We Are: A Gospel-Centered Church

INTRO

My wife is an awesome cook.

Before I was married my culinary skills included microwave hot pockets and getting in line at the drive-thru.

Hannah does such an awesome job of preparing interesting and delicious meals.

I look on the fridge at our meal calendar with eagerness of what we’re gonna be eating that night.

This past week my wife Hannah was busy baking in the kitchen.

With Hannah’s keen meal planning sense came loads of pinterest ideas.

Some of which are great…some not so much.

Let me just say this.

If you are baking a sweet treat…use real sugar.

Don’t put applesauce in there thinking it’s the same thing as sugar…it is not.

Hannah made a cake a few years ago for a group of friends.

Listen it was good…but something was just off.

She confessed that yes she had substituted canola oil with coconut oil and applesauce for sugar.

Our friend Nathan was there and he was a legit baker by trade.

He made incredible baked good.

He said it so well

He said to us, baking is like being a musician.

If you’re naturally talented at it and have been doing it a while you can riff, you can go off book and it’s a beautiful thing.

But for most of us we gotta stick to the sheet music.

He said, If there is a recipe follow it to the tee guys.

Follow the recipe.

As a young church plant I can tell you there is a lot of pressure to riff.

To substitute here and there.

To veer off course

We started gathering a core group in 2019, built from that to launching Sunday mornings in 2020.

Now that we’ve been going for a few years I can tell you that pressure to change things up, add a little here and there is enormous.

We live in a highly religious area.

I mean you can take your church bulletin for a discount at a crawdads game today ok. (Sorry we don’t have one for you)

There is a temptation for us to just be a religious organization

For me to function like a CEO and for you to just come and consume religious goods.

There is a real pressure from the culture to get involved in partisan politics.

For Coram Deo to just jump on board with the lingo and rhetoric and use the platform we have to regurgitate that agenda.

I heard it said this week by a fellow church planter that has settled deep within my bones.

There are a lot of ways to fail as a church

Maybe when we think of failure we think of an empty building, we think of lights off, we think of the

doors locked and depending on the story maybe that's a kind of failure

But there's also a kind of failure where a church fails by succeeding at what doesn't matter.

There's a kind of failure where the place is packed with people...empty of the presence of god

There's a kind of failure where the budget is growing but the lives are diminishing

There's a kind of failure where the place looks a lot like success but the people look nothing like Jesus

Lord help us

Everything in me everything in us wants to fight against that

I would rather fail chasing a meaningful vision of a gospel-centered church than succeed at something that doesn't matter.

NEW SERIES

Today we are starting a short 3 part series called We Are.

We Are a Gospel Community on Mission.

Today we start with the idea that we are Gospel Centered.

We’ve been given the sheet music, the recipe and we want to fight to stay with it.

Traditionally here at Coram Deo we practice what is called expositional preaching, this is where we go to the scriptures.

We camp out in a book of the Bible and go line by line, verse by verse through the scriptures allowing it instruct and challenge us.

We’re taking a brief pause from that this month.

We’re going to go through those three things: Gospel, Community and Mission.

Today we will have a guiding passage to help us understand what it means to be Gospel-Centered.

What it means to be a Jesus people.

But first we have a little bit of work to do to.

I. Solus Christus

Refocusing the church on the gospel, that is on the good news of Jesus Christ is not a new thing.

We are going to be celebrating the 505th anniversary of the Reformation this year.

The reformation began when a german priest named Martin Luther nailed his 95 thesis to the church doors in wittenburg.

That was the catalyst that sparked the rest of the Reformation.

The Reformers were guided by the conviction that the church of their day had drifted away from the essential, original teachings of Christianity,

especially in regard to what it was teaching about salvation—how people can be forgiven of sin through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ and receive eternal life with God.

The Reformation sought to re-orient Christianity on the original message of Jesus and the early church.

During the reformation there was a set of principles outlined called the Five Solas that captured the spirit of the reformation which sought to safeguard the gospel message.

They display the message of the gospel in a incredibly insightful and compelling way.

They are five only statements Sola Gratia, Sola Fide, Solus Christus, Sola Scriptura, and Soli Deo Gloria.

We are saved by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, according to Scripture alone, for the glory of God alone.

We could focus on all of these or any of these individually.

But in keeping focused on the main thing, I want to zoom in on this idea of Solus Christus or In Christ Alone.

Stories from the reformation

Two major things that propelled Luther to create his 95 thesis.

