John 6:44 (The Drawing Of God)

The Gospel as the Sweetest Truth

When you think about the news on TV, we can only take so much of it before it starts to make us a little bit crazy. You think about all of the negativity, and all of the frustration, and all of the pain, and all of the spin, and fakeness of it all, you can only take so much before it just makes us mad.

You think about your favorite meal even, that's something that's good. If you eat it once every now and then, it's wonderful, makes you hungry for it again, but if you eat it every single day, every single meal all the time, eventually you'll hate that meal.

I've gotten that way with Domino's, it's definitely not my favorite. But we've just eaten it too much. It is repulsive to me at this point. I need a break. The only thing that if we repeat it over, and over, and over, and over again, that never loses the sweetness of the gospel.

That's the only thing. Today I'm not probably going to be sharing a whole lot that's new, I'm going to be reminding you of things that you already know, but Jesus said that these things are a wellspring of life that will constantly flow inside of us.

So when your heart, if you're a Christian, when you're hearing these truths, your heart is going to leap with joy, because it's the only thing that we can say over, and over, and over again, that never loses its luster and its beauty.

So today we're going to be looking at that. What is salvation? What is the gospel? Now John tells us the purpose of his gospel in chapter 20, verse 31. He says, These things have been written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing in Him, you may have life in His name.

John is not saying that all you have to do is believe in Jesus. We know that's true, but he's not saying that it's just a Jesus belief, simple belief sort of salvation. He's given us specific details that we're supposed to believe.

He's saying these things have been written. Verse 1 of chapter 1 has been written so that you will believe the gospel. Chapter 2 was written so that you will believe in Jesus. Chapter 3, these things are necessary details that John is including so that we will have the right belief in Jesus.

He's picking certain stories and giving you an essential body of data so that your faith will be legitimately placed in Jesus. If all John needed to say to us was, believe in Jesus and you will be saved, he wasted a lot of ink on his gospel.

19 ,000 words is how big John's gospel is when he could have just said nine. If you believe in Jesus, then you will be saved. That's combined. It worked out earlier. The gospel could have been a single line.

The New Testament could have been no more than a paragraph. And that is important to understand, especially in the time period that this was written, because books were expensive to make. I've said this before, I think, but the book of Romans would have cost about $10 ,000 modern day money to produce.

John's gospel would have been more because his gospel is larger than Romans. Books were expensive to make. The materials were in low supply. Most people who were reading it or who were attempting to read it were illiterate.

Why would John go to such lengths to write this beautiful theological treatise where every word is like a gemstone tied together in this beautiful necklace of grace? Why would he do that if all he needed to do was say, just believe in Jesus and then you will be saved?

Because John thought that all of it was necessary so that you would know which Jesus that you're supposed to believe in. So you would know who he is and his character. John's pastoral point is I want you to believe in the right Jesus.

I want you to know who Jesus truly is. I'm going to tell you a story to kind of drive this point home. It's a fictional story. I made it up, but I think it actually proves the point well. Now we know not all of us in this room are women, but let's just imagine for a second that you are.

You're a young woman and in your travels you run into a wise, sagely old man who is very intelligent, claims to speak for God. He's known to give good advice. So you start talking to him and he says, you know what, I've got an idea for you.

If you want to live a happy life, then all you have to do is marry a man named John. That's all you have to do. And you say, but wait a minute, I need to know his last name. I need to know if he has a job.

I need to know if he's a bum. I need to know if he's got good character. I need to know a lot of things about him. And he's like, no, no, no, no, don't worry. All you have to do is put your trust in John.

All you have to do is raise your hand and accept John into your heart. All you have to do is make him your number one and you will have a happy and fulfilled life. So you go against reason, you go against logic, and you meet a John that same week.

And John is incredible. He dotes all over you. He treats you wonderfully. And then you say, you know, have you ever thought about marriage? And John says, I was actually just thinking that right now. Would you marry me?

And you say, yes, I'd love to. And everything's going great for the first five or so minutes. But then very shortly after that, it starts with little side comments. It starts with belittling and mocking.

A couple of weeks later, you're feeling emotionally abused. Maybe a couple of months later, you're feeling like things are getting worse. Maybe it turns physically violent. Maybe John is beating you after six months, cheating on you after a year.

After two years, he's threatening to kill you. You finally escape and you run to that old man and you say, you fool. Why did you tell me to do that? And then he has the audacity to look at you and says, I guess you just picked the wrong John.

