The Preacher of the Good News B

His position? He was a servant. His authority? He was sent by God.

His power? He was separated. His message? Good news. And good news that has come from God Himself. Welcome to Grace to You with John MacArthur.

I'm your host, Phil Johnson. How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news, the Bible says. And with that in mind, how often do you think about bringing the good news of Jesus Christ to others? Perhaps you're already involved in teaching Sunday school or leading a Bible study group, but you could use a refresher course when it comes to the fundamental elements of the gospel.

Or maybe you want to give people the gospel and do it effectively, but you're not exactly sure what to say. Well, John MacArthur will help you with that today as he continues his study titled, And Now for the Good News. Here's John with today's lesson. Now, we're going to see these seven verses and we're going to watch the unfolding of the good news. And there are basically seven aspects to it.

Let's begin with the first one. The preacher of the good news. The preacher of the good news. Now, God called a unique man to be the major spokesman for the good news. Verse 1, Paul. You remember him?

Paul. He was that man, the preacher of the good news. Uniquely was committed to him the mysteries, that which was hidden from the past generations and peoples and now revealed, as he says in Ephesians 3 and Colossians chapter 1. He was God's keynote speaker for the heralding of the good news. That remarkable Jew with Greek education and Roman citizenship.

That man with incredible abilities as a leader, a fighter, highly motivated, determined, articulate, brilliant, specially called and converted by God Himself. That man who completed three missionary journeys proclaiming the good news from Jerusalem to Macedonia and crisscrossing that territory. Paul, that very unique servant who could do miracles and yet could not rid himself of his own thorn in the flesh. Paul, who could break prisons to bits as he did in Philippi and yet himself was a prisoner. Paul is the preacher and may I remind you that every preacher who's ever preached since has depended on Paul's sermons for his material. Thirteen books of the New Testament, the legacy of this man through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.

Now, he tells us three things about himself in verse 1. First, Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ. Secondly, the preacher of the gospel says not only am I a servant of Jesus Christ, but called an apostle. The best rendering of the Greek is a called apostle, a called apostle. The idea is that he was an apostle not because he decided on his own, but because God decided and effectually called him.

There is no human appointment here. By the way, the term apostle was first used by the Lord in Luke 6 13. He called his disciples apostles. Now Paul was called an apostle by God. Quickly look with me at just a moment at Acts chapter 9.

Paul was on his way to Damascus to persecute Christians. The Lord stopped him in his tracks, slammed him in the ground, blinded him. And then there came a man by the name of Ananias who cared for him. And verse 15 of Acts 9, the Lord said through Ananias to Paul, Go thy way, for he is a chosen vessel unto me to bear my name.

He is a what? Chosen vessel. It wasn't his choice. It was God's choice. 22nd chapter of Acts, Paul looks back and he remembers what Ananias told him. Ananias came to him just as the Spirit had instructed him in chapter 9. He said to him, verse 13, Brothers Saul, receive your sight. And the same hour I looked up upon him and he said, The God of our fathers hath chosen thee, that thou shouldst know his will, and see that just one, and shouldst hear the voice of his mouth, that being Christ. For thou shalt be his witness unto all men of what thou hast seen and heard.

Look at chapter 26, verse 16. The Lord says, Rise and stand on thy feet, for I have appeared unto thee for this purpose. Paul is recalling his testimony. I have appeared for the purpose of making thee a minister, and have witnessed both of these things which thou hast seen and of those things in which I will appear unto thee.

And he appeared to him two more times. Delivering thee from the people and from the Gentiles unto whom now I send thee to open their eyes and turn them from darkness to light and from the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive forgiveness of sin and inheritance among them who are sanctified by faith that is in me. And then he says, Whereupon, O King Agrippa, I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision, I obeyed. He was called an apostle.

In fact, in 1 Corinthians 9, he says, Woe is unto me if I preach not the gospel. He says, Don't give me a reward. Don't give me an honor.

Don't name a school after me or put a plaque on the wall or build a statue. Pray for me. God has given me a task to do I didn't ask for, and if I mess up, I'm in a lot of trouble. In Galatians 1, he said, I am a servant called an apostle. And he said, God has placed me into this ministry. He says in verse 10 of Galatians 1, Do I seek the favor of men or of God?

