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Well, this morning I get to talk about my favorite subject. Not Kim, not Maddie, Luke, Haley, Gracie. Much lower down the line, biking. I get to talk about the gospel. God's gospel. If we had the time, I'd give each of you a piece of paper and a pen, and I would ask you this question.
In your own words, what is the gospel? You can't say Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John. You can't just write the good news. But what is the gospel? If you were asked to say to God on judgment day, God, this is the gospel, what would you say?
How would you describe it? When you preach the gospel, are you preaching the right gospel? Are you preaching God's gospel? When I go to chapels, junior high chapels, and hand out the papers, I get all kinds of answers why I get to go to heaven.
Here the gospel is because God is a forgiving God, because I was baptized, because my parents are Christians, because I did more good than bad. But what is really the gospel? Let me give you a negative side of this.
You are not to preach the gospel, number one, in a superficial manner. A, B, C, admit, believe, confess, sign the deal. One man said it this way. Do you believe you're a sinner? Yes. Do you believe Jesus died for sinners?
Yes. Will you receive him as Savior? Yes. Then you're saved. I am. You are not to preach the gospel to try to make people's felt needs feel better. It shouldn't be just superficial preaching, and it shouldn't be preaching this way.
If you come to Christ, if you believe he'll fix your marriage, he will give you friends, maybe give you a spouse, you can have the American dream. In my case, maybe he could offer me a better lawn, money.
He fixes things. There's another way not to preach the gospel, and that is by doing good for others in a social way alone. It is good to feed people. It is good to help the poor. But that is not the gospel, as one old saint used to say.
I preach the gospel all day long, and if necessary, I use words. That is not correct. The gospel must be proclaimed. It is not just the social gospel. We don't preach the gospel by thinking everyone who's ever been born goes to heaven.
That's not a good way to preach the gospel. Why preach the gospel if you think everybody's going? I always drive down the streets to the Unitarian Universal United Church for Unity, and I just think, well, there's no gospel to be preached because Universalism says everybody's going.
And even some prominent Protestants and others have said, whether they come from the Muslim world, the Buddhist world, or the nonbelieving world, they are members of the body of Christ because they have been called by God.
They may not know the name of Jesus, but they know in their hearts that they need something they do not have, and they turn to the only light they have, and I think they are saved and they're going to be with us in heaven.
That is not right. That is the Bhagavad Gita. There are many paths up the mountain. There's more than one right way, that implies, that Jesus isn't the way, he's a way. That can't be the real gospel. J. I. Packer said, We may safely say, one, if any good pagan reached the point of throwing himself on the Master's mercy for pardon, it was grace that brought him there.
Two, God will surely save anyone he brings thus far. Three, anyone thus saved would learn in the next world that he was saved through Christ. That's not preaching the gospel. So if that's not preaching the gospel, I have a question for you this morning.
What is preaching the gospel? How do you preach the gospel? Today is the final sermon in a seven-week series on evangelism. We have looked to Matthew chapter 5 initially, where Jesus said, You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has become tasteless, how can it be made salty again?
It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot by men. You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Or does anyone light a lamp and put it under a basket?
But on the lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house. Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven. We've been talking about the gospel, what it is, what it isn't, why we should preach, when we should preach, how we should preach.
Last week was, here's what faith looks like from a believer's perspective. Today we're going to look at what we tell unbelievers, unbelieving friends, family, spouses, workmates, people we go to the salon with, whatever we do, this is the gospel.
And we want to do that with 12 words. I know you're not supposed to homiletically have 12-point outline, but here is the 12-point outline. Next week and the week after will be a jet tour through the Song of Solemn, so I'm determined to get through this.
For those of you that think, should I bring my children to the sermon next week? By all means, you should bring your children to the sermon next week. God's word will be taught, and there's nothing to be ashamed of in the word of God.
But for now, what is the gospel? Because we need to preach this to our culture. I read in a book called The American Paradox by Dave Myers, a different Dave Myers, although he knows this anyway. We are, quote, better paid, better fed, better housed, better educated, and are healthier than ever before, have more human rights, faster communication, and more convenient transportation than we have ever known.
That's our culture. Yet, since 1960, the divorce rate has doubled, teen suicide has tripled, violent crime quadrupled, the number in prison has quintupled, illegitimate children's sex tupled, the number of those cohabitating increased seven-fold.
And every person that lives and then dies without Christ Jesus is going to hell. Every single one. And God has entrusted us. He's entrusted you with the gospel. Do you know what it is? Do you preach the real gospel?
And it's hard these days, because people in our day don't even believe in truth. 1968, Timothy Leary, the LSD guru, what he said still goes today. Reality is whatever you make it. How do you preach the gospel to that kind of culture?
How do you preach the gospel to those that have no external source of authority except internal only? How do you preach a gospel to those who don't believe in black and white objective truth? They don't believe in right and wrong, good and evil, sin and righteousness.
How do you preach to them? President Bill Clinton said to Georgetown University years ago, quote, nobody's got the truth. You're at a university which basically believes that no one ever has had the whole truth.
