Gospel Knowledge Demands Gospel Living!

We were in Charleston, SC for Labor Day weekend, so missed our home church service. However I listened to Pastor Kurt online when we got back and as usual he shared a powerful lesson.

What you believe dictates what you do.

As Christians we believe in the promises of the Gospel. But then our agenda must be Gospel living: following the precepts of God.

There are 1260 promises in the Bible (250 in the New Testament)

There are 6468 commands in the Bible (1050 in the New Testament)

2 Peter 1:1-8 Simon Peter, a servant and apostle of Jesus Christ,

To those who through the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ have received a faith as precious as ours: 2 Grace and peace be yours in abundance through the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord. 3 His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. 4 Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature, having escaped the corruption in the world caused by evil desires. 5 For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; 6 and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; 7 and to godliness, mutual affection; and to mutual affection, love. 8 For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Verse 1 tells us that Peter’s readers share a common faith. We believe the same thing as Peter. One faith no matter the time or place. Jesus Christ is the author and finisher of our faith and He never changes. The Word of God keeps us stable and strong. Its boundaries keep us safe. It’s designed to help and support us.

Jude 1:3 Dear friends, although I was very eager to write to you about the salvation we share, I felt compelled to write and urge you to contend for the faith that was once for all entrusted to God’s holy people.

This faith was passed down through the Bible. And we get this faith by the righteousness of Jesus Christ. His work, His power, His accomplishment!

Back to our 2 Peter verses: looking at verses 2 and 3. We believe a complete knowledge. A knowledge that comes to us because of our pursuit of it. Our desire for it. Grace and peace will be multiplied to us when we have true knowledge of God and His promises. Stay in the Scriptures daily!

Verse 5: God calls us by His moral excellence and then asks us to live by moral excellence. He doesn’t save us to stay in our sin. He changes us! The Gospel changes us!

Verse 4 shows that the Gospel is based upon His precious and magnificent promises. The Gospel tells us that God has done everything for us and if we trust in Christ, these promises are ours. If we do He causes us to change both on the inside (a new nature) and on the outside (our behavior, our attitude, our actions). “Partakers of the divine nature means we are born again.

The end of verse 4 tells us we’ve also escaped the penalty of sin! But 1 Peter 2:11 tells us there are still lusts within us that are waging war. Believers are soldiers. Sanctification is an ongoing work.

We have positional sanctification – He has received us. But we are working on practical sanctification – waging warfare and putting to death our lusts and sin.

If you are saved, apply it! Make God’s difference for His Glory. If we believe our lives must say so! After all we want to be useful to the King. Don’t we?

Colossians 1:2-8

Colossians 1:2-8 To the holy and faithful brothers in Christ at Colossae: Grace and peace to you from God our Father. We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, because we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love you have for all the saints— the faith and love that spring from the hope that is stored up for you in heaven and that you have already heard about in the word of truth, the gospel that has come to you. All over the world this gospel is bearing fruit and growing, just as it has been doing among you since the day you heard it and understood God's grace in all its truth. You learned it from Epaphras, our dear fellow servant, who is a faithful minister of Christ on our behalf, and who also told us of your love in the Spirit.

Verse 2 is interesting. Paul calls them saints and faithful brethren in Christ. In earlier letters Paul addressed his letters to the church in a region: “To the church of the Thessalonians” “To the church of God which is at Corinth” “To the churches of Galatia.” But, later in his life, he came more and more to see that what matters is individual people. The church is made up of individuals. So starting with Romans he changes his greetings. “To all God’s beloved in Rome, who are called to be saints.” In Ephesians he wrote, “To the saints who are faithful in Christ Jesus.” And here: “To the saints and faithful brethren in Christ at Colossae.”

When he says they are in Christ at Colossai, it’s important to realize, Christians move in 2 different spheres. They are in a place – a town – a society – but also in Christ. So while a Christian lives in the world and takes the duties and relationships of the world seriously, fulfilling any obligations he has, above and beyond that, he is in Christ. So his outward circumstances make little difference to his peace and happiness. Things change, but Christ doesn’t.

2 things Paul says he is thankful for are that he has heard that the Colossians were showing faith in Christ and living for their fellowman. He also mentions their hope and these 3 things are the 3 main emphasis of Christianity: faith, hope and love.

“Because of the hope laid up for you in heaven.” We live a life of faith, loving and serving others, because we are sure of heaven and all that means. We know that in spite of the world’s ways and standards, God’s way of love will have the last word. God’s way is the best way.

One commentator wrote, “The only happiness, the only peace, the only joy, the only true and lasting reward are to be found in the way of God. The Christian hope is the certainty that it is better to stake one’s life on God, than to believe the world.”

Verses 6-8 kind of summarizes what the gospel is and does:

1. The gospel is first – a gospel – which means good news. It is good news that we have a right relationship with God.
2. The gospel is truth
3. The gospel is universal, it is for the world. Nothing in the world equals out men like Christianity.
4. The gospel is productive. It bears fruit and increases. It has been shown over and over that it changes people’s lives.The gospel is humanly transmitted. It was Epaphras who brought it to the Colossians. God uses a human channel. And this is where we come in. This knowledge we have, comes with an obligation to share it. We have often heard and said, “Jesus needs us to be His hands and feet and lips.”

General Background on the Book of Romans

Paul wrote this letter from Corinth about AD 56-57. Unlike the other letters he wrote, he didn’t start this church. He didn’t know the people there and hadn’t even been to Rome yet. It was probably started by Jews who had come to faith during Pentecost. So he introduces himself in the beginning.

