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Stay Inside the Gospel

Sunday, December 29, 2024
Pastor Jojo Ma

 

Milton Vincent, A Gospel Primer for Christians: “The gospel contains all that I need ‘for life and godliness’. It is for this reason that God tells me to be steadfastly entrenched in the gospel at all times and never to allow myself to be moved from there...I must stay inside the gospel at all times.”

1 Jn 3:1-2 See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are...Beloved, we are God’s children now.

John wants us to be defined by the gospel. This means he wants us to see ourselves as God’s children. He wants us to stay inside the gospel and not be defined by any other thing.

1 Jn 5:20 And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, so that we may know him who is true; and we are in him who is true, in his Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life.

1 Jn 5:21 Little children, keep yourselves from idols.

What is an idol? It's anything or anyone that captures your heart more than God.

Paul Tripp: “Sinners tend to move away from defining themselves in relationship to their Creator and begin defining themselves in relationship to the creation.”

How do you know if you’ve gone overboard with your desires? If you sin to get what you want or if you sin when you don’t get what you want.

Milton Vincent: “There is simply no other way to compete with the forebodings of my conscience, the condemnings of my heart, and the lies of the world and the devil than to overwhelm such things with daily rehearsings of the gospel.”

Idol of Control

Idol of Approval

Idol of Comfort

Idol of Work

Idol of Materialism

Idol of Success

Idol of Respect

Idol of Family/Kids 

5 questions to ask yourself and to help “[keep] yourselves from idols” (1 Jn 5:21):

1) Do you want what you want, or do you want Christ’s Lordship over your life?
2) What is "a happy life" to you and how would you describe it?
3) How do you define success or failure in a particular situation?
4) When you are stressed or uneasy, where do you turn/what do you turn to?
5) What do you pray for?