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 GROWN-UP CHRISTIANITY
Preached by Dr. Gene Scott on July 27, 1986 For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation . . . Romans 1:16 TODAY’S MESSAGE IS THE OLDEST MESSAGE of the church. The apostle Paul said in Romans 1, “I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ…” The word “gospel” simply means “good news.” I grew up in the church, but I didn’t hear much good news being preached; I mostly heard bad news, and most of it had to do with how bad I was. Paul said, “I am not ashamed of the good news of Christ,” that is, the good news of the Deliverer, “for it is the power of God unto salvation…” The Greek word translated “power” is dunamis, spelled using English letters. We get our English word “dynamite” from that Greek word. Paul was saying that the good news of the Deliverer is the dynamite power of God unto salvation! Most preachers want you to work really hard to measure up to their standard of godliness; and if you don’t measure up, they will clobber you with condemnation. But the good news of the gospel is that God Himself provides a power that can and will save you without your working at it. If I may use a ludicrous illustration, imagine sitting on a stick of dynamite, lighting the fuse, and singing, “I shall not be moved!” When that dynamite explodes, you will be moved, whether you are willing or not! The good news is that you don’t have to launch yourself into a godly orbit. There is a power provided by God that will do the job for you. The gospel of Christ is “the power of God unto salvation.” What does the word “salvation” mean? Some preachers think you must define salvation before you can experience it. But you don’t have to start with a theological definition, just as you don’t need to have an understanding of the chemical composition of dynamite in order for it to blow you up. I can tell you that salvation encompasses everything good that God intends for us to be and everything we ought to be, and if we had any sense, everything we should want to be. The problem with many traditional churches is they bog down in theological definitions and creeds instead of simply bringing you the good news of salvation. Paul was saying that he was not ashamed of the good news of Christ, for it is the dynamite of God unto salvation “to every one that believeth.” The word “believeth” was used to translate a form of the Greek word pisteuo. It is an inadequate translation because “belief” only involves the mind, whereas the word pisteuo involves the body in an action. There is no verbal form for the word “faith” in modern English, so we need to make up some new words to more adequately reflect the sense of the original Greek word. That is why I use the word faithing instead of “believing.” And I say “to act in faith” is “to faithe.” So Paul was saying that the good news of Christ is the power of God unto salvation “to very one that faitheth.” What is faith? Faith is an Action, based upon Belief, and sustained by Confidence. We call this “the ABCs of faith.” The will is involved in the action, the mind is involved in the belief, and the heart or emotions are involved in the confidence. Biblical faith is an action based upon the belief that when God has promised to do something, He will do it. Faith is sustained by the confidence that God will do what He said. Psalm 119:89 says, “For ever, O LORD, thy word is settled in heaven.” Numbers 23:19 says, “God is not a man, that he should lie.” He will carry out His word to its completion. Romans 10:17 says, “Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.” Faith comes when you are exposed to the record of God’s faithful performance. God says in Jeremiah 1:12, “I will hasten my word to perform it.” God cares more about His word than we do, and once having uttered it, He will bring it to pass. With that background, we will read Romans 1:16 one more time, substituting the words we have defined to help make the meaning clearer: “I am not ashamed of the good news of the Deliverer: for it is the dynamite of God unto salvation to every one that faitheth.” Let’s look again at the word “salvation.” The Greek word is soterian. It is difficult to translate because it embraces so many good things: it includes wholeness, it includes health, and it includes the fulfillment of everything we were destined to be. It is not possible to exhaust the meaning of this word we translate “salvation.” It is not a one-time event; it is a process with a beginning and an end. All that God wants to do in and through us is accomplished by the power of His Spirit working in us. And God will give that power to everyone who acts on His word, believing that He will bring His word to pass, and having confidence that once He has begun a work in us, He will continue to perform it. Paul goes on to say in verse 17, “for therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith,” which is a continuous process of ever-increasing faith. By contrast, most traditional churches reduce Christianity down to a list of rules. They teach that you can earn your way to heaven by keeping those rules. Pardon the gross analogy, but all that produces is potty-trained Christians. What is worse is that each church has its own set of rules that they expect you to add to your encyclopedia of Christian behavior. If you were to try to keep all those rules, you would end up like the Pharisees in Jesus’ day. Hillel and Shammai, two prominent Pharisees in the first century, even debated whether or not it was lawful to eat an egg that was laid on the Sabbath! That isn’t any more ridiculous than some of the rules that exist in churches today. But God’s way of living “from faith to faith” is an ever-vital, constant process of renewal. Only God can be righteous. One of the