Finally, be strong in the Lord
and in the strength of his might. Put on the whole armor of God
that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil.
For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against
the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over
this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil
in the heavenly places. Therefore, take up the whole
armor of God that you may be able to withstand in the evil
day, and having done all, to stand firm. Stand therefore,
having fastened on the belt of truth, and having put on the
breastplate of righteousness, and as shoes for your feet, having
put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace." Church,
I want you to focus for just a moment on what you've known
and what you've learned for some of you in the last year. I want
you to consider who you are in Christ and how that's been made
possible and certain by the grace of God. I want you to understand
that your salvation is given to you by God through His Word,
and that you are indeed a new creation. You are not the same
one made better, but a different one made new. You are a new creature. You have been redeemed out of
death and out of darkness, brought into light, given a new heart
to have new affections, given a new mind that you may have
full understanding, given new eyes that you may see the glorious
grace of God through the face of Christ. You've been given
new ears that you might hear the truth and embrace it with
full wisdom and knowledge. You've been given commands that
are not burdensome to you, but rather you rejoice in them, knowing
that the fullness of your righteousness is in Christ alone and in nothing
else, and that out of your worship, in spirit and in truth, you proclaim
the gospel, first to yourself and with your lives, as you worship,
And then also to the world, as you preach the gospel, obeying
the commands and the precepts of Christ, as he said, to go
to all nations and preach the gospel, to preach the gospel,
then make disciples of all nations by teaching them to obey all
that Christ has taught us. Then we also understand that
that great commission or the great commandment to go and make
disciples, that the first act of obedience for all human beings
who are to believe is to believe, to repent, to believe the gospel,
to believe on Christ as the gospel presents him, as the gospel reflects
him. And so we've come here today
to see this phrase that so many times we think, and I know that
I've told you not to do this, but we are thinking this way
because it's just natural. Our brains trick us, our minds
deceive us, and not just in being deceptive because our heart's
deceptive, just the way we operate. The calculations that are going
on in our minds right now, we miss more than we will ever catch. Ever. And so we have this presumptive
ideal of what it means to be honored for the gospel and with
the gospel. And I want to just continue to,
every week, shatter that ideal to help you focus on the reality
that it is indeed God's doing and that He has empowered us
perfectly to withstand and to go forward in this fight. This
is not about our ability. It's not about our knowledge.
It's not about our determination. It's about God's power, which
is greater than all of those things. So I want you to not
consider putting on all of this armor as though it were some
type of discipline or though it was some type of magic that
you could just do. And if you say it the right way
or do it the right way, then you are equipped. It's not the
way it works. I also don't want you to be deceived
in thinking that you're not at war. You're at war at this very
moment, as some of us may even be a little apathetic toward
the idea of hearing this sermon. Some of us may be considering
too much about, let me plant the ideas if you're not, the
heat. Some of you may be considering too much about your fatigue.
Some of you may be thinking too much about what it is that you
have on your plate in life, or at work, or at home. Some of
us may be dealing with the struggles of learning or the struggles
of living. Some of us may be battling sin,
depression, greed, the lust of the eyes, the pride of life,
the pride of possessions. Some of us may be just erroneously
forsaking that which God has commanded us to do perfectly
in His will because we feel somewhere in our spirit that there's something
else we must be doing. That's spiritual warfare. If you ever read anything about
Luther, you know that at one of the darkest times in his life,
he actually picked up an inkwell and he threw it at Satan. That
his spiritual warfare became so manifest in his life that
he actually threw his ink at the wall in his study. And he
let that ink remain there as a reminder of how seriously real
the war is. No, the devil wasn't manifest
in his study. If we were in today and years
ago, if I were to have been asked the question, what do you think,
in what form do you think Satan was in, in the study of Luther's
office, I would have said probably a deacon or two. It was just in his mind, in his
heart, the stress and the fight and the battle. And in his frustration,
he hurled ink. Friends, you may not have been
there yet, but I will promise you as you continue to fight
the battle, if you're in the fight, you will come to a place
where the reality of the spiritual war against you will manifest
in the world in which we live. Now, I'm not talking about Hollywood
ideals of dragons and demons and boogers and things under
the bed and the things that go bump in the dark. I'm talking about
the absolute war within your soul, the war within your mind,
the war within your conscience, the war within your ideals, your
