The Gospel

This morning's text is from Genesis chapter one, verses twenty-six through twenty-eight.

Then God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness, and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the heavens, and over the livestock, and over the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.

So God created man in his own image.

In the image of God he created him, male and female he created them.

And God blessed them, and God said to them, Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.

This is the word of the Lord.

Thanks be to God.

Good morning.

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

It's great to see so many uh kids in the congregation at this point.

Um because you're learning how to worship.

You're learning the word of God.

And through the preaching of the word, you are actually being ministered to by the Lord Jesus Christ Himself as His Word is proclaimed, and you begin to understand what the gospel is all about.

And I hope you're paying a lot of attention to the details of what we're doing here, what James and Zach are always doing every Sunday morning.

There's a lot of details, and I would encourage you to ask your mom and dad about those details.

If you don't understand something, ask your father or your mother or one of the pastors, and they'd be glad to spend some time talking with you about it.

There was one very perceptive young man in a church one day.

He he paid attention to every detail that was going on because he wanted to know what this is all about.

And he saw the pastor do this.

And he said, Daddy, what does that mean?

What does it mean?

The pastor takes off his watch.

Oh son, you're so observant.

That means absolutely nothing.

You know, pastors need to, and preachers need to walk that fine line between encouraging communication and a hostage situation.

I hope I will not make a hostage situation of you this morning, but uh we we want to dive into something.

Happy birthday, uh America, 250.

We've been celebrating a lot of great things over this last week.

How many of you stayed up late to watch those fireworks in Washington, D.C.?

Were those most amazing thing you've ever seen?

It supposedly set a record of over 850,000 shells shot, which is a Guinness uh world record, apparently.

It was spectacular.

And the Fourth of July is one of those times when we can pause and focus on the unity of our country.

And we've heard a lot of good uh messages, speeches uh that tend to go that way.

Um, and I'm I'm grateful for those times.

But we are a very divided country, and Monday morning we're probably gonna get right back to fighting with each other in our divisions, uh especially politically.

My fear is what Jesus warned us about in Matthew 12, 25, that every kingdom divided against itself is laid waste, and no city or house divided against itself will stand.

My proposition to you this morning is the only hope for healing the divisions in our country is the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Our only hope is the gospel of Jesus Christ.

When the early church faced the first major uh persecution after the stoning of Stephen, we read that they were scattered throughout the region of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles.

It's always puzzled me why the apostles were given a great commission to go forth into all the world.

The persecution came, and for some reason they stayed in Jerusalem.

But in verse 4 of Acts 8, it says, Now those who were scattered went about preaching the word.

Now Philip went down to Samaria and he preached and healed many, and a multitude believed because he had the miraculous signs and wonders that were the validation of the message that he was bringing.

God always does that.

When he brings new revelation, he confirms it with the miraculous.

He was one of the first deacons, as we read in Acts chapter 7.

Acts 7 · chapter mention

But he was not the only one who went about preaching the word.

When they were all scattered, they all went preaching the word, sharing the gospel with everyone who would listen.

They were as an army of ambassadors for Christ, sharing the gospel wherever they could.

My friends, this is the great need of our day.

We need to be a people equipped and ready and willing to do the very same thing with whoever we can, whoever will listen.

I was in Fort Lauderdale, Florida on January 28th, 1986.

Remember what happened on that day?

The Challenger blew up off of the coast of Florida.

And um we took time when we heard the news to go outside and we saw the smoke of the explosion.

And I thought, wow, this is this is really weird.

Because here I was attending a seminar on what uh was called evangelism explosion.

And to see this great explosion, it was just kind of ironic.

Coleridge Presbyterian Church, where the seminar was, was led by uh Dr.

G.

D.

James Kennedy, an early founder of the of the PCA.

He created it, and it was quite an explosion because he built his church on this model.

It was a very simple model, a five-point presentation of the gospel that he trained hundreds of people in his congregation with.

And when people would come to visit the church, he would send out not the pastors or deacons, but the members of the church.

And they'd go walking into these homes and they begin by talking about their secular life.

Where do you come from?

