Kingsport Sovereign Grace Church,
located at 2709 Rock Springs Road in Kingsport, Tennessee,
would like to invite you to listen to a message of Sovereign Grace
by their pastor, Gabe Stoniker. For information and service times,
visit www.ksgc.church. And now, Gabe Stoniker. I would
like to bring a message to you today from 1 Corinthians chapter
1. If you would like to follow along
with me in your Bible. I will be speaking from 1 Corinthians
1, and I want to use one verse of Scripture for our text. It's
verse 23, and I want to focus on three words in that verse,
and those words are, preach Christ. That's our subject
today. That's our message today. We preach Christ. First Corinthians 1 verse 23. Now there are only two things
that can be preached. There are only two different
messages that exist, period. I know it seems like there are
so many different messages, but there are really only two. There
are only two messages being preached in this city, in this country,
in this world. It's one of two things. Men are
either preaching the works of Christ, or the works of men. It does not matter what denomination
they call it. It does not matter what doctrine
they claim. It does not matter what God they
identify with. It is either Christ or man. It's one of the two. And to be
more specific, it is either Christ alone or it's man. If it is not Christ alone, it's
man. I want to really establish this
foundation here. If the message of salvation involves
the work of Christ and the work of man, it's man. If it is Christ and anything
in order for a sinner to be saved, if it's Christ plus anything,
it's man. It's the message of man. In order to preach Christ, Paul
said, we preach Christ. And in order to preach Christ,
it must be Christ alone. It must be Christ alone, the
only message that saves, the only message that is true, the
only message that is the gospel. And the only message that saves
is the message of Christ alone. The message of man damns. It is a condemning, damning message. It is a message of lies. It most
certainly is not the gospel. And not only does it not save,
it actually damns. If you look at Galatians 1 with
me, verse 6 says, Paul writing to the Galatians, he said, I
marvel that you are so soon removed from him that called you into
the grace of Christ unto another gospel, which is not another. But there are some that trouble
you and would pervert the gospel of Christ. But though we or an
angel from heaven preach any other gospel unto you, then that
which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed. Let him
be cursed. As we said before, so say I now
again, if any man preach any other gospel unto you than that
you have received, let him be accursed. For do I now persuade
men or God, or do I seek to please men? For if I yet pleased men,
I should not be the servant of Christ." So we see here that
it is critical, it is of critical eternal importance that we preach
and we hear and we believe the message of Christ alone. Christ alone. And I'm going to
expound on what that is, but if we want to get right to the
heart of it, And if we want to know whether we are hearing the
message of Christ or man, if you're trying to figure out,
now what is he talking about? What do you mean by that? Let
me see if I can explain it this way. If we want to know whether
the message we are listening to is the message of Christ or
man, all we have to do is listen to the message. That's all we
have to do. Is it about Christ or man? Is the preacher talking about
Christ or is he talking about man? Is the emphasis of the message
put on Christ or is it put on man? It's going to be one of
the two. It's going to be one of the two.
You say, well, it's kind of both. then it's man. If man has any
part in it, it's man. As you listen to the message,
does it have you thinking on and looking to for salvation?
Christ? Alone? Or is man involved? What really is the focal point?
Men and women listen to whole messages week after week on what
man needs to do. And if you really think about
this, you'll agree that this is so. People hear messages week
after week on what man needs to do and how man needs to be. And how men can be better men
and women can be better women and how this is all up to you.
And you need to look to you because this is in your hands. What are
you going to do with salvation? Do you hear man in that? That's
the message of man. Man, man, man. It's all about
man. It has you looking to and focusing
on man. Men and women listen to that
and so sadly they have no idea that they're under the message
of man and missing the message of Christ.
There's a story that is told of a couple, a man and a woman,
many, many years ago, the late 1800s. They traveled to England. And while they were there, they
wanted to go listen to Charles Spurgeon preach, a great preacher
from that era, the late 1800s. They had heard about him. They
had read his writings. They knew that he pastored this
great congregation of people. The church was called Metropolitan
Tabernacle. So while they were there on a
Sunday they went to Metropolitan Tabernacle to listen to Brother
Spurgeon and they got there on Sunday morning and they couldn't
get in. All the seats were taken and
they were not letting anyone else in so they were turned away.
And they looked down the street, and there was another church
down there. So the man said to his wife, we'll just go down
there. And they sat and listened to
the message. And the pastor was a very well-educated man. He
was very well-spoken. He was very charismatic. And
when it was over, the man and woman walked out of that place,
saying to each other, what a sermon. My, what a sermon. Well that night they went back
to Metropolitan Tabernacle and this time they got in and after
listening to Brother Spurgeon preach that man and woman walked
out of that service with tears running down both of their faces
saying, what a Savior. Oh my soul what a Savior. Do we hear the difference there?
One had them look into a man. The other had them looking to
Christ. That's the difference. We, the Apostle Paul said, by
God's grace, by his goodness to us, by his mercy to us, we
preach Christ. We hear Christ. We believe on
Christ. He is our message. He is our
message. We preach Christ. Now, just to
be extra clear, what does that mean exactly? I say that, but
how exactly do we preach Christ? We've now established that we
don't preach man, but how do we preach Christ? I want to set
forth five things that we preach in preaching the message of Christ.
