The Good News

I heard something a while back. 91.6% of all news is negative. There's something about negativity and negative news that seems to draw people. In fact, the industry trade magazine, bad news is more likely to reach someone's eye and catch someone's eye and draw someone's attention. Bad news more than good news. There was a newspaper years ago that had advertised, they said, we're going to take one day, just one day, and all we're going to do on this day is we're just going to report the good news. Because people have been hearing too much bad news, we're just going to report the good news. That newspaper said they lost two-thirds of their normal readership on that day.

Nobody wants to hear the good news. In fact, y'all know who Teddy Roosevelt was? His daughter, Alice Roosevelt, I think her name was Longsworth, she had this great thing because she was kind of a notorious, scandalous kind of lady. She had this great quote, I love this.

She said, hey, if you can't say something good about someone, then come sit right next to me. We like the negative. We like the salacious. Today, we're not going to talk about the bad news. Today, we're going to focus on what the Bible calls the good news. And in Romans chapter one, we've been going, I'm really slowing down because I want us to go through Romans. Romans is an incredible book. So many revivals and awakenings and salvations have come out of the book of Romans. I don't want us to tear through this thing.

I want us to slow down and kind of go through this step by step. Romans chapter one, I told you this last week, verses 16 and 17, that is the core of the book of Romans. Romans is a long, elaborate book in the Bible. But if you want to know the core message of Romans, what Romans is about, it's really verses 16 and 17.

This is the thesis of the entire book. The Apostle Paul writes, 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. For in it, for in the gospel, the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith as it is written, but the righteous will live by faith.

Let's kind of just break this verse apart today. First of all, Paul starts off with this, I am not ashamed. Why did Paul have to start with I'm not ashamed? Well, implied in that was there were Christians in his day that were ashamed of the gospel. Implied in that is there's something about the gospel that the academic elites may not embrace.

People may ridicule. And the Apostle Paul says, you can laugh at all you want. I am not ashamed of the gospel. From the beginning, there has always been this pull from the world to make Christians ashamed of this core message that we have called the gospel.

And it's still happening today. It's happening among liberal Christians. And we all know we're in a Bible believing church that believes the Word of God.

Hey, I believe cover to cover even the maps and where it says genuine leather on the back. I believe the whole thing. Okay. But there are liberal Christians out there that don't believe the Bible. Delores Williams of Union Theological Seminary is one of them at her reimagining God conference in Minneapolis. This professor said, quote, I don't think we need a theory of atonement at all.

I don't think we need folks hanging on crosses and blood dripping and weird stuff like that. She claims to be a Christian, but she's ashamed of the gospel. Al Mohler, who is the president of Southern Seminary talked about the very first class he attended at Southern Seminary, not as a president, but years before as a student, he said it was a New Testament studies class. And the professor says first day of class, like everybody get to know each other. So go around and just share why you're taking this class and person after person shared.

And he said they got the one young lady. And she said, Well, I'm taking this class because I'm studying to be a missionary. And I want to learn more about Jesus Christ and his shed blood at the cross. He said the professor exploded and said there will be no more bloody cross religion in this class is that understood it is beneath the dignity and self respect to believe in a God that had a kill in order to forgive. That professor would claim to be a Christian, but he's ashamed of the gospel.

And it's not just liberal Christians, even other religions like Islam ridiculed the gospel. Years ago, y'all know who Josh McDowell is? We had Josh, he's a great Christian apologist.

We had a son here, I think it was last year, Sean McDowell. Josh McDowell one time was debating a Muslim scholar, and they were going back and forth, back and forth. And the Muslim scholar finally, in an attempt to ridicule Christianity, and ridicule the Christian Christian faith said this quote, you Christians, you're just riding on the back of a crucified man. McDowell responded, you're right, we are riding on the back of a crucified man, and we're going to ride on his back all the way to heaven. Isn't that great?

But it's always been this way. I love biblical archaeology. And one of the earliest inscriptions we have of the Christian faith comes from the things the 100s, 200s AD. And it's a drawing of Jesus on a cross.

But his head is the head of a donkey. And in this little, it's really some graffiti. In this picture of Jesus on a cross with a donkey's head, there's a young man raising his hand to worship Jesus. It's called the Aleximinos inscription. And underneath it says, Alex is worshiping his God. Now, the sad thing is this was found in an ancient boarding school.

