In his sermon titled 'I've been thinking about death', Pastor Steve Hopkins explores the themes of mortality, righteousness, and salvation as outlined in the book of Romans. Reflecting on his personal experience with a blood transfusion, he emphasizes the vital role of blood in sustaining life, drawing parallels to the biblical perspective where 'the life of the flesh is in the blood'. The sermon underscores the universality of death, urging listeners to contemplate their standing before God. Hopkins emphasizes that all humanity is deemed guilty under the law, incapable of achieving righteousness through deeds. He explains the concept of imputed righteousness through faith in Jesus Christ, highlighting that salvation is a gift of grace from God, not achieved by human works. The sermon contrasts true believers, who are transformed and motivated by love for Christ, with those who merely profess faith without genuine transformation. As believers partake in the Lord’s table, Hopkins calls for self-examination and gratitude for Jesus' sacrifice, reiterating that justification is by faith alone, through the imputed righteousness of Christ.

Welcome back to Burnet Bible Church. Join us this week as Pastor Hopkins continues his sermon series through the book of Romans. I've been thinking about death. Is this what you wanted to hear about, right? Oh, he's going to talk to us about death today.

I've been thinking about death over the past couple of weeks. There's something about getting a blood transfusion, you know, that brings death to mind. You don't have enough blood, you keep losing blood, what happens? Well, eventually you perish. I told the nurse that was giving me blood transfusion this past week, I said, did you know that in the book of Leviticus in the Bible that it says the life of the flesh is in the blood.

The life of the flesh is in the blood. And he said, no, I didn't know that. One thing that I knew was without that blood, barring some miracle, I would die. It's just the plain fact, you know. You just, you got to have more being produced than you have being lost, right?

I really appreciated everyone's prayers. I think that, you know, I stand here in the pulpit today because of the prayers of God's people. Thinking about death, and you've heard me say this before, I would encourage you, I would encourage you as I have in times past, to take a few minutes, maybe this week, and take your family and drive to a cemetery and walk through the cemetery with your family. And as you walk through with your wife, with your children, point out headstones and tell them that, you know, if you look long enough, you'll find a headstone with someone who died at the age that you are alive right now. Death is coming for every one of us.

Life is short. No one knows the day or the hour of their death, but God. So in reality, from a human perspective, the old man is no closer to death than the teenager or the infant. And you know, what's going to matter on the day of judgment, what's going to matter on the day of your death, of my death, is whether or not we have a right standing with God. That's what's gonna matter.

That's what's gonna matter. When we get to the close of the message, I wanna talk about just for a moment, a young man who wheeled me out of the hospital and, you know, went to the elevators and down and out and waited on my sons to bring around the bus. And the conversation that we had, it was a very, very interesting conversation with this 18-year-old young man that I engaged about the gospel. But what's going to matter is our standing before God on that day. So with that, in verse, well we'll jump forward for a moment to verse 28.

This is the Apostle Paul's conclusion to what he's been teaching all the way from the beginning of the book of Romans until now. He says, therefore we conclude. If you would, open your Bibles and look. Everything Paul has been saying to the people of God from chapter 1 verse 1 to 3 and 28 here is going to be brought to a conclusion, an obvious conclusion, the only possible conclusion, that a man is justified before God, is declared, that is declared just in the sight of God, given a right standing before God by faith without, that is to apart from the deeds of the law. And that's very good news.

That's very good news for anyone who's read chapter 1 verse 1 up to this point. Because what you find is that everyone has been concluded under sin and everyone who's ever been born concluded under sin whether Gentile or Jew is headed for eternal destruction apart from a right standing with God. Somehow a right standing with God. The apostle has rendered all the world guilty before God, whether Jew or Gentile. He's told us that man has no righteousness whereby he may commend himself to God, whether Jew or Gentile.

Not an ounce of inherent righteousness, not an ounce of merited or earned righteousness. Every one of us is going to be summoned. Everybody knows what a court summons is, right? You get a court summons, says, hey, come stand before the judge. And here's the reason you're gonna come and stand before the judge.

