The Gospel of Jesus Christ #2

Hello, my friend, and welcome to another episode of The Truth Pulpit.

We're so glad that you joined us. And I know that many of you have recently signed up for the podcast looking for the series that I told you about called Building a Christian Mind, and that series is going to start on February the 5th. February the 5th for Building a Christian Mind. Until then, here's the next episode of our teaching as we look to God's Word and as we continue our commitment to teaching God's people God's Word on the Truth Pulpit.

We answer this question today. Why is the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ good news for us here today? We hear the term the Gospel all the time.

Many of us use it on a daily basis. But what exactly is it and what does it mean? Hi, I'm Bill Wright and this is The Truth Pulpit with Don Green, founding pastor of Truth Community Church in Cincinnati, Ohio. Today our teacher continues with a series called What is the Gospel? Don has an in-depth biblical look at the subject.

So have your Bible handy and let's get started in The Truth Pulpit. Turn to Acts chapter 17 beginning in verse 30. Acts chapter 17 beginning in verse 30. The Bible says this, therefore having overlooked the times of ignorance, God is now declaring to men that all people everywhere should repent because He has fixed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness through a man whom He has appointed, having furnished proof to all men by raising Him from the dead.

Acts chapter 17 verses 30 and 31. Beloved, notice the universal language with which the apostles spoke there. He said God is declaring to all men everywhere, to all the world.

He's given proof to all men about the reality of what He has said and what He has appointed by raising Christ from the dead. This universal warning goes out to everyone, which means, beloved, you're, let's keep it simple here, you're each a part of everyone, right? If it goes out to everyone, then it goes out to you individually. Here in Acts chapter 17 verses 30 and 31, there's a sense in which you could stick your own name in to what is spoken. Let's say your name is Don like mine is. You know, God is now declaring to Don that He ought to repent because He's fixed a day in which He'll judge the world in righteousness, having furnished to Don by raising Him from the dead.

All men everywhere is simply a way of saying that this applies to everyone. You can insert your own name there and realize and recognize with great force and power upon your heart that God is graciously giving you advance notice of the fact that there is a day of judgment coming where the One who has given you life will hold you accountable for the way that you have lived it. That's pretty sobering.

That's really serious. I want to tell you, that matters a whole lot more than presidential politics, but it matters a whole lot more than your economic condition, matters a whole lot more than anything you're doing today. Here we're talking about the ultimate issue that matters to every man, woman, and child. God is holy. God will judge us. Judgment is coming, my friend. You will stand before a holy God.

One day soon and give an account for your life. This matters more than any personal sorrows or difficulties you might be having in your family even. As important as those heart matters are, until you have come to realize the transcendent importance of the judgment and holiness of God, you haven't begun to understand why you're on earth. You are moving toward a time of judgment, and that day will come quicker than you think. Now, with all of that and for all of that, someone might still say in a slumbering way, in perhaps a slightly challenging or mocking way, or in a prideful way. Pride is certainly a problem.

Someone might say in response to the great holiness of God, so what? What do I have to fear? Or, this has nothing to do with me today, I'll let tomorrow take care of itself. Well, to the extent that you want to step onto that black ice with your slick leather shoes, let me assure you that that kind of mindset is guaranteed to make you slip and fall with a great fall. Don't think that way, my friends.

Don't think that way. Because God is not mocked and He does not speak without purpose, He speaks these things to all men everywhere in order to warn them that they might seek after the well-being of their own soul. Why is the great holiness of God a problem for friendly folks like you? Point number two, the great sinfulness of man.

The great sinfulness of man. In the gospel, Scripture declares the great holiness of God and then alongside it brings to bear the great sinfulness of man. You see, this moral perfection of God creates a barrier to you and to me. This great holy God who has declared He will judge all the world one day, this great holy God will not receive guilty sinners like you into His presence.

1 John chapter 1 verse 5 says that God is light and in Him there is no darkness at all. Perfect moral purity cannot receive and cannot accept into its presence unforgiven guilt and the unaccounted sin of which we are all guilty. No, God requires perfection to enter into His presence. Jesus said in Matthew chapter 5 verse 48, you are to be perfect as your Heavenly Father is perfect.

God is greatly holy, this is what He requires to be in His presence, and it is precisely here that you have reason to fear because you do not measure up to God's required standard of perfection. Turn to the book of Isaiah in your Old Testament. Isaiah chapter 53.

