The Church of Eleven22 - No Other Gospel: Be Free - Wk 2

Episode Date: April 14, 2024

When it comes to salvation, Jesus + anything ruins everything.

Amen, amen, amen. If you got your Bibles, I hope you do, grab them. We're going to be in Galatians, chapter one. We're studying this book for 14 weeks, and in my Bible it's only this big. But I use the ELP version, you know what that is, extra large print. So for many of you, it's only that big. God bless your eyesight. And we are digging in to what the gospel offers to us,

what the gospel is and what it offers to us. And one of the things I want to say to you based on that testimony is if you've ever been beaten up battered and bruised by the church or by any religious organization or people in the name of God hurt you, then I want to say, welcome to the church of 1122. We are a movement for all people to discover and deepen a relationship with Jesus Christ. And if you got kicked out somewhere else, you probably go fit in real good here. And I am so sorry, so sorry that somebody in the name of the Lord beat you up.

But listen, man, this is like the island of misfit toys of churches around here. I mean, look around. Look who you're seated next to. Can you believe it? And yet here we are. but I want to say thank you for being here or thank you for watching online and whatever you do, please, please, please

don't turn away from God because you had a negative experience with religious people. Jesus had negative experiences with religious people all the time and he was God, amen? And so we're going to dig in today. Grab your Bibles, Galatians Chapter 1. We also have these Galatian journals in the resource center if you want.

It's pretty cool. It's just like the Bible on one side and a place to take notes on the other. Part of the reason I want you to get your Bible out and look at it is I need you to see that I'm not making this up. We just teach directly from God's Word. And we're walking through this week by week by week and he says this. And by the way, I just want you to know, man, I love you. This might sting a little bit, okay?

So if it gets a little offensive at points, sweet. It's kind of the intent. Just do me one favor. If you're offended, no problem, no problem. You can only be offended for you, though, okay? Deal? Don't get offended for somebody else. Let them be offended for themselves.

And if you are offended, you want to email me at jimmy crasscorn at I don't care.com, that's great. And if you think that's my actual email address, you're not going to understand anything we're talking about anyway. It's just going to be a womp right over there. He was mean. Okay, cool. Here we go. We're going to pick it up in verse 6. And Pastor Adam let us know last week as he kicked it off that one of the things that makes the letter to the church in Galatia unique is there's no Thanksgiving, there's no prayer, and nowhere does he call the Galatia.

the Saints. In all the other books that he writes or letters that he writes, the eight other ones, it always starts out real ooey-gooey, and it's awesome. It's like, to the Philippians, oh, how my heart yearns to see you when I remember our tears day and night.

Not in this one. He's like, Galatians, Paul. First thing he starts out with, after he does the introductions, he says in verse six, I am astonished. Can you imagine getting a letter like that from your dad?

Sean, dad. What are you doing? So this would be like, if it was a text, it's all caps. Everybody understand where we're going here. If you're a grandparent and you're freaking out your grandchildren when you text them in all caps, okay? Verse six, I am astonished. It's like that, it's mean,

that you were so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel. Not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preach to you, let him be a curse.

That word is anathema. It means damned to hell. That's what that means. Pretty strong letter, isn't it? As we have said before, when did you say this before, Paul? In the sentence I just finished. As we have said before, so now I say again, if anyone is preaching to you a gospel, contrary to the one you received, let him be a cursed, anathema, damned to hell.

This is a really, really big deal. Why is it getting so upset? Because what we're talking about here is life or death. And even bigger than our temporary on earth life or death, he is talking about eternal life or eternal death. That a year before he writes this letter, he and a bunch of his buddies go on this missionary trip, this missionary journey, He preaches the gospel in the area of Galatia. A bunch of people get saved. He raises up leaders.

He anoints and appoints elders and pastors. They start a church that starts a bunch of little churches. And everything's going super good. And within one year, some people have moved in and said, you heard Paul say to you that Jesus is enough, and I'm here to tell you Jesus isn't enough. There's some things that you have to add to this gospel that you've heard. The gospel is good. It's just not good enough.

And Paul, Paul says this is very, very, very serious. And Paul says that they are preaching to you another gospel, but there's only one gospel. So let's talk about what the gospel is. If you're going to come to 1122, you've got to know the gospel. And some of you that come here all the time are like, well, don't you preach it every week? Uh-huh, I do. This is it. I got one message.

Different intro, different clothes, gospel, gospel, gospel. That's what we do here. the word gospel in the Greek is Eulongelian. And it means good news, not good advice. It's good news for salvation, not good advice, so you can be a better version of you. These are very, very different things. They actually borrowed this old Greek word, Eungelian, and it just means heraldor of good news. And what would happen is if a king won a battle, then he would send his evangelist, he would send his messenger out.

and the messenger would show up to a new city and say, Behold, I bring you good news. This is what I bring to you. Good news. Your king has defeated the enemy, and because of that, you can live at peace. That is good news. And that is what the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ is. It's news, which means it happened, and it has to be reported.

From 30,000-foot view, the good news of the gospel is this. If you want to understand your entire Bible, you can understand it in three words. words, God with us. At creation, God. One God and three persons out of an overflow of God's love for God's self creates human beings for them to be in right relationship with him, face to face with a holy and perfect God, God with us. And then Adam and Eve sin, and when sin enters the world, it fractures that relationship with God. That how in the world can an unholy people stand in the presence of a holy God, they can't. And so God redeems them and rescues them, and he gives them the law.

