Gospel or Nothing Part 5: True Joy

Introduction: This series of posts is from a sermon series I preached last year that I continually find effective in my life and faith. It is a five part series about the Gospel. In life, we’re given a choice: we can have all that God offers through Christ in the Gospel, or we can try to find all of that in the world and end up with nothing. The choice facing everyone of us is this: Gospel or Nothing. I used five sermons to describe the Gospel and then point out four major, significant, life-changing ways the Gospel offers everything and the world offers nothing, four things we’re all searching for in life: hope, love, purpose, and joy. So let’s finish this journey together with the Gospel and joy.

For the first part of this series, click here.
For the second part of this series, click here.
For the third part of this series, click here.
For the fourth part of this series, click here.

Read Jeremiah 2:9-13.

Need: Where I come from is a densely populated county. It’s about half the geographical size of Lawrence County (where I live now), but about five times the population. So when I was out and I would see someone I know, it was really exciting. Wave, honk, chat. I didn’t realize when I got to the Mohawk area, this would happen all the time. So when I was out and I would see someone I know, I got really excited. Wave, honk, chat. But now that I realize how often this happens, I’ve learned the simple wave. Most of the time, I don't even need to take my hand off the steering wheel to wave. Just lift a few fingers in the air.

I’m afraid that’s what has happened with Christ and the Gospel. At first, we are really excited and we find all our joy in the fact that God has sent His Son to earth to save us from our sin. And maybe each Christmas, we try to resurrect that excitement. But by the Sunday after Christmas, we’ve relegated the Gospel back to the simple wave.

But our hunger for happiness is not the problem. We all are engaged in a pursuit of pleasure, a search for satisfaction, a neverending journey for joy. Everyone wants to be happy. It influences everything we do: what job we take, whom we marry, where we live. We all want happiness. We may seek it in different ways and in different things, but we do seek it, and we do whatever we can to have it.

There is a school of thought that more people are a part of than they know. It is called Hedonism, and it is the belief that all of life is simply a pursuit of pleasure. Do you believe that? If not, then why do you live like it? Why does everyone around you live like it? Think of all of your decisions over the last week. Was anything not motivated by your own search for joy? It could be sensual pleasure. It could be immediate satisfaction. It could have been long-term happiness. It could have been future joy. But everything you did this past week was part of your pursuit of happiness.

It sounds condemning, I’m sure. And you may be a bit defensive right now, but hear me out.

What if our hunger for joy is not a result of the fall but given by God? What if this gaping hole inside each one of us that makes us long for joy is not because we are sinners but because we are made in God’s image?

CS Lewis, in a sermon that changed my view of the world, said this, “If there lurks in most modern minds the notion that to desire our own good and earnestly to hope for the enjoyment of it is a bad thing, I submit that this notion has crept in from Kant and the Stoics and is no part of the Christian faith. Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires, not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”

I love this quote because in many ways it is the story of my life. I grew up in a very conservative Christian home. I learned from my parents and from my church at a young age that there is a great, powerful and wise God. He made us, He defines what our lives are for, and one day He will judge the world. And the issue will be: did we honor Him? Did we thank Him?

For many years in my Christian life, I misunderstood the Gospel. I thought the life of a Christian on earth is all about denying myself, rejecting all happiness, saying no to all the bad stuff. It was negative. Because I believed we have to choose, my happiness or God’s glory? In my mind, it was one or the other. This sucked the joy out of my Christianity and out of my life for many years.

And then I made one of the greatest discoveries of my life. My desire to be happy and God’s desire to be glorified were not at odds. I found in the Bible and in Christian writings that they were in fact one thing. The Westminster Catechism, one of the standards of our faith asks as its first question: What is the chief end of man? Many of you know the answer: Man’s chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever. But notice that it does not say “Man’s chief ends (plural),” but “Man’s chief end (singular) is to glorify God and enjoy Him.” They are one in the same goal. They are intertwined towards the same purpose.

When you enjoy somebody a lot, you show everyone how important they are. When I show how much I enjoy knowing and loving my wife, she is elevated and honored through my joy! If I declare from this blog that I enjoy being married to Heather, that loving her brings me so much joy, no one is reading this thinking, “Man, this guy. What a selfish jerk.” No, you’re thinking, “Wow, this Heather must be awesome!” (She is.)

It is the same way with God. We get the joy, God gets the glory. If I stop enjoying God, I stop glorifying God. This was almost too good to be true. I learned one of the most important things in the world. John Piper phrases it this way: God is most glorified in me when I am most satisfied in Him.

This is Christian Hedonism. This is the Biblical truth that our joy and God’s glory are not mutually exclusive but are one in the same. It’s knowing that our desire for joy is given by God to glorify God. Our desire for joy is the greatest pursuit we can make in this world. Because God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him.

This depends on the fact that our greatest joy is God. He created us, He designed us, He loves us, and He saved us. There is no greater joy to be found in this world than in our Maker and Redeemer. And it depends on the fact that God's greatest glory is our joy. When we find our complete satisfaction in God, we are declaring to the world that God is great and awesome. His glory is declared when our joy is shared.

So the question we must ask this morning is this:

Question: What joy does the Gospel offer?

Does the Gospel offer joy? And if so, what joy? How? How can we get this joy?

It is my prayer as you read this, you will know this:

Truth: Only the Gospel offers true joy (read that again).

Text: To see this, let us look to our passage from Jeremiah 2. Particularly, let’s look at verse 13. Let me quote it again. This is the Lord speaking to the people of Israel through His prophet, Jeremiah: “My people have committed two sins: They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water.”

In this passage, God is bringing a charge against his covenant people. He says they have done two evils. They have indeed committed many other sins, but it all boils down to these two sins. First, they have rejected God, the spring of living water. He has time and again offered Himself to Israel as their joy and satisfaction, as their all in all. And they have time and again rejected Him. Second, they have dug their own cisterns, which have broken and cannot hold water.

A cistern in the Old Testament was basically a hole in the ground that is lined with some sort of waterproofing material so that it can hold water. This cistern would collect rainwater which they would use for drinking or washing. A cistern is not a well. A well taps into underground water sources; a cistern collects above ground water sources.

So God is saying to the Israelites, "Instead of finding your satisfaction in me, a spring of living water, you have tried to find your satisfaction in all sorts of other things, which cannot satisfy. You have dug broken cisterns, which cannot hold water, and looked for satisfaction there."

Do we not do the same? One reason this post was so difficult for me to write is because I am guilty of these two sins so often. We are thirsting for happiness and we search and search. God is ever present, offering us overflowing satisfaction. But instead we turn to lesser things to try to find joy. They might even be good things, like family, love, education, health, materials, comfort, security. But they are cisterns that cannot offer us joy. They might be good things and it’s okay to have them in life. God says to celebrate them. But it is evil when we turn to these things for our joy instead of God.

Let us consider four contrasts between the spring of living water and broken cisterns:

1. There is one all sufficient spring but many insufficient cisterns.

Notice it is one spring (singular) but multiple broken cisterns (plural). God is everything. In one God we find all of our joy. Or we will run around to so many broken cisterns to try to find that joy. Think about the craziness of life. It often feels like we have to juggle so many things just to make sure we are happy. We must make sure we have enough money, enough clothes, enough comfort, enough friends, enough reputation, enough health, enough sympathy, enough pain, enough tradition, enough amusement, enough pleasure, and on and on, just so we can find happiness in this world. There are so many cisterns out there! But none of them hold water.

