Well, let's get to what we're
here for. I'll call this my inaugural sermon. The title of it is Recovering
the Gospel of Christ. Recovering the Gospel of Christ.
Turn to Romans 1. Probably verses that most people
in this audience can quote, so I'm not going to hit you with
anything new, and I hope in the weeks to come I don't hit you
with anything new. I hope it's all the old, old
story of Jesus Christ and Him crucified and risen. But just
two verses here in Romans 1 beginning at verse 16, recovering the gospel. Paul writes in verse 16, for
I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ. Good news of Christ. What is the good news of Christ?
We're going to talk about that. And then you see a colon there,
those two dots are a colon. That means he's going to explain
further what he meant. And he says, for it, the gospel
of Christ, is the power of God. You know that word power there
is the word we get our English word dynamite. This is not, you
know, sometimes when you see the word power translated that
way, it's not the word for ability or like this one. It's the word
right or privilege. For example, in John 1, where
he talks about the new birth, those who were begotten again,
not by blood, nor the will of the flesh, nor the will of man,
those whom he gave the power to become the sons of God. What
that means is not the ability to become sons of God. We don't
have the ability to become sons of God. Only God has that ability. But he means if we're in Christ,
We're looking to Christ and pleading his blood and righteousness as
our only hope and ground of salvation. We have the right to see ourselves
as children of God. But here it's power, it's ability. The enablement of the gospel
preached in the power of the Holy Spirit, that's what he's
talking about. So it is the power, it's the dynamite of God. Faith
comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. That's why
the Lord told the disciples, blessed are your ears for they
hear. I often say that if we believe
the gospel, if we hear it with the spiritual ear and it's good
news to us, we feed upon it. We're miracles. Walking, talking
miracles of the grace of God. We're not miracles of our will
or our free will or our goodness or our work. It's all of God.
Well, we sang that song, Grace, Grace. So it's the power of God
unto salvation. And it says, to everyone that
believeth. To everyone that believeth. Now, believing is the means by
which God brings his chosen people into a relationship with Christ.
To perceive and realize this great salvation. And his power
in bringing us to it. It's the gift of God. It's not
in us by nature. A young man came to me years
ago. It was down here. And he said, I just can't understand
this doctrine of election. I said, well, what do you mean?
I said, I can't understand why God chose me or chose any of
us. He said, well, I can't understand election in general. And I said,
well, it's really not election you don't understand. I said,
it's sin you don't understand. He said, what do you mean? And
I said, well, suppose God just came down here and gathered the
whole human race together and just asked the question, how
many of you will serve me? How many of you will trust me?
How many of you will obey me? And left the whole human race
to their own decision, what would their answer be according to
the Bible? It would be a resounding no.
Now, you may say, well, no, not me. I'd raise up out of the group
and I'd say, yeah, I'll do it. No, no you wouldn't. Not if God
left you to yourself. The Bible says, there's none
righteous, no not one. Now don't add these words to
it, except me. The Bible says, there's none
that seeketh after God, no not one. Don't add, except me. You see, that's describing all
of us by nature, apart from the sovereign grace and mercy of
God. So it is to everyone that believes.
But believing is the gift of God, it's the power of God. And
he says to the Greek, now the Greek, or to the Jew first, because
it came to the Jews in time, through the old covenant, in
the types and the pictures and the shadows. And then the first
believers, Pentecost, were Jews. And then he says also to the
Greek, now the Greek was a way of referring to all Gentiles
back then. So what he's saying here is this power of God unto
salvation, which is the gospel of Christ, has nothing to do
with your ethnic background, whether you're a Jew or a Gentile,
has nothing to do with that. That is not even involved in
this thing of salvation as far as saving you or keeping you
saved or bringing you to glory. Now why is the gospel the power
of God and salvation? We'll look at verse 17. For therein,
in that gospel, now listen to this, therein in that gospel
is the righteousness of God revealed. Now that term, the righteousness
of God, is something that in our society, in our religious
society, is pretty much forgotten, ignored, or laid aside. And yet,
the apostle Paul was inspired by the Holy Spirit To say that
the gospel is the power of God unto salvation because the righteousness
of God is revealed in it. Uncovered. And he says it's revealed
from faith to faith. Now what does that mean? Well,
from faith. The word faith in the scripture,
sometimes it is a noun which means the faith or the body of
truth. What is your faith? What faith
do you adhere to? If you would go ask a Buddhist,
well, of what faith are you? He said, well, we believe in
Buddha, and we follow the Eightfold Path. If you were to ask a Muslim,
what faith are you? Well, we believe in Allah, and
we believe in the seven pillars or whatever segment they are
of Islam. What faith are you? Somebody
says, well, I'm a Christian. I'm a follower of Jesus Christ.