This is what the whole Old Testament is. It's a series of sacrifices to point to the ultimate coming sacrifice so that for a time being, God's people can be with God in his presence through all the rituals and sacrifices, etc. God with us. And then what we celebrate is Christmas, the Word becomes flesh and dwells among us, that God becomes a man, fully God, fully man,

God with us. And Jesus comes and he says, I'm not just trying to show you a way, I am the way, the truth and the life, and no one comes to the Father except through me. Jesus lives a perfect life. He accomplishes every promise and prophecy of the old covenant. Then he goes to the cross and he dies not just for us,

but instead of us. And at the cross, when Jesus pushes up on his nail-pierced feet and says, it is finished. A part of what he means is the debt that we have incurred by our sin against God has been paid in full at the cross. And for anyone who would believe that when he died on the cross, it counted for us, then we get credited with his perfect life and he takes the blame for all of our sin. And then we can be back to that face-to-face relationship with God, God with us. He deposits the Holy Spirit, so it's actually better. It's like God in us. And then one day when he

returns, the heavens are going to crack open, you're going to hear a trumpet. He's showing up with tattoos and sword-mouthed and like fire eyes, and he ain't coming back to tell stories anymore. He's back to judge, the quick and the dead. And for anybody that would put their faith in him before that moment, then we are taken to heaven, God with us. And what makes heaven heaven heaven is not angels and streets of gold and plenty to eat and harp music. What makes heaven heaven heaven is God that we get forever with him. First Corinthians, 15th, Paul says this, different letter to a different church. 1 Corinthians 151, he says,

Now I would remind you, brothers. I don't know if you know this, you've got to remind church people's stuff because they don't pay attention. Tell your neighbor, pay attention. So you didn't even do it. That's all I know. Wake up, nine, come on.

Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel. I preach to you, which you received and which you stand, and by which you are being saved. If you hold fast to the word, I preach to you unless you believe in vain. And then he's going to lay out the gospel. For I delivered to you as of first importance. In other words, Paul is saying, of all the things you can preach about how to be a husband and

how to be a wife and how to raise kids and how to the most important thing, the thing of first importance is the gospel. For I deliver to you as of first importance, what I also received, that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scripture, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance to the scriptures. That's what the gospel is, the life, death, and resurrection of Christ. And that he appeared to Seifus, that's Peter, then to the 12, then he appeared to more than 500 brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive.

So he's saying, you don't believe me? Go knock around in Jerusalem, and you're going to meet some people that saw the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. Last of all, as the one untimely born, he appeared to me. The gospel is the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus in accordance to the Scripture to you. That's just what the gospel is. Now, does the gospel have implications?

Oh, for sure. About how we should treat one another and how we should fight for justice and how we should do all kind of stuff. But those implications of the gospel are not the gospel. Do not get those things confused. The gospel according to the Bible, life, death, resurrection of Jesus for you in accordance with the scripture. Or maybe you grew up Baptist. You're going to love this, Baptist. The Roman Road.

You know the Roman Road? All you gigglers just gave yourself away, okay? I could probably call on you, when it was a great pride you would stand up and say it faster than everybody else, all right? In the book of Romans, Paul lays out the gospel. What I want to see here is every letter

that Paul writes was consistent. The gospel never changed. The Roman wrote is this, in Romans 323. Paul says, for all have sinned, and falling short of the glory of God, okay? That word falling short, got any bow hunters in the house? If you're a bow hunter, raise your hand, higher than that, I need to see who I need to spend time with.

All right, all right. That word falling short of the glory of God is an archery term. It means miss the mark. The idea is, in order for you to hit the mark and go to heaven, you have to hit a perfect bull's eye every time. And whenever you have sin, you have missed the mark. And so even if you could hit the mark every time

between now and eternity, what are you gonna do about all the ones that you have missed before? For all have sin and fallen short of the glory of God. And then Romans 623 says, for the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus. And so what that means is what you earn, listen, one of the things that we hear in our culture

all the time which makes me pull my hair out is this, well that's not fair. Listen, you don't want fair. According to the Bible, fair is you go to hell. Fair. You want fair? You want a good parenting tip? Next time your kids, like, that's not fair.

You tell them, Pastor Jobi said, fair is they would burn in an eternal lake of fire forever. Grace, as you get to live indoors in the air condition at my house. Okay. Why? Because the wages, that's not a parenting tip again. The wages of sin is death. What you earn, what you deserve,

what I deserve, the wages of sin is death. But there's an alternative. The gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus. In Romans 5-8, Paul says, but God demonstrated his love for us in this, that while we were yet still sinners, Christ died for us. The order is everything. It doesn't say, for all of you good people

that pulled yourself up by your bootstraps, which, by the way, is impossible. Try that when you get home. It's impossible. for all of you that cleaned yourself up, I've got good news. You have earned a visit from God. It's the exact opposite. But God demonstrated, he proved once and for all.

Before you did anything, before you showed up to church, for you took a shower, before you quit cussing so much, before you quit drinking so much during the week, whatever your thing is. Before you did anything, God demonstrated his love for us and this. In our current situation of sinners, Christ died for us. And then Romans 10.9. So there's four verses, 3, 3, 6, 23, 5, 8, and 10, 9. The Bible says that if you confess with your mouth, Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God resurrected him from the grave, you will be saved.

