Embracing How and Why God Saves Us – Pt.1
Most of our evangelistic messages focus on “How” someone can be saved. But the Gospel also tells us “Why” we’ve been saved. Understanding both is critical in making disciples of Jesus who make more disciples.
In this episode of the Everyday Disciple Podcast, I explain the “two lenses” of the Gospel: Power and Purpose. A failure to embrace and consistently proclaim both is what has led to such a discipleship deficit in the Church. Let’s change that.
In This Episode You’ll Learn:
- Why the Gospel is not just about believing a set of historical facts that gets us into heaven.
- How the lack of understanding both lenses of the Gospel has led to our decline in discipleship.
- A full, practical way to explain both the Power and the Purpose of the Gospel.
- The Plan Jesus gave the Church to accomplish the Purpose of the Gospel. (Powerful!)
From this episode:
“The work of the gospel is what sanctification is all about. Sanctification is not… not believing in the power of the gospel and then working hard to be better Christians. That was the problem with the Galatians. If we really believe in the power of the Gospel then we begin to submit every area of our life. A disciple of Jesus is a person that is walking in such a way that every area of their life is now being submitted to the gospel.”
Each week the Big 3 will give you immediate action steps to get you started.
Download today’s BIG 3 right now. Read and think over them again later. You might even want to share them with others…
Thanks for Listening!
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Links and Resources Mentioned in This Episode:
Everyday Disciple Makers Coaching Experience w/Caesar
Everyday Disciple: FREE Discipleship Resources and Training.
Missio Publishing – More Missional Books and Resources
Transcript
The gospel's gotta be central to everything we do.
Caesar Kalinowski:Every church, plant, everything.
Caesar Kalinowski:It's amazing how we can get off on other things, though we would give mental ascent to the Gospel is central.
Caesar Kalinowski:We spend a whole lot more time looking for a building space or trying to find that perfect children's lead, you know, lead worker or get our worship team together or get a freaking sound system.
Caesar Kalinowski:And it sounds like something from this century or you know, Right.
Caesar Kalinowski:We spend a lot of time working on stuff that's not that, but we really do believe Gospel is core to everything we do in our his church, that the Gospel of Jesus is not just a starting point.
Caesar Kalinowski:But it's the middle and it's the end.
Announcer:Welcome to the Everyday Disciple Podcast, where you'll learn how to live with greater intentionality and an integrated faith that naturally fits into every area of life.
Announcer:In other words, discipleship as a lifestyle.
Announcer:This is the stuff your parents, pastors and seminary professors probably forgot to tell you.
Announcer:And now here's your host, Caesar.
Announcer:Kalinowski.
Caesar Kalinowski:Wow, I can't even believe it.
Caesar Kalinowski:Here we are.
Caesar Kalinowski:We're back.
Caesar Kalinowski:We're back together again.
Caesar Kalinowski:And you know what?
Caesar Kalinowski:I really can't believe, I can't believe we're already well into July.
Caesar Kalinowski:Like, wasn't it just Christmas?
Caesar Kalinowski:I gotta get those Christmas lights down.
Caesar Kalinowski:No, actually it's, you know, depending on, uh, what order you're here in these episodes of the Everyday Disciple Podcast, uh, it was just, uh, 4th of July last weekend.
Caesar Kalinowski:Right.
Caesar Kalinowski:And I.
Caesar Kalinowski:Uh, I can't even believe it already.
Caesar Kalinowski:And I'm still kinda waiting for summer.
Caesar Kalinowski:It hasn't out here in, uh, Seattle land, we have not really gotten that sort of heat of summer.
Caesar Kalinowski:That makes us feel like we're really there.
Caesar Kalinowski:I mean, we've had some nice warm days, but yeah, and, and today it's kind overcast again and a little windy and it's, it all feels like a long, long spring, though.
Caesar Kalinowski:I can't, it's not been super rainy or anything.
Caesar Kalinowski:I don't know.
Caesar Kalinowski:Anyway.
Caesar Kalinowski:How about you?
Caesar Kalinowski:Did you have a good 4th of July?
Caesar Kalinowski:Did you see lots of evidences of grace and cool stuff going on?
Caesar Kalinowski:Uh, Tina and I did.
Caesar Kalinowski:We had, uh, man, so many different interactions, things going on all throughout the weekend with loads of People of Peace and family and friends of family and new friends of new family and all that kinda stuff.
Caesar Kalinowski:It was amazing.
Caesar Kalinowski:Uh, we got to do, uh, big old ice cream social here in our own neighborhood.
