This is a trustworthy saying. And I want you to stress these things, so that those who have trusted in God may be careful to devote themselves to doing what is good. These things are excellent and profitable for everyone.
But avoid foolish controversies and genealogies and arguments and quarrels about the law, because these are unprofitable and useless.
- Titus 3:8-9
In his letter to Titus, the Apostle Paul focuses on sound doctrine and practical living. The gospel is not merely an idea to be believed but a truth to be lived out. After describing God’s merciful work of salvation in Titus 3:4-7 (which you can read more about here and here), he shifts to the practical implications for the Christian community. Believers must devote themselves to good works, while at the same time avoiding divisive and fruitless disputes. For the church today, these verses speak directly to the tension we often feel between living out our faith actively in love and being distracted by arguments that do not advance God’s Kingdom.
Paul begins in verse 8 with, “This is a trustworthy saying.” This phrase likely refers back to the gospel summary in the previous verses, affirming that the message of salvation by God’s mercy, rebirth, renewal by the Spirit, and justification by grace is completely reliable. He wants Titus and the churches in Crete to hold fast to this truth without wavering. The gospel is trustworthy; the Church’s foundation is not shifting sand but solid truth.
Then Paul charges Titus, as a church leader, to emphasize the gospel truths consistently. This wasn’t to be a one-time sermon but an ongoing theme. The gospel is not just the entry point to Christianity; it is the message that must continually be stressed to keep the church healthy. Leaders today can be tempted to shift focus to what seems more practical, entertaining, or marketable. But Paul reminds us that stressing the gospel is the most practical thing we can do. When believers are grounded in what God has done, they are motivated and empowered to live faithfully.
Paul explains the purpose: “so that those who have trusted in God may be careful to devote themselves to doing what is good.” Faith in God is not passive. True trust leads to an intentional commitment to doing good works. This is not salvation by works but salvation that leads to good works (see James 2:14-26). Doing good is not only an act of obedience to God but also a blessing to society. Christians are called to be salt and light (Matthew 5:13-16), demonstrating the goodness of God in tangible ways.
For Christ followers now, being “devoted to doing good” means more than sporadic acts of kindness. It means living with a posture of service by meeting needs, seeking justice, and extending mercy in everyday life. Churches must cultivate a culture where good works are the natural outflow of faith, not optional extras.
After urging devotion to good, Paul gives a contrast to that in verse 9: “But avoid foolish controversies and genealogies and arguments and quarrels about the law, because these are unprofitable and useless.” In the church in Crete, some false teachers were obsessed with speculative debates about genealogies (possibly Jewish myths about ancestry), arguments over the finer points of the Mosaic law, and controversies that stirred division rather than building faith. These disputes wasted time and distracted believers from living out the gospel.
We may think these things don’t apply to the Church today since we don’t get hung up on debating genealogies or the Mosaic law. But we do get sidetracked by debates that are similarly unprofitable. We have long online debates over secondary theological issues. We have division over cultural or political matters that overshadow the gospel. We may get obsessed with speculative end-times predictions or conspiracy theories. But Paul’s warning is clear: the church’s energy should not be consumed by fruitless quarrels. Our calling is not to win arguments but to live out the truth in love.
This passage from Titus calls us as believers to live in balance. On the one hand, we must be devoted to good works, actively serving, loving, and blessing others. On the other hand, we must avoid distractions that derail our mission, arguments that divide and consume energy without producing fruit. This balance is difficult. Some Christians emphasize good works but neglect doctrinal clarity. Others focus on doctrinal disputes but neglect practical love. Paul insists that both matter: sound doctrine fuels good works, and foolish disputes undermine them.
How can we work through this? First, church leaders should continually stress the gospel message, not assuming people already know it. The gospel motivates good works and keeps us from drifting into speculation. Second, we should encourage believers to see good works as a daily devotion, not occasional charity. Highlight stories of service, celebrate them, and model them. Third, we should learn and then teach others how to distinguish between core doctrines that must be defended (like salvation by grace alone) and secondary issues where disagreement is acceptable. Finally, we should promote a spirit of humility, patience, and love in the church. Unity does not mean uniformity, but it requires believers to stay focused on Christ rather than peripheral controversies.
This passage presents a vision for the Christian life that is both simple and difficult at the same time: stress the gospel, devote yourselves to doing good, and avoid distractions that are unprofitable and useless. For the Church today, these words are an important reminder. We live in a world where endless debates, controversies, and distractions threaten to consume our attention. But Paul directs us back to what matters: grounding ourselves in the trustworthy gospel and expressing that faith through good works that bless everyone. This is the kind of church the world needs to see today.
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Paul, a servant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ to further the faith of God’s elect and their knowledge of the truth that leads to godliness — in the hope of eternal life, which God, who does not lie, promised before the beginning of time, and which now at his appointed season he has brought to light through the preaching entrusted to me by the command of God our Savior,
To Titus, my true son in our common faith:
Grace and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Savior.
- Titus 1:1-4
These opening verses of the letter to Titus are far more than a formal introduction. Unlike casual correspondence, Paul’s greetings are purposeful, packed with doctrinal depth and pastoral concern. Paul begins by identifying himself in a dual role: as a servant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ. He introduces his purpose—to further the faith of God’s elect and their knowledge of the truth that leads to godliness. Embedded within these verses is a powerful message about salvation, calling, and the eternal purposes of God.
In the first part of verse 1, Paul’s introduction carries authority and humility. He identifies himself first as a servant of God, which shows his total submission and the ownership that God has over his life. In the ancient world, being a servant was often seen as a position of low status, but Paul embraces it as a badge of honor.
Next, Paul calls himself an apostle of Jesus Christ. The term “apostle” means “one who is sent.” Paul was not self-appointed; he was commissioned by the risen Christ (Galatians 1:1). His role as an apostle is foundational for the early church, and his authority comes directly from God. Paul’s dual identity sets the tone for the letter. He serves God with authority given by Christ. His message is not optional or merely advisory; it is divinely appointed and meant to transform lives.
In the rest of verse 1, Paul shares the two main goals of his mission. The first is to further the faith of God’s elect. The phrase “God’s elect” refers to those chosen by God for salvation (see Romans 8:28-33 and Ephesians 1:4). Paul's purpose is not only to proclaim the gospel to outsiders but to deepen the faith of believers. Faith is not a static thing; it must be cultivated, nurtured, and strengthened.
Paul’s second purpose is to further knowledge of the truth that leads to godliness. This is one of the key themes of the letter. Truth is not abstract; it is transformative. True knowledge of God produces godliness—a life that reflects the character of God. Paul is not interested in dry doctrine but in truth that penetrates the heart and shapes conduct.
In verse 2, Paul connects his mission to the larger promise of eternal life. Christian hope is not wishful thinking—it is a confident expectation rooted in the character of God. The “hope of eternal life” is not a vague aspiration but a secure future guaranteed by God’s promise. This hope sustains believers through trials and motivates godly living.
Paul describes God as one “who does not lie.” In a culture saturated with deception, especially among the Cretans, whom Paul later describes as “liars” (Titus 1:12), this is a profound statement. God’s promises are utterly reliable.
Paul emphasizes that the promise of eternal life was made “before the beginning of time.” This speaks to God’s eternal purpose. Salvation was not an afterthought; it was part of God’s divine plan from before creation. The gospel is not just about personal improvement or social reform—it is about stepping into a divine story that began in eternity past and culminates in eternal life.
