WEBVTT 00:00:00.700 --> 00:00:05.459 Our gracious and heavenly Father, we come to you tonight because we recognize that what you have 00:00:05.459 --> 00:00:12.880 given us is something that we often don't aspire to hold on to or even grasp for. We ask that you 00:00:12.880 --> 00:00:17.620 would pour into us by your spirit a greater understanding of who you are in character and 00:00:17.620 --> 00:00:23.740 in nature, a greater understanding of what you have done by your son's person and work, and a 00:00:23.740 --> 00:00:29.280 greater understanding of your continual love for us by the illumination of the spirit in our own 00:00:29.280 --> 00:00:36.700 hearts. Our Father, we ask that what we know not, you would now give us. And what we are not, we pray 00:00:36.700 --> 00:00:40.760 that you would now, or what we have not, we pray that you would now give us to where what we are not, 00:00:41.179 --> 00:00:46.260 we ask that you would make us and transform us into the likeness of your holy and precious son. 00:00:46.579 --> 00:00:52.480 We pray this in Jesus's name. Amen. Well, if you've got a Bible, I want to encourage you to turn to the 00:00:52.479 --> 00:01:04.239 book of Romans chapter 3. Book of Romans chapter 3. I know that some of you are new to me this evening, 00:01:04.420 --> 00:01:08.939 having not been here last night or today, and so it might be a little bit helpful for you to 00:01:08.939 --> 00:01:15.000 hear a brief about me. I said this morning I was raised in a Christian home, a church home, 00:01:15.000 --> 00:01:21.439 where my parents were first generation Christians, and they were always really very helpful on 00:01:21.439 --> 00:01:28.079 recognizing that my sister and I were very forgetful people to where they all wanted, 00:01:28.239 --> 00:01:34.000 they wanted to always put the gospel in front of us. You can even hear on camcorders, VHS tapes on 00:01:34.000 --> 00:01:38.539 their shoulders, where they would be teaching us the gospel, whether it's through, you know, Christmas 00:01:38.539 --> 00:01:44.920 time or Easter or whatever. On other seasons, they would be slightly making fun of us on these VHS tapes. 00:01:45.319 --> 00:01:48.879 When we'd fall over, when we'd be forgetful or whatever, but the gospel was something that was 00:01:48.879 --> 00:01:55.739 always in front of us. I didn't grow up in a rebellious state by my own doing. I was always 00:01:55.739 --> 00:02:01.159 given, by the grace of God, kind of a guilty conscience, and the Lord really in His really 00:02:01.159 --> 00:02:06.659 sweet kindness kept me from a lot of things that I would have normally wanted to go to, and did want 00:02:06.659 --> 00:02:13.199 to go to, but out of just fear of punishment and pain, was kept from that, and I'm so thankful for that. 00:02:13.199 --> 00:02:19.079 But that also put me in a position to think that my testimony was a little bit less than other 00:02:19.079 --> 00:02:23.319 people's. I grew up going to camps, Christian camps, things like Fellowship of Christian Athletes, 00:02:23.659 --> 00:02:29.659 Vacation Bible Schools, Sunday School, Backyard Bible Clubs, Good News Club, things like that. 00:02:29.799 --> 00:02:36.239 And if you've ever been to, like, a Christian sports camp, all the speakers have these incredible 00:02:36.240 --> 00:02:41.840 testimonies of the Lord saving them to Himself through the most extraordinary events, like 00:02:41.840 --> 00:02:48.340 falling out of a helicopter or under fire from pistols and just stuff. And I'm like, 00:02:48.420 --> 00:02:54.180 I just went to Good News Club and heard that I was a sinner. The Lord is offering me Himself, 00:02:54.280 --> 00:02:59.080 and I'm like, that sounds pretty good to me. To where at a certain point when I was, you know, 00:02:59.080 --> 00:03:08.860 14, 15, 16, was starting to not doubt my salvation, but actually doubt the veracity of the Lord's 00:03:08.860 --> 00:03:14.420 intervening power in my own life to where I think, in retrospect, it actually caused me to be a little 00:03:14.420 --> 00:03:20.860 quiet about God and His grace and mercy in my life. And I was expressing this to my youth pastor at the 00:03:20.860 --> 00:03:26.660 church that I grew up in, and he was very helpful, very good. We were out at Johnny's Express, which is 00:03:26.659 --> 00:03:33.439 like a burger shop, and we were out at Johnny's Express over lunch my freshman year of high school, 00:03:33.819 --> 00:03:37.340 and I was just kind of telling him, like, yeah, just, you know, it's just, like, I just don't have 00:03:37.340 --> 00:03:42.079 a good testimony. And, you know, he knew this was coming. He's probably done this a thousand times. 00:03:42.180 --> 00:03:47.000 And he was like, what do you mean you don't have a good testimony? And I was like, well, you know, 00:03:47.019 --> 00:03:51.639 you recount all things from other places. He's like, you mean to tell me that God Almighty 00:03:51.639 --> 00:03:58.699 sought and saved you, purchased you for himself, brought you to himself, and holds on to you 00:03:58.699 --> 00:04:05.179 forever and ever, and you don't think that's very good? And I was like, well, I mean, when you put it 00:04:05.179 --> 00:04:10.959 like that, it's pretty cool. And he goes, no, that is everyone's testimony in your life. That is your 00:04:10.959 --> 00:04:18.939 testimony that God on high saw you, a sinner, and saved you. And I was like, well, okay, that'll, 00:04:18.939 --> 00:04:24.139 that kind of changes things to where all of a sudden got a little more vocal, got a little 00:04:24.139 --> 00:04:31.439 more courageous, even to the point where you started kind of sharing God, not yourself, but 00:04:31.439 --> 00:04:38.540 God with other people, whether it's on a baseball team or at a fraternity house or your best friend 00:04:38.540 --> 00:04:43.579 in a car where it's like, I've never actually told you this. So friends, I wonder who you think, 00:04:43.579 --> 00:04:55.240 who you think the gospel is for. Who do you think the gospel is for? Many people misunderstand the 00:04:55.240 --> 00:05:03.899 gospel, thinking that the gospel is exclusively for non-Christians. The gospel's for non-Christians. 00:05:03.899 --> 00:05:14.159 It certainly is for them to hear, but the gospel is primarily, overwhelmingly, for God's people. 00:05:14.959 --> 00:05:23.859 The gospel is for God's people to believe in, to rest in, to find joy in, to find their purpose in, 00:05:24.139 --> 00:05:31.659 again and again. The gospel is the redemptive work of Jesus Christ on our behalf. In my point in this 00:05:31.660 --> 00:05:37.840 sermon, I talked about the glory of the church this morning. I can't believe I've only been here for 00:05:37.840 --> 00:05:43.920 24 hours. It's felt like a year and so much good stuff. I talked about the glory of the church. 