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October, 2020 |
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Preached by Dr. Gene Scott on July 13, 1986 For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth. Romans 1:16 I AM PREACHING ON BASIC CHRISTIANITY. Many people have been turned off by the endless parade of judgmental preachers they see on religious television. The church was never supposed to be a place for people to go and be condemned for their sins. The church should be a place where people come together to worship God and learn something from His word that brings forth faith. Denominations often reduce God down to make Him fit into their own theological boxes. There is nothing wrong with being a member of a denomination, but God is not a Baptist, a Methodist, a member of the Assemblies of God, a Catholic, or a Presbyterian; He is the King! As J.B. Phillips said, “Your God is too small.” God is not a resident Policeman trying to catch you doing something wrong so He can punish you for it. Thank God, there is an alternative to all of that nonsense. It is found in simple, real-life Christianity. Paul wrote in Romans 1:16, “I am not ashamed of the gospel.” The Greek word translated “gospel” means “good news.” Paul’s readers knew what that word meant; it needed no translation in his day. He was simply saying, “I am not ashamed of the good news.” Why should anyone be ashamed of the good news? Have you ever gone to a church and wanted to bring your friends, but you were embarrassed by the message? Or did you ever go to church out of a sense of obligation, all the while hoping that no one you knew would see you there because the preacher was hammering the saints with a message of condemnation? The first message of the church spread like wildfire because it was good news! The book of Romans is the only treatise Paul wrote to a group of people he didn’t know personally, so it is the most complete statement of his theology. Paul was simply declaring, “I am not ashamed of the good news of Christ.” The name of Christ has a powerful meaning to us and it ought to, but the word also has a simple-to-understand meaning: Christ is the Deliverer. Paul was essentially saying, “I am not ashamed of the good news of the Deliverer.” The church has departed from that simple message. Many sincere but misguided Christians think the purpose of the church is to tell you how terrible you are. Thus the church has become like an army that shoots its own wounded. The message of condemnation does not represent normal Christianity; Christ Himself is the norm. Paul said he was not ashamed to proclaim the good news of the Deliverer, “for it is the power of God unto salvation.” That good news of the Deliverer is the power of God. The Greek word translated “power” is dunamis, from which we get our English word “dynamite.” The good news is the dynamite of God unto salvation! Pardon the ludicrous illustration, but it you hold a stick of dynamite and light the fuse, it will move you! The dunamis of God has the power to change you. Paul was not ashamed of the good news of the gospel because it carries within itself the power to save; it is the power of God unto salvation. The Greek word translated “salvation” is soterian. It is one of the most difficult words in the entire New Testament vocabulary to translate. Its meaning cannot be conveyed by using only one word. It is a past event, it is a process that is going on right now, and it is also an event that will culminate in the future. It encompasses everything that ought to be, can be, and will be for our good. Salvation involves repentance, which means turning from our way to God’s way. That is something we all need to do. Salvation embraces healing, it embraces life, and it embraces purposes fulfilled, as well as everything man was created to be and to become. Salvation is not attained by reciting a prayer at an altar or by memorizing a list of rules. It is not found in behavioral traits practiced by traditional Christians to make them feel like they are better than other people. It is a profound word that you can really only touch the meaning of. I could talk from now until this time next year and not exhaust the meaning of salvation. It is not necessary to know all the meanings of salvation, but it is nice to know it is more complicated than some people think it is. The good news of the gospel is the good news of the Deliverer. This good news is the power of God that brings salvation. It is a power outside of ourselves: we cannot manufacture it, nor can we stamp it with our own brand and offer it as though it were ours to dispense. That power alone is what saves, and that is the reason I don’t try to convert people. I cannot change you, but the good news is there is a Deliverer who can! I don’t harp on sin because I don’t think I need to tell you what sin is; you already know. I am convinced that some preachers vicariously enjoy sin by talking about it and attacking others for it. The word “sin” is a translation of the Greek word hamartia, which simply means “to fall short.” The New Testament doesn’t waste time making a substitute for the old pharisaical list of “do’s” and “don’ts.” Paul said in Romans 2 that there are Gentiles who “do by nature the things contained in the law,” because they have the law “written in their hearts.” But it doesn’t matter whether you are a heathen without the law or a Jew who was privileged to receive God’s holy standard given to Moses on Mount Sinai. It makes no difference if you can perform the law better than someone else, for the conclusion is that all have sinned. Romans 3:23 says, “All have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.” What is “the glory of God?” it is the out-raying of God’s nature. Hebrews 1 explains that we encounter the out-raying of God’s nature in Christ. The New