The Message of Evangelism, Part 4 - Lesson 7
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…But this morning we actually have two of the youth who came through from middle school through high school getting in Samuel Williams, so I thought I'd just put them on the spot and have them give the gospel. It just started. Just now. I know you could do it. So yeah, so you can ask them. Be sure to ask them, "Give me the gospel in two minutes," and they can do it for you. So that's the goal we want, is to have gospel fluency, and so we're talking through the different aspects of the gospel, and we've kind of been using a five-fold category to think through the gospel for our own memory. We started with the sovereign, a God who is the creator, and therefore the authority who is holy, just, perfect, so the sovereign. Then we looked at the standard of God's law, what is the standard of God's law, which flows from His character, and we used the acronym PEAP, Perfect, Obedience, Entire Obedience, Exact Obedience, Perpetual Obedience, is what God requires. In His law, and of course we fall short of that standard, but Christ has met that standard on our behalf. Then we looked at the sinner, and the sinner is separated from God because of sin. We looked at what sin is, the judgment of sin. Actually, I think we only touched on it, but we ended, I think, by looking at the man can't earn his way to God by his good works, and briefly just touched on the consequences of sin. And then the other two that we want to look at are the Savior, and then the summons, the summons, which is the call to respond in repentance and faith. Just by way of brief kind of catch-up, I don't think we spent much time on the aspect of under the sinner, so just like if you want to make some room and fill in on the sinner. The reality that, yes, man is broken, God's law, we looked at that, but that man will pay the eternal penalty for sin. So the consequence of sin is death, you could look at that in various aspects, physical death, spiritual death, eternal death, really the three deaths. That's fundamentally refers to a separation of the body and the soul, separation spiritually from a relationship with God, separation from God's presence to bless for eternity. Everyone dies, Hebrews 9:27, is appointed for man to die once, and after that the judgment. So sin brings a separation from God, and Romans 6:23, as you know, for the wages of sin is death. So here's the consequence, here's what you earn for your sin. Hell is referred to as the second death in Revelation 20:11-15. There are only two places people will exist in after death, heaven or hell. Would that be the present heaven and hell or the future, the final state, heaven and hell? Matthew 25:46 says, "And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life." So many other passages to consider there, related to that, but I just didn't want to skip over that maybe we spent a little bit of time on it, but I just wanted to review a little bit on that aspect or the consequence of sin. We looked at man can't save himself by his good works, which is often the reflex people have when they realize the condition they're in, "I'll be a better person, I'll try harder," and we looked at that, how that's not possible. Galatians 2:16 says, "Yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law, but through faith in Jesus Christ." So we also have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law. Because by works of the law, no one will be justified. So there's a good transition for us from the sovereign, the standard, the sinner, and his inability to earn his way by works now transitioning to the Savior, the Savior, faith in the Savior. So that's what we're going to look at, the centrality of Christ, the Savior. What we want to focus on when we communicate Christ and this aspect of the gospel is the person of Christ and the work of Christ. So what do we mean when we say person and work of Christ? Yeah, who he is, person, and what he's done, work. Paul seems to refer to these two categories in 1 Corinthians 2. When he says, "I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified." his name and title. So Jesus Christ is shorthand for his person, And then him crucified is his work. Paul's not intending to say, "I only talked about the crucifixion, I didn't talk about his perfect life, of obedience, I didn't talk about his resurrection." No, that's not what he means. He means he's talking about the crucifixion as a catch-all term to refer to the work of Christ. So you have the person and work of Christ. And so that's what we want to consider. And so when we look at the person and work, we think about person, we think, "Okay, who is Christ? Truly God, truly man?" Those are our big categories. And then the work of Christ, we maybe you could put a threefold, there's more things you could, of course, talk about in the work of Christ, but the big three would be his perfect life of obedience, his substitutionary death, and his resurrection. So the life he lived, the death he died, and his resurrection. Those are the three things that we focus on. Now, of course, we can also talk about other things like his ascension, his present intercession for believers, his return. Again, those