On behalf of our visitors this evening, we've been studying the doctrine of grace, sometimes referred to in the plural, the doctrines of grace, or as we often say here in the singular, the doctrine of grace. All of those blessed doctrines point to one glorious, unified doctrinal truth that God saves sinners by grace alone. But we're going to take a break from that study this evening. I spent the entire day in study of what I intended to preach originally, and we were going to continue our look at the doctrine of election. And as it dovetails with the doctrine of reprobation, we would We're going to spend the evening looking at Romans chapter 9 and taking a little bit of time to stop, give a little bit of detail to the differences between the arguments of corporate election and individual election that often crop up over that much debated chapter. But even though I've taught that chapter a number of times and spent the day in meditation and study in it, I've just I wasn't ready to come and preach that blessed truth this evening. I've got a number of things that I want to work out a little more clearly. Very often when we have to go into detailed study, especially in the middle of the week, I want it to be very clear and I wanted to spend a little more time hammering out the outline and the things that I think are the most important for us to take out of that lengthy and complex chapter. So that's why you don't have an outline in front of you this evening, and we're going to look at something different, though I trust it will be just as encouraging and edifying to your soul. We're going to be reading from 1 Timothy this evening, chapter 1. 1 Timothy, chapter 1. We're going to read verses 3 through 11. Verses 3 through 11 to give us a little context. Though our message is going to be rooted in three words in verse 11. So let's stand together as we read God's blessed and holy word. What a privilege it is, brethren, that we have God's word. May we delight in it and may we thank our God with every day that he has given us his precious text. First Timothy, chapter one, beginning in verse three, let us hear God's inspired, infallible word. Paul speaks to Timothy. as I besought thee to abide still at Ephesus when I went into Macedonia, that thou mightest charge some that they teach no other doctrine. Neither give heed to fables and the endless genealogies which minister questions, rather than godly edifying which is in faith. So do. Now the end of the commandment is charity out of a pure heart, and of a good conscience, and of faith unfeigned, from which, some having swerved, have turned aside unto vain jangling, desiring to be teachers of the law, understanding neither what they say nor whereof they affirm. But we know that the law is good, if a man use it lawfully, knowing this, that the law is not made for a righteous man, but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and for sinners, for unholy and profane, for murderers of fathers and murderers of mothers, for manslayers, for whoremongers, for them that defile themselves with mankind, for men-stealers, for liars, for perjured persons, and if there be any other thing that is contrary to sound doctrine, according to the glorious gospel of the blessed God which was committed to my trust. Amen. May the Lord add His blessing to the reading of this precious, precious treasure. Let's unite our hearts now in prayer. Father, I thank you. I thank you, Lord. I lift up my heart in praise and adoration in holy reverence for the God who has so loved his people that he gave his only begotten Son to be the propitiation for our sins. You have so loved us, Lord, that you have inspired Your precious and chosen authors down through the ages to give us this holy library that we call the Bible. And You have preserved it for us that we may open its pages. And though the writers lived so long ago, and though they thought in terms and in a world that was so very different from the one we understand, their voices, by the power of Your Spirit, Reach across the centuries and the millennia. And they set before us the glories of Christ Jesus, the living Savior. Blessed be the name of the Lord. Blessed be the King of Kings, the Lord of Lords, the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the Ending, the First and the Last. We praise You, O God, and thank You that we have not only now read Your sacred text, but that we may now give our minds to the consideration of what you have set here before us. Please help us to understand these things. Father, this is a weak vessel of dust attempting to handle your infallible word. And Lord, there is a room full of weak and feeble vessels, not one will hear to the good of his or her soul, apart from the glorious attendance of your Spirit. Come, Holy Spirit. We knew your blessing on the Lord's Day, but we cannot live on what you gave us to spend on the Lord's Day. We need fresh, fresh outpourings of your Spirit now. Please grant us Your blessed and Holy Spirit. We pray this in Jesus' name, Amen. Please be seated, brethren. In the passage before us, Paul gives us, as he