The Effects of the Gospel of Christ

Church and the Lord so well and going there and laboring along with the Whitworths. I do want to let that there will be future opportunities to go up even as individuals to help them as the project, moves along. So, if you, are interested in maybe, figuring out a time when you might want to go up there to help the Whitworths and their church, then just see Steve McCullough or Mike Barry about that. So, we fully expect that there'll be people from our church going up, over the next, year or so to help at various times.

Well, let me have you guys turn in your Bibles to First Timothy chapter one. First Timothy chapter one. And, for those of you that are visiting with us, Kathy, Dane, we are doing a verse by verse study through the book of First Timothy and as we continue in our study of this book this morning, we come to 1 Timothy chapter 1, verse 5, and, pretty much my goal this morning is to cover verse 5. of First Timothy chapter one.

And the title of the message this morning is the Effects of the Gospel of Christ, the effects of the gospel of Christ. I don't know. I, I'm not going to ask for a raise of hands, but I would imagine that there are some people in our church family that have felt battered over the last week or two with the unceasing stream of bad news that has been coming. just, daily, And, we, we need to at least appreciate the fact that bad news does have an impact, upon us.

The Bible even affirms that, hope deferred makes the heart sick, and getting hit with an unceasing stream of bad news can, can take its toll, upon, upon us. And, in light of events over the last couple of weeks, I was, drawn, this week to Jeremiah 49:23 where, the prophet is, Oh, it's not even up there. OK, just write this reference down. Jeremiah 49:23, where Jeremiah speaking of the cities of Damascus says they are dismayed.

For they have heard bad news. They are disheartened. There is anxiety. It cannot be calmed.

Let me read that one more time. They, the cities of Damascus, are dismayed, for they have heard bad. News. They are disheartened as a result of the news that they have heard.

There is anxiety and it cannot be calmed. Bad news, guys, does have an impact upon us. It can leave us dismayed, disheartened, and anxious in a way that cannot easily be calmed. I'm not recommending this, and I don't even know if it was the right thing to do, but for the sake of just my own soul, two Fridays ago, I just determined, what, I'm not going to read any more news.

I'm going to avoid getting bad news every day, so I won't even read the news. We don't get a newspaper anyway. We don't watch the news on television. so, for me, that just meant I'm not going to go online and I'm not going to, I'm not going to log on to MSNBC or the Drudge Report or anything.

I'm just going to stick my head in the sand and protect myself from the bad. news. Well, I started that two Fridays ago. the following Monday, didn't read any news.

My son comes home from school and says, Dad, did you hear the stock market crashed? And I was like, I didn't want to know that. And, so that was unavoidable. And, but I still, I didn't read any news or, or anything.

and then this past week, I was walking, two of my children. to, to Ralph's and we walked by a newspaper stand, and I don't know why I looked, but I normally there's not newspapers in the newspaper stand that time of evening, but there was, and it said stocks plummet around the world and so that instantly had an effect upon me and created some turmoil inside that I had to To battle with. And then Thursday night, I still didn't read any headlines. Thursday night, I'm in an elders meeting and an email comes to me, an email that had a news headline on it, a headline that I absolutely did not want to see.

And so Friday I got up and I said, what, Forget this. I got to read the news because in my sleep, Friday morning, my mind began to fracture manufacture its own headlines, and they were really terrible. so I thought I got to read these headlines just to keep my sanity. And so I did, on Friday of this week, but I will tell you by the end of the day, I was very unlifted up.

That's just the effect of bad news, upon us. and maybe you're feeling to one degree or another, just the sheer weight of just day after day, the unceasing stream of bad and difficult news. However, guys, even though we need to acknowledge the effect that bad news can have upon us, the Bible does speak of the impact of good news on us. In Proverbs 15:30, we learned that good news puts fat on the bones.

