Why are “People” “Truth” and “Gospel” in that order?

Hey, thanks again for sending in questions related to our recent sermons. This last week, we began our series defining where we’re going to try to head for the next 85 years, or at least what direction we’re going to start out in. Um, so this first week, we reminded everyone of our vision, um, our mission, people, truth, gospel, that in everything we do, we strive to demonstrate that. People matter, truth matters, and the gospel is our only hope.

So the question this week asks, why that order? Why people, then truth, then gospel? Are we saying people are more important than the other two because they’re first? Or maybe we’re saying gospel is more important than the other two because we saved the best for last. Um, and so I, as we said in the sermon, really, you have to have all three.

None really makes sense or work without the other. But there is intentionality behind the order. And I would say the order is really the order that we find in scripture, beginning, uh, you know, the the first pages of the Bible. God created man and woman in his image. So they immediately have value, which is what we talked about.

So people, uh, chronologically comes before truth, which is when he gives them the rule in the garden to keep them away from death and destruction. Um, and then after they disobey the truth and find themselves in destruction, he promises them the gospel, this one, Genesis 3:15, this one who will come to crush the head of the serpent, end evil, restore what was broken.

Fast forward to when, uh, God is bringing the Israelites out of Egypt. He gets them out of Egypt and he says, ‘You are my people. I am your God.’ Uh, it’s like he adopts them again after, you know, they’d already been, uh, chosen through the lineage of Abraham. But he adopts them again, bringing them out, saying, ‘You are my people.’ And then he gives them the law, but not until after he has already made them his people. Um, even in our, even in our text that we studied, um, uh, in Timothy, is, uh, uh, the

the Lord desires for all people to be saved, come to a knowledge of the truth, um, you know, really through Christ’s work of ransoming us through giving of his own life. And so it, it seems to be the order that they appear in scripture. It’s people, truth, gospel. But again, you really can’t have one without the others. Um, we said, you know, if you don’t have the gospel, you don’t have anything. Um, and so they they do work together, but we were intentional, uh, about the order. Uh, so we hope

that’s helpful, and we’ll see you next time.