If we're going to preach Christ, these five things will be set
forth. And to really show the contrast,
I'm gonna point out what it is to preach man as we go through
these five things. I'm gonna show both sides so
we can really see the difference here. All right, what do we preach
when we preach Christ? Number one, We preach the person
of the Lord Jesus Christ. We preach the person of Christ,
who he really is. not who the majority of people
think that he is and assume that he is. We preach who he truly
is as he has declared himself to be in his own word. And let's get right to the point
here. Who is he? Who is the Lord Jesus Christ? Here's the answer. He is God. He is God Almighty. He is the Almighty Highest God. The greatest, the highest, the
sovereign over all things. He is the controller. He is the
ruler. He is the doer of all things. The judge of the living and the
dead. Jesus Christ. Let me show you
that over in Romans 14. If you have your Bible there,
turn with me to Romans 14. It says in verse 10, But why
dost thou judge thy brother? Or why dost thou set at nought
thy brother? For we shall all stand before
the judgment seat of Christ. the judgment seat of Christ. 2 Corinthians 5 verse 10 says
the same thing. It says, we must all appear before
the judgment seat of Christ. Verse 11 right here, for it is
written, as I live, saith the Lord, every knee shall bow to
me, and every tongue shall confess to God. As I live, saith the
Lord." If you look at the writing here, the word Lord is a capital
L, lowercase O-R-D. That's Jehovah God in a body,
the body of the Lord Jesus Christ. He said, every knee is going
to bow to me. God, Christ. At the announcement
of his birth, the angel said, call his name Emmanuel because
God is with us. God is with us. Quite often when
people think of this man, Jesus Christ, they think of him as
being of God, coming from God, coming from heaven. But the reality
is he is heaven. He is not just from God, He is
God. The fullness of the Godhead bodily. John chapter 1 says, the Word,
who is Christ, was God. And the Word was made flesh and
dwelt among us. First Timothy 3.16 says, without
controversy, great is the mystery of godliness. God was manifest
in the flesh. God. Hebrews 1 verse 8, God the
Father said to God the Son, Thy throne, O God, is forever and
ever. John 5, 22 says, The Father judgeth
no man, but hath committed all judgment unto the Son. All judgment. In Revelation 1, 18, Christ said,
I hold the keys of hell and death. Jesus Christ holds those keys.
What he's saying is, this is all in my hand. That's what he's
saying. I'm God. That's what he's saying.
Now here is the contrast to that. Okay, here's the contrast. All
right, that is preaching Christ for who he truly is. Here's the
contrast. Preaching man is when a preacher
stands up and says, this is all in your hands. The Lord Jesus
Christ said it's all in his hands. But men stand up in pulpits and
say, now this is all in your hands, okay? You have the ability
to decide how this thing is going to go. What are you going to do with
Jesus Christ? That's not the question at all.
The question is, what is he going to do with us? He's God and we're
not. That's the question. What is
God Almighty going to do with us? So that's the first thing
we preach. We preach the person of Christ for who he truly is. He is the almighty sovereign
God manifest in the flesh. He's not trying to do anything.
He does it. He's God Almighty. All right.
Number two, we preach the word of the Lord Jesus Christ. we
preach the Word of Christ. I have a Bible right here in
front of me and this message comes from this Word. And I know
that quite often people believe that the preacher they listen
to preaches, oh he's right out of the Bible, he preaches right
out of the Bible. The important thing in preaching the word is
that we don't pick and choose favorite little verses that fit
the doctrine that we have our minds convinced of. We preach
the word start to finish. Whatever this says we preach
it. The Word is the only thing to
stand on. A man from the past, a preacher
from the past, Martin Luther, he wrote, feelings come, feelings
go, and feelings are deceiving. My warrant is the Word of God.
Nothing else is worth believing. Though all my heart should feel
condemned for lack of some sweet token, there is one greater than
my heart whose word cannot be broken. I'll trust in God's unchanging
Word till soul and body sever, for though all things shall pass
away, His Word shall stand forever." His Word is the only thing to
stand on. It is the only thing to believe.
Not the words of men, the words of God. The only words of men
that we believe and cling to are the words that are repeating
the words of God. We stick to the Word alone. We
preach the Word of Christ. And more specifically than that,
we preach this Word as Christ. We preach this Word as it is. This is of the Lord Jesus Christ. He wrote it. This is inspired
by the Spirit of God, which Romans 8 calls the Spirit of Christ.
He wrote it. These are His words. But every
word in this book is speaking of Him. This is all speaking
of the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the fulfillment of everything
this word says needs to be fulfilled. What do we mean by that? Well,
do you know that this Word says in order to worship God, and
this is so, in order to worship God and be accepted by Him, it
says we have to have a high priest. Christ is our high priest. It
says that we have to have an altar. Christ is our altar. The Word
says we have to have a lamb. Christ is our Lamb, our Lamb
of sacrifice. It says that this law must be
fulfilled. This law must be kept perfectly. Christ is the fulfillment of
the law for His people. Everything this Word has to say
Every requirement, every demand, it is all speaking of Christ.
