Grace Centers of Hope is the
winner of the Hope Award. And Miss Pam and I get to go
to Washington, I think, on November the 19th, maybe, maybe a few
days before. And of course, our new Women
and Children's Shelter is going to get a donation of $25,000.
So I want to thank you. What a mighty God we serve. I
want to just mention this in praise to God. Mr. Olasky wrote The Tragedy of American
Compassion maybe 20, maybe 25 years ago. But anyway,
it kind of became my my Bible as I was new as a CEO at a rescue
mission. I read there what America was
doing wrong and it became, what I read became a part of me actually
and the old Pontiac rescue mission then our programs all changed
and how we went from a flop house to getting people's lives back
and getting them back into the mainstream, left entitlement
dollars from Washington out of the mix, and have never received
entitlement dollars or government funding for 25 years. World Magazine
gives the Hope Award to those who do not receive government
funding. Olasky wrote that book. Mr. Olasky wrote that book. Before
they announced that we had won this week, and I still have not
got the call, but it's all over their website and ours now. But I got a call from a longtime
friend, and he had told me that Mr. Olasky was coming to Novi
to speak at their banquet. And I thought, well, that'd be
a great opportunity for me to meet him. So Tracy bought the
tickets for Miss Pam and I to go to the banquet. And basically, to the time he was
going to speak, and I thought, maybe I'll have an opportunity
to meet him. I got a call just before, I think
it was Thursday, where I was invited to introduce Mr. Olasky at the banquet. Now, only God could bring that
to pass. I was at the Michigan State game
yesterday. Just wait till I wear my number
81 jersey here. And so I got up there early so
I could get to see Matt and see him get on the field and so forth
and so on. But at any rate, I know you guys don't know this, but
they do a little tailgating up there. And actually, I love to
be at a party because I work parties. I'm looking for money. In this
case, nearly $5 million. So, I ran right into the gentleman
who is high up in Walmart. I thought, this is no accident.
Walmart, many of you know, bought all of the kitchen doings over
at the Mission, all new kitchen, Walmart bought that. The beds
in the men's dorm. And Women's Dorm, Walmart, bought
those several years ago. So I thought, we need another
new kitchen up at the Women and Children's Shelter. So he and I met and talked. He brought another gentleman
over. He said, sure, I think I can help you with that. But
on Thursday, Brittany sent in the paperwork to Walmart for
a $45,000 grant. Now, she didn't know I was going
to meet the guy up there about the grant, so I talked to him
about the grant, too. Those things don't just happen.
So everywhere I go, I'm looking for God to show up and to work
all things to our good in his glory. All right. A young reporter went to a retirement
home to interview an aged but legendary explorer. The reporter
asked the old man to tell him the most frightening experience
he had ever had. The old explorer said, once I
was hunting Bengal tigers in the jungles of India. I was on
a narrow path and my faithful native gun bearer was behind
me. Suddenly the largest tiger I
have ever seen leaped onto the path in front of us. I turned
to get my weapon only to find the native had fled. The tiger
leaped toward me with a mighty roar. I soiled myself, the old man
said. The reporter said, well, under
those circumstances, anyone could have done the same. The old explorer
said, no, not then, just now, when I went rarr. All right. I got up at 5.30 this
morning. I thought, I don't have a joke.
I went online and got that joke. Now some of you are looking at
me like, what? You'll have to get old before
you really can lay hold of that. Honestly, I laughed at that till
I cried this morning. I laughed and laughed. And then
I tried to tell Miss Pam to read her the joke, and I got tickled
again, and she said, honey, are you having a breakdown? I just
thought it was funny. Well, this is, in a way, funny. It's good news, what I'm about
to tell you. Christ Jesus came into the world. to only save sinners. And Greg read it very clearly.
In our hearing today, there's so many passages that we could
read, like 1 Timothy. This is a faithful saying and
worthy of all acceptation that Christ Jesus came into the world
to save sinners, of whom the apostle said, I'm number one,
I'm the chief sinners. Jesus said in the gospel, Mark,
they that are whole need not a physician, but those who are
sick. Here are the very simplest, I
think, of gospel texts. And I trust this morning that
they'll reap a harvest. I hope we have some sinners here.
