What is the True Meaning of the Gospel

TRANSCRIPT

I don't know about you, but as I was growing up, I always felt like there had to be more in life. I felt like it can't just be this chaotic mess that I'm currently in. And I always had this little thing inside me, so I feel like I'm destined for something greater. I feel like I'm, I'm destined for something kind of divine or something eternal.

But there seems to be some kind of force that is actively stopping me from reaching my full potential. And I remember about 30 years ago, I bumped into a guy, he was a very wealthy guy, and he He hadn't earned his money, he'd inherited it, which means he was also a bit arrogant, a bit full of himself, and also not real smart and kind of proudful.

So anyway, he just decided he wanted a fast car, so he decided to go out and buy one of these things called a Lamborghini. And man, he was just enamoured with this thing, mate. He walked around the yard this thing he said this thing man looks like it looks like it'll do 200 kilometers an hour standing still This thing is amazing.

So yeah, he doesn't even do any checks doesn't do anything He just buys the thing cuz he had plenty of money and he eases out and he drives out of the driveway He goes around the corner and he starts revving this thing up like mad and then he pops the clutch and he's screaming down the road And he looks down at the at the tacho and it's doing 75 kilometers an hour And he's going, what's going on?

He pulls over, gets out, goes around to the car, he goes, man, this thing looks like it'll do 200 kilometers an hour. What is going on? Gets back in, revs it up, drops the clutch, screaming down the road, 75 kilometers an hour. It went like that for a few weeks. And he was so, he was too proud to even go back to the dealership.

So in the end he gets so frustrated with it, he sells it to his mate. For a very heavily discounted price for a car that looks like that, but only does 75 kilometers an hour. So he buys it. He stood on the side of the road a few days later and he hears this noise. And he goes, Oh, that was my car. He gets in his car, chases him down, takes about five kilometers, gets down there and says, What on earth?

I had this car for a month. I couldn't get it to do more than 75 kilometers an hour. He said, I just took it back to the dealership. So this is a high performance car. So they said governors on them so that you can't go too fast. And the governor was said all wrong. I just said, Could you adjust the governor?

Now this is 30 years ago, which means throw it away. You don't do that anymore. Throw it away. So now he said, this thing looks like 200 kilometers an hour. It'll do it as well. Interesting story. Humanity in ourselves has a governor. We have a governor that places restrictions upon us. To do this, I'm going to have to take us a very quick journey through a bit of history.

We're going to start in the book of Genesis. And in the beginning says, in the beginning God created the heavens and earth. This is not him explaining to you how he created, he just says in the beginning. What he wants you to know is, you see everything out there, the sun, the moon, the stars, the trees, and things like that, you see it all, that's me.

He wants you to know that is the starting point. I am the starting point. And if you get the right starting point, you can actually hit your destination. He just says, Hey, that's all me. Now, those of you that's ever had anything to do with boats, if you happen to start one degree out from your journey about where you want to go, let's just say you're going to a particular island on the other side of the world, if you're one degree out at the start, you will miss it by a mile.

You won't even hit anywhere near it. So your starting point is really, really, really important. And by Now keep in mind we're trying to figure out what is this governor. So what God creates everything. You can read it. Genesis chapter 1 to 3. Read it for yourselves. It's great reading. You understand. Okay.

He creates man, puts him in the garden. Then he says something to Adam. He says, here's the deal, here's the deal. You can have everything in this place. Everything on here. There's just one tree you can't have. And that's the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Just that one thing. That's all you got to do.

Now people get frustrated, they say, what's this really all about? What this is really all about is love, for love to be love, there must be free will involved. So he gave Adam free will. And Adam chose very, very badly, even when God tried to dissuade him and tell him what would happen. You can read this in Genesis 2, he says, You are to eat, You can eat free from any tree in the garden, but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it, you will certainly die.

Now, you'd think that Adam would go, that can't be a good thing. That can't be a good thing. But I've got all the grace in the world for Adam. He wasn't born and grew up. He was created instantaneously by God. The first two humans were created. He's got no concept. God says to him, if you eat it, you'll die.

Cool. I wonder what that means. He would have had no concept of it other than he knew he had free will, and he knew that God had told him not, not to take of it. So he takes of it. And then immediately that happens with his wife, Eve, immediately everything changes. Now he knows what it means to die.

