I want you to realize this part
of the. Part of our theology, if you will, when it comes to
our. Regulatory principle, you don't know what that means, that
means what regulates our worship. What do you think? How is it
that the church is supposed to worship God? Where do we go to
what to what source do we look when we look to the Word of God?
The Word of God is to regulate the worship of God's people.
The gathering of the saints in worship every week is not so
that the world can look in and be drawn, but so that the church
can come and praise a God who sits on high. Fellowship, it's
not why we gather on Sundays so we can hang out and rub elbows,
though it may happen in small, small pockets and it may happen
in a short, short moment. But we come together in masses
across this great world on the Lord's Day to worship him together,
for it is the only thing that God is seeking. Worship. Worship. He's seeking, according
to John 4, those who worship him. He's seeking worshipers
who worship him in spirit and in truth. And friends, when we
sing music, when we sing lyrics to songs, we allow the word of
God and we purpose to let the word of God lead every aspect
of everything that we do. So as we think of being before
the throne of God with a strong and perfect plea, the reason
we have a strong and perfect plea is because there's a great
high priest whose name is love, who bled, who forever lives and
pleads for me, because he bled and he died. substitutionary
atonement, the doctrines of Christ, the doctrine of God, theology. We have all these nice cool words.
Doctrine means teaching. Theology is the study of God.
So when we learn scripture, when we worship together as God's
people, we are learning doctrinally theology, the study of God. Therefore,
now, if we want to see God fully, we understand that that teaching
of Christ, the doctrines of Christ, teaches us the fullness of God. So whether we're singing it or
hearing it or saying it or teaching it or learning it, we are doing
what we do every Lord's Day as a whole, as a group, to the praise
of His glorious grace. We're not here to do anything
for any other purpose. Friends, lost people cannot worship
God. Unbelievers cannot worship God.
People who are coming to anything but Christ cannot worship God.
In John 6, those who followed Jesus across the sea to Capernaum
because of the great power that He displayed in feeding them
out of a sack lunch. They did not follow Christ because
their hunger was for Christ. They followed Christ because
their hunger was what Christ gave them. The temporal, perishing
bread of the body. People say, well, every church
has a different methodology. Well, you shouldn't. We have misconstrued evangelism. We have distorted the gospel.
We have placated to a popular Americanized society and said
that it's doing worship. Friends, we can sing all the
songs we want to and say we're worshiping God. All we're doing
is experiencing some kind of a break psychologically inside
of our heart, and we're thinking that we think that that's the
Spirit of God. We feel warm. We feel fuzzy. We feel convicted.
We feel all these emotions, and we cling to the feeling. And
the endorphins that are caused will cause the emotions in our
body. And we think that that is an experience with power and
divinity. And friends, let me tell you
something. That is weak. Because I've had greater physical experience
through food poisoning. Never had it? Try it sometime.
You'll think God's in charge of that. You'll think it's judgment. And there's a lie. There's a
lie when we think this way, that we say that the church should
be seeking to seek seekers. You know who the seekers of God
are? His children. We who sit in this room looking,
we came today to seek out to the face of God through his word,
to seek out to the face of God through worship together corporately. There's none who seeks after
God, no, not one. Paul says in Romans, there's
an amazing grace that saves us. the beauty of the Lord. We don't
live for ourselves. We don't want to self-glory,
but we want to live for the glory of Christ, because that's what
God has done in His power through the gospel. He's taken us who
were dead and unable and effectively to come to Him, and He's resurrected
us to the newness of life in Christ Jesus. And by faith, we've
received the gospel of Christ. But friends, I'm tired of hearing.
Countless people who were led to a Christless cross. To a Christless
gospel, that's no gospel at all. Imagine that. Imagine how good
it feels to see people Pied Piper follow us straight through hell,
straight to hell. And tell them that it's glorious
salvation. Well, sometimes God saves people
through these means. No, God saves people in spite
of these means. God saves people in spite of
it. God saves us in spite of bad doctrine. God saves us in
spite of poor practice. God saves us in spite of idolatry.
