Salvation Is Free, but It Wasn't Cheap

Guys, John here from Clearview. Today, before we jump in, quick shout out to today's sponsor, Mighty Muscadine. If you've been looking for a natural way to support your health, these guys are doing it right. From 100% muscadine grape juice to really high-quality supplements, everything they make is handcrafted. It's backed by science, and best of all, it's grown right here in our home state of North Carolina.

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So, thank you for that. Thank you to Mighty Muscadine for sponsoring this episode. Let's jump in. Have you ever felt like you just were not good enough? You know, maybe you've made mistakes in your life.

Maybe you've disappointed people who were counting on you. Maybe you've even reached a point where you wonder whether God's disappointed in you. You know, you believe in Jesus. You know the Bible. You go to church.

You know in your heart that God loves you, but somewhere deep down, you still feel like you're on the outside looking in.

Well, what if I told you that as a believer in Jesus Christ, you are already highly favored by God? Not because you earned it, right? Not because you've been especially good this week, but because of your relationship with His Son, Jesus Christ. That's what we're talking about today on Truth Talk. And I want to hear from you.

Have you ever struggled with this? Have you ever struggled with feeling unworthy of God's love? Has there ever been a time in your life when God reminded you just how much He loves you? Give us a call and let us know. Eight six six three four truth.

That's eight six six three four truth. Eight six six three four eight seven eight eight four. My name's John Galantis, and I'm filling in for Dr. Abbadan Shah this week for the final time, as he's wrapping up some filming projects. He's going to be back with us for tomorrow's episode of Clear View today.

But as you know, on Thursdays we do this Truth Talk Live segment, and this is a genuine live radio broadcast. Means you can call in right now. That number again is eight six six three four eight seven eight eight four. And we're looking at a passage in the first chapter of Ephesians, and all of this that we've been doing for the past couple of weeks is coming directly from one of Dr. Shah's sermons.

This one particularly is called "High Price, Not Wholesale." That's an unusual title, isn't it? But I think you're going to understand where we're going in just a moment as we dive in. You know, I remember when I was growing up, there were certain things that my dad loved to tell me. Always took every opportunity to tell him. You know, he would say, "Nothing in life is free." I can still hear him saying, "You know, boy, nothing in life is free." Right, you got to pay for everything you ever had, and I mean, you guys ever heard that growing up?

Or how about you know, if you want anything in this world, you got to work for it. You always gonna get what you pay for. I can still hear my dad saying that. I don't know how many times I heard him say it over the years. You know, and there's some truth to it, right?

You can go out and buy something because it's cheaper than everything else, and then three weeks later, you know, it breaks, and then someone's gonna come along and say, "Well, you know, you get what you pay for. You buy cheap, you buy twice, all that stuff." And there's wisdom in that. But here's what I want you to think about: when it comes to your salvation, both of those principles are true in a very interesting way. Salvation is free for you and I, right? We can't earn it.

We can't purchase it. There's nothing I can do. I can't work hard enough to deserve my salvation in Christ. In fact, the Bible explicitly says it's the gift of God that was given, so no one can boast. And yet, salvation was not fully free, was it?

Somebody just certainly paid for it, and it was not cheap. The price was blood—the blood of Jesus Christ, the the blood of God Himself.

So, over the course of the next hour, we have together, we're going to talk about what it is that God's given us, what it cost Him, and and what that means for our lives. And before I do that, I want us to understand something really important, right? I want us to understand what it means to be accepted. By God, because I think there's a lot of Christians walking around today who have never really understood that.

So I want to take you to Ephesians chapter one again. All of this is coming from Dr. Shaw's sermon. You know, Paul starts off this letter by praising God for all the spiritual blessings that believers have received in Jesus Christ, and one of the fascinating things about this passage is. Paul shows us how the entire Trinity is involved in our salvation.

It's not just God the Father. I mean, God the Father has blessed us, but God the Son has redeemed us with His blood, and God the Holy Spirit has sealed us with the promise of our salvation. Means this was a plan among the entire Godhead. It took coordination. This is not something that God just decided to do at the last minute.

This is His glorious plan of salvation. And listen to what Paul says in verse five. He tells us that God has predestined believers to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ. That's very important. He's not predestined us to salvation, right?

It's not as though God chose before the foundation of the world who was going to get saved and who's going to hell. A lot of people say that. That's not what Paul says. Paul said he predestined us to adoption.

Well, aren't those the same thing? No. They're really not. No, God did not choose who was going to heaven and who was going to hell. And if we talk about this, we have to make a distinction between those two because adoption and salvation are not the same thing.

It was Warren Wiersbe who said this much more elegantly than than I could have said it. He said that we enter God's family through regeneration, through new birth. That's how we're saved, not through adoption. Adoption describes the position. And the privileges that God gives us as His children—very important distinction there.