00:05:44.080 --> 00:05:48.680 Tonight, I want to talk about the glory of the gospel. And my point in this sermon is that the 00:05:48.680 --> 00:05:56.660 gospel is something that you and I can never forget and must always practice. We must preach it. 00:05:56.660 --> 00:06:03.100 It's not a one-time thing to acknowledge. It's not something to know just for sharing. So I want to 00:06:03.100 --> 00:06:09.800 know four things about the gospel so I can reach out to you on a campus, so I can go to you after a 00:06:09.800 --> 00:06:14.960 loss, or even so that I can remind you of it. But the gospel is something that we don't just acknowledge. 00:06:15.160 --> 00:06:19.160 It's not something that we don't just know for sharing. It's not just something that we know in order 00:06:19.160 --> 00:06:24.220 to be decisive about who we are compared to others. But it is something we've got to know, 00:06:24.220 --> 00:06:31.080 and it's something we've got to preach all the time. And the audience is very surprising of whom 00:06:31.080 --> 00:06:38.580 we preach it to. Now, every good preacher or every good Christian values the preaching of the scriptures. 00:06:39.580 --> 00:06:47.960 I love to hear really good sermons. I love to hear fine sermons. I was told by a seminary professor 00:06:47.959 --> 00:06:55.659 that mature Christians are easily edified. And I thought, man, I'm not easily edified. 00:06:55.879 --> 00:07:01.120 I need to be a mature Christian. But a Christian is easily edified by the heralding, proclaiming 00:07:01.120 --> 00:07:08.299 of the gospel. Since the Protestant Reformation, Reformed churches have done something so radically 00:07:08.299 --> 00:07:13.419 different than what churches did before them, where in the Protestant Reformation, Reformed churches 00:07:13.420 --> 00:07:21.160 actually placed the preaching of the word at the very center and even focal point of the Christian 00:07:21.160 --> 00:07:28.180 worship service. So it's no surprise here. This is a quarter of an inch platform, elevated of importance. 00:07:29.200 --> 00:07:34.160 The very center thing here is the pulpit of which the gospel goes out. There are things behind me. 00:07:34.340 --> 00:07:37.960 There are things behind you. There are things in front of me, things in front of you. But the very 00:07:37.959 --> 00:07:43.719 center of the room is the preaching. It's why the pulpit and nothing else is the center. 00:07:44.719 --> 00:07:51.219 Now, it's even interesting. This is like a small diatribe. I do not care. Or no, no, I do care. 00:07:52.120 --> 00:07:56.060 It does not bother me when preachers do something different than this. But it's a personal conviction 00:07:56.060 --> 00:08:02.579 of mine that I stay actually behind this holy desk. Partly because I cannot walk and talk at the same 00:08:02.579 --> 00:08:07.579 time. But also, we have to realize that what is happening here, even to the point where you can see the 00:08:07.579 --> 00:08:12.359 tips of the pages on this scripture, always wanting our attention to be on the very word of God, 00:08:12.719 --> 00:08:18.659 recognizing that the very word of God is mediating something between you and me, but also especially 00:08:18.659 --> 00:08:25.439 between us and him, to where it is the focal point of everything that we have. Not just the preaching, 00:08:25.860 --> 00:08:32.039 but the gospel proclamation. We get excited about biblical preaching because of its power. We love being 00:08:32.039 --> 00:08:38.299 challenged, confronted, and changed by the heralding of God's word. We need to be good at preaching. 00:08:38.620 --> 00:08:44.319 But the preaching that goes on from this pulpit, this holy desk, as it's called, is not the only 00:08:44.319 --> 00:08:49.899 preaching that you and I must be concerned about. I appreciate that you're listening to me right now. 00:08:51.179 --> 00:08:54.259 But that's not the only time that preaching should go on. 00:08:54.259 --> 00:09:01.259 To where I think that you must practice, you personally, don't know all your names, but thank 00:09:01.259 --> 00:09:07.539 you me imagining all of your names, all of your souls, you must personally practice preaching Christ. 00:09:08.000 --> 00:09:15.480 You, individual Christian, must preach Christ. Now, I hope this sermon is helpful. It's coming in 00:09:15.480 --> 00:09:21.200 three parts. Every good sermon comes in three parts. First, I want you to recognize Christ's gospel 00:09:21.200 --> 00:09:25.540 from the scriptures. It's not just something people say, but it's something people were given. 00:09:26.160 --> 00:09:30.080 You can't preach Christ to yourself without recognizing the gospel. Second, I want you to 00:09:30.080 --> 00:09:35.340 place the gospel. Understanding where you can actually place it. Where Christ to you is nothing 00:09:35.340 --> 00:09:40.480 unless you regularly make him in his work known to you. And then third, I want to tell you how to 00:09:40.480 --> 00:09:45.340 preach Christ, especially to yourself. So three things there. The first one I want you to see 00:09:45.340 --> 00:09:50.900 is to recognize the gospel, and will be primarily for the rest of the time in Romans chapter 3, 00:09:50.899 --> 00:09:59.779 verses 19 through 22, I think, 23. So I want you to first recognize the gospel from the scriptures. 00:10:00.100 --> 00:10:06.399 In order to preach Christ, you've got to know him. You can't preach Christ unless you know him. We all 00:10:06.399 --> 00:10:11.459 know that's logic. You've got to be a graduate of what he's done. It will only edify you to really 00:10:11.459 --> 00:10:17.399 know the good news of the scriptures. If you know the bare minimum, then I think you can only expect to 00:10:17.399 --> 00:10:23.600 have a bare minimum spiritual life. If you only know the bare minimum of the gospel, you can assure 00:10:23.600 --> 00:10:29.240 yourself that you will have a bare minimum spiritual life to where you have to go to a deeper knowledge 00:10:29.240 --> 00:10:35.740 of Jesus, understanding that you don't need a degree in theology, you don't need a ton of books, 00:10:36.179 --> 00:10:42.600 you don't need secret knowledge, but a rich, refined recognition of Jesus through the scriptures. 