Christ Will Keep You

The transcript is a message delivered by Pastor Jason Booth at Redeemer Church in Piketon, Ohio. The main ideas discussed are that Jesus is the bread of life, whoever believes in Him will have eternal life, and He will never lose or cast out those whom the Father has given Him. The message emphasizes that salvation is based on the finished work of Jesus and not on our own efforts. It criticizes the idea that salvation can be earned or maintained through human works. The transcript encourages a reliance on God's grace and the eternal security of believers in Christ. The following message is brought to you by the people of Redeemer Church of Piketon, Ohio. For more information, please visit RedeemerPiketon.org. And now, here's Pastor Jason Booth with the message. I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst. But I said to you that you have seen me and yet do not believe. All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out. For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of Him who sent me. And this is the will of Him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that He has given me, but raise it up on the last day. For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in Him should have eternal life, and I will raise Him up on the last day. So the Jews grumbled about Him because He said, I am the bread that came down from heaven. They said, Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How does He now say, I have come down from heaven? Jesus answered them, Do not grumble among yourselves. No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up on the last day. As it is written by the prophets, and they will all be taught by God. Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me. Not that anyone has seen the Father except he who is from God. He has seen the Father. Truly, truly I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate manna in the wilderness, and they died. This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh. We trust the Lord will add His own blessings to the public reading of His infallible word. Amen, Amen, Amen. The title of the message this morning is Christ Will Keep You. Christ Will Keep You. I am thankful that we serve a Savior with healing in His wings. For of what use would a Savior be if ultimately He could not save? Why would we give Christ these glorious titles? Redeemer, Savior, Friend Who Sticks Closer Than a Brother, The Good Shepherd, The Gate, The Door, The Way, The Truth, The Life. We give Him these grandiose titles. He assigns many of them to Himself in the Scriptures. These titles would be meaningless if He was not also the great Keeper of His people. He keeps us in an eternal state of union and peace with God. This preacher knows that we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. This peace is not established on our own righteousness. This peace is not established based on the doings or not doings of our human efforts and works. But rather, this righteousness is built entirely on the finished work of Jesus Christ on the cross of Calvary. Beloved, He will keep you. He will keep you. Speaking to the eternal nature and scope of Christ's work, the Scriptures record Christ promising to raise each and every one of His own on the last day. We read it in our Scripture lesson. He says in chapter 6, verse 37, So let's begin there. Christ could not be called the great Savior if He could not save. And the first lesson we learn in our key text is that Christ will be given a people from the Father. All that the Father gives me. How many will Christ lose of those whom the Father has given Him? The Scripture says, I will, listen now, all that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out. How many will He lose, beloved? None. He is a keeping Savior. He is a friend of friends. He's altogether lovely. And He does have healing in His wings. What does this mean? It means when Christ comes in on the scene, something changes. And the change is in what we consider righteousness. The repentance is our repentance of all the stupid, dead, earthly things that we thought commended us to God. Godly repentance causes us to say as Paul, that everything, I count my life as dung. I count my righteousness as filthy rags. I look only to Christ for my righteousness. And the Scripture promises us here that He will lose none of us. He will never cast us out. Oh, I'm telling you right now, if you want to stir the ire of the internet theologians, go online and say something as controversial as this, Jesus saves and keeps His people. And they will come out of the woodwork with their knives sharp and ready to attack. Why? Because they are yet in love with the works of their own hands. They do not know the Lord in the full pardon of their sins. For if they knew and believed the gospel that I preach and believe, the true and saving gospel, they would know that there is no room for boasting. Paul tells us it is excluded. And how could you not boast if one iota of your effort was credited to your account as part of your righteousness? You would spend all eternity in heaven going around telling people, Oh, I'm so glad I only watched PG rated movies. Oh, I'm so glad that I never had trans fat or I forsook pork products. Oh, I'm so glad that I went ahead and kept the earthly Sabbath days and the holidays. And I'm so glad I only wore these kind of clothes and used these words and only did this or did that. Do you realize that every time someone looks to the works of their own hands, they are taking their eyes off of the finished work of Christ? The Scripture doesn't say we will keep ourselves. The Scripture says He will keep us. The Scripture says that God the