7 Words That Can Change Your Life

Nakita Kolov, the Russian nightmare.

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This is kind of a great thing and I'll tell you why. Where pop culture, current events, and theology all come together. Speak your mind. And now, here's today's Truth Talk Live host.

Imagine being in the thick of a powerful missions trip. There you are teaching the Word of God. You're a pastor, you're in a country, and suddenly you hear bullets and guns, and you hear sirens, and you discover or you learn that the country you're in is in the midst of a civil war, and you're right in the middle of that hornet's nest, and you have to be evacuated. And you're also a Truth Network Bible teacher on the radio every day. A pastor, you love Jesus, and you wrote a book, and you're not sure if you're going to reappear on Truth Talk Live, because I mean, Pastor Rich Powell, there was a moment there.

Pastor of Grace Bible Church, Winston-Salem, North Carolina. There was a moment there that you could have thought. Tell us, take us into the emotion of the moment. Yeah, so we were supposed to be finished with our module that we were teaching down there, and we were supposed to leave on March 7th, which is a Thursday. And then we found out that our American Airlines flights had been canceled, and because Revolution had broke out down there. And so we were like, okay, how are we going to get out of here? Our flights were postponed for three days, and so we thought, okay, we'll wait here for an extra three days.

And then those three days went by, and our American Airlines flights were canceled again all the way up to March 22nd. And it was just a real sinking feeling like, how are we ever going to get out of here? Are we ever going to get out of here? What's going to happen?

We don't know what the future is. So it's one of those situations where you feel like you're trapped. We were not in imminent danger at the time, because we were in a hotel with a host that took our safety very seriously. But we felt like we were trapped. It was like, how are we going to get out of here? If we're ever going to get out of here, we're going to have to find some alternative means to get out. So that was the situation that we were facing at the time, and it was a lot of emotion that you have to work through.

You have to really keep your mind focused on things that are worthy of being focused on, and not be overcome and consumed with the what-ifs and the potentialities. Well, and what about that? Because there you are, standing in front of pastors, teaching them the Word, teaching them that, hey, there's a great cost to following Jesus. There's a great cost to teaching the Word, to unashamedly proclaiming and expositing the Scriptures, and speaking like the Scriptures. And suddenly, everything you're saying to them, there's a storm outside, and you may not get home.

In fact, in Haiti, there have been many deaths, there's a lot of bloodshed, there's all kinds of gangs and feuds and fighting going on, and there are missionaries embedded and even trapped there. And so I noticed this Pastor Rich Powell, the pastor of Grace Bible Church, Winston-San Luis, Carolina. Interesting, funny connection, story, providential thing. I was just a younger guy. We were living in California for one year, so my dad and uncle Ed did kind of get things tuned up with their bigger Christian radio company.

This was before the Truth Network existed. And that church, Grace Bible Church, started in our living room, in our home. While we were out there, I came home, and I'm like, well, this is where I'm going to church.

I wake up Sunday morning, and the church comes to me. So it's a neat history, and you connect it. My mom was, I guess, a professor of yours? Yeah, I had her first speech class in Bible College, yeah, definitely. So it's a lot of history there, and when the church started, I was still only in the 10th grade, right?

Little did we know. So anyway, I'm just grateful for your faithfulness to God's Word, your faithfulness to teach the Word, to just be a pastor week in and week out, in the pulpit, out of the pulpit, counseling and stewarding and leading. And obviously you're equipping the Saints to do the work of the ministry at Grace Bible Church. You've been there how long? Twenty years. Wow. So I want to get into this book. I want to talk a little more about this harrowing experience you had coming out of Haiti, where you, we're just glad you're here right now.

