How You Can Know God?
Tom Shrader works through twelve foundational gospel questions, drawing on 1 Corinthians 15, Ephesians 2, Romans 8, and John 14 to explain humanity's sin problem and Christ's death and resurrection as the only solution. He emphasizes that salvation is entirely God's work received through faith, not earned by deeds, and that the believer receives eternal life and peace with God as a present, certain reality. The message closes with a direct invitation for listeners to place their trust in Christ and to speak with counselors available after the service.
“God loves you, and He's never going to go, 'You know what, I would have never saved you if I'd have known that about you,' because He knows everything there is to know.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: The Greatest Gift
Recorded: 2009 at East Valley Bible Church
Duration: 52 min
Themes: salvation, sin, faith, eternal life, resurrection, grace, forgiveness, peace with god, seeking answers about god, feeling spiritually lost, questioning faith, first-time churchgoer, new believer, skeptic, someone facing death, person invited by a friend
Scripture: 1 Corinthians 15:20-22, 1 Corinthians 15:56-57, 1 Corinthians 15:1-4, 1 Corinthians 15:13, 1 Corinthians 15:19, Acts 2, Acts 4:12, Matthew 12:38-40, Ephesians 2:8-9, John 3:36, John 5:24, Romans 5:1, Titus 3:5-6, Romans 8:38-39, Romans 10:9, Romans 10:13, John 14:1-6, 1 John 5:11-13, 2 Corinthians 5:14, Isaiah 6
Theological Themes: soteriology, justification by faith, substitutionary atonement, total depravity, regeneration, gospel, imputed righteousness, new birth
Full Transcript
Introduction and Series Overview
If you do not have a Bible, we would love for you to raise your hand so we could give you one to use today. We are going to ask twelve questions today, and you should hear all day long the ruffling of pages. If you get a Bible from us, I will give you exactly what page number it is.
I read a book a while ago on the Civil War, and the author's premise was this: the Civil War was the most important event in American history, Gettysburg was the most important battle of the Civil War, and Pickett's Charge was the most important event within the battle of Gettysburg. If you understood Pickett's Charge and then Gettysburg, you understood the Civil War.
The lesson we are doing today is the most important lesson we could ever do, or will ever do, in the history of East Valley Bible Church. If you do not get today right, then it really does not matter what else you do. You have to get this right.
Maybe you are a guest here today and somebody brought you, and they were not necessarily certain what we were going to talk about. But if they could see where this series is going — this being week four — they would understand how important this is. If they invited you here today and said, "Just come with me one day," it is because they love you deeply. If you do not get this right today, your life is ruined and you are doomed. This is big — it does not get any bigger than this.
Recap of the Series So Far
This is the fourth week of an eight-week series. The first week we asked, "What is the matter with people?" And we said what is the matter with people is what we call sin — that all of us have sinned, we are all sinners. Now, in our minds we like to play the game and say, "Well, I am not as bad as that person. He is a mass murderer; I just do whatever it is I do." But if you break a law, you have broken the law and you stand guilty before God. Clearly some of us demonstrate our depravity more than others, but we are all guilty. It does not take any more grace to save a Jeffrey Dahmer than it did to save me. We are all lost, and our problem is sin. In that sin we are dead, and there is nothing we can do about that condition.
The second week we asked, "What is so special about Jesus?" We said there are a whole bunch of things. His birth was prophesied. He was born of a virgin. He did miracles. He predicted His death — no big deal — but He predicted His resurrection — big deal. He said He was God, and He followed up on those claims.
Last week we asked, "What is behind the death of Jesus?" Jesus died as a historical fact — that is a given. He was born two thousand years ago and there is no two-thousand-year-old man walking around, so the fact that He died is settled. But why did He die? He died for our sin. We introduced three words last week: justification — you have been declared righteous before God; redeemed — meaning to be loosened or brought back; and the big, fancy word propitiation. When Christ died, He served as the propitiation for our sin, meaning He satisfied God's wrath against us. God hates sin, and that was the agony of the cross — Jesus took on the very thing that He despises, which is our sin. He was treated by the Father as though He were guilty of every sin you and I would have ever committed. We introduced the term substitutionary atoning death: He was your substitute. He got what you deserved and He made atonement to God for your sin.
