Morning. You guys seem so far away.
I’d like to read just two verses. If you’ll open to Romans chapter 1, verse 16:
For I am not ashamed of the gospel: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.
For therein is revealed a righteousness of God by faith unto faith: as it is written, But the righteous shall live by faith.
Let’s pray.
Father, we just ask this morning—well, first, we just want to thank You. Thank You that You brought us to Yourself. This was no small doing.
From what we shared this morning around the table, we acknowledge everything You’ve done that You might have us for Yourself. Lord, we give You our thanks, and we come to You this morning. We can only ask that You would bear witness to the gospel. Lord, it’s Your gospel. You witness to it, Lord, we ask in Jesus Christ’s name. Amen.
You know, when I was in college, when I first really started following the Lord, I was in the cafeteria, and I was quietly sharing the Lord with somebody.
I was just sharing the Lord, and I looked up around, and there were like twenty people listening. I know it’s because the Lord was bearing witness. The Lord was just there. It wasn’t things I was saying or anything like that.
And it was scary. It was scary that the Lord would do that through me. I remember going back to my apartment and just falling down, just not believing that the Lord would bear witness even to His gospel through someone like me.
And that’s why I’m asking you today that the Lord will bear witness to His gospel.
I’ve been—I don’t want to use the word burden, because that’s a Virginia word—but I’ve been really impressed with the gospel since the brothers started bringing it up at the brothers’ meeting, saying, “We need to pray about the gospel.”
Then there were discussions like this: “Well, are we talking about the gospel to the lost?” And I use that for evangelism. “Are we talking about the gospel of the kingdom?” And that really threw me for a loop.
Now, it does mention that Jesus preached the gospel of the kingdom in the Gospels, but I just thought, “How many gospels are there?” Because Paul said, you know, if you hear another gospel—
But I’ve come to the conclusion there is one gospel. There is only one gospel. It has many facets to it, but there is one gospel.
In reading these couple of verses, you notice it says, “To the Jew first, and then to the Greek.” The gospel is meant for both. I want to switch those a little bit: to the Christian as well as to the world. The gospel is going out.
Because the gospel is not just evangelical, although it is evangelical. It is unto salvation.
And, you know, there is no such thing as initial salvation. It is salvation. Now, you might be in the initial stages of salvation, but there is no initial salvation. God doesn’t save you to a part only, right?
Salvation is a whole package—only a whole package. It was never meant to be anything less. When God gave it, it was the whole package: everything.
Another thing that impressed me about the gospel is this: these are the end times. I believe that God, Who is willing that none should perish, will send out the gospel not just to the world, but to the church, because the church needs the gospel too.
I know sometimes you think, “Well, I’m saved and everything.” But when you talk about the Jews, who did the Lord come to first? He came to the Jews. Why? To seek and to save that which was lost.
I’m not saying that we as Christians are lost. But I’m saying sometimes we get sidetracked, just like the Jews were sidetracked—even to the sense of believing not that the Messiah came to deal with sin, but that the Messiah came to liberate a worldly kingdom, which wasn’t true.
So this morning—and I don’t know how many times I’m going to speak on this; this may be an introduction, or it may be the only message I do on this—I want to look at this: What is the gospel?
Is the gospel a message? I can say, yes, it is a message. If you look in 1 Corinthians chapter 15, in the first four verses, Paul writes:
Now I make known unto you, brethren, the gospel which I preached unto you, which also ye received, wherein also ye stand,
by which also ye are saved, if ye hold fast the word which I preached unto you, except ye believed in vain.
For I delivered unto you first of all that which also I received: that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures;
and that He was buried; and that He hath been raised on the third day according to the scriptures.
Okay? That’s the message of the gospel, in a sense. The gospel is all about the Lord Jesus Christ.
Last week, we could say that Alan preached the gospel to us. Every bit of the things that he said, he was preaching the gospel. He was talking to us about the Lord Jesus Christ.
So it is a message, but it is more than a message. It is a manifestation.
And by a manifestation, I mean it is not just words. It is not just a story, even if the story is true. It is more than that. It is more than just a Sunday school thing; it is more than a parable. It is more than just a picture of God’s love to us.
To be a manifestation means this: something has been made known to us through a real, living Man. It has been made known to us not because we read it in a book, but because there was a real, living Man as an example.
And what was made manifest? Well, we can say the love of God was made manifest. Yes, amen. But first, the gospel made manifest God’s standard for man.
That’s the first thing in the gospel: it made manifest God’s standard for man. It also made manifest God in the form of a Man.
