Hi, this is the Hymn We Proclaim podcast. There is overwhelming grace for someone who first comes to Jesus to find forgiveness for sin, right? But what happens when a believer realizes they can't ever stop sinning this side of heaven? Do we lose God's favor? Is the grace now gone?
Hi, this is Henry Proclaim with John Fonville. Today is part two of our series called How to Keep Going. John is walking us through many teachings that have been misused to keep believers caught in a destructive cycle of thinking. But he has some breakthrough gospel encouragement to assure you in this struggle. Let's listen now to his message called Christ Died for the Sins of Christians 2.
And this is what the Christian life kind of feels like. Two steps forward, three steps back. Right. This is often how the Christian life feels. The Christian experience in the last days, in the last days in the Bible, is simply the time between Christ's physical ascension and his second coming, which is now.
We find ourselves living in the last days. This time that we find ourselves living in, this in-between time. Is always going to be characterized by a struggle with ongoing sin. There's never going to come a moment in your life before Jesus returns or you die. that you will stop sinning.
As a believer. We shouldn't expect life east of Eden. to be easy. Right? We hear this expression now because of the COVID experiences that we've been going through since last March or February or I think even last January.
But they're like, well, this isn't new normal. Let me explain something to you. Ever since the fall in the Garden of Eden, there's been no new normal. This isn't normal. Life east of Eden.
Life, when I say East of Eden, Adam and Eve, when they broke God's covenant of works in the garden and were thrust out of the garden temple of God, Eden. It says that they were cast out. East of Eden. Live East of Eden is not going to be normal. Till Jesus returns.
We shouldn't expect life east of Eden to be easy.
Now, there are times throughout our Christian walk that we experience the thrill of victory, right? But there are also times that we experience the agony of defeat. And it's simply because this ongoing struggle with sin in our lives as believers is never going to stop. Jesus returns. Or till we die.
There are times in our lives when we find ourselves walking in darkness. That doesn't mean that we're walking in sin. We're just walking in a time of what the old Puritans, the nonconformists, other conformists, English Reformed theologians, where they would talk about where you go through periods in your life where you're just walking in a way that you just don't sense God's presence, His favor. You don't have joy, and you're just overcome with this. This one.
ongoing nagging reality of your sin and your failure. And so when we find ourselves walking in darkness and we don't see any light of our own, the question is this: is this what we're answering? How do you keep going? How do you keep going when you're walking in darkness and you don't see any light of your own? Right.
So, I'm giving you five insights on how to keep going when you're walking in darkness, when things are very difficult. Here's the first: his essay: you have to have a realistic view. of the Christian life, this side of the new heavens and new earth. There's no better description of the realistic view of the Christian life than Romans chapter 7. This is what we looked at last week, where Paul he honestly acknowledges in Romans chapter 7 His daily struggle with his ongoing sin.
He says, for I find the principle that evil is present in me in the one who wants to do good, for I joyfully concur with the law of God in the inner man. He says, but I see a different law in the members of my body waging war. against the law of my mind in making me a prisoner of the law of sin which is in my members. Wretched man that I am, who will set me free from this body of death? And so here you have Paul being real.
This realistic assessment of his life as a justified believer. He says, At best, I am simultaneously justified yet sinful. I am united to Christ. I have received justification. Romans 3 to 5.
I have received sanctification, Romans 6 through 8. I'm united to Christ. I've died with Christ. I've been buried with Christ. I've been raised with Christ.
I've been granted this new life in Christ. I'm alive in Christ, filled with the Holy Spirit and the hope of eternal glory. And yet Every day, I find this principle within me waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner. of the law of sin and I keep Thinning. This is the realistic view of the Christian life that we must possess if we're going to keep going on.
Because if you don't have this realistic perspective and you think that somehow, some way, eventually, I'm going to get to this point in my life where I'm going to achieve this level of overcoming all sin, this perfectionist teaching. you're just going to become disillusioned and give up. The second insight is this: you have to consider the mixed nature of the lives of believers throughout redemptive history. This will be one of the infamous things that I will always have to carry with me. I said we're going to watch the Jerry Springer show last Sunday, and I've received a lot of feedback about that.
It was all good. We saw the Jerry Springer show last week with believers in Scripture. Right. There are no superheroes in scripture. What do we find in Scripture?
They're only, throughout all of Scripture, believing sinners. People who are at one and the same time just and yet sinful, and these four. examples of believers that we looked at. That testifies to this mixed nature of the Christian life, this reality of being simultaneously justified yet sinful, was in Noah. Abraham, David, and Peter.
