Lord God, we rejoice that we have the
opportunity to meet together in this way, in
this place, in the open, in a public
facility like this, Lord, without worry of bodily
harm for being at this meeting.
Lord, you have been so kind to allow
us all of these stewardships along with the
stewardship of your gospel.
We think of our brothers and sisters around
the world who are persecuted today for naming
your name even in private.
And yet, Lord, here we have rejoiced to
be together in thousands and singing your praises.
Oh God, we pray that you would make
us faithful stewards of your gospel.
And we pray this in Jesus' name.
People try to improve the gospel.
But in improving the gospel, they end up
losing it.
John has just talked to us about this
for an hour.
And brother, thank you for that address.
That was exactly the kind of things that
have been on my heart as I worked
on this.
When you go to the New Testament, you
know, it's clear that some Corinthians wanted to
add human wisdom and eloquence to the gospel.
No harm there, they thought.
This is the way we're used to being
addressed, the kind of communication we're used to.
It's culturally appropriate.
Some teachers in Galatia were wanting to add
observance of the ceremonial laws of Moses to
the gospel.
And no harm there, they thought.
Effectively, they were saying you have to become
a Jew before you can become a Christian.
Teachers in Colossae were adding everything from a
worldly philosophy to the worship of angels.
Pastors, let me give you a simple but
possibly revolutionary suggestion.
Do a study through the New Testament to
find out what the gospel is.
Do a study through the New Testament to
find out what the gospel is.
Friends, that's not a rhetorical device in a
sermon.
This is encouragement with an assignment, some homework
for you.
Do you want there to be some long
-lasting fruit from this conference?
You read through the New Testament the next
month.
You keep a notebook and you compile there,
what is the gospel?
What is the good news of Jesus Christ?
According to the Bible, God is fundamental to
the gospel.
Our creation in His image is fundamental and
our plight that we are lost in sin.
Obviously, God's solution in sending us the Lord
Jesus Christ through His incarnation, His substitutionary death,
resurrection, ascension and return is essential for the
gospel.
So Mark begins his book, the beginning of
the gospel about Jesus Christ, the Son of
God.
And when you look at the way Paul
summarizes the gospel in 1 Corinthians 15 and
in 2 Timothy 2.8, this is what
Paul would say is of first importance, or
is his gospel.
Creation by God, fall by man, and then
in God's kindness, the redemption through Christ and
the restoration of His creation.
And the only other part we want to
add to that creation, fall, redemption, restoration story
is our participation in that.
It's no good sharing somebody this wonderful metanarrative
if you share it in such a way
that seems to imply a kind of universalism,
that you're going to be a part of
it regardless of your response.
No, God will do it regardless of your
response, but we are called to plead with
sinners and to pray for them.
According to Jesus, instruction in what our response
should be to this message is not merely
an application, but it is part of the
gospel message itself.
So if you look at the way the
risen Christ teaches His disciples, Ligon mentioned this
passage yesterday in Luke chapter 24 and verse
46, he says, this is what is written.
The Christ will suffer and rise from the
dead on the third day and repentance and
forgiveness of sins will be preached in His
name to all nations beginning at Jerusalem.
So the response of repentance and the result
of forgiveness is seen as part of the
core preached news message, the good message, the
gospel.
This is what we find Paul saying in
Galatians one, when he says that his message
is about Jesus who gave himself for our
sins to rescue us from the present evil
age, according to the will of our God
and father, Galatians one, four, we are justified
by faith alone in Christ alone, not at
all in ourselves.
The spirit of God makes a radical change
in us.
So radical that Paul reaches for image, a
new creation or Jesus in the discussion with
Nicodemus, a new birth.
So radical is the change that God makes
in our lives.
And this is good news.
Because this is the central message of the
gospel.
And we must keep this clear.
They had to during the time of the
New Testament and we have to today as
well.
And yet new challenges to the clarity and
the sufficiency of the gospel arise in each
generation.
And today, some even within evangelicalism are acting
as if Jesus Christ alone is not fully
sufficient, as if faith in him and his
promises alone is a, and here I'm going
to use their word, is a reduction of
the gospel.
They are effectively modifying or expanding the gospel
that we have received.
I recently read a column in a leading
evangelical magazine that would be the current issue
of Christianity today.
In which the author was arguing for our
accepting and using the many different presentations of
the gospel that we find in scripture.
So for example, this column said, and I
quote, that Nicodemus and the Samaritan woman received
very different messages, end of quote.
Now just a few sentences earlier, he said,
quote, Jesus did not speak the same blanket
message to all people, end of quote.
Alright, reading this very charitably, I know what
he means.
Different words were used from what we have
reported.
But today, that seems like it could well
be confused and be taken to mean that
different messages are different messages.
Different gospels spoken.
I think it would be better to say
there are different ways of telling the same
message.
You can use different illustrations to try to
explain the incarnation and the atonement.
But incarnation and atonement are not mere illustrations
to be altered, replaced, or creatively reimagined.
They are the gospel itself.
They're part of the message.
And carefully defining the message is, in fact,
essential for preserving our hold on it.
So this kind of defining the message may
not be reductionistic, as the author of this
article warned.
In fact, carefully defining the message, I think,
is part of our preserving it and passing
it on faithfully.
And gospel preacher, in terms of your proclamation,
you have no more important task than understanding
what the gospel is and making sure your
people understand precisely what the good news is.
I just got a resignation letter this morning
from a dear sister in our church who
has moved to Australia.
So she has to resign her membership.
She's moved.
She's settling there now.
And in this letter of resignation, she very
kindly said that one of the things she
was most encouraged about from her time in
our congregation was she said how clearly she
heard the gospel every Sunday in our gathering,
in the sermons, in the prayers.
She was again and again reminded of the
gospel.
Well, praise God for however much that's true.
Brothers, that is what we want to strive
for in our congregational life together, the centrality
and clarity of the gospel.