Immediately, they realize they're naked and they feel shame and they get these leaves to try and cover themselves up. You ever know people around you that are always trying to cover things up? It's still going. Fear took over. Only the day before, he was, Adam was walking with God in the cool of the day.

Read it for yourself. They had great relationship and then suddenly he's afraid of God. He's hiding from God. No people that still try and hide from God. Then the blame game starts. Adam, God comes to Adam and says, Adam, what's going on? He goes, well, it's not really me. It's this woman that you gave me.

How's Adam? He just, he doesn't even, he doesn't even stop at blaming Eve. He puts it back right on goal. Well it's actually you gave it to me. It's your fault God. Ever had, ever had anyone do that to you? It's still there. Eve, she blames the serpent because he was in the garden. He was tricking them into disobeying God.

The only body person taking any responsibility is the serpent. He goes, yeah, yeah, that was me. But I, Adam, he's not, Eve's not. We're just going to palm it all off onto God. But when that death came, in them, it was huge. At the same time, a whole curse came upon the whole world. And it began to die. It says the whole world is in a space of decaying and dying.

He said to Adam, now you're gonna work and then work is gonna be really frustrating. It's gonna be really awful. You're gonna work and flog yourself and not much is gonna come out. Wow, does that sound accurate? And he says, ladies, you're gonna have pain in childbirth. Anybody experienced different to that?

No. It's all part of this dying process that's going on. But then what God does is he banishes them from the garden. He says, you're gonna go, I'm You can no longer, because you now have allowed sin and death. You've usurped my will over your life to do your own thing. Now you've let in death and sin and death.

And now you can't partake of the tree of life anymore. You can no longer be eternal. And so they're banished from the garden. Sin and death and the curse that's upon the world that is slowly decaying and dying is the governor. It is the thing that is hindering us. That's why you come up against people and they look like they'll do 100, 200 kilometers an hour.

They look very impressive, but when you get close you go, that's not very impressive at all, you know. That doesn't really look anything like that. You know, that's how it is. And fear and shame and blame and all these unhealthy things because we're not connected with the presence of God. Essentially, we were like someone caught in a rip now.

We're caught in a rip. We're being pulled along by forces that we don't understand, but we know that they are stopping us from reaching our full potential. And the only person that can rescue someone that's in a rip is someone that's not in the rip.

That's the only one that can do it. You can't save someone if you're in the rip with them. It's got to be someone that's beyond it. And from that there, which is a very, very big story in a very short period of time, Over the next few thousand years, God set about a rescue mission for his rebel race that decided to go their own way.

And that's where the everyday gospel comes in. The whole gospel. Now some of you are going to watch this today and you're going to go, oh my goodness, I now understand why I am the way that I am. I now understand why my friends are the way that they are. But the gospel. The power of the gospel leads to our finest hour.

The gospel starts with a virgin birth, a sinless child, that's Christmas, culminates at Easter 30 years later, death, burial and resurrection of a man that takes the sins of the world, a sacrificial offering. That's the power of the gospel. So the gospel introduces us to Jesus and establishes in Jesus. Not many people know the whole gospel.

There are actually two halves to it and there are two quadrants in each half and you have to have all four quadrants in operation and you must flick the breaker switch on to let the power flow if you are to really really encounter the presence of God like you really want to encounter the presence of God.

Paul made this statement when he was talking to the church in Rome. He said I'm not ashamed of the gospel for it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes, first the Jew and the Gentile. What did he say? It is the power of God. He doesn't say it contains the power of God. He said the gospel is the power of God.

It is the gospel. that changes the human heart. It's the gospel that counteracts the sin, the governor that stops us all, the sin and death that keeps weighing us down. So technically, here we go, technically, when a person receives Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior, the curse of sin and death is broken.

The governor that hinders should be fully removed because the seed of the gospel comes into the human heart and begins to bring about change. Now, I know the question from here is, so why do I keep doing some of the things that I do if this is indeed the case? But when you understand the four quadrants you'll be able to understand why.

It is the whole gospel that brings about the transformation. The everyday gospel of Jesus. So let's get started on them. First, first quadrant is about sin. It's about sin. Jesus took your sin. This is about forgiveness. He forgives your sin when you surrender your life to him, past, present, and future. This is about understanding that Jesus died for me.

