The Preacher of the Good News

Is a really good news, good news about sin, that it can be dealt with. Is there any good news about the meaning of life.

Is there any good news about the future life after death. Is there any good news is good. That's the gospel good news of God or you may already believe the gospel, but it's been a while since you examined its basic parts.

Whatever the case, we think you will be challenged by today's broadcast. As John MacArthur kicks off his study called, and now for the good news. John is interesting. The term good news. We get so comfortable using that we forget it Carries a strong implication that if the gospel is good news. There must be some bad news first yeah and you know in the culture were living in today. The most common modifier for news is fake right right but when it comes to the gospel.

The gospel is good news and it becomes good news because of the reality of the bad news and the bad news, of course, is the dire spiritual condition of every human being sinful from conception at birth. That sin becomes manifest in behavior alienated from God as the Bible says without God in the world broken corrupt, hopeless, helpless, unwilling and unable to come to God.

That is the plight of the sinner and there's no worse news because the end of that is eternal punishment in hell.

And that's the bad news is that bad news that gets overlooked today, even among evangelicals and there's an effort not to talk about that because it's too offensive, but against that reality.

The good news is really good news will be looking at the good news and we'll see it against the backdrop of the bad news and the best place in the Bible to go for that is the book of Romans and were to go right to the very beginning of it really was serious and now for the good news were titling it and it's going to be Romans one, 1 to 7 were going to explore the nature of man.

His fatal and eternal spiritual condition and God's intervention through the gospel.

So will look at the bad news and then will hear the good news. The study amounts really to a documentary on the gospel why Jesus came why this human race needs him and why he is the only hope of rescue and salvation and we all understand there is a lot of confusion about the gospel does need to be. The Bible is clear so were going to let the Bible shed its light on the subject. Yes, and friend.

As John said, this study is a look at what the gospel is all about how you can share it effectively and how it can transform your life to clear up any confusion you may have about the gospel and to see just how good the good news really is. Be here all this week and now here's John with the first lesson in his study and now for the good news. The thrust of Paul's introduction to the epistle to the Romans is in a phrase at the end of verse one.

The phrase is the gospel of God that is really the theme of the entire epistle. The good news from God.

A quick look at any newspaper a passing glance at any weekly magazine reminds us that in our world. The news is bad and getting worse, and what is happening on a large scale is only the multiplication of what is happening on an individual level, bad news. In fact, that has become a colloquialism in our time. Bad news you see men and women are in the grip of the terrifying power and that power grips them deep inside their own being and it pushes them to self-destruction. That power is sin, and sin makes for bad news. Just by way of capitalizing our thoughts about this, I see four major areas where sin produces bad news for the human race in their somewhat sequential and I don't offer these as exhaustive or comprehensive, but just to provoke your thinking. The first bad news that sin brings upon an individual's selfishness.

It's bad news in human existence that every one of us is bent on fulfilling our own particular desires at any price. The basic element of sinfulness is the dominance of the eye, the ego, the self man will consume everything in sight on his own lust.

You will consume things and he will consume people and he will consume himself and the ultimate goal of life is to achieve self satisfaction, self satisfaction, whether you're in business or marriage, whether you're in love man winds up perverting everything because of his selfish lust for gain for fame for dominance for popularity for money for physical fulfillment and so sin pushes humanity in to a selfish self consumption.

Somebody said we gotta use things and love people, but instead we love things and use people the end of it is that man is unable to sustain a meaningful relationship. He's unable to really love he's unwilling to give, and thus he forfeits that which is the most obvious source of true joy, selflessness, man becomes dominated by a selfish greed that alienates him from everyone and everything. Now the bad news that sin produces selfishness leads to a second thing that's also bad news man is not only selfish, he is guilty. Self consumption using people abusing people doing whatever is necessary to gain your own ends, brings about guilt because God is designed man to feel something when he sin. It's like pain. God is giving you pain so you know when your body is injured and will get help for your body.

God is given guilt as a way to tell us that we are on the wrong road and something has to change and so man is oppressed with guilt and the bad news is that man lives in anxiety. He lives in fear.

