Winter Weather Devotional

open us up in a word of prayer, just kind of give you guys an idea of how we're going to do things. Daniel, Brendan, and myself are going to take turns.

We're going to do three devotions. Brendan is going to give us the, not

Brendan, I'm sorry, Daniel is going to read the psalm for us that we would normally read if we were there in person.

And then he's going to elaborate some on that. And then both Brendan and myself are going to take other scriptures that tie back to that same psalm and talk a little bit about those.

So that's kind of what we got set for the next 45 minutes or so. And then we'll close in a word of prayer.

And then we'll plan, I know today should have been our communion Sunday, but seeing as how we were not able to gather in person, we will do that next week.

So let's bow and I'll open us up in a word of prayer. Most gracious and sovereign

Lord, Father, we come before you this day with grateful hearts, thankful that even though we cannot gather in one place, we still gather united by one spirit, one faith, one

Lord, one gospel. Father, again, you remind us that you are not confined to a building or bound by our circumstances or whether we gather in sanctuaries or we gather in our homes.

Father, you are always with us. Father, we thank you for your protecting hand upon us.

We thank you for wisdom in times of uncertainty, or we thank you for the care you show even in the changing of the seasons.

Father, we gather even though this weather keeps us from assembling as we normally would, we are again reminded that your church is defined by those for whom

Christ died. Father, we just pray that you would quiet our hearts,

Lord, with all the things that are going on around us, that you would turn our attention from the concerns of the day or that we would take this time together and bring honor and glory to your name and to the truth of your word.

We pray that you would grant us clarity of mind, humility of spirit, that our hearts would be ready to receive all that you would teach us today.

Father, bind us together in love, strengthen our faith, remind us that even when scattered, we are never separated from you.

We ask all of these things in the name of Jesus Christ, our savior, our cornerstone, our high priest.

Amen. All right, at this time, if we make sure everybody is muted, then we'll turn it over to Brother Daniel, and then we'll move from there.

Is everybody able to hear me okay? My favorite thing to do when everyone's supposed to be muted is ask a question, then you see who's really muted and who isn't.

I'm laughing because I know the Reeds watched the Central Church this week or maybe last week, but if you haven't seen it, it's such a captivating exploration of how important it is to gather as the body.

And then here we are stuck on our screens, but I think it is encouraging that this is the aberration, this is out of the norm, but obviously we all pray that we're able to gather as soon as possible together.

In the limited abilities that we have doing this virtually,

I wanted to try to bring some of the truth and the encouragement that comes from the

Psalm that we would be reading if we were in person. So looking at Psalm 3 today, that's the one that we arrive at in our journey through the

Psalms. And so I'm going to give a little bit of background on it, and then I'll read it, and then we'll look at some applications related to Psalm 3.

So this Psalm is the third Psalm, but in many ways it's the beginning, it's the first Psalm.

We know Psalm 1 and 2 are both kind of an introduction, they're connected together, and they're an introduction into the entire

Psalter. Psalm 3 is the first in the collection of Psalms ascribed to David, that's

Psalms 3 through 41, with the exception of Psalms 10 and 33.

The first of 13 Psalms, it's also... I'm moving things around on here so I can see what

I'm doing there. Psalm 3 is also the first of 13

Psalms that have a subscription relating to an episode in David's life.

This is specifically looking at his experience with his son, which we'll talk about in a minute, but it's also the first lament

Psalm, and the first Psalm with the word Selah in it. And I tried to look more about Selah and its definition, and it's probably related to music, but scholars aren't entirely unified on what exactly

Selah means, but we know it probably means something related to resting in between the pericopes or something related to music.

But the important thing is that this is an individual lament Psalm, and so an individual lament is a type of Psalm with a few common elements that we see in Psalm 3.

So it's addressed to God with a cry for help, and often these Psalms have a petition for God to hear, deliver, or vindicate the author.

In this Psalm particularly, David expresses confidence in personal and individual deliverance by God.

So the context is very important for this Psalm because the historical situation really emphasizes the depth and beauty that we see here.

David is at an extremely low point in his life when writing this.