Now leaving aside this particular article in Christianity
Today, looking more broadly at the rising generation
of Christian ministers who profess to believe the
gospel, what supplements or additives or attempted improvements
do we find?
What mistaken notions do we have which are
liable to end up carrying us away with
them?
In the remainder of our time, I want
to consider some of the threats that we
face.
And these are different threats in some ways
than the Christians of the New Testament faced.
But they're no less challenges to the full
sufficiency of Jesus Christ.
And they should be recognized as that.
Now, a little special parentheses for the unusually
theologically attentive among you.
Throughout our consideration, I think you'll find that
a confusion of what the church's responsibility is.
With what the individual Christian's responsibility is, can
play havoc with our understanding of the gospel.
And can cause us to mix in implications
of the gospel with the gospel itself.
That seems indecipherable to you.
Don't worry about it right now.
There are many such distortions we could consider,
sadly, but everything from a this worldly prosperity
gospel to a feel-good human potential gospel.
But let me this morning briefly mention what
I'll call five cries.
Five cries that I think are particularly attractive
and threatening to our hold on the gospel.
And there's definitely some overlapping among these five.
But I think there's enough distinction to be
helpful to consider them separately.
Number one, make the gospel public.
Make the gospel public, we're told.
The question here is really about what Jesus
came to say.
That is, what is the gospel about?
This is all about our mission.
And these people take our mission to be
to work, to save the structures of society.
As opposed to working to see merely individuals
saved.
Put another way, the question is, how much
of the kingdom of God will we see
before Christ returns?
Tom Wright in his new book, Surprised by
Hope, says that, and I quote here, the
church that takes seriously the fact that Jesus
is Lord of all will not just seek
to order its own life in an appropriate
rhythm of worship and work.
Such a church will also seek to bring
wisdom to the rhythms of work in offices
and shops, in local government, in civic holidays,
and in the shaping of public life, end
of quote.
Now, if what he means is that we
want to educate our members to think biblically
about all of life so that they become
educated to act as wide stewards of their
life in all of its aspects, then Wright
is certainly right.
But if what Wright means is that part
of the gospel message that's been committed to
us is the church directly shaping the laws
of the land on such matters, well, I
understand what he might mean as a bishop
in a legally established Church of England, but
I don't think there is any such example
of that in the New Testament.
And certainly the apostle Paul provides no model
for us in spending the church's time directly
instructing the Roman emperor or directly shaping the
pagan's view of culture.
That may be the effect of our preaching
of the gospel and teaching the Christian the
word, but we will never, by our preaching
or by any of our actions, bring in
the culmination of the kingdom of God.
That comes with the return of Christ.
He will, as Revelation 21 shows us so
wonderfully, cause his bride to appear.
A time will come when all tears are
wiped away.
But Revelation 21 for tells us that that
is God's action.
If Wright thinks that something less cataclysmic than
the return of Christ will establish God's rule
completely in this world, then Wright is wrong.
Indeed, to get the church to focus on
repairing passing structures in a fallen world, a
world under the curse of God.
Would not only cause churches discouragement through the
frustration that we would know of building sandcastles
as it were at low tide, but it
would even more horrendously distract us from the
work of bringing God eternal glory by preaching
the gospel and seeing people converted and eternally
reconciled to God.
Theologically, the question is, how much do we
identify the kingdom of God with what's going
on in this world right now?
Some Christians see a complete disjunction, a complete
separation of the church from the world, leading
them to a withdrawal from this world entirely,
or at least attempted.
Partially in response to this error, other voices
like Tom Wright's have been raised to champion
a biblical witness for God's concern for societal
issues like justice and poverty.
But confusion enters when such concern is taken
to be either the gospel itself.
Or the central mission of the local church.
So many talk today of redeeming the culture
and suggests that some of us American evangelicals
have wrongly privatized the gospel.
They suggest that the gospel has as at
least one of its goals, the reform of
politics and government.
In the name of seeking the peace and
prosperity of the city from Jeremiah 29, seven,
some pastors are leading churches to spend themselves
in taking responsibility for nearby schools, housing developments,
other matters of interest for the wider community.
Some such good deeds are explained as simply
living out Jesus' words in the Sermon on
the Mount and Peter's words about living good
lives among the pagans.
Such ministries are often characterized as the church
being salt and light in the community and
thereby making the church's effect on those around
influential and even irresistibly so.
Christians are presented as the vanguard of the
new world that God is bringing about the
kingdom in service of which goal we act
in business, education, law, the sciences, the politics,
the arts.
But my brother shepherds, I I appeal to
you.
Realize that the gospel that has been committed
to us is a uniquely Christian message and
that has been uniquely entrusted to the church.
I have non-Christian family and friends who
will agree with me about the desperate sadness
of hunger or government oppression or malnourishment or
sex trafficking, and they happily join me in
work to oppose these, but they will not
join me in spreading the gospel of Jesus
Christ.
They are not about that.
They are sinners still in need of being
reconciled to God is, again, we just heard
about spiritually.
They are at war with this God.
I was once asked by a U.S.
senator if I had any advice for him
on a certain matter that was before the
Senate.
I thought it was important, and as it
happened, I had strong opinions on the matter.
But I couldn't say that scripture was clear
on this.
I could tell you how I reasoned it
out morally, but it wouldn't be worth the
time.
It was not an issue like slavery or
abortion, but it was an amendment to the
United States Constitution, a kind of once in
a lifetime vote.
The House had already passed it, and it
looked like it was just about to pass
the Senate.
The majority in the Senate were already publicly
committed to voting for it, including every other
member of the senator's party.
But the Constitution requires a supermajority of two
thirds in the House and the Senate to
amend it.
And guess how many votes short the Senate
was from passing it on to the states
for ratification?
One vote.
We were in private.
He was a member of my church.
He was a member asking for his pastor's
guidance.
Now, any comments I would have made would
probably have had no influence on him whatsoever.
This man was a thoughtful Christian, an experienced
public servant.
