Episode 101

Every so often and at certain milestones, it is good to look back and reflect on where you’ve come from, and how God has worked along the way. Nearly two years ago now, U.S. cities were on fire, racial tensions were at an all time high, and the historically obvious nature of gender was now up for debate. Though the temptation was great to fume and rant at the talking heads on TV, the Lord put it on our hearts to start a podcast that would address these issues (and many others) from a biblical perspective with the aim of removing barriers that hinder a clear view of the cross. Thus, the Removing Barriers podcast was born. Today, we praise and thank God for 100 episodes, and we look forward to what He has planned next on the Removing Barriers Podcast.

Thank you for tuning in to the Removing Barriers podcast. I’m Jay. And I’m MCG, and we’re attempting to remove barriers so we can all have a clear view of the cross.

This is episode 101 of the removed moving barriers. Podcasts. And in this episode, we are celebrating 100 episodes of Removing barriers. And also rerun episode one as a reminder of why Removing Barriers. Thank you for listening to us for 100 episodes.

So Jay, did you ever, in your wildest dreams, imagine 100 episodes? I don’t think so. I didn’t know what to expect when we started because the podcast began as a way to biblically and constructively address the chaos that was 2020 and everything that was happening during that time. But God has taken it and morphed it into a platform that allows us to explore the incredible miracle that he creates every single time someone gets saved. Or he gives us an opportunity to explore some of the things that are happening today in our time that the Bible has answers for and that people need to know and understand from a biblical perspective. And that is very precious. And that’s great. And no, I did not imagine 100 episodes, but I’m very grateful to God that we’re here.

Yeah, definitely. I remember when we started, when we were about 20 or so episodes in my son at that time, his favorite number was seven. So he will ask for can we play episode seven? And he will say, can we play episode 17? And for some weird reason he will say, can we play episode 77? And I was like, Son, we don’t have an episode 77. At that time, Episode 77 seemed so far away, but now episode 77 is in the past and they celebrated 100 episode. I didn’t think that we would have had 100 episodes of removing barriers. But I guess, as I said in my testimony, some of that may have to do with my stubbornness. I refuse to give up. But our listeners have increased every couple of months. We can tell that new folks are finding the podcast and listening. So it is you, our listener, really what keep us going, because we have more listeners and more listeners. As you mentioned, we have the how were your Barriers Remove series that the listeners seem to like, where we interview folks and get their salvation testimonies, find out where their barriers remove. We have the series on the mission field, where we interview missionaries and find out how are they moving or help removing barriers on their mission field and what barriers they face there. And of course, we tackle social and cultural things that are going on to the US. Because as the US. Goes, so go the rest of the Western world. Growing up in the islands, we will say if the US. Needs, we will catch the cold. Usually we are a couple of years behind of the US. In terms of accepting the social norms from the US. So we definitely want to attack what we are seeing in this anti culture with the gospel. When I check our stats, we have listeners from places that I would have never imagined that someone would listen to us from. We have listeners in Pakistan and places in the Middle East and we have listeners basically in every continent, a bunch of listeners in Europe and even Russia and Ukraine. I don’t think I’ve seen any from China, but we have definitely listeners in Asia, in the Philippines, in the US, of course, in the Caribbean, in South America, Canada. So the podcast has gone way beyond where expects. I quite honestly don’t know why anyone would listen to me, but I’m truly glad that the Lord sees fit to actually use this podcast in any which way he feels.

Yeah, and it’s a testimony to God’s mercy and his grace that he would use anything to further his purposes in the world today. We praise God for even allowing us to be a part of this and I personally thank God for your hard work MCG, your stick to itness, your complete incredible work ethic and dedication to seeing that this podcast is produced every week. I see it every day, the children see it every day and we thank God for you, for your wonderful example and we praise God for what he’s doing through the Removing Barriers podcast.

