Let me repeat what I have said on many occasions in our class. "We never get beyond our need for the gospel we simply move further into the gospel." Please remember the apostle Paul tells us that in the gospel is located the power of God. In context, Paul is teaching us that the power of which he speaks is the very righteousness of God. The righteousness of God is something that God declares me to be in my justification and He is now transforming me into the righteousness of Christ in my sanctification. Therefore the gospel is what gets me into the kingdom of God and it is the same thing that keeps me in the kingdom of God. My point is we never move away from our daily need of the gospel.

I am constantly on the lookout for books, quotes, audios and videos that can help deepen our understanding of the gospel. In some reading this morning I came across the following quote from Tullian Tchividjian as it relates to our daily growth as Christians.

"Every temptation to sin is a temptation, in the moment, to disbelieve the gospel–the temptation to secure for myself in that moment something I think I need in order to be happy, something I don’t yet have: meaning, freedom, validation, and so on. Bad behavior happens when we fail to believe that everything I need, in Christ I already have; it happens when we fail to believe in the rich provisional resources that are already ours in the gospel. Conversely, good behavior happens when we daily rest in and receive Christ’s “It is finished” into new and deeper parts of our being every day— into our rebellious regions of unbelief (what writer calls “our unevangelized territories”) smashing any sense of need to secure for ourselves anything beyond what Christ has already secured for us."

When I have sin in my life, at that very moment, I am choosing to find my happiness or security in something other than Christ. My problem is that I am not believing the gospel. I called Pat earlier this week and said I know the gospel is true, I can articulate it and even break down the verbs and nouns. But in my sinning, though I know the gospel to be true, at the time the sin is happening it is NOT true for me. And though my standing before God has been declared righteous I still am dealing with the presence of sin which wages war. The solution for that sin past, present and future is "THE GOSPEL." He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him (2 Corinthians 5:21).

We stand at a place in our learning of doctrine that is very, very critical. In my research and study it has been amazing to find how in the "church" today the doctrine of sin is either left out or misrepresented so people won’t feel bad.

Here is part of a transcript of an interview between Larry King and Joel Osteen in June 2005. There were a number of subjects discussed but in this context King asked Osteen about his preaching on same sex marriages and abortion.

OSTEEN: I have thoughts. I just, you know, I don't think that a same-sex marriage is the way God intended it to be. I don't think abortion is the best. I think there are other, you know, a better way to live your life. But I'm not going to condemn those people. I tell them all the time our church is open for everybody.

KING: You don't call them sinners?

OSTEEN: I don't.

KING: Is that a word you don't use?

OSTEEN: I don't use it. I never thought about it. But I probably don't. But most people already know what they're doing wrong. When I get them to church I want to tell them that you can change. There can be a difference in your life. So I don't go down the road of condemning.

If you would like to read the entire transcript then CLICK ON THIS LINK.Continue reading…

The first great secret of holiness lies in the degree and the decisiveness of our repentance. If besetting sins persistently plague us, it is either because we have never truly repented, or because having repented, we have not maintained our repentance. It is as if, having nailed our old nature to the cross, we keep wistfully returning to the scene of its execution. We begin to fondle it, to caress it, to long for its release, even to try and take it down again from the cross. We need to learn to leave it there. When some jealous, or proud, or malicious, or impure thought invades our mind we must kick it out at once. It is fatal to begin to examine it and consider whether we are going to give in to it or not. We have declared war on it; we are not going to resume negotiations … We have crucified the flesh; we are never going to [with]draw the nails.” - John Stott

When it comes to killing my sin I don’t wait for the miracle, I Act the Miracle.

Acting a miracle is different from working a miracle. If Jesus tells a paralyzed man to get up, and he gets up, Jesus works a miracle. But if I am the paralyzed man and Jesus tells me to get up, and I obey and get up, I act the miracle. If I am dead Lazarus and Jesus commands me to get up, and I obey, Jesus works the miracle, I act the miracle.

So when it comes to killing my sin, I don’t wait passively for the miracle of sin-killing to be worked on me, I act the miracle.

- John PiperContinue reading…

I know not what you may have been in your past life – it matters nothing. You may have broken every commandment under heaven; you may have sinned with a high hand against light and knowledge; you may have despised a father’s warnings and a mother’s tears; you may have run greedily into every excess of riot, and plunged into every kind of abominable behavior – you may have turned your back entirely on God, His day, His house, His ministers, His word. I say again it matters nothing. Do you feel your sins? Are you sick of them? Are you ashamed of them? Are you weary of them? Then come to Christ just as you are, and Christ’s blood shall make you clean. - J.C. Ryle