Paul shifts in verse 3 from eternity past to the present. What was promised before time began has now been manifested. God works according to His own divine timetable. Paul points out that the message of eternal life has come to light in this appointed era. God is never late, and His purposes unfold with precision.
The medium God chose for revealing His plan is preaching. In the New Testament, preaching is not simply moral advice or motivational speech. It is the authoritative proclamation of the gospel, the good news that Jesus Christ has died, risen, and reigns. This preaching was “entrusted” to Paul, indicating both responsibility and privilege. Paul was not freelancing; he was a steward of God’s message, commissioned “by the command of God our Savior.”
Interestingly, Paul refers to God as “our Savior,” a title more commonly associated with Jesus Christ. But later in this short letter (2:10 and 3:4), Paul uses “Savior” for both God the Father and Jesus Christ. This reflects the unity of purpose within the Trinity in the work of salvation.
Finally, in verse 4, we see who Paul is writing to: Titus. Paul’s relationship with Titus is both personal and spiritual. He calls him his “true son,” indicating that Titus likely came to faith through Paul’s ministry. This also implies a close bond of trust and mentorship. Titus was a Greek believer (Galatians 2:3) who became one of Paul’s trusted co-workers. The phrase “common faith” reinforces the unity that exists among believers, regardless of ethnic or social backgrounds. Jew and Gentile, apostle and disciple—are one in Christ. Faith in Jesus Christ creates a spiritual family where all distinctions are secondary.
Paul’s customary greeting of “Grace and peace” is more than a formality. Grace speaks of God’s unmerited favor; peace speaks of the resulting reconciliation with God and others. This is the gospel in summary: God gives grace, and from that grace flows peace.
Though only four verses long, this opening of Titus touches on the calling and authority of Paul, the transformative power of truth, the hope of eternal life rooted in God’s unchanging character, the unfolding of God’s plan in time through the proclamation of the gospel, the unity of believers in common faith, and the blessing of grace and peace from our Triune God.
Like Paul, we are called to deepen the faith of others and live out the truth that leads to godliness. Like Titus, we are spiritual sons and daughters with a shared mission. Like the early church, we stand on the sure promises of a God who does not lie and whose purposes are eternal.
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Jesus was not one to do a lot of things privately. He always had witnesses to what He said and did. The primary thing He purposed to do privately was prayer, and He would frequently go out alone to pray because He did not want the interruptions of His disciples or other people. But there is one teaching we have recorded in Scripture that was done in private: a secret meeting at night with Nicodemus. Now, we can be certain that John was nearby because He is the one who recorded the account, however, this was one of the few times Jesus ever dealt with someone in private, most likely at Nicodemus’ request.
For Nicodemus, to show admiration for Jesus in public would have been very controversial. He had heard about Jesus and about the working of miracles; he likely witnessed one of them, possibly the healing of the paralytic who was lowered through the roof by his friends, because that was one of the few publicly seen miracles early in Jesus’ ministry. Other Pharisees were there as well. The Chosen depicts Nicodemus’ intrigue with this miracle as well, but of Jesus’ early miracles where Nicodemus could have been present, this one seems to be most plausible. In any case, Nicodemus needed to meet Jesus and wanted to meet privately, so Jesus agreed.
Nicodemus opens by realizing that Jesus was sent by God, and Jesus goes straight to the message and tells Nicodemus that he must be born again, explaining it is spiritual birth he needs. Then Jesus gave the Gospel message, but not without a warning about those who would reject Him. I am certain there was more back and forth than John records, and we don’t have Nicodemus’ response. The Chosen depicts him receiving Jesus as the Messiah but unable to let go of his life to actually follow Him. All we do know is that Nicodemus opposed the attempts to put Jesus to death without trial and a proper hearing and then helped Joseph of Arimathea to bury Jesus. Here, I want to get into Jesus’ mindset as to why He said what He said.
Jesus opened up by telling Nicodemus that he needed to be born again. This is the only passage where the actual phrase “born again” is used in the Bible, however, the concept described occurs throughout Scripture with different pictures and different images but the same concept. We must be born again. We must forget everything we have thought and thought we knew in the old life and start completely over again. Nicodemus was considered one of the elite rabbis among the Sanhedrin, the teacher of all the teachers. He didn’t have that much political power per se, but he was highly regarded. When he showed up, all wanted to sit at his feet. And Jesus gave Nicodemus the same thing He gave the rich young ruler: give up your most prized possessions. He told the rich young ruler that his money was an idol that would keep him from doing things God’s way, and he walked away unable to let it go. Nicodemus was asked to give up his position, education, and learning to follow Jesus. He did later to a degree, but Nicodemus had to forget everything he thought he knew about God’s point and purpose.
The Jews never actually understood the Law. They thought the Law was what you did to prove your value to God. That was never its intention. Its intention was to showcase how man never had and never will meet up to God’s standards. Jesus showed the intention of the Law through His ministry by raising the bar to include your thoughts and motives in morality, and also that certain laws were not so strict to keep you from doing weightier things like loving your neighbor in time of need. Jesus told Nicodemus, who taught the strict enforcement of ceremonial laws, to forget it all and start all over. Now, let’s be clear; Jesus never once taught that He was getting rid of the old system. He was saying its purpose is finished, but only for those who would believe in Him. Those outside of Christ are still going to be judged by the Law.
Jesus wanted Nicodemus to shift his entire mindset from “do this to be right with God” to what God intended all along: “Believe and by faith trust God, and the good works will follow.” Jesus cited one of Israel’s key moments in the wilderness, the raising of the bronze serpent so that all who look upon it would be healed, to showcase that He Himself would be lifted up on a cross and all who look upon Him would be saved from something far more severe than the bite of a serpent: sin itself. The message of the Gospel is about trust and reliance on God. The amazing thing is that this was the message all along; Jesus never came up with a new system. It was there the whole time. Abel understood it. Noah understood it. Abraham understood it. Yet from Moses on, it seems only David truly understood it, though a number of those in Hebrews 11 had it to a degree.
So as Jesus explained the faith-based system, He then came to the most famous verse in the Bible: John 3:16, the simplest one-sentence summary of the Gospel. All it takes to be saved is to believe in Jesus, but as we have seen with Jesus’ other teachings, to believe in Him is a very different thing than intellectual agreement or mental ascent. It is a total trust in Him, which involves and requires denial of self and rejecting our way of doing things. While Jesus offers this great hope, He also gave a stern warning, because those who chose not to believe Him stand condemned already. Jesus’ message is not “turn or burn” with a threat. His message is “Turn because you ARE burning. Come out. Get help. Let Me save you.”
We do not know the immediate result of this discussion with Nicodemus, but we know that Nicodemus did come to Jesus’ aid and stood by Him from his position with the Pharisees. And we are left with the same question: will we trust in Jesus and start over? Paul did. Or are we going to stay in our world system and reject Jesus?
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The Gospel is the power of God unto salvation. When the Gospel is proclaimed as God gave it, it has the power to either save the soul or further harden it. It has been proclaimed once for all. There will be no additions to it – no more new revelation, no more new Scripture. Once Jesus rose from the dead, all that was left was to proclaim it and teach how to live in light of regeneration and then how things would end. There is nothing more to be said. And as Christians, we are commanded to preach the Gospel as God gave it, with no changes, exactly as it was given, and there is a hefty price for failing to do so.
We are to preach the Gospel regardless of how it is accepted or not. If no one receives it, that’s not our problem as long as we were faithful to the message given. We still give God glory. If everyone receives it, then we have two scenarios: we were faithful and God gave a special blessing, or we were not faithful and we got man’s praise.
