The Gospel in Ten Words (3 page)

As I was
writing this prologue I received a message from a young man I will call Jake. Jake
wrote to tell me he loved God and wanted a relationship with him but didn’t
know what to do or how to be saved. He said he had heard from some religious
people that God expects us to live a sinless life and that he won’t approve of
us if we go out dancing with friends and that sort of thing.

At this point you may be thinking, “How misguided, dancing is not
a sin.” I know, it’s laughable. But don’t miss the bigger issue. Christianity
isn’t a list of do’s and don’ts. Christianity is Christ.
The point is
not whether dancing is on your
do list
or your
don’t list
; the
point is whether you have any list at all. Rule-minded people are preoccupied
with doing good and avoiding evil but this is carnal religion. It’s eating from
the wrong tree.
Christianity
isn’t a test, it’s a rest.

So here’s Jake listening to the bad news of religion telling him
God won’t accept him unless he first sorts himself out and changes his
behavior. I hope you can see that this is not good news. In fact, charging
sinners admission to the throne of grace is a fiendish practice. But I’m
getting ahead of myself.

What really struck me was Jake’s claim that this bad news message
was “what I have heard my whole life.” Jake sounded like he had some church
experience and he clearly loved the Lord, but no one had ever told him the good
news.

Don’t you find it astonishing that with all the churches in the
world and wall-to-wall Christian television, there are millions if not billions
of people just like Jake who have never heard the gospel? I hear from people
like this every single day.

Since no one had
ever told
Jake
the
gospel, the privilege of proclaiming that happy message fell to me. In a few
short sentences I told him that God loves him and there is nothing he can do to
make God love him any more than he already does. I explained that going to
church and avoiding sin would not save him, and the only thing that pleases God
is faith in
his Son Jesus. “
If you would be
saved, you need to trust that Jesus is who he said he is, that he loves you,
died for you, and now lives for you.”
I then
encouraged Jake to talk to God directly and ask him to reveal his love. Within
an hour I received the following reply:

Wow, that
sure is good news. I would say that is great news! Thank you so much. I
had no clue that’s what Jesus is really about.

Two days later Jake wrote again to tell me he was now saved, he
had been talking to God and God was helping him a great deal. Now that’s what
you call effortless evangelism. I simply passed along the good news, the Holy
Spirit brought revelation and Jake was set free.

And not one mole was whacked.

History’s
greatest preachers have always proclaimed a simple gospel with few words and
much power.

Paul brought the kingdom of heaven to the pagan city of Corinth
with nothing more than a five-word gospel
—
“Jesus Christ and him crucified”
—
backed up
with the power of the Holy Spirit.

Peter needed only twelve words to declare to his fellow Jews the
good news: “God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ.”
Three thousand believed and were saved the same day.

John needed only seven words to herald the end of the old covenant
and the dawn of the new: “Grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.”

And Jesus needed just nine words to reveal himself as the end of
all our searching: “I am the way, the truth, and the life.”
[4]

As you can see, there are many different ways of saying the same
thing. As long as you are revealing the love of God as personified by Jesus
—
who he
is, what he has done and why
—
then you are preaching the gospel.

This should not be complicated. The gospel is simple enough for a
child to understand. You don’t need to know Greek to get it. Neither do you
need to go to seminary or Bible school to figure it all out.

One of my favorite gospels is this twenty-word gem which was probably
first uttered by John Calvin: “
The Son of God became the Son of Man that the sons of men
might become the sons of God.
” Short and sweet.

Or how about this shorter gospel by
Anna
Bartlett Warner: “Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so.”
[5]
That’s the gospel my three-year-old
son knows.

Here is the gospel we sing at Christmas:

Veiled in flesh the Godhead see; hail the
incarnate Deity,
Pleased with us in flesh to dwell, Jesus our Emmanuel …

Mild he lays his glory by, born that man no
more may die, 

Born to raise the sons of earth, born to give
them second birth.

That’s from “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing” if you haven’t made the
connection. Charles Wesley’s 270-year-old hymn proves the best gospels are
enduring. They stick in our hearts because they speak to our deepest needs and
remind us of our true home.

Of course you don’t need to be a gifted hymn writer or preacher to
have a short gospel. Some time ago I challenged readers of my blog,
Escape to Reality
, to proclaim the good news in as
few words as possible.
[6]

Steve from Sydney supplied this short gospel: “Receive Christ and
you will be as clean as he is, as free as he is, and as close as he is to the
Father God.”

Phil from Alabama gave us his ten-word gospel: “Jesus loves you
and God is not mad at you.”

Daniel from
Massachusetts
provided a nine-word gospel: “Come! The sin barrier is down.
I love you.”

And Miriam from
Nebraska gave us this stunning nine-word affirmation: “In
God’s family forever by his work and power.”

Some say that a tsunami of grace is currently sweeping across the
world. If this is so, then one of the signs of this grace awakening will be an
increasing emphasis on the short and simple gospel Jesus revealed and the New
Testament writers proclaimed.

