Today's Word Radio

Brett Meador: You're saved by grace through faith, not of yourselves. Ephesians 2:8. That's all true, but once you're saved, if you have real faith, saving faith, faith without works is dead. So, when you're saved, you'll want to start to do the right thing. You'll want to have good works.

Guest (Male): Pastor Brad Matter in the impact of genuine faith as lived out in the believer.

Brett Meador: Now, those of us that know we're saved by grace I love that. We can't forget that works follow after you're saved. It should be a part of that and that's where Paul is speaking of temperance.

Guest (Male): In Acts chapter 24, Governor Felix sent for Paul, who took the opportunity to preach not only about faith in Christ, but also of the biblical understanding of righteousness, self-control, and judgment. But instead of responding to God, Felix chose to delay making a commitment. Pastor Brad Matter shares there's much we all can learn from this encounter in today's word.

Brett Meador: Turn with me to Acts chapter 24. I'm going to introduce you to a character named Felix. And it's kind of a minor Bible character, but it's an interesting thing. We're going to see here in in Acts chapter 24, Paul the apostle is going to stand before Felix and his wife Drusilla, and he's going to give a three-point sermon. It's Acts chapter 24 starting in verse 24. It says and after certain days, when Felix came with his wife Drusilla, which was a Jewess, he sent for Paul and heard him concerning the faith in Christ. And as he reasoned of righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come, Felix trembled and answered, go thy way for this time.

When I have a convenient season, I will call for you. What happens here? Paul is saying, I got a little sermon for you. And and Felix trembles at his sermon. This you might call this a bit of a fire and brimstone sermon. Question for you. Are you in of yourself able to be righteous? Is anyone on the planet other than Jesus in of themselves able to be righteous? Nope. Bible's clear on this one. Nobody's righteous, not even one. We've all sinned. We all fall short. We're toast, except for one good thing. God loved us so much that he sent his son Jesus to die on the cross for the sins.

He, the righteous one, his righteousness is then put upon us. It's it's another doctrinal word in the book of Romans called imputed righteousness. Imputed just means to superimpose over whatever's here to impute righteousness, our unrighteousness and filthiness. God says, I'm going to cover that and impute my righteousness over you, which will make you then righteous. Not by your good deeds, not by your works of the flesh, but by believing in Jesus Christ. That's how you're made righteousness. Um, you know, one of the big components of Martin Luther's the Reformation was to get away from this notion that you have to be saved by doing good works because Martin Luther recognized just a casual reading of the Bible, you realize, no, we're saved by grace through faith, not of yourselves.

Ephesians 2:8. It's a gift from God, not of yourselves, unless any man should boast. And Luther saw that, but one of the things that he's quoted as saying during that time, he said, he who would gain righteousness by faith and works is as the dog who runs along the stream with a piece of meat in his mouth. And deceived by the reflection of the meat in the water, he opens his mouth to snap at it and so loses both the meat and the reflection. I think that's a great analogy. See, you and I as Christians saved by grace, you you already got the meat in the mouth if you had.

It's already good. You got the meat of that gospel message. But if you say, but I also have to try to do good works and you see that that reflection that people try to portray and you go and snap at that, often times you lose the whole thing, the reflection and the meat. Don't forsake the meat of the gospel by trying to grasp at an illusion of you making yourself righteous somehow. So, the important thing here is imputed righteousness and the only way you can get in is by Christ alone, not by your works, not of yourselves.

It is a gift from God. I love the story. There was an elementary logic professor at a university who was kind of known by the students to always try to get his students to think more and and be creative in their logic and thinking. But on the final exam at the end of the term, he told the kids at the final exam they could take a 8 and 1/2 by 11 piece of paper. And he said, whatever you can fit on this paper, you can bring with you to the exam. All the students went home and frantically started writing notes on the in forward, backward, upside down, tiny little letters, just writing, writing, writing, writing.

And they all brought these, you know, like little ragged pieces of paper with tons of letters and stuff. Except for one kid walks in with his paper perfectly blank. They sit down at the desk and the class looks at this kid with nothing on his paper and they're like, you know. And so the professor handed out the exam and and and then the kid took his blank paper and sat it on the floor. And then he looked in the back of the room and there was an old guy with kind of studious looking, with glasses, distinguished, but looked really intelligent.

