Well, good morning Crossing Church.
How are you doing today doing? Alright.
Good to be in the house, the Lord good to be with the people
of the Lord, the house of the Lord.
We have 11 different houses all across all our, our locations
thankful for each and every one of you.
Every one that's inside every one that's online.
We're so thankful for you. And if our if our locations are
front yard, well then, Crossing Camp is our backyard and you
know, it's where we play and we enjoy each other's company, but
it's so much more than that yesterday afternoon.
I had the opportunity to be at Crossing camps, high school
week, it's three of our locations are having high school
camp this week. Eight of them will have high
school Camp. I believe a little bit later on
there are 260 young people there and you know, I mean, Yeah,
pretty incredible and you and they had just finished their
session and they were all out in small groups underneath trees
finding shade different places inside outside and I had to
think about that a while because you know what's happening is
they're unpacking stuff, you know.
They're talking about their lives and how that interfaces
with God's word and, you know, they're doing business with the
Lord and with each other and ground is being taken up.
You see it in the baptism videos, people being baptized
out there, it's just absolutely incredible, so thankful for
that. So God's working in the front
yard, he's working in the backyard.
And God works incredibly through his people.
And I've really enjoyed so far being a part of this series in
Romans Book of Romans is so rich.
It's so much. There's so much there that
answers. Our deepest questions about what
is the Lord doing? What's How to how does this all
work? What are the mechanics of these
things? And I have the opportunity to
preach on Romans for this morning and it's called our
confession So I was thinking a lot about that, about our
confession going through some scriptures about that, how
Romans 4 relates to it. And I got to thinking what are
the most important words you will ever say?
Some of you are going to give that a little bit of thought, I
think you're giving it more thought than you need.
Don't think that's really a very hard question.
I think the most important words you will ever say, Our three
words, I love you. I don't think there's any
question of how powerful those are.
We use those words in a lot of different contexts.
I know that I do. I say Dad said that often to my
parents. Usually they were the ones that
started it because you know especially as a teenager you not
really coming out with that. So me it was mostly a response.
I love you too because they would say they love me but they
instilled that in me. So I got used to saying that to
them a lot. It was not something that was
left. Unsaid Then I have siblings, you
know I had five brothers and sisters had a brother and and
four sisters and over the years we would never let a
conversation go. We would never end a text
message with any other words than I love you.
Because you never know. You know, and I have 2 of those
siblings left. There's only half of us that
haven't gone on to glory and so you don't, you don't want to
ever miss that moment. You know that you want those
last words to be the best words? I love you.
I love you, too. I say that to my very close
friends. I say it non-stop to my
grandchildren Kiss, Can't Help It.
But when I say it, To my wife. It means more.
It's not that the love that I have for all those other
relationships is invalid. It's valid.
But when I say it to her, it carries a deeper weight much
deeper weight, much more meaning.
Let me explain that. I remember when we were first
dating, I was 18 years old and I had this personal rule, you
know, when you're when you're 18, you're just so smart.
And you just know so much and you know, you have all of these
ideals and you know here's what I'm going to do because this is
what's going to make me better than everybody else.
And and so I had some of those personal rules and one of those
rules was I wasn't going to say those three words to anyone but
the one And so I was very careful.
I dated a lot, but I didn't say that ever To any girl that I
dated, I felt that way sexually also felt that way with the
profession of my love and for some of you today that may be
viewed as old-fashioned or narrow-minded, but it was just
one of the rules that I sought to live by.
I'm not trying to say that you're wrong.
If you did, if you said that to a lot of people, I'm just saying
that was me. Now, we hadn't dated very long.
Maybe I don't know five or six times and she comes out with it.
She just says it. And I am in a pickle.
Because I wasn't ready to say that I just wasn't ready to say
that. And you know, I'm this this man
of conviction with these other ideals that I have.
And and she says that and You know, the problem with this is
that when you say this is a statement, it is a loaded
statement like a gun. I mean it is a loaded statement,
it demands as a response because with that statement there is
always a question. There's a question underneath
you just can't say I love you and you go.
