The Gospel-Centered Community - How Community Shapes Us In The Gospel

Well, if you've been with us for a while now, you know that we're going through a book called the Gospel-Centered Community.

How many people, by the way, have actually gone through the Gospel-Centered Life book?

How many of you have been touched by that book?

We need more people to go through that book.

That book is wonderful.

Mark uses that extensively, by the way, when he does his traveling and when he's working with ministry, because what it does is it gets the gospel right.

And this book that we decided to do this summer, the Gospel-Centered Community, has been really, really good, because it's focusing the gospel on the community and how we live and work together.

Three weeks ago, neil kicked it off with a message on the gospel, because you've got to get the gospel right before anything else.

It's got to be the foundation.

And let me just say this and I've said this from the pulpit before Let me just encourage you again If you missed a sermon, you can see it.

Just go to YouTube, go to our channel on YouTube, go to our website as you hear Derek say it time and time again tccnoxcom.

You can go to our Facebook channel and just go there and you can watch it.

That was such a foundational message and it came from probably the one person that knows the gospel better than anything else and he's a responsible party for why so many of us are so well-rooted in the gospel.

But it was really good.

It was a basic understanding of what the gospel was.

And then John Grainer got up the following week and he talked about how God created us to be in community and be in community with one another.

And you know, if you think about it, as he pointed out, god is a family, he's a family and he called us to be his children, his adopted children, and so God actually created community from the very beginning, and that's important for us to know and always remember, and I thought that was great.

And then last week Kelly shared about how community shapes us in the gospel you know how the church community shapes our understanding the gospel and he talked about two things that are in the book.

He talked about a lot of great stuff, but two things that really stood out to me about having a functional community perspective, which means that's a selfish perspective, everything centers around you but how we should have a formative community perspective and it's all about God and the gospel being the center of everything.

And it was a really good foundational message and the gospel being the center of everything.

And it was a really good foundational message.

But today's lesson does appear to overlap because it's called how the gospel shapes community.

Okay, how the community shapes the gospel, how the gospel shapes community.

And I put a graphic together.

Actually, timothy cleaned my graphic up and made it look good to help us understand the difference, because there's an overlap here and I want to make sure it's clear.

When he talked about how the gospel shaped or how the community shapes the gospel, he talked about looking at the gospel through the lens of the community.

Right, as the book states, being in community exposes our sin and pushes us to believe in the gospel even more.

Okay, my perspective, what I'm going to be doing and what I'm talking about is the reverse of that.

It's a focus on how we're doing community through the lens of the gospel, meaning how does the gospel shape, how we do community together.

So that's the difference perspective, but we're really talking about the same thing Two sides of the same coin, if I could use a phrase.

So that's what our focus is going to be today.

Let's go before the Lord and ask him to bless our time.

Father, you are so good.

I've been so encouraged this morning just to worship you, to be reminded.

And, kelly, the scriptures Kelly read, and the encouragement that Mark spoke, and the encouragement that Mark spoke, father, no matter how turbulent the times are that we live in, no matter how bad they get, you are always on your throne.

You don't even feel a ripple.

You don't even feel a ripple of what happens on this earth, meaning you know what's going on, you're aware of it, but it doesn't shake your throne at all.

And, father, today, as we talk about how the gospel works within us and how we look at community through the gospel, I pray that you would open our eyes and our hearts, including mine, lord, to be convicted, to be willing to be convicted, to be open to your Holy Spirit, that we would truly be guided, changed by the gospel, and that that change would reflect in our relationships with one another and for those all around us.

So, father, that's my prayer and we lift it up to you in the name of Jesus, amen.

Now, before we go into the gospel and how it transforms community, I want to take you down a rabbit hole.

I normally am a pretty linear teacher.

I'm going to take you tick, tick, tick, tick all the way through.

But as I was preparing this message it was really interesting.

God just got something.

He just stuck something in my head and I couldn't get it out and it was somewhat triggered by something in the book that I read.

But it was also informed by what John preached about a couple of weeks ago.

You know, john talked about how God created us for community, and I feel it's important to kind of drive this a little bit deeper, because if we don't believe God made mankind to be in community together, then we will dismiss much of what we're going to be talking about today.

So I want to expand on that a little bit and specifically I want to focus on one element of community within the Big C Church.

Let me start by asking you a question why did God send his son to this earth?

Now you're like okay, scott, that's a fastball straight down the middle.

I got that one and we don't.

