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		<title>Belonging In Christ: Membership at Hope Fellowship | Hope Fellowship of Hillsboro - Belonging In Christ: Membership at Hope Fellowship</title>
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		<description>Beholding Christ, The Hope of Glory</description>
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					<title>Why Membership?</title>
					<link>https://hopefellowship.life/sermons/why-membership</link>
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					<pubDate>Sun, 09 Jun 2019 04:03:36 +0000</pubDate>
					<dc:creator><![CDATA[Chris Gorman]]></dc:creator>
					
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					<description><![CDATA[Speaker: Chris Gorman | Series: Belonging In Christ: Membership at Hope Fellowship]]></description>
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					<itunes:author>Chris Gorman</itunes:author>
					<itunes:subtitle>Speaker: Chris Gorman | Series: Belonging In Christ: Membership at Hope Fellowship</itunes:subtitle>
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					<title>Baptism and Communion: New Covenant Signs for New Covenant People</title>
					<link>https://hopefellowship.life/sermons/baptism-and-communion-new-covenant-signs-for-new-covenant-people</link>
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					<pubDate>Tue, 04 Jun 2019 17:04:09 +0000</pubDate>
					<dc:creator><![CDATA[Bobby Gaither]]></dc:creator>
					
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					<description><![CDATA[Speaker: Bobby Gaither | Series: Belonging In Christ: Membership at Hope Fellowship | We are nearing the end of our membership series here at Hope Fellowship. The sermon series is titled, Belonging In Christ. We ask that, should you have missed, you listen to the podcast from our website. The first sermon in the series was Who is Jesus? All things are from Him and to Him and through Him. The next sermon was What is the Gospel? We were saved to be brought to, to behold and bask in, the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. Then we asked the question: What is the Church? We have been made a people for God’s own possession. And, our belonging is rooted in our unity— our union with Christ.  Last week, we answered the question: What is Scripture? The Word of God is the revelation of His character and His law of His Kingdom on earth. This week week, we look at how one enters and participates in the Body of Christ, specifically through the New Covenant ordinances, Baptism and Communion. Then, next week, Chris Gorman will come speak to us, and we will answer the question, Why Membership?

Have you pondered how God could maintain his perfect and faithful love toward you, even amidst defaulting in your obedience? How is it that the God of the universe would still love you, still keep you, still be true and save you, even though you continue to sin? Covenant. The answer is covenant. And our God does not base the keeping of His covenant promise on the faithfulness of fallible human beings, but on the perfect Son of God. We began our series asking: Who is Jesus?All things are… from / to / and through Him. This is true even in His covenant with his people. How are you and I loved and saved? Covenant. 

The unfortunate truth is our western culture recoils at the word covenant. It is a binding commitment in which one promises to uphold and is not excused from it easily. This is what we see in marriage covenants… in sickness and health, till death do us part. We, as we are initiating church membership, which we call Belonging in Christ, covenant to God and to each other to this local church body. There is a promise of faithful commitment, by which  we can have real relationship with God and each other, to know and be known. The covenant provides a haven, a safe place of belonging, even amidst the torrent of conflict. It means: I love you, commit to you, belong to you, even though you’re not perfect.

This is belonging. And we, as the church, have the strongest foundation, the most unbreakable union between us, if we truly believe and rely on Him: that foundation is Christ. And this covenant exists because He has made a covenant with us, to forgive us, wash us from our sin, write his law in our heart, that we may know Him face to face.

The question we will attempt to answer today is this: how do we enter that covenant with Christ and his people?

We need to define the New Covenant, and we will briefly point to how the previous covenants pointed to and culminated in the New Covenant. And then examine the what, how, and why of Baptism and Communion, the new covenant signs for God’s new covenant people. This is by no means an exhaustive study on the New Covenant, baptism or communion, but I pray, by God’s grace, it will give us a foundational understanding by which you and are are encouraged to covenant together as the body of Christ.

We are going to begin our study in Jeremiah 31:31–37, where the New Covenant was explicitly promised: 

[31] “Behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, [32] not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the LORD. [33] For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the LORD: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. [34] And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the LORD. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.”

Would you pray with me.

What is Covenant?

First, note that this is not the first covenant the Lord had made with the people of Israel, or mankind for that matter. In a covenant, there are two parties that promise to uphold conditions of the covenant. A covenant would be made in ancient Hebrew culture by animal sacrifice. The two parties would slaughter animals, typically goats or bulls, and cut them in half. The parties would walk together through the slaughtered animals as a visual of their commitment to the covenant. The penalty of breaking a covenant promise was death. In essence, if I break this covenant, you may do to me what has been done to these animals. A covenant oath is a serious promise. The bible describes several covenants between God and man. Adamic Covenant, Noahic Covenant, Abrahamic Covenant, Mosaic Covenant and Davidic Covenant. 

Three covenants were unilateral— meaning God was the only one on whom there were conditions placed: God promised not to destroy the earth again because of our wickedness (Noahic), promised blessing, land and people to Abraham’s descendants, and promised David a King from His lineage would sit on the throne of Israel. God promised these without condition to man. But, man had broken the Adamic, and the Mosaic covenants with God. Adam and Eve ate of the tree, and the people of Israel broke the first commandment while Moses was still on the mountain! Man was too weak, sinful, morally frail and spiritually dead to live up to the righteous conditions set upon them by God. 

Think of our original condition: sinless, living face to face with God. In breaking covenant with God, man can no longer live in face to face relationship with God, knowing him, for our trespass against him condemns us.

How did God respond? He promised …The New Covenant. 

What was promised in the New Covenant?

That the law will be in our heart and we won’t transgress against God! Unlike Adam and Eve, sin will not be possible in the New Heavens and New Earth.

I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. 

We belong to God as his treasured people. 

And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. [34] 

We are loved more than we could possibly imagine. The motive behind of all the covenants of God was love. In verse 32, God calls himself the husband of Israel. There’s a unique love, a faithful love, that only the people of God will know.

And… We will know God intimately.

And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the LORD. 

We will be forgiven of our sin

For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.”

The New Covenant is the culmination of previous covenants for in it is the culmination of all their promises. Restored face to face fellowship, knowing God. Destruction of the entire world diverted, for he is saving a people. Promised land, people, and blessing in Abraham, for he’s renewing the earth with the sons of faith. A people who are righteous, able to keep the law, for He has forgiven a people placed his law in their hearts, and given us a Righteous King who is able to rule, for He is the Son of God, the Lord of the Cosmos.

How is this so? Mankind broke the covenant between man and God. Sin is a human problem that required a human solution. How did God keep, how did he fulfill his covenant? By sending His Son to become man, Jesus the Christ, as our representative. He fulfilled the Law, and inaugurate the New Covenant of grace on our behalf. He ratified the New Covenant and fulfilled the righteous requirement of the law— that there be death because we broke covenant with God. He did all this through His Son, Jesus, our Lord. Then he raised him from the dead, vindicating his Son, setting him on the throne of Israel as the descendant of David, the Seed of Abraham, the Offspring of Eve that crushed the head of Satan. This is gospel. Book of Hebrews best explains the how and why of the covenant fulfillment of Christ. But for now, we must move on and ask…

How do we show that we are people of the New Covenant? What are the signs of the New Covenant?

Baptism and Communion.

We are going to look first to Baptism. Turn to… Romans 6:1-11

Context: Paul to Romans - Not sin but righteousness.

[1] What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? [2] By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? [3] Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? [4] We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.

[5] For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. [6] We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. [7] For one who has died has been set free from sin. [8] Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. [9] We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. [10] For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. [11] So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.

Let me say a few words about what baptism signifies and then how we administer it. It signifies we are / we have: 

 	United with Christ. When we believe into Christ, we are united with Him. This is what we signify in baptism, our unity with Christ. Which means…
 	Died with Christ. We are dead to sin. We repent, meaning we acknowledge we are sinful, and willfully turn away from sin. This doesn’t mean we live, in the here and now, a sinless life. It means we choose to live by the Spirit of God, in His grace, through faith, and die to our sinful desires and deeds. We are no longer ‘enslaved’ to sin, to obey it’s lusts. We can walk in righteousness by the Spirit of God.
 	Raised with Christ. Because, by faith, we were buried with him, we are and will be raised with him. We walk now in newness of life, to the glory of the Father. And, we will be raised with Christ on the last Day! Just as death has no dominion over him, it has no dominion over us. We have been set free!

So, what is baptism? It is a crying out of the heart, that we are united to Him, and if united with him we are united in His death and resurrection. 

How should baptism be administered? 

In all the New Testament accounts we read that baptism is done by full immersion in water. Why immersion in water? This is the normative practice of scripture. When Jesus was baptized by John, it was by full immersion. When Jesus sent his disciples to be baptize, it was by immersion. 

Furthermore, in immersion, we see acted out before us the very gospel that saved us. Just as Jesus died and was buried for 3 days in the ground, immersion represents the burial of the old self. When you truly place your faith in Jesus, there is a death to your old life. When you believe in him, you are united with him, and you have died with Christ. The water represents death to your old self.

When baptism is done by immersion, and you come out of the water, this represents new life. Just as Jesus came out of the tomb, conquering sin and death, you who have been united with Him share in His victory. We, too, have been raised to newness of life. Death will not have hold on us, as we will be raised with Him for eternity.

This is why we baptize by full immersion at Hope. It is one of the distinctive elements of a baptist church. We believe it is scripturally faithful, and more fully represents the gospel. We have friends in our Christian faith who would sprinkle. We love our brothers and sisters in Christ, but disagree on their application of baptism. It is not a primary issue, but a secondary issue. 

When should one be baptized? In all the New Testament accounts, we read that baptism is a response to faith. This means there is a conscience decision on the part of the person to be baptized. We, at Hope, want to make sure those whom we baptize understand the gospel. It is a heart cry of faith, and their heart must understand the God who loves them and the gospel that saves them! I don’t see an age minimum, but I am cautious about baptizing too young. We don’t baptize infants, for they cannot yet make express faith in a God or gospel they do not understand. When we baptize our children, we are confirming to them and to the body that they understand the gospel and it is an expression of their faith. This requires teaching, or catechizing, so they know and understand the gospel and what baptism points to. The same is true of an adult.

What is baptism?

It is one sign of the New Covenant. It is not something mystical in nature. It is not holy water that expels demons or sin. It is the heart cry of faith, one that throws themselves to the mercy of God in Jesus Christ. We would say it is the outward expression of an inward work of the Spirit. It is a public declaration to your faith community that believe in and belong to Christ.

In Baptism, we are baptized into the trinity— meaning we partake of the Spirit and have union with God. That is why we are baptized the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. We do not become part of the trinity, but we are hid with God in Christ, and are indwelled by the Spirit of God.

Baptism is commanded. It is not optional. If you believe that Jesus is the Son of God, if your heart cries out in faith to Him, scripture tells us to be baptized. That is the start of being a disciple of Christ! Jesus, when he ascended, he commissioned his disciples:

Matthew 28:18–20

[18] And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. [19] Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, [20] teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” (ESV)

Friends, if you consider yourself part of the faith community, you understand the gospel, and yet withhold yourself from baptism, this is like keeping Jesus as your secret boyfriend. You like the flowers, you like the gifts, but you’re not really ready to declare you love and commitment for him. He’s good… you don’t want to walk away, but you’re just not sure you want to close yourself off from other options. 

I want to call you, those who believe the gospel, does your heart love Jesus, the Son of God who gave himself for you, who died for you, so that you would be free from sin and death? If so, be baptized. If your heart cries out in love for him, then declare it and show you belong to Him, and relish his New Covenant promises!

There is more to say on Baptism. I will say this, baptism by immersion is a requirement for membership at Hope. There maybe some whom have been baptized as a child. I’d like to speak with you on this. But as a general principle, baptism is a cry of faith, through immersion in water.

This brings us to Communion

Let’s look to the institution of communion in Luke 22:14–20

[14] And when the hour came, he reclined at table, and the apostles with him. [15] And he said to them, “I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer. [16] For I tell you I will not eat it until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God.” [17] And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he said, “Take this, and divide it among yourselves. [18] For I tell you that from now on I will not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes.” [19] And he took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” [20] And likewise the cup after they had eaten, saying, “This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood.

First, we ask: What is it?

Notice that Jesus referenced the Passover. The meals, all the feasts of Israel point to the New Covenant fulfillment of Jesus. The bread represented his body. The cup, his blood. Recall in John 6:53–57

“Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. [54] Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. [55] For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. [56] Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him. [57] As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever feeds on me, he also will live because of me.

So here, before the Christ goes to the cross, he reveals to the disciples what he meant. You ingest Jesus, by faith, believing the gospel was meant for you. You believe, when you take the communion bread, that you need the sacrifice of the Son of God to pay for your sin, so that you might have life. You declare with the cup that His blood was poured out for you, because you and the rest of your race, broke covenant with God and deserve death. You declare, by taking communion, the gospel, and that you are saved by symbolically ingesting His body and blood. Remember, He is the only one who kept covenant with God, who lived and obeyed the Father perfectly. Therefore, he died the death you deserved, and if you have been united with him in his death, then you are united with him in his resurrection. When you take communion, you proclaim your union with him. 

The context of this sermon was that of the New Covenant. In Communion, we point to the ratifying of the New Covenant in Christ (blood). We remember, through communion, that the covenant promises were bought for us— forgiveness, love, intimacy, and a new heart that will keep faithfulness.

Lastly, we proclaim his death until he comes. We often fail to see that Jesus is looking forward to the day he redeems us to Himself! Look at verse 18. He fasts from wine until He returns in his glory and we eat and drink with him at the wedding feast. Wine represents —JOY! Do you see his earnest desire for his Bride, his people? He longs for the joy he will have with us at the wedding banquet! What an amazing picture!

How do I take communion?

First, communion is for believers. And part of our instruction for communion is to examine ourselves. We repent of our sin.

1 Corinthians 11:27–29

[27] Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty concerning the body and blood of the Lord. [28] Let a person examine himself, then, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. [29] For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment on himself. (ESV)

Second, we rejoice in forgiveness. That is what wine represents. Joy. Joy of the coming Kingdom. Joy of being known and loved by God. Joy of being forgiven. 

We will take communion in a few moments here. The music will play, and many will come and take the grape juice and the cracker back to their seats. Today, I’m asking that you keep the elements until the end of the song, and we will take them together.

If you have not yet placed your trust in Jesus as Lord, we ask that you refrain. If you come to the communion table and you’re already planning your sins for the week, I ask you to refrain. You haven’t yet repented. Maybe now is the time!

Communion is a call to repentance and a call to receive grace. It is not based on your worthiness, it is based on your unity with Christ. It is based on you entering the New Covenant with him, that He will be your God, and you will be His bride.

Believers, let us sing, and gather the bread and juice, and declare our union with Christ.]]></description>
					<content:encoded><![CDATA[Speaker: Bobby Gaither | Series: Belonging In Christ: Membership at Hope Fellowship | We are nearing the end of our membership series here at Hope Fellowship. The sermon series is titled, Belonging In Christ. We ask that, should you have missed, you listen to the podcast from our website. The first sermon in the series was Who is Jesus? All things are from Him and to Him and through Him. The next sermon was What is the Gospel? We were saved to be brought to, to behold and bask in, the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. Then we asked the question: What is the Church? We have been made a people for God’s own possession. And, our belonging is rooted in our unity— our union with Christ.  Last week, we answered the question: What is Scripture? The Word of God is the revelation of His character and His law of His Kingdom on earth. This week week, we look at how one enters and participates in the Body of Christ, specifically through the New Covenant ordinances, Baptism and Communion. Then, next week, Chris Gorman will come speak to us, and we will answer the question, Why Membership?

Have you pondered how God could maintain his perfect and faithful love toward you, even amidst defaulting in your obedience? How is it that the God of the universe would still love you, still keep you, still be true and save you, even though you continue to sin? Covenant. The answer is covenant. And our God does not base the keeping of His covenant promise on the faithfulness of fallible human beings, but on the perfect Son of God. We began our series asking: Who is Jesus?All things are… from / to / and through Him. This is true even in His covenant with his people. How are you and I loved and saved? Covenant. 

The unfortunate truth is our western culture recoils at the word covenant. It is a binding commitment in which one promises to uphold and is not excused from it easily. This is what we see in marriage covenants… in sickness and health, till death do us part. We, as we are initiating church membership, which we call Belonging in Christ, covenant to God and to each other to this local church body. There is a promise of faithful commitment, by which  we can have real relationship with God and each other, to know and be known. The covenant provides a haven, a safe place of belonging, even amidst the torrent of conflict. It means: I love you, commit to you, belong to you, even though you’re not perfect.

This is belonging. And we, as the church, have the strongest foundation, the most unbreakable union between us, if we truly believe and rely on Him: that foundation is Christ. And this covenant exists because He has made a covenant with us, to forgive us, wash us from our sin, write his law in our heart, that we may know Him face to face.

The question we will attempt to answer today is this: how do we enter that covenant with Christ and his people?

We need to define the New Covenant, and we will briefly point to how the previous covenants pointed to and culminated in the New Covenant. And then examine the what, how, and why of Baptism and Communion, the new covenant signs for God’s new covenant people. This is by no means an exhaustive study on the New Covenant, baptism or communion, but I pray, by God’s grace, it will give us a foundational understanding by which you and are are encouraged to covenant together as the body of Christ.

We are going to begin our study in Jeremiah 31:31–37, where the New Covenant was explicitly promised: 

[31] “Behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, [32] not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the LORD. [33] For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the LORD: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. [34] And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the LORD. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.”

Would you pray with me.

What is Covenant?

First, note that this is not the first covenant the Lord had made with the people of Israel, or mankind for that matter. In a covenant, there are two parties that promise to uphold conditions of the covenant. A covenant would be made in ancient Hebrew culture by animal sacrifice. The two parties would slaughter animals, typically goats or bulls, and cut them in half. The parties would walk together through the slaughtered animals as a visual of their commitment to the covenant. The penalty of breaking a covenant promise was death. In essence, if I break this covenant, you may do to me what has been done to these animals. A covenant oath is a serious promise. The bible describes several covenants between God and man. Adamic Covenant, Noahic Covenant, Abrahamic Covenant, Mosaic Covenant and Davidic Covenant. 

