THE GOSPEL

We challenge fear-based religion and return to the context of Scripture to show why Christ’s finished work is complete, trustworthy, and not “another gospel.” We share how love, not fear, sustains change and why faith is participation, not transaction.

• memorial request sparks rethink on fear versus assurance
• what “another gospel” meant in Galatians
• how context guards against traditions and add-ons
• finished work and objective reconciliation explained
• faith as agreement and participation, not payment
• federal headship in Adam and Christ clarified
• revisiting Matthew 10:28 without panic
• why kindness leads to repentance, not threats
• living from completion: assurance, rest, obedience from gratitude

Transcript

From Memorial Request To Core Conviction

SPEAKER_00 0:00

I got asked to do a uh memorial service this week. And the family came to me. I'd done pretty much had what I what I was going to speak down. And the family called me and asked me if they could meet with me, and I said sure. So they come in and they met with me, and they threw about two or three verses down on my desk and uh asked me if I could fit those verses into my message. And I can tell you straight from the start, I knew, probably knew what the verses was, and when I looked at them, they were verses that I didn't necessarily uh would would use in that kind of way. And and I was honest with them and I told them, and I tell you this all the time. I don't believe in scaring anybody into salvation. I don't believe fear moves somebody to a true salvation experience. I believe love does that. I believe uh telling them the truth does that. But I've seen too many people that's been scared into making a commitment to Christ or scared into saying a prayer of salvation, and it just a lot of times I can't question what was going on in them, but we see a lot of times it wasn't, it not much happens out of fear. So I don't teach out of fear, I teach out of love and I teach out of uh what the Word of God says. But I was obedient. Uh, I took their their verses they wanted and uh I preached them. But what I did is I preached them in a way that is in the true context of what that verse said. Because the way they wanted it read and what they were trying to get out of that verse was to scare the people and put a little bit of fear in them because they felt like they needed to be, their life needed to be changed. So I turned the verse around a little bit and I preached it in context. And it did not say what they thought it said, but I preached the truth. I'm saying this because after the service was over, the family came to me and they said, that is exactly what we wanted. And it hit me. They thought they wanted fire and brimstone until they heard the truth. They was okay with hearing the truth after it came to them. But in the beginning, boy, they wanted fire, they wanted brimstone, they wanted to know these people's fixing to burn in hell if they don't, you know, change things around. That's fear, that's a fear tactic. I don't like teaching people through fear. So it hit me afterwards, and I said, you know, these people didn't want fear, they wanted assurance. They wanted, they wanted the truth preached. And when we brought it like that, they were happier than what they thought they would be. So it really got me to thinking about some things that I've heard. Maybe you haven't, but I have, maybe because I'm the one speaking it on Sunday. So I get some messages sometimes on Facebook. Nobody's ever come in person and said it. But I'll get messages on Facebook, and I've heard things like uh, you guys are teaching a different gospel. That's the number one thing I've heard. You guys are teaching another gospel, a different gospel. And that always challenges me. It don't ever bother me because I know what I'm teaching, I know what I'm coming out of, I know what scripture says. But it made me start to think a little bit, and maybe you've heard it too. Uh maybe you've started to wonder at times, you know, are we missing something? I hope not, but I I'm sure you've probably thought that. Are we preaching too much grace? I've heard people ask that a lot, not just here when we was in first community and you know, the other church. Are y'all preaching too much grace? Are we making it too easy for people? These are all questions and things that's come up to me over the years, especially in the last year or so, because of the message that we're bringing. I and I'll make it real simple. I'm gonna break it down in a minute, but I'm gonna make it real simple from the start. What we're preaching is a finished work, that what Jesus Christ done on the cross was absolutely complete and it was sufficient for everything that is needed here on this earth. I believe that. I don't, I don't, I don't tiptoe around that message. I believe that what Jesus Christ did on the cross was absolutely 100% sufficient. And I don't shy away from that, even when it's not popular. And I can, you might say, well, why would that not be popular? I promise you, it is not a popular message to preach. So let me be clear: the gospel we proclaim is neither fragile nor watered down. The message of Christ and his finished work is strong, it's trustworthy, and it is absolutely complete. It changes lives. Not through fear. Let me say that again. It don't change lives through fear, it changes lives by showing who God is and what he has already accomplished for us. So today I want to do something a little different. I'm gonna backtrack a little bit because I want people to understand where we're at. Uh, it don't matter what we preach, it don't matter what you sit in here and listen to on Sundays, if you can't walk out and support what we're saying with Scripture, then we have an issue. I have an issue. If I can't walk out and talk to somebody about a message and truly support what I'm saying, then I might need to question that. I might need to question what's being taught. But I feel like I can support it. And I'm gonna show you a few simple scriptures here this morning. So I want to explore why the finished work of Christ, which is God reconciling the world through Jesus and inviting all to be included in that, is not a different gospel. But the very heart of the gospel that Paul preached. That word, those two words, another gospel, it's actually in the Bible. If you're not familiar with it, it's actually in the Bible. Paul actually talked about this. So I want to take those words, another gospel, which we've been, uh those words have been used toward toward my message sometimes. I want to take those words and look at them in context this morning. What does that really mean when Paul said it? So in Galatians uh chapter 1, verse 6 through 9, we don't have to read the whole thing, but I want to share with you a little bit about what he said here. He was talking to the Galatian church. We have to