What Is the Gospel?

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Transcript:

If you’re wondering why I’m throwing chairs around up here, there is a reason. Excuse me. I’m looking at them and trying to set this one on two legs down here and two legs up.

Tried to set this one with three legs on the stage and one hanging off, and I don’t think it’s going to. . .

Not only can I not sit in it, it wouldn’t even stand up for me. The balance was off. This one, I don’t think I want to sit in either.

Even if I pulled it up on the stage, it’s on two legs, and eventually it’s going to wobble and it’s going to break. there’s the stability in the chair when you have all four legs firmly planted on solid ground the way they are now this is the only chair on this platform that I would sit on and I think I think any of us who are not crazy uh would would do the same thing would say I’m not sitting in any of those three I want the one that has all four legs on the ground as a teacher we warned kids all four legs on the ground and they think we just want to spoil their fun you know I like to lean back in a chair too. I had a chair in my classroom that would lean back.

But if it’s made to have all four legs on the ground, there’s a reason for that. And I have seen legs buckle and kids get hurt. There’s something to the stability of having all four legs on the ground.

What is he talking about? What am I talking about tonight? What is the gospel?

There are four legs that we need to have nailed down, that we need to have planted in solid ground, that we need to understand, And that as we share the gospel with other people, we need to know what these four legs of the gospel are, these four big points. Otherwise, we’re doing what I talked about last week, and we’re leaving some things out. We’re watering down the message.

Nobody threw fruit at me last Sunday night, so I guess we’re okay after the things I said. Trying to make the point that I’m not saying you’re not saved if you prayed and asked Jesus into your heart. I used those words, but I also understood that Christ had died for me, for my sins.

I realized all that. There comes a problem when a lot of churches and Bible teachers today are supposedly presenting the gospel, and they’re just saying things like that. Just saying, ask Jesus into your heart and you’ll be saved.

Wait a minute, we left something out there. Or God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life, and he just wants to love you if you’ll just trust him. Okay, trust him for what?

We’re going to look at two passages, just two, I don’t know why I stuck up three fingers, two passages of scripture tonight that deal with what I see as really the four things we’ve got to have nailed down if we present the gospel. Now, I’m telling you this because I want you to see that if you can remember these four points, it really is easy. And I’m not saying that when you share the gospel with somebody, you have to say, now, point number one, now you just need to cover all these things.

And last Sunday night, I brought the kids up here. And I promise you, like I said, that was not rehearsed. I had not planned that until we’re listening to the offertory.

I had not planned that, but I brought the kids up here, and they got what I was saying. Now, I’m not saying they’re to the point of understanding where they were ready to fully trust Christ for their salvation, but they got the point of what I was saying. And I’ve thought about something I said all week, and that’s where I said that if you can share Christ with a four-year-old, If you can witness to a four-year-old, you can witness to anybody.

And I just, I said that, I threw that out there last week, but I’m really, the more I think about it, convinced that that’s probably true. That nobody’s going to be more, now people, adults may be more hostile, but nobody’s going to be more openly bored about what you’re saying than a four-year-old. If you can make it where a four-year-old is engaged in the story, If you can make it where a four-year-old understands, if you could answer the random questions that a four-year-old is going to throw out, if you can deal with the distractions of a four-year-old, I’m convinced you can share the gospel with anybody.

And how we do that is keeping it simple, keeping to the basics, the meat and bones of what the gospel is. And those are the things we’re going to talk about tonight. If you haven’t turned there with me already, turn with me to 1 Corinthians chapter 15.

We’re going to look at a few verses here, and then we’re going to look at a few verses in Ephesians chapter 2. Now, these are not the only places in the Bible that say what the gospel is, but these are some of the places that I look at and say that’s a really good brief summary. Because we’re looking at explaining this in a simple way that doesn’t confuse people, but still covers all the bases, and you can do that.

I’ve had some business cards printed up. They’re not in yet, but they’re coming. And I wrote out a gospel presentation on the back of a business card.

and covered all the bases. Just short and to the point. It doesn’t answer every question they might have, but covers all the bases of what it takes to be saved.

