Hi everybody, good morning. My
name is Tanner Van Beek, and the title of the sermon this
morning is Acknowledging Christ's Place in Everything. And it's
going to be a little bit unusual, I think. Typically, I would be
a little bit more expositional. you know, working our way through
a passage of scripture and preaching it that way. But I think this
sermon is going to be a little bit more like shotgun style approach,
if you will, a little bit more topical. I was advised in maybe
circumstances like this, where you were potentially candidating
for a church about how you would want to preach a message, obviously
based off of a passage of scripture, preaching God's word, of course,
but also putting forward something that summarizes your philosophy
of ministry or your philosophy of gospel preaching. And so that's what I want to
do this morning. I want to preach a message from Colossians 1 about
Christ having first place in everything. You know, I've really
been shaped and convicted by the truth in verses such as 1
Corinthians chapter 1 verse 30 about how God has placed us in
Christ Jesus and how Jesus is our wisdom and our righteousness
and our sanctification and our redemption about how Christ is
everything for the believer. He's everything. And I think
that this passage here this morning in Colossians chapter 1 is very
similar. So if you're following along,
turning to Colossians chapter 1, I'm going to be reading verses
15 through 18. Colossians chapter 1, 15 through
18 says, Jesus, who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn
of all creation, For in Him all things were created, both in
the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones,
or dominions, or rulers, or authorities. All things have been created
through Him and for Him. And He is before all things,
and in Him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body,
the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead,
so that he himself will come to have first place in everything. Some other translations say how
he comes to have supremacy, first place in everything. First Place holds an elusive
glory that captivates everyone in some way or another. Athletes
mercilessly discipline themselves as they dream of becoming the
best in their sport. Scholars put in countless hours
of study, hoping that their contributions skyrocket them to renown in their
field. Gaggles of lovestruck young men
pursue the same out-of-their-league gal, all contending for the first
place in her heart. The potential new King in Towns
aren't the only ones with their eyes on the prize. While they
are trying to lay hold of glory, the champion is clinging to it. The current cup holder's knuckles
are white as he tries to maintain his sliver of a lead going into
the last lap of his NASCAR race. The current king of the hill
is exhausting himself as he's lobbing smaller children off
the raft into the water. Sweat drips off Mr. President's
brow as he watches his opponent's poll numbers slowly overtake
his own in the re-election race. First place is universally respected
because that's where the champion sits. The victor. The best. The worthy. The king. It's the spot that
all eyes are on. It's the prestigious place that
is toughest to earn. It's the seat that everyone wants
to sit in. But the thing is, is there's
only room for one. Now these are small examples
used to introduce a big truth here today. There is a first
place seat that is held above all of creation, reality, everything. And the Lord Jesus Christ is
the one who occupies the throne. He was raised up from earth after
his resurrection and given his rightful place next to his father.
He has forever earned his place by his death and resurrection.
He has been given all authority and power and the name that is
higher than all other names. He is fully worthy of all love
and praise and admiration and worship. And by perfectly obeying
his father's will, he has redeemed a people who will do just that
forever. Love him and praise him and worship
him and admire him. The goal of this sermon is to
lift up Jesus Christ in his greatness by laying out the testimony of
scripture that Jesus Christ is the purpose, center, message,
and goal of everything. In other words, we are to give
him first place in all things. And I will do this by addressing
Christ's first place in three different areas this morning. First place in God's eternal
purpose. First place in God's word. And
first place in gospel preaching. So let's start off with the first
point. Christ is first place in God's
eternal purpose. Now this morning, we won't begin
to try to prove what's always been orthodox, you know, that
our God exists in Trinity. He's a Trinity. Father, Son,
and Holy Ghost are three persons, but one God. They have always
existed and always existed together in perfect relationship. The
Father glorifies the Son. The Holy Ghost glorifies the
Son. The Son and the Holy Ghost glorify
the Father. This is the very nature of God
existing in Trinity. And you know, that's something
that it's incomprehensible to us. It's incomprehensible. And
thinking about the Trinity, you know, it further proves that
there's nobody who is like the God that we worship. As David
says in 2 Samuel 22, Now many would use God's incomprehensibility
as ammo, as ammunition against the faith. They might say, how could you
worship what you don't understand? How could you put your faith
in a system that you don't entirely understand? My friends, how many
of you would put your faith in a God that mere men could fully
understand? The gods of the ancient Greeks
and Romans, they were 2D caricatures. They bickered with each other
and were often bested by mortals. And some take God to be an impersonal
force that creates and permeates all of nature. And so they're
to live peaceably and do their part to protect the environment
and to live at peace with nature. That seems pretty easy to understand. And many people try to live good
lives in order to climb the reincarnation ladder so that they're reincarnated
into something better and then ultimately find peace. And that
seems pretty easy to understand as well. And really all of those
are religious systems. They're all religious systems.
