1 Timothy chapter 1. Why do we preach the gospel?
Why are we so insistent on preaching only the gospel of our Lord Jesus
Christ? Why are we so insistent? This
particular week, week of Bible school for our children, Our four teachers didn't wake
up this morning and think, well, I'll think up something to give
the kids today. They have spent a lot of time
in preparation and study. Why are they so insistent on
that? Well, I hope by the time we leave here this morning, we'll
have some understanding of why we're so insistent to preach
the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. Paul begins this first
epistle to Timothy. He says, Paul, an apostle of
Jesus Christ, by the commandment of God our Savior and Lord Jesus
Christ our hope. Those words, which is, are in
italics, and I have crossed them out a long time ago. I think
it just seems to give a better indication of the meaning of
the verse. According to the commandment
of God our Savior and Lord Jesus Christ our hope. Paul identifies
himself as an apostle. of Jesus Christ. And there's
no doubt Paul was a great apostle. Most people call him the chief
or greatest apostle. That'd be hard to argue with.
He wrote a large percentage of the New Testament. He preached
more. He suffered more. He had more
revelations of Christ than at least is recorded of the other
apostles. And whenever we read about the
apostle Paul, think about the apostle Paul, at least I do,
I think Paul's out of my league. It's hard for me to identify
with the experience of the Apostle Paul. That's simply not my experience.
But if you look back in Ephesians chapter 3, what did the Apostle
Paul say about himself? Now, I say Paul's out of my league,
but what did Paul say about himself? In Ephesians 3 verse 7, Whereof I was made a minister
according to the gift of the grace of God, given unto me by
the effectual working of his power, unto me who am less than
the least of all the saints is this grace given, that I should
preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ."
Paul says, you're out of my league. I'm less than the least of all
the saints. And we certainly can admire his
humility in that, but in all the things that Paul did and
the things he experienced in the service of the Lord, He's
out of my league. But that's okay. Whatever our
place is in God's church, that place is by the same commandment
of God that made Paul an apostle. Whatever place God has put you
in His church, serve Him there faithfully and joyfully because
it's by the same will of the Savior for you as it was for
Paul being an apostle. And Paul says his place of service
was by the commandment of God And our Savior, the Lord Jesus
Christ, our hope. Paul identifies Christ as our
hope. Now this word hope means expectation. The believer's hope is not a
wish, like I wish this will come true. I don't know if it will
or not, but I wish it will. I hope it will. I hope I get
whatever, you know, for a Christmas present. That's not a believer's
hope. The believer's hope is an expectation. Now that can sound arrogant for
a sinner to say, I have expectations. But that's true. I am a sinful
man. But I tell you, I have expectations
for this reason. Because Christ is my hope. Because
Christ is my expectation. That's why I have expectations.
Christ is the author of our hope. We expect these blessings because
our Savior promised them. He's the author of our hope.
The blood and the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ is the
ground of our expectation. You can expect these blessings
if the blood of Christ is able to cleanse you from all your
sin. Isn't that right? If His blood is able to cleanse
you from your sin, then you have a right to this expectation.
If the righteousness of Christ imputed to your account really
makes you righteous, then you can have these expectations,
this hope. This is a good hope through grace. Psalm 130, don't
turn there, let me read this to you, because I'm going to
ask you to turn to some other scriptures here in a minute. A believer
expects to be redeemed. This is our expectation to be
redeemed. In Psalm 130, verse 7, David
said, Let Israel hope in the Lord, for with the Lord there
is mercy, and with him is plenteous redemption. We can expect redemption. if the Lord is our hope, because
in him is plenteous redemption. Now look over at Romans 15. A believer hopes, our hope, our
expectation is to have joy and peace. In Romans 15, verse 13. Now the God of hope fill you
with all joy and peace in believing. that ye may abound in hope through
the power of the Holy Ghost." We have an expectation of this
joy and peace because our God is the God of all hope. Look
over in Galatians chapter 5. A believer expects righteousness. This is our hope. Our expectation
is the expectation to be made righteous. Now that sounds like
a big statement for a sinner to make, doesn't it? I expect
to be righteous. You can expect that if Christ
is your Savior. Look at Galatians 5 verse 5.
