THE LIVING WORD TRANSCRIPT
Program Air Date – 3-8-09
LESSON TITLE: "THE GOSPEL OF GOD:" WHAT IS THE GOSPEL
WELCOME
Thank you for joining us this morning, let me welcome you to the program. The Living Word is a work of our Lord, dedicated to doing God’s Will in His Way! As always, it will be our privilege today to sing songs of praise and to study from His Word. In these acts of worship, may we all be encouraged, but ultimately may we each praise God according to the sacrifices to offer toward His Throne. It will also be our honor this morning to speak with God through prayer. Will you bow with me as we talk to our creator?
(PRAYER)
When was the last time you were able to witness the fact that someone confessed the name of Jesus, repented of their sins, and was buried with Christ in baptism, thus obeying the gospel of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ? Isn’t it exciting and encouraging to be a part of such a joyous occasion? Our first song this morning talks about the glorious privilege we have to obey Christ and to live every day for God! So, won’t you join in with the congregation at this time as we sing together, “Amazing Grace?”
(SONG # 1)
DEVOTIONAL THOUGHTS
Isn’t it hard to find that which you can truly trust in today? How often do others make commitments and say they will do certain things, yet they don’t live up to their words? The good news is, that although most in this life can’t be completely counted on there is someone you can always trust, who will always come through. You certainly know who I am talking about this morning - our God.
So, why is it that we can be so sure of God and can count on Him in this way? Well, the Bible tells us clearly that our God is a God of truth! God is perfect, He can not lie, and He does not make mistakes. In Titus 1:2, Paul told this young evangelist that he had, “hope of eternal life which God, who cannot lie, promised before time began.” The inspired Paul knew that He served a God who can not lie and who would do exactly what He said, and fulfills exactly what He had promised.
Furthermore, we can count on God because the scriptures tell us He is all powerful! In Luke 1:37, we read, “For with God nothing will be impossible.” God can be counted on because He always tells the truth and He is able to fulfill whatever He has committed to.
Finally, consider the proofs that we have about God from His Word the Bible. Consider all the people and events, over thousands of years that show us who God truly is and how He dealt with His followers. Notice the many events and stories that help us to see that God is a being of His Word. What about all of the prophecies mentioned in His Word, all which came true and were fulfilled according to the promises given. Furthermore, consider the scriptures unity and singleness of purpose, confirming God’s Love for us and His hope for mankind. Yes, we truly serve a loving and caring God, who has done, is doing, and will always do that which He has confirmed through His book - The Bible! Are you serving such a wonderful and magnificent creator? If not, do what He has asked, obey His will and become a true follower by doing those things He has said, which are according to His precious message!
In just a few minutes it will be time to begin our main study of the day. This morning, we will begin a new series of study entitled, “The Gospel Of God.” Our specific lesson of the morning asks the question, “What Is The Gospel.” So please stay with us and after our next song, we will be leading in this important study from God’s Word.
As far as our guest speaker, we are happy to again have brother Jerry Sullins with us. Brother Jerry is the Director of the Bible Institute of Missouri in Springfield, Missouri. We thank him for being with us and look forward to him leading our thoughts from God’s Word after our next song. It’s now time to join in that next hymn of the day, its name, “Be With Me Lord.”
(SONG # 2)
LESSON
By Jerry Sullins
We would like to welcome you again to “The Living Word” broadcast. We’re so excited that you have tuned in this morning and that you are viewing this television program and we hope and pray that the things that are said in this broadcast will be something that will strengthen you in the knowledge of the gospel of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
We have an excellent theme for the next few weeks and it is dealing with the gospel of God which basically is also the gospel of Christ and so we’re going to do our best to show you exactly from the Bible what the gospel is and so many other facets of the gospel itself.
We might make mention of this fact that we are living in a world today of, well I saw recently a figure of 7.2 billion people. Some people have never even considered the fact that there are billions upon billions of people in the world itself that have never heard the name Jesus. How sad indeed that is. Now some might questions me and say, “Well how could that be true? Billions of people have never heard the name Jesus?” Well when you consider the fact that about 1.5 or 6 billion of people are living in Communist China where as we can tell, although people may listen in to shortwave radio, on the television they are not going to see it. You go to India where there are over 300 million different gods and many of those people have never heard of the name Jesus. There are about 1.1-2 billion people already in the country in the country of India. When you consider all over the world the animists that is people who worship trees and rocks and mountains and so many different things of nature, when you consider those folks living in those remote areas, indeed millions upon millions of those people have never heard the name Jesus. Yes, we move all around this world and we see yes, it is true that it is very possible that billions have not even heard the name of Jesus and many billions have never, even if they have heard the name of Jesus, had a proper presentation of who Jesus actually is.