What do you do?

Basic questions.

Uh what about your church background?

Uh and they'd have an opportunity to explain that.

And what did you think of our church?

Hopefully you've had a good experience.

Um, and they'd talk a little bit about that.

And then they might offer a personal testimony about the church or about their own life.

But then they would ask permission to ask a couple of questions.

And these were known as two diagnostic questions.

Diagnostic is to find out where you're at.

What do you really believe?

The first one was have you come to the place in your spiritual life where you know for certain that if you would die tonight, you'd go to heaven?

And living in the South, when I was, I was um, I came, I went to seminary in South Carolina, uh, but in Florida, it was still part of the Bible belt, and a lot of people back in the 70s and 80s would answer that question, well, um yes, I think I have.

I think I've come to that point.

And so the second question was designed to see what you're really trusting in for your salvation.

And it was simply suppose you were to die tonight and stand before God and he were to say to you, Why should I let you into my heaven?

What would you say?

And many, many people, even in the Bible-believing South, would say, Well, you know, I've tried to live a good life.

Um, I've I'm I'm a good person, I think.

I try to keep the Ten Commandments as best as I can.

And I go to church often and I'm involved in a small group in my church.

And the response from the two ministers there would be, well, you know, friend, today we've got some really good news for you.

Because the gospel of Jesus Christ that gives eternal life cannot be something that's earned and it certainly isn't deserved.

And then they would launch into a brief presentation of the gospel, talking about grace, man, God, Christ, and faith.

Well, today I think we live in a different cultural context, especially in secularized Colorado.

Um the response to that first question would be very different in our day and age, and especially in our culture and our community.

Have you come to the place in your spiritual life where you know for certain that if you were to die today, you would go to heaven?

You know what the answer is mostly going to be?

Well, I don't believe in God, and so I don't believe in heaven.

So what do you do then?

Where do you go in continuing the conversation?

Well, I found that asking another powerful question is a very good thing to do.

And you ask, can I ask you another question then?

How do you account for man?

In other words, what is man?

What are you as a human being?

And how did you come to be?

And the vast majority of secularized publicly schooled education would, people in public education would probably respond, well, we are a cosmic accident by chance evolution.

And my response is, well, does that really satisfy the deepest longings of your soul for meaning, purpose, and value?

And if they're honest, if they're honest, they'll say no, it doesn't.

Because my friends, it can't.

It literally cannot provide those things.

And so you ask again, may I share with you a viewpoint that really can answer those fundamental questions that give you certainty and security and significance.

And if they're interested, they'll say, Yeah, let me hear it.

Well, the good news is in the Bible, in the very first chapter, is it tells us what we are.

As we read this morning, as John read the passage in Genesis chapter 1, we are the greatest creation on the planet.

Genesis 1 · chapter mention

And here's the reason why.

Because we were made in the image of God.

Now, what does that mean?

What does it mean to be made in the image of God?

I have a little illustration here.

And um I want you to answer honestly, but I'm gonna turn my back on you for a second, and I want you to answer yes or no.

Okay, I'm gonna try to see some faces here.

Um can you guys over here see my face?

Yes.

Okay.

How about uh Sebastian?

You can see my face?

Um Reed, can you see my face?

You sure?

Ah.

You must have been in my class.

Yeah.

That's what it means to be made in the image of God.

We are to be a reflection of something in his nature.

And that explains why we are the greatest creature on the planet.

Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 3, he says, Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there's freedom.

And we all with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being changed into his likeness from one degree of glory to another.

This comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.

That word beholding the glory of the Lord can also be translated reflecting.

And at the very heart of the concept of glorifying God is this concept of reflecting his nature to the world around us and to one another.

And it explains why we are the kind of creature that we are, why we are rational creatures that have a mind that longs for certainty.

It explains why we are a personal, relational being that have affections, that long for security in relationships.

And it also explains why we are responsible creatures, because we have a will that wants to do something significant and be something significant.

Well, this comes into sharper focus when we see what the Bible reveals about the nature of God.