What learned from these four believers, from their examples. Is this, is that grace abounds to Christians who sin. All right, so that brings us to the third insight that I want you to look at. If you're going to keep going. If you're going to keep going in this Christian life and not be overwhelmed by the reality of sin that you see in your life, if you're going to keep going, here's what you have to understand.
Here's a third insight. Grace abounds to Christians who sin. You have to get that. There's a book that I highly encourage you to pick up and to read called Christ the Lord. The Reformation in Lordship Salvation.
It is a must reading for your life. But there's a chapter that the Lutheran theologian Rod Rosenblott wrote that's entitled, Christ Died for the Sins of Christians 2. This title that he has in this chapter of this book is simply another way of saying grace abounds to Christians. Who sinned? All right, so listen to what he writes in his chapter.
He says the most important thing to remember is that the death of Christ was in fact a death even for Christian failure. Christ's death saves even Christians. from sin. And then he quotes this old hymn, and he says, There's always room at the cross for unbelievers, it seems. He says, but what we ought to be telling people is that there is room there for Christians.
Two. When I talk to you, you're just... briefly this morning about my own personal journey in the Christian life. 30 years of my Christian life, I was never taught this simple yet life-changing truth, which is this. Christ died for the sins of Christians too.
I was never taught that grace abounds for Christians who sin. No one ever told me this simple but liberating truth that the death of Christ was a death for Christian failure. that Christ's death saves even Christians from sin. I was never taught that. Instead of being taught this wonderful truth for Christians, this is what I was steeped in.
I was steeped in a theology of navel-gazing. Doubt, a theology of doubt, a theology of fear, a theology of despair. You see, I was taught a confusion. I don't want to get weeds with this. I'll try to keep it simple.
But I was taught a confusion of faith with obedience. or a confusion of faith and repentance. which is a terrible error because when you confuse faith with repentance and faith with obedience, you destroy the believer's assurance. And that's exactly what happened to me. Here are some examples of what I was taught.
Disobedience is unbelief. I was taught that disobedience is unbelief. That's confusing faith and obedience together. I was taught this: if disobedience and rebellion continue unabated, there's reason to doubt the reality of a person's faith.
Now, I want to test that statement by comparing it to Paul's realistic confession that we just read in Romans chapter 7 of his inability to continue unabated in his obedience to God's law. Listen to what the Apostle Paul writes in Romans chapter 7 verses 15 and 19. He says, for what I'm doing, I do not understand. He says, for what I am practicing, for I am not practicing, what I would like to do. He says, but I'm doing the very thing that I hate.
Listen to verse 19. He says, For the good that I want, I do not do. but I practice the very evil that I do not want. If we take this statement, if disobedience and rebellion continue unabated, there's reason to doubt the reality of a person's faith. If we take that statement, which confuses faith and obedience.
and we apply it to the Apostle Paul's confession of Romans 7, we would have to conclude that the reality of Paul's faith is to be in question because disobedience to God's law is continual in his life. You see, what happens is when faith is confused with repentance, when faith is confused with obedience, believers conclude: well, I guess I'm not a Christian because I find myself committing the same sins repeatedly. This was the conclusion that I finally came to as I examined my life. When I was steeped in this theology of navel-gazing, a theology of doubt and despair. This is how the book of 1 John was taught to me.
The book of 1 John was composed of a series of tests. In the tasks we're given, now this is the wrong way to understand 1 John. I'm going to teach you how I was taught it, then I'm going to teach you how to understand it. The book of 1 John was set forth as a series of tests by which you can measure your life to see if you possess genuine saving faith, to see if you are truly submitted to the Lordship of Christ. Is Jesus Lord of your life or not?
And so here's what would happen. Every time I would take the test of faith. All right. I would get to the obedience test, which was set forth, which was taken from 1 John 2, verses 3 to 5, the obedience test. And invariably, every time I got to this point in the test, I would fail.
Because we take the test. You know what I go?
Well This is what John says. By this, we know that we've come to know him if we keep his commandments. The one who says, I've come to know him and does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But whoever keeps his word in him, the love of God has been truly perfected. By this, we know that we are in him.
If you have obedience to his commandments, we know that we're in him. We know that we're saved. We have assurance of our salvation. And I would measure my obedience by the test and go, well, what was me? I failed today, and I disobeyed today.