And he kind of waves him. And the guy comes and stands on his paper. Uh, who was that guy? He was the philosophy teacher from a couple doors down in the university. And the kid was smart enough to say, he said, whatever I could fit on this paper, I can use for the test. And guess what? He got an A plus on the exam. That's how you and I are going to get in. Do you understand that? It's not be because we're smart and we're good and we've done good deeds. The only reason we're going to get to heaven is because Jesus is there.

He's our way in, which is so important. Well, with all that, Paul reasoned with them about righteousness. I have a hunch that Paul said, Felix, Drusilla, you guys are unrighteous. You've all sinned. Your lives are a mess. But good news, there is righteousness to be found not in yourselves, but in Christ, the one who died and rose again. That was point number one, righteousness. But number two on his list as we study Paul's teaching his sermon to Drusilla and Felix was temperance, which speaks of today's temptations. Temperance, you might also say that equals self-control. Felix was far from having self-control.

And I would argue Drusilla was as well, very far from having self-control. They had no idea what temperance was. You know, you might say, well Brad, what are you talking about? Well, temperance is keeping yourself from sinful things or things that will hurt you. It raises the question, who is Felix? The Bible doesn't tell us much about Felix, but he's an interesting character historically along with Drusilla. His full name was Antonius Felix, which is an interesting name. He was Pontius Pilate's successor, later successor. The thing that's interesting about Felix, he was a slave. The wife of the emperor, Claudius's mother, the emperor of Rome, Antonia, she actually for some reason enslaved Felix, made him a citizen of Rome and then gave him all kinds of power.

And they shipped him off to Caesarea where he'd become the governor of the Judean and Jerusalem and and basically Israel in those days. So, how did this slave become this powerful guy? We don't really know other than it was the emperor's mother who enslaved him. By the way, Antonia Felix named that because Antonia is the one who let him free. Now, Tacitus, who is a Roman historian, writes this about Felix. Felix was the master of cruelty and lust. He exercised with the powers of a king, but the spirit of a slave. He was a scoundrel who exploited political situations.

He encouraged conflicts. He compensated any loot available. During his rule, the countryside became anarchy. The mountains of Judea ran rampant with gorilla fighters and he was hated by virtually everybody. This is Tacitus, a first century historian who wrote all about Felix. People didn't like Felix. He was not a liked guy. Now, who is Drusilla? She was the great granddaughter of Herod the Great. Remember the guy that killed all the babies at the birth of Christ? This is his granddaughter, the youngest daughter of Herod Agrippa. If you know your Herod's Herod Antipater is what I call him, Herod Antipas and Herod Agrippa.

Now, there's kind of an interesting thing. Remember the Antichrist's? There's the one Antichrist Epiphanes that was the picture in the book of Daniel of the coming Antichrist. Well, one of his grandsons or whatever, great grandsons, was a guy named Antiochus Epiphanes as well. And he was going to marry this girl Drusilla. To make a long story short, Drusilla was a Jewess like the Bible says. So, in order for them to get married, he had to become circumcised. Well, he said, dream on. I'm not marrying this girl. So, she dumped him. And so later she got to know the Syrian guy named Gaius Azizus.

And Gaius Azizus agreed to become circumcised. So, he gets circumcised and gets married to Drusilla. And after about 10 minutes, she dumps him. She dumps him, leaves Azizus for another guy named Felix. That's how she gets married to Felix, the Roman governor who's now in charge of the area of Israel. According to Josephus, he writes all about this. The theologian John Stott, he said, the lax morals of Felix and Drusilla help explain the topics on which Paul spoke to them because they were sort of really crazy level sinners is the idea. So, that's why Paul speaks of righteousness and then number two temperance because these people were out of control when it came to sinful things.

Now, this starts to address some of the concerns. Some of you guys are saying, Pastor Brad, you're talking about a cheap grace, just saved by confession with the mouth and belief in the heart. Even though you you shouldn't be mad at that. That's what the Bible says, Romans 10 9 and 10. John 3:16, Romans chapter 3. You're saved by grace through faith, not of yourselves. Ephesians 2:8. That's all true, but once you're saved, if you have real faith, saving faith, faith without works is dead. So, when you're saved, you'll want to start to do the right thing.

