SPEAKER_00 0:00

Good morning. How are we? Doing okay this morning? Good. Good to see you. And uh as Harley said, this is week number two of Point Community Church, and uh we are really excited about what God's doing and uh anticipating awesome things as we move forward. Before I dive into the message today, I just want to draw your attention to a couple of important things. Um first off, uh, we have inside of that worship guide you received a little thing that looks like this. So uh if you if you uh have a worship guide, I encourage you to pull that out for just a second. Wanted just to make a note of a couple things. Um, first off, we believe that life is best experienced in the context of community. Uh that we need relationships to grow spiritually. Do you agree with that? Uh that we need people around us who encourage us, who build us up, who call us uh to account whenever we're struggling, uh, when we're when we're out in the left field doing things that are not in line with God's desire for us. Uh, we need people to come alongside of us and say, hey, I love you enough to see and I'm gonna speak truth to you. That's important, isn't it? I need that in my life, you need it in your life. We also need a safe place to ask hard questions. Uh, how many of you have questions about God, about the Bible, about faith, about life? Right? All of us do, don't we? And so there's a place for that that we call life group, where we meet in homes around the city, uh in Butta, Kyle, uh, South Boston. And we encourage you to find one of these life groups and get connected. Okay? And here's why, because if you want to grow spiritually, and if you want to continue to learn how to follow Jesus, this is the place. And so we encourage you to find a group. If one of these groups on here does not work for you, let us know. Um, we would love to help you find a group during the week. We've got groups on Wednesdays, on Thursdays, on Fridays, on Saturdays, on Sunday afternoons. And so we just really encourage you because I think what you will find is as we come together, uh, this is kind of like a family reunion, and you get to connect with a few people because you can't connect with everyone. Uh, but when you get into your small group, it's like your nuclear family, and so we can actually get below the surface in conversations. It gets beyond just the how are you doing, how was your week when you think about the weather, uh, to actually what's going on, what's going on below the surface, how's work, uh, what's happening in work. And so you got to get to those deeper questions. And then also a big piece of this, and we'll move on, is that we believe that what we talked about on Sunday, it needs to be lived out in everyday life. Not only that, but when we talk about it here, a lot of times this is just a one-sided conversation. I'm talking at you, I'm preaching God's word, or whoever's up here that week is preaching God's word or teaching from God's word. But we need a place where we can talk about what we're learning and discuss what we've been hearing, right? And so these small groups are great for that. So I encourage you to find one. I can't encourage you enough. Uh, it has been so huge for me personally. I love our small group that meets on Wednesday nights, and that we get to get into the same room, pray for each other, encourage one another, and uh and help each other grow spiritually. The other thing I want to say briefly before we move on is um I want to say thank you. Uh, in the back of the room back here, some of you may be aware, some of you may not be, but we have translation uh where we do translation into Spanish for those of you that would like to hear the sermon uh translate it into Spanish. And so I just want to personally say thank you so much to Irma back there who gives time to that overview. And I know for some of you that's very important, and to me it's very important because we want to be a church that is able to communicate the message uh to people in every way that we can, okay? And specifically, we want people to be able to hear the message of the gospel in their heart language, and uh that's important. So I just want to thank Irma for that, and I also want to uh thank uh all those who are involved with that. And if you need a pack when you walk in on Sunday mornings, they're on that back table uh to my left, uh to your right side, and when you come in, you can grab one of those and put one of those earpieces in, and you can hear the message in Spanish. So I just want to say thank you as we move on. Well, today we launch a seven-week series called Gospel DNA. And the next seven weeks we're gonna be unpacking together this idea that we have a message and a method that really shapes everything we do in the church. Okay? We have a message and we have a method that really shapes how we believe spiritual growth happens. Now, um I'm not a scientist, I'm not a geneticist, I don't know a lot about all the technical things about DNA, but if you know anything about DNA, it's a pretty complex uh conversation. In fact, I know someone here in the area uh who's a geneticist, and a couple different times I've been at birthday parties for kids, and I've looked into this guy talking, it only takes about 30 seconds, and I'm like, I have no idea what you're talking about now. Uh it's just real deep, it's very heavy. It takes a lot of education uh to understand what's going on. But I can tell you, at a baseline level, DNA is a molecule that really shapes the genetic instructions, and it's used for development and functioning in all known living organisms, okay? And so it's this code that's written into the very foundation and fiber of life that helps shape the way that things uh that that living creatures uh develop and and live. Okay? Now here's the thing. Um if you've ever noticed uh that that we've got all these varieties of animals on our planet, right? We've got giraffes, we've got elephants, we've got kangaroos, we've got tigers, we've got all these different animals. It's really fascinating. And each one of those different creatures has