For we through the Spirit wait for the hope of righteousness
by faith. By faith in what? By faith in
Jesus Christ. We have this expectation of righteousness
by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ who is our righteousness. Look
at Colossians chapter 1. A believer expects this is our
hope. to be glorified with Christ. in this life, if he has, you're
going to be glorified with him in eternity. Look in Titus chapter
one, a believer expects eternal life. That's our hope. Again, that
might sound like a big statement for someone who's born dead in
trespasses and sins to say, I expect eternal life. But that's a good
expectation of Christ as your Savior. Look in Titus 1 verse
2. In hope, expectation of eternal
life, which God that cannot lie promised before the world began.
It's not wrong to expect what God promised, is it? It's wrong
not to expect what God promised. This hope, this expectation of
eternal life comes from God who cannot lie. His promise before
the world began. And a believer expects, this
is our hope, for Christ to return and bring all of His people home
with Him. Now, I can offer no evidence of that. I've never
seen Christ return to this earth and take people home to be with
Him. Never seen it. The only way I
know that, the only way I believe that, is it's written. Look in
Titus 2, across the page, verse 13. looking for that blessed
hope and the glorious appearing of our great God and Savior,
Jesus Christ, who gave Himself. This is why we have this expectation. He gave Himself for us, that
He might redeem us from all iniquity and purify unto Himself a peculiar
people, zealous of good works. This is our hope. This is the
expectation of every believer, and that expectation It's not
a plan of salvation. That expectation is a person. The Lord Jesus Christ, our Savior. It's not presumption to expect
salvation if Christ is your Savior. It's not presumption to expect
to be made holy and righteous if Christ is your Savior. It's
not presumption to expect to enjoy eternal life in the presence
of God if Christ is your Savior. The Lord Jesus Christ, our hope,
is a good hope. Now, verse 2, Paul goes on, he
says, unto Timothy, my own son in the faith, grace, mercy and
peace from God our Father and Jesus Christ our Lord. Now, Paul
and Timothy, you know, had a special relationship. Paul calls him
my son. This is my son. He calls other
young preachers who learn the gospel from him, his sons. And
we can understand that. We refer to each other. in these
family terms, brothers and sisters, because we are family. This is
the family of God. This is my brothers and my sisters.
We're family. So we can understand why Paul
called Timothy his son. And Paul wants the best for his
son, Timothy. His salutation in this letter
includes a prayer for grace, mercy and peace. Now, Timothy's
already a believer. He's already received grace,
mercy and peace from God. But what Paul is praying for
here is a fresh application of God's grace every day. But don't
we need that? Oh, we need his grace every day. I appreciate somebody making
this prayer for me. Fresh application of God's grace
every day. And Paul prays for a renewing
of God's mercies every day. A sinner appreciates this prayer.
His mercies are new every day. I pray for his mercy every day.
And Paul prays for Timothy. A growing enjoyment of this peace
with God that comes to us through the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ.
And that's a good prayer. We never grow tired of grace,
mercy, and peace. We never grow tired of it and
we never get to the place. You're never promoted and grow
to the place where you don't need more grace, mercy and peace. This is a good prayer. And then
Paul tells him in verse 3, As I besought thee to abide still
at Ephesus, when I went into Macedonia, that thou mightest
charge some that they teach no other doctrine, neither give
heed to fables and endless genealogies, which just minister questions,
rather than godly edifying which is in faith. So do. Now, when
Paul left to go to Macedonia, He didn't take Timothy with him.
He left him there in Ephesus because Paul knew they needed
a leader there. They need someone who could stand
against the false teachers who were there and who would come
in soon after Paul's departure. And he needed someone who could
oppose those false prophets, who would teach those, who would
oppose themselves with false doctrines. And Paul says, you
charge them. And that word charge is command.
