Episode 16 - The Gospel

Speaker 1 00:00:07 Hello and welcome to the unveiling with your hostess aj, Mark and Tim, three guys discussing the one true gospel. We hope you enjoy today's discussion. Let's dive right in. Speaker 1 00:00:24 Welcome back to the unveiling aj, Mark and Tim here. As always, today is episode 16 and we've kind of completed a series on debunking Christian myths, talking a lot about as we teach the gospel, what it truly is and what it truly isn't. And mostly we've been focusing on what it isn't. So we thought we'd try and get back to what is the true gospel message? What is the grace of God? Now, I think we can all agree that most Christians actually believe in the grace of God. It's just a matter of how long and what for, I think, I think most people understand God's grace at the time of salvation using the most popular verse in the Bible. Chm three 16 says, For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that who should ever believe in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. Speaker 1 00:01:22 And a lot of Christians say, That's it. That's where the grace of God is. He found me. I was sinful. I needed help and I wanted everlasting life. So I've been forgiven, I've been saved, and I'm going to heaven. But they really don't think of the gospel as being a lot of good news after that. They kind of look at it, the Christian life as still a series of things you have to do, uh, or say or be, uh, so that you can show the world your Christian faith, or you can feel pious. I, I'm not sure what all the motivations are, but it's really not true. There's so much more to the one true gospel then just a list of dos and don'ts after you've been saved. And it doesn't just cover your salvation, it covers your life. So guys, I'm gonna pass it over to you and say what, what have you to say from there, Speaker 2 00:02:16 Uh, before RJ takes away, I just wanna, I just wanna interject one quick little thing. Tim, you made a statement at the beginning that you believe most people know what the grace of God is, but only in connection to salvation and not as far as living your Christian life, which I would agree with up until a point. And I would just add a little tag to that. Most people think they know what grace really is, and that's, and if, if they everybody really did know completely, then we wouldn't even need the unveiling, obviously. But they don't. And that's what today is specifically about, is to try to shed light on what it really is. I agree with you as far as there are many that do understand, but they just think it's for salvation. And, uh, we're gonna go talk more of a wide scope on the word gospel. So take us away aji. Speaker 3 00:03:10 Yeah. So I would like to start off with, you know what the gospel is in very simple terms. In fact, you know, gospel includes a lot, but at the same time, you know, the gospel is explained in such a way that even a small kid can receive it. You know, we talk about Paul a lot on, you know, on our podcast, but, uh, have you ever wondered, you know, what Paul actually preached and what, you know, when he went out, you know, what he would've preached, But, uh, by grace of God, you know, we don't have to wonder, we have a preaching or a sermon of the Paul word for word in Acts 13. It might take a little bit of time, but you know, I would like to start with that and then expand from there. So Acts chapter 13 from 26 till 39, Paul was invited to Antioch. Speaker 3 00:04:00 He was in fact, you know, talking to the Jews in the synagogue. And there were gentiles also present. And then one of the Jewish leaders asked, Hey, you know, does anyone have anything to say? Then Paul gets up and then he starts with the, the history of Jews. But, you know, I want to start from verse 26. He says, Men and brethren, son of the family of Abraham, and those among you who fear God to you, the word of salvation has been sent for those who had dwell in Jerusalem and their rulers because they did not know him. Not even the voices of the prophets which are read every Sabbath, have them in condemning him. And though they found no cause for death in him, they asked pilot that he should be put to death. Now, when they had fulfilled all that was written concerning him, they took him down from the tree and laid him in a tomb. Speaker 3 00:04:56 But God raised him from the dead. He was seen for many days by those who came up with him from Galilee to Jerusalem, who are his witnesses to the people. And we declared to you the glad tidings, that promise which was made to the fathers, God has fulfilled this for us, they children, in that he raised Jesus up as it is also returned the second Psalm, You are my son today, I have begotten you. And that he raised him from the dead. No more to to corruption. He has spoken to us. I will give you the sure message of David. Therefore, he also says, in none of this psalm, you will not allow your holy one to see corruption. For David, after he has served his own generation by the will of God, fell asleep, was buried with his fathers and saw corruption, But he whom God raised up saw no corruption. Speaker 3 00:05:50 Therefore, let it be known unto your brethren that through this man is preached to you the forgiveness of sins. And