The Gospel problem

If you are a christian you make an assumption that you understand the gospel. We all think we understand the gospel, and sometimes dangerously that can lead people to think they need to move on from the gospel. But the rest of our lives is spent understanding, applying, re-understanding and reapplying the gospel to our lives.

Last night I was looking at Mark 2 as confrontation begins between Jesus and the Pharisees, often we write the Pharisees off but I think we tend to do so too quickly. But there big problem is that they codify holiness and can't, won't or don't know how to fit Jesus and the gospel of the kingdom he brings into their framework. Fascinatingly I think we have the same problem - though for us it is that we take our eyes off the gospel and focus instead on fence building.

A genuine desire to be holy means that we put up all sorts of fences to protect us from every sinning. Where we go, who we spend time with, what you can buy, what you can read, watch and so on - we put fences around everyone. Now the motive is good we want to live differently, we want to please God but we aren't applying the gospel to our lives just putting up fences. And as we do so we have taken our eyes off the gospel and fixed them on religion as a means of pleasing God.

Religion or faith in Christ

Its amazing how often religion gets its hooks into us. Here are some questions that I have found a challenge this week as I have thought about just that issue:
1.I obey God because…
a.then God will give me things.
b.it delights God and mirrors his character.
2.When I am criticised by others I…
a.am furious and, or, devastated because I think of myself as a good person.
b.Struggle, but it is not critical to think of myself as a good person. My identity is built on God’s love for me in Christ.
3.My identity and self worth are based on…
a.how hard I work, how moral I am or how others perceive me to be. I am prone to swing between pride and feeling like a failure.
b.Christ who died to save me because of the grace of God. I am so bad that he had to die for me and I am so loved that he was glad to die for me. I live in the light of that grace.

Why religion is never enough

Do you think of yourself as religious? My hunch is that actually we could all do religion pretty well, it would look different from person to person but we could all do religion. We like rules and laws from a young age and religion can provide us with those things.

What do you expect Jesus to say about religion? Luke 11:37-54 gives us a bit of a jolt! Jesus says religion is not enough. He is speaking to the Pharisees and religious experts of his day, they did religion brilliantly - they had ways of washing and strict rules about giving - but Jesus comments to them are quite devastating. He calls them 'fools' (v40), now that's not particularly polite in any circumstances but especially when sat around someones dinner table. But Jesus doesn't do it because he wants to be cruel he does it because he wants them to repent.

You see a fool in the Old Testament was someone who was blind towards God and therefore couldn't respond to God properly. That was the religious leaders problem, and Jesus does the most loving thing someone can, he risks opposition and offence by warning them of their mistake and the danger it placed them in.

You don't need religion he says you need a change of heart. Your religion isn't enough to make you right with God. He then goes on to show that he has come to do that, the prophets all point to him and if they want to honour them they need to recognise who he is and what he has come to do. To win a people for God who can come into a holy God's presence not because of religion but because they trust in Jesus who will make them right with God.

The tragedy is 2000 years later, I can still find myself slipping back into religion mode rather than trsuting in God's means of being right with him his Son dying in my place.

An unlikely church

What is your church like? What sort of people sit in the seats or pews? Acts 16 is an amazing account of the founding of the church at Philippi, there is Lydia a seller of purple and a god-fearer, there is the spirit possessed slave girl and there is the jailer. Then in verse 40 it says Paul and Silas "met with the believers and encouraged them."

The gospel saves rich and religious, the possessed and enslaved and the pagan who is part of a hostile regime. It takes those people and welds them into a community based around the person and work of Jesus. This church is an astonishing display of the miracle of grace.

Are there people I have given up on seeing saved? Well the gospel is able. Are there people we don't try to reach? Well the gospel is a call to love and reach out to all.

Its all DONE!

Been preparing some training materials on sharing the gospel and was struck again by the gospels simplicity and yet its impact. I guess most people think Christians are religious and religion is all about DO. Yet the Bible says we can't do, we are hopeless nothing ever matches up to God's standard, even our very best is tainted.

So how do you answer the question 'When did you become religious?'. Religion is spelt DO. Christianity is spelt DONE, the wonder of the gospel is that there is nothing that I can do because it is all done for me in Christ. I am credited with his perfect son ship whilst he paid for my rebellion.

We just have to accept that we have rebelled against God and there was nothing we could do but await a justice we fully deserved and trust in Jesus to save us and turn and ask him to rule our lives now.

It is no wonder all the gospel writers describe it as such great news and that it turned the Roman world upside down!