This weekend at Gateway was the conclusion of The Gospel series. It was also the culmination of three months of sermons where we journeyed together from Genesis to Revelation; from creation to new creation; from the garden to the city of God.
What we discovered is that when we talk about the gospel apart from the larger story of scripture, we lose half of the beauty. When you focus only on mankind’s depravity [The Fall] and Jesus’ death on the cross [Redemption] you are only telling half of the story.
But scripture teaches that in the beginning, the Triune God created the world to be a place of community, peace, and joy [Creation] and at the end of history God will restore this material creation, destroying death, disease, injustice, and suffering of all kinds [Restoration]. It will be a world in which we can enjoy our new life together, with him, forever. In other words, creation matters. This life matters.
The key to all of this is Jesus Christ of Nazareth. The gospel shows us that in the person of Jesus, God emptied himself of his glory and became human. Through the work of Jesus, God substituted himself for us and atoned for our sin, by grace bringing us into fellowship with him. And at the return of Jesus, God will restore creation and make a new world in which we can enjoy our new life together with him forever.
As Christians we are called to live now in light of that future reality. The hope of the church is not that we all “get to go to heaven someday” but rather in the final coming together of heaven and earth, or the “New Heavens and New Earth.”
As long as we see salvation only in terms of going to heaven when we die, a kind of disembodied existence in the clouds, the main work of the church is bound to be seen only in terms of saving souls for that future. But when we begin to see salvation in terms of God’s “new heavens and new earth” those future promises can be anticipated through the mission of the church.
The gospel is much more than just a rudimentary doctrine of the Christian faith - it’s a whole new way of looking at and living in the world! And as followers of Christ we are called to join God in the renewal of all things.
Image from Charles Colson's presentation at the Q Conference a couple of years ago.
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