Because of the sin with Bathsheba, his life was torn apart by family troubles, and his kingdom is wrenched from his grasp by his third son

Absalom and his rebellion. The hearts of Israel were with Absalom and far from David.

So this shows the anointed of the Lord was forced to flee Jerusalem and wait out the crisis at an encampment across the

Jordan River. Thus this Psalm reflects the national situation for Israel as well as the personal feelings of David.

The outline, when we look at how it's broken out, shows verses 1 and 2 as a lament over the enemies.

Verses 3 through 4 are a prayer to the Lord. Verses 5 through 6 are trusting in the

Lord. Verse 7 is a prayer for deliverance. Verse 8 is hope in the

Lord. So I'm going to read the Psalm now. Read along with me, and then we'll look at some applications that we can find here in the

Psalm. I'm reading from the LSB. Psalm 3, Yahweh save me.

A Psalm of David when he fled from Absalom, his son. O Yahweh, how my adversaries have become many.

Many are rising up against me. Many are saying of my soul there is no salvation from him in God.

Selah. But you, O Yahweh, are a shield about me, my glory and the one who lifts my head.

I was calling to Yahweh with my voice, and he answered me from his holy mountain. Selah.

I laid down and slept. I awoke, for Yahweh sustains me.

I will not be afraid of ten thousands of people who all around have set themselves against me.

Arise, O Yahweh, save me, O my God. For you have struck all my enemies on the cheek.

You have shattered the teeth of the wicked. Salvation belongs to Yahweh.

Your blessing be upon your people. Selah. So we're going to look at two things that really stand out from this

Psalm, and we're going to start big and then kind of work our way more to a finer point of personal application.

Starting broadly from a redemptive historical perspective, the

Psalm witnesses to the intense opposition of God's enemies to his kingdom and his superior power.

Though David had grievously sinned, resulting in the present trouble he's in, the covenant was not broken.

Despite the personal and national tragedies that befell David, the Lord graciously established

Solomon's kingdom after him. The God who gave the victory to David and the blessing to his people has confirmed his love in Jesus, who identified himself with David's suffering and emerged victorious.

Through Jesus, God extends deliverance, victory, and blessing to all believe in his name.

This we can see is the glorious truth of the gospel for us today. Since Jesus is the

Messiah, the Anointed One, we join with Israel in the assurance of God's promise, the reception of the benefits of the people of God through the

Messiah, the hope of the Messiah's complete victory, and the desire for the establishment of the age of blessing referenced in verse 8.

We are also able to take encouragement for our daily lives here on earth as well as encouragement in the redemptive historical message from this psalm.

I doubt any of us have quite matched what we read about in the psalm.

None of us have had to flee from our murderous son who has betrayed us and seeks to incite national rebellion against our rightful place as king.

If that has been the case for you, I'd love to know about it because that would be very enlightening, but while that's something that seems far beyond what our personal experiences would be, we often find times in our life that can feel just as helpless and just as oppressed as David must have felt when fleeing from his son.

Too often, our plans come before our prayers. We try to solve all of life's problems ourselves rather than resting in the

Lord. David shows us the biblical way to respond to this hopelessness that we can find, especially in verse 5.

That's really the key point to this psalm as we look at this because in verse 5 we see something unexpected.

We see David's profound trust in God as evidenced by him laying down and sleeping.

So even in the midst of this catastrophic time in his life, as he's describing these thousands of people who are opposed to him, everything that he had trusted in, everything that he loved was taken from him, and he was betrayed by those closest to him.

In the midst of all this, he consoles himself with God. We too must remember the promise from verse 8, salvation belongs to Yahweh and his blessing is upon his people.

Only through faithful trust in God can we find this same peace. We might not be the king of Israel fleeing from our son, but we can rest in this same truth because it is the same

God that we love whom David loved, and we have the same peace because while David was the anointed on earth, we trust in the anointed in heaven.

We can trust in Christ all of the promises that come through him, and we can also be encouraged by him in the same way.

This is a beautiful psalm that depicts a way for us to posture our own hearts and our own minds as we live our lives trusting in this glorious God.