Testament doesn’t focus on horizontal comparisons of man’s relative goodness or badness. It rather speaks of a condition of falling short of what we ought to be. Whatever sin may be, salvation is its opposite. I am not condoning sin. What we need is salvation, and I believe that everyone knows that. The good news of the gospel is that there is a saving power. Most people are like a thirsty man in a desert land waiting for someone to come and tell them the good news. If you can tap into that saving power, it will project you into the path of salvation whether or not you wanted to be changed. That is the good news of the gospel. Paul goes on to say in Romans 1:16 that this gospel “is the power of God unto salvation to every one . . .” I have news for my fundamentalist brothers: this power is available even to a man like me. Any sinner can tap into this power. Who wouldn’t want it? I believe that even an atheist would like to tap into a power that would enable them to fulfill all of their purposes and their ultimate reasons for being and be projected past the plateau of their short-fallings. Paul says that this good news of the Deliverer is “the power of God unto salvation to every one . . .” I have had enough of Christianity being trivialized, cheapened, denigrated, and made to look ridiculous. The message of the church is that there is a power available, a power that will save! Again, I cannot fully define salvation because it goes beyond my ability to define it, but it is a realization of all that mankind ought to be. And the God who created all mankind says it is available to everyone. As the grand old hymn says, “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me.” Yes, salvation is available to wretches. It is not the exclusive property of self-righteous preachers who think, “It’s mine to possess and give to you on my terms.” God’s gift of salvation is available to you and to me. You might wonder, “What must I do to obtain this salvation?” Some people will say, “Just make sure you don’t do anything.” Many Christians think that “goodness” means “doing nothing.” That is not goodness, it is merely nothing. The church has reduced itself to nothing: nothing in its influence, nothing in its impact, and nothing in its respect. And when the church has been reduced to nothing, that is when the world says, “Move aside.” Who needs a church? Just build another high-rise. The true message of the church is nothing to be ashamed of. I am not ashamed of the good news of the Deliverer because that good news is “the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth.” That is how it reads in the King James Version, but the word “believeth” ruins the translation. In English, the word “believe” is a verb that describes something that only goes on in the mind. We also have the word “faith,” which is a noun and not a verb. Neither one of these English words expresses the true meaning of biblical faith. Thus the true meaning of New Testament Christianity has been lost in the church as a result of our language. The Greek word translated “believeth” is a form of the verb pisteuo; it describes an Action, based upon Belief, which is sustained by Confidence. We call that “the ABCs of faith.” The Greek word pisteuo, in both its ancient and modern usage, involves the will as well as the mind. Pisteuo doesn’t allow a separation of mental activity from action. Because the English language doesn’t have an adequate translation for this Greek word, we need to invent some new words to express its meaning. That is why I say that a person acting in faith is a faither, and when he is acting in faith he is faithing, and he faithes upon the object of his faith. There are many kinds of acts that man can perform. Some acts have a good object and a good outcome while others do not. It is impossible to choose not to faithe, because you are always acting based upon some belief that is supported by some measure of confidence. Therefore, faith is a necessity of life, like breathing. Your only choice is the object of your faith. You must learn to choose the right objects of faith, act on them, and have confidence that you are going in the right direction. The English language conveniently separates “belief” from action. “Belief” reduces Christianity down to creeds, which limit our view of God. Paul wrote that the good news of the Deliverer is the power of God unto salvation to everyone who faithes. That means salvation is given to everyone who, in spite of his or her circumstances, acts continuously on the promises of God – to death, if necessary – based upon the premise that God spoke and His word brought everything into existence. Therefore, I have a choice. I can hang on to God and His word by an act of faith, or I can hang on to what I see and feel even though they contradict what God has said. The gospel message is the good news because you don’t have to measure up to someone’s behavioral standard. Christianity is not merely an improved rendition of the ancient law delivered to Moses on Mount Sinai. It is a brand new revelation of a kind of righteousness that comes from God alone. It is a brand new declaration of God’s amazing grace, His unmerited favor. This amazing grace is the gift of God’s own powerful work to save everyone who acts in faith. I don’t understand how the church could repeatedly mess up such a simple message for 2,000 years! Few have had a passion to be delivered from a sense of sin to the degree that Martin Luther had. He had tried every known form of penance, including crawling up the steps of the Lateran Palace in Rome on bleeding knees. He finally recognized that he could not deliver himself, and he remembered Paul’s words to the Romans: “the just,” or the righteous “shall live by faith.” The righteous shall live, not by belief alone, but by actions based upon belief in the promises