I hope we have some sinners whose eyes are open to see their centership
today. And if your eyes are open to
see your centership, then you will also have eyes to see the
Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. I pray that there are people
today who, for the very first time, will understand the plan
of salvation because it is a plan. It's God's plan. What I have
read, the verses that Greg has read and I have quoted to you
today are simply the ABCs of the gospel. It's not a new thing
to me and it never gets old. It's always fresh. But to some
of you here who perhaps have been raised in church all your
life, you really don't have a grasp or an understanding of the very
first points of the gospel of Jesus Christ. You've been reared
in religion, or maybe not so religious. You've been raised
in the world. You completely want nothing to
do with religion, but you haven't really come to understand or
to see clearly that you are a sinner. May it be so today. The text makes it very clear
that the mission of our Lord was related to saving sinners. But you can't separate Jesus
Christ from his coming into the world to save sinners. Sinners are his goal. Sinners
were his object. It's all about saving sinners
to the glory of Jesus Christ. What did Christ come into the
world for? That's a great question. And those of you who are not
Christians should ask yourself that. For whom did he come? That's a great question. These
are great and important questions, and they're clearly answered
in the text. He came to save sinners. Should
you discover while I'm preaching the good news, the glad tidings,
you find yourself to be a sinner. You sense it and feel it and
see it very deeply. And God takes the scales off
your eyes where you can see yourself. He turns you inside out and says,
look at that. That's you. That's the way you
are. You are a sinner. And then he
raises your head and says, look unto me all ye ends of the earth
and be ye saved for I'm God and there is none else. And you behold
the Lamb of God today. Please don't wait till I stop
speaking. Just come and fling yourself
anywhere down here. Take a seat up there and confess
Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior. I was reading this week
and I was reading about the children of Israel when they first found
manna outside the camp. You remember if you've read those
passages, they said to one another, manna. manna, which literally
means what is it? What is it? And you might be
saying that today. What is it? What is the gospel? Moses said to them when they
said manna, this is the bread which the Lord has given to you
to eat. The gospel is the children's
bread, which God has given to starving souls to eat. Many do not know what the gospel
is, or who it is, or who it is for. They think it's some kind
of improved law. And I know there are some of
you here who know the word gospel. You've heard it in your church
anity out there somewhere. You've heard it in religion.
You've read it in books, but you really don't know what the
gospel is. You think it's some kind of improved, easier system,
some kind of improved law of salvation by works. And so you
totally, completely err in your idea of the persons for whom
the gospel is designated. If you're here and you're not
a sinner, either saved or lost, the gospel's not for you. The
gospel is for sinners. All of you good people are in
the wrong church. This may scare you a little bit,
but the person sitting next to you is no good. The Bible says there is none
good. No, not one. Some of you are sitting here
today thinking surely the design of the gospel is for deserving
people. And Christ must be the redeemer
of meritorious people. That Christ was a good guy and
he came and died for good people. You got that totally wrong. Christ
was perfect and came to die for the imperfect. Christ, you may think that he
came for good folks, virtuous folks. That's why I have to keep
reminding you that Jesus Christ, that the gospel is the message
that God has come into the world to do for sinners what they could
not do for themselves. And that's good news. So our
business, my business as a pastor and your business is to show
men and women that the gospel is intended for sinners. There's
a few out there. I noticed up at State this week
in the tailgating parties that a lot of people are looking for
joy and peace and forgiveness in a bottle. Wrong place, wrong place. The gospel is for guilty people.
Are you guilty? Did you do it? Have you thought
it? Have you experienced it? Then
you're guilty. You are by nature a sinner. The
gospel is for the ungodly, un, not-o, not, godly. people, not God-like people,
lawbreakers, undeserving, for those who have gone astray. Have
you gone astray? Let me ask you. Has heroin got
you? Has alcohol got you? Has crack
got you? Has Pharisee-ism got you? Has
Church entity got you? Let me tell you this. I saw the
Pope's in Cuba. But the Pope's a sinner. Now we're getting down to brass
tacks. I don't care whether it's Bishop,
Rabbi, Reverend, Pope, or who it is, all have sinned and missed
the mark and come short of the glory of God. Now we're waking
up in here and maybe getting close to understanding that Christ
came for those who were lost sheep, those who were prodigals
who had left the Father's house, those who had been living in
the hog pen. Christ came to justify the ungodly. And you know, it's really just
this simple today. The descent of the Son of God
into this world as a Savior implies in a very strong way that man
needed to be delivered from a great evil. Just ask yourself this. It's going to be Christmas time
here soon before you know it. We're going to talk about, to
some degree, it'll get all mixed up with Santa Claus and all that
other stuff, but to some degree, you're going to see babies, dolls
laying in a manger. You're going to hear about all
of this, about God come to earth. Well, I just want to ask yourself,
what would bring God to come to earth? What would cause God
to come to earth? There must be some emergency. The coming of a savior who would
by his death provide pardon for human sins supposed men to be
greatly guilty and to be incapable, totally incapable of procuring
pardon by any doings of their own. You'd never have seen a Savior
hadn't there been a fall in the Garden of Eden. You would never
had heard of a cross and a bleeding Savior on it had there not been
a tree of good and evil in the Garden of Eden. Had Mother Eve
not plucked the fruit and Adam willfully transgressed against
the God of heaven, There would never have been a condescension
because there would have been no need, but because man has
fallen. And let me make it very clear.
