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Preached by Dr. Gene Scott on December 30, 1984 There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus . . . Romans 8:1 THE CHURCH HAS MADE CHRISTIANITY into something mystical. The basic claim of Christianity is that God moved out of the unseen eternal world and struck a tent in human flesh called Jesus of Nazareth. He walked ordinary streets, and ordinary people loved Him; it was the tradition-bound religious people who hated Him. Jesus took God’s nature down to where people live. He didn’t have to create a fake spiritual atmosphere in order to make an appeal to the apostle Peter. There was no organ player playing by the Sea of Galilee, and there was no gospel trio singing, “Just as I am, without one plea . . .” Jesus brought God’s nature to the people and He gave them hope. The traditional church has been pushing God’s nature back out of reach. I want to help us realize that God is looking for the chance to incarnate His life where ordinary people live. If you ask most people you meet on the street what a Christian is, they will likely say, “A Christian is someone who does this and does that, and who doesn’t do this and doesn’t do that.” But those things have nothing to do with being a Christian. Not a thing. The church works so hard to do God’s job for Him, trying to make us righteous. Thank God the traditional church has given up on trying to make me righteous! This is a church where sinners are welcome and a church where we find that God has not changed: He still wants to come and meet us at our point of need, right where we are. All He is looking for is people who will trust Him. David Livingstone, the great missionary, often faced terrible dangers in the heart of Africa. One time a band of men threatened to kill him if he attempted to cross a certain river. He calmly sat down and read a Scripture of promise, “Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.” And then in typical English fashion he said, “It is the word of a gentleman of the most strict and sacred honor, so there’s an end of it! In other words, “God said it and that settles it. I will believe and act on it!” Christianity is not something complicated; it is a trusting relationship with God and His promises. The church has been trying to beat the saints into conformity to the law, instead of offering them hope. God never intended that man could keep the law. God spoke to Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden and said, “If you eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you will die.” You can call it a myth if you want to; I believe it really happened. God told them they would die, but Satan said, “You will not die. In fact, if you eat it, you will be like God.” The truth embraced in the story of the fall of man is that man believed Satan and didn’t trust God. Satan lied when he said they would not die, and he lied when he said that the knowledge of good and evil would make them like God. The knowledge of God’s standard cannot make you like God. It can only teach you the distance between you and God. If God intended that man could keep the law, He would not have provided vicarious sacrifices for the Old Testament saints. He would not have provided a Day of Atonement where the sins of the people were transferred to a scapegoat that was taken into the wilderness. God spent centuries proving two things: He keeps His word and the devil is a liar, for people have been dying ever since. Every graveyard proves the devil is a liar. Paul understood that God’s law was a schoolmaster to teach us no one can keep it. No man can be like God in his own strength. The church keeps telling us that we can, and that is the shipwreck of the church. They tell us we are saved as an act of grace, but we had better walk straight thereafter. That is not true: the whole work of salvation is God’s work. The entire Old Testament proves all have sinned, whether heathen or Jew. The New Testament doesn’t define sin as the length of your hair of the way you dress and other such stupid things. It defines sin very simply: the Greek word is hamartia. It means “to miss the mark” or “to fall short.” All have sinned and have fallen short of the glory of God, and a miss is as good as mile. God’s law demands perpetual perfection. In order to be perfect, you have to keep every jot and tittle of the law, all the time. If you fall short for even one second of your life, then your performance would no longer be perfect. That was the purpose of the law: God entered into the stream of time and revealed His standard so we could be taught that we can’t live up to it. The devil is a liar. The knowledge of good and evil will not enable you to save yourself. The knowledge of our sinful condition drives us to the cry of Romans 7, “Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” But Paul concludes, “I thank God . . . There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus.” The Greek word translated “condemnation” is katakrima. It means “ultimate condemnation.” Paul said there is now no ultimate condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus. He then explains the mystery of how one gets in Christ: you are in Christ when He is in you, and Christ is formed in your heart by faith. This is as close as I come to being mystical about religion. The Greek word we translate “salvation” is soterian; it means wholeness, it means health, it means the process of making the trip, and it means finishing the trip. It embraces every good thing God intended for man, including eternal life, and it is all a gift. God is looking for people who will trust Him. I imagine encountering some self-righteous deacon in heaven who will be very angry to see me there. He will look at me and say, “You used to cuss, yet you still made it to heaven?” And I will say, “Damn right!” Another self-righteous critic will approach the throne of God and say, “I lived a better life than Dr. Gene Scott. Give me my reward!” And God will say, “Go to hell.” You cannot get into heaven by living a “good” life. That is the lost message of the church. Every Sunday, all day long, the TV evangelists dump on people for their behavior. I recently heard a preacher give an impassioned sermon against smoking, going so far as to tell tobacco growers that they should sell their tobacco farms. He even claimed that God “made” him say it. That is the kind of idiocy that turns people off on Christianity and the church. God gives you salvation when you trust Him. Some old drunk who trusts in God will receive a better reward in heaven than the self-righteous deacon. Someone will ask, “But what about sin?” God laid it all on Christ. You might ask, “Doesn’t our behavior count?” It sure does, but another lost message of the church is that when you trust God, He puts His Spirit in you, and that Spirit will change you. This is a church that welcomes sinners. Most churches merely transplant saints from one church into another church. I am concerned for those people who really are a part of God’s church even though they might have never stepped foot inside a church building. Maybe you have been falsely told that your behavior is proof you have forsaken God. I am telling you that you never left God. I grew up in