Good morning. Take out your Bible and turn to Romans chapter 3.
! We've been promoting books and stuff.
! I think if I had to promote one good Reformation book, I think I would pick this one.
! This is a book that I read when I was on the waiting list for my lung transplant.
So, right under the Bible, I was reading this.
And I can't tell you how much this ministered to my soul during that time as I thought about what was ahead of me.
So, it's not just dead doctrine, dead theology.
It was like really encouraging me in the Word of God.
And so, this is John Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion.
And this is the abridged version.
So, halfway through, I just kind of donked on me, wait a minute, this is the abridged version.
The real one's about like that.
But it just really explains so much about the person of God, the person of Christ, the Scripture.
And it really ministered to me, particularly the part about God's providence, God's sovereignty,
through what I was going through.
And so, I commend this one to you, the Institutes of the Christian Religion.
It was written in 1559, I believe.
So, pretty awesome to read the old dead guys.
So, this would be mine.
I can't give it to you.
This is my copy.
It's got like everything.
You wouldn't like my notes in here anyway.
So, Romans 3 is what we're going to be picking up today.
And as it's already been said, we're coming up on October 31st,
which is the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation.
It kind of marks the day that Martin Luther in 1517
nailed his 95 Theses to the door of the Church of Wittenberg.
And so, we're going through the five solas,
which really are a summarized, condensed way of saying this is what the Reformers taught.
But it probably wasn't really even consolidated like that until about the 20th century.
But it's what they were teaching.
And that's what we believe in our church.
And any church that's really a Protestant evangelical church holds these things dear.
So, I mean, why is this so important, though?
Well, the sola alone is so important to what we believe.
And what we believe Scripture teaches.
If it's not sola, then it is something that's got to be added in.
If it's not alone, there's something else that's added to it.
It will be Scripture and something else is our authority.
Grace and something.
Faith and something.
Christ and something.
And to the glory of God and something else.
And so, the sola is really, by saying what is true, they're also saying this is false.
Like, if you add something to this, it's not true.
And so, the Reformers were saying,
Scripture is not only necessary, but it's sufficient.
Christ's work is not only necessary, but it is enough to save us.
That grace is not only necessary, but it is perfectly the only way, like we are made right with God.
And Scripture is just not a authority.
It's the only authority.
Period.
So, you pull out your bullets and there's a quote there by Calvin that I thought would be good to kind of put our mind on.
I just want to pray briefly, but it says,
The gospel is not a doctrine of the tongue, but of life.
It cannot be grasped by reason and memory only.
But it is fully understood when it possesses the whole soul and penetrates to the inner recesses of the heart.
So, that's what we want.
We want this not just to be head knowledge, not just to be mental assembly.
We want our hearts and our souls to rejoice in the gospel and have these truths penetrate us to our inner heart.
So, let's pray together.
Father, as we join together this morning as your people, I pray you give us eyes to see, ears to hear.
God, you would soften our hearts to receive your word.
That you would make us teachable.
That we would sit quietly before your word and receive what is there.
And I pray that this feeble attempt to describe Christ and his work would move in our hearts today.
And I just ask that in his name.
Amen.
So, today, we are looking at solus Christus, Christ alone, which emphasizes the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
It's not only necessary, again, for salvation, but it is sufficient.
Enough to say to the uttermost, all those who come to Christ.
So, this means that no amount of human work can be added to the work of Christ.
It's like Christ's work is so sufficient, so perfect, that it can't be improved upon in any way.
So, that is really important to understand.
And it implies, then, if Christ's work is sufficient, that any work we bring in is insufficient.
All right?
Like Paul said in 2 Corinthians 3.5,
Now, not that we are adequate in ourselves to consider anything as coming from ourselves, but our adequacy is from God.
So, the heart of the gospel is that Christ is for us.
He is for us.
It's the message of the New Testament, indeed, really the Scripture, the whole of Scripture.
So, Christ lived.
He obeyed.
He was crucified.
He was raised.
And He ascended.
And He is returning.
That's what we are saying.
So, all that is embodied by Jesus Christ Himself is what we are saying when we say Christ alone.
Romans 1.9 is called, the gospel is kind of summed up as,
The Good News of His Son.
So, we are going to just look at some different aspects of Christ's work.
And man, I was just overwhelmed studying all this.