Here are the charges that are against you if it's that type of a summons, but you're gonna have to come and stand before this judge. When a man is summoned to appear before God and answer to the law of God, no one is going to be able to bring anything to the table when he meets with God except for his sin and his guilt. That's all we've got to bring before God. We sang it in the hymn earlier, nothing in my hands I bring, simply to thy cross I cling. Well, we do have something in our hands.

What? We have filthy hands. We have sin-filled hearts. That's all we've got to bring before God is our sin. On that day when we are summoned to stand before Him, accept there be a righteousness that is outside of ourselves whereby we may be made acceptable in God's sight.

The Jew, we've read in the book of Romans from chapter one to this point, you know, he possesses the law of God, he comes to the table condemned as a violator of God's law. You had God's law and you knew it and you violated it, and you stand before God worthy of divine eternal wrath. The Gentile, he comes without God's law. So I didn't have God's law, but you had his law written on your heart. You knew.

You knew right from wrong, and it was confirmed by your conscience that you were worthy of divine wrath and eternal destruction. The law condemns all as sinners in the sight of God, whether it's the written law or the law that's written on our hearts, because the law reveals that all are violators of the law of God, not in merely one point of the law, but in every point of the law. In other words, you take the Ten Commandments and you walk through the Ten Commandments, you're not going to find one of the laws of the Ten Commandments where you're going to say, you know, I haven't violated it in every point. You violated it, so have I. We violated God's law at every point of the law.

You know, The person says, well, I didn't murder anybody. Yeah, but Jesus says if you hated your brother in your heart, well, I didn't take someone else's wife. Yeah, but if you looked with lust, Jesus said, we all stand guilty before God. And Romans 2.13 says only the doers of the law will be justified in God's sight, that is only those who have perfectly kept God's law. And yet we've violated God's law in every point of his law.

The law doesn't justify law breakers, it condemns law breakers. By the law comes the knowledge of sin, our sin. And the more we look into the law, the more we see of our sin, of our failure, of the filthy rags of even our best deeds. And the more we're made aware of our inability to meet the law's demands for perfect righteousness. Now go back and look at verse 21, because Paul's been hammering all of this, there's no righteousness, There's none righteous, no not one.

It doesn't matter whether you're Jew or Gentile, everybody stands condemned before God. And then you get to chapter 3 and verse 21 and he brings in this good news, finally, some comforting words. Look at these words, but now the righteousness of God without the law that is apart from our fulfilling the demands of the law for perfect righteousness is manifested, it's revealed. After rendering all the world guilty before God, after delivering this sentence of eternal wrath that's hanging over everyone's heads, after giving this this bad news, he brings in the good news, the glad tidings of the gospel message. There is a righteousness.

Brothers and sisters, listen, there is a righteousness apart from the law whereby man may be justified in God's sight. There is a righteousness that is acceptable to God and a righteousness that is alone acceptable to God. And that righteousness is the perfect righteousness of His Son, Jesus Christ. And it's a righteousness that saves and does not condemn. Amen?

And it's a righteousness that is imputed, we learn in the book of Romans chapter 3 also, it is a righteousness that is imputed, that is declared to the accounts of men and women and children the moment we put our trust in God's Son alone for our acceptance with God and our right standing with God. And it's a righteousness that covers both Jews and Gentiles alike because there's no difference. Everyone who believes on Christ, whether Jew or Gentile, comes into favor with God. Every man, every woman, every child who trusts in the person and work of Jesus Christ for their acceptance with God is justified, declared just in God's sight freely by God's grace through the redemptive work of his Son. That's good news.

Now what is however the righteousness of God? Somebody right now said, if I gave you a piece of paper, everybody write down, define the righteousness of God. Okay, what is the righteousness of God? Because our text speaks of, you know, a righteousness. The righteousness of God, we need the righteousness of God to cover our sins.

Even the righteousness of God, which is by faith of Jesus Christ, unto all and upon all them that believe. Verse 22, what is the righteousness of God? What would you say? Well, the righteousness of God that the apostle refers to in Romans is not God's attribute of righteousness, that God's holy and perfect and just. He is holy, righteous, perfect, just, but it's not His attribute of righteousness that He's talking about.

