Why Bethlehem Bible Church Exists - [Philippians 1:27-28]

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the way why we exist. The denomination, the government, the elders, me, you, evangelical celebrities,
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Christianity Today. Of course we know that the word of God is sufficient and authoritative and final when it comes to this issue.
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This morning I want to have us be reminded to keep the main thing, the main thing.
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Every week before I preach I reboot my iPad because I don't want this thing to go blank out before I preach.
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And so this morning it's almost like a good reboot for us to be reminded that the main thing about Bethlehem Bible Church needs no detours.
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You're probably asking what is that main thing? I'm happy you're asking. Please turn your Bibles to the book of Philippians.
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We're normally going through the book of Luke, the Gospel of Jesus according to Luke, but I wanted to make a small detour today that will help us be reminded for the purpose and existence of Bethlehem Bible Church.
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Keeping the main thing, the main thing, as we recalibrate if necessary or remind us for certain.
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Now when you turn to the book of Philippians you're probably thinking, oh yes, the theme is joy, the theme is unity.
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And of course those are two good themes but are they the theme? Is it the issue? So what
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I'd like to do to start before we get into the message, I'd like to have you follow along as I'm going to read several passages in Philippians and see if you can see a recurring word that will help us with the theme of Philippians and help us with the purpose and mission of Bethlehem Bible Church.
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Philippians chapter 1, let's start in verse 5. Because of your partnership in the
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Gospel from the first day until now. Verse 7, it is right for me to feel this way about you all because I hold you in my heart for you are all partakers with me of grace both in my imprisonment and in the defense and confirmation of the
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Gospel. Verse 12, same chapter, I want you to know brothers that what has happened to me has really served to advance the
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Gospel. Verse 16, the latter do it out of love knowing that I am put here for the defense of the
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Gospel. Verse 27, only let your manner of life be worthy of the
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Gospel of Christ so that whether I come and see you or I'm absent, I may hear of you that you are standing firm in one spirit with one mind striving side by side for the faith of the
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Gospel. Chapter 2, verse 22, but you know
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Timothy's proven worth how as a son with a father he has served with me in the
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Gospel. And then two more verses, chapter 4, verse 3 and verse 15.
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Chapter 4, verse 3, yes I ask you also true companion help these women who have labored side by side with me in the
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Gospel together with Clement and the rest of my fellow workers whose names are in the Book of Life.
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Verse 15, and you Philippians yourselves know that in the beginning of the Gospel when
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I left Macedonia no church entered into partnership with me in giving and receiving except you only.
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In those eight verses nine times obviously you see the word Gospel or Good News.
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That's the recurring theme and of course in chapter 1 it's about the proclamation of Christ Jesus. In chapter 2 in the center of everything if you look with me in chapter 2 verses 7 through 11 when
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I say Gospel I mean the Lord Jesus sent by the Father. We have the Lord Jesus front and center in this book.
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It's all about Jesus, it's about the Gospel, it's about Good News that Jesus saved sinners. Verse 7 of chapter 2, but emptied himself, talking about the
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Lord Jesus by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men and being found in human form he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.
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Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is
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Lord to the glory of God the Father. It should not surprise any of us that Paul the Apostle is talking about the
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Lord Jesus. Apostle means sent one and so Paul is sent by Jesus. Jesus sends
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Paul to the church to talk about himself that is the Lord Jesus. So what
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I'd like to do today is I'd like to look at chapter 1 verses 27, 28, 29, and 30 and ask and answer the question why does
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Bethlehem Bible Church exist? Because that will help us in many areas as we focus in on the one thing, the main thing, the great thing, the
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Lord Jesus. So let me read verses 27 through 30. I'll tell you what my sermon is in a nutshell and then we'll kind of dissect it a little bit.
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Chapter 1 verses 27 through 30. This is our passage for the day. Only let your manner of life be worthy of the gospel of Christ so that whether I come and see you or am absent
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I may hear of you that you are standing firm in one spirit with one mind striving side by side for the faith of the gospel and not frightened in anything by your opponents.
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This is a clear sign to them of their destruction but of your salvation and that from God. For it has been granted to you that for the sake of Christ you should not only believe in him but also suffer for his sake.
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Engaged in the same conflict that you saw I had and now hear that I still. The theme essentially of Philippians and the theme of this sermon is that the main thing that this church exists for is the proclamation of the gospel, the good news about the
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Lord Jesus. And therefore everything else isn't the main thing and needs to be subsumed under or absorbed into that main calling.