informs Timothy and those who hear this epistle read aloud in the congregation, the reason why he is on or in the city of Macedonia. I'm sorry, why he is traveling to Macedonia and why he has appointed Timothy to preach and to teach there in Ephesus. He has given him a solemn command to tell those who were in leadership in the church at Ephesus to teach no other doctrine. They had faltered and were teaching things that were causing dissension and that were bringing confusion and giving rise to arguments that was not godly edifying as a faithful preaching of the Word brings to God's people. Paul then tells Timothy and us that the teachers there have a longing to be teachers of the law. Their heart's desire is to be teachers of the law. And the great tragedy of this, not only is that it misses the glories of the gospel, but these who desire to be teachers of the law did not understand it. They didn't understand what they were talking about. Now Paul says with great clarity that the law is good if a man use it lawfully. The law gives us the will and the character of God. The law brings with clarity our sins into view. It exposes us in our crimes against heaven. It also gives a clear guide to the saints of God regarding His will for their lives. But Paul is speaking here primarily of its use of exposing sin. And he gives us a long list of those who are iniquitous, those that have sinned against God and are exposed by His blessed law. He then comes to verse 11 saying, in fact, at 10, in the last part of verse 10, if there be any other thing that is contrary to sound doctrine, the term that we have seen recently in Titus, healthy doctrine, according to the glorious gospel of the blessed God which was committed to my trust." In other words, the teachers that fancied themselves teachers of the law were ignorant. They were ignorant of the law itself, and obviously they were ignorant of the glories of the gospel of the living God. That is why they wanted to be teachers of the law. Paul tells us that even though the law in its glory and in its condemning power exposes sin and shows us the great transgressions that men commit against God day by day by day. Men, women and children, the ultimate standard for the church of Christ is the gospel. We are to view even the law itself as in the hands of Christ. And we should see that the glorious gospel of the Lord God, the glorious gospel of the blessed God, is that by which we measure our lives and that by which we measure the teaching of others. Paul tells us here that the law does not condemn the righteous, those who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and who walk in the love that the law requires, Rather, God has laid down the decalogue for those who rebel against His holy will, who offend against His holy character. And then He turns from the law of God to what He refers to as the glorious gospel of the blessed God. I want us to focus on the three words, the glorious gospel, the glorious or the glorious gospel. That is the title of our message. And by God's grace, we want to consider five ways that this gospel is indeed glorious. Paul is not simply using theological language when he says the glorious gospel. He's not simply grasping for what we might refer to as theospeak or religiospeak. He's not simply looking for something else to say to sound like he's a holy man. He's using an adjective that's vital. He sees the gospel of the living God as glorious. The word glory actually means in its root the idea of having weight, something that's weighty. It points to riches. This is a glorious, weighty and rich gospel. Why does he describe it so? Well, we want to consider the first reason that Paul calls this a glorious gospel. The gospel is glorious. because of its origin. Paul's gospel is unspeakably glorious because it did not originate in the minds of the false teachers. It did not originate in the minds of the good teachers, the apostles and the disciples of Christ. It did not originate in the minds of men. It is God's glorious message to men. The thrice holy God conceived His purpose of redemption in the perfect, fathomless depths of His mind before He created the world. Brethren, we cannot understand the depths of God's infinite mind. But we know this. The Word of God tells us that before the foundation of the world, God loved His people and He conceived of a way to bring them to Himself for all eternity in a great and wonderful relationship of love and of holiness. That was all rooted in a message that comes to us in the term of the Gospel. The word Gospel means glad tidings, or good news. This is a great and glorious message from heaven, from the Father, from the Son, and from the Holy Spirit. Paul writes in 2 Timothy 1, verses 9 and 10, that God hath saved us. The word saved means to deliver. He hath delivered us and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began, but is now made manifest by the appearing of our Savior Jesus Christ, who hath abolished death and hath brought life and immortality to light through the gospel, the eternal love of God, is manifested to us here in