It's not the attribute of God's righteousness, of God's perfection, But it is the righteousness that is found in the person and the work of his son Jesus is our righteousness the righteousness of God that is imputed to believers the moment they believe is the righteousness of Jesus and His perfect work. His person because He's the God-man and His work because He both lived and died for us. Jesus died for us and He also lived for us. The righteousness of God is the perfect obedience of Christ in His life and in His death. And it's that righteousness that is imputed to us, that is declared to our accounts the moment we put our trust in Christ.

His active obedience is his perfect keeping of the law in our place, okay? He lived for us. His passive obedience, he died for our sins. Jesus passively dealt with the justice of God and the place of sinners on the cross, when he bore our guilt and suffered our shame and died as a substitute in our place, passively submitting to the punishment do us and paying the penalty in full that we could never pay, we could never satisfy, that we couldn't satisfy by an eternity of human suffering in hell. In his death, Jesus' death, the death of the God-man, atonement was made, full atonement, satisfaction was made for all those for whom he died, full satisfaction to the justice of God and the wrath of God do his people.

And then in his life he lived for us, Jesus lived for us. God did not send his eternally begotten Son into the world straight from heaven to the cross. Everybody got that? It's like, well Jesus died for our sins, yes, but he didn't send them, okay I'm gonna send my Son into the world to die for your sins." And he just goes, boom, he goes straight to the cross. No, he comes into the world and first he lives for us.

He lives a perfect life that we couldn't live. He obeys the law of God perfectly that we could not obey in our place. And then he dies after fulfilling the law perfectly that we could not fulfill and all the demands of the law that we couldn't fulfill and every word thought and deed. Then he goes to that cross and he dies. And he satisfies the debt that we owed for our sins.

He keeps the law perfectly in our place and he dies for the sins that we've committed. That's the perfect righteousness of Christ that is imputed to us the moment that we believe on His name. When Paul speaks of the righteousness of God, that's what he's talking about. And this righteousness of God, which is by faith, is unto all and upon all them that believe." Believe. But what is belief?

What does it mean to believe? First, faith is not a work. You understand that? Because if faith were a work, then we would be saved by our own works. Well, he had faith and so therefore he was saved because of his good work of faith.

Now we're not saved by the good work of faith. Faith is the gift of God. It's something that God implants in us. It's something that he produces within us, okay? Faith is the means by which we lay hold on the righteousness of Christ.

It's not a work. If it were a work, then man could boast that he was saved by something he did, but The text tells us here this afternoon, boasting is excluded. Faith is the gift of God, as we read in Ephesians chapter 2 verses 8 and 9. It's not something we exercise to gain God's favor. Well, I have God's favor because I have faith.

He does it because he doesn't have faith. No, faith is not a work that makes us acceptable in God's sight, faith is God's work in us. Otherwise we could boast. Faith is God's work in us. When the apostle speaks of the righteousness of God, which is by faith of Jesus Christ.

He's speaking of the means by which we lay hold on the righteousness of Christ. Faith is the means by which we apprehend or lay hold on Christ, our righteousness, and what he has done for us, in both His active keeping of the law and His passive obedience. Again, it's not man's work, but the work of God in man. We didn't do anything. God did everything.

Salvation is of God from the beginning to the end. Man is passive also, but in what way? We're passive in our salvation. We're being dead and trespassed in sins. Dead men don't respond to anything.

The salvation of man is a work of God and of God alone. Again, faith is the gift of God, it's of grace, not of works, or man could boast. John 1-13 tells us, those who believe on the name of Christ were born not of the flesh nor the will of man but of God. Faith is trusting in Christ and his works, not ours, for our acceptance with God. Faith is placing our trust in Christ and what He's accomplished for us in His life and death.

