The Grace of Justification

If you have a copy of God’s Word, please turn to Titus and the third chapter. You should be able to find Hebrews by now—just work backwards a little bit. From there, you’ll come to the epistle of Titus.

Back in the fall last year, we began a series looking at the doctrine of justification. We intend to continue with a few more messages tied into this subject. Trust they will be of help and profit. There are a number of matters that we repeat and reflect on, and I’m hoping that through the repetition of certain themes, those bed in—especially to our young people—and then shedding a little bit of light on various aspects at the same time. So that sense of overlap and fresh light is intentional, and I trust it will be of benefit, not only in the present, but in days to come.

So Titus 3 is where we are this evening, and we will read from verse 1 through the 8th verse. Let’s hear God’s Word.

Put them in mind to be subject to principalities and powers, to obey magistrates, to be ready to every good work,

to speak evil of no man, to be no brawlers, but gentle, shewing all meekness unto all men.

For we ourselves also were sometimes foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving divers lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful, and hating one another.

But after that the kindness and love of God our Saviour toward man appeared,

Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost;

Which he shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Saviour;

That being justified by his grace, we should be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life.

This is a faithful saying, and these things I will that thou affirm constantly, that they which have believed in God might be careful to maintain good works. These things are good and profitable unto men.

Amen.

I trust the Lord will add His blessing to the reading of His Word, and what you have heard—the eternal Word of the living God—which we are to receive, believe, and obey. The people of God said, Amen.

Let’s pray.

Lord, help us to receive Thy Word. May it enlighten us, a lamp—a genuine lamp—unto our feet and light unto our path. May it, by the ministry of the Holy Spirit, function to change us. Oh, there’s such power in the Word of God. Every Word of God is pure. We pray that there would be a right receiving of it. Help the preacher—give the promise the aid of the Holy Spirit. Take it from the realm of a sermon to be a message from God. Apply it so that it is unmistakably a word from God, and each one of us go away saying, the Lord had a word for me. Revive us, Lord. What quickening power there is to hear from God. Let us hear from Thee. Spirit of the living God, fall afresh on us. Come and save. Come and revive. Come and strengthen. Do our work. We beg of Thee in these days. We wait on Thee, O God. Our help is in Thee. Come to us then tonight. Get the truth deep into every heart. Deliver us from the power of darkness—draw us near to thyself. We pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Generally speaking, island cultures tend to be a little more closed to new ideas and pressures to change. I don’t know if you’ve maybe grown up on an island or familiar with island life of some description. Of course, I grew up in Northern Ireland, which is kind of—I was gonna say a big… it’s not that big, but it’s not the tiniest of islands—but there are many islands that you can visit, and those from the mainland, when they go to visit, they realize, in one sense, they’re stepping back in time. And it’s not just because they’re separated by water. In many occasions, it is intentional. They will not bend. They endeavor to try and maintain what has been, and that which is going on across the water is seen as a threat, and therefore it becomes very… there’s a certain wall that’s built up around whatever may come across.

That’s why it’s all the more surprising to think upon how the gospel impacted the island of Crete. We don’t know who first took the gospel to Crete. We do know that there were Cretans present on the day of Pentecost, and so there were who were gathered for the occasion of Pentecost and were confronted with something they were not expecting—the preaching of the gospel of God sending a Son, Jesus Christ, this man who was made flesh and lived a perfect life and went to the cross and died and rose again from the dead. They were confronted with this message, and we know that thousands were saved. Whether there were any Cretans saved, we don’t know. We’re not told that. But it’s not a stretch to think that there may have been some influence right from that moment. And that perhaps gives additional light to the fact that whenever the apostle visits the island and there seems to be an establishment of the truth there, he’s got to the point where he has to leave Titus, his co-laborer, right there to continue to help the churches establish.

