Sunday School – THE GOSPEL IN PEAS |SS20260712

The Gospel in Peas    

A Gospel presentation, based on five words that begin with the letter ‘P’ … Purpose, Problem, Provision, Potential and Promise.  

1.  Purpose … God’s Purpose  … Relationship     

• Man was made differently … to have a relationship with God
• Man was made in God’s image … so that man could have a relationship with God that was different from any other relationship  
  • Genesis 1:25
  • Genesis 1:26
•    
• God wanted to be our God … and He wanted us to be His people  
  • Jeremiah 32:38
  • Hebrews 8:10
  • Revelation 21:3
• Man was made to have a family-type relationship with God  
• Notice how Jesus taught His disciples how to address God when they prayed …   
  • Matthew 6:9  … Our Father …
  • Notice what Jesus said to Mary after His resurrection …
  • John 20:17  … My Father and your Father ….
• Man was made with the potential to live forever     
  • Genesis 3:22 ²² Then the Lord God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of Us, to know good and evil. And now, lest he put out his hand and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever”

2.  Problem … Man’s Problem … Separation     

• Isaiah 59:1-3  
• Man’s sins and iniquities separated Man from God … ever since the first sin was committed by Adam …
• Genesis 3:22-26
• Because of sin, Adam was driven from the Garden of Eden.
• Genesis 3:23-26
• The first sin caused the initial separation … and that initial separation may have been caused by sin (unbelief and disobedience), BUT that initial separation is what caused subsequent sins.
• QQQ … from sermon notes by Home Office …
  • It’s important, though, to frame sin as something far bigger than individual bad choices.  This does not deny personal sin.  Yes, our actions cause harm and have consequences.  But sin is a power that enslaves all humanity, not just a series of choices.  Individual sins are symptoms, not the root problem.   Humans are created to live in communion with the Father, through the Son, in the Spirit.   Sin is fundamentally a rupture of that communion.  
    • Sin is the distortion in our participation in the life of the triune God — a twisting of our true relationship with God and one another.  Sin even distorts our self-understanding. 
    • And it’s pervasive, meaning present everywhere and felt everywhere. 
    • It manifests both personally and systemically in ruptured and disturbed relationships, structures, and ways of being.  By “structures,” we mean the way society is organized — in institutions, cultural norms, economic arrangements, and social habits. 

    And this is why you will hear Christians and Paul refer to it as “powers.” 

    • These “powers” cannot be limited or reduced to isolated individual choices.  They include  embodied patterns of sinful human life that have gained momentum, structure, and influence. (Ephesians 6:12)
    • These “powers” include the ways sin becomes larger than any one person.   It takes shape in systems, cultures, and institutions. A nd these structures then influence how people think and act, holding people in bondage.  

    Sin has distorted and obscured how we see reality.  At every level, humanity’s shared life has become disordered by sin.  We are BOTH personally responsible AND we are also formed within corrupt systems that we did not choose and do not control.  

• So … what we can say is that sin caused the initial separation … but that separation is what has caused subsequent sins.  
• Ezekiel 18:4,20  
• Romans 3:23  
• Romans 6:23  
• Ephesians 2  

3.  Provision … God’s Provision … Jesus Christ   

• God provided a solution to Man’s problem by sending His Son, Jesus Christ …
• John 3:16 …   
• God sent His Son to solve Man’s problem … but Man’s problem had two causes:  SIN and DEATH.
  • SIN was the cause of the initial problem,
  • but DEATH was why Man could not solve his problem (See Romans 3:20 and Romans 8:7)
• Because Man’s PROBLEM had two causes … Jesus’ SOLUTION had to address the two causes
• He did so by His DEATH and His RESURRECTION
  • He defeated sin by His death
  • He defeated death by His resurrection

4.  Potential … Man’s Potential … Reconciliation     

• 2 Corinthians 5   
• ⁸ Now all things are of God, who has reconciled us to Himself through  Jesus Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation,  
• ¹⁹ that is, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation.  
• ²⁰ Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were pleading through us: we implore you on Christ’s behalf, be reconciled to God. 

5.  Promise … God’s Promise … Restoration      

• Revelation 3:20    
• Behold, I stand at the door and knock.  If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and dine with him, and he with Me.