Today I’m kicking off a series of messages on the gospel of Jesus.  When we talk about the gospel, the good news of God in Jesus Christ, there is a simple message – We’re sinners.  The right judgment for sin is eternal punishment and separation from God.  In love, God sent His only Son Jesus to die in our place for our sins.  Jesus rose again from the dead, triumphing over sin and death, and everyone who places their hope and trust in Christ alone for salvation, will be saved.

This is no other way to be reconciled to God, except through faith in Jesus Christ.  So I hope in your heart, you are trusting in Him and believe the gospel above.  The gospel above is the tree of life, bearing fruit for all who believe, yet it does not answer every question that is implied within the gospel, and my hope is the next few messages will build out a more robust view of the gospel, that it will edify your love for Jesus and the gospel, and strengthen your faith.

Genesis 1:26-27 – “God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”  So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.”

Why are we accountable to God?  Who is He, that we have to answer to him for our morality or anything?  Our accountability to God stems from His being our Creator.  Now, in our post-modern society where any idea that self, or independence must be shunned is horrific, this fundamental truth is where we must begin.  Life is not about you.  It is about God.

In speaking about God, Colossians 1:16 says – “For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him.”

We were created in the image of God, for the purpose of being God’s image bearers to reflect His glory and goodness, and live in perfect relationship with Him.  If you want to know the answer to the question “what is the meaning of life?”, there it is.

Instead of living out this perfect harmony of relationship with God, man (Adam and Eve)chose to ignore the commandment of God in the Garden of Eden, eat what they were told not to, and thus man sinned against God.  (Genesis 3) The first sin of man was to directly reject God’s authority over their lives, and that same sin is present in all people.  In the same passage as man’s sin, God provides hope to man.  He preaches the first gospel, “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.” (Genesis 3:15)

Though man was accountable to God as their Creator, and had sinned against Him.  God foretold the coming of Christ, the offspring of man, who would endure the wrath of God for sin against Him in a horrible death, but would be victorious over sin and satan evidenced in the resurrection.

Before someone can come to God, He must bring them to an end of themselves.  The gospel of Jesus is not merely a means to avoid hell, but it is a redeeming and righting of the sin of Adam – that we put down the banners of self, and take up the banner of adopted sons and daughters of our Creator and King.

Grace and Peace,

Adam

1 Corinthians 1:21-25 – “For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe.  For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.  For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.”

Pride is the underlying sin of man.  It is the sinful nature of man, that we want to be God, rather than worship Him.  We do not want to be accountable to someone beyond ourselves.  So although man knows He is created, and knows God is good and righteous and we are not, we suppress that truth, in order to live in a delusion.  (Romans 1)  We live in a post-modern society which rejects notions of absolute truth and morality, and we preach Christ as the only way, the absolute unchanging Truth, and the only means of life.  Is it all surprising that the world rejects us as it did Jesus?

So either out of a well-intentioned desire to try to “meet people where they are” with the gospel, or because of our own sin of pride and not wanting to be rejected, we have watered down the gospel to attempt to lessen the offense.  We make jokes about preachers of old like Jonathan Edwards who preached “Sinners in the hands of an Angry God” and “hellfire and brimstone”.  So we tell people that Jesus loves them, and wants a better life for them, but we never preach God’s holy righteousness and just hatred for sin.  We soothe men’s consciousness with happy speech from God, just enough to make them comfortable, while they remain unrepentant in their independence from God – paving the path to hell for those we profess to love and want to save.

1 Corinthians 15:1-4 – “Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you—unless you believed in vain.

For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures”

My exhortation to myself and us all, is to “not be ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes.”  (Rom 1:16)  The gospel is offensive.  If we preach Christ crucified for our sins plainly, it will be rejected by most.  In fact, the only way anyone will ever humble themselves to place their faith in Christ is by the Holy Spirit – an act of God.  God does not need a sales or PR department, He has simply called us to preach His message of salvation through Christ crucified.  God’s hatred for sin is infinitely greater than we can imagine, but so too is His love for us through Christ.  The depth of that hard preaching is the means God uses to soften hard, prideful hearts to lead people from death to life.  The gospel is the antithesis of our society, it is a declaration of dependence upon God for salvation, life, and all things as our sovereign Creator and Lord.  Let us be faithful ministers of that message to ourselves first, and then also to the world around us.

