Effective December 28th The BOSS Office will be located at:

6524 44th Street Suite 208

Sacramento, CA 95823

Office: (916)441-6228

Here are a few discussion question:

1. Where are you from?
2. Where are your parents from?
3. Where are your “people” from?
4. How do you prefer to be identified? Why?
   
5. When was the first time in you life that you realized that race/gender/age mattered?
6. Describe the situation and your reaction.

Let us look to the gospel and not see how great we are but see how great God is.

Below are some notes from a sermon I gave at the Remix on “The God of the Gospel”

Psalm 96:1-6

Oh sing to the LORD a new song;
sing to the LORD, all the earth!
²Sing to the LORD, bless his name;
tell of his salvation from day to day.
³Declare his glory among the nations,
his marvelous works among all the peoples!
⁴For great is the LORD, and greatly to be praised;
he is to be feared above all gods.
⁵For all the gods of the peoples are worthless idols,
but the LORD made the heavens.
⁶Splendor and majesty are before him;
strength and beauty are in his sanctuary

The gospel isn’t primarily about us.  The gospel is primarily about God.

• The Gospel is the canvas in which God’s character is displayed
• And if the gospel is going to revolutionize our lives…we have to know and fall in love with the God of the Gospel
• The gospel does teach us about ourselves but it teaches that we are the bad new of the good news.

A Few Characteristics of God seen through the Gospel

• Relational—the gospel shows us that He desires to be in a relationship with us.
• Holy—the gospel shows how set apart God is from us.
• Jealous—the gospel shows that God is jealous of anything that knocks Him off as our greatest treasure.  Is God the greatest treasure of your life?
• Judge—the gospel shows that God must judge sin.
• Gracious—the gospel shows that God gives us what we don’t deserve
• Loving—the gospel shows God’s love for us that He is willing to give His own Son as our needed sacrifice.

The gospel doesn’t show us how worthy we are but it shows us how worthy God is.

• Sometimes we look at the gospel and think—man, I am so great that God sent His Son to die for my sins.
• We are special, as image bearers of God
• And God, wants to be our God and for us to be His people
• But the gospel is more about God’s worth than our worth
• We learn from the gospel that we aren’t worthy
• We learn that we are sinful
• We learn that we deserve judgment
• We deserve condemnation and wrath from God
• Though the gospel teaches us how unworthy we are…it shows how worthy God is
• Let’s not look at the gospel and see ourselves as great
• Let’s look at the gospel and see God as great.

As we grow to know and love the God of the Gospel, it should propel us to live our lives making much of God (become Psalm 96 people).

• Will you spend your life making much of yourself or will you spend much of your life making much of God?
• This is what Psalm 96 is all about—that we would make much of God because of God’s character.
• Not because we are great…but because He is great.
• The gospel teaches us of God’s amazing character and it should propel us to become psalm 96 people.

I pray that as we examine the gospel we will grow in our knowledge of who God is and that we would spend our lives, making much of Him.

By His Grace & For His Glory

Gabe Garcia

The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up. Then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field. Matthew 13:44

A simple question: is Christ your greatest treasure?  Above all the things that this world has to offer, is Christ the greatest treasure of your life?  Or have there been certain idols of this world that have knocked God off of His throne?  The idols of our lives can be things such as fame, status, work, finances, hobbies, even our family and friends.  Our great enemy Satan would absolutely love for the things of this world to become our gods and for us to never truly treasure Christ as we should.

As we look at Matthew 13:44, Jesus teaches us that a true response to the gospel should be a joyful abandonment of anything that was the source or motivation of our life.  Christ is now our source and motivation of our life.  Christ is our treasure and we should abandon everything that would not allow Him to take His role as the King of our lives.

This doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy a cup of coffee.  This doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy our occupation or our families.  It means that Christ is our ultimate joy, our ultimate treasure and that everything else is enjoyed as a gift from God while God still serves as our ultimate gift.  We can enjoy certain things of this world as long as Christ is our greatest joy.  Jesus says, “Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me” (Matthew 10:37).  Are you worthy of Christ?

The word that stands out to me in Matthew 13 is “joy.”  There should be a joy in leaving the worthless and impotent idols of our lives so that we can experience the true treasure of being united with God in His Kingdom through the gospel of Christ.  We have the joy of leaving the things of our lives that will never satisfy and turn to Christ who will always satisfy.

Perhaps we aren’t satisfied in Christ because we haven’t truly left the idols in our lives that we think will satisfy.  The words of Paul come to mind when he writes to the Philippians, “Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ” (Philippians 3:8).  Will we step away from things of this world, even if that includes loss and suffering so that we can experience the “surpassing worth of knowing Christ”?

John Piper writes in Desiring God about his challenge of trying to communicating what Christ is looking for from those who follow Him, from those who believe in Him:

“It does no good to tell these people to believe in the Lord Jesus.  The phrase is empty.  My responsibility as a preacher of the gospel and a teacher in the church is not to preserve and repeat cherished biblical sentences, but to pierce the heart with biblical truth.  In my neighborhood, every drunk on the street “believers” in Jesus.  Drug dealers “believe” in Jesus.  So I use different words to unpack what believes means.  In recent years I have asked, “Do you receive Jesus as your Treasure?” Not just Savior. Not just Lord. The key is: Do you treasure Him more than everything?”

As we continue this Gospel Revolution journey, I pray that we keep drawing closer to Christ.  That we would with joy abandon the things of this world and turn towards our ultimate treasure, Jesus Christ.

By His Grace & For His Glory,

Gabe Garcia

What do you think?

1. What things in your life are knocking God off as your greatest treasure?  What can you do to turn from these things?
2. Maybe you don’t believe Christ needs to be our greatest priority and treasure; why?
3. How can you make Christ your greatest treasure?  Why is a deeper understanding of the gospel and of God important so that we truly find Him as our greatest treasure?

John Piper, Desiring God.  Multnomah Publishers, Inc.  2003, 55.