What's the HEART of the Gospel of Jesus Christ?
We'll praise Jesus today everyone. It's another
hot and muggy day in California. But we're here to praise the Lord and to give Jesus
Christ glory that we can be pleasing to God and that other people can come into
the household of faith, that people might be saved and not end in hell or
destruction or throw their lives away. What I wanted to speak about today is
the heart of the Gospel. What is at the very heart of the Gospel of Jesus Christ?
Now most of you if you are acquainted with my channel most likely you know the
basics of the Gospel of Jesus, that Jesus is the son of God, that He Himself is
God, and that He came to this earth to save people from their sins, that He lived
on this earth until He was about 33 years old, that He had a ministry an
earthly ministry where He had 12 disciples and He walked on this planet for
three years with those disciples that He called, and He preached the Gospel of
repentance, He talked about the kingdom of God. Jesus wasn't preaching the
kingdom of church or the kingdom of the pharisees. He wasn't preaching religion
or even 10 commandments. But Jesus was preaching the kingdom of heaven, the
kingdom of God. He talked about beyond the 10 commandments that your
righteousness has to exceed that of the pharisees. Jesus got down to the very
heart of the Gospel and He expanded on that with all of the parables about the
kingdom of God. So if you're not sure what Jesus came to this earth for or what
the parables He taught were all about, I deeply encourage you to read the Gospels
and pay specific attention to what Jesus taught, the sermon on the mount, the
beatitudes, all of these things. Pay attention to what Jesus said because this
is the core of the Gospel. So read Matthew Mark Luke and John. A lot of bibles
have the words of Jesus in red, pay attention to those, read it over and over
again. Read it for yourself, read it with your children, and read it with your grandchildren.
A lot of Christians get really distracted with other people's version of the Gospel,
and some of their versions are better than others, and a lot of people's
testimonies. One Christian testimony that is true and valid but that a lot of
people get distracted with is the testimony of the apostle Paul. As we know the
apostle Paul wrote a lot of the New Testament like Ephesians, Galatians, first
and second Thessalonians, first and second Timothy and the apostle Paul speaks
a lot of things that are hard to understand and you should know that a lot of
people misinterpret Paul and they have a lot of reasons why they dislike him. Paul
seems to be in some ways against women, so they think or against marriage after
someone is widowed. But it's all people's interpretations of what Paul was
saying. And they get so wrapped up in what the apostle Paul says and his version
of the Gospel, that then they totally are distracted from the real Gospel and
the heart of the Gospel which Jesus taught.
So if you want to be at the heart of the Gospel,
get to know what Jesus actually taught, acquaint yourself with His words, read
the Gospel teach it to your children pray and ask Jesus to speak His truth into
his heart because all authority and all power has been given to Jesus. And if
you abide in Him and if you eat His flesh and drink His blood like Jesus
commands His disciples to do, then you will start to know what is His heart and
the heart of the Gospel He teaches. And you won't be distracted by all these
other Christian doctrines such as how you should properly dress to look like a Christian
or having the correct lingo or going to bible college, you know basically
looking like a modern day pharisee. So we want to steer away from all of the Gospels
of men, and the doctrines that men create, and get down to the very heart the
very basics of what Jesus taught and then grow in the things that He is
teaching. Because if we stay connected to Him and keep our eyes on Him, we're
not going to go wrong. But the moment that we try to emulate Paul or peter or Timothy
and act like these men even though they were our fellow brothers and laborers
in the kingdom of God, then we're bound to get a few degrees off from the truth.
So the
first thing I wanted to speak about here is what the Gospel of Jesus is not. Because
a lot of Christians are turning people away from Jesus by a Gospel that appears
to be the Lord's. But in some ways, it's off and it's just a big turnoff to
people. So what is the kingdom of God not or what is the Gospel of Jesus not. Well,
a few things that this is not an exhaustive list but a few things that come to
mind, one of them the Gospel of Jesus is not about becoming a monk who just
denies yourself. If that were true, then there are a lot of religions of the
world that practice self-denial to the extreme. And all of the religions of the
world that practice this would be getting to heaven if it were just to deny
themselves that led to happiness and everlasting life and the plenty that God desires
for His children. But self-denial in itself is not the way to everlasting life
of course we have to deny our self, pick up our cross and follow the Lord. But there
is a false Gospel that says that you will be at the heart of the Gospel if you
simply do things that you just don't want to do. So maybe you have recently
bought a house and now you feel condemned, because you're living in that house,
and you enjoy it, so you feel condemned because you actually like your living
quarters. And the devil basically accuses you and says, “well you're not
denying yourself because you're living in a place that you enjoy, therefore you
need to sell your house or get out of your apartment, and live on the street,
otherwise you're not denying yourself properly. And because you're not denying
yourself in this manner, you're not at the heart of Jesus.” And that is just
not true. Sometimes Jesus would tell people to leave what they have, sell it
and to come follow Him. But other times Jesus would tell them to stay in their
own town and to be a witness there. So in each case it is situational what we
do and how we live out the Gospel. But at the heart of the Gospel is not
self-denial. It's not just becoming a monk. Now don't get me wrong there are
some people who don't deny themselves, they want to continue to live a sinful
life, and that's not what I’m talking about here. I’m talking about thinking
that you can get to heaven by self-denial in itself, like how monks think they're
going to achieve everlasting life by being able to whip themselves or fast for long
periods of time or never have any kind of relationship with people just living
in a cave, you know those sorts of things.