He lives in sleeplessness. He lives with psychological problems, ulcers, myriad illnesses caused by his guilt which he may try to alleviate with drunkenness or suicide or something else. Selfishness leads to a consumptive sin and it inevitably brings with it guilt and when you try to blame someone for it that only compounds the guilt because now you know you're guilty not only of the sin, but of trying to push it off on somebody who doesn't deserve it. And that gives us a more bad news for selfishness leads to guilt and guilt leads to meaninglessness man is caught in a trap of his own selfishness. It takes him nowhere but to an over burdening guilt and sooner or later he says to himself.

Is this what life is all about.

Better that I should not of been born. Life becomes an endless cycle of trying to be fulfilled when it is impossible and bearing only guilt, and in that kind of life there's no fulfillment in where there is no fulfillment. All the basic questions are asked this older is where the real answers. One of the real questions why am I alive what is the meaning of my life. What is truth how I find out what is truth, and man is fed a steady diet of lies by the consummate liar. Satan who runs the world system and the lies never really answer the question of meaning, so we never gets an answer. The news is always bad. Now we find 1/4 element in this chain of bad news that is brought about by sin and that I like to call hopelessness. You start out with a consumptive selfishness and finally wake up to the fact that it has the law of diminishing returns or it's all over and done all you have left is guilt for all you've done to get where you are and born out of this trauma and anxiety from guilt is the meaninglessness of life and born out of the meaninglessness of it all is the bad news that you've got nothing now and nothing later either. And so there is an utter hopelessness. There is no possible fulfillment in a selfish and self-centered guilt ridden meaningless life. Only the starkness of death and then what no and so people mask death, which I believe is the ultimate obscenity to most people but they mask it by laughing at it or mocking it or covering it somehow to alleviate the fear that it brings what is ultimately the worst news of all. There's nothing here and there's nothing there either. Bad news, bad news is a really good news really good news, good news about sin, that it can be dealt with good news about selfishness that you don't have to live that way.

Good news about guilt and anxiety that I can be alleviated. Is there any good news about the meaning of life. Is there any good news about the future life after death. Is there any good news, I submit to you that Paul says in verse one, there's good news and that's the gospel, the good news of God and that is what Romans is about. Paul begins in verse one with the good news of God and in chapter 15 as he draws to an end. In verse 16 he says I the minister of Jesus Christ to the Gentiles ministering the good news of God. So bracketing this epistle is the great reality that Paul is bringing good news, good news, also called the blessed good news. He called it. The good news of salvation. He called it. The good news of Jesus Christ.

He called it.

The good news of his son.

He called it. The good news of the grace of God whatever he called it was good news, good news, that sin could be forgiven.

Good news, the guilt can be removed. Good news, that life could have meaning good news that the future had a reality that was eternally glorious good news. You'd think that we were preaching the bad news. The way the world reacts but that's how twisted they are because they are under the influence of the liar. We have the good news. Now look at verse one for a moment at the phrase the gospel of God. The good news of God.

You long deli on you on galea. That term is used by Paul 60 times in his epistles, 60 times he talks about good news.

It's a very favorite term. No wonder that man lived all his life hearing bad news and once he heard the good news he couldn't help but tell everybody inside about Kindle wrote the word you long deli on signifier good Mary, glad and joyful tidings that makes a man's heart.

Rejoice and make him sing and dance and leap for joy and I think in that he really captured the meaning it's good news.

A good Mary glad joyful news, good news that God will deliver us from our selfish sin good news that God will forgive and free us from guilt good news that God will give meaning to life and make it abundant and good news that there is hope for life to come.

What you notice. Also in verse one that it is good news from God. And that's the thrust of the Greek it is from God. And it's important to Paul say that because the word you long deli on was a common Greek word, and you know how it was used it was used in the cult of worshiping the Emperor. It was connected to the Emperor, your member in the Roman Empire. The people required to worship the emperors if he were God and whenever someone from the Emperor's official party was to make a monumental announcement about some great events relative to the Emperor. It was called you on galea good news. For example, good news, the Emperor has given birth to an air that would be one way it was used or good news.