Thanks. You wrote this book, Seven Words That Can Change Your Life, Realize the Purpose for Which You Were Designed. Now I'm just going to warn, this is a shameless, I don't know if I should say caveat or preamble or a little warning here. This is going to go the deep end of the pool here, because you're getting into things like imputation, propitiation, and words that we all should know, but in our dialing down and dumbing down of the faith in these modern days, so often we get away from doctrine, Pastor. Yeah, some people shy away from the word doctrine, and these are biblical words, you know, so we should not shy away from anything that is in Scripture. Scripture is our authority. And if we shy away from it, the truth is some of these are words that are, they're deep and profound, and yet they're not words that we would normally use in our day-to-day conversation. You mentioned what, propitiation, what is that, you know, and imputation, and there's not a perfect biblical equivalent for that word, propitiation, you know, so we, it's important for us to understand what these words mean, because the Gospel is simple, but it's not simplistic.

There's a big difference there, you know. It came at a very high cost, and what these words do, going through these words, they unpack the profundity of the Gospel and the high cost that was paid for the Gospel, but what was done by God for us, and so it takes us into the heart of God and manifests the utter goodness of God in what he did for us, and it leads us to just a total deep appreciation for God and his work of grace. Wow, so people can say, I'm saved, I've been born again, I'm a Christian, I'm a convert, but you're going to help us build the framework for all of that, like what that means today as we talk about it. What's the foundation for it?

What are the tenets for it? You know, what is, you know, God didn't just sweep my sin under the rug, he dealt with it, he paid for it, and that's, you know, that's what propitiation is. Wow, I love it. We're going to get to all these words, but real quick, there you are teaching, you're in Haiti, and you could not post. I mean, your church was very gracious in how they handled this, but like, I kind of like, I think somewhere in there I texted you to get coffee, because I always try to treat coffee when I eat with you, because I always glean a lot more from that conversation than you do for me, but I, you know, you were slow on the response, and then you suddenly said, hey man, I'm in a, you know, I'm in a different place doing, you know, doing a missions thing, and which was cool, but then I see, so then there's like radio silence for like about a week or two, and then all of a sudden I see a post that says, thank God, Pastor Rich is home at the Grace Bible Church Facebook page, but they said, you know, they said we could not publish it in real time, because your life literally was, you know, certain people, certain forces afoot. Had they known where you were, what you were doing, Americans doing this, teaching the Word, it could have been real bad for you.

Yeah, yeah, there's a, there is a risk to being down there, and you know, when we were down there, we were teaching a cohort of students, and when the module was done, they expressed not only appreciation for the teaching, but they also expressed appreciation for the risk that is taken to be able to go down there. Okay, we got to take a break. We're going to come back more on that, and we're going to get someone to tell us what propitiation means. We're going to send them one of your books. How about that? Okay. But you're going to be the professor to tell us if they're right or wrong. More Truth Talk Live, Pastor Rich Powell coming up.

Hang on. You're listening to the Truth Network and truthnetwork.com. Jesus said, don't be surprised, Matthew 5, if people persecute you for righteousness' sake. If a man of God goes to Haiti, doesn't go over there to make money, doesn't go over there to try to profit off someone else, or even just a sightseer, go on vacation, or scuba dive, or snorkel. But Pastor Rich Powell went over to Haiti and found himself in hot water. It's interesting, Pastor, the last four people I've told that you're going to be on the show today. I kind of talk fast. No one's noticed that.

I try to get our listeners to listen as fast as I talk, and we usually don't end up at the same time. But here's what's crazy. As I say real quick, Haiti, this and that, a pastor just got evacuated out of Haiti, and they're like, Hades? What's a pastor doing in Haiti?

But it was pretty bad. You got a lot going on. That country's on fire right now.

It is. It's a violent revolution. The president of Haiti was assassinated three years ago, and he had appointed a prime minister, and then there were no elections, so parliament was dissolved. The prime minister was effectively acting as a dictator, and the gangs were rising up.

They were becoming very dissatisfied with the government, and so they were rising up. The prime minister had gone out of the country to get some Kenyan troops. We believe, many of our friends down there believe, that those troops were probably just for his own security detail, because a thousand troops from Kenya wasn't going to do much for the whole country. And so while he was out, he tried to come back to Haiti, and the gangs rose up, and they stormed the airport.

They said, we're not going to let him come back into the country. So that's kind of what brought this all to a head. They did not want the prime minister back in, and so that's one of the main things that closed the airport down, and that just created so much violence in the streets, and different gangs fighting against each other, fighting with each other, fighting against the prime minister, and just life has very little value down there for so many people.