And really all of those other religious systems are really
just works. They're really just works. There
are only two religions in the world. Works and grace. And the system of works is really
easy to understand. Getting from point A to point
B by my own effort, by my own exertion, by the things that
I do. But too many people don't understand that getting to God
based on their own performance, it's impossible. It's impossible. George Whitefield said that to
try and get to heaven by good works is like trying to climb
to the moon with a rope made out of sand. And he's right. It's right. As if we had strength
to climb to the moon in the first place, but even if we did, that
rope can't get us there. It's made out of sand. It'll
crumble in our hands. He's right. It's easy to understand,
but impossible to do. But God's sovereign grace through
Christ, on the other hand, it can't be comprehended by a natural
person. And the only reason that we know
it to be true is because of God's Spirit. God's Spirit has opened
our hearts. We don't trust in our own efforts.
We don't trust in our own inventions, our own merit. David said, Some
boast in chariots and some in horses, but we will boast in
the name of the Lord our God. Psalm 20 verse 7. God's grace
doesn't command the sinner to climb to heaven with a rope,
but instead lifts the sinner up with eagle's wings and carries
them to heaven. And this is God's design through
the work of his Son on the cross. The fact that that truth right
there is just a bottomless mine of gold should lead us to respond
with Paul in Romans 11 verse 33. Oh, the depth of the riches
and wisdom and knowledge of God. How unsearchable are his judgments
and how unfathomable his ways. Our beliefs are based on the
Bible and centered on Jesus Christ. Our purpose is very simple. to lead people to honor and glorify
Jesus Christ by living in and embracing God's sovereign grace.
I found that on your guys' own website, in your belief statement,
in your mission statement. I love that statement because
I believe that it accurately reflects God's sovereign plan
for creation and history and redemption, centered on Jesus
Christ. God is the author of this story,
and we know that his purpose in it is to bring glory to himself. That's what God is up to. To bring glory to himself. Habakkuk 2, verse 14 says, For
the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of
the Lord as the waters cover the sea. Think about that imagery. As the waters cover the sea,
as the expanse of the ocean spreads over the earth, so too will the
knowledge of God's glory spread over the earth. And there's so
many more verses that we could go to that explain that idea,
that God is bringing himself glory. But we don't have time
to look at any more this morning, but you get the idea. And so,
God's plan through creation and through redemption is to display
his glory. And he's purposed to do it through
his Son. He's purposed to display his
glory through his Son, Jesus. Jesus is the pinnacle of this
plan of redemption for God to bring glory to himself. Here
are two illustrations to help explain that truth. How many
of you guys have heard of the Broadway play Hamilton? Yeah, okay, so in the Broadway
smash hit Hamilton, Lin-Manuel Miranda composed a musical based
on the life of American founding father Alexander Hamilton. And
the thing that's entirely unique about this musical is that it's
set in the 18th century, but the music isn't 18th century
music. It's all rap music. You know,
it's entirely unique. And immediately this musical
skyrocketed to fame and to popularity. And now the example here is that
while Lin-Manuel Miranda is the playwright, he wrote it, and
he enjoys the success of writing such a smash hit, he also wrote
himself into the musical as the main character, Alexander Hamilton. You know, if you go home and
you fire up your Disney Plus and you pull up Hamilton, like
that musical that you're watching, Lin-Manuel Miranda is playing
Hamilton, but he also wrote the play. And the second example is this.
