Not Another Gospel - Part One
Over the past three weeks, I have been considering the gospel that the evangelical church has been preaching for the past 30 years. The spark that ignited my interest in understanding the gospel that evangelicals have been preaching was ignited by T.M. Moore during a Sunday morning service at the conclusion of second Centurions residency.
T.M. said that the evangelical church has largely misrepresented the gospel. They have done this by preaching a gospel that falls short of Christ's call to repentance and holy living. In short, the gospel has sounded something like this:
You are a sinner. Jesus died for your sins and offers you forgiveness. If you pray this prayer with me now, your sins will be forgiven and you will go to heaven.
Little thought is ever given to Christ's sancifying work in our lives here and now or our responsibility as instruments of Christ's reconciliation, redemption and restoration or even what heaven is going to be like.
As I began to think about what T.M. has said, I was drawn to the scriptures and wanted to study how Jesus presented the gospel to the people he encountered. My desire is that I would present the gospel as Jesus did. That I would not preach another gospel but rather Jesus' gospel. To this end, I will look at a few instances of Christ telling and showing the world what his gospel is.
In Luke 19, Jesus has just finished healing a blind beggar and was passing through the town of Jericho. As he passed through he encountered Zacchaeus who had climbed a tree to be able to see Jesus pass through. Jesus called Zacchaeus down and told Zacchaeus that he must stay at his house today. Zacchaeus joyfully received Jesus. When Zacchaeus was visited by Jesus, he repented and repayed all that he had defrauded others of. Jesus saw this true repentence and said, "Today salvation has come to this house, since he also is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man came to seek and save the lost."
What is absent from this dialogue? Where was the sinners prayer? How about the gospel tract? Jesus encountered a sinner in his life, visited him at his house, and Zacchaeus was challenged by Christ's holiness. If we are to present the gospel as Jesus did, it can't be watered down to a sinner's prayer and a hope of some unknown heaven. Christ came to earth that the Kingdom of God would be brought about here and now.
Christ's parable in the following passage of Luke 19 is a call to further the Kingdom of God until Christ returns. Yes, our hope is in the King's return... but, we must persevere as ambassador's of grace here and now to bring about redemption in Every Square Inch of the universe.
To be continued...