00:10:42.600 --> 00:10:50.580 So Romans 3, chapter 19, or chapter 3, wow, that'd be a long book. Romans chapter 3, verses 19 through 21 00:10:50.580 --> 00:10:56.320 says this, now we know that whatever the law says, it speaks to those who are under the law, 00:10:56.560 --> 00:11:02.360 so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God. For by works 00:11:02.360 --> 00:11:08.460 of the law, no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin. 00:11:08.460 --> 00:11:14.519 Verse 21, but now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the law 00:11:14.519 --> 00:11:25.220 and the prophets bear witness to it. Here we see, I think, seven things. There are seven things that 00:11:25.220 --> 00:11:30.080 help us recognize the gospel here. So if you're just using the Bible, I'm going to walk through what I 00:11:30.080 --> 00:11:36.800 believe are clear, seven specific things about the gospel. The first one is that the law, it says, 00:11:36.799 --> 00:11:43.339 shows us that we are not righteous. The thing you got to know about the gospel first is that the law 00:11:43.339 --> 00:11:48.279 shows us that we are not righteous. A righteous person is someone who perfectly obeys the law of God. 00:11:49.279 --> 00:11:56.000 A righteousness is a status of legal integrity that satisfies requirements of God's character. A lot of 00:11:56.000 --> 00:12:03.439 big words. Righteousness is a status of legal integrity that satisfies requirements of God's character. 00:12:03.440 --> 00:12:09.360 And when Paul speaks of the law, what Paul means when he speaks the law, he means all of the scriptures. 00:12:10.240 --> 00:12:15.920 Oftentimes you'll hear of the law as the Pentateuch or the first five books of the Bible. When Paul is 00:12:15.920 --> 00:12:22.080 talking about the law, he means the whole thing, everything. He means the entire scriptures. Now, 00:12:22.340 --> 00:12:27.640 Jerry Bridges, one of my heroes, strikingly calls the law, quote, the transcript of God's nature 00:12:27.639 --> 00:12:35.019 and the rule of obedience that he requires of all human beings, the ethical commands scattered 00:12:35.019 --> 00:12:41.179 throughout the Bible. Basically, God lays out the standard through righteousness is perfect obedience. 00:12:42.059 --> 00:12:47.319 You look at the law, you read the Bible, what is righteousness like? It would be you being perfect. 00:12:47.320 --> 00:12:57.400 But I think we can all recognize that we do not hit the mark. Turn over to the book of James. 00:12:58.600 --> 00:13:02.520 Book of James, past all the Pauline letters. Book of James, chapter 2. 00:13:04.200 --> 00:13:09.320 I don't like 10 books there. James, chapter 2. I'm going in verse 10. 00:13:09.320 --> 00:13:16.940 I'm arguing from the scriptures that none of us hit the mark. James, chapter 2, verse 10. It says, 00:13:17.320 --> 00:13:22.700 for whoever keeps the law but fails in one point has become accountable for all of it. 00:13:24.540 --> 00:13:33.180 What James says and what Paul also says is that none of us are righteous. No, not one. If we even miss 00:13:33.179 --> 00:13:41.419 a part of it, then none of us or none of ourselves are righteous. Now, a year and a half ago, my wife 00:13:41.419 --> 00:13:48.919 gave birth to our son Bradley. And Bradley came two months early, which at the time, me, never having 00:13:48.919 --> 00:13:55.059 a child before, at the time you're like, all right, cool. You go down to the hospital. Brooke is not okay. 00:13:55.479 --> 00:14:01.959 She goes into, I don't know what kind of state it is, but her body is very puffy, sorry. But her body is 00:14:01.960 --> 00:14:07.340 very puffy. Blood pressure is shooting through to where she goes to the hospital. One of her friends 00:14:07.340 --> 00:14:12.160 actually tricked her into taking her to the hospital so that she'd go. And they kept her there. I come 00:14:12.160 --> 00:14:17.840 10 hours later. And they, in order to keep her calm, they say, oh, we'll probably deliver the baby in 00:14:17.840 --> 00:14:21.320 the next week or so, but we're going to keep her here. And we're like, hey, we love Oklahoma City. 00:14:21.379 --> 00:14:27.060 This is great. My in-laws live here. Maybe I can catch a minor league baseball game or whatever. 00:14:27.220 --> 00:14:31.800 They were doing all that to trick us because then they came to us the next morning about eight hours later and said, 00:14:31.960 --> 00:14:36.360 we're actually going to take the baby within the hour. The doctor's on his way. And they take 00:14:36.360 --> 00:14:41.940 Brooke and Bradley in there. The doctor comes to me and says, there is a very elevated chance that 00:14:41.940 --> 00:14:47.100 neither your wife or your baby survive the birth. And guys, I'm not in my right mind. I'm like, okay, 00:14:47.300 --> 00:14:54.080 we'll do well with this. I didn't even recall it until like three days later because about three days 00:14:54.080 --> 00:14:59.480 later, Bradley was born safely. Brooke is fine. We were in the hospital. Brooke was in the hospital for 00:14:59.480 --> 00:15:04.240 about eight days after that. She's there. She's not okay. Bradley's doing well in the NICU, 00:15:04.420 --> 00:15:11.899 but there's constantly a bag of blood above Brooke's hospital bed. I don't know what is supposed to 00:15:11.899 --> 00:15:16.080 happen here. So my dad walks in the room and he's like, why is there blood there? And I was like, 00:15:16.100 --> 00:15:22.399 I don't know because she had birth. And he goes, that's not a thing. And I was like, I mean, I don't 00:15:22.399 --> 00:15:27.940 know. And he was like, I think something happened. So you look into it more. Brooke had almost bled out. 00:15:27.940 --> 00:15:35.620 Bradley almost died. Thankfully, by the grace of God, she was given transfusions for several days. 00:15:36.460 --> 00:15:44.100 Now, everyone look. Let's all laugh. Okay, now look back at me. She was given several blood 00:15:44.100 --> 00:15:51.740 transfusions for the next several days. All of those bags of blood were good. What would have happened 00:15:51.740 --> 00:16:03.220 if Brooke was given a bat of blood with one ounce of HIV? One percent of the bag, one drop 00:16:03.220 --> 00:16:12.620 of a bag that had a disease in it? Would you say, oh, I want that. I'm satisfied with that bag of blood. 00:16:12.620 --> 00:16:20.539 You'd be like, no, no. If it has one drop of something that is pure, throw the whole thing out. 00:16:21.779 --> 00:16:28.340 The law shows us that we are not righteous. I hear all the time, you hear all the time, 00:16:28.700 --> 00:16:35.519 everyone hears all the time, from a wandering grandchild, they're a pretty good kid. 00:16:35.519 --> 00:16:44.840 From a wayward grandparent, they're really nice at Christmas. But according to the gospel, 00:16:45.419 --> 00:16:51.399 the law shows us that we are not righteous. The point of this is that God will not accept you 00:16:51.399 --> 00:16:56.319 because you're a decent person, because you're 99% pure. 00:16:56.320 --> 00:17:03.560 He says you're not a decent person. Now, in other parts, he says you're not even close. 00:17:04.620 --> 00:17:09.660 In fact, you're impure. The law calls you unrighteous. The law calls you a sinner. 