What the Gospel Is and Isn’t

Introduction

I want to begin this morning in Acts chapter 16, Acts 16 in verse 30. Acts 16 and verse 30. This is the Philippian jailer with Paul and Silas. It says, Then he brought them out and said, Sirs, what must I do to be saved? And they said, Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household. And they spoke the word of the Lord to him, and to all were in his house. And he took them the same hour of the night and washed their wounds, and he was baptized at once, he and all his family. Another great story within the book of Acts, a story of salvation of one who was lost, and because of the gospel and the hope of Jesus Christ was delivered.

There’s a whole context to all of that, but mainly I want us to see just a simplicity of what the gospel message is. The Philippian jailer, he’s there, he hears Paul and Silas. And when they act certain ways, they could have left and run off and led the other prisoners with them, and they don’t. He’s moved and says, What do I need to do? I trust you. I know that you’re saying things that are true and right. What do I need to do to be saved? And of course, they give him this answer that he needs to believe.

I wanna take kind of a brief aside from, I wanna start in Acts, but then move to some of the epistles and work through this idea of what the gospel is and what it isn’t, and talk a little bit about some of the distortions that started to arise even in the time of Paul during the missionary journeys. In Acts, we’ve been watching the gospel move outward, churches are started, people are converted, the way of Jesus and the word of Jesus is multiplying greatly. It’s moving into new cities and new cultures. And so we have even the in the beginning of Acts, it talks about how it’s gonna start in Judea and then Samaria and to the ends of the earth. That’s the path it’s going to take.

And so we see Samaria and Caesarea in Acts 10. We have the first Gentile that’s converted. And then Paul begins these journeys to Antioch and Pisidia and Iconium. He goes to Lystra, and when he’s in Lystra, this is way outside of Jewish territory. And he and Barnabas, they want to sacrifice to them like they are gods. They think that he’s Hermes, and they think that Barnabas is Zeus, that they have appeared. They’ve come down in the form of men, and they want to sacrifice to them. Of course, Paul and Barnabas will not allow it. But these are the sort of cultural differences they are dealing with as they go from place to place. And Philippi, the section we were just reading from, just before this, they encounter a demon-possessed girl.

She has a spirit of divination, and they get bothered by some of what she’s doing ultimately and cast the demon out of her. And the various places they go, like Thessalonica and Corinth, they face various forms of Jewish opposition. In Athens, Paul’s dealing with cultural differences and their love of philosophy and the this place that’s just filled with paganism. And so he encounters Epicureans and Stoics. And then even in Ephesus in chapter 19, he encounters disciples who, though they are followers of Jesus, they have incomplete knowledge on something really important: baptism in the name of Jesus. Just before that, in chapter 18, Apollos is helped by Aquila Priscilla, Aquila and Priscilla in this way. And then just after that, Paul has a bunch of angry silversmiths coming after him.

So all sorts of interesting stories and things that are taking place and false accusations and everything coming against Paul and against his traveling companions. And what I see in all of this, and as I move into the epistles and read through those, that wherever the gospel spreads, opposition followed close behind. Paul and others are going place to place, they’re speaking the truth, and there are just some who, at least at the moment, can’t accept it. Some of them come around later and they believe later on, but at least at the moment they are bringing up resistance and opposition. And whenever there’s new believers, unfortunately, there are new distortions that seem to come about from the message. And Paul and the other New Testament writers, they’re concerned about that.

1. The Gospel Is Salvation Through Faith in Jesus

And they have a lot to say about protecting the gospel, protecting the truth from these distortions from warping with human type thinking. So the essential gospel message is very basic. That’s where I want to start. The gospel is salvation through faith in Jesus. This is really what we just saw with the Philippian jailer in chapter 16, and there’s numerous other accounts in the book of Acts alone that we could look and see this same message being preached. And it basically is summarized in this way. A while back, we talked about the basic sermon, right? Here’s the basic gospel sermon in the book of Acts. Jesus was killed. He’s murdered by people who don’t understand what’s happening and don’t understand the plan of God. He’s buried, and God raised him up to new life.

