Gospel Awakening
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Important messages
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| Rachel and Mike |
This is the first message I have
ever posted on this BlogSpot from our son, Mike. It was his opening message
that he preached, after taking on the senior pastorate at Church of Hope in Elk
River, Minnesota. Very early in his ministry, Mike was a chaplain in a
Christian high school. Later he became a youth pastor and, as he states in this
article, he was asked to take on the children’s ministry besides, in that same
church.
Here are a few words from Mike’s own
personal testimony: “When people ask me where I’m from,
I'm not sure what to say. I was born in Mexico. For the first seven years of my
life, I lived in Minnesota, moved to Germany, lived there for twelve years and
now I'm back in Minnesota. I spent half a year in Alaska, too. That's where I’m
from.”
“I grew up on the mission field and I have to say that I wouldn't trade that opportunity for anything in the world. When I am asked what caused me to continue in God's work after leaving home, I have to agree with the answer that my older brothers and sisters give to the same question: It's the reality of God – it’s as simple as that.”
Preached on Sunday, March 5,
2017 by Mike Brueckner
Romans 1:1
1. Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an
apostle, separated unto the gospel of God.
The call to be separated. A few years ago, I began a study in the book of Romans
with a youth group. In my study, I got halfway through verse one and I got
stuck. Paul said, “I am called to be an apostle of Jesus Christ… I am separated
to the gospel.” What does it mean to be separated to the gospel? It must be
important. Jesus said in Mark, “Repent
and believe the gospel.” When he sent his people out, he told them to go
into all the world and preach the gospel. How many believe that Jesus is coming
back again? One of the final signs of Jesus coming back, is that “the gospel shall be preached among all
nations.”
The gospel means
good news and is the one theme of the
Bible.
The Bible is not a bunch of
stories, talking about random things. The Bible is one story, from Genesis to
Revelation. A lot of people get confused and frustrated, because as they start
reading, Genesis, then Exodus and they get into Leviticus, and begin to think…
Let’s try something in the New Testament. One of the reasons for their
frustration is that they have been told that the Bible is random stories that
can teach you different things about life. That is not the right approach to the Word
of God.
The Bible is one story,
revealing to us, who God is. How else would we know who He is? We learn who God
is and what He is like. Then, it teaches the reality that we have sinned. We
must not be afraid to use the word sin.
We have fallen short of God’s glory. We are not okay and we need to know that. Then
the Bible is about God pursuing us, so that we can have a relationship with
Him. Ultimately, it’s all for His pleasure: “For his name’s sake” (v.5) If we try to put ourselves at the
center of Christianity, we are going to get off balance... God is not simply
saving people; that is not the ultimate that God is doing. His ultimate purpose on planet earth, is to do
a work, in which He looks amazing. He is saving people for that purpose.
Let’s go back to Genesis
3:14-15, because I want to show you that the message starts from the very
beginning. It is immediately after Adam and Eve sinned in the garden. It didn’t
surprise God that this happened, He continues with Plan A and gives the message
of the gospel. In Romans, we read about a seed: “The seed of David according to the flesh” (v.3). In Genesis 3:15,
we read about the same seed, here called the woman’s seed, as God told Satan: “I will put enmity between you and the
woman, and between your seed and her seed.” Her seed was Jesus Christ, who
would come 4,000 years later to live a perfect life that none of us are capable
of living. He would die a death that you and I deserved, dying in our place and
going into the grave. Then 3 days later, He conquered sin and death.
The Bible says that whosoever
believes in Him, trusts fully in Him and Him alone for their salvation,
recognizing what He has accomplished on their behalf, will not perish. That
means that they will not go to hell, but be saved. It doesn’t say, whoever
works and tries really hard. The gospel is good
news and that is literally what it means. For anyone who will listen, God
says in Genesis that this is what He is doing: The Seed that he is talking
about is Jesus. “He shall bruise your
head, and you shall bruise his heel” (Ge.3:15). Satan would bruise Jesus’ heel;
that means that Jesus was going to suffer, but at the same time, He would crush
Satan’s head. And He has done it, it is finished. He accomplished what He set
out to do. We might not think that the gospel begins in Genesis 3, but it does,
and God’s plan starts to unfold.
This is the message that we
need to be separated to. This is the message that we are called to. We can put
our names here, as Paul did, and say: “Hi, I’m John, Andrew, Angie, and I’m
separated to the gospel. I have one message. That is what I am living for and
it’s the gospel of Jesus Christ. The early disciples were convinced of this, so
convinced that they gave their lives for it. Because they would not stop giving
it, they were killed.
After Jesus was resurrected,
He met with disciples on the road to Emmaus, and took them back to Moses, and
told them, “This is about Me. All that Moses talked about, I fulfilled and
completed.” Then at the end, He opened their eyes and they said to one
another, “That was Jesus”. He wants to do the same in us. He wants there to be
a gospel awakening in our hearts. This
is what is happening from Genesis through Revelation.
