Who You Are In Christ, Forgiven all Trespasses Col, 2:13
Colossians 2:13 · Kurt Katzorke · Feb 10, 2008
Who You Are in Christ, No. 06
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://www.hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/4926052351813

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

So the first verse that I have on the handout there is, in him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished on us in all wisdom and insight. The topic of being forgiven of all trespasses, obviously we have to recognize that there are trespasses. We have to recognize that there's something wrong. There's a fundamental issue. that needs to be taken care of. And what I have here at the beginning is, forgiven from what trespass? And I have some Greek words there and the definitions of them.

And the first one is forgiven. And it's interesting, the word that's used for forgiven, it has an idea of freedom. So freedom from sin. Not only are we forgiven from it, But we also have this freedom from sin and its power in our life as well. The word also has an idea of being pardoned. And then the second word is sin. And properly sin means to miss the mark. Everybody get in. Good morning. You're all right. How are you?

Then the word trespass has an idea of side-stepping or side-slip, to lapse or deviation. This word kind of brings out the two kinds of sin. It says that there's unintentional error and a willful transgression. There's basically those two types of sin in your life. You can willfully Deny what God wants you to do. Or there can be an error in your life. You just made a mistake. Obviously the willful sin is a lot worse. To willfully seek to do the opposite of what God has asked you is not a good idea.

And then I have here, sin deserves divine punishment because it is a violation of God's holy character. In the verse that I have there, Genesis 2, it says, but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat. For the day that you eat from it, you will surely die. Now, obviously, they didn't die the moment that they ate the fruit, but they were cast out of the garden. And death is a result of that sin. Without Adam and Eve's original sin, they could still be alive today if they hadn't done that. the death of separation.

Right. Although it did, again, the deterioration of the physical body. Well, and God kept him out of the garden because there was the other tree of eternal life. He'd gotten ahold of this, the knowledge of good and evil, and then immediately run over and gotten some eternal life. That was the problem. So before we came to be believers, we were in Adam's sin and have all broken God's righteous requirements.

Romans 3.23 says there that for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. There's no man alive, man, woman, or child that's ever lived that hasn't fallen short of what God's requirements were. We've all sinned.

And that's a fundamental issue that we as Christians, we obviously acknowledge. We have to acknowledge that there's something wrong there. and repent for those things. The next bullet that I have here, what's required? A life must be taken as a substitute for that of the sinner. And this is something that in the Old Testament, the taking of a lamb's life or a sheep's life was an example of what was to come in Christ.

And here in Leviticus 17.11 it says, For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you on the altar to make atonement for your souls. For it is the blood by the reason of life that makes atonement. So there's always that substitute. In the Old Testament, God required that there be an animal sacrifice.

That the Jews would take an animal and sacrifice it, and take that animal's life, and that animal was the scapegoat. It was taking the place of the sinner. Taking the place of the sinner's life. And that was kind of the idea. There was a scapegoat. There was a life being taken in place of the life that should have been taken. But it was only temporary. Yes. And that's where...

So if we read our next verse, Hebrews 9.22. According to the law, One may almost say, all things are cleansed by blood, and without shedding of blood there is no forgiveness. So I should have included a verse there where it talks about Christ's blood being our atonement. There's several of them in the New Testament. I didn't put one there. I should have.

But Christ is the new way, is the new sacrifice. The author in Hebrews also talks about how Christ's sacrifice is sufficient for all sins. And there's no longer a need for any more sacrifice. So Christ's one sacrifice takes care of it forever. You don't need to do it anymore. Whereas in the Old Testament, the Jews would sacrifice over and over again. And there's not a need for that anymore because Christ's sacrifice is sufficient for all sins.

And then the other thing that we have here that's required is a sinner must come to God's sacrifice in the spirit of repentance and faith. And in Acts 3, 19 and 20 there it says, therefore repent and return so that your sins may be wiped away in order that times of refreshing may come to you from the presence of the Lord. Recently, we were just talking about how Christ's sacrifice is sufficient for all sins. On the next page, there are past, present, and future sins. It's kind of weird to think that the sins that we have yet to commit are already taken care of. God can see that far ahead and has planned that well for us. that even the sins that are yet to be committed have been taken care of.