You command them. to preach no other doctrine. You command them not to do it.
And that word doctrine is teaching. Now you notice Paul says doctrine,
singular here. That's because there's only one
doctrine. There's just one teaching. It's the doctrine of Christ.
Who Christ is. What Christ did. Where he is
now. Why he did it and where he is
now. Now, we refer to the doctrines
of grace, don't we? But really, it's just the doctrine
of grace. It's the teaching of grace in
our Lord Jesus Christ. It's the doctrine. And any time
the word doctrines, plural, is used in Scripture, it's always
referring to a false doctrine. I show you that over in chapter
4 here. We'll look at another one later,
but look at 1 Timothy chapter 4. Now the Spirit speaketh expressly
that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith,
giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of devils." These
doctrines are the doctrines, the teachings of devils. This
is why we're so insistent on preaching the gospel, because
these other doctrines are doctrines of devils. I mean, this is serious
business. And Paul calls their doctrines
fables. Look over to Matthew chapter
15. Our Lord gives us a good example of what this is talking
about, these fables. These fables are old Jewish traditions,
just like we've got old wives tales. These fables are old Jewish
traditions that have ended up being taught as the word of God,
even though they're not. Look at Matthew 15, verse 8.
For this people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth. And
they honor me with their lips, but their hearts far from me.
But in vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines." There
it is again, plural, teaching for doctrines, the commandments
of men. These other doctrines are not
the doctrine, the teaching of Christ, they're the commandments
of men. And they taught them like they were the commandments
of God. And usually these things all
involve either a moral, there's a moral to the story, Or it's
keeping the law. It's a way to keep the law. Just
like this thing they made it a commandment of men about washing
your hands, purifying before you eat. Well, that's not a commandment
of God. That's a commandment of men. It's something they made
up to put more burden on people. And he also calls their doctrines
endless genealogies. People love to trace their genealogies.
You see it advertised on some websites, advertised on TV all
the time now, but tracing your genealogy. And people do that
because they want to see someone they're related to. You know,
they can be kind of proud of who they're related to. Nobody ever traces
that. They don't put this on a commercial.
They trace their genealogy to find out, oh, I was married to
a mass murderer. They don't say that. They're
looking for something they can be proud of. Oh, you know, my
ancestors came over on a Mayflower, signed the Declaration of Independence
or something. But you track that thing back long enough, you're
going to be embarrassed. You will. You trace it back long
enough, sooner or later, you're going to find a bad branch in
that tree. And I guarantee you this, that root's bad. You trace it back to Adam and
you're going to be embarrassed. And these Jews like these genealogies.
So we have Abraham for our father. Big deal. Who's his father? An
idolater. And who's his father? Adam. These things don't profit anybody.
But this also applies to endless speculation. theories that men
come up with that have no answer. Men love that, to argue about
things that have no answer. You know, well what will happen
in the future? You know, what's going to happen in the millennium?
Is there going to be a thousand year reign and are people going
to have marks on their heads? What's all this? It's speculation. We don't know. These are speculation
about things that are not told us in God's Word. There's no
answer for them in God's Word. You know, men want to nail down
the particular moment when a believer is made righteous? Was it in
eternity past? Was it when the moment Christ
said is finished? Is it when you believe? Is it
not until you awake in glory? And they went on and on and on
about these things that there's no answer for. Instead of preaching
the amazing, wonderful truth that sinners are made righteous
in the Lord Jesus Christ. There's an answer to that. We're
made righteous in Christ. But they don't like that. They
want to get on these things, speculation about things that
there is no answer for. And when you hear things like
that. Run, don't walk away, run away, because these things that
they're speculating about, they come to a conclusion and their
conclusion is always an intellectual deduction. It's never an answer
from scripture. And when you hear those things,
run away, get away from them. All these things do is minister.