belief system, your worldview and your doctrines, the world,
the war that is with your theology versus that which the scripture
teaches. You are at war. And if you are not battling those
things, you are losing and you are being deceived and you are
not growing. See that? How does that work? That very statement, as dogmatic
as it may seem, can offer battle within you. How do you say that? How do you say that? What do
you mean if I'm not struggling with doctrine? Because doctrine
causes struggle. The gospel is new every day,
friends. If the gospel is not fresh for you, if it's not something
that you must dive into, when you think about the fullness
of God was pleased to dwell, the fullness of deity was pleased
to dwell in Christ who fulfilled the absolute command of God to
be holy, and then he gives us that righteousness as a declaration
of grace to be received by faith. In other words, yes God, you
have done it! If that doesn't struggle in you
to see it and receive it and to be fresh in your heart of
worship every day, you are stagnant in your faith and you are not
worshiping in fresh newness. You are not growing in the grace
of God. You are dying. And larvae of parasites have
planted into the stagnation of your spiritual water. And a cesspool
of just gunk and gook is all that you have to offer. And you
can't even deal with your own emotions, much less look at the
fullness of what it means to worship a God so great. Some of us are thinking, what
the heck is he talking about? Let me just reflect a moment on a
time in my life where my spiritual warfare was greatest. And I came to the realization
that the battle is not done, though the battle is done. I've recently picked up a couple
of collections of Puritan writings, and I realize that that's actually
a doctrine for them. Have, but have not yet. Though it is done, but not done
yet. We are glorified, but not glorified yet. pulled their hearts to such a
degree of knowing that what God was doing was done, but not done,
but done. In such a way, that in itself
is a dichotomy of conscience. That is a struggle. That is a
total war between just dealing with the reality of the false,
much less the fullness and the reality of the truth of it. Now
my brain hurts. Good! Preaching should not be simplistic
to the point that you can stare into your eyelids. The teaching
of God's Word, though simple, should not be so mundanely organized
that the plants begin to yawn. If you're not working in the
truth, you're not working out the truth. Think, church. Listen. Talk! Pray! Push! Stop thinking that it is
okay to just exist and go with what you've always got. Because
friends, nothing else in all of creation does that. The birds
don't do it. The storms don't do it. Cars
don't do it. And our bodies don't do it. But
for some reason, our spiritual bodies, we seem to think that
we got it then and we're fine now. That's not OK. Some of you may go, what is he
talking about? Well, let me just share with you a point in my
life. I'll read from a collection of journal entries that I've
even posted in years past. I was talking specifically in
this particular entry about burnout, because as a pastor, that's what
I thought I was experiencing. I'm sick of this junk. I'm tired
of this. I'm tired of the people. I'm tired of the stuff. I'm tired
of the power going out and it being too hot and it being too
noisy and deacons in my office and elders in my office. I'm
tired of it. I don't want to deal with it anymore. I'm sick of
this. Home's a wreck. Life's a wreck. Car's a wreck.
This is a wreck. And you're supposed to walk in
on Sunday morning and go, Oh, praise Jesus. Hug and shake and
you're just faking it. And what you want to do is die.
What you want to do is have somewhere this magnificent Moses moment
where a bush goes, whoo, and everything's fine. Well, look,
when Moses saw that bush, it just started to get worse for
him. So if you want a miracle of God
manifesting absolute revelation to you, go keep praying, but
don't think it's going to give you a life of escalation. And
what I mean by that is like an escalator. It's not going to
roll you up to the cell department. It's going to grab you by the
throat and sling you around in a merry-go-round with untamed
mustangs and no chains. But all the while, all that thing
seems like the Tasmanian devil on drugs. God's going to have
you in His hands. And the purpose of his decree
and his providence and his sovereignty in your life will be absolute.
And you will worship him if you are his. Even when you forsake
him yesterday, he will return you to his heart today. So I
thought I was burned out. And I blamed everything. It's
those deacons. It's those elders. It's those
people. It's my leaders. It's my wife. It's my kids. It's
all of this. It's the county. It's the mayor.
It's that. It's the other. It's all of these
things. That's why, God, I can't rejoice
because you put all these people in my way. Where are you, Adam? I hear it because I was naked.
Who told you you were naked? That woman you gave me, she did
this to me. It didn't hold water for God
then and it's not going to hold water for God now. And I had
conversations with pastors and with brothers and with people.
I even thought about calling some kind of 900 number like
Solomon. Seeing what I could come up with.
What do you do? Magic 8-Ball. Is this going to get better?
Don't count on it. Ah! Curse you, 8-Ball! I mean, you
know, even Task Officer, whatever. Fisher-Price doesn't even help
me. And I thought of things. I thought,
OK, here's seven things that God showed me as I sat down and
I opened the Bible. And Hebrews was there. And many
times, in many ways, God has spoken to us through the prophets.
