I believe this is a very key
verse of scripture and we likely won't make it beyond
this one verse. 1 Thessalonians 1.5, for our
gospel came not unto you in word only, but also in power and in
the Holy Ghost and in much assurance As you know what manner of men
we were among you, for your sake, our gospel came in power. Paul referring to the message
as our gospel, when he's referred to the gospel in so many other
ways, reminds us that it's committed to our trust. It's our gospel. If we are the Lord's, if we are
among those he commissioned to go and preach to every creature,
and whoever hears you and believes you, I'll save them. What a solemn
commission that is. And whoever rejects you, I will
damn them. Who's sufficient for these things?
But he reminds us here that we are committed, the gospel is
committed to our trust, not in the sense that God's banking
on us. God knows what we are. He remembers
that we're dust. But in the sense that we have
the wonderful privilege of being the means whereby this gospel,
this gospel, our gospel, the gospel of the sovereign God. Have you ever thought about what
it is essentially? I know there are a lot of things
you could say about this, but what is it essentially that, what in which, what is it in
which the gospel, our gospel, differs from the gospel of false
religion. And if you break it down to its
very essence, it really simply is that God is God. Because the
truth of effectual atonement, for example, if you believe that
God is God, and that he came to save sinners, whom he clearly
had chosen, as the scripture reveals, from the foundation
of the world, and he's God. And he came to save those lost
sheep. Then he saved those lost sheep.
He shed his blood to save them. He saved them by shedding his
blood because he's God. That's the essence of it. And
if you want to make it two things instead of just one, then say
that, that God is God in our gospel. It's the only gospel
where God is God. And all of the rest of them,
they have this, I guess, some kind of idol. that tries and
can't, that wants to but you, you know. That's not God. It's not that you don't understand
the doctrine of sovereignty as John Gill elaborated on it in
his Body of Divinity. It's that you don't know what
the word God means. It's simpler than that. God is God. When David, he used one distinguishing factor
that made his God who he is apart from all of the idols of the
heathen. Where is your God? They said,
here's our God. Look how magnificent, look at
the gold, look at the jewels, look at the You know, you can
come to this place and we know where and what to do. Where's
your God, David? My God's in the heavens. He hath done whatsoever he hath
pleased. Is that not the difference? And if you want to elaborate
a little bit and make it two things, here's the second thing.
It's the gospel of the successful Savior. Now you could include
that in the simple thing that the fool has said in his heart.
This is the essence of what all who don't know God say in their
heart. Know God. Know God. But being God, in human flesh,
the fullness of the Godhead in a body, he's successful. He can't be thwarted. What did
Job learn about God? On the ash heap, why did God
put him on the ash heap? I know now, Job said, when every
distraction is taken away, when I'm down to nothing but my soul
and God, I know this, thou canst do everything. Is that what he said? and that no thought of thine
can be hindered. If God desires it, if he wills
it, if he thinks it, if he wants it, it's done. What have you
learned? What have I learned about God
in all these years of hearing the gospel? He does as he pleases. He saves
whom he will, when he will. First Timothy 1.11, Paul said,
according to the glorious gospel of the blessed God, which was
committed to my trust. That's why he said our gospel.
Because God committed it to our trust. Not, again, he's not banking
on us, you know. We're banking on him. Somebody's
gonna be saved, it's gonna be him. If our gospel is gonna be,
well, it's always, I started to say, if it's gonna be successful,
and I meant by that, I meant by that if sinners are saved,
because these are written that you might believe. But it's always
a success, isn't it, Paul said, whether it's saver of death unto
death or life unto life. It's a victory, because it's
the sweet saver of Christ unto God. It being our gospel shows that
there's agreement in it. It's our gospel, not just mine. Paul referred to it as my gospel
in the scriptures, but here, our. Thank God there is an our. I hope I would preach it alone.
If I had to, I hope, if it came to that, the Lord would give
me grace to preach it alone. But I thank God for Todd Nyberg,
for Greg Elmquist, for Moose Parks, for Marvin Stoniker. I thank God for these men that
preach the gospel. And I'm glad that by God's grace,
it's our gospel. It's ours in distinction from
theirs. There are many false gospels
that are really just one, the false gospel of man's will, man's
works, and man's way. And that's a very prevalent gospel
in this world. And so we distinguish ours from
theirs because ours is the gospel of Christ, who is himself the
essence of the gospel. necessary to distinguish it in
that way. It's ours in the sense that we
can only preach it if it's ours. We're not preaching the philosophies
and doctrines of old time theologians that we happen to agree with. We preach that which we have
seen and heard ourselves by faith. It's our gospel. Not the father's,
not some ancient fathers, we have experienced ourselves the
sovereign free grace that we espouse, that we proclaim. We've received of the Lord that
which we delivered unto you, it's ours. And Paul wrote that our gospel
came unto you Let's put a period there for
a second. Our gospel came to you. What a marvelous wonder
of God's grace. It came to you of all people,
of all sinners, of all worms. You and me. You know what God
sends to a lot of people? Strong delusion. But to us, he sent glorious gospel
light. What a blessing, what a privilege,
what an honor, what mercy. The beautiful chain of salvation
found in John chapter 10, you're familiar with it. Whosoever shall
call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. But how shall
they call on him of whom they've not heard? Or how shall they
call on him in whom they've not believed, and how shall they
believe on him of whom they've not heard? And how shall they
hear without a preacher? That beautiful golden chain of
salvation has at one end God saving you, God saving a sinner. And at the other end is this.