A lot of innocent civilians just get caught in the crossfire, and there's just a lot of carnage in the streets. And you were there teaching and equipping pastors and spreading God's word? There are some very, very faithful people down there who are living in very difficult situations, but they're faithful to the word of God, and they're teaching the word of God, and part of their education that we give them is to take the things that we give them and teach that, and then they get credit for that. But they're very faithful, and some of them have been not only starting churches, but they're starting other schools to be able to teach other people the truths of the word of God. So you have a passion for teaching God's word. You teach it verse by verse. We love hearing you on the radio teaching God's word on the Truth Network, and folks can learn all about you at the Grace Bible Church website.

A lot of folks locally will attend, or we'll watch you from all over the place. I mean, half these people that endorsed your book are from places like Indiana and other places and kind of all over the country, but why would a pastor write a book, of all the books out there, on righteousness, propitiation, redemption, imputation, justification, reconciliation, and regeneration? Well, if we're going to say we're followers of Christ, and if we're going to say we believe in the gospel, we have to know what that means, because it's one thing to say, I believe in the gospel, but exactly what is the gospel?

What is it? What is the good news about what God has done? And we can be so minimalist in it, in our understanding of it, and you know, as long as we believe in Christ, that's good, but do I know what Christ has done for me? Do I know what Christ has done for the company of the redeemed, you know, and what does that mean?

What does it look like? What is the price that was actually paid, and what is, because of that, and having surrendered myself in faith to him, what is true about me, because I am in Christ? If I don't have a solid grasp, a solid understanding of these truths, I'm not going to live in the power and reality of those truths. That's why I chose that Title VII words that can change your life, because when I truly come to understand and grasp the gospel, it captivates me, and I'm captivated by the goodness and the greatness of God, and it literally transforms my life. Wow, and so I'm going to go through each of these with you, and hopefully you give us a quick little, you know, punchy definition, and of course, we want people to, we don't want to tell them too much, we want them to get your book and read it and be blessed.

The people are doing this in small groups. This is a great tool for your church to dive deeper into the gospel. But Pastor, let me ask you this very, very kind of burning question, especially this time of year.

Why is it that we talk about the gospel being good news, but it often becomes more about what I do for him? With a buddy of mine getting my cell phone fixed, and he's in a system, religion, where he's like, man, I just don't ever know where I stand. I keep going back in and do the mass and do the Hail Marys and do this and that, but I just, you know, it's like they got me. And it's like, well, you ask someone if they've truly been saved, and the answer is, well, I'm working on it.

I'm trying. So it's like, why do we have this almost like a meology of that, and how does that actually militate against the true gospel, as you've addressed in your book? That's a really good question. You know, we're all created in the image of God. That means basically two things, that I live for a higher purpose, and I desire an ultimate good. So every one of us has a sense of a supreme being because we're made in the image of God. However, in our fallenness, if we don't understand the gospel, if we've not been engaged by the revelation of God, then we're going to create God in our image. And a natural way for humans to think is, I have to earn a right to be before God.

I have to be good enough. That's a very natural way of thinking. Every other faith system in the world essentially is that. What do I have to do to earn entrance into the presence of God? It's all like the five pillars of Islam, the gazillion deeds in Hinduism, all these, you know, you know, Scientology.

You gotta earn, you gotta grow, you gotta achieve. But you asked what militates against that, what has this militate against the gospel. The gospel is, what has God done for me? And that's the essence of what grace is, that God has revealed himself and given himself for me and to me so that I can be redeemed and reconciled to him and live in the way that he designed me to live. Yeah, and your radio program is called Delight and Grace.

I love that. You pastor a church called Grace Bible Church, and it's just so encouraging. And you've written a book that's very bibliocentric, but to be bibliocentric, it's got to be Christocentric. Exactly, yeah. It's what Christ has done. He's the point, yes.

