Your Changed Life is Not the Gospel Message
It is a ‘given’ that a relationship with God, through the crucified and risen Christ will drastically change one’s life.
It is also a ‘given’ that a life changed life is an important part of what we share with non-believers when pointing them to the Savior.
A changed life, in and of itself, is however not the core message that we must share with those we would lead to Christ. The Apostle Paul declared:
“For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.” – Rom 1:16
Paul also declared:
“Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you–unless you believed in vain. For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures,” – 1 Cor 15:1-4
No matter where Paul traveled and preached, he always centered on this core message. The only thing in question is exactly when the core message was delivered during an evangelistic encounter.
Often, we believers make a ‘changed life’ the centerpiece of our ‘gospel sharing’, followed by an invitation to Christ based on personal benefits to be obtained in this life, rather than Paul’s core message of the death and resurrection of Christ for our sin – the message that actually contains ‘the power of God for salvation!
Been there, done that!
Food for thought. . .
What is the Gospel Sermons – #1
It seems that these days you can ask any amount of Christians/Christ followers/believers “What is the Gospel?” and get a lot of different answers, I thought I would post sermons/teachings that focus specifically on that question. Here is the first, by D. A. Carson. Click the link below to listen with Quicktime. Right Click and select “Save As” to download the file to you computer.
NOTE: You might end up just listening the first time and listening to it while taking notes the second time. I did.
Gospel Definitions – R.C. Sproul
“There is no greater message to be heard than that which we call the Gospel. But as important as that is, it is often given to massive distortions or over simplifications. People think they’re preaching the Gospel to you when they tell you, ‘you can have a purpose to your life’, or that ‘you can have meaning to your life’, or that ‘you can have a personal relationship with Jesus.’ All of those things are true, and they’re all important, but they don’t get to the heart of the Gospel.
The Gospel is called the ‘good news’ because it addresses the most serious problem that you and I have as human beings, and that problem is simply this: God is holy and He is just, and I’m not. And at the end of my life, I’m going to stand before a just and holy God, and I’ll be judged. And I’ll be judged either on the basis of my own righteousness – or lack of it – or the righteousness of another.
The good news of the Gospel is that Jesus lived a life of perfect righteousness, of perfect obedience to God, not for His own well being but for His people. He has done for me what I couldn’t possibly do for myself. But not only has He lived that life of perfect obedience, He offered Himself as a perfect sacrifice to satisfy the justice and the righteousness of God.
The great misconception in our day is this: that God isn’t concerned to protect His own integrity. He’s a kind of wishy-washy deity, who just waves a wand of forgiveness over everybody. No. For God to forgive you is a very costly matter. It cost the sacrifice of His own Son. So valuable was that sacrifice that God pronounced it valuable by raising Him from the dead – so that Christ died for us, He was raised for our justification. So the Gospel is something objective. It is the message of who Jesus is and what He did. And it also has a subjective dimension.
How are the benefits of Jesus subjectively appropriated to us? How do I get it? The Bible makes it clear that we are justified not by our works, not by our efforts, not by our deeds, but by faith – and by faith alone. The only way you can receive the benefit of Christ’s life and death is by putting your trust in Him – and in Him alone. You do that, you’re declared just by God, you’re adopted into His family, you’re forgiven of all of your sins, and you have begun your pilgrimage for eternity.”
The Great Western Heresy
“The crisis of this moment has several parts, and . . ., they’re all related. The overarching connection in all of these crises has to do with the great Western heresy – that we can be saved as individuals, that any of us alone can be in right relationship with God. “
Sounds like something that would come from a religious group outside of Christianity. For the source of that quote read this article.
Truth, Lies and Horseback Riding
You are probably thinking that’s a rather silly title for a blog post. Maybe, maybe not. If it stimulated your curiosity to the point you are actually reading this, it accomplished the desired goal of the author. Therefore, it makes at least a little bit of sense. Agreed? No on to the point. . .
