Core Values: Gospel

This podcast is a ministry of Grand Parkway Baptist Church, helping people know, enjoy, and glorify God.

For more information about Grand Parkway, visit Grandparkway.org.

Let's pray together.

Lord, we celebrate the fact that we are a delivered, hopeful, resurrected people.

We're not just waiting for something to happen.

We're here to declare that it's already begun to happen and it's going to come in fullness one day.

Until then, we are its representatives.

That's not pressure.

Pressure, that is privilege.

We're the sons and daughters of God.

Once we were not a people, but now the Bible says we are the people of God.

And again, that's not pressure, God, that's privilege.

We get to demonstrate the realities of the gospel in our culture.

We get to be hopeful.

We get to talk about deliverance.

We get to talk about resurrected, raised to walk in the newness of life.

And we talk about these things not just with our lips, but with our lives.

And so, Holy Spirit, increase our capacity to do this.

Enlarge our understanding, God, and increase our affections for both God and the gospel.

And do that by your spirit and with your word.

We pray this in Jesus' name.

And everyone said, Amen.

Amen.

If you've got a Bible, I invite you to take it and open up to Romans chapter 3.

Romans 3 · chapter mention

Romans chapter 3.

Romans 3 · chapter mention

We're beginning a four-part series today before we get back into the Gospel of John.

A four-part series on our core values.

Now, I will not ask you what are our church's four core values because I don't know if all of you would know or how many of you would know.

And that's more of a statement about you than me, because I don't think I talk about it enough.

But we have four core values.

And by that I mean these are the things that we value above everything else.

And they're in order for a reason.

And the four core values are simply this: gospel, community, mission, and blessing.

We believe this.

We believe that the gospel, gospel is a word that just means good news.

It's not just a prayer that we pray that allows us to become Christians.

It is the life that we live, okay?

We'll get into that more this morning.

Well, we believe that the gospel produces a community of people, these people that relate to each other in a way that nobody else does.

The gospel produces this thing called community.

And these people that share this community are on this mission.

And central to that mission is to be a blessing.

We'll talk when we get to blessing about having a blessing strategy and not a cursing strategy.

You realize, and by cursing, I don't mean profanity.

You realize how easy it is to curse things and people around you that get on your nerves, right?

Oh, thank you.

About five of you.

The rest of you are like, no, I don't, Pastor.

You're lying.

When you get caught off in traffic, or somebody doesn't use a blinker.

Isn't it amazing how small it is?

Or the deal falls through.

Yeah, yeah.

And the Bible says we we have the capacity to bless and not just curse.

But uh today I want to talk to you about the gospel.

Uh the gospel.

Why is this one of our four core values?

Why do you only have four?

Uh here's what here's why this is one of our four and our primary one.

Because all the ones we could have, we have four, and this is first and foremost.

And why?

And here's why.

Because I would just say simply this the two areas that are most under affected by your understanding of the gospel are worship and evangelism, which I like to say, the manner in which you respond to God and the manner in which you represent God to other people.

And so if your understanding of the gospel is small or anemic, then your worship and the way and your spiritual engagement with others will be the same way.

You'll do both with this kind of a tepid uncertainty that you nor other people find compelling, interesting, or consequential.

And over time, you'll quit both.

You'll quit worship and you'll quit spiritually engaging people.

And it's not because you don't know the tips or the techniques or you hadn't read the books.

Look at me.

All you have to do is enlarge your understanding of the gospel.

Like for, for example, we were just reading, just singing about how Jesus came to save the hell-bound man.

And I'm over there going, Yes, that is me.

By nature, I am bound for hell.

But because of Jesus and what Jesus has done, and the fact that I've accepted that and I trust that, I've been saved.

I've been rescued from that.

And so my capacity to enjoy God in this thing that we call worship, which is not just singing, but it as it relates to today, is infinitely enhanced and increased because of my understanding of the gospel.

And so I'm saying to you, it's not a tick a trick or a technique.

It's just if you could understand the gospel, because we never outgrow the gospel.

And so, what we'll discuss today has ramifications for every facet of your life, not just the way you respond to God and you represent God to others.

Uh, and so let's grasp what we mean and what it and why it matters when we say the gospel.

Now, let me begin with a definition.

Gospel simply means this good news.

Good news.

Now you're smart people.

If the why is the gospel good news, because it's good news, because it's a response to bad news.

What makes it good?

Uh Romans chapter 3.

Romans 3 · chapter mention

If you don't have a Bible, I'm on page 940 in your pew Bible, Romans chapter 3, starting in verse 9.

Romans 3 · chapter mention

Here's where uh this is the bad news for humanity.

Now, now stay with me, okay?

Because now in just a minute, I'm gonna put up eight things that this little section of the Bible says.

