Five Solas (part 4) - [Galatians 2:15-16]

Bethlehem Bible Church

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Well, I, along with you, dear congregation, do not like error. We do not like theological error.

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We don't like lies or falsehoods. We like truth. God has put it in our heart to love truth and veracity, verity.

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But good things can come out of bad error. I think of the Reformation and what happened.

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There was a swirling kind of cesspool of every man pretty much did what was right in his own eyes.

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And if there were no Bible for the lay people, they could say whatever they want. God says this. God said that. God said that.

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Nobody had an authority. People said, well, yeah, Jesus is fine, but, you know, there are other mediators that may be who are nicer.

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And by the way, it's a lot of faith plus a lot of works. And you never know if it's just you and God working together or just God alone.

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And therefore, we could kind of give each other glory to get to heaven. But in the middle of the

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Reformation, God raised up other faithful men like Pastor Bob, who for years would say, even though there's truth and error and we must fight, and it's no fun to fight theological error.

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It's not a great joy. But as you see, Paul fight for truth, Jesus fight for truth, Jeremiah fight for truth.

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Good things can happen. If someone knocks at your door and they say, we're here to talk about spiritual things, we have free literature for you.

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By the way, that's cut back a lot during COVID, right? You don't get those people at your door. But when they did come to your door and they'd say, you know,

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Jesus is the son of God, but he's not God. It probably propelled you into thinking, well, you know what?

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They seem to have a few verses for their side of the story, but I need to study more. I need to dig in because I need to understand for myself.

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And that's exactly what happened with the Reformation. And that's what we want to do as well today, as we finish our series on the five solos of the

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Reformation. While there's error theologically out there, error, it's good for us because then we have to say, what do we believe?

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Not what does Pastor Mike believe? Not what does the church believe? But what do you believe about scripture?

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What do you believe about Jesus? What do you believe about grace? What do you believe about faith?

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What do you believe about God's glory? And so today we're going to finish our series on the five solos of the

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Reformation. While there was error in that time, in the 1500s and earlier, the

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Lord raised up men to say, we need to combat this error. So for our series, while we're normally in a book going verse by verse, next week

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I hope to start Ephesians and going chapter by chapter. Today we're going to look at the five solos of the

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Reformation. Old Testament passage in each sola, New Testament passage in each sola. And what

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I like to do when I preach is I like to get you into the Bible quickly. We call that in preaching class TTT, time to text.

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And I fail students if they take 10 minutes in review and not get to the text. But since I'm the professor today,

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I might have to take 10 minutes of review before we get to the text because I want you to understand what's going on with the solos.

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So I think the bottom foundation of the solos is sola scriptura. And that's the first one we looked at.

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Remember, Scripture alone, it is the final authority. There are other authorities in life.

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And maybe you think the Apostles' Creed is an authority, and it is, but it's not the final authority. What Pastor Mike says might be an authority, but it's not the final authority.

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Our statement of faith is 1689, London Baptist Confession is an authority, but it's not the final authority.

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So what the Reformation did is said, you know what traditions, what the Pope said, what the

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Anabaptists said, it doesn't matter, it's Scripture alone. And we looked at Psalm 19, and we looked at 2

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Timothy 3, verses 15 and 16, to put that baseline there. The foundation for everything is

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Scripture alone, hence the name Bethlehem Bible Church. And if there are three columns in this

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Greek architectural building with the foundation Scripture, the middle column we've looked at is what?

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Solos. Okay, good. Well, last week, we weren't very vibrant either with Pastor kind of back and forth.

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I feel like I should probably call on someone to stand up and give the five solos. I wonder if anybody could do that.

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I won't embarrass you. It is Christ alone. Not church, not self, not any other mediator.

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One day, you'll stand before God, and like Pastor Bob, you'll die and stand before God, and you're going to need someone to be next to you.

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You'll need an advocate. Who do you want to represent you before a thrice holy God? And the

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Scripture's answer, of course, is in Job 9, right? We looked at Job 9. It's the

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Lord Jesus. He has to be truly God and truly man to be our representative. While the

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Scriptures teach that the final authority is the Scripture, at the center of the

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Scriptures is the sinless life of Jesus as his substitutionary death pays for all the believer's sins.

