The Great Missionary Hope

Even when we were dead in our trespasses, [God] made us alive together with Christ — by grace you have been saved. (Ephesians 2:5)

The great missionary hope is that when the gospel is preached in the power of the Holy Spirit, God himself does what man cannot do: he creates the faith that saves. The call of God does what the call of man can’t. It raises the dead. It creates spiritual life. It is like the call of Jesus to Lazarus in the tomb, “Come out!” And the dead man obeyed and came out. The call created the obedience by creating life (John 11:43). That is how anyone is saved.

We can waken someone from sleep with our call, but God’s call can summon into being things that are not (Romans 4:17). God’s call is irresistible in the sense that it can overcome all resistance. It is infallibly effective according to God’s purpose — so much so that Paul can say, “Those whom [God] called he also justified” (Romans 8:30), even though we are only justified by our faith.

In other words, God’s call is so effectual that it infallibly creates the faith through which a person is justified. All the called are justified according to Romans 8:30. But none is justified without faith (Romans 5:1). So the call of God cannot fail in its intended effect. It irresistibly brings into being the faith that justifies.

This is what man cannot do. It is impossible. Only God can take out the heart of stone (Ezekiel 36:26). Only God can draw people to the Son (John 6:44, 65). Only God can open the spiritually dead heart so that it gives heed to the gospel (Acts 16:14). Only the Good Shepherd knows his sheep, and calls them by name with such compelling power that they all follow — and never perish (John 10:3–4, 14).

The sovereign grace of God, doing the humanly impossible, through the gospel of Jesus Christ, is the great missionary hope.

John Piper 

What about those who’ve never heard the Gospel?

BIBLE MEDITATION:

The people which sat in darkness saw great light; and to them which sat in the region and shadow of death, light is sprung up. Matthew 4:16

DEVOTIONAL THOUGHT:

There are two witnesses for the existence of God to all people: 

1.One is the objective witness of creation. 

2.The other is the subjective witness of conscience.

God speaks to a man and the man responds, “God, I want to know You and I need to know You. I do believe that You exist.”

That’s faith. And he goes from faith to faith as he steps in the light until he comes to the Lord Jesus Christ.

I believe with all my heart there’s never been a man or woman who ever lived on the face of this earth who died without some opportunity to have received Christ, had they lived up to the light God gave them.

ACTION POINT:

Is there someone in your life who claims to be an agnostic or an atheist? Consistently show them the love of Jesus. Continually pray that God will reveal Himself to them. Pray for willingness to hear His voice.

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers 

Christ Followers Win Either Way

Here or in Heaven, I win either way!

I don't have to worry, wonder or ponder, God's got this!

I have His eternal promise! 

Illness, disaster, and all manner of trial, if you are a child of God, you are covered!

That's not saying there will not be dark days, maybe full of pain, maybe uncertainty or just plain sadness, but the Son, the Christ will shine!

Your assurance comes from the Lord, the maker of Heaven and Earth!

He will never leave you, it ain't happening!! 

6 do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.

7 And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. - Philippians 4:6-7

11 Not that I am speaking of being in need, for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content.

12 I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need.

13 I can do all things through him who strengthens me. - Philippians 4:11-13

7 So to keep me from becoming conceited because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from becoming conceited.

8 Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me.

9 But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.

10 For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong. - 2 Corinthians 12:7-10

1 And I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom.

2 For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.

3 And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling,

4 and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power,

5 so that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God. - 1 Corinthians 2:1-5

Maker of Heaven and Earth

4 "Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding. 

5 Who determined its measurements-surely you know! Or who stretched the line upon it?  - Job 38:4-5

33 Do you know the ordinances of the heavens? Can you establish their rule on the earth? 

34 "Can you lift up your voice to the clouds, that a flood of waters may cover you? 

35 Can you send forth lightnings, that they may go and say to you, 'Here we are'? 

36 Who has put wisdom in the inward parts or given understanding to the mind? 

37 Who can number the clouds by wisdom? Or who can tilt the waterskins of the heavens,  - Job 38:33-37

7 The grass withers, the flower fades when the breath of the LORD blows on it; surely the people are grass. 

8 The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever.  - Isaiah 40:7-8

When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you.  - Isaiah 43:2

everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and made."  - Isaiah 43:7

10 "You are my witnesses," declares the LORD, "and my servant whom I have chosen, that you may know and believe me and understand that I am he. Before me no god was formed, nor shall there be any after me. 

11 I, I am the LORD, and besides me there is no savior.  - Isaiah 43:10-11

Lift up your eyes to the heavens, and look at the earth beneath; for the heavens vanish like smoke, the earth will wear out like a garment, and they who dwell in it will die in like manner; but my salvation will be forever, and my righteousness will never be dismayed.  - Isaiah 51:6

The promise

1 Who has believed what he has heard from us? And to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed? 

2 For he grew up before him like a young plant, and like a root out of dry ground; he had no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him. 

3 He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not. 

4 Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. 

5 But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed. 

6 All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned-every one-to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all. 

7 He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth. 

8 By oppression and judgment he was taken away; and as for his generation, who considered that he was cut off out of the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people? 

