Preaching the Gospel

SERMON: 2014-01-19--ac14117--preaching-the-gospel-part-2 SOURCE DURATION: 00:44:55.000 PROPOSED CUTS: 1 CONFIDENCE: 1.00 APPROVED: false REASON: The opening segments introduce the topic and narrative setup for the sermon. The closing segments continue the theological exposition and application of the message (the 'harvest'). Both boundaries are clearly within the main discourse. ACOUSTIC EVIDENCE: available ACOUSTIC MUSIC INTERVALS: none ACOUSTIC SPEECH OVERLAP: no ACOUSTIC BOUNDARIES APPLIED: none Inline CUT markers identify each proposed audio boundary after the relevant word. --- ORIGINAL TRANSCRIPT WITH PROPOSED CUTS MARKED --- I want to begin this morning by showing you a five-minute video clip of a conversation, more like a debate, between a street preacher and a young Christian college girl. And when you watch this and listen to it, I want you to ask yourself two questions. Which of the two, the street preacher or the girl, do I like better? And secondly, which of the two is more nearly accurate to the thrust of Scripture? Can you remember those two questions? Which do I like better? Which one do I think more closely reflects the message of Scripture? Please take a look at this. Because I don't think that you're portraying the kind of God that people need, and the kind of God that is real. What kind of God do people need? People need the kind of God who offers forgiveness and love, and I think that you're offering judgments. Is God going to judge people? Of course he is! Whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a second. But you're not. I'm not judging them. I'm asking questions. It sure seems like, can I just say something without you interrupting me? Mm-hmm. I am just, listen to this, I'm just sown your tears and my heart is beating so fast, because I think that you're doing the opposite of what you're wanting to do. And that's just breaking my heart, because I think that you and I probably believe the same thing, but what you need to do is go out into the world and live your message, and people will come to Jesus. It's not about debating with them and proving them wrong and telling them that they're bad people. Do you think they are wrong? So you're breaking my heart. Do you think they're wrong if they don't believe in Jesus? I do. And do you think that if they die in their sins without Jesus Christ, where do you think they'll go? I think they'll go to hell. And you don't care enough to tell them now? Of course I do. Then why don't you? I do, but I do it through my life. I do it the way that Jesus did it, not the way that you did it. Jesus didn't ever preach? Huh? Jesus didn't ever preach? Of course he preached. What did he preach? He didn't debate. You're right, because they just sat and listened, because he was a rabbi. Have you ever heard the Sermon on the Mount? Jesus said, "You've heard it said of old, thou shalt not commit adultery, but I say if you look with lust, you've committed adultery in your heart." He wasn't being friends. He wasn't living his life. He was proclaiming, "You must repent." Jeremiah did it. Isaiah did it. John the Baptist did it. Jesus did it. Paul did it. Peter did it. Everybody throughout the course of history has done that because we're so concerned they're gonna die tonight. Somebody from this fair might drive home tonight and die, and I don't want them to go to hell. I don't have time to be friends with everybody, but we do have time to preach to everybody. Do you preach to people and help them see their plight? I try to live just like Jesus did. It's not gonna help them. Yes, it is. The Bible says, "How will they know if nobody preaches to them?" It's Romans 10, and how will somebody preach to them unless they don't get sent? My point is that you're wasting your time, because 99% of the people... How do you know? And it's irrelevant. Who is so angry with him? You know what? It doesn't matter. That's pragmatism. The question is, what are we commanded to go and do? And we're called to go and preach the gospel of repentance. And live it. Are you saying I don't live it? No, I'm not saying that you don't live it. Okay, I live it, and I'm here proclaiming it because these people need to hear the good news of salvation, but they won't hear the good news until they understand the bad news. It's like a doctor who would go out into the street and befriend people because he actually knows that they have cancer, but never tells them and hopes to one day lure them into the hospital. We want to go out and say, "You've got a disease. You've got an illness." A doctor who never tells the patient he's sick is not a good doctor. How long have you been doing this? It's really irrelevant, and I'll tell you what else is irrelevant. How many people have been saved by it? That's what I'm wondering. It's irrelevant. The question is, what is right? So you would, if somebody was in a burning building, you would just befriend them. You wouldn't call out to them, "Get out! The house is on fire!" You wouldn't do that for them? No, that's not what you're doing. What you're doing is saying, "You're in the house that's burning down." Exactly! Exactly! They are! That's all you're doing. That doesn't do any good, either. Have you not heard me preach the cross? Have you not heard me talk about Jesus Christ, the