My Pulpit Message - notes The News Is Good: Is it really? My Pulpit Message Notes are extracted from the sermon preached at the Nairobi Baptist Church (NBC) Ngong Road on Sunday 3rd April 2022. Preacher: Reverend Pinto Kali. Topic: The News Is Good: Is it really? Scripture: Romans 3:9-20/ 5:12-14 In this world of sin, the answer to this question depends on who you ask and for some, it may depend on what stage you are in life. Even in non-eternal matters, what is understood as good news depends.
This does not mean that we share it carelessly, or without loving concern for the lost, but we must share it faithfully, with Christlike love, with a sense of urgency because these are matters of eternal separation from God. However, the person who hears the good news is the one who has responsibility about how he/she chooses to respond to that news. That is why God warned Ezekiel in chapter 3, “If you declare the sin of the people to them, then I will not hold you accountable for their death, but should you have the good news and refuse to share it, then their death will be upon you.” Imagine the weight of the responsibility that we have so that you and I do not go and stand before the LORD God on that day of judgement and He says, you did not do the work that I gave you to do, there is blood on your hands.”
The Scriptures that declare the good news of the Lord Jesus Christ to us also record different responses / reactions to the gospel. The birth of Jesus for example was good news to the angels who announced it and to all who had been looking forward to the promised Saviour of humanity, Mary and Joseph, the elderly prophets; Simeon and Anna and others. But it was not good news at all for King Herod and definitely it was not good news for Satan. The Scriptures even prophesied that this good news will be received in different ways by different people when they hear that Jesus of Nazareth is the promised Messiah. Jesus Himself applied this prophesy in Psalm 118:22, “The Two points: stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.” meaning there are peo1. The dark side of the good news. ple who will reject God’s chosen cornerstone and when Jesus applied this proph2. The light side of the good news. esy, He applied it to those who were opposing Him in the time of His ministry, the Pharisees, Sadducees and others . The apostle Peter picked up the same prophesy and added on to it prophesies from Isaiah 8, 28. It says, “See, I lay a stone in Zion, a chosen we don’t have enough sin individually. We don’t have enough and precious Cornerstone and the sin as we are gathered all together. All our sins put together, one who trusts in Him will never (Romans 3:9-20) be put to shame. Now to you who past, present and future, put together are not enough to exbelieve (category one), this Stone is Romans 3 has a kind of dark precious, but to those who do not haust the grace of God. We don’t have enough sin in the whole message background that helps us believer (category two) the Stone nation of Kenya to cause the grace of God to run out. We don’t to see the light in Romans 5. In Rothe builders rejected has become a mans 3, the darkness of sin is our foCornerstone and a Stone that causes have enough sin in every nation on planet earth in this gener- cus so that we are able to recognise people to stumble, a rock that makes just how far we have fallen short of them fall. They stumble because the ation, in past generations and in future generations to exhaust the holy standards of God, too far for disobeyed the message which is also the abundant grace of God. God’s grace is abundantly sufficient us to reach God on our own merit/ what they were destined for. But you with our effort or religion because (category one) are a chosen people, a for all our sins. Praise be to God. outside of Christ, no religious activroyal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s ity, or actions, or faithfulness or sacspecial possession that you may declare the praises of Him who called you out of rifice or giving, no righteousness that is outside of Christ has any value because darkness into His wonderful light. Once you were not a people (category one), we are outside of the One who gives it value. but now you are the people of God. Once, you had not received mercy (category This is why the Scripture says ‘We are all together worthless’. That’s not one), but now you have received mercy (1 Peter 2:7-10) something we want to hear because we all want to feel that we matter, have sigThe Scriptures anticipated that there will be different responses to the nificance, have value. But outside of Christ, the Scriptures says that the darkness gospel of Jesus Christ. of sin has devalued us. There is no fear of God outside of Christ. Those of us who have received the mercy of God that is given through Romans 3:9-20 shows us that this is the dark state of our lives outside Jesus Christ, the gospel really is good news for us. of Christ, but it also shows us that sin affects us completely, totally. It affects the But for those who are yet to receive, or who reject the news that Jesus way we think, feel, speak, make choices in life and the way that we relate to one is God’s promised and appointed Saviour, the gospel is not good news as such another and to God. because it has a promise of dreadful judgement. There is a Scripture that talks about creation groaning as it waits for the John 3:19-21 Jesus speaking to a great teacher of Israel shows that the sons of God to be revealed because sin has affected the environment in which goodness of the gospel message also depends on the stage we are in life. “19 This we live as well. And if nothing is done about it, there is only one thing that is left; is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead eternal separation from God which is the final result of that state of sinfulness. of light because their deeds were evil. 20 Everyone who does evil hates the light, - Genesis 2:17, when Adam and Even were warned, ‘Do not eat of the fruit that and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed. 21 But I have warned you about, or you will surely die’, and we have been dying ever whoever lives by the truth comes into the light,” since they disobeyed that. And yet there is a second death that awaits if we do Therefore if I hear the gospel of Jesus Christ at the point in my life before not turn away from our sins. July 16th 1995, when I loved the dark pleasures of sin, the gospel of Jesus Christ This dark side of the good news is essential. It is a must that we include before that time was not good news to me, because it was news that messed up it in the message of salvation because without it, the good news is not complete. with the things that I valued before that time. However, If I hear the gospel after If you and I are to exclude this dark side of our sinful state from the message July 16th 1995, I hear it at a point that I believe that life in Jesus Christ has great- of the gospel then it will not be the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, because we er value, greater and true peace, greater joy, then at that point when pleasures of need to see that we are desperately in need of a Saviour who can deliver us and sin are no longer my joy and my value, the news will be good to me and I will make us right with God because it is only in Jesus that that is possible, but we not be afraid of the light of the gospel as it shines day after day upon my heart to must first recognise that through the depravity/hopelessness/ utter darkness of show me the ways I should turn away from. Praise be to God! It does depend on our sinful nature, we have to see that we cannot save ourselves we need a Saviour the stage we are in life. from God. - We need to understand that as we share the gospel as we ought, not everyone The dark side of sin is is an essential part of the message of the gospel will receive it joyfully. Not everyone will be happy to hear this good news. and we must declare it faithfully. - Pastor Chris Mwalwa, a former pastor of NBC, recently said, “Disbelief is not Only then will the light side make sense. a result of the lack of information, but a deliberate choice to reject the evidence.” -Therefore, you are I that are sharing the gospel are not responsible for how people receive/respond the good news. Our responsibility is to share it.
The dark side of the good news
TT 147 | April 5th - April 11th | 2022
