How Can I Be Put Right Again?

We’ve spent the past six weeks looking closely and carefully at the gospel message that the Bible proclaims and declares to us.

We have dived deeper than we ever have into every moving part within the gospel message.

We have looked longer and deeper than we ever have into the beauty of the gospel, because the gospel is the heart of the Christian faith.

The gospel is the heart of what we believe and live by and build our lives on as God’s people.

We’ve been gazing into the gloriously good news that God saves sinners.

The heart of the gospel is the gloriously good news that God saves sinners.

And because this unbelievably simple but unbelievably beautiful reality is at the heart of everything we believe and do as followers of Jesus, it is desperately important that we gain a deep and rich and clear understanding of this gospel that our faith and our lives are built on.

And we are finishing out that process this morning as we close out our “What is the Gospel?” series.

The Four Questions of the Gospel

And so over these past six weeks, what we’ve done is, we’ve looked at the ways that the gospel answers these four fundamental questions that we have no choice but to ask as humans.

When we ask the question, “Where did we come from?” the gospel answers that a good God created a good world filled with good things for his good purposes.

Remember that?

When we ask the question, “How did everything go so wrong?” the Gospel answers that humanity rebelled against God and it broke the world and plunged us into condemnation.

When we ask the question, “How can everything be put right again?” the Gospel answers that Jesus came down from heaven and went to the cross in our place.

And through the cross, Jesus took away our condemnation.

Jesus reconciled us to God.

And Jesus defeated the spiritual forces of darkness.

Because of Christ’s victory on the cross, Satan has been defeated.

Because of Christ’s victory on the cross, Jesus is restoring our fallen world and making everything right again.

And at the same time, because of Christ’s sacrifice on the cross, our sins can be forgiven.

We can be justified before God and reconciled to Him.

And that means that we can have a place in God’s restored world.

That is the gloriously good news of the gospel.

A good God created a good world full of good things for his good purposes, but humanity rebelled against God, which broke his world and plunged us into condemnation, but Jesus came down from heaven, went to the cross in our place, defeated the forces of darkness, and then redeemed and justified and reconciled us so that we can have a place in God’s restored world.

That’s the gospel in 66 words.

How Can I Be Put Right Again?

And yet, we are still not done exploring the depths of the gospel together yet, because in all of this there is still a lingering question that we absolutely have to address.

Because as you learn about creation, as you learn about the Fall, and as you learn about redemption and restoration through the cross, the question that should immediately come to your mind is, “How can I be put right again?”

We should be like those crowds that Peter and Paul and James and Stephen and so many others preached to throughout the book of Acts.

Listen to what Acts chapter two says. It says:

“Now when they heard this, they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, ‘Brothers, what shall we do?’

“Peter said to them, ‘Repent, and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.’”

—Acts 2:37–38, WEB

Every time they laid out the gospel message, the people always responded in exactly the same way: They said, “What must I do to be saved?”

How can I be forgiven?

How can I be redeemed?

How can I be justified?

How can I be reconciled?

How can I be restored?

How do I get in on that redemption Jesus bought on the cross?

And so, this morning as we close out our series, we are answering this final question.

We’re answering the question, “How can I be put right again?”

And the answer that God’s Word gives us is through faith.

Listen to what Paul says in Ephesians two. He says:

“For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, that no one would boast.”

—Ephesians 2:8–9, WEB

The Gospel answers the question, “How can I be put right again?” by saying that we are saved by grace through faith.

You ever heard that phrase before?

We are saved by grace through faith.

Real quick, I want to repeat this together, because I want to brand this into our heads and onto our hearts.

So, real quick, all together:

We are saved by grace through faith.

What Is Faith?

But this forces us to ask another really important question: What is faith?

I remember one time I was talking to a group of little kids about—you guessed it—the Gospel, and I finished everything, and I thought we were clear, and then a kid raised his hand and said, “I have a question!” and I said, “What’s up buddy?” and he said, “What’s a faith?”

And I realized, “Okay, we’re not clear at all.”

There was still this vast ocean of things that I need to explain before the gospel actually makes sense to them.

And I don’t want to make that same mistake here today, so we need to talk about faith.

We need to answer the question, “What does it mean to place your faith in Jesus?”

And so we’re going to trek through what God’s word has to say about faith.

And as we open up God’s Word, we’re gonna learn a handful of things.

I’m going to run through them as quickly as I possibly can.

Are you ready?

Faith Means Believing What Jesus Said About Himself

So, first things first: Faith means believing what Jesus said about himself.