Your problem is really not crack or heroin or alcohol or whatever
it is, or church entities, self-righteousness. Some of you in here have never
used. Well, you're going to hell too. Because you don't go to heaven
because you don't use. Everybody in heaven gets there
the same way, through the blood of Jesus Christ. You see, what really explains
the Lord's suffering life is man's guilt. Why would Jesus
cry out this way? Eli, Eli, lama, sebastena, which
is to say, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Because
your sins were laid on him. God is of pure eyes and to look
upon sin. Christ Jesus came into the world
to save sinners. And the only way you can answer
the riddle is to see that God has come on a mighty and great
errand into this world to save sinners. The covenant, the covenant
of law works. The law was given. The law came
by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. The law
was not given to save anybody. The law was given so you would
look into it as a mirror and see you have a dirty face, a
dirty heart. Now we don't bring the law because
God's law is holy and just and good, but the law isn't going
to save you. Many of you, perhaps in here,
are counting on the Ten Commandments. You haven't memorized them yet,
much less done them, but you're kind of leaning on them, you
know? At least I keep two or three
of them. Thirty percent won't get you
there. Besides, if you're gonna go to heaven by works, you have
to keep the law inside and out, and you've already failed. Because
you came forth from your mother's womb. Did you know you were a
sinner before you used? You were a sinner before you
used. You were a sinner when you came out of your mother's
womb. Sin is not so much what you do, it's what you are. Why
is it getting quiet in here? We are by nature rattlesnakes. I'll give you a good example
of that. Those of you who have children, did you ever set your
three-year-old down and say, now mommy's going to teach you
today how to be conniving and how to lie and how to do bad
things? Johnny, did you get in the cookie
jar? No, Spot did it, the dog. That all comes so natural because
they got it from you. It's always amazing to me how
moms, I got in trouble, I've gotten in trouble several times
for this. There are no little angels. No. Mommy says, oh, my little
angel. And remember your little angel
came out of you and you weren't so hot. You and daddy made that little
demon and gave it your nature. Moses came to show us how to
live. Jesus came to reveal how the unholy are made clean. How
can those who are not holy be made clean? When we talk about
the terms mercy and grace, show that Christ came to save sinners.
When we talk about grace, we're talking about unmerited favor.
We're talking about God doing for you what you don't deserve. Don't be going around saying,
I just want God to give me what I deserve. No, you don't. You're pretending,
you're lying. When you see the word grace or
hear the word grace, it's amazing grace because it's unmerited
favor. Because Christ came to save sinners
that didn't deserve saving. You know what? I'm getting happy
with my own preaching today. I just want to let you know,
I'm feeling it today. Grace is good. I'm glad he came
to save sinners. I rejoice in it. What about mercy? Oh, mercy. Grace is for offenders. Grace is for the undeserving.
Mercy is for the mess-ups. When he came and found you, you'd
already messed up. You'd already, mercy can only
be exercised where there's sin. Otherwise there can't be any
mercy. There has to be sin in order for there to be mercy.
And so God had mercy on you, David. Mercy. He came to save you. Look at
the invitations of the Bible. When you read your Bible, Here
the invite, it goes like this. Come unto me, all you who are
labored and heavy laden, and I will give you rest. I don't know how many addicts
have said this to me. I'm sick and tired, pastor, of
being sick and tired. Come unto me, all ye that labor
and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. The Lord says,
let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts.
The invitations invite the man who is naked and poor and thirsty
and hungry. If this is appealing to you today,
if you're sitting there and thinking this, what that preacher says,
I know that preacher has been reading my mail. I know I'm a
sinner. I'm a sinner. You're the one
I'm bringing good news to. Christ died for you. Christ died
for every man and woman who's in this building who knows that
they are a sinner. The invitations of scripture
says this. Come, he that has no money. No money? That means if you're
bankrupt. Nothing in my hands I bring,
simply to thy cross I cling, just as I am without one plea,
but that thy blood was shed for me, O Lamb of God, I come, I
come. The very gifts of the gospel
imply that we are sinners. Life is for the dead. Sight is
for the blind. Liberty is for the captive. Cleansing
for the filthy. If you read your Bible with spiritual
eyes, you know that to be true. I don't see it in there anywhere. That's because you don't have
eyes to see. If you had eyes to see, you'd be singing along
with the rest of us. Amazing grace. This is amazing. You never get tired of hearing
it. The gospel represents itself with a look towards sinnerhood.