are all fine things to talk about in evangelism, but the big three to focus on are his life of obedience, his death, and his resurrection. And really, through history, there have been—and church history— various errors related to both the person and the work of Christ. Um, what would be some potential heresies and errors that have come up in history related to the person of Christ? Who He is? Can you think of any? Wrong views about the person of Christ? Holy man. Holy man, yeah. Holy God. Yep, yeah, one of those two. Denial of those. What were you going to say? I saw a hand up. Did you have a hand up, or no? You're just eating something. I was thinking about, um, I ate Son of God. Oh. Yeah, yeah. So, either a, um, saying that He wasn't truly human, uh, or that He wasn't truly God, or He is just one God among many, right? More of a polytheistic idea. So you see these things pop up all the time. Uh, what would be some errors that have cropped up related to the work of Christ? He's not full of justification. He is the sacrifice. Okay. Impartial. Yeah. Where might we—where might you see that? In the church. The Catholic Church, yeah. So you—you would have a view where, uh, grace is supplied, but grace is supplied in order to, uh, enable you to work with God for your salvation, um, justification is viewed as an infusion of righteousness rather than an imputation of righteousness. Uh, justification is often viewed the way we view sanctification, whereby it's a progression. It's a process that one day you will be justified instead of the idea that, uh, it is a point in time declaration legal, forensic, whereby God declares you to be, uh, ju—uh, righteous, uh, and it doesn't grow over time. Uh, the—the verdict of the judgment day is given right now, uh, ahead of time, because you're secure in that. So it can diminish the work of Christ by, if you have to contribute and add more or continue to contribute to your salvation in some way, to have favor with God, then you diminish what Christ has accomplished on the cross in the sufficiency of His work. All right? Any—any others? Think about the work of Christ. What about the atonement being not limited? Okay. Maybe, you know, Jesus died for everyone. Yeah. So, um, yeah, and really, you could even expand that out to just a full-out denial of what we would call , uh, PSA, right? Penal substitutionary atonement, which is just, uh, a way to refer to Christ dying in the place of sinners on their behalf. Uh, sadly, I mean, there are many people who despise that idea. They think it's sub-Christian. Um, they don't hold to that. People who are selling books and, you know, out there, uh, podcasters who—who don't believe in substitutionary atonement. Um, so, uh, that's a big issue. But then, yeah, uh, beyond that, uh, you have, uh, just various views on the extent of the atonement and understanding that. So, yep. Others? Robert, wouldn't you agree that the errors on the work of Christ almost always are rooted in the person of Christ? Yeah. The error of the first leads to the error of the second. Yeah, just. Being the sovereign God, you know, in and of Himself. Yep. Uh, yeah. And the second person of the Trinity, you get all that right. Yeah. Probably not going to mess up too bad on the work. Yeah. I mean, uh, it's like first principles, right? It's like you got to get the Trinity right , you got to get the incarnation right, you know, the—what we say the hypostatic union, the—the union of Christ's true, uh, deity and true humanity together. Um, and then it's like the—this God would have this kind of salvation, in other words, uh, you could put it that way. So, uh, if we get the person of God Um, absolutely. Yeah, that's—that's a key factor. wrong, the person of Christ, we're going to see downstream issues in how we relate to God. Uh, yeah, I think other things would be, you know, some liberal, uh, branches of Christianity, which are not really Christianity, uh, J. Grisham Machen made that point when he talked about liberal Christians. He says they're not another—uh, like brand of Christian. They're another religion altogether. So, uh, like the PCUSA is not a Christian— you know, denomination, really. They are another religion because they have—and I'm just using them as a stand-in for other liberal denominations that have denied key doctrines. Machen was saying, "Hey, listen, like, they—you're using all these terms, but they're another religion altogether. They've totally—they've—they've departed so far from orthodoxy that they can't even be considered under the category of Christian." And so some of that comes up in, like, views of, like, a spiritual resurrection, like Christ didn't physically, bodily resurrect from the dead. It's more of a concept, you know. It's in our hearts that He resurrected, or it's just a spiritual resurrection. So you can have that. So you can have wrong views on the atonement, wrong views on the resurrection. You can even have wrong views on the, uh, imputation of Christ's righteousness. I mean, there's—there's just errors abound all over the place. Um, and so we have to have the right Christ. We have to have—uh, not only in His person, but in His work. So that we offer people the saving Christ, uh, you're familiar with this, but Acts 4:12 