most misconstrued Bible verses is 1st John 3:9, which says, “Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin.” The legalists misinterpret this verse and say, “See? Once you are a Christian, you can no longer sin!” That is not at all what this verse means. It means that a new life is deposited in you, and that new life cannot sin; but that new life is deposited into a sinning container. I do believe in being “born again.” I believe in being born with life from above. It is a miraculous occurrence. It is not based upon feelings, nor is it based upon the recital of a formula. It is not something you should brag about, nor is it something you must demonstrate to others or something that should be exploited by others. My faith is based upon the Resurrection of Jesus Christ; for if I can believe in the Resurrection, I can believe that a new life can be placed in me. This new life from above, which is God’s Spirit, has the capacity to penetrate my being and dwell in me with the same power that raised Jesus from the dead. If I can believe that Jesus passed through the rock that sealed His tomb, passed through a locked door, interacted with His disciples, and ascended into heaven, then I can certainly believe that God can put His life into me. The Resurrection teaches me that God has the power to take the life that was in Christ and place it in me. I don’t have to feel anything when it happens, any more than I can feel or see neutrons and protons moving around inside of me. We know that if we pull atoms apart, we can cause a nuclear explosion; but God can displace the elements of our being without causing an explosion. He spoke and nothing became everything. Hebrews 11:3 says, “Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God…” God’s word holds everything together and one day He will recreate all things. Once I crossed the hurdle of the Resurrection, it was not difficult for me to believe that God can place the substance of His life in me. That is the good news of the gospel. I no longer have to be perfect or try to approach perfection as the criterion of receiving God’s life. The purpose of the Old Testament law was to be like a schoolmaster to drive me to cry out, as Paul did in Romans 7, “What I want to do, I find myself not doing. And what I don’t want to do, I find myself doing. With my mind, I agree that the law is good, but there is another law in my members that takes me into captivity. O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” Then he gave the answer: “I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin.” The purpose of God’s law was to hold up a mirror to show us that our best efforts still fall short of God’s standard. Paul said in Romans 3:23, “All have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.” We were all hopeless and doomed, until we received the good news of the gospel. The good news is that there is a dynamite power available, God’s living, vital force that He places in us. And as long as that power abides in us, it has the power to change us. The good news is that this power is available to us not for our perfection, but for our faith in God’s promises. God paid the price to obtain salvation for the whole world, but He made the decision to put His life only into people who trust Him. Christ paid a price worth enough to redeem the whole world. God can now save anyone He wants to save. He could decide to save a Hitler if He wanted to, or a heathen who has never heard of Him. He can save anyone because the basis for salvation has been provided by Christ. In Matthew 20, in the parable of the laborers in the vineyard, the laborers who worked only one hour were paid the same amount as those who worked throughout the day. One of the points God was making is that He can do whatever He wants. In Matthew 13, the parable of the treasure in the field teaches that Jesus paid a price sufficient to buy the whole field, which represents the world, in order that He might get the treasure out of the field. The treasure He is looking for is people who trust Him. God created Adam and Eve. He told them the truth and offered them life, but He also spoke of death. Satan, the deceiver, came along and lied, saying, “God didn’t mean what He said.” Adam and Eve believed Satan instead of God, and they acted on what Satan said instead of what God said. Everywhere was life, but God spoke of death; now, as a result of man’s listening to Satan instead of God, everywhere is death and God speaks of life. We have the same choice that Adam and Eve had: will we believe God or Satan? The good news of the gospel is that righteousness by works is no longer the criterion for salvation. The good news is that works will be produced by the dynamite of God’s own nature working in and through us! Again, “Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin.” Born-again Christians still sin, but it is not God’s Spirit in us who sins; it is the old nature in us, the old man, who sins. Galatians 5 says that when God places His Spirit in us, warfare is engaged. It is like trench warfare with both combatants dug in. There is a tug-of-war between the lusts or desires of the flesh and the growing fruit of the Spirit, which is like a blade of grass that can pierce its way through a concrete sidewalk. The church gets bogged down in trying to get people to kill the old man and imitate the new man. God gives the gift of His Spirit. He could have decided to give it to everyone. If I may use another ludicrous illustration, He could have decided, “I will give My life only to people who don’t snore,” and I would not be saved. He could have chosen whomsoever He wanted, but He decided that He would give it to those who act in faith on His promises. We can never attain righteous perfection; it is beyond our ability. But even a child