The Message of the Gospel, pt2

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically from the audio and may contain small errors.

You can be seated. As we continue our series on the gospel, again, it is helpful to keep in mind the picture of a diamond. The beauty of a diamond is evident upon first pass. When you see a diamond, a large one, a small one, it doesn't matter, but when you see it, it is beautiful. But then it's also, its beauty is also buried deep. It's also in it. To say that you have beheld the full beauty of the diamond is to underestimate that diamond, right? You've got to continue to turn that diamond back and forth, look at it under different lights and you can see its full range, its full beauty as you keep turning it and looking at it. And like we've been saying with the gospel, to really get it, to really get Jesus, to really get Christianity. We've been talking about getting the gospel in our bones. If we're gonna do that, then what we need to do is have a broad picture,

a deep understanding of the gospel. It is something that we need to continue to turn over in our minds. We need to see how the gospel affects centuries of history and culture and perspective and nations, but also how it affects our marriage, our relationships, our mental health, every other thing, right? All these small things, all these big things, it's all affected by the gospel. There's nothing untouched. And so if we are really going to understand it, if we're going to get a scriptural understanding of what the gospel is, then we need to understand a few things. So whenever we are discussing, anytime we're discussing messages, any kind of message at all, whether it's a text message, a phone call, whatever, you're always going to have static involved. You're always gonna have static involved. In fact, this is what analog static looks like. I know most of you under the age of 30

have no idea what that is. That is called, what we would affectionately call as children, we call that snow. And that was analog static. And maybe some of you who are right around 30, maybe you've seen that, but that's analog static. Analog static on the TV looked like snow. On a phone it sounded like hissing and roar. There was this, you know, oh, you're breaking up. We're imitating analog static. There's also digital static. Digital static is very different. does not look like that. Digital static on a TV is kind of like, it's just like squares of images that aren't exactly coming in full. If you have a digital antenna, for example, then you know what digital static looks like. It's the signal being interrupted. On a phone, it's more like blips or sentences being cut off in the middle. That's kind of what digital static sounds like, okay? You're familiar with this.

When it comes to the gospel message, static is ever present. Static is always there. And it's not analog or digital, it's cultural, right? It's experiential. It's things that you bring to the table, your particular culture, your particular perspective, your particular set of experiences. What that does whenever you are listening to the gospel message, that has the potential to break it up, to add noise to the clear message from Scripture. And it is a lot of work, admittedly, to get past your own static. It is not easy, but it is necessary if we are going to have this broad view of the gospel, right? The gospel message that we believe then, that many people believe is made up of bits and pieces kind of from here and there. And then it's cobbled together and it looks like, you know, it's formed in a circle and we're like, look, look, I understand exactly what the gospel is

about. I understand everything there is to the gospel. But what we, what most of us lack is a holistic understanding of what the gospel is. In fact, I broke it up into two camps last week. Last week, we saw that there were two main messages, two main gospel messages that get pushed that are very different from one another. The first is the gospel for us message, and the second is the kingdom gospel message. Now, many people were trying to tell you those are two different messages. They are not. It's almost like side A and side B of the same message. It is two sides of the same coin. It is, you know, whenever they ask Jesus, what's the greatest commandment? He gave them two. He said, love the Lord your God with all your heart, your soul, your mind, your strength. And the second, they didn't ask him for a second, he gave them a second anyway, the second one is like it to love your neighbor as yourself.

What we have here in the gospel is a two-part message, a two-part understanding. And the first, and it's just helpful for us. There aren't two gospels. It is helpful for us to label, okay? There are not two gospels. There's one gospel. We understand it. So the gospel for us sees the message of the gospel from a primarily personal perspective. There's a lot of P's there. The way we say it, Jesus died in our place.

