Would you turn back to Acts chapter
five? Lord took Tom Wooten this morning. What a blessing of grace it was
to get to know this man. I love him dearly and I'm thankful
he was a part of this assembly. What a blessing it was. And he's
even, as we speak right now, beholding the face of the Lord
Jesus Christ. I wish we would all listen to
this message as if it were our last day to hear a gospel message. I wanted to let you know also
that someone has designated the money to put us on DirecTV. And it's supposedly, well not
supposedly, they say it reaches 27 million homes. I don't know
how many that'll translate to hearing them, but I'm very thankful
for that opportunity. And we're also, for the next
three months, going to be on a station in Louisville. and
it'll be 10 o'clock in the morning, and wouldn't it be something
if somebody from any, well, it'd be something if anybody hears,
but I think, what if a seminary student hears? Wouldn't that
be a blessing, and they could hear the gospel? But pray about
that, and pray for the Lord's blessing on that. Tonight, I'm
gonna be preaching on the subject, Without Blame. According as he
hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world,
that we should be holy and without blame. I've entitled this message, What
Is It To Preach Jesus Christ? What Is It To Preach Jesus Christ? Verse 40, And to him they agreed,
Gamaliel. And when they had called the
apostles and beaten They commanded that they should not speak in
the name of Jesus and let them go. And they departed from the
presence of the council rejoicing, not upset, but rejoicing that
they were counted worthy to suffer shame for his name. Is that something you and I would
rejoice in? That we would be counted worthy
to suffer shame for His name? Verse 42, and daily. This was their daily practice
in the temple and in every house, both public and private, the
same message. They cease not. This was their
continual practice. They cease not to teach and preach
Jesus Christ. What does it mean to teach and
preach Jesus Christ? When Philip went into Samaria
in Acts chapter 8 we read where he preached Christ unto them. And in that same chapter when
he came to the Ethiopian eunuch and the eunuch asked him the
question of whom speaketh the prophet, this man or some, himself
or some other man, scripture says he opened his mouth at that
same scripture and preached unto him Jesus. When Paul talked about people
who preach Christ with good motive and bad motive, some in pretense
and some in sincerity. He said, Christ is preached and
I therein will rejoice. Christ is preached. What is it
to preach Jesus Christ? Well, I know this. I know this. If I preach Jesus Christ, I am
preaching a person. One time I heard a man say, I
do not want to hear doctrine. I want to hear about Jesus. That is utterly foolish. You cannot say anything regarding
the Lord Jesus Christ without speaking doctrine. We read of
the doctrine of Christ. You can't preach Jesus Christ
and not preach doctrine. Another time somebody came to
me and they told me that somebody said, do you really believe Election,
predestination, do you really believe that? And they told me,
they replied, it's not a what, it's a who. And my thought was, no, what you're doing is dancing
around, identifying with Christ and saying, yes, I do believe
those and try to change it with some kind of religious language.
To say we preach and teach Jesus Christ does not mean in any way
that we don't identify with all the doctrine of the gospel. But
remember this, the doctrine of Christ is one doctrine. It's
all found in this book. What is it to teach and preach
Jesus Christ? Now you'll notice they said,
don't preach in this name. Don't preach in the name of Jesus.
Now to preach Jesus Christ is to preach in his name first of
all. Now what is meant by that? It's authoritative. To preach
Jesus Christ is to preach in his name. Now if I say believe
this because I said it how much authority does that have? Zero. Nothing. But if I say this is
his word and I'm coming in his name, believe this and be saved,
don't believe this and be damned. That's preaching in his name,
in his authority. I love that scripture at the
end of the Sermon on the Mount. It says they were astonished
at his doctrine for he spake as one having authority and not
as the scribes. Now here's what it is to preach
Jesus Christ. I know there are other things
probably I could say, no doubt, but this is what I'm going to
say this morning. And I know all these things are
so when it comes to preaching Jesus Christ, that's the message.