Now, to be a follower of Christ is not just what some people
say in their minds was, we're following Jesus. Well, who is
Jesus? Who is he? What did he do? Why did he do it? Where is he
now? I mean, there are truths, doctrines, if you will, teachings
in the Bible that distinguish him from counterfeits. You know there are counterfeit
Christ? There are false Christ. And I'm not just talking about
the Jim Joneses or the David Koreshes. Yes, they claim to
be Messiah, that's right. But there are preachers preaching
false Christ, false Messiahs. Christ said that, that they'll
come saying Jesus, Jesus, but don't hear them. Well, how do
I know that I'm trusting the true Christ and not a counterfeit?
Well, I have to go by the teachings of the Bible, who he is. There's
a big denomination that shows up at everybody's door who claim
to be Christian, who claim to be preaching Jesus, but they
don't believe he's God. You know who I'm talking about?
I told one of them, I said, I said, well, I wouldn't believe what
you all believe. He said, why not? And I said, you're an idolater.
He said, an idolater. And I said, well, right. I said,
do you worship Jesus? He said, we do. I said, do you
believe he's God? He said, no, he's the son of
God. I said, well, if you worship anyone who's not God, that's
idolatry. That's right. So that's a false
Christ. You say, well, preacher, you're
being mean or you're being, well, whatever. I, you know, I don't
mean to be mean. That's not what I'm doing. I
just want to preach the truth. I want to point sinners to Christ.
The true one. He's God-man. That's who He is. God in human flesh. Now, I can't
explain all that to you. You don't need to. That's just
the way it is. We'll look at that in just a
moment. But anyway, this is our faith. We believe the grace of
God. We believe that Jesus Christ
is God in human flesh who came to this earth as the substitute
and surety of a chosen people according to the scripture and
that he was obedient unto death to satisfy the justice of God
in their place and to work out a righteousness that would enable
God to be just to justify them that would enable God to be both
a just God as well as a loving father yes we preach the love
of God but not at the expense of his justice Any God who loves
at the expense of his justice is no God at all. You see, that's
why the question of questions, that's why the gospel is such
a power, that's why it's such good news to sinners. The question
of questions is how can God be just and still save a sinner
like me? The moment you say God forgives
sins, you've got a major, major, major problem. Because the God
of justice says this, the soul that sinneth, it shall surely
die. Now how's God gonna forgive my
sin and still be righteous and just and truthful in doing so?
There's not but one way. And it's found in the gospel
of Christ, which is the revelation of what? The righteousness of
who? The righteousness of God, not
the righteousness of man. The righteousness of man will
do us no good. You take the best man in the best environment,
and it still will do us no good. What's the proof of that? Anybody
know? Genesis one through three. The best man that ever lived,
Adam, in the best environment, he had the righteousness of man,
but what happened? He fell. So you take the best
person in the best environment will not save a sinner. The righteousness
of man will not save a sinner. But here's the point, the scripture
says we have no righteousness now, we fell in Adam. Romans
3.10, there's none righteous, no not one. There's none good. That is according to God's standard
of goodness now. I mean, you know, we look around
at different people in this world and we say, well, he's a good
father, he's a good husband, she's a good mother. Well, that's
not the goodness that saves sinners. That goodness still falls short
of what we must have in order to be saved and accepted with
God. What must we have to be saved? What must we have to be accepted
with God? The righteousness of God. What
is that? Well, he says it's from faith
to faith. Now, to faith means the power
of the Holy Spirit who by Jesus Christ comes and imparts the
gift of life and knowledge and faith in the new birth. I'm preaching
the faith. Do you believe it? That's two
faith. What are we to believe? The gospel
of Christ. That's what we're to believe.
And he goes back to the Old Testament, the book of Habakkuk, and he
says, as it is written, the just shall live by faith. That's the
justified. What is it to be justified before
God? Now listen to me, I didn't ask
what is it to be justified before men, that's a different story.
