Truth For Life

Guest (Male): The Bible is clear there is only one Lord. In fact, this truth is the foundation of the Christian faith. Does your life reflect this truth? Today on Truth For Life, Alistair Begg explains what happens when a profession of faith in Christ alone is genuine. Let’s open our Bibles to Ephesians chapter 4 and look at verse 5.

Alistair Begg: We are the children of the kingdom of God. We’re the chosen ones for whom the Savior came. We’re his noble new creation by the Spirit and the blood. We’re the church that he has built to bear his name. This church has one Lord in whom we trust and one true faith that we believe and declare. Those who are included in this company are identified by the same sign, namely that of baptism.

Let’s begin to look at this by considering what he is saying when he says there is one Lord. *Jesus Kyrios*, *Kyrios Iesous*, was the earliest of the Christian creeds. The Christians in the Roman Empire were used to people greeting one another in the morning by declaring that Caesar is lord. When they said to one another, "Caesar is lord," the Christians were saying, "No, actually, he’s not. Jesus is Lord."

Jesus is the sovereign Lord who sets up authorities and brings them down and so on. That early creed is embedded in the instruction of the New Testament. Romans 10:9: "If you confess with your mouth, 'Jesus is Lord,' and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved." It’s very straightforward, isn’t it?

When Paul sings his great hymn in Philippians 2 of the Lord Jesus Christ descending from heaven and finally ascending to heaven, he says in that discourse round 11 of Philippians 2, one day at the name of Jesus, every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. What he is saying there is not that that will be an expression first of all of personal devotion, but it will be an expression of the true identity of Jesus.

You remember when we sing in another of Townend’s songs about the return of Christ and the phrase is, "A shout of joy, a cry of anguish, as Christ returns and every knee bows low. Shout of joy, a cry of anguish." Whether from the perspective of joy or anguish, Paul says every knee will bow and every tongue will confess who Jesus is, namely God himself.

When the Old Testament was translated into Greek, giving us the Septuagint, the challenge for the translators was what word will we use for the most common word of God, Yahweh or Jehovah? Over 6,000 times in the Greek translation of the Old Testament, they use this word *Kyrios*. *Kyrios*. The importance of this is found in the fact that the early disciples knew that *Kyrios* was a divine title.

Consequently, it is used over 700 times in the New Testament concerning Jesus. It is not his first name, as it were, Lord Jesus. It is a defining explanation of who and what Jesus is, so that what is said in the Old Testament is then exemplified in the new. With that by way of background, the members of the one body who are indwelt by the one Spirit, who are confident in the one hope, are described as those who submit to the one master or to the one Lord.

In the time that we have, I want to consider four aspects of what this means for somebody who is in this description here: a member of the body, indwelt by the Spirit, called to the one hope, and living under one Lord. This first almost goes without saying, but these individuals are those who have believed in him. They have believed in him. What we’ve quoted in Romans 10:9 is a description of their shared faith.

Or in John’s prologue, he came to his own, his own did not receive him. But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become the children of God. That believing into Jesus is as a result of a supernatural activity. It has to be. We cannot access God on our own terms and in our own time.

There is an invisible boundary that separates us from God in his holiness and ourselves as men and women by nature in our sin. When we begin to consider these things, when we begin to get an inkling of this as being true, when somewhere in the dim and distant background we seem to be being called out of our sleep, out of our deadness, it is an indication of the activity of God.

In order to be included in his body, we have to be made alive. Who makes us alive? You remember the conversation with Nicodemus in John chapter 3. When Jesus says to him, "You need to be born again or you’ll never enter the kingdom of God," Nicodemus immediately switches to the physical and he says, "How can you be born again in your mother's womb when you’re the size that I am?"

Jesus says, "No, no, no. That which is born of the flesh is flesh and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Don’t be marveled at the fact that I’ve said to you you must be born again." Not as a result of a human decision, not as a result of a husband’s will, but as a result of the supernatural activity of God. We are by nature as dead spiritually as Lazarus was, the friend of Jesus, recorded in John chapter 11.

If you want a homework assignment, then read John chapter 11. When you read the chapter, you will find there that the sisters of Lazarus had come to Jesus and they were concerned that since their brother was ill, they needed Jesus to come. Unfortunately, Jesus delayed from their perspective. Therefore, their brother died. Lazarus was in the grave and, in fact, in the King James Version, it was said of him that "he stinketh."