But, I want you to not run from, I've even heard recently some leaders in our Dahlonega community say,
You know, doctrine doesn't matter.
Theology doesn't matter.
All we really care about is a relationship with Jesus.
Well, what does that mean?
Don't throw out a Bible word.
Paul uses the word doctrine at least 15 times in the New Testament.
And what he's trying to say is doctrine is explaining, clarifying.
So, the Good News has to be explained verbally.
It has to be clarified, expounded upon.
And that's what doctrine is.
So, if you're talking about Jesus and it's truthful, you're talking doctrine.
So, I want us to see,
Man, this is the only thing I can grab.
So, imagine this is like a gem, if you will, like a precious gem that was found.
It's not a gem, it's a stupid iPhone.
I hate iPhones.
But, just imagine this is like a precious diamond or gem.
And it's called the work of Christ.
Alright?
So, if you look at it this way, you can explain it.
And your explaining it is doctrine.
And you tilt it a little bit and explain a different facet of it.
So, that's what we're going to do today as we look at the work of Christ.
All part of the same diamond.
But just different angles on it.
Different descriptions on what he has done.
If you will.
So, Romans 3.
We'll start in verse 21.
Together.
But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law.
Although the law and the prophets bear witness to it,
the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe.
For there is no distinction.
For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.
And are justified by his grace as a gift.
Through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.
Whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood.
To be received by faith.
This was to show God's righteousness.
Because in his divine forbearance.
He passed over former sins.
It was to show his righteousness at the present time.
So that he might be just.
And the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.
So, that will be our primary text.
That I want to draw some things out of.
So, I have a few points today.
And off of Nathan's pun last week.
It's just going to be points and not questions.
I'm going to try not to do questions at this point.
So, the first point.
The first point.
Is that Christ alone is our mediator with God.
Christ alone is our mediator with God.
So, a mediator, simply put.
Christ alone is one who intervenes between two parties.
To resolve some conflict, intimacy, or strife.
So, it's one who intervenes and solves the problem.
So, this is the role we see of Jesus in our text.
We see some hostility.
Right?
We see that we have sinned and fallen short in the glory of God.
And that we have to be made right with God some way.
So, Christ is our mediator.
Right?
He's coming between us and God.
And like reconciling.
He's bringing us back together.
So, it's important that you understand that.
Because Jesus alone, again, is our mediator.
During the period of the Reformation, in the medieval time, you could even say today, Rome taught that the Pope and even the Roman Church itself was the mediator between God and man.
So, anyone outside of them, their doctrine says this, even today, anyone outside of the Roman Catholic Church is outside of salvation.
They would teach that.
Pope Clement, who was Pope between 1342 and 1352, he said,
No man outside of obedience to the Pope of Rome can ultimately be saved.
All who have raised themselves against the faith of the Roman Church and died in final impenitence have been damned and gone to hell.
That is still taught, even today.
And I want you to know that I say these things with a heavy heart.
Many of you know I have had countless trips to the Emerald Isle of Ireland and talked to many Catholics there.
And so, it breaks my heart to see how falsely they have been instructed.
And so, if you hear anger, just hear anger at the false teaching and not the lost soul.
I want them to be reconciled to God.
Even as I've cried tears praying for some of them before.
And so, at that point, like I said, they even taught, I mean, even now really, that Jesus is not that approachable.
Okay?
That he is still very holy, very set apart, very other.
That you have to find another mediator to even go to Jesus.
And that's where the idea of the Virgin Mary and her son is so pivotal.
Because who can get at a man, his mom?
You know, this is a soft part of him.
Even, I went to Birmingham this past week, and we drove by one of the biggest Mary worship shrines in the southeast.
Thousands of people gathered there to get a vision of the Virgin Mary and have someone say,
This is what Mary says to you from Jesus.
Heartbreaking and demonic.
And so, even then, they've added in saints.
You can pray to the saints.
You can pray to your dead relatives who have gone on to be with the Lord.
I had a dear friend, a man that was in his late 70s, that I worked out with at a gym for a long time.
And he and I would talk about this kind of stuff.
A devout Catholic.
He had an Italian, really deep Italian last name.
And we talked, and he was just always encouraging me to pray with my dead relatives.
And how encouraging that was.
I'm like, man, no.
And just begged him to say, Christ is the mediator alone.
And so, the reformers were banging their heads and banging their Bibles, saying,
Look, there is no other mediator between God and man.