What do I mean by a standard? God made known His standard for righteousness in a Man: Jesus Christ.
Remember when the Lord gave the Sermon on the Mount, and they were talking about righteousness? There were righteous people there, and He said:
Except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no wise enter into the kingdom of heaven.
He was raising a standard of righteousness. I think sometimes we think the gospel lowers the bar so we can climb over and get in. No, it does not do that.
My wife and I were discussing something once, and she said, “It seems like the bar always gets higher.” No, the bar is established. Just as we see it, we see how far we are from it.
He also said that not one jot or tittle of the law will disappear until it is fulfilled. And that kind of jars our idea of grace. He said, “I’m not lowering the standard.”
God was saying, “I am setting My standard.” You have to understand this: first of all, the law that I put forth stands. Second, the righteous works that you think get you there—you’ve got to go far beyond those.
But it is not His teaching that made Him the standard. It is not the teaching of Jesus Christ that made Him the standard of righteousness.
We can also say that God set His standard for service in the Lord Jesus. Look at how He served the Lord: in prayers and fastings, in His working healings, in His miracles, and even in His going to the cross—even to His death.
That is a standard of service. That is the standard of service. This is the standard that God sets before us in the gospel: “This is My standard.”
Yet it was not His fasting, His prayers, His miracles, His healings, or even His death that made Him the standard for service. I know some of you guys were thinking, “Oh, even His death doesn’t set Him up as the standard?” No, it doesn’t.
Because if it was just His death and there was no resurrection, He is just a man, and He died for Himself. That’s all.
But it says about Him in Romans chapter 1:
[He] was declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead.
So, brothers and sisters, it is not just that He said this and did these things, because other than that, He is just a good man. He is a good teacher. And that is what the world would have you believe.
The world would say, “Jesus Christ? Yes, we know about Him. A wonderful teacher. It is too bad what happened to Him.” That is as far as they could go.
That is the highest accolade we could give to Jesus Christ if He was not raised from the dead: wonderful teacher, did wonderful things, too bad what happened to Him.
But God witnessed to Him—testified that He was the standard—by raising Him from the dead. And that standard, therefore, stands forever.
There is not an idea that everything is relative—righteousness is relative. “Well, you know, more people do this than do that, so therefore, since more people do it, that’s our standard of righteousness.” That is not the standard of righteousness. That is not the standard of service.
The standard of service is seen in Jesus Christ—what He was as a man. Nothing lower.
That is what God has set before us. That is the beginning of the gospel: to set that standard up and say, “This is My standard, and it will not be lowered.”
Now, that sounds really harsh, doesn’t it? But it makes the gospel all the more precious: God did not lower His standard. He did not make it any higher, either. He just said, “This is what I have said,” just like He sets the bounds for the sea: “This is where you come to.”
For us, for man, He says, “This is what I have purposed for you. This is the place that I have meant for you to be.” And He would not go back on it.
We can also say that Jesus Christ is the manifestation of God in the flesh.
Charles Wesley wrote that wonderful Christmas carol, “Hark! the Herald Angels Sing.” In one of the verses—you don’t sing this verse all the time—it says, “Veiled in flesh the Godhead see.” Jesus Christ: God in the flesh.
Even the apostle John, who wrote his Gospel last, begins it by saying:
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
He also says, “And we beheld His glory.” We have in Jesus Christ a picture of God.
When we look back, like John could look back, they could not see it when He was there on the earth with them. But when John looked back, he saw God in Jesus Christ doing the things that He did.
He saw God touching the leper who was unclean. He saw God saying to that paralytic, “Your sins are forgiven.” He saw God saying to that woman caught in adultery, “Doth no man condemn thee? Neither do I: go thy way; from henceforth sin no more.”
He saw God in all those things. He saw God in Jesus Christ. That is what we see when we look at Him: God in the flesh acting to do His will, to accomplish what He wanted.
We see God in the flesh reconciling man to Himself. That is part of the gospel, isn’t it?
Knowing that we have a standard, where does this gospel begin? It begins with us seeing that standard raised up before us and looking at that standard—not judging ourselves by that standard, but knowing that God will judge us by that standard.
It would be so much easier if we judged ourselves according to that standard, because we can rationalize: “Well, you know, I couldn’t do that because of this.” But we are judged by God according to that standard.
When I used to teach Christian school, we used to have a poetry-reading contest. One of the poems the kids would choose to read was called “The Quaker Girl’s Dream.” Anybody know that poem? No? Why are you laughing? “Why Your Girls Drink?” Okay.
