Here We Stand: The Five Solas

Use this guide to help your group discussion as you meet this week.

Here We Stand: The Five Solas

Chet Phillips

Transcript

He call glorious above, and gratefully sing His wonderful love. Our children defender, the ancient of days. Alleluia, in slender, and burden with grace. Well, good morning. My name is Chet. I'm one of the pastors here.

In the summer of 1520, during the height of the Holy Roman Empire, a papal bull was sent out, which sounds way cooler than it is. It just means aggressive pope letter. So the pope sent out this letter, this papal bull, and in it there's this quote. It says, Arise, O Lord, and judge your cause. A wild boar has invaded your vineyard. This letter was sent out, and it was saying that this wild boar was Martin Luther.

This monk who was in the Catholic Church had, as he was in the Catholic Church and been studying as a monk and had begun to teach, he had begun to realize that he didn't think the Bible matched up with a lot of what Catholicism was doing. And as he was reading it and studying it, he thought, oh, wow, I bet the Catholics would like to know this. I bet the pope would like to know that, like, we're not lining up with scriptures. And he started writing. His intent was to change some of the way that the church was operating. He was trying to say, hey, I don't think we're right about this.

He wasn't trying to do what he ultimately ended up doing. He was just trying to reform. And so he had begun to disseminate information that the Catholic Church didn't want to be disseminated at this time. And so Pope Leo X sent this papal bull out, and it basically said, Martin Luther, you've got 60 days. Turn yourself in. Recant.

And we can move on. Martin Luther, around day 60, with some of his students, burned the papal bull. He said, they burn my books. I'll burn their letter. And he was excommunicated from the church. And then the pope basically asked Charles, told Charles V, who was king, to go get Martin Luther.

The separation of church and state is something that comes out of the Protestant Reformation, but it did not exist before that. And in the Holy Roman Empire, the pope and the state were one and together, and the pope had a lot of authority. And so he told this king to get Martin Luther. They bring Martin Luther to the Diet of Worms, which when you read it, looks like a way worse version of the paleo diet. But diet just means council, and Worms is just a city.

So they call him to like a city council meeting, but like an aggressive one. So it was kind of like a city council meeting. And they bring him in front of it, and this council works for the church, works for the Catholic church. And so basically they're bringing him in, and it's kind of a trial to see if he's a heretic. And at this time, he's already been excommunicated from the church. But if you're deemed a heretic, someone who's actually teaching false doctrine, they most likely will execute you.

Heretics were burned. And so he stands in front of this council, and they basically slide across to him some of the things that he had been teaching. And they say, these are the teachings, and we want you to recant. We want you to take it back. And so he says, can I have a day? Can you give me a day to look over this, to think about it?

They say, yes. You have it 24 hours, and he would show back up the next afternoon. So he goes to think about it. Now, Martin Luther, if we're looking at the Protestant Reformation in a real simplistic form, Martin Luther is like the spark that set off a powder keg, where God had already been working and doing things, but when Martin Luther begins to proclaim what he proclaims, it sets all of this in motion. And the reason it's called the Reformation, or the Protestant Reformation, is that they were intending to reform the Catholic church. They were reformers.

But the Catholic church didn't want to be reformed, so they became protesters. So it's the Protestant Reformation. And out of this, we have Lutheranism and Methodists and Presbyterians and Baptists come out of this. We're going to study this for ourselves. We're going to look at this and decide what we ought to do based off of the Scriptures. We have Scriptures in our own languages, in the common language.

That was not a thing that was practiced at this time. So Martin Luther comes back the next day, and he says two things, and I appreciate both of them. And I think we can learn from both of them. The first thing he says is, okay, I admit that some of my language was not helpful. Some of the way I went about this was coarse. And if you ever read much of Martin Luther, yes, he did not speak kindly.

He was very coarse in his language, very aggressive. And so he says, I didn't word this right. And some of us need to learn that, that you can come back and you don't have to hold to all your guns. You can come back and say, hey, so I still agree with myself, but I did not handle that well. I should not have said that the way I said it. I shouldn't have acted the way I acted.