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We don't want to add to the gospel, and we don't want to subtract from the gospel.

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Since it is the reformation of five solos, I'll give you some more Latin if you'd like. Christus pro nobis.

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Christ for us. You know, Christian, with Christ alone, it's Christ is for you.

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I'd like to have Christ against you. Remember, we were thinking about Revelation chapter 19 and Jesus coming back in judgment.

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What if he was after you versus, dear Christian, he's for you. He's your advocate.

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He lived for you. You could say, Jesus lived for me. Jesus died for my sins.

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Jesus rose for me, and Jesus is my Savior. And the New Testament passage we looked at was 1

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Timothy chapter 2, where Jesus gives himself a ransom for all because he is the one mediator.

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Luther said, I must listen to the gospel. It tells me not what I must do, but what Jesus Christ, the Son of God, has done for me.

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The Son of God has come to seek and save that which was lost. God demonstrates his own love toward us that while we were yet sinners,

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Christ died for us. What do I claim before God? Nothing except my own sin, which leads me to sola gratia.

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That's the third one. We've got Scripture, Christ at the center. Another pillar is sola gratia, which is grace alone.

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It's not cooperation. God, we did it. You do a little bit, and I'll finish your work.

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God, you did 99%. I did 1%. No, it is Christ alone. I don't cooperate with God because I'm sinful, and I need to be rescued.

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Sometimes we'll think, you know what, and it was years ago, I think 20 years ago, I saw someone drowning over here in Clinton, and I used to be a lifeguard, and I thought, okay, do

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I call 911 first? Do I get in the water? What do I do? Don't let them drown me, but should I help them?

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So I thought, I'll call 911 first, and then go in. So I called 911, and they transferred me to the

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Boston Harbor. I'm like, oh. So by the time I was getting ready to be brave and rescue someone's life, someone else jumped in and did it for me.

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But they rescued the man. That's not a good sign, though, of the scriptural salvation.

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It's not like the guy's on top of the water bobbing up and down, help me, and he reaches out his arm, which he did, and the man who came over in a boat pulled him up.

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That's not a good picture. Grace alone would teach this. We're at the bottom of the lake, and we've been there for 40 years.

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You can imagine a body at the bottom of the lake for 40 years. We're dead. Resuscitation is not needed.

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New birth is needed. We need to be born again. We have no claim on God, yet he did it on his own.

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And sola gratia is important because if we were good enough to contribute, that might be one thing.

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But since Romans 3 teaches us that no one's righteous, we have to be saved by God's work alone.

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So that's sola gratia. Christ alone is the Savior. Christ alone is the

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Savior who gives us grace. Grace isn't a medicine or a substance. Grace is incarnate, the

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Lord Jesus. Then we went to sola fide, did we not? So we've got the platform or the foundation of Scripture, Christ in the center, grace, and then how do we receive this?

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It's by faith alone, sola fide. True or false? The doers of the law will be justified.

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I could just keep going with these tricks. You get to heaven by works. Christ works.

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You get to heaven by his works. That's true. So before you kick me out, you always have to like wait for that pregnant pause to be over.

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The doers of the law will be justified. The answer is true. That's Romans 2 .13.

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So how are you doing? As we like to say. So you can get to heaven two ways.

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Perfectly obey the law because the doers of the law will be justified. Why would God judge you if you never sinned?

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But because of Adam and now our own sin, that's impossibility. If we could do it, we'd get to heaven, but now it's impossible.

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So we need someone else to be a doer of the law. And we receive that doing by faith alone.

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And last week, remember, we looked at Numbers 21. Remember that great scene where there's a snake up on a pole and all you have to do to be saved from your snake bite, your poisonous snake bite, your fatal poisonous snake bite is what?

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Look, just to believe. Take God as His Word. He said, look at this unclean thing up on a pole and you will live.

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And of course, Jesus wasn't unclean, but they sure treated Him like He was unclean. And Jesus said in John 3, as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the

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Son of Man be lifted up that whoever believes in Him, that's sola fide, may have eternal life.

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For God so loved the world, He gave His only begotten Son that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.

