Romans 5:5–11Scripture
Romans chapter 5. And last week Pastor J.R. Did a wonderful job of taking us through verses one through five. It's one of my favorite verses, actually, so I hated being away from you for that and hated not sharing on that, but I felt like Pastor J.R. Did a wonderful job with that. So we're going to move on today, and we're going to look at verses 5, backing up one verse. I was really assigned 6 through 11, but we're going to look at verses 5 through 11 this morning together. So let's look at that. "And hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who's been given to us. God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who's been given to us.
For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person, though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die, but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation." Let's pray real quick. Well, we love you so very much, we're so thankful for
Introduction
Your word. We're thankful for the way that you speak to our hearts. We're thankful for the way that you challenge us to live godly lives.
We pray now that as we work through this, it's not just simply words falling off of a page, but it's words directly from you. I pray that we would have an understanding, that we would be enlightened, and that it would change and affect the way that we live day by day. In your name we pray, amen.
There's a few things I want to do this morning. It's interesting, I've been in some conversations. Let me get us up to this. Good morning. No, I hadn't had coffee yet, so this for your sake. I've been in some conversations, we've had some meetings with, we were able to on Friday to meet with the leadership team, those who are leading the small groups, and so we tend to work ahead a week in advance, and we're going through and kind of having a study together, and then we, of course, lead, our leaders lead the small groups in discussion. So in that meeting, in some small groups, and some side conversations, let's say with my wife, with different people in the church, there seems to be some questions circling around things like, where does justification happen? Where, when does reconciliation happen in the salvation? So we all hear the word "salvation," but one of the things we fail to realize is that in salvation there's a multitude of things that happen step by step. So I'll kind of propose to you today, there are, of course, many different opinions on this. You have some that will hold generally a Calvinist position on salvation in the process of salvation, you'll have an Arminian position, you'll have a multitude of many other positions about when justification happens, when reconciliation happens, where does predestination fall in there, what about election, what about, you know, all of these words that you hear when we talk about salvation, what about sanctification, what about when are we in, what with the Holy Spirit? So these questions are questions that I feel like we should have maybe a good working knowledge of what's going on when we say that someone is saved. We need to have a fuller understanding of what takes place. Now, I'll give you my personal position of how the order of this happens. It is your responsibility to work this out with fear and trembling before the Lord in your own life, but I do believe there are great biblical grounds for the order I'm giving you. But for clarification's sake, as we talk about reconciliation, we talk about justification, which one of those happened first? Do they happen at the same time? How does this all work? So if you write this down and then you can maybe do some homework on this week, I think this is important as we work our way through Romans. From this point on, it speaks quite candidly in the Bible
Point 1Salvation begins with God, not with us
About election and predestination. It begins there. Remember, there are two ways that you can read the Bible, and there are two ways you can think about, you know, the Lord, your life, and his word. One of the ways is that everything begins with us and emanates from us, and that's a very secular mindset. This is why today in society today you have people that will say, "Look deep inside yourself to find the thing you're looking for. Look deep, and what's inside yourself is the answer to what you need." So we are telling people constantly to look inward to find the hope that, honestly, they will never find there. It is a secular mindset that leaves people with advice that constantly makes them wanting, never finding. We have a responsibility, then, as we read the Bible to understand that things don't begin with us and emanate from us, they begin with God. All living things begin with him. And as simple as that sounds today, and as much agreement as we could enter into, maybe even verbal or applause, with a statement like that, when we read his word, every one of us runs the risk, because we're inundated with "everything begins with us, and everything is about us, and we find hope within ourselves." We read the Bible this way. It affects how we interpret justification, it affects how we interpret salvation, it affects how we interpret predestination and election. At the end of the day, we declare him as King of kings and Lord of lords, but we don't want the King doing what he pleases. And so we wrestle every day with these, because the reality is we're inundated and filled with the secular worldview.
So when we talk about salvation, we must understand and do the hard work of allowing everything to begin with him. So when we talk about election and predestination, just know this: it begins with God. The next thing is regeneration. Through the Bible, we it is my position that if God does not do the work in the hearts of men, it will not be done, that you cannot in your own strength just will yourself to love him. There is a calling that comes from God, and he regenerates a hard heart, and he softens it that you might receive him in faith. Notice faith does not happen first. Notice faith comes second, because how can faith dwell in a hardened heart of men?