How shall they preach except they be sinned? the gospel came
unto you. As it is written, how beautiful
are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace and bring
glad tidings of good things. It came not to
you in word only. And this not is important because
It comes to many in word only. They'll hear the words of truth. They'll hear somebody speak faithfully
and rightly, divide the word of truth. But it's just words to them.
Good words, words they agree with, perhaps. Words they delight
in, but word only is not how this gospel comes. The gospel of I know more than
you, which is a false gospel, even if the letter is correct,
is not this gospel, because this gospel comes in power, in power. the key word there is only. It does come in word. The gospel
must come in word. How shall they hear without a
preacher? That's another link in the chain. It's necessary. But if all you
hear is a doctrinal statement, if all you hear is a series of
facts, even if you agree with them, you can't be saved. Can't be saved like that. You
must hear from God. The gospel's got to come to you,
and not in word only, but in power, in power. Let's consider that for a moment,
in power. When the gospel is preached to
a sinner, if there's salvation, if there's
belief, if there's faith. Remember he said in this context,
I know that you're the elect of God. If that's gonna be true,
if it's preached to somebody chosen from the foundation of
the world and they hear and believe because faith is not of yourselves,
it's the gift of God, not of works lest any man should boast,
It's got to be a powerful experience. It can't just be hearing words
and agreeing with them. That's not salvation. You must
hear from God. That's power. But also God has
got to do a work of power in your heart. I don't have any
power. Not in this business. This is
spiritual business. The gospel is the means of saving
sinners. It pleased God by the foolishness
of preaching to save them that believe, but I don't have any
power in that effort whatsoever. No preacher does. It doesn't
matter how loudly he preaches. It doesn't matter how skillfully
he preaches. We can't save anybody. We can't
get anybody saved. Sinners don't get saved anyway.
God saves them or he don't. That's what happens. Getting
saved implies some kind of, you know, event that takes place
like you get any other thing. That's not how it works. God
giveth the increase. He that planteth is nothing and
he that watereth is nothing. God don't use us to do that because
we're something. He uses us to do that because
we're nothing, that the excellency may be of God and not of us. This is why the gospel cannot
just come in word only, because we have no power. There must
be the power of God. And in the preaching of the gospel
and the saving of sinners, God's power and God's gospel are indistinguishable. His power is the gospel. Listen
to Romans 1 16, for I'm not ashamed of the gospel of Christ for it
is the power of God. Unto salvation to everyone that
believeth, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. God exercises,
he exerts power in the saving of a sinner. And the way that
he does that, is by the gospel. That gospel
is the power of God to save. For there to be saving faith
in the gospel, there must be the power of God. And the way
God exerts his power to save is that gospel. God's not gonna
save you with an epiphany in the night. He's not gonna save
you with a false gospel. He's not gonna save you by an
intellectual increase of knowledge. It's a creative miracle of God's
power creative miracle Look with me in 2nd Corinthians
4 let's look at it together 2nd Corinthians 4 1 Yeah I know many of you are very familiar
with this passage because I quote it often, but not all of this. We usually quote part of this, but
look at 2 Corinthians 4, 1. Therefore, see, we have this
ministry. It's our gospel. We have this
ministry. He committed it to us, didn't
he? when he committed it, it's our gospel. As we have received
mercy, we faint not. Since God has been merciful to
us, this gospel has not ruined us and destroyed us and beaten
us down and preaching the gospel and the ministry of the gospel
is impossible without the mercy of God. Do you see that there?
How many times would we have given up over the years? How
many times would we have quit? For one thing, without the mercy
of God, we ought to quit. Isn't that right? If he doesn't
have mercy on us in the sense of keeping us preaching Christ
and not letting us be removed from the simplicity that's in
Christ, then we probably ought to quit anyway. But because of
his mercy, we haven't quit. We haven't given up. It's not
a lost cause. And that's the only reason. But
have renounced the hidden things of dishonesty, not walking in
craftiness nor handling the word of God deceitfully. He specifically
not, not, nots on that because that's what most people do. Most
people that handle the word of God do so deceitfully. Not by the mercy of God, not
us, not us. But by manifestation of the truth. Not, what's the word I'm looking for?
not embellishing the truth, not interpreting the truth. What is this ministry? What is
the ministry of the Lord here? Manifestation of the truth. There
it is, isn't it? There it is. There it is. Commending ourselves to every
man's conscience in the sight of God. There it is, there's
the word, there's the gospel, there's Christ, there's who he
is, there's what he did. What are you gonna do about it?