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Sola fide. But we need a New Testament passage. And so please open your Bibles to Galatians 2.

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What we're doing is we're looking at the five solas in this topical yet textual series. And we're looking at an

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Old Testament passage and a New Testament passage for each sola because one mind of God, one author,

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He writes the Old and New Testament. There's no difference there in terms of divine author. And now we go to Galatians.

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And Galatians is one of these books that when you first read it, you think, wow, Paul was adamant.

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Paul was firm. Paul was not his normal self because people were messing around with Jesus.

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And if you mess with someone's bride, good husbands will stand up.

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And in a similar sense, this intense book Galatians, that happens. Let me read verses 15 and 16 for our passage for the

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New Testament in sola fide. See if you can count how many times faith or believe is used and not of works.

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I think it might surprise you. We ourselves, Galatians 2 .15, are Jews by birth and not

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Gentile sinners. Yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law, but through faith in Jesus Christ.

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So we also have believed in Christ Jesus in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by the works of the law, no one will be justified.

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Not anything in us, not anything wrought by us. Faith says it's outside of me and I'm looking by the grace of God to see that Jesus Christ is my savior, that Jesus Christ has done everything that's now irrevocable.

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I accept it by faith. I don't perform, I don't do it by works. And you see, don't you? Three times, faith, believed by faith.

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And you also see three times, not by works of the law, not by works of the law, not by works of the law. Jesus Christ saves through faith.

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It's not even faith that saves. Faith relies on another. And if I had to summarize all the doctrine of justification or sola fide,

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I could probably just pick this one verse. Verse 16, it's amazing. This is

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Paul's doctrine of justification in a nutshell, some say. Some say verse 16 is the most important verse in this entire epistle.

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Three times, by faith, believed by faith. How do I receive

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God's mercy and God's favor and God's forgiveness? And the answer is by faith alone.

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People say, well, of course it's by faith alone. Well, take a look at chapter three and I might say, of course, with you, because of these verses.

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Look at chapter three, verse 10. If any of you are here and you'd like to get to heaven, there's one way, and through Jesus, by faith alone.

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Because look at the other option, verse 10 of chapter three. For all who rely on works of the law are under a curse, for it is written, curse should be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the book of the law and do them.

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Now, it is evident that no one is justified before God by the law. For, there it is from Habakkuk 2, do you see it?

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The righteous shall live by faith. But the law is not of faith, rather, the one who does them shall live by them.

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Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written, curse it is everyone who is hanged on a tree right from Deuteronomy.

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True or false, you're saved because of faith, you sure?

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You're saved because of faith. At least

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Cory got it right, is that Cory's voice? I recognize Cory, didn't Cory do a good job the other day? He walked past me after his message on Christmas Eve and I said,

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I kind of went like this, I said, A for the message, F for the socks. Some kind of Gomer pile socks on or something,

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I don't know what it was. You're not saved because of faith.

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Ephesians 2 says you're saved because of the great love of God Himself, you're saved through faith. It's an instrument, it's not because of, well,

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I had faith and my friend doesn't have faith, that's why I'm saved. Did you know even the faith that you have has been given to you?

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That's why it's by faith or through faith. By faith or through faith. It's a means, it's not the ground of, this is not the cause.

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You don't get to heaven and say, if God were to ask you, why are you gonna come to heaven? Because I believe. No, because of your grace, because of the

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Lord Jesus, and you even granted me not only salvation, but you granted me faith. God's rich in mercy because of His great love with which

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He loved us. Even when we were dead in our transgressions, He made us alive together with Christ.

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Romans 3, even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ. We contribute nothing,

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God even gives us the faith. God looks down the quarters of time, He sees Mike believing in 1989 and says, therefore,

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I'll choose him. A, that's not true, and B, that wouldn't be predestination, that would be post -destination, which we'll talk about next week.

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God sees, He learns. God doesn't look down the quarter of time and learn and says, now I choose Mike, He knows everything.

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And He says, if He were to look down the quarters of time, He'd see Mike at the bottom of that lake right over there and needing not resuscitation, but to be given life.