This is a fictional story, but this is what preachers are doing all across this country. They're standing up and they're giving you a simple Jesus message, not telling you that he cares about holiness, not telling you that he cares about obedience, not telling you that he flips tables over in the temple because he cares about purity.

They've given us the wrong Jesus. And is it any wonder why people leave the church and abandon faith and do all of that because they believe and put their faith in an easy Jesus, in a political Jesus, in a signs and wonder Jesus?

We've been given the wrong Jesus. That kind of preacher is epidemic in this country. And that kind of preacher deserves all of the criticism that we could give them. But thankfully, we don't have a Bible that's unclear about who the real Jesus is.

And we're not in a gospel that's unclear on who the real Jesus is. John gave us chapters and verses and grammar and situations and parables and examples so that you and I would not be confused and so that our faith would be in the right Jesus.

You see, for John, he's not saying all you have to do is believe. He's saying, believe in the Jesus I'm telling you about. Believe in the Jesus I'm showing you. Heaven and hell, for John, are in the balance of doctrine.

We have this culture in society that says, you don't need theology. All you need is to believe in Jesus. You know, theology means thoughts about God. Everyone has a theology. Either your theology will be biblical or it won't.

But everyone has a theology. We need to know why we believe and who we believe and where to place our hope. And John is telling us that. Now, we affirm that we're saved by Christ alone. It just better be the right Christ.

Who is this Jesus? John tells us. How do we believe in this Jesus? John tells us. What's salvation like? Why is salvation like? Where does salvation go? How does it get applied to us? John tells us all of that.

What's the purpose for our salvation? John tells us all of that. And he also very helpfully gives us counterfeit examples so that we will understand what it's not like. Think about John chapter two. People come, or Jesus comes to Jerusalem where they worship a building more than they worship Jesus.

They had a building-centric savior. This actually affects the church today. I've been in churches where if you move a chair, then you're going to hell. It's because they worship their building more than they worship Jesus.

Again in John two, you've got crowds who are fawning over him, loving him, wanting to follow him. But they're not wanting to follow him because of who he is. They're wanting to follow him because of the miracles and the stuff that he can do for them.

They're treating him like a parlor trick Jesus and a vending machine Jesus. And we covered a couple of weeks ago how that is epidemic in the church today as well. John three, you see a religious gospel.

You see Nicodemus looking for Jesus to be a highfalutin, Pharisaic, religious, scholarly, Jewish, Pharisaic savior. And yet because Jesus didn't fit into his mold in that moment, he rejected Jesus. Now, praise God, someone who is a legalist can be saved.

That's my story. Nicodemus at the end of Jesus's life does bow the knee to Christ. In John three, he doesn't. The reason he doesn't is because he thought Jesus should be X. Jesus was not that, so we had the wrong Jesus.

John five, we see a man who has a self-help Jesus in mind. He's sitting there at the pool for 38 years and he wants to be like all of his friends who run to the temple. Jesus heals him. He doesn't even say thank you.

He runs to the temple and eventually turns Jesus into the Pharisees because he didn't want Jesus. He just wanted his stuff. He just wanted his miracle and his healing. The Pharisees had a legalistic faith because Jesus didn't share their view of the Sabbath.

He must not be from God when their view of the Sabbath was actually not from God. They said that in order to be saved, you needed to have Messiah plus religion, Messiah plus our tradition, Messiah plus our rules, Messiah plus our authority.

They had the wrong Christ. If they knew who Jesus was, they wouldn't be asking him to submit to their authority. They'd be bowing down on their faces, submitting to him. All throughout the gospel, we see false examples of what it means to believe in Jesus.

Human Inability and the Need for Divine Drawing

Today, we're gonna see something true. John six, in my opinion, is one of the most beautiful passages. John six, 44. It's one of the most beautiful passages in all of the Bible. I return to it time and time and time again to demonstrate to people what salvation is.

I think it's one of the clearest passages in the Bible. I think it's one of the most helpful passages in the Bible when it comes to what is salvation. That's what we're gonna be talking about today. What is salvation?

Today, we're gonna learn that it's a past event that happened. Today, we're gonna learn that it's a present reality that is happening, and we're also gonna learn that it's a future promise that will happen.

