Sinners in the Hand of a Merciful Savior - Mattie Montgomery

Jesus’ story of the Pharisee and the tax collector flips our instincts—God isn’t impressed by our track record, but by a heart that knows it needs mercy. Real faith starts when we stop comparing ourselves to others and come to Him empty-handed.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:16

Thank you for listening to this message from the altar fellowship.

SPEAKER_01 0:25

It's great to see y'all. It's a beautiful day. Great day to be in the house of the Lord. I can't wait to get down in the river with some of y'all. Today's going to be one for the ages. I want to be respectful of our time today. But I want you to know this has been something that has been on my heart over these last weeks as I've been praying for the church, as I pray for you guys all the time. And there's been this one phrase that has been coming to mind over and over and over again. I've been hearing this phrase from Luke, Luke chapter 18, where uh where a man prays, God, have mercy on me, a sinner. And as I've been praying, as I've been praying for you, this one phrase has been coming to mind over and over again. And so I uh I'm preaching this morning a message that I think is maybe not so much about giving you information as much as it is about pleading with you to humble yourself before the Lord. I think so often we as modern evangelical Christians, we think that we we know everything there is to know about God. Because what I don't know, I can just Google. I'll just ask Chat GPT. You know, we uh we think that we because we have access to more information than any generation in history could ever have dreamed of, we feel like nobody can teach us anything. And what we've lost is humility and wonder. But if we're going to come before the throne of grace, we have to rediscover humility and wonder again. On July 8th, 1741, there was a young preacher uh in Massachusetts named Jonathan Edwards, who preached a sermon uh titled Sinners in the Hand of an Angry God. One of the most famous sermons ever preached. In fact, if you you can find people reciting it, they've got the transcript of it online. You can you can read it if you'd like to. But he preached that sermon which with so great an effect, so profound an impact, that those who uh that the people still today, now more than 250 years later, they point to that moment as the moment that catalyzed the first great awakening here in North America. As Edwards preached, people in the chapel cried out in terror and they wept openly in the church. Other people clung to the pews of the church for fear that the ground might open and swallow them directly into hell. The conviction was so heavy on the crowd that it changed not just their lives, it changed the course of history. As Jonathan Edwards preached, Sinners in the hand of an angry God. Now, through the years, certainly times and cultures and communities have changed, and uh, and maybe we could put it delicately and say that the sensibilities of church-going folk have changed along with them, you know. And although I think we're right to give attention to the love and mercy of God, I think Jonathan Edwards would agree that we can't ever truly understand the vastness of either until we explore the sinfulness of man. It's easy to tell somebody God loves you, but it's a different message altogether to say to someone that you have rebelled against God and you deserve eternal damnation, and God loves you anyway. And it's not until we understand the depth of our depravity that we could ever hope to begin to imagine the height of God's love. And so today, I don't want to preach sinners in the hand of an angry God. I want to preach a message to you that I'm calling sinners in the hand of a merciful Savior. I want to go to Luke chapter 18, and uh I'll just read this story to you. Luke 18, verses 9 through 14. This is uh Jesus speaking to uh to his disciples, and and he says, uh in starting in verse 9, it says, uh, and he spoke this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and despised others. Now, let me take just a minute and talk about this. He spoke this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and despised others. I you could circle that verse in your Bible and just write church people. For 10 years of my life, I got to go preach to atheists and Satanists, and and there was such a beauty in preaching to these people because they weren't pretending like they were okay. And and I had friends at the time that were pastors, and I said, it's way harder what you do because you have to convince people they need help before they will allow you to help them. I said, All my people know they need help. They're coming in with you know scars up their arms because they've been cutting themselves for years. They're strung out on drugs, they're they're drunk, they're, you know, searching the demonic for some sort of spiritual foundation to grab a hold of or to build their lives on. And so when I come to them and preach them the truth of the gospel, they may not always receive it, but they always recognize that they're not right with God. Here's the problem with church people is that church people trust in themselves that they are righteous, and as a result, they despise others. This overwhelmingly describes the American church. And so