Well we're now in week three of our series through the five solas and we've kind of talked began with an introduction and Last week started with Solus Scriptura and this week we're on Solus Christus, Christ Alone. It's going to be our focus this morning. Just to remind you of kind of where we're at and what we're doing with this, this is part of a larger series, Foundations of CRBC, which will be our focus for the next six months or so. I mean, the goal in this is to clarify the essentials behind this church plant. What is it that we're all about? Let's look at the foundational stuff, some of our core convictions. And so as we look at the five souls, which are probably the broadest, most basic definition of who we are as a Reformed church, we're looking at them not from a historical standpoint, which we could spend six months on, or even an individual standpoint, but more of a doctrinal and practical approach in relation to the local church. What do the five solas have to do with the local church? What do the five solas have to do with this church? That's kind of our question that we're seeking to answer. And so last week we began by considering the doctrine of Sola Scriptura, scripture alone. And I argue that it's the foundation of the Reformation, but also of our study. And I gave two reasons for that. Who remembers those two reasons? Why do we begin with Sola Scriptura? Exactly. So doctrinally, it is the foundation upon which we can assert anything else. Before we get to God, before we get to faith and grace, we have to know where to find answers to that. The revelation of His Word. Josh. Absolutely. Excellent. Yes. So it led to each of the other affirmations in the Reformation. So authority was at the heart of the Reformation. Is the Pope, the councils, what defines for us faith and practice ultimately or is the Word of God? And then as Dr. Hunt just said as well, doctrinally we must always begin with God's revelation before we move on to assert other things. So we define Sola Scriptura just by way of review. Scripture alone is our ultimate authority concerning faith and practice. Scripture isn't the only means of revelation. There's God's book of nature, natural revelation. Scripture isn't our only authority in every area of life. You know, Scripture's not gonna tell you how to fix your automobile or write code, but concerning faith and practice, it is the ultimate authority, God's revelation. We also considered this question, does it still matter in our day? What is a soul scripture in our day? Because really the issue in Protestantism is not authority, generally speaking. Everybody believes the Bible's the word of God in modern evangelical Protestantism. But I argue that the issue is sufficiency. That's where this doctrine in our day is particularly needed. Scripture, and this is where we went last week, Scripture is sufficient for evangelism, for sanctification, for social impact, and for ministry. We considered each one of those in turn. The sufficiency of Scripture in those areas, that Scripture is fully sufficient, as 2 Timothy 3.16 makes clear, for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete and equipped for every good work. So that's where we went last week. Before I move on, any questions, any comments on what we talked about last week? Have you thought about it? Anything else before we move on from Sola Scriptura? Trent? Where's the coffee? I made the argument from two places. Mark chapter 1 Sorry, I'll repeat the question. Trent wants clarification on how we considered that scripture is sufficient for social impact. I made the argument first from Mark chapter 1 that Jesus Christ came healing and the whole town was gathered at his door and then he disappears. He goes off to pray and the disciples come find him and they say, don't you know that everybody is looking for you? And he makes a comment, I'm going to paraphrase here because I don't have it in front of me, of saying, I have come to preach. It's the reason that I'm here. And that's what I must do. And so his focus was not on miracles, but on preaching. And, sorry, I've got to get this, there we go. And I jump from there to say that in many respects that's how we combat social issues as well. And then I made the, I followed that up from 2 Timothy chapter 3 and 4. 2 Timothy 3 begins with that, in the last days men are going to become lovers of self and it goes on this whole list of sins that we see in our society. And I made the comment, this is a frightening commentary on American culture, Western culture. But Paul exhorts Timothy, but you, Timothy, have been acquainted from childhood with the Scriptures. And that's when he goes on in 2 Timothy 4, verse 1, and he says, preach the word, in seasonality. And so I made the argument that Not that we can't or shouldn't do more socially, but everything that we do socially has to be based on that foundation of Scripture, and that Scripture is sufficient for addressing all the ills in society, because that's the commission of the church to preach the gospel. That make sense? I know we could spend another six weeks talking about that. Any other questions on this before we move on? So let's talk about today Christ alone. And essentially the thesis of this is Jesus Christ as our Savior has accomplished everything necessary for our salvation. And I want to tease this out a