Not Understanding The Gospel (Part 2)

MINISTRY PROFESSIONS OF FAITH

MAY 03 AT THE GYM 01

MAY 07 LAUNDROMAT 01
MAY 08 COURT SQUARE 17

UPCOMING EVENTS

MAY 10 CROSS LIGHT 2 P.M. - 6:30 P.M.
MAY 11 LURAY FESTIVAL 10 A.M. - 4 P.M.
MAY 15 COURT SQUARE 9 A.M. - 4 P.M.

Sharing the gospel downtown yesterday further confirmed our lesson from last week's newsletter:

People inside and outside the church simply do not understand the gospel.

Let's finish from the previous Wednesday's stories before moving on to yesterday. Please keep in mind that all of these stories came from the same day. The Spirit of God is wanting to impress upon us the lesson at hand.

After sharing with Kate, I had the pleasure of sharing with a very nice man named Charles. Charles initially told me that he had been 'reborn', but then I was surprised to hear that he was only 98% sure of his eternal destination.

The reason?...

"Well, nobody's perfect."

Now, I know what he means. We all screw up every day. However, we need to go back to what the Word of God says with respect to our position in Christ.

Do you realize that the moment you place all of your faith in the person and work of Jesus Christ, that you are, at that very moment...

Perfect in Jesus Christ.

I like to share the two-coat story with people, expounding on 2 Corinthians 5:21...

"For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him."

If we had one coat, and it was the record of your life, and every time you sinned you put a black mark on your coat, what would your coat look like?

Like my coat, all of our coats are black.

Now, what does God the Son's coat look like?

Perfectly white.

You see, when God the Son died on the cross for us, God the Father took our black coat and placed it upon Him at the cross...

In that moment, He became sin for us. All of our sins were placed upon Him. (Isaiah 53:6)

God the Son takes the wrath, judgment, and penalty in our stead. Now, who gets God the Son's perfect white coat?

We do!

We are 'the righteousness of God by faith in Jesus Christ'.

Hallelujah!

When God the Father sees us, He sees us clothed in the perfect righteousness of God the Son. We have His perfect record imputed to us as a free gift.

Positionally, we are just as perfect as Jesus Christ. We have his white coat on.

He is our righteousness...

"In his days, Judah shall be saved, and Israel shall dwell safely: and this is his name whereby he shall be called,

THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS." (Jehovah-tsidkenu, one of God's names) (Jeremiah 23:6)

"But of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption." (1 Cor. 1:30) (emp. mine)

Positionally, we are in Christ Jesus, and He is made unto us...

RIGHTEOUSNESS...

Remember the guy without a wedding garment at the king's banquet in Matthew 22:11-13?

He was thrown into outer darkness for being devoid of this wedding garment.

This wedding garment, is of course...

THE PERFECT RIGHTEOUSNESS OF JESUS CHRIST.

Remember what God tells us in Colossians 1:21,22...

'And you, that were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled in the body of his flesh through death, to present you

holy and unblameable and unreproveable in his sight.'

How can we be 'holy, unblameable, and unreprovable'?

Because we are dressed in the wedding garment...

Because we are 'the righteousness of God by faith in Jesus Christ'...

Because we are positionally perfect in Jesus Christ.

It's time for us to simply believe the gospel. Remember, the verse says 'in his sight', not ours. Faith believes what God says about us, not what we say about ourselves. Whose opinion is more important, yours or God's? If He says it, let's believe it.

It sounds humble to say, 'Well, nobody is perfect...Christians aren't perfect, just forgiven." Yes, experientially, we are not perfect, I get that. However, positionally we are perfect, perfect in Christ.

Multitudes of Christians don't understand this truth, and thus, we fall short of fully believing the wonderful gospel that is ours in Christ.

Yes, experientially we are 'being conformed to the image of Jesus Christ'. (Romans 8:29) Daily by His sanctifying grace, we are being made more like Him...

But when it comes to our position, our standing, our value before Him...

We are perfect before Him, fully dressed in His Son's robe of righteousness, holy, unblameable, and unreprovable in His sight.

Praise His Holy Name!

To trust in His righteousness is to say that I am perfect in Christ...

To trust in my own righteousness is to say that I am not perfect...

"Nothing damns a man but his own righteousness, nothing saves a man but the righteousness of Christ." (Charles Spurgeon)

To really believe the gospel is to say...

I am perfect in Jesus Christ!

Imagine having a million dollar sin deficit in your heavenly bank account. When we are forgiven, God places a million dollars into our bank account. Our sin debt has been paid! However, His grace does not stop there.

On top of that, God places another million into our heavenly bank account. That, my friend, is His Son's perfect righteousness, imputed to you as a free gift. We are not just solvent, out of debt with our sins forgiven. We got a million bucks in our account...

We are perfect in Jesus Christ...

Back to Charles...

Charles then told me that he was one of God's children. Many people say they are 'God's children', believers and unbelievers alike. So, I asked him...

"How did you become God's child?"

'I live for the Word and I believe in Him'.

Remember, last newsletter we made a distinction between the 'root and the fruit'. Living for the Word is the fruit, not the root. We don't become God's child by 'living for the Word'. We become God's child by the new birth.

Now, what did he mean by...

"I believe in Him."

Charles told me...

"He died for me."

