Rescuing The Gospel From Evangelical Trendiness

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Father, thank you once again for tonight. Thank you for our great savior,
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Jesus Christ, that we can have forgiveness in him, that we can have life in him. Thank you that that very most important thing in the whole world is what causes our hearts to beat.
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And we're grateful that because of what he has done, our confidence is sure, our hope is more than just hope and hope.
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It's hope and trust in that historic, great reality. And we're looking forward to that next historic reality when
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Christ returns and calls us home. Stir us up tonight, help us to learn, help us also to steep our convictions, not just so that we can know more, but that we might give you the kind of praise that you deserve and that we can lead our families if we have families and we can make a difference in this world for the glory of Christ.
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In whose name we pray, amen. We need to listen to three Bible texts.
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We'll turn to some other Bible texts as we go. But if you just want to listen to these words with the best concentration you can possibly muster with the
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Spirit of God's help. For I am not ashamed of the
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Gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes.
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For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the
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Scriptures. Remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, the offspring of David, as preached in my
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Gospel. Such clear words, such important words,
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Gospel words, and yet I would suggest to you men, that there is a real jeopardy in relationship to the
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Gospel itself. That we lose sight of what the Gospel really is.
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That we lose sight of what the Gospel really does. And that the great jeopardy is not outside places like this.
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It's not outside of evangelicalism. One great jeopardy for us of losing sight of and understanding the
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Gospel is actually an internal jeopardy. It's actually within evangelicalism.
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Something that we're a part of. And so that's what we're going to talk about tonight. We're going to talk about some awful
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Gospel related missteps that jeopardize the most important thing in the whole world.
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The most important thing that's central to all ministry. The good news of salvation in Christ.
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Now what I don't want to do is sound like I'm some sort of fundamentalist ranting and raving and angry about good news.
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I acknowledge, hello, my name is Pat. And you're supposed to say, hello
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Pat. I am a recovering fundamentalist, okay? And so I'm glad we're having a meeting.
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So, but here we are and we need to be serious, sober -minded, thoughtful, but motivated about clarity when it comes to the good news about Jesus Christ.
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Because in so many ways it's everything. And if there are Gospel missteps that maybe we're taking or are prone to take, we need to take those to heart.
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And I love addressing you men because men are to act like men and be bold and courageous.
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And we want to lead. We want to lead when it comes to the most important thing in the whole world.
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And that's the good news about salvation in Jesus Christ. The Gospel is this, the good news that Jesus Christ did it all.
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That Jesus Christ perfectly fulfilled God's law, that he did everything right as one of us, as a human being.
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And then having done nothing wrong, he went to, I'm looking for a cross.
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Thank you. Pulpit used to be over there, so I'll give a little latitude. He went to the cross.
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He went to the cross and he went there as if he'd done everything wrong, everything that we've done wrong.
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And he atoned for our trespasses, for our sins, our violations against God's law, having himself kept that law perfectly on our behalf.
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And then what? Gloriously, victoriously raised from the dead, so that we might have new life also.
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It's good news. Now we could focus on one of those aspects. We'll talk about all of those aspects in one way or another, but it's the good news of salvation in Christ, right?
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Let's pretend like we're Baptists. We say amen to this. We say we agree with this.
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This is right. And so we'll talk about some missteps so we don't lose sight of the great news that is the gospel, that is really why we're here.
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It's why a church exists. It's why we worship and praise God. And I have more missteps written down here than we'll cover, but we'll certainly look at least at a handful of these in our time together in this session.
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Number one, abusive gospel misstep number one, if you're gonna take some notes. Abusive gospel misstep number one.
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Some of these are gonna be like bumper sticker slogans. Some of these are not going to be, but this is one of those bumper sticker slogan kinds of gospel missteps.
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Perhaps you've heard it before. Justification means just as if I've never sinned.
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Just as if I never sinned. That's a gospel misstep, okay? I'm not sure where it came from.
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Some evangelical folklore where we've been trained to be Sunday school teachers and we're taught when we teach kids concepts or adults concepts, we're gonna teach them justification.
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That Bible word means just as if I never sinned. Evangelical folklore that came secretly from the devil originally, because it's a gospel misstep.
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It's not true. That's not what justification means. And so in one sense, I wanna have an altar call for all of you men who've ever taught that in a class and we're gonna come forward in a good
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Finney -esque kind of way. And you're gonna have repentance at the altar up here that we don't have. But we won't do that because we don't wanna fall on our swords.
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All of us are guilty of believing wrong things and teaching wrong things at one time or another. And if we were gonna have an altar call,
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I'd want you to come forward and say, I confess my sin. I'll never do that again. But I need to prove it to you first.
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Justification is this in a nutshell. Justification, that legal word, legal idea, that forensic reality that you being a sinner are declared righteous even though you're not.
