The Gospel

The Gospel

 

Introduction:

            Are you going to heaven or hell when you die?  If you know the answer, how do you know for sure?  What do you base your certainty on?  Maybe you aren’t sure.  Maybe you are uncertain where you are going.  Maybe you’re sitting here thinking:  “Boy I would like to go to heaven but I don’t know how I could be certain about it.” 

 

The word Gospel comes from a Greek word that means “Good News”.  We get good news all the time.  Maybe you get good news from the doctor that your in good health.  Maybe you get a scholarship to a college.  Maybe you get engaged.  Maybe you get pregnant.  Maybe you graduate, get a job, move out.  Sometimes good news is when you come home and the house is clean.  But Good News in the Bible is of a greater kind of news.  It is related to something that transcends this world and extends beyond this life.  The Good News is THE MOST IMPORTANT NEWS YOU NEED TO HEAR.  Why?  Because your soul is at stake.  So listen up.  Here are 5 points about the Gospel you need to understand.

 

 

#1:  The Gospel is a Historical Fact (1 Corinthians 15:1-8, 12-16)

            The Gospel is a historical fact.  Read 1 Corinthians 15:1-8.  We are dealing with true history here.  The Gospel is not something man made up (Galatians 1:11-12).  It is not an idea or a concept or a philosophy like the Athenians thought (Acts 17).  Nor is it a myth that grew with the imaginations of men over generations of embellishment. 

 

            On the Institute of Creation Research’s website, it says this about the historical accuracy of the Bible:  “The Bible has proven to be more historically and archaeologically accurate than any other ancient book. It has been subjected to the minutest scientific textual analysis possible to humanity and has been proven to be authentic in every way.”  Quote from Thomas Arnold, (pg 216-17 in McDowell).  Paul said in 1 Corinthians 15:

 

The Gospel is Historical.  When you hear the Gospel you are hearing about a true Person who truly lived and died and rose again from the dead.  You are hearing about something that really occurred on the stage of world history.

 

This is especially clear as you read through the Book of Acts.  You realize that you are reading actual history.  And not only are you reading history, but, the book focuses on the Acts – that is, the Actions of the Apostles in the first years of the Church.  What are their actions?  Their actions are the daily proclamation of a recent event that occurred:  the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ.  They were proclaiming the Good News – that Jesus was raised from the dead.  They were saying it really happened – that it was true – real – actual.  The Gospel is a historical fact. 

 

Jesus Christ was a real man who really lived in Israel in the 1^st century and He really said and did the things the Bible says about Him, and He really was crucified and buried, and He really did rise up from the dead 3 days later, was really seen by more than 500 people and really is alive today in heaven at the right hand of God. 

 

#2:  The Gospel is Convicting (Galatians 2:16; Romans 3:23; 5:12; Proverbs 30:12; 20:9; Ecc. 7:20; 1 John 1:8; Ps. 14:3)

 

            The Gospel convicts me.  It convicts me because the message of the Gospel confronts my own sinful condition.  The testimony of Scripture speaks loudly to the reality that I am insufficient.  All by myself I am insufficient to meet what God requires of me.  I can’t be righteous the way God.  (Galatians 2:16; Romans 3:23; 5:12; Proverbs 30:12; 20:9; Ecc. 7:20; 1 John 1:8; Ps. 14:3)

 

I love the Home Run Derby.  “Warning track”, Home Run Derby, the only hit that counts is the one that’s over the fence.  You can hit a slow groundball or a big fly to the warning track, but, both are scored the same:  ZERO.  The Gospel means that if Christ had to come to save us it’s because we were unable to save ourselves.  We are weak, unable, insufficient.

 

It pricks me like a needle in my heart.  Actually, in Acts 2 when it says that when Peter preached the people were “cut to the heart”.  The Greek word actually means to be pricked, like with a pin.  Sin.  Sin nature.  Sin acts, thoughts, words.  Guilty.  Judged.  Insufficient by myself.  The Gospel is the way to be saved apart from what you do.  My merit merit’s nothing with God

 

But just as the Gospel convicts me that I am insufficient, it is Good News, and the Good News is that Christ is sufficient.  Jesus Christ supplies to me as a gift that which I could never earn by my own hard work.  Romans 6:23 says “the wages of sin is death but the free gift of God is eternal life”.  “For God made Him who had no sin to become sin for us so that we might become the righteousness of God.” (2 Cor. 5:21).   The Gospel proclaims my great sinfulness against a great God while at the same time proclaiming the greatness of that Gods grace towards me.  It declares I am guilty and graciously offers me forgiveness.  Chafer said salvation is a work of God for man, not a work of man for God.  

 

#3:  The Gospel is for the Best of Sinners and the Worst of Sinners (1 Timothy 1:15-17)

            The Good News is good news for sinful people.  Jesus said “I did not come to call the righteous but call sinners.”  The Gospel is the Proof of God’s love for sinful men and women.    John 3:16 says, “For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son..”

