Category: Gospel

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Massaging the Message: Believing the Gospel Needs Our Help

Have you ever been to a tent revival? When I was a child our church joined with other city churches to hold a tent revival for a week. Maybe it surprises you, but some churches were still holding tent meetings in the late ‘70s. They actually set up a tent in the parking lot of Lambeau Field where the Packers played, which for residents of Green Bay was about the best location ever. Since it was a tent, we got to use the bathrooms inside the stadium which I thought was really cool. An elderly evangelist and his college team came in to conduct the nightly services, and he led come-forward invitations at the end of each service. This means that when he finished preaching the gospel, the audience would sing several verses of a Christian song (a favorite was Just As I Am) and people were invited to come to the front and get saved. Lots of people have trusted Christ that way.

I found out later that the evangelist had some directions for the churches to make the invitations more effective. Each church was supposed to assign certain people to come forward on each line of the first few verses of the invitation song. So as the audience starts singing, a few adults were supposed to leave their chairs and come forward. Then some more on the second line, and more on the third, and so on. They weren’t coming forward to talk to those that might be genuinely repentant and need some help understanding the gospel. No, they were essentially pretending that they were genuinely convicted by the Spirit. It was supposed to make it easier for an unbeliever to make the decision to come forward and talk to the evangelist and be directed to someone that could help them walk through the gospel.

I don’t know what you think about that. The deceit bothers me—pretending to be moved by the Spirit when you are not. I think it’s a gimmick. I think it’s manipulative. And I don’t think it’s how Paul presented the gospel.

And I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom. 2 For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. 3 And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling, 4 and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, 5 so that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God. (1 Cor 2:1-5, ESV)

Paul didn’t shape his message to appeal to the Corinthian culture. He didn’t try to manipulate his audience into trusting Christ. In fact, he was doing it all wrong. He didn’t come to Corinth and share the Gospel in any ways that took away the shame of the message, the unimpressiveness of the called, or the foolishness of his own presentation.

This should be encouraging. Paul didn’t do anything “right” and yet the Gospel took root in people’s lives, and a church was planted in Corinth. The success of the Gospel doesn’t depend upon you and your cleverness.

Sometimes we think that if we only had the exact right word at the right time, our neighbor, friend, or family member would trust Christ. Not so. Everything was against the Gospel in Corinth and God still planted His church. Paul didn’t have a great delivery—nobody was coming to hear his amazing oratory—and people still trusted Christ. Paul didn’t have a powerful personality—nobody was impressed by his charisma—and people still trusted Christ.

We share the Gospel and trust God for the results. We do have to share the Gospel, but the success of it doesn’t depend upon your words or your personality. Both Paul’s delivery and his message weren’t persuasive by the world’s standards. That’s encouraging. Frankly, if the success of my witness depends upon me, I will feel a lot of pressure. I know I’m an inadequate witness, and I will get discouraged from even sharing the gospel. But I just need to be faithful in sharing. God will do the work.

From the world’s perspective they had a terrible message, embarrassing converts, and a poor salesman in Paul. Yet, the gospel changed lives. The Spirit’s power is the only explanation.

If God can use Paul’s feeble presentation to save some in Corinth, he can use your awkward presentation with your neighbor. So trust God and take courage. You and I can do this. By God’s grace we can share the crucified Christ, and by the Spirit’s power we can see some trust Christ.  

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The New Puritans Don’t Do Forgiveness

In an interesting article in The Atlantic, Anne Applebaum decries modern cancel culture, pointing out that some feel trapped in a world of unforgiveness. Who’s trapped?

  • An editor of the New York Review of Books that “was not accused of assault, just of printing an article by someone who was—Ian Buruma discovered that several of the magazines where he had been writing for three decades would not publish him any longer.” 
  • Daniel Elder, a prizewinning composer (and a political liberal) posted a statement on Instagram condemning arson in his hometown of Nashville, where Black Lives Matter protesters had set the courthouse on fire after the killing of George Floyd, he discovered that his publisher would not print his music and choirs would not sing it.
  • Alexi McCammond was named editor in chief of Teen Vogue, and then people discovered and recirculated on Instagram old anti-Asian and homophobic tweets she had written a decade earlier, while still a teenager. McCammond apologized, of course, but that wasn’t enough, and she was compelled to quit the job before starting.
  • One former journalist told Applebaum that his ex-colleagues “don’t want to endorse the process of mistake/apology/ understanding/forgiveness—they don’t want to forgive.” Instead, he said, they want “to punish and purify.” But the knowledge that whatever you say will never be enough is debilitating. “If you make an apology and you know in advance that your apology will not be accepted—that it is going to be considered a move in a psychological or cultural or political game—then the integrity of your introspection is being mocked and you feel permanently marooned in a world of unforgivingness… And that is a truly unethical world.”[1]Anne Applebaum, “The New Puritans,” The Atlantic, August 31, 2021, https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2021/10/new-puritans-mob-justice-canceled/619818/.

