Is Your Religion Good Advice or Good News?

The heart of most religions is good advice, good techniques, good programs, good ideas, and good support systems. These drive us deeper into ourselves, to find our inner light, inner goodness, inner voice, or inner resources.

Nothing new can be found inside of us. There is no inner rescuer deep in my soul; I just hear echoes of my own voice telling me all sorts of crazy things to numb my sense of fear, anxiety, and boredom, the origins of which I cannot truly identify.

But the heart of Christianity is Good News. It comes not as a task for us to fulfill, a mission for us to accomplish, a game plan for us to follow with the help of life coaches, but as a report that someone else has already fulfilled, accomplished, followed, and achieved everything for us.

— Michael Horton, The Gospel-Driven Life, 20

God's Grace is Purifying Grace

“I apologize for putting this so bluntly, but it’s in the Bible. We need to face it. How can we hope to be true to Christ if we look away from the Bible’s stark portrayal of our natural corruption? The Bible alerts us that a blasphemous attitude lurks in all our hearts. We tell ourselves: ‘What’s the big deal about this or that compromise? He’ll understand. He’s all about grace, right?’ But what man would say: ‘What’s the big deal about my wife’s adulteries? It’s only marriage. I understand. I’m all about grace’? In the same way, our divine Husband does not think, ‘Well, she’s brought another lover into our bed, but as long as they let me sleep, what’s the big deal?’ The thought is revolting. 

“The love of Jesus is sacred. He gives all, and he demands all, because he is a good Husband. Only an exclusive love is real love. Only a cleansing grace is real grace. Would we even desire a grace that did not cleanse us for Christ?”

- Ray Ortlund, The Gospel: How the Church Portrays the Beauty of Christ, p.45

(HT:  Jared)

"How dare you approach the mercy-seat of God on the basis of what kind of day you had..."

How dare you approach the mercy-seat of God on the basis of what kind of day you had, as if that were the basis for our entrance into the presence of the sovereign and holy God? No wonder we cannot beat the Devil. This is works theology. It has nothing to do with grace and the exclusive sufficiency of Christ. Nothing. 

Do you not understand that we overcome the accuser on the ground of the blood of Christ? Nothing more, nothing less. That is how we win. It is the only way we win. This is the only ground of our acceptance before God. If you drift far from the cross, you are done. You are defeated. 

We overcome the accuser of our brothers and sisters, we overcome our consciences, we overcome our bad tempers, we overcome our defeats, we overcome our lusts, we overcome our fears, we overcome our pettiness on the basis of the blood of the Lamb.

— D. A. Carson, Scandalous: The Cross and Resurrection of Jesus, 103

You Know You Are In a Gospel-Centered Community When...

Great summary here from Tim Brister:

• believers practice confession instead of trying to make an impression
• people are defined by a lifestyle of repenting rather than pretending
• you embrace truth at all costs, not agreeing for each others approval
• light exposes & wounds and love covers & heals – both/and not either/or
• people are happy to be holy not content to be comfortable
• you own your mess because of His mercy instead of hiding them because of your shame
• functional saviors & heart idolatry are lovingly confronted & challenged by Christ’s reign & rule
• unbelieving sinners & believing sinners together look away from themselves & look to Jesus
• the pleasure of God in Christ to save you liberates you to passionately serve others
• hospitality is given to those on the margins & those not like you are welcome in your world
• individual preferences take a back seat to community purposes of loving God and neighbor

What Does a Gospel-Centered Church Look Like?

Ray Ortlund:

“. . . a friend of tax collectors and sinners!”  Luke 7:34 

What does it mean for a church to be gospel-centered?  That’s a popular concept these days.  Good.  What if we were scrambling to be law-centered?  But the difference is not so easy in real terms. 

A gospel-centered church holds together two things.  One, a gospel-centered church preaches a bold message of divine grace for the undeserving — so bold that it becomes the end of the law for all who believe.  Not our performance but Christ’s performance for us.  Not our sacrifices but his sacrifice for us.  Not our superiority but only his worth and prestige.  The good news of substitution.  The good news that our okayness is not in us but exterior to us in Christ alone.  Climbing down from the high moral ground, because only Christ belongs up there.  That message, that awareness, that clarity.  Sunday after Sunday after Sunday. 

Two, a gospel-centered church translates that theology into its sociology.  The good news of God’s grace beautifies how we treat one another.  In fact, the horizontal reveals the vertical.  How we treat one another reveals what we really believe as opposed to what we think we believe.  It is possible to say, “We are a gospel-centered church,” and sincerely mean it, while we make our church into a law-centered social environment.  We see God above lowering his gun, and we breathe a sigh of relief.  But if we are trigger-happy toward one another, we don’t get it yet. 