What is it to be justified before God? It's to be not guilty. That's the legal declaration
from Almighty God, the judge of all, that a sinner is not
guilty. But it's more than that. It's
to be declared righteous before God. By God's declaration. That's what it is to be justified
before God. How can a sinner be just with
God? Well, here it is. The righteousness
of God revealed in the gospel. How important is the righteousness
of God? Well, you can't overstate it.
You can't preach it too much. Gary Shepherd said one of his
former compadres, criticizing me, said that, well, Bill has
a lot to say about righteousness. And Gary said, well, so should
we all. That's the heart of the gospel,
friend. That's what this country needs. If I pass out paper and
say, now, you all write on what this country needs, we get all
kinds of answers. We need better government. We
need morality. We need more kindness. We need
more charity. We need all those things. We
do. But when it comes to the salvation of a sinner, this country,
they need a recovery of the gospel of Christ. What is this righteousness of
God? We'll turn over to Romans chapter 10. Look at Romans chapter 10. You
know what the apostle does in the book of Romans. He's led
by the Holy Spirit. He talks about how the gospel
is the revelation of the righteousness of God. Well, why do I need the
righteousness of God? He brings in the case against
all of us that we're all sinners. What does that mean? You know,
we talk about the total depravity of man. Now, what does that mean?
Remember what I told you this a couple weeks, several weeks
ago. It means number one, we have no righteousness. Number
two, we cannot work out a righteousness even by our best efforts to obey. And number three, we don't want
righteousness God's way. We want it our way. That's why
so many people are trying to work their way into righteousness,
into God's favor, into salvation. That's the plight of man. That's
iniquity because you can't do it. That's a denial of Christ.
What did Paul write in Galatians 2? He said, if righteousness
come by the law, then what? Christ is dead in vain. Now,
why is that? Christ came to keep the law for
his people. Now, if you can get it by your
works under the law, then he died for nothing. Now, we know
he didn't die for nothing, did he? He died for his people. But look at Romans 10, verse
one. Brethren, my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel
is that they might be saved. I bear them record they have
a zeal of God. They're religious. That's what he's saying there.
They're sincere and dedicated, but not according to knowledge. They're ignorant, he says. Verse
three, for they being ignorant. What are they ignorant of? God's
righteousness. They're ignorant of what God requires. Somebody
says, well, just do the best you can and that'll be good enough.
My friend, you're ignorant of God's righteousness if that's
what you think. The Bible says man at his best state is altogether
what? Vanity. You don't know God if
you think that doing the best you can do will earn or get you
anywhere with God. Because God's holy. He requires
perfection. They being ignorant of God's
righteousness. How do you know they're ignorant of God's righteousness?
He says, and going about to establish their own righteousness. Now,
how were they trying to do that? Well, the Jews had, the Israel
had basically three things that they would plead as their righteousness
before God, the reason God should bless them, and they were children
of God. Number one was their physical
connection with Abraham. We be Abraham's seed. There's
a lot of people in this country who feel like they deserve to
go to heaven just because they're Americans. But we know better,
don't we? We be Abraham's seed. And we
were never in bondage to any man, they said. But we're free
in our connection with Abraham. You remember in Matthew chapter
3 when the Pharisees and the Sadducees went out to see John
the Baptist? And he called them vipers. And
he said this, he said, and think not to say in yourselves, we're
Abraham's seed. Because he knew they would plead
that way. How can you say that to us, John? We're physically
born of Abraham. We're Jews. Well, that's not
going to make a sinner righteous. Your birth, it's not of blood. Your birth will not save you.
Your physical connection, your ethnicity, your citizenship in
this country or that country. And the second thing they would
plead was their circumcision. We'd be circumcised. We're not
uncircumcised. We're not ungodly people. They equated physical circumcision
with godliness. Remember what Paul wrote in Galatians
6, 14? God forbid that I should glory, boast, or have confidence
save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world
is crucified unto me and I unto the world. For in Christ Jesus
neither circumcision nor uncircumcision availeth anything but a new creation. So circumcision won't make you
righteous. And then they boasted in their law keeping. We are
of Moses. We follow Moses. You remember
what? Paul John said in John chapter 5 when he talked to the
Pharisees He said that Moses wrote of me You have one who
will judge you even Moses in whom you trust you claim to keep
the law of Moses You'll be condemned by that same law because you're
still sinners You can do your best to keep
the law and it will not make you righteous I'm telling you
So he says here, they're trying to establish their own righteousness.