But in these days, He's spoken to us through His Son. who is
the radiance of His glory and who became the sacrifice for
sins, paraphrased from me. And when He finished, He sat
down and He intercedes for me for His glory in the name of
His Father. And as I read that, I thought, holy God almighty,
I am such a wretch, such a selfish mule. of stubborn, pathetic existence. And it's like God through His
Word says, My grace is enough. Quit whining, you selfish tart. And worship. So just some things,
an introduction. I want to set the mood for what
we're talking about here. When I felt like I was burning
out and done, what it was is that I was not enduring in faith.
I was not trusting in the gospel of Jesus Christ. I was not empowered
by the power of God. I was empowered by the power
of James. And the power of James is always
arcane to catch everything on fire. Enduring church is a promise
of God to His children. It's not what we do, it's what
He does. He preserves and therefore we endure. And yes, pastors are children
too. I believe this, the reality of
a lack of hope in our lives as Christians, as the church, really
means the following. That we have failed to trust
in God and are trusting in ourselves, number one. Number two, that
we consider our ministry more difficult than the power of God.
Number three, That I consider the gospel is not my power, but
that my understanding of the gospel is my power. Four, that
we're not spending enough time in worship and study and in prayer.
Fifth, we're not surrounded by brothers and sisters who can
encourage and rebuke us. Number six, we do not understand
that suffering is that which fills up what is lacking in the
suffering of Christ. We cannot be the visible gospel
without suffering. Don't pray for that to go away,
because what you're saying is, Dear God, take the picture of
the gospel away. Take Christ from me that I might
not suffer. Why would we pray such a thing?
Because it's a deception from the Father of lies, who is our
enemy, who hates us. And seventh, God showed me that
I thought he was too small. I had put God into a system of
thought, and I put God into a system of application, instead of learning
that all that comes out of God is immeasurable, ineffable. That
all that God is, is immeasurable and ineffable. And so I'll read
straight from my thoughts, with a few changes. So what is a man
to do when he feels and sees this in his own life? These seven
things. Is he to quit? Is he to endure?
Is he to become tough or just run? Well, the question is, am
I called? Am I the elect? Do I desire Christ
as my treasure? Or in fact, has my calling in
my ministry become my king? What am I to do? I'm to fight. Fight, fight, fight for joy. Find your joy in Christ alone
and pursue Him as a lover should. Be intimate in the Word of God
so that your joy may be full. And find those around you who
are willing to pursue Christ with you, even if they are not
there. Run and fight like you have never
fought to find the joy of your salvation. Tremble before the
Word and cry out for grace and mercy. Throw yourself at the
feet of Jesus and fight for rest at His feet as Mary who did the
better thing. Fight and fight some more. Make
war on your unbelief and trust completely in the true, who is
God and is life eternal. Become closer to the Son and
push away the world, including your dreams, including your ambitions,
including your ministry, and make Christ your only prize. He is the crown of life. He is
the kingdom of God. He is eternal life. He is salvation. He is wisdom. He is righteousness.
He is the treasure. He is the pearl. He is the reward
of heaven. He is, the is, the I am. So when you're sitting on the
floor of your study with your desk clean because you've just
thrown everything, including your laptop, on the floor and
tears keep you from putting the papers back in the correct order,
running into your nose and leave salt on your lips, your heart
is bleeding for help. You realize this is where God
wants you to be. Broken and contrite. unable to sufficiently do anything
for yourself, for your calling or for your world. This is where
God shines the brightest. This is where the kingship of
Jesus comes to live in your soul. This is where, this is when God
picks you up and when you see the beauty of His glory in a
time when nothing and no one could ever come to your rescue,
Christ comes and His grace is enough. You are lifted broken,
battered, bitter. And His words give you life.
His words give you hope. His words give you power. And
you pick up the pieces and throw them into the fire of His holiness.
And you pick up the shattered glass and allow it to melt into
the flowing of His blood. And He keeps you. And you worship. And you praise him because he
is the only one who knows you and he's the only one who loves
you at this moment and saves you and keeps you right now.
He will never cast you out. He will not take away your suffering
because this is just a taste of his promise, of his presence,
of his ministry, of his calling, of his word in you. Live in Christ. By faith alone in His mercy and
find rest for your soul, Christ will return to you the joy of
your salvation and you will become like a tree planted by the waters,
fruitful in God's ways and alive. And this is my story. A tiny
glimpse into a huge cavern of doubt and self-pity. God's mercy
is new every day, even in lamentation. What a place to find the mercy
of God. In my experience, it is the only place they come. If you want mercy and hope, you
must endure while running into the suffering. If you want a
life of luxury, look to the world and live your best life now.
Enjoy Christ and be filled with hope while the world hates you.