He was probably merely being kind to me
as pastor by asking me.
But I think spiritually I was being tempted.
You see, before I became a Christian, I'd
wanted to go into politics, law school and
politics.
And here I was in God's strange humor,
not only converted from agnostic to Christian, not
only delivered from politics into the ministry, but
sent to minister on Capitol Hill of all
places with this guy as a member of
my church.
We're in private.
I have strong opinions on this matter politically.
And he's looking at me, asking me for
advice.
So what should I have done?
Well, I'll tell you what I did, I
simply told the senator that he had his
responsibility before God and our political system, and
I had mine.
I assured him I would fully exercise mine
and I encouraged him to fully exercise his
own.
I declined to comment, saying that I had
more important business to attend to with him.
I told him I might be wrong politically
on this amendment to the Constitution, but I
was not wrong on the cross of Christ.
And that was the far more important business
I had to attend with him as his
pastor.
Now, I'm not sure that even if we
sit around on the panel, everybody would agree
with me in saying that.
But I say that to try to highlight,
I do think we must make a distinction
between the gospel and other things that we
take to be true and that this distinction
is faithful to the New Testament.
So if you look at Acts chapter eight,
for example, Acts chapter eight, Philip comes and
he preaches.
And it's very interesting, the phrase that Luke
uses to describe what Philip preaches.
He says in Acts chapter eight, verse twelve,
Luke says that Philip preached the good news
of the kingdom of God and the name
of Jesus Christ.
Now, friends, if you have read any books
for the last 10 years, this phrase, the
kingdom of God, is the taking off point
to all kinds of stuff.
OK, what was their immediate response to this
preaching of the kingdom of God?
Well, it's interesting if you look here in
Acts eight, it wasn't to change the structure
of the government of the city, but it
was to be baptized.
And then Luke reports in chapter eight, verse
14, that from this, the apostles heard that
Samaria had accepted the word of God.
It's clear that even using the expression, the
good news of the kingdom doesn't mean that
God's reign has now come in the fullness
that we will know it at Christ's return,
but that the king is willing to pardon
rebels and that we personally should go and
submit ourselves to his rule.
And yes, we will then begin to work
out the implications of these of this message.
But these implications aren't the gospel itself.
And if you say that these implications are
part of the gospel, confusion will result.
The message of God's fully sufficient work in
Christ will be mixed with our own works.
There is no entrance into the kingdom apart
from personal faith in Jesus Christ.
Do you think a non-Christian friend of
yours is doing kingdom work?
Oh, they're not.
They may be doing things that are relatively
good, better than other things they could do
in rebellion against God.
But there is no part in the kingdom
apart from personal faith in Christ.
May the local church be involved in good
works?
Yes, but it should be as a reflection
of.
Or as an attraction to this gospel of
Jesus Christ.
If alleviating material poverty is taken as a
responsibility of the congregation because that's part of
the gospel.
Then this is where most of the younger
Christians may choose to serve, not an evangelism.
This could well be the choice of less
mature Christians.
The more nominal Christians, the one who would
rather do things the world around them will
applaud and recognize in value than the evangelism
that it rejects and scorns.
Your congregation may well continue to do both
for a season, but I fear those who
follow them will not.
Such a public gospel will slowly but surely
lose its supernatural, awkward corners and be smooth
to be acceptable to sinners all around.
It's the story of countless churches in our
own land.
Here, I think looking at early 20th century
liberalism is very instructive.
You have you have people like Washington Gladden
who actually reject everything we know of as
the gospel, but then you have people like
Walter Rauschenbusch who would agree, I think, positively
with what we want to say is the
gospel.
But then he would put an end on
it.
And the story of that end is that
you always end up losing the gospel.
Look at Rauschenbusch and his early 20th century
followers, it's instructive.
Evangelism will never be appreciated by this world.
It is our special task, pastors, to protect
the priority of evangelism.
And I have to argue with other evangelicals
about this all the time.
And insofar as I have time and I
remaining 24 hours together, I am happy to
argue with you about this.
So if you want to come find me,
this would probably be the best use of
my time trying to persuade you, if you
are a pastor, that evangelism is, in fact,
your God given priority, the spreading of this
good news of Jesus Christ.
I don't mean by this to communicate any
indifference about issues of this life are both
evangelism and compassionate service to be part of
my individual discipleship.
Yes.
In that sense, they both typify my life
as a Christian.
Yes.
Are they equally part of the gospel?
No.
Let me give you one practical example of
this.
A foundation is established by evangelical Christians to
fund Christian work.
Over time, they come to accept the idea
that you can't preach the gospel or they
haven't changed the idea of the gospel, but
that you can't preach the gospel without aiming
at other larger cultural changes than just mere
evangelism.
A friend whose evangelistic ministry they had known
for years and appreciated asked for funding to
plant a church in a spiritually dark northeastern
city.
The foundation declines to fund this person.
Now, my friend is deeply concerned with the
urban poor and has given himself very practically
in caring for many in practical ways, but
because he believes that preaching the gospel can
be spoken of as the responsibility and priority
of the local church in a way, social
action cannot be that evangelism is the priority
because of this, they decline to assist him.
Evangelism unsupported because someone believes in the priority
of evangelism.
Recent history provides example after example of such
once evangelical groups falling away from the priority
of the gospel and in ways that directly
hinder its preaching.
Brothers, never substitute good works for the preaching
of the gospel.
Don't try to improve the gospel by making
it public like this.
You'll end up losing it.
Preach the gospel we've received.
Cry number two, another cry similar to the
one we just considered, but even more from
evangelicals.
And may I say at a meeting like
this, especially from the reformed.
Number two, make the gospel larger.
The question raised here is, did Jesus come
really only to save our souls?
What's at stake here is the core of
the gospel.
What is the gospel?
These people in seeking to apply the gospel
to all of life think through a Christian
worldview, which is great.
Thank you, Dr. Sproul and Moeller for helping
us to think through a Christian worldview, for
taking all of life in our minds captive
to the implications of the gospel.
