Blog Archives - Yuba-Sutter Grace Church

Call on Christ

2/23/2019

All men believe a god. But the God you believe will determine whether or not you are saved. All men call, but it is the One on whom you call in faith that will determine if you are heard and your cry is answered. If you trust and call on Jehovah-Jesus, the LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS, then you will be saved (Rom. 10:13; Jer. 23:5-6). But if you trust and call on any but Christ crucified, risen and reigning, you will be lost (Isa. 45:20-25; 1 Cor. 15:1-4).

You may believe there is one God. So do the devils, but they are damned. You may believe God requires many things of you. And you may sincerely set about to do what He requires to be accepted and to live. But such faith will not save you. Jesus said there will be many who say to Him “Lord, Lord” and mention all they did in His name (Matt. 7:21-23). But He said He never knew them. They all will be lost!

The prophets of Baal called on Baal. But Baal could not save them, because he was an idol (Isa. 45:20). The Jews were zealous for the law. But God who gave the law did not save them because they used the law unlawfully: they went about to establish their own righteousness to earn life by the law. They refused God’s righteousness. They rejected Christ and Him crucified and relied on their own worth and works to fulfill what God required, but which only Christ could give and did (Gal. 2:21; 3:21).

Most today expect salvation because they meet the condition of believing Jesus. But faith is not a condition God requires us to meet. Faith is the gift of God and work of God that enables us to see and rely on Christ who met all conditions. Faith is not us doing our part so God will save us. Faith is seeing that Christ did our part, all God required of us. Faith is the God-given sight that looks to Christ alone and relies on Him alone as the One who did all in honor and satisfaction to God for His people.

To call on the LORD is to call on Christ as the Lord of all and as the One in whose righteousness alone I may appear before God and be accepted by Him. I must call on Him for righteousness. I must call on Him for life. I must call on Him for faith. I do not bring any of these to Him. I look to Him and call on Him for all. To call on the LORD is to call on Him to find me in Christ, to give every blessing of grace that Christ earned for His people (Eph. 1:21-23).

We often think if we call on the LORD it will result in a change of our circumstances. Or we think if we call on the LORD we will experience something unusual. We think if we call on the LORD we will be able to avoid this or that sin. Let me ask you this question: If the LORD saves you, what will it look like? How will you know He answered your prayer?

The answer of scripture is, if the Lord saves you, it will be seen in this: you call on Him for all grace and look to Him as all of your cleansing for sin and your only covering for righteousness (Rom. 10:4-13). You will see and be persuaded that you are nothing and that He is all (Php. 3:3-9). You will unconditionally and gladly abandon all of your own righteousness and submit to His. You will surrender to Him as the Lord of all. You will know and embrace Him as “the Lord of me and the God of me” (John 20:28).

None call but those who believe (Rom.10:14). All who believe have life (John 5:24; Rom. 8:10). Righteousness is not the result of life; life is the result of righteousness (Rom. 5:17-18, 21; 8:10). Therefore, it you call, you believe. If you believe, you live. If you live, you are justified. But God’s work is in the reverse order: you are justified by the redeeming blood of Christ (Rom. 3:24-25; 5:9). You live because of Christ’s righteousness (Rom. 8:10). And you believe because you have been sanctified by the Spirit of God (John 6:63; 1 John 1:12-13; 3:14-15; Acts 5:31; 26:18; 1 Pet. 1:21-22). You call because you heard the Gospel and in His grace by that hearing, He gave you the sight of faith in Christ to believe Him (Rom. 10:14-17).

Neither your call nor your faith justify you. Christ’s blood and righteousness alone can do that (Rom. 5:9, 17-19). It is God that justifies. He justifies the ungodly (Rom. 4:5). Since they are ungodly when He justifies them, He does not justify them for what they are or for what they do, but only for what Christ did. Neither does He justify them because of what they will do after they believe (Titus 3:5-7), for all of our righteousnesses are as filthy rags (Isa. 64:6; Rom. 7:24).

Faith does not induce God to justify us. Faith does not influence God. Faith is God’s gift to us to stand still and see the salvation of the LORD, that is is in Christ alone. God justifies sinners by the influence of His own grace on the meritorious ground of Christ’s successful, redeeming work (Rom. 3:24). The righteousness by which God justifies us is not our faith as an act of dependence or trust. Nor is the righteousness by which God justifies the act of our will. Nor is it what we are or do, or anything that may be called mine. But God justifies us by the LORD Jesus Christ who is the righteousness of God (Jer. 23:5-6). He is the righteousness of God because He fulfilled God’s law by His obedience of love that led Him to own our sins and lay down His life in death under the wrath of God to satisfy God and redeem us from our sins. In this He fulfilled God’s law (Rom. 13:9; 10:4). He put away our sins by making satisfaction to God’s justice in the sacrifice of Himself (Rom. 3:25). He fulfilled God’s law by His obedience and death. His work to redeem is our righteousness (Rom. 3:24). That righteousness is ours by God’s gift (Rom. 5:17). We see and know Him by the God-given sight of faith, by which we are persuaded and embrace Him with gladness of heart (Heb. 11:13).

