Let’s pray.
Father, we come before You this morning in the name of Jesus, Lord, by His blood and righteousness alone. Father, we thank You for the open heaven that we have because of the sacrifice of Your Son, Lord; that we have peace with God through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Father, we come before You this morning, Lord, to hear from You. Lord, we trust in Your Holy Spirit to be the Interpreter. Lord, You said that the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of truth, would lead us into all the truth. Lord, we just look to You as we open Your Word. We humble ourselves before You, Lord. We thank You for the privilege of looking into Your Word, and we pray that You would open it up to us this morning. In Jesus’ name, amen.
Before we start, just as a reminder, what I’ll be sharing this morning is the second topic in the basic fundamental lessons series that we have begun. Our first topic was Search the Scriptures: The Foundation of the Word of God. This morning, I’ll be sharing on the gospel.
Following this time, we’ll have a few questions to help us in our time of being before the Lord and, once again, searching the Scriptures concerning these matters, like the Berean believers. Luke, in describing the Berean believers in the book of Acts, said they were more noble-minded than those of Thessalonica and searched the Scriptures to see if these things were so.
So don’t think I’m going to give you all the answers. Don’t think I’m going to tell you everything, because you’ve got to find it yourself. Search the Scriptures.
As I started considering this topic of the gospel, the first thing that came to mind was the book of Romans, for a couple of reasons. First, Rome was unique in that Paul, at the time he wrote the letter to the Romans, had not been to Rome. He asserted his authority as an apostle of Jesus Christ, set apart for the gospel of God, and gave them a very comprehensive unfolding of the gospel.
As I first started preparing for this time, I was at first going to give you a comprehensive exposition of all the chapters in Romans. But then two things came to mind. One of them was a Yankees baseball game. Those baseball fanatics will probably remember, from years and years ago, I think it went to like the fifty-third inning, and they showed the clock rolling past midnight. So I decided that maybe I wouldn’t go all the way through the book.
The specific burden that is on my heart is the relationship between the gospel and the eternal purpose of God concerning His Son.
The next time of sharing, Lord willing, will be on You Must Be Born Again. In our initial time, when the brothers got together considering topics to help us all gain a better understanding of the riches of our inheritance in Christ, our first topics were originally going to be Search the Scriptures and then You Must Be Born Again.
But it was really on my heart that there be a presentation of what the gospel is. We are in an era where there is great contention over this matter, where there is a blurring of vision concerning this matter, and there is a lack of understanding of the context and the ultimate end concerning the gospel.
So, before we went into You Must Be Born Again, I thought it would be helpful for us to search the Scriptures together concerning this matter.
Let us turn first to Psalm 2:6.
But as for Me, I have installed My King
Upon Zion, My holy mountain.
I will surely tell of the decree of the Lord:
He said to Me, “Thou art My Son;
Today I have begotten Thee.
Ask of Me, and I will surely give the nations as Thine inheritance,
And the very ends of the earth as Thy possession.
Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron;
Thou shalt shatter them like earthenware.”Now therefore, O kings, show discernment;
Take warning, O judges of the earth.
Worship the Lord with reverence
And rejoice with trembling.
Do homage to the Son, lest He become angry and you perish in the way,
For His wrath may soon be kindled.
How blessed are all who take refuge in Him.
Psalm 2—excuse me. Thank you. It is funny how you can write one thing and read another. I think it has something to do with the age on the engine.
Now, Matthew 3:16-17.
And after being baptized, Jesus went up immediately from the water; and behold, the heavens were opened, and He saw the Spirit of God descending as a dove and coming upon Him.
And behold, a voice out of the heavens, saying, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.”
This passage occurs in all three of the Synoptic Gospels.
Finally, Ephesians 2:1-10.
And you were dead in your trespasses and sins,
In which you formerly walked according to the course of this world,
According to the prince of the power of the air,
Of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience.
Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh,
Indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind,
And were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest.But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us,
Even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ
(by grace you have been saved),
And raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus,
In order that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works,
Which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.
And then I will just read this one passage to you out of Luke 1. Zechariah, the father of John the Baptist, was filled with the Holy Spirit and prophesied:
Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel;
For He hath visited and wrought redemption for His people,
And hath raised up a horn of salvation for us
In the house of His servant David
(As He spake by the mouth of His holy prophets that have been from of old),
Salvation from our enemies, and from the hand of all that hate us;
To show mercy toward our fathers,
And to remember His holy covenant,
The oath which He spake unto Abraham our father,
To grant us that we, being delivered out of the hand of our enemies,
Should serve Him without fear,
In holiness and righteousness before Him all our days.