God saves us against our morality. Jesus Christ died on the cross
to stop morality. To cease it. Not to establish
it and usher it into a world. Morality is condemning. Self-righteousness
is death. Only the righteousness of Christ
affects any salvation. Only the righteousness of Christ
and the holiness of God stands before God, pleasing to his eyes. Only the work of God is satisfactory
as a fragrant offering to the nose of God. So I guess the question
is, is the gospel that we preach and is the gospel that we know
the work of God? that satisfies him or the gospel
that we know our work satisfies us. It's a huge, huge problem. We're not talking about differences
in doctrinal positions, we're talking about either we see the
Bible as it is written in God's great goodness and love, and
we understand the love of God as it is established to us through
Jesus Christ, or we do not understand it at all. What motivates somebody to talk
about this kind of stuff? In terms of 2nd Corinthians chapter
5. Paul starts 2nd Corinthians chapter 4, 3,
2, 1 from the beginning. From this point, from 5, he's
already said that there is a There is an unapologetic, unwavering,
rock-solid foundation of boldly proclaiming the truth of the
gospel to the world. And the question is posed, well,
what about those who cannot see? and do not believe. Should not
we do something to draw them to the attractiveness of Christ?
Let me ask you something. How aggravating is it when you
get a flyer in the mail that says we've got a gallon of milk
for fifty cents, minimum or maximum five gallons per household, and
you get there and there's not one gallon left. But while you're
there, why don't you just buy a bunch of other junk? You don't
want the other junk. You want the cheap milk. But
we've got the top brand right off the cow. She's out there.
She's right there. It's the best milk that you can
buy. Seven dollars a gallon. I don't want seven dollars a
gallon of milk. I came for 50 cents a gallon of milk. Where are you getting that? When
we lure people to something other than Christ, we're luring them
to something that they want. And then when they get there
and they see that it's not there and then we shove Christ, you
think they care about that? No. And Paul says we do not practice
cunning or tamper with the Word of God or twist it or do anything
that manipulates or draws, but by bold statement of the truth,
we stand before you with our conscience clear before you and
for God. And if our gospel is veiled,
it is only veiled to those who are perishing. For the God of
this world has blinded the eyes of unbelievers to keep them from
seeing the glory of the gospel of Jesus Christ. For God, who
said, Let light shine out of darkness, has shone in our hearts
to give us the knowledge, the light of the knowledge of the
glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ, who is the image of God. But what we proclaim is not of
ourselves, but of Christ Jesus, our Lord, with ourselves as your
slaves, for your sake, for Jesus' sake, who God said, then let
light shine on darkness. And he says, we have this treasure
in jars of clay so that it may show and prove that the unsurpassing
power belongs to God and not to us. For we are afflicted.
We are crushed. We're abandoned. We're hated.
We're being given over to death. But yet we're alive. We're not
struck down. We're not destroyed. We're not
driven to despair. We are alive, though we die. We live. This is Paul's argument
going into chapter five. This is it. This is some of my
favorite stuff. You can't tell. This is nothing but a momentary
light, momentary affliction that is preparing us for an eternal
wake of glory beyond all comparison. And so we live in a tent, Paul
says in chapter five, and this tent is a temporal tent. It's
our earthly tent, and it is going to be destroyed. If not by just
disease and famine, it's going to be destroyed by our enemies
who hate the cross of Christ, for it is a stumbling block.
It is an offense. But we hold fast, humbly, to
the rock of offense. He tells these Corinthians, our aim is to please God. In
verse 10 of chapter 5, look at it, it says, for we must all
appear before the judgment seat of Christ so that each one may
receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether
good or evil. Therefore, verse 11, with the
judgment of God, Romans 1, for the judgment of God, for the
judgment of God is coming against all the unrighteousness of men
who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. You know
what that means? There's no such thing as an unbeliever who says
there is no God. There's an unbeliever who says
there is a God and they don't care. Evangelism is not about helping
people see the reality of Christ. Well, I've never thunk it. You
don't care. When that was shown to me through
the reading and the study of Scripture by the Holy Spirit,
let me tell you, it transformed my life. It gave me freedom and
it gave me a zeal that is really unmeasured to any place else
in my life. And let me show you what it did
for Paul. Therefore, knowing the fear of the Lord, we persuade
others. So this is a self-serving, not
self-serving, this is a multi-serving message today. First, it's a
message to talk about why we evangelize. and how we evangelize
and to what end we evangelize and what the evangelist is going
to clarify some things. Well, that's a lot. Trust me. We persuade others, look at verse
11, which is read all the way through six one. Here we go.