time and space and history through that great and grand message from heaven. And that message is about God's holiness, it is about men's sinfulness, and it is about the glorious person and work of Jesus Christ. When men, when people, men, women, and even children, utter the Good News to other human beings. When we faithfully speak what the Gospel of the Scriptures is, we are revealing to people the eternal purpose of God in Christ Jesus and His love for His people. We are hearing the incredible and infinite mind of God in all its goodness, in all of its grace, in all of its mercy, in all of its love, in all of its holiness, in all of its righteousness, being set before us in a message focused on the person of Jesus Christ. Men could not have thought this up. Men would not have thought this up. Men want to believe that there is something about them or that there is something that they in themselves can do that will purchase God's love for them. But the gospel says no. It originated in the mind of a God who in His grace loved His people and purposed to redeem them through the perfect work and the perfect person of Jesus Christ. And that is clearly expressed to us in the light of the Gospel. God has brought life and immortality to light through that Good News. Paul puts it this way to the Thessalonians, as we have seen in the last few weeks, but we, Paul and his fellow helpers are bound to give thanks all the way to God for you, brethren beloved of the Lord. Those are the saints at Thessalonica. And of course, it would apply to all the saints throughout the history of the church. Because God has from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the spirit and belief of the truth. People become troubled Often with the doctrine of election, they say, how do I know? How do I know? I cannot read God's eternal mind. He hasn't opened up the book of life and shown me my name written on the page. How do I know if I am one of the elect? The elect believe the gospel. And you could have no greater assurance because it is God's promise. Those who repent of their sins, believing on the Lord Jesus Christ, are His. Paul says, Whereunto He called you by our gospel. Do you hear that? The word call is one that Paul uses regularly. It's an effectual calling. In other words, it's a calling that works. There are two kinds of calls that we find in the scripture. We might refer to one as the general call or the outward call of the gospel. Our scriptures tell us to preach the gospel to every creature. We're to go to the ends of the earth and preach the gospel freely. And people that hear it are hearing what we refer to as the general call. The gospel is a call to men. It is a declaration of God's character and His claim upon our lives. He is holy. It is a declaration of man's rebellion against that holy God. We are sinful. It is a declaration that God's eternal Son became man and paid our penalty of sin upon the cross of Calvary. He was raised again the third day. He now sits in glory, interceding for his beloved people. But after we have declared these great and true things, we must call men and women and children to repent of their sins and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. There are those who hear the general call and they say, I don't believe this. I don't believe that's the Word of God. I want nothing to do with religion. There are others who say, another day I've got things to do. I've got some life to live. There's still some things I want to do, things I want to taste in this world, some things I must experience. And then maybe at another time I will settle down and become religious. And they do not come. But there are those. who hear that message about God, His greatness, His awesome character, they hear that we are sinful and deserve nothing but His wrath and fury. And they hear that Christ alone has paid the penalty for the sins of all those who believe They're overwhelmed. They don't know what to do. They don't know what to think about it. They run it through their minds. They realize there's something that's not right with them. If they're understanding the gospel right, they realize they're in trouble with God. And they hear that great and grand good news that God receives sinners by faith in Christ. They repent. And they believe that Christ alone can pardon them and will pardon them. And they believe that Christ alone is the only way to be righteous before God. They flee to Him, trusting His promise. That's the effectual cause. That is because they have heard by the power of God's Spirit, and they've recognized that what they're hearing is God's truth. They don't know why they didn't believe that before. They don't know why they were so repelled by it before. But now they know it's so. It's the effectual call. It's God's Spirit moving in the heart. That is why Paul says, we give thanks for you, you Thessalonians. God sent His Spirit to set you apart and you believed the truth whereunto He called you by our gospel. That glorious message from heaven came home to the heart here on earth. It's a glorious gospel. because it's God's