justification - The Text Messages

May 23, 2021

Only One Way

Nearly 20 years ago, my wife and I traveled to Corpus Christi Texas for a weekend stay. After checking into our hotel room near the waterfront we set out for the flagship store of our favorite burger joint – Whataburger. It was already dark when, after settling in that we set out to fill our bellies at what is known as a Texas tradition. The streets around the hotel were under construction that year (probably still are) and it wasn’t long till I found myself going the wrong way on a one-way street. Thankfully, I wasn’t stopped and cited by the city police and more importantly I did not have a life altering meeting with someone actually going the right way on that street. As you might imagine, I quickly found my way out of that mess and headed in the right direction all the while singing to my wife (who was a little put out by my cavalier and seemingly careless driving) the words to a very famous Frank Sinatra song, you guessed it, “I did it my way!”

Believe it or not, life in this world is a lot like the layout of most city’s streets which have been designed with regard to the flow of traffic into and out of the city. Just as there is a deliberate right way and a wrong way to navigate those streets there is a right way and a wrong way to navigate life and that way has been determined by someone with far greater authority in this world – God.

My motive for this article is not to point out the right and wrong associated so much with the life style choices you and I make (that is for another time) but to point the reader in the right direction with regards to a proper relationship with our Creator. This past week, I had a conversation with a man who asked the following question: “Which religion is right, just tell me which one’s Jesus or God is the right one and I will believe in Him.” Perhaps part of the reason for his confusion is the simple fact that the church with its many doctrines and denominations have so muddied the waters that people on the outside don’t know which way is the right way; or perhaps too many in the church have stopped pointing out the right direction altogether. When was the last time someone invited you to church instead of to Jesus?

My answer to the man was simple and straight from the Bible, I quoted Jesus’ words as found in (John 14:6): “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.” He responded, “Yeah, but which Jesus?” He meant (for example), the Jesus of the Mormons, the Jesus of the Jehovah Witnesses or the Jesus of Islam. Each of these faith groups view Jesus differently and from the perspective of the Bible, erroneously. It became clear however, from our conversation that this man’s concept of Christianity itself may be incorrect. Biblically speaking there is but one way to God and that way is through His Son Jesus Christ as the words in John 14:6 make clear and yet people attempt to come into that relationship or to gain the grace of God in other ways – they are in essence in pursuit of grace but traveling in the wrong direction on an established one-way street.

For instance, Paul the Apostle made it clear in (Romans 3:20) that “by the deeds of the law no flesh will be justified in His (God’s) sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin.” To be justified is to be declared righteous or good by God Who has already decreed through His word that (Luke 18:19) “no man is good, no not one” and that in fact (Genesis 6:5) “the thoughts and intentions of a man’s heart are evil only always.” We become justified through faith in Jesus Christ Whose righteousness God exchanges with our sin; the Bible says in (1 Cor. 5:21):

“For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”

This justification was made available through the suffering, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ on the cross and apart from faith in Him it is impossible to receive it (Romans 4:5):

“But to him who does not work but believes on Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is accounted for righteousness.”

The Bible clearly says, “By grace you have been saved through faith and that not of yourselves, it is a gift of God NOT of works lest any man should boast…” (see Ephesians 2:8-10) yet today people try to earn the grace of God. They are in pursuit of grace through their “good works” but like my wife and I that night in Corpus Christi in pursuit of the world’s best burger they are going the wrong way on a one-way street to find that grace.

Not only does the Bible declare we cannot gain the grace of God and be saved by good works, it also states clearly that salvation is not a determination of our will (John 1:12-13):

“But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name: who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.”

This is in part where the man I was speaking to was stuck – salvation is not an act of our will alone. You might be thinking “Rich, what do you mean by that because it sounds like it contradicts the Bible?” There is a doctrine that teaches that man is so totally depraved that he would not nor could not ever choose to be saved. I agree and disagree with that position from Calvinistic theology. While I do agree that, like myself prior to my salvation, people do not care to know God let alone to be saved but are content to do whatever their flesh desires; I also believe that once the Spirit of God begins to intervene in a person’s life that mindset changes. Jesus said in (John 6:44):

“No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up at the last day.”