I need to repent of that part. And then we need to have a discussion about the actual issue. That's what he says. I shouldn't have said it this way. And then he says, but I can't recant. And this is how he ends him telling them he can't recant.

He says, my conscience is captive to the word of God. I will not recant anything. For to go against conscience is neither honest nor safe. Here I stand. I cannot do otherwise. God help me.

Amen. So he tells them, understanding that those who have gone before him and have stood against the Catholic Church have many of them been executed. He says, here I stand. I can do no other. I stand on the word of God. I'm held captive to it.

He ultimately is not killed by the Catholic Church. He does have to escape. He hides for a while. But this monk who started reading the scriptures and became captive to the scriptures sets in motion this movement in the church that we stand down river from. That we stand in line with. And so for the next five weeks, well six weeks counting today, we're going to look at the five solas of the Reformation.

These five major pieces of articulated doctrine that come out of the Reformation, we're going to spend some time studying them and looking at where they come from in the scriptures. I want you to turn to Titus chapter one. So I can help you understand why we find this valuable and helpful for us to do. And then what we'll do today is we'll walk through all five of them, give a brief introduction to them, and then we'll spend a week on each one over the next five weeks. Titus chapter one, verse nine. This is Paul writing a letter to a pastor.

We're going to read what he says, but we're going to pray first and then we'll move into Titus one. God, we ask for your blessing and your help. We ask for the work of your spirit that we might see these truths, these doctrines as beautiful and good. And that we might grow to know what we believe and why we believe it as we hold fast to you. In Jesus name. Amen.

Titus one, verse nine. Paul's writing to a pastor and he's this is a pastoral epistle. He's writing to a pastor and Creek and he's basically telling him what to do, how to install more elders, more overseers in this area. And he says this in verse nine. He meaning any new overseer, any new elder, any new pastor must hold firm to the trustworthy word as taught so that he may be able to give instruction and sound doctrine and also to rebuke those who contradict it. We are a people of the word that's been handed to us.

We have a message. We have doctrine. We have truth that we hold on to and that we teach and instruct one another in and keep each other in. We have boundaries. We have a foundation that we can't go outside of. This is good for us, but we don't get to come together and make up new doctrines.

It's one of the things we've said periodically. If you're reading the Bible and you come across something brand new, it's possible that you're reading it wrong. But we also and we'll get to this later, we believe that we are under the authority of the scripture and that it does reform the church. So that there are times where we've gotten off and the scriptures bring us back. But we have to hold firmly to this.

And so it helps us to know what we believe and why we believe it. Because we are a doctrine people. This puts us at odds with the world. That we actually have truths that we hold to regardless of what others say. That we don't change with the times. In so many ways, we're bound to this.

He says this in chapter 2, verse 1, as he keeps going. And he says, but as for you, teach what accords with sound doctrine. And so that's what we're setting out to do for the next five weeks is to study together good doctrine. And good doctrine is life-giving. It's foundational. It's helpful.

One of the things that happens in this room periodically is someone will come and they're coming to visit or they're coming to see something or they're coming to help fix something. And they'll walk in this room and they'll stop and go, oh, wow. We've had multiple people just walking with eyes to come fix something or look at something that will just stop and stare at the ceiling in this room. They're like, oh, my goodness. Because that's a beautiful ceiling. I mean, that's a good-looking ceiling.

Now, if you're under the balcony, not as much. But if you're out here. And what happens in places like this where something is well built, there are times where you can just kind of be captivated by it. And then there are other times where you cease to notice it. And foundational doctrine in the church works much like that. It can't be removed.

But at times we can get to where we've stopped noticing it. We've stopped appreciating it. And for the next five weeks we want to know what we believe, why we believe it. And we want to take a moment to just look and go, isn't that good? Isn't that beautiful that that's true for us? And just appreciate this sound doctrine.

So let's talk about what the five solas are. We will look at them first in Latin. One of the things that the reformers fought tooth and nail for, often being executed for, was to get the Bible in the common language of the people. And to honor that sacrifice, we refer to these in Latin. It's possible that the reason we do this is so that we can still be clear with the Catholics where we disagree. And they like Latin.

