The Freeness of Salvation

Transcript

Well this morning we have the privilege of having a dear friend come and minister God’s Word to us. And I just want to give you a few little details concerning my good friend Isaac Adams. Isaac is, for about the last year, has been the lead pastor at Iron City Church in Birmingham, Alabama. Amen. It’s good to have a good pastor out there. Prior to that he was serving at Capitol Hill Baptist Church in DC, and so he’s doing some good work in Alabama. So Isaac, he’s really a fascinating man. He has a lot of things going on. A lot of things I love about Isaac. He is the founder of a ministry called United We Pray, which is an amazing ministry. It is a good, good ministry. It is a ministry that is catered to helping Christians think and pray about racial strife. So that’s a good ministry to connect with. You can visit that online. There’s some great

resources there. He’s a praying man, and I love that about Isaac. One of the things I love about Isaac is, many of you know my love-hate relationship with Twitter. I struggle with Twitter because I think it’s a cesspool of nonsense most of the time. But I think Isaac Adams is the one man in this world that is single-handedly tweet-by-tweet redeeming Twitter, because he just continues to tweet very encouraging posts. So if you don’t follow, if you’re on Twitter, that’s a whole nother conversation. But if you happen to find yourself on Twitter, you can find Isaac Adams at Isaac Adams. Follow him. He will be an encouragement for your soul on Twitter, okay? Isaac is an author. He’s written a few books. One of which I’d like to commend to you this morning is Talking About Race. It’s an excellent book. I strongly encourage you to read

that book. Isaac has been out here this weekend ministering and serving the broader Portland community as we sought to think about ethnic unity and the church, and he’s done a fantastic job doing that. And his book highlights some very helpful principles on how we can do that. So Isaac is a pastor. He is a poet. He’s an author. And those are all amazing things, but I’m most encouraged because he’s a great friend. And so would you please help me welcome Isaac Adams as he opens up God’s Word for us? Single. Married. Rich. Poor. Middle-class. Republican. Democrat. Independent. Young. Old. Introverted. Extroverted. Corky. Normal. Weak. Powerful. Successful. Struggling. Brilliant. Average. Athletic. And the not-so-much. Black. White. Brown. West Coast. East Coast. Deep South. Those on Twitter. Those off Twitter. And so much more. Friends, what do all these different types of people have in common? We are all welcome to come to Jesus. Good morning, beloved. My name is Isaac Adams,

The Freeness of Salvation

like Thomas shared, and I bring you greetings from Iron City Church. It’s a joy to be with y’all today. Your pastor, Thomas, has been a friend to me, a discipler to me, a means of God’s grace to me. I remember when I was a young 20-something, I had just gotten saved, and it was Humble Beast Music that I was bumping and regularly being discipled by Thomas. So, brother, I praise God for you, man. Grateful for you and your ministry. I also praise God for the time that we’ve had together over these last two days, thinking about ethnicity in the local church. And by God’s grace, we have the opportunity to gather again and think together, and we will think about something incredible. Something incredible. We’re going to be thinking about the freeness of salvation. The freeness of salvation. And let me just say that if at any point you are encouraged by the

sermon, you feel free to shout out amen, okay? But only encourage me and not bother me. But we’re going to be thinking about the freeness of salvation. And by that, I mean how widely God offers salvation. How indiscriminately He offers it. Beloved, the good news of the gospel is not just that salvation is free, but that it’s free to all. No one is barred from coming to God except those who reject God. No one is barred from coming to God except those who reject God. That’s what sin fundamentally is. Rejection of God. All of us, all of us have sinned. All of us are without excuse before God, and so we deserve God’s wrath. And I know, friends, this is a hard word.

But what we’re considering today is not primarily hard. It is sweet. How? Turn to John 6. John 6. Oh, there we find Jesus who has walked on water and just miraculously fed 5,000 people. And he goes on to explain that he, not the food he supernaturally gave them, but he is their greatest need. And yet his own people did not believe him. Which brings us to what Jesus says in our verse. John 6.37. John 6.37. Let’s read it now. Jesus says,

all that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out. Whoever comes to me I will never cast out. Whoever comes to me. Whoever. Friends, that word, whoever, is the word I want us to meditate on as we think about the blessings of salvation which have been made free to all by the gospel. So at my church, Iron City Church, we recently did a series of sermons in which we had one sermon on an entire book. You might call them overview sermons. So a few weeks ago, most recently, I preached on the entire gospel of Mark in one sermon. And one reason we’re preaching overview sermons is because I think it helps us put together our Bibles. It helps us to see the one story that God is telling in the Bible from Genesis to Revelation. It’s a great altitude to look at

