Different, Not Just Better by First Family Church

Different, Not Just Better: Salvation in Street Clothes

Todd Stiles

To my children! Apart from my Savior, you four have changed my life the most. Brett, Bethany, Breanna, and Brooke—you four are the most practical and convicting theologians on the planet, for God has used you in more ways than you know and at more times than you realize to bring about a difference in me that was critically needed. Your lives are breathing lessons in Soteriology, and you are all living testimonies to the powerful and saving grace of God that thankfully overwhelms me and changes me for the good of our family and the glory of God.

contents Acknowledgements ....................................................................7 Preface ..........................................................................................9 God Draws Us: Conviction ....................................................17 God Saves Us: Regeneration ..................................................31 God Forgives Us: Justification ...............................................43 God Restores Us: Reconciliation ..........................................55 God Ransoms Us: Redemption ............................................67 God Stands In for Us: Substitution .....................................79 God Credits Us: Imputation .................................................91 God Claims Us: Adoption ....................................................103 God Changes Us: Sanctification ..........................................115 Afterword ................................................................................129 What Must I Do To Be Saved? ............................................135

acknowledgements Though you can’t see it on your copy, each page of Different, Not Just Better bears the stain of a few hundred tear drops, as well as the echoes of a thousand shouts. It is the spectrum of emotion that I experienced when writing this book; it’s what comes with telling someone else’s story. That task, though never easy, is always rewarding. And this collection of testimonies is no exception. It was a winter delight to write these. I especially want to thank the nine people who so willingly wear the grace of God as their only real garment of any significance. Brad Miller, Tom Urban, Jody Halsted, Keith Ryan, Carol Collins, Mike Boone, Craig Davidson, Timur Nesbitt, and Lindsay Farmer. You people amaze me! Only because of God’s sovereign graciousness has he allowed our paths to cross and given us the incredible opportunity to share ministry together in the body of Christ we know as First Family Church. My gratitude to you for boldly standing as a trophy of grace for the glory of God and allowing me the sincere honor of setting your story in a frame of words for others to read. To the world’s best team of people to work with—the staff and leadership at First Family Church. It is an honor to pastor among you. Thanks for your ideas, suggestions, edits, and comments, and for enduring my endless revisions and corrections. A special word of praise to Lindsay Farmer and Mary Whelchel for believing in this project and doing what only you can do (on a shoestring budget!) to make this book look great as a final product. I promise I’m done! A boatload of kudos to my parents for not only providing editorial help with this project, but for being the major editors of my life as well! Together, you modeled the lives of true followers of Jesus in front of me as I grew up, showing me year after year what salvation looked like lived out day by day. I will always be grateful to God for placing me sovereignly in your home. And to the only earthly person who really knows how deliriously speechless I become when I think about our “so great salvation”—my

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incredible wife! You never tire of my theological explorations or scriptural excavations, and you have never resented the fact that often our dinner table turns into a seminary class. When my nose gets runny, my eyes start watering, and my voice starts quivering, all because I find his mercy uncontrollably overwhelming, thanks for letting me work through that and even joining me in that. I am so glad God’s grace displayed is never embarrassing to you. You know what I want to say when I can’t get it out in words or on paper; or when I get it out wrongly. Thanks for being my best ghost writer, editor, thesaurus, and spell checker. As with every other book, I really think your name should be in place of mine.

preface

PREFACE (Todd Stiles)

“For I am not ashamed of the Gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek” (Romans 1:16).

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Try harder. Those are the central words of religious people. It’s their mantra. After all, it’s the best way to become a better you. Trust Jesus. That’s the core belief of God’s people. It’s their lifeline. After all, it’s the only way to become a different you. Perhaps you’ve rarely considered the difference in those two phrases. Or maybe you’ve seldom thought about the effects that each one can have upon your life. Lately, I have. And quite bluntly, trying harder has worn me out. I’m done with “better.” However, becoming better does have an initial comfortable appeal to it, doesn’t it? No one has to feel really badly about their past, because in a better world we just do what we always did, only more positively. More polished. Less offensive. In the environment of better, no 11

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one was wrong, just misguided. There aren’t sinful actions or wicked habits; only mistakes and unrealized intentions. Quite frankly, better is code for upgrade. Improved. But upgrades and improvements don’t deal with the deep down, inside issues. Improvements simply touch up the paint or customize the body style. They just keep the image intact. What’s needed is something new. Something not like the former. Yes, something different. Different is to better what God is to man; what spiritual is to physical. It is something “wholly another.” In fact, the root understanding of holiness in the Old Testament contains the idea of different and set apart. When God said to the Israelites on at least six occasions, “I am holy,” he was communicating he was of another kind. Different. Not just an upgrade of them, or a better and more sophisticated human. Not at all! God was in no uncertain terms indicating he was wholly—and holy—another kind than them. So when Peter, in his letter to scattered believers north of Jerusalem, exhorted them with this same Old Testament quote, “Be holy, for I [God] am holy,” he was calling, under the inspiration of the Spirit of God, for more than human resolve to “turn over a new leaf.” He was urging them, and I believe us as well, to pursue life from a wholly—and holy—different source: God’s. I must warn you: Being different is quite uncomfortable. Why? Because different means change. And since change is something that starts inside, it can get messy. And quick! Really risky in a hurry. Breathtakingly demanding. But for those tired of endless resolutions and kumbaya commitments, different is addictively attractive, worth every ounce of energy and exposure. In the realm of the different, you watch the old die, not just go down for a nap. Change becomes deep. Constant. Reliable. And even though different people often lack the words to fully explain the change process they’re going through, they are never tongue-tied when asked to briefly testify: “Jesus, God’s Son!” Therein lies the core contrast between better and different: Better is about you, but different is about Jesus. In fact, until Jesus does what

Preface

only he can do—regenerate the heart and transform our appetites— we will never be different. Instead, we’ll just continue to act better. Not that acting better is a bad thing. It does make life on earth more tolerable. Your neighbors really appreciate it when you are better, as well as your boss. Or your employees. So sometimes better has some real benefits in the here-and-now. But in the long-term—in eternity—better leaves you lacking. Only different matters when it comes to life after this planet. Why? Because only different people enter heaven to live with God and Jesus in their kingdom. And what makes us different? Jesus! He has changed what is wrong inside—our nature. Until that root issue is changed, you will keep trying harder, but it will accomplish nothing when your life is over. You see, heaven wasn’t made for good people. Or better people. It’s not a place for those who have earned it. Instead, heaven is a place for those who have been forgiven. Changed. It’s a deliriously joyful place for those who have been made different by Jesus through salvation. This is the real heartbeat of the message in Romans, the sixth book in the New Testament and one of thirteen authored by the Apostle Paul. Romans has long been considered to be the “Constitution” of every Christian, showing us the fundamental framework of our faith. In no uncertain terms, Romans essentially and definitively proclaims that better just doesn’t cut it in the long run. What life really demands is different. Throughout Romans, we are reminded that our efforts at acting better—trying harder to do good—don’t take care of our innermost problem: sin. Instead, it shows us both logically and theologically that Jesus, God in the flesh, is the only one who is able to regenerate us from the inside out by putting his divine nature in us. According to Paul, this happens the nanosecond one believes and confesses Jesus Christ is who he said he was (God come to earth) and that he did what he said he did (died and rose again). That confession, called salvation throughout Romans, is the birthplace of being different. That’s when we move beyond trying harder to trusting Jesus. That’s when things really change deep down once and for all.

Salvation in Street Clothes

The ten-dollar word for studying salvation and all that is involved in the act of God making us different is soteriology. That’s the doctrinal and theological term for the art of looking intensely at God’s amazing grace, whether in Romans or anywhere else in the Scriptures. But there is a much simpler word when it comes to its practical effects of soteriology. That word? Different. Essentially, that’s the core idea of this book. Different, Not Just Better is a theological and practical understanding of salvation and the kind of change it truly brings. Real, lasting change brought by Jesus is what the man in Matthew 12:43-45 lacked. He had known the surface success of better. In fact, Matthew’s Gospel declares that his house was “empty, swept, and put in order” (12:44). For sure, his pad was looking sharp—at least on the outside. But better couldn’t bring change to his soul; it only brought an upgrade to his situation. And sure enough, because there was no real change deep down, it was just a matter of time before the demons moved back in more fiercely than before (12:45). Sad, to say the least. But such is the road of those who only try harder. Additionally, Peter likens trying harder to washing a pig on the outside with the hopes that this will really clean him up on the inside (2 Peter 2:22). How frustrating! You get the ol’ hog nice and tidy, only to discover an hour later that he’s right back in his favorite, sloppy hole. Why? Because cleaning up the outside doesn’t change the inside. You can wash a pig all day, but it won’t do a single thing to affect his appetites. No matter how much better you think he looks, he is really no different. He’ll be back in the mud in no time. That’s why I choose different. Better just seems so futile; a waste of time and energy. But different? It seems lasting. Real. Deep. Just what this former pig needs. Better versus different. That’s the bottom-line contrast of this book. Consequently, in the following pages you will read about the incredible journey of nine people who left trying harder and instead started trusting Jesus. They moved from Better Boulevard to Different Drive. You’ll read their stories through the lens of Romans, and you’ll see not only theologically, but practically, how they overcame incredible

Preface

obstacles, broke defeating addictions, and experienced lifelong change through the power of Jesus. For them, it was not about getting better, but about being changed. Different. May we follow suit.

chapter 1

GOD DRAWS US conviction (Brad Miller)

“We know that the judgment of God rightly falls on those who do such things” (Romans 2:2).

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Jail time makes you think about your life. Even if it’s just for a night, being locked up gets you thinking. And Brad’s mind was in overdrive as he sat there on a cold cot just waiting for his brother to show up and bail him out. It wasn’t his first run-in with the law; there had been previous incidents. But alcohol was getting an increasingly tighter hold on him. And this one shook him like none other. It all began with a drive home in December 1998 after too much to drink. A policeman began following Brad, and once Brad pulled into his driveway, he was approached by the policeman. Words were exchanged, the situation escalated, and things began to turn violent. The officer then called for backups, and ultimately Brad was subdued by eight officers and charged with resisting arrest, as well as his second 19

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OWI (Operating [a Motor Vehicle] While Intoxicated). When all was processed, Brad was bloody, in jail, and in a mess! Other pullovers and stops were always averted; this time, though, things looked bleak. “That night in jail was the telltale sign my life was out of control,” Brad recalls. “I didn’t want to admit it, but I was spiraling downward, and didn’t know how to stop or what to do. I felt like I would be better off dead.” On other fronts, Brad was successful—at least on the surface. A former college football player and now home builder, Brad’s goal was to be a millionaire by the age of thirty. And on the surface, he was making good progress. But sabotaging his every outward success was the inner self he couldn’t control. He was deeply selfish, easily angered, and considered most people a bother unless they benefitted him. But that night in jail was the beginning of a wake-up call. Something has to change he would think to himself. Yet, no matter how hard or what he tried, it was just temporary and troublesome. Nothing worked to change him deep down. “It was like two steps forward and three backward. How much longer was I going to be able to keep this up before I ended up at the bottom? I knew it wouldn’t be long before I was too far gone.” That’s the funny thing about trials. We hate them, but they are often the only thing we hear. Someone once said it like this: God whispers in our good times, but he shouts in our trials. For Brad, God was shouting one last time, calling his name loud and clear. It was time for Brad to listen. Listening is exactly what he started doing that night in jail. And while it took ten months for Brad’s heart to hear the full measure of God’s graceful call, it all began that December night when God started drawing Brad to himself. Slowly but surely, Brad continued to listen as he fulfilled the sentencing for his plea of guilty to OWI (second offense) and resisting arrest. “It was amazing how God sovereignly orchestrated so many events of my life to not only get, but keep, my attention. For instance, I was ordered to attend four days of drunk driving/alcohol awareness

God Draws Us

classes. So in March 1999, I reluctantly enrolled. In this class we not only watched a strikingly disturbing movie about an alcoholic, we also watched a video of a pastor talking about emotions and what the Bible has to say about them. I had always viewed the Bible as a rulebook full of ‘do’s and don’ts;’ for the first time, however, I found myself intrigued that the Bible had more to offer than rules. “I was also required to spend two additional days in jail. Since I could choose the days to spend, I, for no apparent reason, chose Easter weekend, 1999. But God was really the One putting the pieces into place. For on that weekend, while I endured my time in the cell, God divinely placed me in a cell where there was a copy of the book The Cross and the Switchblade by David Wilkerson. What else was I going to do? So I started reading, and kept on reading! I was amazed, as a very selfish person, that God would call someone to give up their life and move to the inner city of New York to ‘serve others.’ Seemed like such a crazy thing for anyone to do, and I wondered what would make a man live like that. To put it mildly, I was pretty impressed with someone I didn’t even know. “As soon as I finished the book and placed it back on the table, I noticed another book—the Bible. And since reading seemed to be the thing to do at the moment, I picked it up and opened it randomly to Luke 15. Again, I was intrigued that a father could react so compassionately to his prodigal son and welcome him home like that.” Yes, God was drawing Brad to the place of repentance. Little by little, the Holy Spirit was divinely directing Brad’s attention to the fact of his sin and the prospect of forgiveness. “Inside, I knew I was the wandering son; I was the kid in the inner city. Months ago I was feeling wronged, but now I just felt wrong.” God’s voice continued to get louder through the people God placed in Brad’s path. “To finish up my sentencing requirements, I had to go to counseling. So in May 1999, I again ‘randomly’ selected a counselor from a list of 50, hoping I would get one who’d let me ‘get in and get out.’ But Bill Kraft was far from that kind of counselor.

Salvation in Street Clothes

“In fact, the waiting room walls in his office—and every other wall for that matter—were plastered with prints of Bible verses. It was quite obvious what he valued! I even made a comment to him about his prints, to which he responded, ‘God is very important to me.’ The result? We talked a lot about God and the Bible over the next few months. “I still wasn’t seeing the big picture. To me, the circumstances were random events. Often, though, a former drinking buddy but now new Christian, Scott Oswald, would ask me about my progress, reminding me ‘there’s a better way.’ Convinced I could win any argument, we’d engage quite heavily about his route to change as opposed to my apparent route. Tired of debating, Scott secretly enlisted the help of a friend of his, Ken Killion. “Ken was one of those sweet, old grandpa types, and, as I was about to find out, arguing with him was not an option. It was late in the summer of 1999, about eight months from the time I had been arrested, and Ken invited me to play a round of golf with him. And I can still remember exactly where we were—the tee box of hole number nine—when he asked me, ‘Has anybody ever told you about Jesus Christ?’ “Normally, I would have argued instantly, shutting him down. But there was something about Ken that made me stop and listen. And for the first time in my life, I heard the story of Jesus Christ—the Gospel—clearly and plainly.” The Gospel—quite literally, “good news”—is only seen in its grandeur when set against the backdrop of our sinful misery. That’s not to diminish the truthfulness or necessity of it. But without the bad news—that we are all hell-bound sinners—even the greatest news of Christ’s salvation isn’t seen as that great. Scripture says it like this: “Now before faith came, we were held captive under the law, imprisoned until the coming faith would be revealed.

