NXR Podcast - SUNDAY SERMON - Yoga, Eastern Meditation, And The Gospel
Aired: 2023-10-29
Duration: 49:13


=== Proclaiming The Gospel Without Shame (10:38) ===

[00:00:00]  Our text for today is Romans chapter 1, verse 16 through 17.
[00:00:04]  Again, that's Romans chapter 1, verse 16 through 17.
[00:00:07]  I'll read the text in its entirety when I finish.
[00:00:10]  I'm going to say, This is the word of the Lord, at which point I would appreciate very much if you would respond by saying, Thanks be to God.
[00:00:17]  One final time, our text for this morning is Romans chapter 1, verse 16 through 17.
[00:00:22]  The Bible says this For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.
[00:00:33]  For in it is the righteousness of God, is revealed from faith to faith.
[00:00:40]  As it is written, the righteous shall live by faith.
[00:00:43]  This is the word of the Lord.
[00:00:46]  All right, please be seated.
[00:00:47]  By way of introduction, I've written these following words In order to proclaim the gospel without shame, as the Apostle Paul most certainly did, we must first believe the gospel.
[00:00:58]  And in order to truly believe the gospel, we must first rightly understand the gospel.
[00:01:04]  So, in our text today, the Apostle Paul provides his readers with no less than four characteristics of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
[00:01:12]  Number one, the gospel is mankind's greatest need.
[00:01:15]  Number two, the gospel is the power of God for salvation.
[00:01:20]  Number three, the gospel reveals the righteousness of God.
[00:01:25]  And number four, the gospel is to be received by faith.
[00:01:30]  Now, again, as I've said in this brief introduction, in order for us to truly preach the gospel without shame, I am not ashamed of the gospel.
[00:01:39]  If we are to preach the gospel, share the gospel, and proclaim the gospel to others, we must believe it.
[00:01:46]  And if we are to believe it, we must understand it.
[00:01:50]  It is a heretical Gnostic notion to think that understanding and belief are somehow divorced from one another.
[00:01:59]  That's what much of our modern evangelical culture has insisted.
[00:02:05]  They'll say, yeah, sure, to preach the gospel shamelessly, unapologetically, Certainly, you must believe it.
[00:02:12]  If you're going to shamelessly preach the gospel, then you have to be authentic.
[00:02:18]  It has to be genuine.
[00:02:19]  It has to be something that you yourself believe.
[00:02:23]  Like any good salesman, if he's going to be successful, it helps tremendously if he actually believes in the product that he's attempting to get others to buy.
[00:02:33]  So, evangelicalism doesn't really have much of an opposition to the principle up to this point.
[00:02:40]  The idea that if you're going to preach the gospel well, if you're going to do so persuasively, and if you're going to do so unapologetically, you must believe it yourself.
[00:02:51]  What you are presenting to others must be something that you believe yourself.
[00:02:55]  Where evangelicals will then derail is when you follow that statement up by saying, and that which you yourself believe, it must also be something necessarily that you understand.
[00:03:10]  This idea that, well, you believe.
[00:03:12]  With your heart, and you know, with your mind, and these are two completely unrelated things.
[00:03:19]  That is a misconception, that is not biblical.
[00:03:24]  Even the greatest commandment that Jesus says in Matthew chapter 22, verse 37 through 40, He said to Him, You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind.
[00:03:37]  Elsewhere in the gospel narratives, strength is also included with all your strength.
[00:03:43]  And the second greatest commandment is like it that you should love your neighbor as yourself.
[00:03:48]  All the law and the prophets hinge, that is, they depend upon these two commandments.
[00:03:54]  The greatest, first and foremost, love God.
[00:03:58]  The second, love your neighbor as you love yourself.
[00:04:01]  But in regards to the first, in regards to man's moral obligation to love the Lord his God above all other things, what's included in this command is that you should love the Lord your God with everything.
[00:04:16]  That's what Jesus is expressing.
[00:04:19]  And he's quoting Old Testament scripture.
[00:04:21]  But what he's expressing, the chief principle, the headline of the story, is that man is called to love God with every part of him.
[00:04:31]  With all of his being, reserving nothing for himself.
[00:04:36]  What Jesus is not expressing is that love for God is like a Luby's buffet.
[00:04:43]  And that you could step in line and you could say, you know what, I'm more of a heart guy.
[00:04:48]  And the commandment is love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, andor strength.
[00:04:56]  And I'm a heart guy, and so I've opted for a Christian life of loving the Lord with all my heart.
[00:05:03]  And I'm fulfilling the first and greatest commandment.
[00:05:05]  You see, what evangelicals have done is instead of the word and, they have replaced it with the word or.
[00:05:13]  What's the greatest commandment?
[00:05:14]  Love the Lord your God with your heart, soul, mind, or strength.
[00:05:20]  And you get to choose which option you prefer.
[00:05:24]  And the heart people, this is what they do, and I would say this is 98% of evangelicals, they all opt for heart.
[00:05:30]  It's not a coincidence.