Amen. Amen.
Once again, I feel like it is important to share on the gospel itself before sharing on You Must Be Born Again. Unless we understand the why of the gospel and its place in God’s eternal purpose, we start off our Christian lives in the wrong direction.
The fact of the gospel is Jesus Christ the Lord.
This is the fact that was proclaimed throughout the book of Acts: not just that God loved them, but that God had established Jesus as Lord and was calling men everywhere to repent.
We are in an era of profound unclarity with regard to what it means to be a Christian and what it is all leading up to. This is due to several different reasons.
First is the nature of the natural man. The eternal gospel from heaven says that in all things He, meaning Christ, might have the preeminence. But the nature of the natural man is to see himself as the center of all things. That leads to a different gospel, which is really no gospel at all.
Although we may be saved from the condemnation of hell, we are still left outside of God’s purpose if man is left enjoying eternal life while still having the despair of being on the throne of his own life.
Now, the question is: who are we living for? We can contextualize the gospel. We can bring the gospel into a nice, friendly, “Don’t you want to get saved? Who wants to burn in the fire?” But we miss the point. It is all about Him.
He is calling us to be conformed to the image of His Son. He is making the way that we can be conformed to the image of His Son, not so that we can have a good time here. We get lulled into the Vanity Fair that surrounds us.
Our culture, to a large extent, is a Hellenistic culture, springing from the values of the Greeks. Basically, man is the measure of all things. That is the humanistic creed.
This issue is critical. There may be blessings from God because He loves us and because He loves to bless, but if the end goal is not being rooted and grounded in Christ Himself—the obedience of faith unto the summing up of all things in Christ and His expression through His Body—it is not the gospel that Paul preached. It leaves us outside of God’s purpose in sending His Son.
There is not a contradiction, brothers and sisters, between the eternal purpose of God and the gospel. Sometimes it seems like we can somehow have a dividing line: “Oh, well, that’s the gospel. That’s the word of the gospel. We pass beyond that.” Or, “Oh, that’s the eternal purpose of God—Ephesians. That’s kind of out there. But it is all about salvation.”
Brothers and sisters, it is all about both, because God has a purpose concerning His Son, and God has a purpose concerning us in the exaltation of His Son: that we might share in His life and that we might be conformed to His image.
Our culture does not contribute to a very high level of spiritual life. If our understanding is based on what we hear through the media, even well-meaning religious media, then we have, at very best, a shallow, me-centered view of the gospel, which is not the gospel contemplated by Paul.
God purposed from before the ages that His Son might have first place in everything. All things were made by Him and for Him, and man was created to be a helpmate to Him. But because of man, there arose two obstacles: one in man’s behavior and one in man’s fallen nature. The gospel dealt with both.
First off, I would like to touch on what the gospel is not. The gospel is not a way to kind of squeak around the edges and get out of the penalty for your sin.
God demonstrates His righteousness in fully pouring out His wrath against sin upon His Son. God did not lower His standards. God did not lower His expectations.
Jesus said that not a jot or tittle of the law would pass away until all things were fulfilled. He said:
Unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will in no wise enter the kingdom of heaven.
Paul brings this matter of the righteousness of God close to the gospel. In Romans 2:16, he says:
In the day when God shall judge the secrets of men, according to my gospel, by Jesus Christ.
When we think of gospel, we do not think of that part. When we think of gospel, we do not think of the righteousness of God.
As I mentioned, in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said:
Think not that I came to destroy the law or the prophets: I came not to destroy, but to fulfil.
Romans 3:26 speaks of the demonstration of His righteousness at the present time, so that He would be just and the Justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. God, in accepting the sacrifice of the sinless Savior to pay the price for our sins, remained just.
That was a dilemma. On the one hand, He had man whom He had created, who had become a sinner, whose nature had become fundamentally and unchangeably different from the nature of God. So how can a righteous God be reconciled to unrighteous mankind without being unjust? It was through sending the sinless sacrifice. It was through sending His Son.
Romans 1:1 says:
Paul, a bondservant of Christ Jesus, called as an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God.
The gospel of God—what wonderful news. Not some plan that man devised, some type of stairway by which man somehow gets to God, but the gospel of God. God initiated it, which He promised beforehand through His prophets in the holy Scriptures.
Romans 1:16-17 says:
For I am not ashamed of the gospel: for it is the power of God for salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.
For therein is revealed the righteousness of God from faith unto faith: as it is written, But the righteous shall live by faith.
I am going to read another translation that I think makes the second part easier to understand:
For I am not ashamed of the glad tidings: for it is God’s power 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.