good news to sinners. It's a glorious gospel because it originated in the love and the wisdom and the power of Almighty God the Father. It was accomplished by the Blessed Son. It was applied by the Holy Spirit. In His infinite wisdom, grace, and love, God perfectly designed absolutely everything necessary to save and preserve His people for eternity. Is that not glorious? Secondly, the gospel is glorious because of whom it involves. Let's take what we've said and let's expand it a little bit. This good news of grace in Jesus Christ arose, as we said, in the eternal counsels of the Godhead. The Father purposed, the Son accomplished, and the Holy Spirit applies God's wonderful plan of salvation. God the Father purposed eternal life for every one of His dear children. God didn't plan something that He intended to just kind of scatter out among people hoping that some of them somewhere, sometime, might believe it. God loved His people. He knew them by name before the foundation of the world. He knew them and He loved them with an infinitely holy and mighty love. Paul writes, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ, according as He hath chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world. God the Father hath chosen us believers in Him, Christ Jesus the Son, before the world began, before God said, Let there be light. He had already said, let there be life in My children through My Son. He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world that we should be holy. His purpose was not only to forgive us. We would delight simply to know that all of our crimes against heaven were washed away. Would that not be enough to cherish all the rest of your life? Would that not fill you with joy and thanksgiving to know that every wicked thing you've done against God, every foul thought, every wicked word that ever contaminated your mouth and the ears of those who heard you, and every wicked deed that you've done washed away forever. We could delight in that. But this salvation is even greater than that. It's that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love. God declares us righteous by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, and He makes us righteous by the power of the Holy Ghost. What has He done for us that we might be holy? He's given us a perfectly holy title in heaven because we wear the righteousness of Christ by faith in Him. You don't dare stand naked before God in your own works. You don't dare stand naked before God in what you think you have done that should turn His gaze favorably on you. You don't want to stand before God in your works. No, we stand before Him in what Christ has done for us, but it isn't simply a title of holiness. He gives us His Holy Word so that we may know what is right and what is wrong, and what He is like, and what Christ is like, and what the Spirit does for us. He's given us His Spirit to empower us in this life. He's given us His Church so that we might not only love God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, but we might love those that He also loved. throughout all eternity, so that we might walk together and be used of Him in that glorious sanctifying process to smooth off each other's hard and sharp corners. He's given us everything to make us holy. The gospel is glorious because God the Father infallibly purposed to do everything His children needed to be holy and without blame, before Him in love and for all eternity. Christ the Son accomplished this great work. Paul had written to the Ephesians, in whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches, the riches, the riches, the treasure, the wealth, of His grace. It's overflowing. You couldn't make coffers big enough to hold all the glorious treasure God has given to us in the Lord Jesus Christ. No bank accounts big enough. We couldn't come up with enough zeros behind the numbers to talk about the extraordinary riches that we have in Christ Jesus. We have redemption through His blood. You could not enumerate all the sins you've committed just today as a believer. You couldn't possibly remember all of the sins you've done in a life. And if you were to see them piled up, they'd be higher than a skyscraper. They'd go out of sight. But Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God, hung upon Calvary's cross, bearing in His own body in His head, in His hands, in His feet, and in His side, the fury and anger of God's broken law. Titus chapter 2 verse 14 says, Who gave Himself for us, that's the glorious language of substitution, Who gave Himself for us that He might redeem us from all iniquity and purify unto Himself a peculiar people zealous of good works. And again, being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God has set forth to be a propitiation through faith in His blood. Propitiation is an appeasement. It's a sacrifice that turns away wrath. God's glorious purpose included turning away His own anger. could think, say, or do nothing that could turn away God's anger. Nothing! Nothing. God devised a way that all of the anger that would have fallen upon your head