Gospel—Phil Jennings
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We could start the gospel meeting this evening by singing number six.
Everyone knows here you're welcome. May not be anybody here that's not used to being here. So we're all welcome in God's presence, aren't we? He loves us and we're in God's presence. Tonight we have His Word and we're gonna speak about his Son. We have a wonderful message.
So let's sing #6.
God in.
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Just bow our heads and ask the Lord for His blessing on the gospel. Our God and Father, we want to thank Thee for the glory of God that shines in the face of the Lord Jesus Christ. We want to thank the Father that.
Thou hast chosen and desired for thy creatures to know thee, not to just know about thee, but to know thee as God and Father. And so this this evening, as we open thy word and as the gospel message is preached, we pray that it would be very clear.
And very simple and that each.
Soul in this room would be brought into Thy presence to consider the great cost that Thou hast paid so that we could be redeemed. We ask the Father for your help, for we feel very inadequate.
To show 4.
The God that we're going to be speaking about, we thank you that we have thy word to do that. We give thee thanks in Jesus name, Amen.
Start off by saying that.
I'm a honestly, I'm a pretty simple person. I'm, I'm not. I don't go into things real deep. I like to be simple. My desire tonight is that from the word of God, we come to know the one who has brought us into this world, each one of us individually, personally, because he wants to have a relationship with us.
And we want to know.
We want to find out from His word who He is and what He has done for us. And so I'm going to turn to a verse that I'm sure everyone has has known. You've either heard it or you've committed it to memory. It's John 316.
My desire tonight is that we come if we don't already have a personal relationship with God our Creator.
If we haven't personally received His offer of salvation through the Lord Jesus Christ and His death on the cross, it is my prayer tonight that every soul, if there is time, if God doesn't cut this hour short by either death or the return of Christ, it is my desire and longing.
That every soul.
If you have not been brought into a personal relationship with the Lord Jesus and you are not saved that you will be the Spirit of God will take the word of God, bring it home to your soul, make it real, and you leave this room possibly different than you came. We know this verse.
Most of us can quote it, probably pretty close.
To forwards and backwards if we tried it is the most.
One of the most incredible verses in the Word of God. It is the most one of the most simplest expressions of God, expressing his heart, expressing himself, and expressing his plan of salvation. It's the simplest explanation and revelation of who God is that will find in the scriptures.
For God.
So loved the world.
That he gave.
His only begotten Son.
That whosoever.
Believeth in him.
Should not perish, but have.
Everlasting life.
This, very simply, is the most beautiful message that God could give.
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To the human race of which we all are apart, it's his message of love. From his heart we would trust.
Thee to my heart.
To your heart, it is a message of love. We're not gonna speak tonight.
I trust from an intellectual standpoint, we're not going to try to present.
Of Scripture, but what we are going to do is we're going to speak about the God of this verse, it says.
For God.
For God.
Who is God?
Does God want you and me to know Him?
Is it God's desire that he be known?
By his creature.
Let's just answer that by going to Genesis chapter one.
Excuse me?
I wasn't planning to.
Turn to this verse. So I'm going to.
Take a little time to get there. Verse 26 of chapter, uh, Genesis chapter one. And he said, and God said, so this is, this is God speaking. God wants us to listen. When God speaks, he wants us to listen. God said, are we listening? Are we listening to what he said?
Let us make man in our.
Image after our likeness. This is the heart of God.
Not only did He choose to display His glory in the creation in which you and I live.
And we'll talk about that because we're gonna talk about who God is.
But we're gonna talk 1St about the fact that God is someone who says he wants man to have a relationship with him.
And without being in God's image and his likeness.
It would not be possible for you and I to know him, for you and I to walk with him. If we were going to turn to a the next couple of chapters, we would find.
That God's desire to have a relationship with man, His creature, was answered in the fact that when Adam and Eve walked in the garden in the cool of the day.
God came down to them.
And he walked with them.
Let's turn over to Proverbs chapter 8, just a couple of more verses.
To make it very clear that God has communed the communicated the fact that he wants a relationship with his creature man.
Proverbs, chapter 8.
Verse 30 and I believe we could say this is really Speaking of Christ. It's really Speaking of the Lord Jesus. It says then I was by him as one up, brought up with him. Now this is the fellowship that God has Father and Son. I was one, I was by him.
As one brought up with him.
