Transcription
Well, you know, the the singing is good, and the music is good. When you go from "I can't wait to get up there and preach" to "Maybe we should just wait a little while longer." We have your Bibles with you. Open them to the book of Romans. Romans chapter 1. And I have been assigned Romans 1, verses 16 and 17.
And as you turn there, let me just say once again, what an incredible privilege it is to be in this place with you, brothers. And it is an even more significant privilege, um, this time than any of the other times. We were supposed to be here last year, and this conference didn't happen. But also, a year ago this time, I was in the midst of a couple of heart surgeries that the Lord decided to deliver me through. And as I walked in, and Austin, you said the same thing to me tonight that that Dr. MacArthur said the first time we saw each other after this whole ordeal. I'll never forget it. We were at the G3 conference, and, um, John walks up and he makes a beeline over to me and looks me in the eye and says, "I'm so glad you didn't die." Me too.
Um, I need to, as we examine this text, I want to tell you a story. This story doesn't originate with me. It's a story that's been used to sort of illustrate postmodernism. And I, I think if you'll bear with me, you'll see how it relates to what we're dealing with here tonight. And the story goes something like this: There's a man, and he's walking with his son through a strawberry patch. And he walks through the strawberry patch, and he takes a strawberry and eats a strawberry, and gives the strawberry to his son. And the strawberries good, beautiful, perfect, sweet. But something happens to strawberries over time. And eventually, strawberries are taken in, and they're chopped up and used in other foods, and they're put on top of cereal. And eventually, strawberries are made into strawberry preserves and into strawberry jam. And eventually, strawberries get messed with and processed and put inside of things like Pop-Tarts. Eventually, you get into a laboratory where you have the essence of strawberry without strawberries. Eventually, men don't take their sons to strawberry patches anymore to give them strawberries. They, they, they go and get them strawberry slushes that don't actually have any strawberry in them whatsoever. It's just a combination of chemicals and colors and high fructose this and that. And the kid loves the strawberry slush, and he gets used to the strawberry slush. And then one day, the kid who's grown to love the strawberry slush that has no strawberries in it, is walking through a strawberry patch and he picks up an actual strawberry and eats it and doesn't like it because it doesn't taste like the slush.
Brothers, I think that's what we've seen happen to the gospel. As I surveyed the last few decades, I, I can remember how there, there was the recognition of a loss of the gospel. There was a recognition that the gospel had begun to be messed with and tinkered with. There was a recognition that that things like the the church growth movement and other movements like that were, were shying away from the gospel. And all of a sudden, in response to that, you had, you had gospel everything. In this attempt to recover the gospel and put the gospel at the center of everything. And then all of a sudden, that became a fad. The gospel became a fad. And there was gospel this and gospel that and gospel everything, gospel bake sales. But interestingly enough, as gospel became a fad, and attaching gospel to everything became a fad, the gospel was being lost again. In the name of the gospel. And there were things that were called gospel because that was the fad, but they had no gospel in them whatsoever. And then fast forward, and gospel has become everything, which means it's become nothing. And then people start saying that things are the gospel that aren't the gospel. And all of a sudden, things that are implications of the gospel, the name, and maybe, maybe fruit of the gospel are being identified as the gospel. Classic example of this is what we've done with social justice. We've gone from social justice is a gospel issue to social justice is the gospel. Racial reconciliation is the gospel. These things are the gospel. But actually, they're not the gospel. And ironically, for the most part, they are law, which is the opposite of the gospel. And then when you stand up against that, I don't know, maybe that was a statement on social justice and the gospel, hypothetically, you get attacked by some of the same people who were claiming that their desire was to recover the gospel. And something else has happened. There is a generation of young Christians who, when they actually hear the gospel, don't like the taste of it anymore.
There was a recent clip where Ibram X. Kendi, who's the author of "How to Be an Antiracist," and if you, if you haven't read "How to Be an Antiracist," let me tell you right here and right now, don't. One of the best-selling books in, in recent years, millions of copies sold. Ibram X. Kendi has paid tens of thousands of dollars by Fortune 500 companies to come in and beat them about the head and neck until they have been sufficiently guilted over their racism and sufficiently guilted into these works of anti-racism. Even Kendi's book, "How to Be an Antiracist," is being used in churches all over the country, promoted by Christian leaders all over the country. And recently, he was at an event, sitting on the stage, and he was asked about the church and the church's role in this issue of anti-racism. And Kendi expressed this idea of the gospel not being palatable anymore. And in a nutshell, what he said was that, that there was liberation theology, and then there's savior theology. And Kendi argued that Jesus was a revolutionary, and he was about liberation, and that Christians in the church ought to be about liberating people from earthly oppression and earthly oppressors. That's liberation theology, and that's what, that's what Jesus was about, and that's what the church should be about. He, he contrasted that with what he called savior theology. Savior theology is this, this passé idea, this racist idea, that what we need to do is we need to get people saved, and we need to look at people on an individual level and bring them into the church and change them and and transform them. This, he refers to as a racist ideology. That's the gospel of anti-racism. It looks at the biblical gospel and it says that's wicked. And his books are in churches, used and promoted even by some whom we just a few years ago would have considered heroes and giants. We need gospel clarity. We need to confront wickedness like this. We need to recognize that this is an attack on the gospel and on the God of the gospel. And we need to make it clear. That's my assignment tonight. Romans chapter 1, verses 16 and 17.
