1. The Gospel Driven Life Being Good News People in a Bad News World

2. Tentative Schedule ChapterTitleWeekDate Looking Up, Looking Out: Breaking News 1The Front Page God: Checking Headlines117 August 2The Real Crisis224 August 3The Big Story331 August 4Getting the Story Straight47 September 5Don’t Just DO Something, SIT There! Finding yourself in the Story514 September 6The Promise-Driven Life621 September Looking Around, Looking Ahead: A Cross-Cultural Community 7News of War and Peace: God’s Politics for a New Creation728 September 8How the Good News Creates a Cross-Cultural Community85 October 9The Health Page: Feasting in a Fast-Food World912 October 10Today’s Headline: The Church in Exile1019 October What’s Best Next: How the Gospel Transforms the Way You get Things Done Part 1First Things First: Making God Supreme in Our Productivity1126 October Part 2Gospel-Driven Productivity122 November Parts 3-- 6DARE: Define, Architect, Reduce, Execute139 November

3. GETTING THE STORY STRAIGHT Chapter 4

4. Its not just the facts…. The disciples knew the facts… Did they know the plot? The real story?

5. On the Way to Jerusalem … From the beginning to the time of Christ Israel didn’t ‘get it’ The gospel was what GOD would do: “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.” (Genesis 3:15 ESV) Say therefore to the people of Israel, ‘I am the LORD, and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will deliver you from slavery to them, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great acts of judgment. I will take you to be my people, and I will be your God, and you shall know that I am the LORD your God, who has brought you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians. I will bring you into the land that I swore to give to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. I will give it to you for a possession. I am the LORD.’” (Exodus 6:6-8 ESV) BUT: They thought THEY could do it: “All this we will do.” (Ex 19:8)

6. On the Way to Jerusalem … When Christ came: – Jewish leaders didn’t ‘get it’ – when Jesus arrives, no one is waiting for him … even though they are preparing by heaping up rules to make way for Messiah – Even the disciples didn’t ‘get it’

7. What was the ‘gospel’ the Jewish leaders were looking for? Busying themselves with serious rules upon rules for getting Israel’s act together so that Messiah can appear They did not see what God said: “Behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, (Jeremiah 31:31 ESV) – A covenant based on God’s faithfulness alone

8. What was the ‘gospel’ the disciples were looking for? A kingdom of glory – not of the cross After Peter confessed that Jesus is the Christ: “And he [Christ] began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes and be killed, and after three days rise again. And he said this plainly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him.” (Mark 8:31-32 ESV) After clearly hearing of Christ’s impending death at the last supper: “A dispute also arose among them, as to which of them was to be regarded as the greatest.” (Luke 22:24 ESV)

9. Get the Story Right “Getting the story right is the key to understanding the Bible. It is the key to becoming Christians, disciples whose eyes have been opened by Christ, through his Spirit, to the marvelous riches of the mission that he has accomplished.”

10. “[The disciples]failed to realize that the most important part of following Jesus was realizing that they could not go everywhere that he was going; could not do everything that he alone could accomplish; and could not even understand why he had come, apart from the work of the Spirit opening their hearts to recognize Christ in all the Scriptures. The most important things that had to be done for the establishment of his kingdom Jesus had to do by himself.”

11. Close, But not Quite: Popular Misconceptions of the Gospel Jesus’ disciples became his apostles and got the story straight: Jesus is the sin-bearing substitute for sinners promised in the Law, the Prophets, and the Psalms: crucified and raised on the third day. – Peter’s message in Acts (2, 3 and 4) – Stephen’s sermon (Acts 7) – Paul’s first sermon (Acts 13) What is the gospel preached today?

12. 1.“A personal relationship with God” Everyone HAS a personal relationship with God: the COVENANT of Creation, the Creator- Creature relationship “The gospel does not offer the possibility of a relationship with God, but announces a different relationship based on Christ.”

13. 2. “Asking Jesus into your heart” A half-truth at best Salvation by asking Jesus into your heart typically assumes that the Good News is merely something that God offers, but the hearer is then commanded to do something – however small – in order to actually make this salvation effective. We are justified through faith – a faith that is a gift from God. This ‘formula’ is not in the Scriptures

14. 3. “Making Jesus your personal Lord and Savior” Gospel: the announcement of what is already accomplished: “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. … Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified.” (Acts 2:32-36 ESV) “Faith receives; it does not make.”

15. Others: The Four Spiritual Laws: 1.God loves you and offers a wonderful plan for your life. 2.Man is sinful and separated from God. Therefore, he cannot know and experience God's love and plan for his life. 3.Jesus Christ is God's only provision for man's sin. Through Him you can know and experience God's love and plan for your life. 4.4. We must individually receive Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord; then we can know and experience God's love and plan for our lives. We receive Christ by Personal Invitation - [Christ speaking] "Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if any one hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him" (Revelation 3:20).

16. The Story Behind the Story: The Plot’s Central Character “You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me, yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life.” (John 5:39-40 ESV) “And he said to them, “O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?” And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.” (Luke 24:25-27 ESV)

17. The prophecies about grace… “Concerning this salvation, the prophets who prophesied about the grace that was to be yours searched and inquired carefully, inquiring what person or time the Spirit of Christ in them was indicating when he predicted the sufferings of Christ and the subsequent glories. It was revealed to them that they were serving not themselves but you, in the things that have now been announced to you through those who preached the good news to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven, things into which angels long to look.” (1 Peter 1:10-12 ESV)

18. Drama, Doctrine, Doxology, Discipleship The drama interprets the doctrine; the doctrine interprets the drama – Rom 1:1-4, the drama; then the doctrine expounded The drama and doctrine lead to doxology The drama and doctrine with doxology lead to discipleship “Discipleship means being called away from our dead-end plots to become a part of his story; to be taught by him so that we find ourselves entrusting our lives to him in growing confidence.”

19. Acting Out In the gospel: we are relocated from being identified with Adam to our baptism and identification with Christ “The good news is not only about this reality; it is the means by which the Spirit creates the reality of which he speaks.” – The world’s drama: a “show about nothing.” – It belongs to an age that is passing away

20. The News Has Reached Us The good news is history, drama, a story – history – to which the disciples (and we) are witnesses “Witness” in Greek: martus => martyr In the great courtroom epic, we have been redeemed by Christ to be his witnesses to his conquest and the faithfulness of the Covenant Lord.