says, "And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved." Uh, John 14, verse 6, it says, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." So I think as Christians, I know as Christians, we—we really have to be discerning in our day there are plenty of people who will name the name of Christ and say they're a follower of Christ, um, and yet the more you learn about what they actually believe about Christ and His work, you start to realize that is not the same Christ that I know. Uh, they—they use the name Christ, but they have a different Christ. And so if you call Him Christ, but when He's defined, it's not defined according to Scripture. Then you don't follow Christ. You don't know the true Christ. Uh, you have a false Christ. So it's very important that at this critical juncture in giving the gospel, that we get an idea of where people are at in their understanding of who Jesus is. Um, we were just talking about, uh, yesterday afternoon about how, um, you know, some people view Christ as just accepting them for whoever they are. In other words, it's like, I can just— I can just continue to live in my sin , uh, you know, Christ is Lord, lip service to that. But it's—the Jesus in their own—in their own image and in their own making is one who doesn't call them to repent of sin, doesn't call them to follow Him. Uh, submit to Him. And so He's totally fine with however they want to live their lives. Um, and it just gives them a sense of security, uh, to—to continue living how they—how they please. So that—that's sometimes the view people have. Here's what Bruce Metzger says in, uh, his book, Tell the Truth, or no, it's Will Metzger. I'm—I'm conflating, uh, a different guy. Okay, Will Metzger. Um, it is a question of truth and believing doesn't make something true. Just as unbelief doesn't necessarily make something false. Faith is not an entity separate from its object. Faith is always in something. The validity of faith is determined by its object. So he's saying, you know, to—to—to rephrase that, your faith is only as good as the object in which it is placed. So this is why, you know, I think it was Puritan guy. Horacious Bonner, I think. Um, he—he said, you know, did faith die on the cross for you? Did faith resurrect from the grave for you? Did faith ascend to the right hand of the Father for you? Is faith interceding for you? And his point was, you know, Christ is doing those things. And so faith looks to Christ who died, who was raised, who ascended, who's interceding for you. And so faith—Christ is the object of our faith. So we—in faith, we are trusting in Christ who is our salvation. Christ, who—who saves us. So faith then is only as good as the object of your faith. Um, so faith is not like a meritorious thing, like a work that God's like, "Ooh, I'm so proud of your faith." But faith looks away from ourselves unto Christ and Christ is the one who saves. So that means it's paramount that we look to the right Christ as revealed in Scripture. So let's just spend a little bit of time looking at the person and work of Christ, uh, just reviewing tried and true ground for you. Uh, so first we want to look at his person. And really, under that heading, two categories that he's truly God and truly man. And so under truly God, there are many places to go. If you want to just camp out in John's Gospel, we could just kind of skip a rock across the Gospel of John and there's many places to look. We can only look at a few. John 1:1, "In the beginning was the Word and the Word was, uh, was with God and the Word was God." He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him and without him was not anything made that was made. In him was life and the life was the light of men. Of course, getting into already the the person of Christ as truly man, that same word in verse 14 became flesh. And dwelt among us. We've seen his glory. Glory is of the only Son from the Father full of grace and truth. So we have the deity of Christ in verse 1 to 3. And then the humanity of Christ in verse 14. Jesus speaks about his deity in John chapter 8, verse 58. Speaking to the religious leaders, Jesus said to them, "Truly, truly I say to you, before Abraham was, I am." And he refers to himself by the covenant name. That's given. God in the Old Testament, chapter 10, verse 30, he says, "I and the Father are one." And then at the end of John's Gospel, chapter 20, verse 28, here's what Thomas confesses. Thomas answered him, "My Lord and my God, book ending the Gospel of John with a statement in chapter 1 about his deity and then a statement, uh, on his deity at the end of the Gospel of John as well." Of course, many other places throughout the Gospel of John we could also establish the deity of Christ. Uh, let's go to Colossians for just a second. Colossians chapter 2, Colossians 2, verse 9. "For in him, the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily." Or chapter 1, verse 19. "For in him, all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell." And of course, verse 15 of chapter 1, he is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation, which is what cults will point to. And say, "Oh, look, the firstborn. He is the firstborn born." So he had a beginning, right? There was a