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You say, well, but I did believe, that's true. Acts 18 .27, why did you believe, dear

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Christian? It says in Acts 18 .27, He helped greatly those who had believed through grace.

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You don't get to heaven and say, I'm here because I believed. Say, I'm here because of what Jesus Christ did and you even granted me saving faith.

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Spurgeon said, it's not thy hold on Christ that saves thee, it is Christ. It's not thy joy in Christ that saves thee, it is

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Christ. It is not even thy faith, though that be the instrument, it is Christ, blood and merit.

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I could put it this way, Horatius Bonar would say things like this. Did faith live a perfect life for you?

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Did faith die in the cross for you? Was faith buried for you? Was faith raised from the dead for you?

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Did faith ascend into heaven for you? And is faith pleading for you now, making intercession for you?

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And the answer is what? No, it's the Lord Jesus. The Lord Jesus, faith has an object.

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A little faith, a weak faith, a sinful faith, a less than perfect faith in the great object who is not sinful, who's not weak, it's enough.

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Remember, saving faith is knowledge, assent and what? Trust, knowledge, assent and trust.

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Well, what happened in the Reformation? The Latin Bible talked about making people righteous instead of declaring people righteous.

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Of course, remember, they thought, I'm gonna receive grace like a medicine or a substance or like a monster drink.

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I'm tired and I need some energy and so therefore I'll have some of that substance. But grace is a person.

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And that person doesn't make us righteous to start, he actually declares us righteous.

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But here's the rub, even in evangelicalism today, that's dangerous. You mean to tell me if I simply believe in the

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Lord Jesus Christ, knowledge, assent and trust, no matter what happens in the future, no matter what I say or do or sin or not,

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I'm safe? That's dangerous. There has to be some kind of corral here because once that camel gets its nose in the tent, you know what happens.

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And Rome said of the Protestants, you will have a bunch of licentious people, they're gonna run around and go crazy and do things because if it's faith alone and not faith plus works, the faith plus works things will keep

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Christians civilized. The Council of Trent, 1546,

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Roman Catholic doctrine that still exists today, Canon 9. If anyone says that the sinner is justified by faith alone, meaning that nothing else is required to cooperate in order to obtain the grace of justification, and that it is not in any way necessary that he be prepared and disposed by the action of his own will, let him be anathema.

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If you believe faith alone, you're damned. That's doctrine from them. Canon 12, if anyone says that justifying faith is nothing else than confidence in divine mercy, at least they understood the issue because that's what we're saying.

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Faith is confidence in divine mercy, which remits sins for Christ's sake, or that it is confidence alone that justifies, let him be anathema.

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Canon 14, if anyone says that man is truly absolved from his sins and justified because he assuredly believes himself absolved and justified, by faith alone, let him be anathema.

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And so what happens is justification, a declaration of God's righteousness, turns into sanctification.

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Am I living a holy life? And of course for us, we are declared righteous, and therefore we want to live a holy life.

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And God sanctifies us, but the two don't come together. They're separate. Sola fide is dangerous.

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It could lead to unholy living, but it's scriptural. Paul knew it. Romans 6, what should we say then?

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Are we to continue in sin that grace might abound? By no means. How can we who died to sin still live in it?

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Actually, faith alone promotes sanctification. It's the greatest motivation for holy living.

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Jesus said, did he not, her sins, which are many, have been forgiven? For she loved much, because he who has forgiven little loves little.

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Can you imagine how God saved you? Died for all your sins? Does that have you pour out with gratitude and praise?

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And obedience? Martin Lloyd -Jones, there's a very good test of gospel preaching. Next time you preach the gospel to one of your loved ones, here's a test that you should ask yourself to take.

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If my preaching and presentation of the gospel of salvation does not expose it to this misunderstanding, then it's not the gospel.

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Let me show you what I mean. If a man preaches justification by works, no one would ever raise the questions of Romans 6 .1.

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Nobody would ever say, shall we continue in sin that grace might abound? Did you get that?

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If you stand before God based on your works and Jesus' works, would you ever have to think, you know what?

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Shall we continue in sin that grace might abound? Because you would say what? No possible way because it's me and God.

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But when the free gospel, the gospel of grace is preached, it is dangerous, but it's true.