understand that. Context matters. When we're reading a scripture, we have to understand, number one, who is speaking, who is he speaking to, and what is he speaking about. If we don't have the context of that verse, it really is not gonna make a lot of sense to us. We cannot read a text that is 2,000 years old, that was written in the first century through a 21st century lens and think we're gonna get understanding out of it. We have to go back and say, listen, in this particular verse in Galatians 1, 6 through 9, Paul was speaking to the Galatian church. That's who he was speaking to. He was not speaking to Brian Taylor in 2026. Now, is there something I can take out of that and it be useful to me? Yes. But he was speaking to them. And he said, I am astonished that you are so quickly discerting him who called you for a different gospel, which is really no gospel at all. I'm gonna break it down right here and put it in my own words. He had just taught them the gospel of Jesus Christ. He had spent time in their church and he was teaching them about the uh who Christ was, what Christ had accomplished, and all of this. He told them all about Jesus. And then when he left, some of the Bible teachers of the time come in and said, That may be true, but you also have to do this. You got to get circumcised, you gotta obey the law, you gotta do this, you gotta do that. And they started coming in behind Paul saying, that's fine, but we gotta add a little bit to it. So he came back and said, Wait a minute, you ain't gotta add nothing to what Christ has already completed, it is sufficient. He said that what they're telling you to add to it is another gospel. That's what it, that's where those words come from in context. That's what it actually means. And he said at the very end, I love what he says, which is really no gospel at all. You gotta remember what the word gospel means, it means good news. So he was telling them, they're telling you to add stuff to what I've already told you. And it is really not good news at all because they're telling you that Jesus, what he comes with, is not sufficient, that you need to do this and do that and do this, and you gotta add something to it. There's nothing that I have to add to what Christ finished on the cross. Not everybody agrees with that, and I'm that's that's good, that's fine. But I believe what he did was totally sufficient. Why do I believe that? It's not because it's just my opinion. But he hung on the cross, and the very last words that he said was, it is finished. He said it's done, it's complete. And I'm just dumb enough to believe that Jesus Christ was telling the truth. He really meant what he said, and it was done. So notice that other gospel he describes is adding something to Christ. This is Christ. If I gotta add something to it to make it effective, that is not the gospel. I don't have to add anything to it. So they were saying, yes, Christ saves, but you must perform, you must obey, you must earn favor, you must do all these things. Paul rebukes them. His rebuke was never about grace, it was about grace being too much. What he was rebuking the Galatian church about is you do not have to add anything to Christ. It's already sufficient. So here's something worth looking at. Over the centuries, if you go back, and a lot of people don't do it, but it's a really great thing to do, go back and study church history. Uh, we didn't, you know, the way we understand the Bible today and the westernized church didn't just appear one day. This has come from years and years and years of history and studying the Bible and how the Bible came into place and all this kind of stuff. So over the centuries, we've added so many traditions and extra rules and assumptions to what we preach. I'm just as guilty as anybody else is. I've told you, I can go back and look at sermons that I preached a year ago, and I'll beat myself in the head and say, What were you saying? Because I didn't have a clear understanding of it at the time, and I was teaching something. I wasn't, I wasn't wrong, I was teaching to the level of my understanding. But the whole goal is to understand more and get more revelation, get more wisdom, get more knowledge, and then walk away from some of the things that you were teaching that was not necessarily biblical. I've taught a lot of things from a church pulpit that I now realize was not biblical. I'm honest enough to say that. I hear stuff. I can go, I could click on Facebook right now and pull up any pastor on there, and I guarantee you you're gonna hear him preaching on some type of assumption, some type of tradition that's been passed down. But when you go and say, where's that in the Bible? We can't find it. I'm not beating up other pastors. I'm telling you, I've done that too. I probably still do that some, and then that's when I learn and I say, wait a minute, that where's that at? If I cannot find it and support it with scripture, I'm not gonna teach it. It's not biblical, it's not the gospel. So when someone preaches the gospel as it was originally given, and I'm saying going back to the to the scripture, not assumptions, not what somebody taught me, but going back and saying, what does scripture actually teach? What was God actually saying? What was Paul actually revealing to the Galatian church? When we go back and we begin to read the gospel as it was originally given, the message of Christ, reconciling the world, including all who believe, it's amazing that it can sometimes sound really unfamiliar. It even sounds like another gospel sometimes. Because that's what a lot of times we're accused of. But Paul reminds us the gospel itself never changes. What changes is our ability to recognize it through all the layers of tradition and all the layers of assumptions that we've put on top of it. Y'all know we've broke things down in this church. We went through and we've pulled out specific scriptures that is very common scriptures, and we went back and we've looked at them and we've we pulled the Bible up and we've looked at them in context. And a lot of times these things are not saying what we thought they were saying. And my thing is, I'm I'm tired of living a Christian life just right here on the surface. I'm I'm at a point I want to go deeper. I want to know what it really meant. I want to understand what God was really trying to say, or what was Jesus really trying to say, what was Paul really saying, not what man is saying. So you gotta go deeper to be able to do that. So what does the finished work accomplish? You're probably tired of hearing this verse because I think I use it every Sunday, but it's this is a foundational verse for for this for for this church. Uh but it's a part of the foundation of of what we teach. 