The Gospel Empowers Everyday

The Gospel Empowers Everyday

Reading of the Word of God

Romans 1:16-17

For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.”

Warm Up

You may be seated.  If you need a bible please raise your hand and we’ll get one to you. For those who don’t know who I am, my name is Eric  Mattie. I serve as one of the elders here at LEFC. I appreciate the opportunity to share God’s word with you this morning as Pastor Dan is on vacation and Pastor Kyle get ready for Papa New Guinea.

I’ve included notes within your bulletin if you’d like to follow the train of thought. Go ahead and take them out.

Introduction

There is a movement sweeping the church at large. It is called the gospel Centered movement. It is where preachers and teachers are turning back to the gospel and expounding on the fact that the gospel is not just the ignition for salvation but it is also the fuel for sanctification , growth in Christ.   Now I’ve grown up in the church like many of you and have equated the word gospel with the word evangelism. But the gospel is so much more. I hope to expound on that this morning so let’s pray to that end.

Prayer

Father, I thank you that we come to worship you this morning. And now I’m praying that those who hear this message won’t hear me and my Words but you and yours. May the truth of the Gospel call save those who are lost, bring sight to those who are blind.  For your children who are weak, may the gospel empower them. For those who are struggling, may they find freedom and peace. Work deep and beyond the scope of that which my preaching can touch. And I ask this in your name.

The title of my message is the Gospel Empowers Everyday and this is the central truth that I want to tease out over the next several minutes by taking these three words and asking three questions

What is the Gospel?

How does it Empower?

How does the gospel empower my everyday life?

So

Let’s roll.

I. What Is The Gospel?

I’m going to introduce you to the Gospel.

G.O.S.P.E.L.-

God

God is alive. He lives, He exists  And to deny him is to be a fool.  He is the living God who is creator of the heavens  and the earth and the sea and all that is in them and reigns over it all as King. He is Supreme and Sovereign.

Because he is our creator we are indebted to him for life itself. We are accountable to him as subjects in His kingdom. We are to worship him because he is God and there is no other like him.

·         Worthy are you, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they existed and were created." Rev 4:11

Offended

Now man kind has offended the rule and reign of God. We break God’s holy law. In fact sin is often defined as missing the mark. But what we’ve done is totally rebelled. We weren’t even aiming at that mark. We turned away from God and said we‘d be God ourselves.

We are not just victims of the fall. Yes we live in death and disease,  heartache and pain, suffering and sickness, guilty and anxiety, addiction and depression, earthquakes and floods, uncertainty and insecurity.

Yet The Bible says

• Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned— Rom 5:12-13
• We can thank Adam and Eve, the first humans. We have inherited sin because of them. They were the first to doubt what is true. They were the first to question what is right. They were the first to wonder who am I--- ALL BECAUSE THEY SINNED.     

BUT WE’VE SINNED TOO!

We all have participated in the great rebellion and the great offense to a Great and Holy God. Our hearts are so deceptive, we deceive ourselves with the severity of our sin. We minimize it! We excuse it. We sin and are evil no matter how much good we try to do

• All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; Isa 53:6

• We have all become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment. Isa 64:6

Sentenced

            Since we have offended God’s infinite holiness through our disobedience we  are sentenced. That right! We stand condemned. We are sentenced to the judgment and wrath of God. God will be perfectly fair and we will totally deserve it.

• For the wages of sin is death, Rom 6:23
• And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell. Matt 10:28

Pity

            Now God does not take pleasure in condemning sinners. What we see in God’s character is that he has taken PITY on us by providing a way to be saved from our sin and the punishment our sins deserve.

Look at the character of God in this verse:

·         Have I any pleasure in the death of the wicked, declares the Lord GOD, and not rather that he should turn from his way and live?  Ezekiel 18:23

·         But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy… Titus 3:4-6

Exchange

            Now God being loving and desiring to save His people, and yet having a just wrath needing to be satisfied,  he cannot simply dismiss the punishment we deserve. That would be unjust.

What he has done is: God has sent his son Jesus Christ to live a righteous life and to unjustly suffer for sins he did not commit. He suffered the full wrath and separation from the Father himself through the Cross and Death. We deserved that! But Because of what Jesus has done… God offers us an incredible exchange.

Our sin and its punishment- for God’s forgiveness and Jesus Righteousness

Defining the Exchange

Our sins are counted as His. And His righteousness counted as ours.

• For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.                       2 Corinthians 5:21
• For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, 1 Peter 3:18

The Means of the Exchange

You might be asking why is Jesus the only Way?