This is the right answer. However with the other red flags that were already raised, I needed to ask the following...

"Is that enough?"

Charles answer confirmed all of the previous red flags...

'No, I also have to live for Him.'

Eternal life is a free gift, given to us the moment we place all of our trust in Jesus Christ. Most Christians don't understand this. Because of this, they say, "I have to live right to get into Heaven."

No, you place all of your faith in the finished work of Jesus Christ alone. There, you find forgiveness, righteousness, and eternal life: right now, present possession. That is the root.

Now, yes, the fruit is a righteous life. Yes, the fruit is that "I live for Him'. Unless I understand this distinction, I really get confused. Many Christians have probably dropped out of the race because they weren't grace oriented, became legalistic, got discouraged, and fell away.

So, I began sharing as I normally do with Charles. I shared the law: liar, thief, adulterer, murderer, and blasphemer. Charles humbly understood that he was guilty before God.

Then came the next red flag...

'But He will forgive me...'

Yes, there is truth in this answer, but because of all of the other red flags, I have learned to ask the following...

"Why would God forgive you?"

His answer was very surprising, but the more I ask this question, the more I am seeing how rampant this problem is...

"Because I do what I am supposed to do."

This may seem shocking to you, and it was to me at first, but I am getting this answer more and more from professed Christians. God will forgive me because...

"I do what I am supposed to do."

This is serious stuff. This is moving away from the ground of the blood of Christ, which is our only forgiveness, to the quagmire of our performance, where there is no forgiveness.

In our heads, most believers know that forgiveness is based only upon the
blood. Unfortunately, when you begin to dig to the heart, you find otherwise.

Why is this? It gets back to what I said in the previous newsletter. Christians are not being grounded in soteriology. They simply do not understand salvation. Maybe at one time they did, but they have moved away from that...

Remember the verse that I shared earlier, about being 'holy, unblameable, and unreprovable in his sight.'

This truth has a condition attached to it. Do you know what? I would say that most Christians without looking at the next verse, which tells us the condition, would guess wrongly about this condition.

In other words, "How do I stay, 'holy, unblameable, and unreprovable' in his sight?"

Most Christians would say...'live right, do the right thing, pray, read your bible, go to church, be good, do good works etc.'

Now, I am not suggesting that we should not do these things. Yes, lets 'be careful to maintain good works' and 'be holy, for I am holy'. Yes, I get that, but remember, that is the fruit, not the root.

So, what is the condition to remaining, 'holy, unblameable, and unreprovable' in his sight?

Read the next verse...

"If ye continue in the faith grounded and settled, and be not moved away from the hope of the gospel..." (Colossians 1:23(a))

Keep believing the gospel! It is the gospel that saves! We don't move away from that! We continue in that grounded and settled!

Paul said, 'We are saved, we are being saved, and we will be saved..." (past, present, future)

So many Christians start out with the gospel, and then they 'move into deeper things.' No, stay with the gospel. It is the gospel at first, the gospel in between, and the gospel at the end! All by the gospel! All by His grace!

This is why so many professed Christians are so messed up, believing all these wrong things. They are not anchored and rooted in the gospel.

Listen to the New Living Translation of this same verse...

"...and you are holy and blameless as you stand before him without a single fault...

"....But you must continue to believe this truth and stand firmly in it. Don't drift away from the assurance you received when you heard the Good News." (Colossians 1:22(c)-23(a))

Continue to believe the gospel!

Do you want to grow in the deeper things of God? Fine, please do...

But don't move away from the gospel. And remember, when we grow, we are 'growing in grace'...

"But grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ." (2 Peter 3:18)

Law is what we do. Grace is what He does. Let's all be anchored in the grace of the gospel...

"Be not carried about with divers and strange doctrines. For it is a good thing that the heart be established with grace; not with meats, which have not profited them that have been occupied therein." (Hebrews 13:9)

Have you ever met a Christian who really started off well loving the Lord and His grace? Then, you see this same person years later and the grace and the love and the glow is all gone. They start talking about how they learned this 'deeper revelation stuff' and now they have really matured and have arrived.

Yes, maybe some of it is true...

but where is the grace...

where is the love...

where is the glow of Christ?

They have 'moved away from the hope of the gospel'....

"Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works?" (Matthew 7:22)

To prophesy in his name, to cast out devils, and to do many wonderful works...

that is some deep, powerful stuff...

Just one problem...

"And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity." (Matthew 7:23)

They had moved away from the hope of the gospel. Guys, when I share the gospel...

Some of the worst people I have found who don't understand the simple gospel...

are those ones who have had all these 'deeper revelations, miracles, visions, and experiences with the Spirit'.

Please don't misunderstand me. I am not here to say some of these things are not genuine and real...(they are)

but, unfortunately, in my experience, most of these people move away from the simple gospel.

"But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ." (2 Cor. 11:3)

A renowned seminary professor, at the end of his life in his eighties, after years of deep theological study, when asked of the most important thing he had learned over the years, stated it best...

"Jesus loves me..."

For the world to believe the simple gospel, we, the universal church, must come back to our first love...

the simple gospel...

which, I did, by the grace of God, finish sharing with Charles. And, when he heard it, maybe again for the first time, he wanted to come back and place all of his faith...

in Christ alone.

Charles prayed with me and told me:

"He came into my heart. (My heart feels)...glorified."