Sovereignty of God

Christ Deigns to be Our Example

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, Sovereignty of God 3 Comments

Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children. – Ephesians 5:1

The first thing about a Christian is initiation, initiation into Christ: the next thing is imitation, the imitation of Christ. We cannot be Christians unless we are in Christ; and we are not truly in Christ unless in Him we live and move and have our being, and the life of Christ is lived over again by us according to our measure. “Be ye imitators of God, as dear children.” It is the nature of children to imitate their parents. Be ye imitators; of Christ as good soldiers, who cannot have a better model for their soldierly life than their Captain and Lord. Ought we not to be very grateful to Christ that He deigns to be our example? If He were not perfectly able to meet all our other wants, if He were an expiation and nothing else, we should glory in Him as our atoning sacrifice, for we always put that to the front, and magnify the virtue of His precious blood beyond everything: but at the same time we need an example, and it is delightful to find it where we find our pardon and justification. They that are saved from the death of sin need to be guided in the life of holiness, and it is infinitely condescending on the part of Christ that He becomes an example to such poor creatures as we are. It is said to have been the distinguishing mark of Caesar as a soldier that he never said to his followers “Go!” but he always said “Come!” Of Alexander, also, it was noted that in weary marches he was sure to be on foot with his warriors, and in fierce attack’s he always was in the van. The most persuasive sermon is the example which leads the way. This certainly is one trait in the Good Shepherd’s character, “when He putteth forth His own sheep He goeth before them.” If Jesus bids us do anything, He first does it Himself. He would have us wash one another’s feet; and this is the argument-“Ye call Me Master and Lord, and ye say well; for so I am. If I, then, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet, ye also ought to wash one another’s feet.” Shall we not do as He does whom we profess to follow? He has left His footprints that we may set our feet in them.Will we not joyfully fix our feet upon this royal road? ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1732.cfm

Joined to Christ

Sherry Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, Sovereignty of God Leave a comment

“He that saith he abideth in Him ought himself also so to walk, even as He walked.”- 1John 2:6

He that saith he abideth in Him: “-that is exactly what every Christian does say. He cannot be a Christian unless this be true of him, and be cannot fully enjoy his religion unless he assuredly knows that he is in Christ, and can boldly say as much. We must be in Christ, and abidingly in Christ, or else we are not saved in the Lord. It is our union with the Christ that makes us Christians: by union with Him as our life we truly live, live in the favour of God. We are in Christ, dear brethren, as the manslayer was in the city of refuge: I hope that we can say we abide in Him as our sanctuary and shelter. We have fled for refuge to Him who is the hope set before us in the gospel; even as David and his men sheltered themselves in the caves of En-gedi, so we hide ourselves in Christ. We each one sing, and our heart goes with the words-

“Rock of ages, cleft for me,
Let me hide myself in Thee.”

We have entered into Christ as into the shadow of a great rock in a weary land; as a guest into a banquet-hall, as returning travellers into their home. And now we abide-in Christ in this sense, that we are joined to Him : as the stone is in the wall; as the wave is in the sea; as the branch is in the vine; so are we in Christ… Today we remain in Christ, and hope for ever to remain in Him, as our Head. Ours is no transient union; while He lives as our Head we shall remain His members. We are nothing apart from Him. As a finger is nothing without the head, as the whole body is nothing without the head, so should we be nothing without our Lord Jesus Christ. But we are in Him vitally, and therefore we dare ask the question, “Who shall separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord?” ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1732.cfm

That Holy and Blessed Doctrine

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, promises, Sovereignty of God 1 Comment

And looking upon Jesus as He walked, he saith, Behold the Lamb of God! – John 1:36

John said in his preaching, “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.” He pointed out Christ as the Sin-bearer, bearing human guilt in His own person. That is the master-key which lets men into the kingdom of heaven. Oh! how I do delight to preach Christ as the Substitute, Christ as the atoning sacrifice; and when you have heard Christ preached in that way, it makes you ready, “a people prepared for the Lord.” How can men come to Christ if they do not know what Christ has done for them? If you do not understand that He suffered in your stead, the Just for the unjust, to bring you to God, how can you come to Christ? But when you have learned that holy and blessed doctrine of Christ’s propitiation for human sin, why, then, methinks, you will leap at the very sound of it, and say, “Yes, I will take this propitiation to be a sacrifice for me. Blessed Lamb of God-

“‘My faith would lay her hand
On that dear head of Thine,
While like a penitent I stand
And there confess my sin.'”

My friend, you have come to the cross-roads; peradventure, if you reject the Saviour, it will be your last rejection of Him, and it will finally seal your doom; and I am sure, with no peradventure whatever, that if you look to Jesus, and trust to His finished work, you shall be saved, and saved for ever. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2404.cfm

Expectation is Divinely Fulfilled

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, salvation, Sovereignty of God Leave a comment

When His disciples heard it, they were exceedingly amazed, saying, Who then can be saved? But Jesus beheld them, and said unto them, With men this is impossible; but with God all things are possible. – Matthew 19:25, 26