We will never be able to preach the full Gospel in one sitting, let alone in our lifetime, so preach the parts we can that specifically address the situations we are facing. But the end goal is still Christ and the solution to all problems is still the cross because all problems are from one thing: sin. That said, any extras, any ‘secondary’ doctrines we deal with, need to be correct too because nothing tells an audience your story is baloney if you need to lead them to a lie in order to expose them to the truth. It does no one any good to load up your talk on totally extraneous stuff and then say, “By the way, Jesus loves you.” It needs to be connected.
Preaching the Gospel is not a competition. That is one thing I despise seeing in the Christian community. And I’ll get on my fellow “young earth creationists” for it as well as “campus ministries” where I have seen it too. They seem to carry that attitude more than some others, where other ministries are competition instead of partners in the same war. Jesus told His disciples to not stop a man preaching in Jesus’ name because he was not against Jesus. There is no need to be part of your “clique” to be able to preach the Gospel. If the Gospel is being preached, praise the Lord.
But what about those who have false doctrines and yet somehow preach the Gospel correctly from time to time and people get saved? We praise the Lord that the Gospel was preached, but that does not mean we endorse the false teacher. We still mark such a person, and we still avoid them, but we do not deny God’s sovereign power to work even through a heretic. We are not to endorse or support said teacher even if some people happened to have gotten saved because they did get the Gospel right on occasion if most of the time, they aren’t preaching the Gospel. They are preaching their own message, so be careful. Endorse those who preach the message correctly, expose those who do not, and praise the Lord anytime the Gospel is proclaimed regardless of who it is from.
Preach a correct response to the Gospel as well. Do not leave someone ready to meet the Lord hanging, but do not seek any manipulative means to get more people to the altar. Provide an opportunity to respond after the message, but if someone is going to respond right then and there, let them do it. Always include the correct response of repentance and faith and be sure the people understand that Christianity is a life of denial of self and a lifting up of God and living with His heart for this world.
The Gospel is not a “Get out of hell free” card, though getting out of hell is a benefit. The Gospel is about the life-changing transformation from a sinner in rebellion against God into a submissive, obedient child of God. The benefits that come with it are just bonuses. We will get to rule, we will get to paradise, and we will get to judge angels, but those are all side effects of being a child of God whose first and foremost purpose is to worship, glorify, and enjoy God forever.
The Gospel is not about heaven. We can talk about heaven, but it’s not about heaven. The Gospel is about the relationship between Jesus and His bride, the Church. It is about the true marriage between Jesus and the believer. That is one thing I have noticed in many of the “heavenly tourism” proclamations: a lack of focus on Jesus and the Father. Many do mention Him, but very casually and rather nonchalantly. When Isaiah and John saw their glimpses of heaven, the majesty and glory of God were all they could think about, as well as their own unworthiness to be there. When these “tourists” go to “visit heaven,” there is no solemnity and the focus is all on the joyous, fun things we get to do. It’s not about God. And worse is when they barely give a mention of how to get there, because they presume their audience is already going. That’s not the Gospel. The Gospel is about God, for God, and towards God, and we simply get to enjoy the side benefits of being there.
As I conclude this series, the Gospel needs to be the focus of every believer – preaching it to others and living it out. If our lives did not change, we did not hear the Gospel, even if it was preached correctly. We did not receive it. Do not worry about what others say about the Gospel. Let God deal with them, whether they receive it or not. And when it is all said and done, let our attitude be, “I am but a humble servant; I have only done that which I ought.”
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When Paul said that he determined to know nothing but Christ and Christ crucified, he did not say he intentionally forgot everything else. Instead, he was saying that of everything he said and did, his goal was to get to Christ. Little showcased this better than Paul’s sermon on Mars Hill, where he started with the religions of the Athenians and then used the “Altar to the Unknown God” to showcase the ignorance of Athenian philosophers and then point to Jesus Christ.
Charles Spurgeon once spoke of a young preacher who had his mentor in the audience. After the sermon, the young preacher asked about how it went. The old mentor said that despite the proper exegesis, despite the great tone and voice, and despite the images and illustrations, it was a poor sermon. Why? Because there was no Christ. The young preacher said Christ was not in the text. The mentor replied that as there is a road from every village to London, there is also a road from every text to Christ and the job of the preacher is to find that road and even make one if he has not seen one yet.
Preaching should have one key thrust: to showcase and reveal Christ and to proclaim the Gospel. That is one thing I greatly appreciate about Answers in Genesis as a ministry: they purpose to make the Gospel the goal of what they do and what they share. While they emphasize dealing with origins, their stated goal and purpose is to help people believe that Genesis can be believed and therefore so can the Gospel. It is also a problem I have with other “ministries” where the goal and purpose is to promote self. And don’t get me wrong: the big creation organizations are very capable of stepping off that goal and starting to view every other creationist and organization as competition.
In March, I went to the Grand Canyon with the Engage Truth Ministry and many of their Worldview Academy students. The morning sessions were about getting the Biblical worldview side of the canyon, and the afternoon was about evangelism on the South Rim. The science was awesome, but the evangelism was the most amazing part. In our small groups, we asked some basic questions about how the canyon was formed, but then we went straight to the Bible and the Flood. We began explaining how the Flood and the aftermath are the only things that make sense of it. In my particular group, the bulk of those we spoke with were already Christians but none of them had made the connection between the Bible and the canyon before. They were very grateful to us for sharing our faith and helping them make that connection.
The best part of it was when we went to the geology museum. We got there just in time for an older lady to do her scheduled talk about the canyon and how it formed. It was so full of lies and bad science that it was very difficult for me to not interrupt. But I did not want to embarrass this poor old woman who was speaking from a script. So after the presentation, I took our group outside to debrief them and we just got a fire under our bellies. We went back and then presented what we had learned from the morning and then presented the Gospel in their own museum. Many from the audience there thanked us. Some were Christians, some were not, but they said it made absolute sense. We did have some scoffers who didn’t have the courage to engage with us. But it was incredible. Again, the goal was to present Christ and to present the Gospel. That day, a pastor from Phoenix came up to us and specifically thanked us for what we did.
If Paul could tie an altar to an unknown god to the Gospel, and we can tie a location like the Grand Canyon to the Gospel, we can connect just about anything to the Gospel. We can use any starting point and carve away a message to showcase the Gospel. Now there are limitations to this. I remember in my schooling days I thought we could showcase the connection between Star Wars and the Gospel, and the reality is yes and no. Many people have made a connection between Harry Potter and the Gospel (I have not read the books, only seen movies 1-5). Even the very popular TV Show “The Chosen” can be used to showcase the Gospels, even though it is a fictional supposition of what some of the backstories could have been. Now I am careful about justifying making a connection with a pragmatic basis, so one does need to be careful here.
The point here though is whatever tool you are using, get to the Gospel. Don’t let the tool replace the Gospel or supplement the Gospel; just use it as a connection point to pave and carve your way to Jesus. Even though we have some great tools, when a preacher or evangelist is doing his job correctly, and the person is intently listening, that person should be thinking more about Jesus than any other topic. In the Gospels, when people talked about Jesus, they did talk about their problems, but they talked more about Jesus than they did themselves. We need to do the same. When we get to Heaven, the focal point will be Jesus, so let’s start practicing now and making Jesus the center of every discussion and the target of every topic.