He ascends, he’s enthroned. And maybe here’s the important part for us and how we respond to this. Any, Peter and others who preach this sermon, they say, any who repent and submit to the will of Jesus, have forgiveness of sins and hope of resurrection to new life. We can see this in a number of places. It’s in Acts 2 38, a text you’re well aware of. In Acts 3, the same basic message is given that the person who’s healed, they’re made, he’s made well because of faith in the name of Jesus. He brings salvation, he brings deliverance. In this case, that was manifest through healing. But then Peter goes on to tell them they need to repent. They need to repent and turn away from their sins, change their life, so that times of refreshing can come from the presence of the Lord.

He tells them in verse 26. This is Acts chapter 3 and verse 26. And some of these details are going to be important for some of what I want to bring up later about what the gospel isn’t. In verse 26, God having raised up his servant, sent him to you first to bless you by turning every one of you from your wickedness. There’s a change that is to take place. They were a certain way, and the gospel now gives them hope, and they are supposed to turn and change. They’re to repent and be different and have their sins taken away, and now they’re going to live this new life. They have the hope of a new life through Jesus Christ. And all that is seen through how the gospel works.

2. The Gospel Is Not Christ Plus Human Additions

Jesus dies, he’s raised by the power of the Father to new life, and he ascends to the Father. It’s the same path, if Jesus doesn’t come first, that we will all take. We will die one day to the flesh, we will be resurrected to an imperishable body, and we will ascend to meet the Lord in the air, and we’ll be with him forever. And so that the path of what Jesus does, this gospel message of death, burial, resurrection, ascension, is the same message to all of us, and what we will experience. I want to go through now some of the distortions that we find within even the book of Acts, but also within the epistles, about what the gospel is not. The gospel is not Christ plus human ideas, human additions, things that we’ve come up with, things that I or you might demand for someone to be in Christ, or our own rules and regulations, things that I think are important, that I demand that everybody else must do to be in Christ.

Paul, actually, Jesus deals with this even before Paul, but Paul frequently deals with this in his letters. Essentially, this is the idea of adding to the gospel. Adding to the gospel means it’s no longer the gospel, it’s something different. Galatians 1 is a text that where Paul deals with this in a very specific way, and it relates to our study because this connects to Acts 15. I personally think Galatians is written before Acts 15. There’s a couple different theories about how this can work. Doesn’t necessarily matter that much either way. There are related topics. It has to do with Judaism and circumcision, dietary laws, keeping the law of Moses, these various elements, and really in a very understandable way. The Jews have been doing this their whole life, and now things have changed, and they’re having to wrestle with that, and Paul’s having to teach and instruct to help them understand.

He has taught these people in the region of Galatia, and he expects them to understand the gospel, but they have been warped. There’s been distortions that have been brought in by people, just like the ones in Acts 15 who say, You have to be circumcised and keep the law of Moses to be saved. This is their message. You have to become a Jew first. If you’re not a Jew, then you can’t be saved in Jesus Christ. So they’re adding to the message. This is essentially what Paul’s going to deal with here. Verse 6, Galatians 1 and verse 6. 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. It’s different. This is not the actual gospel.

This is something people have added to, they’ve changed it. Not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. They’ve changed it. They’ve warped what the actual gospel is. 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 trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ. Some important things being said here in Galatians 1.

First of all, Paul sort of outlines the problems that sometimes come along with how the gospel’s changed. It’s just a different gospel. Right? You’re teaching something. Sometimes Paul’s saying, you’re believing something that’s not actually the gospel. It’s been added to, it’s been distorted. There’s times it can even be contrary, right? These are the different terms Paul uses here in Galatians 1, 6 through 10. Right, so if something’s adding to the gospel, right, or something’s distorting it, changing it. Or if something’s contrary to the gospel, right? Paul and others are going out, they’re preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ, and every place they go, it seems either there’s Jewish authorities or there’s pagans, one of the two, sometimes both, that are opposing the message of Paul about Jesus and the hope that comes and the forgiveness that comes through Jesus Christ.

They’re contrary. These are the different elements that sometimes arise when it comes to the gospel message. It says, Let those people be accursed. It’s pretty strong language from Paul, but this is the seriousness with which he takes changes and distortions to the message of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Let’s briefly take this back to Acts 15, because I want you to see the connection here to what’s happening there in Galatians. Paul has already been on his missionary journeys. He’s made his way back to Antioch, which is north of Jerusalem, doing great work there with others like Barnabas and Silas. A lot of good things are happening in Antioch. But word begins to spread.