Psalm 139 is one of my favorite passages in Scripture because I think it reveals these three great attributes of God that we are made in the image of.

He starts with this word in verses 1 through 6.

O Lord, you have searched me and known me.

You know when I sit down and when I rise up, you discern my thoughts from afar, you search out my path and my lying down and are acquainted with all my ways.

Even before a word is on my tongue, Lord, behold, you know it all together.

You hem me in behind and before.

You lay your hand upon me.

Such knowledge is too wonderful for me.

It is high.

I cannot attain it.

You see, God is a being with all knowledge.

And when he made a creature to reflect his omniscience, he made him as a rational creature and gave him a mind that's capable of receiving true knowledge.

We'll never be omniscient, I guarantee that.

But we can have true knowledge, which is meaning that we can have true meaning in life.

The second aspect is when God revealed something about his nature, he's revealing himself as a personal being that is present everywhere.

Personally present.

He is actually personally present everywhere in his creation.

And the psalmist describes that as this Where do I go from thy spirit, or where shall I flee from your presence?

If I ascend to heaven, you are there.

If I make my bed and shield, you are there.

If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me.

If I say, Surely, let the darkness cover me, and light about me be night, even the darkness is not dark to you, the night is bright as the day, for darkness is as light with you.

Where can you flee from the personal presence of God?

Nowhere.

If we ever get to Mars, you know who's going to be there?

God is going to be there.

And so when he made a creature to reflect him as a personal being, he made him relational, capable of personal relationships.

Honestly, I can't define what a person is apart from the concept of being able to relate personally with other persons.

I mean, it sounds like a circle, but if you can help me with that, I'd be glad to hear it.

Well, when we understand a further part of the revelation of God in Scripture, we realize that God is not a person.

This is another trick question.

I always try to catch people on it.

Do you believe God is a person?

And the hands will go up, and I will say, Oh, I'm sorry, you are a heretic.

God is not a person.

God is three persons in such intimate personal relationship that share the same nature and attributes that they're one God.

That's the historic formula for the Trinity.

Three persons, one in essence.

God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit.

Same nature, same love, same attributes.

And what that tells us is things like love and communion and fellowship have always been in existence because they were found in the nature of the triune God.

The Father loves the Son, the Son loves the Father, Father and Son love the Holy Spirit.

They all participate in the creation of the world.

A wonderful communion.

And when God made a creature to reflect him, he made him personal and relational.

The third aspect of God's nature we see here is God has all power to fulfill his will, which is always right.

It is always right.

God not only created the world, as we see in Genesis 1, but he sustains and controls the world.

And when he talks about the ultimate form or expression of his creative power, you know who he talks about?

He talks about you and me.

Verses 13 through 18, for you formed my inward parts, you knitted me together in my mother's womb.

I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.

Wonderful are your works, my soul knows it very well.

My frame was not hidden from you when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth.

Your eyes beheld my unformed substance, and in your book were written every one of them the days that were formed for me, when as yet there were none of them.

Oh, how precious to me are your thoughts, O God, how vast is the sum of them.

If I would count them, they are more than the sand of the sea.

I awake and I am still with you.

So God created something out of absolute nothing.

The only thing, the only being that existed for all eternity, self-existent, is the eternal triune God.

When he called forth his creation into existence, he not only did that at the first point, but he continues to sustain it by the very word of his power.

Listen to what it says about the Lord Jesus in Hebrews 1.

Long ago and many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets.

But in these last days he has spoken to us by his son, whom he has appointed the heir of all things, through whom he also created the world.

He's the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature.

And he upholds the universe by the word of his power.

I like to point out to people who are a little skeptical of the ministry of Jesus.

If he stopped even thinking about you, you would disintegrate into dust.

Because he actively is holding the molecules of your body together.

You remember when God was talking to Abraham, and he says, I'm going to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah for their wickedness.

And you remember Abraham's response?

This is incredible.

Be very cautious about how you respond to what God says he's going to do.

He says, Wilt thou destroy the righteous with the wicked?

Suppose there are fifty righteous within the city.

Suppose there are fifty righteous within the city.