This week we are going to try to bring all of that together. Then over the next two weeks we will ask, "Now that we have that figured out, where do we go from here? How do we respond to that?"
Question One: How Did Jesus Demonstrate His Victory Over Sin?
So we have twelve questions today, and we will work through them. Here is the first one — it is page 138. If you take the Bible we gave you, the publisher decided to start renumbering when he got to the New Testament, so you have to go about two-thirds of the way back to find it. When you get into the New Testament, turn to page 138, or if you have your own Bible, it is 1 Corinthians chapter 15. Mark that place, because we will come back to it three or four more times today.
How did Jesus demonstrate His victory over sin? The answer is: He rose from the dead. 1 Corinthians 15:20 reads, "But now Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruit of those who were asleep. For since by a man came death, by a man also came the resurrection of the dead. As in Adam all died, so also in Christ all will be made alive." And a little later, in verse 56: "The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is in the law, but thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ."
How did Jesus demonstrate His victory over death? He rose from the dead. Peter said it this way in Acts chapter 2 — He put an end to the agony of death. Now, that is not referring to physical agony. I have been with a good number of people who in the process of dying are suffering enormously. I remember one lady —
The Uncertainty of Death
Some of you have had parents or loved ones that you knew well, and you knew that they knew Christ, and yet in the process of dying, they really suffered physically. Jesus did not come to put an end to the physical anguish of death. Some of us will still suffer. The agony He ended was the uncertainty of what happens when we die.
The number one fear, they say, that most of us have is death. Someone was waiting to get her chemo not long ago, and there were two older and obviously very sick men sitting there, and one man said to the other, "What do you think happens when you die?" It's amazing to me, because I've been around a lot of people who, as they die, are not followers of Christ, and you would think that would get your attention. If the doctor said to you, "In a week or two, or a month, you're going to die," you would think, even if you're a totally irreligious person, that would be somewhat of a wake-up call.
But more often than not, what happens is that person becomes more bitter, more hard. They see they're vulnerable, but they're not coachable. I contrast that with people I've been around who know Christ, that as they die — I think of one man in particular. I was with him when the doctor came in and said, "The next time you go to sleep, you will not wake up." I don't know how they know this, but they do. And this man beamed. The doctor left the room, and he said, "I love you, honey, and I love the kids, and I love the grandkids, but this is so exciting." He wasn't faking it. He knows this truth. Jesus Christ rose from the dead, and it put an end to the agony of death. It was victory over sin.
The Sign Jesus Said Would Validate His Claim
Here's the second question: What sign did Jesus say would validate His claim? Turn to Matthew's Gospel, Matthew chapter 12, verse 38. The answer is the resurrection. It's probably important to say first, what did He claim? He claimed to be God. When Jesus was walking the earth, He claimed to be much more than a teacher or a prophet. His message was not, "I am a messenger from God." His message was, "I am God."
He made that claim, but unlike any other who may have made a claim to being Messiah, He separated Himself from them. He said, "Here is how you are going to know." Verse 38: "Some of the Scribes and the Pharisees said to Him, 'Teacher, we want to see a sign from You.'" Remember, the Jews were looking for a sign. He said, "Here is the sign you are going to get: an evil and adulterous generation craves for a sign, and yet no sign will be given to them but the sign of the prophet Jonah. Just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the sea monster, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth." He said, "Here is how you are going to know — I am going to rise from the dead." The claim He made to deity would be validated by the resurrection.
How Essential Is the Resurrection to Christianity?
