Trust Takes Time

We need to make a distinction between being forgiven of something and being done with something. This is a matter of justification, regeneration, and repentance. Transformation is a process. Just because someone has been forgiven of their sins by God, or forgiven of a particular sin, by others, this doesn’t mean that the person doesn’t still have a sinful problem.

The power of sin is not instantly fixed through forgiveness. By virtue of justification, the eternal penalty for sin, and being guilty in the eyes of God, that is “fixed”. But there remain consequences in this life. Sinful patterns must still be dealt with. By virtue of regeneration, Christians do have the power to overcome sinful patterns, but they must endeavor to do it. It is not automatic. It takes time, effort, and commitment. Christians should forgive, but they should not act as if their forgiveness of a person, or even God’s forgiveness of a person, means that person is fully and finally healed of their sinful pattern.

There is a difference between repentance proclaimed and repentance proven. Repentance proclaimed (a confession) begins in a moment of time. Repentance proven (a conversion) happens over the course of time. When repentance is proclaimed, we forgive. When repentance has been proven, then we forget. To do otherwise is not wise. Trust takes time.

“Living For Today With An Eye For Tomorrow”©

What is the Gospel? Part 5: What are we saved from?

Colossians 1:13-14

Looking at Romans from 1:18-3:23 we see that salvation is from the wrath of God (cf. Isaiah 53:10-12 / Galatians 3:13 / 1 Peter 2:24). Jesus Christ is the answer to sin, and His death appeases the wrath of God. Many other things presented as “gospel” do not require God to become incarnate, live a sinless life, die on a cross and rise again. Is it necessary for Christ to have been crucified? That is one good criterion for understanding if a message is about the true gospel. Some add Christ into the mix but their messages are just like they would be without Him, motivational talks, moral exhortations, feel good seminars. If you took out the biblical references or even added them it wouldn’t make any difference to the content of the teaching.

What kind of savior do we really need? The bible defines that need. We are saved from God by God. The Law had to be fulfilled by humanity. Only God could save us; only a human being should save us. God can’t die, so the Son of God entered into humanity so that He could die and pay for our sins. Until that broken Law was fulfilled by humanity we were still dead in our sins. We needed a new federal head, a second Adam (1 Corinthians 15:45 / Romans 5:12-19). To redeem a people He had to be fully God, so as to give the atonement an infinite value, and He had to be fully man to perfectly satisfy the requirements of God’s Law, thus becoming an acceptable substitute for sinners (1 Timothy 2:5 – the man Christ Jesus) . It is not how many bad things you have done, not how many sins you have committed, but actually how bad sin itself really is. God’s glory was demonstrated at the cross by showing that God’s Law really did require a penalty for transgressions against it (Romans 3:25-26).

The missing ingredient in many gospels or gospel presentations is the fact that we are bound by sin, dead in sin, and slaves to sin. Salvation is from sin and to the Savior. The great problem of humanity is sin, not a lack of knowledge, not a lack of power, but a lack of purity. No amount of power and no amount of knowledge can erase that. Only the blood of Christ can wash away my sin, nothing but the blood of Jesus can make me whole again. The only way we can have peace with God is if our sins are forgiven, and in Christ they are (Romans 5:1).

Some use the world’s methods of marketing to “sell” the gospel, being more concerned with numbers than with presenting the true gospel. Some water it down so there is no call for repentance from sin. This may produce large numbers of “converts,” but very few genuine believers. The message isn’t healing, helping needs or even simply that Jesus is the Messiah; it is the cross and the resurrection. We do not change it, modify it, grow it, shrink it or do anything to make it better. Our task is simply to take it the way it has been given to us and to believe in its power to affect lives. The fact that so many try to make the gospel into something else shows the nature of it as a stumbling block (1 Corinthians 1:18-24, 2 Corinthians 2:14-16).

“Living For Today With An Eye For Tomorrow”©

What is the Gospel? Part 4: What is justification?

Luke 18:9-14

It is being declared righteous before God based on the merits of Christ. Often overlooked is the fact that when the Pharisee prayed he was thanking God. He was not saying how great he was by himself. He knew he was not able to do good works on his own, but felt that this infused righteousness he worked with justified him. God does indeed develop righteousness in everyone to whom He imputes righteousness, but we never achieve perfection in this life (Philippians 3:4-19). Works are the fruit, not the root of justification (Ephesians 2:10). This is the great danger, the teaching that the imparted righteousness whereby we can indeed do good works is the grounds of our justification, instead of the imputed righteousness of Christ to our account.

For some to justify means to make righteous rather than to declare righteous (cf. our sermon A Nail Pierces the Darkness). The Roman Catholic Church talks of grace and being saved by the merits of Christ alone. However, they teach that we receive the grace of God, and the merits of Christ, and are made righteous based on our participating in the sacraments of the church. Yet the Bible is clear that the gospel which saves the soul (1 Corinthians 15:1-4) does not include sacraments such as water baptism (1 Corinthians 1:17).

Also the Roman Catholic version of Communion (Eucharist) is turned into a righteous act on the part of the participant in which they maintain or continue their saving relationship with God. They believe that the real physical presence of Jesus is in the bread and wine and that it is the continuing sacrifice of Christ over and over to assist the participant in the continued removal of personal sin. The Bible is clear that this cannot be the case (Hebrews 9:24-28). The Bible clearly teaches that we receive the grace of God by faith alone, and not faith in any work, including a sacrament (John 5:24 / Romans 3:20-24 / Galatians 2:16 / Ephesians 2:8-9).

The difference is the difference between a saving faith that relies on an external atonement for sin and a misplaced faith that relies in an internal abatement of sin. We should be thankful that we have been given a measure of freedom from the power of sin in this life, but we must be careful to never equate this with our righteous standing before God.

“Living For Today With An Eye For Tomorrow”©

What is the Gospel? Part 3: Why do both Jesus’ Life and Death matter?

Matthew 3:13-15

In order for sinful human beings to have eternal life, the guilt and penalty of sin must be removed. Jesus does this not only by dying the death we justly deserve but by living the life we should have lived. If Jesus simply needed to impute the righteousness of God from His essence, there would have been no need for him to live for 33 years. However, in order to become a perfect high priest and lamb without blemish, Jesus not only had to die for us but He had to live for us. It is clear that the Scriptures speak of God’s people not only being justified by His death (Romans 3:25, 4:25, 5:9) but also as being saved by His life or obedience (Romans 5:10, 19). On the cross, God treated Jesus as if He lived your life so He could treat you as if you lived His life. That’s the Gospel.

Hebrews 4:14-15, 5:7-10 – this does not mean that Jesus was merely sinless in His essence as the second Person in the Trinity, but that He overcame temptations as a man. He revered and obeyed God. It says He was made perfect. Now if only His essence were needed for our righteousness there would be no need for Jesus to be made perfect since He already was. What this is speaking of is the same thing Jesus meant when speaking to John the Baptist. He was made perfect as a man (fulfilling all righteousness) so that He could become the source of salvation. Jesus was not lacking in any godly quality, but in the full experience of having lived a perfect human life. Jesus obeyed the Father in everything without sin (John 8:29). The lifelong perfect obedience of Jesus (Hebrews 5:8, 7:26-28) provides the basis for eternal salvation (Hebrews 2:10-18, 10:14).

Matthew 5:17 – Jesus did not come to destroy the Law but to fulfill it. Jesus does for us what we cannot do for ourselves (Romans 3:20). Romans 8:3-4 – the problem is not with the Law, but that it was weakened by the flesh and therefore could not do what it intended (i.e. do this and live, Deuteronomy 8:1, etc.). Jesus came in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin but without that weakness so that the righteous requirement of the Law might be met (fulfilled) in us.

“Living For Today With An Eye For Tomorrow”©

What is the Gospel? Part 2: How does God accomplish the Gospel?