It's Jesus Christ, and that's it.
Don't misrepresent the character of God.
He also can be approachable through Christ.
Right?
So, not Virgin Mary.
Not the saints or cardinals or priests.
Only Christ alone.
They're not crazy.
They're just basically saying what Paul said in 1 Timothy 2, 5-6.
This is Paul.
Listen to this.
For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men.
The man, Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all, which the testimony given at the proper time.
So, again, Luther, Calvin, Tyndale, Wycliffe.
They were all saying, Brum, stop marring the character of God.
Yes, he is holy.
Yes, he is just.
Yes, he is righteous.
But he is also a loving God and gracious.
And he has provided a way through his Son to be brought back to man.
And Luther, if you study his life, the whole first part of his life, he was terrified of the judgment of God.
That's all he thought about was God is wrath.
God is damnation.
And he had no way to be made right with God.
So, when he began reading Romans, he was like, wait a minute.
This God is a loving God.
This God is a gracious God.
And he was transformed by the Word.
And so, Christ alone is the mediator.
Hebrews 9, 15, it says,
Therefore, Christ is the mediator of the new covenant, so that those who are called may receive the promise of an eternal inheritance.
It's awesome.
So, this idea that Jesus is the only mediator spills into a lot of our thinking of saying that Jesus is the only way to God.
He came from the Father and he went back to the Father.
He's the only one.
So, this is not just a problem back then.
It is today as well.
Shockingly, in the late 90s, there was a study conducted of, quote,
evangelical seminaries who agreed with the following statement.
35% of them agreed with the following statement.
God will save all good people when they die, regardless of whether they know and have trusted Jesus Christ.
And now those people are pastoring churches outside of Christ.
So, that's a struggle if we don't see our need for Christ.
Right?
And one of the things that the Reformers kept bringing up is,
Popes and councils over the history have just contradicted themselves over and over and over.
You just heard me read Pope Clement from the 1300s.
He said,
There is no salvation outside of the Holy Roman Church.
You heard me read that.
More recent, though, Pope John Paul II.
He stood in December 6, 2000, and addressed 30,000 pilgrims at St. Peter's Square.
Listen to what he said.
Listen to this.
No.
Jesus, the only way, the only mediator to God.
We know our famous verse, John 14, 6.
Jesus told them,
I am the way, the truth, and the life, and no one whatsoever comes to the Father except through me.
I am the mediator.
Acts 4, 12.
There is salvation in no one else,
for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we may be saved.
So if we are to be saved and restored back to God,
we have to come through Christ alone as our mediator.
So that is the first point.
Each one of these begin with Christ alone.
But number two,
we are going to get into more of our text now.
Christ alone made full atonement for our sin to God.
Okay, so we see in our text that like it says that God's righteousness had to be upheld.
We see that he had to show that he was righteous, prove that he was righteous.
And so it just means that God always does what is right, what is good.
He, by his nature, is the very definition of what is right and good.
It means that he is holy.
He is totally separated from all evil.
And that also means that he is devoted to destroying evil.
And we want him to be that way.
We want him to be a God who seeks to uphold what is right and beautiful and good and true.
So, if God opposes evil,
then we should not be shocked that he is out to destroy it.
That's what we see in our text.
We want God to be a God who upholds justice.
A Roman citizen who lived under the Julio-Claudian Caesars, Augustus, you know,
then all the way up into like Nero.
That was that dynasty.
This is something that he said when a man has absolute power.
He said,
And God is not like that.
God intrinsically, in his very core, hates evil.
And we want him to be a God who upholds justice.
We all see things on TV and the news that just cry out injustice.
And we want that.
It's part of who we are.
But if we really want that, then God also has to destroy us.
Because we are a part of that same evil.
It says in our text, you look at verses 25,
This was to show God's righteousness.
Because in his divine forbearance, he had passed over former sins.
It was to show his righteousness at the present time,
so that he might be just and the justifier.
So we see in the wisdom of God's sovereign plan,
that he allowed Jesus to be punished in the place of sinners,
and thereby justified those who were guilty without compromising his justice.
It's a beautiful text for you just to chew over.
So let's talk about this word atonement a little bit.
It is a very broad term that is used to entail a lot of things in the Scripture.
But in short, we're just going to define it simply as this.
It's the work of Christ in his life and his death,
all that he did to earn us salvation.
