- Hello, Alex
Sasser here hosting another episode of "Touching
Lives with Dr. James Merritt". We are so glad you tuned in
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joining us and now here's today sermon from
Dr. James Merritt. - Well I wanna thank
you for being here. I'm excited about what
we're about to start. For those who are watching
online, by computer, by television, at our
Mill Creek campus, those who are here, and it's
gonna be a great, great time. I hope you did get a copy
of one of these books. If you didn't make sure
you get one on the way out. I'll tell you how we're gonna
use that in just a moment, but there is a website, I kind
search the internet sometime, and there is a website
called ranker.com. It's fascinating. You can go on there
and just vote, and just rank different things. And so they had this
vote going on, about who was the most influential
person in history. So I went and I cast my vote. Now, the good news is
60% of the people agreed with me that Jesus Christ is the most influential
person who's ever lived. I was disappointed
'cause I think he shoulda got a
100%, but that's me. But then I thought about this. I thought, okay, who
would be number two? Who do you think
we would choose? And I know who I would choose and I doubt very few people
would join me in this one. I dare say maybe less
than one or two percent. But I think that Paul is the
second most influential person who ever lived, and
you may say, well why? Well some scholars
have even called Paul the second founder
of Christianity. 'Cause what they mean
is is that Christianity is more than just the
teachings of Jesus. It's really about
the Jesus who taught. And more than any other
person who's ever lived is was Paul that shifted
the focus of Christianity away from the
proclamations of Jesus to proclamation about Jesus. So this man wrote 13 of the 27
books of "The New Testament". The most unlikely man in
the history of the world to become the most
preeminent theologian of the early church,
the greatest missionary the world's ever seen,
single-handedly transformed Christianity from being
more of a Jewish faith, to a faith that included
both Jews and Gentiles, and he is the one that
really opened the door of Christianity to everybody,
every time, everywhere. You go to the four
Gospels, and they tell us about the Jesus that we follow. But then Paul, in his
books, tell us about what it means to follow Jesus. Jesus said, the number
one goal of the church, the number one goal of
individual believers like us, is to make disciples,
but then Paul comes along and carefully explains both
theologically and practically what does it even
mean to be a disciple. Because you can't make a
disciple til you are one and you can't be one til you
know what it means to be one. So that's why Paul
wrote these books. So we're calling
the next 12 months in our church, The
Year of Disciple. Our mission statement,
as already been stated, is to point people to
Jesus, that's evangelism, that's bringing your
one, who's your one, and inspire them to live
the cross-shaped life. That is discipleship. Now, if you are an
unbeliever I would think that you would at
least want to know who this Jesus is, who this
Jesus is that we follow. And if you're a believer I would
think you would wanna know, well if I'm going
to follow Jesus, I at least wanna
know what it means. I mean how do I know I'm
really following Jesus? Because I believe
there's a great need that both believers
and unbelievers know what following
Jesus looked like. Because it's not what many
believers think it looks like. And unfortunately
it's not what a lot of believers say it looks like. So, the books that Paul
wrote that we're gonna be studying over the next
12 months are letters that Paul wrote to real
people just like you, in a real place just like this, in a real time just like
we live in right now. And there are four books
we're gonna kinda spend our time in over
the next 12 months: Galatians, Ephesians,
Philippians, Colossians, because they really lay
out what it really means to be a disciple of Jesus. Now, we're not gonna
go through every verse. We're gonna go through certain
parts and certain sections. But I'll tell you
something interesting about the book of Galatians
you probably don't know. This is the first
book Paul ever wrote. This is the first letter
that Paul ever sent out. And it really, really
shouldn't surprise us when we find out
what it is all about. Because we're going to theme
every one of these books by the way and so here's the
theme of the book of Galatians. The theme of the book of
Galatians is free at last! You could write that over
the top of the first chapter. Free at last, that's what
Paul is going to harp on and that's why I don't