and mine would fall upon His holy Son. and He bore it all. Christ the Son accomplished this work and the gospel is glorious because God's eternal Son became a man to accomplish this. Man had sinned A perfect man was our substitute. It was Christ Jesus. Not only so, but the Spirit of God applies this great salvation to us. Paul, again, had written to the Ephesians, but God, who is rich in mercy. You're hearing this language? It's in the Scriptures. The wealth, the riches of what God has done for us in Christ. We could not imagine a hill, a mountain the size of the highest mountain in the world, the greatest mountain range. Imagine heaps upon heaps like the Himalayas in every conceivable precious stone, diamonds, pearls, rubies, emeralds, sapphires, amethysts, go on and on and on. The gold and silver heaped up It's fabulous beyond anything we could think of. It doesn't compare. It doesn't compare to what God has done for us in Christ. It cannot compare. Why? Why is it that He uses this language? He says, because for His great love wherewith He loved us even when we were dead in sins hath quickened us together with Christ. By grace, you're saved. In other words, the Holy Spirit breathes life into the darkened heart of sinners, producing within them repentance, faith. Paul puts it this way in Titus, not by works of righteousness, which we have done. But according to his mercy, he saved us by the washing of regeneration and renewing of the holy The Spirit of God is that power sent by God to seek out God's children. It is the Holy Spirit that makes that effectual call effectual. It is His glorious, mysterious, quiet, secret work in the hearts of men that makes them begin to deal with their sins. And the more they begin to deal with their sins, the more they consider what God requires, the more they realize, if any of this is true, I am worthy of hell. And the Spirit of God brings to bear on that human soul its wickedness and the foulness of its rebellion. And the eyes begin to look out. The eyes stop looking in, and they look out. They look out for hope. They look out for something other than what they find in themselves, for they know they have nothing to offer God. And that is when the Spirit brings that glorious gospel message into view. and they realize, I have a hope. It is in Christ and the salvation He's accomplished. It's not because you're brilliant, not because you're a genius, not because you figured it out. It's because purposeful, intended light fell right into your soul by the direction of heaven. The gospel is glorious not only because the Father purposed it, the Son accomplished it, but because the Spirit applies it. And to whom? Sinners, dead in trespasses and sins. That's the astounding thing. Paul announces this to us in 1 Timothy 1.15. This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation. In other words, this is worthy. You should cast your eternal awe on this. It's trustworthy. You may entrust your eternal soul because it didn't hatch out of the fevered minds of men. It's declared, even though through feeble vessels of dust, having been conceived in the eternal mind of God, full of grace and mercy, peace and truth and love. It's worthy of all acceptation. Well, what is it? Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. Notice it doesn't say. Christ Jesus came in the hopes of saving some sinners. Christ Jesus came trying to save some sinners. That's not happening anywhere. Jesus isn't trying anything, anywhere, anytime. He's just doing. Jesus is saving His people. Today, He sent His Spirit out. And his gospel was announced in some place. And a doctor, a lawyer, a nurse, a medic, a thief, a sodomite, an adulterer, a child, an adult, an old person on the edge of eternity believed. A Hindu left his darkness. A Muslim left his. An atheist may have thrown down all of his arguments and fled to the cross, but I can assure you Jesus wasn't trying to save any of them today. He was just saving them. That's what he was doing. And he's sending his gospel right here tonight. There could be no more important meeting on the planet Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. Thou shalt call his name Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins. Can you get tired of hearing that? Can you get tired of hearing that? No, not if you're a sinner. If you're self-righteous, you can get tired of hearing all that. If you're full of yourself, you've got a good snoot full of religion, you might get tired of hearing all that. But if you know who you are, if you know what you've done, if you recognize that you should be damned, you can't get tired of hearing that God in His infinite love sent His Son to save sinners. The triune God who is infinitely holy lavishes His immeasurable love upon wicked, hell-deserving, self-exalting, self-satisfied sinners. God commended His love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. He wasn't waiting for someone to get better. He wasn't waiting for you to get religious. He wasn't waiting on you. He went to the cross with you on His heart. And He knew the very moment that He