Knowing and Treasuring the Gospel | Staff Devo 7.27.22

Introduction

As you know, our vision as a church is to see the Greater Charlotte area transformed by its connection to Christ rather than formed by its divisions, led by dynamic disciples who are released for kingdom impact here and around the globe.

It’s worth remembering that we can stay incredibly busy building programs, preparing talks, meeting with leaders, congregants, kids and students, dialing in production gear, preparing new song arrangements, and handling the administration of the church, without actually working towards our vision.

In other words, it’s possible to be incredibly busy working for the church and yet miss the central aim of our existence as a church.

How?

By missing the Gospel.

The Gospel is the irreducible element of our existence and ministry as a church, and if we miss it, belittle it, get it wrong, or just forget it, we run the risk of being incredibly effective purveyors of religious goods that have little to no power to change anyone’s life.

We might make people feel valued, welcomed, provide them community, even some inspiration for self improvement, but without the gospel, there is no power for salvation.

Rom 1:16-17 CSB

16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel, [Paul says] because it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, first to the Jew, and also to the Greek.

Now, clearly, I don’t think we’re anywhere close to that dire picture. But it stresses the significance and the centrality of this one issue: of knowing and treasuring the Gospel in everything we do.

Today I simply want to re-center us on the Gospel.

My goal is to primarily help your understanding of the Gospel this morning.

It’s going to be 90% teaching to the head.

The last 10% will be application to the heart.

But even that is probably an unhelpful distinction.

You might find, like the disciples on the road to Emmaus, that even just explaining the scriptures will cause your hearts to burn within you.

What is the Gospel?

Diamonds refracting and reflecting light.

There’s probably at least one woman at each table with an engagement ring.

Ladies, hold up your ring if you have one. Let everyone see the way light reflects and refracts through the stone.

Look at one person’s stone, and come up with an answer: what is a diamond?

(Field answers)

Diamond Definition: “Diamond is a solid form of the element carbon with its atoms arranged in a crystal structure called diamond cubic.”

You can describe a diamond scientifically, but that risks missing its beauty, its brilliance, the myriad ways it refracts and reflects light, its hardness and indestructible nature, the meaning it carries when cut to specific dimension and placed in a ring that is bought by a man who gives it on one knee to the woman he loves.

Any many ways, it’s hard to define a diamond.

The gospel is similar. It’s like a jewel that has a dozen or more dimensions all at once. It’s hard to describe it fully in one sitting. Its beauty is reflected in how many things it touches, how many things it does, how many things it means for us and the world; how brilliant the light is through it, how indestructible it is.

Yet, though we find it difficult to describe it fully, we can still describe it accurately. And there are some aspects that are more essential to its definition.

You can look at a diamond and know it’s a diamond, call it a diamond, even while recognizing it may have different cuts, clarity, carats, etc. There are aspects of a diamond that are essential to its “diamondness” that everyone agrees with. For instance, if it’s not made of carbon, it’s not a diamond.

Again, the gospel is similar. Of all the things we can say about what the Gospel is and does for us, there are some things that are essential to defining it — otherwise it’s not the gospel!

The Apostle Paul would say it this way:

1 Corinthians 15:1–5 (CSB)

1 Now I want to make clear for you [so that we can know what’s most essential as we consider the gospel], brothers and sisters, the gospel I preached to you, which you received, on which you have taken your stand 2 and by which you are being saved, if you hold to the message I preached to you—unless you believed in vain. 3 For I passed on to you as most important what I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures...

The bare minimum gospel message:

Jesus of Nazareth died, was buried, and was raised to life on the third day — fulfilling all that the Hebrew Scriptures said that the Messiah (Christ) would do in order to forgive us of our sins.

Whatever else we say the Gospel is, we at least have to say this, or — according to Paul — it’s not the gospel.

But clearly, we can and should say more.

In order to understand the Gospel properly from a biblical perspective, we can look at it from two views:

A 30,000 ft. view that sees the good news of Jesus through full sweep of redemptive history;

and a ground-level view that sees the good news of Jesus through the conversion of individuals.

“The Gospel in the Air”

This is the 30,000 ft. view of the good news, which spans from Genesis to Revelation.

