What Is the Gospel? (2)

Four Crucial Questions

The heart of Paul’s gospel proclamation are the answers to four crucial questions.

1. Who made us, and to whom are we accountable?

2. What is our problem? In other words, are we in trouble and why?

3. What is God’s solution to that problem? How has he acted to save us from it?

4. How do I—myself, right here, right now—how do I come to be included in that salvation? What makes this good news for me and not just for someone else?

We can summarize these four major points like this:

God, Man, Christ, Response

God the Righteous Creator

Let me introduce you to God!

How do most people in our culture view or think about God?

Read example: 37-38.

Assumptions about God

How far off was this description from the way many people think about God?

What kind of god do people imagine? What are their god’s attributes?

kind,

affable,

slightly dazed,

needy,

like a very loving grandfather who has wishes but no demands,

someone who can be safely ignored if you don’t have time for him,

someone who is very, very, VERY understanding of the fact that human beings make mistakes

he is much more understanding, in fact, than the rest of us

Emmanuel- United Church of Christ

Love Welcomes All! At Emmanuel UCC, we welcome into full membership and participation in the Body of Christ not only persons of every race, language, age, physical and mental ability, economic and marital status, and faith background, but also persons of all gender identities and sexual orientations. We affirm and celebrate all loving and committed relationships, and we commit ourselves to work diligently to end oppression and discrimination wherever it occurs.

We open our church to people of all gender identities and sexual orientations. We were the first Christian church in Waukesha County to publicly welcome and embrace the LGBTQ community, and we established the PFLAG (Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays) chapter in Oconomowoc.

Church Sign: You are welcome just as you are.

Pastor Page: God’s love never let’s us go.

What are their assumptions about God?

Older generation- they used to be able to make assumptions that even if people were not Christian they had a basic understanding about God and his character.

What about now? Can we make assumptions about what people know about God?

What implications does that have for rightly proclaiming the gospel?

If we are going to proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ today, we have to start at the very beginning. (Story of Hope)

What is the very beginning? God Himself.

How long would it take to fully study and comprehend all that God has revealed about himself? A lifetime!

So we don’t (can’t) say everything about God in order to present the gospel faithfully. What do we have to say about God?

What basic truths about God does a person have to understand in order to grasp the good news of Christianity?

God the Creator

Why should we begin with the message that God is the creator of the universe? - Genesis 1:1 “1 In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.”

It is how our Bible starts. If we get this wrong- then everything else that follows will be off.

Sighting in my bow- moveable single pin sight. First thing you had to do was figure out what sight tape to use. If you got that step wrong then none of the rest of the aimpoints would be accurate.

Genesis opens by explaining that an eternal God created everything. He made the mountains and valleys, animals and fish, bids and reptiles, everything! God created all of the universe- the stars, moon, sun, and galaxies.

And how did God create all things? He spoke it into existence from nothing. It’s not as if God took the primordial clay that somehow already existed and molded the world.

God spoke, “Let there be light!” and there was light.

There are many passages that tells us how creation testifies to God’s glory and power.

Psalm 19:1 ESV

1 The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.

Romans 1:20 ESV

20 For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.

Illustration: Have you ever stood at the peak of a mountain and looked out over the landscape?

Table Mountain- Cape Town, South Africa

Hiked up the switch backs

Me and Joseph Selfie

Above the Clouds

“There is something about the grandeur of creation that calls out to the human heart, saying, ‘You are not all there is!’” —Greg Gilbert

The creation story in Genesis builds in scope and important on each new day of creation.

Light- sea- land-moon and sun- birds and fish- animals, and then? The very pinnacle of God’s creation work! man and woman.

Genesis 1:26–27 ESV

26 Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” 27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.

“Whatever else you think about the story of creation, the implications of this claim—that God created the world, and especially that God created YOU—are enormous.” —Greg Gilbert

What are the enormous implications that God created you?

What is the dominate view about the origin of the world in our culture?

What worldview does evolution lead to? Nihilism. What is nihilism?

Dictionary of Theological Terms Nihilism

From Latin nihil, “nothing”; it is used in various senses. Philosophically, nihilism is the belief that there is no basis for knowledge or truth and no meaning or purpose to existence. Consequently it rejects and opposes all customary, especially Christian, beliefs about religion and morality. It is a sort of moral anarchism in which we can know nothing to be true or right, or indeed anything but a speck of meaninglessness in the midst of cosmic confusion and darkness.

How does God the creator, fly in the face of the one of the dominate worldviews in our culture?

If God created the world and everything in it, then everything in the universe has a purpose—including human beings.

Genesis 1:27 ESV

27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.

