The Benefits & Blessings of Being a Participant of the New Covenant Part 2

IT IS DECEMBER! CAN YOU BELIEVE IT? CHRISTMAS IS COMING—FAST! I hope you have all of your Christmas shopping done by now, so you can concentrate of the true meaning of this season (dream on, right?) Anyway, maybe you can give someone you love (or are trying to love) a copy of these “Benefits & Blessings of Being a Participant of the New Covenant” and strike at least one name off your list. I can promise you that you will get a response; maybe not a “thank-you-note” but at least a response (reaction is probably the better word).

As I said last week, one would think that the message of the New Covenant—the covenant of grace—would be so attractive to God’s people that they would be willing to stand in line overnight in the cold rain to hear about it; however, that is, simply, not the case. For reasons beyond anything I can comprehend, most Christians are far more attracted to the Law and to its requirements than they are to the New Covenant and the benefits and blessings it brings. Go figure! On to benefit #2!

Living in a Continued State of Forgiveness

Need No Longer Be a Concern for You!

Living in a continued state of forgiveness need no longer be a concern for you because God has chosen to make you perfect—forever perfect, as is evidenced by this: “By this will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. And every Priest stands daily ministering and offering time after time the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins; but He, having offered one sacrifice for sins for all time, sat down at the right hand of God, waiting from that time onward until His enemies be made a footstool for His feet. For by one offering He has perfected for all time those who are sanctified (Hebrews 10: 10-14; emphasis mine).

In other words, because of the death of Jesus, the once-for-all-time-death—the offering of the body of Christ as a sacrifice for sin—the penalty for every sin you will commit during your entire lifetime has been paid in full. As a result, you are holy and perfect; consequently, forever forgiven. Granted this might sound a bit strange to your ears; however, please do not allow what seems a bit strange to cause you to throw the baby out with the bath water.

We have been well-trained by the religious that our living in a continued state of forgiveness before God is up to us. Somehow, we have been led to believe that our sin-debt still belongs to us; consequently, we must be constantly doing whatever might be necessary to convince God that we are seriously repentant and sorry for our sins. The truth is most of us think that the degree of our sincerity determines to a large extent whether or not God will forgive us. There is a Greek word for this belief system—hogwash! Of course, we understand the English term much better—heresy!

Anyway, Jesus died because He knew that we could never earn God’s forgiveness; thankfully, He earned it for us by doing the wildest thing—paying the penalty for our sins! Surely, you understand that when a debt is paid, it is also forgiven—this is what “paid-in-full” means, for Pete’s sake. Once you pay off a debt, no one can ever come against you for that debt—ever! Forgiveness is so sweet, especially when you cannot pay and someone does it for you!

Why don’t you just go ahead and life as if your entire sin-debt has been paid in full? It has, if you are His, so you might as well enjoy your freedom. Now you know why debt is often called MORTgage!

The Benefits & Blessings of Being a Participant of the New Covenant Part I

Several years ago now, I wrote an article entitled, “The Benefits & Blessings of Being a Participant of the New Covenant” and I did so because it was obvious to me that many of God’s children preferred to live as if they were still bound by the Old Covenant—attempting to keep the Law; celebrating the various Jewish holidays; and making various sacrifices (not animal, of course)—in an effort to please God and, thereby, to be accepted by Him. Sadly, this propensity has only worsened over the years.

One would think that the message of the New Covenant—the covenant of grace—would be so attractive to God’s people that they would respond to it with exuberance; however, that is, simply, not the case. For reasons beyond anything I can comprehend, most Christians are far more attracted to the Law and to its requirements than they are to the New Covenant and the benefits and blessings it brings. Go figure!

So, for the next several weeks, I am going to be reminding you of these incredible benefits and blessings. I can only pray that the Holy Spirit will use them to stir your heart and cause you to desire to become a bona fide member of the International Association of Those Who Enjoy the Benefits and Blessings of the New Covenant! With that, let us get started-

Meeting the Requirements of the Ten Commandments
Need No Longer Be A Concern for You!

I will bet that this will cause a stir but wait before you jump into the fray because there is, actually, good reason for this: God did for you what the Law could not do for you! “For what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did: sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit (Romans 8:3-4; emphasis, mine). In other words as a bona fide member of the New Covenant, you can cease striving to meet the requirements of the Ten Commandments because Jesus satisfied the Law’s requirement for you, namely, that sin be punished by death.

Wow! This brings the often forgotten (yet very Biblical) concept of “rest” to center stage. The writer of Hebrews makes it clear that there is a Sabbath rest for the people of God (see Hebrews 4:9) but, tragically, few ever experience it because they are so busy trying to accomplish what God has already perfected. Somehow, we just cannot get it through our thick religious skin that when Jesus said, “It is finished,” He really meant it. There is nothing left for us to do because the work He finished was a perfect-in-every-way work!

Dear ones, we simply cannot improve on “perfect,” try as we might. Agreed! We live in a world of “imperfect,” a world that needs to be “perfected” or at least improved upon. This, however, is NOT the case when it comes to the Kingdom of God and to those of us who live therein. We have been made the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus—fully and completed accepted in Him! There is only one way that any of us could have qualified for such a high calling and that way is this: Jesus did for us what we could have never done for ourselves—He gave His life in exchange for our lives!

Have you ever stopped to think about the message you are sending when you attempt to improve upon what He has deemed perfect and complete? If you should, I think you would reconsider your position and immediately cease striving and begin to rest in Him.

The Basics of Evangelism

The more I observe how the church attempts to “polish” the gospel in its attempt to make it less offensive, the more I wonder why God allows it to continue to exist (my use of the term “church” refers NOT to the Body of Christ but to this monster we have created that sits on most street corners). If it were possible to offend God, then I must believe that He is about at His wit’s end (if it were possible for Him to be at His wit’s end). Thankfully (a fitting term for this time of the year), He is in control and not the least bit discombobulated! All I can say is this: He is quite patient!

