The Active Obedience Of Christ - [Romans 5:19]

Our great God and Savior, Father, we come before you this morning mindful of your goodness to us, mindful of your sovereignty, mindful of your control of every single detail, even as we think of this last week and the death of Steve Nelson's mom and Deb's heart attack.

Father, beyond the big things, even the little things, the storms, everything that you bring and summon and ordain so that things are just the way they are.

Father, we praise you for that. We praise you for even the things that seem to fit in category bad,

Lord, because we believe your promise that you are working all things together for good to those who love you and are called according to your purpose.

Father, we would pray as we turn to your word this morning that you would use your word to convict us, to encourage us, to remind us again of the great truths contained therein, truths about you, your son,

Jesus Christ, and his work on the cross. And it's in his name we pray. Amen. Well again, good morning.

You know, I was just reminded before that prayer, you know, when I was on the sheriff's morning,

I did used to have a secular avocation. It's vocation. Vocation and, you know, we used to have this phrase where we would say, well, that's why they pay me the big bucks to make decisions like that.

So this morning, right before the prayer, is this morning the first day of the new Sunday school classes upstairs or no?

Well then, that's what I said. You know, no thought whatsoever. No, it's next week. Is this morning communion?

No, next week. I mean, I could just answer those questions like that. That's why they pay me the big bucks. Well, again, good morning.

As I considered what we might talk about this morning, I thought

I would start out with this is one sure way to keep you engaged for at least 30 seconds.

I would ask you a question and then we'll see what's going on after that. Why did Jesus, it's one of those why questions, so there are a lot of possible answers.

Why did Jesus have to come to the earth? I see those hands.

Why did he have to come to the earth? Because he had to live a perfect life in our stead.

Now, why, out of all the possible reasons, would she give exactly the one I'm going to talk about this morning on the very first answer?

Why would she do that? That's why they pay her the big bucks.

Any other reasons? Bruce. He was sent here by his father.

Charlie. Okay. He was to be the high priest who could sympathize.

Why did Jesus have to come to earth? Let's close in prayer.

To fulfill scripture was another answer. Good answer though, Mark. Very good. I mean, those are great answers.

Now, let's turn that question a little bit and say what did he accomplish by coming here?

He fulfilled prophecy. What's that?

The will of his father. He did what?

He planted the church. He began the church by, certainly by forming it and shaping it.

Yes. Justification, propitiation, all those great theological terms.

And so now we get the theological final exam. One hundred questions. Please close your eyes. No, no. Hi. This outline here, it's amazing how, how many of you use the internet?

Now, don't be ashamed if you don't raise your hand. You know, I tell my dad, I go, you know,

Dad, can I send you an email? And he says, send it to your sister. I don't know how to do that. I don't really get that.

But anyway, I was cruising the internet looking for, for examples, some, some articles about what

I wanted to talk about this morning. And I was reading an article and they kept referring to this other article over and over again.

And I thought, well, why don't I just look at that article? And so I did. And it was by Phil Johnson. And so about two -thirds of this are things that I've taken from Phil Johnson, you know, for the record.

We're going to be talking about the substitutionary atonement of Christ. And specifically, what

I'm going to get to eventually is the active obedience of Christ and why it's so important.

Why it's so important. It is one of, the atonement is one of the fundamentals of the faith. You can't be a

Christian and have no understanding of the atonement.

You could be a Christian and have a wrong understanding of the atonement. However, I would say that if you actually understand what the

Bible says, if you've been a Christian for a certain amount of time and you still have a wrong view of the atonement, then maybe, maybe you're not a

Christian. One of the fundamentals of the faith. Now, at the start of the fundamentalist movement, at the end of the 19th century, which we all know started with the

Conference of Niagara. Well, actually, we probably don't all know. I like to show off every once in a while.

But this doctrine was one of the main battlegrounds. The atonement was.

Why? Why would that be such a big issue? And why would it be such a big issue in, say, the late 19th century, 1875 and forward?

Bruce? Yes, there was definitely a move away from definite redemption to a more inclusive kind of view of the atonement.

Were you going to say something, Daniel? Okay. And that's really what

I was driving at. As we see the end of the 19th century, there was a movement called modernism, where basically the modernists would deny the supernatural.