The gospel of grace is wholly unlike the rule-based religion many
of us are familiar with. Religion is complicated but grace is simple. Religion
is vague but grace
is
crystal clear. Religion finds fault and does nothing to help, but the grace of
God propels you triumphantly through life’s toughest challenges. Religion will
give you a headache and leave you sick and tired, but grace gives strength to
the weary and life to the dead. Religion seeks to bridle the free but grace
liberates the prisoner and the oppressed.

It is my firm conviction that as more people come to appreciate
the beauty and richness of the undiluted gospel, sermons on other subjects will
disappear like yesterday’s news. The power of God is only revealed in the
gospel, and we have been called to preach nothing less.

If the gospel is
short, why have I written a whole book about it? For the same reason miners dig
deep holes in the sides of mountains—there’s treasure inside. The gospel
reveals not only a
door into the King’s domain but
the lobby, the grounds, and the entire realm of his splendor.

The blessings of the gospel are many but in this book we are going
to look at just ten. These ten blessings should not
be interpreted as
levels or steps or anything like that. Instead, think of them as pearls on a
necklace or pictures at an exhibition. They are riffs on the theme of Jesus. They
are ten revelations of grace that describe the life of every believer, no
exceptions. In union with Christ you are loved, forgiven, saved, accepted,
holy, righteous, dead to sin, new, and royal.

As
I came to the end of writing this book a friend asked me about the title. “Are
you aware that ‘the ten words’ is another name for the Ten Commandments?” I was
not aware and his question prompted a moment of panic.
Oh no
.
People
will think this book is based on the law. That’s hardly a good look for a
preacher of grace!

I
began to wonder if I had made a mistake with the title but my friend disagreed.
“It’s a good thing and not a coincidence.” He was right. God knows I love lists
and I’m certain he was the one who gave me the idea for the book and the title.
So I decided to keep the title unchanged.

Then
that night, a confirmation. Camilla and I were watching an episode of
The
West Wing
and President Bartlett was on a quest for a sound bite. “Ten
words, ten words!” came the call from the Oval Office. “We’re still looking for
ten words,” said his chief of staff. Not nine, not eleven, but ten words. It’s
like my favorite fictional president was saying, “You picked a great title.”

So
it’s
The Gospel in Ten Words
—not nine, not eleven, but ten. You’ve heard
the ten words of God’s law; now receive the ten words of his grace.

Yet
in a way, the title of this book is misleading. You don’t need ten words to get
the gospel, you just need one and that word
is Jesus.
The gospel is not
Jesus-plus-you
or
Jesus-plus-whatever-doctrine-is-in-vogue
.
It’s just Jesus. His is the only name by which we can receive forgiveness and
acceptance and holiness and all the other manifestations of grace I have
written about in this book. Don’t ever forget that. (I’ll quiz you at the end
of the book to make sure you haven’t.)

Before we enter the gallery of his grace, let us give one final
thought to Lieutenant Onoda of the Japanese Army. After he was finally
convinced the Pacific War had ended, he became a different man. He stopped
terrorizing the Filipino farmers and set up a generous scholarship fund for
their children. He later returned to the Philippines to thank the people for
their assistance in keeping him alive during his self-imposed isolation.
[7]

Just as Lieutenant Onoda became a different man after he accepted
the good news of war’s end, I trust you will be a different person by the time
you reach the end of this book. The gospel changes us. It delivers us from who
we were and empowers us to be who we were always meant to be. It does this not
by giving us instructions or telling us what to do but by revealing the true
nature of God. I guarantee that when you see the God behind the gospel, you
will never be the same again.

It is my prayer that as you read this book you will be led gently
by the Spirit out of whatever jungle you may be in and that you will begin to
dance freely on the wide open spaces of God’s amazing grace. Whether you are a
young sinner or an old saint, I hope that as you encounter the grace of God on
these pages you will come face to face with Jesus himself.

Jesus is the Good News!

For God
so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son … (John 3:16)

“So, what did you
learn in Sunday school, Sweetie?” We were driving home from church and my
question was directed to my six-year-old daughter.

“We
learned about the Ten Commandments.”

“Did
you now? Tell me something—will God love you more if you keep the Ten
Commandments?”

There
was a long pause in the back seat. My daughter could smell a trap. “Er, yes?”
she said hesitantly.

“No,”
I replied. “God loves you when you’re good, and he loves you when you’re
naughty. He loves you all the time.
Just like me,” I
added with a smile.

Like
most parents, I love my kids regardless of their behavior. If my little girl
was to grow up and break all Ten Commandments, she would still be my little
girl and I would love
her dearly. Yet many think God
is not as loving as we are. They have been taught that his love is filtered
through an anger management problem. “Sure, God loves you, but he’s also mad at
you. So you’d better watch yourself.” Just as it’s rare to hear sermons on the
unmixed gospel, seldom do you hear the love of God preached without hooks and
qualifications. It’s unconditional love
—
with
conditions.

How is it that we think we love our kids more than God loves us?