Creation

God created a good world as his temple to be filled with worshipers. He placed humans in the middle of the temple as his image bearers, charged with reflecting the character of God to the surrounding creation, and reflecting the praises of creation back to God (angled mirrors, as NT Wright says). (Gen. 1-2)

Fall

God’s image bearers disobey his command, bringing sin, evil, pain and suffering into God’s good world, such that every human being is born both guilty of sin and with a proclivity towards sin — unable to worship God — and the creation itself is corrupted and groans out for salvation (Gen. 3, Rom. 8).

Redemption

God begins his process of redeeming his world by promising that the woman’s offspring would someday crush the head of the serpent, though he would be wounded in the process (Gen. 3:15).

Israel

God chooses a family to be his special people through whom he will redeem all of creation from the power of sin and death in order to achieve his original purpose to fill the earth with his glory. Israel is given means to worship God through the temple and sacrificial system. Israel, however, cannot be the means God uses to redeem the world, because they were themselves part of the problem: infected with sin. God’s promise becomes clearer through the prophets: salvation will come to and through Israel not as a whole, but through one true Israelite— a savior, the Messiah.

Christ

A baby boy is born to an Israelite virgin named Mary, from the lineage of King David. He reflects the image of God perfectly -- in fact, he’s referred to as “the image of the invisible God,” and “the exact imprint of his nature” — and perfectly obeys God in everything, fulfilling the original calling of Adam and Eve. But the world did not recognize him, and he was sentenced to death on a Roman cross. God accepted His death as the perfect sacrifice to atone for the sins of the world. Then, on the third day of his death, he was raised to life in a glorified body, never to die again — the defeat of the power of sin and death which reigned over all the earth. He ascended to the right hand of the Father where he reigns over all of creation for all eternity.

Church

Those who repent of their sins and trust in the death and resurrection of Jesus are completely forgiven of their sins and called sons and daughters of God Most High. They are gathered in local expressions of God’s family, the body of Christ, called the church, where they worship God again as His people and carry out the commands of Christ.

Restoration

Christ promises to come again, visibly and bodily, finally and fully eradicating sin, evil, pain and suffering from this world, and calling his people to himself where they will live in a New Heavens and New Earth for all eternity. God’s original intention is complete: he dwells with his people in a heaven-meets-earth reality, and his glory covers the earth as the waters cover the seas.

Summary of “Gospel in the Air”

That’s the story of Scripture.

That’s the true story of the world.

That’s the story you and I are living in.

It can be described as the Gospel, because it’s the story which makes sense of Christ’s death and resurrection.

But we can and must zoom in.

We can’t take just a 30,000 foot view.

We need to see more clearly: How does the story of Jesus change the world?

Or, more personally: How does the story of Jesus change my life?

“The Gospel on the Ground”

The good news is that Jesus, in his death and resurrection, has defeated the power of sin and death and has inaugurated the restoration of all creation, and that you can become a part this restoration project now by repenting of your sins and trusting in Jesus.

Every single evangelistic message in the New Testament focuses on the power of the Gospel to transform individual lives, rather than focusing on its societal or corporate effects.

Even the passage we preached from on Sunday from Acts 13 indicates this. The central claim of Paul’s message in Pisidian Antioch — his first recorded sermon in Scripture — says this:

Acts 13:38–39 (CSB)

38 Therefore, let it be known to you, brothers and sisters, that through this man forgiveness of sins is being proclaimed to you. 39 Everyone who believes is justified through him from everything that you could not be justified from through the law of Moses.

God transforms and redeems the entire world by transforming and redeeming individuals who respond to the good news of Jesus’s death and resurrection.

Theologians talk about the “ordu salutis,” or the “order of salvation,” that walks through how individuals are saved by the Gospel. Here’s what that looks like:

General Call

The preaching of the Gospel to all people, indiscriminately.

Effectual Call and Regeneration

The Spirit’s calling of the elect, changing their hearts to believe the Gospel.

Conversion

The moment a person repents from their sins and trusts in Christ.

Instantaneous with conversion:

Justification

The moment declares a sinner “righteous” in his sight, forgiving their sins in Christ, and granting them the righteousness of Christ.

Adoption

The moment God calls those whom he justifies his children, adopting us into His family, the people of God.