And it's pretty incredible. And I've said this before. But if you go to the library, and you say, not our library, because our library is pretty good.

But if you go to the library and say, I want to read 50 commentaries on the book of Ephesians, the number of commentaries that you will read that are written by people who deny the supernatural existence of God, even, you know, or the inspiration of scripture is phenomenal.

And it's that modernist movement that was coming in to really infect the church at the end of the 19th century.

And this erosion of commitment to a right understanding of the atonement is one of the main reasons the whole evangelical movement today is in serious trouble.

Here are three wrong views of the atonement. And we want to look at the wrong ones, so that when we...

I mean, you guys all go, well, that's dumb. Why would anybody believe that? People do. Who can give me an explanation of the ransom theory?

Anybody familiar with the ransom theory of the atonement? Scott? Okay. Okay.

God had to pay Satan a ransom to redeem the elect.

Now, it's interesting who developed this theory. It actually goes all the way back to Origen. And Origen was somebody who had a very allegorical understanding of the scriptures, a very...

he had a pretty bizarre personal life, just a strange individual. But he proposed this view, and what he said was that Satan was tricked into accepting

Christ's death in exchange for the souls of sinners, not realizing that Christ would rise from the dead.

So Satan didn't know what was going on. He had ownership, as it were, of all the souls of everyone, and God pulled a fast one on him.

And that is based on a serious misunderstanding of Mark 10, 45, and 1

Timothy 2, 6, where it talks about Christ being a ransom. So, you know, if you're able to, as Origen was, if you're able to infer or to draw out all these meanings of the text that are never in the text, then when you come to something where it says ransom, and you go, ransom?

Well, who are they paying a ransom to? And so, you know, one thing leads to another, and you come up with a view of the atonement that's never intended.

Now, revival, and it's amazing because one of the things that you learn by studying church history, as you'll find out if you take the

Find Church History 2 class that's coming up here. When does that start, Bob? Next Thursday.

Next Thursday. Okay. If you take that, one of the things you'll find is that there are very few new things that come up.

We'll hear things, and we'll go, who would ever believe that, or why was that developed, or whatever, but these things keep getting repackaged and sold over and over and over again.

Attacks on the Bible. Attacks on Christ. Attacks on the truths of the faith.

And this is popular today among whom? Who would go for this?

Okay. Charismatics, and not just any charismatics, basically the worst of the worst, the word faith guys, the guys who say that you speak, and what you say has impact on the surroundings around you.

In other words, you can speak into reality your own existence, which basically is, well, not only is it heresy, but it's also what

Shirley MacLaine said. So, anyway, that would be like Kenneth Copeland, people like that,

Kenneth Hagen. But they teach that Christ purchased ransom for sinners by literally suffering in hell.

I remember years ago, in fact, I just gave this book to Bernard and the guys, it's called, by Hank Hanegraaff, what is that called?

Christianian Crisis. And the tapes, you can actually listen to Kenneth Copeland talking about Christ suffering in hell, and Satan and all the demons rejoicing at his suffering while he's in hell.

And you just listen, you just go, how can anybody believe that? Where is that in the Bible, exactly? So what is wrong with this view, besides the fact that it's based on a misunderstanding of Mark 10, 45, and 1

Timothy 2, 6? Okay? I mean, basically, he said it eliminates the sovereignty of God, or undermines the sovereignty of God.

Why? Because God somehow lost everything, everyone, and then had to get them back from Satan.

Anybody else? Yeah, I mean, it really does make

God kind of subservient to Satan. But how about this? How about this idea that somehow our sin puts us in bondage, not just in some kind of spiritual way, but puts us in the debt of Satan.

How would that work, exactly? How is it that we all...

In other words, it's like we took a loan out from the bank, and it was the bank of Satan. Well, how did that happen?

When we sin, are we indebting ourselves to Satan, or are we creating enmity between us and God?

So I think it's totally inverted. Our problem is not when we sin. Our problem is not with Satan.

Our problem is with God. Now, the biblical word ransom simply means redemption price.

It does not necessarily mean, does not imply that Satan was owed something.

It simply says that there had to be a price paid for our sin.

And finally, Scripture teaches that Christ's atonement was a sacrifice to God, not to Satan.