2 Corinthians uh chapter 5, verse 19. Paul writes, God was in Christ. Let me stop right there in that first part just a minute. Because we're taught so much in the church that God is off somewhere in a distance and we're trying to work our way and get good enough to get to him. But this verse right here tells us that God was in Christ. While he was on the cross, God was in Christ reconciling. That word reconcile means to bring back into union and relationship. He was on the cross in Christ, reconciling the world to himself. That word world does not mean planet earth, it means cosmos, it means everything created, it means humanity. That's context. If I don't understand what that word world means, then I can easily take this verse out of context. I have to understand what the verse, what the words mean in it. So he was in Christ reconciling the world to himself. And then I love the next part. Not counting their trespasses against them. Not holding, some versions of the Bible say, not holding your sin against you. Now notice what reconciling, notice something that it says here. It says he was reconciling. This is already past tense when we're reading it today. It's already occurred on the cross. He's not coming back to go to the cross again. So when Jesus was on the cross, God was in him reconciling the world to himself. I like to call this objective reconciliation. What does that mean? Objective reconciliation means that it's done already, whether people believe it or not. You might say, well, some people don't believe in what Christ did on the cross. Okay, great. Does that change what happened on the cross? That is objective. He was in Christ reconciling the world to himself. Some people say, Well, I believe we're going to get reconciled one day. Well, I mean, I can't argue. The only thing I can do is tell you what the Bible says. The Bible says it happened on the cross. It's already occurred whether we believe it or whether we don't believe it. We're not changing the fact of what Jesus done. So it's objective reconciliation. It focuses on what Christ accomplished, not on how someone responds to it. It happened before we believe, it happened before we responded. I joke about this all the time, but this is absolute truth. When Jesus hung on the cross and God was in him reconciling the world, he didn't come down and ask my opinion. He didn't come down and ask your opinion on it. He said, I'm going to choose to bring humanity back into relationship. Regardless of what they think about. I'm going to choose to do this out of love for humanity, not because humanity has done anything to deserve it. So that changes. Faith does not create reconciliation. Faith participates in it. And I can tell you my own, I won't go into it, but I can tell you coming up in church, I was always taught that the more faith I had, the more I grew as a Christian, the more God would reconcile himself to me, the closer he would get to me. I'm not going to ask you to raise your hand, but I know for a fact that some of you were taught that too. Y'all were taught to try to get closer to God, to try to bring him in relationship to yourself. But the Bible says he's one with me, he lives on the inside of me. When Jesus went, he said, I'm going to send back a comforter. And that comforter is going to be on the inside of you. So I always have to ask the question: if I'm trying to get to him, but the Holy Spirit lives on the inside of me, how can I get closer to something that's already one with me? He's already on the inside of me. I'm not trying to be good enough to get to him. He's already reconciled me from the cross. This is the heart of the finished work. God's act was sufficient. Our trust is what allows us to experience it. Do we have to believe in it? Yes, we have to believe in it. Do we have to act? Yes. We have to open our eyes up to what's already happened. This is where a lot of people get confused and they think, oh, Pastor Brown's teaching everybody's born, saved, and everybody's going to heaven. No, I'm not. I'm teaching that what happened on the cross was for all of humanity. But we have to wake up to the fact that Jesus died on the cross for us and that God reconciled us. We have to understand that. There's people living in Bacon County right now that do not see that in their life. Did it happen for them too? Absolutely. Do they see it? Are they living it? No. Because they're still walking around with their eyes closed, blind to what Christ has already finished. What are we trying to do? We're trying to wake people up. That's it. I can't save you. I can't save anybody. But what I'm trying to do is wake people up to the fact of what Christ has already completed. And let them see it for themselves. What if we looked at this from a different point of view? What if we looked at faith as participation instead of transaction? Now think about that just a minute. Participation instead of transaction. Many think that faith activates God's work in my life. But scripture teaches something really different. Faith is agreeing with what God has already accomplished. Faith is acknowledging what Christ has already done. I now choose to enter into it. I believe what he did on the cross was finished. I don't believe that I can, my life can get bad enough that Jesus is going to come back and go through what he went through all over again. I can come to an altar and cry and whine and complain, but it's not going to bring Jesus down off the right hand of the Father and make him come back, do it again. Why? Because it's already finished. But what I can do is I can wake up to the fact of what's already been done and say, I agree with this. You said in your word that you reconciled me from the cross. I accept that reconciliation. You said this and you said that, and I received that in my life. That's simply my eyes opening up. That's coming out of darkness and coming into light, like the Bible says. That we're to be people of light, we're to be people of understanding. In Romans 5 and 10. I love this verse. It says, While we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son. I just threw that verse in there because it just it just goes right along with what I just said. That he reconciled us. God was in Christ reconciling us. Some people, it don't matter how much you say that, it don't matter if you take them to that verse in the Bible, they're still not going to believe that we're already reconciled. So then what do I do? I think scripture should interpret scripture. So I go to Romans 5 and 10 and say, while we were yet enemies, while we were still sinners, while we were still messed up, while you were still in your mess, while you were still strung out, while you were still an alcoholic, while you were still whatever. We were reconciled to God through the death of his son. If you don't agree with that, you're not arguing with me, you're arguing with Scripture. Because that's right there is straight from the scripture what it says. We did not reconcile ourselves. We did not bring ourselves back into