In his sermon 'The Centrality Of The Gospel,' Jason Dohm emphasizes the importance of the gospel being the core and distinctive commitment of his church, differentiating them from other Protestant churches. He expresses concern that many churches have compromised the simplicity and purity of the gospel, often relegating it to a peripheral focus. Dohm argues that the gospel is the center of scripture and should therefore be the center for believers and church life. He illustrates how the Old Testament promises, pictures, and prophesies the gospel, which the New Testament fulfills as the good news of Jesus Christ. The sermon also defines the gospel using 1 Corinthians 15:1-4, describing it as a condensed yet complete message of Christ's death, burial, and resurrection. Dohm stresses the transformative power of the gospel, which should be continually central to both individual believers' lives and church practices. He warns against allowing other doctrines or practices to overshadow the gospel's central place, advocating for its continuous proclamation and integration into church life as the source of spiritual life and growth.

The title of today's message is The Centrality of the Gospel. We're embarking on 12 consecutive weeks of core commitments that make us different than many other local churches and in some instances different than most other local churches. Last week we began, very on purpose, with the sufficiency of scripture. That not only is scripture incapable of error, the fancy theological word for that is inerrant, incapable of error, And not only is it perfectly trustworthy, the fancy theological word for that is infallible, but it is also able to make the believer complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work. So if you can dream up a good work, the Bible claims to be able to make the believer complete and thoroughly equipped to do that good work, meaning that we have a sufficient revelation from God.

We have what we need. And in our mind's eye, we envision a bookcase, a very large bookcase, but the top shelf is reserved for one book and it's the Bible and it stands above all the other books and all the other books are judged by it. It is the plum line that gives us perfect truth and we judge everything else by it. This week we speak of the centrality of the gospel. Now think of that claim, but by putting this as a core commitment and a distinctive, we're saying that the centrality of the gospel makes us different than many other or maybe even most other Protestant local churches.

Do you think that's true? In some ways, I wish we could question that premise and say, wait a minute, all Protestant local churches have a core commitment to the centrality of the gospel. But I think it actually, it is a core commitment, but it is also a distinctive. Now, I've been using those interchangeably, but they're not interchangeable really, are they? You can have a core commitment that doesn't set you apart from others because everyone has that core commitment so it would be a core commitment but what it would not be a distinctive something that makes you distinct.

But of these 12 many of them, we'll speak of them in different ways because they're not all the same but many of them are both. It is a core commitment for us, but it also makes us distinct from many other local churches or most other local churches. How sad would it be if the centrality of the gospel made us different than most other local churches? And I say that it does. And I say that that is sad and I say that based on two things one we live in a day when the simplicity and purity of the gospel has been broadly compromised Do you want to challenge that premise?

We live in a day when the simplicity and purity of the gospel has been broadly compromised. You could do this. You could go home and you could Google Protestant churches in my area. And you share your location with Google, and they give you an infinitely long list of Protestant local churches in your area, and you close your eyes and you just put your finger down and then you go to that church. What are the odds that you will hear a simple and pure gospel when you go to that service?

They are not good. This is the premise of what I'm saying. They are not good. You might end up at a Methodist church or an Anglican church or a Presbyterian USA church. I mean, that's already a big number of churches and I doubt in those places you would hear a simple pure gospel.

I do not think that you would. And on and on and on. Two, even where the pure, where the true gospel is embraced, it is not always given the central place. So are you with me on my premises here? Even churches, local churches that do embrace the true gospel, it is not always given the central place.

So it is good to embrace a pure, simple, the one true gospel, but it is possible to embrace that, but give it a secondary, a peripheral place. That's the risk for us. We do embrace the true gospel. It's a simple gospel, It's a pure gospel. We embrace the true gospel But we are always at risk of not giving it the central place.

I Would actually say that this is true that having the simple pure true gospel at the center of local church life is, puts you in the minority, not just of Protestant churches, but even evangelical churches. Even evangelical churches, because evangelical doesn't mean what it used to mean. That's what it used to mean. It doesn't mean that anymore. As we come to this topic, let's ask God to help us.