2 Corinthians 5:18-21

We see the main thing here in this text, imputation (see also Isaiah 53) – both sin to Christ and righteousness to us. This is the ministry and message of reconciliation. Everybody has a sin problem (Romans 3:23) and we’re given the responsibility to proclaim the cure. That’s the main reason we are left on earth after we are born again, because fellowship with God, fellowship with each other, and triumph over sin will all be complete in heaven. There is one thing we do here that we cannot do in heaven and that is the ministry of reconciliation.

For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin – this means that God the Father punished Jesus as if He were the sinner, not that He was now actually a sinner. Jesus was our substitute. We see a type of this in Leviticus 16; Jesus became the “scapegoat”. The scapegoat wasn’t guilty, but the priest symbolically laid all the sins of the people on the scapegoat and sent him away. Jesus was without sin, but sin was credited to His account as if He had personally committed it, and then God punished Him, though the fact is He never committed any of it. Christ was made sin in the sense that our sins were accounted to Him. God treated Him as if He was guilty but He wasn’t. You were guilty, but God poured His wrath on the innocent Christ who was in our place as our substitute (Isaiah 53:10). The passage in Isaiah 53:6-7 is directly applied to Christ by Philip in Acts 8:32 (cf. John 1:29).

So that in him we might become the righteousness of God – this means God accredits the righteousness of Christ to our account. God rewards us as if we are the righteous, not that we are actually righteous. We see imputed righteousness also in Luke 22:37 (what was written about ME) where Jesus connects Isaiah 53 (see vs.11) with Himself (cf. Jeremiah 23:6).

“Living For Today With An Eye For Tomorrow”©

What is the Gospel? Part 1: The Basic Facts

The gospel message is the good news of salvation, the word of truth offered to mankind by grace through faith in the person and work of Jesus Christ; most especially the message of the cross. We naturally think that the gospel starts with people, but the Bible reveals that the Gospel starts with God. Those that don’t know God place people first and believe that individual insight into our own selves is more important than God. This leads to pluralism, in other words, choose your own path and it is okay, because the frame of reference is people centered instead of God centered. This is against the Biblical Christian faith, as revealed by Jesus Christ, who said that there was only one way to be justified before God, and that was through Him (John 14:6). Peter said that Jesus was the only way men might be saved (Acts 4:12). Paul told Timothy that there was only one mediator between God and man, that being Jesus (1 Timothy 2:5).

We either believe what Jesus said about Himself and the kingdom of God, and its exclusivity, or we have to invent some other way, which inevitably leads to pluralism (many paths), universalism (all people are saved), pantheism (all is God), or panentheism (everything has God in it). All these things are invalidated by the testimony of the Bible, which Jesus validated as the words of God (recall session 2, “A Biblical Foundation”). So, it is either Jesus or something else, you cannot have both, although many claim a Jesus that is not the Jesus of the Bible.

Jesus said He was God. This is why the Jewish leaders were trying to kill Him in the first place, because He was asserting that He was the Son of God. To the Jewish mind of the day it was clear that Jesus was saying He was equal with God (John 5:18, 10:24-33). Jesus said to them that if they did not believe He was who He said He was that they would die in their sins, i.e., they were not going to heaven, but would be damned (John 8:24).

Think of it this way: all roads do indeed lead to God, but only one road leads to God justifying you, and all the other roads lead to God judging you. If you are in Christ God has already judged your sins, He punished Jesus in your place, but if not, then you will be punished for your own sins with your own soul, and you cannot pay for sins against God.

What are the basic facts of the Gospel? – 1 Corinthians 15:3-4 gives us the gospel in a nutshell – Christ died for our sins, was buried, and He rose again on the third day. We see that it was Jesus, the Messiah, who is the Christ, the Son of God, and the perfect One, who had to die for our sins. We’ll develop the significance of that as we go on from here. We also see that the resurrection is central to the gospel message (cf. Acts 17:31 / Romans 8:34-39 / 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 / 2 Timothy 2:8-11 / 1 Peter 1:3-9, etc.). Paul goes on to develop this in the rest of the chapter (cf. our sermon Where are your Easter Eggs?)

“Living For Today With An Eye For Tomorrow”©

God’s Dress Code (Radio / Podcast)

…everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted
(Luke 18:14 – ESV)

Humility is God’s dress code standard for the church. Those that come before God clothed with humility can wear the robe of Christ’s righteousness (cf. Jeremiah 23:6), and leave justified in God’s sight. As an illustration, Luke 18:9-14 is the quintessential summary of the difference between those whom God will justify and those that seek to justify themselves.

I am often asked what the dress code of our church is. “Can we wear jeans, can ladies wear pants, do we have to wear a tie, and will we feel out of place if we don’t dress up?” I am thankful for this because it gives me an opportunity to address the real issue. I say, “The only thing we ask is that you come clothed with humility.”

Pride was the first sin, the sin of Satan. It was the “genesis” of sin if you will (cf. Isaiah 14:12-14 / Ezekiel 28:11-19). This mother of all sins has filtered down to our age and remains as the great wall between man and God (1 John 2:16), between a righteousness that saves and one that doesn’t. It is a lack of humility that keeps the great mass of people from faith and salvation.

The Scriptures are replete with the notion that God hates pride and loves humility. Pride is an abomination to God (Proverbs 6:17), and humility is absolutely necessary for salvation. Many teachings touch on this theme in varying ways (cf. Luke 10:25-37 / Psalm 34:2 / Isaiah 57:15, 66:2). Certainly this is true of the parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector.

Self-righteous sin takes the form of a two-pronged pride. Firstly, like the people who are using the standards of others to determine what to wear to church, the self righteous use a comparison with others as the standard of their own righteousness. The Pharisee looked at other people and determined he was doing the Lord’s will.

Many in the church today, as well as those who don’t think they need God, think that because they are “ahead of the pack”, that this makes them righteous. But the standard for righteousness to which the Bible directs us is not that of other people but that of God. The focus is wrong.

Secondly, while comparing ourselves with others is not right, neither is comparing one’s self with his own self. Even if we have made great strides in our walk with God, and lived a more holy life, it is not that life that will justify us before God. Again, the focus is wrong.

The world follows suit. Self-help, self-improvement, self-empowerment, self-esteem, self-awareness, self-actualization, “self” magazines, it goes on and on, the great focus of humanity is on self. Even in the church we often see teaching geared toward becoming a better or more successful person rather than on the person of Jesus Christ.

It seems to be about what God has done in us, rather than on what God has done for us. We feel as if we “do our best” that this sincere effort is what justifies us. This is precisely what the Pharisee thought. The world would applaud this man today, probably calling him a “true saint” or “one of God’s choice servants”.

No matter how good we are, however, it can never be good enough. What the Pharisee said about himself was true, but the Bible says that all our righteousness is as filthy rags (Isaiah 64:6). The standard is the perfect righteousness of Jesus, who said, “Be ye perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect (Matthew 5:48).”

Paul spoke to both sides of self-righteousness when he said, “For we dare not make ourselves of the number, or compare ourselves with some that commend themselves: but they measuring themselves by themselves, and comparing themselves among themselves, are not wise (2 Corinthians 10:12).”

Often overlooked is the fact that when the Pharisee prayed he was thanking God. He was not saying how great he was by himself. He had a sense of humility, but not true humility. He knew he was not able to do good works on his own, but felt that these justified him. God does indeed develop righteousness in everyone to whom he imputes righteousness (Romans 8:1-4 / Philippians 1:6), but we never achieve perfection in this life. Works are the fruit, not the root of justification (Ephesians 2:10).