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And when we're saved, we want to respond with fruits of thankfulness. What must we do to be saved?

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Acts 16 .30. Sirs, what must I do to be saved? Verse 31, believe in the

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Lord Jesus and you shall be saved, you and your household. That is sola fide.

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There's a man named Phinney, Charles Phinney. And he said this, the doctrine of an imputed righteousness is another gospel.

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For sinners to be forensically pronounced just is impossible and absurd.

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The doctrine of an imputed righteousness is founded on the most false and nonsensical assumption, representing the atonement rather than the sinner's own obedience.

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Here's what Phinney said, you stand before God, it's not Christ atonement, it's your works. By the way, that will probably get you up in the morning, sadly, to do a bunch of more works.

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I hate to be mean to people, but when sometimes the Jehovah's Witnesses come to my house, I think they're here to sell my family's spiritual strychnine.

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And if we believe what they say, we're going to hell. I'm not gonna offer them water or anything else.

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But sometimes I say to them, listen, if only 144 ,000 make it in, I've had a lot of Jehovah's Witnesses that seemed a lot more dedicated than you.

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And I think you better get going, because you're gonna be left out. Just think of that treadmill, just think of the gerbil on the treadmill, running.

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You are here today, by the way, for many reasons. Here's one, you with me live in a works world, and we think we're measured by works, including with God.

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And I'm here to tell you, you don't stand before God today, based on your good works. You stand before God based on Christ's work.

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Christian, God accepts you. God loves you. You're His children. I know some fathers and mothers who are kinder than some pastors preach about God the

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Father and the Son. If I've got a son and three daughters, which I think I do, and they do something against me,

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I chasten them, but I don't say, you're no longer an ebondroth. But we live in this evangelical world, where if we sin, maybe some mortal sins, maybe some bad sins, and we do something we really ought not to, then people are questioning and wondering, and like,

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I have been separated from the love of God in Christ Jesus. I used to not be condemned, I'm condemned now because of what

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I've done. And so the worship service, we serve God by giving, singing, preaching, listening to the sermons, but God serves us by His word to say,

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Christian, keep trusting. You're okay. And I know what some of you are thinking.

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Pastor, every week you tell people, Christian, God is not angry with you. You're okay, no matter what you've done this week, what you'll do next week, you're okay with God.

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That's going to lead to more sin. May it never be. That should motivate you to think,

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I know that God knows every skeleton in my closet, yet He loves me anyway.

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And I know that I trust in the Lord Jesus, but even that trust is a gift, Philippians 1 .29.

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It's almost too good to be true. Think of a thief on the cross. What was he saved by?

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What kind of works did the repentant thief have to give to the Lord Jesus? And yet Jesus said, when asked, remember me when you come to your kingdom,

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Jesus said, I tell you the truth, today you will be with me, what? In paradise. Truly, truly,

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I say to you, Jesus said, whoever hears my word and believes Him who sent me has eternal life.

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He does not come into judgment, but is passed from death to life. Jesus said to her,

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I'm the resurrection of life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet he shall live.

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Jesus said to him, have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.

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Whoever believes in Him, Jesus says, may have eternal life. Whoever believes in the

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Son has eternal life. Those are all from the Gospel of John. If our salvation, yours and mine, depended on what we would do or say, we'd never make it.

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We're debtors. But even though our sin is great and our guilt is great,

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Jesus paid it all. Even that song. And you know God's so gracious. How do you respond?

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For years, I'd sing my kids to sleep, put my hand on their chest and just rub and sing,

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Jesus paid it all. What's the next line? I guess I'll go sin a lot.

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That doesn't rhyme though. No, Jesus paid it all, what? All to Him I owe.

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Sin has left a... Yet He washed it white as snow. And then finally, soli deo gloria.

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Soli deo gloria. You've got the foundation Scripture. Christ is a center pillar. Grace is next to Christ as it were because we receive

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Christ's benefits by grace alone, faith alone, and now to God be glory alone.