Three covenants were unilateral— meaning God was the only one on whom there were conditions placed: God promised not to destroy the earth again because of our wickedness (Noahic), promised blessing, land and people to Abraham’s descendants, and promised David a King from His lineage would sit on the throne of Israel. God promised these without condition to man. But, man had broken the Adamic, and the Mosaic covenants with God. Adam and Eve ate of the tree, and the people of Israel broke the first commandment while Moses was still on the mountain! Man was too weak, sinful, morally frail and spiritually dead to live up to the righteous conditions set upon them by God. 

Think of our original condition: sinless, living face to face with God. In breaking covenant with God, man can no longer live in face to face relationship with God, knowing him, for our trespass against him condemns us.

How did God respond? He promised …The New Covenant. 

What was promised in the New Covenant?

That the law will be in our heart and we won’t transgress against God! Unlike Adam and Eve, sin will not be possible in the New Heavens and New Earth.

I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. 

We belong to God as his treasured people. 

And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. [34] 

We are loved more than we could possibly imagine. The motive behind of all the covenants of God was love. In verse 32, God calls himself the husband of Israel. There’s a unique love, a faithful love, that only the people of God will know.

And… We will know God intimately.

And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the LORD. 

We will be forgiven of our sin

For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.”

The New Covenant is the culmination of previous covenants for in it is the culmination of all their promises. Restored face to face fellowship, knowing God. Destruction of the entire world diverted, for he is saving a people. Promised land, people, and blessing in Abraham, for he’s renewing the earth with the sons of faith. A people who are righteous, able to keep the law, for He has forgiven a people placed his law in their hearts, and given us a Righteous King who is able to rule, for He is the Son of God, the Lord of the Cosmos.

How is this so? Mankind broke the covenant between man and God. Sin is a human problem that required a human solution. How did God keep, how did he fulfill his covenant? By sending His Son to become man, Jesus the Christ, as our representative. He fulfilled the Law, and inaugurate the New Covenant of grace on our behalf. He ratified the New Covenant and fulfilled the righteous requirement of the law— that there be death because we broke covenant with God. He did all this through His Son, Jesus, our Lord. Then he raised him from the dead, vindicating his Son, setting him on the throne of Israel as the descendant of David, the Seed of Abraham, the Offspring of Eve that crushed the head of Satan. This is gospel. Book of Hebrews best explains the how and why of the covenant fulfillment of Christ. But for now, we must move on and ask…

How do we show that we are people of the New Covenant? What are the signs of the New Covenant?

Baptism and Communion.

We are going to look first to Baptism. Turn to… Romans 6:1-11

Context: Paul to Romans - Not sin but righteousness.

[1] What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? [2] By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? [3] Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? [4] We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.

[5] For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. [6] We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. [7] For one who has died has been set free from sin. [8] Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. [9] We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. [10] For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. [11] So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.

Let me say a few words about what baptism signifies and then how we administer it. It signifies we are / we have: 

 	United with Christ. When we believe into Christ, we are united with Him. This is what we signify in baptism, our unity with Christ. Which means…
 	Died with Christ. We are dead to sin. We repent, meaning we acknowledge we are sinful, and willfully turn away from sin. This doesn’t mean we live, in the here and now, a sinless life. It means we choose to live by the Spirit of God, in His grace, through faith, and die to our sinful desires and deeds. We are no longer ‘enslaved’ to sin, to obey it’s lusts. We can walk in righteousness by the Spirit of God.
 	Raised with Christ. Because, by faith, we were buried with him, we are and will be raised with him. We walk now in newness of life, to the glory of the Father. And, we will be raised with Christ on the last Day! Just as death has no dominion over him, it has no dominion over us. We have been set free!

So, what is baptism? It is a crying out of the heart, that we are united to Him, and if united with him we are united in His death and resurrection. 

How should baptism be administered? 

In all the New Testament accounts we read that baptism is done by full immersion in water. Why immersion in water? This is the normative practice of scripture. When Jesus was baptized by John, it was by full immersion. When Jesus sent his disciples to be baptize, it was by immersion. 

Furthermore, in immersion, we see acted out before us the very gospel that saved us. Just as Jesus died and was buried for 3 days in the ground, immersion represents the burial of the old self. When you truly place your faith in Jesus, there is a death to your old life. When you believe in him, you are united with him, and you have died with Christ. The water represents death to your old self.

When baptism is done by immersion, and you come out of the water, this represents new life. Just as Jesus came out of the tomb, conquering sin and death, you who have been united with Him share in His victory. We, too, have been raised to newness of life. Death will not have hold on us, as we will be raised with Him for eternity.

This is why we baptize by full immersion at Hope. It is one of the distinctive elements of a baptist church. We believe it is scripturally faithful, and more fully represents the gospel. We have friends in our Christian faith who would sprinkle. We love our brothers and sisters in Christ, but disagree on their application of baptism. It is not a primary issue, but a secondary issue. 

When should one be baptized? In all the New Testament accounts, we read that baptism is a response to faith. This means there is a conscience decision on the part of the person to be baptized. We, at Hope, want to make sure those whom we baptize understand the gospel. It is a heart cry of faith, and their heart must understand the God who loves them and the gospel that saves them! I don’t see an age minimum, but I am cautious about baptizing too young. We don’t baptize infants, for they cannot yet make express faith in a God or gospel they do not understand. When we baptize our children, we are confirming to them and to the body that they understand the gospel and it is an expression of their faith. This requires teaching, or catechizing, so they know and understand the gospel and what baptism points to. The same is true of an adult.

What is baptism?

It is one sign of the New Covenant. It is not something mystical in nature. It is not holy water that expels demons or sin. It is the heart cry of faith, one that throws themselves to the mercy of God in Jesus Christ. We would say it is the outward expression of an inward work of the Spirit. It is a public declaration to your faith community that believe in and belong to Christ.

In Baptism, we are baptized into the trinity— meaning we partake of the Spirit and have union with God. That is why we are baptized the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. We do not become part of the trinity, but we are hid with God in Christ, and are indwelled by the Spirit of God.

Baptism is commanded. It is not optional. If you believe that Jesus is the Son of God, if your heart cries out in faith to Him, scripture tells us to be baptized. That is the start of being a disciple of Christ! Jesus, when he ascended, he commissioned his disciples:

Matthew 28:18–20

[18] And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. [19] Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, [20] teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” (ESV)

Friends, if you consider yourself part of the faith community, you understand the gospel, and yet withhold yourself from baptism, this is like keeping Jesus as your secret boyfriend. You like the flowers, you like the gifts, but you’re not really ready to declare you love and commitment for him. He’s good… you don’t want to walk away, but you’re just not sure you want to close yourself off from other options. 

I want to call you, those who believe the gospel, does your heart love Jesus, the Son of God who gave himself for you, who died for you, so that you would be free from sin and death? If so, be baptized. If your heart cries out in love for him, then declare it and show you belong to Him, and relish his New Covenant promises!

There is more to say on Baptism. I will say this, baptism by immersion is a requirement for membership at Hope. There maybe some whom have been baptized as a child. I’d like to speak with you on this. But as a general principle, baptism is a cry of faith, through immersion in water.

This brings us to Communion

Let’s look to the institution of communion in Luke 22:14–20

[14] And when the hour came, he reclined at table, and the apostles with him. [15] And he said to them, “I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer. [16] For I tell you I will not eat it until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God.” [17] And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he said, “Take this, and divide it among yourselves. [18] For I tell you that from now on I will not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes.” [19] And he took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” [20] And likewise the cup after they had eaten, saying, “This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood.

First, we ask: What is it?

Notice that Jesus referenced the Passover. The meals, all the feasts of Israel point to the New Covenant fulfillment of Jesus. The bread represented his body. The cup, his blood. Recall in John 6:53–57

“Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. [54] Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. [55] For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. [56] Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him. [57] As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever feeds on me, he also will live because of me.

So here, before the Christ goes to the cross, he reveals to the disciples what he meant. You ingest Jesus, by faith, believing the gospel was meant for you. You believe, when you take the communion bread, that you need the sacrifice of the Son of God to pay for your sin, so that you might have life. You declare with the cup that His blood was poured out for you, because you and the rest of your race, broke covenant with God and deserve death. You declare, by taking communion, the gospel, and that you are saved by symbolically ingesting His body and blood. Remember, He is the only one who kept covenant with God, who lived and obeyed the Father perfectly. Therefore, he died the death you deserved, and if you have been united with him in his death, then you are united with him in his resurrection. When you take communion, you proclaim your union with him. 

The context of this sermon was that of the New Covenant. In Communion, we point to the ratifying of the New Covenant in Christ (blood). We remember, through communion, that the covenant promises were bought for us— forgiveness, love, intimacy, and a new heart that will keep faithfulness.

Lastly, we proclaim his death until he comes. We often fail to see that Jesus is looking forward to the day he redeems us to Himself! Look at verse 18. He fasts from wine until He returns in his glory and we eat and drink with him at the wedding feast. Wine represents —JOY! Do you see his earnest desire for his Bride, his people? He longs for the joy he will have with us at the wedding banquet! What an amazing picture!

How do I take communion?

First, communion is for believers. And part of our instruction for communion is to examine ourselves. We repent of our sin.

1 Corinthians 11:27–29

[27] Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty concerning the body and blood of the Lord. [28] Let a person examine himself, then, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. [29] For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment on himself. (ESV)

Second, we rejoice in forgiveness. That is what wine represents. Joy. Joy of the coming Kingdom. Joy of being known and loved by God. Joy of being forgiven. 

We will take communion in a few moments here. The music will play, and many will come and take the grape juice and the cracker back to their seats. Today, I’m asking that you keep the elements until the end of the song, and we will take them together.

If you have not yet placed your trust in Jesus as Lord, we ask that you refrain. If you come to the communion table and you’re already planning your sins for the week, I ask you to refrain. You haven’t yet repented. Maybe now is the time!

Communion is a call to repentance and a call to receive grace. It is not based on your worthiness, it is based on your unity with Christ. It is based on you entering the New Covenant with him, that He will be your God, and you will be His bride.

Believers, let us sing, and gather the bread and juice, and declare our union with Christ.]]></content:encoded>
					<itunes:summary><![CDATA[Speaker: Bobby Gaither | Series: Belonging In Christ: Membership at Hope Fellowship | We are nearing the end of our membership series here at Hope Fellowship. The sermon series is titled, Belonging In Christ. We ask that, should you have missed, you listen to the podcast from our website. The first sermon in the series was Who is Jesus? All things are from Him and to Him and through Him. The next sermon was What is the Gospel? We were saved to be brought to, to behold and bask in, the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. Then we asked the question: What is the Church? We have been made a people for God’s own possession. And, our belonging is rooted in our unity— our union with Christ.  Last week, we answered the question: What is Scripture? The Word of God is the revelation of His character and His law of His Kingdom on earth. This week week, we look at how one enters and participates in the Body of Christ, specifically through the New Covenant ordinances, Baptism and Communion. Then, next week, Chris Gorman will come speak to us, and we will answer the question, Why Membership?

Have you pondered how God could maintain his perfect and faithful love toward you, even amidst defaulting in your obedience? How is it that the God of the universe would still love you, still keep you, still be true and save you, even though you continue to sin? Covenant. The answer is covenant. And our God does not base the keeping of His covenant promise on the faithfulness of fallible human beings, but on the perfect Son of God. We began our series asking: Who is Jesus?All things are… from / to / and through Him. This is true even in His covenant with his people. How are you and I loved and saved? Covenant. 

The unfortunate truth is our western culture recoils at the word covenant. It is a binding commitment in which one promises to uphold and is not excused from it easily. This is what we see in marriage covenants… in sickness and health, till death do us part. We, as we are initiating church membership, which we call Belonging in Christ, covenant to God and to each other to this local church body. There is a promise of faithful commitment, by which  we can have real relationship with God and each other, to know and be known. The covenant provides a haven, a safe place of belonging, even amidst the torrent of conflict. It means: I love you, commit to you, belong to you, even though you’re not perfect.

This is belonging. And we, as the church, have the strongest foundation, the most unbreakable union between us, if we truly believe and rely on Him: that foundation is Christ. And this covenant exists because He has made a covenant with us, to forgive us, wash us from our sin, write his law in our heart, that we may know Him face to face.

The question we will attempt to answer today is this: how do we enter that covenant with Christ and his people?

We need to define the New Covenant, and we will briefly point to how the previous covenants pointed to and culminated in the New Covenant. And then examine the what, how, and why of Baptism and Communion, the new covenant signs for God’s new covenant people. This is by no means an exhaustive study on the New Covenant, baptism or communion, but I pray, by God’s grace, it will give us a foundational understanding by which you and are are encouraged to covenant together as the body of Christ.

We are going to begin our study in Jeremiah 31:31–37, where the New Covenant was explicitly promised: 

[31] “Behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, [32] not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the LORD. [33] For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the LORD: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. [34] And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the LORD. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.”

Would you pray with me.

What is Covenant?

First, note that this is not the first covenant the Lord had made with the people of Israel, or mankind for that matter. In a covenant, there are two parties that promise to uphold conditions of the covenant. A covenant would be made in ancient Hebrew culture by animal sacrifice. The two parties would slaughter animals, typically goats or bulls, and cut them in half. The parties would walk together through the slaughtered animals as a visual of their commitment to the covenant. The penalty of breaking a covenant promise was death. In essence, if I break this covenant, you may do to me what has been done to these animals. A covenant oath is a serious promise. The bible describes several covenants between God and man. Adamic Covenant, Noahic Covenant, Abrahamic Covenant, Mosaic Covenant and Davidic Covenant. 

Three covenants were unilateral— meaning God was the only one on whom there were conditions placed: God promised not to destroy the earth again because of our wickedness (Noahic), promised blessing, land and people to Abraham’s descendants, and promised David a King from His lineage would sit on the throne of Israel. God promised these without condition to man. But, man had broken the Adamic, and the Mosaic covenants with God. Adam and Eve ate of the tree, and the people of Israel broke the first commandment while Moses was still on the mountain! Man was too weak, sinful, morally frail and spiritually dead to live up to the righteous conditions set upon them by God. 

Think of our original condition: sinless, living face to face with God. In breaking covenant with God, man can no longer live in face to face relationship with God, knowing him, for our trespass against him condemns us.

How did God respond? He promised …The New Covenant. 

What was promised in the New Covenant?

That the law will be in our heart and we won’t transgress against God! Unlike Adam and Eve, sin will not be possible in the New Heavens and New Earth.

I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. 

We belong to God as his treasured people. 

And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. [34] 

We are loved more than we could possibly imagine. The motive behind of all the covenants of God was love. In verse 32, God calls himself the husband of Israel. There’s a unique love, a faithful love, that only the people of God will know.

And… We will know God intimately.

And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the LORD. 

We will be forgiven of our sin

For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.”

The New Covenant is the culmination of previous covenants for in it is the culmination of all their promises. Restored face to face fellowship, knowing God. Destruction of the entire world diverted, for he is saving a people. Promised land, people, and blessing in Abraham, for he’s renewing the earth with the sons of faith. A people who are righteous, able to keep the law, for He has forgiven a people placed his law in their hearts, and given us a Righteous King who is able to rule, for He is the Son of God, the Lord of the Cosmos.

How is this so? Mankind broke the covenant between man and God. Sin is a human problem that required a human solution. How did God keep, how did he fulfill his covenant? By sending His Son to become man, Jesus the Christ, as our representative. He fulfilled the Law, and inaugurate the New Covenant of grace on our behalf. He ratified the New Covenant and fulfilled the righteous requirement of the law— that there be death because we broke covenant with God. He did all this through His Son, Jesus, our Lord. Then he raised him from the dead, vindicating his Son, setting him on the throne of Israel as the descendant of David, the Seed of Abraham, the Offspring of Eve that crushed the head of Satan. This is gospel. Book of Hebrews best explains the how and why of the covenant fulfillment of Christ. But for now, we must move on and ask…

How do we show that we are people of the New Covenant? What are the signs of the New Covenant?

Baptism and Communion.

We are going to look first to Baptism. Turn to… Romans 6:1-11

Context: Paul to Romans - Not sin but righteousness.

[1] What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? [2] By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? [3] Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? [4] We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.

[5] For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. [6] We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. [7] For one who has died has been set free from sin. [8] Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. [9] We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. [10] For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. [11] So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.

Let me say a few words about what baptism signifies and then how we administer it. It signifies we are / we have: 

 	United with Christ. When we believe into Christ, we are united with Him. This is what we signify in baptism, our unity with Christ. Which means…
 	Died with Christ. We are dead to sin. We repent, meaning we acknowledge we are sinful, and willfully turn away from sin. This doesn’t mean we live, in the here and now, a sinless life. It means we choose to live by the Spirit of God, in His grace, through faith, and die to our sinful desires and deeds. We are no longer ‘enslaved’ to sin, to obey it’s lusts. We can walk in righteousness by the Spirit of God.
 	Raised with Christ. Because, by faith, we were buried with him, we are and will be raised with him. We walk now in newness of life, to the glory of the Father. And, we will be raised with Christ on the last Day! Just as death has no dominion over him, it has no dominion over us. We have been set free!

So, what is baptism? It is a crying out of the heart, that we are united to Him, and if united with him we are united in His death and resurrection. 

How should baptism be administered? 

In all the New Testament accounts we read that baptism is done by full immersion in water. Why immersion in water? This is the normative practice of scripture. When Jesus was baptized by John, it was by full immersion. When Jesus sent his disciples to be baptize, it was by immersion. 

Furthermore, in immersion, we see acted out before us the very gospel that saved us. Just as Jesus died and was buried for 3 days in the ground, immersion represents the burial of the old self. When you truly place your faith in Jesus, there is a death to your old life. When you believe in him, you are united with him, and you have died with Christ. The water represents death to your old self.

