Songs
- To God be the glory
- Here I am Lord
- What the Lord has done in me
Conference theme: Embracing the gospel, GRACE.
Session One - Christina Labbe
Intro: WHAT IS THE GOSPEL IN SEVEN WORDS?
Jesus sacrificed to bring life to world.
God made you and has a plan for you.
God is the essence of life.
God is always moving toward us in love.
Love God and neighbours.
People often forget what the gospel is really all about.
Sadly some church folk really get what the gospel really is.
Foundation
What is the gospel?
Why do we need the gospel?
Why do we resist the gospel?
What is an appropriate response to the gospel?
Phil 2 tells us to do all things without grumbling and complaining.....how many times does this happen???
The Israelites grumbled in the wilderness...despite all that God has done for them.
There is something fundamentally bad with our hearts if we grumble.
Eph 2:1-3. Dead in sin following the world. Once we were there. Once we were children of wrath.
Sovereign mercy was needed to intervene in our lives. Jesus life was needed to be breathed into me.
So now what? Do we need to earn our being saved? NO! The gospel says the very opposite. Our salvation is not earned it is gifted. It is human nature to want to follow rules, to have stuff to do to make you okay with God.
It is human nature to earn God's favour.
But Jesus reached down so we don't need to earn God's favour. He stopped the appeasement process.
Our faith rests only in the finished work of God.
Eph 2:8-9. Gift of God, not works.
Two questions
1. How are you tempted to avoid the gospel?
2. How can you preach the Gospel to yourself (or remind yourself of the Gospel).
Dress that Christina is wearing is a Cameroonean dress. Given to her by a Freda. She gave her own dress to Christina. This lady gave her, her very own dress. It was given freely.
The gospel is one way love.
God doesn't need my help, but I need his help. I need to turn to him and have him meet all my needs. He is indeed my only option. I need to be fully aware of that and my awareness needs to show forth in total dependence.
Mark 1:15
Rock of ages verse two.
the Gospel - the heart to the matter
The Three Tenses of Grace
1. Past - justification : deals with sin's penalty
What have you been saved from?
Jesus paid for all my sins in FULL.
Part one. Guilt with debt paid.
Part two. I am now given the clean record of Christ.
Heidelberg catechism 66
Kevin deyoung Heidelberg catechism. The good news we almost forgot.
Not only was my debt paid but Christ's own obedience was given to me.
Sinclair Ferguson. If you find your peace is gone, then you need to look to where you are drinking from.
Do we remember what you have been saved from?
If our thoughts on this are small then our love for others will be small.
How does our lack of trust show itself in our actions?
- procrastination
- Anger
- Selfishness
Passions of the flesh...not just sex...also the other things that we long for.
So just what has God done for me?
Justification traps
- forgetting - we have short memories
- Wallowing in guilt - shows me I am trying to earn grace
- Minimizing - everyone does it
- Blaming - excuses for bad behaviour
- Comparing - so easy to think we are better than someone else
Worship is the only appropriate response to justification.
Sang rock of ages verse one.
2. Present - sanctification: deals with sin's power
How's your connection?
The gospel is not the ABC's of the christian life....it is the A to Z of living the Christian life.
Assume that we will grow
1 Cor 6:9-11
Col 2:19
Urge us to grow
2 Cor 7:1
Heb 12:14
2 Pet 3:18
Involves hard work and complete dependence.
It's a working out of salvation, not a working OF salvation.
It's the healthy connection to the living God.
The vine and branches. John 15:4-5. The branch depends completely on the vine. No vine no fruit off the branch. No vine the branch dies.
So how does your world look?
Do you know the one who truly wants to me you there?
Apply the gospel in your life.
Be creative. Only by soaking in the gospel can you learn how God wants to drive you out of yourself into the world that God has given you to live in. I am declared his child. I can be secure in that.
Sang Rock of Ages verse three.
Small group time
1. What is your natural response to this situation?
2. How does the gospel speak into this?
3. What is a gospel-sanctified response?
It can be difficult to know how God works sometimes, to work things out with each other.
3. Future - glorification: deals with sin's presence
Glorification is the promise that God will return and bring and end to suffering and pain
Col 3:4
What do we hope and dream for?
Seven destinations we head toward
1. Alive, strong, healthy forever.
2. Free from all fears
3. No more sorrow or loss
4. Blessed - radiant happiness and deep joy PS 36
5. Beautiful - imagine if you can actually see the beautiful person God has made me be
6. Truly good - God will make me good
7. You will be like Jesus!
Some day this will be true. This is where the gospel is taking us.
Hab 2:3 the vision awaits its appointed time ...it will surely come.
Sang last verse rock of ages.
What is the gospel?