And we kind of put the pieces together. And evidently there was in this ancient boarding school, a young man who is a Christian who is not ashamed of the gospel, who is very open about his faith, and evidently in that boarding school that elicited the ridicule of other students. And one of those students inscribed this, Alex, our schoolmate, he's just worshiping his God, Jesus, a donkey on the cross. And the Apostle Paul is saying to the church, you'll be ridiculed by liberals, you'll be ridiculed by other religions, you'll be ridiculed by the society, but never be ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ. I stand for the gospel. I'm not ashamed of the gospel of Christ. The Apostle Paul says, I'm not ashamed.

Now look at the next phrase here, of the gospel. Now, I'm not here to showboat Greek. Now, when I talk about the Greek, there's a purpose. This isn't the kind of like, hey, well, I know Greek, you don't...

This is very important because we're going to keep going over this word over and over and over again. Gospel, that is not a Greek word, that's an English word. The Greek word for gospel is euangelion. Eu, that prefix eu means good. Like, have you ever heard somebody give a eulogy, eu, good, logos, word?

A eulogy is a good word about somebody, okay? Eu means good. Angelion means message. Like, you know, an angel is literally a messenger and angelion is a messenger. So you put those two things together, eu, good, angelion, message, the gospel literally is good message, okay?

This is going to be important because we're going to keep going back to this and over again. Where do you get the word gospel? Gospel is like an old English word. Go, like, G-O, it's a contraction for good, okay? So when you see G-O in gospel, that's just a contraction, it's a shortened form of good. Go, and then spell is like a story or message.

Like, have you ever heard an old, maybe a mountain here or something? Hey, sit down, let me tell you a good spell here, okay? Good, spell, gospel. So our message is a good story. It is a good message. How many of you know it's the best message the world has ever heard?

It's an incredible message, okay? So the apostle Paul says, I'm not ashamed. They may roll their eyes at you and say, ah, you're one of them evangelical, tongue-talking, snake-handling, poison-drinking, Pentecost.

You're one of them crazy people. Well, we don't handle snakes because my pastor's terrified of two things. You know I'm afraid of two things in life.

It's not liberals. It's snakes and needles. So we will never do snake-handling, that and that. Just for those of you who are investigating Christianity, you would understand the snake-handling thing is not, that's not a thing.

Okay, so whatever. But look, we're not about that. We are about the good news. We are about the good spell, the good story. Paul says, I am not ashamed of the gospel. And look at this, what he says, I'm not ashamed of the gospel because it is the power of God for, watch this, salvation. Okay, salvation.

The gospel, here's what he's saying, the gospel saves people. Well, saves people from what? From human trafficking? From poverty?

From low self-esteem? Okay, we need to be saved, but what are we saved from? The angel who gave the good news that Jesus Christ was gonna come into this world says in Matthew 1.21, let me make this as clear as I possibly can, you are gonna name him Jesus because he's gonna save people from their sins.

Just listen to me. All these other things I've just manifested, racial injustice and all this kind of, all that stuff is manifestations of the one core issue that will destroy you, destroy your family, send you to hell, and that is sin. It all goes back to sin. I'm not ashamed of the gospel because it's the power of God for salvation.

It saves, it saves us from sin. This is really important because for the last four years or so in the evangelical church in America, we've kind of lost sight of this and we're like, well, you know, pronoun hospitality is a gospel issue. Taking care of creation is a gospel issue. Being good to animals is a gospel issue.

Listen to me, when everything becomes a gospel issue, nothing is a gospel issue. All those things, yeah, let's be careful, let's treat animals nice, let's take care of the environment, let's do all that stuff, but Jesus Christ did not come to make the environment a better place. Jesus Christ came to save us from sin, and when that sin is dealt with, all these other things start to fall into place.

Y'all will be on this thing. The Bible's very clear about this. When it says we believe in a Jesus who saves, which incidentally, did you know that the word Jesus literally means the one who saves? Well, he says very clearly throughout his ministry, I'm here to save people from their sins. Luke 1-77, Zechariah prophesies that when the Messiah comes, he will save people from their sins. Mark 2-5, a paralytic is let down through the roof at the feet of the Lord Jesus.

You know the first thing he says to that paralytic? Your sins are forgiven. Luke 7-47, this sinful woman is washing Jesus' feet.