The verse that I have there is Colossians chapter 2 verses 13 and 14. It says, When you were dead in your transgression and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He made you alive together with Him, having forgiven all your transgressions, having canceled out the certificate of debt consisting of decrees against us, which was hostile to us. And He has taken it out of the way and having nailed it to the cross. So those sins that we had, those transgressions, Christ took those and they were nailed with Him to the cross.

They were taken care of. They're no longer an issue. says, I quote Schaeffer here, and he says, Christ's work, or well, this is partly me and partly Schaeffer, Christ's work on the cross is sufficient to forgive us all sins, even those we have yet to commit. Such complete forgiveness is possible only on the grounds of Christ's work in bearing sin and releasing His merit to those who are saved through His mediation and are in Him.

Well, I'm going to talk about that momentarily, actually, when we get into position and condition here. Like 1 John 1 there, if we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us and cleanse us of all unrighteousness. So we don't have to ask Christ for forgiveness of sins. When we commit a sin, it's not a go and ask Him for forgiveness. We've already got forgiveness. It's already taken care of. It's just a... I admit that I've done something wrong here. I've sinned against you. I realize that. I don't want to do it. I don't want to be that person. And it restores our fellowship. It restores our fellowship, exactly. The example that Schaefer uses is of a family unit.

So he uses as a son. A son can sin against his father. He can make a mistake. and still be a son. He hasn't lost his position as a son when he disobeys his father. He's broken some fellowship. There's an issue that has to be resolved, which is the same thing that we're talking about here. There's a trespassing that has to be resolved. But when the father forgives his son, they're back into fellowship. The son doesn't lose his position as a son because he's done something wrong. And that's the same thing with us. We cannot lose our salvation. There is no sin that you can commit that can cause you to lose your salvation.

You had an example last night. I did. I think you did. Which one was it? And the other thing is there's no unforgivable sin. The point that Randy was saying is you could take an extreme, something as extreme as Adolf Hitler. If before he died, before he was killed or committed suicide or whatever happened, if he would have come to the Lord in a spirit of repentance and faith, Adolf Hitler could have been saved and could be in heaven. That's not to say it happened, but that's how... There's no degree of sin. Right. Well, which is unbelief. The unpredictable sin is unbelief. But if you're in unbelief, you're not a believer. Right. So, as a believer, there's no degree of sin. Right.

In the Gospels, Jesus talks about someone sinning against the Holy Spirit and how that person can't be saved. It's not that they can't be saved because they've sinned against the Holy Spirit. It's because their heart is so hardened that they, you know, they're not going to be saved. And that's just who they are. It's not that they can't, it's that they don't want to be.

In the Colossians 2.13-14 verse you've got there, I think it's pretty powerful to see that the result of the transgressions and the lack of circumcision, in this case of the flesh for Israel, but the lack of that relationship just rendered us dead. They never, ever, ever want to link it with death. That's the last thing they want to do. They want to make it a normal part of life, and not, this is directly affiliated with death. I'm bound to death because I have trespassed and I have sinned.

And that's a very powerful concept to bring to the lost person. It's very offensive, but it's very powerful. Powerful concept. Yeah, they're only going to have one or two responses to that. They're either going to get fired up or they're going to realize that you're right. There's no middle ground there. But back to the worksheet here a little bit. The next thing I talk about is position and condition. So our position.

God sees us only in Christ. We are securely placed in Christ and there is no condemnation and no separation from God in our eternal position as believers. There is nothing that you can do for Him to condemn you to death, to hell, and there is nothing that you can do to separate your position from Him in Christ once you believe. In fact, condemnation and separation are impossibilities since all transgressions were laid upon Christ.

In our position, we have also died to the power of sin in our lives, which most of Romans 6 deals with that. So before you were saved, sin had power over you. It had control of your life. And the only way to break that control of sin was to come to Christ and to have Him be the controlling factor in your life. And then I talk about in our condition. Though our position is one that can't be changed, in our condition, the believer still has the capacity, the ability to sin. We still have unredeemed bodies and the flesh or sin nature. So as believers, what do we do with sin?

And this is that John 1.9, if we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us of all unrighteousness. Now, this next little thing I have here is something from my pastor back in Nevada. This is one that he had put together.

I showed it to Randy last night, and he goes, well, why ECRAT? Why not TRACE? Why not make a word out of it? But he didn't make a word out of it. He was looking for more of a process. And I'm not giving you guys a law. This isn't something you should do all the time. I'm not saying do this, and you'll be perfect, or don't do this, and you'll be in trouble. Not a law, just something for you to look at.