a DNA that shapes so when uh uh whatever it is, an elephant uh gets gets pregnant uh and has a baby, that that DNA code is then replicated into that new little life inside of that elephant, right? And so this is how that the species continues on as it shapes that code forms the the fibers that the understanding of what needs to happen for another elephant to be created. And God did this. Fascinating. I mean, this is why, like I said, when you get down to the foundational level of life and get down to the realities of what's going on in this miraculous planet that we live on, I really have to scratch my head and say, how can you not believe in God? I mean, it is amazing, amazing how God has put all these things together. But the point is this morning, is that in church and in our life, in our faith, we all have a DNA. We all have a DNA, we have a code that shapes how we do life, how we how we do church, how we do um life as a Christ follower. We have a code that's written into us, and I want us to talk about that because if you get the wrong code, if you get the wrong foundation at the base level, guess what happens? Destruction. It's really devastating because you get out and left building and instead of recreating or reproducing or or even just experiencing the life that God intended us to have, now all of a sudden you you get out away from the gospel and you get into religion. Now, some of you are going, whoa, whoa, whoa, I thought this was religion. We'll talk about that more in the coming weeks. But let me explain to you just right now that on the front it's very, very important that we see our DNA, the fibers that shape us, the core level, the foundation level, as the gospel. The message of Jesus. Okay? So if you have a Bible, I want to encourage you to open it up with me to 1 Corinthians chapter 15. 1 Corinthians chapter 15. The gospel at a very foundational level is the good news. The gospel at the very foundational level is good news. Now, when we say it is good news, it infers something. It infers that there is bad news. Right? To say that there's good news infers that there's bad news. If you look around the world and you just observe for 10 seconds, you see that things are not right in the world. Correct? You see that the world is messed up. You see that there's suffering, that there's pain, that there's injustice. This week, uh, and really this weekend, my family was hit by the stomach bug. I know that something is wrong with the world because of what we experience as a family dealing with a stomach bug this weekend. But here's the thing: all of us have different ways that we see that the world is not right. Whether you believe in God or not, whether you buy into the fact that Jesus is the Son of God and that He came to save the world, or whether you believe, if you're a complete atheist, whatever it is, listen, you understand that there's something wrong with the world. There's something wrong when on our planet there are children and women and men who go to bed at night hungry, and some of them will die today. In fact, thousands will die today because they don't have enough to. There's something wrong with that. There's something wrong with the fact that we've got sickness that people are suffering from and they are in pain, in difficulty. And today they may lose their life physically because these bodies are decaying and we're dealing with sickness and suffering. Here's the thing: it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that something in the world is broken. And what the Bible tells us is that the problem at the base level, what's broken in us, is that we are not living out the life that God has needed us to live. We've rebelled against God. We have rejected his instruction. We've rejected the way of living that he has called us to. I want to read the first 11 verses. Uh, there's some Bibles under the chair. If you happen to need one, um, also it'll be on the stage on the screen behind me here. Here's what it says. Now, brothers, I want to clarify for you the gospel I proclaimed to you. You received it and have taken your stand on it. You are also saved by it if you hold to the message I proclaimed to you, unless you believe for no purpose. For I pass on to you as most important what I also received. That Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day, according to the scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve, then he appeared to over five hundred brothers at one time. Most of them are still alive, but some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, and then to all the apostles. Last of all, as to one abnormally born, Paul talking about himself, he also appeared to me. For I am the least of the apostles, unworthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by God's grace I am what I am. His grace towards me was not ineffective. However, I worked more than any of them, yet not I, but God's grace that was with me. Therefore, whether it is I or they, so we proclaim, and so you have believed. Paul is writing to the church at Corinth. And when he's writing to this church at Corinth, let me just go ahead and tell you that it was a mess up place. Just like the churches that we're part of today. There was sin in the church. Back up to this point in the book of Corinthians, Paul's been addressing a number of those sins. He said there's a lot of division among them. He says that you guys are trying to make this about some person and you're missing the point. There's also the issue that he addresses in Corinthians where there's sexual sin going on. Immorality is really infiltrating the church. In fact, there's not one man in the church who's gone as far as to actually sleeping with his mother-in-law. Crazy, crazy story. This is what's going on in the church. Anybody who thinks that the Bible is this really cleaned up, uh pristine book without any issues, you misunderstand it. Because what we get is a recording of real life, real humanity, what's going on with people's lives as they wrestle with sin and fallenness, right? So Paul's addressing this, but he gets