The air has come to age or good news.

We have a new Emperor as he accedes to the throne. This was the you on galea but Paul says this was, I am writing to you in Rome who are used to hearing you on galea on of the Roman Empire and I'm telling you I've got good news, but is not from Caesar.

It's from who God that's really good news because frankly, most of the Caesar's were bad news to begin. It's good news from God. They can't help but stop and think, why should God give me good news I don't deserve it.

You're right but that's the way he is. He brings good news to those who are undeserving beloved. This is good news aren't you glad for the good news. Now were going to see the seven versus and were going to watch the unfolding of the good news and there are basically Seven aspects to it. Let's begin with the first one the preacher of the good news. The preacher of the good news. Maybe it's because I'm a preacher and a minister that I find myself drawn to spend some time on this because it speaks to me so much and if you'll indulge me for a moment, I'll preach to myself how God called a unique man to be the major spokesman for the good news. Verse one Paul remember him. Paul he was that man the preacher of the good news uniquely was committed to him the mysteries that which was hidden from the past generations and peoples and now revealed as he says in Ephesians 3 in Colossians chapter 1 he was God's keynote speaker for the heralding of the good news that remarkable Jew with Greek education and Roman citizenship.

That man with incredible abilities as a leader, a fighter, highly motivated to term and articulate, brilliant, specially called and converted by God himself that matter completed three missionary journeys proclaiming the good news from Jerusalem to Macedonia and crisscrossing that territory.

Paul that very unique servant who could do miracles, and yet could not rid himself of his own thorn in the flesh.

All who could break prisons to bits. As he did in Philippi. And yet, himself, was a prisoner Paul is the preacher and may I remind you that every preacher who's ever preached since has depended on Paul's sermons for his material 13 books of the New Testament. The legacy of this man through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Now he tells us three things about himself. In verse one. First Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ. The word is slave really look at me for a minute at Exodus 21 BC if I can give you a Jewish context for Paul's thinking in Exodus chapter 21 we find out about the servant master relationship among God's people as God gives them loss to them and in verses five and six we read this if the servant shall plainly say I love my master, my wife and my children.

I will not go out free in other words, if the servant says I don't serve because I have to. I don't serve because I'm forced to. I don't serve because I'm paid to. I don't serve because I'm afraid not to. I serve because I love my master.

Therefore, I'll never go free. He became known as a bond slave that is really the essence of the word do last used in Romans one bond slave and look what happened. Verse six is master bring him to the judges and they would affirm this would also bring him to the door or the doorpost where there would be would and his master wouldn't bore his ear through with in all and he shall serve him forever if you said I want to serve out of love and I'll never leave because I love you, then you were taken to the door and right here where ladies get their ear pierced.

Which is insignificant. A very significant thing happened that earlobe was pressed against the wound and it was drilled and permanently the mark was there. I am a slave of love that is the essence of what is behind Romans 11 go back now to that portion and Paul is saying that I am a bond slave. This is something that I have chosen out of love, not fear. There were millions of slaves in the Roman Empire. Perhaps they didn't all understand this Jewish concept. Perhaps some of them did. I'm sure some of them served out of love.

But most of the slaves in the Roman world and the Greek culture were looked down on.

They were treated not as persons but as objects, tools you want, you could chill your slaves was inconsequential. Therefore, some Bible commentators are saying in this passage that Paul is using loss only in its Jewish sent that he is speaking only about the affirmation of his love, and he is speaking about the dignity of such service, and by the way, in the Hebrew use of the concept of servant someone in the highest ranks could be called a servant.

Kings had servants, ministers who minister to their royal needs and so in a Hebrew sense of servant to be a lofty term of great honor and great dignity. For example, in Genesis 2624 says Abraham was a servant in Numbers 12.

Seven it says Moses was a servant in Joshua 24, says Joshua was a servant second Samuel 75 it says David was a servant in Isaiah 20 verse three it says Isaiah was a servant in Isaiah 53 it says when the Messiah comes, he will be a servant, and so many commentators feel that what Paul is saying is I am a servant of Jesus Christ as an emphasis of the dignity of his office in a Hebrew sense rather than the demeaning Greek sent but I really think that misses the point.