That is what the gospel is. So Paul is consistent. The Bible is consistent throughout the whole New Testament. In fact, in the book of Galatians, he's already laid out kind of a summation of the gospel in verses 3 and 4 that Pastor Adam preached last week. He says this, grace to you and peace. from God, our Father. In other words, you want grace and peace? The way you get grace and peace and peace is the gospel. Grace to you and peace from God, our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins to deliver us. You can't deliver yourself, man. You ever get

an Amazon package, and the Amazon package brought itself to your house? No. No. You chose it, and then someone delivered it. Next time you walk out on your front door and you see a package, I want you to think about salvation. By the way, if we don't have a package in my house, I have to call FedEx by you okay? You all right? J'all die every day, okay? Who gave himself for our sins to deliver us

from the present evil age according to the will of God and the will of our God and Father, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen. You see, this is the gospel. And if you think, if you think you have to clean yourself up and make yourself presentable to the Lord, that's like thinking that you've got to wait for the bleeding to stop to go to the ER. It just doesn't make sense. Now what begins to happen? The longer

you hang out at church, the longer you hang out at church, the thing you're going to have to war against is what was happening in Galatia. They say, yeah, we believe in Jesus and we believe the gospel, but it's the gospel plus there's this other stuff that you have to do. So you've got to pay attention to this. And so listen, man, I know some of you look like you went to Sunday school with Moses. Okay, I get it. And the longer you're here, the more you will begin to look at other people and be like, what are they doing here? Listen, this is not a country club for the elite. This is an emergency room for people that are beating up and battering bruised by the enemy. Amen? And so it's always going to be a little grimy around here. Why? Because we are a movement for

all people to get this gospel, to discover a deepened. a relationship with Jesus. So Paul says, I am astonished. I am astonished. What are you doing? That's what he's saying. Why in the world would you reject this free offer of the gifts of salvation and try to add something to it as if God needed you and your help for your salvation?

Now, particularly there was a group called the Judaizers. These were Jewish Christians who came from Jerusalem and they said, listen, man, yeah, Jesus sat on the cross for your sin. and was raised on the third day, and that's great. And he gets you almost all the way to heaven, but then you have to do your part to take that one more step to make it all the way in. And what they were talking about in particular

was circumcision and obeying the law. And he's like, what, what are you doing? And listen, circumcision wasn't a bad thing. Circumcision for the Jewish people was a symbol or a picture of God's covenant love for his people. But to the Gentiles, in Galatia, they were like, do what?

Can you imagine as a grown man? Be like, all right, there's two things you need. You need faith and surgery to get in. So the new members class was all women at Galatia. The dudes were like, we'll watch online. I think we're just going to watch it from here. All right. And he's like, I'm going to stop.

What are you doing? That you were so quickly deserting him. Please know this. To add to the gospel, you're not just turning your back on a doctrine and you're turning your back on him, on Jesus. He says, who called you? This is personal.

Don't you remember when he called you? Don't you remember when you realized that you were a wretched, blackhearted sinner? And it was the grace of Jesus that covered you. This is very, very personal. I know it's very popular these days, and you can get a lot of followers on Instagram if you publicly deconstruct from your faith.

Let me tell you. as I've dug into what some of these people are doing, they're not actually deconstructing from the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ. They're deconstructing from a church culture that they didn't, that they don't agree with today. Let me tell you who never will deconstruct from their faith. The person that has tasted and seen that the Lord has good.

The person that has known the grace of God poured out for them. Are there all kind of cultural things that even you learn at church that you should question? sure, no problem. But when God calls you, do not turn away from that. He says, who called you in the grace of Christ? You see, it's by grace that we are saved through faith. Not by works.

The only thing that you and I bring to our salvation is the sin that requires it. That's it. And he says that you are turning to a different gospel. You see, when you become a Christian, that's what you do. You turn, you repent. You were facing the world, and you had your back to the Lord, and then you repent. You change your mind, and you turn, and you say, I'm going to put my back to the world, and I'm going to face Jesus.

And he's saying, whatever you do, if you try to add to the gospel, then the problem is, is that you're doing that in reverse order. You are turning your back on the one who saved you. And so he says, you're turning to a different gospel, not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to destroy. distort the gospel of truth. That word distort literally means reverse. It means reverse. And here's the problem. The gospel order matters.

And what the Judaizers and Galatians are doing is they're reversing the order. You see, the good news of the gospel is this, is that God calls us, and then we receive and respond to him, not the other way around. It's not like we act, and then he responds to us.

You see, the gospel is we are accepted, therefore we obey. That's the right order. The wrong order is, if we obey, then we will be accepted. That is not the gospel. Or the way I say it around here all the time is this. The gospel is that identity precedes activity. That when you put your faith in Jesus Christ, he tells you who you are, and because of what he has done for us, it changes the things we do.

So of course we don't have to do the things we used to do because we're not the people that we used to be. The old us is dead and we're alive in Christ. But if you begin to believe that activity precedes identity, then you got it wrong. Then you think God's going to give you a test and he's going to wait and examine your grade. And if you do good enough, then he will let you know if you're in. And again, what's happening here is the Judaizers are saying it's Jesus plus the law. This is no gospel. Now, it's easy to like pick on this because this isn't a thing that we think about all the time, okay?

However, this is happening in the church all the time. And all kind of churches and all kind of parochurches and cults and all kind of stuff. And there are modern-day Judaizers all over the place. And so what has happened is that people take biblical, historical, orthodox, gospel and then begin to add to it. Like in the video that we just watched about Ms. Connie, she grew up a Jehovah's Witnesses, a Jehovah's Witness. In 1872, a guy named Charles Russell starts this organization.