But some men came down from Judea and were teaching the brothers, unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved. Well, it goes on to tell us that brought a lot of dissension and debate, which we’ll talk about that some more at another time. We talk about how we handle those kinds of things. But for now, I just want us to see the gospel spreading and almost immediately. This is 14 years after Paul was converted, give or take. And now they already have this major issue, and it just keeps popping up. He deals with this in the book of Romans thoroughly. He deals with this in the book of Galatians, he deals with it in the book of Philippians. All of these places, this is a major issue where the gospel message is being distorted because people are adding to the message.

They’re saying you have to be circumcised to be saved. Now, Paul has no issue in and of itself with circumcision. In fact, we learn he takes Timothy. Timothy was going to be working with him, preaching the gospel in Jewish territory. And so he takes Timothy and he has him circumcised because he doesn’t want his influence to be disrupted. He wants, he doesn’t want to put an obstacle to the kingdom. But that all changes with Titus because the situation is different. There are those who come out to spy out their freedom, he says, and they’re demanding that he be circumcised. And Paul says, we would not submit to them even for a moment. Because they’ve distorted the gospel message. When you’ve distorted the gospel message, you don’t submit to that.

When you say something has to be done that God doesn’t say has to be done, that’s a distortion. You’ve added to the gospel. And Paul, although in one situation, he did have a co-worker of his circumcised. In this other one, he says, I will not do that. I’m gonna with I’m gonna withstand them to the face and say, that is not the gospel, and I’m not doing it. Because this is a violation of the very things we see in scripture that we should not be adding to the message of Jesus. Now, Paul, again, he’s fine. If somebody wants to be circumcised, he has no problem with that. If people wanted to keep various dietary codes of their own free will, there’s no issue with that, and we see those things happening in scripture.

In fact, in Romans 14 or 15, Paul talks all about these kinds of things because there are so many cultural differences that existed between Christians at that time. You had a lot of Jewish Christians and you had Gentile Christians, some who felt like they should keep certain days to the Lord, and others who thought you shouldn’t. And when we understand the background of all of this, it makes a lot of sense. Some of these people have been doing this their whole life. You know, they have been practicing Judaism, and now they’re just gonna not keep the Passover anymore, or they’re not gonna keep these other feast days. Paul has no issue with some of those things as long as you’re not demanding that of somebody else as a gateway to be into Christ.

So one of the distortions that happens is trying to add to what the gospel is.

Got an email last week, which I’ve had other such communications. People, one person, a friend of mine in a completely other city asking me why we remove Church of Christ from our name. I thought that was interesting. I responded to him with some pictures and said, you’ve been lied to, and you know, I’m not here to talk about malicious gossip and lying this morning, but it’s true. and some of you have heard similar things. this is the side of our building. It’s actually right there right now. There’s two of these signs, if I’m not misunderstanding. this is our Facebook page. This is our website. so first of all, it’s just not true. It’s a lie. But an interesting thing to me is, in regards to this idea of adding to the gospel, is there only one name that we can use for a church?

The answer is no. Absolutely. Anyone who reads Scripture will encounter numerous times that various names are used for churches. So besides the fact that this is just gossip and lying in the first place, and it’s clearly not true, this is a description, and we need to understand as God’s people. We don’t have some official God-given scriptural title that every church must have. We have a description of a church. We are a church that belongs to Christ. That’s what we’re saying, even on this sign right here. It’s about we belong to Jesus. And it’s perfectly fine. In fact, in Romans 16, this is the only place it actually uses this phrase in the Bible. But in Romans 16 and verse 16, he makes the statement, greet one another with a holy kiss.

All the churches of Christ greet you. So the name’s fine. I think it’s good. It’s a descriptor of who we are. But it becomes a problem when we start having skepticism because someone doesn’t use a specific name that we’ve deemed the only right name. We start wondering about whether they’re a sound church or they’re faithful. Do we not see this as a human addition? It’s an American edition as well, but a human addition, something that we have created that is not something demanded by Scripture. And so even if we did use a different name, not that we need to, but even if we did, it would be fully within the realm of Scripture, within the realm of understanding what God has revealed to us. Let’s just turn a couple pages over in Acts to Acts chapter 20.