Now the third question, which is similar but with a subtle distinction: How important is Jesus' resurrection to Christianity? Keep your marker in 1 Corinthians 15, and turn back to page 138. The answer is that it is essential. Paul says it this way in 1 Corinthians 15:13: "If there is no resurrection of the dead, not even Christ has been raised. Then if Christ is not raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain." He says in verse 19, "We are of all men the most to be pitied." The word "vain" there means worthless or useless.
If Christ didn't rise from the dead, then we ought to put a for-sale-by-owner sign on the front of the church, because this whole thing is a joke. If Christ didn't rise from the dead, our faith is worthless. There are a whole lot of people who think you are nuts. They think you are nuts because you come to church. There are a lot of other things to do on Sunday morning. I had a Sunday off not long ago, decided I would come at night and stayed home in the morning, and I found all these wonderful NFL Today shows. I discovered there are early morning kickoffs and afternoon kickoffs. I discovered they run wonderful things on book TV.
To follow Christ demands the investment of your time, energy, effort, and money, and people look at you and they think you are stupid. They think it is stupid that you are here. They think you are nuts for having served at 8:30, that you have essentially given your whole morning to the kingdom of God — not East Valley Bible Church, the kingdom of God. They think you are crazy for getting together with another group of people during the week, sharing your faith and sharing your burdens, and actually risking relationship — making yourself vulnerable, not only about who you are, but so that when they are hurting, they will call you at two o'clock in the morning. They think you are crazy that you would risk relationships to talk to somebody about what it means to follow Christ.
The Resurrection: Christianity's Vulnerable Point
In this economic crisis, people think you are crazy for investing hard-earned money in a local church and in the kingdom. They are right — if Jesus did not rise from the dead, this whole thing is silly. That is why perhaps you are here today, or you are listening to this on the internet or on tape, thinking the whole thing is a joke. I am going to tell you exactly where we are vulnerable: it is right here at the resurrection.
There was a show a couple of years ago — breaking news — claiming they had found a tomb containing the very bones of Jesus. Here is what I know: that is a false story. They may be dog bones or some other human bones, but they are not the bones of Jesus, because the tomb is empty. He rose from the dead. But if you want to attack Christianity, this is where you attack.
Consider how foolish it would be to do otherwise. Imagine an Iowa quarterback coming to the line of scrimmage and announcing to the defense exactly what play he is about to run — who is carrying the ball, where he is going, and what the blocking assignment is. You would never do that in a million years. Coca-Cola is not going to give you the secret formula. Nobody gives away their secret. Yet here is ours: you can bring Christianity down if you can disprove the resurrection. We are comfortable telling you this, because the more you investigate, the more God will use those facts to touch your heart.
Historical Evidence for the Resurrection
When you look at this historically, we have no problem with the scrutiny. Let me read you one quote from a gentleman who heads the Modern History department at Oxford. He wrote: "I have been used for many years to study the history of other times, to examine and weigh the evidence of those who have written about them, and I know of no one fact in the history of mankind which is proved by better and fuller evidence of every sort to the understanding of a fair inquirer, than the great sign which God has given us that Christ died and rose again from the dead."
How important is the resurrection to Christianity? It is essential. Everything rests on it.
How Important Is the Resurrection to You?
Now consider a subtle but important twist on that question. How important is Jesus's death and resurrection not to Christianity in the macro sense, but to you personally? The answer is, again, it is essential. We find this in 1 Corinthians 15, right where we have been, but at the beginning of the chapter.
Paul writes: "Now I make known to you, brethren, the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received, in which you also stand, by which also you are saved, if you hold fast to the word which I preached to you, unless you believed in vain." There is a word here that is really important: the word *saved*. It means delivered or rescued, which should immediately prompt the question — delivered from what? Rescued from what? Saved from what?
Paul answers this in a nutshell beginning at verse 3: "For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures." Scripture told us this would happen, told us it was going to happen, and told us it has happened. Verse 4 continues: "and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures," and then He appeared to Peter, then to the twelve, then to five hundred. There are eyewitnesses all over the place.
