The Bible you hold in your hands contains the most powerful message that has ever been delivered anywhere in the universe. It's the power of God unto salvation to all who believe. And faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God. Right? Have you thought about the message of the Gospel that you know, many of you have memorized, all of you this morning have within reach, and most of you are holding the Word of God, the power of God unto salvation. Well, that's what we're studying. The Gospel of Jesus Christ is the most wonderful message ever conceived, the most powerful formula ever devised, and when someone hears and believes God's Word, Their life is absolutely revolutionized from the inside out. Now, if you'll turn with me to Romans chapter 1, we're going to look at how it says that. Then we're going to go to Luke and see what that Gospel of Christ is. But before, and as you turn there, and before we read, let me just read you one short testimony of someone whose life was revolutionized in the recent past by just hearing. the Word of God. Okay? And I want, for some of you, like for me, I mean, I heard the Gospel and responded to it 39 years ago. So it's a long time ago. My dear wife, we're celebrating her about 21st or 22nd spiritual birthday that she's known Christ. And sometimes that event becomes in the distant past, but that's why we celebrate the Lord's Supper so it stays in the recent present. And we remember What a wonderful change has been wrought in our life. Let me share with you one man's testimony. During Ravi Zacharias' ministry, he's a great Christian apologist, in Vietnam in the early 1970s, one of his interpreters who traveled with him and heard him preach the gospel was Hien Pham, a little Vietnamese boy. Shortly after Vietnam fell to the communists in the mid-70s, Hien was arrested. He was accused of helping the Americans and was put into prison. During his long jail term, the sole purpose of his jailers was to indoctrinate him against the West and especially against the Christian faith he had heard preached. He was cut off from reading anything English, restricted only to communist propaganda in French or Vietnamese. He was daily overdosed. with marks and angles. And this began to take its toll on him as the years went by. One of the books he was reading pictured him as a communist man, as a bird in the ironclad cage of capitalism, throwing itself against the bars of oppression and bloodying itself in the process. So he then, after the months and years went by, began to buckle under the onslaught. Maybe he thought, I have been lied to. Maybe God does not exist. Maybe my whole life was governed by lies. Maybe the West deceived me. The more he thought, the more he moved toward a decision. And finally, he made up his mind. He determined when he got up the next morning, he would never pray again or believe any of this Christianity he had been taught. Well, the next morning, with that in his mind. Hien was assigned to clean the latrines of the prison. This was the most dreadful and horrendous chore. No one wanted to do it. It was shunned by everyone and so greatly distressed, Hien began his awful task. As he began, he had to clean out a tin can filled to overflowing with toilet paper. As he did so, his eye caught what he thought was English. English language printed on one small piece of paper. He hurriedly washed off that piece of paper and slipped it into his hip pocket, planning to read it that night. Not having seen anything in English for so long, he was anxious and waited for his free moment. It finally came under the mosquito net that night. After all of his cellmates had fallen asleep, Hien pulled a small flashlight, his only possession, out of its hiding place and shining it with trembling hands on the damp piece of paper, he began to read at the top corner of the paper. And it said, The Book of Romans, Chapter 8. Literally trembling with shock, Hien began to read the Bible. These were the words he read. And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purposes. What then shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare His own Son, but gave Him up for us, how will He not also along with Him graciously give us all things? And what shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble, hardship, persecution, famine, Nakedness, danger, or sword? No. In all these things, we are more than conquerors through Him." And reading those words, Hien began to weep. He knew the Bible, even though he hadn't seen it for so long, but he knew that he was there on the verge of such a bad decision to turn from God. And he knew that in all the Bible there was no more relevant passage of conviction and strength for someone who had surrendered to evil. He cried out to God that night. He pled for forgiveness, for this was to have been his first day without God for the rest of his life. The next day he had awakened and asked the camp commander if he could clean the bathrooms again. He continued this chore on a regular basis because he discovered one of the camp officials was using a Bible for toilet paper. Each day, Hien would find a portion of the scriptures, he would clean it off, and he would add it to his nightly devotional readings. Over the next few months, he retrieved a vast portion of God's Word from the bathroom. Well, the day came when through an equally providential set of circumstances, he and Pham was released and years later he arrived in America where he was reunited with Ravi Zacharias. His testimony Chapter 1, verse 16. If you turn there with me, we're going to read it, and we're going to pray that the Word of God will likewise have supernatural impact on our life. I'm going to read verse 16 and 17 of Chapter 1, and then verse 17 of Chapter 10. You follow along. Romans 1.16, for I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ. What's the gospel of Christ? That's what we're studying. It's the good news, the message of salvation. It's the power of God unto salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it, the righteousness of God is revealed. And we're going to see in the book of Luke as we look at Christ preaching. He reveals God's righteousness from faith to faith as it is written, the just shall live by faith. Now turn over to chapter 10. With me in verse 17. And this is how the Good News, the Gospel, the power of God is unleashed. It says in verse 17, So then, faith comes by hearing, and hearing by this book we have before us this morning, Hearing the Word of God. Let's bow and ask God to open our hearts to His great truth this morning. Father in Heaven, I thank you that we can, as hen, fan, and as the saints of all the centuries in the past and all those until your return, we can, through the power of God, have salvation by hearing Your Word and by simple faith, believing and receiving and being gloriously, supernaturally transformed from the inside out. Your Word is a power of God unto salvation. And I pray for any who have never opened their heart to Your power, Your wonderful message of salvation that they would today. And then for all of us who have, by faith, received salvation, may this time around your table be a celebration where we magnify you, O God. Open our hearts. Let us behold some wonderful truth, some life-changing, revolutionizing truth in our lives. In Jesus' name we ask it. Amen? turn to Luke chapter 1 with me. And what we're going to look at is the message of our Master Lord Jesus, the Gospel that Jesus proclaimed in His Gospel, the Gospel by Luke, which He oversaw the inspiration of the Spirit of Christ and the prophets, inspired them to write these words. And this is the Gospel that has the life-transforming power. Number one, There is only one gospel of eternal salvation. And this is what I shared with you. Look at verse 6 of Luke chapter 1. They were both righteous. How does anyone get righteous? How did Adam and Eve and Abel get righteous? How did Noah get righteous in the sight of God? All people throughout all time that will ever be in God's presence forever are there for one reason. because of a substitutionary atonement. You say, what do you mean? Well, from the opening pages of the scripture we find sacrificial animals. What is that about? An innocent animal that was chosen because it was outwardly without blemish is taken by the person, held, and they put their hand on it to identify their sinfulness with that innocent animal, and then that animal is slain to give its life and its blood, particularly, to cover that person's sin. Why? Because sin cannot be atoned for except with blood. But sin cannot be taken away except with perfect sacrifice, the Lamb of God coming. And so these two that we read about here, Zacharias and Elizabeth, were righteous because of God's imputed righteousness. It's a gift. It's a free, gracious offering of God where He clothes us with Christ's righteousness and removes from us... the debt and the guilt and the payment for our sin that we committed. Secondly, we saw not only is it imputed righteousness, but there's a response to that. They were walking in all the commandments. That's the obedient response. And they were blameless. That's their position that God sees them in. That's why God could look at Samson. He could look at Noah who got drunk and Samson who struggled with his passions. And he can look at Lot and call Lot who lived in Sodom and lost his children to gross immorality. Some of them were killed in the Holocaust of Sodom. And God could say Lot was righteous. Remember, Christians are the fellowship of the imperfect, and they know it, and they come in their imperfection and receive the perfect righteousness of Christ. That's the eternal gospel. Number two, salvation in verse 79 of chapter 1. is light and, after the comma, the second blank, life, and I wrote in for you, peace. And we see that in the 79th verse. Light to those who sit in darkness. We were born in the dark. In the shadow of death, we were headed toward destruction. He gives us life. And to guide our feet into the way of peace. What did the scripture say? And I shared with you from Isaiah 32 and verse 17, the work of righteousness, the righteousness imputed by God upon our life, the work of righteousness shall be peace and the effect of righteousness, quietness and assurance. That's what salvation is. It is light and life and peace. Thirdly, and if you turn to chapter 2 verse 30, this is a critical one. Salvation is a person. The reason this is so important is, and I want you to think about this, it says in verse 30, For my eyes have seen your salvation. That was talking about when Simeon came and saw Mary carrying baby Jesus. He didn't say, I see a program. Or he didn't say, I see a system. I see someone, I'll be baptized in their name. He didn't say that. Or I didn't see a sacramental whatever. He said, I see a person. I see the right person. Now I want you to really quickly think with me because if there's any error in Christianity that creeps in, it's believing in the wrong person. We have to believe in the right person. Three things that make Jesus Christ the right person. Number one, He's a part of the true God. And the true God is presented in the Bible always in tri-unity. There is God the Father, and God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. And any teaching of salvation or any teaching of the gospel that leaves out the tri-unity of God, three in one, is not a true gospel. And he said, my eyes have seen your salvation. He was seeing the right person. That baby that Mary was holding was God the Son, the second person of the Trinity. And any salvation message that leaves out the triunity of God or the divinity, the deity, the co-eternal, co-infinite, co-equal, God the Son-ness of Jesus Christ is not a true gospel. Jesus Christ is God of gods. He is co-equal with God. He is not lesser. He's not after the fact. He's not created. He's not subsequent. He is infinitely, eternally existing with God