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Children's director. So together, we do a lot of work downstairs in the children's ministry on Sundays and and then also at Awana. We've got just a little background about me. We've got three kids. James is our oldest.
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He's 21. He just finished class at Montana State University and he's engaged to Monica. Monica's not here yet. She's coming to the later service this morning. But we're so happy to be having her join our family.
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Then we've got John who is 17. He's a senior at Teton High School. Y'all usually see him here on Sunday mornings. He's coming to the later service as well but you see him passing the plates and and doing different things on Sundays and then we've also got Ellie who's eight. She was sitting right up here and just ran off to children's church.
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You see her running around all over the place and we just we just love them so much. We're so proud of all of our kids. So, you know, diving into the sermon here, Ray texted me, I don't know, about ten days ago maybe and said, hey, I'm out. Van's out. We need somebody to do the message.
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Would you do it? And the first thing that popped into my head was that old Chris Christofferson song that starts off, why me, Lord? What have I ever done? But he's asked me to do this a few times before and I've kinda dodged him. I'm I'm not a not a pastor, not not a seminarian, not a theologian, not anything like that.
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In fact, my grandma used to tell people when I was growing up that I was gonna be a pastor one day, and obviously that didn't happen. And so one of my one of my older relatives after my grandma had passed, she said, hey, ain't Desi, she used to tell me that you were gonna be a preacher and you're a lawyer. What happened to you? I said, well, you know, I don't know. But here I am.
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So so Ray asked me to do this message, and I started thinking about, okay. What what do I have to say that is worth talking about? And really what we're gonna do is just focus on scripture. But the reason for this message is about six weeks ago in Teton Valley, I did deliver a message over there for meal music and a message. And it was really on what is faith and and how are we saved.
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And then about three weeks ago, my brother and I did a panel discussion for a a nonprofit that he's formed to build churches in Latin America. And we did a panel discussion on walking by faith. So how do we walk out and live out our faith through the Christian walk, and how did our grandparents model that out? We were raised primarily by our grandparents. And so that was the topic that we did.
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So when Ray reached out, I thought, well, I could take those two things and put them together and really what we've got is, how are we saved? So, what is salvation? What what's required for salvation? And what do we do from the moment of salvation forward? So what does the Christian walk look like?
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And then what happens when we mess up? Because that's that's kind of the spoiler spoiler alert. We're all going to mess up at some point. And so that's that's what we're gonna talk about today. What is salvation?
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What's required for salvation? What do we do after that? What is our Christian walk supposed to look like? And what's what's the consequence if we if we mess up? And so for those that were in M 3 in Teton Valley, you will have heard some of this before, but not all of it.
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So you know the the the first part of this is pulled from a great book called Sit Walk Stand and watch my knee says the first part of being a Christian is sitting in the finished work of Christ. And I think that's right. That's what we're called to do. We're called to sit in the finished work of Christ. But what is that what does that really mean and how can we do that?
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And so, like, opinion, this is not biblical. This is Philip's opinion, is we, as Christians, we really, really complicate the good news. We complicate the gospel. We debate it. Sometimes to the point where we really distract from the simplicity of just the the good old gospel message.
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And so what is that? And and what is salvation? And it goes right back to a verse that we all learned when we were kids. It's something we learned, you know, four, five, six, seven years old. For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
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And so when we think about what is required for salvation, it's it. Right? That's it right there. It's John three sixteen. It's belief, and that's all we have to do.
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Nothing else. Literally, nothing else. And how do I know that we don't have to do anything other than believe? It's because other scriptures tell us that. And so I would go look at Ephesians two eight through nine.
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For it's by grace you have been saved through faith and this is not from yourselves, it's the gift of God. Not by works so that no man can boast and I love that. Not by works so that no man can boast because we do like to boast and we do like to think a lot of ourselves, myself included. But the point of the law, the Old Testament law, and everything that happened up to Christ is to show us that we are not good enough, that there is nothing that we can do, nothing at all that we can do to earn our salvation. We need a savior, and that savior was Jesus, and that's it.