of God. Every time the church has a reformation, it returns to this simple message from the Old Testament that is quoted three times in the New Testament: “The just shall live by faith.” With these words resonating in Luther’s heart, he shook off the bondage of legalism and set a continent on fire. It is a simple concept. Anyone can understand the difference between a law that must be obeyed and a promise of God that can be claimed. For example, if you are sick, you don’t have to hunt for a promise. You know you need healing, and God has said in His word, “I am the LORD that healeth thee.” God does not have to be talked into keeping that promise; it is a declaration of His nature. A sick person has an opportunity for faith every day, and you only need one. The need itself becomes a catalyst for faith. Let me illustrate this concept. I know a woman who suffers from chronic pain. Her life is an object lesson in faith. Every morning she declares something like this: “This will be the day the pain will go away.” The God I serve has revealed Himself to be a God of compassion, a God of care and a God of love who has declared eternally in His word, ‘I am the LORD that healeth thee’”. That is her declaration of faith. Understand that this is not “positive thinking,” nor is it like the Christian Science belief that the pain isn’t reality. The pain is real pain. But forever settled in heaven is a promise declared by God that He is a healer. Therefore, this woman has the opportunity to look her circumstance in the face and start her day by either accepting her pain or by saying, “God spoke the worlds into existence. I can trust Him and I can choose to be different from those who only trust what they see. I can reach up into eternity and claim God’s promise to heal. I will act in some small way as though His word will pierce the fog of time, and today will be the day He heals me!” In essence, don’t give in to what things look like, as though your present circumstances were the final answer. You might wonder, “What if she dies of her sickness?” Then she just received the best healing that anyone could ever receive. How can I be so confident of that? When Paul faced death, he said, “The time of my departure is at hand.” The Greek word translated “departure” was used to describe a ship laden for a journey that was just getting started. To Paul, death was not an end; it was a beginning. It was like getting on a ship just leaving the harbor to start a journey. Death is not, as some say, “A place of rest.” It is the beginning of life eternal. That brings us back to the Resurrection, where Christ was raised from the dead as the hope of life eternal for us. Each step of faith is a step taken with resolve, and the church ought to be preaching these truths to help you to make that resolution. Whatever your need may be, there is a promise of God for you to claim. Are you anxious about tomorrow? God’s word says to cast all your cares upon Him, because He cares about you. He is your peace. I am making a distinction between the kind of preaching that lays down a bunch of laws for you to fear and obey, and the kind of preaching that mines God’s book for the positive statements of who God is and what He wants to be to His people. The preaching of God’s word should give you a handle to hold on to in faith. Faith gives you the opportunity to declare, “I will not let these circumstances get me down. Damn these circumstances! I will grab hold of God’s word and hang on to it!” I don’t know what tomorrow will bring, but my Bible says, “As thy days, so shall thy strength be.” If you wake up feeling like you can fight seventeen lions, look out! If God gives you strength like that, then He knows that seventeen lions are coming your way. And if you wake up feeling so weak that you can hardly get out of bed, don’t focus on how bad you feel; rejoice that you won’t have to face as many problems today. Have you ever wanted to quit at the end of the day, but the next morning you managed to find the strength to go on? God has promised to give you strength sufficient for the day. There are promises we can claim individually and for the church. Jesus said He will build His church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it. As I said earlier, the ancient Greek word for faith is a verb that requires you to act, based upon a belief that is sustained by confidence. By that definition, you cannot exist without faith; faith is the presupposition of every action in a person’s life. You cannot get out of bed without faith in gravity. It takes faith to get into a car and drive through an intersection because you have to trust that the other crazy drivers will actually stop at a red light or stay in their lanes. I believe that when the New Testament was written, God reached down and made the word pisteuo His own and gave it an elevated status. Faith became singularly focused on acts based upon the promises of God. Now God only defines faith as any act that is based upon grabbing a promise from His word and claiming it as your own, in spite of the circumstances and until death if necessary. If you die in faith, you will wake up where God’s word is forever settled in heaven, where there is no friction between circumstances and the word of God. Once the New Testament was written, mankind was essentially separated into two groups: those who respond to the good news of the gospel and those who do not. The relative goodness or badness of individuals is no longer the issue. Faith is now defined as an action based upon His word of promise; and any other actions, even good actions, do not qualify as biblical faith. We need to hear the gospel message again and again and let it penetrate our being, because traditions so easily blind us. I grew up in the church and learned how to “act” like a Christian before I ever met