The Big Gospel: Past, Present, and Future
When we consider these things we have to ask if our Gospel is to small. This wasn’t true for Paul who said:
“For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to
everyone who believes...” (Romans 1:16, ESV)
He understood that through all of mans unfaithfulness we have God who is faithful from the time of Abraham to the faithfulness of God in Christ until his return. Just as God attributed righteousness to Abraham because he believed God’s promises, we also should not put our hope in anything we have done, but in him who is faithful.
The gospel is the power of salvation to all who believe. The emphasis is on God’s power to save and to accomplish his work, which he has done in Christ. In this understanding of God’s righteousness being revealed to us in Christ we have to understand that his salvation is not just about our rescue or just about God’s purpose in man it is
both. An easy way to understand and remember this is that to know the three ways he does this.
1. Past – God has saved us from something for something.
2. Present – God is saving us from something for something.
3. Future – God will save us from something for something.
“For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.” (Romans 1:18, ESV)
Our job is not to save people but to convince them they need to be converted. To help them realize there is a problem apart from Jesus and that we are not saved from hell but from God’s wrath. God’s wrath is upon man simply because we exchanged his Glory for things we can control and that we are worshiping things that we think can sustain us in life. Therefore, God’s anger is good for us because he doesn’t want us to go down a destructive path.
“So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father does, that the Son does likewise.” (John 5:19, ESV)
So as God gave us Jesus it is important for us to understand that Jesus did nothing of his own accord. He only did what his father did. Therefore, Jesus as our example, had an on going dependency on his Father to show us how we must live a life of dependency, submission, and worship. He showed us what it was to be in alignment with
the kingdom and he did it perfectly everyday of his life all the way to the cross and beyond. His rule is in complete contrast to that of the Romans or the institutions we have today.
“I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.” (John 15:5, ESV)
In Jesus’ perfect submission to the father we see the example of the above passage. It is only as we are in him in submission and dependency that we find truth and bear fruit. Jesus was the perfect man and therefore, the perfect example. He exemplified the perfect life before God, willingly and willfully submitted, dependent on God, even to the cross, becoming a substitute for wrath warranted by us, and then becoming our sin and death, that we might know the righteousness of God.
The Gospel of the Past
This great exchange was a transfer of the sin of Adam to the Son of God. He took the entire sin of all of mankind and placed on himself in exchange for our sin. He got our sin and we got his righteousness. We get a perfectly a submitted life and he gets our rebellion and the punishment we deserve. The king gave his life for the kingdom and is now glorified before all creation because of what he has done. Therefore, God looks to the earth to find his son, his spirit, and himself moving and his wrath remains on all else. God punishes sin in Christ giving us mercy as he sees his son in us but he does not allow sin to go unpunished. The great news is that Jesus did the work concerning
sin and therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ.
Therefore, we don’t have to do anything in order to get right with God, but place our faith in Jesus as Abraham placed his faith in God. We don’t have to work harder, to cover our shame, to convince God we are serious this time about our sin problem. All we are asked is to do is repent. We don’t have to beat ourselves up we just boast in Christ.
We must understand that our lives our now hidden in Christ and that God loves us. We no longer have to look to our own daddy for our approval, because God has said to Christ, “This is my son in who I am well pleased.” Therefore, everything God spoke to Jesus he has spoken to you who are hidden in him. It is no longer I who live, but it is Christ in me. This is exactly what Paul said to the Galatians.
“I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” (Galatians 2:20, ESV)
Understand that there is no work that can match what Christ has done. So for those who look for God to say to them, “Well done Good and faithful servant” that has already been spoken to you if your life is hidden in Christ.
When it comes to sin, shame is the feeling we have when we replace our worship of Jesus with something else. We should never use the consequences of sin to help get people free from sin. It doesn’t work. Shame and consequences are just simply a reminder that all people are broken and if you live in that place you will never get free.
Take for example the story of Adam and Eve. When they sinned against God, God did not shame them. Instead he asked them questions. “Why are you covered? Why are you hiding? In other words, he was asking them who is informing you who you are? Who is the one you are now looking for? Why are you looking to everything
else to define you instead of me?
What God wants for us in our moments of brokenness is not for us to exalt in our sin, or cover our sin with fig leaves, or wallow in pity, or to beat ourselves up. He wants us to exalt in Christ because Jesus did what was sufficient and there is no need to either beat yourself up or work harder for his mercy. In Christ’s sufficiency, we hear him from the cross say, “Father forgive them they know not what they do!” He is still speaking this to us today. The great news is that God doesn’t look to us for forgiveness he looks to Christ’s sufficiency. God is satisfied with the work of Jesus but the question is, “Are you?” We have to believe it because there is nothing else. There is nothing more. It is all Jesus. Remember we are hidden in Christ and accepted as children of God’s gracious love in Christ. Therefore, our past sin, guilt, and shame is destroyed by the work of Christ and we can walk boldly before this world as his children. Jesus has saved us from the past.
The Gospel of the Present
In the last section we talked about how God has saved us from the penalty of sin for the purpose of being his beloved children. The reason I mention this is that if we don’t know that we are dearly loved children of God, then there is something wrong in our understanding of the Gospel and there is something wrong in our understanding
in what Christ accomplished on our behalf.