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And we don't need anything else. And so if John three sixteen and Ephesians two aren't enough, the Bible actually gives us a concrete example of this, of somebody who is saved through faith and not by works, and we've got it. And it's the thief on the cross. And I love the story of the thief on the cross because it, to me, perfectly encapsulates perfectly encapsulates the simplicity of the good news and what's required for salvation. And you think about it.
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It it just demonstrates Jesus' overwhelming love for us. You've got three men hanging up there on on this cross, arms stretched wide, spikes driven through their wrists, through nerves so that fire is shooting up their shoulders, spikes in their legs. They're literally having to raise themselves up to breathe to keep from suffocating. This is a painful pain. You know, they're they're in agony up there.
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And that day starts off with both thieves mocking Jesus, mocking him. But at some point during that day, one of those other guys, one of those thieves hanging on the cross, he has a change of heart. And he looks at Jesus. Well, the Bible doesn't say he looks at Jesus, but in my in my mind, he looks at Jesus, and he says, Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom. That's it.
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That's all he said. That's all he ever did. That's all that's recorded for his Christian walk is Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom. And Jesus doesn't say, okay. I'll remember you if you do x, y, and z.
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I'll remember you after you've gone and done all of these other things. He says, truly, I tell you, today, you will be with me in paradise. And that's all that thief did, was give his heart to Jesus. That moment, simple words, a dying man in agony accepted Jesus in his heart. And Jesus, also in agony, earthly agony, accepted that man into into the eternal kingdom.
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Not Jesus not thinking about himself through love accepted that thief. And that's it. He had to do nothing else. And he was with Jesus that very day. And to me, that's so powerful as to what's required for us to have salvation, that unmerited grace that's given to us.
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And so last week, Ray was preaching on Colossians. And I saw this first pop up in his slides, and it said, in Christ, you have been made complete. And that's it. That's all we need is Christ, belief in Christ, to accept what is freely offered to us. And it doesn't matter what we've done before that moment.
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It could be horrible, horrible things. Years ago, my grandma worked in prison ministry in Texas, and she and some other women that we knew and some that we didn't know ministered to a lady who was in prison on death row. And she was obviously not on death row for stealing or fraud. She had committed a heinous crime and a drug induced stupor. She had killed multiple people with an ice pick.
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You can't make these things up. That's a true story. And this lady ended up giving her life to Christ while in prison. And she became an example to others through television interviews, magazine interviews, and other and other women in prison. She became an example for Christ.
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And people would would ask my grandma, is that possible? Could that lady who did all of those horrible things and ruined all of these other families' lives? Could she really, really be accepted by Christ? And the answer is yes. Absolutely.
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Now, I'm not judging her conversion. I have no idea whether it was genuine or not. That's only for God to judge, not for us. But I do know that God is a big God, and he can accept us no matter what we've done. And trust me, no matter what we've done before that moment, the call is open to us.
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And so it's easy. Right? It ends there. We we accept the unmerited grace that God gives to us, and that's it. That's all we have to do.
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But it's not that simple. Right? So there's a there's a whole next step. Unless we have a a a deathbed conversion like the thief on the cross, there's a whole Christian walk to live from that point of accepting Jesus forward. And so this also from sit walk stand.
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So this is the walk. You know, what do we do after we accept Christ? We walk. And so when I was about... Well, actually, I was 17.
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I was a junior in high school, and I had the the good fortune of taking a CS Lewis survey class. We read through a bunch of different CS Lewis books. And this is the point kind of for me where I started taking my... Like, the the faith that I had in making it my own. And for those that have kids or older kids, you know, you want your kids to take the faith and make it your own and make it their own.
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And so kind of that's when it was no longer my grandparents' faith. It was it was becoming my own. And it was this chapter in mere Christianity that really stuck with me about what is God looking for in the Christian walk. Is he looking for us to just be nice people, or is he looking for new men or changed hearts? And this resonated with me because, you know, we can all fall into the pretty good guy trap, the pretty good guy syndrome.
