I'm going to go a little heavy
with you today with regards to the gospel of
Jesus Christ. What is it to preach the gospel?
Really and truly, what is it? You know, I was raised where
I would often hear that God has done all that he can, and that
you and I, out of pity for God, are to trust his son. That is not the proclamation
of the gospel. It is not. God doesn't need your
pity, you need his. Now that's the gospel. that God
must have pity and grace and mercy upon you. So preaching the gospel is not
telling the congregation that God has set his love on each
of them and that Christ has died for each of them. See, I think
right now I want you to just Please give me your attention
because some of these things you have heard most of your life,
that God needs you. God doesn't need you, you need
God. Now, if these assertions, if
Christ died for everyone alike, then everyone must go to heaven. Just think about it. How many
times have you been told that Christ died for you? Now, I'm
not going to tell you that because I don't know that. Some of you are taking deep breaths
right now. I can tell you that he died for
sinners. And if you qualify, that's a
good thing. If you're a sinner. I can tell
you he came into the world to save sinners on a definite purpose.
I can also tell you that he did save sinners on the tree of the
cross because he said it's finished. He didn't try to save somebody
outside of Jerusalem on that dark and dreary day. He saved
his people from their sins. You say, well, you know, that
was 2000 years ago. I know, but in time, he brings
those that he saved to a knowledge of himself. See, if you're sitting
in here and you have no concern, absolutely none, you wish you
weren't here, all that's happened to you is you came over to Grace
Centers because the court sent you there, or you had no other
place to go, you were homeless, you were hungry, and great place
to eat, really. We have a great chef, great kitchen,
great food. But that's not our main objective.
Our main objective is discovering God's people that Christ died
for. And the way you discover those
that Christ died for on the tree of the cross is by preaching
the gospel. And the Holy Spirit brings that
truth home. And you actually come to trust
Christ alone. When I say trust Christ alone,
that's what the apostle Paul was talking about there in the
Corinthian letter when he said, I've espoused you to one husband. I'm jealous over you. I've espoused
you to one husband. Have you come to believe that
salvation of your soul and life is in Jesus Christ alone? Are you a follower of Jesus Christ
alone? I hope you are. You see, the
knowledge of being the object of God's eternal love and Christ
redeeming death belongs to the individual's assurance which
cannot proceed faith-saving exercise. Now, let me break that down.
That's what one of the old Puritans said. You need assurance, then
I would say this to you. Have you trusted Christ alone? You can't know that God in the
person of his son died in your stead, room and place on Calvary,
unless you've trusted him completely. That is for the assurance of
salvation. Say, well, I have no, you know,
I really don't know whether, whether or not, do you want to
know? If you want to know that God has loved you with an everlasting
love and chose you before the foundation of the world, believe
on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. Do you hear
what I'm saying? That the assurance You know, we often, often preachers
over the years that I've been in ministry try to wholesale
this message of the gospel. You know, Christ died for you.
Don't you have some pity for him? He's trying to save you. Let me tell you, God never tries
to do anything. See, you got the wrong God in
your mind. He never tries or attempts to
do. Whatever he wants to do is right
and holy, and he does. He's always right in what he
does. Say, well, I don't like that.
Then you're wrong. You're just wrong. God is sovereign. Do you know this? God can save
you or damn you and still be God. Still be holy and still
be just. You don't want God, as I told
you last Sunday, you don't want God to give you what you deserve.
You need mercy and grace. So what is it to preach the gospel
of Jesus Christ? I think this to be of the utmost
importance. You know, I often say to you
how God has blessed this place. And I often remind you that God
has blessed this place, I believe. And this week reminded again.
Actually, I was thinking that that house that we got on Fair
Grove would probably, the guy would probably ask 60, $70,000.