by him, everyone who believes is justified from all things from which you could not be justified by the law of Moses. So he, he just stops here, you know, that is a gospel. So it was, uh, preached to both the Jews and the Gentiles. And the, at the heart of the gospel is we see three things, right? Jesus was crucified and Jesus raised from the dead. And in the name of Jesus, forgiveness is preached. Forgiveness of since is preached. And by him, everyone who believes in the Lord Jesus Christ, he is justified from all things from which you could not be justified by the law of Moses. Justification means, you know, our sins are forgiven, and then we are given the gift of righteousness. Speaker 3 00:06:44 So they both happen simultaneously. All our sins are removed. And at the same time, you know, we are made righteous, not by our works, but by the work of Lord Jesus Christ, by his death, burial, and resurrection. We are made righteous, you know, at the core, right? In very simple terms, this is a gospel. We are forgiven of our sins through faith in Jesus Christ without any of our works, but simply we believing Lord Jesus Christ. But you know, when we are saved, right? When we are given the gift of righteousness, when we are made righteous, there is much more We receive, the Bible calls it as inheritance, and the Bible calls it as so great as salvation. So we receive a much more when our sins are forgiven. Gospel is not just forgiveness of sins, but at the court, the gospel is receiving the forgiveness of, and when we receive the forgiveness of sins, we also receive the Holy Spirit and we receive the life of Christ himself, and we, um, receive this great inheritance. And I'm sure you know, Mark, you're going to talk about that. Speaker 2 00:07:52 Yeah, I j I'd love to bounce off of what you just said, that salvation, the gospel is so much more than just forgiveness of sins. Now, most people know that most Christians, even people that aren't Christians, know that, oh, Christ died to take my sin, to forgive me of my sin. But I wanna read you a key scripture here. And first of all, I just wanna tell you that the actual word itself gospel in the Greek is evangelian. And in Hebrew it's EU Gillian. And that means good news, good tidings. And let me just ask somebody a very frank question. How many times have you been somewhere when somebody started to tell you about Christ or preach if you're in a church? And it didn't sound that like that good a news. How many times has that happened? It's happened to me so many times, right there tells you a big red flag should wave over your head and beeper should, eh, eh, eh, this is not the gospel because the, the gospel is not just the good news, it's the greatest news ever. Speaker 2 00:08:58 And listen to what the apostle Paul says about it. He said, For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes. Now what you're really, to get the full meaning of this, you need to look at what the Greek word for salvation is. That word is sozo, S o Z o. And it means so much more than just forgiveness of sins, although it does mean that, and that's all Christ brought us on the cross. That would still be awesome, but it's even better news than that. And that is sozo means to make whole, to preserve, to keep safe and sound, to rescue from danger, to save a suffering ro one, to restore to health, uh, to physically heal, to deliver from your enemy. There's a really famous Bible concordance called Strong's, exhaustive concordance. Speaker 2 00:09:58 And I love what they conclude here. They say salvation then must mean more than simply being saved to go to heaven when you die. It does not only affect the spiritual eternal realm, Jesus also came to deliver, protect, and provide for us in this physical world right now, to be biblically saved means there are also earthly effects on our lives today. Not only are you free from the judgment in wrath of God, this salvation also includes the ability to resist temptation to be set free from attack and oppression and to receive healing in our physical bodies. It's just, and I love how what AJ alluded to, that the Apostle Paul called all the things we receive from Salvation Sozo. He called it the riches of God's glorious inheritance. What a wonderful, I couldn't imagine coining a more powerful, beautiful term for what Christ did for us on the cross. Speaker 2 00:11:04 And when you take that all up and you put it into a crucible, I'll allude to the scripture that, uh, Tim gave us. It all boils down to God's love. And I don't know that I believe everybody in the world thinks God is a loving God. Many thinks he, many think he's an angry God, a wrathful God, and not just in other religions or, uh, but also within the Christian religion. And so my three favorite gospel versus are the one that Tim just said, For God's so love the world. John three 16, Ephesians two, four says, Because of his great love for us, God who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ. Titus three, four said, When the kindness and love of God appeared, he saved us. And finally, uh, in John one, the apostle John, who was the closest friend of Jesus while he was on earth, said that when God gave Jesus, he gave us grace. In place of grace already given. When