And it reads: "For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, 'The righteous shall live by faith.'" Amen. Hallelujah. Praise the Lord. The gospel. The gospel. The true gospel. There are several things that we need to hear from this text, four in particular, that I want to share with us.
Number one, we see here in this text that we must not be ashamed of the gospel. And I'm afraid that for many, that's what we've come to, where we're ashamed of the gospel. We think that there's something more significant than the gospel, something more important than the gospel. We're ashamed of the gospel. In order to understand the weightiness of this statement, you have to understand Paul's historical context. And it's hard for us to comprehend because we minister in a very different age. We are accepted in society. People call us things like Reverend and Pastor and Doctor. We're asked to officiate at weddings and funerals. We give invocations at important events. We preach in magnificent edifices. We're viewed as respected professionals. We have accredited degrees, often advanced degrees. We cannot comprehend this statement. We have to conjure things up in our mind in order for this statement to be relevant to us. But in order for us to grasp this, let us remember, brothers, that Paul was arrested as a criminal. In fact, he was what you call a repeat offender. He was beaten and chased out of town. He didn't have lofty titles or offices. No one in Rome was asking him to come give the invocational prayer at the inauguration. The message that he preached was considered anathema. Think about how tempted Paul would have been, or could have been, at Mars Hill when he stands there before the most erudite minds of his day, these people who called him an "idle babbler." And yet, he was not ashamed of the gospel. In a time where it would have been very easy for him to be ashamed of the gospel. And yet, ironically, in the day and age in which we live, where we have the lofty titles and where we have the respect, where we're not being beaten and chased out of town, ironically, in that environment, it is us who are ashamed of the gospel. We're the ones when we're given an opportunity to be on television, don't want to sound backwards, so we sugarcoat. We're the ones when we're given an opportunity for a position of prominence and in our community, we decide to sort of back off of the offensive things so that we can be accepted and promoted. We're the ones who do that. We're the ones who've come to believe that there are things that are more significant than the work that we do in preaching and proclaiming the gospel. We're the ones who've come to believe that there are things in the culture that are beyond what we can address because the gospel is just not enough.
I think we've seen this in a number of ways, but recently this stood out to me because of a clear contrast. And, and I don't want to get all into it because we'll be here all night, but this clear contrast recently. You know, COVID hits and, and, and things shut down, and nobody knows what's going to happen. And, and, and there's fear, and we're told that people are just going to die by the millions. And then we're told, we're told that we can't gather. And there's much that can be said about that. But, but we're told that we can't gather. So, so, so many just don't gather. Some begin to gather, get sued by the city, and win. But, but regardless of where, where we are in that, this is, and this is not about that. There's something else. There's something else that stood out to me is that some of the very people who didn't gather and then condemned those who did gather, went to public BLM protests. Help me, Holy Ghost. And the city didn't come down on them. Why? Because both they and the city believed that that was more essential than the saints gathering under the ministry of the gospel. That is being ashamed of the gospel. That is being ashamed of the gospel. And that's what we've seen.
But listen to these words. The very one who says that "I am not ashamed of the gospel," he says to young Timothy in 2 Timothy chapter 4: "I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom: preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching. For the time is coming when people will not endure sound doctrine, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and will wander off into myths. As for you, always be sober-minded, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry. Do not be ashamed of the gospel." 2 Corinthians 4:8-10: "We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies. Do not be ashamed of the gospel." We cannot have clarity in the gospel if we are ashamed of the gospel.
But not only must we avoid being ashamed of the gospel, but we must also have confidence in the gospel. Paul says, "For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation." It's one thing not to be ashamed of the gospel, but it's another thing to actually have confidence in the gospel. And when I say have confidence in the gospel, what I mean is have confidence in the fact that God uses the gospel to save sinners. That the gospel is the power of God for salvation. That the gospel is sufficient. That our work in the gospel will bear fruit. That our work in the gospel is our highest calling. That we have confidence in the gospel. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 1:18, "For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God." Do we believe that the gospel is indeed the power of God, and that is the power of God unto salvation? Do we believe that? Or do we believe that there is something more that people need? Do we believe that we need to graduate from the gospel? Do we believe, do we believe that the ills of our society and the great problems that men and women face need something more significant than the gospel? God forbid. We must be confident in the gospel.