So what is queued up or what do we have coming down the pipeline for the Removing Barriers podcast? Well, as you know, the Supreme Court just ruled in June that removing unquote a woman’s right to choose, if you want to put it that way, or saying that abortion is not a constitutional right. So we have a series of episodes talking about abortion coming up right after this. We have Pastor Todd talking about abortion from a biblical perspective and we have two of my college friends coming on, one is a lawyer and one is a measly software engineer, like I am talking about the social and legal perspective of abortion. And then we have someone who actually have a pregnancy clinic where she encouraged and help young ladies and young fathers to choose life over choosing abortion. And then we go into a series with adoption where we interview two friends who have decided to adopt baby boy and get their perspective on that. So we have those coming up, which I think would be pretty good in terms of getting different folks perspective. Then of course we go back to talking a little bit about Christians and conservatism and how worried about the mission field theories and theological topic and stuff like that. So a lot of the same because our listeners seem to like those. But we’re going to have a series with about five or so episodes on abortion and then we have adoption and stuff like that. So some excited episode coming up. There are some other series that we’re trying to kick off the ground, but I will keep those until we actually get guests who are willing to do those.

But yeah, we have a lot of plans and also we actually got our first sponsor back in episode 99 and Swap is now a sponsor of the Removing Buyers podcast. So if you go to theSwapp.io, you can check out Swapp. It’s basically a soul-winning application to help churches and sole winners organize themselves, create maps and stuff like that. So thank you to Swapp for whatever they saw in us, our podcast and decided to sponsor us.

This episode of the Removing Barriers podcast is sponsored by Swapp. If you are using paper maps for your outreach ministry, there is an easier way to create maps and follow up with contacts. Introducing the soul-winning app or Swapp for short. Swapp allows your church to effectively set up an outreach area, digitally map that area and allow app users to easily show progress on that map. You can print maps, record prayer requests and follow up with contacts. Swapp is offering a 30 day free trial and money back guarantee. Go to thesoulwinningapp.com or theSwapp.io to sign up today. Swapp the only outreach software designed specifically for soul-winning and soul-winners.

Wonderful. We also have a book giveaway that’s going on. So on the Removing Barriers website we have a running list of books that are sure to be a blessing to anyone who reads them. These are books that seek to remove barriers or at least address them. And they seek to exalt Christ, which is the purpose of every single Christian. One of those books is titled Created for His Glory by Jim Berg and that’s the book we’ll be giving away. So Jim Bergs, Created for His Glory, explores God’s purpose in redeeming our lives, providing both the theological underpinning and the practical application of rejoicing in experiencing and displaying God’s grand reality. What are we here for? What did God save us for? It can be used as a discipline tool or for just your everyday thing to read for spiritual benefit. You could use it, as I said, as a spiritual discipline tool with new believers that are seeking to live out their new found faith. In that book will help you guide them and teach them why and how we are created for his glory. So, how to enter? Well, it’s easy. Just subscribe to any of our social media handles or to our mailing list. If you are already subscribed to one of those, pick another RBP handle to subscribe to. If you aren’t yet subscribed to Removing Barriers in any way, go to removingbarriers.net/contact to find our social media handles or scroll to the bottom of the page and subscribe to our mailing list. Now, the more handles you’re subscribed to, the greater your chances will be of winning. But you do not have to be subscribed to every single one of the handles and to the mailing list to win, just pick one or some or all of them to subscribe to and then you’ll be automatically entered. This book giveaway will run for eight weeks from episode 101 to episode 109, and the winner will be announced on episode 110. We will mail the book to any location where the United States Postal Service will allow, and you must be 18 or older to enter.

Hi, this is Jay. MCG and I would like for you to help us remove barriers by going to removingbarriers.net and subscribing to receive all things Removing Barriers. If you’d like to take your efforts a bit further and help us keep the mics on, consider donating at removingbarriers.net/donate. Removing Barriers, a clear view of the cross.

This is the removing barriers podcast. If the podcast or the blog were a blessing to you, leave us a rating and a review on your favorite podcast platform. And don’t forget to share the podcast with your friends. Removing Barriers, a Clear View of the Cross.

And now, without further ado, here is episode one.