Caesar Kalinowski:All pre-wrapped things to be safe, right in everything.
Caesar Kalinowski:But man, oh man, people and kids came out for that.
Caesar Kalinowski:And we did that right before the most amazing firework show.
Caesar Kalinowski:I think that's ever happened.
Caesar Kalinowski:Well for certainly our neighborhood, but man, this is like city level hugeness.
Caesar Kalinowski:I probably mentioned this in the past, but, and you know what else I got to do, uh, kind of over the weekend is I got to have, uh, lunch with my brother Heath.
Caesar Kalinowski:So Heath says hi.
Caesar Kalinowski:He's missing everybody on the podcast, but he's doing well and, uh, moving forward with all kinds of cool projects and new things.
Caesar Kalinowski:So stay tuned on all that.
Caesar Kalinowski:But, uh, glad to be back with you.
Caesar Kalinowski:Um, got a special kind of episode for you coming up here, part one and part two actually.
Caesar Kalinowski:But before I get into that, And explain what you're going to hear.
Caesar Kalinowski:I wanted to just again, invite you to, uh, join the party over on Facebook, in our Facebook group.
Caesar Kalinowski:If you go to everyday Disciple dot com slash facebook or just go to Facebook and search everyday Disciple, you'll find our group and join up and like join the conversation, bring questions.
Caesar Kalinowski:It's sort of my easiest way.
Caesar Kalinowski:To stay in touch with everybody, but it's also a lot of great dialogue going on as a community, people learning forward together and lots of good ideas and all that.
Caesar Kalinowski:The other thing I wanna ask you to do, if you've not subscribed to the show yet, to the podcast, would you do that for me?
Caesar Kalinowski:Would you just take a second and actually subscribe?
Caesar Kalinowski:That way you don't miss episodes and if you're, you know, listening on, Uh, iTunes or Apple Podcasts or whatever they're calling it these days, uh, would you do me a favor?
Caesar Kalinowski:And also it'll probably take you a whole 30 seconds.
Caesar Kalinowski:Would you just do that like right now, uh, and go there, subscribe and leave a review.
Caesar Kalinowski:We haven't been getting a whole lot of reviews lately.
Caesar Kalinowski:I like to read those when those come in.
Caesar Kalinowski:And I know there's a whole lot of platforms going on, so that might be the case.
Caesar Kalinowski:But if, if you are like half the world at least listening on an Apple device, would you go right now and do me that favor and sort of pay it forward, but back to me and leave me a review and some stars and all that?
Caesar Kalinowski:I'd appreciate it and there's a good chance that I will read, uh, your review off.
Caesar Kalinowski:Okay.
Caesar Kalinowski:On the air, and that'll be an awesome thing.
Caesar Kalinowski:Okay, so today I'm kind of, it's almost like a new tradition getting started here, uh, two summers ago, um, because we were kind of busy and it's summer and it's hot and we're doing stuff with friends.
Caesar Kalinowski:Um, I dropped an episode.
Caesar Kalinowski:Uh, of, of the podcast back when it was called Life School, uh, of, of a teaching that I had given almost a sermon, if you will, but like a teaching I had given, uh, at a conference.
Caesar Kalinowski:Uh, and, um, and it was really popular and it went over really well.
Caesar Kalinowski:And I thought, wow, that was kind of an easy week for us.
Caesar Kalinowski:But I was surprised it, you all loved it.
Caesar Kalinowski:And so then last summer we did a two-parter.
Caesar Kalinowski:Something very similar where it was something I had spoken live and, uh, that was also very popular.
Caesar Kalinowski:So I thought, you know what, here we are mid-July.
Caesar Kalinowski:I got a lot of stuff going on.
Caesar Kalinowski:Um, that's almost like a tradition.
Caesar Kalinowski:Let me, let me see what's, you know, what would be wonderful and good and good for you.
Caesar Kalinowski:And so I'm gonna share with you today, part one, and then next week, part two of a message.
Caesar Kalinowski:Um, really that is so foundational.
Caesar Kalinowski:To making disciples and rightly motivating people.
Caesar Kalinowski:Um, and if you've ever wondered why like so many Christians seem to have such apathy around discipleship or making disciples, or even just, you know, being outward focused with others, uh, this.
Caesar Kalinowski:Today and, and especially next week's message, are really going to help you understand that and help you to change their motivations with the Gospel.
Caesar Kalinowski:We're gonna be looking at, uh, how, how God saves us today, the power of the Gospel.
Caesar Kalinowski:There's two different lenses, the power of the Gospel we're gonna look at today.