Applebaum calls the self-righteous mob the New Puritans, and they are professional shunners. When “sinners” offer the apologies demanded, they know they won’t be accepted. They truly are trapped in a world of unforgiveness.

Unbelievers talk about forgiveness, but mostly just to say that something or someone cannot be forgiven. Cancel culture is just the latest example of unforgiveness, but we have been an unforgiving people from the beginning. Outside of Christ changing us, how could anyone forgive a debt—and that’s what forgiveness is. An offender has a debt that only the offended can write off. How can anyone do that? Only believers can, and only believers that recognize they have sinned greatly against the King and inexplicably been shown mercy (Mt 18:23-35).

So the servant fell on his knees, imploring him, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you everything.’ 27 And out of pity for him, the master of that servant released him and forgave him the debt. Matthew 18:26–27 (ESV)

If you don’t understand and appreciate the gospel, you will never be a forgiving person. We who have been so generously forgiven, must generously grant forgiveness.

Forgiveness is an exclusively Christian virtue. I’ve seen marriages invaded by adultery fully restored. Not left in an uneasy truce, not left weakened and ill, but completely reconciled and whole. I’ve seen daily verbal assaults and general selfishness of a spouse forgiven. A marriage that should have so much distance after years and years of sin has become a glorious example of Christ’s love for the Church. I’ve seen siblings reconciled after incredible hurt has been done. Again, I’m not describing holding the offender at arm’s length after proclaiming forgiveness. I’m describing real reconciliation. Can your religion—or irreligion—do that? I don’t think so.

Have you ever thought about whom[2]Meaning, which person? All of our sin is ultimately against God, Ps 51:4 you’ve sinned against most in your life? For me, it’s easy. I’ve been married 29 years, and while I’ve sinned against my parents, my siblings, and my own children, I’ve sinned most against my wife, and it’s not even close. Yet she is the one person I am closest to in this world. We are best friends. How? God has forgiven her, and therefore she regularly (often daily) forgives me. That’s the only explanation. So many marriages eventually crumble under the cumulative weight of each other’s undealt with, unforgiven sin. Why is ours stronger than it was before I started sinning against her almost three decades ago? There is only one answer—Christ-honoring, God-glorifying, Gospel-motivated forgiveness.

Real, genuine, biblical forgiveness is amazing. The world has nothing like it. They have no way of healing broken relationships. They continue to harbor bitterness. Only God could come up with forgiveness. The New Puritans don’t do forgiveness. They don’t do grace. They don’t do mercy. Aren’t you glad that God does all three, and because he does, we can as well?

References

References
↑1 Anne Applebaum, “The New Puritans,” The Atlantic, August 31, 2021, https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2021/10/new-puritans-mob-justice-canceled/619818/.
↑2 Meaning, which person? All of our sin is ultimately against God, Ps 51:4
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Hebrews 2:9 and New Coke?

Do you remember New Coke? You have to be a certain age even to be aware of this story. It happened during my teen years, so I remember this pretty well.

In the Spring of 1985 some knuckleheads at Coke decided they would launch the reformulation of Coca Cola to compete with their rival, Pepsi. Obviously this was months, even years in the making.

Just after World War II Coke’s market share was 60%. By the 1980s it had fallen to 24% and Pepsi was beginning to outsell Coke in supermarkets. Coke was still dominant because of its vending machines and restaurant sales, but the executives thought the handwriting was on the wall. They were scared.

Pepsi was promoting taste tests that kept coming back with Pepsi being the preferred drink. Coke downplayed them, but their own internal research showed the same thing. They were afraid Pepsi was going to overtake them.

So in a bit of hubris they decided to change the taste of Coke and make it sweeter, like Pepsi’s taste. They completely eliminated the old Coke formula and went 100% with New Coke. They were all in. It was a marketing disaster. Within three months they brought back the taste of Coke under the Coke Classic brand name. Eventually that went away and New Coke died the death it needed to die. Coke completely reverted to its original formula.

Why did they change the formula? Why not just add the New Coke taste as another product and still keep the Old Coke too?

