Good Morning, My Friends. Some mornings the 0-dark-thirty hour arrives much too early. This, however, is not one of those days. I was awake at least an hour before my feet finally hit the floor because I was still basking in the glow of yesterday’s Saint Louis Wind Symphony performance. What a blessing it is in my life to be able to stand in front of a “Rolls Royce” ensemble such as this. I remember early in my conducting career when I would think to myself (on numerous occasions), someday I hope I have… and today I do! What a dream come true. So with that being said, I have a hot cup of coffee and Glenn and Cliff are curled up beside me, so I am more than ready to get started.
I would like to begin by using yesterday’s experience as a metaphor for today’s topic. Our Valentine’s Day concert was in jeopardy of being cancelled because of a winter weather advisory for the Saint Louis area. Three of us (my Associate Conductor and the Chairman of the Board) spent the morning hours glued to the weather reports and following radar screens until noon. When we finally decided it would be a “go”, we also knew the conditions would probably have a negative effect on the size of the audience. The bad news is, it was a smaller audience that usual; the good news is, it was larger than we expected. But most importantly, the STLWS played a Steller concert, and one that thoroughly impacted our audience.
Immediately after the concert, I went to the atrium to tell as many people as possible, “Thank you for coming out today.” But before I could get my words out I heard, “Thank you so much for doing this. It was magnificent.”; “It was the best yet!”; “This is just what I needed on this dreary day. Thank you. Thank you!”; “Those who got scared out really missed something extraordinary. Thank you being here today.”
The reason I used the above example is because it is a demonstration of faith. Why did our faithful followers come out in threatening weather to hear the STLWS? Because of past experience with our performances. They knew what to expect; they knew it would lift their spirit, so they thought it was worth “stepping out in faith.” Faith develops from positive experiences with the object of faith.
Hebrews 11:1 defines faith. “It is the confident assurance that what we hope for is going to happen. It is the evidence of things we cannot yet see.” Based on that definition, people knew what to expect from the STLWS. No doubt there are other musical ensembles performing around town, but there is only one STLWS. Not that I want to sound immodest, but once the people hear us, they keep coming back.
Now let’s take this to a whole other level. We have been talking about is worldly faith. Let’s see what Romans 10:17 tells us about Spiritual faith, first in the NKJV: “So then faith comes by hearing, and by hearing the word of God.” The NLT gives us this perspective: “Yet faith comes from listening to this message of good news – the Good News about Christ.” Notice that both are very specific about the message you are hearing, and about the source of truth. In both cases it is about knowing the truth of God, the only object of faith that will never fail. (Now before you get too wound up at that last statement, no doubt there are laws of truth such as gravity, physics, mathematics, laws of nature, laws of electricity etc., all of which are part of God’s creation! They are what they are because He made it that way.)
So the example above from the NKJV tells us the truth comes from hearing the word of God. In the Old Testament, everything about the truth of God’s Word points to the manifestation of that truth being fulfilled in the New Testament. The Book of Hebrews in chapter 11 lists great examples of faith from the Old Testament: Abraham, Enoch, Noah, Moses, Sarah, Isaac, Joshua, Gideon, Barak, Samson, David, Samuel. And what was their commonality? They all trusted and responded to God’s directive, knowing full-well they would never see the manifestation of their faithfulness in their lifetime. That is faith – knowing the truth and responding to it. That is our calling too.
In the second example above from the NLT, the author talks specifically about responding to the Good News…the Gospel of Grace. We are called throughout the Bible to be in line with God’s will (or directive). So now that the manifestation of His truth has come in the form of Jesus Christ, what is God’s will for all of us today? It is…that everyone will come to know his Son, and accept the redemptive work he did on our behalf at the cross. That is our only hope of glory. Because Jesus Christ paid the price for our sins, we now can expect eternal life. Not because of anything we did to earn it – and we certainly were not worthy of it – but because of God’s unfathomable love for us.
Unfortunately there are a lot of counterfeit messages and counterfeit prophets in business today. The most common message propagated is, “yes, Christ died for your sins, but you’ll be a better _____, if you follow these rules.” Just as the Pharisees intended to help the Jews adhere to the Ten Commandments by adding over six hundred additional rules and regulations, every additional “rule” or “regulation” that is added to religion today takes you from under Grace and puts you back under the Law! If the Law could have saved us – meaning if we could have adhered to God’s standard by our own effort – there would have been no reason for Jesus to come.
That last statement is substantiated by Galatians 2: 21: “…For if we could be saved by keeping the law, then there would be no reason for Christ to have come.” And Hebrews 8:7,8,10 tells us: “If the first covenant would have been faultless, there would have been no need for a second one to replace it. But God himself found fault with the old one when he said ‘the day will come when I will make a new covenant with my people. And this is the covenant I will make: I will put my laws in their minds so they will understand them, and I will write them on their hearts so they will obey them. I will be their God, and they will be my people.” And Romans 8:3 tells us: “For the law of Moses could not save us because of our sinful nature. But God put into effect a different plan to save us. He sent his own Son in a human body like ours, except that ours are sinful. God destroyed sin’s control over us by giving his Son as the sacrificial lamb for our sins.”
When we accept his Gift of Grace, 2Corinthians 5:17 tells us: “For those who are in Christ, we are a new creation. The old (our sin nature) is gone, the new has come” (the Holy Spirit.) Therefore, we are no longer slaves to our sin nature. The indwelling Holy Spirit empowers us to live the life God has called us to live; a life that will bring honor and glory to him. In other words, under the New Covenant – under the Gift of Grace – it is no longer about us earning God’s approval or blessing through our own effort. Man had from Creation to 2016 years ago to prove his inability to do that. Romans 5: 6 is God’s solution to OUR problem: “When we were utterly helpless, Christ came at just the right time and died for us sinners.”
So the question becomes, “How do we know if we are listening to a counterfeit message or a counterfeit prophet?” Simple! If anyone preaches that it takes anything more than Christ’s finished work on the cross to achieve salvation, go to the source of Truth, the Bible, and see what God says. “But”, you might ask, “doesn’t God still want us to adhere to the Ten Commandments?” Of course…that is his standard today just as it was on Mt. Saini. The difference is… “religion” teaches us that it is about what we can do to become a better ____.
You must understand…Christ didn’t come to start another “religion”. His message was about our relationship with him. And we achieve that relationship with him when we accept the Gospel of Grace. We learn what it means for us to get out of the way so the Holy Spirit -the essence of Jesus Christ living in us – can live through us. That is the only way we can rise above this fallen world, our flesh, and satan to become the person God wants us to be.
The New Covenant is about the Holy Spirit empowering us to win. 1John 4:4 tells us we are already victorious because “the Spirit that lives in us (the Holy Spirit) is greater than the spirit in this world” (satan). Our challenge is to get out of the way and accept our victory!
So have you accepted your victory yet? Can you differentiate between religion and relationship? If so, let me know.
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May God bless ya…
Dan Presgrave (a.k.a. Pastor Dan)
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