We know exactly what we did.

We'd all universally say that he sent his son to come live a perfect life that we couldn't do, to be a perfect sacrifice, to go on the cross and to die for us, and that through the blood of Christ and through repentance we can be redeemed.

That's the gospel.

But how many know there was another purpose?

You might say, oh wait a second, he's straying from the gospel.

What's the other purpose?

No, the other purpose is very gospel focused.

He came to build his church.

He came to build his church.

He came to build his church.

He spent his entire earthly ministry first selecting and then training disciples to build a church that would be a conduit for the gospel to go up.

We know that right.

The whole New Testament testifies of this early church and we stand on the shoulders of the apostles and the prophets.

The apostle Paul writes prolifically about the church, but in Ephesians 2, verse 19 through 22, this is what he says.

Ephesians 2:19–22

So then you are no longer strangers and aliens.

Now I'm going to stop there.

Strangers and aliens.

If you're a stranger, an alien to a country, a lot of times you can actually be an enemy of that country.

You don't understand it, you don't understand the culture, you're not a part of that culture, you're not immersed in that culture.

So you're a stranger and alien.

He says you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens who with With the saints and members of the household of God.

You're my brothers and sisters.

I can.

Mark does this all the time he goes into these other lands.

He goes to Poland.

He meets people he may have never seen laid eyes on them.

He probably can't even speak the language, which I know.

He can't speak Polish.

He's getting there though, but immediately.

The Holy Spirit, yeah.

No, speak Polish.

He's getting there, though, but immediately.

The Holy Spirit, yeah.

No.

Okay, it's a tough one, but immediately he's bonded together by them and with them.

Why?

Because of the Holy Spirit.

So we are made in this household of God.

That's what we're placed in.

And look what it says built on the foundations of the apostles we know them.

The prophets, we know them.

And then it says built on the foundations of the apostles we know them.

The prophets, we know them.

Then it says Jesus Christ himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord.

That's what the church is, that's what we are, and it's a special, special bond that we have with each other.

And then he says this in him, you also are being built together into a dwelling place for the God, the Spirit.

He didn't say you are being built together with yourself, he said.

You are being built together with the other believers in this special, special bond which, by the way, it's not just some club.

It's not some club.

I'm part of a motorcycle club.

We ride motorcycles.

It's very, very, very different, because this is a spiritual thing and there are many, many scriptures that talk about the children of God and living in community with one another.

I don't have time to go through all those, but it's important that we understand that community is not optional, brothers.

It's not optional.

It was how God designed the church from the beginning and how he designed it to function.

Now, if that's the beautiful picture of the church which, by the way, obviously you could go into so many more elements of what the church is but if that's it and I'm the enemy Satan, what am I going to try to do about that Exactly?

And from the very beginning, Satan has set his heart to destroy the church, and he first started with Adam and Eve by telling them hey, all that stuff, god told you it's a lie, you shall not surely die, and he began to drive a wedge between God and his people.

Then God sent his son to the world, and what did Satan do?

He immediately came after Jesus, and he was trying to thwart the actual primary purpose of Christ's coming, that he would live that perfect life and die on that cross for us.

He was trying to do that.

He attacked Satan in the wilderness, and I thought that it's so amazing that that was recorded for us, because we see Jesus and Satan going head to head.

It's not really fair, because he failed and we knew he was going to fail From the foundations of the earth.

It was determined he was going to fail, because we read about that prophecy in Genesis.

He was unsuccessful at thwarting the very first part of God's plan, the redemption of mankind.

So, having failed that, he attacked his church, and he's been attacking the church from the very beginning.

I just want to say, though, that we know he's ultimately going to fail in that one too.

You want to know why?

Because Jesus told us that, matthew 16, 18.

And I tell you, peter, this is Jesus talking to Peter right, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it, hallelujah.

You know, satan just must be really dumb.

I know he's not, because he's cunning and he's messed with all of us before and we've fallen into his trap.

But he's desperate and he's coming after the church and he's going to do everything to divide the church that he can.

He hates the church because it symbolizes the relationship with God, the relationship between God, the Father, and Jesus Christ.

It's that mystery that's talked about in Ephesians 6.

He hates the church, he hates you and he hates the church.

And he also knows that one of the most effective ways to get after the church is not necessarily from the outside, because what happened in the early church?

What happened in the early church when persecution came upon the church?

Remember, we just read, we just went through 2 Peter.