Father has given Christ a people. And of all those whom God has given the Son, He will lose none. He will not cast you out. He will not lose any. And the Scripture goes on to tell us that He has come to do the will of the Father. Verse 39 says, And this is the will of Him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that He has given me. Well, praise the Lord. He is a keeping Savior with healing in His wings. And He will not lose any of His own. But it goes further. The Scripture says as if to put a giant period at the end of this sentence that cannot be broken by the silly traditions of carnal, idolatrous man. The Scripture says He will lose none, none of all that God has given Him, but raise it up on the last day. This salvation is eternally secure in Christ for Christ's sake. And not our works, not our efforts, not our doings and not doings. This is the work of God that you believe on Jesus whom He has sent. And when we spend eternity in His presence, we will shout, Glory, hallelujah, this is the work of God. Thanks be to God. Glory to God. Soli Deo Gloria. To the glory of God alone. Hallelujah. So many would have their people scared to death that they could lose their salvation at every turn. Let me tell you. If you came to God thinking that something you did caused Him to save you, you didn't come to God. You didn't come to God the gospel way. The Bible says there's only one door. And if you try to enter in any other way, you are a thief and a robber. Now, I step on toes when I start talking about the exclusivity of sovereign grace gospel. But listen, there is no other gospel but the gospel that gives all the glory, all the praise to the finished work of our precious Savior, Jesus Christ. Any other gospel scheme or so-called gospel scheme that requires things from you in order to attain the righteousness that saves or to maintain the righteousness that saves is a phony imposter. It's the works of inhuman effort. It's stained with the same filthy rags that Isaiah told us that our righteousness was. That Paul told us his life was nothing. But he'd give it all away right now. He said he would even sacrifice his own soul for the sake of his people. He said of his earthly works that they are excluded. They tell their people, walk an aisle, say these magic words and this magic prayer. Give your life to Jesus. And how many people leave those religious societies masquerading as church buildings and they think to themselves, I made a profession of faith to Jesus. I gave Him my heart. I asked Jesus to come in and to live in my heart. And I super duper pinky promise not to sin anymore. And the preacher there told me that I am a Christian now. So long as I follow the church's rules. Now if you go and tell your friends that go to those kind of church societies, those religious societies, if you go and tell them that their gospel is the same gospel that you believe, you've got a problem. Because that's not the gospel. Oh, it's something. It is the best counterfeit the enemy of our souls has ever devised. It is not the gospel. And these are the same people who will tell those new initiates to their system, their works based system, that now they have to start doing all of these extra works to maintain their status as a Christian. Lest they lose their salvation and be redamned all over again. Oh, they'll tell me, you can't preach grace. People will go living like dogs. I want to look at them and say, you live like a dog. It is the height of arrogance and hypocrisy for any man to look another man in the eye and say, I live better than you do. Don't think for a moment that you can fool God with that mess. You don't live better than your neighbor. Oh, you might not have your own militia. You might not be in the jungles brewing up your legal drugs or trafficking people or physically harming others. But God knows what you are. And do not think for a moment that you are somehow of a better cut than your neighbor. You are not. If any man says he has no sin, the Scripture declares he is a liar. And the truth is not in him. So when someone comes to me and says, you've got to live holy, I look at them and say, oh, that's my desire. I love the Lord and I want to please the Lord. But I also know that in my flesh no good thing dwells. And it's a constant battle. But my battle for my Christian life is a labor of love for the Lord. He looks at me through the Scripture and He says, Jason, I love you. Don't do that. And when I do, I realize quickly that it was the wrong way to go. And what happens? The Lord uses the circumstances of life to bring us back around into His own will. You don't think God does that? Have you ever read the book of Jonah? Anybody? Anybody read the wilderness wanderings of the children of Israel? Those hard-hearted, idol worshipping at a moment's notice. Let's brew up a golden calf because Moses has been gone too long. Let's just forget this whole thing ever happened and start worshipping idols out in the middle of the wilderness. Children of Israel, perhaps you've heard of them. Oh, my. Our Scriptures are loaded with the accounts of our so-called heroes of the faith, right? We called them that and Scripture never did. The heroes of our faith are sinners just like us. Solomon took foreign wives. His father before him was a bloodthirsty warlord and warring leader who lusted after a woman, not his wife, and had her husband killed so he could take her. He wrote the Psalms, or most of them. And yet we live in a church world today that hypocritically says that, you know, if you do anything wrong, then we're going to publicly flay you alive and throw you out the back door. And, oh, we might let you come to church, but you're going to be useless for