How do you preach to a culture like that? The culture that basically says what Samuel Butler said, the Bible may be the truth, but it's not the whole truth, and it's nothing but the truth. How do you preach the gospel to those who say, it's only truth when I experience it?
I've experienced something. It's gone from kind of out there to autobiography, and therefore it's true. Well, how do we preach to those people? How do you preach to people who say it's not the end, it's not the final stop of the train that's important, it's how you get there.
It's the journey. How do you preach the gospel to people who go to Minneapolis in 1993 and reimagine their Christian faith? How do you preach the gospel to people who say, it only is true if it works for me?
How do you preach the gospel to people who say, truth is only found in community as we create our own truth. The community defines it and creates it. How do you preach the gospel to them? You say, I want to know, tell me.
And by the way, before we even get into the gospel, if you do preach it, it will be offensive to some and stupidity to others. There's pretty much three reactions to the gospel. That offends me. That's stupid.
Our God is drawing them and they say, I like that. How do you preach the gospel to a society like with Michael Chang in 1989 when he won the French Open, coming back defeating Stefan Edberg at age 17, the youngest male winner ever in the French Open history.
And at age 17, he said, in the front of all Paris, he said this, thanks his mom, thanks his dad. And then said, I'd like to most of all thank Jesus Christ, my Lord, without whom I am nothing. And they all stood on their feet and said, praise the Lord.
17 ,000 booing fans, catcalls, whistling. The TV that night when they showed his victory and then they showed his acceptance speech, in the background they were playing the Hallelujah Chorus. By the way, Michael Chang has studied at Talbot Seminary as well.
How do we preach to this kind of culture? They don't want to hear it and when they do, it's offensive. At the heart of every unbeliever is what Voltaire said. Not until the last priest is hanged with the entrails of the last king will mankind finally be free.
Who are you to tell? But we have the truth. We have the privilege of the gospel. We know the gospel propositionally, objectively. We know the gospel by we have experienced it. We have the privilege and the pleasure of preaching the gospel to people.
You will find it when you do preach the gospel to people, you are fired up afterwards, aren't you? The Lord gave me an opportunity to preach the gospel. We have the truth. We have the mission. We have the promise of Christ's presence with us.
And lo, I'm with you always, even at the end of the age. Our culture needs the gospel. Your family that's not a Christian, they need the gospel. Twelve words this morning, saving words, glorious words that summarize the gospel.
If you're taking notes, there'll be twelve words that summarize the gospel. There are other ways to do it, but this is a good way to memorize it. If I were a parent, I would say this to my kid right now.
If you can tell me these twelve on the way home from church, I will give you X. I will buy you Y. I did this to some kids up in Lunenburg and I taught them these twelve words. I came back from chapel two days later and I said, anybody like to get up in front of the whole class and tell me the twelve words that summarize the gospel?
A kid did. He walked up and he did it. I gave him $1, $2, $3, $4, and $5, and he sat down going, I said, who else would like to give me the twelve words? Boy, you should have saw the hands. I said, well, you know what's coming, so I only have $1 for each of you.
Fifteen other kids came up and said, these are the twelve words. It is not our job when we preach these twelve words to get people to say, oh, I intellectually, emotionally, volitionally, with assent, grab ahold of them with saving faith.
That's not our job. We've learned that, but it is our job to tell the truth in a non-superficial, God-honoring way. I think these twelve words will help us as a church. Twelve words under four categories.
Those four categories would be, who is God? Who is man? What did Jesus do? And what does God command the unbeliever to do? Four W's. Who is God? Who is man? What did Jesus do? And what does God command the unbeliever to do?
And the twelve words fit into those four categories. Simple math. Twelve words, four categories. There's three words per category. And if you're a parent, you've got your little one there. Maybe you don't believe in bribing.
I do, and I just say, five bucks. We tell our kids, you read through the Bible, it's $100. However you want to motivate, every hymn you learn, it's $1. So this should be worth some money, kids, to your parents.
People say, well, we want junior church to like up through 14 years old in the back. Your kids hear what comes from the pulpit, don't they? It's like the man who said, I went to Bible college and there was an entrance exam.
My dad was a pastor. I couldn't remember one thing my dad ever preached about. Not one sermon ever. He takes the Bible college entrance exam without studying. He gets an A+. We hear the Word of God and the supernatural work of the Spirit of God rivets it at least to our children's minds and then we pray souls.
What is the gospel? There are other ways, but a good way without making this an irreducible minimum and a good way to remember when you're preaching to your friends and family and relatives on the common, wherever it might be, 12 words that should help.
And the first category, who is God, which will start there. Walter Chantry said, evangelists today are making the dreadful miscalculation that sinners know who God is. They all center upon man's eternal fortunes and utterly ignore the question, who is God?
Sinners thus treated never realize the gravity of their plight. They don't know whom they have offended. We'll start off with God first. Who is God? Word number one, creator. God is the creator. For those of you that are going to take notes and think that I'm 30 minutes into the sermon and I've only gone through two words, I'm on a mission to get these 12 words done.