little bit. I want to kind of ask, what is it? What is Christ alone? What is this doctrine? What does it mean? Just like last week, I also want to ask, does it still matter? Doesn't everybody believe in Jesus, right? And I want to consider, how does it apply to this congregation? So this is kind of our outline for today, what we're going to look at. Let's begin talking about it historically, briefly, very briefly. Roman Catholicism. The Reformers were responding with this doctrine of Christ alone to certain errors within the Roman Catholic Church. Of course, Rome argues that the Pope is the vicar of Christ. He is the head of the church here on earth. He is Jesus Christ ruling and reigning here on earth. Christ rules and reigns through him. He's the ultimate authority. He is the dispenser of salvation. All of these things related to that. They also argue that we have mediators other than Jesus Christ. Mary intercedes for us. The saints. can help us. And of course the role of earthly priests as well. They have a doctrine of the priesthood that is similar to the Old Testament doctrine of priesthood. That we need to go through an earthly priest to have access to God. Also, while you press them, Roman Catholicism certainly would argue that Christ is sufficient for salvation, the reality of Catholic faith and practice demonstrates that Christ's work in and of itself is not enough to complete our salvation. So this is where their doctrine of good works the role of works in the Christian life and salvation, indulgences, priests, et cetera, practically supplement the role of Christ as Savior and Redeemer. This is what the Reformers looked out and saw. And as we've considered, as I've made the argument before, the emphasis should be on alone. Christ alone, because it's not that Rome denies the necessity of Jesus Christ, it's that they've added so many other things alongside Him. That's kind of historically what led to Christ alone, and just a few quotes here we have from Luther, who said, any true Christian, living or dead, possesses a God-given share in all the benefits of Christ and the Church, even without indulgence letters. I remember the issue that really spurred the Reformation was the selling of indulgences. A get out of purgatory free card if you donated enough money. And again, this practically denies the sufficiency of Christ's work for our salvation. Michael, would you close those shades a little bit? There's some sun coming in. Appreciate that. We have a Calvin who wrote, Christ stepped in, took the punishment upon Himself, wore the judgment due to sinners. With His own blood He expiated the sins which made them enemies of God and thereby satisfied Him We look to Christ alone for divine favor and fatherly love. Again, hitting on the sufficiency of Christ's work, he declared, it is finished. He sat down at the right hand of God after he ascended into the presence of God. He has fully satisfied for all of our sins, and in this sense, all of the other things that Rome had built up and added on to Christ kind of fall away as unnecessary when seen in this light. So, Solus Christus can really essentially be boiled down to a few things here. First, we would say any attempt to add to Christ's work is a perversion of the gospel and is indeed no gospel at all, because that's what Rome was doing. It wasn't just that, you know, again, they didn't deny Christ, they were adding on to His work. We see Paul in Galatians 1, verses 8 and 9, saying that if there is any other gospel preached contrary to the one we preach to you, let him be accursed. If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed. This is the error that he was dealing with in Galatia. Christ's work was not seen as sufficient. Of course, what is that gospel that he preached? We know that a person is not justified by work to the law, but through faith in Jesus Christ, Galatians 2.16. Rome's doctrine of good works, the reformers saw this as adding to Christ's work, leading to another gospel. Also we would say Christ alone, I guess in summary form, means that Jesus Christ is the one true prophet, priest, and king. He is our prophet. He fully and finally reveals God's word to us. No other prophet or church is needed. Roman Catholicism argues that the church is the final authority on matters of faith and practice. The church essentially is, they hold the revelation of God They are essentially the prophet, the Pope as well, when he speaks from the chair, declares God's word infallibly. But it's Jesus Christ as our prophet means that we have the full and final revelation in Him. He is our prophet. He's also our priest. No other priest is needed to mediate God's salvation and blessing. His death fully satisfies for all of our sins. He fully intercedes for us. We don't need to go through any earthly mediator, a priest, or any other mediator, Mary or the saints in heaven. He is our mediator. He is our high priest. And essentially, the priesthood of all believers, we are all priests of God with access into the very presence of God. We consider last week with a calling and commission to offer sacrifices, spiritual sacrifices, that are pleasing to God. This is what it means when we say Christ alone and King as well. We need no other king to rule over us. He alone defeats all his and our enemies. Maybe look at that as we'll consider a moment in