back to index2016-04-24 Life is Promised and Not Negotiated
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When we turn our Bibles to Romans Chapter 4, verses 13. I'm going to read all the way down to verse 25, but we're probably going to not get through all of it today. Romans Chapter 4, 13-25. Reading out of the ESV. Romans Chapter 4, 13-25. 00:01:42.000 |
Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we entrust this morning to you, asking for the power of your Holy Spirit to convict, renew, sanctify. As you promised us that faith comes from hearing, and the hearing of the word of Christ. I pray that our faith may be strengthened, our vision for Him will be clearer, and that our love for Him may grow as a result. So we entrust this time to you, in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. 00:02:10.000 |
Again, we've been pounding the subject of justification by faith, that our salvation is not by works, it is not by our heritage. That Paul has been arguing this, again, to these Jews who are relying on their confidence, obedience to the law, and saying that possibly because of their circumcision that they have a special standing before God. And Paul, again and again, is pounding against that. 00:02:36.000 |
Justification by faith, if you really sit down and think about it, is not an easy doctrine to swallow. Basically what Paul has been saying is, all the stuff that the Nation of Israel and the Jews and the Pharisees have been working so diligently to obey, in the eyes of God, adds nothing to their righteousness. 00:02:56.000 |
And he simply says that salvation is simply because he believed. Not necessarily because of what he's done, but because he believed. So imagine having lived to earn righteousness all your life, and all of a sudden Paul says, "All of that's for nothing." Then what? If that's not the right path of salvation, then how do we get saved? He says, "Well, you just need to believe." 00:03:22.000 |
Most of you who've made a confession of faith, my guess is that you didn't have a hard time struggling and wrestling with it in the beginning. Somebody preached the Gospel and you just believed it. And you heard that the God of the universe loved you so much that he gave his only begotten son, and if you believed that he died for you, and it was only by faith, that whether you raised a hand, whether you came down the aisle, whether somebody led you in a sinner's prayer, 00:03:51.000 |
or maybe it was just in your room, and you just prayed quietly before God, or maybe you don't even remember a particular time, but you know that at some point in your life, you began to believe that this was true. And you didn't earn it. You didn't have to jump through the hoops. There was nothing required of you, because from the very beginning, you were taught that salvation is by grace and grace alone. 00:04:12.000 |
Which is absolutely true. But a typical pattern that a Christian goes through in really understanding and accepting this doctrine, we begin because it is easy. Because there is nothing required. Why wouldn't you? If God of the universe loved me, and you believed it, and that's what saved you, why wouldn't you receive it? 00:04:38.000 |
But as time goes by, and we begin to really reflect upon what this means, we begin to wrestle with it. Especially as you begin to see who God is, that God created the universe, and he was much bigger and much greater than you've ever imagined. 00:04:55.000 |
And not only has he become greater, the more you lived, the more disappointed you become of yourself. You look at your own sins, and how often you wrestle with even your own disciplines, how easily you get distracted. And in the back of your mind, you may begin to ask yourself, and you begin to struggle, "God loves me?" 00:05:17.000 |
You may never express it that way, but you begin to doubt. Doubt begins to come in, because you feel a sense of unworthiness. There's a constant battling back and forth, trying to appease God. And you know that in your mind, that you can't earn righteousness, but there's a part of you that is working hard to appease God. 00:05:38.000 |
So you have some weeks that are good, and you feel good about being at church and serving, and then there's some weeks that you are not doing so well and distracted, and you feel this guilt in the back of your mind, like, "I know he loves me theologically, but does he genuinely, truly love me?" 00:05:54.000 |
And if that persists, we begin to actually question God. "Does God really love me? I know he's a God of love. I know he loves the world, but does he love me?" 00:06:07.000 |
And let me ask you, when was the last time you were truly convicted about that, and you really sensed that God loved you? The very thing that caused you to be saved. The very thing that caused you to surrender your life to Christ. Because you believed that the God of the universe cared about you enough to send his only begotten son. 00:06:27.000 |
