 
# The Gospel — It's Not Fair!  
And Other Essays About the Gospel

By Joseph Tkach

Copyright 2014  
Published by Grace Communion International

All scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com   
The "NIV" and "New International Version" are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.™

### Table of Contents

The Gospel—It's Not Fair

What Are Human Beings?

Is Jesus the Only Way of Salvation?

A New Look at the Good Samaritan

Grace

Grace and Truth

Heart Trouble

An Anchor for Life

Make This the Worst Day of Your Life

In God We Trust

In Christ We Trust

Responding to God With Faith

How Baptism Pictures the Gospel

On Being a Child of God

Our Relationship With Jesus Christ

The Joy of Salvation

Living the Gospel

About the Author

About the Publisher

Grace Communion Seminary

Ambassador College of Christian Ministry

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## The Gospel: It's Not Fair!

Jesus didn't carry any swords or spears. He didn't have an army behind him. His only weapon was his mouth, and it was his message that got him into trouble. He made people so angry that they wanted to kill him.

### A dangerous message

His message was seen not merely as wrong—it was dangerous. It was subversive. It threatened to upset the social world of Judaism. But what kind of message could make the religious leaders so angry that they would kill the messenger?

One idea that could anger the religious leaders is found in Matthew 9:13: "I have not come to call the righteous, but the sinners." Jesus had a message of good news for sinners, but people who considered themselves good often thought that Jesus preached bad news.

Jesus invited prostitutes and tax collectors into the kingdom of God, and the good people didn't like that. "That's not fair," they may have said. "We have been working hard to be good, and why can they get into the kingdom without working hard? If you don't keep sinners out, it isn't fair!"

They thought that Jesus was saying that God is not fair. Even today, people don't like to hear that idea. Good Christian people want God to be fair—but he isn't.

Most people think that fairness requires equal treatment for everyone, but when it comes to salvation, God simply isn't fair.

### More than fair

God is more than fair. His grace is far beyond anything we could deserve. God is generous, full of grace, full of mercy, loving us even though we don't deserve it.

That kind of message bothers religious leaders and all who say that the harder you work, the more you will get; if you behave better, you will get a better reward. Religious leaders like to have that kind of message, because it makes it easy to motivate people to work hard, to do right, to live right.

But Jesus says, It isn't so.

If you have dug a really deep pit for yourself, if you have messed up time and time again, if you have been the worst sort of sinner, you don't have to work your way out of the pit to be given salvation. God simply forgives you for the sake of Jesus. You don't have to deserve it—God simply does it. You just need to believe it. You need to trust God, to take him at his word: Your million-dollar debt is removed from the record.

That is good news for ordinary people.

But it seems that some people are distressed at this kind of news. "Look, I've been working hard to get out of the pit," they might say, "and I am almost out. You mean to tell me that 'those' people are pulled out of the pit instantly, without having to do any work at all? That's not fair!"

No, grace is not "fair"—it is grace—it is a gift we did not deserve. God can be generous to whomever he wants to be generous to, and the good news is that he offers his generosity to everyone. It is fair in the sense that it extends to everyone, even though this means that he forgives some people a big debt, and some people a smaller debt—the same arrangement for all even though there are different circumstances.

### A parable of unfairness

Matthew 20 includes the parable of the workers in the vineyard. Some people worked all day long in the heat of the day. Some worked only half a day, and some worked only one hour, but they all got paid the same amount, a day's wage. Some got exactly what they agreed to, but others got more. However, the people who worked all day long said, "That's not fair. We worked all day long, and it's not fair to pay us the same as those who worked less" (see verse 12).

But the people who worked all day got exactly what they had agreed to before they began work (verse 4). The only reason they got upset was because other people got more than they deserved.

What did the boss say? It was this: "Don't I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?" (verse 15).

The boss said they would be given a fair day's wage for a fair day's work, and they were—and yet they complained. Why? Because they compared themselves with others and they got the shorter end of the stick. They got their hopes up, and then they were disappointed.

But the landowner said: "I am doing you no wrong. If you think it's not fair, the problem is in what you expected, not in what you actually got. If it hadn't been for the amount I paid the newcomers, you would be quite happy with what I gave you. The problem is in your expectations, not in what I did. You accuse me of being bad, simply because I was good _to someone else_ (see verse 15).

How would you react to this? What would you think if your boss gave a bonus to the newest employees, but not to the old faithful workers? It would not be very good for morale, would it? But Jesus was not giving us payroll advice here—he was telling a parable about the kingdom of God (verse 1).

The parable reflected something that was happening in Jesus' ministry. God was giving salvation to people who hadn't worked very hard, and the religious leaders said: "That's not fair. You can't be generous to them. We've been working hard, and they have hardly been working." Jesus replied, "I am bringing good news to sinners, not to the righteous." His teaching threatened to undermine the normal motive for doing good.

### Where do we fit in?

We might like to think that we have worked all day long, bearing the burdens and the heat of the day, deserving a good reward. But we have not.

It doesn't matter how long you've been in the church or how many sacrifices you have made—those are nothing in comparison to what God is giving us. Paul worked harder than any of us; he made more sacrifices for the gospel than we realize, but he counted it all as a loss for Christ. It was nothing.

The time we've spent in the church is nothing to God. The work we've done is nothing compared to what he can do. Even at our best, as another parable says, we are unprofitable servants (Luke 17:10). Jesus has bought our entire lives; he has a fair claim on every thought and every action. We cannot possibly give him anything on top of that—even if we do everything he commands.

We are like the workers who worked only one hour and got a whole day's wage. We just barely got started, and we were paid like we actually did something useful. Is that fair? Maybe we shouldn't even ask the question. If the judgment is in our favor, we shouldn't ask for another opinion!

Do we think of ourselves as people who have worked long and hard? Do we think we deserve more than we are getting? Or do we see ourselves as people who are getting an undeserved gift, regardless of how long we've worked?

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## What Are Human Beings?

When we look at the heavens, when we consider the moon and stars, when we consider the enormity of the universe and the stupendous powers involved in each star, we might well wonder why God bothers with us at all. We are so small, so limited—like ants scurrying to and fro inside a terrarium. Why should we think that he even looks at this anthill called Earth, and why would he even care about each individual ant?

Modern science is expanding our awareness of how large the universe is, and how powerful each star is. In comparison to the universe, humans are no more significant than a few randomly moving molecules—but yet it is humans who are asking the questions of significance. It is humans who develop the science of astronomy, who explore the universe without ever leaving home. It is humans who turn the universe into a springboard for spiritual questions. It reminds me of Psalm 8:

#### When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars that you have established; what are human beings that you are mindful of them, mortals that you care for them? Yet you have made them a little lower than God, and crowned them with glory and honor. You have given them dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under their feet (Psalm 8:3-6, quotes in in this article are from the NRSV).

### Like animals

So, what are human beings? Why does God care about them? They are in some ways like God himself, yet inferior, yet crowned by God with honor and glory. Humans are a paradox, a mystery—tainted with evil, and yet believing that they should behave morally. So corrupt in power, but yet having power over other living things. So far below God, and yet called honorable by God himself.

What are human beings? Scientists call us _Homo sapiens,_ a member of the animal kingdom. Scripture calls us _nephesh,_ a word that is also used for animals. We have spirit in us, just as animals have spirit in them. We are dust, and when we die, we return to the dust, just as animals do. Our anatomy and our physiology is like that of an animal.

But Scripture says that we are much more than animals. There is a _spiritual_ aspect to human beings—and science cannot tell us about this spiritual part of life. Nor can philosophy; we cannot come up with reliable answers just by thinking about it. No, this part of our existence must be explained by revelation. Our Creator needs to tell us who we are, what we are supposed to do, and why he cares. We find answers in Scripture.

Genesis 1 tells us that God created all things: light and darkness, land and sea, sun and moon and stars. Pagans worshipped these things as gods, but the true God is so powerful that he can call them into existence just by speaking a word. They are totally under his control. Whether he did it in one day, six days, or six billion years is not nearly as important as the fact _that_ he did it. He said it, it was done, and it was good.

As part of all creation, God also created humans, and Genesis tells us that we were created on the same day as the animals. The symbolism of this seems to say that we are in some respects like the animals. That much we can see for ourselves.

### The image of God

But the creation of humans is not described in the same way as everything else. There is no, "And God said...and it was so." Instead, we read, "Then God said, 'Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness; and let them have dominion'" (Genesis 1:26). Who is this "us"? The text does not explain, but it is clear that humans are a special creation, made in the "image of God."

What is this "image"? Again, the text does not explain, but it is clear that humans are special.

Many theories have been suggested for what "the image of God" is. Some say it is intelligence, the power of rational thought or speech. Some say it is our social nature, our ability to have a relationship with God, and male and female reflecting relationships within the Godhead. Others suggest it is morality, the ability to make decisions that are good or evil. Some say the image is our dominion over the earth and its creatures, that we are like God's agents to them. But dominion itself is godly only if done in a moral way.

Exactly what the first readers understood from this phrase is open to question, but it seems to say that humans are in some way like God himself. There is a supernatural significance to who we are, and our importance lies not in being like animals, but in being like God. Genesis does not tell us much more. We learn in Genesis 9:6 that each human is in God's image even after humanity sinned, and for that reason murder must not be tolerated.

The Old Testament does not mention "the image of God" again, but the New Testament gives more meaning to the phrase. There we learn that Jesus Christ, the perfect image of God, reveals God to us in terms of his self-sacrificial love. We are to conform to the image of Christ, and by doing so we achieve the full potential that God intended for us when he made us in his image. The more we let Jesus Christ live in us, the closer we are to God's purpose for our lives.

Let's go back to Genesis, for it tells us more about _why_ God cares so much about people. After saying, "Let's do it," he did it: "So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them" (Genesis 1:27).

Women and men are both made in the image of God; they have equal spiritual potential. Similarly, social roles do not change a person's spiritual value—a person of high intelligence does not have more value than one with a low intelligence, nor does a ruler have more value than a servant. We are _all_ made in the image and likeness of God, and all humans deserve love, honor and respect.

Genesis then tells us that God blessed the humans, telling them, "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth" (verse 28). God's command is a blessing, which is what we would expect from a gracious God. In love, he gave humans the responsibility to rule the earth and its living things. The humans were his stewards, taking care of his property.

Modern environmentalists sometimes accuse Christianity of being anti-environmental. Does this mandate to "subdue" the earth and to "rule" the animals give humans permission to destroy the ecosystem? Of course not. Humans are to use their God-given power to serve, not to destroy. They are to exercise dominion in the way that God does.

The fact that some humans misuse this power, and misuse this scripture, does not change the fact that God wants us to use it well. If we skip ahead in the story, we will learn that God told Adam to till and _keep_ the garden. He could eat the plants, but he was not to use up or destroy the garden.

### Life in the garden

Genesis 1 concludes by noting that everything was "very good." Humanity was the crown, the capstone of creation. This was just the way God wanted it to be—but anyone who lives in the real world realizes that something is now terribly wrong with humanity. What went wrong? Genesis 2 and 3 explain how an originally perfect creation became messed up. Some Christians take the account at face value; others view it more as a parable. Either way, the theological message is the same.

Genesis tells us that the first humans were named _Adam_ (Genesis 5:2), the common Hebrew word for "human." The name _Eve_ is similar to the Hebrew word for _living_ —"The man named his wife Eve, because she was the mother of all living" (3:20). The names Adam and Eve, to use modern terms, mean Human and Everyone's Mother. What they did in Genesis 3—sin—is what humanity as a whole has done; the story illustrates why humanity is in a less-than-perfect situation. Humanity is typified by Adam and Eve—humanity lives in rebellion against its Creator, and that is why sin and death characterize all human societies.

Note the way that Genesis 2 sets the scene: an ideal garden, somewhere that no longer exists, watered by a stream. The picture of God shifts from a cosmic commander, to a nearly physical being who walks in a garden, who plants trees, who shapes a person out of the ground, who breathes into his nostrils to give him life. Adam was given something more than animals had, and he became a living soul, a _nephesh._

Yahweh, the personal God, "took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and keep it" (verse 15). He gave Adam instructions about the garden, asked him to name all the animals, and then created a woman to be a companion for Adam. Again, God became personally involved, physically active in creating the woman.

Eve was a "helper" for Adam, but that word does not imply inferiority. The Hebrew word is most often used for God himself, who is a helper to humans in our needs. Eve was not invented to do the work Adam didn't want to do—Eve was created to do something that Adam was unable to do on his own. When Adam saw her, he recognized that she was basically the same as he was, a God-given companion (verse 23).

The narrator concludes chapter 2 on a note of equality: "A man leaves his father and his mother and clings to his wife, and they become one flesh. And the man and his wife were both naked, and were not ashamed" (verses 24-25). This is the way that God meant it to be, the way it was before sin entered the picture. Sex was a divine gift, nothing to be ashamed of.

### Something went wrong

But now the serpent enters the story. Eve was tempted to do something that God had forbidden. She was invited to follow her emotions, to please herself, instead of trusting the instruction of God. "When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate; and she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate" (3:6).

What went through the mind of Adam? Genesis does not say. The point of the story in Genesis is that _all_ humans do what Adam and Eve did—we ignore the word of God and do what we please, making up excuses as we go. We can blame it on the devil if we want to, but the sin is still within us. We want to be wise, but we are foolish. We want to be like God, but we are not willing to be the way he _tells_ us to be.

What did the tree stand for? The text does not tell us anything more than "the knowledge of good and evil." Is it experience? Is it wisdom? It is moral authority? Whatever it represents, the main point seems to be that it was forbidden, and that it was nevertheless eaten. The people had sinned, had rebelled against their Creator, had chosen to go their own way. They were no longer fit for the garden, no longer fit for "the tree of life."

The first result of their sin was a changed way of viewing themselves—they saw something wrong with their nakedness (verse 7). Even after making loincloths, they were afraid of being seen by God (verse 10). They made lame excuses.

God explained the consequences: Eve would bear children, which was part of the original plan, but now it would be with great pain. Adam would till the ground, which was part of the original plan, but now it would be with great toil. And they would die. In fact, they were already dead. "In the day that you eat of it you shall die" (2:17). Their true life in union with God was over. All that was left was mere physical existence, far less than the true life God intended. But there was potential, for God still had his plans.

