The Gospel

with Pastor Steve Cyr

The Power of the Gospel: Jesus Loves You

The power of the gospel or ourselves and others is simply to remember that Jesus loves you. We already know it’s the most profound thing we can realize.

But for ourselves and others, the gospel message is:
God is in pursuit of each person, saying, “Jesus loves you.”
That’s the gospel message. And that is the power, and the power is in that.

If we don’t, and when we don’t, believe that for ourselves and for others, it affects everything else. It affects everything else in our lives, and we are in danger.

Replacing What We Remove

We have to remember: whatever we remove from the Scriptures, we have to replace it with something else.

If we shy away from the love of God for the world, we will have to replace it with something else or someone else.

For God So Loved the World

For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son.

• Jesus came to us.
• He died for us.
• He was buried and rose again to give us eternal life
• He loves us.

How He loves us so, so much—right?

In God’s majesty, it’s undeniably the most unselfish and selfless act of love.
Because our God is selfless, and He loves us.

Jesus died and He rose again. He came, and He is coming back.

It’s the gospel in a nutshell. The power is in that message.

One Doesn’t Go Without the Other

• He died – He rose again.
• He came – He’s coming back.

If we split those two things, we have only part of the gospel.

Jesus: Our Hope, Power, and Firm Foundation

Jesus is our hope, our only hope.
And the Scripture says we are saved in this hope. He is coming back.

The power of the gospel of God in Jesus Christ is foundational.
It tells us:

• Who is Jesus
• What He did
• Why He did it

And in that resides the power to save.

Paul also says that the same power that raised Jesus from the dead—the power of the Holy Spirit—resides in us and lives in us. The same power!

Jesus is our sure and firm foundation.
But we have to be convinced of His love for us.
It tells us what our God did and why He did it—because He loves us.

God Loves the World

In fact, God loves the world. And He wants everyone to be saved and to fully understand the truth. It is foundational.

If you are not certain of God’s love for you and for the world, you have no foundation. You are easily shaken.

We as Pastors

Nothing different is going to make a difference, and we’re not going to be different from anybody if we do not have that foundation of God’s love for the world.

Our teaching and our living need to reflect that.

We Calvary Chapel pastors are not only history teachers, man-made religion representatives of some sort, but we are Bible teachers and Gospel proclaimers.

This Gospel is foundational, it is central!

Ask Yourself: Where Is Jesus in Your Life?

• Is He the center of everything?
• The center of attention in your life?

It’s really not about ourselves—but about Jesus, always.
He loved us so much that we don’t have to love ourselves and be the center of attention.

The power of the gospel is: foundational, central, situational.

Ask Yourself: Where Am I?

The gospel of Jesus determines:

• Our thinking
• Our preaching
• Our living

Jesus said: “If you love Me, obey My commandments.”
We want to love Him back—because He loved us first.

Jesus said to this lady in John chapter 8: “Go and sin no more.”
Not only: Stay close to Me, but also stay far away from sin

Close to Christ and far from sin.

Jesus is calling us to:

• Be close to Him
• Be away from sin

There’s no difference between us and anybody else if we are not pursuing Him, loving Him back, obeying Him, desiring to become more and more like Him.

Selfless. Unselfish.

And for that, we need to know that
Jesus loves us,
Jesus loves you.