Right, what happened?

The church grew, the church grew and, under persecution, right now the church across this whole world is growing.

Look at the growth that's happening in China, in Iraq, in Iran.

The church continues to grow.

We just don't see it.

It's not going to be on CNN or Fox, but it's happening.

It's happening.

But he knows that if he can't get it from the outside, he's going to come after it from the inside.

You know, think about all the papyrus that was used by the writers of the New Testament to talk about unity in the body of Christ to talk about and warn against false teachers, people that are twisting the gospel.

And you know, every week as we go through the Bible reading plan, it's like you cannot, it's like every week there's something in there.

One of those scriptures we're reading is talking about that.

It's one of the apostles, encouraging us to stay unified, to be humble, to love one another.

Satan knows that when we're in community we're stronger than when we're alone.

Now the book lists some things that are basically obstacles for people to get into a deeper community relationship, and I mean he says things like busyness.

By the way, satan keeps us busy.

He keeps us away from the body by just keeping us busy the wrong kind of contentment, the fear of being known.

I don't want to be fully known by anybody.

They won't love me, they might hurt me, and all these reasons are for one purpose, and that is to keep us separated.

However, I believe there's one part of Satan's plan that is maybe we don't think about a lot, and that's what I want to focus on and that is how he has caused Christians to be divided as to what a church should look like and how it should function.

See, I can talk to all of us here about the body of Christ and I could talk to you how you know how Michael and I get along and how we work out problems and how we deal with things.

I can talk about that and that's all good and that's important, and you get a lot of that from this pulpit.

But we don't always talk about how we as a church, as Trinity Community Church, should interact and love the other churches in our community.

You see, some Christians say that church must only be a building with a pastor and a staff.

Some people say that church must only be structured with a centralized headquarters and then different churches that are set, but all reporting to that structure.

We've seen that Some say that a church should only be a house church because after all, that's the way the early church was set up.

Some people say that all megachurches are harmful and all of them are wrong.

That's not what God designed.

Guilty of any of that, don't put your hand up.

Guilty of any of that?

Don't put your hand up.

And, to be honest, most of us gravitate towards one of these models or beliefs more than the other one.

And in fact, to be transparent, I will tell you this right.

Here is the model I love.

I love a small church.

I love the fact I get to know everybody here, or most everybody, those that want to get to know me.

I love that.

I love the fact we get to know each other.

And I've been guilty of standing on my boat my boat being Trinity Community Church and finding a select rock and going there's a megachurch down the street.

Throw that stone at that megachurch Because they're not like me, they're not doing it right.

The fact of the matter is, brethren, what is important?

Is it important how a church is structured?

I'm not saying it's not important, don't get me wrong.

I'm not saying that.

But what I am saying is what's most important about that mega church down the street or that church of 40 out in the country somewhere is do they get the gospel right?

Are they preaching the gospel to their people every morning and then teaching people to go out and do the same with others?

See, that's what's most important.

Regardless of how big a church or small a church or how it's structured, we need to be focused on the gospel.

You see, if Satan can get us judging one another about how we do the church, he can cause divisions in the body that begin to destroy the church.

And again, we're so focused about divisions and unity within the body and I get that as an elder I'm really I'm a protector of that unity.

But we also have to realize we're responsible for unity in the big C church as well, also have to realize we're responsible for unity in the big C church as well.

And when people on the outside of the Christian faith see the infighting among us, they may begin to question if the gospel of Jesus Christ is really the answer.

Is it really the answer?

You know, in our prayer time before Brian Durfee said you know, it's like the Navy.

You know, in our prayer time before Brian Durfee said you know, it's like the Navy.

The Navy doesn't just consist of destroyers, it doesn't just consist of aircraft carriers, it consists of all types of craft.

But the only one purpose in that is to win the war.

We're going to look a little different.

We're going to worship a little different.

We're going to worship a little different.

What's most important, do we get the gospel right?

And I think it's really amazing.

You know this Unite Knoxville.

We've got people of all kinds of faiths.

You ever been to a Christian concert and you're seeing all these people.

They all come from different churches, but what are they doing?

They're worshiping God together.

Do you know that our youth right now, the camp they're at, has three other different churches that are there together?

And you know those churches don't look exactly like ours, but they got the gospel right.

They got the gospel right.

I believe the church that Jesus Christ builds should not be identified primarily about how it's constructed or organized.

Rather, it should be known for what it believes, and that's the true gospel.