Let's look at Ephesians 5 .2. In fact, we'll read 1 and 2.

And Eric, would you read that please, loudly? Okay, now, he gave himself up to Satan.

The Bible tells us right there that he gave himself up as a sacrifice to God. It doesn't apply any payment there whatsoever to Satan.

Isaiah 53 .10, I'll just read that. The Lord, you can review this, or we'll get to Isaiah 53 again.

But the Lord was pleased to crush him, putting him to grief, if he would render himself as a guilt offering.

Again, the whole idea of to Satan is not there. So that's the ransom theory.

The moral influence theory. This is my own personal favorite. If you're going to have a really bad theory, this is probably the worst.

Who can explain the moral influence theory? Okay. It is this, and it comes from the 12th century.

It says that Christ's death was an example for believers to follow, a radical expression of love that influences sinners morally and gives them a pattern to follow, but does not actually pay any price on their behalf.

Anybody ever heard anyone teach this? And where did you hear that?

Jehovah's Witnesses, okay. I was going to say, you know, I picked up one of the things

I do, and I think it's in Mike's office now, but I picked up this track at Holden Days. And by the way, just a side note for those of you that are thinking about going to Holden Days, make sure you don't miss it because there's only one day in Holden Days.

I don't really understand that, but I'm here to help. I went around to this church, had a table there, and they were giving out these tracks, and I picked it up.

And, you know, you're in pretty good shape when you pick up a track, and they say they quote great theologians on it, and this particular track happened to quote

Gracie Allen. Now, see, the teenagers are like, who's

Gracie Allen? That was George Burns' ditzy wife, you know, for those of you who are.

And she said, and she said, and they actually quote this, like this is a reliable thing, and I guess because he played

God in a couple of movies. Three, whatever, yeah. She said, never put a period where God has put a semicolon or a comma or whatever it was that they quoted her saying.

And I thought, okay, we're in trouble. If that is the sort of thing that they're going to quote, then we're in trouble, and I opened it up.

And what do you think that a United Church of Christ tract would stress? Social justice.

I was reading, and that's the whole thing. They send people, and they're like they were collecting money for missions, and I thought, oh, that's interesting.

They're collecting money for missions. Maybe they want to go preach the gospel somewhere. No, they're going, and they're sending people off on missions to establish social justice, to fight for, you know, the end of poverty and, you know, all that kind of stuff.

And I'm going, well, you know, it would be great to eliminate poverty, but there's one little problem. Jesus said, the poor you'll always have with you.

Does that mean we shouldn't fight it? No, but does that, you know, if I'm handing out tracts to people, the one thing

I'm, you know, I'm going to stress is social justice. The one thing

I'm going to, you know, that sort of thing. And I just thought, that is bad. But if you read it, it's because they hold to this view of the atonement.

They think that it gives, Jesus' death is an example to follow, that he died to show us that we need to give of ourselves, that we need to follow his kind of, his selflessness.

And they would say that God's justice demands no actual payment for sin, because, why would that be?

God's justice demands no payment for sin. Why? Well, I think they would say that, yes,

I am a sinner. Yes, I do wrong things. But, oh, they certainly wouldn't go for that.

Yeah, they don't think they're dead and trespassing sins. But it's something else. It's not necessarily what they do. It's how

God sees them. God is love. God is love.

So what does that mean? God would never, ever demand something so heinous because of his justice, because his overriding attribute is love.

Love is supreme. Everything else goes below that. Now, what's wrong with this view?

Bernard of Clairvaux, a contemporary of Abelard, noted that if Christ's death was merely an example, a good work that we should all emulate, then the actual work of salvation is still our work to do.

The Council of Sins in 1141 declared Abelard, the guy who developed this view, a heretic.

That's a bit of a problem. But this view resurfaced during the Reformation and the teaching of the

Socinians. They insisted that God's predominant attribute is love, which virtually cancels out his wrath.

Exactly what I said. Therefore, God is inclined to pardon sinners without demanding any payment.

He loves us so much that he just can't stand to see anybody go to hell. They also taught that Christ's death served as an example of obedience and love to believers pointing the way to life.

Now, there are many who hold this view today, including those who adhere to open theism.

Now, we've talked about open theism off and on. Somebody want to give a brief definition of what open theism is?