can claim a promise of God. Whenever we confront a circumstance that challenges our faith, we can declare, “I will hang my body on what God has said, believing that once He has said it He will do it. I have seen God’s faithfulness to His word, and I have the confidence that His word is forever settled in heaven.” Every single day and in every single act, we have the opportunity to hang our bodies on His word. And as we keep the connection from faith to faith, He keeps His life in us. I have told people that they don’t have to change to come to this church. I don’t police my congregation. It is none of my business what you do in your private life. You have the right to work out your life between you and God. I have the same right; what I do with my life is no one’s business. There is only one criterion by which I will accept judgment from my congregation, and that is whether or not I preach according to “Thus saith the word of the LORD.” The message of salvation is for you and for me, and it is designed to inspire faith. Ephesians 2:8-9 says, “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: not of works, let any man should boast.” I preach about God’s performance, which inspires faith, because “Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.” But I also warm people: if you start acting in faith, the dynamite of God in you will change you. Whether or not you know what salvation is, God will put you into His saving orbit, and you will find that “old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.” That is the born-again experience that I preach, and I believe the old-fashioned good news that God does the “birthing.” With that introduction, please turn in your Bible to Romans 5, where we read beginning at verse 1, “Therefore being justified by faith…” To be “justified” is to be held “just like” something, and in this context it means “to be treated as though you were just like God.” So we could translate this verse, “Therefore being made just like God by faith…” You and I are sinners; this is a church full of sinners. Everyone preaching from a pulpit today is a sinner. The Pope is a sinner and the Archbishop of Canterbury is a sinner. Again, “All have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.” The Greek word translated “sin” is hamartia. There is no sense in trying to precisely define this word, for it applies to everything that falls short of God’s glory. Only God can be God and only God can be good; and only that which is born of God’s Spirit cannot sin. When you act in faith, God puts His Spirit into you, and you will begin to take on Christ’s nature. That new life in you will find an outlet, which is God being Himself through you. That is the meaning of “spirituality” in the New Testament: it is “the expressions of the Spirit.” God in you is called “the hope of glory: because if He stays long enough, He is the power that will change you. He will displace the old nature in you; it will die daily and the new life will renew daily. Paul said, “Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God…” That means we who are acting by faith rather than striving through the effort of works have peace with God. Peace means “cessation of againstness.” That is good news. You know the difference between having to obey a command and claiming a promise of God. You can face your circumstances and declare, “My circumstances might defy God’s word, but I will grab hold of His word and act as though it were already a fact. Because God said it, I am certain that He will do it, and ‘For ever, O LORD, thy word is settled in heaven.’ I want to live where His word reigns, so I will hang on to His promise until I die. And if I die not having obtained the promise, I know I will wake up in eternity where His word reigns without friction.” That is faith. We can claim God’s promises even though we know that we fall short of His perfect standard in many ways. God doesn’t judge us by our “holy” performance, and He will certainly not judge His own Spirit which cannot sin. As long as His Spirit is working in and through us, His dynamite power will do the changing in us. He sees our heart and He alone knows what needs to be changed. He sets the direction, the pace, and the rate of change as He pours out His grace on us. That is why we need to get off one another’s back and stop judging. Once we start acting in faith on God’s word, He is no longer against us and we have peace with Him. But there is no peace in the message of the legalists: you can memorize and perform their entire encyclopedia of righteous Christian behavior and you will still fall short. The New Testament says, “For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse” of the law. If you think you can get to heaven by measuring up to some perfectionist’s standard, you will still fall short of God’s standard, whether you know it or not. And having fallen short, God’s wrath is on you. God gives you grace, unmerited favor, for your faith. He looks at you as though you have been placed in Christ and are standing in Christ, just as God looked at Christ as though you were placed in Him. The wrath of God for all our sin was poured out on Christ at Calvary. Once and for all, and only once, Christ died for the sins of men and rose to new life. God’s peace is now directed to those who are justified, viewed as just like God, because they are acting in faith. “Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ: by whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand…” Imagine a stage under a spotlight, and that one patch of light has been designated as the place where grace will flow. And anyone who steps into that light will receive what he or she doesn’t deserve: grace and peace. To continue the analogy, imagine that you know how to get onto that stage. You know