So it's like these are the ones that we want to talk to you all about. But here they are in English. Scripture alone. That's what the sola, sola, sola. Scripture alone. Faith alone.

Grace alone. Christ alone. To the glory of God. Alone. I was talking to someone recently. I said we're going to talk about the five solas.

And they were like, hmm. I don't know about that. And then I said them in English. And they were like, hmm. That's good. I like that.

That's what we believe. A way to say this is that we believe that we're saved by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone. As revealed by the scriptures alone or under the authority of the scriptures alone. To the glory of God alone. That's foundational for us as Christians, as Protestants. And that was not the case when this began in the Reformation.

And these were points of clarification where Luther and Calvin and Zwingli had to say, no, no, no, no. Look at this. It doesn't say what y'all are saying. So. Sola Scriptura. We'll look at it first.

Martin Luther was a monk. And he had become like a priest, pastor, kind of in a role where he was teaching. And they had him teaching through the book of Romans. And so he was reading Romans. And he was reading Romans in Latin and in Greek. And you had to be well educated to do this.

They did not have the scriptures in the common language. And so as he had been educated, he was beginning to read this. And as he was reading the scriptures over and over again and studying the scriptures over and over again. He came to the conclusion that the Catholic Church at that time was not in line with the scriptures. There were a lot of things that they were doing that didn't make any sense. So he at one point says.

A council may sometimes err. And be wrong. Neither the church nor the pope can establish articles of faith. These must come from scripture. And if you read scripture, you'll see this. Jesus says this when he's talking about the Pharisees in Matthew 15, 9.

He says, It's in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men. They've begun to teach foundational truths, but they're just made up. They don't come from the text. They were things that men came up with. They aren't what we build life and faith around. Or in 2 Timothy.

As we look at this idea of scripture alone is our authority. Scripture alone is what guides and directs the church. In 2 Timothy 3, 15 through 17. Paul writes to Timothy. He says that he. How from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings.

That's the scriptures. We believe that the scripture is from God. It's breathed out by him. It has authority. It's true and valid. And so we rest on scriptures.

When we come to the Bible, we don't approach this. We talk about interpreting. Like we want to interpret this well. And we do. We want to understand how it was written. Who it was written to.

What time it came in. We want to understand what this passage means like that other passage. But what we don't get to do is decide what we like and don't like. What we'll keep and not keep. We don't believe that the Bible sits under us. We believe that the Bible sits over us.

That it has authority over us. We actually believe that it makes logical sense that this will say things that you don't like. If you read the scriptures and they only ever agree with your political views. If they only ever agree with what you wanted to do anyway. There's a good chance you're not reading it right. Because the scriptures correct us.

They challenge us. That God is holy. We are not. And so that he has to in his holiness correct our sinfulness. This affects how we operate as a church. This type of series that we're doing right now is very out of the ordinary for us.

We'll spend most of this year as we've spent most of every year. Walking through books of the Bible. Because we think they're profitable. For teaching. For reproof. For rebuke.

For correction. For training in righteousness. That we would be equipped. We think that they're able to make us wise unto salvation in Christ. So we study the Bible together.

We just finished 1 John. We're going to hopefully, by the Lord willing, we'll look at Ruth this year. We'll get into Exodus. It's going to be a pile of fun. And we think it's going to be helpful. And it will point us towards Jesus.

That even the Old Testament will ultimately drive us towards faith in Christ. We live in a culture right now that tells you that this is a crazy idea. And that what you need to do is be true to yourself. Figure out what you really love and follow that. And as Christians, the Bible stands antithetical to that idea. You know, people sit in horror movies and they're like, don't go in the room.

You know, they yell at the person or whatever. We need to do that in Disney movies. It's like, follow your heart. Don't do it. Your heart's going to murder you. It's a liar.

We don't think we need to follow our heart. We think we have scripture that corrects us and addresses our heart and changes us. And that puts us at opposition with the world. And also, some of you right now are believers. And you're stressed. And you're tired.