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You are declared a perfect law keeper because that word righteous has to do with law. You as a violator of God's holy law are declared a law keeper even though you're not based upon the perfect law keeping of Christ, right?
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Christ's perfect work on behalf of everyone who would ever believe is credited.
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It is imputed and based upon his perfect law keeping obedience, credited to you by faith,
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God declares you a perfect law keeper is the idea. Even though you know and I know we're actually what?
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Law breakers, we're sinners. Sin is lawlessness, 1 John says.
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We've all sinned and we're all lawless in that sense. That's what justification is.
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It's important that we remember that. In a minute, we're gonna go to Romans four and Philippians chapter three to see these ideas or these realities.
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But think with me about this. If justification is, this is the wrong idea, this is the gospel misstep, just as if I never sinned, where does that bring me spiritually?
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Spiritually, it brings me to zero, okay? It brings me to zero, just as if I never sinned.
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So now, I'm at a big zero. And God requires zero from all of us, right?
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Wrong, He doesn't require zero from us. What does God require? He requires perfection.
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Jesus Himself in the Sermon on the Mount said be perfect. That's what's required. What's God's law in summary?
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What does God require? Matthew 22, Jesus summarizes the law, what does He say? The law of God is that you'd be a spiritual zero and God will take you.
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All you have to do is just do whatever you wanna do and ignore God. Now, the idea is, well, the reality is,
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He says, love the Lord your God, how? With all of your heart, with all of your soul, with all of your strength, all of your might.
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The idea is all of your faculties, all of the time, including your motives. Just treat
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God like He's God, do all the right things, all of the time. Oh, and while you're at it, love your neighbor as yourself.
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There's a summary of the whole law. Just as if I never sinned. Just as if I never sinned isn't a good definition at all.
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How about this? I'm gonna suggest this. It doesn't work on a bumper sticker or a teacher training class unless you're serious.
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Justification, better to say, just as if I never sinned, that's important, by the way, and just as if I perfectly kept
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God's holy law all of the time, right? Just as if I loved God with my heart, soul, mind, and strength and my neighbor as myself, perfectly, even with motives, all the time.
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Now, I realize there could be overlap in what sin is, but the reality is it's what you don't do and what you do, and it's both.
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That's what God requires. And now it's so much richer, isn't it? What did
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Christ do? What Christ did was he atoned for our rebellion, yes, but he also positively earned for us this right standing before God.
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Let's go ahead and look at Romans 4, verse 5 so we can see justification in this reality, then Philippians 3, but God doesn't require zero on the ledger.
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Zero will send us to hell. We don't want zero that sends us to hell. We actually want the positive side, not just the removal of the guilt, but actually the crediting of the positive.
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So in Romans 4, verse 5, in so many ways you could pick just about anywhere in Romans, but Romans 4, 5, because it's a classic text, says, and to the one who does not work, but believes or trusts or has faith in him, that would be
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Christ, who justifies, who declares righteous, who declares a law keeper, is the idea, the ungodly, his faith, faith in Christ in our context, is counted or credited as righteousness.
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Righteousness and justice and justify, the related words, the idea is essentially he's getting at the same idea, the same reality.
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It's a great, awesome reality. By faith, when you trust in Christ, you're not only receiving removal of guilt, forgiveness, if you will, you're also receiving his perfect law keeping credited to your account.
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So now when God looks at Pat, a sinner, an ungodly person like Romans 4 says, or you, he says, you're righteous in my eyes.
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And if you and I are honest, we say, but we're not righteous. Righteous in my eyes based upon what?
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Yes, Christ's righteousness, because he does it on our behalf. It's extraordinary. How about Philippians chapter three, just to get another sample.
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Philippians chapter three, verse nine. The apostle Paul is talking about the same reality about Christ's great work and Christ's great righteousness credited to us.
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And it says in verse nine, and to be found in him, to be found in Christ, not having a righteousness, not having a law keeping of my own that comes from the law and his own efforting is the idea, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God.
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Theologians talk about the alien righteousness and it is alien because it's not ours. It comes from God that depends on faith and not faith in faith.
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To look at the greater context, he's talking about faith in what? Faith in Christ, faith in whom really would be the right idea.
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Christ's righteousness credited to us. Remember some wise
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Bible teacher once said, the doctrine upon which the church stands or falls is the doctrine of, anybody know
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Latin to be fancy? Let's really show what we know. Sola Fide, right? Faith alone and what he meant was faith alone in Christ alone in his perfect work.
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The doctrine upon which the church stands or falls and we're getting it wrong because we're trying to be simple.
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Let's not get it wrong. Let's be clear and let's give Christ even more glory than he would otherwise get.
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And not just saying he takes our sin away, that's awesome and should be emphasized, but he not only takes our sin, our guilt away, he gives us that positive righteousness because he himself positively kept the law for us, which is gonna give
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Christ more glory, exaltation and praise. If we see him for the full savior that he is.
