What Is the Gospel For?

00:00:00.000 | In Romans 8 30 the Apostle Paul gives us what has been called the golden chain of redemption.

00:00:10.160 | God predestines us.

00:00:11.800 | He predestines us in order to call us.

00:00:14.440 | He calls us in order to justify us.

00:00:17.280 | He justifies us in order to glorify us.

00:00:20.880 | It's an amazing chain of grace.

00:00:22.920 | But if we stop here, we behold some amazing works of God in our lives, but we miss the

00:00:27.760 | 35 carat diamond that hanks from this golden chain.

00:00:33.120 | So what's the gospel for?

00:00:36.280 | This is so important.

00:00:37.280 | Today's sermon clip explains and it was sent to us from Brian in Peachtree City, Georgia.

00:00:42.240 | It's from a sermon preached back in 2012.

00:00:45.280 | Here's Pastor John.

00:00:46.280 | Psalm 16 11 in your presence there is fullness of joy.

00:00:51.240 | God at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.

00:00:54.240 | Whom have I in heaven but you?

00:00:55.880 | And on earth there's nothing that I desire besides you.

00:00:58.560 | My flesh, my heart may fail, but you are the strength of my heart and my portion forever.

00:01:06.160 | That's where the gospel is going for the enjoyment of that.

00:01:10.480 | Nothing less and nothing beyond.

00:01:14.040 | The third snapshot first Corinthians 15.

00:01:16.600 | I invite you to turn there in your Bibles.

00:01:18.920 | This may be the clearest definition of the gospel in all the Bible.

00:01:23.160 | It's often gone to by those who want to define the gospel in brief terms because Paul does

00:01:28.880 | it.

00:01:31.000 | I see six elements, five of them explicit in the text, one of them implicit.

00:01:39.360 | So let me read it and then point out these six elements to the gospel.

00:01:44.480 | Now I would remind you brothers of the gospel which I preached to you, which you received

00:01:51.800 | and in which you stand and by which you are being saved.

00:01:56.080 | So note, did I go too fast by that word gospel?

00:01:59.480 | Brothers I remind you the gospel.

00:02:01.720 | So he's about to define the gospel.

00:02:03.440 | The gospel I preached to you, which you received and which you stand and by which you are being

00:02:08.120 | saved.

00:02:09.120 | Yes you are.

00:02:10.120 | It's the power of God unto salvation.

00:02:12.120 | If you hold fast to the word preached to you unless you believed in vain for I delivered

00:02:18.840 | to you, here it comes, as of first importance what I also received that Christ died for

00:02:24.840 | our sins in accordance with the scriptures.

00:02:27.720 | That he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures.

00:02:35.400 | Here are six elements I see in that text of the gospel.

00:02:38.760 | If any one of these six is missing we have no gospel.

00:02:41.840 | Okay, here we go.

00:02:43.120 | Number one, the gospel is a divine plan.

00:02:47.420 | Look at verse three, end of the verse.

00:02:50.680 | Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, which were written hundreds

00:02:57.040 | of years before Christ died, which means God had a plan.

00:03:03.160 | And if he didn't, we have no gospel.

00:03:05.520 | It just was a fluke of history, but it's all written down in the Old Testament hundreds

00:03:09.800 | of years before it happened.

00:03:11.240 | And Paul says that's essential.

00:03:13.240 | Number two, the gospel is not only a plan of God.

00:03:16.920 | It is a historical event.

00:03:20.240 | Christ died, Christ rose again.

00:03:23.120 | If that did not happen historically so you can see it with your physical eyes, we have

00:03:27.720 | no gospel.

00:03:28.720 | There's a lot of modern people who try to demythologize this and just turn it into ideas.

00:03:37.160 | It's not an idea.

00:03:39.000 | He ate fish after the resurrection.

00:03:44.240 | Number three, the gospel is a divine achievement through that event of suffering and resurrection.

00:03:52.440 | And by achievement, I mean things like he died for our sins.

00:03:57.720 | Verse three, again at the end, Christ died for our sins.

00:04:02.160 | There's a design in it.

00:04:03.440 | There's an accomplishment in it.

00:04:04.880 | Something is achieved in this death.

00:04:06.280 | It's not a random death.

00:04:07.800 | God has a design.

00:04:08.840 | He's accomplishing something through the historical event like covering our sins, Colossians

00:04:14.640 | 2.14.

00:04:15.640 | Removing God's wrath, Romans 8.3.

00:04:18.480 | Purchasing eternal life, John 3.16.

00:04:21.800 | These are objective achievements of the objective event which are true whether you come into

00:04:28.840 | existence 2,000 years later or not.

00:04:31.280 | This is what I mean by salvation being extra gnosis.

00:04:34.880 | It's out there.

00:04:35.880 | God did it in history.

00:04:37.120 | It's there.

00:04:38.120 | It's done.

00:04:39.120 | And then I get born 2,000 years later.

00:04:42.400 | And so that has to come in here somewhere.

00:04:45.920 | Number four, the gospel is a free offer of Christ for faith.

00:04:54.440 | Now it works.

00:04:55.800 | The gospel is a free offer to all for faith.

00:05:01.080 | Christ is offered to you for faith alone.

00:05:03.560 | Where do I see that?

00:05:04.800 | Verses one and two.

00:05:05.960 | The gospel I preach to you which you received in which you stand, by which you are being

00:05:12.040 | saved if you hold fast to the word I preach to you unless you believe.

