Trinity Evangel Church » Category: Sermon

Or, Our Representatives and Their Reigns Romans 5:12-17 May 15, 2022 Lord’s Day Worship Sean Higgins Introduction Some things benefit by being balanced. Some are ruined by it. A balanced diet does the body good, but we don’t try to balance time spent breathing with time spent holding our breath. Relationships have a kind of balance, and the connection between self and tribe is a constant pull. For example, is worship as an assembly or your worship as an individual more important? Does the whole body matter or each part? What do you prioritize? What’s the balance? What happens when it’s out of balance? Is there any more relentless mass media message today than promoting one’s self? As if we were really having problems with that. We may get caught up in the group excitement of being the 11th man for few hours, but we drive out of the parking lot thinking about numero uno. Such an atomized culture makes a passage such as Romans 5:12-21 foreign, if not disagreeable. As a church we have tried to correct course, considering our families as units rather than as platforms for personal fulfillment. We’ve worked to stress the goodness of being a church, an assembly of worshipers rather than only a gathering of whatever Christians showed up. Yet even among us, we’re still faster to distance ourselves from the ones we’re connected to, especially when they do something (we think is) stupid. Of course there is no gospel if there is no shared relationship to a representative. Each man must believe, no dad can believe on behalf of his son, but what we believe is in the work of another that counts for us. Justification occurs when God credits the work of Christ to those connected to Christ. We are reconciled to God through our representative. This is the only way of salvation and it turns out, a representative problem is why we needed salvation. It’s interesting that Paul didn’t start with this part of our fallen condition. He’s written (what for us are) chapters on the sinfulness and self-righteousness of men. All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, all without exception, each and every one. There is none righteous, no not one. A culture can be given over, but we think about that in terms of a majority of individuals given over. And that is partially true, but not entirely true. In Romans 5:12-21 Paul nails the comfort door shut, and us inside the comfort as we are in Christ. Our peace with God, our rejoicing in God, our hope in His glory, our hope through trials, our certainty of God’s love depend on the work of one applied to the work of many. It wasn’t a group project, it was the work of one for the group. Christ’s righteousness counts for His group. This is good news, but it also not new. One man’s sin is imputed to all who are born. We sin and we deserve death because we were already guilty in Adam. If we want the peace of having been justified by faith, we should recognize the pattern. For as much sin, death, and condemnation as there was, there is much more grace. Death reigned, but we reign in life by grace. following our Head (Ephesians 5:23). Imputed Death (verses 12-14) Verse 12 begins an argument that Paul doesn’t exactly finish, though he does explain it. He answers the comparison eventually, but adds a parenthesis to clarify his conclusion (the KJV actually puts a parenthesis around verses 13-17). Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned— (Romans 5:12, ESV) He does not give evidence for his assertion, his assertion is the evidence. Sin entered the world in one act in Genesis 3. This was not the first sin, it was the first sin among men. The one man is Adam, named in verse 14. Sin brought—and birthed, so to speak—death. The order is significant, particularly in our Darwinian climate. The theory of evolution depends on death, on generations dying and the modifications and adaptations that “happened” to delay death a little longer. There are professing Christians who want to find room for by-the-hand-of-God evolution in Genesis, but millions of years of death before Adam reverses the order in Romans 5. There was one man, Adam, who sinned, and brought death. Verses 13-14 are sort of a parenthesis that help explain the spread of death. for sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law. Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come. (Romans 5:13–14, ESV) There are two basic approaches. One: inherited (or “imbued” per John Calvin) sinfulness; Adam sinned and humans became sinful, and everyone who sins deserves death. We are all born in a corrupted state, also called original sin. Two: imputed sinfulness; Adam sinned, and Adam represented all humans, so all humans deserve death like Adam. When Adam sinned we all sinned. Both approaches are true, but Romans 5 is not about both. To encourage us, Paul writes that Jesus’ representative obedience brings grace that is much more than Adam’s representative disobedience that brings condemnation. The governing thought is at the end of verse 14: Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come. We are learning what we have in Christ by seeing what we lost in Adam (John Calvin). What’s more, in the phrase death spread to all men because all sinned, the “all sinned” suggests one act (an aorist tense referring to the simple finished fact), and the focus on one sin continues. The observation is obvious: many died through one man’s trespass (Romans 5:15) the judgment following one trespass brought condemnation (Romans 5:16) because of one man’s trespass, death reigned through that one man (Romans 5:17) one trespass led to condemnation for all men (Romans 5:18) by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners (Romans 5:19) We do have Adam’s nature and we do follow Adam’s example, but this paragraph teaches that Adam’s guilt is our guilt, not that he has his and we have ours. The truth about sin and law and death isn’t about how there really was an unwritten law before Moses, though we do know God’s law is written on the hearts of men (Romans 2:15). It isn’t about how each man sinned for himself and earned the wages of death for himself, though again every sinner sins and no judgment is undeserved. The truth here is that Adam represented mankind, and death reigned among all those he represented. We sin, true, but we already sinned in Adam. “But I wouldn’t have sinned. That’s unfair.” But God didn’t offer you that role, and you are currently sinning, and the grace of salvation isn’t “fair” either. Imputed Grace (verses 15-17) “Much more” times two, verses 15 and 17. Adam is a type of Christ, so there is at lease some similarity. But that similarity is limited to representation; they represent different groups and accomplished different things. But the free gift is not like the trespass. For if many died through one man’s trespass, much more have the grace of God and the free gift by the grace of that one man Jesus Christ abounded for many. And the free gift is not like the result of that one man’s sin. For the judgment following one trespass brought condemnation, but the free gift following many trespasses brought justification. (Romans 5:15–16, ESV) The many who died because of one man’s trespass simply establishes the solidarity. Any who died are part of that many, and there aren’t any who don’t die (save Enoch and Elijah). That is inclusive of every man and exhaustive in application. Death is formidable. Much more though, God’s grace and the free gift of grace and one man Jesus Christ has abounded for many. Grace is more effective in application, and not sparse. Grace overflowed (NIV). Grace did more than reduce the effects of Adam’s sin, grace overpowers, overwhelms, overcomes. As sure as death, much more sure is life. The differences continue. One trespass brought condemnation for all, but all the many trespasses that follow were covered by one free gift of justification. Adam sinned and all were condemned. We were condemned before we sinned, we were condemned to sin. And all our sins were overcome by grace; “where sin increased, grace abounded all the more” (verse 20). For if, because of one man’s trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ. (Romans 5:17, ESV) Death has dominion. Death is personified as an actor, and death was the tyrant. Graveyards are his palaces. Death gets what it wants when it wants it. If you thought you could outrun the Persian army, good luck. Even less can anyone outrun death. But much more will believers reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ. Life isn’t personified, persons are brought to life. In Jesus who is the resurrection and the life (John 11:25), those who are represented by Him live in the kingdom of life and have a dominion much more powerful. Slaves of death become kings of life (Morris). Conclusion Our representatives and their reigns: Adam of mankind by birth as slaves to death, Christ of the redeemed by belief to reign in life. The objective nature of our togetherness is established by God, and the subjective application of it out to follow as we love and comfort those who share the same representative, Jesus Christ. We are parts, but never only separate parts. “In order to partake of the miserable inheritance of sin, it is enough for thee to be a man…but in order to enjoy the righteousness of Christ it is necessary for thee to be a believer.” (John Calvin) Charge Christ represents you before the Father. You represent Christ to your family, to your neighbors. Live like you’re not dead. Live as those alive to God (Romans 6:11). Live for the will of God (1 Peter 4:2). Because of the one man Jesus Christ and His grace we reign in life. Benediction: Finally, brothers, rejoice. Aim for restoration, comfort one another, agree with one another, live in peace; and the God of love and peace will be with you. The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. (2 Corinthians 13:11, 14, ESV)

Or, How a Christian Should Prepare for His Return 1 Peter 4:1-11 May 15, 2022 Evening Service Ryan Hall

Or, The Radical Salvation of Rebels Romans 5:6-11 May 8, 2022 Lord’s Day Worship Sean Higgins Introduction Is there a more important thing in the universe than love? Of course there are many other important, even vital commodities, things such as water and time, existence and awareness. But what is more powerful, more desirable, and so also in this fallen world more perverted, more defined and redefined to death, than love? The Ten Commandments can be categorized as love for God (first four) and love for neighbor (last six). The Greatest Commandment is to love God, the second is to love our neighbors. The first part of the fruit produced by the Spirit in believers is love. The Spirit and love were related together in the last part of Romans 5:5. In that case it isn’t Spirit-produced love but it is love poured out by the Spirit. It isn’t man’s love for God, or neighbor, but God’s love for man. The reason we love at all is because we are made in the image of the God of love. God is love (1 John 4:8, 16). We love because He first loved us (1 John 4:19). What other than love moved God to create the cosmos and in particular to create other persons? His love is glorious like a fountain: it overflows. There is no need in His love; His love is always source, always abounding, always sloshing over. His love is more powerful than the gravity that holds the stars in place and keeps the planets in their orbits. His love, between the three eternal Persons, and then out is like the sun of our solar system. And perhaps because it is so deep, divine, determinative, it dares shallow men for simplistic treatment. Unbelievers call attraction love, or good feelings love, or appreciation of certain qualities love. Many Christians in response have said that love is not a feeling at all, but it is an action. They’ve tried to pin it all on agape, as if the Spirit invented the word rather than inspired the use of it. But both of these have problems. The worldly view makes it seem that love is mostly a response; and sure, response can be a part of it. The pietist view makes it seem that love is a duty; again sure, love is a command to men. Yet in Romans 5 love is a force, and an energy that creates shameless hope, an effectual gift that is and leads to glory. The gospel in Romans 5:6-11 is three hundred proof. The gospel of God’s love in potent overflow will put hope on your chest. The gospel is the power of God to salvation because love is stronger than death. You don’t have to read this paragraph as a Calvinist, but that’s just making extra work for yourself. Man is simply in no condition to be offered God’s love, nor does man want God’s love, nor is he capable of asking for it apart from God’s initiative, unconditional love. You could read this paragraph looking for a self-esteem boost, trying to find inherent worth in men that caused God to send His Son to the cross. But you would have to read the Ego Massaged Paraphrase to find that (which doesn’t exist). Here is love vast as the ocean. The glory isn’t that a fish can be made wet, the glory of the ocean is that it makes wet everything it touches. Three things: our condition (verses 6-8), our chances (verses 9-10), and our attitude (verse 11). Our Condition When Christ Died (verses 6-8) The key in these three verses is found in the repetition of “Christ died.” It is that He died to show God’s love and not because we were lovely. Verse 6 shows our condition at the time of Christ’s death. For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. (Romans 5:6, ESV) We were weak and ungodly. More words pile on as the paragraph progresses, but “weak” (ἀσθενῶν) at least means that we lacked the strength to do anything for ourselves; we wouldn’t be the ones chosen by a team captain. “Ungodly” (ἀσεβῶν) means we are in the opposite state of what God made us for. The weak and ungodly share a lack of glory, a falling short of God’s glory, and it was at that time Christ died. To say at the right time could be a reference to the “fullness of time” (Galatians 4:4) on the historical timeline (1 Timothy 2:6; Titus 1:3). But the context here shines light on the right time when we needed it. He died when no one else would have. Verse 7 follows up on the surprise. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— (Romans 5:7, ESV) The indefinite subjects make a general case. People just don’t die for jerks on purpose, because it is unusual for people to die for others they like. The righteous and the good are the sorts of people you’d respect. They would be the sort of person that you’d want to keep around being a positive influence. Even for that kind of man though, such a sacrifice rare. It’s an adverb party, scarcely, perhaps with dare, meaning that it’s really improbable. These should be added onto our condition as what we’re not. This is the setup. We’re not even like this. So we are weak, ungodly, unrighteous, and evil; as Orwell might have written, double-plus-ungood. Which is what makes the centerpiece of the paragraph so striking. but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. (Romans 5:8, ESV) On display is not just God’s grace, righteousness, and power. God shows His own love to us. Love comes, to be clear, while we were sinners, a summary term, the cherry on top of the depravity dung pile of our ingratitude and self-righteousness. Love is made known in the sending and sacrifice of the Son for sinners. God is love. In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. (1 John 4:8–10, ESV) On to grow on: God is not glorious because forgiven rebels love Him, but because He loves rebels into forgiveness and glory. God’s love bestows loveliness. God loves the unlovely into salvation and abundant life and hope and eternal blessing. This is radical love, radical in both senses of rooted and thoroughly effective. Love turns rebels into rejoicers. Our Chances Because Christ Lives (verses 9-10) As “Christ died” came twice in verses 6-8, so here in verses 9-10 see the double use of “much more…saved” (πολλῷ μᾶλλον, a phrase used four times in this chapter alone). It builds on love. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. (Romans 5:9, ESV) Peace with God is a present reality based on “having been justified by faith” (verse 1), and the same thing here. Justification is by His blood, a way to speak about His death, and it has ongoing and certain blessings: we will be saved, future tense, from the wrath. It is the end time judgment, and once truly saved then certainly saved. Much more is that future for real. The argument is from the greater to the lesser; it’s also called an a fortiori argument: “used to express a conclusion for which there is stronger evidence than for a previously accepted one” (New Oxford American Dictionary). 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. (Romans 5:10, ESV) Another, and last term: weak, ungodly, unrighteous, bad, sinner, enemies. We were on the wrong side of God. Yet He sent His own Son, a word used for the first since chapter 1 (Murray), reminding us of the Triune love at work. We were spiritually dead, disobedient, ungrateful, and hostile. We were rebels against His glory, and deserving of His glorious wrath. But much more love. Christ’s death reconciled us and Christ’s life, His resurrection (see 4:25) means we have life. Our Attitude As Reconciled Rebels (verse 11) “More than that” is just okay, but in full it would be “Not only but also.” More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation. (Romans 5:11, ESV) After reading verses 6-10 we should be humble, duh. And as true as that is, Paul doesn’t call for an acknowledgement of our worm status. We also rejoice! Here is the third rejoicing/exulting in the chapter. We rejoice in hope, we rejoice in trials, we rejoice in God. We were rebels, and therefore we did not rejoice in the glory of God (verse 2), we could not rejoice in our trials (verse 3), we would not rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ (verse 11). Paul apparently doesn’t mind the repetition. Rejoicing is through our Lord Jesus Christ (also verse 1), making this a bookend of the section. It also connects peace to reconciliation with God. Conclusion Some of the current so-called intellectual dark web exhortations, especially to men, include: get discipline, endurance, find meaning in suffering. But those messages, as counter-empathetic as they are, do not include love. Love is not a motivation, either as recipients or givers. It certainly isn’t divine or eternal love. Also, we have to do it all on our own, no grace, no gift of glory. Real endurance and hope comes not by our own bootstraps but by His blood. The demonstration of love from this paragraph: it is Trinitarian, it is effectual (on the unlovely for their redemption and rejoicing), it is sacrificial, it is exponential as in eternal. It is much more love than we could have asked or imagined. One of my favorite John Bunyan questions: Couldst thou (sinner) if thou hadst been allowed, thyself express what thou wouldst have expressed, the greatness of the love thou wantest, with words that could have suited thee better? (All Loves Excelling, 37) Charge There is nothing in Romans 5:6-11 about our love for God or for our brothers; there is no command or exhortation. That does not mean that there is no application. The first application is, say Amen! Then there’s follow up. He loved us (1 John 4:9-10, Romans 5:8), so, beloved, we ought to love one another (1 John 4:11). When the Spirit pours out God’s love in our hearts we are filled to overflow. Benediction: [A]ccording to the riches of his glory may he grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. (Ephesians 3:16–19, ESV)

