Deconstructing the Gospel.
If we tear it all apart and examine the elements, what makes up the gospel?
The simplistic art of deconstructing something is that’s something humans do innately.
A one-year-old builds up blocks and … DECONSTRUCTS what he just put together.
It’s really difficult to have the gospel without block one: God.
Yup, some people today are trying to redevelop a “godless gospel”.
That’s like having pumpkin pie with no pumpkin.
What kind of pie is this again?
There can be no complete and compelling a gospel apart from recognizing who God is.
For example, there’s no gospel without the Justice of God.
We can’t bring a God …
into the gospel that does not demand a Just payment.
See, Justice enforces the penalty … and that’s part of the gospel.
Justice highlights the requirements and we cannot meet these requirements.
Justice ensures there’s a court date set and we will face our Judge.
Justice points at the offender and says, “You did something offensive.”
Yow!
That’s the bad news.
The gospel has to include the bad news and the bad news is … God is Just.
The Bible says in Psalm 89:14, “Justice and judgment are the habitation of Thy throne: mercy and truth shall go before Thy face.”
Notice, it’s BOTH.
It’s a balance.
Our God is a very balanced individual.
He’s not a hundred percent Just Justice.
He also has some mercy and truth, but we can’t dismiss both of those components, because they balance out who God is.
Every part of this storyline is essential.
We can’t remove one part and still call it the “complete gospel”.
None of the characters in this movie can be left off the script.
So who are the characters so far?
Well, there’s God, and God is just.
God is also pure.
He is holy.
God brings sinless perfection into the gospel.
Because if God is not sinless, then He cannot enforce the law.
He cannot require us to pay a penalty because He Himself would be guilty.
We’re going to get to the good news.
The gospel is the best news ever.
You’re going to like it.
There can be no great goodness unless there is a great problem.
The great problem must become abundantly clear.
Justice is a major problem.
Justice is demanding.
Justice will not be easily satisfied in this case.
Justice establishes the minimum payment requirements as exceedingly high beyond our capacity to pay with time, energy, or anything.
God’s standards of purity and holiness so far are beyond our reach that we appear hopeless in this storyline thus far.
Love enters.
Love found a way to redeem my soul.
[You knew there’d be a good guy, right?]
What sort of love is this that comes to the gospel?
Well, it’s expressive love.
Love unexpressed is not genuine.
It has to be felt.
How did God express love?
Well, obviously, He condescended down to our level to speak love in a language we understood.
This Love is full of pity, compassion, enough to clothe Himself in humble skin.
The King put on a skin bag and came down and dwelt among the beggars.
This love conveyed and communicated in a readily-receivable format.
This love spoke to us in the language of Suffering.
This is a love that comes on down here on our level.
This is love that a child can comprehend.
It’s like God kneeled down and looked us right in the eye and said, “Let me show you how much I love you.”
This level love in the gospel is a willingness to suffer alongside us.
This is a love language unavoidably clear!
This is a love beyond our natural comprehension.
It’s really good.
This is a love that’s willing to carry our burdens.
This is a love who showed-up with arms wide open, inviting us to transfer all of our guilt, our shame, our shortcomings, our addictions, and our corruptions onto His pure heart.
I’ll carry it.
Put it on My heart.
I’m going to take it somewhere.
This love is strong.
This love is divine.
This love gave Himself.
“Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.”
This love is willing to do anything for you, and I’m ready to prove it … to the ultimate level.
This love said, “I love you so much, I would do anything to rescue you from the penalty you deserve.”
“I’m willing to die and be separated from My Father and experience spiritual separation in Hell so that you do not have to get what you deserve.”
Calvary-level love.
Crucifixion kind of love.
For God so loved …
-
How much?
That He gave …
-
How much did He give?
His only begotten Son …
-
To what degree?
To perish … for me
-
To What Result?
Everlasting Freedom and Abundant Life Offered
So let’s deconstruct this gospel if it’s possible.
Let’s evaluate every little facet.
Which of these essential blocks can we blow up?
If we look at it negatively, we’re going to go negative for a little bit because then we’re going to go back to positive.
That’s how life is.
Ready?
What part of the gospel is vulnerable for attack?
We’re going to deconstruct it, tear it down.
Let’s imagine.
Let’s enter into the cave.
Ready?
Imagine a demonic crew of conniving convicts all gathering around Hell’s strategy table trying to deconstruct this gospel structure, and they get out their sledgehammers and their chisels and they break out the welding torches and the jackhammers and the evil imps jump up on this formation of the gospel from every possible angle yet the Chief Cornerstone seems invincible.
“Like we can’t break it, boys, let’s tear it down!”
Yells one beast, “Burn it to the ground!”