The message is Jesus Christ. What does it mean to preach Jesus
Christ? Well, first of all, It's to tell
who he is. Jesus Christ is not like God. He's not like God at all. He
is God. He is the creator of the universe. He's the absolute sovereign of
the universe. Did you know that He's your Lord? Somebody says, no, I didn't know
it. Well, I'm here to tell you He is. Whether you acknowledge
it or not, you are in His hands. He's the Lord. And whatever happens
to you is utterly up to His sovereign will. That's who He is. He has all the attributes of
God because He is God. He said, He that hath seen me
hath seen the Father. He's called in Isaiah 9, 6, unto
us a child is born. unto us a son is given. He's
the eternal son and the government shall be upon his shoulders.
He, he controls everything and his name shall be called wonderful
counselor. Now that word counselor is not
a noun like you go to get good counsel from him. It's a verb. My counsel shall stand. I will do all my pleasure. That's who Jesus Christ is. He's
God. He's holy. He's immutable. He's sovereign. He's just. He's omnipresent. He's omniscient.
Somebody says, well, how can he as a man be omnipresent? I don't know, but he is because
he said the son of man when he was talking to people here on
earth, which is in heaven in John chapter three, he is God. Jesus Christ is man. He spent nine months in his mother's
womb, just like me and you did. He has a real heart with real
blood, real bones. He is the man, Christ Jesus. But there's one difference between
this man and every other man. This is the only righteous man
to ever live. He's the only holy man to ever
live. He never sinned. When we speak of his humanity,
when we speak of his manhood, we speak of his sinlessness. He said, which of you can convince
me of sin? Not one person. He said, the
prince of this world has come and has found nothing in me. He couldn't find anything that
he could grab onto. What can he find in you? Oh,
he wouldn't have any trouble with us, would he? But oh, regarding
the Son of Man, he hath found nothing in me. He's God and he's
man. He's Jesus. I love his name,
Jesus. Joshua, you know the Old Testament
picture. Moses couldn't bring the children
of Israel into the Promised Land. And the law, your obedience to
the law can't bring you into heaven. But Joshua, brought them
into heaven. He's Jesus, the Savior. He's
God's Christ. Jesus Christ, God's prophet. He is the Word of God. God's
priest. If He brings you into God's presence,
you're there, accepted. He's God's King, ruling and reigning. When we preach Jesus Christ,
we certainly tell who He is. He's God. He's the Creator. He's your Lord. You're in His hands. I love preaching
that way. I can't help it. I just love
it. I can't stand it when people say things like, won't you make
Him your Lord? He already is your Lord. He already is your
Lord. You don't have any choice of
this. That's because of who He is. To preach Jesus Christ is to
tell what he came to do. To preach Jesus Christ, this
is so important, you can't preach Jesus Christ and not preach this.
To preach Jesus Christ is to tell what he came to do. Now, most of you that have jobs,
you've seen that your company or organization that you work
for, corporation or whatever it might be, has what's called
a mission statement. a mission statement. About every
place has some kind of mission statement. If you're in education,
you've got some kind of mission statement. This is what we're
going to do. I always like going into Cain's and reading their,
you know, raising the chicken place, you know, but they've
got their mission statement. It's really good. I always like to read it
every time I go in here. Plus, I like their chicken fingers. I'm giving
them some good advertising. I love those things. But at any
rate, a mission statement. When you have a mission statement,
you tell what you're going to do. This is where most preaching
fails because they fail in giving Christ's mission statement. And
if you don't give his mission statement, you're going to end
up in the wrong place. You started wrong and you can't
possibly finish well. Here's what most preachers say.
Here's his mission statement. He came to make salvation possible
if you fill in the blank. a lie, there's not a bit of truth
to it. Here is his mission statement.
Matthew chapter 1 verse 21, thou shalt call his name Jesus for
he shall save his people from their sins. Is there anything
confusing about that? Here's his mission statement.
Christ Jesus, came into the world to save sinners. Did he do it? He said, the son of man has come
to seek and to save that which was lost. I love what he said
to the Syrophoenician woman, I'm not sent but to the lost
sheep of the house of Israel. Now, in order to preach Jesus
Christ, I need to tell what His mission is, and he makes it very
clear in the Bible. I love there at the opening of
the great high priestly prayer for his people. He said in John
chapter 17, verse four, I have glorified thee on the earth. That's his mission. He came to
glorify his father. And that's exactly what he did.