God makes a feast and no one comes. So he invites the blind
and the halt and the lame. The gospel, when describing itself,
it describes itself as a fountain. A fountain that's open for sin
and uncleanness. There is a fountain filled with
blood. For what? Washing! Drawn from
Immanuel's veins. And sinners, sinners plunge beneath
that flood. Hallelujah! Lose all their guilty
stains. The great motto of the Savior
is this, this man receiveth sinners. This man is a friend of sinners. Indeed he is. The gospel is a
hospital for the sick and none but the guilty will ever accept
its benefits. The gospel is medicine for the
diseased, the whole and the self-righteous. Never relish its saving cure.
It's been many, many years. Over 52. Longer than that, 62. And every day, I realize I'm a sinner, and I
rejoice in that fountain filled with blood. I am a saved sinner. Among the most sinful does the
gospel find its greatest trophies. Out there on the dunghill, down
in the hood, in the crack house selling your body, he came to
save sinners. Isn't that awesome? Can't you
get a little happy about that? He came to save sinners. And who loves the most? The one
who's been forgiven the most. So when you see someone getting
a little excited about the gospel, let them go. Let them praise Him. And know
this, they must have a lot to praise Him for. Amen. The Lord loves to seek out the
most guilty and manifest Himself to them with abundant and overflowing
love, saying this to them, I have blotted out all of thy sins like
a cloud, and like a thick cloud thy transgressions, they're all
blotted out. What an awesome message that
is to someone who's wallowed in the stables of sin, who are
as black as all hell. And the Lord comes and says,
I blotted them all out. There's no condemnation. There's
no hell for you. There's no judgment for you. You are not guilty and you'll
never be guilty. Saved by free grace. trophies
of the grace of God. When we get to heaven, some of
us will be in the trophy case. Who won that one? Oh, that was
another one of his. He won that one and that one. I've got my name in the trophy
case at Lincoln High School, or it used to be there. And I
used to go back and just see it and gloat. Do you know God has saved you? You're in his trophy case. You
are a trophy of his amazing grace. Notice how Paul said this, a
saying worthy of all acceptation. Everybody ought to see this.
Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. And then he
goes like this, and I'm the chief. And he and I are going to argue
about that. When I get to heaven, I'm going to look him up. I got
a bone to pick with you. I can tell you right now, you're
not the chief of sinners. I am, saved by the grace of God. And I know there's a little rub
probably in here, probably some of you saying, I won't be saying
that. If you get to heaven, you'll
be saying that. Everybody in heaven is going to be chief of
sinners. And they're all going to ascribe their salvation to
the same person, Jesus Christ. You ever thought about this?
I thought about this last night. If the gospel did not look toward
sinners, who would it look toward? I mean, how do you make sense
of any of this? That God has come to earth on
this great mission. that he died for sinners in their
room, stand in place, went up on Calvary. How do you explain
all of that? Got up the third day, ascended
back into heaven, is sitting at God's own right hand as a
lawyer. How do you explain it all? You know, I've noticed that those
in 50 years of preaching, that those who speak against the doctrines
of grace the most are the very men and women who need grace
the most. Don't you ever forget the pit
from which you were digged. Don't forget the hands that lifted
you. Whoa, from sinking sand. He lifted me with tender hands. He lifted me from shades of night
to blades of light. Oh, praise his name. He lifted
me. We are shut up. All of us are
shut up in the same prison. Sinners. That's what we are. That's what we were. Only some
of us now here are sinners saved by the grace of God. This last thing, and then we'll
go home. I'm still waiting on you. Where
are you, sinner, who's trusted Christ? You guys may have to
stand for a few more minutes, but that's all right. This one
thing is clear. The work of salvation was certainly
not performed for any one of us because of any goodness in
us. God didn't save you because he
saw something good in you. Get over yourself. No. God looked down from heaven
to see if there were among the children of men any that did
good. Got out his big telescope, went
right down through time, and here was his declaration, there
is none good, no not one. So how are we going to be saved?