In this dream, this Quaker girl is dreaming, and an angel comes to her town. I figure “The Quaker Girl’s Dream” is happening in colonial Pennsylvania, okay—not today’s Philadelphia.
But in this dream, an angel comes to the town, calls everybody out, and brings out his measuring rod. He says, “Okay, we’re going to stand you up against it.”
First they pull up the most prominent, the most spiritual of all people. They pull him up, and all of a sudden, against the standard, he shrinks. He did not measure up.
They take the most prominent woman and put her up against the standard. She shrinks. As all these things are going on, it is getting close to the little girl coming up, and she wakes up.
But the dream was for the purpose of saying, “Where are you? Where are you at?” Not in your own eyes, but in the eyes of God, because it is in the eyes of God that we have to deal with.
You see, the gospel does not appeal to, “Oh, you guys are— that’s too bad.” It appeals to God’s standard. First, we have to see how we measure up to God’s standard. Otherwise, why would we care?
Have you ever thought about that? Why would we even care what righteousness is to God unless we understand that we are judged according to His standard of righteousness?
So we have to see ourselves before that standard in God’s eyes, not in our own eyes—in God’s eyes.
Let me read this verse in Romans chapter 3, starting with verse 10. I think Kenny read this verse when he was talking about Nicodemus:
There is none righteous, no, not one;
There is none that understandeth,
There is none that seeketh after God;
They have all turned aside, they are together become unprofitable.
In other words, when we come to that standard, and it is before God, and we are approaching that standard, we will have to say like Belshazzar, when the writing came on the wall: “Thou art weighed in the balances, and art found wanting.”
In America—and I believe this is also in Christian America—there is this false thought, false thinking, that God is going to weigh you according to good and bad. If the good weighs out, you’re okay; if the bad weighs out, you’re in trouble.
What we do is say, “Well, my good works here, my bad works there—weigh them against—” No.
I don’t know if you guys have ever seen the scales for money they used in the old times to measure out the right weight of money. They had a standard weight. Say you wanted a shekel: this was the weight of the shekel. You put it on one side, and then put the silver or gold on the other side until it balanced out.
You know what that standard weight is for us? It is Jesus Christ. That is what we are weighed against.
I know this is hard to think about, isn’t it? But it is part of the gospel.
I think we start looking at sins, and we look at Romans chapter 1 and that whole thing of sins: they gave up God, they did this and the other thing. We look at this idea of sins. But there is that little verse here in Romans chapter 3.
Where’s Terry? It’s a joke. I never take water. But thank you. No.
“There is none who seeks after God.”
Ellen brought up last time that here you have people doing all these things, and they are doing things for the Lord, and the Lord says, “Depart from Me, ye that work iniquity.” He mentioned that the reason He is saying “depart” is because, “I never told you to do those things. You just did them on your own.”
When I was thinking about this, my wife and I were listening to some tapes on Genesis by Chuck Smith from Calvary Chapel, where we used to go and listen to him teach, because he is a good Bible teacher.
He was talking about Cain. He was talking about why God did not accept Cain’s offering. You can look at it in all different ways: he offered what was cursed; he did not offer blood. But later on they did have grain offerings.
But he said this, and it really stuck with me: Cain did not even ask God what He wanted. “Lord, what shall I offer You?”
When you do not seek God, that is where you wind up in Romans chapter 1, doing all those things. Finally, you have exchanged the glory of God for the created thing. The created thing we usually exchange Him for is not a molten image of a bird or a calf; it is a molten image of ourselves.
So He says, “Not one seeks Me.” That is really where sin for us begins: we just do not seek Him, even as Christians.
As Christians, we go on automatic pilot. It just says, “I’ll do the things that I feel God requires of me, and that’s what I’ll do.” We sink into that type of life: I go to meetings, I read my Bible, I even pray.
But no one seeks God. In other words, am I doing this while God is somewhere else? It is like Laodicea: “I’m rich. I’ve got the covering of the Lord on me.” But the only thing I do not have is relationship with God. I do not see God.
I’m not looking for what pleases Him. I’m not looking for what His purpose is in my life. It is not that I just want fire insurance, but I slip into that thing that says, “This is what a Christian is. A Christian just does these things.”
Because we do not know anything else, because we follow the rest of the sheep, and the rest of the sheep are doing the same thing. It is the weird ones that are off over there.
We do not seek God, and so we do not do what is right. See, that is it. There is none righteous. We do not do what is right in God’s eyes because we are not seeking Him.
