Good morning. There's a line
in that hymn that says the gospel conquers sinners and comforts
saints. And I want to try to bring a
message on the sacred trust of the gospel that the Lord has
given to us. And our hope is that those who
are strangers to our Lord's grace and and don't know God, that
the gospel would conquer them. And those of us who, by God's
grace, have been brought into before his presence, that by
hearing once again the message of God's free grace, we'll be
comforted. So that's always our hope. Senators will be conquered and
saints will be comforted. We're going to be in 1 Thessalonians
chapter 2 if you'd like to turn to be there in your Bibles. Two things I want us to pray
for together this morning. Hugo is preaching this morning
at a Spanish church in Lakeland. And I told him that we would
remember to pray for him. A pastor in Lakeland has asked
him to come and preach for them. So I want to pray for that church
and for Hugo and also Bert is declining quickly and want
us to pray for him. So let's pray together. Our Heavenly
Father, thank you for this Lord's day
where we are able to come together. Lord, you have put into our hearts
a desire to worship you, and we trust that with that desire,
Father, that you will give us the ability to worship you, that
you will cause us to be able to hear thy voice, that we would
be comforted and convicted as needed, and Lord, that you would
cause us to find our hope and all our salvation in the good
news of your gospel. Father, we pray for Hugo and
ask Lord that you'd give him clarity and compassion and conviction
as he brings your word to that congregation in Lakeland. Pray
that you'd give ears to hear there. Lord, we pray for our
brother Bert and thank you for him and thank you for the testimony
of grace that you've given to him. And Lord, we pray that we
might bear one another's burdens, that we might be able to sympathize
with one another, enlighten one another's care. We ask it in Christ's name, amen. 1 Thessalonians chapter two, Paul says in verse four, but
as we were allowed of God to be put in trust with the gospel. Now, if you've been put in trust
with something, it means that it's in your possession, but
it belongs to someone else. and that you are accountable
to the owner of whatever that trust might be. And so it is
with the gospel. It's God's gospel. It belongs to him. He's given
it to his church. And it is required of a steward
that he be found faithful. We are ambassadors of the Lord
Jesus Christ. We take the message from the
King and deliver it to the world. And that's what our Lord's telling
us here. It's important for us to be reminded
as to the origin of this gospel is with God. It is with God. He purposed it in the covenant
of grace. before the world ever began.
There was a Savior before there were sinners. There was a new
covenant of grace before there was a covenant of works. The
covenant of works was given to Adam in the garden. Do this and
you shall live, but the failure of that covenant was certain
because the covenant of grace was established by God in eternity
past, before the fall ever happened. And so Paul says we've been put
in trust with this gospel that is eternal, that is eternally
old and we receive it from him. This
gospel that God purposed in the covenant of grace was executed
at Calvary's cross. And that's what David meant in
his last words when he said that he has made with me an everlasting
covenant ordered in all things insure. Everything required for
this covenant to be established, ratified, fulfilled, executed
was accomplished by the Lord Jesus 2,000 years ago. when he
went to the cross and bore the sins of his people and satisfied
God's justice. That's God's gospel. It's God's
gospel. It's not something we came up
with. It's not something we had anything
to do with. He has put it in our trust. This gospel which belongs to
God must be revealed by God. Not only was it purposed by God
and executed by God, It has to be revealed by God. The natural man cannot receive
the things of the spirit. They're spiritually discerned.
And the more I try to get a hold of this gospel,
the more I realize how dependent I am on the Lord to open the
eyes of my understanding and revealed himself to me. I'm not
talking about just the revelation of Christ given in the new birth.
I'm talking about every believer's need. You know, we feel like,
I feel like sometimes I'm saved by the skin of my teeth, as Job
said. And if we hardly be saved, You
know, we're straining to look through a glass darkly, are we
not? The point is that this gospel
belongs to God and only he can reveal it. Only he can make it
known to our hearts. And so, this trust that we have
is completely dependent upon him. He is the one that must
empower the gospel to the heart. If we're to believe it, if we're
to bow to it, if we're to be comforted by it, it's God's gospel. That's what Paul's saying. He
has allowed me to be in trust with something that belongs to
him. And so I'm accountable to him
to just be truthful to what he's revealed about his gospel. And though the pastor of a church
might bear the burden of responsibility in regards to what we're talking
about, this is the whole church, this is the body of Christ, this
is the gospel that God has given to us together. And we are to
pray for the furtherance of this gospel and support this gospel
and believe this gospel and hear this gospel. So what Paul is
talking about in terms of being put in trust, he's not talking
about just himself as an apostle, he's not talking about just those
who have been called to preach the gospel. He's talking about
this is given to the church and the church is the only person,
the only people that have the gospel. He hasn't entrusted this
gospel to anyone else. We are singularly unique in all
the world in terms of what God has trusted us with. No one else
has this gospel and we can't go anywhere else to hear this
gospel or to understand this gospel or to believe this gospel. It's given peculiarly and particularly
to the church. And this gospel will be brought
to its fruition by God when he gathers all of his elect together
and they're able to rejoice together in the glory of Christ. We are kept by this gospel. This trust that we have given
to us by God that belongs to God is our keeping. We have to keep hearing about
Christ because we're so prone to wander and we're so afflicted by the old man that
we all live with. And we have the accuser of the
brethren that would put us back under the law and
we have the temptations of this world that would draw us away.