And you're exhausted. And you're frustrated. And you're confused. And you're telling this to your community group. But you're not reading your Bible.

And we need this to correct us, to train us, to help us, and to point us towards Christ. So we're going to spend some time looking at that over the next few weeks. Sola fide. So we're going to keep talking about Martin Luther as we go through some of this because he's a very interesting person. But he was training to be a lawyer.

His dad was helping pay for that. I was excited about him being a lawyer. He got stuck in a thunderstorm and was terrified. Lightning struck really near him. And he shouted out, St. Anne, protect me.

I'll become a monk. He's Catholic. So he's shouting, St. Anne, protect me. I'll become a monk. He did not die in that thunderstorm.

And he did become a monk. And his dad was very mad about it. Much like my mom when she found out I was going to be a pastor. She was disappointed in me. She thought it was good. But she wanted me to do other stuff.

She told me she had to pray about it. She thought I was throwing away my potential, which I think she overshot potential. But whatever. She's my mom. She's real proud of me, guys. So he becomes a monk.

And the knowledge of his sinfulness was ever present with Martin Luther. He felt it. His wickedness. His evil. He drove his confessor crazy. You know, you have to go confess your sins to a priest.

And he would go all the time. Because there were a couple of teachings that affected this. First of all, he had become a monk to try to save his soul. So he was trying to work. He was holding vigils and doing prayers and doing effort. He was trying to make himself okay in God's eyes.

And one of the things that you have to do is you have to confess sin. And if you confess sin and then you have unconfessed sin when you die that you haven't confessed yet, you can still go to hell or purgatory. And so there's multiple cases where he would confess sin, be walking out of the confessional, and turn immediately back around and be like, I forgot something. And he would just go through. I did this and this. And he would drive in his...

The priest is like, that's enough. Like, wrap it up. Like, he was confessing too much stuff. He was driving him crazy. At one point... The other thing is they teach venial sins and mortal sins.

And venial sins are like sins that aren't that bad. And mortal sins are sins that are real bad. And one of the rules is that if you do it on purpose, like with a high hand, like aggressively sin, that can make it a mortal sin. And so Martin Luther would go in and confess sin. And his priest would say, well, that's, you know, a venial sin. And Martin Luther would be like, no, I did it on purpose.

And the priest would ask him questions. And it was... His argument was, if I know what's right and I do what's wrong, then I've intentionally done it. My heart is angry towards God. My heart is not towards Him. I'm doing all of these.

And so Martin Luther would go in, confess every sin he could think of, and argue that all of them were mortal sins. To the point that his priest said, hey, let's stop this. You need to just become a mystic. Which was the thing that was growing in Catholicism at that point. He said, you need to learn just how to love the Lord. And so he tried that.

And he came back. And the priest was like, how's that going? Do you love God? And he was like, nope. Martin Luther actually said, no, I've actually learned the more I've tried to love Him that I actually hate God. And the reason was that God was angry, waiting to strike him down, holding him to a standard that he couldn't meet, dangling him over the pit of hell.

And he would never be able to get himself out of this. He was working and working and working and working and working and working and working to try to make himself okay. And he could never escape. He said, I hate God. And his priest said, you know what? I'm going to put you in charge of being a pastor over some students.

That was his response to finding out that he said he hated God. But his theory was he was taking it very seriously. And maybe he needed something to take his mind off of how sinful he was. And just hanging out by himself, being a monk, wasn't working. So he put him in charge.

And he started teaching through the book of Romans. He's reading it in Latin. He's reading it in Greek. And he gets stuck on Romans 1, verse 17, which is this. For in it, talking about the gospel, because Romans 1, 16 is not ashamed of the gospel for in its power of salvation. He says in it, the gospel, the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith.

As it is written, the righteous shall live by faith. And he gets stuck because he doesn't understand what on earth that means. And he keeps reading it over and over again. And in the Latin, the word righteousness is this word that means justification, to be right. Right. But in the Greek, the original language it was written in, it has this nuance to it that means to be named right.