You cannot separate what Jesus did on the cross and the reality of his love for you. If you do, you do not understand the Gospel correctly. Those two reality always exist together and to not feel that is probably a shallow understanding of the gospel, where you have viewed the gospel as a legal transaction. It is not just that in Christ we went from rebel to righteous, but also that we went from children of wrath into children of God. This is a relational good news and not just a legal good news.
If you don’t believe that God came and died for your sins and purchased you as children of God because he loved the creation that went astray, then fundamental fruits of God character will be missing in your relationship with other people because there missing in you or you have suppressed that truth.
There are many that do not feel God’s love who claim to be of him. There are also many we know who are really unlovable. In both cases the gospel of Jesus presents an opportunity for them to know that love and and to be transformed by it.
The gospel changes hearts and emotions from one of not feeling love or being unlovable, to knowing Jesus and his truth concerning his love for them. That reality should form our hearts and should overflow from our hearts to the world around them.
Many times we have a tendency to empathize with peoples feeling, which is not a bad thing if we are showing compassion. However, most times we leave in agreement with them rather seeing it as an opportunity to bring the Gospel. However, we need to realize in those moments that we hold the gospel truth that can set them free from the
oppression, emotions, and beliefs they hold in those times. We who have a correct understanding of the gospel must let the correct understanding of God’s love outflow to those who are around us. We need to allow the good news of Jesus move them from what they believe in those moments and see the reality of God’s love.
Many times in the church we have used damnation and sin to motivate people or even manipulate people towards Christ’s holiness. This just never works because motivation from guilt and shame can only, at best, seek to appease those whom we make feel this way. Furthermore, it usually drives people from a place of transparency to a
place of a lies and that of hiddeness before others and the Lord. When it comes to guilt and shame God doesn’t motivate mankind through our own actions but through the actions of Jesus and his work on the cross who takes on all guilt and shame in order to give life to his children. If we accept his reality as our motivation, then his love motivates us towards a intimate relationship with God. Our actions then become motivated be his love, rather then motivated by a lifestyle of one who seeks a life of never ending appeasement and hiddenness.
This leads to have a new understanding of repentance. Repentance is not I was once doing this certain behavior and
now I am going to stop and turn and do this other behavior. That is behavior modification and not gospel centered repentance. Gospel center repentance is I used to believe “this”about Jesus, like above when a person believed Jesus died for them but didn’t love them, but I realized that his loved for me is what motivated him to take cross for my sins so he could I could love him and be in relationship with him. Therefore, I know my what the truth is about Jesus and began to believe that. Repentance is moving from a false view of Jesus to worshipping the true Jesus as he is. It isn’t a change of behavior, but a change in worship. It will produce in me a behavior, but it is motivated by the love and truth of Jesus. I now see the truth and receive freedom from the oppressive belief I once held and worshipped
from. Therefore, we must understand not the behavioral change that is repentance, but the worship change that is repentance. It changes my belief from a false God I believed in, into the true God as revealed in Christ and that leads to change.
This reveals to us that God is saving us today from the power of sin today for the purpose of bringing him glory and honor in all things in the power of the Spirit. Moreover, brethren, I declare to you the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received and in which you stand, by which also you are being saved, if you hold fast that word which I preached to you—unless you believed in vain. (1 Corinthians 15:1-2, 3-8)
This gospel is something we stand in and stand upon. It not only saved us from our sins but it is saving us from sinning. It is the power by which we are being saved.
V3-8 is Paul announcement of the historical reality of Jesus’ resurrection by which all faith and the power of the cross comes to life by giving us life in him. Resurrection is NOT you go to heaven when you die. Resurrection means you get a new body, and receive a new life after you die. The resurrection is the good news of receiving a new body in a new heaven and earth that you get to live on forever. In the next verses (12- 49) Paul addresses a debate in the Corinthian church concerning the resurrection.
The resurrection he claims is so important that if Jesus did not raise from the dead he emphasizes we would all be lost in our sins still under the wrath of God with no hope for tomorrow. It would mean sin never was defeated and Jesus did not defeat the effects of sin, death.
If Jesus did not beat death and did not raise from the dead then there is no one to make us a new creation and no way to the new heaven and earth. It is really bad news if there is no resurrection because we are not only left to our sin, but if Jesus did not conquer sin then how can we conquer sin? However, if Jesus did defeat satan, if Jesus
did conquer sin and resurrect, and if Jesus did receive his new body defeating death, and if Jesus has risen and taken his rightful place in the new heaven and new earth and is the victor in all these things. It is awesome news.
The power of the overcoming king is that he rose from the dead and because of it we don’t just say thank God I am forgiven we can say thank God I am alive. Because he lives he has given us a helper his Holy Spirit in which we live and dwell and submit to as we walk out the life he has for us. So its not that we just say thank you I am forgiven,but thank you I am alive, as new creation, set free, with power to overcome and I don’t have to live by the addiction of sin. The new reality of the new resurrection has already happened and the spirit gives us a foretaste. It is almost like the movie “Back to the Future”. Doc comes back and tells Morty that his kids are in trouble. The future tell the present what the future is like. In that movie we know it wasn’t a good future, but in Christ he has shown us what the future holds as we abide in him. In Jesus we have that foretaste of that reality and Jesus, by his spirit, has brought that future reality to the present as assurance hope and a new reality to live now.