it to chapter 15 and he says to us, he says, Listen, I want to tell you about what is most important. The message, I want to proclaim to you the message that's most important. It's interesting because he says, You've already received it, but I want to clarify it to you again. Now, here's the truth. Many of you have already received the gospel message today. Many of you have already put your trust in Jesus, and many of you have already been saved. But it is very, very, very important that we as believers, as followers of Jesus, continue to remember, to reflect on what the gospel is, what the good news is, what the message that we mean is it's easy for us to drift away. In fact, many of Paul's letters he writes in the New Testament are to churches that are having struggles with saying true to the message that they had believed. They put their trust in Christ, but they were struggling with sin. And I dare to say that many of us in this room who have put our trust in Jesus still struggle to believe the gospel for ourselves on a daily basis. We can many times struggle to remember the message, the good news that Jesus has brought to us. So today what I want to do is to set the foundation for the next seven weeks by defining the gospel for us based on what Paul has just said and helping us see through two primary lenses that will give us some direction as we go forward. And as we talk to one another, we have some gospel language that we can all use. That's a common language, the common idea, how we talk about the gospel. I grew up in a church, Baptist church, as a kid, and I only saw the gospel as something that I needed to become a Christian, to be saved, to pray a prayer, and then to become a Jesus follower in that way. But what I've now come to believe and understand is more and more that is that the gospel is not just the ABCs of our Christian faith, it is the A to Z of our Christian faith. With me? So the idea is it's not just the foundation, it's actually what we do in all of our life if we want to grow in more and more in Christ's likeness. So let's talk about what gospel is. I'm gonna use a few big terms here, but just hang with me. We'll bring them down to the bottom shelf and explain what they mean. The first thing that we see that Paul writes is that the gospel is Christological. It's Christological. And here's what I mean by that. Simply put, the gospel is centered on the person and word of Jesus. That's simple enough, right? Notice what he says. Who is it that died for our sins? Christ. Who is it that rose again? Christ. Who is it that revealed himself to the 500 and to the apostles and to all those other witnesses before he ascended to the Father? Christ. Because it's about Jesus, right? It's about Christ. It's about the Son of God in the person of Jesus. So if you take Jesus away, you don't have the gospel. You could have a religious message, you could have some really neat saying, some neat information. We could even gather together and sing some worship songs, but when you take Jesus away, you actually got the gospel because Jesus, in essence, is the gospel. It's about Jesus. That's why when we say we're pointing people to life in Jesus, we could really say we're also pointing people to life in the gospel because Jesus is the gospel. Jesus is life. In fact, Jesus even said it this way in John 14, verse 6. He said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. No one. No one gets to heaven except through Jesus. He is the gospel. So the first thing that we see that Paul says is that the gospel is Christological. It's centered on Jesus. It starts with Jesus. The message of our faith does not start with human beings. Did you know that? It starts with God. It starts with Jesus. And that's really important because many of the religions in the world, if not all, really all the other religions in the world, they start with a person. But our faith, our gospel, starts with God, with Jesus. The second thing that we're reminded is the gospel is biblical. What did he say in the passage? He says he died according to the scriptures. And he rose again according to the scriptures. You want to know what the Bible is all about? It's all about Jesus. It's all about the gospel. This is how we understand the gospel. We didn't just bring this message up. 2,000 years ago, there weren't just a group of crazy men who thought, hey, let's see if we can get some people to buy this message. Let's see if we'll see if we can get some people to believe this crazy message that God came down and that he took the form of a man, that he died, and then he rose again. And if we put our trust in that, then we can become a Christian. We can be saved. We can have salvation. Listen, this stuff wasn't drained up by man. It was birthed in the heart of God. It was initiated by the Father in heaven. It was initiated by God as He created humanity. Put all the things that we see around us in creation together. It was God ordained, and He put it into His living, breathing Word. And so that's why you're going to hear this a lot over the course of the coming days. But John 5, it says that these religious leaders, these Pharisees, they were looking at the Bible, and the scripture actually didn't have the full can that we have right now. They had the Old Testament. And then they were looking at the scripture and they were scouring it, looking for answers for life, and they were looking at all the rules there, and they had gotten really good at keeping the rules, and they saw the prophets, and they saw all this stuff about creation. They saw all these different stories about these heroes of our faith. And he says in the midst of that, that they miss the point. Who's the point? Jesus. Because all the while, if you look in every passage of scripture, you will find that it is foreshadowing, it is pointing us to Jesus. In fact, parents in the room. The Jesus Storybook Bible. It's a great resource. Go buy it. You can buy it in a bookstore. You can order it on Amazon, but pick that Bible up. It's not just for your kids, it's for you. And it will remind you that all the