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And that's really what what Lewis sets up here with two different characters, Dick Furkin and miss Bates. That is not Amy and me at home, just for just for the record. And so Dick Furkin, you know, this is the... These are two fictional fictional characters from mere Christianity in this chapter. And Dick Furkin is born.
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He's a pretty good guy. He does everything right. He's he's, you know, even tempered, kind to his neighbors, good communities, you know, person. He's doing the right things from a worldly perspective. Poor miss Bates.
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But he... But let me be clear. Dick Furkin is not a believer. Poor miss Bates, she's born just mean, nasty person, ill tempered, hard to get along with, but she's a believer. And so for people looking outside in, you look at this and you go, well, that Dick Furkin, he's a pretty good guy.
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That miss Bates, she's real hard to get along with. I'm not so sure I wanna be a Christian. But the question that he puts out there is, it's not... Or or this, you know, the the theory he puts out is that it's not what we look like without Christ because anything that Dick Furkin does is not to his credit. He's born that way.
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Those are gifts from God and he's not recognizing where they're coming from. And miss Bates fail over and over and over again but try as she might, she is submitting to God every day and she's working with a different a different temperament than Dick Ferkin But that submission, that is to her credit in God's eyes. And so it... It's not a worldly perspective that God is looking looking at. And so, you know, I would say CS Lewis, greatest Christian apologist maybe of the twentieth century, but he didn't really come up with this contrast.
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It's biblical. And so I would look at Mary and Martha, similar contrast here, and I'll read Luke ten thirty eight through 42. As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord's feet, listening to what he said. But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made.
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She came to him and said, Lord, don't you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me. She was upset. She was mad. She's doing all the things that need to be done and her sister's just over there sitting around doing nothing and Jesus says, Martha, Martha, you were worried and upset about many things but few things are needed or indeed only one.
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Mary has chosen what is better and it will not be taken away from her. And so I used to read this this story and think, kinda... Not bad things about Jesus, but it it, you know, you read it and you go, man, Jesus wanted attention or maybe he's being arbitrary. Like, what what is going on here? Martha's doing good things.
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She's being hospitable. There's a meal that's gotta be prepared. The house needs to be tidied up. Whatever it may be, she's doing it. She's trying to be helpful.
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And from a worldly sense, that's correct. And and Mary, she's sitting around doing nothing from a worldly perspective. But when you really, really dig into this and and you look at Jesus's response, he's not admonishing Martha for the work. He is admonishing Martha for the why. You were worried and upset about many things but few things were needed or indeed only one.
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She's not working out of the call of the Holy Spirit. She's not working because that's what God is leading her to do. She's working out of anxiousness. She's working out of being upset. So, she is not heeding the call in her life to sit with Christ.
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And so it's not the work that's the problem. It's the why Martha is working. And so it's so easy in our world, any world. You know, back then, today, it's so easy to be Martha and it is so so very hard to be Mary. So very hard to be Mary.
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There are so many things throughout our day that need to get done, that have to get done, and we have to do em. When perhaps, God is calling us to do something different. God is calling us in a different direction. And so here's another example. Uh-oh.
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The clicky clicker is not clicking. I was hoping I get to say that. Okay. So here here, this is the story of the poor widow woman. And it's another comparison in in in contrast that that Jesus sets up.
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So, Jesus sat down opposite the place where the offerings were put and watched the crowd putting their money into the temple treasury. Many rich people threw in large amounts but a poor widow came and put in two very small copper coins worth only a few cents. Calling his disciples to him, Jesus said, truly I tell you, this poor widow has put more into the treasury than all the others. They all gave out of their wealth, but she, out of her poverty, put in everything. All she had to live on.
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And there's so many things that we could talk about with this particular passage. But today, I wanna just compare and contrast from a worldly perspective, the people putting in more did more. This lady, she's got just a couple of pennies. She threw them in. Big deal.
