Several years back a couple came to our church, and like a lot of people asked about what the Alliance is. I explained to them a little history, a little bit of the theology, and a little bit about what our particular ministry was here in Quartzsite. At the end of this, about a ten minute explanation, the woman responded with, “All that sounds good, we thought you were some sort of cult.” At the time I was taken aback by what she said, but now I think it’s funny.
I can see why she might have thought that. The Alliance denomination isn’t widely known. It has no where near the high profile of a Baptist, Methodist, or Calvary Chapel. And in the community we’re simply known as the Alliance Church.
So when people see our church signs, or ads, I can see them thinking, what type of weird cultist place is the Alliance? Well, every few years, I like to share a little about what the Alliance is. And to me the best way to understand what the Alliance is, is to focus in on a core teaching that is seen through our denomination’s logo, and is a bedrock for why we do the things we do.
So if you have your Bibles, we’re going to start in the book of Romans chapter 5 starting in verse 6. As we open to Romans 5:6, you need to know that the Alliance is short hand for the Christian and Missionary Alliance. It was found in the late 1800s by people who had a desire to bring the Gospel to the unsaved. There were two arms of the group: The Christian Alliance, a network of congregations in the US, and the Missionary Alliance, a missions board that was supported by the network to send missionaries over seas. The central founder was A.B. Simpson, a Canadian Presbyterian who moved to the states for health reasons, then to New York for a pastoral position, which he stepped down from to pursue the calling of sending missionaries across the world.
Over the course of his life, he saw within the pages of Scriptures, what he would later call the four-fold Gospel. Not that the Gospel was only four things, but, as he states, “… there are four messages in the gospel which sum up in a very complex way the blessings which Christ has to offer us and which it is especially important that Christians should emphasize today.”
It is the first part of this four fold message of the Gospel that we begin within in Romans 5:6-8, let’s read it together. “For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”
These words, “… while we were still sinners, Christ died for us,” are the words that pierce my life. I remember myself as a young man in distress; I remember my pain and hurt; I remember the moment I accepted Jesus as my Savior, and the radical impact it had on me. And I praise God that while I was a sinner, Christ died for me.
My eighth grade teacher told my mom that what she saw in my future was prison. But her prophecy did not come true. Because when the teachers, and judges, and everyone else looked at me and said, that boy is just going to be a dredge of society, Christ saw me and loved me. He died on the cross 2,000 years before I was a speck, and though I was a sinner after the fact, his death broke through history and saved me.
I was not abandoned by God in my time of need. Though I broke everything from his law, to my parent’s hearts, “while I was a sinner, Christ died for me.” Not because of anything I did, but because of his deep love. I, an imperfect sinner, was loved by the perfect God who came to earth, died on a cross and resurrected for me. And I didn’t have to become good, I didn’t have to fix my life, I didn’t have to look, or act, or smell, or think a certain way, Christ died for me even in my sin. Even when I didn’t think, or act, or speak right. Christ died for a sinner like me. And in my powerlessness, the work of Jesus on the cross brought me salvation. And I moved from death to life in a flash.
This is the first of the four fold message that A.B. Simpson saw in the Scriptures: Jesus is our Savior. This is the first step in our understanding of God. Jesus saved us, not because we deserved it, but because of his deep love for us. God’s saving work through the cross, speaks to the depth of his love, and the extremes he is willing to go to show us that love. Jesus as Savior brings us from death to life. It brings us from rebellion into right relationship. And it brings us from eternal self-absorption to eternal selfless worship.
A.B. Simpson gave 8 things that Jesus saves us from. First, Jesus saves us from the guilt of sin. Romans 8:1 states, “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” So when the lies of the enemy tell us, “you messed up again you sinner,” we can exclaim, “Yes I messed up, but Jesus does not condemn me by his work on the cross!”
Second, Jesus saves us from the wrath of God. Romans 5:9 reads, “Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God.” God hates sin, and seeks to destroy it in every place it hides. But through Jesus’ work on the cross the wrath of God passes by, because sin has been and is being dealt with in our lives.
Third, Jesus saves us from the curse of the law. Galatians 3:13 says, “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, ‘Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree.’” Paul writes that through the law of Moses we recognize what sin is, and it’s by the law we are condemned to death because of our sin. But through Jesus’ work on the cross, the law’s judgment is broken because Jesus paid our penalty.
Fourth, Jesus saved us from our own evil conscience. First Peter 3:21 states, “Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ ….” We try to justify our sinful acts and thereby pervert our conscience into agreeing with our lies, but through Jesus’ work on the cross we are now clear of the lies and deception we need to create to make ourselves feel good.
Fifth, Jesus saves us from our own evil heart. In the book of Jeremiah chapter 17, verse 9, it reads, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?” God knows that our hearts are corrupt. Jesus even says that, “out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts (Mk. 7:21).” Through the work on the cross Jesus saves us from this corrupted heart.
