One of the lovely. coming is that we just get to
hear the same gospel through different lips and with a different
accent but it is the same isn't it? Jude spoke of a common salvation,
a common salvation and I spoke several times in Kevin's church
in San Diego before he got there and so it's lovely to think that
they have him but we have a common salvation and we have an established
truth that God says is safe for us. It's safe, it's secure, it's
safe. When he wrote the Gospel of Luke,
he says It seemed good to me also having a perfect understanding
of all things from the very first to write unto thee in order,
so the Gospels are written in order, most excellent Theophilus,
that thou mightest know the certainty That means safety. You might
know the safety of those things wherein thou hast been instructed. There is a great question that
I keep being caused to ask and to answer in various ways, and
I trust in some sense we answer it every week in our services
here. What is my gospel? And the big
question is, how can I know that the gospel that I preach is the
gospel of God? And how can you know that the
gospel that you hear here is the gospel of God? There is just
one gospel, and gospel means good news. It's not good advice
about what you have to do. It's good news about what the
Lord Jesus Christ has done. It's good news that's written
in this book, and it's written from Genesis 1-1 right through
to Revelation chapter 22. There is just one Gospel. It's
the Gospel of the Kingdom. It's this Gospel. It's the Gospel
of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God. It's the Gospel of
God. It's God's Gospel. There is just
one Gospel. And all other Gospels aren't
Gospels at all. There is only one. It's the Gospel
of God, says Romans 1, verse 1. It originated with God and
not with man. He purposed it. He designed it. He decreed it. It's God's gospel. It's born from the heart of God. It's designed for the glory of
God, and it accomplishes the purpose of God. It's not a gospel
about my opinion. I'm not here to give you my opinion
about things. It's a gospel concerning His
Son. It's an eternal gospel, an everlasting
gospel. It's a gospel not concerning
what you do, it's a gospel concerning who he is. The declaration of
salvation in the New Testament is, Lord, I believe. I believe
that thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. Not, I
believe that I have my doctrine right. Not, I believe that I've
changed my life. Not, I believe all of those things about myself.
It's about God. It's about God, because the gospel
causes us to look away. The gospel, of course, is a person. The gospel declares who the Lord
Jesus Christ is, and without an accurate description of him,
there is no gospel. If you change the gospel, you're
changing the character of the Lord Jesus Christ. It's as simple
as that. They ultimately, those who have
another gospel, have another goal. 3 says concerning his son. It's
concerning a creation which was made of the seed of David according
to the flesh and he's declared, Romans 1-4, to be the son of
God with power. It's a gospel that declares his
deity. It's a gospel that declares his
glory, his eternal glory. It's a gospel that declares the
covenant promises that he made before the foundation of the
world. It's the gospel of Him coming into this world to fulfil
all those promises. It's the gospel of Him reigning
and ruling all things in this world right now. It's the gospel
that declares Him magnifying the law and make it honourable.
It's the gospel of His incarnation, His life, His death, His burial,
His resurrection, His exaltation to the right hand of God in heaven
and His intercession right now. It speaks of what He's doing
right now. If you went to the church that
Kevin pastors in San Diego, you would find that you would fall
into fellowship with them as sweetly as you could possibly
imagine. You would say after you've been
with them for a little while, I've known these people forever.
There's a gospel that brings a unity amongst God's people. The Gospel is not a plea to people,
it's a proclamation. It's not a decision you make,
it's a declaration of a decision that was made long, long ago,
and it concerns our Lord Jesus Christ, Lord, Creator. He's God. He declares himself
to be God. His Father declares himself to
be God. The Word declares himself to be God. He cannot save you
unless he is God. And it speaks of him in his humiliation. Jesus, the name of humiliation,
the son of Mary, that one that was born, the world is going
to be celebrating the Lord Jesus Christ's birth in this next week. And yet if you ask them about
who he is and what he did and why he came and what happened
on the cross and where he is now and what is happening in
this world and how he reigns and rules all things, they wouldn't
have, so many of them wouldn't have a clue. They have as much
notion of who Santa Claus is as they do the Lord Jesus Christ.