Because the Bible is like uh it's like opening up a zip file.

You're like, whoa, there's more there than I imagined.

Uh, it is chalk full of reality and truth.

And so I'm gonna put eight things up here on the screen in just a minute.

Don't try to write them down.

Get your phone out.

You can just snap a picture and just kind of go.

I'm gonna see if that's really in there, okay?

But here's why the gospel is good news, because before it's good news, it's bad news.

And here's the thing that the church has stopped loving people enough to tell them.

Romans chapter 3, verse 9.

Romans 3:9

What then?

Are Jews any better off?

No, not at all.

We've already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks, are under sin.

Let me stop right there.

When he's talking about Jews and Greeks, he's talking about the Jews represented the religious people of the day.

They did not have a relationship with God, they were just religious.

Their grandma took them to church, got them familiar with the traditions of the church, and so they just thought, hey, we're so religious, we keep all the rules, we don't need Jesus.

Now, when he talks about the Greeks, he's talking about smart people.

They said, hey, we're not religious, we're just too smart.

We're like the secular humanists of uh of 2019.

It's kind of like, hey man, I appreciate and I'm glad that works for you.

Kind of this patronizing, condescending, pseudo-intellectual, dismissive posture towards it all.

And so when he says the Jews and the Greeks, he's talking about religious people, I'm too religious or I'm too smart.

He says, uh for we have already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks, are under sin.

As it is written, none is righteous, no, not one.

No one understands, no one seeks for God.

All are turned aside together, they become worthless, no one does good, not even one.

Their throat is an open grave.

They use their tongues to deceive, the venom of asp snakes is under their lips, their mouth is full of cursing, of curses and bitterness, their feet are swift to shed blood, and their path are ruin and misery, and the way of peace they have not known.

There's no fear of God before their eyes.

Now we know that whatever the law says, it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God.

For by works of the law, no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin.

Now, why is the gospel good news?

Because, beloved, what we read from verse 9 to verse 20 is bad news.

It's eight things the Bible says right there, and I'll just list them off briefly.

The capacity to be good enough does not exist.

Secondly, no one understands, no one seeks God, all have turned aside.

Fourthly, together they have become worthless.

Now, let me just put an asterisk by that.

The Bible doesn't say God doesn't value you, uh, okay.

Matter of fact, the Bible says the exact opposite that God values you so much he sacrificed his son.

And so that's a statement.

So when the Bible says they become worthless, what it's saying is they've lost their sense of self-worth because alienation and separation from God comes at a high emotional cost.

I know a man who laid in the bottom of his shower and let the shower just run over him and just cried out to God and said, God, what do you want me to do?

This man is hard-hearted, he's stiff-necked, he says one thing and does another.

And you say, How do you know?

Because I'm related to him.

And I say to him all the time, it's not as hard as you make it.

He's like, I'm good, man.

The deal went through.

I'm rolling in it now.

Okay.

See you when you're not rolling in it.

Be careful that the only time you think about God is when it's hard.

Because what you're saying to God is for me to think about you, my life needs to be hard.

You don't want that.

Yes, but row.

Yes, you don't want that.

Uh he says next, he said there's no fear of God before their eyes.

The Bible builds an irrefutable case against humanity.

And here's why.

You and you say, I don't agree with that.

You what you've settled for is being right in your own eyes, but not right in God's eyes.

Because he ends this right here, verse 19 and 20, and he says that now we know that whatever the law says, it speaks to those who are under the law.

That's all of us, by the way.

So that every mouth may be stopped and the whole world may be held accountable to God.

If the whole world is going to be held accountable to God, like the Bible says, then there has to be this universal reality that makes us accountable to God.

And the Bible says that's the law, that's the moral teaching of the Old Testament.

Hold on to that.

We'll get to that in just a minute.

And lastly, he says that the whole world is accountable to God.

Now, now you say, Well, I don't agree with that.

I just I just simply don't agree.

Agreement doesn't change the nature of anything, neither does disagreement.

You say, What do you mean?

Uh, because this pervasive reality leaves all of humanity guilty before a holy God.

Here's what we do: we seek to come up with a solution.

Like secular humanism attacks the authority of the Bible because it does not and cannot acknowledge what it means for us if this bad news is true.

And so they say, let's just begin with the fact that it can't be true.

Now, this is a sidebar.

Just in response to that, and let me say this: you need to have an asking response and not just a telling response.

Let me say that again.

You need to have an asking response where you can ask, like I met with somebody this past week, a law student, brilliant young lady.

I mean, very erudite thinker, I mean, lucid, on point, brilliant, is killing it, has already got a job, hadn't graduated.

I mean, incredible.

And got to the end of this, we've we'd been going like an hour and 20 minutes talking about different things.

