Light on the Hill

Guest (Male): What does it take to go to heaven? Pastor James Kaddis says the answer is not found in what you do, but in what Christ has done.

James Kaddis: You don't have to do a two-year missionary trip to go to heaven. It means you don't have to give a lot of money or any money to the church to go to heaven. You don't have to do anything. All you have to do is simply put on the robe of righteousness that the Lord has made available to you. It's that simple. And you get the credit for his work.

Guest (Female): I have found that peace only comes from you. I have found that joy only comes from you. Cuz all I need is you.

Guest (Male): Welcome to another Light on the Hill. We're in a new series called In Spirit and in Truth. Here in part one, Pastor James Kaddis is talking about salvation. Now, before you tune out because you think you have that figured out, you might be surprised to learn there is a lot you probably don't know and need to discover. Let's turn to Romans chapter seven where we'll focus on verses 24 and 25.

James Kaddis: We have a lot to talk about, so we'll get right into it and there's a lot to go over. This is a part one. Of course, as you know, we went through our intro last week and part one is entitled Salvation. Okay? And we're going to talk about our salvation and what it's all about and the story of our salvation. And many of you might not know the whole story of our salvation, so this is going to be very useful for you. Hopefully, you'll be able to draw from this and learn from this and grow from this and maybe experience a lot more in the depth of the riches of the things that God has available for you, right?

There's a lot of things we can learn from simply knowing our salvation and understanding the power that's available to us. Now, it starts from the very beginning, right? And so I'm going to see if you guys can fill in the blanks for me here. Let's try this all together, right? In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth, right? And we know that. That's a simple declaration that was made. We We know that the word follows after that verse two says and the earth was without form and void. And of course, um for those of you that have sat down and teach listen to me teaching through the book of Genesis, we know that this is basically God initially making the declaration that he is the one responsible for the creation of the universe, right?

And uh he created the raw material. He took the raw material. He formed and he fashioned it. He made it something beautiful, right? He made all the creatures, all the animals. We know all that. We know that God is the one who is the creator of the heavens and the earth. Now, of course, this is an interesting dynamic that we learn about because the Bible tells us that God created man, right? His name was Adam. And of course, interestingly enough with Adam, God gives Adam a pretty tremendous responsibility. First of all, he says, look, I'm going to give you this this garden that you're in.

It's all yours. You enjoy it, you know? And he says basically, I want you to have the responsibility of going around and naming all of these animals. So he walks through and he names the animals. And of course, there were some very specific purposes, I believe, that God gives Adam to name all the animals. And he goes around and he names the animals, right? And something very unique happens with him. And this is somewhat of a unique dynamic that takes place. He goes and he names He says, oh, look at that. We'll call that a hippo.

And And he says, well, but look, there's a female. There's Look like there's a partner. And that's okay. That's the female hippo. Well, then we'll call that a giraffe. And there's a female giraffe. And oh, we'll call And by the way, I'm not pointing at anybody when I'm saying this. I just want you to know for the record, I'm not pointing at anybody, okay? I'm pointing at myself. Anyway, um you know, and so oh, well, we'll look at that. We'll see that's a rhinoceros, you know? And we'll And And he begins to realize something. The Bible seems to imply the fact that Adam begins to realize that there is no partner for him.

Now, he has dominion over the animals and the animals are are they are subservient to him. He's clearly the one that has more predominance over them. He's I mean, this is Adam is looking at something that is a lower life form and he recognizes that they have a helper, but he doesn't have a helper. So that Now, I'm going to take a little bit of creative liberty in how this story goes. So uh bear with me here. But Adam basically looks to the Lord and he says, well, God, I mean, all the animals, they have partners, but I don't have a partner.

And And God says, well, I know I know exactly what you're talking about. And Adam says, well, what's it going to take to get a partner? And God says, it's going to cost you an arm and a leg, Adam. And Adam thinks about it and he says, that's a little steep. What can you give me for a rib? No, I'm just I just I 'm joking. I 'm joking. That's not how it happened, right? But we do know We do know what the Bible says. Sorry, I couldn't resist, girls. Listen, there's lots of dumb jokes about guys, too, okay?

