Life renewed by the Gospel of Christ is our heritage and future.

The Whole Gospel for the Whole Person, Locally Regionally and Globally is our mission statement.

It is a huge statement, bold, audacious and only achievable through the power of the Holy Spirit.

It is a mission which I believe this church will grow to fulfill.

It is a mission which must drive everything we do.

And it must be this way because of one very simple reason.

Christ commanded us to take the Gospel to our local area, to our region and to the whole world.

Jesus said these powerful words. in Matthew 28:18-20

“Jesus came and told his disciples, “I have been given all authority in heaven and on earth. Therefore, go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you. And be sure of this: I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”” (Matthew 28:18–20, NLT)

Today we celebrate the resurrection of Christ, he has defeated death, in him there is new life for all who will believe.

This is a fact that changes everything and it is the truth that we will, we must declare.

We can not be ashamed of this truth for it is the only thing that will save people, it is the only thing that will bring peace with God and it is the only thing that will really change the world for good.

The Apostle Paul knew this when he wrote to the church in Rome.

A church which he had not founded, yet it was a church he longed to visit.

So around AD 57 he wrote the letter to the church in Rome which today we know as the book of Romans and at the end of his introduction he made this claim.

Romans 1:16–17 NLT

For I am not ashamed of this Good News about Christ. It is the power of God at work, saving everyone who believes—the Jew first and also the Gentile. This Good News tells us how God makes us right in his sight. This is accomplished from start to finish by faith. As the Scriptures say, “It is through faith that a righteous person has life.”

Let’s begin this church with a question, a question which we will ask of every person who joins us.

Do you want to change the world?

Do you want to see lives renewed and transformed for good?

Do you want to see peace, humility and love flowing through your own life even in the midst of the struggles of living in a broken fallen world?

If you want these things then you can not be ashamed of the Gospel of Christ for it is the power of God at work saving everyone who believes.

It is the power of God at work which changes lives and communities and brings in the kingdom of God whever it is lived out.

Throughout history the power of God at work through the Gospel of Christ has brought new life.

New life to those who in all honesty examined their lives and found that in reality they were empty of all meaning.

Augustine, the Professor of Rhetoric at the famous universtiy of Milan in AD 386 was deeply troubled and sat weeping in the garden of his friend.

As he sat there he heard a child singing “take up and read, Take up and read” so he reached for the scroll which lay beside his friend and his eyes fell to these words from the Apostle Paul’s letter to the Romans at the end of chapter 13. “Don’t participate in the darkness of wild parties and drunkenness, or in sexual promiscuity and immoral living, or in quarreling and jealousy. Instead, clothe yourself with the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ. And don’t let yourself think about ways to indulge your evil desires. “

New life flooded his heart and in his own words, all the darkness of doubt washed away. Augustine would go on to become one of the greatest theologins of the church.

In August of 1513 Martin Luther the Augustinian monk and Professor of Bbiblical Theology at the University of Wittenberg was wrestling with his understanding of faith.

He too was deeply troubled, the faith he had been taught and had in fact been teaching to others was empty ..... until something incredible happened.

Listen to his own words as he describes the moment when for the first time he understood what the Gospel truly meant.

“Night and day I pondered until … I grasped the truth that the righteousness of God is that righteousness whereby, through grace and sheer mercy, he justifies us by faith. Thereupon I felt myself to be reborn and to have gone through open doors into paradise. The whole of scripture took on a new meaning, and whereas before “the righteousness of God” had filled me with hate, now it became to me inexpressibly sweet in greater love. This passage of Paul became to me a gateway into heaven.”

Luther’s newfound understanding lit a spark across Europe which today we know as the Protestant Reformation.

A time of enormous change as people once again discovered the truth of the Gospel and that it is a gift of God by the work of Christ received by faith.

On the 24th of May 1738 John Wesley ‘went very unwillingly to a meeting in London’.

He was an ordained minister of the church of England, but he too was deeply troubled and unsure of his salvation.

Martin Luther’s introduction to the book of Romans was being read and Wesley recorded his experience in his journey where he says, “while he was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone, for my salvation; and an assurance was given me that he had taken my sins away, even mine; and saved me from the law of sin and death.”

Wesley went on to lead what has been one of the greatest revivals of history, the Evangelical Revival which swept across the United Kingdom and into Europe and North America.

This movement shapped the church to this day and some would even say saved the United Kingdom from the horrors of revolution which France experienced.

From Augustine, to Luther to Wesley, there is this common theme.

An understanding of the Gospel as the power of God that saves everyone who believes.

This was the message of Billy Graham the great evangelist of the 20th Century.

And it is the message for today the power of God at work through the Gospel of Christ brings new life.

The leaders in the early church knew the power of the Gospel.

Leaders such as the Apostles who fearlessly proclaimed the risen Christ as Messiah and King over all.

It cost most of them their lives, yet it was a message they could not ignore.

Leaders such as Priscilla and her husband Aquilla who led a number of churches and ensured that correct doctrine was taught by visiting teachers such as Apollos who they took aside and corrected so that he was accepted by the Apostle Paul as a true coworker.

Leaders such as Junia, a woman coworker with Paul who was a believer before he was and was well known among the Apostles or some would say was regarded with the Apostles and Phoebe a wealthy business woman, leader of the church at Cenchreae and courier of some of Paul’s letters.

It is the same message that motivated Australian woman Eva Burrows (1929 – 2015) who by her own admission rebelled against the faith of her parents as a teenager and as a young woman attended an evangelistic service was genuinelly converted, reconnected witht he faith of her parents and went onto became the world wide leader of the Salvation Army.