There would be struggle between the woman and the man: "Your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you" (3:16). People who take matters into their own hands (like Adam and Eve did) instead of following instructions are likely to have conflict, and brute strength usually prevails. This is the way society is, once sin has entered the picture.

So the scene has been set: The problem that humans find themselves in is their own fault, not God's. He gave them a perfect start, but they blew it, and everyone ever since has been infected with sin. But despite human sinfulness, humanity continues to be in God's image—tarnished and dented, we might say, but still the same basic image.

This divine potentiality still defines who human beings are, and this brings us to the words of Psalm 8. The cosmic commander still cares about human beings because he made them a little bit like himself, and he gave them authority over his creation—an authority they still have. There is still honor there, there is still glory, even though we are temporarily lower than we were designed to be. If our vision is good enough to see this picture, it should lead us to praise: "O Lord, our Sovereign, how majestic is your name in all the earth!" (Psalm 8:1, 9). God is to be praised because he has a plan for us.

### Christ, the perfect image

Jesus Christ, God made flesh, is the perfect image of God (Colossians 1:15). He was fully human, showing us exactly what a human being ought to be: perfectly obedient, and perfectly trusting. Adam was a type of Jesus Christ (Romans 5:14), and Jesus is called "the last Adam" (1 Corinthians 15:45). "In him was life, and the life was the light of all people" (John 1:4). Jesus restored the life that was lost through sin. He is the resurrection and the life (John 11:25).

What Adam did for physical humanity, Jesus Christ does for the spiritual revision. He is the starting point of the new humanity, the new creation (2 Corinthians 5:17). In him, everyone will be made alive again (1 Corinthians 15:22). We are born again. We are starting over, this time on the right foot. Through Jesus Christ, God is creating the new humanity, and sin and death have no power over this re-creation (Romans 8:2; 1 Corinthians 15:24-26). The victory has been won; the temptation has been rejected.

Jesus is the one we are to trust, and the model we are to follow (Romans 8:29-35); we are being transformed into his image (2 Corinthians 3:18), the image of God. Through faith in Christ, through his work in our lives, our imperfections are being stripped away, and we are being brought closer to what God wants us to be (Ephesians 4:13, 24). We are going from one degree of glory to another—to a much higher glory!

We do not yet see the image in all its glory, but we are assured that we will. "Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust [Adam], we will also bear the image of the man of heaven [Christ]" (1 Corinthians 15:49). Our resurrected bodies will be like Jesus Christ's: glorious, powerful, spiritual, heavenly, imperishable, immortal (verses 42-44).

John put it this way: "Beloved, we are God's children now; what we will be has not yet been revealed. What we do know is this: when he is revealed, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is" (1 John 3:2-3). We don't yet see it, but we know it will happen, for we are God's children, and he will _make_ it happen. We will see Christ in his glory, and that means that we will also have a similar glory, able to see spiritual glory.

Then John adds this pastoral comment: "All who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure" (verse 3). Since we will be like him then, we try to be like him now.

Humanity is a multilevel being: physical and spiritual. Even the natural human is made in God's image. No matter how much a person sins, the image is still there and the person is of tremendous value. God has a purpose and plan that includes every sinner.

Through faith in Christ, a sinner becomes a new creation, modeled after the second Adam, Jesus Christ. In this age, we are just as physical as Jesus was during his earthly ministry, but we are being refashioned into the spiritual image of God. This spiritual change means a change of attitude and behavior, brought about because Christ lives in us and we live by faith in him (Galatians 2:20).

If we are in Christ, we will bear the image of God perfectly in the resurrection. We cannot fully grasp what that will be like, and we do not know exactly what the "spiritual body" will be, but we know that it will be extremely good. Our gracious and loving God will bless us with as much as we can enjoy, and we will praise him forever!

When you look at others, what do you see? Do you see the image of God, the potential for greatness, the image of Christ being formed? Do you see the beauty of God's plan at work in giving grace to sinners? Do you rejoice that he redeems a humanity who went astray? Do you rejoice at the majesty of the wonderful plan of God? Do you have the eyes to see?

This is far more wonderful than the stars. It is a far more glorious creation. He has given his word, and it is so, and it is _very_ good.

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## Is Jesus the Only Way of Salvation?

People sometimes object to the Christian belief that salvation is available only through Jesus Christ. In our pluralistic society, tolerance is expected, even demanded, and the concept of freedom of religion (which permits all religions) is sometimes misinterpreted to mean that all religions are somehow equally true.

All paths lead to the same God, some say, as if they have traveled all of them and have come back from the destination. They are not tolerant of the narrow-minded folks who believe in only one way, and they object to evangelism, for example, as an insulting attempt to change the beliefs of other people. Yet they themselves want to change the beliefs of people—those who believe in only one way.

Does the Christian gospel teach that Jesus is the only way of salvation?

### Other religions

Most religions are exclusive. Orthodox Jews claim to have the right path. Muslims claim to have the best revelation of God. Hindus believe that they are right, and Buddhists believe what they do, not surprisingly, because they think it is right. Even the modern pluralists believe that pluralism is more right than other ideas.

All paths do not lead to the same God. The different religions even describe different gods. The Hindu has many gods, and describes salvation as a return to nothingness—certainly a different destination than the Muslim emphasis on monotheism and heavenly rewards. Neither the Muslim nor the Hindu would agree than their paths eventually lead to the same destination. They would fight rather than switch; the Western pluralists would be dismissed as condescending and uninformed, an offense to the people that the pluralists do not want to offend.

We believe that the Christian gospel is correct, while at the same time allowing people to not believe it. As we understand it, faith requires that people have liberty not to believe. But while we affirm the right for people to believe as they decide, this does not mean that we believe all faiths are true. Allowing other people to believe as they wish does not mean that we have to quit believing what we do.

### Biblical claims

Jesus' earliest disciples tell us that he claimed to be the one and only path to God. He said, If you don't follow me, you will not be in the kingdom of God (Matthew 7:26-27). If you reject me, you will not be with me in eternity (Matthew 10:32-33). People who reject Jesus probably wouldn't want to be with him in eternity, anyway.

Jesus said that God "has entrusted all judgment to the Son, that all may honor the Son just as they honor the Father. He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father, who sent him" (John 5:22-23). Jesus claimed to be the exclusive means of truth and salvation. People who reject him are also rejecting God, because God is just like Jesus.

"I am the light of the world," he said (John 8:12). "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you really knew me, you would know my Father as well" (John 14:6-7). People who claim that there are other ways to salvation are wrong, Jesus said.

Peter was equally blunt when he told the Jewish leaders, "Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven...by which we must be saved" (Acts 4:12).

Paul also made it clear when he said that people who did not know Christ were "dead in your transgressions and sins" (Ephesians 2:1). They had no hope, and despite their religious beliefs, they did not have God (verse 12). There is only one Mediator, he said—only one way to get to God (1 Timothy 2:5). Jesus was the ransom that everyone needed (1 Timothy 4:10). If there were any other set of instructions, or any other path that offered salvation, then God would have provided it (Galatians 3:21).

It is through Christ that the world is reconciled to God (Colossians 1:20-22). Paul was called to spread the gospel among the Gentiles. Their religion, he said, was worthless (Acts 14:15). The book of Hebrews says: Christ is not just better than other paths—he is effective whereas they are not (Hebrews 10:11). It is an all-or-nothing difference, not a difference of one being a little better than the others.

The Christian teaching of exclusive salvation is based on what Jesus said, and what the Scriptures teach. This is tightly linked to who Jesus is, and our need for grace.

### Our need for grace

The Bible says that Jesus is the Son of God in a unique way. As God in the flesh, he gave his life for our salvation. Jesus asked if there might be some other way, but there was none (Matthew 26:39). Salvation comes to us only through God himself entering the human world to suffer the consequences of sin, to free us from sin, as his gift to us.

Most religions teach some form of works as the path of salvation—saying the right prayers, doing the right things, hoping it will be enough. They each teach that theirs is the right way. They teach that people can be good enough if they try hard enough. But Christianity teaches that we all need grace because we cannot be good enough no matter what we do or how hard we try.

It is impossible for both ideas to be true at the same time. The doctrine of grace teaches, whether we like it or not, that no other paths lead to salvation. We either rely on what we do, or we rely on what God has done in Jesus Christ.

### Future grace

What about people who die without hearing about Jesus? What about people who lived before Jesus was born, in a land thousands of miles away? Do they have any hope?

Yes—precisely because the Christian gospel is the gospel of grace. People are saved by God's grace, not by pronouncing the name "Jesus" or having special knowledge or special formulas. Jesus died for the sins of the whole world, whether they know it or not (2 Corinthians 5:14; 1 John 2:2). His death was an atoning sacrifice for everyone—past, present, future, Palestinian or Peruvian.

We are confident that God "wants everyone to come to repentance" (2 Peter 3:9). Although his ways and times may often be invisible to us, we nonetheless trust him to love the humans he has made. Jesus said plainly: "God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him" (John 3:16-17).

We believe that the resurrected Christ has conquered death, and therefore not even death can pose any barrier to his ability to lead people to trust him for salvation. We don't know the hows or whens, but we can trust him. Therefore we can believe that one way or another, he urges every person who ever lived, or who ever will live, to trust in him for salvation. That might be before they die, at the point of death, or even after they die. At the last judgment, if some people turn to Christ in faith when they at last learn what he has done for them, then he will certainly not turn them away.

But no matter when people are saved, or how well they understand it, it is only through Christ that they can be saved. Well-intentioned good works will never save anyone, no matter how sincerely people believe that they can be saved if they try hard enough. The whole point of grace, and of Jesus' sacrifice, is that no amount of good works, no amount of religious deeds, can ever save anyone. If such a path could have been devised, then God would have done it (Galatians 3:21).

If people have sincerely tried to attain salvation by working, meditating, flagellating, self-immolating or any other humanly devised means, then they will learn that their works do not earn them anything with God. Salvation is by grace, and only by grace. The Christian gospel teaches that no one can earn it, and yet it is available to all.

No matter what religious path a person has been on, Christ can rescue them from it and set them on his own path. He is the only Son of God, who provided the only atoning sacrifice that everyone needs. He is the unique channel of God's grace and salvation. This is what Jesus himself taught as true. Jesus is exclusive and inclusive at the same time—the narrow way and the Savior of the entire world—the only way of salvation, yet available for all.

God's grace, shown most perfectly in Jesus Christ, is exactly what everyone needs, and the good news is that it is freely given to all. It's great news, and it's worth sharing.

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## A New Look at the Good Samaritan

The Good Samaritan is one of Jesus' most popular parables. Preachers often use it to encourage people to be unselfish, to think ahead and help others. But there is more to the story than that. Jesus was doing far more than putting hypocritical religious leaders in their place. Let's take a closer look.

#### A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, when he fell into the hands of robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half dead.

#### A priest happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side. So too, a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side.

#### But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him. He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, took him to an inn and took care of him. The next day he took out two silver coins and gave them to the innkeeper. "Look after him," he said, "and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have."

#### Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers? (Luke 10:30-37)

The answer to Jesus' question was obvious. But I want to show you that Jesus was teaching much more than a simple lesson in social responsibility. Let's consider the context. Jesus was answering a lawyer who had asked, "What must I do to inherit eternal life?" (verse 25).

This man was a religious lawyer, priding himself in his understanding of all 613 points of the Torah. The religious leaders of Jesus' day had inherited a system that had turned obedience to God into an obstacle course, so strewn with picky dos and don'ts that it left the average person on a permanent guilt trip.

This approach contradicted what Jesus taught, and confrontation became inevitable. The lawyers, along with the Pharisees, Sadducees, scribes and others in religious leadership, were constantly trying to discredit Jesus. There was a motive behind the lawyer's apparently innocent question.

So Jesus let the expert speak first: "What is written in the law?" He asked. "How do you read it?" (verse 26).

The lawyer knew the answer: "'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind'; and, 'Love your neighbor as yourself'" (verse 27).

"You have answered correctly," Jesus replied. "Do this and you will live" (verse 28).

It was a good answer, as far as it went. But you know what lawyers are like. They are trained to look for some extenuating circumstance that might in some way limit the extent of the law. The lawyer knew that the command to "love your neighbor as yourself" was difficult, in fact, impossible to fulfill. So he thought he had found a loophole.

"And who is my neighbor?" he asked Jesus. That is when Jesus gave his famous parable.

### Cast and location

Jesus set his story on the road from Jerusalem to Jericho, a distance of about 17 miles. Jerusalem was where the Temple was located, the center of the Levitical priesthood. The priests were the highest class of the Levites. They were supported by thousands of other Levites who served at lower levels, doing such tasks as keeping the altar fire going, lighting the incense, singing in the Temple chorus and playing musical instruments.

When they were not on duty, many of these priests and temple workers lived in Jericho, which had become a "bedroom community" of Jerusalem. They often traveled this road between Jerusalem and Jericho.

Travel in those days could be hazardous. One stretch of the Jericho road was known as the "Way of Blood," because so many people were robbed and killed there. This was where Jesus set the scene for his parable. People knew exactly where he was talking about.

In Jesus' story, the first person to see the victim is a priest, but rather than get involved, he passes by on the other side of the road. He is followed by a Levite, a temple-worker. The Levite does the same—he passes by. Then along comes a Samaritan.

A _what?_ Jesus would have caused a stir with that. The Samaritans were a mix of Jew and Gentile, and the Jews did not like them. They had names for Samaritans like "half breeds" and "heathen dogs," and considered them to be spiritually defiled. The Jews of that time did not often hear the words "good" and "Samaritan" used in the same sentence.

But in Jesus' story, it is this outcast who stops to help. Not only does this Samaritan help, but he goes far beyond what most people do. He cleans the victim's wounds with oil and wine. Then he bandages them. People didn't carry first-aid kits back then. He likely would have had to tear up some of his own clothing to make a bandage. Next, he puts the injured man on his donkey and takes him to an inn. He takes two silver coins, a considerable amount in those days, and promises to reimburse the innkeeper for any further expense.