the Father as God the Son. And he is presented in the Bible as the creator of not our universe, or not of this world, but of all things. Anything that exists in this universe, apart from God, who has eternally existed, came into existence by the spoken word of Jesus Christ. All things were created by him and for him, and he is before all things, and through him all things consist. Finally, the last aspect of this person who is the true salvation, he is not only part of a triune God, he is not only infinite and eternal and the creator and co-equal with God, but his salvation is not a system. You see, it's a divine supernatural relationship, any event, which he calls the new birth. And any presentation of the gospel that does not have salvation as a person to whom we come and receive their perfect righteousness placed upon us and all of our sins placed upon them, if there's any system baptized a special way, or baptized by a special church, or involved in a sacramental system, or like some of the cults going out on Saturday and knocking on doors, or going like some of the major false religions to some Mecca pilgrimage and receiving some type of benefit from that. If there's any system attached, it's a false. Salvation. Because salvation is a person, Jesus Christ. The one and only true God who saves eternally and exists in triunity. Okay, number four. Jesus preached, bear fruit or be cast into the fire. Now Jesus never had the opportunity to go to one of those Dale Carnegie, how to talk and win friends by being real pleasant. He didn't go to any of these new seminars that teach you that you have to first warm people up and entertain them for a little while before you punch them with the gospel. He didn't know that, so he came right out and he just says, bear fruit or go to the fire. Why do you think they hated him and crucified him? Because Jesus Christ spoke the truth. And he went right to the truth. And he said, As he follows the message of John the Baptist and underlines it all the way through his earthly ministry, he said, either you bear fruit, or verse 9 says, anyone who doesn't bear fruit is cast into the fire. That's number 4. Number 5, salvation in chapter 5, verse 20, 27, and 32 is hearing Christ's voice and following Him. What did Jesus say? He says, My sheep, the people who are My sheep, who I died for, who I will keep eternally, and who I will go and prepare a place for, and who I will come back for, My sheep are those who hear My voice and obey Me. They obediently follow. Now remember, we were born going this way. I was watching when the children got a present from someone. It's some kind of a remote control deal. And it's so neat. They put it down the little car on the floor goes running this way and they push the button and it turns right around and comes back to them. I thought, what a beautiful picture of salvation. We were born right out of the box going this way. And when we, Christ's sheep, hear His voice, we turn and follow Him in obedience. Not perfectly. That little car runs into the chairs and it flips over sometimes and its wheels spin and everything else. Reminds me of the Christian life. We've got a lot of Christians, their wheels are spinning and they're bumping into stuff. But you know what? As soon as you get the antenna up where that little car can hear, it goes right back like this. And that's how the Christian life is. We are Christ's sheep. We hear His voice and we follow Him. It's the fellowship of the imperfect. They know they're imperfect. They know they're sinners. And they know they need salvation. But they follow Him. And the direction of their life is an increasing frequency of obedience. That's called sanctification. And a decreasing frequency of disobedience or sin. That's called mortifying, or killing, or putting to death our old person we were. Okay, so that's number five. Salvation is hearing Christ's voice and following Him. Number six, in Luke 5, 34 to 38, believers are engaged to Jesus Christ. I told you, salvation is a person, and that person, if you're saved, you're engaged to Him. Now let me ask you, are any of you engaged? Don't raise your hand. If you're engaged, you know it, don't you? I mean, is anybody here engaged to be married and doesn't even know it? If so, we think there's something wrong with you. You know what? Christians either know they're engaged to Jesus Christ, they are betrothed to Him, they will someday dwell in His house forever and be married to Him for all eternity, or they don't, and they're not saved. Now you say, wait a minute, what happens when a Christian isn't sure they're saved? When a Christian isn't sure they're saved, they're acting like an unbeliever. And God does not allow the assurance of salvation to people who are persisting in their sin. That's part of the evidence of salvation, that we're grieved and we're quenched, and we are horribly under the chastening hand of God when we persist in our sin. Or when we allow our sins and our lust to separate us, if I regard iniquity in my heart, that means if I'm looking and longing after sin, God won't hear me, and I lose the joy of my salvation. But the instant that we agree with God about our sin and turn from it back toward Him, remember the little car, like this? He restores to us the joy of our salvation. And we know that He has cleansed us, and we walk in the light and in fellowship with Him. But we are engaged to Christ. Now look at the next line. engaged to Christ, number six, regenerated, and that's what salvation is. Salvation is not joining Tulsa Bible Church. Nobody got saved by coming up on the platform. It's not going through the water behind those two doors right there and being baptized. No salvation by water. No salvation by coming up in front and doing anything. No salvation by us doing something to you. It's being engaged in Jesus Christ and regenerated. The work of regeneration is God from the inside of us puts in a new operating system The Scriptures put it this