This is the great danger, the teaching that the imparted righteousness whereby we can indeed do good works is the grounds of our justification, instead of the imputed righteousness of Christ to our account. Our good works give evidence to our faith (Matthew 7:20 / James 2:18) but they do not save us (Romans 3:20). This is subtle but is explained by saying that for some to justify is to make righteous rather than to declare righteous. The difference is the difference between a saving faith that relies on an external atonement for sin and a misplaced faith that relies in an internal abatement of sin.

The snare of self-righteousness makes many feel or claim to be sanctified when they are only sanctimonious. The truth is we must continue to walk in repentance and faith even after we have been justified. Martin Luther, in writing the first of his ninety-five theses said that the whole life of a believer should be repentance.

We should be thankful that we have been given a measure of freedom from the power of sin in this life, but we must be careful to never equate this with our righteous standing before God. You are not to thank God for your righteousness compared to others, but thank Him for His righteousness accredited to you because of the Atonement.

In Christ we are righteous, yes, but being “in Christ” is the key. Considering our spiritual state, it has been said that the more light we have, the more dust we see. It isn’t about self-loathing. The Church’s dress code deals with whether we see with our true condition before God or does the lens we view ourselves from have a “wrong focus”.

The question is, simply, “Are you wearing the right glasses?”

“Living For Today With An Eye For Tomorrow”©

To the Letter (Radio / Podcast)

But he, willing to justify himself, said unto Jesus, And who is my neighbor?
(Luke 10:29)

The parable of the Good Samaritan has been taught on countless times, and it has much to show us with regards to the presumption of faith. There are several things that we need to point out here. First, the lawyer obviously had the wrong motive for asking Jesus this question anyway, as it says he tempted him and that he wished to justify himself.

Don’t be too quick to dismiss yourself from this aspect of the passage, however. Many times we presume upon what God means by the law, pouring our own righteousness into it. We also may at times question the rightness of what God seems to be saying, or twist the text to mean something it doesn’t by trying to read into it, like this lawyer was doing. This lawyer, in trying to justify himself, sought an exact meaning of “neighbor”, so as to have a formula for righteousness.

Imagine him at the judgment: “But I loved my neighbor, just like you said to; I followed your commands to the letter”. Of course, this shows that what he was really trying to do was get a license to be able to love only those he must in order to inherit eternal life, and to necessarily exclude all others, at his personal discretion. Again, we see the results of trying to develop an exact method using the scriptures in an overly literal, all encompassing way.

Think about the child whose mother tells her that she cannot ride her bike to the park; she goes anyway, and when her mother scolds her, she cries, “I didn’t ride my bike, I walked”. Can you see how childish and utterly ridiculous this lawyer is being in this passage now?

Still, we see that today many have not taken this lesson from Jesus. They will take one or a few verses, and then dogmatically assert that this is the prescription for righteousness, instead of comparing these verses with others, using the clear, overall teaching of the Bible as a guide. All this is doing is the same thing the lawyer (and all religions apart from true Christianity) was attempting: to bring a measure of works to the kingdom of God. Christians have been deceived into jumping through spiritual hoops. Place your faith in Christ alone as your hope, not only of salvation, but also of sanctification. Only a justified sinner can battle effectively against sin. Overcoming sin comes from a relationship not for a relationship.

Salvation is not a process, where we do this, then achieve that type of deal. There is no must do order of salvation, it is of grace alone. This does not mean that we will not do these things that are evident in a true Christian life. Yes, we repent, get baptized in water, read our Bibles, pray, and pursue sanctification. But these are measures of obedience, not means of saving grace. These things are a result of salvation, not a requirement for it.

This fact points beautifully to the next aspect of Christ’s teaching here in this parable: the idea of duty. By showing us the priest and the Levite specifically, Christ was definitely trying to convey something even more than the fact that being a neighbor means more than your own kind.

Imagine the priest; he was on his way to the service; he had no time to help; he was already going to go help his parishioners, and there were hundreds of them, not just one man. Besides, how can he be expected to care for everyone he came across that needed help, he had his own flock to care for, and God put him in charge of these people, so God would want him to take care of his own? He had a prior commitment: there will always be people that need help; his job was to help those already entrusted into his care. Christ is putting his second commandment above prior duty. Those parishioners will still be there; this man may have died, and he needed help immediately.

Imagine the Levite; he was heading to the temple; no way could he touch this man, he had consecrated himself. The temple service he was going to happened only once a year; God would be furious if he defiled his hands just to help one soul, he was sacrificing for the sins of a whole community. Again, obedience is better than sacrifice (1 Samuel 15:22), and Jesus destroys the self-righteous lawyer’s, and many believers’ attitude.

Never are we to presume that we have the right way; we must continue to seek God, not trust in our own inventions, justified by our own pathetic knowledge of God gained by scripture twisting. Duty and prior commitment, even about church matters, can be no excuse to ignore the calling by God to demonstrate Christ-likeness.

“Living For Today With An Eye For Tomorrow”©

Reformation Day (Radio / Podcast)

In 1514, Albert of Mainz became the Archbishop. Being the Archbishop of Mainz made one a member of the prestigious Electoral College: a group of seven members, three ecclesiastical rulers (the Archbishops of Mainz, Trier, and Cologne) and four secular rulers (the king of Bohemia, the Margrave of Brandenburg, the Count Palantine of the Rhine, and the Duke of Saxony) whose responsibility it was to elect emperors.

Obtaining such a position did not come without expense, and in order to finance becoming the Archbishop, Albert borrowed 21,000 ducats from a famously rich banker. In order to pay off his debt, Albert obtained permission from Pope Leo X to collect alms in return for indulgences, provided that half of the money collected would be forwarded to the papacy in order to help finance the building of Saint Peter's Basilica in Rome. In 1517, Pope Leo X commissioned John Tetzel as the Commissioner of Indulgences for all of Germany.

To understand what an indulgence is, one must first understand Roman soteriology (doctrine of salvation), that is one must first understand how a Roman Catholic believes a person is justified.

Roman Catholics believe that grace is a commodity that one can accumulate through faith empowered good works, and that justification is therefore a process by which you accumulate enough "grace" through faithful works to justify yourself. Being born again, according to Roman soteriology, is a process that begins at water baptism and progresses until death, at which time you may or may not have any certainty about whether you had accumulated sufficient grace to avoid purgatory and go directly to heaven.

Purgatory, according to Rome's teaching, is the place where souls who didn't have enough grace in this life to be sufficiently cleansed from sin's stain, would suffer punishment. Even if a sin was confessed and forgiven by a priest, unless an "indulgence" was received from an ecclesiastical authority, one could expect to spend time in purgatory being punished for their sins at least until that punishment erased the guilt of their sin. Once the individual had been sufficiently punished in purgatory, his sins were purged, and he could continue on into heaven.

An indulgence therefore was a pardon or release from the expectation of punishment in purgatory, presuming of course that the sinner had been granted absolution by a priest already.

John Tetzel came to Wittenberg Germany in 1517, generating money to pay off Albert's debt, and to build up Saint Peter's Basilica in Rome, but when Tetzel began to sell these indulgences to the uneducated German on masses, it struck a nerve.

Tetzel had created a chart itemizing prices for various sins, and sloganeering with such crass slogans as "As soon as the gold in the casket rings - the rescued soul to heaven springs" and even claiming that the indulgences he sold could save a soul who violated the Virgin Mary.

God was about to force the Church to examine what it had become, and to choose for itself whether to pursue God or mammon. The original reformers had no intentions to leave the mother church. But God chose to separate his sheep from the treacherous wolves dressed in royalty.

So it was that on October 31, 1517, Martin Luther wrote a letter to Albert of Mainz protesting the sale of indulgences. Included in that letter was a copy of what has come to be called the 95 Theses, the same which were so famously nailed to the Wittenberg Castle church door. The door was a regular bulletin board, being close to and facing the main road through Wittenberg. It was not intended, I believe, to be an act of defiance, but rather an open invitation for scholarly discourse on the matter. However, by the Hand of God’s providence, the 95 Theses were quickly translated from Latin into German, printed, and widely copied, making the controversy one of the first in history to be aided by the printing press.