Knowing the fear of the Lord, we persuade others. But what
we are is known to God, and I hope it is known also to your conscience.
We are not commending ourselves to you again, but giving you
cause to boast about us so that you may be able to answer those
who boast about outward appearance and not about what is in the
heart. For if we are beside ourselves, it is for God. If we are in our
right mind, it is for you. For the love of Christ controls
us, because we have concluded this, that one has died for all,
therefore all have died. And he died for all, that those
who live might no longer live for themselves, but for him who
for their sake died and was raised. From now on, therefore, we regard
no one according to the flesh, even though we once regarded
Christ according to the flesh, we regard him thus no longer.
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old
is passed away. Behold, the new has come, and
this is from God, who, through Christ, reconciled us to himself
and gave us the ministry of reconciliation. That is, in Christ, God was reconciling
the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against him
and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. Therefore,
we are ambassadors for Christ. God making His appeal through
us. We implore you on behalf of Christ,
be reconciled to God. For our sake, He made Him to
be sin who knew no sin, so that in Him we might become the righteousness
of God. Working together with Him, then,
we appeal to you not to receive the grace of God in vain. Now, there's a lot there. But I want
you to see something. I want you to see that starting
in verse 11, there's therefore. I want you to see in verse 13,
there's the word for. I want you to see in verse 14,
there's the word for. I want you to see now, 16, from
now on, therefore. I want you to see 17, therefore.
Verse 20, therefore. What does that mean? What's it there for? It's a formula. This is true. Therefore, this
happens. Therefore, that's true. Therefore,
this happens. And because this is true, therefore,
this happens. These are causation, causation,
that what you read causes what you're about to read, causes
what you're about to read, causes what you're about to read. That's the point of their force. It's because this is true, then
therefore, this happens. So let's look at it for a second.
If we're going to understand evangelism, we're going to understand
the gospel, we're going to understand what it is that we do. When we
come together as the church, we're not looking to fill the
seats with unbelievers. Because they can't worship. But
although the gospel is for the sake of the lost, it's for the
church. The Word of God was written to
the church, not to the lost, but through the hearing of the
Word written to the church, the lost become the church. You see
how that works? And so there's no prescription
of man entirely in the Word of God for evangelism or mission,
which are the same thing. Same thing. Missions is evangelism. Crafts, critters, construction
and the like, catering is not missions. It's not missions. If the Bible isn't taught to
the ears of a people, it is not missions. It is madness. It is
evil. It is hate. It is wickedness. But at the same time, we love
you. Let me drink my water while you
thirst for that. Jesus died for your sins. That's
wicked too. So what does Jesus say? When you saw me hungry, you fed
me. Somebody thirsty gave me water. You visited me in prison
when I was sick. You tended to me. When did we
do this? When you did it under the least
of these, my brethren, you did it under me. I'm not saying one always comes
with the other. Does that make sense? Why do we evangelize? Why did
Paul do it? Verse 11, knowing the fear of
the Lord, we persuade others. This is Paul's clear understanding
that all people will stand before God as the holy and righteous
judge of the universe, that God will then give a deserved justice
to every person that's ever lived and ever will live. God will
right and reconcile the wrongs of wickedness and sinfulness.
And sin, by the way, is the act of sin, is the condition of sin,
is the attitude of sin. Not just the acts. We're not
Pelagians. We don't believe that men are
born morally upright and then they choose to sin against God.
It's because we are sinners in our heart that we decide to lie.
When do we learn to lie? About ten months old. Our little nine-month-old has
learned that if she makes a mad face or a sad face, she gets
attention. Even when she's funny. She's about to cry and then we
go get her, she'll just grin. She just started doing that this
week. That's deception. Now she's not thinking I'm going to lie
to my mom and dad. It's just natural. Hey, when I cry, they
get me and give me what I want. So though I'm not upset, I'll
pretend I am and I'll get that. And it worked for a few days.
