Principles of the Gospel
Notes
Transcript
Text: 1 Corinthians 15:1-4
Opening: We have thus far looked at the “Principles of Soul-Winning” which included the mandate (the command) to proclaim the Gospel, the motive in proclaiming the Gospel, and the ministry of the one proclaiming the Gospel.
We next looked at the “Preparation of a Soul-Winner.” One of the first things that a soul-winner needs is to have a full understanding of what exactly happened to them when they got saved.
Tonight we come to the “Principles of the Gospel.”
A thorough understanding of the Gospel message is vital in soul winning.
A soul winner cannot be effective with those who have never even heard the Gospel if they themselves do not have a clear understanding of it themselves.
In addition…
A serious soul winner had better be more than just “familiar” with the message of the Gospel.
They must be “saturated” with the message of the Gospel!
When the soul winner yields to the Spirit and becomes saturated with the Gospel, they can be a more effective soul winner for Christ.
Question: Are you saturated with the Gospel?
Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.
In just a moment we are going to look at the three primary truths of the Gospel that we need to get a hold of.
Do we simply “know” the main points or can we, from Scripture, fully support these points?
Illustration: Multiplication flashcards
That’s what it means to be saturated with the Gospel.
So, what are the three primary truths - or principles - of the Gospel that we must understand?
While there are many ways to state them, here, I will state them as…
#1: Man’s Problem
#2: God’s Remedy
#3: Man’s Choice
#1: Man’s Problem
#1: Man’s Problem
At some point, a person must realize that they have a problem and that they are not the answer!
First, though, a few common fallacies:
“We are the children of God!”
Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do….
But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name:
“As long as my good deeds outweigh my bad deeds.”
…all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags;…
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.
“We are all basically good!”
This statement leads us to the first aspect of man’s problem that we need to consider:
All Have Sinned
All Have Sinned
Before any individual can be saved, they must understand their need for a Savior.
Why do men (and women, and children) have that need? Because the Bible teaches that all are sinners!
From the Old Testament:
For there is not a just man upon earth, that doeth good, and sinneth not.
But we are all as an unclean thing…
From the New Testament:
As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one:
For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;
Sin is not simply the action that a person does; it is what he is. We are sinners by nature, and sin is the product of what we are by nature.
The only way to understand what makes a man a sinner is to see how sin came into the world to begin with.
Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned:
According to Genesis 1:27, Adam was made in the image of God; but after his disobedience in the Garden, that image was marred by sin.
Turn to and read Genesis 5:1-3.
God created man in the likeness of Himself, but the Bible clearly refers, here, to Seth in a different light.
Seth was not made in God’s likeness or image but in the fallen likeness and image of his father, Adam.
You’ve heard me say this many times:
We are sinners because we are born in sin. We are not sinners because we sin: we sin because we are sinners.
Because of that, according to Isaiah 64:6, even our best works are corrupted from the source. As good as our works may be, they are still nothing but filthy rags.
And, because all have sinned, we must understand…
Sin Separates from God
Sin Separates from God
In a world which seems to minimize consequences, it is important to understand that sin has consequences.
Because of sin, man is separated from God for all eternity.
Behold, the Lord’s hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; Neither his ear heavy, that it cannot hear:
But your iniquities have separated between you and your God, And your sins have hid his face from you, that he will not hear.
And beside all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed: so that they which would pass from hence to you cannot; neither can they pass to us, that would come from thence.
Not only does sin separate us from God but…
Sin Condemns Mankind to Hell
Sin Condemns Mankind to Hell
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.
He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.
He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him.
We must always remember…
For the wages of sin is death…
And, at its core, death simply means separation.
“A loving God would not condemn someone to an eternal hell!”
That is correct. God doesn’t condemn anyone to Hell. Their sins have condemned them already!
Man’s sinful nature separates him from God, and that separation leads to eternal condemnation.