Do you know what he says to her? Your sins are forgiven. Acts 2-38, Peter's preaching and he tells his crowd how their sins can be forgiven. Acts 5-30, the apostles proclaimed the message of the forgiveness of sins. Acts 10-40, Peter says, God has called us to preach a message of forgiveness of sins.

So I want you to listen to me. There seems to be this thing again that Jesus Christ came into the world to save society from racism, discrimination, and poverty, and lack of education. Listen to me, all those things are important things, but they're not the gospel. They are implications of the gospel. You get saved and those sins are dealt with, you won't hate somebody that doesn't look like you anymore.

Are y'all listening to me? Get that sin issue dealt with, you're not going to discriminate against somebody because the Bible makes it very clear that is antithetical to the Christian life. So I'm not against all this stuff. What I'm saying is let the primary thing be the primary thing and the apostle Paul says the gospel of Jesus Christ saves people. It is for salvation from what?

Salvation from sin. I love what the old congressman, Walter Judd, said years ago. He said, listen, you can either believe that you can change a society and it will change people or you can believe you can change people and that will change society. And that's what we believe. We don't believe change the society and people will be changed.

We say, no, no, change people and the society will be changed. And so that's the priority of the gospel. The gospel is all about how your sins can be forgiven and washed away and you be made right in God's sight and reconciled to God. And when you're reconciled to God, you'll start being reconciled to each other.

But the core thing is we've got to deal with the sin issue. Y'all know who, there's a guy, there's a guy, and I think he went on to be with Jesus a couple of years ago. Y'all heard of this guy named Luis Palau? Anybody ever heard of him before? He was a great Latin American evangelist.

I think he grew up in poverty, got radically saved, became one of the greatest Latino evangelists the world has ever seen. And he was addressing a group of Christian missionaries one time. And he said, let me tell you what happens in the American church. He said, y'all send medical missionaries to countries like the one I came from and take care of people's bodies. And I thank God for that. He said, you send missions groups that does like, have you ever seen eyeglasses?

I've been on a group like this. They'll come and give people eyeglasses. He said, you'll send people from America and do the eyeglass thing. He said, I thank God for that. He said, I've been watching groups come from America that do dental stuff. They'll go to poor countries in the name of Christ and take care of the dental issues. And I thank God for that.

But Luis Palau said this. He said, but if you do all those things and don't get to the core message of the gospel, that people are sinners and they need those sins forgiven and to be made right with God through the blood of Jesus Christ. If you do all those things, but neglect the gospel, I'm afraid that you're sending people to hell with good eyesight and shiny teeth. So the apostle Paul says, I'm not ashamed of this message. It is the power of God for salvation.

It saves people. And then you see what he says, for everyone who believes for the Jew first and also to the Greek. And that is God's priority over and over and over in the Bible. The Jews are God's chosen people. God always, he starts with the Jews. He, he offers this to the Jews. If they reject it, then he goes to the rest of the world.

We see this over and over again. We see this in the ministry of Jesus. Jesus said very clearly, he said, did they want him to go to a Gentile area? Jesus said, no, I was sent to the lost sheep of Israel. In other words, no, God always deals with the Jews first. And when the Jews reject, then he'll give it to the rest of the world. That's what Paul is saying here. The gospel is for the Jews first, but now that they've had a chance to receive the gospel, Paul says, it's now for the Gentiles for the rest of the world.

And it's interesting the two categories. Jews are the religious lost. Greeks are the pagan lost.

Both are equally lost. You can go to church and be a deacon and be, go with a confirmation and baptized and all that stuff and still go to hell because you don't know Jesus Christ. We need to see the religious lost get saved.

I want to tell you something. The religious lost are the hardest people to reach because they think they're saved already. Hey, Paul says, look, this is for the Jews. This is for the religious lost and the Greeks, the pagans, the perverts, the drug addicts, the messed up people. The gospel is for everybody.

It's the power of God for salvation to, did you notice what he said here? How many people who believe? Everyone who believes.

Hey, let me ask you something. Can a homosexual be saved? For everyone who believes. Can a drug addict be saved? For everyone who believes.

Can a crooked congressman be saved? For everyone who believes. Hey, can a pedophile be saved? For everyone who believes. I need you to understand, there is no person outside the reach of God's holy love. It is for the salvation of everyone who believes. Jew first, he says, and then also to the Greek. And then we get to verse 17.