Because I want us to see this, particularly I want our young people to see this. In Acts chapter 20, Paul is giving a message. He’s warning the shepherds here. He says in verse 28, pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers to care for the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood. This is also how the church in Corinth is referred to in 1 Corinthians chapter 1 and verse 2. They are the church of God. Now, what I want to get to in a minute is there are reasons why we may choose a certain name over another. Sometimes it’s clarity, or maybe it’s harder to understand why we would use a certain name.

And so part of what we want to do in our description, which is what it is be clear about who we are. And so sometimes we may or may not choose to use a certain name as a congregation because we think maybe something’s not clear or somebody will misunderstand. And our culture uses certain descriptions and phrases in particular ways as well. And so we try to be mindful of those kinds of things at times. But it is interesting here in Acts and in Corinthians, the churches there are, they’re called the church of God. Let’s look at 1 Timothy 3. First Timothy 3. This is a passage that’s all about how people should act and behave within the household of God. And this is what Paul says.

He’s telling you all these things, right? He’s talking to them about shepherds and about deacons. And he’s he’s saying, I want to come to you soon, but I’m writing this to you so you know how things ought to work in the household of God, which is the church of the living God. So there’s another description. We could put church of the living God up there on the wall. So that’d be another way we could describe ourselves. 1 Peter 5 in verse 2. 1 Peter 5, verse 2. Here Peter’s giving some instruction to fellow elders, and this is a lot like Acts 20, just some warnings or some things for them to think about. He says, Shepherd the flock of God that is among you. So this is the flock of God.

This is another way that you can refer to God’s people as the flock of God. 1 Corinthians 12 27 says, You are the body of Christ. We’re the body of Christ. That’s another way we can be described. We can be called, as we’ve talked about already in the book of Acts, it’s called numerous times, the way, the way of Jesus. The assembly of the firstborn. Hebrews 12 23. The word ecclesia is actually behind the word assembly there in Hebrews 12.23. So this is the church of the firstborn. Another description of what could be used to talk about the people of God in God’s assembly. Here’s the point I want us to get. What truly matters, which is we’re going to go to in our next point, what truly matters is this congregation in submission to Jesus as Lord?

3. Subtracting From the Gospel Message

Not do they teach as doctrines the commandment of men? That’s what matters. Are we truly submitting to the will of Jesus? Are we actually obeying his will? Are we doing things his way? Are we reading scripture and understanding scripture the way it’s revealed? That’s what actually matters when it comes to an assembly, to the church of God in various places. That is what determines who we are in our identity in Christ. Which comes to this next point about distorting the gospel message. So we’ve had adding to, right? We can add a bunch of things that I think are important or you think are important, and I make my preferences the commandment of God and demand everybody else keep them. But the other side of this is that I just think I don’t really have to do much of anything.

Grace just covers everything, and so now I’m subtracting from the message. So I can add to it, make up my own stuff, but I can also just take away vital aspects of what has been revealed to us in Scripture. Right? The gospel is salvation through faith or belief in Jesus Christ. This is submission to his will. This is inherent in the concept. A lot of this comes from really misunderstood concepts about grace in our modern world. And I’ve talked about that before. I think I need probably need to come back and preach some sermons on that. It’s been five or six years since I preached on the convention of ancient grace. And so some of these high school students haven’t heard this, but it is a huge distortion in modern religion.

Just the idea of unmerited favor. Like that’s the only way we think about grace. That God does it all, and we just we sit back and we don’t have to do anything. That is not at all what first century people would have understood about the gospel and what faith in Christ looks like. It’s a gross misunderstanding of the message of grace in Scripture. We’ve looked at some of these passages already, so I’m just going to reference them. We already looked at Acts chapter 3, and this is why I told you to hold this in your mind. When he’s telling them the gospel message, he says, repent, right? Turn back. And he says, turn every one of you from your wickedness. This is part of the gospel message.