If you can, find others to love you and to share this journey
because you are not alone. And the reason I asked Brother
Jesse to read Isaiah 52 is verse 7, because this is what Paul's
talking about here. And in no way am I trying to
parallel at any moment in my life that there has been any
suffering that I've experienced that has been close or even could
be compared in the same strata to the apostles. Cakewalk and musical chairs with
rocks under my feet is about as hard as it's been in the darkest
of my days in comparison. But in the moment, it's the worst
thing that could ever be. And Isaiah 52 7, when Paul says
there in Ephesians 6. He says. And as shoes for your
feet. having put on the readiness given
by the gospel of peace. And I don't want to do a grammar
lesson today, so I'm just going to pick it apart and show it
to you. But Paul is looking here, Isaiah
52, verse 7, how beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of
Him who brings good news, who publishes peace, who brings good
news of happiness, who publishes salvation, who says to Zion,
Your God reigns. Romans 10, 15, and how are they
to preach unless they are sent as it is written, how beautiful
are the feet of those who preach the good news. And now we see. Stand against the schemes of
the devil, putting on the whole armor of God that is God's. He
gives it to us, we put it on, and we are strong in the Lord
and in the strength of His might. Not our strength. None of our
strength is at work. That's like taking dental floss
to put up a bridge. It's a joke. It's like giving someone a piece
of paper when they're hungry. It is fiber. We stand firm, we take the whole
honor of God that we withstand, having done all, stand firm,
stand therefore. The belt of truth, the breastplate
of righteousness tucked into the belt of truth, and the shoes
for our feet, we put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace. So, in our position. As the body
of Christ, we stand. What must we stand on? We need shoes. And what Paul is now showing
us is that the foundation of our stance is the gospel. So there's three things I want
to do. I want to look at the foundation as related to Paul
to the Corinthian church. I want to talk about the gospel
as the giver of foundation in readiness and what that readiness
looks like. And then thirdly, that the gospel
piece is good news, and part B, that this piece is justification
for God before we close. So this is where we're going
with this, and I want you just to bear with me. These are one
of these areas of Scripture that most people, Most people, most
people who are very well-educated and focused and spirit-filled,
and they would preach this in such a way that it would work
a lot better than what I'm doing. However, I cannot get over that
which God chose me, and you're stuck with me, and so you've
got to walk with me. The feet of foundation. You can
turn to 1 Corinthians 3 if you'd like to, starting in verse 10. Paul says, according to the grace
of God given to me, like a skilled master builder I laid a foundation. I laid a foundation and someone
else is building upon it. So the reason I went here is
because when I think of the foundation of the gospel, when I think of
the shoes on my feet as the gospel, the readiness given by the gospel,
I think of this. I think of this. It's the synergism
of the scriptures in that what now Paul is talking about in
position of stance to be defensive and as we'll see, offensive.
The gospel of peace means an offensive strike. through proclamation,
as I'll show you, that I think about the foundation of ministry,
what God has called the church to be. And so here, I say this, Paul says, for no one,
verse 11, can lay a foundation other than that which is laid,
which is Jesus Christ. So the foundation of all things,
ministry, church, gospel, doctrine, all these things, just put every
word that you've got that's Christian-like and stick it in there. It's all
Christ as the foundation. Then he says, now if anyone builds
on the foundation with gold and silver, precious stone, wood,
hay or straw. So we back up there, we go backwards
from the way Paul did. Straw, we all know the three
little pigs, that blows down. Wood, that blows down. Hey, that
blows down. Precious stones, the wolf could
blow it down, but the beast can't. Silver, pretty precious, pretty
amazing. Gold, it's useless. Must build on that foundation.