The decomposition of his body had already begun to take place as dead. Martha chided Jesus and she says, "If you’d only been a little quicker, then my brother would not have died." Jesus says to her, "Your brother will live." She says, "I know that he will live in the resurrection at the last day." Jesus says to her, "I am the resurrection and the life. He that believeth in me, even though he die, yet shall he live. And whosoever lives and believes in me will never die."

Then he said, "Do you believe this? Do you believe this?" A little while later, he would call Lazarus out from the tomb, called him by name. The commentators all say the same thing. The reason he addressed him by name was to prevent everybody else from coming out at the same time. Because he speaks and listening to his voice, new life the dead received.

When he calls your name, you’ll know. When it moves beyond some dull thought in the back of your head to an insistent knocking in your heart. When you find that you’re no longer able simply just to push it to the perimeter. When suddenly you begin to get interested, suddenly the hymns start to cajole with your thinking and so on. It is the supernatural activity of God.

Can I ask you the question that Jesus asked Martha? Do you believe this? Do you believe this? I’m not asking do you make an intellectual assent to the existence of Jesus or to the things that are even said about him concerning his death and resurrection, but do you believe in terms of personal trust? I wouldn’t be at all surprised if some of you do not believe.

The reason you don’t believe is because it just sounds far too simple for you and you are very learned. You say to yourself, "It cannot be that way. It has to be far more complicated. There must be something that I have to do." Partly because we like to do things so that it makes us feel good that we’ve actually accomplished something. Apparently, in this program, there is nothing we can contribute at all.

Have you believed like this? Story told by an old evangelist who years ago encountered two boys who were in a London hospital. They were side by side in the beds. One of the boys had a dangerous fever, the other had been struck by a truck and his body was mangled badly. The second boy said to the first, "Hey, Willie, I was down to the mission Sunday school and they told me about Jesus. I believe that if you ask Jesus, he will help you."

They said that if we believe in him and pray to God, then when we die, he’ll come and take us with him to heaven. Willie replied, "But what if I’m asleep when he comes and I can’t ask him?" His friend said, "Just hold up your hand. That’s what we did in Sunday school. I guess Jesus sees it." Since Willie was too weak to hold up his arm, the other boy propped it up for him with a pillow.

During the night, Willie died. But when the nurse found him in the morning, his arm was still propped up. We can be sure that the Lord saw his arm because the Lord sees faith. The Lord accepts faith. Nay, the Lord gives faith. He gave the very faith to the boy in order that, with the enabling help of his friend, he may simply place up his hand.

By faith, he found the way to heaven. By faith, he saw what some of us in our intellectual arrogance will never discover on our own. For unless, said Jesus, you become as a little child, you will in no wise enter into the kingdom of heaven. God’s greatest truths are discovered by simple faith. Let me ask you: have you ever put up your hand?

One Lord, they believed in him. One Lord, secondly, they belong to him. The believing is about belonging. On one occasion, Jesus said to his disciples, "You call me Teacher and Lord, and you are right, for so I am." That’s John 13. John 14, in his discourse with his followers, he says, "Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me."

In other words, our profession of believing in Jesus will then become apparent as we belong to Jesus and our belonging to Jesus will be revealed in our behavior. Sometimes your mom or your dad might say to you, "Now remember that your name is Alistair Begg and you belong to us and you represent us." In a far greater way, the Lord Jesus looks on us and says, "Now remember, you belong to me. Now go out there and live in such a way that it becomes apparent."

What does it mean? Well, in intensely practical terms, since Jesus is Lord, the believer is not at liberty to disagree with his teaching. I meet people all the time who think they’re so smart. They say, "Well, there are certain parts of the Bible that I don’t like." I’ve got news for you: you’re not allowed to choose the sections you like.

If you believe in Jesus, you belong to Jesus, and you have no liberty to disagree with anything that he has taught and you have no freedom to teach anything than what he teaches. It’s straightforward. It makes sense. We have no freedom to disobey his commands. For the test of our believing is in our behaving. Paul explains to the Corinthians in 1 Corinthians 6, he says, "Listen, you’re not your own. You were bought at a price, so glorify God in your body."

The way we used to deal with this in Scotland was the song you probably sang as well: "Be careful, little eyes, what you see. Be careful, little feet, where you go. Be careful, little hands, what you touch." Here I am at almost 65 years of age having to sing the song to myself all the time. Why? Because I belong to him. Therefore, what I do with my body matters.