If that doubt begins to persist for a while, and it's been a while since you've connected with this God, that doubt of his love eventually turns to doubt period. It goes from "God loves me" to "God loves me" to "Does God really love me?" 00:06:47.000 |
Maybe he doesn't love me, and then eventually, "Does God even exist?" Because God is spirit. He's not somebody that we can just come to see and see. You know? We don't just come to church and say, "Oh, there he is," and we reconnect with him because you came to church. 00:07:02.000 |
You can come to church year after year and never meet God. Because he is spirit. So if it's been a long time since you have any kind of interaction with God, any kind of conviction of his love for you particular, after a while you begin to question and begin to even doubt. 00:07:20.000 |
Not only his love for you, but even his existence, because you haven't seen him. All of this, if you really break it down and take a deep look at it, is a wrestling over this doctrine of justification by faith. 00:07:36.000 |
There's a part of us that, again, it was easy enough to begin, but as we persevere in our faith, as life comes at us and difficulties and trials and entanglement begins to come into our lives, we really begin to wonder, "Does that—I believe in God, but does that God care about me?" 00:07:58.000 |
"Am I really able to come to him with a clear conscience in the state that I am, knowing who I am, knowing what I have?" 00:08:06.000 |
Why salvation by faith alone is easily received, but takes a lifetime of wrestling to struggle and embrace and ultimately be transformed by it. 00:08:17.000 |
Lifetime of wrestling and struggling with this doctrine, what it means to you personally, and why that doctrine is the center of what causes us to come to God. 00:08:27.000 |
It is the reason why we worship him. It is the reason why we have confidence. It is the reason why we pray. 00:08:33.000 |
That's why Paul rebukes the Galatian church in Galatians 3.3, "Are you so foolish? Having been begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected in the flesh?" 00:08:44.000 |
How many people have fallen away because they began to doubt the love of God? 00:08:50.000 |
How many people resist God because they feel like they need to get their life straight before they can come to God? 00:08:55.000 |
That they need to somehow appease God before they can ever come to him? 00:08:59.000 |
Again, it is the rejection of justification by faith and faith alone. 00:09:05.000 |
So my intent this morning is, as we jump through this text, as we dissect this text from 13 to 25, 00:09:12.000 |
those of you who read the Facebook post about, you know, if you want to prepare better for sermons, I thought it would be good for you to kind of get a heads up and just read, at least read through it and know what's in this text so that you can be better hearers of the word. 00:09:25.000 |
There are three main things, main arguments that Paul really gives. He doesn't say, "Here's my argument one, argument two, argument three." Right? 00:09:33.000 |
But there's three main arguments that I've found in this text, and I'm going to present them to you, but I'm not going to really get to the other two. 00:09:40.000 |
Because as I was preparing, I found out that the first point really has three points. 00:09:45.000 |
So if I end up giving all points, I'm going to end up having, how many is that, five points. 00:09:50.000 |
So we don't have enough time to go through five points. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to start with one, give you the outline, and then we'll get to the other two next week. 00:09:57.000 |
So you'll kind of have a better sense of where we're going. 00:10:00.000 |
So let me tell you, the argument that Paul makes of why justification, why salvation can only be by faith and faith alone. 00:10:08.000 |
The first argument he gives is the covenant that he made with Abraham was based on promise and not by contract. 00:10:16.000 |
That's the first point. And so we're going to spend most of this morning talking about that first point. 00:10:23.000 |
The covenant that God made with Abraham was based on promise and not by contract. 00:10:29.000 |
The other two points that we're going to wait till next week is the second point is a covenant was based on God's power and not man's power. 00:10:37.000 |
That we'll see in verse 17 and on. The covenant that God made with Abraham was based on God's power and not man's power. 00:10:44.000 |
And then the third point of the covenant is a covenant was based on God's faithfulness and not man's. 00:10:50.000 |
And that we will see in verse 18 through 20. So this morning we'll be looking at verse 13 to part of verse 17. 00:10:57.000 |