God Draws Us

So then, the law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith” (Galatians 3:2324). “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 6:23). In the Bible, God uses the law (that’s the bad news) to show us our need for Jesus (that’s the good news). And quite frankly, one without the other is an incomplete Gospel. Truly, we need to see just how hopeless our condition is to really grasp just how necessary salvation is. That’s conviction—realizing how completely lost and hopeless you are. It is both a process and product. It’s a process in that it is something we feel progressively as we understand more and more all the ways we have offended a holy God and realize there’s nothing we can do about it on our own. Simply put, we feel convicted about and because of our sin. It’s a product in that, in reality, it is the final judgment of God upon us in our natural human state. He has concluded justly that all of us are under sin and in bondage to it. And we are exactly that! Because all of us were born into sin (sinners by nature), and because none of us have kept the law perfectly (sinners by choice), we have therefore been judged by a perfect God and found guilty. In a word, convicted. That’s the kind of bad news we all need to understand if we are to ever appreciate the good news. And though no one, in their natural state, would ever voluntarily sign up for conviction, it is an indispensable part of the salvation process. Showing us our sinfulness is how God draws us to himself. In fact, Jesus actually said this was one of the roles of the Holy Spirit—to “convict the world of sin” (John 16:8). It was conviction that Brad was beginning to experience. God was revealing to Brad the full extent of his own hopelessness, albeit gently and progressively. Truly, the kindness of God leads to repentance (Romans 2:4), and Brad was getting ever closer to that place where

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he would admit his sinfulness and run to Jesus for the only means of change that would make him really different. After hearing the good news from Ken, Brad’s mind was full of questions. And though his life was a little better on the outside, he was still experiencing turmoil on the inside. That’s when God used a plumber to show Brad where the real springs of water exist. “Being a home builder who was struggling to get back in the swing of things, I needed a plumber. You guessed it—God planted Rick Herr right in the middle of my path. Sure, I thought I found him on my own, selecting him because I liked his ad in the Yellow Pages. But as it would turn out, God was the one in charge at every turn. “My first meeting with Rick was just a month after my golf outing with Ken, so the things Ken shared were still somewhat fresh in my mind. So when I saw a Bible on the dash of Rick’s work van, I realized I was around another one of those ‘Christians.’ Because I had used some colorful language already, I apologized to him; but he just said ‘Don’t apologize to me; it’s not me you’re offending.’ While I was still pondering that response, he quickly asked me if I had heard about Jesus. I told him I had, but wasn’t sure what to think about it all. So he just asked if he could pray for me. I was so shocked and moved that I had to turn away and look out the window for fear of crying in front of him. Sure enough, tears were coming down my face and I couldn’t stop them! Embarrassed, yet even more curious, I assured Rick I was fine and bailed from his van rather quickly. What’s happening to me, I wondered. I was about to find out. “A few weeks later Rick surprised me by inviting me at the last minute to a men’s event called Promise Keepers. I reluctantly said I’d go, but was hoping he would forget to pick me up. Not likely. The next evening Rick picked me up and off we went. “Once there and seated, I looked around and saw thousands of men singing. Not exactly my kind of party! Imagine the strangeness I felt, especially when I found myself singing, too. And I didn’t even know the songs! Shortly after that I started crying. Not again, I thought. But the longer we sang, the heavier the tears became. Truth is, I started crying uncontrollably. By then I didn’t care who knew or saw me. Some-

God Draws Us

thing was happening inside me, and although I didn’t know what it was exactly, I could tell I was being broken and humbled.” Broken. Humbled. Those are good synonyms for conviction. It’s the posture we take when we realize how lost we are without Jesus. We find ourselves crying out for God’s mercy—often quite literally—to save us from what we know is sure judgment. In conviction, we see our sin plainly and are compelled to repent of it. To turn from it. This brokenness and humility is all brought about by God as he makes sure, in his sovereign kindness, we see just how wicked we are and just how holy he is. No doubt the final moments of conviction can seem overwhelming, but they are just the beginning of the birth of a new and different nature implanted by God Almighty. As Brad began to experience the crushing weight of his sinfulness in light of God’s holiness, God used the words of Bishop Larry Jackson to bring closure to Brad’s ten-month conviction. For as Larry lifted up Jesus as the only way to be rightly related to God, God divinely drew Brad once and for all to the cross and saved him by his grace. “As Larry was wrapping up, I wasn’t crying any longer; I was weeping. And when Larry invited men forward to pray and follow Jesus, I moved quickly; I couldn’t get there fast enough. I was pushing people out of my way because I wanted—needed!—Jesus desperately. My sin was so great, but God was so merciful by providing Jesus as my only way out. I’ll never forget that day: October 15, 1999. That’s the day the old Brad Miller died and the new Brad Miller was born again.” (John 3:3-7) Without a doubt, God’s desire and ability to draw Brad to the place of repentance was not an act of retribution; instead, it was a rescue. Had God not interrupted his life, he’d be left for dead somewhere and, without Christ, enduring the punishment of his sins in hell forever. But God intervened and drew him out of the darkness of his sinfulness and into the light of salvation. What was looking like the end was actually the beginning of a totally different life for Brad. Not just a better life. A different life. Scripture is replete with examples of other people who also benefitted from the convicting work of God. For instance, Paul was left unable to see and unemployed when God convicted him on the road

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to Damascus. It was no doubt a long three days of humility and brokenness for Paul as God turned his life around and made him truly different. And think about Jonah! God brought him to the end of himself in the belly of a fish. He ran, but he apparently couldn’t swim. And after three days of brokenness and humility salt-water style, Jonah turned back to God and obeyed. He was deep-down different (no pun intended). And then there’s the prodigal son in Luke 15. It took living and eating like a pig for him to realize he didn’t have to end up that way. Luke records for us that when “he came to the end of himself ” he finally went back home. But not till he was at “the end.” Yet, that end was his first step to different. In fact, it was in the portrait of the prodigal son that Brad saw himself most clearly. And God not only used that portion of Scripture to expose Brad’s need while in jail, he also used it to celebrate his homecoming on his first Sunday in church. For just days after his conversion, Brad attended his very first church service with his friend Scott, where the pastor, completely unaware of any of Brad’s circumstances, taught from, of all places, Luke 15. “It was as if God smiled at me with open arms and said, ‘Welcome home, son!’” Such is the irony of God’s drawing work. It appears to be the end, but in reality it is just the beginning. What looks like our last stop is really our first step on the way to a different life, both inwardly and outwardly. Without a doubt, the best and only biblical response to conviction is repentance. It is how we say and show to God, “I am wrong, and you are right.” Repentance is a mental change in thought that leads to a physical change in action, and it is the required response in anyone who wants to experience the greatest return on their conviction. Truly, the benefits of conviction are eventually realized, but only through the doorway of repentance. That’s when we really see the difference conviction ultimately makes.

God Draws Us

For Brad, the difference showed up in a myriad of ways. His drinking ceased, his language changed, his friends switched—many outward signs indicated something had happened inside. And it had! God had drawn Brad to himself and rescued him from wrath. And it all started with that penetrating voice of conviction. Conviction. No one is ever saved without it. It is an indispensable element in the story of salvation. And though no one seeks it or wants it, God brings us to it, often painfully, so we will fully embrace grace with no reservations. _________________________

Conviction QuikFacts • Conviction is the process or work by which God, through his Holy Spirit, humbles a person and makes their lost condition and need for salvation evident. • Conviction literally means “to convince” or “to refute.” • Conviction, though always preceding conversion, does not guarantee it. Conviction QuikScripts Psalm 31:10 “For my life is spent with sorrow, and my years with sighing; my strength fails because of my iniquity, and my bones waste away.” Psalm 38:1-4 “O Lord, rebuke me not in your anger, nor discipline me in your wrath! For your arrows have sunk into me, and your hand has come down on me. There is no soundness in my flesh because of your indignation; there is no health in my bones because of my sin. For my iniquities have gone over my head; like a heavy burden, they are too heavy for me.”

Salvation in Street Clothes

Psalm 51:3-4 “For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you may be justified in your words and blameless in your judgment.” Lamentations 1:20 “Look, O Lord, for I am in distress; my stomach churns; my heart is wrung within me, because I have been very rebellious. In the street the sword bereaves; in the house it is like death.” Luke 5:8 “But when Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, ‘Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord.’” John 6:44 “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day.” John 12:32 “And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.” John 16:8 “And when he comes, he will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment.” Acts 2:37 “Now when they heard this they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, ‘Brothers, what shall we do?’” Romans 2:15 “They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them.”

God Draws Us

Conviction QuikQuotes “Men will never come to Jesus, and stay with Jesus, and live for Jesus, unless they really know why they are to come, and what is their need. Those whom the Spirit draws to Jesus are those whom the Spirit has convinced of sin. Without a thorough conviction of sin, men may seem to come to Jesus and follow Him for a season, but they will soon fall away and return to the world.” ~J.C. Ryle “Awake, then, thou that sleepest. Know thyself to be a sinner, and what manner of sinner thou art. Know that corruption of thy inmost nature, whereby thou art very far gone from original righteousness... Know that thou art corrupted in every faculty of thy soul.” ~John Wesley “Before ye can speak peace to your hearts, ye must be made to see, made to feel, made to weep over, made to bewail your actual transgressions against the law of God.” ~George Whitfield “Men, by being made sensible of the great guilt of sin, or the connection or natural agreeableness there is between that and a dreadful, punishment, and how that the greatness and majesty of God seems to require and demand such a punishment, are brought to see the great need of a satisfaction, or something to intervene to make it honourable to that majesty to show them favour; and being for a while blind to the suitableness of Christ’s satisfaction in order to this, and then afterwards have a sense given them of Christ’s divine excellency, and what he did and suffered for sinners; hereby their eyes are as it were opened to see the perfect fitness there is in this to satisfy for sin, or to render their being received into favour consistent with the honer of God’s offended majesty.” ~Jonathan Edwards “I think I have a very clear and strong conviction, in my judgment, that I am vile and worthless, that my heart is full of evil, only evil, and that continually. I know something of it, too, experimentally; and, therefore, judging of the whole by the sample, though I am not suitably affected with what I do see, I tremble at the thought of seeing more.” ~John Newton

Salvation in Street Clothes

“God never clothes men until He has first stripped them, nor does He quicken them by the gospel till first they are slain by the law. When you meet with persons in whom there is no trace of conviction of sin, you may be quite sure that they have not been wrought upon by the Holy Spirit.” ~C.H. Spurgeon

chapter 2

GOD SAVES US

regeneration (Tom Urban) “…present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness” (Romans 6:13).

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We don’t save ourselves; God saves us from ourselves. Yet, this profoundly simple truth was quite difficult to grasp for Tom Urban, a redblooded, card-carrying American young man from a small town. In his estimation, earning his own “worthiness” was part of a man’s rite of passage, both spiritually and physically, and he was going to do it better than anybody else. Truthfully, Tom grew up making his own way. Even religiously. He was, by denomination, Catholic. And with that came all the trappings of a works-based system of religion. “Our Catholic Church made sure I felt ‘saved’ by baptizing me into the church, telling me I was a member of the true, apostolic church of which the infallible Pope was the head, and giving me a list of things to 33

Salvation in Street Clothes

do to make sure I earned my way as a good Catholic. As long as I confessed my sin through the recitation of prayers, showed up for Mass, revered the Kennedys, honored Notre Dame, called the priest ‘Father,’ partook of First Communion, enrolled in Confirmation, and got married in St. Ambrose Cathedral, then I’d be everything a ‘Christian’ was to supposed to be. At least that’s what they told me. But I wasn’t Christian at all. I was only Catholic. And not a good one at that!” In a word, Tom was frustrated. And such is the experience of all men and women who depend on religious systems that emphasize what we do, as opposed to trusting by faith in what Jesus has done. Tom’s frustration led, at least initially, to an even greater exertion of energy to be good. Better. Accepted. Worthy. Yet, because he had no real biblical understanding of Jesus, grace, faith, or salvation, all those goals simply became even more elusive, though he worked still harder to do what he had to do to get to heaven. “Church was boring and I couldn’t relate to anything in the sermon. And the Bible was nonexistent in the life of our church. I heard a verse or two from the Old Testament, a few from the New Testament, and maybe a handful from the Gospels, but there was no rhyme or reason to the verses. The way I looked at it, I was doing what I needed to do to make God happy with me, so I was going to heaven.” But Tom wasn’t ready for heaven. He was, by nature, still lost and far from God. Why? The Apostle Paul tells us plainly it’s because he, like all of us before salvation, was “dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience—among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind” (Ephesians 2:1-3). That kind of news is hard to swallow if you’re a religious person. In fact, it’s impossible to understand apart from the work of God’s Spirit (1 Corinthians 2). But Tom had yet to experience the eye-opening ministry of the Holy Spirit, so he continued in his self-made journey to

God Saves Us

Jesus through his own goodness. Truly, most “get-there-by-myself ” earners don’t give up easily. Tom was no exception. After college there was marriage to Rachel, a girl with a background in religion as well. But she, too, was lost. Together they acted like typical, religious lost people: smile and act like you know what you’re doing. But inside they were struggling. They looked happy in public, but found themselves behaving more dysfunctionally as each month passed. Together, they decided it was best to find a new religion. After all, there seemed to be no connection in either of their pasts, so “let’s try another denomination,” they thought. They did, but there was still no active presence of God’s Word or clear teaching about God’s life-giving grace. “Looking back, there was a program or activity for everything you could think of but no Bible study or Gospel teaching. To be transparent, I cannot recall one sermon or message that I heard on anything of eternal importance.” But, like all religious people, Tom and his wife, Rachel, kept doing the things they were supposed to do. After all, “we’ve got to make sure we get to heaven.” In time, their new church experienced a pastoral change that came about in a very abusive and corrupt fashion, and now, disillusioned with three denominations, they decided to stop going altogether. Pregnancy changed all that. When Emily was born, “we both wanted to raise her in what we thought was a ‘Christian’ way of life. However, we didn’t want to go back to our last church. For the first time in our life, we felt lost.” That’s when Tom met George. George was their neighbor, a reallife “Wilson” that would listen to Tom across the fence. Unknown to Tom at that time, George and his wife were committed followers of Jesus who had taken their stand on the Gospel (1 Corinthians 15:1-4). While they were involved in church, they were by no means religious. Instead, they knew exactly what it meant to have a relationship with Jesus. And they weren’t worried about being better; they were content with being different.