And so we want to have nailed down what these four legs of the gospel are, these four things that we need to remember, these four points. And if we can stick to these four points, if we can keep it simple, I maintain we can share the gospel with anybody. So 1 Corinthians chapter 15, starting in verse 1, says, Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto you, which ye have received wherein ye stand, by which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless ye have believed in vain.

For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the Scriptures. The first thing that we need to know about the Gospel is that it’s rooted in historical fact. It’s rooted in things that actually happened.

It’s not one of these Greek mythology stories, or it’s not a fairy tale. Once upon a time this happened, or I mentioned the Greek religious myths or the Roman religious myths. There are these bizarre, fanciful stories where I can’t even remember their names, but one of the Greek gods supposedly was born because one of the other gods took an axe and split the head of a third god open and they popped out fully formed.

I’m sorry, that just does not compute with reality as I understand it. Okay, and when did that supposedly happen? And where is the evidence?

Where did that happen? The gospel, the Christian gospel is rooted in historical fact. The fact that Jesus Christ, and I’ll share more with you about this in the coming Sunday, coming few Sunday mornings, that Jesus Christ was a real person who walked among mankind.

He lived as the Bible said He died as the Bible said He did, and He rose again from the dead. And there is evidence for this. But it’s not just a once upon a time story, this happened.

We’re talking in the years between about 6 B. C. and 30-something A.

D. that there was a man named Jesus Christ who came preaching that He was God’s Son and came preaching that He had a mission from God to seek and to save that which was lost and that He went to the cross professing that He was dying for our sins and that He rose again three days later. and Paul points to this this importance of Christ and his death and his burial and his resurrection and says this is central to everything we believe there are churches today I don’t know of any here in town I’m not that familiar yet but I know that there are what they call liberal churches in Oklahoma City and Norman areas I’m a little more familiar with who say well we want to follow the ethical teachings of Christ but, you know, the resurrection, the virgin birth, stuff like that, we’re a little too enlightened to believe those things.

Then I’m sorry, what is the point of any of what you’re doing, following his ethical teachings or anything else? Because if he didn’t rise again from the dead like he said he would, then he’s a liar. And by the way, I’m not the first one to say that, and I don’t believe that he is a liar.

But folks, he was either God in human flesh who died for our sins and rose again to prove it, or he was one of the biggest frauds in all of human history. And Paul points that out. He says, if Christ is not raised, then our faith is vain.

It’s empty, it’s meaningless, it’s worthless. But he presents the idea that Jesus Christ really did die, Jesus Christ really did rise from the dead, and why did he do that? If you pick this apart and look at it, he says in verse 3, I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins.

See, the gospel starts with a problem. The gospel starts with a problem. Gospel, the word gospel means good news.

But before we get to the good news, there’s bad news. And a lot of times people will leave the bad news out of this story. Well, why do I need to be saved?

What am I being saved from? Well, because there’s bad news. The bad news is sin.

The bad news is that we’ve sinned against a holy God, and we are all guilty. So the first point of what is the gospel, the first leg on this chair, is the problem, and it’s sin. If you have more time to get in depth with people about what you’re talking about, more than just a quick conversation, and you really have time to sit down, it might be helpful to explain what sin actually is, because that’s a word we throw around in church, and we may understand what it means, but the world outside, that’s not really a word that is used a lot.

the best explanation of it for somebody out in the world who’s not familiar with that term may be law-breaking. We’ve broken God’s law. Well, I don’t do anything all that bad.

Have you ever taken anything that doesn’t belong to you? And you let the. .

. This is a tactic from the way of the master method of presenting the gospel. You let them answer that question.