Jesus died to make things right between us and God. Jesus is raised so we could have eternal life. Now this is the gospel. I didn't say anything that wasn't gospel, But this is the particular perspective of the gospel for us message. It can be summed up very well in Romans 5:8. It says, but God shows us love for us in this, that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us, the gospel for us. This is true, right, and good. Okay. This is legitimate. There's also another message, another camp, if you will, that it's the, it's the kingdom gospel message. We looked at this a little bit last week, we're going to look at a little bit more, but this sees the gospel message from the perspective of God remaking everything. God remaking everything. So God then is going to keep his ancient promise and he's going to establish his rule and authority to reconcile all things to himself.

Like it says in Colossians 120. It is a worldwide movement that the Lord God is establishing on this earth and he's doing it through the church. Okay, this is the kingdom gospel message. We can say amen to this just as much as we can say amen to the gospel for us message. Can I have an amen? That is. We see this evidenced in Jesus's model prayer when he's saying, when he's saying, hey disciples, pray like this, Matthew 6:10, pray to God, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. So your kingdom come, your will be done. Those are synonyms. That's the same thing happening for God's reign and rule to be established on this earth as it is in heaven. Both of these gospel messages, again, good, legitimate. But we tend to believe one more than the other. We tend to apply one more than the other. What we need to do though is marry them. We need to see them together.

We need to understand that they are of equal weight, of the same value. They are part of the same message. So last week we began to see how they interact. And admittedly, it was very one-sided how we talked about it. We talked about how the kingdom gospel then expands the gospel for us. And the way we said it last week is that the gospel is for us, but it's not just for us. And that when we believe only the gospel for us to the neglect of the kingdom gospel, it becomes a gospel for me. Okay. So then my needs, my deficiencies tend to dominate my view. What the kingdom gospel does is it expands that by turning me outward, helping me understand that my life does not need to dominate my view. God's kingdom needs to dominate my view. Matthew 6, 33, don't worry about what you eat and drink and all that. Just put the kingdom of God first. All these other things are going to follow.

Seek his kingdom and his righteousness. And all these things will be added on you. That's Matthew 6, 33, right? This is when you only believe the gospel for us. It becomes a gospel for me, and you lack a certain humility. The kingdom gospel then brings that humility to say, like, you are a small part of a very big thing, and that's a good thing for us to be humble. It also becomes the gospel for me because we tend to think about not just our inabilities, but we also think about our abilities. We think about our own power, our own legacy, our own authority, which is fine, but if that dominates our view, then we really miss the fact that the gospel, and this is what the kingdom gospel does, it expands its view. The gospel actually is worldwide and it's historic. It expands our view to generations of people.

And this is something in speaking with people that are over the age of 55 or 60, this is something that people, when you're older than that, they really begin to come grips with. This is just from conversations I've had. You begin to come to grips with the fact that you're not going to be here forever. You begin to come to grips with the fact that there's something that you need to pass on. There's something that you need to leave here after you're gone so that things keep going well, so that things keep growing. This view should not, I mean, we're late coming to that view. We need to understand that view at 13. We need to understand that view at 25, that we aren't here for our own legacy, but that we are a part of something that is worldwide historic and will definitely outlast us. And that we can put our lives in the ground as seeds to grow this kingdom gospel movement. Ultimately, if you go too far with just the

gospel for me, if it just has to do with you, it doesn't have to do with a lot of other people, You really put your spiritual life in cruise control because your ticket to heaven is punched because the gospel is just for you. And if the gospel is just for you and you're going to heaven, well then you're done. No urgency, no mission. And spiritually you grow stale.