This is the first episode of Removing Barriers. Let’s talk about why removing barriers. All right. Why do you want to do this? Well, I think that in the day and time that we live, things are quite tumultuous. We’re not the first group of people that have lived through tumultuous times, obviously, but it brings to bear a lot of questions that people have a lot of concerns that they have a lot of fears. There’s a lot of people out there that are already addressing some of these things. A lot of conservative voices. Do we want to be another conservative voice? It doesn’t hurt. There aren’t many of them out there. But more than being a conservative voice, I think that one of the things that we’re trying to do is present the gospel in such a way, or at least talk to people or talk to the audience in such a way that would help them see the cross clearly. So hence the removing Barriers title. Right.

I think that in the US. Especially, that the culture has changed so much, but the method of presenting the gospel has remained the same in terms of a lot of folks would go out and preach and they will tell folks how to be saved by saying Jesus loves you, repent and be saved without ever really dive into what is really blocking that person from seeing the cross clearly. I remember I think it was like five years ago now, I was a door to door knocking the door, and I met a Jewish man. His name was Erin, and he had a bunch of questions. I wanted to leave because it was really going nowhere. But I found myself using a lot of apologetic argument to this man to defend whatever he was putting up. And at the end we were able to share the Gospel with him. And both he and his wife said to us, wow, we have never heard the cost represented that way before. And that prompt me to start thinking, is apologetic arguments necessary for the presentation of the Gospel? And I would say, no, they’re not. But I like what Ravi Zakaria said when I was doing this. He said, that apologetic argument has never saved anybody. But they do remove obstacles so they can have a clear view of the cross of Jesus Christ. And I think we need to do that at times as Christians to remove those obstacles or remove those barriers so we can give folks a clear view of the cross. And today is systemic racism. It’s Black Lives Matter. It’s police brutality. Are these things real? We have a lot of conservative voices out there on YouTube and all over, but a lot of them are not doing it in the light of the Gospel, and we want to try to do it in the light of the Gospel.

So why are we doing this? I had to back to Simon sinek. He said, start with why, and we want to start with why. Because as I said before, I see a lot of Christians want to present the Gospel, but they’re not taking the time to remove the barriers. And I believe, as Ravi Zacharia said, if you do remove those barriers, that folks will have a much clearer view of the cross. Yeah, so it’s multifaceted, right? I mean, obviously, spiritually speaking, we can’t do anything to make it easier or make it possible for someone to actually hear the Gospel and let it sink into their hearts. That’s the work of the Holy Spirit. The work of the Holy Spirit. And so we would obviously need to do something like this prefaced by prayer, prefaced by relying on the power of the Holy Spirit, because ultimately what we’re talking about is for people to completely I don’t even think the term paradigm shift is enough to explain what it’s like to be removed from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of light. I remember that we purchased a book by Ken Ham july, I think it was July. Yeah. And how people back in the apostle days and even before that, when you were talking to them about the things of God, that group of people, they already had a framework, they already had an understanding of what you were referring to. Nowadays, it’s not a stretch to say that the overwhelming majority of people in this country are ignorant about the Scriptures. They’re ignorant. That’s true. And even in the Sunday school lesson that I teach, when I do the Maths part one, we talk about the lie with Ken Ham as well, but we also talk about comparing Acts chapter Two with Acts chapter 17, which can Ham outline in his book as well, the life. And in Acts chapter Two, the Day of Pentecost the apostles were talking to Jews and they started at Christ. They talk about the same Christ that you crucified as your Messiah. They presented them Christ, but even go to Acts chapter 17, they didn’t start at Christ, they go all the way back to Genesis because that was the barrier that the people in Acts chapter 17 had. The people in Acts chapter two. The barrier they had was if Jesus Christ the Messiah. And this is nothing new because we saw that even in the way Christ our Lord and Savior present the Gospel, he presented the Gospel to the woman at the well differently than how he presented the Gospel to the young rich ruler. He presented the Gospel to Nicodemus differently than how he present to all of them because what was the barrier for Nicodemus, what was the barrier for the woman of the well? What was the barrier for the younger ruler? They all have different barriers. So he came, the message was the same, but the way he approaches was different.

