Romans 8:14–17Scripture
Everybody turn your Bibles to Romans chapter 8. I believe we have made it to one of my favorite sections of verses in Romans, actually, and there is a lot to go over here. We're looking at Romans chapter 8, verse 14 through 17. I'm going to try to stick there and not go backwards or whatever. This morning we're looking at this concept of what it is to come to faith in Jesus Christ. The words that Paul uses to try to explain this are a few: he calls us children of God, he calls us sons of God, and it is important that we understand that although we are children, and although there are women today and men today, there is a specific reason he calls us sons. He attaches it to another word we hear in the text, about heirship. It is the eldest boy that is heir of all that the father has. Is that important? You understand that. So when he calls you sons, he means it. He is speaking to something specific, that you are so a part of who he is now, so one with Christ, you are his child, and because of that you have benefits of being his child. That's important. Someone who is cared for by another adult, right, and has not been adopted, does not necessarily have all the benefits of heirship like an adopted child does.
Introduction
Now in this day, and this is important, and I'll just say this and then we'll read the Scripture, in this day it was commonplace, so this would have made sense in that day, but it was commonplace for fathers who had kids but did not have any son that he felt like was mature enough to handle all of his, everything he owned. If he felt like that, if his son was going to, one of his sons, as he looked at his sons, if one of them was going to take over, he did not feel like he was responsible enough, mature enough, had the right character, it was commonplace for a father then to go out and find somebody who did, and adopt that person and make them heirs, and they had the character to be able to deal with that stuff the right way. And so there were young men who were adopted in that day for the sake of specifically handling whatever they became heir to for the rest of the family. It was very common for someone to find someone who had the right character because his sons didn't, and bring them in and adopt them, and then this person, not his natural-born children, not his blood children, but this person would manage all that the father owned. So this is very important today as we consider what the text means for us.
It is very important. Let's look at verses 14 through 17 and then I'm just going to try to go through this verse by verse and we're just going to have a conversation. Verse 14 says, "For all," everybody say "all," "all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God."
Notice the qualifier here:
If you are led by the Spirit you're a son of God,
Pastor Shawn Gray · 3:57
and I would add in there, woe to you who are not.
And if you find yourself maybe being in the church for twenty years, and I'm not saying perfectly, but you're not led by the Spirit, you don't submit to the things the Spirit wants, you may not have it, him, you may not have him. This is one of the tasks that 1 John gives us, there are three of them exactly, that we should evaluate and test ourselves whether we are saved, and I think this should be happening in the church more today, because I have a feeling that we have turned church into a form of penance, that we might go out and do whatever we want, live however we please, and not obey his law because we're not lovers of his law because we're not saved, and we want to be, we want justification, we want atonement, and we use Sunday morning service attendance to obtain it.
That is much of Christendom today, in my personal opinion, specifically in America, specifically in America, because in other parts of the world it doesn't operate that way.
It's a kind of a special case, and I don't know why I want to say over here, over, it depends on where you come from here, right? So I love that. "All who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry," and this is an intimate word, "Abba! Father!" "The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ," provided, another qualifier, "we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him." Let me just go ahead and break this down for you real quick, and the easiest way, and sometimes examples really ruin the text, so we should be careful with our examples. So as I tell you to be careful with your examples, our metaphors, because sometimes you tell a metaphor that undermines the metaphor that's actually being told in the Bible, right? And so although they are effective, they're still dangerous. And now I don't even remember what I was going to say,
Point 1Is your life oriented around flesh or Spirit?
Anyway, it doesn't matter, maybe I didn't need to say it. First point, write this down: orientation. "For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God." Here's a question I ask myself and maybe for us to reflect on for a moment: is your life oriented around the flesh or the Spirit? What does your life seem to be oriented around the most? Is it the things of God or the things of men?