relationship with the Father. He brought us back into relationship with Him. He did it. This is a biblical distinction here because salvation and faith and awareness and participation, we have to think about those words. I brought it up before, and I'm not, I don't want to get into it today, but I brought it up before about understanding what salvation actually means. We've turned salvation into something totally different than what the Bible actually says it means. Salvation is just him, Christ saving me. What did he do on the cross? It's a hypothetical question. Salvation is him redeeming me. What did he do on the cross? Salvation means him pulling me back from the edge and bringing me back into the understanding of who I am. What did he do on the cross? See, this is where I mess with people at because this is where they think you're saying everybody's saved. We're not saying that. We're saying what Christ done, allowed everybody, gave everybody the opportunity. Is everybody walking in the knowledge of Christ Jesus? No, they're not. But what are we for? We're supposed to bring them into the knowledge of it. We're supposed to help them understand their identity in Christ. This is why the finished work and this this is a scary word for some people, but it's not to me, but inclusion. When you use the word inclusion, that's when everybody says, oh, he's he's saying everybody is just the same. No, everybody's not the same. But what Christ did was for all. He said that. Paul said that. When we talk about inclusion and we talk about finished work, it's not another gospel. It does not remove responsibility. It simply simply correctly locates the power of Christ. It's not in my effort anymore. It's in what Christ has already done. Romans 5 and 18. When you talk about inclusion, through one act of righteousness, listen to this verse. Through one act of righteousness, justification and life came to all men. Through one act of righteousness. If you don't understand where we're going here, we're talking about Jesus. Through one act of righteousness, what he did on the cross, one act, righteousness, justification and life came to the ones who knelt down and said a prayer. That's not what it says. Justification and life came to the ones who go to the right church or go to the right denomination or go whatever. No, that's not what it says. It says it came to all men. And I have, I've researched that word all. And it don't matter what translation you look in, all means all. If I take all of these chairs and throw them out the back door, there's not going to be a chair left in this room. All of them's going out the back door. Not all but, not all except all. This is so amazing to me. We have no problem believing what Adam done in the garden represented all of humanity. But what Jesus did on the cross, we say don't, it can't represent all of humanity. It only represents the ones who make commitment at an altar. But that ain't what the verse says. The verse says, All in Adam, as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive. All, all. Why do we change the meaning of it when it comes to Christ? Let me say this. I should have said this in the beginning. My purpose today in talking about this is twofold. I want to clear some things up, and I want to provoke you to think. I want to provoke you to go deeper. I want to provoke you to say, you know, just because I've always heard it that way, is that what the Bible's really saying? I'm not trying to change your theology. I'm just trying to get you to think a little bit deeper. Is that really what the scripture says? Or is there more to it? When you look at these verses in Romans 5 and 1 Corinthians 15, when it talks about the word all, that one man represented all, one Adam represented all, one Christ represented all, when you see those words like that, what it's talking about is it's almost like a federal headship. That's federal headship language. What do I mean by that? Listen, whether you like President Trump or not, he's the president. You know who he represents? All. All. You have state representatives that go to Atlanta. How many of you went to Atlanta and fussed about a bill? None of you. We have a representative that goes for us and he represents all of his constituents. That's a federal headship thing. That's what Adam was. Adam represented all. Over here, Christ represented all. Why do we change it? That's just a question that I had. And when I started studying this, I said, why do we change it? Why do we say all here, but all except here? And it just didn't make sense to me. Am I saying that I'm right and anybody else is wrong? No, I'm just saying it it challenged me to go deeper. It challenged me to say, wait a minute, what I've always been taught in church is not aligning with what the scripture says. It sounds good, but when I pull scripture out and then I pull what I've been told out, they start butting heads. They don't go together. And I'm going to take scripture over assumption any day of the week. Because scripture is the truth. So when we look at a federal headship language lie, humanity is summed up in Adam, humanity is summed up in Christ. Some people think this that thinks this makes salvation too easy for people. That it makes what we're saying just too simple. But the Bible shows that what Christ did was complete and it was for everyone. Inclusion isn't a shortcut, it's what God has already done. And when he hung on the cross, Jesus says it is finished. And it was finished for every single person. Everybody was included. So let's look at look at fear real quick, and then I'm going to get to a couple of verses I want to show you. Fear versus assurance. This is one of the verses I was telling you the story at the very beginning where this message comes from. And this is one of the verses that the family asked me to use in the memorial service. Matthew 10 and 28. It's often cited as a fear verse. Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. But rather fear him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell. Now I knew when I read that, as soon as they said that when I seen it, I knew exactly where they wanted me to go with this verse. I knew exactly what they wanted me to say because we didn't have conversations about it. But that's not the way I teach salvation. I don't scare people into it. I'm not going to tell somebody, get out here and get saved so you don't burn tomorrow. I just, that's just not me. Other people may do that, and that's fine. Maybe it works for them. That don't work for me. So I started looking at this verse. And again, this is used as a fear verse. And if something caught my attention, I've read this verse hundreds of times, but something caught my attention, and it was the first three words. What are they? Do not fear. First four words. And do not fear. So we use this as a fear verse, but the first words in the verse tell you, do not fear. So again, one of those things that says, wait a minute. This has always been taught as a fear verse. This has always been taught that you need to be scared of him because he is the one that can send your butt to hell. That's what we've been, this verse has always been taught that way. But then it says, do not fear. Notice in here, when you go back to context, Jesus was not teaching fear. He's calling people to take eternity seriously. The gospel is not about scaring people into obedience. The gospel is about trusting a God who has already reconciled the world to himself. Fear, let's be real about it. Fear will wake people up. It will wake someone up, but only the trust in God's completed work sustains transformation. I've seen it too many times. I've seen people get scared into salvation. I used to scare people into salvation because I thought that's what I was supposed to do. My goal was to walk in and get as many people to come up to this altar as I could get to come up here and to repeat after me a prayer. But can I tell you, I've seen too many do that and be scared to death because they really didn't want to do it, and you could see it in their eyes, but they done it anyway because out of fear they followed the command and they repeated after you. And then three days later, you've seen them out there strung out again. I'm not knocking them, I'm saying it looks bad on the church. Because we try to force them to say something, and they're not ready for it, and we call it salvation, and we say, oh, brother so-and-so got saved Sunday. And then Monday, people see him and they're like, What church did he get saved in? I mean, let's be real. It looks bad on the person and it looks bad on the church. That's my that's why I don't teach it like that. Now, if somebody walked up here right now and said, Brother, I want the Lord in my life, will you lead me in a prayer? Absolutely, I'll lead you in a prayer. But I'm saying it's not a tool that we we have turned it into a tool. And we say this all the time, and people still don't get it. But the prayer of salvation, I challenge you to go find it in the Bible and read it. And I'll give you till next Sunday, and the Sunday after that, and the Sunday after that, and the Sunday, because it's not there. Jesus never led anybody through a prayer of salvation. That's man-made that we come up with as a tool. I'm not saying it's absolutely wrong. It's good for some people. Some people need that guidance. But we have turned it into a guidance, into something that has to be done. If you didn't come up and you didn't say a prayer and you didn't get oil poured on you, then you, I don't know if you're saved. We've we've changed it around. And it's just, it's not, that's not, it's not biblical. Used to, I would, I would kind of shun back from saying it like that. Now I don't care. I'm gonna say it. It's not biblical. It's not, and when I say it's not biblical, I don't mean it don't have some good stuff to it. I just mean it's not in the Bible. That's all I'm saying. Jesus was very clear about what salvation was. Very clear. Anybody who believes and confesses shall be saved. That's Bible. Now, if he would have wanted to put in there anybody who believes and confesses and says a few words behind the pastor, and gets oil poured on their head, and gets dunked in the water, and get he didn't say all that. That's what we put in there. That's what I meant by we put assumptions and we put rules onto it. That's not can't be supported by scripture. Not saying sometimes it's not can't still be a good thing. But it's just we can't do that and then call it gospel because that's not the gospel. So I've showed you many verses. I'm gonna get ready to close right here. Some verses that you gotta see though. I've showed you many verses already, but I'm still gonna answer the question. Is finished work inclusion teaching? Is it biblical? Is it biblical? I'm asking that just so you can think about it for a minute. If this message were another gospel, as some people say, it would collapse under scripture, which means that if I had tried to hold it up against scripture, it wouldn't hold up. But I'm gonna show you right here how it holds up under scripture. So instead of arguing my opinion against your opinion, we're not gonna do that. Let's simply look at what the Bible says. When we do this, we find five unshakable truths that hold up the gospel itself. I don't have the gospel, don't need it to defend it, me to defend it. The gospel is gonna stand on its own, with or without me. Now it's good if I can defend it, it's good if you can defend it, but it's not gonna fall if you can't. It's the gospel. So the first thing is Christ finished the work. John 19 and 30. Look at what it says. And keep in mind Christ finished the work. That is the foundation of the finished work theology. Christ finished the work. So when Jesus had received the sour wine, he said, It is finished. And bowing his head, he gave up his spirit. It is finished. Hebrews 10, 14. For by one offering he has perfected forever those who are being sanctified. He's perfected forever those who are being sanctified. It is finished. The work is complete. We can keep sayings ongoing in one day and in the by-and-bye, and when we get through the pearly gates, and when we that's not what scripture says, though. It sounds good, it preaches good, it makes you sound really holy. But if I take it back to Scripture, it falls apart. Because that's not what Scripture says. I just read you two of them right there, what it says. God made the first move. We teach that we have to make the first move toward God. That if you'll just come in and you'll surrender yourself and you make the first move toward him, we we act like, this is the picture I get in my mind, that God is sitting back somewhere, way up there on the other side of Pluto, somewhere on a throne, and we're trying our best to get to him. And I do something good, I'm a little closer. I go to church two Sundays in a row, I'm a little bit closer. I do some good stuff, and I'm getting closer to him. You know why? Because we're taught that we are separated from him. Think about that just a minute. You ain't got to raise your hand, but how many of you were taught that, number one, that you were born with a sin nature and that you were separated from Christ because of what happened in the garden. We've already taught on both of them. I'm not gonna go back into them, but you, if you were born on this side of the cross, you're not born with a sin nature. And it's looking around, I think everyone in here was born on this side of the cross. You are a new creation. Old things will pass away. Behold, all things have become new. You are not born with a sin nature. Why? Because, yes, did Adam fall and affect all of humanity? Yes. But then the sin nature was taken care of on the cross. So anything after the