9 And they made his grave with the wicked and with a rich man in his death, although he had done no violence, and there was no deceit in his mouth. 

10 Yet it was the will of the LORD to crush him; he has put him to grief; when his soul makes an offering for guilt, he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days; the will of the LORD shall prosper in his hand. 

11 Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied; by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities. 

12 Therefore I will divide him a portion with the many, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong, because he poured out his soul to death and was numbered with the transgressors; yet he bore the sin of many, and makes intercession for the transgressors.  - Isaiah 53

5 Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus,

6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped,

7 but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.

8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

9 Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name,

10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth,

11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. - Philippians 2:5-11

Christ Is Like Sunlight

He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature. (Hebrews 1:3)

Jesus relates to God the way radiance relates to glory, or the way the rays of sunlight relate to the sun.

Keep in mind that every analogy between God and natural things is imperfect and will distort if you press it. Nevertheless, consider for example,

There is no time that the sun exists without the beams of radiance. They cannot be separated. The radiance is co-eternal with the glory. Christ is co-eternal with God the Father.

The radiance is the glory radiating out. It is not essentially different from the glory. Christ is God standing forth as separate but not essentially different from the Father.

Thus the radiance is eternally begotten, as it were, by the glory — not created or made. If you put a solar-activated calculator in the sunlight, numbers appear on the face of the calculator. These, you could say, are created or made by the sun, but they are not what the sun is. But the rays of the sun are an extension of the sun. So Christ is eternally begotten of the Father, but not made or created.

We see the sun by means of seeing the rays of the sun. So we see God the Father by seeing Jesus. The rays of the sun arrive here about eight minutes after they leave the sun, and the round ball of fire that we see in the sky is the image — the exact representation — of the sun; not because it is a painting of the sun, but because it is the sun streaming forth in its radiance.

So I commend this great Person to you that you might trust in him and love him and worship him. He is alive and sitting at the right hand of God with all power and authority and will one day come in great glory. He has that exalted place because he is himself God the Son, “the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature.”

John Piper 

What’s the problem in your journey of faith?

BIBLE MEDITATION:

For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, “The just shall live by faith.” Romans 1:17

DEVOTIONAL THOUGHT:

Is God righteous? Yes. And how is the righteousness of God revealed? It is revealed from faith to faith. Here’s how that works: God gives you truth. You believe that truth; You obey it; God gives you more truth. It’s a step-by-step walk of faith as you obey what God is showing you. There’s no magic formula to living the Christian life other than trust and obey. The problem in your journey of faith is not in the head. The problem is in the heart.

Now I want to say this to all of those of you who are saved: the reason some of us don’t understand the Bible any more than we do is that we haven’t been living up to the light God is already giving us. Why should God show you more in the Word of God until you obey what you already know?

The more you obey the light He gives, the more light you will get.

ACTION POINT:

It’s time we began taking God at His Word and obeying Him. If we begin obeying the small things we DO understand in His Word, God will enlighten our path to understand the things we don’t understand. Ask Him today to give you understanding into the depths of His Word so you can begin to share His truth in greater ways with the lost around you.

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers 

Prove To Me There Is No God

Today is the day of salvation!

This message is for the one who is undecided!

1. So, where will you go for salvation?

65 And he said, "This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father."

66 After this many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him.

67 So Jesus said to the twelve, "Do you want to go away as well?"

68 Simon Peter answered him, "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life,

69 and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God."

70 Jesus answered them, "Did I not choose you, the twelve? And yet one of you is a devil."

71 He spoke of Judas the son of Simon Iscariot, for he, one of the twelve, was going to betray him. - John 6:65-71

1 And as they were speaking to the people, the priests and the captain of the temple and the Sadducees came upon them,

2 greatly annoyed because they were teaching the people and proclaiming in Jesus the resurrection from the dead.

3 And they arrested them and put them in custody until the next day, for it was already evening.

4 But many of those who had heard the word believed, and the number of the men came to about five thousand.

5 On the next day their rulers and elders and scribes gathered together in Jerusalem,

6 with Annas the high priest and Caiaphas and John and Alexander, and all who were of the high-priestly family.

7 And when they had set them in the midst, they inquired, "By what power or by what name did you do this?"

8 Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them, "Rulers of the people and elders,

9 if we are being examined today concerning a good deed done to a crippled man, by what means this man has been healed,

10 let it be known to all of you and to all the people of Israel that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead-by him this man is standing before you well.

11 This Jesus is the stone that was rejected by you, the builders, which has become the cornerstone.

12 And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved." - Acts 4:1-12

2. This is Who chose me for salvation!

35 Jesus said to them, "I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.

36 But I said to you that you have seen me and yet do not believe.

37 All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out.

38 For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me.

39 And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day.

40 For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day." - John 6:35-40

3. This is what His own people thought of Him!

13 The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, the God of our fathers, glorified his servant Jesus, whom you delivered over and denied in the presence of Pilate, when he had decided to release him.

14 But you denied the Holy and Righteous One, and asked for a murderer to be granted to you,

15 and you killed the Author of life, whom God raised from the dead. To this we are witnesses.