He completely glorified his father. He said, I've finished the work. thou gavest me to do." Now if
I don't preach why He came. He came to save His people from
their sins and that's what He did. If I don't preach that,
I'm not preaching Jesus Christ. I'm preaching another Jesus.
To preach Jesus Christ is to preach His mission and His mission
accomplished. Now to preach Jesus Christ is
to preach, listen real carefully, first it's to preach who he is,
it's to preach why he came, and it's to preach the success and
the, I like this word, the solitariness of his work. The solitariness
of his work. It's success and his solitariness. You know what that means? When
you play solitaire, that means you're the only one playing.
you're the only one doing it. Hebrews chapter one, verse three
says, when he had by himself purged our sins, you know, it
would have been wonderful if he said he purged our sins, but
that's not the way he says it. when he had by himself, by himself
purged our sins. The complete purging of sins,
his mission was done by himself with no help from anybody or
anything. Now, Jesus Christ by himself
created the universe. How much did you have in that?
What part did you play in that? You didn't play any part in that,
did you? That's what he did by himself. You made no contribution.
It didn't take something for you to do to complete it. He did it by himself. Now, how much do you have to
do with the purging of sins? Are your sins purged because
you accepted what he did for you? Because you decided to apply
it to your life? No. What he did, he did by himself. And that is such a relief to
me. I'm so thankful it's that way. He did it by Himself. That means my works do not enter
into this thing. There's nothing I do to make
it effectual. Now to make faith or repentance
or our will what is needed to activate what He did is to preach
salvation by works. I cannot preach Jesus Christ
if I don't preach Him in the solitariness and the success
of His works. It's not Christ and it's my standing
before God right now. It's not Christ and it's Christ
alone. Colossians chapter two verse
10 says in him verse nine in him dwelleth all the fullness
of the Godhead in a body and you are complete. You're complete, there's nothing
you need to do to complete this. In Him, you are complete. That means right now, I stand
before God, perfect, accepted, I can't get any more loved, I
can't get any more saved, and it doesn't have anything to do
with anything I've done. Oh, the solitariness, the success
of the work of the Lord Jesus Christ, and to preach Jesus Christ
is to preach Him as the only object of faith. To preach Jesus Christ is to
preach Him as the only object of faith. The Lord said, this
is the work of God. that you believe on him whom
he hath sent." Now, listen real carefully. May the Lord give
me grace to say this the way it ought to be said. Jesus Christ
is the only object of faith. Now, what do I mean by that? Faith has absolutely nothing
to do with what you personally right now think about yourself. It doesn't have anything to do
with you thinking, well, I'm saved, I must be saved, because
I this, or it doesn't have anything to do with you thinking, well,
I must not be saved, because faith doesn't have anything to
do with what you think about yourself. All faith has to do with is what
you think concerning him. Now, just forget about yourself.
That's hard to do, isn't it? I realize it's hard to do. I'm
always thinking about myself. You can ask Elaine, she'll tell
you that's true. When Philip preached the gospel
to the Ethiopian eunuch, he said, here's water. What hinders me from being baptized? Give me a reason why I shouldn't
be baptized. And he wasn't saying that facetiously,
he wanted to know. Maybe I need to know more. Maybe
I need to have a deeper experience. Maybe I need some more time to
see evidence in my life to prove that this is real. Maybe I, is
there something I'm lacking? Is there something I need to
do? Is there something I need to be? Is there something I need
to experience? What hinders me from being baptized? And I love his answer, if you
believe with all your heart, you may. Now don't miss this
heart, all your heart. The heart is the understanding,
it's the affections, it's the will. It's not how sincere you
are. When we think of heart faith,
generally, we'll think of something that is almost indefinable. Something
that, well, I can't put my hand on it, but I believe with my
heart, not just with my head. We think things like that. I
want to believe with my heart, and I do. I do, but understand
this. Believing with the heart is not something undefinable.