You'll want to have good works. Those of us that know we're saved by grace I love that. We can't forget that works follow after you're saved. It should be a part of that and that's where Paul is speaking of temperance. Now, this starts to touch on some interesting doctrine, but there's several sort of forms of righteousness. Are you righteous? Well, you could say that I notice a lot of you are like, I'm not saying that. I alone am righteous. No, no, no. Don't say it that way. But if you're a Christian, you can say you are righteous.

Why? Because of what I already taught, imputed righteousness. So, if you want to kind of think of a doctoral way of putting that, we call that positional righteousness. So, positionally and the reason I say positional because remember the position is in Christ Jesus, robed in his righteousness. So, in Christ positionally we can say by the grace of God, I am righteous. Even if your friends say, you are not righteous, it doesn't matter. God, when he declares something righteous, you're not supposed to call it unclean. So, that's important, positional righteousness. Now, the one we're talking about in point two is a little thing we might call progressive righteousness.

You say, I don't like the word progressive. Well, it just means you're a work in progress. You're a work in progress. Yeah, man, we're a work in progress. And so some might call this practical righteousness. Practically, we have a long way to go. Progressively we're a work in progress. And that's where this temperance comes in. That's where Paul is saying, first you got to be declared righteous by Christ, then you start working on temperance, which speaks of today's temptations. By the way, there's a third one. So, I told you there's positional righteousness, there's progressive righteousness, and then number three there's ultimate righteousness.

Does anybody guess where that's going to be?

Guest (Male): Heaven.

Brett Meador: Heaven. Remember first John 3:2. Jesus said, when you see me, you will be

Guest (Male): Righteous.

Brett Meador: like me. That's a cool thing. John said that I should say in first John 3:2. So, salvation, saved by grace, imputed righteous. After we're saved, faith without works is dead and we should follow the Lord and not use our liberty, our freedom in Christ that we're saved to just use the grace of God as a place to wipe our feet and go into church and stuff like that. Paul said it this way, should we continue sinning and let grace abound? He said, God forbid. So, the idea is, you know, freedom is great as long as freedom after you're saved is governed by a a sense of godly Christ-like morality.

And that's where we have to work toward temperance. I mean the Bible tells us we need to be concerned about self-control and morality, temperance. We're not saved by being moral. We're not saved by doing good works, but that is the fruit of a person who is saved by God's grace. Very important. Number three, judgment to come. Again, a lot of pastors today they'd rather do a TED talk than to talk about the judgment that is to come. There are some people that don't even believe judgment's coming and then they call themselves churches. But if you read the Bible and you don't even have to be that careful to read it, if you read it even sort of half-heartedly, you're going to see God is a God of judgment and righteousness and wrath.

And there's coming very specific times in the future where judgment is coming. Now, if you're scared about that judgment, you should be. Well Brad, that's not very nice. No, I would say it this way, if if you're not righteous in Christ, if you've never accepted Christ, I think the judgment that's coming should be the scariest thing in in all the world's history. God is going to judge the world. People make a joke of that. Oh, do you think I'm going to die and stand before God someday? Yes. That will happen. By the way, that's going to happen to all of us.

If you're saved by grace, you're not going to go There's two main judgments we can talk about. If you're a Christian, you go to a thing called the judgment seat of Christ, which is when you're getting into heaven, you're all good. You're going to get to heaven, but he's also going to judge your works. Remember how it is important that you have good works? Your good works will be judged and tried by fire. The things that were pure and good motivation and weren't self-centered, man, that'll be gold, silver, and precious stones. But the stuff that you did what was to get more friends or to be liked or because you want to be impressive, then that stuff burns up like wood, hay, and stubble.

That But you'll still get to heaven. But if you're not a Christian, if you're still unrighteous before God and you haven't had that covering, the robe of righteousness not been on you, you're not a Christian, then you will stand before what is called the great white throne judgment. And this is where God judges you for all your sins. And I got to just say the Bible makes it clear, we're all guilty. There's no one righteous. And you can stand before God and but I I went to church and listened to that long-winded windbag up there for an hour.