1 Peter 3:8-17 May 1, 2022 Evening Service Jonathan Sarr

Or, Enduring the Process Romans 5:3-5 May 1, 2022 Lord’s Day Worship Sean Higgins Introduction Peter blessed God that the elect are born again to a living hope (1 Peter 1:3). Paul wrote that because believers have peace with God they exult in hope of the glory of God. Those who are spiritually dead have false hope at best, if they have any hope, and if they could understand what they were up against, they would be terrorized by what gives Christians hope. Hope is a gift of God. Christian hope is the real deal. Hope works. Hope holds up. True hope is more than getting through the commercial break of a Hallmark movie. How do we get more hope? Can we get more, or more vertebrate hope? Yes, we can. Yes, by God’s grace we will. We will graduate one day from needing hope, but it’s a required class for all His people. Almost out of nowhere Paul brings up suffering, except it’s not really out of nowhere if we pause to think about what hope is good for. Hope is the end of Romans 5:1-2, and here again in 5:3-5. The “not only but also” starting verse 3 says, in effect, Wait, there’s more. Peace with God gives us hope, and so do problems. Hope is built on nothing less than Jesus’ blood and things going badly. There’s no command to be found here. It’s teaching, and actually more reminding, since we are “knowing,” already aware of how it works. More than reminding, it’s rejoicing, of the leaping/exulting sort. This is a doctrine of trials, even a doxology of trials, glorying in the hope (and glory) that God brings about in our sufferings. There is a process that makes us more hopeful (verses 3-4) and a presence (verse 5) that makes the process effective. Enduring the Process (verses 3-4) When I taught through Ecclesiastes a number of years ago I emphasized what I understand to be Solomon’s theme: enjoying the process. It’s about finding joy in our toil under the sun, which is only possible by fearing the Lord (see Ecclesiastes 2:24-26). Here in Romans 5 it’s more than just vanity and striving after wind, it’s double-double toil and ouch. It requires endurance. “Not only but also” (οὐ μόνον δέ, ἀλλὰ καὶ) coordinates two rejoicings that may not seem obvious. We rejoice in hope and we rejoice in trials, which produce hope. Peace with God is a hope-giver, so are circumstances that are not peaceful. We exult in sufferings. Sufferings, beloved, are more than one. There are numerous sufferings in one’s lifetime, there may be numerous sufferings at the same time. The translations vary in how to express this cocktail of problems: afflictions (HCSB), tribulations (Tyndale, NASB), sufferings (ESV). At its root the idea is pressure. Depending on the direction these either squeeze in or weigh down, or both. What causes pressure? If you stick your head in a vice and crank that’s pressure, and don’t do that. Sin causes suffering so don’t pull the granite slab onto yourself. There’s also pressure just from living with gravity in a fallen world; things fall on us or we fall on things. There are also evil actors, spiritual and human, and they seek to crush God’s people (see Psalm 94:5). Peter wrote that there is no credit if we sin and face the consequences bravely. Beyond that, though Paul adds no qualifications and provides no pietistic measuring stick. Jesus taught that being slandered is persecution (Matthew 5:11), though we can acknowledge it’s not the same as being stick-and-stoned to death. Being beaten and robbed hurts more than being canceled online, so we might be slower to build monuments for social media martyrs. Yet pressures and burdens and pains, words and more, all count. The pressures might come from those who are abandoned to their lusts and are surprised you won’t join them (as in Romans 1:18-32, see more in 1 Peter 4:3-5). The pressures might come from the self-designated virtuous (Romans 2:1), condemning you for not following their rules. But there is application for genetic and family pressures, from governments and generations, from Satan (unlikely as it is for him to harass you personally) and Judases. There are debilitating and excruciating, nagging and annoying, public and private, physical and emotional and relational trials. Paul states the matter as fact. Here are tribulations, rejoice in them. No call to watch out for what’s coming; they’re here, in some ways it’s too late to prepare. Here are tribulations, rejoice don’t run. There are other passages that allow for wise removal; Paul left through a window in a wall through basket (Acts 9:25), and Jesus knew when it was no longer time to slip through the crowd. Paul gives a reason for our attitude and it is no mystery, knowing that…. followed by a three stage process. This is what is true, and we don’t need more specifics. The general pattern is enough, which is also why “pressure” is broad. We know what trials produce. First, trials effect endurance. Exercise makes it so that you can exercise a little longer and builds up the more you’re consistent. Lifting weights makes it so that you can lift heavier weights, at least, to a point. But whatever a man’s max capacity, he doesn’t start at it. Endurance is carrying a load. It’s not quitting, even when it’s tempting. In Romans 15:5 Paul calls God the “God of endurance,” and think of what it takes for God to show of that excellent attribute, and think of how He works that communicable attribute into His people. James listed a similar progression (James 1:2-4), starting with counting joy, and for him endurance/steadfastness (same Greek word, ὑπομονὴ) was what makes a man “perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.” The pressure, by God’s grace, is leveling up our perseverance. Second, endurance produces character. The KJV translates it as “experience,” we might say maturity, like that of a veteran. It belongs with the well known NT illustration of testing metals to purify and refine. It’s a testing that leaves what has been tested, the genuine. So the NASB has, “proven character.” Then the third stage, character produces hope. Been there, seen God help with that. Been there, God got us out of there. Been there, not fearful of there, because we’ve felt the pressure before. Maybe you’ve heard the term antifragile. Nassim Taleb wrote a book about it, but the idea is easy enough to illustrate. A person can be fragile, robust, or antifragile. If you were sending some whiskey glasses to a friend in Scotland, those glasses would need a stiff and a lot of padding. If you sent your friend a book about whiskey, you’d be a lot less concerned. A book is robust. But a book is not really the opposite of the glasses. The opposite of easily broken is easily bettered by the pressure. We don’t have a good word for that, which is what antifragile was made for. Trials aren’t only a threat to your endurance and hope, they are increasing your endurance and hope. Forget the Ministry of Truth, this is the Ministry of Tribulation (cf. Murray). This is why we exult in them. When we don’t, we are at least out of line, and possibly sinning, in impatience and discontent. That said, Paul did tell the Thessalonians to “Rejoice always” (1 Thessalonians 5:16). This is why empathy, as typically defined and demanded today, is not Christian. We should weep with those who weep, but not because two sad people make anything better. Singing songs to heavy hearts is foolish and wrong (Proverbs 25:20). But difficulties complained about and moaned about, rather than helped through, cripple endurance and corrupt hope. The Presence of Hope (verse 5) But someone pushes back, “If I don’t have empathy for my friend who is being oppressed, how will she know that I love her?” As valuable as your commiserating may be, it is not so comforting as the indwelling Holy Spirit who communicates God’s love directly. Hope does not put to shame or disappoint. Hope doesn’t have to put a bag over its head and slink off into the corner. We do have hope in the glory of God, and that will be a vindication. But that day will also be the end of hope. Verse 5, though, isn’t the future, its present. Our hope will not give out because of who has come in. Our hope is shameless. This is true of the judgment day, for sure, when God’s glory is revealed, but it is also true of the haters today, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. Our hope is tied to God’s love. His love is poured out, as in great quantity, and directly, without mediation, into our hearts. The presence of God in the third Person, the Holy Spirit, is the gift and guarantee, the one who communicates love and causes us to hold onto the love. He does also produce love, but verse 5 is one way, from God to us. The Spirit who is love between Father and Son is also love from Father and Son to us. Conclusion Not Stoicism, but supernatural rejoicing in heaviness. Trials are a double whammy without peace, especially if you think that God is against you and therefore sending the trials. The doctrine of trials: Trials are myriad and motley, meaning they are plural and diverse. Trials should be assumed and not avoided. We don’t need to seek them, but should be surprised without them. Trials aren’t the end but endurance is the goal. Trials prove hope, but they also are used by God to produce more hope. Left on earth for more than evangelism. Why does a good God let bad things happen to good people? Trials are trials, sufferings are sufferings. Whether pointy or heavy or both, they hurt, they’re heavy, they’re not fun. But sufferings are not sovereign, their effects on us are not unpredictable. Charge If you position a piano in your living room, is it more surprising if it gets played or is unplayed? If you’re a soldier in a war, is it more surprising if you get shot at or not? If the world is full of those who hate what is good, do good and trust the Creator of the world (1 Peter 4:19). He is increasing your hope through the things you see which don’t look hopeful. If you could see hope, it wouldn’t be hope (Romans 8:24). Benediction Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice insofar as you share Christ’s sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed. (1 Peter 4:12–13, ESV)