think it's coincidental this is the first chapter. Because when Paul met Jesus
all of a sudden he realized something he never
dreamed was true. Paul had been living in
bondage all of his life. Paul had been a slave
all of his life. I don't mean politically. I don't mean socially. I mean spiritually. And when he meets
Jesus all of sudden Jesus frees him from sin,
from the fear of death, and most importantly,
from trying to be
good enough for God. And so Paul experiences
incredible freedom, and there's no other book
in the "Bible" by the way that explains why Christianity
is completely, uniquely, and absolutely different
from every other religious faith in the
world, than this book. Somebody said it is the
Emancipation Proclamation of the "Bible", this
book of Galatians. So, let me go ahead
and tell you what the whole major thesis
of this book is, okay? Here it is, it's real simple. Because of Jesus, you
are free from rules, regulations, rituals,
and even religion. None of those things,
or all of those things put together have
anything to do whatsoever with establishing a
relationship with God. And what Paul is gonna
hammer all through this book is the one thing you got to
know, you've got to hear, you've got to understand,
and you've go to receive to be right with
God is what Paul is going to refer
to as the gospel. It is the only message
that defines Christianity. It is the only message that
distinguishes Christianity. But it's also the only message
that makes Christianity the only true faith
worth believing, and the only true
faith worth living. Now let me just stop
and get something out of the way right now. I understand that as I begin
to preach what Paul's gonna tell me to preach today,
and what Paul wrote, that when you stand
up in any context today in the 21st Century and
you say, there's only one. Automatically you're
gonna be called bigoted. You're gonna be
called intolerant. You're gonna be
called narrow-minded. And so let me just be
clear at the outset what I'm talking about to make
sure nobody misunderstands. What we're gonna
be talking about, what Paul is talking about
is not the Baptist gospel. It is not the Methodist gospel. It's not the Catholic gospel. It's not the
Presbyterian gospel. It's not the Lutheran gospel. It's not the
Episcopalian gospel. It's not the
Conservative gospel. It's not the Liberal gospel. It's not the Republican gospel. It's not the Democrat gospel. It is the God gospel. And in case you think
that you know, and one of the worst things you can
be called today is intolerant. That's kinda like
the scarlet letter. Boy, you're called intolerant,
you're called narrow-minded. I mean you feel like you oughta curl up in the fetal position. And I'm gonna be honest,
I've thought about it quite a bit and
it hit me one day, sometimes being intolerant
can be a very good thing. Being narrow-minded can
really be a very good thing. I'll give you an example. I want my banker to
be very narrow-minded. I don't want a banker
that says two plus two may equal four, it may equal
six, it may equal three. I don't want a banker like that. I wanna know two
plus two equals four. I want my doctor to
be narrow-minded. When I don't feel well
and I go to my doctor and I say, "doctor I think
something's wrong with me." I don't wanna go to
my doctor and say, "well doc, what do you
think is wrong with me?" And I don't want that
doctor to say well, let's not be
narrow-minded about it. Why don't you just
pick a disease and I'll give you some
medicine for that. Or I'll tell you what,
just pick out an organ and I'll take it out
tomorrow, you choose. Let's not be narrow-minded. I want my pharmacist
to be narrow-minded. I don't want to go to
pick up my prescription, and I don't want him
to look at me and say, you know I'm just
not narrow-minded
like your doctor is. Pick out a bottle. Which one would
you like to take? What medicine are you
in the mood for today? I want him to be
very narrow-minded. Well, a true Christian,
if you're truly a
follower of Jesus, you're going to be
narrow-minded about God. You're gonna be
narrow-minded about Jesus. And you're gonna be
narrow-minded about the gospel. So Paul jumps in right
away and he's addressing a problem these Galatians
have that's going on, and he says to them there's
only one true gospel. So if you have this little
book, just turn to page two, and you can look on with us,
the verses are right there, and if you wanna take notes, you gotta a place
you can take notes. And here's what Paul says. And by the way, let me just say one other thing
before we get started. I'm gonna say this
one more time, but I wanna just
kinda get this out. Let me tell you why this is
really relevant to all of us, whether you're a
believer or unbeliever. You may say golly, you
mean we're gonna be in this book for