Oh Lord, if these things are true, that if more Protestant churches than not don't have the gospel central and even more evangelical churches than not don't have a pure, simple, true gospel at the center. Oh God, we pray that you would have mercy and that you would come and revive your churches. Even this topic makes us think of the condition of the American Church and feel sorrow and desire to move in a good direction to set out on a good trajectory and pray that you would keep us on it and to enter into the lives of other churches that don't have a simple, pure, true gospel at the center of church life, that you would enter into that and revive them and change them. This is our only hope in our land. We know this is true, God.

Pray that you would help me as I preach on this topic today. Help us to have, This is our one great treasure that you have revealed yourself in the saving of sinners. We pray this in Jesus' name, amen. Well you can see that we have really two major headings if you're looking at your handout. The first major heading is this.

The gospel is the center of scripture, so the gospel must be the center for us. So we want to mimic scripture. If scripture has a center, then we want it to be our center. I'm asserting that the gospel is the center of scripture, so the gospel must be the center for us. The Bible is a big book.

If you undertake to read it through in a year, you've committed to about 20 minutes of reading a day, give or take, depending on how fast you read. So that's a big book, 365 days and a third of an hour every day gets you to the end of the book it has a lot of truth across many different categories but it does have a center. The revelation of truth from God to man centers around God's revelation of Himself in the good news of Jesus Christ. So you could actually make this a very man-centered sermon to say the center of all things is the saving of sinners and while that is true in one sense you don't want to disconnect what God is doing when he's saving sinners. He's actually revealing himself and all of his glory in the saving of sinners.

So the gospel is not man centered and putting the gospel at the center must not make us man centered as if the end of all things is the saving of sinners. I mean it means life or death to me, so I get that. But the sinner of all things is God being known in all of His glory and that's what He's doing when He saves sinners. He is revealing himself to man in the good news of Jesus Christ. The Bible is the furthest thing from a random collection of true facts.

Well, you've got all these true facts, let's throw them into a book. And here's the book. That's not what the Bible is, a random collection of true facts. It is centered around God revealing himself to mankind through the person and work of his son Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is the express image of the invisible God.

You want to know what God looks like, you go to the Gospels and see Jesus living and relating to mankind. It starts this revelation, God's revelation of himself through the person or work of Jesus Christ starts in Genesis 3 15 so first book of the Bible first pages of the first book of the Bible you have this beginning of God revealing himself through the person or work of Jesus Christ with the promise that the seed of the woman would crush the head of the serpent. So sin comes into the world, the serpent has undone us, only it hasn't ultimately undone us because God has a plan for this. And he starts making promises right away. We have plunged our race into rebellion against God, but God has a plan for all of this.

And He can still reconcile men and women, even in that state to himself, by crushing the head of the serpent through a seed of the woman. And the person and work of Jesus is the fulfillment of that promise and is the good news. So you have the gospel in seed form, no pun intended, in in the most basic form right in the first pages of the gospel. Excuse me, of Scripture. The Gospel is in the first pages of Scripture.

Then you have the pictures of the Gospel in the Old Testament. Okay, so it's the promises start right away. You have the promises and they extend through the Old Testament. We could go from one to the other. We're not going to make the sermon that long, but there are so many promises where God promises to save sinners in the Old Testament.

And then there are pictures of the gospel in the Old Testament, like what? Like Abraham being willing to offer his only beloved son all this life long he's waited for a son from Sarah and this son from Sarah comes and he loves him with his whole heart and then God says sacrifice this son and Abraham is willing to offer his only beloved son in Genesis chapter 22 but God provides the substitute in the place of that so rich with gospel implications It is a picture of the gospel. Like the Exodus and the picture of God redeeming a people out of their slavery, not because they were faithful. Oh look at these poor innocent slaves. I think I'll rescue them.

No, no, no. Had nothing to do with the faithfulness or the goodness of this people. It had to do with the faithfulness of God. And He had made promises and He's keeping those promises. That's what the Exodus is.

God redeeming a people out of slavery, not innocent slaves, but He had made promises to those people so He is bound to keep them by His character and so he keeps them. This is a picture of the gospel. Like the whole sacrificial system of the law offering lambs without any defect or blemish and the innocent one bleeding and dying for guilty ones the transfer of the guilt of the guilty to an innocent one that gives its life and and scapegoats that you you place your hands on this goat and then send them away, never to be seen again, sent out in the wilderness, never to come back, and it's a picture of the transfer of sins to an innocent substitute, then is sent away as far as the East is from the West. This is a gospel picture. And the day of atonement, the day when you were to be banished if you didn't afflict your soul.