Faith is trusting in Jesus' righteousness, not ours, because we don't have any. This is what it means to be justified in God's sight. To be saved is to be justified, declared just in the sight of God by faith, which is the gift of God. So just a little side note here, the Greek word that's used throughout Romans and all the New Testament that is used for justification, R.C. Sproul brings this out in several of his teachings.

And I probably won't do this like him as well as him, but I want to communicate this. I think it's really important. So to be justified in God's sight is to be declared just in God's sight, not made just in God's sight. So why do we have, you know, like the Roman Catholics saying, well, you have to be made just in God's sight before you can be declared just in God's sight? Well, it's because they used the Latin translation of the Bible known as the Vulgate, which was completed by a man named Jerome back in AD 405, and he mistranslated the word.

So he translates it into the Latin Vulgate, Not as a legal term to be pronounced or declared just but to be made just in God's sight Actually made just in God's sight Paul wrote the letter to the Romans though in Greek not in Latin in Jerome's translational error Has led masses no pun intended astray ever since Rome said you can only be declared just or righteous if you actually are just or righteous. And thus you have this system of faith plus works. You gotta have works in order to become just in God's sight and remain just in God's sight. The Reformers said, no, the word Paul used means to be declared or pronounced righteous, not to be made just or righteous. And men are declared just in God's sight while they're still sinners.

That's what Paul taught, right? We are declared just in God's sight even when we're still sinners. Martin Luther, you know, trying to think of the phrase that he used, simile justus et picator, At the same time, sinner yet just. Well, how can that be? We are sinners yet we are at the same time declared just in God's sight.

So men are not made righteous but they are declared righteous. Who could ever stand before God and say, I'm righteous? I'm just in your sight. No, but we're declared righteous because of the imputed righteousness of Christ, imputed to us, declared to our accounts the moment that we put our trust in Jesus. That is the fact of the Gospel.

Paul also talked about in Romans chapter 3, propitiation and expiation. How many remember? I know I've been through this several times, but you know I'll go through this with my family and I'll say, hey guys can you remember this? What's the, what are you supposed to think of when you think of expiation? What are you supposed to think of when you think of propitiation?

I've taught on it several times. You know this one gets it, that one gets it, that one doesn't, this one doesn't. So there's a lot of repetition, right? How many remember me talking about what word should you think about when you think about propitiation? And what you should think of when you think of expiation?

Okay, it's a good thing to go over this again really quickly. So when you think propitiation, think satisfaction. Satisfaction made to the justice of God. Romans 3 25, Christ Jesus, whom God has set forth to be a propitiation. What?

Satisfaction to the justice of God. That is, satisfaction made to the justice of God in order to appease the wrath of God, and that by Jesus' atoning sacrifice for our sin, debt on the cross. Jesus satisfied the demands of the law and he satisfied God's justice. He satisfied his justice that was due us and he appeased the wrath of God by making satisfaction to the justice of God that we could not make. He is the propitiation.

He is the sacrifice of atonement that makes satisfaction for our sin debt. What about expiation? When you think expiation, what do you think? How many remember that? So, propitiation, okay, satisfaction, expiation, removal, okay?

He removed our sins from us as far as the east is from the west. And you remember we looked at a couple of times we went over this, the passage from Leviticus to where you've got the day of atonement and you've got the two goats that are brought in, right? And the sins of the people of God are symbolically laid on them when the priest takes his hands and lays them on the head of the goat. Everybody remember this? And the first one's slain.

The second one's sent out to wander. Propitiation, expiation. The one is slain, the other is sent to wander in the wilderness toward the east, pointing to Christ to come, signifying propitiation, satisfaction to the justice of God by the sacrifice of God's Son in our place, and expiation, the removal of our sin and our guilt as far from us as the east is from the west. Amen? Praise God.

One of the things that we also have to understand about propitiation, the word propitiation as it is translated in Hebrew and then they take the Hebrew and they translate it into the Greek subdued again, the same word is the same word used in the Old Testament for the mercy seat. Everybody remember what the mercy seat is, right? What's the mercy seat? Put it around the spot. The mercy seat is the lid that covers the Ark of the covenant, right?