They create more questions. They never edify anybody. And
I'll tell you why. First, because they draw our
attention away from Christ. They're speculating about all
these other things. Well, that's not edifying. Secondly,
it's not edifying because they don't tell sinners about their
need for a Savior. They don't tell sinners who the
Savior is, and they never tell anyone how to find salvation.
They don't edify anybody. And third, they don't feed nor
comfort God's sheep. All they do is make us worried
about the future. They make us feel unsettled about
this millennial reign and all these things. They make us feel
unsettled, all the while starving us to death because they're not
the children's bread. These things are not edifying.
Run away from them. This is why we're insistent on
preaching the gospel. The gospel edifies. But these
things do not. These doctrines of men do not.
And Paul left Timothy in Ephesus to stand against this kind of
damning teaching. But not just to fight for fighting's
sake. Paul left Timothy in Ephesus
to preach the gospel. That's what he told him to do.
So do, he said. And Paul tells Timothy why we
preach the gospel in verse 5. Here's the three-fold goal of
the gospel. Now the end of the commandment is charity, love
out of a pure heart, and of a good conscience, and of faith unfeigned. Now there is some speculation
amongst the writers what this commandment is referring to.
Some of the men I read think this refers to the law. If you
look over Matthew 22, it could refer to the law. They certainly have a point. And one of them, which was a
lawyer, asked him, a question tempting him, and saying, Master,
what is the great commandment in the law? Jesus said unto him,
Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with
all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great
commandment. And the second is like unto it,
Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments
hang all the law and prophets. So the law does command us to
love, doesn't it? And you would have a good conscience if you
could keep the law. Now the problem is we can't keep
the law, but if you could keep the law, you'd have a good conscience.
And the law is our schoolmaster to drive us to Christ, to drive
us to faith in Christ. He kept the law. We can't. So
if the law is good, if a man used it lawfully, it'll drive
us to Christ, shut us up to Christ, drive us to faith in Christ,
to trust in his finished work. But mostly, I believe this commandment
refers to this charge that Paul gave Timothy. The word charge
means the exact same thing as the word commandment means. It's
a commandment. This charge that Paul gave to
Timothy to stay in Ephesus and preach no other doctrine. other
than the doctrine of Christ. So this commandment is the gospel. The gospel is not an imitation. The gospel is not a good idea.
The gospel is a commandment. And Paul tells us what is the
goal of that commandment. The word end here says the end
of the commandment. That word end is goal. Paul gives
us a three-fold goal of preaching the gospel. This is why we preach
the gospel. And you'll notice in here, nowhere
in here is the goal of preaching to lord it over those that don't
know what we know. Nowhere. Nowhere in here is the
goal of preaching to beat up unbelievers or make fun of unbelievers. Such were all of us at one point.
So that's not our goal. Our goal is to preach the gospel
to them in love. Aren't you glad somebody preached
it to you in love? That's our goal, to preach it to them in
love. And that's the first goal of the gospel, is charity. Love
out of a pure heart. Our goal in preaching the gospel
is so that people will come to love the Lord Jesus Christ. So that they will come to love
God. So that they'll come to love
people out of a pure heart. Now right off the bat, I see
a problem. It's not our nature to love anyone but ourselves.
I can't convince you to love people. I can't convince you
to go out there in the world and act lovingly towards people.
Now I might be able to shame you into it, you know, we've
kind of got a, there's just certain kinds of conduct we've come to,
you know, expect with each other here in these four walls. We
might be able to shame one another to act loving in these four walls.
But I can't convince you to love. Because it's not our nature to
love. Genuine love must come from a pure heart. And that's
the root of our problem. None of us have a pure heart.
Every one of us is born into this world with a wicked, defiled
heart. And there's nothing we can do
to make that heart pure. We can't clean it up. The heart
is deceitful above all things and it's desperately wicked.