And then we realized she's lying to us. Selflessness is not, we
don't sit down with our children at about the age of three and
say, OK, now this is yours and don't let anybody touch it. And
when they touch it, slap them and say or bite them. We don't,
we don't teach kids that. They know it automatically. And
for a child, probably about a year old, by the time they're walking
and able to pick up what they've been wanting and lusting after
for the first 12 months of their life, they're able to go over
there and when they can get their hands on it, take it away from
them and watch what happens. They go, no, that's mine. It's
one of the first words of the mama and dada that they learn.
Mine. Mine. And what's crazy is I don't
ever remember using that word in the context of raising any
of my children. Do y'all? Never. It just comes, doesn't
it? Where do they learn that? It's not like they're getting
up late at night and watching some crazy, learn how to be selfish
videos. The first word of your mind,
say that and snatch. That's how it works. It just
comes. Why? Because that's the heart of humanity. And Paul knows. He lived his
whole life holy and righteous and above reproach. He even confesses
in the New Testament, according to the law, I am absolutely perfect. I followed it to the T and not
one person could follow me around and say that I didn't. Now, could
we do that? Could we put our life on the
line? So if Paul says he can put his life on the line through
scrutiny and say that everything that he'd ever done has been
in line with the law of God, But he says it's worthless and
nothing because that is a moralism that does not hold mustard to
holiness. Because even in his art, he confesses
in Romans, he coveted. You couldn't see it. It wasn't
there, but his life was exemplary and even content in the context
of this text. He talks about it. There are
those who walk it and live it, but it's not about what we look
like. It's about who we are inside that which God knows about us.
People can look on the outside, but God knows the heart. This
is the conviction that Paul had, and he knew there were a lot
of moral people. But they were hell bound. And he knew that God was going
to judge everyone. And so it motivated him to persuade others,
to beg others, to call others, hear the word of God, believe
the gospel, believe the good news that Christ has taken your
sins away. Because people know they're sinners. And this produces a clear reality
in Paul's mind that he's not concerned with what men think
of him and the thoughts of how people look at him. It's not
causing him to give much thought at all to what other people might
say about how they feel about him. He doesn't care. Look at
this. But what we are is known to God, and I hope it is known
also to your conscience. We are not commending ourselves
to you again. But giving you cause to boast
about us so that you may be able to answer those who boast about
outward appearance and not about what is in the heart. They don't
care what people think. And they say we're crazy. They
say, look, Paul and those disciples, those apostles, they're nuts.
They're weirdos. They're mad. They're not to be
followed. Look how polite and politically
correct we are. Look how focused we are. Look
at our lives and look at their lives. They're going and running
around from city to city being chased off, getting arrested.
Is that the kind of people you want to follow? Is that the kind
of pastor you want? The one that's always in jail?
He's just a troublemaker. Don't worry about what people
say about me, Paul says, because God knows me. And if God knows
you, your conscience will bear witness that you know me." Now
we're in 1 John. Our fellowship will be with each
other. Verse 12. Paul is saying that God knows
them in their hearts. And in verse 13, the Greek word
there is existemens. It means outside of man, outside
of the man, outside of the one. And if you were to translate
it, what it does is it actually would say or come to a place of being crazy. Someone thinking
that you're crazy. So when he says this in verse
13, he says, for if we are beside ourselves, that means if we are
crazy, it is for God. Now, there's a
lot of different rules and thoughts and things. I particularly think
it means the following. That there was a deal with Paul
and the apostles that violated the politically correct ideals
of his day. That fought against the institution
of normality and society. And people looked at him and
the others and they thought he was crazy. Why are you doing
this? Why are you preaching this stuff?
And everywhere you go, you preach and people try to kill you. You're
crazy. Isn't that crazy? Why not just
get you a nice house with a fence and a dog and a couple of kids
and just settle down? Plant you a respectable ministry. Be well thought of by everybody. Because isn't that what the Bible
says? That the elders should be well
thought of. by his own people and in the
context of, yes, not being a jerk. They thought he was crazy. But
he can't help himself, for he's in his right mind for the sake
of the church, so he can preach and empower them to continue
the work of reconciliation, which is the gospel. And so what does
he say? Look at verse 14. For the love of Christ controls
us. Some texts say compels us because
we have concluded this. This one Christ has died for
all. Therefore, all have died. Verse
14. And we'll talk about that briefly.
What is the love of Christ? It isn't saying my love for Christ. He says the love of Christ. There
is a possessiveness of the love and it belongs to whom? Christ.