Turn to Christ, the all sufficient, all in one spring of living water. He alone is enough. When we realize that, we realize we can enjoy other things, but we don’t have to depend on them for our joy. Our cup is already overflowing with Christ!

2. The spring is free but the cisterns have to be dug out.

Let’s be honest: finding happiness in this world is not easy. If we are looking for joy without God, there is hard work to be done. We must dig and build and dig and build. Constantly laboring to find happiness. Cisterns must be dug out, but the fountain is free. Isaiah 55:1 says, “Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost.” The Gospel offers this joy: no work remains to be able to enjoy the spring of living water. Christ completed every last bit.

3. The spring is full but the cisterns are ruptured and leaking.

The spring never runs out of water. It continues to overflow and drown its partakers. But we continually return to our cisterns to quench our thirst. They are ruptured, broken, leaking. If you relied on a cistern for your drinking water, you would have two problems if it broke. The first problem is that the water would leak out. You would continually find yourself without enough water. You might have water for a short time, but it would always be fleeting.

The same is true when we try to drink from the broken cisterns of happiness that the world offers. They can only provide short term satisfaction for thirst. This is not a secret; everyone knows that is all this world can offer. That adds to the problem of a leaking cistern. Since we know the temporary happiness this world offers will quickly run out, even that short happiness is cut shorter as we grow anxious about it running dry. Leaking cisterns can only offer temporary joy tainted with anxiety. So we should run to the spring of God's joy where it is always full and overflowing.

4. The spring is pure but the cisterns are stagnant and poisonous.

The second problem with a broken cistern is that dirt, rodents, and disease would leak in. The water that doesn't leak out of a broken cistern would quickly become contaminated. This means the water would not only not be a benefit to the drinker, but it would also be a serious danger to the drinker.

When we look to the world to satisfy our thirst for joy, we only find sources that come with danger and trial and immorality. Many of the joys of this world that God created for our benefit can even be turned into a detriment to our lives if we try to make them our source of joy. But if we drink of the spring of the Gospel, the water is always pure, always flowing, always satisfying.

By looking at those four distinctions between the spring and the broken cisterns, hopefully now you can see why God would say, “Be appalled at this,” and “shudder with great horror.”

The Gospel calls out to us, to come and drink of Christ. Listen to Jesus' words echoing this call in John 4:14: “but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life."

Jonathan Edwards in his first sermon ever preached, says this about Christian Happiness: "The godly man is happy in whatever circumstances he is placed because of the spiritual privileges and advantages, joys and satisfactions, he actually enjoys while in this life. How great a happiness must needs [it] be to a man to have all his sins pardoned and to stand guilty of nothing in God's presence: to be washed clean from all his pollutions; to have the great and eternal and almighty Jehovah, who rules and governs the whole universe, and doth whatsoever he pleases in the armies of heaven and amongst the inhabitants of the earth, reconciled to him and perfectly at peace with him. How great a pleasure and satisfaction must it be to him to think of it, and not only that God is reconciled to him or has nothing against [him], inasmuch as all is pardoned; but also that this same almighty being who created him, who keeps him in being and who disposes of him and all other things every moment, loves him, and that with a great and transcendent love; and that He has adopted him and taken him to be His child, and given Himself to him to be his father and his portion, and that takes care of him as one that is very dear to Him, continually guides and directs him, and will lead him to the fountain of living waters. And how joyful and gladsome must the thoughts of Jesus Christ be to him, to think with how great a love Christ has loved him, even to lay down His life and suffer the most bitter torments for his sake, Who also now continually intercedes for him at the throne of grace; to consider that so great a person as the eternal Son of God, who also made the worlds, is his lord and master, and is not ashamed to call us brethren, Who will come in and sup with him, and He with him, and to see His arms expanded to embrace him and offering Himself to be embraced by him.”

Conclusion: The Gospel offers us true joy. Let us stop relying on broken cisterns.

"Now none but Christ can satisfy,
None other name for me;
There’s love and life and lasting joy,
Lord Jesus, found in Thee.

I tried the broken cisterns, Lord,
But, ah, the waters failed!
E’en as I stooped to drink they fled,
And mocked me as I wailed.

Let us make the choice to find our joy in Christ. Our desires are not too strong, but too weak! Let us like Jonathan Edwards, fiercely resolve to find all the joy we can in God: “Resolved, To endeavour to obtain for myself as much happiness in the other world as I possibly can, with all the power, might, vigour, and vehemence, yea violence, I am capable of, or can bring myself to exert, in any way that can be thought of.”

We have seen over the last five posts what the Gospel offers to us compared to the world. We have looked at the hope, purpose, love, and joy that comes through Christ in the Gospel. This is your daily call to respond to that. Preach the Gospel to yourself everyday so that in it you can continually find these blessings for your life. In life, we’re given a choice: we can have all that God offers through Christ in the Gospel, or we can try to find all of that in the world and end up with nothing. The choice facing everyone of us is this: Gospel or Nothing. What will you choose?

Gospel or Nothing Part 4: Never-ending Love

Introduction: This series of posts is from a sermon series I preached last year that I continually find effective in my life and faith. It is a five part series about the Gospel. In life, we’re given a choice: we can have all that God offers through Christ in the Gospel, or we can try to find all of that in the world and end up with nothing. The choice facing everyone of us is this: Gospel or Nothing. I used five sermons to describe the Gospel and then point out four major, significant, life-changing ways the Gospel offers everything and the world offers nothing, four things we’re all searching for in life: hope, love, purpose, and joy. So let’s continue this journey together with the Gospel and love.

For the first part of this series, click here.
For the second part of this series, click here.
For the third part of this series, click here.

Read I Corinthians 13.

Need: In my amateur sermon preparation process, I try to begin every sermon with a section called “Need.” You might not notice it, but it’s always there. In this section, I try to convince you that the question we are pondering in the sermon is worth pondering. I attempt to show you how the truth of God’s Word offers the solution to life’s greatest needs.

I think in many ways, this section isn’t even necessary on a sermon titled “Never-ending Love.” I think if everyone is honest with themselves, they know they need love.

In 1967, the Beatles were asked to come up with a song that would be part of the first global television broadcast. They asked the question, "What would anyone relate to around the world?" Almost 50 years ago, John Lennon sang those words to over 400 million people around the world. “All you need is love.” Today, I think we can still affirm the same. All we need is love, and we certainly need it.

Yet, at the same time, we are not ready to admit it to others. This is because it is one of our deepest, scariest, and sometimes most devastating needs. And so, on the one hand, I don’t need to convince you that you need love. But on the other hand, I want to show you the danger of not admitting that need or trying to fill it with the wrong love.

Consider the young child who constantly misbehaves at school, throwing temper tantrums, hitting other children, outbursts in class, because he is searching for the love and attention he doesn’t get from his parents.

Consider the teenage girl who dresses indecently and is prepared to cross all sorts of physical boundaries just so she can feel loved by a boy.

Consider the young man who uses alcohol and drugs and filthy language to fit in with the right crowd and be loved by them.

Consider the parent that lets their children walk all over them, relaxes the rules, and encourages all the wrong priorities so that their child will love them.

Consider the woman that maintains lie after lie with her friends, and spends money extravagantly to maintain an appearance that will ensure she is loved by other ladies.

Consider the man that never really received love from his father and now searches for love from his father and others by becoming a workaholic and buying his way out of apologies to his wife and children.

