I Have to Earn It – Lies of the Enemy #9– Purity 1021

To see today's photo, go to mt4christ.org or follow me, M.t. Clark, on Facebook or Twitter. Good morning. Today's photo of a view of the mountains of Georgia along part of the Appalachian Trail, uh, comes to us from Fred Dimmick, who shared this scene from his visit to Hogpen Gap, Georgia, on social media a couple days ago. I'm sharing Fred's photo to mark our arrival at the midweek summit of Hump Day and as a reminder that in order to experience some good things in life, you're going to have to step up and work for it. I'm— in my limited research of Hogpen Gap this morning, I discovered that it was along the Appalachian Trail, and there is more than one way to get there. Yeah, I understand there's two pronunciations, and I think that second one the locals really like. Anyway, uh, one hike listed the distance as a mile. Another one, another from Neal's Gap to Hogpen Gap, gave a round trip distance of 16.1 miles. So how much walking or climbing you want to do is up to you, but I didn't see any ways to get there by doing nothing. To experience the view Fred experienced, you have to get up and work for it. Whether it's worth the trip or not would be up to you. My journey there would require me to get to Georgia first, so that won't be on the to-do list in the near future, but I understand that to experience this view, uh, it would cost me something. It would require time, money, and physical effort to hike my way there, and I don't get to experience it unless I'm willing to pay the cost. This is a basic concept of life here on Earth. If you want something, you're going to have to set goals and work for it. And believe you me, some things are definitely worth the sacrifices and hard work that it will take to experience them. However, as much as this is true, the enemy, Satan and his associate demons of the kingdom of darkness, just love to twist the things that are true to lead us astray and to steal, kill, and destroy our peace, if not our very lives. And so that brings us to our current series, which is an examination of some of the common lies that the enemy tells us to cause us to doubt our faith, steal our peace, or to influence us to choose not to follow the Lord in the way we live our lives. So today's big lie, uh, lie number 9, I think, uh, yeah, lie number 9 is I have to earn it. This is the lie from the pit of hell that kept me out of the kingdom of God and the joy of my salvation for most of my life. I was raised in a liturgical church setting, and although I knew that Jesus, quote unquote, died for our sins and was well acquainted with the fact that I was a sinner, I never had any hope that what Jesus did on the cross had the power to save me. My church tradition gave me the impression that I had to have faith in Jesus, but I also had to be a good person, and if I didn't walk straight and behave myself, I might very well find myself in hell at the hour of my death. Even though our church supposedly believed in Jesus' atoning work on the cross, I don't recall anyone ever proclaiming the joy or assurance of their salvation. Um, yeah, as a sinful youth and young adult, I knew I wasn't good, and even though I tried to stay out of trouble for the most part, My heart wasn't really into following any rules that would get in the way of me doing what I wanted. That included theft. You want something, take it. Just don't get caught. That included vandalism. Let's break it. Let's destroy it. Let's just not get caught. Look out, the cops. Um, that included sex. I don't care what, what, uh, they say at church. A man has needs, and I don't really— and I, and I'm not ready to get married. Just don't hurt anyone, get consent, and by all means do not get anyone pregnant. That included drunkenness. What? I can't drink? Since when? Watch me. Whatever. I'm sorry, I'm not a saint. So you can see why I didn't think I could ever earn my way to heaven. Not only was I not working towards it, I was actually doing things that would indicate that I was not a Christian. I was not a good person, and unless the Lord actually did recognize one baptism for the forgiveness of sins— I was baptized, right, Mom? Uh, I was on the highway to hell because the emphasis of my liturgical church was on the fact that I was a sinner and I had to be good and obey. I eventually decided that there was no God in religion. Was the creation of man and his efforts to control his neighbor. It was an ignorant view, born of my desire to sin, but because there seemed to be a performance aspect to Christianity that I seemed powerless and frankly unwilling to attempt to meet, I walked away from church and God. The enemy's lie that I have to earn it made me hopeless of having a relationship with God. I just couldn't do it. And I knew that if God was mean enough to crucify his own son who didn't do anything wrong, there was absolutely no hope for me. So I decided not to play his game because I knew I would lose, and so I gave up