In 1 Corinthians 15:1-10. “The gospel I preached to you, which you
received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved” (v.1,2) No
matter what your condition is, the gospel is for you. The one who wrote a large
portion of the New Testament is the one, who persecuted the church the most: “I am… unworthy to be called an apostle,
because I persecuted the church of God” (v.9). He encountered Christ, when
he was on a mission to persecute more Christians. “Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me” (v.8).
He got knocked to the ground and God sent him in a completely different
direction.
That is also your story, if
you have come to Christ. You were going one way and God encountered you and now
you are going in a different direction. See Paul’s humility; he says "I’m not
worthy to be called an apostle." The only thing he can be proud of is a work
that he didn’t do. “By the grace of God
I am what I am” (v.10). He couldn’t save himself and neither can you. In
this truth is the big difference between Christianity and every world religion.
They all have one thing to say: “Here are the things you need to do to get on
God’s side.” However, Christianity says, “You cannot get on God’s good side;
you can’t get to God, it’s impossible.”
God knowing that you can
never be good enough for Him, came to you in Christ. That’s the gospel. He did
what you could not do for yourself; Christ took your place and your punishment.
Because God is just, He does not simply forgive sins, sweeping them under the
carpet. We might think that because God is a loving God, He will overlook what
is going on in my life right now.
It’s not so. God would not be
a good God, if He did that. He would be unjust. In our court rooms we look for
justice and with God, justice is always served. So when justice was served and
the wrath of God was poured out upon His Son, instead of you, God declares that
justice has been served. What an amazing reality! Therefore, we can say as
Paul, “By the grace of God, I am what I
am.” The gospel is good news.
The gospel
means transformation.
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| Erica, Elayna, Mike, Rachel, Jaykin, Emily |
Back in Romans1:16, Paul
said, he was not ashamed of this message: “I
am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to
everyone who believes.” He was confident in it. A supernatural thing
happens in salvation. Paul knew that it was the only message that would
transform people’s lives.
I was given a children’s pastor
position in a church. Because I had never been involved in this before, I began
to look into what we should teach in children’s ministry. I began to see what
different churches use in their curriculum and I got in touch with a children’s
pastor in California. He told me, “Make sure that what you use is gospel-based
and not virtue-based.” I thought that that was
interesting. What I had seen up to that point was all virtue-based curriculum.
Let me explain: Virtue-based teaching shows the child that he should be honest,
kind, and friendly. Is there anything wrong with that? No, of course not. So I
wondered what he meant, about children’s ministry being gospel-based. What is
the difference?
He told me: “If you teach
them that they are sinners in need of a Savior, they will turn to Christ and
virtue will begin to flow from them.” You might teach people how they should
live their lives, but I want to try to show you, where that method fails. You
fill a balloon with your breath and, in order to keep it in the air, you have
to continually hit it upwards. The law of gravity will bring it down, but there
is another way to keep a balloon in the air. How? Fill it with helium! Many
times, Christianity is taught in that same way. The helium is the power of the
gospel that sustains the balloon in the air. The gospel transforms the life, because
the Spirit of the living God is inside. Whatever is done by a true Christian,
is done according to his new nature. The new nature teaches the Christian to
recognize his need for repentance and correction.
Virtue-based teaching or, by
another term, behavior modification, will not last. It will always return to
its nature. The person can put on a show for a time, but as Peter said, “The
dog returns to its vomit. The pig will always return to the mud.” Until now, I
have been in youth ministry. One of the hot topics concerns the question about why
young people leave the church and how this can be resolved. Everyone has his
own idea. Leaders say, we need more programs for them; we need more activity.
They make it through high school, then come to college age and then you don’t
see them after a while. Have we been teaching them behavior modification or
have we preached the gospel to them?
Let me offer you what I
learned. When I became convinced that I had not been preaching the gospel, the
Lord dealt with me on this issue. I returned to the student leaders and asked
them, “Can you explain to me, just what is the gospel?” Nine out of ten could
not. That was not their fault; the fault fell on me. Paul said that he was
separated to this message. Everything that he talked about flowed from this
message, because he knew that is where the power to transform lay.
People, who have been taught
virtue-based Christianity, might look good for a while, but when they are released
into the world, they will be true to their nature. This is not a small matter;
this is a big deal! Let me interject: You must understand that we are not
talking about sinless perfection. Our young people, and all of us, are going to
go through trials and be faced with temptations. We are susceptible and we will
fail at times, but if your heart has been transformed by the gospel, you will
be true to your nature. If you sin, you’ll repent and come back.
We must stay focused on the
gospel. For many young people, the gospel is a list of ‘do’s and don’ts’. I
asked older people, the same question that I posed to the youth, and a lot of
them couldn’t tell me what the gospel was. At the very least, they were
confused, even if they had an inkling of an idea. This is crazy! This was the
one message that Jesus gave us to present.
