Faith Basics: The Gospel Part 2

In this episode Dan and Nathan discuss the basics of the Gospel as presented through "Two Ways to Live". After an overview they focus in on boxes three and four: 3. God's justice. 4. God sent Jesus to die for us. Plus Dan gives an example of how you can share the gospel through your testimony while still clearly presenting the whole gospel.

View Two Ways to Live

• Automated Transcription

• Dan Jarms 0:00
  Today on faith matters, we are continuing our Basics series, and we're going to do basics on the gospel.
  
  Dan Jarms 0:13
  I'm Dan Jarms. And you're listening to faith matters a podcast to help update you on matters of faith Bible Church, as well as equip you in matters of the Christian faith.
  
  Dan Jarms 0:32
  I have again with me Nathan Thiry. Hey, Nathan. Again, we're continuing on our Basics series, we're doing the basics of the gospel. And we are walking through a way to think through the gospel in the storyline of Scripture. We're adapting what we're talking about from something that's developed several decades ago, two ways to live, which we've used as a church a lot. As we go through it, we're going to be referring to these boxes, you will want a visual version of that. And there is a link in the show notes that you can pull up. So Nathan, what's the value of having a memorized framework? And how do we adapt from there? Yeah,
  
  Nathan Thiry 1:17
  it's kind of like if you're a music player, and you want to play jazz, you have to know the notes. You have to learn the music really well. So you can improvise. Yeah, and for us, when we get into opportunities to talk about the gospel, we need to have a really, really concrete, solid, familiar knowledge of the outline of the gospel so we can improvise and modify that for the conversation. So people oftentimes ask you, Hey, how do you become a pastor? Yeah, or how do you become a Christian? Or what's what's this all about? And how do you how do you share? improvising, like a good musician would with good music? They've learned the gospel?
  