scripture from. Just like when you’re on a plane and you look out and see, okay, so this is how the city is laid out. And so we’ve been doing overview sermons, a kind of 30,000 foot view of different biblical books. It’s a helpful altitude from which to read scripture. But, but, but that’s not the only way to read, preach, meditate on scripture. No, we could take one word of the Bible and twirl it around like a diamond. See the facets of it. Think about it. Squeeze it and see what juice comes out to mix my metaphors. And I say all that to say this morning, we’re not flying at 30,000 feet. We’re going to sea level instead. We’re going to take out our magnifying glass and stare at one word in John 637, whoever that word. If you’re taking notes, circle that word, whoever in John 637. That’s the word we’ll

think about this morning as we meditate on the freeness of God’s salvation. What can we learn from such meditation? Three things. Number one, anyone can come to Jesus. Point number one, anyone can come to Jesus. Jesus said, whoever comes to me, not whoever cleans themselves up enough and comes to me, not whoever has all their questions answered and comes to me with enough faith. Kids, Jesus doesn’t say whoever is old enough can come to me. No kids, friends, Jesus simply says whoever. Now, there are stipulations to be sure. To come to Jesus in no small part means we’re signing up to do what he wants, even when it’s not what we want. Love that connection to Oshua’s prayer earlier, what he was talking about, and we’ll talk more about this later. But friends, my question now for you is this, are you surprised by that simple word, whoever? Does it arrest you that as one historic Baptist confession states,

Anyone Can Come

nothing prevents the salvation of the greatest sinner on earth? Who is the greatest sinner you know? Don’t look at them if they’re here. Just think about it. And if you’re tempted to look at someone else, I would submit to you, the worst sinner you know is the person you see in the mirror. That said, I understand in normal human experience, we all have a category for people who are more obviously a mess, who more obviously have a ton of sin in their life. Earlier, I said all of us are sinners, and that’s true, but it’s also true that different sins lead to different natural consequences that manifest themselves more evidently, more tragically. So I think of a recent person I met in Washington, D.C., where I was before I came to Birmingham. I had scheduled a lunch with a white man whom I had

heard of and was introduced to, but I didn’t really know. So in he walks, and he is as old as a grandpa and as sweet as one, too. You’d never guess it from looking at him now, but decades ago, this man, Tom, was a member of the KKK. He hated black people. He bombed the homes of Jews. He served time in prison. Now, we would all agree Tom was a great sinner,

but guess what happened? In prison, he came to faith in a greater Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who radically changed his life. And at our lunch, Tom and I talked about how happy we were to be brothers and friends. If there’s hope for Tom, for Tom, there’s hope for you. Anyone can come to Jesus. And my question for you, brothers and sisters, is this.

Do you share the gospel as if that’s true? Do you pray as if that’s true? Who are some of your evangelistic ‘yeah-rights’? Like, if someone put a megaphone to your thoughts, we’d hear, yeah, right. Will that person ever come to Jesus? You know, like Kimberly — if there’s someone named Kimberly, forgive me — but Kimberly, that girl in my office who is always drunk on the weekends, you’d think she’d come to Jesus? Yeah, right.

Well, beloved, if I looked at Tom’s life when he was making that bomb, I would have said, yeah, right. Yeah, right. But then again, if you would have looked at my life when I was a freshman in college acting a fool, you would have said, yeah, right. But Jesus says, whoever comes to me, anyone can come to Jesus. And as John 6.37 says, all the Father gives to the Son will come. And the means the Father uses for them to come is people like us sharing the gospel. So pray for surprising people. Scatter the gospel widely, because after all, we don’t know who belongs to the Father and who doesn’t, could be anyone, and anyone can come to Jesus. And that means different people. Will come to Jesus.

Different People Will Come

What can we learn from meditating on the freeness of salvation? Point number two, different people will come to Jesus. Different people will come to Jesus. Jesus said, whoever comes to me, not whoever among this particular political party, not whoever among this race or ethnicity, not whoever in this certain socioeconomic class, not whoever is from this country, kids, not whoever gets these grades in schools, no kids, friends. Jesus simply says, whoever. Poor and rich, conservative and liberal. Thomas with his silver locks, Isaac with his dreadlocks.

