The Gospel

This is a lesson I taught this past Saturday. It was somewhat on the fly, so it's not as drawn out as I would have loved for it to have been, but it was still a pleasure to speak on the majesties of the Gospel. Enjoy!!

The Gospel

Who is the Gospel (Good News) for?

· “The Gospel is for unbelievers, so that they can become Christians.”

· The “front-door” message of Christianity.

· Once you’re in, you use the Gospel on others.

· This is only partly true.

· The Gospel is for unbelievers.

· The Gospel is the message that brings people into the Kingdom of God.

· But is that all?

· Read Romans 1:14-17.

· Paul says he is “eager to preach the Gospel” to the recipients of this letter.

· Who is that? Read verse 7.

· To the Church? To those who were already considered “saints”?

· Did Paul not get the memo that the Gospel is only about evangelism?

· Why is he trying to “win souls” in a place that’s already been won?

· Seems redundant.

· Or does Paul know something else about the use of the Gospel?

· Look at verse 16. What does it say that the Gospel is the “power of God for”?

· Conversion? No, what does it say?

· Salvation.

· So, apparently, the Church at Rome had not been saved.

· What does this mean?

· I think sometimes we have too narrow an understanding of this word.

· When we hear this word, we think of Heaven.

· We’ve been “saved”.

· Therefore, the Gospel has done its powerful work—in our “salvation”.

· But the word has a deeper meaning than just “being a Christian.”

· It has to do with the whole process of salvation—from conversion until we are glorified when Jesus returns.

· So, if we have not been “saved” completely yet, then should the Gospel still have power in our lives?

· Yes!

· The Gospel is not for the “lost” only—it’s for sinners.

· Let me ask you something—are you still a sinner? Anybody perfected themselves to the point of never sinning yet?

· If you’re confused on whether you have, ask your neighbor—they’ll tell you.

· If you’re still a sinner, you still need the Gospel’s power.

What is the Gospel?

· So, then, if we need it’s power to live, then what is the Gospel?

· What is the Gospel?

· Well, the Good News actually begins with some very bad news.

· We are all guilty before God.

· Our lies, stealing, and pride make us guilty before God.

· We are all guilty of many, many sins before God.

· We all deserve the just condemnation of God when we die.

· We deserve Hell.

· So far, that sounds like terrible news.

· “But God,” as it says in Ephesians 2, “being rich in mercy, according to the great love with which He has loved us”.

· This is the Good News part.

· The Good News is that “For our sake, He made Him who knew no sin to be sin, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.”

· “He Himself bore our sin in His body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness.”

· “In Him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace.”

· The Good News is that, despite our inability to accomplish our own righteousness, God has offered us righteousness in His presence because of the One who did live obediently.

· And His name is? Jesus

· Jesus lived obediently to God, and died on a Cross “for our sake” according to 2 Corinthians 5:21.

· We deserved the punishment, Jesus took it for us.

· Because of Him, those who have put their trust in Him get His goodness accounted to them before God, and their sin went on Jesus at the Cross.

· This is the Gospel—the Good News that Jesus died to pay for our sins against God.

· And I’m sure this seems pretty simple to you as well.

· This is why Paul said that most of the world rejects it—it’s too simple.

· They call it “foolish” according to I Corinthians 1.

· Why foolishness?

· Because it goes against our prideful hearts.

· See, we are all natural born moralists.

· Our hearts naturally think that we can “make up” for our sins by doing something in return.

· That is the way we all tend to go.

· We think that if we make a “mistake,” we can make up for it by doing something nice in return—like a balancing scale.

· I forgot to read my Bible this morning—so, I’ll read 2 Chapters tomorrow and God will be happy with me again.

· I hit my brother, so I’ll buy him some ice cream, and then me and God will be back to even.

· I ran over my neighbor’s cat—well, that might actually be considered a good work, so…

· We naturally try to make up for our sins by doing something good.

· But that is the opposite of the Gospel.

· The Gospel says that, despite our sins, we are still righteous before God because Christ is our goodness.

· In light of that, why then would we try to pay for our own sins too?

· This is not at all saying that you shouldn’t show repentance for your sins—if you failed to read your Bible, read it the next day; if you hit your brother, you should seek his forgiveness; if you hit your neighbor’s cat, you should tell them to get a dog.

· But the point of the Gospel is that sinners who trust in Christ can have their entire fine paid by Him.

· So, the Gospel is not just about “reaching the lost”.

· The Gospel isn’t just the welcome mat into the Kingdom of God—it is the entire house!

· We all need the Gospel every day.

· We all need to be reminded of the fact that Christ is our goodness before God.

· We need to preach it to ourselves every day, until we believe it!

How Does the Gospel apply?

Parents

Siblings

Friends

Bible reading/prayer

Praise!