The Word of Truth - Part 2

Welcome to this weekend's In Touch Podcast with Charles Stanley. Regardless of your convictions and self-assurance, there is a book that defies avoidance. Embrace its pages, for within them lies the assurance from our Holy Father. Today's podcast can help us understand the power of being rooted in the Word of Truth.

Have a difficult time. But the truth is, in essence, the Gospel is the good news. But the Gospel is the good news about the saving work of Jesus Christ.

It is the good news that everybody in the world needs to hear. And it is the good news which, unless you do hear it, all of the rest of the news in your life ultimately is going to end up being bad news. Because until you experience the good news of Jesus Christ, whatever good news you hear will always be lacking to some degree. Now Paul called it the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Now, every person who knows Jesus Christ as his or her personal Savior at least understands some part of the Gospel. So when he says in this passage, back to Colossians chapter 1, when he says in this first chapter, verse 5, Because of the hope laid up for you in heaven, of which you previously heard in the word of truth the Gospel.

What I want us to look at in this passage is simply that theme. And to say, first of all, that the Gospel of Jesus Christ is the foundation of our faith. It is the foundation of our faith. Listen, the Gospel of Jesus Christ is the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus. But you have to understand, he came to die for our sins. The burial was very important because it was the finality as far as man is concerned. The resurrection validated everything he said.

And when he arose, he said, I'm coming back. I will be in you with you and upon you through the Holy Spirit. So that for every single one of us who has received Jesus Christ, the Gospel has now been affected in our life as sins have been nailed to the cross. We've been forgiven of our sins. We are now sealed and indwelt by the person of the Holy Spirit.

We have experienced the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Christ Jesus living within you is your hope of heaven. You say, well, I've got a hope of heaven. I don't know anything about Jesus. My friend, it's a false hope.

You've been deceived. The truth is, what is the basis of your hope? You say, I hope I'm going to heaven.

What's the basis of that? Well, we get back to the same old issue. The basis of my hope of heaven is that my evil will not weigh as much as my good works, and therefore God will accept me, which means that your hope of heaven is all based on your performance, which will never work in the eyes of God. You can't perform. And this is where the world is, trying to perform in some way to get their God, whoever and whatever he's like, to accept them on the basis of performance. How in the world do you ever know how well you've performed? You never know that.

Keeping rules and regulations. Did you miss one? You did. There is absolutely no hope apart from the gospel message of Jesus Christ, which is that Jesus Christ died on the cross and paid your sin debt in full in his all sufficient sacrificial atoning substitutionary death. He took your place therein and therein lies all of your hope.

And apart from that, there is no hope. And that is the gospel of Jesus Christ. And that's what Paul is saying. He says all of your hope. He says the hope which you heard in the gospel. Now, let me ask you a question, my friend.

You think this book is outdated and it's not of any real value and not practical to life. Let me ask you what's going to happen when you die upon what are you going to base your hope of God accepting you? Now, wait a minute. You have rejected his son, spurned his church, rebelled against his will and have lived independently of God. And you're going to stand before the judgment and you anticipate and expect to be accepted into heaven. And what I want to ask you, my unbelieving friend, is what in the world is going to be the basis of your believing that God's going to accept you?

I want to say again, lovingly but firmly, you've been deceived. You don't have any hope. Apart from the death of Jesus Christ, you don't have any hope, which brings me to the next point of this message.

And I want to explain to you why you have no hope. Listen to what Paul said. Verse five, because of the hope laid up for you in heaven, of which you previously heard in the word of truth, the gospel, which has come to you just as in all the world, also it is constantly bearing fruit and increasing, even as it has been doing in you also since the day you heard of it and understood.

Listen, and understood what? Understood the grace of God in truth. And notice he says about the nature of the gospel here. The nature of the gospel here is that when it comes into your life and Jesus Christ comes in your life, he says the nature of the truth of the gospel is you begin to grow. Something begins to happen in your life.

And he says it keeps on going. Wherever the gospel of Jesus Christ is preached because of the power of the gospel of Jesus Christ, something happens in the hearts and lives of people. Now, look at this verse, last part of verse six. He says, since the day you heard of it through the gospel and understood the grace of God in truth. Now, here is the basic foundation bottom line of why you, my friend, cannot do well enough to get to heaven, stand before the judgment and God weigh the good and the evil.