So we offered 41. I hope he's not watching this. He countered with 44. We accepted. I consider that God's favor and
God's mercy and God's grace. You see, my job here today is
to display Christ. Just to display Christ. I've
never saved anybody. Years ago when I was on radio
in Kentucky, four radio programs and pastoring two little churches,
smaller churches. I was up at the radio station
in Lancaster, Kentucky, and a guy stumbled up to me, drunker than
a skunk. And he goes, you saved me. And
I said, you look like one of my converts. Because I don't
do a very good job. But when God saves you, he's
on the inside of you, you see, and you become a new creature
in Christ Jesus. Neither you nor I have been called
by the gospel to inquire after the purpose and intention of
God's concerning the particular object of the death of Christ.
Everyone can be assured of this. If you trust him and him alone,
thou shalt be saved. Now I want to make that clear.
I'm not saying to you that Christ died for you and that God loves
you. I don't preach that particular message. I do say this to you. If you're here and you have no
concern, zip, you're in a tough place. I mean, you're in a bad
spot. But if you're here and under
deep condemnation, say, well, pastor, even what you said about
abortion, you know, I've had three or four. You said that
today. I also followed that up with,
there is forgiveness for that. Amen. So preaching of the gospel is
a matter of proclaiming to men as truth from God that he has
come to save poor sinners. Now I wanna give you four facts
quickly here. First fact, this is preaching
the gospel. Fact number one. that all men
are sinners. This is not difficult stuff,
folks, unless you make it difficult. I'll tell you where it gets difficult,
that you have to keep the commandments to be saved. Well, there's 5,000
in the Old Testament. I hope you have memorized them
all. If that's your position that you're gonna keep the commandments,
say, well, you know, the 12 commandments, the 10 commandments. You don't even know them. I can't
tell you how many people say, oh, I've been baptized. Wrong
answer. Wrong answer. Here's what preaching the gospel
is. Telling all men that they're
sinners and cannot save themselves. That's an important fact of the
gospel. That all, everybody in here is a sinner and you are
helpless to save yourself. You cannot do it. Preaching the
gospel is telling men and women that Jesus Christ, God's son,
is a perfect savior for sinners. He is a perfect savior for sinners,
even the worst of sinners. I wonder if we have the worst
of sinners in here today. Well, several hands went up. And I know those are converted
hands because no one raises their hand to be the chief of sinners
unless the Spirit of God indwells them and they actually know what
it means to be a sinner. Some of you have run the gamut
in trespasses and sins. And you're sitting in here and
you have no thought of you being a horrible person. I mean, you
have done just about everything there is to do. But you're glad
you found a place that would at least feed and clothe and
shelter you. You're happy about that. But you don't like this
church thing. You don't like being here. I
guarantee you this, if that's your position today, you're not
gonna get much out of this. But if you're here and you're
thinking to yourself, could God actually love me? Could God actually
die in my room and God pay my debt at Calvary? And is God right
now holding back those forces that would take my life and keep
me from coming to Christ? Is God doing that? And kind of
there's a wonder thing going on in the inside of you as I'm
preaching. And you're going, and can it
be that I should gain an interest in the Savior's love? Died He
for me? Oh, I tell you, if you're talking
that way, you're His. Amen. Amen. Preaching the gospel is telling
men that God the Father and Christ the Son have promised that all
who know themselves to be sinners and put their faith in Jesus
Christ as Lord and Savior shall be received into favor and none
can cast them out. That is good to know. See, some
of you are still in a position because what you've heard all
your life, that you have to be good enough to go to heaven,
that after you're converted, you have to hold out, you have
to overcome, you can never relapse, you can never mess up. I can tell you right now, that's
a fairy tale. That is insanity. And everybody in here knows who's
been converted. You didn't last over 10 minutes. It wasn't long after you were
converted that you were saying, was I really converted? Let me
tell you this. The second thing that preaching
the gospel is, is this. is saying that Jesus Christ is
perfect Savior. And the third thing is that God
the Father and Christ the Son have promised to receive everyone
who comes to them by faith, trusting Him and Him alone. Don't come
and be trusting your Catholic baptism, or your denominationalism,
or your priest, or the hierarchy of some church. Don't come and
trust Christ plus being a Baptist, a Catholic, a Methodist. You
come to Christ alone. You know, I can tell you this.
