Let's open our Bibles to 1 Corinthians chapter
15.
1 Corinthians chapter 15, verse 1.
Let's stand for the reading of God's word.
Now I make known to you, brethren, the
gospel which I preached to you, which also
you received, and which also you stand, by
which also you are saved, if you hold
fast the word which I preached to you,
unless you believed in vain.
For I delivered to you, as of first
importance, what I also received, that Christ died
for our sins according to the Scriptures, and
that he was buried, and that he was
raised on the third day according to the
Scriptures.
Let's pray.
Father, I come before you in the name
of your Son, Jesus Christ.
Father, I know that you both search and
know the very depths of my heart and
my mind.
You know so much that is lacking within
me, Lord.
The smallness of my faith, my needy prayer
life, how little I know of your word.
But it is upon the virtue and merit
of your Son that I come before you
this day.
And I ask for his sake, and for
the sake of the people that he has
redeemed, that you would teach us from your
word, that you would make known to us
good things, that you would help us, Lord,
for we need help.
In Jesus' name, amen.
You may be seated.
Now, I make known to you, brethren, the
gospel.
Now, here's something that seems quite redundant with
the Apostle Paul in this passage.
Do you hear what he is saying?
He says, I make known to you, brethren,
the gospel.
He's making known the gospel to a people
who had already received the gospel.
He is preaching the gospel once again to
those who had already embraced the gospel.
And what does that tell us?
Today in America, the gospel, not only has
it been truncated, reduced down, watered down, we've
also come to believe that it's one of
the small truths that you learn when you
enter into Christianity and then you go on
to larger things.
My dear friend, there is nothing further from
the truth.
There is no greater truth than the gospel
of Jesus Christ.
And upon the gospel of Jesus Christ, your
faith must be placed in order to be
saved.
But upon the gospel of Jesus Christ, you
must build your life so that you might
grow.
It is the mystery of godliness and all
true piety and all true conformity to the
will of God comes from your understanding of
the gospel.
And so often we think that we've embraced
this thing when we haven't even begun.
We think we've climbed Everest when we haven't
even reached the foothills of the gospel.
I have spent the last several years of
my life in my personal studies dedicated to
one thing.
Understanding, seeking to understand the gospel of Jesus
Christ.
Several years and over a thousand pages of
notes have gone past.
And I still have not even begun to
understand what God has done for us in
Jesus Christ.
It is a magnificent obsession and it is
one that has begun on this earth, but
it is one that will continue on throughout
all of eternity.
Do you want to know what you'll be
doing in heaven?
You'll be like a treasure hunter seeking out
all the great things God has done for
you in the person and work of his
son, Jesus Christ.
It is not just some theological concept or
a set of rules that you can grasp
and then think you've mastered.
The gospel is never mastered, but it is
to master you.
It is to master you.
It is to be the control, the everything
in your life.
And you are only going to be conformed
to the image of Jesus Christ to the
degree that you understand what God has done
in Jesus Christ.
For you.
Now let me draw back here for a
moment.
I am a preacher.
And there is a sense in which I
lose touch with reality.
Your reality.
It's a crime that is committed by all
of us in the ministry.
We'll be quick to tell you how difficult
we have it.
How many burdens we must bear and all
sorts of things.
But oftentimes we do not have a clue
of what's going on in your life.
I'll go to a meeting, a small group
of people praising the Lord and Bible study
and everything wonderful.
And then people will begin sharing their prayer
requests.
You see that their lives are turmoil.
A younger man might look out of the
congregation and call everyone a hypocrite.
A man who's been in the ministry long
enough knows there's a better word.
Cosmetic.
Some of you think I'm going to preach
a theological treatise this morning.
And in fact, I am.
And I'm going to continue it on tonight.
And I expect every one of you to
be here.
But I want to tell you something.
I know that when some of you walked
in these doors this morning, you put on
makeup.
And I know that when you hear someone
like me preaching, a lot of you are
thinking, What is he doing up there?
Wrangling with words and theology and theological concepts.
My life is falling apart.
My husband doesn't love me anymore.
My wife doesn't respect me.
My children.
I don't even know them.
My job.
I don't even have one.
I've gained everything I thought I wanted.
And now I'm the most miserable man on
the face of the earth.