cross, you're not born with a sin nature. You are born as a new creation in Christ because it was taken care of. And not only did he say that he was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, but then the second part, comma, next part, not holding your trespasses and sins against you. That's Bible. Now the other stuff sounds good. And I could use it if I want to to really scare some people into coming to the altar. But that's a fear tactic. Why don't I just be real with them about what the Bible says and let them open their eyes up to the truth of who Christ really is? So God made the first move toward us, Romans 5 and 8. But God demonstrated his own love toward us. Wait. What? Toward us, which means he was coming to us. He demonstrated his own love toward us in that while we were still sinners. Catch that. You might say, oh, that contradicts what he said a while ago. No, it don't. It backs up what I said a while ago. You were still sinners, and then Christ died for you. Took the sin nature away. Took the sin away. He died for you. While we were still sinners. He made the first move. You remember when you're back in school and you're trying to get a girlfriend or boyfriend, you're like, you're scared to make the first move? He made the first move toward us. We didn't have to do it. He came toward us and said, I want relationship. 2 Corinthians 5 and 19. We just talked about it. God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not imputing their trespasses to them. And he has committed to us the word of reconciliation. That's so much. There's, gosh, there's so much in this verse right here. We can break it down and teach on it for the next month. There's a lot of stuff, good stuff in there. But I want to get these verses out to you. 1 John chapter 4, verse 19. We love him. Why? Because he's so good. Yes, he's good. But we love him because he first Loved us. Who moved first? He did. He first loved us. That's why we love him. I'm just showing you that God made the first move. We didn't move toward him and start begging him. I'm not a beggar anymore. I don't beg God for stuff. I look at the word and I say, God, your word says this. I'm a child of God. You said you'd never leave me. You'd never forsake me. You said this, you said that. I'm bringing your word back to you, and I fully expect to see it happen in my life. That's not boldness or arrogance. That's taking the word and repeating it back to him. And for some of you that don't come here on a regular basis, let me share something with you. The Bible says confess. That word confession is homo legal in the Greek. It actually means same homo, same language, legao language, same language. So it's not that I can just ask for anything I want, but it's when I'm speaking the same language, when I can take the word of God and I can say the same thing that he's already said, bring it back to him where we're in agreement, anything is possible. So confessing is not, don't mean coming to the altar and spitting out all my dirty deeds. It means coming up and confessing the word of God. Now there's nothing wrong with coming up and saying, God, I'm sorry for that stupid thing I just done. I'm sorry, God, I shouldn't have done that. I shouldn't have been there. I shouldn't have been involved in that. But your word says, we always need to go back to what his word says. Because me crying down here at the altar ain't gonna change nothing if I don't go back to what his word says. What is he gonna honor his word? He's always gonna honor his word. So God made the first move. Reconciliation started in God's heart, not ours. I did not ask to be reconciled. I did not ask. Again, the word reconcile means bring back. We were separated in Adam. He died on the cross and he reconciled us. He brought us back into relationship. I did not ask for that. You did not ask for that. God loved you so much, he said, I'm gonna take humanity and I'm gonna reconcile all of humanity. Why do I know it's all of humanity? Because he says all the world. That word world in the Greek is cosmos. It means every system, everything created. It's bigger than the planet. See, we keep thinking with our little brains, earth. No, he everything, all of creation was brought back into relationship. Faith receives, it doesn't achieve. Ephesians 2, verse 8 and 9. Faith receives. Gotta keep this in mind when we're reading this. For by grace you have been saved. Through faith. I could go off right here and tear somebody's theology up. For by grace you have, you mean it's not by the words I said? It's not because that preacher led me in an amazing sinner's prayer. No, it's by grace you have been saved. Through faith and not of yourself. It is the gift, a gift. You know, very seldom do I ask for a gift. If somebody brings me something and they give it to me anyway, it's a gift. That means I didn't ask for it, I didn't earn it, I didn't work for it. They give it to me because they love me and they want me to have it. This is a gift. It means God gave it. Faith receives. But when somebody brings that gift to me, if Cynthia comes up and says, Hey, I want you to have this, you know I have a choice to make now. I can say, I want your gift and throw it away, or I can take it and give it to somebody else, or I can take it and receive it to myself. Why? Because all she's doing is bringing it. I decide what happens with it. So he gave us a gift here, and we decide how we want it to affect our life. It can be a big part of my life, or I can actually put it up off to the side. It didn't not affect my life at all. But it still doesn't change the fact that it is a gift of God. It's nothing you worked for, it's nothing you earned. You weren't good enough to receive it. You didn't get it because you were a good Christian. You may be a good Christian, and I hope you are, but that is not the reason you got it. And that messes with people because I know we want to be a good person, and we should be a good person. But being a good person don't get me any closer to God. It opens my understanding up a lot more, and I awaken to some things, but it don't make God love me anymore. Romans 4, verse 5. I love this one. These are all verses you can just take off on. But to him who does not work. Now you you have to go back and read some a little bit on this one to understand verses before and verses after. I hate taking a verse like this and reading it without reading the before and after, because you got to get in full context of it. But to him who does not work but believes on him who justifies the ungodly. Wait a minute. Justifies who we would call that an oxymoron. Justification and ungodly don't even go together. Well, the Bible says it does. He who justifies the ungodly, his faith is accounted for righteousness. And guess what? This dude didn't even do any work for it. It says for those who do not work. If you read about three verses ahead right