The Shape of the Gospel

Undaunted! That is what we call our series in the book of 2nd Corinthians. It is great to be here with you. Everybody joining us live, let me hear again from all of you. Great to be here with you. And everybody joining us via the live stream as well. My name is René. I'm another one of the pastors here at Twin Lakes Church. I want to encourage you to download the message notes at tlc.org/notes to help you follow along.

Now today, what we're going to do, I'm super stoked about this. We're going to wrap up 10 weeks that we've spent in this series in the book of 2nd Corinthians by looking back at the book to see what is the big idea in this part of Scripture. And I want to start with an observation. And this is an observation from my own life experience. Maybe you would agree it's from your life experience too. It's also my observation from observing other Christians around me. See if you agree with this. Here's the observation. Despite their best efforts, many Christians experience crippling anxiety, guilt, discouragement, and even alienation from one another.

Would you agree that that is true? Obviously, God doesn't want us to live a life like that. And yet that is the life that many Christians live. Now all these things are a part of any normal life. But I'm talking about when they become crippling, that's something that God does not want for us in our Christian life experience. What is wrong? What is holding these well-meaning, wonderful people who love Jesus, who believe in the Bible, who turn their lives over to Christ? What is holding them back spiritually, emotionally, psychologically?

Well let me explain what I think the Bible's answer to this is. But I'll use a 20th century, 21st century word. I think a lot of it has to do with this word paradigm. Now what is a paradigm? A paradigm basically is how you frame reality. It's how you choose to see the world. It's your mind's operating system. And your paradigm, your grid, the lens through which you see the world, affects so much in your life. Your paradigm affects your perception of reality and of your life experiences. It affects your thinking. It affects your sense of purpose. It affects your relationships. It affects your emotions and so much more.

But most importantly, you absolutely cannot change your life, not permanently, until you change your paradigm. Now some of you still may not understand what I'm talking about. Let me use the example of a stray dog. Let's say you see a cute little dog at the SPCA and it's been a stray and you decide you're going to adopt this dog. They tell you that while this dog was a rescue dog and it came from a home where the owner was very mean and mistreated and abused and kicked this poor little dog but we rescued it. Now it's looking for a new home. We just want you to know about that.

Now how many of you have ever adopted a dog from the SPCA at home? Raise your hands as well. Listen, you know that if it had that kind of a life experience, that dog's going to have a paradigm for how it sees human beings. And so every time you raise your hand, what is that dog going to do? It's going to cower, right? It's going to cringe like that because its paradigm for what happens when human beings raise their hand is what? They're going to get hit. That human being is about to have a temper tantrum.

And so what you want to do is you want to tell this little doggy, doggy you need to change the way your little mind thinks of human beings, thinks of me because when I lift my hand, guess what? It's one of two things. I'm either going to throw you a toy like a ball to fetch or I'm going to throw you a treat but I will never ever hit you. You need to change your paradigm the way you see me. So you can see the power of a paradigm. It affects your perceptions of reality. It affects your emotions and everything else. And the same is true of you and me. Even those who call ourselves Christians.

We come to our faith with underlying previous life experiences that have framed the way we see the world, the way we see ourselves. And we might get afraid or angry at the world or down on ourselves because we haven't yet changed our mindset. And the Bible talks so much about this especially the Apostle Paul, especially in the book of 2 Corinthians. There's a man named N. T. Wright. N. T. Wright taught New Testament at Cambridge and at Oxford. So a decently smart guy. And he did an amazing study of the book of 2 Corinthians and he talks about the big idea in the book.

A lot of people have trouble with what's the big idea in 2 Corinthians because it's such a personal autobiographical letter. It just sounds like Paul's just writing just straight from his heart, straight from his gut, straight from his emotions. But N. T. Wright points out there's a theme that runs throughout this letter. He says Paul's theme throughout this letter is the strange royal comfort that comes from the suffering, death, and new resurrection life of Jesus. Paul is determined to view all of his suffering and all of the troubles of the world through the lens of the gospel.

What's the gospel? The gospel, as Paul summarizes it, is about Jesus that he died for our sins, he was buried, and he was raised on the third day. Now it mattered vitally to Paul that these were real events that really took place, but it matters just as much. Watch this. That they become the lens through which the whole world can be seen in proper focus. The grid on which all reality and experience can be plotted. I call this message the shape of the gospel.