[00:05:31]  What they do essentially is they say this Number one, I've chosen to love the Lord with all my heart.
[00:05:36]  And first and foremost, that's better than everybody else.
[00:05:39]  Right?
[00:05:40]  There's some guys, you know, they love the Lord with all their mind.
[00:05:43]  But I've loved the Lord with all my heart.
[00:05:46]  And I think the Lord prefers this one.
[00:05:48]  I'm better than those mind loving Christians.
[00:05:53]  Those who just love God with their thoughts.
[00:05:56]  But I love God with my feelings.
[00:05:58]  And that trumps loving God with your mind and with your thoughts.
[00:06:01]  Why?
[00:06:01]  What verse told you that?
[00:06:03]  Well, I think it was Disney, chapter 12, verse 13.
[00:06:08]  Feelings trump everything.
[00:06:11]  And I feel, you know, I mean, when I'm worshiping the Lord, I get the feels.
[00:06:16]  I cried four times this week while listening to a worship, you know, song in my car.
[00:06:23]  That's not how it works.
[00:06:24]  It's not a buffet.
[00:06:25]  Jesus doesn't say, here are four, three or four different ways to love me, and all you have to do is one.
[00:06:33]  No, Jesus is saying, you must love me with every element of your being.
[00:06:39]  It's not this, this, this, or that.
[00:06:42]  It's this, this, this, And that.
[00:06:46]  You must love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.
[00:06:59]  We are not Gnostics.
[00:07:01]  We do not believe that the fleshly is demonized, that it's of no value, and that all that matters is the eternal, the spiritual, the invisible, and that these two things are somehow completely severed and divorced from one another.
[00:07:20]  Now, we want to love God with our eternal soul, and we also want to love God with our mind.
[00:07:26]  David says that I meditate upon your law day and night, that he delights in the law of God, and he's meditating on the law.
[00:07:36]  Now, meditation and memorization are not synonymous.
[00:07:42]  Meditation, I believe, that it necessitates, it assumes memorization, because you cannot begin to meditate on that which you have not committed to memory.
[00:07:53]  That which you do not know.
[00:07:56]  Now, Christian meditation is absolutely opposed, is diametrically opposite to Eastern or mantra meditation.
[00:08:07]  Eastern, pagan, demonic mantra meditation.
[00:08:11]  Yoga would be an example.
[00:08:13]  Oh, but I love yoga, and I love wearing my tight, painted on yoga pants.
[00:08:17]  Well, get saved.
[00:08:19]  Get saved.
[00:08:21]  All right, if you want to stretch, there are other ways to stretch at home, right, than going to your yoga instructor.
[00:08:30]  Your yoga instructor is a pagan, I promise you.
[00:08:33]  They are.
[00:08:34]  And they're not just trying to teach you to be physically healthy.
[00:08:37]  They want you to be physically healthy and by the end of that six month class, worship Satan.
[00:08:42]  That is the goal.
[00:08:43]  So, all that being said, mantra meditation, that was for free.
[00:08:46]  You're welcome.
[00:08:47]  You can leave a gift at the door.
[00:08:49]  That was, you know, mantra meditation, pagan Eastern meditation.
[00:08:52]  This is the dynamic difference between that and Christian meditation.
[00:08:55]  It's not that Christian thought that within the Christian faith that there is no meditation, there is.
[00:09:01]  I meditate, David says in the Psalms, on your law day and night.
[00:09:04]  Here's the difference.
[00:09:05]  Mantra meditation, Eastern meditation, it seeks to empty the mind of all rational thought.
[00:09:12]  And that by somehow emptying the mind of all, because it sees rational thought, it sees the mind latching on to anything of substance as a mere distraction from real, true, inward enlightenment.
[00:09:28]  But Christian meditation, however, in precisely opposite terms, Christian meditation, Only meditates on that which is substance, namely that which is eternal.
[00:09:40]  The flower fades, the grass withers, but the word of the Lord endures forever.
[00:09:44]  So in Christian meditation, David doesn't say, I meditate day and night.
[00:09:49]  No, he says, I meditate on, there's substance there, there's rational thought, there's truth on thy law day and night.
[00:09:59]  So in Christian meditation, what we must do is first, again, meditation, memorization, not the same.
[00:10:06]  However, meditation assumes memorization.
[00:10:10]  So, first we're committing God's precepts, His law, His commands, His word to memory.
[00:10:16]  And then, once the word has been hidden in my heart, once it's been memorized, I begin to meditate on Thy law, on Thy law word, Thy truth, which means I begin to think about the word.
[00:10:31]  And in thinking about the word, I'm thinking at least two things.
[00:10:34]  Number one, I'm thinking about the word and its meaning.

=== Thinking Deeply Upon God's Word (03:20) ===

[00:10:38]  And not what it means to me.
[00:10:42]  Not a relativistic, subjective, interpersonal meaning.
[00:10:47]  Well, God's word means this to me and it means that to you.
[00:10:50]  No, no, no.