Do I seek to please men? For if I yet please men, I should not be the servant of Christ. And he says, I make known to you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached by me is not after man, for I neither received it of man, neither was I taught it, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ. He says, My call was from Christ Himself. I think that's a very important word, that if you're going to represent the Lord Jesus Christ, you better know that He called you.

I wouldn't take one step forward if I wasn't sure that God had placed me in the ministry. It's far beyond me now. The term apostolos, which is translated back in Romans 1 as apostle, means a sent one, a commissioned one, a dispatched one, a messenger, an ambassador, or an envoy. And by the way, in those days they called certain boats apostolic boats. And apostolic boats were not boats that carried apostles. It had a secular use. An apostolic boat was a cargo ship that was dispatched with a cargo for another city.

And so it meant anything dispatched or sent. And Paul is saying, I am sent, but my being sent is not a self-made decision. You know that the term apostle appears 78 times in the New Testament, and far and away the majority of those times refer to the 12 and Paul, who were specially sent, specially sent. This week I read the story of a dear old black preacher. He preached out in a little country church. He preached his heart out and he was a humble and godly man. And a young man came to preach one Sunday night who was cocky, self-assured, thought he was more than those folks really deserved. And he preached and it was apparent his attitude, and when he was done the dear old black preacher went up to him and said this, young man, was you sent or did you just went?

I think maybe there's a lot of people who wasn't sent, they just went, but Paul was sent. And he knew it because God had affirmed it to him. I've been reading the last two weeks a book entitled The Reformed Pastor by Richard Baxter written in 1650. In the first hundred pages he calls the clergy to task in Britain in 1650 and says to them, before you keep preaching you better go back and find out if you're redeemed.

And he goes for a hundred pages of that. You better be sure God has sent you. There is also an official sense in which we have to understand the word apostle. An apostle was a very official office. It had a broad sense and everybody who bears the message of Christ is sent. Go into all the world and preach the gospel.

We're all sent. We all are apostles with a small a. And the New Testament lists various people who are apostles who are outside the Twelve and Paul.

But they're the ones with a capital A, an official office. And if you were to study the New Testament, you'd find that they had to be directly called by Jesus Christ, that is directly and verbally and personally by Him. They had to have been eyewitnesses of Christ and His resurrection, and Paul was because he saw Him on the Damascus Road. They were endowed with a special ability from the Holy Spirit in which they could write correctly the New Testament because Jesus made the promise to them that the Spirit would come and live in them and lead them into all what?

Truth and bring to remembrance everything He'd said. They also were given the ability to do signs and wonders and mighty deeds and miracles, which are called by the apostle Paul the signs of an apostle. And their office was not restricted to a local church nor to any short period of time. But they became the foundation on which all the history of the church is built. So these unique twelve plus one, Matthias replacing Judas, were the foundation. They had to be called by Jesus Himself. They had to be eyewitnesses of His resurrection. They received the Holy Spirit by which they could write the revelation, and they could do signs and wonders and mighty deeds.

And their office extended far beyond any local congregation. And Paul was one of those very special, special people. And he knew that God had called him. You know, in Jeremiah 23 it says there were some prophets who went, but they never were sent. And the people should never listen to them. Oh, beloved, I tell you there are so many prophets like that today who are out there talking, but should not be listened to. They are damned prophets, false prophets. And then there are those who never were sent, they just went. They have not the anointing of God on them. And we are not to listen to them.

They have corrupted the church through all the centuries of its existence and continue to do so even now. And so says Paul, I am a servant of Jesus Christ, a called apostle. And by the way, he calls himself that at the beginning of several other letters as well. Then thirdly, and we'll stop with this point, separated under the gospel of God. You want to know something basic? You can't serve God unless you're separated.

It can't be done. It's a rich, rich idea. The word separated is the idea of setting apart. You can go back into the understanding of the Old Testament in the 13th chapter, for example, of Exodus, and you'll see that God wanted set apart unto him the firstborn of man, the firstborn of the beasts. You can go to Numbers 15 and you'll see that God wanted the first fruits of the crop. You can go to Numbers 8 and see that God set apart the best of men, consecrated the Levites to his service.