If you go to chapter 1, you will see that: for this cause left I thee in Crete, that thou shouldest ordain elders, and so on. And so there has been a development in the work. People converted, worshiping the Lord, preaching the gospel, and there’s a need to—even though Paul, it would appear from that language, be there—he cannot do everything that needs to be done in the time that he has, and so he has to leave Titus. “Titus, you stay; there’s a work to be done here,” which seems to indicate that there had been at least some—for some time—God had been at work saving people, and now there’s a need to organize them and help them go forward.

And so this epistle really is the apostle then—he’s writing to his co-labor Titus—and he’s reminding him and setting before him in an organized way, here are the main things. In part, there’s a little bit of rebuke: I left you in Crete to ordain elders. The report that I’m getting is that that has not taken place. So, Titus, get at it. And in addition then to that is exhortations of various sorts.

You can see that language of exhortation in terms of Titus being a pastor, laboring as a servant of God, in the focus that he should give. Verse 1 of chapter 3: put them in mind to be subject to principalities and powers, to obey magistrates, to be ready to every good work. There’s a summation. Don’t let those who profess the name of Christ think that they can get away with a disorganized, rebellious life—that because they live under the kingship of Jesus Christ, that means they live under no other authority. They do. Put them in mind to be subject. These powers ordained of God—they must live under those powers.

It goes then to the manner of their life: to speak evil of no man, to be no brawlers, but gentle, showing all meekness unto all men. He’s multiplying terms. The character of the professing believer in Crete should exhibit the love of God. It’s verse 2. Their lives should exhibit the love of God—not speaking evil of men. Were there things to criticize about their society? No doubt. Were there shortcomings in their neighbors? Of that, we don’t have to be told. They don’t speak evil of them. Don’t be brawling. Don’t be contentious. Don’t be fighting. Don’t be arguing. Be gentle, showing all meekness unto all men.

For we ourselves also were sometimes. Remember. Oh, here’s an exhortation from their personal experience and testimony. We ourselves—I Paul, you Titus—who have known the saving grace of God, we all can say, at one point, we were foolish, we were disobedient, we were deceived, we served different lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful, and hating one another. That’s how we lived. But that is not how the Christian should live. And the Christian should remember the language of Psalm 40. He took me from that pit. There you were in the mire of your sin and your corruption. God delivered you—set you upon a rock, changed your whole purpose of life, establishing your goings, and put a song—a new song—in your mouth, even praise unto our God. And many are to see this. They’re to see this—fear and trust in the Lord. They’re to see a life delivered, a life that has been delivered. It’s changed, and that change ought to be evident.

He argues then from the gospel itself: why should Christians be loving? Why should they show this kindness? Why should they show this meekness unto all men? Verse 4: but after that the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared—toward man appeared. He’s drawing them to remember that what they’re reflecting is the benevolence of God. When he speaks in verse 4, the kindness and love of God our Savior toward man appeared—a revelation of God’s love for man appeared as a revelation in Jesus Christ, that God so loved the world.

We get caught up at times in various avenues of doctrine, and sometimes we follow a track so far that we lose our moorings. And this happens sometimes when people come to believe—and I believe it too—in the doctrine of election, that God has chosen a people. Those people in time will come to Jesus Christ, not by any effort of their own. But in so following that track, they begin then to have a view of those who are not elect, whoever they may be, that is unscriptural—that God has no love for His creatures. Verse 4 tells you otherwise. He is speaking in general terms, otherwise the argument falls flat. If the love expressed in verse 4 is specific to the people of God, then it doesn’t have any relevance in the midst of an argument that is presenting how believers should reflect to the unbelieving.

Their attitude toward the unbelieving is rooted in God’s benevolence toward all His creatures—all those he has made, all those in the divine image. Remember that. Remember that. Don’t become hateful towards the world. Don’t become so angry with the world that you lose your testimony. You lose your witness. You lose your power to influence because you’re so filled with hatred. You say, I can’t imagine a Christian becoming like that. If that’s the case, Paul doesn’t have to say what he’s saying here. Put them in mind. Don’t let them get so taken up with the injustices and the wickedness of the day in which they live that they start to speak evil of men, brawling, and so on and so forth.