Our faith rests on this truth — on God and who He is. We have the bad news from week one: that we are lost in our sins and trespasses. But the good news is that Jesus Christ died and rose again for our sin. He accomplished for us what we could not do for ourselves.
The Gospel Is About Redemption, Not Just Peace
I have not gone in a while, but I used to attend a number of outreach breakfasts and lunches where a famous or infamous person would speak about Christ and plead with the audience to accept Jesus or give their heart to Christ or make a decision for Christ. In the last ten of these I attended, nine of the speakers never once mentioned sin.
They would talk about how their lives had been tiger-esque — full of all sorts of things — and how they had been miserable, or they would describe themselves as despicable people who had stolen and robbed and killed, and now they had been delivered from that. Or they were someone who had all of this success, fame, or infamy, and yet had found peace. But this is not primarily about finding peace. This is about finding redemption. Certainly peace is part of it, but my problem is not that I have turmoil. My problem is that I am at war with God. He did for you what you could not do for yourself.
What It Takes to Embrace the Message of Christ
Let us drill deep into this. Turn to Ephesians chapter 2, page 151. As a reminder, on January 10th we begin our next book study, going chapter by chapter and verse by verse through the book of Ephesians, so we will spend a great deal of time on this passage. Paul introduces in chapter 1 the sovereignty of God — the idea of God predestining and choosing. In chapter 2 he tells us about ourselves: that we are children of wrath, sons of disobedience.
Saved by Grace Through Faith
He says you have been saved by grace through faith. It is not of yourself; it is a gift of God. Verse 9: not as a result of works, so no one will boast. Now, I have to be very careful here, because I can somehow think it is the faith that saves me. The faith does not save me. The faith is evidence of God's grace that has redeemed me. I am saved by grace through faith, and that faith is not of myself. It is a gift.
So at this Christmas time, however many days until Christmas, you are thinking about what gifts you are going to give. Let me tell you about a gift you have already received. It is the gift of God. It is eternal life in Christ Jesus. It is not something that you do; it is something that Christ did.
He could not be more clear: it is not as a result of works. If it were, you could boast. If you said, "I believed, I generated the faith," then you could boast. If you said there was something you could do, you did it, or will do it, then you would boast. But he says, no, it is not that at all. I embrace this message. I believe this message. And that, in and of itself, is a gift of God.
What Happens When We Place Our Trust in Jesus?
We are going to stay right on this very idea. It is the sixth question: what happens to us when we place our trust in Jesus? Page 73, the Gospel of John, chapter 3, verse 36. When we use the word trust, it also could be believe, or faith. "He who believes in the Son has eternal life." Chapter 5, verse 24, Jesus is speaking: "Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears my words and believes Him who sent me has eternal life." Romans chapter 5, verse 1: "Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ."
What happens when we place our trust, our faith, our belief in Jesus is that we have eternal life. In all three of those references — John 3:36, John 5:24, and Romans 5:1 — and many, many others, the idea of eternal life is in the present tense. John says if you believe, you have eternal life; it is already yours. What happens when you place your trust in Christ is that you have eternal life. Eternal life begins now.
Peace of Mind and Peace with God
You have a peace of mind. I watched a terrible day yesterday — the first Saturday without college football. It is very hard, very discouraging. So on Saturday morning I watch those financial shows on Fox in a row — Forbes on Fox, Cash In, Cashin' In, I do not like that one, and Cavuto, I like that one. Well, obviously the advertisers know that the people watching those shows have some concern about their money. So they are running ads, and the general theme of these ads is: we have been around for a long time, you can invest in us, and you will have peace of mind. These are the same guys that lost everything and you bailed out. But they will have peace of mind anyway, because they get two percent of whatever they manage. Peace of mind. We want peace of mind.
That peace, that rest we are looking for, is only found in Christ. There is a book — I guarantee almost no one in this room has read it — called *A Man from Ida Grove*. It is the biography of Harold Hughes. Is there anybody in this room who has read that book? Other than Nuke — I knew you had read it. Why would anyone else read it? There would be no reason to. But I will give you the story.