kind God dying to save people from the sin? Maybe I haven't been here long, but it doesn't seem like you've gotten that far, because you're all about the judgment. You're right, because the fellow that I was talking to is self-righteous, and he thinks he's a good person. I'm trying to plead with him. You're not good. See yourself the way the law shows you that you are in your true state. The law was given to hold up to people as a mirror so that they could see themselves the way God sees them. How does God see the people who are lawbreakers? He loves them. He does, but he's also angry at them. You're right. And he demonstrated it. I don't think that is. The Bible says that God's wrath abides upon humankind, that we are enemies of God in our mind through wicked works. And his cup of wrath is filling up, drip by drip, and on the day of judgment, he's gonna pour it out and people will go to hell. Don't you want to warn them now? I'm just, I'm not a fire and brimstone kind of person. I'm not either. It sounds like it. Is there fire and brimstone? And you're not kind enough to tell them about it? You're not kind enough to warn them about it? See, now you're judging me. I'm asking you a question. Sort of like you were judging me a moment ago. Okay? It's just, it's just, it's just that it breaks my heart. It breaks my heart to hear this, because this doesn't make people want to accept the gospel. This isn't, I don't, I just don't think. You don't think this is the gospel? It doesn't make people want to accept it. And I just don't think that this is the way that Jesus went about it. So, quite a conversation, isn't it? So let's take a little poll. Who likes the preacher better? All you prophetic types, that's interesting. Who likes the girl better? Oh, well, that's interesting. Hard to gauge. Pretty even. But here's the next question. Which do you think more accurately represents the message of Scripture? How many think the preacher does? All right. How many of you think the girl does? How many of you don't know? See, here's the problem. If you listen carefully to what they're saying, they are both emphasizing accurate themes of Scripture. God is indeed pictured in Scripture as a God of love who has gone out of His way to win people to Himself by His grace and mercy. Isn't that true? Isn't that what the whole gospel is about? God so loved the world, right? At the same time, He is clearly pictured in Scripture as a God of wrath and judgment who will not let the guilty go unpunished. So what do you emphasize? Are you hard-nosed like the street preacher? Are you soft and gentle like the girl who I think is actually pretty brave to tackle him publicly in the way that she's tackling him, clearly moved with emotion and with passion? Well, the answer lies in part that it depends on the audience that you are addressing. If the audience that you are addressing is an audience that doesn't know the gospel, hasn't had an opportunity to respond to it, then by definition you emphasize the amazing love of God in Christ in wanting to win people back to Himself. You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar. If, on the other hand, your audience has heard the gospel, has chosen not to respond or outrightly rejects it, then you have an obligation to warn them of the judgment that is to come. And I say that because that is precisely what Paul does here in Pasidian, Antioch, preaching to believing Jews and God-fearing Gentiles. Listen again to how he puts it in the verses that we have read earlier. Verse 38, "Therefore, my brothers, I want you to know that through Jesus the forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you." And then verse 39, "Through Him everyone who believes is justified from everything you could not be justified from by the law of Moses." This is emphasizing the love and the generosity of God in the gift of His Son. That's one thing. But then again, as we noted in passing last week, he goes on in verse 40 and 41. He says, "Take care that what the prophets have said does not happen to you. Look, you scoffers, wonder and perish, for I'm going to do something in your days that you would never believe, even if someone told you." Now if you've done your homework, and some of you did, you'll know that verse, as I pointed out last week, comes from Habakkuk chapter 1 verse 5. And when you first look at that verse, it sounds like a very positive verse. We can just put that back up for a moment. "Look, you scoffers, wonder and perish, for I'm going to do something in your days that you would never believe, even if someone told you." Sounds like God is going to do some amazingly great and wonderful thing. Isn't that what it sounds like? But for those of you that have done your homework and looked it up in the book of Habakkuk, in its context, you will discover that's not what it means at all. What it means is that God is going to use the Babylonians or the Chaldeans to judge the people of Israel. In other words, God is going to use the wicked enemies of God to chastise the people of Judah because of their sin. If you look at it in its context, the prophet of Habakkuk, who lived around 605 BC most likely, prophesied to Judah. He is exercised about the injustices that the rich are imposing upon the poor. He's crying out to God and he says, "God, how