When baptism is done by immersion, and you come out of the water, this represents new life. Just as Jesus came out of the tomb, conquering sin and death, you who have been united with Him share in His victory. We, too, have been raised to newness of life. Death will not have hold on us, as we will be raised with Him for eternity.

This is why we baptize by full immersion at Hope. It is one of the distinctive elements of a baptist church. We believe it is scripturally faithful, and more fully represents the gospel. We have friends in our Christian faith who would sprinkle. We love our brothers and sisters in Christ, but disagree on their application of baptism. It is not a primary issue, but a secondary issue. 

When should one be baptized? In all the New Testament accounts, we read that baptism is a response to faith. This means there is a conscience decision on the part of the person to be baptized. We, at Hope, want to make sure those whom we baptize understand the gospel. It is a heart cry of faith, and their heart must understand the God who loves them and the gospel that saves them! I don’t see an age minimum, but I am cautious about baptizing too young. We don’t baptize infants, for they cannot yet make express faith in a God or gospel they do not understand. When we baptize our children, we are confirming to them and to the body that they understand the gospel and it is an expression of their faith. This requires teaching, or catechizing, so they know and understand the gospel and what baptism points to. The same is true of an adult.

What is baptism?

It is one sign of the New Covenant. It is not something mystical in nature. It is not holy water that expels demons or sin. It is the heart cry of faith, one that throws themselves to the mercy of God in Jesus Christ. We would say it is the outward expression of an inward work of the Spirit. It is a public declaration to your faith community that believe in and belong to Christ.

In Baptism, we are baptized into the trinity— meaning we partake of the Spirit and have union with God. That is why we are baptized the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. We do not become part of the trinity, but we are hid with God in Christ, and are indwelled by the Spirit of God.

Baptism is commanded. It is not optional. If you believe that Jesus is the Son of God, if your heart cries out in faith to Him, scripture tells us to be baptized. That is the start of being a disciple of Christ! Jesus, when he ascended, he commissioned his disciples:

Matthew 28:18–20

[18] And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. [19] Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, [20] teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” (ESV)

Friends, if you consider yourself part of the faith community, you understand the gospel, and yet withhold yourself from baptism, this is like keeping Jesus as your secret boyfriend. You like the flowers, you like the gifts, but you’re not really ready to declare you love and commitment for him. He’s good… you don’t want to walk away, but you’re just not sure you want to close yourself off from other options. 

I want to call you, those who believe the gospel, does your heart love Jesus, the Son of God who gave himself for you, who died for you, so that you would be free from sin and death? If so, be baptized. If your heart cries out in love for him, then declare it and show you belong to Him, and relish his New Covenant promises!

There is more to say on Baptism. I will say this, baptism by immersion is a requirement for membership at Hope. There maybe some whom have been baptized as a child. I’d like to speak with you on this. But as a general principle, baptism is a cry of faith, through immersion in water.

This brings us to Communion

Let’s look to the institution of communion in Luke 22:14–20

[14] And when the hour came, he reclined at table, and the apostles with him. [15] And he said to them, “I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer. [16] For I tell you I will not eat it until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God.” [17] And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he said, “Take this, and divide it among yourselves. [18] For I tell you that from now on I will not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes.” [19] And he took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” [20] And likewise the cup after they had eaten, saying, “This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood.

First, we ask: What is it?

Notice that Jesus referenced the Passover. The meals, all the feasts of Israel point to the New Covenant fulfillment of Jesus. The bread represented his body. The cup, his blood. Recall in John 6:53–57

“Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. [54] Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. [55] For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. [56] Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him. [57] As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever feeds on me, he also will live because of me.

So here, before the Christ goes to the cross, he reveals to the disciples what he meant. You ingest Jesus, by faith, believing the gospel was meant for you. You believe, when you take the communion bread, that you need the sacrifice of the Son of God to pay for your sin, so that you might have life. You declare with the cup that His blood was poured out for you, because you and the rest of your race, broke covenant with God and deserve death. You declare, by taking communion, the gospel, and that you are saved by symbolically ingesting His body and blood. Remember, He is the only one who kept covenant with God, who lived and obeyed the Father perfectly. Therefore, he died the death you deserved, and if you have been united with him in his death, then you are united with him in his resurrection. When you take communion, you proclaim your union with him. 

The context of this sermon was that of the New Covenant. In Communion, we point to the ratifying of the New Covenant in Christ (blood). We remember, through communion, that the covenant promises were bought for us— forgiveness, love, intimacy, and a new heart that will keep faithfulness.

Lastly, we proclaim his death until he comes. We often fail to see that Jesus is looking forward to the day he redeems us to Himself! Look at verse 18. He fasts from wine until He returns in his glory and we eat and drink with him at the wedding feast. Wine represents —JOY! Do you see his earnest desire for his Bride, his people? He longs for the joy he will have with us at the wedding banquet! What an amazing picture!

How do I take communion?

First, communion is for believers. And part of our instruction for communion is to examine ourselves. We repent of our sin.

1 Corinthians 11:27–29

[27] Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty concerning the body and blood of the Lord. [28] Let a person examine himself, then, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. [29] For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment on himself. (ESV)

Second, we rejoice in forgiveness. That is what wine represents. Joy. Joy of the coming Kingdom. Joy of being known and loved by God. Joy of being forgiven. 

We will take communion in a few moments here. The music will play, and many will come and take the grape juice and the cracker back to their seats. Today, I’m asking that you keep the elements until the end of the song, and we will take them together.

If you have not yet placed your trust in Jesus as Lord, we ask that you refrain. If you come to the communion table and you’re already planning your sins for the week, I ask you to refrain. You haven’t yet repented. Maybe now is the time!

Communion is a call to repentance and a call to receive grace. It is not based on your worthiness, it is based on your unity with Christ. It is based on you entering the New Covenant with him, that He will be your God, and you will be His bride.

Believers, let us sing, and gather the bread and juice, and declare our union with Christ.]]></itunes:summary>

					<itunes:author>Bobby Gaither</itunes:author>
					<itunes:subtitle>Speaker: Bobby Gaither | Series: Belonging In Christ: Membership at Hope Fellowship | We are nearing the end of our membership series here at Hope Fellowship. The sermon series is titled, Belonging In Christ. We ask that, should you have missed, you list...</itunes:subtitle>
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					<itunes:duration>00:42:15</itunes:duration>
					
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					<title>What is Scripture</title>
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					<pubDate>Sun, 26 May 2019 16:44:56 +0000</pubDate>
					<dc:creator><![CDATA[Jeremy Jones]]></dc:creator>
					
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					<itunes:summary><![CDATA[Speaker: Jeremy Jones | Series: Belonging In Christ: Membership at Hope Fellowship]]></itunes:summary>

					<itunes:author>Jeremy Jones</itunes:author>
					<itunes:subtitle>Speaker: Jeremy Jones | Series: Belonging In Christ: Membership at Hope Fellowship</itunes:subtitle>
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					<itunes:duration>00:46:37</itunes:duration>
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					<title>What is the Church?: The Church and the Kingdom of Christ</title>
					<link>https://hopefellowship.life/sermons/what-is-the-church-the-church-and-the-kingdom-of-christ</link>
											<comments>https://hopefellowship.life/sermons/what-is-the-church-the-church-and-the-kingdom-of-christ#respond</comments>
					
					<pubDate>Sun, 19 May 2019 21:04:06 +0000</pubDate>
					<dc:creator><![CDATA[Bobby Gaither]]></dc:creator>
					
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					<description><![CDATA[Bible Text: 1 Peter 2:9-10 | Speaker: Bobby Gaither | Series: Belonging In Christ: Membership at Hope Fellowship]]></description>
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					<itunes:summary><![CDATA[Bible Text: 1 Peter 2:9-10 | Speaker: Bobby Gaither | Series: Belonging In Christ: Membership at Hope Fellowship]]></itunes:summary>

					<itunes:author>Bobby Gaither</itunes:author>
					<itunes:subtitle>Bible Text: 1 Peter 2:9-10 | Speaker: Bobby Gaither | Series: Belonging In Christ: Membership at Hope Fellowship</itunes:subtitle>
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					<title>God is the Gospel: Seeing the Glory of God in Jesus Christ</title>
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					<pubDate>Sun, 12 May 2019 19:31:21 +0000</pubDate>
					<dc:creator><![CDATA[Bobby Gaither]]></dc:creator>
					
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					<description><![CDATA[Speaker: Bobby Gaither | Series: Belonging In Christ: Membership at Hope Fellowship | Two weeks ago we began our Membership Series: Belonging in Christ. These sermons are foundational for membership at Hope. We are asking that if you miss the membership services, that you listen to the podcast. The first sermon was “Who is Jesus?” Together, we saw through scripture that Jesus is God of very God, who had become man. He is preeminent, meaning of first importance, in all things, as the Creator and sustainer of all the cosmos. Thus, as firstborn, he inherited the cosmos as the Son of God. He is the head of the body— the Church, and we are united together in Him. That is why we are called the body of Christ; because of our unity in Him. And it is all about Him, for all things are from Him and to Him and through Him, to the praise of His glory. 

We must keep in front of us the truth that all things are from Christ and to Him and through Him as we ask the question: What is the Gospel? The gospel is as encompassing as the cosmos, yet as precise as a scalpel. The Bible proclaims the gospel is the gospel of Jesus Christ (Mk 1:1), or the gospel of God (Rom 1:1) or the gospel of the Kingdom of God (Matt 4:23); not the gospel of humanity. It is the gospel for humanity. But the gospel is God-centered, not man-centered. God is the primary actor in the gospel, and the one for whom the gospel  story points to as glorious.

Church, it is my personal mission, as an under-shepherd of the body of Christ, that you know the glorious gospel of Jesus, and can articulate it! May it become your passion, your obsession, your daily delight, for if you understand the gospel it will infiltrate every aspect, every action and objective you purpose to do! 

But for many church-goers, this isn’t the case. Is this you? Would you be honest enough to admit that the gospel is not your passion? And, truth be told, you have trouble articulating, or even sharing your faith? And God, and his church, are merely one of many balls kept in the air, because in all honesty, life revolves around you— you are the center of your solar system, and God and the gospel and His church orbits around you. You fit him in when convenient, as long as he doesn’t interrupt your plans for your leisure. 

We have it backwards, don’t we? Shouldn’t God be the center of life’s solar system? I believe on main reason we have it backwards is because our understanding of the gospel is too small; it’s myopic. I believe it to be true of most Western Christianity, that our view of the gospel is myopic. 

How do Christians have a myopic view of the gospel? The word gospel means good news. It’s actually, a good message, as delivered by a herald. And that message has been truncated, both in how we present the gospel, and the ends— the purpose, or reason, we communicate that news to be good. We see one aspect of the gospel, mostly that we are saved from the wrath of God. 

This is true, in the gospel is the message that we are saved from eternal punishment. However, we are near sighted in our view of the cross if this is all we see. If in the cross of Christ we only see a pardon from the consequence of our sin, then we view the gospel as little more than the game of Monopoly, where we’ve received a get-out-of-jail-free card, and we are free to roam about the game board of life. The cross, then was just a commodity that bought our freedom to continue doing what we are doing. Heaven is a pain-free place with family, and friends and leisurely pleasures after I die. Don’t get me wrong, the gospel is not less than the cross of Christ, by which you and I were reconciled and the wrath of God was absorbed. However, it is so much more! We miss the point, the big picture of the gospel if all we see is escape from punishment. While concentrating on the stream of light shining through the trees, we miss the sun! This happens with a myopic view of the gospel. But when we step back and see with panoramic vision the true focal point of the gospel we see this: Jesus, the Son of God—who is God, arrayed in glory and splendor and majesty. 

God is the gospel. The gospel message itself, creation, fall, redemption, and glorification, and everything the cross purchased for us, proceed from —and lead to— the One who is truly the good news, the One whose glory we were made to behold and praise: Jesus, the Son of God. God is the gospel! That is the point I am going to make today.

So, we are going to outline the gospel message in Scripture, then show its full and rightful culmination in Christ, and then glory in God, our Savior, the One by whom and for whom we are saved. 

We have several passages we are going to read today, so I won’t have you stand for the reading, but let’s stand now and pray as we ask God to make clear to us His gospel in His word. [pray]

The gospel is all-encompassing. It’s simple, yet complex. Bigger than the cosmos, yet is narrow like a surgical blade. The best way I know to give you both an all-encompassing view, and yet one that will cut away sin, is to first paint with broad strokes, then, like Bob Ross, zoom in and paint some detail, and then in the end, we will stand back and look at the whole canvas and see it’s purpose.

Broad Strokes: Creation, Fall, Redemption, Glorification

Did you know the written Gospel begins in Genesis 1 and ends in Revelation 22?

Creation

Genesis 1:1–5

[1] In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. [2] The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.

[3] And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. [4] And God saw that the light was good. And God separated the light from the darkness. [5] God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day. (ESV)

Genesis 1:26–31

[26] Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”

[27] So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.

[28] And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” … [31] And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day. (ESV)

All of the acts of God reveal His character. We see that God is a Creator, that he created the world in wisdom and with order. Proverbs 8 speaks to this. He created mankind not because he was lonely— but to display his glory! 

Isaiah 43:6–7: I will say to the north, Give up, and to the south, Do not withhold; bring my sons from afar and my daughters from the end of the earth, everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and made.” (ESV)

God created man and women in his image; male and female he created them! God is a relational God, and the plurality of gender reveals a plurality of persons in the Godhead. Furthermore, notice the command to Adam and Eve in His image, and the command was to multiply, fill the earth, and subdue it. When pagans make idols, what do they do? They create these little images to put in their house which points to their god and its glory. When God made mankind in His image, he sent them to fill the earth, to cover the earth with his image, and remind creation of His glory. 

The creation of mankind, in the image of God, was for the spreading forth of the glory of God. This is essential to the gospel. We must understand that our personhood, our being, our kind was made to image forth the glory of God. It’s about Him. It’s from Him. And it’s to Him.

Also, all indications in Genesis 1 &amp; 2 lead us to believe that mankind walked and talked face to face with God. God brought all the animals to Adam. God put Adam into a deep sleep, took a rib, and brought Eve to him. And in Genesis 3:8 And they heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day…

There existed with man and God the ability to communicate, face to face. But mankind didn’t last long in our original state, did we? No one knows the time elapsed from creation to Adam and Eve’s sin in the garden, but it appears to be less than 9 months, for Cain and Able were yet to be born. This is…

The Fall

Satan, disguised as a serpent, came to the garden of Eden and deceived Eve. Afterward, Adam joined in. God had given one command: Do not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Believing God was holding out, Adam and Eve took the fruit and disobeyed God. It was then that sin and shame entered the world. They hid from God, and hid their bodies from each other, knowing they could not face Him in their sinful state. Sin effected their relationship with God, and with each other! They could no longer see him face to face.

God then pronounced the curse, the consequence of this action, upon Satan, and upon humanity, his image bearers.  Genesis 3:14–15

[14] The LORD God said to the serpent,

“Because you have done this, cursed are you above all livestock and above all beasts of the field; on your belly you shall go, and dust you shall eat all the days of your life.

[15] I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head,and you shall bruise his heel.”

[16] To the woman he said, “I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children. Your desire shall be contrary to your husband,but he shall rule over you.”

[17] And to Adam he said,

“Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, ‘You shall not eat of it,’ cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life;

[18] thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field.[19] By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” (ESV) 

This curse was far-reaching, effecting women in childbirth, man in the toil of the land. The covenant of life with God now had an endpoint, and death entered mankind and to dust he and she will return. All of creation was subject to the curse because of sin. 

This is why pain, and hurt, and death, and cancer, and world hunger, and war-mongers, and genocide, and rape, and murder, and evil words, and anger abound; because sin came into the world and infested everything. It sunk into the heart of man. Genesis 6:5: The LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. (ESV)

Romans 3:9–12

…For we have already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks, are under sin, [10] as it is written:

 “None is righteous, no, not one; [11] no one understands; no one seeks for God.[12] All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.” (ESV)

AND we have no hope of justifying ourselves!

Romans 3:19–20 Now we know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God. [20] For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin.

Friends, the gospel speaks to pain, to death, to injustice. These things are irrational, and are against the grain of how we were created. The gospel of Jesus is the only thing that can speak to it, for it is the only means by which we can understand it. When people ask: How can there be a God with this kind of pain and suffering? We need to remember that the gospel answers this question. The gospel explains pain and suffering. The gospel explains why we, as humans, aren’t ok with it. The very question we are afraid of is the very question for which the world needs our answer: the gospel of Jesus.

So, Creation, Fall, now Redemption (or Restoration).

Did you NOTICE that God first pronounced the curse to Satan!

Genesis 3:14–15

[14] The LORD God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, cursed are you above all livestock and above all beasts of the field; on your belly you shall go, and dust you shall eat all the days of your life. [15] I will put enmity between you and the woman,and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.” (ESV)

Do you hear the sound of victory? “He shall bruise your head…” This is called the protoevangelium- the first gospel. God preambles his curse upon humanity with the first promise of Redemption. Satan’s goal was to destroy the image, the glory bearers of God, but instead, God will destroy all evil. And, he will do it through the Offspring of man! How could it be that a Son of man would be powerful enough to destroy Satan, a created but spiritual being? The kind of being whom, as we later read, was called the prince of the power of the air?

Good question. God promised to crush Satan through an offspring of woman. Let’s follow the thread. In Genesis, God appeared to Abraham. He called him to away from worshiping his idols and to worship himself. He gaves him the covenant of circumcision, and then promised an heir, an offspring, through his wife, Sarah: (Genesis 17:16) and said, “I will bless her, and moreover, I will give you a son by her. I will bless her, and she shall become nations; kings of peoples shall come from her.” (ESV)

What unfolds is God choose a people whom will be his representatives on earth. He began redeeming humanity from the curse! Whereas the earth was created to be full of the knowledge of God, and through sin, the world was blind to that knowledge, now through a people, God was making himself known! And the promised people came through Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, then the 12 tribes, through the 12 sons of Jacob. The whole time, God, through the patriarchs and the prophets, was progressively revealing the nature and person of the Offspring, the Christ!