I just had to take that one. So interestingly enough, we know that God uh creates Eve and he brings his partner and Adam is like, this is great. He God gives him this beautiful wife. They come together as one and God says, listen, I want you to be fruitful and multiply. I want you to enjoy what I've given you, right? And so you would think at that point they live happily ever after, except for this. Except for the fact that Eve is deceived by Satan, okay? Now, that's not really where the big problem happened, right?

Because Eve was deceived. That's not a big deal, but Adam openly rebels, okay? So Eve is deceived and okay, what are you talking about when you mean that she's deceived? Well, God says this. He says, look, you can enjoy everything, okay? Have fun. Have all you want. But here's the deal. This one tree, you can't eat of the fruit. So Satan deceives Eve. He hustles her, tricks her into eating the fruit. And then Eve brings her husband to it. Now, it's clearly not Eve's fault. Husband wants to blame her, right? But Adam, the Bible says, actually disobeyed God.

He acted in open rebellion. And this is what the Bible tells us. The Bible says that when Adam chose to rebel against God, the Bible says that through one man sin entered the world. I think or I believe based on what the scriptures teach that this is when death was introduced into the world. I think that this is where everything got set into motion and through one man sin enters the world, death enters into the world. And we know that that's the the case. Now, here's the interesting thing about this and it is quite a sad picture that is created.

And that is when we see the introduction, the literal introduction of the necessity for the shedding of blood in order to cover the result of sin. In order to cover sin, you have to shed blood. And so we see an early example of this in Genesis. We know an animal had to be killed and the blood of that animal, of course, was the life. There was life in the blood and that blood was in as the Hebrew term would be it covered the sin. This was early on and based on God's law, there had to be a shedding of blood in order to cover up the sin.

Now, some people might say, well, what a cruel picture and the shedding of blood and this is such a awful thing. I mean, it doesn't make sense that, you know, you'd have to go kill a sheep and and this gets carried on into Jewish culture and Jewish history. And I've even even been asked this question on the radio. Well, why so cruel? Why would God require a sheep to be killed or a goat to be killed? You know, I mean, it's just such a cruel thing. Kids would see it and it's it's kind of an ugly picture.

Well, let me explain it by this and we'll we'll we'll pause to talk about this little aspect for just a second. And I think it's an appropriate one to talk about. And that's this. Look, I get married and when I got married, my wife says, look, baby, honey, look, we got to have a dog. I mean, I have always had a dog. No. We're not having a dog. No, I don't want an animal in the house. I You know, I even go to my brother cuz at the time before we purchased our home, I We were renting a home from my brother and I go, John, come on, tell my wife that we can't have a dog in your house.

And And my brother says, I not getting in the middle of your marriage. You got Like, really? Okay, I'm going to get you back for that one, you know? And so uh my wife keeps telling me, James, I want a dog. James, I want a dog. And you know how it goes, right? Happy spouse, happy house, right? Not happy life, happy wife. That's a Happy wife, happy life. It's happy spouse, happy house. That's the better way to put it, right? And so you know, my wife really wants this dog and so I reluctantly and with great objections say, okay, let's do it.

I remember the God-forsaken drive out to the place where we had to go get it, which was six or seven hours because of the traffic. I remembered the ugly experience going to the breeder and giving her an ungodly amount of money for the dog. The only part of that experience that I actually enjoyed was watching my wife hold the dog. Oh, how cute. The big smile on her face. That was nice. But then that was over when the dog got put in his crate. He gets put in the backseat of our car and he's poop for the next I mean, I kid you not, for the next five or six hours only to hear my wife say things like, it's okay, honey.

It's our little baby. No, baby, he's not. He's a dog. He's a dog. He didn't come out of your womb, okay? He's a dog. And then I tell my wife this. I go, and here's the deal. I just want you to understand something. I'm going to be the man of the house. I'm going to proclaim this right now. I want nothing to do with that animal. You take care of him. You feed him. He You make him. You do all that stuff. You clean up his poop. All that I want nothing to do with the dog.

And that was my attitude for pretty much the first month that we owned that little sucker. Hit the fast forward button. Few years go by. I never thought I would see the day where this little scene would happen. I go over to the doctor's office to go get one of my regular shots that I get every couple weeks. And the nurses go, where's Gyro? That's the name of my dog. And I go, don't ask me that question. I feel so bad. He's He's with the groomer right now. He's like locked up in prison. I wish I could be with And I'm hearing myself Did I actually Am I saying this?