Who can know it? The only way any human being
can love out of a pure heart is to be given a new heart. in
the new birth. We have to be given a new, clean,
pure heart. God has to take out that old,
cold, stony heart that can't love anyone but ourselves and
give us a new heart of flesh, a heart that's soft and warm,
that loves God and loves people. Well, now, how on earth is that
going to happen? That's a miracle of God's grace. How is someone
going to be given a new heart in the new birth? by the preaching
of the gospel. That's the only way. These doctrines
of men and doctrines of devils, they can never produce a pure
heart. They might be able to clean up
the outside a little bit, but they can never produce a pure
heart and sincere love for the brethren. These doctrines of
speculation, these doctrines of law keeping and teaching the
laws, all they ever do is produce strife, contention and division. Always. That's why they need
church discipline so much. I cannot tell you how many people
have said, what do you have to do about church discipline? Do
you have church discipline? My brother worked for a man who
said the only thing he ever heard him talk about in religious terms
was church discipline. He's never one time heard him
call the name of Jesus or Christ. Ever. It was always church discipline.
Now, God's given us instruction for that kind of thing if it
would become necessary. But there's a real problem. If
that kind of thing is always necessary and what is always
on the forefront of our mind, if that's true, we're not preaching
the gospel and we're not hearing the gospel. The goal of the gospel
is love out of a pure heart. Our goal is for people to have
love for God. Now a believer loves God. You can't help it. That's the
nature that you've received in the new birth. A believer loves
God. A believer loves everything about
God. I love the way God saves sinners. I do. I love the fact
that God's holy, that He's sovereign. I love everything I know about
God. And even when there are things
I don't understand, I love it. I love the fact I can't understand
God. I love that. A believer loves
God. And of course this means a love
for God's people. We're the family of God. Why
do I have to stand up here and tell you love your brothers and
sisters? It ought to come naturally to you. Love your brothers and
sisters. And this includes a love for
all people. Those who are without. We're
to have a love for them. I'll grant you, there's nothing
on this earth more aggravating than people. I mean, they run
you nuts. And try as I might, I can't help
but love them. I love people. I'm interested
in people. I want the best for them. And
the proof of it is this. We preach the gospel to them.
Dan Morgan made this statement Sunday. He said, I want to be
known as a church that loves people. That's interested in
people. When a visitor comes in here,
I want them. I'm interested in them. I care about them. Every
one of us should amen that statement. I want this place to be known
as a place that loves people because the goal of the gospel
is love out of a pure heart. Now, how can I know if I have
a pure heart? Look at Matthew chapter 5. The
Lord gives us a wonderful definition of this in the Beatitudes in
Matthew chapter 5. How can I know if I have a pure
heart? Am I just pretending or is it pure? Matthew 5, verse
3. Blessed are the poor in spirit,
for theirs is the kingdom of God. If you know that you are
spiritually poor, if you know you can't do anything to please
God, if you know in your heart you know I cannot do anything
to pay for my sin, that's a pure heart. I can do something. I can contribute something. Surely
I can do something. A pure heart knows I'm spiritually
poor. I'm completely relying on Christ
to pay my sin debt. Look at verse 4. Blessed are
they that mourn, for they shall be comforted. Now you will really
only mourn over something if you can't do anything about it.
We mourn when we lose a loved one, when a loved one dies. We
mourn because there's nothing we can do to bring that person
back to life. There's nothing we can do to
have any more fellowship or interaction with that person because they're
gone to us. And so we mourn because there's
nothing we can do about it. Well, if you truly mourn over
sin, you have a pure heart. If you know there's nothing I
can do to stop sinning and there's nothing that I can do to pay
for my sin. then you have a pure heart. Look
at verse 5. Blessed are the meek, for they
shall inherit the earth. I learned something this week.
