[00:00:01] Speaker A: Hey, thanks so much for listening to this message. My name is Jason and I'm one of the ministers here at the Madison Church of Christ. It's our hope and prayer that the teaching from God's Word you hear today will bless your life and draw you closer to Him. If you're ever in the Madison, Alabama area, we'd love for you to worship with us on Sundays at 8:30 or 10:30am if you have any other questions about the Bible or want to know more about the Madison Church, find
[email protected] be sure to also check out our Bible study podcast, Madison Church of Christ Bible Studies. Thanks again for stopping by.
[00:00:37] Speaker B: After World War II, Coca Cola pretty much dominated the cola industry. In fact, some would suggest that they had at least 60%, if not more, of the market share of soft drinks in the United States.
And they held that position for a long time. I'm talking like 30 years. Coca Cola was the king. And there was no doubt about it, there were lots of other competitors, but none of them had really raised up to be where Coca Cola was. And ultimately in the late 70s or so, one of the competitors did kind of make a run for Coca Cola and it was Pepsi Cola. And if you were brought up in my day and time, you remember some of this stuff going on. But Coca Cola was, was, you know, still the priority. It was still like the highest yielding soft drink company. But Pepsi was definitely gaining ground.
So what happened in the midst of all that? There was all kinds of speculation in the market about why that would be the case, that people weren't taking Coca Cola anymore, why they weren't consuming it as much. And some suggested that the baby boomers had gotten a little bit older and they were sort of wandering off into Diet Coke land and those kinds of things. Different other soft drinks that they might find, you know, less with less calories. And so they said that's probably it. They kind of brushed it off. But the numbers kept climbing for Pepsi and they were drawing closer and closer.
Well, you know, Coca Cola found them a new CEO. And that new CEO came in and he kind of, you know, wielded a strong hammer and he said, listen, there are no sacred cows anymore here at Coca Cola. We are going to do what we think is best, even if that means a reformulation of the Coke products. And so that was kind of a heavy hit. But here's what happened. Pepsi kept getting better and better. And if you were in the early 80s, you probably remember this, they used to have these, like blindfolded Taste tests where they would put a Coca Cola and a Pepsi Cola on a table and they would blindfold the person, they would ask them to drink those soft drinks and figure out the one that had the best taste. And what was happening is they were using those in advertising and marketing and we were finding out that Pepsi was actually preferred in taste over Coca Cola, who had been the king for all these years.
Well, Pepsi capitalized on that and you know, they brought in Michael Jackson and all these different people to come in and celebrate that. And so they, they touted themselves as Pepsi Cola, the choice of a new generation. You probably remember this, right? So they started feeding that, you know, plan to the rest of the world. And so Pepsi was getting closer and closer. And some even say that if it had not been for the reality that Coca Cola had these contractual agreements with people like McDonald's, that Pepsi might have overtaken them at that point.
But in the midst of all this, Coca Cola, I mean, they did something very risky. In fact, they did something that most would have thought would have been unthinkable.
They actually did reformulate their drink and they pitched it as New Coke. Y' all remember this? Now, some of you kids don't know, but older folks know, alright, New Coke came out and if I'm being honest, it kind of tasted like Pepsi, if you're just gonna be real about it, right? It was okay. Well, you know what happened? Like everybody exploded in rage. I'm talking like 41,000 letters came into Coca Cola's headquarters. One of them was addressed to the chief dodo of Coca Cola Company. Like it was the craziest thing that they could have ever imagined. And people were absolutely outraged at what was happening, that they were changing, you know, that formula that had been there for so, so long.
And so they did that. Well, you know What? After about 79 days, they came back and they presented, they had a press release and this press conference, they said out loud, hey, we've heard the people, we've relented. We're going to go back to our original formula. We're going to do that again. By the way, they had taken that formula and put it in a vault and said, it'll be for history. Only their CEO was quoted as, we will have New Coke or no Coke. And that's, that's a crazy stand to take.
But once they announced it, let me tell you how powerful this was. Some of you don't know who Peter Jennings is. Well, some of us do. Peter Jennings broke into General Hospital, that show, and announced to the world that Coke had finally come to their senses and brought back their original formula. And even a man, David Pryor, on the Senate floor announced that this is a historic day in America's history.