God looks at humanity saved or unsaved, he looks through the eyes of grace and through love. That's the very reason why he sent Christ for us. Speaker 1 00:12:22 And if I could add just one more verse to that list, Mark, my, one of my favorites is that God loved us in that while we were yet sinners, he sent Christ to die for us when we were at our worst, He knew us and knew what we needed and still did Speaker 2 00:12:37 It. Yeah, that's one of my favorite points is that when we were at our worst, God gave us his best. Scripture says that before we come to Christ, we're dead in transgression. We're enemies of the cross. We are without God and without hope in the world. And that's because of his great love for us. He sent the most valuable thing, He had the most costly thing, and that was his precious son to die for us. That's the good news. Speaker 3 00:13:06 Yeah. In fact, uh, the miracle of the gospel is like you said, you know, Christ died for us when we are still sinners, He takes his sinner and makes him righteous without any contribution from the sinner. You know, that is a miracle of the gospel. I would like to quickly go back to the same verses that you just read, uh, mark, uh, Romans one 16 and 17. And I want to point out one more thing from here, which many of us miss, were 16, for I'm not ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ, for it is a power of God and to salvation to everyone who believes for the Jew first and also for the Greek, for they in the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith. So the reason, if you read both of our together, most of us, sometimes we just read verse 16 and we say, Gospel is a power of God. Speaker 3 00:13:59 But six, seven, verse 17 says, Why it is a power of God. It is a power of God because in the gospel, a righteousness from God is revealed from faith to faith. Yeah. For in this righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith as it is written that just shall live by faith. So what we receive here is in the righteousness of God, right? When we are made righteous, it is the power of God for us. And righteousness is much more than just forgiveness of sin. Like you said, you know, forgiveness of sins is like there is a sinner, and then he commits a crime, right? And then you go to the court and the judge says, Okay, I'm forgiving you, meaning that I'm pardoning you. The sin is the punishment for the sin is remote, but essentially you're still a sinner. And in your record, the sin is still there. Speaker 3 00:14:55 So for all practical and real reasons, a sinner is still a sinner, but just the punishment is remote. But that's not what happens in the gospel. In the gospel, he actually removes our sins. And that's why, you know, Paul says in Roman chapter four, right? Blessed is a man to whom the Lord does not impute sin. So what's happening in the gospel, forgiveness is not only the punishment is removed, but the imputation of sin is remove. In other words, God doesn't treat us as a sinner, but rather treats us as righteous and sin all our sins are removed from us, and they're actually put on Lord Jesus Christ. God never sees us as a sinner. So we are basically seen as righteous forever. And that is a reason, you know, we are actually qualified to receive the life of Christ, and that life of Christ is our inheritance, which includes all the things that you just talked about in our salvation. Yeah, Speaker 2 00:15:51 I love that scripture, aj. And what a lot of people don't realize that scripture that says the righteous will live by faith from first to last, that scripture actually changed the world we live in according to historians more than any other time other than the coming when Christ first came. And that's because that's the scripture that Martin Luther could not get out of his head. He wrestled with it. He wrestled with what does this mean? He had lived a religious life, just incredible sacrifice and works and trying to be holy. And yet he was empty inside and he couldn't get this out of his head. And when the Holy Spirit showed him what this meant, that the only righteousness is the righteousness of God that comes to Christ, he said that even after years of being a Christian and a theologian, he felt he was born again. And out of that was born the great reformation. That basically was a rediscovery of the one true gospel that we're talking about today. Speaker 1 00:16:56 One thing you mentioned, Ajay, was that God saved us with no effort on our part. And if we were that dirty and we needed that much salvation and we couldn't do anything about it ourselves in that condition, then when we accepted the gospel, when we found ourselves as Christians, what makes us suddenly believe that we can do anything more? We can't resave ourselves. We've already been saved. We can't do anything to change our condition or our position. God is already doing it all for us. And we have not to work but to receive. No, Speaker 3 00:17:35 That is so true, Tim. You know, in fact, that is one of the errors, right? So I think many of the Christians and pretty much all the evangelical churches preach salvation by grace alone, right? In fact, I think that is also something we can address. But most, for the most part, they believe