How do people try to establish their righteousness today? Oh,
they join the church, they get baptized, they pick certain days,
certain weeks, they try to do this, try to be this, try to
be that. Trying to establish their own righteousness before
God. And he says in Romans 10, three, they have not submitted
themselves unto the righteousness of God. Now, what is the righteousness
of God? Verse four. For Christ is the
end of the law. That word end is an interesting
word. It means the finishing of the
law, the completion of the law, the perfection of the law, the
fulfillment of the law. Remember when Christ was on the
cross in John 19 30, he said, it is finished. Same word right
here, the end of the law. Remember what happened when he
gave up the ghost, the veil was written to from top to bottom.
signifying the abolishment of the old covenant because it was
fulfilled in Christ? For Christ is the end of the
law for righteousness to everyone that believeth. The righteousness
of God is the entire merit of Christ's whole work of redemption
for his people, his sheep. This righteousness of God is
valuable. beyond what we can describe. And the reason it's valuable,
number one, is because of who Christ is. You remember when
the angel came to Joseph, telling him not to put away Mary because
she was with child? He said, this child conceived
in her womb by the Holy Spirit, his name shall be called Jesus,
for he shall save his people from their sin. That name Jesus
means the salvation that comes by Jehovah. Jehovah being God's
covenant name, salvation, the God of grace. And then He said
in Matthew 1.23, His name shall be called what? Immanuel, which
being interpreted, God with us. Because of who He is. This righteousness
is the righteousness of God. And it's valuable because of
what it includes. Number one, it includes the putting
away of all the sins of His sheep. by the sacrifice of himself.
He bore our sins in his own body on the tree. He was made sin. How? By the imputation, the charging
of the debt of our sins to his person. Christ stood in our place,
had our debt charged to him. He said, put it on my account.
And in that death, He redeemed us out of bondage. The redemption
of our persons unto the Lord. He bought us back. He paid it
all. The entire debt completely. And
then thirdly, the righteousness by which we stand complete and
accepted before God came out of His obedience unto death.
It's His righteousness imputed, charged to us. That is a legal
matter. But it is no fiction. It's real. How do you know it's real? Because
David said, blessed are those to whom the Lord imputeth righteousness
without works. Somebody worked for it, but it
wasn't you. And it wasn't me. And then out
of that death comes life. Comes the new birth. to each
and every one of his people in time. Romans 8.10 says, if Christ
be in you, the body is dead because of sin, this physical body, but
the spirit is life because of what? Righteousness. Whose? Christ. You see, you cannot preach
Christ, the gospel of Christ, without preaching the righteousness
of God. You can't do it. Why would you
do it? There's no good news for a sinner.
I mean, you can sing, Jesus loves you, this I know, to your blue
in the face. And he does love his people.
But my friend, without the righteousness of God, there is no love to any
sinner. If you want to experience God's
love and God's mercy and God's grace, there's only one person
in whom you can experience those things. That's in Christ, the
Lord, our righteousness. Brother Jim Byrd wrote an article,
I put it in our bulletin up in Ashland last week. And he was
talking about the preciousness of the doctrine of imputation
and how as he grows older, it becomes more and more precious
to him. And he said this, he spoke, this was his outline.
So I'm stealing from him without his permission. So if he hears
this, but I don't think he'll mind. He talked about the eternality
of imputation. You know what impute means. It
means to charge something. It means to charge to their account.
And like I said, that's the ground of salvation. That's what substitution
is all about. Satisfaction. Christ being our
surety. And His suretyship is not like
what we do with each other if we sign a note or something.
His surety ship doesn't say, well, I'll pay it if they can't.
No, his surety ship said from the beginning, I'll pay it. All. So the eternality of imputation,
God eternally justified and declared his people to be righteous in
Christ. He's always been the Lord our
righteousness. How could God justify and pronounce His people
to be righteous even before the Savior died? How could He do
that? Because Christ was our surety
from the beginning. It was always sure and certain
that He would come and pay the debt. Turn over to Hebrews 2. Let me show you something here. In Hebrews chapter 2. Now Christ
was set up as the surety of God's chosen people before the foundation
of the world. But in order to do the work of
a surety, here's what had to happen. Now look at verse 14
of Hebrews chapter 2. Listen to it. For as much then
as the children. Now who's that? That's the elect
of God. That's the children of God. Are partakers of flesh and
blood. He also himself likewise, or
in the same way, took part of the same. He had to take upon
himself human nature without sin. Why? Because he had to die. And he says, and that's what
he says, that through death he might destroy him that had the
power of death, that is the devil. The devil's power of death is
not his power to kill anybody. He doesn't have that power. Only
God, the Lord killeth, the Lord maketh alive, blessed be the
name of the Lord. Only God has that power. The
devil's power of death is his power of accusation. For example,
if you go out and commit a murder and I see you commit it and I
accuse you, then what does the law say? What should the law
say? We're living in another society.