In other words, when you got saved, you know God forgave your sins and decided not to punish you. It means it means that He's brought you into His family. That's the that's the adoption aspect of it. I mean, think about that. It's one thing if someone forgives you; He could have just forgiven you and sent you on your merry way.

It's another thing entirely for that person to welcome you into His home. Right, give you a place at his table, treat you as one of his own children. Think about the people in your life that you've forgiven, and you decided, you know what, I'm not going to pursue this any further. You didn't necessarily now now adopted them and treat them as your own children. That's above and beyond the the gift of salvation, and so that's what God has done for us in Jesus Christ.

And then Paul says something really remarkable in verse six. You know, listen carefully to this because this is this is the New King James specifically. He said he's made us accepted. In the beloved, and I think that word "accepted" is very important. You know, the Greek word is karitou, karitou.

It carries this idea of bestowing favor on someone. It doesn't just mean like I accept you. Who it is? It means I give you favor. You are special to me.

In fact, there is another place in the New Testament where that same word appears. It's a very familiar passage in Luke chapter one. Remember when the angel Gabriel comes to Mary and says, "You know, hey, you are you are pregnant. You are going to give birth to the Messiah." Do you remember what the angel says? He greets Mary as one who is highly favored.

Now, think about Mary's situation there for a second. She's a young woman, probably like thirteen, fourteen years. A young, young woman. Living in a very small town in Bethlehem, and suddenly this angel appears and announces that God has chosen her for this really extraordinarily responsibility. And the angel says specifically, he wants her to understand this is God's favor upon her.

Means you didn't do anything to earn this privilege of bearing the Messiah. You know what? What could she have done to make God pick her? Nothing. It was God's grace.

And that same word, that same word, kari too, appears in Ephesians chapter one and verse six, where Paul is telling the believers that God has favored us in Christ. You have favor in Christ. I think a lot of us have the opposite understanding of our relationship with God. We think God's constantly looking at us with disappointment, right? He's disappointed my sin.

We we think He's keeping this like record of all the ways we failed Him. And we pray. We we feel like we kind of need to apologize for bothering him because he's got so many more important things. And and God, I'm sorry that I have to come before you right now. Paul says the opposite.

Paul says, in Christ, you've been favored by God.

Now, don't misunderstand what I'm saying. Like this is not meaning that God approves of everything we do. Doesn't mean He overlooks my sin. It doesn't mean that God is obligated to give me everything that we want. Right?

Otherwise, I'd be a billionaire with a hundred Lamborghinis right now. But it does mean. That my standing before God is based upon Jesus Christ, not my performance, not how much or how little I sin, right? And Paul does not say that we've just been accepted, right? He said we've been accepted in the beloved.

Who is the beloved? I mean, obviously it's Jesus Christ. Paul says that a lot in Ephesians. In Christ, you are this. In Christ, you are loved.

In Christ, what does that mean? Means it's it's It's not just something that Paul puts on the end of his phrases. You're bought in Christ, you're accepted in Christ, you live in Christ. It's a title, right? Remember what happened when Jesus was baptized?

The heavens opened up, the Holy Spirit descends down upon him, and the Father declared that Jesus was His beloved Son, in whom He was well pleased.

Something very similar happens also in another New Testament episode in the Mount of Transfiguration. Right, Jesus goes up on the mountain with Peter and John, and the Father looks down and He identifies Jesus as His beloved Son, and He commands the disciples. He said, "You guys have to listen to Him." And stop and think for a second about what that actually means. Right, Jesus Christ, the beloved Son of God, the Father loves Him with such this perfect eternal love. There's never been a moment in all of history when the Father didn't love the Son.

And Paul says that you, as a believer, you as a Christian, are accepted. In the beloved, means your acceptance is inseparably connected to your relationship with Jesus Christ. That that's a huge point, and I want you to get this. God the Father has bestowed His favor upon His Son, and because you belong to His Son, because you belong to Jesus Christ, you were brought into that relationship of favor. I like to put it this way: you know, God loves everybody, but I'm His favorite, right?

And we're going to talk a little bit more about what that means when we're coming back. But we want you to call us eight six six three four truth eight six six three four eight seven eight eight four. Hey, welcome back to Truth Talk. Today we're talking about the love of God and that you are highly favored in the Beloving. You know, I said this right before we cut to break that God loves everybody, but I'm His favorite.

And guess what? Believe it or not, you can say that as well.

Well, doesn't God love everybody the same? Yes, He does. But you are His favorite. I'm not just making that up. The Bible says you are highly favored by God.

Here's something else I want to ask you: Have you ever received a gift, something for free, that you knew wasn't actually free? Maybe you're out to dinner and somebody picked up your check at the restaurant. You know that's happened to me before, where someone random just said, "Hey, I want to pick up that guy's check," or maybe somebody gave you a gift that you knew was super, super expensive, or maybe you were having a hard time financially.