The first point, the covenant was based on the promise and not by contract. 00:11:04.000 |
So the first thing that he says about this promise and what is the meaning behind why he argues that salvation is by promise and not by negotiation. 00:11:13.000 |
That's the title of the message this morning, not by contract. 00:11:16.000 |
So there's three sub points that I want to look at this morning to help us better understand Paul's logic in trying to convince these Jews who are having a hard time letting go of this. 00:11:26.000 |
Understandably, right? Like if they've been working so hard for something and says, oh, that is not the path of salvation. 00:11:33.000 |
Well, what is by faith? That's it. How can it be this easy? 00:11:38.000 |
So Paul is arguing why salvation can only be by faith. 00:11:43.000 |
So the first point is promise. It is by promise and not by contract. 00:11:47.000 |
The first ramification of that in verse one, not verse one, verse 13, the promise was that Abraham and his offering will be the heir of the world. 00:11:57.000 |
So the first thing that we need to understand why, why salvation can only be by the grace of God, by the promise of God, is considering what salvation ultimately is. 00:12:09.000 |
Salvation isn't simply that us not going to hell. 00:12:15.000 |
That's not what he says. He says God made this promise to Abraham to be the heir of all the world, heir of the whole world. 00:12:26.000 |
It is not possible by any human standard, by any human effort to become an heir of the world. 00:12:36.000 |
Scripture describes our fall and why the whole world is under condemnation is that we have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. 00:12:47.000 |
So salvation is to restore that glory into the man. Restoring that glory. 00:12:54.000 |
Now, I want you to consider how ridiculous it is for people to think that somehow by their works they are going to restore that glory. 00:13:00.000 |
Years ago, some of you guys may remember the name Ted Haggard. You guys remember? Some of you guys may remember. 00:13:06.000 |
In my mind, I think it happened a couple years ago, but I think it was like a decade ago, no? 00:13:11.000 |
But there was a guy named Ted Haggard and he was the senior pastor of New Life Church in Colorado Springs. 00:13:17.000 |
He was the founding pastor. Eventually the church became over 10,000 members. It was a mega church. 00:13:23.000 |
He was the president of the National Association of Evangelicals, which had 1.2 million members. 00:13:30.000 |
So whenever the media wanted somebody to represent Christianity, like evangelical Christians, Ted Haggard was the man who represented them. 00:13:38.000 |
At that time, there was a huge political thing going on, trying to pass the gay marriage. 00:13:44.000 |
It's passed now, but at that time there was a huge effort from the conservative versus the liberals. 00:13:49.000 |
And Ted Haggard was the face against it for traditional marriage. 00:13:54.000 |
But those of you guys who know the story, that behind the scene, what happened was they found out that he was actually having relations with male prostitutes. 00:14:04.000 |
He was having homosexual relations with male prostitutes and that came out in the news and said, "Wow, this guy's the biggest hypocrite ever." 00:14:11.000 |
So you can imagine the response, the media, the things that they said, and even his own church ended up rejecting him and he was expelled from his church. 00:14:22.000 |
He was obviously discharged from his duty of being president of the Association of Evangelicals. 00:14:29.000 |
And he couldn't find a job. And there's actually a documentary about him and his family. 00:14:34.000 |
He's just living in his trailer and he's going around from city to city looking for odd jobs just to pay bills. 00:14:41.000 |
And it's a sad state. And I found out that not too long ago that he planted another church in that area. 00:14:47.000 |
And the church was for people who are broken and he's trying to reach out to people who've been hurt. 00:14:52.000 |
But imagine somebody who was in that position to think that somehow if he works hard enough, that he's going to just kind of win the trust back from people. 00:15:03.000 |
That he's going to at one point, he's going to get back into that point. He's going to build another mega church and he's going to be re-invited to become the president. 00:15:12.000 |
Just restore him back. If he just works hard enough, if he just puts in enough time, everybody's just going to forgive him and it's just going to be restored. 00:15:22.000 |
I think humanly speaking, we can honestly say that's probably not going to happen in his life. 00:15:28.000 |
Considering where he was and considering what has happened, for him to somehow say, "You know what? I'm going to pay this off." 00:15:35.000 |
