This morning, my family and I began a daily exercise routine together. We decided we were going to start on Fridays with 5 push-ups, 5 sit-ups and 5 squats. Next week (we’ll see how we’re doing), we’ll add 5 to each, and keep going as we’re able; it also served to make me realize how out of shape I am. Then, we had a talk about relationships with girls (I have all boys). The boys told me the purpose of dating was to find a woman who loves Jesus more than you, to make sure you’re seeking a Holy Relationship, etc. to which I responded “Be careful with the dating culture. It’s designed to keep you there, and to use people up.” We talked about seeking out godly women, but not for dating, but for marriage when the Lord allows. But in all of this, the center of everything was the Gospel.
Why do so many families split apart? Why do so many Christian ministries fail, churches and Bible Colleges close, and preachers and lay people alike fail? We stopped making the main thing the main thing. My family and I could focus on exercise and become physically fit, sure. I could raise good men who can make good husbands, sure. If that is all they are, though, they will eventually fail and fall in to ruin. Why? Because, like the previously mentioned organizations, we (hypothetically), focused on everything but the Gospel of Jesus Christ. All too often, families focus on finances and happiness, ministries and churches focus on programs and popularity, seminaries and Bible colleges focus on gaining students, and building Christian workers, and end up in debts in cash and deficits in producing Gospel preaching preachers. The main thing always has been and always will be the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Anything else is self-building.
And the Gospel is this: we are born rebels against our Creator. We are destined for destruction. But God, our designer and creator, had mercy on us, and saw fit to send His own Son into this creation to live as we were designed and take our rightly earned punishment on His innocent self. Jesus was tortured, brutalized and nailed to a tree, and He took the punishment for our sin (Rebellion) on Himself, bearing the wrath of God against our rebellion, and taking our sins into eternity. He died, was buried, and rose on the third day, nullifying the consequence of our sin, death, and showing us the hope and promise of eternal life in Him. To get in on this: follow Jesus and be born again. As Peter said on the day of Pentecost: “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself.” (Acts 2:28-39)
Acts 2:29-47
“Brothers, I may say to you with confidence about the patriarch David that he both died and was buried, and his tomb is with us to this day. Being therefore a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him that he would set one of his descendants on his throne, he foresaw and spoke about the resurrection of the Christ, that he was not abandoned to Hades, nor did his flesh see corruption. This Jesus God raised up, and of that we all are witnesses. Being therefore exalted at the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he has poured out this that you yourselves are seeing and hearing. For David did not ascend into the heavens, but he himself says,
“‘The Lord said to my Lord,
“Sit at my right hand,
until I make your enemies your footstool.”’
Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified.”
Now when they heard this they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?” And Peter said to them, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself.” And with many other words he bore witness and continued to exhort them, saying, “Save yourselves from this crooked generation.” So those who received his word were baptized, and there were added that day about three thousand souls.
And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. And awe came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles. And all who believed were together and had all things in common. And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need. And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved.
1 Corinthians 15:1-11
Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you—unless you believed in vain.
For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me. For I am the least of the apostles, unworthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me. Whether then it was I or they, so we preach and so you believed.
1 Peter 3:18-22
For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit, in which he went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison, because they formerly did not obey, when God’s patience waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through water. Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers having been subjected to him.
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