Bible is about Jesus. About the gospel, about the good news of the person and the person. The third thing it reminds us is that the gospel is theological. I won't spend a lot of time here, but here's the thing. When we look at the gospel, the good news that's in the Bible, we understand that the gospel teaches us who God is. It teaches us who God is. It shows us that God is the creator. It shows us that God is loving, that he is gracious, that he is merciful. We all love that, don't we? You know what else the gospel says to us? The gospel also says that he is just, that he is holy, that he is angry about sin. Anybody in here get really angry when you see injustice in our world? We need to amplify that by infinity if you want to understand the heart of God for sin. Because we have no idea just how God hates sin. He detests it because he knows its destruction of his creation. He knows what it does to people's lives. He knows how silly little things that seem so minor, so insignificant, how they will be destruction, bring destruction into our lives. And he hates it. He hates it so much. He hates it so much that guess what? We know that message, don't we? We need that to hit us fresh hearts today, fresh eyes today, and fresh ears. We're going to remember just how God creates sin. So it's theological, it teaches about who God is. It shows us what God is all about. And the fourth thing is it shows us uh that the gospel is historical. The gospel is historical. Meaning that there were actually events that happened and took place that we call the gospel. The good news, it actually happened. In fact, notice in the passage where he says he appeared to how many? 500 witnesses. Now I've got to ask myself this question. If Jesus appeared to 500 witnesses after he came down off the cross, was put into a grave and was resurrected, then when those men, those early church men, Peter, and others who began to proclaim the gospel, the message, they begin to proclaim that message? Don't you think that those people who were supposedly had seen Jesus resurrected, don't you think they would have said, no, we didn't see Jesus? What are you talking about? You think they would have like total fit? Like, why are you what do you mean? We didn't see Jesus. What you're talking about? But they didn't, did they? Because they did see Jesus. They did see a resurrected Jesus. Because it was historical, it's something that literally did happen. Something that did actually transpire. And what's beautiful is we can take the Bible and we can put it up next to history, and we can see that the things in the Bible are in line and parallel with what's going on. The Bible's not primarily a book of history, but it doesn't contradict history. We have to remember that the gospel is a historical something that actually took something that happened. And last fifth thing here, the gospel is also missional. Missional. Aren't you glad that the gospel didn't just stay there in the first century? We wouldn't be here today if it did. If the message of the gospel just stayed there in the first century, then it wouldn't have been handed down from generation to generation to generation so that today we could have life in Jesus. But thankfully, it was entrusted to the apostles. And the apostles went out and declared this message, proclaimed it. That's the word consistently in the New Testament. And as that message was proclaimed, people received it, they heard it, they were transformed by it, and then they began to tell others. They began to tell others. They began to tell others. In Acts 1.8, one of the most famous verses that speaks to this is that Jesus says, You will be my witnesses. When the Holy Spirit comes on you, you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, it's the ends of the earth. Ultimately, the ends of the earth, Austin. I mean, listen, from where that message started out, it's gone to the whole globe. And every man, woman, and child in our entire globe, no matter what their race, no matter what their language, no matter what skin color, it doesn't matter. The gospel has gone out on mission because of the goodness of God. So that we can become his children. We can have life in Christ. Lastly, the gospel is also personal. It's also personal. Because here's the thing every single one of us in this room has to decide what we're going to do with this message. You have to decide. Am I going to believe in the message of the gospel or am I going to reject it? But there is no neutral ground here. You can't take a middle ground. You can't just say, well, whatever. I'm going to be indifferent. No, it's personal. It personally called each one of us to make a decision about who Jesus is and what he's done. Because here's the thing. If the gospel's not true, then we all just need to go back to our car and go home. But if it's true, if the message that we proclaim is true, then guess what? Everything in this world changes. Not just changes a little bit, but changes fast. Because it shapes how we spend our money, where we spend our time, how we parent our kids, what kind of job we pursue, what we do with that job, what we do in our neighborhood, it shapes everything, doesn't it? Because the message of the gospel is transforming. It's not something you can just say, oh yeah, I know the gospel, and then just walk away from it. No, if it's true that Jesus Christ died for us and He's given us life both here and forever, then how in the world can we just go through life as an ordinary person? We just go through our neighborhoods and go through work and just say, I just hope I survive. No, we've been given the message, we've been given the cure to the greatest sickness in all humanity. The sickness in humanity is not just cancer, and it's not just heart disease, and it's not just even relational things that go on. It's that we are separated from a holy God who made us for Him. That's what we're made for. And it's only the gospel that can direct the church, it's only the gospel that can solve our problem, our deepest need, our deepest church. What are you gonna do with that?