Salvation in Street Clothes

Tom spotted it pretty quickly. “George was where I wanted to be when I ‘grew up.’ So I went to him for marital advice, life guidance, and kid issues. We could, and did, talk about everything, even theology. George and I became good friends, often cutting wood for our woodburning stoves and discussing life. “Likewise, George’s wife, Katherine, was also talking to Rachel. Rachel had been through a difficult bout with depression after Emily’s birth, and Katherine had become someone she could turn to for help.” In time, George and Katherine inquired about Tom and Rachel’s spiritual interest and church attendance. As their story unfolded, George and Katherine just kept asking questions. “They never pushed church on us, only kept asking politely if we had found a new church.” Even when Tom and his family moved across town, they stayed in touch with George and Katherine. God was forging a relationship that would be crucial to Tom and Rachel’s understanding of the Gospel, and the first breakthrough came when Katherine finally invited Rachel to their church. Rachel was ready to go from the moment she heard about it. But not Tom. However, Tom came. And he came back. Three times. In fact, after the third week, one of the church’s small group leaders invited Tom and his wife to their small group, to which Tom responded, “If you want me to come to a Bible study, then you will have to bring it to me!” So they did! That afternoon the entire small group of 15 showed up at Tom’s house ready for discussion and fellowship. “I recall feeling like I was being spiritually ambushed. Yet, there was something uncommonly attractive about this group. They were praying together, investigating the Bible together, and genuinely caring for one another; it was so non-religious and, consequently, very foreign to me.” Silently, he began asking a fundamental question: What did it really mean to be “Christian?” Apparently, it was different than simply being religious and having a grasp on “churchianity.” And as Tom began to verbalize his questions, the small group leader, as well as George, consistently brought him back to the root of Christianity: Christ. In

God Saves Us

various ways and at different times, Tom was brought back to the truth that the Gospel of grace and the life Christ offers is a matter of faith, not works. Salvation is a gift received, not a reward earned. First Corinthians 15:1-4 began to be a crucial passage for Tom. His small group leader had turned him on to it in an answer to a question about the Gospel and how people are saved, and Tom found himself increasingly intrigued with it. Had he ever believed the Gospel? Quite frankly, had he ever really heard it correctly? “The first thing I did was buy a Bible. I had never purchased a Bible before, so I didn’t even know where to buy one. I always laugh when I think about that—someone so religious didn’t even know where to get a Bible. But I jumped in with both feet and bought the Bible on CD as well. Over the next several weeks I spent hours reading and listening to the Bible from start to finish. Wow! The Bible was alive and something was happening inside me. I realized I wanted to believe in Jesus and his resurrection, which is a key element in the Gospel, but I was still wondering if the whole story was fact or fiction. “So I turned to Lee Strobel and his series of ‘Case’ books. Like with the Bible, I bought every Strobel book and CD I could find. And as I continued to read the Bible and study the evidence provided by Strobel, I was floored with the historical and scientific basis for God the Creator, Jesus, and the Bible. Yes, there was a basis for faith! And in no uncertain terms, God was calling me and enabling me to abandon my own religious autonomy and trust in Jesus alone as the only way to be in a right relationship with him. That was the day I quit trying and simply started trusting. And that was only possible because of God’s gifts of faith and grace. Without a doubt, God saved me from myself.” In theological terms, what Tom experienced was regeneration. It is the split-second act of God in which he births new life in us through his Spirit, giving us the faith to believe the message of the Gospel. Often referred to as being born again, the Bible gives us a clear picture of regeneration:

Salvation in Street Clothes

“But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved” (Ephesians 2:4-5). “And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses” (Colossians 2:13). “Jesus answered him, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.’ Nicodemus said to him, ‘How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?’ Jesus answered, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again’” (John 3:3-8). The analogy of being “born again” is quite fitting for the concept of regeneration. For just as we had absolutely nothing to do with our physical birth, so we have nothing to do with regeneration, our spiritual birth. God the Father and God the Spirit are the active agents (Romans 2:28-29); we are the grateful recipients. It becomes clear why Paul calls it a “gift of God” in Romans 6:23, and confirms in Ephesians that it is not by works but by grace and faith alone (Ephesians 2:8-9). Tom’s case was no exception; there was no humanly possible way he was going to look beyond religion unless God had given him the desire to do so. In fact, according to the Bible, Tom was dead, unable to even seek for God (Ephesians 2:1). So it took the work of God and the Word of God in regenerating Tom’s life for him to even begin to seek after God and respond to God. (John 6:44; John 12:32) Without a doubt, it is God that saves us, and not we ourselves. (Psalm 100:3)

God Saves Us

To be sure, regeneration produces a whole new set of appetites. It is the core element in the saving work of God that makes us different. And once God regenerated Tom, changes began to occur quite rapidly, especially in regards to his desire to share the Gospel with those blinded by Mormonism. Annually Tom leads a trip to Utah and engages hundreds of Mormons who are attending the Mormon Pageant with the hope that God will regenerate even just one and give them the faith to believe the Gospel. Additionally, Tom has founded Seeking Truth Ministries, a local call-in center for people who have questions about Christianity. He also leads a small group, serves as a deacon, and teaches a theology class at his church, the same church where he first heard the glorious Gospel. Most evidently, Tom’s life has been most altered in relation to his family. Now a loving and patient husband and an invested dad to Emily and newly adopted son Caleb, Tom has, as one of his friends puts it, experienced the “ravaging regeneration of the only God mighty enough to save us in spite of ourselves!” _________________________

Regeneration QuikFacts • Regeneration is the secret and gracious act of God in which he imparts new spiritual life to us. • The word “regeneration” appears only twice in the English Bible. Both appearances are in the New Testament (Matthew 19:28 and Titus 3:5). • The English word “regeneration” is the translation of palingenesia, from palin (again) and genesis (birth). It means simply new birth, new beginning, or new order.

Salvation in Street Clothes

Regeneration QuikScripts Deuteronomy 30:6 “And the Lord your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your offspring, so that you will love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, that you may live.” Psalm 51:10 “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.” Jeremiah 24:7 “I will give them a heart to know that I am the Lord, and they shall be my people and I will be their God, for they shall return to me with their whole heart.” Ezekiel 36:26-27 “And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.” John 5:24 “Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life.” Romans 2:28-29 “For no one is a Jew who is merely one outwardly, nor is circumcision outward and physical. But a Jew is one inwardly, and circumcision is a matter of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter. His praise is not from man but from God.”

God Saves Us

2 Corinthians 4:6 “For God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” 2 Corinthians 5:17 “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.” Ephesians 2:4-5 “But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved...” Colossians 2:13 “And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses.” Titus 3:4-5 “But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit...” Regeneration QuikQuotes “Faith does not proceed from ourselves, but is the fruit of spiritual regeneration.” ~John Calvin “Sinners cannot obey the gospel, any more than the law, without renewal of heart.” ~J.I. Packer

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“O that every believer would know the glory of what has happened to you! Do you know what God has done for you and in you? You were ransomed with the imperishable blood of Christ. You were raised with Christ from the dead to an eternally living hope. You were called from death to life like Lazarus, and you saw Christ for the treasure that he is. You were born again. And you received him and were saved.” ~John Piper “The embrace of Christ in faith is the first evidence of regeneration and only thus may we know that we have been regenerated.” ~John Murray “When God works in us, the will, being changed and sweetly breathed upon by the Spirit of God, desires and acts, not from compulsion, but responsively.” ~Martin Luther “Every generation needs regeneration.” ~C.H. Spurgeon

chapter 3

GOD FORGIVES US justification (Jody Halsted)

“Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God” (Romans 5:9).

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The past can leave an indelible imprint on our life. Typically, it’s more like a brand. We allow our experiences, failures, memories, and regrets to sear themselves to our backside, labeling us for all to see. Consequently, we find ourselves going through life defined by what was, instead of what is or is to come. Jody was standing at that very crossroads in 2007 as she listened to the powerful words of Jesus in the Bible: “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1). Is that true for me? she wondered silently as her mind raced back over years of sin’s hot branding iron. It seemed too good to be true. But her heart ached for a new identity; her soul was longing for a different name, not just a better version of the old one. 45

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Old identities die hard, though; those former labels don’t peel off easily. “My family referred to me as a ‘rebel without a pause,’ and I lived up to it, foolishly wearing the comment as a badge of honor. I was an awful teen. I rebelled against every rule, followed no curfews, and would defiantly walk out of the house immediately after being grounded. I dared my mom to stop me. To top it off, I had a violent temper. If you crossed me, watch your back; revenge was around the corner. I held grudges for the tiniest infractions.” There’s more to the story, though. And the remainder is not to make excuses or lay blame; it is simply part of the story of Jody’s past. As she aptly says, “It happened and it shaped me.” Jody was born to a newly single mother. But even before her birth, her father was pushing for an abortion. Thanks to her mom, though, Jody’s life in the womb was spared. The pressure didn’t end there. After she was born, her father secretly snatched her while her grandparents and mother were in the barn milking cows, just 500 feet away. It was his plan to get rid of her, thinking if Jody was out of the picture, he could reunite with his ex-wife. And dispose of her is exactly what he did. Fortunately, neighbors found her shortly afterward crying in a snow-filled country ditch and brought her home. Still, you could smell the smoke from burning branding irons. Things worsened. From the age of three, till probably seven or eight, Jody was molested by two male relatives. “Who they are and what they did is no longer an issue to me. It is past. It happened. But it is one of the reasons much of my early life is lost to me. My childhood memories are filled with large spots of emptiness.” And the branding irons kept getting hotter. And closer. “Tack on one more failure to my young experience: my mom divorced the man she married, who had legally adopted me, sometime in my early teens. While I know it wasn’t my fault, it was all part of my surroundings, and it became part of me. Wrongly, I began to own much of these events and felt attached to them.” By now, Jody was embracing the reputation she had either been given or gained. “I ran around with a much older crowd drinking, smok-

God Forgives Us

ing, and engaging in things way beyond what was normal or right. There were very few things I wouldn’t try at least once. I dated men, not boys, and was exposed to way too many adult experiences as a teen. “Luckily, I was a smart kid and school was easy for me, when I cared to learn. I excelled at the classes I enjoyed and didn’t try at those I disliked. Even with that as my standard mode of operation, I graduated from high school early and went directly into cosmetology school. To me, it was the quickest education after high school and a fast exit out of my house and out of the small town in which I lived.” But running wasn’t the answer. And though Jody changed her address, she couldn’t seem to change the labels she wore. Frankly, she wasn’t real sure she wanted to. So she spent the next couple of years living a “rock-and-roll” lifestyle. Working during the day and spending her nights in clubs or at concerts, Jody was in full party mode. Men rotated through her life too quickly for her to even recall their names, and like her early childhood days, she admits that these two years are mostly a daze as well, due to a constant alcohol haze. Deep inside, however, she knew something had to change. So “in what can only be described as an escape, I moved to Minneapolis. Tragically, I continued to make terrible decisions; my choices again were only guided by my selfish and sexual desires. And after only a short time there, I became a stripper. And for the next ten years, that’s what I did. Oddly, the rotation of men through my life ceased and I entered into a long-term, albeit abusive, relationship. It was frightening, for there were days that I wasn’t sure if I would be able to work; the bruises might not cover easily.” Jody was living a nightmare. In a sinister way she seemed to gravitate to the things she had known or had seen, like it was her duty to be faithful to some kind of evil expectation. At this point the labels were on tight; the brands calloused and hard. Yet, there was a something—Someone—that called out to her regularly to leave her past and find forgiveness. Yeah, right, she thought to herself. After what I’ve done?

Salvation in Street Clothes

Yet, out of sheer hatred for the drugs and booze that were chaining her to a life of destruction, Jody amazingly quit both. “God must have been protecting me sovereignly for what was to come, because I was surrounded by alcohol and drugs. Somehow, though, I became known as the ‘responsible’ and ‘organized’ one. Imagine that! While many of the other girls I worked with died tragic deaths from overdoses, drugrelated murders, and alcohol-related car accidents, for some reason God was sparing me.” She also began to investigate other religions, sensing a new found thirst for purpose and meaning. While much of it seemed pointless, she knew something was stirring. This journey toward significance was capped when she met Doug, a former high school acquaintance and, though unknown to her, believer. “There was just something about him that made me want to be a better person, to leave my past behind completely and move forward as the person I wanted to be, not the person I was expected to be.” As Jody would soon discover, there was far more in store than just a better life. Different was right around the corner. In a little more than a year, Doug and Jody married one another, eventually being blessed with two beautiful girls. Since part of the new and improved Jody was a thirst for meaning, church was the obvious next stop. “When our first daughter was one, we began visiting churches. But none felt right. I was looking for truth, yet many circled around it, never even opening a Bible. I knew enough to know that was the starting place, yet it was obvious many felt apologetic for believing in God and his truth. “We now had two girls and had almost given up on church when we were invited to First Family Church. And here we found a ‘family’ who didn’t apologize for believing the Word of God and who welcomed us wholly; people who not only opened the Bible, but read from it, studied it, and expected me to do the same!” As Doug and Jody began attending and listening to the Bible, themes of forgiveness and wholeness began to overwhelm her. She knew God had brought her this far by his providential mercy, and the truth that

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he could “cleanse her from all unrighteousness” by the blood of Jesus (1 John 1) was more than refreshing. It was revitalizing. Regenerating. She welcomed the thought that her past would be erased, her labels removed, and her brands healed by the righteousness of God. “I can’t remember all the details about that Sunday in February 2007, except that church was the last place I wanted to be. I had woken frustrated due to Doug’s work schedule, the girls were an overwhelming handful, and I was tired and getting angry. I knew I was at a place where I might too easily lash out at someone. So the last place I wanted to be was church. But it was where I definitely needed to be. “I also remember the Word of God really hitting home with me. God was clear: If I simply believed and asked him to forgive me through Jesus, he would. He would guide me through his Holy Spirit. And I would never be alone. And that day when our pastor asked who was willing to believe the truth about Jesus and accept his forgiveness, I raised my hand to God and prayed to be saved. Then I cried, because I knew the labels were falling off. I was a new creation (2 Corinthians 5:17); the old was gone, and all things were becoming new.” So much of Jody’s story is reminiscent of the Apostle Paul’s life as recorded in Philippians 3. They both turned in a record of sin for a coat of righteousness from God. And though their pasts are quite different, Jesus is the common denominator; therefore, the result is the same: God sees them as clean. New. Righteous. Scripture refers to this incredible concept as justification. (Romans 5:1) It’s what happens when God declares us righteous in spite of our sin, all because of Jesus. In the common vernacular, some have defined justification by saying it’s “just-as-if-I’d-never-sinned.” While that phrase doesn’t fully capture the immense theological aspects of the concept, it does often give people a practical beginning point to their understanding. Picture it like this: When God looked at you without Jesus, you were naked and bare, and all he saw was the wicked sin that defined you. All your past failures, regrets, and shameful acts were in present view. So you were not justified. Instead, you stood condemned. So God declared you exactly that. (John 3:36)

Salvation in Street Clothes

But the moment God regenerated your heart and you trusted Jesus for forgiveness, suddenly you weren’t standing alone, naked and bare in front of God as a sinful man or woman. Jesus was standing in front of you. You had put on Christ (Galatians 3:27). So instead of seeing you, God sees Jesus. And when he sees Jesus, he sees righteousness. He now declares you justified, not because of anything you have done, but only because of Jesus. All the old labels and brands are gone, and all that is left are the scars in the hands and feet of Jesus that tell the story of forgiveness. Of course, justification doesn’t mean perfection. At least not in this life. As Jody reminds us, “I still struggle every day with my temper and with memories of my past. I’m still defensive and I have to think before I speak. I have a tendency to come off as abrasive and cold. I have trust issues. “But I most of all trust in God, believe in His salvation through the blood of Jesus Christ, and know that I have been forgiven of the sins I have committed. I am justified.” Not long after that Sunday in February, Jody celebrated her justification by being baptized. And little by little, actually a lot by a lot, God continues to transform Jody. She is not what she used to be. Those days are gone, and with them all the labels and brands that were associated with them. Here to stay is her new identity, one rooted in the righteousness given to her by God through the finished work of Jesus. _________________________

Justification QuikFacts • Justification is an instantaneous legal act of God in which he considers our sins as forgiven and Christ’s righteousness as belonging to us, thereby declaring us to be righteous in his sight. • The doctrine of justification is often referred to as “sola fide,” which is Latin for “by faith alone.”