So he softens our hearts, he regenerates us, and faith then is us believing in him. We could not believe in him if we're hardened to him, so he does the softening, and then after faith is justification. He justifies us, he makes us righteous. Romans says it's imputed. He imputes righteousness to us. It is not merited, but he gives it to us. He makes us righteous because of faith. He softens our heart, he regenerates our life, he instills faith in our lives, and then he justifies us. Notice salvation is a work of God. It is not a work of you. It is a work of God, that no man can boast. Romans says it is not works, it is a gift, that no man may boast. And let me tell you, these steps, that's salvation, all of them. As we are justified, I love that, when I'm justified. And notice, there seems to be some struggle, and this is not a bad thing, that there's a struggle with this: which comes first? It's like the chicken or the egg, which comes first, reconciliation or justification? It is a difficult conversation, because it is like a coin with two sides of the same coin. Without justification we cannot be reconciled, but once we're justified, we're reconciled to him. Justification deals with our sin. His blood shed on the cross deals with our sin. All right, for all who have faith, for all who have faith, our sin is washed away and we are cleansed of all unrighteousness, and he gives us his righteousness. That is first. Justification comes first. Everybody say it: justification comes first. That's important.
We're cleansed and our sin is dealt with, because we cannot even be in his presence and be reconciled to God with sin in our life, because he'll kill us, right? We drop dead if we're in his presence and sin is there. And so we're hidden in Christ, and we're reconciled. That's why the veil of the temple was ripped in half, that we have direct access to God. Pastor J.R. Talked something about this last week. Because of justification, now we are reconciled and we are one with him. All right, we are able to be in company with him. Now, how many of you know that although we have access to him, it is access, we talked about, we talked about, we use words like access or peace or these blessings that come, that much of them are in part. So today, when we talk about having access to God, how many of you know, how many of you know that it's in part now? We might want to say, "No, I have it in fullness." Okay, so you've seen him face to face, so your worship looks like it will when you go to heaven and you're at the throne and you see him and the cherubim and the seraphim flying around and worshiping him? That's what you see in your living room? It's in part. We have access to him.
The veil has been ripped in two, but there, that, what, but we don't see clearly yet. We see but a reflection in a mirror, not fully.
So there is access to him, but it is partial access. Why is this so important, Shawn? Why do you keep hammering on this? Because hope is needed when access is not full. That's why he gives us hope, because what we have today is in part. Right?
It says of us, it says of us that he put in us the Holy Spirit as an entire payment, paid in full?
No, it says he gave us the Holy Spirit as a down payment, as a guarantee. Notice the partial words that are used in everything regarding salvation and life with God. And why is that so important? Why is that something? We are saved, and we are being saved, and we will be saved.
Why is that so important? Because part of the work of the writer of Romans, part of his work, is to get us to stop hoping in things today but long for what is to come, to shift our focus from earthly things to heavenly things. And so I think that, and this is why, you know, I really don't love the phrase "the best is yet to come," because most people use that in a secular way, meaning, "I had a bad year this year, but next year is going to be better at work,"
Or "I had a bad year this year, my kids were wild and crazy, but when they get to be 18 they're going to be great." I mean, even my son is laughing, and he's close to 18, right? So, you know, like, I mean, at the end of the day we put our hope in secular things being better. The only time you should use that phrase is when you think of the fullness of what will stand in that day, when we stand and see him face to face.
So we detach our hope from the things of the world and we reattach it to Christ, and to do that work we have to understand today that what he has done for us is in part, and there's more. Right? There's more. And so we begin to long for the more and the fullness of what is to come.
Know this today, that what God began in us he finishes. Even that lets you know that there's more he's doing, and he started something he has not yet finished. Now, because he's eternal, he can actually hang on the cross and say "It is finished," because he knows that if he starts something, he finishes it. If his word goes out, it accomplishes what it will accomplish. He knows God's character, God's nature, and it is finished, the work is done, and he will completely have the fullness of what he accomplished on the cross eventually. That's important that we understand that dynamic. All right, so where are we? We're to reconciliation, correct?
