Without a solid foundation, a house cannot stand. At least it will not stand against storms or wind. The breeches will not keep out the cold, rain or wind. The most important part of a house is the foundation. If a solid foundation is not in place, nothing else matters. It is pointless to focus on doctrinal issues and someone's beliefs. Beliefs are based on a person's foundation. If the foundation is solid, what is built upon it will also be solid. My focus here is what makes up a solid foundation.

The first step is to understand why we believe what we believe. Our foundation must be built on something solid. We must have a full understanding of who we are and what is our value in God's eyes. We need to understand our value before we can really understand what Christ has done for us.

We are sinners. Even if we know Christ as our personal savior, we are still sinners. The bible is clear, all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. What does that really mean? In the sermon on the mount, Jesus said that if your righteousness is not greater than that of the Scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the Kingdom of Heaven. The Scribes and Pharisees committed their entire lives studying the scriptures, knowing the law and teaching the law of God to the people. This is one of the first glimpses into the new covenant - A covenant that was not based on outward appearances and external obedience but a new relationship of the heart. This is important to understand so we know what sin is. Jesus told us that we already know that adultery is wrong; stealing is wrong; murder is wrong, now he has added another problem – what is in our heart condemns us. If we lust, we are adulterers; if we hate, we are murderers, if we covet, we are thieves. The list could go on and on. No longer is God allowing us to focus on the outward appearance of sin, but now he wants the focus to be on our hearts. The heart is his temple and where he is to reside. If Christ is to reign in our hearts, sin cannot abide there. Now our very thoughts and intents will rise and stand in judgement of us.

Christ pointed out the religious leaders as a prime example of what Christianity is not. It is not external service, and good works from a sinful heart is not honored by God.

The purpose of the law is to drive the world to the foot of the cross. What ever the law says, it says to those who are under the law that every mouth may be stopped and the whole world may become guilty before God. For by the law is no flesh justified in His sight. For by the law is the knowledge of sin. Romans 3:19-20.

By deeds no flesh is justified:

We cannot be justified by good works. It is the height of arrogance for us to believe that we must do good works to be justified before God. Christ came to do the works that he knew we could not do, and then to lay down his life for us. He purchased our place in heaven with his own blood. If there was any other way, why would he have allowed himself to go through the most torturous form of capitol punishment ever established? If works could do it, why didn't he just come down and teach us how to do the works? We are bought with a price. If we were bought, we must have been had a previous owner. Our sins have put us in bondage and created a debt that we cannot pay.

Earning our way to heaven is like trying to build a bridge across the Grand Canyon. Every good work is like casting a stone into this great gulf in hopes that at the end of our life we will have filled in a bridge that we can use to cross. Unfortunately, with this method we will one day look down and will not be able to see any trace of our good works. Now we must try to leap for it. Impossible? Of course. The Grand Canyon is well over 4,700 feet across. A strong man may make a dandy effort, but will still fall far short. For a visual image, I like to compare personal efforts to that of long jumpers. Carl Lewis holds the record for the longest jump. He jumped just over 30 feet. That is a long leap. But compared to 4,700+, that is not even distinguishable from someone who can only jump 5 feet. The same is true for works. Some people naturally have a lot of good qualities and appear to have it all together. But when it comes to bridging the gap of our debt to sin, their dandy efforts are feeble at best. When you look at the overall picture, there isn't a distinguishable difference between the good people and the people who can't seem to hold any area of their life together. The real tragedy is that a good man doesn't see his need nearly as easily someone who knows they are over their head in sin.

If we have an understanding of sin in our lives, we can now look and try to gain an understanding of our value to God and what He has done for us.

Psalm 8:

3 When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained;

4 What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him?

5 For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honour.

When we look at the universe of creation, our place in it seems small and insignificant. It is easy to see why hopelessness engulfs a godless society. In evolutionary theory, we play no significant role in the universe. A creature by chance that is only directed by instinct and the need for survival. But that is far from truth. We were created with a purpose and we are cherished by God and have been crowned with glory and honor. Every man, woman and child has been created in God's image with a deep longing for a higher purpose. That purpose is to develop a relationship with our Creator. In every heart is an unshakable knowledge that God is. Our will can suppress it and we may temporarily fill that void with our desires, but I sincerely believe that the emptiness of a heart without God cannot be permanently filled without an intimate relationship with God. We can distract ourselves temporarily with pleasures and activities but we will always return to the longing for God. That longing is indelibly marked in our hearts as evidence that God loves us. He is longing for us even while we are over our heads in sin. God does not want to judge our sins, but rather he longs to pull us out and open a loving relationship with us. Even while in sin, each of us are considered to be a treasure so valuable to Christ that he would die for us.