So that's what I have from this psalm, and I expect Brendan and Pastor Brad will be able to build on it from there.

Brad, do you want me to just hand it over to Brendan, or is there anything else you need me to do? Say a prayer.

All right, let's pray. Lord, we thank you that you have given us this opportunity to gather even though it is in a difficult situation.

Separated by distance through this storm, we can take encouragement from your word.

From this psalm that we come across today, we are able to be encouraged by the truth that lies with you, that you are powerful above all things, and that no matter what trials confront us in this life, we turn to you, that salvation belongs to you alone, and that we will ultimately receive the blessing of glory as we walk with you in faith.

Please, Lord, forgive us of our sins that we commit in moments of distraction and forgetfulness of you.

Remind us of who you are and who you made us, and let us rest in you.

Let us lie down and sleep in the moments of our distress knowing that you are faithful and you are sovereign.

It's in your name we pray, amen. All right, let's see if we can get through this.

So, the passage of scripture I'm going to be looking at, first of all, can everybody hear me okay? Okay, so the passage we're going to be looking at is

Matthew chapter 27 verses 32 through 44, and this is really just the account given from the perspective of Matthew of the crucifixion, and I'm going to read all of it.

The main parts I want to look at are verses 39 mainly through 44, but we'll go ahead and read the whole thing just to get the context of it.

So, it reads, as they went out, they found a man of Cyrene, Simon by name.

They compelled this man to carry his cross, who was Jesus, and when they came to a place called

Golgotha, which means place of a skull, they offered him wine to drink mixed with gall, but when he tasted it, he would not drink it, and when they had crucified him, they divided his garments among them by casting lots, then they sat down and kept watch over him there, and over his head they put the charge against him, which read, this is

Jesus, the king of the Jews, and then two robbers were crucified with him, one on the right and one on the left, and those who passed by derided him, wagging their heads and saying, you who would destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days, save yourself.

If you are the son of God, come down from the cross. So, also the chief priests, with the scribes and elders, mocked him, saying, he saved others, he cannot save himself.

He is the king of Israel, let him come down now from the cross, and we will believe in him. He trusts in God, let

God deliver him now, if he desires, if he desires him, for he said,

I am the son of God, and the robbers who were crucified with him also reviled him in the same way.

So, starting with, let's see, where is it?

Verse 35, where they divided his garments by casting lots to him.

I'm sure most of, if not everybody here, realizes that goes straight back to Psalm 22, where we read the lament of David, where he claims that they are casting lots for my garments and dividing my garments among themselves.

And then, so the next verse, 37, we see that they put a sign over his head that says, this is the

Jesus, the king of the Jews, and this is a, it's really interesting how

God and his providence caused this to happen, because, you know, what they're doing for mocking is actually declaring the truth.

So, that's just fascinating to me that, you know, they, they are saying it to be mocking that this is

Jesus who claimed to be king of the Jews, but in reality, he is king of all creation.

All right, and then, verse 40, or verse 39, sorry, and those who passed by deriding him, wagging their heads, and then verse 40, they talk about Jesus, who they tell him to save himself, saying that, and this, the temple part harkens back to Matthew 24, where Jesus prophesied the destruction of the temple.

So, they're making fun of what he said there, and then they tell him to save himself, and that goes right back to Psalm 3, like David, or Daniel told us earlier in verse 1, where they're saying there is no hope for us in God.

I need to get to it, but my

Bible's not working with me today. Yeah, where it says there is no salvation for him and God, and then what

I have for the fourth point in this is, where they say in verse, verse 42, let him, at the end of it, let him come down now from the cross, and we will believe in him.

I'm sure all of us have probably encountered that person that, I know I have a guy at work that I talk to regularly, that he has mentioned this quite a few times, where, well, if he would just show himself, or if he would just, you know, do this for me, then

I would definitely believe in him, and I'm sure Shane has people like that, quite a few people, and yes, it's a very sad state that they're in to revile the one that is actually their only hope, and they're dying in their sins, but they still just will not believe, and even if he came down, they would make an excuse for why they didn't believe, and that brings me to the next point of even the thieves mocking him right beside him.

