Today's Word Radio

The gospel is this: Christ died for your sins. What's that mean? It means that your penalty for your sins is death, but for you and me as sinner material, we deserve death and hell for eternity. But God says, "I would that none should perish."

Guest (Male): Pastor Brett Meador counts the cost of God's free gift of salvation.

Brett Meador: But God doesn't force you to believe. He doesn't force his love upon you. It's something you choose to believe and receive.

Guest (Male): Paul boldly declared in Romans that he is not ashamed of the gospel of Christ because of its power to save all who believe. In Today's Word, Pastor Brett Meador explores why Paul said this, why the resurrection of Jesus is central to our faith, and how we can receive salvation for ourselves once we understand God's forgiveness of sin is a choice he leaves up to us.

Curt: And we're so glad you've joined us here on Today's Word as we get ready to commemorate the death of Jesus on the cross and then his miraculous resurrection on the third day. And Pastor Brett, there may be some people who don't realize the importance of this event. Can you share why Jesus's death and resurrection is just so important to the world and to us personally?

Brett Meador: Well, Curt, that's a huge question and so important. The death and the resurrection of Jesus isn't just part of the Christian story, it is the whole story. From Genesis chapter one, you realize man's in trouble, and the rest of the Bible is telling us how the Lord would solve man's greatest problem. And that really is the death and the resurrection. It is the whole story.

If Jesus only died, he would be a martyr. If he only lived a good life, he would just be simply a teacher. But because he rose from the grave like he said he would, he's our Savior. That's what makes the difference. The religious leaders said, "Show us a sign that you really are who you claim to be," and Jesus said, "This is the sign: if you destroy this body, in three days I'll raise it up from the dead." So, the death of the Savior Jesus is to deal with our sin. The resurrection is to prove the payment was successful and accepted. And that's why Paul said in 1 Corinthians 15, "If Christ be not raised, then our faith is in vain."

Curt: Well, thank you, Brett, for that introduction to this Easter resurrection message. Here again is Pastor Brett Meador.

Brett Meador: Turn to Romans chapter one. The resurrection of Jesus Christ is the day that changed everything in the world. The resurrection of Christ, I believe, is the biggest event that ever happened in the history of all the cosmos. God visited man, knew man's condition of sin, sliding down the slippery slope of hell—that's where we were all headed. And God loved the world so much that he gave his only begotten Son that whoever believes in him will not perish but have everlasting life.

But what's the math behind that? To believe in Jesus will save you? The answer's yes. By the way, we do this every weekend, we celebrate Jesus and the resurrection, but today we shout it from the rooftops that Jesus Christ our Savior has risen from the dead. And there's a reason why we boldly proclaim the power of God through the gospel message. That's why I really wanted to make this kind of our main text, Romans chapter one, verse 16. Let's take a look at that. He says, "For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek."

Why to the Jew first? Well, it came to the Jews by a Jew. Jesus was a Jew, the disciples were Jews. It came to them first. But then the word Greek there—you might think, "Why just the Greek people?"—but that was an idiom of the day of Hellenism, which was basically anybody who was not a Jew. You might even say Gentile. To the Jew first, then to the Gentile. That's us, most of us here who are not Jews, we have the gospel. And here I love what he talks about here, the gospel of Christ. That's a huge thing.

We use the word gospel and a lot of people have different views of what the gospel might be or might not be. But this doesn't really tell us the definition of the gospel, what it is, as much as this is a verse that tells us what it does. What does the gospel do? Well, it in and of itself, the gospel itself is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that goes to church every Sunday. Oh wait, didn't say that, did it? It says the gospel is the power of God to salvation to everyone that gives money to the church. Nope. To carry a big Bible and has a fake smile saying, "Praise Jesus," all the time? No. What is the gospel? It's the power of God to save everyone that believes.