God wants His people to reflect His heart, and you don’t know who He intends to save, and so you’re to show this love. It is to be evident. Loving all. All men. All men are by nature foolish, disobedient, deceived. What’s the difference? The grace of God.

That then is developed. I want us to focus upon verse 7 particularly, even though the language that runs from verse 4 through verse 7, even into verse 8 in some ways as well, is all about the grace of the gospel. I want us to focus upon verse 7, particularly as we consider the grace of justification.

The grace of justification—that this experience of being justified in the presence of God is gracious. We need to remember this. So consider with me first the grace that saves us, the grace that saves us. First of all, it is declared. It is declared: that being justified by His grace. When the Holy Ghost moves the pen of the Apostle Paul to write being justified, he uses the word as a passive declaration. You were justified. You weren’t involved. You didn’t do it yourself. This experience of justification was something that happened to you. Something outside of yourself.

You didn’t become better. You didn’t start 2026 and say, I’m turning over a new leaf and changing my ways and following a new path, and by that endeavor you become justified. No, because that would be you. But the language and the grammar of verse 7 places the work outside of the individuals justified. We were justified. Those of you here tonight who are justified, you have experienced this as something outside of yourself. God is the one who justifies.

And it’s declared here. As we’ve seen in past times, it is a forensic term. It is language of the courtroom. It is declaring something that is absolute. The judge has pronounced: this is your position. And it’s based upon, as we have seen, the person and work of Jesus Christ. He is the ground of our justification. He is the reason why we can have this experience. Romans 5:1, therefore being justified by faith we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. It is as a result of what He has done. Because of the Lord Jesus Christ—because of who He is, because of what He has done—sinners may be justified. And it’s the work of God, and He declares it to be so.

If you study—and I’m not going to do it here—but if you make a study of verses 4 through 7, you will see how the triune God is at work in the experience of your salvation. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit bring it about. Each person in the Godhead—each person in the Godhead necessary—each person in the Godhead, in the economy of the Trinity, working to bring about the gospel, the good news that sinners, though condemned and unclean and guilty, may be set free, may be justified.

As I say, this is something that is declared. It is not something merely that has just come down out of heaven upon certain people. It is something God pronounces upon individuals. They experience that which was spoken about concerning the Holy Spirit—regeneration. They know what it is to be born again. Sometimes that language of John 3 is presented as if it is a command: “Ye must be born again,” in the sense that this is something you are then to obey. It’s not something that we do; it is something that we be. We are born again, but it is a work of God.

Similar to our own birth into this world, it is not something we initiated. It’s not something we were discussing with our parents in which we decided, this is the time I want to be born, and be involved in all of those details. No. It is outside of you. Regeneration—life before God—something that He has done. And in giving regeneration, giving us life, placing us into Christ, then legally we are seen as those who are justified.

I want you to get that. I want you to understand that what you need to be right before God is a work outside of yourself. That’s critical.

Because if you spend your life thinking to yourself, I must do better, I must try harder, I must explore this avenue or that avenue or whatever—if you do that, it will be a treadmill that will lead you nowhere. Or, to be more specific, it will finally lead you to hell. The only way to get to a standing that is right before God is to recognize that God is in the business of justifying the ungodly. This He does through Jesus Christ, and you experience it by faith.

What do I have to do? Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. The grace that saves us is declared—justified, being justified. God is the one who justifies. We’ve seen that verse time and time again from Romans 8:33: It is God that justifieth. But it is not only declared, it is also unmerited: that being justified by His grace—justified by His grace.

To bring about this justification, this declaration that you’re no longer guilty before God, it has not been through God relaxing His standard, and it has not been through even the benevolence we spoke of in verse 4, in which we say, well, the kindness and love of God our Savior toward man appeared, and so there’s just this general love of God to all, and that love covers, that love goes beyond, it somehow smothers the sin, or in some way overcomes our standing before God as guilty sinners.