I think what we have today is that we have a lot of Christians who are presented gospel to people, they believe Acts chapter two, but they actually Acts chapter 17. And so we are missing the mark with a barrier because sadly today, as I think I said before, in America, most people are living in Acts chapter 17 world where they believe in evolution or they believe in all these postmodern ideology, cultural stuff that’s going on today. And unfortunately, a lot of people have never heard of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. And because of that, we are still presenting the Gospel like they accepted two, but they actually accepted 17. That’s one of the reason, even though I really like tracks and I do give out tracks and one of the reasons I believe that us opening our mouths and really presenting the Gospel is more important than actually handing out chat because we can then say, hey, you know, we’re not pre written, we are not programmed to presented everything one way. We can do, as I said in my son’s school class, as spiritual diagnostic. What is preventing this person from being saved? If you go to the doctor and every time you go to the doctor, the doctor gave you cold medicine, no matter what you have, there’s something wrong. And that’s kind of what we’re doing when we present the Gospel. If we never look at the person and say, hey, what is really blocking this person? Do a diagnostic of the person and then we can also then decide what direction to come from representing the Gospel, the message remains the same approach should be different. And in this world it needs to be. It needs to be because let’s look at our society today. Absolutely. So that’s the why behind of this.

That’s why we really want to what are some of the barriers that we’re going to be looking at yeah, barriers. You mentioned a few of them already. You mentioned black Lives Matter. Systemic racism. Racism in general. But it’s so multifaceted because, like, for example, if we’re going to be talking to, let’s say, a black person, the barriers that prevent them from seeing the cross clearly will be different from any other person. Like, I know we talk all the time about how black people aren’t a monolith. There’s a completely even within that group, there are so many of them that think differently, even within that demographic. We have to contend with pan Africanism Marxism, systemic issues that they feel like and they see that they’re experiencing as a people or even individually that would lead them to believe that if there’s a God, he doesn’t really care about me. Because look at all of these terrible things happening. These barriers don’t necessarily need to be real. Right. They have to be real to the person. Exactly. They just need to be perceived. And that’s more than enough for right. And some of it I think we definitely need to hit on Black Lives Matter and the mission. What do they believe, what do they teach in particular? Because they have such a grip on the culture of the country now. So you see them everywhere. Celebrities are endorsing them. They’re on the news all the time, sports it’s everywhere. It’s in the campuses or on the campuses. And so there’s a huge cultural fight. Well, it’s only recently become quite political, but I think that’s only because it’s been gaining cultural fire all this time. I don’t know, but recently they established in 2013, they claimed it was because of police brutality, but whichever. It wasn’t police brutality. But I think they have morphed into more of a political arm, no doubt to push their agenda. But we deal with that in another episode. We’ll talk about George Floyd rent a tailor. You said you wanted to talk about biblical womanhood. Biblical manhood. Yeah. Those are huge. I really do think that biblical womanhood, biblical manhood needs to be addressed because the role of men and women both in the home and in the world has been completely turned on its head. So another barrier that we are going to have to contend with is the idea of feminism is going to be another idea that we’re going to have to contend with or a barrier that we need to address. And particularly within the black community, especially, I see this is a complete divorcing of biblical standards and manhood and womanhood. And it has it just in the black family society at large. And the reason why I pinpoint on the black family is because the black family has already been ravaged by the effects of political policies and other things in general that serve to break down the family.

