Gospel Centered Church

The Gospel Is the Central Teaching Of the Church

The Gospel of Jesus Christ is the central teaching of the Church. However; many churches in America are not teaching the gospel. There is heavy teaching on morality, life issues, church growth, and a wide assortment of topics. These are not bad things to discuss because the Bible addresses many of these topics. It is when the church loses focus on the gospel and makes other topics their central teaching that it becomes problematic.

What ends up happening is the gospel gets diluted by adding things to the gospel of Jesus Christ. When the gospel is diluted, then the clarity of the gospel gets confused. This is exactly what was happening at the churches in Galatia. The churches of southern Galatia were in the central Asia Minor cities of Antioch of Pisidia, Iconium, Lystra, and Derbe, where Paul had ministered on both his first and second missionary journeys (; ).

These churches had Judaizers that were teaching salvation plus works as the gospel. We will look more at this next week.

Today church growth seems to be what many churches focus on. You do not find this in the Bible. What ends up happening is they develop an attraction model to get people into church. They use strategies such as music entertainment, children programs, dynamic speakers to draw crowds in so that they can have higher attendance, bigger buildings, and bigger budgets. This is what many people are drawn to. However what you attract people with you must consistently keep giving them in order to keep them. If it is entertainment, then you must put on a dynamic show every week. If it is children’s programs then you got to keep all the parents happy. It it is a dynamic speaker, then he must stay there or else the people will leave.

You see, anything besides the gospel that draws people to church is going to be short lived. The gospel is life changing because a person enters into a personal relationship with Jesus Christ that radically changes a person.

The gospel message was being threatened at the churches at Galatia. This is why Paul is writing this circulatory letter to the Church.

Paul Is An Apostle Of Jesus Christ

This simply means that Jesus called Paul to His mission.

Paul’s call

Now [a]Saul, still breathing [b]threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest, 2 and asked for letters from him to the synagogues at Damascus, so that if he found any belonging to the Way, both men and women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem.3 As he was traveling, it happened that he was approaching Damascus, and suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him; 4 and he fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?” 5 And he said, “Who are You, Lord?” And He said, “I am Jesus whom you are persecuting, 6 but get up and enter the city, and it will be told you what you must do.” 7 The men who traveled with him stood speechless, hearing the [c]voice but seeing no one. 8 Saul got up from the ground, and though his eyes were open, he [d]could see nothing; and leading him by the hand, they brought him into Damascus.9 And he was three days without sight, and neither ate nor drank.

10 Now there was a disciple at Damascus named Ananias; and the Lord said to him in a vision, “Ananias.” And he said, “Here I am, Lord.” 11 And the Lord said to him, “Get up and go to the street called Straight, and inquire at the house of Judas for a man from Tarsus named Saul, for he is praying, 12 and he has seen [e]in a vision a man named Ananias come in and lay his hands on him, so that he might regain his sight.” 13 But Ananias answered, “Lord, I have heard from many about this man, how much harm he did to Your [f]saints at Jerusalem; 14 and here he has authority from the chief priests to bind all who call on Your name.” 15 But the Lord said to him, “Go, for he is a chosen [g]instrument of Mine, to bear My name before the Gentiles and kings and the sons of Israel; 16 for I will show him how much he must suffer for My name’s sake.”

Paul was called by Jesus to carry the gospel message to the Gentiles. The other Apostles were Jewish disciples of Jesus that would have difficulty reaching out to the Gentiles. Jesus chose Paul to do this. Paul did this by traveling the known world and starting churches. The book of Acts records his journeys and the churches he started. He suffered much in order to carry on the mission of Christ.

Judaizer Opposition.

The Judaizer group in the church did not agree with Paul’s gospel message so they tried to discredit his apostleship. They claimed that he was a self-proclaimed Apostle and therefore did not have any authority in the church. They tried to discredit Paul so they could maintain power and control at the churches in Galatia.

Paul starts his letter asserting his apostleship. He says that he was not taught by men the gospel of Jesus Christ, but by Jesus Christ himself. This is of the utmost importance because his gospel came right from the source of the gospel. His message is not hearsay, but authentic.

True doctrine comes from the Apostles. They are the ones that were with Jesus and heard his teachings and observed His life. They saw his miracles, crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension. The Apostles were the ones who had authority to teach the doctrine of the church. The central teaching is the gospel.

Friends today their are many different doctrines in the church. This is why we have so many different denominations. As you can see when the gospel is not the central teaching it causes division.

Churches must return to the doctrine of the Apostles. We see this in

1 So then, those who had received his word were baptized; and that day there were added about three thousand [an]souls. 42 They were continually devoting themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and [ao]to prayer. Acts 3:41-42

The doctrine of the Apostles are recorded in the Scriptures.

Grace and Peace To You

Grace

Peace is the product of God’s grace. Grace is what God gives to those who receive Jesus Christ as their personal Lord and Savior.

who gave Himself for our sins so that He might rescue us from this present evil [b]age, according to the will of our God and Father, 5 to whom be the glory forevermore. Amen.

God is Holy. He cannot be joined to sin. 1 John says that He is all light and there is no darkness about Him. He is perfect and when he created the world He made everything perfect.

Man was made without sin, but God gave man the freedom of choice. It was in this freedom of choice that man sinned against God. This is in the garden of Eden. When man sinned, death entered into God’s creation. Immediately the relationship between God and man was broken. This broken relationship is inherited by everyone and therefore everyone is separated from God. It is our sin nature that separates us from God and causes us to sin.

There is nothing we can do to make up for our sin against God. We cannot be good enough or do enough good to earn our relationship back with God. So God sent His Son Jesus Christ to pay the punishment for our sin. He died on a roman cross to bear our sins and restore our relationship to God. He is the substitutionary sacrifice for our sin. He took our sin upon Himself and bore the wrath of God for us. He was buried in a sinners tomb and on the third day He rose from the dead. He appeared to more than 500 disciples before he ascended into heaven. He is returning to call His church to heaven at a time that no one knows.

We do not deserve what God has given. We deserve death and destruction and eternal separation from God in the lake of fire. God has made available to us grace in His Son Jesus Christ. We can receive by faith the atoning, saving, ,forgiveness, and salvation by putting our faith in Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior.

Peace

The only way a person can have lasting peace is by receiving Jesus Christ as their savior

16 “For God so loved the world, that He gave His [a]only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.

Peace within the soul is the desire of every person. Unfortunately many people turn to the world for their peace. They look for peace in money, health, education, power, sex, relationships and many other things the world offers. Lasting peace will not be found in anything that the world has to offer.

The reason for this is that no matter what you have in this world, if your relationship to the heavenly Father is broken, then you cannot have peace.

This morning I want to offer you grace and peace through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. He died the death you were suppose to die. He wants to give you eternal life this morning. He wants to forgive you of your sins and be Lord of your life. If you want His salvation this morning, please come forward and I will share with you how you can receive salvation.