relation to sanctification in the Christian life. He is our King. He's ruling for our good. He's ruling us for our good. He's ruling everyone else for our good as well. Alright, any questions before we turn to answer the question, does it still matter? Any questions on any of this? Comments? Additional thoughts? Nothing? Question now is, does it still matter? We can make the case that it mattered historically, clearly. But yet again, as we saw last week, I mean, is this really an issue within Protestantism? Do you know of many churches that would deny the centrality of Jesus Christ? Probably not. Everyone loves Jesus, right? Everyone believes in Jesus. Everyone sees Him as the center of our faith and practice, right? Absolutely, yeah. That's what I'm going to argue. Yes, absolutely. Very prominent. Christ alone is great to get you into heaven. Forgiveness of sin, salvation, but then we move on to bigger and better things, right? Who doesn't want a better mansion? I will say this, if anything, the pendulum has swung entirely in the opposite direction, where we have a hyper-individualism. You know, me and Jesus. No church, no problem. That's not what I want to consider today, but if we think about this in relation to Protestantism, You know, where Rome argued, no, you need the church, you need the pope, you need the saints, you need Mary. And now, priesthood of all believers has been taken to the other extreme where we don't need anything. We just, it's just me and my quiet time, you know? But putting that aside, I do wanna, and you guys have answered this, or begun to answer this already, does it still matter? Yeah, absolutely. But I guess maybe manner of application or relevance in today's church. Let me put it this way. Who is Jesus Christ? I think even in conservative circles, you can answer this, you'd find people answering this very differently. If you were to go to I don't know, 25 or 30 of the closest Protestant churches to this church, and you ask them, who is Jesus Christ? You probably get a good variety of different answers. Even more so if you say something like, what has he done to save sinners? And how does this apply to me? Has he done his, has he finished his part And now has He thrown things back on us, saying, now you do yours? This gets at the issue of Christ alone. Because de facto, practically, a lot of churches seem to go in this direction. He's done all that He can do to save you. Now you must take this step. Now you must do your part. And again, it hits at Christ alone, but it also hits at some of the foundational issues within historically that Rome and the reformers were arguing over. I love the Michael Horton likes to say, likes to recount this story where he was a young, naive teenager arguing with somebody over something. And the guy asked him, when were you saved? And instinctively, without even thinking of it, he says, when was I saved? 2,000 years ago at Calvary. And the man he was talking to was taken aback. expecting him to say, you know, here's my great conversion story, here's when, you know, I had my come to Jesus moment, and Horton really hits on the fact that, you know, we were saved ultimately at the cross, and that's what we ultimately look back to as foundational for our conversion. Yes, there came a point in time where the cross was applied and Christ entered our life, but the focus is not on Jesus doing something and you complete the work. He has completed it already. Another question we might ask is, in modern evangelicalism, what role does Jesus play in the Christian life? And, Cody, you were hitting on this, so were you, Dr. Hunt. Do we receive forgiveness of sins and then move on to bigger and better things? Like, oh, okay. This is enough to get me in, but how do I progress as a Christian? How do I grow? How do I please God? How do I fulfill my calling and commission? What is the key to the Christian life? What is the secret? What is necessary? What is the power? All of these questions really get at the heart of this issue as well. What role does Jesus Christ play in not just our conversion, but in our sanctification, our growth, and our fight against sin? So, I want to kind of answer these questions, or kind of address them I should say. Oh, one more. So I asked these already and there's three. Here's one more. What role does Jesus play in the church? In our worship, in our discipleship, and our preaching and teaching. this also hits at some of the key issues with Christ alone and how maybe practically we move off from that, tempted to move off from that. So I'm going to argue this. As with Rome, the modern church in danger of losing the primacy and centrality of Jesus Christ, not by open denial, not by people standing up and saying you need more than Christ, but by distraction, by subtle substitution, things that seem to work better, feel better, lead to better things, and self-focus. Christ alone can be substituted and lost in ways other than just open denial. That's what I'm going to argue right here. I'm going to go through a few things on how I think this has happened. So, before I get started on that, I do want to recommend a book. Christless Christianity by Michael Horton. There you go. It's at the issue right there. Here's a whole book on the alternative gospel of the American church. I read this book about 10 years ago and it profoundly shaped