would scatter your refuge of lies and make you realize there was but one way to be right with God. While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. This is what drives the Apostle John to proclaim, Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us. What manner of love the Father, who is that? The thrice holy God, hath bestowed upon us. foul, repugnant, disgraced, and disgraceful sinners. What manner of love! The Gospel is glorious because the Holy God of Heaven, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit reaches down in infallible grace and mercy to make His enemies His eternal children and lovers of Christ. Thirdly, the gospel is glorious because of what it accomplishes. This is one of the things that breaks my heart as I hear so many things today that are called gospel. It is good and right for us to be Christ on the cross centric. We look to the cross. It's right for us to look to the cross, to be fixed upon the cross, because there is where God the Father spent all of His wrath for our hateful sins. Very often we simply stop with this idea that I'm forgiven. As I said, that is such a delightful thought to us. It's understandable why we would stop there. But the magnitude and the scope of Christ's saving work is so great that our mortal minds cannot take it in. In passage after passage, the scriptures trumpet. They herald, they declare, they proclaim. The glory of Christ's saving work, and we cannot in this short space. Discover and consider all the things that Christ has accomplished for us, but we must set a few of these treasures before our eyes. as we consider the riches of His sovereign grace. Christ's sacrifice accomplished for us the forgiveness of sins and justification. Oh, the doctrine of justification has fallen on hard times. It is tragic to me that so many today that profess to be Christians could not define the term, and yet it's the heart And so, of what Christ has accomplished for us on the cross. Ask someone, what was Christ doing on the cross? And if they can get anything out that sounds close to the truth, it's something like, well, He was dying for our sins. True, true, true. All true. He was dying for our sins. But what did it do? What did it accomplish? What did it do? Paul tells us, as he preached in the synagogue at Antioch, he said, Be it known unto you, therefore, men and brethren, that through this man is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins. And by him all that believe are justified, justified from all things, from which ye could not be justified by the law of Moses. I tell you, this was shocking language in the context of which he preached it. In many ways, it would be something akin to the shock. I'm not making a doctrine to doctrine comparison. I'm simply talking about the shock. If you stood in your average church today and said, you're not saved by making a decision. What would that do? It'd be like a minor. Well, no, that'd be like a major earthquake. People would think you weren't Christian. They would think you'd lost your mind. Imagine the shock of hearing that in your average church today. You can't be saved by walking an aisle. It'd be a rumble. It'd be a lot of murmuring. This is what Paul was doing in the synagogue when he said, you can't be made right You can't be declared just before God through the law of Moses. You feel the seismic shakes? He said, one thing, one thing alone is the key to justification, and that's Christ Jesus. Justification is God's act of declaring us righteous. because of the person and work of Jesus Christ. We are declared righteous in the courts of heaven. We are declared as righteous as the Son Himself. That will not come by the works of the law. That will not come by your Bible reading. or because of your Bible reading. You can read all about it and why it happens in your Bible. But you should believe it. You must look to the Lord Jesus Christ and trust Him. Oh God, help us. No human being alive can number his offenses against God. And none of us can truly grasp that every single one of those sins would send us to hell. Take one sin out of that innumerable host of your sins. And if that was the only thing laid to your account, you would go to hell for all eternity. Jesus Christ wiped all of them out. By his precious shed blood. And by faith in him alone, we're not only forgiven. But declared righteous. Is that astonishing? Is that overwhelming? Christ gave Himself for us that He might redeem us from all iniquity. Not only so, we're not only justified, but we are sanctified as well, as we spoke earlier. By the indwelling power of the Holy Spirit, God worketh in us both to will and to do of His good pleasure. God worketh in us both to will and to do of His good pleasure. If you are God's child, if you have savingly believed the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, one of the great encouragements to you is that even though the things that God commands you to do appear impossibly high, He works in your heart by His grace to will to want to do them and to do them. Well, you won't do them perfectly. You'll be