You can go to Leviticus 20 and see that God took the whole nation of Israel. And according to Leviticus 20, 26, he separated them from the other nations and said, This people is holy unto the Lord. Every one of those scriptures I just gave you, the separating of the man and the beast, the separating of the first fruit, the separating of the Levites, and the separating of Israel, in the Septuagint version, the Greek version, uses the word aphoridzane.

And that is exactly the word used here. It means separation in the fullest sense. Those animals and those firstborn sons were utterly separated to the Lord. The first fruits the same, the Levites the same, the nation the same.

There was to be no intermingling. And Paul knew that once he was called an apostle, he was disconnected from the past. By the way, Pharisee meant a separated one.

And all his life to this point is adult life. Paul had been a Pharisee, separated unto the tradition of the Jews. Now he says, I am, if you will, a Pharisee separated unto the gospel of God.

Good news, no more of man's bad news. In Galatians 1.15 he said, when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother's womb and called me by His grace. Paul was separated from his mother's womb. On the road to Damascus, he was separated unto the gospel of God. And then he became a pastor of the church at Antioch and in Acts 13.2 the Bible says the Holy Spirit said unto them, separate me, Paul and Barnabas, and send them to the work I have for them. He was a separated man.

The secret of his service is that he was a bond slave. He utterly surrendered to the Lord. He was an apostle sent to carry the message.

And beloved, he cut the cord. I tell you, there are more people in gospel ministry who see little fruit and no power, even though they may understand that they're to be servants and they may have been called, but somewhere along the line they are unwilling to be separated. Would you look with me at one scripture, the last one we'll look at for this time, 2 Timothy chapter 2. Do you remember the situation in 2 Timothy chapter 2? Timothy was a servant of the Lord, servant of Christ. Timothy was an apostle, small a, not one of the twelve plus Paul, but nonetheless a messenger sent. But Timothy had come to the point in his life where everything was coming apart. He lost it. Do you know what was happening to him?

Well, just looking in this letter alone, you can find a lot of things. Verse 6, chapter 1, I put thee in remembrance that thou stir up the gift of God which is in thee by the putting on of my hands. What do you mean stir up the gift of God? What was the gift of God? Well, the gift of God was the particular ability that he had for ministry, the preaching and the teaching.

And that was a gift of God given to him and it was confirmed to him by those who were knowledgeable and affirmed it by the laying on of hands. In other words, he was getting lazy in the ministry, he just wasn't functioning. And then he says, not only are you not functioning, verse 7, but God has not given us the spirit of timidity.

He had become timid instead of bold. Verse 8, be not thou therefore ashamed of the testimony of our Lord. Now get this, this is Timothy, personally discipled by Paul, gifted enough to have followed Paul as the pastor of the Ephesian church. This is Timothy of whom Paul said to the Corinthians, I will send him to you to straighten you out because he will bring you into remembrance of all my ways. This was reproduction.

This was number one son. And he is not functioning and he is timid and he is ashamed of the gospel and even of his association with Paul. Chapter 2 verse 15, be diligent to show yourself unto God a workman that needs not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. Apparently he wasn't even really doing his job with the word of God. But verse 16 says he was involved in profane and vain babblings, hassling with philosophers. Verse 22 indicates that he probably was getting embroiled in some youthful lusts. Verse 23 that he was striving in foolish and unlearned questions. He lacked gentleness. In other words, the whole thing was coming apart.

He had been sucked into the system. And the word comes to him in chapter 2 verse 4. Paul says this, Timothy, have you forgotten that you're a soldier, verse 3? Have you forgotten that you're supposed to endure suffering as a good soldier? And you remember this, no man that fights the battle can entangle himself with the affairs of this life.

You hear that? What he's saying? Timothy, you cannot be caught in the lusts of this world. Timothy, you cannot be caught in the philosophy of this world. You cannot be caught in being ashamed of the gospel by the intimidation of this world.

You cannot be caught into the easy come, easy go society. You must be diligent to stir up the gift of God. Timothy, have you forgotten that you cannot entangle yourself with the affairs of this life? When you go into the ministry of Jesus Christ, you cut the cord.