It's the work of Christ, all that he did in his life and his death,
to earn us salvation.
So Christ made right the hostility between us and God.
And he opened the door for spiritual blessings.
So let's talk about just the nature of this atonement for a second.
Just two words, big words, but I hope they stand out to you and you remember them.
That's the purpose of using big words.
Penal substitution.
All right?
Penal substitution.
It's the idea that the penalty we deserve was given to someone else,
to another who did not deserve it,
and who took it voluntarily for us.
All right?
It's this idea that Christ stood in our place,
took our punishment,
even though he didn't deserve it,
but he took it willingly.
That's what we did.
We are spared the penalty.
This also can be described as a vicarious atonement,
a vicarous someone who stands in the place of another and represents them.
And so Christ stood in our place.
He represented us.
He took the penalty we deserve.
All right?
So stay in Romans 3,
but I just want you to turn to the famous Isaiah 53.
I just want you to see this idea of substitution,
that Christ stood in our place and bore our punishment.
This atonement was foretold 700 years before Christ.
Isaiah 53.
Then go to verse 4.
I want you to see this.
Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows.
Just look at the ours in this text.
Borne our griefs and carried our sorrows.
Yet we esteemed him stricken,
smitten by God,
and afflicted.
But he was wounded for our transgressions.
He was crushed for our iniquities.
Upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace.
And with his stripes we are healed.
All we like sheep have gone astray.
We have turned everyone to his own way.
And the Lord,
Yahweh,
has laid on him the iniquity of us all.
He was oppressed and he was afflicted.
Yet he opened not his mouth.
Like a lamb that is led to the slaughter.
And like a sheep that is before its shearers is silent.
So he opened not his mouth.
By oppression and judgment,
he was taken away.
As for his generation,
who considered that he was cut off of the land,
out of the land of the living,
stricken for the transgression of my people.
So if you see this idea of substitution there,
our,
you see that he was wounded for our transgressions,
crushed for our iniquities.
And so in our text,
back in Romans 3,
we see a really big Bible word
that I beg of you to like,
get in your head
and really gnaw over it
and pray over it.
It's in our Romans text,
but it says,
it's the word,
propitiation.
It's a big word.
And the same Greek word
is translated both propitiation
and expiation.
And they carry slightly different meanings.
So again,
they're a part of the same gem,
if you would.
And,
but together,
they give a beautiful picture
of what Christ has done for us.
And as we've been reading,
it's just really cool
that we've been reading through Leviticus
and we're moving in the numbers now.
We've read over the scripture
that talks about the day of atonement
in Leviticus,
right?
It's the day that Israel offered up
a symbolic atonement
that prefigured Christ's final atonement.
And if you remember in the text,
it talks about there are two different
spotless goats.
One,
the first goat
was used as an act
of propitiation.
It was killed
for the sins of the people
and the blood was sprinkled
on the mercy seat.
And so it was focused on,
in that sense,
like satisfying the wrath of God.
The second goat
was not killed,
but it was actually set free.
It was sent out
as an act of expiation,
removing or blotting out our sins,
right?
Before God.
And in the focus,
in this case,
is that
the second goat
was called the scapegoat.
That's where we get this from.
It was sent out into the wilderness
and it represented
carrying away
the sins of the people
from the presence of God.
So,
we see this
in Jesus.
Christ fulfilled
both of those
at the same time.
He represented
this complete work.
So,
Jesus not only
propitiated
the wrath of God
by offering himself
as a sacrifice,
but he also
removed our sin
and guilt
from the presence of God,
which is a symbol
of that second goat,
if you would.
So,
let's just break down
these words.
Propitiation,
again,
the act
is the act
by which the sacrifice,
in our case,
Christ,
bears the full wrath
of God.
And it results
in a changing
of God's attitude
towards us.
Before we were enemies,
we were hostile,
and this sacrifice
changed his attitude
to favorable
and acceptable
and loving.
Some of your translations
may use different words,
but I guess
if you had to come up
with a really good,
clear definition
of what propitiate
could say,
it's not
to appease,
to placate,
or to just,
you know,
glance off.
To appease
carries like a negative
kind of connotation
for it.
It's this idea
of buying off
an aggressor
at a certain expense.
To placate
is very inadequate
because it suggests
like a soothing
of the wrath of God.
