Tonight, Clay Curtis is going
to preach for us, and we will observe the Lord's table together. There was great joy in that city. Now, whenever the gospel is believed,
there is great joy. Turn with me for a moment to
Romans chapter 14, verse 17. For the kingdom of God is not meat and drink. What that means is the kingdom
of God is not do's and don'ts. It's not you're better off if
you eat this and you're better off if you don't drink this.
That's not what the kingdom of God is. What is it? Righteousness and
peace and joy in the Holy Ghost. Now, the kingdom of God is righteousness. Now, what is righteousness? We
just heard some about. It's perfection before God. It's
not having any sin. It's having the very righteousness
of Jesus Christ as your personal righteousness before God. Now,
the only way you and I will have true peace is if we have this
righteousness. The question of sin has been
settled. It's been put away by Christ. When God sees me, and
I want us to remember this, it's always very important to remember
how God sees things is how they really are. God sees me as perfectly
righteous in his Son. That's how I am. What comes out
of that? Peace. Peace. If there's any sin that I have
to deal with, I don't have any peace. But oh, the peace that
comes from being righteous. And you want flows from that?
Joy. Joy in the Holy Ghost. Rejoice in the Lord always, again
I say rejoice. Now let's go back to Acts chapter
eight. I've entitled this message, Great Joy in that City. Now upon the persecution, Philip
went down, verse five, to Samaria, the city of Samaria. That's the
same Samaria that we read in John chapter six that, or John,
what? Yeah, John chapter four, rather.
Christ went there. He must need to go through Samaria.
When his elect was there, he was going to go after his elect.
That's the same city. This city is, was one time the
capital of Israel. The two kingdoms, the Northern
kingdom, the Southern kingdom, Samaria was the capital of the
Northern kingdom. Jerusalem was the capital of
the Southern kingdom. This is the same Samaria. I don't
know how big it was. I have no idea. But because of
that persecution that took place in Jerusalem, Philip had to flee
for his life. And he went down to Samaria and
the scripture says he preached Christ unto them. And it appears
that there were a great number of people who believed. Look
in verse 12. But when they believed Philip
preaching the things concerning the kingdom of God in the name
of Jesus Christ, they were baptized, both men and women. It appears
that there were a lot of people who believed upon the preaching
of Philip, and there was great joy in that city. I love thinking about this. I
mean, a city. a whole city, and there was great joy in that city
because so many people had believed the gospel. I bet the only thing
we can think of when we think of joy in the city is when a
team wins a championship. You know, if UK wins the national
championship this year, there'll be joy in Lexington. Everybody
knows that, and I'll be one of the people happy, too. But this
joy is so infinitely different and greater than the joy over
something as trivial as that. great joy in that city. Now, verse five, Philip went
down to the city of Samaria and preached Christ unto them. Now he wouldn't have gone if
it wasn't for this persecution because Samaria, there was a
deep seated prejudice in the Jews against Samaria. And I feel quite sure he wouldn't
have wanted to go there. Remember when the woman at the
well said to the Lord when he was there, the Jews had no dealings
with the Samaritans. They didn't. They looked upon
them as inferior. But through this glorious persecution
that took place, he went down and preached Christ to them. And I want us to understand that
the gospel tears down prejudice. It tears down racial distinctions
and social distinctions and educational distinction and economic distinction. Now listen to me real carefully.
There's no difference between one man and another. All have
sinned and come short of the glory of God. You know who I'm
like? I'm like about seven billion other people. We all came out
of one blood. We're all equally in need of
God's grace, and the gospel tears down all these distinctions that
men make among themselves. Philip went down and preached
Christ to them. You know, preaching is very big
in Acts chapter 8, but it's very big in everywhere in the Bible.
Look in verse 4. Therefore they went, or scattered abroad, went
everywhere preaching the word. Philip went down and preached
Christ. to them. Verse 12, but when they believed
Philip preaching the things concerning the kingdom of God and the name
of Jesus Christ, they were baptized, both men and women. Verse 25,
and they, when they had testified and preached the word of the
Lord, returned to Jerusalem. Verse 35, then Philip opened
his mouth and began the same scripture and preached unto him,
Jesus. Verse 40, but Philip was found
at Asitos, and passing through, he preached in all the cities
that he came Now, here's my question. Philip went down and preached
Christ to them. What in the world does that mean?