And so I think that when we go back and evaluate what God established in Genesis, one of the first things he established was the family. We have to go back to the biblical idea of manhood and womanhood in order to address those barriers. Definitely some others that I think about is like we need to also maybe adjust some of the barriers within the Christianity itself. We’re not going to necessarily argue along doctrine lines and stuff like that, but we also need to encourage Christians sure. To consider the way they are sharing the gospel. I think that’s a barrier for some because some folks, to be honest, are scared to share the gospel. That’s probably just a human factor. Also a lack of trust in God. But the scriptures tell us to contend for the faith, right? To be ready to give an answer, be ready in season, out of season. I think a lot of Christians just feel like they feel cornered, like if they open up their mouths and speak or someone might think I’m a bigot, or someone might think this. One of the desires that I have for this podcast is to equip believers to be bold, but also to be loving and engaging and to reach out and not just like you said earlier, just hang out a track and think that you were actually doing what you were supposed to be doing. You’re actually engaging people, even if it means having these tough conversations that need to be right. I think sometimes, especially what our culture today prefer as white folks culturally, most people would say we are black. Typically we are all human race. I don’t like the division along racial lines, but we are black culturally. That’s what they will peg us at. But both of us have a unique background because I was born and raised in the Caribbean, you were born and raised in Florida, but by Caribbean parents. So we have unique perspective on that. We also want to talk about, look at the black community of Diverse, as it says in America. Why is it that immigrants for me and your second generation that we don’t for most part identify with black American culture? Because I don’t identify with black American culture. To some extent you don’t need even though you’re raised in the country. So there’s a lot of cultural differences among black people as well that we need to talk about and also maybe hopefully encourage our Caucasian friends. Yeah, you can talk about black Lives matter. You can openly say you disagree black life matter if that’s the case, along with your study, the biblical grounds. And I think that’s fear and that’s something you can do. And also remove those barriers and share the gospel. Yeah. Deal with that fear of man.

Yeah. So why are we doing this? Ultimately our goal is to share the gospel of Jesus Christ. We want to share the gospel. I’m anticipating that our audience maybe if anyone listens to this podcast, will be probably majority Christians. But I’m hoping that we have a lot of unsafe people listen to this podcast as well, just because I personally believe that the gospel is that bridge. All these things have been answered in the gospel. Racism and all this policy brutality and all these things that people are going on. I’ve been answered the gospel. I have really been watching the NBA since it start back up. But Jonathan Isaac response to why he didn’t kneel for the National Anthem was great. I don’t really know the young man well, I don’t know him at all, even though I do followed not as much as before, but I never heard of him before. Of course, he’s not Lever and James and all those folks that everyone knows. I was proud to see a young man stand up and say, hey, the reason why I’m doing it is because of the gospel. And the gospel have answered all this.

So what is the gospel? Yeah, you know what? You bring up a good point when you say what is the gospel? Because do you remember how the reporter, the first reporter, the female reporter that she let him answer and then she followed it up with a question that said, yeah, but what does religion have to do with this? The fact that she not only asked that question, but also, number two, phrase it that way, demonstrates a greater truth, a greater reality in the greater part of society where they have no clue what the gospel is. And so they can’t see how it relates, they can’t see how it’s a solution, they can’t see how it can address those things. The fact that she even asked that question would demonstrate that. And so one of the things we want to do is to explain how the gospel is the solution. There are a lot of barriers to remove, of course, that’s why we call this podcast remove Barriers. Right. And I like his answer because he basically said that he’s not into religion, he’s the relationship with Jesus Christ. And that’s what a lot of folks don’t realize. True biblical Christianity is not a religion, it’s a relationship with Jesus Christ. And that’s what we’re trying to foster and encourage people to have by repentance faith in Jesus Christ, establishing a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. So why don’t we get into the gospel? All right? I feel like I need to clarify the word gospel because when people hear that at large, they might just be thinking of that really soulful kind of black church music like and all that, like gospel music. Or they might be thinking of whatever they might be thinking of. But simply put, the gospel just means good news. That’s literally what the word gospel means. And folks may wonder, well, what’s the good news? Well, the good news is that there is an answer, there is a solution, there is an explanation for all of these things that we see in the world today. And I’m not being too simplistic about this. This is legit, straight. The Gospel is the answer, the solution and the explanation for everything that we see in the world today. And according to the Scriptures, the content, the meat, the essence of the Gospel is the death, the burial and the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