Verse 17 is, this is it right here. Paul says, I'm not ashamed of the gospel. You can ridicule it. You can laugh at it.

I'm not ashamed of it. Because it's the power of God for the salvation of all who believe. People are lost. People are sinful. People need to be saved from their sins for all who believes. I don't care what you've done, who you've done it with, how many times you've done it, how messed up you think you are.

I've said this before. When you say God could never forgive me of this sin, you've just said more about your belief in God than your belief in yourself. God can forgive everybody. Then he says this, verse 17. For in it, in the gospel, the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith as it is written. But the righteous will live by faith.

That's just so important. Have you ever done a study in comparative religions and then gotten really confused? People ask, Chad, you're a pastor. How do you keep up with all the different religions that are out there?

There are dozens and dozens and dozens. And then when you look at all the dozens of religions and all the offshoots, there's hundreds of religions out there. Chad, how do you keep up with all these religions and whatever?

I'm gonna make this really simple for you right here. Don't get caught up in all the different religions. Understand, there's only two religions out there.

There's only two ways that people think, watch this, that they can be made right with God, they're okay with the man, they're right with God, and when they die, they will go to heaven. There's not a thousand different, there's only two religions out there. One religion is the works religion. That says, if you want to be made right with God, if you want to go to heaven when you die, you must do this. Every religion out there except for ours is in that category.

And that category takes on different manifestations. For example, in Hinduism, Hinduism teaches one that one achieves salvation. One achieves being made right with God, going to heaven. When one's good works, literally their karma is sufficiently good. So it's the old thing of their scales. And once my good outweighs my bad, once my good karma outweighs my bad karma, then according to Hinduism, you will have salvation.

That's works. Another manifestation of this one religion, again, I'm trying to tell you, it's not a thousand religions, there's only two out there. This one religion has different manifestations.

Hinduism says your good works got out, well your bad works. Second manifestations of this one religion is Buddhism. Buddhism, no, no, they say, here's how you get salvation, here's how you be made right with God and go to heaven. Buddhism, salvation occurs when one enters nirvana, a state of total enlightenment. And the route to enlightenment consists of five precepts, you got to do these five things. Number one, don't kill anything, don't steal, don't commit adultery, don't tell any lies, don't drink intoxicating drinks.

Hey, you do this, you climb the ladder, you be made right with God, you're okay. Okay, that's the second manifestation of that one religion. Again, there's not a thousand religions out there, there's only two. Let me give you a third manifestation of that one religion. A third manifestation is Islam. Islam says, no, no, no, that's not how you do it. Islam says salvation is found by living out the five pillars of Islam. You recite the Islamic creed, you have ritual prayer, you give money to the poor, you fast, and if you can, you make a pilgrimage to Mecca.

You do those five pillars, you do those five things, you're right with the man, he's gonna be all right, and when you die, you get to go to heaven. Not a different religion, it's a manifestation of the one religion. Mormonism comes along. Have you heard of Mormonism? Here's how Mormonism is, you get right with God and you enter the celestial kingdom.

Mormonism says, are you all ready? Step one, faith. Step two, repentance. Step three, baptism by immersion.

Step four, laying on of hands by a member of the Chizidic priesthood. Step five, ordination as a Melchizedek priest if you're a male. Step six, receiving the temple endowments. Step seven, celestial marriage. Step eight, observing the word of wisdom. Step nine, sustain the prophet. Step 10, you tithe. Step 11, sacrament meetings. Step 12, obedience.

You got it? That's all you gotta do. Okay, so that's one manifestation of that one religion. Islam's wrong, Buddhism wrong, their steps wrong, follow our 12 steps. That's how you get made right with God. Did you understand that's that one religion manifesting in several ways? Now watch. If you think you can be good enough to get to heaven, this works-based process of trying to be made right with God and go to heaven when you die, there are three problems I see with this.

Problem number one is this, it doesn't work, incidentally. You can never, you're telling me your puny efforts are gonna be enough to be made right with a holy, righteous God? The Bible says you're righteousness in God's sight. You're at your best. You're like a filthy rag. I'll let you leave it to your imagination what the Hebrew word means when it says a filthy rag. I won't go there because we've got kids and men here, but you understand what that means.