Now when you compare that with what the scripture says, that we have fallen from the glory of God. 00:15:41.000 |
That God put his image in us and that image was tainted by sin. And for us to somehow think that if we work hard enough, that we will somehow do our part to restore that glory in us. 00:15:56.000 |
The only reason why anybody would ever think that somehow that they can appease God by their righteousness is because they do not understand what it is that we have lost and what it is that is being restored to us. 00:16:10.000 |
See, he didn't just say, "I forgive you of your sins so you don't go to hell." 00:16:15.000 |
He went way beyond that. Romans chapter 8, 15-17 it says, 00:16:19.000 |
"For you do not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, 'Abba, Father.'" 00:16:31.000 |
In order for an individual at that particular time to become an heir of whatever it is that the father has, he had to first become adopted as children. 00:16:41.000 |
So when Paul says, "He made a promise to Abraham that you will become an heir of the world." 00:16:51.000 |
For you and I to become, to be able to say that we have been adopted into God's family and now we are able to call him "Abba, Father." 00:17:01.000 |
An Old Testament Jew wouldn't even say his name because they were afraid that they would offend this holy God. 00:17:09.000 |
They would either call him Adonai or they would call him Lord, but they would not say his name because there was such a reverence and fear toward who he was. 00:17:19.000 |
So to call him "Abba, Father" would have been completely beyond a Jewish paradigm. 00:17:25.000 |
And yet, Paul says, "Not only did he save us, he adopted us." 00:17:31.000 |
And we are able to call him our "Abba, Father." 00:17:34.000 |
The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God. 00:17:39.000 |
Not just His servants, not just His subjects, but His children. 00:17:45.000 |
And if children, then heirs, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ. 00:17:50.000 |
You see, the argument that Paul is making is, imagine Abraham, no matter how righteous he was, no matter what he did in his span of life, 00:17:59.000 |
could he have possibly, by his own effort, become an heir of the world? 00:18:05.000 |
Heir of a farm, maybe? An heir of a large bank account? 00:18:09.000 |
Maybe if he was the most successful businessman, that he would become a multi-billionaire, possibly. 00:18:15.000 |
Maybe if he was politically savvy, that he can be a ruler of a large, powerful nation. 00:18:22.000 |
But to be an heir of the world? The only one who owns the world is God. 00:18:29.000 |
So the only way to become an heir of the world is to become a child of God. 00:18:35.000 |
And it is absolutely ridiculous for us to think that somehow we're going to add. 00:18:41.000 |
God's going to do His part, and we're going to do our part. 00:18:44.000 |
That's no different than one day waking up and saying, "You know what? 00:18:48.000 |
Bill Gates, supposedly, I heard he has $78 billion. 00:18:53.000 |
I heard about 10 years ago, his wealth was maybe about $30 billion, and even $30 billion was ridiculous. 00:19:00.000 |
And then in the last 10 years, he doubled it, and this is after he donated all this money. 00:19:04.000 |
$78 billion, that would be nice to be an heir of that. 00:19:08.000 |
So I'm going to wake up, and I'm going to buy everything Microsoft. I'm going to have a Microsoft shirt. 00:19:13.000 |
Forget about Apple, I'm going to buy a Microsoft phone. I'm going to buy a Microsoft whatever. 00:19:20.000 |
I'm going to do everything in my power. I'm going to do everything in my power. 00:19:24.000 |
Everything I can do so that I can become an heir, a child of Bill Gates. 00:19:32.000 |
It's absolutely ridiculous. If anybody said that to you, you'd probably refer him to some counseling. 00:19:39.000 |
Give him some pills. That's not even possible. 00:19:44.000 |
So for us to think that somehow, that by our effort, by being good, by being righteous, 00:19:51.000 |
that somehow we can earn even a small portion of this salvation is absolutely ridiculous. 00:20:00.000 |
And that's the argument that Paul is making about this promise. 00:20:03.000 |
Only by promise can you become an heir of God. 00:20:07.000 |
And that's why in 1 John 3, Paul says, "Behold, what manner of love is this, 00:20:30.000 |
If you really understood what it means to be a follower of Jesus Christ, 00:20:37.000 |
it is not possible to even entertain that somehow that we became a child of God 00:20:43.000 |
because we did something, because of our potential. 00:20:50.000 |
And the only way we can persevere is by justification by faith. 00:20:56.000 |
The second argument of the promise is that the promise God made would be nullified if it was based on the law. 00:21:07.000 |