It is the same message that drove Australian Olypiast Betty Cuthbert who having won 4 Gold medals found herself battling MS and after attending a healing meeting says she did not find physical healing but meet the great healer Jesus and went on to use her fame and battle with MS to share her faith.

The question for us today is the same question that each of these indivduals faced. Do you believe the Gospel changes lives?

That is what Easter is all about, the resurrected Christ has defeated death, in him there is new life for all who will believe.

The Apostle Paul was convinced of this fact.

For Paul this wasn’t just wishful thinking or some experiential thing that had happened in his life.

Paul was raised as a Jewish Rabbi, in his own words he was a Pharisee a strict representative of the Jewish law.

When Paul speaks of being right or righteous in God’s sight he has in mind a legal and relational concept.

The Jewish people thought in legal terms when it came to a persons standing before God.

Whereas we often think in moral terms.

Was a person’s actions right or wrong?

We attach a moral quality as in good or bad.

But for the Jewish people of Paul’s day it was a legal or what we might term a forensic question.

Have the actions of the person when judged against the law been in complience or not.

It is as if a person appears before a judge, the only consideration is of the proofs that an offence has been committed.

So when Paul says this Good News tells us how God made us right in his sight he is making a statement of our standing or position before God.

We are by the Gospel in right standing, declared righteous, he is in fact quoting and expanding on Habakkuk 2:4b.

And as Paul says in 1 Corinthians 1:28-31 and Ephesians 2:8-9 there is nothing we can boast about, because there is nothing that we could have done or could do to save ourselves. It is wholy the work of God.

This is where the moral component comes in.

God’s legal or forensic declaration that we are righteous demonstrates his moral righteousness.

God in declaring us righteous in Christ has proven himself to be morally righteous.

By declaring those who are saved right in his sight he is demonstrating that he is morally good.

This is why it is a question of faith.

Because it can’t be about works, the things we do, because then it wouldn’t be about God’s righteousness and we could never be declared in right standing.

There is simply nothing we can do to ever earn our way to heaven.

But how we live once we have accepted God’s gift is something which we can and must do something about.

We make the mistake of separating life eternal with life now.

It is as if they are two seperate things, but this is a misrepresentation of how the biblical writers thougth about salvation.

Paul almost certainly used Aramaic as his mother tongue and the word for life and salvation was the same.

For many Jews and especially for Paul life, especially eternal life, and salvation were synonymous.

When Paul at the end of Romans 1:17 says the righteous will live by faith or it is through faith that a righteous person has life, he wasn’t just speaking about eternity.

Paul saw that there is a continuation; life now moves into life eternal.

How we live now is to be an indicator of our life eternal.

Salvation now, flows into or continues into, life eternal.

The transformation that we experience in Christ starts now with our being made right in God’s sight and continues as we are continually made to be more like Christ and sees its fulfllment when we are made new in eternity in God’s presence.

Our lives transformed and continually renewed by the Gospel are a witness to others whose lives need to be transformed.

Every historical person I listed earlier had two things in common.

It didn’t matter wether they were male or female.

Lived in ancient times or only passed away in the last 5 or 10 years.

It doesn’t matter wether they lived in the Roman, Empire, Europe or Australia these two things are common.

Firstly they understood that their life was made new by the Gospel of Christ. They knew what it is to be saved.

Secondly they all lived out their lives as a witness to that truth.

None of them were perfect, they were all like you and I human.

They each had their faults.

But in every case their lives shinned as a witness to Christ.

This is where the rubber hits the road for you and I.

If we claim to know Christ in what way is our life a witness of how the Gospel transforms and renews.

This is a simple truth, a truth that we have to think about.

If you claim to know Christ how has he changed you today, yesturday, last week, last month, last year?

How will he change you tomorrow and the day after and the week after and the month after?

Are you selling an empty promise?

People who do not know Christ want to know that what you claim actually makes a difference, otherwise why would they bother to want to know him.

Why would you committ your life to something that doesn’t do anything to make you a better person?

Why would you committ your life to something that the salesperson doesn’t believe in themselves?

Why would you committ your life to something that requires you to give things up and gives nothing in return.

The Gospel impacts a community when it is lived out.

The Gospel will impact this community when those who know Christ live out the power of the Good News of Christ resurrected.

The one who saves us from sin and death and brings new life.

This isn’t an empty promise, it is the promise that changed the very course of humanity.

For without this promise there would be no hope, no purpose, no eternity in God’s presence.

New Living Translation Chapter 1

I am not ashamed of this Good News about Christ. It is the power of God at work, saving everyone who believes

At the heart of this church is this simple truth.

The Gospel of Christ transforms lives.

Firstly the Gospel makes people right in God’s sight.

Secondly the Gospel declares that God is morally good.

Thirdly the Gospel changes people, it renews them and causes them to live out the example and teaching of Jesus so that others will look upon the Gospel message and in faith accept God’s wonderful gift.

Fourthy as the Gospel changes people and they live out its message entire communities will be changed for the better as the Kingdom of God breaks into this world of brokenness and pain.

The invitation today is simply this.

If you know Christ as your saviour I invite you to join us as we bring the Good News of Jesus to this community and beyond.

If you aren’t sure were you stand with God or have been considering your relationship with him for sometime, I invite you today to make the decission to accept the Good News about Christ.

Become right with God, because of Jesus.