He took the penalty that I deserved. He took the punishment that I deserved. He went to hell on my behalf, but hell was not able to control him and keep him as well as death. So he broke back out and he rose to newness of life. This is what he accomplished for you. But you have to realize that it says that everybody's sinned.

All have sinned and fallen short of God's high standard. All have.

But then it goes on, says, but God so loved the world. What loved the world? That's us. That he gave his son. Why? So you could get forgiveness of sin. When this happens, you are born of imperishable seed. There is a seed of the gospel that is planted deep down within you that begins to change everything.

It's the seed of the gospel that's planted in the human heart, but it depends on the ground of the human heart as to how well it grows. So we're going to build a diagram over this morning, and at the end of it you'll see the whole lot. So let's go to the first stage of the diagram. So this first part is dealing with the old me, your old nature.

God's undeserved favor. to you. You didn't do anything to earn this. He grants it to you. This is about the work of the cross. Next slide. Sins. He died for me. And that is the seed of the gospel. That's the first seed. This is the first starting point. You've got to flick the breaker on this so that the power will flow through.

You flick the switch and you turn it on. This happens when you decide to surrender your life to Christ, not trying to fix your life up. As Matt said, Just surrender it to Him and trust Him to actually reach your full potential, not you trying to make yourself through it. Second stage is still about the old.

It's about self. Now the vast majority of the churches that I know stop after the first portion. They don't tend to go into the second. And that's a real shame because you need to flick the switch on this. This is about obedience. This is about surrender. This is about Christ dying as me. Christ dying as me.

So you've got to understand when, when you surrendered your life to Christ and you allowed the gospel seed to come in, the light and the life of Christ comes into your heart, begins to regenerate, but it does something else as well at the same time. It actually puts to death your old self of Adam. So it actually puts it to gift.

This is understanding that I've been crucified with Christ. It's no longer I that live, but it's Christ that lives in me. So when God looks down now at the cross, He doesn't just see Jesus, He actually sees you and I. Once you've surrendered, once He starts that rebirthing process, He sees you. Your old Adamic nature that was in rebellion against Him.

He sees that on the cross. The Apostle Paul, one day, he had a bit of a rant to some people, because things weren't going so well for him, and he was talking to them about what life was like before he came to Christ. I've seen every pastor, I know, misinterpret this completely. And he's talking about the fact that he was the best of the best, Pharisees and Sadducees.

Man, this guy's a legend when it came to religious purposes, not relationship. But this is what he said, I don't understand, I'm the best at this, but I don't understand the good I want to do, I don't do. And the evil I don't want to do, I do do. I feel like I'm caught somewhere between a doo doo and a doo doo.

And I say, everything's turning into a doo doo. That's what he's trying to say. I don't understand what was going on in my life. And that's where people pick it up and go, Oh, well, that's the tension of the life that we live. No, it's not. He's trying to help them understand something. He, which is the second part.

He goes on and says, Who will rescue me from this body of death? Your old Adamic nature. Who? Thanks be to Jesus Christ. He was using some imagery that these guys knew full well what he was talking about. Rome was very creative when it came to executing and capital punishment. I don't know if we could institute this again.

We'd probably see the crime rate go down a little. So what would happen is that if just say Sam and I had a bit of a Barney, I rose up, Clocked him, knocked him out, I killed Sam. Woah, man, that's bad, I gotta live with that, but worse than that, I gotta live with that. Because here's what Rowan would do. Okay, well your penalty, your punishment, is that we will chain his carcass to you, to your back, Your punishment in Rome was that you'd be forced to walk around so everybody could see the evil thing that you had done.

And when he slowly decayed and was eaten away, you would be eaten away alive.

That's what they thought. That's what they knew he was talking about when he said the body of death. And what he's trying to get them you to see is that once you've gone through the first part of the gospel and you've received AGI forgiveness, you gotta get rid of that body of death. If you don't get rid of that, it will eat you away.

It will just keep on keeping on. This part requires courage, it requires conviction, and this finds its fulfillment in water baptism. Because what are we doing when we baptize you? We let you know you are being baptized with Christ, you are dying with Christ, your old nature is to stay in the grave and you rise in newness of life.

Now. The person that refuses to make this step, recognizing that they, that Christ died as them, ends up in tension. You end up frustrated. You continually go backwards and forwards. You bounce in a sin and out of sin because your flesh has memory from the body of death that controlled it for all those years before the seed of the gospel came in.