The resurrection is about the future reality breaking into the current reality. Its about the new breaking into the old. It’s the future kingdom in the present and those who live by that reality acting as sign posts of the future kingdom in the new heaven and new earth.
We, as ambassadors of Christ, carry the weight of the king and the reality of the kingdom now. It is why he would say we will do greater things than he did because we have the ability in him and through him to walk as he walks in the world we live now and bring the future reality now. Those who live by the spirit can announce the King in the room now because as the spirit breaks forth and overflows from him through you he enters the room.
Romans 8: 9-11
You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.
This is the power of the resurrected Christ in you. In fact it is wrong to ask some if they have received Jesus or made a decision for him. Instead, as verse 9 indicates, we are to ask if they have receive the Spirit of Christ who has raised from the dead.
This represents the reality of Old Testament Temple upon where they would shed blood in the temple for sin and then the Spirit of God would enter in the temple once it was cleansed. This is what Paul is referring to here. The reality of one who is cleansed by the work of Jesus on the cross and thereby has received his spirit through faith. If they do not have the spirit and the fruit of that change then we should be concerned.
Here is where we should see the importance of this as we bring it together. In John 20: 22 Jesus breathed on the them and gave them the Holy Spirit. As he sent them he sent them in the same way he came to them by the power of the Spirit. Jesus did not do ministry in his own power but rather in submission to the power of the Holy Spirit.
The same Spirit that fell on Jesus and dwelt him dwells in those who are in Jesus. In fact, Paul tells us that the Spirit testifies that we are sons and daughters of God. This is because we share in the person of the Holy Spirit who manifests in his church or God’s Children. We become one with him through the Spirit of adoption (Romans
8:14). His Spirit makes us cry out that God is our Father (v15). We are not to do the
work of God without the Spirit of God.
Consider the Temptation of Jesus in Luke Chapter 4. The bible tells us that it is the Spirit that led him out into the desert to be tempted by Satan. Now most of when we are asked how Jesus made it through such a temptation would say he did it by the knowing God’s word. However, that is not true at all. In fact, Satan often uses the word, like he tried to with Jesus, to twist our actions and motivations around. No, it was by the Spirit of God that Jesus understood the heart and mind of God because the Spirit searches the deep things of God. It was by the Spirit of God that we overcome temptation not just the word of God. In fact, the word of God without the Spirit of God is just law. The Spirit of God accompanied by the word of God is powerful relationally because we are prompted by the Spirit in who we are by what we learn of God. The inner life God is recreating in us allows us to draw closer to God in wholeness, body,
mind, soul, and to draw us close to others bringing the light of Christ to others.
I remember one time I went to lollapalooza with my friend Tim. Tim liked to have fun but often associated that fun with drinking. Tim was at the concert and began to drink way to much and began acting out of control. Me and some others ended up spending the entire concert baby sitting Tim from himself. While personally Iwasn’t really that happy with the way he acted I chose not to, “speak the truth in love”, like I had done in the past and tell him nicely he was acting like an idiot. So when I saw him after that, I began to pray for him and I just continued to love on him despite
my personal convictions.
One day we had a party at the house and some people from the community had brought alcohol to the party. However, I noticed when Tim came he wasn’t drinking any more. So I took him aside and I asked him what the deal was. Tim began to tell me that he had embarrassed God, himself, and his family and felt like he should stop drinking because he felt convicted and wanted to please God. I was so overwhelmed and smiled as he told me this story. The Spirit of God had convicted him unto righteousness and he did it without my help. I learned a lot that day. That we are to walk in the light of God’s love, that God’s kingdom is still breaking into our world, and Jesus is still getting victory over sin. I am so thankful I am not the Holy Spirit and so grateful for the power of salvation now!
We have to learn to allow the Holy Spirit to do what he does and then point it out later and show people, like Tim, that this is what God does. He brings us to the correct path as we walk out Gods’ truth with Jesus. Just like the passage in Luke 4, we like Jesus need a dependency on the Holy Spirit in our walk.
Jesus’s dependency on the Holy Spirit is what made him anointed. Jesus receives the Holy Spirit at his baptism (Luke 3:21-22), The Spirit, now as Lord over Jesus’s life, lead Jesus to be tempted in the desert (Luke 4:1), The the Spirit leads Jesus all overGalilee teaching (Luke 4:14-15), until the Spirit bring him back home to Nazareth (16). Here Jesus open the scroll to the book of Isaiah and proclaims, “The Spirit of The Lord is upon me, because he anointed me to preach the gospel to…” and has told them that he is the fulfillment of this scripture. This shocks the people in Nazareth, who know Jesus. Verse 22 tells us the people marveled and said, “Isn’t this Joseph’s son?”
Think about what they are saying. For thirty years Jesus lived among them and never seemed different and nobody hardly notices him. Then as the Spirit of God descends on Jesus and he begins to preach they become marveled and ask who is this? Here is what we need to understand. That many times in the church we see Pastors who have great gifting in teaching and we default to their gifting. However, in the process we create an attitude and culture, which is prevalent in the church today that says, “God could never use me.” We have this tendency or attitude sometimes that the Spirit of God can break through in someone else’s life and do great things and anoint them, but few of us believe that he could do that in our own lives and so we have not fully trusted and embraced what God wants to do through you. Remember, its what God will do through you and not in your wisdom and strength, but by His Spirit.