Whatever the case, the event had the effect of a catalyst - bringing to the forefront the profound need for reform in the Roman church. In his preaching and writing, Luther began to emphasize two main points: justification by faith and the priesthood of all believers.

Justification by faith means that Christians can never earn, deserve, or merit God's forgiveness. What we must do is to accept the life and atoning work of Jesus Christ as our substitute.

The priesthood of all believers means that every Christian has his or her own personal relationship with God, reading the Bible and worshiping in his or her own language, and praying directly to God without anyone's going in between.

What we think of as the Reformation, began as a bid from within the Roman Catholic church for reformation - a bid to correct what had become a radical departure from historic Christian faith, and ultimately a bid that was rejected by the papal system, in favor of their present, perversion of the gospel - a money generating, works based soteriology whereby men depend upon the church rather than Christ for salvation. Those who refused to embrace this perversion were excommunicated.

Before the 20th century, many churches celebrated Reformation Day on October 31st, regardless of which day of the week it occurred. Today, most churches that do celebrate it transfer the festival, so that it falls on the Sunday (called Reformation Sunday) on or before October 31st.

The fact that Reformation Day coincides with Halloween may not be mere coincidence. Halloween, being the Eve of All Saints' Day might have been an entirely appropriate day for Luther to post his 95 Theses against indulgences since the castle church would be open on All Saints' Day specifically for people to view a large collection of relics. The viewing of these relics was said to promise a reduction in time in purgatory similar to that of the purchase of an indulgence. Luther may have been shrewd in his choice of that day to post his theses.

This emphasis on the true gospel, justification by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, for the glory of God alone has been widely lost today. Luther said, "If I profess with the loudest voice and clearest exposition every portion of the Word of God except precisely that little point which the world and the devil are at that moment attacking, I am not confessing Christ, however boldly I may be professing Him. Where the battle rages there the loyalty of the soldier is proved; and to be steady on all the battle front besides, is mere flight and disgrace if he flinches at that point." May God raise up a Luther today who will face down the demonic opposition of all the false religion and lift up high the name of Christ and the gospel in truth.

“Living For Today With An Eye For Tomorrow”©

To the Letter (with audio)

USE THE PLAYER ABOVE TO LISTEN TO THIS POST

But he, willing to justify himself, said unto Jesus, And who is my neighbor?
(Luke 10:29)

The parable of the Good Samaritan has been taught on countless times, and it has much to show us with regards to the presumption of faith. There are several things that we need to point out here. First, the lawyer obviously had the wrong motive for asking Jesus this question anyway, as it says he tempted him and that he wished to justify himself.

Don’t be too quick to dismiss yourself from this aspect of the passage, however. Many times we presume upon what God means by the law, pouring our own righteousness into it. We also may at times question the rightness of what God seems to be saying, or twist the text to mean something it doesn’t by trying to read into it, like this lawyer was doing. This lawyer, in trying to justify himself, sought an exact meaning of “neighbor”, so as to have a formula for righteousness.

Imagine him at the judgment: “But I loved my neighbor, just like you said to; I followed your commands to the letter”. Of course, this shows that what he was really trying to do was get a license to be able to love only those he must in order to inherit eternal life, and to necessarily exclude all others, at his personal discretion. Again, we see the results of trying to develop an exact method using the scriptures in an overly literal, all encompassing way.

Think about the child whose mother tells her that she cannot ride her bike to the park; she goes anyway, and when her mother scolds her, she cries, “I didn’t ride my bike, I walked”. Can you see how childish and utterly ridiculous this lawyer is being in this passage now?

Still, we see that today many have not taken this lesson from Jesus. They will take one or a few verses, and then dogmatically assert that this is the prescription for righteousness, instead of comparing these verses with others, using the clear, overall teaching of the Bible as a guide. All this is doing is the same thing the lawyer (and all religions apart from true Christianity) was attempting: to bring a measure of works to the kingdom of God. Christians have been deceived into jumping through spiritual hoops. Place your faith in Christ alone as your hope, not only of salvation, but also of sanctification. Only a justified sinner can battle effectively against sin. Overcoming sin comes from a relationship not for a relationship.

Salvation is not a process, where we do this, then achieve that type of deal. There is no must do order of salvation, it is of grace alone. This does not mean that we will not do these things that are evident in a true Christian life. Yes, we repent, get baptized in water, read our Bibles, pray, and pursue sanctification. But these are measures of obedience, not means of saving grace. These things are a result of salvation, not a requirement for it.

This fact points beautifully to the next aspect of Christ’s teaching here in this parable: the idea of duty. By showing us the priest and the Levite specifically, Christ was definitely trying to convey something even more than the fact that being a neighbor means more than your own kind.

Imagine the priest; he was on his way to the service; he had no time to help; he was already going to go help his parishioners, and there were hundreds of them, not just one man. Besides, how can he be expected to care for everyone he came across that needed help, he had his own flock to care for, and God put him in charge of these people, so God would want him to take care of his own? He had a prior commitment: there will always be people that need help; his job was to help those already entrusted into his care. Christ is putting his second commandment above prior duty. Those parishioners will still be there; this man may have died, and he needed help immediately.

Imagine the Levite; he was heading to the temple; no way could he touch this man, he had consecrated himself. The temple service he was going to happened only once a year; God would be furious if he defiled his hands just to help one soul, he was sacrificing for the sins of a whole community. Again, obedience is better than sacrifice (1 Samuel 15:22), and Jesus destroys the self-righteous lawyer’s, and many believers’ attitude.

Never are we to presume that we have the right way; we must continue to seek God, not trust in our own inventions, justified by our own pathetic knowledge of God gained by scripture twisting. Duty and prior commitment, even about church matters, can be no excuse to ignore the calling by God to demonstrate Christ-likeness.

“Living For Today With An Eye For Tomorrow”©

God’s Dress Code

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…everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted
(Luke 18:14 – ESV)

Humility is God’s dress code standard for the church. Those that come before God clothed with humility can wear the robe of Christ’s righteousness (cf. Jeremiah 23:6), and leave justified in God’s sight. As an illustration, Luke 18:9-14 is the quintessential summary of the difference between those whom God will justify and those that seek to justify themselves.

I am often asked what the dress code of our church is. “Can we wear jeans, can ladies wear pants, do we have to wear a tie, and will we feel out of place if we don’t dress up?” I am thankful for this because it gives me an opportunity to address the real issue. I say, “The only thing we ask is that you come clothed with humility.”

Pride was the first sin, the sin of Satan. It was the “genesis” of sin if you will (cf. Isaiah 14:12-14 / Ezekiel 28:11-19). This mother of all sins has filtered down to our age and remains as the great wall between man and God (1 John 2:16), between a righteousness that saves and one that doesn’t. It is a lack of humility that keeps the great mass of people from faith and salvation.

The Scriptures are replete with the notion that God hates pride and loves humility. Pride is an abomination to God (Proverbs 6:17), and humility is absolutely necessary for salvation. Many teachings touch on this theme in varying ways (cf. Luke 10:25-37 / Psalm 34:2 / Isaiah 57:15, 66:2). Certainly this is true of the parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector.

Self-righteous sin takes the form of a two-pronged pride. Firstly, like the people who are using the standards of others to determine what to wear to church, the self righteous use a comparison with others as the standard of their own righteousness. The Pharisee looked at other people and determined he was doing the Lord’s will.

Many in the church today, as well as those who don’t think they need God, think that because they are “ahead of the pack”, that this makes them righteous. But the standard for righteousness to which the Bible directs us is not that of other people but that of God. The focus is wrong.