Can I hear myself saying this? This is ridiculous. And I take that dumb dog with me everywhere. You want to know why? Because I become attached to him. I've trained him, got him the service dog status so we could take him anywhere we want. To have every I'm so attached to that little dog. Matter of fact, Sundays are rough because he's got to stay at home and you know, he he's a crated dog. He's trained that way, so he likes his crate. But I just feel bad. He's like in his little prison. I just feel bad.

I call it prison, you know? I don't like him. I like him being out all the time. He's my buddy. I've gotten attached to the dog. I would do anything, anything to make sure that dog stays safe. I wouldn't put that dog in front of a human life, please. But I would pretty much do anything because I've become attached to the dog. I want you to imagine this. I want you to imagine a kid getting attached to a little sheep. They grow They develop a relationship with that animal. They name the animal. A year goes by, a year and a half goes by, two years goes by, and guess what?

That little animal is now an integral part of their family. They love that animal. Then dad tells a little son, he says, okay, honey, come on. Let's go. Let's go take our or let's go take a trip to Jerusalem. Okay, that sounds good. Well, we're going to take our our little sheep with us. Okay, we're going to take Howard? Yeah. Sorry, maybe a little more, you know, appropriate for the time. Benjamin? Okay. They take him over. Well, Benyamin, that's what they would say, right? Let's go. So they get over there. And now he has the horrifying experience, this little boy, of watching his favorite little pet being taken away, slaughtered and sliced by the priest and cooked.

Now, you might say, how cruel is that? God had two intents for that. There were two reasons for it. The first reason was it was used to point to Jesus Christ, which we'll talk about in a little bit. But the second reason for that, which was a critical reason and quite an important reason, is so that when the kid says, why, dad? Why, Abba? Why, Leah Abba? Why? Why? Why? Then the father says, son, this is the consequence of our sin. We have to do this because of our sin. And you know what happens with that little boy?

That little boy develops a real respect for the destructive element that sin introduces into their lives and they really begin to develop it. And this becomes problematic. And that 's why God does this, right? That's the whole reason why it takes place. And so the Bible tells us that through one man sin entered the world. That means, ready? Contrary to popular belief, every single human being that was born on the face of the earth after Adam was born with the sinful nature. They were not man is not basically born good. That's why the next time you have a conversation with somebody that says, I was born a homosexual or I was born with this way or this was This has always been in my blood.

Don't ever argue with them. Agree with them. Yeah, you're right. The Bible says that we were all born in sin. All of us were born with those tendencies. There's no argument there. You don't have to argue about the biology of that or anything like that. There are We're all born with biological tendencies towards evil. Think about it. How many people have children here? How many of you are parents? Raise your hand. Okay. You know what I am talking about, don't you? You don't ever have to sit your child aside to go, okay, listen, I'm noticing this.

You're a little too truthful. I need to teach you how to develop a respectable hustle. When mommy asks you a question, you need to lie, lie, lie, lie, lie, lie, deny, deny, deny, and deny if you think you're going to get in trouble. No. You know what ends up happening? You see your kids act up. You never have to teach them how to act up and you're blown away with how devious they can be at such a young age, right? Had a parent come up to me the other day and say, my child is two and a half years old and my child has already learned how to manipulate mom's feelings against me or my feelings against mom.

What do you think? Think your kid's going to just like all of a sudden just the whole time No, he's born in sin. We all are. Now, this presents a huge problem. So let's go back to a question that I will impose to you. And any of you can holler it out if you'd like. Most of you, I believe, will give me the answer that everybody in first service gave me. And I think it's kind of an important question to impose. And I'm going to bring some clarity here. If a person goes to hell, if a person goes to hell, why are they going to hell?

What's What's the only reason that a person will go to hell? Anybody? I had four or five of you answer the question the same exact way and it is indeed a very good answer. You say that the way And by the way, most theologically minded people that I know will answer the question this exact same way, and most pastors that I know will answer this question the exact same way, and they say, how does a person go to hell? And the answer is they reject Jesus Christ. For those of you engineers that are in the room and scientists, you will understand this term.