Why can't he accept you? Here's the reason. You are spiritually dead to the things of God.

That's basic problem, foundational problem number one. The Bible says wherein in times past you were dead and trespasses and sins. That is, your spirit was dead to the things of God. No love for Jesus, love for his word, love for heaven, looking forward to heaven. Not looking forward to Jesus Christ coming again, not searching the word of God, not hungry for God, not hungry to learn the scriptures, not believing and trusting him, not obeying him, but living independently of God. That's what your normal life is as an unbeliever. Now, here, my friend, is the reason that I want you to see that you are deceived.

Because you think that somehow you're going to be able to perform well enough to be accepted. What you don't understand is the grace of God. The grace of God is God's loving favor bestowed upon sinners in order that you and I may be saved. And that grace was expressed in the cross. Now, the grace of God, he says, for by grace have you been saved through faith and that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. We know those verses.

But here's the bottom line. The truth is there is absolutely nothing that a spiritually dead man can do to merit, to deserve God's forgiveness. Nothing. And because you were dead and are dead in your sins, you live independently of God. Once in a while you call upon him when you're in need. But God, knowing that there was absolutely no possible way for you to be forgiven of your sins because you are a sinner, and there's nothing that you can do to be forgiven of your sins, God took the initiative. And he sent his only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, in the world, and God placed upon him all of your sin debt.

Now, let me ask you a question. How is it that God is going to be able to ignore your sinfulness when he's already said, the soul that sinneth it shall die? Is God going to have to change his mind? Did God tell the truth? Did God make a mistake? Has he forgotten what he said in this book? Is God going to make you an exception?

Or is God going to stand true to his Word, which he is? Now, this is the grace of God. Because you could not save yourself, you were dead and had no desire for the things of God. Because you could never perform up to enough to get acceptance by a holy God. Because you could never live a truly holy life, sinless before God. The grace of God is that God, seeing our helpless condition, chose to send his only begotten Son, and he placed upon him all of your sin.

Remember what his decree was? The soul that sinneth it shall die. So he placed all the sin of all mankind upon Jesus Christ. And when Jesus Christ died, he literally paid the sin debt for the whole world, past, present, future of all ages. Now, that makes it possible for you to be saved, but doesn't make you saved. The only way God can be true to himself is for your sin debt to be paid either by you in eternal separation from him, or somebody else pay the debt which his Son Jesus Christ did. When you accept Christ's death on the cross as payment for your sin, and when you receive him as your personal Savior, then and then alone does God recognize and exercise toward you that forgiveness. Otherwise, you carry to the judgment the sin debt. You see, the grace of God is the love of God bestowed upon us. The experience of our forgiveness came when we received his Son.

Then it becomes effective. So I want to ask you, my friend, how in the world are you going to stand before the judgment of God when you don't have anything but your sin and your good works? If your good could have saved you, God the Father would never have sent his Son.

It's because in God's eyes, who is the judge, he saw you as absolutely and completely, hopelessly and helplessly lost. And when Jesus Christ paid your sin debt, he made it possible for every person on the face of this earth, past, present, future, to be saved, to be forgiven of their sins and to die and go to heaven. And if you ignore the gospel of Jesus Christ, listen, this book is an explanation of God's great grace to us. If you want to understand the grace of God, which is absolutely essential to your salvation, you've got to get in the book and the grace of God is the gospel of Jesus Christ expressed through the atoning death of Christ at Calvary. And when you receive Jesus Christ as your personal Savior, then you understand the grace of God.

You see, you don't even have any desire to be saved apart from God putting it in your heart. And Paul is saying, I'm thanking God for you Colossians Christians because now you understand the grace of God in truth. One last thing I want you to notice in this passage, and he says, not only is the gospel an explanation of our grace, but the gospel is the message of our life. Now listen, in verse seven, just as you learned it, he says, from Epaphras, our beloved fellow bondservant, who is a faithful servant of Christ on our behalf. Now, more than likely, Epaphras, who lived over in Colossae, came to Ephesus when Paul was in Ephesus preaching the gospel, got saved. God worked in his life.

Paul discipled him, sent him back, started the church in Colossae, more than likely. And these believers over there growing in the Lord because this man shared the message of the gospel. Now, if the gospel of Jesus Christ is the good news of Christ's death on the cross, his burial and his resurrection, your behalf and mine, every single one of you who is a believer has experienced the gospel and knows the gospel, and you're able to tell it. Too many of God's people are too quiet about life's most important truth, and that is the gospel of Jesus Christ.

