The Gospel-Centered Community - What Is The Gospel?

My name is Neil.

I'm not on the pastoral staff.

I serve on the oversight team, which is a team consisting of me and Clem Ferris giving oversight another set of eyes to guard the church, and we love our church.

I have the privilege of this being my home church, so I get a double blessing.

Turn in your Bibles to the book of Philippians, chapter 1, and I'll read the text and then tell you what we're beginning this morning.

Philippians 1 · chapter mention

In Philippians 1, this wonderful letter that Paul wrote to a group of Christians in Philippi, I want to read the opening verses, verse 3 and 4 and 5.

I thank my God in all my remembrance of you, always, in every prayer of mine, for you all making my prayer with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now.

Let's pray, father.

Thank you that you've brought us eternal life through the gospel.

Thank you this morning, lord God, that we have passed from death to life, that we have come to know your Son, jesus Christ.

And this morning, father, I pray for eyes to be opened.

I pray for a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him that our eyes would be open to understand the length, breadth, depth and height of Jesus Christ and his gospel.

In Jesus' name we pray, amen.

Well, we're starting a new series here at Trinity this morning.

If you've been with us over the last few weeks, a couple few months, we've been in the book of 1 Peter, a series called Grace Under Fire.

This morning, we're starting a new series entitled Gospel-Centered Community and it's based on this book, the Gospel-Centered Community.

We're not going to preach right out of the book, but this book will serve as a guide and you can purchase it.

Now we're at the coffee bar, you can purchase it for $10, I think, and you want to get this book.

It's really a phenomenal book and we've been using the previous book, the Gospel-Centered Life, to disciple people in the church.

In fact, our community group is going through it again.

We went through Gospel-Centered Life before and we're going through it again.

We went through gospel-centered life before and we're going through it again, so it's a great book.

These books are important for a reason they focus primarily on how the gospel provides us with everything we need to start the Christian life.

But it doesn't stop there.

The gospel not only gets us into the kingdom, but the gospel is the means of empowering us, keeping us, providing us with everything we need pertaining to life and godliness.

So many Christians think that the gospel is the message that gets us into the kingdom and once we're in the kingdom, we put the gospel on the shelf and we focus on other things.

You know, we focus on things such as prayer, discipleship, holiness and other important matters.

But the truth is, our relationship with the gospel doesn't end with our initial acceptance of the gospel, but continues throughout the entirety of our lives.

And you can see that in these verses that we read this morning, the opening verses to the Philippian letter, paul talks about their partnership in the gospel.

The word partnership is interesting.

It's derived from the Greek word koinonia, which is the word from which we derive our English word fellowship, koinonia.

And so Paul says from the first day he had koinonia.

The Philippian church had koinonia with the gospel, or in the gospel.

Paul is writing to these Philippian believers, reminding them that from the first time that Paul and Silas showed up in their midst, they enjoyed participation in the gospel.

Now, how many of you remember the story of how the Philippian church came into being?

Let me give you a little quick synopsis, because Paul and Barnabas Paul and Silas rather were wanting to go into Asia, but the Spirit of God this is Acts 16, the Spirit of God forbade them from going.

And they wanted to go into Messiah, and the Spirit said no, and there were doors being shut.

And then Paul one night had a vision and a dream, and in a vision he saw a man of Macedonia crying out come down and help us.

And so Luke says in Acts 16, immediately we concluded that God has called us to preach the gospel to them.

So they went to Philippi and a powerful church was born.

Now I want to ask you a question this morning.

If we're going to do a series called the gospel-centered community, here's a question I want to ask.

I feel sort of embarrassed to even ask it on a Sunday morning church service.

But what is the gospel?

How can we be a gospel-centered community unless we understand what the gospel is?

And it's a question we think many of us probably think doesn't need to be asked, since most of us assume we know what it is.

And it's a question we think many of us probably think doesn't need to be asked, since most of us assume we know what it is.

But we'll see this morning.

Such an assumption is wrong.

In fact, when I first returned from Florida to serve as lead pastor for the time after we came back, I began using the term gospel in many of my sermons.

I'll never forget Mark came to me one day and said you may want to define what you mean by gospel.

I said why?

He said because people think you're talking about a style of music and it never dawned on me that that might be the case.