If you couldn't be brought to grieve over your sin, you couldn't be part of Israel. But the day begins that way, but it doesn't end that way. You begin by grieving over your condition in sin, but then an offering is made for you to make things right and to clear the ledger between you and God. So the day starts with you afflicting your soul, but it ends with you free and clean. These are pictures of the gospel.

And, and, and we can just go line by line through the book of Leviticus, through the book of Deuteronomy and find picture after picture after picture after picture. All of the gospel, all ultimately fulfilled in Jesus Christ, who He is and what He's done for sinners. Then you have the prophecies of the gospel in the Old Testament. You can find Jesus and his saving work all throughout them. You can go home and Google, how many Old Testament prophecies did Jesus fulfill?

You get all sorts of articles and they all have different numbers. The numbers all fall between 200 and 400. So the point being is the strictest prophecy fulfillment counters, The smallest number they get is 200 And then the people who are a little looser about counting something as a fulfillment of an Old Testament prophecy They they get a number around 400 so that that's the range the strictest of the strict say there are 200 places in the Old Testament where God has made a promise that is kept in the life and the sayings and the doings of Jesus Christ. 200 is the little number of the prophecies that are fulfilled by Jesus. And many of these prophecies are breathtakingly specific and out of any normal person's control like place of birth and manner of death.

Did you choose your place of birth? You chose your place of birth. How did you go about arranging that? That's amazing. Your manner of death.

You think you're going to choose your manner of death? I doubt it. How would you go about controlling that? Probably the longest and fullest prophecy of who Jesus is and what work he would do is Isaiah chapter 53. It's the whole chapter.

And Jews who are not Christian Jews don't even want you to read this chapter because they're worried that you might think it was Jesus and get confused. It's so tied to Jesus that they don't want you to read that chapter Because you might get the wrong idea because it's the right idea. It's about a suffering servant who comes and willingly takes the sins of others upon himself. He bears their iniquities. You know, if I have to preach the gospel and only get one text to preach it from, I'm not sure that it's not Isaiah 53 and I would preach that and simply conclude by saying, that's Jesus Christ.

I'm not sure the clearest gospel text about the innocent dying for the guilty, about the defiled imparting their sins to an innocent one so that the defiled one doesn't have to pay the penalty or bear the guilt of their own sins I'm not sure the best chapter for that isn't Isaiah 53 it's not even a New Testament chapter you can argue about that maybe it's Romans 8 I don't know so the whole Old Testament is filled with promises and promises and promises and pictures and pictures and pictures and prophecies and prophecies and prophecies of the gospel. The gospel is promised, pictured, and prophesied of in the Old Testament. The Old Testament is everywhere pointing forward to the gospel. The New Testament is the fulfillment of those Old Testament promises and pictures and prophesies. The New Testament is nothing more than the fulfillment of those Old Testament promises and promises and promises and pictures and pictures and pictures one right after the other and prophecies and prophecies and prophecies Of course, it's not an overstatement to say the New Testament is the gospel It is the good news of Jesus Christ.

The first four books of the New Testament are simply accounts of Jesus' life, His death, His resurrection, His ascension into glory. There are other New Testament books, of course, and they are about the spreading and establishing of the good news of Jesus Christ among the nations. So you have the Old Testament, which points forward to Jesus. Then you have these four books that are devoted to the accounts of Jesus. And then you have the books after the Gospels that talk about the spreading and establishing and the preaching of this good news among the nations.

Mark Devers, pastor of Capitol Hill Baptist in Washington DC and the director of Nine Marks, the ministry of Nine Marks, has written two books summarizing every book of the Bible. So every book of the Bible gets its chapter summarizing that book of the Bible. The first book is about the 39 books of the Old Testament, and it's titled, Promises Made. Okay, so his summaries of those 39 books is titled Promises Made. That's a perfect title for that book.

