Gospel Fluency - Week 2
Gospel Fluency • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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- So we are diving into week two of our series “Gospel Fluency”, where we are learning how to speak the Truth of Jesus into the everyday stuff of life.
- And last week laid the foundation for this series (so if you missed it please go back and check it out on Facebook), and today is the 101 – introductory level – class on language.
- Learning a language requires learning the grammar, learning the rules, learning the basics, and repeating them over and over again, until they become second nature.
- If you’ve ever studied to learn a second language, you understand this.
- The language we learned simply by being born into the family we were born into, raised in the culture/country/area we were raised in, learning the language happened effortlessly.
- It happened automatically.
- We can speak our native languages without even understanding the rules of grammar.
- I understand English without even knowing what a split infinitive is.
- But, when it comes to learning a new language, when it comes to acquiring fluency in a new language, it takes more effort.
- It takes intentionality.
- It takes repetition.
- And so, this week in our journey towards Gospel fluency, we are going to learn the ABC’s of the Gospel.
- The basics of the Gospel.
- And, in order to learn that, we need to first understand that our culture and upbringing shapes our language and how we understand it.
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- For example, if I simply put up this one word (“Aslan”), some of you will think of (*) this (“The Lion King”).
- Now, when some of you think of this (“The Lion King”) you think of this (*) (movie poster).
- And, when some of you think of this (movie poster) you think of this (“Oh I just can’t wait to be King”).
- All of that took place in our brains, in just a few seconds.
- And, if you aren’t fluent in these stories, then none of what I just said makes any sense to you, because I’m not speaking your language.
- But this is the power of story, and how the stories we love shape our language and understanding of words and phrases.
- Let’s think of another, more serious example.
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- “Father”
- Some see this word and think of family holidays, playing catch in the backyard, or not being able to fall asleep unless this father was nearby.
- Others see this word and think of anger, fighting, rejection, or neglect.
- Our stories, whether we are even always aware of it or not, shape how we hear and understand the words and things that are all around us.
- So how can we become Gospel fluent people?
- Before we can become fluent, we first need a Gospel-language that is correctly shaped by the Gospel story.
- Let me be clear – we need a Gospel language that is correctly shaped by the true Gospel story.
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- Because, just like we may have different reactions to “the lion king” and “father”, we may also have different reactions to the word “Gospel”.
- Thinking back to the idea of language, maybe someone we know (or some of us ourselves) learned a language from listening to people speak, but the truth was that they didn’t do a great job of speaking the language.
- And so we picked up on bad habits.
- We picked up on mispronunciations.
- We learned incorrect rules of grammar, spelling, and language.
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- Some of us are driven crazy when these words are used incorrectly.
- Others of us have no idea what is correct or incorrect with these words.
- Some have been immersed into a culture where our language was incorrectly formed, and maybe it took a really great teacher a considerable amount of time to undo the damage that was caused by being immersed into that for so long.
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- The same is true of the Gospel.
- Many people – far too many people within the church – are claiming to be speaking the Gospel, but in truth they are just teaching incorrect, misguided, damaging lies.
- And, depending on how we were raised, what experiences happened to us during formative times, we may have very positive, very negative, or completely neutral reactions to the idea of the “Gospel” (just like people react differently to the idea of a “Father”).
- But, even in the midst of all of these differences, there is a true Gospel story.
- One true Gospel story.
- And it is important for all of us to understand it.
- Whether we believe in it or not is secondary.
- But we at least need to understand it (so that if we reject it, at least we are rejecting the actual Gospel message, rather than a twisted and distorted version).
- So today it is my goal to help us understand the true Gospel story, and then each of us can decide whether or not we are going to believe in it.
- But before we dive into the Gospel story, let’s back up for a minute.
- As we talked about last week, we all struggle with unbelief in some way or another.
- Some of us more than others, some of us aren’t sure of what we even think of Jesus.
- But even those who have decided to follow Jesus still struggle with unbelief in certain areas at certain times.
- Jeff Vanderstelt says that there are four primary reasons for unbelief.
- Four main reasons why we fail to believe – four reasons why even followers of Jesus fail to walk in Gospel fluency.
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- The first reason is that we are ignorant.
- We don’t believe because we haven’t been told what to believe.
- We can’t speak the Truth of Jesus into the everyday stuff of life because we don’t know the Truth.
- No one has shared it with us.
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- The second reason why we might fail to believe is that we are believing lies.
- There are two main lies that have been repeated throughout human history, ever since the very beginning.
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- Those lies are that God’s Word is a lie, and that God’s work is insufficient.