When Pentecost happened in Acts 2 the Spirit of God fell upon the disciples as it had at Jesus’s baptism and the Bible states that the miraculous broke through into their reality and people spoke in languages they never before spoke and those who saw this Pentecostal day heard them proclaiming, “the wonderful works of God”. The ordinary
man, woman, slave, free, boy, girl, man and woman took on the the same position as Jesus being submissive to the Holy Spirit allowing them to proclaim the works of God, not in their own might but by the power of the Spirit. This is evident as Peter, who had just recently denied Christ is prompted and began speaking by the power of the Spirit. He proclaims the truth and reality of Jesus to the surrounding people who witnessed this outpouring.
This is the point of who we are in Christ. We are people who don’t give into temptation because we live by the Spirit.
We are people who are living by the Spirit who has broke through into our present reality proclaiming the truth of the
Gospel to each other and to the world around us. Imagine if we did this everyday if people would see the reality of God and the heart of God in and through his people.
As Spirit led people we need to be aware, like on Pentecost, that the Spirit of God is doing something. We don’t have
to take on the pressure of making something happen, but carry the awareness in God’s Spirit what God is already doing and be ready to step into it as Peter did on Pentecost. Please understand that Jesus’s ministry, Peter’s ministry, and Paul’s ministry wasn’t based on a deep knowledge or a great education but by the power, leading, wisdom,
and discerning of the Holy Spirit. This same Spirit is for all and in all that are called sons and daughters of Christ.
The gospel is good news because its not that you have been saved, it is that you are being saved and the Spirit of God is at work in you right now to change you, to empower you, to send you to do mighty works through you. You did not get a little bit of the Spirit. When God gave you his Spirit he gave you out of his fullness. The question
we have to ask when someone says, “How come we don’t experience the power of God?”, is do you even need it for the life your living. If you want a life that you can control, that you can predict, that you can run that is the life of the flesh and of the the world. If you want a life of the Spirit then that is a life like Abraham, who was simply told to go as God leads him to land you don’t know. In the kingdom of God you don’t know where you are going you just know who is taking you there and you have power by the Spirit of God! If we do not believe this then we have to ask what are we doing.
The idea God will never give you something or ask you to do something you can’t do is a crazy non biblical fallacy. From the outset of the fall God has only asked people to do what they cannot do apart from himself. Noah, Abraham, Joseph, Moses, Joshua, David, Daniel, every single Prophet, and even Jesus was asked to do the impossible,
then handed off the impossible to the disciples and Paul, who made disciples of the impossible. We are a people of the impossible but not a people of our own strength. It is not our might, it is not strength, it is by the Spirit of The Lord.
Have we forgotten the works of God. Whose idea was the ark? Who positioned Joseph? Who defeated Egypt? Who parted the seas? Who crumbled the walls of Jericho? Who slayed the giant? Who stilled the lions? Who defeated sin and Satan? It was and is God! Who is the same yesterday, today, and forever. Who enables us by his Spirit to say, “My God can do all things! That with man it is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”
The Gospel isn’t something that happened, it is something that is happening in you and me right now. God is still saving us and empowering us through the Spirit.
The Gospel of the Future
The Gospel isn’t that God has saved, and is saving us, but that he will save us into the eternal presence of our King, Jesus.
1 Peter 1:3-7
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God's power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith--more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire--may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.
Here Peter is telling us that we will be saved from the presence of sin in the presence of Jesus for our eternal Joy. This is really good news for those who feel persecution, who struggle, and start loose things like friends and possession, those who gave up everything, those who have lost everything, those who have been martyred for the
sake of the Gospel. The Gospel encompasses our past, our present, our future. There will really be a day where there will no more suffering, no more tears, no more pain, no sin, satan, no more brokenness and no more death.
Jim Elliot:
“He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose.”
We often find ourselves living for today and the things of today knowing, at least in theory, that we cannot hold onto or take the things with us that we try to pile up here on earth. It is a testament to our desire to find joy, happiness, and fulfillment outside of the source, which is Jesus Christ. One day outside this troubled world we be free from the perversions we hold dear, the voids we try to fill, the hope we seek out in the world. When we live in the new heaven and the new earth, we will not be sitting around in one big church service singing worship songs. We will be as God intended in a culture that is freeing and innovated in ways we have not yet imagined. We will have relationships with God and each other in realness and fullness as we have never experienced and joy, love, peace, contentment, giving, and kindness will not be ruined but live in fullness before Jesus and we will not be able to do anything but be in awe of
God and shout thanksgivings to The Lord. The momentary trials are nothing compared to the glory that is coming to Gods people, who cannot in any literary terms begin to describe what God has in store. This should be in front of us and others in our proclamation of the Gospel.
Wrapping it Up.
If we don’t understand the gospel in terms of the past, present, future then wewill never proclaim it. Talking about Jesus and proclamation is not a matter of technique or evangelism classes. It is a matter of being in love. I remember when I met my wife every time I was around my friends all I did as talk to about her. It didn’t matter where we were or what we were doing I talked about her because I was in total love. It was so bad my friends would often yell at me to shut up. In the same way if we are in love with Jesus we don’t have to DO a technique in order to speak of him.
We simply understand the gospel and speak that truth in love to each other and to this world. The bible never shows Jesus using or teaching a technique in the spreading of the kingdom. It also never shows Jesus begging his followers to speak of the goodnews. They are compelled by Jesus and his gospel out of love to share and give freely
the Good news of Jesus to the world.