That's the most important subject we could ever consider. What
in the world does that mean? And I'll tell you what, I fear
this becoming cliche. I don't want something so glorious
to become cliche to us. What does it mean? What is the
preaching of Christ? I know this. We're not preaching
Christianity. We're preaching Christ. I don't even like the
term Christianity. It makes it sound like it's one
of the world's great religions. This is not a great religion.
This is the truth. This is the gospel. Christ is all. What does it mean to preach? Christ? Well, when we preach
Christ, we're telling who he is, we're telling what he did,
we're telling who he did it for, and we're telling what he accomplished
by that. If I don't answer those questions,
I'm not preaching Christ. Who is he? What did he actually do? Why
did he do it? Who did he do it for? And what
did he actually accomplish? Well, I guess I better answer
the question. Who is he? He's God. I love saying that. He's God manifest in the flesh.
He's the creator. He's the God man. He's the second
person of the Blessed Trinity. Why was he hanging on a cross?
God's purpose, for God's glory, because the sins of God's people
became His and He became guilty of them. God is just. He must
be punished. God will not let sin go unpunished. That's why He's there. Who did
He do it for? His elect. the sheep, those the
father gave him before the foundation of the world, all who see themselves
as sinners needing the savior. This doesn't cut anybody out
when you say he only died for the elect. If you want to be
saved from your sins and you can't save yourself, he died
for you. I guarantee you he did. This is not cutting anybody off.
This is opening the door of mercy wide What did he accomplish? The complete
salvation of his people when he said it is finished. Who is he? He's the eternal God. He's not something in between
God and man. He is not something less than
God, but something greater than man. He is eternal God. He's the creator. He's the man,
Christ Jesus, bone of our bones and flesh of our flesh. Now we
preach Christ, he said. We preach Christ as the Messiah,
the anointed one, which is what Christ means. The anointed, the
scent of God. Listen to these scriptures. This is the work of God that
you believe on him whom he hath sent. Do you believe God sent
him? Do you believe that God sent
him? I came down from heaven, he said
in John 6, 38, not to do my own will, but the will of him that
sent me. They have believed, the Lord
said concerning all of his people, that thou hast sent me. sent to be the Christ, the anointed,
the Messiah, God's Christ, God's prophet, God's priest, God's
king. Now, what's a prophet? He's someone
who brings us the word of God. What's a priest? He's someone
who brings men to God. What's a king? He's the one whose
will is done, the one who rules Now, God made Christ his prophet,
and Christ Jesus is like no other prophet. And here's why. Every
other prophet says, thus saith the Lord. He never said that. He said, I say it. That's the
authority. I say it. He's fake as one having
authority. not as the scribes. He's God's priest, but he's like
no other priest. These priests of the Old Testament
brought the blood of an animal sacrifice that can never take
away sin. It just represented him. He comes
with his own precious blood, having accomplished salvation
and presenting that to the Father. He's like no other priest. He's
like no other king. Every power, every authority,
every kingly person has their position because of God. It's
all borrowed. But this king has inherent power
as God over all, blessed forever. He's God's prophet, like no human
prophet. He's God's priest, like no human
priest. He's God's king. And to preach Christ is to preach
him as prophet, priest, and king, the sinner's only hope. Now, one of my favorite scriptures,
I've got a lot of favorite scriptures, I guess you figured that out.