my understanding of the church and the Christian life. This book alone really lit a fire in me to go and study under Mike Horton at Westminster Seminary, California. It's one of my favorite books of all time. I highly recommend it to you. And you will not be disappointed. It's a challenging book. It's also eye-opening in many respects. And essentially, some of what I'm saying here is what he expounds and breaks down in greater detail. that the church is in danger of losing Christ, not by open denial, but by distraction. Subtle substitution. Self-focus, particularly. So if you've never read that one, I'd recommend it. Highly recommend it. Say what? Nice. You know, you could buy a few and put them on the book table. Six dollars is a good price. I would love for it to be a book of the month one day, but I have to wait till it's more affordable. Maybe for six dollars that would be doable, right? Awesome. Highly, highly recommend it. I don't know how many times I can say that, so. All right. Does it still matter? I want to think about Christ alone in the Christian life. All right, it's application to the Christian life. I want us to see the danger of, as Dr. Hunt mentioned a few minutes ago, the danger of Jesus plus whatever, fill in the blank, as the key to the salvific, successful, or the fulfilled Christian life. Again, this is going to come by implication, not necessarily by explicit teaching, although it comes that way at times. The problem that we saw in Galatians was Jesus plus obedience to the law of Moses. You know, the Galatian church wouldn't deny Jesus. Oh yeah, Jesus is great. Jesus is necessary for salvation. But you gotta obey the Mosaic Law too, otherwise you can't have Jesus. Jesus isn't enough. That was the problem that they were dealing with. That's the problem that Paul is addressing. That's the problem that he says, if you preach this gospel, you're preaching another gospel and you're accursed. The problem in Colossae, the book of Colossians, was Jesus plus strict spiritual disciplines. It wasn't so much on obedience to the law of Moses. Remember that famous passage where Paul says, you know, do not taste, do not touch, do not handle. This is the teaching of the false teachers in Colossae. Okay, you need to fast, you need to abstain from these foods, you need to practice these disciplines. These things, too, are necessary for your salvation. These things, too, are necessary for the higher Christian life. So we've got to answer the question, is Jesus enough? Is Jesus enough? Have we swapped the Pope for Protestant celebrities? Have we thrown out indulgences and non-biblical sacraments for Protestant spiritual disciplines? What did I mean by that? Do you guys understand what I mean by that? I feel like that's a result of One thing I feel like I've heard a lot is the phrase, shall we sin so that grace may abound? It feels like the church is terrified of just Jesus, basically, of someone converting and then deciding to sin so that grace may abound. Yeah, we're so worried about them falling into sin or not living as they ought. Yeah, I think more specifically though, well it does hit on that, but also in some respect mean, you know, you go to the Christian bookstore and it is filled with books on self-help, spiritual disciplines. This is the one thing that you need to progress from where you're at now into someplace greater. Journaling is the secret to the Christian life. Taking a trip to the Middle East will have such a profound experience on you, it will change everything. We might, you know, resist this idea of indulgences and sacraments that aren't found in God's Word, but practically speaking, we so quickly, so often replace them with the same thing under different names. Nick? Yeah, so I'm working through the whole Christ and the three last night, and Sinclair was just talking about how ministers specifically, we have all of these books on, whether it be doctrines, for example, and he said it challenges him. How many books do you have on just Christ? You know, and it's amazing when you release it back and think about how many books do I have exalting just the person of Christ and what he's done, as opposed to... study those things are not bad, it just gets to, you know, we get to replace non-biblical sacraments and think that if I'm reading my Bible, if I'm studying, you know, whatever doctrine it may be, that, you know, this is how I must please the Lord, and we're not resting in Yeah, I think on a practical standpoint, you know, the law is written on our hearts. As we are converted, we become more and more and more aware of our sin. And naturally, out of a good desire, we want to deal with our sin. Or sometimes we want to deal with problems in our life. Maybe we're not getting along with a family member or co-worker, and it's not an issue of explicit sin, but it's something that's difficult for us. And our inclination is to go and find a book on that issue. Give me four principles to overcome this issue. Which I'm not saying that those things can't be helpful and sometimes are very good and proper. But if that's our focus, we're missing the foundational issue. And we're missing how Jesus Christ, and like you said, what about a book on Jesus Christ as a means for dealing with this issue in your life? Who would have ever thought about that? Well, okay, that doesn't work as