To be clear, this is where many in Burleson are. We have a firm grip on the gospel for us, but the mission is in the rear view mirror. The kingdom gospel expands the gospel for us. However, we can also make the opposite mistake. This is where we're going to be today, where we begin to believe only the kingdom gospel. Now first, we need to explore the kingdom gospel message a little bit more. So turn with me to Mark 1. We're going to start in verse 15. I said 14, but I did not tell the truth. We're going through most of that chapter. And in Mark 1:15, Jesus said, we looked at this at length last week. I will just very quickly recap. Jesus said, the time is fulfilled. The kingdom of God is at hand, repent, and believe the gospel. This was the message that Jesus preached over and over and over and over and over again through Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

This is not, I'm not cherry picking, sorry, I'm not cherry picking verse 15. Okay. I'll get to those in a second, but I'm not cherry picking verse 15. The time is fulfilled, the kingdom of God is at hand. This is a repeated phrase throughout. Jesus is preaching the gospel of the kingdom. That's how it refers to it in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. So what does it mean? It means the time is fulfilled. So God's ancient promise way back in Genesis 12, way back at the beginning, that ancient promise is coming true. The kingdom of God is at hand. That God's kingdom rule and authority is right next to you. So in other words, it's not about time. It's about space. It's close to you. Repent and believe the gospel. So let's put it together very quickly. Jesus then is ushering in, He came to announce and usher in God's upside down kingdom. God's kingdom where repentance and faith went out,

and where pride and coercion lose. Okay, in this world right now, not in God's kingdom, Repentance and faith get trampled on, and pride and coercion and brutality. Those things win. I don't know if you watch Discovery Channel. It wins in nature. It wins in the boardroom. It wins in marriages. It wins with kids. It wins everywhere. God is ushering in, Jesus is ushering in God's new upside down kingdom where those things don't win, where repentance and faith win. And you're invited. This is the message, this is the kingdom of the gospel message that Jesus is coming to deliver. So we look at his gospel preaching, but also I want to look at his actions. So just after he begins preaching, right, so we're still in Mark 1. We've been in Mark 1 for three weeks. I mean, and I hate to tell you, we're going to be in Mark 1 next week too. We're just, we cannot get out of Mark 1, okay, because there's a lot here.

But we're covering a lot of verses in Mark 1. So by process of elimination, you can tell what we're going to be preaching on next week. In Mark 1, what does Jesus do? So 21 through 22, it says, Jesus taught as one who had authority. So Jesus goes in the synagogue, he teaches and people are astonished. Both his content and his authority, his power are just staggering. People don't even know what to do with it. And then in 23 through 42, Jesus, and that's a quote of verse 42, healed many who were sick with various diseases and cast out many demons.

It included many people that were possessed. It included Peter's mother-in-law who was sick with a fever. And it also includes a leper. And Jesus, it says that He wills the leper to be clean. Period. The leper says to Jesus, if you're willing, you can make me clean. He says, Jesus says, I am. Be clean. What power? What power? That is astounding that Jesus wills things into existence right in front of us. I know that we've heard about the miracles our entire lives. I understand, you know, it's one of the first things you've learned about Jesus, that he healed people. But it is astounding. It is amazing. And when you read Mark 1, 21, all the way through 42, Jesus's power is just bursting out of him. He's so, he's exhibiting so much authority, so much power. It's like a spiritual firework show, and it's not over that much time. It's happening relatively quickly.

Why does he do these things? Why put on this show? Is he showing off? Is he dazzling people? He's saying, look how great the gospel is. It'll heal your blindness. Is that what he's doing? Is that what he says? No, no. What is Jesus doing? Why do those things? Why do those things immediately after he begins preaching in 1.15? Why? It's because he's demonstrating the kingdom of God. Jesus is demonstrating the kingdom of God. And this is actually, when you look at the four different Gospels, the Gospel according to Mark, when you read the Gospel of Mark, There is a weight and emphasis on Jesus' action. There's not a whole lot of preaching in the gospel of Mark. There's, I think Mark 4 has a bunch of parables. Outside of that, you're not really being with a whole lot of long-form sermons. A lot of it is on action. Mark is by far the shortest gospel, 16 chapters, more like 15 and a half.

