Am I A Fake Christian? | Kingdom

The Kingdom, the Gospel, and Confidence Before God

Welcome to the Kingdom podcast, I'm your host John Moffitt, I'm the pastor of Grace Reformed Church in Spring Hill, Tennessee. Our one aim in this podcast is to make this a reality in our life, seek first the Kingdom.

Of God.

You have to know what the Kingdom is, you have to know the proper understanding of your God and the Gospel. And that is what we're hoping to do today, and specifically we want to talk about our understanding of God.

When we are serving a king, sometimes when people have a vision of a king, it can be a tyrant or it could be a superhero, it could be some mythical creature, or it could be a loving and gracious father.

And which perspective you have does matter. Throughout history, there has been theories about what's called the atonement. Now don't turn me off for just a minute, I want you to hear me out because if it's not the correct one, Paul calls it a false gospel.

And at times we think the Gospel is as simple as Jesus Christ died on the cross, he rose again, and you believe in that and you're safe. And that is true, but as you learn deeper about this God and this Gospel, it gives you more confidence, at least it should.

But unfortunately when I listen to Christians and they talk to me about their faith and their relationship with God, I get this picture in my mind where they believe that God is powerful and they believe that God loves them.

But have you ever been around somebody who's kind of skittish and they're afraid and they'll kind of flinch really easy? God's raising his arm to put his loving arm around you, a sinner who has fallen, and the feeling you get is there's a gut punch coming or there's about to be a knife in the back.

And it's really hard to stand in the strength of the Lord when you are actually wrestling with is God's strength for me or against me? Is he going to use his strength to protect me or is he going to use his strength to take me out?

You know that famous phrase, we're just kind of waiting for the other shoe to drop. There's a reason why this happens, and it does come down to the atonement. It comes down to how you view God's relationship to you and how God dealt with your sin.

The Ransom Theory and Why Satan Is Not Your Creditor

There's a theory out there, it's called the ransom theory, and it's becoming more popular.

Today.

This is why I want to address it. I'm noticing it more and more in podcasts, and I think it's important to understand the differences between that and what we would say the Bible teaches and what the historic Reformed faith has taught for hundreds of years.

The ransom theory has this idea, and it sounds good because it's a villain versus the victor. The villain has its claim upon us that he is the evil one, Satan is the evil one, and that because of that, he owns us.

In the moment we have fallen into sin and we give ourselves over to Satan, he now owns.

Us.

Just like in the Chronicles of Narnia, when you have the white witch who's claiming over Aslan that this Edmund belongs to me, and so you have Aslan, he goes and he lays his life down before the wicked witch or the white witch, and he reclaims Edmund back.

Technically, it makes for a good story, and there's lots about the Chronicles of Narnia that I love, and there's a lot about C .S. Lewis I love, but that ransom theory creates a lot of problems because according to Scripture, specifically the Psalms and Isaiah, we learn that you aren't ransomed from Satan.

He doesn't own your soul, and you didn't sin against Satan. What does David say when he fell against you and you alone have I sent? This is why the covenant of works is so important because the covenant of works was not a work unto Satan, it was a work unto God, and you failed to obey God, therefore you owe God the payment.

You don't owe anyone else the payment. So if we were to change the story, Aslan would have laid his life down for Aslan because he was saving Edmund. That's what it says, that it says that the father crushed the son, it pleased him to crush the son, Isaiah 53.

This theory is not a theory because I think it's accurate, it's what it teaches. Now why is this important just for theological debates? Let's just say the ransom theory is true, let's go with that. Well at that moment, you're feeling the freedom from any accusations that Satan could put upon you, and he can never have his claim over you.

So praise God for that, and that's true. We want to be set free from the bondage of sin, and the one who holds that bondage. But that doesn't set you free from God, because if you violate God, you can still be judged.

For that.

And so we kind of feel, you feel that in your heart and in your soul, like, yeah, but I still fail, I still fail him. And now you're kind of wondering, how is God going to deal with my failures? Is he going to give me some way to wipe it clean or to work it off?

The Imputation of Christ’s Righteousness and the Wrath of God

And this is why the imputation of Christ's righteousness and our sins be imputed onto the Savior, because of the wrath of God, clarifies all of this. When we talk about the atonement, we believe that Christ bore our sins, which was God's.

Wrath.

This is why it says, he drank the cup of wrath, not of Satan's wrath, but of God's wrath. This means that when you stand before the Father, and he looks at you, he's looking at you, and there is no reason on heaven and earth for the rest of eternity will he ever, ever cast judgment on you, ever.

You will never pay for sins, because what we are promised is that our past, present, and future sins, everything that we could possibly ever do under the law, has been covered by Christ's blood. And all of Christ's righteousness, all that he did on our behalf, is now credited to us.

So there's a double padding, is that nothing you ever lack to do, which is obey, can be held against you, and all that you fail to do, which is to obey, is already been granted.

To you.

So when you stand in the strength of the Lord, you have every reason to do so, because you understand the strength comes from his love, and that love, for God so loved the world that he gave his Son, not to rescue you from Satan, but to rescue you from the wrath that is upon you.

I think the clearest way to describe this is Ephesians chapter 2, by nature we are children of wrath, the wrath of who? The wrath of God, right? So how does this work to us in our everyday life? Why is this important?