Jesus didn't design us as humans just to deny all
the pleasures of life. That's not at the very heart of the Gospel. But if your
idea of fun is immorality, then also you're going the wrong direction. So as
disciples of Jesus, we need to figure out how to deny ourselves in a way that is
truly denying the flesh things that are evil, but also accepting the blessings
of God, because after all God has given us many blessings and things to enjoy
if we truly are in His love and at the heart of His Gospel. He's given us children
to enjoy if we are parents. He's given us a spouse to enjoy if we are married. He's
given these things because He loves us, and He wants us also to love Him and
enjoy the things that He is given. So again, at the heart of the Gospel is not this
self-righteous, self-denial that some Christians are preaching.
Another thing,
some people think that at the heart of the Gospel is condemnation. They're convinced
that God is just going to slay. He's going to kill all men that are evil and
send them to hell. And you have this as an example in the bible even the
apostles thought this in Luke chapter 9, you could look at it for yourselves,
but it's Luke 9:55 through 56, the disciples were trying to get Jesus ready to
go through Samaria into Jerusalem. And Jesus was just going to be passing
through the town of Samaria. But as we know Samaritans don't really like Jewish
people very much and vice versa as well. So when the Samaritans figured out
that the that Jesus was actually going to Jerusalem they reported back to His disciples
and they said, “well we don't want your Jesus to come here if he's going to Jerusalem.”
And they rejected Jesus because He was going to Jerusalem. And so when the
disciples reported back to Jesus, they said, “The Samaritans rejected you they
don't want you going there should we send down fire from heaven to destroy them
such as Elijah did?” And in response to what the disciples were saying, Jesus
said, “You do not know what manner of spirit you are of. For the son of man did
not come to destroy men's lives but to save them.”
A lot of times our heart is not close to the Gospel,
it's not close to the kingdom of God, because we start going down this road of
judgment thinking that God should just kill everyone that's evil. And while
there are a lot of evil people that are going to fall under God's judgment, it
is not the will of God that anyone goes to hell that anyone perishes, but it is
the will of Jesus that men repent of their sins and they don't come under the
condemnation of God, but they come under His grace. So rather we ought to be
praying for people of this world to repent and to really get to know Jesus
because Jesus is love, He is truth, He is not this kind of condemnation where
He just wants to kill everyone. Of course, people will be condemned if they
stay in their sins and if they continue to rebel against God. But we know as Christians
that at the heart of the Gospel is love and righteousness. It's the love of God
that wants to save people from their sins so that they can become holy and be
in God's presence, not just hoping like how Jonah hoped that Nineveh would just
perish. God rebuked the prophet for that because Jonah just wanted the people
to die He was upset that God extended them mercy. So if we are going to be God's
disciples and at the heart of the Gospel, we need to desperately love the lost
world and want them to come to know Jesus because this was Jesus's hope that
sinners would come to repentance. God does not love sinfulness. He does not
love sinful people. But He does want all people that are sinners to repent and
come into the light of the truth. So this is at the heart of the Gospel, guys.
Another deception that I see that people think is
the heart of the Gospel when it is not, is that, it's what a lot of the
churches are teaching that that somehow God is going to give people freedom in
their sins and not of their sins. A lot of churches they have passages posted
that say come as you are or we are accepting of all people. They fly the
homosexual flag, they're very inclusive acting as if those who commit sin are a
race. They don't claim it as sin anymore, and they act as though the heart of
the Gospel was to accept sinful people as if they're going to heaven and that
God accepts the sinner which is also a false Gospel. There are a lot of
Christian churches now that at the heart of their Gospel they're accepting and
condoning evil. Because they themselves love evil and they don't want to come
into the truth. So we have to get away from that false Gospel that accepts sin
and says that we are or God just came to set us free from the condemnation of
sin, but that we could basically live in sin ourselves without being condemned.