Justification, reconciliation, sanctification. Everybody say "sanctification." Sanctification is that day by day we are being saved, day by day, the day by day, as the gift of the Holy Spirit is in our life and leads us. It leads us into all holiness and righteousness. It begins to affect the way that we think, the way that we act, not merely what we do, but how we think about what we do begins to reshape us from the inside out, affecting every part of our life. We think different, we act different, we talk different, we want different things, taste different, everything begins to be affected by Christ in our life. We are sanctified more and more, and day by day
Point 2Sanctified: set apart like an anointed cup
We are more and more being set apart for his glory. A cup, I love this cup here, this cup is holding coffee. Praise God. Let me have a sip. It's good stuff. It's good stuff. But this cup can also hold gasoline. It can hold poison.
It can hold a lot of things, and so were our lives. I think that probably I'm a vessel that holds coffee, like if you squeeze me, coffee will come out. I drink a lot of coffee during the day. But you know what making you holy is? You know what anointing is? You know what anointing someone is? When they anoint someone in the Bible, they would anoint them with oil, and they, in other words, what they would be doing is they would be taking a cup that could hold many things, and they would set it apart and say, "From now on this only holds coffee, nothing else." In other words, it is set apart for a specific purpose, and although it could do and hold many things, it only holds what it was just what it was assigned to hold. Let me tell you, ladies and gentlemen, what you're designed to hold: not sin, not anger, not hatred, not any of those things, but his Spirit. You're set apart.
So when he elects you, when he predestines you, when he justifies you, when he instills faith in your heart, when he redeems you, when he puts his Holy Spirit in you, that is anointing. You are anointed with his Holy Spirit, and he has set you apart to be like him, to hold not all the things you used to hold, but merely hold him.
We are vessels that hold the living God.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 18:21
He set us apart for such a purpose as this. That's good news. That's good news.
No, this cup cannot decide to be set apart. It needs a Styrofoam. There has to be something outside this cup that sets it apart and assigns its purpose. And, ladies and gentlemen, you are the same. And there are those in this room today that God has called. He has set you apart for a purpose.
You did not lay your hands on your own head, anoint yourself, and decide what you were going to be. God chose you from the foundations of the world,
Pastor Shawn Gray · 19:09
and if that don't get you wanting to run around, shout and scream, I don't know what will.
For his children, he chose us. I love that. He sanctified us, and the thing which we are to hope for is the fullness of it. How many of you know that you're not fully sanctified, but you're being sanctified day by day, and then eventually you will be glorified? You'll get a new body.
It'll be a glorified body. It won't hurt your knee, it won't ache when you play basketball, your kids can't hurt you, and you always win first place.
It's going to be wonderful. It's going to be wonderful. I, you know, in my head, my son goes, he'll come home and, you know, he's, he really is, I feel like he's a fan of mine more than he should ever be a fan of mine, but he's a fan of mine, both of the boys are, but I go play basketball with them, and they love that they can beat me now because I'm older, a little fatter, and a little slower, right? And they love it, and there's nothing I can do. Like, I can risk life and limb, and I have, I've broken myself a lot, last couple years, had many surgeries from playing basketball.
Somebody asked me the other day, "Why do you keep playing basketball? You break something every time you play." Trying to beat my kids again and put them in their place, like, that's literally all. But when I get a glorified body, bring it on. The first thing I'm going to do when I get to heaven is say, "You want to play one-on-one now, big boy?" You know, anyway, so I just want, I want to take them again when I have a glorified body. The problem is they'll have a glorified body too.
Maybe there's some delay. Maybe those who are older, you know, so that we can have respect, they get the glorified body faster, and then I get to beat them. I don't know, I've thought about this extensively. But I am happy and excited about getting a glorified body, but more than just not having aches and pains, that in its fullness my wants will be his wants, my heart will line up with his heart, my ways will naturally be his ways. There will not be this struggle in my life: I do the things I don't want to do, and I don't do the things I want to do. Who will help this body? Well, the Holy Spirit will, and he will gradually begin working on you, but one day what he's working on today will be perfected in heaven, and I can't wait for that.
