Gospel—M. Gorgas
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Found in the alone.
A piece of joy.
Joy, Lord Jesus.
Sounded me.
I saw that happiness.
Of year for them.
Nothing.
In his heart, let me go on being.
No, no.
The price concern is fine.
No other day for me.
There's love and light and light.
Joy, Lord, Jesus founded me.
Despite.
The other day for me.
There is love and life and life.
In control.
For Jesus.
Founded in.
Does anyone remember back in the meeting a little earlier, there was something we were talking about with Jacob that he did that was quite exhausting. So I remember what that was. Caleb, he wrestled any any of your boys ever wrestled? I think I caught the end of a wrestling match after dinner. You know who the last person I wrestled with was?
Sam, you know who was it? Yeah, I was your dad. Do you feel bad for me?
How long did it last you remember?
30 seconds. I thought it was a little longer than that, but you know, and at the end of it I was exhausted.
Wrestling takes everything that you have.
I was thinking about if you've been wrestling with God, how exhausting that must feel.
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And I was thinking about if you've got 45 minutes here in this room or less and you're wrestling with God, if you're wrestling with his spirit and you're pushing back against his word, how exhausting that must be. And maybe if that's what you're, you've made-up your mind to do, maybe you'll you'll do just that for the next 45 minutes. You'll wrestle and you'll try to tune it out and you'll try to make excuses.
And you'll try to oppose God.
And I pity you if that's what you're here with the intention of doing because it's exhausting and it's going to end in misery. But if you you'd be willing to submit to God tonight, you could walk out of those doors this evening with a changed heart and a changed life. And we'll just pray and commit this meeting into the hands of the Lord. Father, we have enjoyed so much about the Lord Jesus and his preeminence or his first place that he has in all things.
Today.
And we want to give you the 1St place. And Lord Jesus, we do long to see.
You acknowledged before all creation as King of Kings and Lord of Lords.
But Father, we are here with sincere hearts, hoping and praying that there will not be one left from this room.
Who will bow with the rebellious heart?
We pray that you would open up their heart this evening and pray that they would understand the gospel, that they would understand your love for them, that they would understand the love of the Lord Jesus and that they would oppose it no longer. We ask this in Jesus name, Amen.
I want to start by telling a story about a man. He's a real man. He's alive today, and his name is Bob. It's a pretty generic name, so maybe you can think about yourself as I tell the story, but Bob is a customer of ours.
And Bob started out, as I can tell, like any ordinary boy, and started out as an ordinary man as well. When he was a young boy, he was restless in school. And he would look out the window of his school, which was near a city in Chicago, and he would see construction projects on the horizon. And they were building skyscrapers and bridges. And he would.
Scribble on his notebook and dream of doing something outside of the classroom.
And he graduated from high school and he enrolled in college and.
After a while he dropped out because he wanted to. He wanted to build things. He started with nothing. He didn't have a family business he stepped into, and in the 1980s sometime he started his own construction business.
And Bob was and is a pretty sharp guy and he's pretty passionate guy. He's a forward thinking guy.
And he worked really hard. He tried to be innovative and he tried to think of new ways of doing things and new ways of including people and getting them involved. And he soon had a $10 million business that he built for with his own hands.
And he looked for work all around Chicago, and then he started to look for work around the country, and soon he had a $30 million business in just a few years.
And then he had a $50 million business.
He put everything he had into his life and he married his high school sweetheart and was deeply in love with her and they had children and he poured himself into his family.
And then he suffered loss and lost one of his children. And he had to kind of reinvent himself, he says. And he had to choose to not pity himself. And he chose to to kind of start over with his approach to life. And he continued to pour himself into his work and into his family. He had a $500 million business.
That's a big business. And eventually he had a $1 billion business and then he suffered loss again. His wife became sick with a rare disease and she passed away.
And Bob took a little time away from his work and from life and thought about things, and he decided that he wasn't going to let the tragedy define him. And he decided he would try to be as kind as he possibly could to all his workers and to his.
Customers and he would try to build things that mattered to people and he tried to share his experiences with people. And so he he went back to work with a renewed passion and he decided he wasn't going to let justice work define him. And he was going to travel the world and he was he was going to share his journeys with people and write about it. Little memoirs and soon Bob had a $5 billion construction company and today has one of the biggest.