that, you know, we are saved by grace alone without any of our works. But as soon as we are saved, then they say, now that you are saved, you have to obey, You have to keep the law. You know, you need to keep your salvation. Essentially what they're saying is you need to keep your salvation by your obedience, by the works of the law, by your self effort. And in fact, you know, we have spent a lot of time in our podcast, uh, basically debunking that. And, uh, we have been telling, and that is our strong position, right? That just as we are saved by grace alone, we are also kept by grace alone. And we walk this Christian life and live this Christian life by grace alone without any works of the law. Speaker 2 00:18:34 One of the, uh, the term we're using for this podcast is one true gospel. And we got that originally from Galatians one. One, which I believe I could probably speak for us, is one of our favorite verses. That first chapter of Gala Galatians Paul says, I'm astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you to live in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel, which is really no gospel at all. And some translations say that it called you into the grace of Christ. Same thing it's telling us there, that living in the grace of Christ, being in Christ is the only gospel. Any other gospel is no gospel. And and Paul goes on to say, Evidently some people are throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert the gospel of Christ. Now listen, how serious he gets here, but even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preach to you, let them be under God's curse. Now, of course, no angel's ever gonna come down and preach a different gospel, but Paul's just making the point. I don't care if one even did, or even I, Paul, the foremost preacher of the gospel were to change to something else. He said, Let me be cursed. That's some very strong words. Speaker 3 00:20:02 Yeah. In fact, the different gospel from the context we can understand that, you know, the different gospel that Paul is referring to is adding works to grace, right? So adding the a bring, trying to bring back the law or adding works to justification or even adding works to sanctification, that is a different gospel. In fact, it's, uh, beautiful that in, uh, Galatians, Paul builds upon starting with this, right? He first addresses those who are actually adding works to justification. In chapter two, he clearly says that, you know, we know that we are justified by faith alone without any works of the law. And then moving on to chapter three, I think this is where we spend most of the time, is he's also addressing people who add works to sanctification or Christian walk. So if I may, you know, we read this verse, this scripture several times, but I would like to read one more time in, uh, Galatians chapter three, starting from World four Oh foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you that you should not obey the truth before whose eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed among you crucified. Speaker 3 00:21:16 This only I want to learn from you. Did you receive the spirit by the works of the law or by hearing of faith, are you so foolish having begin in the spirit, you are now made perfect by the flesh? Have you suffered so many things in vain? If you, if it indeed was vain, Therefore, he who supplies the spirit to you and works miracles among you, does he do it by the works of the law or by hearing of faith? Just as Abraham believed God and it was countered to him for righteousness. So again, you know, he's pointing back to the righteousness. You know, we said gospel is at the core, is actually being made righteous without any of the works. He's saying, Justice, we are made righteous. Now we walk by the spirit, right? And we walk in the freedom from the domain of sin, not by the works of the law, again, by the hearing of faith, just by hearing and believing, right? We receive the Holy Spirit and we walk in the Holy Spirit. Speaker 1 00:22:18 Okay? So we've talked a little bit about our righteousness and justification and salvation. And now when it comes to living the Christian life under the gospel, I think that that's where the gospel truly shines and becomes such good news for us, because our life is radically transformed from the inside out, not by anything we do or can do or will do, but by the indwelling of God within us, with Jesus and the Holy Spirit. And the benefits that come out of that is where I want to throw a little impact into the punch here of what the good news really is. We can, we no longer have to work to be right with God. We still mess up. We can still make mistakes, we can still hurt ourselves and others, but God's not gonna hold that against us. So we have the ability to shake it off and move forward more or less. And, and besides that, and if you wanna go into that a little more, that's fine. But besides that, what else? What else is so good news uplifting and helpful for us? Speaker 3 00:23:26 Yeah. So one of the greatest news is, uh, as Paul says, blessed is a man to whom the Lord does not impute sin. So we are able to live a life free of condemnation. You know, people do not realize what's, what a great blessing that is to live without