No, that’s not what it does. The love of God sends Jesus Christ, and Jesus Christ, and His love, goes to the cross, and that brings about the grounds for our salvation. What God does is something that is by His grace, where He graciously—in a way that is unmerited—He provides for us what is necessary in order to be justified.

How can a holy God look at the guilty and say that they are righteous? It is because of Jesus Christ, which is all of grace. I want you to think about this. I want you to think about what you’re saying when you say the word gospel. You’re saying good news. The reason it is good news is because it does not require anything of you. It recognizes your sin. It recognizes your shortcomings. It recognizes where you’re headed. It recognizes all those truths, and it doesn’t just try to ignore them or remove them in some way—in which, like, turning a blind eye to them—no. It sees the problem, and as we consider from Romans 3, that God is both just and the justifier of them that believe.

It shows how God—yes—He justifies graciously, but He does so while maintaining His character of being just. The good news, my friend, then, is in Jesus Christ there is this gracious… that is, there is something that is unmerited, something undeserved, something that we could never twist God’s arm and say, look, God, look how hard I have tried. It will never do. He graciously makes provision in His Son, and through His Son, making Him sin for us even though He knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.

It is not of us. That is clear from verse 5: not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us. We are justified by His grace. He has graciously—He has condescended—seeing the need. And this is what’s so comforting.

When you first begin to realize you’re a sinner—when you first understand the depth of your sin—it can be a horrifying thing, because you may have lived your life blissfully ignorant of just how bad you really are. And the story of those who come to the saving knowledge of Christ often is that at a certain moment or time they come to a recognition of their lostness. Certainly the case for me. I thought that I was a relatively moral person, even though this is almost a humorous aspect of it. You go around denying the existence of God, and yet you portray yourself as moral. Based on what? Based on what criteria are you moral? And even if you take it by what we understand, that law that God has given, we’ve disregarded the One who’s given it and set up a standard—the whole thing doesn’t make sense at all. Yet I assumed myself to be a relatively good person.

And what dawned on me for the first time ever—nineteen years of living—was, I am lost. My sin is a problem. And as horrifying as that can be, it is also so freeing when you realize that the entire message of the gospel is the recognition of that. It’s not God is sad, or in some way shocked, by your lost condition or the awfulness of your sin. He’s not shocked by it. He sent His Son specifically because of that. He’s not surprised at your depravity. He’s not in some way looking down at you and thinking, I can’t believe someone could be that bad. He knows it all. He sees it all. He sends His Son into the midst of it to deal with it so that you don’t need to live in fear of it.

Through Jesus Christ you may be set free, and it’s all entirely gracious. It is nothing that you can do, not any works of your own. Your vindication before God—both now and on the final day—is because of what the Lord Jesus Christ has accomplished. And your justification is entirely gracious.

Don’t I need to go to church? It’s a good thing to go to church, but your justification does not depend upon church attendance, or Bible reading, or diligence in prayer. Are there things that should follow? Absolutely. This is a faithful saying, these things I will that thou affirm constantly, that they which have believed in God might be careful to maintain good works. These things are good and profitable unto men, but they don’t justify men. They’re profit. God uses it. God calls for it. But it does not justify. We are justified in an unmerited way.

So tonight, should there be anyone here in any way confused, and you’re still leaning upon some identity that is not Jesus Christ—and when I say that, I mean only Jesus Christ—if you’re leaning on the fact that you were baptized, born into a Christian country, whatever that means… whatever it is, if it is not fully, completely, entirely the work of Jesus Christ—who He is and what He has done—and you’ve abandoned yourself there because you realize that God only justifies graciously, then it’s a sham.

And my encouragement tonight is: don’t live in denial. Don’t live hiding. Don’t live reworking, redefining, trying to make yourself better than you are. Just own it. Own it tonight. There is grace that is greater than all your sin. God justifies without any merit from you.