  Dan Jarms 1:49
  Yeah, yeah. Here's an example of how I do that. I'll usually share the Gospel through my personal testimony. I grew up men and not not a Christian home. My mom's nominally religious. My dad's an atheist. And I remember Sunday School at a little Lutheran Church in cine men memorizing books of the Bible, like it's what you do in first grade Sunday school, and I go home with those to my dad to say, I'm memorizing these, probably, he's gonna get a prize for memorizing those. And my dad says, I don't believe it. I don't believe any of it. I'll help you memorize them. But I don't believe any of it. And I remember looking like we lived on 10 acres, surrounded by 10,000 acres, just beautiful, where I grew up, thinking, how could he not believe there's a God? Did this really come from nothing. So intrinsically, every human knows that we were created. And of course, that's how Genesis opens up. In the beginning, God created the heavens in the earth. And He created us for a purpose. He created us to serve Him, serve others. As I grew in my understanding of the Bible, I could see really clearly that he had given Adam and Eve, a mission and a submission, to exercise dominion under his authority, in a good imperfect world. But I also saw since my parents weren't Christians, and I was a sinner, that there was sin in the world. And I think the the obvious things like, if I lied, I would get in trouble. If I lied, I felt bad. If I took things that weren't, didn't belong to me, I knew I'd get in trouble like I intrinsically knew, I knew the reality of sin, like I see it in the Bible, but I knew the reality of sin. In that way too young of an age I was exposed to immoral pictures, content, pornography, and, and I lusted, and did the things that went along with lust as as a as a boy. So and I knew they were dirty and bad. I can't I didn't have much of the Bible to know that but I knew it was. But I remember finally getting a Bible in fourth grade starting to read it. And I was absolutely slayed by the Sermon on the Mount. It says unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes or Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven, which in my mind, I equated with the Roman Catholic priests, being nominally Catholic, or the Lutheran priest. I'm like, I'm never going to be that I'm in trouble. And then I read even further, it says, if you've even looked at a woman with lustful intent, you've committed adultery in your heart. If you don't deal with your sin, it's going to be real serious. I knew I was going to hell. I just after reading the Sermon on the Mount, my conclusion was in going to hell and I know it now, as a Catholic, I thought the way to deal with that was confessing sin and doing better. As long as I confessed and did better. I'd be okay. But every night I'm thinking I'm in real trouble. So I had the sense of a sin and consequence and of judgment. The Bible talks about sin Adam and Eve sinned, and with it came death and corpse I knew I would die than I knew there was also a judgment to come Um, and in, in Hebrews, you know, later on as I learned how to study the Bible, and I read the Bible, I remember this really significant verse stood out Hebrews 927 says, For it is appointed for man wants to die, and then comes judgment. So there's a day coming will where I will stand before God and give an account for my sins. And I felt that weight of my sin. So when I heard a biblical gospel, I was at a Christian basketball camp. And when I heard a biblical gospel, that I was a sinner, I already knew that, that God was righteous and holy. And I already knew that, that God sent Christ to the world to pay for our sin, and that if I believed in him, all my sins would be forgiven. Do you want to accept that? And I'm at camp, and I'm an eighth grader, and I'm like, standing up. Yes, please. That was a, you know, as a very powerful moment, of course, I want my sins forgiven. And, and, and there was this real excitement. For me though, it fell a little short, because I would go home to no teaching. I didn't, my parents didn't really know much about Christianity. My mom was nominally religious dad was an atheist. So it was all silliness to him. And I think I loved my sin more than Jesus. So I just would always drift back toward my sin. But finally, I remember. I remember my sophomore year of, of college, just at the beginning, where I was getting the sin that I wanted. I knew I wasn't right with God. And I was internally miserable. And I come across a group of Christians genuinely worshiping God. And it was at a campus fellowship at Eastern. And I saw their love for Jesus, I saw the peace and joy that they had. And I just went home that night and got down on my knees and said, My life is yours. I had already had the components, Jesus died for my sin, and He rose from the dead. But I didn't know about repentance, yet. I didn't know about turning away from my sin. And that, Chris, that's what the scripture talks about. The Scripture talks about, if you confess with your mouth, that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart, that God raised Him from the dead, you'll be saved, you'll be justified and made right with God. And that really happened at that moment. So at that moment, I wanted to get my whole life to God. I understood that the way I was living my life, I think of two ways to live, I was going on the road to destruction. And I internally felt it that things in my life were broken. And God's new way, provided restoration and peace. And I immediately felt it and embraced it. Becoming a pastor was just the natural outworking of me, pursuing God, wanting to serve Him, as he's called me, agreeing that my whole life was his anyway, that's what that's what repentance is. And then it just progressed. So I became a pastor, really, just because I became a Christian. And I followed the gifting and the calling that God had put on my life, which took about 1012 years for all that to unfold in between getting married and all of that, but yeah, that's what that's why I'm a pastor. And yeah,
  
  Nathan Thiry 8:21
  that's great. So I love how you told your testimony. But you mixed in the testimony that a clear presentation of the gospel and use those six boxes from two ways to live, not that you are drawing them or covering the exact wording, but the the content of the gospel is there. And in our day and age, and I think in any generation, people love to hear stories, right? And people want to hear something that's authentic and right. It's not that the power is in your story, right. But your story is a wonderful medium to deliver the message of the gospel in a way that most people aren't they need to listen and engage with in the call that's really interesting. And maybe God uses that content, the gospel as you're sharing his word, actually, to impact them. So I think that's just a wonderful thing to encourage all of our listeners to, you know, Christ's think about your story, how you could speak your story to other people in a way that incorporates these elements of the gospel. Yeah,
  
  Dan Jarms 9:08
  so then the turn of the conversation to find out what their story is. So tell me your story. And then working through those same concepts saying so in which way are you choosing? Are you choosing to live your way right now? Or are you choosing to live God's new way through Christ, and then if they are Jewish, they're gonna go down a rabbit hole, if they're Mormon, they're gonna have something if they're this, they're gonna have something if they're atheist, they're gonna have something and those become the key contact points, touch points, we're calling that we need to discuss through that. Through that process. I was with a Jewish, ethnically Jewish atheist. So we camped a lot on how we know things. You know, it's called epistemology and a big you know, big word for it. That's how we know things. So, at the end of that time, he said, You know, I don't know if I know that, but I can tell you really believe that, like you that's, you really believe that that's true. He actually said, so you think I'm going to hell? That's what the Bible says, I was going to hell. Yeah. And I knew it.
  
