Hi, welcome to Him We Proclaim with John Fawnville. Today we're starting a new Titus series called Where in the Church is the Gospel? You don't have to look very far to find churches and messengers that claim to preach the gospel. and what they have to say sounds really good, and draws a crowd. But are they preaching a gospel that's complete and will it go deep to transform lives?
How are we to evaluate if a church is preaching a complete gospel? We'll look at those questions and more to day. Here's John with Where in the Church is the Gospel? We're coming back to our study in the book of Titus. What I want to do is take the book of Titus and all that we have been learning from this wonderful little letter.
And expanded to ask this question: where in the church is the gospel? And based upon that, to help you decide. Where are you to go, join a church and be a part of the fellowship and membership of a church? Graham Goldsworthy says: the life and ministry of a local church must always remain self-consciously. Gospel-centered, if it is to maintain any kind of effectiveness for the kingdom of God.
The kingdom of God is simply God's people in God's place under God's rule and blessing. And so, this is how the kingdom of God comes to you and me today in the age of the church, the age of the Holy Spirit that was poured out at Pentecost, which Paul refers to chiefly in chapter 3 of Titus when we get there. This is how the kingdom of God's come. God's people in God's place under God's rule and blessing. His rule and reign in our midst comes to us like this.
Jesus exercises his kingly power through the scepter of his preached gospel. Do you want God's reign and rule and blessing in your life? Sit under the gospel week after week after week, because that's where the kingdom comes. And so, the need to be self-consciously gospel-centered is exactly what was being threatened in these young Cretan churches. In Titus chapter 1, just for an example, as we review a little bit, in Titus chapter 1, verses 5 through 16, Paul explains to Titus why Titus must appoint qualified leadership in the church, verses 5 to 9.
And why Titus must oppose unqualified false teachers who are opposing to be leaders in the church in verses 10 through 16. This was critically, vitally important to ordering the church because false teachers in Crete, Paul says in chapter one, verse eleven, and then illustrating in chapter two, verses two through ten, These false teachers were turning people away from the centrality of the gospel with the result that they were destroying in whole households. Families and households were beginning to look just like the decadent fallen culture of Crete, rather than godly saints instructed by the gospel of grace. And so Paul left Titus on create to put what he says in chapter 1, verse 5, to put what remained into order. The Cretan churches were relatively new, young church plants trying to survive in an ungodly culture.
And as a result, Problems abounded and issues remained unsettled. This is a condition to be expected in a relatively new young church. And so order was needed. And so Paul begins his letter. Look at Titus chapter 1, verse 1.
At the very beginning of the first sentence of his whole letter, he tells you and he tells Titus what was paramount in his mind writing to put these churches in order. To Titus, he says, I am writing to you as a servant of God and as an apostle of Jesus Christ. Those are not wasted words. For the sake of the faith of God's elect and their knowledge of the truth, that is, the gospel is a technical term in the pastoral letters, the knowledge of the truth, that it means the gospel. Which accords with godliness.
Paul's whole concern in this letter is the law and gospel. The gospel is the driving force behind this letter. He tells you in chapter 1, verse 1, what is the whole driving passion of his life? It is the knowledge of the truth. It is the gospel which brings God's people to saving faith and deepens them in godliness.
The gospel lies at the heart of this letter. Chapter 1, verse 1, chapter 2, verses 11 through 14, and chapter 3, verses 4 to 7, are the gospel pillars upon which this whole letter flows from. Everything he says comes from those two sections. And so the gospel lies at the center of this letter. And this should not surprise us because for Paul in 1 Corinthians 15, verse 3, he says about his life and his apostolic calling to the churches.
That the gospel is of First importance. It is paramount in all things. Listen to what Gordon Fee says about that. He's looking at what Paul says in chapter 1, verse 1, and he makes this observation. He says, one cannot read much of Paul without recognizing that at the heart of everything for him is the gospel.
The good news of God's gracious acceptance and forgiveness of sinners, to which the proper response is this, love toward God, trust and faith in God, and love to your neighbor. Godliness. And so for this reason, the gospel supremacy in Paul's teaching is his understanding that the gospel not only creates saving faith in an unbelieving heart, But the gospel also, from its implications, orders the whole church. And so the letter of Titus maintains that chapter one. Church leadership.
Chapter 2, Church Membership. Chapter three Christian citizenship. You, as a pilgrim living in two ages, as a Christian in the kingdom of God, and as an American citizen. The gospel has profound implications for leadership in the church, for membership in the church, and for how you live your life as an American citizen under the governments of this land. And Paul takes the gospel and he says.