The comfort of this becomes even more profound whenever there arises accusation of conscience. When even as a Christian you experience—the Bible refers to the devil as the accuser of the brethren. You might think that he would give up, that now that I’m saved the devil will leave me alone. And what happens is you get converted and you realize, I didn’t know there was a devil until I became a Christian. You become a Christian and he comes after you so keenly. And he knows—oh, he knows—those things you’ve done and said, things of which you are ashamed.

What are you going to fall back on? I was a good boy a year ago. I’ve been good in every way except for that. That doesn’t work in a courtroom, does it? That’s the only person I murdered. I didn’t murder anyone else. It doesn’t work. You fall back on this unmerited standing you have in Jesus Christ from beginning to end. He is everything. Your salvation is entirely Jesus Christ.

And when Satan comes and he brings his accusation, your answer afresh is the same answer you had when you first came to God—pleading the name of Jesus Christ. Receive me, O God, and save me because—not what I have done, not who I am—but because of Jesus Christ. When you come afresh saying the same thing, that is your hope. He is still enough.

Fifty years a Christian, maybe. Maybe you fall into the worst sin of your entire Christian life. You think, I have made shipwreck. And I say, there is an answer still in Jesus Christ for you. We need it every day.

Secondly, the grace that secures us. The grace that not only saves us, but secures us. What security there is in verse 7 when it says that being justified by His grace, we should be made heirs. We should be made heirs. Think about that. We should be made heirs.

Note with me then our standing as heirs. That’s what it says: we should be made heirs. The grace of our justification does not just put us in a right standing before God, in the sense that legally everything has been dealt with. Sin is put away. Our righteousness is imputed. We’ve looked at this repeatedly in past times. But it does more. The grace of our justification makes us heirs. Gives us such a standing that can be described as being an heir—right to an inheritance, which we’ll look at in just a moment.

In Galatians 4:7, Paul writes there: “Wherefore thou art no more a servant, but a son; and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ.” An heir—an heir of God through Christ.

We long for belonging. Many, many struggle with their own background—the family, connections. They struggle with baggage. There’s a certain identity that lingers with the family name and other particulars of the line of our descent.

One of the glorious things about the gospel is this fresh identity: that we are adopted into the family of God, and that has more meaning than any other particular concerning our affiliations. You still have your family name, and you still bear certain marks from your parents and your family line. There are certain things that are impossible to eradicate. But whether you might be ashamed of the family, or you might not even know—you might not even know the family you come from—is it not the most liberating thing to know that God, in one sense, doesn’t care? His plan—His intention—is to put you in a new family. He’s going to give you a position that is so exalted. It is new. It is fresh. It is glorious.

This grace of our justification does not leave men as orphans. Romans 8:15: ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption whereby we cry, Abba, Father.

Understanding our sonship—you know, the prodigal struggled with this. He went out into the far country and wasted his substance with riotous living and gave himself to all the botched pleasures of the world. When he comes to himself to return to the father’s house, he’s aligning himself with the servants. Even my father’s servants are better off than I am. I will return and be as one of the hired servants. He has this plan to tell his father about his willingness to condescend and take this lowly position.

And when the father sees him—watching over that horizon, waiting for the day that he prayed for every day of his life since he left, the return of his son—he runs out to meet him, and there is not so much as even the opportunity to make himself to be something that he isn’t. He’s a son. He’s going to be treated as a son. The father has no intention to treat him any other way. It’s good to remember that, isn’t it?

When we start drifting—maybe there’s someone here and that’s you—you’re in the far country. You’re sitting in church; your heart, your soul, your affections, your desires, your ambitions—they’re in the far country. You’re ashamed. People can get to the point where they even struggle to just come and sit among the people of God because they feel like they don’t belong and they feel like everyone’s looking at them in a particular way.

Here’s what matters: How does the Father look at me? Has He changed? Is He so offended by my wayward living that I have no right to return? Oh, how many times He has received the most wayward of His children. Why? Because they’re heirs. We should be made heirs. Yes, this is our standing.