long are you going to stand by watching the powerful oppress the weak?" And then God comes along with the answer, but it's not an answer that Habakkuk particularly likes because God says, "I'm going to do a very strange thing, a thing you wouldn't even believe if anybody told you. I'm going to take the Babylonians, those people who are much more wicked than my own people, and I'm going to use them to judge the people of Israel." And if you read through the rest of Habakkuk, then Habakkuk's big cry is, "God, how can you use people who are even worse than your people to punish your people?" And then God goes on to say that eventually he will punish the Babylonians and that verse, "The just shall live by faith," is Habakkuk's declaration of faith that God is good and that in the long run he will make everything all right for the people that trust him. That verse, by the way, is quoted three times in the New Testament by the Apostle Paul as a foundation of Christian living. We are justified by faith and not by works. So here you have the two sides of the gospel message to those who are hungry for God to fulfill his promises. Paul says, "I've got good news for you. I am declaring to you that God in Christ has come to fulfill all his promises." But he says to those of you who scoff, you better wonder because you're going to perish because if you reject the salvation of God, God will judge you. The book of Hebrews puts it this way, Hebrews 2 verse 3, "How shall we escape if we ignore such a great salvation?" So here we have the situation. Paul is preaching to Jewish believers and to Gentile God fears. He's going through that whole salvation history. He gives them the opportunity to respond to the good news and he warns those who rejected. What can you and I, living this many thousands of years later, learn about communicating the gospel in our own day and age? And in the time that remains this morning, I want to give you three practical implications of this that can help us to try to be faithful in bearing witness to Jesus in our own generation. Number one, we need to build on what people already know and what they believe. Let me say it again. We need to build on what people already know and already believe. We live in what's called a post-Christian society and what people mean by that is that the peak of Christian commitment in our society has passed. People by the tens of thousands are abandoning faith. They do not believe in God. They do not believe in the Bible. They no longer attend church. They are secularists. They are materialists through and through and you hear many voices lamenting the golden era of days gone by and how people are losing faith and all of that is true. But we should never forget that even so there remains a strong deposit of biblical truth and biblical value in our society even among those who aren't particularly living like Christians. Let me quote you some statistics. Surveys in recent years in North America indicate depending on who took the survey and how the question was worded between 70 and 90% of people in North America still claim to believe in a personal God. That's huge just for the record. 84% believe that the Bible is a sacred book. 50% agree that it's accurate. 40% believe that Jesus lived a sinless life and you can go on in similar fashion. Now most of those statistics are from below the south of the border. Canada is far more secular and the percentages in this nation are much less but according to Statistics Canada from the most recent census asking the question are you spiritually inclined? 60% of the responders called themselves either moderately or highly religious. Not interesting. You'd never know that in a Sunday morning when they're all sleeping in and you might not know it in the course of the week when you encounter their values and what they live for but most people in this country would still call themselves Christian though they might only be Christian in name only but here's the point they're not atheists they're not ignorant of the broad outline of who God is or what the Bible is or heaven or hell or the afterlife and so in sharing the gospel with people it's very important to know that we can build on what they know and what they believe as we'll see later on when Paul continues on his missionary journey and he comes to a place called Lystra in Derby and he preaches to raw pagans he cannot take that kind of information for granted and so his approach to missions is entirely different because the basis of faith namely there is a God the prophets spoke historically doesn't mean hella beans and so you and I will encounter people who do not take these things for granted in which case our approach has to be very different just make sense what I'm saying if they share a commonality even if they're not practicing it you and I can appeal to that and say okay you believe in God you believe in the Bible you believe in Jesus what does that mean for your life and what are you doing about what you profess to believe because most people are very compartmentalized and they don't see the relationship between what they say they believe and what they live so we have to build on what people know and what they already believe number two we need to be able to explain listen carefully we need to be able to articulate the good