Hello friend, I’m Mack Lyon. The program’s “In Search of the Lord’s Way.” There will be no appeals for money in this program because it’s a Bible study and we’re presented by some churches of Christ in the area served by this station. It’s so good to have you join us today. I pray we’ll both be blessed.
My warmest greetings to you, friend! It thrills my soul to have you join our Bible study program every week, but especially so today. You see it was thirty-one years ago today (the first Sunday in September 1980) that we began this series of television programs on Station KTEN, channel 10, in Ada, Oklahoma. That means that this is one of the longest continuous television programs of any kind in America. I’m amused as I go places to preach nowadays, when as it happened recently in the foyer of a church building after I’d preached, a man with a baby in his arms and holding another by the hand said, “I grew up from as early as I can remember watching your television show every Sunday.” Oh, I’ll probably hear that many times this week with that same message. I hope so. And may the Lord bless all of you. (Oh, incidentally, we don’t call it a “show” as he did. We think of it as a “ministry.” The media professionals call it a “show,” of course.) It’s as the Psalmist said though, “This is the Lord’s doing and it is marvelous in our eyes.”
We have a strong belief that it’s still growing because it is the Lord’s doing. It’s amazing! In 30 years we’ve never one time asked for a financial offering on the air; and we’ve never sold anything on the air to sustain this ministry. The program is a ministry, a service of some churches of Christ in the area served by this station, and hundreds of other churches. You see, our purpose is revealed in the title that we chose for the program: “In Search of the Lord’s Way” to do things: the Lord’s way to be saved, the Lord’s way to live like people ought to live, the Lord’s way to finance His work, the Lord’s way to worship, and on and on and on. Well yes, that’s said to be extremism nowadays, but we don’t think so. Oh say! We’re glad you are with us today.
I’ve chosen to speak on this anniversary of the program about “God’s Power to Save.” If you think you might want a free printed copy, a free CD or an audio cassette tape of it, simply address your request to In Search of the Lord’s Way, P.O. Box 371, Edmond, OK 73083 or by e-mail searchtv@searchtv.org. Or, you may use our telephone, or your telephone I should say, and we’ll pay for the call. Our toll-free number is 1-800-321-8633. You may access it, too, along with more than a thousand other people every day, any hour of the day or night wherever you are, on our website at searchtv.org. After Ken Helterbrand leads us in a singing of a hymn, I’ll be back and we’ll read our text together. It’s Romans chapter 1, verses 13 to 17, if you would like to read it along in your Bible with us.
We’re reading from the book of Romans, the first chapter and beginning at verse 13. “Now I do not want you to be unaware, brethren, that I often planned to come to you (but was hindered until now), but that I might have some fruit among you also, as among other Gentiles. I am a debtor both to Greeks and to barbarians, both to wise and to unwise. So, as much as in me is, I am ready to preach the gospel to you who are at Rome also. For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also for the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, The just shall live by Faith.” Now let us go to God in prayer. Our Father, who art in heaven, we are so thankful, we are so grateful for Your blessings upon this ministry in the past 30 years. We are thankful for Your presence with us today as we study Your word together. Help us to glean something that will be an encouragement to everyone listening if he’s not a Christian to become so. We pray, Father, that You will bless the ministry in the years to come with the same blessings and the same growth that we have experienced in the past. We pray it all in Jesus’ lovely name. Amen!
The apostle Paul is God’s penman for the letter to the church at Rome from which we read our text a moment ago. He’d never visited the church there at the time that he wrote this letter. Some say, perhaps the church there felt that he was purposely avoiding them for some reason. But not so; he had had a strong desire and he had even planned to visit Rome, but he was hindered thereby. And he doesn’t say why, or what hindered him. He does say that he was deeply impressed with the reports of their faith which he had heard throughout the Roman Empire. And he’d kept the members of the church there at Rome in his prayers also. He’d prayed, too, that God if He willed it so, that he would visit them. And he would have the privilege of visiting them. He assured them of his love for them. As a matter of fact, he’d had fellowship with some of them in other places. In what we call the last chapter, he sends greetings to many of them by name. And he mentions Phoebe, and Priscilla and Aquila, Epaenetus, Mary, and Andronicus. Ah well, many others! Read chapter 16, and it’ll do you good.