"For if it is the adherents of the law who are to be the heirs, faith is null and promise is void." 00:21:13.000 |
In other words, if you are relying upon obedience to the law, 00:21:18.000 |
the end result of that is your righteousness will be nullified. 00:21:23.000 |
God's promise will be nullified, therefore the only thing that you have coming to you is wrath. 00:21:29.000 |
Verse 15, "For the law brings wrath, but where there is no law there is no transgression." 00:21:34.000 |
Now he's not saying that if you didn't have the law you're not guilty. 00:21:39.000 |
He already made that argument in Romans chapter 1. 00:21:42.000 |
He who has the law are guilty with the law, who does not have the law are guilty without the law. 00:21:46.000 |
So he's not saying that without the law there's no sin. 00:21:49.000 |
What he is saying is you wouldn't be aware of it. 00:21:52.000 |
As he says again in Romans chapter 7, we'll revisit that again, 00:21:56.000 |
but Paul is saying that the law came to reveal sin. 00:21:59.000 |
So if the sin was not revealed you wouldn't think there's any transgression. 00:22:03.000 |
The whole point of it is for you to recognize that salvation could only be by faith. 00:22:09.000 |
See in Galatians 3.10 it says, "For all who rely on the works of the law are under a curse." 00:22:16.000 |
In other words, what he is saying, anybody who is entertaining the thought that somehow by your righteousness you're going to appease God, 00:22:30.000 |
"For it is written, 'Curse be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the book of the law, and do them.'" 00:22:36.000 |
You notice how he says, "Curse is everyone who does not abide by all things written in the book of the law." 00:22:42.000 |
You don't have to be a lawbreaker for 10 years. 00:22:46.000 |
You don't have to be a lawbreaker of thousands of sins. 00:22:49.000 |
All you have to be is a lawbreaker of one sin. 00:22:55.000 |
When Adam and Eve, when they sinned against God, how many sins did they commit that brought upon the wrath of God? 00:23:06.000 |
How many sins did Adam and Eve commit that caused the condemnation of mankind to come into them and through all of us? 00:23:27.000 |
God told them, "Do not eat of this tree of knowledge of good and evil. 00:23:37.000 |
They didn't have that and then a thousand more. 00:23:42.000 |
They commit that one sin and condemnation comes in. 00:23:45.000 |
Death comes into mankind and it rains from that moment on. 00:23:49.000 |
The scripture says once you are a breaker of the law, that one sin brings condemnation. 00:23:56.000 |
See, anybody who wrestles, when we talk about, you know, the righteous, "Well, what about that person? 00:24:02.000 |
And what about all the righteous deeds that I've done or they've done?" 00:24:06.000 |
Because they're thinking about all the good things that they've done, whether it's them or somebody else. 00:24:11.000 |
You know, we do such a good job hiding our sins that sometimes even we're convinced that it's not there. 00:24:19.000 |
Sometimes we do such a good job presenting who we are in public that after a while, even we're convinced, 00:24:27.000 |
even though we know deep in the back of our mind that we're sinners. 00:24:30.000 |
As soon as we are exposed, we know God knows all of this. 00:24:35.000 |
But we do such a good job presenting ourselves that even we forget. 00:24:40.000 |
And what Paul reminds us of is if salvation was based upon your good deeds, all that is coming to you is wrath and judgment. 00:24:50.000 |
He says, "A man who relies upon his own work," he says in Romans 8.15, "is under slavery." 00:24:57.000 |
"For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear." 00:25:04.000 |
You know, years ago, I think I was about 19 years old, and I got this summer job, 00:25:09.000 |
and it was only for about a week or two weeks. 00:25:12.000 |
And the math I ever had was working at this lumber yard. 00:25:15.000 |
And it was a short period, you know, and I've done dish washing, I've done hamburger cooking, toilet cleaning, I mean, I've done everything. 00:25:23.000 |
But I would say of all the jobs I had, this was the hardest job. 00:25:27.000 |
And the reason why it was a hard job was the job description was that I had to physically move lumber. 00:25:34.000 |
And it was eight hours a day, so I had to move lumber, and you know, and I don't know why they didn't have a forklift, 00:25:39.000 |
but at that time they told me, "You got a pile of junk wood here, and you got to take that and put it over there. 00:25:54.000 |
After all the contractors do their stuff, I have to clean it up. 00:25:58.000 |
And he told me that if you do a really good job, that instead of getting four bucks an hour, we'll give you five dollars an hour. 00:26:09.000 |
That one dollar was going to make a big difference, right? 00:26:12.000 |
