The Glory of The Gospel #2

Every other religion is a religion about self-attainment and being good enough through your rituals or your morality or your giving. Look at me. Look at what I've done. Look at who I am.

I'm good enough. The Gospel rejects all of that. A while back, a comedian who was hosting a Hollywood awards show began to lambaste the stars in the audience by poking fun at, among other things, their quote, self-important Tinseltown culture.

At one point, he told them to get over themselves because they were all going to die soon and there was no sequel. Hello, I'm Bill Wright and this is the Truth Pulpit with Don Green, founding pastor of Truth Community Church in Cincinnati, Ohio. Today, Don brings us the second half of a message entitled The Glory of the Gospel. We'll see that even though this life on earth is filled with uncertainty and circumstances often beyond our control, we can rejoice because of the eternal promises for the believer found in the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Let's join Don Green right now with today's lesson on the Truth Pulpit. The first distinct reason that we consider the Gospel glorious is this. First of all, the Gospel changes lives. Secondly, the Gospel does something else that is glorious in that the Gospel reveals God's love. Thirdly, the Gospel is glorious because it reveals God's sovereignty.

It reveals his authority over all and the free way that he has to operate however he chooses. Well, there's a fourth aspect of the glory of the Gospel that is revealed to us and it's this. It's that the Gospel reveals God's Word. It reveals God's Word and it reveals it in this sense. It's that God's Word is what reveals to us the Gospel and that in the hands of the Holy Spirit it is strong and powerful to save. Scripture says that the Word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword and that it pierces to the division of soul and spirit, of bone and marrow, so great is the power of the Word of God that it can pierce through the fog of a dead mind and a dead heart and breathe life-giving power through the application of it by the Holy Spirit. And this is what we see Paul talking about as we go back to 1 Thessalonians 1.

1 Thessalonians 1 in verse 5, look at this, where Paul says this. He says, our Gospel did not come to you in word only. In other words, it wasn't simply by the power of man that the Gospel came to the Thessalonians, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction, just as you know what kind of men we prove to be among you for your sake. Paul preached the Gospel to them. They believed in response to the Word of God. And you see, this is one of the things that is so central to understanding that the hand of God, the way of God in the proclamation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. God does not randomly arbitrarily zap sinners into salvation.

It's not that something happens that is apart from the human mind or human reason. Rather, God's Word comes to us, God's Word comes to you, and the Spirit of God applies it to your heart with power. Those of you that are Christians can remember quite likely a time in your life where you had heard truth before and it never affected you, but then there came a time, maybe a moment in time, maybe a season in your life, where all of a sudden the light started going on.

Your understanding started to develop and you started to see things differently. Well, this was the Spirit of God applying the Word of God to your heart with the kind of power with which Paul speaks here. And it shows us this, that the preaching of the Gospel is a necessary part of the salvation of sinners. And that is why we preach, and that's why I plead with you again and again, is that this is the means by which God calls sinners savingly to himself. He does it through the proclamation of his Word.

Let me give you an illustration, then we'll look at a couple of parallel passages here. God, we could say, is the one who gives the harvest to the farmer. And when farmers reap their harvest, they should gladly give thanks to God who has given them such a bounty of blessing. But God does not do that apart from the means of farming, apart from the means of plowing and planting, and the cultivation of the soil and the plants until the fruit is given. Yes, God gives the harvest, but the farmer is responsible to do his work that makes the outcome work. God works through the actions of the farmer in order to produce that harvest.

He gets all of the glory because it happens by his power, and yet there is a human responsibility involved without which the outcome would not take place. Well, in a same manner, God chose who would be saved, but he calls upon us to preach the Word of God, and it is through the means of preaching that God accomplishes his goal of saving sinners. Look back at Romans chapter 10, Romans chapter 10 verse 14, when Paul says this. He says, How then will they call on Him in whom they have not believed? How will they believe in Him whom they have not heard? And how will they hear without a preacher? How will they preach unless they are sent?

Just as it is written, How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news of good things! However, they did not all heed the good news, for Isaiah says, Lord, who has believed our report? So, faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the Word of Christ. It is through the proclamation of the Word that the Spirit of God works faith into the human heart. And so, we see in this passage from 1 Thessalonians that God blessed the apostle Paul's preaching to the Thessalonians, brought it to them with power as his Word was preached and proclaimed to them. And the power of the Word of God is displayed in and manifests the glory of the gospel. Now, in like manner, in 1 Corinthians chapter 3 verse 5, Paul says this, Who then is Apollos, and who is Paul, servants through whom you believed, even as the Lord gave opportunity to each one? Building on that farming analogy, Paul says, I planted, Apollos watered, but God was causing the growth. So then, neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything but God who causes the growth. God brings forth the fruit of the gospel through the preaching of the gospel. God gets all of the glory, the human preacher, the human instrument is simply the means that he uses. God is the one doing it, the gospel reveals that, Paul emphasized that in his letter to the Thessalonians, showing them the centrality of the Word of God in their conversion.