Belonging.

Also, not only our standing as heirs, but the scope of our inheritance: heirs according to the hope of eternal life. The hope of eternal life. What is that? Just that you’ll live forever? The ungodly will live forever. Oh, don’t forget—the ungodly will live forever. There are people in hell; they will live forever. They will live forever in hell.

What is eternal life? Is it then the contrast with eternal death, in the sense that it’s just living on in a place where there is no punishment, where we are in the presence of God forever? It certainly includes that. But eternal life goes deeper. It’s not just the promise of heaven. Eternal life is a state. It is something the believer possesses now.

And our Lord Jesus prays before the Father in John 17, said, this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent. At the heart of eternal life is the knowledge of God, the saving knowledge of God.

And so you come into the standing in which your inheritance includes the blessing, yes, of life forevermore, but it’s life forevermore in fellowship with the triune God. You come into the standing that is—it’s not you just existing someplace where God is, but in fellowship with God. It’s not just you going to the better of two options. It is ongoing fellowship with God. The standing you have, Christian—being justified—the grace of this justification puts you in this ongoing experience of eternal life. And every day you’re meant to be living as one who is in possession of this. You’re in possession of eternal life. You’re not like others. You have eternal life.

This life that binds you by the Spirit to God, in union with Jesus Christ, in fellowship with the triune God—communing with Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The triune God will never leave you. Is the Father with you? Yes, He is with you. Is the Son with you? Yes, He is with you. Is the Spirit with you? Yes, He is with you. And you’re enjoying. You are enjoying life. The Christian is meant to be enjoying life—life with God, the experience of life within the soul.

We drift at times. We get away from this. We become caught up in carnal things, entangled with the affairs of this life, distracted with all sorts of lesser pursuits. Some of those things are necessary, but sometimes they take too much attention and they overwhelm all of our heart and what we can offer, and they distract us in a way that we are not really living as those experiencing life.

We then pray, revive me again, quicken thou me according to thy word. What’s he wanting? Just some experience? No. It is the pursuit of God—enjoying the life of God within the soul of man. God lives in me. That should be seen. It should be experienced. You’re not like anyone else on the earth. Those without God, without the life of God are not like you. And your life then is this pursuit of God, this enjoyment of Him, this gladness in who He is, this sense of purpose about every day of your life, which will one day be consummated in higher experience in a more glorious way, when we are forever with Him.

Yes, there’s much laid up for us back at the beginning of the epistle actually, in Titus 1. He spoke in verse 2 of the hope of eternal life which God that cannot lie promised before the world began. Which brings us then to consider the grace that spurs us. There’s a grace in this justification that spurs us on because it establishes hope within the heart. Verse 7 again of chapter 3: that we should be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life.

The hope of eternal life—what is this hope? We use that word frequently. And we use it often in a way that may cloud our understanding of how the Bible uses it. So we might say, I hope it’s a good day tomorrow. But we don’t know, and there’s no real security in that hope. I hope things turn out well. I hope that, so on and so forth. We have used this expression all the time.

So what does hope biblically define? And the apostle uses the word hope—it is not a maybe; it is a warranted certainty. It rests on the character of God. When we are called to hope of eternal life, it is based upon the fact that God cannot lie. This hope of eternal life finds a sense of security in the fact that God who promised it cannot lie. And so this hope is different. It’s not like hoping for good weather or hoping for some other outcome. It is stable. It is sure. It is steady. And so it is certain.

When Peter writes about this hope in 1 Peter 1, he describes it as being living. The word we have in the Authorized Version is lively. What does he say? “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to His abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope.” A living hope. It’s not going to perish or fade or rot. It is a living certainty. And this is because, again, of what God has promised. He has promised this life to his people, and he brings about the means necessary.

How can I have life? How can I be sure that I have life? Because of Jesus Christ. And so you live your life not wondering. Not thinking to yourself, well, maybe I have it today and I don’t have it tomorrow. The hope of eternal life is secure because God cannot lie and Jesus Christ will not fail. His work—the sufficiency of His work—is absolute. The ground is established. The position is secure. The hope therefore that is built on that remains steadfast.