They are literally about to die, and the only person that could save them is right beside them, and they still choose to revile him and mock him instead of actually believing in him to save them, and then we have, he trusts in God, let him deliver him now, which goes pretty much back to Psalm 3, and so in our lives,

I've kind of touched on it, that we all have those people who are mockers against our faith, and even though they are dying in their sins and are dead in their sins, they can't see that the only hope for them is in Christ, and that's one point

I want to kind of bring out, is that we normally read the Bible that way, that these are the other people, not us, but kind of turning this on its head, that we need to make sure that we are also not the mockers, where we are too quick to judge someone's theology or someone's thoughts on a certain topic of scripture, and I know that's more prevalent in our circles, in the

Reformed circles, because, I mean, we have been given great knowledge.

A lot of us have spent many hours studying the Bible, and a lot of times we feel that other denominations or other groups of Christians have not done that, and a lot of times we're right, but we also need to check our hearts and make sure that we're not the ones just mocking and actually doing exactly what they were doing when they crucified

Jesus. Yeah, so that's pretty much all

I got, so I'll pray and then I'll let Pastor Brad do it the right way. Father, I thank you for allowing us to meet together today, even if it is on video, and I pray that you would give us strength in our lives to face the mockers that we do face in our everyday lives, and that you would give us wisdom to answer the objections that they have, and you would also give us wisdom to know when to walk away, and I pray that you would also at the same time safeguard our hearts, that we are not, we don't become the mockers, but we would be sensitive to your spirit, and that we would search for your guidance in all things, in Jesus' name, amen.

Well, I want to start out by just saying thank you to both

Brendan and Daniel for being willing to step in and take part in this, because it was an odd situation.

Obviously, you know, it harkens me back to the days of COVID and doing this weekend and week out on a video screen with no people, and it's a tough thing to do, and so I thank both of them for stepping up and being willing to do that.

My passage of Scripture actually comes from the book of Acts, and so if you'd like to follow along, we're going to be in Acts chapter 4, and so in Acts chapter 4, we run into a situation where Peter and John are arrested and then released and then threatened, and they have all of these things going on, but in the midst of that passage, we come to a few verses that kind of touch back on what we've already talked a lot about so far this afternoon, so what

I want to do is we'll start by reading in Acts chapter 4. I'm going to actually begin in verse 1 and read down through verse 12.

Our focus will actually be 11 and 12, but I want to kind of give you some lead in, and then we'll deal with those two specific verses.

So in Acts chapter 4, beginning in verse 1, we read, Now as they were speaking to the people, the priest and the captain of the temple guard and the

Sadducees came up to them, being greatly agitated, because they were teaching the people and proclaiming in Jesus the resurrection from the dead.

And they laid hands on them and put them in jail until the next day, for it was already evening.

But many of those who had heard the message believed, and the number of men came to be about 5 ,000.

Now it happened that on the next day, their rulers and elders and scribes were gathered together in Jerusalem, and Ananias the high priest was there, and Caiaphas and John and Alexander, and all who were of high priestly descent.

And when they had placed them in their midst, they began to inquire, By what power or in what name have you done this?

Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them, Rulers and elders of the people, if we are being examined today for a good deed done to a sick man as to how this man has been saved from his sickness, let it be known to all of you and to all the people of Israel that by the name of Jesus Christ the

Nazarene, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead, by this name this man stands here before you in good health.

He is the stone which was rejected by you, the builders, but which became the chief cornerstone.

And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men by which we must be saved.

So as we come to this passage, there's a moment of confrontation here where Peter and John are before the rulers and the scribes and the elders, the guys who literally had orchestrated the entire crucifixion.

So if you think back to what Brendan was reading for us regarding the actual crucifixion and go back and think about all of the things that led up to that, these were the human people involved in getting

Christ to the cross. And so as Peter and John are standing in front of them, this is not a friendly conversation, it's not a friendly debate.

Literally they are being brought almost in front of a tribunal. They're being examined, they're being questioned, they're being implicitly threatened.

And so Luke tells us that as this questioning and threatening begins, something very important happens before Peter ever begins to speak.