here, you'll see what it talks about, the ones that do work. And we're talking about spiritual work is what we're talking about. We're not talking about a job. But if you go and read that, you'll get some great understanding on this verse here. There's some good stuff in there. Faith is like an open hand that he's offered. It's not the payment. We're not trying to pay God back for anything. Faith just means I believe this, I received this. Grace is wide, but response matters in Romans 5 and 18. Look what it says here. Therefore, as through one man's offense, one man's offense, we're talking about Adam. Through one man's offense, judgment came to all men. This is where we're talking about that headship, that federal headship. Adam represented who? All men. According to Scripture, not according to my opinion. According to Scripture, Adam represented all men, and judgment came to all men, resulting in condemnation. What is condemnation? I condemn myself. I beat myself up. I look down on myself. I'm not who I should be. I'm less than. Resulting in condemnation. Even so, through one man's righteous act, we just stepped over now from Adam to Jesus. Through one man's righteous act, the free gift came to who? All men. Resulting in justification of life. What does justification mean? It means justified. It means as if all that stuff, whatever your stuff is, we all got different stuff. Whatever your stuff is, it's justified as is as if it never happened. This is powerful scripture. This is scripture that we don't teach a lot because it messes with our with our theology. It messes with our assumed theology, the ones that were passed down to us. Because if you say this to people, man, they get all messed up. Because there is no way I come to church every Sunday. You come to church every Sunday. You know who you are. You're a man of God. You're a woman of God. There's no way that guy out here living on the street that strung out this morning can be just as justified as you are. See, religion has separated us. Religion always brings separation. It started in the garden when it wanted to separate us, and it's still separating us today. It's saying you cannot be the same as the man out there strung out on drugs. God cannot look at you the same way. It sounds good, it sounds right, but it ain't scriptural. And that challenges people because they don't want to hear that. Because in the church, we need to be able to divide people good, bad, saved, unsaved, heaven, hell. We got to be able to divide people up. Can we just have a church where we're going to say we're not going to be divided? That even if you think you're on your way to hell right now, you are welcome here. And we are still going to treat you just like we're going to treat everybody else. Why can't we just have a church like that? Now, do we want them to stay in that place? No, we want to give you understanding of who you are in Christ. We want things to change. But guess what? Christ died for you the same as he died for me. He died for the pastor at every single church, the same that he died for the ones that's never been to church. What happened on the cross was still the same. That's all we're saying. John 3 and 18. I just got a couple more here. He who believes in him is not condemned. But he who does not believe is condemned already because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. Here's a separation verse. This is why I put this one in here because I just talked about separation. This is a separation verse. What do I mean by that? We use this verse to separate people. You got the ones who believe. And then you got these old folks over here who don't believe. And we separate them. But if you go back, and this is one of those I pulled it out so you can see it, but you really need to read it in context, and it'll give you an understanding of what he's talking about here. When he's talking about the ones who are condemned, the ones who don't believe, they're condemned anyway. We use this to say they're condemned to hell. I've heard this verse taught, I don't know how many times, on sending people to hell. They're condemned to hell because they don't believe. I could very easily use this verse to teach that. I can't in this church because we taught against it enough, and you're educated on what these verses mean. And I don't mean that bragging, I'm just saying we've taught this stuff. So you understand context. This is talking about somebody who is condemned. You can be condemned in your life right now. Do you know that? You can be living in hell right now on earth in your life. There's people doing it today. But when my eyes open up, when I'm enlightened into the truth of who He is and my identity in Christ, things shift. And I'm no longer condemning myself. I'm no longer looking down on myself. Understanding my identity in Christ means what? Understanding that I was created in the image and the likeness of God Himself. It's understanding that I am like Him. They would take what I just said, I am like Him, and they would rip me apart for saying that. I'm being honest. They would get mad and say, Oh, you ain't God. Y'all ain't God. But then I would take them straight to the Bible where the verse says, As He is, so are we on the earth. What does that mean? That don't mean I'm God. It just simply means that I have the ability now, because the Holy Spirit lives on the inside of me, and anything that he can do, I have the ability to do. Jesus says, even greater things shall you do, because I went to the Father and I'm sending back the Holy Spirit. See, we get too religious with it. I'm not saying I'm God, I'm not saying you're God. I'm just saying that I am his child. And whatever daddy can do, the son, it usually gets passed down to the son. And I'm his son. You're his son. What verse am I on? Okay. Last couple right here, last two, I promise you. Love transforms more deeply than fear does. 1 John 4 and 18. There is no fear in love. But perfect love casts out all fear. Because fear involves torment. But he who fears has not been made perfect in love. I've seen this verse taught in a negative sense. There's nothing negative about this verse. This verse is talking about there is no fear in love. But perfect love casts out fear because fear involves torment. This is why I don't teach an angry father that's up there somewhere looking to just wait till we make a mistake so he can throw a lightning bolt down and get us. How am I going to truly love a father who I think is angry with me? It's not going to happen. Last verse, Romans 2 and 4. Or do you despise the riches of his goodness, forbearance, and long suffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leads you to repentance. What leads me to repentance? The goodness of God, but I want to stand up in an evangelistic sermon, an evangelistic crusade, and I want to tell everybody how they're going to burn in hell