Paul says we've been allowed of God. We've been allowed of
God to be put in trust with this gospel. We're not to add to this gospel. We're not to take anything away
from this gospel. Every word of God The scripture
says, is pure. It is pure. And he is a shield
to them that put their trust in him. Add thou not, the Lord
says, anything unto his word, lest he reprove thee and thou
be found a liar. Now what the Lord's telling us
is don't add anything to the accomplished work of the Lord
Jesus Christ, the very The very book of God, the Bible, the word
of God concludes with this. You've been entrusted with a
full message. There's nothing else is needed
to be added to what God has revealed about his gospel. All that we
need to know has been given to us and are there Are there revelations
of Christ that are not given to us? Certainly there are. And
all of eternity will not be sufficient for us to fully comprehend his
glory. But everything that we need,
everything that we need, this side of heaven has been given
to us in God's word. And so, we don't speculate about
what these other revelations might be. I like what Charles
Spurgeon said. He said, if God revealed to us
anything more than he has revealed to us, it would be to our destruction. And what he was saying was, if
God revealed to us something that was true about Christ, and
about his God that he hasn't yet revealed to us, we would
use it for our destruction. And what he was saying was that
when God gave to us his word, he gave to us a perfect word. And we don't need to look anywhere
else but to the word of God for the full revelation that is needed. If we add anything from us to
what the Lord Jesus Christ has finished, he said, I'm the Alpha
and the Omega, the beginning and the end. I'm the first and
the last. I'm everything. I'm the full truth of God revealed
in the person of Christ. We don't add our symbols to the the Alpha and the Omega. Turn with me to Galatians chapter
1. Galatians chapter 1. I'm so thankful that this gospel
is complete. It's full. It requires nothing
else. There's no other revelation given
to us than the revelation that's given to us in God's Word. And
there's no other revelation needed. We're not looking for something
else. Paul says in Galatians chapter
1 beginning at verse 6, he says, I marvel that you are so soon
removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ
unto another gospel. They were adding to the work
of Christ. And that's what our Lord has
said. This gospel has been put in your trust. Don't add anything
to it. Don't add your works, don't add
your will, don't add your wisdom, don't add your opinions. It's complete, it's perfect just
like it is. It's been put in trust to you.
It doesn't belong to you, it belongs to me. Keep it, keep
it preserved as it is perfect in Christ. He says in verse 7,
which is not another but there be some that trouble you and
would pervert the gospel of Christ." They perverted the gospel of
Christ by adding something to the gospel of Christ. Now, child of God, do you not
find yourself tempted every day to add something to the finished
work of the Lord Jesus Christ? by judging your salvation based
on something other than the accomplished work of the Lord Jesus Christ?