Okay, another thing that I see that people believe
at the heart of the Gospel which is not is the social justice Gospel. There are
some groups of people that believe that if we put our faith in Jesus, if we do
what's right, then we should be involved in all these social justice projects, and
that we should be reinventing what health care looks like, giving money to the
poor or getting Donald Trump elected or getting a certain politician elected,
and they basically mix this social justice and these political agendas with Christianity.
And at the heart of Gospel is not social justice. If that were true, Jesus
would have worked to overthrow the Roman government. But Jesus' was not going
around trying to overthrow Rome in order to set up the kingdom of God. In fact,
when the disciples tried that and they tried to forcibly set up Jesus as king, Jesus
quickly ran out of their midst, because He knew their hearts and He took off in
the opposite direction. It was not the heart of the Gospel. It was not what Jesus
was teaching. And Jesus didn't come to just set people free politically. Now, I
know that a lot of people get really heated about that. They're very
persuasive. They think that, you know, getting Trump in office or whoever their
political candidate is, is the same as the Gospel. But these things are not the
truth.
So let's talk about what is really the heart of
the Gospel. The heart of the Gospel all comes down to love. Jesus came to this
earth because He wanted to save you, He wanted to save me from our sins. At the
heart of the Gospel is to save souls from sin and to set them free spiritually,
so that they could be liberated from sin. God could not liberate us from sin
and let us enter into His holy kingdom unless there was a blood sacrifice. The
men of old would sacrifice lambs, they would sacrifice birds, they would have
all these sacrifices that ultimately would never be able to perfectly atone for
people's sins. And all of these sacrifices pointed to the perfect Passover
lamb, which would be Jesus Christ, God's son. And when Jesus came, He died and
He shed His blood, that His blood would wash over us, that He could atone or
make the payment for our sins, that then He could stand before God with our
sins atoned for, that then we could also stand before God if we accept what He has
done for us.
So this is at the heart of the Gospel. If we put
our faith in Jesus and if we ask His blood to cleanse us, to wash over us, and
if we follow Him with our actions, then we will be washed clean. So don't let
anyone tell you that His blood won't wash you clean or that you should add
something else to this Gospel, such as church attendance or tithing or going on
certain trips around the world. Because if you believe in Jesus and ask Him to
cleanse you from unrighteousness, you can know that He will wash you clean. The
door is open for you for salvation. Those who knock the door will be opened. So
knock on the door and ask for salvation, and Jesus will give you the gift of
life, the gift of the Holy Spirit. This is the Gospel. Jesus saves souls, He gives
them peace with God, and He gives us a place to live with God. If we do not
accept the offering of God's Son, of what Jesus did on the cross, if we try to
enter in by some other way, thinking that religion will save us, that going to
Catholic Mass will save us, that paying tithes will save us, then we're missing
the point. Because at the heart of the Gospel is to accept what Jesus Christ
did and then to fully dedicate ourselves to Him, not to thinking that we're
going to be able to be with God because of some just religious practices or
joining some cult practice, or doing something of self-denial, like how some
cult may tell you that you have to do. Because following Jesus is about hearing
from His Holy Spirit and then obeying whatever He puts on your conscience to
do.
So guys, this is what I have to speak about today,
the heart of the Gospel. I hope that you understand the heart of the Gospel,
but again, if you're not clear on what the heart of the Gospel is, the best way
to understand it is to pray, to read the Gospels, read Matthew, Mark, Luke, and
John for yourself, and then ask Jesus to guide you, that He would give you the
Holy Spirit to teach you and to lead you into all truth, that you wouldn't be
deceived by any of the Christian churches today or the people that claim to be
brothers or sisters or whatever they claim. Don't be distracted by the world or
other Gospels. Listen to what Jesus actually taught and ask Him to continually teach
you because He promised you the gift of the Holy Spirit to lead you and to
guide you into all truth. Well, this is all I have on that topic for today,
guys.
Yes, amen. I pray for those of you that are
wanting prayer. “Lord Jesus, I pray for my fellow brothers and sisters in the Lord
who want to come out of evil and oppression, that want to be set free from all
the bonds of sin, addiction, whatever it is that holds them in the world and
keeps them under the thumb of Satan. I pray that you set them free, Lord Jesus,
in your name and that they can truly have eyes that see and ears to hear and a
heart that beats for your kingdom, that they will eat your flesh and drink your
blood, Lord, and not be discouraged by Satan that constantly comes against us,
always either throwing temptations at us or telling us that we're not worthy. I
pray, Lord, that we can overcome in your name and not listen to the accusations
of the devil or fall into His temptations, but that we can fix our eyes on you,
Lord, and overcome in your name. So I pray for my fellow brethren in your name,
Lord Jesus, amen.”
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