It's a challenging question, right? It's hard to maybe look at that and the reality of that, but it is the Spirit's desire that your life would become more and more oriented around him. The reality is everyone in here orients their life around something. Here are some examples: work, a brother's got to eat, amen. Addictions, money, church, small group, you should still go to small group, but you probably shouldn't orient your life around small group. You should orient your life around God and the things of God and his children, his children. That's a benefit of loving and pursuing God. Here's some other things: hobbies, physical beauty, that's a big one right now, physical beauty, strength, and even things that don't matter, which might be many of the things on this list. To function in life requires orientation,
Point 2The artificial gospel ruins our taste for the real
And the list that you would make this morning reveals what your life is oriented around. There's this story that I read and I've heard several times and I love it. There's a story of a father who decides to take his son camping. Now his son had grown a, like, this infatuation with, and love, and he was passionate about everything strawberry. He loved strawberry Pop-Tarts, they were his favorite. When they would go get ice cream the dad would ask what kind of ice cream do you want, and he said, "I want strawberry ice cream." He would go get a snow cone in the summer and he would ask for strawberry flavoring. It was all about strawberries. He loved them. The dad took him camping, and at the place they camped nearby there was a strawberry patch, and so the father decides, "My son loves strawberries so much that I think it would be fantastic to take him over to the strawberry patch and let him have some real strawberries, because all the junk he eats is just fake, you know, not real strawberries, wasn't made with real strawberries." And actually if you ever read the labels you realize they're like "made with real strawberries." Liars. Anyway, but it's not even real, it's not real. So he takes his son, and his son for years loves strawberries, he asked for everything with strawberries, and they go to the strawberry patch and they're walking through the patch and the father picks one of the strawberries and gives it to his son and says, "You have to try these. I've been so excited to show you this field so you can taste strawberries and have as many as you can to your heart's content." The son took the strawberry and ate it and in three seconds spit it out and said, "That is the most disgusting thing I have ever tasted."
Because
When you get used to the artificial stuff, the real stuff just doesn't matter anymore. Matter of fact, the real stuff disgusts us.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 10:55
I'm afraid that this is an issue in our churches, that we have gotten so used to the artificial stuff regarding the gospel that it tickles our ears, as the Bible says, makes us feel encouraged all the time, never challenged, that if you come to Christ you won't suffer at all, you'll never have hardship, everything's going to be great, it is then that all the hell you've been dealing with will immediately go away and you'll never have a problem again, because when you're in Christ he protects you from everything that the world will throw at you.
It's the artificial stuff that people fall in love with, but the true gospel, the true gospel, although there are many glorious things that we gain from it, there is also suffering attached to it. There is also not being completely free, because you're a slave to Christ now.
And that stuff we don't talk about, and we feed people over and over the artificial stuff and tell them they have gained a liking to that whenever you begin to share the real stuff, the real strawberry, people don't like it. The reality is in my day, you know, back in the, well, I would say probably in the 80s for sure, at the beginning when we began in ministry over 20 years ago, now that's just, oh my goodness, I can't even believe that, right? So next year will be, no, three years from now will be my thirtieth-year reunion at my high school.
I'm old, right? That's weird, right? Is that right? Did I do the math right on that? I think I did. But in my, back in the 80s, the gospel and the church became a fad. There was gospel this, gospel that, gospel everything. I mean, even in the secular world, "What would Jesus do?" That one went, but that one went crazy. We began to market things on T-shirts, "Jesus is my homeboy," "What Would Jesus Do" bracelets. We were putting the gospel out there for the world to see.
It was as much of a fad as the bell bottoms coming back in now, which will soon, within probably two months, go back out. I already see it coming off the racks.
Somebody went in there and said, "What in the world is becoming of this world? Why are we going back to bell bottoms?" And then they just started pulling it off the shelves again, because that's the way fads work. They come and they go. But one of the things interesting about the church is that we have created an artificial gospel, and that fad hasn't changed, it didn't cycle out, it stayed in. Why? Because people, listen, because people like it. You know why, you know why Target and you know why Walmart and you know why all of these places, why they put what they put in their stores?
Because you want it. So we have pastors and we have parents and we have friends who have acquiesced to the desires of men, and we have created a gospel that is artificial in nature, and now people get a taste of the true gospel and they don't like it as much as the artificial stuff. It just doesn't go down the same.
So what can be done? Well, I believe there's a few things that can be done. One, you can keep them away from strawberry patches and keep feeding them the fake stuff, and because people like it they'll come, and they'll do so by the droves. Number two, you can stop giving them slushies and take them to a strawberry patch again and again until strawberries begin to taste sweet to them. Which do you think we're going to be?
And in case you missed it, what we do in the midst of this sin-sick age that has rejected the gospel, perverted it, and replaced the gospel with something that is not the gospel, is
We need to begin preaching the gospel again and again until it tastes sweet to people.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 16:01
So I think it's important that when we read this portion of text we need to get a glimpse of what the gospel is, the true gospel, not the artificial stuff, and it starts right at the beginning, talking about it: "For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, 'Abba!
