Bold Gospel

Background

If you are familiar with my preaching it usually involves a balance of preaching and teaching

Sometimes it is different 60/40% one way or another

Preaching - is more exhorting, encouraging, applying the word to our lives

Today will be heavy in teaching but with 1 major practical application

Turn to Ephesians 2:1-10

Ephesians - Paul is attributed as the author

May be writing to a group of churches -

Ephesus was the capital of the Roman province of Asia on the west coast of Asia Minor

The word mystery appears 7 seven times in the book and Paul is seeking to explain so that the mystery is no more

Before Jesus there was plenty of mystery but after his death and resurrection the picture has become clear but people still dont understand

And so Paul starts out in Chapter 1 by reflecting on the trinity - God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, and the accomplishment of salvation

Then Paul goes on to Chapter 2 where he reflect on what that salvation means for us both individually and corporatley

Our primary focus today is going to be on the individual side of salvation

Today is the first sermon on our series called Find Your New Day

In essance, this is what we are about here at New Day

Bold Gospel

Deep Descipleship

Real Family

True Love

Wide Reach

And so today we are going to start with Bold Gospel

So I am going to ask the question (Dont answer out loud) but what is the gospel of Jesus Christ?

What do you believe the gospel is?

Every time I preach, the gospel of Jesus Christ is shared

Sometimes its brief and sometimes its more in depth but I do it because it is essentiallly who we are

Christianity is based on this gospel

Somehow, it seems as if the gospel is becoming more of a mystery in modern day rather than a clear picture

Today, if we continue to engage people and ask, “What does it mean to be a Christian?” we will get many answers

Unfortunately, today an idea has come about that we can have different ideas on what the gospel is.

That the gospel is somehow subjective (your gospel is your gospel and my gospel is my gospel)

We are also seeing the gospel being used as a side note rather than being used as truth

The word truth itself is being attacked

To be clear - my goal today is to clear up the gospel, present its truth, and defend it as we should today

If you are here today and you find yourself learning about what the gospel truly is, dont be discouraged, take heart and praise God

If your here today and this lesson serves as a reminder, take heart and rejoice in it

If you are here today and you hearing what the gospel is for the first time, I pray that the Spirit moves in you and opens your eyes to the truth of who God is and what the gospel is. That after today the picture is clear and you are compelled to say yes and follow Jesus Christ

And so let us turn to Ephesians 2:1-10“And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.”

Gospel - good news

In older times when an emissary is sent out and comes back, often the way he rides back indicates good or bad news

They can tell by the posture of the rider

They can tell by the speed of the rider

If the rider had good news he would ride fast and upright

It is at this sight that the people would yell gospel, gospel

And all the people would know that good news was coming

And so when we talk about the gospel of Jesus Christ, we are talking about the good news of Jesus Christ

If Jesus is the good news, then what is the bad news?

What is it that makes Jesus good news?

Born but spiritually dead

#1 We are born living but are spiritually dead

Ephesians 2:1-3 “And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.”

2 things I want to draw out as evidence of being spiritually dead

1. The passage says so. “And you were dead in the trespasses and sins”

I often highlight this because it sets up the entire passage and is the foundation of the need of Jesus

A dead person cannot move, a dead person cannot breath, a dead person cannot make a decision

And so we are spiritually dead

but in our physical flesh, we are living in this world

I love how Paul writes this as “following the course of this world”,

Notice how he didnt write, following the race, marathon, skip, jump, etc. but the word course is important it conveys that we are walking

It also follows the word walked which it is alluding back too

We have no urgency, we are just living, and are just following the world and its path

We are prone to follow any worldly teaching or belief that just sounds good

Satan has many teachings and beliefs that he will try to fool you with

They all decieve and look like truth, they look appeasing, they look like good news

But because these beliefs are not of God, they are of the world, they are of the deciever

And on this path, on this course, we live in our flesh

We just do whatever feels good or what is “right” to us

For someone following the world, sexual immorality sounds like a great idea - that satisfies the body

For someone following the world, cheating to get ahead is the best thing to do (everyone else is doing it) - satisfies the mind

What we know is that these are desires and temptations because of our flesh, because of our humaness