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General contracting companies in the United States today he is the chairman of his company and Bob is worth over $1 billion.
And I pay attention to things he says because he's a he's a diligent man and he has interesting perspective.
There was something that he said this past week that really, really caught my attention.
I can't remember if I knew about this responsibility of preaching the gospel at the time, but I thought of the gospel.
And I thought that what he had to say.
Sounded quite wise if you would turn to Hebrews Chapter 9.
And I'm just going to read part of a verse there.
Hebrews chapter nine. I think we read this once already today.
It says it is appointed for men to die once or once. To die appointed you have an appointment is something you have to go to.
Before the meeting I saw some boys and girls running around here and I saw someone standing at this podium and they may have left their Bible here if you're missing it.
And there was a lot of energy.
And someone was being convicted of a crime and someone was presiding over the case and witnesses were brought to the stand.
What would you call that?
Judgment.
Would you call it a trial or would you call it a mock trial?
Was it a real trial? Did he really steal the cookie?
Or you guys didn't decide that I'd call it a mock trial, OK, It was there was number real case. You guys were having fun. It was a mock trial. This man Bob, his statement was.
December 18th.
Today is my mock death day.
Ever hear someone say that before?
My mock death day, he said. Once a year.
I think about what it would be like to die.
It sounds wise, doesn't it?
To think about what it would be like to die and what would happen once a year. I stopped to think about what it would be like to die. Why does he need to do that? Why does it say here is appointed for men to die once? Why does it say that?
Is it appointed for men to die? Will men die? Yes. The answer is yes, right? So let's turn to the beginning of the Bible, to Genesis, and see.
Where we learn that?
Is true.
In Genesis chapter 3.
We know the story may be better than any other Bible story from the Old Testament. There was a man and there was a woman and they walked in a garden in innocence their husband and wife, and they were the first created humans. They were Adam and Eve and they had fellowship with God. They walked in communion with him and a certain the serpent came along.
And tempted them to disobey God. God had said not to eat of the fruit.
And.
Eve.
Made a mistake by stopping to listen instead of dismissing.
And saying what God says is true. She stopped. I don't know how it all happened in her mind or that fateful day, what all went down, but I do know what happened at the end.
She listened, she reasoned.
She reached out, she touched, she took, and then she took a bite.
There was a word that Adam and Eve knew, and that was they the word death. They knew the word, but I don't think they really would have understood.
In its depth, what it would mean to die because they hadn't seen it before.
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And there was a feeling that she had never felt before. She took that bite.
But when she took that bite, I have no doubt that there was a little flame that started up inside her. And maybe you felt it before too, when you've disobeyed.
And it kindled and grew.
And started to overwhelm her, I'm sure, as she thought about what she had done and who she had disobeyed.
And then she did something that maybe you've done before, I know I've done in an attempt to make the feeling go away. What did she do?
Daniel.
She lied, but something that we often do with our sin Joey.
She blamed it on someone else, but then she shared it. You ever share your sin to make it feel a little bit better?
You know, if the spotlight's not just on you and you feel that flame kindling inside you and the guilt and instead of confessing the sin, you find others to to join you. Never happened to you. Well, she did that.
And soon there were two sinners.
And God knew it immediately. And they tried to hide, and God came to find them.
And he had to pronounce judgment.
After the fall.
And so in verse 19 of chapter 3.
It says, in the sweat of your face you shall eat bread till you return to the ground.
For out of it you were taken, For dust you are, and to dust you shall return.
As in Adam, all die. Everyone who is in Adam, that's that's what we have inherited. We have inherited from Adam. He was the second one who sinned, but he was the first born of the race and everyone who followed after him would die because of that sin there in the garden.
And so that verse that we read.
In Hebrews Chapter 9.
Takes its authority from what God said right here is appointed unto men once to die. And so this man Bob, what he's doing sounds like a wise, wise thing. I want to I want to tell you just a little bit more about what he said though.
Bob said my life is complicated.
I have a lot of wealth. I have.
Several families now he's had a second marriage he has he sits on the board of all sorts of charitable organizations.
He, he's tried to create a legacy and he wanted to make sure that when he died, he said one of the, I think he said the kindest thing that I could do is to make sure when I die, it's not a burden to those who are left behind. And so once a year we initiate my mock death and we alert the attorneys.
And we alert my CFO and my general counsel.