And then furthermore, where the shoes come on and go out the door, it's got to be missio-centric, you know, where you're going down to Haiti. This is such a glorious message. You'll go into a war-torn country, and Christians are still being murdered and martyred today to proclaim the gospel, and they are not complaining. In fact, they're praying that America would wake up, and hey, persecution may come our way, and maybe that will be what it takes to spark a revival, but maybe we'll get on our knees first.

We're so wrapped up in our comfort and convenience that we're very averse to risk. Okay, we've got a minute till the break. We're going to throw this out there. Any listener that can tell us what propitiation is is going to get a book. Can we send him a book? He brought something in here. Will you sign it?

Put the autograph on there? Happy to do it. All right, he's Pastor Rich Powell. He's fired up about this, these seven words that can change your life. Before you say, oh no, another seven words, seven steps, hold your horses there, Kemosabe, because these seven words are words that are very biblical and very, very important to our eternal destiny.

Correct, Pastor? These are words that God has revealed to us. These are words inspired by the Holy Spirit, of course, in the original language, right, in the Greek, but they are truths of what God has done and who we are in Christ. So we need to know, if God has made it known to us, we must know what they mean and the significance that they have for us.

So refreshing. It's not just a little formula, but it's a book that takes you deeper into who he is and what he did for you. The essence of which we celebrate at the resurrection and the crucifixion in Holy Week coming up. We'll be back with Pastor Rich Powell. You want to call and tell us what propitiation is? We'll send you a book toll-free, 866-34-TRUTH, 866-348-7884. A little more on Haiti, too, when we come back.

Don't touch that dial. You're listening to the Truth Network and truthnetwork.com. By the way, you can check out Truth Talk Live on Facebook. You can check us out on Twitter, Truth Network, follow Truth Network. Follow me. I'm on all the social media, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter.

We've got all these channels, because we want to reach as many people as possible, in as many ways as possible, with the good news of Jesus Christ. We showcase special friends like this guy, who is a pastor, who is a former student of my mom's. She taught 50 years at Piedmont Bible College, now Carolina University, pulpit speech and speech to a lot of would-be pastors.

I was running them all the time. They'll call the show and say, hey, your wife taught me speech. Well, no, my mom did. But the neat thing about that is just to see how God has used your ministry and blessed the Word. I mean, your church is growing, and I run into Grace Bible Church friends all the time, and it's neat. I've been in the church. I've just seen there's a good spirit there, and it's a tribute to God's Word, right, pastor? I mean, honestly, we've got to get out of this whiz-bang, chase your tail, smoke and mirrors program from the pulpit. Here's 10 steps to your life, and I don't mind thematics, but theatrics and thematics, and you try to be winsome to win some, but what about the good old teaching God's Word, preacher?

Talk about that. The church is not just like a TED Talk, right? People come together, and it's a loose association of people who have common beliefs or are just some dynamic speaker. The church is a family, and we are very intentional about making it a community of grace with a culture of discipleship. All of that life upon life, life interacting with life, and that's what the family of God is, and so we are very intentional about really promoting that, and so there's a very strong family atmosphere at our church, and I'm sure a lot of churches out there would say the same thing about theirs, but it's important that we understand that the church is indeed a community. It's not just a loose association of people that gather on a Sunday morning with common beliefs.

It is a community. It's so important that we learn how to do life together and speak truth into each other's lives, because God has made himself known to us. We must know God in the way that he's made himself known to us, and the transformation that comes because of our reconciliation to God in Jesus Christ transforms our lives, so what does that look like where the rubber meets the road?

What does that look like in the day to day? It's not just about what I believe. It's about how does this change my life? And God's put you in front of other pastors and other nations, you know, through missions, to teach them the principles of just teaching the word. Let the word do the work, but you got to study.

You got to sit at that study. You got to open God's book. You got to allow the Spirit of God to illuminate his word to your heart and mind, and then you got to carry it out there. God's revelation to us is a very serious matter that we must take as something to be brought to bear upon our lives.

Okay, we got a caller on the line. We're talking to Pastor Rich Powell, his book, Seven Words That Can Change Your Life. These are just light words that are very simple, like righteousness, propitiation, redemption, imputation, justification, reconciliation, regeneration.