Secondly, while comparing ourselves with others is not right, neither is comparing one’s self with his own self. Even if we have made great strides in our walk with God, and lived a more holy life, it is not that life that will justify us before God. Again, the focus is wrong.

The world follows suit. Self-help, self-improvement, self-empowerment, self-esteem, self-awareness, self-actualization, “self” magazines, it goes on and on, the great focus of humanity is on self. Even in the church we often see teaching geared toward becoming a better or more successful person rather than on the person of Jesus Christ.

It seems to be about what God has done in us, rather than on what God has done for us. We feel as if we “do our best” that this sincere effort is what justifies us. This is precisely what the Pharisee thought. The world would applaud this man today, probably calling him a “true saint” or “one of God’s choice servants”.

No matter how good we are, however, it can never be good enough. What the Pharisee said about himself was true, but the Bible says that all our righteousness is as filthy rags (Isaiah 64:6). The standard is the perfect righteousness of Jesus, who said, “Be ye perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect (Matthew 5:48).”

Paul spoke to both sides of self-righteousness when he said, “For we dare not make ourselves of the number, or compare ourselves with some that commend themselves: but they measuring themselves by themselves, and comparing themselves among themselves, are not wise (2 Corinthians 10:12).”

Often overlooked is the fact that when the Pharisee prayed he was thanking God. He was not saying how great he was by himself. He had a sense of humility, but not true humility. He knew he was not able to do good works on his own, but felt that these justified him. God does indeed develop righteousness in everyone to whom he imputes righteousness (Romans 8:1-4 / Philippians 1:6), but we never achieve perfection in this life. Works are the fruit, not the root of justification (Ephesians 2:10).

This is the great danger, the teaching that the imparted righteousness whereby we can indeed do good works is the grounds of our justification, instead of the imputed righteousness of Christ to our account. Our good works give evidence to our faith (Matthew 7:20 / James 2:18) but they do not save us (Romans 3:20). This is subtle but is explained by saying that for some to justify is to make righteous rather than to declare righteous. The difference is the difference between a saving faith that relies on an external atonement for sin and a misplaced faith that relies in an internal abatement of sin.

The snare of self-righteousness makes many feel or claim to be sanctified when they are only sanctimonious. The truth is we must continue to walk in repentance and faith even after we have been justified. Martin Luther, in writing the first of his ninety-five theses said that the whole life of a believer should be repentance.

We should be thankful that we have been given a measure of freedom from the power of sin in this life, but we must be careful to never equate this with our righteous standing before God. You are not to thank God for your righteousness compared to others, but thank Him for His righteousness accredited to you because of the Atonement.

In Christ we are righteous, yes, but being “in Christ” is the key. Considering our spiritual state, it has been said that the more light we have, the more dust we see. It isn’t about self-loathing. The Church’s dress code deals with whether we see with our true condition before God or does the lens we view ourselves from have a “wrong focus”.

The question is, simply, “Are you wearing the right glasses?”

“Living For Today With An Eye For Tomorrow”©

Yes He Can! (7)

And to the one who does not work but trusts him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness,
(Romans 4:5 – ESV)

We need grace not grit. People think they can stand together and vote for hope but they won’t all get to vote on which measures to take, and some will disagree, and so some will be left out as always. Just getting everyone into agreement that we can do something doesn’t mean we can actually do it. Especially because not everyone who agrees we can do it will agree on HOW to do it. That is and was and always will be the problem, how to do it, not the resolve to do it. Christ has done it, He knew what to do and did it and when we agree with Him we don’t have any more work to do in order to be saved we just work to proclaim it.

They say, “we are the ones we’ve been waiting for” well the Bible says He is the one we are waiting for. They say theirs is the message for this time but the Bible declares our message is the message for all time. Yes He can.

People want the world to change, but it can change and often does, but not for the better. So people want the world to change for the better, for the good, but what do they see as good? They all have different ideas and God says none actually seeks for the real good, for the real God, and so they may change the word but it won’t be for the good, it won’t be for the glory of God.

Rallying behind some political movement in the guise of some humanistic spirituality that says, “yes we can”? We need to realize that God says no we can’t; but that doesn’t leave us without hope it turns us to the only real hope. Can we save the world, can we save our children, can we save our own souls – no we can’t. But can God save the world, can God save our children, can God save our souls – yes He can!

If you want the world to change you need to have your world changed. People want the world to change and it will change when the people are changed. Don’t look to the power of people look to the power of God, look to Jesus Christ. Can He change the world? Yes He can. For the redeemed the world has changed and the world will be changed. The question is will you be changed? Do you believe God can change you? Yes He can.

Did Christ pay for our sins? Yes He did. Will God deliver on all of His promises? Yes He will. Can God justify the ungodly and still remain perfectly just, righteous, and holy Himself? Can God have perfect mercy, love, and justice, all at the same time? Yes HE Can!

“Living For Today With An Eye For Tomorrow”©

Yes He Can! (6)

And to the one who does not work but trusts him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness,
(Romans 4:5 – ESV)

Do you need a revival in your soul? Then awake again, back to your first love. If your life needs a little life go back and revisit when you first knew you had it. Amazing grace how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me, I once was lost but now I am found was blind but now I see, ‘twas grace that taught my heart to fear and grace my fears relieved, how precious did that grace appear the hour I first believed.

Sometimes all we need is a little adjustment. We just moved some things around in our living room and the result was indescribable. The room was the same, the furniture basically the same, but we needed to do some rearranging to see more clearly how beautiful it all is. What you need is not novelty but freshness. You need to rearrange your life around God.

Has your experience in Christ changed you for the better? If not you need to check on the source you are drawing from: is it true or is it just you? Emotions (and emotionally moving experiences) can make life beautiful, but they often make lousy guides for determining the direction of our lives. Experience gets its value from the one who has it. Do you value what God has given you? If so then your experience will ripen the fruit of the Spirit in your life, and a little will always go a long way, and you will be growing in God. If not your life will rot and spoil on the vine. Perhaps you need to actually experience being justified by faith. Have you had that decisive moment where you have seen your inability and the availability of His grace? Have you repented from thinking you can do it all yourself and trusted in Christ who has done it all for you?

People want change; well they need to look again at when they were changed. Have you been changed? Then you ought to still be changing into the likeness of the One who changed you. Are you justified? Well then you are going to use your life as if you were forgiven. If all your debts had been paid you would have a different look; people would see that you were a changed man, that the burden had been lifted. Well let me ask you; are you a changed man or woman? Have the burdens been lifted? Are you justified by faith or are you still working it out for yourself? What the world needs, and what you need is not self-confidence, or self-esteem, but confidence in God, and esteem for Christ. Can Christ lift your burdens and give you assurance – yes He can.

“Living For Today With An Eye For Tomorrow”©

Yes He Can! (5)

And to the one who does not work but trusts him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness,
(Romans 4:5 – ESV)

This truth, justification by faith, is what makes Christianity distinctive among all other religions of the world. The false prophets of the false hope think their cause is righteous but we declare only Christ is righteous. No matter how much good they can do if they do not do it for the glory of God it is unrighteous, it cannot justify them before God.

I don’t want to elevate you. I don’t want to show you how we can do it. I don’t want to simply excite you, because that will wear out. I don’t want to proclaim the power of people I want to proclaim the name of God. You could change the world but only God can change your heart. You could save the planet but only God can save your soul. You could justify yourself in the eyes of the whole world but only through Christ can you be justified before God.

While the rest of the world looks for a political savior or some religious savior that only tells them how they can save themselves, we look to God who through Jesus Christ can justify the ungodly and give them a hope for heaven.

Others make promises they cannot keep. They do not have the power. They could be in control of all humanity and still humanity does not have the power to save itself.