news of the gospel Paul puts it this way in verse 32 we tell you the good news what God promised our fathers he has fulfilled for us their children by raising up Jesus the word gospel gospel according to Matthew Mark Luke John means good news and the good news of the scriptures can be summed up in the one biblical verse that says God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself or as Paul puts it in this particular passage that we've been reading through Jesus the forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you through him everyone who believes is justified from everything you could not be justified from by the law of Moses the law of Moses remember says you got to work for it the good news of Jesus is that you can't work for it it's already been accomplished in Christ everything that is needed to set us free from sin Satan and the devil and and and hell has already been done for us by Jesus our job is to accept his grace by faith so what's really important not just for ourselves but for the people that we rub shoulders with that we know how to articulate that good news in a way that it can be comprehended because we live in a world where most you may have noticed this most people think they're gonna go to heaven go to your average funeral you know everybody gets talked into heaven regardless of who they were or how they lived you've some of you heard me tell the story about this bad dude that died and he was being eulogized by you know the preacher and one of his friends finally had enough of it and he walked up and he opened the casket to look at the body that was in the casket and the preacher asked him what in the world are you doing and he said I'm just trying to check out if this is the same person that I know I don't recognize him at all so it's very important that we clearly understand the gospel message ourselves and that we can find a simple way to share it with family and friends so let me walk you once more through something that I've done so many times here my famous little circles because I still think it's the best way to communicate the gospel with simplicity and with power so here they are if you've never written these down and I know how hard it is for you to listen to homework assignments would you please write this down copy it down and memorize it it's really not that complicated so get out a pen and a piece of paper you got your bulletins memorize this because you'll get into all kinds of conversations with people all around you you can say to people you know yesterday I was in church and this is what struck me and they will say you go to church and you say yeah I do and why would you go to church there's many opportunities to talk about who God is and what God has done in your life and and you can always start you know just just to be quick about this because this can be as short or as long as you want but what's elegant about this I think is that it starts with God and remember most people in North America still believe there is a God so you don't have to argue about whether there's a God or not in fact 40% of people in the United States still believe the story of creation as opposed to evolution that's an astonishing number in my opinion considering the many many decades of evolutionary teaching in high schools and in colleges I think that's remarkable so God is eternally self-existent therefore everything that is in the universe comes from God in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth never mind arguing about how it came to be God made it because God made it God asks two things of the people that he has made number one acknowledge that everything that you have an R comes from me that is loving God above all and number two give thanks to me for what I give you and obey me because your source of life comes from me simple enough out of that relationship in which Adam and Eve were created out of that relationship flows a horizontal relationship because when God looks after me and provides for my needs I can look after you and I can provide for your needs that is the foundation of Christian morality if loving God above all is the primary commandment then loving your neighbor as yourself is the secondary commandment that Jesus says is equal to the first because it is the proof that God is really gone in your life that's the creation story doesn't take much to persuade somebody that that is not how we find life today rather life is like this we're alienated from God we're under Satan's Dominion we have all become selfish and we have all gone our own way and the result is conflict and confusion I have never met anybody having shared the gospel with them that I had to convince that the world was a selfish and a sinful place not everybody believes that they are selfish and sinful but they sure are convinced their husband their spouse their kids the teacher their co-worker everybody else is a crook and they know that that selfishness manifests itself in a thousand different ways it manifests in a husband trying to manipulate his wife into giving him sex the wife trying to manipulate the husband into doing what she wants him to do it is you know conflict and confusion from two kids fighting over the same toy to two girls fighting over the same boyfriend to two nations going to war because they want