So the first one, examine your life for sin. On a daily basis, you know, you should be looking at your life and thinking, was this right? Was this wrong? Was I in the spirit? Was I walking moment by moment in the spirit? And if you recognize... Go ahead. That sounds like something we have to do. Something we have to do. You know, it's like... I mean, if you read... I mean, I don't know what's going on in my life. I mean, only the Holy Spirit knows exactly. Sure. Even when we pray, we don't know what we're praying for and what's, you know, the Holy Spirit intercedes for us. Sure.

And, was it Romans 8, I think? Romans 8, 26, you know, it talks about our groanings, which cannot even be uttered. I mean we don't even know what's in their lives and stuff. So it sounds like, I don't know, it's just examine your life for sin. It seems like something I should be doing. Well I think you want to have an awareness of, you want to have an awareness of am I, moment by moment, am I living in the spirit?

Corinthians 13.5, that's the reference he's got here. Paul says, test yourselves to see if you are in the faith. Examine yourselves, or do you not recognize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you, unless indeed you fail to test. The principle Paul's presenting there, in poetry, that as a conscious human being is walking in this life, Test yourself to see if you're in the faith. Am I walking in faith?

Think of it as a relationship. Like in your case with Jamie, do you constantly stop and ask yourself, is Jamie okay? Am I okay with Jamie? No. But there may be something where something will trigger and you'll go, you'll notice something's not right or the Holy Spirit may click into you and you'll go, whoa, I'm not in fellowship. I think too that we, you know, a lot of times we're just doing normal things in our day.

Yeah. And, and, you know, my, my thing is driving, you know, I'm driving down the road and somebody doesn't put their blinker on and they just come right over in my lane. And for, for like that second I'm going, what is, you know, what is this guy just doing, you know? And then you go, well, yesterday. Yeah, I haunt my. Well, I had the stop sign. He did. I thought he had a stop sign and I was stopped. But then I said, look at that guy going right in front of me.

He didn't have anyway. The point is, I knew right away that I was not in it. The Lord was not in me right that second. I was out. Convicting you. Exactly. I knew immediately and I said, boy, I bet that guy was really mad at me. I bet he was cussing me out. I was laying on my horse. I guess that's another question that kind of goes along with what Bill was saying.

And I know it's a few points down in scientific terms. That's OK. But as to be filled with the Holy Spirit, well... Well, let me qualify that statement. Let me qualify that. I'm not getting... I'm not getting... Charismatic on you guys here. Not at all. No, not at all. Ask to be filled with the Spirit.

Ephesians 5.18, don't be drunk with wine, but be filled with the Spirit. It's not that the Spirit ever leaves us, or that the Spirit is gonna, He's gone, and I gotta go get Him, and I need to get Him back. It's not a matter of that, it's a matter of And the filled is not, I'm kind of filled, or I'm not filled, or I'm here and I'm there. So what you're saying is, I want the spirit to be in control of my life.

You're not asking him to come back. You're not thinking that he's left. It's just that you want him to be in control of your life. I want to be fully controlled by you. With that said, I guess I just don't understand. The Holy Spirit, would actually be the one to show us sins in our lives. So we wouldn't really have to always be... I don't know. I don't know. Sure.

Well, and when I believe in 2 Corinthians here, Paul is getting ready to talk to these Corinthians about observing the Lord's table. And before you observe the Lord's table, you examine your life. You examine your life for sin, because you don't, you know, to have that fellowship with God, there needs to be no sin in the way. You don't want sin in the way. So, before you go to the Lord's table, you examine yourself. You say, is there sin in my life? Will you show me sin in my life? Is there something that we need to deal with here before I come to you?

And you know also, Kurt, in the first part of 2 Corinthians, which Paul does a lot in many of his books, the first part, he confirms who they are in Christ. So when he's talking to the Corinthians, he's already said, this is who you are. And then he says, So be who you are in the next part. And he does that all through his epistles. So I think, as opposed to it being a command kind of a thing in the second part, it's more, this is who you are. He's already told them who they are in Christ in the first book, I mean, the first chapter there. He's told them, this is who you are. So because this is who you are, reckon all these things to be true who you are. So just really coming to an acknowledgment of the Lord. What the Lord's already doing. Sure. Exactly.