And you've got to renew your mind. You've got to renew everything. I cannot tell you the amount of times I go, I get invited to parties and all this kind of stuff, and I like to go and just, you know, just see who God wants me to talk to, and I'll be there, and I'll be talking to someone, and you just, oh, it's easy, it's okay, and, and there's always some obnoxious jerk somewhere over there.

And he's drinking, he's rolling around drunk, and he's swearing and carrying on, and, and then he's just being very inappropriate with the women. And I'm thinking, goodnight. Anyway, I'll try and share the gospel. So I share the gospel, and we start talking about Jesus. This is great, isn't it? Guess what happens?

The drunk guy hears me saying that I'm a pastor and I'm a Christian, and he comes up and goes, I'm a Christian too! And I go, well please go away. Because I'm a Christian too. I'm thinking, what is that? What is that? How could you behave so incongruently to who Jesus is and call yourself a Christ follower?

Well let's go to the second part of the diagram, which is, he hasn't dealt with the self, the old me, has not dealt with the body of death. Has not buried that thing through the waters of baptism realized that Christ died as him. And so that now he lives, he lives with Christ living through him. This is the one that trips so many people up.

And unless you flick the switch on that, you stop the power of the gospel moving to the third section. Third section is about the life of the gospel. This is now starting to deal with you, the new you. You're new, you're new in Christ. First was the work of the cross on one side, now it's the way of the cross.

This is about Christ's character and nature being formed in you. This is about Christ living in me. Matt mentioned this a lot, learning to walk in step with God. Looking to start to taste and feel and smell different to everybody else in the world. You should look like that. It's about conform to the image of Christ.

Daily sitting at Jesus feet. This is about when you commit to say, okay, Holy Spirit, we've got rid of the old man now. You get full reign in here. This is about the baptism of the Holy Spirit. This is about continual infilling with the Holy Spirit. This is where that simple thing that we do called soap devotions, where the spirit of God brings revelation to the word and you apply it.

If you don't apply it, it's no good. And you apply it. This is the spirit led life. This stage here, that stage there is the one, the third stage is what Tim was talking about last week when he said, you've got to be careful with fishing, there's all these lures, he had these lures, he put them up, there's these lures that keep going round and round and round, and they catch us up, and that, this is about helping you to understand, and, understand and apply truth from Jesus perspective.

People say, why don't you have discipleship classes and things like that? I don't want you discipled into my image or anybody else's image. I want you discipled into the image of Christ. So you sit around with a bunch of people that you have a relationship with, and you search the scriptures together and you share what God is saying.

So you are conformed to the image of Christ, not to someone else. But this is what stops you from falling prey to all of the fake stuff that's going on, and the error, and all the horrible things that are, that are Some now propose to be part of Christianity, which is absolute rubbish. It's just to get you to read it so that you can actually discern the Holy Spirit.

You can discern, you say, that is not true. That is definitely not true. This is about walking in daily victory. Now you're getting daily victory in Christ. It's funny, before we started this series, Pastor Len did a, one of his, my revelations, and that was about dual citizenship. That's what this is about. No more dual citizenship.

Not you, one foot in the world, one foot in the church, with Christ in the kingdom. No, no. It's single discipleship. This is about daily victory in Christ. Let's go to the third portion of the diagram. You'll have this whole diagram by the time we get done. Here it comes. Next one. This is about the new me.

God's enduring power. It's the way of the cross. His life lives in me. This is a full surrenders of the Holy Spirit. Willingly and joyfully going through the scriptures, letting the Holy Spirit bring revelation so you'll conform to the image of Christ. That's what that stage is all about. And when you, when you get to that stage, you have to have dealt with your old nature.

Because your old nature will resist this at all costs. Have you ever noticed this? Every time you want to pray, every time you want to read, every time you want to do something, somebody rings, somebody calls, something happens. Why? Because you have an enemy. You have an enemy that wants to keep, wants to keep you locked to this old nature so that you never achieve the purposes of God.

You never fulfill your destiny. But this is where things really start to happen. And the final stage of the gospel, and it's a switch you've got to flick, it's about love. It's about love. It's where you are so in love with God that you actually love what He loves. This embodies the heart of the Father and this is now about Christ living through me.

