After our long, incredible trip to Ireland, this week it’s
back to the grind. We dug right in with
our speaker Bret Jensen. He talked to us
about the importance of the gospel, not just for new believers, or even just
for evangelizing, but as more of an everyday enamor-ment.
To show us some examples of what it means to be enamored by
the gospel, Bret pointed to scriptures that had been written out of pure
enamor-ment of God.
First Peter was written more than 30 years after Christ left
the Earth, and yet Peter is still SO enamored by what he did. 1 Peter 1:3-12 speaks of inexplicable joy and
the power of salvation. 30 years into
his ministry, Peter is still moved by the power of the gospel.
In Ephesians, we see Paul take on a completely different
writing style in order to throw in a brief snippet of his enamor-ment of the
Gospel. Typically, Paul writes very
direct theological, informational passages.
However, Ephesians 1:3-19 is a very poetic passage where Paul becomes
very repetitive, using lots of adjectives and words of love for Christ. He takes puts his agenda to the side to stop
because he is so caught up in worship of his Lord and Savior. Later on, in chapter 3 we see worship
overtake him once again. In verses 20
and 21, Paul seems to have thrown in a random prayerful interjection of
worship. Its as if he has thrown in a
doxology in the middle of his letter to the church at Ephesus. Although these are generally found at the end
of a letter, we see these mid-book doxologies several times throughout
scripture.
In Matthew, we see a different type of enamor-ment. In chapter 6 verses 9-13, we see a fairly
well known passage, the Lord’s Prayer, changed over time by someone so caught
up by the greatness of the gospel. In many
versions of the bible, this passage is concluded by the phrase, “For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and
the glory, for ever and ever, amen. “ However,
recently discovered transcripts have revealed that this phrase was not a part
of the original text, but most likely added in by a scriptural scribe. A man so enamored by God’s goodness that he
could not help but add in his own doxology.
These are all examples of men that have been moved by the
gospel. Why aren’t we enamored by the
gospel anymore? What is stopping us from
being as passionate about salvation as these men were?
For so many, it is because we are stuck with an elementary
view of the gospel. Think… What would
your life be like if your education stopped after elementary school? You probably wouldn’t be working the job you
have... Probably wouldn’t have many friends... Probably would not be living as
comfortably as you do... You would feel insignificant when compared to everyone
around you. Now, the gospel is the same
way. It can be understood by children…
but is it really that simple?
In Romans 1:18-3:20 we see Paul go into detail about man
denying God’s existence. He calls us out
on the fact that we give our hearts in worship to stupid things, and there are
consequences because of it. God sees
through all of our facades. He sees
straight through all of our ‘good works’ to the heart behind our actions. And if it’s not right, you can’t convince him
it is. Although every single person in
the world thinks you’re a saint, if you aren’t doing it for His glory, God
knows it. We are all damned. None of us are righteous.
But Romans 3 goes on to explain how this weight is
lifted. God’s righteousness has been
manifested, or revealed to us through Jesus Christ. The law says, “I will earn through obedience a good standing before God.” But we are not made righteous by simply
following the law. We are justified by
His grace. This grace is faith based,
not deeds based. We have been redeemed,
or paid for… all of us; the entire human race.
But what we don’t fully realize the impact of is that the only thing
that could pay the overwhelming weight of debt of humanity was the blood of
Jesus Christ.
God is holy. He is a
perfect being. He takes offense to our
sin. Think of King David. He did a lot of things wrong, and he made a
lot of people mad. But when push came to
shove, he knew that he had SINNED against God.
What are we doing to satisfy the wrath of a perfect being?
In order to understand the great meaning of Jesus’s sacrifice,
we examined the driving forces of His life.
First of all, he was a fulfillment of prophecies. He lived his life knowing that this would be
tortured and killed for the very people who tortured and killed him. In Gethsemane, he sweat drops of blood
because he was under so much weight of sin.
The cup of God’s wrath was poured out on him. Imagine the enormous stress he must have
felt… He lived a sinless life, and then at once the weight of the world was
poured out on his shoulders. But he
appeased the wrath of God. In his some
of his final words, he asks, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” And we see that he has taken the wrath of
God.