People say that they want to see a world without fear. My Bible says that perfect love drives out fear, and we see that perfect love in our perfect Savior Jesus Christ. Can you see it, if you are a Christian, if you are born again then the answer is – yes you can. We need to see the kingdom of God but unless we are born again we cannot see it. Can you see the kingdom of God?

People are looking for redemption but we do not have that power only God does, only OUR God does. I am redeemed by Christ not by cause. They are all looking in the wrong place because they cannot see any other way because they are spiritually dead to God. They must be born again to be able to see it. Can you see it, are you redeemed, have you been justified by faith?

They say that there is nothing false about hope, but it is nothing but false if you believe in a false hope. And the Scriptures here and everywhere proclaim in no uncertain terms that only through Christ is there any real lasting hope for today, for tomorrow, for eternity.

False hopes fade away and false messiahs come and go but only our Messiah, our hope, our God, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ is the true living hope that we have been born again to, born again to see, born again to be, born again into realizing this and proclaiming this truth, this cause, this hope to a lost and dying world who is always looking to some slight glimmer of hope only to be tricked again into believing that they can muster up hope and have real change by the power of themselves and their unity. This is not hope, friends, this is hell and only Christ can deliver us from it and unite us in a reality and hope that is true for all times, for all nations, for all people. Can Jesus Christ give us a true and living hope – yes He can.

“Living For Today With An Eye For Tomorrow”©

Yes He Can! (4)

And to the one who does not work but trusts him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness,
(Romans 4:5 – ESV)

This is the truth that anchors us in a real hope. Unlike all other hope it is not dependent on our efforts or other factors, but on God and His own character alone. As we see it demonstrated in the death of Christ we know that it is real, it is sure, it is hope we can count on, the only one. People are getting really excited about the false hopes of humanity but they depend on humanity and its goodness not on God and His. How can they depend on some collective consciousness when they cannot even depend on themselves? If people aren’t as good as them and they have trouble, how can they do this, why would they believe it?

They can say yes they can all they want but their own lives and the lives of the others who have messed things up in the first place (which is who they are depending on) these lives tell the true story that no they can’t. What makes them think they can unless they think they are God? That is the real problem; they think they are God. They won’t say it, but in their hearts they believe in the goodness of mankind, the ability to save ourselves. If they will just open their eyes they will see their demise without the true God. But unless God opens their eyes will they ever see – no, they can’t.

This truth is why we see the need for suffering and evil in the world – to continue to show us that we need the Lord. Can we stop poverty by our purity – no we can’t. Can Jesus Christ give hope to the humble – yes He can.

Ungodliness means not like God, not only in holiness but also in power. We cannot band together and take care of it all. Yes we should love all our neighbors and try and help where we can, and truthfully we would do a lot if people would get together, but it will never be enough. The truth is that we will never band ourselves in unity enough to be able to reach such heights that we can climb our way out of our own hearts. We love Him because He first loved us. We can love others with true love because we have received the true love, the eternal love of Christ.

They are looking to save the world we are looking to the One who saved us

They are looking to the power of unity we are looking to the One who united us

They are looking to the power of humanity we are looking to the power of divinity

They are looking to the divine within we are looking at the divine as Him

We don’t look to ourselves but to our God; we work not for justification but from it. We have the real hope and can we proclaim it in utter confidence, yes we can, but the only reason we say yes we can is not because of we, but because of He. It is not simply yes we can, but yes HE can.

“Living For Today With An Eye For Tomorrow”©

Yes He Can! (3)

And to the one who does not work but trusts him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness,
(Romans 4:5 – ESV)

This is the truth we ought to be excited about more than any other. If we are not we need to examine ourselves, and indeed, we always need to be examining our lives as to how this truth is affecting us in the here and now. I believe one of the greatest errors to infect the Christian Church is the notion that justification by faith is only a ground level aspect of salvation. Because of this, the believer is told they must have further stages, additional works, or the experience of a "higher Christian life" beyond what was begun in justification. People get all excited about some new fad, some new personality, some new secret, some new way to tackle some old problem, some shortcut to happiness. If someone promises a way to do it other than the way God has laid out before us, we are all too happy to run and get it, to pay for it, to bow to it as we do all our other idols. It is time we reclaim and proclaim this ultimate truth. This is the gospel. Yes He can.

This is the truth that shows our God must be the real God, this truth exalts His holiness while also exalting His justice, mercy and love. It is not just that we don’t have the purity but we also don’t have the power. The power is not the purity, and even if people were untied perfectly around a single cause, humanity doesn’t have the power to stop the forces of nature let alone the fact that they will never achieve perfect unity because they don’t have purity of the heart. We might have some pure motives, perhaps, in a sense, some yearning for good, yearning for true meaning, but they cast it aside when it is right in front of their face in the person of Jesus Christ. How foolish to unite around a flawed notion of a common collective when we have the perfect purity and demonstration of divine power that has rippled down through the centuries still speaking to us of the reality behind the rhetoric of the Bible. Can humanity save itself – no it can’t. Can Jesus Christ save all that come to Him – yes He can.

“Living For Today With An Eye For Tomorrow”©

Yes He Can! (2)

And to the one who does not work but trusts him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness,
(Romans 4:5 – ESV)

I want you to be enflamed with an important truth. This is the truth that should light the fires of your faith above all others – that we are justified, declared righteous by faith. Now I don’t want to simply inspire you as any good writer or orator can do. It is important to be inspired but more important to be transformed. I don’t want to excite you; I want to exalt God.

When you don’t believe you can be deceived that’s when you already are. People today hear the rhetoric of a human hope, and think that all we need to do is unite. But beyond the rhetoric, what is the record of such things? How has that worked for us in the past? What is different now than then, has the human condition changed; can we actually believe that we have evolved out of our own depravity? People don’t believe that they are simply trusting in themselves but think that they are trusting in some higher cause. They have been fooled in that regard before. Can they be fooled again – yes they can.

I am not saying it is wrong to unite but what is important is what we are uniting around, and the Scriptures declare that there is only one real truth that we should be uniting around as far as changing our world is concerned, and that is the truth of Jesus Christ. They talk about change you can believe in, but they cannot change themselves. I am speaking of a name you can believe in, Jesus Christ. A leopard cannot change its spots but can Christ change a heart – yes He can.

The problems we have are because of who we are, and the answer to who we are is who He is. The only real way we can have lasting peace, lasting hope, lasting joy, lasting change is though the lasting love of Jesus Christ. Can He change our world – yes He can.

They speak of a call that will sound out from coast to coast, from sea to shining sea. They say yes we can. It is all about them. But I speak of a call that will sound out from the heights of heaven to the depths of hell through time and to eternity – yes He can. It’s all about Him.

You may not be the greatest speaker, but as a Christian you have the greatest truth, and you can proclaim it because of who He is – yes you can. They have no real hope, they cannot justify their rhetoric, but God through Jesus Christ justifies the ungodly and we can be justified in our proclamation of Him as our only hope, the only hope for the world. Can He save it? Yes He can.

When the rhetoric is gone the record will remain. Which of the world’s wonder men have risen from the dead, whose words live on, which person, what rhetoric, what record remains? Who has changed the world for the good more than any other, and who can change it for tomorrow and for eternity? Can anyone else – no they can’t. Can Jesus Christ – yes He can.

“Living For Today With An Eye For Tomorrow”©

Yes HE Can!

And to the one who does not work but trusts him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness,
(Romans 4:5 – ESV)

People are always looking to follow someone, to find a message worth believing, a cause worth living and dying for. Well I am here to tell you today that we have the message the world needs to hear. The message everyone needs to heed. We have the message about the greatest love and of the greatest truth of all time. We have something that anyone and everyone wants. Our message is about truth, love, joy, and lasting peace, for time and for eternity. We have what everyone else is looking for. We have THE message, something money cannot buy, something effort cannot earn, and something unity cannot bring.