on God. But the Lord didn't give up on me, and in 2010 he directed my path when I was as far removed from Christianity as I could possibly be to hear a gospel message on the radio. In which I finally heard and understood the truth. Through a quote-unquote chance encounter, I heard the truth that I didn't have to earn it. I didn't have to be a good person to be accepted by God. I didn't have to make up for all the things I had done wrong. I didn't have to work for my salvation or forgiveness of sins. That radio message from David Jeremiah was all about the love of God and how it was expressed through Jesus paying for our sins on the cross. I didn't have to pay for my sins or earn my salvation. Christ had paid the cost, and God's grace made that payment cover all the sins of the world, including mine. My past, present, and future sins were paid for by Jesus, and all I had to do to redeem that payment was to put my faith in him as my Lord and Savior. I was simply amazed at the simplicity and the love of God's, uh, of God's gift to us. And because he revealed this to me, I was joyfully and tearfully compelled to accept it and dedicate my life to him that day. I had believed a lie based on the truth of an earthly principle that I had to earn my place in God's kingdom and was deaf and blind to the truth in God's word that tells us otherwise. Ephesians 2:8-10 tells us, for by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves. It is a gift— it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. We are not saved by works. We are saved through faith and by grace. It is a gift of God, and the good works are something we do after we are saved. The good works are something God prepares for us to do as evidence that we are his workmanship. Our salvation leads to— leads us to do good as representatives of, of God. Anyone who thinks we have to work to be saved has it backwards. We don't have to earn it. Salvation is a gift from God, and we only need to accept it. Smarter men than me— than I, uh, let's see, uh, smarter men than I have missed this fact. Uh, Martin Luther beat himself bloody and spent hours in his monastery's confessional trying to be absolved of every sin, real or imagined, and was utter— utterly without hope. However, uh, let's see, but then he examined the original Greek language of the New Testament scriptures and made a startling discovery: we are saved by faith. He testified later of seeing the truth in God's word through Romans 1:17. He said, at last, by the mercy of God, meditating day and night, I gave heed to the context of the words, namely, in it the righteousness of God is revealed, as it is written, he who He who through faith is righteous shall live. There I began to understand that the righteousness of God is that by which the righteous lives by a gift of God, namely by faith. And this is the meaning: the righteousness of God is revealed by the gospel, namely the passive righteousness with which merciful God justifies us by faith. We don't have to earn it. We have to earn— we don't have— we don't have to earn our forgiveness, our acceptance, or our place in God's kingdom. It comes by grace through faith in Jesus Christ and is a gift of God. Now we should— now we should study to be approved after we are saved. We should study God's word to renew our minds and be transformed into the people he wants us to be. But in many ways, that too, our sanctification, comes by faith, by simply knowing who we are in Christ and living like it. So don't believe the lie that I have to earn it. Instead, understand that Jesus paid the cost and did the work for you, and all we have to do is enjoy it and follow him into the pathways of peace to the abundant life that he gave to us. Rejoice, you have been saved by faith. Believe it, receive it, and live it. For those— and for those who don't like that, I am offering Frank Turek's, um, uh, website crossexamined.org. Uh, basically, if you don't like my simple apologetics, Frank gives great evidence for Christianity and for faith in Jesus Christ at crossexamined.org. So we invite you to go there. That moves us along to the verse of the day, and today's Bible verse comes to us from the New Living Translation Bible Promise Book for Men. This morning's meditation verse is Titus 1:2, and, uh, verse, chapter 1, verse 2, and it says, this truth gives them confidence that they have eternal life, which God, who does not lie, promised them before the world began. Today's verse reminds us of the benefits of knowing the truth. This actually goes well with today's message on salvation by grace and through faith. I encourage Christians to study the Bible. Why? If we are saved by grace and through faith in Jesus, what do I need the Bible for? Well, right, right. Well, today's verse tells us why. This truth in today's verse indicates not only the gospel message of Jesus's atoning work It also indicates the Word of God, the Bible, because verse 1 of Titus 1, Paul states that this truth shows them how to