Would it be irresponsible of the Holy Spirit to put this in there if there was something else you needed to do to be saved? Like if you were saved, "Oh yeah, believe, yeah, yeah, yeah, but you also have to be really good. You have to stop sinning. You have to stop doing this and start doing that. You got to read your Bible every day. If you're really going to be saved, then you got to do this, this, this." Wouldn't that be irresponsible? So the point that I'm making is the Holy Spirit's not lacking in responsibility. Every time the Bible talks about the definitive salvation of a sinner, it doesn't attach anything else other than belief. Once a person believes and becomes a Christian, oh yeah, then there's some other things that you start to see. Good works is something that follows a believer. That's why James would say faith without works is dead.

But works does not save you. That's so important to understand. So the gospel of Christ, this tells us what it does. It's got power, the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believes. Now, I love how Paul says, "I am not ashamed of the gospel." Well, why would anybody ever be ashamed of the gospel? Did you know in Paul's day they would be ashamed for the same reason we would be ashamed today? There's many reasons why people might feel ashamed of the gospel of Christ.

The first one I would suggest perhaps is the fear of social rejection or persecution from people who don't like Christian people. The second one is maybe misunderstanding what the gospel is altogether. Maybe there's those that would say, "Well, the gospel, it requires you to earn salvation through good works." And others may view the gospel as a set of rigid rules, a way of controlling others to do what you want them to do. And they would feel ashamed in sort of associating with the gospel. But that's just, they don't know what the gospel is. That's a misunderstanding.

Others are more concerned about their public image. You see, there's some that would say, "Well, to be a Christian who believes in the gospel, the first thing you have to do is admit you're a sinner and that you are falling short in your life." Man, that's one of the things that people miss today. A prideful, arrogant person wants to fight the argument. "I'm a good person. I'm not like bad people, like all the other people in this world. I pay my taxes. I'm kind to people I like at least."

And they think they're just good people. But your desire to kind of have people like you, there's a thing within us that doesn't want to admit, "I'm a wretched, miserable sinner who needs to be saved by the grace of God." And before you can receive the gospel, the power of God to save, you've got to come to a place of repentance where you realize, "Man, I fall short." Because we all fall short. Did you know that Satan's got a message going in the church even today? The church of Jesus Christ that says, "You're enough. I'm enough. I'm enough."

That's from the first bag of bologna. Do you understand that? That's totally opposite of what the Bible preaches. The Bible says you're not enough. All have sinned, all have fallen short of the glory of God. There is no one righteous, not even one. And if you're honest for a half a second, you know that to be true. It's funny how we sort of like to forget when we were sort of a jerk. Maybe some of you were driving to church this morning and you're on the I-5. "We're going to be late, better go pedal to the metal. Oh, who's this slow person in this lane?"

And you get right up on their tail. And then you're looking, "Come on, get out of my way, I'm going to church." And then you drive in the driveway and you're like, "Oh, that was Pastor Brett." No, I'm sure that wasn't you because I got here earlier. But then you realize, "Oh yeah, man, I am a cruddy sinner. I am a weirdo." But to admit that, well, a lot of the world doesn't want to admit that. So they're ashamed to say the gospel because it requires you to say, "I am a sinner and I need to be saved from my sin, my depravity." So they have a desire to kind of hold some kind of positive public image which doesn't really exist to begin with.

Maybe another reason, number four, the gospel's emphasis on suffering and sin. If you're going to believe the gospel, it makes you talk about a guy who hung on a cross and bled and died, and there's sin and repentance. And some people don't want to deal with that, so they're ashamed to love the gospel. Or maybe even number five, it's a contradiction with popular beliefs, like "you're enough" or "you're a good person" or that "humanity is basically good," secular humanism. Maybe you're one who rejects Christianity that says, "Man, humanity has a sin nature and we have walked in opposition to God."

But there's many reasons why people are ashamed of the gospel. Paul says here in Romans, "I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ." That's the verse we started with. For it, the gospel, is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth. Man, I think this is such a key. So this tells us what the gospel does. It's the power that saves a sinner to salvation to everyone that believes. Don't add to that. I'll remind you that as we go through this more and more, but it's belief, faith, believing in Christ.