If you are to display godliness in all three areas of that, the gospel must be, listen, always self-consciously centered in the church.
So, the churches are properly ordered, display and grow in godliness, and maintain effectiveness for the kingdom of God, by which he means this: that believers' lives are godly in an ungodly culture with the goal of hopefully winning unbelievers to the same God who has saved them. And so, from the outset of this letter, Paul shows us that his ministry begins with the gospel. It continues with the gospel. It ends with the gospel. The gospel provides the whole framework within which Paul lived his life and from which he served as an apostle to the churches.
The church is a miraculous divine creation of the Holy Spirit, which comes through the proclamation of the gospel. And he says that in chapter 1, verse 1. And then he says, Those who come to faith continually grow in faith so that their godliness increases, their sanctification increases. As listen, as they are continually matured through the teaching of the knowledge of the truth, that is the gospel. The effect of the continual teaching of the gospel in the church is this: godliness.
Godliness Here's my point I'm getting at. If the gospel provides the framework in which Paul lived and served as an apostle, shouldn't the gospel provide the framework from within which we live and serve ourselves? If at the heart of everything for Paul was the gospel, Then, ought not the gospel be at the heart of everything for us? The gospel, Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15, is to be paramount in all. things.
It is of first importance. Which includes the implications of how we bring order to the church. Yet, too often, pastors in churches. May fail to see the Gospel's many implications and functions in the New Testament. Which leads us to ask this question.
Where in the church is the gospel? Where is it? This question, and I'm going to give you a footnote to begin because I'm not a plagiarist. My dissertation has about seventeen hundred footnotes. No plagiarism in that thing.
This question comes from Dr. Rod Rosenblott from the White Horse Inn. A lot of what I'll say this morning comes from his address, Where is the Gospel in the Church? You can go to New ReformationPress.org and listen to the whole thing, and he'll do a much better job than me. But I'm taking his address.
And I'm using it. I'm giving the full-fledged footnote for everybody who's going to listen on the radio, too. This is coming from Dr. Rod Rosenblott. And when I have commentary, I'll let you know.
Rod Rosenwad and Craig Pardon, an attorney and who's also a Christian apologist. They gave a two-part presentation in which they tackled the question of where the gospel can be found in the church today. And they seek to carefully and biblically explain what to look for when evaluating churches in regard to their Christ-centeredness and the place of the gospel in their ministries. Dr. Rosenblott begins his address like this, and I just transcribed it, and it's word for word from the transcription.
So here's what he says. Quote, it is a strange question. Or at least it would have been had we all lived a while back. Where in the church is the gospel? But in these days, it's not really so strange a question.
There are a lot of whole things being presented in churches on Sunday. Are the things being presented in churches on Sunday morning the gospel?
So, first of all, what is the gospel? All this gospel talk, what is it? Dr. Rosenblott, he refers, and I was happy he did this, to 1 Corinthians chapter 15. The gospel, listen carefully in its strict and proper sense.
We're not talking about the whole Bible. The whole Bible can be called good news, Genesis to Revelation, but not everything in Genesis to Revelation is the gospel. In its strict or proper sense, the gospel is the way Paul defines it in 1 Corinthians 15. For I delivered to you as of first importance, paramount, what I also received. That Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures.
The Old Testament taught this. That he was buried and that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures upon which the Old Testament taught his death, burial, and resurrection explicitly and clearly. It was all there. Because the scriptures in this context mean the Old Testament.
So, in a strict or proper sense, the gospel is joyful good news. It's good tidings. It is the announcement of good news. of a free salvation through Jesus Christ. to undeserving sinners.
The gospel, in its strict or proper sense, and this is coming from me. The gospel, in a strict or proper sense, is a revelation and exhibition of the covenant of grace to men. When we talk about law and gospel in this church, we are talking about two different types of covenants. In the Bible, there are conditional covenants, do this and live, and there are unconditional unilateral covenants that God makes pure promise, and He obligates Himself to fulfill the whole thing on your behalf, regardless of what you have done or going to do. That's called grace.
That's called the gospel. And so, in a strict sense, in a proper sense. The gospel is a revelation and exhibition of the covenant of grace to men, God's unilateral promise to redeem his people and all of creation based on his initial promise in Genesis 3.15 and fulfilled in Christ. That's the gospel.