SPEAKER_01 25:18

What are you gonna do with that message?

SPEAKER_00 25:22

What are you gonna do with that truth today?

SPEAKER_01 25:26

Awesome.

SPEAKER_00 25:27

Right. So here's the thing. I want to tell you two lenses through which we can view the gospel that really help us get our brains around what the gospel is. If someone asks you what the gospel is, if somebody asks you, hey, could you share with me what Christians believe? Did you tell me what you say you go to this church, point community church, and you say you talk about pointing people to liking Jesus? Well, what do you mean by the gospel? Because here's what I know. I know that for many of us in here, we've heard the word gospel countless times. I mean, just in the sermon alone, I've already said the word gospel 50 times, right? But here's the thing. As you hear the word gospel, what do you tell people? What do you say to people when they ask what you what is it that you believe? Well, first off, the first lens or the way that we can view the gospel is thematically through themes that we see for the Bible holistically. That the Bible is one cohesive narrative, one cohesive story that shows us these primary themes.

unknown 26:28

Okay?

SPEAKER_00 26:28

So the first one, the first theme is that we have God. There's God. And what does it specifically say about God? That God is the creator, that God is the one who put all of the world into motion. He's the one who initiated life, he established life. Which is why you and I don't have the right to take it away from people. Because he's the one who established it, he's the one who gives worth and value. In fact, it even says in Genesis that he created man in his image. He's given all of us inherent worth and value. For you kids in the room, you elementary-age kids, you teenagers. Listen, one of the challenges that you face, and it doesn't get easier as you get older, is to find your identity and your worth and your value in something other than Christ. So you look to friends, or you look to popularity, or you look to what clothes you wear, or you look to what cars are being driven, or you look to what gaming system you have, kids. But here's the thing: none of that stuff gives you life, none of that stuff gives you meaning and value. Those are fun things, they're cool things. It's great to be liked, but ultimately life is found in Jesus. And you are worthy, worth something, you are valuable because you are creating God's image. What an awesome thought. So, God is the creator. Start with God, He created us. But then sin. Sin is the other thing, the next thing that you come across. And here's the truth. Sin is really where we substitute ourselves for God. Where we decide we're gonna be God, we're gonna call the shops, we want control, we want to be in charge. Anybody want to be in charge? Some of you may have heard this story before, but I have a daughter, and uh actually have three daughters. I have one daughter that um the time she was born, she has pushed this very hard. You know what I mean? She wants to be in charge. We were driving down the road uh about a year and a half ago, about three, and uh been a couple years back now. And and we're driving down the road, and and we tell her to do something, and she's kind of scratching her head back there, you kind of see her like thinking, her wheels are cranking. And the one of the things we tell our kids in our home is when we tell you to do something, we want you to understand that we're we're the ones that are in charge. God's put us as your boss, and that God is the big boss, he's over us. We're not we're not just you know, we we also have to submit to authority as well. We tell them we're in charge. And she's sitting there, she's scratching her hand, and she says, Hey, um, can I be in charge? Like, no. When can I be in charge? Well, uh never not in this house. Uh when I'm four, can I be in charge? And she began to prod that and keep pushing that and keep kept asking the questions because it's in our hearts, isn't it? We want to be in control, we want to be in charge. So sin at its base level is really when we substitute ourselves for God. We want to be God of our life. We want to be the one who calls the shop. We don't want God to tell us what to do, we don't want anybody else to tell us. We want to be God, and so that's sin. The third theme that we see throughout the Bible is Jesus. Jesus. Jesus is God made flesh, who comes as the hero and the rescuer. He was fully 100% man, he was fully 100% God at the same time. How to wrap your brain around that? Crazy, huh? But he was the Son of God, was God, and came to take away the sin of the world. So we talk about God as the creator, we talk about sin as something that we have done to offend that creator God, that holy God. We talk about Jesus as the one who is the rescuer, the hero of the Bible, the hero of all humanity. And then we talk about the last theme, which is faith. That faith comes onto the scene. It's something that we have to operate in. It's something that we have to, uh, if really the Bible says it's a gift to. Everything is a gift from God, but it's when we decide what we're gonna do. Gospel personal is when you decide, am I gonna put my trust in Jesus or not? Am I gonna believe in Jesus or not? Am I gonna cross the line of faith? In fact, the way that Ephesians uh says this, it says that we are saved by grace through faith. Okay, so faith is something that we say, God, I'm gonna choose to follow you, I'm gonna choose to trust you, I'm gonna stop being in control, I'm gonna let you be in control. I'm gonna stop trying to manipulate situations and circumstances and people in my life. I'm gonna trust you.