This is an exceptional level of assistance, especially as the victim is a total stranger and someone who is supposed to be a social enemy. But the Samaritan did not let that stand in the way.

With this deceptively simple little story, Jesus impales the lawyer on his own hook. He asks him, "Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?" (verse 36). Jesus has turned the question around. He is not asking, "Which people should I help?" He is saying: To answer the question, you need to put yourself into the shoes (or lack thereof) of the man who was beaten and left to die. The better question is: "When I need help, who will help me?" Don't you _hope_ that the Samaritan will be a neighbor to you?

Who was a good neighbor? The answer is obvious, but the expert in the law didn't want to say the word _Samaritan,_ so he said, "The one who had mercy on him."

Then Jesus delivers the knockout blow: "Go and do likewise" (verse 37).

Remember, this "teacher of the law" was from a class of people who prided themselves on how carefully they obeyed God. For example, they would not even pronounce God's name, considering it too holy to utter. They would even take a ritual bath to ensure purity before writing God's name. Along with the Pharisees, they were fastidious about observing the law in every detail.

The lawyer had asked what he needed to do in order to inherit eternal life. Jesus' answer was, in effect, "You have to do the impossible." Your love for others needs to extend far beyond what humans are capable of doing.

### A story of salvation

How could anyone be expected to live up to the standard of the Samaritan in this story? If that is what God expects, even the meticulous lawyer was doomed. But Jesus had chosen his words carefully. He was showing that humans cannot meet the perfect requirements of the law. Even those who dedicate themselves to it fall short. Jesus is the only one to fulfill the law in its deepest intent. Jesus alone is the Good Samaritan.

Jesus knew that there is nothing we can "do" to earn an eternity with a holy God. So he crafted his answer-story at two levels of meaning. On the surface, it made the point that people ought to love and do good to their enemies. But on a deeper level, it addressed the question of eternal life.

To answer the question, we need to put ourselves in the place of the man who was beaten and left to die. He represents us—all humanity. The robbers correspond to sin and the forces of evil, the devil and his dominion. We do not have enough strength to combat these forces, and if we are left to ourselves, we will die.

The priest and the Levite represent the laws and sacrifices of the old covenant. They can't help us. The Good Samaritan is the only one who can help. The wine and the oil correspond, roughly, to the blood Jesus shed for us and the Holy Spirit who dwells in us. That is what heals us.

The inn could then represent the church, where God puts his people to be spiritually nurtured until he returns for them. Jesus pays for this ongoing need in our life, too.

Jesus used the lawyer's question to show how inadequate for salvation even the best human effort is, and how wonderful and sure is his work of redemption for humanity. Jesus, and only Jesus, can rescue us from the "Way of Blood." And he did it by way of his own blood.

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## Grace

"If righteousness could be gained through the law," Paul wrote, "Christ died for nothing!" (Galatians 2:21). The only alternative, he says in this same verse, is "the grace of God." We are saved by grace, not by keeping the law.

These are alternatives that cannot be combined. We are not saved by grace plus works, but by grace alone. Paul makes it clear that we must choose either one or another. "Both" is not an option (Romans 11:6). "If the inheritance depends on the law, then it no longer depends on a promise; but God in his grace gave it to Abraham through a promise" (Galatians 3:18). Salvation does not depend on the law, but on God's grace.

"If a law had been given that could impart life, then righteousness would certainly have come by the law" (verse 21). If there could be any way that rule-keeping could lead to eternal life, then God would have saved us with the law. But it wasn't possible. The law cannot save anyone.

God wants us to have good behavior. He wants us to love others and by doing that, to fulfill the law. But he does not want us to ever think that our works are a reason for our salvation. His provision of grace implies that he has always known that we would never be "good enough" despite our best efforts. If our works contributed to our salvation, then we would have something to boast about. But God designed his plan of salvation in such a way that we cannot take any credit for saving ourselves (Ephesians 2:8-9). We can never claim to deserve anything; we can never claim that God owes us anything.

This goes to the heart of the Christian faith, and it makes Christianity unique. Other religions say that people can be good enough if they try hard enough. Christianity says that we cannot be good enough; we need grace.

On our own, we will never be good enough, and because of that, other religions are not good enough. The only way we can be saved is through the grace of God. We can never deserve to live forever, so the only way we can be given eternal life is for God to give us something that we don't deserve. This is what Paul is driving at when he uses the word _grace._ Salvation is a gift of God, something that we could never earn with even a thousand years of the law.

### Jesus and mercy

"The law was given through Moses," John writes. "Grace and truth came through Jesus Christ" (John 1:17). John saw a contrast between the law and grace, between what we do and what we are given.

Nevertheless, Jesus didn't use the word _grace._ But his entire life was an example of grace, and his parables illustrated grace. He sometimes used the word _mercy_ to describe what God gives us. "Blessed are the merciful," he said, "for they will be shown mercy" (Matthew 5:7). In this, he implied that we all need mercy. He noted here that we should be like God in this respect. If we value God's grace to us, we will give grace to others.

Later, when Jesus was asked why he associated with notorious sinners, he told people, "Go and learn what this means: 'I desire mercy, not sacrifice'" (Matthew 9:13, quoting Hosea 6:6). In other words, God wants us to show mercy more than he wants us to be perfectionists in law-keeping.

We do not want people to sin. But since we inevitably make mistakes, we need mercy. That is true of our relationships with one another, and true of our relationships with God, too. God wants us to know our need for mercy, and for us to have mercy toward others. Jesus gave us an example of this by the way he lived, when he ate with tax collectors and talked with sinners—he was showing by his behavior that God wants fellowship with us all, and he has taken all our sins upon himself and forgiven us so we can have fellowship with him.

Jesus told a parable of two debtors, one who owed an enormous amount, and the other who owed a lot less. The master forgave the servant who owed much, but that servant failed to forgive the servant who owed less. The master was angry and said, "Shouldn't you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?" (Matthew 18:33).

Each of us should see ourselves as the first servant, who was forgiven an enormous debt. We have all fallen far short of what God wants us to be, so God shows us mercy—and he wants us to show mercy as well. We fall short in showing mercy, too, so we must continue to rely on God's mercy.

The parable of the good Samaritan concludes with a command for mercy (Luke 10:37). The tax collector who pleaded for mercy was the one who was set right with God (Luke 18:13-14). The wasteful son who came home was accepted without having to do anything to "deserve" it (Luke 15:20). Neither the widow of Nain nor her son did anything to deserve a resurrection; Jesus did it simply out of compassion (Luke 7:11-15).

### The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ

The miracles of Jesus served temporary needs. The people who ate loaves and fishes became hungry again. The son who was raised eventually died again. But the grace of Jesus Christ continues to be extended to all of us through the supreme act of grace: his sacrificial death on the cross. This is how Jesus gave himself up for us, with eternal consequences rather than temporary ones.

Peter said, "It is through the grace of our Lord Jesus that we are saved" (Acts 15:11). The gospel was a message about God's grace (Acts 14:3; 20:24, 32). We are justified by grace "through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus" (Romans 3:24). God's grace is linked with the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross (verse 25). Jesus died for us, for our sins, and we are saved because of what he did on the cross. We have redemption through his blood (Ephesians 1:7).

But God's grace goes further than forgiveness. Luke tells us that God's grace was on the disciples as they preached the gospel (Acts 4:33). God showed them favor, giving them help they did not deserve. Don't human fathers do the same? We not only give our children life when they had done nothing to earn it, we also give them food and clothing that they could not earn. That's part of love, and that is the way that God is. Grace is generosity.

When church members in Antioch sent Paul and Barnabas out on missionary trips, they commended them to the grace of God (Acts 14:26; 15:40). In other words, they put the missionaries into God's care, trusting God to take care of the travelers, trusting him to give them what they might need. That is included in his grace.

Spiritual gifts are a work of grace, too. "We have different gifts," Paul says, "according to the grace given us" (Romans 12:6). "To each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it" (Ephesians 4:7). "Each one should use whatever gift he has received to serve others, faithfully administering God's grace in its various forms" (1 Peter 4:10).

God graced the believers with spiritual gifts (1 Corinthians 1:4-5). Paul was confident that God's grace would abound toward them as he enabled them to do even more work (2 Corinthians 9:8).

Every good thing is a gift of God, a result of grace rather than something we have earned. That is why we are to be thankful even for the simplest of blessings, for the singing of birds and the smells of flowers and the laughter of little children. Life itself is a luxury, not a necessity.

Paul's own ministry was given to him through grace (Romans 1:5; 15:15; 1 Corinthians 3:10; Galatians 2:9; Ephesians 3:7). Everything he did, he wanted to be according to God's grace (2 Corinthians 1:12). His strength and skills were a gift of grace (2 Corinthians 12:9). If God can save and use the biggest sinner of all (that's how Paul described himself), he can certainly forgive and use any of us. Nothing can separate us from his love, from his desire to give to us.

### Response of grace

How should we respond to the grace of God? With grace, of course. We should be merciful, even as God is full of mercy (Luke 6:36). We are to forgive others, just as we have been forgiven. We are to serve others, just as we have been served. We are to be gracious toward others, giving them favor and kindness.

Our words are to be full of grace (Colossians 4:6). We are to be gracious (forgiving and giving) in marriage, in business, in church, with friends and family and strangers. It's supposed to make a difference in our lives and in our priorities.

Paul spoke of financial generosity as a work of grace, too: "We want you to know about the grace that God has given the Macedonian churches. Out of the most severe trial, their overflowing joy and their extreme poverty welled up in rich generosity. For I testify that they gave as much as they were able, and even beyond their ability" (2 Corinthians 8:1-3). They had been given much, and they in turn were willing to give much.

Giving is an act of grace (verse 6), and generosity—whether in finances, in time, in respect, or in other ways—is an appropriate way for us to respond to the grace of Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us so that we might be richly blessed (verse 9).

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## Grace and Truth

"The law was given through Moses," John tells us, but "grace and truth came through Jesus Christ" (John 1:17).

God has always been gracious and true. The law was an expression of his grace and truth. But in Jesus Christ, God's graciousness and his truth are given their full and complete expression. The law, by which every human is condemned, is not the final word. But in Jesus Christ we have been given God's final word—the greatest and most complete revelation of God's grace and truth for humanity.

### Salvation

Grace triumphs over justice (James 2:13). Justice is real, and justice demands our condemnation, because all humans have broken the law of God, sinned and fallen short of God's glory (Romans 3:23). But there is a word that follows justice, and that word is Jesus Christ, who not only was the author of the law, but is also the author of grace and truth, which brings redemption and salvation. The law brought condemnation, so we may see our sinfulness and our need for mercy (Romans 3:20). But grace and truth brought salvation, moving us by the kindness of God to turn to him for the mercy we need so badly (Romans 2:4; Titus 3:4-5).

Mercy triumphs over judgment, James says. Grace overpowers legal requirements. Through Jesus Christ, we are given something much better than we deserve. The last word, given at the last judgment, will be the triumph of grace and mercy.

### Truth brings freedom

Jesus said, "The truth will set you free" (John 8:32). When we trust Jesus, when we believe the truth of his word of salvation for us, we are set free from the sin and death that imprisons us. We are no longer slaves of sin.

Those who sin become "slaves of sin" (verse 34). They become enmeshed in its power. But grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. When we trust him to be our salvation, we are freed from the condemnation of the law. We become one with him, at perfect peace with our Father in heaven. Even though we still wrestle with sin in this life and often fail, for the sake of Jesus we are not condemned (Romans 8:1).

Jesus teaches us that true righteousness involves much more than the law. It involves not just our behavior, but also our minds—our thoughts, our attitudes, our whole being. In Jesus, we can see that we fall short all the time. But in Jesus, we trust in God's love and mercy for us.

Knowing that God will never forsake us nor leave us, we continue to fight against our sinful nature, trusting Christ to stand with us and strengthen us. In the confidence of his grace, we forgive one another, just as for Christ's sake God has forgiven us (Ephesians 4:32).

### No way out

The law also offers freedom. The law forbids socially destructive behavior, and when people keep it, they are freed from all sorts of bad consequences. It is in every person's own best interest that they seek to live by good and right behavioral guidelines.

But there is a problem: even though the law promised life, it became death, because it stirred up sin, and then it condemned the sinner (Romans 7:8-11). So we learn about our sinfulness from the law, which is holy, just and good, but the law offers no way to be delivered from its condemnation. Because we are sinners, the law rightly condemns and kills us and leaves us dead (verses 10-13).

### New creation

Even though our condemnation under the law is just and right, God is not a prisoner of his own law or his own justice. God operates in perfect divine freedom according to his own will, and his own will is first and foremost a will of grace and redemption.

The law serves his purpose, not its own purpose, and God's purpose, as Creator and Redeemer, is redemption. Redemption results in nothing less than a new creation. That is why James says that mercy triumphs over justice. God's justice serves his redemptive purpose, and that is the only kind of divine justice there is.

In Jesus Christ, God does for us what we could never do for ourselves. Just as we could never create ourselves, so we could never redeem ourselves. There is no escape from the condemnation under which we all fall, unless God himself, the Creator and Redeemer, provides that escape. That is exactly what he has done.

Jesus declared, "God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him" (John 3:17). The law condemns. But by grace and truth, which came by Jesus Christ, the world is redeemed. Mercy triumphs over judgment.

Everything (even the law, justice and condemnation) serves God's unchanging redemptive purpose. God's covenant faithfulness, his word of redemption, is the word of grace and truth, which was revealed fully and finally in Jesus Christ.

Paul wrote, "God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in [Jesus], and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross" (Colossians 1:19-20).

No matter how bad we are, there is good news: God loves us and forgives us for the sake of Jesus who redeems us. In Christ we are set free from sin, both from its condemnation of us, and from its power over us. The Holy Spirit reminds us and reassures us of God's love for us and strengthens us to stay in the battle to turn away from sin.

Jesus, who is the perfect revelation of God's grace and truth, set people free. He forgave them, taught them and gave them the sure hope of God's love and salvation!

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## Heart Trouble

"Yes, I know that God doesn't require people to keep old covenant laws," the man said. "He looks on the heart."