The Story of Harold Hughes
I am going to talk about one particular episode in this man's life. He is a drunk; he has all sorts of problems. He has this moment, and I will come back to it. Eight years after this moment, he is governor of the state of Iowa. A few years after that, he is a senator from the state of Iowa. A few years after that, he is a fairly legitimate presidential candidate.
The moment is this. He has decided his life is not worth anything. He is sitting in a bathtub. He has decided he is going to end his life, and he chose the bathtub because it would be neater — he would not leave a mess. He puts the shotgun in his mouth. He is ready to pull the trigger when, all of a sudden, God moves in his life in an incredible way. It was not that he had been thinking about spiritual things. It was not that someone had presented the gospel to him. God simply moved in his life in an incredible way, and he understood his sin, but he understood for the first time God's provision. He came to Christ in repentance and faith. He believed.
He records that he then took the gun out of his mouth, went to bed, and had the best night's sleep of his entire life. What he wanted — what you want, what we all want — is the peace of God, this peace of mind. But this peace of God does not come until I have peace with God. Without that, I am at war with Him.
God and Sinner Reconciled
That is why, at this time of year, on Christmas Eve, we will sing a song that has in it the words "God and sinner reconciled." We are at war. We are separated. But God moves and brings us into union with Himself. He does that work, and the result is that I have peace of mind.
Now, this is really important: it does not mean that the turmoil in my life necessarily goes away. It is not the absence of turmoil. It is the presence of God right there in the middle of it with me. So maybe you are here today saying, "My life is a mess." I got an email this morning —
The Real Problem Beneath the Symptoms
An email said our lives are in shambles. There is really only one solution to that: to find out whether you know Christ as your Lord and Savior. We can fix the shambles part of it. Maybe you came in today and said, "I just have a problem with booze. I just drink, drink, drink, drink, drink." No — that is just a symptom of your problem. Your problem is a deeper problem, and it merely manifests itself that way.
It could manifest itself in selfish pride, rebellion, and arrogance. It could manifest itself in gossip, stealing, or promiscuity. All of those are just symptoms. The problem you have is sin, and your heart is alienated from God. Until that is made right, treating these other things means we have never dealt with the core problem.
That peace with God is not the absence of turmoil. It is His presence in the middle of it. It is His climbing right in there with you.
Question Seven: What Else Must You Do to Receive Salvation?
The answer is nothing. It is Titus chapter 3, verse 5: "He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which were done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing and regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior."
What else do you need to do? Nothing. You cannot do it. That is the whole point. That is the point of Ephesians 2:8–9. That is the point of Titus 3:5–6. He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done, but according to His washing. It is about Him.
This is the distinction between biblical Christianity and all other religion. Biblical Christianity says God does it. All other religions say, "I will do something." It may be framed as a joint venture — He does His part, but you still have to do yours. Biblical Christianity says no: He did it.
God Saves Sinners
Those of you who have been with us for a long time know that at this point we diagram a very simple three-word sentence: God saves sinners. God is the noun, the actor, the subject. Saves is the verb, the predicate, the action. Sinners, in this sentence, is the direct object. The direct object is the recipient of the action of the actor.
Consider this example: Tom hits the ball with great velocity. Tom hits the ball — what does the ball do? It is simply the recipient of this incredible power surge through the hitting area. The ball does not do anything. The ball is just there.
God saves. Now put your name in there: God saves you. What did you do? Nothing. You are the direct object. You are the recipient of His action. The actor acts and you receive. We need to nail this. This is the core of salvation.
"God helps those who help themselves" is exactly wrong. If you want to help yourself, God says, "Go ahead. Help yourself." It is just the opposite: "Blessed are the poor in spirit" — those who are spiritually bankrupt. Those of us in this room who have said, "We have come to the end of our rope spiritually." And maybe it does not mean coming out of an economic crisis or a relational crisis. We have simply finally understood — and it is all because God has opened your eyes — that no matter what you do, you can never make this right.