Wilt thou destroy the whole place and not spare it for the fifty righteous who are in it?

Far be it from thee to do such a thing, to slay the righteous with the wicked, so that the righteous Ferris, the wicked, far be it from thee.

Shall not the judge of all the earth do what's right?

And then he has the great countdown.

And he says, Suppose 40, suppose five are missing from that fifty.

Will you destroy it then?

Oh no, I wouldn't do that.

Well, suppose another five are missing.

You're down to forty.

I won't do it for that.

And Abraham thinks.

How about 30?

No, I won't do it for 30.

30 righteous people are there.

Well, let me let me be bold and ask one one or two more times here.

How about 20?

No, not for 20.

Finally he gets down to 10.

And he says, I won't do it if I find 10 people, 10 righteous people there.

But God knew there was only one, and that was Lot.

Now, if I was going to toy with um Abraham when he asked me, shall not the judge of all the earth do what is right?

If I were the Lord, I would have said, Well, duh.

Of course, the judge of all the earth always does what is right.

That is his nature.

That is what's the fundamental reality of righteousness, is doing what is right.

And I always do what's right.

Well, as the image-bearer of God, we're not like him in that regard.

We were made for righteousness.

He gave us a will to do what is right, but we always don't do it.

And that brings us to the concept of sin.

And I think there are two very crucial aspects of sin that we need to understand.

The first is, and it's probably the most serious, I remember hearing R.C.

Sproul say this, this is probably the most serious aspect of our sin, is that as the image bearer, we misrepresent his character to the world around us.

For when we sin, we are proclaiming, proclaiming that the God who made me in his image is a liar like me.

Or when a man commits adultery, he is saying Christ is an unfaithful spouse to his bride.

And we're literally slandering the character of God.

Now, how many of you have ever been seriously slandered in your life?

Can I see the hands maybe?

I see a few.

People have have told lies about you.

They've maybe even accused you of heinous sin.

Now, what would be the right reaction to being slandered?

I know when it's happened to me, I really get ticked off.

I want to rip the tongue out of that person that has done this harm to me and my reputation.

Do you think God is any different from us in that regard?

Actually, the right question is, are we any different from him?

For in Psalm 7, verse 11, it says that God is angry with the wicked every single day.

Psalms 7:11

And I think this is the reason why.

Because all the image bearers that he has made to reflect him accurately slander his character every single day.

And that's a serious offense.

The second aspect of sin is that we break his law.

Because it's the standard of righteousness that he has given us.

You know, when Paul writes to the Romans in chapter 13 about the second table of the law, he says, Oh no one anything except to love each other.

For the one who loves another has fulfilled the law.

For the commandments you shall not commit adultery, you shall not murder, you shall not steal, you shall not covet, and any other commandment are summed up in this word.

You shall love your neighbor as yourself.

Love does no wrong to a neighbor.

Therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law.

Now you've made it, you've maybe heard that people in our day and age think that the law of God is a moral straitjacket.

But think about it.

Think about if our society abided just by those commandments that he listed here.

That we do no wrong to one another.

We don't commit adultery, we don't lie, we don't cheat, we don't steal, we don't covet.

What a paradise that would be.

But we don't do that.

We break his law.

We are transgressors.

Scripture goes on to tell us that there are consequences for that disobedience.

Paul says in Romans 6 that the wages of sin is death.

Ezekiel says in chapter 18, the soul that sins shall die.

What is death?

You know, most atheists and agnostics who really are trying to suppress the knowledge of God as best they can think of death as a cessation of existence.

All right?

They're just gonna stop being, and they're gonna, their body's gonna return to the dust and become worm food.

They'll come right out and say that.

But death in the biblical sense is not a cessation of being, it is a separation.

Think of what physical death is.

What happens at physical death?

You've got a body and a soul united, and at death they're separated.

The soul returns to God who gave it, and the body, the flesh, returns to the dust of the earth and deteriorates.

That's physical death.

Spiritual death, Jesus spoke of this often.

One man who said, I'll follow you wherever you go, and wasn't willing to pay the price, he says, Let me go bury my father first.

