Obeying the Plain Gospel

In this class, we're going to be looking at obeying the plain gospel. We're going to be answering the second part of our series title, what are we supposed to do with it? We're going to answer three questions in this class. And you should already know the answers to these three questions because I've answered them.

A. What is the Gospel?

1. The Gospel is the good news of salvation for everyone through Christ.

¹Now I make known to you, brethren, the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received, in which also you stand, ²by which also you are saved, if you hold fast the word which I preached to you, unless you believed in vain. ³For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, ⁴and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, ⁵and that He appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve.
- I Corinthians 15:1-5

So this gospel, what is the gospel? Well, it's one that Paul had already preached to them.

2. Paul already taught The Corinthians the gospel before, but he wanted to remind them about it.

So now he's reminding them. I want to make known to you them. That's another way of saying, I want to remind you about this gospel. The one I preach, the one you receive, the one on which you stand. So there's no question which gospel he's talking about. There's really only one. It's that gospel I want to remind you about.

3. There is much to the gospel, but what is of first importance is that Christ died, He was buried and He was raised.

³For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, ⁴and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures,
- I Corinthians 15:3-4

The gospel is Jesus died, he was buried, and he was raised. Now in the last class, I made the point that there is more to the death, burial, and the resurrection of Christ when it comes to the gospel. But what we're talking about here is about teaching an unbeliever, somebody who maybe doesn't even hardly know the Bible. What do they need to know about the gospel? They need to know that the gospel is the death, burial, and the resurrection of Christ. That's the core. We can instruct them on the rest later on, but for all intent and purposes, when we're teaching somebody how to become a Christian and we show them this passage. What is the gospel? The gospel is the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

B. What do we do with the Gospel?

I'm going to show you four passages that all say basically the same thing, answering the question, what do we do with the gospel?

1. Hearing the good news will not result in entering God's rest until we obey it.

The book of Hebrews was written to Hebrews, Jews who were thinking about leaving Christianity and going back to their old Jewish ways. And so it's written to show what the old covenant had, but how the new covenant is superior, that the Old Testament really was just a shadow of the New and so there's a lot of going back and forth between the Old and the New Testament.

⁴For He has said somewhere concerning the seventh day: "And God rested on the seventh day from all His works"; ⁵and again in this passage, "They shall not enter My rest." ⁶Therefore, since it remains for some to enter it, and those who formerly had good news preached to them failed to enter because of disobedience,
- Hebrews 4:4-6

When the Hebrew writer says, it says somewhere you're probably being facetious. Everybody knows that's Genesis 2:2, which says God rested on the seventh day from all his work. But then he quotes Psalms 95:11 in verse 5, "they shall not enter my rest." Who was it that didn't enter the rest? He answers that question in verse 6, "it remains for some, those who formerly had the good news." And the word good news is the word gospel. It's exactly the same thing.

Those who had the gospel preached to them failed to enter because of disobedience. So in other words, they heard the gospel, but it didn't save them because they didn't obey it. This gospel, this good news will not result in entering God's rest until he's obeyed.

And even though he's using an old covenant concept here in verses from Genesis and Psalms, he's tying it in with he's gonna go on and say, basically, we're in the same situation. We don't enter into the rest of God until we obey the gospel.

2. If we truly believe the gospel, we will heed its good news.

¹¹For the Scripture says, "Whoever believes in Him will not be disappointed." ¹²For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; for the same Lord is Lord of all, abounding in riches for all who call on Him; ¹³for "Whoever will call on the name of the Lord will be saved." ¹⁴How then will they call on Him in whom they have not believed? How will they believe in Him whom they have not heard? And how will they hear without a preacher? ¹⁵How will they preach unless they are sent? Just as it is written, "How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news of good things!" ¹⁶However, they did not all heed the good news; for Isaiah says, "Lord, who has believed our report?" ¹⁷So faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ.
- Romans 10:11-17

Here he's saying that they needed to hear and they need to heed the gospel preached to them. And so God sent preachers, and then he says, but in verse 16, "they did not all heed the good news." So they heard the gospel. Again, it's the same word, in the Greek, the good news, the gospel. They heard this gospel, but they did not heed the gospel.

What is heed? Well, the Greek word is a compound of two words, the word for under, and is the word to hear. So it means to hear under or to hear as if a subordinate were hearing, to hear the way a a slave would listen to his master. It's listening with the intent of obedience and by implication to conform or to go along with, to obey or hearken a command of one who is an authority. And so they didn't heed, in other words, they didn't obey the good news, the gospel.