You want to make it right. You may be a good free-market capitalist American who wants to fix the problem. But there is nothing you can do. You have dug yourself a hole and you cannot get out of it. As we will see when we study the book of Ephesians, you are dead in your sins and trespasses. But God moves. What else do you need to do? Nothing.
How We Express Our Desire to Receive Salvation
How do we express our desire to God that we want to receive this salvation? We tell Him. Romans chapter 10, verse 9: "If we confess with our mouth Jesus is Lord and believe in our heart that God raised Him from the dead, we will be saved."
There is that word saved again — delivered, rescued. We are saved by God. We do not always get this part: by God, from God. I am delivered from Him because His righteousness demands punishment for our sin. I am saved by God, from God, for God.
That is a microcosm of Isaiah 6. I begin to see God as He really is. I see myself as I am. I realize there is nothing I can do about it. But then He moves and He forgives me. Now He is ready to do business. He says, "We have work to do. Who am I going to send?" And now you say, "Here I am. Send me." I am saved by God, from God, for God. I simply confess it.
Knowing That You Are Saved
I can tell you the day — in almost the hour. It was March 6, 1980, roughly 8:15 to 8:30 in the morning, that God saved me. I was sitting out at McCormick Ranch, waiting for a potential client to show up. Others of you would say, "I do not know the day or the hour." Billy Graham would say, "I can tell you exactly where — I can take you there." Ruth Graham would say, "I do not know. I just know that I am there."
That is the issue. Are you a follower of Christ? I do not care whether you know the day or the hour. It does not matter. But have you come in repentance and faith? Do you understand this? Are you trusting Christ for your salvation, or yourself for your salvation?
You understand, I assume, that hell is going to be filled with people who taught Sunday school, went to church, taught from pulpits — filled with people who checked boxes at breakfast and walked aisles at crusades. This is not about something you did. This is about something God did in you. The evidence of that is the faith in your life, the action in your life. But you do not generate that action. God generates that action.
What Guarantee Do We Receive When We Open Our Lives to Jesus?
What guarantee have we received when we open our lives to Jesus? It's found in 1 John, chapter 5, verse 11: "And the testimony is this, that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. He who has the Son has life. He who does not have the Son does not have life. These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you may know that you have eternal life." It's a certainty. It's a promise that He has made.
A while back, I reached into my pocket on a Wednesday and found a calling card. I usually accumulate them through the week and throw them out at the end of the week. When I looked at it, I realized I had received it the previous Friday, and I had told the man I would call him on Monday — two days before I found it. I had full intention to call him, staked some level of my reputation on it, and there was nothing malicious about it. I simply forgot.
The promise I made to him, like any promise, is only as good as the one who makes it. We make promises all the time. "I promise to love, cherish, in sickness and in health, till death do us part." And then roughly fifty percent of those people say, well, they were kidding. Why are those promises so fragile?
The Problem with Limited Guarantees
I love infomercials. And there is one product right now that has me very intrigued — the ab flexor that you put on, and it flexes, and apparently you will be ripped in a matter of weeks. I'm suspicious of it, but there is medical data that supports it. So if one of you would buy it, use it, and report back, I would like to know if it's real.
Infomercials create their own vocabulary, and my favorite is what they call a "limited lifetime warranty." Well, "limited" and "lifetime" don't seem to be compatible. It took me a while to figure out what that means, but I did: whatever is broken isn't covered by the warranty. Either that, or you get a lifetime warranty from a company that no longer exists. The warranty has no value.
Here is what God says. God says you can know you have eternal life. Why? Because He is the one who says it. He is the one who promises it — not Tom, not East Valley Bible Church. He says, if you believe in Me, you have eternal life.
Is There Anything That Could Cause God to Change His Mind?