A gospel-centered church looks something like this album cover — my all-time favorite.  A gospel-centered church is a variegated collection of sinners.  What unifies them is Jesus, the King of grace.  They come together and stick together because they have nothing to fear from their church’s message or from their church’s culture.  The theology creates the sociology, and the sociology incarnates the theology.  And everyone is free to trust the Lord, be honest about their problems, and grow in newness of life. 

The one deal-breaker in a gospel-centered church: anyone for any reason turning it into a culture of legal demandingness, negative scrutiny, finger-pointing, gossip and other community-poisoning sins.  A church with a message of grace can quickly and easily stop being gospel-centered in real terms. 

A major part of pastoral ministry is preaching the doctrine of grace and managing an environment of grace.  The latter is harder to accomplish than the former.  It is more intuitive.  It requires more humility, self-awareness and trust in the Lord.  But when a church’s theological message and its relational tone converge as one, that church becomes powerfully prophetic, for the glory of Jesus. 

May the Friend of sinners grant beautiful gospel-centricity in all our churches.

Books by Ray Ortlund:

• Proverbs:  Wisdom That Works
• Isaiah:  God Saves Sinners
• A Passion for God: Prayers and Meditations on the Book of Romans
• God's Unfaithful Wife: A Biblical Theology of Spiritual Adultery
• When God Comes to Church: A Biblical Model for Revival Today

The Radical Grace Message

Powerful testimony here.

Gospel-Centered Teaching

Everyone is talking about being centered on "The Gospel".  But what does that even mean?  Can you articulate what that means?  I fear many of the people in my own church love the word but couldn't connect the dots.  This book from Trevin is sure to help.

Trevin Wax:

When The Gospel Project curriculum launched last year, I started receiving emails from pastors asking for something to help their small group leaders or Sunday School teachers understand why it’s important to be gospel-centered in our teaching. Here was a common refrain I heard from church leaders: 

I encourage everyone to be “gospel-centered” and to connect the dots of the Bible or to ground application in the gospel, but I’m not sure everyone knows exactly what I mean when I tell them to do this. 

In response to these requests, I decided to write something brief and accessible for the people who do the work, every week, of opening God’s Word and directing conversation about what God is saying to us. The result is a little book called Gospel-Centered Teaching: Showing Christ in All the Scripture. 

My goal is to give small group leaders a grid or framework that helps them see the big picture of what they are trying to accomplish. By recommending they ask just three questions of every lesson, I hope leaders will begin to instinctively notice when Christ is missing from their Bible study. 

Let’s face it. As teachers, it’s easy to get wrapped up in some of the details of the Bible stories, the history, or the background. Or to get focused on immediate application for our lives, so that we’re skimming the Bible looking for practical tidbits rather than putting ourselves within this great Story that unfolds in the pages of Scripture. 

But information alone doesn’t change us. Application alone doesn’t change us. Only Jesus changes us. That’s why the information we present needs to be connected to Christ. And the application we give needs to be grounded in Christ’s work for us too. 

Some people think they are centered on the gospel because they have an evangelistic presentation at the end of their sermon or small group session. That’s a great thing, but we want to make sure that everything we present is done so in light of Christ’s finished work for us. 

The gospel isn’t the dessert at the end of the meal. It’s the salt that gives distinctive flavor to the meat and potatoes. Trying to read the Bible without Christ at the center is like trying to read a book in the dark. We read everything in light of Jesus. 

Prayer is key in this. Unless we sense our desperation for the Spirit to move in the hearts of our people, we will not pray and we will be ineffective.

Get the book here.  

Perceiving our Greatest Need

If God had perceived that our greatest need was economic, he would have sent an economist. If he had perceived that our greatest need was entertainment, he would have sent us a comedian or an artist. If God had perceived that our greatest need was political stability, he would have sent us a politician. If he had perceived that our greatest need was health, he would have sent us a doctor. 

But he perceived that our greatest need involved our sin, our alienation from him, our profound rebellion, our death; and he sent us a Savior.

— D. A. Carson,  A Call to Spiritual Reformation

You Have to See Your Need

One of the great faults of the contemporary church is the tendency to soft-pedal sin and judgment. Like false prophets we 'heal the wound of God's people lightly' (Jer. 6:14, 8:11). This is how Dietrich Bonhoeffer put it: 'It is only when one submits to the law that one can speak of grace... I don't think it is Christian to want to get to the New Testament too soon and too directly.' We must never bypass the law and come straight to the gospel. To do so is to contradict the plan of God in biblical history. 