We can’t live with this gnostic dichotomy between, "Well, the spiritual part of me is really tuned in, but the physical part of me doesn’t really matter because it will all eventually disintegrate." No, no, no. That is gnosticism. That is not Christianity. "I beseech you therefore, brethren," says Paul, "by the mercies of God to present your bodies as a living sacrifice to God."

And why has God done this? To deprive us? To save us. To keep us. To enable us to discover that he has made us in order that we might glorify him and enjoy him. When we fiddle with this and when we get it wrong, and we do get it wrong, then we realize how easy it is to drift from there into all kinds of excuses, all kinds of explanations. We find ourselves very quickly saying, "Well, you see, this is just one of the parts of the Bible that I haven’t found is really fitting in with my program."

If you belong, then thirdly, God’s purpose for you is that you might become like the one to whom you belong. I just met a couple on the stairs. It’s their 21st wedding anniversary today. It’s quite amazing the longer you live with your spouse, they get a lot better, don’t they? No, it is a strange phenomenon. I’m being facetious there. But we do become like the people with whom we spend time.

The purpose of God from all of eternity, this is Romans 8:28, "And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose." Verse 29: "For those whom he called, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son." So we are one body. We have one Spirit who indwells us, one hope to which we make progress.

We are under the one Lord who is in the process of making us like Jesus. Paul explains in 2 Corinthians 3, he says, "And we all with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the image." In other words, God’s eternal purpose from all of eternity is to make his children like his Son, like their elder brother.

Now, says Paul, the existential reality of that is that we are being transformed as an ongoing process. It’s called sanctification, from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit. This process is not an instantaneous process. It takes place over time. We all have occasion to say to one another, "Please be patient with me. God has not finished with me yet."

But we may be confident that God’s eschatological plan will be fulfilled, 1 John 3, and one day when we see him, we will be like him. One Lord, they believed in him. They belong to him. They are becoming like him. Finally, they are telling others of him. The whole body is committed to taking the whole gospel to the whole world.

That’s why Jesus gave the mandate to his disciples to tell the good news, to make disciples, to baptize them. It’s important that when we pay attention to that, we realize that telling the world the good news is not to be the hobby of a few eccentrics or fanatics. You know, the people from our church that have been crazy enough to go to Japan or have buried themselves in the center of Asia or up against the wall in Eastern Europe.

It’s not the proviso of a few folks who have regarded it in that way. Nor is it a dispensable option so that we can say, "Well, you know, that’s really not my thing and frankly, the whole idea of it makes me uncomfortable." Oh, really? Do you realize that the people that live in your street and work in your office, outside of Christ, are dead in their sins?

One day, they will be part of a company that bows and declares the lordship of Jesus. You and I may be the key to them participating on that day in a shout of joy rather than in a cry of anguish. Taking the good news to the world is not an impertinent interference in other people’s private lives. That sense of pluralism, that notion of pantheism is pervasive in our culture.

The only way that we will be able to fight against that is by submitting ourselves to the truth of the Bible. Why would you say such things about marriage? Why would you say such things about sexuality? On what basis would you say there is only one God and Savior and that Savior is Jesus? It is here.

Think about this. We would not be here. There would be no gospel in America were it not for the fact that others took seriously what it meant to believe, belong, behave, and to declare this good news to the ends of the earth. Mission, to quote John Stott, is a logical deduction from the universal lordship of Jesus. Mission is a logical deduction. We go to all the world with kingdom hope unfurled. Why? Because no other name has power to save. Save Jesus Christ the Lord. Do you believe this?

Guest (Male): You’re listening to Alistair Begg on Truth For Life. As Alistair explained in today’s message, God’s greatest truths are discovered by simple faith. How can you hold firm to your faith when many in today’s culture are increasingly rejecting Christian beliefs? Let me encourage you to read Alistair’s book, *Brave by Faith: God-Sized Confidence in a Post-Christian World*.

In this book, Alistair looks at the Old Testament book of Daniel and Daniel’s experience in the unbelieving culture of ancient Babylon. What you’ll learn is that God upheld Daniel’s faith through many trials and he will uphold your faith in the same way. Now for a limited time, you can download the *Brave by Faith* audiobook for free at truthforlife.org/brave.

To help you dig deeper and apply what you learn, the book comes with a companion study guide that you can also download for free. We’re glad you’ve joined us to study God’s word this week and hope you’re able to worship with your local church this Sunday. On Monday, we’ll explore what biblical faith looks like. Is it simply blind belief or perhaps the power of positive thinking? Monday we’ll see what the Bible means when it talks about one true faith. The Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth For Life, where the learning is for living.