Consider even the Christian, who goes through self-condemnation and legalistic anxiety and worry that if they are not good enough, God will not love them.

When you think about it, there’s not much we do in life that doesn’t involve a search for love.

So the question before us is this:

Question: How does the Gospel satisfy our craving for love?

What God is telling us in I Corinthians 13 is the Gospel can and will satisfy our need for love. So let’s look into it together. Let us put our minds to work in loving God by examining this text. It is my prayer as you leave here today that you will know this:

Truth: The Gospel means God's love can satisfy us in a unique and complete way (read that again).

Text: A cow has four stomachs, and as it eats, it chews its food just enough to swallow. The food then travels to the first two stomachs where it is partially digested. After a while, it regurgitates the food to chew it some more until it can swallow it to the third and fourth stomachs.

As I was studying this passage, I came across a phrase that made me feel a lot like a cow. “Have not love,” in verses 1-3. I thought I had studied it enough to put it aside, but then (*regurgitate*). Again and again. I couldn’t get away from this phrase. Here’s why…

In the English or the Greek, it can mean multiple things. See, I can say about my wife, “I have love,” and that could mean I have love for her or I have love from her. In the context of this passage, Paul could mean a couple things. He could be saying, "If you have all these gifts, but you don’t have the love of God for you, then you are nothing." Or he could be saying, "If you have all these gifts, but you don’t have love for others, you are nothing." So which is it? Think about it.

I would like to make the case that it is in fact both. Here’s why. Paul could have said, “But do not love,” or “but are not love,” or even, “but are not loved.” But instead he said, “but have not love.” Love is a noun. It is the piece that is missing from the life of the gifted in this passage.

True love is an unbroken line from God, through the Christian, to the world. Once we see that, we can see how “have not love” can mean both of these.

1. First, Paul is saying that you can have all these spiritual gifts, but if you don’t exercise them with love to the world, then you are nothing. Love is unbroken line through the Christian. Look at verse 12. We only see love as a reflection in a mirror. It is like light in a mirror. The mirror is not giving off light. The light is giving off light and it is reflecting from the mirror. In the same way, we as Christians are the mirror of God’s love to the world. We love because He first loved us. If we are to do ministry and exercise the wonderful gifts God has given to Bethel, let us do it in love that originates with God. Even in this way, we experience the love God has for us because we cannot love the world without being loved by God.

2. Second, Paul is saying first that you can have all these spiritual gifts, but if you aren’t loved by God, then you are nothing. It is clear in I Corinthians 13, that God gives many great gifts. But the greatest gift of all is His love. His covenantal, unlimited, redeeming love blows all other loves out of the water. So the love we find in the Gospel is unlike any love on earth; it is unconditional and therefore never-ending.

It is on this meaning that I would like to camp out. I want us to understand that we can be the most gifted church ever, but if we don’t have the love of God, we are nothing. We need the love of God.

Let me first show you this from the context of I Corinthians and then we will look at the greatness of Gospel love.

Context: Like I said at the beginning, I Corinthians 13 is a very famous passage. Maybe only less famous than John 3:16 and the Lord’s prayer. Maybe it’s one of your favorite passages. I know you’ve heard this and it sort of soothes you, like “Ahhhh, if I speak in the tongues of men of angels, but have not love…” But I think that is much different than how the church of Corinth received it and how Paul wrote it. Verses 1-3 are not a love poem or a keychain quote. They are a tremendous rebuke to Christians in the city of Corinth. Paul is being outrageous in his rebuke of the Corinthians. You will not see this unless you realize I Corinthians 13 is the 13th chapter of this letter; which means there are 12 chapters before it.

From what we know of Corinth, we know that many of these new Christians in the Corinthian church were brilliant people. They were gifted. They were able to speak, or they had insight and wisdom, they had tremendous faith. They were ministry people. They were doers. They were filled with the gifts of the Spirit found in I Corinthians 12. I am certain that incredible ministry was happening in the church of Corinth. You can see that clearly in verses 1-3.

But when we turn to verses 4-7, “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking.” Where did that list come from? How did Paul come up with that list? Was Paul just sitting around and someone was like, “Paul what is love?” And he’s like, “Well…” No. He uses the same words from this list to describe the Corinthians.

In chapter 8, he calls them puffed up, the word proud. In chapter 10, he says they’re self-seeking, which is what he says love is not. In chapter 7, he calls them rude, which is also in this list. Do you see what’s going on? Paul is giving the Christians of Corinth a stern rebuke in this passage.

This must have been confusing for Paul, because his most gifted church was also his most unloving church. So he writes this letter and he gets to this chapter and he drops this bomb. This is outrageous and I hope it changes the way you read I Corinthians 13.

Here’s the bomb: You can have spiritual gifts, even miraculous gifts, but not be a Christian at all. He is saying to them, you can have all these gifts, speaking in the language of angels and faith to move mountains, and all knowledge and insight, and prophesy, and give all your possessions to the poor, you can be as committed as you possibly can to ministry, even to the point of martyrdom, and not be a Christian.

You might not agree with me, but there’s Biblical evidence for it. Look at Matthew 7:22-23, “On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’” We even have examples like Balaam in the Old Testament or Judas in the New Testament.

And if you’re surprised by this, then you probably have the reaction the church of Corinth had.

Let me be honest with you. It has been another busy week for me. I was running here and there, staying up late, waking up early. If you told me this week had 168 hours in it, just like all the rest, I would have a hard time believing you.

But hear me clearly: that is all rubbish compared to love. God can gift me with these opportunities and abilities all he wants, but without love, it is garbage. And so here is where I am honest with you. When I look back on my week, I do not feel proud of all that I accomplished or the ministries I have helped. I feel scared. I feel sick. Because I can so easily go about these ministries and exercise my gifts without having love. Even as I preach, consider this. I could blow you away with my speaking abilities. I could explain all mysteries and give you all knowledge. But if I don’t have love, I am nothing.

Jonathan Edwards wrote about this. He said, “A spiritual gift of miracles or speaking in tongues does not change a person’s inherent nature. A gift ability does not require a change of heart as love or holiness does. Gifts are like precious jewels with which a body may be adorned but which does not alter the body’s form. But the grace of God and its fruit turns as it were the very soul into a precious jewel.” So what he is saying is that the Holy Spirit can enter your life and give you spiritual gifts without saving grace, but he cannot give you spiritual fruit without saving grace.

In other words, love is better than miracles. The fruit of the spirit is better than the gifts of the spirit. You and I don’t need more things to do, we need more love.

God’s Love

Remember our main point? Here it is: The Gospel means God's love can satisfy us in a unique and complete way. So now that we have seen our incredibly deep need for God’s love from the context of I Corinthians 13, I want to show you how great the love of God is.

The love of God in the Gospel is unconditional, unlimited, and never ending.

1. The love of God is unconditional.

See, Corinth was a major city in the first century. It was located on a small isthmus that separated the upper peninsula of Greece, think Athens, from the lower peninsula of Greece, think Sparta. And so obviously it was a major trade route in Ancient Rome. At the time of this letter, it was one of the largest cities in the world. It was filled with people who came to make it, have success, make money. One historian calls it the most success-oriented, sex-obsessed, morally depraved cities in antiquity. The Romans actually came up with a verb to describe someone living like this. They called it “to corinthianize.” It meant to live in a morally depraved way.