Caesar Kalinowski:And then we're gonna look at, well, why does God save us?
Caesar Kalinowski:Is there, is there a purpose of the Gospel?
Caesar Kalinowski:And there's actually two different lenses we have to look through.
Caesar Kalinowski:To really see the fullness of the Gospel, kind of like a, a 3D movie, right?
Caesar Kalinowski:You need both lenses.
Caesar Kalinowski:Anyway, I don't want to kind of give away too much of where I'm going, but I think you are gonna really enjoy this and it's definitely something like this is all one message, but it's a little long for an episode of the Everyday Disciple Podcast.
Caesar Kalinowski:So I go ahead and split it into two, but, uh, listen to this.
Caesar Kalinowski:Um, and I will be back, uh, at, after, after a little piece of the live here, and I'll give you a few thoughts and I'll give you the big three for the day.
Caesar Kalinowski:As we started journeying down this road, and like I said, making a lot of mistakes a, a few years back, the spirit of God, I believe, led us to ask ourselves as leaders.
Caesar Kalinowski:One day.
Caesar Kalinowski:I remember sitting around the living room as, as a bunch of leaders, and we said, um, Hey, what is the Gospel?
Caesar Kalinowski:Like?
Caesar Kalinowski:Let's, are we all on the same page with this?
Caesar Kalinowski:Like, would we even articulate the Gospel.
Caesar Kalinowski:Just like the, there was maybe six of us on the lead leadership team at that point.
Caesar Kalinowski:Would we, even the six of us give the same answer if someone was to ask us, Hey, like, what's the Gospel?
Caesar Kalinowski:And um, and what prompted that was just about a month prior to that meeting.
Caesar Kalinowski:Jeff and I had been doing some teaching on Missional communities and Gospel life and all that in, uh, Eastern Europe.
Caesar Kalinowski:And we were in Romania at the time and we asked a group of pastors, not this many, but there was probably 50 pastors in a room, and we asked that same question.
Caesar Kalinowski:We said, what's the Gospel?
Caesar Kalinowski:I mean, what's the Gospel that Jesus Christ claimed proclaiming?
Caesar Kalinowski:He gave his life for that.
Caesar Kalinowski:I'm guessing you're all given your life for, and they had come much like you in teams.
Caesar Kalinowski:Twos, threes, fives.
Caesar Kalinowski:And I said, here, I'll tell you what, I'll give you two minutes.
Caesar Kalinowski:It shouldn't take longer than that cuz you've given your whole life to it.
Caesar Kalinowski:You guys just powwow, come up with your like, what is the Gospel?
Caesar Kalinowski:And then we'll all report back.
Caesar Kalinowski:It should be the same thing.
Caesar Kalinowski:Well, we did that and we went around the room and each team reported back what the Gospel was and this was crazy.
Caesar Kalinowski:I swear to God, none of them said the same thing.
Caesar Kalinowski:Not one of their descriptions mentioned.
Caesar Kalinowski:Jesus.
Caesar Kalinowski:Or sin or a cross or rescue or any of this.
Caesar Kalinowski:It was crazy.
Caesar Kalinowski:The answers they gave, and it's not just because they were in Eastern Europe or something.
Caesar Kalinowski:I mean, these guys were, they were pastors, they were trained.
Caesar Kalinowski:They, they had been through seminary and, and so we came home and we started asking ourself this same question.
Caesar Kalinowski:What is the Gospel?
Caesar Kalinowski:And then is it, is it a list of facts or is it happening?
Caesar Kalinowski:Is the Gospel still happening or is it a list of facts that add up to some really good news about something that happened and then we'll leave it at that and get busy, get back to the business of church, being the church, doing church stuff.
Caesar Kalinowski:And so I, I, I don't, I don't assume that you don't all know the Gospel.
Caesar Kalinowski:Our network is formed and built around only a few small things, and Gospel Centrality by God's grace is one of them and has really grown in this network in the last five years.
Caesar Kalinowski:And I'm super thankful for that.
Caesar Kalinowski:So I don't assume that you don't know the Gospel, but, but, but what I do wanna share in this first session is what we've realized is that unless we give people clear definitions and handles, they won't really get it.
Caesar Kalinowski:And they won't be able to reproduce it.
Caesar Kalinowski:I e make disciples who make disciples now in its shortest form.
Caesar Kalinowski:We've borrowed this from Keller.
Caesar Kalinowski:We would say the Gospel is that God himself has come to rescue and renew creation in it through the work of Jesus Christ on our behalf.
Caesar Kalinowski:Super clean.
Caesar Kalinowski:Really love that.