#1: Man’s Problem
#1: Man’s Problem
#2: God’s Remedy
#2: God’s Remedy
The Gospel is not just a presentation of the darkness and destructiveness of sin.
The “good news” of the Gospel is that God freely offers the forgiveness of those sins through Jesus Christ to all who will receive Him.
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
It is imperative, though, that the soul winner understand and master the doctrines of Christ and salvation.
Religious systems and liberal churches today have invented their own remedies for sin and their own ways to Heaven.
Not only that, but in one way or another, every major cult today denies Jesus’ deity or God’s remedy for sin.
At some point it is likely that you will have to confront the false belief of a cult while defending your own belief in Christ as the only way of salvation.
Then said Jesus unto them again, Verily, verily, I say unto you, I am the door of the sheep.
All that ever came before me are thieves and robbers: but the sheep did not hear them.
I am the door: by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture.
The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.
I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep.
Example: The Jehovah’s Witnesses do not believe that Jesus is God. They believe that before Jesus lived on earth, he was Michael the archangel. Jehovah (God) made the universe through him. On earth he was simply a man who lived a perfect life. After dying on a stake (not a cross), he was resurrected as a spirit; his body was destroyed.
Example: Muslims believe that Jesus was created by God in the same way that Adam was created by God.
The Word of God is the only line of defense in these situations.
The Word of God will never return void, and it will always accomplish the purpose for which God intended it.
So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: It shall not return unto me void, But it shall accomplish that which I please, And it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.
It is here that I want to touch on something that I believe is important and which sometimes “trips up” Bible believing Christians.
“Pastor Campbell, each of these religions believe their teachings to be ‘the truth.’”
So Muslims have the Koran, Mormons have The Book of Mormon, Jehovah's Witnesses have the Awake! magazine , the Jews have the Talmud, and the list continues. Christians have the Bible (Old and New Testament), so is the debate simply a matter of preference?
Hodge, Bodie; Patterson, Roger. World Religions and Cults: Counterfeits of Christianity (Volume 1) (p. 146). (Function). Kindle Edition.
Truth is not a matter of opinion. If you pick what is truth based on your personal opinions, then truth is nonexistent since there would be no standard for truth!
Hodge, Bodie; Patterson, Roger. World Religions and Cults: Counterfeits of Christianity (Volume 1) (p. 146). (Function). Kindle Edition.
Most of these counterfeits openly borrow or affirm the Bible, or at least parts of it, to be true…
Others borrow from biblical doctrines whether they realize it or not.
Hodge, Bodie; Patterson, Roger. World Religions and Cults: Counterfeits of Christianity (Volume 1) (p. 147). (Function). Kindle Edition.
The Bible borrows teachings from none of these other religions, so it is obvious that they are counterfeits arising from the Bible. Biblical Christianity is the standard by which we can judge all other religious views.
Hodge, Bodie; Patterson, Roger. World Religions and Cults: Counterfeits of Christianity (Volume 1) (p. 147). (Function). Kindle Edition.
Some, here, might argue that Christianity “came out of” the Jewish religion.
Is that correct?
No, for at least two reasons:
Biblical Christianity preceded - came before - the Jewish “religion.” (Genesis 3:15)
Biblical Christianity destroyed/replaced the Jewish “religion.” (Matthew 9:14-17)
Now, getting back to the truth that Jesus Christ is God’s remedy to the problem of man’s sin…
The next day John seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.
Jesus Christ, to be able to atone for the sins of mankind, must be perfect and without spot - He must be God!
We call this “the deity of Jesus Christ.”
As I stated before, most cults today deny the truth that Jesus Christ is God.
How do we answer? With God’s Word, the Bible!
Some may respond, though, with, “Well, that’s just not enough; I need to know ‘how’ to reason and ‘argue’ my point?”
(I will have to say that sometimes, when I watch individuals like Charlie Kirk, or Ken Ham (of Answers in Genesis), or other individuals like that, that I will secretly desire their “ability” to reason and argue their point.)
But allow me to share this testimony with you of a Baptist pastor who had served time in the US Navy.