the Lord. Christian behavior was defined as doing what other Christians thought I should do. Traditions make it hard to be set free by the good news of the Deliverer. The good news is that there is power that produces salvation apart from our own works. It is a power that will change you and bring forth your ultimate being. That power of salvation is given to everyone who faithes, as the Bible defines faithing, which is grabbing a promise of God and acting on it. Faith in a promise of God qualifies you to receive salvation. That is the good news, and it is also why I don’t try to convert people. I believe you have the right to work out your faith between you and God. He saves whom He will, but He has declared in His word that He will give the gift of salvation to those who faithe. Look into your own heart and you might understand God a little better. What do you want from your loved ones: perfection or trust? God has made a decision about what He wants. He created man, but man chose to trust Satan and his lies. That is the lesson of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. You can call it a myth if you want to, but I happen to believe it is true. From Adam and Eve until now, God has been looking for people who will trust Him. Ephesians 2 says there was a barrier between God and man because of our sins. The barrier was between our short-fallen nature and God’s own righteousness and integrity to keep his word, because God had decreed that for sin comes death. But God through the death of Christ transcended the need for the penalty of death by bearing the penalty in Himself. He came to seek and to save that which is lost. He didn’t come to stomp on us, to condemn us, or to punish us. He bore our sins in His own body that He might now come to us and give us the power that saves if we will trust Him. When you find a word from God that gives you hope, take hold of it because you can count on Him to do what He promised. God will save you. I am not ashamed of that good news, “For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith.” Paul says in Romans 2, “Therefore thou are inexcusable, O man, whosoever thou art that judgest . . .” Have you ever encountered a judgmental person? I am reading from a King James Bible, but apparently there are some fundamentalists who must not have this passage in their Bibles. “Therefore thou art inexcusable, O man, whosoever thou art that judgest: for wherein thou judgest another, thou condemnest thyself; for thou that judgest doest the same things.” I think anyone can see that this is common sense. Paul says in Romans 3:28, “Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law.” The word “justified” means to treat someone as though they are “just like” someone or something else. In the Scripture, justification means we are treated as though we are just like God, even though we are not. “Therefore we conclude that a man is justified,” treated as just like God, “by faith.” We become godly by faith. We are saved by faith through actions that are based upon the belief that when God says something, He will do it, and sustained by the confidence that He has always kept His word. The psalmist said, “For ever, O LORD, thy word is settled in heaven.” Therefore, we ought to act on God’s word in spite of what we see. Therefore, we conclude that a man is made just like God by acts of faith without the deeds of the law. The traditional church world says, “Yes, Jesus saves; but you have to do this and you have to do that, and you can’t do this and you can’t do that!” The message that this church proclaims is “Jesus saves with no ‘buts’ attached!” Without fear or favor, the message is, “We conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law.” Some fundamentalist might argue, “But if you were really a Christian, you still won’t do this or that. We have a standard of holiness to uphold!” There is much confusion in the church concerning the meaning of the word “holiness.” In the New Testament, the word translated “holy” is hagios, which essentially means commitment. You make something holy when you turn loose of it and give it to God. Faith does that; it commits you to God’s word. Holiness doesn’t have a thing to do with behavior. Jesus said in Matthew 11, “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” Every sinner in town is invited to come to this church to listen and learn as we unfold God’s performance from His word. Come and see whether or not God has a long track record of doing what He said He would do. Then, find a promise of God that fits your need and grab hold of it with a mindset that says, “If I die, I will die hanging on to God’s word.” I repeat, “We conclude that a man is made just like God by faith without the deeds of the law.” Paul asks in Romans 4, “What shall we say then that Abraham our father, as pertaining to the flesh, hath found? For if Abraham were justified by works, he hath whereof to glory; but not before God.” In other words, if Abraham were declared righteous because of his good deeds, he would have something he could boast about, but not before God. Remember, Paul was writing to a people of Jewish heritage and Abraham was their hero. Paul was asking, “Should Abraham obtain God’s favor because of his good works? Did Abraham perfectly keep the law? We read in Genesis that Abraham told his wife to tell people that she was his sister, not his wife. Abraham and Sarah lied because he was afraid that when they traveled to heathen lands, the people who lived there would kill him in order to get to her. Abraham wasn’t perfect; he was a liar! God gave Abraham a promise that he and Sarah would have a child, and instead of trusting God’s promise at the outset, he and Sarah came up with their own plan. Sarah suggested that Abraham go into the tent with Hagar, her young handmaid, and that union produced Ishmael. It