And she says, Well, I got one other thing I want to I want to talk about.

And it may not, it may be, I said, Well, I got five minutes.

My next appointment's already here.

Well, it may take more than five minutes.

I said, What is it?

She goes, Well, basically, I'm agnostic and I don't believe the Bible is literal, and I don't know how anybody can believe the Bible's literal.

I believe it's literal.

Now, I believe there's different types of genres of the Bible.

I think some of it's poetic, but I think it's all authoritative and it applies to us.

And I think, and I and I said, also, well, how many how?

I said, and I also think that we are all morally responsible to God because He created us.

When you create something, you have authority over it.

It's called parenthood.

One of the things that's wrong with the world is that we stop taking, we stop, we as parents have shirked our responsibility to our kids.

We we we we just have it like I'm walking to the food court at the mall the other day, and some little kid about eight years old was getting off the reservation, and his mom said out loud in a public space, I'll snatch a knot in you, you'll walk home with a limp.

Get over here.

And that little kid ran back over to his mother, and I just went.

She said, Ain't gonna be fixed to act like no fool up in here.

And I was like, Yeah.

That boy didn't stray from his mom.

I got to the end of the thing.

I looked back, he was just standing right by his mom.

Why?

Because his mom has authority over him.

Why?

Because she created him by the same token because God created us.

Now I said to my friend, she said, I just I just can't believe that.

Here's a telling approach jumps in and starts defending the authority of the Bible.

An asking approach asks this, which is what I said to her.

When I say an asking approach, I said, Well, I see, that's great.

I said, I appreciate your disagreement.

I'm not bothered by that as all bothered by that at all.

And let me ask you a question.

What worldview can you put forward that answers four questions that I think only Christianity answers in a truthful, sensible way?

Here's the four questions.

Uh, how do we get here?

What is the origin of life?

Secondly, what's the how do you explain the state of the world?

What happened?

How'd the world get this way?

I mean, is it all these plastic straws that people keep throwing in the ocean?

Is that what jacked it all up?

Here's the third question: your worldview has it, because it's not enough to say, I disagree with Christianity.

What worldview do you put forward in its place?

Christianity is not on trial just because you were up at three in the morning scanning the internet and someone in some chat room put a question out there that sounded intellectual.

Third question you have to ask and answer is what or who is working to make the world better?

And lastly, how will it all end?

I said, just give me a worldview that answers all that, and I I may renounce Christianity.

She's like, Well, I hadn't really thought about that.

He said, Because secular humanists, they just they know what they're against, they don't know what they're for.

And be careful you don't fall into that gap because you can be against Christianity, and one of the reasons we're against it, we attack the authority of the Bible, is because the Bible speaks to areas of our life that we don't want it to speak to.

And so instead of facing that, we just say, I don't believe the Bible.

Okay.

That may work for you in this life, it will work against you in the next.

And I would say it'll work against you in this life as well.

But anyway, uh, here's where the beauty of the gospel is most on display.

I want you to see the goodness that God responds to this badness with.

This is why we believe the gospel.

This is why it's our first and foremost core value.

I'm gonna continue reading in Romans chapter 3.

Romans 3 · chapter mention

I'm gonna read verse 21 to verse 25.

Hear this this morning, beloved.

He says, but now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law.

Although the law and the prophets bear witness to it, the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe.

But there's no distinction, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood to be received by faith.

We'll just stop right there.

The Bible says so much right there, and but I want to I want to point to four things that the Bible says that make the gospel good news.

Number one, the Bible tells us that God is the God of relationship.

Look at verse 21.

But now, and now he's saying, hey, a way of relating to God is available that wasn't available before.

But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law.

Now, now let me just uh uh uh be practical here because a big controversy happened this past week.

Uh, there's a very popular preacher named Andy Stanley.

Now look at me.

Andy's a good guy.

Andy's a brilliant man, he he he's a good guy.

Just because I disagree with somebody, I don't have to vilify them, okay?

But Andy said something this week that is fundamentally not true.

And because he's popular and has a big church, everyone's like, oh, oh my gosh.

What he said was the Ten Commandments no longer apply to modern-day Christians.

Now, people, and that's a big controversy among preachers.

People, what do you think about that?

And one guy said, Well, he has a really big church.

I said, if you want to get a really big church, dilute the authority of the Bible.

It would be great.

Now, now again, if the Bible says back in verse 19 and 20, when it says the whole world, because we're all under the law, and the whole world is therefore accountable to God, because we failed at keeping the law, if you do away with the Ten Commandments, and this is the same man who said six months ago we should unhitch from the Old Testament.

If you do away and unhitch from the Old Testament the law of God, then what makes the good news good?