And my chief of staff and all the wheels are put in motion for my death day. My obituary is kept up to date. We keep it up to date so it's ready to go. We know what will be said when I die.
We'll put all the people in motion.
And he said they have to move quickly because if they find my body, he loves to explore and go to remote places of the world. If they can get to my body, my burial will be within 24 hours.
And so.
We want to make sure that the most important people can get there and if there's a time to share nice thoughts, I want to make sure all the right people are there and no one misses out, and, he said.
Quoting.
There will be no funeral though, because those are *******.
And so I read through everything that he said, and he has everything perfectly figured out. He knows exactly what will happen.
And then?
If there was any.
Illusion or mention of anything beyond the grave. It was this he said something about. When the Grim Reaper comes to get him, he'll be prepared.
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I'll be prepared for this world.
Beyond that, there was not a mention.
Of what really matters, he knew who would get his money.
And what his legacy would be, in his own words at least, and his mind. And he was encouraging others to do the same, to get ready for their death by having mocked death days to make sure that their death won't be a burden to others.
And I think this man Bob, missed the most important, most important point entirely. Would you say that's correct? Because he thinks he's ready or he's trying to make believe or trying to convince himself that he's ready to die and that it won't be a burden. And then after that, it's all over. Quickly bury his body. And then life moves on and his money does lots of good things.
But he has no thought about what will happen.
After that, and I want to finish that verse there in Hebrews Chapter 9 if you turn back there.
And I'm going to read the second-half of it, this time Hebrews Chapter 9.
And verse 27.
It is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment.
And this man Bob, is giving no thought or consideration or preparation to the most important thing that will ever happen in his life, where he will have to give an account of not of the good things that he did, but of the bad things that he did. And he's going to stand in front of the Lord Jesus someday, someday, and he's going to have to answer.
For his sins, and that's not unique to that man, but I'm using him. I'm using him humbly.
And with a longing heart as an example, because he has made such.
Public declaration about having everything sorted out for death and has given no thought to the one who created him and the one who spoke these words.
And you've been invited here because there are there is someone in this room who has a care for your soul.
There's someone who wants to make sure that you are ready for your death day.
And they want to make sure that.
If you think things through in your mind and you run through your your mock death day, that everything goes the way that it should. And that you don't find yourself standing in front of the robes of white and the throne and the maker and sustainer of all things, and the one who has the right to all things and the one who has a crown on his head.
And stand before him as your judge.
And he has to pronounce that you're guilty on all charges. And not a word was spoken in your defense. Not a word was uttered, nothing was brought. No witnesses could stand to defend you. No one would risk their own testimony. And your own lips were sealed as you stood before the Lord Jesus.
And then?
You're bound.
And cast.
Into the Lake of Fire.
And it was a one way.
A1 Way St.
And what was said?
And declared and determined was sealed for eternity.
Are you willing to think that scenario all the way through? Are you willing to think about your sins that are upon you?
And are you willing to go all the way in your mind through your death day?
To the throne.
Whether it be judgment, are you willing to do that?
I wanted to take a little time.
To talk about another planner.
If you turn to Genesis.
Chapter 25.
I said planner like he had a plan for everything and he had a motive and he had something he wanted to accomplish and it was all about him and he really.
Most steps of his life, he he, he knew where he wanted to go and he knew what he needed to do to make it happen. We already talked about Jacob.
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But maybe we'll just read a verse or two in chapter 25 of Genesis.
Let's start.
With verse 21. Now Isaac pleaded with the Lord for his wife because she was barren, and the Lord granted his plea and Rebecca his wife conceived.
But the children, that's plural, struggled within her and she said.
If all is well, why am I like this? So she went to inquire of the Lord, and the Lord said to her, Two nations are in your womb, two peoples shall be separated from your body, one people shall be stronger than the other, and the older shall serve the younger. So when her days were fulfilled for her to give birth, indeed there were twins in her womb, and the first came out red.
He was like a hairy garment all over, so they called his name Esau.
Afterward, his brother came out and his hand took hold of Esau's heel, so his name was called Jacob. We'll stop there. I just want to spend a few minutes thinking about the life of Jacob because.
One thing we get as we go through life, by our actions, by our words, by our acquaintances, the places we go.
What do we get out of all those things? Can anyone help me?
Experiences something of a word that starts with R.
Relationships.