Grace and Peace,

Adam

It’s coming up on my Birthday again, and like some other dates that mark the passage of time, it’s reminded me of all God has shown me and done for me over the last year.  I have not written in a while in part because I could not break down into manageable portions everything that God was showing me in scripture.  So today, instead of trying to go into too much depth, I’m just going to hit the high points with a couple scripture references for each.

If you are indeed born of God, He will never let you go.  You may have periods in your life of struggle both externally or internally – you may falter in sin or have ongoing struggles, but if the Spirit of God is in you, the hand of God will always be with you to restore you and bring you back into fellowship with Him.

John 17:11-12 – “And I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, keep them in your name, which you have given me, that they may be one, even as we are one. While I was with them, I kept them in your name, which you have given me. I have guarded them, and not one of them has been lost except the son of destruction, that the Scripture might be fulfilled.“

Luke 15:1-7 – “Now the tax collectors and sinners were all drawing near to hear him. And the Pharisees and the scribes grumbled, saying, “This man receives sinners and eats with them.”  So he told them this parable:  “What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he has lost one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the open country, and go after the one that is lost, until he finds it? And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing. And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and his neighbors, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.’ Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.

Our God is sovereign, and has a good plan for everything in our life.  Every step of our life good and bad is ordained by God for His glory.  Our past becomes our ministry, and our ministry is the gospel that we are all sinners, in need of the grace of God found only in the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ for our sins.

Genesis 50:19-20 – “Joseph said to them, “Do not fear, for am I in the place of God? As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today.”

Proverbs 16:9 – “The heart of man plans his way, but the Lord establishes his steps.”

Romans 8:28 – “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.”

Sin is always a heart issue.  Bible believing Christians even tend to judge someone’s sin merely outwardly, but our depravity is much deeper.  It is not just what you do, but why do you think about those things, or why does your heart want those things.  In the end you realize how desperately sinful ALL of us are, and how much we are in need of the grace of God every moment of every day.  We do not merely need a helping hand to be better people or to “overcome” a certain sinful behavior, we need redemption from all that we are in our hearts and minds apart from God as sinners, redemption that is only found in the blood of Jesus.  

Matthew 5:21-22 – ““You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder; and whoever murders will be liable to judgment.’ ²² But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council; and whoever says, ‘You fool!’ will be liable to the hell of fire.”

Jeremiah 17:9 – “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?”

Isaiah 64:6 – “We have all become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment. We all fade like a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away.”

Romans 7:18-19 – “For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out.  For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing.“

Your love for God will be directly tied to you knowledge of God’s love for you.  Your knowledge of the love of God for you, will be directly tied to your knowledge of who God is, of your own sin, and what it means for God to have redeemed you by dying in your place.   

1 John 4:7-10 – “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God.  Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.  In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him.  In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.”

Romans 5:6-8 – “For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly.  For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die—  but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

Repentance, is not feeling sorry for sin (whether present or past) or even being broken about the impact sin has.  Repentance is a gift of God, a state of the heart and mind of every believer that is ongoing.  Repentance is in humility, seeing our sinful nature, seeing that we have no hope for righteousness in ourselves, but only through abiding in Christ and trusting in His grace and His righteousness do we have any hope.  If someone says I’m selfish – Yes, more than you know!  There is nothing good in me, and I thank God that He is merciful to me, a sinner.  Today if there is anything “good” in me, I can’t boast in that – it’s not me – the only good in me is Christ in me.  We are continually mourning the sin in us in meekness, turning to Christ, and rejoicing in the gospel of salvation from sin through Jesus.

2 Corinthians 7:10 – “For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death.”

Luke 5:32 – “I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.”

Luke 24:26-27 – “Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance for the forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations”

Each one of these could be exploded out more, but sufficed to say, God is good and always active.  He will use everything in our life to grow our faith in Him, so wherever you are, in whatever state, be encouraged that God is always with you and for you.  If you feel far from God, read the story of the prodigal son in Luke 15, and be reminded of the love of God for you – though you may be far off, he will run to meet you when you turn to Him.

 

Grace and Peace,
Adam