But the righteous shall live by faith. This is stated three times in the Scriptures. The righteousness of God is through faith to all who believe. While we were yet helpless, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
In our natural selves, because of our fallenness, we have no concept of God’s purpose. Our foolish hearts were darkened, and we pursue and worship other things. The only life that can fellowship with Him is life that is born of Him, yet we were helpless to bring this about ourselves.
Paul, in Romans, says, “There is none righteous, no, not one.”
It is important for us to understand that the gospel of God was not sent to people who had made mistakes and needed to be rehabilitated. He was not preaching the gospel to people who needed another chance. He was preaching to people who were spiritually dead, depending on the working of the Holy Spirit to quicken and open hearts to believe and enter into this new life.
It is the gospel concerning His Son.
As I mentioned, there were two obstacles. One was in what man had done, and the other was in man’s nature as a sinner.
In resolving the issue of what man had done, God justified us by faith in Him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead. By that, we have peace with God, being justified by His blood.
God demonstrated His love for us in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
The blood of Jesus satisfies the righteous requirements of God and pays the price for our sins. It brings forgiveness for what I have done. Its value is not an emotional sensing of whether I feel like it has value or not. Its value is its value in the eyes of God.
It satisfies the righteous requirements of God. As pictured in the Old Testament with the Passover lamb:
When I see the blood, I will pass over you.
It cleanses our conscience. It enables us to have standing before God, to draw near to Him.
And it silences the accuser of the brethren, because we are justified before God.
Secondly, regarding man’s nature, it is a matter of sanctification, not to be confused with rehabilitation. It is an exchanged life.
Romans 5:19 says:
For as through the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, even so through the obedience of the One shall the many be made righteous.
Second Corinthians 5:17 is one of my favorite verses in Scripture:
If any man is in Christ, there is a new creation: the old things have passed away; behold, they are become new.
The heart of man, according to Jeremiah 17, is deceitful above all else and desperately sick; who can know it? There is no renovating that heart. There is no renovating the natural heart.
It is like those department stores from a few years ago: “It is all about you.” The nature of the natural man, the nature of the old man, the nature of the natural man’s heart, is totally and utterly all about you.
It was beyond recovery, so God gave us a new one. He made us alive together with Christ and gave us a new kind of life.
Romans speaks again and again of all these tremendous blessings in Christ, all these privileges in Christ, all these things that God has done for those who are in Christ. The question naturally arises: where is the door? How do I get in Christ?
First Corinthians 1:30 is an important one to remember:
But of Him are ye in Christ Jesus, who was made unto us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification, and redemption:
That, as it is written, He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord.
Let me read that again:
But of Him are ye in Christ Jesus, who was made unto us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification, and redemption:
That, as it is written, He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord.
God has done for us what we could never have done for ourselves. He has placed us in His Son. It is His doing. It is not a matter of striving to get in. It is not a matter of taking lessons to get in. It is not a matter of reading more books to get in.
It is of God that ye are in Christ Jesus, who has become to us wisdom from God, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption.
Maybe we may go back to this again, but I want to touch on this matter of consecration. I will just make a flat statement: you cannot consecrate the old man. He is beyond repair.
The only solution for the old man is the cross. The only life that wins, the only life that overcomes, is the life of Christ that we received.
Galatians 2:20 says:
I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I that live, but Christ liveth in me: and that life which I now live in the flesh I live in faith, the faith which is in the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself up for me.
I do not make void the grace of God: for if righteousness is through the law, then Christ died for nought.
Don’t let your mind slip over into, “Okay, these are deeper-life truths. I can kind of click off now. We’ve changed from the gospel channel,” because we have not. It is all of one piece.
Jesus has died on the cross for us. We have been given new life. We have been reconciled to God through the death of His Son, and He has taken care of not just the sins, but the sin factory.
There is no renovation of the old man. There is no making it better. There is no going to classes to make it better. There is no, “I am not going to sin. I am not going to sin. I am not going to sin.” He has given us a new life.
And that life is reliable. It is the life of His Son. That life can be trusted in. That life can be walked in.
When we first come to the Lord Jesus, our first cry is for forgiveness, because we see that we have ruined our lives. We see that we have affected the lives of the people around us.
But as we determine to give our lives to the Lord, we realize that our problem lies much deeper than what we have done. It lies in what we are.
We have, in our natural man, the nature of a sinner. It is the inward inclination to sin.
I think Brother Sparks said that one of the greatest needs in the church today is to understand, to discern, the difference between soul and spirit.
