Congregation of the Lord, as you can see from the title there for this morning's sermon, the theme will be Continuing in the Grace of God. And I hope that that's clear to us. When we talk about justification by faith, we're talking about continuing in the grace of God. Justification by faith alone and continuing in the grace of God should be together in our minds. Now we read there in Acts chapter 13 and verse 43, Now when the congregation had broken up, many of the Jews and devout proselytes followed Paul and Barnabas, who, speaking to them, persuaded them to continue in the grace of God. And so that question I guess I have for you is, right, what is that grace of God? What did they hear that morning and that Paul is telling them and persuading them to continue in? Paul says earlier in that sermon, right? Therefore, let it be known to you that through this man, the man he preached from, that Davidic promised Messiah, Jesus, who fulfilled scriptures when he was condemned to death and hung on a cross and God raised three days later, through that man is preached to you the forgiveness of sins. That congregation is God's grace to you. the forgiveness of your sins through the Messiah Jesus crucified for you. That's the grace that you and I are called to continue, and that's the grace we are called to receive as a gift by faith and to continue it. Now, what are the implications of that teaching by Paul, that properly saying, let it be known to you, because it wasn't known to them. I don't know if word had made it to Bessinian Antioch of what took place in Jerusalem, but depending on who brought news, surely the report wasn't, God forgives your sins, this man, surely part of, we took care of that blasphemer Jesus. So it had to be made known to them. No, this is God's grace. Well, what were the implications to them? And again, that's why I kind of reminded you and kind of tried to put you in that spirit of hearing it. Paul is speaking these words to Jews and to devout proselytes, Gentiles who came almost all the way, acknowledged Yahweh as the one true living God and practiced something of his righteousness and trusted in him. Paul's speaking to these who are under the Mosaic law and had been under it for millennia. And the implications is this. By him, everyone who believes is justified from all things from which you cannot be justified by the law of Moses. You know, in the back of Paul's mind, of course, it could very well be what God said in Isaiah 53 verse 11. as he had preached Jesus to them, crucified and raised, by his knowledge, that's the knowledge of the Messiah, by his knowledge, my righteous servant shall justify many. Or the Hebrew kind of says something like, he'll provide righteousness for the many, for he shall bear their iniquity. Now Paul, when he says that by him all who believe are justified from what the law of Moses couldn't, he's not saying that the law of Moses provided a measure of justification, a measure of forgiveness and righteousness with God, and then Jesus makes up the rest. He's saying the law of Moses can't justify you from anything. And if you are familiar with Paul's argument in Galatians, he deals with why God gave it. We don't have time to go there, but he deals with what the revelation of that law was for. It was not for our justification. But Jesus' finished work can justify you from everything. That's his point. The law of Moses cannot justify you from anything, but the finished work of Christ can justify you from everything if you believe. So God's grace to us, congregation, is the free gift of Christ's righteousness to us. To receive it, wear it, put it on, and to continue in it. Paul, and here's another place, Go from Galatians 3 and go to 2 Corinthians 3 this afternoon where Paul contrasts the glory of Moses and the glory of Christ, the glory of the old covenant, the glory of the new covenant. And what Paul was doing that morning when he preached to them Christ and Him crucified, he was ministering as a servant of Christ, ministering to this people righteousness, because there is no other righteousness. You don't have any. Nobody has any. There's only one righteousness that can justify. And that's Christ. That's what He did. And when you preach that, you are serving the people with righteousness, ministering it to them, holding it out to them. That is the only righteousness that can save us from the law's condemnation. Because every one of us are guilty before God of our own transgressions. Now notice, right, Paul includes here how you come to share in this righteousness, how you come to be justified. Everyone who believes is justified, says Paul. And I know if you've read the New Testament and read Paul's letters, that's a theme you hear over and over from the Apostle. But I want to make this clear to you this morning, too, because if you've been with us in the evening as we're going through Hebrews, I'm going to put everybody on the spot. I want to see by a raise of hand, who is the first person justified by faith in the Bible? Who thinks it's Abraham? Oh, I know, I shouldn't have put it that way first, because nobody's going to