The gospel for Paul is simple. Jesus died for our sins and rose again to give us new life. But you could say, watch this now, you could say that the gospel has a shape like an inverted bell curve, right? Follow me here. Jesus came down from heaven, came down from glory, all the way into human form and even died on a cross to bring us new life for our sins. But then he was raised again to newness of life so that we could have newness of life too. That up, down, up shape, that is the shape of the gospel.

And Paul continually talks about the shape of the gospel in 2 Corinthians and all his writings, and he usually focuses in on this part, kind of the shape of the gospel that goes from cross to resurrection, from weakness to power. And so you could say the theme of 2 Corinthians is this, to be a Christian is to have a gospel-shaped life. A gospel-shaped paradigm.

Now some of you are still going, I'm still not grasping what it is that you're talking about, René. Let me explain specifically in 2 Corinthians. If you've been with us for these 10 weeks, you have seen this again and again and again. Paul talks about three things and this can completely change your life if you get this. This can change the way you endure hard times, the way that you deal with disappointment, the way that you encourage other people, including the people in your family, to be a Christian is to have your life shaped by the gospel in three ways.

First, it gives me a pattern for my life. And I'm going to spend most of my time on this first point, but in the case of the Apostle Paul spends most of his time on this point in 2 Corinthians. The shape of the gospel from death to life, from crucifixion to resurrection, this can become the pattern for the way you see your entire life experience. And under this point, there's three bullets. Paul specifically says for him, this changes the way that I see my troubles, my troubles.

Paul says things like this, kind of the key verse, "We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed. We are perplexed, but not in despair, persecuted, but not abandoned, struck down, but we are not destroyed." Why not? Because we always carry around in our body the death of Jesus so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus' sake so that his life may also be revealed in our mortal bodies.

What's he talking about? He's saying this is how I see my life. In the Christian life, he says, always, it's a pattern, we can always expect both death and resurrection. Sometimes literally, sometimes metaphorically, figuratively, we can expect both death and resurrection, both crosses and empty tombs. This is why Paul can say, yes, we are hard pressed. Our suffering is not an illusion. There are crosses, there is death, but we're not crushed. Why not? Because he expects both. He expects resurrection as well.

And this is so important for you and me as a paradigm. In my observation, most Christians expect only one or the other. And if you expect only one or the other, you get into trouble. If you expect only resurrections, only victories in life, one right after another, what's going to happen? You're going to be blown away by the bad times. You're going to say, how can this be? I was taught we're going to have only victory in life. Has God forgotten me? Does God hate me? Baby, God doesn't love me.

Now, it is true as we sang earlier tonight, my God will never fail. My God knows only how to triumph, but let me tell you, sometimes it sure looks like failure. Was the cross a failure or a triumph? It was a triumph. Did it look like failure to the disciples? Absolutely, positively, yes. You have to expect not only things that look like resurrection, but also things that look like death, crosses, terrible tragedy. But if you only expect crosses, disasters, what happens? You fall into pessimism about your future and into despair.

Our lives have both because Jesus's life had both. In life, there are crosses. That is just reality. God isn't mad at you. God's not punishing you. God hasn't abandoned you. That is just life. Even Jesus's life had a cross. Yet there is also resurrection. New life, new blessings, new beginnings. That is the shape of the gospel and that is the shape of the Christian life. And the shape of the gospel gives me a pattern for life that not only changes the way I see my troubles, but it changes the way I see my future.

Paul literally believes that after he dies, he will rise. He says we know that the same God who raised our Lord Jesus will also raise us with Jesus and present us to himself along with you. Now please don't miss the beauty of that last phrase, "along with you." He's saying not only are we going to be resurrected and we're going to have a resurrection body just as Jesus did and we're going to meet Jesus, but we're going to be together with you. This implies we're going to retain our identities. You will be you and your loved ones that you miss right now. They will be them and we will be reunited. That's the shape of the gospel.

You see, death to resurrection and newness of life gives us a paradigm for the way we see our future. You know, this past Wednesday, as Mark mentioned in announcements, was Veterans Day. And one of the things I find heartwarming every Veterans Day is that the networks often show videos of soldiers reunited with their families like this one from Thanksgiving last year. Watch this.