a while, well we got about six or seven messages. It's not gonna be all that long. Let me tell you why. I am amazed, and I'm
gonna say this again. I amazed at a pastor
at two things. Who some people listen to
and what some people believe. It is mind-boggling to me. So when it comes to the gospel, Paul says there's
only one true gospel. And here's how you can know
that somebody's preaching the one true gospel
and you're listening to the one true gospel. He said first of
all, the true gospel emphasizes the grace of God. The true gospel emphasizes
the grace of God. Now, this is a very
unusual letter. Go to any other letter
that Paul writes. Here's what Paul always does. He does what we do. He sends a greeting. He kinda says hey,
how you guys doing? I've been missing you a lot. I'm sorry about not being
able to come by and see you. I wanted to check in and
see how things were going. So it's all these kind of
warm and fuzzies, right? And he does that in every
other letter except Galatians. Galatians, no greeting,
no warm fuzzies, he skips all the formalities, he jumps right into the
water and he says okay, we've got a problem and we're
gonna deal with this problem Verse Six, I'm astonished
that you are so quickly deserting the one who called
you to live in the grace of Christ and you are turning
to a different gospel. Paul says, I just can't believe. I come in, I teach, I preach. I see many of you
come to Christ. I've not been gone hardly at all and some of you are already
turning away from the gospel. Now, what was going on? Well here's happening
in the home book. Just keep this in mind. There were some people who
had infiltrated the church and they were
known as Judaizers. You don't have to
remember that name. You might wanna write it down. You don't have to remember it. They were called Judaizers. Who were the Judaizers? These were Jews who said
they followed Jesus, who said they had trusted Jesus. However, they said, it's
not enough to follow Jesus, it's not enough to
believe in Jesus, it's not enough to
have faith in Jesus, you still have to become a Jew. If you're a guy you still
have to be circumcised. If you're a woman
you still gotta be a part of the
Jewish religion. You still got to obey the law. You still gotta
keep all these rules and all these regulation,
by the way, that we come up with if you really want
to be right with God. And Paul says, I cannot
believe you've already turned on a dime and you've
accepted the exact opposite of all that I preached to
you when I was with you. By the way, the word that
Paul uses for desert, I can't believe you
deserted so quick, he actually uses
a military term. And it's a term that
refers to how a soldier would desert the battlefield. What he's really saying is, you
know what you Galatians are? You are spiritual deserters. You are spiritual turncoats. You have turned your back on
the very truth that I taught. You have bought the lie that
many people still believe that you've got to be
good enough for God or God won't be good to you. They still believe
that the love of God is not a prize, it's not
a gift that you receive, it is a prize you have to earn. That is the mark of
a spiritual deserter. Let me just make
this real simple. There's a little
three-letter-word. And if you ever hear anybody
add this word to God. Or add this word to Jesus. Or add this word to grace. Or add this word to faith. If you ever hear
that little word and, just know you've
deserted the gospel. Somebody says, you
wanna be right with God? You must accept Jesus
and be baptized. They just deserted the gospel. You wanna be right with God? You've got to accept Jesus
and be a part of our church. You've go to accept
Jesus and you've got to through our rituals. You gotta accept Jesus and
you've got to be confirmed. You gotta accept
Jesus and you've gotta do this, you've got to do that. You've gotta do all
these good things. Don't do these other things. You just deserted the gospel. Because when you add
the little word and, it sounds like a
very innocent word, but when you add the
word and to grace of God, here's what you just said: the grace of God's not enough. That grace of God
just doesn't cut it. Well here's what
the gospel says. The gospel says not only
is the grace of God enough, the gospel says the grace
of God is all you need. As a matter of fact, let
me tell you it gets worse. The only offer God
makes to you is grace. Now you can take it or leave it but he's not offering
anything else. See, not only have they
turned from the gospel, and from grace, they have
turned from the God of grace that gave them the gospel,
'cause there's only one gospel, and that's the gospel of grace. So if you turn your
back on the grace of God you just turned your
back on the God of grace. So Paul is kinda