We'll do a quick staccato, punchy little point by point with you and just a bit on these as we've already kind of teased them. I don't want to go too far down that road because we want people to get this nice hardback book that you wrote to be a blessing to them and to their church. Every pastor should have each of these words down pat. I mean, because you can't teach through the Word of God without coming across these rich, as it were, Mount Everest of Scripture. And so Pastor Rich Powell's made this very... but you've also made it understandable and applicable, which I like that too. That was the intent of the book.

Even a basketball player can understand it. Thank you for that. Hey, numbers 86634, truth. You got a question about justification, reconciliation, regeneration, redemption, propitiation, righteousness. What's your favorite of these words?

What do they mean to you? We've got a couple books to give away. But Mark, a caller from Ohio, is going to take a shot at... This is a brave caller. I mean, he's calling a highly rated national talk show, Truth Talk Live. I'm Stu Epperson.

He's calling this show to take a shot at the definition of propitiation. Mark, God bless you. The Buckeye State is represented by you, man. Don't let them down. All right. I'm going to try not to.

What do you think, man? Propitiation. What a word.

I'm not asking you to spell it. Just tell us what you think it means. Well, you know, I just... I very rarely am able to catch your program, but I caught it, and I heard the word, and someone asked for a definition, and so that's why I called the propiti... Jesus Christ was the propitiation for our sin. By him and through him, God was appeased. God was made so that he accepted that offering for our sinfulness for once and for all time. Oh my.

Pastor Rich is nodding in here. Wow. Yeah, he hits some several key points that are important in understanding propitiation. Yeah, the appeasement. And again, we need to be very careful how we use that, because pagan religions will think that I need to live in appeasement before God, right? Jesus is the one who took the blow of God's wrath in my place so that God can be justified. He can now say he has dealt with sin because Jesus took the blow of God's wrath that I deserve.

That's the meaning of propitiation. Well, I heard one pastor say this, Mark, and Pastor Rich, correct me, but I don't think this is off. He said, you know, all the characters of the cross, you got the soldiers, you got these menacing religious people that are horrible, spitting on them, plucking his beard. You got the disciples who are mostly wheels up, you know, but this pastor said, he says, another person shows up at the scene when the lights go out, and it's God Almighty, and he was present, and his wrath was being poured out. The wrath of God was being poured out on the Son of God, who was the propitiation in that moment.

So this word carries a lot of weight. This is hell on earth, right, Pastor Rich? It absolutely is, and what we see at the cross is this cosmic collision between the holiness and the justice of God and the love of God. That's what happened at the cross.

Wow, what an intersection. That's why it's a cross. You come to a cross in the road, you get before it, and you lean into the cross, and you sing beneath the cross of Jesus, you know, I feign will take my stand, right? And you go to the one who hung on that cross for you, and was the propitiation for your sin.

Mark, you're a winner, buddy. All of the past things in eternity looked towards Christ and his offering at that cross, and forevermore in all of eternity, we will look back to that day and say, glory, hallelujah. Yeah, and he's the Lamb of God that John the Baptist spoke of, you know, in John 1, behold the Lamb of God, twice in John 1, because the Lamb of God, the Lamb in the temple was the propitiation. That Lamb, right? Wasn't that a picture of what Jesus did?

It was, yeah, it was a foreshadowing of the reality that came with Jesus Christ. And that's something. Hey, Mark, God bless you. We're sending you a book. St. Nick, we call him St. Nick, our awesome producer, because he has to put up with me all the time. St. Nick, if you will get Mark's address, we'll drop him a nice book in the mail.

We'll get him to sign it, too, from Rich Pal 7, Words That Can Change Your Life. I appreciate that so much. Can I just say one word? Because I'm a pastor who works full-time and also shepherds a small group of people, but can I say the name of our church?

Please do. Yes, sir. It's called the Worship Barn Free Church. It's in Holland, Ohio.

Wow. And we call it the barn because it's a place where the harvest is brought into, and it's where the harvesters are worked on when they need encourage. That's good. Well, I've heard the church call it a worship. I've heard it called a hospital. Now I've heard it called a barn.