You at your best, that's what you are. Okay, so number one, it doesn't work. Number two, have you noticed this? Every one of these religions have their own different route. Well, which one's right? Because there are some similarities between this one and this one, but there's differences between this one and this one.

How do you know which one's right? Third problem we have with this works-based process of being right with God and trying to go to heaven. Third problem is this, look, you never know if you've accomplished what you need to accomplish until you die and stand before God. You know what I'm saying?

You never have an assurance that you've actually done everything you need to do. We've got a friend, a guy named Randy Hurst. Randy has actually preached here before. He said, I was watching this Catholic call-in TV show one night where it's a Catholic priest, and he sits there. People call in, ask the questions of the Catholic priest, and somebody called in to this priest and said, quote, I am terrified over the thought of going to hell.

Keeps me up. I'm scared of dying and going to hell. I go to mass once a week. I go to confession once a month. Is that enough to keep me out of hell?

I'm scared. I go to church. I go to confession.

I need somebody to help me. Priest, is that enough to keep me out of hell? And he said, this priest kind of stroked his chin for a few moments, and he said, huh, let's see. Mass once a week, confession once a month. You know, that's probably enough, but of course, there's no kind of guarantee with these kinds of things. That would drive me crazy.

What do you mean there's no guarantee? I don't know until I die and stand before God if going to mass once a week and confession or mass once a month and confession once a week. I don't know until I stand before God.

That would drive me crazy. See, you understand the problem with that first religion, the works religion. You do this, you follow these precepts, you do what's right, and God will be okay with you, and you go to heaven.

It doesn't work, number one. Number two, how do you know which one's right? And number three, you don't know until you stand before God, okay? There's a second religion. The second way to be made right with God is by faith, and there's only one religion in that category, and it's the religion Jesus founded. And Paul says in verse 17, we are made righteous, we are made right with God, we go to heaven by faith. What does faith mean?

Here's the classic definition. Trust in, to cling to, to rely on. Faith means guilty, I'm not good enough to go to heaven, I ought to go to hell, there's nothing I can never do to do it. But that man died on the cross for every sin that would send me to hell, and he was buried, and he came back to life, and I just say, Lord, I am a sinner, I'm a messed up person, I can't save myself, Jesus, you can save me, Lord, just save me.

That's it, that's it. You turn from your sins and you simply say to Jesus, I can't do it, I can't be good enough, if I'm doing it in my own strength, I'll go straight to hell, Lord, only you can save me, save me, Jesus. That is faith. Martin Luther was really a neurotic Catholic priest. He was so scared of going to hell, he would go to Catholic confession every single day, talk to this priest every single day, and dredge up everything he could think of that might send him to hell, he finally wore out that priest, and that priest finally said, leave, don't come back until you've done something worth confessing. That's what the priest told him. Luther was suicidal, literally.

He's on the verge of giving up. And Luther said, he hated God. He said, I hated him, I'm a priest and I hate God. He said, what kind of God would give us all these demands and then not give us the ability to fulfill all these commands?

He's a messed up God. And Luther, again, he was on the verge of killing himself until one day he's reading his Bible, and he comes to the verse I just read to you. Let me give you how one translation translates that verse. Luther read this, quote, this good news tells us how God makes us right in his sight. This is accomplished from start to finish by faith. As the scriptures say, it is through faith that a righteous person has life. Basically what that verse is saying is, you will never be good enough to be right in God's sight.

But somebody was good enough 2000 years ago, and he died in your place. And if you'll come to that man, Jesus Christ, he gives you his goodness. He gives you his righteousness. And that is the only way you will ever be saved. And Martin Luther, when he read that, he said, the light went off. And he said, quote, I felt like I'd been born again, and I had entered heaven through open gates.

And instead of hating God, I loved God, because I realized God gives me the righteousness of his son, and I can never earn it. Some of y'all have a problem today. You've tried and tried and tried and failed and failed and failed and tried and tried and tried. And you've always, we always do this. We fail and we say, God, have you ever done that? I'll never do that again. Do you know how many times God has heard, I will never do that again. And you're finally on the verge of just giving up.

My advice to you is give up and give it to the Lord Jesus Christ, just trust in him. That's how salvation occurs. Martin Luther said, it changed my life. And incidentally, I get asked this question a lot. I've got people right now coming to our church asking me this question. Chad, can a Catholic be saved and go to heaven? My answer is always the same.

