Porky Pig's Gospel

Porky Pig's Gospel? This past Sunday the sermon at a Restoration Church was on the text: Romans 14:8 - 9. The main points were:

• PPP-urpose
• PPP- eace
• PPP-erspective

Are you starting to get why it should have been titled "Porky Pig's Gospel"?

Remember how Porky just couldn't say his "PPPP's"? He stuttered. Well, there was no stuttering Sunday. It was totally clear!

The PPP-urpose of the Gospel is to bring us from death to life! We are dead spiritually unless God's Spirit gives our dead spirit life.

The PPP-eace of the Gospel is that through the Gospel (God's good news: He sent Jesus to take our place of punishment on the cross) we find peace with God. Our sin pits us against God and makes God and us at extreme odds - enemies. Jesus brings us peace because He lived a perfect life, died in our place and then came back to life again on that first Easter morning. Jesus proved His power over both life and death.

The PPP-erspective of the Gospel is that our view of both life and death is turned upside down. We see living as coming first before dying. That's the view from earth. Vs. 9 of Romans 14 turns life first followed by death upside down: "For this very reason, Christ died and returned to life so that He might be the Lord of both the dead and the living." Get the upside-down part? Vs. 8 describes the order from our perspective: "If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord. So, whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord." Jesus' perfect life and death demonstrate in "living color" that real life has to come AFTER death or it's not really life at all - rather only a process to death.

Jesus makes it possible for us to live eternally as sons and daughters in God's forever family! And "Th-th-th-that's all folks!"