time when he was not. Uh, but, uh, you should know this reference, Psalm 89:27. Uh, this is, uh, reference to that. It's a related to the Davidic covenant. And it really speaks to firstborn is not so much the one who is, although it could refer to that, of being firstborn, but in the context it's referring to the preeminent one, the one who has authority. Uh, the name above all names. Uh, because it's referring, you know, it's referring to David in Psalm 89. And of course, his descendant, the Messiah. And David is not the firstborn in his family. Remember, there were like, they forgot all about David. They're like, "Yeah, he's in the field somewhere. Get that kid." You know? And so he's not the firstborn. And he's not even the first king of Israel. Saul's the first king. So on both counts, he's not the firstborn in that sense, but he's the preeminent one. Uh, so that's the idea that is being communicated there. So this is a clarification because you'll get that for sure. At some point. Uh, Titus 2, Titus 2, verse 13. "Waiting for the blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ." Now, this is a little technical detail, but those words God and Savior are meant to refer to the one person, Jesus Christ. So it's not saying like God is over here. And then Savior, Jesus Christ, is talking about someone else. No, God and Savior, both refer to the one referent, Jesus Christ. Hebrews 1, Hebrews 1, 2 to 3. But in these last days, he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things through whom he also created the world. He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature. And he upholds the universe by the word of his power. Even he quotes Psalm 45 in verse 8. "But of the Son, he says, your throne, O God, is forever and ever." 1 John chapter 5, 1 John 5 ends this way. Verse 20. "And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding so that we may know him who is true and we are in him who is true, in his Son, Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life." And then just for further emphasis, John says, "Little children, keep yourselves from idols." Keep yourselves from false gods, Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life. So many other places to establish this as well. Let me give you one more. This is just fun. You know, what better to spend our morning than the deity of Christ? So 2 Peter 1, here's a little trick you can pull. I think I've taught you some of you this before. Um, some cults also want to point out that, uh, you know, that God and Savior, Jesus Christ, they're not referring to the same referent. So here's, you know, you don't have to know Greek. You don't even have to about Granville Sharp or anything like that. You can just, uh, just see it in the English. So notice how 2 Peter 1 , uh, verse—sorry, chapter 2. This is how you have to do it. 2 Peter 2, verse 20, the order is important. So that the trick works. And we're not trying to trick people. We're just trying to help them see with clarity. But, uh, 2 Peter 2:20 says, "For if after they have escaped the defilements of the world, through the knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ," so then you ask the question, "Who does Lord and Savior refer to? And I mean, it seems self-evident. They refer to one person, Jesus Christ. Right? And that is true grammatically, as well as self-evidently. "But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ." Well, same question. Chapter 3, verse 18. Who do Lord and Savior refer to? Okay. They refer to Jesus Christ. Right? Grammatically and self-evidently. Okay. So then you go back to chapter 1, verse—oh, sorry. We have one more of these. 1:11. Okay. This is where you could start. All right. You got to remember. "For in this way, there will be richly provided for you and an entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ." So three times, Lord and Savior. Who does Lord and Savior refer to? Jesus Christ. Okay. Now, okay, finally, chapter 1, verse 1. Simeon Peter, a servant and apostle of Jesus Christ, to those who have obtained a faith of equal standing with ours, by the righteousness of our God and Savior, Jesus Christ. So then you ask, who does God and Savior refer to? And they're going to say, well, God refers to God and Savior refers to Jesus Christ. They're two different—wait a minute. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. This is the exact same construction. You said, Lord and Savior refer to Jesus. Lord and Savior refer to Jesus. Lord and Savior refer to Jesus. Why the change? God and Savior, no different construction, just a different word. They both refer to the same referent. Uh, it's the same exact construction. So—and then I press them to say, I think it's because you have a theological bias that Jesus cannot be true God of true God. And so when you look at this, you the blinders come on and you don't see it. But Peter is making it clear here, that he is the God and Savior. Anyway, does that make sense? What I'm trying to do there? Yeah? Okay. Rob Bowman and Ed—I don't know how to say his last name— come us Salski or something. They put a book together called Putting Jesus in His Place, The Case for the Deity of Christ. And they have a great acronym that I've mentioned to you before, but