service in the kingdom anymore. Let me tell you, that is a lie of the legalist false gospel. Because if it took somebody qualified to do the job and sinless, I'm sorry, but the last person to walk this earth that could fulfill those qualifications, we crucify on Calvary Street. So this false gospel pervades our community. It's in every church on every corner. This idea that you got saved because you invited Jesus into your heart and as long as you tow the party line, then you'll be okay with Jesus. I even hear people stand up in church services around the community and they'll end their testimony like this, You pray for me because my heart desires that I make it to heaven one day. And I think to myself, what in the world did Jesus do for you if the last thought on your mind is, I hope I make it. When do you feel that way about an old car during a car trip? Do you feel that way when you're in a brand new Lincoln? Well, the new car smell is strong and every button on the dash is still stiff to the touch. And that car is just floating down the road. You've got a full tank of gas. The last thing you say is, boy, I hope this piece of junk gets me down the road. No, you don't. Why? Because you know you are well taken care of. That vehicle is well apportioned for your needs. Now, if you're in an old rattle box going down the road, and you can see through the floorboards down into the road, and that vehicle is sputtering and backfiring and rattling, and the tires all look like really worn baloney rinds. Now you might say, boy, I hope we make it. How many so-called false Christians, sincerely false, yet false nonetheless, are assuming that they're making their way to God's kingdom in some jalopy box that cannot possibly get them to where they want to go. So what do they do? They say, oh, I hope I make it. Their Christ is a weakling that cannot keep them. Their Christ is that old rough bucket to glory with holes in the bottom. Oh, and it gets better. If you don't drive it just right, the car is going to open the doors and fling you out because you're not worthy. Do you see how stupid this sounds? We've got churches preaching a so-called gospel that ultimately doesn't save. You can quote-unquote get saved at a local congregation in this community, and that same pastor will tell you, boy, I hope you stay saved. So nobody gets saved in those kind of churches. They're very gospel. Their so-called gospel absolutely contradicts any notion of assurance because they also believe that you can go right out the back door into your old life, into your old ways, into unbelief, and ultimately away from Christ for eternity. Christ, in their mind, will call you a son so long as you earn it. That is straight out of hell. That is a false gospel. That is false doctrine. And we ought not buddy-buddy with the churches that preach such heresy. Call it out! The Scriptures record Christ promising to raise each and every one of us. They can't preach John 6. Not in context. They can't read these precious verses in their church. You imagine what would happen if you stood in a typical church of Christ in Christian Union, and you just simply read the Word of the Lord, and this is the will of Him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that He has given me, but raise it up on the last day. You'd have people hissing in the pews. And all you did was read from the Word of the living God. I remember talking to an associate, someone I just met, an acquaintance. He looked at me and said, so, you don't believe in the second work of grace, do you? And I looked at him and said, I believe that Jesus has become for me my wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption. He looked at me and said, where did you get that idea? And I said, I just quoted Scripture to you. Another time, another acquaintance. You've got to keep the law if you think you're going to be holy in this life. And I said, Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to them that believe. And she said, where did you get that idea? And again, I said, it's the Word of the living God. My, my, my. My, my, my. It's not gospel if it doesn't keep you. It's not the work of Christ if it's not absolutely perfect in every instance and everywhere it is applied. The work of God is always perfect. Why? Because the yes and the amen are found in Him. You can't count on your neighbor. You can't count on anything in this world. Your finances will be good today, and you're one medical diagnosis away from bankruptcy tomorrow. You're one house fire away from being out in a tent or living at a Red Cross camp or, you know, boarding up with your in-laws. Shudder to thought, right? Beloved, His gospel work is perfect. We say finished work of Christ. I can tell you, I was raised in the Pentecostal religion. And I never, ever heard a message preached about grace. Oh, we use the word. Grace was the promiscuous love that Christ just slathered out there to the world on mass. He loves everybody. And anybody that wants to come to the party, you've got to make that choice. That's not what the Scripture says here. As a matter of fact, Jesus told them in verse 44, verse 43 says first, He said, Do not grumble among yourselves. Verse 44, No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. Speaking of getting run out of a 3-C-U church, there's another verse you could read that would probably cause that to happen. Or a Methodist church, if they even read the Bible there anymore. I don't know. I'm not a preacher. Why do you call names? Because we've got to label what we're talking about. If I knew of a poison, and I told you there is a poison at the grocery store, that if you consume it, it will harm you, possibly even kill you. And then