I was daily his delight, rejoicing always before him, rejoicing in the habitable, habitable part of his earth.
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And my delights were with the sons of men.
Let's turn over to Revelation.
Revelation chapter 4.
Verse 11 Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor. This is a scene in heaven by the way, and the Lord Jesus is, is, is there in his glory.
Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power, for thou hast created all things, and for Thy pleasure they are and were created.
So we have received testimony, ample testimony from Scripture, that God created us for the purpose of having fellowship with His creature. If we were to turn to John's first epistle, it's a letter that is written to the family of God.
If you know the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior.
You're in that family and it speaks about.
God, let's just turn to it. These are scriptures that I hadn't planned to speak on, but they speak well of God's desire to have fellowship with you and me.
Verse three says that which we have seen and heard. Declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us, and truly our fellowship.
Is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ.
So the Word of God very, very plainly states that He created us for His own pleasure. He created us because He delighted in US, and He created us so that we would have His thoughts, so that we would be able to share His fellowship, that He would be able to help us to understand His love.
But we, we, we would be able to help. We would help be helped to understand the cost.
That it took to bring us into fellowship with himself.
And so do we have any questions? Is there any question that God has chosen to make it abundantly clear why we're here?
Well, this is the God of John 316.
For God.
How did God choose to reveal himself to us?
Is there some kind of a vague?
Umm, revelation.
That he tells us part and then we have to imagine the rest. Is that how God has revealed himself to us?
God has revealed Himself to us in three ways.
Let's turn to Psalm chapter.
I'll get there. It's in the teens.
The heavens declare the glory of God. 19 Thank you Psalm 19 The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament showeth his handiwork.
Day on to day, out of speech, night unto night, showeth knowledge.
God's creation.
Is constantly revealing to us who God is? Is it a full revelation?
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No, he didn't choose to fully reveal himself in creation.
But it is a parcel revelation of Himself. It reveals to us His power. It reveals to us His wisdom. It reveals to us His might.
But you know, God didn't leave it there. He didn't say, OK, you understand how powerful I am. Now you can figure out the rest, or you can use your imagination and you can determine what kind of a God I am. You can determine whether I have a heart of love, whether I want to be near or whether I want to be at a distance. God didn't choose to reveal himself partially.
And so if we go down in that this this chapter just keeps telling us how.
Beautifully.
God has revealed himself in creation, but when we get down to verse seven, it changes and here comes another revelation of God, it says.
The law of the Lord is perfect.
I won't go any farther, but that's the second form.
In which God has chosen to reveal himself to us. He's chosen that we could actually without the scriptures, we could go outside. We can examine a flower, we can examine a bird, we can examine a butterfly, and we can see the awesome wisdom and power of God.
And you know what? If that was the only revelation you had, there would be a certain amount of responsibility for that revelation. You would be responsible to glorify him for that measure of revealed testimony of who God is. I would be if that's the only revelation I had. But that's not God's way. So God gave us his word.
And he unfolded to us.
Who he is?
He revealed himself through the Bible.
The Word of God. And so we have the written revelation.
Of who God is and we can read this book from cover to cover and we can never exhaust how God has revealed himself to us we're going to find in this book.
That God has a certain character.
It says in first John that God is light.
It also says in first John that God is.
Love, it says in John's Gospel. It says in him was life.
And the life was the light of men.
And so.
With this wonderful revelation of the Word of God.
God has said I want you to know me, I want you to know me. I don't want to leave who I am and what my character is up to your imagination and you know when, man.
When we.
Neglect the word of God. We're leaving ourselves open to think that we can fill in the blanks as to who God is and as to what His character is. And that's a very, very dangerous thing. It says in Proverbs, there is a way that seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways.
Of death.
Didn't I just say?
In him was life.
When we turn our back upon the light of His revealed word.
The Rand result is death.
Tonight we don't want the wages of sin is Death.
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And without the gift of God, there will be eternal separation from God, but with all the revelation we have.
How could we?
Tell God it's not important for me to know you.
I'll just let this revelation go by the way, and I won't value it, but there's another way that God has chosen to reveal himself.
And it's.
I believe it's it's such a beautiful way that God has chosen to reveal himself.
Let's turn to 2nd.
Corinthians chapter.
4-5.
Chapter 4.
And verse three. But if our gospel be hidden.
Is the good news of God's love and His salvation? Is it hidden to you?