guilt and condemnation. Because if you think about it, everything in the world apart from Lord Jesus Christ is driven by guilt and fear and condemnation and shame all the time. You know, we are trying to either prevent ourselves from being in a situation where we are shamed or we are committing some secrets since, and feeling guilty about that. And even the things that we do are mostly motivated by fear, are guilt. But, you know, living a guilt free, guilt-free life, a life free of condemnation, that's the ultimate freedom. And everything comes out of that. Speaker 3 00:24:23 No condemnation. The life that we have without any condemnation. And the other blessing, you know, that I would say is many of us probably think that, you know, oh, forgiveness substance is basic. Oh yeah, let's move on to something else. But it's not a basic thing, right? That is the truth that we live by every day because as Christians, even as Christians, as we live in this world every day, you know, we do something that is sinful, right? It could be not those gross sense, but even losing temper, right? Being impatient and saying unkind words, all those are, are even evil thoughts. They're all sinful. So we need this forgiveness. We need to be reminded of our forgiveness every single day. And we need to live this life of no condemnation every single day. And from this gift of no condemnation, gift of forgiveness, springs forth our love for God and for others as well. Speaker 3 00:25:15 That's why the Lord Jesus said, you know, when he went to, uh, the, I think Simon, the far house, right? He was there sitting, and then this woman who is so called a sinner comes to him, right? And then everyone is surprised and damaged and, uh, kind of talking behind the back. Why is that woman here? If he's such a saint, he won't be associating with sinners. Then she comes and breaks a bottle of perfume, and then he wor she worships him, right? So, and the Lord Jesus said, You know, for whom much is forgiven the same is the one that loves the most. So having this gift of no condemnation, having this sense of forgiveness every day from there springs for the love in our hearts by that love, you know, we are able to love others and also you allow God and love others as well. And I think the greatest benefit is basically the freedom, the freedom that springs forth from the gospel and the from the forgiveness of sins. And now what are we do? We do not do because to get something from God or because we are feeling guilty or we are doing something to, um, escape punishment, but we are truly, uh, doing things out of true freedom and a love, you know, that comes from our heart. That's one of the greatest blessings. Speaker 2 00:26:40 And I would say there's one we're forgetting that as awesome as all those blessings and that inheritance is, there's one that stands just above them all. And that is the greatest blessing of the gospel is God himself at the point of our salvation, God gives us his spirit. He gives of a, he gives us himself. We become the children of God. He's our Father, our daddy. And the Apostle Paul constantly prayed for the children of God, that God would give them the spirit of wisdom and revelation to know him better. That's what the Christian life is. It's not about what we do, it's about knowing God, knowing him better, getting to know him more, living closer to him. One of my favorite writers is aw Tozer. And I just thought he put it perfectly. He said, The Christian life is none other than the gays of the soul. At its savior, Jesus is our inheritance. He's our portion. He's, he's, he is the gospel. He's what we receive. All these other things are awesome, freedom and righteousness. Those are great because we have him in us and because of what he's done for us. But that's what, to me, the the greatest blessing is, and I think we all all know that down deep in our souls, and that's who else also said, I think it was one of the old church fathers said that our souls are restless until they find peace in Speaker 3 00:28:15 You. That is so true. Uh, Mark, in fact, you know, that is the greatest blessing that, you know, we become the children of God through the gospel. What righteousness does is it is not just so much of united say, Oh, my sins are forgiven, and that's it. But righteousness is the nature of Christ themselves. Because of the righteousness we receive the life of Christ, and because of that life of Christ, we are able to have communion and fellowship with God the Father. And in fact, by the gospel, we are invited into the Trinity, you know, God, the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit are in the, are in this, uh, uh, uh, joyful communion, right through all eternity, loving each other. Now, the Bible says, you know, from the beginning, God pretty stand us to to be his children, right? It says, You're not, He predestined to be conformed to the image of our Lord Jesus Christ, so that Lord Jesus can be the first born of many brethren. Speaker 3 00:29:14 In other words, you know, God was not satisfied with just three people, family in one sense, He wanted to bring many more children into this family. And unless we shared the life of Christ, we cannot really have the true communion with God himself. You