Yes, that's true—God does not require anyone to keep old covenant laws—but when he looks on the heart, what does he see? Does he see a perfect attitude, a heart that has never sinned? No. When the Bible says that God looks on the heart, it is not giving an easier standard for salvation—it is saying that salvation is a lot harder than the law ever made it out to be.

Jesus illustrated this in the Sermon on the Mount. "You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, 'Do not murder.'... But I tell you that anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment.... Anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery" (Matthew 5:21-22, 28).

In other words, if you even think wrong thoughts, you have sinned—you are headed for judgment. If your heart is not totally clean, you've got heart trouble, because God looks on the heart.

### Do you deserve eternal joy?

Suppose you are brought to the judge on judgment day, and he asks, Where should I send you—the place for saints, or the place for sinners?

What will you say—I have a saintly heart? I don't think so. As Paul says, Everyone has sinned and fallen short. It doesn't matter whether you look on the outside, or look in the thoughts, or look on the heart—everyone has sinned and has a problem.

We can never plead for salvation on the basis of what we did, or what we are, or what our heart is like. No one ever deserves to go to a perfect place, a place where there is no more crying or tears, because none of us is the sort of person who never does anything wrong. We have all let God down; we have all failed to treat others rightly—in the heart if not also in words and deeds. Our hearts fall short every day.

The good news is that Jesus cleanses our hearts—changes our hearts—gives us new hearts (metaphors for the same thing). Now, the sad truth is that even with our new hearts, we still have wrong thoughts, wrong attitudes. But our new heart is the heart of Jesus, and Jesus' heart cannot be stained with sin. "There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus" (Romans 8:1).

Satan may accuse us of sin, but the charge doesn't stick, because we have been forgiven, and our old self the sinner has died with Christ. Now we are a new creation in Christ. "The old has gone, the new has come" (2 Corinthians 5:17)!

The gospel, the good news we have in Jesus, is not health and wealth in this age. It is not a charmed life where nothing ever goes wrong. The time is not yet here when there will be "no more crying and no more tears" and "no more death." These sorrows still happen to us, just as they happened to Jesus.

Faith in Christ sometimes is accompanied by blessings—miraculous healings, financial blessings, better relationships. These blessings, although substantial, are not the good news that Jesus brought, because not every believer gets them. In some cases, faithful Christians experience poverty, sickness and early death because of their faith in Jesus.

Further, the good news is not that Jesus will return and set up a worldwide government that forces everyone to keep certain laws. The Jews already envisioned an age like that, but Jesus brought good news of a different sort.

### Bad news, good news

Jesus brought both good news and bad news. The good news is that God will set the world right. There will be an eternity of joy and fellowship with God. The bad news is that no amount of doing good will ever qualify us to be part of that world. We've got heart trouble.

The good news is that eternal life is a gift. It cannot be earned—it must be given to us, based on what Christ has done for us in his life, death, resurrection and ascension to heaven. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said, "Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy" (Matthew 5:7). They don't earn their salvation by showing mercy—they still need mercy. The good news is that it will be given to them.

That is why sinners can enter the kingdom of God ahead of law-abiding religious leaders. Eternal joy is not based on self-made men and women who rely on themselves for moral strength. Rather, it is the ones who know their need for mercy who understand and embrace the mercy of God.

If law-abiding, clean-living people recognize their need for Christ, that's great. But sometimes such people don't admit their need, because they believe they are doing fairly well on their own. But fairly well is not good enough. When we come to the day of judgment, "I did fairly well" is not a good excuse.

We have no excuse—but we do have a Savior. When we come to judgment, our only valid response will be to trust in the mercy and grace of Jesus Christ. Our answer, our hope of salvation, can never rest in ourselves, can never rest in our own hearts. It must always rest in Jesus Christ. Our lives are hidden in him (Colossians 3:3) so that when God looks at us, he sees the righteousness of Christ (1 Corinthians 1:30).

It is good that wrongs will be righted, that evil will be eliminated, that an eternity of perfection will come. But that news will do me no good unless I listen to the gospel, the good news that tells me how I can be part of that wonderful world. Jesus has good news for people with heart trouble. He brings us grace, and he gives us everything we need for salvation, so we can live forever with him.

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## An Anchor for Life

Have you ever felt that you needed an anchor for your life? That the storms of life were trying to smash you on the rocks? For some people, it might be family problems. For others, it might be the loss of a job, the death of a loved one, or a serious illness.

Such trials can overwhelm us like a wave that crashes upon a ship. Gone are the memories of peaceful sailing on smooth seas—all we can think of for the moment is the trial we are in right now. Will we survive, or will we sink? Sometimes the turmoil is so great that sinking doesn't seem that bad of an option!

To weather the storms of life, we need an anchor to keep us in place, to keep us from being swept toward the rocky shore, to keep us from capsizing and sinking. What is our anchor?

The book of Hebrews tells us that we have an anchor—the sure hope of salvation through Jesus Christ.

The book of Hebrews tells us that we have an anchor—the sure hope of salvation through Jesus Christ. This is the hope set before us, the hope that greatly encourages us. "We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure" (Hebrews 6:18-19).

Verse 20 tells us that this hope enters the presence of God in heaven, where Jesus is already helping us. Our hope of eternal life is anchored in heaven, where the storms of this life can never sink our ship! Our salvation is safe and secure.

The storms still come, though, and rage around us. The waves beat on us, but we need not fear—our anchor is in the unsinkable heavens. Our lives are safeguarded by Jesus himself. Our anchor will keep our lives safe—as long as life itself will last. That means forever! We have an anchor for life, a point of stability when life gets rough. Don't wait for the storms to begin—anchor your life in Jesus now!

### Parable of stability

Jesus taught something similar in the Sermon on the Mount:

#### Everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash. (Matthew 7:24-27)

Jesus describes two groups of people: those who follow him, and those who don't. Both types of people build good-looking houses. Both types of people can appear to have their lives in order. But the storms of life strike them both, and the houses are tested not so much for how they look on the outside, but how well they are built underneath.

Listening to Jesus does not prevent the rain, water and wind—the problems of life—but it does prevent collapse. When the storms of life beat upon us, we need some solid foundations to keep us steady.

Jesus advises us to build our lives not just on hearing his words, but on putting them into practice. We need more than the name of Jesus—we need a willingness to do what he says, to trust him not just with the future, but to trust him in life right now.

If we hear the words but do not obey what Jesus says, our lives might look good on the surface. But eventually the trials come, and our lives can fall apart, or become unraveled or capsize—choose whichever metaphor you want. The point is that life works best when we do what Jesus says.

Jesus does not force us to obey, but he gives us a choice. He tells us what will happen if we don't. Our behavior shows whether we believe him, and whether we trust him.

### Seeking a foundation

If we want a basis of stability in times of trouble, then we need to consult the teachings of Jesus. We should not wait for the storms to begin—we should get right habits right now.

But how do we do that? Wait for Jesus to pop down in our home to tell us what we ought to do? No. In most cases the words of Jesus are already in our homes. What we need to do is to take the initiative to learn what they are, and to do what he says. Don't assume you know, just because you read it a few years ago. If you really want a stable foundation, you need to read it again. You can't build on the right foundation unless you know what it is.

What you learned a few years ago may have been good enough for then, but you have probably forgotten a few things, and you might learn even more, now that you have more life experience. I encourage you: Keep learning—keep growing—keep strengthening your connection with the true foundation of life. No one else can do it for you.

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## Make This the Worst Day of Your Life

Have you ever had a really bad day? Maybe you've been fired, totaled your car, and, just when you thought it couldn't get any worse, you were served divorce papers in the emergency room! Whatever your worst day was, no doubt someone had it even worse.

But wouldn't it be good if today was the worst day of your life—if, from now on, things will only get better?

### A good choice

You may not have the choice, but millions of people do. I think for example of a drug addict on Skid Row, eating out of dumpsters and getting high on gasoline fumes. This person once had a job, once had friends, once had health, but because of the drug habit, all those good things were lost. Life has been a steady deterioration.

But one day the addict says (this is one of the fortunate ones): "My life stinks, and all these drugs that I thought were helping me, are actually messing me up. I need to quit, and I need help, or else I'm gonna die."

When drug addicts admit to being addicted, the worst day of their life turns into the best decision they have made in 10 years. Although they will still have severe withdrawal pains and emotional struggles, their life will get better from this point forward.

Life doesn't have to bottom out on Skid Row. Some people hit bottom at other levels—some while they still have jobs and families. But for each, they come to a point where they say, "My life stinks, and I am the one who messed it up, and I need help." Life on alcohol or drugs gets so bad that they are motivated enough to admit it and get help.

They say, This is the worst day of my life—tomorrow is going to be better because I am going to get help today. If I don't quit drugs, tomorrow will be worse than today, but I don't want that—I choose this day to be the worst day of my life.

Have you ever thought that it could be _good_ to have the worst day of your life? For millions, it is. I wish even now that millions of people would make the decision now that this is the worst day of their life. Of course, just saying the words doesn't make the future better—it won't work unless they admit their need for help, and get that help.

### What about you?

If you have an addiction—to alcohol or pornography, for example—you can make the decision today. If you have a habit that enslaves you, life could get better for you—if you get help.

Admit that you can't do it on your own. Seek the help of Jesus and the help of a mature Christian, who will show you grace and mercy. I can't promise that life will always be smooth sailing and better every day, but your life will definitely be better in the hands of Jesus than in your own hands. Only he can take your guilt away—only he can make you clean. How bad will it get before you make the right choice?

But you have to make the decision: Is this the worst day of your life, or will you wait for it to get worse? It could be the best decision you've ever made.

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## In God We Trust

God wants us to trust him. We are to trust in him, not in ourselves. We are to trust that he is good, that he loves us, and that he is full of mercy. Our faith is to be in him. He is trustworthy, absolutely reliable and faithful.

Trust, or faith, is a key ingredient of our new life in Christ. We are justified by faith (Romans 3:28), sanctified by faith (Acts 26:18) and saved by faith in Jesus Christ. We live by faith (2 Corinthians 5:7), stand in faith (Romans 11:20), work in faith (1 Thessalonians 1:3) and pray in faith. We cannot please God without faith (Hebrews 11:6). It is absolutely essential!

When we put our trust in God, we are trusting him to be our very life (Colossians 3:4). That means that when we first put our trust in God, we are taking the first step toward learning to trust him for everything!

### A step beyond belief

Trust is active. We do not merely accept that God took care of our salvation from sin and death and then go on our way with no further thought about it. Trust in God cannot be a passive thing—by its very nature it has to be active. Faith generates action. It is far more than just believing a set of facts about God (see James 2:19)—it is trusting God to be and to do everything he said he will be and do for us. When we trust God, we are committed to everything he is committed to.

That is why worship is important and meaningful. Worship is a means God has given us of rehearsing and remembering who he is and what he has done for us. Through worship, God helps us more deeply understand and value who he is and what he has given us. Worship helps us commemorate and celebrate his love for us and the good things he has done for us.

When we trust God, we don't want to hide any part of our lives from him. We want him to make us into the person he wants us to be, and we trust him both to know what to do and how to do it. The Holy Spirit leads and empowers us to love him with all our heart, mind, soul and strength (Mark 12:30), and to adore him, desire him and delight ourselves in him (Psalm 37:4).

In worship, we praise God for his power and love. We express and act out our faith that he will always be the most important reality in our lives. Our praise helps us put life into better perspective.

When we trust God, we realize he is our greatest priority. He is more important to us than anything else—more valuable than possessions, money, time, reputation and even this mortal life. He is our all in all.

### The greatest commandment

The greatest commandment, Jesus said, is to love God with all that we are. That means we orient our lives around him, around his gracious will for us. When we trust him, we believe he knows best for us, and we want to please him. He is our point of reference, our definition of a meaningful life.

When we trust him, we do his will not out of fear, but out of love—not begrudgingly, but with joy. We trust his judgment, his word and his ways. We even trust him to give us a new heart, to make us more and more like him, to lead us to love what he loves and to value what he values.

We would never be able to do any of this on our own—we must trust God to fulfill his promise to do his work in us from the inside out, by the Holy Spirit transforming us. To trust God is to let him have his good way with us. It is to believe him, to desire and to take his advice, to seek to follow him wherever he leads.

When we trust God, we trust him with all that we are—our past, our present and our future combined. Like a toddler resting fearlessly and contentedly in its mother's arms, we rest securely in the love of our heavenly Father.

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## In Christ We Trust

Christianity is based largely on trust. We have been given exceedingly great and precious promises, but for the most part they remain as promises. We have eternal life, we are told, but we still die. We will be raised incorruptible, but in this life our bodies still degenerate. We have fellowship with the Father, we are assured, but sometimes he seems terribly distant.

How can we be sure it is all true? Although we have evidence in nature and in Scripture, we must still have a large component of trust. We have to take God's word for it, to trust him to be faithful. We have no other choice.

All beliefs require faith. Atheism requires that certain ideas be believed. Agnosticism involves beliefs that have no proof. Hinduism, Buddhism, animism and all other isms involve believing ideas that cannot be proven. Our decision, then, is not _whether_ to have faith, but what to have faith in. Christians have faith in Jesus Christ.

### Jesus died for our sins

Faith in Christ means much more than merely believing that he exists, as if we are saved by our knowledge. Faith means more than agreeing that he is our Savior, that he died for our sins. That is important, but faith involves more than that.

If we believe that Jesus died for our sins, then we also believe that we sinned, and that our sins deserved death. We believe that we could not pay for our own sins, and if Jesus did not die for us, then we would be condemned, excluded from the kingdom of heaven. If we accept Christ as our Savior, then we admit that we cannot save ourselves. We don't just trust in God—we trust in Christ as our only means of being in fellowship with God, our only means of being saved.

If we stand before the judgment seat of Christ and he asks us why we should go into eternal life rather than eternal punishment (Matthew 25:46), we cannot talk about ourselves. There's no point in mentioning all the good things we did, all the laws we kept, all the Bible study we did. The central issue is not what we did, but what has been done about our sins. Everyone has done a mixture of good and bad, righteousness and sin. The question is, What has been done about the bad that we did?