Now, the true gospel is non-negotiable.

How we do church, brethren, is important, but it's secondary.

And you know, at Trinity Community Church, the way we are structured, with an elder plurality.

We believe that's scriptural and we follow that.

That's what we follow.

But does that mean I look at the church down the road?

That is more pastor focused?

Does that mean I throw rocks at them?

No, we got to throw the rocks down.

We got to put the rocks down Because there is a time, brethren, that's coming.

It's coming when we're going to be unified because of persecution and we're going to be unified because of what's happening in this world.

So, when it comes to applying the gospel to community, like we're going to be talking about today.

I want to encourage you to begin as I take all this and I talk about.

I talk about the relationship of the gospel with each of us as we deal with each other.

I want you to expand that and think about that beyond the walls of this church, and I want to ask you to challenge your beliefs that all those churches are wrong, or all that churches are wrong, and we need to start finding the center.

And please, I want to make sure that everybody understands me.

I'm not saying that we shouldn't be careful to discern what other churches believe, especially if we're going to partner with them.

I'm not saying that.

Don't think I'm trying to get up here and give some homogenous oh, we're just love, we're just going to love.

No, we're going to use discernment.

We have to use discernment, but we can't fall into the trap that Jesus said was going to come, as Satan tries to plan for us Divide the body of Christ.

Sometimes I wonder if we should just all show up at another church and just go in there and just pray for everybody.

Wouldn't that blow their minds?

Just to show up, worship with them, hug them, pray for them.

They're going.

What the hell?

Where are you guys from oh, we're from Trinity Community Church.

We just wanted to come worship with you guys.

Don't you guys believe in the gifts of the Holy Spirit?

Yes, we do.

In fact, I don't teach how to pray in tongues.

No, that might not go over very well, but you see, that's what we have to do.

We have to be careful about that, brethren.

So rabbit hole is officially closed.

Let's talk about what I said I was going to talk about.

You know, I've always tried to be transparent with you up on this stage about who I am and my journey, and a lot of you have heard you know I've given sermons before talking about my journey and my journey, and a lot of you have heard you know I've given sermons before talking about my journey.

And I just want to say when I first came into the church, the church, the big C church at age 12, I came into a very legalistic belief system, all right.

So I tried to goose step my way to the kingdom.

Okay, I was taught that.

Now, when I left the church after God broke that down with grace, I left the church because I was hurt by the way, you can put your hands up.

Anybody here ever been hurt in a church before I'm going to put my hand up until everybody puts their hand up, just kidding.

But you know, about 20 years ago God called my wife and I back and he brought us back into a church that understood grace, and they understood the gospel fairly well and I began to.

God began to strip away all the legalism from me and replace that with grace, and it was the most beautiful thing For the long time.

In my Facebook page you can put kind of a little you know when I believe type thing and I put down I've learned to look through the gospel.

I look at life through the lens of grace and it's beautiful because that's what I was seeing for the first time and it was a beautiful thing.

However, when Hedy and I came here almost well, actually over eight years ago now my wife and I came to begin to understand a fuller meaning of the gospel, a fuller meaning of the gospel, and we didn't understand it overnight.

It took a long time to teach us this.

We began to understand that the gospel is not just a doorway for sinners, but something that every Christian should live out every day of their life, and Neil Silverberg was a big part of that, you know, when I was made an elder, I would sit in the elders meetings and it was funny because I would sit there and they'd be talking, and someone would be talking about counseling and I'd hear Mark say you know, we just have to apply the gospel to this situation.

I'm going apply the gospel.

Aren't these people saved?

And then Neil would say something about well, you know, as long as we just got to keep the gospel at the forefront of this, and I kept scratching my head, well, I thought we already did that.

That was a box we checked a long time ago, but it wasn't true.

I didn't understand it.

And then.

So what happened is, um, after I was made an elder, about maybe a year or two into it, I was given an assignment of a sermon.

It was probably my second or third sermon here and the sermon series.

It was really cool because the sermon series was called.

It's called Authentic and I'm not going to ask you if you remember the sermon series right, but it was called Authentic and it was about making authentic disciples.

But it was called Authentic and it was about making authentic disciples and my title was what is a True Disciple?

Is the Gospel Transforming Me?

And I was like I already did that.

Didn't I tell you that?

How is the gospel transforming me?

And I got to tell you.