“For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to
everyone who believes...” (Romans 1:16, ESV)
He understood that through all of mans unfaithfulness we have God who is faithful from the time of Abraham to the faithfulness of God in Christ until his return. Just as God attributed righteousness to Abraham because he believed God’s promises, we also should not put our hope in anything we have done, but in him who is faithful.
The gospel is the power of salvation to all who believe. The emphasis is on God’s power to save and to accomplish his work, which he has done in Christ. In this understanding of God’s righteousness being revealed to us in Christ we have to understand that his salvation is not just about our rescue or just about God’s purpose in man it is
both. An easy way to understand and remember this is that to know the three ways he does this.
1. Past – God has saved us from something for something.
2. Present – God is saving us from something for something.
3. Future – God will save us from something for something.
“For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.” (Romans 1:18, ESV)
Our job is not to save people but to convince them they need to be converted. To help them realize there is a problem apart from Jesus and that we are not saved from hell but from God’s wrath. God’s wrath is upon man simply because we exchanged his Glory for things we can control and that we are worshiping things that we think can sustain us in life. Therefore, God’s anger is good for us because he doesn’t want us to go down a destructive path.
“So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father does, that the Son does likewise.” (John 5:19, ESV)
So as God gave us Jesus it is important for us to understand that Jesus did nothing of his own accord. He only did what his father did. Therefore, Jesus as our example, had an on going dependency on his Father to show us how we must live a life of dependency, submission, and worship. He showed us what it was to be in alignment with
the kingdom and he did it perfectly everyday of his life all the way to the cross and beyond. His rule is in complete contrast to that of the Romans or the institutions we have today.
“I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.” (John 15:5, ESV)
In Jesus’ perfect submission to the father we see the example of the above passage. It is only as we are in him in submission and dependency that we find truth and bear fruit. Jesus was the perfect man and therefore, the perfect example. He exemplified the perfect life before God, willingly and willfully submitted, dependent on God, even to the cross, becoming a substitute for wrath warranted by us, and then becoming our sin and death, that we might know the righteousness of God.
The Gospel of the Past
This great exchange was a transfer of the sin of Adam to the Son of God. He took the entire sin of all of mankind and placed on himself in exchange for our sin. He got our sin and we got his righteousness. We get a perfectly a submitted life and he gets our rebellion and the punishment we deserve. The king gave his life for the kingdom and is now glorified before all creation because of what he has done. Therefore, God looks to the earth to find his son, his spirit, and himself moving and his wrath remains on all else. God punishes sin in Christ giving us mercy as he sees his son in us but he does not allow sin to go unpunished. The great news is that Jesus did the work concerning
sin and therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ.
Therefore, we don’t have to do anything in order to get right with God, but place our faith in Jesus as Abraham placed his faith in God. We don’t have to work harder, to cover our shame, to convince God we are serious this time about our sin problem. All we are asked is to do is repent. We don’t have to beat ourselves up we just boast in Christ.
We must understand that our lives our now hidden in Christ and that God loves us. We no longer have to look to our own daddy for our approval, because God has said to Christ, “This is my son in who I am well pleased.” Therefore, everything God spoke to Jesus he has spoken to you who are hidden in him. It is no longer I who live, but it is Christ in me. This is exactly what Paul said to the Galatians.
“I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” (Galatians 2:20, ESV)
Understand that there is no work that can match what Christ has done. So for those who look for God to say to them, “Well done Good and faithful servant” that has already been spoken to you if your life is hidden in Christ.
When it comes to sin, shame is the feeling we have when we replace our worship of Jesus with something else. We should never use the consequences of sin to help get people free from sin. It doesn’t work. Shame and consequences are just simply a reminder that all people are broken and if you live in that place you will never get free.
Take for example the story of Adam and Eve. When they sinned against God, God did not shame them. Instead he asked them questions. “Why are you covered? Why are you hiding? In other words, he was asking them who is informing you who you are? Who is the one you are now looking for? Why are you looking to everything
else to define you instead of me?
What God wants for us in our moments of brokenness is not for us to exalt in our sin, or cover our sin with fig leaves, or wallow in pity, or to beat ourselves up. He wants us to exalt in Christ because Jesus did what was sufficient and there is no need to either beat yourself up or work harder for his mercy. In Christ’s sufficiency, we hear him from the cross say, “Father forgive them they know not what they do!” He is still speaking this to us today. The great news is that God doesn’t look to us for forgiveness he looks to Christ’s sufficiency. God is satisfied with the work of Jesus but the question is, “Are you?” We have to believe it because there is nothing else. There is nothing more. It is all Jesus. Remember we are hidden in Christ and accepted as children of God’s gracious love in Christ. Therefore, our past sin, guilt, and shame is destroyed by the work of Christ and we can walk boldly before this world as his children. Jesus has saved us from the past.
The Gospel of the Present
In the last section we talked about how God has saved us from the penalty of sin for the purpose of being his beloved children. The reason I mention this is that if we don’t know that we are dearly loved children of God, then there is something wrong in our understanding of the Gospel and there is something wrong in our understanding
in what Christ accomplished on our behalf.