00:05:17.280 | So you got those two words, received and believe, just like in 1 John 1.12.

00:05:22.120 | To as many as received him who believed on his name, that's what it is to receive the

00:05:27.520 | gospel.

00:05:28.520 | You can't work for this.

00:05:29.520 | It is based on Christ alone.

00:05:31.840 | It is external, outside of you, achieved and accomplished 2,000 years ago.

00:05:36.520 | Now you're born.

00:05:37.760 | You hear that news.

00:05:38.760 | What do you do?

00:05:39.760 | I'm going to start working for God so I can impress him how morally worthy I am.

00:05:43.760 | You're not.

00:05:44.760 | And you never get there that way.

00:05:46.480 | You receive it.

00:05:47.480 | You believe it.

00:05:48.480 | You embrace Jesus as your treasure and your Lord and your Savior from all that you need

00:05:55.240 | saving from.

00:05:57.280 | And you are then saved forever.

00:06:01.400 | It's an awesome gospel.

00:06:04.840 | That's number four, a free offer of Christ for faith.

00:06:09.240 | And number five, the gospel is an application of the achievements accomplished in history

00:06:16.720 | to your heart individually when you believe.

00:06:20.640 | So forgiveness of sins purchased once, applied now.

00:06:25.200 | All your sins forgiven when you believe.

00:06:28.080 | Justification.

00:06:30.000 | You weren't justified when Jesus died.

00:06:32.080 | You're justified when you believe, when it becomes yours.

00:06:35.640 | Then the purchase of the justification and the performance of the righteousness 2,000

00:06:39.440 | years ago is applied.

00:06:40.440 | That's why I'm using the word application.

00:06:43.040 | It's applied to you or eternal life.

00:06:45.920 | You didn't have eternal life when Jesus died.

00:06:48.280 | You have eternal life when you believe.

00:06:51.000 | And then what he bought out there, what he wrought out there becomes yours through the

00:06:55.160 | connection with Jesus through faith.

00:06:58.560 | So the gospel is the application to believers of all that he purchased and achieved 2,000

00:07:06.120 | years ago.

00:07:07.120 | And now finally, number six, the gospel is the enjoyment of fellowship with God himself.

00:07:12.440 | Now if you say, "Where do you see that?"

00:07:13.840 | Well, I see it outside this text, but where I see it inside this text is in the word gospel.

00:07:19.880 | Gospel means good news, right?

00:07:21.800 | So you have to ask what's good about the good news.

00:07:25.400 | And if you stop after sins are forgiven and vindicated in the court and can go free and

00:07:36.080 | life forever, if you stop there, you haven't even mentioned God.

00:07:43.960 | That's serious.

00:07:46.780 | You know why you're forgiven?

00:07:49.800 | So that your guilt won't get in the way of enjoying God.

00:07:52.800 | You know why you're vindicated in the court of heaven?

00:07:55.180 | So that your condemnation won't get in the way of enjoying God.

00:07:57.920 | You know why you have new life and a promised new body someday?

00:08:00.760 | So that you have capacities within to finally enjoy God the way he ought to be enjoyed.

00:08:05.160 | It's all a means to number six.

00:08:08.160 | And if you want to know where I see it explicitly in the Bible, the clearest text would be 1

00:08:14.560 | Peter 3.18.

00:08:15.560 | I'll read it to you.

00:08:17.560 | Christ suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us

00:08:24.520 | to God.

00:08:26.480 | So I would say Romans 5.11 and 1 Peter 3.18 are the clearest statements in the New Testament

00:08:33.760 | concerning God being the prize of the price of the gospel.

00:08:40.520 | And that's a great clip from Brian in Peachtree City, Georgia.

00:08:43.600 | This was taken from John Piper's 2012 sermon titled God in Christ, the price and the prize

00:08:49.040 | of the gospel.

00:08:50.800 | Brian says in his email this quote, when I first heard Pastor John say, if you stop there,

00:08:55.240 | you haven't even mentioned God.

00:08:57.760 | It hit me like a ton of bricks.

00:08:59.720 | Right then God in his grace changed my entire gospel paradigm.

00:09:04.040 | I had never heard the idea of God being the highest good of the good news.

00:09:08.000 | And I certainly never rejoiced in that truth.

00:09:10.080 | I had always thought the highest good of the gospel was the forgiveness of my sins, the

00:09:13.600 | escape from hell and a nebulous gift called heaven.

00:09:17.600 | I was only aware of a salvation from something, not a salvation to someone.

00:09:24.160 | For so many years, Jesus was a means to an end.

00:09:26.680 | But in that sermon, Pastor John, you helped me see that Jesus is both the means and the

00:09:31.280 | end, the all glorious, all satisfying end.

00:09:35.400 | And I cannot thank you enough.

00:09:38.160 | Amen.

00:09:39.160 | Thank you, Brian.

00:09:41.880 | That's what we'd love to get in the inbox.

00:09:43.680 | Keep the life change clips coming.

00:09:45.520 | Send us the clips and then tell us what impacted the clip have on your life.

00:09:49.640 | Well, Friday, we return to hear from a med student preparing for a life in oncology to

00:09:55.400 | serve the dying.

00:09:56.720 | She wants to maximize her labors for eternal purposes.

00:09:59.680 | Pastor John is back in the studio to address that on Friday.

00:10:02.200 | I'm your host, Tony Reinke.

00:10:03.200 | We'll see you then.

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What Is the Gospel For?

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