Isaiah chapter 53. In the first half of verse 6, Isaiah 53 verse 6, God having given a universal warning that a day of judgment is coming to all men gives a universal word of condemnation to all of us. Verse 6, all of us like sheep have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way. The New Testament echoes that kind of thinking when it says in Romans chapter 3, just listen as I read to you, there is none righteous not even one, there is none who understands, there is none who seeks for God. All have turned aside, together they have become useless, there is none who does good, there is not even one, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. Beloved, beloved, let's just be real and honest with what Scripture is saying here and that it applies to each one of us.

It says all men are going to face an appointed day of judgment and it goes on to say in negative universal language that none have done good, that all have turned aside, that none are fit for the presence of God, indeed none even actively seek Him on their own. Oh, oh, you see the gospel is painful, the gospel makes us uncomfortable, the gospel promotes fear into the hearts of those who understand because it brings us face to face with the reality that we are not prepared for judgment before a holy God and that guilt of unrighteousness, my friends, carries a death sentence. Romans chapter 6 verse 23 says, the wages of sin is death, death, death.

Word comes into the room kind of like a black cloud and just settles down upon us, doesn't it? And you see in biblical language, in biblical theology, when the Bible talks about death it's not simply talking about the physical cessation of life. You die and then someone puts you in a casket and you're lowered into the ground. Death means more than that. Death includes the concept of spiritual alienation from this holy God. There is hostility, spiritual death has the idea of spiritual hostility of alienation that God is an enemy to the unsaved man.

Can you imagine? Can you imagine having a sovereign, holy, majestic, all-powerful, all-knowing, ever-present God arrayed against you as your enemy? That's the way Scripture describes the position of an unsaved man.

We were enemies, it says. If you would turn in your New Testament to the little New Testament book of Second Thessalonians. You go past Romans, past Galatians and Ephesians.

You'll find First Thessalonians and then Second Thessalonians. We're considering at this moment the great sinfulness of man and now we're seeing the consequences of it. The consequences of this great spiritual alienation from God.

The consequences of this spiritual death. What is God going to do in the day of judgment? Well in verse 8 it says that he will be dealing out retribution to those who do not know God and to those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. These will pay the penalty of eternal destruction away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his power. To reject the gospel is to position yourself for eternal punishment at the hands of an offended God. And beloved, what I want you to see here is this, is that your sin against an infinite God of infinite holiness, your sin against a God like that, an infinite God requires infinite punishment. Infinite punishment. All men, women, boys and girls that have been born of women, except the Lord Jesus, are born into the world in a sinful state and as a result of that they face eternal condemnation from God.

This is the worst possible news that anyone could hear. This is the future of those who reject the gospel. The sinfulness of man, your sinfulness beloved, is great and it's an offense against a holy God and that is not something that he will lightly brush away. You must, you must, you must take this earnestly, you must take this seriously, because dealing with these matters no matter how unpleasant they may seem at the start, dealing with these matters are the greatest urgency that you face in life. You exist in order to deal with this very issue and to neglect it, to reject it, to brush it off as if it were only so much dandruff on a sports jacket. Oh, I tremble at the thought.

Tremble at the thought. So the great holiness of God and the great sinfulness of man leaves us in a dilemma. That allows us to turn the corner to the good news of the gospel, point number three, the good news of the gospel which is the great work of Jesus Christ.

The great work of Jesus Christ. Now let me just say it one more time, a holy God holds the destiny of your sinful soul in his holy hands. He said, judgment, I've appointed a day for judgment, you got a little window of time here to deal with it. Scripture says all men are ruined before him, they have no means of paying the guilt and the debt of their guilt, they cannot escape hell on their own.

How could they? They're not even seeking this God. No one seeks for God, it said. How miserably lost men are, how miserably lost you are if you are not in Christ today. This is a miserable condition to be in, that is bad news beloved. These truths of which I have been speaking, God's great holiness and the great sinfulness of man extinguishes any hope and purpose in life. What possible benefit or good could your life be if when it's all said and done, whether it's 30 years or 80 years, whether you build a fortune or you live in poverty, what difference does it make if at the end of it you're before a holy God in your sin-stained soul and alone and you're facing him in a position of alienation?

This is miserably bad, this is miserably bad. But beloved, I told you that the gospel is good news. The gospel is good news, and if there is good news it must be good news that comes from God somehow, comes down from God to us because there is no good in us that can lift us up to God from earth to heaven. Good news must come from heaven to earth, and that is what the gospel tells us. Our Lord Jesus said in Luke chapter 19 verse 10, he said, the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which is lost. Oh, do you mean to tell me that in my miserable condition there is someone that has mercy, there is someone that has the power to deliver, there is someone that has the ability and the willingness to save?