3. Those who don't obey the gospel will pay the penalty of everlasting destruction.

⁸dealing out retribution to those who do not know God and to those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. ⁹These will pay the penalty of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power,
- II Thessalonians 1:8-9

God is dealing out retribution. Verse 9 talks about this, the separation from God, this eternal destruction, a destruction that is eternal that never ends. That's obviously talking about hell. If I want to escape hell, this everlasting destruction, I need to make sure I obey the gospel because those who don't know God and those who don't obey God, suffer retribution.

4. One must obey the gospel in order to be part of the household / family of God.

Now this is one we have not looked at yet in our study series, but, goes along really well and is another case in point where we are told that we need to obey the gospel.

For it is time for judgment to begin with the household of God; and if it begins with us first, what will be the outcome for those who do not obey the gospel of God?
- I Peter 4:17

So here's another passage that says we need to obey the gospel of God. And we need to do that if we want to be in the household or family of God. Some translations say household, some say family. That's what a household is, it's a family.

I have an illustration here. I have a very beautiful bowl, and let's let the bowl represent the household, the family of God. Now this verse says that it's time for judgment to begin with the household of God. Those who are inside here. They are in the family of God. And he says, if it begins with us, those in the household of God, what about those who don't obey the gospel? So those who don't obey the gospel are not in the family of God. That's what the Bible says.

We may wish they were in the family of God. We may treat them like they're in the family of God, and we really shouldn't do that, but they're not in the family of God until they obey the gospel. As long as they don't obey the gospel, they're not in the family of God.

So there's four key verses in our New Testament that explain what we do with the gospel. What we do is we obey it.

C. How do we Obey the Gospel?

1. A person must die to their sins before they can be buried.

In context, Paul is talking to the Romans, both Jews and Gentiles in the same church, and he's explaining to them in chapter 5 that if they have transgressed many times, there is much grace to cover them. Of course, the the Jew is legalistic and he was saying, well, Paul, should we sin more so we get more grace? And even before they asked that question, he goes there in chapter 6,

¹What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase? ²May it never be! How shall we who died to sin still live in it? ³Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death? ⁴Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.
- Romans 6:1-4

How do we obey the gospel? Well, the first thing that we do is we die. We die to sin. That's what he says in verse 2. We died to sin, not died from sin. If you die from sin, that means sin kills you.

Dying to sin means I'm pushing it away, I want nothing to do with sin. It does not mean becoming perfect. It means to be of a mindset that I am repenting of my sin. That's another word we learned from Acts 2:38, to repent means to turn away from. I'm repenting, I'm putting my sin away. And we need to do that before we get buried.

I'm going to show you that burial is baptism. Before we baptize somebody, make sure they die to their sin. A person needs to die to their sin first and then get buried in baptism. Very important that they do that.

Sometimes we baptize somebody's, "oh, I know they got a bunch of sins, but they'll take care of that later." That's really not the biblical pattern. Encourage your person that wants to be baptized. When they say, I really wanna be baptized, well, die to your sins. Have you died to your sins? And if they have, great, but if they haven't, they need to do that first.

2. Just as Jesus was buried, we too must be buried in baptism.

Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death
- Romans 6:4a

We are buried just like Jesus went into the the tomb into the grave. We are buried when we're immersed in water and that's what baptism means. It means to immerse. When we are immersed in the waters of baptism, we are showing that we have already died.

You shouldn't bury somebody if they're still alive, that's cruel. When somebody dies, then we bury them in baptism.

3. Only after baptism is a person raised to walk in newness of life.

Baptism is the point where we are diner sins and we're buried, but we don't get raised until after we're buried. The order here is very important. You don't change the order because then you've changed the gospel. And there are religious groups out there that change it. They say, well, you know, you could die to your sins and then we'll then you're saved. And later, if you want to get baptized, well, that's that's backwards. Or people say when you're a baby, you get baptized and then you're saved, and then later, you go through this time where you you die of sins. No.

Death comes first, then the burial, and then the resurrection. Just like with Jesus, Jesus died on the cross, he was buried, then he was resurrected. In the same way in our old life, we die to our sins and we die to self. Then we're buried in the waters of baptism with Christ. Then and only then are we raised to walk in newness of life.

This is how we obey the gospel. What is the gospel? It's the death, burial, and the resurrection of Christ. How do we obey the gospel? We do the same thing. We died of sin. We're buried in baptism. We're raised to walk in newness of life. That, plain and simple, is the gospel and that is how we obey the gospel. That's all I have to share with you.