What is the objective of the Gospel? Is it heaven? Is it new life? Why did Jesus die on a cross, what did it accomplish and how does it affect the way we live our lives? God is the objective of the Gospel.
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God Is The Gospel
Romans 5:1; 9-11
God is the Gospel, yes I borrowed the title from John Piper’s book, I agree with Piper in the book for the most part. His base scripture is 2 Corinth 4-6, I will be highlighting other verses. And my objective is to show you the objective of the gospel, and the by product or result of believing the gospel and how believing the gospel affects how you look at the world and view life. But before we get there, I must tell you that I almost preached heresy or false doctrine to you. It was not going to be on purpose but out of a sheer love for Jesus and your joy.
And in this message I was going to show you the treasures of your salvation, and I was going to put them on full display for your joy. I was going to describe the new heavens and new earth that you would inherit, I was going to discuss the new life in Christ and how sin no longer has dominion over you. I wanted to talk about your salvation and eternal life or how your prayers now reach the ear of God. All of these things are good and true and are a result of the Gospel, but they are not the objective of the Gospel, they are a byproduct but they are not the chief end of the gospel or good news. The moment we begin to elevate the byproducts of the gospel over the objective of the gospel or central point of the gospel we bring ourselves near to false doctrine or even idolatry.
Some of you will say, but brother Jerome, you just mentioned things like eternal life, salvation, heaven, escape from hells flame, isn’t that the objective of the gospel? Isn’t that why Jesus came to earth to die on the cross, so that I might be saved? After all, isn’t that the purpose of John 3:16?
Let’s look at John 3:16 a little closer.
For God so loved the world, who is the one doing the loving? It is God, he is displaying his love, by giving his son. Okay, let’s stop there, what is so loving about that? How is the giving of His son a demonstration of His love? See, we need to get to the foundations of this. What is next, “that whosoever believes” in the son will not perish but have everlasting life.
So the result of believing in the son is that I do not perish but get eternal life. But why are we perishing in the first place?
Sin, right because of sin. Sin is the opposite of holy and God is Holy. Not only is sin the opposite God, but sin is an enemy of God. And Hell is a place where God’s final wrath is carried out on his enemies. So in order for us to be saved from the wrath of God, there needs to be a change in our relationship to God.
“We need to go from enemy of God because of our sin and disobedience to friend of God, to having peace with God, to being reconciled to God.”
This is the objective of the Gospel. All of those others things, eternal life, salvation, a changed life——they are the result of you being reconciled to God, no longer an enemy. But the chief objective of the Gospel is to bring you to God.
This is the ultimate point of God sending his son. This is the ultimate point of Jesus dyeing on a cross.
Reconciliation-Romans 5———————————————————
Romans 5:1-Peace with God, now go to verse 9-11—This is the objective of the Gospel, that you will be reconciled to God, that you return to favor with God. That you and God are one
Let me give you some more text:
Romans 5:11
Ephesian 2:14-16, 18
Colossians 1:19-20
2 Corinth 5:18-20
I hope that you are starting to see that the purpose of the Gospel is to reconcile you to God. To see Him, enjoy Him and find your satisfaction in Him. Because this is what was lost when mankind fell out of the favor of God.
Reconciliation: Its like a marriage, you have two people that are at odds with one another but then the two parties reconcile their differences and come back to together. But the difference is in this relationship—mankind and God, God is reconciling us to himself, it is not like God did anything wrong. God is the cooperative party-
Example: In a marriage couples may be at odds with one another but then there is sometimes that cooperative party that wants to work it out. God came and got us when we were wondering from the fold of God.
This the major difference between Christianity or Jesus and any other world religion. All other religions, man is trying to reach God by their deeds. Christianity is God coming to rescue and reconcile man to himself.
Now lets look at how this reconciliation is accomplished? Through Jesus.
Because God is Holy and Just, he can’t just give us a pass for our sins.
The bible said in Romans 6:23 “the wages of sin is death”, and it also said in Romans 3:23 that “all have sinned” So somebody has to die, God’s justice has to be served.
So he sends his son to be the sacrifice which goes beyond my understanding. You and I are these selfish, prideful, idol worshipping people that deserve God’s wrath but to demonstrate His love, He takes out his wrath on his son. And not only did Jesus death bring us justification and reconciliation with God but it was also his Holy life prior to the cross that accomplished this.