In our humaness, in our nature, we are sinful and are therefore spiritually dead

This is evidence #2 “were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind”

By nature we sin

By nature our desires are contrary to God’s commands

By nature we are imperfect

This wasnt always so - we find in Genesis that everything God created was good

That in 6 days God created the world and it was perfect

God created man in his own image, he loved them, but he wanted relationship with them so he didnt just make them like puppets he could control

He wanted them to willingly love God, to willingly obey, to willingly be unified with him

So God gives them the command to not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil

We find that the serpent comes in and just like we said, he twists the truth, he twists the implications of eating of the tree

“You will not surely die. 5 For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

Eve just told the serpent that God told us not to eat it or we will surely die

And here is the serpent, twisting the outcome of eating it

So then we know that she ate, that Adam ate, and their eyes were opened

Guess what!? They did not become like God - rather they realized they were naked and were ashamed

This was the spiritual death that God had said that would happen if they ate the fruit

They are now sinful, but worse, sin is now in the world, it is in all mankind

And so every person born after Adam and Eve, are born spiritually dead and with a nature that is contrary to God

Romans 5:12-13 “Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned— for sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law.”

This is the case for anyone born, we were born and at our birth we are spiritually dead

This is Bold

It is bold that I share this with you in a world that seeks to tell you that “you are the perfect you”

It is bold that I share with you that while the majority of people believe we are born naturally good, that I share that we are naturally depraved

But this isnt called Bold Bad News

This is Bold Gospel

Imagine seeing a rider on a horse coming to you because the good news is coming

It is the Gospel of Jesus Christ

Gospel of Jesus Christ

Ephesians 2:4-7 “But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.”

But God, But God

Remember God wants unity with us, God wants relationship with us, God loves us

And so God “rich in mercy” - because he loves us

While we were dead (God makes us alive together with Christ)

While we were dead God had a plan

While we were dead God said I will not leave you in that state

He makes us alive by sending his son Jesus

(Gospel message)

Seated with him in the heavenly places

There are eternal spiritual consequences

There has to be justice for the bad that we have done

Good news is that Jesus died to save us from that

Faith Alone

Marianne Story - Devils Advocate

This may seem silly to you but its actually very deep

We live in a world that is very acts driven

And so we talk about eternal consequences and many would say that as long as you are good and do good things then you will be in heaven or a good place, there are christians that hold to this as well

But this isn’t what God says

Ephesians 2:8-10 “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.”

This is not of your own doing

There is nothing we can do to earn or get a way into heaven

If there was any earthly thing I could to earn it then I could boast of it

Rather it is Gods grace and it is by his grace alone that we are saved

Here is another argument that Paul is writing, that before salvation - when we are still spiritually dead,

because we are apart from Christ, that we can’t possibly good works

Romans 3:11-12 “no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.””

Isaiah 64:6 “We have all become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment. We all fade like a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away.”

But God, But God rich in mercy and grace gives grace to you through Jesus

And if you look st the text it is through Jesus that you can be seated in the heavenly places, it is through Jesus that you can do good works, it is Jesus who is the good news!

If you look at the church website it states “WE ARE ALL ABOUT JESUS, THE CROSS & THE RESURRECTION”

It is Jesus’ work that justifies us

Romans 5:18-21 “Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men. For as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous. Now the law came in to increase the trespass, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, so that, as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

And because Jesus was obedient, we are obedient and follow him

But thats the key, we must follow him, and to follow him we must believe in him

But we must believe in him alone

Here we believe that Faith in Jesus Christ alone is what saves you

The it is through God’s rich mercy and grace - that we are forgiven and given eternal life through Christ

To clear up the water - Marianne was looking for “Because I have trusted in Jesus Christ alone for my salvation”

There are no works added on to it.

The good works prepared for us before hand that we do after salvation are evidence of our salvation

It is reflectant of a heart change, of new life in Jesus Christ

And so if you are here today and you have never put your faith and trust in him alone,

Maybe you know that Jesus is the only way but you have been heavily weighing your good works

Or maybe your here today and you know that there needs to be more fruit

There is going to be a time where you can call on the name of Jesus

This is the Bold Gospel that we believe at New Day, that no matter where you are at, God wants you in relationship with him