There's no bad news, it's just a higher ethic of love and and oh, it's just the way of love or whatever.

And again, he's not a bad man.

He just sometimes says things that it's just kind of like it appeals.

He says, Well, I'm talking to post-Christians, but the world is listening.

You have to be careful.

When I say God's a God of relationship, this is good news because none of us can keep the rules.

None of us can keep the law.

Now, he says, but now there's a way to know God apart from trying to keep the rules or the law.

The Bible says this about the law, everything contained in the Old Testament.

It says it's a schoolmaster that leads us to Christ.

Now, we don't have schoolmasters nowadays, unless you go to a private school.

But let me give you a visual picture in your mind.

When I was like elementary school, I was a handful.

I know it's hard to imagine, but I would be sitting in class and they had windows in there, which was just an opportunity.

The windows cried out every day.

Daydream, Neil.

And so I'd be looking out the window thinking, man, if I had my baby gun, I'd shoot that bird right there.

And I would just be looking around, and I would get up and just walk out in the hall.

And my teachers were like, Neil, where are you going?

Somewhere better than this.

And so every once in a while they would say, Why don't you go down to the office and talk to the principal?

Great, wonderful.

I'd get up, I'd walk down the hall, and there'd be an open door to outside.

And I'd hang a left and just go down to the convenience store and get a Coke.

In the fourth grade.

That ain't good.

And then finally, it was about the fourth grade they realized, hey, he doesn't go to the office.

He just disappears and then comes back in 30 minutes, smoking a palm and drinking a sprite.

And so in the fourth grade, Mrs.

Briscoe, my fourth grade teacher, said to me, You foolish boy, you have a heart of foolishness.

And my friend's like, Why are you learning talking like that?

Uh, because it's true.

She would stand behind me and put her hands on my shoulders, and she would walk me down to the principal's office.

Look at me.

The Bible says that the law is like a schoolmaster, it walks us into the presence of a God who we're accountable to.

And so none of us can keep the rules.

But the beauty of the law, and the reason you can't do away with that and you can't say, Oh, the Ten Commandments don't apply to us anymore.

By the way, if you unhitch from the Old Testament, you're unhitching from the Bible that Jesus read.

Jesus did not read the New Testament, he lived the New Testament.

And so the gospel is good news because it tells us that God is a God of relationship.

What do you mean?

Now remember, the law walks us into the presence of God to whom we're accountable with no leg to stand on, no recourse.

But notice two things about verse 21.

Number one, God didn't wait for us to come looking for it.

The Bible says right here, the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law.

He manifested it, he put it on display for the world to see.

What does that tell us?

That tells us that God wants to be known, He wants to be understood.

Secondly, the entire Old Testament, which He refers to, the New Testament refers to as the law and prophets.

Uh, look in your Bible.

Is the phrase, the word law and prophets, capitalized in your Bible?

That's a reference to the Old Testament.

The law and the prophets.

He says, the law and the prophets, they testify, they tell, they bear witness to it.

And so all what you see through the law is that God is a God of relationship.

We're created for a relationship that we cannot experience by keeping the rules because despite your best efforts, we all fall short.

Second thing the gospel tells us it's good news is what Jesus accomplished is enough for anyone.

What Jesus accomplished is enough for anyone.

Look at verse 22.

The righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believed.

Now stop right there.

For all who believed.

All means what?

All.

It means all who believed.

And so what that means for us to say, oh, we have the gospel as our primary, first and foremost, core value is this is that there's nobody you work with who has sinned so much that they've outsinned the good news of uh of Christianity.

There's nobody you know because we all kind of list the people we think, well, there's no way that guy, I mean, I think he sacrifices kittens in his garage over there.

We know what he's doing.

Nobody has outsinned the gospel.

Absolutely nobody.

So here's what I want you to think about.

Here's the application portion of the sermon.

In all your circles of influence, who's the one person that most needs to hear the good news of Christianity from you?

And then secondly, how will they hear it?

How will they hear it?

You see, the Bible says all.

This is why, for all who believe, what makes a Jesus, what Jesus makes available is so big and so available to everyone then as well as now that anyone can experience.

He says, hey, the righteousness, verse 22 again, of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe.

Now, to place your faith in Jesus is to have faith in what God has faith in.

And what God has faith in, beloved, is the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.

Let me say that again.

To place your faith in what God has faith in is to have your faith in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.

Because for you to say, well, I think Jesus was a good teacher.

He was kind of like Muhammad or Buddha or Allah or one of these other people, what you're saying is, well, he's just kind of like on this pantheon of God, just like uh they're all the same.

The Bible says that's not true.

The Bible says that Jesus has done something for you that nobody else has, and it's simply this die on the cross in your place and for your sins.

