Gospel 101

Introduction:

Last week we began looking at the basics of the gospel. We looked at where we have come from if we are believers. This is was either a description of where we’ve been if we are a believer or a picture of where we currently are if we are not. Tonight we are going to take a look at what Christ did for us and what we must do to complete our study of Gospel 101.

Let’s take a look at .

Read text.

Today is Sept. 11 and it is a day that will live in infamy for all of us who lived through the events. We all can remember where we were when the planes crashed into the towers. We can also remember what we did in the coming days after. We remember how we felt. And for all of us, we have a special place of remembering in our hearts for this day because of what it meant. We lived through it and so it means more to us.

Did you realize that the events of September 11 happened 18 years ago! Yes! It’s been that long! So if a child is just entering their junior or senior year of high school, they were just born the year this happened. I see posts online from people reminding us to never forget. They do this because they know that the more time that passes from these events, the less significant they will seem to us. History is studied so it won’t be forgotten or repeated, and yet that’s exactly what we do. We forget!

How many of you are personally grieved every year on Dec. 7? Do you know what happened that day? Some of you do and those that do are probably older. But each December 7, the anniversary of the attacks on Pearl Harbor roles around and most people just continue to go about with their Christmas shopping and their daily lives. It doesn’t matter much to us! Because we have forgotten.

I wish that I could say that this doesn’t happen with the gospel. I wish I could say that people never forget the day they had their lives transformed and became a new creation. They came alive! They crossed over from death to life. But unfortunately it happens. That is why we need to be reminded constantly of the gospel. We need to remember what happened and have a call to action for our lives today.

So to do that, we are going to go back to class, back to the basics. We are going to look at Gospel 101.

Last week we looked at the first point we need to remember, but briefly I want to just refresh your memory.

1. Where We’ve Been (v.21)

We first looked at where we’ve been. We looked into the past to remember the life we used to have. If you are a new Christian, this isn’t hard to remember, but for those who have been saved a long time, you may have forgotten, so let me refresh your memory.

Paul says:

1. We were alienated from God.

That means we were separated from Him. We were cut off from the family, from the inheritance of heaven. We were doomed to hell.

2. We were hostile in our thinking towards God

Like a rebellious child that is mad at his parents when he gets caught doing wrong, we were mad at God. We were hostile in our thinking. We wanted to do the very things that God told us not to do, sometimes just for spite. That is where the world is today in its thinking.

3. We acted out in disobedience.

Again, like a temper-tantrumed child, we acted on our evil thoughts and did all sorts of evil deeds. We try to temper our actions and make them out like they weren’t so bad, but that’s simply not true. In war-time, even decent people can be led to do some horrific deeds because they dehumanize the enemy. They forget that the enemy is still a person.

We are at war with God when we come into this world because of our sin. We have evil thoughts towards God and we want to attack his character and act out in sin.

So this is where we were. But now let’s turn our attention to what Christ did to change all of this. Notice that it is what Christ did and not what we did. We couldn’t do anything for ourselves. Christ had to do it all.

2. What Christ Has Done for Us (v.22)

Salvation is entirely a God thing. He is the one that pursues us. Like a shepherd goes after his lost sheep, God comes to where we are and invades our mess to save us. He opens our eyes to see the gospel and to be able to believe. He freely offers His love and compassion to us and all of this is through Jesus.

1. Jesus reconciles us to God by dying for our sins.

There are two parts to this that we need to pay attention to. We were first reconcile. That means there was a broken relationship with God because of our sin. Remember Adam and Eve in the Garden. The Bible says,

Genesis 3:8-10

Genesis 3:8–10 ESV

And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. But the Lord God called to the man and said to him, “Where are you?” And he said, “I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself.”

So many are walking in sin with broken relationships with God and don’t even care or don’t even know it. Either you are not a believer, in which case we have already discussed where you are and your mindset and actions towards God, or you may be a believer that is walking in sin and wondering why you don’t hear from God and why you feel so sub-par in your spiritual life. It’s because you have a broken relationship, broken fellowship with God.

Jesus came to do more than just make things good between you and God. It isn’t just like two friends that are having a fight or a husband and wife that are arguing. They may not talk for a little while, but then they get over it. Life moves on. That’s partly because we may be wrong and both sides just decide to move on.

The stakes are so much higher with God. He isn’t wrong and our sin is an offense to His character and His justice. He is the Judge and sits on the bench. He has to judge our sin and if He violates His own law, He is no longer just. He must punish our sin. So we are reconciled to God in both a relational sense and also in a legal sense.

But also notice how God does this. It isn’t cheap grace! God sent Jesus to die! He had to reconcile us to Himself by taking our place on the cross. Jesus had to die for us. His blood had to be shed instead of our blood.

The

One of the best pictures of this is in C.S. Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia where Aslan makes a deal with the white witch to offer himself in the place of Edmund because he broke the law and committed treason against Aslan. This is a picture of the cross.

Christ did not die for us and offer himself up to satisfy Satan. Satan might be represented by the white witch in the Chronicles of Narnia, but he isn’t the one who’s justice had to be satisfied. It was God’s own justice that needed to be satisfied.

2) Christ presented us holy, blameless , and above reproach.

Look at those three words for just a minute.

Holy - We are not holy. We are far from saints! We sin even after accepting Christ’s offer of salvation for our sins. We are all on the struggle bus with sin. Yet because of what Jesus did by offering Himself up as our sacrifice, we are made holy. It is as if we never sinned against God. We get the same holy character as God has. Why? Paul will tell us in chapter 3.

Colossians 3:

Colossians 3:2–4 ESV

Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.

You see, when God looks at a believer, He no longer sees the sinful man, He now sees Jesus.

Blameless - There is no room for accusation because we are blameless.

Think about his for a minute. How many of you have ever had to go to court? Did it scare you? Your fear was there because you were afraid of the blame that might be placed on you and the consequences that would happen as a result. But imagine if you were coming to court for someone else’s crime or legal matter. You would feel completely at peace with regards to your own situation because you knew you were blameless. There wasn’t any room to accuse you.

That brings us to the last word.

Above Reproach - That means that we are so far above accusation, we are so blameless, that there is not any opportunity to bring an accusation. We are above accusation. This was said with regard to Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego. Their accusers couldn’t find any room to accused them, except that they were faithful to God.

That is what Jesus does for us. He presents us holy, blameless, above reproach.

Conclusion:

Next week we will take a look at what we need to do after we accept Christ, but for now let’s stop and just meditate on that for a moment.

You and I both know that we don’t deserve this act of mercy and grace that God has given us. In the words of that great hymn.

He paid a debt, He did not owe.

I owed a debt I could not pay.

I needed someone to wash my sins away.

But now I sing a brand new song,

Amazing Grace all day long.

Christ Jesus paid a debt,

That I could never pay.

Praise God for what Jesus did for us!