That indeed is not the root cause why somebody goes to hell. Now, some of you might say, what what what what what are you saying? What do you mean? The reason why somebody goes to hell is because they have broken the law of God. The only way a person can get to heaven Let me say it another way. The only way a person can get to heaven is if they live the law of God perfectly. That's the only way. No one You cannot get to heaven any other way than to live the law of God perfectly.

Now, I just saw someone who's very brilliant actually say, shaking their head going, we can't do that. We can't do that. You're right. We can't do that. You want to know why we can't do that? Because we've all sinned. All of us. I have sinned against God. I have broken the law of God since the very beginning of this service. Actually since the beginning of of Sunday service, right? So if you were to clear out and and I was perfect and I've never done anything wrong as of 5:00 this morning, I was going to hell by 6:00 this morning.

That's just reality, right? There's lots of real That's the reason why I don't have a Jesus bumper sticker on my car because my car is not born again, right? I mean, that 's the bottom line. We all do evil. It's just the way it goes, which means all of us are going to hell. There is no other way of doing it. There's only one person, one person who's lived the life perfectly according to the law of God. That's Jesus. Now, I will say this. Let me take it a step further and let me make it even more confusing.

Even if Jesus could come up to you right now and say your sins are forgiven, let me ask you a more challenging question, what gives him the authority? You know everybody tells me cuz he's God. And I say so. It sounds disrespectful. Please don't take it disrespectfully. But God will not contradict his own word. And God's word says, the soul that sins must what? Die. We know that. What gives him the authority? Well, here's what gets interesting. You ready? We're going to have this discussion. You see, this is a revolutionary concept and I want you to get this.

I want you to understand this. The Bible tells us that when Jesus came to this earth, he lived his life perfectly. He never broke the law of God, not once. He's the only one that's ever done it. That's why he's called the last Adam, right? The first Adam is the Adam that we read about in Genesis. He was born without a sinful nature. He chose to sin. Sin entered the world as a result. It's in our DNA. It is a part of us. That's just the way it goes. We were born in death. The last Adam, Jesus Christ, was born again without that nature and yet he remained that way because he chose to remain obedient to the father all the way to death.

Right? We talked about that. He didn't go to the cross willingly. He went to the cross obediently. Right? We talked about that. So he was obedient completely through, all the way. Never broke the law of God. Jesus even said this. He says, look, I didn't come to abolish the law. I came to fulfill it every jot and tittle. You look at the beginning of John where it says that the law was given to us by Moses, grace and truth by Jesus Christ. Everybody looks at that and thinks that there's a contrast that's going on there.

It's not. It's not like a scale that's being weighed. It's the law was given to us by Moses. And if it's appropriately translated, grace and truth realized in the law through Jesus Christ. So the law has always had something to do with our salvation. The problem is this. We can't fulfill the law of God perfectly, so guess what? We're all automatically headed to hell. Now, here's where it gets really cool. Here's where it gets really significant. See, Jesus Christ lives his life on this earth perfectly. He lives it in perfection. Then he's crucified. He's killed.

Right before he dies, I got to ask this question on Pastor's Perspective this last week on the radio. Young kid, you know, asked the the question of the significance of uh you know, Jesus saying And you know, why did he say that? Why did he say my God, my God, why have thou forsaken me? And I believe that that there were several reasons why he actually said that. First of all, it was to quote the Psalms and to remind those that were students of the Bible that they were actually looking at the Messiah here. This was fulfillment of prophecy.

But I think perhaps one of the more significant reasons is at that very moment God the father is judging his son for your sin and for mine. He did no sin. He didn't sin at all, but he got judged for your sin. He got judged for my sin. For our past sin, our future sin, and the sin of the whole world. Now, interestingly enough, if that was it and Jesus would have died, then it wouldn't have mattered. It would It would have just been a big waste and it wouldn't even mattered. But the Bible tells us that Christ defeated death, which is something we'll be talking about in the upcoming weeks, that he literally He rose from the dead, right?

And he is alive today. Now, here's how it works. This is where I say it becomes revolutionary and this is where I say it will change your life if you understand salvation. When you go to heaven, you are not going to heaven because of anything you did. We already know you've broken the law. When you go to heaven, it's because the Bible says that Jesus Christ when he lived his life, he carried a robe. We all carry a proverbial robe. Jesus Christ's robe is referred to as a robe of righteousness because it is a robe of perfection.