That leads to the next question. Is there anything that could cause God to change His mind? Maybe there is something where all of a sudden He would say, "Oh, I didn't know that. I wasn't aware she did this. I didn't know he thought that way." Romans chapter 8, page 124, addresses this directly.
I have people in my life who love me. Susan loves me — she says she does, and I believe her. My girls love me. The sons-in-law say they do, though they haven't really been tested. The grandkids don't know any difference. But I have this fear that if they really knew me — if they knew everything I have ever said, everything I have ever done, everything I have ever wanted to do, thought about doing but didn't — they wouldn't love me anymore.
If the people closest to me could see into the future and know everything I was ever going to say, do, or think, I fear they would not love me. That is what is so amazing about God. He knows everything you have ever said, done, and thought. He knows everything you are doing right now. He knows everything you will ever say, do, or think — and He loves you anyway.
Some of you need to hear this, because we all need to be loved. Some of you are sitting here right now desperately craving love, and you are trying to find that love — imperfect as it will be — in a person, a place, or a thing. I love Susan, but it is an imperfect love. I let her down all the time, I am sure of it.
The Security of Salvation
God loves you, and He is never going to say, "I would have never saved you if I had known that about you," because He knows everything there is to know. He would never say, "I would have never given you this grace if I thought you were going to think that." Romans 8:38 says, "I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing." By the way, that is everything outside of God Himself — and everything outside of God Himself is created.
This salvation is permanent. You cannot lose this relationship. You did not earn it, and you cannot undo it.
It is not a license to sin. Some people seem so afraid that if we really understand grace, we are going to just sin and sin and sin. But if we really understand grace, we will be so compelled by His love. That is what Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5:14: "Let the love of Christ control us." That is what drives us. He saved us.
Is Jesus the Only Way?
Now let's narrow this down. The question is: are there any other avenues to God except faith in Christ? Let's close all those other doors. Turn to page 85 — John chapter 14. This is red-letter text, the night before Jesus died.
John 14:1: "Do not let your heart be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in Me. In My Father's house are many dwelling places. If it were not so, I would have told you. I go and prepare a place for you. If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself, that where I am, you may be also."
Thomas said they did not know the way. And Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life." Note the definite article — it eliminates all others. And then He says it plainly: "No one can come to the Father except through Me."
Peter echoes this in Acts 4:12: "There is salvation in no one else. There is no other name under heaven that has been given among men by which we may be saved."
I know how this sounds, especially if you are here and you are suspicious or you are new. It sounds arrogant. It sounds narrow. It sounds exclusive. And I do not want to back away from it — because it is. I did not make it that way. He did.
The Wheel Analogy
I got a call one day from a man whose girlfriend had been listening to the teaching and was curious enough to want to meet. So she came in. She was very attractive and very complimentary, and we started making conversation. I asked her what she did, and she told me she was an internist with an office in downtown Phoenix. I mentioned that my own internist was in downtown Phoenix on that very street. She asked his name, and when I told her, she said he had retired and she had bought his practice. She was my new doctor. I told her I did not think that was going to happen.
So we talked, and I asked why she had come. She said she enjoyed the teaching but took real issue with what I said about Jesus being the only way to God. I asked what she believed, and she said — and you have heard this before — that it is like a wheel: God is the hub, there are many spokes, and those spokes are different religions that all lead to God.
I said, "Look, let's be clear. You are far smarter than me — I had to scrape my way through school and you went to med school. But what you just said is really not logical. It does not make any sense." She said, "It makes me feel better." I said, "You are a doctor. If I come to you with serious pain and symptoms, you can give me morphine and I will feel better — but you have not cured my disease. The fact that something makes you feel better, or that you are sincere about it, is irrelevant. It is either true or it is not. If it is true, you had better embrace it. If it is not, let's dismiss it."
