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2008-07-12 - Why I Preach the
Gospel
Isaiah 45:22, "Turn to Me, and be saved, all the ends
of the Earth; for I am God, and there is no other."
Every week I preach a sermon, and every week that sermon includes the Gospel
of Salvation as it is found, and found only, in the Lord Jesus Christ through
His Atonement for sin on the cross. It is the central point I am trying to
make: Repent of your sin, and turn to Christ for all your hope and trust.
I admit that sometimes I think the congregation gets sick of hearing about
forgiveness from sins in Christ. I feel like a broken record, repeating the
same thing over and over. Sometimes the thought crosses my mind, "Maybe someday
I will have something else to talk about, and they will be interested in
that." It is then that a second thought thankfully has also immediately come
into my mind, "If I ever get beyond preaching Christ, and salvation in Him
alone, it is time to find something else to do." Why is that? I have to ask
myself that first, but I ask you to consider why, if the preacher does not
preach the Gospel, he should stop preaching altogether. It is an important
question.
First, this is because the Gospel is for both those who have come to Christ,
and those who will come to Christ. We proclaim salvation in Christ to those
who already place their hope in Him, because it is an important reminder
of where their hope is. It confirms to them, after a week in a world that
does not generally speak of the things of salvation in Christ, what they
know to be true already in their hearts. The Gospel is a great encouragement
to the believer in Christ. When all is said and done, the Gospel is his/her
only real encouragement. We proclaim Christ to the one who does not yet trust
in Christ, to make known to them that there is hope in no place else. Most
have sought for release, peace from a nagging conscience, and forgiveness
from their sins in all sorts of various places. We tell them that they will
never find it, until they come to Christ. They know of their despair of eternal
hope, fear of death, and even greater fears of Hell, and we confirm these
things. The preacher says, " All those fears you have are true, but there
is one place you may come to turn those fears into hope and joy. Come to
Christ." I have to remind myself that the Gospel is both for those who have
come to Christ and those who will come to Christ, and so I continue to preach
the Gospel of salvation in Christ alone.
Christ didn't die on the cross for the righteous. He died for sinners. "Christ
Jesus came into the world to save sinners," 1 Timothy 1:15. The Gospel is
not really for good people. The Gospel is for sinners. It is the Gospel that
makes sinners good. The truth is, if we were really good, as God defines
good - which is perfect - we would not need salvation. But all those who
fall short of perfection are not good in God's eyes, thus they are sinners,
and profoundly in need of salvation in Christ. The person who thinks he/she
is good will never understand this. They don't think they are sinners, and
if they do admit they are sinners, they will always think that they are not
bad sinners, and that God plays with sin, accepts a little bit of sin because
He is a God of love. God doesn't actually play with sin. And God is a God
of love. He loves holiness. None of us are holy in ourselves. We must come
to Christ to be holy. We must have Christ's righteousness, because we have
only sin in ourselves. God condemns sinners to hell, He condemns even sinners
who think they are good sinners, who do not turn to Christ, to Hell.
This is why I preach the Gospel. You are not good if you are a sinner, and
we are all sinners. The Gospel is that Christ came to save sinners from their
sin. We can be good, but not outside of Christ. It is the New Birth, or commonly
called regeneration, that gives us a new heart, a new inward principle, and
without it we are still in our sins. Christ gives us His goodness (His
righteousness) and makes us good. Left to ourselves, and anyone honest will
admit this, left to ourselves, we will never be good in a final sense. We
sin. Sin is our regular experience, and thus we need Christ. Even those who
have trusted Christ need to run to Christ for fresh supplies of His grace
and mercy, because while we continue to breathe, we continue to sin. The
Christian still needs to continue to walk and breathe in the forgiveness
Christ freely offers, because the Christian also still sins.
I have to preach the Gospel of salvation. The first person I always preach
my sermon to is myself. I am a sinner in need of that grace moment-by-moment,
second-by-second. There is a standing rule with preachers, that if the Gospel
is not preached in the sermon, a sermon has not been preached. It is true
that sometimes I think people get tired of hearing the Gospel, but they
shouldn't. It is either where all their hope already rests, or where all
their hope needs to rest. By God's grace, I pray that I never stop preaching
the wonderful good news of the Gospel of salvation to those who trust in
Christ - and also to those who will trust in Christ.
Soli Deo Gloria,
T-
GodRulesTB@aol.com
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