I’m gonna say that again so you’ve got enough time to write it down, if that’s your thing:

Faith means believing what Jesus said about himself.

Listen to what Paul says in Romans 10.

“That if you will confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes resulting in righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made resulting in salvation.

“For the Scripture says, ‘Whoever believes in him will not be disappointed.’ For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; for the same Lord is Lord of all, and is rich to all who call on him. For, ‘Whoever will call on the name of the Lord will be saved.’”

—Romans 10:9–13, WEB

Listen to that.

Paul names these two things that are actually just one thing: Believing and declaring.

He says that faith means you believe Jesus, and that belief causes you to declare Jesus.

And that is the pattern all throughout God’s word.

Everyone who placed their faith in Jesus throughout the scriptures did so because they truly believed that he was who He said He was.

They truly believed that Jesus was the Messiah that God had sent.

They truly believed that Jesus was God himself in human flesh.

Faith means believing what Jesus says about himself.

Faith Means Trusting Christ to Save You

And at the same time, God’s word tells us that faith means trusting Christ to save you.

I’m gonna repeat that one again, too:

Faith means trusting Christ to save you.

Throughout God’s word, everyone who places their faith in Jesus comes to him with exactly the same posture.

They recognize that they are sick, but he can heal them—and in response he says, “Look at your faith.”

They recognize that they are sinful, but he can forgive them—and he says, “Look at your faith.”

They recognize that they are withering, but he can restore them—and he says, “Look at your faith.”

They recognize that they are helpless to save themselves and that he is their only hope to save them—and he says, “Look at your faith.”

And every single time, he says the same exact thing. He says, “Your faith has saved you. Go in peace.”

When you trust Christ to save you, he saves you.

I’m gonna say that again: When you trust Christ to save you, he saves you.

He says, “Your faith has saved you. Go in peace.”

I love the way that the Westminster Confession of Faith puts this—that is technically a Presbyterian confession, but don’t hold it against me—listen to what the Westminster Confession of Faith says. It says:

“Saving faith means accepting, receiving, and resting upon Christ alone for justification, sanctification, and eternal life.”

—Westminster Confession of Faith

When you trust Christ to save you, he saves you.

Faith Means Surrendering Your Life to Jesus as King

But at exactly the same time, God’s word tells us that faith means surrendering your life to Jesus as King.

Now we’re getting into the stuff that American churches don’t talk about—I know that’s the stuff you’re here for.

Faith means surrendering your life to Jesus as King.

Every time someone comes to faith throughout the scriptures, they call Jesus Lord.

They don’t just say, “Hey Jesus, save me!”

They say, “Lord, please save me.”

And that word means king.

Actually, it means more than just king.

It’s the ancient Greek work Kyrios, which technically means God-King.

So it’s not just talking about a human king.

Jesus as King is not like King Herod.

He’s not like the king of England.

He’s not like King Kong.

No. Jesus is the God-King.

He has a Kingship that can only truly be wielded by God Himself.

And so all throughout his ministry, people would see Jesus, and they would hear him teach, and they would see the wonders he was performing, and say, “That’s him. That is the Kyrios we’ve been waiting for. That is the Lord we’ve been waiting for. That is the God-King we’ve been waiting for.”

And they’d come to him, and they’d say, “God-King, please heal me.”

God-King, please restore me.

God-King, please save me.

They’d surrender to the God-King Jesus.

And in response, he saves them.

Faith means surrendering your life to Jesus as King.

And when you surrender to Christ as your King, he saves you.

Believing, Trusting, and Surrendering

So, real quick, let’s go back through them together. I’m putting this up on the screen and I wanna read this all together. Are you ready? Here we go:

Faith means believing what Jesus says about Himself, trusting Jesus to save you, and surrendering to Jesus as King.

That’s right.

We Receive the Benefits of the Cross Through Faith

And what happens when we place our faith in Jesus?

What happens is that we receive the benefits of the cross.

When I say that we are saved by grace through faith I’m saying that we receive the benefits of the cross through faith.

We receive the benefits of the cross, the blessings of the cross, the gifts of the cross through faith.

Everything Jesus went to the cross to purchase for us actually becomes ours through faith.

Listen to what the word of God says about this—I’m gonna literally firehose a bunch of scriptures at you. I would apologize, but I’m not sorry.

Acts 10:43:

“All the prophets testify about him, that through his name everyone who believes in him will receive remission of sins.”

—Acts 10:43, WEB

Listen to that.