But implications of the gospel are sometimes referred
to as part of the gospel.
This is not great.
I'm thinking of people who would affirm what
we mean when we say the gospel.
Unlike some of the people, maybe in the
first point that you could think of.
But they would want to say more.
Chuck Colson has done some great work.
His autobiography helped to solidify my own sense
of calling to the ministry.
He's a man to admire in many ways.
But he has in this area been confusing
and he is typical of what so many
ministers today seem to be doing and thinking,
for example, last summer at the Southern Baptist
Pastors Conference, Colson charged the assembled pastors to,
quote, understand what Christianity is, end of quote.
Now, that's an excellent charge to a group
of pastors.
I have no objection to pastors understanding what
Christianity is.
But then there's the question of, well, what
is it?
He continued, I quote, Christianity is a way
of seeing all of life and all of
reality, a way of understanding ultimate truth, the
plan of creation.
Christianity is a worldview.
When Jesus Christ came, he announced the kingdom,
every aspect of life under the Lordship of
Christ, end of quote.
OK, so is someone who hasn't thought through
the implications of the Lordship of Christ, not
a Christian?
I assume Chuck doesn't mean that.
What does it mean to genuinely be a
Christian without participating in what he here calls
Christianity?
I mean, where is the dividing line between
Christian and non-Christian?
Where does it where does it lie?
Is it really here over how thought through
we are about the implications of our faith?
Or is it simply whether or not we
have faith only in Christ to save us
from God's wrath against us because of our
sins?
Friends, I think that we have a lot
at stake in getting this right.
I have no doubt that to some of
you, I sound like I'm splitting hairs right
now, but I want you to know, at
least in my own mind, I think I'm
protecting the gospel.
The fruit of the spirit, the transformation of
our mind comes from our being a Christian.
It does not affect our salvation.
I'm concerned that if we confuse this issue,
we might begin going around sort of tacking
on fruit on fruitless trees.
We might think somehow we're we're making the
tree fruitful because we take this fruit and
simply staple it to it.
But I want to ask the question, why
is that tree not producing this fruit?
Maybe it's not really a fruit tree.
Non-Christians can hold some of the same
moral positions that Christians hold.
Praise God.
But they are not made Christians by holding
those positions.
A lack of these moral positions and lack
of these moral positions may indeed falsify our
claim to be Christian, but I'm not made
a Christian by holding these moral positions.
It is the gospel that saves and transforms,
and the gospel is no collection of our
own moral positions or actions.
So the righting of all wrongs, the blessings
mentioned in Isaiah and Jesus' first reading in
the synagogue, the releasing of the oppressed, the
healing of the blind, the freeing of the
prisoners are taken to be, as Colson has
written, doing the gospel.
Friends, I'm in favor of thinking through the
implications of a Christian worldview.
Tonight, when I introduce Al, I'm going to
plug his book Culture Matters, Culture Shift, Culture
Matters, Culture Shift.
I'm concerned in this process that we not
misunderstand what a Christian is.
We must always be clear to distinguish between
the core of the gospel and its results
or its implications.
Let me take a near implication of the
gospel, all right, that the Gentiles are heirs
together with Israel, members together of one body
and sharers together in the promise in Christ
Jesus.
Now, this is good news.
This is tremendous news.
Could this be said to be the gospel?
Well, in a strictly etymological sense, it's certainly
a gospel.
I mean, as I say, it's good news.
And yet it's very interesting in Ephesians chapter
three, verse six.
This is said to happen through or by
the gospel.
Now that this is the gospel.
And what's the problem with identifying an effect
of the gospel, like being staunchly pro-life
as part of the gospel itself?
Those people who also want that effect, that
end, that result, and are working very hard
for that end, you then take to be
working in some real sense for the gospel.
When they may, in fact, have a very
different idea of how this effect comes about.
In essence, a very different gospel.
Our good deeds commend the gospel only if
the gospel is already there to be commended.
Only if the gospel has already been verbally
communicated.
Evangelism is the preaching of the gospel.
Or here's another one.
Sharing our lives with somebody that we intend
to serve, or maybe even evangelize, that's a
good thing, right?
Surely that's the gospel.
But that's not what Paul says in 1
Thessalonians chapter two, verse eight.
We love you so much that we were
delighted to share with you not only the
gospel of God, but our lives as well.
Again, just like the previous example, we may
wonder if this could be said to be
sharing the gospel.
It certainly is good news.
And yet here in 1 Thessalonians, we see
that Paul's sharing his life with the Thessalonians
was something that happened in addition to his
sharing the gospel with himself.
He could have shared the gospel with them
without sharing his life.
Again, we see the problem of confusing an
action of ours with the gospel itself.
Even if that action could be said to
well reflect the gospel, or to be consistent
with the gospel, or perhaps even an implication
of the gospel, people can share their lives
with you without ever knowing or believing what
Paul here means by the gospel.
So when someone says that the gospel includes,
let's say, opposition to abortion, or working to
end unjust laws, that the gospel includes this.
Okay, then I have a few questions.
Does it also include nationalized health care?
Or the war in Iraq?
What is lost when an implication of the
gospel is bundled with the gospel, or taken
to be a part of the gospel?
I understand as a preacher, that is a
rhetorically powerful way to make a point.
Blank is the gospel.
Well, then I've just woken everybody up and
make them think, oh, I must agree with
you on this.
I understand the allure to the preacher of
putting it this way.
But does it not jeopardize our perception, our
grasp on the unique message about the reconciling
death of Jesus Christ?
Also, what do we say of others who
agree with us about Christ, but not about
these particular implications we point out?
Can true Christians disagree about the best way
to care for the poor?
Someone else may be a supporter of monarchy,
or of taking away religious liberties of Baptist
preachers, and once again, putting us in jail.
And I would disagree with them.
But can I say from these sad mistakes,
that such people could not be my brothers
and sisters in Christ?