It means you believe with your understanding, It means you believe
with your affections. You love it that way. It means
you believe with your will. You want it to be that way. Now,
how did he answer? Here's water. What hinders me
from being baptized? If you believe with all your
heart, you may. And he said, I believe that Jesus
Christ is the son of God. I believe He's the Eternal Creator,
the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity. I love Him being the
Son of God. I want Him to be. He is whatever,
He is what He is, whatever I think. but I believe with all my heart
that he is the son of God. Now notice he didn't say, I believe
that I'm saved, or I believe that my life has changed, or
I believe I'm one of the elect, or I believe my spirit, no, nothing
to do with himself. Understand, faith has wholly
to do with what you believe concerning him. This is the one issue. What do you think of Christ? What do you think of Christ? Whose son is he? Faith is what you believe regarding
him. He is the only object of faith.
Your faith is not the object of faith, your repentance, your
experience, your assurance or lack thereof. He is the only
object of faith. Whoso believeth that Jesus is
the Christ is born of God. He is the only object of faith. To preach Jesus Christ is to
preach His saving grace. To preach Jesus Christ is to
preach His saving grace. Most of you have probably heard
the Apostle's Creed before. Here's the true Apostle's Creed.
Turn with me for a moment to Acts 15. You're there in Acts. Verse 1, and certain men which
came down from Judea taught the brethren Brethren said, except
you be circumcised after the manner of Moses, you can't be
saved. When therefore Paul and Barnabas
had no small dissension and disputation with them, they determined that
Paul and Barnabas and certain others of them should go up to
Jerusalem and to the apostles and elders about this question.
Now look down in verse six. And the apostles and the elders
came together for to consider this matter. Are works involved
in salvation? Is there something we need to
do? And when there had been much disputing, Peter rose up and
said unto them, Men and brethren, you know how that God a good
while ago made choice among us that the Gentiles by my mouth
should hear the word of the gospel and believe. He was talking about
what happened in Acts chapter 10 with Cornelius. And God, which
knoweth the hearts, bared them witness, giving them the Holy
Ghost, even as he did unto us. And he put no difference between
us and them. purifying their hearts by faith.
Now therefore why tempt ye God to put a yoke upon the neck of
the disciples which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear?
But we believe that through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ
we shall be saved." Now in the original It's spoken in such
a way as you could fairly translate this, we believe that by the
grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, we've been saved. And you could also translate
this, we believe that by the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ,
we're being saved. And you could also translate
this. We believe that by the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ
we shall be saved just like them. I think it's so significant.
He didn't say they'll be saved like we will. These Gentiles will be saved
the same. No us Jews will be saved the
same way these Gentiles are saved by the grace our Lord Jesus Christ. Now to preach Jesus Christ, it's
to preach who He is, it's to preach His mission, it's to preach
His accomplishment of His mission, it's to preach Him as the only
object of faith, it's to preach His saving grace. You know the grace of our Lord
Jesus Christ. Though He was rich and Yet for
your sakes he became poor, that you through his poverty might
be rich. Now to preach Jesus Christ, I
must preach his electing grace. How he chose who would be saved
before time began. I must preach His redeeming grace
that made full payment for my sin, and all my sins are paid
for. I must preach His justifying grace, how He, by His grace,
has made me perfectly just before God. I must preach His regenerating
grace, how He gives life just like He did to Lazarus. Lazarus,
come forth! He that was dead came forth to
preach His grace. I must preach His preserving
grace, kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation.
I must preach His glorified saving grace. You cannot preach Jesus
Christ and not preach His saving grace. To preach Jesus Christ
is to preach Him as the only mediator. between God and men. First Timothy 2.5, there is one
God and one mediator between God and men, the man, Christ
Jesus. Not Mary, that's an abomination. Not saints, not your mother,
Christ Jesus is the only mediator. Between God and men, He said,
I am the way. No man comes to the Father but
by me. And you know what that means? It doesn't mean you come pleading
His name, though you do. It means that when He comes to
the Father, You come to the Father because you're in Him. Now that's the mediation of Christ. It's not Him just giving your
name. It's you being in Him so that
when He comes to the Father, you come to the Father. And that
way excludes all other ways. No man cometh to the Father but
by Me. Hebrews 7 25 says, Wherefore
He is able to save them to the uttermost that come to the Father
him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them."