You know what do you do? I mean, I mean your stock
Because it demands this response, this forward response
and I wasn't ready for that response.
And I didn't want to say that yet and I was trying to hold on
to those personal ideals and it made for this really awkward
moment. It was terrible.
I still remember it. I tried to explain myself.
How do you think that went? You know, this 18 year old
saying? Well you know, I kind of made
this you know through the God card did everything didn't
really matter because all I did was hurt her feelings.
It wasn't long before I got a clue.
And I responded. With the only response that you
can give. That's correct or adequate.
I love you too. Now I've never stopped loving
her. Never stop telling her, how much
I loved her. I told her that today a few
times already. And neither is she?
But I have to confess to you that when I said it, I had no
idea, no understanding of all the implications of it, not any
understanding at all. So just a couple of weeks ago
June 4th we celebrated 40 years of being married.
So five years, a dating, 40 years of marriage, she knows me
better than anybody else living on the earth. and we have
experienced a lot in those 45 years, 40 years of marriage,
particularly I mean, there are a lot of high points, you know,
there was a marriage itself, there was an engagement and then
there were all the other, like, Monumental moments, like
mortgages and children, hospitals, and all the Indus
endless things that come after that.
But it all began. With Alison saying those three
words. And then with me catching up
later responding with that forward response.
Let me tell you what it did do as much as we didn't know, as
much as we didn't understand it. Defined where our hearts were in
that moment. Now, when we accept Jesus
Christ, as our savior and our Lord, what do we do?
We connect that with an act that somebody does to us.
Like we go down in these Waters of baptism to be immersed,
right? But before we're ever immersed,
and there's always somebody there with us where we don't, we
don't self-serve this stuff, right?
There's no drive-up window baptism.
So there's somebody in the waters of Baptist, treat every
location, maybe not in the water and the case of Monmouth because
they use a tank, And somebody's on the outside, but there's
somebody who's right there with you, right?
It's not really something you do baptisms, not something you do,
it's something that is done to you, right?
But before you're ever put down in that water, something else
happens, right? And you know what it's called
our confession. So we give a confession now we
don't have to come up with that confession on our own because
the person who is baptizing us says it to us and then we repeat
it after them and I know that there may be a word or two,
that's different in what people say but ultimately is I believe
That Jesus is the Christ, the son of the Living God and I want
him as my Lord and my savior. Goes all the way back to Peter's
confession and caesarea Philippi, I believe you are the
Christ, you're the son of the Living God.
And then, that intentionality of, I want him as Lord, and
Savior. And by the way, you can't have
Jesus as your savior, unless he's your lord, and you can't
have him as your lord, unless he is your savior.
He has to be both or he can't be either.
And so what we are doing is confessing our intentionality,
this is what we want. Now, those words, Define a
relationship that you are discovering in your heart.
You really don't know anything about being in an intimate
personal relationship with Jesus Christ.
When you come into an intimate personal relationship with Jesus
Christ, almost nothing, right? Pretty ignorant.
We all are even if you think you're a Bible student and you
think you've learned all these things and maybe you grew up in
a church and you think I've got a lot of this figured out.
Truth of the matter is you just don't Any more than I had, it
figured out or Alison, had it figured out when we confess our
love to each other. We had to learn that in the
journey. We had to learn that as that
relationship unfolded. So when we experienced this
personally, with Jesus Christ, we are discovering something in
our heart and then we are responding to what Jesus has
said to you from the cross through his blood and in his
resurrection. Because when Jesus was nailed to
the roof, Timbers of that cross and holding his arms out, he was
saying to you, I love you and he was showing you how much Which
he loved you in what he was going through and he showed you
the price of loving you as that blood came out of his body.
That was his statement. When you go into the Waters of
baptism and you give your confession, you're not making
the statement. You're responding to the
question that's underneath the statement.
Because when Jesus says that to you when he says, I love you.
