The Gospel Coalition

“Let it be known to you therefore, brothers, that through this man forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you, and by him everyone who believes is freed from everything from which you could not be freed by the law of Moses.”  Acts 13:38-39

This is a royal proclamation: “Let it be known to you . . . .”  The King of the universe proclaims total amnesty for all his enemies through Jesus his Son.  This royal proclamation doesn’t say, “Forgiveness of sins is negotiated with you.”  We don’t negotiate with the King of grace.  The proclamation doesn’t say, “Forgiveness of sins is forced on you.”  We have to open our hearts.  The response God wants is that we would believe him.  We don’t believe because we deserve it; we believe based on God’s testimony alone.  We look at our sins and think, “God couldn’t forgive me.  God shouldn’t forgive me.”  But the gospel tells us to stop listening to ourselves and start listening to God and believe him.

Here is how far-reaching God’s policy is: “Everyone who believes is freed from everything.”  What do you need to be freed from?  What do you so wish you had never done?  What do you wish you had done?  What makes you say, “Oh, if only I could go back and relive that moment”?  Now listen to God: “By Jesus everyone who believes is freed from everything.”

We might have thought that God’s law was our second chance.  We might have thought that doing the right thing from now on would free us from our past.  But the truth is, the law can make us worse.  After all, what is our deepest sin?  It isn’t this behavior or that.  Our deepest sin is that we put ourselves at the center, and we expect God and everyone else to orbit around us and please us.  The law can’t save us from that.  But obeying the law — doing the right thing — we tend to think we’re obligating God and others to adjust to our self-exaltation even more.

How can we be set free both from our ugly disobedience and our cosmetic obedience?  Paul tells us: “through this man” in verse 38, “by him” in verse 39.  Not the law, but Jesus.  “Through this man” and “by him” we can come to God right now.  We might have thought, “I need to live a better life first,” or, “I have to stop doing this or that first.”  But let’s hear the policy of heaven: “Let it be known that through Jesus forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you, and by him everyone who believes is freed from everything from which you could not be freed by the law of Moses.”

Spread the word.

“Consider your state.  You are a pardoned sinner, not under the law but under grace, freely, fully saved from the guilt of all your sins.  There is none to condemn, God having justified you.  He sees you in his Son, washed you in his blood, clothed you in his righteousness, and he embraces him and you, the head and the members, with the same affection.”

William Romaine, Treatises on the Life, Walk and Triumph of Faith (Glasgow, 1830), page 305.  Style updated.

“In those days there was no king in Israel.  Everyone did what was right in his own eyes.”  Judges 21:25

The book of Judges tells a story of chaos, wasted years, stupidity, outrage and tragedy.  It narrates a significant season in the history of God’s people.

What went wrong?  The author sums it up in the last verse of his book: “Everyone did what was right in his own eyes.”  They were not doing what they thought was wrong.  They were doing what they thought was right.  But what was right in their own eyes created disaster after disaster.  They needed a king, a Christ-figure, to save them from their wretched rightness, their good intentions, their moral fervor, going by their “gut.”  “Whoever trusts in his own mind is a fool” (Proverbs 28:26).

We have a King who declares to us in the Bible what is right in His eyes.  For us, how He sees things is an adjustment.  Sometimes, a big adjustment.  Big enough to qualify as repentance.  But a careful, observant, humble, constant, lifelong searching of the Scriptures is how He saves us from our disastrous rightness and leads us into green pastures and beside still waters we could never find on our own.

“Literacy became virtually universal in Western civilization when and where it began to seem essential for people to be able to read the Bible.  All the immeasurable practical benefits that came with mass literacy, its spectacular utility, awaited that unworldly stimulus.  Clearly mere utility is not sufficient to sustain it at even functional levels, though the penalties of illiteracy are now very severe.”

Marilynne Robinson, The Death of Adam: Essays on Modern Thought (Boston, 1998), page 9.

“Woe to you, when all people speak well of you, for so their fathers did to the false prophets.”  Luke 6:26

“Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account . . . for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.”  Matthew 5:11-12

The Bible warns us against “an unhealthy craving for controversy” (1 Timothy 6:4) and guides us toward “the sound words of our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Timothy 6:3).  That is clear, and wonderful.  But a glad hyper-focus on Christ might not keep you out of controversy.  It might take you there.