You don’t just look at somebody and say, Sinner! Because they shut down at that point. but have you ever taken something that doesn’t belong to you?

you know what, I’ve got a drawer full of ink pens from businesses that say that I do that I have now a lot of times those are out there to be given away to people but I didn’t always ask folks, we’ve all taken something that doesn’t belong to us I think if you’re honest and you look inside yourself even if it’s something small taken something that didn’t belong to us have you ever told a lie? yeah, we all have folks I try not to and I don’t want to it sounds bad to stand before you and say your pastor is a liar but I have told a lie before I try not to but it has happened and I ask God to forgive me for it but it has happened and if I have taken something that doesn’t belong to me what does that make me? a thief if I’ve told a lie what does that make me?

a liar folks those are just a couple of things when we look at all the things God has said do this And we haven’t done them. And we look at all the things that God says, don’t do this. And we’ve done them.

We realize real quickly that we have broken a lot of God’s laws. And when you get to the New Testament, it gets even harder to keep the law. Because the Old Testament says, don’t commit adultery.

Well, I don’t know about you, but that’s a pretty easy one for me. I don’t think you commit adultery by accident. But Jesus said if you’ve looked on somebody with lust, you’ve committed adultery in your heart.

And suddenly it’s very hard to find an innocent person. I’ve never killed anybody. I’ve never murdered anybody.

I was going to say, you don’t kill people by accident. Sometimes it does happen. You don’t murder somebody by accident.

And the Bible tells us, thou shalt not kill. That word means murder. Thou shalt not murder.

We don’t murder somebody by accident. That requires intent. But Jesus said, if you’ve been angry with your brother without reason, I don’t think it’s always a sin to be angry.

But if you’re angry without reason, you might as well have killed him. I mean, don’t. He’s saying as far as your guilt before God, it’s the same.

Oh, my goodness. And we look around us and we see good people, good people even, who according to God’s standards are liars and thieves and murderers and adulterers and we realize that we really have fallen short of God’s standard of holiness. We really are not before God.

According to God, when judged by our own yardstick, we look pretty good. But judged against God, we realize we’re not as good as we thought we were. And so there’s this problem of sin.

Christ died for our sins. There’s a problem because our sin is so offensive to God because He is holy. All those things that I said about Him this morning, He’s perfect and He’s sinless.

And not just because He’s good at doing the right thing, but because it’s the very nature of who He is. You know, there are certain things we do because it’s part of our nature. It’s who we are.

I eat, and I eat, and I eat, and sometimes I can’t stop eating because it’s my nature. It’s my human nature. We have to take in nourishment.

And sometimes way more than I should. It’s part of our nature. We don’t have to be taught.

Under normal circumstances, we don’t have to be taught to eat. It’s just our nature. Well, for God, perfection is his nature.

Nobody came and looked at God and said, Oh, you’re perfect. Nobody taught him how to do that. That’s who he is.

And so God’s nature and his standard is absolute sinless perfection. And if God suddenly lowered his standards and said, well, you know, you murdered in your heart or you’ve taken something that doesn’t belong to you, but that’s okay, I’m going to let it go. He’s not so sinlessly perfect anymore, is he?

So there’s this problem of sin that God can’t just ignore, that God can’t just let go. God, as a righteous judge, has to deal with the sin. And I’ve given the example before, people always laugh, but it’s true.

That if a man, if I were to kill somebody on the way out of here, I got tired of Don. I got tired of the way Don talks to me. No, Don’s a very nice man.

I got tired of the way Don talks to me and just tonight on the way out, I just ran him over with my car. I thought about it. I planned it.

And I killed Don. Please don’t be afraid. And I just killed Don.

And Ralph, I told you you used to be a judge. If I were to stand before Ralph and he says, what do you have to say for yourself? And I said, well, Your Honor, I did.

I killed Don. I ran him over. I did it on purpose.

But please don’t lock me away or give me the death penalty. Look at all the other people I didn’t kill. Do I get extra credit for that?

Or have I just done what, in all these other cases, have I just done what the law requires? Yeah, I haven’t done anything for extra credit. See, we can’t get rid of the sin we’ve committed just by doing good elsewhere because we’ve just done what the law requires.