The word meek does not mean timid and mild. It means someone who
wholly relies on God for everything. That person has a pure heart. If you totally rely on Christ
for all of your righteousness, you have a pure heart. If you
totally rely on Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, you
have a pure heart. Look at verse 6. Blessed are
they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they
shall be filled. Now, you only hunger and thirst
for what's not inside you. After we ate lunch this afternoon,
I wasn't hungry anymore. If you offered me something to
eat, it wouldn't have interested me because I didn't hunger after
because I was full of food. I thirst. when there's not enough
water in my body. If you hunger and thirst after
righteousness because you know you have none, you have a pure
heart. Look at verse 7. Blessed are
the merciful for they shall obtain mercy. Now, I do believe it's
impossible for someone to have experienced the sovereign mercy
of God and not be merciful. How can that be possible? How
can God be gracious and forgiving to me and I'd not be willing
to forgive someone else? That seems like to me, I'd be
a stranger to the gospel if I was not merciful to someone else.
But if you have some desire to forgive others and be merciful
to them because God's been merciful and forgiving to you, you have
a pure heart. And look at verse 8. Blessed
are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. This is the goal
that you be given. The goal of preaching the gospel
is you be given a pure heart in the new birth. And if we've
been given a pure heart, we will love out of that pure heart.
Secondly, we preach the gospel for this reason, that we have
a desire to see people have a good conscience. Now, I can tell you
how to have a good conscience. If you want to have a good conscience,
I can tell you. Never sin. If you never sin, You will have
a good conscience. Well, it's too late, isn't it?
We've already sinned. But we are all born with a conscience. And that's the part of us that
tells right from wrong. That conscience either accuses
us or else it excuses us. But we have a conscience. But
here's the problem. Look over 1 Timothy 4. Our conscience
is affected by our sin nature. We already read verse 1 about
these fellows that they depart from the faith, giving heed to
seducing spirits and doctrines of devils. They speak lies and
hypocrisy. Why do they do that? They have
their conscience seared with a hot iron. And here's the evidence
someone's conscience has been seared with a hot iron. They
forbid to marry, and they command to abstain from meats, which
God hath prayed to be received with thanksgiving of them which
believe and know the truth. will say, well, my conscience
is clear. Well, I'm glad, but you better be careful. Maybe
your conscience isn't troubling you because it's on a fritz.
Maybe your conscience isn't troubling you because it's been seared
with a hot iron. And there is such a thing as
a good conscience, as a true good conscience. And that's a
valuable thing to have. It's valuable to have peace in
your conscience because you know your sin won't damn you. That's
what a good conscience is. A good conscience is never having
anything to feel guilty about. How can I have that? How can
I find out where to obtain that good conscience so I don't have
to feel guilty anymore? One way, through the preaching
of the gospel, through the preaching of the doctrine of Christ. The
only way a sinner can have a clear conscience is if we have a perfect
sacrifice. Hebrews chapter 9. Here's how our conscience can
be clear. It's through the perfect sacrifice. Hebrews 9, verse 13. For if the blood of bulls, and
of goats, and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean,
sanctifies to the purifying of the flesh, how much more shall
the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself
without spot to Purge your conscience from dead works to serve the
living God. The only way a sinner can have
a clear conscience is if I stop my works, if I stop my attempts
at establishing my own righteousness. All those works of mine are dead
works. All they're going to produce
is my eternal death. But if I quit those works and
I rest in the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ I'll have
a good conscience. A believer is the only person
on the face of this planet who has a good conscience. Yet a
believer will always feel guilty about their sin. There's a paradox,
isn't it? A believer is the only person
that can have a good conscience, yet they always feel guilty about
their sin. But a believer doesn't have anything
to feel guilty about. Because we've been sprinkled
with the blood of the sacrifice of our Lord Jesus Christ. And
that blood completely removed our sin. So that we stand before
the law perfect as having never done anything wrong. That's a
good conscience. I want you to turn to 1 Peter
chapter 3. This answers a very good question. How can I know
if I have a good conscience? Or if my conscience was seared.
I'd like to know that. Does my conscience not bother
me because it's been seared? Or do I have a good conscience?