- We’ll dive more into this in a few minutes, but every person has faced, is facing, and will face these lies.
- God’s Word is a lie, and His work is insufficient.
- These are the lies of the enemy, and they keep many from believing the Truth.
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- The third reason why we might fail to believe is that we don’t put our trust in Jesus’ Truth.
- Real trust is putting the weight of our life into something.
- Trusting a chair to hold you.
- Trusting “The Zipper” at the fair to not break.
- That trust is only shown by getting onto it with your full weight.
- We can’t say “I trust that the Zipper is a completely safe ride made by the best minds that mechanical engineering has to offer.”
- “Well, would you like to go on it with me?”
- “Absolutely not! What if the screws come loose and we fall to our deaths?”
- That’s not trust.
- But this happens all the time in the church world.
- This happens all the time to Christians.
- We say we believe in Jesus, but we don’t put the weight of our lives into His Truth.
- We claim to “believe” in Jesus, but our lives don’t really show any sort of active “following”.
- It’s more of an intellectual claim, rather than a life-changing one.
- A man once came to Jesus to plead with Jesus for a miracle for his son.
- And the man says to Jesus.
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- Mark 9:22
o “Have mercy on us and help us, if you can.”
- And, to this, Jesus responds by saying.
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- Mark 9:23
o “What do you mean, ‘If I can’?” Jesus asked. “Anything is possible if a person believes.”
- And then, this father says words that I resonate with pretty much each and every day.
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- Mark 9:24
o The father instantly cried out, “I do believe, but help me overcome my unbelief!”
- We need to put our trust into Jesus’ Truth.
- We need to put the weight of our lives into Jesus’ Truth and His Gospel message.
- It’s not just an intellectual belief, it’s a lifechanging one.
- We won’t be able to speak the Truth of the Gospel into the everyday stuff of life, if it doesn’t actually make a difference in the everyday stuff of our lives.
- But, the Good News of the Gospel, is that even when we feel like we’ve got so far left to go, and even when we see all of the ways that we still don’t have enough together yet, Jesus shows us that He answers this prayer.
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- “I do believe (I want to believe, I am trying to believe), but help me overcome my unbelief.”
- The fourth and final reason why we might fail to believe is this.
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- We have been wounded
- Specifically, we have been wounded by others’ sin.
- Someone has hurt us (possibly inside of the church, or someone who claimed to represent Jesus in and over our lives.
- And now we find ourselves in a place where it’s hard to trust again, it’s hard to believe again.
- Because we’ve been deceived, and we’ve been hurt (and fool me once, shame on you, but fool me twice, and shame on me. And I will not let you fool me twice).
- And if that is where you are at this morning, if you were courageous enough to come here in person to try and overcome this hurt, or if you are watching online because you just can’t bear the thought of walking through another set of church doors because of what you’ve been through, then I want to say how much I appreciate you and admire you being willing to even consider Jesus again after whatever it is that you have gone through.
- Because this isn’t something that we should take lightly.
- This isn’t something that we should brush past and quickly move on from.
- But, for any of us who finds ourselves in a place of pain (in a place of wounding) today, I would simply say this.
- Hundreds of years before Jesus was born, this was said about the kind of life that He would live (or, more specifically, this was said about the kind of death that He would die).
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- Isaiah 53:5
o He was wounded because of our rebellious deeds, crushed because of our sins; he endured punishment that made us well; because of his wounds we have been healed.
- Please understand that this doesn’t dismiss any wounding that you’ve gone through.
- This doesn’t excuse what that person did to you.
- But, as we prepare to go into the true Gospel story, we need to understand that Jesus didn’t just come to forgive us from our sins.
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- He came to heal us.
- And maybe some of us need to receive the healing touch of Jesus.
- Jesus died and rose again and fills us with His Spirit to bring healing into these broken areas of wounding in our lives.
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- So these are four reasons – four possibilities – for why we might struggle with unbelief.
- Why we might fail to fully embrace Gospel fluency.
- So then, what should we do in response to this?
- The first step to addressing these four areas of unbelief is to simply know the Gospel story.
- We need to know the true Gospel story.
- The reason why we are ignorant (we don’t know the truth), the reason why we believe lies, the reason we have a hard time trusting, the reason why our wounds continue to have more power over us than God does, is because we are putting our trust in a different story.
- And the “dominant story” of our life will determine how we live.
- Whatever is the “biggest story” we are listening to, will impact every area of what we do.
