Jesus Plus Nothing | Theocast

So you consider yourself to be a Christian, you believe the gospel, you believe that Jesus Christ is come and he's cleansed you of all your sins, you're no longer underneath condemnation, now what?

Now what do you do? What requirements are upon you? And that word requirement, that's an interesting word.

How does the New Testament use the, what we call the post -conversion moment, right?

That period of time when you go from enemy of God to now child of God, what's the big requirement?

Well, with Christians, it varies. Depends on your denomination, depends on your background, depends on what

YouTube preacher you're listening to. Some it's make Jesus Lord of your life, some it's discipline, some it's give up certain kinds of sin.

It could be all kinds of speaking in tongues, the filling of the Holy Spirit. There's so much confusion and the one question we're all trying to answer is if I don't do the requirements, then what?

It's not that we want to get away with anything, but there's this fear tactic that's being used. If you're a child of God, then there's a plus sign almost, right?

Jesus plus this equals eternity for you. The benefits of the new kingdom.

No one, again, whatever want to write that book, it sounds Roman Catholic and mind you, it is.

To add anything to the work of Christ on the cross as it saves you is to add works to it so that you can boast.

The phrase is true. Jesus plus absolutely nothing equals everything because what happens?

We die and what did we did? We gained everything in Christ. That's what it literally means to lay down your life.

You have nothing to offer. You cannot offer anything and what do you gain in turn? He brings you to life.

He guarantees your regeneration. He guarantees your restoration.

It's all his work, yet we can use the Bible and we twist the

Bible and we take out a context and then all of a sudden you have Jesus plus something.

We just read you from Peter. Peter is a man we all know, we're all aware of and what's interesting about the history of Peter, right before Jesus dies,

Peter, the most popular famous apostle ends up denying

Jesus not once but three times. There isn't this long period of 30 years in between the denial of Jesus and the first sermon of Jesus.

It's a very short period of time. It's interesting how God restores

Peter from the moment of denial to being the first missionary, the first pastor to go out and preach.

He gained a lot of confidence because where did he find his hope? What message did he proclaim?

He didn't proclaim strength in his own power. He didn't proclaim faithfulness or fidelity.

What did he proclaim? He proclaimed the sufficiency of Christ. Here's a good example of this in his first epistle, 1

Peter 1, and this is verse 3, it says this, blessed be the

God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ according to his great mercy. Mercy is to not receive what you deserve.

According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.

He caused that, not me. I can't point to anything, right? That's the whole idea of it. We're dead. We have nothing to offer.

This is the next verse I want you to listen to. And in 2, he resurrected us from the dead, 2 verse 4, an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God's power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last days.

Your entire future is wrapped up, not as a potential.

If you perform well, if you do this, there is no if clause.

There is no plus clause. There is only promise. You are not in the equation other than the recipient of these promises.

And he makes it very clear. How do we know that we are one of these people, one of these sinners to whom we've been brought from dead to life?

He says, by faith. By faith. Let me go back and read it again. He says, blessed be the

God and Father of the Lord Jesus Christ. According to his great mercies, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope to the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

And how is it that we know this? He says it's being guarded through what? Verse 5, faith.

It is your belief in the promises, and it's your affection, your love for God.

This is how James puts it. All of these promises are yours for those who love him. How much love?

It doesn't say. It doesn't matter. We love, according to 1 John, because why? He first loved us.

God is the one who moved upon us through love. For God still loved the world, right? While we were yet sinners,

Christ died for us. By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us.

So you have God moving towards wretched, wicked, evil sinners, bringing us to life. And get this, giving us a promise that cannot be touched.

It cannot be defiled. It says this, imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you.

Which means you cannot stain it. You cannot destroy it. You cannot mess it up because you didn't earn it.

You can't lose what you did not earn. It was given to you, therefore it will not be taken back.

The Christian life should be lived as a constant reflection of gratitude.

Look what I have received. And look how faithful God is to keep it. There's nothing left for me to do, get this, in relationship to my standing before the

Father in my eternity. It's secure. It's done. And this is what's so great about the

Reformation and Reformed theology, is that the confessions constantly are pressing you to look way outside of yourself.

Where are you looking? Well, my inheritance is wrapped up in heaven. Well, who is the one keeping your inheritance?

We're told that it's the power of the Spirit who keeps our inheritance.

It's wrapped up in Christ. If you're in Christ, you receive the inheritance. So we don't live every single day trying to maintain, protect, or gain, or any of those things as it relates to our final destination, our final redemption.

That's fully secured. If you believe in God, you trust Him, you love Him, and that faith and that love will waver at times, but God's promises and God's power does not.

This is why we use the Word of God to bolster our faith, to encourage us, to strengthen us.

It is not used to make us afraid. So many people are confused because they think there's something that has to be done in order to confirm, to guarantee, to further.

We have a guarantee. It's God's promises, and the evidence of our faith is what

God says is necessary for us to have confidence that these truths are ours. From that position, from that position, we then obey.

We're going to be doing a video soon on James. James is concerned about a faith that is not in Christ. He's concerned about a faith that is in a subset of religion, a subset of some type of religion, and he calls it a dead faith.

We often confuse thinking that the requirement of our faith is obedience to receive the inheritance.

The inheritance is yours, and if you have faith in that, from that comes gratitude, and from that comes obedience.

We can't reverse it. As Justin Perdue, the co -host with me on the podcast, always says, water flows downhill.

Obedience flows out of us because of who we are. The greatest motivation that you can have to obey

God is to secure your position with God, and the security of your position with God is not wrapped up in you, not your heart, not your emotions, and definitely not your obedience.

God requires perfect obedience, which you can't do if you're going to try and merit His favor, but once you have

His favor, which is in Christ by faith alone, then you obey because your neighbor needs it.

He needs you to be patient and kind and gentle in meekness. I'll just quote a verse for you. This is

Ephesians 4. Paul says, walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you've been called.

You've been called in this family of God. You've been given mercy and grace and inheritance far beyond Ephesians 1 through 3.

And then he says, how do you walk with gentleness, meekness, and patience? You walk out of gratitude.

So my encouragement to you in this video is if you're wrestling, you're always wondering, am I praying enough?

Am I reading enough? Am I doing enough? The answer to that is if you're trying to earn the favor of God and you're trying to guarantee your acceptance for all of eternity, then no, you are not doing enough, and nor will you ever do enough.

Otherwise, Jesus would have not needed to come. He wasn't our great example. He was our great sacrifice.

He was our great replacement. He replaced us, and therefore we receive not only forgiveness, but we receive all of his righteousness.

From that position, find joy, find hope, and also find the motivation to obey because you're secure not to secure it.

Well, leave us a comment down below if you have any questions. We'll put some more resources down there as well as relates to our standing before God and rest in Christ.

If you've not read our free book, it's called Rest, and it's a short, small little book on how to find rest in Christ, very similar to what

I'm talking about here. You can find that on our website. Just go to theocast .org slash primer, and we'll see you next time.