if they don't get to this order. Fear does not lead to repentance. According to Scripture, the goodness of God leads to repentance. I want to teach on the goodness of God. I want to teach on the love of God. I want to teach on the mercy of God, on the faithfulness of God, not on the fear of God. See, and even when we teach that verse, I don't think I went back to it earlier, the Matthew 10, 28, I think it was. Even in there where it says fear the one, that word fear, if you look it up in the Greek, it actually means to be in awe. It don't mean fear God as in being scared of God. It means to be in awe and to show reverence to him. So when we talk about fearing God, we're not talking about being scared of him. We say in being reverence of him, be in be in awe of him. I told a story. Can I give you two more verses real quick and I promise I'm in it? Oh, I'm sorry. Never mind. I skipped it. Ronnie went back to this other verse, and I thought I skipped one. I didn't. I'm good. So, this is exactly the gospel that Paul preached. Inclusion. When we talk about inclusion, inclusion does not add to Christ. It simply recognizes what he already accomplished. That's it. When we talk about living from the finished work, what does this mean? I'm going to answer this question and we're going to end right here, but I want you to understand this. What does it mean to live from the finished work of Christ? Confidence in salvation without self-reliance. I'm confident in salvation, not because of what I did, but because of who He is. Freedom from fear-based religion. Assurance that Christ has reconciled, included, and restored us. He brought back into relationship, he restored us back to who we were. The finished work is not, it's not passive. It produces obedience rooted in gratitude and not panic. So in closing, let's remember this: the gospel is not a fragile gospel. It does not need, listen, what we teach doesn't need fear to sustain it. That's why we're not, you're not going to hear me preach fear. There's some people who have come to this church and left this church simply because I refuse to preach on fear. And guess what? I'm totally okay with that. They can go to a church where they preach on fear. I'm not going to preach on fear. I'm not going to scare people into it. We're going to preach the truth of the gospel. We don't need fear to be added to it to make it more effective. It does not need human effort to complete it. The finished work of Christ is already enough to save, enough to reconcile, enough to include, and enough to transform lives. That's all we need. So stand on the truth. I think we need to teach this boldly. People ain't going to agree with you. I'm okay with that. Live it daily, love freely, trust fully, rest. See, when we understand our identity in Christ, that's when we get to a place of true rest. I'm not working anymore. You know how tiring it is to try to work yourself to a relationship with God? Number one, it's never gonna happen. And it's like you're on a treadmill, you're just going and going and going and going, and you're never getting anywhere. Why don't we just trust what he's already finished? Love freely, trust fully, rest deeply. The finished work is not another gospel. To me, it is the gospel, it's the truth, it's the good news. It's unshakable, it's complete, it's full of hope, it's full of love, and it's gonna stand up and support any other scripture that comes up. When we let scripture interpret scripture, and I believe this, this ain't got nothing to do with, I won't even use me, I'll use I'll use Sherry. If Sherry's preaching the gospel and she is letting scripture support scripture, she's never gonna be wrong. If I'd have said that about me, you might have said, oh, he thinks he's always right. No. Anybody who's preaching scripture will never be wrong if you let scripture interpret scripture. Now, if you try to bring all this other stuff in here to support it, it may be off. You may get out there a little bit. But as long as I can take you back to Scripture, it never contradicts itself. It's always going to support itself. So as long as I can take this word and use it to support what Jesus Christ said, I ain't got nothing to worry about. But the problem is we have got so far away from Scripture. Now listen to me here, I'm gonna end with this. We have got so far away from Scripture that when we come back and we preach the original scripture now, people call it another gospel. That's sad. That when we're preaching straight scripture, which I read you, I think 13 verses this morning, I read you verses straight from the gospel. And some people will look at him and say, He's preaching another gospel. Why? Because we've got so far from it, we've strayed so far from it that this don't even look like the real thing anymore. We got to get back to the real thing. We gotta get back to the truth of what the word says. I had a I had a guy ask me one day, he said, Well, do you believe what you're preaching is the truth? I said, Absolutely. I wouldn't be preaching it if I didn't. I mean, and as well, I understand that what they're preaching, they would say the same thing. So I'm not naive to that. I understand they would say the same thing. It's not about being right or wrong. It's about am I willing to go a little deeper? Am I willing to just open myself up and say, you know, I probably have not always been right. And I'm willing to go a little bit deeper, I'm willing to say there's a Possibility that I have misinterpreted this and I'm willing to dive in there and look at the look at the uh the truth behind it and look at the context of it. And if I'm willing to do that, then revelation is gonna come. Knowledge is gonna come. If I'm unwilling to do that, then I'm gonna stay right where I'm at. And I'm gonna look at somebody like that is doing it and say, that's another gospel. Unbiblical. I had one pastor tell me it was straight from the pits of hell. I'm like, that's Bible. So that's we have an option. I said this before. I believe that we are we are one of the, and I don't say this arrogantly, I say this because I'm proud of it. I believe that we are teaching something back to the original, and we're we're one of the only ones that's teaching it in this way, and I believe we're a forerunner in this because you see more and more churches. I'm telling you this, you go online and look, if you don't believe it, there's a lot of churches, and I'm talking denominations-wise, getting back to the truth of the gospel. There's a lot of them. You don't believe it, go on TBN. You'll see, if you've ever watched TBN in the years past and you watch it now, you'll see a huge difference in TBN. There's a lot of denominations going back to the truth of the gospel. We're South Georgia, we're the Bible Belt. It's a little harder to do it here because people will get offended at it. But that's we gotta be okay with that.