He said, if you'll notice in verse 8, he said, then Peter, filled with the

Holy Spirit. So the first thing we want to recognize here is the fact that this is not

Peter's words, it's not clever language on Peter's part, it's not him opening up his knowledge and his wisdom.

This literally is the word of God, a spirit wrought divine truth that is here under pressure before hostile authority, where Peter is going to declare one of the most exclusive, offensive, and hope -filled statements in all of Scripture.

One of the truths of the faith, of the Christian faith, is the fact that even though we live in a world that wants to preach inclusivity and wants to preach that all come and all are saved and all are welcome, when we study

Scripture, we see that it's not that way, that it is exclusive, that there is something that separates people into two separate groups, and that something is

Christ. If you go down to verse 11, He, He there is Christ, is the cornerstone, the stone that was rejected, but which became the chief cornerstone, and that there is no salvation in anywhere else.

And so this same confidence, same posture that David sang in Psalm 3, a

Psalm in the midst of crisis, but written from the comfort of the Spirit, where we get the same truth.

And so Peter's actually referring back to a different Psalm, Psalm 118, when he quotes that Jesus was a stone that was rejected by you, the builders.

And so there's a key here, the builders, the people who were entrusted with the care, the instruction, the leadership of God's people.

So if we've spent a lot of time in Exodus, we've spent a lot of time studying the institution of the tabernacle, the institution of the priesthood, the purpose of these roles.

And we know based on all of these truths that, you know, these men who are standing in front of him, these

Sadducees and these scribes and these Pharisees, the priest had been entrusted originally with the goal of caring for the people, instructing them in the ways of the

Lord, and then leading them to look to God. These are the men that looked upon Christ and found him unfit.

He was not worthy to be what they thought he would be. They expected a different Messiah, if you will.

They wanted a physical Messiah who was going to come in and shake off the oppression of Rome and set

Israel up as this powerful kingdom that would rule forever. And while he did institute a kingdom that will rule forever, it was not a earthly kingdom as such.

It was a spiritual kingdom and one that we are heading towards as we move towards the day of reconciliation.

So these men, they evaluated him. They looked at Christ. They measured

Christ. And unfortunately, they dismissed Christ. And the rejection here is not accidental.

It was judicial. It was deliberate. It was a situation where the people became culpable because they had the truth.

They had all of the truths of the law and the prophets and the

Psalms and all of these things in front of them. They knew the scriptures better in many cases than many

Christians today. And yet they still looked at Christ and said, nope, this is not the one.

So one of the things that we find in this passage is two great truths that we have to hold together.

And it's two truths that we struggle with in life. And it's actually two truths that end up with a lot of debate around them.

And the first of those is that man is fully responsible for rejecting Christ. Every man, every woman, every child is absolutely 100 % responsible for rejecting

Christ. There is a level of accountability for every individual.

Notice that he says, which was rejected by you as a group of people.

But secondly, the other piece of this that we need to ensure that we're always keeping in front of us is the reality that although that we are responsible, we have a responsibility for our rejection of Christ, for our lack of faith, for our lack of believing.

The flip side of that is God is absolutely 100 % sovereign over Christ's rejection.

In fact, if you go a little further down in Acts chapter four and beginning in verse 23 and going down, there's this explicit passage of scripture that deals with God's sovereignly working all of these things out through these men to bring about exactly what he intended, which was

Christ to be elevated. Oftentimes in Christian life nowadays, people want to talk about God was reacting to the sin of Adam and Eve, that somehow the idea comes across as somehow this all caught him off guard.

And so he had to hurry up and come up with this plan B or that the cross was a disruption.

God wasn't expecting this. He didn't think that this was going to happen. He never knew these men were going to take it this far and go to these lengths.

But the reality is this is the centerpiece of God's plan. Christ was rejected in order to become the cornerstone.

That thing which everything is determined off of the alignment, the stability, the integrity of the entire belief is based off of Christ being the cornerstone, the central most important figure who underwent a horrific death for us.

You remove that, you remove this act, you remove the sovereignty of God over this act and any other act, and literally the building begins to collapse.

Peter tells us here plainly, no apologies. You rejected the only foundation that God has laid.

