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Saturday, September 11, 2010

The Gospel Is Not The Foundation!

We got up this morning to do our devotions and then went out to work on the saw mill. We got a little work done and then the rain, it came apourin'. So that leaves me...where else? sitting at our dinning room table eating a sandwich with chips and a tall glass of milk, wearing my ridiculously comfortable "Pepsi Cola" PJ's, and pondering deep theological issues. But before I get to that, let's review the week shall we. 


Sunday was great (as always). Here's a question...do you like going to church? If you don't, maybe you need to check your heart, or find a biblical church. I don't know of a true believer who doesn't adore the gathering of the saints. God uses the institution of the church much like He does the institution of marriage. He uses it to conform us to His image, to make us more like Him. Sometimes it hurts when God uses a situation in the church to knock off your hard edges. But that should make us love the church all the more, knowing the fruit that it will produce in us. 

Monday was Labor Day and we labored quite a bit. The picture to the right was pretty much how I felt at the end of the day. Although we got a lot of work done, I was wiped out when we were finished. We didn't have as much trouble as we've had before. Although the engine did flood on us once towards the end of the day. We finished all but one of the logs on one side of the mill, which we finished later in the week. 
We now only have three logs left to cut at the bottom of the hill. We were hoping to get it finished today but God had other plans for us. After we finish cutting the last three logs we are going to drag a few logs from the top of the hill down to the saw mill to be cut. I will have to confirm the number of beams that we need and then count how many we have, but I think we will have enough that we won't have to buy any. We will also have enough 2x4s to frame most of the interior walls. 

Tuesday through Thursday was pretty much a blur. Nothing too exiting to tell about.

          

Friday snuck up on me this week, that does not happen often I assure you. But for some reason I forgot what day it was. I was very happy when I remembered that I would get to sleep in a little bit.

Today we got one log cut. That leaves two left.



Anyway, on to more important matters.
I could probably make two posts out of this one but I think that if I waited I would forget what I wanted to say.

The Gospel is not the foundation of Christianity. 

When I was growing up I remember hearing either explicitly or in a round about way that the Gospel was the foundation of Christianity. When was the last time that you sat down with your family and thanked God for the foundation of your earthly house? If you're building a house like my family, then you might thank God for the foundation when you finish building it, but not long after that the foundation gets covered up by the floor, walls, and the roof, more important things. This is what happens so many times in Christianity; someone gets a unclear or even false presentation of the Gospel, they accept the Gospel, they then believe that since they have "mastered" the Gospel, that it is time to move on into deeper more spiritual things, the "meat" of the Word instead of the "milk" if you will. As I moved into my pre-teen and teen years I believed myself saved because I had repeated a prayer after some radio preacher when I was younger. I became dangerously depressed because I would go months on end without cracking my Bible or lifting my voice in prayer to God. (side note) Does that ever happen to you? Do you get really depressed when you don't read your Bible or pray for a while? Do you become very joyful when you read and pray a lot? Do you know what causes that? Idolatry. You may be trusting in your own works to give you joy instead of the finished work of Christ. Now of course you should feel remorse when you neglect fellowship with God, but when you do realize that you are neglecting reading the Bible you should remember that you could never read enough or pray enough or be spiritual enough. Jesus Christ did everything, He paid it all, there is nothing you can do on your own to enhance your standing with God. A true Christian when remembering this, will want to read all the more, pray all the more, and be more Holy. Not to gain the favor of God, but because they have the unmerited favor of God. 
But I did not understand that before I got saved. I believed that the Gospel was the foundation and once laid one needed to begin building the important things on that foundation. I did not enjoy hearing the Gospel, and I could not understand why some people would cry when hearing the Gospel. I would scour the Bible looking for verses on how to be a more spiritual, how to be a better person.
 It was not until I realized that the Gospel was not just the foundation but it was the whole boxing match. The Gospel is everything! It is not a nail that "more important" things hang on. If you want to get my blood boiling start talking about the Gospel as if it were a secondary. The Gospel is all we have! If we take the Gospel away all we have is a bunch of moralism and lists of how to be a better person, we should leave that to Dr Phil, Opera and Joel Osteen, they can do a better job of heaping legalistic rules on people than we can. Some people say that it is unloving to share the Gospel, that we should be quite about that and we should just help people to know how to be a better husband or wife, or to be loving a tolerant of other religions and lifestyles. This sounds good on the surface, but when you take away the Gospel it always gets replaced with legalism. All you're doing is heaping rules and laws on people that they cannot live up to, it will end in depression. The Gospel is the only thing that can help people. People need to know that Jesus did everything. That the work that Jesus did on the cross was sufficient for them. They need to know that they can do nothing good without God's Holy Spirit. 
I hope that you would learn how to find joy In Jesus and what He did on the Cross. I pray that you would become saturated in the Gospel, that you would develop an unquenchable thirst for the Gospel, that your ears would perk up every time you here the Gospel. I pray that you would feel unsatisfied if you don't hear the Gospel in the sermon on Sunday. I pray that you would preach the Gospel to yourself and to your family and friends. Sing the Gospel, Pray the Gospel, meditate on the Gospel.             

    


Romans 4:14 (English Standard Version)

14(A) For if it is the adherents of the law who are to be the heirs, faith is null and the promise is void.



Galatians 2:16 (English Standard Version)

16yet we know that(A) a person is not justified[a] by works of the law(B) but through faith in Jesus Christ, so we also have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law,(C) because by works of the law no one will be justified.



Galatians 3 1:9

 1O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you?(A) It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly(B) portrayed as crucified. 2Let me ask you only this:(C) Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by(D) hearing with faith? 3Are you so foolish?(E) Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by[a] the flesh? 4(F) Did you suffer[b] so many things in vain—if indeed it was in vain? 5Does he who supplies the Spirit to you and(G) works miracles among you do so(H) by works of the law, or by hearing with faith— 6just as(I) Abraham "believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness"? 7Know then that it is(J) those of faith who are(K) the sons of Abraham. 8And the Scripture, foreseeing that(L) God would justify[c] the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying,(M) "In you shall all the nations be blessed." 9So then, those who are of faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith.




On Christ, and what he has done, my soul hangs for time and eternity. And if your soul also hangs there, it will be saved as surely as mine shall be. And if you are lost trusting in Christ, I will be lost with you and will go to hell with you. I must do so, for I have nothing else to rely upon but the fact that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, lived, died, was buried, rose again, went to heaven, and still lives and pleads for sinners at the right hand of God." (CHS)


"If the Lord's bearing our sin for us is not the gospel, I have no gospel to preach." (C.H. Spurgeon)











Some sweet pictures.


And another thing I've been thinking about...














                                                                                                 

1 comment:

  1. Deep stuff, Blane. Very good.
    I had a friend who told me that every morning, he would preach the Gospel to himself and that would set the tone for his day.
    May we always be conscious of the sacrifice and atonement made for us.

    Love the "Big Gulp" Grail. LOL!

    ReplyDelete

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