- If we listen to the story that says we need to earn more money, then we will chase promotions and success and financial investment (even at the expense of relationship), because that is the story that is driving our life.
- If we listen to the story that we are only worthwhile if we have a good family (a happy spouse and 2.5 well-behaved kids), then we will put all of our weight into that, expecting a fellow fallen human being to be the one to bring our ultimate purpose and meaning in life (and if – and when – they fall short, it will be absolutely devastating to us).
- Whatever the “dominant story” of our life is, will determine how we live.
- And for those who want to follow Jesus, for those who even want to consider following Jesus, then Jesus calls us to make His Story our dominant story.
- His Gospel story, the biggest story of our lives – the one that impacts every area of what we do.
- And there are many ways to go through the Gospel story, and we’re just going to be considering one possible outline for us (there will be more available for you online on the Now What page).
- But this is the Gospel, and as we go through this, we need to each be mindful about where and how this disagrees with other dominant stories we’ve been listening to in our lives.
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- The story starts with creation.
- God created the universe, the world, and everything in it, and it was good.
- God created us in His image, and called us very good.
- This is a key part of the Gospel story.
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- We are made in the image of God.
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- This is where we find our identity.
- This is where we find our significance and meaning and purpose.
- God created us in His image, and that means that our dignity was never meant to come from what we did (or didn’t do), but rather it comes from who God made us to be.
- The questions every person asks “Who am I?” and “Why am I here?” were never meant to be answered outside of what God says and what God does.
- Because God’s Word is true, and His work is sufficient.
- We are created in the image of God, and we were made very good.
- However, the problem is when we believe something other than what God has said about us.
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- This leads us to the second part of the story, which is the fall.
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- We have a problem, and that problem is our sin.
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- And, as we’ve talked about, at the heart of our sin is unbelief.
- God created us in His image, and He called us “very good”. But we don’t believe that.
- We don’t feel “very good”. We feel we need to do better, try harder, earn more, deserve more, be more.
- God tells us that we are made in His image and have already had His dignity given to us, but we think we know ourselves better, and that can’t possibly be true about us.
- God’s Word (about us) is a lie.
- And furthermore, His work (in making us in His image and giving us dignity and identity) is insufficient.
- He did not do a “very good” job in making us.
- And so we look somewhere else, and we exchange the truth of God for a lie.
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- And this is our rebellion, leading to all kinds of sin and brokenness.
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- The wages of sin is death. Spiritual death, relational death, and physical death.
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- This leads to the third part of the story, which is redemption.
- Thankfully, the story doesn’t end with destruction and death.
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- We understand that we need a solution to our problem.
- “What is the solution to my problem?” “Can I save myself?” “Or do I need to be saved?”
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- Do I need a Saviour?
- And so Jesus was born.
- He lived the perfect life.
- Jesus’ life matters, not just His death.
- It wasn’t enough for Him to just show up on earth and die for our sins. He had to live the life we don’t live in order to be for us the righteousness of God that we aren’t.
- Jesus lived the life that God called us to live.
- Jesus perfectly embodied what it means to be made in the image of God.
- When we wonder “who am I?” and “why am I here?” we can see what God always intended for us in the life of Jesus.
- And then, after living the life we were meant to live, He died for our sin.
- Jesus’ perfect life was exchanged for our life of sin.
- He paid the debt we couldn’t pay and suffered the death we should have experienced.
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- Romans 3:25a
o For God presented Jesus as the sacrifice for sin. People are made right with God when they believe that Jesus sacrificed his life, shedding his blood.
- The penalty for our sin was poured out on Jesus.
- But, not only was the penalty for our sin poured out on Jesus, but simultaneously God’s love for Jesus was poured out on us.
- Death is terminal. And through Jesus’ death our sins were terminated.
- And then, Jesus rose again to defeat death.
- Jesus died to remove our sins from us, and lives to destroy the power of sin and death over us.
- Because, if this is going to be the dominant story of our lives.
- If this is going to be worth giving our lives, putting all of our trust into, then we need more than the humble life of Jesus.
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- We need the victorious reign of the Christ, Messiah, Saviour, King.
- This victory is what gives Jesus ultimate authority to bring healing, restoration, and redemption into the brokenness and pain that sin causes.
- And now Jesus fills us with His Spirit so that we may experience His life (today, tomorrow, and forever).
- We need to understand this.
- The Gospel doesn’t just bring about forgiveness of sins and save us from hell tomorrow (or somewhere down the line).
- The Gospel empowers us to live a whole new life today by the same Spirit who raised Jesus from the dead.
- And there is no greater power than that.