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Another issue that comes up when one mistakes the Gospel for “getting saved” is the notion of “moving on beyond the Gospel.” Moving on to what? The Gospel is all there is. The Gospel is the message that God gave to mankind for salvation and for everything. The Gospel is the solution to all of man’s problems. The Gospel is the answer to all questions. The Gospel is sufficient for life and godliness. It will sanctify and purify us in this life and then finally bring us into full redemption in the next.
This is a continual process, and therefore, the Gospel has to be repeated over and over again to believers. It never hurts to go over the basics again. In my experience in academia, I have seen many people so focused on the high-level studies that they forget the basics and foundations upon which those high-level studies are built upon, even denying them because they went off trail. Christians do this all the time. They seek such high-level theologies that they forget the basic premises. I am not the only one who loves the simple faith of someone who had no academic inclinations but knows his God, over these highly “educated” people who know all doctrines but it’s pure academic and ultimately worthless. That is one of the things I love about my dad. He is not academically inclined whatsoever and could not handle himself in a “debate” with anyone, however, he knows the Bible and he knows his God. It is that simple child-like faith that carried onto me, even though I am intellectually driven. Despite my inclination towards the academic side of things, that child-like faith surpasses my intellect and that is why people can see my faith to a greater level than they can see my intelligence. They see both, and are amazed at the insights I get, but my insights come from that faith, not from my intellect. And I have a long way to go, too. There are people out there with half the “brain” I have, but far greater faith because they keep the Gospel close to their heart and not just in the head.
It does not matter how many years we have been walking with Christ. We need the Gospel regularly and continually, and we must remind ourselves regularly of the Gospel. One thing I do not like about having grown up in the church and on the mission field is that it is so easy for me to get complacent with being a Christian. One reason I keep bringing up the Gospel is because I, Charlie Wolcott, need the Gospel continually and regularly. It is music to my ears, honey to my tongue, and a constant reminded that Jesus is first and foremost.
I love how Voddie Baucham reported how he was asked if his message would be a Gospel-message or a message for believers. His answer was, “Yes.” It would be both - a message that believers need to hear and a Gospel message. Do not think the Gospel is just for unbelievers. A few weeks ago, I wrote about how the Gospel is for the believer as well as everyone else. The Gospel needs to be preached again and again and again because there will always be an area of life that needs to hear the Gospel and have it be applied.
Don’t stop preaching the Gospel and don’t stop listening to the Gospel. Do not think you can advance or graduate from the Gospel and look for “deeper things.” While there is milk and meat, the Gospel is BOTH milk and meat. The Gospel is so simple that a child can understand it, but so deep and rich than the entirely of theologians could not combine their resources to exhaust it. Never depart from the Gospel. In all you say, let the Gospel be your starting point and your destination. Let Christ be your domineering thought so that anything else seems mere superfluous next to Him.
I am a science teacher, and I love the science that keeps showing the Bible to be true. But as great and cool as those studies are, they still pale in comparison to Christ and to the Gospel. The Gospel does not need any academic support from science, history, archaeology, or any other field because it can stand on its own. Fortunately, God did leave all these fields of study, so man truly has no excuse; all the evidence showcases that the Gospel is indeed the standard for reality. Yes, it seems I am using the Gospel and Scripture interchangeably here, but I do believe for this purpose, it counts.
That said, don’t let people twist this and use this as a cover to insert and believe things contrary to Scripture. Many false teachers will use the primacy of the Gospel to discount “secondary doctrines” to insert opinions and man’s authority into Scripture and once they do that, they have won the battle. Because once it happens in one area, it will happen in others and before long, the Gospel itself will have been compromised. Don’t fall for it.
Do not think you can graduate from the Gospel. Keep preaching it. Keep reminding yourself of it. Worship the Lord by proclaiming how the Gospel has done its work on you. Plead with others that they may hear it. Don’t get complacent with the Gospel (I know that is a weakness in me). Keep it fresh in your mind. If it gets “old,” you absolutely need to hear it and listen to it again, or maybe you may never have had it do its work in you. Keep preaching it and do not let the Gospel depart from your mind, your lips, and especially, your heart.
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Because of changing of the Gospel to make things palatable for our culture’s lost sinners, we have lost the definitions of our most critical terms because we have let unbelieves take over the “industry.” Faith is one of those terms that we have to explain over and over and over again because like with repentance, Biblical love, and everything else, we are allergic and aversive to the actual message God has given us.
All God asks of us in response to the Gospel is to turn from our sins, to leave them behind and not look back, and to simply trust Him and believe Him. Many will say, “I believe in God” and I say, “That’s nice. So do demons. The real question is do you believe Him?” Anyone can claim a weak generic “belief” in “a god” or some “higher power.” But it means absolutely nothing until there is weight put on that claim. I don’t look for anyone’s claim or profession of faith in God or in certain doctrines. I look for the reality of those doctrines flowing out of someone’s mind, mouth, and actions.
We have this very disturbing notion of syncretism where people can proclaim whatever doctrines they want but they can incorporate anything else they want as well. That’s not faith. Covering your bases and being “open-minded” to “other ideas” is not faith. It’s actually unbelief. If you are praying for Plan A and believe that God wants you to do Plan A, but you set up a contingency Plan B, you don’t believe Plan A is ever going to work out. There are people who will believe God for X but if it does not come in the form or shape or timing they prefer, they quite praying and blame God for not answering prayers. In these cases, they cannot say God did not pull thorough because God never promised he would do X. That was a presumption made by the person.
Faith is not the blind hope that you will get what you want. Faith is the trust in what has been promised will be fulfilled. Faith and trust are synonyms. It is the noun for active belief. We all have faith; it is a matter of in what or in whom. We have faith in our technology. How can I say that? Easy. We use it. We sit in our chairs without examining them. We turn on our computers and often get mad when they don’t operate the way they should or at the speed we are used to. Why do we get mad at a computer for being slow? The answer is simple: because we had faith that the computer would operate at the speed we are used to using. It’s really that simple. The hope we had was not met.
But what about people? We trust them, too. Those of us who have jobs have a LOT of faith in a company department called payroll, that they will indeed pay us the amount we are due to receive. We have faith in the airline industry that the pilot will take us to the city we expect to go in reasonable timing. We have expectations that our restaurants serve quality and edible food. We have faith they will do that. We ALSO have faith in people who don’t keep their promises, that they won’t keep their promises.
Yet when it comes to God, the one person who has a perfect record for fulfilling His promises, we have the hardest time actually believing Him. We will trust our mechanics and plumbers and electricians to keep our technology and utilities working, but we do not trust God with some basic things. Or worse, we selectively trust in what we want from Him. I remember one mission team that was comprised of a number of well-to-do people. They trusted God to cover them and their families over in Mexico, but when in the US, they wanted to control things. So what did God do? He broke down the bus on a US highway, forcing it onto a bridge during 100+ degree weather and afternoon rush hour. It was a near riot, but God had a plan for the whole thing. People from my church at the time recognized our bus and my dad (this was before cell phones were things) and they began the rescue process. This group wanted God to cover all the big things, but they still want control over what they think are small things. It’s the “buffet line” problem. They want certain parts of God, and they want to keep other parts to themselves. That’s not how it works. Trust in Christ is complete and total trust, as a child trusts his parents. It’s a whole package thing. God doesn’t want half our heart. He wants all our heart.
