Revelation 3:15-16 – “I know your works: you are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were either cold or hot!  So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth.”

What does Jesus mean to you?  What does the gospel mean to you?  These are the questions to ask yourself when you approach a text like the one from Revelation above.  If you asked someone around you what the most important thing in your life was, how might they respond?  It might be a good thing to do; their answers might surprise you.  For those who are saved, Jesus Christ is the most important person/thing in their life.  I am dismayed that I feel like I have to defend and explain that to professing believers, but such is the state of the church in the south with cultural Christianity.  For everyone who believes on Jesus with authentic faith, it will become apparent to themselves and others that He is the object of their affection and pursuits in life.

1 John 5:1-5 – “Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the Father loves whoever has been born of him.  By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey his commandments.  For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome.  For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world— our faith.  Who is it that overcomes the world except the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?”

This scripture from 1 John explains how God judges faith by works, and is perhaps confusing at first, but glorious in its simplicity after you unravel it a bit.  Let’s do it.  To do that, we need to answer three questions.  1)  How can salvation be by faith, yet God always talk about works/obedience in the Bible  2)  What is the good news of the gospel, and how has it conquered the world?   3)  What does the response of authentic faith in the gospel look like?

To answer the first question, first ask yourself a question.  Did you play sports when you grew up?  You probably knew a lot about that sport, practiced often, and it would be the topic of conversation by you often.  If others talked about you, they would know that you played that sport.  All of that is “fruit” or “works” evidencing one basic belief – you found happiness in the sport.  If that much was true about a sport that you played for a short while, until your health/age limited you, how much more should we expect to see of someone who is a follower of Christ?  You will be a follower of Christ for eternity, and your life evidences whether or not you find joy in Him.  Salvation is more than a decision to believe a fact.  Even Satan and the demons know Jesus was the son of God, was crucified in the place of depraved sinners, and rose again.  Salvation is seeing the gospel with the eyes of your heart, and delighting in it, delighting in reconciliation to God, delighting in God in Jesus and all that He is for us.  That delight will manifest itself outwardly in works.

What is the “good news” of the gospel?  The good news is that although a sinner, and under the wrath of God, Jesus has saved us from our sins.  Through faith in His righteousness and perfect sacrifice on the cross, we are forgiven our sins, are given the Spirit of God, made into a new creation (no longer in bondage to sin), and have a hope of eternal life with Christ.  (I could go on, but for brevity, I’ll stop here).  A good question to ask yourself at this point is, “do I consider that good news”?  Even more importantly, how good of news is that to you?  Is it REALLY good news to be reconciled to God, or just a “yeah I don’t want to go to hell, so I’m happy I’ll be safe in heaven” kind of good news?  Be honest with yourself.  I have much more hope for the person who answers “you know what, I don’t have that kind of passionate response to the gospel” instead of the person who deludes him/herself day after day, year after year, that they are saved in spite of their apathy.  All that is accomplished with the latter is a hardening of heart against the glory of God.  God knows your heart already, it’s not helpful to feign passion where none exists.  A better response to a lack of passion is to ask how to grow it, but I’ll touch on that later.  So the gospel is GOOD NEWS, and Jesus Christ has overcome the world, sin, and we enter into His victory through faith.