In other words, when that couple comes to us and their marriage is in trouble, do we have confidence in the gospel for them? Or do we believe that they need to graduate beyond the gospel to something else? When that parent comes and and they're struggling as a parent, do we believe that what we have in the gospel is able to aid them in these kinds of situations and circumstances? Do we believe that if we're having issues in our church and if we're not seeing the kind of growth that we want to see, do we believe that the gospel is sufficient for God to do what he promises to do in his church? Or do we believe that we need something more in our preaching and discipleship of God's people? Do we believe that we need the gospel in order for them to come into the front door of the kingdom, but we need something more in order for them to grow? Or are we confident in the gospel? Again, in 1 Corinthians 1, verses 22-25: "For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men." Do we have confidence in this? Do we really believe that the gospel is our greatest need? Do we really believe that it's the church's greatest need? Do we really believe that it is our nation's greatest need? Do we really believe that it is our world's greatest need? Do we really believe that? Or are we waiting for someone to ride in on a white horse who's not named Jesus? If we believe this, we will manifest that belief by preaching this gospel in which we have confidence.
Thirdly, we must be indiscriminate with the gospel. "For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek." Do we believe this? This is being challenged in our day. The idea that everyone needs the gospel. Because in our day, we've exchanged this biblical ideology, this biblical worldview, for this liberation ideology. This liberation ideology that not only divides the world into oppressors and the oppressed, but in doing so, it divides the world into people who are sinners who need to be saved by works, and people who are oppressed who need to be delivered. This is, this is how we've divided the world. And because we've divided the world like this, we, we sort of change who Jesus is. And now we don't view Jesus as the savior of the world, but the representative of the oppressed peoples of the world. Because what oppressed peoples need is not the gospel, but they need a Jesus who looks like them. And so we're arguing over things like what color Jesus was. It was on a television broadcast, you know, a, a while back, and the host of the program just wasn't getting what he wanted or what he expected in the interview. And so, you know, toward the end of the interview, he decided to try to, you know, throw out a trap or whatever. And, um, it was, uh, the television host was a black television host, and he was very much on the, you know, social justice, liberation theology kind of side of things. It was on The Young Turks, actually, of all places. And I mean, he's just doing everything that he can, and he's not getting what he wants. And so at the end, he's like, "You know, we just got a, a few more seconds left." And he says, "Well, I, I just, I just want to ask you because he's gone every angle that he could go right to try to get whatever it is that he's trying to get and prove that I'm the wrong kind of black man, I guess." And he says, "Well, do you tell white evangelicals that they need to get rid of pictures of white Jesus?" And you could tell when he asked that, he was like, "I got you now." To which I responded, "I tell everybody to get rid of pictures of Jesus." And, and, and, and so he missed it. And he said, "No, no, no, but yeah, but do you tell those white evangelicals, right?" Because again, it's like, like it was a curse word. You know, you preach to white evangelicals, right? You, I hurt my feelings, by the way. "Do you tell them to get rid of pictures of white Jesus?" And so because he didn't understand the first time, I said, "Well, actually, pictures of Jesus are a violation of the Second Commandment. So I tell everybody to get rid of pictures of Jesus because I don't want people violating the Second Commandment." He asked me again, "But what is this all about?" This is all about us not believing that Jesus is who the Bible says that he is. This is all about us not believing that we need what the Bible says we need. This is all about identity politics and trying to drag Jesus into identity politics. This is about being ashamed of the gospel. This is about not being indiscriminate with the gospel. This is about thinking that some people, because of their social location, yes, they're sinners, and maybe they do need repentance and they do need the gospel. But other people, because of their social location, they are oppressed, and what oppressed people need is something other than the gospel, something more than the gospel.
I grew up not far from here. It's always interesting and ironic when I have conversations with people like this because they make assumptions about me. I'm a Los Angelino, kind of born at UCLA Medical Center, raised in South Central Los Angeles, raised by a single teenage Buddhist mother, raised po- not poor, we couldn't afford the other on the R. We were just Paul Ray's being nervous and afraid of the Rampart Division, LAPD. Raised by a single teenage Buddhist mother, never heard the gospel until I went to university. Raised without my father, who left us when I was just a couple of years old. Raised in a drug-infested and gang-infested environment. Raised in a situation that, that people would refer to as as oppressed. And my greatest need was met not when somebody delivered me from some kind of human oppression, but when somebody shared the gospel of Jesus Christ and delivered me from the oppression of sin.
