Sermon Breakdown

1. Birth and nationality do not make us Christians.
2. Being circumcised doesn't put one right with God.
3. Keeping of the law doesn't make us Christians.
4. Being good and moral doesn't make you Christian.
5. Even being religious, you can't make yourself a Christian.
6. No man can ever make himself a Christian.
7. It is God alone who can make a Christian.
8. It is all of God and all of his grace.
9. Nothing is demanded of us except we believe what God says and open our hearts to it and receive it.
10. The whole problem of our becoming christians is a legal problem, a forensic problem.
11. It's just a question of our standing before God, the judge eternal.
12. How can I stand in the presence of God and not be shriveled to nothing in his holy sight?
13. Who is eternal life? How can I stand before God?
14. How can a man be justified before God?
15. It is the judge on the throne alone who can make me a Christian and enable me to stand before his presence.
16. I have got nothing to plead there. My life is evil and sinful. My nature is twisted.
17. And I realize that I've done so little. I call in these clever advocates from the church and from philosophy and from the law, not one of them as a standing before God.
18. They're all silenced. They haven't an argument. What can I do?
19. I can do nothing but what was done by that publican depicted by our lord in his parable of the publican and the fairies who went up into the temple to pray.
20. The men who, far back by the door of entry, couldn't even so much as look up but cried out, saying, God, have mercy upon me, a sinner.
21. That's all I can do. And you know, when I do it, this is what I hear.
22. I hear the judge on the bench making a pronouncement concerning me.
23. And this is what is meant by justification, by faith. Only he, the judge upon the throne, makes a proclamation and an announcement that he regards me as just and as righteous, as if I'd never sinned at all.
24. It's impossible. It's incredible. I know that I'm a sinner. I'm here in my rags. I have no righteousness.
25. And there he is on the throne, the God of the universe, in the light that no man can approach unto.
26. And yet I hear him saying that I am regarded by him as if I'd never sinned at all, that I'm regarded as righteous and as just.
27. But you say, can a holy and a righteous and a just God make a statement like that? Doesn't that mean that it's a lie? It's not true.
28. Wait a minute. Let's ask him. Let's listen to his answer.
29. And the answer he gives through the mouth of this very man, Paul, to whom he revealed the answer is this.
30. That he makes that statement about me and still remains just and righteous and everything that he's always been.
31. How does he do it? Well, he tells us he does it like this. He has taken my sins and my guilt and put them unto his only begotten, beloved son.
32. And he has punished my sins and my guilt in him. He has taken my guilt and sins and transferred them to his son.
33. But he hasn't stopped at that. He has taken the righteousness and the holiness and the truth and the obedience to his holy law of his own son and has transferred it to my account.
34. He has put it on me. If you like, you can look at it like this. He has taken this black robe of my sinfulness. He's taken it off me. He stripped me naked.
35. He's put that onto his son and he has punished it in him. But then he's done this other marvelous thing he has taken the spotless robe of righteousness of his dearly beloved son, and he's put it on my naked body.
36. And there I stand before him, clothed with the righteousness of Jesus Christ. My sins, my misdeeds, my transgressions were all put on Christ and carried away by him.
37. His obedience, his truth, his righteousness, his love to God, everything he is is put on me.
38. And God therefore announces that I am righteous and just and holy in his sight, as if I had never sinned at all.
39. That is the doctrine of justification by faith only. It is an act of God. It is the pronouncement of God.
40. It is God saying that he has forgiven me freely because Christ has stood in my place.
41. It is God saying that he puts this righteousness upon me, adopts me into his family, gives me his own nature, regards me as his son, receives me into his presence.
42. It's God's saying. It's God's proclamation. It is a legal statement. It is a forensic pronouncement.
43. And all that is asked of me is that I believe it and thank God for it. And trust me.
44. End with Charles Wesley. Rise up and get out of the dungeon and the cell and walk into the presence of God and stand before him in his grace.
45. That's the doctrine. That's the way of salvation. That is the only means and method whereby all these indescribable blessings of the gospel of Christ can become yours.