 

            One kind of person thinks they’re so sinful that God could never save them.  Or, if He could, He wouldn’t want to.  But, both thoughts are wrong.  First Timothy 1:15-17 was written for just such thinking.  [Read]

 

The other kind of person thinks they don’t have any sin.  Or, if they think they have any sins, their sins aren’t that big of a deal.  But, remember our previous point:  everyone is guilty of sin.  Ephesians 2:1-3 is an indictment on every human being. 

 

And don’t think the Gospel can’t change people.  We need to make sure we see the power of the Gospel is not limited by how sinful a person is.  First Corinthians 6:9-11 speaks to this point, turn there with me…[Read]. 

 

The Gospel has power to transform people.  I know a sister in Christ who lived as a homosexual for half of her life before she began reading the Bible.  When she read the Gospel in the book of Romans she was convicted of her sin of homosexuality,

 

#4:  The Gospel is to be Preached

            The Gospel is to be preached.  Romans 10:14-15. 

 

The Gospel is not something we live.  I saw a church sign driving through Muskegon Heights that repeated something the Catholic Monk, Francis of Assisi once said, “Preach the Gospel, and if necessary use words.”  That’s balogney.  Don’t get confused:  The Gospel is a message, not a lifestyle.  It is always necessary to use words because the message can only be expressed in words.  You will never find anything like that church sign in Scripture.  You will find only the constant repetition throughout the NT that the Gospel is a message, and this message is to be preached.  Follow along or just listen as I run us through about  10 verses that illustrate our point:  Romans 1:8, 15; 10:17; 1 Corinthians 1:17; 2 Corinthians 2:17; Galatians 1:11; Philippians 1:18; 2 Timothy 1:8, 11; Hebrews 2:3; 1 Peter 1:23-25.

 

            Never will you read in the NT that the Gospel is something we are to live.  We are called to live holy lives, godly lives, righteous lives, obedient lives, sanctified lives, Christ-like lives, worthy lives.  But by observing such a life no one will ever comprehend the message of the Gospel:  that

And if the Gospel is to be told it is to be told without shame.  There is no shame in the Gospel.  Paul said in Romans 1:16, “I am not ashamed of the Gospel for it is the power unto salvation:  first for the Jew, then for the Gentile.”  ; pg. 218-219 McDowell, quote of Dr. A.C. Ivy

 

Along with this point we need to stress the need to preserve the Gospel (1 Tim. 1:17; Gal. 1:6-9)

 

There are modified Gospel’s you will hear today that rob the Biblical Gospel of its grace and power.  In our area you will hear a “Full Gospel”, which means that along with believing in Jesus Christ, someone must be baptized in the Holy Spirit and speak in tongues.  In other words, a mystical experience is added to the Gospel, and, if you haven’t been “baptized in the Spirit” you have serious reason to question whether you really are saved.  Or you may hear a “Lordship Gospel”, which means that along with believing, you have to make a commitment to complete, total obedience to Jesus Christ for the rest of your life in order to be saved.  This kind of gospel adds works – or the commitment to work -  to the Biblical Gospel. Then there is the “Whole Gospel”, which is an attempt to make social activism and cultural reform the message of the Gospel.  J Vernon McGee said a long time ago on his radio program “Through the Bible”, “God did not call believers to clean up the fish bowl.  He called us to catch fish.”  I heard this clearly stated by at least 3 pastors of big churches in the Tri-Cities area.   “We have a ‘hole’ in our gospel today much like a donut has a hole in the middle.”  “There is something missing in our gospel.”  The Biblical Gospel is a message that can only save you if you believe it.  It is a message that cannot be altered, and, if it is,

 

 

#5:  The Gospel is to be Believed (John 1:11)

The Gospel is to be Believed.  It only follows that if the Gospel is to be preached, God intends that those who hear it should believe it.  John 1:11 says, “To all who received Him, to all who believed on His Name, He gave the right to become children of God.”  Jesus was asked by a crowd, “What works does God require us to do to have eternal life?”  In John 6 Jesus said, “The work God requires is to believe in the One He has sent.”  In other words, Jesus was saying, the only requirement God makes for a person to be saved is to believe in His Son Jesus Christ as their Savior.  John said that the reason he wrote his Gospel was, according to John 20, “These things have been written so that you may know that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life everlasting.”  The Gospel is to be believed.

           

            The Gospel is exclusive.  When you believe the Gospel, you are at the same time rejecting any other proposed means of salvation.  You don’t “diversify your portfolio”.  You go “All in”, meaning, you are banking on this one hope to be saved. 

 

            The logical question to ask is this:  Do you believe?  Lewis Chafer said, “This one word “believe” represents all a sinner can do, and all a sinner must do to be saved.”  So again, do you believe the report about Jesus Christ?  Do you believe that Jesus Christ is God’s Son who came into the world to die on the cross for your sins?  Do you believe the message that He came back from the dead by God’s power and is alive today to give you eternal life?