Do you either not understand it?
Or is your mind and your heart and your conscience darkened?
To the good news of salvation through the Lord Jesus. If our gospel will be hid, it is hid to them that are lost.
In whom the God of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the Gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine onto them. We've already talked about man being made in the image of and likeness of God, but that was in his state and innocence.
That likeness.
Took a turn very quickly in the Garden of Eden, although we still.
Have you might say body, soul and spirit? And I believe those things are.
One of the ways that were made in his image and likeness. Yet through the fall of sin man.
Became lost.
And the image of God was lost as well.
But here is a man.
Who is God?
And it says.
In whom?
And whom the God of this world has blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God.
You know, dear friends, the more you come to know the Lord Jesus Christ, the more you will see the reflection of God in His face. For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, has shined in our heart to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God.
In the face of Jesus.
Christ.
You know every time we get a glimpse.
Of God's Son.
We get a glimpse of the glory of God that shines unhinderedly in His face.
And so God has chosen to reveal.
Who he is?
In creation.
In the word of God.
And in the face of Jesus Christ.
What a wonderful thing it is to know this God. You know, I've read recently a little bit and I'm not one that retains a lot.
So when I read stuff I forget it really quick but I was reading about the Islam faith.
And it's nothing.
Like Christianity?
Islam's faith is not about a God who is willing.
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To send his son to die so that he can have a relationship with his with his creature.
It's not that they have no sense of their Allah.
That they have any rapport with him at all.
You know, Satan loves to keep people in ******* but there is no ******* in Christianity. God does not work.
On the principle of *******. And we're gonna see, we're gonna see the ******* that God had to deal with.
Once and for all.
There's no *******.
In the Gospel, in the message of God's offer of salvation. But there's ******* everywhere in man's religion.
And so we'll go back to John Three. I can tell this is going to be a short 45 minutes.
John 3.
Verse 16 says for God so loved the world.
For God.
So loved the world, you know, with God.
It wasn't enough to tell us that he loved us.
That would not express his heart.
It would not express the heart of God to just tell us He loved us. He had in this verse.
He had to tell us that he so loved the world.
For the kids.
For the kids, that means that God's love is this big.
So big. That's God's heart, that's his love. He is.
Has a love that cannot be measured. The only way you can measure to just say it's so big.
So how did he prove that?
If you say you love someone.
There needs to be some evidence, doesn't there?
You know, we have a tendency in our ways of saying we love somebody because we actually want something from them. That's a very selfish love, and it's not real love at all. And we didn't learn that from the heart of God because God didn't love us for something he could get from us.
Yes, He wants our love in return, but God?
Is love and he can't help it. God can't help it that his his very nature like a dog or a like a a a pig. A pig likes to wallow in the mud.
The dog wags his tail when he's happy and it just happens right with God.
His heart loves because he is love. That's his nature.
Thought he was willing to prove it.
God was willing to prove His love, and there is not a greater measure of love. Let's turn to John chapter 15.
Verse 13.
Greater love hath no man than this, than a man lay down his life for his friends.
Greater love hath no man than this.
There can't be a greater expression of love than for me to give my life for you.
That still wouldn't express the kind of love that's in the Father's heart.
You know love gives, right? It says. For God so loved the world that he gave.
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Love gives.
Let's turn to.
Psalm 22 real quick.
We're going to see the extent of the love of God.
Psalm 22 and verse one says My God.
My God, why hast thou forsaken me?
Why are thou so far from helping me?
God is just much as much light.
Holy as he is, love he has these two.
Attributes that are perfectly joined together in perfect timing, that work in perfect harmony.
And this right here is the expression of both of them.
My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? God hates sin, and it was in his counsels and in His purpose to make the Lord Jesus, that Lamb of God, to die in our place as a substitute and as His plan and purpose to take our sins.
Those sins which we have committed and we could have never exhausted the the the wrath of God regarding them.
It was God's plan.
To take those sins and to deal with them.
In the only way a holy God could deal with them, and that was there was only one person.
Who could be a sin bearer? There was only one person who could stand in the place of sinners.
And we are those sinners. There was only one person in the Old Testament. It speaks, it says to the children of Israel that they were to take a lamb without blemish and without spot. And this sin bearer that was, that was needed.
To take our place could not have a blemish. There could be no spot on his person and the Scripture is very clear that he did no sin. He knew no sin and in him was no sin. He was the perfect victim.