It can't just stand there. It Demands a response and
there's only one response and that response is I love you too.
And that I love you, too. Looks like I believe that you're
the Christ, the son of the living, Living God and I want
you as my Lord and my savior. So the Apostle Paul is in.
Now, he's in Romans 4, and he's already established a lot with
us about how there's no partiality between Jew and
Gentile that were all Sinners. That we all need the grace of
God. That if we try to earn our way
into salvation, we never can that.
We don't deserve it. We can't earn it but we can Even
as a gift and he's been teaching us about Grace.
But he's going to go a little bit deeper into this idea of
Grace, he's going to use Abraham as an example.
And I'm going to read to you first from the Old Testament.
And this is a scripture that he's referring to at the
beginning of Romans 4. I'm going to set up, set it up,
so you know what's going on. He's cause he's talking about
Abraham, Abraham from the Old Testament.
Now Abraham, when we read about him in Genesis 15 is an old man.
And his wife is well past years of childbearing.
And they wanted nothing more than to have children.
But they have been infertile. And he has waited on the Lord
and nothing has happened. And so he's making his own
plans. And he looks at the people that
work for him and his chief servant is a man by the name of
Eliezer. And so he determines that he's
going to give all of this wealth.
That he has to his chief servant Eliezer.
And while he's thinking that we read Genesis chapter, 15 verses
4 to 6. It says, then the word of the
Lord came to him. Abraham, this man will not be
your Heir, but Son, who is your own flesh and blood will be your
heir. And he took him outside and
said, look up at the sky and count the Stars.
If indeed, you can count them and then he said to him.
So shall your Offspring be? And here's the kicker verse
ready, verse 6. This is the one that he uses in
Romans 4 and Abraham believed the Lord.
And he credited milord credited to him Abraham as righteousness.
That's a lot to believe, think about it.
This is believing in a God who can do the miraculous believing
in a God, who can take something that's not possible and make it
possible. And the Bible says that that's
what Abraham did in that moment, he believed God.
Now I want us to look at Romans, Chapter 4, verses 1 to 3, where
he brings this up, he says What then shall we say that Abraham,
our forefather according to the flesh discovered in this matter?
if in fact, Abraham was justified by works, He had
something to boast about, but not before, God, what does
Scripture say? Abraham believed God.
And it was credited to him as righteousness.
There's the quote now, let's understand it a little bit more
going to Verses 4 and 5. It says now to the one who works
wages are not credited as a gift, but as an obligation,
right? So like if you work for someone,
they are obliged to pay you for that work, right?
You should have an expectation that you should receive wages
for that. But then Paul goes on.
However, To the one who does not work.
But trust God, who justifies the ungodly.
Their faith is credited as righteousness.
So, Paul points out that this righteousness, wasn't something
that Abraham had earned but it was given to him on account of
his belief right makes very very clear.
He didn't earn that didn't deserve that but God gave it to
him because he chose to Believe God even though God was telling
him something that was unbelievable.
Now another word for this belief is Faith and we use that word a
lot in Christianity. Don't we talk about faith a lot.
Well, faith is the substance of a relationship based on belief.
So that word faith is really talking about your relationship
with God. But your relationship with God
is all determined by. What you believe about God or
Christ is determined by what you believe about.
Jesus Christ. the power of Faith though is often misunderstood I
think we misunderstand this all the time and this is why I
believe that. Because so many people say, wow,
I wish I had more faith or I wish I had better, Faith, or I
wish I was less hypocritical in my faith.
And what people? Or if that's you and it is you
sometimes, and it is me, sometimes are missing their that
the power of faith is not in the faith itself.
The power of faith is in its object.
It's not about how much Faith you have.
It's about who your faith is in. You see that Abraham is putting
his faith in God. So God's telling him something
that's impossible. But he's choosing to believe God
even in the impossible because he has faith in God.
And that's what God wants from us as well.
