Discovering the Gospel: Principle and Story Unveiled

"How is the gospel a principle? Well, the principle is that we are saved not by our good works and by our moral performance but by the grace of God through Jesus Christ. We're saved by Christ's work, not our work. But even though we're saved by faith alone and not by our good works, we are not saved by a faith that remains alone." [00:01:37]

"Creation, fall, redemption, restoration. Now, you see, when we talk about the story, we're reading along the storyline of the Bible from Genesis to Revelation, and we see that the Bible says that the world was created good and all things were created to be enjoyed, and they were good, God's good creation. But because we turned away from God, human beings did, everything is fallen." [00:02:40]

"And yet God will judge sin, and yet God is in a process of redeeming us from sin and redeeming the entire world from sin through Jesus Christ. And at the very end of time, he is going to re-establish the world as a perfect world the way he wanted it. It's going to be a material universe, a new Heaven, a New Earth, and we're into wealth righteousness." [00:03:15]

"If you don't know that storyline, that though all things are good because they're created by God and yet all things are fallen, so there's some degree of corruption, and yet God is actually redeeming us and going to make the world a better place, a perfect place again, if you don't know that, there's a lot of things you miss." [00:03:48]

"Lastly, if you don't see the storyline, you don't recognize the fact that God is not just going to take us to heaven, but he's really going to create a new Heaven, a New Earth. And so if you've missed the gospel as a story or you miss the gospel as a principle, you're in trouble because it's possible to so stress the gospel as a story." [00:04:47]

"What brings the principle and the story together is the person, the gospel person, Jesus Christ himself. So, for example, you could read David and Goliath, and you could read David and Goliath like this: you could say, okay, David, he stands forth and he fights Goliath, and even though Goliath is huge and David is small, he fights him and he defeats them." [00:05:43]

"David was not just fighting Goliath; he was fighting Goliath as a substitute representative of his army, of the Israelites, so that if he won, the Israelites won, even though they hadn't lifted a finger. And if he lost, the Israelites lost, and so his victory or defeat was imputed to them. Who does that sound like?" [00:06:46]

"Jesus Christ, at the cost of his life, was the substitute, our substitute champion, so that his victory is imputed to us. But here's the thing: it's not just that Jesus died, but he fought the real giants, sin and death. Because if I know that my savior Jesus Christ has defeated the big giants in my life, evil in sin and death, that I can handle." [00:07:14]

"Jesus says so at the very end of his life, after, well, like not the end of his life, right after his resurrection, the beginning of his new life, he gets with the disciples on the way to Emmaus and he says, how slow of heart to believe all the prophets have spoken, and beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the scriptures concerning himself." [00:07:52]

"And what this means is this: Jesus says you should read everything in the Bible as pointing to him, and that's the first reason we should do it. And here's the last reason we should do it, not just what Jesus says but what Kathy says. Now, Kathy is my wife. What Kathy used to always say to me is, she said, you know what's interesting in your sermons." [00:08:31]

"The only way to have your heart changed is not just to look at the principles but to see Jesus, not just look at the story but to see Jesus, and that's exactly what we're going to be doing in this series. So thank you for staying with us on this series. I'm looking forward to talking to you again." [00:09:35]