Do we all know it? We all not do that? This is not
just a message to the unbelieving world to say, you know, our gospel
is, this is a message to God's people because we need to be
reminded of how perfect and how complete What good news, that's
what the gospel is. Look at verse eight, but though
we or an angel from heaven preach any other gospel unto you than
that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed. To add anything to The perfect
accomplished person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ is to
pervert the gospel to the point to where it would not be good
news of life, it would be a message of death. Be a message of death. It's finished. It's done. It's accomplished. That's what
Paul's saying, this gospel, God has allowed us to be put in trust
with this gospel. And it's not, it belongs to him,
it's not for us to decide what part of it is good or bad, it's
all of God. And it's complete and finished
in and of itself. Second Timothy chapter one, verse
nine, he has saved us and called us with a holy calling not according
to our works but according to his own purpose in grace which
was given to us in Christ Jesus before the world began. Before
the world ever began. You see it's not for us to to
add to the gospel, to question the gospel. The gospel has been
put in our trust. It's for us to believe the gospel
and declare the gospel. We don't debate the gospel. We
don't even try to defend the gospel. We just preach the gospel. We declare the gospel and we
believe the gospel. We bow to the gospel. Paul said to Titus, he said,
not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according
to his mercy he has saved us. The Lord Jesus Christ gets all
the glory for this gospel, doesn't he? Now, I want to point out a passage
of scripture in Titus chapter one. This gospel has to be free. It has to be free. And we have to be reminded of how
free and perfect and complete it is in Christ. We have to be reminded that the
Lord Jesus Christ himself is the fullness of the Godhead bodily
and that you are complete in him. Complete in him. Titus chapter 1 verse 4 says,
For there are certain men crept in unaware who were before of
old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men. He's talking about
false prophets now that come into the church. they're adding
to and taking away from the gospel and turning the grace of God
into lasciviousness and denying the only Lord God and our Lord
Jesus Christ. Now what does that mean that
these false prophets are turning the gospel of God's free grace
into a message of lasciviousness. Lasciviousness interpreted means
unbridled lust and shameless excess. Unbridled lust and shameless
excess. A child of God. I have never, maybe you have,
if you have I'd love to hear the example of it, but I have
never from a Roman Catholic to a Pentecostal to an Arminian
or to a Calvinist, I have never heard, and I've even thought
about outside of Christianity and other religions, I've never
heard anyone say, I've never heard anyone teach that grace
means that you can live your life in unbridled lust and shameless
excess. I've never heard anyone teach
that. I've never heard anyone teach
what we call antinomianism, a life that can be lived outside
of the law, against the law, because we're saved by grace,
we can live like we want. I've never heard anyone teach
that. Now I've heard plenty of times
where lawmongers have accused us of that. Those who are under the law and
want to put you under the law, and let's not forget the spirit
behind those who are enemies to the gospel of God's free grace. The spirit behind that accusation
is the spirit of the devil himself. And their objective would be
to put us under the law. And so to accuse us of antinomianism,
to accuse us of lascivious living, is to put us on the defense and
to have to justify ourselves before them. And to have to justify,
to have to preach against antinomianism to the church. So when these ungodly men turn
the grace of God into lascivious living. Now I've known plenty
of people that say they believe in grace and live like the devil,
but I don't believe that's what the Lord's talking about here.
I believe what the Lord's talking about are the same people that
came into the church of Galatia. These were the Judaizing lawmongers
who came into a free grace assembly. who had been put in trust of
the gospel, the good news, the finished work of the Lord Jesus
Christ, and they want to add to it by accusing us, because
of this liberty that we have in Christ, they accuse us of
living licentious lives. And being put on the defense,
and I'm making a confession to you this morning of things that
I've done, into you and in my preaching and I hope the Lord
will help me. But being put on the defense,
if you've not been accused of antinomianism, you haven't preached
the gospel. You haven't preached freedom
and liberty in Christ unless someone has accused you of taking
grace and turning it into lasciviousness. That's the devilish lie, that's
the false accusation that they make against those who believe
in grace, who they believe in the liberty of Christ. And so
what I've done and what I've heard done is a defensive attempt
to quiet that accusation by reminding believers that Grace is not a
license to sin. And we need to be very careful
with that. There's no child of God that believes that grace
is a license to sin. No child of God believes that. And as soon as I say to a believer,
you know, don't use grace as a license to sin, you see the
unspoken implication of that is to put you under the law which
is the very objective that these ungodly men have when they come
in and they turn the grace of God into lasciviousness by accusing
us of having a gospel that would lead a person to lawless living
and in putting us on the defense we actually We actually reinforce,
you see, the strength of sin is the law. And so if I defend
myself and I defend you by saying to believers that grace is no
license to sin, what have I done? I've just pointed you to your
sin. That's all I've done. And I've implied that you need to
You need to live a better life. Do you see the point of this? It seems very clear to me. These ungodly men who turn the
grace of God into lasciviousness are not preaching an antinomian
gospel. I've never heard that preached.
I've never heard lawless living advocated by any religious group,
never heard it. But I've heard the accusations
made and the devil would have us to try to defend ourselves
against those accusations by putting us under the very law
that Christ has delivered us from. You are not under the law,
you're under grace. And if there's anything that
restrains sin, it's not the law, it's grace. It's grace. Do you want sin restrained in
your life? You know you do. If you're a child of God, you'd
never sin again if you could. You would never sin again. But you know the will is present
with you, but how to perform that which is good you find not
because sin is ever with you, it's ever before you. But you
don't need to be told that grace is no license for sin. You know
that. It's God's grace that makes you
love Christ. It's God's grace that makes you
hate your sin. And as soon as we start defending ourselves
against an antinomian gospel or an antinomian accusation,
let me rephrase that. we start adding to this gospel
that has been put in trust to us. Do you see that? We don't have to defend these
devilish lies that are made against the freedom that we have in Christ.