put it up. It's not Abraham. Who's the first person in the Bible justified by faith that we read about at least? Yeah, we don't read about Adam, but I think Mary Jo's right. Who's the second one? Abel! By faith he offered that better sacrifice, and God bore witness he was righteous. Not personally, because his sacrifice made him so right with God, because he had faith. And therefore he offered out of faith. But it was the faith. So justification by faith did not happen when Jesus came. Justification by faith has been around ever since God first promised to our sinful parents a Savior and made it clear, I don't justify anybody by what you do, I justify people by faith and my promise through Jesus Christ. That's it. The only way, ever been the only way. And so that's what we're talking about here this morning. Through Christ, and Paul loved to preach this, and we should love to preach this and understand this. Through Christ, who is that promised seed of Abraham, God is now bringing blessings to all the nations. Baptizing him right in that Holy Spirit that you can get by no way. You can crawl around Rome on your knees as many times as you want, you will never get one ounce of the Holy Spirit from God. And you can be the most wicked, defiled sinner there ever is. And you believe in Jesus Christ and He will bathe you in that Spirit of God and bless you. The law was never given to bring us life. Resurrected life is not something you and I, now as sinners, can work out and have through what we do. Resurrected life was promised to us by God and guaranteed us through the Savior Jesus. And everybody who believes in Him, put Him on, are sons of God and heirs of this promise. You are heirs of it, heirs of eternal life. Not earners of eternal life, heirs of eternal life, because you've entrusted yourself entirely to the Savior Jesus. Now, as our catechism tells us, All who believe in Christ are righteous in Christ before God and an heir of eternal life. It asks the question, right, what benefit do you have through believing? And here it gives you that benefit, that benefit of faith, justification. to eternal life, justification to a bodily resurrection forever in God's presence and glory in His kingdom. Nothing less than that. That's what it means when the Bible says you've been justified to life. You have been justified to a bodily resurrection with Christ in His kingdom forever, bathing in the life and light and glory of God. That's what you've been justified to by faith. But notice here Paul's approach to how he preaches the gospel. I'll just kind of point this out as an extra little bonus piece. Our catechism doesn't deal with it, but it's helpful to us as we actually saw Luke's recording for you an actual sermon, an actual way the gospel and the congregation was evangelized with the good news. And notice what Paul did right first in that sermon, he preached to them the Redeemer Jesus. That's what he starts with. He preaches the Redeemer, the promised Davidic Messiah. Jesus. He preaches his work that he did in suffering and dying and God raising him from the dead. And after he preached the Redeemer to them, then he preaches to them the benefits of redemption to all those who believe. He preaches the Redeemer, and then he preaches the benefits of redemption to those who believe in the Redeemer, Jesus. And I think that should just be starting it out there as we share the gospel, and some are called to do that. Take note of this and be a model. If you're going to evangelize people, you need to eventually get around to preaching the Redeemer Jesus to them. and the benefits of redemption in him. And I commend to you our shorter catechism, because it has questions of that very effect and spells them all wonderfully out for you. But you've got to preach the Redeemer, Jesus, and then the promise of the benefits of those redemptions, those who believe, right? Forgiveness of sins, justification, everlasting life, right? Now, I know that you all are aware of how important this morning's teaching is. Many of you probably have heard, you know, Luther's famous dictum, right? That justification by faith is the article that the church stands or falls. So I'm going to take some time this morning explaining it because it's extremely important. As again, as I said at the very beginning, justification by faith. is no different than continuing in the grace of God. If you're not here being justified by faith, you are not continuing in God's grace. You want to do something. You want to bring something to God. You want to have some reason before God why He should bless you and reward you and accept of you. But there isn't grace. Grace is what God offers the sinners. Grace. Continuing in grace. So first, then, I want to talk about justification in a general way, just what it is, because I may have been using this word for like 10 minutes now, and you may be going, what is he talking about? And then what's the big deal about righteousness, right? What does righteousness matter to us? Why does it matter to us? And then we'll end, as the catechism does, on a little bit about justification by faith alone. So