I'll bring up again. And it's the acronym Hands. Hands. H-A-N-D-S. So H stands for Jesus shares the honors due only to God. To remember how to defend the deity of Christ. The honors due only to God. So the honor of worship God, worshiping God. Here's a great one you can go to. In, I think it's Matthew 4, when Jesus is tempted in the wilderness, Satan asked him to bow down to him, you know, worship him. And Jesus says, "You shall only worship the Lord your God." Uh, and then later, in Matthew's Gospel, um, Jesus receives worship from the disciples and doesn't correct them. He doesn't say, "Hey, guys, only worship God." No, he receives that worship because he understands himself to be God. So Jesus shares the honors due only to God. So H-A, attributes. He shares the attributes of God. Second, Jesus shares the attributes of God. And you could go through various things that are essential to God's nature that Jesus possesses. Now, Jesus doesn't lose any of his divine attributes. In his incarnation, there's a union of a true divine nature and a true human nature, but not a mixing of the two. So that one is changed, uh, into another. Uh, but he remains truly God in all of his attributes. Even ones like omnipresence, omniscience at all times. Uh, Jesus shares the names that are used, of God. So I am, as a key one, a big one. And others as well. The covenant name of God. Jesus shares the deeds that only God can do. You know, who can forgive sins, but God alone? And here's Jesus saying, which is harder, to say to this man, you know, get up and walk, or your sins are forgiven? And then say, so you may know, get up and walk. And the guy gets up and walks. And then fifth, Jesus shares the seat of God. In other words, he sits on God's throne. Revelation 2, or sorry, 3, I think 21 to 22, just as he will allow us to sit down speaks about how the son sits down on this father's throne, So he shares the seat. with him on his glorious throne, the Davidic throne. So the honors, the attributes, the names, the deeds, and the seat of God. And these are just various ways of, of course, there's lots of passages that accrue to those different categories. As you could look at, and we've looked at a number of general statements about the deity of Christ as well. So any questions about the deity of Christ, for people? All right. Good. establishing that, making that case, And questions that people have. Certainly lots of questions that come up related to that. The historic formulation of this, not a scripture, but just a way to put it, But those are some good starting places to establish that. is remaining what he was. He became what he was not. We say that often here. Second, Jesus is sinless man. So he remains true God. Doesn't change. The divine nature cannot change. He's immutable. But he becomes what he's not. He assumes to himself a true human nature. And so he's truly man. 1 Timothy, chapter 2, verse 5. Says, "For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man, Christ Jesus." Job saw the need for a God-man mediator, one who could put his hand on God, so to speak, and put his hand on man, and deal with both. He even understood that. The first book written in the Bible. Some of the older translations say Job was looking for an umpire, an umpire, you know, basically one who decides a case between two teams. And so the idea is, a go between, a go between. And so that's what Job saw he needed. And he knew that he needed to be God and man that was his hope. Philippians 2, demonstrates this as well. I mean, in many passages, let me ask you how could you demonstrate the humanity of Christ? What would be one way you could do that? you could actually go to, well, From scripture. He's wonderful. Born of a woman. Yep. What'd you say? Birth narrative. Yep. Yeah. So things that are true of humans. He eats. And then you could add to that he sleeps. He gets tired. Right. So many of those specific instances in the gospel. which speaks to his humanity in Philippians 2. Record where those things are taking place. And then you have more of a theological passage, So it does double duty here. Philippians 2, 5 to 8. And also his deity. Philippians 2, 5. You have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count a quality with God, something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, so that's the assumption of a human nature, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men, and being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. So there we see divinity and humanity. So he's the mediator between God and men. Shai Lin is like a Christian rapper. He has a good line. In one of his songs, he's got a lot of theological songs that are like deep theology. He says this, "See, only a human can, I'm not going to drop it for you, but see, only a human can substitute for human lives, but only God can take the wrath of God and survive." Yeah. So you can just drop out that last word and you can just have that little tune in your mind to remember. Why that's important. See, only a human can substitute for human lives, but only God can take the wrath of God and survive. So there's a helpful reminder of deity and humanity. Okay. So the person of Christ, the work of Christ. Any questions? Person of