Trust in the Lord requires denial of self. It means you do not trust yourself; it means you trust Him. God makes it so simple. Do we actually believe Him or not? My previous pastor struggled when his daughter and family moved from El Paso to Florida, and he had to wrestle with God whether God could protect them more than he could. God basically told him that He loved the pastor’s grandkids more than he did. God makes it so simple. Trust Him. Believe Him. God has it covered. Again, this is not being presumptuous and putting words in God’s mouth to do what He did not say He would do. Believe on what God said He would do. Do we believe Him or not?
When we evangelize, the last thing we should ever do is try to explain God away to a skeptic’s silly questions. God doesn’t need our defense. He wants us to trust Him, and instead we should share how God has been faithful. The skeptic today despises the word “faith,” and we need to stop saying, “Just trust in God” in a blind faith matter. Instead, showcase how trusting in God has gotten you answers and put you in a better place than you would be if you didn’t. Show them how God has answered prayers. Our faith is not blind, and it is not without evidence. Our faith is based on evidence. We trust what is not yet reality because we have evidence that what God has said will be done. The skeptic has this faith too; they just refuse to let God be the object of their faith. We need to preach faith once again, what it truly is.
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Repentance is the second part of brokenness. One will not repent unless he has first been broken over his sin. And if he does not repent, he has not been broken over it. Brokenness leads to a disgust of sin because that is where we taste the death it produces, or we see what it does in someone else and we decide we don’t want to go that way.
What is repentance? The short answer is that repentance is the turning away from doing one thing and going to do something else. It is the changing of both mind and will regarding a particular topic. To be more specific, repentance is not the mere ceasing of engaging in a sinful action or behavior but developing a loathing for that sin and a desire to have nothing to do with it. When David repented of his sin with Bathsheba, he never committed adultery again. He never slept with anyone else besides Bathsheba (she was Solomon’s mother). When he was dying, a young virgin was given to him and David refused to sleep with her. David’s famous prayer of repentance and penitence in Psalm 51 was backed by a total disdain for that sin.
David is one of the few pictures we get of true repentance in the Old Testament; throughout the Old Testament, we continually see the people going right back to their old sins. We see more repentance in the New Testament. Zacchaeus, Peter, and Paul are very clear examples of repentance. Zacchaeus met Christ and completely changed his way about his job as a tax collector. Peter denied Christ three times and he never would do that again, even taking a crueler death to not die like Jesus did. Paul was a persecutor and murderer of Christians and then became a Christian himself. There is no one in history who illustrates what the Christian life is and is about better than Paul.
People often ask if repentance is a work or a fruit. Is repentance something we do to earn salvation? No. Though it is something we do and we are responsible for doing, God does not save us IF we repent, as though repenting makes God owe us salvation. A murderer can murder once, instantly and forever regret ever doing it, but it doesn’t make him any less a murderer. He is still guilty and still in need of a Savior. But at the same time, why should God save anyone who wants to continue in sin? John Bevere shares his testimony in being delivered free from pornography, and the turning point was when he finally gained a total disgust for it instead of a thrill from it.
So does that make repentance a fruit, a result of God’s work on us? Actually yes. But at the same time, it is also a work. It is both. When God works in our heart and that process changes our heart of stone into a heart of flesh, we begin loving the things of God more and hating the things of sin more. While repentance was a command given by John the Baptist and Jesus to do prior to receiving the Gospel, it also is a work of God in a person.
But repentance is something more than that. It is a work that we do that doesn’t earn us salvation but rather prepares us for salvation. It is a fruit that results in the work that God has done in us. It also a third thing: it is a gift. Repentance is something that God offers. God pleads with us to repent, and He gives us the opportunity to do so. Keep in mind, repentance does not happen without brokenness. Brokenness only happens through the conviction of the Holy Spirit that we have grieved Him. Without that, we would not care about our sin, and we’d ride it straight to Hell, fighting God the whole way there. Yet God cares about us so much that He draws us to Him and uses the pain and sting of sin to bring us back to Him. Repentance is a gift in which we have a responsibility to use and follow the directions, which also produces fruit in our lives.
But here is something else repentance is not: a momentary thing. Repentance starts in a moment, but it is a continual practice. One thing that most unbiblical these days is the “altar call.” I am not talking about responding to a sermon due to the conviction of the Holy Spirit. I am talking about the preacher summoning people to come up to respond to emotion. I am talking about “Who would like to ask Jesus into their heart? I see that hand.” While there are some who do genuinely begin the process of repentance at such events, the going up the aisle, getting prayer from someone, saying a prayer, and being declared saved is not repentance. That’s just emotional hype. Statistics have shown that 95% of those who do such things walk away unchanged. I can tell you right now and many will agree: if you walk away from that altar unchanged and you go right back to what you used to do and be like, you never encountered God nor were you convicted of any sin.
We need preachers preaching repentance again. We need them preaching what it is, what it looks like, how it behaves, and how it continues. We need to not merely preach that sinful things are sinful, but that there is so much more than what sin offers. We need to preach that there is a way out from those sins and that life in Christ, while it will be difficult, is far more satisfying than anything this world has to offer. Christ is the only One who DOES satisfy.
There is one more thing that preaching a correct response to the Gospel deals with: faith. Throughout Jesus and the Apostles’ ministries, they taught two responses: repentance and faith, or repent and believe. Let’s look at that next week.
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The reason why so many evangelicals today have turned to “seeking the sinner,” to “watering down the Gospel,” and even to “lowering the bar” to enter the faith as low as possible is because they find the actual message that must be preached is too offensive. Most people would say we need to preach repentance and yes, we absolutely must preach repentance, but people will not repent Biblically until they are broken. Brokenness and repentance are attached at the hip. You need one before you can get the other, and often by hitting the topic of one, if done correctly, you will get the other.
Growing up, I was extremely averse to the notion of being broken over my sin. I decided that I would rather be moldable and let God work my sin out gradually and more gently. The heart of seeking to be Christ-like and to follow Christ is still there, but I am coming more and more to the realization that we will not break through unless God breaks us. The two most powerful sermons on this topic I have heard are Voddie Baucham’s “Brokenness” and David Wilkerson’s “A Call to Anguish.”
Brokenness over our sin and brokenness over the sins of others and this world are what drives us to action. Look at any good movie or book. There is always a point where the protagonist is faced with a choice to go on the journey or not. The protagonist will nearly always refuse it until something triggers him and drives him to action. Usually, it is a personal tragedy or loss that strips the protagonist of his ties to the common lifestyle and drives him to the journey. And the reason why this works so well in stories is because this is the Gospel. The Gospel calls us to be broken over our sin, to have our ties to that sin to be broken, and then to be driven by that separation onto the journey with the Lord.
So, what is brokenness? Brokenness is the coming to the end of your rope. Brokenness is the coming to the realization that you truly have nothing left. It is the moment of complete, total, and utter defeat that has no visual or realistic chance of making a comeback. Brokenness is coming to understand and realize one’s fate and to come to the point of acceptance. Brokenness is the full realization that any hope you have must come from an outside source and that you are truly dead without that hope.
Brokenness has a sister description: conviction. Here I am not talking about a such strongly held belief that nothing can sway you but rather that deep guilt and realization of how evil and wicked one is and the weight of what that means hits them full force. When Nathan confronted David regarding Bathsheba and Uriah, David was convicted, and he was broken. He understood the total severity of his sin. So did the woman caught in adultery who was thrown to Jesus’ feet to be condemned. So was the crowd during Peter’s sermon at Pentecost. So was the Philippian jailer. In each of these cases, and there are many others, the weight of the sin pressed so heavily on them that their only option was to turn to the Lord and plead for His mercy.