Another one screeches, “Remove the justice, if you can just get rid of the justice!”
Another evil spirit chimes in, “Let’s persuade people to overreact and ridicule God’s sense of justice because it’s very different than a human’s justice.
Then the whole puzzle just falls apart!”
“Okay, okay, okay,” says another demon.
“The only way to do that is to maybe reconstruct a fake God who’s like super-fluffy, ultra-merciful and just disregards justice, so then there’s no need for a Savior because you don’t have to fix the problem.
Wait, we already did that.
Ah, we thought of that last year.
That was Islam.
Stink.
Yeah, it just forgives everything with no Savior.”
“Naw, let’s make fun of the drastic payment.
See the payment’s too big.
People don’t like the payment.
People will mock and snicker at the force of violence against such an Innocent Soul.
Some will call Calvary the mutilation and the needless slaughter of a wimpy, ineffective, common man.
Let’s attack the payment as being too drastic, too bloody, too repulsive for the refined, dignified, modern, high society mindset.”
“Let’s make the people think we don’t want a God who slaughters His own Child.
We’ll help them mock Him.
We’ll overdramatize the scene.
Look, it’s God killing God.
It’s hilarious.”
“People don’t think sin deserves a penalty that heavy.
I mean, come on.
Let’s just let Him off the hook.”
Alright, that was pretty intense.
We’re going to walk away from that scene.
[Sorry, it smelled like hell in there.]
What are the key building blocks of the gospel?
It’s been under attack for a long time.
What if we made an infographic?
We’re coming back up to the surface.
We can breathe, right?
What if we made an infographic of the necessary components of the gospel?
Like a Rubik’s Cube.
How many pieces do we need to complete this beautiful composition?
One obvious starting block, back to the beginning, is God.
He’s got to be present to make it work.
You know, we invited Him.
And what specific attributes should God bring?
Well, holiness, because He’s got to be holy, we’re not, so Somebody has to be holy in this mess.
Justice, we keep emphasizing that because it’s necessary.
Let’s mix in some mercy, right?
You’ve got to have some mercy and love.
What does man bring to the equation?
We’re going to solve it.
Ready?
Number one, all we bring is sin, just sin, self, pride, confusion, chaos.
How does God respond to our sin?
He has to say there’s a penalty.
He sets up a payment system.
It’s got to be payment.
However, God provides … a Person.
a Savior,
a substitute,
someone willing to complete,
bring satisfaction,
someone who’s willing to go all the way through to a resurrection,
to prove he has the power to conquer the penalty.
Now, how does the sinner respond to this divine offer?
Well, we’re a little bit shocked, right?
We’re processing it, we’re thinking, “Wow, that’s different, this is different.”
We try to understand.
We evaluate our options, like okay, “So I can believe or not believe, and that’s it.
Hmm, okay.”
Upon basic evaluation of the gospel offer, the Bible calls …
the gospel, “the power of God unto salvation”.
That word “power” is the word dynamite.
So that means the dynamite planted in my soul goes kaboom!
Just a gentle boom, right?
So I hear the gospel dynamite boom … and I say, “Wow!”
And my response should be humility and then faith.
Acceptance
Embrace
Relief
How does God then reciprocate to my choosing Him?
New birth.
I’m born of the Spirit with life from above into God’s family divine.
What else does God do?
Indwelling.
He sends Himself to live in myself.
That’s a good deal.
I get the Holy Spirit sealed within.
God signs the adoption papers and He adopts me as His child.
I formerly was not His child.
God orders the blueprint construction to begin on a fresh Heavenly mansion.
He pours the foundation.
My name now cannot be blotted out of the Book of Life.
Here’s the verse that clarifies:
Revelation 3 verse 5 says, “I will not blot out his name out of the Book of Life.
[Out twice.
No out.]
“But I will confess his name before my Father and before His angels.”
So I become a not-blot.
You know, many people are going to get the opportunity and they did not act on it so they get blotted.
Time’s up.
But I get the not-blot privilege.
What does God begin to do with me at the point of salvation?
New creature.
New teacher.
Explaining the Scripture from within my spirit.
Right here, alongside me, sitting in class, as a Tutor, helping the words make sense.
“Do you get that?
Do you want me to repeat it?
Do you understand it?”
Now Bible words light up and glow.
Psalm 40 verse 6, “I delight to do Thy will, O my God: yea, Thy law is within my heart.”
It’s now resonating.
There’s a deep abiding love for the words because I know the Author.
What else happens?
Grace sets up a classroom in my soul according to Titus 2:11 “For the grace …
See the word, that’s God’s help, also a Teacher. “For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared unto all men, [comma] teaching us.”
Grace teaching us.
Who’s your new teacher?
She writes her name on the board.