I didn't pass this test. And so, when I would take the test of 1 John, I could never get past this test because I could never ever pass it. See, I was thinking, I was like, well, but I love God's law. I want to obey God's law. But every time I take the obedience test, I see the undeniable reality that I have.
I have ongoing disobedience in my life. And so when I would sin, I was fully aware of failing the obedience test. It would work out like this: I had just gotten married to Catherine, and she was 19 at the time. And I was 23. We were out in California, we were going to school.
Being steeped in this theology of navel-gazing and despair and doubt. And so this was my continual daily diet. And so every time as a young married couple, we would get into an argument and really blow it. I know you're all looking at me. You've never argued with your spouse before.
You've never had a knock-down drag out, right? Um If we were to have an argument, I would just go into a shell for two or three weeks at a time. And just retreat into despair and doubt, and navel-gazing and thinking. I don't think God loves me because look at me, I'm not even sure I'm a Christian. Because I'm not submitted to the Lordship of Christ.
I'm disobeying, and I look at my life, and look at me, and I'm always turned inward, looking at me. You see, the Apostle John wrote the book of 1 John, 1 John 5, verse 13, to assure believers of their salvation. He said, These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you may know that you have eternal life.
So the book of 1 John was written to give believers assurance. comfort, rest, that they're indeed Having fellowship with the Father, 1 John chapter 1, the opening prologue of the first four verses. Having fellowship with God is just a sentiment, it means you're saved. You have salvation. And here was the ironic thing: is that due to the faulty theology of despair and doubt and navel-gazing that I was being steeped in.
John's letter was being used to undermine the very purpose for which it was written.
So listen. Instead of threatening believers who sin with this, quote, if disobedience and rebellion continue, Unabated, there's reason to doubt the reality of a person's faith. Instead of telling sinning believers that, It's far better and correct to say something like this. to a believer who is sinning. If there's no struggle against this disobedience and rebellion in your life, then there is a reason to doubt that reality.
of a person's faith. Let me say that again. If there is no struggle... If there is no war raging in your life, in your heart, against the disobedience and rebellion, then there's reason to doubt the reality. of a person's faith.
You see, this brings us back to what I said last week about believers being simultaneously justified yet sinful. We could apply this faulty test to Noah. Remember what he did? We don't have to repeat it. It was.
Bad. We could apply this to Abraham. We could apply this to King David. We could apply this to Peter. We could apply this to the Apostle Paul himself, who in Romans 7 says, The things I want to do, I don't do, and the things I don't want to do, the things I hate, I keep doing, wretched man that I am.
You see, a Christian, listen carefully, is not one who continues in unabated obedience to God's law, in continual, perpetual, perfect obedience to God's law all the time. That's not who a Christian is. A Christian, according to the Heidelberg Catechism, which summarizes the teaching of Scripture wonderfully, says this, is that a Christian is one who has only a small beginning of obedience. Listen to question 1:14 after it has just exposited the Ten Commandments for believers. Can those who are converted to God can be converted to God?
Keep these commandments, the Ten Commandments, perfectly? And here's the answer: no. It says, but even the holiest men, while in this life, have only a small beginning of this obedience. Nevertheless, With earnest purpose, they do begin to live not only according to some, but according to all the commandments of God. Those who are truly born again love.
all of God's law and with true and earnest purpose want to keep it, yet that beginning obedience is very small in this life. But it's there. And so the evidence of the new birth of genuine faith is not sinless perfection. The evidence of possessing genuine saving faith, of truly being submitted to Jesus as Savior and Lord. Is not achieving a level of victorious Christian living at some point where you begin to live without sin.
The evidence Of the new birth, this weather, there is a war raging in your life right now. Listen again to realism of the Apostle Paul's confession when he, as a justified believer, is lamenting his inability as a justified. sanctified believer to keep God's law perfectly in his life as a Christian. He says, I joyfully, did you hear that? I joyfully concur with the law of God in the inner man.
He says, but I see a different law waging you. I see a different law in the members of my body waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin which is in my members. Wretched man that I am, who will set me free from this body of death? You see, Paul tells us here very clearly that a Christian is not one who ceases sinning. Listen to this dual tension in the Christian life.
Who is a Christian? What is a Christian? What is a Christian experience in this life? A Christian is a person who's been brought to life by the Holy Spirit, united to Christ by grace through faith alone, and therefore, listen, like the Apostle Paul, they say, I joyfully concur with the law of God in the inner man. A Christian is a man or a woman who says, I love God's law.