Caesar Kalinowski:There's a lot of 'em out there.
Caesar Kalinowski:Ed Stetzer has got a list of those.
Caesar Kalinowski:I'll say it again.
Caesar Kalinowski:The Gospel is that God himself has come to rescue and renew creation in and through the work of Jesus Christ on our behalf.
Caesar Kalinowski:Ultimately it's all about Jesus.
Caesar Kalinowski:But we learned, uh, we learned, like I said, we learned early on that your average person sitting in church in America does not articulate well to themselves first to their family, to the, their community, to the, to the lost amongst them in the city.
Caesar Kalinowski:They don't really, they don't really know how to articulate the Gospel.
Caesar Kalinowski:See here, here's what we ultimately do and, and there's been a big wave of trying to hip up our language and have cooler translations and all that, and I'm thankful for it.
Caesar Kalinowski:But often we still preach the Gospel as a tag at the end of a message instead of the whole thing.
Caesar Kalinowski:And we often still preach and teach in ways that are not reproducible by our people.
Caesar Kalinowski:They're not.
Caesar Kalinowski:A friend of mine used to do this.
Caesar Kalinowski:He used to say, like, to a room of pastors, I should just try this right now, but I'll, I'll save us the pain.
Caesar Kalinowski:How many of you were in the pulpit, say three weeks ago?
Caesar Kalinowski:And in this particular illustration, he said like there was about a hundred pastors and it was September, so everybody was back home and all hundred pastors are in the pulpit.
Caesar Kalinowski:How many of you could just fill in from your own sermon three weeks ago just to fill in the blanks from the outline sheet?
Caesar Kalinowski:You know, not the whole thing, but just to fill in the blank parts.
Caesar Kalinowski:I mean, it was your sermon.
Caesar Kalinowski:You prepped the heck outta that sucker.
Caesar Kalinowski:10, 20, some of you more, uh, 30 hours.
Caesar Kalinowski:You preached it from your heels, you preached your guts out maybe multiple times.
Caesar Kalinowski:And, and maybe four or five hands out of a hundred would go up where they could fill in the blanks of their own sermon.
Caesar Kalinowski:Well, how, how much better do you think your people are gonna do then?
Caesar Kalinowski:They didn't write it, they didn't preach it and see, and we educate our people with lots of big doctrinal words and lots of big theological words and understanding and concepts, and over time they get it.
Caesar Kalinowski:It's very disconnected from everyday life.
Caesar Kalinowski:But they do get it.
Caesar Kalinowski:But they intrinsically know that they couldn't really talk about it in that language to their neighbor or to the guy at work, the water cooler.
Caesar Kalinowski:And so they don't try.
Caesar Kalinowski:They don't try, in other words, they go like, Hey, I've been sitting in a pulpit for 10 years, you know, pulpit teaching, or for 30 years I've been going to this church with this rocking preacher.
Caesar Kalinowski:Seriously.
Caesar Kalinowski:And he really is.
Caesar Kalinowski:And let's just say I've un, I've come to understand how to speak, you know, French, but all my neighbors speak Spanish.
Caesar Kalinowski:And so I don't really know how to translate that stuff.
Caesar Kalinowski:I understand into Spanish for them.
Caesar Kalinowski:So I just don't.
Caesar Kalinowski:And it actually makes it kind of hard to apply to the everyday.
Caesar Kalinowski:That's kind of what's happening.
Caesar Kalinowski:And so if we don't work really hard at giving our people handles to the Gospel, if, if what we preach stops at the hearer and and can't go beyond us, then we're kind of fooling ourselves Because the, the command, the, the commission, the only mission that the Missional church, the church capital C period's ever been given is to go and make disciples.
Caesar Kalinowski:And if our people can't reproduce our teaching, our equipping, they can't reproduce the Gospel.
Caesar Kalinowski:We're fooling ourselves.
Caesar Kalinowski:So we've gotta give people handles.
Caesar Kalinowski:That's what I wanna share with you in this first session, is just some of the handles, some of the ways we've begun to articulate the Gospel.
Caesar Kalinowski:In ways that we've found very helpful and people are able to reproduce and remember and apply it to their hearts.
Caesar Kalinowski:Okay, so maybe this is new, maybe this is not okay.
Caesar Kalinowski:Now what I wanna suggest is right away that there's, there's two Gospel lenses that we need to look at to get a full Gospel.
Caesar Kalinowski:There's sort of two perspectives of the Gospel that we need to bring into some cool tension today that's gonna give us a bigger picture and provide some of those handles.
