Turn with me if you would now
to Colossians chapter one. We're going to continue here
in Colossians and I love this verse of scripture. I've always loved this. Verse
28 is where we will pick up. And it begins by saying, whom we preach. That's the title of this message. Whom we preach. The Apostle Paul here is speaking
of the Lord Jesus Christ. We were just in verse 27. The end of that verse says, Christ
in you, the hope of glory, whom we preach. He said, we preach
Christ. We preach Christ. Christ is our
message. I know that this is gonna sound
strange. I know it does. There are many preachers who
don't really know what they preach. Really. There are many hearers
who don't really know what they believe. The apostle Paul said, I know
whom I have believed and am persuaded that he is able To keep that
which I've committed unto him against that day. He said, I'm preaching him. We preach him. Whom we preach. How many different ways can I
say it? Same thing over and over again. Same thing. I've been
asked the question before, what do you all believe? What do you all believe? Honestly,
we don't believe a what we really, there are some what's involved
in it, but we believe a who, whatever,
who says that's what we believe. A more accurate question for
people to ask would be really on it. People ought to ask this.
Who do you all believe? That'd be a more accurate question. Do you believe God or man? Who
do you all believe? Do you believe God's word or
man's word? Do you preach God's work in salvation
or do you preach man's work in salvation? I'll go ahead and
answer it. We preach God's work in salvation. We preach Christ
crucified. That's what we preach. We preach
him. We preach him. We preach his
word, no matter what it says. no matter what it says. In the
Song of Solomon, it says his hair is black as a raven. And in Revelation 1, it says
his hair is white as wool. Which one do we preach? Both. Wait a minute, which one is it?
Both. Turn over to Acts 24 with me. Let me show you something. Acts 24 verse 14 says, again
this is the Apostle Paul, and he said, but this I confess unto
thee, that after the way which they call heresy, and that means
division, so worship I the God of my fathers. Believing all things which are
written in the law and in the prophets, all things, we believe
everything that he has said in this word, every word of it. Every word of it. This right
here is absolute truth. This is absolute truth. False
religion consists of, all right? False religion is built on. This is where men and women go
wrong. This is what causes them to be
in a false religion. They only believe part of what
He has said. That's the root cause of all
of it, all error. You can find a little bit of
truth in all of them. They don't believe all that he
has said. Every different false religion
is built on believing part of what he has said. And you'll
find this to be so. This one believes this part,
but they don't believe the rest of it. That's this one. This
one believes this part, but they don't believe the rest of it.
This one believes this part, but they don't believe the rest
of it. True believers believe all things that he has written
in his book. What makes a person a believer?
He or she believes God. They believe God. Every word that has proceeded
out of the mouth of God, every word. Now I don't make a habit
out of doing this, but I'm going to tell you this to prove a point. A few years ago, a man was trying
to disprove some scriptures that I had quoted. And that was so
strange to me. I thought, why would you want
to do that? But he was trying to disprove some scriptures by
sending me other scriptures. I'm sure you've had people do
that. What about this one? He was texting them to me, other
scriptures. My reply to him on every single one of them was,
amen, exclamation point. He was sending scriptures. I
believed everything that he sent to me. He'd send me a scripture.
He didn't add anything to it. He would just send a scripture
and I'd say, amen. I believed everything he sent
to me, I guess, because he did not believe the scriptures that
I was quoting. He thought that I wouldn't believe
the scriptures he was quoting. Not so. I was in full agreement with him.
He just wasn't in full agreement with me. If you ever have somebody
come up to you and say, well, what about this scripture? Amen. Amen. We believe all things. If our
Lord has said it, amen. We believe him. We preach him. We preach every word he has said,
and we preach him in every word he has said. We preach every
word. And we preach Him in every word. Let me show you what I mean by
that. Go with me if you would to Luke 24. Luke 24 verse 13, it says, and
behold, two of them went that same day to a village called
Emmaus, which was from Jerusalem, about three score furlongs. And
they talked together of all these things which had happened. And
it came to pass that while they communed together and reasoned,
Jesus himself drew near and went with them. but their eyes were
holding that they should not know him. And he said unto them,
what manner of communications are these that you have one to
another as you walk and are sad? And the one of them whose name
was Cleopas answering said unto him, art thou only a stranger
in Jerusalem and has not known the things which are come to
pass there in these days? And he said unto them, what things?
