The Gospel Project

1. TheGospel Project Session 7 – Jesus: The Faithful Son Who Obeys God’s Word January 6, 2013 Maranatha Grace Fort Lee Daniel Lee

2. Recap • God has spoken through nature and through his Word. • God has given his Law in his Word. • But we’ve rejected his Word and disobeyed his Law.

3. Recap – Session 6 We’ve become numb to his Word. 1. Disobedience cuts us off from the Source of life. - We deserve God’s wrath. - We’ve earned death. 2. Our best efforts to fix ourselves are in vain and for our vanity. - We cannot help ourselves. Every faculty of our being is affected by sin. - We are guilty before Go 3. Our best desires are insufficient to change us.

4. Introduction All religions point to this fact, which all of us acknowledge: This world – this life – isn’t the way it’s meant to be. There’s another world beyond this one, another life, a better one.

5. Introduction In order to be accepted into that better world, however, each religion says that we must do something to become acceptable in order to enter the next world. • Islam’s Five Pillars • Buddhism’s eightfold path to nirvana (freedom from suffering)

6. Introduction The problem with all of the solutions provided by other religions is that you can never know if you’ve done enough to become acceptable to enter the next life. Tim Keller: “Self-salvation through good works may produce a great deal of moral behavior in your life, but inside you are filled with self-righteousness, cruelty, and bigotry, and you are miserable. You are always comparing yourself to other people, and you are never sure you are being good enough. You cannot, therefore, deal with your hideousness and self-absorption through the moral law, by trying to be a good person through an act of the will. You need a complete transformation of the very motives of your heart.” 

7. Introduction The religions say there is work we must do. The gospel takes us back to a work that has been done.

8. Introduction This week’s purpose: Although we’ve rejected God and therefore deserve to be rejected, God has provided a way for us to be accepted by him. “How? Through Jesus’ living up to the righteous standard God requires of humanity. By obeying God’s Word, Jesus reversed the curse that sin has brought upon God’s people and His creation. Unlike Adam in the garden and Israel in the wilderness, Jesus proved Himself to be the faithful Son who obeys God’s Word.”

9. Session 7 1. God the Father affirms that Jesus is uniquely qualified to fulfill the righteousness that He requires of us (Luke 3:21-22). Now when all the people were baptized, and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heavens were opened, and the Holy Spirit descended on him in bodily form, like a dove; and a voice came from heaven, “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.”

10. Session 7 We all want to be accepted. Are you motivated by others’ acceptance and affirmation? Whose acceptance do you crave? What are some ways people seek affirmation from others? What are the ways you do it?

11. Session 7 The desire to be accepted by others is a distortion of the desire God has placed in each of us to be accepted and affirmed by Him. The Bible confirms that feeling of uneasiness, informing us that we are not acceptable to God because of our sin.

12. Session 7 These religions fail to grasp the reality of God and of our sin in two ways: • They fail to recognize the holiness of God. • They fail to recognize the heinousness of sin. The Bible, in contrast to other religions, says that because of our sin, we are unacceptable to God. God is too holy and our sin is too heinous for us to hide or “cover up” our sin from God.

13. Session 7 Psalm 5:5: “The boastful shall not stand before your eyes; you hate all evildoers.” Habakkuk 1:13 (NIV): “Your eyes are too pure to look on evil; you cannot tolerate wrong.” Isaiah 64:6: “We have all become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment.”

14. Session 7 The Bible gives us good news: We do not have to fear being rejected by God because God Himself has provided a way by which sinners may be accepted before Him.

15. Session 7 The baptism of Jesus of Nazareth The events at Jesus’ baptism signifies that Jesus was uniquely qualified to provide the way for sinners to be accepted before God. • Jesus was uniquely qualified to bring us to God because He was the Lord’s anointed, the Messiah-Christ. • Jesus was uniquely qualified to bring us to God because He was and is God’s faithful Son, and the Father is pleased with His obedience (Luke 3:22) - Though Jesus had never sinned, He identified with His sinful people by being baptized.

16. Session 7 Another distinction between religion and the gospel: Religion is about what you must do in order to be accepted before God; Christianity is about what God has done for you in order to accept you.

17. Session 7 Tim Keller: “In religion, we try to obey the divine standards out of fear. We believe that if we don’t obey we are going to lose God’s blessing in this world and the next. In the gospel, the motivation is one of gratitude for the blessing we have already received because of Christ.” 

18. Session 7 This is the good news of the gospel—through faith in Christ, the Lord’s anointed, we can be accepted by God!

19. Session 7 2. Jesus obeys God at the very point we failed (Luke 4:1-13). And Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness for forty days, being tempted by the devil. And he ate nothing during those days. And when they were ended, he was hungry. The devil said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become bread.” And Jesus answered him, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone.’”

20. Session 7 And the devil took him up and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time, and said to him, “To you I will give all this authority and their glory, for it has been delivered to me, and I give it to whom I will. If you, then, will worship me, it will all be yours.” And Jesus answered him, “It is written, “‘You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve.’”

21. Session 7 And he took him to Jerusalem and set him on the pinnacle of the temple and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here, for it is written, “‘He will command his angels concerning you, to guard you,’ and “‘On their hands they will bear you up,lest you strike your foot against a stone.’” And Jesus answered him, “It is said, ‘You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.’” And when the devil had ended every temptation, he departed from him until an opportune time.

22. Session 7

23. Session 7 We think: Substitutes are never as good as the real thing. The Bible: Jesus our substitute IS the real thing. Jesus is a substitute for sinful humanity.