Or, Exulting in the Glory That Should Have Killed Us Romans 5:1-2 April 24, 2022 Lord’s Day Worship Sean Higgins Introduction Were it not for grace we would all be consumed by the thing we long for the most. Even if it misfires, some internal combustion like engine within each of us longs to see true beauty. Even if it’s diluted by false ideas or dulled by half-heartedness, we want to know and be a part of ultimate glory. All this really means that we have a heart that wants to know God, to have God be pleased with us. But were it not for grace, His glory would kill us. His glory is righteous glory, and unrighteousness is more than inadmissible it is intolerable. Those who have turned from His ways and fallen short of His standard are in grave danger. If God were to reveal the fulness of His glory right this moment, glory in the raw, glory undisguised, we would all be burned up by it as if we were enchanted into the center of the sun. Getting closer would be certain death. But to the believer, the glory of God is our hope. It is not safe, but it is the only satisfaction for our thirst. It is not a position we’ve put ourselves in, it is not a rank we’ve purchased or earned, it is a status we’re given by grace through our Lord Jesus Christ. Considered from the legal side, it cost Jesus His life so that we could be declared righteous (Romans 4:24-25). God does not hold our sins against us because Christ was delivered up for our transgressions. We believe in Christ and we are counted before God with the righteousness of Christ. This freedom is good, but you can imagine, I’m sure, a convicted felon, in prison, waiting for his capital punishment, one day a judge overturns his conviction and releases him, and he is out but also left on his own. Guards fling the gate open, and he walks out without threat of return, but also without resources. Much of the above illustration relates to the good news. We have been delivered, and any time someone wants to check our status, the record of our charges has been wiped clean before God and we are free men. But there is more. Romans 5:1-5 tells us more. Verses 1-5 are a paragraph with two parts. I didn’t have enough time to figure out how to exult in all five verses in one sermon, so this morning we’re going to look at the grace of peace in verses 1-2. We have peace, we have access, we exult. Reconciled (verse 1) The gospel is not a distraction from our disturbed consciences, but a resolution to our fear and shame of having defied God. “Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,” (verse 1, ESV) Therefore pushes us further downstream from the previous paragraph, Romans 4:18-25. A participle sums up all of chapter 4, “having been justified by faith.” The ESV translates it as since because the justification is the basis for this first implication: we have peace with God. This is another way to talk about reconciliation, except that it’s more than clearing up a miscommunication between friends. This is to know that the one who rules the universe, God Himself, is pleased with us. It is our position, whether or not we feel it, but because it is our position, it has real consequence. Peace with God (compared to the peace of God) stresses that the friction have ceased. His face is no longer against us. The face of the LORD is against those who do evil, to cut off the memory of them from the earth. (Psalm 34:16 ESV) There is a textual variant in the main verb, the difference between a long and short “o” in Greek (ἔχωμεν and ἔχομεν), so either an subjunctive or an indicative. If a subjunctive, then it is an exhortation: “let us have peace.” If it is the indicative, it is the reality: we have it. The context favors the state of it. We have peace through our Lord, Jesus Christ. It’s sort of surprising that Lord is put forward as the mediator. Savior, even Christ, or the Son might seem more appropriate to reference. But the One who sits on the throne brings us to the One who sits on the throne. “Upon Him was the chastisement that brought us peace” (Isaiah 53:5). This peace is as objective as your gender, as categorical as the ocean is wet. Peace with God is a settled fact of our justification by faith. It is stated as accomplished, and because this peace is based on His justification of us—purposed by the Father and purchased by the Son—it is imperturbable. We are pardoned and we are welcomed. Welcomed (verse 2a) The ESV starts a new sentence with verse 2 but really the sentence includes all of verses 1 and 2 (see the NASB’s better punctuation). “through whom we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand” (verse 2a, ESV) The same verb is used again, but this time in the perfect tense. We have had or have obtained through the Lord Jesus Christ access. The word also means “introduction,” “a way in” (Tyndale), and that’s fine if we don’t think about it one and done. The Lord has brought us into the inner chamber, but He’s given us a pass, so to speak, so that we are always welcome. Remember Esther before King Ahasuerus. Anyone who entered the throne room who hadn’t been called by the king were susceptible to his choice: be welcomed or be killed. “If any man or woman goes to the king inside the inner court without being called, there is but one law—to be put to death, except the one to whom the king holds out the golden scepter” (Esther 4:11). Esther, his wife, hadn’t been called for thirty days. She prayed, and asked all the Jews to fast and pray for three days, that she would find favor before the king. The king was glad to see her, but she was uncertain. Our uncertainty is unnecessary. Our fear is gone. We are welcome because Jesus has already told the Father we are coming. We are welcome in such a time as this. Our access is into this grace, which seems to be a different way of referring to our peace with God. It is His favor that welcomes us, again and again, into the favor of His presence. We are welcome, we stand in this grace. We have a standing invitation, so to speak, a persistent advantage. Perseverance in and through prayer. Peace in and through the Mediator. Anticipatory (verse 2b) Here is the third implication of our justification: “and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God.” (verse 2b, ESV) Rejoice is good, “boast” may be better. Even better, exult, from Latin exsultare, frequentative of exsilire ‘leap up’, from ex- ‘out, upward’ + salire ‘to leap’. But let all who take refuge in you rejoice; let them ever sing for joy, and spread your protection over them, that those who love your name may exult in you. (Psalm 5:11, ESV) We exult in the hope of the glory of God. Actually, we fall short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23). Seeing glory would KILL us; think of Moses in Exodus 33, who asked the LORD that he might see the LORD’s glory. The LORD told him, “man shall not see me and live” (Exodus 33:20). Moses had to be covered, and only got to see the LORD’s back (Exodus 33:21-23). But now we have unveiled faces “beholding the glory of the Lord” (2 Corinthians 3:18). God has given us “the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (2 Corinthians 4:6). This is an end of times hope, an anticipation of future glory. I say that mostly because of verses 3-5 which reveal the current process and indicate that we are not at the glory yet. We do exult now, like cheering when you know your team will win even though the clock hasn’t run out yet. Is this the hope we have of His glory being revealed, or the hope we have our our glory given to us by Him? Either way, it is good for us, and because His glory includes not only vindication against unrighteousness but salvation for His righteous ones, the glory of God is the greatest good of every believer. waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, (Titus 2:13 ESV) To them God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. (Colossians 1:27 ESV) When the sun shines, when the skies are cloudless, at that time we will commemorate the light never more to be covered. Conclusion We have acceptance with Him, we have availability to Him, we have anticipation for His glory. Full justification with the status of peace means that we can want glory without that one being self admiration, it also means we can do good for sake of that glory and even if we mess up it does not harm our status. Man who are bringing themselves to more and more nothing, compared to God who is revealing Himself to be all at all (1 Corinthians 15:28). Do you have this sort of “inconsolable secret” (Lewis), a desire for something beyond what this world by itself offers? Are you enslaved spending your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy (Isaiah 55:2)? Come to Christ. “To please God…to be a real ingredient in the divine happiness…to be loved by God, not merely pitied, but delighted in as an artist delights in his work or a son—it seems impossible, a weight or burden of glory which our thoughts can hardly sustain. But so it is.” (The Weight of Glory, Location 372) Charge You have been given access to God; Jesus is the door of the sheep (John 10:7). He welcomes You, by grace and in order to give you grace. “Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need” (Hebrews 4:16). May God’s favor be upon you and establish the work of your hands in such a time as this. Benediction Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. He who calls you is faithful; he will surely do it. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. (1 Thessalonians 5:23–24, 28, ESV)

In order of testimonies: Calvin Kulishov (2:57) Bernt Smith (6:31) Gideon Barnts (10:25) Trevor Barnts (14:52) Stephanie Herr (19:02)

Or, The Terminal Move That Changed Everything 1 Corinthians 2:8-9 April 17, 2022 Lord’s Day Worship Sean Higgins Introduction There are stories too good to be told only once. Some people enjoy going over known information, they get edification in the repetition, others enjoy seeking out new information and adding it to their collection. But there is one story in particular that is always the same and yet keeps making all things new. A key element in these stories is when things are bad. David and Goliath is a genre; there was no way David could win. Aslan at the Stone Table is brutal; when you read it for the first time it seems like hope dies. The 2004 Red Sox were down three games to none in a seven games series against the Yankees; no professional team in any sport had ever won four in a row in that situation. Chamberlain’s men were out of ammunition at the holding the Union’s left flank at Little Round Top. We eat these stories up like meat on a charcuterie board. What I pray brings comfort and strength and joy to you today is not only our remembrance that the darkness of the cross is eclipsed by the light of Christ’s resurrection, but also that the cyclical attacks of the evil one, as bad as they have been, continually lead to his own undoing. At no point is this more obvious than the cross. Let’s look at the main text for this morning and then trace the evil one’s series of brutal yet self-defeating blunders. Yet among the mature we do impart wisdom, although it is not a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are doomed to pass away. But we impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glory. None of the rulers of this age understood this, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. But, as it is written, “What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love Him.” (1 Corinthians 2:6-9) Paul has been exalting the word of the cross since 1 Corinthians 1:18. That word is folly to the kind of man who can only see what’s in front of him, the man who takes his cues from what’s everyone else around him thinks. Christ crucified made no sense as a way of salvation and certainly not as a way of glory. Christ crucified obviously made sense as the way to shut Christ down. Killing Him was clearly the move to make Him look bad. Surprising Power But it is preaching Christ crucified that is God’s wisdom. Christ crucified is God’s power. For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. (1 Corinthians 1:18 ESV) to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. (1 Corinthians 1:24 ESV) my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, (1 Corinthians 2:4 ESV) so that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God. (1 Corinthians 2:5 ESV) The power of God is demonstrated in the crucifixion, which is a kind of divine wisdom, a wisdom that rulers missed, and in missing it they sealed not only their ignorance but their doom. Verse 6 doesn’t change the subject from Christ crucified, but Paul does clarify that what sounded like a simple message–Christ crucified—is surprisingly powerful. This age is the current aeon, not just the first century, but is a way of looking at things. It’s less a whenever and more a however of a fleshly, man-centered, and God-hating way. They are playing a game, so to speak, and the field is only what’s in front of them. There can only be one winner, and the competition must be destroyed. The rulers of this age are not just the Jewish leaders or Roman officials, Pilate and Herod and soldiers. Those men are included, as are all the men ever who lie and murder to get their power. But there are also spiritual rulers, angels, who were behind the scenes and to some extent always have been involved. There are “rulers and authorities” that are clearly men, there are “rulers and authorities” that are clearly not men. But they follow the same playbook. The Typical Play You know how some women are always learning and never coming to the knowledge of the truth (2 Timothy 3:7)? The evil one is Always Losing and Never Coming to the Knowledge of the Truth. The ancient serpent hated God’s new image-bearers in the Garden of Eden, and for as much damage as he did to humanity, what he actually got was a specific, but not too specific, threat that became an obsession. “He shall bruise your head…” (Genesis 3:15). Who? When? How? Whether or not the “sons of God” (Genesis 6) were demons or demonically-possessed men, they tried to corrupt the seed of humanity in order to ruin the seed of the woman. What they got was not only a global demonstration of God’s power, but a forever covenant of God’s mercy. When news came that a child was born of a virgin, “the dragon stood before the woman who was about to give birth, so that when she bore her child he might devour it” (Revelation 12:4). Through Herod attempt was made to kill the boy, and what that got was more fulfillment of prophecy. Winning That Isn’t And of course, the cross is the ultimate defeat of rebels. The death of Christ fulfills prophecies and satisfies the Father’s wrath and purchases our forgiveness and eternal life and is the very triumph over the spiritual enemies that thought they were playing the terminal move. Check mate was a trap door. Satan himself deceived Judas into betraying Jesus. Satan and the rulers and authorities, both in the spiritual realm and in the sphere of politics, wanted Jesus dead. And they got what they wanted. They accomplished the terminal move. Their envy and anger didn’t end with mocking and beating, but with crucifixion. That should have been it, right? But they didn’t understand the game they were in. They didn’t understand the wisdom or power of God. They crucified Jesus but it was the crucifixion that purchased the death of rivalry and divisions (1 Corinthians 1:10). It purchased the death of slavery to the opinions of foolish men (1 Corinthians 1:25). It purchased the death of need for self-righteousness, let alone buying our way out of debt (1 Corinthians 1:30). It purchased the mind of Christ (1 Corinthians 2:16), and the confidence that our faith does not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God (1 Corinthians 2:5). It purchased the death of death. Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself [Jesus] likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery. (Hebrews 2:14–15 ESV) Death is the devil’s move. It is his best weapon. But the wisdom and power of God is that death is beaten through death. If Satan knew what was going to happen, would he have stopped it? For however much Jesus’ death was surprising to evil men, how much more to the evil one? Wisdom That Isn’t What the natural man can’t see is that his pragmatism doesn’t even work, which was supposed to be its advantage. It’s self-limiting (to this age) and self-destructing, as they are doomed to pass away (ESV) or “who are coming to nothing” (NIV). Not only is this currently happening in their heyday, it is something they are doing to themselves (the substantival participle τῶν καταργουμένων is in the middle voice, so reflexive. Not only are they causing something to be powerless, they are doing it to themselves.) They are patting themselves on the back with one hand and with the other sawing off the limb they’re sitting on. The wisdom of men wants immediate results. It’s not mature, it’s as demanding and far-seeing as a toddler screaming for a third helping of ice cream; the crash is inevitable. God-Given Glory The Son of Man, however, is the Lord of glory, a title which is only found in 1 Corinthians 1:8, but already echoes in the age to come. Jesus is not only the glorious Lord, or the one who gives glory, but the very revelation of it. In Him is displayed the wisdom and power of God in defeating so-called rulers by their own selfish glory-grabbing. This wisdom of the word of the cross is part of the Lord’s glory. It was also decreed before the ages for our glory (2:7). There is glory, kavod or gravity in Hebrew, weighty, substantial, and splendor with its Greek nuance. Here is magnificence. Here is meaning. Here is God’s purpose for His elect, predestined before the ages by God. He determined the boundary line, προορίζω, mark a horizon (see also Romans 8:29). (Also, the cross was predetermined, Acts 4:28). All the powers of this age are sinking, slipping, fading in power and glory, while those who believe the word of the cross are being lifted, secured, and gaining in substance and color. His enemies are like the grass that pulls a concrete block onto itself, while we are being planted like trees beside living waters. as it is written in verse 9 readies us for revelation, and it must be a quote from Isaiah 64:4 and it seems a line from Isaiah 65:17. Not from empirical testing (eye has not seen), community tradition (ear has not heard), or speculative intuition (heart has not conceived)(Garland). We “have received…the Spirit who is from God, what we might understand the things freely given us by God” (verse 12). Conclusion The rulers of this age who ignore the crucifixion and resurrection of the Lord of glory will know the power of God, but they will know it as their own foolishness undoes them. The terminal move changed everything. “Up from the grave He arose, with a mighty triumph o’er His foes”! Christ is our wisdom from God, our righteousness and sanctification and redemption and boast! Charge Do not waste a worry on the opinions or hostilities of the men of this age. Their success is as likely to cohere as a used Easter egg sticker. Do not fear the spiritual forces of evil in heavenly places, God’s own purpose is to show off His wisdom to them through the church. Serve the risen Lord with gladness. Be wise as to what is good. Overcome evil with good, in the power of the risen Savior. Benediction: The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. (Romans 16:20, ESV)