The First - The Selling of Indulgences

The catholic church was quite literally selling the forgiveness of sin.

If you paid enough money you could cut a few years off purgatory for yourself or your relatives.

Johan Tetzel had a infamous slogan, “as soon as a coin in the coffer rings / the soul from purgatory springs”

The second - Veneration of Saints

many believed that in addition to Jesus, they had Mary, the saints, and relics that could aid them in their salvation.

Everything from paintings, to bones of the saints, to staircases were seen as holy items that could increase your personal holiness.

At that time the Church taught that we are saved by the merits of Christ and the saints, and that we approach God through Christ, the saints, and Mary, who all pray and intercede for us.

The Reformers responded, “No, we are saved by the merits of Christ Alone, and we come to God through Christ Alone”.

Solus Christus (“Christ alone”):

-Jesus Christ alone is our Lord, Savior, and King.

-As our Savior and Mediator, Christ has accomplished the necessary work for our salvation completely.

Now you may be thinking why are we talking about a German reformer and the bones of saints.

Good question.

The reason is sadly we’re not so much better in the modern evangelical church Because all we have done today is replace those things with politics and influencers.

There is a temptation throughout church history to add to the finished work of Christ.

The reformers rightly understood that adding anything to or taking anything away from the person and work of Jesus Christ as necessary for our salvation undermines that salvation.

God has given the ultimate revelation of himself to us by sending Jesus Christ, As Col 1:15 says

Colossians 1:15 (ESV)

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.

Only through God’s gracious self-revelation in Jesus do we come to a saving and transforming knowledge of God.

II. The Text - 1 Cor

As we consider this truth of being Gospel Centered of focusing on Christ alone let’s go back to our passage today.

Look back at 1 Cor 2:1-5

1 Corinthians 2:1–5 (ESV)

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, so that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.

Paul is writing to the church in Corinth, a church that was struggling in their current cultural context.

Corinth was a prominent port city that was heavily influenced by Greek culture.

Paul pens this letter that deals with division within the church due to the arrogance of some of it’s prominent members as well as specific struggles of sin.

Paul reminds the church here in our passage that when he came to them he came not with lofty speech or wisdom.

He avoided the Greek rhetoric and focused on the message of the cross, of Christ alone.

He sought to keep the church centered on the Gospel.

Paul does this so that the Corinthians would put their faith in Christ who was crucified rather than in the ability of human messengers.

He hits this in verse 5

1 Corinthians 2:5 (ESV)

so that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.

The idea is that mere intellectual persuasion doesn’t save people.

Saving faith is produced by the heart changing power of the Holy Spirit as the gospel is proclaimed.

_ HOW THE TEXT TEACHES THE TRUTH

I love this because now we get talk about Jesus

1 Corinthians 2:2 (ESV)

For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.

As the hymn writer says, take the world, but give me Jesus.

I can’t help but read passages like this and get worked up.

Knowing Paul, this evangelist who travels the world and heralds the gospel message from city to city would grow weary.

Think of the brokenness he sees when he enters these cities.

The hard heartedness and misguided attitude of his Jewish brethren.

The rampant idolatry of the greek culture.

What is astonishing is that Paul goes forward in this city and doesn’t seek to woo the people with lofty speech.

You see Corinth was a center of commerce and education that brought with it philosophers and orators who would share the latests ideas and philosophy.

Paul, who is well educated, who could stand toe to toe with these men, doesn’t.

He doesn’t come with lofty speech.

He comes proclaiming Christ alone.

I think back to what he writes in the first chapter of 1 Corinthians

1 Corinthians 1:18 (ESV)

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.

Paul knew that knowing only Jesus would mean that he would be seen as foolish, but he knew that in Jesus was the power of the gospel.

There is no other way, there is nothing greater, it is Christ and Christ alone that Paul knows and proclaims.

In our world, where massacres occur, racial tension is at a boiling point and our political climate is so immensely volatile, we’re people are dismantling their faith, we seek to have the right answers, the best response.

We often think we need more than we do.

I come back to this deeply challenging statement from Kevin DeYoung

“Your biggest problem and my biggest problem is not a lack of education, or political disappointment, or challenging circumstances. Your biggest problem and my biggest problem is the same: sin. We’re sinners and we need a Savior.” - Kevin DeYoung

You and I need Jesus.

Christ alone, the hope of glory

When Paul encountered Jesus on the road to Damascus, his life was forever changed.

He had meet the Lord, he knew Jesus and he knew he needed nothing else.