taking the Galatians to the woodshed a little bit. But then he turns
from the Galatians, who are turning away
from the gospel. And then he turns to
these false teachers who are perverting the gospel. He says, which is
really no gospel at all. He says, by the way,
when I say you've turned to another gospel there
really isn't any other gospel. But, evidently some people are
throwing you into confusion and they're trying to
pervert the gospel of Christ. That word pervert is
really interesting. It's a word that means
pervert, it means to reverse. You may be familiar with this
term so this will make sense. What these people were
doing, they were trying to reverse engineer the gospel. That's what they were doing. They were reverse
engineering the gospel. They had taken the gospel apart. And then as they put
the gospel back together they started throwing
in their rules, and their regulations,
and their rituals, and their restrictions, and
they put it all back together. And by the way, there are
all kinds of perversions in the gospel that are
out there that we listen to all the time, that
we hear quite a bit. I'm just gonna
share four of them with you, just real quickly. There's first of all what
I call the affluent gospel. We've heard that before. That's the gospel that says
God want everybody to be rich. God want everybody to
have their Mercedes. God wants everybody to live in
a 10000 square foot mansion. And if you don't,
you're missing out on what God really
wants for you. Poverty and
Christianity does not belong in the same sentence. Now I'm not gonna harp on that. I'm just gonna say I'm glad
nobody told Jesus that. I'm glad nobody told Paul that. I'm glad nobody told
the disciples that. And I'm glad nobody told
the early church that, because the vast
majority of them did not drive Mercedes chariots, and they did not have Rolex
sundials in their backyard. But there's the affluent gospel. And then there's what
I call, and by the way, this is the most popular
gospel out there today. There's what I call
the affirming gospel. Now here's the gospel, this
is what this gospel says. God loves you unconditionally. And God loves you
just as you are. But then it just
stops right there. And it doesn't say
anything about the fact that this unconditional
love does not mean unconditional acceptance of
any lifestyle that you choose. What this gospel
says is come on in. The water's fine. You come just as you are. You stay just as you are. You live just as you are. You die just as you are. I'm okay, you're okay,
he's okay, we're all okay. God does love us
unconditionally. And God does love us
just the way we are. But let me tell you
how much God loves us. He loves us so much he's
gonna change the way we are. He's not gonna let us
stay the way we are. The very reason Jesus
came to this Earth is to change the way we are. But there's this gospel,
this affirming gospel. And then, there's what I
call the action gospel. This is another
very popular gospel. This is the gospel, we used
to call it the social gospel. This is the gospel where people
say, hey the most important thing we can do is this, let's
take care of the environment. Let's feed the poor. Let's take care of the hungry. Let's clothe the naked. Let's promote justice. Let's be all about equality. Now let me just stop and I
wanna emphasize something. I'm for all of that. I really am. I'm for everything I just said. Because those are all
ramifications of the gospel. Those are all results
of the gospel. Those should be exactly the
things we oughta be concerned about if we truly
believe the gospel. But as one great man said,
he said, if that's all we do and we don't preach the true
gospel, we're just making the world a better place
to go to hell from. So there's this action gospel. Over 80 years ago there was
a great theologian named Richard Niebuhr, he was talking
about this kind of gospel. Here's what he called it. He said this is message that
has "a God without wrath, who brings men without sin into
a kingdom without judgment, through the ministrations of
a Christ without a cross." That's not the gospel. Now, there's one
other kind of gospel. This is Hollywood's
favorite gospel, okay. This is what I call
the adaptable gospel. And here's the adaptable gospel. It doesn't matter
what you believe just
be sincere about it. Your faith is just
as good as my faith. Your religion's just
as good as my religion. We all are trying to
get to the same place. We all really believe
in the same God. We're just taking different
paths to get there. Love wins and because love wins in the end, everybody wins. Well Paul comes
along and says no. There's only one gospel. And you could put any
religious message in the world up against this gospel, and
here's what you're gonna find. Just go to the whole buffet. We've talked about this in