know, I was talking the other day, you know, we have pets and dogs, right? We love them, but they can really not, they really cannot in with us at the human level because they don't have the human life in them. Similarly, you know, when God saved us, it was not just enough for God to just, uh, love us as God as human beings, right? He wanted to share the same life with us. That's why, you know, he gives us a gift of righteousness, and then he gives us a life of Lord Jesus Christ. So that just as Lord Jesus is a son of God, we can also be his children sharing in his love and loving him back and loving one another. Speaker 3 00:30:11 So the ultimate goal for us as Christians is just to be part of the family of God. And for that reason, he saved us, right The first time in the Garden of Eden, the whole purpose is, you know, the tree of life is Lord Jesus himself. He gave us a choice even without the fall. You know, He gave us a choice to eat up the tree of knowledge of good and evil or the tree of life. In other words, you know, either you eat from the law or you eat from grace or Lord Jesus Christ. But at that time, we missed the mark and eight of the tree of knowledge of good and evil and the whole humanity fellow. But God came after us, right? His original purpose was fellowship. He wanted us to be his children. So he came after us, He redeemed us, and now he gives us a choice again to participate of the Tree of Life. And through this gift of righteousness, we participate in the life of Lord Jesus Christ so that we can be the family of God, having this joyful fellowship and communion and love with him forever and ever. So like you said, Mark, I think the ultimate purpose is to knowing God again. Knowing God is not simply knowing us, oh Almighty are all powerful, but knowing him as our father and knowing the love of Christ Speaker 2 00:31:28 Experiencing him. Speaker 3 00:31:30 Yeah, Speaker 2 00:31:31 I love at the end of, uh, the first paragraph of Galatians four, it says, For you are no longer servants or slaves, but children of God. And if children, then heirs of God in Coheirs with Christ, the amount of distance we've traveled from who we were before we came to Christ, to who we are now, is just astronomical, going from enemies dead in our transgression being made, you know, no longer being slaves to the law, slaves to sin. Now we are the children of God and much more than the children, we are heirs and co-heirs of all that Christ, that all that Christ has received for his sacrifice on the cross. Speaker 3 00:32:21 Yep. In fact, Tim, you asked, you know, like what are the benefits, right? What are all the other things that we have in the gospel? One of the o other, not one of the other. The same benefit that we have is, uh, once we are saved, right? Once we come into the family of God, we'll have to change our thinking. Also, before we were thinking like slaves, like Mark said, but now we know we change our mindset to start thinking like children, like sons and daughters. So the son and daughter mindset is totally different from a servant mindset. So servant mind is like, you know, they're doing something because they're paid. But for us it's more like, you know, we are sons, we are the owners. And in fact, in Hebrews it says, Moses served God as a servant, but Jesus Christ served as a son. So the example is, you know, if a rental car, right? Versus the car that we own, so the rental car, we just keep it clean so that, you know, we don't get charged when they rent it, right? But the car that we own, we keep it clean because we own it, right? That's a difference. So now as a children of God, having a sun mindset is different. So even when I love somebody or do something for somebody, I'm doing it more as a son, not as a servant. Speaker 2 00:33:45 Yeah. You know, that's been a thought that's been in my mind lately because I think I share with you guys a while ago that I don't like the terminology servants of God. Oh, we're gonna serve God, serve God, because Jesus said, I no longer call you servants. Uh, the prodigal son returned home wanting to become a servant, and the father was like, Forget that. Here's a gold ring sandals, here's a robe, we're throwing a party. And uh, and Paul said to the aerial Paus as well, that, uh, you shouldn't think that God is served by human hands. And but we still do serve each other and, and we serve God in a manner as though a child would serve their father. That's different than a, than a slave. A servant serves its master. Speaker 3 00:34:35 Yeah. In fact, in this world, the only way we can serve God is by serving others, right? Because we don't literally see God in this world. The only way to serve God is by serving others. Speaker 2 00:34:45 And that's because of his great love for others. As Jesus said, you give the least of all of these even a cup, water it as though you did it for me. Because he loves even the least that much that he's counting it as you doing it for him. Speaker 3 00:35:01 Yeah. Yeah. I know, Tim, I think we are approaching time, but I just want to touch on one thing before we probably close today is, uh, we talked about the gospel for, you know, both Christians and unbelievers, right? So for those who do not have, have not at received