SPEAKER_00: This sermon was recorded at Faith Evangelical Free Church in Grand Forks, North Dakota.
SPEAKER_01: Good morning.
SPEAKER_01: I want to tell you a story about a stranger from Estonia.
SPEAKER_01: The title of my message is The Stranger from Estonia.
SPEAKER_01: And one day I was deeply immersed in study and preparing for Sunday's message when my secretary came to my door saying, There's a stranger in the front office, and I think he is from Estonia.
SPEAKER_01: He says he has an appointment with you to tell you more about his books.
SPEAKER_01: What?
SPEAKER_01: A stranger from Estonia here in rural Northern California?
SPEAKER_01: An encyclopedia salesman at my door.
SPEAKER_01: I thought by myself, didn't encyclopedia salesman all die out after Y2K and the invention of Wikipedia?
SPEAKER_01: But nevertheless, this stranger from Estonia impressed me right off the bat.
SPEAKER_01: He introduced himself with a firm but sweaty handshake.
SPEAKER_01: It was a mere 110 degrees in the shade in that time of the year.
SPEAKER_01: An interruption at first turned into opportunity for God.
SPEAKER_01: I agreed to listen to this stranger from Estonia who said to me, He wants to tell me about his books.
SPEAKER_01: I agreed to listen upon condition he listens to my presentation about my book.
SPEAKER_01: He shook my hand again with a sweaty palm and all, saying, deal.
SPEAKER_01: I listened to his sales spiel and paid a hefty price for it.
SPEAKER_01: I got a set of encyclopedias for my kids containing information that I could have gotten on the infra internet for free.
SPEAKER_01: But then it was my turn to talk about the book.
SPEAKER_01: And I said to him, the information in this book is infinitely more valuable than his books.
SPEAKER_01: I asked him, What is his religion?
SPEAKER_01: And he said to me, he had no religion.
SPEAKER_01: I asked him if he'd ever heard about God, the God of creation, the Bible, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, and he had no clue.
SPEAKER_01: I asked him then if he thought he was a good person, and he said, Of course, I think I am a good person.
SPEAKER_01: Not a perfect person, but a good person.
SPEAKER_01: I questioned him.
SPEAKER_01: And this is where things went downhill for him.
SPEAKER_01: I asked him if he ever cheated.
SPEAKER_01: He says, yes, I have.
SPEAKER_01: I said, have you ever told a lie?
SPEAKER_01: He said, Yes, I have told a lie before.
SPEAKER_01: I said, Well, have you ever stolen something?
SPEAKER_01: He says, Yeah, if I've stolen a few things in my life.
SPEAKER_01: I said, Wow.
SPEAKER_01: By your own admission, you were a thief, a cheater, and a liar, and I just bought a$200 set of encyclopedias from you.
SPEAKER_01: He chuckled.
SPEAKER_01: And I said to him, At least you and I have a few things in common.
SPEAKER_01: I'm from South Africa, you from Estonia, but both of us have turned away, all we both have become worthless, for there is none who does good, not even one.
SPEAKER_01: He was not prepared for this bad news, which I promptly shared with them, but I soon began leading the stranger of Estonia to the gospel.
SPEAKER_01: First I gave him the bad news, then I gave him the good news.
SPEAKER_01: I took him through parts of the Bible, beginning in Genesis, and then we camped a little bit in the book of Romans.
SPEAKER_01: I learned this little trick from Paul, who evangelized strangers in Rome.
SPEAKER_01: First he gave them the bad news, and then he gave them the good news of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: I will tell you a little more about this stranger from Estonia, how that turned out.
SPEAKER_01: But for now, I'm gonna talk a little bit about the E word.
SPEAKER_01: Please don't say the E-word.
SPEAKER_01: It is a bad word.
SPEAKER_01: But nevertheless, let's read Romans 1, 15 to 17.
SPEAKER_01: Romans 1 15 to 17.
SPEAKER_01: So for my part, I am eager to preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome.
SPEAKER_01: For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.
SPEAKER_01: For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith, as it is written, but the righteous man shall live by faith.
SPEAKER_01: Let's ask God's blessing on this word, and I pray, Jesus, that you will guide me and give me the clarity of mind and speech to exposite and make plain the meaning of this passage.
SPEAKER_01: I pray this in Jesus' wonderful name.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: I think the central truth of Romans 1, 15 to 17 is actually a response.
SPEAKER_01: It is an answer to three age-old questions.
SPEAKER_01: Three problematic questions that was asked way back in the time of Job.
SPEAKER_01: Job is one of the oldest books in the Bible chronologically.