Or, Wavering Isn’t Worship Romans 4:18-25 April 10, 2022 Lord’s Day Worship Sean Higgins Introduction Regardless of what anyone tells you, doubt doesn’t make you cool. We doubt because it makes us think that we know better, because we think it’ll help us save face when the thing, whatever it was, turns out not to be true. “Hey, at least I wasn’t gullible like those twits.” Christians should be more comfortable looking crazy. We should boast more in the things we can’t see. We are believers, and if you can see it, then you don’t need faith. If you don’t need faith, then you can’t glorify or please God. He delights to make promises to His people and then making their faith like gold. So, yeah, we don’t believe everything anyone says, but we do believe everything God’s Word says. The world is full of liars, but Scripture doesn’t make a virtue of skepticism, and actually condemns the double-minded. The righteous live by faith, we are born again to a living hope, and that means we live on unseen things. This is how we are saved, this is what we are saved unto: faith and hope. Doubt siphons of strength. Doubt divides attention. Doubt hamstrings our walk in obedience. Disobedience may cause doubt, but doubt also leads to disobedience. The Word calls for and builds up faith. Abraham is the man of faith, he is the father of all those with faith. In this last part of Romans 4 Paul puts a bow on the story of Abraham’s belief and asserts that it applies to all believers. Abraham’s Faith in the One Who Promised Offspring (verses 18-22) Verses 18-21 are one sentence, with a follow up conclusion sentence in verse 22. Having already taught that it was Abraham’s faith that saved him, not his works or circumcision or connection to the law, Paul tells a little more of Abraham’s story. Considered Faith (verses 18-19) The first part Paul points out are the two reasonably incompatible facts on the ground: 1) the word of the Lord said Abraham would be a father and 2) there was no human way he could be a father. Who, that is [Abraham], against hope in hope believed that he would become the father of many nations according to the word said, “So will be your offspring,” and not wavering in faith he considered his own body already having been put to death, being about one-hundred years old, and the deadness of Sarah’s womb, (verses 18-19) The two prepositional phrases are right next to each other and they start the sentence: against hope in hope. That Abraham believed against hope means that there was no good reason to hope; the wind was against him and he had no ground to stand on. Becoming a father at this point in his life was as hopeless as telling a mountain to move. Yet he’d been told that even his name wasn’t sufficient for what was supposed to happen. Abram, meaning “exalted father,” was too little. Abraham means “father of a multitude” (Genesis 17:5). Paul quotes “So will be your offspring” which requires the context. And he brought him outside and said, “Look toward heaven, and number the stars, if you are able to number them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your offspring be.” (‭‭Genesis‬ ‭15:5‬, ‭ESV‬‬) The object of his belief wasn’t hope, hope was the way he believed. He believed bullishly, confidently. Abraham did not believe blindly. He saw the problems with his situation. He considered, he measured in his mind, that his body was basically dead, at least in reproductive terms. He was century-level impotent, past the point of help from mail-order drugs. And Sarah’s womb was barren; Paul uses a word for deadness and says she had “deadness of womb.” But his consideration was without weakening in faith. His faith wasn’t giving way. except faith flies upward on celestial wings, so as to look down on all the perceptions of the flesh as on things far below, it will stick fast in the mud of the world. (John Calvin) Convinced Faith (verses 20-21) Verses 20-21 state what didn’t happen and what did happen and what resulted from that happening. but unto the promise of God he was not wavered in faith but was strengthened in faith, giving glory to God and being fully convinced that He who promised is able also to do (it). In verse 18 “believed” is active and in verse 19 “considered” is active. Abraham acted. In verse 20 was not wavered is passive and in verse 21 was strengthened is also passive meaning that Abraham was acted upon. Stated one way, his faith was kept from wavering. The word waver has the idea of being divided, of being split apart. His faith wasn’t being reduced to a fraction. Stated another way, his faith was strengthened. So, not weak but strong, not wavering but steady, like wind rather than rain to a fire. The result of faith is that he was giving glory to God. The verb, “glorifying” isn’t a separate thing in addition to the being strengthened in faith, it is a result of the strong faith. God is glorified when we depend on Him. This belongs first with justification by faith alone, which Paul is still explaining in Romans 4. It also belongs with living by faith. The Lord is not impressed by us, He desires to impress us, so to speak, when we acknowledge that we need Him, and then when we give Him thanks after He’s given what we need. This is the message of Psalm 50: call on Him in the day of trouble. God isn’t impressed because we doubt Him better, or if we work to keep ourselves never needing His help. There was a filling up of Abraham’s thinking with the power of the Promiser: being fully convinced that the one who promised is able to do (whatever He promised). Abraham did laugh (Genesis 17:17), and even asked that Ishmael might be the one, and yet the Counted Faith (verse 22) This is the conclusion; we’re back to where it all started, since Paul quoted the same thing in verse 3 and referred to it again in verse 9. Therefore, it [faith] was counted to him unto righteousness. Abraham believed God and God’s Word to him. Justification is the word for this imputed righteousness, righteousness credited or counted by God to Abraham’s ledger. Our Faith in the One Who Raised Jesus (verses 23-25) From the beginning of the chapter Paul has been pushing Abraham’s story as the example, and here at the end of the chapter Paul leaves no doubt as to its relevance. But this was written not only for him, that “it was counted to him,” but also for us, those who will be counted, Counted, credited, counted. It’s now the fourth time that Paul has quoted this statement from Genesis 15:6. We could call it the proto-iusto, the first justification. The Scripture revealed it for every son of Abraham in Israel, which was instruction for them that they missed. And as Paul regularly affirms, the Old Testament is profitable for us. It applies The “us” of application are identified: the ones believing in the one who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord, who was delivered over on account of our trespasses and who was raised on account of our justification. Abraham looked forward, by faith in hope, to the promise to be fulfilled, and we look backward and forward, to the Person of Jesus and to our inheritance in Him. The one who raised…Jesus is not Jesus, but the Father. God who promised seed to Abraham (Galatians 3:16) is God who raised the Seed. We do not share the exact same words of promise, but we do share the exact same God of the words and promises. The last verse has a parallel structure that modifies Jesus our Lord. Jesus was delivered, handed over to the Romans who beat and crucified Him, and this was because of our sins. Jesus was also raised, brought to life on the third day, for our justification. His death was because of our sin. He was without sin. He died because we deserved to die. More than the Jews and Romans, the Father delivered Him up for us (Romans 8:32, see also Isaiah 53:10). He was “pierced for our transgressions” (Isaiah 53). “For our sake He (the Father) made Him (Jesus) to be sin who knew no sin, so that in Him (Jesus) we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21). It is substitution, the righteous for the unrighteous (1 Peter 3:18). His resurrection guarantees our justification. As with the delivering, so with the raising, the Father did it (Romans 6:4; Ephesians 1:19-20). There are other verses that say we are justified by His death, by His blood (Romans 5:9, see also Romans 3:24-26). But this distinction is part of the “all are yours” of ways to talk about our salvation. We should run out of ways to refer to it just as soon as a woman runs out of ways to prepare meat. His resurrection means that He is alive, it confirms that the Father accepted His sacrifice, and it means that our hope is not in this life only (1 Corinthians 15:19). We shall be made alive in Him as well. Conclusion What around you feeds your faith, fills your hope? Corruption, death, disappointments, sins, doubts. Look to the Father through the Son. Christ in You is the hope of glory (Colossians 1:27). Forgiveness, riches of kindness and patience, life. So get to the Word, get ahold of the promises. Pray for grace to strengthen your faith that it wouldn’t waver. Wavering isn’t worship. His goal is to bring our doubt to an end, by eventually bringing our faith to an end. Charge Thomas Watson wrote, “If the sinews be cut, the body is lame; if the sinew of faith be cut, hope is lame.” Don’t play with the knife of cynicism. When the evil one flings his flaming darts of doubt in your direction — and do you think he won’t? — take up the shield of faith (Ephesians 6:16). Benediction May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope. (Romans 15:13, ESV)