Somebody helps you out. You know, you didn't have to pay anything, but that doesn't mean that nobody paid. Right, someone definitely absorbed that cost.

Someone picked up that check, and I think that's one of the most important things that we need to understand, particularly about the doctrine of salvation. Because we talk about all the time, salvation is full and free. It's a free gift, and it is. But salvation also wasn't free. It came at an extraordinary price, and that's what we're talking about on today's Truth Talk.

I'd love to hear your thoughts. Give us a call eight six six three four Truth eight six six three four eight seven eight eight four. We're live right now. We're going to be live till five o'clock.

So give us a call. The point of redemption. Is a big part of Christianity, and it separates us from other world religions. In fact, it is one of these central things that separates us from Islam.

So, here's what I want to do: I want to play a clip from Dr. Shaw's sermon, the one that we're we're actually talking about right now, and I want us to listen to it, and then we're going to talk about it just a little bit.

So, we're going to listen, and then we're going to talk about this. What I want you to understand is that word "redeemed" means someone has to pay the price; it's not free. It's not just the God. Listen, God could have sat in heaven and said, "Oh, you're all sinners. Believe in me.

Okay, we believe in you.

Okay, then everybody's good. Everybody's good." By the way, that's Islam. Islam says all you have to do is believe in Allah and Muhammad as His Prophet. Then everybody's good. But then they also have a problem.

On the day of judgment, there is no guarantee that you go to heaven. Did you know that in Islam there is no assurance of salvation? People often talk about, "Oh, the terrorists did this," and they were promised. That's all anecdotal. You know what anecdotal means?

Those are just stories. Real orthodox Islam. If you do the shahada, if you say there is one God, Allah, and Muhammad is His Prophet, you are good. You are a Muslim. What happens to you?

Do you go to heaven? Not quite yet.

Well, I thought I believe in Allah. Oh, yeah, but that's true. But on the day of judgment, He's going to decide whether or not you go to heaven or hell, and you may, you may not, because that was the point on which my father left his faith, left his family. What does Christianity say? What does the Gospel say?

It says this: You are a sinner. You cannot save yourself. A price has to be paid, and the price was paid by who? By Jesus. You and I were locked up in in the jail of sin and death, and Jesus came.

And if you notice right here. He died on the cross, shed his blood, so that you and I could go free. A price has to be paid. Hence, on the day of judgment, listen carefully. Are you awake?

Say Amen. On the day of judgment, you're not going to be wondering, "Am I going to heaven or hell?" The transaction is done. You want to know where judgment happens? Every time the invitation is given. Whether it's Sunday morning, or in your car, or at a youth conference, or at at at at a concert, a Christian concert, somebody says, "Give your life to Jesus Christ." Judgment is happening, and when you say, "Jesus is my Lord and Savior," I'm trusting in His blood.

That is the ransom for my sin. It is paid in full. It is finished. Isn't that what Jesus said from the cross? It is finished.

Amen. And aren't you glad He said that? Right. And Paul says in Ephesians one seven, then our redemption comes through the blood of Jesus Christ. That's important.

You know, He doesn't say we redeemed because Jesus gave us a wonderful example, gave us great teachings that we should live by. He says our redemption is through His blood. Means the death of Jesus Christ is essential to our salvation. We know that. But it brings us to a question that has been discussed throughout Christian history for a long, long time.

Means this: if redemption involves a ransom, who's paying the ransom? I mean, who's the ransom being paid to? We know Christ is paying the ransom, but to who? Believe it or not, there were early Christian fathers, church fathers, who thought the ransom was actually being paid to Satan. But that's not what Paul is saying, right?

Satan's not the owner of humanity. He doesn't collect a payment from God. God doesn't have to pay Satan a thing. The fundamental issue is our sin before a holy and righteous God. Romans chapter three, right, verses twenty four.

Paul connects our justification, our redemption in Christ, and the sacrifice of Jesus. They are inseparable. The cross and our justification are inseparable. And there's another important word he uses there: the propitiation. Right, the propitiation from our sin.

If you're if you're not talking theology, you're probably not going to hear that word. But it's an important word because it concerns the satisfaction of God's righteous judgment against sin. See, God is not only loving; He's also holy. He's righteous. He's just.

means He cannot pretend that evil just doesn't matter. Imagine you're in a courtroom, right, and someone's wronged you. And the judge is sitting up there, and and this man has committed a terrible crime against you, your family, your kids, whatever. And the evidence is overwhelming. Everybody knows he's guilty.

He knows he's guilty, and he admits that he's guilty. And the judge says, "Well, you know, I'm a I'm a loving judge. I'm feeling generous. You can go on home." Now, what would you say about that judge? You'd say, "Hey, you didn't do your job.

You're ignoring justice. You can't do that." God is not only a God of justice; He is justice, and His justice is infinitely greater than any human court. And so, here's the problem: You're guilty. You're guilty of your sin. I'm guilty.