SPEAKER_01: And Job 4, 17 says, it's a question, can a mortal man be righteous before God?
SPEAKER_01: Can a mortal man be right before God?
SPEAKER_01: Can a man be more pure than his maker?
SPEAKER_01: Job repeats this kind of thinking.
SPEAKER_01: And Job 9, 2 says, Yes, I know what you have said is true, but how can a man be justified before God?
SPEAKER_01: How can any person be justified before God?
SPEAKER_01: Job 25, 4.
SPEAKER_01: How can a human be justified before God?
SPEAKER_01: How can one born of a woman be pure?
SPEAKER_01: These are very profound questions.
SPEAKER_01: These are very important questions, and this is the question that I want to ask you.
SPEAKER_01: Are you right with God?
SPEAKER_01: Are you prepared to meet your Maker today and say, yes, I am right with them.
SPEAKER_01: I can look him in the eye.
SPEAKER_01: Romans 1, 15 to 17 will engage us a little more in answering these three profound questions.
SPEAKER_01: And hopefully, it might have us rethink how we do the E-word.
SPEAKER_01: And hopefully, it gives us a little more confidence in doing what is called the E-Word.
SPEAKER_01: The E-word is a bad word.
SPEAKER_01: Do you know what that word is?
SPEAKER_01: It's called evangelism.
SPEAKER_01: I don't want to say it too much because we fear that word.
SPEAKER_01: We fear that word would drive people away from Jesus Christ when in fact they're already alienated and driven away from Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: You can't drive them away anymore than they already are.
SPEAKER_01: But I'm going to give you three things here to rethink.
SPEAKER_01: Number one is how do we share the gospel?
SPEAKER_01: How do we share the gospel?
SPEAKER_01: Next is why do we share the gospel?
SPEAKER_01: Why do we share the gospel?
SPEAKER_01: And number three, what is in the gospel?
SPEAKER_01: And every time we talk about sharing the gospel, we can use the E-word evangelizing.
SPEAKER_01: How do we share the gospel?
SPEAKER_01: Is a question that people often have differing opinions over.
SPEAKER_01: And how do we evangelize?
SPEAKER_01: The answer is simple.
SPEAKER_01: You open your mouth and you start speaking.
SPEAKER_01: You see, there are those ardent supporters of the social gospel who would say something like this preach the gospel all the time.
SPEAKER_01: If necessary, use words.
SPEAKER_01: Have you heard that before?
SPEAKER_01: That's utter nonsense.
SPEAKER_01: Okay?
SPEAKER_01: That is sentimental and profoundly false.
SPEAKER_01: Let me read to you Romans 1:15.
SPEAKER_01: So for my part, I am eager to preach the gospel.
SPEAKER_01: And whenever Paul uses that phrase, preach the gospel, in most instances you can substitute it with one word.
SPEAKER_01: Evangelize.
SPEAKER_01: It comes from the Greek word yuganglitsu.
SPEAKER_01: It is often translated, mostly translated, as preaching the gospel.
SPEAKER_01: My Greek lexicon says this word, youvangelitsumai, means to announce, to herald, to properly proclaim what?
SPEAKER_01: The good message of glad tidings.
SPEAKER_01: Paul's methodology of evangelizing strangers was simple.
SPEAKER_01: He opened his mouth and he spoke.
SPEAKER_01: Paul was not about being silent and let his life preach the gospel.
SPEAKER_01: He did not engage in philanthropy or mercy ministry or making some good service in the community, but rather making a declaration.
SPEAKER_01: Now, yes, Paul did do deeds of kindness, mercy ministry, mercies of uh ministries of compassion.
SPEAKER_01: But in the end, he always made a declaration.
SPEAKER_01: Turn to Acts chapter four.
SPEAKER_01: I want to show you something there, which is a pattern, and you can look it up at home.
SPEAKER_01: But look at Acts four verse two.
SPEAKER_01: Being greatly disturbed because they were teaching the people and proclaiming in Jesus the resurrection from the dead.
SPEAKER_01: Paul proclaimed and spoke God's solution to humanity's greatest problem.
SPEAKER_01: It was not something that was done, but it was declaring things already done.
SPEAKER_01: The result of the apostles opening their mouths to articulate the gospel of Jesus Christ had profound results.
SPEAKER_01: Look at the result in verse 4.
SPEAKER_01: But many of those who had heard the message believed it, and the number of the men came to be about 5,000.
SPEAKER_01: But there's a pattern, and you can jot down these verses if you want to, but go look at the pattern all through the book of Acts.