This is what Paul explained in Galatians 3:15-16

“The promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring. It does not say, ‘And to offsprings,’ referring to many, but referring to one, ‘And to your offspring,’ who is Christ” (v. 16).  - Galatians 3:15–16

So, the people of Israel point to God’s restorative plan for humanity, that God would once again dwell with man. But, he would do so through the Offspring, who would become King, the One for whom and through whom and by whom the cosmos was created. I just summed up the entire history of Israel. It was very truncated, there’s so much more. But know this: all of the OT points to God’s restorative plan to make for Himself a people, a bride, whom will dwell with Him for all eternity. But in order for that to happen, Satan must be destroyed. The head of the serpent must be crushed…

In John 1:8 we read, “The reason the Son of God appeared was rto destroy the works of the devil.” 1 John 3:8

Remember the curse brought death to mankind. It removed Adam and Eve from the garden, from beholding God face to face, and instead brought them death. Mankind was made to live eternally with God. How do we do that? This is where the gospel message might get more familiar:

John 3:16–19

[16] “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. [17] For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. [18] Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. [19] And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. (ESV)

I want to draw our attention to a couple words in this well known verse. First, God gave His Son. His Son is the promised Seed who will crush the head of Satan. No mere man can crush the head of the spiritual forces of darkness, save the King of Light. God and God alone. Jesus is fully God! And the instrument by which he crushed the head of the serpent was the cross. By death, Jesus defeated death. 

Galatians 3:10–14

[10] For all who rely on works of the law are under a curse; for it is written, “Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the Book of the Law, and do them.”[11] Now it is evident that no one is justified before God by the law, for “The righteous shall live by faith.” [12] But the law is not of faith, rather “The one who does them shall live by them.” [13] Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree”—[14] so that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we might receive the promised Spirit through faith. (ESV)

Friends… He became a curse…

Isaiah 53:4–6

[4] Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted.

[5] But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed. [6] All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all. (ESV)

The scalpel of the Gospel is the cross of Christ. How are we redeemed from the curse of God? How are the sinful desires of the flesh cut away from our hearts?

How are we made right before God? By the propitiation of Christ on the cross. 

Romans 3:21–26

[21] But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it—[22] the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: [23] for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, [24] and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, [25] whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. [26] It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. (ESV)

Because God is just, he must be just in how he deals with humanity. This is the complaint of the the serpent! That’s why he’s called the accuser! How does a righteous God deal with the wayward and sinful image bearers he made for his glory? He becomes one of them, and bears their punishment for their sin. And His payment is powerful, so much so that 1 John 2:2 says  He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world. (ESV)

God has reconciled the world to himself in His Son. What a powerful gospel. What a glorious God. 

John Piper wrote of Jesus, in his book, “God is the Gospel, “…the climax of the glory of his life on earth was the way it ended. It was as if all the darker colors in the spectrum of glory came together in the most beautiful sunset on Good Friday, with the crucified Christ as the blood-red sun in the crimson sky. And it was as if all the brighter colors in the spectrum of glory came together in the most beautiful sunrise on Easter morning, with the risen Christ as the golden sun shining in full strength. Both the glory of the sunset and the glory of the sunrise shone on the horizon of a lifetime of incomparably beautiful love. This is what Paul meant in 2 Corinthians 4:4 when he spoke of “the glory of Christ.” It is the glory of a person. But the person displays his glory in words and actions and feelings. 

Back to John 3:16: For God so loved the world, that he gave his only son, that whoever believes in Him… The word in has the idea of believing into… It is not mere mental assent. Satan had a mental assent of Jesus, believed he lived, breathed, and was deity. But he did not believe into Him. Believing into is a portal, an entrance. You believe if you believe yourself into Jesus, you are being united with Jesus. You are part of the people of God if, and only if, you are united with Him!

Romans 6:5 For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. 

If we have died with him we will raise with him! But we must be united to Him! Marriage points to this! Marriage is supposed to point us to the gospel, that as two are united and become one flesh, we are united to Christ! We are one with Him. We know Him, and He knows us.

Third, eternal life… we need to understand how Jesus defined eternal life. Yes, we believe in a physical resurrection. Yes, that was included in his definition. Jesus said, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die.” John 11:25

But he defined eternal life in John 17:3, “And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.”

We must understand that eternal life is bigger than a life free of the effects of the curse. It is a life knowing the most glorious persons in the universe! It is knowing God, and the Christ whom He sent! The treasure of the gospel is knowing God! This is the salvation that Paul proclaimed in Philippians 3:7–11:

[7] But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. [8] Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ [9] and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith—[10] that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, [11] that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead. (ESV)

The treasure of eternal life is knowing Jesus the Christ! He is so glorious, so wonderful, such a treasure, that the disciples all suffered martyrdom and exile. Peter, crucified upside down. Paul- beheaded. John, exiled to an island. And many more martyrs like Stephen who was stoned, and even to this day, Christians die for the glory of seeing Jesus their Lord. 

This is why Paul wrote Romans 8:18 For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. 

And in 2 Corinthians 4:17 For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison.

Paul wanted to see GLORY! Do you?

This is Glorification!
The Bible speaks of we who believe as having been glorified. 

Romans 8:29–30 [29] For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. [30] And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.

Look, we’ve spoken already, and will speak again to greater lengths of what it means to be foreknown, and predestined. For now, know that God did not choose you as His own based on an arbitrary lottery system. That’s not consistent with God’s character, nor is it consistent with the Gospel. To be foreknown carries the idea of Psalm 139. He has searched us and known us. He formed our inward parts in our mother’s womb. He saw our frame when we were being woven together in the depths of the earth. He wrote out our days, before there was one of them. 

To be predestined is the outworking of God calling you, whom he made to bring to himself, before the foundations of the earth. Do we understand it? No. It makes no sense. It’s not based on my works, but his love. Can we accept it? Yes.

And what we see is those whom he predestined, he calls to himself. This is what Jesus speaks of in John 10. My sheep know me. They hear my voice, and they come to me. We who come to Him, who believe into Him, he justifies. And all whom he justified, he glorified. Do you see the past tense there? It’s as good as done. By the work on the cross, yours and my justification and glorification before God is DONE. It WAS Finished on the cross.

And now, the gospel is coming to completion as we are being made into the image of his Son. How? By doing what we were made to do in the first place: behold God, face to face. Remember in the garden, Adam and Eve walked with God, and saw God face to face. 

Moses asked to see God’s glory… God’s response: “you cannot see my face, for man shall not see me and live.” Ex 33:20

Isn’t it interesting. Moses asked to see God’s glory, and God responded that he cannot see his face and live. His glory is in knowing him, face to face. Through the gospel, we behold God, face to face… Through the gospel, we are restored to our intended purpose: beholding the glory of God.

[Explain context BRIEFLYcontrast law and gospel] Look at 2 Cor 3:18:

[18] And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit. (ESV)

The gospel brings us into God’s presence, and we stand in grace, beholding God! And He is so glorious, beholding him sanctifies and glorifies us, transforming us into His image by the power of the Spirit! 

2 Corinthians 4:3–6

[3] And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. [4] In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God… [6] For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. (ESV)

That’s some gospel! We get to see and know the glory of God! That’s the end for which we were made: to be brought to God: 1 Ptr 3:18: For Christ also sufferedb once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God,

This was the stated purpose of Jesus before he went to the cross: Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world. (John 17:24)

And that is what we will be doing for all eternity, beholding the glory of God, knowing the Father and the Christ whom he sent. This is the culmination of the gospel: 

Revelation 22:1–5: Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city; also, on either side of the river, the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. [3] No longer will there be anything accursed, but the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will worship him. They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. And night will be no more. They will need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign forever and ever. (ESV)

So, there are really only two types of people here. Those who see the glory of God in the gospel, and those who don’t. Maybe you’re sitting here and thinking, “Bob, I have a mental assent to the gospel, but I haven’t seen Jesus as glorious… what do I do?”

The answer is the gospel: Repent, and believe. Ask God to open your eyes to see the beauty of the glory of His Son. I invite you to come pray with me during this next song. 

For the church, those who see the glory of the gospel in the face of Jesus Christ, what is our response? To love the glory of the gospel. To love and look to the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. To keep looking, seeing, beholding! That our face would reflect, like a mirror, the glory of the gospel to the world around us! That’s why the face of Stephen shone like an angel! The glory of God, as he was beholding him even when he was stoned to death. 

This is our testimony folks. A gospel that brakes at mental assent is no gospel. A gospel that sees and pursues knowing the glory of Jesus in all things, that transforms, that glorifies, that is the gospel we proclaim through Christ crucified.]]></description>
					<content:encoded><![CDATA[Speaker: Bobby Gaither | Series: Belonging In Christ: Membership at Hope Fellowship | Two weeks ago we began our Membership Series: Belonging in Christ. These sermons are foundational for membership at Hope. We are asking that if you miss the membership services, that you listen to the podcast. The first sermon was “Who is Jesus?” Together, we saw through scripture that Jesus is God of very God, who had become man. He is preeminent, meaning of first importance, in all things, as the Creator and sustainer of all the cosmos. Thus, as firstborn, he inherited the cosmos as the Son of God. He is the head of the body— the Church, and we are united together in Him. That is why we are called the body of Christ; because of our unity in Him. And it is all about Him, for all things are from Him and to Him and through Him, to the praise of His glory. 

We must keep in front of us the truth that all things are from Christ and to Him and through Him as we ask the question: What is the Gospel? The gospel is as encompassing as the cosmos, yet as precise as a scalpel. The Bible proclaims the gospel is the gospel of Jesus Christ (Mk 1:1), or the gospel of God (Rom 1:1) or the gospel of the Kingdom of God (Matt 4:23); not the gospel of humanity. It is the gospel for humanity. But the gospel is God-centered, not man-centered. God is the primary actor in the gospel, and the one for whom the gospel  story points to as glorious.

Church, it is my personal mission, as an under-shepherd of the body of Christ, that you know the glorious gospel of Jesus, and can articulate it! May it become your passion, your obsession, your daily delight, for if you understand the gospel it will infiltrate every aspect, every action and objective you purpose to do! 

But for many church-goers, this isn’t the case. Is this you? Would you be honest enough to admit that the gospel is not your passion? And, truth be told, you have trouble articulating, or even sharing your faith? And God, and his church, are merely one of many balls kept in the air, because in all honesty, life revolves around you— you are the center of your solar system, and God and the gospel and His church orbits around you. You fit him in when convenient, as long as he doesn’t interrupt your plans for your leisure. 

We have it backwards, don’t we? Shouldn’t God be the center of life’s solar system? I believe on main reason we have it backwards is because our understanding of the gospel is too small; it’s myopic. I believe it to be true of most Western Christianity, that our view of the gospel is myopic. 

How do Christians have a myopic view of the gospel? The word gospel means good news. It’s actually, a good message, as delivered by a herald. And that message has been truncated, both in how we present the gospel, and the ends— the purpose, or reason, we communicate that news to be good. We see one aspect of the gospel, mostly that we are saved from the wrath of God. 

This is true, in the gospel is the message that we are saved from eternal punishment. However, we are near sighted in our view of the cross if this is all we see. If in the cross of Christ we only see a pardon from the consequence of our sin, then we view the gospel as little more than the game of Monopoly, where we’ve received a get-out-of-jail-free card, and we are free to roam about the game board of life. The cross, then was just a commodity that bought our freedom to continue doing what we are doing. Heaven is a pain-free place with family, and friends and leisurely pleasures after I die. Don’t get me wrong, the gospel is not less than the cross of Christ, by which you and I were reconciled and the wrath of God was absorbed. However, it is so much more! We miss the point, the big picture of the gospel if all we see is escape from punishment. While concentrating on the stream of light shining through the trees, we miss the sun! This happens with a myopic view of the gospel. But when we step back and see with panoramic vision the true focal point of the gospel we see this: Jesus, the Son of God—who is God, arrayed in glory and splendor and majesty. 

God is the gospel. The gospel message itself, creation, fall, redemption, and glorification, and everything the cross purchased for us, proceed from —and lead to— the One who is truly the good news, the One whose glory we were made to behold and praise: Jesus, the Son of God. God is the gospel! That is the point I am going to make today.

So, we are going to outline the gospel message in Scripture, then show its full and rightful culmination in Christ, and then glory in God, our Savior, the One by whom and for whom we are saved. 

We have several passages we are going to read today, so I won’t have you stand for the reading, but let’s stand now and pray as we ask God to make clear to us His gospel in His word. [pray]

The gospel is all-encompassing. It’s simple, yet complex. Bigger than the cosmos, yet is narrow like a surgical blade. The best way I know to give you both an all-encompassing view, and yet one that will cut away sin, is to first paint with broad strokes, then, like Bob Ross, zoom in and paint some detail, and then in the end, we will stand back and look at the whole canvas and see it’s purpose.

Broad Strokes: Creation, Fall, Redemption, Glorification

Did you know the written Gospel begins in Genesis 1 and ends in Revelation 22?

Creation

Genesis 1:1–5

[1] In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. [2] The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.

[3] And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. [4] And God saw that the light was good. And God separated the light from the darkness. [5] God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day. (ESV)

Genesis 1:26–31

[26] Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”

[27] So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.

[28] And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” … [31] And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day. (ESV)

All of the acts of God reveal His character. We see that God is a Creator, that he created the world in wisdom and with order. Proverbs 8 speaks to this. He created mankind not because he was lonely— but to display his glory! 

Isaiah 43:6–7: I will say to the north, Give up, and to the south, Do not withhold; bring my sons from afar and my daughters from the end of the earth, everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and made.” (ESV)

God created man and women in his image; male and female he created them! God is a relational God, and the plurality of gender reveals a plurality of persons in the Godhead. Furthermore, notice the command to Adam and Eve in His image, and the command was to multiply, fill the earth, and subdue it. When pagans make idols, what do they do? They create these little images to put in their house which points to their god and its glory. When God made mankind in His image, he sent them to fill the earth, to cover the earth with his image, and remind creation of His glory. 

The creation of mankind, in the image of God, was for the spreading forth of the glory of God. This is essential to the gospel. We must understand that our personhood, our being, our kind was made to image forth the glory of God. It’s about Him. It’s from Him. And it’s to Him.

Also, all indications in Genesis 1 &amp; 2 lead us to believe that mankind walked and talked face to face with God. God brought all the animals to Adam. God put Adam into a deep sleep, took a rib, and brought Eve to him. And in Genesis 3:8 And they heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day…

There existed with man and God the ability to communicate, face to face. But mankind didn’t last long in our original state, did we? No one knows the time elapsed from creation to Adam and Eve’s sin in the garden, but it appears to be less than 9 months, for Cain and Able were yet to be born. This is…

The Fall

Satan, disguised as a serpent, came to the garden of Eden and deceived Eve. Afterward, Adam joined in. God had given one command: Do not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Believing God was holding out, Adam and Eve took the fruit and disobeyed God. It was then that sin and shame entered the world. They hid from God, and hid their bodies from each other, knowing they could not face Him in their sinful state. Sin effected their relationship with God, and with each other! They could no longer see him face to face.

God then pronounced the curse, the consequence of this action, upon Satan, and upon humanity, his image bearers.  Genesis 3:14–15

[14] The LORD God said to the serpent,

“Because you have done this, cursed are you above all livestock and above all beasts of the field; on your belly you shall go, and dust you shall eat all the days of your life.

[15] I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head,and you shall bruise his heel.”

[16] To the woman he said, “I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children. Your desire shall be contrary to your husband,but he shall rule over you.”

[17] And to Adam he said,

“Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, ‘You shall not eat of it,’ cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life;

[18] thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field.[19] By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” (ESV) 

This curse was far-reaching, effecting women in childbirth, man in the toil of the land. The covenant of life with God now had an endpoint, and death entered mankind and to dust he and she will return. All of creation was subject to the curse because of sin. 

This is why pain, and hurt, and death, and cancer, and world hunger, and war-mongers, and genocide, and rape, and murder, and evil words, and anger abound; because sin came into the world and infested everything. It sunk into the heart of man. Genesis 6:5: The LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. (ESV)

Romans 3:9–12

…For we have already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks, are under sin, [10] as it is written:

 “None is righteous, no, not one; [11] no one understands; no one seeks for God.[12] All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.” (ESV)

AND we have no hope of justifying ourselves!

Romans 3:19–20 Now we know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God. [20] For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin.

Friends, the gospel speaks to pain, to death, to injustice. These things are irrational, and are against the grain of how we were created. The gospel of Jesus is the only thing that can speak to it, for it is the only means by which we can understand it. When people ask: How can there be a God with this kind of pain and suffering? We need to remember that the gospel answers this question. The gospel explains pain and suffering. The gospel explains why we, as humans, aren’t ok with it. The very question we are afraid of is the very question for which the world needs our answer: the gospel of Jesus.

So, Creation, Fall, now Redemption (or Restoration).

Did you NOTICE that God first pronounced the curse to Satan!

Genesis 3:14–15

[14] The LORD God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, cursed are you above all livestock and above all beasts of the field; on your belly you shall go, and dust you shall eat all the days of your life. [15] I will put enmity between you and the woman,and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.” (ESV)

Do you hear the sound of victory? “He shall bruise your head…” This is called the protoevangelium- the first gospel. God preambles his curse upon humanity with the first promise of Redemption. Satan’s goal was to destroy the image, the glory bearers of God, but instead, God will destroy all evil. And, he will do it through the Offspring of man! How could it be that a Son of man would be powerful enough to destroy Satan, a created but spiritual being? The kind of being whom, as we later read, was called the prince of the power of the air?

Good question. God promised to crush Satan through an offspring of woman. Let’s follow the thread. In Genesis, God appeared to Abraham. He called him to away from worshiping his idols and to worship himself. He gaves him the covenant of circumcision, and then promised an heir, an offspring, through his wife, Sarah: (Genesis 17:16) and said, “I will bless her, and moreover, I will give you a son by her. I will bless her, and she shall become nations; kings of peoples shall come from her.” (ESV)

What unfolds is God choose a people whom will be his representatives on earth. He began redeeming humanity from the curse! Whereas the earth was created to be full of the knowledge of God, and through sin, the world was blind to that knowledge, now through a people, God was making himself known! And the promised people came through Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, then the 12 tribes, through the 12 sons of Jacob. The whole time, God, through the patriarchs and the prophets, was progressively revealing the nature and person of the Offspring, the Christ!