Christ. Clarifications. Comments. Yeah. A lot of stories to be told about interacting with different people in person of Christ. And how those conversations go. I can think of one we had Tim, you know, at your house. So with some people who came down the driveway. So fun stuff. What would be the most common probably alternate views would be like Mormons and Gentile witnesses? What are their views of Christ? Yeah. And we were talking about this last night as well. I think a good wait, you give me so here's my way to think about like false groups, basically. They get the savior wrong, right, in his person and work. They get salvation wrong by adding works to the gospel in some way. It's not by grace alone. And then they get the scriptures wrong because they often add to scripture some other authority, whether that's the Book of Mormon or whether that's the Watchtower Society or the Magisterium and the church traditions and the Catholic Church. So you get those three wrong. You know, you have another gospel, in other words. What was yours, though? You had some you had the scripture take away for Christ deity. Multiply works to salvation in your divine to the church. Okay. So it's like if you're into math, you know, this is the one for you. Take away from Christ deity. Take away from Christ deity. Multiply works to salvation. Multiply works to salvation. In your divine to the church. In your divine from the church. Okay. There you go. Okay. So say it again and I'll repeat it. You added scripture. So you add the scripture. So if you're a math person and you want to remember, this is what a cult is like. Okay. There you go. Great job. how to remember a cult, you know, See, I told you they could share the gospel. Yes. All right. So the work of Christ, the work of Christ, what he has done. We want to look at three things here briefly. Christ obeyed the law of God perfectly. You could also think about this under the category of Christ's sinless life. Do you ever think about why Jesus lives for 33 years around, give or take, before dying? If the goal is to save us, why not just be born and then immediately die? What is the answer to that question? So yeah. For him to live, right? Or there's multiple answers to that question. What Adam failed to do. So that's important. So he is obeying the law of God in the place of sinners. So in Matthew 3, verse 3, verse 15, Jesus approaches John the Baptist to be baptized and John is like, "Hey, I need to be baptized by you." And Jesus is permitted at this time in order that we might fulfill all righteousness. Jesus came to fulfill all righteousness. This wasn't a command by the way in the Mosaic law for people to be baptized. This was most likely a proselyte baptism from Gentiles coming into Judaism and yet John is saying to the Jews, "You need to have this baptism." In preparation for the Messiah. And so whatever God requires of human beings, before him, Christ fulfills. Romans chapter 5, verse 9. Romans chapter 5, or sorry, not verse 9. Verse 19. Romans chapter 5, verse 19, for as by the one man's disobedience, the many were constituted or appointed sinners. So by the one man's obedience, the many will be appointed or constituted righteous. His obedience constitutes us righteous. So when we think about like, what is the stuff underneath our justification? Like God is declaring us righteous, but on what basis? Well, the basis is the righteous life of Christ. Christ's righteousness, his obedience to the law is what's credited to us. And actually, we've read it already, but it may have you weren't focusing on that part. So you may have missed it. But Second Peter 1:1, we were thinking about the deity of Christ. But he says, "To those who have obtained a faith of equal standing with ours by the righteousness of our God and Savior, Jesus Christ." This is Jesus Christ's righteousness that is counted to us. But that which is in Christ in Philippians 3:9 and 10. Paul wanted this for his life. He said, "I want to be found in Christ, not having a righteousness of my own." Or Second Corinthians 5:21. This is like the gospel in one verse in some ways. For our sake, he made him to be sin, who knew no sin, as if he lived your life of sin, so that he could treat you so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. I think it was MacArthur as if you lived his life of righteousness. who I first heard say it this way, So that's just a great encapsulation of gospel truth. that on the cross, Jesus or God treats Jesus So here's what I love this illustration Will Metzger. Here's what he says. He's got to get to it, but he's kind of pointing out the importance of Christ's obedience. He says, "Yet here again, me centered evangelism is often deficient. to the exclusion of others. It tends to focus on one of Christ's roles It may be well versed in presenting Christ as sin bearer who via a substitutionary sacrifice of himself for sin affected a reconciliation between the sinner and God, yet unhappily, it often misses the importance of his life of perfectly fulfilling all obligations of the law, active obedience. And thereby gaining a perfect righteousness for those whom he represents. the broken laws penalty is borne for us. In the death of Christ, passive obedience, Yet Christ has not just