Right now. The truth is, we all have the
exact same amount of Faith. Now, some of you are going, wait
a minute. Know that person next to me, has
a whole lot more faith than I I do know they don't, they have
exactly the same amount of Faith.
It's not about how much Faith you have, it's about who or what
your faith is. In the thing, is we put our
faith in all sorts of things, right?
And a lot of those things disappoint us.
The issue is not having more faith.
The issue is taking Faith out of the bank of yourself and putting
it in the bank of God is putting your faith in the right place
because the power of faith is in its object.
Right. So you can have faith in your
employer. Now, all of our other locations,
I'm you know, I'm speaking in Quincy and there's people that
are older in this congregation right now.
That remember Motorola, you can put your faith in your employer.
And then you can get laid off. Right, or the plant can close.
Some of you have been counseling, some of you been
counseling multiple times because you can put your faith
in your spouse and you can be cheated on. some of you are
really really committed to your politics but you can put your
faith in government and be completely let down But when you
put your faith in God, you're putting your faith in the right
place, we can put our faith in all sorts of things, but we want
to put our faith in God, we're putting it in the right place.
Now, here's the spot where we get tripped up.
If I were to say, what is the quality of your faith?
Now, first of all, that's wrong. Because the quality of your, how
do you know your faith has quality?
Well that it's we understand the quality of a thing by what it
produces or you know like what we've done and it's a Works
statement. So the idea of the quality of
Faith doesn't really doesn't really ring true here.
But if we were to think about that, What would we say about?
Abraham because when we read Romans for, if you were read
that whole chapter, it says that he did not weaken in his faith,
there's another sentence that said he was fully persuaded in
his faith and I'm thinking to myself, well, how many times
have I weakened in my faith? You should probably ask me how
many times have you done that today?
Because I'm weak in my faith all the time.
How many times are you not fully persuaded in your faith?
That happens to me all the time where I start having doubts.
My face starts bouncing around right because I'm very
inconsistent in my faith and yet, here's Abraham with these
statements like you didn't weaken his face.
He's fully persuaded in his faith and I'm going.
I'm no Abraham, I am completely inconsistent.
What is going to happen to me? Listen, I've got good news.
News for you because so is Abraham, he was completely
inconsistent in his faith. You know, after the Genesis 15
statement, if we go back to the life of Abraham, you're going to
find out that he did. He struggled in his belief that
God was going to be able to provide a son to him and so did
his wife. And so he ended up having
relations with a maid servant named Hagar in his house, that
produced a child. And God said, nope, that's not
what I was saying. Does that sound like an
unshakable faith? Is that sound like quality
Faith? Does that sound like being fully
persuaded in his faith? Does that sound like a person
who didn't weaken in his faith later on?
After that child was born, Abraham sent both mother and
child out into the desert to die.
Does that sound like a man who's really faithful to God who's
trying to 100? God, God had to save them.
In the desert. Later on after that because his
wife was very beautiful even though she was elderly, both the
king of Egypt and abimelech, another king.
Desired her to be their spouse. And she was with Abraham, and
they asked about the relationship with Abraham and
Abraham was afraid of the king of Egypt.
And he was also afraid of this man named abimelech, and he told
them that she was his sister. Does that sound like a man with
this unshakable? Fearless fake?
No. There is no perfect life.
There Abraham. Listen was still a sinner in
need of a savior just like you. Just like me.
If there's something you want to tweet out of this sermon and
should be, this Faith isn't work.
It's a relationship with the one who did the work because faith
is in its object. In the power of faith is in that
object, whatever work we do is only a response to what was
already done for us that we could never have done for
ourselves. The relationship we have is more
powerful than our works. Now look at verse 23 to 25.
The words, Paul says, it was credited to him were written,
not for him alone, but also for us, oh, this is for you.
You're not just reading about somebody else, this is for you.
To whom God will credit righteousness for us, who
believe in him, who raised Jesus, our lord from the dead.
He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to
life for our justification. Now what that is called as the
gospel The gospel is that Jesus died for our sins?
He was buried he rose again on the third day for our sins.
Jesus came into this world for that purpose, to die for our
sins. He paid for our sins in full.
He even used that word from the cross paid in full.
There was nothing that we could do and then he rose from the
dead to prove his power over sin and death.
But listen to this, it wasn't to prove his power over sin for in
his life because he didn't have any sin in his life or death.
Death was only temporary. Very for him, it was to prove
his power, over your sin. It was to prove his power, over
your death to provide you with eternal life.
So, how can that be? How in the world do I apply
Abraham to the Cross? Didn't he live way before the
cross? Yeah, I actually did.
Here's what I'd like for you to do just pretend that this Podium
that I'm preaching from is across just for a moment just
just pretend that it's across and then if you come over here,
I'm going to consider this the past.
Okay? So this is 2000 BC that's when
Abraham lived, 2,000 years before Christ.
So that's a lot of space between Abraham and the cross.
How could God forgive Abraham sin after Abraham had been dead
for 2,000 years? How about over here?
This would be 2080. Okay.
So, this is 2000 years on this side of the Cross.
This is where you and I are right now, right?
We're in this Millennium right now, how in the world is the
cross and what Jesus did on the cross, able to take care of the
sin that you're going to commit today, because he died 2,000
years ago, me and help you to understand the power of the
Cross, Abraham was a sinner and just Because he believed God
didn't stop him from being a sinner, he still sends a lot.
But the power of the Cross is its magnetism, it has this
magnetism, it has this magnetic power of pulling all the sin
toward it. So that means all the sin that
was created, all the sin that was committed in the in all
those years before the cross. The Cross pulled, that's in
Ford. It was rolled forward.
And so when Jesus died on the cross, he died for the sin of
Abraham and even before that, all the way back to Adam.
The same exact magnetism works for us today.
The sins that you haven't even committed yet.
That you haven't asked forgiveness for yet are paid for
by the cross, because all of your sin is being rolled
backward, because in this one moment, all of the sin past
present and future are pulled together in this one moment and
what Jesus did when he died on that cross, when he shed his
blood, that blood covered all. The sin of the world past
present and future. It was enough.
It was enough for God to say, I'm canceling, the debt for
those who believe in my son, that is the power of the cross.
Now the question comes. What?
Unlocks this incredible power? To take away my sin, this
terrible cost, my sin demands, the eternal life, that replaces
my inescapable judgment. It's in the response.
That's where it is. What unlocks the power of the
cross. The response does.
You see what Jesus did is the statement.
What he did on the cross was a statement.
But the statement underneath, it has a question that is
inescapable and that question demands a response.
Jesus is saying from the cross, I love you.
And then he waits. For a response.
I wonder how many of us are keeping him waiting?
I wonder how many of us because of all of the excuses and all
the rationalizations in our minds are keeping him waiting
for that response. That response that is four
words. I love you to it Demands a
response. He is looking for the same thing
from you that he did from Abraham.
Do you believe him? Do you believe in him?
Will you believe him will you believe in him?
You see I was fully persuaded. When I responded to Allison's
three words. I didn't say them just because I
didn't want her. Have her feelings hurt anymore.
I had to think through it but I was fully persuaded but I have
no idea what those words meant. Listen to me, as a matter of
fact, after 40 years of marriage and five years, a dating, I
still don't know. I am still learning it.
I will learn it till the day. I die.
That has not changed the nature of our relationship, even with
all of our inconsistencies and shortcomings, we are still
standing in our relationship with God, is stronger than our
marriages, and I'll tell you why.
Because God never fails. You see in my marriage, I fail
and then and and in my marriage, my wife fails.
Sometimes we file it, we fail at the same time, sometimes a
different times and there has to be a lot of forgiveness going
both ways. But in my relationship with God,
forgiveness only goes one way because there's only one person
in that relationship. That's failing and we never stop
failing but God never starts stops being faithful.
So, our relationship to God is always more powerful than any
Earthly relationship. Because we're so inconsistent
but he is perfectly consistent. It's like the song says, this is
my testimony. From Death To Life.
Because Grace rewrote my story. I'll testify by Jesus Christ,
the righteous. I'm Justified.
This is my testimony. This is my testimony.
I want to I want to leave you with one statement.
There's not a person listening to me, that doesn't use those
three words or those four words, right?
Now, Think about who you're saying them, too. whether you're
saved or lost, whether you have a relationship with Jesus or you
don't you use those words, they are the ultimate power words in
humanity, But if you want those words to mean more than they've
ever met before. You need to have an intimate
personal relationship with Jesus Christ.
Because on our best day, when we don't have Jesus, I love you
only carries a certain amount of power. but when we have Jesus in
our heart, Everything is transformed, even our power to
love to be loved and to respond to love.
So, think about those relationships that you would
qualify as I love you relationships.
And maybe the first thing we need to take care of is Empower
those words with the response, the only fitting response that
comes. after the statement that Jesus said to you, we're moving
to a time of decision. The book of Hebrews, The Book of
Romans is It's heady stuff. It's deep stuff and it starts to
unlock a lot of these. What you might consider
Mysteries of the Bible and inhumanity, and sin, and death,
and Grace, and all these things that the Apostle Paul is
explaining to us and I'm, I know that it might sound a bit to you
like, wow, this is just, this is just deep water.
It's just hard to get through, it's really not.
It's really not actually a child could understand it.
Before I could read. Before I could right.
I knew this truth. But I didn't know it from what I
read, I didn't know it from reading the Bible.
I was too young for that. My parents read it to me.
But I didn't learn it from reading the Bible.
I didn't learn it from the Bible storybook that my mother would
read to me from I learned it from a song.
Best song ever written. Jesus loves me.
This, I know. There it is.
For the Bible tells me so little ones to him belong.
They are weak. And so my but he is strong.
And to say it over and over. Yes.
Jesus loves me. The Bible says, where two or
three are gathered there, I am in the midst of them.
So Jesus is here right now. Requires belief requires Faith
to understand the truth of that statement, but he's here right
now. And he knows that you're here
right now and he knew your name when he was dying for Abraham
sin. The question is, if you're here
and you know that That Jesus loves you.
What are you waiting for? If you've never entered into an
intimate personal relationship with Jesus Christ, there's going
to be somebody right over there. I would love to talk to you.
Let me, let me just clue you in that person.
Whoever that is not any smarter than you.
They're not any better than you, not any more righteous than you,
because we're all the same. He just knows where the water is
not the best tree water, but the Living Water and he would love
for you. To be able to share in that.
You've never done that. quit putting it off because the
statement Demands a response, if you have done that many of you
have, It doesn't stop you from being pulled down.
Feeling the gravity of the lower story, right?
You may be dealing with some circumstances right now.
Maybe even deal with them a long time.
Maybe there's something fresh going on in your life or
somebody that you love their life and you're just wrestling
struggling. And you're trying to manage it,
you're trying to deal with it. Maybe it's a simple problem
could be anything in your life. That's what these steps are for
for you to come up. And cast your cares upon Him.
The Bible says, because he cares for you just to lay it down.
At his feet. And for all the other things
that you might be dealing with you, what you need the most. you
need to be reminded and Jesus will remind you.
Up here on your knees. And in your heart, he'll say.
You know. I love you.
And when you hear that and you could respond your prayer.
Does it need to be eloquent? It doesn't need to be deeply
theological. It just needs to be and I love
you too. And if you know that he loves
you and you love him too, everything else is going to be.
All right would you stand with me?
Heavenly Father and Jesus name, would you please just take this
moment. Help us.
Father to have the courage to open the doors and windows of
our hearts. And just allow your spirit to
come in. Father to convict us enough to
create movement. So that we can approach you
because you came all the way from Heaven to Earth to be here
with us. Help us father to be ready to
respond in Jesus name.