• Well because Jesus is God- His punishment was valuable because of his Divine nature.
• Jesus became man, he was flesh and blood and as a result was our substitute.
• Jesus lived the perfect life so he was the perfect sacrifice for our sins, there by reconciling us to God
• Jesus rose from the dead three days later, conquering death and thus possess the authority to give eternal life.

The Avenue for the Exchange

Since Jesus is the only way we are to be saved and rescued, what do we do?

We’ve heard that the Gospel is the good news about God and what he is done and we stand convicted of the truths of our guilt. Yet now we see even clearer the greatness and goodness of God and what he has done and how he is glorified through this. We understand why Jesus is the only way to be saved, we obviously have no ability to save ourselves… what do we do to be saved?

There must an exchange of our sinfulness for God’s righteousness by having faith in Jesus Christ.

For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, ⁹ not a result of works, so that no one may boast.   Ephesians 2:8,9

            What is faith?  Faith has simply been defined as reliance or trust. Two aspects

Love this acronym:

Forsaking        All!      I           Take    Him-   J.I. Packer       

Forsaking all- Repenting of sin! Turning from it and turning toward God and asking forgiveness.

I take him- I rely fully on Christ!

You are saved by Faith alone. Better yet, you are saved by Faith alone that is alive! We don’t have a faith that is dead.

• We bank everything on Christ! His righteousness, His accomplishment His Work   …for salvation eternal destiny and even life here and now.

• We Forsake all our accomplishment, all our work all our good deeds to be satisfied in this life

• We  take him. We find our satisfaction in Him.
• Not the gifts of justification and imputation and grace and adoption and the Spirit in us. NO. We find our satisfaction in him!

Life

The Gospel is also about Life- Life eternally yes. But also life here. And the Gospel empower us for life here and now.

• The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.  John 10:10

Now I’m not saying the gospel releases us to have the best life now! I’m not saying he empowers us to live life the way the world declares. The gospel doesn’t help us succeed in the pursuit of materialism, narcissism and comforts! It is not a means to our selfish ends.

Since God himself is the ultimate good news, and we become reconciled to him through Jesus Christ and we worship him as Savior and God---

We enjoy in this a  joy in Him despite the pains and disappointments of this world.

We enjoy in this life satisfaction in Him despite the situations that leave us empty and dry. Christ is our fullness of life...simply He is our life.

That is the gospel! That is the Good news.

Let’s move forward in the outline.

1 What is the gospel, we just answered that.

II. How does the gospel empower?

            The short answer is this:  The Gospel Empowers Through Emancipation

Luke 4:18-21

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”  And he rolled up the scroll and gave it back to the attendant and sat down. And the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him.  And he began to say to them, “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

·         Note the concept of emancipation. Freedom for captives, freedom for those who are blind, freedom for the oppressed and hopeless.

For those who God saves.

The gospel empowers those whom God saves to be set free from the penalty of sin- which is death and judgment. You are free from that.  Those whom God saves gain a  freedom to see the truth of God’s word. Those whom God saves gain the freedom found in hope.

But

For those who God sanctifies.

            And here it is for you-- long term church goer! The gospel is for all believers!

How does the gospel empower you?

Afterall

We understand that  God saves us, but then we work out our salvation through the Holy Sprit in fear and trembling. That’s in Phillippians 2:12.

Not exactly

            Listen We mistakenly think our role is to keep our salvation through our works.

As if your church attendance would be enough-

as if your financial giving would be enough-

as if your bible study would be enough-

as if your prayer time would be enough-

as if your witnessing would be enough!

Why do we do those things? Why do you come and give money and sing songs. Why do you open your Bible?  If I asked you to give up one of your spiritual disciplines, would you feel condemned as if the wheels are going to fall off the Christian ride you are ? Would you feel you lost favor with God. Well then how much do you have to right in orde to get right? Is your Chrstianity dependent on you?

The question then is, do you feel condemned? Or would you miss it?

!!!Works righteousness and holy legalism is not enough to keep your salvation, so stop trying.

Why do you do what you do?

God himself cares what motivates us to worship and obey him?

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and the plate, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. You blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and the plate, that the outside also may be clean.”     Matthew 23:25, 26

            The Pharisees were so good! While we have the benefit to see them as they truly are because of God’s word. Back in the first century, they were the good guys! They were religious folks. Among them were true worshippers like Nicodemus, as well as hypocrite.

How does the gospel empower believers?

Remember the short answer: The Gospel empowers through Emancipation.

WE are free. The gospel frees us. Not just at conversion, although you do need to remember that.

We don’t become free by getting saved through the Gospel call and then move beyond. Rather we move into it even deeper

Think of the gospel as a diamond. A multifaceted diamond the depths of its beauty is found when we go deep inside of it. We look and we mine in order to gaze and behold. When we gaze at the gospel and behold God himself we see the very things the empower us.