What does the response of authentic faith in the gospel look like?  I’m not saying these have to happen all at once.  I believe they can, but sometimes it happens in stages or gradually.  First, someone must understand the problem of sin.  If someone does not understand the holiness of God, His righteous judgment/wrath against sin, and that they in fact are a sinner, whatever response to the gospel is mustered will be counterfeit.  So there’s brokeness over personal sin.  Second, joy.  Joy in salvation through faith in Jesus Christ.  If someone is truly feels the weight of their sin, then the removal of God’s judgment for that sin, will produce joy in their heart.  Does that make sense?  It’s one of the reasons I don’t understand pastors that soft peddle the horror of sin, and God’s wrath.  The joy of a believer is tied to their understanding of what it meant for Jesus to bear the wrath of God in our place, as a perfectly righteous sacrifice.  I say third, but really this happens concurrently with the first two emotions, comes a great affection for God, Himself.  I don’t worship God merely because Jesus died for me, I worship God for who He is (and His glory was most fully shown through the gospel of Jesus Christ).  I jokingly say among friends sometimes, that if perhaps I deceived myself all these years, to believe I was saved, and God sent me to hell, I would build there the first church to worship the righteousness of Jesus Christ (for sending me there).  So you’ve got a brokeness against sin, a joy in salvation through the gospel of Jesus, and a new affection for God Himself.  If those things are true, does it not make sense that your life might look different?  Wouldn’t you want to share your salvation with others, and seek to live out your life in obedience to Christ who died for you?  Wouldn’t you want to stop sinning against the God who bled and died in your place?

Often times people don’t understand that the fight against sin isn’t a matter of willpower, it’s a matter of replaced affections.  I don’t like to sin anymore not because the people around me at church tell me not to, but because I love God; because He is good, and is leading me to live for my good and His glory.  My outward obedience to God, is rooted 100% in my belief in the gospel of Jesus Christ, and my love for Him.

This has gone long, so I apologize, but I did promise encouragement to those who have heard all of this and are saying to themselves, “I want to, but I just don’t feel that way yet”.  When God charged the church in Revelation above with being lukewarm, He had not yet judged them, and was giving them a warning.  That warning was a means of grace to expose what was true in the heart of the church, so that they might repent and believe.  Today is the day of salvation.  Repent and believe that Jesus Christ is Lord.  Your sin is more horrible in the eyes of God than you can possibly imagine, but His salvation and grace through the shed blood of Jesus Christ is greater still.  Hope in Him, seek Him in His Word, and He will run to you.  In fact, you may find that He was already with you.

Others of you might be saying “I was passionate once, but that passion has waned over time.”  I’m not sharing my faith as much, my heart isn’t set on fire as it once was.   I know myself I’ve had periods of time where I wanted to have that passion, and it just wasn’t there.  My encouragement is to cling to the cross.  Dig deep in each of the three emotional responses to authentic faith.  When I feel my heart’s affections dim, usually my problem lies in focusing too much on one part, and not enough on all three.  Either I’m truly broken over sin, but I am not reminding myself that my salvation rests in Christ alone, not in myself, or I’m not taking sin seriously enough to be broken over it and remember what the cross means to me personally, or I am intellectualizing the gospel, without taking time to let my heart simmer in the glory of God, to savor God, and everything Jesus is for us for eternity.

Be encouraged, there is salvation in Christ, and what a Savior Jesus is!  He has not left us unable to believe, but has even given the gift of faith to believe to Christians.  Therefore, believe, and rejoice.  When your works of obedience abound to the glory of God, let your boast be in Christ alone.

Grace and Peace,
Adam

“The LORD your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God.”  – Deut 4:24

“Clouds and thick darkness are all around him; righteousness and justice are the foundation of his throne. Fire goes before him and burns up his adversaries all around.  His lightnings light up the world; the earth sees and trembles.  The mountains melt like wax before the LORD, before the Lord of all the earth.” – Psalm 97:2-5

“The LORD is a jealous and avenging God; the LORD is avenging and wrathful; the LORD takes vengeance on his adversaries and keeps wrath for his enemies. The LORD is slow to anger and great in power, and the LORD will by no means clear the guilty.  His way is in whirlwind and storm, and the clouds are the dust of his feet.  He rebukes the sea and makes it dry; he dries up all the rivers; Bashan and Carmel wither; the bloom of Lebanon withers.  The mountains quake before him; the hills melt; the earth heaves before him, the world and all who dwell in it.  Who can stand before his indignation?  Who can endure the heat of his anger?  His wrath is poured out like fire, and the rocks are broken into pieces by him.”  – Nahum 1:2-6