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This is the umbrella. This is the roof. This is the canopy. Robert Schuller said the

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Reformation erred because it was God -centered rather than man -centered. If you don't know who

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Robert Schuller is, good. And quite interestingly, the

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Crystal Cathedral now that was multi, multi, multi, multi -million dollars is a Roman Catholic Church because that's what he preached is

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Roman Catholicism essentially. You probably know soli deo gloria before you even are

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Christian. Many of you, if you're in music, if you go to Leipzig and go to the organ there, soli deo gloria is carved into Bach's organ.

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He would sign his works, SDG, as many other composers did. To God alone be the glory.

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Either our salvation is man -centered, anthropocentric, or theopocentric,

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God -centered, theocentric rather, excuse me. And if it's Jesus plus, if it's grace plus, my cooperation, if it's faith plus some sacraments, then it's not quite soli deo gloria.

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It's God gets glory, but not alone or only. These kind of all go together.

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One leads to another. If you say to yourself, oh, yeah, soli deo gloria is the logical outcome.

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It's the fruit of these other solas. If everything's been done by God, then

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He's going to get all the glory. Only the scriptures teach us the doctrine of salvation, and they teach us that Christ accomplished everything for salvation.

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We receive things because of God's grace through faith. Then, of course,

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God alone gets the glory. Keith Matheson said, soli deo gloria is both the beginning and the end of the other four solas.

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The Holy Spirit inspired the scriptures to the glory of God alone. Christ humbled himself to the point of death and was raised and exalted to the right hand to the glory of God alone.

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Grace and mercy are offered to rebellious sinners to the glory of God alone. And justification by faith alone is to the glory of God alone.

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Therefore, soli deo gloria is central. So we have an

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Old Testament passage and a New Testament passage. And we're going to go to the Old Testament passage first.

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Psalm 50, please. Psalm 50. Now, if I say the word glory, what goes into your mind?

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If I say the word glorify, what goes into your mind? This is kind of a complex subject. Glory or to glorify.

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Did you know God is called the King of glory? Do you know He's called the majestic glory? So you can use the word glory as a name for God.

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Jesus Christ is the Lord of glory. The Father is the glorious Father.

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Jesus is the radiance of God's glory. So you could say, you know what? It's like the name of God. It could be used.

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It also could be used as kind of a summary of all God's perfections, His what we call attributes, how

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He displays Himself. That could be called God's glory, the brilliance and the splendor of God associated with all of His attributes.

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Because do you know the word glory means in the Old Testament heavy. It means weighty.

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I used to go to my grandmother's house and she collected little elephants. It'd be one thing if she collected elephants, but small little elephants.

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And the elephants that I liked the most were made of pewter. Why? Because they were heavy.

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That's some weight for a young boy with a crew cut age five. Weight.

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God has so much weight. God has so much glory. He has so much gravitas.

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That's where we get the idea of that. He's got clout. So you think when

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He shows Himself, you kind of see that glory. So the word glory could be God's intrinsic nature that He has and that He shows.

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But when we talk about glory a lot of times, it's when we recognize that. Remember, God says,

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I won't give my glory to another. So when I say, God, I glorify You, I praise You, I thank

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You. Is God getting better? Is He getting more glory? He had end glory. Now He gets end plus one glory because I say,

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I glorify Your name. No, no, His intrinsic weight, His cavode, His presence, pewter -like nature, as it were, heavy.

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I don't give anything. I just recognize it. And that's what sola deo gloria is talking about.

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How we recognize who God is. I mean, you could say, well, God's glory, sometimes He's just present.

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The tabernacle is filled with His glory. That's true, but here it's our response.

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You go to the doctor and they take a little mallet with some rubber at the end and they hit your joints and then you never know what to do.

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Do I trick them? Do I overdo it? Do I relax? For years,

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I go to the doctor and my blood pressure is usually pretty good, but you get that white coat syndrome.

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And so I'd always think, okay, think of something calm. Okay, I remember watching fireworks a couple of years ago in the water in Honolulu.

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Oh, that's calm. Well, then when I was recently sick, they said, your blood pressure's too low. And I'm like, well,

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I have to think of the opposite. What do I need to think of? And I thought, I'm gonna think of 5 a .m. wake -up call every day in the hospital where they're jamming me with a bunch of like five -gauge needles or something.