[00:10:52]  If we have contradicting interpretations of the word of God, we cannot all be right.
[00:10:57]  Now, you can, in an egalitarian, you know, I'll throw you an egalitarian bone here.
[00:11:01]  You can all be wrong.
[00:11:03]  You can all be wrong together, but you can't all be right.
[00:11:07]  And so when it comes to interpretation, That is God's meaning.
[00:11:11]  It's not what it means to you, it's what it means to Him.
[00:11:15]  What does God intend to convey in this given passage of Scripture?
[00:11:20]  So memorize the Word of God, hide it in your heart, commit it to memory in your mind, and then begin to meditate.
[00:11:27]  That is to think deeply upon God's Word.
[00:11:31]  In the first sense, thinking about its meaning.
[00:11:34]  What does God mean by this?
[00:11:36]  What does God intend to say?
[00:11:38]  What is God communicating to His people?
[00:11:42]  Second, we move from interpretation or meaning to application, doing.
[00:11:49]  In light of this text, in light of meditating upon it and thinking about its meaning, and now deriving its meaning from God and not from myself, how then should we live?
[00:12:03]  How do I live in light of the meaning of what God is saying in this given passage of Scripture?
[00:12:09]  Thinking deeply upon application.
[00:12:12]  This is what Constantine did, that vile, vile enemy of the church, a hero.
[00:12:18]  This is what King Alfred did, a hero.
[00:12:22]  They thought upon the scripture, its meaning first and its application second.
[00:12:29]  How does this scripture apply to all of life?
[00:12:34]  Not just my pietistic, private little heart.
[00:12:38]  Jesus is not merely Lord of your heart, Jesus is Lord of all.
[00:12:44]  And not just all peoples, but every single realm of human life and society.
[00:12:51]  He is Lord of medicine.
[00:12:54]  He is Lord of business and economics.
[00:12:56]  And he most certainly is Lord of Caesar.
[00:13:00]  Caesar is not God.
[00:13:02]  Caesar has a God above him, the one true triune God, the King of kings and Lord of lords, Jesus the Christ.
[00:13:12]  And what Caesar does when he's born again and truly loves the Lord with all his heart and his soul and his mind is he seeks to understand the meaning of Scripture as he meditates upon it day and night.
[00:13:25]  And also its application.
[00:13:27]  Not just merely how Caesar should behave in his family, in his marriage, in his fatherhood, but how Caesar should behave and live as Caesar in the public square, as one who legislates, as one who executes, as one who oversees the affairs of society in the civil realm.
[00:13:48]  This is what it is to meditate upon God's word.
[00:13:53]  So Jesus is not providing for us options of how to love him.

=== Loving Him With All We Are (03:46) ===

[00:13:58]  Rather, he is insisting that we must love him in every single way that we can.
[00:14:05]  We must love him from the heart.
[00:14:08]  We must love him from the mind, from the soul, and from the body and the strength that he provides.
[00:14:15]  We love him with all that he has given to us.
[00:14:18]  We turn and give it back to him, loving him deeply in our thoughts, deeply in our passions and in our zeal, deeply even with our physical labors and strength, and deeply from the soul.
[00:14:33]  In all these ways, we must love him.
[00:14:36]  So, if we are like the Apostle Paul to preach the gospel unashamed, for I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God unto salvation.
[00:14:47]  If we are to preach the gospel without shame, we must believe it.
[00:14:53]  And if we are to believe the gospel truly and deeply, we must understand it, we must know it.
[00:15:02]  You cannot believe that which you do not know.
[00:15:07]  Said another way, the heart cannot adore that which the mind does not know.
[00:15:14]  The heart cannot love what the mind does not know.
[00:15:19]  The mind must be filled with substance, not emptied, but filled with substance, and then that substance begins like a rudder to shift and guide and turn the ship of our powerful affections and zeal and love for God.
[00:15:40]  Preach the gospel without shame.
[00:15:42]  Believe the gospel.
[00:15:43]  Believe the gospel truly, and therefore you must understand the gospel.
[00:15:49]  So now, we're ready for four different key characteristics that we should understand about the gospel from our text today.
[00:15:59]  The first is that the gospel is mankind's greatest need.
[00:16:04]  In your notes, I've written the following The gospel contains many positive promises, such as experiencing the peace of God, that's Romans 5 1.
[00:16:15]  And enjoying a reconciled relationship with God, as we see in Romans chapter 5, verse 10.
[00:16:21]  However, the foundational message of the gospel is a message of salvation.
[00:16:27]  The gospel is the very power of God which saves fallen sinners from the penalty of sin, that is justification, the power of sin, that is sanctification, and eventually the very presence of sin, that is glorification.
[00:16:43]  From Romans 1, chapter 18, just a verse later from our text today, All the way to Romans 3, verse 20.
[00:16:51]  The Apostle Paul goes to extraordinary lengths to clearly demonstrate that all have sinned against God and therefore all have fallen under his just condemnation.