Couldn't someone want to jail me, or have
my tongue cut out, as was done to
Baptist preachers?
And yet they actually be my brother in
Christ?
That we could not share the same gospel,
because we hadn't worked out the implications the
same?
Friend, if this is a new thought to
you, what do you think many of our
African American brothers and sisters have been doing
for decades, as they have listened to us,
quote, favorably from writers who believe that racial
slavery was morally defensible?
I know we don't agree with such defenses,
but you understand, seminaries are still being named
after people who took these terrible positions.
And yet, can we say that such people
understood and even appreciated the gospel?
I think we can.
We all live imperfectly and inconsistently with what
we know to be true.
That's why we are saved by faith in
Christ and Him alone.
To require us to include what we take
to be implications of the gospel in the
gospel itself can too easily confuse our message
and lose the radical and gracious sufficiency of
faith in Christ alone for salvation.
So we want a Christian worldview, and we
don't want to confuse that with the gospel.
Don't try to improve the gospel by making
it larger like this.
You'll end up losing it.
Preach the gospel we've received.
A third cry would be this.
Number three, make the gospel relevant.
Make the gospel relevant.
And the question here is more, how will
people be saved?
And what's at stake here is our outreach,
really, what it should be like.
And the buzzword here is, as John has
already said this morning, contextualization.
Many writers and pastors seem to want to
begin today with the assumption that the gospel
appears irrelevant to people today or people in
their community.
Therefore, they conclude we should follow the example
of Paul on Mars Hill or Paul going
to Jerusalem and be Greek to the Greek
or Jew to the Jews.
As Paul said to the Corinthians in 1
Corinthians 9, that he would become all things
to all men so that by all possible
means, I might save some.
In what can be described as an incarnational
ministry, we want to figure out what keeps
non-Christians from coming to our churches, listening
to our sermons, believing our gospel.
And so we stress our similarity to them,
try to help them feel at home, understood,
cared for when they're among us.
We want them to belong so that they
will believe.
We want to highlight the way the gospel
can help them succeed or have greater purpose
or joy or some other desired benefit.
We act and plan as if the greater
our similarity is to those people we're trying
to reach, the more the gospel will appear
relevant to them and the more successful we
will be at reaching them.
Beware here, a concern for evangelism unmoored from
important theological truth in scripture has often been
the pathway to theological liberalism.
It has happened again, evangelism, aero-liberalism.
Not that evangelism is bad, evangelism is great,
but unmoored from some important theological truth in
scripture.
That's what happened with Schleiermacher in the 18th
century.
Finney in the 19th century.
Pragmatism in the 20th century.
In the middle of the last century, a
missionary discovered what we've already had referred to,
the homogeneous unit principle.
That's the idea that like attracts like.
That is that if we will probably attract
unchurched Harry and Mary or Saddleback Sam or
Indian Brahmins by having people like them share
the gospel with them, by having people that
they can identify with, compose the congregation that
we're inviting them to be a part of.
One leading proponent of such ideas has written
that, quote, studies have shown, studies have shown
that people make a decision for Christ sooner
when there is a group support.
Oh, I would like to have that internal
data.
Studies have shown, well, we don't even have
time.
Just take every one of those words apart.
How do they know that it's sooner?
How do they know that alternative reality?
How do they know the human heart like
that?
All right, all right.
Studies have shown that people make a decision
for Christ sooner when there is a group
support.
Or is that same bestselling book advocated, quote,
this is what we want to do with
the opening song.
We use a bright, upbeat number that makes
you want to tap your foot, clap or
at least smile.
We want to loosen up the tense muscles
of uptight visitors.
When your body is relaxed, your attitude is
less defensive.
If you can reduce your visitors level of
fear, they'll be far more receptive to the
gospel.
End of quote.
Of course, this kind of thinking will lead
us to try to make the gospel relevant
to very specific groups of people.
So the same book says that the style
of music you use in your service, quote,
may be the most influential factor in determining
who your church reaches for Christ and whether
or not your church grows.
You must match your music to the kind
of people God wants your church to reach.
End of quote.
But such evident relevance to non-Christians brings
with it a host of questions.
So for one thing, shouldn't it be our
lives more than simply our weekly meetings that
provoke unbelievers interest?
If we can gain people by lowering their
defenses with music and lighting, then what happens
when the atheists and the Mormons and the
Muslims figure out that technique?
Couldn't they do the same thing?
Maybe they'll get even better at it than
we are.
Furthermore, wouldn't such methods really display the cleverness
of the leaders of the church?
It's more than the wisdom of God.
I can understand some of this as an
evangelistic strategy.
Let me explain.
I mean, if I'm trying to reach a
retirement community, I can understand retirees in that
community being being useful, being helpful evangelists.
I can understand using soccer players to reach
soccer players.
But wouldn't we specifically not want to build
a local congregation around a homogeneous unit for
just the reasons that Beatty was telling us
about so well last night?
Wouldn't we specifically not want to do that?
We read in Ephesians 2 that Paul seemed
to have a very different idea.
But now in Christ Jesus, you who were
once far away, Gentiles have been brought near
through the blood of Christ.
It seems that the overcoming of that ancient
barrier drew attention to the profound power of
the atoning death of Jesus Christ, that even
our deepest separations could be overcome through Christ.
And while there were certainly unique things about
the Jewish Gentile divide, it's not a perfect
picture of just mere other earthly ethnicities that
we're bringing up.
But still, I think we see here that
these worldly divisions that rend our churches, these
divisions suggest that these divisions themselves are more
powerful than the gospel of Jesus Christ.
So if anything, what we want to espouse
is not a homogeneous unit principle.
We want to espouse a heterogeneous unit principle.
The heterogeneous unit principle is the principle of
the church in the New Testament, because every
earthly boundary overcome is a testimony of praise
to the greatness of Jesus Christ and the
gospel that he's accomplished.