Crazy that we would go to such extents to publicize this. But what they found out and what they knew and what we all know now is that Dr. Pepper is better than these guys anyway. I mean, if we're really just going to be truthful about it right now, in all actuality, what they discovered is that they needed to go back to their origins. Why is it that Coca Cola was so popular for so long? What was it that they had in it that was.
Brought it to that market? Preeminence, you know, and they had to kind of go back and refigure that thing. They rebranded Coca Cola as Coca Cola Classic. And from that point forward, everybody has bought in and they still own the biggest market share in soft drinks here in the country.
But why is it that it's good for us to go back? And I was just thinking to myself, why is it that we go back? You know, oftentimes we say it's time for us to move forward.
We say, hey, don't go back and rest on your laurels. We say, don't go back and re evaluate everything and think it to death and go back to those old ways like keep pressing forward. And we say that because that's part of growth, to keep moving forward.
But what is the point of looking back? And I believe it's this. First of all, we rediscover our purpose. And that's an important thing for us to do, to find out why it is we do what we do anyway and where did this all come from?
That's a great thing for us to discover. I'm going to share with you something that probably all of you are familiar with on some level, but I want to share with you a conversation with someone that I had that gave me a new insight to something that we all love very much. And that's Lads to Leaders.
For those of you who don't know, Lads to Leaders is a big thing here. We had 430 people that participated in it and went to the convention in Nashville, Tennessee, back on Easter weekend.
And what we do with Lads to Leaders is it's a leadership training program.
And it teaches our young people to conquer their fear of public speaking. To get up and to be able to present a message, to organize it, to memorize, to commit it to memory and to get up and to share it. In front of an audience to share their faith. We have them read, do Bible reading. We have them do Bible bowl, where they take a book of the Bible and they really dig into it with some depth. And we spend some time memorizing scripture and those kinds of things.
We have debates where they learn to kind of argue both sides of things and to see things from a biblical perspective. In all of this, there's a lot of training that happens, and we can see the benefit of it. We can see that our children are more comfortable. We have a lot of our young men that can get up and lead us in worship. We have a lot of our young women who are writing curriculum and doing all kinds of things to help advance the gospel. And so we can see that Lads leader is a great thing. But about, I don't know, 25, 30 years ago, I got to spend about 12 hours with Jack Zorn, the owner. Now, this was just one of those weird things that I ended up was going to go to a funeral. He was going to go to a funeral, but he didn't want to drive, he wanted to fly.
Jack Zorn was a pilot, and so that was an interesting thing. And so I spent about 12 hours with him, and it wasn't like a formal interview, but I asked him some questions about last leaders. I said, did you ever imagine that it would be what it would be today? Because at that point, there were probably 10 or 15,000 people coming together on that Easter weekend to work hard and to put their abilities out there and to glorify God with what they were doing. And, you know, we can see the benefit of that in our own church. And so I just asked him about that, and he said, what people miss is that I had an even greater vision for it.
He said, believe me, I am thankful that we're raising up preachers and that through these generations, we're raising up deacons and elders and Bible class teachers and people who can stand up and articulate from a faith perspective what they believe. And those kinds. I'm so thankful. And it really has been a benefit and a blessing to the church, he said. But the original idea that came in the 60s was that this was not just something that would remain in the walls of our buildings.
This is something that would have, like, a worldwide effect, meaning we teach our children the truth of God's word.
We help them embed it into their heart. We train their ability to get up and speak. Why?
Because we don't just want them to be leaders in our church. We want them to be CEOs. We want them to be business people.
We want them to be changing policy in our government. We want them be president of the United States. We want people who have influence and have polished their skills enough to be able to share their faith openly. So it changes the influence that we have on the world. That was his ultimate goal. So when I think about that, while I love what we do here, I love that original image, that vision that he had that Lads to Leaders would be the thing that would not just change our churches, but it would change the world. That's a bigger vision. And that changes my perspective of what Lads to Leaders is about. Right. And so we not only gain, but we also gain, like, an insight, a perspective of why things are the way they are. And as I examine what we're doing in the book of Romans, that's, to me, what's happening, really, because Andrew's talked about this and I've shared a few things too, that they had some problems because they had a congregation that was made up of Jews and Gentiles. And so there was not necessarily a power struggle, but there was definitely some relationships that they began to think higher of themselves toward other people.