If anyone builds on the foundation with these things, each one's
work will become manifest. It will be shown for what it
is. For the day of judgment will disclose it, because it will
be revealed by fire. And the fire will test what sort
of work each one has done. If the work that anyone has built
on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. If anyone's
work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will
be saved, but only as through fire. You see that? What Paul is arguing there is
that the foundation and the material that builds upon the foundation
is the same stuff. We don't put footers in a slab
and then put sticks up. We put Christ down, and we pave
it over with Jesus, and we pave it over with Christ, and we pave
it over again with Christ. And the walls are Christ, and
the doors are Christ, and the window is Christ, and the pillars
are Christ, and the beams and the rafters are Christ. Everything's
the gospel. Or it's garbage. That's the point. So if we have the belt of truth,
yee-haw, if we have the breastplate of righteousness, absolutely,
and we are walking around with my shoes on, or your shoes on,
or our shoes on, then we are walking frivolously with the
power of God on us, going nowhere. We're not ready. This is why
false gospels are an abomination to God. It's why watered down 2 Corinthians
chapter 4, manipulative, cunning, twisting of God's Word is demonic. And it's part of the schemes
of the devil to blind the eyes of unbelievers to keep them from
believing in the gospel of Jesus Christ. This is the reality of
the true and false gospel. And this is the reality of what
this foundation is, is that it is indeed the gospel. The shoes, the foundation of
the church, of your life is the gospel. Romans 1.16, it's not
just a little proverb, it's truth, powerful truth with the word
power in it. For I'm not ashamed of the gospel
of Christ, for it is the power of God. What kind of power? To save you from His own judgment. What else is there to fear? but
the judgment of God. There's not a devil, demon, disaster,
or desert that should be feared over the judgment of God. Man can take you, convict you,
chop off your limbs, and burn you alive, and that's nothing compared to the judgment of God. Here, back to Ephesians 6, the
gospel is the giver of the foundation. See, look. And as shoes for your
feet, having put on, they're there, the readiness. So we're putting on the readiness
given by the gospel of peace. This readiness is then the place
and the position of the believer. That's where it is. The readiness
is inclusive of a defensive standing. We stand firm. But then we have
an offensive righteousness, the belt of truth and the breastplate
of righteousness, and we stand firm. And the gospel is a gospel
of peace. We proclaim peace. That's why I believe in Isaiah. That's where Paul is alluding.
It's a proclamation of power and peace to those who have no
peace and who have no hope. God is giving them hope. God is proclaiming hope. So the
church, in an offensive way, is always proclaiming. Why? Because so many Christians
stand and they feel confident, but they're not proclaiming.
They don't understand this. And I say this very respectfully,
friends. Christians who aren't proclaiming
are disobedient. And they're not going to know
the will of God at all. God, show me your will for my
life. And God's going to obey my word first. Will one. See how that works. It's not that difficult, but
it seems to be because there's a war against this church. We're
being lied to. You think this life is about,
see, we think it's about us. Even in ministry, our church
and our fellowship, our service has nothing to do with us. It's
everything to do with preparing the saints of God to worship
Him and to be obedient to Him, to display the gospel in the
world. while proclaiming it. You don't have to turn here, but
Paul says in 2 Corinthians 10.4, for the weapons of our warfare
are not of the flesh, but have divine power to destroy strongholds. So the weapons that we see, the
righteousness of armor, the truth armor, and the shielding armor,
those are defensive. But the weapons Have divine power to destroy
sorrows. The Word of God. Prayer. The Gospel. Under our foundation that we
walk upon, the power of God. What does it mean to be ready?
What is the readiness? Well, I envision, because I like
to use the writer of Hebrews, and I like to use Paul's writing
to Timothy, when he talks about a servant and a soldier and a
farmer and an athlete. And I think about those things,
and I think that there's preparation and readiness for all of these
things. And so as Paul begins to teach
that, there's always ready. And for some reason, when I see
Paul in his last days, he's saying, I have fought the good fight.
I have finished the race. He expressed himself and said,
I'm being poured out like a drink offering. So come to me, bring
John Mark, bring my cloak, I'm cold and bring the letters that
we started to write and bring paper because we got to write
some more. And readiness, according to the
apostles, is a readiness to do, I think, understand See, do,
activate, pursue, whatever. Five things, here they are very
quickly. The readiness means proclamation, first and foremost. God did not save you for you
to become rich and happy. And to be known and esteemed
for your career and your contribution. Anything wrong with those things?
Absolutely not. But be careful to think that that's what you're
here for, church. Unbelievers who hear these words,
they get frustrated by that. I pray that you are not frustrated
by that. Continue to pursue as unto the
Lord that which God has equipped you to do, but unto Him and be
holding to that very loosely. So that as God takes it away,
we understand what Paul says when he says, I count it all
loss. Nothing for the price of the
gain of knowing Christ. So the readiness means proclamation,
readiness, I believe, means pursuit. Pursue what? Pursuit of Christ,
pursuit of obedience. Pursuit of calling. Readiness
means power. Number three, that we're empowered. We're able to walk. Husbands
loving our wives. Wives submitting in all things
to their husbands. Children obeying their parents. Fathers not exasperating
their children. Slaves obeying their masters.
Church submitting to one another out of godly affection for Christ
Jesus. Church submitting to the Word of God. Submitting to Christ.
Looking and doing and being as God has commanded us to be. empowered
us to be and proclaim that we will be. Readiness means power. We've been given the power to
be that. Fourthly, readiness means piety,
that we are pursuing with power holiness. Belief, saving faith. And I don't want to get into
a philosophy discussion. Saving faith has little, I won't say
nothing because that would be a fallacy, has little to do with
cognitive agreement. What's that mean? Just because
you think it's true and say, yep, it's true, doesn't save
you. There's no bearing on your salvation.