I want you to know that the reason
why I'm preaching the gospel today is because
you're really going through real life.
And those things must be dealt with.
There must be instruction in the full counsel
of the word of God.
Every problem you have here today can be
answered in God's word.
But it is not just building a church
or building a people on wisdom or principles.
First, it must be Christ.
It must be Christ.
I got here at 8.15 this morning
and immediately a couple from Bombay walked in
the back doors.
I spent an hour and a half with
them.
They are not Christian.
They are Hindu.
And we're going from the concept of them
trying to get out of a vicious cycle
of reincarnation through their own merit and virtue
and me telling them they have neither merit
or virtue and that it all must be
found in Christ and Christ alone.
But the same is for you who believe.
Yes, you have problems.
Yes, you have needs.
There are complex things going on in your
life no one knows about.
They're addressed in Scripture and there is wisdom
you need to learn and wisdom you need
to obey.
But at the same time, all of this
must be built upon the person of Jesus
Christ or it's nothing more than legalistic, self
-centered principles.
And you say, Brother Paul, do you think
you're laying a foundation?
No.
A foundation has been laid in this church.
Preaching has been done here.
Bricks have been put in place.
But here's the thing.
I used to preach on something in my
own church back in Peru.
I'd preach on it for six months.
Hard.
The same thing every Sunday.
And then a visiting preacher would come in,
preach the same thing I had been preaching.
And they'd all say to him, we've never
heard anything like that before.
And it doesn't demonstrate the fickleness of the
people.
It demonstrates that sometimes we just need to
hear it from a different angle.
So I know we're adding nothing new to
you today, but I will be admonishing you
that we must base our lives upon the
gospel of Jesus Christ.
Why must I love my wife?
Because Christ has died.
Why must she be more important to me
than the ministry?
Because Christ has died.
Why must I be truthful in my dealings
with other men?
Because Christ has died.
When my world is rocked and the very
foundations, human props are pulled out.
Why must I be strong?
Christ has died.
Yea, he has risen again.
So it is all based upon that.
And that is where we must go.
So Paul was constantly, constantly like a broken
record.
It was constantly over and over the gospel,
the gospel, the gospel, the gospel.
And it is not just some abstract theological
concept.
I can't stand it when I hear preachers
talk about getting practical.
They will talk about theological truths as though
they were some pie in the sky, unrealistic
thing that could affect no one's life.
And then they'll move on and say, now
let's get to the stuff that's really going
to affect our life.
Well, you can get a lot of people
in a building that way, but you can't
build a church that way.
You must understand the gospel and spend the
rest of your life understanding that gospel.
We're going to start this morning.
We won't finish this morning.
We will end this evening, but it will
not be the end.
You will spend an eternity in this task
and never find the end.
Now I make known to you, brethren, the
gospel which I preach to you.
Now, this one word preach, I could spend
days.
Let me just share with you quickly so
that we can get on.
If I walk into a building, a church
building, auditorium, and a man walks up to
that pulpit and tells me that he just
wants to share from his heart, I'm pretty
much going to get up and walk out
because I really don't care what's in his
heart.
Now, there are testimonies and all sorts of
things, and I'm not going to an extreme.
But what I'm trying to tell you, people
of God, is the greatest need you have
is preaching, preaching.
Oh, of course, you're a preacher.
That's why you say that.
Well, let me then finish.
Preaching is not an end.
So let me humble myself before you.
It is not an end.
It is a means to an end, and
the end is worship and true holiness.
You say, oh, just singing songs.
No, worship is walking.
Worship is talking.
Worship is living.
Worship is loving.
Worship is dying to self and being a
servant.
We need preaching.
But preaching without transformation is just clutter.
Preaching is probably one of the most pathetic
things that's ever been contrived.
Because without the power of the Holy Spirit,
it's words.
Words.
Without the power of the Holy Spirit, worship.
Blocks of wood coming out of the mouths
of men.
Nothing more.
What's our need?
Truth?
Yes.
Theology?
Correct.
Preaching?
Absolutely.
But let me sum it all up for
you.
God.
We need God.
I used to teach young preachers.
In order to preach, you've got to preach
with the power of God on your life.
Now I tell them, in order to tie
your shoes, you have to have the power
of God on your life.