It was here that God led Paul to plant a church. Which must have been shocking for Paul. Look at what he says in I Corinthians 6, “Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor men who have sex with men nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.” God said, Paul, take the Gospel to the corinthianizers. Take the Gospel to the most morally depraved city you can travel to.

The church of Corinth was probably very special for Paul because it showed him the transforming power of God’s grace. It was proof that God’s unconditional love can change lives.

Romans 5:8 says, “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” God’s love is unconditional. And that is wonderful news!

One author says, “If you could lose your salvation, you would.” And that is true. There is no way God loves us unless it is without condition. Let me make this clear: God never looks at you and says, “Wow, I really want her on my team,” or “Man, that guy is awesome, I think I’ll love him.” This should not be disappointing to you. It should be a relief! God loves you because he loves you.

How is the love of God unique and unconditional? Because of Christ in the Gospel. When Christ died, he clothes us in his righteousness. That means all conditions have been fulfilled by Christ. We have nothing left to prove, nothing more required of us. Only God in the Gospel can love us unconditionally.

Humans make the most pathetic attempts at loving like this. Just the other day, my wife made a wonderful apple pie. And I tried to explain to her, “Heather, you know I love you unconditionally, right?” “Yes.” “Well then this might be difficult to understand: that apple pie on the counter makes me love you more.” Pathetic! But God’s love for us began when we had nothing to offer but our rebellion and sin. That is unconditional love. That is the love of God in the Gospel.

2. The love of God is unlimited.

What we see in I Corinthians 13:4-7 is a Greek word for love I’m sure most of you have heard. It is agape. Here’s what New Testament scholar, J. I. Packer has to say about this word: “The Greek word agape seems to have been virtually a Christian invention, a new word for a new thing. It is almost non-existent before the New Testament. Agape draws its meaning directly from the revelation of God in Christ. It is not a form of natural affection, however, intense, but a supernatural fruit of the Spirit. It is a matter of will rather than feeling.” This crazy agape love of God was so completely new and above every other love, that they had to create a word for it.

When we consider the great need we have for love and all the wrong ways we go about trying to find it, I Corinthians 13:4-7 should be a relief to us. In Christ, God has given us a love that is without condition and without end. It is patient towards us, bearing with our sins. It is kind, caring for us when we don’t deserve it. It does not debase itself by wanting what we have or boast itself by being proud. God’s love for us does not dishonor us, but robes us with the honor of Christ, who gave up himself in humility to seek and save us, the lost. God’s love for us means He is slow to anger. Because of the price paid on the cross, his love keeps no record of our wrongs. His love for us does not delight in our troubles, but rejoices when we see the truth of our trials. God’s love for you protects you, is trustworthy, hope-filled, and persevering. God’s love for you will never end.

This love has no limit. Look at I John 3:1, “See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!” Because of Christ’s work of the Gospel, we are adopted, renewed, forgiven! The Gospel can satisfy our need for love. And regeneration is only the beginning. We are now co-heirs with Christ as adopted sons and daughters of God. You know an earthly parent would go to any length to show their love for their children. Imagine what our Heavenly Father would do! God’s love is unlimited.

3. The love of God is never ending.
Even the greatest earthly love will end. Why? Because it is conditional. Think about it. If you ever say to your spouse, “I love you because...” it’s over right there. Once you have attached a condition to it, then you have also attached an end to it: once that condition ends. But as we’ve already seen, God’s love never ends because it does not need a condition. All conditions have been fulfilled in Christ in the Gospel. So therefore, God’s love never ends.

Read Romans 8:38-39. Do you see what this is saying? Do you hear the beauty of this passage? Death or life, supernatural beings, who you are right now or who you will be in the future, any power or ruler, any distance, anything in all of creation. None of those things can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus.

As a youth pastor, I hear all the time about break ups between a couple of students. I’m sure many of you remember those days. It can really hurt. It can be devastating when love ends. But that simply points us to the truth that love is not supposed to end! And that is the love we find in the Gospel. That is the only love we can truly put our rest in.

Conclusion:

Fifty years ago, the Beatles sang, “All You Need Is Love.” I hope the Word has convinced you, in Christ, that you already have all the love you need. I pray that if you began reading this post with your soul moaning, “I need love,” that you can now gratefully sing:

“How deep the Father’s love for us,
How vast beyond all measure
That He should give His only Son
To make a wretch His treasure”

Amen.

Gospel or Nothing Part 3: Meaningful Purpose

Introduction: This series of posts is from a sermon series I preached last year that I continually find effective in my life and faith. It is a five part series about the Gospel. In life, we’re given a choice: we can have all that God offers through Christ in the Gospel, or we can try to find all of that in the world and end up with nothing. The choice facing everyone of us is this: Gospel or Nothing. I used five sermons to describe the Gospel and then point out four major, significant, life-changing ways the Gospel offers everything and the world offers nothing, four things we’re all searching for in life: hope, love, purpose, and joy. So let’s continue this journey together with the Gospel and purpose.

For the first part of this series, click here.
For the second part of this series, click here.

Read Philippians 1:18-26.

Need: Before you continue reading, check out this article and video from 2010 about why humans can't walk straight.

Question: Why are you here? What are you doing here? Why on earth are you on earth?

That question has been on human lips and minds since we were created. Humans want to know, what are we doing here? What is the purpose of all of this? We have always refused to believe that there is no purpose to all of this. Even nihilists, those who claim to believe there is no purpose to life, don’t live like it!

We want purpose, we desire intentionality, we desire meaning to life. I believe even that desire to have purpose proves we have a purpose. We have food to satisfy hunger, drink to satisfy thirst, and love to satisfy loneliness. The longing for something proves that something exists. So our continual and constant longing for purpose is proof that we have a purpose.

Think of purpose as the Sun or Moon or mountaintop as that video explained. It keeps us grounded and walking straight. It gives us a reference point for everything else we experience. Science has proven that humans can’t walk straight without a fixed point. Similarly, humans can’t live straight without a purpose.

This is a grave need and one we must take very seriously. It runs rampant in all levels and sectors of society. We need purpose, and we need a good one. So the question before is this...

Question: What purpose does the Gospel offer?

If you find yourself forgiven and renewed by the grace of God, then what are you doing here? Does the Gospel just transform our legal standing with God and then allow us to wander through the rest of life? What purpose does the Gospel offer?

All me to clarify this word purpose. I am not talking about goals. I am not talking about dreams or ambitions. I am talking about even the purpose of goals and dreams and ambitions. What purpose does the Gospel offer?

We find a similar question on the first line of the Westminster Catechism, a famous and founding document for the Reformed tradition: What is the chief end of man? So borrowing language from the Westminster Catechism, it is my prayer that you walk out of here today knowing this...

Truth: The Gospel gives us the purpose of glorifying God and enjoying Him forever (read that again).

This is fantastic! To know the whole purpose of man is to know a treasure! Praise God that He has given us this knowledge and not left us to wander.

There are two ways to be a runner. First, just describe yourself as a runner. Be a runner. Second, run. Actually do running, and that makes you a runner. We call this difference description and prescription. So today, as we look at our purpose found in the Gospel, we will look at descriptively, what it already and actually is, and take joy in that. Then we will look at it prescriptively, how to actually go about purposing our lives for glorifying Christ.

Description:

First, descriptively. For this, we use this fantastic text from Philippians. It might be familiar to you. If you have been a Christian for a while, you have no doubt heard Philippians 1:21, “For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.” So there’s a danger of this verse sounding old and used to you. But I pray  God will awaken you afresh to the glories of this text.