He could proclaim the gospel with confidence, knowing full well that the message sounded preposterous, though he cared little, because he knew what it truly was, the power of God.

Paul is saying what we need to hear Coram Deo.

We are called to point to the better story and the better identity.

We must be rooted and grounded in the gospel.

We have to keep the main thing, the main thing.

This what prompted the blind hymn writer Frances Crosby to write:

Take the world, but give me Jesus.

In His cross my trust shall be,

Till, with clearer, brighter vision,

Face to face my Lord I see! _Francis Crosby

What will define Coram Deo is the hope of Christ alone.

We want to keep a laser focused view of Jesus.

Know Jesus Share Jesus is the statement we want to root ourselves in as we head into the fall.

For Paul he was combatting the church in Corinth wanting to make much of who they knew and what gifts they had.

For the church in the reformation it was combating that we are saved by the merits of Christ and the saints, and that we approach God through Christ, the saints, and Mary, who all pray and intercede for us.

No it’s not Jesus plus anything.

Calvin says it masterfully,

“Christ stepped in, took the punishment upon himself and bore the judgment due to sinners. With his own blood he expiated the sins which made them enemies of God and thereby satisfied him...we look to Christ alone for divine favor and fatherly love!” _John Calvin

We trust in Christ alone for our salvation.

That’s what Paul was getting at, I need nothing else.

That is what Luther and the Reformers held, It is only Jesus that saves us.

We have to be centered on the gospel.

It’s not about anything else, it’s all about Jesus.

Why do we resist the truth?

We know that it is Christ alone…

Yet we are in danger of forgetting that today, because of our idolatrous preoccupation with ourselves.

Polls tell us that 76% of believers think that man is basically good by nature.

86% believe that the gospel is mostly about God helping us to help ourselves.

We often come under two lies

1. We don’t believe Christ alone is sufficient.

2. We don’t believe Christ alone is exclusive.

In regards to sufficiency,

There are some who view Christ death as an example of self-sacrificing love, but there is no explanation of it’s purpose, that he bore our sins and faced punishment.

So when we fail, we look to atone for our own sins, rather than relying on the finished work of Christ.

Other times we seek to add to Christ’s work.

In Paul’s day many said, you need Jesus and circumcision.

Today some teach incorrectly that you need Jesus and good works,

The problem is that when we add to Jesus we take away the powerful truth of the gospel.

Others seeking to be involved in the community to seek social justice in our world feel as though the message of the gospel is in-sufficient and so instead of meeting needs and sharing the gospel, the gospel is put away as unnecessary and too churchy.

In regards to exclusivity,

There are several who think there are many ways to God.

That Jesus was a good teacher, that he is just one path to God.

This truth this morning reminds us that no, it is Christ alone.

Jesus himself says in John 14:6

John 14:6 (ESV)

Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

There is no other way.

It is Christ alone.

Perhaps you believe this morning that your sin is so great that you have to add good works to Christ’s.

Friend…no.

He is all you need. He perfectly satisfied the father through his perfect life and his perfect sacrifice.

You are telling Jesus that his work is not sufficient, his work is not exclusive, that you have to add to it.

You cannot.

Your work is insufficient.

Jesus called our righteousness, filthy rags.

Fallen human nature is proud. It leads us to attempt to secure our salvation rather than humbly receive that which is gifted to us.

Christ crucified tends to be a stumbling block and a subject of folly to fallen men and women.

The Christian life begins with a recognition that we are sinners and have nothing to give and that Christ is righteous and he has all to give.

It demands humility.

“Christ alone” challenges us to humbly examine ourselves.

Have we inadvertently, in theory or in practice, elevated something good to be equally important alongside Christ?

Do we unwittingly shape people to place their faith in Jesus plus something else?

Perhaps Jesus plus a particular form of piety, or plus a particular Reformed philosophy, or Jesus plus social activism or social conservatism, or Jesus plus. . . .

Have we fallen into this trap when we judge some as the “wrong kind” of Christians?

Have we put too much trust in our own unofficial “saints”?

Though not always easy to untangle or discern, it is utterly important to examine our hearts in these matters.

Because, ultimately, these “additions” to Christ only lead us to trust in ourselves, in human abilities, ingenuity, or tradition, and to make salvation more about what we know or what we do and less about God’s grace to us.

Rather, as the Reformation reminds us, salvation is through faith alone in Christ alone, by God’s grace alone.

When we miss this truth we miss the power of the gospel.

Coram Deo here is what you need to hear:

You need Christ alone.