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And so that just stokes up the fires of praise and we understand that he's not this half a savior, he's a full savior.
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He does everything necessary. And I so love to worship him as a result of that and be thankful to him for that.
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If that's the doctrine upon which the church stands or falls and I think there's good insight in that, that would be important for us.
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It's better than we might have even imagined. Just as if I'd perfectly obeyed the law of God.
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Let's move on to another gospel misstep, an abusive gospel misstep. Perhaps you've heard this one before.
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Preach the gospel at all times and if necessary, what? Use words.
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You guys hang out in the same bad places I hang out. That one is so trendy.
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When I was working on this message, I was sitting at a Starbucks and there were some local youth workers at a big evangelical mega church just across the street from the
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Starbucks where I was sitting. And I kid you not, I was working on this message and they were talking about that.
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And they were doting over it. What a great philosophy of youth ministry it is and how awesome this is.
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And it was just blowing my mind. I thanked God for the bad providence as the Puritans would say.
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Or maybe the good providence. Preach the gospel at all times and when necessary, use words.
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You know, oh, that's so good, so awesome. Well, we don't know exactly where that came from.
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Usually it's attributed to St. Francis of Assisi. We don't know for sure, but I'll reference it in relationship to him.
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And I would just encourage you to maybe remember it this way if it's true.
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St. Francis as a sissy. That's sissy evangelism, okay?
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It's bad. It's bad. Now, sometimes it goes under other guises that are related.
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Deeds not creeds, right? Sometimes we wanna put it that way. Or incarnational ministry.
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That's really cool right now if you're hip. By the way, borrowed from old Protestant liberalism if you go back a little ways and see where that came from.
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Or incarnational, deeds not creeds. Not only that, preach the gospel at all times and if necessary, use words.
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Now, I'm so thankful for your response and I'm thankful that you're theologians and theologically minded and you could probably give the lecture from here on out, but I'm gonna go ahead and try to do a good job anyway.
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What's wrong with that? What's wrong with that? We do wanna be sincere.
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We do wanna be incarnational in the sense that we wanna show people the love of Christ. Please don't misunderstand. I'm trying to use a little shock value.
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We don't wanna just have creeds and no deeds. Okay, but what's wrong with, preach the gospel at all times and if necessary, use words.
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If you have a Bible, I'll invite you to turn to Romans chapter 10. Romans chapter 10 is super helpful when it comes to this.
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And as you're turning there, I'll just suggest to you that the problem with it on one level is that the gospel men can't be lived by anyone other than the
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Lord Jesus Christ. You can't live the gospel. You can't do it.
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I can't live the gospel. It's impossible. Because gospel means good news, okay?
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If we preach the gospel, we're telling good news. You don't live news. I suppose if you wanted to play word games, you could say you do, but really we don't live news.
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Look at Romans chapter 10, verse 14. Romans 10, 14, good news is to be proclaimed, not lived.
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How then will they call on Him, Jesus that is, in whom they have not believed?
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And how are they to believe in Him of whom they have not or never heard?
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Notice the emphasis on heard. And how are they to hear without someone preaching?
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Heralding, proclaiming, verse 15. And how are they to preach, notice, unless they are sent?
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As it is written, how beautiful are the feet of those who preach good news. You can't live the news.
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You could watch the news or hear of the news, but if you're the one giving the news, you can't live it, you tell of it.
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You proclaim it, especially if it's good news. Imagine with me, if you would, a newscaster. What does a newscaster do?
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Does a newscaster watch the event that happens and then all of a sudden, with you watching on your television, live it out?
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Do they mime it? You know, do all this kind of crazy stuff and you're going, what is that?
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That's not what they do, that's silly. Now my head hurts. They don't do that, it's ridiculous.
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That's why I wanted it to stick in your mind. What they do is they tell you about what happened. And they might tell you the meaning and the significance about what happened, live on the scene at 11, here's what just happened.
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Well, that's what happens with news and newscasters. Our news is, let us tell you about what happened one
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Friday afternoon outside of the city gates in Israel, in the Middle East.
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It's historic, it's something that really happened and we tell not only what happened, we tell the meaning of what happened.
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Preach the gospel at all times, if necessary, use words. You can't preach the gospel without words, it can't be done.
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It's preaching, proclaiming, heralding. It's true, we want to live differently.
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We're salt and light, as Jesus says. We don't want to be a contradiction to what we're proclaiming. But it's so crucial that we see those verses, even verse 17, so faith comes from hearing and hearing through the word of Christ.
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Back when that was written, there were people living certain ways that were commendable and certain ways that weren't commendable.
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Human nature hasn't changed. But the text says, what's most important, faith comes by hearing and hearing the word of Christ, the gospel, we got to remember that.