  Nathan Thiry 10:18
  Yeah. It's it's loving to speak the truth. Yeah. And I love how last time you talked about touch points. And really, those are those connection points. And there are ways that you get into a gospel conversation. Let me wonder how do I get into a gospel conversation with my friend, from the neighborhood or from work or from school? How do I talk about the gospel? And if you're looking for these, these connection points, these touch points where the gospel touches with reality, the way that we live every day, that's, that's really helpful. And that connection point of Tell me your story. And you're telling them your story. That's that's a wonderful connection point, ask someone what their story is with their journey of faith or what they think about God, and then you're interacting about these truths. Yeah, yeah.
  
  Dan Jarms 10:56
  Let's talk about the concept of judgment and the concept of Christ in it. What does the Bible say about judgment? Maybe let's just start there. What's What's the summary of the Bible's teaching about judgment for sin?
  
  Nathan Thiry 11:12
  Yeah, the the topic of God's judgment, it really comes from his justice mins because God has just got his holy He's loving, he has to do what is just and right in response to sin, in response to rebellion. And so we see this in lots of places in Scripture. We see it with Adam and Eve, He tells them, if you eat the fruit of this tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you're gonna die. Yeah, it's his judgment. We see it in Second Thessalonians one, I'm going to start in verse eight, it talks it says, in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God, and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus, they will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction away from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of His might, when he comes in that day, to be glorifying his saints and to be marveled at among all who have believed, because our testimony to was believed. So we see that God is going to pour out His judgment, his wrath on all those who do not obey Him, who did not know Him. And this is what we've seen ever since the very beginning with Adam and Eve. It's consistent all throughout the story of the Bible, that God is just and he pours out His judgment. We see that in, in in history, God pouring out the plagues on Egypt, for example, disciplining Israel and Judah for their sin. We see this justice and judgment in the fact that everybody dies. And this is a result of our sin. It wasn't that way when God created Adam and Eve in the beginning. And finally, what Second Thessalonians one is talking about this eternal judgment, in the lake of fire, the second death, being away from God, forever under his wrath, that is the ultimate judgment that we all deserve. Because we've rebelled against God. And it's hard for us to grasp that because we know that our sin is that bad. But to the situation that we're in with God, being a holy God, the Creator, this is actually what our sin deserves. Yeah.
  
  Dan Jarms 12:50
  If you think it from the most fundamental standpoint, God is good, he made the world good. He made mankind good. In an under his authority, so that do not eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil was the statement. Don't go off on your own, so that you can develop your own system of how to live apart from me. Because only in me, do you have life. You want to live apart from me, you have death. And so it is a judgment in the day you will eat it, you'll die. It's a judgment. And it's the natural consequence for wanting to pull away from the one who is the author and source of life. Yeah, so we all die. It's true.
  
  Nathan Thiry 13:31
  It's like the person on the space shuttle who decides to just leave the space shuttle and go out and outer space without their spacesuit, they're gonna die, they're gonna die. So that's so mean. Why would that be that but you've left the source of life right? Now you rip a plant out and throw on the concrete, it's gonna die. It's gonna it's not the source of life, we reject God, the source of life, our Creator, yeah, then the natural consequence is
  
  Dan Jarms 13:51
  death. Yes. One common objection, Nathan is, is the idea of eternal conscious torment. You mean for a few earthly sins, you have eternal suffering? How do you answer that? That's a common question. When we think about judgment,
  