I guess our Savior was born in a barn, so he'd feel at home with you. Amen. God bless you, Mark. Thanks, Mark. Thanks for that.

Pastor Mark, yes, sir. Love you guys. Hang on the phone.

We'll get your address. If you want to call in and tell us maybe the next word, we'll throw up this word. I really like this word. Imputation. Yeah.

Someone give me a definition of that. I got another book to give away. He came loaded for bear.

He's got dual barrels in here. He's got two books to give away. One's going to Mark for telling us what this rich word propitiation means, and now we're going to ask someone to tell us what imputation means. I'm going to give the number 866-348-7884, 866-34-TRUTH. Okay, let's go through these real quick, Pastor Rich. We'll skip imputation because we just did that. We've done propitiation, so we've got seven words.

Now we're down to five. Righteousness, the problem. You open up the very beginning of the book with the first word, righteousness.

Go tell us what that is. So righteousness assumes a standard, and so righteousness is what we do not have, and righteousness is not what we can attain. We can do all the good we possibly can, and we cannot measure up to the standard, and that standard is the character of God in His perfect holiness. And so if we are going to know God and enjoy Him forever, we have to have a righteousness that matches His, and that is why it's not something that we can attain. We cannot achieve it, but we can receive it, and that's why all of these truths are so necessary.

They make it clear to us how we can receive the righteousness of God, because without that righteousness, I can never know God or enjoy Him. So is it true to say that the righteousness of God is amplified in the law? Yes.

Which is the perfect standard, which is that divine x-ray. Yes. They can't cure anybody or anything. Right. So when you start telling people, go do do do to be saved, you're putting them under law. Right. And the law condemns. Right.

Wow. The law condemns, but the Spirit gives life, and the gospel of grace is how Jesus Christ fulfilled the righteous requirement of the law. And then the great exchange, you know, God made him who had no sin to be sinned for us, that we might become the righteousness. We might become the righteousness of God. Again, that's a received.

It's not achieved. It's received. Clothed in His righteousness. Yes. Okay, I love that.

Wow. Okay, so chapter 2, propitiation, which we discussed with Pastor Mark. You did a good job. The barn pastor stepped up. He gave us a barn-burning definition of that. And then now the cost is redemption.

Come back with the cost. Tell us what redemption is. A word we hear a lot, but you're gonna hear something about this that you may not have learned from Pastor Rich Powell in his new book, Seven Words That Can Change Your Life. We're going on the deep end of the theology. Why is theology such a bad word? Why is doctrine such a bad word? Hey, we're gonna change that right here, right now on this program. 866-34-TRUTH.

Tell me the definition of imputation, and we'll give you a book, one of these nice hardback books. 866-34-TRUTH. More coming up. You're listening to the Truth Network and truthnetwork.com. Fasten on your snorkel, your goggles. We're diving into the deep end of the theological pool. Theology doesn't have to be a bad word. Doctrine doesn't have to be something that we run away from. It just means what you believe, what you learn, what you teach. And we're talking about that today. We're going into these deep words.

We got a color on the line. I want to thank our friends at Mighty Muscadine for being wonderful partners, helping us do this show day in and day out. They are founded by some friends. You're drinking a bottle right now of Le Bleu, ultra-pure bottled water.

They're the same folks. We had a guest on earlier this week talking about the amazing phenolic compounds, all the quercetin, the resveratrol that you have in the red wine. It's all in the muscadine grape, and they have put it in capsule form. I played ball this morning at 6 a.m. with Kenny and Kevin and Derek and some serious ballers and some young guns.

I had to put some game on them, but we always got to share the Lord and a word of prayer afterward. But I drank my vine-tastic on the way, and I took my four muscadine capsules afterward. It's kind of keeping me going with all inflammation and everything.

But I'm thankful for Jerry, Judy, and the team at Mighty Muscadine. You can learn more about them. Information is at their website, mightymuscadine.com.

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That's what keeps this train moving. So we're grateful to our friends at Mighty Muscadine Le Bleu Ultra Pure Bottled Water to be able to talk about things like imputation, and to be able to talk to Lori, who's going to call and tell Rich Powell, the pastor of Grace Bible Church, the author of Seven Words That Can Change Your Life. Lori, you're on Truth Talk Live.