And it is succinct and powerful. Jesus is demonstrating the kingdom of God. And it might sound odd. It might sound odd, so bear with me for just a minute. I don't know if you've seen a superhero movie lately, if you've seen the Marvel movies, you've seen the DC movies. What a lot of these movies begin to grasp at, I think they begin to grasp at something that is true, but maybe not in how they explain it. So in these superhero movies, they discuss alternate dimensions. Okay, now I realize we are fully steeped in sci-fi right now. But they discuss alternate dimensions. So something's going on in this dimension, but there's another dimension where these other things are going on, and these other things are going on are kind of hidden from people in this dimension, and the things that are going on in this other dimension are very weighty and significant, and they're affecting everything. This is a basic plot line of a sci-fi,

superhero movie. They're discussing other dimensions. In many ways, the kingdom of God is like an alternate or another dimension where different things are going on. In fact, listen to how Colossians describes our salvation. Colossians 1:13 and 14 says that God has delivered us from the domain, or dimension of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved son in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. Colossians 1 describes our salvation as a transference from one dimension to another dimension. Okay. In other words, that there is a another dimension besides this one where something else is happening and it's weighty and it's really significant. Let me just say it this way, okay, because I'm not going to start quoting Marvel movies next week, I promise. When Jesus teaches, when he opens his mouth and people are astounded at his power and authority, what is happening is he's demonstrating

in the kingdom of God and the kingdom of God is overlapping with the world. The kingdom of God is overlapping. Let me say it a different way. When Jesus heals somebody, that is physical evidence of the kingdom of God coming down. That is on earth as it is in heaven. Okay, so whenever Jesus heals a blind man, what that shows us is that that blind man, when he dies in heaven, he will see again. That lame man who can't walk in heaven, whenever he is back with God in heaven after he dies, he won't have a limp. We understand that the physical deficiencies that we are dealing with now will be gone. We understand they are part of the fall. They are part of the curse that happened in Genesis 3. They're a result of sin. We live in a fallen world. And so in the kingdom of God, all those things are reversed. There's no curse in heaven. The kingdom of God has no room for a curse, okay?

Now, when we are doing this, when we see this, Jesus is saying the kingdom of heaven is at hand. It is close. That means it is breaking in slowly. In other words, it doesn't mean that like when somebody becomes a Christian, all their problems vanish, poof, they're gone. No more limp, no more blindness, no more whatever. Even in Jesus' ministry, He's not healing everybody. Not everybody can hear Him teach. It's local, it's localized. He's in Capernaum, for example, in Mark one. He's not, He doesn't have a bullhorn. It's not a message written in the sky. Jesus is healing specific people and he's demonstrating that the Kingdom of God, that this is what it looks like in the Kingdom of God. It's more power and authority than you can handle. And all the curse, all the things that happen in Genesis 3 that mess everything up, it's all undone. This is the Kingdom of God overlapping the world and it's in Jesus.

And this is what you see further on as we continue to read in the narrative of Scripture, we read the book of Acts, what's happening there? It's the kingdom of God being demonstrated, right? It's miraculous science, and it's establishing the fact that the church is going to be this vehicle that the Lord is going to use to establish His kingdom on earth. And so in our church, in South Burleson Baptist Church, we should want to and pray for, we should pray for it to see the kingdom of God coming down. What does that mean? It means that as we gather and within our body, that true worship nourishes our souls. And I've got to be, I'll just take an aside here for just a second. I have heard relatively little, practically none, no criticism of what song we're singing one week and what song we're not singing the other week. None of that. What I have detected here is a spirit of true worship.

Whatever song we're singing, I can raise my hand and worship the Lord, right? I can do that. No matter what, no matter what song we're singing. In the kingdom of God, true worship nourishes our souls. Proclaiming the word refreshes our minds. In the kingdom of God, whenever the kingdom of God is coming down, we give sacrificial love to those who cannot repay us.

In the kingdom of God, one way you can see it is that we show genuine care to those who are hurting. This is evidence of the kingdom of God coming down. It's not just, you know, miraculous things happening. It's also people being made whole, people being reconciled, marriages being healed, being reconciled. It's all these things happening. This is whenever the kingdom of God is coming down.