SPEAKER_01: Evangelism is done by opening one's mouth.
SPEAKER_01: Apostolic evangelism was not so much about doing good things, it was more about declaring good things already done.
SPEAKER_01: As one Dr.
SPEAKER_01: Michael Hordon said, he said the Great Commission is about making a great declaration.
SPEAKER_01: It is making a declaration that answers humanity's greatest problem.
SPEAKER_01: And what is humanity's greatest problem?
SPEAKER_01: Is how can a mortal man be right with the righteous God?
SPEAKER_01: Can you answer that for someone?
SPEAKER_01: If a stranger from Estonia or from South Africa knocks on your door, selling your encyclopedias, can you answer that question?
SPEAKER_01: Paul's evangelistic ministry and all the apostles' evangelistic ministry was not about humanitarian projects or serving the community.
SPEAKER_01: Neither was it about being a good example but remain silent.
SPEAKER_01: No, their evangelism was coupled with all these things, yet they were focused on making verbal proclamations and at times written communications.
SPEAKER_01: The pattern of articulating, teaching, and explaining the gospel to people and how to get right with God is replete through the book of Acts, and you have the references there, you can look it up.
SPEAKER_01: But in summary, if God is to be glorified through our evangelistic efforts, it must be about things that we say, not so much about the things we do.
SPEAKER_01: Evangelism is about speaking things, not doing things.
SPEAKER_01: Okay?
SPEAKER_01: Evangelism is about speaking things, not doing things.
SPEAKER_01: Now doing things are important, and that's why we have Anthony here from Child Evangelist Children's Hunger Phone.
SPEAKER_01: But we have to speak the truth.
SPEAKER_01: For I am not ashamed, says Paul in verse 16.
SPEAKER_01: For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.
SPEAKER_01: The answer then to this question is how do we evangelize?
SPEAKER_01: We let the lion out of the cage.
SPEAKER_01: Dwight Moody.
SPEAKER_01: All of you have heard about Dwight Moody, that unashamed evangelist who profoundly declared the gospel.
SPEAKER_01: He once commented, he said the gospel is like a lion.
SPEAKER_01: All Christians have to do is open the door of the cage and get out of the way.
SPEAKER_01: He says the gospel is not simply a display of power, but it is effective in its operation.
SPEAKER_01: It is God's power leading people to get saved.
SPEAKER_01: It has purpose, it has direction.
SPEAKER_01: We need to let the lion out of the cage, but we need to step out of the way.
SPEAKER_01: And this is the greatest problem we have in today's society is we are ashamed of letting the lion out of the cage.
SPEAKER_01: We are ashamed of sharing the gospel with people.
SPEAKER_01: And this is point number two I want to make is asking the question, why do we share the gospel?
SPEAKER_01: Why do we share the gospel?
SPEAKER_01: Why do we evangelize?
SPEAKER_01: The simple answer is so that people get saved.
SPEAKER_01: We must know that it is the gospel that is powerful, not a bag of tricks.
SPEAKER_01: We must proclaim nothing but the gospel.
SPEAKER_01: But the problem is, we get in the way because we are ashamed of it and therefore we tone it down, we dilute it, and we want people to like us first before they like Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: The world needs to hear the gospel because it's the great solution to man's greatest problem.
SPEAKER_01: The gospel is God's solution to humanity's greatest problem.
SPEAKER_01: Can I tell you climate change is not humanity's greatest problem, Caleb?
SPEAKER_01: He was laughing, so I picked him out there.
SPEAKER_01: Humanity's greatest problem is they do not know how to get right with the righteous God.
SPEAKER_01: That is humanity's greatest problem.
SPEAKER_01: And so, secondly, we must understand as to why we share the gospel is that it has the power of salvation.
SPEAKER_01: And we must remember it does not rest beyond our words, our action, or our example.
SPEAKER_01: Because we are not the power unto salvation.
SPEAKER_01: You see, I get a kick of it when people say, yeah, I'm evangelizing people at work.
SPEAKER_01: Well, how are you doing this?
SPEAKER_01: I'm just being a good example to them.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, wonderful.
SPEAKER_01: So you're a better example than Jesus, are you?
SPEAKER_01: I mean, so your example is now all of a sudden become the power of salvation.
SPEAKER_01: I'm not saying you're to live a bad example, but a good example is not enough.
SPEAKER_01: It's not cutting it, okay?
SPEAKER_01: It's not cutting it.
SPEAKER_01: What does cut it is when we let the lion out of the cage and people believe the lion and embrace it in faith, and then people get saved.