To be considered right. So he started thinking, hold on a second, this isn't God's righteousness, wherein he's righteous on his own. But it's righteousness that he gives, that we're considered righteous. And he stares at this over and over again until he says, hold on a second. Righteousness from God is revealed from faith and it's for faith. That it's not revealed from work.

So we don't get to his righteousness from effort. We get to his righteousness from faith. And then it's not from faith to something else, but it's from faith and it's for faith. And so the righteous shall live by faith. And in this moment, it says it clicked. That he would be saved by faith alone in the work of Christ.

That the gospel was the power of salvation. And it was from faith and it was for faith and the righteous live by faith. And he has this quote. He says, when I discovered that, I was born again by the Holy Spirit. The doors of paradise swung open and I walked through. Now, it's amazing.

He jumps. This is the hinge. This salvation by faith alone is the hinge which all the rest of this turns on. It's where our faith is that we are saved by faith alone. But I feel like if he had just kept reading in Romans, he'd have figured it out more clearly because it gets clearer.

I think if he'd have been in charge of teaching Galatians, that's pretty much all Galatians is saying. I want to show you this in Galatians chapter 2, verse 16. Yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law, but through faith in Jesus Christ. That the way we're made right is not by our effort, but through faith. So we also have believed in Christ Jesus in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law.

Because by the works of the law, no one will be justified. The law being God's righteous moral standard. That you being good enough will not justify you. If you've come in here and you think that the primary thing that the Bible teaches you is how to be a good person, this flies in the face of that, that is not what it is telling you to do. It is telling you about a good person and his name is Christ. And that we are justified through faith in him.

Philippians 3, 8 and 9 says, Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish. In order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ. The righteousness from God that depends on faith. We are not saved by our work. You're not saved by your morality.

You're not saved by your good works. You're not saved by what you do. You're not defined by what you do. If you're in Christ, you get to be defined by what he has done. And that we are made righteous, acquitted, not guilty, perfectly clothed, beautiful, spotless, blameless, above reproach. We are made righteous in Christ through faith in what he has done.

That we trust in him. That we would have a righteousness that comes through faith, that depends on faith. And it is not the righteousness of our own that we've earned. Some of you need to soak in this idea. Because some of you, even those who say, I'm a Christian and I believe that I'm saved by faith, that you live out your life much like Martin Luther, constantly in the confession booth. All you can see is your sin.

All you can see is your brokenness. All you can see is your wickedness. And you're constantly going to God and saying, help me with this. Forgive me of that. I'm so, and that's all, you're stuck there. And some of you need this truth because you don't even think you need a confession booth.

You're strutting around in your good works. How wonderful you are. How well behaved you are. How you're one of the good ones. And the beautiful thing about salvation by faith alone is that he saves us from our sin and our good works. That he rescues us from our wickedness through his righteousness.

And he saves us from our self-righteousness through his righteousness. That we get to be free in faith alone in Christ. The next one that we'll spend some time looking at over the next couple of weeks is sola gratia, which is by grace alone. If faith alone is the mechanism by which we are saved, if it's the means, if it answers how, how are you saved? Well, you're saved by faith in Christ or through faith in Christ. Then grace answers the question, why?

If faith answers how, grace answers why? That God in his grace saves us. And this is so freeing when you see these two truths together. But I want to show you this. Ephesians 2.8, it says, For by grace you have been saved through faith. This is not your own doing.

It is the gift of God. If you've ever gotten a gift and you brag on the gift. My wife's really good at gift giving. She's a thoughtful person. She remembers stuff. I'm getting better at it because I've learned to write things down.

Like a genius. But if I ever talk to you about a gift that she's given me, I'm bragging on the gift. I'm bragging on the giver. I'm never like, yeah, I don't mean to brag, but I crush going to Christmas. It doesn't make any sense. And that's what he's saying is that we're saved by grace.

It's a free gift from God. And it's not your own doing. And I want you to, if not your own doing, if you could wrap your arms around it, I want you to. I want you to hug and love this idea of grace. Because if it was just faith alone, then we might feel like, okay, I've got to keep my faith. I've got to have faith.