And they said unto him, concerning Jesus of Nazareth, which was
a prophet, mighty indeed in word before God and all the people,
and how the chief priest and our rulers delivered him to be
condemned to death and have crucified him. And we trusted that it had
been he which should have redeemed Israel. And beside all this,
today is the third day since these things were done. Yea,
and certain women also of our company made us astonished, which
were early at the sepulchre. And when they found not his body,
they came, saying that they had also seen a vision of angels,
which said that he was alive. And certain of them which were
with us went to the sepulchre, and found it even so as the women
had said, but him they saw not." Now watch verse 25. Then he said
unto them, O fools and slow of heart to believe all that the
prophets have spoken. Ought not Christ to have suffered
these things and to enter into his glory? And beginning at Moses,"
what did Moses write? Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers,
Deuteronomy. Beginning at Moses, and all the
prophets, he expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things
concerning himself." If you look at verse 44, he said unto them,
These are the words, which I spake unto you while I was yet with
you, that all things must be fulfilled, which were written
in the law of Moses and in the prophets and in the Psalms concerning
me. Then opened he their understanding
that they might understand the scriptures. We preach him in
all of his word, all of his word. I've told you before the story
of that young man who was called on to fill the pulpit while the
pastor was away. So he did. And after the service
was over, he went up to one of the elders in the congregation
and he said, what did you think of my sermon? And the aged man
said to him, I thought it was a very poor sermon. And the young
man said, poor? Why did you think it was poor?
Did you think my delivery was lacking? He said, no, your delivery
was fine. He said, well, did you think
that I did not put the time into study? He said, no, your notes
were very well organized. He said, well, then why did you
think my sermon was poor? The aged man said it was poor
because Christ wasn't in it. The young man said, well, Christ
wasn't in the text. The aged man said, son, Christ
is in every text of scripture. In every portion of scripture,
there is a road that leads to Jesus Christ and him crucified. And our business is to find that
road and get on it. That's our business. Find that
road and get on it. We only preach one thing, Christ. His Word, His work, His glory. We preach Christ. The Apostle
Paul said in 1 Corinthians 2 verse 2, I have determined to know
nothing among you. saved Jesus Christ and Him crucified. By God's grace, the same goes
for us. By God's grace, we preach Christ. He's our message. He is our doctrine. He is our gospel. Paul told the
Romans, he said, I'm ready to preach the gospel of Christ to
you. He told Titus, adorn the doctrine
of God our Savior in all things. Who is our Savior? Who is God
our Savior? Jesus Christ is. Turn with me
over to 2 John, just before Revelation. 1 John, 2 John, 3 John, 2 John. Verse nine, second John verse
nine, it says whosoever transgresseth and abideth not in the doctrine
of Christ. If a man stands up and preaches
anything other than Christ, he's transgressing. Christ is our
doctrine, the doctrine of Christ. You will find this so often,
people love to talk doctrine. They wanna talk doctrine. Doctrine
means words, it means teaching. And people love to talk doctrine
all the time. Honestly, this is the honest
case, the simplicity, and that means the single focus, the singular
focus, of Jesus Christ, that's our doctrine. That's our doctrine. Verse nine says, whosoever transgresseth
and abideth not in the doctrine of Christ hath not God. He that abideth in the doctrine
of Christ, he hath both the Father and the Son. If there come any
unto you and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into your house,
neither bid him God's speed, for he that biddeth him God's
speed is a partaker of his evil deeds. That's serious, isn't
it? That is serious. That's why we
preach Christ. Woe be unto us if we preach not
Christ. The gospel of the Lord Jesus
Christ. All right, now, what is the gospel of the Lord Jesus
Christ? I could ask it this way. What
is the hope of glory? Here it is. Christ crucified. Christ crucified. It's not just
the fact that he was crucified. Everybody knows and believes
that he was crucified. It's why he was crucified. Why was Christ crucified? Why
was Christ crucified? Why was Christ crucified? Here's
the reason why. It's because I am a totally depraved
sinner. That's the reason why. What does
that mean? That means I am flat ruined in
my sin. I am a ruined sinner. That's what you see standing
right here, a ruined in sin sinner. I cannot do anything to pull
myself out of my ruin. I can't do anything. Every time I try to obey the
law, I ruin it. I'm ruined and all I do is ruin
it. Everything I do is so full of
sin. I can't preach, but I sin. I can't pray, but I sin. Totally,
totally ruined. His death being offered to God,
that was my only hope. It was the only way. That's why
Christ was crucified. It was the only way. He said,
I am the way. That's why he was crucified.