He had a great difficulty dealing with the doctrine of eternal hellfire. And so he sat down and began to study it for himself. And he also denied eternal punishment, the Trinity, the deity of Christ, and the Holy Spirit. And so he began to publish these magazines. Today they're called the Watchtower Magazines. And then the problem with the Watchtower Magazines was the Bible, because they didn't line up. So then what he did is he wrote his own version

of the Bible to match the doctrines you find in the magazines. And you think, who would do that? You every day of your life. It's just true, man. There's what is and there's what ought to be. And submission is a submission until you disagree. I mean, when you get to that part in the Bible in the back, I can't believe God would say that.

that. Well, that's cute. So you create your own world. You make up what you want to. Until then, you have two options. You could be the Lord of your own life, or you could submit and surrender to the Creator God of this one. And so, that's what he did, though, is that there's a bunch of stuff he didn't like, so he just, he rewrote the Bible, and again, it's a distortion. There are a lot of the same words in there, but a big part of what they don't believe is that salvation is by grace through faith alone. He claimed that the Bible could only be understood according to his interpretation. That's a dangerous arrangement, right, since he controlled what was written. And again, they teach that Jesus was created that was not co-equal with God the Father. They also teach that

faith alone does not save you, but works must be added. And you may think about this and you may say, well, I know some Jehovah's Witness and they're so nice. Yeah, I mean, if you get asked communicated or not, but if you're an outsider, so nice, so lovely, some of the kindest humans I've ever met in my life. But kindness will not justify you before the Lord. The finished work of Christ does. Another group that's similar are the Mormons. Joseph Smith in 1823 when he was 17 years old. So you know it's going to be solid, because if anybody knows all things, it's a 17-year-old. He said he was visited by an angel named Maroni, Italian angel, I guess, who was supposed to be the son of a Mormon,

and he was the leader of a people called the Nephites, who had lived in the Americans with the Native Americans, appeared to him and told him that he, Joseph Smith, had been chosen to translate the book of Mormon, which was compiled by this angel's father in the 4th century. So the angel says to him, okay, the Bible's fine, but it's the Bible plus the Book of Mormon. And so Joseph Smith writes the Book of Mormon.

He said that it was like an angelic language on these gold plates, but he had the special gift to translate them. In 1830, he writes the Book of Mormon. And Mormon engine teaches that forgiveness of sin is obtained by obedience, funny enough, to the book he wrote. In fact, their doctrinal statement says, one of the most fallacious doctrines originated by Satan and propounded by man is that man is saved alone

by the grace of God. That belief in Jesus Christ alone is all that is needed for salvation. Now, man didn't say that, that's called Ephesians 2. That's where that's found. So this is no gospel. And then he says, but an angel told me, which I would say to Joseph Smith, bro, that wasn't an angel. There are fallen angels.

And of course they say things you want to hear. The Bible says that the devil himself masquerades as an angel of light. And actually, Paul says in verse 8, but even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel, contrary to the one that we preach to you, let him be damned to hell. Let him be a curse. And again, if you're not a Mormon, you kind of sit back and like,

I don't think I'm going to get into that, all right? Good. But you know what we can do? is we can begin to subjugate the revealed word of God to our feelings and our experience. You know, the biggest way to defang the word truth these days is to put a possessive pronoun in front of it. To say, well, that's my truth, or that's your truth.

Hey, listen, man, you get opinions, have all the opinions you won't. And they're like armpits. Everybody's got a couple and they stink. That's just what they are. Now, but there's just the truth. There's just the truth. And the truth is not a set of propositions. is the truth is a person, his name is Jesus.

Jesus says, I am the way, the truth, and the life, and no one comes to the Father except through me. Amen. That's it. Now, it would be easy for me to just pick on all the people outside of the Christian church, but why don't we just take a little stroll through our own backgrounds and experiences, okay? And if you want to play the game of, like, identify the denomination, that'll be fun. Okay, keep it to yourself, don't shout it out.

That's a Baptist, don't do that, okay? Here we go. today's legalism, today's fundamentalist Christian legalism is a version of what the Judaizers were doing in the first century. That Jesus, I mean, nobody would explicitly say this. And I know this one well, because I grew up in the South and I got saved at a fundamentalist Baptist camp, and they knew how to put the fun in fundamentalism, if you know what I mean. And they would preach that it's salvation in Christ alone, plus here's a bunch of stuff you can't do. because if you do these things,

then you don't really believe in Jesus. And our list, we didn't even need 10 commandments. We just had a few. Don't drink, don't smoke, don't chew, and don't go with girls who do. Those are our commandments. It was Jesus plus this. And that was great until it wasn't.

That was great. I mean, I grew up in Dylan, so the prom queen was like, how y'all doing? Okay. Listen, if you don't know what that is, welcome. I know you moved here from California or New York. Welcome to Jacksonville. Some of our pastors may have a dip in right now, okay?

That's just true. So, I mean, I was told you couldn't go to radio our movies. If you want to raider our movies, what happens if Jesus returned and you're at Terminator 2? You ain't getting in. And I'm like, I don't remember that in the Gospels. I thought I was saved by grace, you know? And then when the passion of the Christ came out, their head exploded. They didn't know what to do.

It's a rated R movie about Jesus. Ah! Okay. I didn't go to church much, but when I did, this is the message that I heard is not the gospel. They would preach, God is good, but you are bad. Try harder. See you next week. And so everybody's faith became sin management.

Now listen, we should be, by the power of the Holy Spirit, we should be attacking sin that's trying to kill us. I'm not pro sin. Sin's a big deal. Jesus had to die on the cross to do something about it. But if you think you being a good Christian means you managing your sin, there's no such thing as a good Christian. There's dead people and there's alive people in Christ. Not good and bad.

I call it beach ball theology. Come on, we live at the beach, go to the beach, try to take a beach ball, and buy your own power, get control of it, and hold it under the water. This is what we were taught. That was drinking and smoking and chewing and not going to girls who doing. That's what we're doing, all right? Well, how long can you do that? Depends on who you are.

If you're swole, by my man on the front row, you probably do it for a long time. Eventually what happens, your arms get tired, wave hits you in the face, sunscreen gets slippery. And you let go of that beach ball, and if you ever notice it never just gently comes back to the top, go, hey, no. It just erupts in your face. And so the good news of the gospel is not try, try, try to hold this thing down. The good news of the gospel is Jesus walks by with a pocket knife and stabs a hole in your beach ball and sucks all the power out of it because he says it is finished. And so, that's it. Now what tends to happen?