16 And his name-by faith in his name-has made this man strong whom you see and know, and the faith that is through Jesus has given the man this perfect health in the presence of you all.

17 "And now, brothers, I know that you acted in ignorance, as did also your rulers.

18 But what God foretold by the mouth of all the prophets, that his Christ would suffer, he thus fulfilled.

19 Repent therefore, and turn back, that your sins may be blotted out,

20 that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that he may send the Christ appointed for you, Jesus,

21 whom heaven must receive until the time for restoring all the things about which God spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets long ago.

22 Moses said, 'The Lord God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your brothers. You shall listen to him in whatever he tells you.

23 And it shall be that every soul who does not listen to that prophet shall be destroyed from the people.' - Acts 3:13-23

4. In spite of our own rebellion, in grace and mercy, this was His reward to us! 

God, having raised up his servant, sent him to you first, to bless you by turning every one of you from your wickedness." - Acts 3:26

18 The LORD has disciplined me severely, but he has not given me over to death. 

19 Open to me the gates of righteousness, that I may enter through them and give thanks to the LORD. 

20 This is the gate of the LORD; the righteous shall enter through it. 

21 I thank you that you have answered me and have become my salvation. 

22 The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. 

23 This is the LORD's doing; it is marvelous in our eyes. 

24 This is the day that the LORD has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.  - Psalm 118:18-24

28 You are my God, and I will give thanks to you; you are my God; I will extol you. 

29 Oh give thanks to the LORD, for he is good; for his steadfast love endures forever!  - Psalm 118:28-29

5. There is no other name!

34 So Peter opened his mouth and said: "Truly I understand that God shows no partiality,

35 but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him.

36 As for the word that he sent to Israel, preaching good news of peace through Jesus Christ (he is Lord of all),

37 you yourselves know what happened throughout all Judea, beginning from Galilee after the baptism that John proclaimed:

38 how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power. He went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him.

39 And we are witnesses of all that he did both in the country of the Jews and in Jerusalem. They put him to death by hanging him on a tree,

40 but God raised him on the third day and made him to appear,

41 not to all the people but to us who had been chosen by God as witnesses, who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead.

42 And he commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one appointed by God to be judge of the living and the dead.

43 To him all the prophets bear witness that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name." - Acts 10:34-43

6. His name is eternal life!

8 But what does it say? "The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart" (that is, the word of faith that we proclaim);

9 because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

10 For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved.

11 For the Scripture says, "Everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame."

12 For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; for the same Lord is Lord of all, bestowing his riches on all who call on him.

13 For "everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved."

14 How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching?

15 And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, "How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!"

16 But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah says, "Lord, who has believed what he has heard from us?"

17 So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.

18 But I ask, have they not heard? Indeed they have, for "Their voice has gone out to all the earth, and their words to the ends of the world." 

19 But I ask, did Israel not understand? First Moses says, "I will make you jealous of those who are not a nation; with a foolish nation I will make you angry." 

20 Then Isaiah is so bold as to say, "I have been found by those who did not seek me; I have shown myself to those who did not ask for me." 

21 But of Israel he says, "All day long I have held out my hands to a disobedient and contrary people." - Romans 10:8-21

7. There is a judgment coming. 

Will you stand alone? 

Your works won't justify you!

Will you be able to justify yourself before God? 

Or will you fall on your knees, with full assurance that Christ alone paid your debt and you stand justified before God for all eternity!

3 For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh,

4 in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. - Romans 8:3-4

30 And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.

31 What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?

32 He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?

33 Who shall bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies.

34 Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died-more than that, who was raised-who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us.

35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword?

36 As it is written, "For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered." 

37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.

38 For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers,

39 nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. - Romans 8:30-39

God’s Final, Decisive Word

Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son. (Hebrews 1:1–2)

The last days begin with the coming of the Son into the world. “In these last days he has spoken to us by his Son.” We have been living in the last days since the days of Christ — that is, the last days of history as we know it before the final and full establishment of the kingdom of God.

The point for the writer of Hebrews is this: The Word that God spoke by his Son is the decisive Word. By the Son’s own design, that word has been captured for the ages in the writings of the New Testament. He explicitly made provision for this, lest every generation be left to itself to dream up the decisive word of God. This word will not be followed in this age by any greater word or replacement word. This is the Word of God — the person of Jesus, the teaching of Jesus, and the work of Jesus, captured by inspiration in the apostolic writings we call the New Testament.

When I complain that I don’t hear the Word of God, when I feel a desire to hear the voice of God, and get frustrated that he does not speak in ways that I may crave, what am I really saying? Am I really saying that I have exhausted this final, decisive Word revealed to me so fully and infallibly in the New Testament? Have I really exhausted this Word? Has it become so much a part of me that it has shaped my very being and given me life and guidance?

Or have I treated it lightly — skimmed it like a newspaper, clicked through like a quick series of internet postings, dipped in like a taste-tester — and then decided I wanted something different, something more? This is what I fear I am guilty of more than I wish to admit.

God is calling us to hear his final, decisive, inexhaustible Word — to meditate on it and study it and memorize it and linger over it and soak in it until it saturates us to the center of our being.

John Piper