As opposed to, do this, examine yourself, do this, do this, do this. He's already said, this is who you are. Christ is already in you. And because he's in you, this then is how it looks. It's not a command. But I think sometimes we can take that out of context. If we don't realize what Paul, because he does it, In every church that he goes to, he has to first tell them who they are in Christ. You're already in Christ. And now, this is what that looks like. So examine yourself. You're part of Him. He's your life. This is how you should walk it. Because this is who you are. Stan?

The command to be filled with the Spirit that's not likely to come from the body, but will be poured and it's full. What it is, it's like cutting the bottom out. It's in the present tense. When you cut the bottom out, you take the cup and you put it in a stream of water. So it's constantly being filled. Okay. Which is present tense. And it also says don't quench the spirit. So don't take the cup out of the water. Keep it in the water where it's contained.

Sure. Yeah. Yeah, there's two. There's quench and there's grieve. Don't quench the spirit, don't grieve the spirit. Yeah. Question. Sure. So, keeping in mind our position and condition, functionally, when it's saying, if we confess, how do you see that connecting? Well, I think you can live a life where you're not in fellowship with the Lord. You can be saved and not be in fellowship. My father is an example. Hopefully he doesn't listen to this message. He'd tell you the same thing.

He spent probably five to ten years of his life mad at God and walking away from Him. He never lost his salvation, but he was angry with God. It took him a while to get to a point where he could confess that to Him. And that's not to say that God didn't forgive those sins, but it took him a while to get to a point where he could confess that, where he could come back to the Lord. So the Holy Spirit was being greedy. Certainly, yeah. And I think we all go through periods of our life where we're going to do that. Hopefully not long ones, because it's not good.

I don't understand the Greek well enough, but I know that certain gifts are translated as sense? Yes. So my guess would be that this particular if is the third conditional and the great if would be sense. We profess our sense. Very true. Yeah, that's probably likely. I'd have to get back to people on that for a certainty. But yeah, there are a lot of times where if is translated should be sense. Yes.

I've never heard of the thought that grieving the Holy Spirit In the Gospels, Jesus, I believe it's Matthew, talks about that. He talks about sinning against the Holy Spirit being an unpardonable sin. Now, we should qualify with that by saying God has forgiven all sins. So, that person is not a believer, first of all. If you're a believer, you've already come to the point where you've accepted God and the Holy Spirit is in your life. Now, you can grieve the Spirit, sure. But it's not an unforgivable sin.

The text and the point where Jesus is talking about that, he's speaking about an unbeliever whose heart is hardened to the point that they will never listen to the Holy Spirit. Right. They've rejected God completely already. We've already accepted God. So that's the unbelief that we're talking about. That the only true sin that sends you to hell is unbelief?

Sure. You've been told the gospel, you've been given the gospel, and you have fully rejected it, and your heart is hardened to the point that you're never going to accept it. So to clarify further, just in the discussion, the top block, past, present, future, and Colossians verses up there, connect those I'm understanding that everything has been taken care of already. So I think it is important to look at if as since.

Since we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins. So it's something that we've come to the Lord. and confess these things. We've already come to Him and we've said, we confess that these are sins. And having done so, all of our sins are already taken care of. Christ has taken care of those on the cross. We're just coming to Him and saying, we agree that we needed you.

I confess that this was wrong and I needed you. I couldn't have done it on my own. I think it's important to understand it because I know in my life I've seen a lot of people make a path in the carpet going from their pew up to the altar and back and forth because they have this guilt that has to be resolved. Sure. And that's actually the next thing here.

Guilt versus conviction. Guilt is a feeling of responsibility or remorse for some offense, crime, or wrong, whether real or imagined. Conviction is to make aware of one's sinfulness. So, the Holy Spirit, if you feel guilt in your life, it's not the Holy Spirit. That's you. That's your flesh feeling guilty. If you feel convicted, made aware, you know, you honk your horn and get fired up at somebody, and the Holy Spirit convicts you, and I'm there with you, don't get me wrong.

Denver has the third worst traffic in the nation. So, I'm there with you. So, when the Holy Spirit convicts you of that action and you recognize it as sinfulness, for a believer, that's probably happening for me all the time. It probably happens more than I'd like to talk about, especially when I'm driving.