I cannot wait for that. Now, so that's my breakdown on that. I'll put that up on Facebook. I think that process is important. There are great theologians that put that order a little bit different way. At the end of the day, ladies and gentlemen, here's the thing, here's the thing: all of us are going to get to heaven and realize we got something wrong, right? But we do our best to make sense of things, and I just say you can't, you can't go wrong by giving it to God and saying he's the author and the perfecter of our faith. You just can't go wrong with that. I think the Bible lends itself to speaking to that with great strength and confidence. All right, so we read the Scripture, 5 through 11 this morning. I love this, because I'm going to read the first two verses here: "And hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. For while we were still weak," while we were still weak, meaning you do not have to strengthen yourself and be qualified, "while we were still weak," I love that, "at the right time," there's a time for everything under the sun, I don't think everything under heaven, "Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person, though perhaps for a good one
Point 3God shows his love; he doesn't just speak it
Would dare even to die, but God," and this is the key, I want to really focus in on this verse, "but God shows his love." Notice here, it doesn't say God spoke his love. You know why? He doesn't say that because in our world, in our culture, and I think in many cultures before us and many cultures after us, talk is cheap.
How many of you know that to be true?
Talk is cheap. The only way that I value the words that are coming out of your mouth is if it lines up with the life you lead.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 24:04
So God knows this. He knows this of our culture, he knows this of people, he knows we say one thing out of our mouth and we do another thing with our life, he knows that we make promises and we don't deliver, he knows that our character and our nature is opposed to him. He knows this, and so he knows that we've been touched by this behavior, by dishonesty, by talk being cheap. And so
When he talks about himself, he talks about what he does, not what he says.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 24:37
So we see him demonstrating his love in a way that is so wild, so strange.
And you might die and lay down your life for your loved one, but would you do that for your enemy? It's crazy. It's just crazy. But "God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us." He shows us what godly love is. And then if you really want to have your mind blown, he says love me and love your neighbor, and God should be easy to love. He's good.
He's good. He didn't say to say you love your God and say you love your neighbor. We're good at that. God, we even sing songs: "God, I love you."
There's a song that says "I love you," but I don't know what it is, I can't think of it right now, I need more coffee, blame it on the car, right? But come and we'll worship, and we'll talk about singing adoration to God, we'll talk about how much we love him, but then we go out on Monday and our life says something totally different. God loved us, knowing that we would come to church on Sunday, say we love him, and live our life like we don't, and he died for us even though we're like that, fickle, unfaithful.
I had one student say, kind of just reflecting back over the last couple months and just kind of summarized a couple of my sermons, and you know, people love to pull out the worst part of my sermons and really just hammer in on those, and said basically, "What I've learned at our church in the last six months is that we're prostitutes and rats." Here's the gospel: yeah, you are.
But here's the beauty of the gospel: Jesus died for you anyway.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 27:05
If we don't see how wrong, how filthy, how disease-ridden, how awful we are, we do not celebrate the sacrifice of the cross and his love for us. That is the kind of love we don't see in this earth very much, if ever. God defines himself and his love not by words, but by deeds.
It is why I believe that Ephesians says that we are saved not by works, but by grace, that no one can boast, and then it goes on and says, "and we were created in Christ Jesus for the works he prepared in advance for us to do." What is that there for? So that we will go and try to be religious? Now, no, what it's saying is that change, so people live changed lives so that people who are not changed will see what true love is.
They will live differently. They won't just talk a big game, but they'll live it. God demonstrates his love in the lives he changes, and God defines himself and his love by deeds, not by words. I wonder if you could reflect today how often we will tell our wife or a husband we love them and an hour later be irritated with them and raising our voice to them.
God is not like that. God is not changed by the environment. God is love. He's love when the car works, he's love when the car doesn't.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 28:57
I'm not saying something happened this morning, I'm just, that will create some stress and make people not treat each other very kind. I'm not saying it happened, I'm just saying it could happen.