You cannot separate what Jesus did on the cross and the reality of his love for you. If you do, you do not understand the Gospel correctly. Those two reality always exist together and to not feel that is probably a shallow understanding of the gospel, where you have viewed the gospel as a legal transaction. It is not just that in Christ we went from rebel to righteous, but also that we went from children of wrath into children of God. This is a relational good news and not just a legal good news.
If you don’t believe that God came and died for your sins and purchased you as children of God because he loved the creation that went astray, then fundamental fruits of God character will be missing in your relationship with other people because there missing in you or you have suppressed that truth.
There are many that do not feel God’s love who claim to be of him. There are also many we know who are really unlovable. In both cases the gospel of Jesus presents an opportunity for them to know that love and and to be transformed by it.
The gospel changes hearts and emotions from one of not feeling love or being unlovable, to knowing Jesus and his truth concerning his love for them. That reality should form our hearts and should overflow from our hearts to the world around them.
Many times we have a tendency to empathize with peoples feeling, which is not a bad thing if we are showing compassion. However, most times we leave in agreement with them rather seeing it as an opportunity to bring the Gospel. However, we need to realize in those moments that we hold the gospel truth that can set them free from the
oppression, emotions, and beliefs they hold in those times. We who have a correct understanding of the gospel must let the correct understanding of God’s love outflow to those who are around us. We need to allow the good news of Jesus move them from what they believe in those moments and see the reality of God’s love.
Many times in the church we have used damnation and sin to motivate people or even manipulate people towards Christ’s holiness. This just never works because motivation from guilt and shame can only, at best, seek to appease those whom we make feel this way. Furthermore, it usually drives people from a place of transparency to a
place of a lies and that of hiddeness before others and the Lord. When it comes to guilt and shame God doesn’t motivate mankind through our own actions but through the actions of Jesus and his work on the cross who takes on all guilt and shame in order to give life to his children. If we accept his reality as our motivation, then his love motivates us towards a intimate relationship with God. Our actions then become motivated be his love, rather then motivated by a lifestyle of one who seeks a life of never ending appeasement and hiddenness.
This leads to have a new understanding of repentance. Repentance is not I was once doing this certain behavior and
now I am going to stop and turn and do this other behavior. That is behavior modification and not gospel centered repentance. Gospel center repentance is I used to believe “this”about Jesus, like above when a person believed Jesus died for them but didn’t love them, but I realized that his loved for me is what motivated him to take cross for my sins so he could I could love him and be in relationship with him. Therefore, I know my what the truth is about Jesus and began to believe that. Repentance is moving from a false view of Jesus to worshipping the true Jesus as he is. It isn’t a change of behavior, but a change in worship. It will produce in me a behavior, but it is motivated by the love and truth of Jesus. I now see the truth and receive freedom from the oppressive belief I once held and worshipped
from. Therefore, we must understand not the behavioral change that is repentance, but the worship change that is repentance. It changes my belief from a false God I believed in, into the true God as revealed in Christ and that leads to change.
This reveals to us that God is saving us today from the power of sin today for the purpose of bringing him glory and honor in all things in the power of the Spirit. Moreover, brethren, I declare to you the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received and in which you stand, by which also you are being saved, if you hold fast that word which I preached to you—unless you believed in vain. (1 Corinthians 15:1-2, 3-8)
This gospel is something we stand in and stand upon. It not only saved us from our sins but it is saving us from sinning. It is the power by which we are being saved.
V3-8 is Paul announcement of the historical reality of Jesus’ resurrection by which all faith and the power of the cross comes to life by giving us life in him. Resurrection is NOT you go to heaven when you die. Resurrection means you get a new body, and receive a new life after you die. The resurrection is the good news of receiving a new body in a new heaven and earth that you get to live on forever. In the next verses (12- 49) Paul addresses a debate in the Corinthian church concerning the resurrection.
The resurrection he claims is so important that if Jesus did not raise from the dead he emphasizes we would all be lost in our sins still under the wrath of God with no hope for tomorrow. It would mean sin never was defeated and Jesus did not defeat the effects of sin, death.
If Jesus did not beat death and did not raise from the dead then there is no one to make us a new creation and no way to the new heaven and earth. It is really bad news if there is no resurrection because we are not only left to our sin, but if Jesus did not conquer sin then how can we conquer sin? However, if Jesus did defeat satan, if Jesus
did conquer sin and resurrect, and if Jesus did receive his new body defeating death, and if Jesus has risen and taken his rightful place in the new heaven and new earth and is the victor in all these things. It is awesome news.
The power of the overcoming king is that he rose from the dead and because of it we don’t just say thank God I am forgiven we can say thank God I am alive. Because he lives he has given us a helper his Holy Spirit in which we live and dwell and submit to as we walk out the life he has for us. So its not that we just say thank you I am forgiven,but thank you I am alive, as new creation, set free, with power to overcome and I don’t have to live by the addiction of sin. The new reality of the new resurrection has already happened and the spirit gives us a foretaste. It is almost like the movie “Back to the Future”. Doc comes back and tells Morty that his kids are in trouble. The future tell the present what the future is like. In that movie we know it wasn’t a good future, but in Christ he has shown us what the future holds as we abide in him. In Jesus we have that foretaste of that reality and Jesus, by his spirit, has brought that future reality to the present as assurance hope and a new reality to live now.
The resurrection is about the future reality breaking into the current reality. Its about the new breaking into the old. It’s the future kingdom in the present and those who live by that reality acting as sign posts of the future kingdom in the new heaven and new earth.
