FOUNDATIONS #1: THE GOSPEL

I joined Foundations Class during this past month. Here are some notes that I put here so that I will always remember it and be able to read it anywhere, anytime. Hope you’ll be blessed!

The Process of Losing the Gospel

The gospel is accepted --> The gospel is assumed --> The gospel is confused --> The gospel is lost.

The generation that assumed the gospel is the one most responsible for the loss of the gospel.

The gospel already accepted by my parents, then as the next generation, I assumed it. Unless I accept it, the gospel would be lost. Therefore, people that were born from a Christian family need to accept it. The gospel is “everyone’s ticket” to come to the Lord, to accept forgiveness, and have eternal life.

Typical Gospel Presentation

1.    God loves you and want the best for you.

2.    You’ve sinned and alienated yourself from God.

3.    Jesus died to bridge the gap between you and God.

4.    You can accept the gift of forgiveness and receive eternal life in heaven with God.

Problems:

1)    Misplaced focus à it is no longer Jesus Christ at the center of the gospel but “you”.

2)    Misplaced scope à actually the gospel is not only for “you” but for all sinners. When the redemption proclaimed, it was not only for human, but also all the creation.

3)    Limited result à the result of the gospel is not only for eternal life in heaven with God but also for now, which is total transformation.

I used to evangelize people with those typical Gospel presentations. I heard it a lot since I was a little girl and kept telling the Gospel in those ways. When I first heard about this in the class, I felt like someone’s unveiled my eyes.

Definition of the Gospel

“The Gospel is the good news that through Jesus Christ God has accomplished all that is ultimately necessary to bring about His glorious plan to manifest His glory in and among His people throughout His good creation, and that through faith in the grace of God, you and I can participate in that glorious plan as we are brought to the plan in the Father through the power of the Spirit” (Marc Cortez).

Key Elements:

1)    The focus is on God in Christ.

2)    The Gospel has already been.

3)    God’s glorious plan for his people and all of creation

4)    The story includes us

Impact

·         “The gospel is the dynamic for all heart-change, life-change, and social-change. Change won’t happen through ‘trying harder’ but only through encountering with the radical grace of God.” (Tim Keller). à transformation

·         The gospel is good news, not good advice. “Advice is counsel about something to do and it hasn’t happened yet, but you can do it…News is a report about something that has happened – you can’t do anything about it – it’s been done for you and all you can do is respond to it” (Dr. Martin Lloyd-Jones).

Two Extremes: Religion & Irreligion

Gospel is not same with religion or irreligion, but there are two extremes in this world.

IRRELIGION	RELIGION
Seek to be your own ‘lord and savior’ by breaking the law of God	Keep the law in order to earn your salvation
Because we are saved, we don’t have to live a holy, good life	We have to live a holy, good life in order to be saved
Avoiding God as Lord and Savior by ignoring him altogether	Avoiding God as Lord and Savior by developing a moral righteousness and then presenting it to God in an effort to show that he “owes” you.

Religion is the default mode of the human heart. Even irreligious people earn their acceptability and sense of worth by living up to their set of values (Martin Luther)

Religion vs. Gospel

RELIGION	GOSPEL	VERSES
I obey – therefore I’m accepted	I’m accepted – therefore I obey	Ephesians 2:8-10
Motivation is based on fear and insecurity	Motivation is based on grateful joy	1 John 4:7-11
The world is filled with good people and bad people	The world is filled with sinners who are either repentant and trust in Jesus’ death for their life, or sinners who are unrepentant and remain spiritually dead and separated from God under his wrath.	Isaiah 53:6; Romans 3:23
Religion is about what you do.	The gospel is about what Jesus has done.	Romans 10:4; 2 Corinthians 5:21; 1 1 Peter 3:18
Religion is our attempt to manipulate God: do the right thing to get stuff from him.	The gospel is about us receiving God himself. He is our greatest treasure, highest joy, and source of life.	Philippians 3:8-9
When life is hard, I get angry at God or myself because I am entitled to a comfortable life.	When life is hard, I struggle, but I know that God loves me and uses evil for good. Therefore, I have hope and joy in him regardless of circumstances.	Psalm 23:4; John 16:33; Philippians 4:11-13; Hebrew 12:1-13
Religion leads to pride (for keeping the rules) or despair (for failing to keep the rules)	The gospel leads to humility (our righteousness is a gift from Jesus, not an achievement of our own).	Mark 10:45;  Philippians 2:1-11
Lack of assurance – have I done enough to please God?	Assurance – our standing before God is contingent on Jesus alone, who is perfect.	1 John 5:11-14

When I heard Eric (the one who taught the Foundation Class) discussed the table above, I felt like God was opening my eyes to see that I have been living as a religious people, not as a sinner that receives the freely-given Gospel. I was about to cry as I realized that I was proud of myself for being a religious people.

Implications

The Gospel is implicated in every area:

• Discouragement and depression
• Love and relationship 
• Sexuality
• Family
• Self-control
• Race and culture
• Witness/evangelism
• Human authority
• Guilt and self-image
• Joy and humor
• Attitudes toward socioeconomic class.

We discussed some area above. Here I shared the implication of 'discouragement and depression'. 

Implications	Religion	Irreligion	Gospel
Discouragement and depression	If you’re breaking the rules, you have to fix it.	That’s fine if you’re breaking the rules, just accept yourself.	It’s not about behavior or emotion, but God. So I sinned against God but still He accepted me.

Conclusion

From Tim Keller’s Center Church:

“Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones often used a diagnostic question to determine a person’s spiritual understanding and condition. He would ask, ‘Are you now ready to say that you are a Christian?’ He recounts that over the years, whenever he would ask the question, people would often hesitate and then say, ‘I do not feel that I am good enough.’ To that, he gives this response:

“At once I know that…they are still thinking in terms of themselves; their idea still is that they have to make themselves good enough to be a Christian…It sounds very modest but it is the lie of the devil, it is a denial of the faith…you will never be good enough; nobody has ever been good enough. The essence of the Christian salvation is to say that He is good enough and that I am in Him!”

The more you see Jesus, the more you understand Him.

Thanks to the Lord that in this lent season, He has been opening my eyes to see more of Jesus. Thanks God for re-establishing the foundation of my faith in Jesus by teaching me what the gospel is. It is not a religion, but the good news that God showed His love: He sent His one and only Son so that we might live through Him.

FOUNDATIONS #2: THE FUNDAMENTAL 
FOUNDATIONS #3: THE BIBLE