Like he actually
didn't unleash it,
he was just kind of like,
calm down, God.
So,
that's not what
the word means either.
It doesn't mean
to deflect.
Right?
Like a boxer
would strike away
a blow,
you know,
by blocking.
That's not what
it implies as well.
But the word,
I think,
that I've studied,
that I've read,
that I believe
best describes this
is that
word exhausted.
Christ exhausted
the wrath of God
on the cross.
So,
not deflected it
and just prevented it
from reaching us,
but he absorbed it,
he exhausted it.
So,
all of God's
holy fury
was unleashed
on his beloved son
and he held
none of it back
on behalf
of his people.
So,
that is the word
propitiate.
It means that
Christ exhausted
the wrath of God.
So,
that's the one part.
Then tilt it
to expiation.
It implies,
again,
the removal
of our sin
and our guilt
from the presence
of God.
Alright?
Sin,
do you know that,
like,
let's say you committed
a serious crime
and you went to court
and it was really
killing your soul,
gnawing on you,
vexing your conscience,
weighing you down
with guilt and shame.
And the judge
forgave you
and pardoned you,
but you still went home
with that same guilt,
that same
torn up conscience.
This is what
expiation does.
It means that
Christ's sacrifice
has the power
to cleanse you
of guilt
and of shame
so that you can
walk away
clean
and free.
Right?
That's that picture
of the second goat.
That God has
removed our sins
from his presence.
Right?
That famous verse
in Psalm 103,
11-12,
For as high
as the heavens
are above the earth,
so great
is his steadfast love
for those
who fear him.
As far as the east
is from the west,
so far
does he remove
our transgressions
from us.
So that's a
cultural idiom
to suggest
an infinite distance.
East to west,
right?
Heaven to earth,
an infinite distance.
So,
Jesus bore
our punishment
and propitiation,
but he also
carried away
our sin
and our guilt
from the presence
of God.
When it says
that Christ
remembers our sins
no more,
it's not,
it just basically
means that he's
choosing not to
bring them up again.
It doesn't mean
that God literally
forgets.
It just means that
he's not going
to hold them
against us
any longer.
So our consciousness
can be freed
from guilt
and shame
by the blood
of Christ.
So,
if you want
one more tilt
on this idea
of atonement,
it's very important
that you understand
this.
It was a decisive
atonement.
Decisive.
It was so powerful,
perfect,
and clear,
it never needs
to be repeated
again.
Hebrews 10
says,
every priest,
he's referring
to the old
covenant,
every priest
stands daily
at his service
offering repeatedly
the same
sacrifices,
which can never
take away sins.
But listen to this,
but when Christ
had offered
for all time
a single
sacrifice
for sins,
he sat down
at the right
hand of God.
Right?
And this is,
this word is
implied,
I think,
four times
in the book
of Hebrews
because in
the old
covenant,
the priests,
the sacrifices,
the rituals
were never
ending,
over and over
and over.
And so when
Christ came,
he fulfilled
those things
that never
needed to be
repeated again,
ever.
It's the,
it's the Greek
word,
hapax,
and it means
once for all
time.
It means that
something happened
that was so
decisive
and accomplished
so much
that it never
needs to be
repeated.
So,
and in fact,
any effort
to repeat it
would be
to be,
make a mockery
of that
sacrifice.
Right?
So Christ's
work was
hapax.
That's why,
again,
this idea
that the Roman
Eucharist,
where they,
they shed
the blood
of Christ
afresh
on the altar
table
and partake
of it
is so disgraceful
and sad.
It's not real.
Christ made
that sacrifice.
It's done.
So all we do
now is remember
and rejoice
in what he's
done.
Right?
It was so
sufficient,
monumental,
and effectuous
that it never
has to be done
again.
Once for all
time.
Hebrews 9,
26,
again,
this word's
repeated.
But as it is,
Christ has
appeared once
for all
at the end
of the ages
to put away
sin by
the sacrifice
of himself.
The conclusion
then,
of all that,
is to say
that Christ's
suffering and
death,
if that was
accomplished
once for all
time,
we no longer
can be condemned
if we stand
in Christ.
But there is
therefore now
no condemnation
for those
who are in
Christ Jesus
at all.
So those of you
who are a criminal
justice major,
there is no
double jeopardy
in God's
courtroom.
There will
be no,
you will not
be tried
twice for
the same
crime
at all.