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Furthermore, this isn't a good model for evangelism, it's problematic on another level. It's problematic because I'm a sinner, so are you.
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So how can I live the gospel? How can I preach the gospel with my life?
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Let me be really blunt. The gospel you preach with your life is anti -gospel.
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The gospel you preach with your life is a perversion of the gospel, right?
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Because you're a sinner, and so am I. The only one who could ever live the gospel is Jesus Christ. So we don't point people to ourselves, we point people to Him, the good one.
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And we tell good news about the good one. It has to be that way, it has to be that way.
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And you say, what about the Holy Spirit transforming my life? And that's all good, right, and true. I think
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Paul had the Holy Spirit working in his life. But even if you had a bumper crop of fruit going on in your life, hopefully you wouldn't be so audacious as to disagree with the
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Apostle Paul, who himself would say in 1 Timothy 1, verse 15, I am the foremost of sinners.
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I think he had the Spirit of God indwelling him and he was producing fruit. And he's still saying,
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I'm chief of sinners. So he didn't preach himself, he preached Christ. Don't preach yourself.
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And that brings us to a further problem when it comes to this, and it reminds me of 2 Corinthians, when Paul's talking about,
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I think this very kind of matter. How about turning to 2 Corinthians chapter four? If I'm gonna preach the gospel without words, then
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I'm not gonna really be telling about the true Jesus, I'm gonna be telling you more about who than the true
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Jesus, the person
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I like to talk about most in my flesh. I'm gonna be talking about myself, right?
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If I preach the gospel with my life and tell stories about me, me, me, look at me, me, me,
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I'm talking about myself. Instead of acknowledging I'm a sinner, don't look to me, look to Christ.
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Good news, hope in Him. This is why I think 2 Corinthians chapter four is helpful.
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If you just drop down to, maybe let's start down in verse five. It'll produce popularity if you just live the gospel, which you can't really do, but you'll become popular and you'll be cool because you're a great example, at least from what people can see.
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But how about verse five? For what we proclaim is not ourselves. I would suggest to you when we say we live the gospel, we are proclaiming ourselves.
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He says, we don't proclaim ourselves, but Jesus Christ, notice it's proclaiming Jesus Christ as Lord.
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How about verse seven? We have this treasure in jars of clay. That's a good self -describer to show the surpassing power belongs to God, not to us.
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We don't wanna preach our toilet selves without words. We're gonna open our mouths and have everybody know, and I'm doing a
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Bible study last week with my unbelieving friends. I wanna point them to the righteousness of Christ and hope in Him and acknowledge before them that I'm broken and that I'm a sinner and boast in Christ.
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Because even if they think I'm all that, in time, they're gonna figure out I'm not. They're gonna find out you're not either.
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Hope is outside of you. It's in Christ. We're not gonna take the time to go there, but even the opening verses of chapter four are so helpful when it comes to, we're not preaching ourselves and cunning and tampering with God's word.
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I would suggest to you that when we say we're preaching without preaching, we're tampering. We're not being honest.
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The good news is meant to be proclaimed. It's meant to be preached. So the glory goes to not us, but to Christ.
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And I wanna be better at preaching and proclaiming and not pointing to me.
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Maybe just a show of hands, just to kind of take the temperature here. How many of you think you've sinned enough today to go to hell?
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Yeah. Hello, my name is Pat. Right, I'm glad we're having this recovery meeting.
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See, hello, my name is Pat and I have a problem. I'm so glad. By the way, one of the last times I did that at Omaha Bible Church, I was shocked at how many people wouldn't put their hand up.
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One person sticks out of my mind and just sat there and shook their head. Think about it.
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If God's requirement standard is to love him with your heart, soul, mind, and strength, to love him with all of your faculties, including motive, that all that you are is given toward that.
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I would suggest to you that none of us in this room have ever done that perfectly, completely for one second.
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Preach the gospel with your life. Let's preach
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Christ. Let's preach Christ. Hope is in him. Hope is in us.
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Now again, please don't misunderstand. We wanna live, I wanna live in a way that glorifies Christ.
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I wanna bear fruit in my life that compliments, not contradicts. But until we see
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Christ, right, we won't be made like him. We're waiting for glorification.
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We know it's locked in, it's gonna happen in light of what Romans says in Romans chapter eight, but we're living in that time when it's not fully realized.
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So let's preach Christ, not ourselves. Let's move to another gospel misstep and that would be gospel illiteracy.
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Gospel illiteracy. Mike mentioned earlier, and we're gonna go to 1
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Corinthians 15 and look there if you'd like to turn there. Mike mentioned earlier that it's nice that there's a recovery of the gospel and lots of talk about the gospel.
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I heard the other day that there's a gospel study Bible. Don't know anything about it, but there's a gospel study
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Bible and we have gospel community groups and we're gospel -centered and Christ -centered and gospel, gospel, gospel, gospel.
