Sermon Cloud

Life is full of so many good things. The other day, I decided to write a list of some of the good things in my life –my favorite things: like seeing the smile on Becky’s face, watching Courtney swim effortlessly through the water or listening to Kayla sing and play the guitar. Seeing my garden in full bloom, picking ripe tomatoes, appreciating a good curve ball. Watching the sun glisten off the waves, a good night’s sleep, a juicy steak. Laughing out loud, walking lush green fairways and making a perfect stroke that sends a 20 footer to the bottom of the hole. The smell of fresh brewed coffee, reading a good novel, and getting hugs from my daughters. If you were to write a list what would you put on it? What are some of your favorite things?... Why not take a moment and write just a few things. What have some of you written? Now my list of good things is certainly going to be different from yours. But as I was making this list I was struck by how much all of us are wired to enjoy life.

Every one of us has this inner desire to enjoy life, to love and laugh, and feel our heart pound in our chest. To take life by the throat and live! And yet somewhere along the way our enthusiasm wanes. Somewhere along the way we are subtly seduced to abdicate our passions for our obligations. And so we do our jobs, pay our bills and pull the weeds. And then, we wake up one day realizing we’ve surrendered to the mundane. Apathy rules us and we wonder if we can ever recapture the passion of our youth.

Well the good news is that God is the one who hard wired us with this appetite for living. In fact, He never intended that we would succumb to a life of just getting by. God created us to take life by the throat and THRIVE – to enjoy all the goodness of His creation, to enjoy all our relationships with one another and find our greatest joy in a life with Him at the center.

One of my favorite quotes of all time comes from C.S. Lewis who said, “We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”

This was the point the apostle Paul was making when he wrote to his friend Philemon back in the first century. Paul’s prayerful desire for Philemon is God’s desire for us. God wants us to thrive. Listen to this prayer: And I am praying that you will put into action the generosity that comes from your faith as you understand and experience all the good things we have in Christ. God doesn’t want us to settle for mud pies when we can have it all. God wants us to thrive, to flourish.

God wants us to experience all the goodness of life that’s found in Jesus Christ. So today, we are beginning a summertime message series we’re calling “Soaking in the Gospel.” Every once in awhile we need to return to the very foundation of our faith, and let ourselves get drenched in the blessings of God, to absorb the good news into our hearts, and let God re-awaken us to a passion that comes from experiencing His goodness. So our hope is that as we take a holiday in the pool of God’s grace, His gospel will so permeate our hearts and minds that God will awaken us to the fullness of life that He offers us through faith in Jesus Christ. So where do we begin? When we talk about the Gospel – the good news, the Bible is full of this news. So since the good news was something that came to us from God, I figured that the best place to start is with God:

The Gospel Begins with God:
God promised this Good News long ago through his prophets in the Holy Scriptures. The Good News is about his Son. In his earthly life he was born into King David’s family line, and he was shown to be the Son of God when he was raised from the dead by the power of the Holy Spirit. He is Jesus Christ our Lord. Romans 1:2-4

Two thoughts here: First, The Good News is God’s idea! It originated in His heart. It originated out of His love for us. The Bible tells us that, “Even before He made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in His eyes. God decided in advance to adopt us into His own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. This is what He wanted to do, and it gave Him great pleasure.” Ephesians 1:4-5 You might think that God’s favorite thing was to create the galaxies - to put the stars in place – or to create bright blue oceans teeming with life, or to create the lion or elephant or the Amazon jungle or the Rocky Mountains. Certainly, the Bible tells us that He takes pleasure in these things. But one of His greatest joys was to come up with the idea of grace – to include flawed, broken and ordinary people like you and me in His family. It was His idea. The Good News is God’s idea.