And you might be wondering, well, why? What does the death, bureau and resurrection of Christ have to why did he have to die? Exactly. So with this take it apart, right? Why did he even have to die? Well, the reason Christ had to die was because is because God, who is Creator, he is God. He is the originator of everything. Like this is his playground. This universe that we’re living in is literally his playground. He made all the rules, he established everything. And he has laws, let’s call them rules, no laws that he expects his creation to abide by. Why? Because this is his house. He runs this. I’m sure most of the people listening have probably heard some reference to the Ten Commandments, may not be able to tell all what they are, but at least most people, I would say, have at least heard of the term the Ten Commandments. Those are God’s laws. Those are God’s laws. We’ve broken those laws. Like, for example, the very first commandment the very first commandment explains that you shall have no other gods before me. So what does that mean? Don’t have any other gods before me? In other words. Now, when we think about it, we think about Israel and all their idols and all of their physical replicas of imagined or mythical creatures or whatever. But really, if you are living in such a way that demonstrates that you’re your own boss and you’re living according to your own ideas, that’s an idol that you erected in your own heart, right? You’re like your own god. And God says, don’t have any other gods before me. That’s one commandment and all the others that we could spit out. Yeah. The important thing here is that all of us have broken doors. We’ve broken them at one point or another. It doesn’t matter how good you think you are. It doesn’t matter how good we think we are, I should say, because we’re all included in this, right? All of us have sinned. All of us have sinned before God. And sin is when you do something that is contrary to God’s law. In other words, you break God’s law, or his law tells you to do something and you didn’t do it. Right? The important thing here is that when you think about God’s law, god’s law actually condemned us. Because when you think about it, that God say, thou shalt not lie, thou shalt not steal. Jesus in the New Testament, even take it a little bit further because stealing another action. But Jesus is saying, you know what? If you look at a woman in lust after hair, you already commit. Adults in your heart, it goes down to the heart. Even money, material stuff or even stuff you alluded to if you have those things above Christ, those now become an idol. So the law actually in Galatians where he said that he’s a schoolmaster to bring us to Christ because it condemns us to point to us and say hey, you have failed. Bible says for all have seen a comedy Glory of God. When I was in college, my teacher would say all means all and that’s all, all means no one is left out when they say all have seen a come true, the glory of God.

I remember I was listening to someone speak once and they say that food was the great equalizer. No, it’s not. Food is not the great equalizer. The great equalizer for all men is that, I believe is that. But what is the cost of debt? Sin is the cost of debt because of Adam sin. That compare all men for all have sin. So if that is a great equalizer, bible says in Hebrews 927 now it’s a point that the man wants to die, but after this is a judgment. So the rich die, the poor die, the middle class die and all of us have to face our maker once we die, right? Because one of the things that is a punishment for a sin, as you said, or not even punishment, the wages of sin, that’s what you earn every time you sin. You’re clocking in and you’re earning death for yourself. You’re earning death for yourself. And he has said in his word, remember, this is his playground, the universe is his like this is his domain. He’s created everything and he has declared that the soul that sends shall die. So it doesn’t matter what we would grade our sin to be. You know how people talk about oh, I didn’t tell a big lie, I just told a little white lie. As if there’s a no before a holy and righteous and infinitely pure God, which God is. Your white lie is just as damnable as a conspiracy. The biggest lie, you know what I mean? Right? But also we also stress on the point that not only sin cause debt, but if we define spiritual debt, spiritual debt is actually separate from God, all of a sin as actually separators of God, right? And now men on a whole is on a quest to find that favor back with God. And that’s what every religion in the world try to answer. How do I find favor with God? And every religion except for true biblical Christianity, which we already said is not a religion, it’s relationship tell. You must do something. You must do something to find favor with God. Whether it’s giving money, whether it is sacrificing to idols, whether it is a good person, that’s a big one. That’s probably the biggest one in our community. People believe they get to heaven because they’re good. That’s since separate from God managed on a quest to try to bridge that find that favor with God. But they’re all doing it either by saying, hey, I’m going to do something to find favor of God. Biblical Christianity said you cannot do anything to find favor with God. Why? Because as we said before, because you’re sinner, as a sinner, you cannot present anything holy and just to God, right? So Christ had to die. Reason why he had to die is because the riches of sin is death. Christ paid that penalty for you on the cross. His death on the cross was that payment.

