Gospel-centered.

That is the new buzz-word, like “missional” was 2 years ago.  With so many people using it, the meaning has become quite nebulous.  What does it mean?

Over the next couple posts, I’m going to attempt to define what we mean at Remedy when we say “Gospel-centered”.

To define this, I will have to speak of this in terms of what we mean, and what we don’t mean.  Sometimes the most effective way to define something is to say what we don’t mean as well.

Before we talk about what we at Remedy mean by “Gospel-centered”, I feel its necessary, for this first post, to just define what the Gospel is.

What is the Gospel?
The Gospel is simple, but yet that doesn’t mean that its simplistic.  It is very complex, yet very easy to say and understand. Its implications in our lives are very complex and far reaching.

The Gospel is that all man has willingly rebelled against our Creator. He created us to worship Him, and we have freely and voluntarily chosen not to worship Him. When we do this we sin against Him. Because He is perfectly Holy, for one to have a relationship with Him, we must be perfect.  We all know that we are not perfect. We all know that we sin.

Anyone who sins against God, must be punished in order for Him to be just and good.  If He just looked past our sin, He is neither good, nor just. You can easily see the predicament here.
We are not perfect, and need to be forgiven for our sin and be declared perfect by God. And God, being God, must punish sin. He has righteous anger built up towards us because of our sin.  We rightly deserve to be punished and receive His wrath. That’s the first half of the “story”, and that’s the bad news.  If we stopped there, it would be terrible.  But, praise God, there is more.

But, this message is called the “Gospel”, which means “good news.”  So, here is the “good news”. His Name is Jesus.
Jesus was 100% God & 100% man. He lived a perfect life (the life we were commanded to live) and willingly died on a cross (the death we deserved). When He died, He substituted Himself for us. His death was for us. We deserved to die because of our sin, yet Jesus came and humbly and willingly died for us and received the punishment from God for us. He received all of God’s righteous wrath toward sin on our behalf.  That is GOOD NEWS!

Why did He do that? 2 Reasons.
1. His Glory. – The first reason Jesus died on the cross is so He would receive glory. He is God and deserves all the glory. In order for Him to be and remain God, everything He does must be about magnifying His glory. If He magnifies the glory of anyone else, then He is no longer God, but whoever received His glory is. Therefore, everything God does, must be for His glory.
2. Love – The second reason Jesus died on the cross is because of the deep love with which He loves us.  God loves us. GOD loves us!! Wow. It’s breath-taking to even contemplate that the God of the universe loves sinful, rebellious men, who have willingly trampled His glory under our feet. Yet, He does. Jesus died on the cross because He loves you.

So, the Gospel is simple.  Man is sinful and in need of a Savior. Jesus died on the cross, and is our Savior. The Bible says, “if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved” (Romans 10:9-10)

One is saved by grace, through faith. (Eph 2:8). This means God, in His grace, has given His Son to die for us. If we believe, or put our faith in Jesus, and repent of our sin, then we can be forgiven, saved, justified, declared righteous, declared perfect, cross over from death to life, and be transferred from eternal punishment to eternal life with God.

That is good news. That is incredible news.

So what’s Gospel-centered?
THE GOSPEL is the basis of everything. The Gospel is not something we need to understand at the beginning of our Christian life, then we start to move on to other things about being a Christian.

I CANNOT STRESS THAT SENTENCE ABOVE ENOUGH.

The Gospel isn’t just for unbelievers to hear so they can be saved. The Gospel is FOR Christians who have known Jesus for 5 yrs, 20 yrs, 50 yrs, just as much as someone who does not know Jesus.  The Gospel is just as much for Christians to know and hear everyday, as it is for someone who doesn’t know Jesus yet and needs to believe for the first time.

Now, finally, I’m starting to get into what I mean by “Gospel-centered”… more on that in the next post….