We need to rediscover the gospel.

Because Jesus is strong for me, I am free to be weak; Because Jesus wins for me, I am free to lose; Because Jesus is Someone, I am free to be no one; Because Jesus is extraordinary, I am free to be ordinary; Because Jesus succeeds for me, I am free to fail.

We need to rediscover the gospel.

Coram Deo because of Jesus’ finished work for you, you already have the justification, approval, acceptance, security, freedom, affection, cleansing, new beginning, righteousness and rescue you are longing for.

We need to see the multifaceted dimensions of the Gospel in a more rich and vibrant way.

The now-power of the Gospel doesn’t simply rescue us from the past and rescue us for the future,

it also rescues us in the present from being enslaved to things like fear, insecurity, anger, self-reliance, bitterness, entitlement and insignificance.

Charles Spurgeon preaching on the power of Christ’s atoning work said,

“If thou puttest one atom of trust in thyself, thou hast no faith; if thou dost place even a particle of reliance upon anything else but what Christ did, thou hast no faith. If thou dost trust in thy works, then thy works are antichrist, and Christ and antichrist can never go together. Christ will have all or nothing; he must be a whole Savior, or no Savior at all” _Charles Spurgeon

Coram Deo we must live out this truth.

We are a gospel-centered church.

Conclusion

There was a pastor who preached fervantly on the atoning work of Jesus.

That is that Christ suffered on the cross for our sake.

As soon as he was done a stranger came up to him and said, “I don't like the way you spoke about the cross. I think that instead of emphasizing the death of Christ, it would be far better to preach Jesus, the teacher and example."

The pastor replied, "If I presented Christ in that way, would you be willing to follow Him?"

"I certainly would," said the stranger without hesitation.

"All right then," said the pastor, "let's take the first step. Christ never sinned. Can you claim that for yourself?"

The man looked confused and somewhat surprised. "Why, no," he said. "I acknowledge that I do sin."

The pastor replied, "Then your greatest need is to have a Savior, not just an example!”

We’re gonna keep beating the drum of the gospel Coram Deo.

This is our bedrock our anchor.

This is what we contend for.

This is what you so desperately need friend.

The world always is trying to pull on me on you and on the church.

This is why we go to a motto of the reformation that I find so helpful:

Ecclesia Reformata, Semper Reformanda (the church reformed, always reforming).

We must always go back to this truth of Christ’s sufficiency and exclusivity.

Jesus Christ alone is our Lord, Savior, and King.

We cannot add or take away from that.

Our duty as the church, as Christians is clear.

We are to go into all the world and preach the gospel to everyone.

We are to proclaim Jesus Christ and him crucified.

As Jesus prayed himself on the night of his betrayal,

John 17:3 (ESV)

And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.

In the end that is what it’s all about Coram Deo.

It is all about Jesus.

This morning if you examine your life and find it empty, I can promise you, the only one who makes all things new, who gives you purpose, who can raise your life from the grave it is in is Jesus.

GenCon - Devastated not getting a game that comes out in Sept, talking to Hannah she said, “Of course Billy that’s wha happens anytime we look into something besides Jesus to satisfy us.”

That’s what we do, we search longing for meaning, for purpose, something that would fulfill us.

But when you meet Jesus, when you encounter him, you don’t have to look anywhere else.

He is all you need.

Hear again the gospel

The gospel is good news because it brings a person into the everlasting and ever-increasing joy of Jesus Christ.

He is not merely the rope that pulls us from the threatening waves; he is the solid beach under our feet, and the air in our lungs, and the beat of our heart, and the warm sun on our skin, and the song in our ears, and the arms of our beloved.

The gospel is the good news that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, died for our sins and rose again, eternally triumphant over his enemies, so that there is now no condemnation for those who believe, but only everlasting joy.

That’s the gospel.

Perhaps the most famous verse in the Bible reads as follows:

John 3:16 (ESV)

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

Jesus is the grace of God!

Jesus is what God gave so that his people might not perish but have everlasting life – the Gospel is about Jesus!

Jesus did for us what we could never do for ourselves and he paid for what we have done in his body on the cross.

His life brought us blessing.

His death brought us peace.

His resurrection gives us hope.

And his intercession gives us strength.

Thanks be to God for our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ!

Where is your hope this morning?

Do you place it somewhere else other than on Christ?

He beckons you this morning, he is sufficient for all your needs.

He is the way, the truth and the life.

The truth of Jesus is what we are about.

We are a gospel-centered church.

Let’s pray