SPEAKER_01: For it says there, it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes.
SPEAKER_01: An intelligent man like Job grappled with this idea.
SPEAKER_01: He lived a very long time, so I thought he probably spent quite a bit of time thinking about this, and he was thinking, how does an unrighteous man like me get right with the righteous God?
SPEAKER_01: That is the question all through Job.
SPEAKER_01: Job 4.17 asks two very profound questions that the gospel answers.
SPEAKER_01: Job 4.17.
SPEAKER_01: Can a mortal be more righteous than God?
SPEAKER_01: Question number one.
SPEAKER_01: Question number two, can a man be more pure than his maker?
SPEAKER_01: And the answer to both those questions, no, never.
SPEAKER_01: There is no amount of human goodness, no amount of kindness, no amount of generosity and compassion and mercy that we can exert to make us righteous in the eyes of God.
SPEAKER_01: And so the scales of divine justice and divine favor will never tip in favor of humanity.
SPEAKER_01: You see, humans tend to think if they could just do more good deeds, then it will somehow balance out in the end and we're good with God.
SPEAKER_01: And Job's answer to his rhetorical question is this will never happen.
SPEAKER_01: Never ever will the scales of divine favor tipped in favor of humans who think they can meet God's standards for goodness, purity, holiness, and righteousness.
SPEAKER_01: You all know Isaiah 64, 6, don't you?
SPEAKER_01: Read it out loud so we can declare the bad news to people.
SPEAKER_01: 1, 2, 3, for all of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like filthy garments, and all of us wither like a leaf, and our iniquities like the wind take us away.
SPEAKER_01: And you can put in there in parentheses to God's wrath or to hell.
SPEAKER_01: So here's the first reality that all human beings must grapple with is that every human being is morally unclean.
SPEAKER_01: Their best efforts to clean themselves up is an offensive stench to a pure and holy God.
SPEAKER_01: They stink.
SPEAKER_01: So we need to tell people that they are not good enough and they don't do enough good.
SPEAKER_01: The reality is that all humans are wholly unable to clean themselves up and hence unable to be right with God.
SPEAKER_01: The second reality is here that all people are not good enough.
SPEAKER_01: You might begin sharing the bad news with somebody on the show.
SPEAKER_01: So are you saying I'm not good enough?
SPEAKER_01: Yep, you're not good enough.
SPEAKER_01: And you don't do enough good to impress God.
SPEAKER_01: You are unable to perform enough goodness and good deeds in order to be right with God.
SPEAKER_01: It's impossible.
SPEAKER_01: And this is where the power of the gospel is.
SPEAKER_01: The power of the gospel is to save people and save them from what?
SPEAKER_01: What are we being saved from?
SPEAKER_01: God's wrath.
SPEAKER_01: Romans 5, 9.
SPEAKER_01: Much more than having been justified by his blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God.
SPEAKER_01: Hebrews 10, 30.
SPEAKER_01: For we know him who said, Vengeance is mine, wrath is mine, I will repace his God.
SPEAKER_01: Again, the Lord will judge his people.
SPEAKER_01: It is a terrible thing to fall into the hands of the living God.
SPEAKER_01: Hebrews 10, 31.
SPEAKER_01: People need to know they are being saved.
SPEAKER_01: But the question everybody has, from what?
SPEAKER_01: From what am I being saved?
SPEAKER_01: You are being saved from the wrath of God.
SPEAKER_01: Why?
SPEAKER_01: Because you're not good enough.
SPEAKER_01: You're not good enough, and every time you try and clean yourself up and do some good things to impress God, it stinks in the nostrils of God.
SPEAKER_01: The gospel is the power of God for salvation from the wrath of God to everyone who believes.
SPEAKER_01: To the Jew first, then also to the Greek.
SPEAKER_01: The gospel is God's solution to get this.
SPEAKER_01: Every culture, every tribe, and every tongue.
SPEAKER_01: And this must be articulated, communicated, and explained to every culture, tribe, and tongue, including the people here in Grand Forks.
SPEAKER_01: John Piper says this.
SPEAKER_01: He says, God desires people to become disciples of Jesus Christ, but we must tell them that there is a problem and that Jesus came to fix that problem.
SPEAKER_01: He says this problem was unleashed by the first Adam in the Garden of Eden, leading to the corruption and condemnation of every culture, tribe, and tongue.
SPEAKER_01: People from Estonia who think they're good people.
SPEAKER_01: People from South Africa who think they're people who can do good things to impress God, they must know there is a problem with God.
SPEAKER_01: And Jesus is the solution to that problem.