Jesus speaks this parable specifically to a people like us. And in verse 10, he begins the parable. He says, Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself. God, I thank you that I am not like other men. Extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this tax collector, I fast twice a week. I give tithes of all that I possess. But the tax collector, standing afar off, would not so much as raise his eyes to heaven, but beat his chest, saying, God, be merciful to me, a sinner. I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted. I uh I want to go back to the beginning of this. Let's go to verse 9. I want to pull some things out and help you and help you see what we can maybe skim past as we read this passage. And verse 9 says he also spoke this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and they despised others. I want to talk about this idea that we we trust in ourselves that we are righteous. This is, I get it that this is, you know, King James English. It's easy to sort of put that on a shelf as a spiritual phenomenon. It's something that this person or these people in the Bible experienced, but that's not something that's relevant to us. But when I think about the people I've shared the gospel with, overwhelmingly their position is this. I'm a pretty good person, so if there is a heaven, I'll go there. I'm sure many of you have family members that feel that way. Coworkers that feel that way. Some of you in the room may feel that way right now. I'm a pretty good person. I try to do what's right. So if there is a heaven, certainly I'll go there. Hell is reserved for bad people. But there's this entire passage is aimed at one specific group of people. And that are those, uh and that group of people are those who trust in themselves that they were righteous. How often do we look at our own lifestyle, our own choices, the uh the fact that we're doing better than so-and-so down the street? I'm not doing as bad as I used to be doing, or I'm not doing as bad as my neighbor is doing, or my brother is doing, or my ex is doing way worse than I am, so I'm okay. But there's a group of people that Jesus came to correct here in Luke chapter 18, and that group of people are those who trust in themselves that they were righteous. We have to repent of this delusion of self-righteousness, this idea that somehow we've done good enough to earn or deserve or demand or expect the love or the acceptance of God. We have to repent of our idea, or we have to repent of our trust in ourselves. Jeremiah chapter 17, verse 5 and 6 says something I think that is so profound. Jeremiah 17, starting in verse 5, it says, cursed, everybody say cursed. Cursed is the man who trusts in man. This doesn't just mean cursed is the man who looks to other men to save him or to redeem him or to rescue him. No, no, no. This is cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his strength. Do you want to know why we are cursed when we put our trust in our own strength or determination or conviction or wisdom or intellectual capacity? Why? Because inevitably, universally, it it causes our hearts to depart from the Lord. You should know this. Let this be confession time for Pastor Maddie when I tell you, there have been days that I have stood at pulpits like this one, and I have preached to groups like this one, and I have done it completely in my own, you know, uh, my own strength, my own ability, my own creativity or intellectual prowess. It's like there have been days that I have been, that my heart has departed from the Lord, and yet still I've been doing the what people might call the work of the ministry. And here's the truth, guys. Like it has to be a constant and active turning of our hearts back to dependent reliance on God. We have to constantly confront ourselves with the fact that in me there is no good thing. I bring nothing of eternal value to the table. If God does not put his presence on my life, I have nothing worth offering the world. I'm in need of a savior. Today, just as much as I have always been, I'm grateful that I found one in Christ. But I I didn't just sign my name on Jesus' contract and then move on with my life without him. No, no, no. I grabbed a hold of Jesus right around the waist and he's been dragging me through life ever since. I will not let go. Amen. Cursed is the man. Cursed is the man. Hear this. What Jeremiah is saying is not that your life would be more fulfilling if you would stop trusting in man. He's saying, no. If you are trusting in your own determination to sanctify yourself or to live a more godly life, you are living under a curse before God. You are headed for condemnation before God. Imagine standing in front of the righteous, just God of the universe on the day of judgment and saying to him, Well, uh, when I went through the drive-thru at Taco Bell and they asked if I wanted to round up to help kids get through school, I said yes a couple times. I was mostly nice to my kids. Imagine bringing your righteousness to God and thinking that's a case for him to include you into his family. It seems ridiculous, and yet most of the people in our nation are expecting to do just that. They are so deceived that they look at their other deceived friends and they think, my other deceived friends think I'm a good person. So that means the God of the