Yes, there is a certain exaltation. There is a certain honor. There is a certain marvelous and comprehensible dignity at being called a servant of Jesus Christ.

There is a sense in which you weight on the Majesty on the royalty of the King of Kings and Lord of lords, and so that is true, but it's not true. To separate that from what the Gentiles would've understood about that same term for the Greek word itself. Do loss it meant abject slavery is a bond slave no dignity but humility. And I believe Paul wants us to see it in that sense as well.

He chooses to other words to speak of his servitude.

First Corinthians 3 gives us one of them.

Verse five and here obviously his emphasis is on humility, who then is Paul and who is a palace but DI could not swing at the word deacon from what it means.

Table waiter, if you look in that culture really meant busboy move away but table waiter's biome, he believed, even as the Lord gave every man I planted a polished water, God gave the increase so that neither is he that plants anything. Neither heathen waters. But God gives the increase.

Where nothing he said.

The table waiter's and later in first Corinthians 41 he says this. We are servants of Christ and uses a different word uses the word who Paredes is.

The word translated in the authorized ministers, it's who Paredes who pair means under a case comes in. The word means to row. It's an under Rourke they had a triremes ship with three decks and on those lower three decks were three levels of galley slaves enrolled those hulking ships and Paul says will you remember me as 1/3 level galley slave. That's humility you can't get any lower than that. So yes, I believe there is a there's a Hebrew thought here of dignity of honor of respect, but it is marvelously mingled with the humility of the meaning of the Greek term so that Paul paradoxically finds himself both exalted as the servant of Christ and debased as well. Expression of humility and dignity and this is an ambivalence that every representative Jesus Christ carries sometimes when I think of the dignity of what I do.

It overwhelms me.

Sometimes when I realize that I stand up and proclaim the gospel of God. When I stand up and proclaim what I have gleaned out of the word of God in the ministry of Paul in the teaching of the Scripture under the power of the spirit of God. I realize that there's no higher calling in the world and that and there is a marvelous dignity and the Bible says never speak a word against one who represents Christ, don't accuse an elder unless you have good grounds to do before two or three witnesses and the Bible says give honor to whom honor is due.

In the Bible says pay them double what you should pay them if they work hard in the word and doctrine in the Bible says respect them and the Bible says obey them and submit to them and set your life to follow their example is a lofty thing and yet there is that marvelous spiritual ambivalence that says it is the humblest kind of service because you know that whatever it is that you do.

You have absolutely no right to do it because of who you are and who you are is what Paul said in first grade industry or nobody and nothing so Paul was a certain with all that that encompassed he was a servant of Christ. That meant he had to absolutely obey Jesus Christ. And yet there was a dignity there that was marvelous. That's John MacArthur, Chancellor of the Masters University in seminary today. He began a series on what the gospel is and what it's not in the power that it has to transform your life and now for the good news that's the title of our study here on grace to you. Keep in mind you can download this series for free at our website, or if you'd like to give it to a friend. It comes in a three CD album to order and now for the good news. Contact us today our toll-free number here is 855 race where you can shop online@ourwebsitejidety.org the title to ask for again and now for the good news and also as I mentioned, you can download this series to your mobile device or computer and infect all of John's sermons 3500 total or free to download at our website TTY.and let me highlight another tool that can help you understand the gospel with our study Bible app is a free app that gives you the text of Scripture in the new American Standard the King James or the English standard version along with instant access to thousands of free study helps including blog articles, devotionals, John's 3500 sermons and more, and for a nominal price you can add the notes from our flagship resource MacArthur study to download the app again. It's called the study visit our website TTY.org now for John MacArthur on Phil Johnson.

Thanks for starting your week off with Grace to you and be here tomorrow when John looks at the greatest news you'll hear all year guaranteed is continuing his study titled, and now for the good news with another 30 minute unleashing God's truth one verse at a time on grace