I now know that God sovereignly assigned me that message because it forced me to really dig in and ask myself how is the gospel transforming me?

What does that look like?

And I had to ask the tougher question how does the gospel transform?

Scott Weems on a daily basis, and that got me praying and studying the gospel.

So in my preparation, as I was working on this, I'm a visual learner and I have to sometimes take concepts and put them in a visual way, a graphic way, and so I came up with this concept called the gospel wheel.

And as I dug into that, I began to say, yeah, this makes sense.

So what I basically did you can see the gospel wheel up there.

Basically, what I did is I did this wheel, and the wheel at the center is the gospel, and coming out from the hub, which is the gospel, is all the different elements and principles and the parts of the gospel itself.

Okay, so if you look at that like, for instance and, by the way, this is not an exhaustive list you could put a lot of spokes on this wheel right, because everything flows out of the gospel.

But I had to stop somewhere because I ran out of room on my chart.

Let's walk through a few of these and explain this.

So, grace and faith Well, their core, their core elements of the gospel Ephesians 2.8,.

By grace, you've been saved, through faith.

They walk hand in hand together.

Grace is undeserved.

It's unearned Smash that automatically broke anything.

I had.

Last vestiges of legalism okay, I knew that.

Now I really know it.

Right.

And faith to believe.

Even that faith is a gift from god.

Right?

How about justice?

God is just.

We know that all sin holds a penalty.

All sin holds a penalty Eternal punishment.

Scripture also tells us that God will ultimately judge and punish every sin that's ever committed, every sin, every sin.

And for believers, we take comfort in the fact that that justice was satisfied on the cross with Jesus.

It's a part of the gospel.

Repentance Repentance is one of the cornerstone truths of the gospel.

Scripture tells us, in order to be saved, we must repent, and again you've heard that repent means I'm going this way and I now turn and go that way, meaning that when you give yourself to Christ and he comes into your life, you will not look the same.

You will not look the same.

You're saved by grace alone, but not grace that remains alone.

One of my favorite quotes it can't remain alone Because if you're changed, your life's going to reflect that, and repentance, that gift from God, is a big part of it.

There's no salvation without that genuine repentance, even though, by the way, unfortunately some church like to put another mark because someone came forward and said a prayer, but then their life doesn't change, and we don't want that.

That's not true gospel.

How about obedience?

A true sign of repentance is when we begin to obey Christ.

We begin to obey him, we literally begin to do what he said.

Our hearts have changed so that we want to obey Doesn't mean we don't sin anymore, but we're grieved by sin.

1 John, 2, 4,.

John says Whoever says I know him but does not keep his commandments is a liar and the truth is not in him.

So you get the idea here.

This is the gospel wheel.

And as I began to formulate this, I said, okay, now how does this gospel wheel transform me?

And for the purposes of this sermon, I want to take the gospel wheel and apply it to circumstances and situations, scenarios that you might come across as you walk with somebody in the Lord, as we walk together.

Okay, so this is going to be a very pragmatic sermon.

I love saying that name.

I don't know what that word means.

It just sounds good, it's practical.

Okay, let's talk about scenario one and, by the way, any of these scenarios, if they resonate with you I have nobody in mind when I wrote these scenarios up.

Okay, these were just shooting from the hip.

Okay, if you represent this, then that's something you deal with God about.

So the first one is the gossip.

Let's just say someone in church comes to your attention.

That someone in church gossiped about you Never happened in the church, of course, it's totally hypothetical.

Maybe they talked behind our back, maybe they said something to someone that really disparaged you and was untrue.

It hurt a little bit more if it was true, but let's say it was untrue, right, it harmed your reputation.

Now, how does the gospel apply to this situation?

Well, let's take the gospel wheel and let's take a look.

So the first one when I think about this, the first thing I point out is our fallen nature.

One when I think about this, the first thing I point out is our fallen nature.

Now, the gospel is clear that all men have sinned and just because you received the Holy Spirit and you are now made new, a new creation, as we read in the gospel, and we read in 1 Corinthians 5.17, I think it is we're made a new creation, but we still struggle with sin.

What's your struggle?

I could hand out a post-it note and say write down your biggest struggle, your biggest sin that you struggle with, and go stick it on the wall.

It would be full, because we all have those things that we carry with us, that we're fighting against, and God's cleansing us and changing us.

We're dealing with that.

Maybe this person, one of the things they're dealing with is gossip.

My brother-in-law I'll tell you a story.