And so he says, I make known to
you, brethren, the gospel which I preached to
you.
There's a real sense in which mass evangelism
is an oxymoron, like jumbo shrimp.
Mass evangelism.
What does that mean?
God saves a mass of people?
No, God saves individuals.
My only hope here today is that the
Holy Spirit can take one message and apply
it to many different people with many different
needs.
People are not numbers.
They have different color eyes, different color skin,
and they all bleed when they get cut.
People are not numbers.
Whenever we think about something big, that the
Lord might send a thunderbolt from heaven and
destroy the whole lot of us.
We don't think about mass, we think about
people.
We don't think about anything else.
We don't miss the forest for the trees.
It is my prayer that the gospel of
Jesus Christ, that the words that are spoken
here today, that the worship arrives to each
and every one of you as individuals, preaching
to you, eye to eye, to you.
I most certainly want you to know I
am not a prophet or the son of
the prophet, and I do not know what's
going on in your heart or the needs
you have.
But there is a God here today who
does.
Call upon him, but be ready to respond
in obedience when he answers.
He says, which I preach to you, which
also you received.
I don't have to rant and rave here
this morning about how truncated and impotent the
gospel that is being preached, the so-called
gospel that is being preached in America today
truly is.
We have so many people, you know, we're
always wanting to talk about people outside of
ourselves.
But I almost think it's appropriate to hear
physician heal thyself.
If I were to dismiss this church and
go out into this entire state, if you
were to go back to my state and
just start walking around and start bumping into
people, visiting houses, you know what you would
find?
Almost everybody in America has prayed to receive
the gospel, but very, very, very few of
them are actually truly Christian.
We have taken one of the most beautiful
passages in the world, this gospel which you
receive and turned it into nothing more than
some sort of ecclesiastical creedal system, some kind
of religious loop that you jump through in
order to get to heaven.
We primarily do it to our children.
I'll give you an example.
Get a bunch of children together, say, how
many of you want to go to heaven?
Have you ever seen a child raise their
hand and say, why, no, I'd rather go
to hell.
How many of you children want to go
to heaven?
They'll raise their hand and then you ask
them the next question.
Well, would you like to ask Jesus to
come into your heart?
Well, of course.
And so they do.
And we turn them into two full sons
of hell.
What does it mean to receive Jesus?
Does it mean to repeat a prayer?
Is that what it truly means just to
repeat a prayer?
I know one evangelist who actually did this.
He said the man came forward.
He said, do you want to receive Jesus?
He said, yeah, well, I guess.
And he said, well, then call out to
the Lord.
And he said, well, I really don't know
how to do that.
He said, well, then, you know, repeat these
words after me.
He says, well, I feel comfortable.
I feel uncomfortable saying these things out loud.
And I said, well, just say them quietly.
And he goes, well, still, I just, you
know, I just don't like what you got
going here.
And then just said, I tell you what,
I'll say the words.
And if these words mean anything to you,
squeeze my hand.
So the power of God has been so
reduced that all he can get out of
a man in the work of regeneration is
a tightening of the fist.
Now, my dear friend, we do not need
to look any farther than our own lives.
We don't need to go jumping out here
condemning everybody else.
Let's look at us.
What does it mean to receive Jesus?
It's a scandal.
That's what it means.
It means to eat his flesh and drink
his blood.
It means to take him in.
You receive him as the very substance of
your life.
He is not an accessory.
He is not a part of your life.
He is not a thing you do.
He is your life.
Now, how does that apply to you?
Be honest.
You go buy a fine piece of clothing,
a dress or some sort of thing.
And then you go out and immediately you're
looking for accessories.
Shoes and belts and buckles.
Bags to put things in.
I want you to know, if I were
to write what I see, I would have
to say that that is the relationship many
people have, so-called professors of faith.
The relationship they have with our Lord and
Savior Jesus Christ is like an accessory.
And let me just step back for a
moment.
For those of you, you dear saints, listen
to me.
If you wondered about the trials in your
life, well, let me just let you know
that the purpose of them is to cut
away everything in your life so that Jesus
does become your life.
And it's worth it.
Renoir is my favorite painter.
I love the French Impressionist.
I believe that's the last stand we have
in art before we start seeing the corruption
of man's heart coming through.
