Uniqueness of Christianity5

There is only one belief system in the world that offers you tonight an instantaneous change of status. I was traveling through Chicago and it's known as the Windy City for a good reason. The winds were so strong the plane couldn't take off and so I was stuck with hundreds, perhaps thousands of people in that airport.

Well, I came on a woman who obviously didn't travel much. Her son needed medication. She had put it, thinking she'd only be in transit a few hours, had put the medicine into the suitcase and put the suitcase in the plane.

And here she was stuck all night and her boy needed medicine. So I got the baggage tag and I went and found a security man and we went down into the bowels of the Chicago airport. We walked and walked and walked, went through all these clearances, finally found her bag, brought it back to her and she was so grateful.

When we finished, I went to sit down on the other side and here was a priest sitting. This man, by the way, taught ethics at the Vatican. And when I sat down beside him, he said to me, well, you've done your good deed for the day.

I said, sir, you're just the man I need to ask this question to. You look like an expert in the matter. Tell me how many good deeds do I have to do in a day to break even? And he smiled and said, looks like you have something on your mind.

And I said, well, I do. I said, you know, I never could figure that out, how good deeds could work that way. I said, you know, I've been knocking on doors and talking to people.

I noticed as I spoke to these people, you won't believe this, but they didn't know the difference between justification and sanctification. And he gave me a little wry smile and said, well, how do you define justification and sanctification? I said, now I presume you're an expert in this. And I said, you know, there's a letter in the Bible specifically written to the Christians in Rome, and that's what it's all about.

Justification and sanctification. He said, well, what do you mean by that? I said, well, what the Bible means by it is this to be justified means by an act, a judicial act of God, he declares you to be right. You're not right.

You're a sinner. But you see, when Christ died on the cross, he paid the debt you owed. And in exchange for your sin, taking your sin, he has offered you his rightness, his righteousness as a gift, a free exchange.

And if you will do that, he not only will declare you to be right. He will begin the process of making you right. I said, these dear people that I talked to were desperately trying to be made right before they'd been declared right.

In other words, they were trying to live the life before they'd received it as a gift. We spoke all night and at the end of the evening, about six in the morning, the sun was coming up. He turned to me and said, would you pray for me? I need to understand what you've been talking about tonight.

Everybody needs to understand that salvation is not something you earn. Salvation is a gift. And receiving the gift of God is this magnificent exchange program whereby he became sin for us, that we might be made the rightness of God in him.

Christianity is the only belief system in the world that offers you an instantaneous change of status. Now, there are many religions that tell you, if you follow our program, we guarantee you passage to heaven. The problem is nobody's ever come back to tell us if it's true or not.

Now, if I said to you, I've got a great investment scheme, I'll tell you what, you give me $10,000 of your money and I'll leave the country with it. And once I get safely to some place that doesn't have any extradition treaty, I'll send you a hundred thousand back. What kind of a fool would go for something like that? There's no way of, of guaranteeing it.

Is there? Well, somebody says, listen, you've been telling me if you do this, if you receive Christ as your savior, you repent of your sin. God guarantees you a place in heaven. How do you know? How do you know? Everybody's got their own heaven, you know? And every religion says, if you do this, we'll get you to heaven.

Oh, but here's the secret. Only Christianity offers you eternal life today. That's what God's offering you.

He's not saying if you do this and do that, then maybe when you die, you'll get to heaven. Folks, you only get to do that once. If you get it wrong, you can't come back and change your mind.

It's appointed unto men once to die and after that, the judgment. So then the scripture tells us that God has offered salvation through his son. And if we respond in faith tonight, you will be a new creature in the Lord Jesus.

God says to you, listen, I want you to confess your sin, to agree with me about your sin. You're the guilty sinner that Jesus died for. As soon as you receive Christ as your savior, he gives you joy and peace and believing.

He gives you the assurance of sin forgiven. He gives you power for living. He transforms your life.

And I could ask for people to stand up in this audience and they would tell you, that's exactly what happened to me. Christianity is the only belief system in the world that offers you evidence in history to authenticate its truthfulness. Christianity is the only belief system in the world that lets you be honest with God about your condition.

Okay, God, I'm, I'm the sinner you're talking about. Christianity is the only belief system in the world that offers a savior. And it's the only belief system that offers you an instantaneous change of status.

Not after you do so many good works or do this or do that. Maybe you can get to the next level. He that has the son has life and shall not come into judgment, but is passed from death unto life.

You see, if you believe this evidence, God will give you evidence in your life that it's true. You'll become a piece of evidence. God offers that to you.