Anyone else? How about a reputation?
Get a reputation. Do you have a reputation?
I think we all have reputations, right? We're all known for certain things. And you have, you probably have something that you like to be known for. But you ever think about your reputation of what someone says when you're not there or what they think when you're not there, or what they what, what crosses their mind after you leave the room? You ever think about that?
Well, this this little boy got a reputation on the day he was born.
Supplanter, he reaches out, he's born 2nd and he reaches out striving for something and grabs the heel of his twin brother. And that became his reputation and that started to characterize, characterize his life from there on out. And so Jacob he had he characteristically, he was different than his brother and his brother was a hunter and was favored by his father.
And Jacob was a different kind of man and.
Was favored by his mother.
And we don't have time to go through the entire life of Jacob, but we know that.
He sowed some seeds in his life of deceit, of using trickery to get the things that he wanted. And when his father was dying, his mother listened his father's request to Esau for some of his savory meat, and she made haste. She quickly went to Jacob and said.
I have a plan for you, but you have to, you have to, you have to do the work. And I want you to go and take from the flock and I want you to bring it to me. And we'll cook up the meat in the way that your dad likes it. And as long as we do it quickly, we'll have it. We'll have it back to him before your brother gets back from the field.
And so he he, he listened to his mother, and he acted with her in deceit and trickery. And then he goes, and he comes before his father in disguise, in costume. His father's eyes are dim. And he tells him to come near. And he says, Who is that to Jacob? And Jacob speaks a lie.
And he says that it's Esau, and he lies to his father.
And then?
Momentarily a moment later.
He lies again, and this time he lies about God.
And he comes near to his father, and he steals the blessing of his brother.
And his brother comes in and finds that his blessings been stolen and he's furious.
And he pleads with his father to have something, and he.
Goes away in anger and in such anger that he wants to kill his brother and Jacob has to live with this hangover his head. He's he's achieved what he wanted and then he that that that feeling that Eve had that that came up inside him inside her and and started to kindle and burn and get bigger and bigger.
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Jacob's life started to be more and more and more and more and more of that. The flame would start and he'd fight it, and he tried to fight his way out of it, and he tried to find another way to achieve what he wanted. And he could make the feeling go away a little bit. But then he'd see the next thing that he wanted, and he'd trick again, and he'd fight for it. And then he'd become miserable, and he'd get some of what he wanted, but it didn't satisfy him. And he'd do more and more and more and so.
The ends what he had to do.
Each time became greater and greater and greater in order to fight for what he wanted.
And then Jacob had twelve sons.
And we find that his heart and his motives and the things he allowed in his own heart are passed on in what we see in the lives of his sons, and so one of his.
Sons.
Is despised by his brothers and.
They take him.
And take his coat from him. They cast him into a pit.
And Joseph is sold into slavery.
And his brothers come back.
And they say that he was torn by a wild beast, and they had so much hate in their own hearts that they were willing to watch their father.
Here that his son was dead when it wasn't even true.
Joseph goes into the land of Egypt and he becomes in a high place in the government and the Lord has a special place for him and he he has a path that man never could have planned and through his wisdom and his listening to God, many lives are saved.
Back where Jacob is.
There's starvation, there's hunger and.
Everything that he's ever fought for is worth nothing and he can't even feed himself.
And.
He sends his sons away to Egypt to get food.
And they come back.
But we find that there's more sorrow for him.
And more sorrow and more sorrow and we'll be running short on time, so we'll just pass on. We find that there comes a point when Jacob has has nothing after all his fighting and all his planning and all his scheming and all his tricking and lying, lying to people and lying to God and wrestling with God and lying about God that he, that he has to be carried into the land.
Where his son is a prisoner and he's fed there but I.
Was just if you would turn over to Hebrews Chapter 11.
You know, we're all characterized by things as sinners, and some of them are pretty ugly.
All of them are ugly.
And if we take the time to contemplate, to think about who we really are and what we're really known for by the one who knows us could be a pretty depressing thing. But this is a gospel meeting. And that means that there's good news. And I, I wanted to read this verse. Hebrews Chapter 11, verse 21 Says by faith, Jacob when he was dying.
Bless each of the sons of Joseph and worshipped leaning on the top of his staff.
This man who had wrestled with God, who had been brought to the end of himself, who maybe walked with a limp, who really all that he had fought for had been taken away from him and knew so much sorrow and death and his family and supposed death of others and hunger.