Another reason we have lost a passion for the gospel is
because it has been displaced in our lives.
Many of us believe that the Gospel is just step one… the coming to
faith. That is a lie that Satan has put
into the minds of so many churches and Christians in general in order to take
away our passion for God. In reality,
the Gospel is key to progress in the kingdom.
Many people today see religion as moral effort and rituals,
but the gospel speaks of salvation through grace. We put too much emphasis on the ritual making
us like the Pharisees in our legalism.
We need to learn to be humbled by the gospel, and accept his undeserved
grace.
In Luke 15, we find a fairly well known story about the
Prodigal Son. Bret helped us to take a
different look at this parable, and see a side I had never examined
before. In this story, we see a father
with two sons. The younger of the two asks
his father for his inheritance, essentially saying “I wish you were already
dead, so I could have my money.” He
leaves to go to a far off land, which is probably very lavish and fancy, where
he squandered away all his money living frivolously, to the point where he
literally hits rock bottom, and gets a job working with pigs on a farm. This was one of the most degrading jobs in
this time. The pigs were treated better
than he was as a servant. So, he decided
that he would go back and plead with his father, not expecting more than a job
from him. But his father saw him coming
from a great distance. He was
watching…waiting for the day his son would return to him. And when he saw him, he ran to meet his
son. He gave him his robe and his signet
ring, taking him back in as his son. His
father called for the servants to prepare the fattened calf, the most expensive
type of food available at that time. The
eating of this calf, because it was so big, usually instigated a party that
would last several days until the calf is gone.
However, the part of this story that is typically overlooked is the
reaction of the older brother. He was in
the fields working when he heard music and dancing at the house. He asked a servant what was happening, and
learned of his brother’s return. He was
so mad that he would not even go inside.
His father came and tried to convince him to come in and celebrate with
them. Yet he fought with his
father. He asked why he had wasted his
fattened calf on the son who had taken his property and wasted it away when he
had been faithful to his father, working for him, and obeying his
commands. But the father rebukes him…
“And he said to him, ‘Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is
yours. It was fitting to celebrate and
be glad, for your brother was dead, and is alive; he was lost, and is found.’ ”
(Luke 15:31-32)
The older brother thinks he deserves more because he has
served more. He doesn’t want his father
to accept his brother back into the family.
He feels entitled to his father’s love because he has been
faithful. But the love of his father is
unconditional. He loves both sons even
though one has wronged him. Because the
younger brother was impulsive and gave in to worldly pleasures, the older son
judged him. His reality was
distorted. He cared more about being
good than he truly cared for his father.
He was legalistic.
This story shows us that our bad is not bad enough to
disqualify us from the grace of God. The
path to the father’s house was always available; the father is waiting for us to come home.
These brothers are great examples of two wrong ways to
live. The younger son is lavish,
selfish, impatient, and indulgent. The
older son, although he is obedient, strong, and well versed in scriptures does
not love and enjoy what the father loves and enjoys. He does not love the father.
Now, grace does not mean that we can be disobedient and
continually receive his grace, rather that we should feel so compelled by his
unchanging grace that we believe what the bible says about it and want to be obedient because of it.
For some, it is hard to be secure in the gospel, because we
are insecure in our relationship with God.
Ask yourself… Do you feel safe
with God? Do you feel accepted as his
own? Do you feel significant or
important to him? Do you feel unique? Do
you understand that you have nothing to prove before him? Do you know that he will never change or
leave you? Do you understand that he
will not condemn you? Often times our earthly relationships directly
correlate to trust issues with God.
In the words of Timothy Keller, “In religion, we try to obey the divine
standards out of fear. We believe that
if we don’t obey we are going to lose God’s blessing in this world and the
next. In the gospel, the motivation is
one of gratitude for the blessing we have already received because of
Christ. While the moralist is forced
into obedience, motivated by fear of rejection, a Christian rushes into
obedience,
motivated by a desire to please and resemble the one who
gave his life for us. “
So, what’s the difference?
Are we living our lives as Christians for religion or the gospel? How
are we going to let this affect us? Our
‘religion’ of Christianity is truthfully all about motives. Yes, be a good person. Yes, do good things. But, make sure that you have the right heart
behind it.