what is justification? Justification is the process of declaring a person to be righteous. It's a legal term. That means its context is a court of law where there is a law, there's a judge, and there's one or more parties. And you can see that process in Deuteronomy 25 verse 1. You can turn there, I'll just read it to you. In Deuteronomy 25 verse 1 we read, If there is a dispute between men, and they come to court, that the judges may judge them, and they justify the righteous and condemn the wicked, then it shall be, and the then it shall be just goes on to spell out and limit the punishment that a condemned man may receive, the forty lashes. But the importance is what's here in verse one. Notice this first. Justification and condemnations are the actions of a judge. If there's a dispute between men, and they come to court, that the judges may judge them, and then the judges justify the righteous, or they condemn the wicked. So justification, just as much as condemnation, is a ruling by a judge. You will either, when you go before a judge, you will either be justified, quitted, or you'll be condemned, found guilty. And the next, notice that this action of a judge in either justifying you in whatever your legal case is, or in condemning you, the result of that judgment, or excuse me, the result of the judge's judgment is either your justification or your condemnation. There's a dispute, they go to court, the judges hear it, they judge it, and then they render a verdict, justified or condemned. Because a judge does not know whom to justify or whom to condemn until he's reached a judgment in the dispute. He's got to hear the case first. He's got to try the evidence. But once he's determined whether an individual is righteous or wicked, whether he's been conformed to the law or not conformed to the law by his actions, he will either condemn that wicked person, give them an adverse ruling, sentence them, or he will justify the righteous person and give them a favorable ruling, acquitting them. In neither case, notice this, and if you're aware of all the Reformation debates, you're going to be queuing in, In neither case does the judge's action of justifying a person or condemning a person make them either righteous or wicked. They came before the judge either righteous or wicked. They either did it or they didn't do it. His action of justifying or his action of condemning you merely declares their legal status, guilty or not guilty. The condemned person is said to be guilty and sentenced to punishment, and the justified person is acquitted, and he's free to go. That is what justification is. It's the statement by the judge saying, you're free to go. Because in the eyes of the law, you are righteous by your deeds. Now we're talking about an earthly court here. You can see then how important righteousness is. Personal righteousness, that's you doing right or wrong, well not wrong because that's not righteousness, you doing what's right, is important because in an earthly courtroom it's the basis for your legal righteousness. You're being declared justified by the judge. And this justification is important, your legal righteousness, because it means you're not liable to any of the law's punishment, but you're free to go and enjoy a happy life. Let me give you an example. You and I can think of cases in the Bible or just real-life cases where an innocent man is condemned. Personally, he's righteous. Yet in the eyes of the law, he's condemned by a wicked judge. Or you could think of the opposite, right? A wicked man is justified. He is let off. Personally, he's a crook, and everybody knows he's a crook. Yet in the eyes of the law, by that same wicked judge, he's justified because the judge said, not guilty. Therefore, he's not liable to any censure of the law. Now, right, if truth reigned in earthly courts, only the personally righteous would be justified and acquitted. Only the personally wicked would be condemned. That's what God wants in earthly courts. But the point I'm trying to stress is that legal righteousness matters. Only those who are justified. Remember, justification is not something you can declare for yourself. It's something the judge declares for you. Legal righteousness. Justification matters because it means in the eyes of the law, you're free to go. No punishment. You can pursue life, liberty, and happiness in these United States. Now that's the earthly core, right? But that is not gonna fly in God's heavenly court. In fact, God has done something for us so that you and I would never come before him in ourselves. You know what that is? Here's my second pop quiz. What has God done for us so that you and I would never come before him in ourselves? He gave us the law. Paul put it this way. Therefore the law was our tutor. until Christ. The phrase to bring us to Christ is implied. If you have an old King James version, you'll notice it's in italics, meaning it's supplied. It could easily be translated, the law was until Christ. Why? Why was the law? That we might be justified by faith. and not by the works of the law. God gave you the law so you would never come