They were kind of battling over how things were gonna go. Some people were holding onto their good deeds and their heritage. Some people were holding onto their actions and the law of Moses. And so when you look at all these things together, there was a complicated mess. That's why in Romans chapter one, he sort of addresses all this head first. He says, first of all, there's some of you that are just sinning. And so he says, the wrath of God is being revealed against all those people who do these things that we know and consider to be sinful things. They're outright overt on purpose, sinfulness. So he condemns those people.
Then in chapter two, he rolls over to those who are holier than thou, who think too highly of themselves. And he gets them and says, you're not that good. He gets to chapter three, and then he starts really kind of penetrating into what is it that's going to bring us back together? We're all divided here. We need to come together under one thing. And ultimately what he's gonna get to is the righteousness of God and faith and trust in God. And so I think that's what's happening here. But for those who might lean on the law and say, hey, I just follow the law. Exactly, and that's what makes me an accomplished person, then he would say these things to them. In Romans chapter three, he kind of pivots a little bit and he says, the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, though the law and the prophets bear witness to it. What's he saying?
Well, the law and the prophets, you know, bear witness to what took place in Abraham. And they all point to something deeper. If you listen to all the prophecies, they're going to point us back to Jesus. And he's saying, it's all here, but that righteousness has been manifested before the law came into existence, before Moses and the law that he gave him on Mount Sinai. Verse 22 says, we're made right with God by placing our faith in Jesus Christ. And this is true for everyone who believes, no matter who we are.
Well, what's he saying?
You guys are divided. Let me help you find what that unity is. That unity is going to be for everyone who trusts in Christ, who believes in him, and who has their faith embedded in him.
So the question is, we ask ourselves, and I can see them as an audience going, well, no matter who, like, it doesn't matter that, you know, I'm a child of Abraham. It doesn't matter that I have followed the law exactly. It doesn't matter that I've been doing all these great things. None of those things matter. Well, the reality is, yeah, because you all have sinned. If you want to find unity real quickly, you'll find out this, that their biggest thing that they were unified on is they were all sinners. Nobody could keep the law. Exactly. No one could keep even principles about godliness intact on their own. They could not do it. But here's the other unifying influence, and it's God justifies all of us through our faith in Christ Jesus. So with that, as he has established that it doesn't matter about your law, it doesn't matter about your goodness and all those kinds of things, then he asks a few questions. And these questions are fair. Right. Well, then what becomes of our boasting? Well, if it's not about my goodness and me doing the right things, if it's not about me following the law exactly, then there really isn't anything to boast about. Right. Kind of takes all that away.
Well, is God the God only of the Jews?
Well, no, we're all created in the image of God. So that kind of takes that, you know, race, ethnicity and heritage and those kinds of things out of the picture. And then the question came, well, hey, if that's the case, do we just disregard the law?
So when you think about these questions, that rolls into chapter four, which is where we begin this morning.
And he starts out by pointing to a key figure that everyone would understand and know. And he gets to Abraham. He says, what shall we say was gained? That's the word he uses by Abraham, our forefather, according to the flesh, what is it that he gained?
According to the flesh? That just means, what did he do to, you know, get this insight, this righteousness?
For if Abraham was justified by works, he had something to boast about, but not before God. And the point that I want to make here is that Abraham did some good stuff. There's no doubt about that. But it wasn't like Abraham had this sense of high morality on his own. I mean, remember, it was God who called him out of Ur of the Chaldees, you know, and said, go to this place that I'll show you. And he did those things. And then he asked him a lot of other things, told him that he was gonna have a son, even past the time where he and his wife were able to have children. And Abraham kind of believed in that and trusted in that. And then you look up, and then he turns around and he has him to offer up Isaac on an altar, and he does those things. But what was it that he actually gained as a result of his faith? Well, the word for gain there is the discovery of the unveiling and the fulfillment of God's plan.
I know this may sound crazy to us, but let me try to make a connection for us about Abraham knowing the fulfillment of God's plan, what God actually had in mind. Hebrews gives us a little insight to this in that it says Abraham was looking for something greater than this land that was promised to him. But also In John chapter 8, when Jesus is having this argument with the Pharisees, and they are talking to him and they're talking about their heritage, they ask where Jesus is from, and he tells them, and they're like, well, we are of our father, Abraham. And so they're talking about the fact that they are a child of Abraham. They belong to him. They're Jews. And Jesus says, well, you can't be children of Abraham, because if you were children of Abraham, you would believe me and you would follow me and you would obey what I'm saying.