[00:17:01]  This message is highly offensive to man in his natural state, but to pull our punches at this point is to hate our fellow man and deprive him of the only hope he has.
[00:17:13]  The gospel is only good news to those who first recognize God.
[00:17:18]  The bad news.
[00:17:20]  Romans chapter 1, verse 18 says, For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.
[00:17:35]  In other words, the gospel is a message of grace and not only or merely a message of love.

=== Grace Revealing Righteousness And Wrath (13:08) ===

[00:17:45]  God does, in fact, love his people.
[00:17:49]  God loves us more than we love our own children.
[00:17:54]  But the gospel is not merely a message of love.
[00:17:58]  If we are to be more precise in our language and our understanding, we should recognize that the gospel of God is a message of love, but a particular kind of love, namely what the Bible refers to as grace.
[00:18:16]  And the main difference between grace and mere love is that love.
[00:18:22]  Can be shown to a perfect being.
[00:18:26]  You can have love for God, but you cannot have grace for Him.
[00:18:32]  He has no need of grace.
[00:18:35]  Grace, in its very definition, is unmerited favor.
[00:18:41]  Grace is love, but of a particular nature.
[00:18:45]  It is undeserved love.
[00:18:48]  It is love that has not been merited.
[00:18:50]  It is love despite the fact that the person is unworthy of that love.
[00:18:58]  We love God and God loves us, but we do not have grace for God, but He most assuredly has grace for us.
[00:19:09]  The scripture says of the angels, in regards to the gospel of God, that it is a great mystery that even they, that is the angels, long to look into.
[00:19:21]  And the reason why is not because the angels are unloved, God loves His angelic host.
[00:19:29]  The Psalms say that he has compassion on all he has made, that not even a sparrow would fall to the ground without God seeing it.
[00:19:37]  And the implication is that God also cares.
[00:19:43]  That he cares even to the point of clothing the very lilies of the field.
[00:19:48]  God has compassion on all his creation.
[00:19:52]  God cares for grass, he cares for cows on a thousand hills, he cares for sparrows.
[00:19:59]  And much more exponentially, so he cares for angelic hosts and he loves them, but he does not have grace for them.
[00:20:09]  Of the angels, there are two primary kinds there are those who have fallen, and never once have they nor will they receive a single opportunity for redemption.
[00:20:24]  There is no chance of salvation.
[00:20:27]  Of those fallen angels, God has condemned them, and justly so, to an eternity.
[00:20:34]  Of torment in the lake of fire.
[00:20:36]  And one day, that is precisely where they will arise.
[00:20:41]  Of the other angels, God loves them and He loves them deeply.
[00:20:46]  But He does not have grace for them.
[00:20:48]  These angels who are not fallen are angels who have never rebelled.
[00:20:53]  They have never once sinned against the Almighty, never once had the audacity to raise a fist in defiance against the God who created them.
[00:21:05]  And so they have no need of grace.
[00:21:07]  The love that God bestows upon them is not a gracious love, but the love that God has for his elect people is a love that is characterized from start to finish by grace.
[00:21:23]  That is undeserved love, that is unmerited favor.
[00:21:29]  The gospel, therefore, is not fundamentally a message of love, but it is a message of grace.
[00:21:37]  And that is precisely what makes the gospel.
[00:21:41]  An offense.
[00:21:43]  The gospel is an offensive message because it doesn't say merely that there is a God in heaven who loves you.
[00:21:50]  It says there's a God in heaven who's holy and that you're vile and that he rightly would be within his just means to hate you.
[00:22:03]  And yet in grace he loves you for Christ's sake.
[00:22:11]  The reason why the gospel is offensive.
[00:22:14]  Is because the gospel, it does not start with the love of God, but it begins with the righteousness of God.
[00:22:22]  And so I want to go ahead and move on now to the third characteristic.
[00:22:29]  The third characteristic of the gospel that we see in these two small verses today, Romans 1 16 and 17, is this that the gospel reveals the righteousness of God.
[00:22:44]  Far too often and for far too long, when the gospel is preached, it is preached as though the only thing, or at least the biggest thing, or certainly the first thing that is revealed in the gospel of God is his love.
[00:23:00]  But the Apostle Paul, under the inspiration of the Spirit of God, says that what is revealed is not God's love, but his righteousness.
[00:23:11]  For in it, the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith.
[00:23:17]  As it is written, the righteous shall live by faith.
[00:23:21]  In your notes, I've written the following.
[00:23:23]  In verse 17, Paul explains precisely how the gospel is the power of God for salvation.
[00:23:30]  For in, that is, the gospel, the righteousness of God is revealed.
[00:23:35]  Notice Paul does not begin with the love of God in the gospel, but rather he begins with the righteousness of God in the gospel.
[00:23:43]  The gospel demonstrates God's love for sinners, Romans 5 8.
[00:23:48]  But the gospel must also demonstrate something else in order for it to be viewed as a stumbling block by some.
[00:23:56]  And foolishness by others.
[00:23:58]  1 Corinthians 1 23.
