Two new voices were introduced to Alabama Baptists at the Tuesday afternoon session of the State Evangelism Conference — two voices representing the great pulpits of First Baptist Church, Dallas, and First Baptist Church, Orlando, Fla. Both Robert Jeffress, pastor of First, Dallas, and David Uth, pastor of First, Orlando, have only been in their positions a short time and spoke to Alabama Baptists for the first time during the conference.
Opening to Romans 3, Jeffress said there are three things Christians need to understand about God’s righteousness.
1. God’s righteousness is offered as a gift (v. 24).
“Most people think right standing with God is a result of keeping the Law… but Paul says it’s apart from (our) works and that it’s always been that way,” Jeffress said.
2. God’s righteousness is based on Christ’s work (v. 24).
“Salvation is not based on God overlooking our sin; it is based on work, not our work but the work Christ performed for us,” Jeffress said. “He is our redemption. Paul is saying all of us, every one of us, were slaves of Satan. We were in the marketplace of sin — bound, shackled and headed toward an eternity separated from God. But God, for no other reason than His great love, reached down and redeemed us. He purchased us.”
Thus Christ’s work provides redemption, propitiation and justification of man who chooses to trust in Him, he added.
3. God’s righteousness is received through faith (v. 26).
“We are not saved by faith. … We are saved by grace,” Jeffress said. “Faith is not the means of our salvation; it is the channel through which we receive salvation. … None of us is saved by faith; we are saved through faith.”
And that demands both truth and trust, he added.
“Your faith has to be attached to the right object to bring salvation into your life. … The fact that God demands 100 percent perfection to get into heaven … and the fact that salvation is a gift and not a reward, it demands our humility, it democratizes salvation and it demonstrates the justice of God.”
So what would happen if we turned the church loose with the knowledge of God’s righteousness?
Uth said it would sound like an explosion.
“Your community has been hearing only a whimper from your church … because your church is forcing people to do evangelism through a very narrow outlet,” he said. “What happens in our churches when we narrow the definition of sowing (is that) we limit the number of sowers and we limit the number of seeds. What we need to do is release the people of our churches and bless them and be their biggest cheerleader to sow wherever they are.”
Preaching from Psalm 126, he told those in attendance that God’s hope for His people is that if they sow with tears, then they will reap with joy.
Sowing has three characteristics, Uth said.
1. Intention
“You and I have to be intentional, not just hope some seeds fall out of the bag,” he said.
2. Relation
Use every opportunity to sow seeds, Uth said. “I would encourage you to encourage your people to leverage every relationship they have for Jesus’ sake.”
3. Supernatural
“This is not normal seed — it is powerful,” he said, noting that it’s not the memorization of an outline that produces results. “It is the gospel that accomplishes it.”
Tears, he explained, are also necessary, as it is vital for people to know that believers care about them.
“They are lost — they aren’t stupid. They know the difference between a church program and people who weep over them,” Uth said.
“Does your community know you care? Have they seen the tears for them?”
When God said if you sow, you will reap, “you can count on it,” he said.
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