Some of you grew up in that kind of church. And then you got here and were like, woohoo, I'm free. I can do whatever I want. Nope. I mean, the gospel is not licentiousness. Like when we say that Jesus has set you free, he's not set you free to do whatever you want. That's not freedom at all.

In fact, the people that do whatever they want, They're the least free people on the planet. They're either in prison or they are subject to just their wants and desires that have never taken them to a place of freedom. If you can say to God, I don't care what you say, I do what I want, and claim to be a Christian, there's a problem here. Because when you submit or surrender your life to the lordship of Jesus Christ, if you were simultaneously saying, I do what I want, then by definition, he is not your Lord. So it's not legalism, and the gospel is not licentiousness. You see, two things were really recovered in the Great Reformation that was started by Martin Luther. The two things were authority, the authority of the Word of God, and that salvation is by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone.

And every single one of us had this propensity to want to take faith, the good news of the gospel, that he died in our place. and add some works to it. Instead of believing that faith in Jesus is enough, then we, I don't know why we want to do this, but all of us have a tendency to. I think it's because we're glory hounds, and we want credit too. It reminds me of this time that my in-laws

gave us a trampoline for Christmas because they hate us. And so me and JP went to put the thing together. He was this big. And he's a train wreck, man. He was only unhelpful. But when we walked back inside and Mama said, where are y'all been? And he says, we've been putting a trampoline together.

No, we have not. And I think we walk up to heaven and God's been like, where have you been? But we've been getting saved. No, you have not. You have added nothing to your salvation, but we're glory house. We won't credit. And so we have this tendency to say it's faith plus works. There's a very, very famous Bible verse in Isaiah,

646, it says, we have all become like one who was unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment, which means like used menstrual rags. It was like the grossest thing that I could think of. So here's what's crazy about the way we respond to the gospel, okay? The same activity on the surface could either bring glory to God or be so offensive you shouldn't talk about it in public. Like today, you may respond to the gospel with extreme generosity. You may give sacrificial to the glory of God and do it from the right place. Like having an overflow of gratitude because he is first and he went first and he loved you first. You've been praying about this thing and God leads you to bring your first and best and God is worshipped by it.

He's like, look at my boy, look at my girl. Or you could write a bigger check because you've got an interview tomorrow and you're trying to put God in your debt and you're hoping that he'll sprinkle a little promotion dust on you. And he says, what are you doing? I'm astonished that you would treat me that way. The same act. The same thing is true in all of these. There are some denominations that believe it's not faith alone. It's faith plus baptism. It's faith plus baptism. In this denomination, here's what their doctrinal statement says. Remission of sins cannot be enjoyed by any person before immersion. What?

Well, what do you do with the thief on the cross? Jesus promised he's going to heaven. And so they have to do this hermeneutical gymnastics to tell why it didn't count for him. Well, what if you got saved in Antarctica? Like how you go baptized somebody? Just banged their head into the ice to go to heaven.

Like, what happens, man? Sorry, you didn't make it. You see how that's faith plus baptism now? Should you get baptized? If you were a believer in Jesus Christ, you should get baptized. On May 5th, you should get baptized. You should walk out there in the water.

And because of Christ's life, death, and resurrection, you should join him publicly, but the water in the Atlantic Ocean will not save you. Have you been in it? It is not salvific. If you get baptized in one of our services, the water of J.E.A. surely will not save you. You've got to be saved from it.

And so if you were to walk out there in the water, we're going to ask you a question. Who is Jesus to you? And if you were to say, he is my partner in my salvation. kick your pagan butt out of the water. Get back to class. You weren't paying attention. That's not what we do around here.

Jesus Christ is my Lord and Savior. He has already saved you, and you're just going public with your faith, and we will dunk you under the water and bring you back out, just like Jesus was resurrected from the grave, to a newness of life, and the crowd goes wild. That's what we do. You should be baptized, but the water's not going to save you.

There are some denominations that believe faith plus religious activity saves you. Okay? Anybody come from a Catholic background? Anybody? See how they don't raise your hands? They don't raise your hands there, okay? I know who you are. I see you right there, okay? Listen, listen. Now before I dig into this, if you're saying, are you saying all Catholics are going to hell? No. Any person that surrenders their life to the Lordship of Jesus Christ is going to heaven. I'm also saying not all Baptists are going to heaven. You realize that? Here's a shocker. Not all 1122ers are going to heaven. There's not a groupon.

It's just, do you trust in? in Jesus. The problem with Catholicism in the Catholics is the doctrine of the Catholic Church because they believe that its faith is good, it's good. It's just not enough. You have to add to it. I didn't make this up. In Canon 14 at the Council of Trent,

this was the Catholic Church's response to Martin Luther. See, Martin Luther encowers two things in the Protestant Reformation. One is about authority and one is about salvation. In the Protestant Church, the authority is not me, thank God. The authority is the Word of God, and all of us, the elders, the pastors, whatever meeting you have, submit and surrenders to this. In the Catholic Church, authority is like a three-legged stool.

It's the Bible, the Pope, and whatever counsels of the church fathers decide, and they're all on equal footing. The Council of Trent says, if anyone saith that man is truly absolved from his sins and justified, because he is surely believed himself absorbed and justified, or that no one is truly justified, but he who believes himself justified, and that by his faith alone, absolution and justification are affected, let him be anathema, cursed the hell.

So that's just the official Catholic doctrine. Faith alone won't save you. It's good. It's just not good enough. You have to do your part. And so this is faith plus works, plus baptism, plus first communion, plus confirmation, plus confession,

and penance plus sacraments. So the doctrine of the Catholic Church is, when you partake of the sacraments, then you are imparted with grace. If you do your part, God will do his part. In fact, there's a Catholic theologian named Ludwig Ott, so if you look for a baby name, maybe avoid a Ludwig.