We can talk about a lot of
good things, but if we don’t focus on the main thing, we’ll miss the target altogether.
If we want to see people come to Christ and be transformed, we dare not trust
in gimmicks that feed the flesh, but do nothing for the soul. There is a lot of
confidence in gimmicks and fads in our day and age. We better not go in that
direction, if we’re expecting people’s lives to be transformed.
Turn to 1 Co.1:18-24. “For the word of the cross is folly to
those who are perishing” (v.18). Pay attention to this! If this message
seems strange to you, it might be showing you the position you hold, or do not
hold, right now before God. Paul could
have said, “I’m going to send out a survey to figure out what people want to
hear. Then, I’m going to base our message on the things that people want.”
We think things are different today, than they were then, but they’re not.
Paul was faced with the same
culture struggles that we face today. The culture in his day was not more
easily adapted to the gospel. See verse 22: “For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom.” So we might imagine them saying, “If a church
is coming into our community, we want signs and wisdom.” Does Paul appoint a
committee to question, how to give them signs and wisdom? He did not. He said, “We preach Christ crucified”, (v.23) knowing
that it was a stumbling block to the Jews and foolishness to the Greeks. Paul
knew he was going to get flak for it! However, to those who are being saved,
whose hearts were being awakened to this message, it was transforming their
lives. If we want to be part of something that lasts for eternity, we must get
into this message.
The gospel
means sanctification
Basically, sanctification means
growing in God, He wants you to grow in Him and become more like Him and that
is His will for your life. In Romans 1:7 Paul addresses those “called to be saints.” One of the myths
that we hear is that once you get saved, you move out of the message of
salvation, into the deeper things of God. I propose to you today, that the
gospel is the A to Z of Christianity and you never grow beyond it. You do grow
deeper into it.
We understand that we are not
saved by works, but here is something that we don’t often think about. You are
not kept by works! Someone says, "But James says that faith without works is
dead." True. Your actions will prove that you have been made alive by Jesus
Christ. Works will naturally follow the heart that has been transformed by the
gospel.
We are saved by grace and
kept by grace, as well. Why wouldn’t we be? One of Satan’s tactics is to get us
to raise our prideful head and say, “I did it. I can do this.” Then I start
getting credit for what I do. No, it must all be God! He continues to do the
work, as we keep our eyes focused on Him.
Paul lays out the gospel
beautifully in Romans. He teaches who God is, who we are, what Christ has
accomplished for us, and then he teaches about having faith. For 11 chapters,
he pounds on the reality that this is all about Christ. When he gets to chapter
12, he writes, “I appeal to you
therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God.” In other words, “in light of
God’s mercy” - in still other words, “in light of everything that I’ve said up
to this point, now I urge you to offer your bodies a living sacrifice”.
So what does Paul do? He
continues to lay out the reality of the gospel and preach it to believers. His
reason is that their hope and their confidence would not be in themselves. Everything
else that he was going to call them into - the power to meet that challenge was
found in the gospel. The reminder of what Christ had accomplished, that to
which they had been awakening, continued to flow. The power to lay down their
life as a living sacrifice, flowed from the reality of what Christ had already
done for them. Otherwise, it is only behavior modification that doesn’t transform
and doesn’t last.
We need to preach the gospel
to ourselves every day, because we are susceptible to believing the enemy’s
lies. We need to be reminded of the truth of who we are in Christ. It will
propel us into holiness and to be more and more like Jesus. If the world looks at us and the impression is,
“This is what I have to do - this is my obligation, if I become a Christian”,
that’s not attractive. But when they see people on fire for Christ, because
they recognize that outside of a divine act, they could not be transformed. I
don’t care if they’re brought up in church. I don’t care if they have been
taught about the ‘bad things’, and told, “As long as you don’t get into this,
you’ll be all right”… When they see that they are wretches and they understand,
God saved them and they didn’t deserve what they have gotten, then grace
becomes amazing.
When you put grace as the
backdrop to our wretchedness, then grace becomes exciting. Your motivation from
that point on is, “Whatever you want me to do, God, that’s what I want to do.
I’m yours. Send me where you want me to go. If you want me to give something
up, I’ll give it up. It might be a struggle, but You are worth it.”
The gospel is not only a
message of salvation, but also of sanctification, becoming more like Jesus.
Everything needs to flow from the fountain of the gospel. Keep your eyes on
Jesus. The song …
“Turn your eyes upon Jesus,
Look full in His wonderful face;
And the things of earth will grow strangely dim,
In the light of His glory and grace.”
… that’s grace-driven effort!
You do not overcome sin by saying ‘no’ all the time. You overcome sin, focusing
on Jesus. You see Him as wonderful, beautiful, as the passion for your life. Then
other things begin to wane and you think, “I was selling my life short by
giving myself to those things. Why would I continue to do that? He is far more
wonderful.” Now, that is attractive!
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