He is Christ. He is the Christ. He is the anointed
one. He is the Messiah. He is the
anointed prophet who brings us the word of God. He is the anointed
priest who represents and brings us into the presence of God by
his blood. He is the anointed king. He reigns and rules over all
things. People find salvation in all
sorts of things, but our salvation, the salvation of God's people,
is in a person, and the gospel is describing him. So our gospel,
the gospel, exalts a sovereign God. There's not a single thing
that wriggles in this universe over which the Lord Jesus Christ
doesn't say, mine, and it doesn't move outside of his decrees. That's why he's sovereign in
providence. That's why he can say, I'm working all things for
the good of those that are the chosen according to his purpose.
If he can't work everything in this universe, he can't work
good. If there's something that's outside of his sovereign control,
someone else is in control. So go and find the one in control,
if you like. There's none other. He's sovereign
in salvation. No one under God are all his
works from the foundation of the world. There is nothing and
nothing does happen outside of his sovereign, predestinating
decrees. God is God. The Lord Jesus Christ
is God. He declares the end from the
beginning, Isaiah 46, 10. Known unto God are all his works
from the foundation of the world. We spoke earlier about the fact
that the gospel recognizes a complete and utter and how the only hope of salvation
is based in a covenant of grace. But I wanted to, and it's a covenant
in his blood, we keep repeating Hebrews 13, it says, now the
God of peace brought again from the dead, our Lord Jesus Christ,
the great shepherd of the sheep through the blood of the everlasting
covenant. I was heavily involved in religion,
incredibly active in religion, and I went to both the big Bible
colleges in Sydney and I went all the way over to India as
a missionary. I had absolutely no idea that that verse existed,
even though I read it dozens of times. I didn't know there
was a covenant. I didn't know the covenant in his blood. So
you can have, like Nicodemus, an awful lot of religion and
not know the Lord Jesus Christ. But I wanted to ask some simple
questions. and I don't have a whole lot
of time and I wanted to ask some questions and the questions are
simple questions and the questions can all be answered with a or
no, because we call this church Shulhaven Gospel Church, and
we have one aim is to preach the Lord Jesus Christ and Him
crucified, to preach His incarnation, to preach His sinless life, to
preach His rising, His exaltation, to preach His returning, to preach
Him as the mediator, to preach Him as the one who is interceding
at the throne of grace right now for us to preach him returning
as a king. He's always been a king and to
preach him is to preach his work in the hearts of his people to
cause them to come to him and to follow him and to live for
him in this world for those who love him. are loved by him, therefore
we love him. So let's just ask these 12 simple
questions and I won't go into much detail and I can give you
my notes if you'd like them. My gospel. he called it my gospel. Everyone
in this world, every religious person in this world, every Christian
person will be able to say this is my gospel and you and I have
a gospel. Okay, so let's ask these simple
questions and I will just be touching on them very briefly.
Does my gospel line up with the Old Testament scriptures? Paul
in 1 Corinthians 15 says to define the gospel as how that Christ
died according to the scriptures, according to the Old Testament
scriptures. And then in the Passover, God
says, when I see the blood, I will pass over you. Does your gospel line up with
that? So many people today say, when I see your faith, when I
see your changed life, when I see the depths of your repentance,
when I see your experience, when I see your sincerity, I'll pass
over you. God says, when I see the blood,
when he sees the blood of his son, he makes a promise, I will
pass over you. What was God looking for on that
night? when that avenging angel went through Egypt. He was looking
for one thing on the doorposts of those people. It didn't matter
what they were like on the inside, inside that house, quivering
and quaking and in fear, some proud, some terrible sinners. God says, when I see the blood.