So what we’re going to try to do in this series of lessons is point out the good news of Jesus Christ. Now there is a great need for this because all over the world today as in past generations people have a problem. That problem basically is told to us in the scripture itself. You don’t have to have the scripture, but you can actually be a part of other religious groups even Asiatic religions and they realize that there are things that are against their religion or against their beliefs, some things that are just absolutely wrong. Well we know that the Bible clearly defines a problem that all mankind has and that problem is sin. It is a transgression of God’s law.
We see in Romans 3:23 the Bible clearly points out that, “All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.” And not only have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, but all of us according to what is said in Romans 6:23 will “reap the wages of death,” that is the wages of sin will be death. That is the end result of our sin. We’re going to show God’s plan throughout all of eternity to give us the remedy to that problem that all of us have as we enter into this life and that is the problem of sin.
Let’s look at what we refer to in the Bible or what the Bible actually says about the gospel itself. Now when we get down to the original language, that word is actually coming from a word called “evangellion (inaudible-not sure of spelling)” which means basically “the message,” and the message is the good news that Jesus Christ has come unto this world to save us from our sins. Now we might note that if you translate the word and of course when you are translating from one language to another sometimes it takes more than one word to actually say what the meaning of that original word was and some have said that it means this, “God’s evangel.” Now evangel means message. So it is God’s message. It is God’s message or the good news that Jesus Christ has come into this world to die for our sins.
Now if we turn to Romans 1 verse 16 and many of you have heard this verse before, but maybe you can understand it just a little bit better after hearing proper definition of the word “gospel”. The apostle Paul said, “I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ for it is the power of God unto salvation to the Jew first and also to the Greek.”
Paul makes a greater definition of the gospel as it is found in 1 Corinthians chapter 15 verses 1-4. If you have your Bibles please turn in your Bibles to that scripture, 1 Corinthians 15:1-4 where it says, “Moreover brethren, I declare to you the gospel which I preach to you which also you received and which you stand by which you are also saved if you hold fast the word which I preach to you unless you believe in vain.” Now what is that gospel? Paul is about to describe it. “For I deliver to you first of all that which I also received that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures and that He was buried and that He rose again the third day according to the scriptures.” So the description of the gospel is given to us here. It is the good news that God gave His Son to die upon the cross, to be buried in the grave and after being there three days and three nights, He was resurrected which gives us also the opportunity to be resurrected when that day comes. So it is the good news that we read about again turning back to Romans 6:23 before as I said that it says this, “The wages of sin is death.” But it goes on to say, “But the free gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord.” That’s the good news we’re talking about and that we are going to be talking about for many weeks to come.
It just didn’t start there in Paul’s writings or in the New Testament as we refer to from Acts through Revelation, but it began very, very early in the Bible. Genesis 3:15 talks about the enmity that would exist between Satan and between Christ and that Christ would overrule and that He would become victorious, but we see God’s plan for this great blessing of the gospel revealed first of all in Genesis chapter 12 about verse 3. There God made a promise to Abraham that, “If you will get up out of Ur of Chaldea,” He said there in verse 3 at the end of that verse that, “Through your seed all nations of the earth will be blessed.” Through his seed, that is through his physical seed.
In Acts chapter 3 verse 25 there Peter said, Peter and John were preaching in the city of Jerusalem right after the church was established and said to those Jews that you are a part of the sons of the prophets. In fact, he was referring to them as being sons of the prophets and of the covenant which God made with Abraham that “through your seed all nations of the earth will be blessed.”
Now how would they be blessed? They would be blessed through the gospel that is through Jesus Christ, His death, His burial, and His resurrection. It was also Jesus who spoke of this and I want you to turn your Bibles to Luke chapter 24 when he was speaking to His disciples, he made some very interesting statements there. He said to His disciples beginning in Luke 24 verse 44, “These are the words which I spoke to you while I was still with you that all things must be fulfilled which were written in the Law of Moses and the prophets and the psalms concerning Me.” Then He opened their understanding that they might comprehend the scriptures. Then He said to them, “Thus it is written and thus it is necessary for the Christ to suffer and rise from the dead the third day and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name to all nations beginning at Jerusalem.” There my friends are the promise made by the prophets fulfilled through Jesus Christ the Son of God.