SPEAKER_01: Lo and behold, this is one thing I've learned in life.
SPEAKER_01: If the gospel is faithfully proclaimed, it will be heard by people.
SPEAKER_01: And if it can be heard by people, people have the opportunity to believe upon it.
SPEAKER_01: But if we don't speak it, people can't hear it.
SPEAKER_01: If they don't hear it, they can't believe it.
SPEAKER_01: Acts 16, 31.
SPEAKER_01: Believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved.
SPEAKER_01: You and your household.
SPEAKER_01: Everyone in the household who believes, you will be saved.
SPEAKER_01: Here's no discrimination.
SPEAKER_01: Every tribe and tongue and every culture that believes upon the Lord Jesus Christ will be saved.
SPEAKER_01: And lo and behold, faithful evangelism promises and guarantees that everyone who believes the gospel will in the end be saved from the wrath of God.
SPEAKER_01: Romans 10, 9.
SPEAKER_01: However, what is evangelism?
SPEAKER_01: What is faithful evangelism?
SPEAKER_01: And that brings me to my third point here, dear brother and sister, is that we got to ask ourselves if we are going to evangelize people, if we are going to share the gospel with them, we got to decide what is the gospel?
SPEAKER_01: What is the central truth to the gospel?
SPEAKER_01: What is the central propositional truth of the gospel?
SPEAKER_01: And I do believe it's revealed for us here in Romans 1.17.
SPEAKER_01: Read with me.
SPEAKER_01: For in it, what is the in it?
SPEAKER_01: The gospel.
SPEAKER_01: Even put it in there for you.
SPEAKER_01: For in it, for in the gospel, what?
SPEAKER_01: The righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith, as it is written, but the righteous man shall live by faith.
SPEAKER_01: This is, of course, this last portion is a quote from Habakkuk 2, verse 4.
SPEAKER_01: So this is not something new in the Bible.
SPEAKER_01: It's not just a New Testament thing.
SPEAKER_01: Everyone in times before Jesus Christ was saved by faith alone.
SPEAKER_01: But what does those all mean, dear brother and sister?
SPEAKER_01: Do you want to tell me that there is a righteousness that comes by faith?
SPEAKER_01: And the answer is yes, there is a righteousness that comes by faith.
SPEAKER_01: You can't find that righteousness in yourself.
SPEAKER_01: You can't conjure up, you can't practice it, you can't learn it, you can't do it.
SPEAKER_01: It is a righteousness that is alien to us.
SPEAKER_01: It is a righteousness that is foreign to us.
SPEAKER_01: But that passage begins with, in the righteousness of God.
SPEAKER_01: What does it mean if we say in the righteousness of God?
SPEAKER_01: It means that God is righteous.
SPEAKER_01: And this is where any false religion, in all honesty, those so-called gods are not righteous.
SPEAKER_01: Because their sense of justice is corrupt.
SPEAKER_01: You see, any false religion says, well, if you could just do kind of enough bad good deeds to outdo the bad deeds, you can go into heaven.
SPEAKER_01: That's the one option.
SPEAKER_01: The other option is God will just turn the blind eye and you can sneak into heaven.
SPEAKER_01: Or you have the universalist God who just says, it's all okay, doesn't matter how bad you were, everybody gets saved in the end.
SPEAKER_01: That is a distortion of justice, and that's a distortion of righteousness.
SPEAKER_01: Imagine a criminal.
SPEAKER_01: Think of the vilest person you can think of today, the vilest person, okay?
SPEAKER_01: Think of that person in front of a grand jury, and the jury says, we find the defendant guilty beyond reasonable doubt of all these crimes.
SPEAKER_01: And then the judge says, I have considered the verdict of the jury, but in considering all the person's good deeds and the bad deeds the person has done, somehow it's all balanced out.
SPEAKER_01: You are free to go.
SPEAKER_01: Imagine we have judges like that.
SPEAKER_01: Would you say that is a righteous judge?
SPEAKER_01: Of course not.
SPEAKER_01: And so somehow, breaking the law must be punished.
SPEAKER_01: You can't balance out your bad deeds with your good deeds.
SPEAKER_01: But if God and somehow will let free the guilty, he is not a righteous God, he is an unjust God, he is a wicked God.
SPEAKER_01: But it says that God declares righteous the unrighteous.
SPEAKER_01: How can God declare the unrighteous to be righteous?
SPEAKER_01: How can God be just and righteous Himself and say, yes, you are guilty, but you are now righteous?
SPEAKER_01: Then let me explain this to you.