The earlier ones will take more time than the later ones, but the first word is, under who is God, God is creator. Word number one, creator. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. You know, when Paul was preaching, Paul would meet unbelievers and the unbelievers that didn't know the Old Testament Bible, who didn't know Hebrew scriptures, he didn't start with, the Bible says, he started with, God is your what? Creator.
And we live in a society today where people don't hardly know what the Bible is. You ask them what the fall is, they'll tell you it's October in New England with the pretty trees. They have no idea. Who's Adam?
I don't know. It's my lawyer. They have no idea. And so, we are going to start with God as creator. Genesis 1 .1, in the beginning, God created. By the way, that word created means God made out of nothing.
It's only used of God. This is not He fashioned something that was already there. He created out of nothing, instantaneously. Ex nihilo, out of nothing, He made everything. Showing His power, His majesty, He's sovereign.
Always with God the subject, this word create, bara, He's the creator. God, did you notice, He doesn't try to explain Himself? He doesn't defend Himself. He says, in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.
In the beginning time, God created the heavens, space, and the earth, matter. And the text says, this is the word for God that means Elohim, sovereign creator. The sovereign creator in the beginning made things out of nothing.
And I can list you in Genesis 1, verse 3, verse 7, verse 11, verse 14, verse 15, 16. These kind of words, let there be light. God made the expanse. Let the earth sprout with vegetation. Let there be lights in the expanse.
Let there be lights in the expanse of heaven. God made two great lights. God created great sea monsters. God made the beast of the earth. God created man in His own image. God is a creator of everyone.
And we tell people, God creates. Specifically, Colossians 1 says, by Jesus, all things were what? Created. John chapter 1, verse 3, all things came into being by Jesus Christ. Now if you turn to Acts chapter 17, let me show you a passage where Paul is preaching to people that don't know about the Old Testament.
They don't know scriptures. And he starts here with creation. I want to show you that methodologically, you'll find this very thing out. It's not that there is an order. You meet pagans, you tell them God's a creator.
Because if He's a creator, He's something else. But that's the second word. So let's camp a little bit longer here in Acts chapter 17. God is creator. God expects His creatures to act certain ways. He expects His handiwork to do what He has intended them to do.
Acts 17 .25, jumping into the sermon that Paul is on Mars Hill, he says to these without ever quoting any verse, neither is God served by human hands as though He needed anything. Since He Himself, do you see the emphasis?
He Himself gives to all life and breath and all things. Verse 26, not only is God not sustained by humans and what they do, He made from one, referring back to Adam, every nation of mankind, not just the Jews, but Jews and Gentiles, to live on the face of the earth, and He's a sovereign creator because all creators are sovereign, having determined their appointed times and the boundaries of their habitation.
God creates everything with His sovereign hand and His powerful hand. Why does He create things? Verse 27, what's the purpose of that creation? That they should seek Him. If perhaps they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each of us.
One of the reasons why God shows Himself in creation is so people would seek after Him. All people have been created by God and given life by God and He is their creator and if He is their creator, He is something else which leads us to word number two.
God not only is creator, He is number two what? Judge. He is judged. Who is God? Number one, He's creator. Number two, He's judge. Before we get into this, do you wonder why evolution is so popular? Because if there is no creator, hence there is no judge.
Do what you want. Live it up. I find it interesting in Genesis 2, verse 1, it says the heavens and the earth were completed. Chapter 2, verse 2, it says, but on the seventh day after God had finished the work which He started evolving, oh sorry, which He finished the work which He had been doing, then there was rest.
I'm not going to try to tell you evolution is bad because it goes against the second law of thermodynamics and all these other things which are true, but I will say that God is creator. He made things and He expects those things, in this particular case those people, to act properly towards Him.
And if they don't, He will not just be their creator, He will be something that's very related to being a creator and that is their judge. He will be their judge. Do you see in your Bibles in Acts chapter 17, Paul puts these two together, verse 30.
He's not only said He's a creator, then it just spins out naturally, logically, sequentially. Therefore, Acts 17, 30, having overlooked the times of ignorance, God is now declaring to men that all people everywhere should repent.
Why? Answer verse 31. Because He has fixed a day in which He will what? Judge the world in righteousness through a man, capital M, Christ, whom He, the creator, has appointed, having furnished proof to all men by raising Jesus from the dead.
God has standards. God has requirements. God has laws. And He has that right to do that because He's the sovereign creator and He will enforce those laws like a judge would. I love some of the scripture.
I just did a search on judge, God the judge. Psalm 711, God is a righteous judge. 1 Samuel 2, 10, Those who contend with the Lord will be shattered. The Lord will judge the ends of the earth. Psalm 9, 8, He will judge the world in righteousness.
And we live in a culture where people don't like that. Baptist theologian Paul Fides said, this promotes an unhealthy sense of human guilt and an image of a tyrant God. God is creator and He's judge and whatever that promotes, it should promote, I should repent before it's too late.