a traditional church frame of reference where I was made to believe you had to stop living to be a Christian. Real people couldn’t be Christians; you just had to hope that when you died, it would be in a plane crash so you had time to pray on the way down. That is a tragedy. God responds to faith and gives you His life. This pastor has never condemned you. I have never told you that you had to change your behavior. I told you that if you would trust God, then look out! He will change you. I don’t judge my congregation and I don’t let them judge me. You and God have to work it out. But many of you can say that since you started listening to the teaching of God’s word, you have been changed, even to your surprise. No one tried to change you, but you changed. You see, only God can be godly. If you run the risk of getting God’s life if you, He will change you. I would like to think that I have been changed and that I am a better man than I was ten years ago. I am grieved in my spirit when I encounter people who focus on people’s surface behavior, but I take great encouragement in the knowledge that even my worst enemies have never criticized my faith. I have never heard a critic say, “Dr. Gene Scott doesn’t have faith.” Well, my Bible tells me God gives me salvation for my faith! And He supplies all the other things I need. The church is forever trying to get us to supply what God supplies; and by so doing, they neglect the only thing we can do that guarantees God’s supply. God wants faithers. He doesn’t expect us to be perfect. He is already surrounded by perfection: He has angels flying around Him who never miss a beat. When I was growing up in the traditional church, people had to quit doing whatever it was they were doing when they became a Christian. When you got saved, you quit playing basketball. If you were a performer, you quit performing and you were expected to pray until, like James, your knees looked like a camel’s knees. You had to prove your righteousness and your “right” to receive salvation. I said to someone as they entered the church for the first time today, “We don’t have an ordinary church. We don’t create a separate society.” You don’t have to have a “men’s fellowship” to have a church. I tell men, “Get out in the world and take it over!” If you want to be a part of a men’s organization, then join the Rotary Club. We don’t want a monastery; we want to bring God back into the reality of life! There are professional entertainers who worship at this church. My message to them is to be the best at what they do. Where did this idea come from that to serve God you have to be stupid, freakish and poor? Faith is the key. When you start faithing, God sends His Spirit to dwell in you, puts you in Christ as a finished product, and puts all your sins on Jesus as a past event. How wonderful! Even the smallest grip on a promise of God makes the connection of faith, like plugging an electrical cord into an outlet. When God puts His life in us, we don’t necessarily have to feel anything, but the testimony remains that people are changed. I am placed in Him as a finished product, and God looks at me through what I call “the spectacles of Christ.” God looks at me as though I were already perfect. All my sins past, present and future were put on Christ at the cross. I often say that faith is 90 percent courage. You will never fall apart over today’s problems; it is always the fear of what might happen tomorrow. Have you ever entertained the thought you wouldn’t make it this far? But you made it, didn’t you? The fact that we are still here is living proof that God has taken us through. There is a man whom I greatly respect who recently started helping this church. He just had open-heart surgery, and now he is battling another serious health issue. That is the way it always happens. The Christian walk is a faith walk, and if you step out in faith, you will come under attack. There are plenty of preachers who say that if you would just give your heart to the Lord and “accept Christ,” everything will get rosy and all your problems will disappear. Nonsense! First of all, you don’t “accept Christ,” as though He were standing there with hat in hand waiting to be “accepted.” If God exists, then you had better get on His side, not the other way around. Second, your problems may be worse. If you really want to have problems, get saved. The devil is not stupid. He doesn’t waste his resources on people who are already in his prison camp. Even men are smart enough not to pursue people who are already in a prison camp. The devil launches his greatest attacks on those who are breaking free. If you have the breath of eternity and say, “I am going to believe and trust the God that I know,” then it is the devil’s business to try to stop you. But the outcome is predetermined if you will just refuse to let go. You will either die with faith on your lips and wake up in eternity, rich in faith and its rewards, or you will change the circumstances that surround you as you become a conduit of God’s power. The good news of the gospel is that all our sins are covered. You cannot think up a sin that God doesn’t already know about. Some people start out with faith and say, “I will take God at His word,” but then they go right out and try to be righteous in their own strength. That is like getting into a sports car, turning the ignition key, revving up the engine – and then getting out of the car and walking! Friend, stay in the car. When that car starts to move, you are going to move too. There was a comedy movie in the 1960s which I believe provides a good illustration of the salvation process. It starred Don Knotts as The Reluctant Astronaut. The premise was the reluctant astronaut didn’t want to go into space. He climbed into his space capsule and said, “I don’t want to go,” but when the rocket blasted off, he went! You might be a “reluctant Christian,” but if you start faithing in your moment of need, God will give you His life, reluctant though you may be. This may not be what you call a normal sermon, but I have told you what Christianity is all about. Trust Him, I am not saying you have to accept my exact view of God; I am hooked on the revelation of God in Christ. Start where you are, for that is where God meets you, and He takes you as you are. Jesus never told His disciples they had to change. He never told Thomas to get rid of his doubts before he could be a disciple; He took him with his doubt. And right to the end, Jesus offered to submit to the very test Thomas asked for. Jesus never made Peter guarantee he would not fail; He took him with his failure. God takes you where you are. This church and this ministry exist to do one thing: to prove God’s faithfulness to His word. When God says something, He does it. You can count on it! Reprinted with permission from Pastor Melissa Scott | December, 2019 Wingspread | November, 2019 Wingspread | October, 2019 Wingspread | September, 2019 Wingspread | August, 2019 Wingspread | July, 2019 Wingspread | June, 2019 Wingspread | May, 2019 Wingspread | April, 2019 Wingspread | March, 2019 Wingspread | February, 2019 Wingspread | January, 2019 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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