Or, Christ Vivified, Vindicated, and Victorious 1 Peter 3:18-22 April 3, 2022 Evening Service Sean Higgins Introduction Last summer when we agreed to cover 1 Peter during our Sunday evening sermon series I made recommendations to the other pastors on paragraphs we each should preach. I assigned myself this section, 1 Peter 3:18-22, for…fun. If you’re keeping note, you remember that Dave taught last and covered 3:1-7. Jonathan has a message already for verses 8 and following, but he had an opportunity to be gone tonight, so we swapped evenings, not passages. My title, though, and the reason for this paragraph, hinge on a part we’ve temporarily skipped. When we are suffering, and when we show a sort of hopefulness that causes others to ask about it, we want to be ready with a good apology. The word in 3:15, typically translated as “defense” or “reason” is ἀπολογία (apologia). Apology here means not admitting that we were wrong or saying that we’re sorry, but explaining the foundation for why our hope is real. We’re to have our case prepared. There is actually plenty of basis before 3:15, and yet there is a “for” or “because” in verse 18 that sets up clear comfort for suffering Christians. There are, as we’ll see, some significant questions and competing interpretations that keep everything from being equally clear. But these verses contain some glorious, and hope case-making, truths. For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit, in which he went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison, because they formerly did not obey, when God’s patience waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through water. Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers having been subjected to him. (1 Peter 3:18–22, ESV) Christ Vivified (verse 18) Christ also suffered, connects with Christian suffering in verse 13 and 17. It’s not that Christians suffered first, but rather that Christian suffering isn’t without precedence. In chapter 2 Peter said that Christ left us an “example,” an underwriting (ὑπογραμμὸν), that we should follow in His steps. This is where WWJD got its origin, with the fictional story by Charles Sheldon. But Christ’s suffering is more than merely a pattern which we should imitate, it is also for our propitiation. His unique suffering was once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous. We have hope in whatever parts of our suffering that are similar to His because of His suffering that was something we could never do. His was a substitution which the “for” or “instead of” emphasizes. “He was pierced for our transgressions; He was crushed for out iniquities; upon Him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed.” (Isaiah 53:5-6, from which Peter quotes in 1 Peter 2:24, and see also Isaiah 53:11-12) We also have hope because of the purpose of our justification: that He might bring us to God. This is my favorite reminder of Christ’s work; He turns rebels into brothers, hostile enemies into companions and allies. Redemption is unto reconciliation, forgiveness unto fellowship, propitiation unto peace in His presence. Our sin offended His holy standard and it separated us from Him. The Son suffered to save and bring back the wandering sheep (1 Peter 2:25); He leads you to the Father (see Ephesians 2:18). The end of verse 18 begins the challenging part,  being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit. He really died; He had a physical body that the Roman soldiers beat and nailed to a cross. In the flesh, as a man, He suffered. On one hand they killed Him, then on the other hand God made Him alive (μὲν…δὲ). He was vivified, from Latin vivere, “to live,” so enlivened. But in what way? The word πνεῦμα (pneuma) is never capitalized in Greek, context always determines whether it is the Holy Spirit or the spirit of a person, the intangible, non-flesh animating part. If it is the Holy Spirit (as represented in the KJV, NIV) then all three persons of the Trinity are mentioned in this verse as working for our salvation. Paul explicitly connects the Holy Spirit who dwells in us as the Spirit “who raised Jesus from the dead” (Romans 8:11). If it is the Holy Spirit, the phrase really isn’t parallel; having been put to death in the realm/sphere of the flesh and being vivified by the agent of the Spirit. (Though see a possible similar use in 1 Timothy 3:16, ἐν σαρκί…ἐν πνεύματι, body and Spirit.) If it is “spirit” (as in the Geneva Bible, NASB, ESV), then why emphasize that? The resurrection is about His body, which was dead and buried but now alive (which is also our hope). After He said, “It is finished,” Jesus “bowed his head and gave up His spirit” (John 19:30). So this is when He got it back? The Greek word here is not the typical word for resurrection (which we find in verse 21), but a form of ζωοποιέω, meaning “to be caused to live, to be vivified.” Is this a time between His bodily death and bodily resurrection, when Jesus was disembodied but made alive again in His spirit, or is it another way to refer to His resurrection? Jesus did tell the thief on the cross beside Him that he would be with him today in paradise (Luke 23:43), which means that He did not suffer in hell from Friday to Sunday. The questions spill into the next section. Christ Vindicated (verses 19-20) In the (Spirit/spirit), Jesus went (somewhere) and preached (something) to an audience (of spirits). in which he went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison, because they formerly did not obey, when God’s patience waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, (1 Peter 3:19–20a, ESV) Who are the “spirits in prison”? What is the “prison” and where is it? When did this proclaiming occur? What did Jesus proclaim? Why is this so important? What is it doing here? Peter seems to expect that his readers know all of this; his lack of additional details suggests that he’s reminding them not revealing new info. We have less confidence. Luther wrote, “A wonderful text is this, and a more obscure passage perhaps than any other in the New Testament, so that I do not know for a certainty just what Peter means. (quoted by Schreiner) In which…having gone He preached picks up with the last word in verse 17, so “in the Spirit/spirit” Jesus traveled somewhere. It seems that this was the next thing after having been made alive. Vivification/resurrection led to this proclamation. The original word order is, “in which also to the in prison spirits having gone He preached,” with an emphasis on the spirits. When the plural spirits is used in the New Testament it is not about men, but angels, and usually fallen angels. And the only prison for spirits we’re told about is a place for the disobedient spirits (namely Satan in Revelation 20:7) whom Jude perhaps describes in confinement. And the angels who did not stay within their own position of authority, but left their proper dwelling, he has kept in eternal chains under gloomy darkness until the judgment of the great day (Jude 1:6, ESV) Right after that Jude mentions Sodom and Gomorrah and “likewise” sexual immorality (Jude 1:7). Peter also refers to this angelic disobedience and detention. For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to chains of gloomy darkness to be kept until the judgment; if he did not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah, a herald of righteousness, with seven others, when he brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly; (2 Peter 2:4–5, ESV) Yet some commentators (such as Calvin) assert that this prison in 1 Peter 3:19 is figurative for those imprisoned in ignorance or sin or even those bound under the law. So to him, spirits is men, regardless of what the word usually refers to. But what connection does that have to Christ “having gone preached”? Verse 19 sounds like a message, not an extended ministry (Heibert). And how does that relate to in the days of Noah? We do know that it was particularly sinful, which resulted in God wiping out almost all humanity. Some (such as Augustine) see the “spirits” as the spirits of men, but the now disembodied spirits of the men who died in the flood, but the proclamation was through Christ’s Spirit in Noah preaching to them (compare with 2 Peter 2:5). In 1995 I was taking a Greek class which worked through 1 Peter, and in my final project, an outline commentary on the book, I took the Noah as preacher interpretation. My professor wrote, “You can be wrong if you want to.” Ha. I have changed my mind, mostly because every prophet preached righteousness through Christ’s Spirit (see 1 Peter 1:11), not just Noah. Plus the order presented in verses 18 to 19 makes the preaching post Christ being vivified; it’s not the pre-incarnate Christ. In addition to that, the part that stands out in Noah’s day is the demonic activity, which also sets us up for verse 22. It would fit the interpretation that the “sons of God” in Genesis 6 were demons, or at least that men were demon-possessed (MacArthur), and especially in their sexual immorality (Jude 1:6). They were “spirits” who did not obey…in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared. The spirits are pre-flood evil-doers. God’s patience waited, but not indefinitely. This relates to Christ announcing His triumph. He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him. (Colossians 2:15, ESV) he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come. (Ephesians 1:20b–21 ESV) In His preaching Christ wasn’t offering them a second chance, this isn’t a gospel message; there is “no missionary work in hell” (Lenski). It is a message of His victory. This relates to our hope. The comfort is that a culture dominated by evil, full of depravity, and even rife with demons doesn’t win. The great powers against Christ heard Christ proclaim His victory. Christ Victorious (verses 21-22) Peter follows the flood waters of judgment with waters of baptism. It corresponds (ἀντίτυπον) to or “symbolizes” (NIV) the ark, but it’s not the water, the analogy is to Christ. As the waters of judgment brought death, so we are buried in death when baptized, and we only “survive” because we are in Christ. Peter is not teaching baptismal regeneration. The water isn’t magic, the cleansing isn’t via ceremony. The external isn’t the point, but the appeal to God for a good conscience. Our salvation is through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, and the elect are born again by faith into hope (1:3). Now He’s ascended, our Lord ever more. All the angels, whatever their hierarchy, authorities and powers, have been made subject to Christ, and this is especially true of the fallen angels. He is at the right hand of God, a position of honor and authority. There is not one thumb’s-width in the entire domain of all existence over which Christ does not rule as Lord. His enemies are being made His footstool (see Psalm 110:1). Conclusion For my final answers tonight, I’ll go with spirit instead of Spirit, and that being made alive refers to His bodily resurrection rather than a time of His disembodiment when darkness covered the earth for three hours during His crucifixion, that the spirits in prison are the fallen angels who sought to corrupt the human race while Noah built the ark and now are imprisoned, that the resurrected Christ proclaimed His triumph over them, that we are being delivered through our union with Christ and will be brought to God by Christ, and that all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Him. This provides a good apology for our hope: Christ is alive. Christ has atoned for our sin. Christ announced His victory. Christ has ascended to His throne. He knows what it means to suffer for doing good, according to God’s will (verse 17), and look at what His suffering brought.

Or, The God Who Brings His Promise to Life Romans 4:13-17 April 3, 2022 Lord’s Day Worship Sean Higgins Introduction Men are manipulators. It is not necessarily a bad thing, at least depending on the definition of manipulation. The Latin word manus means “hand.” To manipulate is a derivative that means to handle, so manipulation is the the word for putting your hands to something; a manual transmission is hand-operated. It obviously has picked up some nasty metaphorical baggage over the years, so that now our first thought about manipulation is trying to get something through “insidious means especially to one’s own advantage” (Merriam-Webster). We don’t appreciate this sort of pushing or steering by another. The original meaning, subduing the earth by hand, belongs with our image-bearing. I don’t think that opposable thumbs is what makes us image-bearers rather than clever dolphins, but it belongs with our God-given bodies and our God-ordained work. Hand-eye coordination has brought some beautiful and useful things into our dominion. But especially nowadays, we are tempted to think that if we can’t see it and touch it then it can’t be as important. We want to make things happen. We think we are the ones who make things happen. Is it urgent? All hands on deck. Of course this is sort of true and mostly not true even though we work hard to ignore how much it isn’t true. We can’t see gravity, and we certainly didn’t create gravity nor can we move gravity around, and yet we depend on gravity so obviously that we take it for granted. God uses gravity to keep the planets and stars in their spheres, and we don’t worry about them crashing into earth. Our hands can write out a scientific formula, but we’ve had no hand at all in how it works. The principle applies to babies being born, and to crops coming up. The principle also applies to God’s blessing on the world. It is His power, and it comes from His promise. This isn’t to say that we don’t have things to do. But can you imagine if the world’s blessing really depended on our strength, our wisdom, our obedience? Instead, the world runs on grace, which is out of our hands. The world runs because God is gracious and He gives it His attention. The heirs of the world will only be those with faith, the offspring of Abraham. In Romans 4 Paul looks to Abraham as the forefather, not just those according to the flesh, but all those with faith. We’ve seen so far faith over works, faith over circumcision, and now faith over law. In Romans 4:13-17 Paul stresses God’s promise to Abraham, and even more than that, the nature of the God who made the promise. God is the one who brings His promise to life. The Foundation of Inheritance: God’s unconditional promise (verses 13-15) Abraham’s circumcision didn’t earn him favor with God (Romans 4:9-12); God declared Abraham righteous almost fifteen years before he felt the knife. Not only the special sign, but the special revelation in the law came later. When codified in the Mosaic Law, which the Jews held so proudly, it was 430 years after Abraham’s justification (Galatians 3:17). God came to Abraham not with law but with promise. For the promise to Abraham and his offspring that he would be heir of the world did not come through the law but through the righteousness of faith. For if it is the adherents of the law who are to be the heirs, faith is null and the promise is void. For the law brings wrath, but where there is no law there is no transgression. (Romans 4:13–15, ESV) Promise is a noun, a thing, a summary, and it is also a way God acts. In Abraham’s case this promise was far beyond what he could have asked or imagined. Apart from considering Abraham’s moral resume, God promised him offspring, “seed.” The word in Greek (τῷ σπέρματι) is singular, and in Galatians 3:16 Paul goes out of his way to say that the seed is Christ. But Paul also uses “seed” in the collective sense of all the descendants, just as words such as “family” and “team” are one but include many parts. We know Paul means the many here because of verse 17 and the “many nations.” The promise was that he would have offspring and that he would be heir of the world. Usually an heir takes possession when the owner dies, but Romans 4:13 doesn’t specify when it will happen. The cosmos was his inheritance, a description also given about God’s Son in Hebrews 1:2. The world would be his, and implied is both earthly and eternally, material and spiritual. As Paul put it to the Corinthians, “all are yours” (1 Corinthians 3:21-23), and will be forever. This promise was unsought for by Abraham and it was also unconditional to him. He had done nothing to earn it, and he could not do anything to lose it. There are if/then promises from God, what are referred to as conditional promises. But this blessing, of offspring and the world, was based in God’s unconditional promise and grace alone. It did not come through the law but through the righteousness of faith. Inheritance did not depend on any particular rule or regulation, no general code of conduct. Abraham would be heir through nothing other than believing. But what would be the case if the salvation of men was based on the keeping of the law? Consciences would have no certainty, but would be harassed with perpetual inquietude, and at length sink in despair; and the promise itself, the fulfillment of which depended on what is impossible, would also vanish away without producing any fruit. (John Calvin) Verses 14 and 15 drill down to establish alternatives. If Abraham—and with him as the example it’s true for all the rest—could have held up his part of a contract, then it really wouldn’t be promise, his inheritance would be similar to wages (as in 4:4). If the giving of inheritance depended on Abraham, and he met the conditions, then it would be due to him, not really a gift. It also makes faith unnecessary. Paul keeps taking opportunity to point out to the law-lovers that law never brings deliverance, instead the law brings wrath. This isn’t the work of the law to provoke sin (though that is true according to Romans 7:5), but that the law points out wrong and the consequences for doing wrong. Those who do such things deserve death (Romans 1:32, 6:23). The Lawgiver is just and punishes wrongdoers. That’s wrath. The law came to make transgression clear. Where there is no law there is no transgression. The sign says: don’t cross the line, and the law makes no personal allowances or concessions for overstepping. The law provides no strength in itself for keeping it. If our inheritance depended on law, it would slip right through our hands. The Guarantee of Inheritance: God’s effective grace (verses 16-17) When you hope for a great inheritance, and the “world” is pretty great, what is the guarantee? This is how much God intends to bless: He guarantees it by Himself. This is the reason we have hope and how that hope can be solid. That is why it depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all his offspring—not only to the adherent of the law but also to the one who shares the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all, as it is written, “I have made you the father of many nations”—in the presence of the God in whom he believed, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist. (Romans 4:16–17, ESV) The gospel of grace, received by faith alone, is not about making salvation easy but about making it secure. Grace isn’t a breeze that cools off our guilt, it is the ocean that carries us along. And it doesn’t run dry. Grace goes to work and is opposed to our pathetic attempts to steer it or catch it. The promise rests on grace, and that’s how it was guaranteed to all his offspring. Paul quotes Genesis 17:4-5 to reiterate that the believers are sons of Abraham, “the father of a multitude of nations” (a phrase used in both verses), and this promise comes when God changes Abram’s name to Abraham, which means “father of a multitude.” The ultimate inheritance of the world belongs to Abraham’s offspring, even though we think the sons of Abraham through Jacob have a particular land promised to them as well. The key is the nature of God, the one in whom Abraham believed, the same one in whom we believe. God who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist. Considered from Abraham’s perspective, both of these descriptions could apply to his offspring, and then nations. He was “as good as dead” in reproductive terms, and no eggs existed in Sarah (Romans 4:19). Considered from Paul’s perspective, he knew of Lazarus and Jesus Himself who were raised from the dead. Think Ephesians 1:19-20. The non-existing to the existing things only take a word from God (as in Genesis 1). The world came into being by God’s call, the world is the inheritance of faith by God’s call. You who believe have been brought from spiritual death to life, your hope was non-existent (Ephesians 2:12). More about Abraham’s faith to finish chapter four. Conclusion We are here, four thousand years later, on the other side of the planet, looking to the same God and same promise. He continues to bring His promise to life. We are part of the fulfillment. No man could have made this happen with all his strength, let alone his sinful liabilities. This kind of good news is out of our hands. We live on promises. We live through powerful grace. We live by faith in God through His Son Jesus Christ. All are ours, the world is ours, because God is a promise-maker. Lift up your head and hold out your hands in faith. Charge We live from faith to faith in what God has done, and by faith in what He says He will do. We are encouraged by looking back over His providence, but we are also changed as we hold onto His promises. He has given us “His precious and very great promises” in order to know His glory and excellence and let us partake in them (2 Peter 2:3-4). Hold fast to His promises. Benediction: May the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, give you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him, having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe according to the working of his great might that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead. (Ephesians 1:17-20a, ESV)