We need to preach brokenness again. We need to preach sin again. We need to preach the holiness, righteousness, and justice of God again. I heard someone say that we can’t do “standard preaching” anymore because 70% of the youth are leaving the church. I replied that hardly anyone is even preaching at all anymore. Because of watering things down to be sinner/seeker friendly and to get as many in the door as possible, there is no preaching going on. There are TED talks. There are motivational speeches. There are feel-good messages. I’ve sat in some churches where this takes place, and I’ve sat in secular motivational speaker audiences before as well. The ONLY difference between the two is that one slaps God’s name on it and promises that God will deal with the problem. What did I get out of them? Absolutely nothing because there is no power in any of them.
The Gospel is the power of God unto salvation. Preaching is the God-chosen method by which that message is proclaimed. And yes, the world does reject it. So what? They are chasing after the motivational talks and are not getting anything from them either. But when a preacher gives a sermon that has the power to convict, that has the power to pierce that heart of stone so that it may shatter that hardness and reveal the beating heart of flesh on the inside, that is when the world gets turned upside down. But too many people don’t want to preach the Gospel correctly because chances are very high that they have their own sins that they don’t want to let go of. People do not want to hear messages that preach brokenness because they know they would be the one broken. They love their sin and want to stay in it, but they also want the free gift of eternity at no cost to self. They don’t want to rock the boat; they know that when the Gospel hits full force, nothing is the same and it’s like a bomb blew up. But every time the Gospel has done this, the aftermath has always been good.
But brokenness is not the end. As Baucham put it, repentance is the exit off a highway towards sin and Hell and brokenness is the off-ramp. Brokenness is just a short, small step in a much bigger process. It is brokenness that brings us to the feet of Christ; once we are broken, then we can get back up and live as Christ would have us live. Brokenness is the first step in the proper response to the Gospel, and repentance (a lifestyle of turning from sin) is the next. Repentance is not a one-time thing, nor is it something you do when you go forward down the aisle at church, say a prayer, and you are saved. Repentance is a fruit of God, a word needing to be done by man, and a gift from God. We’ll talk about that next week.
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To go along with watering down the Gospel, to dilute it so much as to make it utterly powerless, there is another severe problem with modern evangelicalism, especially in the apologetics realm. I won’t forget watching a clip of William Lane Craig, the man who is often deemed the “face” of Christian apologetics, openly declaring to his audience that his purpose is to lower the bar so as many people can accept Christianity as possible. He seeks to lower the standards necessary to become a Christian. I knew this was going on, but for him to so openly declare that is what he was doing just floored me. My response was: “Heresy! You have no right to do that!” Many, both believers and unbelievers alike, were stunned at this statement, but surprisingly, I did not hear about it till just recently.
With the approach that so many take regarding the Gospel, to water it down and reduce it to sets of doctrines and lower the bar so as many “get in” as possible, we have seen the results: one Scottish minister said, “You Americans! Your doctrine is 3000 miles wide and six inches deep.” A Chinese man came to the US and said, “When I look at a Buddhist monk and I see his practice and his devotion and his study, I think, ‘holy man.’ When I look at a US preacher, I think, ‘businessman.’” These guys would only be wrong if they were under-representing the case, not exaggerating.
What has happened is not only pathetic, but it has literally redefined what it means to be a Christian. People are no longer capable of recognizing that what much of what they are hearing today is totally un-Christian. The sting of the Gospel has been taken away. The focus of the Gospel has been taken away. The standards for Christian living have been removed and therefore anyone and everyone can proclaim to be a Christian; yet only 6% of them, according to recent polls, can even get the basic doctrines right. The church is so full of goats and wolves that the tiny group of genuine sheep who are left are being starved to death. Only one thing can happen when God looks at this: judgment.
Rob Bell opens his book Velvet Elvis complaining about doctrines and how they are “brick walls” that “keep people out.” He instead suggests that these doctrines should be treated more like springs to a trampoline that will stretch and mold according to the weight of the person jumping. What is he saying? He is saying that doctrine has no place to divide people and if people want to come and play Christianity, let them come play. And he mocks those who stand for truth and calls it “Brickianity.” Like William Lane Craig, the goal here is to lower the bar so anyone who wants to get in can get in.
I see this mindset in origins debates, too. The way that those who believe in millions of years approach young earth Creationists is much akin to one on the outside asking the gatekeepers to get in. The whole thing is “open-door policy,” “let everyone in,” all the while seeking to get the benefits of heaven and of God for nothing without surrendering self in the process.
What did Jesus say and do about such things? He didn’t lower the bar, knowing not a single person could carry out the Ten Commandments. He raised the bar. It wasn’t enough to not physically murder someone; just hating them in your heart and wishing them dead was enough to count as the deed. It wasn’t enough to restrain self from engaging in sex outside of marriage to break the commandment on adultery; just looking at someone else with lust and longing for such a person counts as doing the full deed. When it comes to Christianity, the bar is set so high that literally no human being can meet it. That is the point of needing a Savior. You can’t do it, and you don’t cut it.
But that offends people. Tough. We accept it in sports to some extent. Every sport has cuts. There are cuts to make the team, and there are cuts for playoffs. But now we don’t offer championship trophies; we offer participation trophies. And when the boys simply can’t compete with other boys, they just need to declare themselves a girl and play at the girl level and suddenly they can win. There is so much worry about hurting someone’s “self-esteem” that they don’t know how to handle loss or a defeat, and that is why they throw fits as adults when they don’t get their way.
In Christianity, we have actually LED the culture in this insanity because we have stopped preaching the Gospel and catered to feelings long before the culture did. The culture saw the church catering to feelings, so they took that green light and what we have seen is the full fruit of that sin.
But let’s face reality here. The church in each culture and age does not determine what reality is; God determines what reality is. The church is sent to proclaim that reality, and we have chosen to conspire against God and proclaim a message God did not say. There is nothing wrong with wanting to see people saved, but when the message changes and the standards are lowered, no one is getting saved. The standard for getting into heaven is absolute perfection just as God is the standard of absolute perfection. And yes, NO ONE can do that. But that’s the standard.
So how can God hold us accountable to a standard that none of us can meet? How is that fair? Who said being able to meet the standard is necessary to be fair? In baseball, a pitcher has to be able to throw a ball over a 19 square inch home plate. Those who cannot do that will not last long as pitchers. So what do we do? Do we change the plate size so those who can’t throw the ball accurately can play? No. They simply don’t have the talent to be a pitcher. They don’t get to make the cut and they don’t get to play. It’s tough, but those are the rules. And they are fair rules because they apply to everyone the same way.
But in Christianity, God did something that makes the objection to fairness null and void. He sent Jesus to be perfection for us. Not only did He pay the penalty for our sin, but He imputes His own righteousness onto us. Going back to baseball, this is like having a ringer. Instead of us, who cannot throw a ball or hit a ball, we get the absolute best player ever to not merely play for us but to play with us, and His score counts as our score. It is like Jesus taking our hand and carrying us through the motion of pitch or gripping His hands around ours on the bat and swinging with us. He does all the work, but the stats go to our name. THAT is not fair, but it is allowed in the rules. God wrote the rules, and it was His plan for this to be the agenda all along.