00:17:10.519 --> 00:17:17.160 The second thing that we see from this passage is that righteousness from God comes apart from the law. 00:17:17.700 --> 00:17:23.059 Look at verse 21 again. But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law. 00:17:23.059 --> 00:17:33.339 We cannot achieve, you and I cannot attain, righteousness on our own at all. But the good 00:17:33.339 --> 00:17:40.039 news of the gospel is that God actually provides righteousness for us. The righteousness of God is 00:17:40.039 --> 00:17:47.019 established in the perfect righteousness of Jesus, who through his sinless life and his death, 00:17:47.019 --> 00:17:52.339 in obedience to the Father's will, perfectly fulfilled the entire law of God. 00:17:53.059 --> 00:18:00.240 Now, the word here, manifest, you might have there in your copy. Mine has been manifested. Manifest means 00:18:00.240 --> 00:18:09.099 become clearly revealed in the senses and judgments. The righteousness of God has become clearly revealed 00:18:09.099 --> 00:18:14.960 in the senses of judgment apart from the law. Where God's gift of righteousness is a real righteousness, 00:18:15.220 --> 00:18:20.619 worked out in real circumstances by a real person. What we mean by this is that when Jesus, 00:18:20.619 --> 00:18:28.159 when the Son of God eternally existed and came and was incarnated or came at the incarnation and then 00:18:28.159 --> 00:18:35.959 lived in life, his righteousness is because the life that he lived was perfectly sinless. Now, statistics are 00:18:35.959 --> 00:18:44.019 all over the place on was Jesus perfectly sinless? Was he a great guy? Did he do really good things? 00:18:44.019 --> 00:18:50.740 The Bible is explicitly clear. Friend, if you have any doubt at all, the Bible is explicitly clear that Jesus was 00:18:50.740 --> 00:19:01.039 100% righteous, which means that he was 100% rich or righteous sinless. He was perfect in his life, 00:19:01.700 --> 00:19:06.900 even to the point where he was perfect in his death. In his life, he perfectly lived and obeyed unlike us, 00:19:06.900 --> 00:19:13.000 unlike Adam. In his death, he completely paid the penalty of a broken law. Everything they did was 00:19:13.000 --> 00:19:17.920 good. So from the standpoint of obedience to the law and paying the penalty for breaking the law, 00:19:18.160 --> 00:19:25.340 he perfectly fulfilled the law of God. He did what we couldn't do and he did what we chose not to do. 00:19:25.640 --> 00:19:31.040 And by this, God declares, think of it, us righteous on the basis of the real accomplished 00:19:31.039 --> 00:19:37.519 righteousness of Jesus Christ, which is the term called imputed or credited to us through faith. 00:19:38.379 --> 00:19:44.740 The effect of this is the overwhelming evidence of Isaiah chapter 61 verse 10, that God declares 00:19:44.740 --> 00:19:53.000 you righteous, not by your righteousness, but by Jesus's righteousness. A third thing we see that the 00:19:53.000 --> 00:19:58.859 gospel brings to knowledge is that righteousness from God is received through faith in Jesus Christ. 00:19:58.859 --> 00:20:04.899 You see this in verse 22. So my point, righteousness from God is received through faith in Jesus. 00:20:05.679 --> 00:20:11.179 It says there in verse 22, the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. 00:20:12.879 --> 00:20:19.459 I've heard it said that faith is the hand by which the righteousness of Christ is received. Faith 00:20:19.459 --> 00:20:25.959 is the hand by which the righteousness of Christ is received. Now, the word faith is a noun. 00:20:25.960 --> 00:20:32.559 I hope that you're impressed by that. It's a noun and it has no verbal form in English. 00:20:33.700 --> 00:20:39.620 Instead, we use the word believe, oftentimes a replacement for faith. Do you have faith? 00:20:40.319 --> 00:20:47.059 Do you believe? We see this in Acts chapter 16 verse 31. Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you will 00:20:47.059 --> 00:20:52.340 be saved. Have faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and you'll be saved. The scriptures are clear that we are to 00:20:52.339 --> 00:20:59.279 believe in, trust in, have faith that the Son of God clothed in our humanity, Jesus lived a perfect life 00:20:59.279 --> 00:21:04.859 and then died on the cross for our sins. We believe in that to be true and that is the gospel. 00:21:05.919 --> 00:21:11.459 Where Jesus is the object of our faith and belief. I don't remember when I first heard that, that Jesus 00:21:11.459 --> 00:21:16.819 ought to be the object of our affection, not the religious practice. You know, I grew up in a, 00:21:16.819 --> 00:21:23.980 well, I grew up in Oklahoma. There might be four Catholic friends in Oklahoma where their entire 00:21:23.980 --> 00:21:32.279 religion is by what? Not the object, but the activity. The activity brings you in to the joy of 00:21:32.279 --> 00:21:38.139 the Lord. Whereas the Christian faith brought to us in the scriptures is that Jesus is the object 00:21:38.139 --> 00:21:44.659 of our faith. Faith again is merely the hand that receives the gift of God and God through his spirit 00:21:44.660 --> 00:21:51.740 even opens our hand to receive that gift. There's tension here and I don't think there needs to be. 00:21:52.340 --> 00:22:00.779 But what is faith? Every summer I'm allotted two to three weeks, started as one, now we're at three, 00:22:01.100 --> 00:22:07.019 two to three weeks of a reading sabbatical where my elders afford me time to get away from my normal 00:22:07.019 --> 00:22:14.019 duties, preaching, counseling, typing in the bulletin, things like that to where I get away and I just read 00:22:14.019 --> 00:22:19.519 on a particular doctrine, a particular subject for like eight or nine hours a day. Now I know what 00:22:19.519 --> 00:22:24.420 you're saying, man, that sounds terrible. No, no, I'm in a pool half the time, so don't feel bad for me. 00:22:24.720 --> 00:22:28.779 I find another person at church and be like, hey man, can I read, can I read on the doctrine of 00:22:28.779 --> 00:22:33.879 justification at your pool for four hours tomorrow? And one of the summers I got to study on the doctrine 00:22:33.879 --> 00:22:38.180 of justification, it became so evident that during the Protestant Reformation, they actually 00:22:38.180 --> 00:22:43.920 categorized for us, I think in a really helpful way, what is biblical faith? What is biblical faith? 00:22:44.319 --> 00:22:49.359 You may have heard a lot of ways that you use the word faith. If you believe it, you can achieve it. 00:22:50.460 --> 00:22:54.599 If you're down and out and your wife has cancer, she just needs more faith and she can be healed. 