It is all pointing us to Christ. He is the supplier. He is the
fulfiller. He is the accomplisher of all
of it. Turn with me to Luke 24. This
is an important one to read. Luke 24, verse 25, it says, Then he said unto them, then
the Lord Jesus Christ said to these disciples, O fools and
slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken.
Ought not Christ to have suffered these things and to enter into
his glory? And beginning at Moses, and Moses
wrote Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy. Beginning
at Moses and all the prophets He expounded unto them in all
the Scriptures the things concerning himself. He expounded to those
disciples in all of God's Word the things concerning himself,
Christ. Verse 44 right here, And he said
unto them, These are the words which I spake unto you while
I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled which
were written in the law of Moses and in the prophets and in the
Psalms concerning me. It's all concerning me. That's
what he said. Verse 45, then opened he their understanding
that they might understand the scriptures. What did they understand
in that moment? They understood that it was all
speaking of Christ. All of it. You know the story
of the brazen serpent on a pole. As Moses lifted up the serpent
in the wilderness, that serpent was Christ. That hope, that salvation,
that healing, that was Christ. Noah's Ark. That ark is Christ. Every soul inside that ark was
saved. Every soul outside of that ark
was damned, condemned. That ark is Christ. The Passover
lamb. Kill a lamb, put the blood on
the doorpost, and I'll pass over you. That lamb is Christ. We preach the word of Christ. We don't preach this word to
be of man. We don't preach man to be the
fulfillment of this word. We don't preach the walls of
Jericho falling down as a morality lesson for man to persevere and
just keep on going. That victory was Christ that
he wrought and gave to his people. We don't see man in this at all. We only see Christ. So we preach
Christ. We preach the person of Christ.
We preach the word of Christ. Number three, we preach the work
of Christ. And what that means is we preach
the cross. We preach the cross of the Lord
Jesus Christ. Salvation is of the Lord. Salvation is of the Lord. Being saved is of the Lord. It's the Lord's work. It was
the Lord's doing. The contrast to that statement
would be preaching that salvation is of man. Salvation by the works of man. You better do this and do that
in order to be saved. If you want to be saved, you're
going to have to do and not do and such on the works of man.
Salvation is not by the works of man. It is not by the do's
and the don'ts of man. Salvation is by the works of
the Lord Jesus Christ, the do's and the don'ts of the Lord Jesus
Christ. The Scripture says, Not by works of righteousness which
we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us. It says, By grace are you saved
through faith, and that not of yourselves. It is the gift of
God, not of works, lest any man should boast. For we are his
workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works. It is
God which worketh in us, both to will and do of his good pleasure.
God, Christ. In order to preach the work of
Christ, we have to deny the work of man, which we most definitely
do. We deny the works of man because
if we preach the works of man, we have to deny the work of Christ. And God forbid that we deny the
work of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. The work of Him
being our only mediator between man and God. The work of Him
as our substitute, standing in our place, standing in our judgment,
working the work of redemption, cleansing us, justifying us on
the cross of Calvary. God forbid that we deny that
glorious work. Back in our text, it says in
verse 23, 1 Corinthians 1 verse 23, we preach Christ crucified. We preach Christ crucified. In 1 Corinthians chapter 2 verse
2, Paul said, I determined not to know anything among you save
Jesus Christ and him crucified. That's it. What that means is
the work was his. Salvation has never been and
salvation will never be in the hands, the will, the work, the
decision of man. Salvation's of the Lord, of the
Lord, start to finish. That was his word. So we preach
the true person of Christ. We preach the word of Christ.
We preach the work of Christ. And number four, we preach the
accomplishment of Christ. We preach the success of Christ
in his work. Isaiah 42 said he shall not fail
and he didn't. John 19 verse 30 says it is finished
and it is. Salvation is finished. To stand
up and preach that man needs to add his work to Christ's work
is to say it's not finished. To say that Christ did not accomplish
what he set out to accomplish on the cross of Calvary is to
say that we need to help him because he did not accomplish
what he set out to do. That's blasphemy. Hebrews 10
says, after he offered one sacrifice for sins forever, he sat down
on the right hand of God. Why? He's finished. So we preach
the person of Christ, we preach the word of Christ, we preach
the work of Christ, we preach the success of Christ, and therefore,
number five. we preach the glory of Christ,
the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ. 1 Corinthians 1 verse 30 says,
But of him are you in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto
us wisdom and righteousness and sanctification and redemption,
that according as it is written, He that glory, let him glory
in the Lord. All the glory goes to Him. He
is all. He is our all. He is God's all. He earned all. He has all. Therefore, all the honor, all
the credit, all the glory goes to Him. And God's people will
say, Amen. To Him be all the glory. Amen. You have been listening to a
message by Gabe Stoniker, pastor of Kingsport Sovereign Grace
Church in Kingsport, Tennessee. If you would like a copy of this
message or to hear other messages of Sovereign Grace, you can call
or write to the number and address on your screen or visit www.ksgc.church. Tune in at this same time next
week for another message of God's free and sovereign grace.