It's hard to throw Mackenzie Freeman off her game, laser focused until mid-play. She spots a face she hasn't seen in over half a year, jumping into her father's arms, the first of many hugs. It's been over seven months, so it's been a long time coming. Following the tour of duty in Afghanistan, Master Sergeant Jeremy Freeman is finally home. Just flew in about two hours ago. Still in full military uniform as he surprises his daughter. Minutes earlier, it was Lauren and Stanley's turn. His oldest child sprinted toward him, not letting the bleachers keep them apart any longer. Her brother not far behind. The kids weren't sure he'd be back by Thanksgiving. I love that. Don't you love that?

And by the way, Veterans, if you're watching and you're a Veteran, you are loved here at Twin Lake Church. You have a home here. Amen. Let's give it up for all the Veterans. Type "Amen" on the chat comments if you're watching from home. We are here to be your home, and if you need help, we want to help you in any way that we can. Just go to TLC.org/help. We can help you out, Veterans. This is your home.

But do you see that emotion of reunification? That is what Paul's anticipating and evoking here in this verse. Your loved ones in Christ, they will be raised along with you, and you'll be reunited together. You see, Paul's not denying the pain of loss. He's just saying, "Hey, we all know what followed Good Friday." Good Friday was terrible, but Easter morning was amazing, and he sees his future in that shape, right? Through that paradigm.

And then when I see life with a gospel-shaped pattern, this changes the way that I see others because I see other people in a hopeful way. Paul says in chapter 5, verse 16, "Therefore we see no one from," watch this now, he's talking about a paradigm, "from a worldly point of view," a worldly framework, "those who become Christians become new persons. They're not the same anymore. For the old life is gone, a new life has begun, and all this newness of life is from God who brought us back to himself through what Christ did." What a great verse.

In other words, resurrection is in one way already happening as people die to their old life and are raised into a new way of living. And if you don't have this gospel-shaped paradigm, then you will get stuck in a paradigm that sees the people in your life as stuck in their old ways. You'll never believe that they can change, they'll never believe they can change, and you'll never believe that you can change. But if you believe that crosses turn into resurrections, that old bones can live again, then that paradigm tells you no one is ever too far gone.

And that goes for that child you're thinking of right now, or that friend, or that relative, or you. It means redemption is always possible. Failure need never be final when we see people through the shape of the gospel. Amen. Type amen if you believe that in the comments. Let me show you a living example of this. This week, I had a great Zoom call with a wonderful woman named Stephanie Hubbard. Stephanie is the Outreach Director at Teen Challenge and Freedom Women's Center down in Watsonville. That's a Christian rehab program, and I want you to listen carefully to the way she describes her amazing story.

I'm with Stephanie Hubbard, and Stephanie, you have quite a story of how God brought you from death to life. Tell us a little bit about it. I came to Teen Challenge November 15, 2018. I came straight from San Joaquin County Jail. I was charged with second-degree armed robbery with a chemical weapon, and they were trying to give me one to two years in prison and a strike. I had been in and out of jail probably 25 to 30 times in the last 10 years. And so about two years before that, I was charged with grand theft auto as well. So they were basically, they were done with me.

Why were you out there doing that? I was so addicted to heroin. So my main thing to survive was I would steal and rob and break into cars and steal from stores and do anything and everything I could. So there you are. I was in jail for second-degree armed robbery this time, and I asked my mom and dad to bail me out, and they told me no. They actually agreed that jail was like the safest place for me to be because they knew I was still alive and breathing. And that like, that broke my heart. It really broke my heart.

So they said they wouldn't bail me out, but they would hire me an attorney. And they're able to get you into Teen Challenge instead of going to prison. Yes. So what happened once you got the Teen Challenge? It's hard, but it's the most rewarding, beautiful experience I'll ever have. Why? Because I know my identity now in Christ. I actually became a Christian when I was four years old. And I went to church most of my life. My grandma was actually a deaconess in a Nazarene church. So I grew up doing the Bible. I went to private schools, but I just didn't apply it into my life.

And I also was adopted the day I was born. So I suffered a lot of guilt and shame and not feeling like I deserved to be happier, that I was loved or valued. And that caused me a lot of anger, and I never actually dealt with that. And then I always wanted to see if the grass was truly greener on the other side. So I started hanging out with the wrong people and doing the wrong thing. What was it that brought you at Teen Challenge from death to life?