There’s this problem of sin that we can’t deal with. There’s this problem of sin that separates us from God that has to be punished. If I killed people and God just let me off with a warning, or if a judge just let me off with a warning, we would call for that judge to be impeached, and rightly so.

Because what righteous judge is going to let flagrant law-breaking just go? Well, God as a righteous judge has to punish sin. And the sin is law-breaking.

It’s offensive to him. It has to be punished. It has to be dealt with.

And so we have the problem of sin. And again, you don’t have to, unless you just really have a lot of time, you don’t have to go into all this with somebody. But these are things that we need to understand and make sure at least they understand the premise that there’s a problem here that we’ve all sinned against a holy God.

And so part of the gospel, the first part of the first leg of this chair, is that there’s a problem called sin. But there’s also a solution in the form of a sacrifice. See, you can’t present the gospel and leave out the blood, and leave out the death of the Savior on the cross.

There’s a reason that God sent his Son into the world among the Jewish people. because they understood they’d been taught by God for thousands of years this idea of a blood sacrifice, the idea of the innocent paying for the sins of the guilty. It started in the Garden of Eden, and it went all the way through the temple period up to and past the birth and death of Christ. They continued to offer sacrifices until the temple was destroyed.

They understood the idea of the innocent dying for the guilty. A sacrifice had to be made. You and I could not pay for our sins.

We couldn’t, let me rephrase that, we could pay, you’re going to pay. We could pay, but we couldn’t pay for our sins in the sense of paying off the debt. We couldn’t do anything that would satisfy the demands of God’s justice.

We could go and suffer and be punished for our sins and be separated from God for eternity, but that wouldn’t make us right with God. Those sins had to be paid for. And so God sent a perfect sacrifice.

It says here that Christ died for our sins. There was the problem of sin, and then there was the death of Christ. So he came and he shed his blood, and he died. He took responsibility.

He took responsibility. There are some words that I’m teaching my kids in the midst of parenting. Things like consequences.

It’s so sad to hear Benjamin on the phone talking to my mother. And she’ll say, what happens when you lie? He’ll say, Nana, there are consequences.

At four years old, he knows what the word consequence means. Because there seem to be a lot of adults who think, you know, you just do whatever. And I’m not even talking about in the sense of, oh, they should act like Christians.

I’m saying they don’t act with common sense. They act like, I can just act however I want and there’s never a consequence for my actions. I don’t know who introduced that idea into our society.

But I want my children to grow up realizing there’s cause and effect. There’s a consequence for every choice and every action, good or bad, there’s a consequence. And so he’s beginning to understand that word.

He understands a little bit the word responsibility. Whose responsibility was it to clean up this mess? He’s the one who made it.

Did you get the toys out or did Madeline? If you got them out, it’s your responsibility. It was our responsibility to be punished for our sins.

And yet Christ took responsibility for our sins. He went to the cross. The Bible says that he who knew no sin was made to be sin for us.

He had no sin of his own. When he was punished there on the cross, when he went through all the torment and the pain and the anguish, and really the mental anguish too, of feeling separation from God the Father. We wonder sometimes, why did he cry out, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?

I don’t believe for a minute that the Father really did forsake Jesus Christ, but I think my understanding of that is when he took on our sins, he really for the first time knew what it felt like to be separated from God the Father under the weight of that sin. And so he took our sins on himself. That’s a hard concept sometimes for people to understand.

And maybe it’s better if we say he took responsibility. And I’m not saying change the gospel, but I’m saying when we talk to people who don’t have a church background, he took responsibility for our sins. And he was punished for our sins.

He gave his life for us. He was the sacrifice. He was the solution to the problem.

So the sin was there. It was offensive to God. It separated us from God.

And Christ came along and took responsibility for that sin. And he was punished in our place. And he paid all the debt that we owed.

So we had sinned against God. We had broken the law. And he came and paid our fine.

That’s a way people can understand. And you know what? The fine was so high that he’s the only one who ever could have paid it.

And so he came and he was punished for us. And folks, he didn’t take part of our sin. He took all of our sin.