And he says this, for the justified eternal life is both a gift of grace promised by God and a reward for his own. good works and merits. Church, this is no gospel. It's not if you do your part, God does his part. The gospel of Jesus Christ is, for anyone who would believe because of grace through faith in Christ, then you are imputed with His righteousness, that you don't earn it, that it is a gift. Not to jump ahead, but in Galatians 221, Jesus says, I mean, Paul says, I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness comes through the law, then Christ died.

needlessly. So some of you grew up in a Pentecostal background, Church of God, Assembly of God, all right? We know who you are. It's very evident to tell during our worship time where you came from. Praise God for that. Great place to hire worship leaders. I love it, okay? The problem is that in some of these churches, they begin to not just lean in to experience the manifest presence of God, but to kind of get into like a hyper-charismania.

and they believe that without a certain sign gift, then you can't be saved. That it's Jesus plus a gift of the Holy Spirit, Jesus plus speaking in tongues. And then what begins to happen is it becomes like a varsity in a JV version, and what begins to happen is people begin to chase after the gift instead of the giver of the gift.

That people begin to chase after an experience instead of experiencing a relationship with Jesus Christ. By the way, the Holy Spirit will always, point to Jesus, he will never point to you. So it's not Jesus plus a gift. It's just faith alone. The other end of this is faith plus knowledge that there are people that say, hey man, faith is good,

but you've got to add to that knowledge. And if you don't know enough Bible and if you don't know enough about God, then you can't be saved. The real danger of this is you begin to treat the gospel like the ABCs. But the gospel is the A to Z. You begin to treat the gospel like it's the diving board,

but the reality, it kind of gets you in the pool, but the reality is it's like the whole pool, diving board and all. We've shared this illustration a million times. It's in a book called The Cross-centered Life. And the idea is that the way we ought to rightly revolve ourselves around the gospel is the guy draws a timeline. And then at some point he draws a big cross and says,

this is the moment you put your faith in Christ. And when you do this, two things simultaneously happen. That your understanding, our understanding of the maximum, magnificence and justice and holiness of God get bigger and bigger and higher and higher. And God is actually more to be revered than we ever imagined. And simultaneous to that, our understanding of our own life is not we're pretty good people that need a life coach, but that we are more depraved and more crooked and more blackhearted. Anybody even realize that?

Like the more you know Jesus, the more you look in the mirror and go, what is wrong with me? That is a good thing. That's called the conviction of sin by the Holy Spirit. And what happens is the distance between who you understand God to be and who you understand yourself to be just gets bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger. And the chasm grows wider and wider and wider. And you begin to understand the only thing that can reach from this side to that side is your ever-expanding understanding of the cross of Jesus Christ. When you begin to think that it's faith plus knowledge, you think that bridge gets you almost all the way there, but by your own effort, you take. the final step to get in, that's not how it works.

It's very popular in a lot of churches today that teach faith plus helpful tips. Like you go to church, week after week after week, and there's like, hey, here's 10 ways to be a good friend. There's six ways to improve your communication in marriage. Three ways to stay out of debt. And you can go for a long time and never hear about the life, death,

and resurrection of Jesus. That's no gospel. I know some of you listen to a bunch of preaching online. you should just ask yourself this question. When's the last time this brother preached to the gospel? It's very, very important. Now, today, the pendulum has swung in another direction, and there's a bunch of churches that you don't even have to have faith.

It's just good works. If you're a good person and do good things and fight for justice, then you'll be saved. Listen, does justice matter? Justice matters like crazy. But you fighting for justice will never justify you. It's the finished work of Christ on the cross. progressive churches, woke churches.

That's called Lost, by the way. That if you begin to use the gospel as a means to your political end, then you are worshipping you and your political agenda, not Christ crucify. And then what begins to happen in these churches is that people do not submit themselves to the authority of the Word of God and say, I am under what you tell me, God, but they stand in authority over it and said, let me tell you who I am. That's dangerous, very, very dangerous. Good people don't go to heaven.

Good gracious, none of us would ever make it. Look at your neighbor. Not good at all. Forgiving people, go to heaven. Now, it's easy and kind of fun for me to pick on all those people. So let me give me this last one. Faith plus 1122 will not save you. I'm telling you, around here we talk often about taking steps of discipleship in the direction of the good shepherd.

But sponsoring a kid won't save you. being in a disciple group won't save you, getting baptized won't save you, worshiping with your hands up won't save you. And listen, we're all dangerous of this. This is where I fall into this camp really bad. I'm so judgey during worship about you, so judgy. I sit right over there, I'm into it, man.

I can't help it, I can't help it. I don't know how you can help it. I'm just telling you, I don't know how. I can't get over the gospel. Went here singing man and I go hands up, tears down. And I look over and you're like, I'm like, probably not saved, probably not. It's not good. I'm confessing. You know what? Because I've seen you at the Jags game, man.

I've seen you. Scoop and scoring, you're like, ah! We're seeing it. Come on my soul. Don't you be shy on me? And you're like, oh, gosh. However, be careful that you don't judge somebody else's emotive response to the gospel based on your own wiring. A style of worship is not a prerequisite to salvation. It's not. You see, I'm never, I'm not really good at like, like current illustrations. And, however, this week we had the solar eclipse, all right? How many of you saw the solar eclipse? I know, we saw you online, look,

you're in a cult with those goofy glasses on looking at the thing, what was wrong with you people? Mr. John, I was in the turkey woods thinking it was gonna get real dark and they were gonna gobble again. I was gonna shoot one in the head to the glory of God, okay? But I didn't have the glasses, so it was highly disappointing. I didn't even see anything.

It's like a cloud went by, I was like, seriously? This is the event of a lifetime. You ever notice? I'm 50, I've seen like 20 of these event of the lifetimes. The weather channel may be overplaying their hand. I'm just gonna say that. Storm in the century again this weekend, every time, all right, so, any of you.