You foreclose on your house, God is love when the house is yours, and God is love when the house is not.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 29:18
Are you with me today? I mean, like, life can really just, I would say, change you, but actually make the real you come out and say hello. What is different about God is he's not like us. He's not two-faced. He is pure love, and the way he behaves is not affected by his environment. Oh, to be like him. I love that. Oh, to be like him. Oh, to be like him, that "him" is good. We should sing that sometime. That's a good one. That's what the world needs today. It doesn't need some contrived love, some fake love, some it needs God's love. I love this, Matthew 7:21–23. Let's just look it up, shall we? Matthew oh man, I stayed really long on that introduction, didn't I? Matthew 7. No, don't fret, sorry, I didn't have
Point 4Doing godly things is not the same as being known
7:21–23 says this: "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does," everybody say it louder, "does the will of my Father who is in heaven." Now, so, Shawn, is this telling me that I've got to go start doing works if I want to be saved? No, what it's saying is that somebody who is wrecked, who has changed, who has faith in Christ, will do good works.
It is the fruit of a life that has been changed, redeemed, justified, sanctified. It is the evidence, it is the evidential fruit of that type of life. It is not, "Now I got to go do a bunch of works to prove that I am saved and hopefully trick God when I get to heaven." That's not what it is.
It can become that, because we're very works-driven, we're very "it begins with me" kind of people, so it was very easy, and you'll hear the Apostle Paul constantly struggle and saying you're saved by grace alone, only God can do it, and then he'll say, "There's no good deeds in your life, that's a problem, you're not saved."
So he goes on here: "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, 'Lord, did we not prophesy in your name?'" Now, just listen to this: the one who does the will of the Father. And then he gives a list that sounds like God would be on board with, right? Like this list that's given off here. He says only those who do the will of the Father who is in heaven, but then it goes on and says there will be people who say, "Lord, didn't we prophesy in your name?" That sounds like that would be God's will. That sounds pretty good. I mean, there are some of you who've prayed for the gift of prophecy, you'd love to have that'd be really cool.
I mean, that'd be a really neat badge to wear as a Christian, to say you could be used by God in this magnitude. That seems real cool. "On that day, Lord," and he said, "Well, prophesy in your name, cast out demons in your name," wow, neato, that'd be great, "do many mighty works in your name." What, like healing people, raising people from the dead? That'd be cool. I mean, how many of you would like to lay your head on a casket and Grandpa pop out of there? That'd be awesome. That'd be great. It seems like that would be God's will, right? "And then will I declare to them, 'I never knew you.'" Notice here, it doesn't call into question that these things happened. What is in question is, was it God's will?
Because there are a lot of things that seem godly to men that God's not involved with at all. Are you with me today?
So it is not just that we do something that looks godly, but it is that we do his will.
Are you with me today? It is important that we understand, one, who God is, two, what God wants, and number three, we stop playing church and trying to look godly and actually just be it for once. I love this: there is a doing that does not line up with God but looks churchy. He will say to them, "Depart from me, you who practice," there's one translation says, "you who practice lawlessness."
It means, so you prophesy, you heal people, and you cast out devils, and now you're going to call that lawlessness?
Are you with me today? Because there are a lot of men who will be deceived about other men. There are a lot of people who will be deceived about other people in the church. They will say of them, "I want my life to mimic their life, I want them to mentor me.
When I grow older, I want to be sweet and precious like so-and-so." Be careful, because there are some people who look precious and sweet and godly, who look saved, who look like people we should mentor and follow our lives after, who will go to hell, because you can look godly and not even know him.
Track with me now, this is really important. Why the heaviness, Shawn? Why the heaviness? Why are you being so heavy? Because this is a heavy thing today. I'm afraid in our world, I'm afraid
That we are more excited for moves of God than we are God.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 36:16
We celebrate what we think is godly now.
Quite honestly, it may look godly, but it may not be, and
We have sacrificed a relationship with God on the altar of what makes us feel good.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 36:29
I'll be honest with you, I'll be honest with you, and maybe I'm the only one, and Brook, I love you in advance for what I'm about to say, but what I thought marriage was, this relationship, this covenant, what I dreamed it to be, versus its reality, were quite different. I thought, literally, that we would just be skipping through the house and jumping through the air and high-fiving when we went to bed. But then I was told what towel to use in the kitchen and what towel I couldn't use in the kitchen. I was told how to put the dishes in the dishwasher.
I was told, "Don't make that face at me." But I've said many things to her of like kind.
And you realize that relationships are work, and whenever you come into community with somebody, it's not just about you anymore.