before Him to be justified in His heavenly court. Because you know the verdict right now, as Paul says in Romans 3.19, the law shuts everybody's mouths and we might all be held guilty before God. Let us never come before God and His heavenly court by our own works. You already know the verdict. Condemn. God put the Jewish people, until Christ should come under the law, that it might be clear to all, and that they would be the most fervent preachers of Christ themselves, that justification is not by these, who can do them, but by faith in Christ. You know, the opposite of saying you're justified is to say you're not condemned. That's what Paul said in Romans 8.1, there was no more condemnation. In Christ. Why is that? Because you are justified in Christ. They're the opposite of each other. You are either justified or you are condemned. The Greek word for the word tutor in that passage, Zola was our tutor, paidagogos, means boy ward. You know what a ward is? Someone that keeps you in custody. It's a hyphenated term. It's two terms in the Greek. Boy ward. Both in Athens, Greece, and in Rome, a slave was assigned to a child to take him to school and back home. And that slave was called a paedagogos, or a boy warden. He didn't teach. He constrained the child. He goes, you know what children want to do? They don't want to go to school. They want to play on the playground. And that whole slave's job was to bring that child to school and back, to constrain him. shut him in, give him no liberty. That was the law of Moses. Living under that law should leave a person longing for a Savior and not savoring in self-righteousness. Unfortunately, that wasn't the case in Jesus' day. As we read in that parable, it was not the Pharisee with all his works that he can muster up before God, who was declared righteous and accepted with God, but it was the publican, the tax collector, with his plea for mercy. He's the one who was justified, pronounced not guilty, acquitted, free to go. You know, one of my maybe a verse you can just, kind of I think sums it up, just puts it in the wonderful way the Old Testament was meant to teach us Christ's way is Leviticus 1, verse 3. If his offering is a burnt offering from the herd, he shall offer a male without blemish. He shall bring it to the entrance of the tent of meeting. Why? That he may be accepted before the Lord. All our acceptance before the Lord is not in anything we do, ever shall do, but in what Jesus has done, the Lamb of God. Our acceptance with God is by the Lamb of God. And all who believe in the Lamb of God are accepted with God. They are righteous in his sight. Now what I love is how much the publican's plea there, as our Savior taught us, fits perfectly with what our catechism describes of how a person is righteous before God by faith alone. Read these words again from our catechism. It says, even though my conscience accuses me of having grievously sinned against all God's commandments, of never having kept any of them, and by the way, Paul in Romans 3, because they're quoting Romans 3 here, that's every single human being. Notice how there's hope already for every sinner by these words, all under sin, none righteous, no not one. and of still being inclined towards all evil. You may have received a new heart from God. You probably found out you're still inclined towards evil. Let me ask you, is it easier for you to sin or do what's right? What comes more natural to you, to lose your temper with your brother, your spouse, or your wife, or to be patient and keep your mouth shut? I think we know the answer. Even though I'm still inclined towards all evil, I never kept this law, I can't keep this law, I'm still inclined towards all evil. Nevertheless, without any merit of my own, out of sheer grace. What they mean by that is only grace. God grants the gift, credits to me the perfect satisfaction. Jesus is suffering in my place and satisfying the law. His perfect righteousness as He submitted Himself His whole life to God in obedience from womb to tomb. His holiness. All of that God gives to me as if I had never sinned or been a sinner. As if I had been as perfectly obedient as Christ who was obedient for me. And there they're thinking of Paul, he was raised for a justification that we might share in that righteousness he obtained by his death. or Paul when he says that we might be made the righteousness of God in Christ. If only I accept this gift with a believing heart. You can be that wicked and accept with a believing heart the grace of God and be justified in His sight. When you go before God, congregation, Do you go as the Pharisee, touting your works, finding some reason in yourself why God should hear any word you say to Him? Or do you go as a publican, casting yourself upon God's mercy? If only I accept this gift of the believing heart. That's quite a gift to accept. Grievously sinning against all God's commandments, never having kept any of them. Who here wants to stand up and say they've actually kept one commandment as God wants it kept? Still inclined towards evil, yet clothed in the perfect righteousness of Christ, as if that