didn’t take a miracle to do that. Most of Christianity is doing the same thing, engaging in fleshly works that don’t require a miracle of God. The Bible says works don’t get you into heaven. That is why Paul says in Romans 4, “If Abraham were justified by works, he hath whereof to glory; but not before God. For what saith the scripture? Abraham believed God . . .” Literally, “Abraham faithed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness.” The epitome of Abraham’s faith was expressed when he claimed God’s promise to take Isaac up on a hill and sacrifice him. Abraham had matured in his faith by that time. He took Isaac up that hill, but before going, he told the men at the bottom of the hill that he and Isaac would go up the hill and that both of them would come back down again. He was so convinced of God’s promises that if Isaac were slain, Abraham believed that God would raise Isaac from the dead. It was Abraham’s ultimate ability to grab hold of God’s promise that saved him. The conclusion follows in Romans 4:4, “Now to him that worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt.” In other words, if getting to heaven is based upon works, then God owes us a debt, and we would have the right to stand before Him and present our record of good works. The thing that is wrong with many Christians is they expect to go to heaven because they are so “good,” and they expect the rest of us to go to hell because by their standard we are not as “good” as they are. You cannot say to God, “I deserve to go to heaven because I didn’t kill some people who did me wrong.” God would say, “You still wanted to kill them. And if you hate in your heart, you are as guilty as a murderer; so you are going to hell.” Some people might say, “If you were really a Christian, you wouldn’t hate anyone.” I am really a Christian, and I know I have hated people. Thanks be to God, my works are not the criteria of going to heaven! The Bible says that if salvation were reckoned of works and you met the criteria, you could present your record of good deeds and God would let you in. But if you are trying to get into heaven by keeping God’s law, the problem is that no one can fully keep it. The law doesn’t allow any degree of falling short at any time. Again, the works of the law are no longer the criteria of getting into heaven. God laid on Christ the iniquities of us all. He bore all of our sins in His own body and died in our place. By that one act, once and for all, the barrier between God and man was removed in order that God might give us a new beginning. That new beginning is the good news of the gospel. I can now stand and say I am not ashamed of the good news of the Deliverer, for it is the dynamite of God unto salvation. God will take you right where you are if you will reach up through the things of time and say “I will trust God and His promises.” For that act of faith, He will dwell in you and change you. And then your reward is not reckoned of works but of grace, which is unmerited favor. God gives grace to those who will trust Him. We are not like the rest of the world who act only on what they see. We say there is a higher One who has offered us eternal life. In every other way, I may be like every other man, but my life will have this one distinguishing mark on it: when I see a promise of God I can claim, I will grab it and damn every circumstance that contradicts it. I will hang on to that promise, unto death if necessary, in the certain assurance that “For ever, O LORD, thy word is settled in heaven.” Faith is what gets us into heaven, and that puts salvation within reach for all of us. As we go out into the jungle of time and feel the pressure that seeks to turn us into nothing, we have the assurance of knowing that God lives, He cares, and He has given us a chance to do something for Him. When we grab hold of His promises, we are being saved because of our faith and not because of our works. We don’t make it into heaven because of a debt owed to us for our goodness. We are gifted with eternal life and the power that changes us because we dare say, “God said it, and I will act on that as though it is the most real thing I will ever encounter in this life.” This is a message of simple, basic Christianity. It is so easy to slip into the “do do this and don’t do that” mindset. I want the church to be full of people who come every Sunday with just one purpose: to hear God’s word. I want people to gather who desire to be shown from the record of Scripture that when God promises to do something, He can always be counted on to do it. Then we can take hold of a promise, claim it as our own, and walk out the door each Sunday feeling a little more secure in the knowledge that God keeps His word. Numbers 23:19 says, “God is not a man, that he should lie, neither the son of man, that he should repent.” When He promises something, He will do it. What He speaks, He will make good. I say to the tradition-bound Christians: stay off of my back! Let me learn this message, the good news of the gospel. Don’t waste time condemning me for my sins; just preach the wonderful truth that God is faithful. Then I can claim His promises and look the world in the eye and declare, “I am hanging on to something more real than what you are hanging on to.” That is the message of this church: Jesus saves those who trust in Him, with no “buts” attached! Reprinted with permission from Pastor Melissa Scott | December, 2020 Wingspread | November, 2020 Wingspread | October, 2020 Wingspread | September, 2020 Wingspread | August, 2020 Wingspread | July, 2020 Wingspread | June, 2020 Wingspread | May, 2020 Wingspread | April, 2020 Wingspread | March, 2020 Wingspread | February, 2020 Wingspread | January, 2020 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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