What God Says — Not George Burns
Jesus says He is the only way. So is that wheel analogy accurate — that God is the hub and all the different religions are spokes leading to Him? I remember there was an old George Burns movie on television not long ago. I first saw it around 1975. At the end of it, George Burns plays God, and right there that should tell you something is out of whack. He is talking to John Denver, and the question is whether Jesus is his son. His answer is: yes, Jesus is my son — but Buddha is my son, and Muhammad is my son, and I have many sons.
I remember sitting in the movie theater thinking that sounded exactly right. It made a lot of sense to me. It seemed fair by my standard, and it certainly let me off the hook. But the question is not what George Burns says. The question is: what does God Himself say?
The Only Way to God
Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. And no one comes to the Father but through me." There is no other way. All of these other religions do not lead to God. They lead to a knockoff, a counterfeit, a fake, a phony. Whatever they offer, they do not lead to the one true God. Only biblical Christianity does that. The others may make you feel good, and you may be very sincere, but sincerity placed in an object that cannot fulfill the very task for which you have entrusted it simply does not matter.
Have You Called Upon Him?
There is one more question: Have you placed your trust, your faith, your belief in Jesus Christ for your salvation? Romans 10:13 says, "Whoever calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved." Have you called upon Him?
Let me anticipate some responses. You could be sitting there saying, "You don't know me. You don't know my sin. You don't know how bad I am." You are right — I don't know you, and I don't know the depth of your sin. But the depth of your sin is irrelevant. What matters is that you are a sinner and that you acknowledge it.
I run into it all the time — someone who says, "I want to do that, but I need to get clean and sober first," or "I've been promiscuous and I need to knock that off first, and then come to Christ." That thinking is bred from the idea that salvation is somehow built upon you. It is not about cleaning yourself up and then coming to Christ, as though He just handles the little things along the way. You come, as the song says, just as you are.
Something Is Missing
I don't know what drove you here today. Perhaps some sort of need, something missing. And if you didn't come here out of need, hopefully the Holy Spirit has applied this message to your heart, and right now you are realizing, "I really am needy." Almost everybody sees this at some point in their life. We encounter something that is so vastly beyond us.
Or consider the opposite. You have achieved at every level. As I said last week, you don't have a trophy — you have a trophy room. You have proclamations about what a great salesperson you are, how clever you are, scholarships, achievements of every kind. You have succeeded and succeeded and succeeded, and yet you still understand that something is wrong. Here is what is wrong: it is not that you need to succeed more or succeed less. It is not that you need to do anything other than believe, and even that belief is a gift of God.
Three Responses
At this point, there are probably two or three responses happening in this room. One is that you settled this issue long ago, and I hope what a day like today does is simply deepen your understanding of your sin and God's grace. Another response is, "That is a bunch of hooey — I don't buy one word of it." I understand that; I've heard it before. I will pray for you. I know this is right, not because I said it, but because God did.
But here is the group we really want to focus on. It may be your first day here, or you may have been here twenty years. It may be that you thought when you were a little child that you came to Christ in repentance and faith, but all of a sudden you realize you are not there. It may be that you have questions, or that God is touching your heart in some way beyond anything we can imagine at this moment. We would beg you to come and talk to the men who will be at the front of the chapel and in the conference center. Their sole purpose in these next ten, fifteen, twenty, or thirty minutes is to serve you — to answer any questions you have. Whether you are in the conference center or here in the chapel, please come and talk to them.
Closing Prayer
Father, we pray that You would move in a powerful way in the lives of the men and women, students, and children who are here today. God, I pray that You open hearts and minds. For some of us, remind us of how much You have done in our lives and how You have delivered us. For others, God, there have been hard hearts for so long, and people have been praying and sharing for so long — maybe this will be the day of salvation. For some who came in not suspecting anything was even wrong, You have opened their eyes or made them uncomfortable. God, I pray You give them the courage to seek truth, to come and talk to the men here at the front of the room. And God, for all of us, we pray that we can indeed experience the reality of You — a God and us sinners reconciled. God, will You do that work in our lives? We ask it in Christ's name. Amen.