SPEAKER_01: There are at least seven central propositional truths about the gospel that we must answer for people.
SPEAKER_01: We need to simplify it, but not make the gospel simplistic.
SPEAKER_01: You see, we live in an age of Pop-Tarts, right?
SPEAKER_01: Four seconds and you can have breakfast.
SPEAKER_01: If you want to do it the good old way, you put it in the toaster oven.
SPEAKER_01: That takes like 20 seconds.
SPEAKER_01: The gospel is not like that.
SPEAKER_01: The gospel takes time, it takes effort, it takes you to try and make it simple to people, but yet make it not simplistic.
SPEAKER_01: Number one, we must communicate that the gospel casts aside all human efforts, all human merits, and then turns to the good works, the good efforts, and the good merits of another person that is truly righteous.
SPEAKER_01: So God just scraps all human effort.
SPEAKER_01: He just puts it in the wastebasket.
SPEAKER_01: Number two, the gospel then looks to the perfect sacrifice of a son as payment for the penalty of sin.
SPEAKER_01: God treats the innocent as if he was guilty.
SPEAKER_01: And because God does that and punishes the innocent, we are able to erase the certificate of debt with all its obligations that was against us and opposed to us, and he has taken it away by nailing it to the cross.
SPEAKER_01: You see, everything that you and I have done wrong.
SPEAKER_01: Cheating, lying, stealing?
SPEAKER_01: Oh well, I've done none of those.
SPEAKER_01: I have done none of those.
SPEAKER_01: I've never done anything wrong.
SPEAKER_01: Good.
SPEAKER_01: Have you done everything perfectly good?
SPEAKER_01: Have you loved the Lord your God with your whole heart and strength and mind perfectly every day?
SPEAKER_01: And have you loved your neighbor as you've loved yourself every day perfectly?
SPEAKER_01: So it's not just the bad we've done.
SPEAKER_01: We've not done enough good to please God.
SPEAKER_01: And so God takes all that.
SPEAKER_01: All those, what is called here the certificates of debt, Colossians 2, 14.
SPEAKER_01: He takes it and he nails it on the cross and he puts his son on that cross.
SPEAKER_01: So sin is dealt with.
SPEAKER_01: Thirdly, the gospel then declares the unrighteous to be right with them apart from their efforts, their interventions, or meritorious works.
SPEAKER_01: Because Romans 1:17 says the just shall live by faith.
SPEAKER_01: The only way that you will not die an eternal death is to love, is to have faith.
SPEAKER_01: Faith makes it possible for us to be regarded as righteous or to count as righteous or to be credited with righteousness.
SPEAKER_01: But in declaring us righteous, God takes another man's righteousness and imputes it to us.
SPEAKER_01: He credits to us through faith.
SPEAKER_01: Listen to 2 Corinthians 5.21.
SPEAKER_01: He made the one who did not know sin to be sin for us, so that we in him might become the righteousness of God.
SPEAKER_01: Dr.
SPEAKER_01: R.
SPEAKER_01: C.
SPEAKER_01: Sprawl, nobody can say it better than him.
SPEAKER_01: God freely, by his grace, provides righteousness to people who don't have a righteousness of their own.
SPEAKER_01: It is an alien righteousness, a righteousness that belongs properly to somebody else.
SPEAKER_01: It is a righteousness that is extranus.
SPEAKER_01: That is a Latin phrase.
SPEAKER_01: It means outside of us, namely the righteousness of Christ.
SPEAKER_01: So what is taking place here is God takes the righteousness, all the perfect good works of Jesus Christ, all his acts of obedience and law following and kindness and mercy and compassion, everything good he has done.
SPEAKER_01: And he's done that perfectly good, and he credited credit it credits us with that.
SPEAKER_01: And this is the fifth point.
SPEAKER_01: And this is the good news.
SPEAKER_01: We can get right with God, but there's a transaction that takes place.
SPEAKER_01: And the currency is faith.
SPEAKER_01: Romans 4 5.
SPEAKER_01: But to the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is credited as righteousness.
SPEAKER_01: Romans 4 5.
SPEAKER_01: So if we think about this crediting that takes place, we must remember it is not the basis of our salvation, but the means of obtaining salvation.
SPEAKER_01: Let me explain this for you quickly, because lunch is coming up and I am hungry.
SPEAKER_01: Romans 425.
SPEAKER_01: Well, let's begin with 4.24.
SPEAKER_01: But for our sake also, to whom it will be credited.
SPEAKER_01: It will be credited as those who believe in him.
SPEAKER_01: There's a crediting that takes place when someone believes in who?