All roads lead to Rome. That would not be correct, but thank you for playing. Bruce. Okay.

We're on the road on that one. God can change his mind depending on the circumstances. Something even...

Yes, Lou. And that's it.

God learns. He doesn't know everything. He's learning. He's growing. It reminds me of that song that was out 10 years ago or so when

I was first saved. And I would hear it in the gym, and I'd just go like this. I hated it.

You know, what if God was one of us? Because I understood then that if God was one of us, we had no hope.

And the same kind of idea. If he's learning and growing and changing his mind and doesn't really know how things are going to work out,

A, I don't have very much confidence in the Bible. B, how can we trust anything?

You know, you can't know anything because God's just learning and growing. And that is, you know, what's the biggest problem with open theism is that's not the

God of the Bible. You have to explain a lot away to do that.

But what's the worst problem with this view? With this idea that the atonement simply serves as a good example?

Yeah. Well, and that's it exactly. It destroys the idea that Jesus is the sin bearer, so it would mean that there's no propitiatory aspect to the atonement.

So that when Jesus Christ dies, it is not a satisfaction for sin. It accomplishes nothing except for to say, you know, that Jesus really showed us the way.

He really did a good thing, but it would have no impact on our lives. Now, if sinners are redeemed by following the example of Christ, then salvation is what?

It's works. It's moral reform. Salvation by works, it just means we need to love more, we need to do more, we need to be more devoted, say, to social justice.

Let's go on mission trips and try to make the world a better place. But Abelard's argument for this view is that divine forgiveness is so lavish that no payment for sin is unnecessary.

But what does the Bible say? Hebrews 9 .22, what does Hebrews 9 .22 say? Without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness.

Divine forgiveness is rooted and grounded in a blood atonement. So there's the second bad view.

The third one is, and this one, I remember, see, even because I don't review all these bad things all the time, and so I remember coming out of, should

I say where we were? Everybody will know. We were at Shepherd's Conference and we came out of, what's the name of that place?

Saddleback. And someone in our group there,

I think it was, what's his name? The guy in charge here, Mike, he said, wow, governmental theory of the atonement.

So this is still going on today. This view was devised by Hugo Grotius, thank you, during the

Armenian controversy in Holland. Governmental theory states that God himself requires no payment for sin, but that public justice did require some token or display of how much

God despises sin. In other words, we need to understand that God really hates it, that it's really bad, but it really doesn't have any direct application to us.

Christ was sacrificed to display to the world what God's wrath against sin looks like. Redemption, therefore, is primarily subjective and hinges completely on the sinner's response.

So how do we respond to that? We see how much

God hates sin, therefore, we try to do what? Not sin.

And this was embraced by several New England theologians in the 17th and 18th century, including our very own

Charles Finney, a few others, promoted by groups like Youth with a

Mission, popular Christian authors such as Brother Jed. Anybody know

Brother Jed? I never heard of him. What's that?

Ellie Mae's father. If you're a teenager this morning,

I really feel badly for you. All these, you know, 60s things.

I'm barely old enough to know some of this stuff. So, anyway, this is popular among... Stop that.

Popular among charismatics, especially in the assemblies of God. Now, what are some major problems with this view?

First of all, it defines salvation in terms of what the sinner must do, again, what we must do, leading to perfectionism, moralism, or some other kind of salvation by works.

It also redefines the significance of the cross, rather than emphasizing what Christ objectively accomplished there.

People who hold this view must define the cross in terms of how it can subjectively change the human heart.

In other words, how it impacts your life when you see, when you recognize how much

God despises sin. Now, is that true, that God hates sin? Yep, but it just doesn't stop there.

The fourth view of the Atonement, finally getting around to the right one that we're going to talk about this morning, which

I originally thought about long and hard, and I said, the true doctrine of the Atonement. Christ's death as a penal substitution, the doctrine of Atonement as taught in the

Bible. Christ's death was a substitution for sinners. God imputed the guilt of their transgressions to Christ and then punished him for it.

Any problem with that? No. I mean, for which we all say, thank you,

Lord. This was a full payment for the price of sins to satisfy both the wrath and the righteousness of God so that he could forgive sins without compromising his own holy standard.