Think what you want. Believe what you want. Saving
faith is powerful realization of agreement that God has declared
your justification in Christ alone, and you just go, oh yeah,
it's mine. You've got it right, God. That's
right. Yes. And then it's proven through
piety and righteous living and obedience. John says you can't
say you're in light and walk in darkness. He's strong, church. He'd be called a Bible beater
when he says, you are a liar and the truth is not in you. And fifthly, readiness means
preservation. God preserves us. This is all
a culmination of what Paul has already taught us in this letter.
So the gospel gives readiness. Well, think about it for a minute.
If the gospel gives readiness, then what's the gospel? If it's
supposed to be that which undergirds us, that establishes our steps,
then what is the gospel? Well, the gospel, friend, is
not a method. See, what enamored my frustration
for so long in the ministry is that I was told that the gospel
is a method. The gospel is how you go and
what you say and how they respond. That's the gospel. Let's tell
people that the gospel is if you just say or you just do,
then you're saved. That's not the gospel. That's
gobbledygook. What's that mean? I don't know,
but it sounds like a bunch of mess. So it fits. That's a friendly,
child-friendly way of saying garbage that starts with a G
without saying garbage, gobbledygook. It's a double G. It's not a method. And the gospel's
not an offer, per se. It's offered, but the gospel
in itself is not the offer. The gospel is not, hey, chicken
barn's open, come and get it! And you go, hey, that'll be some
good chicken over there. You want to get some? I don't
know, I had chicken for breakfast, I don't know. It's certified
fried. It's certified fried. It'd be good. Yeah, I think I'll
pass. That's not, that's not, the gospel
isn't that God is offering. The gospel is that God has saved. That's what the gospel is. It's
not an offer, though it's offered. The gospel in itself is the salvation
of God through Christ Jesus to be received by faith. So I believe the gospel is a
real and present reality for all who believe. It's a real
reality. You did not get saved that day.
You're saved today. You did not get saved that moment. You're saved now. I don't know
who said this, I think it was one of my mentors, Adrian Dupre
in Columbia. I think he said this years ago,
that we, and I know it was him. He said, we have a love affair
with salvation in America. And I never understood that the
first few times I heard him. And one day, taking him back
to the airport, I said, what the world do you mean by that?
He says, everybody's in love with the day they got saved,
and the moment they got saved, and how they got saved, and they're
not in love with the one who saves. That's like having a check for
a million dollars that's not signed, and you just walk around
and say, I'm a millionaire. You're nothing in the banking
world. And you took that check and you
go put it in the bank, it'll come right back. Needs signature. So the gospel is indeed, now,
so let's take it, what is the Scripture to you about the gospel?
The gospel is indeed the message of salvation, the story of redemption
that is based in the reality that God is saving His people. So then the question as you share
the gospel is, are you God's people? Do you believe in the
gospel? Do you trust in the gospel? Do you believe that God is going
to save you, has saved you, has provided propitiation? Has that
applied to your existence? You're a child of God or you're
a child of the devil? Which is it? Repent and believe
the gospel. The gospel is good news in darkness. That's what it means. The evangel. Good news. Gospel. Godspell. Godspeak. There's a little word history
there without telling you about it. It's where it comes from.
God speaks. God speaks truth, the reality
of truth, and those who, by grace through faith, hold fast are
His. Let's don't sit around and try
to put all the pieces of this big jigsaw together, for God
has restored the mystery hidden, and He's given it to us clearly. The gospel is. Good news. The gospel is the power of God
against death. The gospel is the reality of
salvation. The gospel is that which is preached. If we teach
out of Scripture and we don't teach the gospel, we haven't
taught Scripture. Because I'll be straight with
you, even in some of the extremely focused didactic areas of this,
I mean, you know, when you've got this, teach this, do this,
do that, even when you see that, It's centered around the gospel.
It's not just there to get us a state of morality. So to teach
it apart from the gospel is not to teach it. It's not teaching
how to bake a cake without ever telling people to put it in the
oven. It's just a bowl of googly gook. Put that on the wall for
next week. The Gospel gives life and the
Gospel empowers righteousness. In Ephesians 2.17, we see what
Paul says about that in the sense that Christ came. What did He
do? And He came and He preached peace to you who were far off
and peace to those who were near. In all reality, Jesus is the
Gospel. God writing Himself into the history of humanity to save
a people for Himself. Ultimately, In some small, quick,
succinct way, the gospel is this, that you
were not destined for wrath, but life. Do you believe that? That's what Paul tells the Thessalonians. For you have not been destined
for wrath, but unto eternal life. You're not dead, you're alive.