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What does that have to do with anything? Nothing, but you look kind of tired after all that rapping yesterday. This is just to get you going.

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When you think of glory, simply, there's intrinsic glory that God has, we can never add to it, because how could we add to God?

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And there's extrinsic glory where we recognize, appreciate, praise, talk of, speak well of God's glory.

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That's what soledad glory is about. If I said to you, what kind of glory does this song point to?

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The nature of God, intrinsic, or how we recognize Him. We will glorify the

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King of kings. We will glorify the Lamb. We will glorify the Lord of lords, who is the great

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I am. It's the second one, right? Down at the cross where my Savior died, down where for cleansing from my sin

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I cried. There to my heart was the blood of pride, glory to be

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His name. To God be the glory, great things He has done. That's the recognition of God's glory.

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An appropriate response to God, in worship and exaltation, as one writer said.

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We're not putting any excellency into Him, a Puritan said, but by taking notice of His excellency.

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So now soledad glory is, I've noticed that it's scripture alone, Christ alone, grace alone, faith alone.

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It's praise to God alone be the glory. Psalm 50, it's a hymn.

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The mighty one, God, the Lord Yahweh. He speaks and summons the earth.

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From the rising of the sun to its setting, out of Zion, the perfection of beauty,

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God shines forth. Our God comes. He does not keep silence.

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Before Him is a devouring fire. Around Him a mighty tempest.

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He calls to the heavens above and to the earth that He may judge His people. Gather to me my faithful ones who have made a covenant with me by sacrifice.

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The heavens declare His righteousness for God Himself is judge. Verse 12,

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God speaks. If I were hungry, I would not tell you, for the world and its fullness are mine.

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Do I eat the flesh of bulls or drink the blood of goats? Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving and perform your vows to the

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Most High and call upon me in the day of trouble. I will deliver you and you shall glorify me.

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Did you see it? It has to be God's rescue, therefore God alone gets the glory.

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You shall glorify me. You will recognize how great I am, how heavy I am, how weighty

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I am, how much clout I have. And the

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New Testament passage, while you think it might be, whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God, that would be a great verse.

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I'd like you to go to John chapter 12. John chapter 12, I'm drawn back to John 12.

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Steve and I, Pastor Steve, usually we get along, but I'll never forgive him for preaching through John before I did.

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Probably never make it to John, so we'll do maybe Luke next year. But Steve preached through John for years, just exposing the glory of who

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Jesus is. And now we're looking at Sole Deo Gloria and how we need to be glorifying

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God, appreciating God, adoring God, praising Him, thanking Him. And of course, whether we eat or drink, we want to glorify

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God. Of course, what's the chief end of man? Enjoy God and glorify

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Him forever. But here, I just want you to be reminded that this is what Jesus did on the earth.

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He's the true man, He's the perfect man. And what does a true man and a perfect man, what should have

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Adam done? Adam should have been the one who said, I'll glorify

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Your name. I won't talk to Satan. I mean, when Satan came over to talk to Eve, the first thing that Adam should have done, who was a priest in the garden, a caretaker of the garden, a gardener in the garden, he should have came over to Satan and taken his sickle and chopped

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Satan's head off. That's what a true man would do because that would have glorified the Father, that would have protected

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His bride. Is there anybody on this earth that for the honor of the

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Father, they would say no to self? And I even think about some of the great patriarchs, Abraham, well, you know what?

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I know you wanna kill me because you wanna sleep with my wife. So guess what? She's my sister. Not once, but twice.

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And then Isaac, I guess he learns from dad, Isaac's wife gets captured.

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And what did Isaac say? I don't wanna lose my life for the sake of my bride.

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Isn't there anybody who would say, for the sake of my bride, I'll lose my life? Isn't there anybody that would say, at my own cost,

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I'll glorify you. I'll actually suffer and die for you. And so right here in John 12, we just get a little peek into the true man, the true

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God. 27th verse of John 12, reminding us of, to God alone be the glory.

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As we see Jesus, the incarnate one, now is my soul troubled. And what shall

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I say? Father, save me from this hour. Is that what I'm gonna say? But for this purpose,

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I have come to this hour. My soul's troubled, unsettled.