God Forgives Us

• In a most literal sense, the word “justify” in the New Testament means “to acquit” or “to vindicate.” It is a word and concept rich with judicial meaning. • Justification was the primary doctrine that Martin Luther defended in his 95th Thesis, which sparked the Reformation. Justification QuikScripts Isaiah 45:25 “In the Lord all the offspring of Israel shall be justified and shall glory.” Isaiah 53:11 “Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied; by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities.” Zechariah 3:4 “And the angel said to those who were standing before him, ‘Remove the filthy garments from him.’ And to him he said, ‘Behold, I have taken your iniquity away from you, and I will clothe you with pure vestments.’” Acts 13:39 “…and by him everyone who believes is freed from everything from which you could not be freed by the law of Moses.” Romans 3:23-24 “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.” Romans 5:1 “Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Salvation in Street Clothes

Romans 5:9 “Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God.” Romans 8:30 “And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.” 1 Corinthians 6:11 “And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.” Galatians 2:16 “…yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, so we also have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified.” Galatians 3:24 “So then, the law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith.” Titus 3:7 “…so that being justified by his grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.” Justification QuikQuotes “Whoever departs from the article of justification does not know God and is an idolater … For when this article has been taken away, nothing remains but error, hypocrisy, godlessness, and idolatry, although it may seem to be the height of truth…” ~Martin Luther

God Forgives Us

“I look around these pews and see my brethren and sisters—scores and hundreds of them—all of whom are tonight just before God—perfectly so; completely so … The man may have been everything that was bad before he believed in Jesus, but as soon as he trusted Christ, the merits of Christ became his merits, and he stands before God as though he were perfect, ‘without spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing,’ through the righteousness of Christ.” ~C.H. Spurgeon “But if sinners cannot be justified by any inherent righteousness, what righteousness have they to plead at the bar of justice? They have a righteousness absolutely perfect and complete, called in scripture the righteousness of God, because the Lord our righteousness contrived and wrought it out.” ~William Romaine “The doctrine of justification involves a legal matter of the highest order. Indeed it is the legal issue on which the sinner stands or falls: his status before the supreme tribunal of God.” ~R.C. Sproul

chapter 4

GOD RESTORES US reconciliation (Keith Ryan)

“For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life” (Romans 5:10).

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Few of us like to think of ourselves as an enemy of God. Yet, prior to our reconciliation with God through Jesus, that’s exactly what we are. All of us. Scripture says this quite plainly when it actually calls us “enemies of God” (Romans. 5:10). Ironically, the longer we run from this truth, the greater the distance between us and God. As long as we actually think we have something within us that merits a place next to the Father, we fool ourselves and engage in a fight with the Almighty. Truly, whenever we steal even a micro-ounce of the glory that belongs to him, we place ourselves against him as his enemy. Yet, running from this is exactly what Keith was doing. In his own efforts to be God’s friend, he was becoming more estranged. Distant. Lost. But thankfully not forever. 57

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Keith’s apparent close proximity to God started early in his life. As a young boy growing up in Pennsylvania, he was active in the Catholic church, attending not only Confirmation, but also CCD (Confraternity of Christian Doctrine), a program designed to teach children the basic roots of the Catholic faith even before their confirmation. This was in addition to his regular attendance at Mass, where, because that particular church did not have classes for kids his age during Mass, he sat with his parents and “tried to find all kinds of ways to annoy my brother.” When Keith was a freshman in high school, his family moved to Columbus, Ohio, and his perceived closeness to divinity grew as he became an altar boy. “I assisted in Mass and helped the priest by the holding Bible while he read, lighting candles, and preparing the bread and wine for communion. I was helping in the house of God, yet I didn’t even know God.” Keith’s ‘nearness’ was anything but that. In fact, the closer he felt he got, the more self-reliant he became, driving him further away from the real Person who could bridge the growing gap between him and God. “I found myself looking at God as nothing more than a religion. And Jesus? He was no more real to me than Hercules or Zeus.” Quite strange for someone who, in technical terms, was around God, close to God, and really near God. In some ways, Keith’s story up to this point reminds me of the Israelites’ experience as recorded in 1 Corinthians 10. Paul informs us in the opening verses that they “all followed the same cloud, were baptized in the same river, and benefited from the same law.” Yet, with many of them “God was not pleased” and, as a result, he scattered their bodies in the wilderness. What I find so contrasting is the irony contained within this section. They were all, apparently, afforded the privileges of proximity; yet, God scattered them. It sounds like they thought they were friends of God, but as it turned out, many of them were actually his enemies. After high school, Keith entered the military. And for the first time in his life, he was confronted with the distance between him and God by a co-worker who asked him one day how he knew he was going to

God Restores Us

heaven. “The actual question was more like, ‘Do you think you’re good enough to get to heaven?’, and the actual word he used to describe those who knew they weren’t was the word ‘saved.’ A little confused as to why the good people—the friends of God who work hard to stay close—don’t get in, I still replied ‘Sure, I’m a nice guy; I try to do good things and avoid the bad stuff.’ But as we kept talking, he informed me that all the good I was doing would never be enough to bring me closer to God; there was nothing I could do to bridge the gap that existed between me and the Almighty. I was an enemy, and I needed a peace negotiator.” That truth began to find a home in Keith’s heart, though slowly. And eight years later, after a divorce, a job loss, three kids, and a move of over 500 miles, it resurfaced when his new wife asked if they could make God and church part of their life now that they were settled in the metro- Des Moines area. Confident they could get “close to God” again, Keith began the process of church shopping. After a futile attempt at a nearby church, where, Keith recalls, “we actually had to pay for Sunday School,” Keith was ready to give up on the entire idea. “Besides, we didn’t go that much, and when we did, we just kept the kids with us. Quite honestly, I felt like it was payback from my childhood—you know, kids crawling under pews, picking at each other, being noisy.” For someone who worked hard at being in close proximity to God, Keith discovered his efforts were backfiring. He felt further from God, alienated from what he knew he needed but unable to produce it. Adding fuel to the fire were the unintentional reminders from others of his growing distance. For instance, not long after becoming friends with a couple down the street, the husband, Jamie, asked Keith if they attended church anywhere. “I made sure he knew I was a practicing Catholic and didn’t need more help finding God. I knew I came across somewhat defensive, but he was talking to a former altar boy.” But Jamie wasn’t offended or derailed. Little by little, Jamie talked with Keith, kept inviting him to church, even asking him one time if he understood what it meant to be saved. “There was that word again

Salvation in Street Clothes

—saved! Every time I heard the word ‘saved,’ I got the mental image of a street preacher dressed in dirty clothes standing in the middle of a college campus warning people of hell. Not sure why; I just did. All I know is I didn’t like the idea of someone telling me, a good person who had been close to God, I was going to hell. “The sad truth is that I didn’t think of myself as ‘saved.’ And deep down I knew I needed to be saved from this war with God that I obviously wasn’t winning. But I didn’t tell him that. I simply explained that I knew the fact that Jesus died on the cross, hoping that would suffice. “No matter where I went, I was confronted with these reminders that there was an unbridgeable gap between me and God. Even my wife was talking about what she was learning and discovering spiritually and biblically; it was the topic of many discussions in our home. But I wasn’t budging, and I had my reasons. Still, inside my heart, I found myself wondering how someone who did so much on his own to be near God earlier could find himself wanting to be so far away from God now?” Oddly, it was during a discussion with Jamie about his reasons for not attending church with his wife that Keith finally agreed to go. “I was humorously recalling the whole kid side of church—my own experience as a child, as well as my own experience as a parent—and how I just didn’t want to go and put up with all that again. Looking back, I’m sure it sounded selfish and silly. But that was my beef. And I’ll never forget what Jamie said next: ‘At our church people volunteer to teach the kids about God in a way that is easy for them to understand, and the parents are kid-free during the service.’ Suddenly, my biggest excuse was being dismantled in front of my eyes. And though I still didn’t really want to go, I couldn’t find any reason not to now.” Keith’s first few weeks back in church were a whirlwind. This former altar boy was having to adjust to something he had not seen before, especially from the front. “When the pastor began to speak, it wasn’t what I expected. He took small sections of the Bible and explained them in a way that I could understand. He had a fire for Jesus that I

God Restores Us

had never seen, yet he spoke as one of us; he readily admitted he was a man capable of sin. He dressed normal, too; just a pair of pants and a shirt, kind of like me. At the end of the message, he asked if anyone was willing to believe in Jesus and be saved. I didn’t pray for salvation that day, but I was beginning to understand more about what it meant to truly be close to God, not by location, but in salvation.” Shortly thereafter Keith and Nikki began attending one of the small groups in the church, the same one in which Jamie and his family were involved. In addition to discussing and applying the Scripture from Sunday, this small group was currently spending some time studying biblical marriage as well with the help of the book Love and Respect. “At first, I used the book, and the Bible verses it referenced, to drive home the points I’d been trying to make with my wife for years. But then God stepped in and served me a piece of humble pie as my faults were suddenly in the spotlight. I was not a friend of God after all. I was an enemy, and was really far away from what I needed to be, especially as a husband.” It was not long until Nikki trusted Jesus and became a Christian. And Keith’s interest was peaking as well. So they started having long discussions about the Bible. Along with these discussions, Keith’s small group was helping him understand God’s Word. It was an eye-opening time for Keith as he finally realized what it meant—and took—to be at peace with God. “It was around mid-June when I realized how wrong I had been about Jesus and how I really needed him to bring me truly close to God. I had worked so hard to be physically close to things about God for much of my life, maybe as a way to appease God or feel better about myself. But I never knew how to be spiritually at peace with God on the inside. But as God unveiled my eyes to the satisfactory sacrifice of Jesus, I understood that God wasn’t mad at me. Instead, all his wrath was poured out on Jesus. It is Jesus who bridges the gap and brings me to God as a friend. And only Jesus! I was done being an enemy, and wanted Jesus to finally bring me near to God.”

Salvation in Street Clothes

All of these thoughts were running through Keith’s mind day after day, so to solidify his response to God, Keith, while driving to work one morning, simply prayed, confessed his belief in Jesus and his sins to Jesus. “I once told a friend that I knew Jesus died on the cross for the forgiveness of my sins, but I only mentally assented to the facts of the events; I didn’t truly believe he was the avenue to peace. In the car that morning, though, I believed. I told God that I was sorry for my sins and I wanted to turn away from my sinful past. I pleaded for forgiveness through Jesus, asking him to save me and make me at peace with himself. And that second God did exactly that! I was truly alive and at home!” When we finally discover peace with God through Jesus, we are reconciled to God. The Bible specifically mentions reconciliation twentytwo times, and the bulk of these are about the satisfactory sacrifice of Jesus. Quite literally, Jesus is our peace negotiator and mediator. You see, that’s why we’re at peace now. Jesus bore in himself the horrible punishment that God had for sin (Hebrews 9:26), and in doing so, he satisfied God’s wrath. Scripture uses the word “propitiation” to describe this (1 John 4:10), and it simply means that God is satisfied with the death of Jesus. The result? All who believe on Jesus are reconciled—finally at peace—with God (2 Corinthians 5:18-19). In the Old Testament, God’s people used offerings to make peace with God. In fact, out of the five primary offerings discussed in Leviticus, one of them is actually called a Peace Offering. Things like lambs and goats were sacrificed on an altar, and the result would be that God was, temporarily, satisfied. Because the offerings weren’t eternal and holy like God, though, his people had to continue to offer them annually. Jesus, however, was God, so when he voluntarily laid down his life as a sacrifice, it wasn’t only good for a short time. It was good forever (Hebrews 9:11-14, 23-26). Consequently, our reconciliation through Jesus is forever. Fortunately, because reconciliation is different than a resolution or settlement, it leaves us different as well. We are no longer trying to

God Restores Us

keep the peace with God through our own effort. Instead, we enjoy the peace provided by Jesus. That brings about a completely different life. We no longer live from a performance-driven mindset, but rather from a peaceful point of view. In Keith’s case, his appetites became drastically different. What he once felt he had to do to get close to God, he now wanted to do because he is with God. “How I respond to my wife, my desire to obey Jesus’ commands, what I listen to, how I interact with my children, and my willingness to talk about Jesus to others are all good signs to me that I’m no longer living to earn peace with God. I’m enjoying the peace I have with God through Jesus. And it shows up in so many ways as I freely serve my Savior here at home, in my community, or at church.” _________________________

Reconciliation QuikFacts • Reconciliation is the act of God in which he, through Christ, removes the enmity that is between us and himself, brought about by our sin, and instead brings us back into fellowship with himself and establishes peace between us (2 Corinthians 5:18-21). • Reconciliation is not a legal word, like justification, but a relational word. We go from enemies to family; from strangers to friends. • There are six words (and compounds of words) used to describe reconciliation in the New Testament. All total, the word is used twenty-two times in the twenty-seven books. • Reconciliation is a gift given to us (Ephesians 2:11-21) and a ministry shared by us (2 Corinthians 5:19). Reconciliation QuikScripts Leviticus 8:15 “And he killed it, and Moses took the blood, and with his finger put it on the horns of the altar around it and purified the altar

Salvation in Street Clothes

and poured out the blood at the base of the altar and consecrated it to make atonement for it.” Ezekiel 45:15 “’And one sheep from every flock of two hundred, from the watering places of Israel for grain offering, burnt offering, and peace offerings, to make atonement for them,’ declares the Lord God.” Romans 5:10 “For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life.” 2 Corinthians 5:18-20 “All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.” Ephesians 2:15-18 “… that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility. And he came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near. For through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father.” Colossians 1:20-22 “And through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross. And

God Restores Us

you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him.” Hebrews 2:17 “Therefore he had to be made like his brothers in every respect, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people.” Reconciliation QuikQuotes “’Receive the reconciliation.’ It’s a glorious phrase. Don’t perform it. Don’t earn it. Don’t work for it. Don’t suffer for it. Don’t pay for it. Receive it . . . Reconciliation with God is a gift from God.” ~John Piper “Our reconciliation to God is permanent and eternal. Because Christ accomplished it for us, there is no possibility it can ever be undone.” ~Jerry Bridges “There is one Gospel, and it is universal and applicable to all cultures. The Gospel is universally applicable because the one great need of all human beings is the same: they all need to be reconciled with the Creator.” ~George Martin

chapter 5

GOD RANSOMS US redemption (Carol Collins)

“For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus” (Romans 3:23-24).

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Actions have consequences. And when it comes to sin, the consequences are negative. Hurtful. Destructive. Condemning. Left unchecked, sin becomes our master and it rules us (Romans 6:6; James 1:15 ). A way out seems impossible, and we assume we’ll be left with a life of open wounds, scars, and bruises. That’s exactly what Carol thought as she spiraled downward in her sin. Controlled by her lusts and addictions, the end was fast approaching. She felt completely chained to her sin. “All I knew growing up was hate. My parents divorced when I was only a year old, and mostly what I remember are the vengeful words of my mom towards my dad. Every word seemed to spew out hatred, telling me how horrible he was.” 69

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Feeling alone and unloved, Carol sought love in easy places with shallow people. With no role models or morals to lean on, she ended up in a relationship with a man whose only goal was sex. And not just with her. With anyone else he desired. “My husband was unfaithful from the very start of our marriage, and it never stopped until I finally ended the marriage, if that’s what you call it. Yes, he was the father of my two older boys, but he didn’t truly love me or his sons.” But that’s the life she had come to know. And though she was angered and abused by it, she was, like it or not, chained to it. Those sins called to her from the dark side, like a sordid pervert who only knew how to steal, lie and cheat. And without the power of Christ, Carol was helpless. Change seemed like a dream—too good to be true. In an attempt to find a good guy, Carol married again quickly. This time, though, it wasn’t a loser she roped. Somehow, Chip was actually from a decent family and believed that a man should stay faithful to the woman he married. Maybe this was her break. Maybe. But Carol underestimated the hold sin had on her. And before long she became the very person she so despised earlier. “All I did was deceive and hurt Chip by being an adulterous wife. I was hanging out with the wrong people, going to the bars, drinking, doing drugs, and looking to other men to give me what I thought was lacking in our marriage.” As Carol would later discover, what was lacking in their marriage was Jesus. But it was easier for her to blame Chip than repent to Christ. “Often, I would look at him and his parents and get so jealous. They enjoyed what I never had growing up. You would think I would run to him and say, ‘I’m with you! Let’s build a home like you had!’ But I instead let my anger and jealousy run wild. I was ‘going green’ for sure, but we weren’t ending up with a better environment in our home.” Carol had managed to keep her unfaithfulness a secret. But in May 2008, it all began to unravel. And fast. “My husband had learned of my unfaithfulness, and he drilled me about it. I was so ashamed! As other incidents came to light, I found myself desperately trying to mend our relationship. But I didn’t know how. Things were falling apart.