Now, where would we maybe see that most clearly in the Bible? 2

Corinthians 5 .21, which says, He made Him, it's

God, made Him who knew no sin, Christ, to be sin on our behalf that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.

So, and we'll talk about this in just a moment, the difference between the two, but Christ dies and we get the benefit.

Christ takes on our sin and we take on His righteousness.

That's called double imputation, substitution. Double imputation because imputation, our sins are accounted or imputed to Christ and His righteousness is imputed to us.

Two sides of the same coin. Anselm of Canterbury focused his efforts to understand this doctrine.

He wrote a book about it. He offered compelling biblical evidence that the atonement was not a ransom, but rather a debt, or not a ransom paid by God to the devil, but rather a debt paid to God on behalf of sinners.

And that laid the foundation for the Reformation understanding of it.

Another Bible text that proves this for you. Let's look at Isaiah 53, one of the servant passages, also known as the suffering servant.

It's interesting too because, you know, we mentioned from time to time that the chapter titles or chapter breaks are not necessarily inspired and you can go back to Isaiah 52, starting, what, in verse 13.

But Isaiah 53, verses 5 and 6.

But He was pierced through for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities, the chastening for our well -being fell upon Him, and by His scourging we are healed.

All of us like sheep have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way. But the Lord has caused the iniquity of us all to fall on Him.

Clearly a divinely orchestrated sacrifice and it is clearly substitutionary.

He was pierced through not for His own transgressions, but for ours. He was crushed not for His iniquity, but for ours.

And then on the other side, the chastening for our well -being, in other words, the suffering so that we could be well, fell upon Him, and by His scourging we are healed.

So that gives us some kind of idea of the substitutionary nature of it. Verses 8 to 9, again, states that Christ was punished for others' sins and that He Himself was innocent of any wrongdoing.

By oppression and judgment He was taken away and as for His generation, who considered that He was cut off out of the land of the living for the transgression of My people to whom the stroke was due?

His grave was assigned with wicked men, yet He was with a rich man in His death because He had done no violence, nor was there any deceit in His mouth.

So He did nothing wrong, and yet He took the punishment. Verse 10 underscores the fact that it was

God who exacted the penalty for sin. We read that earlier. Verse 11 highlights the principle of substitution alongside the notion that this is a penal substitution.

Let's read verse 11. As a result of the anguish of His soul, He will see it and be satisfied.

By His knowledge, the righteous one, My servant, will justify the many, and He will bear their iniquities.

Other verses underscore the substitutionary nature of the atonement. We mentioned 2 Corinthians 5 .21.

There's also Galatians 3 .13, 1 Peter 2 .24, 1 Peter 3 .18,

1 John 2 .2, others. But Scripture teaches that divine justice is perfectly fulfilled in the atoning work of Christ.

Let's look at Romans 1 .17. For in it, the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith, as it is written, but the righteous man shall live by faith.

That is what the gospel is. That's what was accomplished for us. 1

John 1 .9, also similar. But God doesn't merely set aside justice and forgive us out of the sheer abundance of His mercy.

He doesn't do so just because He loves us so much, because His overriding attribute is love.

He forgives because it is an act of justice to do so.

We can look at Romans 3 .26 for that. But now that we've seen that penal substitution is the correct view, let's look at two truths about this doctrine, two sides of the same coin.

All that was introduction. Now let's get to the real meat of it. Two sides of the same coin, the passive and active obedience of our

Lord Jesus Christ. Now, why would I say that that's two sides of the same coin? Passive and active obedience of the

Lord Jesus Christ. Okay?

He never lost His deity, but He was always obedient? Yes. Absolutely.

And let me make sure I attribute this correctly here, if I can find it.

I think this is from Grudem's Systematic Theology. But he says that both aspects of Christ's obedience, the active and the passive, continued through His whole life.

We think of His passive obedience and Him being led to the cross, which is true.

But His whole life was one of passive obedience. His active obedience included faithful obedience from birth up to and including the point of His death, because that was always the plan of God, and He did it faithfully.

And His suffering on our behalf, which found its climax in the crucifixion, continued through His whole life.

His suffering continued through His whole life. So from the moment He was born, Jesus Christ was suffering.

From the moment He was born. How could that be? Okay? He was away from the presence of His Father.

I like that one, too. His nature was restrained. He took on this extra nature, and it wasn't really all that great of a nature.