What that means is that in our spirits, we have received this uncreated life of God. We have received the life of His Son. But our natural man does not want to die. Our natural man is even willing to do religious stuff. Our religious man is willing to go here and there, read books, go to conferences, and do this and do that.
But it will never accomplish, it will never satisfy, the righteous requirements of God. Remember when we read in Matthew that the Father said:
This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.
That is the only life that satisfies God, and that is the life that He is after in us. It comes not by rehabilitating the old man. It comes by being rooted and grounded in Christ and allowing His Word, allowing our fellowship with one another, to cause this life to increase.
We need to understand that our natural strengths and our natural inclinations need to get out of the way. That is what the cross is for. There is only one life that satisfies God, and that is the life of His Son.
This matter has direct bearing on assembly life. If we think that because we are thinking religious thoughts, they have a place in the house of God, we are deceiving ourselves. It is only that which is born of God that can come into the house of God, that can be built into the house of God. That is why we need to cry out for discernment.
In the natural man, there are thousands of voices, multitudes of opinions, and thousands of great ideas. But there is one mind of Christ.
When we deny ourselves, when we recognize that our natural man cannot accomplish or fulfill the righteous requirements of God, when we realize that our natural man—no matter how nice it looks on the outside—you do not have to get very far into it until the serpent comes out and bites you again.
That is why it is the mercy of God that we were crucified with Christ. That is not a bad thing. That is a wonderful thing. It gives us deliverance from who we are.
The blood cleanses us from what we have done. The cross delivers us from what we are. It takes our old man—that old natural man, that old serpent-filled, poisonous natural man—to the cross.
I read something that a brother wrote that was particularly helpful to me. He talked about this matter of being crucified with Christ, our old self being crucified with Him, which was sometimes referred to as identification truth.
He said, though, that identification truth can sometimes give the impression that somehow you have to try harder to identify: “Oh, I know that Jesus died on the cross, and I am going to identify with Him.”
He said it is better to think of it as inclusive truth.
God did it, remember? It is of God that you are in Christ, who has become to us wisdom from God, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption. It is the inclusive death of the Lord that enables me to identify with it.
Now, to keep us from slipping back into, “Okay, what else is God going to do for me?” let us remember that this allows for the recovery of God’s eternal purpose in man: that Christ might be all in all.
Man’s sin—Adam’s sin in the garden—created a race of people that were constitutionally different from God’s intention. They were no longer to the glory of God, but to the glory of themselves. It was all about them.
And now, through the blood of Christ being shed on the cross, we might be reconciled to Him, have standing before Him, and be justified before Him. Through the cross, this old sinful nature, which by its nature was hostile to God and could not submit to God’s law, might be done away with. We should no longer be slaves to sin, so that He could bring us into the kingdom that He has prepared—the kingdom of the Son of His love.
We speak of the beginning of Romans, where it talks about the gospel which God promised beforehand through His prophets in the Holy Scriptures. In the Old Testament, the Jews knew about this promise. It was their common heritage. There was this promise—and what was His name? The Messiah.
But they had a fundamental misunderstanding. The Messiah was not coming to deliver them from the Romans, or the Assyrians, or the Edomites, or any other -mites. He was coming to deliver them from the power of sin, to deliver them from themselves.
Each one of us is in a different place. When you first come to see that the blood of Jesus cleanses us from all sin, this blessed fact of the blood of Jesus fills your horizon. We have a relationship with God now. I am no longer under God’s wrath.
But then, as God continues to work in our hearts, He brings about this desire that we would be delivered not just from the penalty of our sins, but from sin.
I will close with that.
Father, we come to You in the name of Jesus. Lord, we thank You for Your great love for us and for the salvation that You purchased for us by the blood of Your Son. Lord, we thank You for taking care of the problem of sins, for paying the price for our wickedness.
Lord, we thank You for taking our sins upon Yourself and dying, the Just for the unjust.
Lord, not only that, we thank You for taking our old man, the source of sin, the sin factory, that we might be joined to Another. Lord, all these years we have borne bad fruit, borne sin, that we might be joined to Another, that we might bear fruit to God.
Lord, we thank You that it is of Your doing that we are in Christ. It is of Your doing that our sins have been paid for. It is of Your doing—excuse me—that we have been crucified with Christ, that we can be joined to You, that we can belong to You, that we can yield to You.
Lord, just as it is written, the righteous shall live by faith. Lord, our hope and our expectation are on You.
Father, we thank You for the privilege of being involved, being included, in this plan that You have for Your Son, that He would have first place in everything. Father, causing us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.
Thank You, Lord. In Jesus’ name, amen.