| Teacher: Sven Christiansen Series: Guest Speaker |
Sven's Notes | |
What is the Gospel?
Intro Talking to internationals who have zero understanding of Jesus.
Have you ever explained Gospel to someone like that?
Can someone tell me what the gospel is?
Examples Four spiritual laws.
1. God loves you and has a plan for your life.
2. We can’t know God’s plan because we have sin.
3. Jesus is provision for our sins.
4. Must place faith in Christ to get the gift of salvation and knowing God’s plan.
Is the Gospel a formula?
What if you reject one of those laws?
Evangelism Explosion
“Suppose you were to die today and stand before God and He were to say to you 'why should I let you into My heaven?
What would you say?”
Is the Gospel fire insurance?
Focus of making it to heaven reduces the gospel to wishful thinking.
Blood Sweat and Tears “And When I die” I can swear there ain't no Heaven
But I pray there ain't no hell I'll never know by livin'
Only my dyin' will tell
Romans Road
Romans 3:23 For all have sinned…
Romans 6:23 Wages of sin is death…
Romans 5:8 But God demonstrates his own love toward us…
Romans 10:9 If you confess with your mouth Jesus as lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved!
Romans 5:1 Therefore, since we have been justified through faith we have peace with God…
Is the Gospel a hidden message in the Bible?
Have you ever wondered why the Gospel isn’t clearly spelled out in the Bible?
Why so many “Christians” have versions of it?
Let’s try to untangle…
John Eldredge talks about humanity loving story because it is written into our being.
I propose that the Gospel is actually an epic story.
Def. Gospel: Good News Good news implies there’s bad news.
Look at this from old Jewish perspective.
Creation. Everything is great. The Fall. We are cursed, but a promise/prophecy is given.
God offers little guidance, all hell breaks loose.
God resets everything with Noah.
Again, people wander away from truth, and God chooses Abraham.
Gives a promise. The world will be blessed through his offspring.
Abraham’s faith/trust/reliance on God’s promise is his righteousness.
God gives a few instructions to make his people unique.
Abraham’s family prospers until calamity (famine).
God rescues the family into Egypt, but that becomes enslavement.
Centuries later, Moses arises to free God’s chosen people from slavery and give them a promised land.
God gives detailed laws and rituals His people are to follow.
Why? To have Israel maintain its identity.
The rituals (festivals, sacrifices, etc) are unique to Israel and Followers of Abraham’s God.
Matt Tully and the festivals.
God’s people suffer all sorts of problems, mostly because they aren’t sticking to the rules God set up for them.
Many prophets come and go, begin Israel to repent and return to their traditional ways.
But hey also proclaim a new promise coming.
A new and better covenant.
Jer 31 3:31-33 “Behold, days are coming,” declares the LORD, “when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, not like the covenant which I made with their fathers in the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, although I was a husband to them,” declares the LORD.
“But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days,” declares the LORD, “I will put My law within them and on their heart I will write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. Ezekiel 36:26–27 “Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will be careful to observe My ordinances.”
Fast forward a few hundred years and Jesus arrives on the scene. Jesus preached the gospel, (19 mentions in the Gospels) but what was his message?
Gospel of the Kingdom mentioned 5 times in Gospels (before crucifixion)
Matthew 4:23 “Jesus was going throughout all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom.”
What is the kingdom? Matthew 4:17 it is at hand Matthew 6:10 prays for kingdom to come
This Gospel is not that you can make it to heaven, but that heaven is coming here.
So who is the King of this Kingdom of Heaven? Luke 19:37-40 Blessed is the King
Mark 15:2 Pilate.
It is as you say Matthew 27:42 King of Jews get off the cross
John 18:33-37 Kingdom not of this world Try telling this to someone who has no concept of the Bible or its stories.
It’s fantastic!
So, why is this story good news to the Jews of Jesus’ time or to us?
Because the New Covenant is far superior to the Old.
The constant striving to identify as one of God’s chosen is replaced with being adopted into the King’s family.
Having the law wrapped around your neck is replaced with having the Spirit of God reside within you.
Hoping to “make it into heaven” is replaced with being a part of heaven on earth.
Laws and rituals are replaced with relationship, intimate and personal.
Faithful obedience in one’s own power is replace with a new nature that is inclined to obedience.
Striving is replaced with rest.
Hopelessness and death are replaced with peaceful assurance and the life of eternity.