Caesar Kalinowski:F for, for ourselves and for others to do.
Caesar Kalinowski:The first one is let's, let's look at the Gospel, sort of cross grain or topically.
Caesar Kalinowski:Okay.
Caesar Kalinowski:Topically.
Caesar Kalinowski:We can go to this first, you can pull this up.
Caesar Kalinowski:Go to the next slide.
Caesar Kalinowski:Here.
Caesar Kalinowski:We got some more of that.
Caesar Kalinowski:Yeah.
Caesar Kalinowski:There we go.
Caesar Kalinowski:We can look at it sort of like thematically.
Caesar Kalinowski:Okay.
Caesar Kalinowski:And here we, we come to the power of the Gospel.
Caesar Kalinowski:This is nothing new to us.
Caesar Kalinowski:We, we understand the means of salvation.
Caesar Kalinowski:God.
Caesar Kalinowski:Okay.
Caesar Kalinowski:He's eternal, all powerful.
Caesar Kalinowski:The creator of everything.
Caesar Kalinowski:No problem there.
Caesar Kalinowski:Sin.
Caesar Kalinowski:All of sin.
Caesar Kalinowski:The penalty of sin is death.
Caesar Kalinowski:Okay?
Caesar Kalinowski:And God, you know, all humanity has chosen sin and self rule over submission in relationship to God.
Caesar Kalinowski:Okay?
Caesar Kalinowski:Then Jesus, he died as a substitute for the penalty of all of humanity's sins, and then it's by faith.
Caesar Kalinowski:In what Jesus did, not by any effort of our own, then we receive that forgiveness and, and that, that restoration, right?
Caesar Kalinowski:That that's the power of the Gospel right there.
Caesar Kalinowski:And in this case, the good news is that God is completely aware of our sin problem, okay?
Caesar Kalinowski:He's completely aware of our sin problem and in and through the work of Jesus, he accepts us and he changes us by the power of the spirit.
Caesar Kalinowski:That's the power of the Gospel.
Caesar Kalinowski:Paul said it, the sway in Romans one, right 16 for I'm not ashamed of the Gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes.
Caesar Kalinowski:So there's faith again to to Jew first, also to the Greek.
Caesar Kalinowski:For it is the righteousness of God revealed from faith.
Caesar Kalinowski:For faith as it is written, the righteous shall live by faith, the power of God for salvation.
Caesar Kalinowski:Okay.
Caesar Kalinowski:So when we, by faith repent, right?
Caesar Kalinowski:We, we sort of bring our minds into alignment with God.
Caesar Kalinowski:We, we finally get to the point of believing God, in fact is God, I'm not God.
Caesar Kalinowski:I'm, I will not be the one who now decides right and wrong, good and evil.
Caesar Kalinowski:I will not manage the knowledge of good and evil for myself.
Caesar Kalinowski:God, you were the one created to do that.
Caesar Kalinowski:When we repent, when we come into alignment with that right, then we, we.
Caesar Kalinowski:Believe that what's happened on the cross is true.
Caesar Kalinowski:We, we receive this forgiveness, we receive this, okay?
Caesar Kalinowski:Justif justification by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone.
Caesar Kalinowski:Now, none of this sounds new to us.
Caesar Kalinowski:This, this, the power of the Gospel.
Caesar Kalinowski:We have presented it this way or some variation of this many, many times in our lives.
Caesar Kalinowski:This is not new.
Caesar Kalinowski:We've handed this out on countless street corners and crumpled up green little booklets and tell people this is the most important thing in the world.
Caesar Kalinowski:That's why I'm giving you it in a little crumpled up green booklet.
Caesar Kalinowski:So here it is.
Caesar Kalinowski:That is truly the power of God to set us free.
Caesar Kalinowski:But do you believe, okay, do you men and women, brothers here, do you really believe that in your own heart?
Caesar Kalinowski:Do you believe you were saved by God's work and not your own?
Caesar Kalinowski:Our lives often betray a different story.
Caesar Kalinowski:Do you still believe you have to do more to be saved from God's wrath than loved as God's child?
Caesar Kalinowski:Let me take it down a little further.
Caesar Kalinowski:Do you work hard at religious activity to be accepted and feel loved by God?
Caesar Kalinowski:Do you work tirelessly at your job in order to gain significance or sort of.
Caesar Kalinowski:Security in that job and, and for many of you, most of us that's within a church, do you work tire tirelessly at that?
Caesar Kalinowski:Is your life consumed with church work and secretly you're earning something?
Caesar Kalinowski:What happens when you disobey God?