So you don't have to try, go through life doing more good than bad so that you can kind of balance out on judgment day.

Now, if you say, I refuse all of that, then I'm just gonna love you enough to tell you this.

Then what you have to do, because we read the phrase where it says that God put him forth.

Remember that phrase?

God put him forth as a propitiation.

We'll get to that word in just a minute.

But but if you say, hey, I don't believe I don't think Jesus is that unique.

Then what you have to do is come up with something that you put forth that's on par with Jesus.

And not on par just with Jesus, the person, but the life, the death, and the resurrection.

What does that mean?

Think of it like this: the life of Jesus was perfect.

And because the life of Jesus was perfect, the death of Jesus was sufficient.

And because the death of Jesus was sufficient, the resurrection was confirming.

It confirms that God accepts Jesus' death on the cross in my place for my sins.

And because of that, you know what the Bible says?

That God no longer holds our sins against us.

Yeah, some real sinners in here.

The rest of y'all are scrolling down.

What about that?

He didn't hold it against you.

The thing you hold most against you, God does not hold against you at all.

Let me say that again.

The thing that you just kind of like, yeah, well, you know, it's 1978.

It was an Arrow Smith concert, and I was kind of, hmm.

God doesn't hold against you.

Can I tell you a secret?

My 16th birthday, I was in the fifth row at a KISS concert.

My favorite band in the world.

They're having one last farewell tour coming up.

They're one of the biggest moneymakers to this day.

Those guys know how to market.

My kids about four years ago saw a video of KISS and they looked at me and they're like, What?

And I said, I could probably sing still every word to every song.

Like, pick one.

I said, like God of Thunder and Rock and Roll, Whoa, whoa.

Or how about they call me Dr.

Love?

I got the cure you're thinking of.

My wife's like, please stop.

Please stop.

We're sitting at dinner.

My kids are like, no, Dad, keep singing.

My wife's like, why?

Because the life of Jesus was perfect.

The death of Jesus is sufficient.

And the resurrection confirms.

Hey, because if God doesn't accept the death of Jesus in your place for your sins, he leaves him in the grave.

But because he raises him up out of the grave, it's finished.

This is why the gospel's good news because what Jesus accomplished is enough for anyone.

Thirdly, the good news is this that God's goodness exceeds your badness.

Look at verse 23.

You still with me?

Look at verse 23.

For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and are justified by his grace as a gift of the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood.

Now, if I would have stopped after for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, most of y'all, how many of y'all have heard that part before?

For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God?

Put your hand down.

Can any of you people finish the rest of that sentence from memory?

Because here's what we do.

We come along in the church, we take a little fragment.

That's what that's called.

We take a fragment and we just beat people over the head with that.

But he was like, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

And you're like, I could have told you that.

That sense of separation that you feel when you lay in bed at night, like, hey, does God care about me?

Does God care about my marriage?

Is God concerned about me?

Do I matter?

I sat beside the bed in the hospital of an army veteran.

And we were just talking, and I was trying to just, I was sitting trying, I was sharing the gospel with him.

And I said, God's very personal.

And he said, Well, how could God be concerned about little old me?

Doesn't he have more important things to do?

And I said, You know, the Bible speaks to this?

And he was like, Shut up.

And I said, Yeah.

In Psalm chapter 8, there's a guy named David, he's outside, best we can tell, and he's writing this psalm of gratitude, perfect gratitude to God.

Psalms 8 · chapter mention

And he says, God, he looks up and he says, God, my consider the heavens, the work of your hands.

What is man that you're mindful of him?

And I said to my friend, I said, God's been mindful of you your entire life.

And he said, I can believe in a God like that.

I said, That's the God of the Bible.

He's not some hacked-off deity up there in the heavens just waiting for judgment day where he can lay the wood to you, where you show up and kind of go, hey, I did my best.

And he's like, Here's a list of all the things you're screwed up on, Billy.

Never mind.

Where's the escalator down into hell?

Here we go.

Not the God of the Bible.

Why?

Because look at me, his goodness exceeds your badness.

For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

There's a comma there.

It keeps going and says this, and are justified by his grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood.

Now, if you're a note taker, write this down.

This is not universalism, but it is universal opportunity.

It's not universalism.

A lot of people say, well, all are sinned, all sinned and fall short of the glory of God, but all are justified by his grace.

Yes, they are.

We'll get to that in a minute.

There's something you have to do for that to be realized in your life.

But right here, there's two words I want to draw your attention to: redemption and propitiation.

One of them you're kind of familiar with.

One of them you're like, eh, what does that mean?

Redemption means the freedom that comes from the payment of a ransom.

The freedom that comes from the payment of a ransom.

I don't know if you know this, but there's an American in Costa Rica who's missing right now.

