These notes are to accompany Grace Rules, by Steve McVey, published by Harvest House Publishers, 1998

Notes for "A Complete Gospel"

Introduction:

How many of you could use more income? Suppose you have allowed your lifestyle to expand beyond your ability to keep current each month and you find yourself getting deeper and deeper into debt. After several months when the paycheck is gone long before the bills are paid and the credit cards are all maxed out you begin to feel like there is "no light" at the end of the tunnel. Depression and hopelessness set in and your life becomes anything but abundant.

Then one day you get a phone call from an attorney who informs you that a wealthy relative has died and arranged for all your bills to be paid, even your home mortgage and car! For several days you tell everybody you know about your "good news". With all your debts paid, you begin to enjoy an above average lifestyle…better than most of your friends, but certainly not extravagant. This continues for thirty years, and then one day your receive phone call from an investment advisor who identifies himself with a large local bank and says he wants to discuss your account.

You inform him that you don’t have an account with his bank and he asks you to repeat your full name and social security number, he even asks for your mother’s maiden name. Then he asks you to give your current address and then says he needs to put you on hold for a moment. When he returns, he informs you that they have been sending your bank statements to another address in another town and you realize it’s the address of your wealthy relative that died thirty years earlier. By this time, you’re getting a little excited and ask, "Can you tell me how much is in the account right now?" The banker advises you to "brace" yourself and says, "As of today there’s exactly $18,656,543.34!"

This little scenario describes the way many experience the Christian life. Years ago, they got saved (their debt to God was paid) and they began to live an above average life, better than many of their friends, but far from extravagant, and certainly not the abundant life Jesus promised to those who would follow Him. Why is this so often the case?

Discuss the difference between a partial understanding of the gospel and the complete gospel. List four truths that you believe are typically missing from an incomplete presentation of the gospel.

1 Corinthians 15:3-4 I passed on to you what I received, of which this was most important: that Christ died for our sins, as the Scriptures say; that he was buried and was raised to life on the third day as the Scriptures say…

Typically, the Gospel is described as in this scripture text. That Christ died for our sins, that He was buried and that He was resurrected on the third day to fulfill Scripture and to prove that He was God and that His payment was sufficient to take away our sins. Somehow, we’ve missed the point that forgiveness is foundational, but it’s not the complete story. "The rest of the story" as Paul Harvey would say, is that the risen Savior comes to live inside of every believer in order to express His life through us to the world around us!

Paul said that the message of forgiveness was "of first importance." Without forgiveness, Jesus could never come to live in us…He had to make us righteous and holy first.

Many times we fail to understand these truths when the Gospel is shared:

We died with Christ on the cross (Galatians 2:20 & Romans 6:6).

We have the nature of Christ inside us…He is our life (2Peter 1:4 & Colossians 1:26-27).

He came to give us life (John 10:10)…we enter into His eternal life when we believe (John 3:36 & 5:24)!

We have power over sin (Romans 6:1-7 & 7:20).

We are saints and can do whatever we please (1Corinthians 1:1-2 & 6:12).

Why did Jesus come into this world?

Jesus came to earth as a baby to live a perfect life and sacrifice it to take away our sins. He came the second time as the Holy Spirit so He could live inside us and give us an abundant life here and now. He will come back yet again to take us out of time and move us into eternity where we will be with Him forever.

What are the negative results present in the life of a person whose understanding of salvation goes no further than receiving forgiveness and going to heaven?

Those who understand salvation only in terms of forgiveness and going to heaven when they die, often experience a listless and lethargic existence that is a very poor counterfeit for the abundant life God wants us to enjoy! They’re unspeakably wealthy, but live as paupers! God is not best portrayed by poverty…He is rich and wants to lavish His friends with gifts!

Read Colossians 1:25-28 I became a servant of the church because God gave me a special work to do that helps you, and that work is to tell fully the message of God. This message is the secret that was hidden from everyone since the beginning of time, but now it is made known to God’s holy people. God decided to let his people know this rich and glorious secret which he has for all people. This secret is Christ himself, who is in you. He is our only hope for glory. So we continue to preach Christ to each person, using all wisdom to warn and to teach everyone, in order to bring each one into God’s presence as a mature person in Christ.