But here's what I want you to think about. I saw the pictures that you took, they're incredible. Not the ones of you, the ones of the actual moon and the sun. So here's the thing. The moon in and of itself has no light. It's got no power, it's got no source of energy. All of the light, all the source of power and energy, comes from the sun.

And I know the moon has to do with like, you know, gravity and waves and tides, all that. But as far as we're concerned, its job is to reflect the light of the sun to the earth. That's its job. It's got one job. And when it tries to get in the way and say, look at me, and it blocks the sun that is a dark way to live. Works-based righteousness is that, that we are not the source of light and power, that we are to reflect. the good news of the gospel and the way we live, but when we try to be the source,

that is a very dark way to live. And all of these examples that I gave, here's what I need you to understand. They're not bad things. They take a very good thing. But if you make it a salvific thing, that's a really bad thing. It's like you, you Baptist.

What's funny, some of you grew up independent fundamentalist Baptist, and your church didn't think the Southern Baptists were good enough to go to heaven, okay? That's adorable. Holy living is a good. thing. Applying the wisdom of the scriptures to your own life personally for reasons of sanctification are a good thing. Having guardrails for you are a good thing. If there are some things in your

life that always cause you to sin and stumble and you have personally decided to stay away from those things, that is a good thing. But when you apply that as a measure of salvation for somebody else, that is not the gospel. Baptist, I'm talking about beer in case you hadn't picked up on that one. Okay. John Piper, who is a measure. who is a Baptist, and the smartest guy, best preacher, I'm preaching with him tomorrow, I can't wait. He says this, and he's a teetoterer. This means he doesn't drink and never will and never has.

And he says legalism has sent more people to hell than alcoholism and any other addiction ever has. Because it's not Jesus plus what you don't do. Baptism is a good thing, it's just not salvific, you should get baptized. Religious activity is a good thing. It helps cultivate your relationship with Jesus. A liturgy is a good thing

because it helps keep your eyes focused on God. and not the people on stage. It's a good thing. But when you make it the main thing, it's not a good thing. Gifts of the spirit are a good thing. Every single believer in Christ has at least one gift. None of us have all of them, and they are to be yearned for and sought after because we need each other for the glory of God, the edification of the church.

But you begin to lift that gift up as salvivics and all good. Knowledge is a good thing. But if you make it the main thing, you begin to look down your nose at other people. Loving people just as they are is a good thing. thing. But looking at a sinful lifestyle and calling it good is an evil thing. It's not good at all. Justice is a good thing. We should demonstrate the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ by fighting for every image bearer on the planet. But the reason we do it is because the fight is finished at the cross and the empty tomb. Taking steps in the direction of the good shepherd is a good

thing. It's just the result of the gospel, not a prerequisite for it. And so he, he, ends the four verses that we studied this way. He says, as we have said before, so now I say again, if anyone is preaching to you a gospel, contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed. Let him be damned to hell. You see, the gospel has to be received.

Martin Luther wrote this commentary on Galatians. You got to have a thesaurus and like a decoder ring to see what it says, but it's pretty awesome. He says, for there is no middle ground between Christian righteousness and works righteousness. There is no alternative to Christian righteousness, but works righteousness. If you do not build your confidence on the work of Christ, you must build your confidence on your own work.

So the question I want to ask you is, have you received the gospel? Like a gift. Have you received the good news that Jesus came and died in your place? I have a gift. Somebody bring out the gift. And, uh, oh, Elena. Hey, give it up. She probably never wanted to be seen on stage.

Here you go, look. Hundreds of thousands of people will be watching you. Great. All right, look. So I got a gift here. Okay? And it's in a Tiffany's box. You like this?

It's actually a Tiffany's thing because I'm a baller, that's why. Okay, so. Now, what do you do to earn a gift? Nothing. If you earn it, it's not a gift. It's a wage. Have you ever received your paycheck

and went to your boss and be like, thank you so much for the gift of my paycheck? No, no, no, no. You're like, I've earned every dime of this. and now my dime, I need like three dimes to count for, what, five, you know what I mean? It's bad, all right? But it's a gift.

But if somebody gives you a gift but you don't receive it, what do you have to do? You have to open the gift to receive the gift. The gift of salvation is open right now, or offered right now to any one of you that would receive it. And for all who would believe you receive the right to be called sons or daughters

of the most high God. And so I want you to receive. Now, the reality is, is this isn't a gift. This is actually a, A trophy, a trophy that I won. This is the first place trophy for the Tim Tebow Celebrity Golf Tournament.

Isn't that cool? And see how hip-in is Master's Sunday? All right, don't you think the chef's got it? I think he does. Pray for him, he's a Christian. And this too is a picture of the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ. And you may say, well, how is that, pastor?

You just said that a gift could be received and that the gospel is not earned, but yet you obviously earned this first place trophy at the Tim Tebow Celebrity Golf Tournament. Well, sort of, but not really. The reality is, is we had a team, and we play what's called Caton Choice or a Scramble. For those you, anybody have a golfer in here?

Raise your hand if you're a golfer, okay? All right, good. That's why you came to 9 o'clock so you can be home for this afternoon. We'll talk about idolatry at another time, but whatever. Okay, so we played a scramble. So what that means is like everybody tees off, and then you just hit, you just pick the best one.