This is what Paul explained in Galatians 3:15-16

“The promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring. It does not say, ‘And to offsprings,’ referring to many, but referring to one, ‘And to your offspring,’ who is Christ” (v. 16).  - Galatians 3:15–16

So, the people of Israel point to God’s restorative plan for humanity, that God would once again dwell with man. But, he would do so through the Offspring, who would become King, the One for whom and through whom and by whom the cosmos was created. I just summed up the entire history of Israel. It was very truncated, there’s so much more. But know this: all of the OT points to God’s restorative plan to make for Himself a people, a bride, whom will dwell with Him for all eternity. But in order for that to happen, Satan must be destroyed. The head of the serpent must be crushed…

In John 1:8 we read, “The reason the Son of God appeared was rto destroy the works of the devil.” 1 John 3:8

Remember the curse brought death to mankind. It removed Adam and Eve from the garden, from beholding God face to face, and instead brought them death. Mankind was made to live eternally with God. How do we do that? This is where the gospel message might get more familiar:

John 3:16–19

[16] “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. [17] For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. [18] Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. [19] And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. (ESV)

I want to draw our attention to a couple words in this well known verse. First, God gave His Son. His Son is the promised Seed who will crush the head of Satan. No mere man can crush the head of the spiritual forces of darkness, save the King of Light. God and God alone. Jesus is fully God! And the instrument by which he crushed the head of the serpent was the cross. By death, Jesus defeated death. 

Galatians 3:10–14

[10] For all who rely on works of the law are under a curse; for it is written, “Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the Book of the Law, and do them.”[11] Now it is evident that no one is justified before God by the law, for “The righteous shall live by faith.” [12] But the law is not of faith, rather “The one who does them shall live by them.” [13] Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree”—[14] so that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we might receive the promised Spirit through faith. (ESV)

Friends… He became a curse…

Isaiah 53:4–6

[4] Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted.

[5] But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed. [6] All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all. (ESV)

The scalpel of the Gospel is the cross of Christ. How are we redeemed from the curse of God? How are the sinful desires of the flesh cut away from our hearts?

How are we made right before God? By the propitiation of Christ on the cross. 

Romans 3:21–26

[21] But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it—[22] the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: [23] for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, [24] and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, [25] whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. [26] It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. (ESV)

Because God is just, he must be just in how he deals with humanity. This is the complaint of the the serpent! That’s why he’s called the accuser! How does a righteous God deal with the wayward and sinful image bearers he made for his glory? He becomes one of them, and bears their punishment for their sin. And His payment is powerful, so much so that 1 John 2:2 says  He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world. (ESV)

God has reconciled the world to himself in His Son. What a powerful gospel. What a glorious God. 

John Piper wrote of Jesus, in his book, “God is the Gospel, “…the climax of the glory of his life on earth was the way it ended. It was as if all the darker colors in the spectrum of glory came together in the most beautiful sunset on Good Friday, with the crucified Christ as the blood-red sun in the crimson sky. And it was as if all the brighter colors in the spectrum of glory came together in the most beautiful sunrise on Easter morning, with the risen Christ as the golden sun shining in full strength. Both the glory of the sunset and the glory of the sunrise shone on the horizon of a lifetime of incomparably beautiful love. This is what Paul meant in 2 Corinthians 4:4 when he spoke of “the glory of Christ.” It is the glory of a person. But the person displays his glory in words and actions and feelings. 

Back to John 3:16: For God so loved the world, that he gave his only son, that whoever believes in Him… The word in has the idea of believing into… It is not mere mental assent. Satan had a mental assent of Jesus, believed he lived, breathed, and was deity. But he did not believe into Him. Believing into is a portal, an entrance. You believe if you believe yourself into Jesus, you are being united with Jesus. You are part of the people of God if, and only if, you are united with Him!

Romans 6:5 For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. 

If we have died with him we will raise with him! But we must be united to Him! Marriage points to this! Marriage is supposed to point us to the gospel, that as two are united and become one flesh, we are united to Christ! We are one with Him. We know Him, and He knows us.

Third, eternal life… we need to understand how Jesus defined eternal life. Yes, we believe in a physical resurrection. Yes, that was included in his definition. Jesus said, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die.” John 11:25

But he defined eternal life in John 17:3, “And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.”

We must understand that eternal life is bigger than a life free of the effects of the curse. It is a life knowing the most glorious persons in the universe! It is knowing God, and the Christ whom He sent! The treasure of the gospel is knowing God! This is the salvation that Paul proclaimed in Philippians 3:7–11:

[7] But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. [8] Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ [9] and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith—[10] that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, [11] that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead. (ESV)

The treasure of eternal life is knowing Jesus the Christ! He is so glorious, so wonderful, such a treasure, that the disciples all suffered martyrdom and exile. Peter, crucified upside down. Paul- beheaded. John, exiled to an island. And many more martyrs like Stephen who was stoned, and even to this day, Christians die for the glory of seeing Jesus their Lord. 

This is why Paul wrote Romans 8:18 For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. 

And in 2 Corinthians 4:17 For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison.

Paul wanted to see GLORY! Do you?

This is Glorification!
The Bible speaks of we who believe as having been glorified. 

Romans 8:29–30 [29] For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. [30] And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.

Look, we’ve spoken already, and will speak again to greater lengths of what it means to be foreknown, and predestined. For now, know that God did not choose you as His own based on an arbitrary lottery system. That’s not consistent with God’s character, nor is it consistent with the Gospel. To be foreknown carries the idea of Psalm 139. He has searched us and known us. He formed our inward parts in our mother’s womb. He saw our frame when we were being woven together in the depths of the earth. He wrote out our days, before there was one of them. 

To be predestined is the outworking of God calling you, whom he made to bring to himself, before the foundations of the earth. Do we understand it? No. It makes no sense. It’s not based on my works, but his love. Can we accept it? Yes.

And what we see is those whom he predestined, he calls to himself. This is what Jesus speaks of in John 10. My sheep know me. They hear my voice, and they come to me. We who come to Him, who believe into Him, he justifies. And all whom he justified, he glorified. Do you see the past tense there? It’s as good as done. By the work on the cross, yours and my justification and glorification before God is DONE. It WAS Finished on the cross.

And now, the gospel is coming to completion as we are being made into the image of his Son. How? By doing what we were made to do in the first place: behold God, face to face. Remember in the garden, Adam and Eve walked with God, and saw God face to face. 

Moses asked to see God’s glory… God’s response: “you cannot see my face, for man shall not see me and live.” Ex 33:20

Isn’t it interesting. Moses asked to see God’s glory, and God responded that he cannot see his face and live. His glory is in knowing him, face to face. Through the gospel, we behold God, face to face… Through the gospel, we are restored to our intended purpose: beholding the glory of God.

[Explain context BRIEFLYcontrast law and gospel] Look at 2 Cor 3:18:

[18] And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit. (ESV)

The gospel brings us into God’s presence, and we stand in grace, beholding God! And He is so glorious, beholding him sanctifies and glorifies us, transforming us into His image by the power of the Spirit! 

2 Corinthians 4:3–6

[3] And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. [4] In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God… [6] For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. (ESV)

That’s some gospel! We get to see and know the glory of God! That’s the end for which we were made: to be brought to God: 1 Ptr 3:18: For Christ also sufferedb once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God,

This was the stated purpose of Jesus before he went to the cross: Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world. (John 17:24)

And that is what we will be doing for all eternity, beholding the glory of God, knowing the Father and the Christ whom he sent. This is the culmination of the gospel: 

Revelation 22:1–5: Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city; also, on either side of the river, the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. [3] No longer will there be anything accursed, but the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will worship him. They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. And night will be no more. They will need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign forever and ever. (ESV)

So, there are really only two types of people here. Those who see the glory of God in the gospel, and those who don’t. Maybe you’re sitting here and thinking, “Bob, I have a mental assent to the gospel, but I haven’t seen Jesus as glorious… what do I do?”

The answer is the gospel: Repent, and believe. Ask God to open your eyes to see the beauty of the glory of His Son. I invite you to come pray with me during this next song. 

For the church, those who see the glory of the gospel in the face of Jesus Christ, what is our response? To love the glory of the gospel. To love and look to the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. To keep looking, seeing, beholding! That our face would reflect, like a mirror, the glory of the gospel to the world around us! That’s why the face of Stephen shone like an angel! The glory of God, as he was beholding him even when he was stoned to death. 

This is our testimony folks. A gospel that brakes at mental assent is no gospel. A gospel that sees and pursues knowing the glory of Jesus in all things, that transforms, that glorifies, that is the gospel we proclaim through Christ crucified.]]></content:encoded>
					<itunes:summary><![CDATA[Speaker: Bobby Gaither | Series: Belonging In Christ: Membership at Hope Fellowship | Two weeks ago we began our Membership Series: Belonging in Christ. These sermons are foundational for membership at Hope. We are asking that if you miss the membership services, that you listen to the podcast. The first sermon was “Who is Jesus?” Together, we saw through scripture that Jesus is God of very God, who had become man. He is preeminent, meaning of first importance, in all things, as the Creator and sustainer of all the cosmos. Thus, as firstborn, he inherited the cosmos as the Son of God. He is the head of the body— the Church, and we are united together in Him. That is why we are called the body of Christ; because of our unity in Him. And it is all about Him, for all things are from Him and to Him and through Him, to the praise of His glory. 

We must keep in front of us the truth that all things are from Christ and to Him and through Him as we ask the question: What is the Gospel? The gospel is as encompassing as the cosmos, yet as precise as a scalpel. The Bible proclaims the gospel is the gospel of Jesus Christ (Mk 1:1), or the gospel of God (Rom 1:1) or the gospel of the Kingdom of God (Matt 4:23); not the gospel of humanity. It is the gospel for humanity. But the gospel is God-centered, not man-centered. God is the primary actor in the gospel, and the one for whom the gospel  story points to as glorious.

Church, it is my personal mission, as an under-shepherd of the body of Christ, that you know the glorious gospel of Jesus, and can articulate it! May it become your passion, your obsession, your daily delight, for if you understand the gospel it will infiltrate every aspect, every action and objective you purpose to do! 

But for many church-goers, this isn’t the case. Is this you? Would you be honest enough to admit that the gospel is not your passion? And, truth be told, you have trouble articulating, or even sharing your faith? And God, and his church, are merely one of many balls kept in the air, because in all honesty, life revolves around you— you are the center of your solar system, and God and the gospel and His church orbits around you. You fit him in when convenient, as long as he doesn’t interrupt your plans for your leisure. 

We have it backwards, don’t we? Shouldn’t God be the center of life’s solar system? I believe on main reason we have it backwards is because our understanding of the gospel is too small; it’s myopic. I believe it to be true of most Western Christianity, that our view of the gospel is myopic. 

How do Christians have a myopic view of the gospel? The word gospel means good news. It’s actually, a good message, as delivered by a herald. And that message has been truncated, both in how we present the gospel, and the ends— the purpose, or reason, we communicate that news to be good. We see one aspect of the gospel, mostly that we are saved from the wrath of God. 

This is true, in the gospel is the message that we are saved from eternal punishment. However, we are near sighted in our view of the cross if this is all we see. If in the cross of Christ we only see a pardon from the consequence of our sin, then we view the gospel as little more than the game of Monopoly, where we’ve received a get-out-of-jail-free card, and we are free to roam about the game board of life. The cross, then was just a commodity that bought our freedom to continue doing what we are doing. Heaven is a pain-free place with family, and friends and leisurely pleasures after I die. Don’t get me wrong, the gospel is not less than the cross of Christ, by which you and I were reconciled and the wrath of God was absorbed. However, it is so much more! We miss the point, the big picture of the gospel if all we see is escape from punishment. While concentrating on the stream of light shining through the trees, we miss the sun! This happens with a myopic view of the gospel. But when we step back and see with panoramic vision the true focal point of the gospel we see this: Jesus, the Son of God—who is God, arrayed in glory and splendor and majesty. 

God is the gospel. The gospel message itself, creation, fall, redemption, and glorification, and everything the cross purchased for us, proceed from —and lead to— the One who is truly the good news, the One whose glory we were made to behold and praise: Jesus, the Son of God. God is the gospel! That is the point I am going to make today.

So, we are going to outline the gospel message in Scripture, then show its full and rightful culmination in Christ, and then glory in God, our Savior, the One by whom and for whom we are saved. 

We have several passages we are going to read today, so I won’t have you stand for the reading, but let’s stand now and pray as we ask God to make clear to us His gospel in His word. [pray]

The gospel is all-encompassing. It’s simple, yet complex. Bigger than the cosmos, yet is narrow like a surgical blade. The best way I know to give you both an all-encompassing view, and yet one that will cut away sin, is to first paint with broad strokes, then, like Bob Ross, zoom in and paint some detail, and then in the end, we will stand back and look at the whole canvas and see it’s purpose.

Broad Strokes: Creation, Fall, Redemption, Glorification

Did you know the written Gospel begins in Genesis 1 and ends in Revelation 22?

Creation

Genesis 1:1–5

[1] In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. [2] The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.

[3] And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. [4] And God saw that the light was good. And God separated the light from the darkness. [5] God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day. (ESV)

Genesis 1:26–31

[26] Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”

[27] So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.

[28] And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” … [31] And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day. (ESV)

All of the acts of God reveal His character. We see that God is a Creator, that he created the world in wisdom and with order. Proverbs 8 speaks to this. He created mankind not because he was lonely— but to display his glory! 

Isaiah 43:6–7: I will say to the north, Give up, and to the south, Do not withhold; bring my sons from afar and my daughters from the end of the earth, everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and made.” (ESV)

God created man and women in his image; male and female he created them! God is a relational God, and the plurality of gender reveals a plurality of persons in the Godhead. Furthermore, notice the command to Adam and Eve in His image, and the command was to multiply, fill the earth, and subdue it. When pagans make idols, what do they do? They create these little images to put in their house which points to their god and its glory. When God made mankind in His image, he sent them to fill the earth, to cover the earth with his image, and remind creation of His glory. 

The creation of mankind, in the image of God, was for the spreading forth of the glory of God. This is essential to the gospel. We must understand that our personhood, our being, our kind was made to image forth the glory of God. It’s about Him. It’s from Him. And it’s to Him.

Also, all indications in Genesis 1 &amp; 2 lead us to believe that mankind walked and talked face to face with God. God brought all the animals to Adam. God put Adam into a deep sleep, took a rib, and brought Eve to him. And in Genesis 3:8 And they heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day…

There existed with man and God the ability to communicate, face to face. But mankind didn’t last long in our original state, did we? No one knows the time elapsed from creation to Adam and Eve’s sin in the garden, but it appears to be less than 9 months, for Cain and Able were yet to be born. This is…

The Fall

Satan, disguised as a serpent, came to the garden of Eden and deceived Eve. Afterward, Adam joined in. God had given one command: Do not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Believing God was holding out, Adam and Eve took the fruit and disobeyed God. It was then that sin and shame entered the world. They hid from God, and hid their bodies from each other, knowing they could not face Him in their sinful state. Sin effected their relationship with God, and with each other! They could no longer see him face to face.

God then pronounced the curse, the consequence of this action, upon Satan, and upon humanity, his image bearers.  Genesis 3:14–15

[14] The LORD God said to the serpent,

“Because you have done this, cursed are you above all livestock and above all beasts of the field; on your belly you shall go, and dust you shall eat all the days of your life.

[15] I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head,and you shall bruise his heel.”

[16] To the woman he said, “I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children. Your desire shall be contrary to your husband,but he shall rule over you.”

[17] And to Adam he said,

“Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, ‘You shall not eat of it,’ cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life;

[18] thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field.[19] By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” (ESV) 

This curse was far-reaching, effecting women in childbirth, man in the toil of the land. The covenant of life with God now had an endpoint, and death entered mankind and to dust he and she will return. All of creation was subject to the curse because of sin. 

This is why pain, and hurt, and death, and cancer, and world hunger, and war-mongers, and genocide, and rape, and murder, and evil words, and anger abound; because sin came into the world and infested everything. It sunk into the heart of man. Genesis 6:5: The LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. (ESV)

Romans 3:9–12

…For we have already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks, are under sin, [10] as it is written:

 “None is righteous, no, not one; [11] no one understands; no one seeks for God.[12] All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.” (ESV)

AND we have no hope of justifying ourselves!

Romans 3:19–20 Now we know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God. [20] For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin.

Friends, the gospel speaks to pain, to death, to injustice. These things are irrational, and are against the grain of how we were created. The gospel of Jesus is the only thing that can speak to it, for it is the only means by which we can understand it. When people ask: How can there be a God with this kind of pain and suffering? We need to remember that the gospel answers this question. The gospel explains pain and suffering. The gospel explains why we, as humans, aren’t ok with it. The very question we are afraid of is the very question for which the world needs our answer: the gospel of Jesus.

So, Creation, Fall, now Redemption (or Restoration).

Did you NOTICE that God first pronounced the curse to Satan!

Genesis 3:14–15

[14] The LORD God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, cursed are you above all livestock and above all beasts of the field; on your belly you shall go, and dust you shall eat all the days of your life. [15] I will put enmity between you and the woman,and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.” (ESV)

Do you hear the sound of victory? “He shall bruise your head…” This is called the protoevangelium- the first gospel. God preambles his curse upon humanity with the first promise of Redemption. Satan’s goal was to destroy the image, the glory bearers of God, but instead, God will destroy all evil. And, he will do it through the Offspring of man! How could it be that a Son of man would be powerful enough to destroy Satan, a created but spiritual being? The kind of being whom, as we later read, was called the prince of the power of the air?