He says that when you place your faith in Jesus, you are forgiven of your sins.

Take a second and think about what that means.

That means that when you put your faith in Jesus, your sins go on to the cross.

When you place your faith in Jesus, your sins go on to his shoulders.

When you place your faith in Jesus, you receive the benefits of the cross.

Here’s another. Listen to this. Acts 26:

“I am sending you to open their eyes, that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive remission of sins and an inheritance among those who are sanctified by faith in me.”

—Acts 26:17–18, WEB

Listen to that.

He says that when you place your faith in Jesus, you are turned from darkness to light.

He says when you place your faith in Jesus, you are freed from the power of Satan.

And when you place your faith in Jesus, once again, you are forgiven.

Just like before, take a minute and think about what all of this means.

This means that one minute before you put your faith in Jesus, the darkness owned you.

But the moment you placed your faith in him that ownership over you was broken.

One minute before you placed your faith in Jesus, you belonged to Satan.

He had you chained and shackled. You were on his list.

But the moment you placed your faith in Jesus, those chains were broken and he lost all claim over you.

One minute before you placed your faith in Jesus, you were condemned before God because of your sins.

But the moment you placed your faith in him, your sins went onto Jesus, and were nailed to the cross, and forever taken away from you.

When you place your faith in Jesus, you receive the benefits of the cross.

Born Again as a Child of God

But that’s still just the tip of the iceberg.

Because here’s another one. Listen to this. John chapter one:

“But as many as received him, to them he gave the right to become God’s children, to those who believe in his name: who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.”

—John 1:12–13, WEB

Listen to that.

When you place your faith in Jesus, you are born again as a child of God.

One minute before you placed your faith in Jesus, you were not God’s child.

You were the prodigal son.

You had left.

You had walked away.

You had abandoned your inheritance as God’s child.

You had left your family home and become an enemy of the family.

But the moment you placed your faith in Jesus, you were adopted again.

You became his child again.

You were reborn, so to speak, as God’s child again.

And you receive all the warmth and all the love and all the acceptance that God has for His children.

When you place your faith in Jesus, you receive the benefits of the cross.

Jesus Becomes Our Mediator and Advocate

And that means that the moment we place our faith in Jesus, He becomes our mediator.

He becomes our advocate.

He becomes our ally.

He becomes our defense attorney, so to speak.

Think about that for a second.

If you have placed your faith in Jesus, Jesus is your mediator.

Jesus is mediating between you and God. You are not on your own before God. You are not standing at his tribunal with him looking over you, judging you for your sins. You are standing next to Jesus, and you’re being graded based on Jesus, not yourself.

If you’ve placed your faith in Jesus, he becomes your advocate.

Instead of condemning you for your sins, he advocates for you in spite of your sins. He makes your case for you. Jesus is next to you saying, “Let this one in. He’s with me.”

The reality is that trying to approach God on our own doesn’t work.

Trying to approach God in our sinful nature, with our sinful debts, with our crimes hanging over us, doesn’t work.

Because of our sin, we are walled off from him on our own, in ourselves.

But when we place our faith in Jesus, we stop approaching God on our own—we start approaching God with Jesus.

We don’t enter God’s presence on our own, we enter God’s presence on Jesus’s shoulders.

He carries us into God’s presence.

We approach God’s presence at Jesus’s side.

And because that is true, we become welcome guests.

We become gloriously welcome.

We are sat down in the place of honor at God’s table on Jesus’s dime.

A Place at the Table

What it reminds me of is, back when I was a little kid, I had this friend named Will.

Now, Will was a funny little guy.

Will would randomly walk into people’s houses and demand that they give him something to eat.

And so there’s this kind of iconic story amongst all my childhood friends where this one time Will was at our friend Mason’s house, and it was getting late, but he refused to leave their house until Mason’s mom made him a sandwich.

He begged Mason’s mom to make him a sandwich, but she was like, “Dude, it’s 10 o’clock, it’s time for you to go home.”

And so he begged even harder, but she was like, “Look, just go home. Your mom will make you a sandwich.”

But then he just started demanding that she make him a sandwich. He started crying and sobbing, “Please make me a sandwich!”

So finally they had to pick him up, take him out the door, and close it behind him.

But then he started banging on the door and yelling, “I want a sandwich! I want a sandwich!”

That memory is just burned into my mind. I’m gonna remember that long after I’ve gotten Alzheimer’s and forgotten who my kids are.

But this one time I was trying to explain the gospel to a kid that I knew, and suddenly Will just popped into my head.