SPEAKER_01: The man that God raised from the dead, which is good.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 25.
SPEAKER_01: He was delivered over because of our transgressions and was raised because of our justification.
SPEAKER_01: Now, this is how I have heard the gospel misrepresented and testimonies distorting the gospel.
SPEAKER_01: You see, we ask people this question.
SPEAKER_01: If you would die today, and Jesus asked you, why should I allow you into heaven?
SPEAKER_01: The path answer is, because I believed.
SPEAKER_01: Because I believed.
SPEAKER_01: And we pat the person on the back and we say, well, well, that's a good answer.
SPEAKER_01: Rubbish.
SPEAKER_01: Is this the reason why you're here today?
SPEAKER_01: Because you believed?
SPEAKER_01: What a good old boy you are, Anton.
SPEAKER_01: I believe there's not the right answer.
SPEAKER_01: The right and correct answer is because of you.
SPEAKER_01: Because you died on that cross.
SPEAKER_01: Because you lived a perfect, righteous life, because you obeyed the law perfectly.
SPEAKER_01: Because you are good enough, and only you are good enough.
SPEAKER_01: That is why I'm here.
SPEAKER_01: Not because I believed it.
SPEAKER_01: Because then we are there because of our faith.
SPEAKER_01: And then faith saves.
SPEAKER_01: We gotta get it right.
SPEAKER_01: We got it right.
SPEAKER_01: We got to get it right.
SPEAKER_01: Look carefully at Romans 4.25.
SPEAKER_01: Very carefully, and tell me if I'm wrong here.
SPEAKER_01: He who was delivered over because of our transgression.
SPEAKER_01: Who is that speaking about?
SPEAKER_01: Jesus going to the cross.
SPEAKER_01: And he was raised because of our faith.
SPEAKER_01: Is that what it says?
SPEAKER_01: He was raised from the dead because of our justification.
SPEAKER_01: This may sound like semantics, but I think this is a very serious thing.
SPEAKER_01: Faith is not the basis.
SPEAKER_01: We are not saved because of our faith.
SPEAKER_01: We are saved by means of faith.
SPEAKER_01: The because is Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: Because he died and was raised from the dead, we can be declared righteous.
SPEAKER_01: But our faith had nothing to do with anything that happened that day on the cross.
SPEAKER_01: Romans 117, I think, answers in fully Job's conundrum.
SPEAKER_01: How can a man born of a woman be right with God?
SPEAKER_01: How?
SPEAKER_01: Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Just give people Romans 424 and 425.
SPEAKER_01: It is Jesus that saves, not our faith.
SPEAKER_01: Our faith is merely the means of procuring another man's righteousness.
SPEAKER_01: As the that old English evangelist John Stuttg once said, for unless all human works, merits, and cooperations and contributions are ruthlessly excluded, and Christ's son-bearing death is seen in its solitary glory as the only ground of our justification, boasting cannot be excluded.
SPEAKER_01: If you and I am saved because of our faith, if our faith is the basis of our salvation, you know what we will spend an eternity in heaven saying?
SPEAKER_01: I believed, I believed.
SPEAKER_01: Hi grandpa, I believed, I'm here because I believed.
SPEAKER_01: And no credit will go to Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: As someone said, even if faith was the 1% and Christ did the 99%, we will spend an eternity bragging about the 1% we did.
SPEAKER_01: We have to ruthlessly exclude all human merits, even the merits that we think we have because we have believed.
SPEAKER_01: John Calvin once said it is an insult to the glory of God if we seek a righteousness outside Christ.
SPEAKER_01: Our righteousness and our faith has nothing to do with our salvation.
SPEAKER_01: It has everything to do with the righteousness of Christ that we procure by means of faith.
SPEAKER_01: Does the Bible not say by grace through faith are you saved?
SPEAKER_01: Or does the Bible say by grace because of faith?
SPEAKER_01: The first or the latter?
SPEAKER_01: By grace through faith.
SPEAKER_01: I think this old hymn.
SPEAKER_01: By Augustus Top Lady sums it up very nicely.
SPEAKER_01: Nothing in my hands I bring simply to thy cross I cling.
SPEAKER_01: You and I have nothing to bring, dear brothers and sister.
SPEAKER_01: Nothing in my hands I bring simply to thy cross I cling.
SPEAKER_01: Simply to thy cross I cling.
SPEAKER_01: Now let's go back and finish up with the salesman, the encyclopedia salesman from Estonia.
SPEAKER_01: What do you think happened there?
SPEAKER_01: Well, it was on that hot summer's day of June 18, 2014, that this stranger of Estonia, by God's providence, visited me and my office.
