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Offensive in his preaching? Yes indeed! Yet, he won countless thousands for Christ and established believers throughout the length and breadth of England. He further states,

“The true ministers of the Gospel humble the pride of man, and make him as nothing; they show him the wickedness and deceitfulness of his own heart, and bring his life and conduct to a comparison with the pure and holy law of God. They inquire deeply into his hope of salvation, and see what foundation he is building upon. "The lofty looks of man shall be humbled, and the haughtiness of men shall be bowed down, and the Lord alone shall be exalted in that day" (Isa. ii. 11).

William Tiptaft: Sermon on Matt1:21

In the Gospel we preach a person, the God man, who lived perfectly, died perfectly and rose again from the dead. He is the Christ of the cross. When we talk about the cross, however, we are not merely referring to a piece of wood on Golgotha’s hill. Christ was crucified on a cross and in a way it was very fitting that this should be. Why fitting? Because, His whole life had been as it were a cross. He continually laid down His rights, riches and reputation as He suffered as our substitute.

Consider this:

He had to deny Himself to come to earth in the first place----that’s a cross.

The creator became part of the creation---that’s a cross.

God became man---that’s a cross.

He was made lower than the angels --- that’s a cross!

He was a king but He was born in a feeding trough --- that’s a cross.

The King of the land ordered His death before He was able to walk----that’s a cross.

He fled in the arms of His parents and became a refugee in a foreign country----that’s a cross.

He was raised as a supposed bastard, one born out of wedlock----that’s a cross.

He lived in obscurity and no one recognized His ministry or calling for 30 years---that’s a cross.

He had the unearned hatred of men wherever He went---that’s a cross.

He willingly had His reputation slandered so that God would be glorified----that’s a cross.

His brothers and sisters thought he had become mentally unstable and publicly came to take Him home----that’s a cross.

He was the true King yet he was an outsider----that’s a cross.

He is the Master yet He becomes a servant----that’s a cross.

He is the Almighty yet He became weak and tired---that’s a cross.

He was rich yet He became poor ---that’s a cross.

He owned the cattle on a thousand hills yet, at one stage, had nowhere to lay His head----that's a cross.

He was the righteous Judge yet He willingly became the guilty one ----that’s a cross.
He hated sin yet he became sin for us---that’s a cross.

He said “not my will but thine be done ---that’s a cross.

The Christ we preach, therefore, must be the Christ of the cross but the cross of Christ is much bigger than events which culminated on Calvary’s hill. Calvary was merely the climactic event in a life which was characterized by the cross.

True apostolic ministry, then, always points people away from themselves to the Lord Jesus. The true apostle points us to a salvation that is not only by grace but a salvation which is also complete in Christ. Because of this, true apostles will not cause us to dwell on anything the Holy Spirit has done within us. They will not urge us to have faith in our sanctification or in some new way of being Spirit filled or in some new experience or blessing. True apostles, like Paul, will cause us to look to the God/Man who came to earth and now resides in Heaven. They will continually bring us to His throne to magnify exalt and worship Him who is enthroned as Lord above all (Col. 3:1-4).

In Addition, true apostolic ministry will continually point us to the righteousness, completeness and blessing which is already ours in Christ alone. Man’s way of ministry is to build up man. God’s way of ministry is to throw man down into the dust of self- distrust so that he can trust and glorify Christ alone. It is only as the cross demolishes him that the believer becomes established! This offends the flesh but it is apostolic ministry!

True apostolic ministry, therefore, will reduce and ruin any confidence we have in the flesh but at the same time raise us up in Christ who now represents us in heaven. Thus, again, we are established. Again we must stress, the righteousness we have before God is not any righteousness found in us. Our righteousness is the righteousness that is actually, at this very moment, found in the person of Christ. As Bunyan said,

“This is one of the greatest mysteries in the world; namely, that a righteousness that resides with a person in heaven should justify me, a sinner, on earth!”

(John Bunyan: Justification by an Imputed Righteousness; or, No Other Way to Heaven but by Jesus Christ.)

Christ alone, therefore, is our hope and confidence (Jer. 23:6). A true apostle knows and teaches this!

Years ago I heard a story about a church that decided to construct a building in which to meet. On the outside wall they placed a plaque engraved with the words, “We Preach Christ and Him Crucified.” Through the years the ivy grew up the wall until the plaque became partially covered and it merely said, “We preach Christ.” There are many churches of whom this could be said. They preach the Christ of the Good Example, the Christ of the Golden Rule but not the Christ of the Cross.

Years went by and the ivy kept growing until all that remained visible on the sign was, “We Preach.” We preach…that’s where so many churches are today. They’ll preach about how we can improve and be successful and how we can improve our self image and grow mature. They preach, but preaching in and of itself is not enough. Although it has pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save those that believe (1 Cor 1:21) there is a huge difference between the foolishness of preaching and ‘foolish preaching’. To have the power of God in our churches we must return to the preaching of the Gospel. A true apostle knows this!