It's not just about your wants and your likes and your desires, it's about someone else too. So it is with God. There are just some things that you do he's not happy with, and quite honestly, if you want to live in the same house, you're going to have to change it. And he looks at us and he expects it from us, and I think it's shocking to us. And so what we do is we're constantly chasing experiences and feelings and moves and we're substituting true relationship for the next feeling. Let me just go ahead and say this to you, and this I'm going to get messages from this: I'm for revival, I'm for God moving, but just because you see a revival happening at Asbury doesn't mean that God is in every part of that. Are you with me today? Doesn't mean that, because there will be people who prophesied and groups of people who raised people from the dead, who healed people, and who cast out devils, and God ain't in it. He actually looks at it as lawlessness.
So be careful what you long for in your gaze, for what looks godly, and in the process substitute true relationship in your daily devotion time, because you'd rather scroll on Twitter on other people trying to engage him and you don't engage him yourself. That's good stuff. No one's going to shout to that, I get it, that's right, I'm mr. Unpopular Pastor, but over the last four weeks I would propose to you that people have spent 50 times more time looking at news articles and watching what's going on than actually opening up their Bible and hearing God talk to them, because we long for moves of God and we forsake them in our homes.
A problem. It is a problem. You talk a big game, you're saying that you love him, but what does your life say on your Monday? You say you long to hear from him, but when was the last time you opened a Bible?
You know what
I'm grateful for? I'm grateful that when God says he loves me, he doesn't forsake me on Monday.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 40:52
That's what I'm grateful for.
I'm grateful that the life of men does not line up with the life of God. I'm thankful that he doesn't look good but isn't good.
I'm thankful that when I see God do something, I can trust that it is not lawlessness. Why am I telling you all this? Because there are people who are looking to the wrong things to satisfy and to bring hope in their life. What we see here is not the doctrine of lordship salvation, well, those, you call me "Lord," that's not what it's saying. Some people take this Scripture and they say, well, it has to be your Lord, that's the problem. This is not an issue of a doctrine of lordship salvation, but rather a doctrine of regeneration, meaning a person has truly been regenerated and transformed, because you can do a bunch of godly stuff and your heart not be changed. Are you with me today? How many of you know that kids can mimic and it not truly be who they are?
A person who is truly repented and believed is regenerated by the Holy Spirit, and declarative statements are not evidential proof of salvation. Well, Shawn, who will enter heaven, then?
He who does the will of my Father. Why is that important for us to understand? Because when we are made in his image, we are saved, we are regenerated, regenerated, we don't just talk a big talk, but we are changed to do the things we speak about. We are like him.
He makes us like him. I put here someone who stands before the Father that has truly been truly saved, they're not going to start listing off a bunch of things they did for him while they were on earth. That's good. Think about that for a second. When you get to heaven and you stand before Jesus, you will be so grateful, if you're truly saved, grateful and thankful that he didn't kill you in the few seconds you've been standing there looking at him, that he died for you anyway, that in your sin he died for you. You have a true understanding of what Romans 5:5–11 is saying. You understand he died for you while you were weak and while you were still a sinner, and you will fall and you will have nothing to say. If you stand there and you start listing off the things that you've done and you begin to boast about all the wonderful things you've done, you aren't saved. You don't even know him. You don't even know him, because who cares what you've done when you stand in the presence of God? Who cares? Who cares about you when you stand in the presence of God?
Anyway, I think it's important. This is important when we read this in Romans: who God is and what he's done and how he's demonstrated his love and how he's died for us, and all of that is so important that we know.
You can't know the fullness of who he is until you know the filthiness of who you are.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 44:44
I love in Matthew here too it says that, I know I'm on Matthew, but I'm going somewhere here with this, I know in Matthew it says, I just think people, so people that miss who he is always miss who they are. They just don't get how, that's why we don't start by preaching the gospel, "Jesus loves you." When we start by giving the gospel, we give the gospel like this: you're a sinner desperately in need of a Savior. If it don't start there, how can you ever see him for who he is? You cannot. You cannot. God said, "Depart from me, I do not know you."
There are many people in the church today that they come to church and they know God,
Point 5You enter heaven because he knows you
And they think that's good enough to save them.