Now, having defined the gospel, Dr. Rosenblott proceeds to give a list of objective criteria to help folks evaluate whether the gospel is to be found in a church and thereby help them to find the right place to worship Sunday after Sunday.
Now, to be sure, a certain frustration can accompany the search for the right place to worship. And so the question is: then, how can you find a church where you will hear Christ preached in the purity, strict sense of the gospel week after week, and have him signified and sealed to your heart in the sacraments which are the visible gospel without all the fluff and distractions that come with American evangelicalism?
So Dr. Rosenblatt, here's his first question. How do you evaluate it? Ask this question. Does the church set forth the gospel as the promise of the grace of God?
Ask that question. Does the church set forth the gospel as the promise of the grace of God? That's exactly what Paul does. And Titus, he says in chapter 2, verse 11: For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men. In chapter 3, he says to us, in verse 4, he has saved us not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy.
Mercy's grace. Grace is all over the book of Titus. And it is central, and it is right there prominent throughout the whole letter. The gospel is not the law. The gospel is found in the church when it is distinguished from the law.
That was Dr. Rosenblatt. Here's my point. What makes Christianity distinctive from every other religion is the gospel. In his commentary on the Heidelberg Catechism, Zacharias Rosinus, in the first sentence of his exposition of the catechism, he wrote.
Says, quote, it is only in the church that the gospel of Christ is fully taught and rightly understood. You can go to the world for entertainment. You can go to the world for movies, dancing, art, all of it. And I love it all. I love the symphony.
I love Bach. I've studied to it. I like the arts. I love paintings. I love dance.
It is good. Ballets, all of it. That is not in the church. Because listen, you can get all that out there. You can't get any of the gospel out there.
Michael Horton observes that the average person thinks that the purpose of religion is to give us a list of rules and techniques, or to frame a way of life to help us be more loving, forgiving, patient, caring, and generous, to have your best life now. To find purpose and meaning. Of course, there's plenty of this in the Bible.
Some of that. But like Moses, Jesus summarized the whole law in just those terms, loving God and neighbor.
However, as crucial as the law remains as the revelation of God's moral will, it is different from the revelation of God's saving will. We are called to love God and our neighbor, but that is not the gospel. Christ need not have died on a cross for us to know that we should be better people. We all know that. My wife sure knows that about me.
The only thing the church can provide to the world that is truly unique is the gospel. Both the law and the gospel are to be preached in the church equally. But it is the responsibility of the leadership of the church to clearly distinguish between the two. There is the gospel and there is godliness. The gospel is the gospel, and godliness in Titus is the law.
Godliness is not the gospel. No gospel, no godliness. Godliness emphasized, no godliness in the church. Luther said, Rosenblach continues: quote: The law and the gospel are as widely distinct as they possibly can be. Separated from each other in such a way that they are more than opposites.
The law is the doctrine that commands what is and what is not to be done. It is everything in Scripture that demands of us. It demands Perfect obedience every time to God and his law. It pronounces curses upon all transgressors of the law, however slight your transgression may be. Cursed.
It renders the whole world guilty before God, Romans 3:19. The law mediates the knowledge of sin to our hearts and brains. Romans 3.20. It's a divine doctrine in which the righteous, immutable, that is unchanging, will of God is revealed. It reveals to us what is the quality to be in us, in our nature, in our thoughts, in our words, in our works, so that we can be pleasing and acceptable to God.
It threatens transgressors with God's wrath, along with temporal and eternal punishment. And he says it demands impossible things such as the love of God and our neighbor. That's the law. To illustrate our failure to love God and our neighbor, and I'll come back to this in the weeks ahead, but I'll just give you a preview now. To illustrate our utter failure to love God and our neighbor, Dr.
Rosenblott refers to the account of the rich young ruler. Jesus said to him, Why do you ask me about what is good? There is only one who is good. If you would enter life, keep the commandments.
So here's the foolish response of this rich young little man. He said to him, which ones? Jesus said to him, and he quotes the Ten Commandments, You shall not murder. You shall not commit adultery. You shall not steal.
You shall not bear false witness. Honor your father and mother. And you shall love your neighbor as yourself. And the rich young man goes, All these I've kept. What do I still lack?
Jesus, who gave this law, understands it better than you and I. He says, okay, let me tell you what you lack. You lack perfection. How do I know Jesus said that? Because listen to what Jesus said.
You must B Perfect.
So Matthew tells us in Matthew 19, 22, when the young man heard this, he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions. And listen to the observation that Dr. Rosenblott makes about this. He says, We humans turn aside to our own counsel and desires. This is what this young man was doing.