Point 3We become children of God, not born into it
Father!'" Listen to this verse, this will help you, Ephesians 2:1–3: "And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience."
Notice here the first sons, he talks about, this is Paul in Ephesians to the church of Ephesus, the first sons he talks about are the sons of disobedience.
This is to whom and what you were born into. You were born in this earth as an agent and a man of wrath. God was coming to kill you because of sin.
You were not born into this earth as Jesus' homeboy.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 17:44
You were born as an enemy to God. All men are that way. And then it goes on: "among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh." Notice that's past tense. We used to do that. We used to be led by the passions of our flesh, we used to always submit to the passions of our flesh. We don't do that's not who we are no more. "Carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature," listen to this is who you were when you were born into this earth, "children of wrath," not children of God.
The artificial stuff, the artificial gospel will begin to say, like much of the world, that everyone who's born a child of God. Wrong. Right? In some way wrong, in most of the way wrong. When you were born, everyone who was born, when you were born you were born as children of wrath, not children of God. Are you with me today? Because if we don't get this we're going to miss the gospel. Write in these verses, listen very carefully, you can write some of these things down and go do some research on it's fascinating, and I'll give you a title of a book you need to read, this will help you. Protestant liberalism has created many problems in the life of the church and for believers and for our pulpits. One thing that arose from this movement is this, these two things: the universal fatherhood of God and the universal brotherhood of man. This is where most, if not all, social justice causes use this platform, that we're all children of God, even secular ones, and that we're all brothers, so as brothers then we should treat each other as brothers. The Bible doesn't say that. In Ephesians the Bible says you're born as children of wrath, not children of God.
It actually says in Romans earlier that we are enemies of God. But there is this universal fatherhood that in some way we can maybe kind of, I mean, I can maybe point out something that's true. I mean, the reality is God created all things. The reality is there is some bit of brotherhood, there is some bit of secular brotherhood in the fact that we're all sinners and we're all not worthy to be called his. Everyone starts at the same place.
Everyone, they will continue to say that God is the father of us all and we're one big happy family. This is not how the Bible teaches us to view life. This is how you interpret the Bible because you've been in fact impacted by Protestant liberalism, which is not biblical, it's artificial. So then when I say no, you're not, you don't, you're not born children of God, you're born children of wrath, that makes you want to spit the strawberry out. Are you with me today? J. Gresham Machen, right?
Some say Machen, some say Maychen, because I said Maychen first, that's what I say. He addressed this idea of Protestant liberalism in a book called, and I encourage you to read it, everyone in here, you should read this will help you, Christianity and Liberalism. The Bible helps you more, but you should read this, Christianity and Liberalism, you really should really read this today. He says this: "Very different is the Christian conception of brotherhood from the liberal doctrine of the brotherhood of man. The modern liberal doctrine is that all men everywhere, no matter what their race or creed, are brothers. There is a sense in which this doctrine can be accepted by the Christian. The relationship in which all men stand to one another is in some important respects analogous to the relationship of brotherhood. All men have the same Creator and the same nature. The Christian man can accept all that the modern liberal means by the brotherhood of man. But the Christian knows also of a relationship far more intimate than that general relationship of man to man, and it is for this more intimate relationship that he reserves the term brother. True brotherhood, according to the Christian teaching, is the brotherhood of the redeemed."
Listen, you can write this down and then you can figure out how to prove me wrong, but this is my position regarding this: we are not, and I think I'm going to give you some more Bible, we are not all God's children. I would say it this way because this may help you: we are not all children of God.
It's the same thing, but saying it backwards helps. We become children of God. Are you with me today? We become children of God.
We don't need to become that which we already are.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 24:17
If you're becoming something, it means you're not that. If you're becoming something, it means you're not that. John 1:12–13 says this: "but to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God." Are you with me today? John 1:12–13. Shawn, why is this important? What's very important because most of the time we would rather believe a secular idea and interpret Scripture through that secular idea that we've been influenced by.
"He gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God."
Now notice this. You're not born again by blood, you're not born again by flesh, and this is important, the will of man.
It's not your will, it's his will. Are you with me? This is really important. "Well, in my will I did this, and in my will I prayed a prayer, and in my will I did this."