The truth is, ask anyone in the church today what the gospel is and you're bound to get different answers.

Some will say the gospel is that God will forgive your sin if you believe in him.

That's true.

Is that the fullness of the gospel?

Still others will say it's the Roman road.

How many of you learned the Roman road when you were growing up in church of how to witness the Roman road?

Or the four spiritual laws?

We used to use the four spiritual laws a lot when we went out and did evangelism in Florida.

Others might sum it up by saying God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life.

Others might sum it up by saying God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life.

Still others that you're a child of God and God wants his children to be abundantly successful in every way.

One time I was teaching a group of teenagers in church church teenagers and I asked the question what is the gospel?

And one of the young men said rules and regulations on how to live.

And I said that's not the gospel.

That's a perfect description of the law, but that's not the gospel.

So let's start with what the gospel is not.

The gospel is not just the message on how to get saved.

You know, if you ask the average Christian what the gospel is, you're likely to get a presentation rather than a definition.

If we reduce the gospel only to the means to salvation, it minimizes the gospel and its significance, as Tim Keller points out.

He says, quote we never get beyond the gospel in our Christian life to something more advanced.

The gospel is not the first step in a stairway of truths.

Rather it is more like the hub in a wheel of truth.

The gospel is not just the ABCs but the A to Z of Christianity.

The gospel is not just the minimum required doctrine necessary to enter the kingdom, but the way we make all progress in the kingdom.

Others reduce the gospel to the two great commandments to love God and love people, and it's true that these commandments are central to Christ's life and message, but they're not in themselves the gospel.

Are you with me?

In actuality, the two commandments are a wonderful summary of the law.

You know why people are trying to sidestep the law with the love God, love people mantra.

In actuality, they're sidestepping the gospel and running back to the law.

So let's define what the gospel is.

The gospel is first and foremost news.

It is first and foremost news.

The word in Greek for gospel is evangelion, which means news.

It's a message or an announcement.

It's primarily good news or an announcement of news.

That means we don't first live the gospel, we proclaim it.

You can no more live out the gospel than you can live out the evening news.

You know, you can live in the light of the news, but you cannot live the news Again.

Tim Keller wonderfully says the gospel is good news, not good advice.

You know, good advice tells us there's something we need to do to better our lives, whereas good news is the announcement that something already has been done.

You know there's a famous saying attributed to Francis of Assisi and it's doubtful he wrote it, but it's attributed to him and he said preach the gospel at all times and, when necessary, use words.

That sounds really good, but it's ridiculous Because the gospel is a proclamation and requires the use of words.

It should read preach the gospel and, if necessary, use words, because it is a necessity that we proclaim it.

The gospel is a proclamation and requires use of words.

It's the announcement that God in Christ has accomplished everything necessary to reconcile us to a holy God.

The term evangelion was originally a Greek term for the announcement of a victory.

When Rome fought a battle and won, they sent messengers or heralds to make the announcement that a victory had been won.

Here's the definition of a herald.

In biblical times, a herald was a representative of the king.

When the king had vital information to communicate to his subjects, he did not call a press conference or post something on the royal website.

He did not call a press conference or post something on the royal website.

Instead, he sent his herald to deliver a message to his people.

The role carried with it a grave responsibility.

Pastor Votie Bauckham defines it this way the gospel is the glorious, christ-centered, cross-centered, grace-centered news of what God has done in Jesus Christ, the last Adam, to redeem man from the fall of his federal head, the first Adam, and give man an eschatological hope that all things will eventually be redeemed in Christ.

Amen.

Let me read that again the gospel is the glorious, christ-centered, cross-centered, grace-centered news that God has done in Jesus Christ, the last Adam, to redeem man from the fall of his federal head the first Adam and to give man an eschatological hope that all things will eventually be redeemed in Christ.

Now to get to the heart of the gospel, to answer the question what is the gospel?

The gospel answers four questions from Paul's perspective.

They are these questions, and I want to unpack them this morning.

Number one who made us and to whom are we accountable?

Number two what is our problem?

Are we in trouble and why?

Number three what is God's solution to that problem?

How has he acted to save us from it?

And fourth, how do I come to be included in that salvation?

What makes this good news for me?