You believe that. You trust in that God has proclaimed
you alive. See, some of you are thinking,
wait a minute, this is stretching my belief system in salvation.
Good. We've made it too hard by putting
so many man's measures on it. Saving faith is simply saving
faith. And if we think there's got to
be more to it, it's not trusting in Christ, which is working out
our salvation of fear and trembling. Trusting in what? That which
God has done. The gospel is good news. It is good news because the gospel
gives peace, the gospel of peace. That's why, like Brother Jesse
and I have spoken many times, open air preaching is not about
condemnation. It's about redemption. So many of the first time I saw
a street preacher, I was 18 years old on the campus of Georgia
Southern University as a music major, going, what in the world? There's preaching outside. I've
got to go see this. And I ran outside that student
union so fast, so excited, took my big old Bible out of my backpack.
and get right up next to the guy, and I'm like, oh, what is
this? This isn't preaching. This is
pestering. Quit pestering me. And then all
my artistic friends would come up and debate, poke fun at us,
throw stuff. I thought, well, this isn't good.
So we began to try to get people around him who were believers,
and we'd just link hands. We'd try to get the circle as
big as we could so nobody could hear him because he had a weak voice.
And we'd sing loud and he couldn't hear. They couldn't hear him
at all, so he just quit. It was great. I felt so empowered, like
I'd done something, like I was at Berkeley for just a few minutes. Living in trees, keeping from
cutting them down. The gospel is good news. It brings peace.
You're dead, but God said you're alive in Christ to be received
by faith. You deserve his judgment, but
he gave it to his son so that you could live. The gospel gives peace with God,
and that in turn gives peace in our hearts and minds. That
gives us peace with others. Those who love us and those who
hate us gives us peace within the body. But it does not give
us peace in the world, because the world hates God, and therefore
it hates us. But as long as it is up to us,
we strive for peace. The gospel is good news. Gospel peace is good news, because
it gives peace with God. It also destroys the works of
the devil. 1 John 3, verse 8. Christ came to destroy the works
of the devil. In Hebrews 2, verse 14, the Scripture
says that the gospel destroys the power of death. And 1 John
4, John tells us that that power that destroys death and gives
peace and destroys the devil, the works of the devil, has been
given to us. Greater is he that is in you,
church, than he who is in the world. Who's in the world? who's
in the world, that's the powers, the principalities of darkness,
of this present darkness, the rulers and the authorities of
the present darkness that we are now not subject to, like
the rest of humanity who is at work in the sons of disobedience,
Ephesians 2, but we are in Christ. God's given us the power of Christ
in us. Gospel peace is good news because
it gives knowledge of the devil's work. Did you know that? The old knowing is half the battle
campaign when I was a kid, I think it may still be going, or the
more you know, I think is what they call it now. You get some
celebrity talking about seatbelts, drugs, reading or literacy, all
good community things, cultural things, things that are important
to society. And now the more you know, the more you know. The more you know, the less you
can learn. I don't know what else is, but in the economy of
grace, the gospel of peace gives you the knowledge of the devil's
work. You know how he works. So you see, you see what he's
doing. You go, that's not going to do
that to me. I got it. The Scripture tells
us to resist the devil. The Scripture tells us to flee
from him. The Scripture tells us to fight
temptation, to walk in righteousness. These are things that are passive.
These things that are active. And how does that work? Well,
the gospel of peace is good news because it gives us understanding
of the grace of God and his power in us and through us and to us. But what does peace really mean
in closing? Peace truly is justification
before God. On Tuesday night, I'll start
our Q&A time out with that question. Unless Luke's here, then we'll
be in Galatians 1. We've been waiting three weeks. But justification. It's a legal
declaration of a position before God in that we are not sinners
before Him, but righteous before Him. And that God, in all of
His omniscience and sovereignty, He knows all that we are and
all that we ever will be. He doesn't learn. God doesn't look
and learn. God knows. He doesn't think and
perceive. He just knows. He's there. He's
transcended of time and space. He doesn't look into it. It has
no effect on him. He created it. So the creature
and the creation cannot affect the creator, unless the creator
then, like the Greek gods, must be at odds trying to always keep
ahead. But we are at odds with God.