But how do we accomplish all this? How do we as a church, how do we establish the kingdom? How do we walk in the kingdom of God to see all these things happen? It's because we follow specific rules. We do it a certain way. Do we do this in our own power? No. We don't do this because we're figuring out what the kingdom of God is and then we turn around and plan and make it look just like the kingdom of God. That's not how it works. It works because of what Jesus said in Mark 1:15, that the kingdom of God is at hand. It works because the kingdom of God is now present through us, in us, in our community. It is reflected as we gather. It is demonstrated as we show love. This is why, this is why the COVID-19 pandemic has been particularly frustrating for me. It's because I knew that it was going to limit our ability to reach out to the community around us and meet needs because we physically couldn't be next to them.

It would just be sending money somewhere. It would be, you know, doing this, doing that, but it would all be remote. what we need to understand is that the kingdom of God is present in us, among us, as we gather, and that that kingdom is for us to be spurred into demonstrating that kingdom other places, not just among us. And so what does it mean in real time? In real time, the kingdom of gospel message means that our church is a movement for restoration in Burleson. Let me say that again. Our church then is a movement for restoration in Burleson. It means that we feed the hungry. It means that we clothe the poor. It means that we care for the sick. It means that we counsel the broken. These are things that we do, not because we're trying to change who we are, but because this is what Jesus did. When he was on earth, could have done anything. What did he do?

He loved the outsider. He welcomed prostitutes. He preached the gospel to tax collectors. He fed the hungry. He healed the sick. This is what Jesus did. This isn't, I'm not making this up. I'm not inventing, like, How can we be cool this year? It's what Jesus did. So Jesus, Jesus, not just what he did, but what he's doing, Jesus right now, right now is actively caring for the poor. Jesus is actively seeking out the lost. But look, in our life groups, when we pray for people that are lost, when we pray that they come to know the Lord, we're not doing that because like, we think it's the only thing that's going to get them there. We do that because Jesus is already doing that and we're joining him on mission. We're not making this thing up. Following Jesus means that we are active in these things because Jesus is active in these things personally and as a church within our community.

This is how James says it. James 2, 15 through 16 says, if a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them, go in peace, be warmed and filled without giving them the things needed for the body. What good is that? The answer to that question is it's no good. You have parlayed empty words at them. In the kingdom gospel message, the church is a movement for social change.

And if the church, just say it this way, if the church is in the community, the community should feel it. If the church is in the community, the community should feel it. They should know that we are a place that helps, that serves. We should be a servant. Our whole church should be a servant to our immediate community. Now, let me say it again. The kingdom gospel message then is good and legitimate. It's in scripture, in other words. It's here. It's what Jesus demonstrated. It's what we see in James, what we see a lot of different places. But now that we've talked about some of the benefits or some of the playing out of this Kingdom Gospel message. I also want to show how it can get warped if it is championed over the Gospel for Us message. Okay, because remember last week we talked about it the other way around. We said, well, if you just believe the Gospel for us and there's no Kingdom Gospel message,

there's some things bad, bad can happen, it becomes the Gospel for me. What about the other way around? Well, if the gospel for us can turn into the gospel for me, the kingdom gospel can turn into an activist gospel. Or to use another phrase, the kingdom gospel can turn into a social gospel. In other words, if you only believe the kingdom gospel message, then you become a social activist but without gospel activity in your heart. You push for social healing and reconciliation, but there is no healing and reconciliation in you. You want to see, for example, you want to see the underprivileged served, but it is a hollow morality. You know you should do it, but you have not experienced it yourself. You know, for example, poor people need to be served. Fantastic. But what you don't understand is your own spiritual poverty, and you don't understand how the Lord