We virtually set ourselves up as gods. If I try to keep the law by my natural power of free will, all I end up doing is simulating external works that the law demands, and what I do does not give expression to the attitudes which the law demands of me. That's exactly what this rich young ruler man was doing. He was just simulating external works. He had never had the law of God pierce his conscience and show him his utter bankruptness, that he's not perfect.
Dr. Rosenblaugh says, My grudging, inwardly resentful obedience doesn't satisfy the law. They only make me more of a hypocrite in a whitewashed tomb. But in contrast to that, the gospel is a promise of grace. Doesn't that one announcement to you right now just take away all the black cloud you just felt?
It is an announcement of the forgiveness of sin through Jesus Christ's substitutionary death. For me. The gospel, as he quotes from the book of Concord, is properly such a doctrine as teaches what a man who has not observed the law none of us in this room have observed the law like we should. But the gospel is such a doctrine as teaches what man who has not observed the law and is therefore condemned by it, it teaches what he is to believe, namely that Christ has expiated, that is, removed his sin from the sight of God. The gospel has Through Christ.
Has made satisfaction for all my sin. He has obtained and acquired for me without any merit of my own, which I have none, the forgiveness of sins and righteousness that avails before God and eternal life. That is the good news to you who are not perfect and have never loved God and never loved your neighbor perfectly ever in your life. The gospel says you're forgiven. Why?
You see, the law demands perfect obedience from us in every way, in thought, word, deed, and it condemns all who are disobedient. But the gospel demands absolutely nothing. In its strict or proper sense. The gospel is a promise of grace, the freely offering eternal life and forgiveness of sin to sinners. Life and salvation for Christ's sake.
The law judges, it condemns, it reproves, but the gospel in its strict and proper sense never judges, never condemns, and never reproves. And then Rosenblatt says, Here's another note to self, note to self. Any Christian group which believes that the law and the gospel are really the same thing is a place where the gospel has been lost. Any fellowship that is church. In which the law of God is diluted or watered down, will necessarily have a weak or a non-gospel instead of the historic gospel of Christ.
A high view of our potential. When still children of Adam will produce a view of the death of Christ that is not one that gives life back to dead corpses. To confess a watered-down view of sin almost always shows up later on as a watered-down version of Christ's cross and his death. A superficial view of our fallenness logically produces a Christ whose work is closer to that of a coach than a Savior. The gospel is found in the church when the entire and uncorrupted doctrine of the law and gospel are taught but clearly distinguished in the gospel week after week after week after week.
Till Jesus comes back as given in word and sacrament as a promise of grace to sinners who desperately need to hear the absolution. You are forgiven. And so Zacharias or Sinus. On page one of his commentary on the Heidelberg Catechism, he says, This doctrine. The entire and uncorrupted doctrine of the law and gospel.
This doctrine is the chief and most expressive mark of the true church.
So, if you're looking for a church, ask yourself this question: Is the church leadership week after week after week giving me the promise of free grace through Christ for his sake alone, distinguishing this law and gospel? Because if they're not, it is not a mark of a true church. Here's the second objective criteria. We'll go as far as we can. Does the church's message center on Christ's work and, in particular, what his death?
Accomplished. There's a center on it. Is it paramount? Does it inform what the church Preaches week after week from the pulpit, week after week in their education, week after week, and what children are taught in the curriculum for families. My children don't come to church to be entertained.
They come to be instructed.
So that the gospel is just overflowing in them. Where the person and work of Christ are clearly and continually set forth, the gospel will be found in the church. Dr. Rosenblott points out that genuine Christianity focuses upon Christ freely dying for sinners. Sinclair Ferguson.
This is what he says about the cross of Christ. If you want to judge how well a person understands the gospel, ask him what he makes of the death of Christ and what the message of the cross is. We need to understand, he says, that the cross stands at the center and heart of the gospel. Without it, there is no gospel. Why do Christians talk this way?
Why do we proclaim that the cross stands at the center and heart of the gospel? Because Jesus talked like this throughout his whole earthly ministry. Listen, Mark 10, verse 45, one of our theme verses in this church. The Son of Man, which is a favorite title that he employed to himself, which comes from Daniel 7, which was a powerful explanation to people: I'm God. He says, The Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom, redemption for many.
That's why he came. He came, Dr. Rosenblott says, to do what theologians call Jesus' priestly work. This is central according to Jesus. Rosenblott says it's not to deny that Jesus is a prophet.