Good question. God promised to crush Satan through an offspring of woman. Let’s follow the thread. In Genesis, God appeared to Abraham. He called him to away from worshiping his idols and to worship himself. He gaves him the covenant of circumcision, and then promised an heir, an offspring, through his wife, Sarah: (Genesis 17:16) and said, “I will bless her, and moreover, I will give you a son by her. I will bless her, and she shall become nations; kings of peoples shall come from her.” (ESV)

What unfolds is God choose a people whom will be his representatives on earth. He began redeeming humanity from the curse! Whereas the earth was created to be full of the knowledge of God, and through sin, the world was blind to that knowledge, now through a people, God was making himself known! And the promised people came through Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, then the 12 tribes, through the 12 sons of Jacob. The whole time, God, through the patriarchs and the prophets, was progressively revealing the nature and person of the Offspring, the Christ!

This is what Paul explained in Galatians 3:15-16

“The promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring. It does not say, ‘And to offsprings,’ referring to many, but referring to one, ‘And to your offspring,’ who is Christ” (v. 16).  - Galatians 3:15–16

So, the people of Israel point to God’s restorative plan for humanity, that God would once again dwell with man. But, he would do so through the Offspring, who would become King, the One for whom and through whom and by whom the cosmos was created. I just summed up the entire history of Israel. It was very truncated, there’s so much more. But know this: all of the OT points to God’s restorative plan to make for Himself a people, a bride, whom will dwell with Him for all eternity. But in order for that to happen, Satan must be destroyed. The head of the serpent must be crushed…

In John 1:8 we read, “The reason the Son of God appeared was rto destroy the works of the devil.” 1 John 3:8

Remember the curse brought death to mankind. It removed Adam and Eve from the garden, from beholding God face to face, and instead brought them death. Mankind was made to live eternally with God. How do we do that? This is where the gospel message might get more familiar:

John 3:16–19

[16] “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. [17] For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. [18] Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. [19] And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. (ESV)

I want to draw our attention to a couple words in this well known verse. First, God gave His Son. His Son is the promised Seed who will crush the head of Satan. No mere man can crush the head of the spiritual forces of darkness, save the King of Light. God and God alone. Jesus is fully God! And the instrument by which he crushed the head of the serpent was the cross. By death, Jesus defeated death. 

Galatians 3:10–14

[10] For all who rely on works of the law are under a curse; for it is written, “Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the Book of the Law, and do them.”[11] Now it is evident that no one is justified before God by the law, for “The righteous shall live by faith.” [12] But the law is not of faith, rather “The one who does them shall live by them.” [13] Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree”—[14] so that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we might receive the promised Spirit through faith. (ESV)

Friends… He became a curse…

Isaiah 53:4–6

[4] Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted.

[5] But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed. [6] All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all. (ESV)

The scalpel of the Gospel is the cross of Christ. How are we redeemed from the curse of God? How are the sinful desires of the flesh cut away from our hearts?

How are we made right before God? By the propitiation of Christ on the cross. 

Romans 3:21–26

[21] But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it—[22] the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: [23] for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, [24] and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, [25] whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. [26] It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. (ESV)

Because God is just, he must be just in how he deals with humanity. This is the complaint of the the serpent! That’s why he’s called the accuser! How does a righteous God deal with the wayward and sinful image bearers he made for his glory? He becomes one of them, and bears their punishment for their sin. And His payment is powerful, so much so that 1 John 2:2 says  He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world. (ESV)

God has reconciled the world to himself in His Son. What a powerful gospel. What a glorious God. 

John Piper wrote of Jesus, in his book, “God is the Gospel, “…the climax of the glory of his life on earth was the way it ended. It was as if all the darker colors in the spectrum of glory came together in the most beautiful sunset on Good Friday, with the crucified Christ as the blood-red sun in the crimson sky. And it was as if all the brighter colors in the spectrum of glory came together in the most beautiful sunrise on Easter morning, with the risen Christ as the golden sun shining in full strength. Both the glory of the sunset and the glory of the sunrise shone on the horizon of a lifetime of incomparably beautiful love. This is what Paul meant in 2 Corinthians 4:4 when he spoke of “the glory of Christ.” It is the glory of a person. But the person displays his glory in words and actions and feelings. 

Back to John 3:16: For God so loved the world, that he gave his only son, that whoever believes in Him… The word in has the idea of believing into… It is not mere mental assent. Satan had a mental assent of Jesus, believed he lived, breathed, and was deity. But he did not believe into Him. Believing into is a portal, an entrance. You believe if you believe yourself into Jesus, you are being united with Jesus. You are part of the people of God if, and only if, you are united with Him!

Romans 6:5 For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. 

If we have died with him we will raise with him! But we must be united to Him! Marriage points to this! Marriage is supposed to point us to the gospel, that as two are united and become one flesh, we are united to Christ! We are one with Him. We know Him, and He knows us.

Third, eternal life… we need to understand how Jesus defined eternal life. Yes, we believe in a physical resurrection. Yes, that was included in his definition. Jesus said, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die.” John 11:25

But he defined eternal life in John 17:3, “And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.”

We must understand that eternal life is bigger than a life free of the effects of the curse. It is a life knowing the most glorious persons in the universe! It is knowing God, and the Christ whom He sent! The treasure of the gospel is knowing God! This is the salvation that Paul proclaimed in Philippians 3:7–11:

[7] But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. [8] Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ [9] and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith—[10] that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, [11] that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead. (ESV)

The treasure of eternal life is knowing Jesus the Christ! He is so glorious, so wonderful, such a treasure, that the disciples all suffered martyrdom and exile. Peter, crucified upside down. Paul- beheaded. John, exiled to an island. And many more martyrs like Stephen who was stoned, and even to this day, Christians die for the glory of seeing Jesus their Lord. 

This is why Paul wrote Romans 8:18 For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. 

And in 2 Corinthians 4:17 For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison.

Paul wanted to see GLORY! Do you?

This is Glorification!
The Bible speaks of we who believe as having been glorified. 

Romans 8:29–30 [29] For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. [30] And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.

Look, we’ve spoken already, and will speak again to greater lengths of what it means to be foreknown, and predestined. For now, know that God did not choose you as His own based on an arbitrary lottery system. That’s not consistent with God’s character, nor is it consistent with the Gospel. To be foreknown carries the idea of Psalm 139. He has searched us and known us. He formed our inward parts in our mother’s womb. He saw our frame when we were being woven together in the depths of the earth. He wrote out our days, before there was one of them. 

To be predestined is the outworking of God calling you, whom he made to bring to himself, before the foundations of the earth. Do we understand it? No. It makes no sense. It’s not based on my works, but his love. Can we accept it? Yes.

And what we see is those whom he predestined, he calls to himself. This is what Jesus speaks of in John 10. My sheep know me. They hear my voice, and they come to me. We who come to Him, who believe into Him, he justifies. And all whom he justified, he glorified. Do you see the past tense there? It’s as good as done. By the work on the cross, yours and my justification and glorification before God is DONE. It WAS Finished on the cross.

And now, the gospel is coming to completion as we are being made into the image of his Son. How? By doing what we were made to do in the first place: behold God, face to face. Remember in the garden, Adam and Eve walked with God, and saw God face to face. 

Moses asked to see God’s glory… God’s response: “you cannot see my face, for man shall not see me and live.” Ex 33:20

Isn’t it interesting. Moses asked to see God’s glory, and God responded that he cannot see his face and live. His glory is in knowing him, face to face. Through the gospel, we behold God, face to face… Through the gospel, we are restored to our intended purpose: beholding the glory of God.

[Explain context BRIEFLYcontrast law and gospel] Look at 2 Cor 3:18:

[18] And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit. (ESV)

The gospel brings us into God’s presence, and we stand in grace, beholding God! And He is so glorious, beholding him sanctifies and glorifies us, transforming us into His image by the power of the Spirit! 

2 Corinthians 4:3–6

[3] And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. [4] In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God… [6] For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. (ESV)

That’s some gospel! We get to see and know the glory of God! That’s the end for which we were made: to be brought to God: 1 Ptr 3:18: For Christ also sufferedb once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God,

This was the stated purpose of Jesus before he went to the cross: Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world. (John 17:24)

And that is what we will be doing for all eternity, beholding the glory of God, knowing the Father and the Christ whom he sent. This is the culmination of the gospel: 

Revelation 22:1–5: Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city; also, on either side of the river, the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. [3] No longer will there be anything accursed, but the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will worship him. They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. And night will be no more. They will need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign forever and ever. (ESV)

So, there are really only two types of people here. Those who see the glory of God in the gospel, and those who don’t. Maybe you’re sitting here and thinking, “Bob, I have a mental assent to the gospel, but I haven’t seen Jesus as glorious… what do I do?”

The answer is the gospel: Repent, and believe. Ask God to open your eyes to see the beauty of the glory of His Son. I invite you to come pray with me during this next song. 

For the church, those who see the glory of the gospel in the face of Jesus Christ, what is our response? To love the glory of the gospel. To love and look to the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. To keep looking, seeing, beholding! That our face would reflect, like a mirror, the glory of the gospel to the world around us! That’s why the face of Stephen shone like an angel! The glory of God, as he was beholding him even when he was stoned to death. 

This is our testimony folks. A gospel that brakes at mental assent is no gospel. A gospel that sees and pursues knowing the glory of Jesus in all things, that transforms, that glorifies, that is the gospel we proclaim through Christ crucified.]]></itunes:summary>

					<itunes:author>Bobby Gaither</itunes:author>
					<itunes:subtitle>Speaker: Bobby Gaither | Series: Belonging In Christ: Membership at Hope Fellowship | Two weeks ago we began our Membership Series: Belonging in Christ. These sermons are foundational for membership at Hope. We are asking that if you miss the membership s...</itunes:subtitle>
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					<title>Who Is Jesus?</title>
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					<pubDate>Sun, 28 Apr 2019 19:14:26 +0000</pubDate>
					<dc:creator><![CDATA[Bobby Gaither]]></dc:creator>
					
					<guid isPermaLink="false">http://hopefellowship.life/?post_type=wpfc_sermon&#038;p=751</guid>
					<description><![CDATA[Bible Text: Colossians 1:13-20 | Speaker: Bobby Gaither | Series: Belonging In Christ: Membership at Hope Fellowship | The 1970’s band, Three Dog Night, sang “One is the loneliest number that you’ll ever do.” Many writers have expanded on the idea of loneliness and thus said it is not merely the result of being trapped on an island with a volleyball named Wilson. As my favorite contemporary poet, Jon Forman, stated “you can be alone on a crowded street.” Loneliness is a pervading and isolating human experience — so much that we believe we are alone in our loneliness, as expressed by the late Tom Petty, “you don’t know how it feels to be me.”

You may be asking: why begin our Membership series talking about loneliness? At the root of what humanity has expressed regarding loneliness is a divine desire for belonging. It presents as loneliness, but loneliness is merely the symptom of something lacking. True belonging is more than being with people of similar interests. And, like a baby with yellow skin from jaundice, the solution doesn’t come in a pill or syringe, but from beholding the sun/Son. 

But we like our medications and quick-fixes, don’t we? Humans look for ways to alleviate loneliness through activity with others. Bowling leagues. Quilting. Softball. Book clubs. Coffee shops. Bars. All places people go to be in a community of like-minded individuals. But, even among a people with a common interest, the divine desire is not satiated, only masked. Like make-up atop the face, it merely covers the appearance of yellow skin— the appearance of loneliness. It is true that a common love binds people together. But the power of that bond, the strength and security of that community, is not in the people who gather but the object of their affection. 

Our membership series, Belonging In Christ, speaks to loneliness with the only true solution that answers the divine longing of every human heart: the divine Son of God, Jesus Christ. Our longing to know and be known by God is innate, and hardwired into a humanity that was made to behold and image Him. It is not until our identity rests in Jesus, the perfect Son of God, that our belonging is secure. It is only then that we experience true community in the body of Christ. He brings us into community by fusing us together in Him. John 17:20–23 “I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us,… The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one…(ESV)

The answer for belonging is not found in a group with your same likes and dislikes. The answer for belonging is being fused together with Christ, who brings us into His body, the fellowship of believers. 

Did you catch that? We, the church, become one together— me, you, and all who call Jesus Christ Lord, in and through Christ. There is no greater bond, no greater power, no greater glory than Jesus, who possesses the power over life and death. My love and commitment to you, and yours to me, and other Christ followers in this room, is anchored in the love that Christ has for His Church. That will never change. It is an impenetrable bond that was secured in Christ!

Therefore, the most important question we have to answer, and from which we build our series, is this: Who is Jesus? This morning, we will anchor ourselves in Colossians 1. Together we will look at the Person, the Work, and the Worship of Christ. Would you open your Bible’s to Colossians 1. We will begin reading in verse 9 but will focus on v13-20. Please stand with me for the reading of God’s word.

Colossians 1:9–20

[9] And so, from the day we heard, we have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, [10] so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him: bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God; [11] being strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy; [12] giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light. [13] He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, [14] in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

[15] He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. [16] For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. [17] And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. [18] And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. [19] For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, [20] and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross. (ESV)

[pray]The Person of Christ 

As was said in the introduction, our unity together is based on the person of Christ. We have been united with Him, and to that degree, we are united together as the Church. Therefore, my aim this morning is to show the passage through a Christological lens. This is our aim every Sunday: to see the glory of God in scripture. We typically approach the scripture and seek to understand the questions the text would ask, and then of ourselves to know how we ought respond. However, this morning we come to the text with the question: Who is Jesus? For that reason, we start our exposition in verse 13. We will go verse by verse and draw lines between this passage of scripture others in an attempt to paint a biblical picture of the Christ.

[13] He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, 

We must note that the first “He” is said of God the Father. God the Father has delivered us from darkness. God the Father and Jesus the Son were never at odds.  Jesus was not on a rescue mission to save us over and against the will of the Father. It was the will of the Father that you and I have salvation in and through the Son. But on to Christ:

The Son is King! He has a kingdom. He sits on his Father’s throne. The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof (Psa 24:1)! He stretches out the heavens! He set’s his chambers on the waters (Psa 104)! He is clothed with splendor and majesty!

And He is ruler of all kings. He is King of kings.

Revelation 1:4–5

… Grace to you and peace from him who is and who was and who is to come, and from the seven spirits who are before his throne, and from Jesus Christ the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of kings on earth. 

And He is our Redeemer

[14] in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

We were captive, slaves of sin, in the kingdom of darkness, enemies of the kingdom of God, and now we have been redeemed. Our transgressions were paid for, and we were bought, purchased by the King’s blood. The King of kings laid down his life to redeem His church, his bride. He is a loving King. A Redeeming King

This is Revelation 1:5: To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood (ESV)

Jesus is the King, and Redeemer.

[15] He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. 

Jesus is the image of God. We must understand what a miracle this is. For us to see God is unthinkable. In Exodus 33:20, God spoke to Moses and said, “… man shall not see me and live.” (ESV)

When Isaiah had a vision of God in His throne room, his response was,“Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts!” (Isaiah 6:5 ESV)

Yet John writes, “No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father's side, he has made him known. (John 1:18 ESV)

And Jesus himself said, “If you’ve seen me, you’ve seen the Father.”(John 14:9).

And in Hebrews we read of the Son, “He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. (Hebrews 1:1-3 ESV)

[He is ] the firstborn of all creation. [16] For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. 

We hold as trinitarian evangelicals, that Jesus was begotten, not created. This is an important doctrine that if we lose, the gospel unravels. Don’t be confused by the word “firstborn.” In that day, the firstborn inherited all property and valuables from the patriarch. In other words, should I have lived and died in that time, Josiah would get my lawn mover, the leaf blower, my car, my fluffy high school flannel from 1997, my dirty underwear, AND everything of Tiffany’s if she doesn’t outlive him. Jordan, Jude, and JJ are on their own. 

Now, what was he saying about Jesus? Look at verse 16. It starts with the word For… Paul was telling his readers why he used the term firstborn. For by him all things were created… through him and for him. The preexistent Son of God became man. The Eternal Creator became part of His finite creation. He must be of first importance, the owner and inheritor of all creation. Jesus owns all things. He created, and rules over all things. Paul wrote the word “firstborn” to signify the preeminence  of Christ, that he already owned all creation, and as a man would inherit it all from His Father. 

Look further down to verse 18b. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent.

He is firstborn because he’s preeminent in all things, as he is the beginning! Paul wants us to think to Genesis: “In the beginning, God…” and John 1:1 “In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God.” Jesus was first.

Furthermore, all things were created through Him and for Him. Creation was a gift from God to God, and this was good! Jesus, the Son of God become man, inherits, owns, and rules all things! He designed them, made them, and they exist for His purposes.

[17] And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. 

Paul asserts again that Jesus is deity, co-eternal with the Father. He is before all things. 

When Moses asked God how to announce His name to the people of Israel, God instructed Moses to say, “I AM WHO I AM.” (Ex 3:14 ESV). In this name God revealed that He is self-existent. Jesus also used the name, I AM to announce himself. He declared himself self-existent with the pharisees and said, “Before Abraham was, I AM.” (John 8:58).

Jesus also stated to his disciples, I am the light of the world, I am the way, the truth, and the life. I am the gate. I am the Good Shepherd, living water, bread of life, the resurrection and the life, and the true vine (Jhn 8:12, 10:9, 10:11, 11:25, 14:6, 15:1).

And in Him all things hold together

He is the maker and sustainer of all things. Hebrews 1:3 we’ve already read, “He upholds the universe by the word of His power.” There is no molecule in the cosmos that is not bound together by the will of Jesus. 

Do you know science affirms this? They know molecules and atoms bind together, but they cannot tell you why. In Him all things hold together. Without Him, all things would unravel.

Jesus is Sovereign! This is good news friends. There is no one else I’d rather have be sovereign, rule and reign over all creation, and bring to their appointed end, then Jesus, the perfect Son of God. 

[18] And he is the head of the body, the church.
What you and I need to understand is that this is not my church. Nor is this your church. This is His church! Christ is the head of this church! He didn’t die and make another man king, but he rose from the grave because He is the King! And as King, he directs the church body to do His will. 