There is nothing that God hates more than sin and you have been a sinner from the moment you were born.  In Nahum we are told that the LORD will by no means clear the guilty, and every one of you are guilty.  Every waking moment of every one of your days has only served to increase your guilty before a holy and righteous God.  His judgments are true, there is no injustice in Him, therefore all should tremble.  If all of creation is but the fringes of God’s power, imagine every ounce of God’s power being poured out in wrath against the unrighteousness of sinners… sinners like you… sinners like me, for eternity.  That is the weight of God’s glory.  If that scares you, it should, it does me.  We should all fear God, but we should not live in fear.  We have an advocate in God’s courtroom.  His name is Jesus Christ, and for those who trust Him, we have a greater hope than we could imagine. 

In Christ, we have a righteousness that is not our own.  Your righteousness is not within you, your righteousness is Christ.  It is an amazing thing to truly rest in the peace of Jesus Christ crucified.  The joy found in Him can only be understood by those who truly understand the wrath of God, the atonement of our sins by the righteous One – Christ, and the imputation (gift) of Christ’s righteousness to all who believe on Him. 

John Bunyan wrote a book in the 1600’s called “The Pilgrim’s Progress”.  It has sold more copies of any book in history except for the Bible.  In it Bunyan describes a point in time where the burdens of questioning his salvation were loosed from him:

One day as I was passing into the field . . . this sentence fell upon my
soul. Thy righteousness is in heaven. And . . . I saw with the eyes of
my soul Jesus Christ at God’s right hand; there, I say, was my righteousness;
so that wherever I was, or whatever I was doing, God
could not say of me, he [lacks] my righteousness, for that was just
before him. I also saw, moreover, that it was not my good frame of
heart that made my righteousness better, nor yet my bad frame that
made my righteousness worse, for my righteousness was Jesus Christ
himself, “The same yesterday, today, and forever.” Heb. 13:8. Now
did my chains fall off my legs indeed. I was loosed from my afflictions
and irons; my temptations also fled away; so that from that
time those dreadful scriptures of God [about the unforgivable sin]
left off to trouble me; now went I also home rejoicing for the grace
and love of God


Some will hear this gospel of salvation to all who believe on Christ, and reject it outright.  Others will acknowledge it casually and move on with their lives.  But for those who believe, our faith is credited to us as righteousness and we will never be the same.  We are a new creation in Christ.  We have forgotten what lies behind, to press on to know Him more.  We have died to ourselves so that Christ might live in us.  What a salvation!  Our hunger to know this great savior and Lord that is insatiable.  There is no end to His glory to know and delight in.  This is what He offers all who follow Him.   
 
Jesus died, that we might live.  God raised Him, so that we would know the hope of eternal life in Christ Jesus.  Our salvation is not an idea, it is a fact.  We have been saved; 2000 years ago, on a cross Jesus Christ died and rose again securing salvation.  He became sin (our sin), bore the full wrath of God, and died in our place… but the grave could not hold Him!  His righteousness was greater than our sin.  God raised Him, accepting His sacrifice, and he sat down at the right hand of God.  No more sacrifices needed to be made, it was finished.  These words cannot express the glory of God in salvation, but as you read, taste and see that the Lord is good with the eyes of your heart.   
 
As you walk today, and you are tempted to recall past failures or today’s struggles, when Satan would even try to convince you that your works could separate you from the love of God, speak this truth to yourself – my righteousness is not my own, my righteousness sits at the right hand of God.  Run to Him.  Wait for Him.  Wherever you are, in His presence is where you need to be.  God loves you, and knows the horrors sin will bring.  Therefore, the grace of God through Christ Jesus does not save us from the rebuke of God when we sin, anymore than a loving father would refrain from punishing a young child when he insisted on running into traffic.  But even as we bear the consequence of sin, know that our Salvation is secure in Heaven.   His name is Jesus. 

Grace and Peace,
Adam

Philippians 3:8-14 – “I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith— that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.  Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.”