Months ago, maybe even years ago in some cases, while studying various aspects of Christianity in light of scripture (a favorite pastime of mine), I began to see beliefs in Christendom that had little or no scriptural support, and that some of those questionable beliefs had achieved the status of ‘doctrine’, and to disagree with them was labeled minimally as growth hindering misunderstanding of scripture, and blasphemy deserving of Hell at the other end of the ‘error spectrum’. I had then, and then still have now, a soul deep conviction that God wrote the Book and therefore what was taught as truth, but didn’t agree with the context of scripture, was wrong or false in some measure and in some cases, was an outright lie.
The unavoidable question brought to this inquiring mind was, “How did these falsehoods and lies end up so widely believed by professing Christians? The answer arrived at after a considerable amount of studying scripture, researching a range of historical resources, and comparing them both to widely held beliefs of professing believers was. and IS, precisely this:
The ‘accepted’ lie always rides in on the back of truth. Without an element of scriptural truth upon which to hitch a ride, the lie never survives.
A prime example from the early church would be the Pelagian heresy that denied any adverse effect of Adam’s sin on the rest of mankind that was birthed after the Fall. That lie didn’t get very far and was condemned as heresy. the ‘Semi-Pelagianism that followed acknowledged that Adam’s sin affected of us, but man is still able in and of himself to cooperate with God in the salvation of his soul . That was also condemned as heresy (at the Council of Orange), but is in fact alive and well in both major camps of Christianity. No segment of Christianity has ever admitted to being Semi-Pelagian, although a synergistic Gospel is by nature, exactly that.
There you have one man’s explanation of the connection between truth, lies, and horseback riding. The initial lie, without an element of truth, failed. The second lie, while admitting ’some’ truth, made a modified version of the first lie perfectly acceptable, and even pleasing to human sensibilities.
There have been other examples of lies riding in on the back of truth, some with a longer history of ‘acceptance’ than others. The two most damaging to both the cause of Christ and the souls of men are 1) that Christ established a single religious organization as the only true church with an ‘infallible’ human as head of that church and 2) that God ‘accepts’ us unconditionally, WITH our sin.
Both have a segment of truth. Christ did declare he would establish His church on earth. God does LOVE unconditionally – it’s His nature and one of His divine attributes.
The church that Christ established is made up of those persons for whom he died, from every tongue and tribe and nation – those whom He purchased with his own blood. We weren’t put on layaway!
If God could ‘accept’ us into His Kingdom WITH our sin, His Son died in vain. The first point of the Gospel is that Christ DIED for our sin!
The names have been changed to comfort the guilty. . .
Some of us old geezers remember the popular television series “Dragnet”, especially the lead-in phrase that the upcoming story was true, but the names had been changed to protect the innocent. There’s a twist to that theme that is extremely popular in evangelical (I use the term loosely) circles these days. It’s not about changing the names of people, however, but changing the names of essential elements of the Biblical Gospel message for which we are accountable, and that we are charged to faithfully proclaim.
If you haven’t yet figured out what ‘names’ I’m talking about yet, they are repent (in all it’s forms), and sin (and all direct references to it). When Jesus announced that the Kingdom was near, He told his listeners to ‘repent and believe’ (Mark 1:15). When the Apostle Paul found it necessary to remind believers in Corinth of the contents of the Gospel message, he told them that the Gospel IS that Christ died for our sins, and was raised, according to scripture (1 Cor 15:1-4). He also reminded believers in Galatia that different messages than that were ‘another gospel’ (Gal 1:8-9).
We don’t use those terms very much these days. We tell folks Jesus died for their pain, broken heart, in order to have an abundant life, and a number of other reasons, but we don’t lay the cards on the table and tell them that Christ died for their sins. We have all sorts of ways to ‘soften’ the message and ‘short-sheet’ the Holy Spirit.
We don’t tell them they need to repent and believe the Gospel, we tell them they can come to Jesus for spiritual Band-Aids to smooth out the raw ’stuff’ of life. If we did use the ‘R’ word as we ought, we would have to explain why repentance was necessary and that would necessitate using the dreaded ‘S’ word.