God Ransoms Us

“Not knowing what else to do, we separated. I moved in with his niece, and was only allowed to see my kids a couple times a week. It seemed I was now paying for all the horrible things I had done. I regretted so much the pain that I was putting myself and my family through, but I was at a loss for what to do next. Sin is all I had known. I was a slave to it, and I was watching my life self-destructing all around me.” The Bible speaks to this issue in James when it says that “sin brings forth death.” Often, we ignore the end of our sin because we are enjoying the beginning of our sin. But as Carol’s story shows, sin always disguises its real intentions. Sooner or later, death and destruction show up to take what they think they own—your life. But Jesus stands as our rescuer from the hellish pit of sin. Because he overcame sin on the cross and rose from the grave, he is the only one able to come into our world of selfish addictions and lusts and give us true power to make a real exodus. As Carol was about to find out, Jesus had paid her ransom and she didn’t need to bow the knee to sin any longer. She could be free! “The next few weeks and months were crazy. I was doing everything I could think of to keep our marriage together, but I wasn’t sure it was going to work. Chip wasn’t ready to divorce me, but he wasn’t real sure if I was going to change. I knew I needed to, but wasn’t sure how.” As Carol’s heart cried out to a God she didn’t even know for help, his sovereign grace showed up. First, she recalled her dad suggesting she read The Purpose Driven Life, so she grabbed a copy and committed to reading one chapter a day for forty days. Then, in a surprising move, Carol reached out to a counselor. After a few sessions, Chip agreed to go as well. And while the counseling was helpful, something was missing. While discussing this missing element with one of her clients one day at work, Carol was introduced to Marriage Matters, a marriage mentoring program that trains churches and Christians to help people who are struggling in their covenant relationship with one another.

Salvation in Street Clothes

“Maybe that’s what missing—Christ,” Carol recalls. “So I thought church would be a logical next step.” Carol had heard about a new church in her town that was “the kind of place where you can get some help,” so on the next Sunday she attended. And it was on that Sunday that Carol finally understood that she didn’t have to live in bondage to sin any longer. Satan did not have to be her master because Jesus had died to set her free from the “curse of the law” (Galatians 3:13). “That day I believed the truth about Jesus and asked him to save me from my sin and free me from the bondage of all my wickedness. And he did. Finally, the answer I was looking for! “I called Chip to tell him the good news, but his reaction wasn’t what I was expecting. In hindsight, I can understand his hesitation. He didn’t just want a surface change; he wanted me to be really different deep down. I knew God had freed me, but I also knew it would take some time to prove this to Chip. With God’s Spirit inside me now, I willingly embraced this opportunity to showcase the power of God. I knew I was different, but I had to let Chip see it.” Weeks went by, and even though Chip and Carol remained separated, their relationship was slowly recovering. Carol had been invited to a small group, where she got connected and found much support and accountability. “The people I met in this Lighthouse were wonderful. They listened to my story of unfaithfulness and didn’t judge me once. They never condoned it, but only showed me how to depend on Jesus for my future now that I was a believer. It was a place for me to see how the lives and marriages of others were working based on the Bible. I longed for that in my marriage, and I sensed these people were committed to walking with me as I simply obeyed Jesus.” One of the ways Carol obeyed Jesus was by getting baptized. And of course, she invited Chip. Chip had actually been to church a few times already, but was irregular, still somewhat leery of what was going on with Carol. Oddly, he had also attended a couple of their small group sessions, even going with Carol to the small group leaders for counseling at times. So it wasn’t his first time relating to Carol’s new spiritual family, but it was still a new experience.

God Ransoms Us

Yet, even with the newness, there was a remarkable breakthrough for both of them on the day of her baptism. And it didn’t necessarily happen at the church building or in the service. It was later in their small group. As a small group, they were going to partake of Communion that night. But to do so, they asked each one to examine their own life and make sure they were remembering the death of Jesus with the right attitude (1 Corinthians 11:27-32). “Chip and I weren’t sure we had let the cross have its full effect in our marriage relationship; admittedly, we had a lot left to forgive. So I wasn’t sure if we could be part of this. So instead of leaving totally, we went together in another room and began talking and praying, crying and forgiving. Others eventually came and laid their hands on us and interceded for us. What a night as we were able to fully forgive each other for the events that had occurred in the past. Christ had set us free, and now we were following his example and setting each other free.” By late September, Carol was back home, and the Collins family was enjoying the freedom found in Christ. As a mom and wife, Carol was no longer bound to the sinful lifestyle she had lived before; now she was free, for Christ had paid her ransom and won her deliverance. And it showed. She was really different. God had moved inside and given her a new nature. She was now a faithful, loyal wife, a homeward mom who loved and cared for her first priority—her family. “It is such a blessing to know that I am one of God’s children. Without Christ in my life, I would continue to be in bondage to all my destructive lusts and sinful cravings. But I have been liberated by Jesus. He has paid for my sin fully, and I now belong to him. I am finally free! “This has also made a huge impact on my children as well. My oldest son, Tyler, has accepted and believed the truth about Jesus, and all of my children are more and more hungry for Christ.” Carol’s story reminds me of the Old Testament account of the Exodus of God’s people from Egypt. In fact, it is the description of their redemption, when God brought them out of slavery and set them free.

Salvation in Street Clothes

This story is recounted in Exodus 12, and in it we see that there was a price for their redemption, a ransom, if you will. That ransom was the blood of a lamb. Once applied to the door posts, God accepted that as full payment for sin and considered them free. Liberated. Redeemed. That true story of the past is a prototype of a future true story —the story of Jesus. Called the Lamb of God (John 1:29), Jesus shed his blood on the cross as the ransom for our release from the penalty of sin. Instead of you paying for your sin, Jesus did, once and for all. And when we, through faith, trust in Jesus’ blood payment for our sin, we are redeemed. Set free. Liberated. A further word here about redemption would be helpful. Some mistakenly think that when Jesus paid our ransom, he made a deal with the devil and bought us back from him. In short, that’s false. Nowhere in Scripture are we told that Jesus shed his blood as ransom in order to pay it to Satan so that he could again have the rights to us. Biblically, the ransom was paid to God the Father by God the Son (Mark 10:45; Romans 3:25; 1 John 2:2) as a way to satisfy God’s wrath against sin and sinners. What we are released from is the penalty of sin that will one day come from God upon all who refuse to believe. When that day comes, you will not be tagged with Satan because you have been bought with the blood of Christ (1 Peter 1:18-19). God does, and will, recognize the blood of Jesus over your life and spare you from his wrath. For sure, redemption makes a difference now and later. It’s because of redemption that we don’t have to answer the call of sin anymore. You don’t have to. I don’t have to. Carol doesn’t have to. Truly, Jesus set us free. We no longer have to live destructively, but now we can live differently. _________________________

Redemption QuikFacts • Redemption is the act of God delivering us from bondage to sin and Satan through the sacrificial death and atoning blood of Jesus, the price necessary for God to act on our behalf and free us.

God Ransoms Us

• There are approximately 150 uses of the word “redemption” in the English version of the Bible. Redemption QuikScripts Ruth 3:9 “… And she answered, ‘I am Ruth, your servant. Spread your wings over your servant, for you are a redeemer.’” Psalm 111:9 “He sent redemption to his people; he has commanded his covenant forever. Holy and awesome is his name.” Psalm 130:7 “O Israel, hope in the Lord! For with the Lord there is steadfast love, and with him is plentiful redemption.” Luke 2:38 “And coming up at that very hour she began to give thanks to God and to speak of him to all who were waiting for the redemption of Jerusalem.” Acts 20:28 “Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to care for the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood.” Romans 3:23, 24 “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.” 1 Corinthians 1:30 “And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption.”

Salvation in Street Clothes

1 Corinthians 6:20 “You were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.” Galatians 4:4, 5 “But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.” Ephesians 1:7 “In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace.” Colossians 1:14 “…in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.” 1 Timothy 2:6 “…who gave himself as a ransom for all, which is the testimony given at the proper time.” Hebrews 9:12 “He entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves but by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption.” 1 Peter 1:18-19 “Knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot.” Revelation 5:9 “And they sang a new song, saying, ‘Worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation.’”

God Ransoms Us

Redemption QuikQuotes “Of all the world’s great religious writings, only the Bible presents God acting out of his love and power to come and redeem humans from bondage.” ~Gary Breshears “Redemption is a greater work even than creation, and especially when we consider the way in which God has achieved it, even through the sending of His only Begotten Son into this world in all the marvel and the wonder and the miracle of the Incarnation, but above all in delivering Him up to the Death upon the Cross. This is the supreme thing – that sinful fallen man can be redeemed and restored, and ultimately the whole of creation also.” ~Martin Lloyd-Jones “When the Bible says that we are redeemed, it is saying we have been bought out of slavery, so we as Christians have been bought and brought out of slavery to sin. Christ’s death was the price paid for our freedom from sin. Christ’s death is how God has redeemed us from our slavery to sin.” ~Mark Dever “Jesus is not one of many ways to approach God, nor is He the best of several ways; He is the only way.” ~A.W. Tozer

chapter 6

GOD STANDS IN FOR US substitution (Mike Boone)

“For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly” (Romans 5:6).

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Too many people live, not with a biblically-based view of God, but with a culturally-biased version of God. They reinvent him according to their own experiences, tastes, and opinions. Mike Boone was no different. But that isn’t surprising, seeing that God was, for all practical purposes, non-existent in his upbringing. “I spent the vast majority of my life reluctant towards the notion of God or anything spiritual. Reluctant, not out of intolerance, but rather simple ignorance. My parents never mentioned God, and church was only part of our life when we visited grandparents. To me, they were both things I associated with holidays or family functions.” So when Mike thought of God, church, or the Bible, they were connected quickly to the cultural aspects he had absorbed about them. For instance, sometimes God does good things (i.e., Christmas); some81

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times God does bad things (i.e., funerals). Sometimes God wins (i.e., Emancipation Proclamation); sometimes he loses (i.e., 9/11). Eventually, Mike simply looked at life as a cosmic struggle between forces. In the end, he thought to himself, you just don’t want to end up on the wrong side. Of course, Mike never knew how you ended up on a side. But since he was essentially reasoning from the standpoint of ignorance, he didn’t think it mattered all that much. With such little information to work with, why bother? All that changed as his family dealt with a series of trials in his preteen years. “We faced a number of struggles that began to unravel our lives and evolve my view of God from one resting on ignorance to one rooted in resentment. The defining moment of these struggles occurred when my father passed away from complications resulting from diabetes. Obviously devastating to the core of our family unit, the loss of my dad as my male role model resulted in significant turbulence for me. So I purposely built a barrier between God and myself, a barrier that didn’t really become evident till my teenage years.” As Mike’s misunderstandings about God grew, he began to form even stronger opinions and beliefs. And all through high school, even the slightest invitation to hear more about Jesus was met with apathy; even the remotest opportunity to discuss issues that were below the surface—spiritual issues—were scorned. It wasn’t that Mike wasn’t thinking about these heavier matters. But he had no interest in thinking about them from God’s perspective. He was content being mad at Deity. In college, however, “I began to grow weary of being angry with God. I found myself frustrated because, even as I tried to convince my mind God didn’t exist, I knew my heart was still upset. If he wasn’t real, why did he apparently irritate me so much? If he was real, he must hate me, because, from my point of view, no loving god would have allowed the events in my life to transpire as they did. This was very tiring, and I knew I had to do something besides live in the tension of both.”

God Stands in for Us

Mike’s love of facts, logic, and clear explanations drove him to question his assumptions and presuppositions, hoping that, at the end of his quest, what he thought to be true would be proven to be true, and all those crazy Christians would be clearly wrong. In his mind, Mike figured he’d start with the Christian faith and get rid of it first. “In a lot of ways I viewed myself as a ‘covert atheist,’ thinking that in my search I would gain the insight necessary to prove God didn’t exist. So, as a college senior, I set out on a mission to better understand how Christians think and perceive God. “The college I attended had a healthy and popular student Christian organization that held an on-campus, weekly worship and devotional event in the student union. I started attending this every week, not to participate, but rather to sit in the back and observe. In addition, I also started attending a weekly Bible study for athletes. To top it off, every Sunday I attended a different church around the community. When you combine all of these pursuits, I was probably the most churchgoing, Bible-studying atheist in our town! Unfortunately, although I gained a lot of insight during this exploration period, I never allowed myself to see beyond the bias I had built up over the years. I was still convinced I could prove it was all a house of cards.” Mike’s mission lasted about five months during his senior year, but it ended rather abruptly when, in spite of his best intentions to expose Christianity, he was actually finding it hard to answer the questions people were asking him. As God would providentially ordain, Mike had developed some initial relationships, and it was in these friendships and environments that his new acquaintances began politely challenging his views and asking him questions. “People began to challenge my views on God, inviting me to believe in Jesus, and asking me to accept Christ into my life. Quite honestly, I was more frightened and angered by this and, once again, pushed everything aside. At least on the outside. In hindsight, however, I knew inside things were making sense, and not only did God exist, but he was a loving and merciful God.”

Salvation in Street Clothes

For Mike, the tables had turned somewhat. But admitting that his version of God was wrong was a step he wasn’t ready to take yet. After graduation, Mike moved to central Iowa, where he met a young lady named Joni. Joni, who would later become his wife, was the key person in introducing Mike to a number of people and places that God would use to bring him all the way home. For starters, Mike began attending church with Joni, hearing, for the first time, a biblically yet historically logical understanding of the Gospel. This time, though, without the man-made pressure to “sign on” the first day he was there. “Sure, the Pastor encouraged us to believe the truth about Jesus. But it was different than before; I didn’t sense any manipulation or leveraging. Instead, he simply and consistently asked us to consider the claims of Christ and make a decision to believe.” But attending church wasn’t enough. And just like his college days, Mike also began attending one of the church’s classes, The Truth Project. And he became an avid reader of everything Joni passed his way. “Those months were challenging, but invigorating. Nearly every concept I had known to be true was exposed and suspect when compared to this new truth—God’s truth—that I was learning. The information I was digesting and the evidence I was seeing was leaving me no alternative. I knew I could no longer support the barrier I had built in front of God with my man-made, self-produced theories. True to form for Mike, it was an eye-opening moment of Holy Spirit logic—he now calls it faith—that pushed him over the edge and brought him to his knees in repentance and trust. For as he began to see the incredible mercy of God displayed in Jesus, Mike’s stubbornness melted. No doubt a hard thing to comprehend because of his past, Mike supernaturally began to see God as the Father who really loved him. Mike could no longer hold on to a false view of God—that God was some kind of distant old man bent on revenge. On the contrary! Mike had been brought face to face with the biblical, historical, and verifiable reality of God’s indescribable compassion in the cross. Here was a man he could believe in and follow.