Renoir, I love his paintings.
I love Monet actually more than Renoir, but
I love Renoir.
You want to know why?
Because he tied the paintbrushes to his hands.
His arthritis was so bad, he tied the
paintbrushes to his hands.
And when they asked him, why do you
paint?
He said, the beauty is worth it.
Sufferings and trials and everything else.
Are they to be shunned and abhorred as
a work of the devil?
No, they're to be embraced.
Kiss the hand that strikes you.
The pain is worth the beauty it will
produce.
The image of Jesus Christ carved out in
your life.
And he says, which also you received to
take him in.
He is not divided up.
He is not a principle that can be
learned in parts.
To take him in.
Christ, holistically, Lord, Savior, prophet, priest, king, life
itself.
I preach to you, which also you receive
in which also you stand.
You stand upon Christ or you stand not
at all.
Upon what are you standing?
That would be my question for you.
I spoke with that couple this morning over
and over and over again.
I almost wrote like a broken record.
I stand upon the virtue and merit of
my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
I stand upon him.
He's everything.
He's the only thing.
Outside of him, I have nothing.
And outside of him, I would have no
part with God.
And outside of him, I would have no
righteousness.
Nothing in my hands I bring simply to
the cross of Jesus Christ, who I claim.
It is Christ and Christ alone.
Which also you stand.
Stand not only with regard to the salvation
of your souls.
But stand with regard to your piety.
Your daily life.
Your decisions.
Stand upon this one thing.
I have been writing an article that I
have to do bi-monthly.
One of my favorite things to talk about
is that the Christian believes or stands and
lives between two days.
The day that Christ hung before men.
The day that all men will stand before
Christ.
Every thought, word, and deed of your life
should be measured by that statement.
Which is both a blessing and a terrifying
warning.
Stand upon him and his work.
But also he is the foundation for your
convictions.
It does not matter where my decisions take
me.
It only matters that they are made in
accordance with the will of God.
Upon what do you stand?
In what do you walk?
Don't cover up.
Brother.
Sister, don't cover up.
Don't pull the sheets over your head and
don't put on more makeup.
Because personally, I don't care what you have
done or what you have become.
There is enough evil in my own heart
to sustain an entire fallen world.
The only thing that you need to realize
is this.
No matter where you are at right now.
If you will turn.
And you will be broken.
And you will confess.
And you will call upon the name.
There will be healing.
And I can assure you there will be
no judgment.
At least not from this preacher nor the
men that I have come to know while
I have been here.
Your greatest problem is sitting where you are
at.
And not opening up to Christ.
And his gospel.
I am not talking to lost people.
I am talking to believers.
We are on a road and it is
a road to conformity to the image of
Christ.
Some of you have so many problems.
So many of you are doing so many
things.
Have so much confusion.
So much fog.
And you are so afraid to let anybody
know.
So you walk in this church and you
have got paint all over your face.
Well, it is not going to get any
better.
This is a place of healing.
Remember this.
Judgment is not for sinners.
It is for sinners who will not repent.
Who will not open.
Who will not be broken.
This gospel.
It is good news.
Sometimes my wife.
I need her almost always when I am
preaching.
Because she sits on the front and she
warns me about how mean my face looks.
She knows that it is just passion.
She knows it is concern.
But at the same time she says, Paul,
they do not know you like I know
you.
They think you are mad.
Brothers and sisters, this is not dress rehearsal.
There is no dress rehearsal.
This is life and death.
This is your life.
Your wife's life.
Your children's life.
Your friends.
Your family.
This is everything.
And Christianity has got to be real.
And it gets real when we begin to
acknowledge our need of the gospel of Jesus
Christ.
I was preaching one time down in Peru.
A lady stood up right after the meeting.
It was the most pathetic sermon.
The lady stood up in the congregation.
And she said this.
She screamed it out.
She said, I came here to hear the
great man of God.
And I see nothing.
I have heard nothing.
This is the most pitiful sermon I have
ever heard.
And I look back and I said, Madam,
what did you expect out of a man?
What point am I trying to make?
The point I am trying to make is
this.
There is only one teacher here.
There is only one Christ.
There is only one Father.
And there is only one prophet.
And there is only one spiritual person really
in this room right now.