to dominate and have power that's the world and as that world progresses along its way of seeing it comes to a point of brokenness and a place of collapse because even in the age of inflation the wages of sin continues to be death most of that people will know and they will agree to the question then is how do I move people from here to here in other words how do I regain paradise lost and if you read the novels of the world and the movies and the narratives that are being told it is always a longing and intuitive recognition that we have lost paradise and how can we find it back how can I find stability in my life how can I find good relationships how can I be happy in a world of unhappiness now listen to me carefully we tend to think there are two answers to that but there really are three answers given by three different groups of people the first group of people are the unspiritual people those who do not believe in God those who do not believe in an outside power greater than themselves people who are fundamentally humanist and who therefore think the transition from here back to here is by human effort and human energy and they will appeal to things like technology they will appeal to things like scientific advance they will appeal to goodwill they will appeal to education they will appeal to just the general goodness of man that if only we work at it hard enough we can end wars and we can restore paradise regained there are thousands of different manifestations of that but you'll experience them every time from secular people who believe that we by our own strength can pull us up by our bootstraps and you know sometimes we don't do too badly but the fact remains it doesn't deal with the fundamental issues of a broken relationship with God and selfishness towards one another and so even our great scientific advances and our great accomplishes in music and culture and everything else ends up destroying us because it is not directed towards Gohan that's irreligious people but then there are religious people and by religious people I mean people who live under the law and people who live under the law are but an other manifestation of human energy that says I can do it myself and remember how Paul describes himself in the New Testament as a Hebrew of the Hebrews he lists all his certifications and all his human accomplishments and then he thought he was doing pretty good because he was a Pharisee of the Pharisees and and he was you know had all the right pedigrees until he met Jesus and then he discovered that in the light of Jesus all his own righteousness was as selfish rags and he gave it all up for the sake of belonging to Jesus and so here's the message of the gospel the message of the gospel if we can have those back up is that salvation is found in no one else for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved but the name of Jesus that's what Paul is talking about in this particular passage when he says that in Christ you can be justified from everything that you could not be justified from in the law of Moses and so understanding the radicality of that and sharing that good good news with other people is incredibly liberating because that's the average person if he's a Christian or not he's likely to respond by saying well I don't really think I'm good enough to be a Christian which already shows they don't understand what it is to be a Christian you don't become a Christian by getting better you become a Christian by putting your faith in Jesus because if you're in Jesus you are acceptable before God and you are as good as you're ever going to be from God's point of view doesn't mean your life's not going to change doesn't mean you're not going to grow into Christ likeness absolutely you will but it doesn't start to there it starts by knowing that it's all done by Jesus on the cross and by his resurrection you with me I mean you've heard this oodles of times but you know you can go to church all your life and not get it you can go to church all your life and still think that it depends on you and you know how you can tell when you've had a bad day and you've really blown it you question whether you are a Christian or not and if you question if you're a Christian or not after you've had a bad day then you're leaning on your own self righteousness and not on the righteousness of Jesus you see how complicated this can get the gospel is simple but the nature of the spiritual forces in the universe is to drive us back under a law so that we can strive and struggle to be good enough so we need to begin where people are we need to learn how to share in a winsome way the good news of the gospel for what it really is and then just to move forward in this we need to warn those we speak to of the consequences of lack of faith verse 40 and 41 again take care that what the prophets have said does not happen to you look you scoffers wonder and perish I'm going to do something in your days that you would never believe even if someone told you and as I said a few moments ago even though scripture teaches the God is incredibly patient with those who don't know and who haven't had an opportunity to respond his patience runs out real fast with people who know and who have chosen not to believe and who continue to reject scripture puts it this way in