That second book of the 27 books of the New Testament is entitled, Promises Kept. The Old Testament, Promises Made, the New Testament, Promises Kept. That is such a helpful way to think about your Bible. That's who your Bible is! The Old Testament is the promises and pictures and prophecies of a Savior who would come to save mankind out of our state of rebellion.

And the New Testament is the fulfillment of all of those promises and pictures and prophecies. Now one thing we haven't done yet today is to define the gospel. I want to define the gospel by letting Paul define the gospel. So please turn to 1 Corinthians 15. 1 Corinthians 15.

I'm gonna focus on one through four First Corinthians 15 1 through 4 Paul writes to the Corinthians moreover brethren. I declare to you the gospel which I preach to you, which also you received and in which you stand, by which you also are saved if you hold fast that word which I preach to you, lest you believed in vain. For I delivered to you, first of all, that which I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures. This is how I think of this text, as a condensed gospel, but not as a dumbed down gospel. You know that you can condense, you can summarize without dumbing down?

Often when we condense we also dumb down. But Paul has not done that here. Here's what I mean. It is highly summarized. I'm going to give you, okay, it's that much in one column in my Bible.

I have a two-column Bible. There's the Gospel. Fits in three inches. How are you going to get it more highly condensed than that? Well, maybe 2 Corinthians 521, which Connor read.

He made him who knew no sin to be sin for us that we might become the righteousness of God in him. Maybe that's a little more highly condensed but you have a tremendously condensed gospel here but Paul has left placeholders for expanding it to its fullness so it's maybe like a paper that you fold and fold and fold and fold so you end up with this but all the creases are there so all you have to do is pull from the edges and it expands out so you get it in all of its fullness. Paul has sort of done that here he's left you the creases where you just pull where he's he's left the creases and it expands to its fullness. Let's go through it little by little so I can show you where I think the creases are. Moreover, brethren, I declare to you the gospel which I preach to you." So the gospel is a message to be declared and preached, to be proclaimed.

So an undefined gospel is actually a great evil. It is a message to be declared, to be heralded and proclaimed. The actual word of preaching means to herald. It's the King sends out a herald to the town square and he says, hear ye, hear ye, the king says this, and he doesn't make it up as he goes along, it's the words of the king. So the gospel is a message.

We don't have an undefined gospel and an undefined gospel is a great evil it is a specific message words of the king to be heralded to be preached which you also received and in which you stand by which you are saved if you hold fast that word which I preach to you. So it's not just a message to be declared and it goes out into the universe. It must be received and you must stand in it and you must hold fast to it for it to be a have a saving function in your life. Paul just says this. You received it, you stand in it, you you hold fast to it and it saves you.

Verse 3, for I delivered to you first of all that which I also received. Paul makes it clear. This is God's gospel. I am not the genesis of this gospel. I received it and I preached it to you.

That Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures. Now you have a couple of seams here that you can pull to expand it out to its fullness. One is Christ. Christ is a meaningful word. It means the anointed one.

You anoint someone to set them apart to a specific work. So here's the scene. Who set this one apart? What was he set apart for? Okay, so if you want to expand it to its fullness, you go run down these questions.

Somebody set apart this one to a specific word. Who set him apart? Who was set him apart? What was he set apart for? This is all part of the gospel.

It's fine to summarize and condense. I'm glad that he has. But he's given us the folds that when we pull at the edges we can see it in its fullness by chasing down the answers to these questions. This anointed one, this one who was set apart to this work died for our sins according to the scriptures. So somebody's got to die for sins.

Why does somebody have to die for sins? If you want to understand the gospel that Paul preached, you go find the answer in scripture to that question and you find that the wages of sin is death. According to the scriptures, So the scriptures talk about this one set of parts to do this work of saving sinners. Go find those places and go see what it says. And his work was according to what the scripture says about these things.

He was buried. He rose again the third day according to the scriptures. He keeps giving you these folds that let you know all you're getting is the folded up version. You can pull at the edges and then see it in its fullness. He's left these placeholders here for a full gospel if you want to expand the summary that he has given to us.

This is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes. This is how God exerts his power to save anyone and everyone who trusts in his son Jesus. In the gospel, The righteousness of God is revealed to begin and end with faith. Faith is the beginning of this righteousness. Faith is the end of this righteousness.

