far from us as the
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East is from the West But when he justifies us there is no longer any condemnation as It says here rhetorical question who shall bring any charge against God's elect it can't be done if God can't bring a charge against us
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Because of the work of Christ in other words if he declares us righteous and finds no fault on us not because we're good
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But because Christ perfectly obeyed the law in our place Then how can anyone find?
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Fault with us and the answer is no one can God is the ultimate judge He has justified us.
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He has declared us righteous in Christ. And therefore there is No guilt no charge that can be brought against us it is one and done as they say
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You know in the NCAA any questions the meaning of justification as I said
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Roman Catholicism has a different system They teach the justification means that those justified are made good are made good
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They have a holy nature and a loving ethical disposition We talk about infused righteousness that righteousness is actually kind of Transferred into them listen what the
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Roman Catholic Catechism says about baptism for example one of the sacraments
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According to their system Born with a fallen nature human nature and tainted by original sin children also have need of the new birth in baptism
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To be freed from the power of darkness and brought into the realm of the freedom of the children of God To which men are called baptism
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Sets you free when we think about the word
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Justify you know you Spend $5 ,000 of the company money on cupcakes
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And your boss calls you in to justify your actions What's he asking you to do he's asking you to Charlie?
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It doesn't appear right right. I mean five thousand dollars on cupcakes. That's nice. We have you know five five employees
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Seems a little excessive Charlie Charlie's like well, you don't understand
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I ate 4 ,500 of them all myself. You know Really good they were really good cupcakes
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You're you're either trying to explain that you didn't do it right Charlie says well. I didn't spend the $5 ,000 that wasn't me
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Somebody stole my credit card number Hit me over the head took my wallet, whatever While he wipes frosting away from his lips right it wasn't me boss.
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I said We're either trying to justify it by explaining that we didn't do it or we're giving a rationale for why we did it right
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We're trying to make it morally, okay Sometimes yeah,
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I thought about Here's a way that we would use it in my previous job.
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We would say You know if I if I used mr.. Lumpy, which is the nickname
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I have for my flashlight Don't Actually, I'd never really used my new mr..
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Lumpy, but if somebody if somebody said why did you strike that inmate?
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They would be saying you need to justify your force you need to show us why it was okay to do that when
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I when I was in patrol And I would get a rattlesnake call.
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You know people would have I mean, it's funny, right? You would probably think well I should do that myself people would call the police to come to their house because they have a rattlesnake on their front porch and So I would tell people what?
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I Like my dad my dad was a hero you know who would beat rattlesnakes with his nightstick
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I'm like I don't do that. You know I'm going to shoot that thing and I had like little there's something there's a round called snake shot that you put in your pistol and it's like a shotgun round for a pistol and It just kind of you know kills the snake
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And so I'd say you know I'm gonna shoot the snake and people would say fine kill that thing right and then when
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I went into the station I Had to justify I had to explain why I used my weapon and so I would just write you know
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We had to write these little memos back in the old days where we had to do things by hand Saw snake shot same you know and a story and just tape the the little round up there
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It was a silly thing we had to do. I don't even know why we had to do that But you have to justify your actions, but when we talk about justification and biblical
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Concept of justification, it's not that something is done To us it's something that is done for us.
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It is a verdict about us Right when he looks at us. He finds us not guilty why none of the basis of us being good
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This is on the basis of God the father the judge Looking at us and saying on the basis of Christ Perfect life on the basis of his death on the cross
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I Find you not guilty, and we already read
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Romans 3. How can he find us on right the unrighteous righteous? How can he declare us righteous?
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Because of the work of Christ He does not make us righteous, but he accounts us righteous
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He imputes righteousness not infuses. It's not like we become Righteous it's we are you know as the
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Scottish Presbyterians would say without the accent. We're cloaked in the righteousness of Christ The London Confession of Faith says this
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Says those whom God now we're gonna get all King James II those whom
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God affectionately calleth He also freely justifieth Not by infusing righteousness into them in other words, they're explicitly discounting the
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Roman Catholic system But by pardoning their sins and by accounting and accepting their persons as righteous
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Not for anything wrought in them or done by them But for Christ's sake alone not by imputing faith itself the act of believing in other words not giving them credit for that or Any other evangelical obedience to them as their righteousness, but by imputing
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Christ's active obedience unto the whole law and passive obedience in his death for their whole and soul
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Righteousness by faith which God Which faith they have not of themselves.