Ms. Pam is the love of my life. I
can tell you this. If I would go to her, you know,
on a daily basis and go like that, you know, I just, I really
love all women. I wouldn't float her boat. Here's what I say to Christ.
You are my savior. You are my Lord. You are my redemption. You are my everything. I have
all my cookies in one basket. I'm trusting you. I'm trusting
you alone. So the old gospel, when you hear
the old gospel, there is a new gospel. There is another gospel.
The apostle Paul talked to that in the book of Galatians. And
I know many of you have been raised in legalism. And after
you came to Grace Gospel Fellowship, you were set free. Remember how
horrible sometimes church was? What condemnation it wrought
deep in your heart? I can remember many times sitting
in church saying, well, I hope Jesus doesn't come right now
because I got a mess going on. I'd have to face that. You remember
all those stories about how, maybe you don't, maybe you never
heard this, all those stories about how God's gonna take his
big projector and put your life story from the time you were
saved, and then he's gonna pass out yo-yos for those of you who
did good things. I used to hear this quite often
that after you die, God's gonna reward you according to your
good works. And I keep looking for me to
do one of those. It doesn't seem to happen. I am so glad that God not only
predestined me to salvation, but also those things that would
come out of me. He predestinated me to be pastor
here. He predetermined things that
are going on at Grace Centers. of hope. He works. You see, it's
grace that puts you in the way, grace that leads you along the
way, and it's God's grace that takes you all the way. Otherwise,
you wouldn't make it, nor neither would I. It's the work of grace. I wrote down here, the old gospel
tells men that they need God, not that God needs them. The
old gospel does not exhort men to pity Christ, but announces
that Christ has pitied them. Isn't that a great announcement?
The new gospel has turned God's free mercy to sinners into a
constitutional soft heartedness on God's part, which men take
for granted. Yes, you know, pastor, I know
Christ died for everybody. God loves everybody. No, I'm
afraid you had that wrong. You can't find that in the Bible.
Christ dying for me belongs to my assurance as I believe on
him. You have no assurance that God
loves you and that Christ died for you outside of complete,
total faith in Jesus Christ. Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine. The New Gospel turns the presentation
of Christ into a degrading way as a baffled Savior balked in
what He hoped to do by human belief. You know, to save you,
God's got to overcome your lack of faith. He's got to give you
faith. Say, oh yeah, I know. Oh, you
know, pastor, I know we're saved by grace. For by grace are you
saved through faith and that not of yourself. It is the gift
of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. You know why
you're a believer? God gave you faith. You had none. And when you wouldn't come to
him, he came to you. Oh, this is gospel preaching.
I feel good this morning. I feel good about what I'm saying.
I'm rejoicing in this truth that Christ loved me and gave himself
for me and I have trusted him. And that's my assurance every
day. Don't you mess up every day? I said, don't you mess up every
day? That's a little better. You think about God didn't need
you. You needed God. And so he came to you when you
wouldn't come to him. Now, lastly, it's two minutes
after 12. I want to bring my message to
you. Here's what God has said. You
think about this. You're a sinner and cannot save
yourself. And here's what Christ says. Come unto me. Come unto me all ye that labor
and are heavy laden. Who said that? Christ said that.
You know, the God of the Bible, he's a condescender God. Oh yeah,
I mean, that he would even speak to us, you know, he had to condescend.
You know, he has to come down to your level. I mean, why would
God speak to you, crackhead? Why would God speak to you, running
around, whoring around? Why would God speak to you, drunker
and a skunk? Why would a holy God, how does
that work? Is God counting on you or does
God count on himself? How wonderful it is and what
a condescending thing it is for God to look you square in the
eye and say, come to me. Come to me." This is not the
invitation of a weak, puny God, but a sovereign God who commands
you to come to Him. Isn't that something? Now. Not later. Right now. If you're
here, I long for the day when sinners are in this place and
know they're a sinner, and I read a text like there in Matthew
11, come unto me all you that labor heavy laden, and you jump
up and run down this aisle. I want to confess Christ. I don't
want to wait. Spirit and the bride say, come,
let him that is a thirst come. When? Now. A sense of urgency. You see, to the extent that you
know your centership, to that extent, you know you need a savior.