It's not the will of man that you're saved. It's right there, black and white.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 25:53
"Well, he didn't really mean that. In the Greek he meant..." He meant the same thing in the Greek. It just drives me crazy. Like, if we don't value the word enough to read it as it is, what are we doing? I'll tell you what we're doing. We've so made a diet of artificial stuff that we hate the real stuff, and then when we read the real stuff, because it doesn't fit whatever we've formed to make us be at peace with his word and with God, we choose to live by that.
We have a Pop-Tart diet with hopes that will make us healthy. Newsflash: it won't.
If all you eat is Pop-Tarts, yeah, try that one on for size, literally, because that's what will happen, is, right? Pop-Tarts is not good, it's all sugar. You know how many of you think it's really weird that it's okay to have tons of sugar from fruit but it's not okay to have tons of sugar from, anyway, I just think that's really weird, right? That's really weird. That's the difference between the artificial. John 1:12–13, so why would I need the right to become that which all human beings already are? The answer is, I don't. We reject the idea as believers of universal fatherhood of God or the universal brotherhood of man. Galatians 4: 4–7, I'm just drilling this down, I just think it's really important: "But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, 'Abba! Father!'" Notice here that adoption as sons is linked to Christ, "and because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, 'Abba! Father!' So you are no longer a slave, but a son." Oh, so what does that mean? It means you used to be a slave. You were not a son, you were a slave. But were you a slave to sin? Would that make you a child of wrath, an enemy of God, a sinner separated from his presence? And Jesus, listen, why does this matter, Shawn? I think you're nitpicking. It's the gospel. It's the gospel, and it is this gospel that you believe and have faith in that saves.
The wrong gospel doesn't save. The right gospel does.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 29:10
Are you with me? That's the way he puts it.
"Oh Shawn, you know, I don't think it's that big a deal, and it doesn't matter what we say, and it doesn't matter if we get something wrong, it'd be best, it'd be best," no. I, no, it'd be best to stay in a room quiet than to give the artificial stuff to people over and over again until they go to hell. I'm sorry,
Your being heard is not as important as someone's eternal destiny,
Pastor Shawn Gray · 29:29
and it'd be best to stay quiet if you don't know the gospel, and I'm proposing to you we should be hungry to know the truth, because it is only the truth that sets us free, not the artificial stuff. It doesn't have a delivering, like it doesn't deliver salvation, it just doesn't. "Abba! Father!" We're called, we're sons. "God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, 'Abba! Father!'" This is a deep, intimate word. It is this passionate relationship with God that gives us passionate opposition to the deeds of the flesh. We are sons of God, therefore we hate that which is evil, because we're sons. We hate sin because we're sons. We hate what is evil. 2 Corinthians 6:17–18 says, "Therefore go out from their midst, and be separate from them, says the Lord, and touch no unclean thing; then I will welcome you, and I will be a father to you, and you shall be sons and daughters to me, says the Lord Almighty." This also gives us assurance. "The Spirit himself bears witness with our
Point 4The Spirit's witness is tested by obedience, love, belief
Spirit that we are children of God." Wait, right here's where we can go wrong real quick. Are you a believer?
Miss Brook, are you a believer? Okay, and I'll be like, "Well, I don't think you are," and you're like, "Well, his Spirit will witness with my spirit," and it happens separate from you and what you think. Where is that in the Bible? That's what that means, right? His Spirit, his Spirit bears witness with my spirit, and so this is a personal thing. I'm on an island all by myself. Community doesn't matter. Community can't make a judgment call on my life. Community can't bear fruit. Community, I mean, community can't evaluate my fruit. Community can't ever challenge or disciple me or call me out for the things I do wrong, because with me and with God, me and God, it's just his Spirit and my spirit and then I know and no one else can know. It's not in the Bible.
Like, how do we get there? Because be careful. So let's visit, what does this mean? People will say, "Well, you can't tell me i'm not a Christian, I know in my heart." That's not what this means. That's not what has given you permission to say the Spirit bears witness with our spirit.
If you want to know what this means, look to 1 John. Let's look at this. Let's look at 1 John 5:13.
And this one I want you to do a cross-reference this week and go look at what these list of things are in more detail. I'm going to give you a brief list. He said, "I write you these things," I write these things, "these things" is key, "to you who believe in the name of the Son of God that you may know that you have eternal life." And because we know this is the same author, it is important for us to know also as well, even if it isn't, well, it's the same author because it's all inspired by the Holy Spirit, but that's, neither, that's a moot point, but I'm just saying that in here when we think of, well, "His Spirit bears witness with my spirit, and so this is a personal thing and no one can know and you can't know my heart." That's not what he's saying here, because in 1 John it says, "I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God that you may know that you have eternal life." So how do we know, by what our heart feels like? "Well, I got a feeling, so I know." No, that's not how he commands us to look and to know if we're saved. He gives three specific things, broken up, and you can go find them and look them up, but here they are. Number one, the way you evaluate your life is not through a feeling in your heart, it is, are you keeping God's commandments?
