Biblical Understanding of the Good News

What Is A Healthy Church - Chapter 7

Sunday, January 27, 2008

“For Christ did not send me to baptize but to preach the gospel, and not with words of eloquent wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power. For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.” (1 Corinthians 1:17-18, ESV)

1.A ______________ church is a church in which every member, young and old, mature and immature, unites around the wonderful good news of salvation through Jesus Christ.

2.More than anything else in the church’s life, the members of a healthy church pray and long to know this gospel more _______________.

“For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” (2 Corinthians 4:5-6, ESV)

3.The gospel is not the news that we are ___________. It’s not the news the God is love. It’s not the news that Jesus wants to be our friend. It’s not the news that he has a wonderful plan or purpose for our life.

4.The gospel is the good news that Jesus Christ died on the cross as a sacrificial ___________________ for sinners and rose again, making a way for us to be reconciled to God. It’s the new that the Judge will become the Father, if only we will repent and believe.

5.Four points whenever sharing the gospel are: (1) God, (2) man, (3) Christ, (4) response

6.God - Have I explained that God is our holy and sovereign creator?

7.Man - Have I made it clear that we humans are a strange mixture, wonderfully made in God’s image yet horribly fallen, sinful and separated from Him?

8.Christ - Have I explained who Jesus is and what He has done - that He is the God-Man who uniquely and exclusively stands in between God and man as a substitute and resurrected Lord?

9.Response - Have I clearly stated that a person must respond to the gospel and must believe this message and so turn from his life of self-centeredness and sin?

“For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.”

(1 Corinthians 1:21-25, ESV)

10.Sometimes it is tempting to present some of the very real ________________ of the gospel as the gospel itself. And these benefits tend to be the things that non-Christians naturally want, like joy, peace, happiness, fulfillment, self-esteem, or love. Yet presenting them as the gospel is presenting a partial truth. And, as J. I. Packer says “A half truth masquerading as the whole truth becomes a complete untruth.”

“And I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling, and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God."

(1 Corinthians 2:1-5, ESV)

11.Fundamentally, we don’t need just joy or peace or purpose. We need God, _______________. Since we are condemned sinners, then we need His forgiveness above all else. We need spiritual life.

12.Evangelism is not something we mainly do by inviting someone to church. Each of us, has the tremendous news of salvation in Christ. Let’s not barter it for something else. Let us share it today! A healthy church knows the gospel, and a healthy church __________ it!