FHBC Sermon Notes

I am excited to be going into this book. It is all about the gospel.

What is our message? What do we proclaim to ourselves and to the world around us about our identity and purpose. for over two thousand years, the church has endured from within and without the attempts to challenge and change the message of the church to something other than what we have been given.

What is this message? This message is one of those words we hear and think of in church. It is the gospel. The good news, the message and proclamation of the children of God.

Buildings, budgets, programs, facilities, committees. These are not who we are.

There is no church without the gospel.

Write it down: if we have a flawed understanding of he gospel, we will not succeed as a church, we are no church at all.

1. The church must unitedly affirm, unequivocally declare, an vigorously defend the gospel. (1:1-2:21)

V.1:6-10 - we see Paul point to this specifically.

2. The gospel is the good news that God has enacted on behalf of sinners through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. (3:1-4:31)

This good news is so great not just because we have been justified in Christ's sacrifice, but we in fact receive his very Inhertiance. We are sons of God in our Lord Jesus. His Inhertiance is ours.

3. The gospel liberates the sinner to walk in a manner pleasing to the Lord. (5:1-6:18)

We live in a country that celebrates freedom, but we have no freedom without Jesus. A man who has Jesus in a totalitarian country is freer than a man who walks "freely" alone in this world in our own free country.

We are free from sin and death! What other form of freedom could ever surplant this.

We should remember that we do not only preach this to the outside world, but to oursleves as well, that we may remember and stay true to our Lord and Savior.