But here's one of my favorite. Hebrews 1.3, when he had by himself
purged our sins, sat down at the right hand of the majesty
on high. Now, understand this, by himself means me and you had
no hand in it. It's something he did totally
by himself. And I'm so thankful it's that
way, because if it wasn't by himself, that means something
expected out of me. And if something's expected out
of me for me to do something in order to make myself acceptable
before God, I'm in trouble, and you are too. But thank God he
by himself purged our sins. Philip went down and preached
Christ unto them. Turn with me to Colossians chapter
three. Verse nine. Lie not one to another, seeing
that you put off the old man with his deeds and have put on
the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image
of him that created him. There is neither Greek nor Jew,
circumcision nor uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, bond nor
free, but Christ is all. In all. Now to preach Christ
is to preach Him as all. In all. I wish I could speak of this
the way I ought to speak, but I know this, anything contrary
to Christ is all is evil. Any preaching you hear that would
in any way make Christ not to be all in salvation is evil. And I'm so thankful that Christ
is all in salvation, because if he's not all, that means salvation
is at least partially by works. But thank God he is all in salvation. We know he's all because the
Bible says it and we love it that way. He is not the central
theme of scripture. He's the only thing. I wonder
if anybody here believes that. He's not the central thing. You
know, I even dislike the term Christ-centered preaching. We
have Christ-centered preaching. That's not good enough. If it's
Christ-centered, that means there's other stuff. Christ is all. In all the scriptures, no scriptures
understood apart from Him. He's all in salvation. He's all that God is. I could
just say that over and over and over again. He's not like God,
He is God. He's all that God is. In Him
dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. Jesus Christ
is all in the purpose of God. God created the universe for
the glory of His Son. The fall of man was for the glory
and honor of Jesus Christ. Christ is all, in all of God's
purpose. God made the universe to glorify
His Son. How do you feel about that? Does that make you happy? Christ is all, this is so important. Christ is all only when he's
all you have. If you have Christ and something
else, he's not all to you. You have Christ and your experience,
Christ and your growth, Christ and your good works, Christ and
anything. He's not all to you. He's only
all to you when he is all you have. What do you and I know
about that? He went and preached Christ to
them. I love thinking about it. There's one doctrine, they're
not doctrines, there's one doctrine, the doctrine of Christ. The doctrine
of grace. And every doctrine of the doctrine,
Christ is all in it. You talk about election. What
is election? God chose who'd be saved before
time again, but that choice was in Christ. It wasn't some arbitrary
choice on God's part. Well, I'm gonna save this one,
I'm gonna damn that one. You have no understanding of election,
if that's what you think that means. God chose a people in
his son. according as he has chosen us
in him before the foundation of the world, that we should
be holy and without blame before him. Christ is all in redemption. He by himself purged our sins. It's a redemption that actually
redeemed. He's all in redemption. My sin has all been paid for
and put away. Christ is all in justification. I'm justified by his righteousness.
His righteousness is my personal righteousness before God. Christ
is all in regeneration. You know why God gave you the
new birth? Because Christ died for you. Because you're united
to Christ. Because you were found in Him
before time began. That's why. He's all in preservation. We're kept by Him. Preserved
in Christ Jesus. Every aspect of the Gospel, Christ
Jesus is all. He went and preached Christ to
them. Now, what do you and I know?
of what Paul said in 1 Corinthians 2, verses 1 and 2, I determined,
I made this my resolve, I determined not to know anything among you,
save Jesus Christ and Him crucified. Now, I said this last night when
I was preaching, if you want to hear anything other than Christ,
it's because you've never heard Christ in the first place. Now that's, that's just the truth. You ever hear the gospel of Christ?
You won't want to hear anything else. And I've heard, I've had
people say to me, there's got to be more. Well, you just ain't
seen anything yet. If that's the case, if there's
got to be more, you've not seen the glory of Jesus Christ. Christ Jesus is all. Now back
to our text, he preached Christ unto them. And I guess the best
summary of what it means to preach Christ is to say that Christ
is all. In all. He preached Christ unto them. Verse 6. And the people with
one accord gave heed unto those things which Philip spake, hearing
and seeing the miracles which he did. They gave heed, they
listened to what was being said as Philip preached Christ unto
them. And I noticed the order, hearing and seeing. Hearing and seeing. You will not see until you first
hear. Faith cometh by hearing. And hearing by the word of God.
