The name of the message is the summary of the gospel. Summary of the gospel. Now today we'll consider a summary of the gospel concerning the Lord Jesus Christ. The gospel is concerning a person. The gospel is a person. It's salvation through Christ and him alone. It's concerning Christ. It's concerning who he is. It's concerning what he has done for his people. And it's concerning where he is right now. Where he is right now.

My, oh, my. We'll see that our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, is none other than God himself, manifest in the flesh. Open your Bibles, if you would, to 1 Timothy chapter 3, and then put your finger in John chapter 1, 1 Timothy chapter 3. My, oh, my. Actually, put your finger in 1 Peter after that, not John chapter 1. John chapter 1's for the next message.

And I believe this wonderful topic of the summary of the gospel, I really believe that it strengthens God's saints, that it strengthens his people through grace, because the preaching of the gospel is all about the grace of God. And we who believe, we who are the born-again, blood-washed saints, We are strengthened by the preaching of the gospel. That's why, this is the most needed thing right now in the world, is the preaching of the gospel. You've got people out there preaching all kinds of things people gotta do, but the main thing, Paul said, I'm concerned with nothing but preaching Christ and him crucified. That's what he did, because you know, When church discipline comes up, the gospel takes care of that.

Right? A believer can't stay in sin and listen to the gospel. We will be so uncomfortable in our sin. Now, we sin all the time, but I'm talking outright sin. We will be so uncomfortable in it that God will help us get through it. But unbelievers, they just carry right on the way they are.

Oh my. Look at this in 1 Timothy 3. What great comfort is found here, because God himself is my Savior. And if you're a believer, God himself is your Savior. And if you're a lost sinner out there, we say flee to Christ. Flee to Christ. He's the Savior of sinners, such as you and I. That's what he is.

It's wonderful. That's the good news of the gospel. The good news of the gospel is Christ has fully and freely, by his sacrificial death and his blood atonement, purged his people from all their sins. Paid for them all. Paid in full. That's it. It's finished. It's wonderful. Salvation's obtained and complete in Christ. Look at this, though. 1 Timothy 3, verses 15 and 16. But if I tell you long, that thou mayest know how thou oughtest to behave thyself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth. And without controversy, here it is, here's the verse.

And without controversy, great is the mystery of godliness. God, God, was manifest in the flesh. The Word of God became man. The Lord Jesus Christ was made flesh. Look at that. There's no question. There's no argument. The Holy Spirit has Paul penned these words to Timothy that God was manifest in the flesh. There's no argument.

Justified in the Spirit. seen of the angels, preached unto the Gentiles. That's us. When I preach, I stand up and preach. I preach to Jew and Gentile, but I'm mostly preaching to Gentiles, aren't I? I preach to all. Oh, my. And look at this. Believed on in the world.

Well, you must be born again. In order to get to heaven, you must believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. You must be born again. You must be regenerated by the Holy Spirit of God and given faith to believe. And at one time you say, I don't want to believe this. And now you say, oh Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief. Believe God in the world, even still today, right?

God is still calling out his people. Oh, it's wonderful. God, the Holy Spirit, still moving, using the preaching of the gospel to save lost sheep. It's wonderful. And then he was received up into glory, where he right now is seated at the right hand of the Father, interceding for his people. So the Holy Spirit has, Paul here, sum up the gospel for us, gives us a summary of the gospel.

And these things are not debated. These things are not denied by God's elect. We wholly believe them and we hold on to them. Now, when we're first born again, we don't know a whole lot, right? But we start to learn and grow. And the things we may have rejected at one time, now we start to grab hold of and believe by the grace and mercy of God, the Holy Spirit. See, we're strengthened by grace, God's grace.

It's wonderful. It's absolutely amazing. So in verse 16, look at these words. They cannot be denied. We will not debate them, but God's people sure appreciate them, these truths in this verse, when they're preached. Number one, God was manifest in the flesh. It's not up for debate. People either believe it by faith or they don't believe it at all.

And the only reason we who are God's people believe is because of God the Holy Spirit regenerated us and gave us faith to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. And now we just rejoice. All my sins are forgiven. I mean, A-L-L, all of them. The blackest of my sins that comes to my mind. The blackest of my sin that I still commit. Oh my, the things that come into my mind. How about you? All forgiven if you're a believer in Christ. Now that's amazing. And we confess our sin, don't we? We say, Lord, I don't want to think like this anymore. Please take this away from me. Oh my. And so look at this.