I wish I could show you my before picture. I literally looked at, I was 120 pounds. You could literally see the bones in my chest. So what brought me from death to life was God dealing with my problems, surrendering my life to God, allowing myself to be the person that he intended me to be. Like I have value and worth now. And I know I'm worth something. I know he loves my identity. Truly isn't him. It was always in myself. Now I feel like I have a purpose. I'm the outreach coordinator now for Grace Harbor and the Freedom Women's Center. And I'm also rescued. So that means I get to literally, if you call and you say you want to come to program, I literally get to drive and pick you up and rescue you and bring you home.

Do you have any words of hope for parents who have children where you were? The best thing that you can do for your kids, like my mom and dad did, is love them enough not to enable them. Don't give them money. Don't bail them out. Like jail is not a place that I would want anyone to know, but it also saved my life because if I wouldn't have gone to jail, I would have never found out about Teen Challenge. And if you truly love your kids, don't help them die. That's hard. That's hard.

And I just want the parents also to know this as well. Your kids might hate you for a minute for it. But in the end, like I look back now and I just think my mom and dad so much. Do you have any words of hope for people who are caught in addiction themselves right now? Oh, yes. I just want to speak life and tell you that if I can do it, you can do it. Like I came from the lowest of the low, but if you want it, we can help you. We can't do it, but God can do it.

Man, I just love her honesty. And Stephanie is such a great example of this verse. In her life, the old is gone and clearly a new life has begun. And did you hear her describe her paradigm shift, how her framework for how she viewed herself changed, even though she was a Christian since from a very early age, was raised in the church, but she still had a paradigm of herself that was kind of the old way of thinking, but it shifted to where now, as she put it, my identity is in Christ, the shape of the gospel.

It gives me a pattern for seeing all of life. As I said, spent the lion's share of my time on that first point, but it also gives me power for my life because Paul looks at himself and sees that he's weak and he's totally okay with it. Why? Because he looks at Jesus on the cross and realizes that it was Jesus's moment of greatest weakness that God the Father's power was about to be displayed in the greatest way in history.

Look at 2 Corinthians 13:4–5. Paul says, "For to be sure, he Jesus was crucified in weakness, yet he lives by God's power. Likewise, we are weak in him, yet by God's power we will live in him." In other words, God is strong when I'm weak. Major theme of this book. Isn't that encouraging? In fact, the weaker you are, the stronger God can be. And if you find that encouraging, type amen in the comments, you know, because maybe you're thinking, I don't know, I just can't do this thing that I think God wants me to do. Maybe not. Maybe you can't do it.

But you remember what Stephanie's last line was in that interview? We can't do it, but God can. Did you know that believing this, you can actually measure the difference that believing this makes. Just this week I was reading how researchers from the University of Toronto discovered that the brains of people who believe in God are calmer in the face of uncertainty. They hooked up all kinds of electrodes and things. You can tell I'm not a scientist. Electrodes and things, they plugged stuff into people's brains.

And they measured those who said, I can affirm I believe in God, they had 33% less anxiety, technically 33% less brain activity in those parts of your brain that kind of fire when you're feeling anxious. And those who said, I am certain that God exists and is in control now had 45% less brain activity in the anxiety centers of their brain. Now, you can argue about whether or not these people are right about God. The standard doesn't prove that God exists. But what it does seem to empirically prove is that believing that God exists is good for you.

Having this as your paradigm through which you see life, undeniably will help you during stressful times because you believe God's power is made manifest in weakness and times of trouble just as it was on the cross for Jesus. Tough times are when God shines. And then finally, the shape of the gospel gives me purpose for my life. Now, now, watch this carefully. Paul keeps going back to this again and again, like he says, excel also in this gracious act of giving.

You know the generous grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor so that by his poverty he could make you rich. Do you see how it describes the shape of the gospel? He's saying Jesus came from glory, died on the cross, was raised to newness of life so that we could be raised to newness of life and be made spiritually rich too. What Paul is saying is the gospel is at its heart a story of generosity, of Jesus's generosity to us.

This is the paradigm through which he sees life. God has been so generous to me. And by the way, this is actually, I love that 2000 years ago that this letter was part of a historical plea that Paul was making on behalf of a food drive for the church that was experiencing a famine in Jerusalem. And of course, we're in the middle of our food drive right now. You can go to clc.org/food as Mark said earlier, if you'd like to contribute.

I pray, will you pray this with me? I pray that we will give enough to provide one million meals. That is such a nice round number, one million meals. And the need is just so great right now. And then over Thanksgiving weekend, we're going to reveal here in the live stream how much was raised. I can't wait. But remember, the main reason for us to do this, to be generous, is that generosity is a living example of the shape of the gospel.