the last couple of weeks. Go out to all these
religious messages out there and there are over
4200 hundred of 'em. And at the end of the day
you could boil all 4200 of them down to
only two messages. Only one is right. The rest of them is wrong. So let's leave
Christianity over here. We're gonna put
it all by itself. You go pick any other
religion you wanna pick. It does not matter to
me which one you pick. When you begin to study
it you'll find that they basically spell their message
with two words: do-don't. Here's what they'll say. If you don't do the the
things we tell you to do and you won't do the things
we tell you not to do you'll be right with God;
you will be good to go. It's the same message,
different words, taught by every
religion in the world. There are things you gotta do. Things you better not do. If we're gonna be
right with God. But then Christianity
comes along and says no. We don't spell our
message with two words. We spell our message
with one word. Our message is done, done. That's the faith that's
marked by the grace of God. Christianity says, you
know what you have to do if you wanna be right with God, accept what God has
done for you, that's it. Done, end of discussion,
stick a fork in it, it's over. All we need to do is receive it. Listen, the only
faith in the world that uses the word
grace is Christianity. You don't find grace in Islam. You don't find
grace in Buddhism. You don't find in Judaism. You don't find
grace in Hinduism. The only religion
that uses the word, or the only faith that uses
the word grace is Christianity. Every other religious faith
comes down to goodness. And what Paul is gonna hammer
over and over and over, and I'm gonna say it
over and over and over, read my lips, this
is is what Paul said. He said read my lips. It's somewhere I just
couldn't find it. You will never be good
enough for God, never. That's grace. So the true gospel
emphasizes the grace of God. Second thing, the true
gospel exalts the Son of God. It exalts the Son of God. Now when Paul's
talking about grace he's talking about a
specific kind of grace. When Paul talks about the gospel he specifies a particular
type of gospel. So he says, okay, God has called us to live in the
grace of Christ. Then he says we should
not allow people to pervert the gospel of Christ. Now look what Paul does. He takes the word grace and
he takes the word gospel and he connects both
of them to Christ. And his whole point
is the true gospel, the only gospel worth believing, hearing, preaching,
and accepting is the
gospel of Christ. So the subject of the
true gospel is Jesus. It's his death. It's his burial. It's his resurrection. If Jesus doesn't die on the
cross we don't have a gospel. If Jesus isn't buried
we don't have a gospel. If Jesus isn't raised from the
dead we don't have a gospel. Jesus is the core of the gospel. He is the crux of the gospel. He is the center of the gospel. He's the content of the gospel. He is the crown of the gospel. And Paul is saying
to these Galatians and saying to us, the
gospel is all about knowing Jesus, believing
in Jesus, receiving Jesus, surrendering to Jesus, loving
Jesus, and having Jesus. The gospel revolves
around Jesus. The true gospel
always shines all of its light only on Jesus. That's why Jesus
is at the forefront of the true gospel
not in the background. He's not on the
sidelines of the gospel. He's on center
stage of the gospel. He's not in the
shadows of the gospel. He is in the spotlight
of the gospel. Now, since I'm in
this neighborhood. I just wanna go ahead and get
one other thing out of way, if you don't mind, and I'm
gonna be real plain spoken here about here I am, and if
you're a guest of ours today, where our church, and
where we will always be as long as I have
anything to do with it. And before I say this,
what I'm about to say I do not mean it
to be political. If I did I'd tell ya. I'm not gonna bait and switch. I don't mean to be political. I'm not in any way
trying to discourage you from being involved in
the political process. I'm not at all trying to say we should not have
political concerns. I'm not at all saying
we shouldn't have
political opinion. I'm not even saying it's wrong to have political disagreements. I wanna make that
all plain before I tell you what
I'm about to say. We should not and we
will not ever identify the gospel with any political
party in this country. We don't preach a
Republican gospel. We don't preach a
Democratic gospel. We don't preach an
Independent gospel. We don't preach a
Libertarian gospel. We preach a Jesus gospel. Listen, there are three
things, you can give the Lord a hand, there are three
things, you mark this down 'cause you're
seeing it right now. There are three things
that have always been under attack and they'll