God in heaven condescends to you and serves you and cares for you. You don't understand that. You're not coming from a place of personal transformation. You're just going out of duty. How many people right now, how many people right now are calling for racial reconciliation? But they have not experienced the personal healing, the transformation of the gospel. You have people calling for it, but they haven't experienced the gospel. Well then, you know, you can say, well, Drew, don't you care about racial reconciliation? Well, yeah, of course I do. It's a problem. But I don't need to pick. I don't need to pick one or the other. I don't need to pick gospel healing transformation or racial reconciliation. That's a false choice. We should see. We should see that personal forgiveness and healing actually propels social change. People say,

people say, let's end racism now. Okay, let's end racism now. How do you want to do that? Well, when you ask the question, and I've asked, and I've asked honestly, I haven't just kind of been cherry picking about, you know, to show people that are, you know, show, to show people as stupid or anything like that. It's not, it's not that. And so I hope you understand. I'm not trying to make fun here at all. I'm trying to be, I'm trying to help us understand how they, how they can correlate. When people say end racism now, I asked the question, how, how should we do that? The only thing I've heard is more laws, more restraint, more reform, more funding this program and defunding that program. Look, that's fine. I get it. Right? We need good laws as a country. However, laws, especially more of them, will not cure racism. Won't do it. It won't. It can't. It can't.

Only the gospel will. Only the gospel will. Why? Because you cannot change a society without changing a person. You can't do it. You can try, but laws are just band-aids on a severed arm. They don't work. They make us feel better. Only if we're applying the band-aid though. If we got the severed arm, kind of stinks for us. So let me say it this way. You wanna end racism now? Spend your life making disciples.

I don't wanna seem too smug in my cure here, right? I don't think that ending racism now is some small issue or anything like that. But I will say, you line up a social ill right now, any single one of them, poverty, racism, you know, just, I don't know, man, the gender gap, anything, line it up. And the answer is to spend your life making disciples of Jesus. Because Jesus cared for people perfectly. Jesus displayed love for God and love for people, balanced perfectly. If we make disciples who follow Jesus, then racism will meet its end eventually. You say, no, it needs to happen faster than that. Well, we don't have a way faster than that. You want to put more logic and make it worse? Jesus says, follow me, follow me. And let me just, let's just take a history lesson right now. Let's take a history lesson. We have had, let's just take sins of Jesus's death, okay,

for a small slice of history, 2,000 years. In that span of history, you have seen empires come and go. These empires have tried to force their will upon people through laws and coercion, sometimes to positive effect and sometimes the negative effect. All these kingdoms have come and gone. What has not? Christianity. You say, I want something that works. I said, well then check the last 2000 years of history.

Why do we have hospitals? Christianity. Why do we have orphanages? Christianity. Why do we have people that are going around and saying, you know, all we need is faith, hope and love. Where do you think those ideas came from? We are a society that is right now built right on top of a Judeo-Christian tradition, But all of that tradition is hollow. We don't understand why. We don't see the need. There's no power. It is a tree that has been eaten from the inside out. And so if you just glance at it, it looks like a normal tree. But it will rot. It is not sound. At the end of the day, I can just say, with great confidence, It's not because I'm smug, but because Jesus is great. I can say, look at Jesus. Look at Jesus. Jesus is ushering in an entire kingdom. And what does he do? Does he put on social programs? Does he even create this industrial kind of line so that everybody who wants to be healed can be healed?

No. In fact, Jesus invests heavily in 12 idiots. Amen. I mean, aren't we all? Let's raise our hands. We understand. Yes. Praise the Lord. We're idiots. Jesus heavily invested in 12 idiots. That was his social program. That was how he was going to cure it all. Bigger than racism. Bigger than spousal abuse. Bigger than all those ills. Bigger than homelessness, poverty. Bigger than all of it. And what did Jesus do?