God Stands in for Us

“I really understood just how loving and merciful God was when I finally grasped that it was his Son—God himself—who took my place on the cross. God didn’t do bad things to me; God took all the bad things for me. God wasn’t dead or bad. He was alive. And good. Really good! So good that he was my substitute. What I deserved, he actually received. That was when everything in my life turned completely upside down, and I have never been the same since.” Mike is exactly right—Jesus is our replacement. He stands in for us when no one or nothing else can. More properly known as the doctrine of substitution, this core and fundamental belief forms a crucial foundation for the atoning work of Jesus. You see, there would be no atonement if Jesus didn’t take our place. After all, were you and I to die, the payment for sin would be inadequate. Incomplete. Insufficient. This is one reason hell is a place of continuing torment and eternal punishment (Luke 16:24; Mark 9:4548); man can never really or fully atone for it by himself. Thankfully, Jesus, as the perfect and holy Son of God, stood in for all of us and completely atoned for our sin. He took our place—became our substitute—and sin no longer lays claim to anyone who by faith believes the truth about Jesus. The Bible refers to substitution in several places: “For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit” (1 Peter 3:18). “And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God” (Ephesians 5:2). Not only does the Bible proclaim substitution, but it pictures it as well. In fact, one of the best word portraits is found in Genesis 22.

Salvation in Street Clothes

After these things God tested Abraham and said to him, “Abraham!” And he said, “Here am I.” He said, “Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you.” So Abraham rose early in the morning, saddled his donkey, and took two of his young men with him, and his son Isaac. And he cut the wood for the burnt offering and arose and went to the place of which God had told him. On the third day Abraham lifted up his eyes and saw the place from afar. Then Abraham said to his young men, “Stay here with the donkey; I and the boy will go over there and worship and come again to you.” And Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering and laid it on Isaac his son. And he took in his hand the fire and the knife. So they went both of them together. And Isaac said to his father Abraham, “My father!” And he said, “Here am I, my son.” He said, “Behold, the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?” Abraham said, “God will provide for himself the lamb for a burnt offering, my son.” So they went both of them together. When they came to the place of which God had told him, Abraham built the altar there and laid the wood in order and bound Isaac his son and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood. Then Abraham reached out his hand and took the knife to slaughter his son. But the angel of the Lord called to him from heaven and said, “Abraham, Abraham!” And he said, “Here am I.” He said, “Do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him, for now I know that you fear God, seeing you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me.” And Abraham lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, behind him was a ram, caught in a thicket by his horns. And Abraham went and took the ram and offered it up as a burnt offering instead of his son. So Abraham called the name of that place, “The Lord will provide”; as it is said to this day, “On the mount of the Lord it shall be provided.” You can imagine the sheer delight and joy in both Abraham and his son when a substitute showed up! God was faithful to provide the necessary sacrifice—a ram. In the sacrifice of the ram—not in the killing of Isaac—God found satisfaction.

God Stands in for Us

Furthermore, throughout temple worship, the sacrifices and offerings were always substitutionary in nature. That’s why every worshipper brought an offering (i.e., an animal or crop)—it was to take the place of the worshiper. In fact, on the most important day of the year—Yom Kippur (or as it is better known, The Day of Atonement)—the Hebrews would offer two goats as part of their sacrifice (Leviticus 16). The first goat, which was killed, was the propitiatory substitute. The second goat, which was released with all the sins of the people, was the expiatory substitute. Both are necessary, and both contain the element of substitution. There’s no doubt that, throughout biblical history, the concept of substitution was held in high regard and was a source of great rejoicing. Consequently, you can see why the substitution of Jesus fills all who believe with deep joy. He took our place! He is our substitute, and we are free. As Mike recalls about the days immediately following his salvation, “For the first time in my memory, I didn’t view my life through the filter of hostility and resentfulness. Things were different now. The events of my life made sense and had meaning. Yes, they were unfortunate and difficult. But I do not regret or wish that none of it had occurred because I know God has woven it altogether for his glory and my good” (Romans 8:28). _________________________

Substitution QuikFacts • Substitution is the willful act of Jesus dying for us and in place of us, taking the penalty we deserved. • Substitution can also be referred to as “vicarious,” as in the vicarious atonement of Christ. • Christ’s substitutionary death is also referred to as a penal substitution, meaning he not only took our place, but he also took our punishment.

Salvation in Street Clothes

Substitution QuikScripts Isaiah 53:10 “Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him; he has put him to grief; when his soul makes an offering for guilt, he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days; the will of the Lord shall prosper in his hand.” Matthew 26:28 “For this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.” John 1:29 “The next day he saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, ‘Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.” John 6:51 “I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.” 1 Corinthians 15:3 “For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures…” Romans 5:18-19 “Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men. For as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous.” Galatians 1:4 “…who gave himself for our sins to deliver us from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father.”

God Stands in for Us

1 Thessalonians 5:9-10 “For God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us so that whether we are awake or asleep we might live with him.” 1 Timothy 2:5-6 “For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all, which is the testimony given at the proper time.” Hebrews 2:9 “But we see him who for a little while was made lower than the angels, namely Jesus, crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.” Substitution QuikQuotes “The essence of sin is we human beings substituting ourselves for God, while the essence of salvation is God substituting himself for us. We…put ourselves where only God deserves to be; God…puts himself where we deserve to be.” ~John Stott “Substitution! That is the word! Christ the Substitute for sinners: Christ standing for men, and bearing the thunderbolts of the divine opposition to all sin, he ‘being made sin for us who knew no sin.’ Man standing in Christ’s place, and receiving the sunlight of divine favour, instead of Christ.” ~C.H. Spurgeon “No attempt to reform the church can succeed if it departs in any way from the centrality of the message that our sinless Christ actually died on a real cross as the sin bearer for those who are united to Christ by faith in his substitutionary sacrifice and righteousness.” ~Jerry Bridges and Bob Bevington “As a sinless man, Jesus is able to represent sinners as One who has perfectly obeyed God’s holy law and has imitated His righteous character in every way. As the only God-man, He was able to die on the cross for sinners in their place and fully satisfy the deserved punishment those sinners would have received.” ~John Calvin

chapter 7

GOD CREDITS US imputation (Craig Davidson)

“For as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous” (Romans 5:19).

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My own informal research consistently reveals that the vast majority of people who live in America believe, to some degree, that if they can prove themselves worthy—good enough—they’ll manage to get into heaven. You may have heard people refer to the proverbial “scale” that will one day weigh their good works against their bad works. If the good side wins, they’re in. If there is too much bad weight, well, never mind. I don’t know anybody who actually believes they don’t have enough good deeds to make a difference. Until I met Craig. He was painfully honest about his sin, admitting he felt he had crossed the line. “Though I had plenty of opportunity to do good, I had, instead, despised the authority I was under and rejected the truth I had been taught. I had embraced a life of full-blown 93

Salvation in Street Clothes

sin, both openly and secretly. So, from my perspective, the years of doing whatever I wanted, which had culminated in a visibly dysfunctional lifestyle, had placed me in the ‘too far gone’ category.” Craig’s pursuit of evil and wickedness was not unhindered; he had ample people pointing him in the right direction from the very beginning. For starters, his parents. A godly couple who loved Jesus, they invested much energy and time in all their children—Craig and his two sisters – and did everything they could to instill godly values in them from day one. Along with weekly church, the Davidsons kept their children involved in kid-intensive programs regularly, and even enrolled them in a Christian school during the Jr. High and Sr. High years. Teachers, pastors, and other youth leaders were all part of the team that the Davidsons had assembled to come alongside their kids as spiritual mentors. Still, a rebellious nature was simmering in Craig. “I felt as though the school I attended was doing nothing more than pumping out a bunch of cookie-cutter Christians, and I didn’t want to be part of that. My resentment towards spiritual things was growing, as well as my curiosity in sinful things. “I had obtained a job by this time at a local grocery store and was beginning to meet a lot of people that lived alternative lifestyles. I found myself feeling as though I was missing the ‘real world’ due to very strict rules at home and school. So I slowly started to push the boundaries, and bad behavior became more common. And for me, more welcome.” This tension continued at home and at school right up until graduation. And once Craig was finished with high school, he was determined to make the most of his summer. “It was time to really live it up before I went off to college.” And that’s exactly what he did. As a result, college began to be the last thing on his mind; he only went because “my parents wouldn’t let me make the mistake of not going to college.” But once there, he continued in his self-destructive patterns, and it was only a matter of months before the college asked him to leave and he was back home.

God Credits Us

For the next three years, Craig’s downward spiral intensified. Blatant sin, open rebellion, and deliberate disobedience became the norm. “Those years took a toll on my relationship with my parents. I was constantly breaking their rules, doing whatever suited me at the time. In fact, I was asked to leave several times. So I would! However, I would always crawl back and beg for mercy, falsely assuring them I’d change. But I never did. This vicious cycle repeated itself more times than I can remember, and I regret to this day the amount of hurt and pain I brought into my parents life and our family’s home.” Craig’s continual descent into sin was further multiplied when he met a young lady and brought her into his world of immorality and addiction. “I was applying for a loan at a credit union, and before I left I had an approval for the loan and an approval for a first date. We became inseparable.” However, it was only twelve weeks later that they both experienced a rude awakening when she informed Craig she was pregnant with his child. Convinced they could make this relationship work, they struggled through nine months of pregnancy and the birth of their daughter. But the struggles of pregnancy and childbirth were nothing compared to what they would experience less than two months into parenthood when their newborn daughter died suddenly of SIDS. “As a couple, we felt as though our world was flipped upside down. As a man, I felt this was the final blow. From my perspective, all my sin and selfishness had come back to haunt me. I was now left with this awful pain I couldn’t medicate and this terrible tragedy I couldn’t reverse. I just figured it was a sign that all my bad stuff had finally tipped the scales in the favor of the Devil once and for all. There was no way I could ever measure up now.” Oddly, Craig and his girlfriend decided to get married instead of splitting up, and in April of 2001 they tied the knot and settled down in the small town of Mingo, Iowa. Before long, they had a son, and the years began passing by routinely. Methodically. And though Craig had hoped his life would somehow recalibrate itself over time, the opposite occurred. Little by little, he began to sense a deepening frustration and an ever-growing dissatisfaction with himself and his situation.

Salvation in Street Clothes

“Things were not fun anymore. It seemed like we were always broke, always changing a diaper, and always stressed. That was on top of the feelings of failure I fought every day, for I knew I wasn’t the husband my wife expected me to be nor the father I needed to be. I seemed to fall short all the time. All these things piled on and nearly cost us our marriage; it was a very rocky time. So rocky that I knew I had to find some kind of release. That’s when I turned to weed. I’d be high by 9:00 in the morning, top it off at lunch, and then smoke a little more after work. This was the only way I could make it through the day, and this was my routine for nearly most of 2007.” But before 2007 could close its doors, God called out to Craig. It began with a “random” Christian song he heard on the radio one day while eating lunch in his work vehicle. Finding himself unable to change the station, he listened to the lyrics: It hasn’t always been this way, I remember brighter days before the dark ones came, stole my mind and wrapped my souls in chains. Now I live among the dead, fighting voices in my head Hoping someone hears me crying in the night and carries me away. Set me free of these chains holding me! Is anybody out there hearing me? “Set me free!”

And as he did a rush of memories from his childhood washed over him. And for days, Craig’s mind raced through a litany of once-heardbut-never-held beliefs, wondering if any one of them contained any hope for his future. “I rehearsed everything I knew about God from my childhood and found myself asking, ‘Is it true after all?’” Yet, a nagging thought kept plaguing him: You’ve gone too far! “It was a fierce war in my mind. Was there really a way I could be set free? Or had I crossed the point of no return?” Not knowing what to do, Craig turned to the ones who had loved him at every step—his family. A brother-in-law was his first contact, and then, at the suggestion of this relative, Craig went to see his parents’ pastor.

God Credits Us

Hours of conversations, centered on a biblical understanding of the Gospel and the historical evidence for Jesus, took place over the next few months. Though Craig assumed he had gone too far, and that all his bad deeds had already put him six feet under, God opened his eyes to see the truth that God would credit Jesus’ perfection to him the moment he believed. In other words, he wouldn’t be left to depend on his own lack of “good things” or denied because of all his “bad things.” He would, instead, be able to rest in the righteousness of Jesus, assured that that was the lens through which God saw him. Sure enough, just as God promises, the Gospel of Christ was the “power of God unto salvation” (Romans 1:16). “After much soul searching, I came to the realization—belief!—that God was real, came to earth in the form of man (i.e., Jesus!), and died as sacrifice for our sins. Including mine! And when God saved me, he no longer attached those sins to me, for Jesus had paid for them. My sins were no longer a debit to me; I had Christ’s righteousness as a credit.” The credit of Christ is exactly what Craig stood in need of, both practically and divinely. On a practical level, it was the only way he was ever going to “feel right enough” to approach God. He had nothing to bring within himself, and he knew it. But as the perfection of Jesus came more and more into focus, it provided the means whereby he began to sense hope. On a divine level, it was the only way God was ever going to release him from his sins and view him as righteous. Nothing less than the pure perfection of Jesus would do. When he embraced the cross, God saw Jesus. That was enough to be counted worthy. In the world of big words, the credit of Christ is known as imputation. Definitively, it is when God gives you all the righteousness of Jesus in exchange for all of your sinfulness. Martin Luther referred to this as the Great Exchange, and the Apostle Paul, under the Holy Spirit’s inspiration, wrote about it in 2 Corinthians: “He made him who knew no sin to be sin for us that we might become the righteousness of God in him” (2 Corinthians 5:21).

Salvation in Street Clothes

This divine credit also provides great motivation for change. As we begin to realize that God truly sees us differently, we begin, by the power of God’s Spirit, to “live up” to the family name. Christ’s blanket of righteousness becomes something that isn’t just invisible, seen only by God at the moment of salvation; it becomes increasingly plain to others as well as our different nature is seen more and more by our different actions. “Knowing that God saved me and ‘made me righteous’ brought new desires and appetites. I wanted to get baptized, learn more, and be around other Christians. The biggest change I’ve noticed in my life so far is that God is making me sensitive to my sin. This is one of the ways God is helping me have meaningful relationships with him and my family.” Truly, the imputation of Christ’s righteousness has produced a subsequent amputation of sinful habits that were formerly impossible to overcome. Craig simply looks different because he is different. After all, that’s what God does when he saves us and puts his Spirit’s power in us and his Son’s righteousness on us. _________________________

Imputation QuikFacts • Imputation is the act of God in which he thinks of Christ’s righteousness belonging to us, and consequently clothes us in it and sees us through it. • Imputed righteousness is contrasted against infused righteousness, an erroneous and heretical view that says we gradually share in the righteousness of the saints and of Christ through the sacraments. • The Greek word for “impute” occurs 49 times in 40 verses in the New Testament, and is translated sometimes as “reckon”, “count”, or “suppose.”

God Credits Us

Imputation QuikScripts Numbers 21:4-9 “From Mount Hor they set out by the way to the Red Sea, to go around the land of Edom. And the people became impatient on the way. And the people spoke against God and against Moses, ‘Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and we loathe this worthless food.’ Then the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people, so that many people of Israel died. And the people came to Moses and said, ‘We have sinned, for we have spoken against the Lord and against you. Pray to the Lord, that he take away the serpents from us.’ So Moses prayed for the people. And the Lord said to Moses, ‘Make a fiery serpent and set it on a pole, and everyone who is bitten, when he sees it, shall live.’ So Moses made a bronze serpent and set it on a pole. And if a serpent bit anyone, he would look at the bronze serpent and live.” Isaiah 1:18 “’Come now, let us reason together,’ says the Lord: “Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool.’” Luke 10:33-35 “But a Samaritan, as he journeyed, came to where he was, and when he saw him, he had compassion. He went to him and bound up his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he set him on his own animal and brought him to an inn and took care of him. And the next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper, saying, ‘Take care of him, and whatever more you spend, I will repay you when I come back.’”