And that's what we preach. We preach why Christ was crucified. We preach exactly who Christ
was crucified for. Who was he crucified for? In
John 10, he said, I lay down my life for the sheep. Don't
you? Isn't that so sweet? The sheep that my father gave
to me, he told a group of Pharisees there, he said, you don't believe
me because you're not of my sheep. He said, my sheep hear my voice
and they follow me. He said, I'm the good shepherd
over my particular fold of sheep. And that's who I lay down my
life for. Who was Christ crucified for? His chosen sheep. Why was
He crucified for them? It's because they were flat ruined
in the filth of their own sin. What did He accomplish in His
death for those ruined sheep? What did He accomplish for them?
Hebrews 9 says, total redemption to God. Total redemption to God. It says
by his own blood, he entered in once into the holy place,
having obtained eternal redemption for us. That's who we preach. That's what we preach. That's
why we preach it. Now, what do we preach after
we preach that? Nothing. Nothing. Again, this was quite
a few years ago. Right after I got here, I had
a man who, he was from somewhere, he sent me an email, and he was
reprimanding me because I was not turning, at the end of the
message, I was not turning it to you, and then, laying the
responsibility of you to accept Christ. He said, you're denying
man's responsibility in accepting Christ and in accepting this
message. And he said in this email, he said, surely you're
not just gonna tell people what Christ did and then leave it
at that. And I responded, that's exactly
what I'm gonna do. Amen, exclamation point. That's
a great idea. That's good preaching. We don't preach, what are you
going to do with Christ? We preach Christ. We just preach
Christ and we leave it at that. Whatever this Word says about
who He is and what He has done and who He did it for and why
He did it and what He accomplished in it, that's what we preach. And we leave it at that. Whatever
this Word says about Him, that's what we preach. This Word says,
and I can't get my mind around this, but this Word says He is
100% God. And it says He is 100% man. I can't get my mind around that.
But by God's grace, I preach it. That's what it says about
Him. This word says that he is eternal. This word says that a body was
prepared for him and he was born. Get your mind around that. I
can't, but I preach it because that's what he says about him.
This word says that he is our maker. He's our husband. He's our friend. Which one again, like the hair,
which, which, amen, exclamation point. If this word says he is
the lamb and he is the priest who offered the lamb and he is
the altar that it was offered on and he is the temple it was
offered in. Amen. Amen. Whatever it says, that's
what we preach. Go with me back to Colossians
one verse 28 says whom we preach
warning every man and teaching every man in all wisdom. that we may present every man
perfect in Christ Jesus. That's the only way that a sinful
man or woman will ever be presented perfect, only in Christ Jesus. Verse 29 says, whereunto I also
labor, striving according to his working, which worketh in
me mightily. By God's grace, this will be
the only message we ever preach. By His grace, we'll preach Christ,
and then we'll preach Christ, and then we'll preach Christ.
Lord willing, I'm gonna preach tonight. And Lord willing, I'll preach
Christ. I pray so. By God's grace, by His working
in us, I pray we will preach Christ till our time is done. through the praise and the glory
of His mercy and grace. Thank God He has allowed us to
preach Christ. Thank God. All right, Brother
Eddie, you come.