Faith is everything in between of this righteousness because it is a righteousness that is not internal coming from our own goodness. Thank goodness because we don't have goodness. Thank goodness it is an internal goodness that puts us in a right standing with God or we would all be lost because then we come to this perfect standard and I read the standard and I say, that's right, that's right, that's right, that's right. It's all right. The standard's perfectly good.

And I don't measure up to hardly any of it. Now what is to be done? The righteousness that God requires, God better supply or I will be lost forever. It begins with faith, it ends with faith Because faith is the mechanism by which I lay hold of a righteousness completely outside of myself, Jesus' righteousness. Now in the past we've been summarizing the gospel in terms of four words in an exact sequence.

I hope you know them. So we keep coming back to this. The gospel, this is a memory device so that when you get into a discussion with an unbeliever and you're feeling the heat because these can be uncomfortable conversations. I love me a memory device. No, that's bad English.

But I love me a memory device that helps me in a pressurized conversation with an unbeliever to help me not skip anything that's important. So we've got this four words in exact sequence that helps me work through the gospel in a way that is faithful to the gospel and these four words in the exact sequence are God, man, Christ, response. Well here's a question. Are we rejecting Paul's summary and substituting our own by doing that? God forbid.

Just ask the text. So we're gonna ask the text a question. We come to 1st Corinthians 15, 1 through 4. I have a question for you. Here's the question.

Why does someone need to die for my sins? You ask this text, that question, and all of a sudden these things line up perfectly and you end up with God, man, Christ response. Someone has to die from my sins because of who God is and what He's like. He doesn't have, because of who He is and what He's like, He doesn't have any choice but to hate sin. Well, what am I like?

Sin is my native language. No one has to teach me to sin. I have impulses that send me towards sin. I have habits that send me towards sin. I have thinking that sends me towards sin.

Sin's easy for me. God's incapable of it and hates it, but sin comes naturally to me. What is to be done? Christ and response are already here, just right on the surface. You have to receive, you have to stand in, you have to hold fast to this word.

The response is demanded in this text. The New Testament is the good news of Jesus Christ. It is God revealing himself in the person and work of his Son on behalf of sinners. We've been saying this for a while now. If you want to know what God's like, watch him save a sinner and you'll know what God is like.

He's revealing himself. So this is incredibly significant. The Gospel is the center of Scripture. The New Testament? No.

All of Scripture. The Old Testament and the New Testament. Everything in the Bible is true, but not everything in the Bible is given the same weight. Brothers and sisters, I want you to hear this and I want you to embrace this and I want you to think and live like this is true. Everything in the Bible is true, yes and amen, but not everything in the Bible is given the same weight.

And we ought to mimic scripture. When scripture weights a truth this way we ought to weight it this way And nothing gets more weight in scripture than the gospel. Nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing in scripture gets the weight that the gospel gets, not even close. And so Sundays will come and go without us speaking of a multitude of things which are scripturally true. But not a single week can go by without the gospel being preached in one form or another and receiving the greatest weight in the things that we do.

That's one of the reasons why I'm so thankful for the Lord's Supper being a weekly observance here and why I'm so convinced that it should be a weekly observance everywhere because sometimes the text that we're in takes you straight to the gospel and sometimes it always has a relationship to the gospel but sometimes it's further afield from the gospel and in any event we always end up at the Lord's Supper where we take this bread in hand and we talk about a body broken for sinners, and we take the cup in hand and we talk about blood shed for sinners. The gospel is the center of scripture, so the gospel must be the center for us. The gospel is given the most weight in scripture, so the gospel must be given the most weight by us. We can't have pet doctrines that move us, that move the gospel off center. Family discipleship cannot move the gospel off of center.

Eschatology cannot move the gospel off center. Social conservatism cannot move the gospel off center. Even precious doctrines cannot move the gospel off of center. Main point number two, the gospel is the source of life, so the gospel must be the center of life. So the first major heading was the gospel is the center of scripture, so the gospel must be the center for us.