Caesar Kalinowski:Like we all sin?
Caesar Kalinowski:What happens when you, when you sin?
Caesar Kalinowski:Do you live with guilt and shame?
Caesar Kalinowski:Do you beat yourself up sort of endlessly over that?
Caesar Kalinowski:I can't believe I did that.
Caesar Kalinowski:Like I can't believe I'm such a sinner in need of grace.
Caesar Kalinowski:Or do you quickly go to the cross and receive again the power of the Gospel and receive that grace?
Caesar Kalinowski:How's your yoke these days?
Caesar Kalinowski:Doing, man.
Caesar Kalinowski:See we, we, we, we believe this is the power of the Gospel to set us free, but many of us are walking around and came in here today with some super freaking heavy yolks.
Caesar Kalinowski:I was just at the Exponential conference teaching last week and like session after session people as they asked questions and we talked about it, people were carrying huge ginormous yolks.
Caesar Kalinowski:Trying to plant churches, trying to get growth, trying to get their people on mission, trying to get their family, their wives on mission, to get themselves on mission.
Caesar Kalinowski:They had these giant yolks.
Caesar Kalinowski:If your yoke is heavy and it's killing you, it's not.
Caesar Kalinowski:It's not Jesus' yoke.
Caesar Kalinowski:Jesus says His yoke is easy.
Caesar Kalinowski:It's light cuz he's carrying it, he's gonna carry it.
Caesar Kalinowski:Do you believe the power of the Gospel.
Caesar Kalinowski:Do you believe your child is forgiven?
Caesar Kalinowski:That you're justified by Jesus' work?
Caesar Kalinowski:Do you really?
Caesar Kalinowski:Okay, but here, see, the good news is even better than that.
Caesar Kalinowski:The good news of the power of the Gospel to save is even better than that.
Caesar Kalinowski:See, we can go to the next slide.
Caesar Kalinowski:The truth is, and this is how we like to help people understand the Gospel is, is in all things we, we have been saved from the penalty of sin.
Caesar Kalinowski:That's, that's justification.
Caesar Kalinowski:Okay.
Caesar Kalinowski:And that's where we usually, at least the way I was raised and preached for years, that's primarily where we focus our Gospel power message on in words when we say, Hey, you know what?
Caesar Kalinowski:Good news so-and-so got saved this weekend.
Caesar Kalinowski:What do you mean by that?
Caesar Kalinowski:Well, they, they put their trust in Christ for the first time this weekend, which part of their life?
Caesar Kalinowski:Like every part of their life.
Caesar Kalinowski:Instantly.
Caesar Kalinowski:I wish that would happen to me.
Caesar Kalinowski:I got, I got countless areas of crap and muck that I still, I'm trying to hold on and be God over justification.
Caesar Kalinowski:See, we have been, when we put our faith in Christ alone, we have been saved from the penalty of sin.
Caesar Kalinowski:But here's where it gets better.
Caesar Kalinowski:We're being saved from the power of sin, right?
Caesar Kalinowski:We're being saved from the power sin.
Caesar Kalinowski:That's sanctification.
Caesar Kalinowski:How you doing it?
Caesar Kalinowski:Your view of sexuality?
Caesar Kalinowski:and purity.
Caesar Kalinowski:Is it being saved by the Gospel?
Caesar Kalinowski:How you doing at giving finances?
Caesar Kalinowski:Child rearing, career, advancement, work, inner peace.
Caesar Kalinowski:Ability to accept.
Caesar Kalinowski:How's are you being saved by the Gospel?
Caesar Kalinowski:See this work, this work of the Gospel.
Caesar Kalinowski:This is what sanctification is all about.
Caesar Kalinowski:Sanctification is not, not believing in the power of the Gospel and then working to be better Christians.
Caesar Kalinowski:That was the Galatian problem.
Caesar Kalinowski:If we really believe in the power of the Gospel, then we begin to submit every area of our life.
Caesar Kalinowski:That's what a Disciple is, a person that is walking in such a way that every area of their life is now being submitted to the Gospel.
Caesar Kalinowski:In fact, you're intentionally walking so that you have to.
Caesar Kalinowski:I can't hide anymore.
Caesar Kalinowski:I'm living in a community that won't let me get away with it in this, that, or the other area anymore.
Caesar Kalinowski:It's all being brought under the Gospel.
Caesar Kalinowski:Sanctification is discipleship.
Caesar Kalinowski:Sanctification is not just working it out, not just working harder.
Caesar Kalinowski:It's the renewing of the mind.
Caesar Kalinowski:It's the renewing of our hearts.