What are you gonna do with it? What think ye of Christ? What's
your verdict? But if our gospel be hid, if
we do preach and There's no life, there's no light
in somebody. It's hid to them that are lost,
in whom the God of this world hath blinded the minds of them,
which believe not. Satan comes, another picture
of this is Satan comes and snatches away the seed, lest the light of the glory,
here's what happens when that don't happen. Look how beautiful. Bless the
light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of
God, should shine unto them. What did Paul say in another
place? You do well to take heed to this gospel. How long, Chris,
how long, y'all? Until the day star arise in your
hearts. The shining the glorious shining
of the glorious gospel of Christ in a sinner's heart Now look
at this now He talking about how the gospel
co it's a bright and shining light like the one that Fell
upon Paul what happened when when Saul of Tarsus got arrested
on the road to Damascus Jesus Christ revealed who he is to
Paul and what he had done. That's still how it works. If you're gonna be arrested on
your road to hell, that's what's gonna happen to you too. The
son of God is gonna reveal to you who he is. that you're not
the big shot you think you are, that all of your heritage and
works and Hebrew of the Hebrews and all of that is nothing but
dumb. Is that what he showed him? That's what Paul came away
with, wasn't it? It's all dumb, but I may win
Christ and be found in him. For we preach not ourselves,
but Christ Jesus, the Lord. If you're not preaching Christ,
what are you preaching? yourself. Man, the mark of the
beast is what? Man, man, man. Oh, look at it now. We're just your servants for
his sake. This is all about him. This is
his gospel, his salvation, his glory. So how does that light, what
happens? We're talking about the light. Let the light of the
glorious gospel of Christ should shine into them. What does that
look like? God who commanded the light to shine out of darkness. God who in the beginning said
let there be light and there was light. That's the God we're
talking about. not the one that says light is
available to you if you'll only avail yourself. And why do I
always say that? Well, do you remember how our
Lord always, well, I don't know about always, but often in the
scripture when he was preaching, he would point out the error
of the Pharisees. He would point out the error
of false religion. He didn't preach messages on
false religion. Many seem to have made it their
life's ambition to show how wrong everybody else is. That's not
the gospel. But our Lord did point out the
error of the religion of his day. That's what we're doing,
by God's grace. There's a difference now in the
God of this religious world. And the God that says, let there
be light and there's light. not only in the heavens, but
in hearts. Is that what he's saying here? For God who said, let there be
light, and there was light, that God has shined in our hearts. He commands the light. He's the
one that controls the light. It's not, Lord, if I will, you
can make me whole. It's, Lord, if you will, you
can make me whole. hath shined in our hearts to
give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God. What does
that look like? It looks like the face of God's
Son. In the face of Jesus Christ. But we have this treasure in
earthen vessels. You're not gonna see any light
in here this morning. In physical life, you're not
gonna see some spectacle. It's not gonna be a magic show.
We have this treasure in earthen vessels. It just sounds like
a man getting up and saying words, unless that light shines in your
heart. And God does it that way, that
the excellency of the power may be of God. Who do these fools
think they are? And we'd be right there with
them. How can we ever call anybody a fool without realizing that
that's what we are by nature? But stomp around and decide who
gets healed and who gets saved. Let's get somebody saved. With our gospel, the excellency
of the power is of God. And he didn't even stop there.
And not of us. Not of us. Earthen vessels. You're just hearing
a man say words. But do you see how much more
is going on than that? when the gospel comes in power
to a sinner's heart. If you hear what I say, that's
necessary. You can't believe on him of whom
you've not heard. But if you do believe on Christ,
it's not because I convinced you or got you saved. It's because
God did a miracle of grace in your heart. He said, let there
be light, and there was light. It's creative power. without Christ was not anything
made that was made and there's not gonna be this morning either. If he makes a new creature this
morning, it's not gonna be made without him. Ephesians 2, 4, but God who is
rich in mercy for his great love wherewith he loved us, even when
we were dead and sins have quickened us together with Christ, who's
able to give life to the dead? By grace are you saved and hath
raised us up together and made us sit together in heavenly places
in Christ Jesus that in the ages to come he might show the exceeding
riches of his grace. Not that he might show what a
good decision you made. He's doing this for his glory
and bless God we're in on that. He delights to show mercy to
sinners and is glorified that way. For 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." This is the power we're talking about. Let there
be light power. We are his workmanship created. Our gospel came not to you in
word only, but in power, creative power, created in Christ Jesus
unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should
walk in them. You see what all that word power
contains? Creation, a new creation. So not only must we praise God
for His power in saving sinners, anybody that He saved is gonna
praise Him that the gospel came to them in power. But we almost also must look
to Him for that, rejoice in it, and always remember to look,
to realize that that must happen, that God, must do a work, that
God must create, that God must shine. We must give God all the glory
because salvation is of the Lord, but also we must focus all of
our expectation upon him for the salvation of sinners.