So while Paul certainly did tell the Corinthians
that he became a Greek to the Greek
or the Jew to the Jews in order
to win people to Christ, it's interesting that
earlier in this same letter, Paul explained to
them how he refused to speak to them
in a manner that the Corinthians were accustomed
to, in a manner that was culturally relevant.
Human eloquence and wisdom, because it seems that
there were some methods which would themselves cause,
well, as John was just saying to us,
the message itself to be misunderstood.
Perhaps they could even be said to contradict
the message, the gospel that Paul would preach
to them.
Of course, we should contextualize the gospel and
do only in the sense that, contextualize in
the sense that we're preaching it here.
Okay, so I'm not preaching the gospel right
now in Washington.
I'm preaching the gospel in Louisville.
If you want to call that contextualizing, well,
here we are.
You know, you look at where we meet
and how we sit at the language we
speak, how we sing.
We realize how different the externals are from
some things we're doing to what they were
doing in the book of Acts.
And we should be always willing to follow
Christ's example to lay aside our rights, our
preferences in order to serve people with the
gospel.
So we learn their language.
We go to their country.
We eat their food.
We wear their clothes insofar as we don't
contradict God's revealed will in Scripture.
But we do this all not for our
own comforts, nor certainly for the comfort of
the sinner in their sin.
Any translation work we do should never soften
the gospel.
Contextualization should never make the gospel more palatable
to the sinner, more acceptable.
In fact, one test that you can use
very practical, my preacher friend, of whether or
not a particular attempt at contextualization has been
successful is to ask if it has made
the offense of the gospel clearer.
There's a test for appropriately reaching your audience.
The gospel is relevant to every sinner on
earth.
Our job is merely to present the gospel
accurately, to work to make that already existing
relevance obvious and clear.
If merely human skill works to bring someone
into our church, we can be sure that
other greater human skill will be able to
take them out of it.
We should reject any kind of relevance which
actually sacrifices the very distinctness with which Scripture
tells us we will give a life-saving
witness to the gospel around those that we
would reach.
We would illustrate the gospel before them by
our lives of Christlike love.
Now, of course, we have stupid peculiarities, which
may make us look like peculiar people that
we don't have to have.
We shouldn't be encouraged in those.
But we should have a distinction which bears
witness to the very nature and truth of
the gospel.
As Jesus said in John 13, a new
command I give you, love one another as
I have loved you.
So you must love one another.
All men will know that you are my
disciples if you love one another.
So Paul called Christians to shine in the
midst of this very dark night.
The gospel's relevance appears precisely in our being
distinct in this way.
Don't try to improve the gospel by making
it more relevant like this.
You will end up losing it.
Preach the gospel we've received.
A fourth appeal would be number four, make
the gospel personal.
Make the gospel personal.
The question here seems to be, are we
saved alone?
The issue is really one of our identity.
Some people seem to understand the gospel only
in reference to themselves as an individual with
no idea of the local church.
And that individualism that ignores the local church
ends up distorting our discipleship and maybe even
our gospel.
And this is true for everyone from Harold
Camping to George Barna and beyond.
After all, what is God about in Jesus
Christ?
Well, according to Ephesians 3, God's intent was
that now through the church, the manifold wisdom
of God should be made known to the
rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms, according
to his eternal purpose, which he accomplished in
Christ Jesus, our Lord.
Friends, according to the Bible, our participation in
a local congregation normally, speaking very carefully to
pastors here, our participation in a local congregation
normally validates or falsifies our claim to trust
in Christ and his gospel.
What gospel allows you to think that you've
accepted it if you don't in a committed
and Christlike way love your brother?
If you say you love God and you've
not seen and don't love your brother whom
you have seen, you lie.
And the truth is not in you.
Here's a question for you.
What does saving faith look like?
Does the gospel save merely me and lead
me to God?
Or does it normally, again, the word normally,
bring me to God through the fellowship of
the local church?
Paul says in 1 Corinthians 12, 13, that
we were all baptized by one spirit into
one body.
God means us to serve him not only
but fundamentally through the local church, where we
are served by each other as God has
designed, as Peter said, in the way that
God has given gifts to be used in
serving each other specifically.
Friends, the reason you have your gifts is
not for yourself or just for your friends.
It's for you to serve a local congregation.
Read 1 Peter chapter 4.
For many today, the Christian life is taken
to be something that they get to choose
to live out as they will with the
people they want to love, just their family
or just their golfing partners, maybe gathered around
the radio or the Internet.
I've no doubt that in some places around
the world, such fellowship is the only kind
of fellowship possible.
Given how oppressive and tyrannous some governments are,
like the government of Burma right now, pray
for change.
But in many places around the world, we
can do what New Testament Christians seem to
do, which was to meet in as large
a group as they could for encouragement like
this.
I think most Christians in America today only
think of the gospel as saving them individually
and completely neglect the functional congregation centeredness, which
is supposed to mark our discipleship.
So many people today are presenting a gospel
which tells us about Jesus, but then leaves
us alone or only with a few friends.
It's a personal gospel.
It's something of a designer deity.
The idea is that the church is simply
one of a number of means that Christian
may choose to use in order to grow
spiritually.
I mean, if they find it helpful.
You know, the choice of music or a
Bible study to attend or a devotional book
to read or or a retreat to go
on or a conference to come to.
I mean, they go to this local church
at nine for its its lively music.
And then this one here at 1030 because
there's a good young marriage ministry.
They go to this one on Thursday evenings
because of a mentoring relationship they have.
The idea that they should be fundamentally committed
to one congregation and even submitted to the
leadership there is as alien and foreign to
them as eating locusts and how wild honey
would be to most of us.
It's not even they so much oppose the
idea.
They've never simply heard it articulated.
It's never even crossed their minds.
I mean, you pastors, you've met these people
at the door after church on Sunday.
You know, they they come out and and
they tell you that their ministry is working
with an AA group.
Or their ministry is campus crusade.
Their friends ministry here is a Bible study
in the jails.