He lived down there as an expat.

He'd riding around in his Porsche SUV.

If you're thinking about moving to Costa Rica, do not drive around as a white guy in a Porsche SUV, okay?

Because you got a big sign above your head that says, kidnap me.

Okay?

And so I'm not making fun of it.

It's horrible.

They kidnapped him.

Two cops pulled him over, looked like a traffic stop.

Some guys come along, threw me in the back of a cargo truck, drove off with him, sent to his family, and said, We need five million dollars in Bitcoin currency, or you'll never see your loved one again.

I pray to God I'd never get kidnapped because my wife will be like, he's all yours.

And then, by the way, there is no medication.

He's just that way by nature.

So the family is like, hey, we can't do that.

And they say, okay, we'll take a million.

The family paid a million dollars in Bitcoin currency and they didn't let him go.

Look at me.

The Bible says when Jesus paid the ransom, God let you go.

That's why, look at me.

That's why, way back at the beginning in Genesis, first two or three chapters, God says to Adam and Eve, You're free.

If you hear anything, look at me.

Hear this.

Jesus came to give you that freedom back.

That's why He pays the ransom on the cross for your sins.

He fulfills the law.

He doesn't abolish the law, he fulfills the law.

Why?

So that you can have a relationship with God where the law gets fulfilled in your life.

Not because of effort, just because of reflex.

So that's what redemption is all about.

That's what it means.

It says the freedom that comes from a payment of a ransom.

Secondly, the word propitiation means this that God's no longer mad at you because of your sin.

Because when Jesus dies on the cross in your place and for your sins, that's enough to satisfy God.

God's goodness exceeds your badness.

Ask yourself this question today.

When you look at yourself, do you look at yourself through the lens of all the things you've done wrong?

Or do you look at yourself through the lens of all the things that God's done right?

Let me ask you that again.

Do you look at yourself through the lens of all the things you've done wrong?

And by the way, when I when I think back to when I was in school, when I was in eighth grade, I had study hall for fourth period, which was a coach sitting there drawing plays on the board, and we just did nothing.

And he would look at me about twice a week and go, hey McClendon, walk down the convenience, give me a couple dollars, walk down the convenience store and get me a pack of cigarettes and get yourself a Coke.

And I would walk down on school hours, school teachers, about four blocks to the convenience store, buy two packs of cigarettes, a honey bun and a Coke, and walk back.

And my wife's like, What did you do?

I ate the honey bun and the Coke before I got back there.

My friends wouldn't see me.

And he'd go give me the change.

Because cigarettes are like 65 cents a pack back then.

Some of you smokers are like, shut up.

Yeah.

I just came and went however I wanted.

And you say, Well, what do you mean?

That's a lot of badness back then.

I mean, starting about third grade.

I just think of things I did.

I was a mean, angry little kid.

And by the way, fourth grade it got worse, fifth grade it got worse, sixth grade got worse, ninth grade, eighth grade I was on probation because they caught me.

Got arrested in my eighth grade world history class.

Got perp walked out.

They didn't put a coat over you back then.

They hitched you and marched you down the hall.

And all my friends were like, McClendon got arrested, McClendon got arrested.

I didn't get to supper that night until the whole town knew.

Tenth grade, it didn't get better.

11th grade, it didn't get better.

12th grade, it didn't get better.

Why do I tell you all that?

Look at me.

Despite all that badness, the goodness of God was so much bigger.

And when I heard about that right after graduate high school, that's what brought me to my knees.

I just thought, I want to know that God that looks at me through the lens of his goodness, not through the lens of my badness.

That's how I look at myself.

Fourth thing we see in the gospel that makes it good news is that you can experience this for yourself.

This is not just a bunch of, you know, religious facts out there.

Oh, that's for all the good people.

There are no good people.

None of us deserves it.

Remember, I said earlier this is not universalism, but it's a universal opportunity.

It's for anyone.

Here's what I mean when I say you can experience this for yourself.

Verse 25.

Look at what the Bible says.

He said, uh, by his grace is a gift of the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood.

Here's the part I want you to receive, to hear this morning: to be received by faith.

To be received by faith.

When I say you can experience this for yourself, this is what I mean.

It's not enough just to believe that all these things happen and that, hey, that's meaningful for somebody.

You have to receive it by faith for yourself.

To receive it by faith means three things: it means acknowledgement, acceptance, and actuality.

SAT word.

Actuality.

What do you mean, acknowledgement?

Take the first one.

Acknowledgement means you not just agree, but you understand the consequences of these truths for your life.

Then again, according to the law, according to the Bible, and what the law says, it speaks to those who are under the law so that every mouth may be stopped.

Everyone that disagrees is going to have their day when their mouth is stopped and the whole world will be held accountable to God.