And people who need a savior become desperate people. Back
in the days at Grace Baptist Church, there was an American
Indian there, and his name was Charlie Waldrop. And Charlie
was such a good friend of mine. He loved to, he was always encouraging
me. And wherever I was preaching
within a hundred miles, Charlie would show up. And Charlie would
get happy too. Charlie, as I preached the gospel
of God's grace, Charlie would start to snort. Like, kind of
like a horse. I know he was in the congregation.
And I would know his soul was being warmed with the good news
of God's grace. And Charlie would shout, he'd
scare people to death. Right in the middle of my message,
he would let out a war hoop. Now I know you're more sophisticated
than that and you're not used to that, but what if you got
that happy? You know, the book of Galatians
was written primarily because they left the gospel. And when
you leave the gospel, when you leave the gospel, you leave joy
and peace and contentment and happiness. You don't raise your
hand, you don't rejoice anymore. You know, I remember when Baptists
left the gospel back in my day. I remember when I heard more
about roller skating was a sin. It looked like you were dancing.
And you know dancing is a sin. Pool tables, playing cards. I never had a phys ed class in
my life because you had to wear shorts. Never. Almost drowned,
because I'd never had swimming class. You get away from this. The simplicity
that is in Christ. That's a single-mindedness. And
I know you say this, and I know people say this. Well, you know,
if you've heard Clark, you've heard him. You're right. I was
thinking about it last night. I was thinking, you know, this
is all you preach. And I got happy. Yeah. I'm glad people accuse
me of that. That's not a bad thing. You can
just go right ahead and say that all you want. I'm going to rejoice
in it. Because God only has one message.
He's the way, the truth, and the life. And no man comes unto
the Father except you come smack dab through Jesus Christ. As
a poor sinner, helpless and hopeless. And you know, I know in my soul
that God has spoken to those of you who are converted today
and you're rejoicing again in the knowledge that it's finished
and that God has given you an invitation to come. And some
of you today, for the first time, have heard the invitation and
you go, what's that preacher asking me to do? You know, I've
never been in a Protestant church or in a church exactly like this
where they clap and, oh, by the way, In the old church, piano
and organ was the only two instruments you used. And... Yeah. And get those smiles off your
faces too. Being happy and knowing who you
are in Christ. You've been accepted, you're
not being rejected. Some of you, some of us, I have
that tendency too. How I can recall so much mess
of my own. That's not God reminding you
of your mess. So you messed up, get up. You
will get up too, if you're His. You'll start over again. You
don't start as far back too. God's drawing you to Himself. And we'll keep up that work until
He finishes it, and we wake up in heaven. I want to encourage
you today, if you're not, and you have not, but you heard today,
Christ died for sinners. That's what I am. I am a sinner. And, you know, I've been sprinkled,
I've been ducked, I've been poured, I've been a Catholic, a Baptist,
a Methodist, a Presbyterian, I've tried it all, and I got
none the better. How about this? Believe on the
Lord Jesus Christ. And keep on believing. You know,
I'm believing right now. Right now I am. They say, well,
you know, I believe back yonder at the old church. Oh, I got
up this morning thinking, I'm glad he's my Lord and Savior
today, because I need one. Anybody have any bad dreams last
night? No, you don't have those. You ever noticed how you can
even unconsciously dream bad things? It all just seems so
natural. That's because it is. In my flesh
dwells no good thing. I like to have those dreams where
I'm in church preaching and the power of God's on that place
in such a way and people are confessing faith in Christ. Wouldn't
it be great if 30 people today profess faith in Jesus Christ?
You became a soldier in the army of God, a believer in the Lord
Jesus. Amen. That would be awesome.
Has he spoke to you today? Come tell us about it.