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“The
Gospel of God”
a sermon by
Thomas L. Jenkins
Text: 1 Thessalonians 2: 1-8
So
deeply do we care for you that we are determined to share with you not
only the gospel of God but also our own selves, because you have become
very dear to us.
Dear Sisters and Brothers, this morning’s sermon is going to be a
little bit different than most of our sermons, in this way: instead
trying to interpret the scripture’s meanings and applications towards
today’s Christianity, I am going to communicate and share with you the
same subjects which Paul did with the church in Thessalonica.
One of the first things that we as Presbyterians learn about happenings
in our lives is that they don’t really have to do with what we call
good luck or bad luck. God
is sovereign. We certainly
don’t immediately, and completely understand God’s wisdom, presence,
and love for us in everything that goes on in our lives; but that does
not mean God isn’t being our God.
God being sovereign means that God knows us better than we know
ourselves. God is deeper
within our hearts than we could ever imagine. And God is for us always, using every thing in our lives to
help us move forward in understanding and living in God’s great good
news to us.
I remember one time when I was about in the First Grade.
I was in my back yard. I looked up into the sky; I had my first
thought, feeling, and belief that there was someone, whom I could not
see, who was above the sky, watching everything I was doing.
Is God sovereign? Certainly; God is the only being, who at any time,
knows exactly how many hairs we have on our heads right now, God knows
how many head hairs are present in the First Presbyterian Church in
Kaufman, Texas.
Did God bring us all together, here in this Church? Yes, God through sovereignty has brought us together.
This has not been good luck or bad luck for any of us.
Sure, the greatest gift which God has accomplished for us, and is
revealing to us, is our salvation.
As a teacher and a preacher, God has taught me a wonderful,
beautiful, and astonishing revelation of the Gospel.
To begin with, our salvation to God was not a reaction to a negative
situation in which the Father had to give his only begotten Son to this
world, and allow him to be murdered by us, in order to save us.
Now, for sure, God loves us so much that all this was done to
save us. However, God’s
original meaning of our salvation was positive, in that God created the
whole universe in order to create us, so that we would be brought into
the divine eternal love of God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
God the Father sending His Son into this world as a human being, and the
Son wanting to let himself down becoming one of us, so that we will be
brought into their life, by the Holy Spirit, was not a plan B. Had Adam and Eve, nor any other humans, ever have sinned, the
Son of God would have still become human to accomplish our salvation.
This is our truth: When the Son of God, becoming a human, entered into
the heart of humanity, He entered into every one of our hearts. When the Son of God was born into the humanity of Jesus, and
because he is God accomplishing his greatest desire of bringing
humans into the love of Trinity, we were all born from above and born
again in Jesus Christ.
When Jesus died we died with him in the highest level of crucifixion
that Satan could do. When
Jesus was raised back to life, after this kind of evil persecution, so
were we. When Jesus
ascended back to be with our Heavenly Father, he took every one of our
souls back with him.
This is the most fascinating and gracious proclamation of God’s Gospel that I have ever learned.
There have been so many times, as I’ve been learning this, that
I have been highly overcome and filled with the Holy Spirit; that I was
so amazed and full of joy, I knew this was a gift from God.
When I believed that God was calling me into ministry, what I desired
most in my heart was giving to you, through my teaching and preaching,
what God gave to me, hoping that you will experience, feel, and grow in
the faith that God is in you, with you, and for you.
There are a number of different perceptions about what preaching should
be in Christian churches. Here
are some of them: Preaching should explain to people how to use their
faith to gain health, wealth, and prosperity.
Preaching becomes Christian psychology.
This would be like Dr. Phil becoming a preacher.
Some preaching tells people what they must do to be saved.
Other preaching teaches
people about religious self-righteousness, etc.
Now my points are not necessarily to be critical of a number other
perceptions regarding preaching. God
certainly knows where we all are in our faith, and where we are in
understanding our true relationship with God, accomplished and given to
us by the incarnation of the Son of
God in Jesus of Nazareth.
As we begin to see and say “Yes” about our greatest truth, that we
are now and forever, family members of the Holy Trinity, then we are
also learning where our eternal health and wealth are located; in Jesus
Christ. We are already
saved. Because of what The
Gospel of God is telling us, that we have already been reconciled to God in Christ Jesus [ which does not mean that Christ
changed God into liking us; the Son of God becoming human converted us
into liking God ], so then Christianity is not really a religion.
Religions are organizations of people who have a philosophy of God that
leads them to develop a system of programs, composed of
self-righteousness legalism, which will make them alright with God.
What we are being taught by The Gospel of The Trinity is that we
have already been saved, and converted into who we are going to be
forever as adopted family members of our Heavenly Father.
When we, at certain times, are ambushed by God’s grace, God is
moving our future lives into our present lives.
And as we experience these graceful times within some of the
Trinitarian Gospel knowledge we have just heard about, there will also
happen sometimes a certain psychological influence that we need.
We are not religious, in the concept of using Christianity to
earn God’s salvation that frees us from spending eternity in hell.
We as Christians, whether we are at church in Sunday school,
worship, Session meetings, and ministries; and when we are working in
our jobs [economic professions, police, teachers, medical professions,
farmers, etc.], or even having good human fun [cooking, family parties,
raising pets, golf, fishing, etc.], we are participating, by the Holy
Spirit, in the present life and ministry of Jesus Christ.
A food meal type of thanksgiving prayer that I wrote about 15 years ago,
and have always prayed is, “Dear Father, for what we are about to
receive, may we join with Jesus in thanksgiving ? Amen.“
I love you, congregation. I
feel your love for me. Because
of my illness, and your care and love for me, I certainly understand how
difficult this can be sometimes.
One of the greatest teachings that Paul wrote about, in one of his
Biblical letters, was that he realized it was not him who lives, but
Christ who lives in him. Any
part, experienced, of real life, may replace the word “lives.”
“It is not I who loves, but Christ who loves in me. It is not I who suffers because of love, but Christ who
suffers because of love in me.”
Let us pray …
Amen.
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