put us back in the garden, a state of innocence or of moral probation, but has put a robe of righteousness on us. And then here's his illustration. I love this. A simple pencil can be used to illustrate this. The eraser is the blood of Christ cleansing us from all sin. The lead is the righteous life of Christ by which he fulfilled all the commands of God required of us. but a mark of righteousness is written next to our names. Not only are all our sins erased, Isn't that great? you could teach your kids this. So you know if you got a pencil, You know Jesus erases all of your sin. He is sin bearer and purity bestower. And then he turns the pencil over and he writes 100%. You obeyed. Perfect score, right? That's justification. Illustrated via a pencil. You know I used to like the taekwondo roga number two pencils in high school. Those were my jam. You know I use those things. But any pencil works, right? So the eraser and the lead. So go teach someone about justification. It's not just as if I never sinned. That's just the eraser. It's also as if I had always obeyed the law. That's the lead. Okay. So that's Christ's life. Okay. Now we got to fast forward here pretty quickly. Christ demonstrated God's love as well by dying on the cross to pay sin's penalty. So this is the substitutionary atonement. Romans 5:8. But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. When we say Christ died for us, that word for is very important. It means in our place as our substitute. He took the penalty that we deserved. So the law demands a penalty when it's broken, but also it requires positive it has positive demands. So we already talked about the positive demands And so we have to deal with that penalty issue of God's law that Christ has fulfilled in his obedience. and that's what his death does. But there's penal sanctions. There's a penalty that's due if you break the law. He dies in the place of sinners. First Peter 2:24. He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds, you have been healed. For Christ also suffered once for sins the righteous for the unrighteous that he might bring us to God. to demonstrate substitutionary atonement as well. Isaiah 53 is another great place And then Christ rose from the grave and is alive today. And the resurrection validates both of his person and his work. Who he is and what he has done. And here's two passages for that. Romans 1, verse 4. Both in Romans, both close to each other. And Christ was declared to be the Son of God in power. That's his person. According to the Spirit of holiness, by his resurrection from the dead. Jesus Christ, our Lord. So it confirms who he said he was. True God, true God of true God. And true man. So his resurrection validates that. And then it validates the work of Christ. Who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification. Chapter 4 of Romans, verse 25. Raised to validate our justification, our being declared righteous. So the illustration I like to use is that the resurrection is like a receipt when you go to like those big stores, Costco, Sam's. You know, you got to show your receipt before you can leave. And so the resurrection shows paid in full. God accepts. Your salvation has been paid for. You can go out of the store and have that stuff because it's been paid for. who is our creator, our Lord, our authority. He's holy. So there's the person of Christ, the work of Christ. So we've looked at the sovereign, God, We looked at the standard of God is obedience to his character and his standard. You should be holy for I, the Lord, your God, am holy. And we've seen the definition of that and it's perfect. It's entire. It's exact. It's perpetual. We've looked at the sinner who has broken God's law, deserves punishment for that, cannot earn his way to God through his good works. And then we looked at the savior who is true God and true man. That's his person. And his sufficient work, his obedience to God's law, is sinless life. His substitutionary death in the place of sinners and his resurrection from the dead to validate who he is and what he has done. And it's on that basis that we can be justified you got your pencil. Eraser shows the forgiveness of our sins. Turn it around. Write down on the page with a pencil 100% obedience because of Christ. And so there's justification. And next time we will look at the summons, the summons. What is it? This is the facts of the gospel. And so that's what we're going to look at Now we give the invitation to believe the gospel and repent. next time is repentance and faith. As we look at the summons, the summons. Any questions as we finish? Wow. I just heard a beep. I'm assuming that was the hour, top of the hour. And we did it. Yay. But if you have a question, go ahead, throw it out or comment. Yeah. The Lord is right. But so my biggest thing is when sharing the gospel, I feel like the number one like a lot of my family, they're not believers. They're biggest setback is like no living sin, but God forgives me. It's like that there's no they just keep doing the same things over and over. Yeah. And obviously they're Christ is skewed. But I think we'll cover this more. Next time. The summons. But it's not necessarily well, obviously they're believing whatever they want to