To get at the heart of what Paul is saying, we need to first look at some backstory. We are going to look at the founding of the Church of Philippi to get a feel for whom Paul is writing to. In this way, I believe we find some of the options the world offers for life purpose.

I. Here Are Your Options

The Church of Philippi was founded on Paul’s second missionary journey throughout Asia Minor, what we now call Turkey and Greece. Philippi was a bustling trade city founded because of nearby gold mines. It became a Roman colony about 50 years before Jesus came onto the scene and it enjoyed all the wonderful rights of being a Roman city. Then comes Paul and Silas, preaching the Gospel.

Their first encounter is found in Acts 16:11-15. They meet Lydia. We don’t know too much about Lydia, but here’s what we can gather. She was a worshiper of God, meaning she was a Jew. She was some sort of fashionista, selling purple goods to royalty, which no doubt made her quite a profit. She had a house in Thyatira and Philippi. And her house in Philippi was large. Lydia is our example of those who purpose in life to go after money and materials.

She had it all. She represents a large portion of Americans, even many who don’t admit it. This little piece of paper has ruled so much of our lives. It has become the purpose of many students and many adults. Maybe it’s not so much the paper, but it’s the car or the house, the travel, the fashion, the ability to show off to others. How many weeks have you had where it just seems like your entire purpose every minute of the week is either to make money or to sleep so you can wake up and make more money?

But then Lydia hears the Gospel and dedicates all of her being to worshipping God and all her wealth to advancing the Church.

The second encounter is found in Acts 16:16-18. After meeting Lydia and staying in her house, Paul and Silas meet a young slave girl who has powers of divination, fortune-telling. She represents those who purpose their lives to feeling and pleasure. Very different from Lydia, this slave girl is not chasing after money or things, but instead is chasing after worship of feeling.

She represents another large portion of our society. This is called hedonism, those who chase after pleasure as the purpose of life. Just be as happy as you can. Maybe that’s sex, the next high, love, pain, or even just dulling the sadness. We often purpose our lives to just being happy outside of Christ.

Don’t hear me wrong. Part of our purpose is to enjoy God. There is plenty of joy in our Gospel-given purpose. In fact there’s joy unmatchable. But some purpose their lives to chase simple temporary happiness found outside of Christ. And one young girl from Philippi, who was doing this, experienced the saving power of God’s grace and turned to the Gospel.

Finally, our third encounter that marked the beginning of the Church of Philippi is found in Acts 16:25-34. After Paul and Silas rescue this slave girl from her demon possession, they are beaten and thrown in jail. Their first night there, an earthquake breaks open their doors on their cells. The jailer runs in and is terrified for his life because he fears his prisoners have escaped.

We don’t know much about the Philippian jailer, but we do know some. Philippi was a very popular spot for Roman army retirees. Most likely, this jailer came back from serving in the Roman army and took an easy post as a jailer. He represents those who purpose their lives toward duty and progress. He represents those who find their purpose in their job or civic duty, who find their purpose in the progress and advancement of society. This is not the purpose of Christ!

But Paul and Silas did not escape. They were still in their cell singing praises to God. And so the Philippians jailer converts to Christianity.

And so begins the Church of Philippi. This is what Paul knew of his brothers and sisters in Philippi. He understands these purposes they have devoted their lives to. He stayed in Lydia’s luxurious house and interacted with the fortune-telling girl and witnessed the duty and devotion of the jailer. And he sits down to write them a letter years later and he says, all of that, is bankrupt. All those purposes offered by the world are nothing! “For to me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain.” That is purpose.

II. To Live Is Christ

I understand I am writing to many who have been Christians all your lives. And I know you’ve heard this verse before. And if I took a poll, probably all of you would no doubt agree, “Absolutely, to live is Christ, for sure.” But I have found that the conviction that fuels that affirmation, to live is Christ, ebbs and flows. But Paul here says he has seen all of those purposes the world offers and they are bankrupt, they are nothing, to live IS Christ.

Hear me, everyone one of us is everyday being seduced and discipled on what life is all about by every commercial, every movie, every sitcom, every magazine. It all screams to us that life is all about comfort and happiness and progress. But Paul has seen that, he’s tried that, and through divinely inspired words tells us that TO LIVE IS CHRIST.

Allow me to use an illustration that might get to the heart of how our purpose in life is not always Christ. Often, we look at our lives as a ladder. A ladder of priorities. And good Christians obviously can say that God is number one priority. He gets the top rung. But that creates so many problems. Why? Because sometimes we just go from the bottom rung to the second rung and then back to the bottom rung, then maybe to the third, then back to the second, and we never let our number one priority into our lives. Or maybe its the other way around. We prioritize God and so we think, well, I prayed and read some Scripture this morning first thing, or I started my week off with God at church and so I can check that rung off and move onto everything else. No! That is not what to live is Christ looks like!

Can I suggest an alternative? To live is Christ means our lives look more like a wagon wheel. Christ is at the center and Christ is the wheel. And all those spokes represent our priorities in life. Everything we do revolves around Christ. It begins with Christ and ends in Christ. Christ is the alpha and omega of our lives. This is radical stuff! But it is what Paul pictured when he said that to live is Christ.

What I would like to do is now that you have heard the conviction with which Paul claimed “To live is Christ,” I want us to listen to some Scripture passages that Paul wrote under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit to fulfill His purpose of to live is Christ. Don’t tune this out, don’t turn your mind off because you’ve heard these before. Listen to the Word of God and let it mold your life.

Doxologies:

Romans 11:33, 36- Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out! For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be the glory forever! Amen.

Ephesians 3:20-21- Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.

I Timothy 1:17- Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory for ever and ever. Amen.

I Timothy 6:15-16- God, the blessed and only Ruler, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone is immortal and who lives in unapproachable light, whom no one has seen or can see. To him be honor and might forever. Amen.

Hebrews 13:20-21- May the God of peace, who through the blood of the eternal covenant brought back from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great Shepherd of the sheep, equip you with everything good for doing his will, and may he work in us what is pleasing to him, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.

II Peter 3:18- But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be glory both now and forever! Amen.

Revelation 5:12-13- Worthy is the Lamb, who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and praise! To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be praise and honor and glory and power, for ever and ever!

Revelation 7:12- Amen! Praise and glory and wisdom and thanks and honor and power and strength be to our God for ever and ever. Amen!

III. To Die Is Gain

As you all know, “To live is Christ” is not the entire verse. Paul finishes with the crazy words, “to die is gain.” Many Biblical scholars believe Philippians was a prison letter, meaning Paul was sitting in a prison cell, writing this letter, not sure if he was going to be executed the next day. Please imagine this and listen to what Paul is saying. He’s saying, well, they might kill me tomorrow and I’m not sure if I’m excited about it or not. I wanna live so I can glorify Christ, but I also wanna die so I can be with Christ. “I am hard pressed between the two.”

What has the Gospel done to Paul?! He can honestly and genuinely say, to live is Christ and to die is gain. Ravi Zacharias says that, “How could you threaten Lazarus after he had been raised from the dead? What would you say to him that would intimidate him? Could you pull him aside and be like, ‘Hey man, you’re gonna get yourself killed.’ Would he giggle? Okay, I’ve actually been there and done that.”