Fathers, they feel pride when their son smashes a run out of
the park. You know, and fill in the blank
with whatever other example that you want, but the main point
there is that a parent experiences some aspect of glory, some aspect
of pride in the success of their children. And God the Father
loves God the Son, and the Son loves the Father. And the Son
is concerned for the glory of the Father, and the Father is
concerned for the glory of the Son. And so the Father has purposed
to bring Himself glory by lifting up and exalting Jesus the Son. A couple of verses from the book
of John. that give us this idea is John
chapter 12, 27 through 28. This is Jesus, and he's praying.
Now my soul is troubled, and what shall I say? Father, save
me from this hour? But for this purpose I have come
to this hour. Father, glorify your name. And then a voice came from heaven.
I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again. And then another
verse, John 17. And so the Father is concerned with the
glory of the Son, and the Son is concerned with the glory of
the Father. God created the world through
the power of Jesus. And God somehow holds all of
creation together through the power of Jesus. And he has so
designed it that everything is for Jesus. We read that earlier
in Colossians chapter 1. Everything is for Jesus. And
it wasn't just that way up until the point when Adam sinned in
the garden. You know, God didn't react by
seeing a fallen creation and just quick scramble to throw
together a plan B. No, He didn't turn to the sun
and say, well, you know, they've really screwed it up now down
there. I guess you'd better go down
there and clean this mess up. No! Redemption through Jesus
Christ has always been plan A. Before the foundation of the
world, God gave Jesus Christ a people to save. That he would
come to earth and live a perfectly obedient life under the law and
die a substitutionary death and rise from the grave so that salvation
for his people would be accomplished and that his people would be
rescued. That God the Father could rescue
us from the domain of darkness and transfer us into the kingdom
of the Son that He loves. And that's just what the Father
has done. He's given His Son a kingdom. You know, what better way to
exalt the Son than by giving Him a kingdom? And He set His
Son on the throne. And by his sovereign grace and
through the spread of the gospel, he is filling that kingdom with
would-be king-haters who are now king-worshippers. It's amazing. So that was Christ's first place
in God's eternal purpose. God's entire plan of bringing
glory to himself is centered on his son, Jesus Christ. And
now the second point, Christ is first place in the Bible. One of my favorite genres to
read, I'm kind of a nerd, I read a lot, but one of my favorite
genres is biography. You know, I really used to like
reading biographies of different bands. or presidents or old pastors
or whatever. I think it's funny to think about
the criteria for having a biography written about you. I can think
that there's probably two criteria. First, you've probably made it
big. You're really famous and you
just have a lot of people that want to know all about your life. Or the second criteria, you know,
if you don't fit the first one, maybe you're not famous, but
there has to be an author or like one particular person out
there that is just somehow randomly is really, really interested
in your life specifically or has this fixation on your life. And you know, well, those criteria
of Jesus basically fits both of those criteria in a sense
of, and I say this reverentially as well, I'm not trying to make
a joke about this, but Jesus is the most prominent figure
in the history of creation. And not to mention that God does
have a fixation with the Son and that His plan is to glorify
Himself through His Son. And so it makes sense that God's
special revelation to us is a book that's written about his son
Jesus. And of course the gospels are
easy for us to understand how they testify about Jesus. You
know, here's Jesus and he's entered into his ministry and he's going
around preaching about the kingdom of God and he's healing people
and doing miracles and all of these things and teaching. It's
easy for us to understand how the epistles point to Jesus. They are written afterwards and
they point back to him and they're expounding on Jesus. And while those are easier to
understand, it can be a little bit harder for us to understand
how the Old Testament testifies about Jesus. You know, they were
written before him. But as believers, in this new
covenant era. It's amazing for us to look at
the scriptures through New Testament lenses and to look back at the
Old Testament and see what God has done and that He's sovereignly
shaped everything and fit everything together that all points to His
Son. You know, the history was all
shaped by God to bring Jesus Christ, the true seed of Abraham,
into the world in the right place, at the right time, and in the
right way. Not to mention the prophecies.