While some nowadays deny that Paul was actually an apostle, he says he was. He said in verse one, that he was “called to be an apostle.” The Lord called Paul to a special mission to the Gentiles, “to open their eyes, to turn them from the darkness to light, from the power of Satan to God, that they might receive the forgiveness of their sins and an inheritance among those who are sanctified by faith in Christ Jesus” (Acts 22, verses 17 and 18).
Well for these reasons, and others, Paul felt a great Indebtedness to the disciples at Rome, and to all Gentiles for that matter everywhere, to preach to them the gospel of Jesus Christ. So, he wrote in verse 15, “So, as much as in me is, I am ready to preach the gospel to you who are at Rome also.” The best and the most faithful members of the church need and even hunger to hear the gospel message again and again and again! It’s a message that “never grows old” to the believer. In 1866 Catherine Hankey penned the words of that old hymn, “I Love To Tell The Story.” And in the last stanza she wrote, “…for those who know it best, seem hungering and thirsting to hear it like the rest.” Yes! Oh I say so! Amen! And amen to that!
Well, we’re first introduced to Paul at the stoning of Stephen in Acts chapter 7, verses 58 and following when he was called “Saul” at the time. It was before his conversion to Christ that he was then a bitter and a vigorous persecutor of the disciples of Jesus Christ. And in the 9th chapter we find him on the Road to Damascus, Syria to do just that to the Christians there, to persecute them, bind them, bring many of them to Jerusalem and have them imprisoned and so on. That was when the risen Lord appeared to him and called him, and sent him to preach to the Gentile world. And you can read all about that in Acts chapter 9, and chapter 22, and chapter 26. It’s no wonder that he felt so great an indebtedness to God and to others to give his life to preaching the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ! He said, “By the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me was not in vain; but I labored more abundantly than they all, yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me.” That’s 1 Corinthians chapter 15, verse 10.
Although Paul suffered greatly at the hands of the enemies of Christ, he insisted that he “was not ashamed of the gospel of Christ.” Yes indeed! Acts chapter 17 verse 22 through 34 relates to us that some of the learned men of the Areropagus mocked him when he preached to them in Athens about the resurrection of the dead and the judgment to come. And some people “beat up” on him and had him thrown in jail, bruised and bleeding he was, when he preached the gospel in Philippi in Acts chapter 16, verses 6 through 34. And he wrote the Corinthians, “From the Jews five times I received forty stripes minus one. Three times I have been beaten with rods; once I was stoned; three times I was shipwrecked; a night and a day I have been in the deep; in journeys often, in perils of my own countrymen, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren; in weariness and toil, in sleeplessness often, in hunger and thirst, in fasting often, in cold and nakedness and besides the other things, what comes upon me daily: my concern for all the churches” (2 Corinthians chapter 11, verses 24 through 28). Yet, he was not ashamed of the gospel of Christ. And, he kept on preaching! The gospel of Jesus Christ! Why? Why would he subject himself, or why would anyone subject himself, to the humiliation, and the emotional strain and the physical abuse that Paul did, to keep on preaching the gospel of Christ? Listen to what he said about that:
“I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew also and for the Gentile.” The word “power” in that verse comes from the same word from which we get our English words “dynamite” and “dynamo.” Oh, how powerful is the word of God! “By the word of the Lord the heavens were made, and all of them by the breath of His mouth. He gathers the water of the sea together as a heap; He lays up the deep in storehouses. Let all the earth fear the Lord; Let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of Him.” Webster says that that word “awe” “inspires dread; and it means fear inspired by deity.” So when you sing “What an awesome God You are,” you need to think about it. “For He (meaning God) spoke, and it was done; He commanded, and it stood fast.” That’s Psalm 33, verses 6 to 9. The word of God was the creative power that brought this universe into existence. Nine times it’s written in the inspired story of creation in Genesis, chapter one that “God said.” And every time, it happened just as God said. Yes! “The word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and the intents of the heart” (Hebrews 4 and 12).
So, Paul said, “I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ…” Why Paul? Why are you not ashamed of the gospel? Why would you expose yourself to ill-treatment and abuse as we mentioned earlier? For the praise of men? Oh no! That isn’t it. Maybe it was for the money that was in it. No, no, no! That wasn’t it either. Well, why was it then? Why wouldn’t he persecute me, subject himself to the persecution that he did to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ? Because, the gospel is the dynamic power of God to save every sinner who will believe it. There is no other power! He has no other power! But, “How shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? How shall they preach unless they are sent” (Romans 10:14).