Secondly, does my gospel give God all the glory in salvation? Our God says he will not share
his glory with another. Everything he does, as Ezekiel
36 says, he says, for mine holy name's sake, I'm doing that.
I'm not doing this for your sakes, children of Israel. I'm doing
this for mine holy name's sake. For God to get all the glory
in salvation, God gets all the glory at the beginning of salvation.
not because I've done something of some act of my free will,
some opening of my heart to Jesus or giving my heart to Jesus.
People say, well, what do you want to do with your heart? Well,
he's come to give you a new heart. Your heart is deceitfully wicked
and beyond cure, says God. People say, follow your heart,
and the Bible in Proverbs says, it's a foolish thing to follow
your heart. Our salvation begins with God. God coming to us and revealing
himself to us. If it begins in any way with
me then I have to get some glory and God says I will not share
my glory with another. In the middle of my salvation,
to maintain my salvation, if it's all of my efforts and the
only reason I am kept is because of my activity, then I'll fail. I'm a sinner, I'll fail. And at the end of my salvation,
if all of my efforts in this world caused me to have more
jewels in my crown, the number of people that spoke to us after
we came back from India and said, dear, oh, dear, you've got some
real, oh, you've got some jewels in your crown now. And I thought,
if you knew what a sinner I was, you wouldn't dare even think
about that. Jewels in your crown. God gets
all the glory. Does my gospel give God all the
glory and salvation, beginning of salvation, keeping me saved,
and at the end? Thirdly, does my gospel give
preeminence to Jesus Christ in all things? The scriptures give
him preeminence in all things, isn't it? He has the preeminence
as God, isn't it? The fullness, Colossians 2.9,
the fullness of the deity dwelt in a body. He is the beginning, the firstborn
from the dead, that in all things he might have preeminence. He
has a preeminence in all the scriptures. He has a preeminence
in all my salvation. There is one reason that God
saves me, for Christ's sake. He has a preeminence in all my
forgiveness. as God, for Christ's sake, forgave
you, forgives you, Ephesians 4, 32. He has a preeminence in
all, isn't he? He is God. If he does not preach
with all of that preeminence, then the gospel is not preached.
Does my gospel violate or contradict any of the attributes of God? God reveals himself as who he
is in his word. He reveals himself as an absolute
sovereign. He reveals himself as absolutely
holy. He reveals himself as someone
who cannot change, who cannot change. He reveals himself as
the first cause of all things, but most particularly reveals
himself as holy, absolutely holy. Everything he does is holy and
just. He's a just God and a savior. Does my gospel violate or contradict
any of the attributes of God? The common declaration today,
isn't it, that Jesus Christ died for every individual and he made
salvation possible for people. He wants to save everyone. He wishes to save everyone. Any
time you hear God spoken of in those terms, it's not the God
of the Bible. He has no unfulfilled desires. He is God. He does as he wills
in all things, all the time. If God wants, then God has. It's
as simple as that. People these days want to say
that God loves everyone and the proof of God loving everyone
is that Jesus died for everyone and because of Jesus' death for
everyone the Holy Spirit is now pleading with people and God
and Father and the Lord Jesus Christ are wandering around heaven
pleading with people that they might possibly get saved. That
is a denial of every attribute of God in the scriptures. It's
a denial of His holiness. If God in justice punished the
Lord Jesus Christ for the sins of the people, those sins are
gone. And God in justice cannot punish
the Lord Jesus Christ for sins and then punish those people
again in hell. It is absolutely impossible.