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Like, to telegraph my sermon, you look at someone, you pass to them, you're not supposed to do it because someone could intercept that pass, so you're supposed to look over here and then pass that way.
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But I'm going to telegraph the pass to you now and say that if the main thing is the Lord Jesus and the proclamation of the gospel, everything else is lesser.
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So therefore even in chapter 4 verse 2, Paul is going to say, ladies, you're not getting along, but remember the main goal of the gospel is not friendships.
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Ladies, you're not getting along, but remember you need to get along for the proclamation of the gospel. And we'll talk about this more in the sermon today, but I just want you to know, and I hope it's freeing to you, that since the main thing about Bethlehem Bible Church is the proclamation of the gospel to unbelievers and to believers, that you don't even have to like everybody here at the church.
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You have to love them. You have to realize, do you know what, I should get along with these other people because the church is bigger than my relationship.
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If the number one goal in the church is friendship, then that's one thing. If the number one goal is community, that's another thing.
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But if the number one goal is the proclamation of the gospel, everything else, which missionary to support, where to spend the money, everything comes underneath that banner of the proclamation and the advance of the good news of the
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Lord Jesus. That's the sermon today. If the one goal is to win the
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Super Bowl, do you really think everybody in the New England Patriots for those six
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Super Bowls liked each other? I don't think they did, but they had one goal and they were striving together with one mind, standing firm.
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I don't know if it's true or not, but the disaster could happen like with Bill Belichick who has a personal beef against Malcolm Butler and it cost you the
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Super Bowl. Am I right? I could be, in my opinion. If you don't want to get sued on the radio, you just say, in my opinion.
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Then it's fine. But the point is, if we're together for the gospel and the proclamation of who
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Jesus is, that's our theme. Then everything else tucks itself underneath that. We say, okay, we better get along.
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We better shore these things up because there's something bigger than ourselves. It doesn't take very long to look around the
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Gospels and the Epistles in the New Testament. Paul is saying the same thing, not just to Philippi, but in Colossians, the theme verse of Bethlehem Bible Church found in your bulletin.
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Chapter 1, verse 28, Him we proclaim. What does he say to the Corinthians?
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When I get to you, I already know what I'm going to do. I'm going to talk about who Jesus is. I already know my message before I arrive.
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I've determined there is nothing among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. To the churches around Galatia, he talks about this great
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Jesus who is raised from the dead and delivers from this evil world. In Romans, he says,
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I'm going to talk to you about who Jesus is. Paul, in jail, writing to the
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Church of Philippi, wants to make sure they know that the most important thing about them and why they exist is the proclamation of the
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Lord Jesus and the advance of His kingdom. Everything else is secondary.
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There aren't two great commissions, there's one. As a matter of fact, if you go back to chapter 1, verse 12, to give us a little context before we get into our main passage, you can see how
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Paul, in an autobiographical way, shows by example what the most important thing is.
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In chapter 1, verse 27, he's going to tell the Church of Philippi and us what to do and how to do it and how to think through it, but Paul first, like a good teacher does,
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I will exemplify it by example first, then I'll tell you what to do.
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In chapter 1, verse 12, I want you to know, brothers, that what has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel so that it has become known throughout the whole imperial guard, verse 13, to all the rest that my imprisonment is not for being a criminal, it's for Christ.
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And most of the brothers, having become confident in the Lord by my imprisonment, are much more bold to speak the word without fear.
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The goal of my life is not I want to be free and I want to be living a life just of luxury.
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My goal is I want the gospel to go forward, to talk about the Lord Jesus and His great work, to advance.
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And by the way, I don't want you to be discouraged, Philippi, because I'm in jail and you think somehow I'm now squashed in my proclamation of the gospel, but every four hours, every six hours, when a new guard is chained up to me,
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I have a captive audience and I'm preaching the gospel and it's going forward, it's infiltrating even into the
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White House, as it were. Verse 15, you see the preached
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Christ 15, 17 proclaim Christ, 18 proclaim Christ. Some indeed preach
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Christ from envy and rivalry, but others from goodwill. The latter do it out of love, knowing that I am put here for the defense of the gospel.
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The former proclaim Christ out of selfish ambition, not sincerely, but thinking to afflict me in my imprisonment.
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What then? Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed. And since that's the main thing and that I will rejoice, yes,
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I will rejoice. For I know that through your prayers, help of the spirit of Jesus Christ, this will turn out for my deliverance.
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And he goes on to say, whether I die or not, it doesn't matter. The gospel is going forward to live as Christ and to die is gain.