If you're taking notes, you're filling in blanks, scripture filled in the first blank, center filled in the second. The gospel is the center of scripture, so the gospel must be the center for us. If you're taking notes, you're filling in blanks, scripture filled in the first blank, center filled in the second. The gospel is the center of scripture, so the gospel must be the center for us. Now we're at this second major heading.

The gospel is the source of life, Source fills in a blank, so the gospel must be the center of life. Turn to John chapter six. John chapter six. I'll be reading 47 through 58. So it's probably good to actually go there.

It's a bit extended. John chapter 6 verses 47 through 58. Jesus says this, Most assuredly I say to you, He who believes in me has everlasting life. I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate manna in the wilderness and are dead.

This is the bread which comes down from heaven that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread he will live forever. And the bread that I shall give is my flesh, which I shall give for the life of the world." The Jews therefore quarreled among themselves, saying, How can this man give us his flesh to eat? And Jesus said to them, most assuredly I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.

Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is food indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me and I in him. And the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father. So he who feeds on me will live because of me.

This is the bread which came down from heaven, not as your fathers ate the manna and are dead. He who eats this bread will live forever. The body and blood of Jesus Christ freely sacrificed for sinners brings a sinner who believes in Jesus from spiritual death to spiritual life. This is the only way that the spiritually dead can become spiritually alive. The body and blood of Jesus Christ freely sacrificed for sinners.

And Only the sacrifice of Jesus will do. As the God-man, He is the only acceptable sacrifice. He has no sins of His own to die for, and the value of His sacrifice is an infinite value because he is God. So he is man so he can stand in our place but he is God so the value of his sacrifice can cover my sins and your sins and millions of people's sins. One sacrifice the sins of millions and millions of people satisfied in the eyes of God.

This is an infinitely valuable sacrifice. Only Jesus can do that. He is the Christ, the one anointed by God, the one and only anointed by God for the great work of saving sinners. That is why in Galatians 1, Paul says, even if we or an angel from heaven preach any other gospel to you than what we have preached to you, let them be accursed. If I come back to Galatia to these churches in Galatia and I preach something different than I preach the first time, let me be accursed.

If an angel comes and preaches a gospel that doesn't match the gospel that I preached the first time, let that angel be accursed. Let the preacher of that other gospel be dragged into hell before they drag you to hell. That's what Paul is saying. Why is he saying that? Because there are other gospels.

There's a lot of people saying, I bring good news. I bring good news. Follow me. Follow this. Embrace this.

Live according to this. Only this gospel is a saving gospel. Only this is good news. The other air quotes, gospels have things that appeal to our natural ungodly inclinations and so we might even have a pull towards these things that are offered. Paul hopes these messengers will be drug to hell before they drag you to hell with their false gospel, with their non-saving gospel.

The just shall live by faith. That is Habakkuk 2 verse 4 and Paul quotes it when speaking about the gospel in Romans 1, 17. He ends that section by saying the just shall live by faith. Jesus' person and work, who he is and what he has done is the only basis for spiritual life and the only way a sinner can lay claim to this spiritual life is by believing in Him. That person in work is the only way and the only way you can lay claim to that is by faith.

The just shall live by faith. That is true in the sense that the believer passes from death to life in a great act of spiritual resurrection. So there is a definite starting point where someone dead and trespasses and sins, spiritually dead, in that nanosecond becomes spiritually alive. We're dead from all their life and become alive and will be alive through all eternity and there is that line of demarcation where the believer in Jesus passes from death to life in a great act of spiritual resurrection. That is also true in the ongoing sense that the believer having been made alive by Christ's blood, continues to walk by faith and not by sight.

There are fresh supplies of all that the believer needs as he or she continues in his or her trust in Jesus. So in John chapter 6 Jesus is talking about manna. Do you eat once and then you're just done? Oh, never need never need to eat again till death. Death is coming soon for you.

If he wants, death is coming soon. We continue to need and Jesus says the life of my people is sustained by feeding on me. So there is a definite beginning but the gospel doesn't end there. The supply of Jesus's person and work for his people extends and we continue to feed upon him. This is holding fast to the gospel and continuing to go to him by faith for the things that we need.

It isn't a salvific moment when we are doing that in our saved condition, but we need it to be sustained. The person and work of Jesus is food to make me alive and keep me alive. It is food for life. I need it to bring me to life but my need for it never diminishes, and the supply of it never diminishes. That's why the gospel has to be the center of a local church, because we don't just get saved and then move on to other things.