The reason the apostle Paul had to be one of the most effective and yet frustrating missionaries the world has ever known is because you couldn’t do anything to him. Right? You lock him up in prison and he’s converting the imperial guards. You beat him and he’s excited about it, “This is future glory!” He’s singing songs down in the stocks; could you imagine how frustrating that would be? Torturing a brother and he’s singing and converting prisoners. "We’re gonna let you live." To live is Christ. "We’re gonna kill you." To die is gain. You couldn’t touch this man.

Hear this, dying as gain proves that living is Christ. Here’s how:

All life purposes outside the Gospel are thwarted by death. (Repeat). Is life about money? Can’t take it to the grave. Is life about pleasure? It’s gonna end when you’re dead. Is life about being healthy? If you’re dead, you’re about as unhealthy as possible. Is it about preservation of the species? Your death works against that because that means one of your species has died. Death works against every purpose found outside of Christ.

But if life is all about glorifying Christ, that is the only purpose that death cannot conquer. When we live on earth, we glorify Christ. When we die, we glorify Christ all the more! Death cannot stop it. So if you’re death is gain, you know your life purpose is true. To live is Christ and to die is gain.

Prescription:

Now that we have seen what life is all about descriptively, we have seen the purpose of life from this passage in Philippians, that to live is Christ, now I want to move onto prescription. That is, how can we purpose our lives to glorify God and enjoy Him forever?

Check out Hebrews 12:1-2. "Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God."

Following the faith chapter of Hebrews 11, this passage reiterates the beautiful Gospel and connects it to how we purpose our lives. “Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith.” It takes what we know of Jesus, as our captain, our leader, our guide, and it says, now look to him. This is similar to when Paul says, to live is Christ. Now, we don’t know who authored the book of Hebrews, but we know from what they have written that Christ is their all in all. The great chief of the faith, the perfect sacrifice. So when they say let us run, they have Christ continually in their minds.

We are so easily distracted. It is so hard to simply focus on the Word of God when we have no grounding in our purpose to glorify Christ. The author of Hebrews says, throw off every weight and every sin. Get rid of those distractions. And then turn away from all of that and fix, lock, focus your eyes on Christ. It’s as simple as that. To live is Christ, so fix your eyes upon him.

Conclusion: Remember the video? Are you wandering? Are you going through life blindfolded by these silly purposes the world has offered? Why? I mean, this is it. One time here on earth and then it’s over. What is your purpose?

Take the blindfold off, fix your eyes on Christ as your purpose. Make everything you do and everything you are all about Christ. It is the most satisfying and enjoyable purpose there is. And as such, it is the most glorifying to God. To live is Christ, to die is gain.

Amen.

Gospel or Nothing Part 2: Eternal Hope

Introduction: This series of posts is from a sermon series I preached last year that I continually find effective in my life and faith. It is a five part series about the Gospel. In life, we’re given a choice: we can have all that God offers through Christ in the Gospel, or we can try to find all of that in the world and end up with nothing. The choice facing everyone of us is this: Gospel or Nothing. I used five sermons to describe the Gospel and then point out four major, significant, life-changing ways the Gospel offers everything and the world offers nothing, four things we’re all searching for in life: hope, love, purpose, and joy. So let’s continue this journey together with the Gospel and hope.

For the first part of this series, click here.

Read 2 Corinthians 4:16-18.

Question: How do you know you’re a Christian? Some would say a profession of faith, some say ethics, some say experience, you might say something else. One of my favorite preachers, and probably one of the greatest preachers of all time, is Martin Lloyd-Jones. He was born in the late 1800s. He brought up each test and showed that each was necessary and good, but not sufficient to answer that question.

He put all of them together and proposed the “acid test”: the hope of glory. He said that when everything else fails, when our tests fall apart, when we doubt, when we have to look ourselves in the face and ask, "How do I know I’m a Christian?" this test would still hold true. If you want to know how to know you’re a Christian, ask yourself, "Do I have this hope of glory?"

Do you know what text he went to in order to see this hope of glory? 2 Corinthians 4. It begins with “So we do not lose heart.” We, Christians, do not lose our hope. So we’re going to see from this passage what is this hope of glory.

If I may preface it this way as well: If you’re reading this, and you would say, "I have no hope of glory, all of my hope is contained in this life, this world," then this sermon is to offer you that hope.

If you’re reading this, and you would say, "I have hope outside of this life, this world, I have hope in Christ," then this sermon is not so much to give you hope, but to show you your hope.

Here’s how we’re going to delve into this passage: three contrasts in observing the text and then three encouragements in applying the text. And my prayer is that you leave here today knowing and trusting this:

Truth: The hope of glory found in the Gospel is exceedingly greater than the hope we find in this world (read that again).

Observations:

In this series, Gospel or Nothing, we have put two competitors into a ring, and we have said, fight it out, let’s see who wins. I imagine Paul was doing the same exact thing as he was writing this passage. If you look at just these three verses, we have what the Gospel offers vs what the world offers. It’s so beautifully contrasted here. There’s three big rounds going on here for your hope:

I. Outer decay vs Inner renewal

II. Light momentary troubles vs Weighty, lasting glory

III. Temporary seen vs Eternal unseen

Let’s look at these one at a time:

I. Outer decay vs Inner renewal

Read verse 16. This outer self vs inner self is not just a body vs spirit/soul contrast. We are a soul-body partnership. We don’t say one is bad and one is good. Instead, outer self vs inner self is looking at our existence from two different angles. The angle of outer self would look at the whole person from the standpoint of our creaturely existence, our mortality. We are going to die. We see the process of decay and deterioration already at work. It has been said that history is simply a conveyor belt of corpses. When we see the reality of that, we see what it means to part of the outer self or old self.

The angle of inner self is different. Our inner self is a new creation. We can look at our whole being from the standpoint of being created new. Colossians 3:9-10 says, “Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator.” This new creation is that inner self Paul is talking about here.

And so this contrast, this battle between what the world offers in the outer self and what the Gospel offers in the inner self is set up very clearly. The outer self is wasting away, decaying, deteriorating, and that’s all we have to look forward to in this life. If someone asks you if you’re dying, you can always tell them yes. Because do you realize from the moment life begins in the womb, it is a slow death until the grave? The world offers this: Well, we’re all going to die, we don’t have much time, I guess die the best you can.

But the Gospel counters with the inner self and its renewal day by day. The inner self of a Christian from day one in the womb is being renewed day after day after day until the grave. Just a chapter before this, Paul explained it: “We all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another.”

So the world throws with its first punch the outer self and its continual decay. But then the Gospel counters back with the inner self and its continual renewal. Round number one goes to Gospel.

II. Light momentary troubles vs Weighty, lasting glory

Read verse 17. Here Paul contrasts the light momentary troubles of the outer self with the weighty and lasting glory of the inner self. I could spend a couple of minutes explaining why glory is better than troubles, but I’m not sure there’s a person here that doesn’t believe that already. Because Paul is not just saying glory is better than troubles. He is saying so much more than that.

Look at the adjectives: light, momentary against weighty, eternal. Will there be troubles? Yes. Do Christians still have to face troubles in this life? Yes. Paul is not denying that. But he’s looking at these troubles as light and momentary. There might be someone reading this who is offended by calling your troubles light and momentary. I don’t want to minimize your troubles. But I want you to see the comparison being made here to understand how Paul could call them light and momentary. Imagine if you put a child on a scale, and then you put me on a scale. You would say that child is light. But then you put an elephant on a scale. You would then say that I am light. But then you put a blue whale on a scale. You would then say by comparison that the elephant is light. Look what you have done: you have called an elephant light. Comparison can make your troubles seem so much smaller if they are compared to weighty, lasting glory.