All right, I love that. in other words, what it's affirming is that the hearing of good news, affects us. It affects us emotionally, it affects us, spiritually, it even has a physiological impact upon us. When we receive good news, it can put fat on the bones, even contributing to our physical health.

think about it, guys. Think about those times in your life where you just received wonderful news. that blew you away. Just think about how the receiving of that good news impacted you.

I remember over a decade ago I received news after having done my taxes that unexpectedly, completely unexpectedly, I was getting $900 back., having done my tax returns, so I'm getting $900 back from the government that I did not think that I had coming to me. And man, when I got that news, it like made my day. And I still recall I was driving down eucalyptus. towards Day Street and a car swerved in front of me and, and cut me off.

But I was like, that's OK. It's OK. I got $900 back on, on my taxes. You want to cut me off today?

That's totally fine. And And, anyone could have done anything to me that day, just about, and I would have been OK with it because I was getting $900 back from the government. That's the effect that good news has upon us. And so, having said that, I can't think of a better theme to focus on than the gospel today or the good news.

Think about it, guys. What does the word gospel mean? It's the old English. gods and spell, which literally means good news, good news.

And so we're going to ponder the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ and the effect that that good news has upon us. Look at what Paul says in verse 5. He says, but the goal, and we learned last week that this word goal could just as easily be translated as effect. All right.

the goal or the effect of our instruction, that word instruction means the transmission of news literally from one person to another. And we'll see that that's pretty clearly talking about the gospel. The goal or the effect of our transmission of news is, here's the effect that it has on people love from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith. The Gospel, the good news of the gospel generates this response, these kinds of results in the lives of those who are believers in Jesus.

Now, let's think for a minute, just remind ourselves what is the good news? What is the good news that has this effect upon us? Well, we learned a few weeks ago, there's 3 basic headlines that we see in 1 Timothy. that make up the good news of the gospel.

And that is beginning in chapter one, verse one, that God is our Savior. God is our Savior, the God of the universe, the God who created the heavens and the earth, the God who is absolutely sovereign, and he turns the hearts of of kings in whatever direction he wants them to go in order to accomplish his sovereign purposes here on planet Earth. God, who has all authority in heaven and on earth, this God has employed Himself as our daily, moment by moment Savior. This is a firm in 3 places in 1 Timothy.

We also have learned that a part of the good news of 1 Timothy is that God saves sinners. God has employed Himself as a savior of sinners like you and I, even the foremost of sinners like the apostle Paul. God is in the business of bringing salvation and deliverance day by day, to those of us who are sinners. And we also learned that God saves sinners through Jesus Christ.

Christ came into the world, chapter 1, verse 15, to save sinners. And in chapter 2, verse 5, we learned that Jesus gave himself in death as a ransom for all. And the testimony given at the proper time. So God saves.

He's the Savior, he saves sinners, and He saves us who are sinners through the person and through the work of Jesus Christ on, the cross, guys, these are the headlines that we need to be reading every day. It's all right to read the other headlines, but let's not lose sight of these headlines and let us preach this good news to ourselves. Let us drink it in so that this good news can. have the effect upon us that God wants it to have day by day, regardless of whatever else may be going on around us in the world of our day.

Now, real quick, guys, Paul says in verse 5, the goal of our instruction. literally, it's the goal of the instruction and the word for news actually is in this word instruction. It's, not you on Galizo, which means good news, but it's Para on Galizo, which speaks of news that is just simply transmitted from one person to another. And what Paul is saying is the goal or the effect of this transmission of news is, and then he begins to state, the effects of it.

We have learned that First Timothy is all about the subject of sound teaching, chapter 1, verse 10, at the very end of the verse, which is according to the glorious gospel of the blessed God. Later in First Timothy, and we didn't look at this last week, Paul speaks of sound words. These are health-giving, life giving words, the words that put fat On the bones, as it were, these sound words are those of our Lord Jesus Christ, or it could be translated those about the Lord Jesus Christ.

You put those two passages together, and essentially, the transmission of news that Paul is speaking about in verse 5 is the good news.