But a feeling of guilt, a feeling of remorse, That's you. As believers we should no longer feel guilty when we sin because we are not guilty as Christ has taken the guilt upon himself. So don't feel guilty because you're not. Christ has taken your place. You can feel convicted. You can know that sin is sin and wrong is wrong. But you're not guilty of it. Christ has taken that guilt upon himself. Being convicted by the Holy Spirit is a process he, the Holy Spirit, uses to draw us back to Christ.

Do you mind if we go back to the Ekrat thing real quick? Sure. I think the biggest concern that people were expressing I've got to do something like there's legalism. The truth of the matter is that when we look at our position, it's absolutely solidly secure, no issue. When it comes to condition, we're flimsy. We're inconsistent.

And the point of ECRAT, or I've heard it talked with various other acronyms or things, is simply the concept of Continuing to set your mind on things above, Colossians chapter 3. Set your mind on things above. Set your mind on things above. Any time we're out of fellowship, we've got to restore that, so that our condition and our position are unified in principle.

And self-examination, as Paul put it in 2 Corinthians 13.5, is not It's not us knowing everything.

I used to think I had to know all my sins, and I would rack my brain. What did I do? Oh, I don't want to forget one, because if I don't confess it, I've blown it, and I'm going to be out of fellowship soon. No. It's an evaluation. Am I in fellowship or not? Like I said with my relationship with Jessica, I know. She is not mysterious to me in that way. I know if I'm not in fellowship.

With the Lord, it's the same way. I'm like, wow. Margaret talked about real life. For me, when I get just totally focused in on code at work and thinking about C++ or whatever else I'm working in. When I disconnect from the computer, I'm not walking in spirit. I'm walking in zeros and ones.

And I need to break out of that and realign myself. I wasn't trying to be carnal, but I wasn't focused on it. I wasn't setting my mind up. And so I have to evaluate. The sin may not be sin of weird nastiness. It's just not focusing on it. So it's restoring it and walking back and forth. I guess that's what I was saying. As long as you're focused on Him. Yeah.

Yeah, I'm not giving you a law. The Holy Spirit's gonna convict you and bring things out. He knows more about my life than I know what I need. Than I know. You know what I'm saying? I guess that's how I think about it too. Instead of me relying on examining, I'm relying on the Spirit rather than that. And I know some of you are saying that. Sure. And I should probably qualify each and every one of these statements with in the Spirit. So examine yourself in the Spirit.

Confess your sins in the Spirit. Because that's who we should be moment by moment. Where I'm not. I'm not moment-by-moment. Like Randy says, I get focused on something at work or something else. You can certainly side-slip. But the thought process behind this is not to give you rules and laws.

At 5.30 in the morning, 12.30 in the afternoon, and 5.30 at night, I want you to do this. No, no, no, no, that's not what I'm saying. We don't, I'm not, lay a rug down, face east, and do this. No. It's almost, it needs an R at the end. It needs to be equator. Equator. Yeah, you need an R with rest on the end. Right. Now rest. Depend on the Lord, and believe it or not, it all becomes much easier.

I don't find myself running through a checklist, I find myself in communication. When I'm talking with Jessica, I don't have a sequence of steps I go through, but somewhere in there, I'm always apologizing. Every time, you know, I'm sorry, I confess that I blew it this way, and then the restoration takes place. I may not run through a checklist, but I know that somewhere in there, there's gonna be a confession and an acknowledgement that I screwed up. I may spend five minutes trying to explain why I screwed up, It's going to be in there. And this, you know, the principle behind all of this is simply restoration. That's what you're trying to do.

Yeah. One other thing, you know, this confession, I'm not Catholic, but Catholic church, that's a big part of it. You go, confess your sins to the priest. Sure. Now we make, as Protestants, we make that. Well, that's a little harsh, but you know, that's a big part of it. Well, except they're confessing to the priest, but we're confessing to the high priest. Yeah. It's a different mediator. It's a different mediator. Yes. But it's a process, and they still didn't mean to not pray about it. Sure.

The issue that I've seen there, and it's actually a Catholic, well, a comedian who claims to be Catholic, we'll put it that way. I don't know what that means, but he made some jokes concerning that. And he said that, you know, I know what my religion is. This is what he said, a Catholic.

I know that I mess up and I go and I confess that and I'm done. So basically what he's saying is I have a past to sin. I have a whole past to sin. You know, and that's not the setup. When Paul asked that question, if we can't out-sin God's grace, should we sin to make grace abound all the more? He says, may it never be. No, that's not the idea. The idea is that we live our lives in the Spirit, and that'll bring us into our next point because we've been saved for a purpose.