So if that's what the gospel does, what is the gospel? Well, theologians agree one of the best definitions of the gospel comes from 1 Corinthians chapter 15, verses three and four, where Paul spells it out really clearly. He says, "For I have delivered unto you," the Corinthian church, a bunch of Gentile sinners, "I delivered to you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; and that he was buried, and that he rose again on the third day according to the scriptures."

This is what they call the gospel in a nutshell. And it's got three main components. Number one, Christ died for our sins. The first thing you have to understand is once you get to that place where you acknowledge, "I'm a sinner and I need to repent of my sin"—that means change your mind and agree with God and say, "Lord, here are my sins. I agree, I am a sinner. And because of my sin, your Bible tells me I deserve death and hell." And when you agree with that, finally, if you're a young person and you don't agree with that yet, some of us it takes a little longer for us to realize how sinful we really are. But better to repent early, just going to say that right now.

But the reason is because you got to get to that place where you can understand what the gospel's all about. So once you know you're a sinner, you realize the gospel is this: Christ died for your sins. What's that mean? It means that your penalty for your sins is death, but for you and me as sinner material, we deserve death and hell for eternity. But God says, "I would that none should perish." The heart of God is not to send everybody to hell. We've sent ourselves there. God says, "You're all on the slippery slope to hell, but I want to pluck you off of that slope and I want to save you."

But God is a perfect gentleman. He doesn't force you to believe. He doesn't force you to accept him. He doesn't force his love upon you. It's something you choose to believe and receive. And so the Lord sends his only begotten Son Jesus, who lived a perfect life without sin, the only one who ever did that, and he died for our sins in our place substitutionary. That's the idea of the gospel. Christ substituted himself in your place so that you wouldn't have to suffer for eternity for your sins. This is the first component of the gospel message.

The second part is that he was buried. Now you might say, "Well, Brett, of course, if he died, he was buried." But there's a nuance there that's kind of interesting because there's a whole notion out there that, well, Jesus didn't really actually die. Did you know the whole Muslim faith, all the Islamic people don't believe Jesus died on the cross? Some Muslims believe he was on a cross, but he never really died. Did you know that all your pipe-puffing, cardigan-sweater-wearing professors at these universities that talk about the historical Jesus and all this stuff, one of their theories as to the resurrection that really didn't happen, they'll say, was he didn't really die? He merely swooned.

When he died on the cross, they thought he was dead but he wasn't completely dead. So they wrapped him up, put him in a tomb. And then, now by the way, I understand that what I believe—Jesus died on the cross, was buried, and then rose from the grave just like he said he would do—I understand that takes faith and I'll admit that. But at the same time, I'm always amazed what kind of faith these secular pipe-puffing, cardigan-sweater-wearing professors who like to talk about the historical Jesus, they have more faith than I do.

They believe ridiculous things, really ridiculous things. Like for example, I believe Jesus died on a cross, was buried, and then he rose from the grave just like he said he would do. But they believe Jesus didn't really die after having nails in his hands and feet, after having whipping on his back with a flagellum which makes your back ripped to shreds, you're bleeding, you're dying, and then hanging for hours on a cross. Not only that, the people who were experts on death—are you an expert on death? If you came up to a dead person, would you even know how to make sure or know? I've had to do that on a couple of occasions and it's not a fun thing to check for a person's pulse.

But Romans were experts on death. These Romans that crucified Jesus, that was their job description, kill people. And you do it in the most brutal suffering way. And when you wanted them dead, you made them dead. And they were pros. So here's what the pipe-puffing, cardigan-sweater professor is saying, "Well, he wasn't completely dead." See, there's so much writing about Roman crucifixion in history that's outside of the Bible. The Bible perfectly aligns with that historical evidence. For example, one of the things that's very common is they'd hang people on crosses and they'd let them suffer as long as they wanted to.