[00:24:00]  The love of God is not offensive to most sinners.
[00:24:05]  In fact, God's love seems to make perfect sense to man in his natural state.
[00:24:12]  On the other hand, the righteousness of God is highly offensive because it presents a major problem for sinful man.
[00:24:21]  If God is righteous and we are not, then each of us stands condemned before him.
[00:24:26]  And without a savior, a mediator, a substitute, a go between, then this condemnation of God is permanent and eternal.
[00:24:37]  Permanent and eternal.
[00:24:40]  See, the love of God is not offensive to most sinners.
[00:24:44]  In fact, these days, if you tell someone who is an unbeliever, an unbelieving neighbor perhaps, that you see them as you're going for a walk with your children and you start to sync up for a while and conversate and It comes out that you're a Christian and that you go to church on the Lord's Day, and the person says, Hey, I've been wondering about Christianity over the last couple years.
[00:25:12]  I've started to read a little bit of the Bible for myself and have some questions if you don't mind me asking.
[00:25:19]  And you begin to articulate to them and seeking to explain the central theme and message of the Christian faith, the Bible.
[00:25:31]  The gospel of Jesus Christ is the only hope of salvation for sinners.
[00:25:36]  And as you explain this, let's say that you are not unashamed, but rather you compromise and shrink back.
[00:25:45]  And you choose to lean on, not saying anything that is untrue, but conveniently neglecting to say other things that are true.
[00:25:55]  You lean on and emphasize the love of God for people.
[00:26:00]  And we don't even say the love of God for sinners because that just might be a little bit.
[00:26:05]  A little bit too harsh.
[00:26:07]  Just God loves people.
[00:26:09]  The central message of the Christian faith is the gospel of Jesus Christ.
[00:26:13]  That's what you need for salvation.
[00:26:14]  Okay, what's the gospel, neighbor?
[00:26:16]  The gospel is that God loves people.
[00:26:20]  They're not wowed by that message.
[00:26:22]  Do you know why they're not wowed by that message?
[00:26:26]  Because they would actually be shocked if God didn't love people.
[00:26:32]  Because they think that the love of God is something that every single person deserves.
[00:26:38]  Except for maybe Donald Trump, depending on your neighbor.
[00:26:41]  All right, if you have a liberal, you know, crazy person as a neighbor.
[00:26:47]  But they think for the most part that the bulk, the mass of humanity, 98% of them, that they actually deserve the love of God.
[00:26:55]  That what would be shocking to your unbelieving neighbor is saying, well, God actually doesn't love all people.
[00:27:03]  And the Bible doesn't even just say that God, you know, hates the sin but loves the sinner.
[00:27:08]  But there are multiple verses in Scripture that say that God loathes the sinner, that God hates this sinner, that his heart detests a particular type of sin.
[00:27:19]  No, sinner.
[00:27:22]  And that the absolute shock of the gospel is not that God justly would condemn all, but that in his mercy and grace he would choose to save even some, much less many.
[00:27:39]  When you tell people today who are unbelieving that God loves them, they think, well, of course he does.
[00:27:46]  Of course he does.
[00:27:49]  In fact, not only does he love me, I think that he would be wrong not to.
[00:27:54]  I think that God, if there is a God, that he's obligated to love me.
[00:28:00]  He'd be a monster if he did anything else.
[00:28:04]  Of course he loves me.
[00:28:05]  He must love me because I'm special.
[00:28:11]  And I've been told that I'm special since the day I was born.
[00:28:16]  And yeah, I've made a few mistakes along the way, but even those mistakes, it wasn't really me.
[00:28:21]  It was because of my toxic environment.
[00:28:26]  I've done some things, but you know, if you let me frame the narrative right, you probably would admit that you do the same things yourself.
[00:28:33]  Really, I haven't sinned at all when we really think about it.
[00:28:38]  If we get just a little creative in the way that we define sin, the worst things I've ever done in life is simply a response.
[00:28:46]  To these toxic people that have been surrounding me, giving off their negative energy.
[00:28:53]  I'm late for my yoga class.
[00:28:59]  You tell a person like that that God loves them, and they say, Of course.
[00:29:05]  But you tell a person like that in the gospel, not beginning with the love of God, but rather revealing the righteousness of God, that God is holy and that they are sinful.
[00:29:18]  Well, now you have their attention.
[00:29:21]  You also have their anger, very likely, but their attention nonetheless.
[00:29:27]  I've found that if I want to get someone's attention in order to possibly persuade them, making them angry often works.
[00:29:36]  They may not like me, but it's kind of like you know, you see like a wreck on the side of the highway, and you know that there's just going to be another wreck if everybody keeps turning their heads, but you just can't look away.
[00:29:52]  It's kind of my preaching style.
[00:29:55]  And people, you know, I hate you, but I'm still watching because I'm even taking notes because I want to remember were there 17 reasons to hate Joel or 20?
[00:30:06]  You know, so like that, you know, but it works.
[00:30:08]  And that's what the apostles do.