struggling with this flesh every day. But that makes the struggle all the more intense. And I'll tell you what, that's a struggle that brings a smile in heaven because it's God's glorious conquering of darkness. He's working and willing in His children to do what He's commanded them to do. You wouldn't do it in and of yourself. You and I'd just be satisfied to know, well, I'm forgiven. See you in heaven. God says, no, you're going to be a trophy of mine in this world. And those that knew, you're going to wonder what happened to you. Because you're going to start to love my book. More scary, you're going to start to love my people. Because there has been implanted in your heart a love for my son. The Lord will sanctify you. The epistle to the Hebrews declares that we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. What was the cost of this being made holy? Wherefore, Jesus also, that He might sanctify the people, set us apart unto His use, unto holiness, with His own blood. suffer without the gate. Is this not glorious? That God's eternal Son would accomplish something for us that actually fulfills everything that God requires of us. And He gives it to us by His grace. That's glorious. That's glorious. Paul lets us gaze on the immense grandeur of Christ's work when he tells the Corinthians, Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? And we always need to sit up and take notice when the apostle asks us questions like this. What are you asking us, Paul? Well, the Corinthians were having a little trouble with their sanctification. They were professing to be Christians. They were professing to be those who had been saved by the glorious grace of God. But it was getting a little difficult to tell them from the way they were living as Christians from what they used to be. terrible things going on in the church there. Paul heard about him, he was just stunned. And he says, now look, don't you know that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom? He's not talking about earning the kingdom, but he's saying if you continue living like this, that great transformation has never taken place. He said, Be not deceived. Don't let anybody fool you. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind. Every conceivable sexual immorality. Everything you can think of. Nor thieves. nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners shall inherit the kingdom of God. And such were, past tense, were, past tense, some of you, but ye are What are you now? What has God done now? You're washed. You've been cleansed. The blood of Christ has washed every trace of your filth in His way. But ye are sanctified. He set you apart. He's making you holy. But ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God. Does this impress us? There are those sitting here in our midst who at one time had the claws and the hooks of pornography so deeply gripping everything in us. We couldn't let go, we couldn't throw it away. It had become a part of the way we thought. And now we flee from it. We despise what once we couldn't get enough of. There are those in our midst who at one time had the hooks, the claws and the barbs of drunkenness, or drugs, or lying, so deeply embedded in us, there was no way to get it out. But God, in His mercy, God, in His mercy, sent the Gospel. And you begin to see yourself You begin to see your lies. Oh, you might have been one of those people that looked great on the outside. Everybody would have thought you were pretty good. Yet inside, you were just as foul as any disease-ridden whorehouse on the planet. Or maybe you were one of those that were wild, careened from one extremity, one extreme sin to the next. There's some people that were like that here. And they won't say to you, boy, am I wonderful now, but they will say, I believed the gospel and God, God in his mercy, drew me to himself. I knew by the promise set out in his word that by faith in his holy son all my sins were washed away. Not only the guilt of all of those sins, The Lord Jesus Christ, by the power of His Word and Spirit, gets in there and begins a glorious work of surgery, getting all those barbs out, so that you are Christ's free man, Christ's free woman. The Gospel is glorious because Jesus justifies and sanctifies every kind of sinner. You don't know how wicked I was, or you don't know how foul I am. I may not, but God does, and he's put you in the hearing of his gospel tonight. He's telling you now how you were cleansed. Fourthly, the gospel is glorious because of its goal. Not only the fact that Jesus justifies and sanctifies us, but it's glorious because of its goal. Paul tells us, for whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate, to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover, whom he did predestinate, them he also called, and whom he called, them he also justified. And whom he justified, them he also glorified. Romans 8, 29 and 30. Brethren, the gospel is glorious, not only because every kind of sinner is forgiven. It's not only glorious because we are justified and sanctified. The gospel is glorious because God will