believe. But what would be what would God fall under? That's the yeah. But I'm not saying right. But the God loves all of us. He forgives us. Yeah. He confessed. It's like they get part of the gospel. Yeah. Like God does forgive, but then there's no call to stop living in sin. Yeah. It's like that part doesn't register. Yeah. So there's a few ways to go. I mean, you just start with it takes a whole Christ to make a whole Christian, right? So we can't pare it out or we can't divide out parts of Christ. So he comes as a package, right? We want to have like savior. We don't get to say like, well, later I'll make him my master. I was like, well, no, you don't make him master. He is master. So there's that aspect of it. But not master, right? Jesus says in John 8:31, so Jesus said to the Jews who had believed in him, so if you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples. So the evidence of being a true disciple is that you abide. You remain in his words. Jesus says elsewhere, why do you call me Lord, Lord? And yet not do what I say? So there's that aspect of it as well. And there's something else I was going to say. Yeah. Yeah. Make a comment while I'm trying to jog my memory. I think some of this even what you were saying before about why wouldn't why does Christ I didn't hear you fully. But Christ born, but then why did he live the life? Yeah. So that time element. And one of the major factors is it's so true of us all the time. And that is that we're so self-centered. Yeah. So man-centered. and to me is like you were down in the weeds and looking at the tree bark, right? About all these verses about Christ. But if we back away and look at the forest, And so one of the helpful things for me what is the entire purpose of the universe? Yeah. What is the entire purpose of the scripture for God to be revealed to his created beings for his eternal glory? Yes. Yes. So when we talk about being reformed and we say, for the glory of God alone, after we've said those other things, anything that we as humans do and try to input and Christ as he did his work or detract or not take the scriptures as they're intended And that is a pinnacle of sin. So just from a biblical theology perspective, and even our sister in the back back there, and displayed his person, we're diminishing his glory. Yeah. her comment that those her family. Whoever they're not getting the major thrust of all of the Bible. For your name's sake. Yeah. Yeah. When Moses pleads to God, what will the nation say? If you bring them out and then wipe them out? Yeah. Yeah. It's about his name. Think about Israel's salvation by God. His entire purpose of salvation. Yeah. That he put himself on display. Yeah. We're just I mean, and I've said it before, your our salvation is a byproduct of God displaying his glory. Yeah. In the universe. And it's almost kind of like you just fall out, really. Yeah. Yeah. That's great. Emphasize the glory of God. What's the purpose of your life, right? And yeah, and God, like I like the emphasis Piper has made that God's glory and your joy are not at don't need to be viewed as at odds. That your ultimate joy is found in making much of God and not making much of self. One of the things I think it's helpful is I think Tim and I would both say our testimonies are similar in that we heard the gospel and we had a kind of a mental ascent to it, I think, because we thought, well, this is great news. We can be forgiven of our sins and be righteous. But and then we could just live however we want because grace is that great, right? But it was a misunderstanding of grace. And so I like to just use my own story and say, hey, there was a time when I just thought Jesus was more of like a ticket to a movie for me. I wanted to see the movie. I didn't want Christ. He was the means to an end. And so I wanted to just be able to go to heaven didn't matter if Christ was there. that God is the point of the universe. Christ is the gospel. I don't keep my movie ticket stubs after I watch the movie. I get rid of them. And I was enslaved in my sin. And I didn't realize I was blinded to that. And so but God helped me to realize He says, 2 Corinthians 5:15, And he is satisfying. That those who live might no longer live for themselves, And so here's another verse and we'll close. and he died for all. So it's like the Heidelberg Catechism uses threefold kind of motivation for us to live for him. but for him who died for their sake. And was raised. Guilt, grace, gratitude. And you start with recognizing your guilt. Then you see the grace of God. And then you live in gratitude. So it's like, hey, don't you want to live for God? Don't you want to? So you kind of appeal to them in that way. Like if there's some common ground that they acknowledge Christ, then you can say, like, hey, based on what God has done, he's freed you from that sin. Don't you want to live for him? So all right, good. Let me pray. Father, thank you for the gospel. Thank you for this just thought experiment to think through various conversations we might have, how we might be better equipped, Lord. And may our hearts be satisfied in you. The center of the universe, the purpose for which we were made. And may we glorify you and enjoy you forever. In Jesus' name. Amen.