God's going to elect somebody. So, ah, there you go again. I
don't like that doctrine of election. You're going to have to like
it if you stay in here much because I'm going to preach it. Before
you were ever born, way back there, when God, before he flung
the Milky Way into heaven, the stars and the moons, the planets,
he wrote your name in his book. How can you get angry about that? He elected you before you were
born. He redeemed you. Say, well, I
don't believe that. Oh yeah, you were bought 2,000
years ago. He bought you 2,000 years ago. I laid down my life for the sheep. I know my sheep. My sheep hear
my voice, and I give unto them eternal life, and my sheep shall
never perish. Neither shall any man pluck them
out of my Father's hand. My Father which gave them me
is greater than all. He bought you. Now let me ask
you this, do you think if he bought you 2,000 years ago, you
saints can rejoice in this? If he bought you 2,000 years
ago, he's gonna lose you? I mean, you were pretty expensive. You were not redeemed with silver
and gold, but with the precious blood of Jesus Christ. Expensive. He's not going to
lose you. I love to think about him loving
me before the foundation of the world, before I was formed in
my brother's belly, having chosen me before the foundation of the
world and predestinated me unto eternal glory. Redemption. Think about this. You didn't
first call on him. He called on you. You were down
in Lodibar. You were down there in the pit.
You were without hope in this world. And he came where you
were. Came where you were. Thank you. Thank you, Paul. Came where you
were. Isn't he a gracious God? Look
at God's grace. We're all right here. We're all
right here. Everything's cool. You see how God predestinated
that? You were asking me for cough drops. I just got them.
God is good. Everybody in here that's been
saved has heard their Savior calling. He called you. Some of you right now inwardly
are hearing the Savior calling you. You're looking around, maybe
you can't see other people are untouched, but you're feeling
something deep down inside that you've never felt before, you've
never thought before. The Holy Spirit of God has given
you life and quickened you and is now drawing you in an irresistible
way to Jesus Christ. Yes, he loved
us. While we were yet sinners, while
we were yet sinners. Christ died for the ungodly.
That's what the scripture says. Divine love was busy on your
behalf when you were busy in your rebellion. Do you know that... I came down there to say something
to you. I feel like I need to get closer to you. Do you know
that every day with the children of God, divine love is busy. You know why? Because you're
still a mess. You are a saved piece. You are
a mess. A tumble bug. And he works in
you and will not let you go. Amen. And every day you've got
an attorney on the job up there. who intercedes and mediates on
your behalf, child of God. Maybe you're here and you say,
but what if I trust Christ and I don't make it? You won't make
it on your own. Greater is he that's in you than
he that's in the world. Come on to Christ, he's got you.
Trust him, he's got you. Salvation is for sinners. Sometimes people say to me, Christ,
I believe Christ died for some people's, you know, their little
trifling sins. Let me tell you this. He died
for big sinners, dirty, filthy, rotten sinners. Those who live
on the dunghill, those who are yet afar off, he will call them
and bring them to himself. You're not here by accident.
Think about this. When we were without strength,
he had to come to your cemetery where you were. You were dead. Don't give me that baloney about
there's a little spark of good in all of us. Let me tell you,
there's not even a flicker. Dead, inactive toward God. How dead was Lazarus when he
went out to the cemetery and said, Come forth! And you know, Lazarus was bound,
the Bible says, from head to foot. And Lazarus... I don't know exactly how that
happened. That's the way we come forth
at the command and the power and the might of the Holy Spirit
of God when He quickens us and gives us life. We were dead!
It's an amazing thing to have life. And you know what I do
every Sunday? Many of you just came out of
the grave. I love to see you coming out,
but you're bound hand to foot. Loose him and let him go. I start
taking the bandages off. So you can fly, so you can sing,
so you can rejoice, so you can be happy, so you can know you're
going to heaven. You ever thought about this? I'm
a child of God, I've been adopted. I've been adopted, my name's
written down, I'm in the will. I'm an heir, I'm a joint heir
with Jesus Christ. It's all mine, everything's mine
in Jesus Christ. Very true, all for sinners. I'm a sinner saved by grace.
Think of it and accept the fact that you're
a sinner. And I want to say to those of you who are grinding
your teeth this morning and saying you'll never come back, the gospel
is still for sinners. You'll grind your teeth all the
way to hell. You call me a sinner. I know
I'm better. No, you're a hell bound rebel. And if you don't believe on the
Lord Jesus Christ, if you don't trust the Lord Jesus Christ,
if you don't bow to the Lord Jesus Christ, if you don't lay
the shotgun down, if you don't hoist the white flag, you're
going to perish. God only has one way of saving
sinners, and that's through his son. I want to ask you right
now, will you take your place as a sinner? and look to Jesus Christ and
trust Him. You'll never be the same. Let's
stand together and sing.