I love it with all my heart. While at the exact same time, laments his or her inability to constantly obey what they truly love. And Paul says, I am not practicing what I would like to do, what I love. He says, but I'm doing the very thing I hate, which is disobeying God's law, even as a justified believer. And so it is this, it is the believing sinner's inability to obey God's law perfectly, which we love in this life that creates the war within.
This is where this tension comes from. A Christian who possesses genuine saving faith isn't carefree, isn't casual, isn't tolerant with their sin. A Christian is one who hates their sin and laments over it. Listen to what it sounds like. Wretched man that I am, who will set me free from this body of death?
That is the true realistic experience of every born-again believer. And listen, when a believer confesses that, they don't stay there. Because they immediately turn outside of themselves and look to faith in Christ alone, like the Apostle Paul did. Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord. This is the agony of defeat and the thrill of victory in one breath.
But listen, before finally being taught that Christ died for the Christians, sins of Christians too, that grace abounds to Christians who sin, no one ever answered Paul's question for me in Romans 7. I was just left with Paul's question: wretched man that I am, who will set me free from this body of death? Nobody ever answered that question for me. And I was just left navel gazing with my. Bad performance in my life.
In the test of faith from 1 John. And so I was left looking at my failure to conform perfectly to God's law, and no one ever pointed me outside of myself to Christ. I was just pointing back to the test of faith, I was pointing back to my life. As these measuring rods for determining if I possess genuine saving faith. And so, what happened with me is, I was trapped in this vicious, soul-killing cycle of sin.
Test Now. Then Tests. Doubt. And I was like a hamster on the little hamster wheel. Running so hard, trying so hard.
Sin, fall out, test it. Why did I fall out? Because you disobeyed. More doubt. Get back on the hamster wheel.
Fall off. Test it. Doubt. Get back. And it was this vicious cycle.
You see, because this vicious cycle destroyed, eventually destroyed my assurance. And so the question of assurance lies at the heart of this issue. The issue of assurance lies at the heart of keeping on going. You see, for those who are struggling to persevere, those who are restless, those who are full of doubt and fear and despair, much of it is due to the kind of preaching that you hear. Much of the preaching that you hear focuses the believer's assurance on his or her good works.
And it takes your focus off. the finished work of Christ for you, which is outside of you. For the first 30 years of my Christian life, the focus for my assurance was never directed to the finished work of Christ. for me outside of me. Never, not one time, not once was I ever given that focus.
I'm listening again to Ron Rosenblatt as he talks about this experience from his students where he taught in this Christian university. He writes this: He says, There is wonderful grace for the sinner, and the evangelical is at his best in evangelism. But the question as to whether there is enough grace for the sinful Christian is an open question in many gatherings. He says, and I have had many students tell me, quote, my last state is worse than the first. I think I've got to lead the faith because I feel worse now than I did before, end quote.
He says, I've had people come up to me after I had spoken and tell me, this is about the last shot I've got. My own Christian training is killing me. I can understand how before I was a Christian. Christ's death was for me, but I am not all that sure that his death is for me now because I have surrendered so little to him and hold so much. back.
End quote. I think many of us can relate to these students who are struggling. I know I can because when the students said, listen, my own Christian training is killing me, that is exactly. What happened to me? It was killing me.
This training that I received in the theology of doubt and despair made Christ out to be this harsh, demanding taskmaster whose yoke was not easy and whose burden was certainly not light. Jesus was presented to me like many medieval parish churches in the medieval times prior to the Reformation when you walked into a medieval parish church. What you saw. What's up? John, enormous picture, nave, right when you walk in the front door, of Jesus looming over the top of you as an angry judge.
Jesus is this angry judge who's mad at you. Because your performance is so bad, he's just displeased with you. Jesus standing over the nave when you walk in, threatening sinners with punishment and condemnation because you are bad. How many times have we heard This theology of doubt and despair given to us with threats from Matthew chapter 7, Lord, Lord, it goes like this. Many will say to me on that day, Lord, Lord, do we not prophesy in your name, in your name, cast out demons, and in your name, perform many miracles?
And then Jesus, the big angry judge, will say to them, I never knew you. Depart from me, you who practice lawlessness. How many times have sinning believers been scolded and threatened out of context with this passage and put fear rather than faith in their hearts? Listen carefully. This passage is warning to Pharisees who deny the Messiahship, the Christhood of Jesus.
If you deny that Jesus is the Son of God, then he's not Messiah, this applies to you. This is not a passage given to believers who keep sinning. has nothing to do with that. Nothing. And so, if we are to keep going on, when we are walking in darkness and we don't see any light of our own.
