Christ Alone

We just came out of 21 Days of Prayer, and God did some incredible things in our church over those three weeks.

Mary Shelton went to the doctor back in March, and they discovered something called venous reflux. A valve in a vein in her leg was not operating like it should, and the doctors told her surgery was coming in a few months. So she began praying, and she had her small group praying. During this season of prayer she went back for her checkup, and they told her, "You’re not going to need surgery, because we can find no venous reflux at all." They said this usually does not get better on its own. She said they were shocked and could not explain it. But we can! Our God. Isn’t that amazing?

Another woman said that on day 19 she had a breakthrough and forgave a person who had hurt her, and on day 21 she started praying for that person. How many of you know, if you are praying for that person, you have absolutely forgiven them. One man said, "God has revealed my calling." One lady said, "I’m growing in my purpose." And one young lady who has only been in our church a few months said, "21 days changed my prayer life for the better. God has opened my eyes and my heart to hear and see him more clearly."

We were praying for the church, and right in the midst of that, as we focused on others, God chose to bless us. Our theme verse for this Pillars series says it best.

For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. Ephesians 2:8-10 (NIV)

Too Many Options

Have any of y’all been to a grocery store lately? Something’s up. When I was growing up, we didn’t have a cereal aisle. We had a cereal section. We had seven different types of cereal. Now there’s 7,000 bajillion. I’m a barbecue guy, and I’m telling you, we have enough barbecue sauces. Nobody needs to make any more barbecue sauces. And I went down the chip aisle the other day, and now there are versions of Flamin’ Hot. A version of a chip now has its own versions.

Missy was shopping for a dress this week on her phone. I came back an hour later and she was in the exact same position, still looking. The website had infinite scroll baked into it. As long as she kept going, thousands more dresses were available. Do we need that many options? I don’t know that we do.

The problem comes when we start wanting options spiritually. You might want to believe something God’s Word says, but you leave a couple of things out because the voice of the world shouts really loud, telling you, "That’s an old way," or, "That’s not how it really is anymore." And yet it’s in God’s Word, so it’s true. Maybe some New Age idea looks interesting. Maybe you depend on your own self. This is classic me. I’m a pretty ambitious guy, so I have to wrestle my pride every single morning and say, "Lord, it’s not about my ambition. It is all about You." Or maybe you allow some sin to creep in, and you just have it there, and you don’t deal with it. You end up with a little bit of this and a little bit of that kind of spiritual life.

It reminds me of the show MasterChef. What if somebody took the salt out of the salt shaker and put sugar in it? A contestant grabs what they think is salt and starts dousing sugar all over. How many of you know the dish is ruined? Can you imagine the look on Gordon Ramsay’s face as he takes a bite?

Sometimes in life we sprinkle a little something on, and we don’t even understand what we’re doing.

[There are] those who are pure in their own eyes and yet are not cleansed of their filth. Proverbs 30:12 (NIV)

You can believe you’ve got it all together. Maybe you’re even holding up a handful of good works as your scorecard for how close you are to God. But if you’re ignoring the things you’re allowing into your life that aren’t of God, you actually need to be cleansed.

In faith, we should never put our trust in anything that’s not of God. We anchor ourselves in one thing. Actually, it’s one person, and His name is Jesus.

Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." John 14:6 (NIV)

This is a bold claim, and you’re probably thinking I should have saved it for the end of the message. Spoiler alert: Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. That is what Christ alone means.

I can tell you it’s true because other religions say something completely different. Islam would say, "Fight others until we win." Buddhism would say, "Fight yourself until you win." Hinduism would say, "Fight until you get it right," and if you don’t, you come back around and try again. New Age would say, "Fight your own fight, because no one else can fight it for you." Atheism is a fight against believing there’s a fight. And that’s no slight to atheism, but as Christians we say that’s a lot of belief, to believe there’s nothing to believe in.

Christianity says, "Receive Jesus." The fight is already over. Jesus has already won the fight on your behalf. It’s just up to us whether we’re going to receive Him.

There Really Is a Fight

If you’re curious about this fight language, let me show it to you in Scripture.

Then war broke out in heaven. Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon and his angels fought back. But he was not strong enough, and they lost their place in heaven. The great dragon was hurled down—that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray. He was hurled to the earth, and his angels with him. Revelation 12:7-9 (NIV)

The first fight there ever was, was between Satan and God, and it was over like that. The enemy is still trying to fight a fight he has already lost. But people who choose to believe the wrong thing don’t know what the fight really is.

The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel that displays the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. 2 Corinthians 4:4 (NIV)

If somebody you know is far from God, pray for their eyes to be opened. And 1 Corinthians 2:14 says the person without the Spirit considers the things of God foolishness. That’s why sometimes you have a conversation with somebody and they almost make fun of you because of your faith. Don’t get upset. They see it as foolishness because they’ve been deceived. That’s why we have to watch what voices and what ideas we let into our lives.

Dear children, do not let anyone lead you astray. The one who does what is right is righteous, just as he is righteous. The one who does what is sinful is of the devil, because the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil’s work. 1 John 3:7-8 (NIV)

Look at that closely. The reason Jesus came was to destroy the devil’s work.