quickly as we want it to work. It doesn't work in the same way. It doesn't feel as good. And so we neglect it and go to something else. even more so when some of those practices are extra-biblical as well. Have we rejected Jesus plus the law and substituted it with Jesus plus the latest evangelical fad? Prayer of Jabez would be a big one, you know. You guys, most of you are too young to remember how this completely swept the evangelical world, the book Prayer of Jabez. The guy argues basically, you know, he finds this obscure prayer in the Old Testament, and he argues that if you pray this prayer every day, your life's going to be changed. Lord, you know, expand my borders, and it's really a health and wealth prayer. Just as quickly as it cropped up in the evangelical world, it was gone. Because people tried it, it didn't work like he promised, and they moved on to other things, even though it is still around in some respect. But, oh, Jesus plus the law, no, but Jesus plus this, oh, this really seems to work. Have we despised Catholic mysticism in worship, and yet received evangelical experientialism, inspiration, and emotionalism? I'm going to expound on this in just a moment, but, you know, Catholic with their mysticism, holy water, and incest, uh, incest, sorry. Now I'm not even sure I can say it right. Incest, there we go, okay. It was in my head. Burning incense, okay, there we go, alright. I mean, all these things in worship that help us connect to God, looking at images, praying to idols. We may look at those as Catholic, but then we replace them with, I mean, fog machines, and praise band, and inspirational worship, and again, I'm gonna talk about those in a moment. See how we can subtly replace these things and commit the very same error that the Reformers fought against. So, Christ alone in the Christian life. I'm going to move really quickly here, as usual. We know from Scripture, Colossians 2.9, for in Him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, and you have been filled in Him. Okay, you have been filled in Him. What do you need outside of Jesus Christ indwelling you? Ephesians 1, 3, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing. What is it that He has left out in your salvation that you need to go and obtain on your own? Nothing. He's giving you every spiritual blessing in giving you Jesus Christ. 2 Peter 1, 3, His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness through the knowledge of Him. You want to know practically 101 why in this church our conviction is that preaching and teaching ought to be doctrinal first and foremost. Not to say that it's not practical, but first and foremost it must be doctrinal. It must be theology because this through the knowledge of Him is the means by which His power works in us to give us all things necessary for life and godliness. That's the foundation upon which then we build the practical. But you can't build the practical without the foundational. Think about this in relation to worship. Christ alone and worship. Hinted at this already, but there is a danger in although giving lip service to Jesus that our worship, and most specifically I am thinking of corporate worship, it would in some ways apply to private worship as well, but church, the church worship, that's our focus. Worship that is about our felt needs. It's about our desires and longings and feelings and experiences. Just think of some of the popular contemporary Christian songs. What do they speak of? So often, our experience in the Christian life. Our desires, our longings, our feelings. Not to say there's no place for this. Even in the Psalms, he talks about his desires and longings. But again, what is central? What is foundational? Where is our focus? Church and worship becomes about our activities and aspirations. What's important to us? Well, what's really important to me is feeding the homeless. What's really important to me is that children's ministry. What's really important to me is that the church is doing this, and this, and this. It's about love. Love God and love neighbor, right? The focus, and again, I'm not saying that these things aren't wrong, as if feeding the homeless or children ministry is not proper in their proper context, and good, and necessary. But where is the focus? Where is the focus? What takes primacy? What is central? Our agenda? Our activity? Our aspirations? What's important to us? Or what's important to God? In this, Jesus can easily become a means to get what we really want, which is more of us. Jesus is that life coach that helps us attain what we're really looking for, whether that be a bigger mansion, a life of health and wealth, or a social change in regards to our convictions and agenda. We need to be careful. Again, I'm moving quickly here to wrap this up. Thinking about it more in relation to worship. The temptation to attend church as consumers. Looking primarily for what we can get out of church. We could talk about this a lot. So often we become obsessed with the takeaways from church, right? Our takeaways, what we get out of it, because our focus is on our own transformation, on law, on what we're doing, and not on gospel. We're looking for the practical, the helpful, the useful, because we want to be transformed, we want to be successful, we want to be connected, we want to be highly esteemed. And