Walking it out is not the power of God into salvation. The gospel is. Repeating a prayer
is not the power of God. Powers of human persuasion may
be as effective as they are evil, but sinners aren't saved like
that. You may have a gathering of deceived
sinners down at the old time altar, but not saved ones. Not
by that means. God's power is a heart work,
not having to do with outward conformity. You may get sinners
to bow their knees at a man-made altar, but not their hearts unto
the Lord. Only God by his power can do
that. You see, that word, our gospel
came in power. And we say these things, we warn
against false religion, we show the difference, not because we
want to be right and show how wrong religion is, we tell the
truth because it's the truth that sets sinners free. We must look to the one who saves,
heed his word concerning how he does that, and abandon all
of our fleshly ideas and preach the gospel. Sinners need to know that all
of their works, even the best ones, are filthy rags in the
sight of God. You have no bargaining power. You rely on God's power to save. Sinners need to know that Christ
and what he accomplished, not provided, accomplished, not attempted,
accomplished, on Calvary is salvation. You have no power to please God. You must rely on God's power
to do that. Look to the successful savior
of sinners. Don't look in your heart for
a spark. Look unto Christ and be ye saved, all the ends of
the earth. For he is God and beside him
there's none else. Power. Sinners need to know that
Christ's righteousness is the only righteousness there is.
That's a hard thing to learn. You're not gonna learn that without
the grace of God. There is but one human righteousness
and it ain't yours. Unless the merciful, gracious God Imputes the righteousness of
Christ unto you Unless you be made the very righteousness of
God in him Our righteousness cannot be like
his It must be his Or we don't have any it's that
simple and You must stand before God in him. Sinners need to know
that his precious blood alone can atone for all your sin. You
have nothing to pay. You have no power to pay your
debt. You must trust his power for
that. Trusting him, not you, your works or your will, trusting
him is salvation. Who he is and what he did, The
gospel comes in power, because you don't have any of your own.
To please God, you have no power. To come to God, you have no power.
To know God, or to even want God. Here's the power. Here's the
power. Listen carefully, I know I'm
done now, just about, Romans 5 6 listen to this for
when we were yet without strength When we were yet without strength
when we lay in the ditch If the Good Samaritan doesn't
come where we are We're goners eternally When we were yet without strength
When we could do nothing, God did something. What is it that
he did? What's the power? He died, Christ
died for the ungodly. What strange power is that? How can someone's death give
life? This is the power of God. When you could do nothing, God
did everything. And Christ crucified is everything. He gave himself for our sins. 1 John 5, 11, listen, and this
is the record that God has given to us eternal life. God offered
it. Again, the Pharisees are gonna
say it that way because they want the glory. This is the record that God hath
given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He that hath the Son hath life,
and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life. Turn with me to 1 Corinthians
1, and we'll close with this. 1 Corinthians 1.18. First Corinthians 118, for the
preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness.
That's our gospel. Gospel of the cross of our Lord
Jesus Christ. It is to them that perish foolishness,
but unto us which are saved, it's the power of God. For it is written, I will destroy
the wisdom of the wise and will bring to nothing the understanding
of the prudent. Where is the wise? Where is the
scribe? Where is the disputer of this
world? God hath made fools of all of
them, hadn't he? He's made fools of them. Hath
not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? For after that
in the wisdom of God, the world by wisdom knew not God. He's
not wringing his hands and saying, oh, you know, I wish people would
know me. It was in his wisdom that the world by their wisdom
didn't know him and don't. But that being the case, it pleased
God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. The
gospel and that word power, power, the power unto us which are saved,
it's the power of God. Because if you're gonna be saved
by me standing up and saying words, We need God to exert power,
enlightening power, faith-giving power, life-giving power. For the Jews require a sign and
the Greeks seek after wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified. unto the Jews a stumbling block,
and unto the Greeks foolishness, but unto them which are called,
both Jews and Greeks, Christ, the power of God, and the wisdom
of God. Our gospel came to you, bless
God, it came to you in power. Because our gospel is a person,
it is himself, the Lord Jesus Christ, who is the power and
wisdom of God. Let's pray.