Well yes! All of God’s words are powerful! Indeed they are! However, it’s the message of Jesus Christ, how He died for our sins according to the Scriptures, how He was buried, and how He was by the power of God raised from the dead according to the Scriptures (1 Corinthians 15:1 to 4) that is God’s dynamic power to save sinners, my friend.
So, the apostle says, “I am ready” to preach the gospel in Rome also. What an inspiration to every young man to preach the gospel! “I am debtor.” What an example to all who preach. “I am not ashamed.” What an encouragement to every man in every pulpit in the world today to be unashamed of the gospel message. What a powerful example to every gospel preacher! Most of us wouldn’t come back Sunday night to hear a “preacher” who couldn’t say: “I am ready to preach Christ and Him crucified! I am debtor to every man and woman and youth who occupies all those pews before me, to preach God’s power of salvation to them! And I’m not ashamed to stand up straight and without apology to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ-- I am debtor. I’m ready! I’m not ashamed!” Let us pray. Lord, we pray Your blessings upon the preached word that it is the power that You have to save sinners, and we pray that it will be preached throughout the land. Will You bless every preacher who preaches it? In Jesus’ lovely name, we pray. Amen!
My friend, you may be wondering why I chose this message for our 31st anniversary program. Seventy years ago I made my first attempt to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ. The Lord’s been exceedingly good to me and gracious to me, and He has used me, so that for more than half century I averaged preaching one sermon a day. The passage we used for our text and the title of today’s program has always been my theme. It’s the reason that we are able to reach all 210 television markets in the U.S. And we’re able to reach other countries by radio, internet, and satellite and television. The apostle Paul has been my “hero,” my inspiration, my example. So, “For as much as in me is, I am ready to preach the gospel,” nothing but the gospel. Why preach the gospel? Well, certainly not because it is most lucrative or popular business in the world, but because it’s God’s dynamic power to save, even the hardest-sinner.
Early in June of this year, Oklahoma City was smitten with a sudden down-pour of heavy rain. Needless to say, the area was flooded all around us. You probably saw the national TV or newspaper stories of the rescue of a seventeen-year-old girl who was rescued from those flood waters. One rescue boat sank during the effort to save her. The police helicopter was forced by lightening to withdraw from the rescue scene. The current in the flood-waters was strong. However, the young lady was able to hang on to some branches of some trees until another boat arrived, and she and the crew of the boat, the one that sank, were saved. Watching that rescue on TV reminded me of an old hymn that we used to sing in churches of Christ. We don’t sing it much any more. I wonder why? It goes like this: “Throw out the lifeline across the dark wave; There is a brother whom someone should save; Somebody’s brother! O who then will dare to throw out the lifeline His peril to share?” And the chorus says, “Throw out the lifeline! Throw out the lifeline! Someone is drifting away! Throw out the lifeline! Throw out the lifeline! Someone is sinking today!”
So, for thirty years now, we’ve been persistent in throwing out the lifeline– the gospel of our Lord, Jesus Christ. But, it’s like the beloved apostle Paul said in Romans 10:16, “They have not all obeyed the gospel.” Have you, my friend? Have you turned from your sinful ways? That’s what the Lord called “repentance” in Matthew 21:28 to 31. Have you done that? And would you do it now? In the 8th chapter of Acts there is the story of the conversion of a man from Ethiopia. Philip, who was a member of the Jerusalem church, was the teacher, and they were riding in the Ethiopian’s chariot and “as they went down the road, they came to a certain water. And the eunuch said, See, here is water. What hinders me from being baptized?” Baptized? Who said anything about being baptized? Well, as Philip preached “Jesus to him” (as we read in verse 35), he must have taught him something about baptism, that it is for the remission of sins in order to be saved (Acts chapter 2, verse 38; and Mark 16, verses 15 and 16). He confessed Christ. They both went down into the water and he baptized him. Have you been baptized? Would you? If we may assist you, we would love it.
Our toll-free telephone number is 1-800-321-8633. Our mailing address is searchtv@searchtv.org. Our regular mail address is In Search of the Lord’s way, P.O. Box 371, Edmond, OK 73083. This program is being streamed on our website at www.searchtv.org. God bless. Now we love you.
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