I should go to heaven just for that. The Lord will say, uh, no. But but but but I thought you were a God of love. And here you are allowing me to go to hell because of my sins. Oh, don't be confused. What does the Bible say? Romans 5:8 says, but God commended his love toward us in that while we were yet sinners. Christ died for us. Everybody on humanity's on the slippery slope sliding right into hell. And God so loved the world he said, anybody here's an off-ramp, here's an exit off the sliding slippery slope.

And it's through Christ alone. And when you accept Christ and believe, he pulls you off of that slippery slope and says you're saved. And it 's up to you from your perspective. All the hyper-Calvinists are going to write letters about Brad said you you know, God's not sovereign. I believe in God's sovereignty. He already knows who's going to be saved. And he's already you know, I I believe in divine election and predestination and all and eternal security. I believe that. But the Bible still very clearly there's places that put it on you, whether you believe and repent.

You have a free will to do that. I believe that as well. That's where people have a problem. I don't have a problem with that. God's bigger than our little constructs. But as that turns out, God loved us so much that while we were yet sinners, even while we're in the middle of our sin, by the way, watch out. There's people that will say, well, you know, I just believe God loves me the way I am. Loves me the way I am. Can I just say there's a sort of a bit of truth with that, but it's it's kind of a dumb thing to say.

I'll tell you why. I'm not trying to be mean. I am trying to help you with just a clear view of what's going on. Yes, it's true that God loves you even while you were in your cruddiest, ugliest, dirtiest sin. God still loved you so much. That's what Romans 5:8 says, but God commended his love for us while we were yet sinners, present tense. He loved us so much that he sent Christ to die for us. So, yes, if you're meaning that that man, the Lord loves me in the midst of all my sin, but that's not usually what people mean.

People think, well, I am a sinner, but God loves me the way I am. So, I'm not going to change. Well, that's not biblical at all. You know, the idea is the Lord wants us to be transformed and that's that temperance and self-control and change and fruit. That's what we're supposed to do is see how how the Lord's going to change us. And the Lord wants to clean us even as he says in Ephesians 5:25, you know, that the Lord Christ loves his church and cleanses it with the washing of the water of the word.

Remember what we read back in Athens and Mars Hill when Paul spoke there with all the brainiacs. Acts 17 verses 29 through 31. He said, for as much then as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think of that the Godhead is like gold or silver or stone graven by art and man's device. And the times of this ignorance God winked at. But now commandeth all men everywhere to repent. What is God doing? God didn't wink at our ignorance in sin forever. There was a time in the Old Testament where they just did animal sacrifices and they kind of went through the motions.

But when Jesus died for the sins of the people of the Old Testament and the new and us, God says now he's commanding everyone everywhere to repent. That means to change your mind and acknowledge your sin before God. And then it goes on and says after that everywhere to repent because he hath appointed a day in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained. That's Jesus by the way. Whereof he, Jesus, hath given assurance unto all men in that he raised him from the dead. So, the only way to not be targeted in the judge of the world by righteousness that's talked about here is to have Christ superimposed, but judgment is coming.

And that 's going to come whether you like it or not. A lot of people like, well, I'll just go to hell and play cards and drink beer with my buddies in hell. That's not what hell is. Bible says this place of outer darkness, weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth. There's nothing fun about it, but just eternal destruction and sadness and sorrow. So, here's the deal. The Bible speaks that when you die, one of two things happen. And it's kind of an interesting language of the Bible. There's two resurrections. You're either resurrected unto eternal life or you're resurrected from death to eternal death.

Brad, did you just make that up? Nope. It's in the Bible. Daniel talks about the two resurrections, a resurrection unto life. That's the saved person who believes in Jesus resurrected to eternal life. But if you're not saved, you are resurrected life after death if you would, but it's a death after death really. Um, in Revelation 20, let me just read to you what says there. In the first part of verse 20, it says, they that lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years, but the rest of the dead lived not until the thousand years were finished.