The answer is, Jesus died for our sins. That is the only way our sins can be removed from the record, the only way we can be counted as righteous. It does not matter how many sins we have—Jesus died for them. Even if we have only one little sin and millions of good deeds, the only way we can be counted as perfectly righteous is to accept the death of Christ as covering our transgression. Even if we have millions of sins and very little good in our life, Jesus died for all our sins, no matter how many there are.

We don't have any physical evidence of that, do we? We can see historical evidence that Jesus died, but historians can never prove that his death covers our sins. For that, we have to trust him, to take his word for it. We can see evidence that he was resurrected, vindicated by God, and that the apostles proclaimed forgiveness in his name, and we have reason to trust him, but it still boils down to trust. We have his word, and we have to trust him. We have no other hope. If there is no God, we are doomed, and if there is no Jesus, we are doomed.

So when it comes to eternal life, where do we stand? Do we stand on our good deeds, or do we stand on the promises of Jesus Christ? When we accept Jesus as our Savior, it means that we stand on him. We trust that in his death, he did everything that is needed for our salvation. We do not trust in ourselves, but in him, for eternal life. Titus 3:5 makes it clear: "He saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy."

No one can boast in what they have done. No one can say, "I think I'll make it into the kingdom because I've done this or that." No one gets into the kingdom with a self-made ticket. All we can say is: "I will be saved only because Jesus died for all my sins, even though they were many. I can be here only because I was invited, and he paid for my ticket."

When we stop discussing the righteous deeds we have done and focus instead on Jesus' grace, then we have accepted Jesus as our Savior. If we try to claim some credit, even a little bit, then we are not fully trusting in Christ.

### Is it fair?

"But that's not fair," some people say. "People who do good are locked out because they rejected the gospel, and criminals are welcomed because they accepted it on their deathbed? Where is the logic in that?" The logic is that everybody has done a mixture of good and evil. The question is not whether one has done more good than sin, but whether the sin has been taken care of.

People who insist on doing things their own way, even if they usually do good, cannot be trusted, because "their own way" will eventually fail. People who reject the grace of God are stuck in pride. Some people think they are good enough for God on their own righteousness, but they woefully underestimate the goodness of God.

On the other hand, people who admit their sins, even if they are many, are on the road to recovery. People who admit that they don't have a chance, except for the grace of God, are willing to accept God's help—and that is the only way that eternal life will be enjoyable. People are saved not so much on where they are on the highway, but on the direction they are looking.

We have to admit that we aren't God, that we can't work our way into being perfect. Jesus told this parable about it:

#### Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood up and prayed about himself: "God, I thank you that I am not like other men—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get." But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, "God, have mercy on me, a sinner." (Luke 18:10-13)

Jesus' point is that we must recognize our need for mercy. If we think we are OK because of what we have done, we are not OK, no matter how much good we have done. We have misunderstood what "good" is. We have neglected the most important duty in the universe: to worship God. We have turned our backs on our Creator, trying to be independent of him, refusing to believe him when he says that there is no way we can be good on our own, and that we need his mercy and help.

For spiritual life, we must recognize that we are dependent on God, not just for physical life but also for spiritual life and well-being. When we understand grace, we become grateful to God for his mercy. We know that we fall way short of his glory, but he loves us anyway. This does not cause us to despise him, but to love him. We are moved to worship him even more as we see more clearly the endless depths of his love and patience. As Titus 2:12 says, God's grace teaches us to despise sin, and to seek righteousness while we wait for Christ to complete the process he has begun in our lives.

In Christ, we have confidence! He has demonstrated his commitment to us—he did this by setting aside his glory to become a human to give his life for us. We can be sure that he will complete the job.

His resurrection is evidence that God approves of his sacrifice for us, that it was accepted, that it was an effective atonement. His miracles, his resurrection and his ongoing help in our lives all testify that he can and will do what he has promised. He is the God-human mediator, uniquely qualified to give us fellowship with God.

### An unfinished work

But we do not yet see what we shall be. We still see sin in ourselves, we struggle, we see ourselves falling short time and time again. Yet we do not despair, for we are assured that Jesus' death covers all sins, even ours. Our failures do not depress us, but cause us to be more thankful for God's mercy. Our confidence is in Christ, not in our performance, not in our fallible efforts to please him. We cannot lean on ourselves, but must lean completely on Christ. Only he is trustworthy.

We are like the patriarchs, who believed in things they could not see (Hebrews 11:1). The patriarchs had plenty of sin, and they had moments of doubt, but they ended up trusting in God. They received some of the promises, but for the really big promises, they died without having received what was promised (verse 13).

Abraham was promised an eternal city, a heavenly home, but he died without it. Our only real evidence is faith. We have no tangible proof that Abraham will get what he believed; we have no tangible proof that we will get the salvation that we look for. What we have are promises. Jesus says: "Yes, you are forgiven. Yes, you have the Holy Spirit living in you. Yes, you have eternal life. Yes, you are qualified for the kingdom. Yes, I will see to it."

We do not have proof—we have promises, and we have to trust in him. Yes, he has paid for all our sins. Yes, salvation is by grace, a free gift even to the worst of sinners. Yes, he has done what we need. We can trust in him. We can trust him for eternal salvation; we can also trust him in day-to-day life.

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## Responding to God With Faith

God always uses his enormous power to further his promise of love and grace toward his people. He is gentle, loving, slow to anger and full of mercy.

That's good, but what difference does it make in our lives? How do we respond to a God who is simultaneously powerful and gentle? We respond in at least two ways.

### Trust

When we realize that God has all power to do anything he wants, and that he always uses it for the good of humanity, then we can have absolute confidence that we are in good hands. He has both the ability and the stated purpose of working all things (including even our rebellion, hatred and betrayal against him and one another) toward our salvation. He is completely trustworthy—worthy of our trust.

When we are in the midst of trials, sickness, suffering and even dying, we can be confident that God is still with us, that he cares for us, that he has everything under control. It may not look like it, and we certainly do not feel in control, but we can be confident that God isn't caught off guard. He can and does redeem any situation, any misfortune, for our good.

We need never doubt God's love for us. "God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us" (Romans 5:8). "This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us" (1 John 3:16). The God who did not spare his own Son can be counted on to give us everything we need for eternal happiness.

God did not send somebody else: The Son of God, essential to the Godhead, became human so that he could die for us and rise again for us (Hebrews 2:14). We were redeemed not by the blood of animals, not by the blood of a very good man, but by the blood of the God who became human. Every time we take communion, we are reminded of the extent of his love for us. We can be confident that he loves us. He has earned our trust.

"God is faithful," Paul tells us. "He will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear" (1 Corinthians 10:13). "The Lord is faithful, and he will strengthen and protect you from the evil one" (2 Thessalonians 3:3). Even "if we are faithless, he will remain faithful" (2 Timothy 2:13).

He is not going to change his mind about wanting us, about calling us, about being merciful to us. "Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful" (Hebrews 10:23).

He has made a commitment to us, a covenant with us, to redeem us, to give us eternal life, to love us forever. He will not be without us. He is trustworthy, but how do we respond to him? Do we worry? Do we struggle to be worthy of his love? Or do we trust him?

We need never doubt God's power. This is shown in the resurrection of Jesus from death. This is the God who has power over death itself, power over all the beings he created, power over all other powers (Colossians 2:15). He triumphed over all things through the cross, and this is demonstrated through his resurrection. Death could not hold him, for he is the author of life (Acts 3:15).

The same power that raised Jesus from death will also give immortal life to us (Romans 8:11). We can trust that he has the power, and the desire, to fulfill all his promises toward us. We can trust him with everything—and that's a good thing, since it is foolish to trust in anything else.

Of ourselves, we will fail. Left to itself, even the sun will eventually fail. Our only hope is in a God who has power greater than the sun, greater than the universe, more faithful than time and space, full of love and faithfulness toward us. We have that sure hope in Jesus our Savior.

### Belief and trust

All who believe in Jesus Christ will be saved (Acts 16:31). But what does it mean to _believe_ in Jesus Christ? Even the devil believes that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God. He doesn't like it, but he knows it's true. Moreover, the devil knows that God exists and that he rewards those who seek him (Hebrews 11:6).

So what is the difference between our belief and the devil's belief? James gives us an answer: True faith is shown by action (James 2:18-19). What we _do_ shows what we really believe. Behavior _can_ be evidence of faith, even though some people obey for wrong reasons. Even the devil operates within constraints imposed by God.

So what is faith, and how does it differ from belief?

Saving faith is _trust._ We trust God to take care of us, to do good rather than evil, to give us eternal life. Trust means knowing that God exists, knowing that he is good, knowing that he has the power to do what he wants, and trusting that he will use it to do whatever is best for us. Trust means a willingness to put ourselves under him, to be willing to obey not out of fear but out of love. When we trust God, we love him.

Trust is shown by what we do. But the action is not the trust, and it does not create the trust—it is only the result of trust. True faith is, at its core, trust in Jesus Christ.

### A gift of God

Where does this kind of trust come from? It is not something we can work up for ourselves. We cannot talk ourselves into it or use human logic to build an airtight case. We will never have the time to cover all the philosophical arguments about God. But we are forced to make a choice each day: Will we trust God, or not? Trying to delay the decision is a decision in itself: We do not yet trust him.

Each Christian has at some point or another made a decision to trust in Christ. For some, it was a well-thought-out decision. For others, it was an illogical decision, made for wrong reasons—but the right decision anyway. We could trust no one else, not even ourselves. On our own, we would mess our lives up. Nor could we trust other people. For some of us, faith was a choice of desperation—we had nowhere else to go but to Christ (John 6:68).

It is normal that our first faith is an immature faith—a good start, but not a good place to stay. We need to _grow_ in our faith. As one man said to Jesus, "I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!" (Mark 9:24). The disciples themselves, even after worshiping the resurrected Jesus, had some doubts (Matthew 28:17).

So where does faith come from? It is a gift of God. Ephesians 2:8 tells us that salvation is a gift of God, which means that the kind of faith that leads to salvation must also be his gift.

In Acts 15:9 we are told that God purified the believers' hearts by faith. God was working in their hearts. He is the one who "opened the door of faith" (Acts 14:27). God did it, because he is the one who enables whatever faith we have.

We would not trust God unless God himself gave us the ability to trust him. Humans have been too corrupted by sin to believe or trust in God on our own strength or wisdom. That is why faith is not a "work" that qualifies us for salvation. We get no credit for meeting the qualification—faith is merely receiving the gift, being thankful for the gift. God gives us the ability to receive his gift, to enjoy his gift.

### Trustworthy

God has good reason to give us faith, for there is someone completely trustworthy for us to believe in and be saved by. The faith he gives us is rooted in his Son, who became flesh for our salvation. We have good reason to have faith, for we have a Savior who has purchased our salvation for us. He has done all that it takes, once for all, signed, sealed and being delivered. Our faith has a firm foundation: Jesus Christ.

Jesus is the author and perfecter of our faith (Hebrews 12:2)—but he does not work alone. Jesus does only what the Father wants, and he works by the Holy Spirit in our hearts. The Holy Spirit teaches us, convicts us, and gives us faith (John 14:26; 15:26; 16:10).

### Through the word

How does the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit give us faith? It is usually through the preached word. "Faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word of Christ" (Romans 10:17). The message is in the written word, the Bible, and it is in the spoken word, whether a sermon at church or a simple testimony of one person to another.

The word of the gospel tells us about Jesus, the Word of God. The Holy Spirit uses this word to enlighten us, and somehow allows us to trust ourselves to this word. This is sometimes called "the witness of the Holy Spirit," but it is not like a courtroom witness we can ask questions of.

It is more like a switch inside us that is turned on, allowing us to accept the good news that is preached. It feels right. Though we may still have questions, we believe that we can live in this message. We can base our lives on it, we can make decisions based on it. It makes sense. It is the best possible choice.

God gives us the ability to trust him. He also gives us the ability to grow in faith. The down payment of faith is a seed that grows. It prepares and enables our minds and our emotions to understand more and more of the gospel. It helps us understand more about God as he reveals himself to us in Jesus Christ. To use biblical metaphor, we begin to walk with God. We live in him, think in him, and believe in him.

### Doubts

But most Christians struggle with faith at some time or another. Our growth is not always smooth and steady—it comes through trials and questions. For some, doubts come because of a tragedy or severe suffering. For others, it is prosperity or good times that subtly tempt us to rely on material things instead of God. Many of us will face both sorts of challenges to our faith.

Poor people often have stronger faith than rich people do. People beset by constant trials often know they have no hope except God, no choice but to trust him. Statistics show that poor people give a higher percentage of their income to the church than rich people do. It appears that their faith (even though not perfect) is more consistent.

Often, the greatest enemy of faith is when all goes well. People are tempted to think that it was by their strength or their intelligence that they achieved as much as they have. They lose their sense of child-like dependence on God. They rely on what they have, rather than on God.

Poor people are in a better position to learn that life on this planet is full of questions, and God is the least questionable thing they have. They trust in him because all else has proven itself to be untrustworthy. Money, health, and friends are all fickle. We cannot depend on them.

Only God is dependable, but even so, we don't always have the evidence we would like. So we have to trust him. As Job said, even though he kills me, I will trust him (Job 13:15). Only he offers the hope of eternal life. Only he offers a hope that life makes any sense or has any purpose.

### Part of growth

But still, we sometimes wrestle with doubts. That is part of the process of growing in faith, of learning to trust God with yet more of life. We face the choices set before us and once again choose God as the best choice.

As Blaise Pascal said centuries ago, if we believe for no other reason, then at least we ought to believe because God is the best bet. If we follow him and he does not exist, then we have lost nothing. But if we do not follow him and he does exist, we have lost everything. So we have nothing to lose and everything to gain by believing in God, by living and thinking that he is the surest reality in the universe.

This does not mean that we will understand everything. No, we will never understand everything. Faith means trusting in God even though we do not always understand. We can worship him even when we have doubts (Matthew 28:17). Salvation is not an intelligence contest. The faith that saves does not come from philosophical arguments that answer every doubt. Faith comes from God. If we rely on having answers to every question, we are not relying on God.

The only reason we can be in God's kingdom is by grace, through faith in our Savior, Jesus Christ. If we rely on our obedience, or anything else that we do, then we are relying on the wrong thing, an unreliable thing. We need to re-form our faith (allowing God to re-form our faith) into Christ, and him alone. Works, even good works, cannot be the basis of our salvation. Obedience, even to the commands of Jesus, cannot be our source of assurance. Only Christ is trustworthy.