always be under attack. That's why the ministry's
not for the faint of heart. That's why what I do, you
make think it's an easy job, let me give you a
month, you try it out. I'll be glad for you get
the emails, and the letters, and the phone calls, no
problem, no big deal. But there are
three things always under attack, always will be. The master of the gospel, Jesus
will always be under attack. Now you may say wait a minute. Who's attacking Jesus? If you believe you
can bypass the cross to get to God you
just attacked Jesus. If you believe you can
make a detour around the resurrection
and leave Jesus out you just attacked Jesus. If you doubt the virgin
birth and the divinity of Jesus, you just
attacked Jesus. The moment you add
and to the name Jesus you just attacked Jesus. So the master of the gospel
is always under attack. Number two, the
messenger of the gospel will always be under attack. When a man stands up
today in this day and age and says Jesus is not
a good way to heaven, not even the best way to heaven, he is the only way to heaven. You're gonna get attacked. That just goes
with the territory. The message of the
gospel that only through the death, burial,
and resurrection. That will always be under attack because people will
always say surely in this day and age
in which we live you're not gonna stand
up there and tell me there's only one way and
your way is the right way. No, I'm not. But I will stand up
there and tell you there's only way and
his way is the only way. Now when you say that,
I'm just telling you, the slings and the
arrows are going to come. So when you add anything
to the grace of Christ, here's what you're saying,
grace isn't powerful enough. When you add anything to the
gospel of Christ what you're saying is the gospel is
just not sufficient enough. When you add anything
to the glory of Christ, what you're saying is Christ
is just not good enough. That's why the true gospel
exalts the son of God, always. So you will know when
you hear the true gospel. Well number one, it
emphasizes the grace of God. Number two, it exalts
the son of God. And then Paul said
this, and this is really pretty
mind-blowing, he said the true gospel expresses
the heart of God. Because now he wants to
make sure the Galatians understand why he's so
obsessed with the gospel. And he wants to make sure
that these people understand where this gospel
came from, how this gospel even got started,
how it originated. So he says this, he
says I want you to know, brothers and sisters,
that the gospel I preached is not
of human origin. I didn't receive it from any
man, nor was I taught it; rather I received it by
revelation from Jesus Christ. And here's what Paul is saying. Paul is saying I didn't get
this gospel out of a book. I didn't learn
this at a college. I didn't get this on
some online course. I didn't hear it from some
charismatic religious leader. He said, I got it
from God himself. In other words, he said
the gospel's not something that a person has made up,
it's actually something that God sent down, there
are a lot of human gospels. There's only one
heavenly gospel. There are many gospels from
the the head of human beings. There's only one gospel
from the heart of God. So let me give you
an illustration. The central message and
the central teaching of Buddhism comes from Buddha. The central teaching and message of Confucianism
comes from Confucius. The central message and teaching of Islam comes from Mohammed. But the central message
of Christianity comes from God, right
out of his heart, right out of his mind, and
the gospel is the only message ever given in the
history of this planet that has stamped
across it made by God. It is the only message that
his Good Housekeeping seal of approval, and to show
how serious Paul is. 'Cause sometimes we
hear this, we go when is this gonna be over, I don't
think this is a big deal. Paul said wait a
minute, let me show you how big of a deal this is. Let me show you how
important it is. Let me tell you
how serious it is, A, the we preach
the right gospel, B, that you hear
the right gospel, and C, you accept
the right gospel. So he says this, he says
even if we or an angel from heaven should preach
a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let
them be under God's curse! As we've already said,
so now I say again: if anybody is preaching
to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let
them be under God's curse! Now you may know this. But the Greek word
there for accursed, for being under God's
curse, is the word anathema. You say what does that mean? Well it's not good. It literally means
to the be under the wrath and the
judgment of God. And Paul makes this
incredible statement. And he says listen, if someone
preaches any other gospel, or accepts any other