I realize now my life's not my own. God wants, the reason this is all happening for me is because God wants me to share this with others. That's why Jesus last thing was, go make disciples. Go make disciples. Don't hoard for yourself what I'm showing you, what you're hearing. Go share it with others. This is when you become so in love with Christ and so in love with the mission that you're willing to risk anything to get out there and help people understand you do have this thing called sin and death that's governing your life, but you don't have to stay there.

I can show you the pathway to get through that through simply a relationship with God and loving him. This is where the jigsaw came in that we did a few months back. Help you understand it. What are we supposed to do? We love God with all our heart, mind, soul and strength. We follow Jesus. We follow Jesus.

Deal with the old nature, start following. We love others the way that Jesus loves them. Which is a sacrificial love. And it says, Make disciples who make disciples. Which really means, you teach someone else to love God the way that you love God. Amen. and keep it all about a relationship. It's not about a formula, but everything to do with life in here makes sense inside that framework and inside that foundation.

When you try and put these things around the side, they become idols and they actually destroy the other bits around because that's what idols do. Idols compete for your heart. So let's go to the final part of the diagram. The final part is It's God's enduring power. It's his love flowing through me. So I'm loving God by loving others.

I'm conformed to the image of Christ. At each of those junctures you've got to make the decision. God gives you absolute free will. God will not force you to do anything. So you got to decide. I'm not gonna fix myself up. Nope. I'm not gonna do that. I'm gonna trust you Jesus. I am gonna deal with this all night.

I'm gonna bury this thing. Let's face it, when someone dies, do you like just keep them hanging around the lounge room? I mean, I don't know. I'm pretty sure Anne's not going to, if I die, she's not going to leave me in the lounge room for long. Why? Because it's not healthy. You and me hanging around after, it's not good.

Let's just get rid of that thing before, because it will actually create disease. It'll stop you from falling into the fullness, flicking the switch on the fullness of Christ. And then when you're so in love with God, then, then you really start to, it all starts to happen. This is about an all in life with God.

It's all in life with Jesus, the whole gospel. So my question is for you this morning is like what are you going to do about that? Once you know about it, what are you going to do about it? Where are you on those quadrants? Have you activated all four of those quadrants? Because when you flick the switch, it's like the power is coming through and you have to flick the switch.

Okay, the power moves through. You got to flick the switch. The switch is nothing more than your decision to walk in obedience to Christ. That's all it is. And you can walk with God and that'll be no worries. But the minute you say, God, I'm not doing that, that's where the power stops. Not because he's not omnipotent and all powerful, but because he won't violate your free will.

So he was like, well, I've I got a whole lot more for you if you just just keep leaning in. So you got to work it out. Are you on that journey of being conformed to the image of Christ? You've got to be so careful because you're, that old sin nature, it will try and resurrect itself at times and you can always tell when you, when you have because you start operating in your own strength.

You don't consult God on things because this whole, that whole third section, fourth section, you're consulting God all the time. It's a spirit led life. You're asking him about everything. We're walking together like Adam and Eve walked with him in the garden beforehand. But just give you an idea of what it's like if you don't.

Say if you stop after the first part. Ever seen someone that's, I don't know, maybe it's never happened to you, because you guys are a lot smarter than me. Ever, ever ran out of gas in your car? Or ever seen someone that's run out of gas in their car? Put a little image back there of someone doing that. And what happens is, you've got to get out and you've got to push.

Anne ran out of, oh I shouldn't say Anne ran out of gas recently. Somebody I know, close to me, I wasn't supposed to say my wife but too late now, Anne ran out of gas. And so I had to go to her and I had to push this thing. It was exhausting. It was to push this thing. But it's okay, it happens every so often, you run out of gas.

Okay, but here's the deal. What would you say to someone that's running out of gas and is pushing their car and then they go, well hang on mate, I really need to go somewhere, could you push the car with me? And then you get someone else pushing the car and then someone else is pushing and all they're doing is pushing the car around.

What would you say to someone? You're an idiot. That's what you say. That is ridiculous. Why are you doing that?

When you don't have the full gospel in operation and you just go, oh God, forgive me of my sins. And you stop there, but you never move to dealing with the body of death. You then start out of guilt. Oh, I've got to fix myself up. I've got to fix myself up. And then you start pushing to fix yourself up. But it never works.