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I'm thankful for those things. I really am and that movement, that recovering has definitely affected my life and I'm super thankful, but we don't want it to just be rhetoric.
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That'd be a shame. What is the gospel?
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What is the gospel? It starts by knowing what it is. Well, we've already talked about that a little bit.
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Let me use a couple of case studies to kind of shock you out of a place that perhaps you're in.
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I was in Florida this summer. I was taking a class and just at night taking a break. I was going on a bike ride and I'm going by a super cool church.
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It looked, it was the kind of church I'd want to have the building. It's just awesome looking and looked cutting edge and like things are really happening and ride my bike by the church and their church motto with a really cool sign was on the side of the building.
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It was clearly what they were all about, okay? Huge letters. Loving God.
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Loving neighbor. Slogan of the church. I think it was on the kiosk too.
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That was their theme. And what
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I said out loud was, law church. Law church.
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Is that what you would have thought? Now, maybe I'm out of line. You can correct me later.
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Law church. Oh, church of legalism. I had a guy tell me last weekend, we had a conference at our church and he told me, he said, you know,
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I just want to tell you, I don't really know him very well. He's a friend of a friend. I just want to tell you that for the last 15 years of my life, what
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I've been committed to and the slogan of my life has been loving
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God and loving neighbor. It's been awesome. I said, oh, so you're really committed to the law. He looked at me like I was from another planet.
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Jesus summarizes the law as loving God with heart, soul, mind, and strength and loving your neighbor as yourself.
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Summary of the law. Law church. How about that? Is the gospel loving
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God and loving neighbor? I don't think so. I don't think so.
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The gospel is the good news that the one who perfectly loved God and perfectly loved neighbor did everything necessary, did it on our behalf because we're miserably failing at it all the time.
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And so should Bethlehem Bible Church be law church? What message do you have for this community?
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You have good news. 1 Corinthians 2 to know nothing among you except the law that condemns.
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Take that Boston. Take that New Hampshire. Take that Rhode Island.
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Grrrr. No. To know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified.
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The law keeper treated as if he's the law breaker which is good news for us so that we can have our law breaking atoned for.
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That's what it is. Now, please don't get me wrong. This is just a short kind of seminar. But yes, we do need to preach
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God's law because we need people to know that they're law breakers, that they're guilty. So yeah, we do wanna preach that to the surrounding community.
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But that's not what we're all about because we preach that law message so that we understand guilt and then we preach the good news of the one who is none other than Christ.
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And then, this is how the guy was at Omaha Bible Church last week, no doubt, as we talked further.
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Then in response, yes, we wanna say, the law is good and righteous and holy and I do want to love
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God because that's what's right. And I do wanna love my neighbor because that's what's right. But we gotta make sure we keep things in the right order or we're confused.
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I have a little five -year -old son. He, strict orders. I said, Owen, you're not to talk at the dinner table when
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I'm talking to the teenagers about this. And we're reading that Kevin D. Young book about the Heidelberg Catechism and the two little boys, no talking or mommy gives you a spanking.
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That's the way we catechize in our house. Because I wanna deal with the older kids.
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Get the younger ones to do something after on their level. Man, Owen is just dying to talk.
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Five -year -old, sweet little boy. He wants to talk so badly because he knows the answer before the other kids know the answer.
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Because he knows the three Gs. I want you to know the three Gs. Guilt, grace and gratitude is what
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Owen would tell you. Right? The law of God shows us our guilt and then we have grace in the gospel and now we do want to do the law of God out of gratitude.
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But we've gotta make sure we keep things in the right order, man, or we're very confused about what the gospel, very confused.
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I had to read a book recently for a class, an evangelism class. Had to read a whole bunch of books.
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Had to review a book. The book was called Evangelism. Written by a guy that went to a credible, conservative seminary that's fought battles for the truth of the gospel.
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No longer alive. Evangelism is the name of the book. I won't mention the author to protect the guilty.
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Never one time in the book, never one time did he state what the gospel is, but he was sure big to emphasize the fruit of the gospel and describe it as the gospel.
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1 Corinthians chapter 15 is so helpful. You know it well, probably too well because then we're indifferent toward it, but let's just make sure we've got it stuck in our heads, men.
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Verse three says, for I delivered to you as of first importance. Everything's important in the
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Bible, right? But some things are marked, starred. First importance what I also received that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, that he was buried and that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures.
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It's crucial. And sometimes in the New Testament, a certain aspect is emphasized or a different aspect is emphasized but when you boil it all down, it has to do with the work of Christ, perfectly keeping the law, toning for rebellion, rising from the dead and you get all of those things emphasized.
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We gotta know that. If I say, what's the gospel? I tell new people at Omaha Bible Church, I just want you to say, it's the good news about Jesus.
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And I say, you pass. Now we can go deeper than that. It's the good news about Jesus.
