The Gospel

I was preparing for a sermon I'm giving tomorrow for the International Medical Team chapel service when I ran across this summation of the gospel I did for a member of our church. Any issues? I need to give it another good look, but here it is:

There is one God, and he existed before existence. He created heaven and earth and everything in it that is good. He created us, man and woman, in his likeness to worship him. He did not create you for a good job, to make money, or be healthy. He designed you to worship. The question is not, “Do I worship?” but rather, “What do I worship?” In designing us to worship and also crafting us in His image, our purpose is to worship the Creator.

However, we chose not to worship him, but to worship things he created. Everything from ourselves to trees to romance to violence. This is rebellion. We knew what we were designed to do, and we do not do it. The Bible calls it sin. You love yourself more than God and you look to you more than to the One who made you. This separates us from this Holy God. Sin is ultimately destructive and leads to death, and since heaven and God are full of life and perfection, we cannot enter and live with God in harmony.

So God sent his Son Jesus Christ, who was fully God and fully man. He was born from a virgin, Mary. He lived a 33 yearlong perfect life, even though he was tempted in every way. He was accused of our accusation. They said he claimed to be God. That’s what we’ve been doing all along, but when he claimed to be God, we killed him to God's ultimate plan.

He was killed. He died by crucifixion on a cross. When he died he substituted in our place. The wrath of God we were supposed to experience because of our sin was thrown on Christ. On his shoulders were all the sins of the world for those who called on him. That’s my idolatry. Your lust. Her anger. Our pride. Past, present, and future. He paid the debt you were supposed to pay a perfect and Holy God.

Christ’s dead body, his carcass, was laid in a tomb for three days. On a Sunday, Jesus was raised from the grave and claimed victory over Satan, sin, demons, and hell. He walked with those who were witnesses to this for forty days and then, before he left, he commissioned all of them through the Holy Spirit to tell everyone what I just told you. That there is a big God who can do mighty things, but the same God that passionately and relentlessly pursues those who are wicked, who sin, and who fall away from Him. Why? Because it is what will give him the most glory and us the most joy.

And now Jesus is still alive. He did not die again. He rules and reigns over every nation and authority there was is and will be. And one day, when the Father commands, he will return to judge those who ignored the greatest message on the planet: that you can be rescued from death.

I just have to add this little fact along with this: One thing C.S. Lewis and D. Martin Lloyd Jones and others always wrote about what the genre of "the gospel." Duh, it means "good news." So therefore, its genre is "news." The above isn't instruction, song, or fiction. It is news. And within news there is history, narrative, and so forth. So it is important to know that in communicating such "news" it will be proclaimed. News is always proclaimed. Instruction is demonstrated, song is performed, and so on. But news is always proclaimed. Just look at the newspaper. The last headline I saw was this weekend in the Oregonian, "Phelps does it!" There's proclamation. It's telling you the news. Christians tell you the good news because it's news. It's not conversation or instruction, if it were, it would be communicated differently, but it's not. So if "the gospel" sounds a little strong, it is because it is designed that way. This is Good News.