And then one of the things that they would do is they would bend the victim's knees and nail or tie their feet to the cross so that their knees were bent. The reason they did this is because when their arms were outstretched, their shoulders would eventually pop out of socket. Then their muscles would spasm, their pectoralis major muscles would start to spasm and it would start to actually choke off their breathing airway. It was very painful. But the only way a victim on a cross could breathe is to then stand up on that nail of their foot and stretch up and gasp for air. And then they'd drop because the pain was so excruciating, they'd have to drop again. And then they'd stretch up again and breathe and so.

What do you do if you're a Roman soldier? It's like, "Man, we got to get these guys dead now." So what happened in the Bible's what they do and this is common. They would take a big club and they'd walk up to the victim on the cross and they'd break the legs. The reason they would do that is because then the person could no longer stretch up and gasp for air on their legs. And so in a matter of minutes, they would suffocate and die. Well, the biblical narrative perfectly follows that. It says they were getting close to the Passover and they couldn't deal with dead bodies at that point.

So they very much quickly said, "Let's break their legs." They broke the two thieves' legs. But when they came to Jesus, what did they say? Do anybody remember? "This one's already dead." Now the pipe-puffing, cardigan-sweater-wearing, "See, that's where they made the mistake. He wasn't really dead. He wasn't completely dead, he was mostly dead." And so they didn't break his legs, fulfilling Bible prophecy, by the way—not a bone of his body would be broken. That's a Bible prophecy fulfillment right there.

"Well, Brett, that's the mistake, they left him alive." Well, they did something else to make sure that he was dead. They took a spear and they shoved it right into his side, and out gushed a mixture of blood and water. If you're a forensic medicine specialist, you would say, "No, he was dead." I'm not a rocket scientist, but the mixture of blood and water coming out, that means he was dead. Jesus died and then they buried him in a tomb, put a two-ton stone over the opening of that tomb as they would do in those days.

So that's part of the gospel message. He literally suffered on the cross for our sins, but he died and was buried. And then the third component of the gospel, and this is the big one: and that he rose again on the third day. The raising of the dead is the key to the story. If you don't tell the whole story, it's not a good story at all. It reminds me of another story. I love how history sort of echoes and there's things to learn. Maybe you know your history when Napoleon, the Napoleonic Wars. Napoleon had crushed most of his enemies and he was quite prolific when it came to war.

And that's why the British were shaking in their shoes when Napoleon was knocking at their door. Well, they sent General Wellington. Wellington was a guy who had some wins and some losses in battle, but he was kind of the best foot forward for the British. So they sent Wellington to Waterloo where they would finally head-to-head go against Napoleon. Long story short, Wellington shockingly, amazingly defeated Napoleon there at Waterloo. Now to get the message from the battle there at Waterloo, they had to—they didn't have cell phones and text messaging back in the 1800s.

So the way they would send the message is they would relay a short signal to different series of stations with one within the sight of the next. And they would send an established code of message between England and the continent. And the message was sent. This was the message: Wellington defeated Napoleon at Waterloo. Great message for the British. So they started sending and relaying, relay, relay, relay across the English Channel. The problem was fog rolled in, and just before it reached Britain, they only got the first two words and it said, "Wellington defeated."

And all of Britain was grieving and going, "Oh no, we're going to be speaking French for crying out loud." And they were bummed because it was their last ditch effort to have Wellington fight Napoleon. Well, after a few hours, the fog rolled out the rest of the way and suddenly it was clear again. And the rest of the message came: Wellington defeated Napoleon at Waterloo. And then there was great celebration. People that only talk about the dying of Jesus, you're missing the whole point.

It's like you might even say Jesus defeated—well, the whole sentence, if you know the whole gospel: Jesus defeated Satan on the cross. But if you only talk about his death and burial, you've got Jesus defeated. Do you ever wonder if Satan thought Jesus was defeated when he died? Well, Satan surely he knew. Do you understand Satan is not omniscient and he's not omnipresent, meaning he's not all over and he doesn't know everything, not like God. So I wonder if he's like, Jesus dies on the cross and he's buried and Satan for three days is what's he doing? "Yes."