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I'm after verse 25. Listen to what Paul says, convinced of this, I know that I will remain and continue with me, continue with you all rather, for your progress and joy in the faith.
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So that in me, you may have ample cause to glory in Christ Jesus because of my coming to you again.
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What's the main thing for Paul? To make sure the gospel goes forward to unbelievers and to believers.
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To unbelievers, of course, like the Philippian jailer, because he needs to be saved from his sins. The biggest problem that we all have, we're going to stand before a holy
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God and we're sinful. So of course, the gospel goes out to unbelievers, but it goes out to believers too.
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Paul said to the church of Rome, I'm eager to get there to preach the gospel to you, to Christians. So we come to our passage today that some call the thesis of Philippians.
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Others call it the main appeal of Philippians and it's almost hidden in plain sight.
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So here's our outline for this morning. For essential questions, every church and every church member must ask and answer.
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For essential questions, every church and every church member must ask and answer.
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I'll give you the four ahead of time and then we'll see how far we get. Translation, it's probably going to be a two -parter.
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We'll see. I said to myself, Lord, help me preach well and today, don't rush.
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We don't need to rush through this. Question one, why does
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Bethlehem Bible Church exist? Question two, what is the gospel that we must advance?
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Question three, what does the gospel do as we advance it? And question four, how do we live in light of the gospel?
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So question one, the first essential question I want you to ask and answer is, what is the main thing
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Bethlehem Bible Church is all about? What should Bethlehem Bible Church be all about? You already know the answer because I telegraphed it early, but there in verse 27, he talks about letting your life be worthy of the gospel of Christ so that, here's the purpose statement, we want to live in a godly way in light of the gospel and who
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Jesus is. Paul says, whether I come to you or not, that you're striving, standing, side by side, look at the very end of the verse, for the faith of the gospel.
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In chapter 1, verse 12, he said, I will give you an example. I am all about the advance of the gospel.
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Now, I want you to do the same thing. I want you to practice what I'm preaching.
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Now, interestingly, the first word in verse 27 is the word what? No, it's not the word what, it's the word only.
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That's kind of a weird way to start off. Only? You'd think there'd be some kind of link.
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And literally, in the Greek, it's only worthy of the gospel of Christ. He's saying this is the only thing.
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This is the essential thing. This is the main thing. This is the top of the list thing. One translation says, make this one thing your care.
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Another word study book said, this one thing I urge only is needful. There's a thousand things competing for our attention, but there's one that rises to the top.
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What's the most important thing, Church at Philippi and Bethlehem Bible Church? And if you get this right, then you say, well, all the other deviations and distractions and everything else, from social justice to politics, to civic things, certainly you can do things as private citizens, but the church, what is the church about?
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When you open up the church and you say, what is going on behind the scenes?
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What drives them? This one thing and this one thing only, Paul says, this is what I'm after.
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All these commands are related to and underneath the gospel of who
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Jesus is, for the faith of the gospel. Showing believers who
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Jesus is. Showing unbelievers who Jesus is. Paul has said elsewhere about the faith of the gospel, the content of the good news.
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He calls it, in 1 Timothy 6, the deposit entrusted to you. Oh Timothy, guard the deposit.
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We just sang the Jude doxology, and earlier in Jude, it says, Beloved, although I was very eager to write to you about our common salvation,
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I found it necessary to write appealing to you to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints.
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Faith and the object. Faith has an object, and that object is the Lord Jesus, and when we talk about Jesus, we say that's good news.
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It's the gospel. The most important thing about Bethlehem Bible Church is the gospel of Jesus and its advance in the hearts of believers and the hearts of unbelievers.
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It should dominate our curriculum for Sunday school. It should dominate our
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VBS curriculum. It should dominate our getting along with each other.
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You say, well, we already know the gospel. We've got that down. We hear it every week. Do you know, when you start to assume the gospel and not hear it, the next generation will lose the gospel?
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So we keep reminding people every single week of who Jesus is. Week in and week out.
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Yeah, but we hear sermons about Jesus every week. I know. But the world's disintegrating. I know.
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But America is lawless. I know. The subject matter is redundant.
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I know. Remember Adoniram Judson, missionary to Burma.
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He didn't start off going to Burma, and by the way, he was sent by churches around Boston and along where 90 would be.
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Notice, I didn't call it the 90. 90. Do you call it the Pike? Why do you call it the
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Pike and not the 90? He started off, by the way, as a
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Presbyterian, but he studied the Bible on the way there and he became a Baptist. That's for the pierces.