gospel, then the only true gospel they are accursed. And then to emphasize
the point he says listen, it doesn't matter
if I come to you and I preach another gospel. If I come to you and I say
you know I've been thinking about it, Jesus is one way,
but he's not the only way. Christianity's not the
faith, it's just a faith. If I come to you and I preach any other gospel I'm accursed. He said, I don't care if
it's an angel from heaven. I don't care if he
glows in the dark, has big wings, and
his name is Gabriel. It doesn't matter. If he's not preaching
the one true gospel he is under God's curse. Nobody has the right, and
nobody has the authority to put God's name
on their gospel. And if you don't think
this is relevant, let me get into some of
your grills right now. Let me get in some of
your business right now. 'Cause I hear it all the time. I hope this comes our
right, I'm not, well I am thinking of certain but I'm not
gonna tell you who they are. It blows my mind when people
come up to me sometimes and they say you know, I listen
to so and so all the time. Isn't he great? And I'm going, you have
got to be putting me on. Help me Rhonda. You see in this
day and age looks more like Hollywood than it
does the kingdom of heaven. 'Cause here's what we've
done, let's just be honest, we have made celebrities
out of certain speakers, and we've made superstars out
of certain religious leaders. So I'm gonna make a
statement to you right now. This is kinda that statement
I do every now and then when I say if you haven't
heard anything else I've said, listen to this one. If you're on your
cellphone right now texting your friend,
get off your cellphone. If you're making your menu
order for the restaurant get off the pad, okay, just
look up here for a minute. If you don't hear anything
else I tell you today, this is one of things
that if I die today, you know I remember
the pastor said this. It is not the messenger
that validates the message. It is the message that
validates the messenger. 'Cause here's what I hear. Well you know, I believe what
he said because blank said it. If he said it, and he
pastors this gigantic church, he's got this big
following on television, he's written all these
best-selling books. So, he must be right. I wanna say it again,
don't ever judge the message by the messenger. You always judge the
messenger by the message. So Paul says, it really
doesn't matter how brilliant a person is, it really doesn't
matter how many degrees they have, it doesn't matter
what seminary they attended, it doesn't matter how
polished, how popular, how persuasive they
are, it doesn't matter whether they pastor a big
church or a small church, if doesn't matter
if they're on TV or they don't even own a TV. He said if that person is
not preaching the true gospel of Christ they are
under the curse of God. And you should
not listen to them and they should not be believed. And I love the way Paul
wraps up where he stands on the gospel, 'cause this is, the bottom line of
the bottom line. Listen to this. Am I now trying to
win the approval of human beings, or of God? Or am I trying to please people? If I were still trying
to please people, I would not be a
servant of Christ. Now again, you don't
think this is relevant? I'll tell you how
relevant it is. There are certain pastors
today, and look I'm not throwing rocks at them,
I don't have to answer for their message I just
have to answer for mine. But there are certain
pastors today who not only will say I'm gonna
tell you, they're proud to tell you what
I'm gonna tell you. There are certain pastors today that will tell you, I'm not
gonna preach on certain topics. I'm not gonna touch that topic. And I'm not gonna
touch that topic. It's too controversial. It's too hot. It's too divisive. It may cost people
from my church. It may lower my
approval ratings. It may not be good for business. Well, let me just be clear. When you preach the true gospel, one, you don't
leave out anything. When you preach the true gospel, the true gospel has
moral ramifications. The true gospel has
sexual ramifications. The true gospel has
ethical ramifications. The true gospel
makes certain demands and it calls for
complete surrender. And Paul was absolutely obsessed never to compromise the gospel, because here's what Paul
said at the end of the day. You can please people
or just please Jesus. Or you can please Jesus
and displease people. You can't do both. And Paul said, when
I stand before God I'm gonna make sure
I please Jesus. And I'm not trying to sound
super-spiritual when I say this. But the greatest preacher
since the apostle Paul, Charles Spurgeon, said
this, he said, "the gospel is perfect in all of its
parts and perfect a a whole. It is a crime to add to
it, treason to alter it, and a felony to take from it." Because see, we're being told
