Wednesday, July 18, 2007

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  The Only Way to Heaven: Faith alone in Christ alone (Part 2)

   

  The second installment of 'Faith Alone in Christ Alone' will have to do with the motivating factors in the Christian Life. After understanding the first section, HOW one is saved, this section will explain how to live because YOU ARE saved.
  
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  When people ask what the Gospel is and someone says that it is faith alone in Christ alone and NO WORKS WHATSOEVER such as 'turning your life over to God', 'changing your life from your control to God's control', 'turning over a new leaf', etc.; they then ask the presumptuous question - 'Well, then can I just go and sin?'
  
  So many people pose this question right after someone presents them the TRUE Gospel (faith alone in Christ alone) and believe that somehow this question is bullet proof and reinforces their position. Somehow they believe God's Word does not have a CLEAR and simple answer for that. Paul clearly states that people were slandering his preaching of the true Gospel (grace through faith in Christ) in his written text from Romans 3:5-8 where he says people were slandering his preaching by saying that he taught a gospel that proposed — "Let us do evil that good may result". Paul's answer to them was: 'Their condemnation is just.'
  
  People understand the Gospel clearly - that it is a gift and nothing they can do can earn it - and you know what happens to them???
  
  THEY ARE EMBARASSED.
  
  Why? Because that sounds too good to be true. So, after someone has been a Christian for a while they believe they've 'done enough' to 'earn God's love', 'prove they're a real Christian because of their works', and 'everyone else needs to do the same'. So, not only are most Christians CONFUSED and UNCLEAR about the GOSPEL, they are embarassed about it as well! So usually a Gospel presentation goes something like this: 'If you want to become a Christian you must give up everything to follow Jesus. You must confess and repent of all your sin, truly, truly, truly trust Him that He'll save you, and then follow Him for the rest of your life.'
  
  That usually is what I hear. Yet what Did Jesus say?
  
  'He who hears My word and believes in Him who sent me has everlasting life and will not come into condemnation, but has already passed over from death into life' (Jn. 5:24).
  
  What did Paul say?
  
  'But now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.' (Rm. 3:21-24)
  
  It is not complicated, but it is truly difficult for many to accept that someone can have a gift AND DO NOTHING FOR IT. So, instead of embracing this truth and growing in grace, they are embarrassed of this truth, change the message of grace, make it a message of works, and them attempt to motivate people by FEAR.
  
  So, how should a person who is saved be truly motivated? Why should I want to live for Christ, now that He has saved me - having the gift of salvation and an eternal relationship with God?
  
  1) I want to live for Him because I love Him - I want to do this because He first loved me.
  
  1 John 1:4:9-11 says: 'In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.'
  
  So we should love God and one another BECAUSE HE first loved us.
  
  Romans 5:8 says - 'For while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.'
  
  2) God commands us to love one another and to be ambassadors for Him!
  
  John 13:34-35 says - 'A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.'
  
  We should love Him and others because He commands us too - this should be enough but there is more!
  
  2 Cor. 5:20 says: 'Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were pleading through us: we implore you on Christ’s behalf, be reconciled to God.'
  
  So, we are to be His ambassadors of the 'Ministry of Reconciliation' as God were literally pleading through us - 'Be reconciled to God!'
  
  3) REWARDS!
  
  People honestly dont understand the teaching of rewards AT ALL. God desires for us to be rewarded and to have a good showing before Him. What people also dont understand is that those who DO NOT have a good showing before Him will BE ASHAMED before Him and will not receive 'Well done, good and Faithful servant' because not everyone is a good and faithful servant.
  
  Specific texts on rewards are -
  
  a) 'Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may obtain it. And everyone who competes for the prize is temperate in all things. Now they do it to obtain a perishable crown, but we for an imperishable crown. Therefore I run thus: not with uncertainty. Thus I fight: not as one who beats the air. But I discipline my body and bring it into subjection, lest, when I have preached to others, I myself should become disqualified.' (1 Cor. 9:24-27)
  
  Understand the KEY words Paul discusses: Obtain a prize, an imperishable crown. Notice that those who are disqualified are disqulaified from the CROWN and the PRIZE. NOT the Eternal Life and NOT the gift of Salvation. Rewards and eternal crowns ARE EARNED! Salvation is not work, it is a simple gift received by faith alone through Christ alone (Rom. 4:4-5).
  
  b) 'According to the grace of God which was given to me, as a wise master builder I have laid the foundation, and another builds on it. But let each one take heed how he builds on it. For no other foundation can anyone lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if anyone builds on this foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw, each one’s work will become clear; for the Day will declare it, because it will be revealed by fire; and the fire will test each one’s work, of what sort it is. If anyone’s work which he has built on it endures, he will receive a reward. If anyone’s work is burned, he will suffer loss; but he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire.' (1 Cor. 3:10-15)
  
  So, works are tested through fire - and the works that remain and are pleasing to God, the worker (Christian) receives his reward. This is NOT a gift, it is earned.
  
  4) Grace TEACHES us to obey!
  
  This point is similiar to point one as love is interrelated to grace, but it is also different and separate as its own force as a strong motivation to serve Christ in our lives.
  
  Paul discusses this main point in Titus 2:12 ---
  
  'For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men, teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in the present age, looking for the blessed hope and glorious appearing of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ,' (Titus 2:11-13)
  
  Not only does God's grace bring us eternal salvation, it also TEACHES us to obey Him and to live soberly in a dark and destructive world. Understand that this type of living does not justify us, but is our correct response to God's continuous grace as we grow and mature in Christ in this present, earthly life.
  
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  The problem is that God truly desires that people turn from their sins, that we live in a victorious way and that we give greater glory to Him instead of living unrighteously so that it furthers His grace on our sin - though His grace will always abound over our sin as it is clear from Romans 5:19-21.
  
  The problem arises when people MAKE THESE THINGS conditions for 'becoming right before God'. These are things God desires FOR THE CHRISTIAN to go on to maturity in Jesus Christ - NOT to become a Christian. Where is the motivation in that? The only motivation used in that is FEAR. Pastors and Christians everywhere dont know the scriptures and instead of studying the scriptures they yell louder and use fear tactics to try to 'motivate' people to live for God. They might believe in grace through faith - yet have never truly lived A LIFE OF GRACE, and because of that, they proclaim a FALSE Gospel that will never bring people to a saving faith in Christ, but only reform them into religious people who are still lost and have not yet believed in Jesus Christ alone through faith alone as the only means of salvation.
  
  Grace always,
  
  Ross Turner ~ 1 Cor. 9:24-27
  
  

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