that just by climbing up a few stairs you can step onto that stage. Now I can believe that the stage is a place of grace, but I can get there only by hanging my body on that belief and actually climbing the stairs and stepping into the light. Likewise, faith is an action. You are not acting in faith by only thinking about something. You only enter into God’s sphere of grace by acting on His promises. It doesn’t matter which promise of God you claim in faith as long as you act on that promise. Let me use another analogy, this time from the science fiction show Star Trek. When the crew would stand in a specific spot and say, “Scotty, beam us up,” they would disappear and then reappear in another place. All analogies break down, but the paradox and the good news is that wherever you find a promise of God and act on it, you are instantly “transported,” figuratively speaking, into a dimension of life where there is no judgment. You are transported into a sphere of grace, which is unmerited favor from God. Even a child can understand that. Paul said, “We have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand…” Jesus said that He is the Door. He is the way of access. The traditional churches all have their own “doors” they require you to walk through. There is a door for those who never wear makeup, or for those who never cut their hair. There is a door for those who have never been divorced, or for those who have never committed adultery. There is a Baptist door, an Assemblies of God door, a Methodist door, and numerous other denominational doors. None of those things will get you in: not your behavior and not your denomination. Paul said, “We have access by faith.” Some legalist might object, “But what if someone gets in who doesn’t belong?” The legalists are like those whom Jesus spoke of in His parable of the laborers in the vineyard. They would complain, “I came to work at 5:00 in the morning and worked throughout the heat of the day. I haven’t done anything fun for 30 years! I gave up everything for Jesus! But here is a man who just started acting in faith an hour ago. Why should he be rewarded?” The Bible says, “We have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand.” Someone will ask, “Do you really mean that faith is all we need to make it to heaven?” Right! To those of us who grew up in a fundamentalist church, this is a painful lesson to learn. We learned how to “act” like Christians before anyone ever taught us about the good news of the gospel. Do you realize how much we gave up for Jesus? I wasn’t even allowed to play basketball in grammar school because I was told that a preacher’s kid shouldn’t wear shorts. No one taught us about faith. We thought we had to conform to a list of “do this” and “don’t do that.” This is why some fundamentalists persecute those who are under grace: they think, “It doesn’t matter what the Bible says; people shouldn’t be allowed into the kingdom unless they suffer like we have suffered!” Faith is all it takes, friend. Again, Paul said “We have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.” What is “the glory of God?” Hebrews 1 teaches us that God’s glory is the out-raying of His nature, which is simply another way of describing spirituality. “The hope of the glory of God” anticipates the day when the God of peace shall sanctify or “separate” us wholly in His presence. He will transform us into new creatures. The old man in us will be laid down and we will be like Christ! During our life here on this earth, as God’s power stays in us, the fruit of the Spirit grows. We start to change more and more into His image, and glimpses of His nature start to be seen in us. That is the glimmering of the hope of glory. The fact that we have access by faith into this sphere of grace gives us the hope that the same God who is accomplishing this in us will glorify us wholly in eternity! Paul goes on to say, “And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience; and patience, experience; and experience, hope…” Our English word “tribulation” comes from the Latin word tribulum. A tribulum was a rod that was used to crush and beat wheat, to separate the wheat from the chaff. I call this crushing process “whackings.” It represents God’s treatment of us through which He accomplished His purpose. This treatment is never pleasant when it is received. We don’t like it. But Paul is saying that “we glory in tribulations.” I have now moved from preaching on basic Christianity to intelligent, “grown-up” Christianity. We have learned to not bawl and squall like babies in our tribulations. We now understand that faith places us into this sphere of grace. We no longer have to act like Christians for the sake of other Christians. We no longer have to wake up fearful every morning that some other Christian will see us doing something they think we shouldn’t be doing. God, who knows the heart and who is ever-present with us, “commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us,” and has given us “access by faith into this grace wherein we stand.” But in that sphere of grace where we receive unmerited favor, we also get the unmerited favor of His discipline. Hebrews 12:6 says, “For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth.” The Greek word for “to chasten” is paideuo, which means “to child-train” or “to coach,” like the way a coach trains a runner. A good coach will make a runner run one lap before he runs two, and two laps before he runs three. The coach trains the runner by progressively strengthening him. Grace includes the unmerited favor of receiving private tutoring from God. This training is what takes us to the hope of glorification as joint heirs with Christ throughout eternity. We therefore learn to glory in God’s “whackings.” We should start to expect this treatment. We