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It is the gift of God So what's he saying there? Well, listen, let's look at This just basically cries out for 2nd
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Corinthians 521 Let's look at 2nd Corinthians 521 and if somebody would read that when they get there, please for our sake
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Read that again. So here's what happens. This is what we call double imputation Double accreditation, whatever you want to call it.
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This is this is what this verse is describing here is that on the cross all
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Of our sin the sins of everybody whoever would believe are credited imputed
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Accounted to Christ He made him who knew no sin perfect Obeyed the law perfectly and yet on the cross
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God treated him as if He lived our life as if he lived my life
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So when we sing the song, you know, it was my sin that put him there and kept him there Well, that is exactly right.
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It's because of what I did because of what you did that Jesus had to be there So his our sin is put on him and the other part of it is
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That we might become the righteousness of God in him in other words in Christ because of Christ His righteousness is accounted imputed credited to us, even though we didn't live the perfect life
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Even though we didn't submit to the father we get the credit for Christ's life
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That's what took place there at second Corinthians double imputation Okay We're justified by faith, but the faith in and of itself is not meritorious.
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We just read that. What does that mean? We're justified by faith, but the faith itself is not meritorious
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Are you budding theologians? Yes, Gary Okay, so we don't generate this faith on our own and we don't generate because we're dead in our sins and trespasses before we get saved
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It's not meritorious because if it were meritorious that would mean that we have something to boast about It would mean that we did something that we contributed something to our faith other than the sin or to our salvation other than the sin that made it
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Unnecessary So God gives us that faith.
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He causes us to be born again. He regenerates us. He does all these things. It's God God God God Now there's certainly a question that comes up about justification and If it is, you know
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One a one -time declaration by God that you are forgiven of all your sins past present and future that you in Christ Are no longer guilty that you are righteous
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Well, what's to stop you from living a life of you know, just Doing whatever you want just being a total heathen pagan dog
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What stops you from doing that? Because that's the charge right when you explain the gospel properly
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I mean I listen to you know when I when I give the gospel to Mormons For example, what do they say they they listen to it and they go
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Wait a second then what you're really saying is you could be a Christian and they just live However, you want just believe and then just live.
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However, you want what's wrong that line of thinking? You guys are like nothing. That's perfectly right
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Okay, because it's exactly right because when justification happens
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That's a one -time event, but then a process starts and that process is called sanctification
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The Holy Spirit when he causes you to be born again That's not all that happens.
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You have a new nature now, right? The the old man is passing away, you know and as you put on the new man as you grow in Christ likeness as you're being conformed into the image of the
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Son of God You grow to as Larry said hate your sin and as you love
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God and hate your sin You should see over time, you know, it's it's hard especially at any one point in time to just look at yourself and say
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Boy, I'm really doing well You know, I I can't even think of the last time
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I sinned What what yeah, yeah survey said and what what you what you can do though is as you look back you can see that The Lord has given you new desires by what you have by the grace of God been able to put off And what you have chosen to put on and it's not because of good in you
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It's because of the good that God is doing in you How he is changing you
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So it's not it's not always the wisest to take a snapshot. You kind of have to look back over the
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You know the past however long you've been saved and see well the Lord certainly has moved me in a number of ways
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So our obedience is not perfect, but that's sanctification and We ought not to confuse justification and sanctification.
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That's the Roman Catholic system Listen Romans 4 verse 5 says and to the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies
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The trying hard those who give their best effort those who slip up less
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Know the ungodly He justifies the ungodly his faith is counted as righteousness
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God justifies the ungodly He then starts working on us, but he justifies the ungodly
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I Had somebody not so long ago. You know asked me kind of like preparatory things.
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You know what I What kind of things should I put off so that I can become a Christian? What do you do with somebody like that come as you are and and you know the key?
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Then is it's just like well apparently you don't understand the gospel, so let's go over it again The good news isn't get better Prepare yourself you know
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If you take these three steps, then maybe you'll accept the Lord Jesus Christ the gospel is believe
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Believe in what Christ has done when you believe God will take care of These things come as you are
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Okay, grace alone is the instrument or means of our Justification I guess we could say grace your faith
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But our works are explicitly rejected in Scripture as a means of justification
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Romans 1 for in it's The righteousness of God is revealed from faith that talking about the gospel the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith as it is
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Written the righteous shall live by faith Let's look at Galatians 2 16 this whole idea of Doing good things you know taking the seven sacraments
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Salvation by works Galatians 2 16 if somebody would read
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Galatians 2 16, please Thank you, and so you know people will say like if you
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I'm gonna reserve you know Revert to my Mormonism here for a moment and somebody will say well.