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My heart's racing. I've got the butterflies as it were. Verse 28,

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Father, glorify your name. Then a voice came from heaven.

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I have glorified it and I will glorify it again. Father, I've glorified your name.

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For me coming from heaven, assuming human nature, living, eating, getting hungry, suffering the entire time, performing miracles,

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I've glorified your name. And you know what? I will glorify it again because I know what's around the corner, the cross.

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And I will lay down my life and I will pick it up again because that's why you sent me. I will glorify your name.

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In this particular case, it's the son who says, Father, glorify your name. And he so glorified his name that the passage in verse 28 teaches, while what

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I said was true, then a voice came from heaven. I have glorified it and I will glorify it again.

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I think he's saying, I'm gonna raise you from the dead. And of course he did that very thing. So when it comes to the solos of the

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Reformation, they end with this doxology. Dox means to praise, it means glory.

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One man wrote, we affirm that because salvation is of God and has been accomplished by God, it is for God's glory that we must glorify

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Him always. We must live our entire lives before the face of God under the authority of God and for His glory alone.

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We deny that we can properly glorify God if our worship is confused with entertainment. If we neglect either law or gospel in our preaching or in self -improvement, self -esteem or self -fulfillment are allowed to become alternatives to the gospel.

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You might ask yourself the question, why does BBC do what they do? I mean, sometimes I call this a stage.

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I quickly try to correct myself. It's called a platform because this is not entertainment. Right, we try to make the music not quite as loud because we're trying to help you sing.

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Sola Deo Gloria affected worship and praise. If you wanna have rock and roll light shows, be my guest.

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I like rock and roll light shows on Fridays. No, I'm just kidding. But interesting, sometimes study on your own.

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The revolution of corporate worship because of this fact, Sola Deo Gloria. I remember my acquaintance,

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Don Kistler, said he came to New England 40 years ago and preached his first sermon, a little church like ours.

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And you know, before COVID, we'd stand by the door as pastors. I don't stand there, by the way, so you can tell me my sermons are great.

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I already think they're great when I walk down from the pulpit, sadly. Remember that sermon that said that?

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Lady came up and said, that was a great sermon. She said, thank you, but Satan told me that on the way down to my pew seat. I'm there because sometimes

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I wanna meet new visitors and there are some folks that maybe haven't been greeted for a while. There's a grandma or something.

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I wanna just hug and say, I love you. That's why I do it. Also, in case you have a gift or something, some

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Starbucks coffee or whatever. Guy goes up to Kistler, that sermon was too long.

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And Kistler goes, oh, too long for whom? Well, for me, of course.

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And he said, and that's the problem Kistler did, because I don't preach for you. I preach for the Lord God Almighty. And I'm quite sure he's not done hearing about his son for 45 minutes.

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And he said, that's the last time I saw Don. Everything's affected.

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It is to God alone that I'm here. Alone be the glory. So when it comes to the solas, maybe you wanna get a good book on the solas by Jim Boyce or something, the doctrines of grace even to spill into that topic.

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We have scripture alone. That's why we're bringing our Bibles because this is the final and unique authority. And this final and unique authority from Genesis to Revelation extols the

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Son. Yes, it talks about the triune nature of God, but we see in the New Testament, the focus on Jesus, the sent one, the only begotten one.

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And it's by grace alone. And we receive that by faith alone. To God alone be the glory.

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And that glory finds itself in appreciation, adoration, subjection, obedience, glorifying

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God. Well, next week, we're going to get into the book of Ephesians.

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So my homework assignment for you is to read Ephesians one every day to become ready.

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Let's pray. Thank you, Father, for your word. Thank you for the great truth that by works of the law, none of us will be justified.

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So it makes us look to another. We see your law and we think, help, we need a savior. And we have a great savior.

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And Father, we want to have our lives and our worship services to glorify you.

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And I even think about Christmas when we are even now thinking about it. Suddenly there was an angel of multitude of heavenly hosts praising

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God and saying, glory to God in the highest and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased.

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We thank you for sending the Lord Jesus. May we glorify you because of the son by the power of the