As we grow in spiritual maturity, we often become more aware of our own sins, and our own sinfulness. We realize how far we are from Christ, and this can lead us to doubts, too, that God would really send his Son to die for people as perverse as we are.

No matter how real our doubts, they should lead us back to greater faith in Christ, for only in him do we have any chance at all. There is no other place to go. In his words and his actions, we see that he knew how perverse we were before he came to die for us. The better we see ourselves, the more we see the need to cast ourselves into the mercy of God. Only he is good enough to save us from ourselves, and only he will save us from our doubts.

### Fellowship

It is by faith that we have a fruitful relationship with God. It is by faith that we pray, by faith that we worship, by faith that we hear his words in sermons and fellowship. Faith enables us to have fellowship with the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. It is by faith that we are enabled to give our allegiance to God, through our Savior Jesus Christ, by means of the Holy Spirit working in our hearts.

It is by faith that we can love other people. Faith frees us from the fear of ridicule and rejection. We can love others without worrying about what they will do to us, because we trust in Christ to reward us generously. Through faith in God, we can be generous with others.

Through faith in God, we can put him first in our lives. When we believe God is as good as he says he is, then we will treasure him above all else, and be willing to make the sacrifices that he asks of us. We will trust him, and it is by that trust that we will experience the joys of salvation. Christian life is, from first to last, a matter of trusting God.

### Five facts to know about faith

• God loved us even when we were his enemies; he will be faithful in all circumstances.

• The resurrection of Jesus shows that God has the power to save us even from death.

• When we trust God, we obey him, knowing that his commands are for our good.

• No one has perfect faith; we grow in faith through life experiences.

• Doubts and questions can lead us to trust Christ even with the unknown.

### For further reading

Faith is discussed in numerous books about evangelism and apologetics, including:

William Lane Craig, _Reasonable Faith._ Crossway, 1994.

C. Stephen Evans, _Why Believe?_ InterVarsity, 1996.

Peter Kreeft and Ronald Tacelli, _Handbook of Christian Apologetics._ InterVarsity, 1994.

Alister McGrath, _Intellectuals Don't Need God and Other Modern Myths._ Zondervan, 1993.

Alister McGrath, _Doubting: Growing Through the Uncertainties of Faith._ InterVarsity, 2007.

### Things to think about

• Which is most reassuring to you: God's love or his power?

• Does God love us even when we rebel against him?

• How was your faith immature when you first believed? How have you grown?

• Do you find that Scripture strengthens your faith?

• Has prosperity weakened your faith?

• Do you tend to trust something else—money, government, or friends?

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## How Baptism Pictures the Gospel

Rituals were a prominent part of Old Testament worship—there were annual rituals, monthly rituals and daily rituals. There were rituals for birth and rituals for death, rituals of sacrifice, rituals of cleansing, rituals of ordination. Faith was involved, but rituals were prominent.

The New Testament, in contrast, has two basic rituals: baptism and the Lord's Supper —and there are no detailed regulations for either observance.

Why these two? In a religion in which faith is primary, why have any rituals at all?

The primary reason, I believe, is that both the Lord's Supper and baptism _picture the gospel of Jesus Christ._ They rehearse the fundamental elements of our faith. The Lord's Supper reminds us of the Lord's death, his life now, which we share in, and his promise to return. It is a reminder that our salvation is based on the life and death of Jesus Christ.

### Pictures the gospel

How does baptism picture the central truths of the gospel? The apostle Paul wrote:

#### Don't you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life. If we have been united with him like this in his death, we will certainly also be united with him in his resurrection. (Romans 6:3-5)

Paul is saying that baptism _pictures our union with Christ_ in his death, burial and resurrection. These are the primary points of the gospel (1 Corinthians 15:3-4). Our salvation depends on his life, death and resurrection. Our forgiveness—being cleansed of sin—depends on him; our Christian life and future depend on him.

Baptism symbolizes the death of the old self—the old person was crucified with Christ—died with Christ—buried with Christ in baptism (Romans 6:8; Galatians 2:20; 6:14; Colossians 2:12, 20). It pictures that we are identified with Jesus Christ—he cast his lot in with humanity. We accept that his death was "for us," and "for our sins." We acknowledge that we have sinned, that we have a tendency to sin, that we are sinners in need of a Savior. We acknowledge our need to be cleansed, and that this cleansing comes through the death of Jesus Christ. Baptism is one of the ways in which we confess Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior. We are saved by what he did, not by the way we responded. The emphasis in baptism should be on what Jesus did, not on our faith or acceptance. The only reason that we can show our commitment to him is because he is already committed to us.

### Raised with Christ

Baptism pictures wonderful news—we have been _raised_ with Christ to live with him (Ephesians 2:5-6; Colossians 2:12-13; 3:1). In him, we have a new life, and are called to live a new way of life, with him as Lord leading and guiding us out of sinful ways and into righteous and loving ways. In this way baptism reminds us that faith involves a change in the way we live, and that we cannot make this change in ourselves—it is done by the power of the risen Christ living in us. Christ has united himself to us in his resurrection not just for the future, but for life right now. This is part of the symbolism.

Jesus did not invent the ritual of baptism. It developed within Judaism, and was used by John the Baptist as a ritual to show repentance, in which the water symbolized cleansing. Jesus continued this practice, and after his death and resurrection his disciples continued to use it, but with a more profound meaning. Baptism dramatizes the fact that Jesus has given us a new basis for life, and a new basis for our relationship with God.

Paul saw that since we are forgiven or cleansed through the death of Christ, baptism pictures his death and that we (even before we were alive) are participants in his death. Paul was also inspired to add the connection with Jesus' resurrection. As we rise from the baptismal waters, we picture Christ raising us to a new life — a life in Christ, with him in us.

Peter wrote that baptism saves us "by the resurrection of Jesus Christ" (1 Peter 3:21). However, baptism itself does not save us. We are saved by God's grace, through faith in Jesus Christ. Physical water removing physical dirt cannot save us, this verse reminds us. Baptism saves us only in the sense that it is "the pledge of a good conscience toward God." It is a visible representation of trusting in Christ, trusting that he has cleansed our conscience and forgiven us. We are saved by what he has done, not by what we do.

### Into one body

We are baptized not only into Christ Jesus, but we are also baptized into his body, the church. "We were all baptized by one Spirit into one body" (1 Corinthians 12:13). That means that people cannot baptize themselves—it should be done within the context of the Christian community. There are no secret Christians, people who believe in Christ but no one knows about it. The biblical pattern is to confess Christ before other people, to make a public acknowledgment of Jesus as Lord, to become part of a community of believers.

Baptism is one of the ways in which Christ may be confessed, in which a person's friends may see that a commitment has been made: Christ's commitment to us in his death, and our commitment to him as a response. It may be a joyous occasion in which the congregation sings hymns and welcomes the person to the family. Or it may be a smaller ceremony in which an elder (or some other authorized representative of the congregation) welcomes the new believer, rehearses the significance of what is being done, and encourages them in their life in Christ.

Baptism recognizes that a person has _already_ repented of sin, _already_ accepted Christ as Savior, already begun to grow spiritually — is already a Christian. We are simply catching up to what Christ has already done for us. Baptism is usually done soon after a person has come to believe in Christ as Savior, but occasionally it may be done much later.

### Teens and children

When a person has come to faith in Christ, he or she may be baptized. This may be when the person is old, or when young. A young person may explain faith differently than an older person does, but young people may have faith nonetheless. Teenagers and younger children may have genuine awareness of sin, genuine trust that Christ has paid for their sins, and genuine acknowledgement that their life is united with Christ, and they may be baptized.

Will some of them eventually change their minds and fall away? Perhaps, but that happens with adult professions of faith, too. Will some of those childhood conversions turn out to be mistaken? Perhaps, but that happens with adults, too. There are no guarantees about what humans will do — the guarantee comes in what Christ has already done for us. That is what we can celebrate with certainty.

If the person has faith in Christ, as best as the pastor can determine, then the person may be baptized. It is not our practice, however, to baptize minors without the consent of their parent or legal guardian. If the minor's parent objects to baptism, then the child who has faith in Jesus is still a Christian, even if waiting until he or she becomes a legal adult to be baptized.

In our denomination, we generally baptize by immersion. That was most likely the practice in first-century Judaism and in the early church. Immersion pictures death and burial better than sprinkling does.

Sprinkling pictures cleansing, and perhaps watering for new growth, but not death. Nevertheless, we might say that the old person died with Christ, whether or not the body was properly buried. The old life is dead, and the new life is here, and that is what is important.

We do not make the method of baptism an issue to divide Christians. The important thing is that we remember that Christ has done the real work of salvation, and we are simply responding to what he has done. We give up on our own self-centered approach to life and begin to live a Christ-centered life.

Salvation does not depend on the exact method of baptism (the Bible doesn't give us many details on procedure, anyway) nor on the exact words. Salvation depends on Christ, not on the depth of the baptismal water. If a person has faith in Christ, that person is a Christian, no matter what kind of baptism was done. A Christian who was baptized by sprinkling or pouring is still a Christian. If such a person wishes to become a member of our denomination, we do not require a new baptism, unless the person believes it appropriate. Christianity is based on faith, not on performance of a ritual.

Occasionally a person baptized in infancy wishes to become a member of our fellowship. Is it necessary for us to re-baptize the person? This must be decided on a case-by-case basis, based on the person's preference and understanding of baptism. If the person has only recently come to a point of faith and commitment, it may be appropriate to baptize the person. In such cases, baptism would emphasize to the person that the old self has died with Christ.

If the person was baptized as an infant and has been living as an adult Christian for many years, with good fruit, then we do not need to insist on another baptism. If they request it, we may do it, but we do not need to quibble about ceremonies of decades ago when Christian fruit is already evident. We can simply praise the grace of God. The person is a Christian whether or not the ritual was done in the "right" way or "right" time.

### Sharing the Lord's Supper

For similar reasons, it is permissible for us to share the Lord's Supper with people who have not been baptized in the manner we are accustomed to. If people have faith in Jesus Christ, they are united to him and have been baptized, one way or another, into his body, and they may share in the bread and wine, even if they do not agree with us on every point of doctrine.

We should not get sidetracked by arguments about detail. We have our beliefs and practices, and we love those who have other beliefs. We focus on the larger picture, provided by the apostle Paul: Baptism pictures our old self dying with Christ, our sins being washed away by what he did, and Christ raising us up to new life in him and in his church. Baptism is an expression of faith, a reminder that we are saved by the death and life of Jesus Christ. It is the gospel in miniature drama — the central truths of the faith being portrayed in the actions.

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## On Being a Child of God

Jesus' disciples sometimes had delusions of self-importance. They once asked Jesus, "Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?" (Matthew 18:1). In other words, what personal characteristics are the best examples of what God wants in his people?

It is a good question, and Jesus used it to make an important point: "Unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven" (verse 3).

The disciples must have been surprised, even puzzled. Perhaps they had been thinking of people such as Elijah, who called down fire from heaven to consume some enemies, or a zealous person like Phinehas, who killed sinners (Numbers 25:7-8). Were they the greatest in the history of God's people?

Their idea of greatness was misguided. Jesus said that what God wants most in his people is not bravado, not spectacular works, but childlikeness. If we do not become like little children, we will not be in the kingdom at all!

In what way are we to be like children? Are we to be immature, childish, uninformed? No. We are to put childish ways behind us (1 Corinthians 13:11). We are to discard some characteristics of children, while keeping others.

One characteristic we need is humility, as Jesus says in verse 4: "Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven." The humble person is, in God's way of thinking, the greatest—the best example of what God wants in his people.

This is because humility is characteristic of God himself. God is willing to give up his privileges for our salvation. What Jesus did in becoming flesh was not contrary to God's nature—it revealed what God is like all the time. God wants us to be like Christ, willing to give up privileges to serve others.

Some children are humble, but others are not. Jesus used one particular child to make a point: We are to see ourselves in certain respects as like children—particularly in our relationship to God.

Jesus also pointed out that as children, we ought to _welcome_ children (verse 5), and he probably meant this both literally and figuratively. Adults should be attentive to and respectful of young people. We should also welcome and respect people who are young in the faith, immature in their relationship to God and in their understanding. Humility involves not only our relationship with God, but also with other people.

### Abba, Father

Jesus knew that he had a unique relationship with God. Only he knew the Father well enough to reveal him to others (Matthew 11:27). Jesus called God by the Aramaic word _Abba,_ an affectionate word that children and adults used for their fathers. Perhaps the best modern equivalent is "Dad."

In prayer, Jesus talked to his Dad, asking him for help and giving him thanks for whatever he had. Jesus says that we do not have to flatter our way into an audience with the King. He's our Dad, and we can talk to him because he is our Dad. He has given us that right, so we can be confident that he hears us.

Although we are not children of God in exactly the same way that Jesus is the Son, Jesus taught his disciples to pray to God as their Abba. Many years later, Paul could assume that the Roman church, more than a thousand miles from Aramaic-speaking lands, called God by the Aramaic word Abba (Romans 8:15).

Using the word Abba isn't required in prayers today, but the widespread use of the word in the early church shows that it made an impression on the disciples. They had been given an especially close relationship with God, a relationship that gave them guaranteed access to God through Jesus Christ.

The word Abba was distinctive. Other Jews didn't pray like that, but the disciples of Jesus did. They knew that God was their Dad. They were children of the King, not just members of a chosen nation.

### Rebirth and adoption

The apostles used several metaphors to help communicate the new fellowship that believers have with God. A term like _redemption_ conveyed the idea that we belong to God. We were redeemed from the slave-market of sin through an enormous price—the death of Jesus Christ. The "price" wasn't paid to anyone in particular, but it did convey the idea that there was a cost involved in our salvation.

A term such as _reconciliation_ emphasized the fact that we were once enemies of God, and are now restored to friendship through Jesus Christ. His death allowed our sins, which separated us from God, to be wiped off the record. God did this for us, because we were completely unable to do it ourselves.

