The Fourth Sunday in Advent [My] Gospel Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ! Amen. In today’s Epistle, from Romans 16, God’s apostle Paul says that the Gospel belongs personally to him: “Now to Him who is able to strengthen you according to MY Gospel.” Dear Christian friends: In many places throughout His Scriptures, God speaks with such simplicity and clarity that He leaves no room for question, misunderstanding or doubt. Other places in His Scriptures seem fuzzy. What I mean is this: • When God tells us WHAT the Gospel is, He speaks in terms that a very young child can understand. The Gospel is this: o God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life (John 3:16). o In Jesus we have redemption, that is to say, the forgiveness of sins (Colossians 1:14). o Jesus delivers us from the wrath to come (1 Thessalonians 1:10). • For all the clarity and simplicity of WHAT the Gospel is, the Scriptures are not nearly as clear in describing WHOSE the Gospel is. Who owns and possesses the Gospel? o Some Bible passages make it sound like God the Father owns the Gospel. The Scriptures repeatedly declare that “the Good News concerning Jesus” (Acts 8:35) is “Gospel’s Gospel” (2 Corinthians 11:7, cf. Romans 1:1, 15:16, 1 Thessalonians 2:2, 8, 9). o There are other passages, such as today’s Epistle, where it sounds as though the Gospel belongs to the man who preaches it. Today’s Epistle is from Paul’s letter to the Romans and here Paul speaks about “my Gospel”—and this is not the only time Paul speaks this way (Romans 2:16, 2 Timothy 2:8). o There are yet other Scriptures that speak about who owns and possesses the Gospel. These other passages do not speak in the singular, but in the plural. These other passages speak about “our Gospel” (2 Corinthians 4:3, 1 Thessalonians 1:5, 2 Thessalonians 2:14), as if “the Good News concerning Jesus” (Acts 8:35) belongs to a whole group of people together; as if the Gospel might be owned by “the Holy Christian Church, the communion of saints.” Whose Gospel is it? Who owns the message that the blood of Jesus, God’s Son, has completely washed away all sins of all history and in the entire creation—including your sins and my sins and even the sins of those who refuse Him? (1 John 2:2) Does this Gospel belong to God? Does this Gospel belong to you? Does this Gospel belong to the one who preaches it to you? The answer is YES. In the answer YES, God our heavenly Father has given us grave responsibility and great freedom and eternal security. • The grave responsibility God has given to us is this: the Gospel belongs to HIM. This means that neither you nor I have any business messing with it. It is not up to us to decide which parts of the Gospel should be preached and which omitted. It is not up to us to decide whether we like the sound of what we hear when God speaks. There is no option: the Gospel must be faithfully preached and taught and passed on to others without adding to or subtracting from anything that God has written. This is what the Lord says: “If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed [that is, condemned to hell]” (Galatians 1:9). God also says concerning His Scriptures and His Gospel, I warn everyone who hears the Words of the prophecy of this book: if anyone adds to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book, and if anyone takes away from the Words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away his share in the tree of life and in the holy city, which are described in this book (Revelation 22:18-19). Simply stated, because the Gospel belongs to God, we shall not mess with it. We shall only respond as you heard the Virgin Mary respond today, when the angel preached the Gospel to her. Because the Gospel belongs to God, we shall say along with Mary, “Let it be to me according to your Word” (Luke 1:38). With these Words Mary was essentially saying, “Amen! Amen! Yes, yes, it shall be so!” • God has attached great freedom to His Gospel by declaring that it belongs, not only to Him, but also to the one who preaches it to you. As you heard in today’s Epistle, “Now to Him who is able to strengthen you according to MY Gospel.” In the same way that Paul’s letter to the Romans was PAUL’s Gospel, the Gospel you hear from this pulpit (so long as I am standing in it) is MY Gospel. Like it or not and for better or for worse, the Gospel of God must pass through my eyes, my brain, and my lips as it travels its way to you. As God’s Gospel passes through me, it gathers up certain things from me, just like a snowball gathers snow on its way down a hill. God’s Gospel does NOT become mine because I am allowed to mess with it or change it in any way! God’s Gospel becomes my Gospel because it comes to you through my vocabulary and in the manner that I speak; God’s Gospel makes application to circumstances that I observe; God’s Gospel reflects my theological preoccupations and takes shape according to the manner in which I read the Scriptures; God’s Gospel speaks comfort and life to the holy flock to which I have been sent (1 Peter 5:1-3). God’s Gospel is MY Gospel as much as it was Paul’s Gospel, and that means great freedom for you. Why is it freedom for you that the Gospel of God can also be called my Gospel? A couple of reasons: o First, the Gospel of God gets preached on a regular basis in countless pulpits all across our globe. Who knows how many of your fellow Christians are hearing a sermon right now on this same Epistle for today, from Romans 16? Yet they are not all hearing the same sermon. Each of your fellow Christians—in various times and in many places—gets to hear the Gospel of God applied individually to them, just as you hear the Gospel of God applied individually to you. Some pastors preach long and others very briefly; some use manuscripts and others only an outline; some sermons seem obvious and predictable, while others you cannot see coming; some preaching seems to scatter wide, as it were fired from a shotgun, while other preaching seems to have sniper’s accuracy. This is the freedom of hearing MY Gospel preached to you. When Pastor Kuddes and Pastor Kurka fill in for me, you hear Pastor Kuddes’ Gospel and Pastor Kurka’s Gospel. o Here is another great freedom God has for you: Just as His Gospel becomes my Gospel while on its way to you, God’s Gospel also becomes YOUR Gospel as it passes through you on its way to your neighbor. Stated another way, God allows you to speak “the Good News concerning Jesus” (Acts 8:35) using your thoughts and your words and your experiences in life. You do not need to parrot me or any other pastor. You do not need to memorize a stack of Bible verses in order to speak God’s Gospel to others. You are free, simply to tell others what you have heard, telling them in your own words and speaking YOUR Gospel to them (e.g., John 1:43-45). • God wants you to know that HIS Gospel is also OUR Gospel all together. By making His Gospel OUR Gospel all together, God gives each of us great eternal security in His crucified and resurrected Son Jesus. Because God’s Gospel has become our shared possession, we have fellowship—that is, an indescribably close connection—to one another. That is why Paul could not only speak about his Gospel in today’s Epistle, but could also say in another place that he rejoices in “your partnership in the Gospel” (Philippians 1:4). You have your full share in this Gospel: it is yours, it is mine, and it is ours together. This means that forgiveness of sins is yours and mine and ours together. The hope of the resurrection and life everlasting: yours and mine and ours together. What is God’s Gospel and my Gospel and our Gospel all together? You heard it in today’s Epistle: “the preaching of Jesus Christ.” The Gospel belongs to many, but the Gospel is always about Jesus. Jesus is the sole content of God’s Gospel. Jesus is the One who speaks personally to you through my Gospel. Jesus has made you an owner and an equal partner in the Gospel, so that the Good News about Him is now all about you. To Him who is able to strengthen you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ … to the only wise God be glory forevermore through Jesus Christ! Amen. _______________________________________________ Sermons mailing list [email protected] http://cat41.org/mailman/listinfo/sermons