When we talk about and we look at other people and even in our own lives as believers, when we fail to submit to the leadership of Christ, when we fail to submit to his authority, his authority exists whether we want to submit to it or not.

That doesn't give him something. We can proclaim him as Lord, yes, but he's

Lord anyway. That's literally you, that's an effort of you submitting to it.

It's not something that is absolutely required in the sense of we bestow him with some power by doing this.

He's Lord. He has authority. We submit to that authority and by submitting to that authority, we recognize and understand and place ourselves under him.

If you think back to Psalm 3, we have some theological backdrop here.

David wrote, and this is not the LSB, but it's a little bit different. Oh Lord, how my adversaries have increased.

Many are rising up against me. Many are saying of my soul, there is no salvation for him in God.

This is a theological accusation. It's not merely those people in opposition. They are literally telling him

God's abandoned you. God has turned it out completely, but then you move forward and you look at what the mockers were saying to Christ and think about what they said.

They said, he trusts in God, let God rescue him. So again, they're putting it back and saying, well, you've been abandoned.

If you're really the son of God, why would he allow you to be hung on this cross? That's this thought of this being a secondary thing.

Oh, this is not part of God's original plan. Why would God ever plan to do that? We have those experiences in our own life.

We have those conversations in our own life. To be sure every single one of you have had somebody ask, well, if God is so good, why did he allow

X to happen? We've had those conversations. We continue to have those conversations. We get challenged by that and that's part of reality.

But think about David's response. His response is not a self -defense.

His response is not one of, well, in my defense, this, that, and the other.

His response is to confess. He says, but you, oh Lord, are a shield about me, my glory and the one who lifts my head.

He recognizes God's role in God's movement in all of these things.

The Christ rejected by men, vindicated by God.

David's circumstances don't rest in, David's confidence doesn't rest in his circumstances, in the numbers, in the approval rating.

Where does it rest? In the Lord's saving power. Go back up and say, notice, he says, my adversaries have said, they've increased, they're rising up against me.

They've said against me, there is no salvation for me. God has abandoned me. To that, he responds, but you, oh

Lord, are a shield about me, my glory and the one who lifts my head. When we have that same interaction, when we have the people who mock us and come against us, when we have those who want to tell us that God's abandoned us because we believe this or God's abandoned

X, Y, Z, or any of those situations, we help people by saying, listen, your approval is not in man, it's not in the things of this world, it's not in circumstances, it's not in numbers, it's not how big your bank account in, it is found in Christ alone.

That's where the hope resides. The hope doesn't reside in any of those other things. And that pattern that we saw in David's life, in Psalm 3, finds its fulfillment in Christ, the true king, the greater

David. But Peter doesn't just say that Christ became a useful stone.

He says he became the chief cornerstone. Again, men issued a verdict on Christ.

They issued a verdict of guilt. This is why they demanded the death sentence that they ultimately ended up receiving, because they were passing judgment on Christ, saying he's guilty and it demands his death.

So that verdict was done by men. The resurrection is

God overturning that verdict. It's a public declaration that Christ is righteous, that he is victorious, that he is authoritative.

And then when we look at the entire picture, the ascension is all of those things, and then him being enthroned on high as king.

So what men rejected, God ultimately enthroned. It reminds us that rejection, when it's suffered in obedience to God, doesn't mean defeat.

There are many of us who've lost friends, people we count as loved ones, people who we thought were very close to us.

But as soon as we express faith and belief, and we express this desire to be obedient, and to live according to the word of God, we're outsiders, we're outcasts, we're rejected, we're thrown away.

And so it's easy in a humanistic sort of way to feel defeated and rejected when those things happen.

The reality is that this is not defeat. This is we are being obedient.

It is the very thing many times that God uses in your life to establish purposes.

Think about the way you grow through these things. When you're confronted with something like this, when you're confronted with an issue like that, how do you come out of it?

How does your faith grow? How does your walk with Christ grow? How do you study more in scripture to learn and develop and grow more as a believer, mature in your faith?

Go back and look at Psalm 3, the way it ends, it ends with confidence.