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That's not going to help us meet the budget. These other people, they're putting in way more money. They're they're making budget. But Jesus, he's watching this and he's not judging the amount that they put in but the heart, the why they are giving and obviously, you can see how much people are giving here. I don't know how.
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I have no idea how it was set up. Probably somebody in the room knows exactly how it was set up, but I don't. But I do know from reading this that you can see how much people are putting in. And so you... Doesn't say why any of the rich people were putting in large amounts, but you can guess.
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Maybe they maybe they give out a out of a sense of compulsion because they feel like they have to. Or maybe they give because people can see them because they can be seen. Look at me. Look at how much I'm giving. But this lady, she puts in all that she has because she trusts God.
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She is being led by the Holy Spirit to give and trust. And so the first time we ever visited first b was probably, I don't know, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen years ago, something like that. We were still living in Texas at the time. And we came in and Carl actually preached that Sunday and Amy and I for a year or two thought Carl was the lead pastor, and Ray and I have Ray and I have laughed about that since, and Carl too. But Carl gave the operatory prayer that morning, and now I know that this is basically what he said every time, but it struck us because it was so different.
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When he gave the operatory prayer that morning, he said, Lord, help us not to give out of a sense of compulsion, not because we feel like we have to give, but let us give out of the leading of the spirit, out of the overflow of the heart. And Carl had that just so right that we give and and giving is only one manifestation of doing. Right? We do the work of Christ not out of compulsion but and not to be seen but out of the leading of the Holy Spirit, out of the daily submission to the leading of the Holy Spirit. That's why we give.
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That's why we do the things that we do. And if we are submitting to the will of God, I promise you, we will be doing, but it will look different. And so the question is, how can we be more like Mary and more like the the poor widow? And I I I just said the answer. It's daily submission to the leading of the Holy Spirit.
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But let let's read what the what the Bible has to say about it because Jesus himself tells us what we have to do. So this is Jesus talking to his disciples. He said to them all, whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will save it. What good is it for someone to gain the whole world and yet lose or forfeit their very life?
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This this version here said sight. So what is that? Right? What is this type of submit submission? So we are to deny ourselves.
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Deny our wants, desires, earthly desires, and take up our cross daily, daily. That means every day. That means submitting to the will of God every single day, setting our will aside and and slowly over time over a period of years and years, our will fades away and is replaced by by gods. But that's hard. That's that's not easy to do that.
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That cross is heavy. But Jesus will carry it for us if we let him. And so a couple of other verses here that demonstrate this. John fifteen four, remain... This is again Jesus talking.
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Remain in me as I also in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself. It must remain in the vine. I think Jesus was probably a farmer too, not just a carpenter. He's got all kinds of farming analogies.
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Neither neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me. So, no branch can bear fruit by itself. It must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me. We can be doing over here.
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We can be we can be running off in this direction, doing things that seem from a worldly perspective to be good. But if we want to bear fruit, we have to be one with Christ. We have to be one in the vine. So how do we do that? How do we remain one with Christ?
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There's a lot of different verses we could go to. The answer is is essentially prayer and and scripture reading. Being in the word and being in prayer but I'll read Philippians four six. Do not be anxious about anything but in every situation, every single situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your request to God and the peace of God which transcends all understanding will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus and we could look at that and we could go, hey, when we need things, we should take it to God and that's right. When we need things, we do need to go to God with it but this is not just what we need.
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It's every situation, every situation in our lives. We are to go to God and find his peace and his will and through prayer and daily submission, a posture of prayer in our lives. That's how that's how we can find that that oneness with the spirit. And when we do that, we'll be doing but for the right reasons. And so I wanted to give an example of how this may look in our lives.
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And again, there's different things that we could go to, different things that we could look at. But I went to Acts sixteen six through 10, and it's just a little bit of background. This describes Paul's second missionary journey with Silas and Timothy, and I'll read it. I think it's great. I think it's a great demonstration of what happens to us, sometimes daily, but throughout our lives.