But you don't enter heaven because you know God, you enter heaven because he knows you.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 45:57
You don't get access to heaven because you know God, you get access to heaven because God knows you. Let me give you an example. I follow The Rock on Instagram. I'm not saying he's the greatest role model in the world, he just intrigues me, okay? I feel like all I see him do is work out and then have cheat days where he eats so much sushi, I don't even know that a human being can eat that much sushi. It's just like a platter of sushi. I don't even know how he eats it all. I think it can't be true, it can't be true how much sushi he eats, but he eats a ton of food and he works out a bunch and yada. I just think it's pretty interesting because he's a fairly disciplined individual. But what I know about his house is that his house is on a lot of acreage, it's way back in the back, and you have to go through multiple gates to get to his house. How do I know that? Because people have tried to break through his gates to get to his house, because I follow him on Instagram, so I know The Rock. So one day, since I know The Rock, and I know what he eats for his cheat days, that I know when he works out in the morning and then in the late evening, and I know him, and I know what his travel is, I can tell when I open his Instagram whether he's flying on some jet to the next thing or whatever. So I know him. I see one day he posts that he's out bass fishing in his pond, so I'm like, "Hey, I know him.
I know all about him, so I'm gonna go say hey and see if I can get a pole and fish with him." So I break through the first gate, and then security comes and finds me and says, "What are you doing in here?" And I'll say, "That's all right, I know The Rock." "Oh, you know The Rock?" "Yeah, I follow him on instagram. I follow him. I mean, I'm a follower of his. I mean, I follow him. Hey, listen, I even like all of his posts.
I mean, there's never a time that I've put a down finger on his post. I mean, I like, I always like his stuff. I'm a follower of his stuff. I follow The Rock, and so he'll let me in. I'm a follower. I mean, check his Instagram account, I'm a follower, I mean, I put my name on there. I'm a follower." They're going to take me away. They don't care if I say I'm a follower or not, or I think I know The Rock or not.
But if The Rock comes to the gate and The Rock says, this is such a stupid example, I'm so sorry, and The Rock says, "I know that guy, he's my friend," I get access through the gate. Ladies and gentlemen, it doesn't matter whether you say you're a follower of Christ, it doesn't matter whether you say you know God, it doesn't matter if you think you know God better than a person in another denomination knows God.
The only thing that matters is, does God know you?
Pastor Shawn Gray · 48:58
Why? Because everything regarding salvation and life and death begins with God. It does not begin with you. Are you with me today? It begins with God, and if our salvation is in his hands, we can trust that.
We can trust that. I can't trust it if it's in my hands and it originates with me, because I've proven that I can't even keep a New Year's resolution very long, like, don't eat Oreos. I mean, I'll just laugh saying it, because I'm going to ignore you.
If I'm expected to keep my salvation, listen, if I'm the one who saved myself because of what I've done, then I'm going to be expected to keep my salvation, and if I'm expected to keep my salvation, I'm not going to keep it.
That's why we have hope, because our hope is not in us, our hope is in him.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 50:07
Are you with me today? And although we were weak and couldn't keep a resolution and talked big talk but never really delivered on it, he died for us anyway. He died for us anyway. God died for us anyway, regardless of our unfaithfulness.
Christ died for us.
How undeserving is the object of his love, yet God sacrificed his Son that he might give us the prize of himself.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 50:44
That's what this is saying. His death is our hope. His death is our hope. I'll close with this, Romans 15:13 says this: "May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that you will abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit." Ladies and gentlemen, hope that is in the things of this world will be fleeting. Notice what powers your hope: that God gives the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit, you will abound in hope. How? By your situation? No. By your own strength? No. By your devotional life? No.
By the power of the Holy Spirit. Listen, those who have the Holy Spirit will abound in hope. Those who have the Holy Spirit will abound in hope.
Why is that? Because the Holy Spirit leads and guides our focus heavenward, not earthly. It's kind of like the Holy Spirit, if I were to do an example, I would do an example, the Holy Spirit would be kind of like this. As we fix our gaze over there, you've got to fix your gaze over there, Holy Spirit goes, "No, over here," all the time, helping you abound in hope, changing your gaze. Listen, it's easy to fix your eyes on trouble, isn't it? The Holy Spirit, those who have this Holy Spirit will abound in hope, because the Holy Spirit goes, "Remember what you hope in. You don't hope in that stuff, that all fades away. Put your hope in this," but you're hoping this.
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