Getting new shoes, I don't know what I was going to put. 00:26:15.000 |
I remember thinking, "I'm going to work my tail off." 00:26:18.000 |
In my mind, I think, "I'm a hard worker anyway, but I'll work even harder, so it shouldn't be too hard." 00:26:26.000 |
I worked and I was cleaning after it was done. 00:26:29.000 |
And even during breaks, I only took a short break because I wanted to make sure that the boss is watching me. 00:26:34.000 |
So I never slacked off during that two weeks. 00:26:40.000 |
But two weeks of doing this, and after the two weeks, I waited for my paycheck to come. 00:26:47.000 |
And so I was kind of like, "What? What could I have possibly done? 00:26:51.000 |
What more could I have possibly done in those two weeks to earn that extra dollar?" 00:26:56.000 |
And I found out that at the same time, they hired two of us. 00:27:00.000 |
And the other guy was a missionary because I was working. 00:27:05.000 |
And he was a missionary out in the Philippines. 00:27:11.000 |
And so basically what they told me was they were only going to pay one of us the extra $1. 00:27:17.000 |
And I found out that he has kids. He's a lot older. 00:27:21.000 |
So I worked my tail off, and he got the extra dollar. 00:27:39.000 |
To this day, I get angry when I think about that. 00:27:48.000 |
He said, "Curse is the one who is under the law." 00:27:51.000 |
If you somehow think you're going to earn your presence before God, 00:27:55.000 |
and at the end of your life, after the end of all your hard work, 00:27:59.000 |
he says, "All that is remaining is judgment." 00:28:09.000 |
And that glory that He meant to reflect of us cannot be restored by our works. 00:28:16.000 |
And that's why he says it can only be by promise. Only be by promise. 00:28:22.000 |
Third and final argument of why it is by faith and faith alone. 00:28:26.000 |
He says, "The promise rests on grace, therefore is guaranteed to all His offspring." 00:28:38.000 |
I'm sure some of you guys, you live in a home, and Saturday mornings, 00:28:42.000 |
or whenever the Jehovah's Witnesses would come and knock on your door, 00:28:45.000 |
and I remember early on I would get irritated because they always seemed to come at the wrong time. 00:28:50.000 |
And then after a while I started studying the Bible, and I started studying, 00:28:54.000 |
like, "OK, how do I argue this?" and find out about what their doctrines are, 00:29:00.000 |
So I became pretty good at arguing with the Jehovah's Witnesses, 00:29:03.000 |
and I have about three or four verses that I can go to that they can't answer. 00:29:06.000 |
So, you know, in the beginning I would try to get rid of them, 00:29:10.000 |
then after a while they began to leave, you know. 00:29:13.000 |
So it went from irritation to kind of like, "Ah, yeah, I did it!" 00:29:19.000 |
And then after a while I began to feel sorry for them, for their compassion. 00:29:25.000 |
Because in the context of talking to them, I asked them, 00:29:28.000 |
"So, can you ever have assurance of salvation?" And they said, "No." 00:29:32.000 |
And part of the reason why they're doing what they're doing 00:29:35.000 |
is because they think that if they get persecuted enough, 00:29:38.000 |
and obviously they're doing this, they're knowing that people are going to 00:29:41.000 |
slam the door on their faces, if they get persecuted enough, 00:29:44.000 |
that somehow when they die that it would be enough for them to get into Heaven. 00:29:50.000 |
So no matter what they do, they can never have assurance. Never. 00:29:57.000 |
And you think about it, it's annoying for us to be bothered by 00:30:00.000 |
on Saturday morning. Imagine them who are actually being dressed 00:30:03.000 |
and going from door to door and everybody hating what they're doing. 00:30:08.000 |
And at the end of their life, the scripture says all they're going to have 00:30:12.000 |
is judgment. Because that was not the path of righteousness. 00:30:18.000 |
You know, when we go to India, we see a lot of people out on the streets. 00:30:23.000 |
And it took me a while to figure out why people are so indifferent 00:30:27.000 |
toward those who are suffering. I mean, there are people who do care, 00:30:31.000 |
and there are ministries and things going on over there. 00:30:34.000 |
But as a culture, they believe in this caste system, 00:30:37.000 |
that if you're born into that caste, you must have done something bad 00:30:40.000 |
in the previous life. So their paradigm is, if you've messed up, 00:30:46.000 |
and if I help you up from that, you're not paying for your part. 00:30:51.000 |
So you have to suffer, so that if you suffer enough, 00:30:54.000 |
somehow you're going to pay for whatever it is that you did in the previous life, 00:30:58.000 |
so that you can come back as something better, and a higher caste. 00:31:02.000 |