[00:30:10]  The apostles, every town they entered, it was either revival or a riot.
[00:30:16]  And if it was a riot, well, then they just viewed it within the sovereignty of God that He had ordained for them a prison ministry in that particular town.
[00:30:26]  And they would minister to the inmates there until they died or were let loose, or an angel came in the night, caused an earthquake, and shook and rattled and opened the bars.
[00:30:40]  The gospel is an offense.
[00:30:43]  Now, lest I make it more of an offense than it actually is, the gospel is also, we should remember, good news.

=== Faith As An Instrument Of Grace (14:43) ===

[00:30:54]  The gospel is the very proclamation of good news.
[00:30:59]  The gospel is a salve that heals the wound.
[00:31:03]  That Hosea chapter 6 that the Lord, not life, not sin, not that toxic friend, but the Lord Himself has torn us to pieces, but He will bind us up again.
[00:31:16]  The Lord has slain me, but on the third day He will revive us.
[00:31:21]  He will come to us like the spring rains, the spring rains that water the earth.
[00:31:28]  The Lord and the sword of the Spirit and his law he slices and cuts to pieces.
[00:31:35]  But in his grace and gospel he binds back up again and makes whole.
[00:31:41]  The gospel is good news.
[00:31:43]  The gospel is salve.
[00:31:44]  The gospel is honey.
[00:31:48]  But only to those who are being saved.
[00:31:52]  Remember what the Apostle Paul says in 2 Corinthians the same message, but perceived in two ways.
[00:32:00]  Starkly different ways depending on the hearer.
[00:32:06]  Have you ever heard the expression that beauty is in the eye of the beholder?
[00:32:12]  Generally, I don't like that expression because it assumes that beauty is subjective, it's a postmodern idea.
[00:32:21]  No, there are things that are just beautiful, and if you don't think it's beautiful, that's fine, you're wrong.
[00:32:28]  And there are things that are just objectively not beautiful, like modern art.
[00:32:35]  That one day I pray that we'll have classical Christian schools.
[00:32:40]  Maybe once a year that there would be a field trip where all the children load up and we go to a museum.
[00:32:46]  We look at a Pollock painting, just oil splattered at random on the canvas, and all the children look, not in appreciation, but the teachers there to guide say, Children, let's all have a good chuckle.
[00:33:00]  Isn't it stupid and silly that people used to think this was beautiful?
[00:33:05]  Do you see what the Enlightenment did?
[00:33:09]  Do you see what postmodernism did?
[00:33:12]  Do you see what the rejection and rebellion against God accomplished in Western society?
[00:33:18]  Thinking themselves wise, they became fools.
[00:33:24]  And not only were they foolish in their theology, but it is impossible for man to compartmentalize that as they rejected the truth of God of Scripture, they began to not be able to see clearly anything else in all of life, even down to the arts, even down to science.
[00:33:43]  Even down to engineering.
[00:33:47]  They created suspension bridges and towers and cathedrals, but then, in the name of DEI, diversity and equity and inclusion, they can't get a plane off the ground anymore.
[00:34:01]  Because there are things that are universally true, and not only true, but good and beautiful.
[00:34:08]  Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
[00:34:11]  Well, I've explained now why I don't, on the whole, appreciate that expression.
[00:34:16]  However, I'll use it for this purpose.
[00:34:19]  If beauty is in the eye of the beholder, then according to Scripture, truth, goodness, and beauty is in the nose of the beholder.
[00:34:32]  In 2 Corinthians, the Apostle Paul says that the gospel and knowledge of Christ is like a fragrance, a smell.
[00:34:41]  And to those who are being saved, it's a sweet perfume, it's attractive.
[00:34:46]  But to those who are perishing, it is a.
[00:34:50]  Staunch odor that smells like putrid death and rotting, and it repels them.
[00:34:58]  Now, notice it's not because the gospel was presented in two different ways.
[00:35:03]  The apostle Paul is not saying this, saying that I went to one town, and when I preached the gospel, I was very careful to be winsome, and therefore it was a life giving perfume to this audience.
[00:35:16]  But when I went to the next town, My old timey traditions got the best of me.
[00:35:24]  I gave them some old time religion, some fire and brimstone.
[00:35:29]  I left the Timothy Keller sermons at home and I picked up Jonathan Edwards, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.
[00:35:35]  It was not a fan favorite, it wasn't the way to go.
[00:35:39]  And so for them, the gospel was a putrid, rotting smell.
[00:35:44]  No, the Apostle Paul, what he's saying is that the same gospel, The same tenets, the same content, the same message, and even the same methods, the same tone, the same communicating of this gospel was perceived in completely opposite ways depending on not who preached the gospel, but who heard the gospel.
[00:36:12]  That one group of people were perishing because God had ordained it to be so.
[00:36:18]  And because they were perishing, they heard the gospel not as good news.
[00:36:23]  But as an offense.
[00:36:25]  But there was another group by God's sovereign, merciful election that He had ordained to life, not death, to save those who are being saved.