so, the entirety of, again, not saying that being practical and helpful and useful in our own transformation isn't important. It is, but if that becomes the criteria by which we judge everything else, if that becomes the focus, then we're in danger of losing the centrality of Jesus Christ. Our worship, our Christian life, is about adoring Him. First and foremost, more than it is about our transformation and change. Music and worship that expresses our experience, our longings, our inspirations, rather than music and worship that is focused on adoring, proclaiming, exalting, honoring our God through Jesus Christ. Could go on, community and programs that reflect our preferred demographic pursuit, how did I word that? Reflect our preferred demographic, pursuing our idea of a good life. So, Christ alone, touches on so many areas of our worship and of our church life. And again, just to give you the big picture here, it's not as if I'm discounting all these things. I would simply want to argue that oftentimes these can take the place of our focus on Christ and serve as primary And in that way we lose the doctrine, the centrality of Jesus Christ in his church. So to conclude then, what does Christ alone mean in these areas? Preaching is to be emphatically Christ-centered. Seems obvious enough, right? You see that in the Word of God. When I came to you brothers, I did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom. I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. But in our day, even solid, even reformed churches are so focused on practicality and preaching. Giving you things that you can really put into practice today, right now. I'm arguing that there's a place for that, but first, Christ alone must be central. Colossians 128, Him we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone in all wisdom that we may present everyone mature in Christ. How does everyone become mature in Christ? By the proclamation of Christ. The centrality of preaching and teaching on exalting, magnifying Jesus Christ and His work alone. Even our interpretation of scripture is to be emphatically Christ-centered. Luke 24, 27, Jesus, after his resurrection to the disciples, began with Moses and the prophets and interpreted them and all the scriptures to things concerning himself. So, you know, not looking at scripture as, oh, David is a great moral example, dare to be a Daniel here, we need to follow this example. But first and foremost, the scriptures testify to Jesus Christ. That's their ultimate aim. And our worship is to be Christ-centered as well. Our focus being on Him, what He's done, rather than us and what we do, long for, or feel, or experience, is to be gospel-centered, not so much focused on the long, you know, give me something to do, tell me what I need to do to get in shape. Our worship and our church life is to be Christ-centered, and we set our hearts and our minds and our eyes on what He has done, rather than what we do. It goes back to something very central, such as John 15. Abiding in Christ is how you bear fruit. Apart from me, you can do nothing. So, to wrap all this up, Christ alone, solus Christus, in our day touches on every area of faith and practice, the Christian life, on worship, on church life. And, you know, I don't really present a solution to this. It's more of like, this is how the doctrine is relevant. But I do want to say that the church ought to be constantly, continually reevaluating, examining whether our faith and practice and our worship is centered on Christ. and focused on exalting Christ rather than ourselves because it comes in so subtly. It comes in under, you know, the guise of sound doctrine, of reformed theology, of conservative theology. But in very subtle ways we can drift and we ought to constantly be examining and evaluating the centrality of Christ in our church, in our worship, and in our Christian life. And ultimately, in relation to our church, I just want to remind you folks, I taught through this when we considered the doctrine of worship last year. But when we come together, He is revealing Himself to us. He is judging us with His law. He is forgiving us with the gospel. He is feeding us in the supper. He is equipping us with His word. And we ought to come expectantly to church in worship with this in mind, knowing that He is the actor. The church is about Him. with His people rather than, okay, I come to church for a boost for this week, an inspiration to fill me so that I can go out and live the happy and fulfilled life and it's about what I need to do and where I need to shape up. No, we need to, in many respects, sit here and let Him wash our feet. worship as we come together as a church because that's what's going on. Jesus Christ himself is saying sit there while I serve you, while I feed you, while I equip you, while I am the actor on the stage of corporate worship. And approaching worship this way helps us to get our eyes off of ourselves and our world and on to Jesus Christ where they ought to be. That's a lot of info. I know. I'm sorry. I lament every week trying to fit one solo into each week. It's not fun. I did a lot of editing too. You can ask Nick this morning. It was about an hour of pulling material out. So make sure we can get through all this. Any final questions or comments before we close? All right. Well, let's close in prayer.