The analogies that Scripture gives us are analogies, and the fact that several are used indicates that none of them gives us the complete picture. This is obvious when it comes to two analogies that, when taken literally, are contradictory: first, that we are born from above as children of God, and then, that we are adopted.

Both these analogies tell us something important about our salvation. Being born again tells us that there is a radical change in who we are as human beings, a change that begins small and grows in our lives. We are new creations, new people, living in a new age.

Adoption tells us that we were once strangers to the kingdom, but now, by God's decision, attested by the Holy Spirit, we are declared God's children, with full rights of inheritance and identity. We who were once far off have been brought near through the saving work of Jesus Christ. In him we die, yet because of him we do not have to die. In him we live, yet it is not we who live, but we are new people, being created by the Spirit of God.

Each metaphor has its value, and each has its weakness. Nothing in the physical or social world can fully convey what God is doing in our lives. But these are the analogies he has given us, and one of the most consistent images that Scripture uses is that we are children of God.

### Become as children

God is Creator, Sustainer and King, but far more importantly for us, he is Dad. It's an intimate bond, expressed in the most important relationship of first-century culture. In that society, you were known by your dad. Your name was, for example, Joseph son of Eli. Your place in society was determined by your dad. Your economic status, your occupation, your future spouse, were determined by your dad. If you inherited anything, it was from your dad.

In modern society, mothers play a more prominent role, and many people today have a better relationship with mom than with dad. If the Bible were being written today, maternal metaphors might be more common. But in Bible times, father metaphors were more important.

God sometimes reveals himself with maternal characteristics, but he always calls himself a Father. If our relationship with our dad is good, then the analogy works well. But if our relationship with our dad is bad, then we will have to think harder to see what God is trying to communicate to us. We are not to judge God as no better than the father we know, but to think more creatively, to the idealized parental relationship that no human being ever matches up to. God is better than the best.

As children of God, in what way do we look to God as our Dad?

• God loves us deeply, and he sacrifices to prepare us for success. He made us to be like himself, and he wants us to succeed. Often, it is only when we are parents ourselves that we can appreciate how much our own parents did for us. In our relationship with God, we can only dimly perceive all that he goes through for our good.

• We look to God in faith, as totally dependent on him. We are not self-sufficient. We trust him to provide our needs and guide us in life.

• We have day-to-day security, knowing that an all-powerful God is looking out for us. He knows our needs, whether for daily bread or for emergency assistance. We do not need to worry, because Dad will take care of us.

• As children, we are guaranteed a future in God's kingdom. To use another analogy, we'll inherit a fabulous fortune—living in a city in which gold is as plentiful as dirt, where we will have spiritual wealth of far greater value than anything we know now.

• We have confidence and courage. We can preach with boldness, without fear of persecution. Even though we may be killed, we do not fear, for we have a Dad no one can take away from us.

• We can face trials with optimism. We know that our Dad allows difficulties to discipline us so we will be better in the long run (Hebrews 12:5-11). We are confident that he is working in our lives, and he will not disown us.

These are enormous benefits. Perhaps you can think of more. But I am sure that there is nothing better in all the universe than being a child of God. That is the greatest blessing of the kingdom of God. When we become like little children, we become heirs to all the joy and blessings of the eternal kingdom that cannot be shaken.

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## Our Relationship With Jesus Christ

Doctrine is only one portion of authentic Christianity. It is important, to be sure — it is essential that the church teach right doctrines — but it is only part of what we must include in our worship of our Creator, Savior and Sanctifier. No matter how much we know, Paul says, it doesn't do us any good if we don't have love (1 Corinthians 13:2).

Jesus said the most important command in the Scriptures was to "love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind" (Matthew 22:37). When we focus on the Word of God, we often focus on doctrines. That is because the Holy Spirit leads us to bring our minds and thoughts into conformity with God's will. But the Spirit does not stop there. Knowledge of God's purpose and will must be put to use, or it is worthless.

As the 16th-century reformers said, we are saved by faith alone, but not by a faith that is alone. The Holy Spirit leads us to combine right belief with right action. Faith in Jesus leads the believer to obedience to the will of God. We do not want to have a dead orthodoxy, being correct in beliefs, but ineffective in life. Right doctrine, if held in true faith, will necessarily affect our behavior.

### Let's get emotional

Likewise, right doctrine affects our emotions. It is not possible for us to love God with all our heart without getting emotional about it! When we understand the doctrine that God showed his love for us by sending his only Son to die for us, then it will have an effect on our emotions toward God. We love him because he first loved us.

Our relationship with God is characterized by love. Love is more than emotion, but it includes emotion — a powerful affection and attraction. When we love him, we will adore him, seek him, yearn to spend time with him, desire to be like him and seek to please him in everything we do.

The Psalms are very expressive emotionally. Psalm 69, for example, shows how David poured out his emotions to God. Psalm 63 is an example of David's yearning for God: "O God, you are my God, earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you, my body longs for you, in a dry and weary land where there is no water." Psalm 42 gives a similar thought: "As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O God."

The Holy Spirit leads believers to feel this way when they love the Lord with all their heart. After all, we are the "fiancée" of Jesus Christ (2 Corinthians 11:2). We are going to live with him forever and ever. The Spirit provides believers with true love, a love that transforms everything we do throughout the day. We can be, in effect, walking on cloud nine. We can be happy and hopeful. We can have the peace that surpasses understanding. We can have a song on our heart. These are poetic ways of describing the love that surpasses our ability to describe in literal terms. We do not have words to describe how good we feel. That's how it is between us and our Savior.

It is often said that Christianity is a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. "Relationship" has many meanings. We must ask what _kind_ of relationship we have. Some people ignore Jesus. Some are afraid, and some are angry. These are defective relationships.

The Bible describes a good relationship with God in several ways. In a simple analogy, he is the Lord and Master, and we are his slaves. This analogy is correct — we should honor, reverence, and obey our perfect and good Lord — but it is not the complete picture. Jesus said we could have even more: "I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master's business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you" (John 15:15).

Is Jesus your friend? I hope so, but some people are not comfortable with that phrase. Some men are not comfortable expressing love for Jesus Christ. They may or may not be able to say that they love their dad and love their children, but they are not comfortable saying, "I love Jesus." They find themselves embarrassed to express love for their Savior.

Some people prefer more abstract titles, such as the Eternal, the Creator, the Almighty, the Messiah, the Christ. Those titles are good, and true, but alone they can make God seem aloof and far away. The name _Jesus_ reminds us that the Word became flesh and lived among us as a human being.

Jesus Christ came to show us the Father. He showed us a personal being. He stressed that God is our Father, and the name _Father_ shows a desire for love and companionship. Our Father in heaven wants to spend eternity with us, and he wants our relationship with him to be characterized by an emotion — love. He loves us, and he wants us to love him with intensity, with passion. He wants worship, but he also wants friendship. In this we follow in the footsteps of Abraham, our father in the faith, who walked with God and was called a friend of God (James 2:23).

### Relationship terms

Faith is central to Christianity, and _faith_ is a relationship term. We must have faith in Jesus Christ. This means that we believe that he is all he says he is, and he will do what he has promised. It means that we trust him.

When we have faith in Jesus, it means more than simply believing that he exists, more than believing that he is the Son of God, more than believing that he died for our sins. Those are true, and they are essential, but faith also means trusting him day by day, walking with him, knowing that the love he has for us will never fail.

Jesus gave us this promise: "This is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all that he has given me, but raise them up at the last day. For my Father's will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day" (John 6:39-40). We can have confidence in him.

Paul described salvation as reconciliation between God and his people. _Reconciliation_ is also a relationship word. Before we were called, we were hostile toward God, but we were reconciled through the death of Jesus Christ (Romans 5:10). This means that we are his friends rather than his enemies.

This personal reconciliation is important. It is part of the message we have been called to proclaim: "He has committed to us the message of reconciliation" (2 Corinthians 5:19). We implore people on Christ's behalf that they be reconciled to God (verse 20). We urge them to accept the gift of friendship that has been made possible by the death of Jesus on the cross (Colossians 1:20).

By becoming friends of God, we also become friends of each other. Since we will each live with God eternally, we will also live with one another eternally, in a relationship characterized by love. We are reconciled not only with God, but also with each other. Paul described the reconciliation of Jews and Gentiles:

#### In Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ.... His purpose was to create in himself one new man out of the two, thus making peace, and in this one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross.... You are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God's people and members of God's household. (Ephesians 2:13-19)

We have citizenship rights in heaven — but not just citizenship — we are also part of the royal family. We are heirs of eternal life, heirs of a never-ending life with a Father who loves each of us individually and personally. He wants us to be with him, to enjoy him forever.

### Invited in

To help convey some of this spiritual reality, let's imagine for a minute a metaphorical throne room in heaven, larger than any we have ever seen, full of splendor and beauty. God the Father reigns supreme. Jesus is at his right hand. The Holy Spirit fills the room with tremendous brilliance. Do we come before his throne with fear and trembling only, or also with joy and affection?

By his grace, through faith in Jesus, we can come to God with tremendous respect and awe, with never-ending worship. But also through Jesus we can come to God with joy, thanksgiving and confidence, with full assurance, knowing that the blood of Christ cleanses us from every sin (Hebrews 4:14-16). There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus (Romans 8:1). We come before God spotless and pure, clothed in the perfect righteousness of Jesus Christ.

We have an eager longing to enter the throne room of heaven, knowing that we are welcome. God wants us to be there. He loves us so much that he sent his only Son to die for us. We are his children, and we can enter his gates with praise. He wants us to come in, to feel the splendor, to experience the love and kindness, to know that the power is always used to help us.

Did you know that we are _already_ in the heavenly throne room? Paul says:

#### Because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions — it is by grace you have been saved. And God raised us up [past tense] with Christ and seated us [past tense] with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. (Ephesians 2:4-7)

Spiritually, we are already in heaven! God wants us to be in his presence. He wants us to be with him, to love him, to be friends of his Son — and even more than friends: to be brothers and sisters. We can come boldly before his throne, knowing that he wants us to be there.

We can ask ourselves, how is my friendship with the Lord? Am I comfortable in his presence? Do I welcome him in my life and heart? Is the gospel, grace and forgiveness making a difference in my life? The new covenant, sealed with the blood of our Savior, gives us forgiveness. It gives us reconciliation and confidence. It gives us personal friendship and brotherhood with Jesus Christ.

A good relationship with Jesus goes a long way in times of trial, in times of doctrinal uncertainty, and in times of blessing. It is a joy to know the Lord — not just know about him, but to know _him,_ to have a person-to-person friendship. It is a tremendous comfort to know that he values us, that he is like a father who gets up and runs toward us whenever we come back to him (Luke 15:20). He welcomes us as a beloved child, not as a servant (verses 22-23). He wants us to live in his house forever.

Jesus Christ says you can have the joy of salvation. Faith and hope in him will transform your life. Do you need a better relationship with our Lord and Master? Yes, we all do. So how can we have it? Let me suggest three things: prayer, study and fellowship.

• _Pray._ Ask God to give you the joy of salvation. Ask him to help you know his love for you in the sacrifice and resurrection of his Son. Ask him to help you adore him, to know and feel his love for you. Ask him for faith in Jesus, and for his power to walk in his love.

• _Study._ In this case, I suggest studying the four Gospels. Sometimes we study for doctrine and for commands regarding what we should do. This time, I suggest that we study simply to see what Jesus is like as a person. Get a feel for his love and compassion, his desire for friendship, his zeal for his Father's glory. Walk with him in the mountains, across the lake, into the city of his death. Meditate on it. Feel with him. Our life is hidden with Jesus Christ (Colossians 3:3) — discover what his life is like.

• _Fellowship._ Our love for the Lord is expressed in part by our love for one another. Share with others the joy that you have in the Lord. Let it shine. In Christ, we will live forever with one another, with ever-growing love for one another. Let's express his love in us now! Encourage others, as often as we meet them (Hebrews 10:24-25). Treat others with the courtesy that Jesus would give them. Forgive them as he would forgive them, and as he has forgiven you.

Christianity is a way of life, changing our thoughts, our actions, and our emotions. It is Christ in us who makes it possible. May he live in us all.

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## The Joy of Salvation

Have you ever noticed that we tend to appreciate things more after they are gone? People take better care of their heart, for example, after it stops working for a minute. The job that causes complaints one week may be valued more after the job comes to an end.

An old car looks good to someone who has none, but less desirable to someone who has a new one. It's the same car, yet one person appreciates it more than the other one does, because the person who has less tends to value it more.

In Jesus' parable, a woman celebrated having 10 coins only after fearing she would have only nine (Luke 15:8-9). She had the same amount (10) before as after, but she did not celebrate until after she had lost and then found a coin. The shepherd did not celebrate 100 sheep, but celebrated finding one that was lost (verses 4-6).

People appreciate food more when they are hungry, they appreciate water more when they are thirsty, they appreciate help more when they are needy. Health and freedom—and perhaps all good things—become more important to us when they are threatened.

### The joy of being found

The same seems to be true of spiritual realities, too. We value life with God more after we have experienced the problems of life on our own. In a strange sort of way, good can come out of evil.

Joe Aldrich mentions this statistic:

#### More than 90 percent of those who remain within the fellowship of the church following conversion were dissatisfied with their non-religious lifestyle before anyone proclaimed the gospel to them. More than 75 percent of those who "drop out" of the fellowship following conversion showed no significant level of dissatisfaction before conversion. (Gentle Persuasion, p. 99)

In other words, people make a more serious commitment when they have a greater need. The less happy they were with life before, the more serious they are now.

Perhaps that is why Jesus came to seek the lost (Luke 19:10). Everyone he spoke to was spiritually lost, but Jesus came to seek those who would admit to being lost, who would admit that they needed to turn toward God. They were the ones who knew they needed help and would appreciate his help. Beggars appreciate crumbs more than rich people do.

This does not mean that people should go out and sin like crazy so they can have a more dramatic repentance. All sin brings is heartaches and grief. Why make it worse? Everybody sins enough that they should be able to see that we are incompetent creatures and are in need of serious help. It would be foolish to pretend that we are among a (nonexistent) tiny minority who can manage life OK without any need for God.