Sixth, Jesus saves us from the fear of death. In First Corinthians 15:55-57 Paul stands defiantly and proclaims, “‘O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?” The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” The fear of death should no longer constrain us, but rather we stand in front of it and proclaim Jesus’ work is greater than the grave.
The seventh thing that Jesus saves us from is Satan’s power. First John 3:8 states, “Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil.” The works of the enemy do not control us who have accepted Jesus as our Savior. And so we can stand on the work of the cross and proclaim, “I am a servant of only one master, and his name is Jesus!”
The final thing Jesus saves us from is certainly not least. Jesus saves us from eternal death. Jesus states in John 5:24, “Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life.” When we accepted Jesus as Savior, we moved from the road that leads to a place of eternal death and decay, onto the road where everything is new for eternity.
I’ve experience all of it. I am free from the shackles that I placed on myself, because of my rebellion. But while I was a sinner, Christ died for me and set me free from all the things that God never intended for my life. But that’s not all.
A.B. Simpson brings out that we are not just saved from something, but also to something. Jesus saved us to be justified in God’s sight. Romans 5:1 reads, “Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” God sees us through the lens of Jesus, and when God looks upon us, all he sees is the perfect work of the Son.
Jesus also saves us to experience the favor and love of God. The Psalmist, in Psalm 5:11-12, wrote, “But let all who take refuge in you rejoice; let them ever sing for joy, and spread your protection over them, that those who love your name may exult in you. For you bless the righteous, O Lord; you cover him with favor as with a shield.” We who put our trust into Jesus can experience this love and favor because we gain Jesus’ righteousness.
Remember how Jesus saves us from a corrupted heart? Well, we are saved so that he may give us a new heart. God prophecies about this in Ezekiel 36:26, “And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.” Our heart can beat as it was supposed to, with the fruits that will be produced in us through Jesus’ work.
Jesus’ work also saves us to experience God’s grace to live every day. Paul talks about this kind of grace in Second Corinthians 9:8, “And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work.” God’s grace is there so that we can do the work that he has saved us to be a part of. And that grace jumpstarts our new lives in Christ, and is leaned on every moment we live from that moment on.
Jesus’ work through the cross also brings us the help of the Holy Spirit in our lives. Paul talks about the giving of the Holy Spirit to us in Romans 5:5, “and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us” We can live daily in the power of God, through the Holy Spirit who lives within us. If Jesus, being fully God, relied on the Spirit as he walked this earth, how much more should we?
Jesus’ work also brings us God’s working out of all things for our good, In Romans 8:28, Paul tells us, “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.” Even when we mess up, God can take those mess ups and turn them for good as we seek him in his purposes.
Next, Jesus’ work on the cross also brings the opening for more blessings to flow to us. Paul recognizes this in his prayer for the Church at Ephesus in Ephesians 3:14-21, “For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.” We cannot even begin to understand the blessings God has for us through Jesus.
Finally, but not the least of these, we are saved to eternal life. The most beloved verse of the Bible, John 3:16 is memorized for a very important reason, for it states, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” And that life, begins at the moment we accept Jesus as our Savior and moves into eternity.
None of these things we deserve, but because of God’s deep love for us, he gives them freely.
Jesus as Savior is one message, of what A.B.Simpson called the FourFold Gospel. This approach to understanding the Gospel spurs the work of the Alliance ahead. The gratitude we as believers have, because of the depth of love shown through the cross, that, “… while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”
This sinner, who from an early age was in rebellion, was given up on by almost everyone he came into contact with, but Christ died for such as he, and now I serve at the command of Christ. Not to earn my salvation, but in adoration of the God who has done so much for me.
Too often in our lives we take for granted the depth of the work God has done for us to bring us to salvation. But God wants us to remember and understand the depth of work Christ did on our behalf by his work on the cross. And in understanding it, to rejoice in it.
Jesus spoke this parable and questioned his disciples in Luke 7:41-43, “‘A certain moneylender had two debtors. One owed five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. 42 When they could not pay, he cancelled the debt of both. Now which of them will love him more?’ 43 Simon answered, ‘The one, I suppose, for whom he cancelled the larger debt.’ And he said to him, ‘You have judged rightly.’”
I now seek to understand the depth of my debt, so that I might understand the depth of the forgiveness my Savior brought to me.
This week, my challenge is simple, seek God’s understanding of the depth of your debt to the Savior. Make a list with the words, “while I was still a sinner, Christ died for me” at the top. Then, after writing all that Jesus saved you from, write at the bottom, “while I was still a sinner, Christ died for me” and praise him for his work.
Let us be a people that seeks to know the depth of love that our Savior has for us. It is seeking to understand this depth that we join together as a family of believers to be called the Alliance. Amen.