What does it mean to fully carry out the preaching of the Word of God?

To fully carry out the preaching of God’s word is to tell the complete truth of the Gospel…not only are we forgiven and going to heaven, we have Christ living inside us so that through His life, we may experience completeness in Him!

What is the mystery that has been hidden from the ages?

This secret (mystery) is Christ himself, who is in you. He is our only hope for glory.

What happened to your old identity at the time of your salvation?

According to 2 Corinthians 5:17 If anyone belongs to Christ, there is a new creation. The old things have gone; everything is made new…

Those who have believed the truth about Jesus, have become new people, the old person has died and a new person has come to live inside our bodies. That new person is righteous (Ephesians 4:17-24) and holy (1 Corinthians 3:17), not because of a change of behavior, but because we have received righteousness and holiness as gifts from God (Romans 5:17). The behavior changes as a result of receiving the gifts, not in order to receive the gifts!

What would you tell a Christian who says, "I have been a drug addict all of my life?"

The good news for that person is this: You died and a dead person can’t be an addict! Not only does Jesus give us a new future, He gives us His past…we have never sinned!

David Seamands, in his book Healing for Damaged Emotions says:

"To ask the question, ‘What if I fail?’ is once again to attach strings to God’s unconditional love and to change the nature of grace as undeserving and unearned favor. If your failure could stop grace, there would never be any such thing as grace. For the ground of grace is the Cross of Christ, and on the cross we were all judged as total failures. It was not a question of an occasional failure here and there. As far as our ability to bridge the moral canyon and win the approval of a Holy God, we are all total failures. In the Cross, we were all examined and we all flunked completely!

God’s love for us is unconditional; it is not a love drawn from God by something good in us. It flows out of God because of His nature. God’s love is an action toward us, not a reaction to us! His love depends not on what we are, but on what He is. He loves because He is love. We can refuse the love of God, but we cannot stop Him from loving us. We can reject it and thus stop its inflow into us, but we can do nothing to stop its outflow from Him. Grace is the unconditional love of God in Christ freely given to the sinful, the undeserving, and the imperfect.

Failure will always be with us in this life. It’s all right; it’s normal. It’s part of being human. When you fail, allow yourself to feel disappointment, but not disapproval. When you release your grip on perfectionism, the fear of failure will release its grip on you!"

Romans 6:1-7 1 So do you think we should continue sinning so that God will give us even more grace? 2 No! We died to our old sinful lives, so how can we continue living with sin? 3 Did you forget that all of us became part of Christ when we were baptized? We shared his death in our baptism. 4 When we were baptized, we were buried with Christ and shared his death. So, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the wonderful power of the Father, we also can live a new life. 5 Christ died, and we have been joined with him by dying too. So we will also be joined with him by rising from the dead as he did. 6 We know that our old life died with Christ on the cross so that our sinful selves would have no power over us and we would not be slaves to sin. 7 Anyone who has died is made free from sin’s control.

(REM) Is the "old man" free to sin since grace has come? Of course not, the "old man" is dead…he died, was buried with Christ and can’t sin anymore!

What does it mean to be dead to sin? To be "dead to sin" means that it no longer holds the same attraction as before…our desires have changed. We can still choose to sin, but when you understand your new identity, you will discover you don’t want to live that way anymore…the "new you" just doesn’t enjoy sin any longer!

Why do Christians still sin? The "new you" still lives in the "old body" and indwelling sin is still there in every cell. Sin still sometimes looks attractive, but as soon as you "cross the fence" you realize that the "grass only looked greener because it was growing over a cesspool!"

What is God’s method for enabling us to experience victory over sin? We only experience victory over sin as we allow Jesus to live His perfect life inside us…His life is our victory!

Steve suggests: "Abide in Christ and do whatever you want to do." What is your opinion about this kind of statement?

How would you respond to a person who argues that this kind of advice can encourage people to sin?

When we understand the indwelling Holy Spirit, the fear of "license" fades very quickly…Babe Ruth illustration. Freedom is not a license to do anything I want, but the power to do what I should, He does not give me the power, He does it through me. Those who are led by the Spirit, don’t need rules anymore, they have the "mind of Christ" which animates their behavior.

Next week, we’ll discover that our God is a party animal…Let’s Party!!

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