Now, that has an application, that has a meaning and a significance. I alluded earlier to that verse from Luke 13, where Jesus commanded the world to strive to enter through the narrow gate. And we often talk about the fact that you as a sinner, you do not have the power, the ability to convert yourself. You do not have within you the intrinsic power of repentance or faith. And so, someone might ask, well then what's the point, then what am I to do? Am I just to wait until God does something to me?

No, that's not the case. You're not to be indifferent, cold, passive, and simply go about your life in this way, you know, in a way of indifference and rebellion toward God. No, these realities are designed to stir you up to see what your responsibility is and what you should do in response to it. Salvation is found in Jesus Christ, and Jesus Christ is revealed in the pages of scripture, in the 66 books of the Bible. This is where God makes Christ known, in his special revelation, in the place where he has uniquely revealed salvation and how it is to be found. Well, your responsibility, then, as an unbelieving person, knowing that God condemns you in your sin, knowing that there is a gospel of good news for the deliverance of sinners, and knowing that that gospel is found in the pages of scripture and in the preaching of God's word, then your responsibility is this. Your responsibility is to place yourself under the teaching of God's word, to seek out Christ in the scriptures, to read the gospels, to read the gospel of John, to read the book of Romans, to read other aspects of God's word because God has shown you that this is where he does his work, that it is through his word and through the proclamation of his word that God exercises his saving power to sinners just like you. And so you are to strive to enter through the narrow gate by which scripture indicates that you should be seeking this out in the Word of God, going off by yourself, reading the Word of God and asking God to help you understand that you know that you're a lost sinner, that you know you can't save yourself, and you're pleading with God to have mercy on your soul because if he doesn't, you'll be eternally lost. Now, why wouldn't you do that?

Why wouldn't you do that? If you were dying of thirst and someone said there's a fountain of water over there, wouldn't you go to the fountain and turn it on and try to drink from it? How just is the condemnation of God upon those who hear these things and just harden their heart and turn away and reject any effort at seeking for Christ in his word and seeking him in the proclamation of his word? There will be no excuse for you, my friend, if that's your response to these things. And I fear for the outcome of your eternal soul.

I fear for you when God is separating the sheep from the goats and telling people to depart from me. I never knew you. Friend, I don't want that for you.

I don't want that for you. You may not care, but I care. And more importantly, Christ cares, and that's why he's presenting himself to you in this way. And it's your responsibility to go to his word and to seek it out and to ask God to open your mind that you might repent and believe and to place yourself humbly at his feet, place yourself where God has said, This is where I do my work. Faith comes from hearing and hearing by the word of Christ.

It should be your most urgent priority in life to be under the word of God until you know that you have been saved by the hand of God through the power of the glorious gospel. Well, fifthly, what we see is this, is that the gospel reveals God's power. It reveals God's power. The testimony of the Thessalonians in that day was widespread. Many throughout the modern nation of Greece had heard their testimony, had heard about them. Paul sees their spiritual witness echoing throughout the world and finds another reason to give thanks to God for them. Look at 1 Thessalonians 1 beginning in verse 6. 1 Thessalonians 1 verse 6. He says, You also became imitators of us and of the Lord, having received the word in much tribulation with the joy of the Holy Spirit, so that you became an example to all the believers in Macedonia and in Achaia.

For the word of the Lord has sounded forth from you, not only in Macedonia and Achaia, but also in every place your faith toward God has gone forth so that we have no need to say anything. God's work in the church at Thessalonica, the way that he had changed their lives, had an explosive impact on the world around them. The unbelieving world heard about it.

They talked about it. They realized that there was an undeniable change that had taken place in those pagans, and it was a manifestation of the power of God in their lives. And this is a further revelation of the glory of the gospel. Their testimony in that day hung in the air like a trumpet blast.

A trumpet had sounded, and the echo, the echo was reverberating. The echo being there changed lives as others observed it and saw the continuing impact of this converting power of God upon them. It was a testimony so much that people were talking to Paul about it.

Paul did not have to expand on it. It spoke for themselves, and it spoke of the power of God in salvation. And you know, one of the ways in which the power of God is shown is that the gospel transcends geographic boundaries. The gospel is a gospel. Christ is a savior for the whole world, on every continent, in every country, in every language. By every metric that you could possibly consider, there is only one savior, and Christ is that savior for every nation, people, and tribe throughout all of the world.

And in that, in the fact that people from all manner of different backgrounds, some wealthy, some poor, some Jews, some Gentile, some noble, many more of simple mind, every aspect and every end of every spectrum, finding people, finding individuals who find their salvation in the Lord Jesus Christ, and God changes their lives in accordance with the power of the indwelling Holy Spirit. And so we see that the gospel reveals the power of God in that it changes lives, and then it transcends geographic boundaries and becomes the gospel which is alone the gospel for the entire world. This is what it means when the Bible speaks about Christ being the savior of the world. He is the only savior that the world has.

There is no one else, there is no other name given to us by which we must be saved. And the fact that the gospel saves people in such diverse economic and cultural and geographic and political contexts shows us the magnificent transcendent power of God in the glorious gospel, as it continues to save men and is continually expanding throughout the earth. Well, that brings us to our sixth point, and it's this, that the gospel humbles man.

The gospel is glorious because of the way that it humbles man. The gospel comes to us, it comes to you, and it tells us that you cannot save yourself. You cannot be good enough for God.