So like for example, if you were in jail or if you were caught red handed committing a crime and you hear before the judge and the judge says to you, okay, for what you did, you have earned, or you’re going to the electric chair or you get the death penalty. But there’s a stipulation in the law that explains that if that fine or if that fee hasn’t paid in full, you can be released free to go even though you were guilty. The payment of that fee, of that fine, that requirement, that offense exactly has been paid in full. Legally, God who is just can let you go. He can declare you not guilty, he can declare you sinless, as it were. Like he can use the term redeem you, save you and declare you righteous and legally can let you go. That’s what Christ is on the cross. And I think maybe some of that stems back to a faulty. Like when people think about what Christ did, they almost cheap in it in the sense that, oh, my sin is not that bad, god is not that mad at me. Why would God be mad at me? I’m not a good person, I’m this, I’m mad or the other. But when you look at your sin in the reality as facing a holy God, that’s when you realize, oh, the weight of your sin, the magnitude of it, not because of how bad we think it is, but because of who God is, how infinite and holy and pure and righteous he is. Even if we think about it on the base level, how he’s provided for us the sun, the cloud, the moon, the rain, the food that we eat our families, every good grace that he has given to us, his air that we breathe is in our lungs and we use it to sin against Him, right? And the Bible says, of course in Hebrews, not Hebrews, but Ephesians two, verse eight, nine, not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy save us by the washing of the regeneration and renewal of the Holy Ghost. That’s actually Titus three five, not Ephraims two, eight and nine that says, for by grace he saved true faith, right, and not of yourself. It is a gift of God, not of works, lest any man should. Both right? So when the Scriptures tell us that it’s the grace of God that saves us, grace is when you are given something that you don’t deserve. Am I right? Am I getting those? Yeah. Grace is when you’re given something that you don’t deserve. The criminal does not deserve mercy. The judge can decide to give it to Him, but he doesn’t deserve it. The way I normally look at grace and mercy, grace and mercy to me is two side of the same call. If you express mercy, on the flip side, you express in grace. Grace. And God has extended that to us, and we’re saved by that through the conduit of faith, right? So when Jesus declares that he is the way, he is the truth, and he is the life, no one can come to the Father but through Him, that gap that all of these religions are trying to breach, or the gap to God that they’re trying to breach the cross already. And so when you take Jesus at his word, when he says that he’s the way, he is the truth, he’s the life that no man cometh to the Father, but through Him, when he says that whoever believes in Him shall not see death, what did he tell Lazarus’s, Sister? Was it Martha? Though he died yet will he live? Do you believe this? I am the resurrection. Do you believe this when he makes that promise? So when we talk about faith, like he mentioned in Ephesians two eight nine, that faith is literally putting your trust and faith in what he has promised. He has promised that because he is God in the flesh, he is the sinless Holy One who bore God’s wrath on the cross. He promises that whoever believes in Him, he will raise them up at the last day. He will redeem them, he will save them. That’s what we mean when we talk about saved or salvation or redeemed, though we were wretched and lost and sinful and just all sorts of unworthy before God Christ.

Yeah. And I think about what God commanded, his love towards us, that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. So as you were saying while we were in that sin, while we were still being unlovable, right? God sent His Son as a demonstration of his love for us. And that’s important, right? Because the idea of why we were unlovable, it highlights and reminds us of the fact that there was never a time where we were lovable. We were always unlovable, even when we were trying to do our best. Our best is not good enough so far. And I take it to John. 360. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that’s whose ever believed Him should not perish, but have a blessed in life. So how can a man be saved? The bible says for whoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. Call upon him, believe in faith, call upon him and he will. He will respond. He will because he said he would. He must and he’s gracious and he’s loving and he’s merciful and he wants to save us, but not on our terms. And I’m looking at Romans ten, verse nine, that if thou shalt confess with thy mount the Lord Jesus, and shall believe in thine heart that God has with him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believed unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. If you jump down to verse 13. Therefore who serve us to call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. So that’s the Gospel as a Bible, according to the Scripture, the death, bureau and resurrection of Jesus Christ, where Christ had to die because he took our place, his debt should have been our debt. We should have died for our sins because the Bible says the rages of sin is dead. But in order for Christ to pay the penalty for our sin, he had to be sinless. I cannot die for the sin of any man because I have my sin on myself. But because he didn’t have any sin, he was the anointed one. He was able to die for the sin of all men. And while we were still no sin, he died for us. And if we put our faith and trust repenting faith, repent now of this, that weakness. I pray God that it props the thought of thine heart may be forgiven thee if you repent of your sin and trust in Christ. Meaning that all your hope to get to heaven and favour God is placed into what Christ has done for you upon the cross of Calvary, you will be saved. And saved not just saved from the penalty of sin that got you in this predicament in the first place, but saved from the power of sin. Saved from the influence of sin before we were saved from the wrath of God. From the wrath of God, absolutely. Because the penalty is paid. But when I mentioned the influence of sin, so before a person is in Christ, they are dominated by sin. They don’t even have the option. Everything about them has been polluted by the fall. When I say the Fall, I mean the first sin that Adam and Eve send in the garden. And that affected all of us. And so all of your faculties, your intellectual capacity, capabilities, your thoughts, your heart, everything about you is sinful before God. And the Bible says that sin is like your taskmaster, your slave master, you’re enslaved to it. You have no option but to sin. But when Christ saves you, he breaks that power. He has become your master. And so you have the power in Christ. God has given you that power in Christ to be free from the affairs. Bible say Thou shalt confess, but confession is agreeing with the charges against you. God said the charges against you, that you’re sinner. And you agree to that. You say I’m a sinner. And also if daughter confessed with him out the Lord, he didn’t say confess Christ to be the Lord, but if you confess without the Lord Jesus Christ, that’s a declarative statement saying that Jesus Christ is Lord. So what you’re confessing and agreeing to is that you’re a sinner. And yes, Christ is the Lord shall be saved. Because I know sometime within our Christian, when we want to say, okay, we make Him Lord and Savior, christ is Lord, period. What are we doing when we get saved is actually now we’re confessing the fact that He’s Lord and we are sinner. We are coming put us straight before his throne, subjugating ourselves to that. Right. And that lordship, for lack of a better expression. And with that, you don’t get religion, you get a relationship. Right. With Jesus Christ. Absolutely.

And if He’s Lord of everything, that’s going to affect how you look at your world. It’s going to affect how we talk about Black Lives Matter. We talked about these huge barriers that we need to remove. It’s going to affect all of those things because Christ is Lord over all of those things, everything. He’s lord over creation, ourselves, everything. And so when we subjugate ourselves and when we submit and we appeal to Him and we ask Him to save us, he saves us. He breaks the power of sin over us. And now we have the Scriptures, we have the Holy Spirit, we have Him. We can think clearly about these things. We can see a little bit more clearly. We could remove those barriers, right? Definitely. And ultimately, Christ is the One who has removed the barriers. Yes, he’s the one. If we can see things through the prism of salvation, realizing that we are all sinners, we’re all on the same level, right? We’re all sinners. If there is such a thing as racism, of course there is, but racism is a sin. Just like lying, stealing, phonication and all those things, they’re a sin. Christ has come, as you said, to break that power of sin upon your life. Bible says that we can have life and that more abundantly. So that’s what we want to do is to present Christ as the answer to the social issues that we’re going on. Again, as I said, there’s many conservative voices out there, but we want to be a voice that present the Gospel as the answer to our social issues and also to talk to some degree, bluntly about some of the issues that are going on there. Right?

Thank you for listening. To get a hold of us, to support this podcast or to learn more about removing barriers, go to removingbarriers.net. This has been the removing barriers. Podcast we attempted to remove barriers so that we all can have a clay view of the cross.