I said, but because I want to be politically correct, I'm not going to name names. You would say, you monster. Tell us what you know. And so, yes, we name names. And no, we will not lock arms with Arminians. We will not lock arms with Lordship Salvationists. We will not lock arms with the works righteousness effect that this world, because of its fallen religious spirit, is so addicted to. But rather, we will remember the name of the Lord our God. Recall the psalm we read in our psalm lesson this morning. Some trust in chariots and horses. Well, what do you think works righteousness folks are always doing? They're trusting in the things they can do, or the things that they can attain, or the things they can possess. But the Scripture talks about how it is that none of those things keep us. It is only the keeping power of Christ that counts for time and eternity. How could Christ make such a promise? He promised in the Scripture that He would lose nothing of all that He has been given, but raise it up on the last day. He could not have made that promise if continuance in the faith was something that was foisted upon us. He would have said, so long as you serve Me faithfully, I will make sure that I get you in. That's not gospel truth. That's garbage. But thanks be to God, He can promise to keep us eternally because all conditions concerning righteousness were fulfilled in His redemptive work. People say, you can't just live like the devil and expect to make heaven your home. And I look right out and say, everything that I have ever done or ever will do has been paid for on the cross of Calvary. You fool, every sin you've ever committed happened after the cross. So it's funny to hear someone say, well, you think you can just go sin, and then Jesus would just make it alright. And I'm thinking to myself, Jesus made it alright 2,000 years ago. And I don't glory in the sin. I don't glory in that. But I freely confess my sinfulness. And then I look back to Calvary and I see a Savior. The balm of Gilead. The rose of Sharon. He who comes to make weak men strong, for His strength is made perfect in my weakness. I don't look to my sin and say, grace will abound all the more because I sin all the more. No, no, no. I look at the great heap of sin that is my life, and I look at that and then I say, woe is me! Who shall be able to deliver me from the body of this death? And then my eyes peer Calvary. And then I say as the Apostle said, but thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. And one day, beloved, we're not going to study war anymore. We're not going to sin anymore. We're going to be glorified when the Lord returns and He makes all things new. Do you think He's only making this world new? We're going to be glorified. And we shall be like Him. We do not know yet what we shall be, but we know this. We shall be like Him. All conditions are met in Christ. Calvary. Look to Calvary. Look to the cross. Jesus says, if I be lifted up, I'll draw all men unto Me. If you've been drawn to Him, who are you looking to? What are you looking to? You're looking to the cross of Christ, His finished work. It is God's will that none of Christ's sheep perish. The Scripture even says of rulers and kings, old and young, that God amongst His people is not willing that any should perish, but that all come to repentance. Do you think that God's will will be subverted by His creatures? Will the thing formed say to He who formed it, why have you made me thus? We don't have that kind of power. Thank God we don't. He is in control. And to that end, Christ's finished work on the cross satisfied the righteous requirements of the law for all of God's people. When Jesus died on the cross, what law did He leave unfulfilled? What penalty did He not pay? He covered it all. His blood covers it all. Colossians 2, 13 and 14 says it like this, And you who were dead in your trespasses and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our trespasses. How many of them did He forgive? All of them. How did He do it? Verse 14, By canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. What is our record of debt? The law! The Bible says, This He set aside. Now this is important. People will say, God just winked at Christians and let's get by with breaking His law. That's not the gospel truth either. Here's how He set the law aside. Nailing it to the cross. So when someone looks at you and says, How dare you think that you can just live and know beyond the shadow of a doubt that Jesus is going to save you, even though you're struggling with this sin or this thing or that thing. And I look right at them and say, He has taken all of the requirements of the law and nailed them to the cross. He has forgiven me of all trespasses and it cost God the Father everything to grant me life eternal. The debt has been paid. The debt has been paid. All conditions have been met and Christ will keep you. He will keep me. Christ promised to keep His sheep as butchers by His complete and finished work of having died to pay the sin debt of each and every person whom He would save. Colossians tells us that Christ canceled the record of debt, our sin, that stood against us. He nailed it to the cross. He nailed the requirements, the righteous requirements of the law that fulfilled in Him. All of the penalties of the law went with Christ to the grave. He, who knew no sin, became sin for us that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. Who am I but the righteousness of God in Jesus Christ by imputation? He's credited that to me and to you if you know Him. Christ paid the debt and makes us alive together with Him. If any man be in Christ, he's a new creature. The old things are passed away. What