So 1 John 2.12 says, I am writing you, little children, because your sins have been forgiven you for His name's sake.

And this is another quote from my old pastor. He said, if the sole purpose of Christ's work on the cross was to simply forgive us our sins, we would drop dead or be raptured the moment we were saved. If that was all he wanted from us, we'd all be in heaven already. If that was all that he wanted to do on the cross, then we'd already be in heaven. So Philippians there, it says, for you have been granted, for Christ's sake, Not only to believe in him, but also to suffer for his sake. Suffer for his sake, maybe that didn't sound like a lot of fun.

And we'll use Paul's example. So an axe, but the Lord said to him, and he's talking to Randy, who's he talking to? Who goes and grabs Paul? An axe, I don't remember. For he is the chosen instrument of mine to bear my name, before the Gentiles and kings and the sons of Israel. For I will show him how much he must suffer for my name's sake." So this is Ananias. Ananias is going to get Paul. And the Lord appears to him and says, go get Paul. And this is what he's going to do. And obviously, during Paul's lifetime, he deals with a lot of hardships. In 2 Corinthians 11, this is Paul speaking.

Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked. A day and a night I have spent in the deep. I have been on frequent journeys in dangers from rivers, dangers from robbers, dangers from my countrymen, dangers from Gentiles, dangers in the city, dangers in the wilderness, dangers at sea, dangers among false brethren. I have been in labor and hardship, through many sleepless nights, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure.

Paul dealt with some stuff that we don't want to deal with. I don't know about you, but I avoid most of those things. Paul says that when he was stoned, he was left for dead. I don't ever want to do that. Paul was bold. And then having dealt with all those things, he also says, but whatever things were gained to me, those things I have counted loss for the sake of Christ. That word sake is used a couple of times here. So sake is a purpose or for that person's gain. Paul went through all those things for the gain of the gospel, for the gain of Christ.

So I say, though few if any of us will ever suffer as Paul did, we're all called and saved for the same purpose, Christ's sake. We're all here for a reason. So if Christ's sole purpose on the cross was to save us, we'd all be dead. But we're not. We're still here. And we're here for Christ's sake. We're here for his purpose. And we want to live in fellowship with him for that reason.

Sure. So you talked about Ananias and Sapphira. Them two guys that hold all the money up with them. Right. Right about it. They're good Christian people. They go to heaven when the Lord said I am to take you home. How'd that work out? Well, I'm not the Lord, I don't know. I'm going to take the easy out there and say, I don't know. Once saved, always saved. If they were believers, they walked in the flesh, but they were lying to the Holy Spirit. It doesn't mean they're not saved, it just means that God took them out early and said, we're not having that anymore. Kurt, don't you think too, I know we were talking with one of our children, and they were saying that, you know, why, why do these bad things happen? You know, why, why do I continue to have things that happen to me?

Sure. And he was specifically talking about, he had two friends, two of his very best friends have lost parents recently. kind of unexpected and it was traumatic. And we talked to him about, you know, that you lost your parents 15 years ago. And maybe, you know, because you lost your parents, you're in these young men's lives so that you can help them go through this trial. Sure. And we helped him understand that he, because of his you know, grieving and the process he went through, that he could be, one of these young men is not a believer, that he could be a real witness to this young man about losing his parents.

And when he realized that, I mean, he had a whole different attitude about, wow, you're right, I can really share what went on. Yeah, whenever people ask me that question, why do bad things happen to us? Well, one, we live in a fallen world. We live in a fallen world. It's not perfect. Bad things are going to happen. The other place that I love to go is 2 Corinthians chapter 4. And if you've got a Bible, go there. And we'll start at verse 7. Now I have a copy of the NIV here, which I'll apologize for in advance.

But it says, we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. We are hard-pressed on every side but not crushed, perplexed but not in despair, persecuted but not abandoned, struck down but not destroyed. We always carry around In our body the death of Jesus so that the life of Jesus may be revealed in our body For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus's sake So that his life may be revealed in our more in our mortal body So we go through these things You know being Being pressed on every side the idea of a jar being a pressed on every side but not crushed because we have God.