universe must also believe that. Those people are cursed. Cursed is the man who trusts in man and who makes flesh his strength. What should we make our strength alternatively? The Spirit of God. Listen, I years ago I had a young man come to me and and uh and say, hey, you know, I put together a plan to help myself get free from lust. And he said, you know, if I'm scrolling on social media and I look at an image that I'm not supposed to look at, then uh I have to confess to my accountability partner and then I have to pay him$100. And I and uh and I was like, all right, and then he said, you know, and if I take it to another level and and like get on adult websites and look at things I shouldn't be looking at, he said, then I have to pay him$500. Now this guy who was young, he didn't particularly have uh, you know, very much money. He was a young youth pastor in in Texas, and he uh he had a wife and a a daughter, and he was like, I'm gonna I'm gonna be free. And I said, dude, I I love your heart, and I think that it's right for you to want to be accountable in that way. But I said, here's the truth: if the blood of Jesus can't do it, nothing else will. You've got to come back again and again and again to the blood. And you've got to say, Jesus, wash me in your blood. Lord, fill me with your spirit and deliver me from sin. And I, you know, I wonder how many times we, you know, we we try to come up with new plans. We're gonna download apps and safety protocols, and you know, we we build mechanisms for ourselves so that we can make God-honoring choices, yet our heart has never actually changed. Our interior world has never actually been transformed. What we're doing is we are trusting in man and we're making flesh our strength. Friends, our strength doesn't come from flesh, it doesn't come from determination or human strategy. Our flesh comes from the transformational work of the Spirit of God that sanctifies us and reforms our appetites and our impulses. Cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his strength, whose heart departs from the Lord. And then uh we'll go back, let me jump back quickly to Luke chapter 18. He spoke this parable, it says, to some who trusted in themselves. That is, those that were under the curse that comes with trusting in man. And they trusted in themselves, specifically that they were righteous and they despised others. You know, so many times we perceive our righteousness by way of the perceived unrighteousness of others. We perceive our righteousness by comparison to others, and we say, well, you know, I've got a brother who's the black sheep of the family, and he's in and out of rehab and in and out of jail, and I'm not, so I'm doing fine. At least I didn't have a baby out of wedlock. I've never been locked in prison. I, you know, I don't have any neck tattoos. Like, you know, things could be things could be going way worse for me. I'm doing all right. And this is the the thing uh about self-righteousness is that one of the things self-righteousness produces is uh is the curse that Jeremiah 17 talks about. And the other thing that it produces is that it produces in us uh uh a willingness or an ability to despise those that we look down on. We take joy in the failures and faults of those around us because it gives us yet another opportunity to enjoy a sense of moral superiority at their expense. We celebrate when other people fall. This is, you can see this even on social media, you know. Uh people love stories about pastors who fall into moral failure. And we love those stories because it makes us feel morally superior. Oh, that guy was a pastor who reached millions of people with his ministry and he had an affair, he embezzled money, or he, you know, did whatever. And uh, and then it gives us the ability to go, well, I'm I'm better than him. Look at that. This pastor reached millions of people. I've never reached anybody, I've never shared the gospel with anyone as long as I've lived. Not one single person has ever come to faith in Christ through my life, but I'm better than that pastor because at least I didn't do X, Y, and Z. And the reason we are attracted, so many of us are attracted to those things, is because it it lets us enjoy a sense of moral superiority without knowing this person, and uh and and we get to uh uh we get to sort of pat ourselves on the back for being better than them uh uh at their expense. But trusting in ourselves that we are righteous, as uh as it says here in verse 9 of Luke 18, those who trust in themselves that they are righteous. Trusting in ourselves that we are righteous is often the reason that we despise others. What happens is that we forget how desperately lost we all would be without Jesus our Savior. All of us would be desperately, hopelessly lost and eternally dead in our trespasses and sin if God had not sovereignly restored to us a heart of flesh, regenerated us, and and put within us the capacity to receive or to understand or to accept the gospel. This is actually not just necessary for us on a theological level, this is a necessary concept for us to understand on a societal level, a cultural level. And here's why. There are two competing worldviews right now. There's the Christian world, at least in our Western society here in America, there's the historical Christian worldview, and that