1 Peter 3, verse 21. I guess I should get in 1 Peter,
not 2 Peter. The like figure wherein to even
baptism doth also now save us, not to put away the filth of
the flesh. But what is baptism? The answer of a good conscience
toward God. It's not simply that I was dunked
under the water so I feel better, I have a good conscience. But
when I was baptized, I was truly confessing all of my hope for
salvation is in the death, the burial, and the resurrection
of the Lord Jesus Christ. A good conscience will always
confess this, Christ is all of my salvation. That's what a good
conscience says. That's our goal in preaching
the gospel. And third, we preach the gospel Because we desire
for people to have faith unfeigned. We preach the gospel so that
men and women, boys and girls, will look to Christ. So that
they'll know the truth of Christ and that they will believe the
Lord Jesus Christ. True faith is convinced beyond
a shadow of a doubt. And my prayer for all of us is
that we be convinced of the truth of Christ. We preach Christ so
that sinners will be convinced Christ is their only hope of
salvation. We preach Christ so sinners will be convinced that
Christ can cleanse them from all of their sin. We preach Christ
so sinners will have genuine faith, not almost persuaded,
but genuinely persuaded in the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, that
faith is a gift of God. But it comes through the preaching
of Christ, through knowing Christ, through this preaching of the
doctrine of Christ. And when God gives faith, it
will always be genuine. It won't be hypocritical. This
word, unfaithful, means without hypocrisy. This is the word that
people in Paul's day used for actors. You know, actors are
pretending to be someone that they're not. And they called
them, a good actor was called a hypocrite. I've seen actors. do such a good job at being a
hypocrite. I didn't like him. I don't know
what the man's name is, but the man that played Frank Burns in
MASH. I didn't like that guy. And it took me years to get over
it. I kept telling myself, Frank, that's not fair. He's not Frank
Burns. But he did such a good job at being a hypocrite. I didn't
like him. That's not faith. Faith in Christ
is not pretending to be something that you're not. It's not being
hypocritical. I am not a fake sinner. Are you? Are you a fake sinner? I am the
real McCoy. I can tell you that. And I am
not pretending to trust in Christ for all my salvation. The only
hope of salvation a sinner like me has is that Christ is my substitute. That he stood in my place and
paid my sin debt with his own blood. That's my only hope. The only hope I ever have of
being righteous is that the righteousness of Christ is freely imputed to
me. I'm not being hypocritical about
that. And my faith is in a Savior who's not a hypocrite. My only
hope of salvation is that Christ was not pretending to take my
sins and his body on the tree. but that he actually took my
guilt and actually became guilty of my sin. My only hope of escaping
eternal damnation is that God the Father was not being a hypocrite. That he actually punished his
son for all of my sin. If he didn't, I will. I'll suffer for it. That's my
only hope is that God was not being a hypocrite. My hope is
that the father did not say, well now, I know my son's not
really guilty, but we're just going to act like it and we're
going to treat him like he's guilty and we're going to punish him
for it. You know, that would be hypocritical and couldn't
put sin away. If real, unfeigned sinners are
going to be saved, Christ must be an unfeigned sacrifice for
their sin. That's the Christ we preach.
That's the Christ. I'm imploring you to look to. He is the Savior of unfamed sinners. If God ever reveals that Christ
to your soul, you will love Him. You'll love God, you'll love
your brethren, and you'll love people. If God ever reveals this
Christ to your soul, the Savior of sinners, you'll have a good
conscience. You've got nothing left to feel
guilty about because Christ took your guilt away. If God ever
reveals this Christ to your soul, you'll have faith unfeigned. You will genuinely trust Christ
for all God requires. Because you've heard the preaching
of Christ. That's why we're so insistent
on this preaching. The preaching of this gospel.
The preaching of this Christ. This is the only Christ who saves.
This is the only gospel that saves. And it's my prayer. that all of us leave here this
evening with love out of pure heart,
a good conscience. Go home and sleep well with a
good conscience and faith unfeigned. Alright. Well, I hope the Lord
bless you.