the book of Hebrews Hebrews 10 26 and 27 if we deliberately keep on sinning after we have received the knowledge of the truth no sacrifice for sins is left but only a fearful expectation of judgment and of raging fire that will consume the enemies of God and to those who say oh but Jesus wasn't like that Jesus was kind and sweet and gentle which is the popular way that he gets pictured in popular culture isn't that true I mean just read letters to the editor when they are trying to knock some Christian who was trying to elevate some biblical principle they always go back to Jesus meek and mild but I don't think people like that have ever read the Gospels because here's what Jesus says in Luke 19 27 those enemies of mine who did not want me to be king over them bring them here and killed them in front of me that's the same Jesus who so loved the world that he gave his life on the cross and you see what people don't understand is that the wrath and the judgment of God is the reverse side of his love however irritating that street preacher might have been and I found him frankly a tad irritating he is absolutely right when he says he talks about a patient having cancer and a doctor treating it lightly because if sin is the kind of cancer that God says it is that that in fact destroys all of humanity and all of creation then God's love demands that he must deal with sin remember that was her back eggs big question how can you use the enemies of God to destroy the people of God when the enemies are even worse than what we are and he cries out oh God and wrath remember mercy and God says they just shall live by faith the Babylonians will also get their due because my wrath is my answer to the cancer that consumes humanity here's a quote from C.S. Lewis in his book the problem of pain C.S. Lewis with his brilliant mind explains the wrath of God in this way he says when we fall in love with a woman now listen to this if we fall in love with a woman do we cease to care whether she is clean or dirty fair or foul think about this when you love somebody do you care about who they are and what they look like he goes on to say do we not rather than first begin to care see if I don't love you I don't care what you do but if I love you and want the best for you then I must address the issues in your life that keep you from becoming all that you can be and so we don't do the world a favor by keeping silent when they are merrily on their way to hell we may not like the way the street preacher was doing it and there are many things that I would want to do differently and there are many things the girl says that are absolutely true but his fundamental message is a sound message and the question is how do we best communicate that so let me leave you with this once again who is there in your world that shares the fundamentals of biblical history they believe in God they believe in the Bible they know about Jesus they kind of believe in God they kind of believe in the Bible they kind of believe in Jesus but they're not practicing it isn't affecting them it isn't changing their lives they are still serving themselves and living for themselves and living for this age and instead of the age to come who is there in your life that fits into the category of sharing the basics of that history but who are at best Christians in name only how can you share with them the good news what opportunities do you see where you can help them to be clear in their thinking about the message of scripture that salvation is by grace through faith in Jesus only and that if they do not positively embrace Jesus they cannot coast along thinking that one day everything will be okay because they're going to hear those fearsome words I never knew you depart from me you workers of iniquity and if you can make conversation and you can bring the conversation around to spiritual things pray for them pray for God to give you opportunity to talk and to share and a minister and if you still can't do that then drag them into a place like this and if you don't want to preach to them I'll preach to them and between the two of us maybe we can proclaim good news right and if you can drag them here I see alpha is starting back up again third-generation videos I think Darrell sign him up you'd never know listen let's really be clear on this you know they tell me it takes seven exposures in the marketplace for somebody to buy a product you know that statistically if you're gonna buy a book you need to hear it mentioned seven times before you own it if you see a particular product seven exposures that's how the world of advertising works Darrell how many times did Van Berkel invite you to church before you showed up we'll count that seven times do not give up be persistent because if people's hearts are oriented towards God somewhere the switch will click they will hear good news they will know it is good news it will create hunger and they will respond it on the day of judgment we come bringing our harvest with us before God and we will know that for all eternity we have affected somebody's life I think that's pretty amazing that God wants to use us [PROPOSED CUT 1 START at 00:44:53.880; remove through 00:44:55.000] in bringing in the harvest [CUT] [CUT] [PROPOSED CUT 1 END at 00:44:55.000; resume after this marked segment]