Or, The Footsteps of Faith Romans 4:9-12 March 27, 2022 Lord’s Day Worship Sean Higgins Introduction Everyone who believes is a son of Abraham. There are some who are sons of Abraham who do not believe. There are two ways to call Abraham, “father Abraham,” and while both ways include blessings, only one of the ways gets blessings proper, salvific, eternal. When God called Abram/Abraham God promised to bring blessing to the nations through Abraham (Genesis 12:3; Galatians 3:8). This is quite surprising, for at least two reasons. It’s surprising that God would choose this particular pagan to become the human fountainhead of blessing, and it’s surprising–or at least striking-that God would choose a fountainhead of blessing. God is the giver of good things. He gives promises about giving good things, and sometimes He just gives good things. He gives good things to those who don’t deserve them, and in giving good things He makes them accountable. God graciously chose Abraham to receive good things, and graciously chose Abraham to be the one through whom good things would come to all sorts of peoples. The particular people who most looked to Abraham as their forefather was the Jews. This is right. God gave Abraham Isaac, God gave Isaac Jacob, Jacob was the father of the twelve tribes of Israel. Jesus regularly poked the eyes of those in Israel who claimed religious stature since they were sons of Abraham (Matthew 3:9; John 8:39). Jesus wasn’t denying their ethnicity (John 8:56), He was confronting their complacency. But Isaac wasn’t Abraham’s only son. His first son was Ishmael, and God protected Ishmael and promised that Ishmael would also become a great nation (Genesis 17:20; 21:13; 21:18). This made them sons of Abraham. These sons of Abraham did not get the same kinds of blessings or promises. They did not get an Ishmaelian covenant or Messiah of their own. But all the Jews and many of the Gentiles trace their lines from Abraham “according to the flesh” (4:1). And what Paul points out in Romans 4 is that Abraham is the father of all those who have faith. Though many are related to him by flesh, believers look to him as the first one declared righteous by believing. All of Romans 4 relates to Abraham’s righteousness, specifically, it did not come from Abraham’s works (1-8), from circumcision (9-12), or from the law (verses 13-22). Justification has always been by faith, and Abraham’s story is for us to teach the same truth (23-25). The Timing of Abraham’s Circumcision (verses 9-11a) We just came off the great #blessed man who does not have his sins counted against him. Paul quoted David, but in support of his case about Abraham. The chapter starts by asking about those who looked back to Abraham as “forefather according to the flesh,” so now he asks, could others be forgiven? This is the question that leads us into the circumcision question. Is this blessing then only for the circumcised, or also for the uncircumcised? For we say that faith was counted to Abraham as righteousness. How then was it counted to him? Was it before or after he had been circumcised? It was not after, but before he was circumcised. He received the sign of circumcision as a seal of the righteousness that he had by faith while he was still uncircumcised. (verses 9–11a ESV) Paul is teaching by leading his readers through a series of questions and answers. The answer to the first question may seem to switch the subject, but it is the point. Of course the uncircumcised, those outside the Abrahamic covenant, can have the blessing of forgiveness. It’s not about your dad, it’s not about your behavior, it’s not about your religion or its sacraments and ceremonies. Forgiveness comes by faith, and is for whoever has faith. That is the answer to the question, because that’s how it worked for Abraham even though he was the father. Paul is really trying to help his Jewish brothers get the point. He is laboring hard, with the Spirit’s help, to get them to see what should have been unmistakably obvious to them. Paul’s questions pull their thinking into his line of thinking, and his almost painful repetitions leave no other options. Paul’s already gone over the fact that circumcision wasn’t enough. It was commanded by God to the sons of Abraham through Isaac (Genesis 17:19, though Ishmael was circumcised as well, Genesis 17:26), but the external obedience and the tribal association and the “spiritual” pride and the apathy toward righteousness that went with the sign were legendary. The sign was taken as merit, or as a guarantee of safety, rather than as a reminder of their need for mercy. And, on top of all that, Abraham, to whom many of the Jews looked for their privilege, was an anti-pattern for their presumed practice. We’re blessed to have cardinal numbers that label the chapters in the first book of the Torah (chapter divisions weren’t added to the Bible until the early 1200s AD). Abraham’s justification was announced at the beginning of Genesis chapter 15 and the sign of circumcision wasn’t given until chapter 17. Around 14 years passed between the events. Abraham had no sons yet in chapter 15, he was 86 when Ishmael was born (Genesis 16:16) Abraham was 99 when he was actually circumcised (Genesis 17:24). Don’t put the cart before the horse, the sign before the substance, the effect before the cause. The sign was a seal; the pointing was a confirmation. God had accepted Abraham by faith, and then God affirmed that acceptance to Abraham with the seal. Abraham’s righteousness was by faith while he was still uncircumcised. The Purpose of Abraham’s Circumcision (verses 11b-12) God’s timing was on purpose for a purpose, a singular purpose with two applications. Paul points out the purpose for the uncircumcised first, though the gospel is the power of God to the Jew first (Romans 1:16). The purpose was to make him the father of all who believe without being circumcised, so that righteousness would be counted to them as well, and to make him the father of the circumcised who are not merely circumcised but who also walk in the footsteps of the faith that our father Abraham had before he was circumcised. (verses 11b–12 ESV) It’s not actually a new sentence in Greek; the construction depends on the answer at the end of verse 10. The purpose is—here with a more awkward translation for emphasis’ sake: “unto him to be the father of all the ones believing through uncircumcision unto the counting to them righteousness.” National/religious identity is no hindrance. National/religious identity doesn’t need to be changed. Justification is not even a concession, as the ESV suggests, without being circumcised is an attempt to translate a much simpler prepositional phrase: “through uncircumcision.” If they are believing, they are sons of Abraham. Is this the doctrine of adoption? Not here; our adoption as Christians is not into having Abraham as father but rather God as Father (see Galatians 4:5-6; Romans 8:15; Ephesians 1:5). Abraham is, however, a type of father, and his fatherhood of those with faith is a spiritual patriarchy. Previous to Christ a Gentile could convert to Judaism, and that Gentile would only be saved by faith but would still have to get circumcised; they would become part of the nation. Romans 4:11 describes converts as all ones believing in the external state in which they are. Know then that it is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham. And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, “In you shall all the nations be blessed.” So then, those who are of faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith. (Galatians 3:7–9 ESV) Verse 12 provides the second application. To any believing Jews, their forefather according to the flesh is also their father according to the faith. Abraham was already their father according to circumcision; they already identified with him as such. That wasn’t enough for salvation without faith. And Abraham left them a path to walk, the path of faith. Most English translations say to walk in his steps, but it’s at least better as “follow” (NASB), and the word emphasizes keeping in line with the standard of conduct, following or conforming (BAGD). He also was justified without needing to be circumcised first. Paul reminds the Jews of the pattern, and the πίστεως τοῦ πατρὸς, the faith of the father. Conclusion Paul doesn’t say that God was going to bless all the nations by making all the nations into one nation (such as Israel, or a “new” or “true” Israel). His summary in Galatians 3:7 doesn’t remove national distinctions as such, it says that national distinctions don’t prevent justification by faith. Because we are saved the same way doesn’t make us the same, any more than it removes gender distinctions between male and female (Galatians 3:28). We have one Lord, one Savior, one justification, and many Lord-assigned differences. There is continuity of faith counted as righteousness, and there is distinction between those who were given a sign of the covenant for which they were to believe and those who were given neither a covenant or a sign but still believe. Circumcision and baptism are not the same. And, if anything, baptism is most like Abraham’s circumcision because it was a sign given as a seal of his belief, not a sign that obligated him to believe. For those who have already been baptized but have not professed faith, believe! Baptism isn’t enough no matter what. You must come to Christ. For those who professed faith in their baptism, brothers and sisters, walk by faith. Conform your life to the standard of faith. The righteous shall life from faith to faith. Charge Christian, you have been called, you have been qualified. You have been given blessing, you are given responsibility. Follow in the footsteps of Abraham’s faith. Follow in the footsteps of Jesus’ obedience (1 Peter 1:21). Trust and obey. Benediction: May you be strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy, giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light. (Colossians 1:11–12, ESV)