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Anyway, when you meet a missionary, you ask him all kinds of questions. You know, when my kids were little, what's the weirdest thing you ate as a missionary?
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Tell me the stories about how the people came and tried to burn down your hut and other kind of things that would happen.
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And so Judson goes to Burma and he comes home to Massachusetts 30 years later.
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Let's say you're going to have him preach. What do you think he'd talk about? He has a large audience. He had 15 minutes to talk.
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He talked about the Lord Jesus and Christ's sufferings, Christ's exaltation, Christ's soon return, how great
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Jesus is. His friends said on the way home, the people were very much disappointed and they wonder why he didn't speak of something else.
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What did they want? I presented to the best of my ability the most interesting subject in the entire world.
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Well, I think they wanted something different, maybe a story. Judson, well, I sure gave them the story, the most thrilling one that can be conceived of.
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Yes, but they've heard that before, the friend said. They wanted something new. Judson, then
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I'm glad they have it to say that a man coming from Burma had nothing better to tell them than the wondrous story of the dying love of Jesus.
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My business is to preach the gospel of Christ Jesus. And when I can speak of it, I dare not trifle with my commission.
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When I looked upon those people today, remembering where I should next meet them, and how could
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I stand up and furnish food for vain curiosity and tickle fancy with amusing stories?
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That is not what Christ meant by preaching the gospel. And then how could I hereafter meet the fearful charge from the
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Lord? I gave you opportunity to tell them of me. You spent it describing your own adventures.
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And so the church is to preach the gospel. As you know, I'm just reminding you, this is not scolding, this is not lecturing, this is just a simple reminder and a reboot.
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Remember, the gospel isn't in our hearts. Law is written on our hearts.
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What to do is written on our hearts. Love God and love neighbor is written on our hearts. The Ten Commandments, the moral law of God, are written on our hearts.
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But what is not written on our hearts is the good news that comes from outside of us, the Lord Jesus. And that's why week in and week out, whether it's monthly with the
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Lord's Supper here, or from the pulpit, we need to be reminded of who Jesus Christ is.
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That's why Paul said to the Church of Rome, I can't wait to get there to tell you. I can't wait to get up and say something new about Jesus.
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Say, well, I want something deeper than Jesus. Really? A few weeks ago, someone said to me, or said to someone else about my preaching, they said they're looking for something more to post graduate level.
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That's kind of stuck in my craw. I'm not trying to preach at a post graduate level.
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I'm preaching for people like you. Preaching for people like you. Not you two, the one behind you.
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Jail. But I'm preaching for you too. I want you to understand this truth over and over to be reminded of who
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Jesus is. Because what we do is we're supposed to be walking by faith and not by sight.
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But we live in this world and we can't see who God is. And before you know it, instead of, as Grandma Evie would say, gazing upon the
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Lord, we're gazing on our problems and just glancing at the Lord. Instead of glancing at the problems, gazing on the
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Lord. Paul knew better. This is the one thing I do. Paul knew better. My citizenship's in heaven.
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And so everything about it for Paul was, it is the proclamation of who Jesus is. You don't go deeper than the gospel.
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You don't go past the gospel. Because the center of the gospel, when I say gospel, is shorthand for Jesus. That's why
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Paul can say in chapter 4, I want you ladies to get along. And if they're men in the church that don't get along, they need to get along as well.
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The mission statement for every church and this church is the advance of the gospel. So let's say you have a ministry here at the church and most of you do.
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Thank you. You say, well, my ministry is taking care of the children in the nursery.
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How does that advance the gospel? Answer, you probably pray for those little ones when you're changing their diapers and other things.
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Two, you're doing things behind the scenes so that the gospel can go advance here, right?
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Say, well, I'm doing parking lot control. Well, it all comes underneath that proclamation of the gospel.
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And therefore, since that's true, if there's someone here at the church that you don't really get along with, you know, you don't have to be friends with everybody, but you have to be friendly.
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You don't have to like everyone here, but you have to love them because you're underneath that idea of there's something bigger than each of us.
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And that is the proclamation of the gospel. We don't want to hurt our witness and cause us to deal with interpersonal problems because we have a bigger fish to fry, as it were.
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Not trying to be irreverent. Say, well,
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I have a home group. What's my mission statement? I think Philippians 1 .27 answers it.
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I like to teach my children the Bible around the dinner table. What's my goal? What's my mission statement? What's my MO? I think you know the answer.
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First essential question that needs to be asked and answered is, what is Bethlehem Bible Church all about? Secondly, it probably would be good to ask this question and answer it.