Oh, the prophecies. How they foretold the future
concerning Christ. How he would be from the tribe
of Judah. How he would receive King David's throne, how he would
be spit upon and beaten, and how he would be silent in the
face of accusations, and how he would spend a season in Egypt,
and how he would ride a donkey into Jerusalem, and so many more. And not only these, but the Old
Testament is filled with all these different shadows and types
of Christ that point to him. You know, what does a shadow
do? What does a shadow do? If I turned around and there's
a really bright light pointing at me, and I was looking back,
I would see this shadow. And I could see the general characteristics. You know, he's got two arms,
two legs right there, about yay tall, big head. You know, I could
see that this is a person. And the shadow, it gives an idea
of the general shape and characteristics of an object without completely
revealing it. And in these Old Testament shadows,
that's what they were doing. They were giving a general shape
and characteristics of Jesus and his work without fully revealing
him. And so we can see in the Old
Testament people. They can be people like Joseph,
or Jonah, or Solomon, or David. They can be objects, like the
bronze serpent, or the manna from heaven, or the water from
the rock, or Jacob's ladder, these different things. They
can be institutions and practices, like the priesthood, or the sacrificial
system, or circumcision. All of these things in the Old
Testament, they point to Jesus Christ in some way or another. And the disciples declared that
Jesus was the one whom the Old Testament foretold. In the book
of John, Philip found Nathanael and told him, we found the one
Moses wrote about in the law and in the prophets, Jesus, the
son of Joseph from Nazareth. And Jesus told the Pharisees
that the scriptures were meant to bring people to him. You know,
in John 5, he told them, you pour over the scriptures because
you think that you have eternal life in them. And yet they testify
about me. But you're not willing to come
to me so that you may have life. What a convicting thing for us
as believers who are all about reading our Bibles. We're people
of the book and we really value the time that we spend in the
Word. But the time that we spend in the Word, are we going there
with the intent of seeing Christ, of having communion with Christ? On the road to Emmaus, Jesus
gave two disciples the key to reading the Bible. The key that
we would do well to use ourselves. It says, then, beginning with
Moses and all the prophets, a.k.a. the Old Testament scriptures,
he interpreted for them the things concerning himself in all the
scriptures. You know, there's a pastor in
Franklin, Tennessee who I listen to frequently. And he had a couple
messages recently that I listened to about how the scriptures,
they point to Christ. And he says that he always tells
his people this, that we're a people of the book. And now this Bible,
it's not just any book. This is a hymn book. A hymn book. No, not a hymn book, H-Y-M-N,
but a hymn book, H-I-M, because it's all about him. And I just love that. I think
that that is so great. As people of the book, we long
for God's word. We need it. We desire to know
what he's said. And our lives and routines can
get so dry when we forget that this thing is about Jesus. It's
like going to a creek day after day for a nice drink of cool,
soothing water. But day by day the creek dries
up bit by bit until one day you show up and there's barely a
trickle left. And you're thirsty. That's what
I feel like when I come to this book with no intent to commune
with God and to worship Jesus. It just feels dry. It feels dry
and it feels like moralistic folk tales, you know? But when you remember that the
design of every single part of this book is to point to the
living Savior, you show up, and the creek is flowing, and it's
cold, and it's refreshing, and you kneel down, and you drink
the words of God, and you find nourishment from the promises
that God has for you through Jesus Christ, and you leave full. Yep, that's what we want. That's
what we want. We want to eat from the written
word and we want to drink from the incarnate living word, Jesus
Christ. Christ has first place in the
Bible. Now let's finish with Christ's
first place in gospel preaching. One reason why the Book of Acts
is great to look at is because it shows the reaction of Christ's
disciples to the crucifixion and resurrection. We look at
the disciples and we see their zeal, their boldness, their love
for each other. And another thing that we notice
is their preaching. It's really apparent that Jesus
Christ is the center of their preaching. You know, who he was,
why he came, where he is now. You can't miss it. And for us
today, why would it be any different? All preaching should be gospel
preaching. And all gospel preaching should
be centered on Jesus Christ because he is the substance of the gospel. You know, and if we're preaching
from the Bible, we already went over that Christ is the center
of the Bible. He's the message of the Bible.