All of us have sinned, right? Not just the people that we think are especially wicked in our society. All of us. We've all fallen short of God's standard, and the penalty of sin is death. Romans lays all of that out very clearly.

So the question is, how can a holy God forgive sinful human beings and also remain perfectly righteous? There's only one answer: is Jesus Christ. At the cross, Jesus accepted the penalty of our sin, and He gave His life on our behalf. And through that sacrifice, listen, God demonstrated both His justice and His grace together in full measure at the same exact time. We got a call from Buxman over in Ohio.

Wants to make a couple of comments, Buxman. We got about two minutes before we hit head to break, but we want to hear from you. How's it going? Let's take a quick break. Hey guys, John here with the Clearview Today show, and I want to just take a second and talk to you about today's sponsor, WatchSafe.

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Now let's get into the show. It's going great, brother. This is serendipitous. I just told our our producer that I'm literally wearing a T-shirt that says "Jesus loves you," but I'm his favorite. For real.

I wish I could selfie myself, brother, to prove it. I heard Doctor Shaw live. I was like, "Oh my gosh, Busman, you are calling right now." That's did.

So I thought you would get a great kick. Oh, I love it, man! I love it. Number one, you know, it's it's number one. Absolutely, it's something that Doctor Shaw has said in his sermons before, and I think it's something that just gets people's attention because they're like, "Well, God doesn't have favorites." The Bible, Paul says otherwise.

Paul says you are. God's favorite. There is a parable that we're going to talk about later in in Luke fifteen, right, where the the prodigal of the parable son. Everybody wants themselves; they want to compare themselves to the prodigal son because I was lost, now I am found. But what that parable also reminds us is that yeah, that that is his favorite son.

You were so favored when God runs to you, when God throws his arms around you, invites you back in. That's the picture of God. Not only the picture of me in the parable. But the picture of God as well, Buxman. Thank you for calling, man.

I did get a kick out of that. Absolutely, brother, and remember Romans eight thirty-five through thirty-nine. Nothing, nothing can separate us from the love of God. That's right, in Christ Jesus our Lord. That's right.

Romans eight thirty-five to thirty-nine. Amen, brother. Amen. Love you too. Thank you, Buxman.

Guys, I want those words as we're about to head to another break. I want those words to also be something for you as well. There is nothing on this world, no sin that you can commit, no person, no wicked power, no principality. Even the gates of hell itself, Jesus says, cannot prevail against you or His church. Means this: God has you right in the palm of His hand.

You are protected. You are safe. You know, part of being in God and being in Christ is the security, the eternal security that you have in your salvation, but also in this life. And we're going to talk about that a little bit more as we get into the episode. But for right now, we want to hear from you.

You can call us as well: eight six six three four truth. That's eight six six three four Eight seven eight eight four. We're going to take a quick break. We'll be right back. Have you ever looked back at a particularly difficult time in your life and wondered how in the world did I make it through?

It could have been a financial crisis, could have been a time when family was falling apart, lost a job, right? Dealing with something that nobody else in the whole world knew about, and at the time you couldn't see any way forward. But now, maybe it's years later, right? You can look back and recognize that God was working in your life, and you think to yourself, "I don't ever want to forget what God did for me." But isn't it amazing how quickly we actually do forget? And today, as we're doing this Truth Talk segment, I want to talk about that—the importance of remembering God's grace.

You know, I want to hear your story as well. Maybe there's a moment in your life when God provided for you in a way that you will never forget. Give us a call: eight six six three four Truth. That's eight six six three four eight seven eight eight four. We're going to be live for the next half hour or so, so make sure you call us.

You can tell your story. My name is John Galantis. I'm filling in for Dr. Abbadon Shahs, one of our Truth Talk hosts. I don't want to continue.

Our discussion from earlier, from Ephesians chapter one, we're talking about something that Paul calls the riches of God's grace. Listen to verse seven in Ephesians one. Paul says, "In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace, which He made to abound toward us in all wisdom and prudence." Now, there's a lot there, right? There's those are some really extraordinary expressions from Paul. The riches of His grace, grace that abounds.

Paul could have just cut to the chase and said, "You know, God's been gracious to us, and yeah, that's that's true. That's wonderful, but that's not what he says. He wants us to understand the abundance, the extraordinary abundance of God's grace. I want to take a look at that word grace. We use a lot.

The Greek word is actually charis, and that's one of the most important words in the New Testament. It means God's undeserved favor towards us. We talked about that a little bit later. It means. Means that God is giving us something that we could never earn, and we we don't deserve.

You know, He's faithful. He's kind. He shows His kindness and His grace to people who could never deserve it, and that is at the end of the day the heart of the gospel. Paul doesn't just say that we've received God's grace. Of course we have, but there's so much more.

