What hill to die on? 5

Here is where all this lands -- are we being clear about the Gospel?  That is what is most urgent and I believe clarity on the Gospel brings resolutions to hundreds of other problems.  We are often sloppy on the Gospel -- soft-pedaling sin, not dealing with God as the offended party, not speaking of the death of Christ as a sacrifice for sin.  All too often I have found the fruit of poor "labor and delivery" -- supposedly new Christians who were clueless about the Gospel.  Here is a check list . . .

Let's start here -- are you convinced that the human condition is so desperate that it requires an act of God upon the soul to change it?  Do you think we can improve ourselves or manage our sin -- or do we need to be re-created by God?  Alongside of that question is this -- do you believe the only just solution to the sin of man against God is the sacrifice of God's Son at the cross?  Or is some other way of salvation possible?  Can man commend himself to God?

That question is fundamental because the watershed issue is this -- can I save myself or must God save me?  If you are not clear on this, you may be diluting the Gospel.

Second question: do you seek to make it clear that the issue is our offense against God?  Do you speak of God's character and his objective evaluation of our lives as his creatures?  Or have you psychologized the Gospel into a set of felt needs?  Do you use therapeutic language to describe our sinfulness or do you lead people to see things biblically?  It is one thing to start with how people see themselves and lead them from there to a biblical framework -- it is quite another to leave them to self-diagnosis.  People are not co-dependent.  They do not have "issues."  They (and we) are sinners, filled with self-worship and independence from God. We do not need purpose, we need a Savior!

Third question: do you make clear who Jesus is and what he accomplished -- or do you avoid or play down the foolishness of the cross?  Do you speak of it as final and ultimate or make it sound like one of many options God had?  Do you make it clear that Christ died for our sins -- or do you make it sound like he died for our aimlessness, emptiness, phobias and neuroses?  Do you trace a line from the symptoms of our sinful hearts (all the previous sentence) to our sinful hearts? And then proclaim the just mercy of God by judging his Son in our place? 

Fourth question: do you make clear that the issue in our response is turning from whatever we are trusting in to commend us to God and placing our trust solely in Jesus?  Phrases like, "asking Jesus into our lives" are not clear about the nature of faith.  Asking people to walk an aisle is not the same as asking for faith toward God's Son.  (How many folks I used to meet in Baptist churches who thought they were saved by "going forward" at the invitation!)

Do you lead people to faith with integrity or do you hide certain truths and press for decisions, thinking that you can work with them later in the details?  Do you seek to make sure they have a basic grasp of the Gospel before you invite them to trust in Jesus or do you simply ask them to "pray the prayer," thinking that you are getting them into heaven by doing so?  Brothers -- we are not selling used cars!  Sloppy spiritual obstetrics is malpractice.  Any MD who saw the number of stillbirths we see would be thrown out of his practice. 

Do you depend upon the Holy Spirit to make all this alive in their souls?

I focus on these basics, because if these are present, then so many problems are solved down the road.  We are seeking the total God-created new birth in people, and our part is to be faithful with the message.  Being born again changes the heart, softens the proud, makes teachable the arrogant, relieves us of a thousand points of guilt.  Phony conversions are nothing more than dressing up the dead.  While we cannot control who truly believes, we can do our part to be faithful. 

Where the Gospel is preached and applied with care, we are fellow-soldiers in this great warfare.  But when fellow-soldiers are sloppy and distort the message, they are acting as enemy infiltrators.  We must oppose sloppy and false Gospels. 

Comments

[David Smith]

I really like the line about selling used cars. I am a street preacher in San Diego and there is a large misconception that evangelism is sales or marketing. (I am in sales, there is a difference.) If evangelism were sales I would not preach in the publick square. But "it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe." Therefore, I Preach!

David

[Steve Farrington]

Mark

Great reminder that God does the work...we just need to be faithful with the gospel message.

Thanks
Steve

[Justin Buzzard]

Good words Mark. Your post is encouraging to me as I prepare to preach for the first time at CPC this week, aiming to be thorough and explicit in my explanation of what the gospel is.

I'm also eager to continue taking long amounts of time with the twentysomethings here in going over and explaining the gospel from all sorts of angles. Many of them are grasping what the gospel is all about for the first time. Thanks for indirectly encouraging my ministry through your blog.