And so Christ is the substance of the Bible and he's the substance
of the gospel. And so preaching should be preaching
Christ and Christ crucified. I recently heard this story about
Charles Spurgeon, how he had, you know, during his ministry,
he had that little pastor's college that he had started. You had
young men who were aspiring towards the ministry and this gave them
a chance to write sermons and to preach and to take lessons
from Spurgeon and just to gain experience that way. This story is about one young
man in particular. They were at one of these meetings
and this young man preached the message and all of his colleagues
are there and they're listening and Spurgeon is in the back listening.
This young man finishes his sermon and everybody else is kind of
getting up and packing up to leave and they're filing out.
Charles Spurgeon has stayed behind and this young man sees this
as an opportunity and he goes up to Spurgeon and he asks him,
Mr. Spurgeon, what did you think
of my message? What did you think about my delivery,
my content, my point? All of those things, what did
you think? Spurgeon was, blunt guy he didn't he didn't
beat around the bush and he definitely didn't beat around the bush in
this instance but Spurgeon told the young man well I didn't like
the sermon there wasn't enough Christ in your sermon and you
know probably somewhat defensively the young man responds Well,
my text, my text, Christ wasn't in my text. If Christ had been
more apparent in the text, then I would have paid better dues
to bring him out and to put him forward, but he wasn't in my
text and I wanted to be faithful to what the Bible says. And I
think a very wise response from Spurgeon here that shows his
understanding of this. He replied, Listen young man,
we are preachers. And preachers of the gospel,
it's our job to find Christ in the passage. And to bring the
audience to Christ from that passage. And I just love that
response. I love that response from Spurgeon
because he's basically teaching that all the paths in the Bible
lead to Christ. How you can get to Christ from
every passage in the Bible in some way testifies about Jesus. And thinking about the preaching
today, You know, you gotta think that that path from Judges to
Christ, or Deuteronomy to Christ, it's gotta be pretty dusty. A
dusty path, you know? Or how about Zephaniah? Almost
non-existent. Even in the commands of the New
Testament, they can so easily be divorced from God's grace
to us in Jesus, that they become a legalism in and of themselves
if there's no path to Christ and God's grace. The preacher's
job is to put Christ in front of the congregation. Preaching
from the Bible is like Moses hanging up the bronze serpent
in front of Israel. You know, he's reaching down
and finding the different parts of the rod and he grabs this
part over here and connects it to this part and then You know,
you've got the pole, and then it takes the snake and attaches
it and sticks it on, lifts it up and holds it out in front
of him, and there it is. My hometown pastor, Joe Terrell,
told me this, that preaching Christ is like painting a portrait.
You've got all your brushes, you've got all your paints, and
you're going about your business, but you're not lifting up the
brush and exalting in it. You're not lifting up the brush
and lifting up the paint to everybody and saying, look at this. Isn't
this amazing? Aren't you just captivated by
this brush? Ultimately, the goal is to flip
the canvas over and say, look, there he is. There he is. And I just want to add a little
bit of nuance for the sake of clarity in what I'm not trying
to say. I'm not trying to say that we
just go through the Bible and try to make all of these willy-nilly,
unnecessary connections to Christ that may or not be there. Like,
oh, obviously David's sling is a picture of Christ, and the
stones in the sling are a picture of Christ, and whatnot. We don't have a magic eight ball
that is stuck on the word Christ. No, we do careful work, we do
careful exegesis, where we work our way through passages, and
we work our way through books, and we pay careful attention
to the context, to the history, to the grammar, to what point
it is in God's plan of redemption. And with all of those things,
we're very careful to present what the author meant. Right? But I guess the point that I'm
putting forth here is that as we do those things, there is
a path to Jesus, and the goal of the preaching is to bring
people face to face with Jesus, to walk down that path. We want
to present Christ in all of his glories, and we want to present
the gospel in all of its glory. And I've heard that gospel preaching
is just telling the truth. I think this was from an old
pastor, Henry Mahan, who had heavy influence on my hometown
pastor, Joe Taro, but he said that preaching the gospel is
telling the truth about four things. You're telling the truth
about God, how God is almighty, how he's creator of everything.