00:22:56.839 --> 00:23:04.700 What is faith according to the scriptures? Using the acronym K-A-T, an improper way to spell cat, 00:23:05.359 --> 00:23:11.660 so don't teach your kids to spell cat this way, K-A-T, knowing the Lord Jesus Christ according to the 00:23:11.660 --> 00:23:17.779 scriptures, ascending to him, and then trusting him with everything in your life. That's what it 00:23:17.779 --> 00:23:23.140 means to have faith. Knowing the Lord Jesus Christ, going to him, and trusting in him with everything. 00:23:23.840 --> 00:23:29.540 Not stopping short of any of those things. It's great to trust him, but what if you don't know him? 00:23:29.600 --> 00:23:34.900 What are you trusting in? It's great to go to him, but what if you hold things away like the rich young 00:23:34.900 --> 00:23:40.900 ruler? Having faith in Christ is knowing Christ, ascending to Christ, and trusting him with your 00:23:40.900 --> 00:23:46.940 entire life, and it's received through faith in Jesus. Now, as an aside here, a little bit of my 00:23:46.940 --> 00:23:56.100 hobby horse is understanding that someone is regenerated and then they have faith. So, God, 00:23:56.099 --> 00:24:04.259 by his spirit invades your life, changes your heart to where your affections now look at him and respond 00:24:04.259 --> 00:24:12.559 in repentance and faith. Because if it's the other way around, if you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ 00:24:12.559 --> 00:24:20.379 and then he regenerates your heart, he's responding to you. You're in charge of him. But according to our 00:24:20.380 --> 00:24:27.700 word, righteousness from God is received through faith. Fourth thing, righteousness of God is available 00:24:27.700 --> 00:24:34.780 to everyone on the same basis because all have sinned. It's available to everyone. Righteousness is 00:24:34.780 --> 00:24:42.820 available to everyone on the same basis because all have sinned. Verse 22, the second part. Mine has a comma. 00:24:42.819 --> 00:24:52.299 No, mine has a period. For there is no distinction for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. 00:24:53.519 --> 00:25:00.839 God sees no distinction in the seriousness and worsening of sin. He treats all people equally 00:25:00.839 --> 00:25:10.220 because of their sin. He treats all people equally because of their sin. All may not be equally guilty, 00:25:10.220 --> 00:25:20.440 but all are guilty. Like the difference between getting a 20 out of 100 or a 40 out of 100. 00:25:21.079 --> 00:25:30.519 Both people fail. They both get an F. You might have murdered someone. You may have lusted after someone. 00:25:30.940 --> 00:25:39.039 But God sees that as guilty. Failed. Both scores are failing. The first purpose of God's method of 00:25:39.039 --> 00:25:46.079 salvation through Christ's death is to deliver us from guilt and death. And the point here is the 00:25:46.079 --> 00:25:51.980 business of God in salvation. It is not of your goodness that you are delivered from. It is not your 00:25:51.980 --> 00:25:58.359 goodness that you are delivered from. It is your guilt that you are delivered from. The joy of the gospel 00:25:58.359 --> 00:26:06.599 is that it is available to everyone on the same basis. I have not been pressed up against 00:26:06.599 --> 00:26:18.799 on any format of my upbringing or character or genes. I mean, my town is like 98% white. 00:26:19.899 --> 00:26:25.179 Now, within that though, depending on the north side of town, you've got a certain group of Germans 00:26:25.179 --> 00:26:32.439 from the west side of town of a certain group of Germans. Whereas the gospel says it goes to 00:26:32.440 --> 00:26:37.480 all of them, even though they want to have two different churches. And they did for a while. 00:26:38.680 --> 00:26:45.640 The beauty of the gospel is that it looks at you and it sees you as opposite of God's righteousness. 00:26:46.539 --> 00:26:53.480 And it deals with you on the basis of your guilt and frees you from that. Fifth thing you see 00:26:53.480 --> 00:27:01.279 is that all who believe in Jesus, think of all who believe in Jesus, they are justified. 00:27:02.819 --> 00:27:09.440 They are justified by God's work. All who believe in Jesus are justified by God's work. Look at verse 24. 00:27:11.640 --> 00:27:18.620 They are justified by his grace as a gift through the redemption that is Christ Jesus. To be justified 00:27:18.619 --> 00:27:24.939 is to be forgiven from any charge of guilt and to be declared absolutely righteous. We are not only 00:27:24.939 --> 00:27:30.899 cleared from all of God's wrath because of our sin, but we are personally accepted by God because of 00:27:30.899 --> 00:27:37.459 Christ. Justification is like the two sides of a coin where one side says not guilty and then you turn 00:27:37.459 --> 00:27:43.599 another, turn it around and it says the righteousness through Christ. The doctrine of justification is the 00:27:43.599 --> 00:27:49.659 completed work of Jesus and it's done completely by him. A sixth thing you see of the gospel truth in 00:27:49.659 --> 00:27:55.279 this passage is that Christians are justified through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. 00:27:55.679 --> 00:28:00.519 They're justified not by their own works or by their own capability, but they're justified through 00:28:00.519 --> 00:28:06.919 the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. Look at verse 24. They are justified as a gift of grace 00:28:06.919 --> 00:28:12.879 through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. At this point, it'll be helpful to distinguish between 00:28:12.880 --> 00:28:19.100 justification and a simple pardon. We look at the doctrine of justification where God declares to 00:28:19.100 --> 00:28:27.080 all of the world, this person is mine, forgiven, which is different from a pardon. I think you and I think 00:28:27.080 --> 00:28:32.760 often as justification in the same way that we look at a pardon. A pardon is just letting someone off the 00:28:32.760 --> 00:28:41.280 hook. Maybe you've been pulled over. I have. What do you want? You do not want justice. You want a pardon. 00:28:41.279 --> 00:28:47.839 One, decades ago. I don't know if anyone here was alive then, but there was a president named Richard 00:28:47.839 --> 00:28:57.740 Nixon and things happened. Things happened. The people in the 1970s saw that things happened, saw that a man 00:28:57.740 --> 00:29:04.200 exit office, saw that another president took the throne, you will. And one of the first actions that 00:29:04.200 --> 00:29:09.600 Gerald Ford did as president of the United States was he pardoned Richard Nixon. And so many people 00:29:09.600 --> 00:29:17.100 hated that. They couldn't believe it. They were incensed. It was like almost bringing on its own 00:29:17.100 --> 00:29:20.299 right. They couldn't believe that that was happening. They couldn't believe that Richard Nixon 00:29:20.299 --> 00:29:28.680 was being pardoned. Why? Because they wanted him to feel pain. Some wanted him to go to jail. 00:29:28.680 --> 00:29:34.039 Some wanted him to be flogged or whatever, but Richard Nixon just went off to California. 