Understanding the gospel more….

Imagine that a family that you cared for a great deal lived in an small and cramped house. They have 4 children and only 2 bedrooms, one bathroom and an outside toilet. The house is old, dilapidated, needs re-wiring and modernising. The roof leaks, there is no central heating and the garden….well….we’ll come onto the garden later (next week actually). The house belongs to the family. They inherited it some years ago, but they haven’t got any resources to make it better.

Now, imagine that you have unlimited resources and you want to give them a better house. You can even demolish it and rebuild it if you want. What would you do for them? Think about that for a moment.

My guess is that you wouldn’t decide just to update the present house, mend the roof, put in central heating, re-wire it and put a light in the outside toilet. No! You care for these people. You have an opportunity to provide the very best for them to meet all their needs so you will design and build accordingly.

When Father, Son and Holy Spirit settled on their rescue plan for mankind which involved the earthly life, death and resurrection of Jesus on our behalf; they took their opportunity to rebuild our house and provide the very best for us. Our salvation, meticulously prepared for us, was going to be immeasurably better than what there was before.

The sad thing is that the gospel, the good news, the brilliant news about what Jesus has done for us is often presented as a re-vamped 2 bed house with outside loo. ‘Jesus died to forgive your past sins, He has modernised you a bit (you now have a desire to follow Him) and He has guaranteed you a place in heaven and until then you have to do your best to get through’ is the ‘upgraded 2 bedroomed house’ gospel. It bears little relation to the radical completeness of what He has really done. Don’t forget that you’re dealing with the God who promised to “do a new thing”, who offers new birth, not plastic surgery, the God who said that the glory of the new house that he builds will be greater than the glory of the previous house (Haggai Ch 2 v 9 NIV)

Here is the radical re-build that Jesus gives us.

• We are new men and new women
• We are new creations, not modified beings
• Jesus didn’t just die to forgive our past sins, He forgave our present and future ones too
• Jesus didn’t just die for you, He died as you, in your place. The old you is gone. That came into effect for you the moment you believed and gave Him ownership of your life.
• He has done this because He loves you and He wants to enable you to become like Him.
• Just as it makes no sense to install a multi-thousand pound kitchen in a crumbling property with a leaking roof, so Jesus never intended to try to adapt the old you by adding bits of His nature.
• He wanted to do more than just enable you to become like Him though. He wanted to be permanently joined and united to you. That’s why He lives in you.

This is the most amazing part, that He chose to live in us. Throughout human history, God has wanted to be as near to us as possible. In the garden at Eden, He spent time with the first man and woman at the end of each day. In the desert, He was close to His people in the Tabernacle. After they settled in the land of Israel He was among His people in the Temple. But that was never close enough. He was looking forward to the day when He could live in us, not just among us. For that to be possible we had to be changed radically. Not modified but crucified and then re-born.

• So you are not a flawed person who is trying to be good
• You are a not a ‘sinner saved by grace’
• You were a sinner, now you are holy and learning to be like Jesus
• You are not trying to live right to get God’s acceptance
• You are already completely accepted by God (that’s why He lives in you). You want to live right because you instinctively know that that is now the most natural way for you to be.
• You are no longer in any way unclean; you no longer need to feel shame.
• You are clean, pure, washed, free from all your past because your past was buried with Christ. Now you are a new person.
• You don’t need to search far to find God’s presence. He is in you. You can’t get any closer than that!
• You are free from the control of Sin. The fact that you may slip up and choose to do a sin indicates one thing only – you are still learning how to live like Jesus. You haven’t arrived.
• You are not the old man or woman that you once were; you are now a new person on the exciting journey of becoming like Jesus.
• You are not a flawed person trying to become right enough to be able to live in the King’s Palace. You already live in the palace, and you are learning to live how the King lives.