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If our existence is the gospel proclamation, then what's the gospel? Second question, what is the gospel?
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I know you know the answer, but I'm just going to repeat it anyway. By the way, the gospel that I'm talking about isn't a type of music, gospel music.
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It's not Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, although I love Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Six times, even in chapter one, as we saw earlier, the word gospel is used.
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As you know, my wife Kim, she works at Lowe's a couple of days a week in the paint department. Some of the funniest things, I mean,
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I'll come home and she'll say, what happened at work today? And I'll say to her, what happened at Lowe's today? Did you meet anybody there that we know?
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And so I like it when she tells me this story. Some of the nuns, or some of the
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Catholic priests down the street come in with their garb and their habit and their colors and all that.
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And I like to say to them, what's the good news? And the stories are pretty funny now.
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They're few and far between because they avoid her. Somehow they don't need paint anymore.
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She just looked at me like, you know how hard it is to preach with your wife on the front row?
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You ever thought about that? I remember I had to preach Ephesians five once. Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church.
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Kim's on the front row. I was much more self -righteous in those days than I am now.
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But I think what I did was, let's see, how can I preach without being a total hypocrite?
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I'll do something that Kim wants to do that I would hate to do. So that's when I first bought her, this was 10, 15 years ago, 10 classes on ballroom dancing because I thought she'd love it and I'd hate it.
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So we're still doing the rock step. If I ask you the question, what's the good news?
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You have 15 seconds to give me the good news. And sometimes in evangelism class, we would do this very thing, hand out a piece of paper and say, what's the gospel?
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You think it's so simple because I hear it all the time. Do you know the amount of people that get that question wrong?
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And maybe it's because it's, you know, they're put on the spot. Or if I ask people, what's your testimony?
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You know how many people don't give me the gospel in their testimony? And again, they may be nervous. They may be put on the spot.
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They might really know it. But if I ask you the question, you've got 15 seconds. The plane is going down.
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Southwest 382 is going down. You have 15 seconds. What would you say?
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Love God and love neighbor. God helps those who help themselves. Believe in the
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Lord Jesus. Be nice. Be good. Have purpose in your life.
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Have your best life now. Be good to others. The word gospel was a general word used and it just meant good news of any kind in secular uses.
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It kind of got hijacked when Caesar came along and it was talking about how Caesar was the good news incarnate.
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Caesar's son was good news. So it kind of got hijacked. But then Paul re -hijacks it to talk about the good news of Jesus Christ sent by the
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Father. Now by the way, when I talk about Jesus a lot, you might be saying, is it God triune?
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Why is he not talking? Why is the pastor not talking about the Father and the Spirit as much? Remember, when
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I talk about one member of the Trinity, I'm meaning all. If I say Jesus, he's the one sent by the
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Father. He's the unbegotten Father sending the begotten Son and the Father and the Son together from them proceed the
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Spirit. So when I say one, I mean all. So I'm not somehow denigrating the
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Holy Spirit and the Father when I talk about Jesus a lot. Because it's the Father who sent the Son and it's the Spirit's the one who's saying, look at the
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Son. But this good news is all about the triune God's work.
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It means good news and it's talking about the Lord Jesus. We are enslaved to sin.
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We are standing before a holy God one day and we've got a very serious problem.
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And so that's the bad news is we don't live up to God's standards and who God is and his law.
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But the good news is there's someone who does. You see, law isn't good news unless you can perfectly keep the law.
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If you could perfectly love God and love neighbor, the law would be good news. But since we can't, the law is not good news.
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The law is like a mirror that shows us we need a savior. And so the good news isn't what we do, isn't what we've done, isn't what we could do.
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The good news is in spite of what we haven't done, that is obey God perfectly, the Lord Jesus has been sent by the
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Father to rescue sinners, not if they keep the law, not because they've done the law, but because they haven't and he sends the
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Son to rescue anyway. While the law says you're a sinner and you're damned, the gospel says
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Christ Jesus comes into the world to save sinners. It says in Philippians, excuse me, in Acts chapter 16, believe on the
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Lord Jesus and you'll be saved. That's the response to the gospel is just to believe.
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The gospel strictly speaking about the Lord Jesus, no demands, no conditions, simply promises and gifts.
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That's why it's a joyful message. That's why S. Lewis Johnson used to say, men, when you proclaim the gospel, you ought to stand on tiptoes because it's so exciting.
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You want to let the congregation know. You say, well, what would be another illustration of the gospel or something good news?
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I don't know what it is about Bethlehem Bible Church. I think it might be the West Boston Water, but we have a lot of children around here.