Secondly, The Good News is about His Son! Every other religion tells us that you must earn your way to God. God’s way is so different. He gives us His Son: “For God so loved the world that He gave us His only begotten son, that whoever believes in Him will not die, but experience eternal life!” Isn’t that great? We don’t have to try to figure out what God wants from us. We don’t have to worry if we’re good enough. The Gospel is not about us. It’s about Jesus. Eternal life is found in Him. The Good News is that if you put your trust in Jesus, you can experience eternal life – today! The letter of Acts says it this way about Jesus: “There is salvation in no one else! God has given no other name under heaven by which we must be saved.” Acts 4:12 The God news is about His Son. His son lived a real life. His Son was born in the royal line of David. He was fully Human. And His Son was shown to be the Son of God – the proof, was when he was raised from the dead by the Holy Spirit. The good news is not just God’s idea. He is the God news. He gave himself to us so we could know God.

But that’s just the half of it. The Good News is found in Jesus. GOD gives himself. He is the author of life. And when He gives us Himself we get life. We get His life. And how we get that life is now seen in the work of God. The Gospel is the Work of God The Bible tells us more good news in Colossians 1:12-14 What has God done? He has enabled you to share in the inheritance that belongs to his people, who live in the light. For He has rescued us from the kingdom of darkness and transferred us into the Kingdom of his dear Son, who purchased our freedom and forgave our sins.

His work rescues us from Darkness
The last part of verse 14 tells us how. This is called redemption. Jesus purchased our freedom on the cross. He bought us. The price? His blood. His final words on the cross were these: “It is finished.” The word he used was tetelestai – which literally means the debt is paid in full. His death paid the price for your sin and my sin and for every sin ever committed. His life for our life. That was the deal. And Jesus paid the price completely. And because of his sacrifice, the good news now is that anyone who believes in Jesus can be set free from captivity. You no longer have to be a slave to sin. His death in your place means you can be set free and be forgiven for all time. We no longer have to wander in darkness. We no longer have to go it alone. Jesus rescues us from darkness to bring us home. Jesus rescues us so we can be restored to God.

His work restores us to God
Peter said it this way: “Christ suffered for our sins once for all time. He never sinned, but he died for sinners to bring you safely home to God.” 1 Peter 3:18 Let me say it this way: Jesus is a person. And we are persons created in the image of God. That means we were created to live life just like Jesus - to live life to the full – to thrive. But because of our sin – because left to ourselves we choose to go it alone – to ignore God – to with hold our thanks from God – and choose not to live for Him, or give Him glory – the resulting experience is “darkness” or alienation, separation, loneliness. Whatever you want to call it – sin isolates us from all that is good – and all that is life that is found in God. And so when we sinned, we damaged our personhood. And we needed a person who could restore us, a person who could set us right – to restore us to life the way it was meant to be – a life where we could thrive: You see, we were made to enjoy this earth that was created for us to enjoy. And we were made to enjoy our relationships by the one who made us to enjoy each other. And we were made to know and love this Creator who made us in His own image and likeness

So God sent this person – Jesus to rescue us and restore us to enjoy His creation, to flourish in our relationships with each other and become once again the apple of His eye. That is good news indeed. That is the Gospel. Scot McKnight summarizes all that I have taught today with his definition of the gospel this way: The gospel is the work of God to restore humans to union with God and communion with others, in the context of a community, for the good of others and the world. - Scot McKnight

So what do we do with Good News like this? Well, what I would say is this: You need to ask yourself a question: what if it’s true? What if all that I’ve said today is real?

Think of it: If this good news is true, and you believe, really take it to heart and turn from trusting in yourself to trusting in God… If this news is real, then you no longer have to carry your shame.
If this news is true, then you’ll never have to go through life alone.
If God’s offer still stands, then you can experience freedom from sin and forgiveness of sin today.
If Jesus is who He says He is, then you can know God.
If Jesus rose from the grave, you enter into a new life today with God.
The Good News is that, God says it is all true, and He stands behind it. It was His idea. It was His Son. It was His work. We have to do nothing – except believe it and receive it.

Have you done that? Do you want the offer of the good news of Jesus Christ today?
If that’s you – I’m going to ask that you bow your head and pray with me right now.

Let’s pray.