I've got to muscle up some faith. Because if there's anything that we're good at, it's smuggling some works in there somewhere. And so what you might be tempted to think is, well, I'm one of the smart ones. I'm one of the ones who did research. You know, other people just bounce along in life not even thinking about it. But I actually studied.

And so I was able to come to the conclusion that Jesus is who I need to place my faith in. And yes, he saves me, but I somehow got myself here. Not your own doing. It's the goodness and the mercy and the love of God. Which means that it's faith in what Christ has done that saves us. And it's his grace that got us there.

And it's his grace that keeps us there. So that I'm saved by his work and I'm kept there by his goodness. And that's good news. This is what Martin Luther said. He came to the conclusion that he hated God. And then he says this.

He says, if you have a true faith that Christ is your Savior, then at once you have a gracious God. For faith leads you in and opens up God's heart and will that you should see pure grace and overflowing love. This is what it is to behold God in faith that you should look upon his fatherly, friendly heart in which there is no anger nor ungraciousness. He who sees God is angry does not see him rightly but looks only on a curtain as if a dark cloud had been drawn across his face. So that when he was trying to work, he hated God.

He was frustrated with God. He was fearful of God. But when it dawned on him that he was saved by grace through faith, God's glorious. He's good. So that some of you are tired and you're frustrated and you're mad at God because he's not doing what you want him to.

Or you feel like that you're always falling short and he's always disappointed with you. And you need to wrap your mind around and wrap your heart around that you're saved by grace through faith. This gives us ultimate humble confidence. It gives us ultimate humility. Because we did not earn this. This isn't the super morality club.

This isn't the most well-behaved people in Casey. If you join a community group, there's going to be a time where you're like, these, these, these, what? These people are the worst. Over the course of getting the pastor, people have found out that our pastors are sinners. Yeah. Uh-huh.

That's actually why I'm here. If I didn't believe it was by grace through faith, I'd be doing something else. Because I wouldn't be in the good behavior club. I would have never, would have never gotten in here. Would never, this is good news. We have humility.

We're sinners. If someone comes to you and say, I need to talk to you, I think you've sinned against me. Your response should be, probably. What was that? I need to know some specifics so I can repent and try to change my attitude. But you shouldn't be surprised.

Me? Sin? Never. People all the time will be like, hey, can I talk to you? Like, they'll text me or they'll call me and I'll ask. Hey, are you correcting me?

Because I just like a heads up. I want to get emotionally prepared. I want to remind myself I'm a sinner before I get in there and you just spring it on me. I don't want to know. Like, it's a thing. We have humility.

But guess what? We have off-the-chart confidence. I didn't earn this. I didn't earn this. It's not my doing. It's not found in me.

It's not found in my goodness. It's not found in my wisdom. It's not found in my strength. You know what that means? It's not kept by me. It's not kept in my goodness.

It's not kept in my wisdom. It's not kept in my strength. How are you going to take it away from me? Are you going to make God not merciful? Good luck. Are you going to snatch the righteousness of Christ out of Christ?

Not going to happen. That's why you can tell me I'm a sinner and I don't lose my way. I already knew that and I already knew my hope wasn't in me not being a sinner. My hope is in Christ. Oh, faith and grace are glorious. And don't take them for granted.

Let's take some time to just look at them and say thank you that you are so good and this is so beautiful. And that I'm kept and I'm saved and I'm free. The fourth one that we'll look at is solo Christo. In Christ alone. You see this faith alone, grace alone leads us to it's in Christ alone. Which is they go together that Christ is the one who has accomplished this.

That it's his grace and it's his work that we have faith in. But this also one of the things that they were having to combat was that the Catholic church believes in faith. But they would say it's faith plus and they would add things to it. And so what ended up happening was that the church stood in between you and Jesus in so many ways. That you needed the church for sacrament. You needed the church for to be absolved by a priest.

You needed to go on pilgrimages. You needed to have catechism. You needed all these things that were from the church. And this church administered grace. But we believe that it's in Christ alone.