When Jesus said, “Woe to you, when all people speak well of you,” he didn’t mean it’s wrong to be popular.  He did mean it’s wrong not to be prophetic.  His “Woe” falls on those who turn their backs on the true demands of the gospel rather than turn their backs on the false demands of people.

I wish I could say that if you lift up Jesus in a positive, biblical way, everyone will love you.  But sadly, some will oppose you, because their hearts are captured by other passions.  They may even be captured by good but secondary biblical themes.  But if you maintain the primacy of Christ himself and submit all else to Christ, some people will not understand you, they will have “concerns” about you, they may even forsake you.  They will point to your weaknesses, which are real, and you will learn from your critics.  But your weaknesses are beside the point.  The point is the lordship of Christ alone.  He is the controversy.

When the Lord leads you into this difficulty, you will suffer.  But remember, he is saving you from the “Woe” of Luke 6:26 and pronouncing upon you the “Blessed” of Matthew 5:11-12.  Whatever others may say, Jesus speaks well of you.

“We sit by and watch the Barbarian.  We tolerate him.  In the long stretches of peace we are not afraid.  We are tickled by his irreverence.  His comic inversion of our old certitudes and our fixed creeds refreshes us.  We laugh.  But as we laugh we are watched by large and awful faces from beyond, and on these faces there is no smile.”

Hilaire Belloc, This and That and The Other (New York, 1912), page 282.

“Then he said to Thomas, ‘Put your finger here, and see my hands; and put out your hand, and place it in my side.  Do not disbelieve, but believe.’”  John 20:27

“It is hard to imagine anything more tiresome and provoking than the conduct of Thomas . . . . But it is impossible to imagine anything more patient and compassionate than our Lord’s treatment of this weak disciple. . . .

Our Lord has many weak children in his family, many dull pupils in his school, many raw soldiers in his army, many lame sheep in his flock.  Yet he bears with them all and casts none away.”

J. C. Ryle, Expository Thoughts on the Gospels, ad loc.

“The good person out of the good treasure of his heart produces good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure produces evil, for out of the overflow of the heart his mouth speaks.”  Luke 6:45

There is, first, a technical aspect to sermon preparation.  “What do those words on the biblical page mean?”  There are ways of finding out.  Not that it’s always obvious.  But some thoughtful diligence applied to lexicons, grammars and commentaries will usually make the interpretative options clear.  Then one uses one’s own best judgment.

There is, secondly, a rhetorical aspect to sermon preparation.  “How shall I communicate this message in a clear and compelling way?  What land mines must I step around — or step on?  How should I locate this biblical truth within the world of the people to whom I am preaching, to help them?”  This requires imagination, sympathy, experience, which is more profound than technical exegesis, though the latter is not simple.

There is, thirdly, a personal aspect to sermon preparation.  “Out of the overflow of the heart his mouth speaks.”  That is very profound.  Observing preachers through the years, I am convinced this is the secret “genius,” so to speak, of great preaching.  A man of authentic humaneness, goodness, Jesus-like-ness, might not be a doctoral-level exegete, he might not be rhetorically sophisticated, but that man’s preaching will be compelling because he is compelling.  Something is flowing out of him, something of Jesus himself.  The preacher’s good heart, his core being, is well stocked with insights into and personal experiences of the living Christ.  He is therefore able to speak out of both the biblical text and his own intuitive knowledge of the Lord into the hearts of the people where they really live.  And they are helped, freed, lifted, saved.

My dad was like this.  He was a careful observer of the biblical text, but he was no world-class exegete.  He paid attention to the obvious in communicating, but he was no rhetorical guru.  His preaching had an almost uncanny effect, because his heart was good and the gospel poured out of him.  His preaching connected people with the Lord himself.

A boring preacher isn’t necessarily a bad man personally, but he might be.  A compelling preacher isn’t necessarily a good man personally, but he often is.  To neglect the personal aspect of sermon preparation dooms a sermon to technical acceptability, with maybe some cutesy rhetorical flourishes.  To submit to the personal aspect, to walk with God in total openness to him, putting him first and then preaching by faith, will make the sermon better because the man is better.

That kind of preaching is rare, because that kind of preacher is rare.