says that all of us are sinners, that every one of us has the capacity for great evil, that even man's best efforts without God's supernatural intervention are going to be full of self-interest, uh, you know, self-service and self-interest, that we are fundamentally selfish, and so we've actually developed systems that acknowledge the fallen nature of humanity and and and uh and and sort of harness the fallen nature of humanity for the betterment of society. We call that system capitalism. Capitalism says, we know you're selfish. That's how all men are born in sin, fundamentally self-oriented, and and so we've built a system that makes it to where you get to satisfy your selfish impulse when you benefit other people. If you start a business that makes the world better for other people, you will be richly blessed because of it. It's a great trade-off. Capitalism, I think, succeeds, not maybe universally, but it succeeds in many ways because it takes into account human nature. Conversely, there's this there's another system, socialism, that that actually rejects the idea of the sort of fundamentally fallen nature of humanity. It says that people are fundamentally generous and kind, and that if we would all just share everything, everyone would have everything they needed because no one would hoard things at the expense of others. But if you've ever met a human, you know that that's not true. If you've ever raised a child or had a conversation. With a person who's not you, that you know that that's that that is uh that that is is is not the case. And yet, this is actually, it's really important that we understand, we as Christians, if we're gonna have a biblical worldview, we cannot fall into the trap of thinking that people are fundamentally good. Because we're not. We all are oriented toward good, we all have a longing for good. I think that's true, but fundamentally we all see that good is uh a standard we ought to aspire to, and yet we choose selfishness, we choose chaos, we choose violence and hatred and division and deception often. And I think acknowledging that about ourselves is not only the first step toward the gospel, but I think not acknowledging that within ourselves is the first step toward building a healthy society. And so this principle upon which Jesus is building here in Luke chapter 18 is, I think, uh especially crucial. He's acknowledging that there are people among him, people in the group of his disciples who trust in themselves that they are righteous and who despise others. And so he tells them this story. Two men went up to the temple to pray. One a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. Can I point something out about these two men? Both went to the temple and both went to pray. The story isn't about one man who's doing what's right and one man who's doing what's wrong. Both of these men are keeping the law. Both of these men are going through the motions, both of these men are demonstrating fidelity to the instruction or the expectations or the standards of God's law. Both men went to the temple and both prayed, but what is holy and pleasing to God is not defined primarily by what we do, but by why we do it. I want to make sure that we are pausing so you can think about what I just said. What is holy and pleasing to God is not primarily defined by what we do, it's primarily defined by why we do it. And this is the thing that I think is so profound for us is that as believers, as followers of Christ, we've got to know that God is primarily focused on our heart. That God's not looking to see if we've gone through the checklist of pious things that religious people are supposed to do. Did you read your Bible for X minutes today? Did you pray for X amount of minutes today? Did you give X amount of money to X amount of people? Like, I want to make sure that you did all of the things. But but God is saying, are you are you living by faith? Are the things that you do, things that are informed by faith? Now, later today we're gonna baptize people in the river. Here's the reality: people jump in that river all the time. People fish in the river, people swim in the river, people fall out of boats into the river. None of those people's sins are washed away because they jumped in the river. It's not the river that saves, it's the faith that saves. It's not the water that heals, it's faith that heals. This is why, you know, the message of the Reformation in the 1500s is so profound, why it's so necessary for us in, you know, as modern followers of Christ to maybe rejoice in the Reformation and the sort of resounding, thunderous proclamation of the reformers, men like Luther and Calvin and Zwingli. The reason that this is so crucial for us to understand is because they were proclaiming this is what it means to be saved. It's actually not the motions that we go through, it's the faith that we carry. Sola fide is how we have uh how we've understood it. It's that it is our faith that saves us, not the form that our faith takes. Now, the form that our faith takes, it may be our baptism, it may be our church attendance, it may be our giving, it may be our praying or our fasting or our studying of scripture, and we ought to do all of those things. True saving faith, I think, will take the form of all of those things, but it was the faith itself and not the form it took that saved or justified the text collector in this story. Both men went to the temple and both men prayed. And later in the story we see that the man who prayed in humility and faith was justified. That's the word that is used in this passage. He was justified, while the man who prayed in vanity and arrogance was not. We are justified by our faith and not by our works. Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. Now, if you're familiar at all with the historical context and maybe some of the cultural uh subtleties of the time in this age, tax collectors were um among the lowest viewed people in ancient Jewish society. Uh their job is is it was that they would uh work for the Roman Empire that was occupying uh ancient Israel. And uh the Romans, who had taken political and military control of their land, they hired a handful of Jewish people, Israelite people, and and they employed those people to go and collect taxes from other Jews and deliver those taxes to the Romans. And so these people were, you know, they're not just tax collectors who, frankly, we still hate today. They're not just like the IRS, you know, but but they're also like race traitors. You are you are taking from your people and you're giving it to those we should be at war against. You've betrayed us. And so tax collectors are like the lowest of the low. They're not just thieves, they're traitors as well. And so this man who's a Pharisee, who has all of the social status, all the wealth and intelligence and influence a man could ever want, and then beside him there's a a tax collector who is widely considered to be the uh the lowest of the low in their society. The Pharisee stood and he prayed thus with himself God, I thank you that I am not like other men. That's his first mistake. He is just like other men. The only difference is superficial, it's external, maybe his clothes are nicer and his bank accounts bigger, but he's just like other men. Feeble, faulty, and in desperate need of salvation. God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even this tax collector. I fast twice a week, I give tithes of all that I possess. This is interesting to me because the Pharisee spoke to God, but his focus was on other men. I'll contrast this with Isaiah. In Isaiah chapter six, Isaiah, who is the prophet of Israel, for five chapters, and in Isaiah chapters one, two, three, four, and five, he's prophesying and proclaiming the word of God. And then Isaiah six happens, and he sees the Lord seated on a throne high and lifted up, and the train of his robe fills the temple. And Isaiah falls to his face and he begins screaming, Woe is me, I am undone, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the Lord, the King of glory. Isaiah begins to believe he's gonna die because he in his fallenness has seen God in his glory. And here's the thing is that Isaiah could have looked at any person in the world and said, I'm the prophet of Israel. I am a man of God, well-esteemed and successful in my ministry. But then he saw the Lord, and suddenly, in his own view, he was a wretch who deserved to be consumed by the fire of God's presence. This is the mistake that the Pharisee makes, is that he comes to God in prayer. He's talking to God in prayer, but he's not looking at God. He's not seeing the holiness of God, because if he was, he would have said, God, have mercy on me, a sinner. He comes before God, but what his eyes are on, what his attention is on, is other people. How often do we come before God and our attention is on other people? I'll never forget years ago, being uh I was preaching at a conference in Edmonton, Canada, and there was this guy who is not a member of the church. Uh he lived in the community, he was not a member of the church I was preaching at, but he came to the church because he heard I was preaching there. He's a big fan of mine. And uh, and and and so this is what he's doing. You know, he's like worshiping the Lord, and I can see him, he's like going really hard in worship, but then every you know few seconds he like peeks over to make sure that I'm watching how much he loves the Lord, you know? And and I sort of was on one side of the room and he was on the other side of the room, and he'd be like praising real hard, and then he'd kind of scooch a little bit closer and a little bit closer. I just gotta make sure Maddie sees how much I love the Lord. Like, how often do we do this? I know some of y'all in the youth group are doing this stuff. Like, I'm trying to impress that girl that loves Jesus, and so I'm gonna pretend like I love Jesus. You know, Pastor John, Pastor John is bearing witness to this. I've been in youth group, I get it. You try to impress the godly girl like you gotta step your game up. Y'all, the girl, you see, oh, oh, sorry, I dropped my Bible. You see how many uh parts I've highlighted, you know. We come before the Lord like this Pharisee, but our eyes are on other people. We're worried about making sure people see our outfit. We're making sure that people know that we were here so that we can get credit in their eyes. We're trying to impress everybody else. We're trying to get the pastor to see us and tell us we're doing a great job, and yet we come before God, and our attention isn't on God, our attention is on other people. What an insult to