My brother-in-law one time I came from rural Saskatchewan, canada, and he was at a little diner in our little town and he was sitting.

There was a small diner and there was three women over here just gossiping away about everything and he's sitting there eating and he's just smiling to himself.

It's just like, oh.

And finally this one woman said you know what?

I better stop right there because I've already said more than I know and he was just like that's the most honest thing I've ever heard.

But maybe that's that person's besetting sin that they're struggling with.

Why is the gospel important?

It's important because you've got to realize that just like they struggle with that, you might struggle with something else.

Maybe you can't keep your mind clear from that phone.

Maybe you get tempted by that phone going to places you shouldn't.

Maybe yours is anger.

Maybe you get behind the wheel and you turn into the Hulk.

You didn't signal, you know.

By the way, I hate when people don't signal.

This is true confession up here.

I hate that.

What's your sin?

You see, understanding that maybe that person's struggling with that and that's your stronghold.

It helps soften your heart towards them.

It doesn't justify what they're doing, but it makes you understand that you know what they're struggling with something, just like I'm struggling with something, and I then need to extend them grace for that right.

How about forgiveness?

Do you know?

One of the hardest concepts for Christians to understand is that you have to forgive, even if the other person is not repentant.

Maybe you go to that person and you say if the other person is not repentant, maybe you go to that person and you say you know, kelly, pick on Kelly.

You know what I heard, what you said to Mark about my sermon and it really hurt my feelings.

You know where I'm going from.

If you talk to them and you say that, and maybe their response back to you is oh, I didn't say that, oh, no, well, no, that was misconstrued, or whatever.

Maybe they're not really repentant about it Now.

We would love for them to go oh man, you're right, I'm sorry, we'd love to have that, which, by the way, is another element of the gospel we'll talk about.

But even if they don't, you have to forgive them.

Why?

Why do you have to forgive them?

Because Jesus forgave you.

It's as simple as that, and if you've ever watched somebody that's beset with unforgiveness, you can see it's destroying them from the inside.

You have to forgive.

The gospel informs us that we have to forgive.

How about justice?

We want to pay that person back, don't we?

Sometimes it's our first.

Well, I know some things about them I'm going to talk to somebody about, or maybe we're telling somebody else about the offense and by doing that, we're painting a bad picture of that person as we talk to them about it.

Right, you see how that can.

It's like our way of payback.

You hurt me, I'm going to hurt you.

Welcome to America, unfortunately, our American society, that independence and that I'm my own man type thing.

It bleeds into our Christian lives sometimes it really does.

But we know the only person that can yield the sword of justice is Jesus.

Romans 12, 19 says we should never take vengeance and it quotes scripture.

It says vengeance is mine, says the Lord.

Are you beginning to see how the gospel can apply to these scenarios?

Let's do the next scenario.

I call this one.

Mr Do-Right, you're friends with somebody in the church.

There's somebody you know that they are a servant of God, they serve.

They're here every time the church is open.

They're volunteering for all the things they're serving God.

They're doing just wonderful.

But they like to tell people about what they're doing.

I mean, they're always kind of bragging about stuff, even though they'll do it subtly, but they're bragging about it.

Say oh yeah, I helped Widow Smith last week and it was good.

She really needed the help and I was glad to fix her freezer, it was good.

Oh yeah, I went over and I visited Mr Jones and he really needed a visit.

Well, what's happening is people don't want to be around people like that anymore, do they?

And you're seeing that he's this pride that's coming out, or maybe just a need for affirmation is coming out of him and it's destructive.

Now, if you love him and, by the way, this is the biggest test how many times do you run into this situation?

How many times do I run into situations like that where I'm just like, oh man, I'm going to go over here.

If you really love that person, maybe you're going to sit down with them and say, hey, can we get coffee sometimes?

And when you sit down with them and you're talking to them, maybe you can introduce him to some things about the gospel, but doing it in a godly way.

I love you, man, and you are a great servant of the Lord.

But I've just got to tell you sometimes I sense there's a pride that comes out with that, because you're telling everybody, and every time you come, you're always telling me about all the good things you did.

And, man, I understand that might be something you're struggling with, but it's not something that's good, because, after all, we know that we're not saved by our works.

You can serve all the widows you want, you can fix all the freezers that you want, you can make all the meals in the world for shut-ins that you want.

It doesn't change how God looks upon you.

You realize that.

See, we want to earn it.

It's built into us.