Of Jesus Christ. It is the gospel, which tells us about Him and what He has done for us. It is words about Jesus, who He is and what He has done for us. And what we're gonna do this morning is to just rehearse the four effects that the gospel of Jesus Christ has upon us.

who are, God's people. And, and rehearsing the effects, guys, I, my, my desire is that, my hope is that we will be encouraged to keep the gospel in front of us at all times. One commentator named Lensky says this nourishing ourselves only with the gospel. Produces all of these effects that we find in verse 5.

They're never produced by feeding ourselves with myths and genealogies, even though these are spun from the Pentateuch, or from other parts of the Bible. You think of anything else you can feed on day by day, those things will never generate in you. what the gospel will generate in you, as Paul identifies it in verse 5. Let's look at verse 51 more time.

Paul says the goal or the effect of our transmission is, which is the gospel, is love, 12, a pure heart, number 3, a good conscience, and number 4, a sincere faith. What I love about these 4 effects of the gospel upon us day by day is that each of them addresses one of our core problems. Apart from Christ. Think about it.

What's the opposite of love? It's selfishness. It's a life of being just absorbed and consumed with self love, with our own selves outside of Christ, we were completely and utterly selfish. And even when we would do something for another person, the goal, even in doing that was ultimately selfish.

We also had a problem with an evil heart. and we're going to see that in just a minute. We had a defective or a bad or an evil conscience. and also our life apart from Christ was characterized by unbelief.

I don't know of a, of a more succinct bullet point way to describe the core problem of someone apart from Christ than this selfishness, an evil heart, a defective conscience, and unbelief. And there are remnants of all four of these things in us still. Even as believers. But the effect of the gospel, especially as we keep it before us day by day, is that it generates love, a pure heart, a good conscience, and a sincere faith.

Let's ponder each of these with the time that we have. The first effect of the gospel is that it generates love inside of us. This would obviously speak of love for God. And for other people.

And actually, guys, technically, this is the goal, singular or the ultimate effect singular of the gospel upon us. That's why Paul uses the singular. He says, but the effect or the goal singular of our instruction is love. That's the ultimate thing that the gospel generates within us day by day, especially as we are observing.

Absorbed in the gospel and allow ourselves to experience the reality of the good news that is ours. It's love. And this love comes from the following three things that we see in verse 5. But love is primary here.

And we're not surprised at that, because in Mark chapter 12, and elsewhere, Jesus, for example, is asked, what is the greatest commandment? In the, in the law, and he said, it's, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind, and with all your strength. And the second is this, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. Jesus is saying that the greatest commandment and all of the Bible, essentially is to love God, and to love.

other people. It's love, love for God and love for others. And as we focus upon the good news of the gospel, we experience the reality of salvation through Jesus, and we keep those headlines, those realities in front of us, we will find the gospel generating within us day by day, increasingly a passionate love for God and for other people. what, guys, I, my mind is simple.

And so I like to keep things simple. And if there's like one thing I can target in my life that in doing that, I can slay 1000 giants or accomplish a bunch of other things at the same time, then by all means, that's what I want to do. And my thinking process is this, if the greatest commandment in the law is to love God and to love other people, then if I can just do that one thing, I will catch myself doing everything else I'm supposed to do as a natural matter of course, right?

So the question then is, what can I do to generate love in my heart for God and for other people?

Well, I know I can't drum that up within myself. But I learn in passages like this that the effect that the gospel has upon me is to generate this love for God and for others. And I don't want to belabor this because we talked about this effect of the gospel last week. But by believing in Jesus, God's spirit is placed within us, that actually puts the DNA of love, divine love inside of us, we can only give to others what we ourselves have received from, from God.

And the Spirit now inside of us is producing the fruit of love. And so it's not so much like we got to go out of here and say, I'm going to love other people more. Although that's OK, but at its root, we need to be First committed to focusing upon what God has done for us, who he is, who Jesus is, what God has done for us in the gospel, and allow God through the gospel to generate this love in us, that we will then find issuing forth from us in our lives and in our relationships from day to day.