That drawing comes through in two ways which work together, the Word of God – “So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God” (Romans 10:17) and the Spirit of God who “when He has come, He will convict the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment.” (John 16:8) The reality is that once the word of God and the Spirit of God begin their work in one being drawn by God to Himself their hearts may be led (as the first inhabitants of the early church were) to a time of great anguish for their souls. You may remember the response of those who heard the gospel message preached by Peter on Pentecost: “Now when they heard this, they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “Men and brethren, what shall we do?”” (Acts 2:37) It is at that moment, when a person sees themselves as God sees him or her that he or she may come to God by faith in His Son sent for their redemption and justification. Thus, it is God and not men who initiate the process by which they can be saved.

The man I was speaking to made one more comment that I think is important at this point in our thoughts, He said, “My problem is a comprehension problem” implying that he did not know what to think or how to choose. Having addressed much of that statement already let me say that my response to his statement identifies what may in fact be the larger problem for those struggling with the one right way. The Bible declares the problem in (1 Cor. 2:14):

“But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.”

Too many people put the cart before the horse when it comes to things of eternal value. Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God – but, what word? What word does the natural man need to hear first? Let me just put it like this, if any person is to come to God they need to hear about Jesus – why He came and what He did. Jesus Christ is THE WAY, the truth and the life! No man comes to the Father but by Him! They need to hear about the one way to life God’s way. They need to hear about the one way to eternal life – a way blazed and made possible by Jesus Christ who left heaven for our sakes. They need to hear about Jesus Christ who taught, literally who showed mankind what God was like. They need to hear about Jesus Christ who suffered and was tortured not because of any wrong that He had done but to satisfy the wrath of God for the wrongs – the sins WE HAD DONE! They need to hear about Jesus Christ who died for their sins and three days later rose from the dead to live again making forgiveness and power over sin available to all who believe.

Many there are in this life living the lyrics to Sinatra’s song – their way; we are called to point men to the one right way that leads to everlasting life through the gospel of Christ and the examples of our lives – point the way…lead the way…help them find the one-way that leads to a relationship with Almighty God.

April 29, 2020

God’s Word is a Mirror

When you look into a mirror and see something out of place, what do you do about it? Assuming that you drag the comb or brush out to fix your hair, or you grab a washcloth to clean your face, or (if you’re a man) a razor to shave your whiskers or (if you’re a woman) you dab some makeup on your cheeks – why? Why, when you see something in the mirror that is out of place do you do whatever you do to correct it?

If we’re honest we might say something like “So I don’t look bad in public.” Or, “So I don’t embarrass myself.” Or, “In order to look good to my girl, my guy, my husband or my wife;” you get the point. It is that last statement which I suspect drives our desire to respond to the reflection in the mirror of God’s word. My daughter had a friend years ago in our churches youth group who gave the following answer in response to a question about why she dressed up for church, she said: “I dress like this because when I come here, I’m out on a date with God.” She valued the relationship that she had with the Lord and dressed like it. I bring that up because as I said last time, I believe that God’s word is a mirror revealing not so much what is on our faces but rather what is in our hearts and, as a Christian, it is my desire to respond to the reflection of myself that I see when I read the word of God not only in order to please and honor Him but also to represent Him well in this world.

The reality is however, that every believer will enter into eternity still working on the man or the woman in the mirror.

When we are “born again” (John 3:3), we become new creatures (2 Corinthians 5:17):

“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.”

Even so, the New Testament is full of instruction like that found in (Colossians 3:8-10):

“But now you yourselves are to put off all these: anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy language out of your mouth. Do not lie to one another, since you have put off the old man with his deeds, and have put on the new man who is renewed in knowledge according to the image of Him who created him…”

My point is this: in Christ we are made righteous in a moment: “For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” (2 Corinthians 5:21) That exchange is called justification and it happens the moment we believe in Jesus Christ – we are freely forgiven through God’s grace in Jesus Christ; the burden of our sin having been carried and borne on Christ’s cross and paid for with His blood thousands of years before you were born and applied to your life the moment you believe.

But the process of our ongoing transformation to be like Christ, will take a life time. Think about it, the habits and lifestyles which took a lifetime until we met Jesus to develop will take time to change but one thing WILL change immediately along with our standing before God. As T. W. Hunt wrote in a study called The Mind of Christ – “your want to will change.” You will have seen yourself in the mirror of God’s word and you will want to do something to improve your “appearance” as a child of God.

Such ongoing transformation is called sanctification: an ongoing purification of our souls requiring that rather than being “conformed” to the ways of the world around us (Romans 12:2), we are to be “transformed by the renewing of our minds.” Such a process requires both the mirror of God’s word and the enabling power of God’s Holy Spirit who lives within every believer (Romans 8:9) along with a daily submission to both.