He says we have riches. We've received the riches of His grace. Means you're wealthy with it. You're you're drowning in it. You have so much grace.

That's what being rich is. You have an abundance of something. Usually, we're talking about money, but somebody has millions of dollars. We said that person's rich. Paul's talking about the abundance of God's grace.

You are so filthy rich with it. You're rolling around in it, and he's telling us God has dealt with us according to those riches. You know, suppose you have a really wealthy relative, and one day you run into some financial trouble, and you just say, "Listen, I'm embarrassed to ask, but I need a hundred dollars," and they say, "Okay." Here's a hundred dollars. Hope it helps. Yeah, it it helps.

That's very generous. But suppose for a moment that same relative says, "All right, well, well, tell me what's going on. What kind of trouble you in?" And you say, "Well, I, I've lost my job. The mortgage is behind. The car is breaking down.

I just, I don't know how I'm gonna make it from month to month. I don't know how I'm gonna take care of my family." And instead of giving you a hundred dollars, they were to say to you, "Listen, I'm gonna take care of the mortgage. I'm gonna get you caught up. Don't worry about it. I'm gonna get your car repaired.

I'll here's here's where you take it." I'm going to help you get back on your feet. Don't worry about the money at all. That's a very, very different kind of generosity, and that's the picture that Paul is wanting us to see in God. God is not just giving you the bare minimum necessary to escape hell. God has brought you into His family.

He's given you a seat at the table. He's given you an inheritance for goodness sake. He's accepted you in His Son, who is His beloved Son, and He's poured His grace out on you. That's that's what Paul's celebrating, right? It's not just not going to hell.

That that's the bare minimum. If you're a Christian today, and that's the extent of your testimony, I was going to hell, and now I'm not. I don't know. I'm I'm I'm truly sorry because something somewhere. Has not developed properly, and and maybe now is a great chance for you to start praying and say, God, help me figure out what that is, so I can grow in my faith.

I'm not talking down to you. I'm just saying that at this point in your Christian life, if you've been saved for a number of years, and God is should be doing something new in you, and you should be seeing the riches and the abundance of His grace. There's a story we talked about a little bit earlier in Luke chapter 15. I think most of us know it, but it's the parable of the prodigal son. I'm over on the Clearview Today show.

We've been talking about the parables, and if you're not subscribed to Clearview Today with Dr. Abaddon Shaw, now is a great time to head on over to iTunes and follow it. But Luke 15, Jesus talks about this younger son who goes to his father and demands his share of the inheritance. I want it right now.

Now think about how insulting that would have been. Especially the son is saying, like, I want what's coming to me, and I don't want to wait till you're dead to get it. I want it now, so I can go off and do my own thing. And the father loves his son; he gives it to him. And the young man leaves home.

Right, he travels to a distant country. The Bible says he wastes everything; the money's gone, friends are gone, and then a famine comes along. And before he finds himself, before long, he he finds himself feeding pigs. And for us, you know, you live here in the south where I live, feeding pigs, no big deal, just part of farm life. But the Jewish people listening to Jesus tell that story.

That would have been especially humiliating. Means this young man has fallen just about as low as he can go. No self-respecting Jewish young man is going to be anywhere near feeding pigs. And eventually, you know the story. The young man comes to his senses, starts thinking about his father's house, remembers that you know, hey, the the servants at my father's house have food to eat.

I'm going to go home. But notice his plan here. He does not ask his father to restore him to his former position. God, just Father, just just make me your son again. He says, "No, I don't deserve to be your son," and he's right.

He's going to confess his sin. He's going to ask to be treated like a hired servant.

Now, stop right there, because that's how a lot of people imagine God, especially when it comes to their life. They think I've made such a mess of my life that maybe God will let me come back, but I'll never be what I was before. I'm not going to be the Christian or the man or the father I was. Hopefully, God will tolerate me. He'll give me a little corner somewhere.

He'll let me do some work around the house, but I'm never going to be God's son. And then Jesus tells us what happens when that young man approaches home. His father sees him. He's still a long way off, and he runs. He gets off his porch and runs to meet him, and embraces him and kisses him.

And the son starts to confess, but the father cuts him off. Right? He starts giving instructions to all the servants: bring the robe, bring the ring, put the sandals on his feet, kill the calf, prepare the feast. We're going to celebrate. Think about that.

He came home hoping, hoping beyond hope, to just be treated like a servant, and the father welcomed him back as his son. That is the riches of God's grace. He could have said, "Well, I'll let you stay here for a few weeks. You can sleep in the barn for a few months till I know that you're serious." No, he restores him. He says, "You are my son, my highly favored son," and he celebrates that return.

That's what I want you to picture in your mind when Paul talks about the riches of God's grace. When you got saved, God does not just bring you into His family reluctantly. Like, "All right, I guess I'll do it for you because I did it for everyone else." He doesn't forgive you and then constantly remind you about how much trouble you've caused him, what a headache you've been, what a burden you've been. No, he welcomes you through Christ and he deals with you. Paul says, according to the riches of his grace.