Jesus says, The Gospel of Luke, that the person who is forgiven much, will love much.

And so, if you want to be a lover of God, if you want to nurture that love inside of you, will then ponder the greatness of God, so that you can then understand the greatness or the magnitude of your sins against God, and then having comprehended that to a greater degree, you will then comprehend the magnitude of God's grace that he has given to you and forgiving you of your sins. And the more you realize the degree to which you have been forgiven, Jesus says, the one who is forgiven much will love much.

And so it is the glory of God. It is the beauty of God, the grace of God that we experience in the gospel that generates this love inside of us and increasing proportions, day by day.

The effect of our instruction, the effect of gospel instruction is love. It puts fat on our bones and, and generates within us this love for God. And for other people. There's another effect of the gospel.

And gospel instruction, and that is a pure heart, a pure heart. you think about who we were outside of Christ and what our fundamental problem was. Solomon says in Proverbs 4 that we need to guard our hearts, for from it flow the issues of life, right? So our heart is the mission control center of our lives.

The only reason we ever have done the stupid things that we have done throughout our lives is because we've got fundamentally a heart problem. And this is affirmed throughout Scripture in Jeremiah 17:9. The heart is deceitful above all else and is desperately sick. And Mark 7, Jesus says, For from within, out of the heart of man proceed the evil thoughts, fornication.

thefts, murders, adulteries, deeds of coveting and wickedness, as well as deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, and foolishness. All these things proceed from within. They come from our hearts. Now, a lot of times when someone is guilty of any of these sins, and they're confronted over these things that they have done or said, they will point outside of themselves to circumstances or to other people and say, that's the reason that I have done what I have done.

Jesus says, the reason you did what you did, and committed the sins that you committed is because you followed your heart. You allowed the evil that was in your heart to come out. All of these sins emerge from our hearts. And a mark of spiritual maturity is a recognition that all of the evil that we have ever done throughout our lives has emanated from ourselves.

It is a revelation of our own sin and evil of our own hearts. That is why the Psalmist David after committing adultery with Bathsheba, And murdering her husband and living in deception for almost a year. David's like, he begins Psalm 51 saying, God, have mercy on me, blot out my transgressions, erase my sins from the record books of, of heaven. And then I'm sure he felt like, OK, God has done that, my sins are forgiven.

But he's not content with that, to just have his sins forgiven. He knows that these sins have emanated from the evil within him. And so he prays in Psalm 51:10 for a new heart, because he realizes this is, this is where the sin has come from. In fact, in Psalm 512, he literally says, multiply to wash me.

Multiply to wash me from my sin. And by the way, that Hebrew word for wash, the way they wash clothes back then is they would stretch it out and put it against a rock. They would beat the garments with stones, they would, they would scrub, the garments against a rock. They would wring it out and go through that process, just banging it, beating it against a stone.

That was the washing process. And the psalmist David literally in verse 2 says, God multiply to wash me of my iniquity. The sin I've committed is a reflection of what's inside. And I, I, I need more than just My sins to be erased from the record books of heaven, I need to be washed.

And I need a clean heart, oh God. The fact that he would ask God for this indicates that he knows he cannot produce this himself. He realizes his problem is an inward problem. Only God can solve it.

So he comes to God with it. He doesn't say, God, I need a, I need education. I need more education. No, God, I need a new heart.

And he says, create in me a clean heart. That's the Hebrew word Bara. Which you find in Genesis 1:1, in the beginning, God. Bara, the heavens and the earth.

God created the heavens and the earth out of nothing. And David is saying, I'm not even really providing you much of anything to work with here, Lord, just create in me a heart that is clean so that I can then live out of that clean heart. Well, we are grateful as believers that in Christ, when we believed in Him, God did give us a clean heart. Hebrews 10:22.