Jesus said, Let the dead bury their dead.

You go and proclaim the kingdom of God.

Because men can be dead spiritually, separated, even though they're together in body and soul.

They're separated from God in relationship.

Isaiah 59, verses 1 and 2 says, Behold, the Lord's hand is not shortened that it cannot save, or his ear dull that it cannot hear.

Isaiah 59:1

But your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you, so that he does not hear.

You hear that?

That's the current standard or the current state of the natural man apart from Christ.

And the most serious aspect of death is what we call eternal death, where there's a reunion of the body, a resurrected body.

Even the wicked are going to be resurrected, united with their soul, and separated from God in hell for all eternity.

That should send chills even up a believer's spine.

Well, the central part of God's plan is to not leave us in such a tragic condition.

And so what did he do?

He sent his son into the world to be the Savior.

We need to know who Jesus is.

John begins his gospel with these words In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

And in verse 14, and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory.

That's one of the clearest teachings on the deity of Christ.

Christ had two natures, fully man without sin, and fully God without mixture.

Jesus proclaimed his own identity in John chapter 8, verse 28.

John 8:28

And he's asked the same question in two different contexts in this chapter.

Read it through and you'll see it.

They want to know who he claims to be.

His first answer is this: When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am he, and that I do nothing on my own authority, but speak as the Father has taught me.

That's his prophetic function.

And he who sent me is with me.

He's not left me alone.

That's his priestly capacity, a fellowship with his Father.

For I always do what is pleasing to him.

There is not another man in the history of mankind that could say that last statement.

But Jesus did.

Later in the conclusion of John 8, he's asked again, Who do you claim to be?

And he says, if I glorify myself, my glory is nothing.

It is my Father who glorifies me, of whom you say he is our God.

But you've not known him.

I know him.

If I were to say I do not know him, I would be a liar like you.

But I do know him, and I keep his word.

Your father Abraham rejoiced that he was to see my day.

He saw it and was glad.

The Jews said to him, You're not yet 50 years old, and have you seen Abraham?

Jesus said to them, Truly, truly I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.

And they picked up stones to throw at him, but Jesus hid himself and went out of the temple.

Why did they pick up stones to throw at him?

Because he was taking the very name of God that was given to Moses at the burning bush.

Do you remember when God was sending Moses back to deliver the people of Israel?

He says, If I go to the people of Israel, he's trying to get out of it.

And I say to them, The God of your fathers has sent me to you.

And they ask me, What is his name?

What am I supposed to say?

And God says to him, I am that I am.

Say this to the children of Israel.

I am has sent me to you.

It's the repetition of the verb to be.

And Jesus quotes from the Septuagint, the translation, the Greek translation of the Hebrew scriptures that uses this exact phrasing when he says this in John 8, 58.

Ego a me.

I, I am.

And they understood his claim completely because they believed that he was blaspheming the name of God and applying it to himself.

They made a fatal error, though.

They didn't stop for a moment to contemplate whether it was true or not.

Well, we need to consider what he came to do.

And very simply, he came to live a perfect life, die a horrific death on the cross, and let that death be the satisfaction of the justice of God that our sins deserved.

God is not just a loving God, he is a just God, and he cannot wink at sin.

He will not lower his standard of righteousness for anyone.

The penalty must be paid.

And that's where Jesus stood in our place and bore the wrath of God that our sins deserve.

And I think of it this way: Jesus was on the cross for about three to six hours.

We're not sure.

But if he had that great scale of justice that we're all familiar with, Lady Justice pointing her sword down, blindfolded.

Well, God's justice demands that the sinner die.

And that's an eternal death.

God sent his son into the world to live a perfect life and to die on that cross that pays the penalty of an eternal punishment.

When that scale is equal, think about that.

His life, because of who he was and what he did, balances out an eternity in hell for his people.

Well, the grave could not hold him.

We know that he rose from the dead.

You know, the resurrection of Christ, as we sang about this morning, is one of the most well-attested historical facts in all of human history.

It's true.

Eyewitnesses, eyewitness testimony.