It belongs to Jesus. He's talking about the love that
Jesus has for him compels him. Now let's look at the word compels
in just a moment. This verse is often taken wrongly
to mean that Paul had a love for Jesus that compelled him.
No, that's not what it says. Even in plain English it doesn't
say that. It says the love that belongs to Christ controls us. So the love of Christ, meaning
the love that Christ has, Christ's love for the apostles controls
them, rules them, governs them, compels them. You want to get
a better illustration? It means constrained without
veering. There you go. The love that Jesus
has for me constrains me to a path that I cannot step away from.
And that path is a path to proclaim the gospel, to compel others
to believe in the good news that God has reconciled them to himself. And Christ's love has seen it
would be improper for me to just to keep on preaching that and
make this sort of a self-serving lesson about how we ought to
be evangelistic. We know that. We don't need guilt to compel
us to evangelize. We need to see the love of Christ
for us. Well, what does it say? Because we've concluded that
one has died for all, that Christ has died for all. Therefore,
all that Christ has died for have died. That's what that says. So the love of Christ is seen
and that he's died for all and all have died. What does that
mean? That means we who are in Christ have died. as Christ has
done. We've done. Christ died and therefore
what did he do? Took to death? Sin? Therefore
we have done. You might think, that's a stretch.
Well, it would be if I didn't have the rest of this passage.
It would be. Because if you look right over
there, after this, he says, verse 16, we don't regard anyone accordingly.
We used to look at Jesus through fleshly means. And now we realize
that was just stupid. Now we see Him for who He is. So if anyone's in Christ, he's
dead because the old man is dead and the new has come. But see,
this is the point. This is not a universal text.
It's not universalism. He died for all so that those
who live would live for him. Look at that. Verse 15, And he
died for all that those who live might no longer live for themselves,
but for him who for their sake died and was raised. So Christ
died for all who died with him so that those who he died for,
all of them, may live always for him. All of them. Christ's
life is our life. Christ's death is our death. Christ's life is our life. Why
didn't Paul say it like that? He did. He just wanted to build
the argument in such a way that it couldn't be mistaken. That's
why a pretext is very dangerous. The context of his writing is
essential to understand it. If you're if you're baking something,
if you're cooking something, you never get the page through
the recipe and it just sits there in a bowl for three days. It's
never going to be ready. You got to keep you got to pre
the oven and put it in, let it come in. You got to take it out
before it burns. You got to eat it. So we eat the word God in
this way, we understand. So we see that Christ's love
is seen in that he died, then putting to death the sin in us.
And then he's alive, raised alive, therefore giving us a new life.
Look, the result of Christ's love, verse 16. Therefore, we
regard no one according to the flesh. We used to regard Christ
according to the flesh. We regard him thus no longer.
So we no longer see Christ as just a man. We no longer see
him as a brother that's just hanging around with us. We no
longer see him as just this guy who's really loving and affectionate.
Isn't that what the disciples, after he died, they left, they
fled. They're like, great, he's gone, it's over. And then John went to the crucifixion.
And then after the ascension, the disciples weren't even at
the cemetery waiting. They weren't even at the tomb. The women were there. to continue
to preserve the body. It wasn't like they were waiting
for Him to come out either. You see, how we think, if Jesus
were with us with the knowledge that we have, with the vision,
with the clarity that we see the gospel now, if He were with
us and we had that same clarity and He was crucified, we'd just
hang out at the tomb. Any minute now, they regarded
Him in the flesh. He's dead. It's over. But now
that he's been raised alive, we don't see him in the flesh
any longer. We see him as he is. We know him. So Christ's revealing. Christ's
love. The result of Christ's love is
that he gives revelation that he is the God of heaven. That
he's been raised to life. And not only just has he been
raised to life, not only has he died that we might die with
him, to our sins. But verse 17 is the glorious
power. Therefore, if anyone is alive
in Christ, he's a new creation for the old has died with Christ
and the new has come alive with Christ. This is the gospel. This is the creative power, the
gift of God's grace that everyone can see that Christ not only
reveals the truth, but he establishes in a powerful way the outcome
of the gospel truth. He is the truth. He is the way. He is the life. He is the resurrection. All of it hinges on Him, through
Him, for Him, and by Him. He is the one that brings life
to dead people. He's a new creation. This is
rebirth. The regeneration that God gives
us. It is the gift of God. Look at
verse 18. All this is from God. What? All of that. The fear of
the Lord, the knowledge of sin, the persuasion, the fact that
God knows us. The fact that we know Christ.