This is what we have to come to understand. Listen carefully. While our obedience, our good works, which called the reflex act of faith, While our good works, our obedience, our repentance is ever so small. it can provide some support for our assurance. But it can never serve as the foundation.
for your assurance. Listen to John Calvin as he explains that point. He says, our acts of obedience have no place in laying a foundation to strengthen the conscience. He says, for if Christians begin to judge their salvation by good works, nothing will be more uncertain or more feeble. From this, it comes about that the believer's conscience feels more fear and consternation.
Ven assurance. He's exactly right. Why? Because listen carefully, even on your very best quiet time day. Where everything goes absolutely perfect from sun up to sundown.
Even on your very best day, You're just like Noah. Abraham, David. Peter and Paul, you are at best simultaneously justified and sinful. You will be a believing sinner until you die or until Jesus comes again. This is why our full assurance of faith is found outside of ourselves in Jesus.
Alone. The gospel is for unbelievers and believers alike because our faith must rest on the finished work of Christ. Alumni. Why? Because it is in Christ alone that we find grace abounding to Christians who sin.
I want to definitively show you this.
So, if you have your Bible, turn over to 1 John 2. Let's look at verses 1 through 2. 1 John chapter 2, verses 1 through 2. Listen to what the Apostle John says here to us. about how grace abounds To Christians who sin, about how Christ died for Christians who sin.
Listen, he says, My little children, I'm writing these things to you so that you may not sin. He says, indifferent one sins, We have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous, and He Himself is a propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for those of the whole world. Not just for the Jews, but for the Gentiles. That's what that means. He's the only doctor, he's the only physician in the world that Jew or Gentile has to go to to have their sins forgiven.
And so the Apostle John teaches. In 1 John chapter 2, verses 1 through 2, that grace abounds. to Christians who sin. Yeah. Let me back up and give you some context.
In 1 John chapter 1, verses 6 through 10, John is correcting three false views of sin. He's refuting these false teachers who had come into the church and were claiming to these believers in these churches that they, listen carefully, had entered into a higher fellowship with God than the average believer. That they claimed they had arrived at being victorious Christians who have overcome all sin in this life. But their claims were false because their claims are based on faulty views of sin. And so John refutes all three of their claims in verses 6 through 10.
Here's the first one, verses 6 through 7. John refutes the claim that a person can have fellowship, that is salvation with God, while at the same time continuing in a lifestyle of unrepentant sin. There's no repentance. John says that's a false claim. That doesn't exist.
Second, in verses 8 through 9, John refutes the person who claims that they have now ceased to sin. Those kinds of people are very I hate to say it, obnoxious to live with. Mm-hmm. It's not reality. But verse 10, John refutes this third false claim.
John refutes the person who claims they have never sinned. See, verse 10 is even worse than verses 8 through 9. Verses 8 through 9, they used to sin, but they stopped. Verse 10 is they never have. They've always been perfect.
Wouldn't you like to be that person? You've always been perfect in thought, word, and deed ever since you were conceived in your mother's womb. And so John refutes these false claims of sin. In response to these false claims about sin, John reveals in chapter 2, verses 1 through 2. how the problem of sin is dealt with in the believer.
You see, what he shows is that the believer doesn't profess he's sinless or she's sinless. or has never sinned. Or can continue a licentious lifestyle without any repentance whatsoever. That's not what John says the believing sinner does. He points believing sinners outside of themselves to Christ, who he says is our advocate and our propitiation.
Listen again to what he writes. This is how believers deal with sin. My little children, I'm writing these things to you so that you may not sin. He's saying to us: the gospel is never a license to sin. The gospel doesn't produce careless laissez-faire.
Attitudes about sin. We hate our sin. We don't sin. We do sin, but we confess our sin. 1 John 1, verse 9.
We don't deny our sin. We don't say we're sinless. We confess it. But if anyone sins We have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous. Why does he emphasize the righteous?
because we in and of ourselves are not in our practice righteous. He's righteous. He's sinless. And he says, and he himself is a propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for those of the whole world. John tells us the good news for Christians who sin, that grace abounds to Christians who sin.
John assures us by telling us that there is room at the cross for Christians who sin. That Christ died for the sins of Christians too. How does he do this? He emphasizes it in two ways. First, he says that Jesus is our advocate with the Father.