Caesar Kalinowski:It's, it's the Gospel being worked out.
Caesar Kalinowski:And okay.
Caesar Kalinowski:And we will be saved From the presence of sin, we will be saved from the presence of sin.
Caesar Kalinowski:Our justification by Christ leads to our sanctification by the spirit that's glorification.
Caesar Kalinowski:When that happens, we look like Christ.
Caesar Kalinowski:That's glorification.
Caesar Kalinowski:When we start to glorify, to manifest the hidden value of reality of who God is, that's glorification.
Caesar Kalinowski:So this is why the power of the Gospel is even bigger than just four spiritual flaws, or, or, or even just our thematical presentation of it.
Caesar Kalinowski:It is huge.
Caesar Kalinowski:We've been saved.
Caesar Kalinowski:We're being saved and will be saved.
Caesar Kalinowski:It is really good news.
Caesar Kalinowski:Are we preaching it that way?
Caesar Kalinowski:Are we preaching it that way?
Caesar Kalinowski:Are we giving people a big understanding of the whole story and how God's redemptive work has always been at work in Christ and still is today, so people see their lives caught up into this amazing and ongoing trajectory of the Gospel, or do we preach it in such a way to get a decision?
Caesar Kalinowski:I don't know why I can't find that in scripture or get 'em to say a Jesus in my heart prayer.
Caesar Kalinowski:Can't find that in the book.
Caesar Kalinowski:And, and, and primarily their Gospel was about their justification, their sin problem in the past.
Caesar Kalinowski:And then we tell 'em, but everything else has been forgiven, so don't worry about it.
Caesar Kalinowski:Now, go work hard and we call people then up to their highest level of Christian service would be to.
Caesar Kalinowski:ush to be an usher or a freaking greeter or something.
Caesar Kalinowski:Okay?
Caesar Kalinowski:And this starts to lead us.
Caesar Kalinowski:This starts to lead us some of the next stuff.
Caesar Kalinowski:See, God in Christ has given us both this amazing message, this amazing good news, okay?
Caesar Kalinowski:The of message of reconciliation, the Gospel power.
Caesar Kalinowski:But he's also given us the ministry of reconciliation.
Caesar Kalinowski:A Gospel purpose.
Caesar Kalinowski:See, we have this amazing Gospel power.
Caesar Kalinowski:This is the other lens.
Caesar Kalinowski:We've gotta help our people see Gospel purpose.
Caesar Kalinowski:The Gospel has a purpose for our lives.
Caesar Kalinowski:It just doesn't save us and leave us there.
Caesar Kalinowski:Two Corinthians five, 17 and 19.
Caesar Kalinowski:Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he's a new creation and he has committed to us this message of reconciliation.
Caesar Kalinowski:Ephesians two 10 then says, for we are God's workmanship created in Christ to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do, do our folks know that they have good works prepared in advance for them to do?
Caesar Kalinowski:That's what the Gospel purpose is.
Caesar Kalinowski:And that good works probably is not ushering or handing out flyers at the door or just working in children's ministry or doing everything in our box.
Caesar Kalinowski:Do they realize their purpose is so much bigger than that?
Caesar Kalinowski:Alright.
Caesar Kalinowski:That is some super foundational stuff right there.
Caesar Kalinowski:It really, really is.
Caesar Kalinowski:And that might even be something you have to think back over a little bit.
Caesar Kalinowski:Um, are you, how often are you proclaiming the Gospel?
Caesar Kalinowski:Are you fully believing the Gospel?
Caesar Kalinowski:Hey, as always, I, I wanna, uh, I wanna leave you with some big takeaways.
Caesar Kalinowski:We call it the big three, right from today's topic.
Caesar Kalinowski:And if nothing else, you don't wanna miss these things kind of boiling down some big.
Caesar Kalinowski:Sort of head, heart, hands aspects of this.
Caesar Kalinowski:And as always, you can get it as a printable PDF as well, what, what I'm about to say.
Caesar Kalinowski:And you can download that by going to everyday Disciple dot com big three.
Caesar Kalinowski:There'll be part two of this as well, a second big three next week.
Caesar Kalinowski:But let me, let me just leave you with these big three things.
Caesar Kalinowski:First is the power of the Gospel is what sets us free from sin and secures our relationship with God.
Caesar Kalinowski:The power of the Gospel, and it's through faith alone in Christ's completed work that were set free from the penalty of sin and increasingly released from the power of sin in our life and one day removed completely from the presence of all sin and destruction.
Caesar Kalinowski:That is really good news, and we need to hear that and people need to hear that.