law, Jesus Christ that I have not known him as a savior are for those who are considering the gospel and they really don't know what this salvation is about. I just want to touch upon that. We talked about it a lot, but you know, in the gospel, in order to receive the forgiveness of sinor in order to receive Christ himself, it is all by grace. Bible says, you know, we are saved by grace through faith and not of works. So it's very important to understand that in order to be saved, there's nothing for us to do. Speaker 3 00:35:48 All we have to do is believe. And, uh, nothing, nothing from our side is required. The only thing is, uh, belief. You know, some of us, especially those you know, who are struggling with some addictions, are deep down mire. And some since they might think, you know, before I am qualified for receiving Christ, I have to do something. I have to clean up my life. You know, I just wanted to say that because this has been a, uh, stumbling block for me before I came to Christ. So I just want to read one quote, my favorite quote from, um, Walter Marshall that actually opened my eyes to grace. So hopefully it'll help others also. So I just want to read that we are not imagine that our hearts and lives must be changed from sin to holiness in any measure before we may safely venture to trust on Christ for the sure enjoyment of himself and his salvation. So our lives, there's zero change required in our lives before we can trust on Jesus Christ as our savior and receive him into our life and receive the forgiveness and eternal our life and the great salvation that we are talking about. Speaker 1 00:36:53 I appreciate that I j I really do. And despite the time, and yes, we are running up against our time limit, but I do unfortunately have one more thing I think we wanna say. We used the term, and I've used it a couple times in this episode already, the one true gospel. And we've had many discussions about using that term because some of us feel that it might be too exclusive or divisive. I would say, I'm gonna start this by saying religion, any religion by it's very nature is exclusive. You have to believe that set of beliefs, that set of ideals, that set of ideas, uh, uh, and not any others. And so that's, that's part of it. And the other thing is by saying the one true gospel, we're afraid that what people are hearing is that we are preaching a gospel, a different gospel that is the true gospel than what we're trying to say. Speaker 1 00:37:45 And what we're trying to learn and what we're trying to live is the gospel is taught to us by the new covenant and under the, under the grace that Paul has taught so much about and so many others have taught about in the New Testament of the Bible. Uh, mark, I mark ij, uh, I want to give you guys a chance to respond to that as well. We're not doing something different. We're not doing, This isn't of us and it's not our beliefs. It's what we honestly, truly, deeply feel is what the Bible is trying to tell us. Speaker 2 00:38:17 Yeah. If I could bounce off that, Tim, if you look at every other world, religion belief system, atheism, secular humanism, you could just name it, You have to believe this and that you have to do this and that don't do this, and that you can't speak this way. You must speak this way when you boil the whole thing down. I think I already mentioned the gospel is love. I was actually wrong. The gospel is Jesus himself. He is the good news. And that's how Christianity differs from every other single religion in the world, including the Christian religion which was created by men that were trying to take Christ himself and turn him in to some type of religion. It's not, it's Christ himself. He is the ultimate good news. We're talked a lot today about his coming and, and what he represents. Love and grace and forgiveness of sins and healing and, and our becoming children of God. But when it all, all boils down to it, he is the gospel. He is grace. And, and I don't know if we've, uh, defined it, but grace is the undeserved, unmarried, unearned favor or love of God. Favor and love are pretty much interchangeable. Speaker 3 00:39:35 Yeah, I couldn't agree with you more, Mark. Jesus is the gospel. And I just want to add, you know, the gospel that we are preaching is the same gospel that Paul preached, that Martin Luther preached and even what Jesus preached. So we are not inventing a new gospel. We are just clarifying what the one gospel is by which we are saved. Speaker 1 00:39:57 All right guys, Well, with that, I think we're gonna wrap it up for tonight. Thank you everybody for letting us into your ears. We look forward to coming back again next week. And in the meantime, if you have any questions, comments, concerns, please reach out to us, communicate with us, email, Facebook page. It's all coming up here in just a moment. Thanks and have a great day. We would like to thank you for listening to the unveiling. We hope you have enjoyed it enough to consider subscribing and sharing with others. We welcome your questions, comments, and feedback. You can reach us via email at the unveiled [email protected] or find our Facebook page at the unveiling podcast for aj, Mark, and myself. God bless, and we will talk with you next time.