Rick Warta

All Restored; Nothing lost

2/10/2019

“Then it shall be, because he hath sinned, and is guilty, that he shall restore that which he took violently away, or the thing which he hath deceitfully gotten, or that which was delivered him to keep, or the lost thing which he found” (Lev. 6:4).

The law of God required strict equity. Whatever was stolen, whatever was committed in trust and lost, whatever a man found that belonged to another but kept for himself, in all of these and more, God’s law required full restitution. God is holy. He watches over the wrong. He requires restoration of what is taken away and what is lost that was entrusted. Here we have the testimony of God’s justice, the restitution of what we lost, the entrustment of God’s own to Christ, and the anticipation of Christ’s work to restore and to keep what was committed to Him.

The Psalmist spoke of Jesus when he said, “Then, I restored that which I took not away” (Ps. 69:4). We failed to render to God His due. “All have sinned, and come short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:23). But Christ propitiated God, reconciled us by His blood, and redeemed us from all iniquity (Rom. 3:21, 24-25; Titus 2:14). He made restitution to God for His people. He gave Himself a ransom to God for "the many" given to Him by the Father (Matt. 20:28). He restored what we had taken away.

But there is something very notable in the middle of Leviticus 6:4: “...that which was delivered Him to keep.” Whenever a man entrusted a possession to another man for safekeeping, if that possession was lost while under his care, the caretaker was guilty. Christ not only made restitution to God for our sins, for failing to give God the glory due His name, but He also kept all that was His Father’s, all that His Father entrusted to Him to keep and bring again. Jesus said, “those that thou gavest me I have kept, and none of them is lost” (John 17:12). God our Father entrusted His people to His Son, our Mediator, as our Surety, to bring us to Himself again (Gen. 43:8-9). If Christ failed to keep His sheep, if He lost even one given to Him by His Father, He would have broken this law in Leviticus 6:4. But He did not fail. He could not fail (Isa. 42:4). “He is able to save them to the uttermost who come unto God by Him” (Heb. 7:25). None of God's elect shall be lost. All of God’s Israel shall be saved (Rom. 9:8; 11:26-27; Gal. 6:16).

When God brought Israel through the Red Sea, when the waters stood up as a wall on either side while they passed through on dry land, when those same waters became a watery grave to the Egyptians, then all Israel sang the song of Moses (Ex. 15). In that song they said, “Fear and dread shall fall upon them; by the greatness of thine arm they shall be as still as a stone; till thy people pass over, O LORD, till the people pass over, which thou hast purchased” (Ex. 15:16). All whom God redeemed from Egypt were brought through the sea. None of the plagues and not a drop of the waters of judgment came upon them. None in Israel were lost. “Not an hoof shall be left behind” (Ex. 10:26). The weight of the wrong of all of God’s elect was laid on Jesus to pay. Their eternal salvation was put into His hand. God’s word and God’s glory was put into His hand. And He kept all that was entrusted to Him. He lost nothing. He made all of God’s elect sure by interposing Himself for them. “38 I came down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me. 39 And this is the Father's will which hath sent me, that of all which he hath given me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up again at the last day” (John 6:38-39). “I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep” (John 10:11). “16 other sheep I have, which are not of this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be one fold, and one shepherd. 17 Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again. 18 No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of my Father” (John 10:17-18). “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: 28 And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. 29 My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father's hand” (John 10:27-29).

Do you see by God-given faith that your eternal salvation from sin, your salvation from God’s eternal judgment against you because of your sins, your deliverance from the accusing, lying, murderous devil, your salvation from all of the seduction and idolatry of this religious-political world (Rev. 17-18; Gal. 1:4), your salvation from your own fallen sinful nature; do you realize by faith that all of your salvation from all of these has been laid on the almighty shoulders and put into the unfailing hands of our unchanging, eternal Savior and Lord, who ever lives and is mighty to save (Ps. 89:19; Isa. 63:1; Heb. 7:25; Jude 1:24)?! He shall not fail until He send forth judgment into victory (Matt. 12:20; 1 Cor. 15:54-57; Rom. 7:25). He set His face like a flint to accomplish the eternal will that God put into His hands to do. And He finished that work. He ran the race set before Him (Heb. 12:1-3). He entered heaven to take possession of our inheritance for us (John 14:2; Heb. 6:20).