We need to stop trying to change the rules on God. God set the rules, and we have no right whatsoever to change them or play with them. We are to proclaim them as they were given – nothing more, nothing less. And then we need to play by those rules. But one thing I have noticed in sports is that when one knows the rules and plays by them appropriately, it is a fun game, even if I lose. There is strength in order and structure that enables you to do above and beyond what you could do otherwise. Don’t try to lower the bar. You can’t do it and God will not honor any “contract” which was not authorized to do such things. No one will be able to stand on Judgment Day and say, “I wasn’t told.” And when God deals with those who do lower the bar, it is not going to be a time of rejoicing. Don’t do it. Just preach what God said as God said it or get out of the way.
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The Gospel has been watered down to at most 4-5 doctrines and at the least, “Jesus loves you and you are going to heaven.” In the best-case scenario, this is not the Gospel. It is a summary of the Gospel. The seven posts I wrote to open this series were not the Gospel; they were a more detailed summary of the Gospel. The plan of salvation is not the Gospel. It is a central, key part, but it is just a part of it. The moral lifestyle that is expected out of believers is not the Gospel; it is supposed to be fruit of the Gospel having done and doing its work. Yet today, the most people can give are the four major parts of the Gospel: creation, original sin, Jesus and the cross, and the consummation of all things. There is nothing wrong with that, as long that is not the limit of your understanding of the Gospel.
The Gospel is so big and so deep that it can never be exhausted in a lifetime of preaching or writing, let alone in the span of a single sermon or book. But we have to be able to preach it in order to fulfill one of the key commandments given to believers: to go and make disciples. But most have lost sight of that and confused it with “make converts.” To make a disciple is to teach someone how to follow Jesus on their own. To make a convert merely gets someone to agree to some teachings. The whole world is about making converts, whether it be Islam, Hinduism, Communism, Evolution, Science, or whatnot. These false teachings only want a few disciples because the deeper you go into a false teaching, the more blatantly wrong it shows itself to be. They want the masses to know just enough to believe it, but only the most dedicated to be full disciples. But few are making disciples, teaching people how to pursue and go after Jesus. One reason why is because we stopped preaching the Gospel and instead started preaching doctrines instead. And instead of making disciples who follow and pursue Christ, we seek to lower the bar to bring in as many people as possible.
It's not just the reducing the Gospel to a bare bones structure with no substance to it and no relation to reality that is a problem. It’s a literal changing of the message that is even worse. Instead of a message that calls for “repent and believe” that we see throughout the New Testament, we get a message of “Jesus loves you and want to help you accomplish your sinful, selfish dreams.” Instead of a message of denial of self and taking up of Christ in our place, we are giving a message of adding Jesus as final accessory to complete our lives.
The drive in all this is to take the sting out of the Gospel. Yes, the Gospel has a sting, and to wear the name Christian (as it is supposed to be worn) gives us a stigma in our culture that we are not like them, we are not of their kind, and we bring a message to this culture that it will burn in judgment. That’s not a popular message. Newsflash: the United States is not heaven. It may be, or was, the closest we could have gone on this sin-cursed earth, but the US is going to burn in ashes, along with every other nation and ideology. It will all be destroyed. All that will remain is what God allows to remain. So why are we, who are supposed to be looking forward to true paradise, so concerned with what God-hating sinners think about us? We are no longer part of their world. Or are we? I think that’s one of the real factors going on here.
Most who proclaim Christianity have not died to self, have not died to the lusts and desires of this world, and simply want a free ride ticket to heaven where they can enjoy utopia without God. Take notice of that statement. Most professing evangelicals today will talk about heaven as a glorious paradise but God, if there at all, is just a secondary character that lets us all in. Listen to all those who boast about having been to heaven and come back. How are they talking about God? And how are they talking about actually how to get to heaven? It’s nearly absent from their presentations. They only talk about the perks of heaven and God is just a “figure” that opens the door. He’s not their focal attention and any attention given is extremely casual and nearly if not actually irreverent. And that’s not the heaven that the Bible describes where heaven is about God and about the worship and loving and enjoying God forever. Our purpose, as mankind, is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.
Due to the fear of man, evangelists, apologists, and pastors will do anything they can to keep their congregations happy, and they may never preach a real word from God as a result. For fear of offending certain congregants who could easily rally the “troops” to remove the pastor, many messages are watered down, the tone made easy, and the message soft-peddled. Fortunately, there are still a few pastors who are not concerned about that and have surrounded themselves with sound elders who know their job is to protect the sheep.
The church never had permission to lighten up the message of the Gospel. Paul, when he is absolutely livid about what happened in Galatia, tells this church that for him to seek the praise of man he would cease being a servant of Christ. That’s a serious point that need to be emphasized more. Those who are seeking the praise of men are not serving Christ. It’s one or the other. We are commanded to give the message that God gave and not something that will make the people happier. If the message is judgment, then it is judgment. If the message includes mercy, then it includes mercy. But it must be the message God gives as He gave it. It is not unfair to call giving something less than that to be cowardice. It is also not unfair to call giving something more to be presumptuous. In both cases, God treats them as grievous sins.,
God has a fierce judgment for those who speak for the Lord and say what the Lord does not say. That is why those who preach have to take that pulpit very seriously. Don’t ever water down the Gospel. You may get more people liking you, but if you give them the wrong Gospel, you have done them no favors and have reserved condemnation upon yourself in the process.
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One of the heresies that has deeply infiltrated the church is the notion of “just get saved and everything else is a secondary issue.” It comes in different flavors, but the form I see the most is: “Is believing that particular doctrine necessary to be saved?” It’s a very nasty question because it puts those who stand on Scripture in a tight position. I deal with origins often, and this is an excellent topic for this issue. If believing what Genesis says as written is necessary to be saved, then that means believing a 6-day creation and a recent creation (roughly 6000 years ago for the 21st century) is a doctrine that must be believed to be a born-again Christian. I don’t know of anyone who would truly say that is the case. But when they say, “No, it is not necessary,” the immediate follow up is: “So why draw a line on this point? I can believe what I want on that topic and still get into heaven.”
We must be careful here because this is a trick of the enemy. It’s a very sly tactic and my response is, “That’s the wrong question to ask.” It is the wrong question to be asking if this doctrine or that doctrine is necessary to be saved. Anyone who is asking this does not understand the Gospel as well as they think they do. How can I say that? Because those who are asking this are treating the Gospel as a set of statements to believe, not a PERSON to believe. And they are trying to pin the doctrinal claims on those standing for sound doctrine to let themselves off the hook.
My other response to this is: “The BELIEF in a 6-day creation is not necessary for one to be saved, as one can be wrong on many things and still be saved. However, the FACT of a 6-day creation is necessary for salvation to even be possible. Because unless God created in 6 days as Genesis records, then the status and nature of the creation is not what it was for Adam and Eve. If Adam and Eve’s sin did not affect and curse the world as Genesis describes, then there is no salvation to be had because there is nothing to be saved from.”
The issue can expand to many different things, not just origins. What about infant baptism? What about divorce? Homosexual relationships? The role of science and/or politics? The style of worship? The list goes on and on. Some of these can very well be primary issues. Some of them should not even be on the debate list. But behind all of it is a fundamental mishandling of Scripture and the Gospel. The entire approach with all these questions boils down to: “Can I believe what I want to believe and still be considered a Christian?” Or “What I can get away with and still be considered a Christian?” It is like those who ask for what the minimal requirements are to be saved. Those who are taking that line are completely missing the point.