And it gave me an idea for how to explain it.

He said, “I’ve done so many bad things that I just don’t think God will let me into heaven one day,” and I said, “Well think about it this way: If a random person showed up at your house while your mom was cooking, and said, ‘What’s for dinner!’ what would she do? She’d probably scream, tell him to get out, maybe call the cops, maybe grab the gun on top of the refrigerator and chase them out of there, right? But what if you brought home a new friend and said, ‘Hey mom, can my new friend have dinner with us?’ Then what would she do? She’d say, ‘Of course. Pull up a chair for your friend. There’s always a place at our table for you.’”

That’s how it is with Jesus.

When we place our faith in Jesus, all the benefits of the cross become ours.

Your sin is forgiven, and the power of the devil is broken, and the claims the darkness have over you are nullified, and the wall between you and God is knocked down, and you are no longer held as guilty, and you are no longer condemned, and you become welcome in God’s home, in God’s family, at God’s table forever.

And this happens not because of some good thing that you do.

This happens not because you find a way to do enough good that it outweighs your bad.

This happens not because you found out the right ritual to perform.

It happens not because you picked the right religion.

It happens not because of any of those things.

No. It happens all because you surrendered and submitted and threw yourself on the mercy of King Jesus in faith.

Faith Is Surrendering and Resting

I know it feels like we’re really beating a dead horse, but that’s because the horse isn’t dead.

We have to understand this.

This is a life changing reality once we wrap our heads and our hearts around this.

Faith is not something we do, it is surrendering to what God has done for us.

Faith is not something we do, faith is resting in what God has done for us.

Paul says that salvation is a gift God has given us.

It is not something we won.

It is not something we earned.

It is not a reward for our success.

It’s a gift God has given us on his own dime.

And faith is saying to Jesus, “Please give that gift to me.”

Paul says that Jesus was sacrificed to purchase our salvation, and faith is saying to Jesus, “I want you to be my sacrifice.”

The Lord is holding out his salvation freely to all, and faith is saying to God, “Please give that salvation to me.”

That’s it. It’s that simple.

And so I love the way that the early 20th century theologian J. Gresham Machen put this. He said:

“Faith means receiving something, not doing something or being something. To say therefore that our faith saves us, means we do not save ourselves even in the slightest measure, but that God saves us.”

—J. Gresham Machen

You know, so often, we hear people say, “You know, your faith just isn’t strong enough.”

So often, we hear people say, “I don’t know if I’m really saved, because my faith is so weak.”

“I don’t feel like God could truly accept me, because my faith is so small.”

“I don’t even feel like a real Christian sometimes, because my faith is so inconsistent.”

But the truth is that we can rest because Christ will save us on the basis of the weakest, most inconsistent, most threadbare faith, right?

We can rest because it’s not the level of our faith that saves us, it’s the object of our faith.

It’s the Jesus of our faith.

You are not saved by having a bunch of faith, you are saved by resting in what Jesus has done for you.

What saves you is not the quality of your faith.

It’s not the level of your faith.

It’s not the amount of your faith.

It is the Jesus you have faith in.

You are saved completely apart from yourself.

You are saved by Jesus.

All you do is surrender and rest.

Jesus brings everything to the table in your salvation.

He brings the sacrifice, he brings the cross, he brings the forgiveness, He brings the payment for your sins, He brings the transformation that he works within you, He brings the restoration you will one day experience—all you bring is your surrender.

Faith is not something you do, faith is surrendering and resting in what God has done for you.

Surrender to the Salvation Christ Has Bought for You

And so what we need to do this morning is surrender to the Salvation Christ has bought for you through the cross.

That’s the only application we have.

Surrender to the salvation Christ has bought for you through the cross.

Believe what he says about himself, trust Him to save you, surrender to Him as your King, allow him to bring you to repentance, and rest in what he’s done for you.

Stop running from him.

Stop fighting against him.

Stop dragging your feet.

Stop acting like you don’t need him.

Stop acting like you can do it yourself.

Stop acting like you can save yourself.

Stop acting like you can make up for the bad things you’ve done.

And just surrender.

Surrender to your King, and trust Him to save you, and then rest in the salvation He gives you.

That is all there is.

That is the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Because the gospel is not something you do for God, it’s something God has done for you.

And so God’s calling on you this morning is to surrender to the Salvation Christ has bought for you through the cross and then rest in it, and then watch the way he transforms you from the inside out and makes you a new person.

Let’s join together in prayer.