Tell me about him! Let me hear about him because that's the only possible thing that could matter to me in life is that someone like that would find me in my lost miserable condition before I die and face judgment at the hands of a holy God who is none too pleased with me. You see, beloved, the gospel tells us that Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God, came from heaven to earth and he came with an intention, he came with a purpose, he came with a goal. Mindful of the sinful condition of lost men, he came with a goal to save them, to help them, to deliver them from the miserable chains of sin and Satan that kept them in bondage until the day of judgment. Somehow in unspeakable, immeasurable, infinite grace, the eternal Son of God became man in order to identify with men. Those men meaning those who are children of Adam, the whole human race, the Son of God, bless his great and holy majestic name, the Son of God had concern for eternal souls like yours. Jesus Christ dwelling in glory, Jesus Christ according to an eternal covenant of redemption established before the beginning of time accepted responsibility to come to earth and to pave the way for forgiveness and redemption and reconciliation for sinners like you.

That's great news, that's the best news. And unlike you and unlike me, Scripture tells us that he lived a perfect life of righteousness. He said in John chapter 8 verse 29, I always do the things that are pleasing to my Father. He always pleased the Father unlike us. Christ is distinct, he is someone separate, he's someone different, his nature as God in human flesh is different.

His attitude and his obedience to the Father is something completely different from anything you and I have ever known or done. And the marvel of marvels, the glory is that this holy God of whom I have spoken, when he looks on Jesus Christ, he accepts that righteousness of Christ. It is sufficient to please the Father. He said in Matthew chapter 17 verse 5 at the Transfiguration, speaking after Peter had foolishly spoken, he covered the scene with a cloud, removed the cloud and Christ alone was left and in that moment he said, this is my beloved Son with whom I am well pleased. You see beloved, stay with me here, God is not pleased with you and me, but he's pleased with his Son, he's pleased with Christ, the righteousness of Christ satisfies everything that he demands, that's why he could say I am pleased with him. And so in Christ there was one man who lived a perfect life on this earth that was pleasing to his Father and Scripture says that this one man was living that life with a mission of redemption on his mind, he came to seek and to save that which was lost. And at the conclusion of his appointed earthly time in God's saving plan for sinners, this Blessed Lord Jesus, remember this is the gospel of Jesus Christ, this is the gospel about Jesus Christ, this Blessed Lord Jesus offered his life up on the cruel cross of Calvary, shed his blood as a sacrifice to satisfy the wrath of God against sinners like you, to atone for the sins of his people. That's what Paul was saying in 1st Corinthians 15 verse 3, Christ died for our sins. 1st Peter 3 verse 18 puts it this way, Christ also died for sins once for all, the just for the unjust so that he might bring us to God. This is the gospel, this is the heart of the only thing that can save your guilty soul is that the perfect Lord Jesus, God in human flesh, lived a perfectly righteous life and then offered that righteous life up to his Father in an act of substitution. Taking your place, standing in your appointed place of punishment, as it were, he sets you aside, he steps into that circle where your judgment was to be poured out, and God punished an innocent victim, an innocent willing victim in your place. God punished Christ, Christ absorbed the wrath of all of God's anger against your sin so that that wrath would not be spent on you throughout all of eternity. Christ died in the place of sinners just like you.

He absorbed the wrath of God that sinners deserved in his own body. That's Don Green with a crystal clear definition of the term the gospel. Well, friend, we're so thankful that you've been able to study with us today. Next time, Don concludes our series called What is the Gospel? But if you missed any part of today's teaching, you can go to thetruthpulpit.com to listen again, and also to get more great study materials by Don Green.

Again, that's thetruthpulpit.com. Now, friend, perhaps God has been moving in your heart during today's message. If so, here again is Don to offer you some much needed encouragement. Are your sins forgiven? Have you taken your sins to the cross of Jesus Christ and asked him to cleanse you with his shed blood? And if you don't know Christ in the way of which I'm speaking here today, Jesus said, I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. Jesus Christ offers you free forgiveness of all your sins.

If you will come to him in a humble, repentant faith, you can receive him as your Lord and Savior and rest in him to be the one to carry you safely to heaven. Thank you, Don. And friend, that's all the time we have for today. We'll see you next time. I'm Bill Wright. Join us then on The Truth Pulpit.