American Gospel #2
American Gospel • Sermon • Submitted
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Introduction
Introduction
Overview of tonight’s material
What is Biblical Gospel?
Who is the Hero of the Bible?
Issues with Man-Centered Teaching
Issues with Prosperity Gospel teaching
If someone were to come and ask you what the Bible is all about, how would you answer their question?
Should answer something along the lines that it’s all about Jesus Christ and the Gospel - this is why Paul argues so many times that we have to get the Gospel right and agree in the Gospel!
We MUST preach and teach the Gospel every single time we gather and study the Word together
Old Testament, Christ is predicted. In the Gospels He is revealed. In Acts He is preached. In the Epistles He is explained. In Revelation He is expected.
Jesus is the Center - we are supporting characters, not the main character
YOU’RE NOT DAVID
God is able - get your eyes off of yourself and onto your Perfect Savior!
Christocentric - Christ-Centered hermeneutic or interpretation of Scripture. We have to understand that the Bible is all about Jesus. Jesus conquers our giants (sin/death). He conquers it all with 1 single shot!
Problem with anthropormophic hermeneutic is that we are the hero and center. We aren’t that powerful!
We need a better sacrifice, prophet, king, priest… Hebrews: Jesus IS Greater! October 2022-January 2024
“Only reason that sin has any power in your life… Because you love it.”
9 The heart is more deceitful than anything else, and incurable—who can understand it?
The reason that we sin is because we love it
The solution to sin is that we need a greater love - return to your first love!
Gospel = Faith = Love = Good Works
Everyone needs the Gospel - not simply how-to topics or self-help ideas or motivational speeches. This is why the Gospel is needed in EVERY sermon!
“If your sermon could be preached in a Jewish synagogue, it’s not a Christian sermon.” - Paul preached the Gospel to the Jews but he got kicked out and run out of town at times! See Joel Osteen problems.
God is the hero… not man. We can’t control God like a genie in Aladdin.
Don’t come to church to get something from Jesus… Come for Jesus Himself!
_____________
Health and Wealth contradictions - Benny Hinn, Todd White, Kenneth Copeland, Joyce Meyer, Joel Osteen, Bill Johnson
The face of Christianity in many villages and countries is Prosperity Gospel
Expect health, wealth, and happiness if you’re a follower of Jesus!
Costi Hinn - More than a Healer plug!
God doesn’t give us the desires of our heart because they aren’t good desires!
Don’t worry about the future - Matthew 6 - God is sovereign
1 A king’s heart is like channeled water in the Lord’s hand: He directs it wherever he chooses.
“How do I get on the good side of God’s sovereignty?” - You don’t!
Todd White - Satan is sovereign… not God! - Yikes
The church should be attractive to believers and those who want to study God’s Word… We cannot cater and make things attractive to non-believers simply to entertain them and cover contemporary movies and topics of interest and forsake the teaching and preaching of the Word. This is the seeker-sensitive movement. What it takes to get people to come to your church, it will take to keep them at your church. If they only come for food, you’d better always offer food. If they only come for games, you’d better always have games. If they only come for events, you’d better always have events. I’m all for food, games, and events. But those can’t be the main thing! The main thing must be Jesus. His Word. His Worship. His Church. Our values must be in line with His. We study straight from His Word. We worship Him faithfully. We pray in His name and for His will to be done in our lives. We gather regularly as we seek to honor Him. It cannot be first and foremost about us or our entertainment.
Mark Dever: If we do this then we can downplay hard parts of Scripture or life in general.
3 For the time will come when people will not tolerate sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, will multiply teachers for themselves because they have an itch to hear what they want to hear.
Piper video:
We sell a bunch of crap called Gospel but it’s not the real Gospel… It’s a sham!
That Jesus offers us what we want… Not what God wants for us
Happiness must be found in Jesus, not in the desires of our flesh!
Conclusion about wealth and satisfaction
The things of this world wear off and create an even bigger void
2 “Vanity of vanities,” says the Preacher, “Vanity of vanities! All is vanity.”