I'm the husband of one wife and the father of nine children. Why nine children? We just couldn't quite get to 10. And somebody asked me the other day, "How does a kid who grows up like you did, without a father in his life, in a family where over the last two generations, my wife and myself combined, 25 marriages, 22 divorces, how, how does a guy like that stay married to a woman for 32 years in a row and raise nine kids and write books about being a husband and a father? How does that happen?" It happens because the gospel is sufficient. That's how it happens.
I need the gospel. Notice I didn't say "needed the gospel." I need the gospel. The real gospel. The whole gospel. I need the gospel. And we must be indiscriminate with the gospel because all people need the gospel.
Fourth and finally, we must be rooted and grounded in the gospel because it's everything. Verse 17: "For in it, in the gospel, the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, 'The righteous shall live by faith.'" The righteous shall live by faith. I've said it before and I'll say it again, one of the most pathetic, sinister, and demonic aspects of this entire movement and this spirit of this age is that it robs people of the life-changing truth of the gospel. It says that people who find themselves in circumstances like those in which I was found, need something other than the gospel. And even worse than that, it says that it's offensive and racist to say that the gospel is what we need. In Robin DiAngelo's book, "White Fragility," another one that, if you haven't read it, don't. She talks about several kinds of racism. And one of the kinds of racist racism that she talks about is aversive racism. And here, and here's how she defines aversive racism: If you look at disparities between groups of people, and if you look, for example, at black people, and you say that there are disparities between black people and white people, and if you define those disparities or explain those disparities by anything other than racism, that that's actually racism. So the preacher who looks at people like me in my circumstances and says, "Your family has been broken for generations, and there are consequences in your life right now because your family's been broken for generations, but the gospel can heal what's broken and change your life and the life of your children and your children's children because God is that good." DiAngelo says that pastor is a racist. Kendi says that pastor's a racist. Because what you're supposed to say is, "You are a weak and helpless victim. What's wrong with you is somebody else's fault. It is the result of sin, but the sins of others committed against you. And what you need is to hold your head up high, look those people in the face and say, 'Give me something.'" How incredibly wicked. No, what I needed, what you need, what everyone who hears us needs is the righteousness that is found in the gospel. The righteousness that flows from the gospel. The righteousness that transforms individual lives, and in transforming individual lives, actually does transform families, actually does transform communities, actually does transform nations.
So what do we do when we find that our child walks through the strawberry patch and no longer likes the taste of strawberries? There's a couple of things you can do. One, just keep them out of the strawberry patch and keep giving him slushies. Or two, stop giving him slushies. Take him to the strawberry patch again and again and again until strawberries begin to taste sweet. And in case you missed it, what we do in the midst of this sin-sick age that has rejected the gospel and perverted the gospel and replaced the gospel with that which is not the gospel, is that we call out that wickedness. We call it by name. And we remind people of the good news of the gospel again and again and again until it tastes sweet to them. When people say, "No, our, our problem is this," our problem is that we say, "No, no. Our problem is that God created the world, and God created man, and he put man in the garden to keep the garden, and he gave the man a command, and he held that man to perfect, perpetual obedience to that command, and he promised him life if he kept it and death if he didn't. And he didn't keep it. He ate. And because he ate, because of that one man, sin entered the world, and death through sin. And everyone born from that man through ordinary generation inherited that man's sin nature. And because of that sin nature, sins proceed from it. And our world is broken because of that sin. And we stand guilty before a holy and righteous God. And we know that he's holy, and we know that he's righteous, and we crave justice. But the problem is that if God gives us justice, we all die. And so that God, in his goodness and in his mercy, sent forth his son, who was not born of ordinary generation, but was born of a virgin. Yes, the virgin birth matters. Why? Because if he's born of ordinary generation, he's born in sin. But because he's not born of ordinary generation, he's not born in sin. He's clean of sin. His record is clean. And he keeps his record clean. And he obeys God's law. And because he's fully God and fully man, he obeys the law of God on our behalf in his active obedience. And then in his passive obedience, God made him who knew no sin to be sin for us all. We like sheep had gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way. But God laid upon him the iniquity of us all. And Christ died for sin once for all. The just for the unjust. And God imputes our sinfulness to him, and he nails our sinfulness to the tree. And Christ dies and raises again on the third day for our justification. And there's another imputation. The righteousness of Christ is actually imputed to us, so that God can be both just and the justifier of the one who places faith in Jesus Christ. So that all those who come to Christ may enter in. So that all those who place faith in Christ might be saved. But not only saved, but sanctified, because he's the firstborn of many brethren. We're justified, and we're adopted into the family of God, and we're sanctified. And as his children, we begin to bear the family resemblance. And we're further sanctified throughout this life by the very same gospel that saves us, until one day, when it's all said and done, we're not just saved from the penalty of sin, we're not just saved from the power of sin, but one day we're glorified and saved from the very presence of sin. That's the gospel that we preach. That's the gospel that we need. And that's the gospel that's more than enough.