Scripture: Mark 1:1-15

Just the other day I saw a bumper sticker that read: "I found Jesus, He was behind the sofa all along."

As silly as that is, it seems that many people today are looking for something that is right there in front of them, yet they fail to see or grasp it.

  In the case of Jesus, He is not hiding nor is He hard to find. The Lord is out in the open for all to see, it's just that we all have such involved lives that we just can't seem to "find" Him when we need him, which is now.

By that I mean, people often ignore the Lord until some life circumstance forces them to call out to God and they begin to think about church and being better Christians, or maybe even becoming a Christian.

All we know before our conversion to Christianity is that we are lost and maybe even condemned to something really bad, if we don't repent or do some other "religious" thing to please God.

You see, the world has listened to the many lies that Satan has perpetrated over the centuries. Lies that disguise the true nature of God and what he wants for all of us.

We buy into the lie that we need to "do something" to find His favor.  But what is it that we can do to make up for our sins?

  We believe the lie that God is just waiting up there in heaven to catch us in a sin so that He can throw down some sort of cosmic lightning bolt and mess us up as a punishment for our "crime."

We even buy into the lie that we have to earn our way into heaven, even after we die, by coming back as angels and doing good deeds.  How silly we must seem to God as we buy into these lies of Satan. Yes, Satan has certainly done his homework when it comes to putting a wedge between the Creator and His creation. But do we need to put up with this sort of misrepresentation of God and His nature?  Absolutely not!

If we are to get a clear understanding of what that nature is and how we are to respond to it, we need to understand why Jesus came to this earth and how that affects you and me.

Let's read todays Scripture in Mark, chapter 1, verses 1-15

"The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe the gospel.

"Now, to understand this proclamation of Jesus Christ we need to understand the gospel, don't we? In it's simplest terms, the gospel is the good news of Jesus Christ.

What is this good news?   It's the news that a Savior has come into the world and made a way for everyone to be reconciled with the Creator, God Himself.

The Bible goes to great lengths, from the Old Testament to the New, explaining about Jesus, who is the Messiah, and how He will take on the sins of the whole world Himself.

It begins with His birth, a miracle itself, and tells us of his life and the many miraculous signs he performed to thousands of people over the course of many years.  Of the authenticity of Jesus Christ, there can be no doubt.

It ends with His crucifixion and death, and then His resurrection and ascension into the heavens, with the promise of His return.  This is the Good News that Jesus was speaking about, the gospel message.

Somewhere in that gospel message is the fact that what Jesus did, his life, death and resurrection, was done for the remission of the sins of all mankind.

It was done, once for all, as Paul explained it in Romans 6:10, and again in Hebrews 10:10.  Once for all. Not once for some.  Or, once for those who live righteously.  Not once for those who belong to the "right" church, or any church for that matter.  Jesus did what he did so that all would be forgiven.  So that all would be saved.

You have heard me preach this sort of message before, and I probably will again in the future.  Why?  Because it is a core belief of the Body of Christ, and central to our understanding of the nature of our salvation.

Just as I said earlier, Satan has a way of turning and twisting the truth around so much that we can be left in confusion, but Jesus made is so simple.

Every person who has ever lived, who now lives and all who will live in the future have the same opportunity of salvation.  Everybody!   Imagine this, if you can!

Do you understand what this really means? It means that, by nothing that you or I have done or could ever do, we have been given the free gift of salvation!

As I have said before, a gift is useful only, without exception, when the person who has received the gift takes possession and "opens" the gift.  In other words, if we receive a package from UPS and let it sit in the corner of our living rooms, and never open it and use whatever is inside, it is a useless gift to us, isn't it?

This thing that Jesus has done once for all, is not unlike that UPS package.  It's there, all we have to do is receive it and "open" it.  Like the bumper sticker said, we found Jesus, He was right behind the sofa the whole time!

Our free gift of salvation is there, waiting behind the sofa, waiting for us to take possession and accept what it contains.

Jesus has made it so simple, yet we put road block after road block in our own paths, and into the paths of others, without realizing it.

Now some might see this as a confusing thing, because we also teach that one must accept Jesus Christ as their Savior in order to be saved.  I have just told you that we have all been given the gift of salvation from Jesus, even before we knew Him.  There is a doctrinal belief, one that we do not hold to or teach, and it is called Universalism.  Universalism teaches that all are already saved and there is nothing more that needs to be done.

On the surface this sounds similar to the true gospel message that the Bible teaches, but there are major differences.

First of which is this, while it is true that all have been given the gift of salvation, regardless of their level of goodness or evilness, it is not true that all are saved.

Jesus himself said that we are to "Repent, and believe the gospel."  If I were an evil person, intent on doing harm for the sake of doing harm, and I could care less about Jesus Christ, or even denied that He is who he says he is, that free gift would go unopened and unused.

If Universalism were true, there would be no need for the church today, or even a moral code, for that matter, we would all already have "it" and would see no need to pursue the things of God.   We would have it made.

As odd as this may seem to those of us brought up in the church, this is the unspoken view of the world at large today.  No one is consigned to hell, and all roads are said to lead to heaven.

You will hear people say that it doesn't matter what religion you believe or belong to, because all roads lead to heaven.  Hindu, Buddhist, Muslim, Christian, we are all the same in the eyes of our post modern society, thanks to a tireless Satan.

We are even witnessing the unholy alliance between the homosexual agenda and parts of the church.  Each week more news is given about gay clergy being ordained into the the church with stronger and stronger emphasis on acceptance of this lifestyle.

The Bible is clear about this sin, as well as all other sins, and nowhere in the Bible are we taught that it's OK to accept the sin and even incorporate into the church itself.

It is true that we are all sinners and that we all fall short of the glory of God.  It is true that Jesus died once for us all, including the homosexual, and that we can all receive the same gift of salvation, if we would just repent and believe, as Jesus said in Mark 1:15.

It is true that Jesus loves all of us, regardless of our lifestyle, but it's also true that we must believe the gospel message and align ourselves with the will of God.

It is not God's will for pastors to be living in the sin of homosexuality, or adultery, or fornication, or theft, or lying, or stealing, or...

And it's not God's will for the membership to be doing these things either.

Do we sin?  Absolutely, more than we care to admit. Do we boast of our sins or encourage others to sin with us?   Heaven forbid.

The gospel message of Jesus Christ is truly good news, in fact, it's the best news that mankind has ever received, if we would only believe it and accept it.

When He was hanging on the cross, just before his death, Jesus said three words that changed the status of mankind forever.  He said, "It is finished"

What was finished?  Was it his life?  Was it the hope of a Messiah come to confront the Romans? Was it his ministry of 3 1/2 years, complete with signs and miracles?

Not hardly.  What Jesus meant when he said, "It is finished" is that the purpose for which he came to earth, fulfilling the gospel message, was finished.

Mankind no longer had to struggle with the fear and hopelessness of being cut off from God.  We can, from that point on, rest assured that we have perfect salvation available to us when we acknowledge the work of Jesus Christ on the cross.

If we accept that sacrifice, which was made on our behalf, we no longer need worry about our spiritual condition, ever again! "It is finished"

Pray for Lord's Supper