We see that the answer to growing up in Christ is not trying hard to be free, but trusting deeper in the freedom accomplished.

We haven’t fully accepted the implications of Christ’s work on our behalf.

Let me quote from my two new best friends, who I have been reading and listening to it is as if I know them well.  I don’t but just go with it. The first one is pastor Tullian Tchividjian he writes:

The hard work of Christian growth, therefore, is to think less of me and my performance and more of Jesus and his performance for me. Ironically, when we focus mostly on our need to get better we actually get worse. We become neurotic and self-absorbed. Preoccupation with my effort over God’s effort for me makes me increasingly self-centered and morbidly introspective.

You could state it this way: Sanctification is the daily hard work of going back to the reality of our justification–receiving Christ’s words, “It is finished” into new and deeper parts of our being every day, into our rebellious regions of unbelief.  It’s going back to the certainty of our objectively secured pardon in Christ and hitting the refresh button a thousand times a day. Or, as Martin Luther so aptly put it in his Lectures on Romans, “To progress is always to begin again.” Real spiritual progress,  in other words, requires a daily going backwards.

The second one is Pastor R.W. Glenn

Staying with the backwards idea he writes:

One reason why we struggle so much with the Christian life as Christians is that we think that growing up in the faith involves becoming less dependent on God, that if I were really mature, I wouldn't be such a mess and so needy for Jesus. But in reality precisely the opposite is true. In God’s economy, we age backward. As you mature as a Christian, you become more like a child, not less. You’re born an “adult,” so to speak – relying on your own goodness and power and wisdom and strength to gain acceptance with God; it’s your natural inclination. But when you’re born again, you start aging backwards. As you mature, you become more like a child…

When we realize we can’t grow, we are dependent, we have no ability, we can’t do it…Where are we? We are back to the THRONE OF GRACE.

Our weakness opens the door, to his Grace. Remember you are saved by Grace alone when we see that

·         we realize how big God is

·         and how glorious the cross is.

·         And that we are not as good as we think we are are And that’s ok because God treats us better than we deserve!.

We Forsake all- We relinquish control- we rely on God.  We Take Him!

When we Forsake all we trust in  (FOR EXAMPLE…)

           

 HIS acceptance of us. To know that since Jesus secured my pardon and absorbed the Father’s wrath on my behalf so that “there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus,” how does that impact my longing for approval, my tendency to be controlling, and my fear of the unknown?

When we trust deeper in His work instead of our own.  It frees us for our obsession to perform or become something. In Christ  We have already.

When our identity is firmly anchored in Christ’s accomplishment, not yours; his strength, not yours; his performance, not yours; his victory, not yours. Your identity is steadfastly established in his substitution, not your sin.

We are free!!

“and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” John 8:32

• When we have that freedom we then look at the commands of God’s word and see that we “get to” instead of “have to”
• When we are free,  it is NOT obey to be accepted. It is: you are accepted therefore obey.
• The empowerment we have in the gospel is not about better behaving- it is about better believing. That is believing in bigger and deeper and brighter ways about what Christ has already secured for us.
• For many Christian’s their Christian walk is sin –confess- sin- confess-sin-confess. The heart of Christian faith is repent and believe. That’s what we are empowered to do. When God commands repent and believe, he has given the power to do and we are always to find that power at the throne of grace. And at the throne of Grace we find the power of the gospel to save us again and again and again!

So

We’ve covered

1. What is the gospel- we answered that

2. How does the gospel empower- we answered that- through emancipation- through freeing us.

III. How does the Gospel empower my everyday life.

Short answer: By Preaching the Gospel to Yourself.

What does that mean. This is a Christianese talking that assumes everyone know what that means.

Survey: Do you know what preaching the gospel to yourself means. How many yes. How many no.

Colossians 3:16

Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in a ll wisdom, singing, psalms and hymns and spiritual songs with thankfulness in your hearts to God.

Picture: Bob @  work “talked himself out” of buying a new car and convinced himself of the value of the more affordable used one.

Survey: how many of you have ever talked yourself out of doing something. How many yes. How many no.

Point: preaching the gospel to yourself involves you “talking yourself through everyday situations with relationships, your work, your marriage, your parenting, your leisure, your finances, your attitudes, your motives for doing things, your habits good and bad your insecurities, your temptations and sinful strongholds and asking    “How has what Jesus Christ has done affect how I handle these things?” How does the Gospel empower me to handle these things differently.

For example in marriage when/if you argue do you argue to win?

Arguments- with anybody. While this could be a fruit of insecurity, it has with it its own freedom inducing truth.