  Nathan Thiry 14:09
  the fact that God is an eternal, sovereign God, Creator and Ruler, we reject Him that is deserving of the ultimate punishment. And in a sense, we have to rather than interpreting God's judgment that he gives us by our own earthly human finite grid, we need to interpret what is true justice by God's grid. First of all, we know God is good and Justin wise and perfect. He doesn't sin, he doesn't do anything that's wrong. So if this is the judgment that God says, that everyone deserves for rejecting him, this must be what's right. And it just shows us that God is an eternal infinite being, yet for rejecting the eternal infinite being who's worthy of all love and allegiance and devotion and who is the source of life results in eternal conscious torment. It's it's the right way to understand reality and we just don't see it clearly through our humanity. We
  
  Dan Jarms 14:57
  do have some really natural examples in in various forms of life, if you're in the military, if you disobey a general, it's a greater crime than if you disobey a corporal. If your private and corporate tells you something, or Lieutenant sells you something, well, that gets one kind of punishment, if you disobey the general, that gets an entirely different kind of punishment. So we have that in our legal system, we understand those realities. And that's infinitely more true. Have a good and holy God. You know, the other thing that I think of is Love demands justice in some ways, because almost all of the ways we sin are against other people. So what kind of loving God lets someone hurt his child, without a consequence, what kind of loving God would let it continue without a consequence, right. And one of the one of the passages that's so gripping to me as I watch wars, or I watch countries act and unjust ways, if they don't have accountability, in Revelation, chapter five, it opens up in the throne room scene, where there's the scroll set out, and the scroll is the rest of the book of Revelation, the rest of human history, including the judgments, and nobody's able to open it. So there's this question to pose in heaven, who's able to open it and there's silence for half an hour and John weeps, because John knows that if nobody opens the scroll to eventually bring in judgment and bring in the kingdom, then evil will go on forever. What a horrible reality. So that's actually what I consider a touch point for talking about the gospel. We'll be talking about the latest news of a war in Ukraine or, or what's going on in Israel and say, it is grievous and tragic. But there's good news. God's going to bring an end to this. He's going to bring justice and so real criminals will be called to account they won't just be killed it to me, it's not enough to Hitler's just killed. Doesn't he have to stand to account for the millions of people that he killed? Right, so how is he going to do that without with just his own life? So okay, he will Hitler's the worst of the worst. But you know, how about some little old lady who just never went to church really is what she's gonna get? Well, she's wanted to live her life apart from God, and she'll get her wish. She's never turned to God and faith and repentance through Jesus Christ. She'll get her wish, and she'll live apart from God for eternity. Yeah. So anyway, those those are key key points. And
  
  Nathan Thiry 17:29
  that's a great connection point when people talk about how things aren't right? Like, oh, this kid just egg my car, or I don't like how the government does this or that, or the whatever thing people complain about. That's a great connection point to say, Yeah, I'm looking forward to the day when there's going to be complete and perfect justice. Yeah, every wrong will be made. Right. Everything will be dealt with in a perfectly just way, because God is going to deal out just perfect justice. Yeah. Yeah.
  
  Dan Jarms 17:53
  That's a great hope for the world. God, then
  
  Nathan Thiry 17:55
  I also looked put myself in the same situation you did, I deserve that, as well. And that's what leads us to the next point of Yeah. What has God done about that, so that anybody can be forgiven to be His child yet? So
  
  Dan Jarms 18:04
  talk to us about where Christ fits in then with this. Yeah.
  
  Nathan Thiry 18:08
  So we think about the the judgment that God will rightly pour out and all those who have rebelled against Him. But that's not the end of the story. Thankfully, God sent His Son Jesus so that millions of people billions, perhaps could become his sons and daughters through the life and death and resurrection of Jesus. So the next box, the fourth box, we want to talk about, is Christ life, his birth, his life and his death. And then we move to His resurrection, which we'll talk about the next time. But yeah, yeah, but really important truths. Here. We think about the birth of Christ coming fully God, becoming fully human, adding to his deity, humanity, not in any way, detracting or getting rid of his deity, but remaining truly God, becoming truly human. Through the virgin birth.
  
  Dan Jarms 18:51
  He's not Maui. No, he's not Hercules. He's not a demigod. Now, fully God, fully man, right? Yeah.
  