What did he accomplish through the cross? What is grace?

We know that sin created a gulf we cannot pass over, we cannot bridge the gap, we cannot measure up to God's standards, sin cannot abide in God's presence, but God longs for us. To open the door for a relationship, God had to bridge the great divide for us. Christ is God incarnated. Completely man and completely God. His sinless life was the first major step. A sacrifice for sin must be without fault or blemish. With a pure heart and sinless life, Christ prepared himself to be that sacrifice. Consider the following verse:

Isaiah 53:10 ¶ Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise him; he hath put him to grief: when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the LORD shall prosper in his hand.

Why would it please God to bruise Christ? It is not the act that pleased God, but the result. The result is bridging the gap of sin. It pleased God to bruise Christ instead of us. The wages of sin is death. We have a death sentence as our condemnation. Jesus Christ satisfied that condemnation so we did not have to. He died in the flesh so that we would not have to die spiritually. Colossians 2:

13 And you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath he quickened together with him, having forgiven you all trespasses;

14 Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross;

Our sin was nailed to the Cross of Christ. It pleased God to satisfy the penalty of sin on our behalf. It was a complete justification for our sins. No works, no deeds, no righteous achievement on our part at all. Romans 3:4-5 says:

For what does the scriptures say? Abraham believed God and it was accounted to him for righteousness. Now to him who works, his wages are not counted as grace, but as debt. But to him who does not work, but believes on him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is accounted for righteousness.

A lot is summarized by this verse. First our works that we perform to gain righteousness or God's favor is not counted for grace and do not earn God's favor but instead it is applied to our debt. Which, as discussed earlier, is a debt that we cannot pay. We are tossing pebbles in the canyon of our sin. But without works, we achieve God's favor by faith. It is the height of arrogance for us to think that we can earn God's favor. To work for God's favor is to shun Christ's work on our behalf and his sacrificial death on the cross. If we could do it ourselves, Christ would not have had to lay down his life. To say we are saved by grace plus works is a grave insult to God's master plan.

Lets take a closer look at what spiritually transpired on the cross. Jesus went to trial as a sinless man, then became sin for us. 2 Corinthians 5:21

For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.

Both Matthew and Mark describe a scene where Christ cried out with a loud voice from the cross "My God, My God! Why have you forsaken me?"

For years this scene deeply disturbed me. If we are inseparable from God, how could Christ himself claim that he was forsaken by God? Hopefully I can do justice to this verse as I believe it is one of the most beautiful verses in the bible. Two important events happen here. First, Hebrews 4:15 tells us that Christ is our high priest and he is not a priest that has not been touched by our like feelings and infirmities. Here we see Jesus feels separation from God as we have while we are still in our sins. The second event is why he was separated, it was by sin. Not his sin, but by our sins. As described in Colosians 2:13-14 previously, he nailed our sins to his cross. I firmly believe that here is where that transition takes place. Sin separates us from God, God cannot look upon sin, this is where the great exchange takes place.

When we trust Christ by faith, we literally take our sins and place them on Jesus' cross and take his righteousness upon ourselves. Only by faith can we make this exchange. Living an exchanged life is a choice, it is not automatic. When we make that exchange, we are fully justified by God and Christ's righteousness is accounted to us – credited to our spiritual bank account. Now when God looks upon us, he doesn't see that old sinful person as we have been, but He sees a new creation that is as righteous as Christ himself. This is the pivotal point of building a solid foundation. If we do not understand this, we do not have the foundation necessary to live life as God has planned it.

In John 19, Jesus said it is finished, then gave up the ghost. It is finished. We have got to understand this. It is finished. No works, no effort from us whatsoever. The work necessary to obtain total justification and the loving favor of God is complete. Now the door is open wide for us to have the relationship God has long to establish with us. All we must do is walk through it. The bridge is built, the great divide can now be crossed. All we need is faith.