The book of Hebrews talks about him being offered once for all. It was a once for all sacrifice. We don’t need to go and pay for our sins more through good works.

We don’t need to go and pay more for our sins by doing good things, going to church. All those are wonderful, but they don’t add anything to what Jesus Christ did. He paid for all of our sins.

He paid it in full. When he said on the cross, it is finished. That Greek word, as you probably know, is tetelestai, which means paid in full.

The debt was paid in full. I love seeing that phrase. I love seeing that phrase.

A few years ago, I had credit cards. And I was fairly responsible with them, but even when you’re careful, it can be easy to get into trouble. And I wasn’t in over my head, but I thought it’s going to take 20 years to pay these off.

Now I only have one for car repairs. But I cut up the credit card a few years ago and said, I’m going to buckle down and I’m going to pay more than the minimum, and every extra bit of money I have is going to go to that. And you know what?

Before too long, I got a statement from that old credit card company saying that the bill was paid in full. I didn’t owe them a thing else. And I kept that in case they came and tried to tell me otherwise a few years later.

It was paid in full, and that was so beautiful seeing that at the bottom of that bill. I was no longer a slave to Visa. I didn’t owe him a thing.

And when he came and paid for our sins, folks, that’s what he wrote at the bottom of the bill. It’s paid in full. You don’t owe anything else.

It’s been taken care of. The bill has been paid. And so we’ve got this problem of sin, but there’s this solution when Jesus Christ came and offered a perfect sacrifice.

So we need to remember to talk about the problem of sin, and we need to remember to talk about the sacrifice. what Jesus did when he shed his blood and he died on the cross. It was to pay for our sins.

Then we turn to the book of Ephesians. Ephesians chapter 2 for the latter two legs on this chair. Because all of this has happened, because there was the problem of sin and because there was the solution of a sacrifice, now we turn and that’s all happened and now because of that, something else has to happen.

Okay, cause and effect. because this happened now God makes us an offer that’s the third leg here there’s an offer which is grace I have spent a lot of time in the last couple years thinking about that word grace some of you know I wrote a whole book not a long book but I wrote a whole book on the concept of grace and what God what God has taught me in the last couple years about what it means I used to just give Sunday school answers to what that means that it’s unmerited favor. And there’s nothing wrong with that definition.

If that’s what you think of when you think of grace, there’s nothing wrong with that definition. But I understood it up here. Okay, we don’t deserve God’s grace, and he gives it to us anyway.

In the last few years, he’s really driven home to me the point, and I still have to be reminded on a regular basis, that grace really means that God shows us kindness that we do not deserve In spite of the fact that we don’t deserve it. And it’s the fact that we don’t deserve it that means we need it all the more. And grace really means the kindness of God that we don’t deserve but that we desperately need.

See, I think we understand the word kindness. I think the world outside understands the word kindness. We can say you’re saved by grace.

And folks, please don’t think I’m trying to change the meaning of any of this or change the words of any of this. I’m trying to talk about sharing this in simple ways that they can understand. Not changing the words, but giving a definition of the words that they can understand.

What does grace mean? It means kindness. They understand kindness.

Well, how does God do that? God does not owe me the fact that my heart is beating. If my heart stopped right now, I don’t get to shake my fist at God and say, but you owe me however many more.

No, he doesn’t. God doesn’t owe me every breath I’ve taken while I’ve been up here. As a matter of fact, the way we as human beings sin against him and ignore him, he doesn’t owe us anything.

And if he were to take it all away from us, he’s just given us what we deserve. The fact that he instead turns around and gives us breath and a heartbeat and life and people around us who love us, and he gives us food and shelter and the opportunity to go and earn those things, and he gives us the health to go and earn those things. We could make a list, you know, like the song says, count your blessings, all the things that we’ve been blessed with, and realize that we don’t deserve those things, and yet God gives them anyway out of his kindness.