And yet the cost to the heart of God.
Was for him to go to that cross that we just read about. My God, my God, why?
Hast thou forsaken me?
Says later on in this chapter it says I was brought up being completely and totally dependent on you from the womb. I never deviated from obedience as a man.
I never.
Crossed your will.
And as that holy judgment fell upon him at the cross, he cries out.
In his.
Abandonment.
Only one time.
That the Son of God.
Was ever separated from God?
The thought of it.
Is almost more than we can comprehend.
But God hates sin, and he's light.
But he's also love.
And his love was so great.
That God would stand back.
Shroud.
This world in darkness.
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And pour on his Son the judgment of a sin hating God.
God so loved the world that he gave.
That's what he gave.
He gave his son to die.
To be forsaken at the cross.
We could turn to the Gospels and we could read about the three dark hours.
Where the sun refused to shine, and God laid on him every stripe of righteous judgment.
For every Sinner who would receive him as their savior. Since time is almost gone, we're going to that part of the verse.
For God so loved the world.
That he gave his only begotten Son.
And here's another incredible and expression.
Of the fruit of the Cross of Calvary.
That whosoever.
Whosoever.
Children have been asked.
Who, what is whosoever mean? And they said, well, it's me, you and it's everyone else, right?
There is no one excluded.
From the power that God now has in the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.
It says Paul could say in Romans, he could say, I'm not ashamed of the gospel of Christ.
For it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone who believes.
To the Jew 1St, and also to the Greek.
Whosoever believeth you know what there's a requirement for salvation, I want everyone to know there's a you are required to do something. You know, religion has a lot of requirements.
None of them are so simple as this.
God isn't asking you to do something you can't do.
In the sense of it being beyond your capability as a human being.
He knew he'd have to make it so simple because if he didn't, no one would be in heaven. He wouldn't have any fellowship.
And so he designed the gospel.
With the requirement of man to take him at his word.
You might say, well, I don't know that I understand the value of the cross. I don't know if I understand how those sins got laid upon Jesus. I don't know how. I don't know if I understand how God forgave those sins. God's not asking you to understand what He already knows. He's only asking one thing.
Send came into this world.
Because of unbelief.
The Garden of Eden Eden was spoiled and God's fellowship was man with man ended.
On those terms.
Because of one thing.
Man didn't believe God. That's not going to happen again. If you and I are going to come into the fellowship which we have been speaking about, that God desires with this creature, man, He requires one thing of us.
That we glorify Him.
That we say.
The work of Calvary's cross is sufficient for my salvation.
God is glorified by your faith.
And confidence in him and mine. And God is dishonored when he is not believed.
And so the RE1 requirement of God.
Is faith.
It's not something we have to get hung up on.
We don't have to say, well, how much do I have to? Well, you know, sometimes believers, they'll come away from a gospel meeting and they'll go away and they'll be, they'll be tormented inside. Have I believed enough? Did I do it right?
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Don't do that.
Because you're not trusting.
The work of Christ.
God just says accept it.
Accept it for yourself. Is there anyone here?
Who doesn't want to put their trust in the Lord Jesus?
Is there anything God has done to make you feel that way? Have you felt?
Not accepted by him? Have you felt he doesn't love you enough?
If you do, we would pray that God would further reveal His testimony that He's already made perfectly clear.
Are you willing?
To accept the fact that sin separates me from God.
It's necessary. We have to accept God for who he is.
He's holy.
And he has deemed us sinners.
And we accept his testimony we set to our seal. Thank God is true. Another verse in John 316 which I will end with.
He that receiveth his testimony has set to his seal that God is true. You know when I believe.
I'm actually just saying God is true.
I believe his testimony. Let's pray.
Our God and Father, we just come to thee tonight. We wanna thank Thee that the gospel message is so simple.
It could be summarized in four letters. Done.
The work of Calvary is finished, and the veil is rent, and souls can draw near. Father, we thank Thee that you have made the way of salvation.
Just.
Dependent.
On whether we would receive and believe your testimony, we would pray tonight for anyone in the room who hasn't received it, anyone that would walk out in danger of the judgment of God.
For we know that that is real, that your righteousness will deal with every unrepentant center.
In that place which was prepared for the devil and his angels.
Will become their destiny. We pray Father.
The Spirit of God would work, and it's in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, Amen.