The Heart of the Gospel: March 8, 2020

TEXT: Acts 10:34-43 (ESV)

34 So Peter opened his mouth and said: “Truly I understand that God shows no partiality, 35 but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him. 36 As for the word that he sent to Israel, preaching good news of peace through Jesus Christ (he is Lord of all), 37 you yourselves know what happened throughout all Judea, beginning from Galilee after the baptism that John proclaimed: 38 how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power. He went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him. 39 And we are witnesses of all that he did both in the country of the Jews and in Jerusalem. They put him to death by hanging him on a tree, 40 but God raised him on the third day and made him to appear, 41 not to all the people but to us who had been chosen by God as witnesses, who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead. 42 And he commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one appointed by God to be judge of the living and the dead. 43 To him all the prophets bear witness that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name.”

Sermon Notes

I. The Gospel Shocks Us out of Our Closed-Minded Ways

II. The Gospel Is All about Jesus

III. The Gospel Goes Nowhere without You and Me

IV. The Gospel Is Hope for Those Who Believe

QUOTES:

E. Stanley Jones (1884–1973) American 20th-century Methodist Christian missionary and theologian

Nothing is ever really yours until you share it.

Many live in dread of what is coming. Why should we? The unknown puts adventure into life. … The unexpected around the corner gives a sense of anticipation and surprise. Thank God for the unknown future.

Don’t bear trouble, use it. Take whatever happens – justice and injustice, pleasure and pain, compliment and criticism – take it up into the purpose of your life and make something out of it. Turn it into testimony. Don’t explain evil, exploit evil; make it serve you. Just as the Lotus flower reaches down and takes up the mud and mire into the purposes of its life and produces the lotus flower out of them, so you are to take whatever happens and make something out of it.  

Reference:   A Song of Ascents, Abingdon, 1968, p. 180.