[00:36:38]  And to them, they received the gospel as good news, as honey, as salt, and that in their nostrils, as it were, it was a sweet smelling perfume.
[00:36:51]  The beauty of the gospel, in a real sense, is in the nose of the beholder.
[00:36:58]  But as a sidebar, postmodernism is fake and bad.
[00:37:07]  For the kids.
[00:37:09]  All right.
[00:37:10]  So, all that being said, in it, that is the gospel, verse 17, the righteousness of God is revealed.
[00:37:20]  This does not mean that we do not communicate to people the love of God for his elect.
[00:37:26]  Those who are sinners, but those who he has determined.
[00:37:29]  To save by grace and grace alone.
[00:37:32]  Of course, we tell them about the love of God.
[00:37:37]  But the question is where we begin.
[00:37:40]  The gospel begins.
[00:37:42]  It's not that it forecludes the love of God, but it begins with the righteousness of God.
[00:37:50]  That's the starting place.
[00:37:53]  Step one God is holy, holy, holy.
[00:37:57]  Step two, by way of consequence, in contrast, man is sinful.
[00:38:03]  And separated from God, incapable of meriting His favor or earning His love.
[00:38:11]  Step three Jesus died for sinners.
[00:38:16]  There comes now the grace of God.
[00:38:19]  There we begin to speak of the depths and heights, the breadth and length of the love of God for His own.
[00:38:28]  So the gospel is mankind's greatest need.
[00:38:33]  And the gospel is the power of God for salvation.
[00:38:38]  The only means which he is designated to save, and the gospel in it is revealed the righteousness of God, first and foremost, not merely the love of God.
[00:38:52]  Lastly, the fourth and final point a key characteristic of the gospel that we must understand so that we might believe, so that we might unapologetically preach is this the gospel is to be received by faith.
[00:39:09]  In your notes, I've written this.
[00:39:10]  Furthermore, Paul says the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for, or some translations say to faith.
[00:39:21]  The righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith.
[00:39:27]  What does that mean?
[00:39:29]  In short, it means that genuine Christians receive the gospel by faith and then continue living by that same faith.
[00:39:39]  We never arrive at a place.
[00:39:42]  Where we can begin trusting in our own good works as sufficient for our salvation.
[00:39:48]  So, Paul, he quotes here.
[00:39:51]  He's quoting from the Old Testament.
[00:39:53]  He's quoting Habakkuk, not only to make this point, but also to show that his gospel is not a new idea.
[00:40:02]  This is Habakkuk chapter 2, verse 4, which says, His soul is puffed up.
[00:40:07]  It is not upright within him.
[00:40:10]  But the righteous, that is speaking of the wicked at first, but now shifting gears, the righteous, however, Shall live by faith.
[00:40:19]  This is what the Apostle Paul is referencing.
[00:40:22]  The shortest and simplest way that I could say it is this The way in is the way on.
[00:40:28]  The way in is the way on.
[00:40:31]  We do not merely come into the family of God by grace alone, through faith alone, and Christ alone, and then continue by another means.
[00:40:41]  This is the entirety of the book of Galatians.
[00:40:44]  This was a Galatian heresy.
[00:40:47]  That Paul condemns them and says, Who has bewitched you, you foolish Galatians?
[00:40:53]  How have you been so quickly deceived to abandon the gospel of grace?
[00:40:59]  Are you now attempting to finish by the flesh that which was begun by the Spirit of God?
[00:41:06]  If it is by grace, then it will be finished by grace.
[00:41:11]  That we are saved by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, but we also live.
[00:41:18]  By grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone.
[00:41:22]  Shall the Christian seek to be obedient to the law, word of God in every realm of life?
[00:41:28]  Yes.
[00:41:30]  But if he succeeds, it will be by grace, through faith in Christ.
[00:41:36]  Faith to lay hold of the gospel and salvation, and then faith to now live out of the gospel and live a life of salvation.
[00:41:49]  The way in is a way on.
[00:41:51]  Faith is the door and faith is the road.
[00:41:57]  The guide, the compass, the map, as Connor said earlier, is the law word of God.
[00:42:02]  It is his commands.
[00:42:04]  It's like the course that has been charted on the open waters, but the wind in the sail is not the law, but grace.
[00:42:15]  The wind in the sails that propels you forward.
[00:42:20]  Is the grace of God which is received again and again, fresh mercies which are new every morning through faith?
[00:42:29]  Faith is the empty hand that receives the grace of God.
[00:42:32]  Faith is the instrument that lays hold to the grace of God.
[00:42:36]  In two days, we celebrate the Reformation.
[00:42:39]  This is Reformation Sunday.
[00:42:42]  If you've been wondering why he selected this text, I wanted to choose a text that from the balcony of heaven Luther could cheer on.
[00:42:54]  Faith.
[00:42:54]  It's the empty hand that lays hold of the grace of God.
[00:42:58]  It's the instrument that receives the grace of God, and that grace brings us in.
[00:43:03]  It draws us near.