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It's the good news about God. It's the good news about his historic work. Here's a question for you. Is the gospel following Jesus? Is it good to follow
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Jesus? Yeah. You need the gospel because you're not good at following Jesus.
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Out of gratitude, now you wanna get good at following Jesus. There's hope in that. We also have to remember the gospel isn't the response.
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What's the right response to the gospel? We heard it earlier in Romans chapter one, verse 16.
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You believe, you trust. It's the right response. And we do call people to respond once we tell them what the gospel is.
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Once we tell them what that is. Let's move on to another one. Let's move to another gospel, abusive gospel misstep.
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Are we in number four? Okay. How are we doing? We're doing great. I'm having fun.
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Glad you guys came just to watch me have fun doing this. I would do this at my house if you guys weren't here. This is like, this is where it's at.
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Number four, another abusive gospel misstep would be, Christians are to redeem culture. Christians are to redeem culture.
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How many, and by the way, those of you who go to this church, I'm saying a lot of things that your pastor would never dare say, right?
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Two peas in a pod, I'm afraid. So if you're thinking, would you bring a different guest speaker next time? Because I don't want just the same stuff that Mike teaches and believes.
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I guess that's just how it goes. So I'm so thankful for that and good fellowship.
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Number four, Christians are to redeem culture. It's a big one. Big one in circles
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I run in and big one if you wanna be accepted and relevant and cool and recognized and affirmed and published.
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Why are we here? We gotta redeem culture. We gotta transform culture. Just a simple question for you.
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In the Bible, when the New Testament talks about redemption, where's the focus?
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Jesus redeems what? Sinners. That's the focus for sure.
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That's the focus for sure. And by the way, also, if you wanna turn to Galatians chapter three, we'll see it.
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I'm also gonna read Titus chapter two. Another thing that's important about this is it doesn't speak, the
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New Testament doesn't speak in terms of something that's left undone. Jesus is redeeming.
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That's not the emphasis. It's on a different syllable. It's not redeeming.
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It's what? It's past, it's redeemed. Duh. It's almost like we just go, duh, he redeemed.
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He's not redeeming when it comes to sinners who are the focus. How about Galatians 3 .13?
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Just a sample. Christ redeemed us. Work done, work completed.
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And it's the us emphasized from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us.
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Titus chapter two, verse 13. Our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us.
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Finality, completion, done. Historic work, he came here, he did it and he ascended and sent his spirit.
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And he will come again one day. But notice the two major points. He redeemed, completed action.
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And notice also that it's not about a culture that's being redeemed or cultures. It's about a people.
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We've got to remember that. It's almost like we've just lost our minds. Just think simply, think biblically.
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What's the gospels? The good news about how Jesus is redeeming culture. We could pack the place out if we were to talk like that in promoting this.
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You men have a great opportunity to speak the truth lovingly about the clarity and what the clarity of the gospel is.
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Listen to this. This is a quotation from a writer who has a published article in a theological journal.
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Conservative Bible believing theological journal. And I quote, how would you critique this or how would you affirm this or not?
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In short, the great commission is the announcement of the good news that Christ has made it possible for us to take up once again humanity's cultural mandate.
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I got a sad look on my face for that one. In short, the great commission is the announcement of the good news that Christ has made it possible for us to take up once again humanity's cultural mandate.
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That's problematic on so many fronts. It's a huge problem.
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Christ made it possible. And now what, we're gonna take up the cultural mandate? It has major issues.
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It's a major issue because he didn't make things possible. The gospel is the good news about Christ finished work, right?
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It's problematic on another level because it devalues the work of Christ. Who was given the cultural mandate by the way?
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Back in Genesis, Adam was given the cultural mandate.
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And who is going to fulfill the cultural mandate? Us? Maybe in a certain sense, we wanna act like human beings and we wanna do that.
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But according to the scriptures, the ultimate fulfiller, the true genuine fulfiller of the cultural mandate is, it's
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Jesus. First Corinthians chapter 15 verse 45 refers to him as the second
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Adam, the last Adam. So the first Adam doesn't do it, he fails.
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And so what do we do? We pick up where he left off. That's the good news. We don't pick up where he left off.
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The good news is one would come who did what he didn't do on our behalf.
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There's a reason why it's called the last Adam. Jesus fulfilled that, he fulfilled everything necessary.
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And if we get that confused, it's not very long and it's no wonder so many of these people do, super important.
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It's not very long though where we started losing sight of even things like justification by faith alone.
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And that's where the drift goes. Adam failed, last
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Adam succeeded. The good news isn't that we pick up where first Adam left off.
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How tragic. The good news is the last Adam did it all perfectly.
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And we live in light of the gospel. We live in light of that. This is good, this is positive, this is right.
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The first man Adam became a living being. The last Adam became a life giving spirit.