The disciples were unbelievers in the resurrection until he physically stood in their presence and let them touch him and feel them and watch them eat a fish.

Well, this resurrected Christ went back into heaven.

He ascended back into heaven.

And he brought the blood of his own sacrifice and presented it to the Father and said, This is my payment for the sins of my people.

And the Father said, I'll accept that.

I'll accept that.

That makes our ultimate purpose a possibility, a reality, if you will.

Because our ultimate purpose is to know God personally and be in relational connection with Him, to have peace with God.

And it's a wonderful reality.

Jesus, well, actually, let me hold that for a second.

The apostles went about doing their job eventually.

They got out of Jerusalem.

And they went about preaching the Great Commission.

And when Paul was in prison and the great earthquake came and the gates were opened, and this Philippian jailer was going to kill himself because he thought they all escaped.

Paul said, Don't do that, don't harm yourself.

We're all here.

And the jailer fell down before him and said, What must I do to be saved?

He must have been listening to them talking or singing praises or whatever.

But he asked that fundamental question, and Paul said very simply, Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved, you and your household.

Well, it wasn't much time later until he was in Athens speaking to all the Stoic philosophers.

And he gave a great sermon starting with creation and taking them through what God had done in history, which they needed to know.

But he concludes with this remark: the times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, because he's fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed, and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.

So we have these two great words, believe and repent.

We need to understand what those really are.

Let's start with believe.

In the Reformation of the 16th century, because the doctrine of justification by faith alone was so central, the reformers had to be very specific about what it means to have faith, what it means to have saving faith.

And so they came up with three Latin words.

The first was notitia, that said, you have to understand the content of the gospel.

Kind of what I've gone through with you here this morning.

Who is God?

What is man?

What is sin?

Who is Christ?

What did he do?

Did he rise from the dead?

That's kind of basic gospel knowledge.

But that's not enough for saving faith.

The second aspect is they called it ascensus.

You can hear the word assent that we get from that.

They had to assent.

A person has to say, I believe those words.

I believe those historical events.

I believe that Jesus is Lord.

I believe He even rose from the dead.

Well, the response of the reformers and the response of the Apostle James is, well, the demons believe that.

They believe that God is one.

So to have a census just me makes you a good demon.

The third aspect of saving faith was the crucial one for them.

It was called fiducia or fiducia, either way you can pronounce it.

I pronounce it fiducia, and it means to trust.

We hear fiduciary, right?

In that word, it comes literally across and transliterates into English.

What is a fiduciary?

Well, it's someone who you trust with all of your finances, that they will act in the best interest of you for the long haul, not selling you garbage products, but really acting in your best interest because you trust them.

Well, um, I want to give you an illustration of this.

When Jesus in Matthew 11 said, Come unto me all who labor and are heavy, heavy laden, and I'll give you rest.

Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you'll find rest for your souls, for my yoke is easy and my burden is light.

I want to illustrate those three aspects of saving faith.

And I have a volunteer from the uh audience.

JT, just stay right there.

But do you know what a chair is?

Do you see any chairs in this room?

You do?

Is that a chair?

Okay.

Do you have chairs that might not be like these at home?

Yeah.

Because you know what a chair is, right?

Yeah.

You can identify a chair at any point.

That's notitia.

That's understanding.

Let me ask you this.

Do you believe that that chair would hold you if you came up here and sat on it?

Ah, that's a census.

I believe it.

But the fact of the matter is, you're not exercising trust yet.

So I'm going to ask you, if you really believe that, to come up here and put the full weight of your body on this chair.

Look at this.

Oh, his feet don't even touch the ground.

All right.

That is fiducia.

That is trusting in the person who has given us this truth.

He is the truth.

And we believe his promises, but we do more than that.

We come to him and we rest in him, just as he is resting on that chair.

Thank you, buddy.

I appreciate it.

Now, what about repentance?

Well, repentance is intimately linked with faith, trust, fiducia.

Repentance, the heart of the meaning of the word, is a turning of the mind.

But you have this idea of turning of the whole soul, the whole affections of the soul in the heart.