[00:43:04]  It grants to us eternal life, but it also then becomes the fuel in our tank, the wind in our sails that propels us forward in a life of obedience.
[00:43:16]  So, the final thing that I want us to look at is this saving faith in Christ is not merely a general belief that Jesus is the Savior.
[00:43:28]  Remember, brothers and sisters, that the scripture tells us even demons believe.
[00:43:35]  Instead, true saving faith has three basic elements knowledge, assent, and trust.
[00:43:46]  This was one of the few cruxes of the Reformation.
[00:43:53]  A sola fide, a faith alone.
[00:43:59]  But in that, the Reformers sought to flesh out and define faith.
[00:44:05]  What is faith?
[00:44:08]  True, saving, Christian faith.
[00:44:11]  And they came up with three primary components again, knowledge, assent, and trust.
[00:44:18]  And this takes us full circle all the way back to the outset of this sermon in the introduction.
[00:44:24]  That the heart cannot love what the mind does not know.
[00:44:29]  That faith, first and foremost, it includes knowledge.
[00:44:34]  You cannot believe.
[00:44:36]  And something that you don't know.
[00:44:39]  Faith is knowledge.
[00:44:42]  Is it more?
[00:44:43]  Yes, but it cannot be less.
[00:44:47]  Faith begins with knowledge, knowing God's truth, hiding it in your heart, knowing the gospel.
[00:44:55]  But secondly, it is not a mere knowledge, but also assent that is, agreement.
[00:45:03]  See, there are things that we can know that we don't necessarily agree with.
[00:45:09]  I know of many heresies, and I could articulate to you and explain them to you.
[00:45:16]  I can explain to you the prosperity gospel.
[00:45:19]  I can explain to you Arianism, Docetism, all the isms.
[00:45:28]  Maybe not all, there's a lot.
[00:45:30]  Some of the isms.
[00:45:32]  I can explain them because I know them, but I don't agree with them.

=== Moving Beyond Mere Knowledge (03:35) ===

[00:45:37]  I haven't given them my assent.
[00:45:40]  So, faith, that is Christian faith, the empty hand, everything rests on faith.
[00:45:45]  The empty hand that receives salvation, the grace of God for sinners, this faith in Christian terms, it's nothing less.
[00:45:53]  It starts with knowledge.
[00:45:54]  You have to know.
[00:45:56]  But secondly, beyond mere knowing, you must agree.
[00:45:59]  I know this about the gospel of Jesus Christ, and I agree with it.
[00:46:06]  But even knowledge plus assent still ultimately equates to what the Bible might call demonic faith.
[00:46:14]  Not saving things.
[00:46:17]  Remember, the demons don't only know the triune God, but they even agree.
[00:46:25]  They do it reluctantly, regrettably, with weeping and gnashing of teeth, through bitterness and anger and hatred, but nonetheless, they agree that God exists and that he is Lord.
[00:46:42]  But the last element of true saving faith, knowledge, agreement, that is assent, and then Trust.
[00:46:50]  This is what the demons lack.
[00:46:53]  And this is also what the reprobate lacks.
[00:46:56]  This is what the sinner lacks unless he first be born again.
[00:47:01]  You must know, you must agree, but then lastly comes implicit personal trust.
[00:47:12]  Another way that we could say trust in this regard might be rest.
[00:47:17]  To say, I know this truth of God.
[00:47:20]  I've given it my assent.
[00:47:21]  I agree that this particular truth of God is, in fact, true.
[00:47:25]  It's real.
[00:47:27]  But lastly, I'm going to cast myself upon this truth.
[00:47:33]  I'm going to bet the house on this truth.
[00:47:38]  I am counting everything on this truth.
[00:47:44]  It's not just something I know or even something that I assent to that I agree is true, but it's something that I have bet everything upon.
[00:47:55]  I'm actually standing on this truth.
[00:47:58]  I'm resting on this truth.
[00:48:01]  Like a child, if they were to stand on the edge of this stage at the risk of using a cheesy analogy or illustration, they turn around to do the classic trust fall.
[00:48:15]  And we're all standing behind them and we assure them we're right here.
[00:48:18]  And we even let them peek.
[00:48:19]  You know, they turn around, they see, they know that we're behind them.
[00:48:23]  And they agree that we have committed to catch them.
[00:48:28]  But they have not given implicit trust until they fall backward.
[00:48:35]  Saving faith is all three.
[00:48:37]  I know, I've seen, I've read, I've heard.
[00:48:42]  Assent, I agree.
[00:48:45]  But trust, I rest.
[00:48:49]  I'm falling upon the mercy of God.
[00:48:54]  And this is my only hope.
[00:48:56]  Let's pray.
[00:48:57]  Father, thank you for your word.
[00:48:59]  Bless it to your people.
[00:49:01]  And through the preaching of your word this Reformation Sunday in many faithful churches all across the world, we pray that you would be glorified.
[00:49:10]  We pray this for Christ's sake.
[00:49:11]  In his name, amen.