We want to earn something and maybe, just in love, you talk to that person.

Maybe they don't even know it, maybe it rips in a little bit deeper and this, by the way, if you read the section of the book it talks about that what was the motivation behind what they were doing?

Maybe it was like when I grew up, my dad, he gave me very little affirmation, very little affirmation, very little.

Hey, you did a great job at all that stuff.

I began a pattern in my life trying to get that from other people and I really relate to this guy because I wanted affirmation from somebody, first my wife, of course, well before I got married.

It was coaches and teachers and pastors, and then my wife and I was seeking that, and it took me, seeing that through the gospel, to realize that was wrong, and some people lovingly pointed that out to me, by the way.

I didn't want to hear it, but I was thankful I heard it.

It was part of my sanctification process.

So, grace and works, righteousness, fallen nature, all those things are part of that.

Let's look at scenario number three, and this might hit a little closer to home I call it the big fight.

You just had that big fight with your spouse.

They said some things, you said some things, and now you both feel like you're a million miles apart.

And, by the way, if you're like my wife and I and, by the way, I just can be honest we rarely fight about things anymore.

I just say, yes, dear, and it's all over.

No, seriously, we rarely argue about anything.

It's just because we've just drawn close to each other and I praise God for that.

But we've had some share of some pretty big arguments.

Can't be human if you haven't.

You hate that feeling about being separated and separated from your spouse emotionally and spiritually.

You just feel like there's a gap between you.

How do you play the gospel to a situation like that?

You've got hurt feelings, you're angry.

Well, how about we start with humility and repentance?

Do you know and I'll speak directly to the men do you know that you always have something to apologize for, even if you believe that you are 100% right?

You know what you can apologize for.

You can apologize for the fact that you're having the conflict.

You can maybe apologize for the fact that what they said triggered you to start a fight.

You see, rarely is it when we counsel people, rarely when it comes to marriages.

Rarely is it 100% their fault, 0% their fault.

Rarely is it that way.

There's always something to apologize for.

And what I found in my marriage is that when I would go to my wife and I'd apologize to her for my part and there was always a part that I played you know what that did for her?

That softened her heart and very rarely did that conflict last much longer and very rarely did that conflict last much longer.

And she's done the same for me.

Repentance and humility are elements of the gospel.

True repentance is what brings salvation to us and that's granted by God.

Humility, humbling yourself before your mate is important.

Forgiveness, forgiveness, forgiveness.

Man, anytime there's a divorce I've seen it so many times there's huge unforgiveness, Huge unforgiveness, sometimes just on one side, but most of the time on both sides.

Forgive your spouse for the things that may have said to you or what they may have done.

It's huge and sometimes the forgiveness doesn't take much.

Sometimes it takes a lot because the offense has been great, but forgiveness.

My marriage wouldn't be here if it wasn't for forgiveness in our marriage.

How about obedience?

Well, how's that part of the gospel?

Well, pretty simple.

Scripture tells us that husbands and wives should love and respect one another.

Husbands, love your wives, it says in Ephesians 6.

And wives are to respect their husbands.

Do you know?

That's really fulfilling the gospel is when you obey Scripture.

That's part of the gospel.

You're being obedient to the truth of Scripture and you're using that obedience to reconcile together.

You know your wife is part of the community of the church, right?

So you can see that, this gospel wheel, you can use this and make your own wheel up.

By the way, put other elements on there.

There's so many other ones there.

I mean I could have put love on there, I could have put that in, I could have put sin in there, right, there's lots of things you can put in there, but all of them pull back.

The gospel level sets everything back.

It brings everything back to a focus, because if you take the hub out of here and you just have all these things, it's like, well, you ever watch the spokes come off of a wheel.

You know what happens.

You won't be rolling much longer, it just won't continue to happen.

Make your own gospel wheel up, but the reality is that's how the gospel informs your relationships with each other.

And when I put this sermon together and I use this gospel wheel.

I continue to use this gospel wheel in my life Not perfectly, by the way, but I always try to do that in any situation I come across, how does the gospel wheel apply?

Even when I'm dealing with somebody who I don't know maybe they're not even a believer I still apply the gospel wheel to it and I'm telling you, it has centered me so much and that's why I thank God for giving me that sermon back then.

And as soon as I got assigned this one, as I began to read this chapter, I'm like oh man, this is the gospel wheel, because this is how the gospel applies in this case a more narrow focus to us in the church and how as we deal with each other in the church.