You know, I think one of the big things and one of the big problems is we forget. Where it was that God found us, and I want to play this clip from Dr. Shaw. This is a great story that Dr. Shaw tells.

We're going to play it, and then I think we're going to come to a break, and we're going to talk about it after the break. But this is a great story of where we were when God first found us. Let's take a quick break. This episode of Clear View Today is brought to you by Le Blue Ultra Pure Water. What I love about Le Blue is they keep it simple: hydrogen, oxygen, nothing else.

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Now let's jump in. Where was I? Thirty-three years ago. Thirty-three years ago, some of you know my life story. Standing on this side of the Pennsylvania Turnpike at two o'clock in the morning, standing inside a phone booth, waiting for a ride that was not there.

I had gone through a rough point in my life, had hit rock bottom, lost everything, and I was just just down. I was not depressed. I was just. Completely disillusioned. How could this happen to me?

I was saved. I got saved when I was four years old. But because of life circumstances, I found myself at the very bottom of life, and here I am with this suitcase. My brother said, "Come." Completely disillusioned. How could this happen to me?

I was saved. I got saved when I was four years old. But because of life circumstances, I found myself at the very bottom of life, and here I am with this suitcase. My brother said, "Come, come up here." I was like, "I don't want to go anywhere." So he put some of his friends to come and put me in the car. And here I land at this exit, this northbound exit, right before the Pennsylvania Turnpike, about to go towards Philadelphia.

That's where he lived. And he was going to come on the southbound exit to pick me up, except they were at two different points of the city. And here I get there at six o'clock, and it's cold up north. It is cold. I don't understand that.

Some of y'all love it. It's like ten degrees, and I am standing there inside the gas station. And by eight o'clock, they're closing, and I am like. He says, "And anywhere we can go." I said, "Oh, you're you're out in the country. There's nothing here." I say, "I'm waiting on a ride." Says, "No one here." There was a telephone booth outside.

I went inside the telephone booth just to stay warm. I took out every shirt, every pair of pants, and just put it on because it was so so cold. And I held on to the phone just to pretend like I was making a phone call. And people would drive up and see this person. Standing in there, and I would give them the look so they would keep on driving.

Nine o'clock, ten o'clock, eleven o'clock, twelve o'clock, one o'clock, pitch dark. In that moment, I said, "God, I don't, I don't understand. I've lost it all. I have nothing." God, I know you're there. And if you'd come through for me, I will follow you.

Whatever you want me to do, I don't care. I will follow you all my life. There are moments in life where we hit rock bottom, and I think the problem that a lot of us have is we forget where God found us. We become so focused on what we don't have. That we stop appreciating what he's already given us, and sometimes it takes a little trip down memory lane, like Doctor Shaw just described, to correct that perspective.

I love that story, and I love what it does for us because it reminds us that God has found us in a very dark place, but through His grace, in the riches of His grace, in the riches of His character, He saved us. He's brought us from the brink of destruction. You know, have you ever looked at something that somebody created and thought, "How in the world did they come up with something so beautiful, so gracious?" It could have been a building, maybe a piece of art, piece of technology, something complicated that somebody solved in a way that no one else has considered. And the more you study it, the more impressed you became, because you recognized how much thought and how much planning had gone into it. There's no greater demonstration of wisdom.

And love in all of human history than God's plan of salvation, He made a way for you and I, for sinful human beings, to be forgiven, redeemed, and brought into His family, and He did it through His Son Jesus Christ. That's what we're talking about today on Truth Talk, and we want to hear your thoughts on this. Again, it's not too late. You can give us a call eight six six three four Truth. That's eight six six three four eight seven eight eight four.

We're in Ephesians chapter one, verses seven and eight. And Paul is telling us all these things that we have in Jesus Christ: redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our sins, according to the riches of God's grace, which He's made to abound toward us in all wisdom and all prudence. We're going to take a break here in just a couple of seconds, but I want to encourage you: if you're not, if you're not saved, today can be that day. We've we've got one more segment after this, and I'm hoping that I'll be able to present the gospel to you. But again, if you are not saved.

All of this is going to end up going over your head, but you can make that choice today. We're going to talk about how you can do it right after the break. Stick around; we'll be right back. Hey, welcome back to the show. This is Truth Talk Live.

This is our Thursday live segment. We hope you guys have been enjoying so far. We've been talking about Ephesians chapter one, and as we're getting back into the show for our final segment, I want to ask you one question: If you Had been asked to come up with a plan to save all of humanity. What exactly would you have proposed, right? Knowing how human beings think, I think we probably would have come up with something, some kind of system of works, right?