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That means more and more of our congregation is technically unregenerate, but that's another story. We're happy for them.
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When your baby's born, what do you do? It's a girl.
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It's a boy. I can't believe I have another mouth to feed. At least
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I get a tax write off. What do you do?
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It's a girl. I remember calling my friends when Haley was born and then when
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Luke and Maddie and Gracie, it's a boy, it's a girl. It's so exciting. No wonder
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Paul says in 1 Corinthians chapter 15, the gospel's good news, but the way I talk about it is good news as well.
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I gospel the gospel. I have something good news. I have good news to tell people.
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John Kahuna, Scottish man, said no tidings were ever so joyful as those which are announced in the gospel.
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Free grace to sinners. Sovereign grace to sinners at the cost of himself, God, freely given to us, received by faith.
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Here's some gospel truth. For unto you this day is born in the city of David a Savior, Christ the
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Lord. It has nothing to do with what we've done. It's just a proclamation. This is the promise that he promised us.
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Even eternal life. That's the proclamation of good news. There's a great theologian.
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His name's Casper Olivianus. Well, I think of Casper as a kid.
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I thought of someone else, but this is, I'm going to redeem that from your mind for all you people that used to watch cartoons in the 60s and 70s.
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Casper the Olivianus. Quote, in the gospel, God does not demand, but he offers and he gives the righteousness that the law requires.
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This righteousness is the perfect obedience of the suffering and death of Jesus, through which all sin and damnation made manifest in the law is pardoned and washed away.
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Furthermore, God does not give us forgiveness of sins in the gospel on the condition that we keep the law.
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He goes on to say, and I want you to realize this, dear Christians, so let me just change it to some personal pronouns.
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Dear Christian, did you know that all your sins have been washed away? Did you know that you have been pardoned not for just the rest of your lives, but forever?
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Did you know Christian that all of this God freely offers and gives to you in the gospel without regard to your past?
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Or I might add skeletons in your closet. Who loves like that? That's good news to talk about.
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No wonder Paul says, I delivered you as a first importance. This is the most important thing, Paul says in first Corinthians 15.
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Everything's important in the Bible, but this reigns supreme. Good news or bad news?
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While we are still weak at the right time, Christ died for the ungodly. Good news or bad news?
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God shows his love toward us that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Good news or bad news?
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He who did not spare his own son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?
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As the Heidelberg Catechism says, yet God, without any merit of mine, of mere grace, grants and imputes to me the perfect satisfaction, righteousness, and holiness of Christ, as if I have never committed nor had any sin, and had myself accomplished all the obedience which
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Christ has fulfilled, he is risen. That is the mission statement of Bethlehem Bible Church.
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That is why we exist. That is why every single Sunday we will talk about the Lord Jesus. You say, well, isn't my need for the gospel, the gospel, isn't my need for forgiveness so I don't go to hell, isn't that the gospel?
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No, that's just the need for the gospel. Yes, but how do I receive the gospel? Isn't that the gospel?
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Isn't faith part of the gospel? No, that's just the way you receive it. Yes, but after I'm saved and I believe the gospel,
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I have fruit and evidence and holy living and obedience and a desire to obey God, isn't that part of the gospel?
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No, that's the evidence of the gospel. The gospel is talking about the
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Lord Jesus. So if you had fifteen seconds to talk about the gospel,
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I hope you would talk about the Lord Jesus, how he dies not for his sins but for our sins and he was buried and he was raised from the dead and ascended.
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Question three. What should BBC be all about, number one, the proclamation and advance of the gospel.
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What is the gospel? We talked about that. And now number three, what does the gospel do? As we're advancing, proclaiming to believers and unbelievers, what does the gospel do?
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What is happening even invisibly? When we do what Paul is saying in verse 27, what happens?
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Tell me what's going on behind the veil, behind the curtain, behind the scenes. Of course, to unbelievers, as we proclaim the gospel, as God sees fit and according to his good pleasure, people get saved.
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But does the gospel apply to believers at all? What's happening to you when you're proclaiming the gospel and thinking about the gospel and you're thinking about the gospel.
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To read the verse again, only let your manner of life be worthy of the gospel of Jesus. Even my life that I live, even your life that you live, is somehow worthy of the gospel.
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What does that mean? We'll talk about that. So whether Paul says, I show up or I don't, you're standing firm, one mind striving for the faith of the anything in your opponents.
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What's going on? For unbelievers, of course, they stand before God as guilty.
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And now because of the gospel truth, they receive by faith, by grace alone, faith alone, grace alone. They're pardoned, not guilty.