Now I don’t say these words lightly, I don’t want to engage in empty rhetoric. The message we bring isn’t steeped in empty rhetoric; it is breathed by a God given reality. Before we engage in rhetoric we need to be equipped with reality. So many voices in the world today, as in every previous day, are giving the false hopes of a false belief that we can indeed save our children, our world, our souls, and ourselves just by banding together around that very cause – the salvation of humanity by humanity.

The rally cry today is the same as it was back in years following the Flood of Noah’s day, at the tower of Babel (Genesis 11) – yes we can. However, all the power of the people is of no effect if the people have no power to change their own hearts. Despite all of the rhetoric the Bible tells us the reality of the situation. Can we change our hearts – no we can’t.

When words and actions are in conflict, it's always the actions that carry the day. For most, indeed for all, including me, their rhetoric doesn’t match their record. If you look to some person to save you, people will always let you down, including yourself. That is why we cannot look to our own experience, but we must look to God and His Word for assurance. All men have sinned; all have come short of the glory of God. They are not God, they do not have the purity, and even if they did, they do not have the power. They all must rely on other flawed persons, and no amount of flawed build up can lead to pure ends. Man cannot climb his way out of his own heart.

I am not going to give you my personal testimony, my experience is not the reason I am justified, but in my experience I live out the fact that I am. I won’t trumpet my own righteousness now or as compared to how I used to be before I knew Christ, no matter how far I have come or how far I will go, and I hope to go very far, it will mean nothing compared to Christ. It is Christ whose righteousness I depend on. It is through Christ that I have been declared righteous. It is because of Christ that I can claim to be justified. It is because of Christ that I have peace with God. It is because of Christ that I am changed and it is because of Christ that I have inherited a home in heaven. That rhetoric is based in reality and the record of Christ backs it all up.

I am not simply relying on rhetoric of my own making. I am not relying on a record I have achieved. I am not relying on some false hope. I am relying on the Word of God and on the record of my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. He doesn’t have to rely on anyone to achieve perfection, purity, and power, and we can rely on Him to save us. Can He do it? Yes He can.

“Living For Today With An Eye For Tomorrow”©

In the Palm of His Hand

by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross.
(Colossians 2:14 – ESV)

There was a real record of our sin debt. There was a real record of transgressions made by you, sins against God. They are real, and God the Father took those out and said, “Who’s going to pay this bill?” God the Father told Christ it must be paid. If that sin debt weren’t paid then no one would be allowed to enter into heaven.

Our Savior told His Father that He would pay, and God handed His Son the record with its legal demands. Jesus Christ accepted His role as redeemer; He agreed to pay the sin debt of humanity with His own life, given for His own people who would call to Him in faith. Jesus wrote the check that paid for our sins with His own blood signature. God put the record of our sins in the palm of Christ’s hand and then He put a nail through it! Behold, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands (Isaiah 49:16).

Now being pronounced spiritually pure doesn't remove all the temporal consequences. God forgives us for the sin, but we might still have the broken heart, the addicted body, and we still have to care for the child out of wedlock. We still have repentance to do, restitution to seek, restoration to build upon. However, we act from forgiveness, we don’t act for it.

Often we want forgiveness to be a magic pill that does away with all the consequences of our actions. We often fall into this trap especially with "personal" sins that no one else knows about. We need the integrity to deal with the consequences of the sin that no one sees. But remember, we act from forgiveness, we don’t act for it. We are truly guilty, but we have been declared righteous, and God brings us to Him after we see both sides. Remember that when you feel like you are in the devil’s grip. Satan has no power to control you, he only fools you into thinking you are his instrument, but instead yield yourself to be an instrument of Christ’s righteousness. Jesus has got you in the palm of His hand.

“Living For Today With An Eye For Tomorrow”©

Saturday Sermon: The Fear of Easter

Romans 4:23-25 / Matthew 16:13-21

Now today I am going to give you an Easter sermon that you have probably never pondered before. We have covered all the usual topics in previous years, making the evidential case for the resurrection, and giving the encouragements that spring from the hope of the resurrection, and pleading the exhortations to believe because of the resurrection. Those are all biblical, needed, and well-placed sermons for people to hear on Easter Sunday. However, I want to explore another facet of the resurrection that leads to a different sort of life for Christians here on earth. It also is something that unbelievers can see about Jesus and grab a hold of as something to believe in, a reason to accept Christ, a real hope in a seemingly hopeless world.

The resurrection is about Jesus Christ rising from the dead, having atoned for our sins. It is about the fact that because of this, if we believe in Him, and believe He did indeed arise from the dead, we can also have eternal live, and arise from the grave some day. But the resurrection also means many other things, and having preached on it, and referring to it almost every week, and knowing that even the unbelievers here today have probably heard some of that before, I wanted to take a different tack today. This message will be all about the resurrection, but it is also about how it should filter down into our lives in a way that unravels some of the problems we face.

The resurrection takes care of the big picture, but it can also focus in on our specific, little, daily pictures and turn them into portraits of grace, built up by faith. So I am going to cover a little about the traditional Easter sermon, give you some verses to review, and then I am going to take our second text and show you something to enliven your faith and give you some marching orders in our daily battles with the enemy of our souls. If you feel caged in by life, by sin, by the world, by your circumstances today, listen up; this message could set you free.

Considering our text from Romans, it declares that our sin is why Jesus went to the Cross and our salvation is why He arose from the grave. We can be justified by faith because the resurrection proves that God the Father accepted the sacrifice of Christ for our sins. The resurrection is a cornerstone of the Christian faith.

This ties in with Hebrews 11:17-19 – Abraham believed in the resurrection power of God. Also, Job 19:25-27 / Isaiah 26:19-21 / Daniel 12:1-3 all speak of resurrection. Jesus resurrected Lazarus, and Jesus is not only resurrected, as He said He IS the resurrection and the life (John 11:25). To know Him is to know life and to be spiritually resurrected and eventually physically resurrected. Born again to live forever.

Predicting the resurrection was part of the Messianic vision of the Old Testament and what Jesus predicted during His own life: Psalm 16:10 (Acts 2:24-31), Psalm 22:22-31 (Matthew 27:46 alludes to the whole Psalm being fulfilled), Psalm 118:22 (Acts 4:10-11), Isaiah 53:10-12, Mark 9:31, Luke 18:33, John 10:17-18 (He laid it down on His own). Preaching the resurrection was the focal point of the Apostolic witness: Acts 3:15,26, 5:30, 10:40, 13:30-37, 17:3, etc.

Now there is another place where Jesus spoke of His resurrection, and we want to look a little closer today at Matthew 16:18-21 because it contains a fundamental promise that many people have never thought about from this passage. An important area of misunderstanding about the Church has to do with the phrase, "the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." Many use Matthew 16:18 to affirm that the Church will endure no matter what evil might come against it. People say “the gates of hell” as if it is the forces of hell against the Church but that isn’t what this means primarily. What did our Lord mean by this statement? What are "the gates of hell"?

In biblical times, the gates of a city were the key points in the city's defenses. Massive gates with multiple inner gates were made to withstand opposing armies. To "possess the gate of your enemies" (Genesis 22:17), meant to conquer your enemy. When the gates of the city were breached, the attacking army had won. The city was conquered; the gates had not prevailed.

So what about the gates of hell? The Greek word used here, translated as "hell," is actually the word "Hades." Hades is not the same as hell, or "the lake of fire," but is a word that is used to describe the "realm of the dead". For example, in Luke 16:23 the word "Hades" is used to describe the place where the unbelieving dead await the final judgment. This distinction is also used in Revelation 20:13-15 where "death and Hades are thrown into the lake of fire."

This background reminds us that all unbelievers are held captive behind the gates of Hell. John 3:18 says whoever does not believe is condemned already, but in Hebrews 2:14-15 we learn that by His death Jesus destroyed the power of the devil which is the fear of death.