00:29:36.060 --> 00:29:42.420 It's important to know that our redemption, our salvation in Christ was not given to us by a mere 00:29:42.420 --> 00:29:51.640 pardon. Justice was, according to the scriptures, satisfied where the penalty for sins was paid in full 00:29:51.640 --> 00:29:59.100 by a very bloody, cosmically wrathful death of the Lord Jesus Christ. Christians are justified 00:29:59.100 --> 00:30:07.620 through the redeeming, bloody, deathly work of Jesus on the cross. So they were justified through 00:30:07.620 --> 00:30:17.180 the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. Seventh, finally on point one, God presented Jesus as a 00:30:17.180 --> 00:30:23.320 propitiation by his blood to be received by faith. Look at verse 25. Whom God put forward as a 00:30:23.320 --> 00:30:29.880 propitiation by his blood to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness because in his 00:30:29.880 --> 00:30:36.900 divine forbearance, he had passed over former sins. Now, some Bible translations rightly use the word 00:30:36.900 --> 00:30:43.600 propitiation when translating this Greek word. Propitiation is rarely part of your and I's 00:30:43.599 --> 00:30:49.959 vocabulary. It is a word though that we've got to know. Like put it up on a poster in your office. 00:30:50.819 --> 00:30:57.480 Propitiation in the context of salvation means that Jesus appeases the wrath of God against sin. 00:30:57.939 --> 00:31:04.399 So the Lord Jesus Christ, by a sacrifice on the cross, appeased and turned aside God's just 00:31:04.399 --> 00:31:11.319 and holy wrath, the wrath that we should have suffered. Now, we all know this. I'm from the state of 00:31:11.319 --> 00:31:18.939 Oklahoma. The state of Oklahoma is much like Colorado. It's very flat, very ugly. Nobody wants 00:31:18.939 --> 00:31:25.279 to go there. I'm kidding. Everyone wants to go here. It's very beautiful. It is not flat. One of the things 00:31:25.279 --> 00:31:33.159 that is so amazing about Oklahoma is there are zero natural lakes in Oklahoma. There are zero natural lakes, 00:31:33.539 --> 00:31:39.539 but everyone likes a good boat. Everyone likes a good lake house. So Oklahoma decided, don't know who 00:31:39.539 --> 00:31:45.559 these people were, 80, 100 years ago. Let's build a bunch of lakes. Not just for drinking water. We've got streams 00:31:45.559 --> 00:31:51.559 for that, but let's build a bunch of lakes. How do you build a lake? You build a giant dam that stops 00:31:51.559 --> 00:31:59.200 a ton of water, but that's not the end of the story. When you build a giant lamb, a lamb, when you build a giant 00:31:59.200 --> 00:32:06.599 dam, it stops a bunch of water. It allows for boats to go everywhere. It allows for lake houses to stop 00:32:06.599 --> 00:32:12.799 or be built. It allows for beautification to be elevated above these streams. But every now and 00:32:12.799 --> 00:32:20.279 then, that dam needs to release a ton of water so that the dam doesn't overflow, so that all these 00:32:20.279 --> 00:32:25.639 houses don't get waterlogged, so that these boats can stay in their own place. You got to release some 00:32:25.639 --> 00:32:30.819 of that water that's coming from this dam, even to the point where it becomes actually a thing, where 00:32:30.819 --> 00:32:36.000 people, when they're at the lake, sitting on top of the water, go back to their dock, go to the other 00:32:36.000 --> 00:32:41.460 side of the dam, and watch all this water come out of a dam. It's a beautiful thing. It's an incredible 00:32:41.460 --> 00:32:50.059 thing. But you've got to know here what propitiation means. Propitiation means that God in Christ stops 00:32:50.059 --> 00:33:01.180 all of the wrath of God for your sin, and none of it empties out. There's no doubt, and did he stop all 00:33:01.180 --> 00:33:05.880 of it? Or is this God's wrath being poured on me little by little by little by little? Think of the 00:33:05.880 --> 00:33:12.400 book of Job, the character of Job. Was that God's wrath pouring out on Job? Did the dam just not be 00:33:12.400 --> 00:33:17.420 built high enough? Did they not just build an excellent point a little bit at a time? No, it says 00:33:17.420 --> 00:33:23.740 so clearly in the scriptures that Jesus was a propitiation by his blood to be received by faith 00:33:23.740 --> 00:33:31.740 to the point where he absorbed all of God's wrath. It is not diverted anywhere else. A very important 00:33:31.740 --> 00:33:40.359 point is that propitiation is taken by us as sinners through faith in Jesus's blood, where the blood of 00:33:40.359 --> 00:33:45.519 Christ referring to his death is to be the object of our faith by which we take his propitiation. 00:33:45.940 --> 00:33:50.799 The blood of Christ, it says, in connection with our salvation is a regular expression in the New 00:33:50.799 --> 00:33:56.980 Testament writers occurring about 30 times. It's the blood of Christ that cleanses us from the 00:33:56.980 --> 00:34:03.919 defilement of sin. It's the blood of Christ that purifies us from all of sin. Friends, out of seven 00:34:03.919 --> 00:34:11.440 things, this is the gospel of Jesus. Now, I want you to take and recognize the gospel of Jesus Christ 00:34:11.440 --> 00:34:17.840 according to the scriptures and actually place it in a particular area. Place it in a particular area 00:34:17.840 --> 00:34:24.860 in your life. I think you should take the gospel according to the scriptures and place it at the 00:34:24.860 --> 00:34:33.200 very front of your life. And the reason of this, practically, is that life will push back on your 00:34:33.200 --> 00:34:40.860 faith. Life will push back on your theology. Life, and sometimes even yourself, will push back against 00:34:40.860 --> 00:34:47.380 you. And in situations like this, you do not need to be clever. You do not need to be brilliant or even 00:34:47.380 --> 00:34:53.119 bold and courageous. But you need to be consumed with the truth of God as revealed in scripture, 00:34:53.500 --> 00:34:58.180 recognizing that that is the thing prodding you forward. That is the thing driving you forward. 