Characterized by one name, became known by another name. He he received a new reputation and he was made into something that you could be made into, and that is a worshipper. Jacob, who was a deceiver, became a worshipper. They leaned on his staff and he worshipped his creator. But how? How?
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Can that happen?
I want to talk about the Lord Jesus. We have to Fast forward a lot of years from from Jacob's life, a lot of failure.
In God's people complete failure. And then we see that the Lord Jesus is born.
Onto this earth.
He's the Son of God.
And he came to save.
To seek and to save that which was lost. He grew up and became a man.
And he went all the way to the Cross of Calvary in order to do his father's will.
And his father's will.
Had two parts to it like we heard about earlier.
God's name had been.
Despised and.
Shamed.
By the ones who were created in his image.
And the Lord Jesus came here as a representative of God, but he came.
As man.
To answer.
To those charges.
And he suffered the hand of God to make all things right.
Concerning those who had wronged God. But then we're here this evening specifically to speak to you, maybe even just one individual who's maybe right in this moment more aware of their sins and their condition than ever. And and you feel the weight, that burden of sin on your shoulder.
And so there at the cross of Calvary, the Lord Jesus, the perfect man.
Hung between heaven and earth, but between 2 sinners.
Condemned by man, and spit upon and slapped and.
Anointed with a crown of thorns, the Lord Jesus on the cross.
Wanted to take your sins and make them his own?
Though he was righteous, he wanted to take your sins.
And bear them.
In the presence of a righteous and holy God, who would not let.
One sin go unpunished. The Lord Jesus offered to do that for you.
Because he loved you and he still loves you.
Sitting in your seat right now, the Lord Jesus loves you.
And He sees where you're headed, and He doesn't need to have a mock death day to know what will happen. And He's striving and He's sending His spirit. And He sent His word specifically to you to this very evening so that you could hear about His love and how He suffered on the cross for you, and how He is so willing to take your sins from you and make them His own and make them go away.
After suffering for them and paying for them in their entirety.
And so when he bowed his head.
Before he gave up his life.
He proclaimed emphatically that it was finished, the judgment of God was finished and sinned. My sins no more could rise. My sins that I had committed could never again be associated with me. Wash clean because of the blood of the Lord Jesus that cleanses from all sin. And right now in your seat, you have a decision to make.
You've been wrestling with God, you've been wrestling with a spirit, you've been putting off His word, you've been trying to drown it out, you've been trying to shut it out. And you have to make a decision. Maybe, maybe this will be the last time that you have to make this decision, but it'll be the last time that you get to make this decision. And so right now you stand with eternity somewhere on the other side of maybe that door, maybe just on the other side of your next step.
Eternity's there and the decision that you make for Christ.
About Christ in your seat right now will decide where you spend eternity.
The decision is, are you willing to admit that you're a Sinner?
Are you willing to admit that your reputation is disgusting before a holy God? Are you willing to say Lord Jesus?
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I accept you as my personal savior.
I am so low that there is no other way that I can come and stand in the presence of a holy God.
And I accept you, Lord Jesus.
And I accept your blood to wash away my sins. That is your decision, and no one else in this room can make that decision for you. Your parents can't make it. You can't halfway make it.
You can't make it tomorrow if the Lord takes you tonight.
That is your decision to make, and it may be your final decision. And so we plead with you that you would answer the call the Spirit, that you would answer that soft and tender voice of the Lord Jesus who wants to make you clean and new and wants to make you so you will never fear the day of judgment again, and that you will stand righteous before the Lord Jesus. When you stand there with him, you'll stand alongside him.
And he will be able to say, well done.
Because of his own work. Just commend ourselves.
Father, thank you for the Lord Jesus. Thank you that we can proclaim the gospel however feebly. But we know that your Spirit is able, and we know that your love is not constrained. And this evening we pray that if there's one who's just putting off, maybe wants to say yes but hasn't had the courage, or maybe just isn't quite there at the end of themselves.
Does not want to proclaim themselves as guilty. Pray that you would work in their heart right now and that they would accept the Lord Jesus so there be no no more answer of no and that it would be.
Once and for all, yes, we pray that they would be saved by trusting the Lord Jesus and His precious blood. And we give thank you. Give thanks for this time and His precious name, Amen.