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“In
Your Heart”
a sermon by
Thomas L. Jenkins
Text: Romans 10:5-15
"The word is near you, on your lips and in
your heart"
Dear Sisters and Brothers, we have just heard words written by one of
the greatest Fathers of the Church, the Apostle Saint Paul.
He has given us a
definition of righteousness based on daily obeying every law from God,
all our lives. This kind of
righteousness is recognized through legalism.
The righteousness that comes from faith is quite different; it is truly
in our hearts. And because it’s the kind of faith that is in our
hearts, our faith does not spend ongoing time judging whether certain
people are going to heaven or hell. Faith leads us to see that the Word of God is all around us
and very deep within us. This
reality brings with it, a desire in our hearts to help others see and
experience the true astonishing Word from God, telling us what has
already been done for us, and to us, in Jesus Christ.
What is the Gospel?
“God loves you so utterly and completely that he has given himself for
you in Jesus Christ his beloved Son, and has thereby pledged his very
Being as God for your salvation. In
Jesus Christ God has actualized his unconditional love for you in your
human nature in such a once for all way, that he cannot go back upon it
without undoing the Incarnation and the Cross and thereby denying
himself.
Jesus Christ died for you precisely because you are sinful and utterly
unworthy of him, and has hereby already made you his own before and
apart from your ever believing in him.
He has bound you to himself by his love in a way that he will
never let you go, for even if you refuse him and damn yourself in hell
his love will never cease.
Therefore, repent and believe in Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior.
From beginning to end what Jesus Christ has done for you he has
done not only as God but as man. He has acted in your place in the whole range of your human
life and activity, including your personal decisions, and your response
to God’s love, and even made your personal decisions for you, so that
he acknowledges you before God as one who has already responded to God
in him, who has already believed in God through him, and whose personal
decision is already implicated in Christ’s self-offering to the
Father, in all of which he has been fully and completely accepted by the
Father, so that in Jesus Christ you are already accepted in him.
Therefore renounce yourself, take up your cross and follow Jesus
as your Lord and Savior.” [T.F. Torrance]
There are some very new discoveries of the Gospel, which are also deeper
spiritually, that God is giving to us:
God loves us so much, that He came for us in Jesus Christ. By
God being in Jesus, God made a new union with each one of us.
When Jesus died, we died. When Jesus was resurrected, we were
resurrected. When Jesus
returned to God His Father, we returned with Him to God our Father,
because God has already adopted us in Christ.
Our salvation in Christ has already been completed.
The responsibility in order to receive this eternal salvation
through faith, is not thrown back upon us.
We do not have to believe in order to earn our salvation.
St. Paul wrote to the Galatians, “It
is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.”[GAL 2:20] Could it possibly be true that it is no longer I who believe,
but Christ who believes in me?
There is surely a way in which “yes” may very well be an answer to
that question. Jesus is
fully God and fully human. Jesus
is the Word of God. And
with the Word of God being in our hearts, Jesus may very well, at
certain times, share His human faith with us.
We do not have to believe in order to earn our salvation.
However, it is faith that brings us into hearing these truths,
saying “yes” to them, and then devoting our hearts and minds to
learning more of what they mean.
With our being a small congregation, with some suffering members, and
with our Pastor experiencing Lou Gehrig’s disease, we are certainly
involved with Christ in some very real ministries.
God is blessing us with a wonderful vision of His great news for us in
Jesus Christ. I wish somehow the Lord would lead us to share the Gospel with
unbelievers in our community.
Let us pray …
Amen.
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