I read a story on this a few years ago in the book, Blink, by Malcolm Gladwell that said part of the problem was how they conducted taste tests in the ‘80s. Pepsi was winning taste tests head-to-head with Coke, but they were a particular kind of taste test. They were actually called sip tests. As you can guess, you didn’t drink an entire can, you just took a sip or a small cup. And in sip tests Pepsi would win hands down. But the problem is nobody drinks pop like that. Nobody takes a sip and puts it back in the fridge. Another taste test involved giving tasters a case of Pepsi and a case of Coke and checking back with them in a few weeks. In those home tests Coke would win.

So the Coke executives changed the formula for Coke on the basis of sip tests even though that’s not really the way to taste a product.

Hebrews 2:9 (ESV) But we see him who for a little while was made lower than the angels, namely Jesus, crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.

Jesus tasted death for all of us, and it’s important to know that this wasn’t a sip test. The word “taste” might make us think that it was just a little mouthful, but that’s not the intention of the Greek word.

When our oldest son was a baby, my in-laws visited us one time. We were at a restaurant and I think my mother-in-law put a little pop in the end of a straw and put it on Justin’s tongue. His little baby face showed shock at the taste of Coke. You could say that he tasted Coke.

The word in Hebrews 2:9 doesn’t mean a taste like that. It actually means that Jesus thoroughly tasted death. He experienced it all. He didn’t take a sip test or just the little drop in the end of a straw. He drank it all.

This means that we don’t have to face death like Jesus did. He took the punishment for sin. He faced God’s wrath in death so we don’t have to.

Jesus tasted death for you. That’s what this passage says. Now it’s not saying that you won’t die if you trust Jesus. He’s saying that death has been stripped of its power, or its horror. We don’t need to fear death. You will die should Christ tarry His coming, but you won’t experience what makes death truly horrible—separation from God.

Paul the Apostle says it this way.

1 Corinthians 15:55 (ESV) “O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?”

Death has been stripped of its sting for the Christian. Jesus faced the sting of death. He was separated from God the Father for six hours on the cross so you don’t have to be. God the Father condemned Jesus as He became sin for us. That’s the sting of death and Jesus took it for you.

Death has been emptied of its power for the believer. We don’t need to fear it. Many Christians have believed this at the point of death, and they have calmly, joyfully, gone to see their heavenly Father.

Now, because of Jesus, we don’t lose with death. We only gain. We gain heaven. We gain Christ. We gain freedom from sin. We gain presence with the Lord. Death has been emptied of its power by the One who tasted death for every man.

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Lost then Found

There’s a story to this picture. This past weekend we were driving to see our son in Colorado when we pulled off the interstate for a minute. My wife was sleeping, and my daughter was driving when we were in the middle of nowhere in Northeastern Colorado. The exits on that stretch of interstate are about 10 miles apart. It’s a desolate area. It was one stop on a long, 11-hour drive. We arrived at our hotel that night and while we were getting our luggage my wife told me she could only find one shoe. I had noticed her shoes when I got out earlier in our journey, but I thought I was careful; however, one shoe was missing. Laura walked to our room with only one shoe on—she really did! I was sorry, but there was nothing I could do. They weren’t expensive, but they were new shoes.  

We had a great weekend, dropped our daughter at the airport, our son back at school, and we hit the road. My daughter told us that she thought we were about 2:20 from our hotel when we stopped. Our hotel was south of Denver so Laura plugged in the address and tried to figure out what exit we might have stopped at. She offered to drive and we arrived at the exit where she thought we might find her shoe. We pulled off the road and there was her shoe, sparkling in the sunlight. We were both so thrilled—my wife because her detective work paid off and me because the shoe I accidentally kicked out of the minivan was found undamaged. Some lost things are found.

I’ve been thinking a little about finding things that are lost. My son texted me this week that he needed his social security card. I went to the place in the house where I keep them, and it wasn’t there. I found passports, birth certificates, and other social security cards, but not his. Laura and I looked all around in every place we could imagine, and we never found it. Some lost things are never found.

My wife’s shoe did nothing to be found. It was in exactly the same spot as when it fell out of the car three days previous. And I know my son’s social security card hasn’t done anything to be found because we haven’t found it!

Every person alive today was lost; some have been found. But if you were found, it’s all because of Christ. You did nothing to be found.

For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost. Luke 19:10 (ESV)

I’m glad Jesus sought me and saved me. I’m glad salvation doesn’t depend upon me. If it did, I’d still be lost—like my son’s social security card.