Is this not why the gospel is unappreciated today? Some ignore it, other ridicule it. So in our modern evangelism we cast out pearls (the costliest pearl being the gospel) before swine. People cannot see the beauty of the pearl, because they have no conception of the filth of the pigsty. No man has ever appreciated the gospel until the law has first revealed him to himself. It is only against the inky blackness of the night sky that the stars begin to appear, and it is only against the dark background of sin and judgment that the gospel shines forth. 

Not until the law has bruised and smitten us will we admit our need of the gospel to bind up our wounds. Not until the law has arrested and imprisoned us will we pine for the Christ to set us free. Not until the law has condemned and killed us will we call upon Christ for justification and life. Not until the law has driven us to despair of ourselves will we ever believe in Jesus. Not until the law has humbled us even to hell will we turn to the gospel to raise us to heaven.

- John Stott, Galatians, p. 93

The Three Worst Qualities of the Gospel-Centered Movement

Good reminders here from Dave Moser.  His three point are:

• The gospel-centered movement has the potential to turn us into legalists about the gospel.
• The gospel-centered movement has the potential to turn us into worshipers of the gospel instead of worshipers of God.
• The gospel-centered movement has the potential to disconnect the gospel from our lives.

Read the rest for his explanations.  

How Were People Saved in the Old Testament?

From man’s point of view we see the Scriptures unfold a step-by-step process until the gospel is reached as the goal. But from God’s point of view we know that the coming of Christ to live and to die for sinners was the pre-determined factor even before God made the world. We must not think of God trying first one plan and then another until he came up with the perfect way of salvation. The gospel was pre-ordained so that at the exact and perfect time God sent forth his Son into the world.

In the meantime, until that perfect ‘fulness of time’ should be reached, God graciously provided a progressive revelation of the Christ event. These prefigurements of the gospel had two purposes. First, this progressive revelation led man gently to the full light of truth. Secondly, it provided the means whereby the Old Testament believer embraced the gospel before it was fully revealed. The Old Testament believer who believed the promises of God concerning the shadow was thus enabled to grasp the reality. It was by Christ that the saints of Israel were saved, for such is the unity of the successive stages of revelation that, by embracing the shadow, the believer embraced the reality. Only in this way can we account for the ‘unity expressions’ of the New Testament which speak of Old Testament believers as hearing the gospel, seeing Christ, or hoping for a heavenly Kingdom. 

- Graeme Goldsworthy, Gospel and Kingdom, 125-126.


(HT:  Yancey)

Can You Articulate The Gospel?

The term "gospel" is, as Matt Chandler likes to say, becoming a "junk drawer" term for anything and everything in Christianity.  It is very important that we don't implicitly teach our people to enable this dysfunction.  This article will help immensely.  Don't use the word "gospel" without helping people know what it really means.

Addressing Christian Activism That Can Easily Lead to Moralism

No Longer Looking at Himself or to Himself

Martyn Lloyd-Jones:

We can put it this way: the man who has faith is the man who is no longer looking at himself and no longer looking to himself. He no longer looks at anything he once was. He does not look at what he is now. He does not even look at what he hopes to be as the result of his own efforts. He looks entirely to the Lord Jesus Christ and His finished work, and rests on that alone. He has ceased to say, “Ah yes, I used to commit terrible sins but I have done this and that.” He stops saying that. If he goes on saying that, he has not got faith. Faith speaks in an entirely different manner and makes a man say, “Yes I have sinned grievously, I have lived a life of sin, yet I know that I am a child of God because I am not resting on any righteousness of my own; my righteousness is in Jesus Christ and God has put that to my account.”

(HT:  Tullian)

“Children will run from law and they’ll run from grace. The ones who run from law rarely come back. But the ones who run from grace always come back. Grace draws its own back home.”

Tullian Tchividjian:

When I was 16, my parents kicked me out of the house. They had tried everything. Nothing worked. And it got to the point where my lifestyle had become so disruptive to the rest of the household, that they were left with no choice but to painfully say, “We love you but you can’t continue to live this way and live under our roof.”