It will happen for everyone who is in Christ. So if you will, turn with me to John six, 44, as we read this beautiful passage together. It says, no one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up on the last day.

Let's pray. Father, you have been exceedingly gracious to us to give us such clear words. It's almost impossible to argue with the clarity of it. Lord, I pray that today would be an exploration into the goodness of your gospel.

Lord, I pray today that our hearts would leap with the goodness of your gospel. Lord, I pray that that good news would be ever new again this morning, and it would cause us to sing with joy. Lord, I pray that we would understand it.

Lord, I pray that we would find our identity in it. And Lord, I pray that we would be encouraged to leave this place today and herald it. In Christ's name, amen. Jesus begins the story of salvation where we have to begin.

No one, no one comes to me. That means that no one in their own sin, in their own power, or in their own ability, their own strength can come to Jesus. No one can come to him. God made a human where he set up rules, and he set up structures, and he set up consequences, and they rebelled, and they inherited the consequences, and the consequences of their sin caused an infection to be unleashed upon their soul, and it was a cancer that wreaked havoc with their ability to know and seek after God.

It paralyzed their soul in a sort of immutable and incurable inability. Human beings on their own cannot seek God. We cannot know God. We cannot come to God. We can't. That infection was called sin, and it was so damaging to the soul of Adam and Eve that they not only lost their desire to seek after God, they lost their ability.

They stopped looking for him altogether. Romans 1 says that they turned the creator, they turned from the creator worshiping him and turned to the creature and started worshiping it instead of God because their sinful hearts were darkened.

Sin is so powerful in our life that we cannot seek God unless something else comes in and helps us on our own. We are doomed. Paul says this in Romans 3. There is no one righteous, not even one. How many?

No one. There's no one who understands. There's no one who seeks God. All have turned away. That word all is a pretty technical Greek term. It means everyone. That was a joke. All of them have turned away.

They have together become worthless. There is no one who does good, not even one. Their throats are open graves. Their tongues practice deceit. The poison of vipers is on their lips. Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness.

Their feet are swift to shed blood. Ruin and misery mark their ways and the way of peace they do not know. There is no fear of God before their eyes. Do you see why Jesus says no one can come to me? Not even one.

We're not righteous. We have no ability on our own to know God. We have no understanding to comprehend him and no spirituality. Paul says that we are worthless in our sin. Our throats foment death in our sin.

Our lips and our mouths are cursed in our sin. We are the kind of people whose feet are swift to murder in our sin. And in case we want to challenge that fact and say, I've never murdered anyone. Jesus clarifies that and says, if you've ever been angry with your brother, then you're guilty of murder.

If you ever looked lustfully at another person, you're guilty of adultery. Our feet most certainly have done those things and have led us into those things. The Bible calls sin a crushing burden that we cannot be released from.

It calls it a penetrating stain that we cannot be cleansed from. It calls it an ever-growing debt that we cannot be loosed from. It calls it a roaring lion that we cannot be spared from. It calls it an infectious disease that we cannot be healed from.

A wicked taskmaster that we can't be unchained from. And a tyrant king that we cannot be free of. Jesus says no one seeks after God. No one. Now, we're not quoting all of those verses. We're alluding to them.

They're in the scriptures. And I encourage you to study all the verses in the Bible on sin. It will not produce confidence in your heart that you can do it on your own. The Bible describes sin as an external wicked power that has come into us and thoroughly and totally corrupted us so that we cannot seek God.

Another layer to this is the word that Jesus uses in this passage, dunamis. It's an adverb in this passage. It's supporting the verb come. It's telling us what kind of coming we can do. And the word dunamis in this passage means ability.

You have no ability to come. John's not only saying that you won't come, he's saying you can't come to God. So that means a decision, a prayer, a hand raised, a card filled out, and a kumbaya sung around a campfire are not enough.

It's not. Because you can do all those in your own power and strength. You can go to a church and you can have an experience in your own power and strength because I can go to a concert and have an experience in my own power and strength.

I can go to a symphony orchestra and experience the heights of the arts and I can weep with tears and it's not enough. Salvation must come from something outside of us. Salvation must come from something bigger than us, superior to us, if it's going to be accomplished in us.

What Jesus is telling us is not just something. He's telling us about someone. A person who's the God man. He's powerful enough to save us because he's God, but he's positionally in the right place to save us because he came as a man.