The writer of Hebrews says, let us draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience that our hearts have been sprinkled with the very blood of Jesus, our evil, sinful hearts when we came to God by faith, the blood of Jesus touched our hearts. sprinkled our hearts, and cleansed our hearts. And not only that, but in Romans chapter 5, we learned that the very love of God, God gives us a spirit, and then a Spirit pours out the very love of God into the deepest recesses of our hearts, so that now from the heart, we can love God.

And relate to others with love, because God has put love there.

Now, I know as I talk about these things, you're, you're saying, man, I, I see the truth of that. But My heart is not a perfect heart. There is still a lot of evil that is in my heart, and, and I would confess to you the same. But what I would say to you is, do you want a pure heart?

Do you want an increasingly purified and cleansed heart? Well, the effect of the gospel upon the heart of a believer, this is, this is one of the effects that it renders day by day is to produce in a believer and increasingly cleansed and purified heart. And so live and walk enjoying the good of the gospel in your relationship with Jesus. Let God's Spirit pour out his love inside of you.

Whenever you sin, allow the blood of Jesus to be sprinkled upon your heart so that there is cleansing. and there is forgiveness, and allow the word of Christ or the gospel of Christ to dwell richly inside of your heart. So that from your heart as the issues of life flow from your heart, it would be love and purity. Coming from your heart that is transformed by God's love, as you experience it through the gospel.

The effect of our gospel instruction is love for God and others. And also, A pure heart. An increasingly purified heart. There's a third effect of the gospel upon us who are God's people, and that is a good conscience.

A good conscience. The gospel has the ability to do such a work within us to where we are increasingly finding produced within us a good conscience. You guys know what a conscience is, right? You have heard from your conscience, no doubt, at different points of your life.

For me, my relationship with my conscience has been strange throughout my life. I honestly, when I tell like my kids the story of my life, I had no conscience at all that I was aware of up until about the age of 13 or 14. I could do whatever I wanted to do, and I never felt bad about it. I would read, I'd go to church and read the Sunday school stories about a kid who stole something and then felt bad about it and then went and confessed it to his parents, and I would read that as a child and go, that they're just making this up to try to make, make us do the same thing, because I never felt that as a child.

I am so grateful that my children do. And I'm like, God, what a gift this is because I didn't have a conscience that I was aware of. Until I was a teenager. But by God's grace, something happened to me when I was about 14 or 15 years old, where suddenly it's like, I began to feel bad about things that I would do.

And that was a grace from God that kept me from many evils. and so that is the conscience, and we're going to define that in just a minute, but I got to share this with you. The, oh, what, I'm gonna slide behind anyway. OK.

The conscience is, let's define it this way, it's God's law that is written in our hearts, the moral law of God, that is written in our hearts. John MacArthur defines the conscience as the self judging faculty of man. It is that part of us that God has put inside of us, that exercises judgment. And we'll define that in just a minute.

But, this is a man whose conscience is working at least to a degree. This is a letter to the IRS. Gentlemen, enclosed, you will find a check for $150. I cheated on my income tax return last year and have not been able to sleep ever since.

If I still have trouble sleeping, I will send you the rest. That is, at least a conscience that is partially working. but we all know what that's like, don't we? there, there have been times in your life where you've done something, and your conscience awakened and began to speak, right?

and so it, it raises the question, what, what technically is the, the conscience, we've defined it as God's law written in our hearts. We actually get that definition from Romans chapter 2, where, Paul speaks of Gentiles, who do instinctively the things of the law. They don't have the written law of God as a guide, but they do instinctively the things of the law, and that they show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience bearing witness. And so the teaching of the Bible, is that all people, whether Jew or Gentile, have the moral law of God written in their hearts.

That is why even totally pagan countries have laws that say, don't steal. Don't lie. And they have many of the, the, the similar laws that we find in the written law of the Old Testament. And that is the conscience.