Psalm 94, verse 2, O judge of the earth. Acts 10, 42, And He ordered us to preach to the people and to solemnly testify that this is the one whom has been appointed by God as judge. Hebrews 12, 23, God the judge of all.
1 Peter 4, 5,. But they will give account to Him who is ready to judge the living and the dead. James 4, 12, There is only one lawgiver and judge. I have this question for you. If God is only the creator and the judge, where does that leave your unbelieving friends?
Where does that leave you? We would rightly and justly be condemned, yes? But the great news is something more. God has many attributes. How many attributes does God have? Many revealed in Scripture. Maybe an infinite amount we don't know about, but many revealed in Scripture.
And He's more than a creator. He's more than He's a judge. He's something else. What's the third word we're looking for today? And that word is a word that should just make you so happy. God is also a Savior.
He is creator, judge, and Savior. I love it that God's a Savior. Samuel 22, 3, the second chapter says, My God, my rock, my shield, my horn of my salvation. Psalm 17, 7, O Savior of those who take refuge in You.
Isaiah 19, 20, He will send them a Savior and a champion, and He will deliver them. Isaiah 43, For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior. I love that. Isaiah 43, 11, I, I the Lord, there is no Savior beside me.
Specifically, the Savior came, and He cloaked Himself with humanity. And remember what that little Savior's name was? Luke 2, 11, For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior which is Christ the Lord.
Jesus Christ is our Savior. I sometimes think about Jesus Christ just as first name and last name before somebody told me, Jesus is the one who saves, and Christ is the Messiah. Jesus is the Messiah who saves.
Now, here's the question. Saved from what? Has anybody ever come up to you, or have you gone up to someone? Maybe you're down preaching the gospel someplace in the common, and you say, Brother, are you saved?
Are you saved? What would our culture do today? What would our culture say to this question? Are you saved? Maybe they have some kind of Bible background. But I love the story where theologian R .C. Sproul was walking across Temple University in Pittsburgh and was asked by an evangelist this question as R .C. was going over to teach a theology class.
A gentleman, R .C. said, out of nowhere stood in front of me blocking my movement. Kim and I took the train at Alewife to Boston a few weeks ago, and we were coming down the escalator, and there was a guy standing right in the middle of the escalator asking for money, some kid's thing.
I thought, boy, they block you. And here the guy blocks R .C. Sproul, and he said, Are you saved, brother? And the first words R .C. said that came into my mouth were, Saved from what? R .C. said in his mind he was thinking this.
I'm certainly not saved from strangers coming up to me and asking questions like that. In the Old Testament, what made a prophet true versus a prophet that was false is that the true prophet would preach there's coming a day of wrath and you need to run for rescue under the wings of the Almighty God.
The false prophets were the one that says everything's fine, everything's cool, copacetic, kosher, deluxe, you're good the way you are. The Bible teaches that we are saved from God Himself and His wrath that we would justly receive.
We are saved from our own sin that's in our hearts. We are saved from the pollution of the world affecting us. We are saved from Satan's kingdom. 2 Timothy 2 says that unbelievers are bound to do Satan's will.
They think they're free but they're doing Satan's will. We are saved from many things. Acts 5 .31 says God hath exalted with His right hand to be a prince and a savior to give repentance to Israel, forgiveness of sins.
Jesus is the Savior who comes on earth and He's fully God and fully man. Do you ever ask yourself the question why that had to be? He had to be fully man to be our representative and He had to be fully God to have an infinite amount of righteousness so all those who look to Christ and believe could be saved.
Not just one, not just 20, but all those who would look. If you'll turn your Bibles to 1 Timothy, let me just give you a kind of a quick jet tour, if you will, through some of the passages in these pastoral epistles, Timothy and Titus, that show God as a Savior.
It is important for preachers to know that God saves people. How would you like to be a preacher and preach in front of you every single week not knowing that God's a Savior of people like you? I guess you didn't get the joke on that one, but that's alright.
When you're in ministry, whether it's public or private, you need to know when you preach the Gospel, God is by nature more than a creator and a judge. He's a Savior. We say that all the time here. The refrain is there.
God by nature is a Savior. He's not kind of chintzy with His salvation. He's not kind of, well, you know, twist my arm. The Son wants to give salvation, but the Father somehow doesn't. God, the triune God, Father, Son, and Spirit, they have a nature that saves.
And pastors and preachers and elders and deacons and you need to know that, and it's everywhere in the pastoral epistles. 1 Timothy 1 .1, Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus, according to the commandment of God, our lawgiver.
That's what I would say if I was talking about commandments. But no, God our Savior. Look in the next chapter, or you can just follow along as I say them. 1 Timothy 2 .3. Why should we pray for people?
Why should we pray for the president? This is good and acceptable. In the sight of God, our what? Savior. He saves presidents. He saves congresspeople. 1 Timothy 4 .10. He's the Savior of all men. That is the believers.