I'm Stu Epperson, and you are going to take a stab at telling us what imputation is. Oh no, is this thing on? It's on, and you're on. No pressure or anything.

Look, you can't see the hundreds of millions of folks listening, Loris. No pressure, you know. I'm glad. What do you think? Go ahead.

Got a good end time. To me, it's like a deeper level. It's just unctioning.

There's no escaping. For me, it's not, which is good. Okay. A deeper level of imputation.

Yeah. Okay, so she sees a deeper level. Now pastor, take her definition, and you might want to go a little further, you know, down that road, and help her, and help me understand imputation, all our listeners. So like I was saying about righteousness, it's not something we can achieve. I can't work to become righteous. I can't be righteous enough for what God requires, but I need a righteousness that he requires. It is a righteousness that I can receive, and Christ has made that righteousness available because of propitiation, because he took the blow of God's wrath.

That exchange can happen, that he took God's wrath. Therefore, I can have his righteousness, and me getting his righteousness, that's imputation. Christ's righteousness by faith is, here's the word, credited to my life.

Wow. By faith, that's the word imputation. Now some theologians take, you know, Romans 3, 21, 22, that whole passage in there, and they talk about it being an alien righteousness. A righteousness that Laura and Stu and Pastor Rich, it doesn't come from us.

It comes from another source. It is a righteousness that is God's that I receive. It is not my righteousness. It is Christ's righteousness, and when I surrender myself in faith to Jesus, his history becomes mine. His death is mine. His resurrection is mine. All of that, his righteousness is mine.

His perfect life is mine, and that becomes true, legally, it becomes true of me. That's what imputation is. Well, you're going to get to know imputation a whole lot better, and all these awesome words, because Laura, we're sending you a book. If you'll hold on, St. Nick, our awesome producer, is going to get your information.

Thanks for calling in, listening to us in Raleigh, North Carolina, 105.7 FM, all across Raleigh, where the Wolfpack fans are really happy their team won the ACC tournament, winning five games in a row. Laura, God bless you. Thanks for calling in.

All right, St. Nick, you take Laura's information down. We're going to center this book. We're going to keep going through these definitions real quick. Pastor Rich Powell, the author of the book Seven Words That Can Change Your Life, the subtitle, Realize the Purpose for Which You Were Designed.

Wow, you're going right back to this imagio deo, aren't you? Yeah, God created us to know him and enjoy him. That's why he created us. These words outline what makes it possible for that to be a reality for me. This is what God did so that I indeed can know him and enjoy him.

Wow, have you ever just sat back and thanked God for what he's done for you? And these words, hopefully understanding these, being captivated by them, will lead us to do that very thing. Wow, so you are, we're in, so chapter one, the problem, righteousness, we went through that.

The basis, propitiation, so God had to deal with our sin, put it on his son. The cost, redemption, which means you're being bought back and set free at an enormous price. Yes, there's the purchase, and then there's the release.

There's two sides to that. So I'm not just redeemed from, I'm redeemed to. Okay, wow.

And then the means, imputation. So he puts his righteousness on us, and our sin, of course, in propitiation was put, or also imputed, on Jesus. He didn't become a sinner, but he bore our sin in his body on the tree, 1 Peter 1 21. Yes, exactly. Okay, wow. Okay, and then this is a great word, the declaration, justification.

Yes. Talk to his pastor. It is God who declares, I am what God says I am. I am who God says I am. You know, I was a rebellious sinner against him, and so I needed his redemption. But now that I am in Christ, I am righteous. I am justified. That means God has declared that I am acceptable before him.

That's powerful truth, and that kind of truth, and being captivated like that by that truth, can release us from incredible amounts of guilt and shame. And he's the judge. He's the only one, like Paul said, it is God who justifies. Yes.

Who is he that condemns? Exactly. Okay, wow. So there you have the declaration, justification. Now here is the outcome.