You know what the Bible says our robe is? It defines our righteousness. The Bible says that our robe is a dirty menstrual cloth. The life we live, in other words, our righteousness is a dirty menstrual cloth. That's a pretty ugly picture. And I don't have to really get into vivid detail about that. It's gross. The Bible says that when you receive Jesus Christ into your heart, what ends up happening is you throw away that dirty menstrual cloth, right? Your righteousness, which is going to surely send you to hell, and you put on the perfect robe of righteousness of Jesus Christ.

Now, when you go and you are judged by God on judgment day, he looks at you and he says, oh, wow, John or oh, Andrew or Steve, look, you have lived the law of God perfectly. Well done, good and faithful servant. Enter into the righteousness. Enter into the kingdom. Now, did you live the law of God perfectly? No. Jesus lived the law of God perfectly, but you're wearing his robe, so God the father views you through the eyes of the one who lived the perfect life for you. And it's his perfect life that he lived for you that buys your ticket into heaven.

It's a significant deal. Now, what that means is this. That means you don't have to do a two-year missionary trip to go to heaven. It means you don't have to give a lot of money or any money to the church to go to heaven. It It even means that you don't have to bake all kinds of great food for Pastor James, although I'll still accept the donations. Okay? You don't have to do anything. All you have to do is simply put on the robe of righteousness that the Lord has made available to you. It's that simple.

And you get the credit for his work.

Guest (Male): Thank you for joining us today for Light on the Hill with Pastor James Kaddis. We'll get back to the study in just a few moments. To listen again, go to lightonthehillradio.com or listen to us at oneplace.com or wherever you get your podcasts. The Light on the Hill app is another great way to access these teachings. It's free and can be downloaded today, providing access to our present series called In Spirit and In Truth. On the subject of resources, we encourage you to visit jameskaddis.com. There you'll find a weekly devotional from Pastor James, live streams, and videos dealing with current events and end times Bible prophecy.

Enjoy these resources and more at jameskaddis.com. We love to hear what God is doing in our listeners' lives. Send us an email today. Our email address is radio@calvarychapelsignalhill.com. That's radio@calvarychapelsignalhill.com. As we continue to share God's word on stations across the nation, perhaps you'd like to support us. This would be a great time to do so. You can make a secure donation anytime online at lightonthehillradio.com. With the rest of today's message on salvation, here's Pastor James.

James Kaddis: The Bible tells us Biblically, we know there are only two identities that exist, two. There's no other identity. This is why racism is something that can be solved by Christianity. This is why prejudice can be solved by Christianity. This is why any problem that you see on the face of the earth can be solved by Christianity, right? Not some guy go, we are the world, which actually by the way, that's a good song. You go back and listen in the '80s, you know? My favorite part is when Stevie starts singing, there has to choice to make and Come on, Stevie, man.

Come on. You If you don't know what I'm talking about when I say Stevie, you're living a deprived life. Sorry, that's all I'm saying, right? A little young Michael, too. It's a cool I saw it recently. Anyway, none of that save None of that solves the problems of the world. What solves the problems of the world is based in this fact. There are two identities right here. There's only two identities. One is you're a sinner. You identify as a sinner. The other one is you identify as a saint. Yes. If you are a Christian, you are a saint, so you can put Santa in front of your name, right?

Right? Right? I call myself Santa Jaime or Santa Santiago or Santa Santiago sounds a little weird, you know? Or just Santa because I look like Santa. Something You know what I mean? It kind of works either way. Either way. We're all saints. That's how it works. We are saints. And the Bible says this. It's an interesting statement the Bible teach us. Did you know according to the world Let's just talk about what the world things. The world says that your identity or what you do always determines who you are. Okay? Here's a rule Here's a rule.

If you lie, the world says you're a liar. If you kill, you're a killer. If you steal, you're a thief. That's how it works. The Bible says who you are determines what you do. So you lie, you kill, you steal, you hustle, you do all those things because you're a sinner. You sin because you're a sinner. Now, you are a saint, which means that always determines what you do. Who you are always determines what you do.

Guest (Male): Come back next time when Pastor James Kaddis will pick up where we left off in our series In Spirit and in Truth. That's right here on Light on the Hill, a presentation of Calvary Chapel Signal Hill.

Guest (Female): I have found that peace only comes from you. I have found that joy only comes from you. Cuz all I need is you.