Paul throws that in. He says, you know, we have a saving God and he saves unbelievers. He's the Savior of believers in this verse. Titus 1. Let's just skip 2 Timothy. We could look at 1 .10 of 2 Timothy, but just for time's sake, Titus 1 .3.
Even in his introduction, but at the proper time manifested even his word in the proclamation with which I was entrusted, according to the commandment of God, our lawgiver. No, Savior. To Titus, my true child in the common faith, grace and peace from God our Father and Jesus Christ our what? Savior.
We preach that Jesus is a Savior. God is creator, judge, and Savior. Now let's move to the second W. We are telling these truths to people. By the way, I'm not so naive to believe that everybody here is a born-again Christian.
By the way, there are only two kinds of Christians. Born-again and those not born-again. You started shaking your head before you knew what I was going to say. There are born-again Christians and those who are not believers.
Every Christian is born-again, Jesus said. That's a mandatory requirement. You must be born-again. You were born out of your mother's womb. You must be born-again spiritually. And as I preach the gospel here today so you, the church, might bring it to the ends of the earth, I want those who are sitting there today to realize who aren't Christians, you have a creator and a judge and He's a Savior for those who will call upon Him.
W number one, who is God? Creator, judge, Savior. Hey kids, this is easy so far, isn't it? This is easy money. Second W, who is man? Who is man? And it has three as well. We understand who God is so we can understand who man is better.
When you start with man, you're going to come up with slogans like to err is human. You're going to think man is inherently good. You're going to think God helps those who help themselves. But when you start with God, and by the way, if you want to put holy up there with creator, judge, and Savior, you can do whatever you'd like.
This is just a good succinct way to remember without dumbing everything down, who is God and what is His gospel? The first thing to describe man, which would be word number four in your list, creator, judge, Savior, number four, he is fallen.
If you'll turn your Bibles to Romans chapter five, I will show you in the Bible where it says man is a fallen creature. Why do you think unbelievers want to get rid of Genesis? Because then there goes creation, there goes Adam, there goes Adam as the representative.
God created man a little bit differently than He did the angels. Instead of creating all the angels at once and then a third of them fell and He judged them, God creates man one at a time, as it were, with the initial man, and He says, this man, Adam, will be your representative, and what he does will affect all those who will ever be an Adam.
You say, well, I don't like that. Then you probably wouldn't like that Jesus is the representative who saves all those who would follow Him, but it doesn't matter if we like it or not. It is what God, the sovereign creator and judge, has what?
Decreed. Adam is our representative. We would all do what Adam did anyway, so why condemn God's actions anyway? But Romans 5 .12 says,. Therefore, just describing the effects of justification in chapter 5, verse 1 and following,.
Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, that man is Adam. He has fallen, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men. Why do people die? Because sin has affected them. Because all sinned.
God said, Your representative, Adam, has made you a sinner by nature, and you too, therefore, sin. And as God condemns Adam's work, He commends Christ's work to follow. But without getting into that, my point now is to teach others, to teach unbelievers, that they are fallen, and that fall is radical.
Radical means at the root. And the fall has affected men's minds, their hearts, their emotion, and their will. And regarding the fall, I think what Mark Twain said is true. Most people are bothered by the passages of Scripture they do not understand.
But the passages that bother me, Mark Twain, the most are those I do understand. God said by His wisdom, people are in Adam. And what Adam does, decides the fate of the entire human race. And Adam, when he was given the choice to obey or disobey, he disobeyed, and he was fallen.
I remember seeing an autopsy years ago. I took a hospital chaplaincy class. So we went into L .A. County USC Medical Center, and I walked in, and this was a time where airborne tuberculosis was prevalent, so they had us all masked up and behind this glass thing.
And we stood there, and they began to cut this dead body up, and I just thought, this is shocking. I've never seen anything like this. Without getting into too many details and being graphic, when I worked in surgery for 10 years, they would always open up the people, do some stuff, sew them back up, the anesthesiologist would give them some oxygen, and they would be alive.
Here, when they cut up this person, and they just put the sheet over, and it was over. And because of Adam's fall, the autopsy report on all humanity post-fall is that they are dead in trespasses and sins.
Their mind, their will, their emotions, their volition, everything is fallen. God's glory is here, and they have fallen from that. They were made in God's image and likeness, and they have fallen. They still retain His image and likeness, but in a fallen sense.
Man is broken. Man needs to be fixed. Not just a little, but he has to be new. I just said the word, which is number five. Who is man? He's fallen, word number four, and he's also sinful, word number five.
Try saying that today to an unbeliever. They prefer, I have a disease, I have a syndrome, I have an allergic reaction. I met one guy down in Worcester, he was going to an AA meeting, and he said that his body responds to alcohol, it's like an allergic reaction.
I said, I've got an allergic reaction to what you're telling me, because you're trying to tell me drunkenness isn't a sin, it's an allergy. Every day of my life, when I was a kid, I had to wake up in the morning, I'd sneeze for about 35 minutes, and I'd take a little pill called an Allerest.