live godly lives. Paul was a big Bible scholar, you know, he was a Pharisee of the Pharisees by his own admission, but he understood that all the Bible knowledge, all the Bible knowledge didn't mean anything if it didn't lead you to Christ. However, likewise and paradoxically, he understood that a life that was redeemed by faith in Jesus needed the wise counsel of the scriptures to guide us in the way of the Lord. Not only would the knowledge of the truth help them to live godly, uh, lives, it would also give them the confidence that they have eternal life as God's promises in the Old Testament all made sense in the light of the Messiah's coming. Jesus fulfilled the prophecies of the Messiah and not only encouraged people to put their faith in him, he also encouraged their repentance, changing their minds from their worldly ways to follow the word of God and his example. When we have the confidence that the promises of God apply to us and that we have received eternal life, we are moved to follow the one who saved us and gave us life. We are compelled to follow Jesus. As always, I encourage— I invite all to go to mtforchrist.org, where I always share insights from prominent Christian theologians and counselors to assist my brothers and sisters in Christ with their walk. Today we continue sharing from A.W. Pink's The Sovereignty of God. We are in the conclusion, and we are in the last section of the conclusion, so You would— might— you might think that would mean this is the last day we're sharing from it, but actually there's an appendix or two from that, from the book, uh, that we're gonna share as well. So if you want to see how the story ends, um, you can, um, you can go to mt4christ.org and see what, uh, A.W. Pink has to say about God's wisdom in the government of our world shall yet be completely vindicated before all created intelligencies. So yeah, you probably want to read that, read the rest of that to see what he's talking about. But basically it's all about God's sovereignty and his concluding thoughts on his book on that subject. As I stated though, there's more coming from A.W. Pink in the days ahead as we will completely share that resource by sharing the appendixes. There's at least two, I know that much, and we'll share every bit of wisdom because, uh, in my estimation, A.W. Pink's exposition of the scriptures are, are sound. And so we share that research. We were inspired by this book in our walk of faith, and so we're sharing it on the blog to encourage others to, uh, to know the truth and be comforted that God is sovereign, that God is in control, and that God is working all things together for good for those who love him and are called according to his purpose. So we just need to answer the call and, uh, you know, figure out what our purpose is in the Lord. And, um, I, I like to believe that my purpose, um, was not just to study books, um, but to, to be an encouraging word, uh, an encouraging voice in the world for Christian discipleship. And that's why we do the blog and do the podcast. We're greatly benefited from it personally, so we'd probably do it anyway, but the fact that anyone would listen or read the blog is a great encouragement to me, and I pray that God uses it to bless more people, and that's what we're doing, and we'll keep doing it until we get the call not to do it any longer, and I'm not sure how that will come, but we'll see. For today, we, we're working stiff, you know. We— I, I put, I put wires in the ground right now. They're having me doing buried service, which is burying telephone wires or fiber cables underneath the dirt. So you can't get more humble than that. And so we humbly pray. Lord God, Heavenly Father, thank you for another day in your kingdom. Lord, we thank you so much for all you've done for us through the truth of your word and the the work of Jesus Christ on the cross to save us and redeem us and to make us new and give us eternal life. Um, Lord, we thank you for all of that. And, uh, Lord, we thank you for the people who are on the path of this Christian discipleship with us, the ones who are listening to, to the— this message or reading this message on the blog. Lord, we pray for you to bless them. We pray for you to come alongside them in their prayer request and to help them, um, to become the people that you want them to be. And, um, to bless them. Lord, we, we thank you for what you've done for us, and, um, we just pray for, for, for today. We pray for you to go before us, and we pray for you to show us the things you want us to see and to do the things you would have us do, Lord, because we finally understand the truth that we're loved and that we are now part of your family and that We really should represent you on the earth. And so, Lord, we need— we need your help, um, with that. And so we ask for you to guide us and, and help us today. And Lord, we just want you to know that we love you, we praise you, and we thank you for all these things. In Jesus' name, amen.