That the church is good. That loving our brothers and sisters. We talked about this in 1 John. Is good. But that salvation and grace do not result from the goodness of the church.

The goodness of the church results from salvation and grace in Christ. And so that we get Christ and then we're ushered into these good things. But it's Christ alone. He's the one who does this. 1 Timothy 2.5 says, For there is one God and there is one mediator between God and men. The man Christ Jesus.

That you get to go directly to Christ. And by Christ's grace you get to be brought directly to the Father. That you get to have a relationship with the Father. That you get to be adopted into the family. That you get to belong. That you get to be brought to the Father.

Secure. Through the work of Jesus. And I think this may be a thing that we take for granted. That if you didn't grow up Catholic. You're not familiar with the Catholic Church. At this time it was thousands of years.

A thousand years where this had been taught. And they finally wrapped their mind around. Wait I just get to know the Lord. And he knows me and he loves me. Where Paul writes. That God.

That Jesus loves me and gave himself up for me. He's writing a letter to the church. And he says no he loves me. And gave himself up for me. And this beauty of our genuine personal relationship. That we get to have with the Lord.

This is not perfunctory. It's not something that we do some routine things. And we're in. But we know Christ. And he knows us. And we love Christ.

And he loves us. This is why we preach Christ. And celebrate Christ. And that we want to leave praising Christ. Because our hope is only in Christ. Christ.

The fifth one that we'll spend some time on. Is soli deo gloria. Which means to the glory of God alone. I have a relative that I used to follow on Twitter. When I was on Twitter. And he would post things.

He would post. It was like it was connected to his Instagram account. Which I'm not. I wasn't on Instagram. But he would post.

And he would say. Had a great night out with friends. Or he would be like. Wonderful day at the museum. Or whatever. And I would click on the picture that he had posted.

And he would be like. Great night out with friends. And I'd click on the picture. And it would just be a selfie of himself. Like in the corner of a booth. Or like.

Got to see the Grand Canyon. And it was just him. And like. He was like. What are you. What are you doing?

I also wanted to see the Grand Canyon. I guess I could just Google it. But I wanted to see which part you saw. Like I. I wanted to see if you actually had friends. Like why are you only taking pictures of yourself?

I think you've missed the point. Of what you were supposed to do. At least given the caption. You know. I guess he could just post. Handsome at a restaurant.

You know. Whatever. If we. With these doctrines. These. Truth.

Joyous. Glorious. Truth. Somehow turn around and go. Look at how great we are. We've missed the point.

That we don't earn something. We receive something. And then we celebrate. That if you believe that you're saved by faith alone. By grace alone. In Christ alone.

Then you'll celebrate the glory of God alone. That if we walk in here as those who have trusted in Jesus. And have been redeemed by his grace. And are kept by his grace. Through the work of Christ alone. Then we'll stand.

And we'll sing. And we'll praise. Because that's the appropriate. Right. Joyous. Response.

To a God who loves us so much. That he would come and redeem sinners like us. That we'll come in and say. Thank you. That you would purchase. For yourself.

Me. With your blood. That you would welcome me. That you would make me righteous. That you would keep me. That you would do this by your grace.

And your mercy. Praise your name. You are glorious. And you are good. And you are holy. And that we would walk in this humble confidence.

That makes us free. To delight in the goodness of the Lord. We're not earning this. We're not achieving this. And we're not losing this. That it's in Christ.

And we trust in him alone. And so we celebrate the glory of God alone. This is kind of the centerpiece that holds this all together. In Isaiah 48, 11. God's talking about salvation that he's going to bring. And he says.

For my own sake. For my own sake I do it. For how should my name be profaned. My glory I will not give to another. That the right response to his salvation is to glorify him. To praise him.

Because he's the one who's done it. He doesn't share his glory with us. Jude 24, 25. And I think it's a good place for us to end. It's where Jude ends his letter. He says.

Now to him who is able. To keep you from stumbling. And to present you blameless. Before the presence of his glory. With great joy. Go back to that real quick.

