Jun 25 2017 The Gospel - What is it?

I ask, Lord, this morning, that You would give us grace – to talk about the most important thing – the gospel of Jesus Christ – that it would fill our hearts with power.

I think there is an innocent or honest confusion over what the gospel is. It is very innocent – and I think a lot of people don’t understand what it is. 70 years ago – Billy Graham came out with a little booklet – the Plan of Salvation – how a person can be led to faith in Jesus Christ – a presentation on how to lead a person to faith. Then the 4 spiritual laws, the five spiritual absolutes, do you know for certain – tools to lead people to faith in the gospel.

These are valuable tools – and it is valuable to learn to lead others – to get a person saved, to follow Christ, or to get a person to ask Christ into their heart.

As we look at the focus on these – the concept of getting someone saved – these tools, as John Ortberg said – the minimum to get into heaven. Like the written part of the driver’s test!

There is more to driving than the written part of the test.

There is a reason – that many who receive Jesus – ask Jesus into their heart – don’t go on.

We saw many people pray the prayer in college ministry – and it may have lasted a very short time – but it did not continue – but I think it is tied to not fully understanding what Biblical faith is.

Focus on the theology this week. Gospel – a Greek word – in a Roman context before in a Christian context – and before Christ ever came – the Romans used the term gospel – good news – the concept of when a new Caesar was enthroned as king of the Empire – they would send out ‘evangelists’ to leave Rome and go throughout the empire that there was a new king over all the earth.

The New Testament uses this very language to proclaim the story that Jesus is the newborn king – and one who is Lord of all creation.

Matthew Bates – the gospel is the great cosmic story of God’s son, who He is, and what He did. The gospel is the power releasing story of Jesus’ life, death for sins, and resurrection and installation as king. It is good news about Jesus as the atoning king bringing the wider story of the Bible to a climax.

From Genesis 1:1 to John 1:1

In the Beginning… was the Word.

We should learn to present the gospel better than Steven Spielberg can present a movie. The gospel story is far beyond any of those movies that we see!

Folks should be captured by it.

As we come to understand it more deeply – that can become the case. It is about Jesus – God-centered – and it is NOT about humankind or human salvation. It leads to human salvation – but the gospel itself is good news about what Jesus did.

Details and thematic elements that repeat themselves throughout the gospel. These are elements of the story.

First – Eternal existence of the son.

There is a pre-existence. He existed before He was born – John 1:1, John 3:16 tells us there was an eternal existence of Jesus – how could He give His only begotten son unless He already existed.

Second – the Incarnation – the Word became flesh. God, the Eternal God, became one of us.

Tied with that – but seldom used – is that He is a descendant of David. He is the fulfillment of the promises of God to His people. That is really important.

Third – He died for our sins. This is the message of the cross. When we present the gospel – this is 90 percent of our presentation.

Fourth – He was buried. How often do you hear that proclaimed? Paul did it, as we will see.

Fifth – Resurrection – as you read the book of Acts – more than anything else they focus on this.

Sixth – He is the exalted Lord of all creation – this relates to next week and what faith means.

Finally – He is the Judge of the world – He will come again.

Each is vague and full.

When we tell the story – we don’t have to use words like pre-existence and incarnation and exaltation! People will think you’re weird – but there is something important to say – there is a way to say that God loved us so much that He became one of us.

He left this unbelievable place – giving up all the privilege of being God, to live, struggle, and suffer like we do. And then to die a horrible death so that we might be forgiven – and then He was raised from the dead and He has gone back to that place of authority – and He did it all for us. If people could capture that – that God loved us so deeply that He became us – to set aside who He was, in one sense.

Romans 1:1Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle and set apart for the gospel of God-- 2 the gospel he promised beforehand through his prophets in the Holy Scriptures 3 regarding his Son, who as to his earthly life was a descendant of David

This gospel was promised at the beginning of creation – but this son who existed eternally has an earthly life. Descendant of David – connected to all those promises…

4 and who through the Spirit of holiness was appointed the Son of God in power by his resurrection from the dead: Jesus Christ our Lord. 5 Through him we received grace and apostleship to call all the Gentiles to faith and obedience for his name's sake.

Through the resurrection. Our Lord. Christ is not his name – Jesus is the Messiah, the king, the savior, and He is Lord of all creation.

Not all seven elements have to be in each presentation. Some simply need to know they are forgiven. Some people don’t believe they need to be forgiven. Some need to understand what God did for them. What is the context now?

A conversation I had on the airplane – one we had not intended to have – because I had gotten the headphones and all that….

And I sat next to a guy who wanted to talk. He was the film commissioner of Colorado. I asked him what that is and that is all it took.

After a while of talking he asks – what do you do? I couldn’t lie…

He asks me – what is the Bible – who wrote the Bible – and I knew exactly what he was asking. An ancient book written by ancient people written in ancient languages.

Some say that God wrote the Bible?

People wrote the Bible – but God inspired them. This is what I believed this person needed to hear. We need to ask – where is this person at? What does he need at this moment?

1 Cor. 15:

Now I want to make clear for you, brothers and sisters, the gospel that I preached to you, that you received and on which you stand, 2 and by which you are being saved, if you hold firmly to the message I preached to you– unless you believed in vain.

Paul is going to give them – the HERE IT IS…

3 For I passed on to you as of first importance what I also received– that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures, 4 and that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day according to the scriptures, 5 and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve.

Christ died – He was buried – and raised – He is showing them – this is real – this is something that really happened! We know it happened because He was buried! We went to the funeral! We were there!

Then he spends the rest of the chapter talking about the resurrection.

This is Paul’s elevator speech – you only have a minute:

2 Tim. 2:8 Remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, descendant of David, according to my gospel,

Some render it – this is my gospel.

The people Paul was talking to knew the backstory of the descendant of David.

The original elevator speech? 3 words: He is risen!

Missionaries have discovered – when approaching a people who had no concept of the gospel – they would have to go back and tell the entire story

Philippians 2:5 Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, 6 who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. 8 Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

He existed in the form of God – preexistence – emptied himself – set aside his privileges – died on the cross –

9 For this reason also, God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, 10 so that at the name of Jesus EVERY KNEE WILL BOW, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

Now the focus is on his exaltation – he practically skipped the resurrection – but it is implied.

We’ll look at that more next week

There is like an upside down pyramid –

Eternal Word – Lowers Himself to Incarnation – then back up the other side – Resurrection and Exaltation – that is the story of the gospel.

He went to the bottom and rescues us and brings us back up with Him. If God had not done what He did, we could never become what we were originally intended to become.

Romans 1:16 16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is God's power for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. 17 For the righteousness of God is revealed in the gospel from faith to faith, just as it is written, "The righteous by faith will live."

It is the telling of the story of Jesus Christ – who He was, what He did – that has all the power. Nothing in our presentation – Paul did not trust any worldly technique, he just told the simple message – told the story – and it is within that story – the world needs a good story – because all we hear are terrible stories, and we carry the greatest story.