So what are the gates of hell? The fear of death is what the gates of hell are about. It is the gates of death (cf. Job 38:17, Psalm 9:13, 107:18, Isaiah 38:10). So Matthew 16:18 reads like this – Upon this rock (Jesus as Messiah) I will build my church, and the gates of hell (fear of death) shall not prevail against it. It is not so much about the assault of the powers of darkness but that the Messiah and His Church will never perish, and Jesus will die but not stay dead. This is the main point of the passage, clearly seen by looking at verse 21. He is predicting His own resurrection, and also the resurrection of all believers. The Church will not fail because Jesus will not fail to rise again. This is a prophecy, not just that He will resurrect, but that we will resurrect also (cf. Romans 8:11 / 1 Corinthians 6:14 / 2 Corinthians 4:14).

When Jesus Christ died and rose again, the power of death was broken. Death was unable to keep its hold on our Lord Jesus, and in His death and resurrection He conquered death itself. Now, as members of His Body, we are also members in His victorious army. We can storm the "gates of hell" and rescue people from the clutches of death, rescuing those who are in fear. The gates of hell will not prevail against the assault of Christ's victorious Church. Our mission is to act on the truth of Christ's statement and snatch the captives as "brands from the fire" (Zechariah 3:2, Jude 23). It is not the picture of the forces of Hell attacking Christ’s Church, but of death’s lack of victory over the Church. The Church is built upon the Messiah, and death, the gates of Hell, will not prevail against it by keeping Christ imprisoned. Death cannot stop life (1 Corinthians 15:54). Death cannot overpower the church. The Gates of Hell shall not prevail. Why? Satan has the gates, but Jesus has the keys (Revelation 1:18).

Jesus is saying that death and all its power will never overcome the Church He is building. The fear of death will not prevail against the revelation that Jesus is the Messiah. Now listen, because I wan to go further, deeper into applying this truth. Christ delivered us from eternal hell and from the fear of a living hell. The resurrection takes away the fear of death, physical, spiritual, and leading to a lack of fear in the emotional as well. The resurrection takes away the wrong kind of fear and replaces it with the right kind of fear (Matthew 10:28). Fear is everywhere, but this is the process and progress of the gospel in our lives, the removal of fear. King Jesus takes over and starts clearing the house, as we trust Him (Mark 4:26-29). When we see Him working to remove unholy fear, the fear of men, the fear of being secure, the fear of being lonely, the fear of being poor, and working to instill holy fear (the fear of God), that is when you know resurrection power is working in your life. When we have a holy fear we will lead holy lives, and we will have holy gladness and holy boldness, and the gates of hell will not prevail against us.

Some Christians don’t often realize this, that Christ is working in us to remove fear from our lives. We may not have a fear of death but we let other fears come in and disturb us. This is why we need the ongoing work of the gospel to penetrate our lives, to release us from the smaller fears. The big gates are down but we are inside the inner gates still.

Gates are the things held up to keep people out. The gates of hell are like the caging of our souls in fear. The world the flesh and the devil all try and box us in but Jesus breaks us out those things that would cause us to fear (economy, health, injustice, conspiracy theories). When we find ourselves in fear of the things the world fears, we are obviously being worldly. Now this needs to be understood correctly, I am not saying we just rush into everything haphazardly, or that we shouldn’t make plans, no, not that at all. But we should, as Christians, never be subject to the terror others have about temporal things.

People think everyone is against them, and it is true, all the forces of the enemy want your destruction, but as a Christian, Jesus has His power in you, and you have a choice. Those things that would like to box us in, to cage us, to surround us with gates, those things, and those boundaries are what Jesus Christ has broken. The power of grace is the power to storm the gates as it were, to crash through with the gospel so as to rescue those that are in fear. When we show them the power of Christ over the greatest fear, and how it has transformed us, then we can begin to allow that power to transform the rest of our lives piece by piece. We may have great difficulties but we see Christ and how He overcame it all for us, and so no matter how far down we sink He has been lower and that cry lifts us up, as we know He has been lifted up out of that pit we too can be lifted. When we see Him working to remove unholy fear and working to instill holy fear that is when you know resurrection power is working in your life. When we have a holy fear we will lead holy lives. That is the right kind of fear, the fear of Easter.

A holy life: that is what people are afraid of, that is the fear of Easter, the wrong kind. “I’m afraid if I trust Jesus I won’t enjoy my life.” Well, if you don’t trust Jesus you are already dead. Christians fear that if they fully surrender to God He’s going to make them miserable. Friends you need to get to know God better than that!

Jesus sets new boundaries for us, not the gates of fear but the guard of grace, the yoke of Christ. His school teaches us to live in Godly fear while losing worldly fear. People think they live without boundaries but they are actually caged in by their own sin and living in fear of the unknown. People think Christians are caged in but they are the ones who are truly free. Free from the power of sin, death, and hell. Yes we still sin and we put up the gates, put the chains back on in a sense but again, when we see Him working to remove unholy fear and working to instill holy fear that is when you know resurrection power is working in your life when we have a holy fear we will lead holy lives. The resurrection takes away the wrong kind of fear and replaces it with the right kind of fear (Matthew 10:28).

We know how the resurrection affects our eternal destiny, but in the here and now it is about the gates of hell, of fear. 1 John 4:18 – Perfect love casts out fear. This verse is speaking primarily of the fear of death and eternal judgment, and that is the first fear that Jesus drives out with His perfect love. For fear to be cast out means it must have tried to enter in, or that fear can be driven out. It is not that we won’t ever have any fear at all but that fear is overcome by love, and we see His love in the crucifixion and resurrection. Sometimes fear has come in and we need to have it cast out by perfect love. Fear has many manifestations. Remember last week (Matthew 27:46) – we see His compassion but it is undergirded by a real conviction. The more we become convinced about the resurrection the more it can help us to overcome fear in this life. We need to ponder it and preach it to ourselves every day, to preach the gospel to ourselves.

We may not know all the answers but we can know Him is the answer and begins to give us answers as we trust in Him, as to why people suffer, why evil and war plague our planet, and why Christians have lost so much credibility as people who know how to love. When we see our Savior suffer the pains of hell for us, and yet still cry a very certain call out to the Father, we begin to see that He can deliver us from any depth of despair, and that we can trust Him no matter how far we have sunk into sin or sorrow.

Resurrection removes fear. Now fearless faith doesn’t mean reckless in the sense of tempting God it means trusting God. Not, “I have no fear so I am going to spend all my money on some project”, but, “I am without fear so I can withstand any onslaught”. We do need to get these things categorized in our minds correctly. I am not saying that we will live these spotless lives of super triumph in every situation. No I am saying we can have real feelings and still have real hope. We can be like Jesus and feel and be real, hurting in the short term but looking to the long term. Seeing through both the narrow and wider lens.

Proper distinction will lead to proper understanding. Fear is not sadness or depression; we can have sorrow but still have joy. Not having fear doesn’t mean we are foolhardy, and it doesn’t mean not taking care, or a lack of respect or disobeying authority. Freedom from fear is the freedom of faith. The fruits of faith are the fruits of a fearless life (Romans 8:31-39).

He has delivered us from the greatest fear, the fear of the unknown. When we see Him working to remove unholy fear and working to instill holy fear that is when you know resurrection power is working in your life. When we have a holy fear we will lead holy lives. We will not only feel free to die but we will feel free to live. We have talked of trusting the truth to set us free, and we have talked about connecting with Christ and with other about Christ in a real way, and the bridge between conception and connection is compassion. But that must be undergirded by conviction. We can bring true compassion because we have true conviction. If you get real with God He will be real to you. If you trust in Jesus Christ and in the resurrection, the gates of hell will not prevail against you. When you fear God you don’t have to fear anything else.

“Living For Today With An Eye For Tomorrow”©