And we begin to see that God’s grace is all around us. Well, folks, God’s ultimate offer of grace, his most important offer of grace, is the kind of grace that will forgive those sins. We don’t deserve forgiveness.

We don’t deserve for him to say, yeah, Christ wiped the slate clean for you. We don’t deserve for him to say, come on into my heaven. We don’t deserve for him to say, you can be my child.

I love the story of the prodigal son. It would have been gracious enough if the father had told the prodigal son, sure, you can come back and be a servant in my house. But he went one step further and said, you’re my son, my son who was dead, and he’s now alive, let’s kill the fatted calf.

He took him right back as his son. And as sinners, we don’t deserve even to be servants of God. And yet he takes us and not only makes us servants, but he goes a step further and we’re adopted as his children.

Ephesians chapter 3, sorry, Ephesians chapter 2, starting in verse 4, says, But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he hath loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ. By grace are ye saved, and hath raised us up together and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come he might show the exceeding riches of his grace and his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus. And there you go. If you wonder, okay, he’s talking about kindness now instead of grace.

I’m not trying to change the definition of anything, but he uses them together here. He uses the word kindness to explain and to elaborate on the word grace in verse 7. to show the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus.

He says, For by grace are ye saved through faith, and that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them. So even here it’s talking about while we were still sinners, Well, we were still just thieves and liars and murderers and adulterers and all the other things that we talked about earlier.

Even when we were dead in sins, he had quickened us together with Christ. That word quickened means to make alive. He raised us up. He made us alive again with Christ and raised us up together again with Christ and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus.

He has taken us from the gutter into his house. Not because we deserved it, but because he’s kind enough and gracious enough to offer it. And he offers us grace and salvation.

He offers to forgive our sins. He says, for by grace are you saved. He offers salvation.

He offers forgiveness of sins. He offers a relationship with him, and he offers eternal life in heaven. Not because we deserve it, not because we’ve earned it, not because we could ever earn it.

It’s simply because He’s kind enough to offer it to us, to offer us what we desperately need and can never deserve. And He shows us that kindness. There’s an offer.

There’s an offer where He says, Come, be saved. Come to me. Come find salvation in me.

Come find forgiveness in me. He offers us that grace. That’s the third leg on the chair.

And the fourth is that there’s a response called faith. There’s a response called faith. There’s really nothing for us to do.

And I know some people take issue with that statement. Sorry. I don’t mean in here they take issue.

I know there are some preachers who take issue. Well, you’re supposed to do that. The Bible says by grace through faith, and that not of yourselves, it’s the gift of God, not by works.

My Bible tells me there’s nothing good I can do to earn God’s forgiveness, God’s acceptance. What my Bible tells me is that God has offered it. He’s put it out there.

He’s offered forgiveness as a free gift out of his own grace and kindness. And all that’s left for me to do is to reach out by faith and take it. Now that’s not a good work.

That’s not anything I have to boast about. Look, I had faith in Jesus. I’m better than you.

No, no. There’s no better than you in realizing how awful my circumstances were. There’s no better than anybody in realizing what I was condemned to and reaching out and taking the only lifeline that could ever be thrown. But folks, we’ve got to work hard against this notion with people.

We’ve got to work hard against this notion that they can be good enough. Most people who think about God, who think about heaven, in our world I’m convinced, think that they’re going to get there if they can be good enough. There is no good enough.

He says it’s by grace through faith, not by works. Grace means we couldn’t deserve it in the first place. Faith means there’s nothing to do.

Just believe it. Not by works. Sorry, I don’t see how it could be any clearer.

And we’ve got to be very clear in that message. We’ve got to be very clear in that message that all there is for us is a response. We were the one with the problem.

He solved it by sending Jesus Christ to die on the cross. He’s offering grace. The only thing left for us to do is believe it or don’t believe it.

And when I say believe, when the Bible says believe, it’s not just talking about, oh yeah, that sounds right. But oh my goodness, I now understand how lost I am apart from God. I realize what my sin has done and where my sin will lead me.

I realize that I am condemned to hell apart f

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