  Nathan Thiry 18:57
  And then he lives His perfect life. Nobody else has lived under God's rule with God is their king, perfectly representing who got us to the world, but Jesus, the Son of God, fully God, fully man, he perfectly obeys all the commands to love his neighbor to love God, he does the human life perfectly. And then, even though he's such a perfect person, and he perfectly loved those around him did all these miracles to prove that he's God, and that he was the Savior. He was killed, crucified on the cross. And we know that that wasn't just because somebody tricked him or was more powerful than him. That was his desire and God's plan so that we could be saved through His death.
  
  Dan Jarms 19:31
  Yeah, I love the line that God solves his own problem by coming in the second person of the Trinity in Jesus, to take our punishment. So God demands justice. And he took our justice for us himself. Yeah. In in Jesus Christ.
  
  Nathan Thiry 19:50
  That SendGrid means 521 He knew no sin, who never had said, became sin on our behalf, so that we could become the righteousness of God through Him like He gives us this amazing Have to have this exchange of taking our dirty rags of sin and giving us his perfect righteousness. Yes,
  
  Dan Jarms 20:05
  I think of First Peter 318 For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous that he might bring us to God, having been put together in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit. We're gonna get to the resurrection live, but next week, but but this is what Jesus came for. And it's that that glorious reality, yet, God has offered away through Jesus Christ and offered forgiveness.
  
  Nathan Thiry 20:31
  The great connection point is that why did Jesus die? Why did why did that happen? And it wasn't. It wasn't just to be an example, to show us what a loving person looks like. His death was actually to take our place. He was our substitute, right? And he took the wrath, the justice, the judgment we deserved. In our place, he took that so that we could be forgiven, so we can be purchased and made part of God's family. Yeah,
  
  Dan Jarms 20:54
  and we weren't all good. So we're not as bad as we could be. Nobody's as bad as they could be. But we're all evil or sinful enough to be rejected from God's eternal holy presence. So he came to deal with our sinfulness. The cross is so brutal, and the wrath of God poured on him is so hot and fierce, because our sin is so terrible. And he had to die in place of us. Or we would have to be paying for our own sin.
  
  Nathan Thiry 21:28
  And eternity. It's such a beautiful reality that God wants us to belong to him. But he couldn't just overlook our sin. Yes, yes, to deal with our sin, Riley Justice had to be done. And so he pours it out on himself, rather than on us so that we could become his sons and daughters, and that forever, he could show us the kindness that he has been showing to his own side for forever. So we get to be loved in the same way that the Father loves the Son. If we trust in Jesus, I mean, it's just amazing the reality of what Jesus has done in dying for us.
  
  Dan Jarms 21:54
  One of my go to verses for God shows His love for us, that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. So God and His Amazing love, although we were deserving of wrath, God sent Jesus and Jesus, the Righteous One, he bore the wrath that we deserved. That's incredible love, a worthy that we should respond to. Thank you, Nathan. This is just a joy to talk about the gospel. Next in next next time we are together, we're going to be looking at the last of two ways to live. If you have any questions or any thoughts about this, you can email us at info at FB church.org. We would love to field a few questions. For the last segment that we look at next time we're going to look at resurrection, faith and repentance, how to live God's new way. And that will be an exciting topic as well. Thanks for joining us.

Dan Jarms

Dr. Dan Jarms is teaching pastor and team leader at Faith Bible Church in Spokane Washington, as well as associate dean at The Master's Seminary in Spokane. He has been married for over 30 years to Linda, and has three adult children. He earned his B.A. in English at the Master’s College, B.Ed. at Eastern Washington University, M.Div and D.Min in Expository Preaching at The Master’s Seminary. His other interests include NCAA basketball, woodworking, and art.

View Resources by Dan Jarms

Nathan Thiry

Nathan Thiry is the Growth Groups & Outreach Pastor at Faith Bible Church. He enjoys biking and outdoor activities, and has a passion to see the gospel spread throughout our community and the whole world!

View Resources by Nathan Thiry