are the old things? Huh, the old ways of living. What do you mean, Preacher? I mean, looking to your own works, looking to your own efforts for righteousness. That's what I'm talking about. This idea that somehow you're going to be okay because you're better than your neighbor. Those are the things that are put to death during the new birth because now you realize that the only righteous one is Jesus Christ. Why do you think that the Roman centurion or the Roman soldier on Calvary's Hill looked at Christ and said, you know, truly this man was the Son of God? Why do you think that the thieves on the cross one, of course, wasn't going to have it because he wasn't called. He wasn't given to Jesus. But the other thief who was given to Jesus said, oh, would you remember me when you go to your kingdom? Why? These men saw Christ with regenerated eyes, the eyes of faith, the heart of belief. Believer, do you ever take stock in your life only to shudder at how terribly you fall short in your walk of faith? If you belong to Jesus, you freely confess this as a reality of everyday life. Do you struggle with assurance? Some of the most poisonous things ever said about assurance came out of the Puritans of all people. They tried to argue that assurance was something that you had to sort of drum up and fashion by the way you formulated your Christian life. Many of them, not all, but many of them preached this idea that you could grow in holiness. And so you cultivated this lifestyle of do's and do not's. That's how you maintain some sort of an assurance that God only granted to a certain select few. I believe that assurance is of the essence of saving faith. That's why John's Gospel and so many other places tell us, and these things I write unto you, that you may know you have eternal life. I'm so thankful that Jesus nailed the handwriting of requirements to that old cross, that He went my way, that God gave me to Jesus. He caused me to believe. He caused me to come when Jesus' Gospel reached me by the power of the Spirit. He gave me a heart to believe it. And then I confessed as He said to confess. And I said, Lord Jesus, I throw and repent of all that garbage that I thought made me righteous. And I look solely to You. That was the work of God that I believe on Jesus. And He did that work. For we are created in Christ Jesus unto good works that the Father hath prepared beforehand that we should walk therein. So sometimes you don't feel like you're measuring up. We say you're the hassle. You're not. Quit it. Quit looking here. And start looking above from whence cometh your help. You don't think Jesus knew what He bought? Not a one of you would buy a car without going around and looking at it, checking the tires. You know what you're getting. You think Jesus was going to be surprised when His eternal counsel that called you into fellowship with Him in the first place. He knows what He got. And He also knows that His blood will never lose its power. He's going to hold you fast. And you're going to have seasons of your life where, boy, you're just you're just swerving all over that road. That road to heaven, as it were. You're just doing your own thing. And then guardrails will come up. His providence will lead and guide and draw you right back, just like the prodigal. And when you're in a ditch, a good, healthy, well-balanced church will find you and pick you up out of that ditch, love you back into a right place where you know you can now feel spiritually strong enough to help a brother or sister in need. And we're going to take turns pulling each other out of the ditches of life until we go to glory. But we're going to do it with joy because we know that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the joy that shall be revealed in us, the glory that shall be revealed in us. Stop looking to your own feeble efforts for assurance. Don't look within, look above. Every time you find yourself saying, I just don't measure up, look to Christ and say, Lord God, thank you for saving me. Thank you for measuring up. Thank you for satisfying the law of God on my behalf. Moving on. The matter is settled forever by Christ's own work on the cross. And as you deal honestly with the sinful struggles in your life, which I encourage you to do, not sinning is a good thing. Not going out and living like a dog is a good thing. But thinking that you're not sinning and your doings and do nothings and your take not, handle not, touch not lifestyles, if you think that's your righteousness before God, then you've made the error. But if you're loving God, thanking Him for His work alone that gives you righteousness before God, and then He calls you, what? To love your neighbor. He calls you to love the brethren. These are good and holy things. Wonderful things. But don't ever look to your works for righteousness. Look to them as labors of love for the finished work that God has wrought in you through Christ. All conditions for life eternal with God are conditioned and fully fulfilled in the finished work of Jesus. So were there conditions to salvation? Absolutely. And who fulfilled them all? Jesus. All that the Father gives Him, He will no wise cast out, but raise them up on the last day. This is gospel peace in a world of turmoil. This is assurance in a world where nothing is guaranteed. This is the power of God in Christ, even the salvation of our souls. And we trust the Lord will add His own blessing to the public word and to His preaching, to this gospel preaching today for our good and for His glory. Amen. Amen. You have just heard a message from Pastor Jason Booth of Redeemer Church of Piketon, Ohio. To learn more about the good news of Jesus, please visit RedeemerPiketon.org.