You would understand that this comes from God.
And ultimately, what he looks at them and he says to them is, abraham saw my day and rejoiced in it.
Now, that's kind of cool, isn't it? So here we have Romans telling us that this is what he gained from this was like the idea, the fulfillment of what God was trying to say. We hear in Hebrews that he was looking for something much greater than this. And when he's talking to the Pharisees, he's saying, hey, Abraham knew about me coming and rejoiced in that. You understand? The point is that I want to make here is that it's not that Abraham did good things.
It's that Abraham trusted God and did whatever he asked of him. So it wasn't like he did this stuff on his own. He only did what God told him to do. And so let's look at this. Ultimately, God revealed to us very early on what it is he expects out of his people. And what that is, is their trust. He just wants us to give our trust to him.
And it's more than just this belief that, you know, there is a God and I know that there's a God. It's more than that. It's actually something a little bit deeper. So let's look at the example that they give here in Romans, chapter 4, verse 3. For what does the scripture say? Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness.
Check that. For just a moment, Abraham believed, and that was counted to him as righteousness. There's just no deeds there. There's no anything that he that we can see from that text that he did that gave him this righteousness. It's just that he believed God. So if we look at these words, you know, this is kind of important because it's not just that mental ascension that there is a God.
It's the idea that he entrusted himself to God.
It's that there was a full surrender. We just sang a song. I surrender. All that's the concept here is that Abraham was saying, I don't know, but I know that you're God and I want to find myself walking parallel with your will.
And so he completely entrusted himself. And it says that that very act, that faithful response by Abraham, was counted to him or placed in his account as righteousness, which means the judicial approval of God.
That's powerful, isn't it? That there's something about the fact that he just trusted in God and that he said, I will lay my life out and forget everything that I ever wanted to do for the sake of what you're asking of me.
So, you know, here's the question I have.
Doesn't Abraham get a little credit? I mean, wasn't he doing good things and wasn't he obeying and all those Kinds of things, yes, again, but not of his own volition.
He was doing those things as a response to God.
So I'm going to take us to James chapter two, because oftentimes you'll have people take different scriptures and they'll pair them against each other and they'll say, hey, we've got a conflict here. We've got a, you know, we've got a contradiction.
And because here, Paul in Rome was just talking about faith, and that is what brings us the righteousness.
But then over here in James, you'll listen to what it says about Abraham. It says, was not Abraham our father justified by works?
When he offered up his son Isaac on the altar, you see that faith was active along with his works, and faith was completed by his works. And the Scripture was fulfilled that said Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness. That all goes back to Genesis chapter 15.
And he was called the friend of God.
So now when I look at these two, you know, one is saying, it's faith, he entrusted himself. And then this other one is, well, didn't he do some things to kind of demonstrate his faith?
And what I want to help us understand is there's a difference in the way these things are looked at. First of all, I want to make a discrepancy between works of the law. That means like the ritualistic 613 rules that we've talked about, following all of those things to a T to gain my righteousness, meaning that I do those things. And because of that, I'm right with God, because I do all those things perfectly, versus the idea that I have faith in God. And because I know this pleases God, I am moved from my faith to do something for Him. Not for my glory, not to achieve my greatness or my goodness, but for me to serve him and to faithfully work for him.
Not in a way for my own righteousness, but because what he's done for me, it's his grace poured out into me so I can be a servant. And if you look at the Book of James, you're gonna see this. One of the things that it talks about is, you know, visiting the widows and the fatherless in their affliction. There's other things that are happening. So those works are very different than the works of the law.
Does that make sense to us? I want to make a distinction because I think those two things work together. In other words, how do I gel this together? Well, I gelled this together by saying that faith and works kind of work interchangeably. Like, because I have trust in God and because I want to please Him, I am moved to do good things for him, and I want to. It's probably important right here to say the book of Romans really is best taught.
All 16 chapters at one time.