This is the first resurrection. So, he's talking to all the Christians, past history and present, even the people that were killed during the tribulation, who were beheaded for their faith in Christ. That's all the people in the first resurrection. But then he goes on, listen to this. This is what happens to the second death or the second resurrection. He says in verse 11 of Revelation 20, and I saw a great white throne and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away and there was found no place for them.

And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God and the books were opened and another book was opened, which is the book of life. And the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books according to their works. And the sea gave up the dead. That's an idiom in the book of Revelation for the nations of the world. The sea gave up the dead which were in it. And death and hell were delivered up. The dead which were in them and they were judged, every man according to their works.

In other words, did you do good or bad in life? And remember there's no one righteous. No one. In the great white throne judgment, everyone goes down because they're going to be judged. And verse 14, the death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire. How do you get your name written in the book of life? Well, it came at a great cost. Jesus, the son of God, his only begotten son who who he loved, dying on a cross in a brutal and terrible way, came at a huge cost.

But as we've read and talked about already, it's a free gift. Remember Ephesians 2:8. You're saved not by your works. You're saved by grace through faith. It is a gift from God, not of yourselves. It's free, but it's not cheap. And so here, you know, we see those who are not written in the book of life, they're the people who don't have the grace of God. How are you saved by God's grace? How do you receive that? Romans 10:9. If you confess with your mouth and believe in your heart the Lord Jesus, the God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

Whosoever believeth in him will not perish, but have everlasting life. Paul's three-point sermon here is powerful and important.

Guest (Male): Pastor Brad Matter with great insight from today's word for where redemption from sin comes from. And that's the free gift given from God that cost him his son. And Pastor Brad will have more on how to receive that gift in just a moment. So, I hope you'll stick around for that. But first, Brad Matter is the senior pastor of Athei Creek Church just outside of Portland, Oregon. Each episode of Today's Word serves to enrich your understanding of God's word and support your ongoing spiritual journey. If you missed any portion of our study, you'll find all of Pastor Brad's messages online at todayswordradio.com.

That's todayswordradio.com. Well, here again is Pastor Brad Matter closing our time together with more on how to receive the grace of God we've learned about today.

Brett Meador: If you're one who is saying, Brad, I've yet to accept Christ, but I do know that I need to and for whatever reason I've put it off, but today is the day I would love to pray a prayer of confession. Romans 10 9 and 10. It's so key on that. You can be saved by the grace of God by number one, just repent and say before God, I'm a sinner. Just acknowledge that right now between you and God, say, Lord, I have fallen short. I am a sinner. I agree with you. And then secondly say, I believe and I want to receive.

And I I'd like to lead you if that's you, if you're saying, Brad, I want to accept Christ, awesome, awesome, awesome. I'm going to say this prayer of confession and you can just pray this right to the Lord. Let's pray this together. Dear Father in heaven,

Guest (Male): Dear Father in heaven,

Brett Meador: I believe in your son Jesus.

Guest (Male): I believe in your son Jesus.

Brett Meador: I believe that he died on the cross for my sins.

Guest (Male): I believe that he died on the cross for my sins.

Brett Meador: That he rose up from the grave

Guest (Male): That he rose up from the grave

Brett Meador: and that I'm forgiven.

Guest (Male): And that I'm forgiven.

Brett Meador: And I hope you to walk with you.

Guest (Male): And I hope you to walk with you.

Brett Meador: Thank you for saving me.

Guest (Male): Thank you for saving me.

Brett Meador: In the name of Jesus Christ.

Guest (Male): In the name of Jesus Christ.

Brett Meador: Amen.

Guest (Male): Amen. Pastor Brad Matter here on Today's Word. And if you've just prayed those words with Pastor Brad, we want to welcome you into the family of God. And to help, we put together some teachings that will assist you as you begin your walk with Jesus. Just go to our website at todayswordradio.com and click on the link that says, are you a new believer? Again, todayswordradio.com and click the link new believer. Well, we're so glad you've joined us today. Next time Pastor Brad will describe how Paul was falsely accused, put on trial, yet through it all God had the ultimate plan.

Today's word with Pastor Brad Matter is an outreach of Athei Creek Church in West Lynn, Oregon.