I have sinned. I’ve violated the will of God. God now in his grace has given me a way to be delivered from the slavery of sin. You want to get out of that. You don’t stay in it. We don’t continue in sin that grace may abound, Paul says. That doesn’t make any sense. We’re trying to leave one life and go to another, and God has given us a way to do that. He’s revealed a plan in which we can turn our life around, we can adhere to his will, we can follow him and turn from our wickedness. This is an act. I put obedience on the screen, but words like submission would also work. Repentance. I mean, all of these phrases relate to the concept of I’m giving up who I am and I’m going to do something else because of who Jesus is.

And that doesn’t happen just by saying, God does it all, and I don’t have to do anything. That is not the message of Scripture. That is subtracting from the gospel message. Peter told the Sanhedrin, we must obey God rather than men. He goes on. God exalted Jesus at his right hand. He’s king. He’s the king, he makes the rules. We better serve him. I mean, this is essentially the message. He’s ascended at the right hand of the Father to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins. And we are witnesses to these things, and so is the Holy Spirit, who God has given to those who obey. Anyone who tells you that obedience, that doing the works of God is not part of the gospel, does not understand the gospel.

It is taking something away from the message that even Peter is giving right here. That if we want forgiveness of sins, if we want to repent and turn our life around, if we want the Holy Spirit, I mean, these are the things Peter’s saying here, that means we need to obey.

The letters help us as well. We could go to the various letters of Paul and read some of what he says there, 2 Timothy, which I want to come back to a little bit later, at least in reference. It says, for the time is coming, this is chapter 4, verse 3, for the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears, they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, wandering off into myths. So on the one hand, we can add things. That’s one way to go about this, to warp or distort the gospel message, but on the other, we can just find someone who tells us the things we want to hear. That’s taking away from what the gospel message actually is, putting faith in those types of things, following after our passions and our desires, wandering off into strange teachings and myths and false doctrines.

It’s emotions. If I feel like it’s good, then it must be okay. Often our decisions are governed by how we feel about them. But what I want you to get from the warnings of Paul is he warns us about things like our own passions, our desires that can lead us astray, that can cause us to wander off. In Jude 4 and 5, he’s talking about the common salvation that they have received, this faith, as he calls it. But he warns about ungodly people who pervert the grace of our God into sensuality, denying our master, Jesus, who saved a people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed those who did not believe.

What he’s saying here is Jesus, he’s saying Jesus saved them out of Egypt, right? He is this is the exodus. The people came out of Egypt, Jesus delivered them, but you know the story. They get into the wilderness, right? And then what happens? Some of them fall in unbelief. And they are destroyed. There are so many passages we could go to that talk about this, but this one’s sufficient. The idea, you know, that the grace of God has saved me, I don’t have to do anything else. I’m saved and I’m never going to be lost, doesn’t align with June 4 and 5. There are expectations. And to say otherwise is subtracting from the gospel message that has been revealed to us over and over and over again in the book of Acts and in the epistles.

And how I feel about it really doesn’t make any difference. I don’t follow my emotions to truth. I seek truth, and I may be emotional about that truth, and that is justified. God created us with emotions, and those can be good things, but they are not good when we allow ourselves to be governed by how we think and how we feel about it. So we are carried off by passions and desires. If we will pervert the grace of God, take advantage of his grace to teach the idea that we can just follow after the senses and do the things that we want to do. That is not the truth of the gospel. In Romans chapter 2, Paul warns about that very thing. Don’t take advantage of God’s forbearance, of his grace.

4. The Gospel Is Not Christ Plus Religious Achievement

The glory and honor, and all that is going to go to those who are obedient to the will of Christ. The gospel is not Christ plus religious achievement. This is another one that’s a little tricky because of how it’s been taught in modern culture, religious culture. I don’t really believe Paul or other New Testament writers spend a significant amount of time on the idea of legalism. That’s not really an issue in Judaism. The Jews, it’s more elitism. The Jews believed in the grace of God. They just thought it was only for them. So now go back to Acts 15, Galatians 1. To be in Christ, you have to be a Jew. You have to be circumcised. That’s how you get into the covenant, and God’s grace is only for those people.