finally make sinners of every sort, liars, murderers, adulterers, thieves, sodomites, addicts of every sort, the religious deluded, just like Jesus, His only begotten Son. We're not just forgiven. We're not just being made holy. When the Lord brings all of this to His final consummation, we're those brethren being spoken of here. We're going to be made like Christ. Oh, we're not going to be little God. Run away from those people. Preach that stuff. But you are in union with the living God, and you are His eternal children, and you will be sinless. Anybody hear that? For all eternity, there will never be one moment where the thoughts that defile us now will ever, ever take place. We will not open our mouths and say something that we wish we could pull back only to see the unbelievable damage that it's done. It will never happen again. It will be impossible. Not because we'll be like robots, but because we'll be like Christ. I can't take this all in. It is too high. It is too wonderful. It is too glorious, too weighty, too rich. This gospel is glorious because it reveals the glory of God Himself. It is staggering in its scope. awesome in its holy grandeur. It is light that shatters darkness. It is life for the dead. It is cleansing for the filthy. It is strength for the weak. It is joy for the brokenhearted. And it is love to and for the hateful. Finally, after all of this, The Gospel is glorious because of its requirements. How do we make this grand salvation ours? What do we have to do to get it? Can we buy it? Can we barter for it? Can we persuade God to look our way and love us? I know how filthy and perverse I've been, Lord. Look, look, I went to church the last two weeks. What would you look at me now? He didn't hear that call. Can we make this ours by our good works? Look, Lord, I read the Bible 10 minutes more this week than I did last week. Look, Lord, I only used to go to church three times a year, now I'm going a little more often. When you look down here, look, I'm trying. See how hard I'm trying? That's the talk of someone who hasn't yet got a hold of the gospel. I'm doing better, I'm doing better. I only smoked one joint this week. I only, I only, I didn't drink as much as I drank last week. You're getting better. You do something here? You're not interested in doing business with you that way. When your heart can say with the great hymn, Nothing in my hands I bring, Simply to thy Son I cling, That's a voice that heaven hears. Can we make it ours by weeping? Look how many tears I've cried over my sins. I know I'm bad. I know I'm bad. Look how bad I feel. You ought to feel bad. But that is what gets God's attention. God's attention. Begging, scheming, fasting, doing great things, incredible feats for God. If you'll save me, I'll become a missionary. I'll even go to Africa. I'll do this. I'll do that. I'll get religious. I'll find the most strict church I can possibly find. Will you have me then? No. I'll climb the highest mountain. I will swim to the very bottom of the sea. Will you have me? No. How can I get it? For by grace are ye saved through faith. And that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. Look, look to the cross. Spurgeon said, he heard that sermon, look unto me and be ye saved. all the ends of the earth, for I am God and there is none else." He said the man who got up to preach wasn't much. The preacher hadn't showed up that evening. And the man just read this particular passage and he said, look, look, look to Christ, look to Christ, don't look to yourself. Look away from yourself. He even pointed out Spurgeon, young man, you look unhappy. Look to Christ. Spurgeon said, I looked. And I looked. And I looked. And I'm still looking. Believe on Christ and you will be saved. No, it can't be that easy. It can't simply be that. The Gospel is the declaration of who God is, who you are as a sinner, the declaration of Jesus Christ and His glorious person and work. And it's a call to repent of your sins and believe on the Lord Jesus. The Gospel is glorious because it's ours by childlike So the gospel reveals the glory of a gracious God and His saving purpose. No wonder Paul refers to it as the glorious gospel of the blessed God. May we ever bless Him for this great good news. The glorious gospel alone is the only hope for the forgiveness of our sins for everlasting life with the Most High. The glorious gospel alone is the standard by which we must measure all doctrine and the Christian life and the order of Christ's church. May we believe this glorious report from heaven. Believe and know everlasting life in Christ Jesus. Amen. Your word tells us it's a trustworthy saying. Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. I pray, O Lord, that all those here that do not know you realize that you, in your mercy and in your grace, have set your gospel truth before them now. O, deal with them, I pray, O righteous Father, in all your goodness. And I pray you, dear children, are filled with your glory and grace and joy and everlastingly thankful to you for your mercies to us in Christ. In whose name we pray, amen.