And when you hear, you see. Everybody who hears sees. They see that Christ is all. This is the will of him that
sent me that everyone which seeth the son and believeth on him. Now understand this, you see,
you see who he is and this is everything, who he is. You see
who he is, you will believe. And if you don't believe, it's
because you've never seen. You see who he is, you will believe. You can't trust an unrevealed
Christ. And the people with one accord
gave heathen to those things which Philip spake, hearing and
seeing the miracles which he did. For, now look at the miracles
he did. For unclean spirits, crying with
loud voice, came out of many that were possessed with them,
and many taken with palsies. That's people who lost control
and had no control over their muscles or anything they did.
And that were lame, they had lost the ability to walk, were
healed. Now this was the authentication
of Philip. He was doing things that only
God could do. Casting out unclean spirits.
Only God can do that. No man has the power to do that. And he was healing people who
had no ability. People who were palsied, whose
muscles had got to where they couldn't control them. People
who were lame and couldn't walk. He was healing those people. He was doing what only God could
do. There's something very significant
to that. These two things, the uncleanness
of these spirits that left and the inability of the lame to
walk and the palsy to even move their body, this represents something. It represents sin. It represents,
first of all, the depravity of sin and uncleanness. And it represents
the inability that sin produces because they could not move. They couldn't move toward God.
This is what is known as total depravity and total inability. Now, when we think of total depravity,
we generally think of serial killers or pedophiles or some
horrible crime, and indeed that's included in total depravity,
but it's not really what total depravity means. Total depravity means that you
are totally depraved in every area. You hate what you ought
to love. I'm talking about me too. When
I'm talking about you, I'm including myself in that. It's what we
are by nature. You hate what you ought to love. And you love
what you ought to hate. Total depravity means every area
of your life, your understanding is no good. You can't figure
this thing out. Your will is completely and totally
depraved under the bondage of sin. There's no such thing as
free will. No such thing. Your will is controlled by an
evil, wicked nature. Your affections are wrong. Every
aspect of you is evil. That's what the Bible teaches. Total depravity. And the pausingness
and lameness speaks of inability. It's what comes with total depravity.
You're unable to believe unless God causes you to and gives you
a new nature. You're unable to repent. You're
unable to love. You're unable to do anything
but sin. Is that true concerning you?
By nature, is that true concerning you? Somebody says, well, I can't
see that, then the Lord hasn't taught you anything. If the Lord
teaches you, you'll know that this is so concerning yourself.
Total depravity and total inability, no man can come to me except
the Father which has sent me, draw him. Now what this does,
this tells us something about what the true nature of sin is.
Sin makes me unclean, evil. Sin makes me unable. Well, I'm glad I don't have to
stop there. If that's a very depressing message, but I brought
this out a few weeks ago. Um, I love that song, a rock
of ages cleft for me. Let me hide myself in thee. Let
the water and the blood from thy ribbon side, which flowed
be of sin. The double cure saved me from
its guilt and power. The guilt of sin is the depravity
part. The power of sin is the inability
part. Now here's what Christ Jesus
does for sinners, for sinners, for people who are totally depraved
and totally unable. Would that be you? Do you believe
that regarding yourself by nature? Well, here's what he does for
everybody like that. He takes care of the guilt of
sin. It's called justification. And
he takes care of the power of sin. It's called regeneration. It's called being born again.
Now you think of these, this is the work of Christ for you.
This is the work of Christ in you. Now, these unclean spirits,
totally depraved, these palsied, lame people who couldn't move.
No man can come to me except the Father which has sent me
drawn. Christ Jesus came into the world to save people like
that. That was His purpose in coming. Thou shalt call His name
Jesus, for He shall save His people from their sins. That's
why He came. Now, here is what He did. This is the preaching
of Christ. May God enable me to do this.
Christ Jesus came into the world, sent by His Father, and He kept
God's law perfectly. He worked out a perfect righteousness. He never sinned. Can you even
get a hold of that? No. He never even had a bad thought.