The man who gave me the hardest time was a [young man] who had studied philosophy at the University of Iowa.
He introduced me to logic and “presuppositions” to show (correctly) that if two debaters don’t agree on what they presuppose, they’ll never reach the same conclusion.
He argued that all my premises presuppose the Bible to be inspired.
He also rejected the concept of divine inspiration and asserted the Bible held absolutely no authority for him.
Since I was planning to major in philosophy in college, this reasoning both impressed and discouraged me.
I recall thinking,
I don’t know anything but the Bible, so all I can do is give him the Bible.
As I quoted or read more Scripture to him, he argued with the Scripture and often became angry.
At first it amused me that this man who had just disdained the Bible as nothing was letting that nothing get under his skin.
Periodically this fact occurred to him, too, and in frustration he would renew his rejection of the Bible but immediately resume his defensiveness against it.
My amusement at him developed into a profound respect for the power of the Word of God.
The man succeeded in rejecting the Bible intellectually, but it still claimed an emotional hold on him. He could control his mind but not his heart.
I learned better than I had ever known before that…
…the Bible has a powerful dynamic that man can reject mentally but cannot resist morally.
Is that not what happened to the devil when he sought to tempt Jesus Christ in Matthew chapter 4?
Then the devil leaveth him…
Don’t get discouraged because you can’t “reason” with the other person.
Don’t get discouraged because you can’t use “logic” to prove your point.
Don’t get discouraged because you cannot eloquently argue your point.
If all you know is the Bible, just give them the Bible!
Ok, so how do we, from Scripture, prove that Jesus Christ is God?
Christ is called God.
Christ is called God.
Turn to and read Hebrews 1:1-8.
And Thomas answered and said unto him, My Lord and my God.
Jesus saith unto him, Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed.
Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ;
And we know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding, that we may know him that is true, and we are in him that is true, even in his Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God, and eternal life.
For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.
In these verses, Christ is called God and actually receives worship from others.
Anyone who truly believes God’s Word cannot deny the deity of Christ.
The fact that Jesus Christ was called, “God,” proves His deity, but also…
Jesus Christ is pre-existent.
Jesus Christ is pre-existent.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
The same was in the beginning with God.
All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.
In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him:
Adam Clarke was a British theologian and scholar and in the early 19th century he wrote (about Colossians 1:16)…
Christian Theology The Divinity of Christ
Jesus Christ is, according to the plain obvious meaning of every expression in this text, truly, properly, independently, and essentially, God.
Turn to and read Proverbs 8:22-31.
Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I am.
And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was.
Jesus Christ is self-existent and the giver of life.
Jesus Christ is self-existent and the giver of life.
To have the ability to give eternal life, One must has eternal life.
Jesus Christ did not receive eternal from anyone; He has always possessed eternal. He has always been!
In him was life; and the life was the light of men.
For as the Father hath life in himself; so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself;
Who is made, not after the law of a carnal commandment, but after the power of an endless life.
#3: Man’s Choice
#3: Man’s Choice
a. Understanding the Gospel
b. Exercising Genuine Faith
i. Exercising genuine faith is claiming, by personal choice, God’s promises and relying exclusively upon Christ’s work on the cross to be sufficient payment for sin.
ii. Genuine faith involves choice. Every individual must choose whether to accept or to reject Christ.
iii. Genuine faith involves trust.
1. When a person believe the Gospel, he must rely entirely upon Jesus Christ for salvation.
2. Faith involves trusting, relying, grasping, claiming, seizing, and believing. Each of these words involves taking possession of something.
It is history when one says, “Christ died on Calvary.”
It is theology when one says, “Christ died on Calvary for the sins of mankind.”
It is salvation when one can say, “Christ died on Calvary for my sins, and I have accepted Him as my personal Savior.”
But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Esaias saith, Lord, who hath believed our report?
#1: Man has a problem.
#2: God offers a remedy.
#3: Man has a choice.
