God showed me today a huge difference between valuing the gospel message, and valuing the gospel Giver! If that makes no sense, give me just a few more lines and you will understand.
For many people that call themselves Christians, they tend to value the gospel message for what it offers. Let me explain. Many people value the gospel message because we are told if we believe the message then we will not go to hell. We are told if we believe the message it will help us with our guilty feelings and it is helpful to believe we are forgiven of our sins. We are told if we believe the message we will go to heaven. And don't get me wrong, all of these are truths of the Bible and are truths that come from truly believing in the gospel message.
The problem comes when we value the gospel message for its gifts, rather than valuing the gospel message for the Giver to whom is God. One thing that I have learned over the last 7-8 years is that God is more valuable than anything in life. This also means that God is more valuable than the gifts that we receive through believing in the gospel message.
Back in the US and even here in Namibia, many people preach the gospel only to get an immediate reaction to the gifts of the gospel message and to get converts. The message is preached in a way that people value the gospel and call themselves born again so that they will not go to hell, and so that they can go to a wonderful place called heaven. They embrace the gospel so that they will feel free from the bad life they have been living and to feel forgiven from the gospel, because the world will not forgive them or forget their past. They cling to the gospel because it might bring blessings in their life, or new found success, or physical healing.
The problem with this style of preaching is that there is no passionate desire for the Giver of the gospel, no desire for God! God is not even mentioned in most peoples response to why do you love the gospel message. Again, the gifts are wonderful and can only come from God, and the death of Jesus, but the gifts are not God! God MUST be the most valuable gift of the Gospel!
The fact is that if all we cherish from the gospel is forgiveness of sins, free entry into heaven, and safety from going to a place called hell, then we have missed the mark!
And here is what John Piper wrote in the book, to which God used to shake me up a little this morning:
"If we believe all these things happened to us, but do not embrace them for the sake of getting to God, they have not happened to us. Christ did not die to forgive sinners who go on treasuring anything above seeing and savoring God. And people who would be happy in heaven if Christ were not there, will not be there. The gospel is not a way to get people to heaven; it is a way to get people to God. It's a way of overcoming every obstacle to everlasting joy in God. If we don't want God above all things, we have not been converted by the gospel."
These are strong words, but truthful words, and it has changed drastically the way I will approach teaching and preaching the gospel in the future. I hope that this will also help you as much as it did me today.
So why is the gospel good news? Because God is the gospel!
God Bless!
3 comments:
Hey Man,
That is one of my favorite Piper books.
I have been talking to people about this very thing lately.
If your definition of the gospel is not as simple (at the foundational level) as Christ or God then you are in danger of worshiping what was done for you instead of worshiping "Who" did it.
On the way to the CCC Golf Tourn, btw
Dude, I am glad that you are! I mean it is hard to get youth to understand. And God is still trying to write it on my heart completely also because it goes against my nature. But one thing He is teaching me lately is to worship the Creator and not the creation, which today I believe to also mean the gifts of the gospel!
Hope you get a hole in one!!!
Great insight into the different paths "Our Walk" can take. Be humbled by the chance to know God, because it cost Him personally to show us the depths of His Love. Christianity is not a message of prosperity on earth but of an ongoing relationship with the giver of Life.
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