I don’t want you thinking like others do. I have been in the presence of some—I remember being by the bedside of an old—what was best, I’d never met them before, but what I knew about them led me to believe that they had been a Christian for a long time. I went on a hospital visit, stood by the bedside, and I’d never… I’d never, ever witnessed up to this point—I’d never witnessed anyone who had spent their life in the church, professed to believe, professed to trust Christ, and near the end, fighting sickness and staring at eternity, say these words: I hope he will receive me.

I was stunned. You hope He will receive you? You can settle that matter here and now. Because Christ receives sinners now—here, in the present. And if He receives them here and now, He will receive them there. He will be bidding them welcome on their entrance into glory. He will be delighted that they’re coming into that eternal presence.

So when you establish a kind of Christianity or a kind of gospel that brings about uncertainty here, there always is going to be uncertainty in terms of the future. But when the gospel brings security here and now, it brings security in the future as well. If he receives me here and now, why would he not receive me there?

The hope of eternal life is a secure hope. The last day will not discover that God has been unfaithful. The last day will not unfold that God lied—that God made it harder than He explained in His Word—that God raised up other barriers that He didn’t explain clearly—that God required other things aside from Jesus Christ as Son. That will not happen. He has laid it out in His Word: justification by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone. And it’s enough here; it will be enough then.

The hope of eternal life—this hope also is not only… just very quickly, I was going to just suggest to you—actually, time has gone. Let me tie this up.

I was just going to suggest also the sense of its focus—the hope of eternal life. Let me just take the time to point this out. It’s not that you don’t live with other hopes. You hope to be married. You hope to have children. You hope to be successful at your chosen career. But again, they’re different.

It is concerning to see Christians who spend so much time giving their energy to hopes that detract from what you’re here to do. Even in the context—you think of the hope, the hope that people have—do I want America to be more Christian or less? I want it to be more Christian. Genuinely Christian—not just a name, but genuinely. I want God’s Word to be more adhered to and treasured in America. I want everything from its economic policies, to its foreign policy, to all of it to be governed by the Word of God, not just the ideas of men.

But I do not live my life so governed by a hope that everything else is a waste if these other things don’t come about. You’re subject to principalities, powers, and obey magistrates, and so on and so forth. You live in this world where it may grieve the heart and soul, and yet don’t be so distracted that you begin to have all your eggs in the basket of a certain hope—a particular hope—of a nation that is different, some other outlook that you’re aspiring to see come about.

The Christian lives with the steady hope of eternal life. The life of God is in me, and forever I will be with the Lord. Whether or not things turn out as you might aspire should not take away from this hope. There are people out there and they want your emotions, because your emotions mean attention, and your attention means money. Keep your focus where it belongs.

And if the world is falling apart—Psalm 46—we have a refuge, a very present help in trouble, and we’re not gonna fear. Because our hope is not in the stability of the structures of this world. Our hope is in our God, with whom we have life and fellowship, no matter what comes.

My friend, you need to be in Christ. You need the grace that only he can supply. Seek him tonight if you’re not saved. Abandon every false hope. Turn your eyes upon Jesus. He will receive you. He will save you.

Let’s bow together in prayer.

You that are longing to see His face, will you this moment His grace receive? Grace that will pardon and cleanse within.

God, I pray, give deciding grace. Give help to the sinner to see Thy willingness to save. Give help to all to understand Thou art near, and who is a pardoning God like Thee, or who has grace so rich and so free? Help us all to come and find the abundance that there is in Christ, the supply that Thou in Jesus Christ to all who believe.

Hear us then this night. Part us in thy fear. Strengthen us for thy service. Encourage us in our fellowship. May the grace of our Lord Jesus, the love of God the Father, and the fellowship of the Spirit be the portion of all the people of God now and evermore. Amen.