Or, Two Sides of the Same Count Romans 4:1-8 March 20, 2022 Lord’s Day Worship Sean Higgins Introduction The first song we sang this morning was “Blessed Assurance.” It’s an old-school Baptist hymnbook staple, and it’s good enough for what it is. I’ve seen evangelism/discipleship materials in which step one was get the other person to pray the sinner’s prayer, and step two was get them to embrace their assurance of salvation. That’s not what I would do, though I do talk to a considerable number of professing believers who struggle with wondering if they are truly saved; genuine assurance is a blessing for sure. 1 John is the best epistle for testing one’s confession of faith “that you may know that you have eternal life” (1 John 5:13), but it is a process to “make your calling and election sure” (2 Peter 1:10, KJV), so maybe not step two. And before looking for blessed assurance, it’d be worthwhile to get a tighter hold on blessed credit. Paul started laying ground-level gospel a couple paragraphs ago. The good news is that salvation is not by works (Romans 3:21), and mostly because we’ve already failed by works. Our works have been the wrong ones-sin, and incomplete ones-falling short of glory (Romans 3:23). But salvation is God’s work, a work that includes Christ taking the Father’s wrath our disobedience deserved and also giving us the righteous standing of Christ’s obedience. The Jews reading this letter in Rome may have had questions, if not objections. For that matter, James’ letter (written maybe 15 years earlier), appears to say that more than faith is required for justification. Both Paul and James look to Abraham, which is what all Israel also did. Much of this next section of the epistle (our chapter 4) is about Abraham’s justification, and it leaves no room for boasting. Abraham was the first one not to get what he deserved. Abraham’s Way (verses 1-3) God chose Abraham and promised him blessing (Genesis 12:2). God promised to make Abraham the father of His chosen nation (Israel) and the father of a multitude of nations (Genesis 17:6). If the Law and the Prophets bear witness to righteousness apart from the law (Romans 3:21), and if Abraham is at their headwaters, then in what way was Abraham saved? What then shall we say was gained by Abraham, our forefather according to the flesh? For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. For what does the Scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness.” (Romans 4:1–3 ESV) The patriarch of patriarchs was Abraham, the first forefather. God called Abram out of Ur and said that in him all the nations would be blessed. The chosen line went through Abraham’s second son, Isaac, to Jacob, whose name became Israel. When the LORD revealed Himself to Moses, He said, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob” (Exodus 3:6). So Abraham is the forefather according to the flesh, the ethnic people group. If you had to pick just one example, this is the guy. Verse 1 asks the question, and verse 2 rules out works. Paul argues according to impossibility. It’s almost a full syllogism (as pointed out in the commentary by John Murray), and can be translated into standard categorical form. (Providentially, my Logic class just got to this chapter: take a singular—Abraham—as a universal, and a hypothetical—if—as a universal). All men justified by works are men who have reason to boast. (All) Abraham was a man justified by works. Therefore, (All) Abraham was a man with a reason to boast. The problem is that the minor/second premise is false, which makes the argument fall apart. We know the minor premise is false because of Scripture. The authority for our logic is God’s Word. Paul quotes from Genesis 15:6, and it’s the first declaration of righteousness in Scripture. God had already called Abram (chapter 12), Abram and Sarai had already sojourned in Egypt (chapter 12), Abram had separated from Lot (chapter 13) and had to rescue Lot (chapter 14), and after all that, Abram said to the LORD, “You have given me no offspring” (Genesis 15:3). The LORD took Abram outside and said that his offspring would be numbered like the number of stars (Genesis 15:5). Abraham believed God, and God counted or “credited” that belief as righteousness. Counted is the key word, used 11 times in the chapter, and five times in these first eight verses. It refers to calculation, to a reckoning, to take into account, to credit (NASB). Abraham’s righteous status before God did not come because of anything he did, but God counted the believing. A Worker’s Wages (verses 4-5) Paul follows up Abraham’s justification with a general principle about the differences between wages earned and gifts received. Now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift but as his due. And to the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness, (Romans 4:4–5 ESV) Workers get a wage; they get paid. When you put in forty hours, your boss isn’t doing anything gracious to multiply your hourly rate by the hours clocked. That’s not a gift, that’s what you earned. What is due is what you’ve obligated the employer to compensate. In salvation, if works were the way to justification, then you could say justification was a debt to be paid by God. Human works put God, if He was to be just, into the position of debtor. Instead, we believe for justification, and we believe that God is the one who justifies. He declares the ungodly, the guilty, clean. Our justification is by faith not works, our justification is by grace not merit, our justification is a gift. This letter to the Romans, and the good news of redemption, is about gift. More gift than the sun is the Son, and more than breath is His blood, and more than fruit is the indwelling Spirit, and all the good is gift. The central event in human history is gift. The nature of God is that of generous giver. Paul argues in Romans 8 that if the Father has given His Son, how will He not with the Son graciously give us all things (Romans 8:32)? Sinner, could you get better news? David’s Blessing (verses 6-8) These verses give Scriptural support to the principle in verses 4-5. just as David also speaks of the blessing of the one to whom God counts righteousness apart from works: “Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven, and whose sins are covered; blessed is the man against whom the Lord will not count his sin.” (Romans 4:6–8 ESV) Abraham was, without doubt, the most important forefather, and the recipient of a broad covenant. David was, without doubt, the most important national king, and the recipient of a more specific covenant. David is also a clear example of a man whose works condemned him. Paul quotes Psalm 32. Psalm 32 isn’t explicitly tied to David’s sin with Bathsheba and Uriah, but the lyrics immediately following the ones Paul quotes surely apply. For when I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long. For day and night your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer. (Psalm 32:3–4 ESV) David knew what he deserved. He was weighed down by his guilt, wrung out and withered by his conscience. Forgiveness was a relief. So, blessed is the man who is forgiven. Note that Paul quotes David’s part about the man against who the Lord will not count his sin. But Paul’s point has been about the man for whom the Lord will count righteousness. It is the same word we’ve been tracking, count (or “credit” from λογίζομαι). This is the other side of the same count. One side is when God counts faith as righteousness, the other side is when God counts sins as forgiven. Justification includes both righteousness in place of unrighteousness and remission of unrighteousness. So, yes, blessed is such a man! Double-down on the privilege, the blessing, the granted favor. It is privilege, it is not because you worked for it. This blessing is gift, from start to finish. This blessing is forgiveness, which corroborates that it’s not something you earned. If someone fussed at you, “So you’re saying you think you have more privilege than me?” I’d tell you to respond, “No, I’m saying you don’t even know how much more privilege I have than you.” Conclusion The first blessing from God to man was purpose (Genesis 1:28). Perhaps the next most important is forgiveness (back unto fruitfulness, so in Psalm 1). Men of faith, and women of faith, need reminders of forgiveness. Men of the world, and women of the world, are desperate for it. Church, this is where our #blessed riches start. Peace with our Maker and love from the Spirit and lightness of soul aren’t all that God gives, but none of His other gifts mean the same without justification. Our justification by faith alone is the prima facie, that is, the first impression of our jealousy provocation. God forgives you without needing to ask anyone else. God forgives your neighbor who sinned against you without asking your permission. Blessed are those who are forgiven, and blessed are those who forgive as they have been forgiven (Colossians 3:13). Don’t hold grudges against other believers, because then you are actually holding your grudge against God. Charge Many years ago I filled up a U-Haul truck with diesel when all big trucks ran on diesel, or so I thought. The problem was, it was not a diesel truck, and it didn’t take long before the truck just quit running, on an eight lane freeway outside Los Angeles in the middle of the night. Your tank is meant to run on grace, grace which will make you strong. Your tank will conk out, later or sooner, if you run on your strength, trying to earn grace. May you be filled with faith for your work, because you will conk out if you try to put in works first. Benediction: [M]ay God make you worthy of his calling and fulfill every resolve for good and every work of faith by his power, so that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you, and you in him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ. (2 Thessalonians 1:11–12, ESV)

Joey Bone (2:23) Ian Fujinaka (7:13)

Or, Monergism, Monotheism, and Man’s Morality Romans 3:27-31 March 13, 2022 Lord’s Day Worship Sean Higgins Introduction In his introduction to The Death of Death in the Death of Christ, J. I. Packer summarizes the gospel in three words: God saves sinners. It’s true from start to finish. It acknowledges man’s depravity and inability (man is a sinner who needs saving). It exalts God’s sovereignty and grace (He plans for and provides salvation). It proclaims the Son’s effective propitiation (all for whom the Son atones will be saved). And it has practical consequences for what we say. We have no defense for our sinfulness (Romans 3:19). We have no boast for our righteousness (Romans 3:27). I’ve already asserted a few times through these first few chapters of Romans that the greater challenge for the gospel (using “challenge” only from the human perspective) is not unrighteousness, but self-righteousness. When God saves sinners, He saves the ones who realize that they’ve done everything wrong, and He saves the ones who think they haven’t messed up quite as bad. Paul has demonstrated quite persistently that judging others for what we also do is its own kind of evidence against us. He’s held up the perfect standard of God’s law to prove that none of us meet it. And he’s said that not only have all sinned, we have all have fallen short of the glory of God. We’ve failed to live up to the original image. We’ve colored outside the lines (transgression), and haven’t filled in the lines (omission). It’s why we need someone else’s righteousness. This is the alien righteousness we considered a couple weeks ago, a righteousness that isn’t ours that gets credited to us. God justifies sinners when He imputes righteousness to us, meaning that He regards Christ’s righteousness as ours. In God’s accounting books He has records of all our sins/offenses/wrongs, and none of us could erase them. Have you investigated (or even invested in) cryptocurrency based on blockchain technology? Lay aside the question of whether or not it’s a useful workaround to government fiat, it provides an interesting analogy. The blockchain only works in one direction; it does not go backward. There is no undo button, no do-overs or restarts. A mistake can only be fixed by a second transaction, there is no reversal. God justifies us not by forgetting our sin but by paying for it in His Son. He doesn’t undo the consequences, He satisfies His own wrath. This is what makes Him just and the one justifying believers (Romans 3:26). When God forgives He will never use our sin against us (think Psalm 103:12), but that’s because He won’t forget the atonement price paid by Christ. All we can do is rely on Jesus; we add nothing good to the chain. This is why we have nothing to boast about. In this paragraph, Romans 3:27-31, we see that believing means no boasting in ourselves (salvation is monergistic), that believing is the (only) way to salvation for everyone (salvation is monotheistic), and believing leads to obedience (salvation is unto morality). This is all part of the law of faith, and it’s a law about, and against, boasting. Faith Leaves No Room for Boasting (verses 27-28) The word boasting is only written once in verse 27 but it is assumed five more times. Paul’s original writing is punchy, but if we wrote it all out, “boasting” would be the subject of six independent clauses, and it would be the subject of the verb excluded five times. Here’s the compact version: Then what becomes of our boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? By a law of works? No, but by the law of faith. Here’s what it would be extended into complete sentences: “Therefore boasting is where? Boasting is excluded. Boasting is excluded through the law of what? Boasting is excluded through the law of works? Boasting is not excluded through the law of works, but boasting is excluded through the law of faith.” There’s three questions, and the first is expected after the previous paragraph. Where is boasting? Boasting is taking pride in something, bragging, self-congrats, patting ourselves on the back. Where does boasting belong? It’s as if we were looking for her somewhere. But boasting is not invited. In verses 21-26 all we “got” was verse 23. Everything else was about what God did, what Jesus did. We see God’s grace, God’s justifying, God’s gift, God’s redeeming in Jesus, God’s propitiation in Jesus, God’s patience with sinners, God’s constant work of showing His righteousness in saving sinners. So man’s boasting is right out. Then we get more contrast on how boasting is excluded, and there are two options: the law of works or the law of faith. First, it’s usually “works of the law” not “the law of works,” even as it must be in verse 28. Second, “the law of faith” seems odd after all the limitations we’ve seen about the law. Law of faith refers to the defining standard, a presiding principle. This law is higher than the law of works. Our works won’t actually let us boast, but let’s say we wanted to try to boast in our works, which, a lot of men do. Fine. Faith, by definition, looks away from self. Faith leaves no breath for blowing our own trumpet. If we are justified by faith then God has done all the work. Verse 28 explains it: for we calculate (that) a man is justified by faith without works of law. The ESV translates it as we hold, but the verb refers to counting, to calculating, as belongs in the sphere of accounting. When we add up how justification works, the works side is zero and the faith side is full. Justification is entirely God’s work. This is monergism (from mono meaning one and ergon meaning work, so “the work of one), not synergism (the work of more than one). We don’t work together with Him to save ourselves. We add zero merit. The law of faith rules our boasting out. Faith Leaves No Room for Polytheism (verses 29-30) Two more questions in verse 29 scratch at the universal law of faith, a law that excludes boasting from Jews and Gentiles. Or is God the God of the Jews only? Is God not also God of the Gentiles? Yes, God is also God of the Gentiles, since God is one, who will justify the circumcised by faith and will justify the uncircumcised through (the same) faith. Who is this aimed at? Doesn’t it seem aimed at those most likely to boast? And aren’t the ones most likely to boast the ones Paul took a couple chapters to poke at? The truth is good news for Gentiles, but the rhetoric challenges the Jews. The since starting verse 30 is especially Jewish: God is one. This is the Jewish thing. Jews were monotheists, believing in “The LORD our God the LORD is one” (Deuteronomy 6:4). Paul uses this very reality to point out that salvation by faith argues for monotheism. All the ones believing, Jew first and also Greek, are saved by the power of one and the same God. Verse 29 differentiates between the groups ethnically (Jew and Gentile), verse 30 differentiates between them religiously, circumcised and uncircumcised. By faith and through faith may not be as distinguished as the significance of the article in the second phrase, as if to point out the very same faith. Monotheism is the argument. There is only one God and God is one. May God’s “way be known on earth, Your saving power among all nations…let all the peoples praise you!” (Psalm 67:2-3). There are not many gods, polytheism, nor is everything god, pantheism. God promised the Jews that He would save them. God did not promise the Gentiles that He would save them, though, God did promise the Jews that He would save the Gentiles. Faith Leaves No Room for Lawlessness (verse 31) Obviously this paragraph, following the emphasis of the previous paragraph, has been a lot about faith, even recognizing the the law of faith. The faith-standard leaves us no room for boasting in our works. Does the faith-standard also mean that our works don’t matter at all? Therefore, do we overthrow the law through the faith? May it never be! But we uphold the law. The law shows us what God wants; it reveals His will. When we look at our lives in the light of the law, we always find that we have missed the mark. We need forgiveness for our disobedience, and no amount of attempted obedience can make up for it. The law points out our need for a Savior (Galatians 3:21-22), and God tells us the only way we can have the Savior is by faith. And all those believing in the Savior are saved from the penalty of sin, and they are being saved from the power of sin. When Paul says, we uphold the law he isn’t saying that we keep using the law in our evangelism (though we do that, too). He’s saying we look to the law differently, as it serves the law of faith. Just as there are whole chapters devoted to showing God’s seriousness about saving Israel (just as He promised, Romans 9-11), so there are entire chapters to show God’s graciousness in saving us from slavery to sin (Romans 6-7). We don’t do good works to get justified, we do good works as those who are justified. We are saved by faith alone, and also the gospel brings about “the obedience of faith for the sake of his name among all the nations” (Romans 1:5). If you’ve read our larger “What We Believe” statement, you may remember that the largest section is about how justifying faith is not dead faith, but alive to righteousness. See also Romans 8:3-4. Faith eliminates man’s boasting, not man’s morality. Conclusion Romans is a ministry of the gospel for believers, for those with faith. If it is true that faith comes by hearing (and it is, Romans 10:17), then as we Christians live from faith to faith, we still need to keep hearing the gospel. There is more joy without trying to boast in something necessarily inferior. There is more joy with greater understanding by grace and of grace. Boasting is a killer, it is usually a half truth at best, a potential idolatry at worst, and it never increases fellowship between two people. The reason that the righteous live by faith (Romans 1:17), and that we cannot please God without faith (Hebrews 11:6), that we walk by faith not by sight (2 Corinthians 5:7), is that faith is the law of the world for worshipers in God. Charge The charge to you today is to live by faith, and as you live by faith you will do great obediences (in prayer, in projects of blessing, in sacrificial partying), and you will boast in God not in your obediences. As you believe, obey, and boast in God, His name will be great among the nations. As Isaiah said, the root of Jesse is the hope of the Gentiles (Romans 15:12), and so we hope in His rule. Benediction: May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope. (Romans 15:13, ESV)