“My name is, well, Mr. Grace, and I’ll be teaching you some really cool things this year.”
All right, what else happens at this moment of salvation?
Old things are passed away.
Behold, all things are become new.
Attitudes and appetites begin to shift.
I experience spiritual sensitivity like I never felt before.
Guidance.
Internal gyroscope.
Actually, here’s how the Bible says it.
Isaiah 30 verse 21.
Strange verse.
It’s a fun verse.
It means if you listen intensely enough, God wants to communicate.
Here’s how he says it.
“And thine ears shall hear a word behind thee, saying, This is the way,
Walk ye in it,
when ye turn to the right hand, and when ye turn to the left.”
God’s available to help us make life’s little decisions, every one.
Instantly, at the point of salvation, ring, ring.
Hello?
Hello?
Oh, it’s my Dad.
Hey!
The prayer line frequency is now flowing in clear connection between me and my Heavenly Father.
I feel a sense of assurance wrapping around my formerly unstable soul.
There’s a new rest,
security,
His abiding presence.
Courage grows from Who is now with me to assist me in this adventure of life.
What did I leave behind?
So, at the moment of salvation, what had to go?
You know what I left behind?
There is no longer a holding cell in Hell with my name on it.
I get a mansion instead of a prison cell.
I leave behind a life of chaos, and I embrace a life of purpose with a new Partner.
I forsake the lesser and pursue the greater.
I’m no longer an outcast …
A new song I sing, from a spiritual beggar to a child of the king.
Well, the old robe was dirty, all tattered and torn, but this new robe was spotless, had never been worn.
Oh, the best thing in my life I ever did do was to throw away that old robe and put on the new.
You get to wear a new robe.
It’s an illustration.
There’s a new man starting to grow.
I can feel inner man strength developing, new exercises
New classes.
I feel a strong hunger coming on for the milk of the Word of God.
I’m developing spiritual appetites.
In fact, I want to spend more time today with my Dad.
I have a new Dad, capital D. I love Him.
And I really want to be a good child and spend time with my Heavenly Father.
You’ll notice as you listen,
to believers explaining their pathway to the point of salvation.
Many testimonies tell what leads up to the point of salvation and then they kind of skip and they tell what comes after salvation.
But if you pinch to zoom right into that miracle of the moment, the actual exchange of what transpires at that moment …
-
I trade my nothing for God’s everything.
-
I released hold of my self-trust and completely placed my faith in the only logical solution, the Savior.
I cannot save myself.
That’s obvious.
In that moment, that miracle moment, …
-
The hand of God scoops down and catches me and rescues me from falling into the bottomless pit. Chaw-lay-lew-yaw!
John 10:28 says, this is Jesus talking, “And I give unto them eternal life.
[That means Jesus gifted it specifically to me.]
“And I give unto them eternal life and they shall never perish,
Neither shall any man pluck them out of My hand.”
Wow, that’s the safest place to be in the whole world, in My hand.
And then there’s a double-wrap in the next verse, John 10:29, “My Father, which gave them Me, is greater than all, and no man is able to pluck them out of My Father’s hand.”
We gotcha, double-gotcha.
“I and My Father are one.”
Let me clarify, we’re One.
In fact, we’re just One, not two, One, one hand.
“Then the Jews took up stones again to stone Him for blasphemy because that Thou, being a man, makest Thyself God” … by what you just said.
Jews: “You just said that you were one hand with God.
You just declared that You and Your Father are One.
You’re making Yourself God.
We know that’s blasphemy.”
Jesus didn’t say this next part, but let’s just play along.
He might have thought
What he said, which is, “Well, I and my Father are One.
It’s My hand providing secure salvation … and My Father’s hand. You see, it’s the same hand.
We agree in one because we are One.
What if I’m BOTH?
So you just accused me of being a man and making Myself God.
What if I’m BOTH?
Man and God.”
Huh?
“Could you handle it?
What you gonna do now?
You gonna stone me?
Huh?
No, not today Satan.
I’ll die on My schedule.
Thank you.
I’ll lay down My life on time.
You guys are early.
Sorry.”
The best thing that ever happened to you in this life was successfully graduating to the next life by accepting the simple offer of eternal life through Jesus Christ, the source of life.
Whenever you make a large purchase, it’s good to pause and read the receipt and ask this question out loud, “What all comes with this package deal?
Well, what all comes with it?
Can I get a couple more with-its to go with-it?”
See, the gospel gives you more than you can comprehend in one moment.
The gospel is the greatest gift.
The good news goes beyond the good news to become the great news to then become the everlasting news and then it becomes your everyday news.
Let’s determine to say thank you to God every day in a fresh way for allowing us the privilege of participating
in His Gospel.
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