And we know that that man is Jesus. He says no one can come to me. So John is making two claims here in this short little sentence. No one can means we have human inability. To Jesus means that he is our only hope.

Now there's the problem. How can we come to Jesus who is our only hope if we have no power to come to Jesus? Do you see the problem? We can't come, but we must come. How does that work? I'll tell you that God has a plan.

We weren't strong enough, so we needed a strong man to come and give us strength. We were worthless in our sin, so we needed Jesus to come and give us value. Our throats were like open graves and we needed a man who would leave the tomb empty so that you and I could be healed.

The curse was on our lips. Think about the imagery and the beauty of that. The curse was on our lips, so Jesus came and drank a cup of God's wrath so that the curse would be on his lips. He came and took our burdens.

He says, my burden is easy. My yoke is light. Do you know why Jesus's burden is easy and his yoke is light? Because the burden that you and I deserve that should have crushed us crushed him. His burden for us is easy if we're a Christian because our burden killed him.

Sin left us unclean, so Jesus came to purify. Sin left us stained, so he came to wash us white as snow. We were accosted by a roaring lion, so guess what? Jesus is the Lion of Judah and he came to put us free and to heal us and to rip us out of our cages.

Jesus provided the antidote for the infection. I can go on and on. We were poor and we've been made rich. We were orphans and we've been adopted. We were strangers. Jesus called us friend. We were dead, he made us alive.

We were blind, but now we see. We were lost, but now we're found. We had hearts of stone, now we have hearts of flesh. Our behavior in Ezekiel is called the poison fruit of Sodom and now in Jesus Christ, we produce the fruit of the Holy Spirit.

It's an external power that has come into us that's not of us. It's not our power. We saw what our power produces. It produces death, but when an external power comes in, that is the only cure. That's why Jesus can say, no one can come to me unless, unless, no one can come to the only cure unless God the Father draws them.

Unless God the Father pulls you. Unless God the Father drags you. This word, it's fun to say, elkuo. You can say it. I know you want to. Elkuo. It's words used six times in the Bible. Five times in the book of John.

One time in the book of Acts. And it means to draw or to drag, but that's not the whole story of this word. This word has some beautiful complexity to it that I want to show you because I want you to see what Jesus is doing in your salvation.

I want you to see what he's actually accomplishing in us who were dead in our sins. So let's look at the first example, John 18. Simon Peter then having a sword drew it and struck the high priest slave and cut off his ear.

Like, why are you citing that verse? Because Peter had a sword that could not draw itself. And that sword was made out of inanimate metal. It didn't have a soul. It didn't have thoughts. It didn't have opinions.

It was dead and lifeless in his sheath. And Peter does not look at his sword and woo it towards himself. Peter does not look at his sword and magnetically draw it towards himself. Peter grabs the sword and rips it out of its sheath and he lifts it up in the air and then it's useful for his purpose.

Now his purpose was sin. He cut off someone's ear. God's purpose in your life is not sin. Think about the same word draw is used for you. You were that dead and lifeless sword stuck in the sheaths of sin and had it not been for God reaching down, grabbing you, yanking you, pulling you, lifting you, raising you up for his purposes, you and I would still be dead.

But in the hand of God, we are a tool for the master's purpose. We did nothing in this analogy. God did everything. That's what I'm talking about when the Bible talks about salvation. We were grabbed and pulled.

We didn't come to Jesus. He grabbed us. My favorite example is Acts 16, 19. This is so clear. Same word. I'm going to read actually 16 through 19. It happened when we were going. Oh, let me give you a little context here.

Paul and Silas are preaching the gospel. A demon possessed woman who told the future get saved. Her slave masters get angry and this is what happens. It happened that as we were going to the place of prayer, a slave girl having a spirit of divination met us who was bringing her masters much profit by fortune telling.

Following after Paul and us, she kept crying out saying, these men are bond servants of the Most High who are proclaiming to you the way of salvation. And she continued doing this for many days. But Paul was greatly annoyed.

I love the honesty there. And I love Paul's patience. I wouldn't have made it a couple of days. And turned and said to the spirit, I command you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her. And it came out that very moment.

But when her masters saw that their hope of the prophet was gone, they seized Paul and Silas and they dragged them into the marketplace before the authorities. It doesn't say that they grabbed the pipe like Pied Piper and wooed them out of the city.