Or, Righteousness: Always by Faith and by Faith Alone Romans 3:21-26 March 6, 2022 Lord’s Day Worship Sean Higgins Introduction It is more surprising that anyone is saved than that anyone is damned. We know this. Men argue against it through lying teeth. We all know that there is a God, we all know that God is good, we all know that men who disobey God deserve hell. Pagan theologians don’t describe it exactly the same, it isn’t acknowledged with honesty by every pagan non-theologian. But it is true. The last part of the list of cultural evil is that men know that those who practice such things deserve to die (Romans 1:32). That’s true even for those without clear connection to God’s law, they at least have a conscience that excuses or accuses (Romans 2:15-16). We know that there is good and bad, and we know that bad can only be paid for by blood. Men have been making sacrifices for generations not because it’s fun but because it seems like the only thing that might please a god. The hecatomb is a hundred head (of oxen) sacrifice frequently found in the early epics. Even a modern man who fancies himself a comic tweeted, “We should just pin all the debt in the world to one guy and then kill him.” The first blood sacrifice was in the garden as God killed an animal to make coverings for Adam and Eve. The Law gave more particular instructions, but men have been killing things to appease angry gods without any reference to Moses. The ache in men’s hearts, acknowledged or not, comes from knowing what they deserve from God. “The wages of sin is death,” and “all have sinned.” All sinners are death-deservers, all men are sinners, therefore all men are death-deservers (a valid logical syllogism, AAA-1). There must be blood. There was the idea of blood before the existence of flesh and blood. Peter wrote that we are ransomed not by silver or gold, but by the “precious blood of Christ” who was “foreknown before the foundation of the world” (1 Peter 1:18-19). This is quite a statement. God in eternity before Genesis 1:1 anticipated, and believers in eternity forever will celebrate, the blood of the Lamb. Those whom He elects have their names written in the Lamb’s Book of Life (Revelation 13:18). Blood shed belongs with God’s purpose to show His righteousness, not just in judgment but in justification. Blood shed belongs with God’s purpose to show Himself and His glory. God’s Law and God’s Prophets pointed toward God’s righteousness, but God’s righteousness was embodied in Christ, and enacted in His death and resurrection. This is the gospel, needed by all and available for all the ones believing. By faith in Jesus Christ we are justified; in Jesus Christ we are redeemed. Verses 25-26 focus in on Christ Jesus. They are the final parts to the paragraph, and they hinge on the first relative pronoun, “whom,” on which the rest of the paragraph depends. It’s Jesus’ blood that shows God’s righteousness, in His forbearance and His forgiveness, as well as in the Son’s penalty bearing. “The righteousness of God has been manifested” (verse 21), “the righteousness of God (is being manifested” (verse 22), and now “to show God’s righteousness” two more times (verse 25 and verse 26), four times in the paragraph, a “demonstration” (NASB). It’s out in the open. Explaining Forbearance (verse 25) The major-league theology word is propitiation, and though we can define it, both verses 25 and 26 explain why it was necessary. Propitiation refers to making God, or a god, happy again. It was used in the Greek and Roman culture to describe whatever was necessary to regain the goodwill of a deity (BAGD). It was an attempt to fix divine displeasure, to avert divine wrath. In English we also refer to it as expiation, or atonement. It’s making amends, paying reparation for doing wrong. God is the one offended. And God is the one making offering in order to remove His own wrath. In verse 25 the propitiation is blood, which represents death. To avert divine wrath, Jesus died for all who would ever believe, the “righteous for the unrighteous,” that we might recognize and receive God’s righteousness. The basis of propitiation is Jesus’ blood. This needed to be shown because in His divine forbearance He had passed over former sins. God had “let go” or overlooked (see also Acts 17:30) sins, not in final terms but in public terms. It seems like men had gotten away with a lot of sin. We see that a sinner dies, but this also means that a sinner’s death is punishment, not propitiation. The sinner’s bodily death pleases God only so far as God is pleased with justice, but it does not please God for sake of making peace with God. For years and decades and centuries God had been passing over sins in the sense that the full weight of judgment was not poured out. Even the sacrifices that the Jews made to the Lord, following the Lord’s instructions, were only accepted by Him as a type or token of Christ’s blood. [Christ] entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves but by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption. For if the blood of goats and bulls, and the sprinkling of defiled persons with the ashes of a heifer, sanctify for the purification of the flesh, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God. (Hebrews 9:12–14 ESV) As emphasized in the first few verses of the paragraph, the only way that this propitiation counts on our behalf is when we believe, through faith. The way we appropriate Jesus’ propitiation is by believing. Explaining Forgiveness (verse 26) This is the more surprising demonstration. Again we see the phrase to show His righteousness, and the concern is to do it at the present time, so that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. Just is the adjective form of the noun righteousness, and justifier is the verb form belonging to the same word-group. It would be unjust for God to forgive without settling the account. For Him to justify the ungodly, to treat sinners as righteous without dealing with their unrighteousness would make Him unrighteous. Forgiveness isn’t fair without the cross. Someone has to pay. Though it looked like (to some) God was letting men get away with sin because the sentence wasn’t executed speedily, no one is getting away, no not one. The nature of God is such that He is holy, He is just, He is attentive, He is sacrificial. To show His righteousness and His love He lifted up Jesus on he cross (think John 8:24-28). The cross was not cosmic “child abuse.” The Son took up His cross willingly. The Trinity worked as one God in three Persons, that God might be just and justifier. Salvation does not come by divine empathy, but by divine propitiation. It was not divine endurance, as if time could cause Him to forget. Forgiveness comes at a cost, and the Father and Son and Spirit work as God to satisfy the standards of justice that can’t be separated from His own character. Conclusion Heidelberg Catechism, Q&A 12: Q. According to God’s righteous judgment we deserve punishment both now and in eternity: how then can we escape this punishment and return to God’s favor? A. God requires that his justice be satisfied. Therefore the claims of this justice must be paid in full, either by ourselves or by another. We cannot make this payment ourselves, the only mediator is “our Lord Jesus Christ who was given to us to completely deliver us and make us right with God” (Q&A 18). How is propitiation effective for you? You can learn about propitiation, but defining it is only as meaningful as a picture is of another person. How is propitiation more than two-dimensional in your faith? Do you know yourself to be freed from God’s wrath by grace? Those who believe have peace with God (Romans 5:1, 8:1). Those who believe are to be ruled by peace (Colossians 3:15). The fear of the Lord is not the fear of His wrath, but awe at His wrath and His mercy that has delivered us from it. And so stop making others pay. When it comes to sins against you, you are not just, neither are you judge or justifier. Forgive as you’ve been forgiven, freely, and at someone else’s cost. God says vengeance is His. All religious roads lead to the same place: God’s judgment seat. Every man will have to answer for himself according to God’s righteous standard. Only those who believe in God’s Son, the One who fulfilled the standard and offers His righteousness, will know that God’s wrath against them has been satisfied by Christ’s work on the cross. Charge God has shown grace to you by giving His own Son to bear your judgment (Romans 3:24). God promises to show grace to you when He sends His Son again (1 Peter 1:13). And God gives grace to you now, right now, in every upcoming now and when then becomes the new now, because He is the God of all grace (1 Peter 5:10). Stand in His grace (Romans 5:2), live out your holy calling by grace (2 Timothy 1:9). Benediction: “Behold, I am coming soon, bringing my recompense with me, to repay each one for what he has done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.” He who testifies to these things says, “Surely I am coming soon.” Amen. Come, Lord Jesus! The grace of the Lord Jesus be with all. Amen. (Revelation 22:12–13, 20–21, ESV)

“Likewise wives subject yourselves to your husbands” or, “Likewise husbands show honor to your wife  as the weaker vessel” 1 Peter 3:1-7 March 6, 2022 Evening Service Dave Light

Or, Righteousness: Always by Faith and by Faith Alone Romans 3:21-26 February 27, 2022 Lord’s Day Worship Sean Higgins

Or, The Law of the God-Seeker Romans 3:9-20 February 20, 2022 Lord’s Day Worship Sean Higgins

Or, Can Any Good Come from Evil? Romans 3:5-8 February 13, 2022 Lord’s Day Worship Sean Higgins