That's bad news.

But God sends Jesus to bring good news.

Secondly, acceptance means that you accept what Christ has done on your behalf.

Have you ever done that?

Has that ever happened for you?

That's what we that's what's called becoming a Christian.

Is that I accepted what Christ has done on my behalf.

I was in my hometown with my family about two weeks ago.

And I told my kids, yeah, I lived, I grew up in that house right there, and they're like, oh my gosh.

And I used to break into that church right there because after I would me and my friends would get high, we get cotton mouth, we'd break in there and steal high C and climb up there and sit on the apex of that A-frame roof and drink it and sing Rhinestone Cowboy by Glenn Campbell.

And I was just talking.

I didn't think it's that my kids are like.

Yeah.

Now, by the way, I was also in my hometown maybe 10 years ago.

That was years ago.

Ten years ago in the grocery store, clear as a bell, the Holy Spirit said, I want you to buy all the high sea in the store.

It was in a grocery store called Brookshir's.

It's three carts, by the way.

Look like a wagon train heaped over.

It no longer comes in cans.

It now comes in plastic jugs with a handle.

Loaded it up, walked up to the cash restaurant, and the lady said, What are you doing?

I said, Just what the voice tells me.

I said, uh, no, I I I used to live, I grew up here, and she goes, I know who you are.

And I said, Yeah, I was I was a hell yeah a long time ago, but Christ changed me.

And I don't know why, but I'm supposed to bring all this to this church over there I used to steal from.

Now look at me.

I don't have to, that's math.

I wanted to, that's music.

So I get over there.

See, sometimes God tells you to do stuff you don't know why.

Just do it.

I get over there, I walk in.

Yeah, I used to live in that little house right over there.

I used to break in steel high seat for this place and ladies like, hang on a second, let me, let me, the pastor's not here.

I said, relax, I'm not a bad person.

I used to be, but I'm not anymore.

And I said, uh, I think the Lord told me to buy you, I bought all the high seat at Brookshir's.

I said, Oh, ma'am, I'm not gonna harm anybody, okay?

Uh you don't understand.

We have vacation Bible school next week, and we had a meeting this morning, and we don't have any budget, and we don't know more about it.

We didn't get drinks.

You got drinks now.

Hope your kids like high C.

Now look at me.

That's not me trying to earn my way.

Again, that's not math.

It's just music.

That's the good news of the gospel.

I get to be somebody I've never been before.

See, that's acceptance.

I accept what Christ has done on my behalf.

And so I don't try to pay him back.

I just get to live in light of that.

Third word, actuality.

What does actuality mean?

It means the truths of the gospel are actually being experienced and displayed in your life.

This is important for all of us who profess to be Christians because the gospel is not just a noun, it's a verb.

It's not just the way we become Christians, it's what motivates us to live the Christian life.

It's not the door that we enter into or the prayer that we pray, it's the air that we breathe.

So I told you a couple weeks ago, I think, about how I got kicked out of our system with my tithe because I set it up on my credit card and it stopped doing it in October.

So we had to go back and tithe for November and December, and while I say, hey, we got to kind of watch our expenses, can't eat out.

Okay.

And then, by the way, you're probably not this way, but when I do the right thing, I think, okay, things are gonna get better now.

Then my kid's computer broke.

And she needed a new one.

And I, you been to the Apple store lately?

They don't give those things away.

And so, why do I tell you that?

Because a friend of mine in the church came up to me and goes, all right, all right.

I mean, I just gotta know why did you not just kind of not say anything and just kind of and I said, Because of the gospel.

Because this pervasive question swells up in me and gets me, and it's simply this: how does the gospel speak to this?

What do you mean?

I said, that that's whatever circumstance you face in life.

You can it's actuality, you can ask yourself, how does the gospel speak to this?

How does the gospel inform my response to this person or this circumstance?

How does it affect my thinking?

How does it guide my decision?

How does it inform my parenting?

Let me put it down here where we live.

See, you you need to begin to ask your kids, because for your kids, this is just kind of like some sun, this is the Sunday book, and it's kind of out here.

You want to integrate your kids with the gospel?

The next time they get in trouble, ask them this question.

Hey, how does the gospel speak to this?

And get prepared for I don't know, you're the adult.

I just want you to think about it.

How does the gospel speak to this?

And here's what you should ask your kids, okay?

And because you've got to put some handles on it for them.

Don't just say, hey, how's the gospel speak to this?

Ask this.

Hey, what do you want me as a result of your behavior?

What do you want me to believe about you?

What do you want me to believe about myself?

And what do you want me to believe about God?

What happens is your kids begin to orient their thoughts and their motivations around the gospel.

It's not a religious pop quiz, it's just, hey, how does the gospel speak to this?