It's that part of us where God has written his moral law into our hearts. And it's an active part of us that actually engages in speaking to us, and wielding its judgment. That raises one more question, and that is, if that's what a conscience is, then what is a good conscience? Let me try to help you understand what a good conscience is.

a good conscience is a conscience that speaks consistently with God's law. some people over time have twisted their consciences to where, their conscience, they've trained their conscience to speak differently than God's law, but a good conscience. And in Scripture, we have references to an evil conscience. Even later in First Timothy, Paul refers to a seared conscience, that is a conscience that has been burned and silenced to where it doesn't even speak anymore.

That is the most frightening state for a person to ever be in, to where they can now sin. With impunity and never feel any guilt. They have so calloused their conscience, that it does not even speak to them anymore. But a good conscience is a conscience that speaks consistently with God's law in two ways.

Number one, regarding what is right and wrong, but also regarding the judgment that is deserved for the wrongs that are done. Understand, guys, that, the conscience doesn't just tell us, hey, this is wrong, don't do it, or this was wrong, you should not have done it. This is the right thing to do. You should do it, or that was the right thing to do.

You should have done that after the fact. Our conscience doesn't just speak that which is consistent with the law, but our conscience also speaks to us of judgment and consequences that we deserve for the wrongs that we have done. That is why if, I, I know when I was a child, I stole a set of pens, from somebody and, and in my conscience at that moment, I, I knew that it was wrong, but my conscience, like I said, was not really awakened at that point, but years later when my conscience awakened, I not only saw the wrong of that, but my conscience was telling me you need to pay.

For that, make restitution.

And so this is like 1213 years after the fact, I wrote a letter to the person that I had stolen those pens from. It was a pen set for 395. I still remember that price tag. It just burned into my, my brain and I sent them money and asked their forgiveness for, Having done what I had done, our conscience not only speaks to us of what's right and wrong, but even regarding the judgment that is deserved.

And technically, guys, a good conscience tells us not only what's right and wrong, but it speaks consistently with the law of God, and tells us that we deserve death. For the sins that we have committed. A good conscience will tell us that. Look at the God you have sinned against.

You deserve. Serious penalty. And death. For those sins that you have committed.

That's what the law speaks. And our conscience is the law of God written in our hearts. But guys, a good conscience does what I just described, but a good conscience does one more thing. And that is it accepts the verdict of the cross.

Amen. there are people that, their conscience will speak clearly to them of what's right and wrong, and tell them you did the wrong thing yesterday when you did such and such, and you deserve condemnation for having done what you did, and their conscience is working on all cylinders when it comes to that. But they still don't have a good conscience, because their conscience does not embrace and accept the verdict of the cross. A good conscience is one that says all that I have said, that it says, but that you can then take that conscience to the cross and say, conscience, I want you to see Jesus on that cross, dying for my sins, that I might be forgiven.

And a good conscience will say, I accept that. I accept that. And I will not torment you. For the sins that you have committed.

The gospel generates within us a love for God and others, an increasingly purified heart. And it also generates within us a good conscience. one that speaks rightly, the more trained it becomes consistently with God's word regarding what's right and wrong, and even the judgment deserved, but it embraces the verdict of the cross. And you might want to add that a good conscience is also a conscience that is heard when it speaks.

That we deem it to be a good conscience when it speaks to us. We deem it good. And so we embrace it, and we allow our biblically informed conscience to work on all cylinders, and to be a help and a guide and view our conscience as a grace from God. The gospel generates within us a good, healthy, sound conscience.

That embraces the verdict of the cross. There's a final effect that the gospel generates within us as we focus day by day upon the good news of the gospel, and that is that it generates within us a sincere faith, a sincere faith. Think about it, guys. What does Romans 10:17 say?

Faith comes by hearing and hearing by what? The word of Christ. So if you want to have a blooming faith in God, then you want to be hearing, you want to be, being taught the gospel, you want to be speaking the gospel to yourself. You want to hear the truth of the gospel, because faith inside of us.

comes by hearing, and that hearing comes by the Word of Christ or the gospel of Christ. And as we do live underneath gospel instruction in the household of God, as we keep the gospel before us, and enjoy this good news every single day, we will find growing and blooming inside of us, a faith in God, a faith that is bold, a faith that believes the promises of God, a faith that is real, as opposed to fake. When Paul says a sincere faith, part of what he's saying is it is a faith that is genuine, and not a merely professed faith.

