From the Pulpit 6/13/2015

From the Pulpit 6/13/2015 Pastor Michael Ewart Good Shepherd Lutheran Church and School 5071 Center Street, Omaha, NE 68106 [email protected] | www.gsomaha.com Cell: 402-320-8019

The Bible is clear: Christ plus nothing equals everything. Yet followers of Christ have always been tempted to doubt. Is Christ enough? Is trusting in him alone enough for salvation, a right relationship with God and entrance into heaven? Surely something more needed. Perhaps Christ PLUS… 1) …knowledge, wisdom, reason, philosophy. Is it really enough to know just Christ – his life, death and resurrection? We are inclined to think there is more. A deeper knowledge. A greater wisdom. A rational understanding. A discovered philosophy. 2) …rules. We are inclined to believe that we must complete what Christ started. Take what he did and add what I do, and I just might be saved. 3) …feelings and mystical experience. We are inclined to believe that in addition to Christ I must feel his presence or connect to him in a mystical way. Perhaps I can hear his voice, or transcend my daily grind. Surely simple trust (a basic reliance upon him) is not sufficient? 4) …denying myself of earthly pleasure …or indulging myself in earthly pleasures. Asceticism is one extreme. “Eat, drink and be merry” is the other. The first is thought to garner God’s favor. The second is thought to demonstrate God’s favor.

But God says this. Christ PLUS relying upon any of the above equals nothing. If a solution is already perfect and complete, adding to it can only spoil it. Christ is God’s perfect solution to your faults, failures, sin and guilt. Christ’s perfect life and innocent death is the complete sacrifice which pays your entire sin-debt in full. “When you were dead in your sins… God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins” (Colossians 2:13). Trust him and him alone! Christ + nothing = everything!