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So good to know and to understand this. Doesn't mean we don't try to do anything to impact our world, we obviously do.
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Jesus said we shouldn't be salt and light. He said we are salt and light. Obviously we wanna make a difference where we live and breathe and have our being and bring glory to Christ.
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But it's not that big weight hanging around your neck that you better fulfill the cultural mandate. Well, you're living in gratitude toward the one who did fulfill the cultural mandate perfectly and his name is
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Jesus. His name is Jesus. This could take us in a million different rabbit trails but let's just think of one illustration here.
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Let's just think for a minute if we're gonna really, okay, what we need to do is transform the culture and re -pick up where the first Adam left off.
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And what we need to do is have truth and justice and righteousness, specifically
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God's word. And it's gonna be what takes over the culture and takes over the society and it's gonna change everything.
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And what we need to have is a thorough going following Christian nation, following Christian ethics.
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By the way, I'm all for righteousness and I'm all for being salt and light, don't misunderstand. But if we're really gonna, we're gonna bring the two together.
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If you could do that, would you really wanna do that? Bring church and state together.
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Well, that was an experiment that didn't go so well the last time it happened. We're all embarrassed by things like Crusades.
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By the way, we should be. I mean, just think about it. What's the Christian ethic when someone insults you, they strike you on the cheek, what do you do?
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Yeah, thank you, sir, may I have another? What's Romans 13 say about the government, the culture at large, the outside unbelieving culture?
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Established by God. And when something bad happens, the police should turn the other cheek.
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Now, last time I checked, last time I checked, that shotgun and that policeman's car isn't for decoration.
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That's the new Pat translation of the New Testament. The contemporary version.
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It says, they don't bear the sword for nothing, justice.
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The church is not, the Christian ethic isn't that. Turn the other cheek.
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There's something to think about. It's different. Now, again, that doesn't mean we don't wanna make an influence and we don't wanna have good things happen, we do.
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We have to remember that we're called to preach the gospel and the gospel isn't about transforming culture.
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And by the way, Jesus, when he comes back, will transform the culture, okay? Let's not be functional post -millennialists, okay?
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Let's not do that. He'll transform the culture all right. Let's remember he's coming again and he'll destroy the earth and recreate it.
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All right, let's move on. I think we probably have time to at least do one more of these. Abusive gospel misstep number five.
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The Bible is a book of timeless truths for living. The Bible is a book of timeless truths for living.
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Now, that could be true, but that's not the best way to describe what the
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Bible is all about. It's not the best way. Because if that's the best way, we sound a lot like old
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Protestant liberals who denied the gospel. You know what they wanted to talk about all the time a hundred years ago, even in some of these parts?
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Come to our church because the Bible is relevant to your daily life.
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We will give you practical truths, timeless truths, and you can come and be a better dad or a better mom.
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That's taken one right out of the playbook of old Protestant liberalism that people like Jay Gress and Machen had to stand up against.
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In the days of Princeton's demise theologically. Here's a helpful quote by Mike Horton regarding this.
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Whenever the story of David and Goliath is used to motivate you to think about the Goliaths in your life and the seven stones of victory used to defeat them, you've been a victim of moralistic preaching.
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The same is true whenever the primary intention of the sermon is to give you a Bible hero to emulate or a villain to teach a lesson like crime doesn't pay or sin doesn't really make you happy.
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Reading or hearing the Bible in this way turns the scriptures into a sort of Aesop's fables or Grimm's fairy tales where the story exists for the purpose of teaching a lesson to the wise and the story ends with, and they lived happily ever after.
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In his screw tape letters, Lewis has screw tape writing Wormwood in the attempt to persuade Wormwood to undermine the faith by turning
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Jesus into a great hero and moralist. And how many times are we maybe guilty of doing that with the
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Bible? Not being very well aware of history and who's done that before us.
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We're in bad company. And then we go to the New Testament and it seems to be all the more tragic. How many times do we go to the
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New Testament and we think, well, the New Testament is, I'm preaching through the gospels.
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Surely I'm gonna get the gospel right in the gospels. Remember when
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Jesus was tempted? Matthew chapter four, I think, off the top of my head in the Matthew account. What's the point of the sermon?
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What's the point of your lesson with the little boys and little girls? Is the point,
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Jesus quotes scripture. We should quote scripture too. Be like Jesus.
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Now, is it true that Jesus quotes scripture? It's true. Should we know the Bible and hide it in our hearts?
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Absolutely. How can a young man keep his way pure by keeping according to your word? Absolutely. Primary emphasis, primary point in Matthew's gospel account?
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Not on your life. Not on your life. What's the whole thing about?
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I love it that in Matthew chapter one, we're given a heads up. We're given a flag that's waved. Let me tell you what this whole thing is about.
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Matthew chapter one, I think it's in verse 23, could be 21, I think 23, that you should call his name
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Jesus. Why? Because he will save his people from their sins.