Yes. But it is in spite of Catholicism, not because of Catholicism. Because the Catholics have a document called the Council of Trent, this is around 1545, that has never been rescinded. Here's what Catholic official doctrine says, quote, if anyone says that the sinner is justified by faith alone in order to obtain the grace of justification, if anybody says you are saved by faith alone, let him be an anathema. Literally, go to hell if you say you're saved by faith alone. That's Catholic doctrine.

The Council of Trent says, again, different place. If anyone says that saving faith is nothing else than confidence in the divine mercy which forgives sins for Christ's sake, or that it is faith alone that justifies us, let him be an anathema, let him go to hell. So you got to understand, this concept that we're saying right now, you're not good enough, you can't say enough Hail Marys, you can't burn enough incense, you can't do the rosary enough time to be made right with God. No, you just place your faith in Jesus Christ. Catholic doctrine says go to hell if you believe that. So let's just, I do believe Catholics can be saved, but let's not say that we all believe the same thing because we don't. What the Bible says is the most radical, best news I have ever heard. I can't, he can.

He never said I could, he always said he would. I just trust in the Lord Jesus Christ. And Alistair Begg, I love Alistair, he's a great, great preacher. He said, now, some of y'all, has anybody here ever gone through an evangelism training program, like to teach people how to evangelize?

Okay, I've been through several of them. He said, you know, a lot of these evangelism training things, we are taught to tell people this. If you were to die tonight, and you're to stand before God, and God were to ask you, why should I let you into heaven? What would you say? That is the classic question we are taught in evangelism training to ask a lost person. If you're to die right now, and you're to stand before God, and God were to ask you, why should I let you in heaven? What would you say?

I love what Pastor Begg says. He said, if you answer that question in the first person, you've immediately gone on the wrong path. Well, because I better calm down here. Well, you see, I, he said, that question should not be answered in the first person.

It should be answered in the third person. Because he, because he lived the life I should have lived. Because he died the death, I should have died. If I were to stand before God, and God were to ask you, why should you let you into heaven?

It's not because I, it's because he. And then he does this. I love this. Then Alistair Begg points to the thief on the cross.

You remember this story? Jesus is dying in the middle cross here. On his left and on his right, there are two, your translations say thieves.

That's okay. But the Greek implies a lot more than that. Yes, they are thieves, but they're probably murderers.

They are probably career criminals. They are dying on his left and on his right. And if you look at one gospel, both of them are cussing Jesus out as they're dying. And it's something that you're dying.

You're cussing this man out. And yet this one man, this one thief on the cross starts to see Jesus and starts to watch Jesus pray for his enemies. And he realizes there's something different about this Jesus, man. And toward the end of his life, you remember he says, he says, Lord, will you just remember me when you come into your kingdom? What did Jesus say? Today you'll be with me in paradise. Alistair Begg says, I, when I get to heaven, he says, I can't wait to find that thief on the cross and ask him, how did that happen?

You're a career criminal. You're hanging on the cross a short time before you're cussing Jesus with the other thief on the cross. And yet here you are in heaven. You've never been to a Bible study. You've never been baptized. You never joined a church. And yet you made it.

How did you make it? He said, that's what the angels must've said when they saw that career criminal in heaven. The angels said, Hey, what are you doing here? And he said, I don't know.

What do you mean you don't know? I don't know. And the angels, we got to get our angel supervisor. So he calls the angel supervisor over and the angel supervisor goes and says, whoa, what are you doing here? He says, I just told these guys. I don't know. The supervisor said, well, we just got a couple of questions to ask you, sir.

Are you clear on the doctrine of justification by faith through the substitutionary atonement? He said, I've never heard it in my life. He said, well, what about the doctrine of end times eschatology?

The guy just stares at him. I don't know what you're talking about. The supervisor's getting frustrated. Okay, sir, let me ask you, how many Bible studies have you attended? The thief said, what's a Bible? He says, he says, sir, I'm just, I'm trying to ask on what basis are you here?

And the thief says, look, I don't know. All I know is the man on the middle cross said I could come. And when you see him in heaven, when I see you in heaven, it's going to be because the man on the middle cross said I could come. I turned for my sins, and I just turned to him. Man on the middle cross said we could come. That's the gospel of Jesus Christ.