And his name is Jesus Christ.
And there is only one message that is
going to heal.
And it is the gospel of Jesus Christ.
And that is where it needs to go.
And that is where we need to go.
In which also you stand.
Verse 2.
By which also you are saved.
One of the saddest things in contemporary.
It is better to call it churchianity than
Christianity.
But one of the saddest commentaries on churchianity
in America.
Is that salvation seems like it is, well,
it is no longer enough.
We want more.
People, countless numbers of people.
Following preachers who promised them everything from perfect
healing.
To society's utopia.
To a Mercedes Benz.
If you come to Jesus, he will fix
this.
If you come to Jesus, he will fix
that.
If you come to Jesus, he will give
you a better life.
When did salvation stop being enough?
When you come to Jesus, he will save
your soul from eternal condemnation.
Is that not enough?
If you come to Jesus, he will make
known to you the father.
Is that not enough?
Now, in all these years of walking with
my God and your God.
He has given so many good things to
me.
He has been so kind.
I serve a generous master.
I serve a kind, kind master.
But at the same time, I was saved
22 years ago.
At the University of Texas.
I'm drunk.
A selfish, egotistical, the worst of the worst.
Jesus saved me.
If he were to cast me down to
the lowest part of the earth.
If he were to take away everything that
I would consider to be mine.
If I had arms left, should they not
be raised in water shopping?
Because this one thing I know, the son
of God has shed his own blood for
my soul.
And that is enough.
What should you tell people?
Let me tell you this.
I am so tired of hearing churches brag
about themselves.
Come to our church.
Why?
We have the best preaching.
We have the best worship.
You realize what we're saying has nothing to
do with it.
Come to Jesus.
And if you want a fellowship, come here.
The drawing card is not the building.
The drawing card is not the church.
The drawing card is not the activity.
And the drawing card is not the preaching.
It's Jesus Christ.
His presence working among us.
Changing us.
And not just changing us here when we
have makeup on.
Changing us in the very center of our
homes.
The very core of our being.
The drawing card is Jesus.
And he be lifted up.
He will draw.
Amen.
Damn.
Don't be confused about that passage.
Some will be drawn just to throw more
rocks and nail more nails.
But others will be drawn unto salvation itself.
Oh, what a wonderful and terrible task is
ours.
He says, by which also you are saved
if you hold fast the word which I
preached to you.
Conditional clause.
If that little nasty preposition I won't remove,
it's there.
Look what it's saying.
You are saved if.
If you hold fast, the logical opposite of
that is what you are not saved.
If you do not hold fast, you do
not hold fast.
You're not saved.
Now, what is he teaching a falling away
from grace?
That a man can actually be regenerated by
the power of God, more power being manifested
there than possibly the very creation of the
universe, that a man can be regenerated and
then lose his salvation.
Not at all.
What he's teaching is this.
You fall away.
You're demonstrating.
You never were.
And that's another thing that we must deal
with in this preaching of the gospel.
As I said before, it's not like an
inoculation or a flu shot.
You take that and then, bam, you're in.
No, my friend.
If you have truly repented of your sins,
you will continue repenting until today and you
will continue repenting until your last day.
And if you have truly believed the gospel
of Jesus Christ, you will continue believing that
same gospel until you're called home to glory,
because he who began a good work will
finish it.
But if you begin on the path, no
matter how well or how long, and turn
away from the basic tenets and ethic of
Christianity and walk in a path contrary to
the will of God, it just might be
evidence that you never knew him.
And even worse, that he never knew you.
He says, if you hold fast to the
word which I preached to you, unless you
believe in vain.
I was confronted this morning with the same
thing I'm often confronted with in university dialogue.
It's a postmodern mindset.
You say, oh, well, what do I need
to know about that?
You know a lot about it because, well,
you're influenced by it and you don't even
know it.
The postmodern mindset was simply this.
Well, you know, you have found peace, Brother
Paul, and that's good for you.
I said, no, it's not.
And they said, well, what do you mean?
In order for something to be true philosophically
and theologically, in order for something to be
true, it must be universally true.
And I said, listen, the same thing I
told a young man several years ago at
a university came up to me and he
was furious.
Young man, Jewish man.
He was just furious with me.
He said, I believe the Jews are right.