Nothing but purity, nothing but holiness, nothing but perfection,
perfect love to his father, loving his neighbors himself. He worked
out a perfect righteousness. He kept God's holy law perfectly. Yet, he was nailed to a cross. You know, somebody wrote a book
when bad things happen to good people. That's only happened
one time. One time. The sins of God's elect became
his sins. He became guilty of the commission
of those sins. No, he never sinned. He knew
no sin, he did no sin. But he became guilty of the commission
of those sins. God is just. God killed him. And that perfect righteousness
that he worked out, the obedience of Christ, is given to everybody
he died for. It's called substitution. It's
called the gospel. It's called Christ. That's what
he did. And here's my standing before
God. I stand before God right now as righteous. No difference between me and
Jesus Christ. His righteousness is my righteousness before God.
I'm united to him. Now, you want to talk about something
to bring great joy if you really believe that. Oh, there is great
joy wherever that's believed. All my sin, what sin? It's gone.
I stand before God perfectly justified, the work of Christ
for me. That's what takes care of the
guilt of the depravity. But if that's all that's done,
that's not enough because I still got this evil heart. Under the
power of sin, I can't believe, I can't repent, I can't love,
but God gives a new heart. One that was not there before
in the new birth. A new heart also will I give
you. And I can do things now which I once knew nothing about. I can remember thinking, I would
believe if I knew what it meant. I'd repent if I knew what it
meant. But I believe now. I didn't decide to believe. I
found myself believing. I didn't decide to repent. I
found myself in a state of repentance. I didn't choose to, I'm gonna
start loving God and loving the way he saves. No, I found myself
doing it. Why? Because I was given a new
heart. Romans 6, 14 says, sin shall
not have dominion over you. Now, when I was an unbeliever,
sin had complete dominion over me. So much so that I didn't
even know it. Didn't even know it. Same thing
with you. Somebody says, sin doesn't have
dominion over me. Well, you just don't know what sin is then.
If the Lord ever teaches you who you are, you'll know something
about the dominion of sin. But here is what it is to be
free from the dominion of sin. I now see what it is to be under
its dominion, but I see what it is to trust Christ as my only
righteousness before God. There was a time when I couldn't
do that. Sin had complete power over me. I couldn't believe the
gospel any more than I could create a world. But I do now. I do now. I didn't used to love
the Lord. I do now. I think he's altogether lovely.
I didn't used to see any beauty in the gospel. Oh, I see the
beauty in it now. Why? I've been delivered from
the dominion of sin. And I can't wait to be delivered
from the presence of sin. when I don't sin anymore. As a Lord, I say this cautiously, fearfully, but other
than seeing Christ Himself, that's my greatest desire, to not sin
anymore. To be perfectly conformed to the image of Jesus Christ. And I pray for grace to walk
with Him. Philip came down to that heathen
city and he preached Christ unto them. And a bunch of folks believed. They were given faith, the gift
of God's grace. A bunch of folks, I want to be
one of those people. Don't you? I want to be one of those people
where there's great joy in the city from believing the gospel. And it's my prayer. that that
will be duplicated here right now, that there will be great
joy in the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. And there is great
joy in being justified and being given a new heart. Let's pray. Lord, there will be no preaching
of Christ unless you cause it to be. And we ask that you would
take your word and bless it in spite of us for
the Lord's sake. And Lord, will you teach us that
your kingdom is not meat and drink, but righteousness. Thy son's righteousness is our
glorious righteousness, the peace that comes from knowing that
everything you require of us we have in his righteousness,
and the joy we experience from knowing that he is our righteousness. Lord, let us enter into the joy
and the peace of believing. Bless your word for Christ's
sake. Be with all your people for Christ's
sake. Give us grace to believe. Give
us grace to love you more. Lord, forgive us of our sins. Cleanse us. Give us grace to
walk, talk, and think in a way that beautifies and glorifies
your gospel. In Christ's blessed name, we
pray. Amen. Why don't you come lead us in
closing here. We're going to have a baptism
after the service. Roscoe Bowling is going to confess Christ and
believers baptism. So after the song. Let's stand
and sing hymn number 475, Redeemed. 475. Redeemed, how I love to proclaim
it. Redeemed by the blood of the
Lamb. Redeemed through the blood of
the Lamb.