But Paul does not just say glory is better than troubles because it is weighty and eternal. He takes it one step further. He says our troubles “are achieving” for us an eternal glory. Our troubles are working for us for our glory. Our troubles are enslaved to our glory! I love the way Jonathan Edwards describes this image here. He said that sufferings are the sharp whittling tool that God uses to carve a bigger cup for us so we can hold more future glory. Yes, sufferings hurt because they are sharp. But what if the sharp feeling your soul feels is actually serving you?

So the world throws with its second punch our light, momentary troubles. But then the Gospel counters back with the eternal weight of glory. Round number two goes to Gospel.

III. Temporary seen vs Eternal unseen

Read verse 18. This one is simple: we have hope because we can tell time. The seen is there, but we know it’s temporary. If we just base our lives on what is seen, we have an incomplete picture. Tangible things seem more real than immaterial. But tangible is temporary, immaterial is eternal. It is simple and clear and when we see the immaterial in life and faith, it’s obvious. But it’s so hard!

CS Lewis says this: “What is concrete and immaterial can be kept in view only by painful effort.” It’s difficult to look at the seen, tangible things around us and say, my whole life is not going to be based on that. That is not easy. But the Gospel says this loud and clear: “There is more to life and there is greater life found in the unseen.” Why? Because if we live this life on the seen, we’re doomed. A belief in the Gospel automatically comes with it the confession that what is unseen is greater than what is seen. So let’s use that painful effort and “FIX our eyes on the unseen.”

So the world throws with its third punch the temporary seen. But then the Gospel counters back with the eternal unseen. Round number three goes to Gospel.

Ding, ding, ding. This match is over. By unanimous decision, your champion is… GOSPEL!

Applications:

So what can we learn from this? How can we see this hope in our lives? How can we strengthen this hope in our lives? I hope to encourage you in three ways:

1. Be honest about the signs of death you see and feel.

Don’t ignore death, deterioration, decay, destruction. Christianity is not a flight of fancy. See that things that come with the outer self and it’s wasting away.

Don’t respond with anxiety (wear out), anger (lash out), or escapism (drown out).

The Gospel can hold up under the weight of these things. The Gospel and the Christian can honestly deal with the sting of death in this world. It is simply a more urgent invitation to run to our sanctuary.

2. Don’t minimize the signs of life you see and feel.

There are also signs of life here. Sunrises, smiling children, tears that don’t come from sadness but from laughing so hard you cry. There are good things here that can be part of our inner renewal that God gave us to be enjoyed.

Enjoy the signs of life you see around you, but also enjoy the signs of life you see within you. When darkness closes in, you still have that inner light of hope that has not been extinguished.

3. Don’t forget that God sees more than you see.

Yes, God sees what you see. He sees the circumstances you are in and the situations that are getting you discouraged. But don’t allow cynicism and hopelessness take root in your heart because God isn’t changing those circumstances. We find hope in the fact that we are finite because we cannot see all that there is to be seen. God sees far more than we see. He sees the secret things that no other eyes can see.

If we were take God’s perspective, we would also take God’s outlook. Listen to this, the future never looks bleak to God. So it should not look bleak to us either. Jonathan Edwards prayed, “Lord, stamp eternity on my eyeballs.”

These three points of encouragement can strengthen that hope of glory within you. It can show you why the hope of the Gospel is so much greater than the hope of the world.

Conclusion: CS Lewis said, “All joy emphasizes our pilgrim status; always reminds, beckons, awakens desire. Our best havings are wantings. Each longing or hunger we have corresponds to something that God made. God designed something to satisfy hunger: food. God designed something to satisfy thirst: water. But if we find ourselves with a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world.”

You see, the point of pilgrim longings is to point to the place where all the beauty came from. To point to that person, Jesus Christ. These longings, these desires, they are an acknowledgement that there is something good about this world, but there is so much wrong with it. But when we are pointed to Christ, that is a realization that in Him, we find our eternal hope.

I started with a quote from Martyn Lloyd-Jones. Did he pass the acid test? At the end of his life, he reached a point where he asked people not to pray for his healing because he could not handle the thought of being held back from the glory. When he lost all ability to talk, he still testified to the power of this passage. His daughter was reading her Bible by his bedside, and he pointed fervently and excitedly to this passage about the eternal weight of glory.

Do you have that longing? Do you have that hope? Are you fiercely resting in the gospel as your exclusive hope for future glory? Colossians 3 says, “For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.”

Let’s cling to the hope of glory together for the glory of Christ.

Amen.

Gospel or Nothing Part 1: The Gospel

Introduction: This series of posts is from a sermon series I preached last year that I continually find effective in my life and faith. It is a five part series about the Gospel. In life, we’re given a choice: we can have all that God offers through Christ in the Gospel, or we can try to find all of that in the world and end up with nothing. The choice facing everyone of us is this: Gospel or Nothing. I used five sermons to describe the Gospel and then point out four major, significant, life-changing ways the Gospel offers everything and the world offers nothing, four things we’re all searching for in life: hope, love, purpose, and joy. So let’s begin this journey together with the foundation of the Gospel.

Read Isaiah 53:3-12.

I’m gonna have us start off with something every student hates: a pop quiz. You don’t have to write it down if you don’t want to. I just want you to think of your answer.

One of the largest social media websites today is Twitter. It gives you only 140 characters per post. So here is your task: Tweet the Gospel. Answer this question in 140 characters or less: What is the Gospel? This is something we should be pretty quick at as Christians. Before you continue reading, give it a shot.

Need: We talk all about the Gospel, but we don’t know what it is. I would think most Christians would place the Gospel at a very high importance. We probably would all say we’re all about the Gospel. We find it in churches’ mission statements and value statements. We say we love the Gospel, preach the Gospel, teach the Gospel, live the Gospel, share the Gospel. But it’s a very dangerous thing if we don’t know what we’re talking about. The Gospel is at the center of Christianity. When we start defining the Gospel in our own terms, we’ve put man in the center of Christianity and not the Gospel. This causes all sorts of problems.

What is most commonly placed at the middle of Christianity is what author Christian Smith has titled, “Moral therapeutic deism.” Moral: This means God cares about right and wrong; Therapeutic: he wants us to be happy and is there when we need him; Deism: he kind of started the clock then sat back and only intervenes when we want him to. Matt Chandler’s description of this: “The idea behind moral, therapeutic deism is that we are able to earn favor with God and justify ourselves before God by virtue of our behavior. This mode of thinking is religious, even ‘Christian’ in its content, but it’s more about self-actualization and self-fulfillment, and it posits a God who does not so much intervene and redeem but basically hangs out behind the scenes, cheering on your you-ness and hoping you pick up the clues he’s left to become the best you you can be.” As you can see, this is very dangerous for Christians to believe, and it’s a result of not knowing what the truth and beauty of the Christian Gospel is.

I feel the need to say this before we move on: If you’re a Christian and you think you know the Gospel, you think you got a perfect score on our pop quiz, I beg you not to turn off your ears and brain because you think this is beneath you. We never move on from the Gospel. Never. It is one of the most important questions you can ever answer in this life. So here it is...

Question: What is the Gospel? This is an important question. Hopefully you put some thought into it when you took the quiz. It’s also a question I asked several members of my church in preparation for this sermon. Here are some of the answers I got: “The Bible; the life of Jesus; the Word of God; the first four books of the New Testament; Matthew Mark Luke and John; good news of the Bible, and stuff; forgiveness; truth.” These are all great things, but they are not the Gospel.