Like blind mice. It doesn't say that they convinced them to walk alongside of them out of the city. It says that they laid their hands on them and violently dragged them out of the city. Probably kicking and screaming.

Now, what I love about this is that this shows us what this word means. When Jesus says that no one can come to me unless the father who sent me draws them. He's saying no one can come to me unless the father drags them.

Kicking and screaming out of our sin. Because in our sin, we would never run to Jesus. In our sin, we would never accept Him. Jesus doesn't come to us and negotiate the terms of our salvation. We say, you know what?

That sounds good. I think I'll take it. Jesus grabs us and He drags us and He pulls us and He brings us to the foot of the cross because that is where we will see Him. Think about it like this. You're in a coma.

Out in the middle of a snowstorm. Somebody gets you. They grab you. And they drag you to their truck. And they throw you in the bed of it. And they take you to the hospital. They hook you up to the IVs and the medicine.

And when you're there and you open your eyes, you see who saved you. That's kind of what salvation is like. You were more than comatose. You were dead. Christ came. He dragged you. And He pulled you. And He placed you in front of the gospel so that when your ears heard it, you would believe.

Behind every single salvation in this room is evidence of the dragging of God behind every one of us. Maybe God got you to go to church. Maybe somebody tricked you with a hot pocket and said, let's go.

I'm going to get you lunch. Maybe your friend wouldn't shut up about Jesus until finally the truth of it awakened you. I remember I was awakened to the gospel at a Red Robin. That's exactly where it happened.

I'm not going to lie about that. I was so blown away by grace that I couldn't even finish my burger. My friend was telling me about it. I said, but what must I do to be saved? And he was like, nothing.

You can't do anything. Maybe God won't even save you. And I was like, but I need some power in this. I need some control in this. I need to figure it out. I mean, what's the formula? And he said, nothing.

You really are that hopeless and pointless. And I was like, but this isn't like any other message I've ever heard. And he was like, look, it's by the Lord's grace alone. And I started asking him, what is grace?

And he started telling me what is grace. And I said, so you're telling me there's nothing that I can do to earn it? And he goes, no, that's not what grace is. And when he said that sentence, all of a sudden it clicked and it dawned on me.

I can't do anything to manipulate God. I can't do anything to earn my own salvation. I can't do anything to impress him. I'm that low and he is that good. And if it were not for his grace picking me up and dragging me, kicking and screaming to the foot of the cross, I would not come.

I could be a religious person my whole life and not be saved. I can be a person who claims the name of Jesus my whole life and not be saved. It's not about our seeking. It's about his dragging and his pulling.

And if he has not dragged and pulled you, you're not in. And the location of the dragging is important. He does not drag us to religion. If someone claims to know Jesus and they're finding their justification in their performance and their ability, God did not drag them there.

He doesn't drag them to false Gospels. He doesn't drag them to smugness and pride and religiosity. He drags them to Christ. He drags them to the one that he sent. Do you see how God's involved in every single aspect of our salvation?

He draws us to the one he sent. He is involved in everything. We don't do anything. Now, what I want us to do just for a moment is I want us to fill in the gaps a little bit because John 6, 44 tells us that it was God who dragged us.

But I want us to understand what that means a little bit more fully. I want us when we walk out of here today to understand what God has done, both past, present, and future in your life. Because what I want more than anything is when you think about the Gospel, I want you to have joy.

I want you to have hope. I want you to have confidence. I want you to not rest in you. I want you to rest in God. And I want it to inform even the way that you share the Gospel. So let's, for a moment, take a step away from John 6 and let's look at what does the dragging of God look like for the person who's saved.

Election, Redemption, and Regeneration in Time and Eternity

First, it begins in eternity. It doesn't begin when you come to know Jesus. It began before the world was even created. Look at what Paul says in Ephesians. He chose us in him before the foundation of the world.

He was dragging us to Jesus before the foundation of the world that we would be holy and blameless before him. In love, he predestined us. That means he predetermined our direction to adoption as sons and daughters through Jesus Christ to himself according to the good pleasure of his will.

He is saying that before time and space began, he chose to drag us to Jesus. And while we don't know that, we don't figure that out until God's plan intersects with our life. That is what he's done. He decided for us long before we decided for him.

His plan predates and outdates you, which means that it's bigger than you and it's better than you. We also know that in time and space, God paid for his choice. When I choose to buy a car, eventually I'm going to get the bill.