And it's so important, you know.

To conclude, I just want to say that we must always realize the gospel is not something to be only understood cognitively, it must be practiced practically in our lives and especially within the church, especially within the church.

And furthermore, if these principles surrounding the gospel can be followed, they can only be followed if your heart's changed and if you find yourself struggling with any one of these things, get on your knees, repent and ask God to fill you with his spirit.

And ask him to fill you with the fruit of the spirit, and just read them out.

Go to Galatians 5 and read them out.

He'll respond to that.

He will definitely respond and do that.

A right understanding of the gospel and the truth of the gospel is transformative and it helps us look more like Jesus Christ.

Sinclair Ferguson is a well-known teacher and preacher and I love listening to his sermons.

I've heard a few of them.

He's just great.

But he talked about the transformative power of the gospel in this way, he said the gospel of Jesus Christ transforms our character and builds Christ-likeness into it, a Christ-likeness that cannot be hidden and makes its own impression on others.

I can point out people and I won't, but I can point out people in this congregation that I've walked with now for eight years that are just beautiful examples of how the gospel applies in everything.

I thank God that as I sit in the eldership, I see the gospel being applied to everything, and sometimes it's not easy being in the elder.

When you're dealing with some difficult situations.

The gospel continues to inform the eldership.

It's been wonderful to be mentored by these men.

That impression is first made on those within the body of Christ and this community that we call the church.

I just want to end the sermon with an admonition from the Apostle Paul in the book of Galatians.

You know, in this chapter 6 of the book of Galatians he's talking about community and the main theme is bearing one another's burdens, but there's all kinds of great truths in Galatians 6.

But as he's listing all these different things and how a Christian should look and how we should act, he gets to verse 10 and he makes this statement.

He says so then, meaning he's culminating all of what he's just talked about.

He says so then, while we have opportunity, brethren.

You have opportunity today, I have opportunity today, and in light of what we just talked about and prayed about, you know, my biggest worry about what happened yesterday at that rally is that the Christian community would not focus on the gospel, but they'd start focusing on the differences that we have and people would start talking about.

Well, we know what that came from.

This group was trying to kill that guy and this and that, and pretty soon they're going to be focusing on anything but the gospel.

Shame on the church if we do that.

I encourage each one of you to, instead of going down that path, instead of getting your coffee and talking about this and that and conspiracy, this and that, I want you to pray for them.

Pray for the people that have been hurt, pray for our nation, do what we're supposed to do, but this whole month is focused on prayer and fasting for our nation.

That's what we should focus on.

That's what we should focus on While we have opportunity.

Let us do good to all people.

Have opportunity, let us do good to all people this is a time for the church to shine, by the way and especially to those who are of the household of faith, because, brethren, if we can't do it with each other, how can we do it with anybody else?

How can we do it with anybody else?

I just want to encourage us to use the truths of the gospel as we walk our sanctifying road, and by doing this, the world's going to see Jesus and they're going to be drawn to the gospel and to that saving grace that all of us have been able to receive.

Can you please stand for me and let's pray?

Can you please stand for me and let's pray.

Father, I'm humbled.

I think we're all humbled by your gospel, by the amazing good news that you sent your son, while we were still enemies, to come to a violent and angry and lost world, to be subjected to mockery, hatred, the foolishness of man.

But he lived that perfect life and he died on the cross as a perfect Savior and his blood flowed down that cross and redeemed us.

Father, we are humbled by the gospel and by the truth and we're humbled by your love for us, which there is no way we can even grasp the length and the breadth and the height and the width.

But, father, my prayer and our prayer as Trinity Community Church is that we, each one of us, reflect the gospel first and foremost to each other, that we would love each other with that love that just shows people that, wow, there ain't no way they can do that under their own power.

There must be something special going on there.

Father, may we be the light on the hill that shines forth truth and shines forth a truly transformed heart into a world that so desperately needs that and wants that.

Father, I pray and join my prayers with Kelly's and Mark's and all of ours.

I pray for our country and, father, I pray that this be an opportunity for us, as Christians, not to focus on the things we don't need to focus on, but rather focus on the gospel and upon loving one another and upon searching for where they're looking at, where the right answer is, and, as Mark said, it only comes in you.

Father, may there be a revival in this country and may it first begin with us.

And, father, we give this to you and we pray this and ask this sincerely in the name of our Savior Jesus, who is the encapsulation of the gospel, amen.