The fact that Christ has died so we could die and He lives
so we could live. The fact that we are new creation.
We're a new creature. We see Him as He is. We don't
even look at each other in the flesh anymore. We have a spiritual
sense. We have a spiritual eye. We don't
look and see what we can see with the eyes. We look and see
what God can see through the power of the Gospel. We see a
person who is either struggling to believe or believing fully. And either way, it's the same
sermon. It's the same teaching. It's the same discipleship. It's
the same evangelism. You don't evangelize a lost person
any different than you do a church person. You don't counsel a lost
person any different than you do a person in the fellowship.
You don't come to a person who's walked with Christ their whole
life and give them any more different counsel, any different counsel
than you would the person on the street raising up a sign
that says pro-life. Christ has died, and in Christ's
death, your sins have been carried to the cross, and your sins have
died with Him, and you've been raised alive through the resurrection
of Jesus from the dead. This is good news. Do you believe
it? Do you receive it? Do you understand
that if you do not by faith believe in the satisfactory atonement
of Jesus Christ, you will stand in judgment, and you know it,
and you will be counted guilty. But the good news is that Jesus
took your guilt. Can you see it? That's compulsion,
that's compelling, that is drawing, that is what the gospel preaching
is supposed to do. We spend too much time in the
fodder of debate. We spend too much time in the
working ins and outs of insignificant nuances. We spend too much time
fighting labels that have been wrongly placed on the body of
Christ and the people of God who have the power of God within
them to preach to ignorant, blind, dead men and watch them come
alive. Let's preach. It is a gift of God. He who reconciled
us to himself. Look at that. You see the tense
of that syntax. You see the tense of that word.
It is reconciled with an ed. That means it's done. I might
start hooping for the first time. When Jesus said it is finished,
reconciliation was purchased. It's over. So God gives the finished
work of reconciliation. Then God, with those whom he
has reconciled, gives the ministry of reconciliation, the task of
evangelism, the call of preaching, the call of sharing, the call
of living as a new creature. This is evangelism. Because God
was reconciling the world to Himself. How did He do that? How is the holy God of the universe
that is just and righteous and perfect look at a wicked generation
of humanity and say, I don't count your sins. I just, I reconcile
you to myself. Your sins are forgiven because
I'm just so kind and loving. And that's true. How does He
do it? You know what a false gospel says? You know, you're
looking for purpose. And I know you're having a hard
time and you've been trying to figure out what your life is
worth and what it's meant. You know what? Jesus saw the
worth of your life and he died. Do you want to have fulfillment?
Do you want to have joy? What are we selling? A false
gospel. A false gospel. Who wouldn't
come? The rich young ruler came. How
can I have joy forever? Get rid of your idols and you'll
have me. And he walked away. Get rid of
what you really love and you'll love me. And he said, forget
it. I'm through. How does God do that? By not
counting their sins against them. What does that mean? See, there's
a great exchange that we see a lot of Romans one and three,
but there's a great exchange here. We are guilty. The gospel is you know that you
are guilty before God. You are a sinner and you are
not one doing bad things. You're not one struggling. You're
not one looking for purpose. You are one wicked person who
is guilty before God. And in his righteousness, he
should and will put you in eternal damnation. But. See, that's a beautiful but.