Remember those? It wasn't psychotropic, for those of you that don't know. People don't want to say, I am a sinner. Can you imagine God, 12 words, 6 Hebrew words, 6 Greek words for sin? Missing the mark, falling short, stepping over the line, sins by omission, commission.
Here's the glory of God, what the Creator and Judge wants, and man just said, you know what, if my arm was long enough, I'd kill you if I could. No. God, no. The Bible, as you know, says in Romans 3, all have sin and fall short of what?
The glory of God. Try as they may, with their good works, with feeding the poor, with writing lyrics, with going to confirmation and catechism, you try as you may, but you cannot ascend to the heights of a thrice holy God by your works.
Word number 6, see, I told you we're going to go faster. Foolish. Who is God? He's Creator, Judge, but Savior. Who is man? He's fallen, sinful, and he's foolish. If you'll turn your Bibles to Psalm 14, or if you just want to listen, that's fine.
Psalm 14, David said, the fool has said in his heart, what? There's no God. We don't like to say it too often around our house, but we can say it here. The stupid moron has said in his heart, there's no God.
It's moronic. It's asinine. Foolish, godless people say things like that. Moses used this word, this Hebrew word, when he referred to God's people when they did not appreciate God's benefits. How much more for the unbeliever who has been given the common grace of God?
Children, and friends, and relatives, and the good life, and taste buds, and enjoyment, and those people just say, you know what? I don't deserve, you don't deserve any praise, or honor, or glory from me.
I'm a self-made man or woman, and I defy you, God. And Moses said, the Israelites, when they said, God, you didn't give us anything good, he said, they were foolish, nabal. And sin is always folly. One man translated this word, foolish, as apostate, or wretch.
And make it known in your minds, when people say, I don't believe in God, mark my words, it is always a moral problem. People don't want to believe in God because he will reign on their parade, because they know he's a creator and a judge.
I don't want to believe in him because God, as Don Richardson said, and I've quoted often lately, is meddlesome, because he's a creator. Thomas Brooks, the old Puritan said, on earth are atheists many, in hell there are not any.
And how stupid, how moronic, how foolish, how asinine is it to say, you know what? There's no God. David said, that's just horrible. What if that's it? What if there are only six words? What do we do?
But there is someone who rescues. There is someone who saves. Creator, judge, savior, speaks of God. Fallen, sinful, and foolish, speaks of man. Number three for W's, which will contain words seven, eight, and nine, what did Jesus do?
When you preach the gospel, you say, well, do I have to go in this order? What if they ask me, where did Cain get his wife? And I'm on number four and a half. Do I have to go to five? I'm just trying to give you the broad brushes, and if you have to start with word number five, then start with word number five.
If you want to start with word number seven, I don't care. I'm just trying to give you the overview. Isn't it interesting that when you look in the Bible, nowhere does it say, by precept or by example, these are the exact words you tell unbelievers, only these words, no other words.
You have to say them in Greek as well. God can take his word in such a great way, and he uses his word through people like me, and through you. We don't even have our verses memorized right, and we just give the gist of it, and we don't even say the twelve orders in descending alliteration, and God still saves as we preach.
When people do, by the way, say where did Cain get his wife, answer the question, and get back to the issue. That's what we do. You can answer people's questions all day long, but I want to know what they are going to do with Christ.
What did Jesus do? Word number seven, redeemed. Redeemer. Jesus is a redeemer. He redeemed his people. He took on human flesh through the miracle of virgin conception and virgin birth. He lived a perfectly sinless life, and he suffered for sinners.
He redeemed them. Turn to Ephesians chapter one verse seven if you'd like, or you can just listen as well. He redeemed them. Ephesians one seven, in whom, speaking of Christ, we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins.
How can a sinner who's broken the laws of God, this great creator God of the universe who says you're to love me with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, you're to love your neighbors yourself. We've broken those laws.
We're fallen. We're sinful. We're foolish. Somebody has to come to obey God perfectly and then to suffer in our place, and that's what he did. We were in the slave pit of sin. Jesus makes redemption. He pays a price to redeem us with his own life and blood as he assuages God's wrath in our place, and we're let go of the slave sin market.
In him we have redemption. I liked what R .L. Wheeler said. If I had the wisdom of Solomon, the patience of John, the meekness of Moses, the strength of Samson, the obedience of Abraham, the compassion of Joseph, the tears of Jeremiah, the poetic skill of David, the prophetic voice of Elijah, the courage of Daniel, the greatness of John the Baptist, and the endurance and love of Paul, I would still need redemption through Christ's blood, the forgiveness of sins.
In him and only him, the text would say in Ephesians 1, we have redemption. We do not redeem ourselves. God is not impressed with any other mode of salvation. God, I know it's through Christ and his work at Calvary, but here's kind of what I think is good.
I know you treated your son as if he was a heinous, fallen, sinful fool, and you poured out all your wrath on him, but I got something I want to offer instead. How about a little water on my head? That'll make me fine.