You get it. Different people come to Jesus. I mean, that’s what your church website says. You go to trinityportland.com and you click on about, click, click. Then you click on teaching position, click, click. And you read these words. We, this collection of redeemed sinners here in Portland, believe that from all eternity, God determined in his grace to save a great multitude of guilty sinners from every tribe and language and people and nation in Trinity, Portland. You have to believe that as a church because different kinds of people come to Jesus. Amen. That different people come to Jesus. Isn’t that what King David showed us? There’s a passage in first Samuel 22 that I love because it talks about how all of these different types of people gathered around David. It’d be good to read this week. It says, this passage, first Samuel 22, David departed from there and escaped to the cave of Adullam. And when his

brothers and all his father’s house heard it, they went down there to him and everyone who was in distress and everyone who was in debt and everyone who was bitter in soul gathered to him. And he became commander over them. Everyone who was in distress, everyone who was in debt, everyone who was bitter in soul gathered to him. Beloved, does that sound like anyone else you know? Sisters and brothers, different types of people did not gather around King David because he was nice on the harp, but because David foreshadowed the ministry of a greater commander to come, a greater King to come, who would have a diverse following. The Jewish apostle Peter and the Roman soldier Cornelius, you can read about them in Acts 10. And thinking about Peter, I think we do well to think about Jesus’ disciples. Because y’all, sometimes I think we can think about Jesus’

disciples as if they were all cultural. We just think about them in the abstract, like they were just Jesus’ friends, just a bunch of neutral dudes. But they were normal humans just like you and me, which means they had backgrounds and cultures and jobs and opinions and preferences and sin, which means they would wrongly elevate all those other things about themselves. Just think of Matthew, the tax collector, the slimy servant of the oppressor, Rome, and Simon the zealot, the Robin Hood, who worked against Rome. Two different men who came to the God-man, Jesus. I love this. He took these two polar opposite sides and said, y’all are going to be in a new small group together. Here’s how one pastor put it as he spoke about Jesus’ diverse group of followers. He said, Matthew was a tax collector who loved Rome. Simon was a Jewish zealot who hated

Rome. They came to Jesus with radically different political views, yet found unity in Jesus. Matthew learned to love Rome less. Simon learned to love Rome more. They both learned to love Jesus most. Brothers, sisters, may we love Jesus most. If we do, if we do, our churches will show a divided and dividing world a different world. But friends, we can’t do that, can’t show that to the world if we wrongly divide from each other over our differences. Sisters and brothers, I wonder if you’ve cast out of your heart a fellow church member whom Jesus has welcomed into his because they differ from you.

Imagine this. Imagine your best friend is throwing a party, a feast, and at this party is your favorite food. For me, it’s fried calamari and Oreo milkshakes. I’m like, oh, this party’s going to be off the chain. Just imagine you’re at your favorite party with your favorite food, your favorite music, your favorite people. Someone knocks on the door. You look up, expecting to see another person you love walk in, and in walks your enemy.

And to make matters worse, your best friend who’s throwing the party invited them and walks over to them and gives them a huge hug, as big of a hug as they gave you. Friend, what would you be thinking? I’d be standing there, jaw dropped, calamari falling out of my mouth. Like, what is happening? Now, imagine if I walked over to my enemy, grabbed them by the collar, and shoved them back out the door. My best friend would rightly look at me and say, Isaac, who do you think you are? It is not your place to disinvite anyone from this party that you did not plan or pay for.

But friends, isn’t it scary how easy it is to throw people out of God’s party, out of God’s party, if only in our own hearts, when we don’t like how they differ from us? When we, let’s be honest, think we’re better than them. Isn’t that what we see in the prodigal son’s brother in Luke 15?

Isn’t that what we see in Jonah scorning the Ninevites’ salvation? Friends, is it what you see in your own heart? If it is, repent. And remember that greater than any of our differences are two things we all have in common. One, we’re all made in God’s image, and two, we’re all in desperate need of Jesus. So, we might look at someone and think, Republican, oh, Democrat, oh, American, oh, young, oh, Western Seminary student, oh, non-Western Seminary student, oh. Or try this one on for size. He wore a mask during the pandemic, oh. She didn’t wear a mask during the pandemic, oh.