1 Corinthians 9:24-27 – “Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize.  Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last, but we do it to get a crown that will last forever. Therefore I do not run like someone running aimlessly; I do not fight like a boxer beating the air. No, I strike a blow to my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize.”

Have you ever competed in sports, or other competition?  How much time did you spend preparing?  What drove you persevere in practicing when maybe you didn’t feel like it that day?  Hopefully it wasn’t an overbearing parent.  Hopefully you know what it is like to persevere in pursuit a personal goal.  The same discipline that you had in pursuing those goals is the same discipline with which we must pursue our salvation, as we seek to conform our lives into the image of Christ. 

If you want to get in better physical shape, what do you do?  Do you sit back and hope that you have good genes to magically stay in shape regardless of your effort?  Obviously, no.  Why then do some Christians take that approach with their spirituality?  Sometimes it’s helpful to see pictures, but since I’m limited in that regard through email, I’ll simply give an example of two Christians side by side.

Christian A:
Chooses to wake up an hour earlier each day to read His/Her Bible and pray
Chooses to get involved in an evangelistic/service ministry that is near to his/her heart
Chooses to get a spiritual mentor / be held accountable
Chooses to spend 1-2 hours at night in study of God’s word or other Christian (Biblical expository) books
Chooses to memorize scripture even though it might not be easy
Chooses to identify current sin struggles, how temptation strikes, and seeks to proactively defend against (or run from) temptation and kill sin
Chooses to get into Christian community with people who are different from him/her and take the risk of being known fully
Chooses a church (and actually becomes a member/active) where they are challenged spiritually from God’s Word
Chooses to earnestly seek after God in prayer daily

Christian B:
Goes to Church
Prays sometimes
Reads their Bible on occasion

Does this mean that Christian B isn’t saved?  Maybe, maybe not.  I can give you a 100% guarantee, however, that Christian A over time is going to be increasingly conformed into the image of Christ.  I could not give that same assurance to Christian B.  This makes sense right?  What do you think these two people are going to look like down the road after 1 year, 2 years, 5 years, 10 years, 20 years?  Can you see that gap growing and growing over time?  I can. 

We are those who have trusted on our Lord Jesus Christ for salvation.  We are those who have been granted grace through his shed blood, not to continue as we were, but to pursue Him in holiness.  Is the glory of God, through your transformed life, a goal for you?  Are you seeking to be valuable to God as a worker?  Don’t allow your career, or other pursuits to draw you away from joy in God.  Pursue God with even greater vigor and discipline, knowing that our reward is eternal. 

You may be looking at the list of actions I put up there under Christian A saying “I can’t do that”.  I’ve got this, and this, and that, which keep me from having the time.  Let me say this.  If you have children, hopefully you are rearing them in the Word of God, and they are your ministry.  If you do not have children, then whatever is taking up your time, however good it may seem, is nothing more than an idol.  For me, that used to be my career; my job.  I worked in consulting, which required me to travel constantly, working sometimes until 12am, 1am even pulling an all nighter once or twice.  You know what?  I found another job.  I realize that may not be easy, especially in the current economy, but complacency will kill the heart of a Christian.  Do you know that even in pursuing a different job… during that time, it drove me closer to God?  I knew God wanted me to have that time with Him, and time for ministry, therefore even my pursuit of those things were growing my faith.  Let’s always be seeking to raise the bar for ourselves, not lower it. 

Jesus never called mere converts, Jesus called disciples.  Less of us, is more of Him.  Therefore, let each of us exercise our great freedom in Christ to discipline ourselves for Godliness.  Where do you hope to be spiritually 1 year from now?  2 years from now?  5 years from now?  10 years from now?  We all have the same ultimate goal – Jesus.  He is our treasure. He is our prize.  You will fall, it will be hard, it will be messy, but the prize is worth your perseverance.  Each day is a new day in the Lord.  Instead of looking back at days already lost, let’s ask ourselves how we are going to live today for eternity.  Work hard, and rest in the grace extended to you by the blood of Christ. 

Grace be with you,
Adam