Of course, he was the prophet, the one predicted beforehand by Moses in Deuteronomy 18, verse 15. But prophets don't Save sinners. They just informed them. It's not that Jesus wasn't a teacher. Of course, he was a teacher.
But Rosenplot says: But teachers don't save, they, like prophets, just inform. But in many and various ways, throughout the Gospels, Jesus and his disciples and the letters that follow the gospel and the epistles. They all describe Jesus as primarily his life being one of offering his life as a priest on our behalf. Saviour. Listen to Jesus in John 12:27.
Jesus prays to his father, Now my soul is troubled. What shall I say? Father, save me from this hour. He's talking about the cross. But for this purpose, I have come to this hour.
In Matthew 16, verses 21 through 23, listen to this grand conversation between great Peter, who I'm so thankful for, and Jesus. Matthew says in Matthew 16, beginning in verse 21, Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes and be killed. And on the third day be raised. And Peter at this point did not understand the principal point of Christ's messianic mission. He had missed a whole point in the Old Testament.
His mission includes suffering and death on the cross, which is explicitly and clearly taught throughout the scriptures. Peter did not understand the central message and heart of the Christian faith and the gospel and what is to be proclaimed in the church at this point. Most like his fellow Jews, he resisted the idea that a Messiah must suffer, even though Psalm 22 and Isaiah 53 makes it undeniably clear that that's what's going to happen. And so, in his foolish audacity, Matthew tells us Peter rebukes Jesus. Can you imagine rebuking Jesus?
I'm so thankful for Peter. Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him, saying, Far be it from you, Lord, this shall never happen to you. Jesus turned to Peter and said, Get behind me, Satan. Good night. Could I mean I was You are a hindrance to me.
How do you want to be a hindrance to Jesus? For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of men. We see Satan's chief strategy here through Peter. Hinder Jesus' death mission for sinners. Don't go to the cross.
You'll never go to the cross. You're not going to that cross. You're not going to Jerusalem, Jesus. Never. Get behind me, Satan.
You're hindering me. This is for you. who are hindering me, get behind me. Stop thinking like a man. The gospel doesn't think like we think.
God doesn't think like we think. The gospel blows every kind of preconceived notion you've ever had about salvation. It turns your whole life upside down. It is a Copernican revolution. You're not the center, Jesus is.
Jesus dying as a lamb, our lamb substitute, to satisfy the justice of God by a substitutionary death, is at the center and heart of the gospel in the Christian faith. This is the central message that the church proclaims, and where this message is clearly week after week proclaimed to Christians, the gospel is found in the church. Join that church. This is not a recruitment message. We're fine.
We don't get our ego stroke by becoming a mega church.
Somebody told me a couple weeks ago, a good friend said that somebody recommended to him that we should just think about considering bringing a big name to our church to get the word out so that we can become big. And so I said to one of my very best friends I've ever had: we have a big name every single week in our church. We invoke him as the service stars to the name of God, the Father, Son, Holy Spirit. Jesus, come and serve me. He's here every week.
The name above all names is here every single week. But Dr. Rosenblott points out that when John the Baptist pointed toward Jesus, behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, Dr. Rosenblott goes, He's right. Jesus confirmed this over and over and over again.
He says, when Jesus asks about his vocation, He answered invariably in terms of dying. And Dr. Rosenblaugh says, That's an odd answer. What's your vocation? Oh, I'm here to die.
It's a strange answer, he says. Other people are woodworkers and mechanics, and I had doctors, teachers, accountants, nurses, engineers, pastors, or whatever you are. Jesus's vocation. was to die for sinners. Luke 9:51, when the days drew near for him to be taken up.
He set his face to go to Jerusalem. And incidentally, that is the only resolution that ultimately matters in your life. Dr. Rosenblott says, If you want to find the gospel in the church, look for pastors and curricula that constantly present Jesus Christ and his dying to save us, what theologians call his priestly work, and that they do this not once in a while. But every single Sunday, every single Bible study, and not just tacked on at the end of what quote is called an altar call.
After forty minutes of a me-centered monologue, Given by a pastor or a priest. I grew up going to a Southern Baptist church where on Wednesday nights they would fight for an hour and a half, and at the end, sing just as I am 400 times and say, Come and fall at your knees and rededicate your life or give your heart to Jesus. That's not the gospel. And I fled that like the plague when I was young, but I didn't know the gospel back then. I just knew I didn't like that.