So if I help you, I'm actually going to hinder you from having a better life 00:31:06.000 |
after you die. And they live under that system that, 00:31:09.000 |
okay, if you happen to have a hard life, and if something bad happens to you, 00:31:13.000 |
you must have deserved it. You've probably heard a lot of news 00:31:16.000 |
about rape, and how poorly women and children are treated. 00:31:20.000 |
Part of the paradigm is, well, you must have done something bad 00:31:24.000 |
in your previous life, so you have to pay for your sins. 00:31:27.000 |
So you have to do enough good, hopefully, that you will come back 00:31:30.000 |
reincarnated as something better in the next life. 00:31:34.000 |
Can you imagine how sad that situation is, that at the end of the... 00:31:38.000 |
the scripture says, "Inasmuch it is appointed for all men to die once, 00:31:46.000 |
See, there's no guarantee. They have to work hard, hoping, 00:31:50.000 |
and maybe one day dying, hoping that they did enough. 00:31:56.000 |
Why the Muslims are packing themselves with explosives, 00:32:01.000 |
and going around and killing themselves, because Muslims can never have 00:32:05.000 |
assurance of salvation. They said, by their own doctrine, 00:32:08.000 |
only Allah knows when you die, what's going to happen to you. 00:32:12.000 |
So their whole life is based upon that if I do good enough, 00:32:19.000 |
So the quickest and the most assured way for them to get there, 00:32:23.000 |
is to blow themselves up, and blow up the infidels. 00:32:26.000 |
So it's the quickest way. That's why they do that. 00:32:32.000 |
He said, "Salvation, true salvation, is guaranteed, 00:32:43.000 |
It was promised to us. 1 John 5, 13, "I write these things to you, 00:32:47.000 |
who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you may know 00:32:51.000 |
that you have eternal life." That statement right there, 00:32:55.000 |
only Christians can say this. Every other religion, you can never know. 00:33:01.000 |
See, Jesus says, "What you have lost, and what I'm giving to you, 00:33:05.000 |
is not something that you can attain." So therefore, God said, "I promise." 00:33:10.000 |
He didn't negotiate with Abraham. He didn't say, "If you do these things, 00:33:18.000 |
Ephesians 1, 3-10, he talks about salvation. This is what he says, 00:33:23.000 |
"Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, 00:33:26.000 |
who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, 00:33:30.000 |
even as He chose us in Him, before the foundation of the world." 00:33:38.000 |
We didn't all of a sudden recognize, "I have this hole in my heart 00:33:42.000 |
that only Jesus can fill, so I went out looking for Him." 00:33:48.000 |
You had no idea, until God came in and said, "Oh, there was a hole." 00:33:54.000 |
He chose us in Him, before the foundation of the world, 00:33:58.000 |
that we should be holy and blameless before Him. 00:34:00.000 |
In love, He predestined us for adoption through Jesus Christ. 00:34:04.000 |
He predestined us. Because the only way that you and I could possibly become a child of God, 00:34:09.000 |
is if He came and chose us. Just like anybody who goes out and adopts a child, 00:34:16.000 |
The child doesn't have parents lined up and say, "I want that, that father." 00:34:24.000 |
And whenever we talk about the idea of predestination, 00:34:28.000 |
we spend a lot of time talking about, like, "I don't get it." 00:34:31.000 |
If He predestined us, do we need to evangelize? 00:34:36.000 |
And we completely miss the whole point of why He even talks about predestination. 00:34:41.000 |
We talk about predestination like we talk about calculus. 00:34:50.000 |
Like, "How did you get the answer? What does that mean?" 00:34:53.000 |
"Why did the three go up there and then the four come down? I don't get it." 00:34:57.000 |
Right? And every time we talk about predestination, like, "How does that work?" 00:35:02.000 |
Right? "How does God's sovereignty and man's free will work?" 00:35:04.000 |
Or like, "Why does He need to do that? Why do we need to do that?" 00:35:10.000 |
The whole point of why He says our salvation is by promise, by election, by predestination, 00:35:15.000 |
is to remind us that our salvation is completely in His sovereign hands. 00:35:31.000 |
And then we're like, "Whoa, whoa, whoa. How does that work?" 00:35:37.000 |
"Oh, how does that work?" Right? "How does that work? How does that work?" 00:35:42.000 |
The whole point is to remind us, right, that our lives are in His hands. 00:35:52.000 |
Do you think that God went out of His way to pursue us in our justification 00:35:56.000 |
and is no longer pursuing us in our sanctification? 00:35:59.000 |
You think at some point He just opened the door and they just like laid Him back? 00:36:07.000 |
"According to the purpose of His will," not ours, 00:36:10.000 |