Generosity is a living example of grace. And here's why this is so vital. You might have noticed here on the west coast and in Santa Cruz County, people are not like super predisposed to Christianity, right? Not super favorably predisposed to religion in general or Christianity specifically. So when we feed the poor, which Jesus asked us to do anyway, or help the displaced people, which Jesus asked us to do anyway, as we did in our evacuation center during the fires, my prayer is that some people will go, you know, in our county, the people who take helping the needy, the most seriously are those Jesus people. I wonder why.

And that they'll start to put two and two together. And my prayer is that they'll eventually see we are generous because we are leading gospel shaped lives. That Jesus Christ set the pattern when he gave new life to us by his sacrifice. So when we give to other people, I pray that people would be brought to faith in God's grace when they see outrageous, inexplicable, gracious generosity expressed through us for no other reason than we believe that this is the pattern that Jesus see, see the innovation here in the history of religion is that we are generous not to earn credits so that we can maybe get enough good deeds on our ledger so that we can go to heaven when we die.

We aren't generous to get on God's good side. We're generous because we're already on God's good side. We're generous, not our generosity isn't transactional. God, look at my good deeds. You know, I hope that's enough to get me to heaven, even though people have that mistaken notion. Our generosity is simply modeling what our gracious, generous God has done to us. And when we give that way, we're giving people a glimpse of the character of God, a glimpse of what's at the core of our theology. That's why this is so important.

So let's bring this in for a landing. We've been talking about paradigm shifts. So how do I get this gospel shaped paradigm into my life, into my head? Well, secular researchers say that you can't change your paradigm by self-will alone. They say there are only two ways to change the paradigm that you have for life. First, what they call an emotional impact event. Something hits your life so hard that your life will never be the same again. And for a lot of people, it's something negative, the death of a parent or another loved one or surviving a major trauma, but it can be something positive like it was for Stephanie. You're in jail and you meet Jesus.

And then the other way to change your paradigm is through repetition of ideas, exposing yourself to a new truth over and over and over again. And this is exactly what Stephanie talked about with Teen Challenge. It's a 13 month program, but 90% of it is simply about the repetition of gospel truths of your new identity in Christ, the new paradigm for your life. So here's what I want to suggest as we close this message. Maybe like Stephanie, you were raised in the church, but it never really changed you deep down inside. Or maybe you never really had much exposure to Christianity. Either way, today, come to Jesus.

Just make that choice to follow him. That can be your emotional impact event tonight. And then repetition, choose to daily fix your eyes on your new reality. Repeat to yourself truths related to the shape of the gospel like this. I know that life has its crosses, but they lead to resurrections. I know that the same power that raised Jesus from the dead is at work in my life. I know that even in my weakness, God will work powerfully. I know no one's failure is vital, not even mine. There can always be resurrections. And I know all this because my paradigm is shaped by the gospel, literally shaped.

Here's the big idea today. To be a Christian is to let the gospel story, the shape of the gospel sink so deeply into your heart that you are shaped by it. That Paul's been telling us for 10 weeks in the book of 2nd Corinthians is how you stay undaunted. No matter what, no matter what happens to your job in these uncertain months, no matter what happens to your business, no matter what happens with COVID, no matter what happens with your health, no matter what happens with your family, because God is the God who turned what looked to the disciples like the greatest disaster ever. Their Lord and friend dead on a cross into the greatest victory in history.

And that same God is at work in the same way in you and me right now. Do you believe that? Do you believe that? That is how you and I can stay undaunted. Let's pray together. Lord, thank you for dying on the cross for us and being raised again. And I sincerely pray that some for the very first time right now would say, "Jesus, I want to receive you into my life." And Lord, all of us want to fix our eyes on you, Lord, on the shape of the gospel as the pattern for our lives. And so we lift those up who are going through tough times today because of unemployment or illness or relationship or an illness or addiction or because of something COVID related or fire related.

You know the problems, God, you know exactly what people are going through or joining us. I pray that they would hear your voice saying, "I can turn even that cross into a resurrection." And God, of course, in the broader COVID crisis we pray deliver us. Give the researchers and the medical professionals, the policy makers wisdom as they work through this and give us all hope that even through these hard times you are working in the shape of the gospel. And we pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen.