The Gospel Booklet

Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are from: The Holy Bible, English Standard Version, copyright 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. All rights reserved.

TABLE OF CONTENTS Discovering Your Spiritual Identity .................................................. 2 Identity #1 - Lost ................................................................................ 4 Identity #2 - Religiously Lost ......................................................... 12 Identity #3 - Saved ........................................................................... 19

Gospel the

By Pastor Barry Keldie on behalf of the Providence Church Elders

Discovering Your Spiritual Identity A few years ago a national survey revealed a dangerous statistic concerning the mission of the local church. The study concluded that while many weekly attendees don’t consider themselves “Christians” they do believe they are going to heaven. It is estimated that only 61 percent of Protestant church attendees even claim to be “born-again” believers. In another more recent poll conducted by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, we learned that the basic idea of the “gospel” and “Christianity” was melting. Even the most theologically conservative denominations were losing their grasp on the true nature of the Christian faith. As the true identity of the Christian faith becomes less and less clear, we must fight for the purity and faithfulness of the true Gospel. These studies show us it is quite possible for believers and unbelievers alike to be involved in the same Bible studies, service organizations and churches. Both may be zealously devoted to prayer, tithing, and obeying God’s laws but are doing so out of radically different motives. This mixture of Christians and non-Christians is a great thing and part of the design of God, but we must not confuse the distinctions between the two groups. While we must always welcome and unconditionally love people in all stages of spiritual development, it is essential for each person to be able to discern their spiritual identity. Unfortunately, the current trends show many people confuse church attendance and morality with true salvation. True salvation occurs only when God allows a man or woman to see Him for who He really is. Upon seeing the fullness of God displayed through mercy,

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grace and love for a person, does he or she fall in love with Him. This change that moves a heart from hatred for God to love for God is called “regeneration” or “salvation.” The Bible says that salvation is when God removes a heart of stone from your chest and replaces it with a new heart of flesh able to love God fully (Ezk. 36:26-27). The Bible does not say that if you adhere to a certain moral code, then you will be saved. Instead, it says that if you love God, you have been saved. So how do you know if you have been truly saved? Do you simply attend church and do your best to be religious? Or is your devotion to the things of God birthed out of a new heart? Which are you? How do you know? Understanding your spiritual identity is essential to experiencing the life Jesus offers. Our objective in studying these identities in-depth is to provide an accurate lens through which all people can examine themselves. We will discuss three different spiritual identities found in the teachings of the Bible. We believe that every human being exists in one of these three spiritual states; saved, lost and religiously lost. Our goal is to help you recognize and understand your spiritual identity.

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IDENTITY #1 - LOST

What does it mean to be a non-Christian?

The first thing to understand about this spiritual identity is that all people begin here. The Apostle Paul says, “all men have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God,” (Romans 3:23). So what does this mean? Before we can rightly analyze the state of a fallen man, we need to know why we are fallen. The word “fallen” refers to the state of man in the sight of God. In Genesis 1:26 we see that God created man in his image; in Genesis 3 man sins and therefore “falls” from right standing before God. Because of man’s sin, he can no longer be in fellowship with God. Why? Because man (as in humanity) was created in God’s image in order to bring God glory. We glorify God most with our affections and longings for him. When we love something more than anything, that love speaks volumes about that thing’s beauty and value. The decision to sin is not just breaking a moral code, it is a direct attack on the glory and attractiveness of God. Sin is choosing something other than God as the ultimate provider of life and pleasure. The very decision to sin gives glory to other things. It proclaims that something else is more attractive or more useful than God. Romans 1 describes sinning as “worshipping and serving the created over the Creator,” (Romans 1:24). When the Bible speaks of the ‘image of God’ it speaks of our ability to image forth or glorify God with our lives. The purpose of all our lives is to glorify God or proclaim the excellence and value of God to the world. “I will say to the north, ‘Give them up!’ And to the south, ‘Do not hold them back.’ Bring My sons from afar And My daughters from the ends of the earth,

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Everyone who is called by My name, And whom I have created for My glory, Whom I have formed, even whom I have made.” Isaiah 43:6-7 “Whether, then, you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.” 1Corinthians 10:31 When man sinned, the image of God became distorted but not destroyed. This means there is still the possibility that we can proclaim the supreme beauty and value of God, but not in our present state. God still thinks so highly of His “distorted image” that in Genesis 9 God establishes the death penalty for murdering another human being because “…God made man in his own image” (Gen. 9:6).This is great news for humanity! It means that God has an unbridled passion for mankind — not because He needs us or because we have the ability to give Him glory by our own strength — but because we are beautifully crafted in His image. This totally debunks the teaching that says God loves those who are good and obedient to Him. God blesses disobedient people throughout the entire Bible [see: Genesis

9:20-27 (Noah), 16:1-2 (Abraham); 2 Samuel 11-12:15 (David); Matthew 26:69-75 (Peter) ]. If God did not bless disobedient people, I would be a dead man. God does

not only “save” and bless those who obey Him and want Him. This means that the primary reason “lost” people are “lost” is not because of their actions. Lost people cannot be defined by action; they are biblically defined by their affection. The fall of man was not merely the disobedient action of Adam and Eve, it was chiefly their unfaithful self-centeredness.

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The most biblical definition of sin I can find in the Bible is found in Jeremiah 2. Skies, be shocked at the things that have happened and shake with great fear!” says the LORD. “My people have done two evils: They have turned away from me, the spring of living water. And they have dug their own wells, which are broken wells that cannot hold water.” Jeremiah 2:12-13 (Century) This Scripture outlines the very nature of sin. It is not drinking, sex, skipping church or even robbing someone. It is forsaking God as your source of life and pleasure and looking for it in other things. Adam and Eve believed the serpent when he said they could be just like God and have life outside of God. That’s the sin that caused the fall of man! We are not damned for what we do on weekends; it’s what we long for and spend our life on that exposes us for who we really are. Most people think of sin in terms of breaking the rules God gave humanity in the Bible. They believe God is most disappointed when we break his moral code. Sinning, then becomes an issue of morality and the universal belief becomes the erroneous idea that good people go to heaven and bad people go to hell. So then, the goal of life is to be moral or good enough to get into heaven.

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This belief fails to look deep enough into life to see the real problem. “For no good tree bears bad fruit, nor again does a bad tree bear good fruit, for each tree is known by its own fruit. For figs are not gathered from thornbushes, nor are grapes picked from a bramble bush.The good person out of the good treasure of his heart produces good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure produces evil, for out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks.” Luke 6:43-45 As Jesus states, our actions or immorality are simply a symptom of a greater spiritual issue. Every action we have can be traced to an affection that birthed it. For example, a few years back my stepfather suffered from acute back pain. As time passed the back pain increased and brought with it migraine headaches. He went to the doctor and was treated for his pain. A few weeks later he fell ill one morning, and by noon he had passed away. The doctors did everything they could to treat his symptoms of back pain and headaches, but failed to diagnose and treat the cancer that birthed them. When we just see morality as the main issue, we are tragically underestimating the greater spiritual issue. Moralism and discipline can only address the symptoms while there is a much deeper root issue.

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If sin is found in our affections, not just our actions, and all people are inclined to sin, what does that mean? We are all prone to love lesser things.We are inclined to look to money, sex, work, movies and vacations for ultimate satisfaction instead of finding satisfaction in God.This means sin isn’t just wanting bad things but wanting any thing more than God. Sin can be turning a good thing into an ultimate thing. The Bible says that God is the giver of all good things, and he gives good things as an invitation to enjoy the greatest gift, Himself. “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above” James 1:17 The “good gifts” that God gives us, like children, friends, jobs and entertainment aren’t built to satisfy us, but to usher us closer to finding satisfaction in God. In those moments of sheer joy, like holding a newborn baby or enjoying that perfect sunset, God is saying to our souls, “Do you see how great this is, do you see how much joy this gives you? I can give you so much more. This is but a small taste of the satisfaction you can find in me!” The good things were never meant to give us ultimate satisfaction, but take to us closer to God, the real source of ultimate satisfaction. Our loving good things over the one who created those things not only hurts the reputation of God, it costs us joy. Imagine me being away from my wife and deciding to write her the sweetest love letter I could think of. I would sit down and with rhythm and prose describe in detail her beauty and my love for her. I would then drop it in the mail and wait for her response. One day she would open the door to a mailman who handed her my letter.

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She would open it, read it and hopefully, feel very loved. What if she then hugged and thanked the mailman? What if she then fell in love with the mailman for being so romantic and loving? She would be falling for the wrong guy. I wrote it, I thought it and I am the one who genuinely feels it The mailman is just the messenger! My letter was meant to make her love me more, yet she falls in love with the guy who handed it to her. That would be heartbreaking and unbelievable. Yet, when we take a good thing from God and make it an ultimate thing we are committing the same heartbreaking act of treason. In that illustration my letter to my wife represented joy and the mailman was the vehicle that carried joy to her. If she would just understand who wrote it for her and sent it to her, she would thank the vehicle and love the sender. God is inviting us to love him more with every good thing we enjoy. We must look past the vehicles that bring us joy and look to the one who gives new meaning to joy and new depth to love. Sin is giving anything else the supreme place of honor in our hearts or lives. This can be in the form of hating God, or just loving something else more than God. He designed us to enjoy the fullness of life, not desperately search for satisfaction. Our fallen state costs us a deep, meaningful relationship with Him and any chance at real joy and true happiness. “Be gracious to me, O God, according to Your lovingkindness; According to the greatness of Your compassion blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin. For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me.

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And done what is evil in Your sight, So that You are justified when You speak And blameless when You judge. Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, And in sin my mother conceived me.” Psalms 51:1-5

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IDENTITY #2 - RELIGIOUSLY LOST

Can you be lost even though you’ve attended church your whole life?

“Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter. “Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?’ “And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you who practice lawlessness.’” Matthew 7:21-23 Many people see this passage as one of the scariest Scriptures in the Bible because this states that you can be religious and lost. In other words, this says there is no safety in morality and religious disciplines. Because of the unnerving nature of this idea, many people never even take it into consideration. Jesus is talking to a crowd about religious people who had no real love for God. Imagine finding an ancient Incan treasure map guiding its finders to untold wealth. Upon finding the map you hire a translator to help you read the map. Unfortunately, he makes some critical errors upon translating the map. Without knowing the quality of his translation, you sell your car, your house, and the majority of your belongings in order to pay for the expedition. After months of travel you finally arrive at what you think is the place of your treasure.You feverishly dig but it yields nothing more than dirt. Simply because of these bad instructions, all you sold was for naught. You did all you could and were willing to sacrifice all, but even with all your efforts and best intentions, you now had nothing.

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In the same way many people are preaching and teaching that moralism or religious piety will save you.These things lead people to believe if they just try hard enough or stay really committed then they will reap the greatest treasure of all - heaven. But even with the best intentions and remarkable sacrifice, it will yield nothing in the end. Are you assured that the grace of God has changed your heart and you are growing in your love for God? Or are you still striving to find security in your ability to obey God’s laws? Bad spiritual instruction leads us to insecurity and a lack of peace resulting in questions like “How good is good enough?” Or “How dedicated must I be?” To truly discern your spiritual identity, you must take a honest look at your life and weigh the evidence.We will talk about two implications that while you may be religious or a good person you could still be lost.

ONE: SPIRTUAL LIFE BUILT ON A CHANGED MIND BUT NOT A CHANGED HEART Many people have categorized Christians and non-Christians as people who do “believe” in God and people who do not “believe” in God. This description is grossly inadequate. The Bible tells us that it is not enough to just believe in God, and it is not enough even to approve of God. “You believe that God is one.You do well; the demons also believe, and shudder.” James 2:19

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It is clear that the Bible demands more than belief and approval — it demands a miracle. Salvation is not just people agreeing with facts; it is a people who were hopelessly selfish and looking for joy in everything but God and then finding the hope and life they have been looking for in Christ. The most important change that takes place in a person when he is redeemed is his change in desire. If a person changes his mind about God, but still has a growing longing for sin, then it shows fruit of being counterfeit. The consequence of a changed mind and no change in heart is devastating.You live a life of forced morality that you find absolutely no joy in. So you believe in a God who you don’t know and you try to serve a God who you are not passionate about. “Now when they heard this, they were pierced to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “Brethren, what shall we do?” Peter said to them, “Repent, and each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.” Acts 2:37-38 Our belief plays a huge role in our spiritual identity. Obviously you can’t love a God you don’t believe in, but it is possible to believe in a God you don’t love.

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Knowing and loving are not synonymous. For Christians, belief goes much deeper than our mind. It pierces the heart. Christians are definitely commanded to live a certain way, but only in relation to their heart. God commands that we obey because we love! “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments.” John 14:15 We cannot obey to love; we obey because we love. Obedience will never produce love, but love will always produce obedience. Many of us who are not really believers, but are instead religious are caught in a cycle of modifying our behavior, but never growing in love for God. We come to events and church services, and we vow not to smoke or do drugs anymore, but that’s missing the point. This would be like marrying a woman you have never met and will never see.You have all the social, financial and physical responsibilities of a real commitment, but you don’t experience the emotional and affectional joys of a genuine relationship. This kind of relationship would be oppressive, not exploding with new life and new joy. This would be better described as slavery, not marriage. And God is not looking to enslave a group of people with moral principles. He is creating a wonderful love relationship with his people. He is described as the perfect “husband” desperately in love with his bride, the church (Ephesians 5:25). We should follow Christ in obedience, but the first step is a change in heart! Remember that the purpose of a Christian is to proclaim the infinite worth of God, not just be a better person.

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“Everyone who is called by my name whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and made.” Isaiah 43:7

TWO: SPIRITUAL LIFE BUILT ON ATTRITION ALONE, NOT CONTRITION I know these are words that you have probably never heard of, but they are the best ones I could find — so let me explain. These terms are used to describe two types of repentance. re·pen·tance, (noun) – turning away from sin and toward God. Repentance is turning away from sin or something that you have done wrong. Attrition and Contrition deal with the motivation behind your repentance. Attrition is repentance from sin or turning from guilt simply to escape punishment. It is like a child who steals a cookie and only feels remorse if he is caught. Contrition is repentance based on remorse for your wrong doing. Contrition is repentance that comes from legitimate sorrow over your sin and the defamation of God’s name. Unfortunately many people have heard a gospel presentation built on attritional repentance. Preachers told us to fear hell more than they told us to love God. If I only lived with my wife out of fear of being alone, would that be love? Of course my love for her would create a great fear of being without her, but the root of our relationship must be love, not fear.

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Many who believe they are saved accepted Christ only so they would not go to hell. This is not the true repentance that the Bible calls for. As Isaiah states below, the proper response in realizing one’s own sinfulness is sorrow over what you have done and then humble repentance yielding salvation. If your salvation experience had no regret or sorrow over sin, then you may well be religiously lost. “…This is the one I esteem: he who is humble and contrite in spirit, and trembles at my word.” Isaiah 66:2 Why is it necessary to feel sorrow for sin in “real” repentance? Belief alone is not enough to be saved, and belief alone is what breeds turning from your sin with no real regret. The goal of repentance is much more than feeling bad about yourself. In fact it is not about you at all. Sorrow in repentance is necessary to show the infinite value of God’s glory and the value it holds in your life. If you loved your car and you wrecked it, would you be upset? You would if you really loved the car. If you did not care about the car then your feelings would be much less intense. The same is true regarding the reputation of Christ and his glory. If you really love Christ then you will be devastated when you wreck spiritually and your sin does damage to his reputation. You will feel disappointment when you cause a dent in the glory of God. Our sorrow is not simply for sorrow’s sake; it is a proof of Christ’s worth to us, which is a proof of genuine salvation!

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IDENTITY #3 - SAVED

What does it mean to truly believe? 19

“Test yourselves to see if you are in the faith; examine yourselves! Or do you not recognize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you — unless indeed you fail the test?” 2 Corinthians 13:5 It is very important for believers to test themselves continually because the major mark of a true believer is perseverance. The Bible says that the real fruit of salvation is that your faith continues to grow and flourish forever! The real way we determine if we are true believers is to test ourselves for persevering faith! Read this quote by Pastor John Piper: “I’ll be very personal to give it its sharpest point. If in the coming years I commit apostasy and fall away from Christ, it will not be because I have not tasted of the word of God and the Spirit of God and the miracles of God. I have drunk of his word. The Spirit has touched me. I have seen his miracles and I have been his instrument for a few. But, if over the next ten or twenty years, John Piper begins to cool off spiritually and lose interest in spiritual things and become more fascinated with making money and writing Christless books; and I buy the lie that the church of Christ is a drag and that the incarnation is a myth and that there is one life to live so let us eat, drink and be merry – if that happens, then know that the truth is this: John Piper was mightily deceived in the first fifty years of his life. His faith was an alien vestige of his father’s joy. His fidelity to his wife was a temporary passion and compliance with social pressure; his fatherhood the outworking of natural instincts. His preaching was driven by love of words and crowds. His writing was a love affair with fame. And his praying was the deepest delusion of all – an attempt to get God to supply the resources of his vanity.”

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So the question becomes this: How do I know if I am on a path of persevering faith? What does a faith that lasts forever look like when it’s a year old or two months old or two days old? How do I know? The great news is that you can know that you are saved and that your heart has been changed. “These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you may know that you have eternal life.” 1 John 5:13 You will know if God’s thoughts are slowly becoming your thoughts and if His concerns are becoming your concerns. The search for assurance of your salvation begins in a place of glaring honesty with yourself.Again, I will give you two evidences to help you see where you are in your relationship with Christ.

2 Evidences of Biblical Christianity ONE: SPIRITUAL LIFE BUILT ON REPENTENCE NOT RITUAL True repentance is birthed out of brokenness over our sin in response to God’s holiness. This version of repentance is best defined: “Repentance is a heartfelt sorrow for sin, a renouncing of it, and a sincere commitment to

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forsake it and walk in obedience to Christ.”2 This definition will help clarify exactly what we mean when we say “repentance.” Biblical Christianity is built on continuing personal repentance and not the consistent rituals of mass religion. Continuing personal repentance says that I am constantly seeking the Lord to grow in me and to make me a more God-saturated believer. It admits that we are in sin and need help. On the other hand, a priority placed on rituals says that if I just walk this aisle or read this book or say this prayer or continue to go to church then I am okay. Many American Christians place their hope of assurance in the fact that they said “the prayer” years ago, instead of looking for evidences of Gods work in them through the Spirit. Many believers believe that their rituals can do the job of repentance even without evidence of genuine life change (Gal. 5:22). Sadly, they are wrong. John Calvin describes genuine repentance like this: “But this confession, as it is made to God, must be in sincerity; and the heart cannot speak to God without newness of life: it then includes true repentance. God, indeed, forgives freely, but in such a way, that the facility of mercy does not become an enticement to sin.” Commentary on the Catholic Epistles As Calvin so eloquently states saving belief is always accompanied with repentance and never with emotional entitlement to sin. True believers feel grief over their sin.

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“What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase? May it never be! How shall we who died to sin still live in it? Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death? Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.” Romans 6:1-4 Forgiveness or grace involves two aspects. The first is widely known and understood, it is that Jesus paid for all our sins and took our punishment on the cross. But this doesn’t turn grace into leniency. Grace is not God looking the other way concerning your sin. Yes, Jesus paid for all our sins, but that’s only half the wonder of grace. The second aspect of grace is the effectual nature of it. Christ not only took on our punishment, but He also gives us his righteousness! So not only does He pay our future penalty for sin, He imputes us with His righteousness to fight the current effects of sin in our lives. “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” 2 Corinthians 5:21 So grace has an active nature to it, it accomplishes something. Most people think of grace as leniency, taking away the action we deserve, but grace is also actively producing new life in us. The Apostle Paul gives credit to grace for changing his life, “But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain,” (1 Corinthians 15:10). How can leniency accomplish this?

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It can’t, but grace can. So grace isn’t a “get out of jail free card,” it is a change of life. It both pays for the crime and then transforms criminals into holy men. So you see, the nature of true forgiveness doesn’t encourage more sinning, it actively destroys our longings to continue sinning.

TWO: AFFECTIONS VS. ACTIONS The most common misconception about Christianity is that we are simply policed morally. Most people believe that God’s primary concern is our morality or our actions. Much of the modern church spends most of its time telling people what not to do while the New Testament spends its time telling people what not to love. “Do not love the world nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.” 1 John 2:15 Many of the religious lost are caught up in a battle of right and wrong actions when the real war is over greater and lesser affections. The war of your soul is won or lost in your heart. God is most concerned with what or who you invest your heart in. When asked which is the greatest commandment, Jesus answered,

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“And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.” Mark 12:30 Now am I saying that we should not be concerned with our actions? No.Your actions or obedience to God’s law (the Bible) is a direct reflection of your love for Him. Your obedience is important because it is a direct reflection of how much you care for the glory of God. Our hatred for sin and longing for holiness is evidence of a hatred for things that would rob us of seeing and grasping the fullness of God and a longing to find our joy and pleasure in Him alone. Our actions or obedience show our determination to be satisfied in Christ alone, and not the counterfeit pleasures of the world. “You will make known to me the path of life; In Your presence is fullness of joy; In Your right hand there are pleasures forever.” Psalms 16:11 Authentic Christianity, with all of its promised joy, peace, security and life, is found in a heart that longs for God and a life that is not satisfied by the emptiness found in social or vocational achievement. It is a life that hates the dimness of things that do not have eternal benefit, and that revels in the recklessness of a life spent on God!

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CONCLUSION

What do I do with this information? This booklet was written to help people discover the state of their souls, and it doesn’t get more personal than that. If you read one of these sections and thought “this is me” we would love to help you discover what might be the best next step for you. If anything in this booklet brought up questions or concerns please contact us at [email protected]

Our desire is to glorify God through lives changed by the gospel of Jesus Christ.

1) The Barna Group - http://www.barna.org/FlexPage.aspx?Page=Topic&TopicID=8 – ‘Born Again’ – “Protestant church attenders are more than twice as likely than are Catholic church attenders to be born again Christians (61% to 26%, respectively). (2007)” 2) Systematic Theology, by Wayne Grudem