Because like Paul said, I want to do it, but I don't do it. And I want to, I just, I can't, I can't get this thing happening. So then you get frustrated. So then you ask your friends, could you push me too? Come on, can you all push together? And then we're all good. Get the pastor behind. We'll all push and we'll make your vehicle.

Get to heaven. Come on. We're all gonna push together. That's not how the gospel works. The gospel is divine power and it's from faith at the beginning and faith to the end. All you have to do is turn the power on, flick the switch, be willing to walk in obedience. You don't drive any of those sections. It is the gospel power that drives behind you.

The gospel is the engine of your car. The fuel is the Holy Spirit. He's the one there, but you still have to start the car. You have got to be the one. The free will is always going to be there. That would be crazy. But how many people do you know? Now, please don't point to them if they're right beside you.

You know, they're just so needy. They're so needy. Oh, help me with this. Can you do this? Can you do that? Oh, I need this. Oh, please, could you? And we want to be gracious and we want to be loving all the time, but that's the evidence of somebody that's trying to push themselves to get into heaven rather than let the Holy Spirit just die to self.

Get rid of the body of death, let the Holy Spirit come in, and let the power of God conform to the image of Christ. Can you imagine what would happen in our city? Imagine what would happen in our homes and workplaces and universities if everybody started to follow Christ like that. No religiosity, no rules.

We don't only lay it down on the law with each other. We lay down our lives for each other. We serve one another. But, we've got to have the power of the gospel inside. The radical love of God. The radical love of Jesus that transforms us. And when you have that, when you have that, then you'll be willing to risk.

But not risking to get more out of this world. We don't need more out of this world. Risking all you have in this world to get more of God and what his plan and purpose is, so the kingdom can keep advancing in this world. Now, I know you're probably thinking like, well, how do I know if, if I am active in this?

Jesus told a couple of stories, they were called parables, they were spiritual stories, and he told them to help the people understand, you'll know when you've hit this, when the gospel is going on, when the kingdom's working. One he said is, the kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy, he went and sold all he had and bought the field.

And again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant looking for fine pearls. Keep going. When he found one of great value, he went away and sold everything he had and bought it. You know how you can tell when the whole gospel is working for you? The saint, the old saints used to say, you end up spoiled for this world.

You get no satisfaction out of this world, and there's something in your heart that is so in love with God, and you have experienced something like you can't, it's like, it's, there's no drug on this planet. That meets this. When you sense the whole gospel is operating and firing in your life and His presence and His power and you are being used and you are being carried along, there is no greater feeling than that.

But that's how you know. When you're willing to sell all that you have, all of you have, to fulfill what God's got for you, then you know you are sitting tall. in the four quadrants of the gospel. And if we want to be for the Gold Coast, we want to be for the Gold Coast. That's the kind of people we need to be.

We need to be people that carry the presence and the power of God with us always, in every circumstance. That's what people need. They need to see God alive in His people. And for that to happen, we must decrease. Bury the old nature that God may increase in our life. Yeah. And people would be able to see us.

That's the everyday gospel. This is what makes you a great emer a great ambassador for Christ and not like some tool at a party that's drunk carrying on like a so and so that's then jumps up and says, oh, I love Jesus. Yes, yes, yes. In fact, I think he came in and said, oh, I love Jesus. He's beautiful.

He's a beep, beep, beep, beep. Awesome. There was like four swear words in there. That frustrated me for so long. It's like, how can you say that you follow Jesus and you don't represent Jesus? You don't even look anything like him. To be a Christian means to be a Christ like person. But when I finally understood the fullness of the gospel, I go, ah, you have not flicked the switch on that second point.

You, you're not, you're not willing to let go of your old life. You're not willing to let it go. And it continues to just rise up and just keep destroying your witness and everything. So here's where we finish. This is what you could do, for I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone believes.

The everyday gospel leads to our finest hour, and I believe our finest hour as a people is still ahead of us. But if God is to achieve everything that he's put in our hearts, if he wants To keep expanding the kingdom, we're going to have to make sure we live out of all the quadrants of the gospel. We've got to be prepared to flick that switch, turn us off and him on.