Because as we read in Isaiah 53, this is our fundamental problem.

All we like sheep have gone astray.

We've turned everyone to his own way, and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

As wandering sheep, we've been walking away from God.

This is what our whole country is doing.

Ignoring the great Christian history of our nation.

We turned our back on God.

And we're walking away from him.

Repentance comes when the Holy Spirit regenerates that soul, gives that soul faith and repentance as gifts of his grace.

And you know what happens?

They turn.

They turn and now walk toward something.

You know, we often think of repentance mainly as a negative thing, as just turning from sin.

But I want to encourage you to think of it as positive.

You're turning from sin, but you are turning to something.

You're turning to someone, the risen Christ, for communion and fellowship.

Isaiah 45, verses 21 and 22 say, There is no other God besides me, a righteous God and a Savior.

Isaiah 45:21

There is none besides me.

Turn to me and be saved, all the ends of the earth.

For I am your God.

I am God and there is no other.

You know what happens when that occurs in our lives?

We are justified in the sight of God, which means that our sins have been removed from us.

The psalmist writes, For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his steadfast love towards those who fear him.

As far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us.

Think of that imagery.

We don't even know the extent of the heavens.

We don't even know how far it goes out or if it's infinite.

And we can get a grasp on East and West, because we'll come around the globe and end up right where we were.

But think of it linearly.

Lineally.

They never come back together.

That's how far he's removed our sin from us.

But it's not enough to just come to ground zero with our sins forgiven.

No, we need something much more.

We need a positive righteousness that we can't give to God.

But you know what?

He's freely given it to us.

And that is the righteous robes of the Lord Jesus Christ.

So when he pulls out our file, you know that scene in Bruce Almighty?

I like that movie.

He pulls that file of Bruce out of the wall, and it's almost like a mile long.

This is your record of your life.

You know what happens when God pulls the file of a believer from the book of life in heaven?

Ah! There, there's the righteousness of my own son.

I am well pleased.

That's the way he looks at each and every one of his people who truly have saving faith.

My friends, do you have that faith this morning?

Do you have that certainty, that security, and that significance that comes from being renewed in the image of God by faith in Christ?

I hope so.

But if you've never come to that place in your life where you can say, I know that I have eternal life, maybe today's the day when you have true faith and repent by the powerful working of the Holy Spirit.

So I'd leave you with the assurance of salvation that John 3.16 gives us.

For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that the one believing in him can have eternal life.

And he reaffirms that in John, 1 John 5, when he says, I wrote all this for you so that you might know that you have eternal life.

Now, if you've not come to that place where you know that's true of you, then I'll leave you with the Lord's instructions of what to do.

Hosea 14, 1 and 2 says, and this can be said of America just as much of as Israel.

Return, O Israel, to the Lord your God, for you have stumbled because of your iniquity.

Take with you words and return to the Lord.

Say to him, Take away all iniquity, accept what is good, and we will render the fruit of our lips.

Confess your sins.

Take it away, Lord.

Accept the good sacrifice of your son on my behalf, and I'll spend the rest of eternity giving thanks to you with my lips.

Let us pray.

Our Father in heaven, as we come to the end of this hostage situation, we ask that you would remind us of how you have ransomed us from the being hostages of Satan and sin by the blood of your Son.

We were not purchased with gold or silver, but we were purchased with the precious blood of our Savior and Lord.

And that right up there with him dying for us gives us incredible value as your image bearers to know that you made us to be like you.

And I pray that this message that we've heard today, the message that we see through the pages of Scripture, would resonate in each one of our hearts so that we could become that army of ambassadors, sharing a simple gospel message with those around us who desperately need us.

We ask that that would be something that you would be pleased to bring about, if not in our lifetime, then in our children's lifetime.

And we pray especially for them this morning that they would hear the gospel in our homes, so clearly stated and so beautifully lived out, that they will say, The God of my Father is my God.

I will trust in Jesus and walk with him.

For that is the way to true liberty and freedom.

As Jesus said, if you continue in my word, you're truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.

In Jesus' name we pray.

Amen.