• When we preach the gospel to ourselves we remind ourselves that our value and identity is anchored in Christ and is not anchored in being right, the gospel frees us to admit we’re wrong. OUCH that goes right after our pride and it actually produces a humbleness that brings the empowerment of grace .

James 4:6

But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, “God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.

That’s freeing. Scary for sure, but the more you stare into the gospel of God and get this deep in side your soul, the freedom comes

Another example is your motivations in doing things to hide insecurity/

Insecurity- it causes us to put up fronts, try real hard to impress, and to tear down others to make us feel good, even put on masks. This is found in the workplace…in the social setting that turns competitive…at the play date with other parents… in sibling rivalries… friends and family situation…

• When we preach the gospel to ourselves we remember our security is in Christ’s achievement for us, and it frees us to admit our weaknesses without feeling inferior to that person’s life, livelihood and love for themselves.
• The gospel frees us from trying to impress people, prove ourselves to people, and make people think we’re something that we’re not.

Another example sinful habits that we struggle with.

Sinful habits- it brings guilt and condemnation and the man made effort to “do better” next time. It also manifests itself in anger at yourself and or others, which is neither warranted or justified.

• When we preach the gospel to ourselves we acknowledge the doctrine of justification that says God declares us righteous because Christ’s righteousness has been imputed to us as believers and as believers our sins have been imputed to Christ who bore them on the cross. At no point in time, either before God saves you or after, does your behavior determine God’s love for you. We remember that while we were enemies, Christ die for our sins.
• Only when you realize that the gospel has nothing to do with your obedience but Christ’s obedience for you, will you start to obey!

How about the example of your identity. Is it built of the prideful things of life?

Pride of life- running after achievements, power, and status. This is found in being the “Alpha” among peers… the striving for perfect or known for something… It can also be found in some Over Compulsive Disorder. And obsessions

• When we preach the gospel to ourselves the gospel frees you from the pressure of having to make something out of yourself. And while the gospel frees us to realize that we matter, we’re learning is not the point.
• Only the gospel can liberate us from the miserable, unquenchable pursuit to make something of ourselves by using others.

The banner under which Christians is empowered  reads “It is finished.” Christ fulfilled all of God’s conditions on our behalf so that our relationship with God could be unconditional. That’s how you need to remind yourself when you go throughout your day.

In closing I want to share something from John Calvin and what he said about the gospel.

I thought it was so good I asked them to put it on the website for you to read for your self a you learn how to preach the gospel to yourself.

Here it is:

Without the gospel

everything is useless and vain;

without the gospel

we are not Christians;

without the gospel

all riches is poverty,
all wisdom folly before God;
strength is weakness,
and all the justice of man is under the condemnation of God.

But by the knowledge of the gospel we are made

children of God,
brothers of Jesus Christ,
fellow townsmen with the saints,
citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven,
heirs of God with Jesus Christ, by whom

the poor are made rich,
the weak strong,
the fools wise,
the sinner justified,
the desolate comforted,
the doubting sure,
and slaves free.

It is the power of God for the salvation of all those who believe.

It follows that every good thing we could think or desire is to be found in this same Jesus Christ alone.

For, he was

sold, to buy us back;
captive, to deliver us;
condemned, to absolve us;

he was

made a curse for our blessing,
[a] sin offering for our righteousness;
marred that we may be made fair;

he died for our life; so that by him

fury is made gentle,
wrath appeased,
darkness turned into light,
fear reassured,
despisal despised,
debt canceled,
labor lightened,
sadness made merry,
misfortune made fortunate,
difficulty easy,
disorder ordered,
division united,
ignominy ennobled,
rebellion subjected,
intimidation intimidated,
ambush uncovered,
assaults assailed,
force forced back,
combat combated,
war warred against,
vengeance avenged,
torment tormented,
damnation damned,
the abyss sunk into the abyss,
hell transfixed,
death dead,
mortality made immortal.

In short,

mercy has swallowed up all misery,
and goodness all misfortune.

For all these things which were to be the weapons of the devil in his battle against us, and the sting of death to pierce us, are turned for us into exercises which we can turn to our profit.

If we are able to boast with the apostle, saying, O hell, where is thy victory? O death, where is thy sting? it is because by the Spirit of Christ promised to the elect, we live no longer, but Christ lives in us; and we are by the same Spirit seated among those who are in heaven, so that for us the world is no more, even while our conversation is in it; but we are content in all things, whether country, place, condition, clothing, meat, and all such things.

And we are

comforted in tribulation,
joyful in sorrow,
glorying under vituperation,
abounding in poverty,
warmed in our nakedness,
patient amongst evils,
living in death.

This is what we should in short seek in the whole of Scripture: truly to know Jesus Christ, and the infinite riches that are comprised in him and are offered to us by him from God the Father.