The Gospel is not about a set of doctrines, though we absolutely do need those doctrines to set up concrete markers to what we are and what we are not. There are doctrines that absolutely draw a line as to who is in the faith and who is not. But there is more than that. The Gospel is about a person; it is about Jesus. Here is the other problem. Many people agree with that, but then treat Jesus as some ethereal, out-there figure. Or more realistically, they have made a “false Jesus” that fits their personality, their preferences, and their likings. Their “Jesus” is themselves. Man has been doing this since the beginning – putting ourselves in the God position, thinking we can make God do what we would have Him do.
In Biblical Christianity, we are not given space for our opinions or our preferences. In Biblical Christianity, the first thing that is dealt with is self. Self must be denied. So let me spell it out: “IT’S NOT ABOUT YOU!” The Gospel is not about you. It’s not about me. While we are involved, we are not the focal point. Jesus is. So when dealing with these kinds of questions about which statements are necessary to believe or not, the real question is: Are we following Jesus or following our own ideals?
Most people who ask these questions KNOW that their position is wrong, otherwise they would not be asking for permission to keep it. I have never once heard someone who believes in a six-day creation ask if they could believe that and get into heaven. I only hear that from old-earth creationists and theistic evolutionists. Why is that? Because we do not need permission to believe something the Bible explicitly teaches and still call yourself a Christian. That is supposed to be automatic. It’s simply amazing and astonishing that Christians gape at other Christians for actually believing what their book says. I’m reminded of those who see people praying and getting answers, and they tell that person to stop praying because they are making the mediocre look like mediocre. What happened to actually believing the Bible in Christianity today? And we wonder what happened to our strength and power to influence culture.
The Gospel has been watered down and reduced to where you only need to focus on four or five verses and the rest don’t matter. Who thought that was even thinkable? If we are Christians, we are to believe the ENTIRE Bible, cover to cover. Not interpretations of it. Not broken down into primary and secondary categories, but the whole thing. Because the whole thing is about Jesus, the whole thing is primary. While it may not be necessary to believe certain things to be saved, if one IS saved, they eventually will come around and believe the whole thing. You will not find an authentic, born-again believer openly questioning the clarity or the intention of the text. You will find false believers and satanic plants seeking to sow discord doing so. But the born-again believer is going to eventually stand on the holistic Word of God and not be swept aside by the winds and waves of our culture. But the compromised will, and we’ll see what that looks like over the next few weeks.
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When we preach the Gospel, we need to understand that while it is great good news for the salvation of man, it is also a grave scandal. Many people trip over the Gospel, and they DO understand the scandal. They know they are sinners, but for Jesus to die for them is unfathomable. And it’s not merely Jesus dying out of love for us that trips them, it is more specifically Jesus taking on the wrath of the Father for sin upon Himself that trips them. If it was merely Satan carrying out the execution, some may not object, but the actual executioner of holy judgment is by God the Father.
This gives rise the argument of “Cosmic Child Abuse.” Dad got mad at his kid and took it out on the dog. That’s what some have said. How can God be called good and kind and loving if He takes out His anger on His own Son? The Gospel is a scandal. In order to save mankind, there had to be a substitute who had no sin Himself, because the righteous justice of God has to be met. God is not going to let any evil go by without dealing with it. And that is what many objectors to Christianity do not like; they know their deeds are evil, and the mere mention of a righteous and holy God offends them because it means that their judgment day is approaching.
This message is very unpopular. Emile Ramos, James White, and Paul Washer did a 30-minute joint video titled “Unpopular” emphasizing that the Gospel message is not going to please many audiences, because the core of the Gospel message is that man is sick, depraved, and completely helpless. And after salvation, man is still useless, weak, frail, and completely and wholly dependent upon Christ. People mock Christianity because we “use Jesus like a crutch.” I correct them: “No, it’s not like a crutch. It’s more like life-support.” The Gospel is because we are dead without Jesus. That’s not going to win over many crowds.
Paul was given an opportunity to speak to the intellectual of intellectuals at Mars Hill in Athens. If he were interested in winning a crowd over and getting people on his side, there was no better opportunity. He had just been driven out of two consecutive towns in Thessalonica and Berea for preaching the Gospel and was sent ahead to Athens to try to cool down and let the people cool down. And Paul, alone, waiting for his team to come join him, got provoked. He saw the idolatry in the streets, and he could not wait for backup. He began preaching. When he gave his famous defense at Mars Hill, Paul did the last thing he could have done to win the crowd over. While he did reference the religious idolatry of Athens, he basically went in and said, “You are doing everything wrong and don’t even know who you are worshiping or why. Here is the true God and how His worship should be done.” Paul had to sweep the rug from under them and plant a new foundation so he could go to his destination: Jesus and the cross. And the audience lost it the moment Paul spoke of the resurrection. Most mocked, some wanted to hear more, and only a few individuals believed.
The Gospel is not going to be well-liked. If you want approval, praise, and the rapport with men, that may be all you will ever get, and you will have renounced Christ in doing so. Most won’t like the Gospel message delivered correctly. Our job is to preach the Word, even if no one receives it. As Christians, our job is to share the faith, even if no one will hear it. And the church took a major turn off the main road when they decided that their numbers were not good enough and so they decided to pursue “seekers” instead of pursuing God. Instead of giving the unpopular message that God gave us to give, they chose to go for popularity and the approval of sinful, wicked men. There is a severe problem with this: sinful men do not want God, not as He truly is. So to keep sinful men around, they church had to change God. Instead of being the sovereign, righteous king who is coming back to judge the wicked and rescue the righteous, “God” became just a nice, fuzzy blanket to keep you warm in front of a fire. It’s truly blasphemous what most have done in their depiction of God.
And when Christendom as a whole goes that direction, when the few people who still stand for the true God and the true message, we are the ones who get ostracized for rocking the boat. I see it happening very often. I’ll say the hard thing and the backlash is quite sharp. It does not matter how much “love” or “tact” I give it. It is rejected, and the problem is “me” because what I say is not letting “them” play this game they call “Christianity,” a game that God does not play.
There is one detail about the Gospel message that drives it to such an unpopular level: the denial of self. When we receive the Gospel, we are admitting that we have nothing in and of ourselves that is good that we can bring to the table. Getting us to that point requires us to acknowledge that we never had anything or ever will have anything good in us. Before Christ, we had nothing to start with. After, any goodness we have comes from Christ, not us, even in our regenerate spirit. And even harder to receive is that to be a Christian, it is going to cost us everything – not merely our sinful lifestyles of doing bad things, but everything. Jobs, finances, family, friends, hobbies, entertainment, sports, your education, your reputation, everything is secondary or less compared to Jesus.
Paul was the intellect of intellects, the Benjamite of the Benjamites, the most zealous upholder of the law, and when he met Christ, he saw everything he was pursuing as total dung, worthless, rubbish. He scrapped everything and started over with Jesus as the #1 and as the center. He still learned and knew many other things, but they had a new focus and a new place in their value. His faith in Christ cost him a LOT, and throughout his missionary journeys, his greatest enemies were the Jews – those who knew who he was and deemed him a total traitor. There is a cost to being a Christian. There is also a cost to proclaiming the faith. And one thing you cannot have with the truth is friendships with those who oppose it. Something has to go; it is your choice which.
The Gospel is an unpopular message. Next week, we’ll look at different ways the Gospel has been watered down and diluted so it will be more “acceptable” to sinful man.
This forum is meant to foster discussion and allow for differing viewpoints to be explored with equal and respectful consideration. All comments are moderated and any foul language or threatening/abusive comments will not be approved. Users who engage in threatening or abusive comments which are physically harmful in nature will be reported to the authorities.