Sanctification

The process in which all who trust in Christ are progressively conformed to the image of Christ through the working of the Holy Spirit in our lives.

Glorification

The moment in which God, upon Christ’s second coming and consummation of his kingdom, resurrects from the grave all those who die in Christ, transforming our bodies into resurrected bodies like Christ’s which will never be subject to sin or death again.

Summary of the Gospel

So we have the Gospel in the Air — focusing on the grand sweep of redemptive history which shares the story of God’s purposes in Christ’s death and resurrection — and the Gospel on the Ground — focusing on the way in which Christ’s death and resurrection actually transforms individual people.

We need both views for our lives and ministry.

The “gospel in the air” is impossible without individuals being saved by the power of the Gospel, being regenerated, converted, justified, sanctified, and eventually glorified.

God saves a people, corporately, but that people is comprised of individuals who have each responded to the gospel in repentance and faith.

Without this call for individuals to repent of their sin and trust in Christ for salvation, “the Gospel in the air” often leads toward social activism that addresses societal sins, but which is ultimately powerless because it misses the primary means God uses to transform society—namely, transformed individuals.

It’s like trying to paint a picture of a forest without drawing any trees, leaves, bark, bushes, dirt, or animals. It’s not possible.

On the other hand, the “gospel on the ground,” without the broader narrative about what God’s doing in the world (“Gospel in the air”), can often lead to either (1) an “other worldly” faith that focuses on the eternal to the neglect of kingdom living in the here and now; or, worse, (2) the attempt to enact the kingdom of God through political influence and persuasion in a way that follows the worldly pattern of political power.

In other words, without the “gospel in the air,” you likely either disengage from the matters of this world completely, or you engage too forcefully and in the wrong ways.

Back to our painting metaphor: You can’t paint a single tree and call it a forest.

What does it look like to hold these views of the gospel together?

When you put these two views of the Gospel together, you capture a sense of his sovereign wisdom in the Gospel, which he planned before the foundation of the world.

You capture the enormous burden of sin, which not only destroys us but the entire creation as well.

You capture the brilliance and the beauty of God’s sweeping work of redemption in a way that demonstrates his extravagant love for us — his boundless grace and mercy — the lengths he would go, the detail he would consider in redeeming us — YOU, ME — from sin and death.

You recognize that there is a great mission of God that we’ve been saved BY and FOR — that we’ve been redeemed and reconciled so that we would join in his work of redemption and reconciliation in the world today — holding together works of evangelism and justice and beauty.

You hold the power of salvation together with the broader story, the metanarrative, which is crucial for reaching a post-Christian society that tries to live in the absence of metanarratives while the beating impulse for justice, love, truth, and beauty drums around empty in their hearts and heads, leaving them desperate for a story that fulfills these innermost desires.

When we remember and rejoice in the Gospel, our lives and ministry are transformed.

We are “conformed to the image of the Son” (Rom. 8:29).

We are shaped by “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control” (Gal. 6:22-23).

We are unshakeable in the face of pain, suffering, persecution, and even our own sin and failure, because “we have been crucified with Christ, and we no longer live, but Christ lives in us. The life we now live in the body, we live by faith in the Son of God, who loved us and gave himself for us” (Gal. 2:20).

We boldly proclaim the name of Jesus, “warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom, that we may present everyone mature in Christ.” For this we will toil, “struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within” us (Col. 1:28-29).

Above all else — above all other earthly joys or benefits of the Gospel — we will treasure Christ.

We will say with the psalmist, “O God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you, my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.” Except, unlike the psalmist, we’ll have our desire constantly satisfied as the Spirit of God creates “streams of running water” that flow deep within us (Jn 7:38).

We will worship Jesus, singing with the angels, “Worthy is the Lamb who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing!” (Rev. 5:12).

Closing

Don’t your hearts burn within you?

Don’t you see the grandeur of the love of God for you in Christ?

—> Let’s pray.

Lead people to praise God for the Gospel of Christ.

Ask God to help us not only know the gospel, but treasure it in our hearts and ministry.

Pray for those who don’t feel their affections warmed for God. Pray with the psalmist: “Restore to me the joy of my salvation!”

Encourage people to rejoice out loud, to thank God for his grace in the Gospel.

***[Band builds into worship as people shout out]