February 22, 2009 SOVEREIGN GRACE BAPTIST CHURCH Of Princeton, New Jersey
Hebrews 13: 9: Be not carried about with divers and strange doctrines. For it is a good thing that the heart be established with grace; not with meats, which have not profited them that have been occupied therein.
MEETING LOCATION Rocky Hill Firehouse, 2nd floor 150 Washington Street, Rocky Hill, NJ, 08553
SCHEDULE OF SERVICES Sunday 10 AM Bible Class 11 AM Morning Worship Thursday 7:00 PM Mid-week Service
Clay Curtis, Pastor 7 Birch Street Pennington, New Jersey, 08534 Phone: 615-513-4464 Email: clay@sovereign-grace.us
Willingness and Ability Romans 7: 24: O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death? 25: I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin.
A believer is made willing to trust Christ Jesus alone by the power of the Lord Jesus Christ working within. (Ps 110: 3; Joh 3: 27) Paul said, "I delight in the law of God after the inward man." (v22.) The law of God is the word of God spoken from the beginning to the end of his holy word. Throughout, God declares that the only way sinners can please him is through faith in his Son (Joh 6: 29; Ps 2: 12; Mt 17: 5.) The good thing which every believer desires in the inward man is to trust Christ alone and to ignore this sin-filled flesh. Paul said, "To will is present with me." (v18.) He says, "With the mind I myself serve the law of God." (v25.) This is a willingness that does not exist in the naturally generated, sin-dead flesh of man.
Still, even in the inward man, willingness is not the same as ability. Paul said, "For to will is present with me, but how to perform that which is good I find not." (v18.) When Paul says, "what I would" he speaks of the willingness given to him in the inward man created by Christ Jesus (v15.) When he says "it is no more I that do it" he says that it is no longer the inward man which is the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus abiding within him which sins (v17; Ro 8: 2.) When Paul says, "but sin that dwelleth in me" he speaks of the naturally generated person of the flesh (v17.) Paul says that he delights to simply trust Christ alone in the inner man, but his old fleshly desire (that desire to sin against God in immorality then to think we have made-up for it by our deeds of righteousness) brings him into captivity. He has a will to trust Christ alone, and to turn from his flesh, but because of the flesh, he does not have the ability even to do that without the power of Christ.
Believers are left in the flesh so as to behold this captivity to our flesh continually by God's grace. The Spirit sanctifies to us the reality that we are so completely unable to save ourselves from ourselves so that he forces from our hearts the confession, "O wretched man that I am. Who shall deliver me from this body of death?" Over and over again the Spirit makes us to behold that just as Christ put away the guilt of our sin at Calvary and made us the righteousness of God in him (Ro 7: 4; 8: 1), just as the Spirit which raised Christ from the dead will one day raise our mortal bodies (Ro 8: 10, 11), even now it is only the Spirit of life in Christ who continually delivers us from our present daily captivity to our sinful flesh (Ro 8: 12, 13.)
Thus we are renewed day-by-day into the precious rest and resolve that we are in the Spirit not in the flesh (Ro 8: 9; 2 Cor 4: 16.). We rest in the fact that we serve God in the inner man and still only serve sin in this flesh (v25.) This amazing inner working of the Spirit of Christ is what it is for a believer to be led of the Spirit, to walk in newness of Spirit, and to mortify this flesh. The only way we regard our flesh as truly dead is by the Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are the sons of God in Christ Jesus our Lord (Ro 8: 14-17)
Hebrews 13: 9: Be not carried about with divers and strange doctrines. By John Trapp Error is a precipice, a vortex, or whirlpool, which first turns men round, and then sucks them in.
Hebrews 13: 8: Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever. By Robert Hawker Precious truth to open the year with, and to keep constantly in view amidst all the fluctuating and changeable circumstances arising both within and without, and all around! My soul, meditate upon it: fold it up in thy bosom to have recourse to as may be required. Contemplate thy Redeemer as he is here described. He is Jesus, thy Jesus; a Savior, for he shall save his people from their sins. He is Christ also; God thy Father's Christ, and thy Christ: the Anointed, the Sent, the Sealed of Jehovah. He is the same in his glorious Person, the same in his great salvation:--"Yesterday;" looking back to everlasting: "To-day;" equally so through all the periods of time: "For ever;" looking forward to the eternity to come. And, blessed thought, he is the same in his love, in the efficacy of his redemption; his blood to cleanse, his righteousness to justify, his fullness to supply grace here and glory hereafter. And what sums up the precious thought; amidst all thy variableness, thy frames, thy fears, doubts, and unbelieving, he abideth faithful. He is, he will be, and he must be, Jesus. Hallelujah!
ESTABLISHED WITH GRACE Hebrews 13: 9: For it is a good thing that the heart be established with grace...
Man's teachings are varied but God's gospel of grace is one unchangeable word. The doctrines of men are foreign to the word of God; God's word of grace is one with his essential character. Man's teachings carry men about in the flesh; grace establishes the heart. Man's teachings are unprofitable; the doctrine of grace gives unsearchable riches. Man's doctrines teach salvation by every man's servitude; the grace of God, and the gift by grace,is by one man, Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and today and forever.
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