The confidence isn't in David. David is not putting his confidence in itself. It is in divine salvation.

Salvation belongs to the Lord. Your blessing be upon your people.

And that is the same statement that we see residing here in Acts 4, especially in verse 12, where we read, and there is salvation in no one else for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men by which we must be saved.

So it's not a declaration of preference here. This is not a statement of we prefer

Christ. We prefer salvation through him. That would be what the world wants you to think.

Because the world right now, and many quote unquote believers and churches are right alongside the world in this and saying, well,

God's not the only God. Christ isn't the only way. They want you to believe all of these things about how it's okay to view this as the same religion.

It's okay to view that as another pathway to God. It's okay. Worship however you want. It's all going to the same place, but scripture's clear.

It's not that there is only one. And so notice it says we must be saved.

This is not, like I said, it's not a declaration of preference. Peter isn't saying I prefer you get saved by calling on the name of Christ, but there's these other ways.

What he says is that it's the only name and the only way under which we must be saved.

This must, this necessity, this declaration of necessity tells us something, reminds us something about our condition.

It, our condition is we're not misguided. We're not sick.

We're lost. We're dead in our sin and in our trespasses.

We're not wounded. We're not aching along just above the surface with one hand held up waiting for somebody to throw us a life raft.

We're at the bottom with no ability to rise to the top.

But Christ, salvation is not optional. It's essential. And salvation by Christ alone is the only way.

If you think about verse 12, it actually doesn't just touch one doctrine.

It touches multiple doctrines. So when we look at it, one of the things we see is, one, we see the total depravity of man.

We cannot save ourselves. It's the only name under heaven by which we must be saved.

The only name. So Brad's not a name by which you can get saved. Brendan's not a name by which you can get saved.

Daniel's not a name by which you could get saved. There is no other name other than the name of Christ.

Secondly, that touches on the second one, right? Christ alone. He is the only mediator.

There is no other. He is solus Christus, Christ alone, the only one.

Then we see the sovereign grace of God, right?

God must and does provide the name on which we are to call it.

There is no other way that this comes about, but by God himself.

God gives us Christ. He gives us the name on which we must call. There is no salvation anywhere else.

And the other one is, salvation is accomplished. It's not just offered.

Here's the thing. We hear people talk about, well, I have the ability to accept or reject, okay?

And then they'll, in the same sentence, they'll say, well, but I believe once saved, always saved. So here's the problem with that way of looking at things.

If I have the ability to either accept or reject, but yet once I accept,

I can only at that point, am I saved to the uttermost, that still gives me the opportunity to reject.

What happened to the rejection? Why did all of a sudden when I made one decision, the rejection still there, even though I've made the decision every day of my life to reject it, all of a sudden now that I've made a decision to accept,

God loses his power to hold me or keep me from rejecting.

The other piece of this is, is that when it starts, it will be finished.

It's not going to happen. Look, it doesn't say, and there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under which heaven that has been given among men by which we might be saved.

It says must be saved. And it doesn't say possibly could be saved. This is definite.

This is salvation that will be accomplished. There's no religious system, no moral effort, no ecclesiastical authority by which centers are reconciled through God.

The only way for a center to be reconciled to God is through Christ.

And that is why the gospel is exclusive and offensive to the natural man.

If there were any other way, then there would have been no need to send Christ to the cross.

If Muhammad was away, Christ had no need to die. If the 12 -fold path of Buddha was the way,

Christ did not need to die. If you could effort yourself in by obeying all of the customs, all of the rites, all of the religious ceremonies, worshiping on the exact right day at the exact right time for the rest of your life, doing it every day to please

God in order to attain salvation, Christ's death would not have been necessary.

But the truth is, it was. David says in Psalm 3,

I lay down and slept. I awoke, for the Lord sustains me. This is trust in the midst of danger.

This is trust in the midst of this challenge to everything that you believe.

When we have faith, we rest not because the threat goes away, not because the threat diminishes, but because God is present.

We rest not because salvation is uncertain, but because it is certain in Christ.

Only when we understand that it is certain in Christ can we truly rest.

The world can look at us and say, there is no salvation in you for God. God has turned his back on you.