You sever. That's the kind of man Paul was, servant of Christ, but not just that, called an apostle, but not just that, separated. And he never got himself entangled with the affairs of this life. I've known men go out of the ministry because they love money or possessions. They couldn't cut the cord. They fell into moral sin. The world lured them, or they were more concerned about their reputation, so when they got an opportunity to speak, they made sure they never offended anybody. And in so doing, they offended God, for they were not separated. What an example he is to us. His position, he was a servant. His authority, he was sent by God.

His power, he was separated. His message, good news, and good news that has come from God Himself. Now you know the preacher.

Let's pray. Father, thank you for speaking to my heart, for refreshing again in my own soul what it is that I am to be, because I know that this man is the example, for he said, be ye followers of me as I am of Christ. May I too be a faithful servant, understanding both the dignity and the humility of such service rendered.

May I have that affirmation of being called, though not an apostle as the twelve in Paul, yet as one sent, building upon their foundation. And may I, Father too, be separated. May I be disentangled from the affairs of this life. May I not be lured by the weakness of the flesh to forego the diligence of study to rightly divide the Word. May I not be lured by the world to be timid. May I not be lured by the world to be ashamed of the Lord or of those who represent Him, though they be prisoners. May I not slip to make my ministry a philosophical debate. May I not be lured by the lusts of unrighteousness. May I not find myself argumentative, breeding strife, lacking gentleness. In sum, as the Spirit of God said it to Timothy, may I be a good soldier who knows that he cannot be entangled with the affairs of this life. And I would pray that for all this your people. All of us fight the warfare, all of us are your servants, all of us have been called and sent to this world to be witnesses, and all of us must be separated. Teach us what that means in application in our own lives, that we may carry the good news to a world literally dying from all the bad news. And may there be many who hear that good news because we too have been faithful. We pray in Christ's name, amen. This is Grace to You with John MacArthur.

Thanks for being with us. John's current study is titled, And Now for the Good News. Along with teaching each day on the radio, John is also Chancellor of the Masters University and Seminary. Now, John, I want to mention some good news of another sort, something that I know you're eager to let our listeners know about. It's a new MacArthur study Bible featuring a text of Scripture that I think you're a big fan of.

So talk about that for a minute. Yes, I'm more than a big fan. The Legacy Standard translation, I believe, is the finest translation yet in the English language.

I'm a little biased. I had the opportunity to kind of drive that translation team. Three of the translators are from the Masters University, the linguistic department, and three of them were from the Masters Seminary. So there were men who had the same convictions, the same theology, and they did a masterful job. All six of them translated every passage of the Bible. Then they brought their separate translations together and formulated the very best translation. And now we have the opportunity to take the Legacy Standard Bible and add the MacArthur study Bible notes. So this is a long-awaited dream to have the very best, most accurate English translation and attach the notes from the MacArthur study Bible to that new translation. I'm really convinced the Lord has been behind all of this. It's really amazing how well that new translation has done. People have come to love it and appreciate it. And there's quite an eagerness for the MacArthur study Bible in that version. I'm seeing it online and reading about it.

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Call us during normal business hours, that's 730 to 4 o'clock Pacific time. And our number is 800-55-GRACE. Or you can visit our website anytime, GTY.org. As John said, the new Legacy Standard edition of the MacArthur study Bible makes a great Christmas gift. You can get it in hardcover, leather soft, genuine leather, and premium goatskin.

You're sure to find the perfect one for a friend or a family member. Again, to order, call 800-55-GRACE or go to GTY.org. And when you're at GTY.org, I encourage you to check out articles from John and the staff at the Grace To You blog covering topics like grace and election and overcoming temptation, sharing the gospel boldly, and many more. The blog is one of the numerous free Bible study resources available at GTY.org.

And if you don't already follow us on social media, you'll find us on X, Instagram, and Facebook. Just search for Grace To You. Now for John MacArthur, I'm Phil Johnson. Be here tomorrow when John looks at who the good news of the gospel is all about. He's continuing his series, and now for the good news, with another 30 minutes of unleashing God's truth one verse at a time, on Grace To You.