It’s not for Gentiles. So this is the sort of thing Paul’s dealing with. But unfortunately, what comes with this, the Jews in reading the Old Testament should have understood their role, I believe, that they were a light to the Gentiles, as Isaiah talks about it. Instead, they kind of got this mentality that they were better than the Gentiles. They wouldn’t mingle with the Gentiles. And you may remember Peter when he goes to Cornelius, he makes this statement. You know how unlawful it is for a Jew to associate with someone like you. Like I shouldn’t actually be here. This is what Peter’s telling Cornelius. According to the laws of our land and how things work among Jews, I shouldn’t even be associating with you. But God told me to come, and so I came.

Fortunately, Peter submits to the will of God and actually goes to Cornelius. Acts 15. In Acts 11, they react, they’re mad because Peter went and ate with this uncircumcised person. Like you went and ate with a Gentile? Shouldn’t have done that. And then in Acts 15, remember we already talked about this saying, you can’t be saved unless you’re a Jew, unless you’re circumcised according to the law of Moses, and you practice the law of Moses. There is kind of a status thing going on here. You had to be in the right family. You know, have the right beliefs and the right actions. It’s pride in my stuff. Paul uses himself as an example of this in the book of Philippians. He warns them in the early part of chapter 3 to look out for the dogs, for evildoers, for those who mutilate the flesh.

He’s talking about the circumcision there, those who demand that on everybody else to be saved. And he turns this around and says, We are the circumcision, we’re the people of the covenant. That’s the point he’s making here. And we worship by the Spirit of God. And in Christ Jesus, we put no confidence in the flesh. It’s not about what I’ve done. That’s what Paul’s trying to say. If it was, I could brag of myself. That’s what Paul’s going to tell them. All these other people who are bragging about their lineage and where they came from and how they keep the law. Paul says, I’ve done all that even more. And so he kind of sometimes in his rhetoric, he’ll go into this sort of foolishness.

He knows he’s doing it. Here’s all my credentials. Right? I was circumcised on the eighth day of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews, as to the law of Pharisee, as the zeal of persecutor of the church, as to righteousness under the law, blameless. You know, all the things that all these people value and they think are so important. I did all of it and I did it even more than most of them. But here’s the vital point he gets to. But whatever gain I had, whatever gain I thought I was getting from my credentials and my religious status. You know, I grew up in the church, or whatever the thing is that I think makes me special, or whatever I have I put status on, as opposed to actual just faith in Christ and hope that comes through his death, burial and resurrection.

All of that is nothing. Whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ, Paul says. Indeed, I count everything as lost because of the surpassing worth of the things and count them as rubbish in order that I may gain Christ. When I look at Christ and what Christ did for me and who he is, and then I think about all my stuff. Just see how small that really is. That’s what Paul’s trying to convey. And what’s important here is not my own righteousness. You know, that I’ve gone through all the things and I’m so good and I’ve done all this stuff. That’s not what matters. Because I can try to do good my whole life, and it’s not going to make any difference in my standing without Christ.

If I don’t have Christ on my side. Verse 8 indeed, Paul says, I count all 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. So he’s going to give up all this religious achievement, all the status, you know, his resume of how great he is as a spiritual leader, all the things that the Jews cared about, and I feel like I’m being hard on the Jews this morning. That’s just the story, right? This is the context. But this could be duplicated in any culture, in any context. And the reason why we get some of what we do in our modern culture is because of Calvin and Luther and their opposition to Catholicism, which very much was about legalism.

So they’re opposing that, and they’re kind of importing their experience into the first century Judaism, which is not accurate. But every culture deals with this sort of thing. What kind of things do we value? Do we put status on? Do we think really matters? That’s going to make us right in the eyes of God. Paul says, that’s not what it is. This is what he wants. He says, I want to be found in him, verse 9, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the middle. Right? This is the gospel. What he wants to hang his hat on is not all of his achievements, not all the things he’s done, but on the faith that he has in the message of Jesus Christ.

The righteousness from God that depends on faith. And now notice what he says next. That I may know him and the power of his resurrection, he may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead. That’s the gospel. That is the gospel message.