We, as ambassadors of Christ, carry the weight of the king and the reality of the kingdom now. It is why he would say we will do greater things than he did because we have the ability in him and through him to walk as he walks in the world we live now and bring the future reality now. Those who live by the spirit can announce the King in the room now because as the spirit breaks forth and overflows from him through you he enters the room.
Romans 8: 9-11
You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.
This is the power of the resurrected Christ in you. In fact it is wrong to ask some if they have received Jesus or made a decision for him. Instead, as verse 9 indicates, we are to ask if they have receive the Spirit of Christ who has raised from the dead.
This represents the reality of Old Testament Temple upon where they would shed blood in the temple for sin and then the Spirit of God would enter in the temple once it was cleansed. This is what Paul is referring to here. The reality of one who is cleansed by the work of Jesus on the cross and thereby has received his spirit through faith. If they do not have the spirit and the fruit of that change then we should be concerned.
Here is where we should see the importance of this as we bring it together. In John 20: 22 Jesus breathed on the them and gave them the Holy Spirit. As he sent them he sent them in the same way he came to them by the power of the Spirit. Jesus did not do ministry in his own power but rather in submission to the power of the Holy Spirit.
The same Spirit that fell on Jesus and dwelt him dwells in those who are in Jesus. In fact, Paul tells us that the Spirit testifies that we are sons and daughters of God. This is because we share in the person of the Holy Spirit who manifests in his church or God’s Children. We become one with him through the Spirit of adoption (Romans
8:14). His Spirit makes us cry out that God is our Father (v15). We are not to do the
work of God without the Spirit of God.
Consider the Temptation of Jesus in Luke Chapter 4. The bible tells us that it is the Spirit that led him out into the desert to be tempted by Satan. Now most of when we are asked how Jesus made it through such a temptation would say he did it by the knowing God’s word. However, that is not true at all. In fact, Satan often uses the word, like he tried to with Jesus, to twist our actions and motivations around. No, it was by the Spirit of God that Jesus understood the heart and mind of God because the Spirit searches the deep things of God. It was by the Spirit of God that we overcome temptation not just the word of God. In fact, the word of God without the Spirit of God is just law. The Spirit of God accompanied by the word of God is powerful relationally because we are prompted by the Spirit in who we are by what we learn of God. The inner life God is recreating in us allows us to draw closer to God in wholeness, body,
mind, soul, and to draw us close to others bringing the light of Christ to others.
I remember one time I went to lollapalooza with my friend Tim. Tim liked to have fun but often associated that fun with drinking. Tim was at the concert and began to drink way to much and began acting out of control. Me and some others ended up spending the entire concert baby sitting Tim from himself. While personally Iwasn’t really that happy with the way he acted I chose not to, “speak the truth in love”, like I had done in the past and tell him nicely he was acting like an idiot. So when I saw him after that, I began to pray for him and I just continued to love on him despite
my personal convictions.
One day we had a party at the house and some people from the community had brought alcohol to the party. However, I noticed when Tim came he wasn’t drinking any more. So I took him aside and I asked him what the deal was. Tim began to tell me that he had embarrassed God, himself, and his family and felt like he should stop drinking because he felt convicted and wanted to please God. I was so overwhelmed and smiled as he told me this story. The Spirit of God had convicted him unto righteousness and he did it without my help. I learned a lot that day. That we are to walk in the light of God’s love, that God’s kingdom is still breaking into our world, and Jesus is still getting victory over sin. I am so thankful I am not the Holy Spirit and so grateful for the power of salvation now!
We have to learn to allow the Holy Spirit to do what he does and then point it out later and show people, like Tim, that this is what God does. He brings us to the correct path as we walk out Gods’ truth with Jesus. Just like the passage in Luke 4, we like Jesus need a dependency on the Holy Spirit in our walk.
Jesus’s dependency on the Holy Spirit is what made him anointed. Jesus receives the Holy Spirit at his baptism (Luke 3:21-22), The Spirit, now as Lord over Jesus’s life, lead Jesus to be tempted in the desert (Luke 4:1), The the Spirit leads Jesus all overGalilee teaching (Luke 4:14-15), until the Spirit bring him back home to Nazareth (16). Here Jesus open the scroll to the book of Isaiah and proclaims, “The Spirit of The Lord is upon me, because he anointed me to preach the gospel to…” and has told them that he is the fulfillment of this scripture. This shocks the people in Nazareth, who know Jesus. Verse 22 tells us the people marveled and said, “Isn’t this Joseph’s son?”
Think about what they are saying. For thirty years Jesus lived among them and never seemed different and nobody hardly notices him. Then as the Spirit of God descends on Jesus and he begins to preach they become marveled and ask who is this? Here is what we need to understand. That many times in the church we see Pastors who have great gifting in teaching and we default to their gifting. However, in the process we create an attitude and culture, which is prevalent in the church today that says, “God could never use me.” We have this tendency or attitude sometimes that the Spirit of God can break through in someone else’s life and do great things and anoint them, but few of us believe that he could do that in our own lives and so we have not fully trusted and embraced what God wants to do through you. Remember, its what God will do through you and not in your wisdom and strength, but by His Spirit.