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I think Scott Brown used to have a, I was going to call it a whacker, but it's a, what do you call those courtroom?
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I know. Well, I was condemned.
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I was in Adam. I did my own sinning by nature. I was an unbeliever and I'm a sinner.
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And now you mean to tell me that based on what Jesus has done by God's free grace, I'm now declared not guilty.
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Yes, that's what happens for the unbeliever. But then what God does, he says, well, you know what?
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By grace and by mercy, I've made sure you've taken, you're taken out of darkness and put into light, but now you're on your own.
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Hope you can do well. Now it's military motifs and athletic motifs.
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Try hard. You know, it's a free gift of salvation and now it's the cost of discipleship.
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There's something to be said about cost of discipleship, but you kind of even hear what I'm saying. Okay. I'm saved by grace alone.
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I now stand before God by grace alone. The Lord Jesus's righteousness is accredited to my account.
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My sins were credited to Jesus' account. He's risen from the dead. And then now how do I live? I have indwelling sin still.
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I have the presence of sin still. I can maybe put it this way. Is there anything in your life that you'd like to say?
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I'd like to have that dead. I'd like to have that in the rear view mirror. I'd like to have my anger, my self -righteousness, my pride, my porn, my this, my that.
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I need help to do that because I know it's wrong and I want it out of my life. I hope all of us can say that.
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It's our desire to be godly. Well, good luck.
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You're on your own. I've been studying
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Latin on my phone a little bit, but I don't need Latin to know these two words.
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Duplex gratia. Duplex is double, like a duplex house.
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Is there two parts of the house? And duplex gratia, grace. There's a double grace.
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And what we're going to see probably this week a little bit later and most likely next week, the gospel's advancing.
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The gospel's going forward. Unbelievers are hearing. They're getting saved.
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They're getting hardened, whatever God prefers. But what is happening to the people that are advancing the gospel who are
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Christians? Double grace is not just God saves you.
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He does save you. Christ for pardon. But also Christ gives you the power to say no to sin.
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Don't you think God wants that for you? Don't you think He wants you to be conformed to the image of Christ? Don't you think once He starts a good work and you're at you,
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He'll be faithful to what? Complete it? Of course. And so here we see that the key to all imperatives in the
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Bible is the love of God. And that's the key to all imperatives. The love of God. The love of the Lord Jesus Christ for power. Matter of fact, I can show it to you.
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He says in verse 27, let your life be worthy of the, let your manner of life be worthy of the gospel.
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He says in verse 2, complete my joy of chapter 2 by being of the same mind.
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Verse 3, do nothing from selfish ambition. He says in verse 12, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.
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He says in verse 14, do all things without grumbling or disputing. He says in verse 16, holding fast to the word of life.
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But what's in the middle of it all? In all the commands and all the imperatives and all the exhortations to live a holy life.
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What is at the center? Who's the one driving? If the law is a motivator, why would
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Paul then drop in the middle verses 5 through 11 in chapter 2?
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Because the motivation to not be selfish and to not look to your own interest is to make sure you look at the one, the
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Lord Jesus, as your example and the one who empowers you to do that very thing. It is often forgotten by Christians that God sanctifies every justification of a sanctified believer.
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And our response to that sanctification is holy living and obedience. It is because of Jesus, it is because of the gospel that you can say no to sin and yes to holy living.
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Did you know, dear Christian, when Jesus died, sin's grip slipped? A sanctified life is possible.
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Jesus is the motivation to obey. Now, I don't know who you read.
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I've met people in the past and they say, I only read the Bible. I don't read anyone else. Well, you need to read other authors because Ephesians 4 talks about there are gifts to the church and some of those gifts are alive and some of those gifts have ceased, are dead rather, and you can still read them.
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One of my favorite books to read is Jerry Bridges' Transforming Grace. Matter of fact, all the
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Jerry Bridges books, I think, are helpful. Because remember, Bridges is writing to college campus students, navigators.
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So you know how college students that need to be dumbed down so they can understand it. These days, that's true.
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Bridges, one of the best kept secrets among Christians today is this,
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Jesus paid it all. I mean all. He not only purchased your forgiveness of sins and your ticket to heaven, he purchased every blessing and every answer to prayer you will ever receive.
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No exceptions. Why is this such a well -kept secret, Bridges asks? For one thing, we're afraid of this truth.
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We're afraid to tell ourselves even that we don't have to work anymore, all the work is done. We're afraid that if we really believe this, we'll slack off in our
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Christian duties. But the deeper core issue is that we really don't believe we're still bankrupt.