The head directs the body. It is within the head that the mind operates, and the will of the body is formulated. It then sends signals to the body to carry out that will. This means when we seek to make decisions, we don’t operate according to what we want, but we operate according to what He wants. This is important, for we must know that we are His church if we obey Him.

John 14:5, Jesus states, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.”

May it be known that one who is part of the body of Christ is one who loves Him and adheres to His commandments. He does not have an arm that operates according to its own will; that’s not his arm. He does not have a wild branch, but he prunes that branch and brings it under his direction and care. And His church, in obedience to Christ, moves forward against the gates of Hell. 

In the book of Matthew (16:15-18), Jesus asked his disciples, “But who do you say that I am?”  Simon Peter replied, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” And Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. (ESV)

He is the King, who is head of the church. Christ is the only King who is able to be so.

18b He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. 

There’s the word again: firstborn. Jesus was the first to have a glorified body, one incorruptible by death. How this is so— scholars debate. That’s not the point of our message today, only that Christ is first, for He is God. He is fully man, and fully God, for… verse 19

[19] For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, 

In Jesus, the man, encompassed all the fullness of God. In a human being, the fullness of deity existed. Theologians refer to this as the hypostatic union. Jesus was fully God, and fully man. 100% God, and 100% man. It sounds ridiculous, doesn’t it? Even Yogi Berra never claimed 200%!

Todd Miles, borrowing an analogy from another seminary professor, explained it like this: you have an Aston Martin Valkyrie (the most expensive sports car). You take that sports car off-road and it’s caked with mud, so much that the color of the sports car glimmers through in mere cracks of the earth-frosted body. It’s still 100% Aston Martin. And, It’s 100% covered in earth. 

Jesus was 100% deity, clothed, 100% in humanity. The fullness of God became flesh and dwelt in the earthly body of Jesus… and was pleased to do so…

Why? Why would the God of all the cosmos be pleased to become part of His creation? Why would he be pleased to come live among us? To experience, in body, the pain, the hurt, the rejection, and the physical suffering and death he endured?

Remember, last week, we stated that sin was a human problem. It needed a human solution. We, as the image bearers of mankind, have dishonored our Creator. We are the cause of the hostility between man and God. We are the instigator of the war— and we chose God as our enemy! In doing so, we threw mud at his face, and attempted to suppress the glory that belongs to Him.

Because of that dishonor, all mankind deserves death. This would be just, but it would not display the fullness of the character of God. The death of all humanity would only display the justice of God, it would not reveal His mercy and lovingkindness. 

So, why? Why would the God of the cosmos be pleased to become part of His creation and suffer like he did?

Hebrews 12:2 is our answer: …Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith…for the joy set before him endured the cross, despising the shame…

Why did he become flesh? Why was God pleased to dwell in flesh? Why did he endure the cross? For the joy of redeeming you! This is the work of Christ.The Work of Christ 

[20] and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross. (ESV)

Through Jesus, you and I have been reconciled to God. In the war we wrongfully waged against God, He has sent his Son with the white flag of the gospel. He rode onto the battlefield himself, and did not send another emissary. This was a war we had not the right nor the power to fight, and God was pleased to send His Son, and Jesus was pleased to redeem His fallen humanity, for Himself. He made peace by His blood. He traded His life for the life of all humanity, and Jesus was and is so glorious, that his blood purchased man and woman from every tribe, tongue, and language. He has made peace between man and God.

The church are the people whom accept the white flag. It is an offer of peace before we are utterly destroyed, a plea to be reconciled and to live. Humanity is fighting a war with God, one they cannot win. Jesus crossed enemy lines, became one of us, in order to offer himself to God on our behalf. We come to the cross and surrender our life because He came to the earth to surrender His life for ours. In Christ, God has declared a cease fire. Do you hear it? Do you see it? Do you come and submit yourself to it? This is the work of Christ.

In heaven he is the Lamb that was slain, seated at the right hand of the Father. But He will return as the Lion of Judah, and put all things under his feat. All rule, all authorities, all powers, all people. And he will rightfully, and gloriously, demand worship.

The Worship of Christ

Jesus was worshiped at his birth by foreigners (Matt 2:11), at his resurrection by his disciples (Matt 28:9), and we read he was worshiped in heaven by the angels. This is Hebrews 1:6

[6] And again, when he brings the firstborn into the world, he says, “Let all God's angels worship him.” (ESV)

He will be worshiped at the end of time, for all eternity, by all creatures: 

Revelation 4:9–11

[9] And whenever the living creatures give glory and honor and thanks to him who is seated on the throne, who lives forever and ever, [10] the twenty-four elders fall down before him who is seated on the throne and worship him who lives forever and ever. They cast their crowns before the throne, saying,

[11] “Worthy are you, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they existed and were created.” (ESV)

He is worthy of worship for His power and might, and his meekness and majesty. He is worthy as our sacrificial lamb, as our King, as the head of our church. And because He is worthy, our worship ought be genuine. If it is anything less, we spit on his face with our words and actions. 

So, what does this mean for us, the church at Hope Fellowship?

Recall that we began this morning by pointing to the divine longing of the soul, a longing to belong. We all want and need to belong, and that longing can only be filled by the one who put it there. And, people are united together not by love of each other, but by the love of God. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and gave himself for us as the propitiation of our sins! Propitiation means wrath bearer. We are brought together in community, 

FIRST because the King of the Cosmos loved us, and keeps us! He initiates and keeps us in His community.

SECOND, we are in community because our hearts have turned to love Him! Jesus, the Son of God, by whom and for whom all things were created, is the only one worthy of all our love and affection. This makes us a worshiping community! Friends, we are a worshiping community when we love Him! We are an obedient community when we love Him! We express our belonging to Him and to each other when we worship Him. 

THIRD, the strength of that belonging is the unbreakable love of Jesus. We have, together, here, in this body of believers, the strongest force in all heaven and earth, binding us together: Jesus, who is God.

SO, the church is a place of belonging because we belong to Jesus. And because we belong to Him, we love as He loved, we give as He give, we serve as He served. And our commitment to each other is rooted in our commitment to Him. Do you love Christ? Are you committed to Him? That means you must be committed to the church! What a security that is! 

Friends, as a member of this church, I love you because I love Him. My love for you will never change, so long as I love him. That means I have grace for you because I have grace from him. My grace towards you will never change, for His grace for me is new every morning. Will we have conflict? YES! Sometimes the elbow strikes the knee! But we don’t dismember ourselves, we learn and we heal together, ministering to each other. We love and care for each other as Christ loved His church. This is what it means to have Belonging In Christ.

[pray, communion]]]></description>
					<content:encoded><![CDATA[Bible Text: Colossians 1:13-20 | Speaker: Bobby Gaither | Series: Belonging In Christ: Membership at Hope Fellowship | The 1970’s band, Three Dog Night, sang “One is the loneliest number that you’ll ever do.” Many writers have expanded on the idea of loneliness and thus said it is not merely the result of being trapped on an island with a volleyball named Wilson. As my favorite contemporary poet, Jon Forman, stated “you can be alone on a crowded street.” Loneliness is a pervading and isolating human experience — so much that we believe we are alone in our loneliness, as expressed by the late Tom Petty, “you don’t know how it feels to be me.”

You may be asking: why begin our Membership series talking about loneliness? At the root of what humanity has expressed regarding loneliness is a divine desire for belonging. It presents as loneliness, but loneliness is merely the symptom of something lacking. True belonging is more than being with people of similar interests. And, like a baby with yellow skin from jaundice, the solution doesn’t come in a pill or syringe, but from beholding the sun/Son. 

But we like our medications and quick-fixes, don’t we? Humans look for ways to alleviate loneliness through activity with others. Bowling leagues. Quilting. Softball. Book clubs. Coffee shops. Bars. All places people go to be in a community of like-minded individuals. But, even among a people with a common interest, the divine desire is not satiated, only masked. Like make-up atop the face, it merely covers the appearance of yellow skin— the appearance of loneliness. It is true that a common love binds people together. But the power of that bond, the strength and security of that community, is not in the people who gather but the object of their affection. 

Our membership series, Belonging In Christ, speaks to loneliness with the only true solution that answers the divine longing of every human heart: the divine Son of God, Jesus Christ. Our longing to know and be known by God is innate, and hardwired into a humanity that was made to behold and image Him. It is not until our identity rests in Jesus, the perfect Son of God, that our belonging is secure. It is only then that we experience true community in the body of Christ. He brings us into community by fusing us together in Him. John 17:20–23 “I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us,… The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one…(ESV)

The answer for belonging is not found in a group with your same likes and dislikes. The answer for belonging is being fused together with Christ, who brings us into His body, the fellowship of believers. 

Did you catch that? We, the church, become one together— me, you, and all who call Jesus Christ Lord, in and through Christ. There is no greater bond, no greater power, no greater glory than Jesus, who possesses the power over life and death. My love and commitment to you, and yours to me, and other Christ followers in this room, is anchored in the love that Christ has for His Church. That will never change. It is an impenetrable bond that was secured in Christ!

Therefore, the most important question we have to answer, and from which we build our series, is this: Who is Jesus? This morning, we will anchor ourselves in Colossians 1. Together we will look at the Person, the Work, and the Worship of Christ. Would you open your Bible’s to Colossians 1. We will begin reading in verse 9 but will focus on v13-20. Please stand with me for the reading of God’s word.

Colossians 1:9–20

[9] And so, from the day we heard, we have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, [10] so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him: bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God; [11] being strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy; [12] giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light. [13] He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, [14] in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

[15] He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. [16] For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. [17] And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. [18] And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. [19] For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, [20] and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross. (ESV)

[pray]The Person of Christ 

As was said in the introduction, our unity together is based on the person of Christ. We have been united with Him, and to that degree, we are united together as the Church. Therefore, my aim this morning is to show the passage through a Christological lens. This is our aim every Sunday: to see the glory of God in scripture. We typically approach the scripture and seek to understand the questions the text would ask, and then of ourselves to know how we ought respond. However, this morning we come to the text with the question: Who is Jesus? For that reason, we start our exposition in verse 13. We will go verse by verse and draw lines between this passage of scripture others in an attempt to paint a biblical picture of the Christ.

[13] He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, 

We must note that the first “He” is said of God the Father. God the Father has delivered us from darkness. God the Father and Jesus the Son were never at odds.  Jesus was not on a rescue mission to save us over and against the will of the Father. It was the will of the Father that you and I have salvation in and through the Son. But on to Christ:

The Son is King! He has a kingdom. He sits on his Father’s throne. The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof (Psa 24:1)! He stretches out the heavens! He set’s his chambers on the waters (Psa 104)! He is clothed with splendor and majesty!

And He is ruler of all kings. He is King of kings.

Revelation 1:4–5

… Grace to you and peace from him who is and who was and who is to come, and from the seven spirits who are before his throne, and from Jesus Christ the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of kings on earth. 

And He is our Redeemer

[14] in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

We were captive, slaves of sin, in the kingdom of darkness, enemies of the kingdom of God, and now we have been redeemed. Our transgressions were paid for, and we were bought, purchased by the King’s blood. The King of kings laid down his life to redeem His church, his bride. He is a loving King. A Redeeming King

This is Revelation 1:5: To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood (ESV)

Jesus is the King, and Redeemer.

[15] He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. 

Jesus is the image of God. We must understand what a miracle this is. For us to see God is unthinkable. In Exodus 33:20, God spoke to Moses and said, “… man shall not see me and live.” (ESV)

When Isaiah had a vision of God in His throne room, his response was,“Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts!” (Isaiah 6:5 ESV)

Yet John writes, “No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father's side, he has made him known. (John 1:18 ESV)

And Jesus himself said, “If you’ve seen me, you’ve seen the Father.”(John 14:9).

And in Hebrews we read of the Son, “He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. (Hebrews 1:1-3 ESV)

[He is ] the firstborn of all creation. [16] For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. 

We hold as trinitarian evangelicals, that Jesus was begotten, not created. This is an important doctrine that if we lose, the gospel unravels. Don’t be confused by the word “firstborn.” In that day, the firstborn inherited all property and valuables from the patriarch. In other words, should I have lived and died in that time, Josiah would get my lawn mover, the leaf blower, my car, my fluffy high school flannel from 1997, my dirty underwear, AND everything of Tiffany’s if she doesn’t outlive him. Jordan, Jude, and JJ are on their own. 

Now, what was he saying about Jesus? Look at verse 16. It starts with the word For… Paul was telling his readers why he used the term firstborn. For by him all things were created… through him and for him. The preexistent Son of God became man. The Eternal Creator became part of His finite creation. He must be of first importance, the owner and inheritor of all creation. Jesus owns all things. He created, and rules over all things. Paul wrote the word “firstborn” to signify the preeminence  of Christ, that he already owned all creation, and as a man would inherit it all from His Father. 

Look further down to verse 18b. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent.

He is firstborn because he’s preeminent in all things, as he is the beginning! Paul wants us to think to Genesis: “In the beginning, God…” and John 1:1 “In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God.” Jesus was first.

Furthermore, all things were created through Him and for Him. Creation was a gift from God to God, and this was good! Jesus, the Son of God become man, inherits, owns, and rules all things! He designed them, made them, and they exist for His purposes.

[17] And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. 

Paul asserts again that Jesus is deity, co-eternal with the Father. He is before all things. 

When Moses asked God how to announce His name to the people of Israel, God instructed Moses to say, “I AM WHO I AM.” (Ex 3:14 ESV). In this name God revealed that He is self-existent. Jesus also used the name, I AM to announce himself. He declared himself self-existent with the pharisees and said, “Before Abraham was, I AM.” (John 8:58).

Jesus also stated to his disciples, I am the light of the world, I am the way, the truth, and the life. I am the gate. I am the Good Shepherd, living water, bread of life, the resurrection and the life, and the true vine (Jhn 8:12, 10:9, 10:11, 11:25, 14:6, 15:1).

And in Him all things hold together

He is the maker and sustainer of all things. Hebrews 1:3 we’ve already read, “He upholds the universe by the word of His power.” There is no molecule in the cosmos that is not bound together by the will of Jesus. 

Do you know science affirms this? They know molecules and atoms bind together, but they cannot tell you why. In Him all things hold together. Without Him, all things would unravel.

Jesus is Sovereign! This is good news friends. There is no one else I’d rather have be sovereign, rule and reign over all creation, and bring to their appointed end, then Jesus, the perfect Son of God. 

[18] And he is the head of the body, the church.
What you and I need to understand is that this is not my church. Nor is this your church. This is His church! Christ is the head of this church! He didn’t die and make another man king, but he rose from the grave because He is the King! And as King, he directs the church body to do His will. 

The head directs the body. It is within the head that the mind operates, and the will of the body is formulated. It then sends signals to the body to carry out that will. This means when we seek to make decisions, we don’t operate according to what we want, but we operate according to what He wants. This is important, for we must know that we are His church if we obey Him.

John 14:5, Jesus states, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.”

May it be known that one who is part of the body of Christ is one who loves Him and adheres to His commandments. He does not have an arm that operates according to its own will; that’s not his arm. He does not have a wild branch, but he prunes that branch and brings it under his direction and care. And His church, in obedience to Christ, moves forward against the gates of Hell. 

In the book of Matthew (16:15-18), Jesus asked his disciples, “But who do you say that I am?”  Simon Peter replied, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” And Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. (ESV)

He is the King, who is head of the church. Christ is the only King who is able to be so.

18b He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. 

There’s the word again: firstborn. Jesus was the first to have a glorified body, one incorruptible by death. How this is so— scholars debate. That’s not the point of our message today, only that Christ is first, for He is God. He is fully man, and fully God, for… verse 19

[19] For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, 

In Jesus, the man, encompassed all the fullness of God. In a human being, the fullness of deity existed. Theologians refer to this as the hypostatic union. Jesus was fully God, and fully man. 100% God, and 100% man. It sounds ridiculous, doesn’t it? Even Yogi Berra never claimed 200%!

Todd Miles, borrowing an analogy from another seminary professor, explained it like this: you have an Aston Martin Valkyrie (the most expensive sports car). You take that sports car off-road and it’s caked with mud, so much that the color of the sports car glimmers through in mere cracks of the earth-frosted body. It’s still 100% Aston Martin. And, It’s 100% covered in earth. 

Jesus was 100% deity, clothed, 100% in humanity. The fullness of God became flesh and dwelt in the earthly body of Jesus… and was pleased to do so…

Why? Why would the God of all the cosmos be pleased to become part of His creation? Why would he be pleased to come live among us? To experience, in body, the pain, the hurt, the rejection, and the physical suffering and death he endured?

Remember, last week, we stated that sin was a human problem. It needed a human solution. We, as the image bearers of mankind, have dishonored our Creator. We are the cause of the hostility between man and God. We are the instigator of the war— and we chose God as our enemy! In doing so, we threw mud at his face, and attempted to suppress the glory that belongs to Him.

Because of that dishonor, all mankind deserves death. This would be just, but it would not display the fullness of the character of God. The death of all humanity would only display the justice of God, it would not reveal His mercy and lovingkindness. 

So, why? Why would the God of the cosmos be pleased to become part of His creation and suffer like he did?

Hebrews 12:2 is our answer: …Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith…for the joy set before him endured the cross, despising the shame…

Why did he become flesh? Why was God pleased to dwell in flesh? Why did he endure the cross? For the joy of redeeming you! This is the work of Christ.The Work of Christ 

[20] and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross. (ESV)

Through Jesus, you and I have been reconciled to God. In the war we wrongfully waged against God, He has sent his Son with the white flag of the gospel. He rode onto the battlefield himself, and did not send another emissary. This was a war we had not the right nor the power to fight, and God was pleased to send His Son, and Jesus was pleased to redeem His fallen humanity, for Himself. He made peace by His blood. He traded His life for the life of all humanity, and Jesus was and is so glorious, that his blood purchased man and woman from every tribe, tongue, and language. He has made peace between man and God.