Everyone that the Lord Jesus Christ died for is saved. Their sins are gone, their sins
of unbelief, their sins of lacking repentance, their sins in every
form possible. If the Lord Jesus Christ can
die for someone and they end up in hell, then he's a failure
and he's not a sovereign God. It's a denial of his holiness,
it's a denial of his justice, it's a denial of his faithfulness
to his covenant. So that's why again and again
and again the scriptures talk about whosoever, and I love that
word whosoever, I can fit into a whosoever, whosoever shall
call on the name of the Lord. To call on the name of the Lord
is to call on his character as revealed in the scriptures, is
to call on him as holy, to call on him as sovereign, to call
on him as faithful, to call on him as he's revealed. And God's
children love all of his attributes. All of his attributes are gloriously
revealed in the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ. Fifthly, and
quickly, does my gospel honour the law of God? God says it must be perfect to
be accepted. Does my gospel punish every disobedience
and reward perfect obedience? In my union with the Lord Jesus
Christ, I have perfectly obeyed God's holy law, and the very
righteousness of God is my righteousness, and my righteousness is now seen
in heaven. And so I simply cannot abide
this notion that somehow he has to begin something, then I have
to complete it. How good does it have to be to be accepted
of God? God will only accept something that's holy. God will
only let something into heaven which is perfect. Perfect according
to his standards. We don't make void. God forbid,
says Romans 3, we don't make void the law, we honour the law
of God. Those who honour the law of God honour the Lord Jesus
Christ, who kept it perfectly in heart and soul and mind and
deed. And he kept it, and when he kept
it, he kept it with all of his people in union. Baptists. It becometh us to fulfil all
righteousness, John. Sixthly, does my gospel meet
the sinner where he is? Does my gospel come to a sinner
who is dead? Not to a sinner where he ought
to be, but a sinner who is dead. I cannot meet any preconditions. to be in the presence of God
and to be saved. God must meet all those preconditions. The only hope I have is that
God comes to me where I am and gives me life. Lord, if you will,
says the leper, the dying outcast leper. He said, Lord, if you
will, you can make me whole. You can make me whole. Salvation's
according to the will of God, and he does meet dead sinners.
Throughout the gospels, he meets helpless, dead sinners. Will
my gospel, number seven, will my gospel save the chief of sinners? I love Paul's description of
himself at the end of his life. He calls himself the chief of
sinners. If God makes you a sinner, my
friends, you will be the chief of sinners. You won't be looking
down your nose at anyone else. You won't be standing in judgment
of other people and their sins. You'll be saying, Who will rescue
me from the body of this death? You'll be crying out, a wretched
man that I am. Not wretched man that I was and
I polished my life up. The chief of sinners. Number
eight, does my gospel provide all that God requires? You can substitute gospel for
the Lord Jesus Christ, can't you? The gospel is a person.
So does the Lord Jesus Christ provide all that God requires? Or is there something else that
I have to add to the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ?
He cried out on the cross, it's finished, it's paid in full.
What does God require of you? It's really simple, isn't it?
God requires of you to be perfect. Absolutely perfect. God requires
for you to be in His presence that you have absolutely no sin
whatsoever. God requires for you to be in
His presence that you must have a perfect, holy righteousness
before the law of God. And God requires that you have a
new heart. And he gives you a new heart, brothers and sisters.
God requires that you exercise faith. And it's the gift of God,
according to Ephesians 2. God requires that you repent.
Acts 5 and 11 says that repentance is the gift of God. It's a grant.
He grants it to his people. Everything that God requires.
Everything that God requires, he provides, and he must provide
because it must be holy to be accepted. He said to Abraham,
you walk before me and be you holy. What was Abraham's holiness? He was lying about his wife to
protect his own skin. What was Abraham's holiness?
Abraham's holiness was the Lord Jesus Christ. He saw my day and
he rejoiced, he was glad. Everything that God requires,
he provides. And everything that God provides,
he provides in his son, the Lord Jesus Christ. Will my gospel
keep me saved? We've been singing it here for June 23, that is able to keep
you from falling and present you faultless before the presence
of His glory. How? With exceeding joy, we forget
how joyful our God is, don't we? God, the gospel of God, keeps
all of God's children saved. Saved from Satan, saved from
the world, saved from the law's condemnation, but most of all
it keeps me saved from myself. I need saving for myself. Lord
save me is the cry of God's children all the time, isn't it? You can
read it in Jeremiah chapter 16 or something. Jeremiah after
a long period of being a prophet of God in Jerusalem. It's not just Peter sinking beneath
the waves that says that. All of God's children say that.