And how long y' all got? When does camp start? I don't know, but it's best read as a whole letter. We're giving you these digestible bites to kind of piece these things together. We'll be able to cover everything in depth. But understand that as he's talking about these things, there's other things that are coming to help explain and to help reveal exactly what the whole will of God is through this letter that he's writing to the church there.
So let's talk, then move back to Romans, chapter four and talk about those works. Works of the law. It says now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift, but as his due. We'll all understand this, right? If you have a job, you go and you work a certain number of hours. You get paid a certain amount. And that's how it works. Like, you can see this pay stubborn. Someone has a number of hours. You know what their hourly rate is. You add all that up and multiply it up, and you get, like, whatever it is that they're owed. You see their overtime, what that rate is, number of hours. And it comes down to a beautiful little package at the bottom of what you're owed, what you are paid as a result of the work that you've done. And then there are a few deductions which make it a little bit less.
But ultimately, that owner or that business person has to pay you the work that you've done.
Now imagine if we took that kind of philosophy and we applied it to God and we said, well, I'm doing these works for God.
You see how weird it gets all of a sudden? Because now that work doesn't really work, does it? Because it sounds like we're saying that God owes us for the things that we do. Like he has some desire to pay us back for all the good that we did. Like, in some way, he's a debtor to us.
That kind of flips things around, doesn't it? That can't be right. I mean, we don't owe God, or God doesn't owe us. We owe God. And so that's kind of a weird way to look at it, right? He doesn't owe us because of our good behavior. None of us are good. In Romans, chapter three, it says it a couple of times. There's none that are good, you know, no righteous except for God. And so this is something we can't really get caught up in, the works aspect. But what does it say for the person who believes?
And now to the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness.
So you see the difference here. The system is different. Faith frees the fallen in the sense that now this system of faith relinquishes my debt over to the one who has the ability to cancel the debt.
It's that full surrender. It's giving my life completely.
It's saying, I trust you.
It's saying, I don't have anything to offer on my own.
I just have to lay it all bare. My worries, my grief, my sorrow for my sin, my sins. I have to pour all that and surrender it to you, because it's you who can take care of that. You see how it gets really wonky if we start thinking that it's about works. It really is about faith. So David talked about this Psalm 32. He kind of mentions this about people who are trying to accomplish things by work. So it goes on to say in verse seven and eight, blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven and whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man against whom the Lord will not count his sin. Let's break into these a little bit. You know, first of all, recognize that it does not say that they don't have sin. All of us have sinned. He's already said that in Romans chapter three. So now we're looking at the situation ourselves and realizing that because we have sinned, there's none of us that can attain that righteousness on our own.
But it does say that we are blessed and our sins are pardoned or released.
And it's really through the mercy of God. Now, that's an important thing for us to be reminded of. That's not my accomplishment. It's what God has done for me because of his love for me.
So it says, blessed is the one whose lawless deeds are forgiven. That word means to send it away. To release means that it doesn't stick to us, that that blessing has been given to us, that it's taken away.
It says, or your sins are covered. And that has the idea of concealing or putting something over it. So it's hidden from sight.
And then the other part is that the, you know, blessed is the man to who the lawless deeds are forgiven. The sins are covered.
But blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not count his sin against him. And that means that it's not held to our account.
Do you see how it goes now? So it's not about us.
The sin is there. And sin brings us separation. Sin takes us away from God.
It's fully about what God does to bring us to him. And it's through faith.
And I find myself asking this question, okay, so, you know, how do we gain this?
And our first thought. And all of us are this way we go. What do we do?
Right? What is it that we actually do to obtain this? And we can get really caught up in those things. And again, we're gonna get into several other chapters in Romans where we're gonna. Some of this stuff is gonna fill out a little bit.
But I want you to catch what he says here. He changes it again and goes back, and he uses different terminology, but it's the same thing, you know, is the blessing then for the circumcised. Also for the uncircumcised, he's saying the same thing.
The Jews and the Gentiles together, you know, is this for both of them? And of course, then he goes back to Abraham and says this. How then is it counted to him? Was it before or after he had been circumcised? Well, it's not after, but before he was circumcised. He received the sign of circumcision as a seal of the righteousness that he had by faith while he was still uncircumcised. You understand what he's saying? He's saying, let's stop pairing this up between this Jew and Gentile thing. Understand that Abraham was counting him as righteous because he trusted him. And it was before that circumcision happened. The point I want to make is faith has always been that first step toward God's blessing. It's been the first thing that we do. It's that part where we surrender everything and we give it all to him.