God and to the beautiful gift of prayer he's given us. But let's contrast this, this Pharisee. Thank you, I'm not like other men. Extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even this tax collector. I fast twice a week. I give tithes to all of all that I possess. But in verse 13, let's look at how the tax collector prays. It says, the tax collector, standing far off, would not so much as raise his eyes to heaven, but he beat his chest, saying, God, be merciful to me, a sinner. Notice he didn't mention how he measured up to other men. He had nothing to say about his own social status or his achievements or accomplishments. He made no mention of how he uh uh how he uh could deserve or earn or accomplish the will of God. He spoke to God and he focused on God. And because he did so, he could see that when standing in the light of God's righteousness, he was a miserable and malevolent wretch whose only hope is not effort or moral ambition, but to cry out for unmerited and unearned mercy from the throne of heaven. Here's the truth we all must contend with. If God won't have mercy on us, we have no chance. If God won't have mercy on us, we have no chance. There is no way for any one of us to stand with confidence before God unless He has mercy on us for our sin. But here's the truth we cannot know God as our Savior if we will not admit that we need Him to be one for us. We cannot know God as our Savior if we will not admit that we need one. And this is where so many Americans get hung up. We convince ourselves, I'll just try harder next time. We convince ourselves that, well, I'm I'm not as bad as I used to be, or I'm not as bad as the guy down the street, so I'm doing pretty good. God knows my heart. But we will, each of us, stand at judgment today, and the standard to which we will we have been called is not better than before or better than the other guy. The standard to which we've been called is perfection, and we will stand at the judgment seat of heaven one day, and if we cannot stand there with perfect righteousness dripping off of us, we will be cast eternally into the lake of fire prepared for the devil and his angels. So what hope could any of us have? Well, the hope is the way Jesus answered ends this story. He says, I tell you this man, the one who cried out for mercy, went down to his house justified rather than the other. Why? Because everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted. I want you to pay attention to that verse, Luke 18, 14. Everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted. I want to jump really quickly to James 4.10. James was written by the brother of, those were the words of Jesus in Luke 18. James 4.10 was written by the brother of Jesus. James, he says this: humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he will lift you up. And then Peter, maybe one of Jesus' closest followers. Peter, he writes in 1 Peter chapter 5, 6, he says this humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God that he may exalt you in due time. We have Jesus and James and Peter all telling you the same thing. God's blessing is tied universally to your humility. There is no salvation for arrogant people. There is no hope or no healing for those of us who trust in ourselves or our own strength, who believe that our own righteousness is impressive or acceptable to God. God's mercy is tied to our humility. Without a willingness to come low and to confess that we are sinners in need of mercy from our Savior and King, we will be left to carry on in the strength of our own feeble flesh. And we will be doomed to suffer as enemies of God. But there is mercy for all who will humble themselves and cry out for it. The blood of Jesus is available to anyone who would be willing to admit I need to be washed in the blood of Jesus. My sin is too much for me to carry on my own. My shame is too much for me to remove. No amount of effort or commitment or ambition on my own parts will be able to clean me. The blood of Jesus is my only hope. I want to introduce you to a prayer that has been prayed since uh the earliest record we have of it is in the late fourth century, the early fifth century. It's recorded in a book uh that was printed through the the um the Orthodox tradition called the uh Philokalia. And uh and in this book we we read this liturgical prayer that that was, like I said, first recorded in the fourth century by John Chrysostom, um offered a version of it. The prayer is very simple, and you could all memorize it today. It's a liturgical prayer that's been recited for uh now more than 1,500 years of faithful saints in the church. And the prayer goes like this Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me as sinner. Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. Just as in the days of Jonathan Edwards and his ministry at the chapel in Massachusetts, we ought to be horrified and aghast at the wretchedness of our sin, the depth of our rebellion against God, and the profound inadequacy of even our best efforts to produce or achieve righteousness. We ought to be very conscious of the hell and the damnation that our sin deserves. But that terror should not only move us to cry, it should move us to cry out, like the tax collector in the story. Have mercy on me, Lord. I'm a sinner. The only place where there is hope of healing for a sinful wretch like me is in the hands of my merciful Savior. I have been a sinner. I'm not here because I'm the moral example you all should ascribe to be like. I'm here because I'm doing everything I can to point you to the one who is. I and you, we share this in common that we are sinners. And the only place that we could ever have hope is in the hands of a merciful Savior. My sin doesn't cause me to run and hide from God. My sin causes me to cling to him desperately as my rock in the midst of life's chaos. So let us grab a hold of him today, family, with relentless desperation. And let's cling from now on to the one who forgives sins and who saves souls. We have found in Christ a merciful Savior. We have found in Christ a merciful Savior, not one who only teaches or guides, but one who can redeem us back from hell. And not only that, but one who can make us new creations who will and do the pleasure of God. Not just people who are called righteous, but people who love what is right in God's eyes. Salvation means for us that we are born again. That's the way Jesus described it in John chapter 3. That we are regenerated. And that means not only that we are sort of stamped innocent, that we're justified in God's eyes, that our sin is removed as far as the east is from the west. That is true, but but that's not the whole truth. It means that we are brought through faith in Christ into a new life. That we are, this is why we're baptizing people later today, that we we are aligned with him, we're united with him in his death and his burial and his resurrection. We are through baptism, we're united with Christ in the newness of life. Friends, this is what Jesus said to Nicodemus in John chapter 3. You must be born again if you ever hope to see the kingdom of God. There is no amount of trying harder that will ever make a way for a sinner to become a son, but the mercy of God, demonstrated in the blood of Jesus, has made a way for even a wretch like me to be made, not just forgiven, but made new. Made a man who doesn't just strive toward righteousness, but a man that loves righteousness and detests sin. And so I'll leave you with this today. I don't know how you ended up here today, but I know it wasn't an accident. I don't know what you walked through or where your life is at right now, but I want to tell you if you have been trying to this point to conjure up righteousness on your own strength or by your own efforts, today's the day to lay it down. If you have been determining in your heart that you'll just do more, you'll try harder, you'll go to greater lengths to sin less, I want to tell you that this entire message that Jesus preached in Luke 18 was aimed toward one group of people, and it is those who trust in themselves. That they were righteous. And so, friends, I want to tell you this today is the day to repent of your trust in yourself and to put your trust fully in Christ as the one that paid the debt you can never pay. And the one who, through his yes, released to you the Spirit of God that can dwell within you and move you out of sin and into God's righteous plan for your life. That is the good news of the gospel that saves us. If you are in this place and you have not been baptized, you can do so today. In fact, right after this service, I'd encourage you to just go to the main office. It's right across the lobby there. Go to the main office. Our elders will be in there to talk with you about what that means, to get you signed up, and you can come back at 1.30. We'll baptize you. If you are in this room and you can't say with absolute confidence that you know you've been washed in the blood of Jesus, that you've been born again and brought into the family of God, filled with his Holy Spirit, and uh and set on his path and planned for your life. Do not leave this place until you have that assurance. You can come and talk to me, or you can go and talk to one of the elders in the main office. We would be more than happy to chat with you. But let me uh let me pray and uh and then we will close for the day. Lord, we we love you. We thank you. We thank you, God, that you are a merciful Savior and that our sin, instead of driving us away from you, can can be the thing that draws us to you and that reveals our desperate need for your work in our lives. God, we thank you that there is a plan for our salvation, that you didn't just leave us to face the consequences of our sin, but you made a way for us to be free. Truly free, free from sin and shame and guilt and condemnation. And Lord, we we stand in awe of that today. We ask you to wash us again in the blood of Jesus. We ask you to fill us again with your Spirit. Continue to use our lives, God, for your glory and to lead us into all Jesus died for us to have. We say, God, with the saints of ages past, have mercy on us. Have mercy on us. Have mercy on us, God, and in your mercy would you visit us day after day after day. And we ask this in Jesus' name.

unknown 46:12

Amen. Amen.

SPEAKER_00 46:16

Thank you for tuning in to this service from the Altar Fellowship. We pray that you were impacted powerfully by this message. If you have been personally affected by our ministry and you would like to partner with the altar as we work to establish the kingdom of heaven, please visit our website at www.thealtar.org.