I wonder if that's Satan. I don't know for sure, but I wonder if Satan was obviously trying to trap Jesus. We know that because he led Jesus into the wilderness to tempt him. Now he's thinking, "Wow, I got him. Jesus defeated." But little did he know the rest of that line as the fog of sin and Satan rolls out. We see Jesus defeated Satan on the cross. He won the victory. Some might view the death of Christ only as defeat. But actually, when you realize what happened, he willingly did that. He died willingly, knowing even as he foretold, "I will raise up on the third day," and he did it.

So the resurrection actually spells out victory. Victory for Jesus, which means victory for us. Just like the British, it was Wellington that had the victory, but all the British people were celebrating. Why? Because it was a victory for them. Same with Jesus. When Jesus died on the cross and when he rose from the grave, you say, "Well, good for Jesus, he had victory." But no, because his victory, we have victory. In fact, that victory over sin, which means defeat of Satan, which means victory over sin and death, I think 1 Corinthians 15:55 spells that out for us where it says, "O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ."

That's the rest of the message. Yeah, Christ defeated Satan on the cross and because of that victory, we have victory. Now this does so much for us. One of the things it does is it tells us that Jesus really is who he claimed to be. No other religious leader did that. Muhammad didn't do one thing to prove his claims of a prophet. Buddha did nothing to prove that what he said was true. Confucius, nothing. It's sad because people follow these people, but there's no proof in what they say or claim. Jesus is the only one who said, "I will prove that I am the Savior of the world," and he said, "Destroy this body and in three days I'll raise it up."

Speaking of the French and the British, another little story. Charles Maurice de Talleyrand of Périgord, he was a guy who was a great French diplomat. But he's kind of a funny guy in history. He was known to be sort of a stoic-face kind of thing, but he was witty. But he was also a believer in Christ. There's some interesting things about this guy. But I came across a story there was a young man who was trying to start a new religion. You know, he was sort of taking Christianity and saying that was false, but his version was the right one.

But nobody was following him and nobody was becoming converts. So he went to Charles Maurice and said, "Man, nobody's following my new religion." He says, "What would you recommend that I do to get people to believe?" And he said this, Charles Maurice, he said, "I should recommend that you get yourself crucified. Then die. But be sure to rise again on the third day." I like that because that is the thing that separates Christ from all other religions. What makes Christianity more true than all the other religions? Glad you asked. It's a resurrected Jesus Christ.

If Christ is not risen, we're in big trouble. Did you know that Paul actually talked about this in such a negative? He raised the question sort of rhetorically, if Christ did not rise from the dead, then what? And in 1 Corinthians 15:12, Paul sort of rhetorically works through that. It seems kind of wordy and you might say, "What's he talking about?" But I think it's rich that he goes through the implications. If Jesus didn't really raise from the dead, then what? Well, let's read. It says in verse 12, he says, "Now if Christ be preached that he rose from the dead, how say some among you that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there be no resurrection of the dead, then is Christ not risen: And if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is vain." The word vain is the old King James way of saying a waste of time. Our preaching is a waste of time if Jesus didn't raise from the dead, and your faith is a waste of time if Jesus didn't raise from the dead. Because he claimed he would. One of the most provable facts in history is that Jesus rose from the grave. That's why the whole world was changed from that day forward.

Guest (Male): Pastor Brett Meador pausing in a message drawn from Paul's passage of Romans chapter one, acknowledging our victory of death is due to the resurrection of Christ the Lord. And there's more to come in Today's Word in celebration of Easter next time.

Today's Word is the radio ministry of Athey Creek Church in the Portland, Oregon area where Pastor Brett Meador's the senior pastor. We invite you to find out more about Pastor Brett and Athey Creek Church by going to todayswordradio.com. If you missed any portion of this study, you'll find all of his messages online at todayswordradio.com. Well, that's all the time we have. Next time, Pastor Brett will continue this Easter message and we'll not only find out the reason for Christ's death by crucifixion, but the importance of the truth of his resurrection and our need to believe in him. Today's Word with Pastor Brett Meador is an outreach of Athey Creek Church in West Linn, Oregon.