I believe the Christians are right and I
believe the Muslims are right.
And I looked at him.
I said, young man, that's logical absurdity.
He said, what do you mean?
I said, here are the possibilities.
Christianity is right and the other two are
wrong.
Are one of the other two are right
and Christianity and the other are wrong or
they're all wrong.
But it is impossible that all can be
right because all say absolutely other things.
They say other things.
So many people are believing today in vain.
So many silly things.
Now, it's not to be angry about.
It's not even to fight about, and it's
not going to be changed through some political
maneuvering or intolerance.
The gospel does not move in those areas.
The gospel moves by the power of God
through our sacrificial love, even for our enemies.
But the thing about it is there is
standing up with gentleness and mercy, standing up
and seeking to correct those who are wrong,
that God might grant them repentance.
My dear friend, Jesus Christ, as you've probably
heard, the Cambridge scholar, the scholar C.S.
Lewis, he's either a lord or he's a
lunatic or he's a liar.
But don't patronize me to say you believe
Jesus is a good man, but you don't
believe in his uniqueness.
You see, what we're doing here today is
either true or we're the most pathetic people
on the face of the earth.
When I stand in front of a university,
sometimes I look at them and I said,
look, I stand before you like a sheep
before shears, like a lamb led to slaughter.
If I stand up in front of that
university and I say, I am a seeker
of the truth, they'll all applaud me.
And then if I turn around and say,
and I found it, they'll boo me off
the platform.
But here, what must you do?
You must take a stand in love, in
mercy, in gentleness, in this pagan society and
say, Jesus is the universal truth.
He is the absolute truth.
Today, when I go around to different places,
sometimes in very large churches, the passage in
Ezekiel 13 comes to my mind about building
a wall that looks really, really good.
But when the wind or enemy or even
a fox brushes up against it, it falls.
And then the people say, where is your
wall?
If this church is held together by great
preaching, what happens when there's no great preaching?
This church is held together by this corporate
worship.
What happens if it's taken away?
This church is held up by all its
activities.
What happens when there are no activities?
This group of believers here must be held
up by Jesus Christ and a passionate, real,
vital relationship with him.
That was the introduction to my sermon this
morning.
I'm sorry, I didn't even get on to
part one.
Church, yesterday I was nine.
Today, I'm 42 and tomorrow I'll be 90.
I don't have time to play games.
You don't either.
What's going to happen with you?
What's going to happen with your life?
You need to give yourself to seeking Christ.
I go to so many churches and they'll
ask me.
I had a phone call yesterday from a
church in Alabama that has problems and such.
Can you give us any advice?
No one ever takes my advice.
I don't know why they call me.
I said, what you need to do is
all of you need to get together and
spend an entire day in prayer and fasting
together.
Seek the Lord.
Okay, but what else?
God has helped you for many, many years.
He's helped you to a man who has
preached the word of God to you in
this transition.
And from now on, you're going to need
Christ like you have never needed him before.
And that's as a collective church.
But as individuals, you know, don't you?
You know that what I'm saying is true.
There are so many parts in your life
that are not whole.
So many things wrong.
You came in here today.
You couldn't even worship.
You know I'm talking to some of you.
You're almost mad at anybody who would.
Why?
Because your life is so broken and so
messed up and so many problems and everything
else.
You say, what's the use?
You walk in here and someone says, well,
God bless you, brother.
And you say, God bless you, brother.
And you walk off this.
Why did I even say that?
Jesus really is the answer.
It's not a cliche.
He really is the answer.
You call out to him.
You cry out to him and keep crying
out until he moves on your behalf.
So brother Paul, don't you believe in the
sovereignty of God?
I believe in the sovereignty of God to
such a degree to offend most of you.
But I'm not a philosopher.
I'm a theologian.
And there's a truth in the Bible that
says God is absolutely sovereign and absolutely everything.
And there's not a maverick molecule in the
universe.
You have not because you ask not.
Ask him to help you.
Your life can be more than it is,
Christian.
It can be more than it is.
Man, your marriage can be more than it
is.
Everything can be abundantly more than what you
can even believe or ask.
I pray and turn the service over to
the pastors.
Father, help us, Lord.
Help your people with the great promise that
brings us joy.
In Jesus' name, amen.