God, who is rich in mercy because of the great love with which
he loved us, made us alive in Christ because
he put us, he put our sins to death with Christ. That's the
gospel. God does not impute our guilt
on us. He took our guilt and he put
it on Jesus. And then he took the righteousness
of God off of Christ and put it on us. Well, I'm just not into learning
doctrine. You're not into being saved then. It's not about the headiness
of the words. But if you have not come to faith
through that, you have not come to faith in Christ. God has reconciled us by not
counting our sins against us. God did not impute our sins of
the guilty upon the guilty, but he gave them to his Son. Jesus
did not become sinful. He took the guilt of sinful people. And he has given this message
of truth to his people to preach it, this good news. Verse 19. gave us the ministry of reconciliation,
that is, in Christ, God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting
their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message
of reconciliation. Therefore, we're compelled. We're compelled. We're compelled
Because the love of Christ has made us this way, because our
flesh is dead and that which we are is alive and we live in
Christ. And we implore you as ambassadors
of Christ, who is God doing something? What is God doing? Look at verse
20. We implore you to be reconciled to God. This is God making His
appeal through us. That's why other places in Scripture
we see that people reject the Gospel. We are clearly taught
that it's not a rejection of us. It's a rejection of God. It's
a rejection of His words. Friends, When we share the good
news, it needs to be good news. Not somewhat good news, not better
news, but good news, the greatest news. And we cannot preach the
gospel without preaching that God has imputed our sinfulness,
our guilt on holiness. And holiness which we cannot
muster, ever. has been given to us. Be reconciled to God. That's
why it shocks me when people get a little offended in company
when I've asked someone after services before, do you know
that you are hellbound? You are going to suffer the judgment
of God. Do you know you're hellbound?
And I had a pastor touch me on the arm one time and say, that's
a little harsh. We don't want to run him off.
And I said, well, let me rephrase the question. Do you know that
God is going to condemn you forever if you do not believe in Jesus
Christ as your atoning sacrifice? And they got mad. How has the Gospel come except
through that news? The good news is that they know
that there is hope apart from your condition of condemnation.
And His name is Jesus. It's Jesus. There's no hope in
any other name. There's no life in any other
way. There's no truth through any other means. There's no way
to God through any other process. It is only through the body,
the life, the death, the burial, the resurrection of Jesus Christ
who took on sin and gave righteousness. Do you know that God has reconciled
sinners to himself by giving righteousness that is not theirs?
Do you know that? Do you believe in that? Is your
hope in that? Do you have faith that God has
done what he says he's done? Many people will come to faith
for a better way. Many people will respond in faith
to a somewhat subtle gospel to find a Jesus who loves them really
well. But narrow is the gate that leads
to righteousness, and few will find it, because narrow is the
heart and the mind that wants or desires or can see the truth
that they are going to die in their sins. How does God do it? In closing. For our sake. Verse 21. For our sake. In Romans 3 it
says that God put forth Christ as propitiation so that He might
display His righteousness. Now what in the world does that
mean? Righteousness and justice. One and the same. Justice is
righteous. It's right. And God is right
to declare justice against sinfulness and evil, let's call it what
it is, evil, and so God condemns evil. So if God forgave evil
without condemnation thereof, God would be evil and He would
not be righteous. So God put righteousness, Jesus
Christ, God the Son, on the cross to satisfy his judgment against
evil so he could forgive evil by giving the righteousness of
Christ to evil and the evil guilt from the evil to the Holy Son
of God. I've said that ten times already
today. But that is the only gospel. For God so loved the world, and
God loved the world in this way, That whosoever, whoever so believes,
is believing, will not perish. Whoever so is not believing is
condemned already. John 3, 16 and 17. For they have
failed to believe in the Son of God. So here we are. We need to understand
something about some language that might be questioning here.
in our last few moments together. For our sake, he made him to
be sin, who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness
of God. Working together with him, then
we appeal. You see, they never take, Paul
never takes the power or the credit on himself and his ministry. God is speaking through us. God
has sent us. God has given us clarity. God
has given us a conscience. God has given us a new life.
God has given us the words. God has God's message. It's God's
plan. It's God's purpose. It's God's finished work. God
has done it all. And we, together with him, we're
working. Synergism only constitutes the
sense and that which God has created, he uses, which is monergism. Synergism meaning together to
the end, monergism meaning one to the same end. Salvation is
monergistic, not synergistic. God doesn't meet us halfway.
God comes all the way. He saves us through Christ to
be received by faith. But we appeal to you not to receive
the grace of God in vain. What is the grace of God in vain?
The grace of God in vain would look a lot like this in some
sense. Some people would say, especially
up here, That all Christ's one has died for all. Let's look
at it this way. That means every single human
being that ever lived. OK, if that is the case, which I would
say that it's available to every single human being who ever lived.