When God chose to purchase you and I, he paid for that on the cross. That was Jesus coming to settle the account to pay for the choice that God made. This is what Galatians 4, 3 -5 says. So we too, when we were children, were held in bondage under the elementary principles of the world.

But when the fullness of time came, God sent his son, born of a woman, born under the law so that he might redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons and daughters.

Do you see what's happening here? The eternal plan of God for Paul's life intersected with Paul's time and space circumstances and he realized that he was redeemed, although God had redeemed him already before the foundation of the world.

It's unbelievable when you think about it. He's saying that God predestined those who are saved to be dragged to Jesus. That happened in eternity. It was paid for at Calvary. And I think that's glorious.

Now, maybe you're asking yourself, how do we come to know Jesus in time and space? Ephesians is clear. I don't think we can argue with it. Galatians is clear. I don't think we can argue with it. So how then in time and space do we come to know Jesus?

What's through the preaching of the gospel? This is what Paul says in Romans 10, 14. How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how will they believe in him whom they have not heard?

And how will they hear without a preacher? Paul's not denying the eternal calling of God. He's the one who wrote about it. Paul knows that God called Christians before the foundation of the world. He's not denying that.

He's saying in time and space, how you come to Jesus is through God's ordained means. And God's ordained means is preaching the gospel. That's saying that God, if you're a Christian in this room, God predestined you, he drug you, and he put you in front of the gospel and the gospel awakened you.

That's what he's saying. Now you might ask yourself, why doesn't everyone wake up to the gospel? Well, that's like saying, why doesn't my car keys work on every car? They just don't. I can go outside and I can push the button and no car but mine will chirp with life because the key was made and fitted for a specific hole.

The gospel was made, created, and fitted for specific souls. We can go to Disney World, which is awful. We're in cancel culture. I'm going to cancel Disney. I don't know if you've ever seen their parking lot.

It's like a million spaces big. And you go outside and you push your car alarm button. Thank God for those keyless entry things. You go outside and you press it and you're straining against the atmosphere to try to hear your car chirp to life.

The same is true for us. The gospel call at some point in your life went out and you responded. And maybe the person beside you didn't respond, but you responded because you were made for that gospel.

That gospel was made to wake you up just like the key fob was made to wake up the car. And when we preach the gospel over the lot of sinful men and women, we don't get discouraged and we don't get frustrated when everyone doesn't wake up to the gospel.

We celebrate the fact that God made that gospel to wake up his people and his people will wake up when the gospel is preached. And we preach that gospel like dying people over dying people, knowing that God can be trusted with the results.

We ask ourselves questions like, well, if everyone's not saved, how is that fair? We talked about this a couple of weeks ago. If you're saved, how is that fair? You know, you and I know me. That's not fair.

Justice would demand that you and I go to hell. Grace gives us salvation. We have nothing in us to impress God with. The fact that anyone is saved is a miracle of God's grace. Those who are called by the gospel are regenerated by the gospel.

Look at John 5, 24. Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears my words and believes him who sent me has eternal life and does not come into judgment, but is passed out of death to life. He's not saying that everyone who physically with their ears hears the preaching of the gospel will come to faith.

He's saying that everyone who hears and obeys and turns from their sin and loves the savior and hates worldliness but loves Jesus, those people are the people who have heard the gospel. It's come into them and it's awakened them and it's changed them.

It's transferred them out of death to life. So if we're tracking here, in eternity past, you were chosen by God. On Calvary, you were paid for by God. In space and time, the gospel of God intersected with your life and it made you brand new.

It transferred you out of darkness and into life. Out of the kingdom of sin and to the kingdom of heaven. See the order of salvation and how things are playing out, both past and present. We're not just regenerated.

We're not just made new, we're justified. It's a theological term that I think every Christian should know. Justification means that we were not only converted and that we were not only regenerated, but that God took away our sin and that he didn't just take away our sin, he gave us Jesus's righteousness.

We just passed maybe, I think, a $1 .9 trillion COVID relief package. Let's just say that that was your debt to pay and you were not Jeff Bezos. You're incapable of paying that debt. You could work 10 ,000 lifetimes and you'd probably never pay off that debt.

Justification means that Jesus Christ has taken your entire debt upon himself and not just taken your debt, he's deposited inside of you the treasures of heaven. He's taken what you deserve to pay and he's given you what you never could have discerned to hold.