24. Session 7 Adam – Our First Representative “Since he was our representative, when Adam sinned against God, we sinned with him, which made us guilty and unacceptable before a holy God (Rom. 5:12,18-19).”

25. Session 7 “In our individualist society, it is difficult for people to understand how one person’s sin can affect other people. Why is it important that we maintain the biblical teaching that Adam’s sin is passed down to us?”

26. Session 7 “In our individualist society, it is difficult for people to understand how one person’s sin can affect other people. Why is it important that we maintain the biblical teaching that Adam’s sin is passed down to us?” - It’s important because it is biblical.

27. Session 7 “In our individualist society, it is difficult for people to understand how one person’s sin can affect other people. Why is it important that we maintain the biblical teaching that Adam’s sin is passed down to us?” • It’s important because it is biblical. • It’s important because it explains why we sin. We sin because we’re Sinners.

28. Session 7 “In our individualist society, it is difficult for people to understand how one person’s sin can affect other people. Why is it important that we maintain the biblical teaching that Adam’s sin is passed down to us?” • It’s important because it is biblical. • It’s important because it explains why we sin. We sin because we’re Sinners. • It’s important because without it, we cannot appreciate what Christ has done.

29. Session 7 Federal headship – Adam was God’s chosen representative of humanity. If Adam had passed the test of obedience, we would have all passed as well. But because he sinned, we all sinned in him. Rom. 5:18-19: “Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men… For as by the one man's disobedience the many were made sinners…”

30. Session 7 Israel – God’s representative people God even called Israel his “firstborn son” (Ex. 4:22). Israel, like Adam, also had a commission from God: to declare God’s name to the nations. But like Adam, Israel failed.

31. Session 7 Jesus – the Messiah of Israel, the true representative and substitute for sinful humanity. “Jesus faced the Devil as Adam did, and Jesus fought temptation in the wilderness, just like Israel. But unlike Adam and Israel, Jesus succeeded in the mission. He obeyed God at every point they failed. Jesus is the faithful Adam and the faithful Israel who obeyed God’s Word.”

32. Session 7 Jesus is the TRUE and FAITHFUL Adam. • Adam is a type of Jesus. Jesus is the TRUE and FAITHFUL Israel. • Israel is a type of Jesus. DEF - Type: “a figure, episode, or symbolic factor resembling some future reality in such a way as to foreshadow or prefigure it.”

33. Session 7 The gospel: “The Father accepts Jesus’ obedience on behalf of those who put their trust in Christ. We are unacceptable before a holy God, but Jesus is acceptable, and God affirms Jesus because He pleased the Father (Luke 3:22). By faith in Jesus Christ, we are acceptable to God and receive the same affirmation. The words the Father uttered over Jesus at His baptism (“You are My beloved Son. I take delight in You!”) are true of us as well. When you trust Jesus for your acceptance before a holy God, you are liberated from sin’s slavery and curse. After all, this is what Jesus came to do—to restore what sin has destroyed.”

34. Session 7 “Where Adam and Eve had cringed in hiding when they heard the sound of God walking in the garden, this man stands, unashamed, before the voice of his Father. Where Israel had trembled in the desert in front of the glowing mountain, begging not to hear the voice of God (Ex. 20:19), Jesus stands, unafraid, before his Father’s voice. Unlike them, bearing as they did the shame of the satanic curse, this man has nothing to hide. His Father is well pleased with him.”  –Russell Moore

35. Session 7 3. Jesus’ obedience to God’s Word proves His authority to reverse the effects of the fall and restore creation (Luke 4:40-41; cf. 4:16-21,31-39). Now when the sun was setting, all those who had any who were sick with various diseases brought them to him, and he laid his hands on every one of them and healed them. And demons also came out of many, crying, “You are the Son of God!” But he rebuked them and would not allow them to speak, because they knew that he was the Christ.

36. Session 7 This isn’t the way the world was supposed to be. Genesis 1:31 – after God creates the world – “And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good.”

37. Session 7 When Christ came, he announced the good news of God’s kingdom. Luke 4:42-44 – “And when it was day, he departed and went into a desolate place. And the people sought him and came to him, and would have kept him from leaving them, but he said to them, “I must preach the good news of the kingdom of God to the other towns as well; for I was sent for this purpose.” And he was preaching in the synagogues of Judea.”

38. Session 7 Kingdom of God – what is it? GP: “rule of God where the effects of sin on creation were to be halted and reversed and God’s people were to be liberated from sin’s hold on them.” Summary: God’s redemptive reign – his kingship in the lives of people.

39. Session 7 Jesus’s healings and exorcisms have two significances: • They serve as proof that he has authority as God’s Messiah. • But they also serve as a foretaste, a sample of what’s to come – the Kingdom consummated, completed.

40. Session 7

41. Session 7 Jesus’s first coming inaugurated the Kingdom of God (began, introduced). Jesus’s second coming will consummate the Kingdom of God (complete).

42. Session 7 Revelation 21:1-4 – Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”

43. Session 7 For now, we’re living in the “already but the not yet.”

44. Application 1. Believing the gospel The gospel is that because of what Christ has done in coming and dying our death, we can be accepted by God by believing in him. The gospel is also that Christ is the Messiah who has come to liberate us from sin and its effects, and that he’s returning one day to make all things new, to consummate the Kingdom. What are the ways you need to believe this news?

45. Application 2. God’s commission to his children now is that we bring this news to others. Who are the people you need to give this good news to?