That's one of the things he lists. Matter of fact, it's listed in many other epistles. Here's another thing you evaluate whether you're saved: do you love one another? Not the love that you have defined for your own special life, but the love that God speaks about in his word. He gets to define love, you don't get to define it. Sorry, we don't care what you think about love. God is love, he gets to define it because it is who he is. You don't get to define love, so you can sit and pontificate and wax eloquent all day long about what you think you know about love. I don't care about what you know about love, tell me what the Bible says about love. Tell me that. Tell me that. I write these things, list: keeping God's commandments, loving one another, and here's the other one, believing in Jesus as the God-man, fully God and fully man. Those are the things that John lists, those are the things that are listed in 1 John, I should say. Here's another way people put it. Here's there's three tests to know if you're a believer: knowledge, obedience, and love. Notice here that one of the three tests is not turning your brain off so you can encounter him. Knowledge is requisite. So when you turn your brain off and knowledge is not a part of your pursuit, even if it is during your praise time, that's a problem, because maybe it isn't God you're trying to connect with, maybe it's a spirit you're trying to conjure that has nothing to do with him.
It's important, and I believe a lot of witchcraft happens every Sunday in churches because we're chasing feelings and conjuring feelings and emotions, and listen, feelings, when was the last time your feelings ever saved you? I would propose to you that
Feelings get you into more trouble than help you out of trouble.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 36:14
This is why church membership is so valuable in the church. Yes, I understand we don't have church membership, we're working on it, chill out. We're, do you know, you guys know we're twelve years old. So can you imagine a twelve-year-old trying to have everything figured out in his life, operating like a fifty-year-old, but he's twelve? That's what this church is. Yeah, but let me just talk about why I think membership is important. The reason why I believe church membership is valuable is because it is here where your doctrine and your life is tested, and that's important. That's important not only for you to test, but it's important for your brothers and sisters to test. Well, that's not fun. That's not fun, Shawn, I don't like it when people got, you know, I'm, well, I mean, sorry, when did we think that it's about us having fun and about what we like? I mean, when I tell my kids to clean up they don't like it, but if they like their life they will, you know what I mean? Why does the son do that? Because he loves the father.
"Well, but he doesn't like it." That's the prosperity gospel. If you think you're going to come into a relationship with God and then you're going to like everything, you're going to get everything you want, your wants actually become the primary cause of pursuing him, not him. And just know this, for those that have been impacted, and this is all of us because we live in America, and for those who have been impacted by the prosperity gospel, we've forgotten that the gospel says this is going to cost you everything.
But see, the gospel is going to cost you everything is the true gospel, but then there's an artificial gospel that we get used to devouring that we don't like the real stuff anymore. And the artificial gospel says, "Hey, you know what, if you're with Christ you won't get sick. Hey, you know what, if you're with Christ problems won't hurt you. If, you know what, if you're with Christ, you know, you're going to have all the money in your bank you need." That's not what it says here in Romans.
Point 5The true gospel includes suffering with Christ
It says this: "The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ." And prosperity gospel would put a period where the comma is there and would only talk about heirship, but then it goes on. There's a comma there, it's not a period, it's actually a comma, and it goes on: "provided we suffer with him in order that we might be glorified with him." That's the true gospel.
When Jesus first called his disciples, and I'm going to go through this swiftly, so stay with me, keep your pens ready, because I'm not repeating, because i've got to giddy-up. When Jesus first called his disciples he told them that they would suffer for him. It was a promise. It's amazing how we always look for promises that make us happy rather than make us holy, because there's just as many, if not more, promises that make you holy, but you reject those in the name of the promises that make you happy. When Jesus called the disciples he told them that they would suffer. What a strange way to invite followership. "Hey yo, follow me, you're going to suffer, it's going to be awesome." Jesus said their willingness to suffer with him was the key to making the most of their lives. The same is true for us, and that calls for a radical redefinition of what it means to make the most of one's life. Our list of priorities is often wrong and requires adjustment. Here's an example list. Here's an example list. Now let's just go on, what would you do?