And let's just, let's not be starry. Jesus served and ministered in the midst of heavily institutionalized social problems. You think racism is bad now? Go back to 34 AD. You got some pretty bad racism going on. You got genocide going on and the government approving. So, look, I don't want to be simplistic. I don't want to not take these social problems seriously. seriously. I actually do want to take them seriously. And I want to say, if you want to change the world and invest in people, demonstrate the gospel to them, serve them, love them, bring them with you as you demonstrate the gospel. Yes, let's care for the poor. Let's bind up the brokenhearted. Let's feed the hungry. Yes, yes, yes. And amen. But let's do it with Jesus. And let's do it with the one who is at work advancing the kingdom of God. And let's do it as we make Disciples. Time is escaping me, but I feel like it's a good example, so I'm going to say it.

The YMCA is a great example. The YMCA began as the Young Men's Christian Association. It began as an organization that, quote, combined preaching in the streets and the distribution of religious tracts with social ministry. The YMCA began as a disciple-making venture. There were children in in the streets because of the Industrial Revolution, they were working jobs, they had nowhere to go. Especially whenever, either if their parents were at work or if, and school wasn't like a hugely, like not every kid was in school at this point, cities were overrun with people, there was a lot of social problems going on. YMCA stepped in and said, hey, let's give these kids the gospel, let's help make disciples of these kids while we are meeting their physical needs. And so what it did was it started with the goal of preaching and teaching and making disciples.

But then somewhere along the way, relatively early on, that goal changed. It wasn't the goal to make disciples. The goal was social change. And it's so simple, so easy to make that shift where you're going for disciples and social change happens. But then it's easy just to change that goal, change that target to social change. The problem is when you change that target, you've missed the gospel. The kingdom of gospel, sorry, the kingdom of gospel message, it may expand our understanding to see that the gospel is a powerful, worldwide movement that is going on. However, the gospel for us message then grounds our understanding of the gospel. We need to see the gospel first, primarily as a changer of hearts, not behavior.

The gospel primarily is a changer of hearts, not behavior. Behavior comes after the heart. Behavior comes after the heart. If we're really going to get the gospel in our bones, we need to see the gospel in one straight line. This is my challenge to you today. I want you to begin to see the gospel in one straight line from beginning to end. It saves us and it saves others. That the gospel is not just for us. It promotes forgiving people that you resent and it also promotes making disciples. And it also promotes feeding the poor. Maybe it's helpful to think of it this way, that the kingdom gospel message then keeps us forward thinking, it keeps us on our toes into what God is doing that is a new thing among us. But the gospel for us message, it helps us keep our history. It brings us to our knees into a humble, confident understanding that the gospel is first for

hearts than for behavior. We need to stay forward thinking and we need to keep our history. We need to be on our toes and we need to be on our knees. It's not both, or it's not either or, it's both and. We need to be on both. It is hard to be on both. It is difficult work. Today, during our time of invitation, and Dan is going to come up and sing just as I am again. The words are going to be on the screen for you guys. As we do that, I want you to know, I want you to see the gospel is for you. And the gospel is about so much more than just you. It's so much bigger than you. The invitation then on both is to repent and believe. and believe the gospel. Allow Jesus to meet you in your sin and begin the process of healing. We're gonna have our time of invitation. I'm gonna be up here. I would encourage you if you want to do business with the Lord, you want to do,

you want to make a decision for Him, join our church, want to receive prayer and then go sit back down. That's cool too. If you want to be baptized, if you want to confess your sin, if you want to be made new, we can do that. I can help you do that right up here. I'm gonna be standing up here as we all stand, would you? Would everyone stand please? During our time of invitation, let's sing and be in prayer.

I come to thee, O Lamb of God, I come Just as I am, awaiting not to rid my soul Of one dark blood to thee whose blood can cleanse each spot of land, of God I come. Today and throughout the week, as you consider this gospel message, I pray that it would push you forward and push you up to your knees, that it would allow you to greatly anticipate the future, but still hold on to that history. Jesus, we thank you for this morning and we pray your blessing over our church and your blessing in this community. And it's your name that we pray.