Good Morning, Meetpastordan Readers… First I want to thank all of you who took time to read and to respond to the series, “Who Is This Jesus?” from the perspective of the four Gospel writers. I enjoyed presenting that series and doing the research that accompanied such an endeavor, but having said that, it was a lengthy and tedious presentation, so I am ready to shift gears now and turn my attention to other topics. During that series, quite a few new topics took shape in my mind, so I’m armed, ready, and looking forward to getting started today.
I love the counseling and discipleship work that I am privileged to do because it gives me the opportunity to ask probing questions to get to the core issues. This gives me perspective on where he/she is coming from, and it also gives me the opportunity to prepare what I believe are appropriate responses. I love asking questions like: “Tell me about your God?”; “Tell me what you believe, and why you believe it?” or “What keeps you from accepting Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior”? That last question is usually more quickly answered than the first two, because the subject might feel it doesn’t necessarily have to be rooted in factual or intellectual data, but can be explained by feelings.
Invariably, the two most common answers to that question are: “I’m a good person. I try to do what is right; I like to help people; I volunteer for worthy causes, or I contribute to worthy causes.” The second most common answer is: “You don’t know me and what I’ve done. Believe me… God has no use for me; I’m way beyond forgiveness. I don’t even like myself, so how could I expect God to love me?” No doubt the person answering this question is committed to those feelings about self, but unfortunately both answers are based on a misunderstanding, or ignorance, of God’s truth. John 8:32 addresses this problem: “Jesus told his disciples, ‘If you follow my teachings, you will know the truth and the truth will set you free.” Both of these answers indicate bondage to “self” and a thorough misunderstanding of the Gospel of Grace.
Since I boldly proclaimed these answers were based on a faulty grasp of God’s truth, let’s look at the misunderstanding compared to the truth. The first answer, “I’m a good person; I do “this”, and I do “this, and I do “this” indicates a belief that is rooted in the Old Covenant, or the erroneous thought that I am sufficient to save myself. But then the subject might continue: Surly this is pleasing to God. Surly I won’t be condemned to hell if I’m doing all of these Godly things. After all, the Bible tells us to treat others as we want to be treated…Right?” “Right” I would say, “but we’re living under the New Covenant – the Gospel of Grace. Christ has done it all! Today it’s not about “what we do” but “why we do what we do. Are we doing it to score points with God, to gain accolades for our effort, or are we doing it to say, “Thank you, God, for what you’ve done for me.”
Galatians 2:21 addresses this misunderstanding head-on. “If keeping the law could have made people right with God (could have saved people), there would have been no reason for Christ to come and die for us.” Under the Old Covenant, people tried to get right with God by keeping his commandments. In other words, they “did something” to try to prove themselves worthy in his eyes. They looked at God as a vending machine who dispensed blessings because of what they did. God doesn’t want our works, he wants our heart.
God spoke through the prophet Hosea when he revealed in 6:6: “I want you to be merciful; I don’t want your sacrifices. I want you to know God. That’s more important than burnt offerings.” The Old Covenant was put in place as a guide for us until the coming of Christ. Jesus Christ was always God’s plan, even before the world was created, as explained in Ephesians 1: 4-5,9-10.
“Long ago, even before he created the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes. His unchanging plan has always been to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. And this gave him great pleasure. God’s secret plan has now been revealed to us, and this is his plan: At just the right time he will bring everything together under the authority of Christ – everything in heaven and on earth.” And what was “just the right time?” Romans 5:6 answers this question: “When we were utterly helpless, Christ came at just the right time and died for us sinners.”
God gave mankind from Creation to 2018 years ago to wrestle with the dilemma of sin through our own effort. And how did we fare? Well, when we proved ourselves “utterly helpless” to achieve worthiness and acceptance in his eyes through our own effort, Christ came at “just the right time” and died for us sinners. Notice how this lines up with God’s plan even before the creation of the world and man: “God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes.”
Let’s take a minute and review the fundamental principle of what it means to be “in Christ”. What incredible love God displayed for his proudest creation! This omniscience, omnipotent Creator knew, even before he created us, that we were going to turn away from his plan to follow our own plan. And the problem with our plan was that it was characterized by our sin-nature, as so poignantly described by Apostle Paul in Galatians 5:19-21: “ When you follow the desires of your sinful nature, your lives will produce these evil results: sexual immorality, impure thoughts, eagerness for lustful pleasure, idolatry, participation in demonic activities, hostility, quarreling, jealousy, anger, selfish ambition, envy, drunkenness, wild parties, and other kinds of sin. Let me tell you again, as I have before, that anyone living that sort of life will not inherit the Kingdom of God.”
God’s plan for our salvation was a one-time sacrifice that would pay the ransom for our sins – past, present and future, and Jesus Christ was that sacrificial lamb. Nothing other than the blood of Jesus can wash away our sin, and that is THE requirement for entering the Paradise God has promised all Christ-followers. God himself proclaimed, “You must be holy (sin-free, set aside for a sacred purpose) because I am holy.” (Leviticus 20:26) Unlike this world, which is contaminated with sin, God’s eternal Paradise will be sin-free.
So now let’s tie all of this in with the two answers that I referenced above concerning accepting Christ as our personal Lord and Savior. No one can be good enough through his or her own effort to meet God’s standard, which is absolute perfection. To be Holy means to be sin free! If we are stained with sin, we do not qualify for eternal life with God in Paradise. Why, because sin spreads, contaminates, destroys and kills. If you doubt that, look at this world. Remember, it was Paradise for a brief moment, but what we see today is a world contaminated by man’s sin-nature. (human nature)
Now let’s look briefly at the 2nd reason listed above for not accepting Christ as a personal Lord and Savior. Because of God’s unconditional, unending, and unfailing love for us, his salvation plan was designed specifically to save sinners. To repeat Romans 5:6 from above, “When we were utterly helpless, Christ came at just the right time to die for us sinners.” Romans 3:21-25 explains clearly and succinctly what Christ’s sacrifice means to each one of us: “But now God has shown us a different way of being made right in his sight – not by obeying the law, but by the way promised in Scriptures long ago. We are made right in God’s sight when we trust in Jesus Christ to take away our sins. And we all can be saved in this same way, no matter who we are or what we have done. For all have sinned; all fall short of God’s glorious standard. Yet now God in his gracious kindness declares us NOT GUILTY! He has done this through Christ Jesus, who has freed us by taking away our sins. For God sent Jesus to take the punishment for our sins and to satisfy God’s anger against us. We are made right with God when we believe that Jesus shed his blood, sacrificing his life for us.”
What you just read is the Gospel of Grace. This is God’s plan for your salvation, and it is called the Gospel of “Grace” because you didn’t earn it, nor do you deserve it. So here is the truth that was missed in the answers referenced above . This is a gift from God so we can qualify to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. We cannot accomplish this through our own effort because God’s standard is perfection (to be sin-free) and we are incapable of becoming sin-free. Conversely, there is no one too bad to enter the Kingdom of Heaven if he or she will accept God’s Gift of Grace. When we are covered with the blood of Jesus, we face no condemnation. Romans 8:1-2 tells us, “There is no condemnation for those who belong to Christ. For the power of the life-giving Spirit has freed you through Jesus Christ from the power of sin that leads to death.” It’s not about good or bad; it’s about whether we are in Christ, or not in Christ. According to God’s plan, only the blood of Jesus can save us. Amen!
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May God Bless Ya,
Dan Presgrave (a.k.a. Pastor Dan)
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Love love this!!!