We preach that. Therefore, all have died. That
means all have died to their sin. That's universalism. Is
that true? No, read the rest. And he died
for all that those who live might no longer live for themselves,
but for him who for their sake and was raised, died and was
raised. Receiving the word of God, the
gospel of God, the grace of God in vain is just coming to a heady
understanding that you can do something in the context of receptions
that's beyond this, that's in addition to faith. What's that
mean? That means if you just come to
an assurance with a faith that's in your faith, you aren't a believer. When you hear the Word of God
and when you compel others, you say, do you hear the gospel? Do you want to be saved from
judgment? Do you want to do you want to
look at Christ and see him fully? You know, you don't really have
to ask that, do you? Because the gospel itself commands
that question, not a bad question, but what do you do in response?
Believe on Christ forever. Believe that gospel, which I
just preached to you, that you might have eternal life, trust
fully forever, ongoing forever. How do I do that? You just do. You either do or you don't. And
this is where people would run away from me right now. Well,
you've got to lead them in something. What? I've led them to the living
water. I'm going to take them back and
give them a sippy cup with something else in it? Well, I know you
want the living water, but don't get too close. It's deep. And
so here's some bottled water I found that might be just as
refreshing. It'll help you see that there
is a living water there. And don't drink from the bottle,
you might get too much. Here, matter of fact, let me put an
eyedropper in your mouth. Friends, we see Jesus in his illustration
of how hell would be. And then the rich man begs for
Lazarus to leave the bosom of Abraham to just touch water to
the tip of his tongue, for he was tormented in the flame. And
that's nothing. Why not drink and drown in the
fullness of the living water of Jesus Christ? They call base jumping. When
you get up on a cliff, a perfectly good, stable cliff, and you just
jump off into the water. Have you ever seen people do
that? Faith in Christ is like that.
That's a metaphor. It's like that. There's no climbing
down the mountain. getting a little water, putting
it in your bag and carrying it around. It's a full seeing and
savoring and knowing that you'll go down to the depths of the
bottom of living water and you'll inhale it and you'll drown and
you will die and you will live. And God has done all of this
for our sake because He loves us. Because He loves us. And the
love of God is seen in this text. The gospel
is about the love of God, that God saves sinners, that Jesus
pays for sins, that God gives holiness to sinners, and that
man therefore has no debt owed to God because Christ has paid
for it. God has called all men to repent
and believe. God has equipped His men to preach
the gospel of grace. And God has saved, and I'm going
to blow your minds, all men. What do you mean by that? I just want
to go ahead and give in to that argument. God is the Savior of
all men. Two ways. There are some men
who live today, and I say mankind, some men who live today who deserve
to die, yet they live, but they will die. And God is gracious
in giving them life today, temporarily. And there are those who live
today who deserve to die, and when they die, they will live.
And those who have been saved eternally. The grace of God is given and
all men see it, but not all men receive it. We preach to all men the grace
of God. And only through preaching will
any man come to faith in Christ. Only through hearing Will God
put hearing ears in their head, and a hearing heart in their
chest, and a hearing soul in their gut? Faith alone in Christ
and through grace, through the Word, through the glory of God
alone saves. Period. Faith alone saves. in the work of God through Christ
for the sake of His name. Faith, then, receives the grace
of God effectively. Any other way is in vain. Have you received the grace of
God by faith? Lord, you are beyond beautiful. This gospel which you have proclaimed
that Jesus was crucified and buried according
to the Scriptures and was raised to life according to the Scriptures, And He calls us and commands
us and equips us and sends us to preach the gospel to all nations
by teaching them His Word. Discipleship is evangelism. The Gospel is good news to the
lost, to the downtrodden, to the burdened, to the dead. The
Gospel is powerfully good news to those who are already saved. And your love for us, God, compels
us, controls us to plead. Lord, stir in us that. Fan the flame of our first love
in us. That good deposit, as Paul talks
about, Lord, would you fan it into flames? Help us to be a holy people for
Your namesake, at peace, speaking peace into the lives of the lost
and into the lives of the church. Father, plant this Word in us.
Plant this Word into the lost around us. Let us see Your mighty
hand at work. You who are reconciling the world
to Yourself in Christ. In His name we pray, Amen.