So what's the point that Paul's making?
Well, he says this.
The purpose was to make him talking about Abraham the father of all who believe without being circumcised, so that righteousness would be counted to them as well. And to make him the father of the circumcised who are not merely circumcised, but also walk in the footsteps of faith that our father Abraham had before he was circumcised for the promise to Abraham and his offspring that he would be heir of the world did not come through the law, but through the righteousness of faith.
For if it is the adherents of the Law who are to be the heirs, then faith is null and the promise is void. You get this. I mean, if we could follow the law perfectly, if we could do everything just the right way, then we wouldn't need faith. We would just do what it says and that would be enough. We would just live perfectly and follow the law every day and pat ourselves on the back, and there would be no need for this salvation. But the reality is that that promise came to Abraham through faith.
So it feels to me like God is calling us all back to faith. And as we're going through here, he's saying, have we really given ourselves to God?
Are we willing to separate ourselves from the things that we want in this life for the sake of what he wants for us? That's. That surrender. That's entrusting ourselves to Him. He says the law just brings wrath. I think it was Andrew's message a couple of weeks ago where he said the law began to identify the things that were wrong.
It itemized the things that were sinful. Well, you know why?
Because we were sinning. Because mankind was sinning. So he started to do, oh, don't do that again. That's, that's a transgression in the law. That's not what God had intended long ago. Right? So on some level, there's, there's a problem there because the law identified that wrath. It brought this, this burden that we had to bear.
And, and it started. All of this started with faith.
And so when I think of. I'm not going to read all this, but in verse 16 through 21, there are other questions that come out and other statements that are made to explain why it's important that we have faith above everything else.
Well, first of all, so it can be guaranteed by grace. You know, if it's through faith and it's not of ourselves, you know, that kind of goes over into Ephesians, right, where he says, we're saved by grace through faith, not of yourselves. It is the gift of God, not of works. Lest anyone should boast, you know, we have to stop and go.
We're only blessed because God's grace, and that causes us to apply more trust to him because we recognize where those blessings come from, but also we see it as his provision.
When we stop thinking that it's about our accomplishments, then we can stop for just a moment and say, hey, this is a blessing of God.
Everything that I have Everything that I am, everything that he surrounded me by, all of those things are his provisions for me. And it takes it away from what I've accomplished and gives it more to Him.
And then also because God does the impossible. In this text, it talks about Abraham and Sarah not being able to have children. They were well beyond the years of childbearing, and yet God does the impossible and gives them that promised child, Isaac.
And so he says, God is the one who can do these things. It can't be because they were able to do it. It has to be because God did something amazing. He is the God of the impossible. And so we need to remember that. That's why faith is so important, because it puts us back in that reality that it's not about us, it's about God. And then the last thing is, the more I trust him, the more I grow in my faith.
When I put my confidence in him and I see the things that are happening in my life, and I can see that all those things happen not because of me, but because of what God did for me. His mercy, his grace. It takes me back into this idea of more faith in Him. It helps me grow in that relationship with Him. So that's why he says that is why his faith was counted to him as righteousness. Talking about Abraham.
But the words it was counted to him, catch this.
Were not written for his sake alone, but for ours also. What's he saying?
All this points to Jesus.
Everything that Abraham did back in those days, everything that God said, hey, those things are counted to him as righteous, was because he gave everything of himself to God.
But all of that was an image of what would take place in Christ, that we would all one day be bow before the Son of God, that we would recognize his gift of salvation for us, that we would turn our hearts completely to him and say it's because of him, because of his death on the cross and his mercy that has given me salvation. And so I turn all of myself over to faith in Him. And it all points to this. Even back in the days of Abraham.
We'll take you back behind the curtain a little bit.
Two years ago, three years ago, whenever it was in 2023, the shepherds and the ministers got together to do some planning.