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Yes, that's that's true Right, but a faith that saves is not alone right.
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It's going to be accompanied by works faith without works is Dead it cannot save So how do we then just or how do
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I see I was gonna say just fine How do we reconcile those two how do we reconcile this idea of?
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justification by grace alone but also Faith without works is dead.
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How do we reconcile those two Jose? Okay, our works are the evidence of a person has been justified.
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You know if somebody says I have faith And they don't have any works, then what will we say? Maybe you there was a phrase
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I saw here recently that really troubled me if somebody was I won't mention his name But somebody is making this claim running around in evangelical server circles that we have to have sufficient works
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To demonstrate that we've been justified. What would that mean? What are sufficient works? I saw that and I'm like I Can't even define that and here's you know it makes me queasy and the reason it makes me queasy is because I just think okay
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This sounds like we're getting to some sort of Capricious Demanding works righteous in the system like Islam, right?
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For those of you who are familiar, you know, it's not just The possibility of killing infidels that will get you into paradise
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It's by obedience right on in Islam that gets you there But if you ask somebody well, what do you have to do to get to heaven?
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They will say well, you know, we need to do this and this and this and this and this will that get you in It's still like up to their
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God he could say yes, or he could say no It's entirely up to him and when we talk about sufficient works
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After justification to show that we were really justified to show that we're really saved sufficient works kind of makes it sound like God goes
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Nah, that wasn't enough and what's the problem even with that kind of nomenclature that kind of language
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Sufficient works Gary it puts the illness back on us.
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Yes. You're saved by grace, but you're only gonna get to heaven based on having sufficient works I don't even know what that means.
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It kind of sounds like I'm heading for evangelical purgatory if I don't have sufficient works Because I can no longer go to hell right because I'm saved
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But I can't get into heaven either. So where am I going? I Guess New Jersey somewhere with all apologies to New Jersey It was
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I'm sure is a perfectly fine place hmm
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So why is faith and not some other grace which God has selected? Why is it faith that God has?
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selected as the instrumental means of justification The reason is not that faith is the gift of God because every grace is a gift of God Do you think about that every good thing right?
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We know that every good thing comes from above James wrote that yet.
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Only faith is the instrumental means of justification So Waldron, he says faith exemplifies the fact that justification is solely by Grace on the base of someone else's righteousness.
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That is to say Christ's righteousness Let's look at 1st Corinthians 1 Verses 28 to 31 1st
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Corinthians 1 verses 28 to 31 It's interesting, you know again as in so many passages.
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Thank you. Will as in so many passages Look at all the actions your free will takes in this verse
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And in this passage here none instead.
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What do we see? We see the sovereignty of God look at verse 30 It says and because of him you are in Christ Jesus Because of your free will
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Because of your free choice because you were smarter than your neighbor, whatever. It's not there because of him you are in Christ Jesus Why because there's no boasting?
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no boasting and He became to us talking about Jesus Who became to us wisdom from God righteousness and sanctification and redemption.
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He bought us back It's in him that were granted righteousness all these things are true because of Christ Jesus so Somebody said this recently and maybe it was
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MacArthur. I could have been Mike. I don't know could have been some really good theologian Is this being recorded hi
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You know that that the Christian life Basically is okay on one side.
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Here's the struggle on the one side is legalism, right? I I have to do things not because I want to please
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God but because I could lose my salvation or You know if I'm not doing enough then
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God isn't going to be pleased with me And on the other hand, there's this kind of idea. Well, you know,
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I don't have to join a church I don't have to listen to what anybody else says, you know I'm okay with God and God's okay with me and that's just the way it is.
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Whatever I do is okay well The this side is kind of like anti -law right
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I'm going to disregard the things that say I need to be Serving in a body that I need to be submitting to elders that all these other things are true and on this side,
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I have something that's just like basically I'm afraid of Losing my salvation of losing my religion if I could use that Calligula Calligula Whatever that little phrase so it's true, right?