You Can Come

We might say those things. But Jesus says, whoever comes to me, anyone can come to Jesus. Different people will come to Jesus, which means, finally, you can come to Jesus, and you should. What can we learn from meditating on the freeness of salvation? Point number three, you can come to Jesus, and you should. You should. Jesus will never cast you out. In Psalm 27, the psalmist writes, my father and my mother, the most foundational relationships in his life, my father and my mother have forsaken me, but the Lord will take me in. In 2 Kings 17, God explains the exile of Israel, saying he cast them out of his sight because of their sin. And friend, that is exactly what Jesus will never do to you if you come to him in faith. Why? Because he was already cast out of God’s presence on behalf of all those who would turn

to him in faith. On the cross, Jesus experienced to an infinite degree what Adam and Eve experienced after they sinned, exile from fellowship with God. On the cross, Jesus, who lived the perfect life, the life you and I could never live but should have lived, Jesus, he lived that life. He died in the place of sinners, taking the wrath, the aggravated condemnation we deserve for our sins. And Jesus was raised three days later so that anyone, anyone, anyone who turns from their sin and trusts in him would be forgiven of their sins and welcomed into his fellowship forever. If you’re here and you’re not a Christian, hear this gentle but clear command from God. Come.

Come. Stop trying to run your own life. Trust in what Jesus did on the cross in your place. Come to him in faith today. It doesn’t matter how young you are, how sad you are, how bad you are. Jesus says, whoever, meaning you, come. And if you are a Christian, this is not a one-time deal. Like we come to Jesus and then we go on with the rest of our lives. No, beloved, like the tide of the shore, we’re coming back for more. We’re coming back for more. Brothers and sisters, we’re only saved once, of course, but we keep coming to Jesus. We don’t ever leave. Where else would we go? He has the words of life. What else could we do? He’s done it all. I love that earlier in John 6, people asked Jesus, what must we do to be doing the works of God?

And Jesus answered them, this is the work of God that you believe in him whom he has sent. In other words, believe in Jesus and keep believing in Jesus. Do you see the surprising simplicity? If you asked a bunch of hard-working Portland types who didn’t have God’s grace, hey, how do you do the work of God? You’d get all these complicated answers full of ingenuity and spirituality and striving for the next level of spirituality, but Jesus simply says, believe in me.

And does it surprise you? The one who is so holy, Jesus would welcome you if you do. It should surprise you. But then again, the more we get to know Jesus, maybe it’s not so surprising after all. He, after all, is the one who came and shed his blood for us, whoever that may be.

The Lord’s Table

And don’t we see this truth when we take the Lord’s Supper? That it’s a meal for every kind of sinner, so long as we’re repentant sinners. Next week in my congregation, Iron City Church, I’m preaching Mark 2, Lord willing. Specifically, the verses that talk about Jesus eating with different types of sinners, those verses say.

And Jesus reclined at table in his house, and as he did that, many tax collectors and sinners were reclining with Jesus and his disciples, for there were many who followed him

— Mark 2

(ESV)

.

Beloved, isn’t this what we sinners who follow Jesus get in this supper? A foretaste of what it’ll be like to recline at Jesus’ table. All different types of us. We are welcome to come to Jesus. We should welcome one another as we come to Jesus. I love what Shai said at this conference when he preached about Peter pulling back from different types of sinners at a meal in Galatians 2. You remember this? Shai said, I’m gonna use this quote in my sermon next week, Jesus made no distinctions whatsoever in whom he died for, so why would we, Jesus’ people, make ethnic distinctions in terms of who we fellowship with? Beloved, if we make distinctions in whom we fellowship with, we sound like Peter, out of step with the gospel. We sound like the Pharisees and scribes who, in Mark, said when they saw that Jesus was eating with sinners and tax collectors, they said to his disciples,

why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners? It’s because he welcomes anyone, different ones, you ones, to come to Jesus. Friends, this is our Savior. Let’s pray. Jesus, we thank you that you welcome all types of sinners to your table. We thank you for this supper we’re about to take that so clearly reminds us of that wide welcome. Give us grace and confidence to arise and come to your welcoming arms, and to be thankful that we find our brothers and sisters, however they differ from us, in those same arms, your arms, which will never cast us out.

Oh, Jesus, I thank you for this church and how they’ve welcomed me. Bless them, we pray, and in your name we pray. Amen.