So His whole life was engaged in passive and active obedience.

Michael Horton says this. Well, let's split them up a little bit.

Passive obedience is His undergoing punishment according to the law's denunciations for disobedience.

That's shed. In other words, He underwent punishment on our behalf because of the law's requirements for disobedience.

The law is broken. There's a price that must be paid. Jesus paid that. And we would see that in many cases.

We just went through a bunch of them in Isaiah 53. Active obedience refers to Christ perfectly keeping the precepts of the law.

Again, that's shed. So we understand very well the idea that Jesus took upon Himself our sins, that He paid the price for our sins.

Now, what happens if that's all He did? And, by the way, that's a big movement right now in Christianity, that Jesus' passive obedience is all we need.

Why would that not be enough? It's on the same track as the

Lordship -Salvation issue, but if all we have is the passive obedience of Christ, then what do we have?

It gets us to neutral. That's exactly what I was thinking this morning, which is why I like it so much. It gets us to neutral because we're no longer accountable for our sins because Jesus paid that penalty.

Is that enough? I was thinking this morning, too, about Cheryl. Casey wrote a track called

A Ticket to Heaven, and I'm going, that's right. When Jesus died, if His passive obedience was enough for us, then we'd be back at, if that's all it was, we'd be back at neutral, meaning we wouldn't deserve to go to hell.

The question, though, is would we deserve to go to heaven? Why not?

Because He had, why did He have to satisfy the law? You have to have positive righteousness to enter into the kingdom of heaven.

What did Jesus Christ Himself say? That unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter into the kingdom of heaven.

There has to be a positive aspect to His obedience for us to get into heaven.

Listen to Romans 519. For us, through the one man's disobedience, and let's just kind of, it's

Adam, that Adam got us into all this trouble. For us, through the one man's disobedience, the many were made sinners, that's us.

Even so, through the obedience of the one, the many will be made neutral. No, the many will be made righteous, as they must be to enter into the kingdom of heaven.

They must have a ticket to heaven. They must have an affirmative righteousness. They must have done what to merit eternal life?

I'm sorry? Lived a righteous life, which means what? Be perfect.

So what do you have to do to be perfect? Okay. Not do what's prohibited, okay, which would be the negative side, but to do what is commanded.

So what is commanded of a Christian? Love the

Lord your God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, from birth to death. Love your neighbor as yourself.

Obey your parents. Be perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect.

Do we do that? So if we get back to morally neutral, square one, and we're left on our own, then all we have to do is just somehow live a perfect life, and we can get to heaven.

We couldn't do that. Christ did that in our stead.

And that's the great truth about his active obedience. 1

Corinthians 1 .30 says this, But by his doing you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption.

Jesus accomplished those things for us. He gave those things to us.

They were transferred to us. Again, Michael Horton says this,

God not only requires an absence of sin, but a positive possession of the righteousness his nature requires of us.

We don't get into heaven just because we're morally neutral. We don't get back into his presence because we're gray.

Jesus said on the cross, he said, It is finished. When he said that, he meant not only his final trial, but also his work.

His whole life lived for us on our behalf. His passive obedience canceled out the debt of our sin, and his active obedience provides the ground by which

God can declare us righteous. Colossians 3, verses 23 and 24 say this.

I thought about this passage in another context. Whatever you do, do your work heartily as for the

Lord rather than for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the reward of the inheritance.

It is the Lord Christ whom you serve. Do we work heartily?

Do we do all things as we... I've said, and it sounds kind of silly, but was

Jesus a carpenter? Or people say the word carpenter meant other things.

He was also a mason and could have been a general contractor. All I know is if Jesus made something, if he made a table, if he made a house, if whatever he made,

I would like to own that personally. Not just because I could say this is an original or whatever, but because I'm quite certain that he worked heartily.

Why? Because he had to. Everything he did was perfect. These things, we look at them and we go, well, how could anybody possibly do all these things all the time?

We can't, but Jesus did. And look at that.

Knowing that from the Lord you will receive the reward of the inheritance. We get an inheritance.

We get what Christ has earned to us. That gets given to us. It is reserved for us, as 1

Peter says, reserved for us in heaven. 1

Corinthians 9 verses 23 to 25. Paul writes,

I do all things for the sake of the gospel so that I may become a fellow partaker of it.

Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but only one receives the prize?

Run in such a way that you may win. Everyone who competes in the games exercises self -control in all things.

They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. Paul urges the

Corinthian church to run the race well, to strive for that wreath, that imperishable wreath.

But what's the truth? The truth is, no matter what they did, they could never merit it on their own. But because of Christ, we will merit it.

And then what will we do? When we gather up our crowns and our trophies and our awards and our sashes and our medals and whatever else we have, what are we going to do with those things in heaven?

Wear them around and show each other, look at all the great things I have. I can hardly balance all the crowns on my head.

We're going to throw them at Christ's feet. Why? Because we know that we never would have done it.

We could never have done it for one day. Have you ever, honestly, for one day in your life, ever done anything, even at work, and said, you know, today, everything

I do, every thought I have is going to be very affirming of my boss. I'm going to go in, I'm going to work from beginning to end.

I'm not going to, you know, even take a breather. None of that today. It's just all out work.

I'm going to school today, and I'm really, you know, I'm not going to play any of the games the other kids are playing.

I am going full bore. Not for one day could we do that. Jesus Christ did it his whole life.

So why should we care about the act of obedience of Christ? Well, firstly, I think we should care because we're not going to heaven without it.

We can't get there. We don't have that ticket to heaven. But it is under assault today from within the camp of evangelicalism.

I mean, they attack a lot of things. They're attacking the reliability of Scripture. They're attacking the definition of sin.

They're attacking, basically, there's a movement afoot to drive us back to the

Roman Catholic Church with a lot of fancy schmancy jargon, and they're dressing it up very nicely, but that's what they're doing.

The doctrines, the central doctrines of the faith are under assault. Why? The church, the church is under assault, not from without, not in the free world anyway, but from within.

I mean, I go to other places. I was reading this morning about a pastor in China who was sentenced to seven and a half years, you know, for some trumped -up charge.

I mean, there they just arrest you because you're pastoring a home church. We need the active obedience of Christ, and we need to understand that there are scholars, one of the most popular of them being

N .T. Wright, there are scholars out there who would tell us that these things are not biblical.

They would tell us that these things are wrong, and all you have to do, if you just look at what the Bible says, you'll never be fooled by these people.

But these are the kind of issues that are ongoing. They will go on over and over and over again until the

Lord comes, because men are so clever. They are so clever that they will deny the truth, that they will try to bury the truth, that they will repackage

Satan's lies over and over and over again. This is J.

Gresham Machen, and I think a pastor quoted this here some time ago, but it's a great story, so we'll redo this again.

But J. Gresham Machen, near the end of his life, was very, very sick, and he had pneumonia, refused to do the right thing and rest and kept going, and eventually he's on his deathbed.

On New Year's Eve, a pastor came to see him, and he said to this man on his deathbed, he said,

Sam, it was glorious, talking about this dream he'd had, it was glorious, just glorious, that he said,

Sam, isn't the Reformed faith grand? And then just before J. Gresham Machen, this man who fought liberalism, which is what we're really talking about, that's what's attacking the church, just before he died, he dictated a telegram to John Murray, professor of systematic theology at Westminster Seminary, and these were the last words that he wrote.

He said, I'm so thankful for the active obedience of Christ. No hope without it.

No hope without it. No hope of heaven without the active obedience of Christ.

Without that being imputed to our account, we cannot hope to go to heaven, but because of it, we are guaranteed heaven.

Let's pray. Father, what a blessing it is to consider the truths of the

Bible, to consider what your Son has accomplished for us.

He did for us what we could never do for ourselves, not only getting us back to a place of neutrality, not only paying for our sins, which would be fantastic enough, to not be in debt to you, to not face your wrath forever and ever.

But Father, he has given us something all that much better. His perfect obedience, his active obedience,

Lord, where he did everything in our stead that we could never do for ourselves. Even though we might desire to, we wander.

We lack focus. We lack that perfect desire to obey you.

Father, I would pray for each one here this morning that we would reflect upon your goodness to us in sending your

Son to die for our sins and to live a perfect life in our stead so that we might, by virtue of faith, which is also a gift from you, be reconciled to you and live with you forever.