It's not just Paul who does.

As I read the rest of the New Testament, these are the four questions I see the apostolic writers of the New Testament answering over and over again.

No matter what the context is, they seem to deal with these four issues.

We are accountable to God.

Who created us?

We have sinned against God and will be judged.

God has acted in Jesus Christ to save us, and we take hold of that salvation by repentance from sin and faith in Christ.

Let's start with the first one.

We are accountable to God, who created us.

Everything starts with that, and if you get that wrong, everything else that follows will be wrong.

Also, he not only created all things, but he created it all, to use a Latin term, ex nihilo, which means out of nothing.

God didn't take preexisting material and mold it into what we now see.

Rather, he spoke, and it was.

Let there be light, and there was light.

The creative word of God, spoken, created, brought into existence all things.

And God didn't take pre-existing material and mold it into what we now see.

Rather, he spoke, and it was.

Creation testifies to God's glory and power.

The heavens, psalm 19,.

The heavens declare the glory of God.

Romans 1 tells us that God's invisible attributes, namely his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world in the things that have been made.

You know the creation story, when you read it in Genesis, expands each day.

First there's light, then there's sea, then there's land, then there's moon, then sun, then birds and fishes and animals, and then the pinnacle of creation man and woman.

And Genesis 1.26 says God said let us make man in our image, after our likeness, and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens, and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.

So God created man in his own image.

In the image of God, he created him Male and female.

He created them, by the way, that little still the image of God.

The reason there's an attack on male and female and the genders is because the genders always remind Satan that God's image is in male and female.

The implications of our being created beings are enormous.

If you think about it.

It means that none of us is autonomous, and understanding that fact is a key to understanding the gospel.

The story of creation is central to gospel preaching in our day.

It's so important that we don't assume, because of evolution and other distortions we must come back to the truth of the Bible that a sovereign, holy God spoke everything into existence and it stands today because he spoke it.

And I can tell you I don't know what you believe about global warming, but this universe will stand until God rolls it up, and I can tell you I don't know what you believe about global warming, but this universe will stand until God rolls it up.

It doesn't mean we purposely abuse our environment, but God has numbered the days of this planet.

It won't shut down until he says it's ready to shut down.

You know, we hear so much today about our rights and liberties, but we're not really as free as we would think.

We are created, therefore we are owned, and because he created us, god has the right to tell us how to live.

It's in creation that God earned the right to tell us how to live, because he created all things, and some understanding of this is absolutely necessary if a person wants to understand the good news Critical that we understand that the God that we serve is the creator, god who creates all things by the word of his power.

I never tire reading Genesis Let there be, let there be.

Let there be, and there was, because God's word is full of power.

Proverbs says Number two we have sinned against God and will be judged.

This is a major part of gospel proclamation that the God of creation, who created all things and holds us accountable.

We have sinned against him and therefore we are under judgment.

You know, when God created human beings, his intention was that they would live under his righteous rule in perfect joy, worshiping him, obeying him and living in unbroken fellowship with him.

Adam and Eve were to be his vice regents, ruling the world under him.

It's critical that we grasp that Adam and Eve were appointed to govern the world.

But even as they did so, they were subject to God and under his rule.

Right, and they were given a clear command not to eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

And when Adam and Eve bit into that fruit, they weren't just violating some arbitrary command, they were rejecting God's authority over them and declaring their total independence from him.

They made a conscious decision in the garden to reject him as their king, and they knew the consequences would be if they disobeyed God.

God said the day you eat of it, you will surely die, which means they would be cast away from his presence and become his enemies rather than his friends and subjects.

The Bible calls this disobedience to God's command, whether in word, thought or deed sin, remember sin, sin, remember sin.

They broke their relationship with God and rejected him as their rightful Lord, and the result is they were cast out of the garden.

No longer would the earth cooperate with them in growing its fruit and, worst of all, their spiritual life, which mattered most, ended immediately.

That's the meaning of the day you eat of it.

You shall surely die, because they didn't die physically, but they died in the relationship with God and suffered the great cleavage of being cut off from God.

But it's not just Adam and Eve who are guilty of sin.

We are as well.

We all are.

It is critical that we have a biblical understanding of the nature of sin.