We might have said, "All right, everybody gets a second chance at this. We messed up. We ate the fruit. Here's what we're gonna do. We're gonna measure up all the good things that you've done.

We're gonna maybe you can make up for the bad things because if you do enough good things, hopefully that one bad thing that we did, which was really bad. We'll kind of weigh it out, and we'll come up with some system to judge it, some standard. We'll we'll argue over it, but eventually, we'll come up with something. That listen, this is how complicated religious systems are born. You want to get to God?

Just do this. Just follow these rules. Perform these ceremonies. Just make these sacrifices, and maybe, maybe, you can actually earn God's acceptance. There's a big problem with all those approaches.

They all depend on you. And you're the one that created the problem in the first place, right? As sinners, we're all sinners. We can't make ourselves righteous before God. We can't undo the sin I've already committed, and we can't purchase eternal life.

So God accomplished what we could never accomplish by sending His Son. And Jesus Christ did what no other human being could ever do or ever have done. He lived a sinless life. He fulfilled the Father's will. He offered Himself as a sacrifice for our sins, and He rose again from the dead.

Not just was risen; He rose, rose Himself from the dead.

Now that is not some last-minute spur-of-the-moment plan, right? That's not some like bargain basement salvation. That's the eternal wisdom of God on full display. And you know, we live in a world where we're always looking for a discount. Everybody's looking for the cheapest option.

Comparing prices, you know, waiting for something to go on sale. I know people who, if they're in a store, and they get a sniff of a hint that something in another store is cheaper, they'll drive thirty minutes to another store, get the same item for three dollars off. Maybe that's you, and I'm not mocking you. If that's you, by the way, that's there's nothing wrong with being careful with your money. The point I'm making is, don't put that mindset on God.

Salvation is not something God put on clearance. Right? He didn't lower the standard of righteousness.

So that you and I could afford to get into heaven, he didn't decide that sin was you know it's not such a serious problem after all. I think I was making a big deal out of that whole. It's just an apple. No, he dealt with sin through the sacrifice of his own son, and that's why we can say that salvation is both free and costly. It's free to us because we receive it by grace through faith, but it was costly because Jesus Christ gave his life.

To secure it, I want to head on over to Mike in Ohio. You got an analogy about today's topic, Mike. Good to see you. You are on Truth Talk.

Well, thank you for taking my call. I was, I was reminded of my dad playing baseball in the backyard, and you know, he would throw me a ground ball, and i would I would try to get it, and I would miss it, but he didn't ever give up on me. He kept throwing it to me until I. Until I caught it, and when I caught it, he he gave me some praise, and he gave me some that a boy. You know what I mean?

Yeah, absolutely. I think that's the way the that's the way the father when the prodigal son he came back to the father, and he said that a boy, good catch. Yeah, I mean, yes, absolutely. That's the way our father is. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, I do. I do. I know. I know salvation is involved there, and in the beginning of that, yes, I was saved, and I and I I have a relationship with my father, and that's the relationship with my father that we that we need to keep striving for. Yes, I want to keep catching the ball.

Yeah. Oh yeah. Be able to do my best, and and and I, God, where do you want to lead me next, and what? How how do I do this, and where do I do it to, and who do I teach to, and who do I praise to, or who do I speak to? You know what I mean?

Yes, I do. I remember. I remembered this. That's where. You go ahead.

Go ahead. No, no, you go ahead. You go finish. No, I, I, okay. I'm sorry.

No, you're fine. I really think that where you're you're you praise without ceasing. That's having that relationship with God and saying, "Okay, God, where do I? What do I do next? And where do I go next?" And having that mindset, so it keeps you out of missing the ball.

You're exactly right. Yeah, you're exactly right. We've we've become so focused. We've become so focused on our circumstances, right? Our immediate life, the things that are happening, that we forget that just like you said, there's a larger picture.

You know, God, what do you want me to do next? How do I how do I continue to catch this ball? Why? Because catching this ball is contributing towards the game that we're playing, right? And I'm not saying that the gospel, the Christian life, is a game, but just in this analogy, it's every time I catch it, I'm getting that ataboy, I'm getting confirmation.

This is what you want from me.

Now I'm I'm incentivized to catch it some more. Instead, what we've done is we worry so much about what's happening all around us. You know the country, our economy, like our our families, the future. I think what Paul is reminding us is that God is working according to an eternal purpose. Even that game of catch, like you said, it has an eternal purpose.

The relationship that I have with God is counting towards God's eternal plan. Right? The the things that are happening in this world are not aimless. They're not moving around aimlessly. And I think a lot of people think that.

They think that this is just my life, my relationship with God. And the world is just happening around me. The two are intricately connected, and I think that's what Paul is is trying to remind us. He even says that he says that this this great mystery. Of Jesus Christ, this great mystery in God.