There are many in the church, that profess faith in Jesus, but they do not have a sincere or genuine faith in Him.

But if you want a genuine faith in him, and a faith that is not just barely alive, but a faith that waxes strong, then you will want to live and walk with the gospel in front of your face at all times. Also, just one comment here. The word that is translated sincere has the idea of unhypocritical, which literally means no masks. To be a hypocrite means to wear a mask.

Why do we wear masks? We put masks on to maybe hide something about ourselves that we're wanting to conceal. Or we'll put on a mask that has features on that mask that create an illusion that we possess things that we don't really possess, but at its core, it is founded on deception, hiding behind the mask and trying to put on a good front to other people. And I think part of what Paul is saying, guys, is that The gospel generates within us not just faith, but a walk of faith that is characterized by honesty, sincerity.

Genuineness and transparency. The gospel, we, we, we all hide. that's just like Adam and Eve did in the garden after they sinned, the first thing they did is they hid. They both hid from each other.

And they also hid from God when he came walking through the garden. But the gospel has the effect upon us of just causing us to take all of the masts and lay them down and say, what, the cross has already outed me and exposed me for the sinner that I am. So the worst Gossip that could ever be whispered about me has been blared from Calvary. And so I've already been exposed for the sinner that I am.

And so what is there left to hide? So I will come out from behind the mask, and I will live before God. I will love him. I will have faith in him, and I will have a walk of faith with my brothers and sisters that is not characterized by hypocrisy, but characterized by genuineness.

By transparency. By openness, And by not trying to put on a front to make them think I'm something that I'm not, Or by not putting on a mask to conceal something that is true of me, That should be known that I might receive the help that I need. Guys, as you go throughout your day today and you go throughout your week, I can probably guarantee you that you're going to be hit with an onslaught of bad news. that's a part of life in a fallen world.

But praise be to God in the midst of all that we encounter, as we walk this planet, there are some screaming headlines that are eternally good news. that God wants us to be gazing upon, reading these headlines, soaking them in. And allowing these good news headlines to put fat on our bones. And what is that fat on our bones?

It is love for God that that explodes out of the increasingly purified heart, increasingly good conscience, and increasingly sincere faith that God through the gospel is generating inside of us. Let us, let us. Walk this week with this good news before us always. Let me ask you to bow your heads.

God is good. To give us Good news. We deserve to have received from God some really bad news. And that's all, but, But from this God, we have received.

Phenomenally good news. And yet, How often do we read these headlines? How often do we make these headlines a part of the instruction that we give to our children? The instruction that we give to those that we minister to, How much do we prize, The value of sitting under gospel instruction.

What priority do we give that in our lives? Guys, do not Do not walk out of here resolving to love more. To believe more. To Have a good conscience.

To purify your heart. Do not walk out of here merely resolving to do these things. Walk out of here resolving. To more fully embrace and behold.

The glorious gospel of Jesus Christ. To live and breathe the atmosphere of this gospel. And to experience all of the bounty that is yours through Jesus. And I guarantee you, you will find these four effects.

gradually, day by day, being generated and nurtured within you. Lord, we need pure heart, a good conscience, the sincere faith. We need to love you more. To love each other more, to love the lost more.

And this is why you have been good to give us, Salvation through Jesus. This is why day by day, We have the riches that we have in Christ. This is why you have given to us the gospel, a gift that keeps on giving to us all that we need for life and godliness. So help us to behold this.

To read these things, to obsess on these things, that we might experience the effects that you have designed the gospel of Jesus Christ to wield. In our lives. We thank you now for how you will transform us as we behold this good news each day. We give ourselves to you in the name of Jesus.

And all God's people said, Closing this one more time sing the, Give us Clean Hands.