Solomon had wealth, love, and knowledge and he said that it was all vain… It didn’t last! It didn’t satisfy. The prosperity Gospel is Satanic because it plays on our pride and fleshly desires. It says that we know better than God does and that our desires are more important than His. This is back to Satan’s lie in the garden that says that eating the apple will make us just like God… It’s our pride. It’s always been our problem.
13 When all has been heard, the conclusion of the matter is this: fear God and keep his commands, because this is for all humanity.
The ultimate gift of the Gospel is not the things that Jesus gives but the Gospel is ultimately about Jesus Himself. Jesus alone is sufficient. Jesus is enough!
23 but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to the Jews and foolishness to the Gentiles.
It’s all about Jesus!
Questions on paper:
1. Why do Christians need to remember what the Gospel is?
2. Why is it so easy to forget the Gospel message?
3. From Genesis to Revelation, who is the Hero of Scripture?
4. Why do we like to think that we are the hero?
We elevate ourselves and often deevelate God - Take David and Goliath… We often think that we’re David and our Goliath is depression or anxiety and we have the power to defeat him if we sling our stone and have enough faith in Jesus… Example of how this isn’t accurate from another pastor.
Recently someone was telling me they never understood why the story of David and Goliath was in the Bible. In other words, they could not understand the true meaning behind it. The person said they finally understood it when they heard a preacher explain that the story is there to help us fight the battles against our own Goliaths of fear, anxiety, anger, etc.
So let me ask you: Was that interpretation based upon a theocentric or anthropocentric hermeneutic? If you said anthropocentric, you are correct. But the reason it is anthropocentric is because the preacher spiritualized the passage rather than getting to the main point of this historical narrative.
So what’s the main point of David and Goliath? It’s about God fulfilling his promise that the Messiah, Jesus, would come through the seed of David.(2 Samuel 7:12-16; Matthew 1:1; Luke 1:32; Acts 13:22-23). And for that very reason God preserved David’s life when he fought Goliath. Humanly speaking, Goliath should have killed David(1 Samuel 17). But divinely speaking, he could not lay a finger on him. The hero isn’t David. David points us to Jesus, the true hero. The whole Bible, including Abraham, Isaac (who was nearly sacrificed on the altar by His father), Joseph (who was betrayed by his own blood but God used the betrayal for good), David, and so many others point us to the King of Scripture… To the true hero… Jesus Christ, who saves His people from their true and ultimate enemy: their sin and the punishment we deserve!
5. What is the problem with the view that we are David in the story of David and Goliath?
a. Jesus conquers our giants… We don’t do this ourselves (see sin/death)
6. Sometimes the Bible describes what we need by showing us what we don’t need.
7. If we love Jesus, we should naturally obey His _______________ and hate our sin
8. As long as you sin, you need the Gospel!
a. As long as I’m pastor at FBC Salem, we will have the Gospel front and center
9. What is 1 danger of “humanizing” God or making God like us?
We quickly forget how holy He is and how sinful we are. We think that He thinks like us.
10. The Word of Faith movement teaches that it is God’s will for Christians to be: Happy, Healthy and ___________ and that we can heal ourselves by having enough _________
11. The face of Christianity in many countries and villages is the Word of Faith
12. What is the problem with assuming that we “deserve” something from God?
We deserve hell and separation from God because of our sin… Saying that we’re good and deserve something good is insane because the best we can come up with are filthy rags to our holy King
13. Why does God not give us the desires of our heart?
His Mercy! We’d be doomed if so - think of Garden of Eden with kicking out Adam and Eve after eating from tree of knowledge of good and evil and kicking them out before they could eat from the tree of life. That would mean an eternity of separation from God… In His mercy, He kicked them out before they could get the desire of their heart
a. Jer. 17:9
14. God wants us to find our happiness in Him!
15. The ultimate end of the Gospel is God Himself… He is the gift and the giver!
16. What must be the center of our message?
Jesus!