Perplexed. Things happen. We don't know why. Why does your mom have to die? But we're not in despair because we have Christ. We're persecuted. We go through things that Paul would be a great example of being persecuted but not abandoned. Christ was always with him. The Holy Spirit was always with was always with Paul. Shut down but not destroyed. Paul was left for dead, but not dead. And we go through all those things for Jesus' sake.

So when people ask me why do bad things happen, let's see what his name is. The book is Authentic Christianity. And the author's name is not coming to me at the moment. But he says, Ray Steadman. Ray Steadman says, without a trial, there could be no display. Without these things that we have to go through, there could be no display. So the world couldn't see what Christ is like if we didn't go through these things.

So whenever people ask me, why do we go through this? Because the world is watching. If you're going through a trial, the world is watching how you react. And if you react in Christ with his life, as opposed to react in the flesh, then that's what the world sees and they go, wow. You can show them something completely different. That's a witness without ever saying anything. Right.

I think a lot of times, I tend to look at it like, oh, I'm a walk-in-the-dirt. I'm going to have a hard time. I'm going to feel bad. Being a Christian is going to be so hard. I think I need to look at it a different way. God has given me all these opportunities and all these blessings. Through this, I'm going to be perfect in this world. I'm going to walk in the Holy Spirit. reversing that and being, oh, it's going to be a hardship. Yeah, it won't be easy, but that's what I have the spirit for. And I don't have to do it. That's the key. You don't have to do it.

Yeah, if you can view circumstances like that not as hardship, but as opportunity, And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to his purpose. My problem, over and over and over again, has been redefining all things. God works all things to his good. Well, except for the things that I can't figure out. That can't be good at all. And once I finally figured out that all things really meant all things, it changed the way I looked at all things, and suddenly the crummy trials became rather than, you know, it's depressing. It stopped being that way.

That statement by Paul, the person dies and Jesus says, well done, good and faithful servant. Paul doesn't say, the world says, well done, good and faithful servant. Because you're doing it for Christ and Christ gives you a plan. you know, whether you're faithful or not.

So Paul had a special walk. He was an apostle. He was a missionary. He went to the Gentiles. It was a new covenant. I mean, there was many things that Paul, huge, dynamic figure in history. And it was the plan that Jesus gave him to walk. That's why he wanted to finish the race. Because he wanted to be counted as well done, good and faithful servant.

You carried out my plan for you. And not all of us are going to have that tremendous suffering. But we do have a plan. Sure. And Christ expects us to carry out our plan. Whatever it may be. And it's not for the world. It's for our relationship with Him. Right. And in our roots, we may not know what God's plan is, but in our roots, it's to live moment by moment by the Holy Spirit.

The last little thing I have here on the page, and I kind of had this here in case we ran into having some extra time, and we do have a couple minutes so we can maybe go over a couple things, but two options, pick one. When it comes to forgiveness of sins, there are only two options. You can rely on your own abilities, which I don't recommend, and you can thank God for his abundant grace. Schaefer puts it this way, men either stand on their own merit or in the merit of Christ. The Bible tells us that only one of these options is viable, yet man comes up with all sorts of ideas to support his own merit.

We talked a little bit about Mormons last night. What was the example again? Well, for a while they did blood atonement. Some people actually trespasses that they had to pay for that Christ had to pay for. Right, so Christ's work on the cross wasn't sufficient, let me come up with something else. Let me come up with something for me to make it better. That's obviously not what the Bible says.

We could come up with all sorts of examples of different religions where a man is trying to make his own merit good enough. Well, every other religion. Every other religion, sure. Christianity is the only religion where we do nothing. We just believe. Yeah, we believe and abide. That's all we have to do. We don't have to work to prove ourselves to God or work to get into heaven. How many gold stars do we have? We don't have to do any of that. We'll end on that. I thank you guys for your participation this morning. You made the hour go by quickly for me. I appreciate that.

Let's close in prayer and then we'll go listen to Vern's message. Heavenly Father, I think that you can allow us to meet. We live in a country where we're able to do this without even thinking about it. Thank you that you have forgiven us of all our trespasses. Thank you that you have a purpose for us. That you've chosen us to be your instruments on this earth.

That through your grace and through abiding in your Holy Spirit, We can view suffering as opportunity rather than hardship. Pray that our minds would think that way. Most of the time, mine doesn't. But we just thank you for your grace, for your love, and for our time together. We pray in Jesus' name.