00:34:58.440 --> 00:35:06.920 The gospel is the thing that brings you forward. When life pushes, you can push back, not with your own 00:35:06.920 --> 00:35:18.740 power or prestige, but with the very gospel. Preach Christ, his life, his death, and his resurrection 00:35:18.740 --> 00:35:28.159 to yourself. You, Christian, need to preach this gospel to yourself, where you place the gospel where 00:35:28.159 --> 00:35:33.960 the world tries to place its trouble. The world tries to place its trouble in your very heart, in your very 00:35:33.960 --> 00:35:42.760 soul. You're a loser. You're inadequate. God hates you. Everything is going against you because of you, 00:35:43.639 --> 00:35:49.740 but because God is who he is and Christ is who he is. We place the gospel where the world tries to place 00:35:49.740 --> 00:35:56.039 its trouble in our very heart, in our very soul. When life becomes perplexing or even painful, we often 00:35:56.039 --> 00:36:01.980 start to, and I didn't get this from, I got this from Martin Lloyd-Jones, we often start to listen to 00:36:01.980 --> 00:36:10.519 ourselves and our doubts, rather than speaking to ourselves the very things that we need to hear. 00:36:11.320 --> 00:36:16.559 Martin Lloyd-Jones wrote of this in his book called Spiritual Depression, where he preached like, I don't 00:36:16.559 --> 00:36:23.380 know, 13 or 14 sermons on spiritual depression. Spiritual depression is where you just don't like 00:36:23.380 --> 00:36:31.780 yourself spiritually. He writes this, have you ever realized that most of your unhappiness in life 00:36:31.780 --> 00:36:37.840 is due to the fact that you are listening to yourself instead of talking to yourself? 00:36:39.820 --> 00:36:48.700 Somebody's talking. Who is talking? Yourself is talking. To practice that right now, 00:36:48.699 --> 00:37:00.679 I want to command all of you to not think of a pink elephant. Don't do it. I just told you not to 00:37:00.679 --> 00:37:06.179 do it. I'm not thinking of a pink elephant for you either, am I? You are thinking of a pink elephant, 00:37:06.519 --> 00:37:11.339 whether it's the size of Dumbo or something dancing on a drum in a cartoon, you're thinking 00:37:11.339 --> 00:37:17.099 of a pink elephant. You are telling yourself of that pink elephant, aren't you? Yourself is telling you of 00:37:17.099 --> 00:37:25.639 that. We see so many times in the scriptures where we are to preach to ourselves truth, reminding 00:37:25.639 --> 00:37:34.279 ourselves of God. Who is God? What is God? What has God done? What has God pledged himself to do? 00:37:34.539 --> 00:37:39.860 We're to place the gospel at the front of our lives. What's that mean? We're to preach Christ, 00:37:40.000 --> 00:37:46.039 we're to preach his gospel to ourselves. Now, preaching to ourselves is the act of applying 00:37:46.039 --> 00:37:52.420 the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus to our own lives with the aim of experiencing the 00:37:52.420 --> 00:38:00.259 sanctifying grace of God leading to ongoing faith and repentance. In short form, it is preaching to 00:38:00.259 --> 00:38:09.019 ourselves Jesus with the aims of experiencing God's sanctifying work that is sought out in faith and 00:38:09.019 --> 00:38:15.519 repentance in our lives. You and I must sit under the preaching of God's word, but we also must preach 00:38:15.519 --> 00:38:21.679 Christ to ourselves. Place the gospel before your every step and your every reflection within every 00:38:21.679 --> 00:38:32.039 lesson and before every aim. I'd imagine some of you are like others, where if I were to honestly ask you, 00:38:32.239 --> 00:38:42.500 how's it going? You would say, it's fine. And I always hilariously go, hush. I say hush to words, 00:38:42.500 --> 00:38:50.059 but I say hush, they're kids. No, it's not. Like, be honest. And then you'll go into a state of, 00:38:50.440 --> 00:38:54.760 here's how it's not going fine, and it's because this, this, and this. I'm a loser, God hates me, 00:38:54.920 --> 00:38:58.960 no one else likes me. To where it's at that point that you've got to preach the gospel to yourself. 00:39:00.679 --> 00:39:05.519 I told a group here afterwards earlier this morning, my wife has gone through a ton of turmoil with 00:39:05.519 --> 00:39:12.940 losing children. To where I was at a lunch with several other pastors about a month ago, and I 00:39:12.940 --> 00:39:17.179 asked this thing, what do you want God to do before the end of 2024 that only God can do? 00:39:18.079 --> 00:39:22.400 And so, you know, they have the answers, and then they turned the question on me, and I was like, 00:39:22.440 --> 00:39:25.920 I haven't thought of an answer. I just thought it was a cool question to ask. And I said, well, honestly, 00:39:26.039 --> 00:39:29.259 I would love for us to be pregnant. I don't think it's going to happen, 00:39:29.260 --> 00:39:35.740 and honestly, I just constantly feel like this is the worst thing that could ever happen in my life. 00:39:36.820 --> 00:39:42.840 And one of them just said, who tells you that? And I was like, well, I just did. And he's like, 00:39:42.920 --> 00:39:46.500 you need to preach the gospel to yourself. And I was like, I'm actually working on a message like 00:39:46.500 --> 00:39:53.000 that right now. All of us need to preach the gospel to ourselves of Christ's life, death, resurrection, 00:39:53.460 --> 00:39:58.160 and eternal reign on high. It won't absolve us from the sad feelings that we go through, 00:39:58.159 --> 00:40:03.199 but it will remind us of who we are under his care. Now, how do you do this? Third and finally, 00:40:03.279 --> 00:40:08.480 how do you do this? How do you preach the gospel to yourself? You and I must rehearse the gospel of 00:40:08.480 --> 00:40:13.559 Christ. This is when preaching to ourselves is most critical. We need to hear the truth and ponder 00:40:13.559 --> 00:40:19.779 what is real. How, though? How do we preach this to ourselves? How do we rehearse the gospel? How do we 00:40:19.779 --> 00:40:25.420 preach Christ to ourselves? I think it's helpful in three ways. Three ways. Number one, point three, 00:40:25.420 --> 00:40:33.760 number one, look to God through his word. One of the most damaging and dangerous things I think 00:40:33.760 --> 00:40:40.579 happening in evangelicalism, bold claim, one of the most dangerous things I think happening in 00:40:40.579 --> 00:40:48.099 evangelicalism is placing not the pulpit scriptures, but the people at the center of our worship. 00:40:48.099 --> 00:40:57.219 But it's about you. Are you happy? Are you satisfied? Would you like coffee? Did you come 00:40:57.219 --> 00:41:02.799 here for this? Are you leaving because of that? You might as well call the church Mirror Church as it 00:41:02.799 --> 00:41:09.159 is aimed to reflect you, where we don't see God's word as what we're to receive that morning, but rather 00:41:09.159 --> 00:41:15.519 more of ourselves. But we are to preach Christ to ourselves by lifting our hearts to heaven. Psalm 73 00:41:15.519 --> 00:41:21.460 says that, but when I thought how to understand this, it seemed to me a wearisome task until 00:41:21.460 --> 00:41:29.059 I went into the sanctuary of God. How many of us have had a wearisome task? How many of us had times 00:41:29.059 --> 00:41:34.300 where we just were wondering and hoping to understand what God was doing in our lives, 00:41:34.719 --> 00:41:39.900 and the psalmist said, I was wondering about that until I went into the sanctuary of God? The point there 00:41:39.900 --> 00:41:45.500 is to receive God's truth. Preaching to ourselves is not a self-centered discipline. It's actually the 00:41:45.500 --> 00:41:52.940 opposite. I'm not talking to myself about myself. I'm talking to myself about God. It's a Christ-centered 00:41:52.940 --> 00:42:01.680 action. It's not looking in. It's looking up. In our town, we only have one true Anglican church. 