His aim was to convince his readers that whether they came from Jewish or pagan backgrounds, they face the same issue – how to enter a right relationship with God.
The gulf between human sin and guilt and a divine holiness and perfection cannot be bridged by any mortal effort, only by Christ.

Based on scripture, Paul argued that by God’s action in Christ, the church has become the new Israel, receiving both the promises and the mission of the old Israel: the gift of salvation and the call to proclaim it and lead others (both Jew and Gentile) into a common community of faith.

Because God shows no partiality and values us equally, we likewise should treat one another as equals. Though human sin has a variety of expression, all are rooted in a common rebellion against God.

The basic breakdown of Romans is:

- Paul introduces himself
- He presents the facts of the Gospel
- He declares his allegiance to it
- He tells of the lostness of all mankind and the necessity of God’s intervention
- He presents the good news, “Salvation is available to all.” “We are saved by grace through faith in Christ and His finished work. Only through Him can we stand before God justified.”

Thoughts from 1st John Part Two

What do we believe anymore? How many people have ever looked up anything on Wikipedia? Do you know that regular people write that? And many do it so they can link to their own websites for their own promotional gain.

How many look up medical questions on line? Do you know which sites you can believe and which ones you can’t?

We are bombarded by the written word. And we are bombarded by false prophets. God knew this would happen and provided us with His Word to use as our plumbline.

I once read something in a study of the Gospel of John, that I wrote down to save,

“The awful responsibility for rejection is proportionate to the light received. It is God, the Creator, who deigns to speak to men in the person of His Son.To be given light and to refuse it by ignoring His Words, by showing indifference to those words, by refusing to give time to reading them or by rejecting those words – is to be judged by those words.”

In the early days after the ascension of Jesus, the Gospel, or Good News of the gift of salvation and eternal life through faith in Jesus, was conveyed to the world through the preaching of the apostles. Men that Jesus had officially appointed as witnesses to Himself.

In John 14:26 Jesus told them that the Holy Spirit would “remind you of everything I have said to you.” In John 16:13 and 15 He promised them that the Holy Spirit would “guide you into all truth” and would “take from what is mine and make it known to you.”

Basically the same thing is said in Matthew 16:17-19 and 28:19. In a unique way the Holy Spirit would bring Christ’s words back to the remembrance of the apostles so that they could be recorded with divine authority as God’s truth. Ephesians 2:20 tells us that the church is built upon this foundation of apostles and prophets.

As time passed and the apostles spread out over the world – many people were so fascinated with Jesus they attempted to write about Him. (Luke 1:1)

As these other writings began to appear it was clear that a distinction had to be made as to what was merely the product of imagination and what was truly authoritative. The criterion of authority was that the true Gospels must conform completely to the oral teaching of the apostles themselves. By the end of the 1st century every book of the New Testament had been written, but not yet assembled into one book. The process of assembly was almost complete by the end of the 2nd century. Whenever it was certain that an apostle had written a book or authorized it’s writing that book was deemed indispensable and included in Scripture.

The apostles had lived with Jesus; they had first hand knowledge of Him. They were men of impeccable authority who would consider it blasphemy to relate anything not thoroughly investigated or received directly from Him.

The next most authoritative writers were the men who knew the apostles well and were approved by them as reliable witnesses. Luke is an example.

Each of the 4 Gospels was written either to a different group of people or for a different purpose, which is why certain things might have been emphasized or pointed out in 1 but not another. For instance – John was the last of the 4 written. By then a lot of pagan philosophies had arisen. Paul talked about these in some of his letters. We talked about the Gnostics when we studied the book of Colossians. They believed everything material was evil and everything spiritual was good, so that God, who was wholly good wouldn’t have any contact with earth or man –THEY said. Seemists, another group, had trouble believing Jesus’ divine nature. They thought it descended on Him at His baptism and left Him just before His death on the cross. They inferred that His sufferings were only seeming and not real. They also denied the reality of the incarnation. Hellenistic Christians, in their desire to appear intellectual attempted to relate Christ to current philosophical ideas. This threatened to undermine true faith in Christ: as the Way, the Truth and the Life.

All these groups back then claimed to be Christian and also claimed that they had a higher enlightenment, a closer, mystic fellowship with God, clearer knowledge and truth and freedom from sin. Both their spiritual pretensions and fantastic view of Christ made them a bad influence on the Asian churches and caused more than one Christian writer to dispute their claims. 1st John was written because of the Seemists. And John says in that book that they weren’t true Christians.

The groups were educated people and they wanted Christianity to be intellectual, fit to stand beside the other great philosophies of the day. But, the effect of their teaching was to destroy the incarnation, to eliminate the Christian ethic and to make fellowship within the church impossible because of their elitism.

The claim of knowing Christ is meaningless apart from obedience to His commands. Living as He lived – by His example – is the evidence of our faith and union with Him.

John wrote his gospel to correct these tendencies and to show Christ was/IS the unique Son of God. John 20:31 says, “These are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God and that by believing you may have life in His name.”

Matthew, written about AD 60, gives special emphasis to Christ’s person – in view of past prophecies. He was writing mainly to the Jews who of course knew the Old Testament. He showed Jesus as King. Mark was full of action and anecdotes. He was the first gospel, written about AD 58 and the shortest. He wrote down Jesus’ words and the things He did. He showed Jesus as the obedient servant. Luke linked events with the names of governors and places – kind of putting Jesus into the part of history when He lived. He showed Jesus as the Ideal Son of Man and he interviewed many people including Jesus’ Mother, and carefully documented it all.

The book of John was written about AD 98 after a lifetime of meditative reflection on Christ by the man who was known to be a thinker and loved by Jesus.