The church are the people whom accept the white flag. It is an offer of peace before we are utterly destroyed, a plea to be reconciled and to live. Humanity is fighting a war with God, one they cannot win. Jesus crossed enemy lines, became one of us, in order to offer himself to God on our behalf. We come to the cross and surrender our life because He came to the earth to surrender His life for ours. In Christ, God has declared a cease fire. Do you hear it? Do you see it? Do you come and submit yourself to it? This is the work of Christ.

In heaven he is the Lamb that was slain, seated at the right hand of the Father. But He will return as the Lion of Judah, and put all things under his feat. All rule, all authorities, all powers, all people. And he will rightfully, and gloriously, demand worship.

The Worship of Christ

Jesus was worshiped at his birth by foreigners (Matt 2:11), at his resurrection by his disciples (Matt 28:9), and we read he was worshiped in heaven by the angels. This is Hebrews 1:6

[6] And again, when he brings the firstborn into the world, he says, “Let all God's angels worship him.” (ESV)

He will be worshiped at the end of time, for all eternity, by all creatures: 

Revelation 4:9–11

[9] And whenever the living creatures give glory and honor and thanks to him who is seated on the throne, who lives forever and ever, [10] the twenty-four elders fall down before him who is seated on the throne and worship him who lives forever and ever. They cast their crowns before the throne, saying,

[11] “Worthy are you, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they existed and were created.” (ESV)

He is worthy of worship for His power and might, and his meekness and majesty. He is worthy as our sacrificial lamb, as our King, as the head of our church. And because He is worthy, our worship ought be genuine. If it is anything less, we spit on his face with our words and actions. 

So, what does this mean for us, the church at Hope Fellowship?

Recall that we began this morning by pointing to the divine longing of the soul, a longing to belong. We all want and need to belong, and that longing can only be filled by the one who put it there. And, people are united together not by love of each other, but by the love of God. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and gave himself for us as the propitiation of our sins! Propitiation means wrath bearer. We are brought together in community, 

FIRST because the King of the Cosmos loved us, and keeps us! He initiates and keeps us in His community.

SECOND, we are in community because our hearts have turned to love Him! Jesus, the Son of God, by whom and for whom all things were created, is the only one worthy of all our love and affection. This makes us a worshiping community! Friends, we are a worshiping community when we love Him! We are an obedient community when we love Him! We express our belonging to Him and to each other when we worship Him. 

THIRD, the strength of that belonging is the unbreakable love of Jesus. We have, together, here, in this body of believers, the strongest force in all heaven and earth, binding us together: Jesus, who is God.

SO, the church is a place of belonging because we belong to Jesus. And because we belong to Him, we love as He loved, we give as He give, we serve as He served. And our commitment to each other is rooted in our commitment to Him. Do you love Christ? Are you committed to Him? That means you must be committed to the church! What a security that is! 

Friends, as a member of this church, I love you because I love Him. My love for you will never change, so long as I love him. That means I have grace for you because I have grace from him. My grace towards you will never change, for His grace for me is new every morning. Will we have conflict? YES! Sometimes the elbow strikes the knee! But we don’t dismember ourselves, we learn and we heal together, ministering to each other. We love and care for each other as Christ loved His church. This is what it means to have Belonging In Christ.

[pray, communion]]]></content:encoded>
					<itunes:summary><![CDATA[Bible Text: Colossians 1:13-20 | Speaker: Bobby Gaither | Series: Belonging In Christ: Membership at Hope Fellowship | The 1970’s band, Three Dog Night, sang “One is the loneliest number that you’ll ever do.” Many writers have expanded on the idea of loneliness and thus said it is not merely the result of being trapped on an island with a volleyball named Wilson. As my favorite contemporary poet, Jon Forman, stated “you can be alone on a crowded street.” Loneliness is a pervading and isolating human experience — so much that we believe we are alone in our loneliness, as expressed by the late Tom Petty, “you don’t know how it feels to be me.”

You may be asking: why begin our Membership series talking about loneliness? At the root of what humanity has expressed regarding loneliness is a divine desire for belonging. It presents as loneliness, but loneliness is merely the symptom of something lacking. True belonging is more than being with people of similar interests. And, like a baby with yellow skin from jaundice, the solution doesn’t come in a pill or syringe, but from beholding the sun/Son. 

But we like our medications and quick-fixes, don’t we? Humans look for ways to alleviate loneliness through activity with others. Bowling leagues. Quilting. Softball. Book clubs. Coffee shops. Bars. All places people go to be in a community of like-minded individuals. But, even among a people with a common interest, the divine desire is not satiated, only masked. Like make-up atop the face, it merely covers the appearance of yellow skin— the appearance of loneliness. It is true that a common love binds people together. But the power of that bond, the strength and security of that community, is not in the people who gather but the object of their affection. 

Our membership series, Belonging In Christ, speaks to loneliness with the only true solution that answers the divine longing of every human heart: the divine Son of God, Jesus Christ. Our longing to know and be known by God is innate, and hardwired into a humanity that was made to behold and image Him. It is not until our identity rests in Jesus, the perfect Son of God, that our belonging is secure. It is only then that we experience true community in the body of Christ. He brings us into community by fusing us together in Him. John 17:20–23 “I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us,… The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one…(ESV)

The answer for belonging is not found in a group with your same likes and dislikes. The answer for belonging is being fused together with Christ, who brings us into His body, the fellowship of believers. 

Did you catch that? We, the church, become one together— me, you, and all who call Jesus Christ Lord, in and through Christ. There is no greater bond, no greater power, no greater glory than Jesus, who possesses the power over life and death. My love and commitment to you, and yours to me, and other Christ followers in this room, is anchored in the love that Christ has for His Church. That will never change. It is an impenetrable bond that was secured in Christ!

Therefore, the most important question we have to answer, and from which we build our series, is this: Who is Jesus? This morning, we will anchor ourselves in Colossians 1. Together we will look at the Person, the Work, and the Worship of Christ. Would you open your Bible’s to Colossians 1. We will begin reading in verse 9 but will focus on v13-20. Please stand with me for the reading of God’s word.

Colossians 1:9–20

[9] And so, from the day we heard, we have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, [10] so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him: bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God; [11] being strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy; [12] giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light. [13] He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, [14] in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

[15] He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. [16] For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. [17] And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. [18] And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. [19] For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, [20] and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross. (ESV)

[pray]The Person of Christ 

As was said in the introduction, our unity together is based on the person of Christ. We have been united with Him, and to that degree, we are united together as the Church. Therefore, my aim this morning is to show the passage through a Christological lens. This is our aim every Sunday: to see the glory of God in scripture. We typically approach the scripture and seek to understand the questions the text would ask, and then of ourselves to know how we ought respond. However, this morning we come to the text with the question: Who is Jesus? For that reason, we start our exposition in verse 13. We will go verse by verse and draw lines between this passage of scripture others in an attempt to paint a biblical picture of the Christ.

[13] He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, 

We must note that the first “He” is said of God the Father. God the Father has delivered us from darkness. God the Father and Jesus the Son were never at odds.  Jesus was not on a rescue mission to save us over and against the will of the Father. It was the will of the Father that you and I have salvation in and through the Son. But on to Christ:

The Son is King! He has a kingdom. He sits on his Father’s throne. The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof (Psa 24:1)! He stretches out the heavens! He set’s his chambers on the waters (Psa 104)! He is clothed with splendor and majesty!

And He is ruler of all kings. He is King of kings.

Revelation 1:4–5

… Grace to you and peace from him who is and who was and who is to come, and from the seven spirits who are before his throne, and from Jesus Christ the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of kings on earth. 

And He is our Redeemer

[14] in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

We were captive, slaves of sin, in the kingdom of darkness, enemies of the kingdom of God, and now we have been redeemed. Our transgressions were paid for, and we were bought, purchased by the King’s blood. The King of kings laid down his life to redeem His church, his bride. He is a loving King. A Redeeming King

This is Revelation 1:5: To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood (ESV)

Jesus is the King, and Redeemer.

[15] He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. 

Jesus is the image of God. We must understand what a miracle this is. For us to see God is unthinkable. In Exodus 33:20, God spoke to Moses and said, “… man shall not see me and live.” (ESV)

When Isaiah had a vision of God in His throne room, his response was,“Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts!” (Isaiah 6:5 ESV)

Yet John writes, “No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father's side, he has made him known. (John 1:18 ESV)

And Jesus himself said, “If you’ve seen me, you’ve seen the Father.”(John 14:9).

And in Hebrews we read of the Son, “He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. (Hebrews 1:1-3 ESV)

[He is ] the firstborn of all creation. [16] For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. 

We hold as trinitarian evangelicals, that Jesus was begotten, not created. This is an important doctrine that if we lose, the gospel unravels. Don’t be confused by the word “firstborn.” In that day, the firstborn inherited all property and valuables from the patriarch. In other words, should I have lived and died in that time, Josiah would get my lawn mover, the leaf blower, my car, my fluffy high school flannel from 1997, my dirty underwear, AND everything of Tiffany’s if she doesn’t outlive him. Jordan, Jude, and JJ are on their own. 

Now, what was he saying about Jesus? Look at verse 16. It starts with the word For… Paul was telling his readers why he used the term firstborn. For by him all things were created… through him and for him. The preexistent Son of God became man. The Eternal Creator became part of His finite creation. He must be of first importance, the owner and inheritor of all creation. Jesus owns all things. He created, and rules over all things. Paul wrote the word “firstborn” to signify the preeminence  of Christ, that he already owned all creation, and as a man would inherit it all from His Father. 

Look further down to verse 18b. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent.

He is firstborn because he’s preeminent in all things, as he is the beginning! Paul wants us to think to Genesis: “In the beginning, God…” and John 1:1 “In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God.” Jesus was first.

Furthermore, all things were created through Him and for Him. Creation was a gift from God to God, and this was good! Jesus, the Son of God become man, inherits, owns, and rules all things! He designed them, made them, and they exist for His purposes.

[17] And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. 

Paul asserts again that Jesus is deity, co-eternal with the Father. He is before all things. 

When Moses asked God how to announce His name to the people of Israel, God instructed Moses to say, “I AM WHO I AM.” (Ex 3:14 ESV). In this name God revealed that He is self-existent. Jesus also used the name, I AM to announce himself. He declared himself self-existent with the pharisees and said, “Before Abraham was, I AM.” (John 8:58).

Jesus also stated to his disciples, I am the light of the world, I am the way, the truth, and the life. I am the gate. I am the Good Shepherd, living water, bread of life, the resurrection and the life, and the true vine (Jhn 8:12, 10:9, 10:11, 11:25, 14:6, 15:1).

And in Him all things hold together

He is the maker and sustainer of all things. Hebrews 1:3 we’ve already read, “He upholds the universe by the word of His power.” There is no molecule in the cosmos that is not bound together by the will of Jesus. 

Do you know science affirms this? They know molecules and atoms bind together, but they cannot tell you why. In Him all things hold together. Without Him, all things would unravel.

Jesus is Sovereign! This is good news friends. There is no one else I’d rather have be sovereign, rule and reign over all creation, and bring to their appointed end, then Jesus, the perfect Son of God. 

[18] And he is the head of the body, the church.
What you and I need to understand is that this is not my church. Nor is this your church. This is His church! Christ is the head of this church! He didn’t die and make another man king, but he rose from the grave because He is the King! And as King, he directs the church body to do His will. 

The head directs the body. It is within the head that the mind operates, and the will of the body is formulated. It then sends signals to the body to carry out that will. This means when we seek to make decisions, we don’t operate according to what we want, but we operate according to what He wants. This is important, for we must know that we are His church if we obey Him.

John 14:5, Jesus states, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.”

May it be known that one who is part of the body of Christ is one who loves Him and adheres to His commandments. He does not have an arm that operates according to its own will; that’s not his arm. He does not have a wild branch, but he prunes that branch and brings it under his direction and care. And His church, in obedience to Christ, moves forward against the gates of Hell. 

In the book of Matthew (16:15-18), Jesus asked his disciples, “But who do you say that I am?”  Simon Peter replied, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” And Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. (ESV)

He is the King, who is head of the church. Christ is the only King who is able to be so.

18b He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. 

There’s the word again: firstborn. Jesus was the first to have a glorified body, one incorruptible by death. How this is so— scholars debate. That’s not the point of our message today, only that Christ is first, for He is God. He is fully man, and fully God, for… verse 19

[19] For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, 

In Jesus, the man, encompassed all the fullness of God. In a human being, the fullness of deity existed. Theologians refer to this as the hypostatic union. Jesus was fully God, and fully man. 100% God, and 100% man. It sounds ridiculous, doesn’t it? Even Yogi Berra never claimed 200%!

Todd Miles, borrowing an analogy from another seminary professor, explained it like this: you have an Aston Martin Valkyrie (the most expensive sports car). You take that sports car off-road and it’s caked with mud, so much that the color of the sports car glimmers through in mere cracks of the earth-frosted body. It’s still 100% Aston Martin. And, It’s 100% covered in earth. 

Jesus was 100% deity, clothed, 100% in humanity. The fullness of God became flesh and dwelt in the earthly body of Jesus… and was pleased to do so…

Why? Why would the God of all the cosmos be pleased to become part of His creation? Why would he be pleased to come live among us? To experience, in body, the pain, the hurt, the rejection, and the physical suffering and death he endured?

Remember, last week, we stated that sin was a human problem. It needed a human solution. We, as the image bearers of mankind, have dishonored our Creator. We are the cause of the hostility between man and God. We are the instigator of the war— and we chose God as our enemy! In doing so, we threw mud at his face, and attempted to suppress the glory that belongs to Him.

Because of that dishonor, all mankind deserves death. This would be just, but it would not display the fullness of the character of God. The death of all humanity would only display the justice of God, it would not reveal His mercy and lovingkindness. 

So, why? Why would the God of the cosmos be pleased to become part of His creation and suffer like he did?

Hebrews 12:2 is our answer: …Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith…for the joy set before him endured the cross, despising the shame…

Why did he become flesh? Why was God pleased to dwell in flesh? Why did he endure the cross? For the joy of redeeming you! This is the work of Christ.The Work of Christ 

[20] and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross. (ESV)

Through Jesus, you and I have been reconciled to God. In the war we wrongfully waged against God, He has sent his Son with the white flag of the gospel. He rode onto the battlefield himself, and did not send another emissary. This was a war we had not the right nor the power to fight, and God was pleased to send His Son, and Jesus was pleased to redeem His fallen humanity, for Himself. He made peace by His blood. He traded His life for the life of all humanity, and Jesus was and is so glorious, that his blood purchased man and woman from every tribe, tongue, and language. He has made peace between man and God.

The church are the people whom accept the white flag. It is an offer of peace before we are utterly destroyed, a plea to be reconciled and to live. Humanity is fighting a war with God, one they cannot win. Jesus crossed enemy lines, became one of us, in order to offer himself to God on our behalf. We come to the cross and surrender our life because He came to the earth to surrender His life for ours. In Christ, God has declared a cease fire. Do you hear it? Do you see it? Do you come and submit yourself to it? This is the work of Christ.

In heaven he is the Lamb that was slain, seated at the right hand of the Father. But He will return as the Lion of Judah, and put all things under his feat. All rule, all authorities, all powers, all people. And he will rightfully, and gloriously, demand worship.

The Worship of Christ

Jesus was worshiped at his birth by foreigners (Matt 2:11), at his resurrection by his disciples (Matt 28:9), and we read he was worshiped in heaven by the angels. This is Hebrews 1:6

[6] And again, when he brings the firstborn into the world, he says, “Let all God's angels worship him.” (ESV)

He will be worshiped at the end of time, for all eternity, by all creatures: 

Revelation 4:9–11

[9] And whenever the living creatures give glory and honor and thanks to him who is seated on the throne, who lives forever and ever, [10] the twenty-four elders fall down before him who is seated on the throne and worship him who lives forever and ever. They cast their crowns before the throne, saying,

[11] “Worthy are you, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they existed and were created.” (ESV)

He is worthy of worship for His power and might, and his meekness and majesty. He is worthy as our sacrificial lamb, as our King, as the head of our church. And because He is worthy, our worship ought be genuine. If it is anything less, we spit on his face with our words and actions. 

So, what does this mean for us, the church at Hope Fellowship?

Recall that we began this morning by pointing to the divine longing of the soul, a longing to belong. We all want and need to belong, and that longing can only be filled by the one who put it there. And, people are united together not by love of each other, but by the love of God. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and gave himself for us as the propitiation of our sins! Propitiation means wrath bearer. We are brought together in community, 

FIRST because the King of the Cosmos loved us, and keeps us! He initiates and keeps us in His community.

SECOND, we are in community because our hearts have turned to love Him! Jesus, the Son of God, by whom and for whom all things were created, is the only one worthy of all our love and affection. This makes us a worshiping community! Friends, we are a worshiping community when we love Him! We are an obedient community when we love Him! We express our belonging to Him and to each other when we worship Him. 

THIRD, the strength of that belonging is the unbreakable love of Jesus. We have, together, here, in this body of believers, the strongest force in all heaven and earth, binding us together: Jesus, who is God.

SO, the church is a place of belonging because we belong to Jesus. And because we belong to Him, we love as He loved, we give as He give, we serve as He served. And our commitment to each other is rooted in our commitment to Him. Do you love Christ? Are you committed to Him? That means you must be committed to the church! What a security that is! 

Friends, as a member of this church, I love you because I love Him. My love for you will never change, so long as I love him. That means I have grace for you because I have grace from him. My grace towards you will never change, for His grace for me is new every morning. Will we have conflict? YES! Sometimes the elbow strikes the knee! But we don’t dismember ourselves, we learn and we heal together, ministering to each other. We love and care for each other as Christ loved His church. This is what it means to have Belonging In Christ.

[pray, communion]]]></itunes:summary>

					<itunes:author>Bobby Gaither</itunes:author>
					<itunes:subtitle>Bible Text: Colossians 1:13-20 | Speaker: Bobby Gaither | Series: Belonging In Christ: Membership at Hope Fellowship | The 1970’s band, Three Dog Night, sang “One is the loneliest number that you’ll ever do.” Many writers have expanded on the idea...</itunes:subtitle>
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