That’s what Paul is telling them. And he’s going to go on to say, all the things in the past, whatever’s happened, I’m going to let all that go, and I’m going to push forward toward what this is. Because that’s what truly matters. It’s not my resume, not my status within Judaism. Those things don’t really make any difference. It is the faith that we have in Christ Jesus, submitting to the will of Jesus. And when we’re on his side, there is now therefore no condemnation. Romans chapter 8 and verse 1. Paul doesn’t say if you have enough achievements, if you spend enough time in assemblies, if you did enough right things, then you have no condemnation. He says, if you’re in Christ, and you have faith in Christ.

5. The Gospel Is Not Just a Human Philosophy

Now, if you have faith in Christ, right? We just talked about this. There’s going to be some submission to his will and obedience. And all those other things are going to come because of that, because you were loyal, you’re committed to the one who delivered you from sin. So Paul’s not trying to take that away, but he wants us to understand the reality of who we are in our relationship to God the Father. And then the gospel is not just a human philosophy. It’s not just some good path of life. I feel like this is a really big thing in our culture. You know, Jesus was a really good guy, and he said a lot of good things. And if you do the things Jesus said, then a lot of good things will happen to you, and you’ll live a good life.

That can be true. And I think the Proverbs generally paint that picture. You know, from a general standpoint, you do right and good things happen. But of course, we know from other wisdom literature, that’s not always what takes place. Actually, sometimes you face serious persecution, even death. So if our hope is tied up in like this is just going to make a good life for us, it’s a pretty terrible message. How many of the apostles were killed because they spoke the gospel to the world?

Pretty much every single one of them. The story of the gospel, it doesn’t start with all of them having great prosperity and success in this life. You know, this is the way of life you chose, and now all the good things are happening to you. Pretty early on, we see Stephen being stoned to death. James is murdered in chapter 12. And this is not the kind of message you give to people say, hey, this is the way I got the answer for you. Okay, if you want good things to happen, follow Jesus, you’re gonna be brutally killed. It’s gonna be great. That is not the answer. They’re not following Jesus because it’s just a great philosophy of life. It’s not the secret to give you the things that you need here and make you feel better in this life.

That is not the end. There’s so much more than this. Christ, as Paul tells us, and he told Timothy, is the mediator between God and man. Yes, can following Christ make good things happen? Certainly. We have so many good things that happen because we are brothers and sisters in Christ. So I’m not denying that reality. But all who live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution, Paul says. It’s not all about good things happening now, it’s about the life that is to come. And so this is not just some human philosophy that has the secrets to make everything okay. It is so much more than that could ever be.

This should all sound really familiar by the time I get done with this. Self-realization. You are spiritual, and your body is evil, and eventually you’ll escape this corrupt flesh. It’s a personal awakening. You understand the world the way it really is, unlike other people who don’t really get it or see it. It’s this special knowledge and philosophy that you can buy into, and it’s really not about Christ dying and being the Savior and all that. He wouldn’t have done that because he wouldn’t have come and suffered death. God wouldn’t do that, right? There’s all these kind of crazy and strange ideas. It’s the special knowledge. You can know more than other people, and that’s your deliverance, and you can get out of this corrupt body. That’s not the gospel.

The gospel is exactly what happened to Jesus. We will all die. This perishable body will be done away with, and we’ll be resurrected into an imperishable body, and when we will be with the Lord. That is the gospel message. The body is not bad. That’s not the message. Gnosticism has carried over amazingly for centuries and centuries, still affecting modern religious thinking. Jesus is not just a good way of life to make things good now. Jesus said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man comes to the Father except through me, John 14 and verse 16. He’s the way out of this life into the promised land, the new heavens and the new earth, where we’ll have a new body. He is freedom from slavery to sin.

We’ll have a new life in the presence of God. Putting on Christ means we do away with the mortal and we put on the immortal. And in the end, it reverses the curse that comes through sin itself. Through sin came death. And the gospel message is that through this one righteous action of Jesus Christ, this is Romans 5, comes life and eternity. This is the gospel. The apostles are adamant about protecting this message, not allowing distortions. You see Paul interacting in Athens on he meets some Epicureans and Stoics, and he’s interacting with them. And this is not just some philosophy he’s teaching. This is the answer. And he makes that very clear as he preaches this sermon to them. There’s a fixed day in which there’s going to be a judgment of the world on the righteous and the wicked.