As human beings, at conception, zygotes are wicked. And we can
debate that. But they're wicked. They're wicked
human beings to be, if they ever make it out of the womb. I lie. Wicked little infants, and wicked
little toddlers, and wicked little children, wicked little teens,
wicked little adults, wicked little middle-aged guys, and
wicked little senior citizens. And God looks at all that and
goes, No, you're mine. You're justified. It's just as
if you'd never sinned. It's not that he plays ignorant,
but he's satisfied his judgment against us in Christ. Justification
is the position that brings peace with God. And then out of that,
through the power of God, God sanctifies and continually grows
us in our worship, and we have the power to do it. We have discernment.
We test so that we may know what is good. What is the will of
God for our lives? By the renewal of our minds,
we learn Christ, we teach Christ, we live as though Christ lived.
It is not I who lives, but Christ who lives within me. For I live
this life by the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself
for me. While we were yet still sinners,
Christ died for us, that we might become the righteousness of God.
While we were evil and wicked and enemies of God, Christ died
for the ungodly, Paul says in Romans. And he justified us. And that is to be applied and
received by faith, through grace. Saving faith is hearing the gospel. And in hearing the gospel, God
gives you ears to hear the gospel. Because you have been born of
the Spirit. And then you believe all that
God has said about who you are in Christ Jesus, not just with
your mind, but with the essence of your soul. That your whole
hope is in what God has done to save you, and nothing that
you bring to the table, except full faith, will have any bearing
on your future. That seems a stretch because
in our culture, we have stopped thinking about how to read and
learn and hear and perceive and work through it. We don't want
to do that. We want to look at a video right now, take our mind
off of this, this process. The word of God has called us
to be empowered to stand firm, defensively and offensively,
in the context of living righteously by the power of God. Church,
it is not a joke. We aren't here today to make
God happy. We're not here to please Him.
We're not here to appease Him. We're here because He's created
us to be here. And that's what we do. We assemble, we worship, we learn,
we grow, and we go. And we proclaim and we live in
a dark world, proclaiming the gospel, and then we come back
and we live life together. And as I've said, especially
on July 14th, is that everything that we do as Christians, we
need to consider the effects it has on the body, of which
we are a part. Because we would not leave our
children at home and move away from them. We would not leave
our children at home while we died on purpose. We do not need to leave each
other behind in the context of our lives. We cannot be alone in our faith. Your faith is personal, but it
is not private. Because as weak as you are, or
as strong as you are, will determine the effective weakness and strength
of the body to which you belong. And I'm sorry, but I am not a
universal guy that believes that there is just this one big fat
body of Christ and we can just be a part of any of it we choose.
Because I'm not going to drag one of you to a church in New
York and have them bring you into discipline because you're
not living for God. Peace. The gospel of peace through Jesus
Christ. In my heart, Church, I pray that
you would see and hear exactly what it is that God is saying
to you and that trusting fully in God's declaration of grace
means that God alone has done what you could never do. And
He did it in Christ and through Christ and for Christ. And so I pray that as we move
through the rest of this, that we would not lose track of this
foundation, for it is the only power given. The Gospel is all
you've got. There's nothing else. All spiritual
blessings. Maintain and establish in the
gospel. And if you don't believe that,
repent. Believe the gospel. Let's pray. Lord God in heaven, how holy you are, how mighty
you are, how magnificent you are. Thank you for the grace
to sit here when it's a little warm. Remind us of our siblings
in the full body across the world. Yes, Lord, we are part of a great
big body. Remind us of our siblings who
are suffering and dying for your sake, for the sake of the gospel,
so that we might do all things without grumbling or complaining,
even in our spirit. If we do it in our hearts, it's
a complaint. If we feel frustrated because we want to fuss, it's
a complaint. We thank you that you're holy
and that you save us because, oh Lord, it is so easy to grumble. Thank you, Father, for supplying
all that we need in Christ Jesus. None of us are starving to death.
Most importantly, none of us have failed to see the bread
of life in Christ. Thank you so for that meal that endures
to the end. Father, help us to live as a
people, forgiving one another and repenting of our sins toward
each other, sold out for the sake of your name, that your
wisdom would be displayed in us, personally and corporately.
Father, that the communities at large that we represent, Lord,
that we would be empowered to make not just a little shake,
but Father, a rumble for the gospel. As You've called us,
as You've equipped us, as You've enabled us in our unique personalities
and ideals and inferences and different things, Lord, that
we do. Lord, You can use all of that. You will. You've created
us to be who we are. Unique, but important to the
whole. Unified in Christ, who is our
Head. Help us to continue to grow.
Lord, save the children that sit under this teaching each
week. Be with those who travel due to family or job. Be with
those who are sick, Father. Be with those who are lost. Let
us take the gospel to them. Father, grow us inwardly as we
become more intimate together. Humbly help us to love those
who oppose us. that your name would be praised
from our heart to our lips and to the ears of all. In Jesus'
name we pray. Amen.