What Does a Good Church Look Like 1f

What Does a Good Church Look Like 1f

Turn to Romans 1. Continuing to ask the question – what does a good church look like.

Most likely, we’ve all heard two words often associated with Christianity – gospel and wrath. But what is the gospel and why do we need the gospel?

The word gospel literally means good news.

In the ESV, it is found 97 times throughout the NT.

The word wrath conveys God’s punitive or judicial judgment.

is mentioned 38 times in the NT. I mention these two words because they are imperative to proper theology and doctrine. Theology being our understanding of God and doctrine referring to how we conduct ourselves according to theology. If we don’t understand the gospel and why we have the gospel, and if we don’t understand God’s wrath and its purpose, we’ll have a skewed view of God and humanity and the need for God’s saving grace.

For instance, consider God’s wrath. Wrath, especially in Western Christianity, is almost always connected to God’s anger. And with whom is He always angry? Gawd is angry with humanity - the sinner! He pours out His wrath and judgment on us. Gawd is portrayed as taking pleasure in sending people to their eternal doom. That is a gross misunderstanding of God’s wrath. We’ll discover next week that God’s wrath was never intended for humanity, but for spiritual beings who rebel against God. Regarding wrath toward humanity, it’s based on love, justice, truth and all the eternal characteristics of God.

Back to the gospel. Again, gospel means good news. And of course, this refers to the good news that Jesus Christ died on a cross as a payment for our sins and was raised to life for our justification (declared innocent). The fact that Jesus conquered death and has given us eternal life is good news.

But is the gospel bigger than that? I think so. What do I mean? Consider the various nuances in which the word gospel is used in the NT. In Scripture, we find it is called the gospel of Jesus, the gospel of God, the gospel of the Kingdom of God, the gospel of the grace of God, the gospel of His Son, the eternal gospel, the gospel of Christ, the gospel of peace, and the gospel of your or our salvation. We are told to repent and believe in the gospel. Jesus tells us to lose our lives for the sake of the gospel. We are told to obey the gospel, advance the gospel, God has entrusted us with the gospel, live in a worthy manner of the gospel, to proclaim the gospel, be set apart for the gospel, and to put our hope in the gospel. But wait – there’s more.

Those who trust in Christ have become heirs and partakers of the gospel. The gospel is a mystery. The gospel is the power of God unto salvation. The gospel empowers us and unites us. The gospel was even preached to Abraham. We can hinder the gospel. The god of this age blinds people to the gospel. And we may suffer because of the gospel. And lastly, it does not end well for those who reject the gospel. If you do a study of the NT, that’s the many ways the gospel is used.

Sidenote - nowhere in Scripture does it say that the gospel is all about me. The gospel is not about getting what I want, or about having an easy life. Not about naming and claiming.

When we put all that together,

The gospel is God’s gracious provision (or solution) to restore our humanity, reverse the condition and consequences of sin, and to reconcile a broken relationship with Himself (now and eternally).

Not a lot of anger or wrath in that is there?

Sounds great, but why do we need the gospel?

Let’s look at Romans 1.

Romans 1:14–17 ESV

I am under obligation both to Greeks and to barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish. So I am eager to preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome. For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.”

What’s this about not being ashamed? We need to remember the political-religious culture of the Roman Empire. Emperors were powerful. They were becoming deified – worshipped. They were lord and king. You bow to Caesar, pledge allegiance to Caesar and no one else - not even this Jesus guy. Furthermore, the culture was polytheistic – they acknowledged and/or worshipped multiple gods. There were many mystery or secret religions that were even too taboo for Romans. So, to publicly proclaim Jesus as Lord and King; to say Jesus is the way and the truth – well, wasn’t popular. To publicly elevate Jesus above Caesar, or the Roman government or their gods could get a person cancelled, lose your job, property, family, friends, social status …. Proclaiming the good news of Jesus could cause riots. It was risky. Could get arrested, imprisoned, or killed.

Paul had many reasons to exercise his “right” to remain silent. The Jewish leaders, the Roman Empire and the spiritual powers of darkness wanted Paul to shut up, but he would not.

And the same is true today. This world wants us, the Church, to be silent.

But Paul said, “I’m not ashamed of or I have confidence in the gospel.” Here’s my question - where did this confidence come from? When Jesus appeared to Paul, Saul at the time, and he trusted in Jesus, Paul experienced the transforming power of Jesus Christ. He experienced the resurrected Messiah. He experienced God’s love, grace, forgiveness, etc., and consequently became a witness. A witness to what? Religious dogma, doctrine, tradition, or human ideology? No. So what did he become of witness to? Before we answer that, let’s answer this question - what is a witness?

Acts 1:8 ESV

But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”

Witness (martys in Greek; eid in Hebrew) refers to a person who directly and personally experienced or saw something significant.

A martys has direct firsthand experiential knowledge.

You cannot be a martys or witness via secondhand knowledge or hearsay.

For those of you who know Jesus, think about the moment you trusted in Him. What did you experience? What happened at that moment? What other experiences with God or His Spirit have you had? Those experiences are a part of God’s story (interaction with you) and our stories, and they should give us confidence in the gospel. But the enemy wants to tell us what? Those experiences weren’t real, and that causes doubt, which leads to a lack of confidence or being ashamed of the gospel. We are not called to be a witness to everything, but we are called to be a witness to what we’ve seen and experienced. It’s our story so stick to it. No one can deny our experiences and that is where the power of the gospel message is at.

Trust God’s story and your story.

If you’ve seen the series The Chosen - in season 1 episode 2, Mary Magdalene makes her testimony so simple. When asked by the Jewish leader Nicodemus what happened to her (transformations), she responded, “I was one way and now I’m another. What happened in between was Him – Jesus.”

Let’s go back to Paul’s confidence. Paul was brilliant, knew the OT Scriptures, top of his class, bold and courageous …. But I believe more than anything else

Paul’s confidence primarily came from knowing Jesus and trusting in his own personal experience (i.e. story) with Jesus.

Again, trust God’s story and your story.

I don’t know about you, but when it comes to sharing the gospel, what trips me up is the “what ifs.” What if they ask this? What if they say that? Those “what ifs” wreak havoc – and most of the time I’m wrong anyway.

What if we stopped worrying about the what ifs and stuck the story (God’s story and our stories) – our personal firsthand experiences with the Living God? That’s being a witness and that’s where the power is.

When Jesus said you will be my witnesses, He meant just tell them what you’ve experienced. He never said anything about having all the answers.

So, what does a good church look like?

A good church will remain faithful to the story of God, and to the gospel of Jesus Christ, and to our personal testimonies (witness).

Tell your story (your experience with Jesus). Don’t be ashamed of your story, because within your story is the power of the gospel and someone else needs to hear it. Come to EE June 24.

Next week we’ll discover why we need the gospel.