And Paul confirmed this in Romans chapter 1 and I again call your attention to reading in your Bibles. You know if we read in our Bibles then we know that what the preacher is saying is from God’s Word so you can either accept it or reject it. It is your decision. But here is what Paul says concerning the gospel, since we are talking about that subject. Now he said beginning in verse 1, “He was a bondservant of Jesus called of Jesus Christ called to be an apostle, separated to the gospel of God.” There’s the theme for our series of lessons. The gospel of God, the good news that Jesus Christ has come into this world to save us from our sins. And he said, “Which He promised (that is God promised) before through His prophets and the holy scriptures.” So this gospel was promised before through the prophets in the Holy Scriptures in Isaiah 53 and many other places. Then it says, “Concerning His Son Jesus Christ our Lord who was born of the seed of David according to the flesh.” David was in that lineage after Abraham. Abraham started that seed. It came through King David. “And declared,” Verse 4, “to be the Son of God with power according to the spirit of holiness by the resurrection from the dead.” And then it says in verses 5 and 6, “Through Him,” that is Christ, “we have received grace and apostleship for obedience to the faith among all nations for his name among whom you also are called of Jesus Christ.” And then in 2 Thessalonians chapter 2 verse 14 it says, “We are called to Christ through the gospel.”
So here we see clearly revealed to us in the scripture what the gospel is. There is no mistake about it. We receive that gospel which God through the prophets prophesied would come. He would come and He would give His life on the cross of Calvary. He would be buried in the tomb. He would be resurrected the 3rd day, and we by obedience to that gospel might be saved. Now some of you might be saying, “Wait just a second. You said, ‘Obedience to that gospel.’ Are you referring to that there is something we must obey?” Well my friends, I am here today to tell you that there are conditions that must be met for us to take advantage of God’s Evangel, God’s message. Make no mistake about it. All of us believe that who claim to be Christians, and many of you who claim to be Christians, you believe that there are conditions that one must meet. That’s what Paul was speaking of in Romans 1:17 where he said, “Therein is faith revealed unto faith, the just shall live by his faith.” Our faith causes us to do something in reaction to that good news that has been given to us on the cross of Calvary or because of the cross of Calvary.
You say, “Well I don’t believe in any conditions.” Well what about belief? Is that not a condition? “Except that you believe that I am He you shall die in your sins.” Jesus said there is a condition of belief. (John 8:24) “Without faith it is impossible to be well pleasing unto God for he that cometh to God must believe that He is.” (Hebrews 11 and verse 6) So belief is a condition isn’t it?
Well what about repentance? Is that not a condition? Jesus said in Luke 13:3, “Repent or perish.” On the Day of Pentecost in Acts 2:38 Peter and the rest of the apostles stood up and after the Jews had said and recognized that they had crucified the Son of God on the cross, Peter said, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins.” So would you agree that we need to repent? That’s a condition.
What about confession? The willingness to confess that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. You would believe and accept that that is necessary for one to become obedient to what? Obedient to the gospel.
And let us not leave out what Jesus also said, for it was Jesus who said in Mark 16:16, “He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved.”
Now the question is: Are you willing to do what God wants you to do? You’ve heard what the gospel is. It is God’s message to us today through Jesus’ death, burial, and resurrection on the cross. Our response to that gospel must be according to what that gospel says and that gospel, Jesus has said what we need to do to be saved. Now your only decision is, my friend is to accept and obey that precious gospel of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. So what is left for us to do? What is left for us to do is simply this, to be obedient. Do you remember what Paul said, that “obedience of the faith would be preached among all nations?” How much it has been preached in this city and in this area, Springfield, Missouri, but yet so many reject the gospel plan of salvation which God has given us to obey. So I encourage you today to understand completely what Paul said and to know what your response to that must be when he said, “I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ for it is the power of God unto salvation, to everyone who would believe, to the Jew first and also to the Gentile.” So we plead with you to do that and our prayers will be with you.
(SONG # 3 - “Anywhere Is Home!”)
CLOSING COMMENTS
Let me thank you again for choosing to be with us today, in this offering to God. I hope our time together has been an encouragement and blessing to all of us. We invite you back every Sunday morning at 7:30, as we commit ourselves to this service of God!
Do you have any questions or comments about today’s lesson? Maybe, you would like a free transcript or a cassette tape of this program? Possibly, we could assist you with free Bible materials or correspondence courses? No matter what your need is, please contact us at the following address:
The Living Word
2540 N. Kansas Expressway
Springfield, Mo. 65803
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(417) 869-2284
Thanks be to God for His Gospel which is able to save the soul. Have you responded to the Gospel of Christ and are you living according to it in your daily life?
(Program closing)