How would you be sustained without the Gospel? Your need isn't diminished on day two or year fifty? Say that again. That's not in my notes and it makes sense. Your need isn't diminished on day two.

You're saved on Tuesday then Wednesday come. You don't have less need for the gospel on Wednesday if you got saved on Tuesday. And 50 years later you'll say, Jesus feed me. I need your person in work today like I needed it 50 years ago when you saved me. How do I know if I have truly believed in Jesus?

The power of the gospel transforms. That is the other thing we should say scripture knows nothing of a gospel that leaves me as I am. Scripture doesn't know about that gospel. Americans know a lot about that gospel. It comes and goes and it satisfies your felt need and a year later, 10 years later, 20 years later, you're just like you were or maybe worse, but you say, no, I'm in Jesus.

As news to your Bible. Bible doesn't know anything about that. The scripture only knows of a transforming gospel that represents the work of God to claim me as His own and make me like His son. So has God done that or not? Has He claimed you for His own?

Yes, he's claimed me for his own, but he's not doing anything to make me like his son. That is a man-centered gospel that says, I did this so I am this. No, no, no. Has God done something? If God hasn't done something, you are lost.

If God hasn't laid claim to you and brought you out of darkness into life, if He hasn't done that, you are not born again. If He has done that, then that's not the end of his work then he begins to conform you little by little I know it's slow and I know sometimes it's two step forward and one step back and another step forward and two steps back and three steps forward. So the progress isn't a straight line. I know that. And I'm discouraged at my own pace of being conformed to Jesus.

I share that. Jesus. I share that. But the biblical gospel is a transforming gospel. The scripture only knows of a transforming gospel that represents the work of God to claim me as his own and make me like his son.

So this is why there is no moving on from the gospel. I got my certificate, I graduated, what's next? It's not like that. I beseech you therefore brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. Romans 12, verse one.

Without the mercies of God constantly before your eyes, presenting your body as a living sacrifice will never seem like a reasonable service. Offering yourself up as a sacrifice to God. My whole life to you doesn't seem like a reasonable service until you put the mercies of God before your eyes. Our living for God is always grounded in the mercies of God and the indispensable core of those mercies are gospel mercies. Do you believe that?

Our living for God is always grounded in the mercies of God. And the indispensable core of those mercies are gospel mercies. Are they his only mercies? No, there are other mercies. The biggest and best of them are gospel mercies.

They're the anchor for all the other mercies. The gospel is the source of life, so the gospel must be the center of life. The gospel must continue to be the center of life. Two applications, then a conclusion. One, has God saved you by this gospel?

This is the only saving gospel. Jesus died for sinners and was buried and rose again according to the scriptures. Are you being transformed by this gospel? They're actually the same question. Has Jesus saved you by this gospel and is Jesus transforming you by this gospel day by day are actually the same question.

Two. The centrality of the gospel is in one sense always aspirational. There is always something competing for its spot. So, no person, no family, no church has permanently arrived at the centrality of the gospel. There's always something clawing at me, clawing at my family, clamoring for our church, for that spot.

And those things can even be very good things. Those things can even be very good things clamoring for the central spot. No, the gospel has that spot. You see the centrality of the gospel is actually about the centrality of God, because the gospel is God revealing himself in the saving of sinners. Let me close with something we've already sung today.

You sang these words. I love to tell the story. For those who know it best seem hungering and thirsting to hear it like the rest. And when in scenes of glory I sing the new song will be the old, old story that I have loved so long. I love to tell the story.

It will be my theme in glory to tell the old, old story of Jesus and his love. Brothers and sisters, never tire of this story. You get it again every week. Don't let your heart say, can't we just move past this? Try to cultivate being thrilled by this story every time you hear it.

It's the story of life for you if you're a believer. God, may this be our great treasure that you have revealed yourself to mankind by saving sinners, that We would see you as you are, in all your goodness and all your grace. Thank you for the gospel. Pray that as many years as this church exists that you would convince us that the gospel ought to be the center of everything we're doing. Pray that it would be in Jesus' name.

Amen.