It should say death. That's the penalty. My accusation
sticks. Because I'm an eyewitness to
the crime. Well, the devil is called the
accuser of the brethren. But when he accuses the brethren,
his accusations do not stick. And why don't they stick? Because
we're washed in the blood of the Lamb. His accusations do not stick,
not because we're not sinners, and not because we don't deserve
death. If God gave me what I deserved, it'd be death, eternal death
and damnation. Not because I haven't earned
it. I've earned nothing but eternal death and damnation. But His
accusations don't stick, and eternal death doesn't come my
way because I'm clothed in the righteousness of the Lord Jesus
Christ. Now what he said in Revelation
12, when the accuser of the brethren accused them day and night, and
what did they do? They pled the blood of the lamb.
That was their testimony. We'll look at verse 15 of Hebrews
2. And deliver them who through fear of death were all their
life subject to bondage. That's in unbelief, legalism.
For verily he took not on him the nature of angels, but he
took on him the seed of Abraham. Who's the seed of Abraham? That's
God's chosen people. That's all who come to faith
in Christ. Now look at verse 17. Wherefore in all things it
behooved him to be made like unto his brethren. Now that word
behooved, do you know what it means? It means he's obligated. He's obligated. The word behooved
is the Greek word for debt. In other words, he has a debt
to pay. If you run up a debt, you're
obligated to pay the debt. Well, Christ had a debt to pay.
How did he get that debt? Not by sinning or being made
a sinner, but by imputation. God imputing the sins of his
children, the seed of Abraham, to Christ. The debt became his. So it behooved him to be made
like unto his brethren, that he might be a faithful, merciful,
and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation
or propitiation, satisfaction, for the sins of the people. What
does that mean? It means he paid my debt. With what price? We're redeemed with the precious
blood of Christ. And what does that get me? Righteousness
charged to my account. You see that? Christ is our surety. Accepted in him. In Jim's article,
he brought forth the legality of imputation. The Savior's death
was a justice-satisfying, debt-paying transaction between the Father
and the Son. That's the righteousness of God
that His people have. The sins of His people were charged
to Him as our substitute. Christ died and He rendered full
payment for the wages of our sin. See, we don't have to pay
the wage, have to have the wage now. He did. He did it all. Don't
underestimate this legality of salvation, the legal aspect of
it, because as I said, that great question, how can God be just
and justify the ungodly? It's only through the substitutionary,
sacrificial, justice-satisfying death of Jesus Christ. And then
the last point that Jim brought out was the reality of imputation.
When Christ took the place of his sheep on the cross of Calvary,
He did so because God, the Father, charged Him with our sins. And He died. Those sins became
His by imputation. And He actually suffered. He
actually bled. He actually died on that cross. It wasn't fake. It wasn't a hoax.
It wasn't legal fiction. It was real. He was bruised for
our iniquities, Scripture says. The chastisement of our peace
was upon Him. In other words, the punishment
that would bring peace between God and sinners was upon Christ. Now, we can be punished all our
lives, and it still won't make peace between God and us. But
Christ on that cross, having our sins charged to Him by His
one offering, brought peace between God and sinners. And then, His righteousness is
actually ours. We who believe. It's not fiction. It's not that God looks at you
as righteous, but you're really not. No. We who are in Christ
are really righteous. Not in ourselves, but in Him. In Him. That's why it's so important. That's why we say with the Apostle
Paul, who shall lay anything to our charge? Who can condemn? Well, when he says it's from
faith to faith, how do we receive Christ? How do we receive his
righteousness? By faith. That refers to our
new birth, the fruit of salvation. It's to everyone that believeth.
Where righteousness has been imputed, faith will be given
to receive it. So the message of the gospel
of Christ is, as Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 5.20, be ye reconciled
to God. Come to Christ. You have nothing
to do. You have no place to go for salvation. You come to Christ. You trust
him. You plead his blood and righteousness.
You be like that old publican. God be merciful. The word merciful
there means propitious. satisfaction based on his sacrificial
death, righteousness in him. Be merciful to me, the sinner.