Same word in Romans 325 in our text here, propitiation, from the Hebrew to the Greek. Jesus is our mercy seat. He is the propitiation for our sins. He is the satisfaction made to the justice and wrath of God do his people for their sins, for everyone who believes on his name, whom God has set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins, that he, God, might be just and the justifier of him who believes in Jesus. You remember, I don't know, many months ago going over the contents of the Ark of the Covenant?

How many remember what's inside the Ark of the Covenant? Three things inside the Ark of the Covenant. Anybody remember? Okay, several. Wow, that's good.

It's very good. So you have the mercy seat upon which the blood of the sacrifice is sprinkled for the remission of sins, and then within you have the ten commandments written by the very finger of God upon stone tablets, the law of God that only Jesus kept perfectly under the mercy seat. And you have the clay pot with actually some of the manna that fell from heaven, where Jesus says later, I am the bread which came down from heaven, that if a man eat he will never die. The manna pointing to Christ, who is the bread that came down from heaven that if a man eats he'll never die. The law is in there that only Jesus perfectly kept.

And what's the third thing that's in there? Aaron's rod that budded. Wow, a dead stick that came to life and produced fruit. Christ. Christ.

All underneath the mercy seat, Jesus was crucified dead and buried. He rose again the third day, Aaron's rod. Above it all, the mercy seat where the blood of the sacrifice on the annual day of atonement was sprinkled by the high priest, all pointing to Christ whom God has set forth to be a propitiation, same word as the Hebrew mercy seed in the Old Testament, satisfaction to the justice of God, appeasing the wrath of God to his people once and for all. Why? Verse 26 says, to declare, I say at this time, his righteousness, Christ's righteousness, that he, God, might be just, How?

Because he punishes all sin. He punishes every sin. And at the same time be the justifier of ungodly people like us which believe in Jesus. Why? Because he punished Jesus in our place.

See the good news of this, see the good news. God is both just because you know what, he doesn't pass over any sin, he deals with every single sin that's ever been committed in the history of the world, either in the sinner in hell for all eternity, or in his son who died in the place of sinners. God deals with every sin, and he's gonna deal with every sin of every single person that's in this room today. He will deal with every single one of your sins, both in thought, word, and deed, either in the substitute that he's provided and the righteousness of his son imputed to those who believe or in you in hell for all eternity. It's pretty serious business.

It's pretty serious. For those who believe the question Paul has here, where is boasting then? How can we boast? I was brought into the favor of God, escaped the judgment of God that was rightfully due me. I'm guilty.

God put His Son in my place. His Son was slain. He died in my place. My sins were fully paid for, removed as far as the east is from the West, and He's even the one who gave me the grace of faith to believe on His name? Wherein is there any grounds for boasting?

Paul says it is excluded. It is excluded. The Greek term that he uses there means to be shut out. All boasting is shut out. There is no entrance available for it.

The door has been shut and locked against all manner of boasting because Christ did it all. He did it all. How could there be any grounds for glorying when salvation, when justification before God is clearly a work of God to which a man contributes nothing? Paul is saying through all this, after all that I've proven from the scriptures, and after answering every conceivable objection, how could any man possibly boast that he's done anything to contribute to his salvation? All boasting is necessarily excluded.

It has been shut out. By what law? Of works? No, but by the law of faith. Therefore we conclude there is no other debate on it.

All objections to the contrary have been answered. That a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law, apart from the works of the law. Which is the same thing as saying what Martin Luther wrote into the little side note on his Bible that got him into so much trouble so many years ago. It's the same thing as saying alone, alone, alone. A man is justified by faith alone, apart from the deeds of the law.

Salvation is by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone. He's not the God of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles. It is one God who will justify the circumcision, the Jews by faith, and the uncircumcision, the Gentiles also, through faith. Salvation comes to all men in the same way. There's only one God, there's only one way to God.

Salvation, justification is by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone. Whether it's someone in the Old Testament looking forward to Christ, or us looking back to Christ and what He has done. It's all through Christ and Christ alone. Now to close, lest any Paul says should conclude that the law has now become void because of faith. Verse 31 of our text today.