Conclusion

This is not just a good way to live this life. And this message, this teaching needs to be protected. We don’t have time to go all through 2 Timothy this morning. But it’d be a good read. It won’t take long. But Paul makes a point about this to Timothy about the importance of the message in following the pattern of sound teaching. That’s chapter 1, 13 and 14. He’s telling Timothy to do this. Right? The things that you’ve heard from me, not only do you follow this, but you need to teach other people too. Right? You take the sound, this gospel message that we’re proclaiming to the world, and you follow that pattern, and then you teach others to do this as well. And in the midst of that, you handle scripture accurately, chapter 2, verse 15.

It’s just not just willy-nilly. You don’t just take stuff and pull it from everywhere and make your own conclusions about it. No, it is accurately handling the word of truth and rejecting error. The additions and the subtractions and the distortions, all the things that we just talked about, rejecting that kind of stuff as not gospel. This is not the message of Jesus. Staying rooted in Scripture, he tells them in chapter 3, 14 through 17, right? All scripture is inspired by God and it’s good. This is the message he’s giving. You need to stick to scripture, what scripture says. And then chapter 4, preach the truth. Even in the face of distortions, resistance. I love Paul in Galatians 1. The end of that reading. He said, Now do you think I’m seeking the favor of men?

The reality is when we preach truth, people don’t always like it. And that’s what Paul is saying. I’m not here to please you. I’m not trying to make friends with you by telling you what you want to hear. In fact, that’s what he tells Timothy not to do in 2 Timothy 4. Preach the word in season and out of season. You need to give instruction and reprove and rebuke. You speak the truth, even when people really just want to hear what they want to hear. You keep preaching truth anyway. That is the message of the gospel. You speak that Jesus died, was buried, was resurrected to new life. And it doesn’t matter what anybody thinks. You preach the submission to his will, not allowance for passions and desires, not adding our own things and our own opinions, not substituting philosophy for Christ.

Not thinking our religious achievements are what put us in good standing with God. It’s none of those things. But salvation comes through faith, through belief, through submission to the will of Jesus. He tells us what he wants. He makes it very clear. And Paul makes it pretty clear in 1 Corinthians 15. Here’s the primary thing. This is what he’s telling him. I want to remind you of what’s most important. The gospel I preached to you and you received, in which you stand and by which you are saved. I delivered this to you of first importance. This is the number one thing. Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures. He was buried and he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures.

And then Paul goes on to say, I am who I am because of the grace of God. It’s because of this. Maybe you find yourself in a position this morning where you desperately need Jesus. There’s all kinds of things in Scripture that are good to learn and that we need to study. That’s why it’s revealed to us. But you can start this morning with just that simple gospel message. Do you believe that Jesus Christ died? And he was buried and he resurrected on the third day, all in accordance with the scriptures, and then he ascended to the Father, was enthroned, and now he reigns and he rules. And that you need to submit to his will. If you believe that, we can take care of that this morning.

He tells us what to do. He told his disciples what to do. We have part of it right here on the wall. He tells them to go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. This is the gospel message. And if you haven’t been baptized into Christ this morning, you are not saved from your sins. This is not something I came up with. This is not something our elders came up with, or some other group of people. We didn’t say, Well, you know, the only way to be saved is to be baptized. That’s what’s in here. It’s the message of Jesus. Will I submit to him or not? Will I add things to what he said?

Or will I take things away from where he said? Will I just do what he said? If I have faith in Jesus Christ, which is what the gospel is all about, I will just simply submit to his will. And I can give you all kinds of reasons why it matters and why you should do it. You don’t even have to know that right now, honestly. If you just accept the fact that Jesus said you need to be baptized for the remission of your sins. And you accept that Peter said, repent and be baptized, every one of you, for the forgiveness of your sins. And if you believe he took the Philippian jailer and he took him the same hour of the night and baptized him for the remission of his sins.

And he took Simon and all the people in Samaria and baptized them for the if you can believe that, you don’t have to know every detail. You don’t have to understand every doctrine. We can get to those things. If you can understand the gospel message, you can have your sins washed away this very moment. You can come forward, we can get you in the water, we can get that taken care of, and you can now have peace in Jesus Christ and now no condemnation. Can we help you with that? Come now as we stand and we sing.

Sunday we’ll see.