Spiritual Connection: Gospel
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What is Truth?
What is Truth?
Jesus, while standing before Pilate in John 18:33ff, was asked this question, “What is truth?”
Prior to meeting up with Pilate, Jesus told the Jews in John 8:32 that “the truth will set you free.”
Peter, when standing before the rulers, elders, and scribes, filled with the Holy Spirit in Acts 4:1f, spoke boldly regarding Jesus and said in Acts 4:12 (ESV) “. . . there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.”
The truth is that apart from putting one’s faith in Jesus as Savior and Lord, there is no salvation.
This morning, we focus our attention on the gospel or Good News.
1. God’s Intention; 2. Humanity’s Rejection; 3. Humanity’s Condition; 4. God’s Redemption; and Humanity’s Option.
1. God’s Intention; 2. Humanity’s Rejection; 3. Humanity’s Condition; 4. God’s Redemption; and Humanity’s Option.
1. God’s Intention
1. God’s Intention
a. To create man/woman to be like Him...
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.”
So God created man in his own image,
in the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them.
b. To work...
The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it.
c. To build a family...
And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”
But...
2. Humanity’s Rejection
2. Humanity’s Rejection
God’s warned, but was His warning was rejected...
And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, 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.”
So, being tricked/convinced by the Serpent to disregard God’s command...
So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate.
This rebellion caused a cascading effect resulting in a drastic change in the relationship between God and humanity...
God would later introduce the notion in the Old Testament that sin required a sacrifice/the shedding of innocent blood to make atonement/to pay the price...
Exodus 12 tells us that a lamb, a perfect lamb without blemish, had to be sacrificed and its blood put on the doorframes of one’s home. In so doing, that household would be saved from death.
3. Humanity’s Condition
3. Humanity’s Condition
Sin plunged humanity into rebellion against God
The result (Gen 3:14-17): was that sin brought judgment (the serpent, then the woman, and then the man)
This is the sin or wrong-doing humanity leveled against God, which, according to Ro 6:23, brought death—humanity would now feel the effects of dying and eventual death
Does this mean that everyone picked and ate the fruit?
Clearly, No, but the result of Adam and Eve’s initial sin, would be perpetuated from them through their kids, and generation after generation would bring increasing levels of distortion in their relationship to God with each passing generation. . . as we can clearly see today
Ro 5:18 says that “one trespass led to condemnation for all men”
No one is exempt, no matter how good a person thinks they are
All have turned aside; together they have become worthless;
no one does good,
not even one.”
And elsewhere, Paul writes...
for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
Everyone, since Adam and Eve, is born with this sinful nature—a desire to rebel against God
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—
but your iniquities have made a separation
between you and your God,
and your sins have hidden his face from you
so that he does not hear.
For our transgressions are multiplied before you,
and our sins testify against us;
for our transgressions are with us,
and we know our iniquities:
transgressing, and denying the Lord,
and turning back from following our God,
speaking oppression and revolt,
conceiving and uttering from the heart lying words.
THIS, leaves humanity in a state of rebellion before God—a state that cannot be fixed by humanity. It requires outside help...
So, seeing that humanity could not save itself, and so that a right relationship with God could be reestablished, God worked out a plan...
4. God’s Redemption
4. God’s Redemption
God’s desire was to let people know that He has a plan to save humanity...
Isaiah prophesied in Isaiah 7:14 (ESV) “Therefore, the Lord Himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call His name Emmanuel.”
“Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son,
and they shall call his name Immanuel”
(which means, God with us).
Isaiah 12:1–2 (ESV) “You will say in that day: ‘I will give thanks to you, O Lord, for though you were angry with me, your anger turned away, that you might comfort me.’
‘Behold, God is my salvation; I will trust, and will not be afraid; for the Lord God is my strength and my song, and he has become my salvation.’”
Isaiah 40:3 (ESV) “A voice cries: ‘In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord; make straight in the desert a highway for our God.”
More than 500 hundred of years later, this is echoed and fulfilled by John the Baptist in Matthew 3:3
It was also prophesied that ...
Isaiah 53:5–6 (ESV) “But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.”
So heavy was this task on Jesus that when considering the road that lied before Him due to our sins, prayed in Matthew 26:39 (ESV) “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me...”
Q: Why did He do it?
John 3:16 (ESV) “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”
He did it to reconcile us to the Father—to reestablish the relationship He intended for us from the beginning of time
but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed.
Can you hear the echo of the prophet Isaiah (53)?
For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit,
5. Humanity’s Option
5. Humanity’s Option
(my wife thought of “Respontion”)
Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me.
But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God,
For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.”
Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
Salvation is found in no one else...
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.
Q: So, what do you need to do to enter into a relationship with Jesus?
because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved.
For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”
Not only this, but then God takes our sins and...
as far as the east is from the west,
so far does he remove our transgressions from us.
There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are 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.
The challenge is yours: What are you going to do with Jesus?
The challenge is yours: What are you going to do with Jesus?
Put your faith in Him as your Savior or discount Him and His teaching as nothing more than foolish myths?
If you’re ready to put your faith in Jesus as Savior and Lord, then I urge you to come...
For he says,
“In a favorable time I listened to you,
and in a day of salvation I have helped you.”
Behold, now is the favorable time; behold, now is the day of salvation.
Jesus said
So everyone who acknowledges me before men, I also will acknowledge before my Father who is in heaven, but whoever denies me before men, I also will deny before my Father who is in heaven.
So, come. Don’t let anything stop you from receiving the free gift of salvation that comes through Jesus Christ.
Closing Prayer
Closing Prayer