Larry on Flight 5809

I was on a flight this week, and the guy next to me turned right away and struck up a conversation. Then he asked, "What do you do?" In that moment, every pastor has to decide how much truth to tell. "I’m in sales. I report directly to the big boss." "I’m a research assistant for the royal family." "I steward an eternal investment fund." Anything to not say the word pastor, because when you say pastor, it changes everything. I decided to tell this guy the full truth. I said, "I’m a pastor."

The first thing out of his mouth was, "Well, I’m a bit jaded about all that." No small talk. We just went.

His name is Larry. He grew up Roman Catholic, went to a Catholic boarding school, and somewhere in his teens he got totally disillusioned. He said, "I kept running into people who were supposedly God’s people," and they didn’t seem to love him. My summary is that he was looking for God in other people and never sought God for himself, and it caused him to step away from the church. He never reconnected.

I asked him, "Do you still believe?"

He said, "I don’t know exactly how to answer that question. I do have a problem with some of the miracles Jesus did. I don’t think he walked on water. I don’t really think the water got turned into wine."

Y’all know me. I’m chomping at the bit to answer him. The host of the party said it was the best wine ever. I don’t know how the party gets better if it’s just water. But I restrained myself, and I asked, "What about the healings?"

He said, "I think some of those were true. I think some of those really happened."

So some miracles Larry believes and some he doesn’t. But really, he was trapped. He had allowed doubts to trap him for so long that he could not see the truth of God’s Word anymore.

I shared a book with him called The Case for Christ by Lee Strobel. If you’re an atheist or an agnostic, it’s a great book. Strobel was an investigative journalist at the Chicago Tribune and an atheist, and he decided he could prove the claims about Jesus false. Instead, he kept finding they were true, in historical accounts beyond the Bible. Once he discovered it was real, he said, "Now I must believe." He put his faith in Christ and has lived as a minister for years.

I hope Larry picks it up. I don’t think I shared enough information with him to know I’m talking about him today. But if you happen to be watching, Larry from flight 5809, love you, bro. I am still praying for you.

I share that story because things can break down really quickly in any of our lives. We can go from believing to waking up jaded, letting "me" lead the way. Larry was deciding for himself what was true, following his heart instead of following God.

The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it? Jeremiah 17:9 (NIV)

The David Russell translation: Jeremiah said, "Check yourself before you wreck yourself." Your heart will basically tell you, "Do whatever you want. It’s going to be fine."

What Only We Wanted to Do

That’s what we were born into. We did what only we wanted to do, and from the very beginning, we separated ourselves from God. We picked a tree called the knowledge of good and evil. We wanted not just to know God, because we already did. We wanted to know like God, to understand His decision making for what is right and wrong.

Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, "Did God really say, ’You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?" ... "You will not certainly die," the serpent said to the woman. "For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." Genesis 3:1, 4-5 (NIV)

Pause on that. "Did God really say?" Your heart will tell you that. The enemy will tell you that. It is such a powerful lie, and he will use it against you constantly. The enemy has no new tactics. He’s been using the same junk all this time.

It happened to me in college. I got saved when I was six years old. I grew up in a beautiful, healthy church and loved my childhood. But I got to college, and there were some other voices involved, including the one inside me saying, "You’ve heard all this stuff growing up. Why don’t you go taste and see what the big deal is?" Some of y’all know college. I filled in all the blanks in college.

And the Lord allowed me to leave. He didn’t chase me. He just waited for me. A year and a half later, I woke up one day and realized how far I was from God. I never stopped believing. I just had no relationship with Him anymore. I wasn’t even convicted by sin at that point. That’s how far it got. And thank God, in that numbness, God woke me up. I got down on my knees in an apartment at the University of Montevallo and said, "Lord, if You’ll forgive me, I will give You the rest of my life."

Of course He forgave me. A year later, God called me to ministry. A year after that, God told Missy to say yes to an important question. We’ve had a beautiful marriage for 22 years, three kids, and now this church. I’m not bragging. I’m saying I had two paths in front of me, and so do you. I believed there was something good out there that God was holding back from me. Let me tell you something. It was all bad. Nothing I did was fulfilling until I gave my life back to God completely.

Like Adam and Eve, we all fall short of God’s design for our lives. And that’s why Jesus came. We were the ones who separated ourselves from God, but Jesus became a bridge back to Him.

For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous. Romans 5:19 (NIV)

Jesus became the sole sacrifice for us. Adam: one man, one sin, leading to death. Jesus: one man, one sacrifice, leading to life. He instituted a new system. Before, a priest was basically your broker between you and God. If you messed up, you brought a sin offering. If you wanted to say thanks, you brought a thanks offering. All those options were brought to the temple, through a priest, to help you become right with God again.

We were doing what only we wanted to do. But when Jesus came, He did what only He could do. No one else was qualified, because Jesus was perfect.