And I don't know. I'm just, all of a sudden, I told the team before we came out, I said, I ain't even asking for these stories, and these stories are just popping up all of us. We're getting people saved left and right, and we've just never seen that happen before. And I just feel there might be somebody here, you're in that first religion, you're trying this to be made right with God and go to heaven, you're trying to be made that way, I'm going to do this, I'm going to promise that it'll never work.

I'm just telling you, stop, it ain't ever going to work. There's a better way. The righteous are made righteous by faith. You simply turn away from your sins, and you say, Jesus, save me. Only you can save me. If you have never turned from your sins and trusted in Jesus, I want you to bow, everybody just bow your head right now. And I want you to forget about me and everybody else in this place. Can you just, can you just try right now to imagine there's only two people in the sanctuary, you and Jesus? Just you and Jesus.

And I'm not saying repeat this mantra, monters don't save anybody, that's another workspace. If this captures what's going on in your heart, say this to Jesus, Jesus, I am a sinner. I've done some bad things. I've said some bad things.

I've thought some bad things. I don't deserve to go to heaven. But Jesus, I believe you died for my sins. You took my whooping at the cross. You died in my place.

Now this is so important. I want you to mean to say this, Jesus, Jesus, I turn away from my sins and I turn to you. Lord, forgive me of my sins.

Come and take control of my life. And when I die, take me to heaven. In Jesus' name, amen. And you say, that's it? I don't know what your Bible says.

My Bible says, all who simply call upon the name of the Lord will be saved. And sometimes we forget that. And that's why every now and then it's good to do communion. I don't know, did they give you communion stuff coming in or whatever? And if one of the, yeah, if you feel if you could give me one.

See, we forget that. It's, thank you, brother. It's very easy to revert back to, I'm a good guy. I'm living by the rules. I'm doing this right.

No, no, no, no, no. Salvation, Paul just said in that verse, it's from start to finish by faith. Some of you started by trusting the Lord Jesus Christ, but along the way, you've messed up.

Can I tell you something? I did most of my heavy duty sinning after I got saved. I got saved before when I was like nine years old.

I didn't do a whole lot, but I did my heavy duty sinning after I got saved. Well, then how are you going to get to heaven? Paul said, I get to heaven the same way I got saved, by faith. From start to finish, it's by faith. Listen to me, every other religion spells salvation, D-O, do this, do that, you might get to heaven.

Jesus spelled salvation, D-O-N-E. I've done it already. I've paid the price. I accomplished it for you.

You just trusted me. And don't ever forget that while your salvation was free, it was not cheap. It cost them everything. And we're reminding ourselves of that right now.

So take out that first cellophane here. Sometimes these things get a little bit frustrated. Can I confess something to you? We're family here.

I did commune a while back. I came where it was. It may have been in our staff chapel or something. And I was trying to get this thing open. And I was getting so angry, angry, angry. And I thought, wait a second, I'm about to lose my salvation over communion.

That's not right. And so take your time. Don't get mad. Take out that piece of bread and just look at it for just a second. Jesus said, I'm the bread of life who came down from heaven. It's white.

It's pure. It's fragile. It was broken just like his body was broken. This represents Jesus so much. And he said, don't ever forget what I did for you. Take and eat for this is my body, which is broken for you.

If you'll peel that next part off. I do this little exercise, not to be irreverent, but it's just a good reminder that the Bible says in 1 John, and the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us of 98.3% of all unrighteousness. And the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us of everything, but the really big stuff.

What does it say? And the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all unrighteousness. Jesus said, take and drink for this is my blood, which is poured out for you.

Usually we have a big blow out close out with the band and teams and da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da. I don't know that I want to do that today. I think what I want to do today is just have us to stand in the presence of the Lord Jesus and just lift up holy hands and just tell them thank you for the next few moments. When's the last time you just said thank you, not give me, but thank you. Thank you for saving my soul. Thank you for shedding your precious blood.

You didn't have to, but you did it. And we just say thank you right now, Lord Jesus. You're so good to us. We can now relax. The war is over. The battle's been fought.

We can just relax in your presence right now. Salvation is not achieved, Lord. It is received. And we thank you for the salvation that you purchased for us and that we received by faith. Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Jesus. And now to Him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to His power, there's a work within us. To Him be the glory in the church and in Christ, Jesus, throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen and amen. God bless you, beloved. Let's go change this world for Jesus Christ. God bless you.