Look, for example, at the Pharisees. They were righteous. They were those who knew the word of God. Yet isn’t it funny that with all their righteousness, the Lord Jesus Himself had to say to them, “Go and find out what this means: I desire mercy, and not sacrifice.”
They missed God in their studying of the Scriptures. They were just after, “What do I have to do to be righteous?” They missed God.
So even when the Lord Jesus could say to them, “You search the Scriptures, thinking in them you have eternal life; yet they are they which testify of Me, and you will not come to Me,” they still missed Him.
“I know good and evil; therefore, why do I need God?” Isn’t that Adam and Eve?
So we find man here, not knowing God.
Sometimes we get caught up like the disciples did when Mary put the perfume on the Lord Jesus: “Could have sold that. A lot of poor out here.” Isn’t it interesting the way the Lord answered it? “She has done a good thing to Me.”
I’m sure that came out of her fellowship with the Lord. Out of her fellowship came the estimation of His worth.
You might think, “Oh, the Lord was so callous—the poor you always have with you. Oh, politically incorrect. What are You going to do for all those poor people?” He says, “Me first.”
The Lord is first—not our works for the Lord. The Lord is first. That is what the gospel says: the Lord is first.
In other words, when we come up to this measuring stick and we do not measure up, really the judgment is that the sum of our life does not count in what God wants for man. It does not count.
Christian Chen once, when he was going over Matthew, was talking about the generations. If you add up all the generations, he said there are four hundred years that should be in there but were not in there. They were the time of the judges, because every man did what was right in his own eyes.
As far as the purpose of God was concerned, it did not count in His timeline. It was outside.
Brothers and sisters, this is something said to us too: What about the sum of our lives? It is not what we have; it is not what we have done. If it is not out of fellowship with God, it does not count.
That is the thing that should make us think the most: Is my life counting for Him, for His purposes?
I know all of a sudden we are starting to get, “Oh, woe is me.” Well, sorry. It is part of the gospel.
Remember in Pilgrim’s Progress? What do you find Christian doing? “Woe is me. How do I get out?” And he has that big burden on his back. That is part of it. That is part of the gospel.
You have to see yourself in that light. You have to see yourself in that light. Okay, that is where the gospel begins.
Where does it end? It ends in glorification.
What is glorification? It ends with God being satisfied in His work.
Just like in the very beginning, before man fell, after the seven days He created the earth, it says God rested, and He said that the things He had made were very good.
The gospel ends in the same way: with God looking at what He has done and saying, “I’m satisfied.”
What is it that He is doing? He is bringing many sons into glory. That is what He is doing. In the end, that is what He will be satisfied with: those sons that He has brought into glory.
What joins these two together? How do I get from this place over here, where I looked at myself in that standard, to glory? How do I get there?
Romans talks first about justification. It puts us all under sin, and then it talks about justification. Justification is more than forgiveness. You have to understand that.
We can forgive and still have something against you. I can forgive knowing, “Well, you know, it’s right for me to forgive. I’m going to forgive, but the next time something comes around, don’t look at me to forgive. You step on my toe, you’re in trouble.”
Some of us look at justification like that. We go, “Okay, you’ve been forgiven. Now you’ve got to be really careful where you step. Don’t want to step on His toes.”
Or we look at justification another way: “Free! Now I can do what I want.” Don’t laugh. I once had a girl, teaching in a Christian school, say, “Yeah, I can’t wait to go to college, because I’m going to do this, that, and the other thing.”
A couple of those teachers looked at her and said, “You’re going to do those things? What for?” “You know, it’s in the world. I’m going to be sinning.” “Oh, well, God will forgive me.”
I don’t know if your understanding of these things is right.
Justification is more than forgiveness. It is a reinstatement into that place of fellowship and relationship which we had as a race of people before there was any sin.
It is like never having sinned. I know you have heard that before, but when we think, “I’ve never sinned,” I do not think we get the right picture.
It is like the prodigal. When the prodigal went out and did his own thing, and he came back, rightfully so, he said, “I am no longer worthy to be called a son. Please, just let me be a servant.”
When the father reinstated him to being a son, as if he had never left, that is justification.
That is what justification is. There is not even looking back and saying, “Oh, you went the other way.” It is, “Kill the fatted calf. Let us make merry, for my son was lost, and now is found; he was dead, and now he is alive.” That is justification.
Then there is this little thing called sanctification. We look at sanctification and say, “Okay, I have to separate myself, and we’re going to be like scribes and Pharisees.”