way, Ezekiel 36, 26, and 27, a new heart also I will give you, God said. A new spirit I will put within you. I'll take away your stony heart. I'll put in a soft heart. And I will put in my spirit and you will keep my commandments and do them. We get a new operating system. And the result of that new operating system is everything I'm talking about here. We have light in our life and endless life. You know what? This old package is falling apart and dying a little more every day for all of us. No matter how old you are, you are dying by the moment. But our spirit is indestructible and has endless life. And so you know what? There's a growing detachment. As the body continues to decay, our spirit more and more longs to be with Christ, which is far better than all the aches and pains. And that's what this, as it says here, regenerated and indwelt. That means our shepherd, through his spirit, lives inside of us. You know what Jacob said 4,000 years ago? You know, Jacob as in Israel, as in the father of the 12 tribes? Do you know what he said just before he died? He says, the good shepherd has led me every day of my life. Isn't that neat? I mean, same salvation. We're talking about Old Testament, New Testament, future, past, Garden of Eden, flood. All people were saved the same way. puts his righteousness on them, and God keeps them to the end and takes them home. What a blessing. Okay, here's the next one. Number 7. In chapter 6 from 35 to 47, genuine believers are Christ-like. Let me read that to you starting in verse 35. of chapter 6. Love your enemies. Look at the end of verse 35. And you will be sons of the Most High. First line in your little notes there. Genuine believers are Christ-like. What does son of mean? It means characterized by or like. A son of Belial is someone who is like Belial. A son of the Most High is someone who is like the Most High God. That's why we are called saints, because we have the image of Christ. We have the nature of God implanted within us through regeneration, so that we are possessors, as Peter said, in an incredible way. We are partakers of the divine nature. What does that mean, that we're little gods? No, it means that we are sons of God. We are His children, indwelt by His Spirit, and more and more bearing the image of our holy God. That means we're Christ-like. Secondly, keep reading, verse 43, a good tree Nor does a good tree bear bad fruit, nor does a bad tree bear good fruit. A genuine believer is not only Christ-like, but they're good-hearted. That means that they bear good fruit. That means, as my good friend Jim Berg says, when your teabag gets dumped into the hot water, what comes out is what's inside, and what comes out of us should be the righteousness of Christ. And when it doesn't, that's when we have to repent. and we have to mortify our flesh because we are supposed to be bearing out of our lives good fruit. It's not enough to say, well, 30 years ago I did that. No, no, no. Did God begin a process of transforming your life when you were born again? If not, then you are not Christ-like nor good-hearted. And this is what the Lord says. Look at verse 46 of chapter 6. Why do you call me Lord, Lord? Why do you say you're a Christian? And don't do the things which I say. Verse 47, whoever comes to me, remember, true believers hear His voice and come. Hears my sayings and does them. That's the one who has genuine salvation. What's genuine salvation? Distilled down by Jesus Christ. A genuine believer is Christ-like, good-hearted, and Lord-obeying. Wow. Here's the last one. And that is number 8 of chapter 7, verses 29 and 30. If you want to turn over there with me. 729. And when all the people heard Him, Jesus, preaching, Even the tax collectors, look at this, justified God. What does that mean? Justified God? What does God mean, justification? He's not a sinner. That was a funny word. That's not the word. You know what the word is? It's just translated as justified. But you know the same word, the very same Greek word, is in 1 John 1, 9. It says, if we what? Confess our sins. Homo legato. You know what these people did? Even the tax collectors homo ligeoed God. What does homo ligeo mean? Homo means the same. Ligeo means to say. The tax collectors said the same thing to God about their condition as God said about their condition. You know what that means? They agreed with God that they were sinners. tax collectors were looked at as the bottom rung and they're really bad, bad folks. And they agreed with God about their sin. They said the same thing as God does about their sin, having been baptized with the baptism of John. But look at verse 30. But the Pharisees and lawyers rejected the will of God for themselves, not having been baptized. They wouldn't agree with God about their sin. And there is the beautiful contrast between the saved and the lost. The tax collectors, they agreed with God and said, I'm a sinner. That's what salvation is all about. Acknowledging our lostness and receiving the only hope. The perfect sacrifice of Christ. The lawyers and the Pharisees said, I don't need it. I'm not sick. And so they never got the antidote. Jesus calls us to agree with God about our sin. What happens when we do? Look at verse 48 of chapter 7. Jesus said to this woman, your sins are forgiven. And Jesus said to the woman, your faith has saved you. Go in peace. A true, genuine believer agrees with God about their sin, they become forgiven as a believer, and they're peaceful. What a wonderful message of the Gospel. I ask you this morning, have you met Jesus Christ? The person. Are you trusting in the right person? Is He a triune God? One God in three persons? Is the Jesus you believe in the creator of the universe, the perfect, spotless Lamb of God who came to die as your substitute, as the perfect Lamb for your sins and for mine. And have you received Him? Not a system, not joining something or a baptism or some system of a church. Have you received the person who is our salvation?