Who is Jesus Christ? Well, he's God manifest in the flesh. That's who he is. Because the gospel speaks of a person, and that person is the Lord Jesus Christ. So we see here, right away, the first point brought forth, God was manifest in the flesh. And what this verse does is it clearly brings forth the deity of Christ, who he really is. He's fully man, but he's God manifest in the flesh.

And the only way we believe that is by God-given faith, you see. I remember before the Lord saved me. I didn't believe this. Now he's all my salvation. That's a miracle of God. That's a miracle of God. And look at this, he's totally God and yet he's holy man at the same time in one blessed person. He's the God-man mediator. What's he doing now up in glory? He's mediating for his people. Oh my. Why was he manifest in the flesh?

Listen to 1 Peter 3.18. Why?

Well, we're going to see he is manifested in his flesh to satisfy his own justice and to appease his own wrath against our sin. and he took it upon himself. That's how much God loves his people. He took, our sins were imputed to him and he bore God's wrath fully. That was against us. Freely he did this because of his great love for us all the way from eternity. It's absolutely amazing. And look what he did. He put away the sin of God's elect. Listen to this, 1 Peter 3,

18. Listen to this. For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, and he's sinless, so he's suffering for my sins, and he's suffering for the sins of all the elect, of all the ages. We didn't even know him. We weren't even born. Oh my. The just for the unjust. So the scripture calls us the unjust because we're a bunch of sinners. There's none that do us good.

There's none that seek after God unless we're made willing, and that's the miracle of it. We're born again, given faith to believe on Christ, and we run to Him. Oh, it's amazing. For Christ also has once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God. See, we won't come to God on our own. He must bring us. And that's the wooing of the Holy Spirit of God. Oh, it's beautiful. It's beautiful to see in a new believer, too, is God gently brings them to Christ. Oh, it's amazing.

And then it says this, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit. He put to death for my sins. And if you're one of God's people, he put to death for your sins. That's amazing. Now, next in this verse, 1 Timothy 3, 16, we see this here.

The words speak that Jesus Christ was justified in the spirit. Our Lord declared himself to be God. And such a claim needed strong and indispensable confirmation of this fact. This is the chief and principal purpose of God, the Holy Spirit, to display the glory of his character and the nature of his conduct. This is why the Holy Spirit of God has given to us the testimony of God concerning the gospel of who? The Lord Jesus Christ. Scripture says he won't speak of himself. He'll only teach us about Christ.

And we praise him just as much as the Father and the Son, don't we? The Holy Spirit, we do. Because all three of them had a part in our salvation. It's absolutely wonderful. The apostle mentions this. Now we see in verse 16 next, scene of the angels. Look at that. Scene of the angels. Now, when was he seen of the angels? In eternity. And when was he seen of the angels? When he became a man. They watched the whole thing, beloved. They watched the whole thing. Do you ever think of how eager they would have been to come down and just destroy everyone at the cross there?

But Christ said, do you not know that I can call six legions of angels? That's 50,000 angels. Or no, 30,000 angels. That's enough. One angel killed 100,000 men. That's enough to wipe out the whole world. But he didn't do that because he must die on the cross. Why? To save us from our sins. It's amazing. So he's seen of angels. Over in Hebrews chapter two, verse nine, it says this, but we see Jesus who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honor, that he by the grace of God should taste death for every man.

He tasted death for me as a believer. And that's the thing, he tasted death for all his people. My, he was forsaken by God, the father that we might never be forsaken by God. He bore the wrath of God that was against us and extinguished it totally. He paid the full penalty for all of our sins. So the law and justice of God has no claim on the believer anymore. It's wondrous. And then we see in verse 16, that he was preached unto the Gentiles.

What did Paul preach? Did Paul go around saying, hey, I got a new book to sell, and I'm writing this other book, and I hear this all the time, and it just makes me sick. People making merchandise out of God's people. My oh my. And I can teach you how to be a better, does Paul go around teaching, I can teach you how to be a better Christian. How to study your Bible better? You just read my book. No, he didn't do that, did he? No, he wrote letters to the churches.

And here we are. And what did Paul do? He preached Christ. Paul could have went toe-to-toe with anyone today, any of the so-called master theologians. He could have went toe-to-toe, but you know what he would have done? He'd have preached Christ if he was here, just like he did. when he was on the earth. He preached Christ.