Do you know what uttermost means? He's able to save them to the
uttermost. It means it's so full it's not even definable,
completely. completely, better than completely,
to the uttermost, to the furthest, to the most complete. You have
all that God requires. You have every spiritual blessing
in Christ. It's all yours in Christ Jesus.
You can't become more saved. You can't become more holy. You
can't become more loved than you are in Christ Jesus. Now, if I don't come by him,
I've never come at all. To preach Jesus Christ is to
preach Him as the only mediator between God and men. Now to preach Jesus Christ is
to preach His willingness to save. Now one of the things that
men use to argue against Sovereign grace, God electing a people
and Christ dying only for the elect. And I make no apologies
for saying that. That's what scripture teaches.
But one of the things men argue against that is you can't really
call on men to believe and come to Christ if you believe that
way. Yeah, you can. It's no problem at all. Whosoever
will. Let him take the water of life
freely. The Lord said, all that the Father
giveth me shall come to me, him that cometh to me I will in no
wise cast out for no reason whatsoever. If any man thirst, let him come
to me and drink. Come unto me all ye that labor
and are heavy laden and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon
you and learn of me for I'm meek and lowly in heart and you'll
find rest for your souls. My yoke is easy and my burden
is light. Do you know that there's never
been in the history of the universe anybody that came to Christ for
mercy that he turned away? Manasseh. There's never been
a more wicked man to live. When he humbles himself before
God and asks for mercy, you know what? He gets it. There has never
been a sinner that comes to Christ for mercy that he turns away.
And whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be
saved. This is not blunting mercy. This is not making it narrow.
This is not keeping people who would have been saved from being
saved. The door is wide open for any
sinner who comes to look to Christ only. If you come by Christ only,
you will be received. There's nothing in this that
keeps a sinner from calling upon Christ. Nothing. And here's my last point. And
this is so incredibly important. You only preach Jesus Christ
when you preach him only. If you can preach anything else,
you've never preached Him. Turn to 1 Corinthians chapter
2, verse 1. And I, brethren, when I came
to you, came not with excellency of speech or of wisdom, declaring
unto you the testimony of God, not with oratory and skills of
rhetoric. For I determined not to know
anything among you save Jesus Christ and Him crucified. All I preach is Jesus Christ
and Him crucified. I hope that every time you leave
this place, you're going to say, he just preached the same thing
he did last week. Man, a guy never varies. I hope that's laid to my charge. Very few preachers believe this.
They think other things are needed to motivate people to obedience,
to faithfulness and generosity. And the reason is they've never
seen the one pearl of great price. Remember that merchant man who's
going to seek many pearls and he finds one pearl of great price. And what's he do? He sells all
the other ones to have that one pearl of great price. The singular preaching of Jesus
Christ meets every need. Now let me ask you a question.
If all I preach is Jesus Christ and him crucified, will that
make people less orthodox? Will that make people less generous? Will that make people less obedient? No, not at all. The only time I preach
Jesus Christ is when He is all that I preach. I don't go back
to the law to try to beat people and Motivate them and scare them. No, you preach the gospel of
Jesus Christ only when he's all you preach. If you preach him
and something else, you're not preaching him at all. Daily. This was their daily practice. In the temple and from house
to house, both public and private the same, They cease not. They cease not. They wouldn't
stop this one practice. They cease not to teach and to
preach. Jesus Christ. May God in his
mercy give us the grace to be just like them. Daily, public,
and private. ceasing not to teach and to preach
Jesus Christ. Now somebody says what's the
difference between teaching and preaching. Well I know this. You can't preach
without teaching. You can teach without preaching.
But you can't preach without teaching. And this is what every
one of God's people are called to do to preach and to teach
Jesus Christ. Let's pray.