unknown 31:06

Right?

SPEAKER_00 31:06

But ultimately, I'm gonna trust you with the biggest thing, which is I'm gonna trust you my salvation. How I actually can make this problem of my sin away. I'm gonna trust you with that, to trust specifically in the work for me. Now, the second way that we understand the gospel, if you were gonna tell someone about the gospel, is as a story. As I said, it's a cohesive narrative, the Bible is, and so there's a storyline going on, and I can see all this same storyline in your life. When I talk to you as individuals, when you talk to me, you will see that we see these same key ideas come up in the story of our life. And the question is, are we gonna tell the story that God has written, or are we gonna tell the story that we want to be written about? We're gonna tell the story that we want to be told, and we're gonna follow the storyline that we want life to be about. Here's the reality: all of us are ultimately created in God's image, and that when we live out the story He's called us for, we experience the story he's called us to, then we will really see life happen for us because this is what we were made, this is what we were made for. So here's the deal as a story, this is the purpose for salvation. We first see the idea of creation. God created a perfect world. We already talked about that. God is creator, he's sovereign, he's in charge. But as a story, we see creation in Genesis, first book in the Bible. We see creation happen in the first two chapters, and we get the story that God opens his mouth and speaks, and he says, Let there be light. And there was light. He says, Let there be light. Well, every time I open my mouth and speak things, you know, conflict happens. But we opened he opens his mouth and he says, Let there be light, and there's that point forward, speaking all the things that we see in creation. But the next thing that happens is the fall. Creation and fall. So the world and humanity fell into sin and decay. I like to talk about it this way. Took three whole chapters for us, actually, two, and we can't give the third chapter of the whole Bible. We mess it up. Humanity messes it up. We didn't make it very far, did we? I mean, seriously. He gives them one rule, they break the one rule. I know a lot of kids in this room that would like to only have one rule in life. They only had one, they break it, and then the world goes from that moment out of control. In essence, he goes into sin and from that point forward, relationships have been broken with God, and relationships have been broken with each other. You want to know what's wrong with the world? Rebellion that we have against God. Then the third piece of the story is redemption. Aren't you thankful for redemption? Aren't we thankful today that we have a God who redeems the work? Redeems our mess. And every one of us in this room has a story of redemption. So God sends his son to redeem the world. And fourthly, it's restoration. In the end, God will bring all things back to his original intent. No more death, no more suffering, no more injustice, no more stomach bugs, no more of the junk that we have to deal with in this life. He will bring it all back to the way it was intended today. I'm excited about that. I'm excited about the day when we won't have to see injustice play out in our world any longer. I'm excited about the day. There'll be no more fighting, no more arguing, no more hardship. Whatever difficulties you face, there's a day where all those things are, it's gonna be an awesome day. So when we think about the gospel, what are we talking about? When we're talking about the fact that there is a God who made us perfectly only. He made us imperfection. That was that human humanity. If we would have been there, we would have done the same thing. I don't know about you. Sometimes I'm like, man, there would have been somebody else there to make that decision. What it could have been used we'd have done. We're trying to take out the redemption that Christmas work through his work on the cross for us. And lastly, that restoration is coming, that one day we'll all be made new. And here's the cool thing, church. We have a job, we have a role to play in restoration. Because God has told us that we get to join him in seeing the world restored. So we don't have to just wait till heaven, but actually every day in our lives, in our homes, in our workplaces, in our neighborhoods, we get to participate with God and seeing the beauty of the gospel displayed, seeing God put things back together, seeing love bound, seeing people served, seeing people cared for. This is the motivation for why we should go and help those who are poor, those who are sick, those who are lonely, those who are in prison, those who are in difficulty, because we get to be part of the restoration. We can't fix it all. In fact, we can't fix anything. God has to work in us and through us to show that there is a day coming when he ultimately. But as I was praying this week about this message today, I felt like God really landed on my heart one verse that really captures me. And we would understand what the gospel is. So if you have your Bible, 2 Corinthians 5, verse 21. 