Otherwise, it's just it's this external thing you're trying to versus this internal reality you're trying to demonstrate.

And so here's what I'd like us to do this morning as we finish.

If you're here in this room and you've never begun a relationship with Christ, ask yourself this question: why would you not want to know a God like this?

Now, some people say to me every once in a while, hey, why don't we have an invitation?

We have an invitation every Sunday.

And here we get, we teach the Bible, we give you space to think about it, and then myself and some of our pastors will be available down front.

Here's why we do that, okay?

Look at me.

We think it's more natural to have a conversation in that setting than with 400 people staring at your backside while we sing just as I am 14 times.

And you guys are kind of going, the Patriots kick off, hurry.

Yeah.

And so there's always an invitation.

And so here's two parts to the invitation.

First and foremost is to know Christ.

If you've never trusted Christ, you've never said, Oh, yes, I don't want just forgiveness.

I acknowledge it.

I've screwed up, man.

I can't keep the rules, I can't keep the law, but you've done it for me.

I accept that for my on my behalf.

But secondly, here's the other part.

Whatever you're facing right now as a Christian, would you just take a moment and just ask yourself, ask God, how does the gospel inform my response to this?

What does it say to me?

Because look at me, and I'll be done.

If we don't learn to do that, you will never have a response that's bigger than you.

Or said, like I said earlier, it'll always be math and never music.

Never music.

I offloaded the high C, took a while, it was plastic bags.

They were tearing and breaking.

The secretary's balling.

What's your name?

It doesn't matter, ma'am.

I just piled it all there right at her desk and said, I gotta go.

I get about an hour down the road, coming back to Sugarland.

A friend of mine's the pastor.

My phone rings.

I recognize the aircraft, not the number.

Neil McClendon.

And I said, How'd you know it was me?

He goes, What other hell you and breaks into churches?

Well, I had three friends with me, let me give you their names.

And we just talked, and he just said, This was probably the biggest compliment I've ever gotten.

He said, You're one of the most changed people I've ever known, Neil.

And I said, That's not a statement about Neil, that's a thing about the gospel.

Look at me.

God has the power.

We're not ashamed of the gospel.

Why?

Because it's the power of God to salvation to anyone who believes.

To the Jew first, and then to the Greek, then to the Gentile, the person that's way off.

Let's think about the gospel just for a minute.

Let me pray.

Just take a moment and just kind of ask the Lord.

If you're here today, you've never begun a relationship.

We'll be available down front.

We'd love to talk to you.

You may say, hey, I just want to use this card here, and we'd gladly contact you.

But don't let your personality keep you from the good news of the gospel.

This is why it's our first and foremost core value.

It's because it's not just a noun, it's a verb.

It is life-altering good news that trumps all the bad news you've heard in your life.

The people that told you you were stupid, that you were dirty, that you were unclean, that you didn't deserve it.

None of us deserve it, and yet God wants you to have it today.

And if you have it today, if you have this gospel, God wants you to demonstrate that to the world around you.

Let's just take a moment and think about what that looks like.

And we see the uniqueness of Jesus Christ, his life, his death, and his resurrection.

No one else has done that.

No one has even claimed to do that.

This is the good news of the gospel.

And it triumphs and trumps all the bad news we've ever been told.

So, Holy Spirit, apply it where it needs to be applied today.

Set the captives free, invigorate the believer.

We pray in Jesus' name.

And everyone said, Amen.

Amen.

If you're a guest, let me say welcome.

You're always welcome here.

Look at me.

You do not have to know the words of the songs.

You do not have to agree with everything I say.

If you disagree with something I say, come to me and say, Hey, I want to talk to you.

I want to understand that.

I want to know what you mean when you say that, okay?

We believe that you're created by God for a relationship with God that brings glory to God, okay?

Uh that that's your created purpose.

And so that's why we talk out of the Bible.

We we think it's authoritative, we think it's sufficient, uh, and we think it makes sense as well as a difference, all right?

Uh but if you're a guest, hope you've had an opportunity for that one of our guest cards there in a couple of seat back pockets in your row.

And as you leave this morning, there's little wooden boxes by the door.

You just drop that in there.

That's all we ask of you.

For the rest of you that call this your church, and today's the day you worship God through obedience or generosity, that's where you'll take care of that as well.

We like to end our service with a blessing.

So if you would stand on your feet.

Hold your hands out.

Let me speak a blessing over you.

The gospel, the good news of the Lord Jesus Christ is so good.

It supersedes all the bad news you've ever heard in your life.

So as you leave today, may you stop believing the bad news and be done with it.

Start believing the good news and never be done with it.

In the name of the Father and the Son, the Holy Spirit.

Amen.

Bless you.