Caesar Kalinowski:We need to proclaim that really, really often.
Caesar Kalinowski:The second, when by faith we repent.
Caesar Kalinowski:Don't miss this from today's message.
Caesar Kalinowski:When we repent, in other words, our mind is really made up about who God really is and that he's really God in my life.
Caesar Kalinowski:And we believe, which means we accept that what God has said and done is true and sufficient.
Caesar Kalinowski:Then we have the forgiveness of our sins, justification by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone.
Caesar Kalinowski:Did you catch?
Caesar Kalinowski:Did you catch that justification By grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone.
Caesar Kalinowski:And then we have a new life by and in the Spirit.
Caesar Kalinowski:See, we were spiritually dead, but now we're alive in Christ by his spirit.
Caesar Kalinowski:Don't miss that.
Caesar Kalinowski:That's big.
Caesar Kalinowski:I know.
Caesar Kalinowski:These are heavy things today on, on the podcast.
Caesar Kalinowski:Okay, and then third.
Caesar Kalinowski:This is sort of where kind of the rubber starts to meet the road, uh, to see where you might still be suffering from unbelief in regards to the fullness of the Gospel and Christ's completed work.
Caesar Kalinowski:You know, in your own life, ask yourself these diagnostic questions.
Caesar Kalinowski:Do you still believe you have to do more to be saved from God's wrath and loved as God's child?
Caesar Kalinowski:Is there anything lurking back there where you feel like there's some cleaning up you need to do in your life or whatever?
Caesar Kalinowski:Well, if so, then you, you're not fully believing in the power of the Gospel and Christ completed work alone.
Caesar Kalinowski:Here's another diagnostic question.
Caesar Kalinowski:When you work hard at religious activities, do you feel a little more loved and accepted by God than if you didn't?
Caesar Kalinowski:Be honest.
Caesar Kalinowski:You feel like God's a little more happy with you when you work hard at religious stuff and at maybe your job at church or whatever.
Caesar Kalinowski:Well, then there might be some Gospel and belief still lurking around in there.
Caesar Kalinowski:Here's another question.
Caesar Kalinowski:Do you work tirelessly at your job in order to gain significance and sort of status and then provide security for yourself and your family?
Caesar Kalinowski:If that's how you feel, then there's still some unbelief about the completed work of Christ.
Caesar Kalinowski:And then how about this one?
Caesar Kalinowski:What happens when you disobey God?
Caesar Kalinowski:Do you live with guilt and shame for a while?
Caesar Kalinowski:Do you beat yourself up until you can get a little distance between you and that last sin, and then maybe double down on your quiet times and all that, and then you can feel a little closer to God?
Caesar Kalinowski:Or do you immediately go to the cross and receive the grace of the Gospel?
Caesar Kalinowski:These are some good questions to ask ourselves to see how much we are practically believing the Gospel and living it out.
Caesar Kalinowski:So if you're being honest here, you probably have a little bit of unbelief in the full power of the Gospel still lurking in your heart.
Caesar Kalinowski:I know I do.
Caesar Kalinowski:Some of these things still creep back in.
Caesar Kalinowski:Ask the spirit to reveal the truth so that you can increasingly live in light of this good news and power of the Gospel.
Caesar Kalinowski:All right.
Caesar Kalinowski:Well, that's enough for today.
Caesar Kalinowski:Again, uh, you wanna join me next week for part two, where we're gonna look at the purpose of the Gospel In words, words, why we've been saved.
Caesar Kalinowski:And this is the part of the message and the part of the understanding of just how big the Gospel is.
Caesar Kalinowski:That is often left off.
Caesar Kalinowski:In a lot of churches, in a lot of Gospel messages or explanations.
Caesar Kalinowski:Okay?
Caesar Kalinowski:The purpose of the Gospel and why we've been saved, you don't wanna miss that.
Caesar Kalinowski:You'll love it.
Caesar Kalinowski:And it's really important that you have this second lens in understanding the Gospel.
Caesar Kalinowski:If you wanna see disciples of Jesus making more disciples of Jesus.
Caesar Kalinowski:Alright, so we'll see you back here next week for that second part of the, the power and the purpose of the Gospel.
Caesar Kalinowski:In other words, how we're saved and why we're saved.
Caesar Kalinowski:All right, we'll see you later.
Caesar Kalinowski:Thanks for joining us today.
Caesar Kalinowski:For more information on this show and to get loads of free discipleship resources, visit everyday Disciple dot com and remember, you really can live with a spiritual freedom and relational peace that Jesus promised every day.