American Gospel 2 #2
American Gospel • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
0 ratings
· 1 viewNotes
Transcript
Introduction
Introduction
Last week we began this film together and chapter 1 discussed the Progressive church movement and how many people have “deconstructed” their faith and the thing that they rebuilt looks nothing like historical, Biblical Christianity in many cases. Some of the people from last week said things like: The Bible is wrong about this one… I don’t know what to believe… My experience tells me this, so this must be right… These are statements that many people in our world use in order to justify feelings over Scripture. One of the reasons why this is such a big deal in the Progressive Church is because everyone has their own experience and “truth” and in this worldview, there can be no objective truth or certainty. Sadly, this group is growing in popularity because it lines up with a godless society. Tonight as we tackle chapter 2, we’re going to dive further into this divide between the Progressive Church and Historic Christianity, especially in relation to what we think about God and, most importantly, how we can get to know the God of the Bible.
Video
Notes from Video
God is Holy - God is separated from sin and transcendent
God is Just - God is righteous, fair, and good
God is Sovereign - God is in control and does all that He pleases
God is Wrathful - God intensely hates all sin
Simplicity of God - God is without parts… the being of God is identical to the parts of God
Which of these attributes do you think people wrestle the most with today and why?
All of the above - the reason why is because people make the mistake of thinking that God is just like us… “I wouldn’t do things this way if I weren’t God”
Sin of man wouldn’t be a problem if God were like us!
21 You have done these things, and I kept silent; you thought I was just like you. But I will rebuke you and lay out the case before you.
God is Holy: He is separated from Sin and Sinners!
The more that we read in Scripture of God’s holiness, what do we also become painfully aware of?
Our sinfulness
One of the marks of Christian maturity is to understand our sin and how desperately we need Jesus because God is holy. Progressive Church defines Holiness as “Unity” both between people and God. This is not the Biblical definition of holiness, though. Biblical holiness means that God is “other” than sin - not united to it, but separated from it.
6 The Lord passed in front of him and proclaimed: The Lord—the Lord is a compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger and abounding in faithful love and truth,
7 maintaining faithful love to a thousand generations, forgiving iniquity, rebellion, and sin. But he will not leave the guilty unpunished, bringing the consequences of the fathers’ iniquity on the children and grandchildren to the third and fourth generation.
How can a Holy and Just God forgive sinners and maintain His holiness and Justness?
God is compassionate and forgiving, but He also punishes guilty people (of which we are all guilty!)
How can God justify sinners and avoid being an abomination?
15 He who justifies the wicked and he who condemns the righteous are both alike an abomination to the Lord.
God covers sin and forgives sin by placing our sin upon His Son. Therefore, He maintains His holiness and His justness, while also extending forgiveness to sinners!
In order for God to forgive sinners, His justness must be satisfied.
God is a God who in our minds is always at tension.
Merciful/Loving/Forgiving
Holy/Just
Sovereign / Responsible
Why Does God’s Sovereignty produce wildly different responses in people?
Some believe this makes God evil as He doesn’t always do what we want
Others receive peace due to this doctrine as God has a plan, even in suffering
Rejoice even in suffering as God, even in bad times, brings about good (see the cross)
Problem of Evil
God is all powerful
God is all knowing
God is all good
Therefore, evil should not exist… but it does. Why?
Atheist argues, the reason why evil exists is because God does not exist
Important to remember that our suffering is nothing compared to His because we are sinful and He is holy!
If God were to get rid of all of the evil in the world as many want… He would also have to get rid of us!
Why would some people genuinely have problems with the statement: “The wrath of God was satisfied”?
“The Love of God was Magnified”
Many wrestle with the doctrine of the wrath of God
Hymn writers said “NO” because wrath and love are not in opposition but the wrath of God explains the love of God! The wrath of God demonstrates the Love of God as Hebrews 12 shares with us that fathers discipline their children because they love their sons.
Penal Substitutionary Atonement
Christ’s death was “penal” or He bore a penalty on the cross and He did this as a substitute. Whose penalty did Christ bear on the cross? Ours! Our sin was so serious that it deserved a punishment, death (see Genesis 3) and Jesus substituted Himself in our place on the cross… Think of 2 Cor 5:21
21 He made the one who did not know sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
We see this substitution language here in this great exchange. Jesus got our sin and we receive His righteousness!
He did this willingly in our place! God punished His own Son in our place even though He did no wrong.
23 Though he was delivered up according to God’s determined plan and foreknowledge, you used lawless people to nail him to a cross and kill him.
24 God raised him up, ending the pains of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by death.
Progressives believe that this means that God has to live under justice… This isn’t true though! God IS Just by definition. He cannot do something that violates His nature and He is just by nature. This is what the Bible plainly states!
7 For the Lord is righteous; he loves righteous deeds. The upright will see his face.
Simplicity of God: God is without parts… the being of God is identical to the parts of God
Not 50/50 or 25/25/25/25… Whatever God is, God is 100%
Jesus is fully God and fully man
Whenever God demonstrates His righteousness, He does so lovingly - same thing vice versa
“Instead of being Just with you… God was Merciful” - problems with this statement?
God wasn’t just… He ignored His holiness… He broke the law
You did receive Mercy - but it wasn’t because God stopped being Just… Jesus received what you justly deserved so that you could receive what Jesus deserved that you couldn’t deserve it yourself!
If God broke the law for love… it means that God sinned!
Think of judge who lets a guilty murderer walk away free because the judge is “loving”… this judge demonstrates the opposite of love to the victim’s family. To fail to judge evil is by definition, unloving!
To be unjust is to be unloving
God cannot be a God of love without being a God of justice!
Why is it important for us to study the attributes of God?
To know WHO God is!
Progressive Christians run away from the attributes of God because they don’t want to say “This is Who God is” because (Tony Jones) many believe that God can do anything… and in believing this, we cannot know Who God is.
God cannot ________. This means that we can’t really know WHO God is
God cannot sin because God is holy!
If God could change and if we can’t define Him, we can’t know Him… why should we trust Him?
We can know God and the way that we can know God is through the Word of God - Psalm 1 tells us to meditate on God’s Word day and night - the best way to stand for God and against a godless world is to study Scripture and to worship with God’s people who encourage you to remain faithful to Scripture! This is what the Progressive Church is against - because, after all, it’s all about a relationship and it’s not about religion. It’s all personal, and not corporate. Yes, we must be saved individually, but a silent faith is a useless faith.