Not with preaching, not with doctrine, not with reminding
believers that they need to straighten out their lives, that this grace
of God is no license for them to sin. You know it's not a license
for you to sin. You don't want to sin. We don't need to preach that
way. It's amazing how Satan is able to take these men who would
make that accusation and accomplish the very thing that we're trying
to avoid being put under the law. So what's the Lord say about
these accusations? Well, turn with me to 1 Peter. 1 Peter. Chapter two. Verse 11, dearly beloved. Oh, what affectionate term that
is. Dearly beloved, loved of God. This term is used most often
to describe the father's love for his son. And his love for
his son's the same as it is for us. Dearly beloved, I beseech
you. I come along beside you to encourage
you. to support you with grace, not
to put you back under the law. I beseech you as strangers and
pilgrims. You don't belong to this world.
Abstain from fleshly lust, which war against the soul. We are
all fighting this battle. We're all in this war together.
The spirit's warring against the flesh and the flesh against
the spirit so that we cannot be what we would be. And we don't
need to discourage believers in this warfare by putting them
under the law and telling them that grace is no license for
sin. That's the false accusations that are made against us. We
need to tell them that warfare is accomplished. Your iniquity
has been put away, it's been purged, it's been buried in the
depths of the sea, it's been separated from you as far as
the east is from the west. If there's anything that's going
to enable you to abstain from fleshly lust, that's the message
that will enable you. The finished work of Christ,
the gospel of God's free grace that we've been entrusted with. Here's the answer. This is all
you have to, this is the only thing, when these false accusations
are made, let us not preach against them. Let us not put the believer
back under the law by defending ourselves against these devilish
lies. Having your conversation, and
that means your life, your speech, your life, your pattern of living. It doesn't mean that you're living
a perfect sinless life, but your pattern of living. Let your conversation
be honest among the Gentiles, whereas they speak against you
as evildoers. That's the men that come in and
turn the grace of God into lasciviousness. They're saying if you believe
in free grace, then that means that you're living like the devil.
Now what they really mean is that if I believed in free grace
with the heart that I have, I would live like the devil. That's what
they mean. but they're accusing you of it.
And it's a false accusation. And so let your conversation
among the Gentiles, whereas they speak against you as evil doers,
they may by your good works, which they shall behold, glorify
God on the day of visitation. In other words, just let your
life Let the pattern of your living
be the testimony against these false accusations. That they
would not be able to support what they're saying with examples
of licentious living. That's all. That's all. Isn't
that glorious? This is the gospel. This is the
gospel that we've been put in trust with. We don't add anything to it.
And how and how deceptive Satan can be in getting us to add to
Christ, even by putting us on the defense and getting us to
preach the law in order to defend ourselves. against men who say
we have turned the grace of God into lasciviousness. We haven't
done that. That's been an encouragement
to me. I hope it has been to you. I hope it has been. This matter of getting back under
the law is so, it's so subtle. It's so, stand fast in the liberty with
which Christ has made you free and be not entangled again with
the yoke of bondage. Don't go back to Egypt, don't
go back to the law. And pray for me that I would
not preach in such a way that would even suggest that. Because
we've been put in trust with the gospel that belongs to God.
And that gospel gives to the Lord Jesus Christ all the glory
for our salvation. And we don't add anything to
it. And we don't take anything away from it. We don't deny one word from God's
word. We have a perfect revelation
of truth given to us by God in his word. We don't take anything
away from it. We don't deny any part of God's
gospel. We don't say, well, you know,
election and predestination is not essential in the gospel.
No, yes, it is essential. We don't say that particular
redemption particular redemption, that Christ died on Calvary's
cross for a particular people and that he actually, effectually
accomplished the salvation of those for whom he died, those
chosen by God in the covenant of grace. We don't say, well,
you know, that's, that's kind of a, that's kind of unnecessary. That's, that's not essential.
Yes, it is essential. We've been put in trust with
the gospel and these things are essential. that it's not of him
that willeth nor of him that runneth, but it's the God that
showeth mercy, that the new birth is a work of grace in the heart
by the Spirit of God, and that there's no contribution to be
made on the part of man. Oh, well, you got to add a little
something to it. What about faith? You got to add faith to it. No,
you don't. Faith is a work done in salvation. not for salvation. Faith, saving faith, is not life-giving. It is the proof of life. Saving faith is not a condition
that we must meet In order to have salvation, it is a condition
that God works in our hearts to make us meet for salvation. We can't add anything or take
anything away from the accomplished work of the Lord Jesus Christ. This is the sacred trust that
God has given us. It is the gospel of God's free
grace in the glorious person and finished work of the Lord
Jesus Christ. It is the good news that the
salvation of sinners is a work accomplished by God through the
death and the life of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's what we've
been given trust of. And if we add anything to it,
or take anything away from it, or destroy it, or change it. Let's pray. Our Heavenly Father, cause us to be faithful with
the message of Christ. For it's in his name we pray,
amen.