As we look at the Bible this morning, I hope that we find this truth to the answer:

Truth: The Gospel is the good news that Jesus Christ, Son of God, lived, died, and rose again for the forgiveness of sin. (read that again).

Let’s unpack this and find out just what the Gospel looks like.

First, we need to know what the Gospel is not.

Good advice, good rules, good teaching, good living. It’s not karma, or heaven, or Jesus’ miracles. It’s not behavior modification, becoming a better person, or even following Jesus’ example. It’s not conservatism, Christendom, transforming culture, or high morality. It’s not the church, the Bible, the first four books of the New Testament, or just the life of Christ.

To make any of those things the Gospel is to replace the true Gospel in the center of Christianity.

 
The Gospel is good news, coming from the Greek, “euangelion,” which means good announcement, good message, or good news, and is where we get our word evangelism. Where we see it most often used in Ancient Greek culture is in good news brought back from war of victory. For example, the newspaper headlines after victory in Europe in World War II on May 8th, 1945: "VE-DAY--IT'S ALL OVER." That announcement is euangelion. So when we talk about the best, most beautiful, most true and meaningful euangelion, we’ve now come to realize the Gospel. Picture the headline: “Victory! It is finished. The battle against sin and death has been won by Christ.” That is the Gospel.

Second, at the heart of the Gospel is the idea of penal substitutionary atonement.

When we look at our passage in Isaiah 53, we see the heart of the Gospel. It is the idea of penal substitutionary atonement. Another string of confusing words, but it’s rather simple. It means a penalty (penal) being paid by a substitute (substitutionary) in order to atone for wrongdoing (atonement). There’s been many attempts at examples and illustrations of this, but I don’t want to even get near them right now. I think the truth of Christ’s penal substitutionary atonement from Isaiah 53 is beautiful and clear enough for us.

Ten ways Christ accomplished atonement in death on that first Good Friday:
Listen to the beauty of substitutionary atonement in this...
1. He took up our infirmaries
2. Bore our suffering
3. Pierced for our transgressions
4. Crushed for our iniquities
5. Punishment upon him that brought us peace
6. By his wounds we are healed
7. Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all
8. Stricken for the transgression of my people
9. He will bear their iniquities
10. He bore the sin of many to make intercession

So taking this into consideration, the Gospel in short, in a tweet, might sound something like this…
“He took the punishment only we deserve so we can enjoy the blessings only He deserves.”
“He became sin so we could become righteousness.”
“Christ said it is finished when we couldn’t even start.”
“He drank the cup of wrath we deserve so we can bathe in the hope that he offers.”
“The Creator became creature to bring the creature to the Creator.”
“The world says do, Jesus says done.”
“He took the death we should have died so we can live the life we should have lived.”
“We don’t live so that we can be saved, we live because we have already been saved.”
“He bore the wrath that should be on us so we can enjoy the love that should only be for him.”
“He was wounded, we are healed.”
“Christ died, so we can live.”
That is the heart of the Gospel.

Third, Good Friday isn’t good nor the good news good until the resurrection of Easter Sunday. I believe this text from Isaiah 53 offers us special proof that the resurrection is true. Because everyone must come to one of two conclusions about the resurrection: it either didn’t happen and Christianity is all a big scam, or it did, and Christ is Lord and Savior. Because making Christ Lord and Savior is so often repulsive to sinners, the cover up began on day one and hasn’t stopped since. See, we can all agree that Jesus was crucified, even scholars and historians agree on this. But what really makes Jesus Savior and King is the resurrection. So they must try their best to cover it up. 

The popular theory is that Jesus simply fainted on the cross...

There was a question and answer forum in which one lady wrote, “Dear Sir, Our preacher said on Easter that Jesus just swooned on the cross and that the disciples nursed him back to health. What do you think? Sincerely, Bewildered.” In reply they wrote, “Dear Bewildered, beat your preacher with a cat-of-nine-tails with 39 heavy strokes, nail him to a cross, hang him in the sun for 6 hours, run a spear through his side, put him in an airless tomb for 36 hours and see what happens and get back to us. Sincerely, Charles.”

Islam takes it a step further and actually claims that Jesus did not die on the cross for sinners and rose again but that there was a replacement on the cross, he escaped death and later was taken to heaven. 

The Q'ran, sura 4:156-157 says:
. . . and for their [the Jews'] saying: "We slew the Messiah, Jesus son of Mary, the Messenger of God" – yet they did not slay him, neither crucified him, only a likeness of that was shown to them. Those regarding him; they have no knowledge of him, except the following of surmise; and they slew him not of a certainty – no indeed; God raised him up to Him; God is all-mighty, All-wise.”

Therefore Muslims in general believe that the central message of the New Testament and of Biblical Christianity is built on a mistake: Christ did not die, and Christ did not rise. Therefore the very heart of Christianity is false.

There are significant historical reasons why the Islamic reconstruction of the life of Jesus is not true. But here's the point in taking our text from Isaiah 53. This chapter was not written by Christians after Christ's coming, trying to distort or failing to understand what really happened on Good Friday and Easter. This chapter was written by a Jewish prophet 700 years before Christ came. And what he saw in the future was not a Messiah who escapes death and resurrection, but a Messiah who dies – and dies explicitly in the place of sinners – and then rises again to make intercession for his redeemed and forgiven and justified people for ever.

We see three prophecies of his resurrection in verse 10. In the Jewish sacrificial system, the guilt offering was killed. That’s what makes these prophecies so crazy. Even after he’s offered as a guilt offering...

I. “He will see his offspring”
That is, even after dying, somehow this suffering servant will see the offspring reborn through his death. Therefore he must live again to intercede and care and guide the redeemed.

II. “He will prolong his days”
Verses 3-9 make it pretty clear that his days are over, you can stop counting because this guy is crushed. However, verse 10 comes in with “he will prolong his days!” The days are still coming for this servant, even after death!

III. “The will of the Lord will prosper in his hand”
Even the most powerful, wealthy, happy, or good people in this world are still subject to, enslaved to death. But not so with this suffering servant. The grave could not hold him down, death could not keep him there, Jesus rose again! And therefore, he is the only king who we can say conquered all, even death!

The resurrection is true and wonderful. Isaiah knew it 700 years before it happened. The resurrection makes Good Friday, good. The resurrection makes the good news, good.

Conclusion: It has been my prayer for this morning that you would walk out of here with a very clear description of the Gospel. To know what the Gospel is is incredibly important, but also amazingly wonderful. After all, it is good news! The Gospel is the good news that Jesus Christ, Son of God, lived, died, and rose again for the forgiveness of sin. As we have seen from our text, the Gospel is the news that Jesus has taken our place in punishment. This is the only way justice and mercy could coincide. God is both “Just and the justifier” (Rom. 3:26).

If you have not placed your trust in the Gospel, what better day to do it! Realize for yourself today that Jesus Christ has died on the cross in your place, for your sins, and rose again to give you new life. You can begin that life today by calling out to God, confessing your need for him, repentance for your sins, and a desire to be reborn by the good news of the Gospel.

“Crown Him the Lord of life, who triumphed over the grave,
And rose victorious in the strife for those He came to save.
His glories now we sing, who died, and rose on high,
Who died eternal life to bring, and lives that death may die.”

Amen.