- Jesus is all the proof we need that God’s Word is true and that His work is sufficient.
- Because Jesus is Truth, proof that God loves us (not because of what we do to deserve it, but simply because of who He created us to be).
- And Jesus’ work through the cross and empty tomb (and the ongoing work of His Spirit) is more than enough for whatever we need.
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- Romans 6:23
o For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord.
- The wages of sin is death. Spiritual death, relational death, and physical death.
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- But the gift of God through Jesus is life. Spiritual life, relational life, and physical life.
- So if Jesus is our Saviour, then what is He saving us from?
- He has saved us from the penalty of sin.
- He is saving us from the power of sin (we don’t have to live as slaves to sin today, He saves us each and every day, we can be set free to live out our true identities as image-bearers of God).
- He will save us from the presence of sin (there is a future hope).
- And it’s at this point that I want us to pause and take communion together.
- This is for all followers of Jesus, to remember the Gospel, to remember our story of redemption.
- To remember the Saviour that we all desperately need, because we are unable to save ourselves.
- Maybe even right now, whether you are here in person or watching online, you realize that you want this Gospel story to be the dominant story of your life, then today could be the day for you to come to Jesus and let His story become your story.
- You are invited to remember this plan of redemption, that was paid in full by Jesus for us.
- ***Take communion
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- And so all of this leads us to the final part of the story. The new creation.
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- This is what we long for.
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- This is where our hope needs to be.
- Because everyone, regardless of what we believe in, everyone is longing for something to be better.
- Every day we have a longing in our heart for a new world, for a new life, for all things to be made new.
- And that is exactly what Jesus promises.
- To make everything new – including us.
- This is the Gospel story.
- And this needs to be our dominant story. Our main story. Our loudest story.
- So, for anyone wrestling with believing in this story, for anyone deciding (for the first time or for the fiftieth time), to put all of their weight into this story,
- As I already said, I can help you understand what the Gospel story is, but only you can decide whether or not you will believe it (whether or not you will put all of your weight into it).
- And, for those who have decided to believe, then we need to repeat this story.
- We need to rehearse this story.
- We need to become fluent in this story.
- This is the Gospel story.
- This is the true and better story that can redeem and make new every other story.
- Because God’s Word is true, and His work is sufficient.
- If we are going to become fluent in the Gospel, then we need to be regularly replacing the lies we have believed (and the lies surrounding us) with the Truth of Jesus.
- And, if we’re willing to be honest with ourselves, and with others in our church family about our areas of unbelief, we may find that over time those unbeliefs shrink, and our trust and joy in Jesus grow.
- Because God’s Word is true, and His work is sufficient.
- This is the story that needs to shape our language, in our journey to Gospel fluency.
- Close in prayer
- (*) Now What?
- Benediction: Revelation 1:5b-6
o All glory to him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by shedding his blood for us. He has made us a Kingdom of priests for God his Father. All glory and power to him forever and ever! Amen.
Scripture:
- Mark 9:14-29
- Isaiah 53:1-12
- Romans 3:21-28
- Romans 6:15-23
Prayer:
- Pray that God would help reveal any areas of unbelief and reasons why you may fail to put your full trust in His Gospel story. Pray that the Holy Spirit would help you repent, turn, and put all of your weight into the Truth of Jesus.
- Pray that God would help you remember and memorize His true Gospel story. Pray that He would give you discernment for how to share the Gospel with those around you who need to hear it.
Discussion/Reflection:
- Four possible reasons for unbelief are: we are ignorant, we are believing lies, we don’t put our trust in Jesus’ Truth, and we have been wounded. In what ways have these different reasons affected your life and your relationship with Jesus over the years and in different seasons?
- What are some of the “dominant stories” that you have listened to throughout your life? Have there been any times when you have struggled to make the Gospel your primary/dominant story?
- If you were taught the Gospel growing up, what do you remember being taught? Were there any ways that what you heard wasn’t the proper “language/fluency” of the true Gospel message?
- When thinking of the Gospel in terms of creation, fall, redemption, and new creation, is there any part of the story that you are more fluent in? Less fluent? What can you do this week to help grow in fluency for the full Gospel story?
Now What Next Step:
- Practice, rehearse, and repeat the Gospel story this week.
- Check out the following link for more ideas and resources to go through the Gospel story: lifecentreweyburn.ca/gospel
- Don’t just practice it by yourself! Get together with family, friends, church family, etc. and take turns practicing the Gospel story.
- The more you repeat it this week, the better it will stick throughout the rest of this series.