The gospel replies, salvation belongs to the Lord, and that salvation has a name, and the only name is the name of Christ.

And so a few things that we need to do in our lives, we need to examine our foundation.

One of the dangers that we can get into sometimes when we are studying very intently and very in depth, is that we can lose sight of the foundational things that we have to keep central.

And so it's necessary that we continue to acknowledge and understand that Christ is not a supporting piece in all of this.

He is the cornerstone. He is the chief cornerstone that holds everything together.

Without him, the entirety of it collapses. Second thing in our life, we need to expect as believers, rejection, trials, difficulties, and troubles.

We know that there is a whole gospel, quote -unquote gospel aspect out there that teaches the exact opposite of it.

But the truth is, scripture teaches us over and over and over and over that these times, these situations, these trials, these challenges will all come about.

And so as they come about, we need to understand them. We need to be faithful, because being faithful, one, is going to put us at odds with all of these things.

It's going to put us at odds with cultural things, with religious things. It's going to put us at odds with institutional powers.

It's going to put us at odds with the government. It's going to put us at odds with the system of education.

It's going to put us at odds with all of these things, because these are not things of God in the sense that they are not submitting to God's authority.

It's all under his creation. He's sovereign over all of these things, but they're not submitting, and therefore we will face opposition and challenges.

So we expect that rejection. We remain faithful. We continue to study. We continue to fill our minds, to renew our minds, to continually work towards understanding and growing in our faith.

Third thing is we rest in the verdict of God. Oftentimes, it is difficult when we see things going on in this world, when we see certain situations happen.

We have questions, but we have to understand that God is sovereign over all things.

He sees all things. He knows all of these things way better than we do. When it comes right down to it, the one essential thing in all of it is that God's judgment outweighs every single human verdict.

He proved it in the resurrection. Everybody had said Christ was guilty. Christ deserved to die.

The crowds cried out for him to be crucified. God declared him just. God declared him righteous.

God acknowledged that he was who he was and raised him from the dead.

His verdict outweighs every human verdict. So even when they're casting suspicion and doubt and challenging you, his verdict is what matters, not theirs.

Then last but not least, we proclaim the only name.

Here's the deal. We can't keep the name of Jesus to ourselves. It is the only name by which there is salvation.

If we truly love like scripture calls us to love, if we truly understand what that love means and what it looks like, then it demands us not to,

A, soften the truth, because if love softens truth, it's not true love. It's you trying to not offend or cause issues or cause challenges.

Love clearly and definitively speaks truth, and part of that truth, the main focus of that truth that comes out of the mouth of the

Christian, the believer in the world, is that there is no salvation apart from Christ.

Hope in Buddha, hope in the Shinto religion, hope in the 5 ,100 gods of Hindu, none of that accomplishes anything.

Salvation is by faith alone in Christ alone, according to the word of God alone for his glory alone.

So we see that the stone was rejected, the builders were wrong,

God spoke, and salvation does not belong to the system of this world, to the leaders, to any human wisdom.

It belongs to the Lord and his saving power. The Lord is one in name alone.

The question before us is not whether Christ is acceptable to the world, but whether he is foundational to each of us.

So let's pray. Our gracious and sovereign God, Lord, you are our shield and our glory.

You are the one who lifts our heads when the world would cast them down.

Father, we confess that left to ourselves, we would search for salvation in many places.

We would seek it in our efforts, in our morality, in our traditions, in our strengths.

But Lord, you have made it clear through your word that salvation belongs to you and you alone, or we thank you for the stone that was rejected.

We thank you that it is exalted as the chief cornerstone. We praise you that what men despised, you raised in power and in glory for our salvation.

Father, our prayer is that you fix our faith firmly upon Christ, that every false foundation would be stripped away, that our rest we would find in the finished work of our risen savior, or that there we would find boldness to proclaim his name without fear, without compromise, that we would sleep in peace.

Even knowing that many rise against us because we know that you alone sustain us.

Father, we ask that your blessing be upon your people and that through Jesus Christ, the only name under heaven by which we must be saved, will all these things be done in your name.

We pray. Amen. Well, guys,