"to the praise of His glorious grace," not ours, 00:36:16.000 |
In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, 00:36:20.000 |
according to the riches of His grace," not ours, 00:36:23.000 |
"which He lavished on us in all wisdom and insight, 00:36:26.000 |
making known to us the mystery of His will, according to His purpose, 00:36:30.000 |
which He set forth in Christ, as a plan for fullness of time, 00:36:34.000 |
to unite all things in Him, things in heaven, and things on earth." 00:36:47.000 |
And that's why He says salvation is by promise, not by your work. 00:37:05.000 |
He cannot change His promise, He cannot change His nature. 00:37:11.000 |
so that by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, 00:37:15.000 |
who have fled for refuge might have strong encouragement 00:37:18.000 |
to hold fast to the hope set forth before us." 00:37:22.000 |
We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul. 00:37:27.000 |
A hope enters into the inner place behind the curtain. 00:37:32.000 |
When was the last time that you were convinced that He loved you? 00:37:38.000 |
The very reason why you accepted Christ to begin with. 00:37:41.000 |
The very reason why your sins were justified. 00:37:44.000 |
Because somebody told you that a sovereign God loved you enough 00:37:47.000 |
to send His only begotten Son to die for your sins. 00:37:52.000 |
When was the last time that you were convinced of this? 00:37:56.000 |
That the God who sent His only begotten Son is still pursuing you. 00:38:11.000 |
What saved you was that you heard the Gospel message 00:38:16.000 |
and you believed that God loved you, that Jesus died for you. 00:38:26.000 |
And that's what is going to cause us to persevere. 00:38:30.000 |
That in our weakness that we go to Him and not run from Him. 00:38:37.000 |
See, in Romans 8, 31-36, it says, "What then shall we say to these things? 00:38:45.000 |
He who did not spare His own Son, but gave Him up for us all, 00:38:48.000 |
how will He not also with Him graciously give us all things?" 00:38:50.000 |
If He gave us His Son, why would He not care about everything else? 00:38:59.000 |
Who shall bring any charge against God's elect? 00:39:10.000 |
If Jesus Christ is standing before as a mediator, 00:39:13.000 |
saying to the Father, "His sins are paid for." 00:39:17.000 |
Even Satan cannot stand before God condemning us. 00:40:09.000 |
And then if you've been in that state for a long period of time, 00:40:11.000 |
you begin to wonder if God is actually even there. 00:40:15.000 |
Not realizing we've been the one pushing Him away. 00:40:31.000 |
will be able to separate us from the love of God, 00:41:22.000 |
He didn't just say, "It is finished my part." 00:41:39.000 |
If you believed that this is what you have received in Christ, 00:41:44.000 |
this grace that you and I could not possibly even entertain to think, 00:41:59.000 |
It changes our fellowship with our brothers and sisters. 00:42:15.000 |
That's why eat or drink, do it for the glory of God. 00:42:22.000 |
That's why anything that comes between our worship in God, 00:42:30.000 |
It's when you and I recognize who we are in light of who He is, 00:42:43.000 |
True life is found in Christ, and Christ alone. 00:42:46.000 |
And the only way to get to this Christ is by faith, and by faith alone. 00:42:55.000 |
He has promised that the only way to Him is by faith. 00:43:01.000 |
And He has promised and guaranteed that this life is not only for Abraham, 00:43:09.000 |
Would you take a minute to pray with me this morning? 00:43:13.000 |
When the scripture says that He demonstrates His love, 00:43:18.000 |
He wasn't simply talking about the beginning. 00:43:24.000 |
And I really want to encourage you this morning. 00:43:26.000 |
I'm pretty sure there's some of you who are weighed down by your sin. 00:43:31.000 |
Consider how many people have rejected God, even as Christians, 00:43:35.000 |
stayed far away from Him because you felt unworthy. 00:44:00.000 |
And so now He says, "Live up to what you have already received." 00:44:12.000 |
Now live as people who've been affected by that grace. 00:44:16.000 |
So again, I want to encourage you this morning as you come before the Lord. 00:44:19.000 |
If you've been pushing God away because of your sins, 00:44:23.000 |
you've been doing exactly the opposite of what God desires in your life. 00:44:27.000 |
And you've been shunning the fellowship of the church because you feel like you're just not worthy. 00:44:32.000 |
You've been doing exactly the opposite of what the Gospel calls us to do. 00:44:40.000 |
Because our strength can only be found when we're in His presence. 00:44:43.000 |
So let's take some time before the Lord this morning and confess 00:44:54.000 |
So take some time this morning in prayer to come before the Lord 00:45:01.000 |
And let's pray as our worship team leads us this morning.