It's
basis,
Paul goes
on in Romans
8,
it says,
who is to
condemn?
And then it's
assumed,
no one.
And then why?
Because it's
Christ Jesus,
he was the
one who
died.
The death
of Christ
secures our
freedom from
that condemnation.
So,
listen to
something Luther
said.
I just want
to throw
this out
there just
before we
move on to
the next
point and
the idea
of the
atonement.
So,
I love
this.
Talking about
what Christ
did for us,
he said,
so when the
devil throws
your sins
in your
face and
declares that
you deserve
death and
hell,
tell him
this,
I admit
that I
deserve
death and
hell,
what of
it?
For I
know one
who suffered
and made
satisfaction
on my
behalf.
His name
is Jesus
Christ,
Son of
God,
and where
he is,
there I
shall be
also.
The
atonement
of Christ,
a complete,
perfect,
finished work,
satisfied the
wrath of
God and
carried away
our guilt
and shame
from his
presence.
Point number
three,
Christ alone
is fully
ours by
faith alone.
So,
it's tying it
into what we
spoke of last
week.
If you look at
our text in
Romans 3,
the righteousness
of God
through faith
in Jesus
Christ for
all who
believe.
He
propitiated
by his
blood to
be received
by faith.
Then you
move on
to 26,
that he
would be
just and
the
justifier
of the
one who
has faith
in Jesus.
So,
that word
is repeated
multiple
times for
emphasis,
meaning that
you cannot
earn what
Christ
accomplished.
You cannot
be good
enough,
do enough
good works.
It is to
be received
alone by
faith.
So,
that is the
ground for
our acceptance
with God.
As you
read in
Romans and
other places
in the New
Testament,
you see that
when we
place saving
faith in
Christ,
it unites
us to
Christ.
We become
one with
him,
so that
his life
becomes our
life,
his death
becomes our
death,
and his
resurrection
will become
our
resurrection.
It is a
beautiful,
beautiful thing.
It is important
to throw
this in as
well,
that it is
the object
of our
faith that
saves us,
not our
faith itself.
Okay?
So,
you can have
a very weak
faith.
Jesus even
said,
even the
side of a
mustard seed
would move
a mountain,
but it is
the object
of our
faith that
saves.
All right?
That is
Christ,
the Savior.
So,
we cannot
add to what
Christ has
done.
This is a
gift that we
are to receive
by faith
in Christ.
So,
for sake of
time,
better move
on to the
next point.
Point number
four.
Go back and
listen to Nathan's
sermon last
week on faith
if you want
more on that.
But,
point number
four.
Christ alone
brought
reconciliation
with God.
This is so
key.
Christ alone
brought
reconciliation
with God.
So,
we understand
our sin
and our
rebellion
separated us
from God.
Isaiah 59,
but your
iniquities have
made a
separation
between you
and your
God,
and your
sins have
hidden his
face from
you so that
he does
not hear.
For God
to hide his
face means
disgust,
disfavor,
judgment.
And to see
God's face
means blessing.
So,
our sin
separates us
from God.
That's the
tragedy of
our sin.
It destroyed
the perfect
relationship we
have with
him.
A beautiful,
incredible
being such
as God
separated
because of
our evil.
So,
this is why
the gospel
is good
news,
okay?
Because we
are reconciled
to God.
Alright?
Romans 5,
a few chapters
later,
says,
for if
we were
enemies,
we were
reconciled
to God
by the
death
of his
son.
Much
more,
now that
we are
reconciled,
shall I
be saved
by his
life.
So,
again,
Christ comes
in as our
mediator,
and he
takes God,
and he
takes us,
and he
brings us
back into
fellowship
together again.
Now,
hear me,
a lot of
people today
want to
preach the
good news
of the
gospel
apart from
God himself.
They don't
understand that
God is the
gospel.
Being restored
back to
him is the
good news.
That's what
all the
gospel points
towards.
It is,
Jesus said
in John 17,
this is
eternal life,
that you
know the
only true
God in
Jesus Christ
whom he
has sent.
So,
this is all
about being
restored back
into a
relationship
with God.
John
Piper,
in that
book that
Nathan
actually
commented
to you
earlier,
he made
this point.
All words
of the
gospel
lead to
God,
or they
are not
the
gospel.
For
example,
salvation
is not
good news
if it
only saves
us from
hell
and not
for God.