holy life had always been my holy life. It comes as no surprise to me then that we read in Acts 13, 42. So when the Jews went out of the synagogue after they heard that, the Gentiles, who are they? The nations that never knew a God of grace. Read pagan literature. You'll find out how horrifying their gods were. Never knew a God of grace. Begged that these words might be preached to them the next Sabbath. You know, I ask, congregation, would you like these words to be preached to you next Lord's Day too? Yes. What kind of God freely forgives idolaters, blasphemers, sabbath breakers, despisers of his authority, murderers and adulterers and all every kind of sexually immoral person, thieves and slobs and wasteful gamblers and liars and people so happy and discontent or so grumbly and mean and say nasty things to each other? Do you forgive those people? What kind of God says, you know, before me, all of them are righteous in Christ. None of them shall come into judgment with me. I have nothing, my law says nothing against them but that they're righteous. Their case is settled. All time justified. What kind of God accepts wicked people as righteous in his sight? What kind of God eats with sinners and tax collectors and prostitutes? What kind of God gives up his own beloved son to be condemned to death and executed on a cross for sinners? Lawless people want nothing to do with keeping his law, but just want to do what they want as a payment for their sin. What kind of God accepts us by faith alone? It almost sounds scandalous. No, sure, there has to be something I can do to make all this right. What kind of God accepts us before we fix ourselves up? Who accepts us as the very wretches that we are? What kind of God accepts a sinner who believes in his son? You know, that is the scandal of the cross. That is the grace that turned this whole world upside down 2,000 years ago. That's the grace that makes self-righteous men say, this can't be just. God would never do such a thing. But he has. God declared it back in the prophet Isaiah this morning. The God who did this congregation is the only God there is. a just God and a Savior. There is none besides me." Do you know, at the time of this prophecy, Israel was in captivity in Babylon for all their heinous crimes? You can read the prophets, they detail them for you. Nasty, grievous, people we would find desperate to forgive. At this time, all the nations were lost in darkness, sunk into total depravity, utterly proud because they cast this God off and think they're so wise and have made all these gods for themselves. And yet, you know what God's word is? Look to me and be saved. All you ends of the earth. But why? What is there in God that can save us? What are we to look to? He that is the one who looks to this God shall say, Surely in the Lord I have righteousness and strength. To him men shall If you have not come to Jesus yet, come to Him. Surely, and I testify with whatever you want to accept as my testimony, the truth to this statement, that there is righteousness and strength in Jesus Christ. I wish you could have met me 15 years ago. You'd see the difference. there is righteousness and strength in Jesus Christ. God has opened for us, congregation, a whole fount of grace. All the righteousness you need is found in Him, Him crucified for you as your sin-bearer. All the strength that you need to live an upright life, He has given to you. Because apart from this God, we sink low and low and low and low in our sin, and we have no strength to get out. The power of the resurrection is found in the Lord Jesus. My word, then, in closing, my exhortation to you, congregation, build yourselves up on this faith, this grace, The Lord's Supper, which we're going to in a minute, teaches us what faith is, right? It's receiving. You take Christ crucified who is offered for you. You take the grace offered to you. In 2 Corinthians 6, do not receive the grace of God in vain, because today is the day of salvation. Now is the acceptable time. God will hear your plea for mercy. God will hear you and accept you today if you believe. Continue fervently in prayer and the Holy Spirit which you've received when you accepted this grace congregation. Continue to keep yourselves in this God's love for you as He first loved you. And as you serve him here, continuing in this grace, keep your eyes fixed on the glory to come in Christ and looking for the mercy to be given to you in that day. And lastly, do what God says his people will do there in Isaiah. He says, the house of Israel will be justified. And you know what they'll do? Glory. You know what we should do when we hear what Christ has done for us? We should all stand up and shout, hallelujah. Take your eyes off yourself and put them on Christ's achievement, because that's what you were called to build on. You can celebrate and cartwheel and shout and hoorah for the glory to come right now, not because you believe so hard or did anything. because of what Christ has done, which is yours by faith. All who believe have this said of them, I am righteous in Christ before God and an heir of life everlasting.