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John 1:12, 13 “But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.” Romans 4:4-8 “Now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift but as his due. And to the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness, just as David also speaks of the blessing of the one to whom God counts righteousness apart from works: ‘Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven, and whose sins are covered; blessed is the man against whom the Lord will not count his sin.’” Romans 4:22 “No distrust made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised. That is why his faith was ‘counted to him as righteousness.’” Philippians 3:9 “Indeed, 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.”

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Imputation QuikQuotes “Hell will be highly populated with those who were ‘raised right.’ The citizens of heaven will be those who, by the sheer grace and mercy of God, are there solely because of the imputed righteousness of Jesus Christ.” ~Albert Mohler “If you believe in Jesus, that is to say, if you trust him, all the merits of Jesus are your merits, are imputed to you: all the sufferings of Jesus are your sufferings. Everyone of his merits is imputed to you. You stand before God as if you were Christ, because Christ stood before God as if he were you—he in your stead, you in his stead.” ~C.H. Spurgeon “I linger over this issue of the imputed righteousness of God in Christ because when I stand by your bed in the hour of your death, I want to be able to look down into your face and remind you of the most comforting words in all the world . . . ‘Remember, Christ is your righteousness.’” ~John Piper “God made a swap. Actually, the correct term is imputation. He imputed our sin to Christ and His righteousness to us.” ~Charles Stanley

chapter 8

GOD CLAIMS US adoption (Timur Nesbitt)

“For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, ‘Abba! Father!’” (Romans 8:15).

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Globally, there are over 143 million orphans. You read that right— over 143 million. The largest number of orphans reside in the region of Asia—over 87 million. And the largest age group of orphans is children between the ages of 12-17—over 79 million worldwide. When it comes to America, over 800,000 are in the foster care system currently, and about 129,000 of them are waiting to be adopted. And though more than thirty percent of American families have seriously considered adopting, only about two percent have actually followed through. And only four percent of American families with children contain adopted children. When you’re the orphan, though, all the facts and figures are meaningless because the only number that means anything is one. The one that represents you. 105

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For Timur Nesbitt, one was surely the loneliest number. Born in Almaty, Kazakhstan in 1985, Timur was abandoned at birth by his biological parents. “They simply left me at the hospital from day one. And for the next sixteen years, I was an orphan, shuffled around from orphanage to orphanage.” The shuffling began when, after his birth, the Kazakhstan government placed him in a baby orphanage, where he stayed for three years. Timur has little memory or records of those years, but he does know that at three he was moved to another orphanage, one that was designed for children between the ages of three and seven. “I loved that orphanage so much. The directors were so nice, I had plenty food and clothes, and they celebrated my birthday almost every year. Those were my first memories of childhood, and I am glad they were good.” But turning seven brought another change, and this time the orphanage where he was placed was not anything like the previous one. Frankly, this new one, which was to be his schooling orphanage, gave him an education, but not in reading, writing, and ‘rithmatic. Instead, Timur got “schooled” in sin. “Smoking, cursing, stealing, fighting, and porn became a way of life, even at that very young age. Wickedness was everywhere, and it was very overwhelming. “Somewhere around the age of nine I remember thinking I had to change. And, since I was born in a Muslim country and had, consequently, been told I was Muslim, I began to get serious about Islam. After all, I had already learned Arabic and had been introduced to the Muslim faith, so it only seemed natural to dive in more deeply.” Timur began praying five times a day, honoring Allah with his good deeds. Sure this would cause Allah to help him overcome his wicked and sinful life, Timur did whatever he could to activate some type of Islamic energy that would change him and make him a better person. But it never happened. As his actions became more polarized—one minute trying to please Allah, the next stealing from the orphanage—Timur became more frustrated. Looking for something to help him find some consistency,

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Timur became intrigued with another orphan who was able to resist the pull of all the sin at the orphanage. “We invited him to watch porn, smoke, and steal, but he always told us he didn’t do those things anymore because he was a Jesus follower. I was really amazed at his life, and it made me really want to be changed even more. But I didn’t know how. So I worked harder at my Muslim religion, but I still didn’t feel any change. Ever. “So one day I just asked him some questions about this ‘Jesus’ that he said he followed. Next thing I know, he was sharing the Gospel with me. At first, I didn’t understand, but we kept talking. Though we were really different, we were friends, and I was curious about what helped him live like he did.” Not too many days later some Christians from the local area came to visit Timur’s new friend, and as they all spent time together, the love of Christ began to rub off on Timur. So when they shared the Gospel with him, Timur was so receptive that he gladly prayed for God to save him through Jesus. Unbelievably, God had revealed himself to a little orphan boy in a Muslim country, and that little boy responded in faith and was mightily saved. “I distinctly remember hearing the clarity and power of the Gospel, and then confessing Jesus that day. Though I was still a physical orphan, I was no longer one spiritually. I now had a heavenly Father—God—and a heavenly brother—Jesus. I was part of a new family—God’s!” Indeed, Timur was adopted that day. Oh, maybe not in the earthly way we most often think of. But biblically speaking, that is exactly what happened. In fact, adoption is what makes us cry out like a newborn. Look at how Paul expressed it in Romans 8:15: “For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, ‘Abba! Father!’” (Romans 8:15). This “Abba! Father” cry is, as Dan Cruver insightfully explains in his book Together For Adoption, ultimately “the intense expression of our deep inward groaning for the completion of our redemption—the renewal of our decaying bodies. It is the Spirit’s work to make us long for the full realization of our adoption (Romans 8:23).”

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Additionally and amazingly, only in the spiritual realm can one be born again and still adopted. Theologically, we know that in regeneration, God births us. But in adoption, God claims us. In one we are given new life; in another, a new family. Yet, they work together to bring us into right fellowship with our heavenly Father. The heartbeat of adoption is that we are no longer under a judge’s wrath, but instead a Father’s care. In no time Timur’s new relationship with his spiritual Father began changing his life. “I stopped doing wicked and sinful things because God gave me new desires, the deepest one being a love for the Bible. And since some local Christians had given me a Russian Bible, I began reading it day and night. “However, I couldn’t read my Bible publicly in that orphanage; Muslim educators and teachers surrounded me. So at midnight I would get up and go read my Bible in the bathroom. In fact, I finished all 66 books in the bathroom! Is it any wonder I think the bathroom is the best place to read the Bible?” This new desire, combined with other new habits like attending a Bible-believing church and listening to good preaching and teaching, continued for two years. Truly, God had claimed Timur and was now changing him. Then, at 12, Timur met the family God would use to bring his adoption full circle: Harold and Julie Nesbitt. An American family who were missionaries in Kazakhstan, the Nesbitts sensed God directing them to begin ministering to the orphans. And that’s exactly what they set out to do. “When Harold came to my orphanage for the first time, I was very excited to meet someone from America. And because I was very friendly and outgoing, I had no problem talking to him right away. I was amazed that he knew my language! Eventually, he introduced me to his oldest son, Andrus. And it wasn’t long till Andrus and I became best friends. And whenever he and his dad would come to the orphanage, we would play soccer, basketball and other things kids like to do together.”

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Harold continued to go to the orphanage almost every weekend, spending time with the kids and showing God’s love. But one of those weekends was especially meaningful for Timur, because Harold invited him to his house to meet his whole family. “I was so excited to meet them. To be in a real home with a real family; it was almost too much to comprehend.” As time passed, Timur’s connection to the Nesbitt family extended beyond his friendship with Andrus; Timur was becoming increasingly close to the entire family, visiting their house almost every weekend. “I felt like their family was my family.” Timur’s emotion was prophetic no doubt. And it intensified during the following summer when the orphanage director allowed Timur to stay with the Nesbitts for the entire summer! Normally, the children went away to camp for the summer, but for Timur, he was amazingly given permission to stay with the Nesbitts. “I didn’t want to go to orphanage summer camp, because it was not a good camp. I was always hungry there, no clothes or shoes to wear, and a lot of temptation to steal stuff and do wicked things. But staying with the Nesbitt family ended up being the best summer of my life. God blessed me that summer big time!” God was sovereignly aligning the future, and it began taking shape more visibly when, at the end of that summer in 2001, the Nesbitts asked Timur if he wanted to be part of their family—for good! “I remember when they asked me if I wanted to be their son. I answered, ‘Yes, so badly!’ To think I was now going to be physically adopted and would have an earthly family; I didn’t know God would bless me like that! But it was happening, and I was deeply glad. Sure enough, when I went back to the orphanage for last year of school, Harold and his family started work on my adoption.” The adoption process took almost the whole year of school. There were papers and documents, signatures and certifications; but in time, and by God’s grace, Timur’s adoption day, now a post-graduation event, dawned. “I remember it very clearly—August 16, 2002. We all went to court to get the official and final word from the judge about my adoption. My

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grandparents, Tom and Marie Nesbitt, had come from Ames, Iowa, so they were there, too. They, along with my new immediate family, were all praying for us and the judge. “We were there for a couple hours, all of us answering questions about my life and how I got to know Harold and his family. After a lot of conversation and discussion, the judge asked us to wait in the hall for an answer. So we did, but we prayed while we waited. I remember doing a lot of praying that day! “After about 30 minutes, the judge called us back in and proclaimed the good news to us: I was now officially and legally Timur Nesbitt! We were so happy and praising God for the miracle he had provided. Surely, I was adopted that day for the second time.” Timur’s physical experience with adoption has given him keen insight into the mystery and wonder of spiritual adoption. He doubly understands what it means to be claimed and named when nothing of the sort seemed to be on the horizon. Truly, adoption is the method by which spiritual and physical orphans come to understand what it means to be part of a family. “I love my family so much and I thank God for them. And I believe God gave me this family to show and tell others how awesome God is and how incredible his family is. I am so fortunate to have been adopted in two ways, and want everyone to enjoy the same benefit I do—a spiritual and physical family.” _________________________

Adoption QuikFacts • Adoption is mentioned five times in the Bible, all in the New Testament and all by the Apostle Paul. • Each use of the word ‘adoption’ in the New Testament serves as a milestone in the timeline of redemption. When arranged chronologically, the five verses tell the story of God’s salvation throughout the ages.

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• While justification is a legal word, adoption is a relational word. It speaks to the spiritual family we’re in and the spiritual siblings we have. • When considered as part of the order salutis (i.e., the order of salvation), adoption happens after justification and before sanctification. Adoption QuikScripts Romans 8:15 “For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, ‘Abba! Father.’” Romans 8:23 “And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.” Romans 9:4 “They are Israelites, and to them belong the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises.” Galatians 4:4-6 “…those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, ‘Abba! Father!’” Ephesians 1:4-5 “In love he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will.” John 1:12 “But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right t become children of God.”

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Adoption QuikQuotes “Adoption is a family idea, conceived in terms of love, and viewing God as father. In adoption, God takes us into His family and fellowship, and establishes us as His children and heirs. Closeness, affection, and generosity are at the heart of the relationship. To be right with God the judge is a great thing, but to be loved and cared for by God the Father is greater.” ~J.I Packer “Knowing that God will one day completely deliver us from our affliction in this fallen world motivates us to mirror God’s delivering work by serving orphans and seeing them placed in loving Christian homes.” ~Dan Cruver “To this day and forever, God is, and will be, the peculiar guardian of the defenseless. He is the President of Orphanages, the Protector of Widows. He is so glorious that he rides on the heavens, but so compassionate that he remembers the poor of the earth. How zealously ought his church to cherish those who are here marked out as Jehovah’s especial charge. Does he not here in effect say, ‘Feed my lambs’? Blessed duty, it shall be our privilege to make this one of our life’s dearest objects.” ~C.H. Spurgeon “The greatest thing you can do to establish a culture of adoption/orphan care in your church is to be gripped by the reality that God has adopted us as His children.” ~Jason Kovacs

chapter 9

GOD CHANGES US

sanctification (Lindsay Farmer) “But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life” (Romans 6:22).

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It’s one thing to be changed when you’ve got a very visible list of sins that need purged from your life. And make no mistake: That kind of testimony is a clear and evidential human document to the glory of God. But what about the person who just grows up good. Not necessarily divinely saved, but still culturally good. Moral. Civil. Obedient. Do those kinds of people end up different, too? Are they changed in the same way—deep down? To make sure we don’t delay the response, the answer is a resounding, “Yes.” However, it can be harder to spot. Still, inner transformation at the core of who we are is the root issue of being different, and no matter what your moral resume’ looks like, God never leaves any117

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one unchanged deep down. He always imparts a new nature. Always. And he did so in Lindsay Farmer, in spite of the fact that she brought a nearly perfect record of behavior to the table of good works. But unless it’s holy, it’s as useless as the next one. “Even though I was lost, I was, on the outside, a really good person. And the main reason I was a good kid was due to my wonderful parents. They loved me (and still do), taught and disciplined me, and encouraged me. I never really struggled in my relationship with my parents; I enjoyed obeying and respecting them while growing up.” A strong family environment like that really instilled some worthwhile values into Lindsay, and she became a good student, worker, and athlete. “I attended great schools—Ankeny High School and the University of Northern Iowa—and I put a lot of effort into school and extra-curricular activities. In addition, I was in a relationship with a great guy (who is now my husband), so I experienced very little of the normal heartbreak that high school kids go through. I was given many opportunities to travel and experience wonderfully fun things. I was genuinely kind and had a strong desire to please people. From my perspective, everything in my life was good.” Inside, however, Lindsay began to notice that her truest feelings were beyond helping people for their sake. She was helping for her sake; she really desired to be liked by them. Approved. “What I really wanted was for everyone to like me.” In a strange way, this need for approval is a form of selfishness. We find ourselves doing whatever we can for others, but only because of the rush we get from their “att-a-boys” and “way-to-go’s.” At its fundamental level, this drive is self-centered, not other-focused, and when the adulation ceases, so does the motivation. Perfectionism becomes the unintended and unreachable goal for these people who seem like they are everybody’s friend. As Lindsay admits, “There was nothing I couldn’t do. Perfectionism was my friend and together we would get it done!” But frustration set in sometime in college, and when anything didn’t go just as she thought it should—and she realized she couldn’t do any-

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thing about it—she began thinking twice about all her goodness. “My heart was searching for something deeper.” Lindsay’s story mirrors that of Nicodemus in John 3. A really good man, Nicodemus had heard about Jesus, and was intrigued. And for good reason! Word on the street was that this new rabbi was saying that being good didn’t score points with God, but rather being born again was the only way to see God. And since Nicodemus had spent his life being good—really good!—he no doubt had lots of questions. So he sneaked off at night to talk with Jesus, where Jesus confirmed the rumors: “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God” (John 3:3). My suspicion is that when Nicodemus left, he wondered if it was really necessary. After all, he had such good credentials that for him to be born again seemed needless. Useless. But good works only deal with the outside. Being born again deals with the inside. And that’s what Jesus came to change—the inside. When that happens, no matter how good or bad we are, things get different. Lindsay had similar questions as well, and as her searching heart became more inquisitive, she assumed it was perhaps some guilt for not being more involved in church. “At first I probably related the searching feeling to guilt. I didn’t attend church regularly in Cedar Falls, but it was a part of my life growing up, at least when it didn’t interfere with other activities I had going on. So I just figured the guilt of not attending regularly was causing my heart to feel unsettled. So I started going to the particular denomination I had grown up in; that lasted for maybe a month or two, but the strong desire to search for more grew even more intense.” As Lindsay would later discover, that sense of searching was God calling out to her and drawing her to himself. As Solomon wrote in Ecclesiastes 3:11, “He [God] has set eternity in the hearts of men…” All she knew at the time, however, was a sense of longing combined with slight frustration. “At that point I met a girl in my Spanish class with whom I became quick friends. Her name was Becky, and she had a very visible love

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for Jesus. I was very drawn to her and sought to know the joy in her life. Through our Spanish classes and various travels together, she befriended me. She invited me to hang out with her friends, which I did on occasion, even though I thought they were a little different. And she invited me to church and to BASIC, the on-campus ministry at UNI. I did both and began to do both more regularly towards the end of college. Maybe this was what I needed—to work harder at religion and prove myself worthy. “In fact, I actually started thinking ‘Wow, this God-thing is kind of cool and can be fun.’ Frankly, I was probably patting myself on the back as I watched myself become ‘gooder.’ Before all of this extra religious activity started, I would think about Heaven and what was going to happen when I died. But my conclusion was always ‘I have to go to Heaven. I am, and have been, too good of a person not to go. If I don’t get in, then who will?’” College ended, Lindsay married Andrew, her Jr. High sweetheart, and life was just what she expected. Until news came about Andrew’s mom. She had been diagnosed with a devastating illness, and within one month, she died. She was only forty-nine, and her death shook this young couple deeply. “God used this to take me to a whole new level of searching. Andrew’s mom, Denise, like my friend Becky, was a lover of Jesus, too. And she would share this with me on occasion. But I just wasn’t ready to respond. Still, she became an inspiration to me in her final weeks of life. She was obedient and gracious to God in the midst of severe pain. And though she never knew me as a born-again believer, she influenced me for Christ in my pre-conversion days.” Faced with unanswerable questions and the raw fact of life’s fragility, Lindsay knew she had to find out the real truth about eternity. She had been close to two people who seemed to possess a deep-down difference from Jesus, ladies who were content and satisfied with him. Lindsay was curious why they weren’t striving to be “gooder” like she was. What did they know that she had yet to really understand?