how he's completely sovereign, how he's in control, how he's
holy, how he's completely set apart from us, how he's not like
us, how he's all powerful, how he's all knowing, how he's everywhere,
all of these glories, the truth about God in all of his glory. And it's telling the truth about
mankind. How mankind, we've been created
in God's image and how that means that every single person has
inherent value and inherent dignity and inherent worth because we've
been made in the image of God. That is such an important truth
for times like these. But while we've been made in
the image of God, at the same time, mankind is a fallen race. We're a fallen race in Adam because
he fell into sin. And that means that every person
since then has been born with a sinful nature. How we are inherently inclined
towards sin. How we want to sin. We're in
bondage to sin. How we love to sin. How we do things to do what we
want to do. We want to take the shackles
that God lays on our shoulders, or that's the way that we see
it. We want to do everything that we can to remove God from
the picture so that there's no accountability. There's nobody
that we're accountable to, that we run our own lives, that we
can do whatever we want. And we sin against God in all
of these ways because we've been created to walk in communion
with Him. We've been created to have a
peaceful relationship with Him, but our sin separates us from
God. We need a Savior because of our
sinful nature. We need a Savior because our
sin merits punishment. Because God is a just God. And he needs to carry out justice,
and he needs to punish sin, because God is the standard of goodness.
Everything about God is good. He's never done wrong. There's
not a single thing that's wrong with God. And if God is all that's
good, then anything that's contrary to Him, and anything that's done
contrary to Him, merits punishment. And that punishment, it's eternal
punishment. Because we've sinned against
an infinite and holy God and so our sin warrants an eternity
of punishment in a place called hell. The Bible describes hell
as a place of everlasting fire, of outer darkness, of a place
of crying and grinding of teeth, of eternal suffering and torment. And that is the place where those
who don't know Jesus Christ will pay for their sins against our
holy and righteous God. It's very serious. It's a... What a fate. We need a Savior. But gospel preaching is also
telling the truth about Jesus Christ, how He is a Savior, that
we have a Savior. That in God's love and in his
mercy, he sent his son Jesus to the earth. How he was born
of a virgin. How he didn't have a sinful nature.
How Jesus was just like us, except he knew no sin. How he was completely pure in
mind and in heart. How He never had a sinful thought,
a sinful act, a sinful intention. How His mind was completely pure,
how His heart was pure. How He was completely obedient
to His Father. He's the perfect man, the God-man. And He came and He lived a perfectly
obedient life. And then He went to the cross.
And He let wicked men hang Him up on the cross and crucify Him. And He did that. And He offered
up that perfect spotless life as a sacrifice to His Father. So that He and He alone could
be the perfect substitute for sinners. How He could be the
perfect substitute for sinners. There's nobody else in all of
history that would do except for Jesus Christ and His perfection,
the spotless Lamb of God. Gospel preaching is telling the
truth about salvation, how salvation is of the Lord, how salvation
is the Lord's, how He accomplished it. how Jesus willingly gave
up that life on the cross, how he willingly took that punishment
of God's wrath that the sins of his people warranted, and
in doing so, completely paid for those sins, completely paid
the price that we deserve, that price that we could not pay. The salvation is of the Lord,
and Jesus accomplished it, and he rose again from the grave,
showing that he had forever defeated sin and defeated death. Those two great enemies that
we should be worried about the most, Jesus defeated them when
he rose from the grave. And then he ascended into heaven,
where he now sits at the right hand of the Father. with all
authority and all power, and he holds salvation in his hand
so that whoever would come to him would be forgiven. Whoever
would come to him would be given eternal life. What a glorious truth. that Jesus
Christ now sits in heaven and he mediates for us, he prays
for us, he ministers for us, he is our high priest in heaven. What a glorious truth, and this
is what unbelievers need to hear. The gospel is the power of God
for salvation. How can they believe without
hearing about him? And so faith comes from what
is heard, and what is heard comes through the message about Christ.