You know, there's a huge difference between understanding yourself to be guilty of sins and guilty of sin singular.

They're categorically different.

You know, we all admit to various sins, individual acts we've committed.

We all have a laundry list if we took the time to write it down of sins we've committed.

And Romans, chapters 1 through 3, tells us clearly that we've all done sinful acts that have violated our commitment to God.

Romans 1 · chapter mention

But what is shocking is when God shows us our sin, the very depths of our hearts.

One author describes sin this way it is quote the deep running deposits of filth and corruption that we never knew existed in us and that we ourselves could never expunge.

Every part of our human existence is corrupted now by sin and under its power.

And Paul summarizes sin by giving the ultimate indictment of both Jew and Gentile.

In Romans 3.19,.

He says this Every mouth will be silenced and the whole world held accountable to God.

Can you wrap your head around what that means?

That there's a day when every one of us will stand before God and we have no explanation, no plea, no excuse.

If you're trusting in Jesus and Jesus alone, you have assurance that you'll enter God's heaven.

But if you're not trusting in Jesus, if you think you can get there without your repentance and faith, you will be shocked and you will have no explanation, no plea and no excuse.

Guilty as charged.

Number three God has acted in Jesus Christ to save us.

God has acted in Jesus Christ to save us.

God has acted in Jesus Christ to save us.

Thank God, the bad news of human sin and God's judgment is not the end of the story.

If the Bible ended with Romans 3.19, there'd be no hope.

But it doesn't end there.

There is hope.

You are a sinner, I am a sinner, destined to be condemned.

Condemned.

But God has acted in Christ to save sinners.

And Mark begins his account of Jesus life with the words the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the son of God.

Mark and the other early Christians knew the coming of Jesus was good news to a world devastated by sin.

Even in the garden, god gave his people a word of hope, good news in the midst of despair.

Do you remember it?

It wasn't much a simple phrase spoken in the garden he shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel.

That was spoken to the serpent.

He, the seed of the woman, christ Jesus, will bruise your head, serpent, and you, in the process, will bruise his heel.

A bruise on the head is completely devastating, while a bruise on the heel is recoverable.

This tiny seed of a promise would germinate, sprout and grow For thousands of years.

God prepared the world for his final work through life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, and all the gospel writers tell us that Jesus was no ordinary man.

He is both completely God and completely man.

He's the God-man.

Only a man who is both God and man can save us.

If Jesus were just another man, it would be impossible for him to save us.

In the same way, because he is fully man, he can rightly represent us before the Father.

And when Jesus came to this planet, he came to inaugurate the rule or kingdom of God.

But it didn't look like what Israel expected.

You know.

They were looking for more of a political kingdom that would overthrow Rome.

But here comes Jesus, preaching, teaching, healing the sick, forgiving sins, raising the dead and telling the Roman governor in no uncertain terms my kingdom is not of this world.

When John the Baptist saw Jesus, he proclaimed him as the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

But John the Baptist was not alone.

Every first century Jew knew immediately what John meant when he called Jesus the Lamb of God.

It was a reference to the Jewish festival of Passover, and it was nearing the time when Jews were thinking about finding their lambs for Passover slaughter.

It took time, but eventually the followers of Jesus realized that his mission was not just to inaugurate the kingdom but to die as a substitutionary sacrifice for his people.

The early Christians, taught by the Spirit, understood what Jesus accomplished on the cross.

Paul described it this way in Galatians Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us.

And in another place, and in another place, paul says God made him, who had no sin, to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

Peter said he himself bore our sins in his body on the tree that we might die to sin and live to righteousness.

By his wounds you have been healed.

Do you see what the early Christians were saying about the significance of Jesus' death?

It was that when Jesus died he didn't die for his own sin but for the people's sin.

This doctrine of substitution is one part of the gospel the world hates most.

Most people are disgusted at the idea of Jesus being punished for someone else's sin.

More than one author in the modern world today has called it nothing less than divine child abuse.

But if you toss to the side, you cut out the heart of the gospel, because the gospel of his heart is the truth that Jesus died a substitutionary death.

There are many pictures in scripture of what Christ accomplished with his death.

Example reconciliation and victory are named three.

But underneath all them is the reality of penal substitution, that Jesus' death paid the penalty for our sin.