What is He saying? It's not like a Scooby-Doo Saturday morning cartoon mystery. It's that God has reconciled all things, all things, including your life, including that game of catch, like you're saying. In Jesus Christ, He has reconciled all those things to Himself. Mike, I appreciate you calling, man.

Thank you very much. You are absolutely. You know, there's plenty of things in life. That are difficult and that are confusing. You know, you're going to have prayers that seem unanswered.

There's going to be tragedies that happen in the world that that we can't explain. And people always want to attack Christians when tragedies happen. You know, well, how do you explain God letting this happen?

Well, I can't. You know, there's always going to be circumstances that leave us wondering why God is allowing things like this to happen. But here's what you can know, and I want to leave you with this as we're closing today: the God who demonstrated His wisdom. In accomplishing our redemption, is the exact same God that holds your future. Means you can trust Him.

So as we're wrapping up, I just want to bring all this down to three very very practical questions that you can ask yourself. Number one is this: How do you see yourself? Because if you're a believer in Jesus Christ, your identity is not determined by your past. It's not determined by the ways that you've messed up. It's not determined by your failures or even the choices that you're going to make tomorrow or what other people think about you.

Your identity is in Jesus Christ. That's what Paul said, and thank God for that. Means you've been accepted in the beloved. Second question is this: How do you view your salvation? Do you treasure it?

Do you recognize what it cost? To secure your salvation, your eternity, or has it become so ordinary that you know you? I don't even really think about anymore. I think every single person listening to this today needs to spend some time reflecting on the cross, because I think the more you understand the cross, the more you understand what Jesus has done, the more grateful you're going to become. One of the great things that I love about my pastor's preaching, about Doctor Shaw's preaching, is that every single sermon—I don't care what the sermon's on.

It could be on the most obscure genealogy in the Book of Genesis. It doesn't matter. It's going to end with the cross, guaranteed. I think, and I didn't used to think this way, but ever since sitting under that preaching for years and years and years, I think that's the only way to end a sermon. I think it's the only way to end a broadcast.

It's to always come back to the cross. Everything culminates in that. And again, I think the more you understand it. The more grateful you're going to become, it's going to it's going to enrich your Christian life. Third question is this: What are you doing with this message?

Not just the radio broadcast. I mean, yes, we want you to share it, we want you to get it out there, but the message of God's salvation. Because if salvation is truly the greatest gift that anyone could ever receive, shouldn't we want other people to know about it? Think about your family. Think about your friends.

Think about the people you work with, and you see every day how many of them know Jesus Christ. How many of them have actually placed their faith in Him?

Some, sure, but not all of them. And I think we're very quick to recommend things to other people. Right? We find a great restaurant, we tell people about it. We watch a movie, we get hooked on a show.

You're going to rave about it for days. But when it comes to Christ, we get strangely quiet. And now is the chance. If you truly believe that salvation is the greatest gift that God has ever given, then we should be willing to tell other people about it. And those conversations aren't easy.

You don't always know what to say. You don't always want to offend someone. You're worried they might spring some question on you. You can't be able to answer. I get it.

I've had those same hesitations myself. But you don't have to have every single answer, right? You don't have to know everything to tell someone what Jesus has done for you. You can tell them this, and we're going to end with this. Number one, tell them God loves them.

Tell them that all of us have sinned. Tell them that Jesus Christ died for our sins and rose again on the third day. Tell them He's alive right now, and if they accept Him into His into their heart, He's going to be living in them. The Holy Spirit is going to dwell within them and guide them and give them wisdom. Wisdom, and you can tell them that salvation is received by grace through faith in Him.

That's the message of the gospel, and that is the message that the world desperately needs to hear. And this is not an encouragement. This is not a suggestion. Jesus has commanded you, not just me, not just Dr. Shaw, not just your pastor.

He's commanded you to take that message into the world.

So we're about to go. But again, I want to return to those expressions we started with. Nothing is free, right? You get what you pay for. When it comes to God, something extraordinary has happened.

You have received something that you could never afford. It was free, but it wasn't free. Right, it was something you couldn't purchase. It was freely given through Jesus Christ, and it wasn't given because it was cheap, but because somebody else paid the ultimate price, and that somebody was the Son of God Himself. He gave His life, He shed His blood, and through Him you can have the redemption and the forgiveness of all of your sins right now.

You can have it today. What about you? Have you received that gift? I'm not asking if you grew up in church or if your parents were Christians. I'm not asking if you think you're a good person.

I'm asking if you today have ever personally placed your faith in Jesus Christ. You're not going to go to heaven because you inherited salvation from your parents. It's not something you earn by being religious. It's something you receive through faith in Jesus Christ. And if you never done it, today's the day.

You can call that number eight six six three four truth eight six six three four eight seven eight eight four. Listen, we love you. Thank you for listening to Truth Talk. We hope that Jesus Christ is going to do something big in your life, and we'll see you next time right here on Truth Talk Live. Truth Talk.