Your ministry is this local church here.
Many evangelicals today seem to assume that church
is just the plural word for Christian.
And therefore, they assume that the local church
should do whatever the individual Christian should do.
And from this lack of understanding of the
church's unique responsibilities and privileges as the church
confusion about the gospel comes.
A wrongly personalized gospel ends up with a
wrongly personalized church.
Everything the individual Christian should do is taken
to be the task then of every church.
But friend, that can't be true.
The church isn't supposed to be the husband,
for example, of my wife.
That's my job.
The church teaches me about being a husband
and they're in dereliction of duty if they
don't teach me about that.
But I have to go and then apply
these truths to the intricacies of my unique
relationship with my wife and two different marriages
can pursue that same biblical goal in differing
ways.
How I husband my wife should be guided
by the Bible.
At least the principles are and couldn't be
said to be part of the gospel, though
it is consistent with the gospels and reflects
the gospel.
As Paul tells us in Ephesians five, we
don't have to agree on everything about the
Christian life in order to agree about the
gospel.
As this very conference shows.
Being vague about the church can hurt our
understanding of the gospel.
Do we know what God calls us together
for in the local church?
And one popular erroneous view, the church as
the local church is understood to be a
company of Christians, but with no unique responsibilities,
whether it's a Bible study or a fellowship
on a college campus or a regular gathering
of Christian women in the neighborhood for prayer.
Many today would consider any of these gatherings
a church.
But none of them are local churches.
Even two or three gathered in Jesus name
are not necessarily a church.
Such a group is not God's primary plan
for displaying his church.
God is displaying his church through local fellowships
of Christians who give themselves to the preaching
of the gospel, obedience to the statutes of
Christ, including baptism in the Lord's supper, the
recognition of elders, submission to them, defining the
membership of the local church and thus, really
the appearance of the gospel in the world.
Now, many groups of Christians do not intend
to do any of those things.
So they're not fulfilling the very purpose of
the church.
Such wrong ideas about the church often encourage
wrong ideas of the gospel.
Antinomianism is encouraged where there are no people
we have to love because we just love
whoever we want to.
And we already like even if we're in
the flesh.
And legalism is where there are unbiblical standards
that are unchallenged by the regular preaching of
God's word by recognized elders.
The audible gospel is intended to be displayed
by the visible local church full of people
who may have a little in common in
worldly terms, except the gospel, they have that
in common.
The church is not supposed to do everything
that's commanded of the individual Christian.
Jesus founded the church and a local church
is supposed to be a company of Christians
joined together, meeting together for fellowship with Christ
around his word and practicing his ordinances.
Such a church is intended to be integral
part of the Christian's life and discipleship.
It is not an optional extra.
Our life is to be lived congregationally and
not in a series of informal, but a
formal relationships of commitment in which we are
accountable to one another.
The local church is a glorious testimony to
the gospel of Jesus Christ, which is greater
than the unity of its visible parts.
A local church is not simply a collection
of individual lights.
It is a furnace that rages against the
dark and that God uses to create more
lights.
I love the way Jonathan Edwards presents the
centrality of the church in God's plan in
his sermon church's marriage to her son and
to her God.
Quote, the creation of the world seems to
have been especially for this end that the
eternal son of God might obtain a spouse
towards whom he might fully exercise the infinite
benevolence of his nature and to whom he
might, as it were, open and pour forth
all that immense fountain of condescension, love and
grace that was in his heart and that
in this way God might be glorified.
Don't try to improve the gospel by decoupling
it from the local church.
You'll end up losing it.
Preach the gospel that we've received.
Last try, we'll consider this morning's number five.
Make the gospel kinder.
Here, the question is, why does God save
us?
And the issue is really God's purpose.
And many people have assumed that the ultimate
purpose of the gospel is the greatest good
for the greatest number of people.
So it's long been a popular idea to
assume that what God is about in the
gospel is attempting to rescue the most people
he can from hell.
The idea is that God is a just
and holy God and a loving and merciful
God, and that his character is best expressed
in providing salvation for sinners who will take
it.
And the follow on from this is that
we should do whatever we can to reach
whomever we can.
Of course, that part's true.
We should do that.
But reaching is not seen as merely making
sure they hear and understand the evangelistic gospel,
but making sure that they accept the gospel.
In light of this conclusion, all evangelistic efforts
are subjected to evaluation according to how many
people have heard and have made an immediate,
visible, positive response.
The ultimate purpose of God and the preaching
of the gospel is the salvation of sinners,
period.
This, it's thought, is a kinder gospel.
But isn't this really a modification of what
scripture teaches?
I mean, could this formulation really owe more
to 18th and 19th century philosophers Jeremy Bentham
and John Stuart Mill?
Isn't this just a philosophy of utilitarianism in
Christian garb?
In some ways, this is the root problem
of the other four that I've mentioned.
We come up with such a man-centered
edition of the gospel in order to make
the gospel sound better to unbelieving non-Christian
ears, in order to try to justify God
before the bar of the unbelieving world.
And the results of such attempts litter the
history of the church down into the present
-day bookstores that are called Christian.
Brothers, pragmatism is a greater danger for Bible
-believing Christians than open theism will ever be.
But there is a more God-centered gospel
where God is chiefly understood not to be
about the most sinners saved, but the most
glory for himself.
Remember what Jesus said in John 3, 16?
For God so loved the world that he
gave his one and only son, that whoever
believes in him shall not perish, but have
eternal life.
What do you hear when you hear that
very familiar verse?
Do you hear about God?
About how he has loved us?
About what he has done?
About who he has given?
About his giving himself?
About God himself being the object of our
faith?
The fruit of such a change of emphasis
away from God toward us inevitably tends to
distort creation as if it's all centered on
human ability and human faithfulness.
Here's what Paul said to the Thessalonian congregation
that he had under God planted sometime earlier.
He got a good report of them and
he wrote in 1 Thessalonians 1, What you
running?
No, wait.