And that is pretty good news.
Intro Talking to internationals who have zero understanding of Jesus.
Have you ever explained Gospel to someone like that?
Can someone tell me what the gospel is?
Examples Four spiritual laws.
1. God loves you and has a plan for your life.
2. We can’t know God’s plan because we have sin.
3. Jesus is provision for our sins.
4. Must place faith in Christ to get the gift of salvation and knowing God’s plan.
Is the Gospel a formula?
What if you reject one of those laws?
Evangelism Explosion
“Suppose you were to die today and stand before God and He were to say to you 'why should I let you into My heaven?
What would you say?”
Is the Gospel fire insurance?
Focus of making it to heaven reduces the gospel to wishful thinking.
Blood Sweat and Tears “And When I die” I can swear there ain't no Heaven
But I pray there ain't no hell I'll never know by livin'
Only my dyin' will tell
Romans Road
Romans 3:23 For all have sinned…
Romans 6:23 Wages of sin is death…
Romans 5:8 But God demonstrates his own love toward us…
Romans 10:9 If you confess with your mouth Jesus as lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved!
Romans 5:1 Therefore, since we have been justified through faith we have peace with God…
Is the Gospel a hidden message in the Bible?
Have you ever wondered why the Gospel isn’t clearly spelled out in the Bible?
Why so many “Christians” have versions of it?
Let’s try to untangle…
John Eldredge talks about humanity loving story because it is written into our being.
I propose that the Gospel is actually an epic story.
Def. Gospel: Good News Good news implies there’s bad news.
Look at this from old Jewish perspective.
Creation. Everything is great. The Fall. We are cursed, but a promise/prophecy is given.
God offers little guidance, all hell breaks loose.
God resets everything with Noah.
Again, people wander away from truth, and God chooses Abraham.
Gives a promise. The world will be blessed through his offspring.
Abraham’s faith/trust/reliance on God’s promise is his righteousness.
God gives a few instructions to make his people unique.
Abraham’s family prospers until calamity (famine).
God rescues the family into Egypt, but that becomes enslavement.
Centuries later, Moses arises to free God’s chosen people from slavery and give them a promised land.
God gives detailed laws and rituals His people are to follow.
Why? To have Israel maintain its identity.
The rituals (festivals, sacrifices, etc) are unique to Israel and Followers of Abraham’s God.
Matt Tully and the festivals.
God’s people suffer all sorts of problems, mostly because they aren’t sticking to the rules God set up for them.
Many prophets come and go, begin Israel to repent and return to their traditional ways.
But hey also proclaim a new promise coming.
A new and better covenant.
Jer 31 3:31-33 “Behold, days are coming,” declares the LORD, “when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, not like the covenant which I made with their fathers in the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, although I was a husband to them,” declares the LORD.
“But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days,” declares the LORD, “I will put My law within them and on their heart I will write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. Ezekiel 36:26–27 “Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will be careful to observe My ordinances.”
Fast forward a few hundred years and Jesus arrives on the scene. Jesus preached the gospel, (19 mentions in the Gospels) but what was his message?
Gospel of the Kingdom mentioned 5 times in Gospels (before crucifixion)
Matthew 4:23 “Jesus was going throughout all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom.”
What is the kingdom? Matthew 4:17 it is at hand Matthew 6:10 prays for kingdom to come
This Gospel is not that you can make it to heaven, but that heaven is coming here.
So who is the King of this Kingdom of Heaven? Luke 19:37-40 Blessed is the King
Mark 15:2 Pilate.
It is as you say Matthew 27:42 King of Jews get off the cross
John 18:33-37 Kingdom not of this world Try telling this to someone who has no concept of the Bible or its stories.
It’s fantastic!
So, why is this story good news to the Jews of Jesus’ time or to us?
Because the New Covenant is far superior to the Old.
The constant striving to identify as one of God’s chosen is replaced with being adopted into the King’s family.
Having the law wrapped around your neck is replaced with having the Spirit of God reside within you.
Hoping to “make it into heaven” is replaced with being a part of heaven on earth.
Laws and rituals are replaced with relationship, intimate and personal.
Faithful obedience in one’s own power is replace with a new nature that is inclined to obedience.
Striving is replaced with rest.
Hopelessness and death are replaced with peaceful assurance and the life of eternity.
And that is pretty good news.
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