Because when you fail, which you will, and you have, and you feel it, and your conscience screams at you, do you know what 1 Peter 3 says, it's a beautiful passage, Paul says in 1 Peter 3 that baptism, which now saves you, cleanses your conscience.

Baptism is a picture of what happened to you in the past. Your conscience is covered by the blood of Christ, it was baptized in it, meaning that there's no reason your conscience should ever accuse you of failure.

Therefore, when you fail, it says in Hebrews chapter 4 that you could run into the presence of your King, it says his Father, with boldness, because the blood has covered your conscience, and it says that you can request the Father to restore you, to renew you in this faith, to renew you, reminding you of this, and he says he will give you mercy and grace.

You see, someone who's waiting for the sucker punch, someone who's waiting for the knife in the back, doesn't with boldness run towards God, because they're kind of waiting, like this is going to hurt when it comes.

I actually may not, it might be that joke of like, you thought you were my child, but you just proved that you weren't, and instead of God reaching to pull you near him, he's punching you back. Man, I'm about to do some recording on this about Matthew 7, where people so often use this passage and they wonder, maybe I'm not, maybe he doesn't know me, maybe he is going to cast me out, maybe I'm not one of his.

If he covered your sins with Christ's blood, and then he covers you with his Son's righteousness, there is nothing else for you to do as far as to remove the sins, and there's nothing else for you to do to earn righteousness, which means when he says with boldness, you should hear that as a fine welcome come from a tender father who isn't judging you any.

More.

Seeking the Kingdom by Standing on the Gospel

Now, when people hear me say this, they're saying, well, John, are you saying it doesn't matter how we obey? Oh, yeah, it matters. It matters for the work of the kingdom, which is what this podcast is about.

You can't seek first the kingdom of God if you're trying to seek how to get into it. That's what the atonement does. Christ's atonement for you secures your position in the kingdom, so you can seek the spreading of it throughout the world, right?

Go into all the world and what? Preach the good news of the kingdom. It's not good news if you think that you could possibly not be in it. It's hard to stand in the strength of the Lord if you aren't sure you're in the Lord.

If you think that one failure might fail you, what is it told?

It won't.

Why?

Because we aren't standing on the solid ground of our works, of our faithfulness. Our faith is in the solid rock at which we stand upon. So the atonement really does matter. This word, it becomes life-giving to us, and we want to know more about it.

And what is beautiful is that almost every New Testament writer is going to teach you more and more about the sufficiency of Christ in the gospel. This is why to one of the most wicked cities and the most wicked churches, Paul looks at them and he's like, wow, you do things that the unbelievers don't even do.

So I need to come preach to you the gospel. I need to come preach to you the atonement by which you forgot. 1 Peter 3, 9, or 1 Peter 1, 9, he says, you have forgotten you've been cleansed. You've forgotten the atonement.

You've been cleansed from God's wrath. You need to be reminded of that so you pick back up the work. You set aside your sin. By the way, if anybody ever tells you preaching too much grace leads to sin, well, you have a problem because that's exactly what Hebrews does, laying aside the weight and the sin that easily besets us.

Why?

Because we're looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith. We're looking unto Jesus, the one who atoned us and saved us from the wrath of God. So we set aside sin and we set aside that which is distracting because of what Jesus has done for us.

This means to be effective and see the kingdom and know how the kingdom works and to be a part of it and seek it first, you have to find your residency there solid and secure. There cannot be any doubt the deceiver can absolutely, Satan, the great adversary, will often run after the believer to knock them on their heels because they can't advance the good news of the gospel if they don't even know they have it.

This is why, and I'll tie it back to this and I'll be done, but this is why he says in Ephesians chapter 6, if you're going to withstand the fiery darts of Satan, if you're going to withstand all of his evil minions that are all over the world, if you're going.

To do that, what does it say?

Stand in the strength of the Lord and then he gives you every vision of the gospel you can imagine, right? The truth of the gospel, the righteousness of the gospel, the shoes of the gospel, the helmet of the gospel.

He gives you gospel, gospel, gospel, and what's the gospel? What's the good news? Christ for your payment and Christ for your righteousness. That's the gospel, right? By faith alone. So we need more of the gospel and the clarity of the gospel.

If you are going to be able to lovingly be able to shepherd your wife and your children, if you're a lady, to lovingly care for your husband and your children, if you're a single to understand how to focus in this world, how in the world are you going to advance the kingdom of light if you aren't convinced of God's love and that he always does what is right and he always works in your favor and you might die by the mouth of a lion like they did in the New Testament.

You might die by the piercing of a sword like Paul killing a lot of or saw that time killing a lot of the Christians. We might feel the persecution because the evil one, Satan, wants to stop a message.

He knows that once we get it, we will live for it and we will die for it. Just think about that. Once you understand the gospel, you will die for it. So if you're not ready to die for the gospel, then let's keep learning it.

Let's keep discovering it. Let's keep growing in it. You don't need more law. You definitely need more gospel. So next week, we'll continue this conversation about, well, if you don't know the difference between the law and the gospel, you're going to live a glossable and you'll continue to be waiting for that gut punch, which is where most people live in confusion of the law and the gospel.

We'll see you next week.