say, “Here I am, Lord. Pour out Your grace!” but we usually don’t expect Him to respond with a whack! There are legalistic churches where people are constantly condemned for their sins. There are other churches where people want to be happy all the time. They may have come to the knowledge of God’s grace, but all they want to do is shout for joy all the way to heaven. I want us to understand that God’s ways are to train us, and He trains us by whackings! We mature into grown-up Christianity when we begin to understand this. Do you rejoice when you are being “whacked? by God? I am sure that no one does. But we need to understand that as faith takes us into a sphere of grace, this sphere of grace includes God’s whackings. Why would we glory in whackings? We glory in whackings, “knowing that whackings worketh patience.” Cross out the word “patience” in your Bible and write in a better translation: endurance. We glory in whackings because whackings produce endurance. Did you think that you wouldn’t make it through the whackings of the last few months? Yet you made it, didn’t you? God’s chastisement didn’t kill you. Whackings worketh endurance; and endurance, experience. Cross out the word “experience” in your Bible and write in a better translation: triedness. When you received the first couple of whackings, you might have thought you would die. But the whackings resulted in your discovering an amazing truth: you survived! After continued whackings, you realized, “I’m a survivor! I have triedness! Thank God, I don’t die easily!” I thought God would kill me with every new trial He laid on me the past few years, but to my joy and to my enemies’ despair, I am still here! Christianity is not this foolish business of getting up every day, polishing our behavioral list, and saying, “Let’s see how perfect I can be today.” We might as well cover ourselves up and not go out! True Christianity involves courageously walking into the storms of life, grabbing hold of the promises of God and saying, “Today is my opportunity to claim a promise of God, hold on to it, believe it, and act on it.” And while we are doing that, we are moved into a sphere of grace where we have all of God’s unmerited favor, but it comes with some training. You see, God is getting us ready to rule and reign with Him throughout eternity. He doesn’t want a bunch of people who, because they have never done anything, just sit around looking holy in heaven. We are in training in preparation for eternity. God had a purpose for us at creation when He said, “let us make man in our image.” He removed the barrier of sin in order that He might start over with us and accomplish what He intended to do. He took all of our sins, past, present, and future, put them on Christ, and offered to us the keys of His kingdom. All we need to do is take God at His word and start acting on it. When we do that, we are brought into a sphere of unmerited favor and receive every benefit from God, including the loving training of a Coach who keeps us moving on in faith and who chastises us to teach us that we can endure. Most modern Christians are too soft. God wants to make us tough. If I may use another ludicrous analogy, He wants to make us into “beef jerky Christians.” Have you ever eaten beef jerky? It’s pretty tough, but it can survive almost any circumstance and it lasts a long time. God wants to make us into tough Christians. Whackings produce endurance, and endurance produces triedness. Now what does Paul say is the result? Triedness gives us hope. We reach a point where it dawns on us and we can say, “I have been called ad chosen to live this way, and I will make it through!” There is a point where triedness produces the confidence that enables us to declare, “By Christ, I will make it all the way home! I am a recipient of God’s grace, care, and training. I can claim the promise, ‘No weapon formed against me shall prosper.’” When we are able to say that, God can then use us to really do something for Him because He knows we will hold to “Thus saith the word of the LORD” and we won’t let go until death! God’s investment in us has then paid off. God wants to graduate us to greater challenges. When the United States turned the tide of war in the Pacific during World War II, they didn’t start over with an army of new recruits with each island they invaded. The soldiers at the next island had survived the beaches at the previous island. As you are led into greater challenges, don’t give up on God! The whackings we receive produce endurance and triedness. Endurance and triedness give us the hope that we will make it all the way home. That means we will remain in God’s sphere of grace and learn to glory in His whackings. Let’s go out and give it all we’ve got for God, because if God be for us, who can be against us? Reprinted with permission from Pastor Melissa Scott | August, 2023 Wingspread | July, 2023 Wingspread | June, 2023 Wingspread | May, 2023 Wingspread | April, 2023 Wingspread | March, 2023 Wingspread | February, 2023 Wingspread | January, 2023 Wingspread | | Year 2019 Wingspreads | August, 2016 Wingspread | 2016 Wingspreads | 2014 Wingspreads | 2013 Wingspreads | 2012 Wingspreads | 2011 Wingspreads | 2010 Wingspreads | 2009 Wingspreads | 2008 Wingspreads | 2007 Wingspreads | 2006 Wingspreads | 2005 Wingspreads | 2004 Wingspreads | 2003 Wingspreads | 2002 Wingspreads | 2001 Wingspreads | August, 2001 Wingspread | November, 2001 Wingspread | December, 2001 Wingspread | 2000 Wingspreads | 1999 Wingspreads | 2015 Wingspreads | Year 2017 Wingspreads | 2018 Wingspreads | Year 2020 Wingspreads | Year 2021 Wingspreads | Year 2022 Wingspreads | Year 2023 Wingspreads | | Return Home | Current Wingspread | Wingspread Archives | Contact Us | |
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