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So he will show them how to quote Bible verses. And they too can overcome temptation.
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The problem is we don't overcome temptation. The problem is we need him to save us from our sins.
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What's the whole story ultimately about, even though we can find practical things along the way? He tells us.
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He tells us. We have to remember that. We have to remember that. And remember the big picture, the authorial intent sometimes we like to say.
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Well, it's certainly the case there. Verse 21, by the way, I need to stick to my notes.
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And then you think in terms of, what about that chapter four? You're thinking more holistically.
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You're thinking big picture. You're remembering other things you know from Scripture, like I just referenced in 1
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Corinthians 15, that he's the last Adam. Oh, let's have a good thorough going to Adam theology.
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Understand the Bible better. Who was tempted by Satan? Who succumbed to the temptation?
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Who was tempted by Satan? Who didn't succumb to the temptation? First Adam, last
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Adam. So instead of saying there are good moral principles here, that's the main point.
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Instead, we're saying praise be to God that we have a great representative in the last
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Adam and he didn't drive the car into the spiritual ditch like the first one did, right?
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This is good news. Secondary application, gratitude application, if you will.
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We do wanna quote Scripture and we do wanna overcome temptation. And we now have the power to do that.
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You see the difference? It's not a slight difference, it's an important difference. It's a crucial indifference.
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It's vital. I mentioned the Protestant liberalism thing earlier and I think it's probably worth referencing, quoting
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Machen here on this. This is from his book, On the Virgin Birth, which everyone has on their shelf of their pastor and nobody's read.
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It's kind of how the story goes because it's so hard to read. This quote isn't hard to read. And just think about how relevant
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I should use that word, shouldn't I? Think about how relevant this is to where we are.
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J. Gresson Machen, writing this in, it's published in 1932. It seems never to have occurred to the adherence of this religion, it's the imitation of Jesus religion, that there is such a thing as sin and that sin places an awful gulf between man and God.
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But those convictions, though they are unpopular at the present time, are certainly quite central in the
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Christian religion. From the beginning, Christianity was the religion of the broken heart.
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It is based upon the conviction that there is an awful gulf between man and God, which none but God can bridge.
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Of what avail, without the redeeming acts of God, are the lofty ideals of psalmists and prophets, all the teaching and example of Jesus?
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In themselves, he says, they can bring us nothing but despair.
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We Christians are not interested merely in what God commands, but also in what God did.
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And then he ends the quotation, I'll end the quotation here, in a triumphant indicative, like Christ died for sins.
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Not you need to try more and do harder to be the man you need to be.
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See the huge difference? It's huge. And just as it was a big deal then, it's a big deal now.
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The Bible is so relevant and it is, but we have to remember that it's relevant first and foremost because there's a great drama explained that we call the drama of redemption.
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And Jesus didn't come here to be merely an example because he went to Calvary. He fulfilled the law, did everything necessary.
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It's about him and boasting in him. Mike likes to say this, I like to say it as well.
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We're not gonna get to heaven someday and somehow say, we did it. Knuckles, it's not gonna happen.
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I did a great job following Daniel. I did a great job following David. I did a great job following Jesus, Trump card.
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No, worthy is the lamb. Worthy is the lamb who was slain. Oh yes, because of the lamb, we were given the spirit and the spirit produces fruit in us and we do wanna bear fruit.
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Absolutely, out of gratitude. But we've gotta get things in the right order, in the correct order.
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I can't tell you how many commentaries that seem otherwise so good that I read as a pastor and you men who are teaching somebody in your life and consult these commentaries and they're helpful on so many things.
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And before you know it, it's all about emulation, example following, forgetting the big picture and what it's all about.
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Be on your guard. Be on your guard to remember who the hero is. How about this?
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Be on your guard to make sure you think and worship and teach and talk like a
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Christian. And Christianity first and foremost is a religion committed to the central reality symbolized in that cross right there.
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What Christ did, what Christ did. There are so many missteps. History is repeating itself.
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We wanna not make those missteps, not so we can make a name for ourselves, but so that we can boast and help others to boast and the one and only one in whom we should boast, right?
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Christ and Christ and Christ and Christ. Tell me more about Christ. Tell me more about him.
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That's what we wanna do. The good news of salvation in Christ. Let's pray and we'll end.
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Father, thank you for your glorious and magnificent gospel, the good news of salvation in your son,
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Jesus. Help us not to somehow in the name of being biblical or somehow we boast of being biblicists or something like that to somehow miss the whole point.
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Help us to be people who are first and foremost impressed with Christ, trusting in Christ and having experienced his great salvation, people who are boasting in Christ and willing to tell others about his greatness and the forgiveness that is found in him.
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Indeed, he is mighty to save. He's a great and wonderful and gracious savior. May our
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Christianity be true Christianity. May it be about him and not something else.