How can you be tongue tied when you have the greatest message in the world to share? How can we be quiet and ashamed of the gospel of Christ? Can you tell me anything about Jesus that will make you ashamed? Anything. Tell me one thing about Jesus Christ that would make you ashamed to talk about him.

You mean you can't think of anything? You mean the Son of God, Christ, the virgin born, the beloved, who laid down his life on your behalf and mine? You can't think of anything that would embarrass you to talk about him? Then, my friend, why are not your lips active every day talking about Jesus Christ? There are many people who sit in church pews who are ashamed to name Jesus. They say, I believe in God. Listen, don't talk about God. Talk about Christ. This is not the belittled Jehovah God.

He knows what I'm talking about. What I'm getting to is, listen, people talk about God today from all the occult. Voodooism, witchcraft, you name it, all of them talk about God. You start talking about Jesus Christ and the folks around you who do not know God the Father in a personal relationship, all of a sudden they get very uncomfortable. I don't see people getting uncomfortable talking about God. You start talking about Jesus Christ and they get very uncomfortable.

Why? Because Jesus Christ is the virgin born Son of God who died for your sins and my sins. He is the judge who will sit that day and judge the lost in the great white throne judgment and give rewards to his children. Men can criticize him, ridicule him, scoff at him today.

He will sit as ultimate judge one of these days. But until then, he is the good news that every single person on the face of the earth needs to hear. He is the source of all of our hope. He is the reason for our love, the basis of all of our convictions.

He is our very life. Now, you tell me why in the world you have a reason to be ashamed of him. You say, well, I don't want to be a fanatic. Let me ask you a question. If I came to your home and there was a woman there and I said, well, who is this? And you said, oh, this is my sweet, wonderful wife.

If you're in love with a woman, sir, really in love with her, would you be ashamed to introduce her to somebody? Then let me ask you, why don't you introduce more people to Jesus Christ? I've met fathers who won't even talk to their kids about Jesus Christ. He's the only person who's coming in the air to take us home to glory.

He happens to be in heaven today preparing a place for us. And here we are being ashamed of him. My friend, there may be a lot of things in life to be ashamed of, but Jesus is never one of them. And some of you, the reason you've never trusted him is your Savior. You're afraid of what somebody's going to think. I can guarantee you at the judgment it won't make any difference what the world thought.

And I'll tell you something else. You received Jesus Christ into your heart. Your friends may criticize you, but listen, look what you get. You get God and everything he has. If your friends want to chalk you off, they weren't your friends anyway.

Listen, if your friends don't want the best for you, they're not friends. If God wants to transform your life, write your name in the Lamb's Book of Heaven and give you a blessed assurance that you have never had and give you a hope that you never dreamed possible and your friends criticize you, I'm going to tell you they're not your friends at all. And you can have all of that if you're willing to ask the Lord Jesus Christ to forgive you of your sins and receive him as your personal Savior.

You can do that right now. All you've got to do is to pray this prayer, but mean it with all of your heart. Heavenly Father, I've sinned against you. Forgive me of my sins. I do believe that Jesus Christ died on the cross for my sin. Today, I receive Jesus Christ as my personal Savior and yield my life to him. My friend, if you pray that simple prayer to Almighty God the Father, the Father of Jesus Christ, our precious Lord, just that fast you'll be saved.

He doesn't have to investigate, no cross-examination, nothing to fill out. You put your trust in Jesus Christ and you can be saved. The best news the world's ever heard is living inside of all of us who know Jesus. And Father, we praise you for him. And we ask today that many who are listening might even now confess their sinfulness, place their faith in Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of that sin, and let the transforming work of your grace be theirs in these moments. And then, Lord, how many of us need to reaffirm our commitment to those about us to unashamedly, boldly share the life-giving message of hope that this entire hurting, sin-sick, wayward, wandering, floundering, anxious, fearful, violent world so desperately needs? I praise you, my Father, that your Son is absolutely, totally, and completely sufficient for all things, both in life and in death, is our prayer. Amen. Thank you for listening to Part 2 of The Word of Truth. If you'd like to know more about Charles Stanley or InTouch Ministries, stop by InTouch.org. This podcast is a presentation of InTouch Ministries, Atlanta, Georgia.