today, I hear it all the time. We oughta be open to new ideas. Maybe the church got it
wrong for 2000 years. We now know more
than our fathers did. Truth's never settled. What really is important today
is not the plain teaching of scripture, it's
new scholarship, the
latest scholarship. Well let me just say this. There are some things
that just never change. God never changes. Jesus never changes. Truth never changes. What's right and
wrong never changes. The word of God never changes. The gospel never changes. There's no gospel 2.0,
there's only one gospel. So wrapping this
up, I read recently something that will
kinda fascinate you. 91% of the world's populations
has heard of Coca-Cola. I guarantee you, you
have either heard of Coca-Cola or you have
been in a coma for 20 years. Okay, we've all heard of
Coca-Cola here in this country. I mean this is the capital. 74% have seen Coca-Cola. 51% have tasted Coca-Cola. 10% of the world's population
has heard the true gospel. Let that sink in. So, let me just wrap this up. This church that
Paul was talking to was full of changed lives. And you go back and read
the history of Christianity and you'll find out for
the first several years after Jesus' resurrection
from the earliest Christians, they got a reputation, people
began to see these people. And they begin to
say man, you're just so different from
every body else. You're different
from your neighbors. You're different
from your community. You're different from your town. You're different from the state. You're just different
from just the whole world. 'Cause they noticed it. Where the world sought
material wealth, these Christians would
sell their belongings to meet the needs
of somebody else. And where society would
lock criminals away and contagious people
that had deadly diseases, they put them away in
dark, dirty dungeons and they'd just
totally ignore them. Christians would go visit them. They'd take them
food, and clothing, and love on 'em,
and play with 'em. And in a world and a
culture where women were treated as
second class citizens, and children were seen
as even less important, these early Christians
talked about how important it was for a husband
to treat his wife the way she oughta be treated. And how a dad oughta have a
loving concern for his children. And how children oughta have
respect for their parents. And how marriage
is a gift from God. And these early people, these
people, they were looking at the early church
and were saying, man, why are you so
radically different? What is it that's
changed about you? Why am I not like you? Why are you marching to the
beat of a different drummer? What's making you stand out
the North Star on a dark night? And then you read
further and you realize there's only one explanation for why these people
were so different. They had heard the true gospel. They had believed
the true gospel. They had responded
to the true gospel. They had preached
the true gospel. Because it is the only
gospel that turned the world upside down 2000
years ago, and it's the only one that can
still do it today. Andy that's why we send. And that's why we
want you to be sent. That's why we want you
to walk out of the door of this build every single
Sunday when you come in here, we want you to walk
out with this word burning in your
heart, I am sent. It's why we tell you
every week who's your one? Who's the one person
over the next year that you know they need
to hear the gospel? They need to believe the gospel. They need to receive the gospel. They need to be
changed by the gospel. Why do we do that? Because there's
only one true gospel and it is the only
gospel that needs to be heard by
every single person because every single
person needs the gospel. - We are so glad
you tuned in here on the Touching
Lives digital channel and we hope you enjoyed
the sermon today. Be sure to click
and follow this page and feel free to leave
any comments below. We would love to hear your
thoughts from today's message. And before I go let
me share with you an exciting announcement
about the upcoming Journeys of the
Apostle Paul Tour with James and Teresa Merritt. This 10 day tour
includes stops in several of the cities where
Paul preached during his missionary journeys,
including Athens, Philippi, Barea,
and Thessalonike. Learn more at touchinglives.org or email us at
info@touchinglives.org to request a free brochure. Thank you so much
for watching today. I'll see you right here next
time for another episode of "Touching Lives with
Dr. James Merritt". - [Presenter] Touching Lives,
teaching people everywhere who Jesus is and
why they need him. This program is sponsored
by Touching Lives Ministries and is made possible
by the grace of God and your faithful
prayers and gifts.