A couple years after they kicked me out I was living in an apartment with a couple friends and I called my dad (after losing yet another of my many dead-end jobs–I only called him when I needed something) and said, “Rent’s due and I don’t have any money.” My dad asked, “Well, what happened to your job?” I made up some lie about cutbacks or something. He said, “Meet me at Denny’s in an hour.” I said okay. After we sat down, he signed a blank check and handed it to me, and said, “Take whatever you need. This should hold you over until you can find another job.” He didn’t probe into why I lost my job, or yell at me for doing so. He didn’t give a limit (here’s a $1000). And I absolutely took advantage! I not only remember taking that check and writing it out for much more than I needed, I remember sneaking into my mom and dad’s house on numerous occasions and stealing checks from out of his checkbook. I had mastered forging his signature. I went six months at one point without a job because I didn’t need one! Any time I needed money I would go steal another check and forge his signature –$500, $300, $700. I completely took advantage of his kindness—and he knew it!

Years later he told me that he saw all those checks being cashed, but he decided not to say anything about it at the time. It didn’t happen immediately (the fruits of grace are always in the future), but that demonstration of unconditional grace was the beginning of God doing a miraculous work in my heart and life. My dad’s literal “turning of the other cheek” gave me a picture of God’s unconditional love that I couldn’t shake.

My father died in 2010, twenty-one years after he sent his disrespectful, ungrateful son on his way. And it was his unconditional, reckless, one-way love for me at my most arrogant and worst that God used to eventually bring me back. Until the day he died, my father was my biggest cheerleader and my best friend. I miss him every day.

Steve Brown once said, “Children will run from law and they’ll run from grace. The ones who run from law rarely come back. But the ones who run from grace always come back. Grace draws its own back home.” I ran from grace. It drew me home.

Books by Tullian:

• Jesus + Nothing = Everything 
• Surprised by Grace: God's Relentless Pursuit of Rebels 
• Unfashionable: Making a Difference in the World by Being Different

Praying Justice and Mercy for #Gosnell

Great reflection here from Stephen Altrogge.  How we handle this issues exposes a lot about what we believe is at the center of Christianity.

Kermit #Gosnell and The Gospel

Russell Moore:

Yesterday I was typing the name “Kermit Gosnell,” and my phone auto-corrected the name to “gospel.” I shuddered momentarily. After all, what could be more contradictory than the name of a notorious abortionist on trial for child murder, and the good news of the mercies of God in Christ. My smartphone, it turns out, was smarter than I was.

The Gosnell case is stomach-turning. Testimonies in court point to a sadistic man who would sever the spines of babies, in and out of the womb. They tell of a man so cold-blooded that he would keep the feet of unborn children as trophies of his evil. They speak of a man who would prey upon the poorest and most vulnerable women in his community in order to destroy their lives and those of their children. It’s hard to think of the gospel in the midst of all that evil.

But that’s just the point.

Read the rest.



Books by Russell Moore:

• Tempted and Tried: Temptation and the Triumph of Christ
• Adopted for Life: The Priority of Adoption for Christian Families & Churches
• The Kingdom of Christ: The New Evangelical Perspective

Humility and Confidence All in One

The Christian gospel is that I am so flawed that Jesus had to died for me, yet I am so loved and valued that Jesus was glad to die for me. This leads to deep humility and deep confidence at the same time. It undermines both swaggering and sniveling. I cannot feel superior to anyone, and yet I have nothing to prove to anyone. I do not think more of myself nor less of myself. Instead, I think of myself less.

— Tim Keller, The Reason For God,181

(HT:  OFI)

A Powerful Parable of the Gospel

The Treadmill of Merit

Tullian:

I recently read this testimony from a guy who grew up in the pop-Evangelical culture of the late 20th century and who, for 7 years, was a full-time staffer at a large, well-known Evangelical para-church ministry. Sadly, I’ve heard this same kind of testimony from numerous people who grew up inside the church. As you can see from how he describes his experience, distinguishing law and gospel is not simply a theological exercise. Perhaps you can relate:

I experienced what happens when the Law and the Gospel are not understood and therefore distinguished. My Christian life, truly begun in grace, was now being “perfected” on the treadmill of the Law. My pastors did not end their sermons by demanding that I recite the rosary or visit Lourdes that week in order to unleash God’s power; instead, I was told to yield more, pray more, care more about unbelievers, read the Bible more, get involved in church more, and love my wife and kids more. Not until I came to the [theology of the Reformation] some 20 years later, did I understand that my Christian life had come to center around me and my performance: my life, my obedience, my yielding, my Bible verse memorization, my prayers, my zeal, my witnessing, and my sermon application. I had advanced beyond the need to hear the cross preached to me anymore…What had my Evangelical training done to me? The Gospel was critical for me at the beginning, critical for me to share with others, and still critical to get me to heaven, but it was of little other value. The “evangel” in Evangelicalism was missing. My training had me on a treadmill of merit.