And that's what the preachers do. And Paul was sent to the Gentiles, remember? So what did he do? He preached to the Gentiles. Timothy, who he's writing to, he's in the Church of Ephesus. He's their pastor. He's preaching to a bunch of Gentiles. Even today, we preach to Jew and Gentile, don't we?

Oh, yeah. My oh my, until Christ came in the flesh, not much was preached unto the Gentiles. The Jews thought they were a bunch of dogs, pagan idol worshipers. They wanted nothing to do with them. And God sent the believing Jews to declare salvation to the lost Gentile world. Isn't that beautiful?

And God makes known the true gospel through preaching. Listen to this, Romans chapter one. Mark it down if you want, verses 15 and 16. So as much as it is in me, I am ready to preach the gospel to you. He's writing to Romans, to you that are at Rome also. Now he'd already been there, hadn't he? Oh yeah, and listen to this. For I'm not ashamed of the gospel of Christ.

Henry Mahan said someone came to, or Scott Richardson had someone come to him and said, you preach too much. All you do is preach Christ. You've made an idol of the Christ. That was Henry, they said. You made an idol of the Christ. And Henry says, well, praise God. Praise God. Christ's the only one worthy of our worship.

Now look at this. Paul said, I'm not ashamed of the gospel of Christ. I'm not ashamed to just preach Christ. That's what I'm sent to do. For it is the power of God unto salvation. See, what's the power of God unto salvation? The preaching of the gospel. What's the gospel about? It's about Christ. It's the proclamation that Christ, when he died on the cross, died for sinners.

The question is, are you a sinner? Only God's people believe they're sinners. I'll tell you, before the Lord saved me, I didn't believe I was a sinner. And then after he saved me, I'm like, oh, woe is me, Lord. I'm a sinner from the top of my head to the bottom of my feet. I need you.

And we cast ourselves at his mercy, don't we? Paul said, I'm not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power, it's the dynamite of God. That's in the Greek. unto salvation to everyone that believeth, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. See, there's a clause there, to everyone that believeth. And I'm not talking about praying a prayer and bowing your head and saying, someone say, now you're saved. I'm talking about true, born again, blood-washed believers who trust Christ.

They cast all their hope upon him, not upon anything we do, I understand we have grave clothes. I understand we struggle with things all the time. But see, under the diet of the preaching of the gospel, we're strengthened by grace. We're strengthened by God's grace.

It's beautiful. It's beautiful. And then we see in verse 16, these wonderful words. Believed on in the world. So here's the gospel. It goes out from Jerusalem to all the world. To all the world. What a miracle of grace this is. Faith's a gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. Therefore, what a privilege is given to the sinner to hear the gospel and to believe on Christ. That's a gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. It's incredible. And this privilege is only given by the purpose of God. Listen to this, 2 Timothy 1, 8 to 11. Listen to this. It's given to believers by the purpose and grace of God.

2 Timothy 1.8.

Be not thou therefore ashamed of the testimony of our Lord. Don't be ashamed. If you're a believer, don't be ashamed to testify Christ. Don't be ashamed. Nor me, his prisoner. But be thou partaker of the afflictions of the gospel according to the power of God, who hath saved us. When? 2,000 years ago.

I'm preaching a finished work. I'm preaching the salvation that's already being accomplished before we were ever born. And then when we're born again, oh my, we're made alive in Christ, aren't we? We have faith and repentance before God. Oh, it's beautiful. Oh my, who has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works. He tells us again, it had nothing to do with our works.

If we could be justified before God, if we could be saved by our works, then Christ would never have to have died. But because we can't save ourselves, he had to come to this world and save his people from their sins, which was just a bunch of sinners. Who has saved us and called us with the holy calling not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace Look at that, which was given us in Christ Before the world began Before the world before there was ever any stars before there was ever any angels Before there was ever anything In Christ, that's the key, before the foundation of the world, but is now made manifest, right?

God is now manifest in the flesh, we saw in our text, by the appearing of our Savior, Jesus Christ, who has abolished death and has bought life and immortality in light, or immortality to light through the gospel. whereunto I am appointed a preacher, and an apostle, and a teacher of the Gentiles.

Isn't that wonderful? My. And then we see in verse 6, 16 again of Timothy, received up into glory. Because the Lord Jesus Christ accomplished the redemptive work of saving his people from their sins, All the redemptive work that was given to him is absolutely complete, and the Father receives him back in the glory, and highly exalts him, and gives him a name above every name, that the name of Jesus, every knee shall bow, and every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. and thou shalt be saved. Amen and amen.