I remember a man coming one day to see me, and he said that he wished to take a sitting in the Tabernacle. He had been hearing me for some time, and he wanted to take a seat; but he desired to be very honest with me, and not to take a seat except upon a right understanding. I asked, “What is the difficulty, my friend?” “Well,” he replied, “the person who sat next to me on Sunday told me that, if I became a regular hearer here, you would expect me to be converted.” “Well,” I answered, “that is true, I shall expect it.” “But,” said he, “you do not mean that you will require it of me.” “Oh, dear no! “I replied, “nothing of the sort; I do not expect you to convert yourself; but I hope and trust that you will be converted, that is what I mean. I shall expect that God, in His grace, will meet with you and save you.” ” Oh!” he said, “I hope that, too; only I mean that I could not guarantee it.” “Ah!” I said, “I see that you have taken the word ‘expect’ in the wrong sense; but I think, dear friend, that if you come expecting to be converted, and I preach expecting that you will be converted, it is highly probable that it will soon take place.” “Oh!” he exclaimed, “God grant it!” The good brother has long since gone to heaven. A very few weeks after our conversation, he came and told me that the expectation in which we had united had been fulfilled, and he trusted that he had found the Saviour. When people come really expecting a blessing, they will be sure to get it. I do believe that some folk go to hear ministers with the idea that there will be something to find fault with, and, of course, they find that it is so; and when people come to hear another preacher, with the hope and expectation that God will bless them, of course God does bless them. Their expectation is divinely fulfilled. I have always a bright hope that a man will lay hold on Christ when he begins to expect to be saved, for he feels then that the time has come for him to find eternal life.~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2404.cfm

God’s Continuous Work of Grace

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, Sovereignty of God Leave a comment

And you, that were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled… – Colossians 1:21

Believer, you will find that the world does not suit you as it once did. You will be out of your element, pining for another world; for there must needs be a new world to suit a new creature. Do you feel pantings after the new world? God will not give you what He has not taught you to long for, but your cravings and longings are the shadows of the coming mercy. Ask yourselves whether you know these mysteries. If you do not, may the Lord teach you; and if you do, praise and bless His name!..May I press upon every one to search himself, whether he knoweth what this being made a new creature means!

Our subject excites hope in the Christian. If God has made a new creature of him, which is the greatest work of grace, will He not do the lesser work of grace-namely, make the new creature grow up unto perfection? If the Lord has turned you to Himself, never be afraid that He will leave you to perish. If He had meant to destroy you, He would not have done this for you. God does not make creatures for annihilation. Chemists tell us that though many things are resolved into their primary gases by fire, yet there is not a particle less matter on the earth today than there was when it was created. No spiritual life that comes from God is ever annihilated. If you have obtained it, it never shall be taken from you-it shall be in you a well of water springing up unto everlasting life. If when you were an enemy, God looked upon you in grace, and changed you, and made you what you now are, will He not now that you are reconciled continue to preserve and nurture you till He presents you faultless before His presence with exceeding great joy? The Lord grant it to you!~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0881.cfm

The Life Divine

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, Sovereignty of God Leave a comment

But is now made manifest by the appearing of our Saviour Jesus Christ, who hath abolished death, and hath brought life and immortality to light through the gospel. – 2 Titus 1:10

This world’s a dream, an empty show; there is nothing lasting beneath the stars, everything of seeming joy soon palls upon the mind. Take to study, and ransack all the learned tomes, and your mind will soon be satiated with knowledge. Take to travel, and behold the fairest realms, climb the summits of the Alps, or traverse the valleys with all their picturesque beauty, and you will soon say, “I have exhausted all, I know it, I am weary of it.” Follow what pursuit you will, like Solomon you may get to yourself gardens and palaces, singing men and singing women; or you may, if your folly be great enough, give yourself to wine; or if you will, addict yourself to commerce; but of the whole you will say ere long, “Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.” The world is but a mirage; it melts, it disappears as the traveller passes on, and mocks his thirst with the deceptive image of the true. But, beloved, the spiritual life is not so. There is a freshness, a vivacity, a force, an energy, a power about it that never grows stale. He that prayed yesterday with joy, shall pray in fifty years’ time, if he be on earth, with the selfsame delight. He that loves his Maker, and feels his heart beat high at the mention of the name of Jesus, shall find as much transport in that name, if he lives to the age of Methuselah, as he doth now. Year by year its sweets grow sweeter, its lights grow brighter, its novelties grow fresher, its joys more joyous, and its exhilarations more intense. We dance yet before the ark. While heart and flesh are failing the spirit gathers new strength, and joy gathers growing force. Let us seek after this new creatureship, this new power, this fresh life, this ever-vigorous youth, that laughs at decrepit earth and worn out time; this new life which counts even sun, and moon, and stars, but dying things, like flickering lamps smoking out their lives for want of oil; while the life divine, since it is fed by God, wears within it a secret immortality which death, and hell, and time, cannot impair.~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0881.cfm

God’s Workmanship

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, repentance, salvation, Sovereignty of God, The Holy Spirit 1 Comment

…behold, all things are become new.- 2 Corinthians 5:17

In the creation of the old world God first gave light, and afterwards He created life-the life that crept, the life that walked, the life that dived, the life that flew in the midst of heaven. So hath He wrought in our hearts; He hath given us the life that creeps upon the ground in humiliation for sin; the life that walks in service, the life that swims in sacred waters of repentance, the life that flies on the wings of faith in the midst of heaven; and, as God separated the light from the darkness, and the dry land from the sea, so in the new creature He hath separated the old depravity from the new life. He hath given to us a holy and incorruptible life which is for ever separated from, and opposed to, the old natural death; and at last, when the old creation was all but finished, God brought forth man in His own image as the topstone. A like work He will do in us as His new creatures. Having given us light, and life, and order, He will renew in us the image of God. Yea, that image is in every man who is in Christ Jesus at this hour.

Dost thou know what it is to be under God’s hand, and to be wrought by God’s workmanship? Strangers to God must be strangers to heaven. Beloved, if you have no more religion than you have worked out in yourself, and no more grace than you have found in your nature, you have none at all. A supernatural work of the Holy Ghost must be wrought in every one of us, if we would see the face of God with acceptance… I pray God His truth may go right through and through your souls like refining fire, and may you not be satisfied unless a true new birth, the work of the living God, be really in your possession even now. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0881.cfm