Jesus did not call the comfortable. He called those who were burdened and tired (Matthew 11:28). He called the thirsty, those who knew they had a need (John 7:37). The first step of salvation, it seems, is to realize that we have a need. We need to see that life has more to it than what we can get on our own.

Some people struggle on the margins of faith. They know they fall short, but think that if they just had a little help, they could get back on their feet and make it on their own. They view Jesus as a temporary help, it seems—a little rescue every now and then, but they think they will manage after that. "Just tell me what to do, and I'll do it. A couple of days in the hospital and I'll feel better and go on my way."

But we are far too sick for that. We need more than rescue—we need regeneration—a new life. We need a heart transplant, intensive care, constant monitoring and constant forgiveness. We need a pacemaker—Jesus giving us a new heartbeat—and frequent medication from the Holy Spirit. We are seriously sick, and the better we realize it, the more appreciative we will be of the help that Jesus gives us.

### Help now and forever

The gospel of Jesus Christ helps us both in this life and in the future day of judgment. We have needs in both ages, and we should not neglect either one.

Some people treat the gospel merely as rescue from future condemnation. They accept Christ and, thinking that their future is now secure, go back to living pretty much the way they were before, all on their own steam, their own willpower, their own ideas of right and wrong. They may have seen a future need for Christ, but failed to see that they are desperately in need of him in this age as well.

They may trust in Christ when it comes to the future, but they do not trust in him for the here and now. They may strive for financial success, or for fame, power and importance. They may strive for pleasures in food and drink, sports and amusements. They may get them, but none of these will satisfy, because God has made us to need something more significant than self-amusement.

God has made us for fellowship with him, and nothing else can satisfy our souls. However, we often go hours or even days without giving much thought to God's glory, love and holiness. I am sure that once we see Christ in his glory, we will thump our heads and say, "Oh, how could I have ever paid so much attention to other things?"

But we do not yet see Christ this clearly. We live in the slums, so to speak, and find it hard to imagine places we have never been. We are too busy trying to survive the slum to dwell on the glories of God.

But all the miseries of this life are learning opportunities for us, I think. We will appreciate the joys of eternity even more after we have struggled with the shackles of sin. We will appreciate spiritual bodies more after we have experienced the pains of our physical bodies.

We will appreciate paradise more after being lost, than if we had never been lost at all—or at least the contrast will help us appreciate it much faster.

The trials of this life make us look forward to, and will help us appreciate even more, the joys of eternity. In a strange way possible only with God, good will come out of and replace evil. This does not make our trials go away. Rather, it may help explain why trials are part of life. As it is written in Acts 14:22: "We must go through many hardships to enter the kingdom of God."

God does not give us health and wealth whenever we ask, even if we are his children, because such things would too easily tempt us to focus on this physical life instead of spiritual reality. We are distracted too often as it is, but our attention (and our affections) would go astray even more if this life were more physically satisfying.

This physical life, in itself, is not supposed to be satisfying. It is supposed to make us hunger and thirst for the kingdom of Christ, so that we will come to him and be satisfied in him. The joys that he gives can never be taken away. In this life, we get only a down payment, to whet our appetite for more. It is through realizing what we lack, that we appreciate what Christ gives. The pain of being lost makes the joy of salvation that much more wonderful.

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## Living the Gospel

As followers of Jesus Christ, we proclaim the gospel—we announce the good news of what Christ has done for all humanity. But the gospel is not just words to pronounce—it also involves practical application in our lives.

When we accept the gospel of grace, it affects the way we think and the way we live. When we realize that we are sinners saved only by God's mercy, we become more patient with other sinners. When we realize that we have been forgiven an enormous debt, we become more forgiving. The better we understand and appreciate the grace shown us, the more gracious we become toward others. We see the need for forgiveness in ourselves and in others.

However, the more we see the need to be like Christ, the more we see how inadequate we are to this calling. We do not forgive as well as we should, or as well as we want to. We continue to need forgiveness for our lack of forgiveness, as well as our many other shortcomings. We do not find it in ourselves to do what we know we should.

So we look to God for the strength to forgive, and the desire to forgive. This is a learning and growing process, not achieved all at once. We look to God to change not just what we do, but who we are and how we think and what we value.

### A matter of trust

In this often-slow process of change, we need to trust Christ. We need to trust that he will, in his own time, make us like himself. We need to trust that he will change others, too. Although the church and its members are not perfect, and although they disappoint us and sometimes even hurt us, we need to trust Christ to do his work in them just as he does his work in us. We are all sinners on the journey together.

Trust in Christ affects the way we live—the gospel persistently reminds us to be forgiving, and to be aware that forgiveness will always be a necessity in this world. Just as we need continual forgiveness from God, the people around us need continual forgiveness from us. Even people with the best of intentions make mistakes. Even people who love us hurt us sometimes. In this world of pain and tears, forgiveness is necessary.

If this world is all we have to hope for, we have a rather meager hope. But in Christ, we have a sure hope of a far better world to come. The world needs a major overhaul, and we trust that Christ will do it. Our faith in the future, the heavenly world that Christ has promised, changes our values in the present. We put less importance on the things that this world values, and we put more emphasis on the things of Christ.

This change in values doesn't happen instantaneously. Like other changes in our lives, it is a slow process with breakthroughs and backslidings. Sometimes we get mired in the temporary things of the world, and sometimes we are able to cast them away as irrelevant and unnecessary burdens. As we value people more than things, as we value truth more than money, as we value grace more than revenge, the gospel is changing our lives.

### Examples

Friends, we are not just to know the gospel and preach the gospel—we are to be living examples of the gospel—examples of grace and faith and love. We want our lives to support the gospel, to commend the gospel, to make it attractive to others. We want the words we say about Jesus Christ to be accompanied by the sweet aroma of a Christlike life.

Few things can bring the gospel into disrepute more than a Christian with a corrupt life. People hear of sexual immorality within the church and devalue the gospel even before they hear it. Get your own house in order, they might say, and then we might listen to what you say.

Certain television evangelists have given the gospel a bad name. Church treasurers who steal give the gospel a bad name. Immoral priests have undermined the gospel. Church members who gossip and slander cause the gospel to be ridiculed. Hypocrisy undermines the good news. Self-righteous judgmentalism, on the other hand, hurts the gospel as much as adultery and crime. The point is that our behavior affects the reputation of the message. One bad example can mar thousands of good words.

A good example, however, helps the gospel to be favorably received. That is one of the dynamics at work in friendship evangelism. People can be won to Christ in only a few words after they have seen some good examples of the gospel in action. As Paul wrote, "Conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ" (Philippians 1:27). Some behaviors are worthy of the gospel, and some are not. Our example is important. Our lives should reflect the grace and faith we have in Jesus Christ.

When we trust Christ, we are willing to do what he says, confident that his instructions are what we need. Our behavior should include not only obedience to the commands of Christ, but also sensitivity to the expectations of our cultures. We do not have to obey cultural expectations, but we are sensitive to them because that is part of the way that we show love to others. We are considerate, gentle, patient and kind. Faith and love makes a difference in our lives.

Jesus said, Let your good deeds be seen so people will praise God (Matthew 5:16). Peter wrote, Let your good deeds be seen so people will glorify God when the right time comes (1 Peter 2:12). But we do not do good deeds simply for show—we do them because they are right. We were made for the purpose of doing good deeds (Ephesians 2:10). We were made for love, and love means more than good feelings—it means helpful words and helpful actions.

### Cause and effect

However, the gospel is not a list of good deeds that we must perform. The gospel is a message of grace—but after this message has taken root in our lives, it produces the fruit of good works, because the more we value the grace and love we have been given, the more we want to dispense grace and love to others.

Even so, we must distinguish between root and fruit, between the gospel and its results. We should not preach the results as if they were the message, because if people try to imitate the results without being motivated by the grace of Jesus Christ, they have mere religion, a fake faith, a legalism, not the gospel.

We preach the gospel of grace. We can point people, as the New Testament does, to the results that God's love will have in our lives, but we must remember that these are the results and not the focus of the message. But on the other hand, if there are no results, we might wonder whether the gospel has really been understood. This calls for patience. Just as we have a continual need for grace, others do too, and we have to trust Christ to do the work that only he can do.

The gospel commends good works, and good works commend the gospel. It is important to distinguish them, but not separate them. They go together, and grace is the horse that pulls the cart of good works. Our job is to help the horse. Our behavior should be a reflection of the gospel, based on grace, pointing toward faith and love.

How can we better live the gospel? That is something worth thinking about, worth talking about and worth putting into practice.

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##   
About the Author

Joseph Tkach is the president of Grace Communion International. He received a bachelors degree from Ambassador College in 1973, a masters degree in Business Administration from Western International University in 1984, and a Doctor of Ministry degree from Azusa Pacific Seminary in 2000. He is the author of

Transformed by Truth: The Worldwide Church of God Rejects the Teachings of Founder Herbert W. Armstrong and Embraces Historic Christianity

What Does the Bible Say About Worship?

Exploring the Word of God: Reflections on the Gospel of John

Speaking of Life

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## About the Publisher...

Grace Communion International is a Christian denomination with about 50,000 members, worshiping in about 900 congregations in almost 100 nations and territories. We began in 1934 and our main office is in North Carolina. In the United States, we are members of the National Association of Evangelicals and similar organizations in other nations. We welcome you to visit our website at www.gci.org.

If you want to know more about the gospel of Jesus Christ, we offer help. First, we offer weekly worship services in hundreds of congregations worldwide. Perhaps you'd like to visit us. A typical worship service includes songs of praise, a message based on the Bible, and opportunity to meet people who have found Jesus Christ to be the answer to their spiritual quest. We try to be friendly, but without putting you on the spot. We do not expect visitors to give offerings—there's no obligation. You are a guest.

To find a congregation, write to one of our offices, phone us or visit our website. If we do not have a congregation near you, we encourage you to find another Christian church that teaches the gospel of grace.

We also offer personal counsel. If you have questions about the Bible, salvation or Christian living, we are happy to talk. If you want to discuss faith, baptism or other matters, a pastor near you can discuss these on the phone or set up an appointment for a longer discussion. We are convinced that Jesus offers what people need most, and we are happy to share the good news of what he has done for all humanity. We like to help people find new life in Christ, and to grow in that life. Come and see why we believe it's the best news there could be!

Our work is funded by members of the church who donate part of their income to support the gospel. Jesus told his disciples to share the good news, and that is what we strive to do in our literature, in our worship services, and in our day-to-day lives.

If this e-book has helped you and you want to pay some expenses, all donations are gratefully welcomed, and in several nations, are tax-deductible. If you can't afford to give anything, don't worry about it. It is our gift to you. To make a donation online, go to www.gci.org/participate/donate.

Thank you for letting us share what we value most — Jesus Christ. The good news is too good to keep it to ourselves.

See our website for hundreds of articles, locations of our churches, addresses in various nations, audio and video messages, and much more.

Grace Communion International  
3129 Whitehall Park Dr.

Charlotte, NC 28273-3335

1-800-423-4444

www.gci.org

### You're Included...

We talk with leading Trinitarian theologians about the good news that God loves you, wants you, and includes you in Jesus Christ. Most programs are about 28 minutes long. Our guests have included:

Ray Anderson, Fuller Theological Seminary

Douglas A. Campbell, Duke Divinity School

Elmer Colyer, U. of Dubuque Theological Seminary

Gordon Fee, Regent College

Trevor Hart, University of St. Andrews

George Hunsinger, Princeton Theological Seminary

Jeff McSwain, Reality Ministries

Paul Louis Metzger, Multnomah University

Paul Molnar, St. John's University

Cherith Fee Nordling, Antioch Leadership Network

Andrew Root, Luther Seminary

Alan Torrance, University of St. Andrews

Robert T. Walker, Edinburgh University

N.T. Wright, University of St. Andrews

William P. Young, author of _The Shack_

Programs are available free for viewing and downloading at www.youreincluded.org.

### Speaking of Life...

Dr. Joseph Tkach, president of Grace Communion International, comments each week, giving a biblical perspective on how we live in the light of God's love. Most programs are about three minutes long – available in video, audio, and text. Go to www.speakingoflife.org.

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##

Grace Communion Seminary

Ministry based on the life and love of the Father, Son, and Spirit.

Grace Communion Seminary serves the needs of people engaged in Christian service who want to grow deeper in relationship with our Triune God and to be able to more effectively serve in the church.

Why study at Grace Communion Seminary?

 Worship: to love God with all your mind.

 Service: to help others apply truth to life.

 Practical: a balanced range of useful topics for ministry.

 Trinitarian theology: a survey of theology with the merits of a Trinitarian perspective. We begin with the question, "Who is God?" Then, "Who are we in relationship to God?" In this context, "How then do we serve?"

 Part-time study: designed to help people who are already serving in local congregations. There is no need to leave your current ministry. Full-time students are also welcome.

 Flexibility: your choice of master's level continuing education courses or pursuit of a degree: Master of Pastoral Studies or Master of Theological Studies.

 Affordable, accredited study: Everything can be done online.

For more information, go to www.gcs.edu. Grace Communion Seminary is accredited by the Distance Education Accrediting Commission, www.deac.org. The Accrediting Commission is listed by the U.S. Department of Education as a nationally recognized accrediting agency.

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## Ambassador College of Christian Ministry

Want to better understand God's Word? Want to know the Triune God more deeply? Want to share more joyously in the life of the Father, Son and Spirit? Want to be better equipped to serve others?

Among the many resources that Grace Communion International offers are the training and learning opportunities provided by ACCM. This quality, well-structured Christian Ministry curriculum has the advantage of being very practical and flexible. Students may study at their own pace, without having to leave home to undertake full-time study.

This denominationally recognized program is available for both credit and audit study. At minimum cost, this online Diploma program will help students gain important insights and training in effective ministry service. Students will also enjoy a rich resource for personal study that will enhance their understanding and relationship with the Triune God.

Diploma of Christian Ministry classes provide an excellent introductory course for new and lay pastors. Pastor General Dr. Joseph Tkach said, "We believe we have achieved the goal of designing Christian ministry training that is practical, accessible, interesting, and doctrinally and theologically mature and sound. This program provides an ideal foundation for effective Christian ministry."

For more information, go to www.ambascol.org

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