And then you hit it again, you pick the best one. You hit it again, you pick the best one. There were five people on our team. Doug Flutie was on my team. If you don't know who that is, Google him. He's awesome, all right? He's a quarterback back in the day, and he's about that tall, which was cool. My friend Big Mac, my friend named Jamie, and then there was another kid on our team named Andrew,

and I asked him, I met him three weeks ago in the lobby, and I was like, what do you do for a living? He's like, well, I'm trying to get my pro card in golf. I go, ooh, I know what you're doing in three weeks. You're playing in the Tim Tebow Celebrity Golf Tournament with this guy. Okay, so that's what we did. Now, as I reflect on my day at TPC Sawgrass, I don't think we used any of my shots. I'm serious.

One time it was like this far, and they were like, go ahead, pastor, and I was like, good job. Okay, now, so, because I drove the cart and put the team together. And in fact, when you play TPC, there's only one question. You play TPC, People are going to ask you one, what's the question? How did you do on 17?

Okay, how'd you do on 17? So that's all that matters, man, it's all that matters. And so we're getting up there, we're playing really good, they're playing really good, I'm with them, and we get up to 17, and I got, dude, and they put it back, they put it with the pros tee off. Normally, I got you around the edge, you know, where it's way closer, it's not, man.

It's playing like 148, went in our face, terrible. And I walk up there were two clubs. Let me tell you, you walk up there with two clubs, you have no idea what you're doing. So bad. So I'm like, all right, man, in case you don't know golf, this is what you got to do, grip it as hard as you can swing with everything you're made of, just in case you hit it, all right?

I don't get nervous in front of people, but that time I'm like, oh, please. I'm praying the least theocentric prayers ever. God, if you'll just let me hit a hole in one here, I promise. I'll do so many things for you. He did not hear my cry. So I get up there and I hit it. I mean, I'm going to just, I've already played it out in my mind. It's going to be so awesome.

And I duff the ball. It would hit you in the head. That's how far it went. You could hear the crowd go, oh, I mean, it was not. Doug Flutie reaches in his pocket, throws me a Hail Mary. Try it again, Reverend, that's what he does. And so I did. Now, in golf, you don't get two chances, but I'm a Christian.

I play by grace, not the law. And I thought, all right, here it is. This is going to be the one. And this is when I strike the ball better in the water. You know why? Because what I need is not a second chance. I could stay there all day and probably never give. it up there, you understand?

And so, my friend, I think Big Mac on this one puts one right in the middle, we tap in for Bertie, I don't know how long I would have been there. And we write down Birdie on the score. We go to 18, all right? 18 is right to left, just so you know if you're a golfer, I don't do right to left. I do left to right. And if your slice lands in the fairway, they call it a fade. And so I hit this thing as hard as I can.

It starts out over the water, and it lands. I mean, it's the best golf shot maybe I've ever made. I mean, I stroked this ball. I mean, to the point where I finish, I flip my golf club like they do in baseball. They don't even do that in golf. I do, whatever. I point it to make a wish kid. That's what you came for right there.

And I'm like, finally, man, I get to contribute. That kid Andrew, the guy's trying to be a pro. Dude, he hits his. His is still going up when it goes. He's like, hey, little guy, just. I mean, so good. Here's what I realize. Not only did we not use my bad shots,

we didn't even use my good shots. We party 18, we get finished, we have two scorecards. I have a scorecard, and my team has a scorecard. And when we went to turn in the card, I threw mine in the trash, and I handed them our scorecard, and I have a first place trophy for the Tim Tebow tournament. Listen, man, that's the gospel.

I'm telling you, as you watch the Masters today, it's different because they don't plan on teams. That's the gospel. One day when he returns, he ain't coming to tell stories. He came and lived the perfect life and he died on the cross for you. And one day you will stand before the Master. And you've got one of two options. You can turn in your scorecard, and if you do, it won't be enough. It just won't be enough.

And the way you will pay the debt for that scorecard is an eternal. separation from a holy God. The good news of the offer of the gospel for anyone who would believe, Jesus says, you want to take my scorecard? He lived the life on our behalf and died our death in our place. And anyone who would believe, you get to turn in your old life and you get to receive his perfect righteousness. That is the gospel.

Nothing needs to be added to it. So my question is, have you received that as a gift? And if you say, well, how do I receive that, pastor? We read the verse in Romans 109. If you believe in your heart that God raised him from the grave, that he accomplished everything that he needed to accomplish through the cross and the resurrection, and you confess with your mouth, Jesus is Lord, then you will be saved. I want to give you the opportunity to do that right now.

Would you bow your head? Would you close your eyes? And if you want to receive the free gift of salvation for the very first time, it's not by anything that you do, but just right now receive it. heart, just confess, Jesus, I want you to be my Lord. And if you're doing that, just as an act of worship, would you lift your hand as high as you can in the air? If you, for the very first time, I want to receive the free gift of salvation, lift your hand as high as you can, and you say, Jesus, I claim you as my Lord. Our good and gracious Heavenly Father, God, we love you more than

anything, because you first loved us. God, I thank you that you did not come to say, if we, then you, but it's the exact opposite way, because of what you. have done through the perfect life of your son, his death on the cross, his resurrection, that for anyone who would believe that we would receive the right to be called sons and daughters of God. And so God, I thank you that in this moment right now, there are men and women and students whose sins are being paid for, who are being adopted into your family, who are being resurrected to eternal life. And for that, you were worthy of our praise. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. please stand as we respond.

We believe that the gospel demands the response. We're going to respond by singing. We're going to sing. It's like a modern hymn. And it's about what Christ did on our behalf counts for us. If you're saved, you ought to sing like it. And we're going to bring our ties in our offerings. Not to put God in our debt, but because he loved us first and he gave us Jesus.

So we bring to him our first and best. And we are going to pray. And because of what he has done, he has invited you and me as children in the kingdom to come to the king who's sovereign over everything. And even if you're like, well, it's not that big a deal. It's a big deal to him because you're a big deal to him. So cast all your cares on him because he cares for you. Let's sing, let's bring.

Let's pray. Let's respond.