And we thought to ourselves how important it would be for us to, you know, be thinking ahead and what we could do to put in front of the congregation to help us grow and to push us forward. And so we got there and we had all these questions. We were evaluating where we are As a church, like, what are some things that we know we need to be working on? What are some things that we need to improve on? What are some things that we do really well? Let's nurture those things. And then the things that we need to work on, let's evaluate and put together some things that would help us kind of grow in those areas. And so we do this, and everybody's got these beautiful plans. I mean, like, every little table of four or five men or boy, they're brainstorming. And I mean, you know, you know, the spiritual wisdom in those guys. So it's great, except for the ministers, you know, the spiritual wisdom of the other guys, and they're planning and putting together. And then we all present, you know, what we came up with in our little table discussions and what we were excited about, and. And we were to pitch that to the rest of the group. And then we're gonna kinda all come together and formulate a plan moving forward. Well, what we noticed quickly in that process is that, you know, there was an element of faith and connection with God that came in every single thing that was said.
And so we kept getting it down to. Getting it down to, like, what are we really trying to say? What do we really need to be doing? And what it boiled down to.
I know this is a stunner and all of that thinking. We did prayer and Bible study, and you may say to yourself, well, y' all spend a lot of time to come up with prayer and Bible study. I mean, isn't that kind of fundamental?
And I think that's the point, isn't it?
What are we needing more than anything else?
You know, Romans 10 is going to tell us faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God.
So when we invest in Bible study and we pour God's word into our heart, it begins to shape who we are, and it challenges us to be better. It convicts us of sin. It helps remind us of things that we can be doing to God's glory. And it just definitely feels. So we had this series, the Lamp and Light, where we talked about how God's word is a lamp to our feet and a light to our path. We also talked about prayer. And you may think, oh, that's of course we pray, but we talked about a culture of prayer. And all of a sudden, out of nowhere, we're seeing people pop up everywhere, pray, praying with each other, calling each other on the phone, praying with them out loud, meeting them in their office and saying prayers to them. We saw people connecting with each other on a spiritual level we hadn't seen before. And it all became one of those things, like we were blown away that it was so simple and we were making it so complicated.
But what was that?
Trusting in God's wisdom and Bible study, calling out to him with my life, trusting in him to guide me.
Isn't that what we're talking about? It's that faith that says God, I want to hear what you have to say, and I want to do it. And while I'm doing it, I may have struggles along the way. I need to talk to you about those things and lay those burdens before you. Do you see how all this kind of works together? That's that fully entrusting ourselves.
It says here, it will be counted to us who believe in him. Talking about God, who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord, who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification. Look at it simply this way. Abraham entrusted himself to God. That means he fully surrendered himself and it was counted to him as righteousness.
Our rescue comes when we entrust ourselves to God's righteousness.
And God's righteous plan is that Jesus would come, pay the penalty for our sins, die on the cross so we could be rescued and be made righteous.
God made him who knew no sin to become sin for us so that we might become the righteousness of God through faith in Christ.
There it is.
So I'm looking back at Coca Cola. I'm looking back at Lads to Leaders. I'm looking back at our planning session here. And I'm finding myself saying it may just be that what needs to happen for all of us is for us to take that very first step again and fully surrender. And that comes in different ways. It's a faith that acts and moves and does. It's not something that we just say. It's something that moves us to action.
And Romans chapter six is going to talk a little bit about what our response is and what that surrender really looks like. And there are other passages that will also detail for us what this obedience and this faith in action looks like.
But this morning, I think maybe the thing for us to just be reminded of is it's just, are you willing to lay it all there before God?
Full surrender.
And I hope this morning that as you think back on your life and the things that brought you to faith, that you'll go back to that spot again and give it all.
And I hope that someone here this morning will do that.
Whether you do it in your pew, whether you meet with an elder at one of the doors at the exits, or whether you come forward and we pray for you publicly.
We had a response this morning. Big Mo, those of you who know Big Mo, big heart Mo, he came forward this morning and said, sometimes I just. I lose my mind. I don't know why I do some of the things that I do. Get in line, man. We're gonna get to Romans chapter 7. That's what Paul describes as his battle every day. The things I don't want to do are the things that I do, and the things that I do need to do are the very things that I can't find the strength to do. That's our battle. But it's not a battle that we battle alone. It's a battle that we go through together, walking side by side. If anyone has a need this morning, I hope you'll come forward or go to the doors, talk to somebody and pray with someone. Let's get right with God. Let's give ourselves fully to him, and let's do it while together we stand and sing.