How about dunking somebody into water here? That you'll like. How about I memorize the Ten Commandments? How about my dad's a pastor? Whatever they are, they are inconsequential, and they follow our salvation.
They don't earn it, merit it, or deserve it, because if Jesus the Son, the Son in whom God is well pleased, is our Redeemer, then nothing else will do. True? Absolutely. I remember going to a church in Missouri one time, and I started reading the thing.
The guy preached through James, a verse-by-verse sermon, and I read the thing afterwards, their statement of faith, and it said, you're saved by baptism. And I said, that's a work, friend. I should have said enemy.
That's a work. He said, it's not a work. Baptism is not what you do. Somebody dunks you in. You don't dunk yourself, that would be a work. You get dunked in. I'm telling you, Jesus is the Redeemer, and you need to point people to Him.
Romans 3 .24 says, as a gift by His grace through the redemption, which is in Christ Jesus. Galatians 3, Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us. For it is written, cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree.
Redeemed by the blood of the Lamb. Redeemed how I love to proclaim it. Word number eight, reconciled. So we have God, who's Creator, Judge, and Savior. We have man who's fallen sinful and foolish. We have Jesus who's a Redeemer, but He's also a reconciler.
People get divorced because they have what? Irreconcilable differences. Without Christ, God and His holiness, man and his sin would be irreconcilable. True? But where justice and mercy kiss, as the psalmist would say, we have Jesus on the cross, reconciling us, as He says, my God, my God, why hast Thou what?
Forsaken me. You can look it up, or I'll just read it. Romans 5 .10. If when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God, by the death of His Son, much more being reconciled, we shall be saved. It's substitution.
Jesus in my place, me in Jesus' place. And because of that, what was spread apart, is now put together. Here's God, holy, Creator, Judge. Here's man, sinful, foolish, and fallen, and they're not together.
Before the fall, man, God, together. There's a difference. They're enemies. They need to be reconciled, and you can just put the cross in the middle, as we have reconciliation. But there's something more, and without it, there's no gospel.
Word number nine. And now I do have to speed up. I'm so glad for having air conditioning, but I said to somebody this morning, I'm still gonna sweat anyway, so. Word number nine. Not only has He redeemed us, reconciled us, He's been resurrected.
We are not to be pitied, as fools who believe in nothing. Romans chapter four, verse 25. He who was delivered over, because of our transgressions, and was justified, because of our, and was raised rather, because of our justification.
That is to say, God proved He was pleased with the sacrifice of Christ, by what? Raising Him from the dead. No physical resurrection, no acceptance of Son's sacrifice. When was Jesus declared to be the Son of God with power?
When He was resurrected. By the way, declared is the word horizon. Have you ever seen horizons? What does a horizon do? It delineates between the earth and the sky. And the great delineation between earth and sky, hell and heaven, is that Jesus was raised from the dead.
Oh, there's so much more. We have three to go. Stay tuned next week. Nope, not gonna do that. We're gonna do it right now. Can you do them in your mind? Who is God? He's creator, He's judge, He's savior.
Who is man? He's fallen, He's sinful, He's foolish. What did Jesus do at Calvary? He made propitiation. We could give a lot of them, but for today, He redeemed, He reconciled, He was resurrected. Now, what do we tell people about their reply to this?
Here's what we've told you. These are the facts. Now, here's what you should reply with. Last week on The Insider View, we said, if they're gonna believe, it has to be a gift of God. But we don't go around telling unbelievers faith is a gift.
We tell them something else. And these are the three things we tell them. Many things, but these are the three for the 12 words. What does God command unbelievers to do? I'll give you all three right at the front, and we'll do each one.
Believe, repent, follow. Believe, repent, follow. These would all be summarized by what Augustine would say, quote, they were probably inflated by the pride of learning and were so misled into seeking Him.
Listen to this, it's amazing. By throwing out their chests rather than beating on their breasts. And we tell people to beat on their breasts, and we tell them to believe, to repent, and to follow. He who believes in Him, John 3 .18, is not judged.
He who does not believe has been judged what? Already. John 3 .36, he who believes in the Son has eternal life. Many calls to believe. Acts 16 .31, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and what? You shall be saved.
This is not intellectual belief, this is with your whole heart. This is like John Payton, the missionary to cannibals in New Hebrides. He was trying to get a word for faith, and remember how he finally got a word for faith?
There's no words for faith in New Hebrides cannibalism. Who needs to believe anything except with a spear? How do you get the word for faith if you're a cannibal? Some guy walked in who had been saved by the grace of God, and kind of plopped himself down in this chair John had in his house.
So tired and plop. John said, what'd you just do? Explain what you just did. Just sat. I put my whole weight on the chair. Payton said, praise God, quote, I've got my word. God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever leaned with his whole weight on him shall not perish but have everlasting life.
Word 10 is believe. Word 11 is repent. You say, well, the Gospel of John doesn't have the word repent. Well, the Gospel of John doesn't have the word Bible in it either, so forget that. You believe in something, you turn your back on that, and you believe in that.