That's salvation. By grace through faith. In Christ. That he's the one. Him. Him who's able.

To keep you from stumbling. By his grace. By the work of Christ. Some of you feel like. I think I'm going to stumble. Well he's able.

Well he's able. To keep you. He's able. To present you blameless. Before the presence of his glory. With great joy.

Can you wrap your mind around that for a second. That when we stand. Before. The king. We will not shrink. In fear.

Or sin. If we're in Christ. But we'll be. Blameless. Radiant. I have two little boys.

Every once in a while. Something will happen. I'll ask my older boy a question. And you can see this moment. And I know that moment well. When someone asks you a question.

You didn't want to answer. And so you have that little lightning strike of terror. So I ask him a question. He'll be doing something with his brother. And he'll be bopping along. His brother's crying.

And I'll ask him a real pointed question. And he'll go. Like oh. Did not expect to see my father in my own house. I did not know you cared for that little one. That lives here.

It's this moment of pure terror. And I don't even want to imagine. Because I know what that was like. A teacher would ask me a question. Or my dad would ask me a question. Or even my relationship.

Or my wife's asked me questions. I didn't have a good answer for. I didn't want to answer. I know that moment of terror. I don't even want to imagine. What that's like.

Before the face of God. Who can see directly through us. The deepest part of our wicked souls. Oh but he can keep us from stumbling. And he can present us blameless. And that when we stand in Christ.

There's none of that. Just joy. Just welcoming. And he says this in verse 25. To the only God. Our Savior.

Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Be glory. Majesty. Dominion. And authority. Before all time.

Now. And forever. Amen. That our God is good. He redeems. He saves.

By his grace. Through his work. To his glory. We sit under the authority of the scriptures. That has good news to proclaim to us. And we celebrate.

So for the next five weeks. We're going to look at doctrine. So that we know what we believe. And we know why we believe it. And so that we hold firmly. To some really good news.

And we don't drift from it. Into something that is worse. And something that is smaller. And something that robs us of joy and hope. Matt's going to come back up. We're going to sing.

But before we sing. We're going to take communion. Communion is a practiced rhythm. For the church. Where when we gather. We remember what Christ has done.

That on the night before he was betrayed. On the night he was betrayed. And the night before he died. He took his disciples. And he took bread. And he broke it.

And he said. This is my body. It's broken for you. And he took the cup. And he said. This is my blood.

It's a new covenant. It's poured out for you. That this is a meal. Remembering. The body and blood of Christ. The sacrifice that was needed.

For the redemption of our sins. And Paul says. That as often as we take it. We proclaim his death. Until he comes. That we stand.

That he's had glory. From eternity past. He has it now. And he'll reign forever. And we stand right now. In this moment in history.

Where we stand in between the cross. And his return. And so that we proclaim his death. Until he comes to get us. Until it's consummated in the kingdom. And we share the wedding supper of the lamb.

All those who have been redeemed. By God's grace. Through faith. In Christ. And there are three things that we need to do. As we come to this this morning.

If you're a Christian. If you're not a Christian. We ask you to not partake in this with us. This isn't for you. We'd love for you to place your faith in Christ. For you to receive what we have in him.

Which is by his grace to be saved. To be made righteous. To be made new. We'd love for you to do that. But if you're not a Christian.

We'd ask you to refrain from taking communion. But for Christian. There's three things we need to do. We need to see ourselves. See our sin. We need to repent.

We need to go before the Lord. And ask him to forgive us. And to make us whole. And to watch us. We need to know. That we need a savior.

And we need to see him clearly. We're to discern the body and the blood of Christ. To know that this was a sacrifice that was necessary for us to be made whole. And then we proclaim his death. Which is to proclaim the good news of the gospel. That you aren't saved by your own works.

And you aren't kept by your own works. That we get to come as sinners made new in the work of Christ. That he physically came. That he physically died. And that he made us whole. To take a moment.

Where you are. To pray. To repent. And to celebrate. As you're ready. That Jesus died.

To save a sinner like you. And that by his grace. And by faith in him. We are redeemed. And we are kept. And we are whole.