That's why we sing and extol the blood of Christ in our worship here at Trinity, because it's the only thing that has saving power the blood of Jesus.

And then fourth and finally I want to dwell on this a little longer we take hold of that salvation by repentance from sin and faith in Jesus.

Mark's gospel begins with Jesus preaching and Mark says these words.

Has Jesus saying these words?

The time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God is at hand.

Repent and put your trust or believe in the gospel.

This command repent and believe is what God requires of us in response to the good news.

Throughout the New Testament, it is what we see the apostles calling people to do.

By the way, it's not a misprint, it's repent, not repeat.

Just to make sure, remind you, paul described his ministry as preaching quote repentance towards God and faith in Jesus Christ.

What is repentance?

It is turning away from sin, hating it and resolving by God's strength to forsake it, even as we turn to him in faith.

Peter told a crowd of Jews he was preaching to repent, therefore, and turn to God so that your sins may be washed away or wiped away.

Washed away or wiped away.

Paul tells everyone that they should repent and turn to God.

Folks, repentance is not optional for those who want to follow Jesus and be saved.

You know, over the years I've heard people say I've accepted Jesus as Savior, so I'm a Christian, but I'm really not ready to accept him as Lord.

The idea that you can accept Jesus as Savior but not as Lord is ridiculous.

The reason he saves you is because he is Lord.

Now that doesn't mean that a Christian, once he repents, will never sin again.

Christians will sin even after God gives them spiritual life.

But even if repentance doesn't mean an immediate end to our sinning, it does mean we no longer live at peace with our sin.

We should remember that genuine repentance is more fundamentally a matter of the heart's attitude towards sin than it is a mere change of behavior.

What does faith mean?

Salvation comes through repentance towards God and faith in the Lord Jesus.

Mark 1.14, one translation says repent and put your trust in the gospel.

Is your trust fully in the gospel this morning?

In the gospel alone.

You know what is meant by the term faith.

Many people believe that faith is believing in something you can't really prove.

But that's not faith at all.

Biblically speaking, faith is reliance.

It is a rock-solid truth, grounded belief in the risen Jesus to save us from sin.

It's what Abraham exhibited, which Paul describes in Romans 4.

Speaking of Abraham's faith, he says in hope.

He believed against hope that he should become the father of many nations, as he had been told.

So shall your offspring be.

He did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which is as good as dead since he was about 100 years old, or when he considered the barrenness of Sarah's womb.

No unbelief made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in faith as he gave glory to God, fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised.

Romans 4, 18 through 21.

That's a full-orb definition of faith.

And regardless of what was working against God's promise Abraham's age, his wife's age and barrenness, abraham believed what God had said.

He trusted in God without wavering and raised, relied on him to accomplish his promise.

And Romans 4 ends with Paul saying and this is written that Abraham was justified by faith, not for his sake alone, but for ours.

So the four elements defining what the gospel is is number one God is creator of all things and absolutely holy and righteous.

Number two we have sinned against this holy God and will be judged.

Three, what is God's solution to the problem?

He has acted to save us from it by sending his son.

And fourthly and lastly, we must respond by faith and repentance.

This is what the true gospel consists of and, by the way, this is not what people are being told the gospel is today, and the result is people are often manipulated into making a decision for Christ, just told to say a prayer and you're in and you're in.

But in most cases those being told to enter that way have not been given a presentation of the holy God to whom they've sinned against.

There has not been a clear presentation of the mediatorial work of Jesus on behalf of sinners that alone can cleanse.

Instead of repent, they're told again to repeat, and today there's a great need for us to return to gospel preaching.

These four things are non-negotiable and they make up a full-orbed proclamation of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Father, thank you for giving us the gospel.

There's no way any of us could have thought of the gospel, but you gave it to us, you created it, you saved us by it, and now you're calling us to proclaim and I pray for Trinity Community Church that we would be a company of men and women who openly and powerfully proclaim the good news of Jesus throughout our city and county.

I pray, father, for gospel preaching to be the norm for our church, that we would go out and we would open our mouths and proclaim the good news of Jesus Christ Save us.

Thank you for saving us by it.

Now help us to proclaim it in the powerful name of Jesus, amen.

Amen, thank you.