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I mean legalism on one side antinomianism just kind of Absolutely free
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I could do whatever I want sort of thing. I can own liquor stores by you know
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Well, I won't even go into all the things that people think they can do because they have the freedom in Christ to do it
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So which is right, you know, and the answer is neither one I don't want to be a legalist and I don't want to be
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Against the law either. I don't want to think I have the freedom to sin, you know What shall we say shall we sin that grace may abound all the more?
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May it never be right and on the other hand, there's no condemnation. So both are true.
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I Don't need to fear condemnation, but I ought to fear just kind of the sense of lawlessness where I can just do whatever
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I want Both are true. And so it's living kind of in between that we should be striving for Yes, Carol.
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Well, it's true. It's true. But it but I and Carol asked about row You know, it isn't part of the confusion of rewards and I think the problem maybe is
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Is it okay to think well, I I don't even know if it's okay. I mean, I guess it's okay
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I think Paul says something about it, but Here's here's my question if I'm thinking I'm doing something so that I can gain the eternal reward
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I Probably have the wrong motivation anyway, right? I I just want to do something out of the joy and and just really sometimes don't you just wake up in the in the morning?
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I I think I do sometimes Usually not on Mondays, but don't you wake up?
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I just think I can't believe that I get to do X Y or Z You know if you and I don't care what your ministry is, you know, it could be changing diapers in the nursery or whatever it is where I'd be thinking it's a blessing to be able to do this and My wife's like today.
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She's gonna be in the nursery and she's like what a blessing it is to miss my husband preaching this morning She didn't say
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I repent sackcloth and ashes I Rewards rewards certainly could lead us it could
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Motivate us. I I just I always want to have the idea, you know, if I get any rewards it's not because of anything good in me and I Honestly think
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I know this isn't true. But this is like the mindset. I like to have I know it's not true because I think
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It's sinful but I think sometimes I'm gonna get into heaven like, you know, like it's
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Years ago I went I Don't even like to confess this but I went to a
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Black Friday shopping thing. It's okay
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Okay So I get into this Best Buy and it really it was the freakiest thing ever because I was
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I had no control I mean, I'm not exactly small but I was like basically carried along by the crowd and All of a sudden when they stopped
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I stopped and I'm like, oh well There's what I wanted to buy anyway, and it was right next to me But I have that feeling that heaven is gonna be somewhat like that I'm gonna be you know, like I'm gonna get in there and everybody's gonna be packed all around me and I'm like Wonder for anybody notices
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I'm in here now. Why is that wrong?
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It's wrong because it's still based on you know, my sinful thinking that somehow I'm better or lesser
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Based on my performance and that's really not true But it's hard for me to think
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Rightly, which is I'm not getting to heaven based on me I'm getting in heaven based on Christ, right?
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I'm not gonna be embraced in heaven based on you know Steve he did a great job on October 28th 29th
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October 28th was pretty good, too I'm getting to heaven based on Christ.
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I'm gonna be welcomed into the throne of grace Full you know,
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I mean like I Don't know what it's gonna be like exactly But I know it's not gonna be me be kind of like going up here and going
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Do I get to stay I don't worry about rewards because I who can calculate those things, you know
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I I think it's is it a bad thing to think about him? No, but I think you know, if anything that can kind of get you leaning towards, you know, the more
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I obey The more God's gonna like me and I I just don't I think there are gonna be rewards in heaven
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I think there are gonna be things like that But I I'm like, I can't concern myself with them because as soon as I do that,
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I think I'm gonna fall over Right. I'm just gonna get too concerned and too legalistic
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And on the other hand if I never think oh, I want to please the Lord at all Then I go the other way, you know, and that's why it's just this this walk the walk is you know, is it narrow?
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I think it is narrow because we're always gonna be pulled this way or that way and Our focus just needs to be on Christ and just keep walking straight.
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So but I think that is an excellent point Okay, we need to close because somebody has to preach her in a few minutes father
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Thank you for your word Lord. I even as we think about 500 years I just praise you for the recovery of the gospel that you have
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Uncovered it as it were that that we don't have to hide out in little Disparate places
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Concerned that the religious authorities are gonna come get us We can read the
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Word of God. It's not chained up in some church There's nobody trying to keep us from studying your word
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Studying the truths the depths the riches of God father, thank you for men who would
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Write something like the 1689 Now for the long line of faithful men that you have just kept and Permitted them to guard the trust that we might have the gospel even to this day father