Here's the coin. Heads believe, tails repent. Tied up in the word belief is repent, but it is a good idea to say the words that Jesus first said in ministry, Peter first said in ministry, Paul first said in ministry, and John the Baptist first said in ministry, and that is the word what?
Repent. Change your mind. It doesn't mean change your actions, but I will tell you this, if you change your mind about something, your actions have to follow. You used to think Jesus was a good guy. You used to think he was nice to worship on Easter.
You used to think he was going to be life insurance, hell insurance. You used to think Jesus is all right with me. You used to think all kinds of stuff. Isn't that a stupid song? Jesus is all right with me.
He's all right with you. I'm so glad that you've let the God of the universe be okay with you. I want to know if God is okay with you. Are you all right with God? I don't care if you accepted Jesus in your heart five quadrillion times.
I want to know if God has accepted you in his heart because you believe and have repented by the grace of God and have trusted in the Redeemer, Reconciler, Resurrected God who is your Savior, Sovereign, Creator and Judge.
Jesus is just all right with me. He better be your Lord or he's nothing. Change your mind about that. Jesus said in Luke 13, I tell you no, but unless you repent. How about that? 9 -11 happens. What was your message?
Do you remember what I preached here the Sunday after 9 -11? What every other pastor probably preached. Tower falls on somebody and kills somebody and Luke 13 and Pilate's people kill some people and there's a national tragedy and what did Jesus say?
Tragedies happen all the time and that's bad. But what's worse is if you bust hell wide open, you better repent. The issue is not how many people died in 9 -11. The issue is you and your soul because you will die unless you repent.
And then the last word I think is very important for us is the word follow. Belief is just kind of this intellectual deal but I like to use the word follow because A, it's biblical and B, it connotes something more than just intellectual acquiescence.
Do you believe Jesus enough to follow him? Because if you don't, you don't believe him. Follow. Jesus said to them, Mark 4, follow me. Matthew 8, excuse me, that was Matthew 4. Matthew 8, follow me and allow the dead to bury their own dead.
Matthew 9, follow me and he rose and followed him. Matthew 10, he who does not take up his cross and follow after me is not worthy of me. Matthew 16, if anyone wishes to come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross and follow me.
Matthew 19, Jesus said to him, if you wish to be complete, go sell your possessions, give to the poor and you shall have treasure in heaven and come, follow me. That's basically a succinct version of the gospel.
Who is God? Say him out loud. Creator, Judge, Savior. Who is man? He is fallen, sinful and foolish. What did Jesus do? He redeemed... Hey, you're getting me all messed up. Who's in charge here? Redeemed, reconciled and resurrected and what do we tell others?
We tell them to believe, to repent and to follow. That's the gospel. The gospel is not God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life. That may be a starting point but how are we going to tell people to believe in somebody they don't know?
One of the most encouraging things I think I can tell you today, friends, is you should not expect immediate results when you preach the gospel the first time because what if they've never heard about this glorious God in the Bible?
One man waters and another man plants and vice versa and off it goes but God will give the increase. You ought to tell them about the glory of God and when God hears this kind of preaching about He's the sovereign creator, He's Judge and He's Savior and He even redeems fallen people.
He reconciles sinners. He has done such a good work that He's just a champion of all those who will follow Him. Is God pleased with that kind of preaching? God is not pleased with the kind of preaching that says, you know, you ever told a lie?
Yeah, I told a lie. Well, then you're a liar and you're a sinner and you need to have forgiveness and Jesus will forgive all your sins. You want to believe that? Yeah, sure, okay. And then they go live like hell?
No. If the God of the universe changes somebody, do you think you should be able to tell? And this is all information but as Machen would say, it's very important. Spurgeon would say it's very important and I would say too.
It's a lot different to say these two things. Jesus is the Savior and Jesus is my Savior. We preach, Jesus is the Savior and when people believe, He turns into their Savior. We have our marching orders and even though we're a motley crew led by a motley pastor, how beautiful are the feet of those who bring glad tidings of good things.
You don't love me for any other reason except I preach the word to you. You look all past all my faults and frailties and when you come telling the truth to people and God does the work in their heart, they are going to love you down to your feet.
Jesus is creator, judge and Savior. Mankind, they're fallen, they're sinful, they're foolish. But God to the rescue comes and He redeems, He reconciles, He's been raised from the dead and we tell people, believe, repent and follow and you will surely be saved.
Amen? Collect the money from your parents. Let's pray. Father, thank you for this day. What a joy it is to be told the truth in your word. Help us to be lovers of your word. Father, I would pray for those that may be offended today that you would use my offensive words to cause them to find out what your word says.
Father, I don't want to be offensive as a person but we know the gospel in all its glory offends man because it's not anything like man. Thank you for being such a loving Savior. Thank you for not wiping us out right away.
Thank you for the good majority of us at our church that you've saved us. Give us a desire to tell other people the good news. The creator and judge of the universe is a Savior by nature. Thank you, Lord, for that.
And may we now sing to praise you as forgiven people. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.