But sanctification is not like asceticism—you know, like in Colossians where it says, “Don’t touch. Don’t handle. Don’t eat.” That is not what sanctification is.
Sanctification is this: it is bringing the soul into the subjection of the spirit. That is sanctification. It is no longer the soul ruling on these things.
Anyway, you cannot harness the soul by yourself. “I won’t do that. I won’t do it. Oh my gosh, I did it.” Don’t tell me—is that your experience? How many of you guys have dieted? Is that your experience? Boy, it is mine.
“I can’t eat that. I can’t eat that. I can’t—oh gosh, I ate it. And it was good.” You see what I am saying?
It is bringing the soul into subjection to the spirit. This is the manner in which we walk worthy of the gospel: by that soul being brought under subjection to the Spirit—the Spirit of God Who has been put into us.
We have been brought to this sanctification not just so the Lord can say, “Oh, okay, I’ve got another one here.” It is in order that our lives—not just our words, but our lives also—show forth the gospel to others.
They can see in us that standard that God has for man, and in seeing that, see that God will judge them according to that standard, that they might repent and be saved themselves.
That is the purpose for sanctification. The purpose for sanctification is not, “Okay, I’m just going to be better than other people.”
It is not just because God wants holy people. No. He had a whole bunch of holy people—look at all the Pharisees and scribes. They were a bunch of holy people.
But He says, “You go and make converts,” and what? “You make them twice the son of hell that you are.” Even to the point of saying, “You hold other people out from entering the kingdom of God.”
So it is not that type of sanctification. It is the type where the Lord gets a hold of our lives and that soul is subjected to the spirit.
You know, our spirit is saved. I know the problem I have is, “Oh God, save my soul. Save my soul.”
Now, how then, if this is the way, do I reach the end?
It is the power of God. Notice: “I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God unto salvation.”
It is not just the power of God to forgive my sin. It is the power of God unto sanctification and glorification—all of that. That is the gospel.
Now, we might say, “Well, gee whiz, how are you going to explain the power of God?” I’m not going to.
That is what we want. We want something: “Okay, tell me the steps. Jim, tell me the steps to get the power of God.” I cannot tell you the steps, because I am sure I am missing some.
You ever get one of those books that has steps, and somebody has ripped out the page? Like you are doing math work. You cannot get from this point to this part because you do not have the other parts. History, you can fake it, but math, you cannot.
But I will tell you the exchange—the currency used to get that power. Think of one of those little vending machines. You know how you get that junk food out of there? You have to put in some currency, right?
What is the currency that gets the power of God into our life? The currency is faith.
That way, no man is shut out. The currency is faith.
It says the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith. The just man shall live by faith.
This is something Alan talked about—things being ripped out of the gospel. This is another thing that has been ripped out. The only time we exercise faith is when we ask the Lord to forgive our sins the first time, and then the rest of it we think we are just plowing on by ourselves.
We have been called to live by faith.
That is not just to believe a set of doctrines: “I believe that Jesus is God. I believe there is a Holy Spirit. I believe I am a sinner.” Those are the tenets of the faith, but that is not what we are talking about.
Yes, you have to believe those, because you have to put your faith in those. But faith is like this: Abraham—“Leave home.” “Where am I going?” “Don’t worry about that. Just leave.”
That is faith. He left home. He left. When he heard God and said, “This is God speaking to me,” he acted on it. That is faith.
Faith is tied with obedience. I know that is another word we hate as Christians: obedience. We abuse it. We do not know what it means. We think obedience wins us something, or that disobedience is a hard thing. But obedience is tied to faith.
That is why it says faith without works is dead. How can you get the benefit of faith if you do not step out? There is no way you can. You have to step out on what God says.
Even for us, when we first came to the Lord and first discovered how we rated to His standard, and it was told to us that there was a sacrifice given to us, did we just say, “Okay”?
Or did we, in faith, say, “Lord, I take that”? Did we pray and say, “Lord, if this is so, and I am going to be separated from You forever, I am undone. What do You have for me?” “I’ve got My Son.” “Then, Lord, I will confess Your Son as my Savior.”
That is a step of faith, isn’t it? You cannot just think, “Well, mull it over.” You have to make a decision. You have to act on it, just like Abraham acted.
“Take your son. Offer him to Me.” “But he is the one You promised!” “Offer him to Me.” He went out to offer him. He acted. His faith was works.
The Lord saw that and said, “Now I know, because you have done this; because you believe Me.” And the Lord provided an offering for him.