When Pentecost happened in Acts 2 the Spirit of God fell upon the disciples as it had at Jesus’s baptism and the Bible states that the miraculous broke through into their reality and people spoke in languages they never before spoke and those who saw this Pentecostal day heard them proclaiming, “the wonderful works of God”. The ordinary
man, woman, slave, free, boy, girl, man and woman took on the the same position as Jesus being submissive to the Holy Spirit allowing them to proclaim the works of God, not in their own might but by the power of the Spirit. This is evident as Peter, who had just recently denied Christ is prompted and began speaking by the power of the Spirit. He proclaims the truth and reality of Jesus to the surrounding people who witnessed this outpouring.
This is the point of who we are in Christ. We are people who don’t give into temptation because we live by the Spirit.
We are people who are living by the Spirit who has broke through into our present reality proclaiming the truth of the
Gospel to each other and to the world around us. Imagine if we did this everyday if people would see the reality of God and the heart of God in and through his people.
As Spirit led people we need to be aware, like on Pentecost, that the Spirit of God is doing something. We don’t have
to take on the pressure of making something happen, but carry the awareness in God’s Spirit what God is already doing and be ready to step into it as Peter did on Pentecost. Please understand that Jesus’s ministry, Peter’s ministry, and Paul’s ministry wasn’t based on a deep knowledge or a great education but by the power, leading, wisdom,
and discerning of the Holy Spirit. This same Spirit is for all and in all that are called sons and daughters of Christ.
The gospel is good news because its not that you have been saved, it is that you are being saved and the Spirit of God is at work in you right now to change you, to empower you, to send you to do mighty works through you. You did not get a little bit of the Spirit. When God gave you his Spirit he gave you out of his fullness. The question
we have to ask when someone says, “How come we don’t experience the power of God?”, is do you even need it for the life your living. If you want a life that you can control, that you can predict, that you can run that is the life of the flesh and of the the world. If you want a life of the Spirit then that is a life like Abraham, who was simply told to go as God leads him to land you don’t know. In the kingdom of God you don’t know where you are going you just know who is taking you there and you have power by the Spirit of God! If we do not believe this then we have to ask what are we doing.
The idea God will never give you something or ask you to do something you can’t do is a crazy non biblical fallacy. From the outset of the fall God has only asked people to do what they cannot do apart from himself. Noah, Abraham, Joseph, Moses, Joshua, David, Daniel, every single Prophet, and even Jesus was asked to do the impossible,
then handed off the impossible to the disciples and Paul, who made disciples of the impossible. We are a people of the impossible but not a people of our own strength. It is not our might, it is not strength, it is by the Spirit of The Lord.
Have we forgotten the works of God. Whose idea was the ark? Who positioned Joseph? Who defeated Egypt? Who parted the seas? Who crumbled the walls of Jericho? Who slayed the giant? Who stilled the lions? Who defeated sin and Satan? It was and is God! Who is the same yesterday, today, and forever. Who enables us by his Spirit to say, “My God can do all things! That with man it is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”
The Gospel isn’t something that happened, it is something that is happening in you and me right now. God is still saving us and empowering us through the Spirit.
The Gospel of the Future
The Gospel isn’t that God has saved, and is saving us, but that he will save us into the eternal presence of our King, Jesus.
1 Peter 1:3-7
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God's power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith--more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire--may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.
Here Peter is telling us that we will be saved from the presence of sin in the presence of Jesus for our eternal Joy. This is really good news for those who feel persecution, who struggle, and start loose things like friends and possession, those who gave up everything, those who have lost everything, those who have been martyred for the
sake of the Gospel. The Gospel encompasses our past, our present, our future. There will really be a day where there will no more suffering, no more tears, no more pain, no sin, satan, no more brokenness and no more death.
Jim Elliot:
“He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose.”
We often find ourselves living for today and the things of today knowing, at least in theory, that we cannot hold onto or take the things with us that we try to pile up here on earth. It is a testament to our desire to find joy, happiness, and fulfillment outside of the source, which is Jesus Christ. One day outside this troubled world we be free from the perversions we hold dear, the voids we try to fill, the hope we seek out in the world. When we live in the new heaven and the new earth, we will not be sitting around in one big church service singing worship songs. We will be as God intended in a culture that is freeing and innovated in ways we have not yet imagined. We will have relationships with God and each other in realness and fullness as we have never experienced and joy, love, peace, contentment, giving, and kindness will not be ruined but live in fullness before Jesus and we will not be able to do anything but be in awe of
God and shout thanksgivings to The Lord. The momentary trials are nothing compared to the glory that is coming to Gods people, who cannot in any literary terms begin to describe what God has in store. This should be in front of us and others in our proclamation of the Gospel.
Wrapping it Up.
If we don’t understand the gospel in terms of the past, present, future then wewill never proclaim it. Talking about Jesus and proclamation is not a matter of technique or evangelism classes. It is a matter of being in love. I remember when I met my wife every time I was around my friends all I did as talk to about her. It didn’t matter where we were or what we were doing I talked about her because I was in total love. It was so bad my friends would often yell at me to shut up. In the same way if we are in love with Jesus we don’t have to DO a technique in order to speak of him.
We simply understand the gospel and speak that truth in love to each other and to this world. The bible never shows Jesus using or teaching a technique in the spreading of the kingdom. It also never shows Jesus begging his followers to speak of the goodnews. They are compelled by Jesus and his gospel out of love to share and give freely
the Good news of Jesus to the world.