When Jesus has delivered up all to His Father, when the final accounting is made, nothing of all that was put into His hands shall be lacking (Eph. 1:10; Col. 1:20). All of His people shall be saved. Nothing that is theirs will be lost (1 Cor. 3:21-23). Not one good thing of all the Lord promised them shall fail (Rom. 8:28-30).

We have all sinned and come short of the glory of God. We have failed to do the one thing for which we were created: to glorify our God. We have stolen all that was put into our hands in trust. But Christ has made restitution for all that we took away. And He has kept all that was given Him (Matt. 11:27; John 3:35; 13:3; 16:15; Heb. 1:3). He alone could and did save those given to Him of His Father (John 17:1-4).

I took and lost all. Christ restored and kept all. My all is in His hands. He did not fail. He cannot fail. He ever lives. He is the Lord God omnipotent (Rev. 19:6). He reigns over all. All things obey His will at His word. Nothing can separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. God our Father has secured us to Himself by giving us to Christ, putting us in Christ. “Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?! I thank God, through Jesus Christ our Lord! There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus” (Rom. 7:25-8:1).

Rick Warta

Fellowship in Christ (Php. 2:1; 1 John 1:3)

2/8/2019

“From whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love” (Eph. 4:13).

When we come together in the name of Christ, we come as the Body of Christ, and members in particular (1 Cor. 12:27). As the body can only function when each member performs its part, so we rely on one another. Let me give an example. My sister, who was diagnosed with cancer, phoned this week to give me an update on her health. The conversation went from how she was feeling, the medication she was taking, the cost of it all, to how her family was doing. In every topic, she always expressed her own sense of helplessness, but that she was convinced from God’s word that all things are working together for her good, according to His sovereign will in Christ, and how she loved to hear the Gospel day by day. I mostly just listened. But I came away with a deep appreciation for the grace given to her. She faces the very real prospect of a shortened life. And yet, though she does not know how all of this will accomplish God’s will; though she does not know how her decline in health, her constant sick feeling, how she seems to have so little influence to point her loved ones to Christ, and her sense of utter helplessness through it all; that she does not know what to do; yet, through it all, in all that she said, I could hear God’s upholding grace in her steady confidence in Christ. And so we had “fellowship” in our Lord together. I greatly benefited from all that she said. And I trust she benefited by telling me of Christ her hope.

Now, when we come together as a Church, our first priority should be to hear God’s word, to give thanks, to sing praises to our Savior, to make our supplications in prayer and to worship Him for His salvation. When we talk to one another, we should tell the wonderful things our great God and Savior has done for us, in plain, simple terms, as great sinners needing our only and great Savior.

The body is “fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth.” Never think you have nothing to contribute. When you gather with His people, bring the revelation of Christ to your heart in devotion to Him. Be quick to listen. Be slow to speak (James 1:19). Tell the Lord about your brothers’ and sisters’ needs. Encourage one another to look to Christ who sits on the throne of absolute sovereignty and victory over our sin, over satan, over this world, over death and over all of our enemies. Tell what great things the Lord has done for you. Tell how Jesus is your only hope. Be courteous (1 Pet. 3:8). Speak simply without the leaven of hypocrisy (Luke 12:1). You know Christ is your only hope. Let the redeemed of the Lord say so (Ps. 107:2). Think more highly of others than yourself (Php. 2:5-8). Read God’s word at home. Pour out your heart to the Lord at home. Pray for your loved ones throughout the week. Pray for one another in the Church. Pray for the ministry of the word. Ask the Lord to make Himself known to us and to revive us again (Ps. 80; Ps. 85:6). Ask Him to increase our faith and grow us in grace (Mark 9:24; Luke 17:5; 2 Pet. 3:18). Remember, we serve the Lord Christ! He is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think (Eph. 3:20). When you come together, therefore, make it your priority to hear and worship, but as you are able, talk about Jesus and His love. Your brothers and sisters in Christ need to hear of Him from you.

The Church is the Body of Christ. Jesus said, “As ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me” (Matt. 25:40). Each one of us who believe Christ are members of His body (1 Cor. 12:27). Even the members of our physical bodies are members of Christ (1 Cor. 6:15-20). Our bodies are the temple of the Spirit of God. Your brothers and sisters in Christ were purchased by the precious blood of Christ (1 Cor. 6:20; Acts 20:28). Therefore, esteem them very highly for His love’s sake. These gracious words from Malachi bring tears of joy to my eyes when I remember those times I have had sweet fellowship in Christ by the words and kindness of my brothers and sisters:

“16 Then they that feared the LORD spake often one to another: and the LORD hearkened, and heard it, and a book of remembrance was written before him for them that feared the LORD, and that thought upon his name. 17 And they shall be mine, saith the LORD of hosts, in that day when I make up my jewels; and I will spare them, as a man spareth his own son that serveth him” (Mal. 3:16-17).

Rick Warta