It is not set aside because men are saved by grace alone through faith alone and Christ alone, no. It is only, Paul teaches here, after God has saved a man, changed a man, a woman, a child, from within by the regenerating power of the Holy Spirit and justified that man in his sight through the gift of faith that a man may now establish the law. What does that mean, establish the law? He can now start to keep the law of God that before he could not keep at all. A man may now establish the law.

Before a man is saved, he has no interest in obeying God. Now he might do things and not do things because it benefits him personally or her personally. I'm gonna do this because it'll benefit me. I'm not gonna do this because it won't benefit me. I'm gonna do this because people will think better of me if I do this.

I'm not gonna do this because it won't benefit me. I'm gonna do this because people will think better of me if I do this. I'm not gonna do this because people will think worse of me if I don't do this. I'm gonna do this or not do this because it's going to injure my state, a state, my finances, my job, my reputation on earth, I'm gonna do it for my own benefit. Something for, that might be a positive to the law or a negative, but it's all selfishness and it's all self-centeredness, and there's nothing that is being done from the heart because there's never been any change of heart.

He's never been regenerated. There is no relationship with God. Sanctification, that is our growth in holiness, comes after God has changed us and has made us a new creature and his son. It comes after justification, after a person has been changed by God and given a new heart. Only the saved person has an interest in obedience from the heart.

Only the saved person has an interest in obeying God, in growing in holiness, in doing anything that God has asked him to do. Only the saved person has a longing for greater holiness from the heart. Only a saved person has grief and brokenness over sin when he falls, when she falls, and the forsaking of that sin with the intent never to return to it. Only the saved, justified, regenerated person experiences that and knows what I'm talking about. When I got out of the hospital this past week, as I said earlier, a young man, 18 years of age comes up to the room to wheel me down in the wheelchair to where my sons are going to pick me up.

And I struck up a conversation with him immediately about the only things that really matter in this life, because death is just as close for an 18-year-old man in perfect health as it is for a 63-year-old man who isn't sure if he's going to survive his present illness. It's just as close. One day you're the picture of perfect health and you're building wealth and muscles and you've got a thousand plans for your future and the next day you're struck down by an illness or a cancer or an auto accident. It happens every single day. Death is just as close for one person as another because no one knows the hour God has determined his or her death.

So I struck up this conversation with this young man and I said, are you a believer? We just barely get rolling down the first hallway. Are you a believer? He said, most definitely. I was shocked.

You know, I make judgments by appearance, you know, all the time and I shouldn't do that. And the dreadlocks and the tattoos and everything, I was just, okay, well, don't make judgments. This young man was newly converted and he was on fire for Christ and bold. He said most definitely, And he said, I just recently got saved. And he was really excited.

And he pulled up his sleeve to show me a tattoo with the name of Jesus down his forearm. Not something I recommend anybody go out and do in order to proclaim Jesus to the world, but he didn't know what to do. It's just, I'm excited about Jesus. I want people to know that I'm not ashamed by the name of Jesus. And boom, he's got it down his forearm.

And I said, I'm glad that you want people to know that you love Jesus, but the way that they really know that you love Jesus is by a changed life, is by your changed life. Has your life changed? And then I were rolling along, we're going through the elevators and everything. I said, for instance, 1st Corinthians says, fornicators, thieves, homosexuals, extortioners will not inherit the kingdom of God. And I said, And you know, I thought I'm just gonna dwell on fornicators for just a moment because I've read the statistics about the number of young people who are in pornography and older people.

And I said fornicators, you know, that word the apostle Paul used comes from the Greek word pornea from which we get the modern English word pornography. And you have to understand, what we have to understand is those who are living in these things are not on their way to heaven. They're not on their way to heaven. People who are living in these sins are not on their way to heaven. Does it mean people who have committed these sins?

No, people who are living in these sins, extortion, thieves, people who live a life of thievery, of extortion, of homosexuality, of sexual immorality, of pornography are not on their way to heaven. That's what the apostle Paul is saying there. And I said, that's what I'm saying to you today. But I said, but the very next verse says, young man, listen to me, Such were some of you. You used to be these things, but you are not any longer.