SPEAKER_01: Yet this man was referred to me by no less than five Christian homes.
SPEAKER_01: I asked him, how did you know about me?
SPEAKER_01: That guy and that guy and that guy and that guy and that guy in your parish referred me to you.
SPEAKER_01: I thought, do these people have nothing better to do than send an encyclopedia of sales payment to the pastor's office?
SPEAKER_01: But you know what deeply grieved me and saddened me?
SPEAKER_01: By the time he visited five homes, none of them bothered to open their mouths and practice the E-word.
SPEAKER_01: The E-word was considered something so offensive that would drive this man away.
SPEAKER_01: You can't drive the God any further away.
SPEAKER_01: He is as far away from the gospel as possibly can.
SPEAKER_01: Nothing you can do will tip him into the gates of hell.
SPEAKER_01: He's already under the wrath of God.
SPEAKER_01: Throw a lasso out, throw a hook out, throw a net out and bring him in.
SPEAKER_01: Not a single person evangelized that poor soul from Estonia.
SPEAKER_01: Yet everybody thought they evangelized me.
SPEAKER_01: And I called some of these folk.
SPEAKER_01: I said, hey, bro, what's up here with the encyclopedia sales guy?
SPEAKER_01: Did you not evangelize him?
SPEAKER_01: Oh, I did, Pastor, I did.
SPEAKER_01: What did you do?
SPEAKER_01: Well, I was nice to him.
SPEAKER_01: I gave him cookies and we uh we bought a set of encyclopedias.
SPEAKER_01: Really?
SPEAKER_01: Is that evangelism?
SPEAKER_01: Well, we try to be a good example.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah, let's talk later.
SPEAKER_01: No, I didn't do that.
SPEAKER_01: I was nice.
SPEAKER_01: Outwardly.
SPEAKER_01: My dear brothers and sisters, there are many people who come here by God's sovereign design.
SPEAKER_01: Are we gonna remain silent?
SPEAKER_01: Are we gonna rely on our example, our good works, and try to make an impression on people?
SPEAKER_01: Or are we gonna articulate the gospel in unadulterated, unashamed form?
SPEAKER_01: Can we communicate the gospel?
SPEAKER_01: Can we?
SPEAKER_01: Are we able to put the right ingredients in there for someone to be saved?
SPEAKER_01: No one will ever be saved by a false or distorted or watered-down gospel, my dear brothers and sisters, are you able to answer this question for someone?
SPEAKER_01: How can a mortal man like me be righteous with a righteous God?
SPEAKER_01: How can I get right as an unrighteous person with a God infinitely holy and righteous?
SPEAKER_01: The Lord has laid it on my heart to begin training people in the E-Word.
SPEAKER_01: I really think we have a great opportunity here in Grand Forks.
SPEAKER_01: We have a great congregation.
SPEAKER_01: We are a biblical congregation.
SPEAKER_01: We exalt the Lord, Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: We love the gospel.
SPEAKER_01: But I wonder if we ask ourselves, how good are we with evangelizing the lost?
SPEAKER_01: How good are we with articulating the gospel?
SPEAKER_01: We might give ourselves a good grade, but really, in all honesty, we might need a little help.
SPEAKER_01: And that's why I'm going to plan in the full to do some equipping and training to make evangelism not the E-word.
SPEAKER_01: Are you with me?
SPEAKER_01: Thank you, Tim.
SPEAKER_01: Rich will be your reward in heaven.
SPEAKER_01: Are you with me?
SPEAKER_01: Yes, no, we can.
SPEAKER_01: By his grace.
SPEAKER_01: Dear Heavenly Father, we love you, and this gospel is so infinitely amazing, amazing good news to a bad news people.
SPEAKER_01: We are the good news people to bad news people.
SPEAKER_01: We have the answer to humanity's greatest problem.
SPEAKER_01: We have your solution to humanity's greatest problem.
SPEAKER_01: Help us, Lord, to be not uh afraid or fearful or ashamed of sharing the gospel and sharing the gospel in an unadulterated, undiluted form.
SPEAKER_01: I pray, God, we need help.
SPEAKER_01: We need help.
SPEAKER_01: The fields are white and ready for harvest.
SPEAKER_01: I pray, Jesus, that we will make use of every opportunity to share the gospel.
SPEAKER_01: We pray this in Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: That concludes this sermon from Faith Evangelical Free Church.
SPEAKER_00: Our mission is to declare the Word of God and disciple believers into mature, devoted followers of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: You can learn more by visiting our website at faithfree.com.