And then everything starts to change, and you don't need people running behind you to push you into heaven, to try and make sure you're okay to get there. You know that you have the divine presence and power of God within, that is continuing. to conform you to the image of Christ. When we launched this last week Pastor Tim just felt prompt to have a stand and I thought, I feel like that's part of something maybe we should do across this series.

So you guys on line two, I'm going to ask you this, would you just stand with me and we're going to put up the whole, we're going to put up slide of the whole gospel and I'm going to talk it through and I want you to just think about where you are at on this.

It's God's undeserved favor. It's the work of the cross and it deals with your old nature first, the old me. Have you asked forgiveness of your sins? Have you accepted the fact that Jesus died for you? Have you stopped trying to make this work on your own and said, Lord, I just surrender to you? Have you, as the seed of the gospel, entered your life?

Has the rebirthing process started?

Have you taken the next step? Have you dealt with that old nature? Have you been through the waters of baptism? Have you publicly confessed that you died with Christ? So that when God looks down now at the cross, He sees you there, your old nature as well, with Christ. Have you been through that process?

This is an eternal life issue, this is. This is the once and all victory message. Or is you, are you, this page here now, oh man I need to get more serious about allowing the Holy Spirit to have control in my life. I need to be more serious about spending time in this and allowing the Holy Spirit to bring revelation so that I'm conformed to the image of Christ.

Are you? Do you feel like when you go out there then people look at you and they see something that's different to the rest of the world because you've got the character and the nature of Christ, you're being conformed to his image. Well maybe your step is. Man. I've got so many people around me that don't know Christ, and I don't know why I keep holding back from not sharing the good news.

I see them struggle. I can see this governor of sin and death is strong, but I don't know why I don't do it. Well, you haven't flicked the switch on this. Because when you've got this all fully happening and you know that it's not about you, you can't save anybody. I can't save anybody. Only Jesus can. Then His divine power will flow through you.

So I wonder where you are today. Let's just pray together. Father, I just thank you for this, for the clear understanding. I remember when I first learned this, Lord, I was so confused up until that time, but then I kind of got it. And it's like, Oh my goodness, this is why people get stuck. This is why we don't reach our full potential.

This is why people look and go, Oh, you Christians are all hypocrites. It's not because we mean to be, it's because we haven't dealt with and allowed the full gospel to have Permanent prominence in our life. So Holy Spirit right now Whether there's ones here in the room that they just need to start surrendering Lord But they would you just prompt their heart to say hey, this is all about me.

It's all about just faith in me You just trust me you just surrender And I'll come I'll plant the seed in there Or maybe the ones that just say, you know what, I need to get serious about this. I've been trying to play with one foot in the world and one foot in the church and the kingdom and it doesn't work.

And it's destroying me and it's destroying the people around. That body of death has to be dealt with. Maybe it's, God's gonna say to you, it's time to, it's time to step up. It's time to go through those waters of baptism and it's time to say, man, this is it. Well, maybe it's just simply that you've just used to walk with the Holy Spirit, but for whatever reason you've just stepped away and you've allowed things to slip and then you go back into that other area that you shouldn't be in.

But maybe it's about time now that the Holy Spirit's saying, Hey, let me have full control. Let me conform me to the image of Christ and just watch what I'll do. And maybe the others just, Hey, it's time there are people around me that's going to a Christless eternity everywhere. And it's time that I really started to live out who I am and share who I am.

It's time for me to love them the way that you love them. So father, I just ask that you would take this message and you would just put it deep down into our hearts. And Lord that you will just continue to speak. Keep us on this journey. Help us realize it's not a work we have to do. It's just a surrender so that you can carry us along and you can conform us to the image of Christ.

So Holy Spirit, we just ask that you would have your way, have your way, and that the gospel would prevail in all of our lives. And we thank you in Jesus name. Amen. I've asked the team just to sing, but for those of you, I saw some of you trying to get a snap of this, I'll make this available and we'll put it out so you can have that, take it home, put in your Bible and at different times you can just see when there's drift going on.

But I'm telling you, God wants to do a great thing. He is looking, He is looking right now for ones whose hearts are open to Him that are saying, you know what? I don't want to live a mediocre human life. I want to live a life that looks like it does 200 kilometers an hour and actually does it as well.

It looks impressive, but it is impressive. And so I'm going, I'm praying that God's going to raise up a whole army of us that will be able to say the gospel move through us and out into the community in Jesus name.