Back in chapter 1, verses 1 through 4, in the opening verses of his letter, he tells us that Jesus has eternally existed with the Father. He's always been in the presence of his Father. And he says that now Jesus is our advocate in the presence of our Father. That means he's our defense attorney. This is a courtroom language.
As our advocate in the courtroom of God the Father, Jesus doesn't plead our innocence. He doesn't look at the Father and say, see, they're sinless. They're sinless. He acknowledges our guilt, but he presents his vicarious propitiatory sacrifice as the ground of our acquittal in the courtroom. He is our advocate, and what does he advocate?
What is his defense argument? His propitiation. What is propitiation? We've said it a million times here. It is the Utter exhaustion of every last drop of God's wrath against us forevermore.
For every sin that we've ever committed in thought, word, and deed. This is what Jesus prayed about and agonized over in the garden when he said, I don't want to drink this cup. What was the cup? It was the cup of God's wrath. It was becoming a propitiation on the cross as our advocate.
And listen, here lies the Christian's assurance and foundation for assurance and the motivation to keep going. 1 John 2, verses 1 through 2 is the fourth comfortable word in one of Thomas Cranmer's most famous compositions in the Book of Common Prayer that he wrote during the Reformation. It's called Holy Communion's Comfortable Words. Thomas Cranner scholar Ashley Null, who is the foremost scholar in the world in the English Reformation, and Thomas Cranner. He says this, he says that Holy Communion's comfortable words is the gospel according to Reformation Anglicanism.
Listen, what he writes about 1 John 2, verses 1 through 2 during the liturgy that we'll experience here in just a couple minutes. He says this, 1 John 2, 1 through 2 reminds us, because Christ has made the sacrifice which has removed God's wrath from us, he is now our advocate. Jesus Himself is the one who stands by our side. He is the one who answers for us when we're accused of being sinners. Here is the heart of the revolution in the understanding of Jesus that the English reformers.
wanted to proclaim What is it? Listen, Jesus. is not our judge. Jesus is our defense attorney. I want you to get that today because if you're going to keep going on, you have to understand Jesus is not angry with you.
He's not a harsh taskmaster. He's not demanding from you that which you can't give him anymore because by his grace, what he demands, he also gives in the new covenant. Yeah. Listen. As we finish, we have all heard the calls to holiness.
Right. We have all heard the moral please. We have all heard, and perhaps some of us read, the challenge to be radical. We've all heard the challenges to surrender all. We've all heard the continual non-stop call that to glorify God, we must be most satisfied in Him.
We've all heard the threats. Why do you call me Lord, Lord, and do not do what I say? Depart from me, for I never knew you. We've all heard the threats. We've heard the endless calls to rededicate our lives.
To come forward and lay it all down on the altar. And through all of these calls that we've heard endlessly throughout our lives, we're hoping that. Perhaps this time something will stick and it'll work. And yet, after successive attempts after attempts at all of this stuff. We just give up.
We can't keep going. And so if we are to keep going, especially when we're walking in darkness and do not see any light of our own, we have to understand this key right here. Listen, grace abounds. to Christians who sin. We have to look outside of ourselves to Christ alone, who is the foundation of our assurance, because he is our advocate with the Father, He is righteous, and He is our propitiation for all our sins, both as an unbeliever and as a believer.
We have to remember what the theologian, Lutheran theologian Rod Rosenblott reminds us of. Christ's death saves even Christians from sin. There is room at the cross for Christians who sin. Christ died. for the sins of Christians too.
Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you. We thank you for the gift of your Son. We thank you that Jesus is our advocate. We thank you that Jesus is the righteous one.
We thank you that Jesus is our propitiation. We thank you that he is our foundation, that he is our righteousness, that he is our life. Help us to look outside of ourselves because if we continually navel gaze, we see our failure. But if we look outside of ourselves to Christ alone, We see our salvation. And we see all our failure covered by His advocacy.
Because of his perfect, vicarious, substitutionary death as our propitiation, having fully exhausted your judgment and wrath against us forevermore. And there we find a secure foundation upon which our faith can rest and we can be assured that we are in favor with our Father and that Jesus is not our judge. He is our advocate. He is our defense attorney who stands faithfully by our side and intercedes for us with his perfect death. on the cross for our sin forevermore.
As we come to you on the ministry of your table this morning, would you, Holy Spirit, confirm and assure our hearts. of the news that we have heard. and strengthen our faith. We pray that the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Thanks again for listening to the Hymn We Proclaim podcast. Please subscribe if you haven't already for all our new episodes. And if this message was just what you needed to hear, please let us know in the comments and share it with a friend.