They need to hear about Christ because that's what they're going
to be judged by. John 3, 18 says anyone who believes
in him is not condemned, but anyone who does not believe is
already condemned because he's not believed in the name of the
one and only Son of God. See, that's the standard that
people will be judged by whether or not they believed in the name
of Jesus. So that's what gospel preaching
calls people to do. And some might say, well, if
you believe that salvation is completely of the Lord, then
how can you call on believers to come to Christ? How can you
call them to come to Christ? And you know, I do believe that
salvation is of the Lord. I do. Unless the Holy Ghost calls
somebody, they're not going to be humbled. They're not going
to see their need for Christ. They're not going to see Jesus
as beautiful. And they're not going to have
faith. I've heard it said, dead men
don't walk out of the tomb until Jesus tells them to, you know.
But at the same time, preaching the gospel is repent, believe. Repent and believe, for the kingdom
of God is at hand. We see that so clearly in the
book of Acts. We see Jesus himself say, all
who the Father gives to me will come to me. And my sheep hear
my voice and they follow me. But also, Jesus said, all who
come to me I will never cast out. And come to me all who are
weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. It seems like two sides of the
same coin. We can plead with unbelievers,
my friends. We can plead with unbelievers
to repent and to believe the gospel because we can trust that
the Holy Spirit will do only the work that he can do. Only
the Spirit can bring somebody from death to life. Only the
Spirit can impart spiritual life and bring about the new birth. Only the Holy Spirit can give
somebody faith to embrace Christ, to cling to Christ, to throw
themselves at the mercy of God, and to believe that Jesus Christ
is the only Savior. Only the Holy Spirit can do those
things. And we are called to be faithful
and to call people to repentance and to faith in Christ and to
share that gospel with them. We can say, my friend, Jesus
came to die for sinners like you and like me. It doesn't matter
who you are. It doesn't matter what you've
done. If you come to him, he will save
you. It doesn't matter how dirty you
are. He could wash you clean from the top of your head to
the tips of your toes. It doesn't matter how heavy that
burden on your shoulder is. He's strong enough to take it
off of you. If you have guilt, if you have
shame, He could remove it and throw it away as far as the east
is from the west. There's only one Savior who came
for sinners. There's only one Savior that
died for sinners. There's only one Savior who rose
again and now lives for sinners. Won't you turn from your sin
and trust Him? You know, that gospel is edifying
to us believers too. You know, unbelievers and believers
need to hear it. Isn't it amazing that we have
a Savior like that? If you're in Christ today, you
know that He's done that for you. He paid the price for your
sins. He's washed you clean. He's taken
off your burden. He's thrown off your guilt and
shame. He lives and prays and mediates
for you. You're on His mind. You're on
His heart. And guess what? You'll be with
Him. When you pass from this life
to the next, you'll be with Him and you're going to get to thank
Him and hug Him and talk to Him and live with Him and praise
Him. What wonderful love of Christ. What a wonderful love of the
one and only Savior who would do that for us. You know, when I go to church,
I don't want an appetizer that's a funny story to warm up the
crowd, you know, with a first course of context and then followed
up by a big old helping of a moral story and then finally chased
by a little dessert that's a little gospel presentation tacked on
to the end. You know, if that's the preaching,
I'm going to starve. I'm going to starve. Give me
Jesus. Give me Jesus. He's the one that
I need. Lift up the scriptures and tell
me about His glory. Tell me about His mercy and grace
that He has for sinners like me. That's what I need. That's
what I need to hear. Oh, I need to hear about that
Savior. That's who everybody needs to
hear about. You know, if I'm going to err
on one side or another in ministry and preaching, I want to err
on the side of lifting up Jesus in everything because He's first
place in everything. And so I hope that that message
today sheds a little bit of light and encourages us in Christ's
first place in God's eternal purpose and Christ's first place
in the Bible and Christ's first place in gospel preaching.