September 15, 2019

The Elephants in the Room concerning Eternal Security

The idea that a person can maintain their status while at the same time doing whatever they wish doesn’t gel too well with what we’ve experienced in life. For instance, if a man commits a crime against society, he cannot remain a free man; the law dictates that there is a price to be paid. Likewise, if a man commits adultery against his wife, typically their relationship either suffers greatly and they fight to fix it or the relationship is over – in either case his standing between he and his wife is changed. But those same failures, as shameful as they are for a believer, do not end the relationship that the man has with the Lord.

This is the understanding we have of eternal security – we were saved by grace apart from works (see Ephesians 2:8-9); we were saved by the precious blood of Christ rather than tradition or personal sacrifice (see 1 Peter 1:18-19). If as unbelievers, we could do nothing to save ourselves from the wrath of God over our sins, it carries that neither can we, as the redeemed of God, do anything to remove ourselves from the relationship with God the Father gained through Christ the Son.

But there remains a menacing set of elephants in the room to be dealt with concerning the doctrine of eternal security and Paul rhetorically pulls them out in (Romans 6:1):

“What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound?”

Here, the voice of the legalist and the liberal are heard in their extremes. The legalist shouts with indignation, “WHAT?!!!!! Do you mean to say that a person can continue to sin and still be saved???!!!” At the same time, the liberal gleefully sings, “I can do whatever I like!!! I am a child of the King!!!”

Paul had just finished saying in (Romans 5:20-21) “Moreover the law entered that the offense might abound. But where sin abounded, grace abounded much more, so that as sin reigned in death, even so grace might reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” Just as the truth about Jesus which our pastor reminded us about again this morning (and you can never be reminded enough about this important truth) that Jesus is not less than or equal to whatever we are or ever will go through but “Greater Than” – the grace He made available to us all though His blood is also greater than any offence we can commit. The hymnist writing of the Grace Greater than Our Sin called it the “marvelous grace of our loving Lord – grace that EXCEEDS our sin and our guilt…”

After preaching or teaching on God’s Great Grace, I have had people posit the argument Paul anticipates in (Romans 6:1), usually with the voice of the legalist and it is usually because that person fails to really grasp the grace of God. Such a person is speaking the words of the prodigal’s brother after the wayward son returns to his Father and then is graciously loved on (Luke 15:29-30):

“’Lo, these many years I have been serving you; I never transgressed your commandment at any time; and yet you never gave me a young goat, that I might make merry with my friends. But as soon as this son of yours came, who has devoured your livelihood with harlots, you killed the fatted calf for him.’”

The legalistic brother here was maximizing his brother’s sin, minimizing his own sinful attitudes and behavior and ignoring the fact that his father had been exceedingly gracious to BOTH sons.

Can we sin and still be children of Almighty God? Yes.

Will we desire to sin in order to test the limits of His grace? Listen to Paul’s answer (Romans 6:2-4):

“Certainly not! How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it? Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? Therefore, we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.”

Paul’s words are stronger in the original than we have translated them, (v.3) actually answers the absurdity of the question with – “Are you ignorant” of the realities born out of our connection with the Lord Jesus?!” (emphasis mine) Arguing that (v.6) believers should no longer be slaves of sin Paul stated in (v.7) that “he who has died has been freed from sin.” We have been cleared of wrong-doing, justified and set apart for eternal life through faith in Jesus Christ – the new man in Christ is associated with Christ’s death: Paul wrote: “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.” (Galatians 2:20, NKJV)

Since this is true, rather than testing the limits of God’s grace as a liberal or His patience as a legalist let us all do as Paul suggested in (Romans 6:11) “…reckon (consider) yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Do I, does the Lord advocate and condone open sin from those claiming to love Him? No. Sin DOES have an effect – how long is up to you – on one’s relationship with God. But grace and restoration ARE available to the one who confesses rather than attempts to conceal their failure (see 1 John 1:9). As a wise believer once taught, “when you become a believer, your ‘want to’ changes;” you won’t always DO as you should and that WILL affect your relationship but not your identity as a child of God nor your destiny of shared glorification (see Romans 8:17,30) with Him.

Remember, from the arms of the Lord will no believer be torn (see John 10:28) nor will He turn away or “cast out anyone who comes to Him” (John 6:37) by faith.