Paul never in any of his letters asked
about their attendance numbers.
You know, not once in the New Testament
do we ever have that kind of question.
Here's what he said.
He said, we always thank God for all
of you mentioning you in our prayers.
We thank God.
We always thank God.
We always thank God for all of you
mentioning you in our prayers.
We continually remember before our God and father,
your work produced by faith, your labor prompted
by love and your endurance inspired by hope
in our Lord Jesus Christ.
Contrast this with what one pastor sent to
his congregation three days after Easter last month.
Quote, Dear church family, you did it again.
By inviting your friends, we had a record
Easter.
Most important of all, 1038 of your friends
will be spending eternity in heaven because you
cared enough to invite them to a service.
And then at the end of that letter,
what a church family we have.
There wasn't much about God in the letter.
Friends, all that exists exists for God's pleasure.
Scripture is clear.
God is in all this for our salvation
and even our glory.
As Paul says in first readings to seven,
there's a sweet meditation, but also and more
fundamentally to please himself, to demonstrate himself.
He has a larger end in mind, the
display of his character in his creation, the
theater of his splendor.
The fruit of God's spirit in us is
meant to confirm us in our faith and
to show us the truth and to show
the truth to the non-Christians around us,
even to the rulers and the authorities in
the heavenly realms.
Isn't this unimproved gospel, the gospel that we
find in scripture rather than the gospel that
we put there?
In Romans nine, we read, What if God,
choosing to show his wrath and make his
power known, bore with great patience the objects
of his wrath, prepared for destruction?
What if he did this to make the
riches of his glory known to the objects
of his mercy, whom he prepared in advance
for glory, even us whom he also called
not only from the Jews, but also from
the Gentiles?
Our churches are all living demonstrations of God's
character, of his justice and of his mercy.
So Jesus said, all men will know you
are my disciples if you love one another.
We have his character stamped on us.
We're made in it.
His spirit recreates us.
That's why Paul said to the Philippians, Do
everything without complaining or arguing so that you
may become blameless and without fault in a
crooked and depraved generation in which you shine
like stars in the universe as you hold
out the word of life.
Have you ever noticed that this is why
God does everything he does?
So throughout the book of Ezekiel again and
again, this is why the Lord says he
does what he's done, so that we will
know that he is the Lord.
Or Exodus.
Why did he have his people in slavery
to Egypt?
Because it was the great superpower of the
time.
And God was going to make it clear
that he was greater than even the greatest
superpower of the time.
That's why God does what he does to
show the truth about who he is.
So again, Ephesians 3, 10, God's intent was
that now through the church, the manifold wisdom
of God should be made known to the
rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms according
to his eternal purpose, which he accomplished in
Christ Jesus, our Lord.
Did you realize all this is going on
in the gospel?
God is about all of this.
Friends, we should want to see people saved,
definitely, and for their own good, but even
more for God's glory.
That the truth about our great creator and
redeemer would be known the truth about our
wonderful God.
Don't try to improve the gospel by making
it appear kinder at first glance.
If you do, you'll end up losing the
gospel.
Preach the gospel we've received.
So in all of this, am I being
reductionistic?
Well, it may seem so, but I mean
to be zealous in recognizing the all sufficiency
of Christ's work for us and our God
given faith in that savior.
And this gospel we've received is itself full
and it lacks nothing.
And to add to it is only to
detract from it and from God's glory.
Now, lest I be misunderstood, I believe that
God cares about issues of justice and so
should we.
But that's not the gospel.
I think that we should think through the
implications of scriptures teaching, but that's not the
gospel.
I believe we must and will make culturally
situated decisions about how we approach others with
the message.
But even those decisions are not the gospel.
I believe that salvation fundamentally involves an individual
decision, but a genuine response to the gospel
will inevitably end up tying up our lives
with others and normally in a local church.
I believe what the Holy Spirit said through
Peter, that God is patient with you, not
wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come
to repentance.
But that God in the gospel also has
another concern to demonstrate his goodness and justice
in both the cross of Christ and the
damnation of sinners.
So brothers guard the gospel again and again.
When Paul summarized the gospel, he talked of
Christ's death and resurrection, sharing creation, fall, redemption,
restoration is great as the cosmic flow of
the Bible.
It is good to know what God is
about.
But unless I'm a universalist, I may wonder
what this means for me, particularly if I
begin to know myself, as John was just
telling us as a sinner against God, then
what am I to do?
If creation, fall, redemption, restoration were ever preached
in the book of Acts, let's say without
God, man, Christ response, how would anyone ever
know that they were personally to repent and
believe?
Rising generation of ministers hear this call.
I don't know how much longer God is
going to allow cause like this to be
made.
The gospel of Jesus Christ is not merely
about temporary structures.
It is about immortal beings made in God's
image.
The gospel of Jesus Christ is not merely
about pressing issues of passing policy.
It is about the death of Jesus Christ
on the cross once for all time.
The gospel of Jesus Christ is not merely
about connecting with the questions the non-Christian
has.
It is about communicating the answers God has
made for us.
The gospel of Jesus Christ is not merely
about me experiencing immediate joy with my friends.
It is about my everlasting joy in God
and what's more, God's pleasure and joy as
he leads me even into the fellowship of
a local church with people as sinful and
as inconvenient to love as I am.
And the gospel of Jesus Christ is not
merely about the number of saints saved.
It is about the glory of God who
would save anyone at all.
Friends, my goal in all of this is
extremely simple.
It is to encourage you to keep the
gospel clear, free from distortions.
Keep the gospel clear.
Don't try to improve it.
Let's pray together.
Lord, we pray that you would make your
word clear to us.
We pray that any errors that are in
my speech or our minds would in your
kind mercy be taken away and that you
would truly help us to cherish that good
news which you have brought to us at
such great cost.
Lord, we thank you for the privilege of
being under shepherds of the flock of Christ.
Make us faithful and we will give you
all the praise.
In Jesus' name, amen.