This is another loaded word. I'm so glad we're talking about it. It's in your book, chapter 6, reconciliation. Yes, so my sin alienated me from God.

My design is to know God and enjoy him, but I can't do that if I'm alienated from him. And all of these, what's led up to so far, makes it possible for me to be brought back to God, into relationship with God. I'm accepted by him. Therefore, I am brought back into relationship with him. Therefore, I can enjoy him, know him, and enjoy him forever.

And I love how you put this. You started with this great statement, we're made in the image of God. Really, the whole story of the gospel, it doesn't start with the bad news that we're sinners, although that's like really bad, and it's a big part, but it starts with the good news that we're made in his image. I mean, before the fall, there was paradise. Before paradise was lost, there was Adam and Eve. No sin, no sin nature, no death, no blood, no sweat, no toil. And that is the foundational truth that every human being has worth.

Every human being has value, because I'm created in the image of God. So you get this reconciliation, returning us, restoring us to that thanks to the second Adam, who did not fail, who did not fail the test, but who lived perfectly, lived that perfect life in our place, was even baptized in our place to fulfill all righteousness, and then he died in our place to, again, became the propitiation for our sin, so he could impute the righteousness of God to us, so God could declare us justified. And then that whole thing is the outcome reconciliation. Now this is the big one, number seven.

Here we go. The change regeneration. Yes, made new. Regeneration. It's like being born again. And what the truth of regeneration is, that by faith in Christ, when I've surrendered myself in faith to Jesus Christ, now in me exists the principle of life that did not exist before.

Wow. So, and you say this, the subtitle of this chapter, Radical Transformation in Realized Purpose. Yes. I think a lot of folks, and a lot of even what is called preaching today, is talking about how God can make good men better. But the fact is, and I believe it was C.S. Lewis who said, no, the gospel is how God can make dead people alive.

Absolutely. And so this idea of regeneration, this is life to death. This is the greatest miracle. This is what sets the gospel of grace apart, because God makes us new. It's not just about turning over a new leaf, or trying harder to be better, or trying to appease God.

It is about what God has done to redeem me and to transform me with the righteousness that he's given me. Practical challenge to everyone listening. You want people, obviously, to read your book.

What do you want? What's your heart? You know, you wrote this book with a modus operandi. You wanted something to happen in the hearts and souls. You know, you're a burden, and it comes out of your pulpit ministry, it comes out of your radio program, all that you need to know. Your radio program, all that you do, you're speaking. Now you're speaking all over the place, including Haiti, which you had a harrowing escape from just recently.

You had to be evacuated from that chaos over there. But what is your heart? Where do you want this to go? And talk to people listening out there that are hearing these words, like, oh man, I'm never going to cut it. I'm never going to make it.

I'm way beyond this. There's no hope for me. Because I have been reconciled to God, because of what Jesus has done, what God has done for me, I am now by faith reconciled to God.

That being true, I can live in that freedom, and being in that freedom frees me to be now a minister of reconciliation. So like Einstein said, if you don't understand something, you probably can't explain it. If you can't explain something, you probably don't understand it. If you don't have it, you can't give it away.

Exactly. You know, and if we don't understand the profound depths of the gospel, how am I going to be able to effectively share it with others in a way that truly captivates the story, the immense story that it is of love and forgiveness and redemption and reconciliation? I need to understand that to be able to share it with others. So really get in the Word.

Get around other gracious Christians. And understand it as the story that it is. It's not just doctrinal truths. It is that, but it's a story. It's a story of relationship and love and forgiveness and reconciliation. Amen.

And that's a story. If you don't know Christ listening right now, call upon the name of the Lord. Be saved. Recognize you're a sinner. Turn to him and recognize that someone else took—died in your place, right, Pastor Rich?

Died in my place, absolutely. Website, how can people get this book, Seven Words That Can Change Your Life, by Rich Powell? delightingrace.com. delightingrace.com. Hear his teaching right there as well.

Also, you can hear him on some Truth Network stations. And we're just so glad, brother, you made it back from Haiti to be with us today. Thank you, Stu. It's my joy. Thank you. delightingrace.com. Another program powered by the Truth Network.