People can’t/don’t ‘repent’ from a broken heart, painful experiences, or lives that aren’t as abundant as they would like them to be. Those are all things that can be understood as outside of oneself, and there is no need repent of that which you are not personally accountable. If we are somehow responsible for anything it’s a poor decision, bad judgment call, or personal misstep, but never in any way the result of ’sin’. We don’t like to use that word.
So I have to ask myself – Why don’t we tell it like it is, – define the issue using scriptural terms and definitions? Here’s my short list of why we don’t use the ‘S’ word.
- It makes people feel uncomfortable in our ’seeker friendly’ service.
- People know they are sinners already, so there’s no need.
- If I use the ‘S’ word he/she won’t like me any more.
- If he/she/they like me/our church service they will naturally like Jesus.
- People who feel guilty when they hear the ‘S’ word won’t drop a check in the offering plate or donate to our ministry.
- Talking about ’sin’ would hinder the warm ‘relationship building’ phase of my evangelism technique/method, without which I’ll never have a chance to share Christ.
- Broken hearts, and all the other painful ’stuff’ of life, resulted from the Adam’s sin (the Fall) so we can just talk about those things and see even more ‘decisions’ for Christ than making folks feel bad.
- We can always talk about sin after they have made a decision/prayed the prayer/said the right words and are already saved.
- We can just talk about sin being separated from God because of what Satan did in the Garden. We humans are just victims here.
- We’re ashamed of the Gospel.
As for me, I think the first 9 are the ways we soften/disguise the real reason, #10.
Your comments, additions, deletions, and whatever else you want to throw at me, even the occasional rotten egg or tomato. I can take it!
Evangelical Golden Calves
There is a bit of a buzz in Blogland these days that seems to have begun over a post that took issue with discernment/apologetics Web sites. Amidst the discussion, Phil Johnson over at Pyromaniacs had this to say:
“The overwhelming majority of today’s evangelical sophisticates would clearly prefer it if no one ever criticized evangelical Golden Calves. Rampant error doesn’t unsettle them in the least. They are quite happy to live with it and even actively make peace with it.”
This post is not continuing that particular discussion, but it addresses “evangelical Golden Calves”, of which there are many. Be that as it may, on this day, celebrated as Good Friday, the day Christ died for our sins, of chief concern is the unscriptural notion that God “accepts” us “just as we are”.
The reason God sent His Son to earth with the specific mission to die for OUR sins is because a Holy, Perfect and Just God CANNOT and WILL NOT “accept” us “just as we are”! It’s the theme of the entire Canon of Scripture! If God could, or would, accept us “with” our sin, Christ died in vain!
Somewhere in the history of evangelicalism, the very scriptural idea that Christ bids us “come as you are” to the Cross of Calvary, believe in and receive Christ as Savior and confess Him as Lord, morphed into God “accepts” you just as you are.
The result of that notion might be auditoriums with stadium seats filled with the legions of the falsely converted (and thus unconverted), with a few scattered genuine believers who confronted the Cross of Christ and their sin, realized their desperate condition, and dealt with their sin by repenting and believing in the One God sentenced to death because He could NOT “accept” them WITH their sin.
We hate con-artists who prey on the unsuspecting, who offer false promises and steal their hard earned savings, yet many of us (evangelicals) flock to the spiritual con-artists “selling” a false gospel!
Yes, “come” as you are to the Cross of Calvary; and standing, kneeling, or prostrate at the foot of the Cross, face your sin, and heed the words of Your Savior: “The time has come,” he said. “The kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news!” (Mark 1:15)
In the words of the time honored hymn:
“Just as I am, without one plea
But that thy blood was shed for me
And that thou bidd’st me come to thee
O Lamb of God, I come, I come.”
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The Paul Washer Project
Don’t be afraid of offending anyone with the truth.