Take for example the heretical concept of evangelism that the church has propagated for years and years in its effort to evangelize the masses; a tragic role-reversal concept where God is made the victim not only of man’s shenanigans, but also of man’s choice (actually, where God is made man’s victim and man elevates himself to the position of God!). Even a casual look at this would lead one to believe that God left the responsibility of redemption up to man and to his ability to contrive an effective plan.

Just for the record, I want to offer the following for your careful and prayerful consideration:

1. The gospel is the power of God for salvation, not the shenanigans of man.

2. The gospel is not for everyone; therefore, the masses cannot be evangelized.

3. The gospel is for the elect of God and ONLY for the elect of God; therefore, only the elect of God can be evangelized.

4. The antics used to evangelize the masses actually offend the elect; whereas, the gospel offends the masses.

5. No one, not even the elect, can come to the Father (be evangelized), unless He grants it and unless He draws them to Himself.

6. When the Father draws one of His elect to Himself, he/she will come to Him and that in His time.

7. The Son gives life to whom He wishes and only to whom He wishes.

8. God did not design evangelism to be some complicated, manipulative effort that man carries out; instead, He designed it to be something that He accomplishes through the power of the Holy Spirit.

9. The effectiveness of evangelism is not determined by the efforts of man—the one who wills or the one who runs—but by the power of God, who has mercy and lavishes grace.

10. What we win them with is what we win them to; consequently, we should never attempt to win anyone with anything other than the preaching of the gospel. Actually, we never win anyone because He has reserved that for Himself.

It is my prayer that you will become one of those who refuses to continue to attempt to polish the gospel, by merely submitting to the glorious and wonderful fact that God will get His elect Home—everyone of us—before dark, AND to the equally glorious and wonderful fact that He will get’er done with the offensive gospel and without our help!

Blessings and love,

Mac

The Offensive Gospel

“For though I caused you sorrow by my letter, I do not regret it; though I did regret it—for I see that that letter caused you sorrow, though only for a while—I now rejoice, not that you were made sorrowful, but that you were made sorrowful to the point of repentance; for you were made sorrowful according to the will of God, in order that you might not suffer loss in anything through us. For the sorrow that is according to the will of God produces a repentance without regret, leading to salvation; but the sorrow of the world produces death” (2 Corinthians 7: 8-10).

Whatever else we might say about this passage, this is very obvious: it sounds very contrary to what we would expect a believer to say, especially one like Paul—I caused you sorrow and though I did regret it, I no longer do. There is something in most of us that simply does not like to cause sorrow in others and we certainly do not take the position that when we do, we should not regret it. But this is the position Paul takes in this passage.

Now, let me put Paul’s position in context: he makes it clear that he is not dealing with the sorrow the world brings—sorrow that produces death; instead, he is dealing with the sorrow that produces repentance—the kind of repentance that leads to salvation.

Even this clarification does not, however, simplify the text because even though we have been taught the incredibly good news of the gospel, we have also learned that the gospel is offensive foolishness to those who are perishing! Because of our desire not to repel the perishing by offensive foolishness, we attempt to add things to the gospel that disguise its offensive foolishness and, thereby, make it sound more reasonable and appear more attractive to the perishing masses. Sadly, we have developed this tragic mindset: let us do whatever might be necessary to polish the gospel so that we can reach the masses for Jesus. Whatever we do, let us not hurt anyone’s feelings by causing them sorrow, i.e. by telling them who they really are in the eyes of the Holy God.

Interestingly, however, God designed the gospel for His elect, not for the masses and Paul knew this and he knew it quite well. To be sure, neither Paul nor Jesus did anything to “polish the gospel” in an effort to reach anyone; instead, Jesus identified Himself as “the rock of offense” and Paul did everything he could to bring about Godly sorrow in the hearts and lives of his listeners. His words are clear and distinct: “For the word of the cross is to those who are perishing foolishness, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God” (1 Corinthians 1:18). It was as if both of them were on a mission to discourage rather than encourage followers!

Follow Paul’s line of thought with me: I now rejoice, not that you were made sorrowful, but that you were made sorrowful according to the will of God—sorrow to the point of repentance, the kind of repentance that leads to salvation! I do not think it takes a “rocket scientist” to see this but I will, nevertheless, make my point: no one comes to this kind of repentance until and unless they have been so offended by the gospel that they run to Jesus in utter desperation for redemption and salvation. You see, the gospel is offensive because it reduces man to mere “sackcloth and ashes”—helpless, hopeless, undone, and lost, while at the same time, it elevates God to, well, to God! The gospel is offensive because it brings man to the place where he can no longer worship himself! Isn’t that a novel thought?

Today, I learned that one of the large churches in Macon has asked for the preacher’s resignation. No one had to tell my why because I, well I may be dumb but I ain’t stupid: “The church is going in the wrong direction!” Translated, that means this: “Relative to the other churches in Macon, we are not effectively reaching the masses, so we need another pastor—one who will do whatever it takes not to offend anyone, while at the same time, implementing the kind of programs that will attract more of the perishing masses.” This, however, is my question: what would happen if the leadership of this church took the same position that Jesus and Paul took and simply preached the offensive gospel until it (the gospel) had offended everyone to the very core of their being, until it caused such sorrow that everyone came to repentance, the kind of repentance that leads to salvation?

How in the wide-world have we come believe that we must attempt to improve on the modus operandi of Paul, even Jesus Himself, by making the gospel attractive rather than allowing it to be what it is—offensive?