You used to be thieves, and you used to live as thieves without any conviction of heart upon your life. You used to be homosexuals. Paul was saying there were people sitting in his congregation who were fornicators, extortioners, thieves, and homosexuals, and drunkards, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, but they're not living in that life anymore. They have repented of that, and they've turned from those things. Does it mean they've never fall again?

No, but it means that they have a new life in Christ Jesus, they are a new creation. Such were some of you, he said, but you've been washed, you've been sanctified, that means set apart by God and you know it and you've been justified, you've been declared just in the name of the Lord Jesus. You've been declared just in the name of the Lord Jesus because He died for your sins. Now you're not to be brought under the power or the control of anything. You were bought with a price, the blood of God's Son.

And I say all this because we just read that the saved person establishes the law. Only true believers begin to truly keep God's law. As a note in my Bible says, only true believers long to be more like Christ and less like themselves and are daily detached more and more from sin and conformed more and more to Christ's character. Only true believers hate the sin in their lives and cry out to God to be delivered from it. The fake Christian just wants to keep his sin out of public view.

The young man who wheeled me out of the hospital, I believe his conversion was real. Because why? Because after I go through all of this, he says, you're a pastor. You told me, I want to ask you a question. I said, okay.

He says, so like, so like, so like if someone has repented of their sins, they believe Jesus has died for their sins, they really believe, they just wanna obey him. He's talking about himself. They just wanna obey him. But like, sometimes they go back and they do something they already repent of. And he says, and they like cry, and they ask God to forgive them again.

Like, do you think that person's really a Christian? I said, God knows the heart. What you're describing is the experience of every true believer in Jesus Christ. Every one of us. If when that person goes back to that sin, they're broken over it, they grieve over it, they confess it to God, they trust in Jesus and His sacrifice, they forsake it without reservation of mind, with the intent to never return to it again.

That is the experience of every true believer. The unsaved man or woman just wants to conceal his sin and continue in it to cover his footprints and erase his tracks so he can continue in his sin without exposure. And that's not what you're describing. Only true believers truly begin to establish or keep the law of God. The love of God and the love of Christ compels them.

Jesus died for me. I just want to serve him and obey him forever. That's the heart of the believer. The fake Christian on the other hand just goes through the motions at church or when other professors of Christ are around, and when he's not around the professors of Christ, there's no real desire to be alone with Christ because there's no real interest in Christ. There's no interest to be in God's Word because there's no love for God's Word.

There's no pursuit of holiness because there's no principle of holiness within. And now we're about to share in the Lord's table. Every baptized professor of Christ in this auditorium is going to come forward and they're going to receive the bread and the wine from the elders. You heard Eric talking about earlier, representing the body and the blood of Christ. And before we do that, there will be a time for self-examination.

And the words, let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of that bread and drink of that cup, will be read. For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh damnation to himself, that is judgment to himself, not discerning the Lord's body. And so the true believer approaches the table with reverence and with self-examination. The scripture says judging himself that he be not judged and with confession of known sin and with forsaking of any sin that's known and with the forsaking of it, with the intent never to return to it, and with the grateful heart of thanksgiving for Christ and His sacrifice, while the fake professor eats and drinks without concern or care, not discerning the Lord's body, and stores up wrath for himself for the coming day of wrath. Let's pray.

Father, we thank you for your word. Your word is truth. O God, where it's boasting, it is excluded. By what law? The law of faith.

We concluded, O God, as your word says, that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law. That you have given us faith to believe and justified us, declared us just in your sight on account of the righteousness of your Son imputed to us, declared to our accounts that salvation, our salvation, is all of you and none of ourselves, nothing of ourselves. And so God, as we approach this table, we thank you God and we praise you for the salvation that we have in your Son. We praise you and we thank you And we ask you to just give us grateful hearts at this time, full of praise and full of thanksgiving, O Lord, boasting in none other than the person and the work of your Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. For it's In His name we pray these things.

Amen.