Okay, I asked the teens to make a list of the things they hope for. "Well, I hope that I'm famous. Well, I hope I make a lot of money. Well, I hope I have five kids." Well, I don't know who, I'm not sure who would hope that, but God has graced some of us to have kids. We have a, we have a, smoker best kid, so many kids, I think they're going to take over the hospital, like AI eventually one day in a small group, and it's beautiful and it's wonderful to have kids. So some people want to have kids, some people don't want to have kids, that's on their list. "I don't want to have kids," and so we, "I hope that I have a house that's paid for by the time I'm 25." You know, those young people are a little bit, they're unrealistic, but hey, if you're responsible from the age of 16, you saved every penny, you live in your parents' house, you might be able to do it, you might be able to do it. But these, we make lists like this, or like this, or like this, for the single people in the house looking for a man, you have a list. "These are the things that I would like to see my man have and be," and maybe the men are like, "This is the things I'd like to see my wife have and be." And we make these lists, we make lists. Let me ask you this question: if everything in your when suffering hits your life, does that list give you hope? Yeah. Most of us spend our entire life chasing the fulfillment of a list we've made centered around the flesh, not the Spirit. This is why Christians don't suffer so well today, because they think suffering is the evidence that God is not there and not performing your list.
We've made God a slave to our list, and we will serve him as long as he fulfills it.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 42:56
But you can't any more make God fulfill your list than you can a husband or a boyfriend or girlfriend you're looking for and make them fulfill all your list.
You want to be alone for all your life, have a long list of expectations for people to live up to when you don't live up to them yourself.
Jesus said it this way, Luke 9:23: "If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me." Paul said it in 2 Timothy 3:12: "Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted." The author of Hebrews said it, Hebrews 12:6–7: "For the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives. It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons." Peter said it, 1 Peter 4:13: "To the degree that you share Christ's sufferings, keep on rejoicing, that at the revelation of his glory you may rejoice with exaltation." There is an artificial gospel that says you won't suffer. Matter of fact, it is belief in Christ that removes you from all sufferings.
It is referred to as the prosperity gospel. Listen, we think acquisitionally, we interpret the Bible acquisitionally. We believe we will prosper in all things because of Christ.
We believe less in Christ and more in his benefits.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 44:43
It's an artificial gospel. I read an article, and in this article this pastor is going off about the prosperity gospel being an artificial gospel. Listen to this section here, it's crazy, he's going off, but listen to this, I think I agree.
He says, "I don't know what you feel about the prosperity gospel, I don't know what you feel about the wealth, health, and prosperity gospel, but I'll tell you what I feel: hatred. It is not the gospel, it's a false gospel, and it's been exported from this country, selling a bill of goods to the poorest of the poor, believing this message and your sickness will disappear, your boyfriend won't break up with you'll get what you want, God won't let people pick on you will not be the butt of a joke, you'll become wealthy, and everything you hope will come true. This trash is coming out of America, and here's the reason it's so horrible: when was the last time someone ever said Jesus is all-satisfying because you drove a BMW? People will say, 'did Jesus give you that?' 'Well, I'll take Jesus.' That's idolatry. That's not the gospel, that's elevating the gifts above the giver. I'll tell you what makes Jesus look all-sufficient, all-wonderful, all-satisfying: when you smash your car and your child goes flying through the windshield and dies bleeding out on the street, and the words that come out of your mouth through the deepest possible pain and suffering is 'God is enough.
He alone is good, he alone satisfies, he is my greatest treasure.' it's this heart in the midst of suffering that pleases God most.
It's that response that makes God look glorious." He closes: "I pray, and I agree, I echo this prayer, that America will be purged from this cancer. The gospel is dying in our midst and we're gobbling it up and we just want more trash. I pray that the Christian church will be marked by suffering for Christ." God is most glorified in you, and this is listen, I love this quote and you should write this down and think about it,
God is, it's not mine, it's this man's: God is most glorified in you when you are most satisfied in him.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 47:51
That's the gospel.
So no, if you're born in this world and you have not come to faith in Jesus Christ, if you've not believed and confessed with your lips that he is Lord, if you do not see then in the fruit of your life as evidence of this proclamation that you are obeying his law, not perfectly but you're obeying it at all, you have love for your neighbor, these things, if they're evidence of your life, then you're saved. That's the gospel.
He never promises it would be easy.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 48:51
Rather, he promised us it'd be worth it.
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