2 Corinthians 5, verse 21. If you don't have this scripture memorized, or if you don't normally memorize scripture, never memorize the verse in the Bible. This is the verse that I want you to memorize. Because this summates the gospel. This summarizes what the gospel is really all about. What it says. He made the one who did not know sin to be sin for us, so that we might become righteousness of God in him. God made the one who did not know sin. Jesus never sinned, did he? He was perfect, he was spotless, he was completely righteous and pure and true and holy, everything. And that's pretty impressive because he had family. And he had to deal with the disciples. And he had to deal with people like me. And you know the reality is that he was never, ever, ever in sin. Never. He knew no sin. And yet God says to Jesus, his son, he says to him, Remember, I told you to take sin seriously. He says, I'm going to make you sin. Look at the scripture there, but that's really not what happens. He doesn't turn him into sin. He basically treats his son as though he committed every sin that you and I have ever committed. Every thought that was impure that's come into your mind. Every word that's come out of your mouth, it was a curse to God or a curse to someone else. Everything that you've ever done that was wrong, God treated Jesus like he did that. God treated Jesus like he committed all the crimes that have ever been committed. God treated Jesus, his perfect holy son, like he was the one who caused all the injustice in the world around us. God treated Jesus on the cross like he was the one who did all the evil things that you can think about. He treated them that way. Why? In fact, even Jesus says it on the cross. He says, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? You see, God treated Jesus like he lived our lives so that he could treat us like we lived Jesus' life. That we would become the righteousness of God. No one in here, no one in here, myself included, none of us in here are righteous on our own. The scripture says that we are like filthy rabbits before holy God. None of us are good. None of us are right. But Jesus, who was treated like he was a criminal, like he was the chief of sinners, the worst of sinners. He makes us forgiven. He gives us the opportunity to be forgiven. The question is, have we received that? What have we rested in his promise, in his presence and given to us? Anyone ever ask you the question, what is the message that you believe? What is the gospel? You can take up to this verse, or hopefully you can even quote this verse and say, 2 Corinthians 5, 21. That God made him who knew no sin come sin for us so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. That God treated Jesus like he lived our lives so that we could treat each so that he could then treat us like we live Jesus Christ. What an awesome truth. If you've never received that gift, if you've never received that reality in your life, I implore you, I plead with you, I beg you, receive that gift. Be free. Be forgiven. You are a God who not only created the world, you're not only a God who is holy, there is nothing in you that is bad. There is nothing in you that is dark. There is nothing in you that is evil. There is nothing in you that reveal represents the messed up reality of who we are.

SPEAKER_01 41:59

And yet you love you pursue us.

SPEAKER_00 42:09

I pray today that every man in this room, that every woman in this room, that every child in this room, that they would not resist that room. They would receive. They received your message. They would receive your goodness. They would receive the gift of eternal life. We wrap up our time this morning. On each side of the room, there's two tables, candles there. We invite you to take communion. Communion is where we simply celebrate what Christ has done. And as you were taking the body and you were drinking the cup that represents his blood, the cracker represents his body broken, and the cup that represents his blood shed. Would you remember that God treated his son Jesus like he lived your life? So that then he can treat you like you lived Jesus' life. Would you remember that this morning? Because Jesus said to remember. And when we forget that reality, he does all kinds of things to it. But ultimately, we need to rest in his