Sometimes we highlight the cross so much that we forget about the life that lead up to the cross. Not just anybody can die on the cross and reconcile man to God. Jesus was not the first or last person to die on a cross, many people died on a cross and their death did nothing to change the relationship between man and God.
What made Jesus different is that he was sinless, he was a spotless lamb. He is the only one that kept God’s righteous law, meaning that he did something that you and I could not do, he was perfect!
He stayed in God’s will. In John 4:34,-Women at the Well
“He said that his food was doing the Father’s will, that was what sustained him and satisfied him. He was all about the glory of the Father”
-Unlike Adam and Eve who choose their will, their glory over God’s glory.
-Unlike the Children of Israel who played the harlot by chasing after other gods and lesser pleasures.
-Unlike you and I who choose our will over Gods will as we engaged in our debauchery, lust, pursing lesser pleasures as opposed to sustaining ourselves in God like Christ did.
I think Jeremiah 2:13 and Romans 1:25 sums up the worlds dissatisfaction in God and his will which results in our separation from God
Read-Jeremiah 2:13
Romans 1:25——We worship and served the creation, material things, ourselves or our family, children, husband, grandchild, career over the Creator God.
But through Jesus, we are brought back to the fountain of living water, we are brought to bread that truly satisfies.
See the Good news is really good news for us because we were eating slop and the Father through the Son, went and took us from the sloth pen and brought us to the finest meal for our enjoyment, which is God.
1Peter 3:18-Jesus brings us to God
This why the prodigal son that Jesus spoke of is so powerful, we were the prodigal son and daughter that left our father but God has taken us back and put a ring on our finger and a robe on our back——That means we are royalty!
And through this reconciliation, flows all of the gospel benefits which affects how we view the world.
Let me show you an example of this
2 Corinth 5:17- New life
“Without reconciliation, there is no new creation”——So I can’t highlight the new life that God will give the alcoholic, the drug addict, the person living in poverty over the Giver of new life. And that is very easy to do, I have done it and this weekend have been repenting to God behind it.
I can hear some saying but Brother Jerome, people are hungry, drug addicted, homeless, they are not concerned with peace with God, they are thinking about their current circumstances. Shouldn’t we address that? Yes,
If they are hungry, feed them, if they need housing, help them getting housing or whatever the need is but as ministers of reconciliation, which we are according to Paul,
“we are to redirect peoples concern from the lesser priority to the greater priority which is reconciliation with God through Christ.”
“See it is because we have not been reconciled to God and do not see Him as our all satisfying source that we turn to other things looking for peace and satisfaction. That we sometimes have a lot debt because we were looking to stuff to bring us satisfaction as opposed to finding it in God through Christ.”
Missions and Evangelism
God being the gospel also effects how we do missions and evangelism.
For example, hell can’t be the sole motive of your evangelism. But you say, brother Jerome, I do not want people to go to hell. I do not want people to go to hell either; I am motivated by hell as well. But what is hell, it is eternal separation from who, God.(2 Thess 1:9).
Heaven
God being the Gospel also effects how we view Heaven-If heaven is just a place where we are united with friends and family member and walk on streets of gold, then our salvation has become an idol. If God is not the center of our view of heaven then we could be idolizing heaven.
God and his glory has to be the foundation of everything we do, that is what a reconciled life looks like.
Psalm 73:25 summarizes this best
“Beside you I desire nothing on earth”
But you say, I desire my wife, my kids, food, etc.
Let me explain it this way. With mankind’s fall from the favor of God, food became food. Good steak, good chicken but with a reconciled heart and mind to God, food or eating becomes an act of worship as we think about all the flavors and spices that God made for our enjoyment, which brings us to worshiping or thanking him.
Intimacy when it is reconciled to God can result in worship and a thankful heart to God who made this for our enjoyment.
That is why the psalmist can say that “besides you, I desire nothing on earth”…..the foundation of his is desires is God…….this is the best way that I and some others can understand it.
No Perfectly reconciled life
And let me make this last point that we don’t live a perfectly reconciled life but through Christ, the Spirit is helping us to reconcile all things in our life back to God including how we relate to or view people of a different race or culture. Because racism and prejudice are a part of the fall of mankind and so our view of other people have to be reconciled to God as we follow Christ.
Questions
In your evangelism, do you think that you have over emphasize, new life or avoidance of hell over reconciliation to God?
How does today’s teaching affect your understanding of God, Jesus, Holy Spirit, if at all?
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