But many modern apostles argue that they are there for the perfecting of the saints for the work of the ministry. This indeed is much needed. We could use more of this type of apostolic ministry. But to mature the saints we need to teach them to live in that which has already been accomplished. No amount of sanctification techniques or maturity formulas can bridge the gulf that sin has made. Fellowship with God cannot rest on an inward process of being made holy and mature. Christ Jesus is the way to the Father, He alone is the mediator and High Priest. We dare not return believers to having themselves and their progress as the center of their thinking! Mark this down: perfection is not something God requires at the end of our Christian life. He demands perfection before any right relationship can begin. This perfection is only found in Christ. A true apostle, like Paul, knows this!

An Apostle’s Ministry is always Gospel Centered!

The passion of apostolic ministry is the Gospel. Paul says in Rom. 15:29,

“And I am sure that, when I come unto you, I shall come in the fullness of the blessing of the gospel of Christ.”

For Paul, a visit to the church at Rome would be for the purpose of bringing the Gospel to them. This is the heart of an apostle. He did not discount the gospel as something un-necessary for believers; for Paul, it was an inescapable essential! To edify the Church at Rome he, therefore, fully intended to expound the Gospel with all its blessings and grace. A church, we conclude, is therefore truly blessed when a Gospel minister brings the message of Christ. Conversely, when the people of God sit under the message of a believer-centered life coach they are being fed a starvation diet.

According to Paul, an apostle, is set apart unto the Gospel, He writes,

Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated unto the Gospel of God (Rom 1:1).

He further writes to Timothy,

“For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus; Who gave himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time. Whereunto I am ordained a preacher, and an apostle, (I speak the truth in Christ, and lie not;) a teacher of the Gentiles in faith and verity. 1 Tim 2:5-7

He says, “Whereunto I am ordained a preacher and apostle.” In other words he was set apart as an apostle to preach Christ (The Gospel). Furthermore, he tells the Ephesians,

“Unto me, who am less than the least of all saints, is this grace given, that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ;” Eph 3:8

Notice how the riches of Christ are unsearchable! That means they are so numerous they are undiscoverable in their totality! In a sense, Paul is telling us there is no one up to the task of being a Gospel minister because the subject of the person of Christ is so vast and deep that we can only, as it were, scratch the surface. Yet many of our modern day apostles want to by-pass Christ in favor of the believer and his experience. It is as if they see no beauty in Him and nothing in Him that they should desire. The following Hymn is not on their top ten list,

“Oh, the unsearchable riches of Christ,
Wealth that can never be told!
Riches exhaustless of mercy and grace,
Precious, more precious than gold!

Precious, more precious,
Wealth that can never be told!
Oh, the unsearchable riches of Christ!
Precious, more precious than gold.

Oh, the unsearchable riches of Christ!
Who shall their greatness declare?
Jewels whose luster our lives may adorn,
Pearls that the poorest may wear!”

Fanny Crosby

A true apostolic ministry will be absorbed with the person and work of the Lord Jesus. Paul, 38 years after he was converted, still yearned to both win Christ and know Him (Phil 3:8, 3:10). When he speaks of winning Christ he’s not speaking of gaining His righteousness. He already has that! What he means is that, in much the same way an unsaved man may want to gain the whole world, the follower of the Lamb wants to gain all there is to have of Christ. That is why Paul spent his life looking unto Jesus and mining gems from the unsearchable riches of Christ. But surely, says one, we understand what we need to understand about Jesus, surely it’s time to move on to something different. We should let Andrew Bonar answer that. In his sermon on ‘Winning Christ” he says,

“If ever we begin to think that we have seen all that we need to see in the Person of Christ, we have made a very great mistake - a mistake that will affect all our after-growth. No; through eternity we shall be exploring the person of Christ. For in that person everything that is wondrous meets. There you have the Creator and the creature in one, the finite and the Infinite, the visible and Invisible. There you have humanity married to Divinity. A most wondrous mystery, the person of Christ, God-man! Let us always take Christ's person with us, whatever subject in connection with Him we are about to explore.”

But not everyone sees the awesome glory of Christ! In 2 Cor. 4:3-6 Paul says those blinded by the devil cannot see the Gospel. Too often this scripture has been presented exclusively as having to do with people outside the church. Perhaps it has larger ramification? Read it for yourself,

“But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost: In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them. For we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord; and ourselves your servants for Jesus' sake. For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, has shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

Many modern day preachers do not see the glorious gospel of Christ as being of central importance. Could it be that Satan has also blinded them as he has blinded the lost? A genuine apostle, however, is caught up in the glory of Christ and His Gospel. True apostolic preaching is not about us. It is neither believer-centered nor preacher-centered. It is about Christ. “We preach not ourselves” is, therefore, the truthful declaration of a genuine apostle.

Further, according to this scripture, it is only in Jesus Christ, our Gospel, that God’s people can have the knowledge of the glory of God. If there is no Gospel to the church there is no true knowledge of God in the Church. A true apostle knows these things.

Paul’s apostolic ministry was Gospel centered. It concerned the Person of Jesus Christ (Rom.1:3). According to Paul, the glorious gospel of the blessed God had been committed to his trust (1 Tim 1:11). Paul was enthralled that God Himself had broken into human history in the Person of His Son. Christ Jesus had come as the sinless perfect representative of His people. God had become human and, while yet remaining God, had become so identified with His people that all which He did was done not only for them, but

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