For there is one God and one mediator between God and mankind, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all people. 1 Timothy 2:5-6 (NIV)

That word ransom is really important. In the movies we say, "Don’t pay the ransom, just go fight the guy." Do you realize Jesus could have done that? He could have come down, whipped the enemy, and said, "It’s over." Instead, He wrote a love story. He said, "I am going to pay the price for their sins. I’m going to come and be that priest, that sacrifice, that ransom." Here is why only He could do it.

1. Only Jesus was and is the Son of God.

Matthew gets straight to the point. The first two chapters cover Jesus’ birth, and then chapter three skips almost 30 years and opens with the baptism.

As soon as Jesus was baptized, he went up out of the water. At that moment heaven was opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him. And a voice from heaven said, "This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased." Matthew 3:16-17 (NIV)

The backstory is that John the Baptist, the one prophetically declared to herald the way of the Messiah, was asked by Jesus to baptize Him. And John said, "This is backwards. How about you baptize me?" Jesus said no. This needed to take place to fulfill what God was doing. And then God said it out loud.

I consider it the start of the way of Jesus. There was no more ambiguity, because God Himself declared Jesus as His Son. And now we get to follow the way of Jesus.

2. Only Jesus could pay for your sins.

There was a price on your sins, and the price is death. Only Jesus could die and conquer death in the process of dying. Think about that. You don’t normally conquer something by doing the thing that would conquer you. Jesus went headfirst into death itself to conquer death on our behalf.

For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin. Hebrews 4:15 (NIV)

He was tempted in every way. He spent 40 days fasting in the desert, already depleted in His human strength, and the enemy came and tempted Him. We fall prey to temptation all the time. Jesus faced the same temptations and never sinned. He was the perfect sacrifice.

Our only response should be to give Jesus your past, your present, and your future. He gave His life for you. The least we can do is respond by giving Him ours.

3. Only Jesus defeated the enemy.

You do not have to deal with the things the enemy is throwing at you. Don’t just stand there getting hit with temptation, lies, and shame over something you did a long time ago. Jesus has already defeated the enemy, and you have authority over the enemy in Jesus. The enemy will tell you you’re far from God. Do you know how to get close to God? Draw near to Him, the Bible says, and He will draw near to you. Is it really that simple? Yes. The second I put my knees into that Berber carpet, the Lord met me in that moment. He didn’t say, "Time out for you, young man." He yanked me up out of the ditch I was in. I realized I had been letting the enemy wallop me the whole time, when Jesus had already won the battle.

Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might break the power of him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil—and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death. Hebrews 2:14-15 (NIV)

Fear is a crippling thing. Some of y’all get on WebMD every day with a new ailment you’re tracking, and you’re asking ChatGPT and it’s giving you the worst diagnosis. Quit doing all that. And hear me: we love medical care around here. Don’t see WebMD, go see a real MD. But sometimes what’s going on isn’t preservation of life. It’s a fear of death, and Jesus came to break that power.

I want to live as long as I possibly can. But when my time is up, I’m going to be with my King Jesus. You can always tell the difference in families of faith when you walk with them through the loss of a loved one. They have the hope of heaven, and they don’t grieve like people who have no hope.

So let Jesus fight your battles. This is one of the best reasons you need a small group. There will be times when the fight is tough and you feel weak, and you need somebody with some strength in their bones to say, "You’re on the right path. God is delivering you." Find some friends who will tell you that. And if your friends are telling you things that distance you from God, find some distance from that friend. Get some people around you who believe that Jesus has won.

4. Only Jesus is seated with God.

Day after day every priest stands and performs his religious duties; again and again he offers the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. But when this priest had offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God. Hebrews 10:11-12 (NIV)

Day after day, every priest stands. It’s like the job you can’t clock out of. It’s the laundry basket. How does it keep filling back up? But when this priest, Jesus, had offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, He sat down at the right hand of God.

Jesus was given His rightful position. He really never should have had to leave heaven. He could have kept that old institution running, and we could still be bringing sacrifices through priests. But Jesus said, "I’m going to come, because I love each and every one of those people. I want to change everything once and for all."

Because Jesus is seated at the right hand of God, you can trust Him and allow Him to be King of your life. That’s who He is. He is the King. He is the Lord.

Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. Philippians 2:9-11 (NIV)

Jesus came and destroyed the work of the enemy. You don’t have to deal with it anymore. He came because you were on His mind and on His heart. He loved you so much that He left His seat in heaven and stooped low to experience life as one of us, fully human and fully God. He never failed, and He was perfect. His sacrifice pays for your sins. And He was raised to life three days later, so that you could be raised to new life as well.

Maybe you walk with God, but you’ve let some ingredients into your life that have messed some things up, and you don’t feel as close to Him as you once were. He’s calling to you. If you just come back, He’s not going to shame you for your past. He wants to help you get over those yesterdays and be made brand new.

And if you’ve never given your life to Jesus, or you did a long time ago but, like Larry, you’ve let doubts creep in, He’s here for you too. There’s nothing you can do to earn this. Through Jesus alone, and the price He paid for you, you can receive it and give Him your life. If you’re on the fence in any way, make the choice to say yes to Jesus today.