Your present works cannot erase the consequences or the stain and guilt of your past sins. There is nothing that you can do to prepare yourself for God to save you. You are not righteous, you have not sought for God, you do not understand as an unbelieving person. And the book of Romans chapter 8 says that the carnal mind is hostile to God and toward his gospel. And so the fact that anyone is saved, the fact that you and I, my Christian brother, sister, the fact that you and I have been saved gives all of the glory to God and eliminates any cause of boasting in us.

Jesus Christ must save you or you will not be saved. And that is so humbling. Look at verses 9 and 10 of this chapter. 1 Thessalonians chapter 1 verses 9 and 10 says, For they themselves report about us what kind of a reception we had with you, and how you turned to God from idols to serve a living and true God, and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead. The Thessalonians, in response to the gospel, in response to the work of the Spirit of God that we saw earlier in the chapter, the Thessalonians repented from their empty lives. They repented of their paganism. And they turned from all that they had loved before in order to embrace Christ and to be vessels of God's glory. They had to leave behind everything that they had ever once been. They had to leave behind their prior gods, their prior affections, their prior priorities, you could say.

They left all of that behind and turned solely and exclusively to God as he was revealed in Jesus Christ in the glorious gospel that Paul had preached to them. And so we find in this, we see the humbling recognition that everything about our prior lives had to be abandoned, had to be left behind in order to singularly embrace the Lord Jesus Christ. And so it's humbling to recognize these things. And let me remind you of that famous passage in Ephesians chapter 2, which testifies to these things. For it is by grace you have been saved through faith. By grace, an act of God's goodness, a gift from God. For by grace you have been saved, not as a result of works, lest any man should boast. That not of yourselves, it is by grace you have been saved and that not of yourselves, it is a gift of God.

Not as a result of works, lest any man should boast. And so here in time, here on earth, we understand that we have no grounds of boasting before God. That God saved us and there was nothing about us that contributed to our salvation.

Purely a free gift from God that he worked in our hearts to bring to us. We realize now that we've been saved by grace alone. We realize that we will be delivered into heaven by grace alone. Paul said in the book of Galatians, God forbid that I should boast except in the cross of my Lord Jesus Christ.

That place where he accomplished redemption, representative of the fullness of all of the work that he did for us. God forbid that I should boast about anything of myself. Let me boast about the greatness and goodness alone of our Lord Jesus Christ. The gospel's glorious, that's what it brings us to. It transforms a man of boasting into a man who gives all of the glory to Christ. Nothing else does that.

Nothing else is like that. Every other religion is a religion about self-attainment and being good enough through your rituals or your morality or your giving so that people congratulate themselves about their goodness. You ask them, why would God receive you into heaven?

Because I've been a pretty good person. What is that except saying, look at me, look at what I've done, look at who I am, I'm good enough. The gospel rejects all of that, overturns all of that, denies all of that, crushes that, and says that no one breathing thoughts of their own goodness is entitled to the kingdom of heaven. We're brought low by the gospel, but it's a glorious lowness that it brings us to.

A glorious lowness that lets us see the truth about our prior self, the truth about Christ, and to embrace that. That it's Christ alone that I find my hope. It's in Christ alone that I find my righteousness. It's in Christ alone that I find my title deed to heaven.

Nothing about me, all about him. That's what makes the gospel glorious. Well, we have said six things here about the glory of the gospel.

We've said that it changes lives, it reveals God's love, it reveals God's sovereignty, it reveals God's word, it reveals God's power, it humbles man. We come now to the seventh and final point of the glory of the gospel, in this text anyway, and it's this. It's that the gospel reveals final redemption. The gospel shows us what the outcome of salvation is for everyone that Christ has saved, for everyone who has believed. The outcome is final, glorious, wonderful redemption. God will punish the world for its rejection of Christ.

We've covered that in recent days, and I won't dwell on it any further. But Christ delivers us from that wrath of God that is to come. And the gospel assures us of that deliverance from God's awful judgment. My Christian friends, my brother and sister in Christ, do you see how glorious the gospel is? Do you see how even in a time like this that we have surpassing, glorious, infinite reasons to rejoice in our Lord and to go forth in hope and in joy and in the fullness of the Holy Spirit? The gospel is glorious.

And if you are in Christ, God graciously brought it to you so that he could gladly, lovingly share it all with you. In response, we give him our worship and our praise. That's Don Green bringing today's time in God's Word to a powerful close. Well, friend, we hope today's lesson has blessed and encouraged you and that you'll be able to join us again next time here on The Truth Pulpit. Meanwhile, we invite you to visit thetruthpulpit.com. While you're there, you can download podcasts or request CD copies of Don's messages. And if you want to go even deeper, just click on the link Follow Don's Pulpit. That'll take you to Don's full-length weekly sermons not subject to the editing needed for radio broadcasts. And by the way, if you're in the Cincinnati area, check out the service times at Truth Community Church. It's also on our website. And plan a visit. We'd love to welcome you. Again, come to thetruthpulpit.com. I'm Bill Wright, and we'll see you next time here on The Truth Pulpit.