No Other: Gospel
Notes
Transcript
Introduction (SSPIT)
Introduction (SSPIT)
SCRIPTURE: I am astonished that you are so quickly DESERTING him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel — not that there is ANOTHER one, but that there are some who trouble you and want to DISTORT the gospel of Christ…For am I now SEEKING the APPROVAL of man, or of God? Or am I trying to PLEASE man? If I were still trying to please man, I WOULD NOT be a servant of Christ.
“I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel — not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed. As we have said before, so now I say again: If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed. For am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ.”
STORY: Water, Vinegar, Reign, Sprite, carbonated water. Have different people come up to try each of these five. Which one is actually water? How do you know? Because you have tasted and seen water and you know what it should taste like. If you continue to drink vinegar all of the time for the rest of your life you won’t survive long. If you drink sprite for the rest of your life and nothing else you will eventually die of diabetes. If you drank reign every single day and that’s all you drank your heart would eventually explode. Water is the only thing that you are supposed to drink and it continually be good for your body. JUST LIKE THAT spiritually we cannot allow ourselves to intake another gospel. That’s like taking in POISON and Paul makes it very clear that when we believe another gospel we are believing on something that does NOT have the POWER to SAVE!
PROPOSITION: Saved by grace ALONE, through faith ALONE, in Christ ALONE, to the glory of God ALONE is the ONLY gospel. Anything else is false and does NOT have the power to save us from our SINS.
INTER: Pastor Cody why is there only one gospel? how can I be sure that this is the only way? What if this makes my friends feel weird that the gospel of Jesus is the only way to heaven?
TRANSITION:
POINT 1: The gospel of Jesus Christ is EXCLUSIVE.
Jesus dying on the cross for our sins is God’s plan A.
God is perfect and His plans do not fail. If God were to ever mess up He would cease to be God. So that means that God’s plan to display His character to us as His creation was to send His only Son to live the life we couldn’t live, die the death we should have died, to give us salvation that we couldn’t obtain on our own. (Video game with my brother)
The gospel of Jesus Christ is simple: you have been saved by GRACE ALONE, through FAITH ALONE, in CHRIST ALONE, according to SCRIPTURE ALONE, for the glory of GOD ALONE. This is the confession that you hold tight to when you believe on the name of Jesus.
The good news of Jesus is the ONLY thing that can save your soul. (John 14:6 “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” Acts 4:12 “And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.” John 3:36 “Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.” Acts 10:43 “To him all the prophets bear witness that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name.” 1 Timothy 2:5 “For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Jesus Christ.” John 17:3 “And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.”)
Paul came right at the heart of something very troubling to him. The good news that Jesus died on the cross was not just AN OPTION it was THE ONLY OPTION. The gospel isn’t just a message that, if believed, leads to salvation; it is a guiding reality that guides your life. (distorted traffic signs)
POINT 2: When you turn to other things rather than Jesus, you’re ABANDONING a loving God.
What if I asked you on a scale of 1-10 how sure are you that you would be going to heaven what would you say? (Call on students to get their answer) Isn’t it arrogant to say 10/10? Isn’t that a bit too sure? I mean how can you really know for sure? The beautiful thing about the good news of Jesus is that it is very CLEAR and very SIMPLE. God tells us that this is the only plan of salvation. That means that when you believe on the name of Jesus and the finished work on the cross and His resurrection from the dead you can rest ASSURED that you have eternal life. 10/10 every single time. You don’t have to guess! You don’t have to wonder! Salvation in Christ alone brings ASSURANCE not CONFUSION.
Well, what if I think I’ve got about a 7/10 shot of getting into heaven…what is wrong with that? Well I’ll tell you. If you don’t have full assurance that Christ has saved you and there is something that you add to your salvation to make it a 10/10…you’re not really a Christian. If you believe that you’re drinking water but you’re really drinking vinegar, or sprite, or reign, or carbonated water then you’re not really drinking water. And sooner or later it’s going to catch up with you. That’s what Paul is saying here in this passage. If you think there is something you’ve got to do outside of what Romans 10:9-10 says “ because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved.” If you think there is something that saves you outside of that then you are right here where these people Paul was writing to were at 2000 years ago. You’re in the same spot. You have believed in Jesus + BLANK = Salvation and that’s not the good news of Jesus. The whole reason Jesus came to earth was because we had proven time and time again that we COULDN’T do it on our own.
now all of that is clear, but that is really different than what our culture is pressing which is individual subjective truth, not objective truth. SO the truth of the gospel flies in the face of the lies that Satan is parading in our culture right now. So what does Paul say about this?
POINT 3: Seek the approval of GOD, not the approval of MAN.
Paul makes it very clear: if you are consumed with trying to please man, you will compromise in your faith to God.
This goes hand in hand with Romans 1:16 “For I am unashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, ‘The righteous shall live by faith.’” Your faith in Christ is MORE IMPORTANT than anything else in this life. Matthew 10:28 “And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.” Mark 8:36 says “For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul?”
The clear principle here is this: Christ is above all other things. If we have Christ what can stand against us? Obedience to God> everything else. Philippians 3:8 “Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of KNOWING CHRIST Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ.” Matthew 16:24 “Then Jesus told his disciples, ‘If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.’”
Obedience to God doesn’t always bring a desired outcome in the moment.
This is a huge pressure and I think there is something really important for us to learn here. There will be many moments that being obedient to God doesn’t bring a mountaintop experience. Sometimes it brings difficulty. Sometimes it brings a series of events that aren’t exactly “awesome”. However, obedience to God is STILL the right thing to do in EVERY moment. What if Goliath had cut David in half after he flung stones at him…was it still the right thing to do? What if Shadrach, meshach, and abednego would have been consumed in the fire…would their resilience against idol worship still have been the right thing to do? There are many people who did the right thing and still died. Dietrich Bonhoeffer did. He was one of the first to stand up against the Nazi regime, he smuggled jews out of Germany, and he even plotted to kill Hitler. Guess what happened to him. He was arrested, sent to a German Nazi concentration camp, and he was hung there with others less than a month before WW2 ended.
APPLICATION:
Sticking to the truth of the gospel MATTERS.
Obedience to God > Everything else
We are saved BY the gospel, we live FOR the gospel, and we share ABOUT the gospel to everyone around us. That’s our mission. That’s our purpose. That’s our calling.