How does Genesis 1:27 give meaning and purpose to human beings?

If we are created, then we are the result of an idea, a plan, and an action of God himself. And that brings both meaning and responsibility to human life.

“None of us is autonomous, and understanding that fact is key to understanding the gospel.” —Greg Gilbert (42)

Explain?

“Despite our constant talk of rights and liberty, we are not really as free as we would like to think. We are created. We are made. And therefore we are owned.” (42)

God made us. He created us for a purpose. God has the right to tell us how to live. Did God tell Adam and Eve, in the Garden, how to live?

Genesis 2:16–17 ESV

16 And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, 17 but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”

God the Creator, who knew what was best for his people, gave them laws that would preserve and increase their happiness and well-being.

People must understand the idea of God their creator. He made us for a purpose. The gospel is God’s response to the bad news of sin. What is sin? Sin is a person’s rejection of God’s Creator-rights over him. This is a fundamental truth. God created us, and therefore God owns us.

God the Holy and Righteous One

If you had to describe God is just a few words what would you say?

Loving, good, kind, compassionate, forgiving?

Listen to how God describes himself in just a few words.

Exodus 34:6–7 ESV

The Lord passed before him and proclaimed, “The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin,

How amazing is God? When God wants to tell his name and show us his glory he uses words like merciful and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, forgiving sin.

But God doesn’t stop there. Most people don’t know the end of v. 7.

Look at v. 7 with me all the way to the end.

Exodus 34:7 ESV

keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation.”

Exodus 34:7 destroys about 90% of what people today think they know about God. They want to imagine only a god who is loving and compassionate.

like a very loving grandfather who has wishes but no demands,

someone who can be safely ignored if you don’t have time for him,

someone who is very, very, VERY understanding of the fact that human beings make mistakes

Yet the loving and compassionate God does not leave the guilty unpunished.

Many people want to think about God like an unscrupulous janitor. How?

Instead of dealing with the world’s dirt—that is its sin, evil, and wickedness— he simply sweeps it under a rug- like a bad janitor.

Most people cannot fathom a God who would judge sin. How could a loving God punish me for wickedness? God wouldn’t do that if he were loving!

Later on we will get to how God can forgive wickedness, rebellion, and sin and yet “does not leave the guilty unpunished”—that tension is resolved by the death of Jesus on the cross.

But before we get to the cross we must understand that even though most people cringe away from a just judge, God’s love does not cancel out his justice and righteousness.

Psalm 11:7 ESV

7 For the Lord is righteous; he loves righteous deeds; the upright shall behold his face.

Psalm 33:5 ESV

5 He loves righteousness and justice; the earth is full of the steadfast love of the Lord.

Psalm 89:14 ESV

14 Righteousness and justice are the foundation of your throne; steadfast love and faithfulness go before you.

Psalm 97:2 ESV

2 Clouds and thick darkness are all around him; righteousness and justice are the foundation of his throne.

What does it mean that righteousness and justice are the foundation of God’s throne?

“God’s rule over the universe, his soverign lordship over creation, is founded upon his remaining forever perfectly righteous and just.” (44)

“Is anyone satisfied with the idea of God being a bad janitor? Why not? It makes God out to be unjust and unrighteous. It makes him into a god who simply hides sin—or even hides from sin—rather than confronting it and destroying it. It makes him a moral coward.” (44)

Do you want a God like that?

What happens when people who deny that God is a god who judges sin, come face to face with undeniable evil?

Illustration: Charlie Kirk? Shot in the neck. What if it was their dad? What kind of judge would they want overseeing the trial? One who attempts to sweep that murder under a rug? NO WAY! They want justice and they want it now.

“They want God to overlook their own sin, but not the terrorist’s. ‘Forgive me,’ they say, ‘but don’t you dare forgive him!’ You see, nobody wants a God who declines to deal with evil. They just want a God who declines to deal with their evil.” (44)

God is perfectly just and righteous. God will deal with all evil. And he will do so perfectly and powerfully.

Habakkuk 1:13 NIV

13 Your eyes are too pure to look on evil; you cannot tolerate wrongdoing.

If God tolerated wrongdoing- he would have to renounce the very foundation of his throne. Even more serious, He would have to denounce his very name, his very self. And God will not, God cannot do that.

Most people have no problem thinking about a “god” who loves them and shows them compassion. And we as Christians have worked very hard to make sure the world knows that God loves them.

But people will never understand just how glorious and essential and life-giving the gospel is, if they don’t understand that this loving and compassionate God is also holy and righteous, and that he is determined never to overlook, ignore, or tolerate sin. Including our own sin!