The just man shall live by faith. I think the Greek actually says something like this: righteousness is revealed by faith to faith. That is an interesting way of looking at things.
But things are revealed to faith. Things are revealed to faith. The Lord sees that, and He reveals it to you.
It is just like the man in Acts, when Paul and Barnabas were almost made gods. Paul was preaching the gospel—I want to say it was Antioch Pisidia, but it is like Acts chapter 13 or 14—and he saw a man who had faith. He could see the faith in him.
He looked at him and said, “Stand up,” and the man stood up. Faith is action.
The Lord said to the man, “Your sins are forgiven.” To let you know that sins are forgiven: “Stand up and walk.” The man had to stand up and walk.
The currency of the gospel is faith. That is it. We want little things that lead us through the steps. No, the Lord has given you the currency of the kingdom, and that is faith.
When do the effects of the gospel start? When we hear Him calling us to come to Him. That is when the effects of the gospel start in our lives.
In closing, let me just say a couple things about this.
God comes calling for us where we are at. He does not say, “Jim, I’m coming for you. I want you to meet Me at the corner of Robious and Huguenot. I’ll be there.”
Okay? So I am never going to make it. Excuse me, I am not ever going to make it to Robious. Do you understand what I am saying? I am never going to make it to Robious.
God comes to us and calls to us exactly where we are.
He came out to Adam when Adam was hiding. He came after him: “Where are you?” “I’m hiding.” “Why?” “Because I know I’m naked.” And you know, we all stand naked before the throne of God.
Or Abraham: He went to Abraham in the middle of idolatry. He did not wait until Abraham said, “Well, you know, I don’t know about these idols. I don’t believe anymore.” The God of glory went to Ur of the Chaldees and showed Himself to Abraham.
And here is something: we are waiting for a vision. No. The Lord often shows Himself to us in His word. We get convicted in His word. The standard gets pulled up in His word, and we see it. Then He comes to us and calls to us right at that moment.
Or even Jacob. Jacob had everything—Jacob had the promises and everything—but when he was out there in desolation, despite having the promises, despite having the blessing, God came out to him and called him.
And even Peter. When Peter came to the place of saying, “Depart from me; for I am a sinful man,” the Lord did not depart from him. The Lord took him as he was, right from there.
Even when Peter would deny Him three times, He would only say this to Peter: “You know, I’ve prayed for you, and when you are restored—”
In other words, He did not shy away from Peter. He did not say, “Peter, I know something about you. Don’t come to the garden with Me today.” He let him come as he was.
Brothers and sisters, that is what you have to understand. That is the gospel.
We look at the gospel as being the standard. We see all these things. But the gospel also comes to us where we are, because the love of God is behind it.
God is not just out there to say, “This is My standard. You don’t live up to it. I’ll destroy you.”
But He lifts up that standard so we can see where we are. Then He says, “But I’m calling you to Myself. I want you.”
And if we will respond to that calling, there is provision for our sins, just like He made clothing of skins for Adam and Eve. There is provision for our sins.
There is also the promise of fellowship and life. Brothers and sisters, this is the gospel in a nutshell.
This gospel is to the church as well as to the world.
Will we take it?
It says it is the power unto salvation. That is the whole salvation—the whole salvation.
The question is: Will you take it?
It has never said you must take it. There is always a proclamation; there is never an argument. Just proclaim.
This is what is proclaimed to you today: God has set a standard. That standard will not be changed.
Yet He has sent in His Son the very thing we need to fulfill that standard, and He will yet fulfill that standard in us who are in Christ Jesus. That is the gospel.
Let’s pray.
Our heavenly Father, we want to thank You that You are Who You are, and You will not be any different. We thank You that You have a standard that You will not back up on.
Lord, we are glad that You will not. We are glad that You have that standard. But we want to thank You that You also have thought of us the way we are and have made a way for us that we might, in Christ, be the fulfillment of all You meant for man.
Lord, we are asking that we might see that. That is all we are asking: that You would show it to us in the parts where we think we have it. Like, “Yes, I know that You’ve forgiven me,” but we cannot get by that, Lord. We just cannot get by there.
Lord, show us. Show us Your provision for us, that we might be those ones who in the end are glorified. Lord, that is the end of what You’ve started. That is the end of Your good news.
It is not that we do not meet the standard, but the end is that You have made provision for us that we might make it to glorification. Lord, show us that.
Open our eyes and our ears; capture our hearts. And Lord, may we latch hold of the gospel through the faith that You’ve given us in Jesus Christ. We ask this in Your name.