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Paul and his companions traveled through the region of Phrygia. I asked Ray how to pronounce that. I don't know if I got it right. And and Galatia, having been kept by the Holy Spirit from preaching the word in the province of Asia. When they came to the border of Mycia, they tried to enter Bethenia but the spirit of Jesus would not allow them to.
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So, they passed by Mysia and went down to Troas. During the night, Paul had a vision of a man of Macedonia standing and begging him, come over to Macedonia and help us. After Paul had seen the vision, we got ready at once to leave for Macedonia concluding that God had called us to preach the gospel to them. So, what do we see here? We see Paul and his buddies.
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They're going to go this way. They want to go this way. Nope. Close the door. Gonna go over here.
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No. No. Holy Spirit saying, don't go there. Okay, we're going to go over here. No, we're still not supposed to go over here.
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Oh, then they are sensitive to the leading of the Holy Spirit. God finally tells them where to go and they act. And everybody has this experience through life. And when we hit these, when we hit these things in life, whether it be daily or big decisions. It can be big things.
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It can be small things. There is always a temptation. I wanna go over here. Did Paul get frustrated? Did his did his buddies get frustrated?
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Maybe. Maybe. Did they have the same temptation that we have to when we hit that door and we want to go do it to just kick it in even though maybe God's not wanting us to do that. Maybe they did. I don't know.
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Probably. That's a that's a normal human reaction but ultimately, they were sensitive to the leading of the spirit and they didn't end up going where they wanted to go. They went somewhere completely different where God was telling them to go. And again, this isn't easy. This this isn't easy.
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The overwhelming desire is to go do what we wanna do. Might be big things, might be small things. To kick in that door even when we know God is telling us not to go that direction. And so that's that's what I started with here. We're gonna mess this up.
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Every single day. I'm gonna mess it up. Ray's gonna mess it up. Tim's gonna mess it up. We're all we're all gonna we're all gonna make mistakes because we are human.
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And so what happens when we make a mistake? Arlen's probably elbowing Tim. What happens when we make a mistake? Because we will. What happens when we fail?
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Do we need to worry that because we've made a mistake that that first step that we took accepting Jesus as our personal lord and savior. We've lost that because we've made a mistake. We've done something so bad that we're we're now irredeemable. Well, Paul answers this in Romans and he says, for I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation and I want to park on anything else in all creation because that's including us. It might be external to us.
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It might be something external but it's also us because we are part of creation. We are creation and so, nothing that we've done will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus, our lord. If we've taken that first step, if we've accepted Jesus as our personal lord and savior. Now, please don't hear me to say that we should go on sinning so that grace may abound. It's not at all what I'm saying.
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Ray talks all the time about staying out of the ditches of licentiousness and legalism and staying in the biblical center and that's right. So, if we've if we've taken that first step, we are assured of our salvation and if we've, if that first step is genuine, we're going to be doing those things over time to submit to the will of the Lord but we will mess it up. It's inevitable and when we do, we should be assured of our salvation. We should we should be assured that God does not see us as we are. He sees us through the lens of Christ.
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Amen. Not as the dirty rags that we are and that is unmerited grace that we don't deserve but that is freely given to us through Jesus's death on the cross. And so I just want to close with this. If you haven't taken that first step of accepting Jesus as your personal lord and savior. If you and if you want to come talk to somebody about that, come find me, come find Tim or any of the other elders, call Ray next week, whenever.
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But don't wait. The call is as open to you now as it was to that thief on the cross. And there's nothing that you may have done before that can separate you from Christ if you take that step. And for those that have already made that decision, my prayer for us is that we are just daily submitting to the will of God as individuals and as a church body that first b is submitting to the will of God for what he wants first b to do and not for what we want first b to do. And so now, this is back up here.
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Thank you so much. Thank you all.