And so listen, listen to it, listen, he says. Find a church in pastors and leadership where the pastors in the upfront and the curriculum week after week is explicitly giving you Jesus and the gospel and his implications for your life. Just listen to the questions, what we've learned. What is the meaning of conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary? That's the gospel.
How do you answer that? What benefit do you receive from the holy conception and birth of Christ? How do you answer that? What do you understand by the word Jesus suffered? How do you answer that?
Why did he suffer under Pontius Pilate as judge? Does it have a special meaning that Christ was crucified and did not die in a different way? Why did Jesus have to die on the cross? Why couldn't he just parachute out of heaven and get shocked in an electric chair for you? Why was it necessary for Christ to suffer death?
Why was he buried? How many of you over this past year have had the burial of Christ explicitly in your mind driving how you live every day? Paul says in 1 Corinthians 14 that the burial of Christ is of first importance, and it's not even on the radar screen in people's minds. What benefit do we receive from the resurrection of Christ? That's what we studied today.
Hallelujah. We don't just talk about the resurrection on Easter at this church. Here's the first thing that looks like churches are preaching Christ, but they're not. He says, a church that identifies the gospel as God loves you. That's not necessarily preaching the gospel.
God loves you is not the gospel. He says the gospel is very. Very specific, much more specific than the general notion that is said in our culture, which means nothing, God loves you. The point, he says, is until we get to Jesus dying for our sin, Jesus crucified, Jesus on the cross, we haven't gotten to the gospel and we've never seen the love of God for us. As stated earlier, without some cognizance, he says, of God's perfect law that will judge us, we will not even get the clearest announcement of the gospel.
The general God loves you talk without reference to Jesus bleeding and suffering and dying as your substitute lamb on your behalf as a high priest for you. You'll never understand. Oh, God loves me. As soon as you begin to grasp that, you'll understand. How much?
The Father takes pleasure in you. But God loves you talk without reference to Jesus bleeding and dying as a substitute. That's not the gospel. The gospel has to do with Jesus' crucifixion. Read the Gospel of John this afternoon.
It's not rhetorical. Go home and read it. Read it. Read it from cover to cover in one sitting. Where does the plot line take you?
Let me give you a preview. John 19 and 20, the culmination of the plot line. It takes you to Jesus being delivered to be crucified at Galgotha on a Roman cross, then to his burial, then to his glorious resurrection. John chapters 19 and 20. That's where the plot line takes you.
This is the gospel we're talking about. It not only creates the church, it orders the church. It has its own set of implications for what we do, why we do, and how we do it, and the things we don't do. The letter of Titus is just crystal clear on this. This is what Paul was teaching his apostolic representatives in Crete.
And then he wanted his apostolic representative in Crete, Titus, to appoint godly men. In chapter 1, verse 9, listen to the most important qualification for an elder in the church, because every one of the other qualifications comes from this one. He must hold firm. To the trustworthy word as taught, that is the gospel.
So that the purpose of holding firm, so that he will be empowered. Listen. To give instruction in sound doctrine, doctrine that gives help, doctrine that is without error, doctrine that brings life to people who are bowed down in their sin and need a good word from God that brings life, and the river of God flows to them and says, live. Hold firm to that so people who listen to you can live. And then, second, Rebuke those who contradict that trustworthy word.
You protect the sheep and you run the wolves off. And the leadership of this church, we are committed to running off every wolf that gives a false doctrine in this church. You won't get near this church if you have a false gospel. Don't even think about getting near our sheep because we love our sheep. And we will rebuke wolves.
It's our calling. It's not an ego trip. You think that's fun? I can't sleep at night when I have to do stuff like that. I get stomachaches.
I hate it. But I'm not going to stop holding firm to the trustworthy word of this gospel. Because there are people in our church who come week after week. You need to live. You need to taste and see that the Lord is Good.
That the Father takes pleasure in you. Sings over you as his children. Ephesians chapter 1, you are the treasure of Jesus presented to the Father. You don't live like that. You can't live.
I can't live. Goodness, listen, when I'm preaching the gospel to you guys, I'm listening to myself, going, wow, that's true. That's amazing. This is what we're to do. And so we are to hold firm to this trustworthy word so that you can live.
So the church can be ordered, so that there can be godliness in our midst, so that others. can be brought in. and and taste and see. How good our triune God is. We lift this up in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.
Thanks for listening to the Hymn We Proclaim podcast with John Fawnville. Hymn We Proclaim is a ministry of John Fawnville at Fairmount Church in Jacksonville, Florida. You can check out his church at paramountchurch.com. We look forward to next time.