Lord save me. The gospel keeps me saved. Number
10. Can I face death and judgment
with my gospel? Can I face death and judgment
with my Lord Jesus Christ? We are all appointed to death. It's the appointment that God
has written in his word and it's the appointment we're going to
keep. Is your gospel going to need adjusting on that day? Is
your gospel the gospel you have now? I love what Paul says in
Romans chapter 8 verse 1, Right now, no condemnation for
them that are in Christ Jesus. The children of God in the Scriptures
look forward to the Day of Judgment. Herein is our love made perfect,
says 1 John 4.7, that we may have boldness, we may have confidence
on the Day of Judgment, because as He is, so are we in this world. I can stand on that Day of Judgment,
perfectly conformed to the image of the Lord Jesus Christ. Hidden
in him, the day of judgment for God's children is a day of the
exaltation of the Lord Jesus Christ in all that he's done. I can't look anywhere else but
him. I can't look at my progress. I can't look at my Bible reading.
I can't look at my preaching. I can't look at my witnessing.
I can't look at my good works. I can't look at it. I just look
there. You fix your eyes upon him, the author and finisher
of faith. Will my gospel conformed to the
image of Jesus Christ. To be in heaven is to be perfectly
conformed to the image of the Lord Jesus Christ. He will be
the sole topic of conversation for all eternity. Every look
in heaven, every walk, every time we look and see anything,
it will be about Him and how glorious He is. and all of my
brothers and sisters are going to be perfectly conformed to
the image of the Lord Jesus Christ. Whom he did foreknow, he also
did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that
he might be the firstborn among many brethren. And finally, Does
my gospel enable me to rest in Christ Jesus alone? to not do anything, to not feel
under any obligation or burden to do something to make things
right with God. It is finished, is the cry of
the Saviour. It is finished. He's done it
all. He's done it all. It's all been done long, long
ago. So let's go back through them
again briefly. Does my gospel line up with the
Old Testament scriptures? If it does, then it's the gospel
of God. Does my gospel give God all the glory and salvation?
Does my gospel give the preeminence to Jesus Christ in all things?
Does my gospel not violate or contradict any of the attributes
of God? Does my gospel actually honour the law's demands for
perfect obedience and perfect punishment? Does my gospel meet
the sinner where he is? in life? Does my gospel save
the very chief of sinners? Does my gospel provide all that
God requires? Does my gospel keep a man saved? Does my gospel enable me to face
death and judgment with perfect peace? Does my gospel conform
me and all of God's children? to the perfect likeness of Christ.
Does my gospel enable me to rest? When Paul wrote to the Galatians,
he was absolutely horrified that they'd moved to another gospel.
And he said it was no gospel at all. And he said, those that
preached that gospel, as much as they might've looked like
Paul and John and the other apostles, he said, let them be condemned
to hell. But his marvel, his wonder was
that you're so soon removed from him. From him. The gospel is a person. We describe
a glorious God in the person of our Lord Jesus Christ. So
soon removed from him that called you into the grace of God unto
another gospel. There is no other gospel, says
Paul. There is no other gospel. Let's pray. Heavenly Father,
we pray that the glory of your dear and precious son, the wonder
of his sin-atoning death for us the holy law of God in thought
and word and deed and is the robe of the righteousness of
all of your children. Heavenly Father we pray. to look at Him, to look to Him,
to follow Him, to come to Him, to keep on coming, to keep on
calling upon Him, Heavenly Father, that we might find ourselves
at rest in this troubled world because we have a great God and
Saviour. Heavenly Father, you alone can
make his blood precious. And as we take these elements
that remind us of his shed blood and his broken body, Heavenly
Father, will you grant us simply to have rest and peace in