00:42:02.940 --> 00:42:07.980 One of the things I love about this, it's a beautiful building, and one of the things I love about this 00:42:07.980 --> 00:42:14.940 beautiful building is that all the sides of it have red doors. I love that. Ours have see-through doors. 00:42:15.360 --> 00:42:20.400 I mean, the imagery there. Theirs have red doors. Ours have see-through doors. And I love this 00:42:20.400 --> 00:42:28.260 because these red doors remind us that when I, sinner, walk through these doors, I am reminded 00:42:28.260 --> 00:42:36.539 instantly of the blood that brought me into God's family. And that blood was not mine, but a slain lamb. 00:42:37.980 --> 00:42:44.280 Other traditions have like a giant Bible. Starts in the back, and it parades itself forward valiantly 00:42:44.280 --> 00:42:48.920 above the heads of whoever's bringing it down and placing it before everyone's eyes. Obviously, 00:42:49.079 --> 00:42:57.920 the symbolism there as the word comes from us, not to us. So look to God through the word. 00:42:58.360 --> 00:43:01.639 That's how you start preaching the gospel to yourself. Second, speak to your need. 00:43:01.639 --> 00:43:09.420 Psalm 73. Speak to your need. When my soul is embittered, when I was pricked in heart, 00:43:09.639 --> 00:43:15.759 I was brutish and ignorant. I was like a beast toward you. Preaching to ourselves mean we need 00:43:15.759 --> 00:43:21.759 to speak to our need, address our need, and our greatest problem, our greatest need, is to be freed 00:43:21.759 --> 00:43:29.480 from our sin, to be cleansed from our sin, to have our unbelief become belief. Our greatest problem is our 00:43:29.480 --> 00:43:35.179 sin and unbelief in particular. We need to properly diagnose our sickness to find the medicine of the 00:43:35.179 --> 00:43:40.800 word. Now, we don't need to beat ourselves up. We don't need to physically or spiritually flog 00:43:40.800 --> 00:43:48.280 ourselves. Preaching to ourselves is not a gruesome contemplation, but a pinpointing of our unbelief 00:43:48.280 --> 00:43:55.579 and idolatry. We need to do this so we can more accurately speak truth to ourselves. The aim is to stop 00:43:55.579 --> 00:44:02.380 doubting our God as Redeemer. The aim is to apply the healing truth of God's word to our specific 00:44:02.380 --> 00:44:07.039 struggles and weaknesses. So, we need to look to God through his word. You think it's simply as we 00:44:07.039 --> 00:44:10.679 need to have the Bible. Second of all, we need to confess to the Lord of what is true in our own 00:44:10.679 --> 00:44:18.360 hearts. Thirdly, we need to set our hope on the person of Christ. Psalm 73 goes on, nevertheless, 00:44:18.360 --> 00:44:24.740 I am continually with you. You hold my right hand. Think of all the things that were from it. 00:44:25.620 --> 00:44:31.980 I want to understand. I have a wearisome task until I went into the sanctuary of God. When my soul was 00:44:31.980 --> 00:44:35.620 embittered, when I was pricked in heart, I was brutish and ignorant. I was like the beast toward 00:44:35.620 --> 00:44:42.660 you. Nevertheless, I am continually with you and you hold my right hand. Preaching to ourselves is the 00:44:42.660 --> 00:44:47.599 personal act of applying the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus to our own lives with the aim of 00:44:47.599 --> 00:44:52.960 experiencing the sanctifying grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, bringing about ongoing faith and 00:44:52.960 --> 00:44:58.420 repentance in our own lives. The gospel is makes. The gospel is what makes and sustains a Christian. 00:44:59.019 --> 00:45:05.619 Friend, the gospel is for you. This is our great hope. It's the message that we need to hear the most. 00:45:06.279 --> 00:45:10.839 That we are reconciled to God, that he is our God, and we are his people, that our sins are forgiven, 00:45:11.059 --> 00:45:16.920 and eternal life is all ours through the person and the work of Christ Jesus. This is where 00:45:16.920 --> 00:45:23.760 all preaching must lead, both mine and yours. And when we lose sight of this good news, 00:45:24.559 --> 00:45:29.720 that the voices in the world begin to overpower the words that we have heard so often, we need to 00:45:29.720 --> 00:45:36.099 preach even louder. Friends, you've got to preach to yourself because the world is broken. The devil is 00:45:36.099 --> 00:45:44.679 devious. You are deceitful. Your heart is shady. You need the gospel. Preaching to ourselves doesn't mean 00:45:44.679 --> 00:45:52.420 that we must always... Or preaching to our gospel... No. Let me read the words that I wrote. Preaching to 00:45:52.420 --> 00:45:57.880 ourselves does not mean we must always be in the word, but that the word must always be in us. 00:45:58.460 --> 00:46:03.960 It means we must pray through our theology and circumstances. And I'm convinced now, more than ever, 00:46:03.960 --> 00:46:08.699 that this is the personal discipline that is most necessary for our progress in the faith. 00:46:10.579 --> 00:46:15.720 Friends, preach the gospel to yourself. For the glory of God and for the good of your own soul. 00:46:16.659 --> 00:46:25.280 Who is the gospel for? It came from the Lord on high to you. He didn't want to take it away. 00:46:25.280 --> 00:46:33.940 Remind yourself of him. Let's pray. Gracious and heavenly Father, we thank you for the absolute 00:46:33.940 --> 00:46:42.080 clarity of what it means to be reconciled to you in faith and in trust in the Lord Jesus Christ. 00:46:42.880 --> 00:46:47.080 We pray that you would make and fashion our lives to where we always want, 00:46:47.079 --> 00:46:55.099 to clarify the gospel in our pits of despair and mountains of joy. We pray that you would give us 00:46:55.099 --> 00:47:01.319 opportunities to be reminded, even from others, of what the gospel means. We pray that we would cherish the 00:47:01.319 --> 00:47:08.440 different liturgical elements of a worship service where we're trying to put the tenets of the faith 00:47:08.440 --> 00:47:17.400 that you have given us by Christ Jesus ever before us. We aim that you would give us the ability and 00:47:17.400 --> 00:47:23.360 joy of preaching the gospel to ourselves. We thank you for it. We pray this in Christ Jesus. Amen.