Forgiveness
is not
good news
if it
only gives
us relief
from guilt
and does
not open
the way
to God.
God
is not
good news
if it
only makes
us legally
acceptable
to God
but does
not bring
us into
fellowship
with God.
Adoption
is not
good news
if it
only puts
us in
the Father's
family but
not into
his arms.
God is
the gospel.
So,
if you
simply have,
if your
gospel simply
means I
get to
not go to
hell and I
get to go
live forever
in heaven,
if that's
where it
ends,
you need
to think,
you need
to examine
your heart.
If someone
went through
this brutal,
awful death
for you,
to save
you from
the greatest
eternal
torture ever
and then
gave you
the greatest
gift ever
which would
be to
restore
back to
God
in
relationship
and
fellowship,
that should
change your
heart.
In fact,
that's what
our word
faith and
believe in
the New
Testament
means.
It means
that you
have such
a strong
conviction
about
something
that it
changes
how you
live.
It's not
just a
mental
ascent of
I believe
that.
So,
God is
the gospel.
He is
the gospel.
So,
another verse
for you.
1 Peter 3
18 says,
Christ also
suffered
once for
sins,
the righteous
for the
unrighteous,
that he
may bring
us to
God.
Christ
enables us
to experience
the full
and lasting
joy of
seeing and
savoring the
glory of
God forever.
That is
what Christ
came to
do.
So that we
would glorify
him,
walk with
him,
know him,
that what
was lost
in Genesis
3 is
restored,
but even
in a
greater
sense
than what
Adam and
Eve had.
So,
we can't
just leave
it there.
Our sins
alienated us
from God,
we were
hostile,
yet,
Christ
Jesus
has once
brought us
for all
time
near to
God
through
his
blood.
That is
the gospel.
These are
just a few
things that
I know
scripture
teaches
very clearly
about what
Christ did
for us
once and
for all.
It's
Christ
alone.
So a few
little things
to walk
away with,
to chew
on,
in conclusion,
that if
all this
be true
then,
Christ
alone,
it is to
Christ
alone we
must be
faithful and
devoted to.
It demands
everything,
it demands
our lives.
I mean,
I grew
up most
of my life
having a
false
sense
of assurance
in Christ.
I fought
because I
prayed a
prayer,
an incantation,
and that
made me
okay with
God,
and I
lived like
the devil
for probably
16 years.
No evidence
at all
that I
loved Christ
or knew
him.
And
finally,
I believe
God saved
me when I
was around
18.
and after
that
happened,
I didn't
want to
do
anything
but live
for him
and even
die for
him.
And we
have to
get to
that point
where we
see this
sacrifice that
he made,
this work
he accomplished,
it's worth
all you have,
your time,
your life,
your money,
everything.
He is to be
the goal
of it all.
in fact,
he even
demands that
if you
follow him
that you
be willing
to even
take up
your cross
and die
for him
if need
be.
And
many of
our brothers
and sisters
around the
world,
that's a
reality.
They become
believers,
they could
face alienation
from their
family,
their community,
in prison,
death,
so they have
to weigh
that.
But what
Christ did
is so precious
to them,
they don't
care.
Right?
So if
following
Christ would
cost you
your life,
would you
do it
anyway?
Is he
that precious
to you
that you
want all
he has,
that you're
willing to
surrender
anything?
So if
this be
true,
it is Christ
alone that
we must
be faithful.
And so
another
spinoff of
this is
that we
need to
treat the
blood of
Jesus as
precious.
Again,
I talked
about this
probably the
last time I
was up here.
It is not
something cheap,
it is
something,
beautiful that
we must
guard and
talk about
in the most
beautiful way
is the
blood of
Christ.
Then lastly,
I just want
you to turn
to 1 John
and we'll
end right
here.
1 John
chapter 4.
So I
know probably
in a crowd
this big
that some
of you are
not sure
maybe where
you stand
with God.
And again,
it is never
too late
even now
to place
saving faith
your complete
trust in
Christ's work
to reconcile
you to God.
So 1 John
chapter 4
verse 9
in this
the love
of God
was made
manifest
among us
that God
sent his
only son
into the
world
so that we
might live
through him.
And this
is love,
not that we
have loved
God,
but that he
loved us
and sent his
son to be
the propitiation
for our
sins.
let's pray
together.
Let's pray
together.