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Living by grace instead of by works means you're free from the performance treadmill. You're loved and accepted by God through Christ's merit and you will be blessed by God through Christ's merit.
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Nothing you will ever do will cause him to love you more or any less. He loves you strictly by his grace given to you through Jesus.
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Could you abuse that grace? Jude talks about people that abuse it, but we must not be.
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When I say, dear Christian, you need to rest in Jesus, what
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I'm saying is this, you need to make sure you realize your salvation is already secure, paid for, bought, it is finished, tombs empty, and you no longer now have to try to get saved, stay saved.
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And because you're resting in Jesus for his finished work of salvation, now you can be busy pursuing holiness.
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I'm not saying lay back and let God and rest when it comes to the response to God's sanctifying work.
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I am saying, remember your biggest problem is taken care of. You're not going to go to hell. If you think you're going to go to hell, then you should stay up at night and you should worry and you should do anything but rest until that solution comes to the fore.
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But since now you're saved and you're resting in Jesus, now you're free with all that energy you would spend to try to figure out, am
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I going to go to heaven or not? Now you're free to serve. You're free to worship.
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You're free to obey. And you're able to obey because Jesus is such a Savior, it's just not
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Christ for pardon, it's Christ for power and he gives you the Holy Spirit to dwell in you.
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The gospel sets you free to enjoy your salvation and serve others. Well, what does the passage mean when it says we're to stand firm and we're to strive and we're not to be frightened?
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How do we really live a life manner worthy of the gospel? I'm glad you asked that question because we'll do that next time.
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Dear Christian, the number one goal for this church is the proclamation of the gospel and its advance to the unbelievers and to you.
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Everything else is underneath that. Everything else should be driven by that. So when you talk to your children today at lunch, make sure you talk about the
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Lord Jesus. When you're evangelizing people, make sure you talk about the Lord Jesus. When you're teaching
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VBS, you talk about the Lord Jesus. When you're on the dinner table, you talk about the Lord Jesus.
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I'm surprised when I teach some preaching classes, I have to tell people, pastors even, make sure your sermons talk about Jesus at least for ten minutes.
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Is that too much to ask, I say? You're like, what in the world would you ever have to say that for?
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Because sometimes we get so caught up in a section of scripture that has only commands, for instance, we forget who's giving the command, who gives us the power to obey the command.
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Of course the commands are right and meet, but it's about the Lord Jesus. If you go out of town this summer, which
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I hope you don't, I'm just kidding, no I hope you do. You're like, yeah thanks a lot
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Mike, you go out of town, that's true, for my sanity. How do you pick a church?
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Get on the website, look, well they believe that the Bible's authoritative, inherent, infallible.
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Well they do expository preaching verse by verse. I like all those things. But if you get so caught up in the trees and you forget about the forest, that's not a good church to go to.
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You want to go to a church where they proclaim Christ Jesus every week, even though you know the story.
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It is not a good sermon when you go, that was something new, I never learned that. Sometimes that's perfectly fine.
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It's a good sermon if it from front to back is, here's who Jesus is, I know it's difficult to trust in Him because of our trials, but you can still trust in Him because He's a great
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Savior. Do you know, dear Christian, we say on Sunday mornings, don't forget about your salvation.
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Remember what you were like before you got saved, whether you were a self -righteous homeschool kid or you were an unrighteous pagan in college.
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Remember those days? Remember what would have happened to you in those days if you would have died? Where would you have gone?
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But God, being rich in mercy, remember those days? And that spurs you on to do what?
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To be thankful, to evangelize, to obey, because that is what happens. That is the paradigm.
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When you realize how great God is, you realize how much gratitude you ought to show.
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What's the purpose of Bethlehem Bible Church? It's the Gospel. Who is the Gospel? It's the Lord Jesus. What does the
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Gospel do? It changes unbelievers from darkness to light and it changes believers into the conforming image of Christ.
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Is there more? Yes. We'll see you next time. Father in Heaven, I rejoice that you have given these dear people an appetite for Jesus.
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And Father, far from scolding this morning, it's just an encouragement to the congregation to keep doing the main thing, that is proclaiming the
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Gospel. And Father, I do pray that if there are differences in the church or unresolved conflicts between people, that you would just help minimize those.
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And we would be humble one to another as we realize we're not even here mainly for friendship and for fellowship, although those are wonderful byproducts.
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We're here for the Gospel. And the Gospel can go out clearer and more resounding to your glory when we love one another.