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“God was orchestrating so many things, and as we continued searching for truth, I believe he had his hands on our mouse and Google. We had visited a few churches in Ankeny, but decided we would search for others to make sure we didn’t miss any (you know how we perfectionists can be). Crazy at it sounds, our Sunday morning Google search led us to First Family Church, and we’ve been there ever since! “That was the winter of 2006. December, to be exact. And that’s when I finally heard the truth and realized my ‘goodness’ had nothing to do with God accepting me, loving me, or desiring a relationship with me. I had been living my life, thinking it was about me and what I could do or bring to God. But it was never supposed to be about me. It was about His Son, Jesus.” Lindsay’s heart cried out to God that day and God saved her. It was a memorable moment and a marked beginning of transformation. But, true to her bent, she felt she needed to voice that confession in a way that would provide a benchmark for her. Even as the days of December passed, she sensed more and more that she needed to confess her belief more strongly. “I had to voice this to God, not so much for him because he already knew my heart was changed, but more for myself. I deeply wanted to proclaim with my mouth that I had heard the truth of the Gospel, believed it, and accepted it. So on an airplane in early January 2007, flying back from a college bowl game, I prayed to God and asked him to save me through Jesus’ work on the cross. I understood his sacrifice was enough and his blood covered me fully. The search was over. Finally. And I was left different.” But what would really be different about Lindsay? Think about it— how much change could she really undergo? As she was soon to find out, God’s amazing grace and power had not only been unleashed for her future eternal destiny, but also for her current spiritual growth. Initially, Lindsay became very hungry to learn as much as she could about being a follower of Jesus. Her appetite for truth was ferocious! In fact, because her job afforded her the opportunity to do her work while listening to the Internet, she would often devour an entire teach-

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ing series in a matter of days. And if there was a technical error with one of the series or messages, she would call the church office and ask for the CDs, even dropping by that day to get them. She would comment often that she wished every day was Sunday! As a result, Lindsay became acutely aware of everything coming in and going out. “I began to guard what my ears would hear (TV, music, etc.) and eyes would see (magazines, TV, etc.) because I became so in awe of God that I wanted to spend more time dwelling on Him than anything else. My choice of words that were formerly a hard habit to break changed overnight. Where once I held a grudge, forgiveness flooded my heart. It was like a light had been turned on inside of me. And as I would learn later, it had! The Holy Spirit was shining the light of God’s Word all over my life and changing me to reflect the character of my Father God. Truthfully, I didn’t even know that I was doing anything but submitting to the changes he was bringing. It was quite a whirlwind.” The whirlwind of change continued for about seven to eight more months, and then Lindsay was faced with her first real test. Yes, it was the knock of tragedy on her door once again, but this time the tragedy involved their son, little Andrew Lindsay. Though he was still in her womb (she was twenty weeks when they discovered there was a problem), the doctors informed Lindsay and Andrew that their boy had a condition that was not compatible with life. Known as Bilateral Renal Agenesis, this condition meant that, although he would remain alive in the womb, he would not survive very long after birth. “I, and my husband, had to come to terms with this incredible loss. It was like we had to say goodbye twice—when we got the news, and then after the birth. Burying him by Andrew’s mother’s gravesite was also difficult. However, this incredible loss would grow me ever so much closer to God, because I had nowhere else to go but to his feet, where I lay and sobbed. I had no words of my own; only His Holy Word to speak to and for me. I had no strength of my own; only his Spirit to empower me. “I recall being in the hospital after giving birth to our son, singing to him and my Lord, and feeling such a physical closeness to God that

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words cannot describe. As I cradled my baby boy in my arms, I sensed Father God was cradling me as he changed me with some powerful verses in 2 Corinthians 1:3-4: Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God. “It was there that I began to understand firsthand that the greatest spiritual refinement comes through suffering. I was glad he counted me worthy, and that even in my pain he was making me more like his Son, Jesus.” One of the blessings that has come from Lindsay’s trial has been the beginning of Mommies With Hope, a support group for women who have endured the loss of as child. You can find out more at www. mommieswithhope.com. And that’s just another one of the many ways God has been refining Lindsay, making her not just “gooder” but, instead, different. And though it is often a hard process, “I like to join God in the change process as I work out my salvation (Philippians 2:10-12). It’s so incredible to me! When I feel as though He’s finally changed an appetite of mine that’s been difficult for me, I think, ‘Okay Lord, what’s next?’ It may sound weird, but I love His continuing work in my life.” The Apostle Peter talked about this process of change in his second letter (2 Peter 1:5-7), as did Paul in certain of his epistles. We refer to it as sanctification, and it simply describes the continuing process of transformation wrought by God upon all those who truly believe. Regarding sanctification, we are commanded to: • Join God in it (2 Peter 1:5-7). • Persevere through it (Hebrews 12:1-11). • Work hard at it (1 Corinthians 15:10; Philippians 2:12-13).

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• Let the Spirit do it (2 Thessalonians 2:13). • Follow Jesus’ example of it (John 17). Most certainly, sanctification is a sure sign we’ve been made different by the grace of God. And while we will not see the final stage of it until we see Christ in glory, we will no doubt experience it increasingly as God and his Spirit empower us to live like Jesus more and more in this present age (Philippians 2:12-18). So a good reminder is in order here: sanctification doesn’t equal perfection here on earth. We will still experience struggles and temptations, but the divine power to react and live differently is there in full and should enable us, as a general rule, to obey Jesus, not our flesh (2 Peter 1). An old pastor put it well when he said, “Sanctification is really about direction, not perfection.” That’s what he’s doing in Lindsay. He is affecting her direction. He is sanctifying her. And she’s glad for it! “I love looking back and seeing His sanctifying work in my life and all the ways He has and is making me different. And as I continue to grow in my knowledge and love for the Lord, I want to be sure that He receives the glory for my life … the ‘everyday-ness’ of my life and the changes He’s bringing about in me. I’m not perfect, nor is my life perfect, or is what’s going to happen on this earth perfect. But I now know the perfect One who is perfecting me until His return when he will take me to that perfect place to spend eternity with Him!” _________________________

SANCTIFICATION QuikFacts • Sanctification is a progressive work of God and man that makes us more and more free from sin and like Christ in our actual lives. • The word “sanctification” and the word “holy” have the same Greek word as their root—“hagios.” It also means “to set apart.” • Generally, sanctification is understood from two angles: we are set apart from sin and to God.

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Sanctification QuikScripts Jeremiah 1:5 “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations.” John 17:17-19 “Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. And for their sake I consecrate myself, that they also may be sanctified in truth.” Romans 6:19 “I am speaking in human terms, because of your natural limitations. For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification.” 1 Corinthians 1:2 “To the church of God that is in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints together with all those who in every place call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours…” Ephesians 4:15 “Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ…” 1 Thessalonians 4:3 “For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from sexual immorality.”

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2 Timothy 2:21 “Therefore, if anyone cleanses himself from what is dishonorable, he will be a vessel for honorable use, set apart as holy, useful to the master of the house, ready for every good work.” Hebrews 2:11 “For he who sanctifies and those who are sanctified all have one source. That is why he is not ashamed to call them brothers.” 2 Peter 1:5-7 “For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love.” Jude 1 “Jude, a servant of Jesus Christ and brother of James, to those who are called, beloved in God the Father and kept for Jesus Christ…” Sanctification QuikQuotes “Sanctification . . . is [the] work that Christ is even now doing within us to call us unto holiness, to transform us, to call us into obedience to the Word and to conform us to His image.” ~Albert Mohler “God continues to prune us so that we become more and more fruitful for His kingdom. You and I should never stop growing in holiness and purity.” ~Charles Stanley “If traces of Christ’s love-artistry be upon me, may He work on with His divine brush until the complete image be obtained and I be made a perfect copy of Him, my Master.” ~Unknown Puritan

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“The Christian life requires hard work. Our sanctification is a process wherein we are coworkers with God. We have the promise of God’s assistance in our labor, but His divine help does not annul our responsibility to work.” ~R.C. Sproul

afterword

AFTERWORD (Todd Stiles)

“Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways” (Romans 11:33).

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The closer I get to something, the larger it gets. And the larger it gets, the more appreciative I become. It’s almost like proximity leads to a sort of welcomed complexity. I find this to be a true equation in my marriage. The closer I get to my wife, the more I realize just how little I actually know about her, what a special woman she truly is, and just how much there is about her and our relationship that I still want to discover. Truly, she becomes “larger” in my eyes with every passing day of marriage to her (I hope you hear that well, sweetheart!). Like I said, there’s something about proximity that opens up a whole new—and welcomed—complexity. This equation also proved correct as I worked through, not only the stories of the Jesus-followers within this book, but also the many 131

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passages that form the doctrinal foundation of Soteriology—what I believe about salvation. Not surprising, the closer I looked, the larger God became. I found myself time and time again at a loss for words, wondering how I was ever going to be able to fully verbalize what I was seeing. Again, my proximity seemed to lead me to place of welcomed complexity. It’s at this place of welcomed complexity that we discover the joyful simplicity of worship. When the ability to describe the “what” escapes us, the supernatural desire to adore the “who” envelopes us, and praise flows from our heart and lips like a bird taking flight! We find ourselves passionately but simply echoing the words of the Psalmist, “Salvation belongs to the Lord” (Psalm 3:8). With extreme clarity, let me remind you that there is no exception clause in that verse. There’s no fine print or hidden meaning. It means exactly what it says: “Salvation belongs to the Lord.” We are no more able to claim even a micro-ounce of credit for our spiritual birth—being born again—than a newborn can grab some sense of accomplishment from his or her natural birth. Because that is often a difficult idea for hard-working, red-blooded Americans to grasp, let me make an uncomfortably personal analogy from the realm of the earthly: When it came time for Todd Stiles to be brought into being, I had nothing to do with it. It was all the work of my parents. Simply put, by their willful actions and desires, I was conceived and born. There’s a heavenly lesson here: God birthed me spiritually. His grace alone brought about everything needed to bring me into his family. Period. I am nothing. I have nothing. I bring nothing. It is completely and solely through Christ (2 Timothy 1:8-9). In ruminating on this one day, I was struck by the wording in Luke 15, where three things are found: a sheep, a coin, and a son. In each case, it was all the work of the finder. The coin didn’t light a flare for the seeker; the sheep didn’t send out an S.O.S. And the son had no bargaining chips when he was seen from a long way off. Yet, they were found, due to the grace and kindness of the finder. Intriguingly, the

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party that followed was not about rewarding the acts of the found, but rather celebrating the fact of the find. In no uncertain terms, Scripture is woven with this thread from start to finish: He found us, and he saved us! And so we shout again, “Salvation belongs to the Lord.” Nothing is truer than those five words. Nothing. To him be glory forever!

what must I do to be saved? “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.” -Apostle Paul

what must i do to be saved? “If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved” (Romans 10:9-10).

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The Apostle Paul was obviously not a politician. After all, he actually answered questions, and with extreme clarity and simplicity. He never left any doubt about the next step. Which is why, in response to the jailer who was fearing for his life and urgently asked what was necessary for salvation, Paul crisply and compassionately answered, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved” (Acts 16:31). Ah, the crystal-clear sound of uncomplicated truth.

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Salvation in Street Clothes

If, after reading the stories of these nine people who have been made different by the power of God, you are ready to answer God’s call and embrace the salvation he offers through his Son, Jesus, then Paul’s advice is straight to the point: Believe and confess. Believing is what we do with our hearts internally when we accept the truth of the gospel (i.e., that Jesus Christ came into the world as God, died, and rose again) and take our stand on it as the only way we can experience God’s salvation. Confessing is what we do when we voice that externally to God, agreeing with him that truly he is the way, the truth, and the life (John 14:6). The question now is simply this: Will you believe and confess so that you may be saved? God, through Jesus, has done everything necessary to save you; his grace alone is sufficient to forgive all your sins and give you a new nature -- his own! According to Paul, it is simply a matter of belief and confession. Let me encourage you to do something to mark this moment of belief and confession. Would you pray a prayer of gratitude to God thanking him for sending his Son to be your Savior? Remember—saying a prayer won’t save you; believing the truth about Jesus is what saves you. But often prayer is a way we can express to God our desire to believe his truth—that Jesus is in fact his Son and your Savior. This sample prayer might help get you started: Heavenly Father, Thank you for sending Jesus as the only Savior of the world. I would have no hope were it not for Jesus, and I believe in my heart and confess with my mouth that he is your one and only Son who died and rose again for my sins. I place my faith in him alone. Thank you, Amen. And the result of just such a prayer expressing our belief in and confession of Jesus as Lord? Paul again takes aim and nails the bulls eye with perfect accuracy: “For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved” (Romans 10:13).

What must I do to be saved?

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Yes, salvation. Full. Complete. Total. Exactly what is needed to be different, not just better. May God be glorified in us as our lives increasingly tell the story of his saving grace and redeeming power.

Salvation Belongs to the Lord! (Ps. 3) It’s not because how hard I try, but only because you choose to die and free me from my sin. Through you I’m born again. It’s not because of what I’ve earned, but only because you choose to turn and breathe your life in me. Through you I’m finally free. Only through you, Jesus! Only to you Jesus! Salvation belongs to the Lord! Only through you, Jesus! Only to you Jesus! Salvation belongs to the Lord! It’s not because of who I am, but only because the Great I AM rescued me from death and set my sights on heav’n. Condemned forever by the fall, Yet Jesus’ blood has paid it all and ransomed me from hell. In Christ my soul is well! Only through you, Jesus! Only to you Jesus! Salvation belongs to the Lord! Only through you, Jesus! Only to you Jesus! Salvation belongs to the Lord! We raise our hallelujahs, we lift our praises to you! We only boast in the power of your name. We raise our hallelujahs, we lift our praises to you! We solely cling to Calvary unashamed.