The Gospel in Twenty Questions (6 page)

Read the Bible from cover to
cover and you could be forgiven for thinking that there is more than one
gospel. For example, the first words of the New Testament in the King James
Bible are, “The Gospel According to Saint Matthew.” Read on and you will also
find the gospels according to Saints Mark, Luke, and John. That’s four gospels
right there. But wait, there’s more.

Keep reading
and you will discover Paul telling the Romans about “my gospel.” So it seems
there must be five gospels. Or maybe more.

Read all the
way to the end and you will encounter the “gospel of your salvation,” the
“gospel of peace,” the “glorious gospel of the blessed God,” before finally
reaching the “eternal gospel” of Revelation.
[16]

Of course,
these are all labels for the same gospel. There is only one gospel, and that is
the gospel which was known to Paul as the gospel of grace:

I consider my life worth nothing to me, if only I may
finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me—the task of
testifying to the gospel of God’s grace. (Acts 20:24, NIV1984)

Paul dedicated his
life to testifying of God’s grace, but what is grace? Grace is the love of God
reaching down and gathering you in his arms. Grace is the confident assurance
that with God on your side, you can’t lose. Grace is his strength for today and
bright hope for tomorrow. Grace is the end of religion. Grace is the freedom
from the unholy need to prove yourself. Grace is divine permission to be who
God made you to be. Grace is good.

Those
who say grace is one of God’s blessings show their ignorance, for grace is not
one blessing, but all of them together. Grace is heaven’s cure for the world’s
woes. It’s the power of God that turns sinners into saints and haters into
lovers. Grace raises the dead and heals the broken. Grace gives strength to the
weary and wings to the feeble. Grace is divine.

Grace
is the undeserved favor of God. Grace is God honoring us with his presence. In
three words, grace is
God with us
.

The angel went to her and said, “Greetings, you who
are highly favored! The Lord is with you.” (Luke 1:28)

As Mary discovered and we are
still learning, we are highly favored. How do we know? Because the Lord is with
us. He is not against us, but for us. Jesus is proof of this. God sent us his
Son to demonstrate his love and favor toward us.

Grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. (John 1:17b)

Whenever you read the word
grace
in the Bible, you can substitute the name
Jesus
and vice versa. Jesus is
grace personified. He is Mr. Grace. What does the grace of God look like? It
looks like Jesus. What does the grace of God sound like? It sounds like Jesus.
How do we know that God is gracious? Because he gave us Jesus, who is full of
grace and truth.

The grace of
God comes in many flavors but is ultimately revealed in his Son, Jesus. Jesus
is grace, and grace is Jesus.

The gospel of God’s
grace is
the
gospel and there is no other, for a graceless gospel would
be no gospel at all. Grace is what makes the good news
good news
.

When Paul
refers to the gospel of grace in Acts 20, he means the same thing as when he
and others refer to the gospel of Christ or the gospel of God or the gospel of
his Son or the gospel of peace. All these gospels reveal the one called Grace
who was given to us out of the fullness of the Father’s grace and through whom
we have received grace upon grace.

“But what
about the gospel of the kingdom? Is this a different gospel?” Whenever you hear
Jesus talking about the kingdom you can substitute the word
king
because
the kingdom is nothing without the king. Who is the King? It’s Jesus. So when
Jesus says we are to “seek first his kingdom and his righteousness,” he is
saying, “Seek me and my righteousness.” And where do we find his righteousness?
In the gospel of grace.

For in the gospel the righteousness of God is
revealed—a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is
written: “The righteous will live by faith.” (Romans 1:17)

The gospel declares your
heavenly Father loves you and desires to give good things to you. He wants to
give you his love, forgiveness, righteousness, and acceptance along with all
the blessings of heaven, and all these gifts are found in his Son Jesus.

And God raised us up with Christ … in order that in
the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed
in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. (Ephesians 2:6–7)

To proclaim the
gospel of grace is to proclaim the exceeding riches of God’s kindness that come
to us through Jesus. It is to declare that apart from God, we are poor and
needy, but with him we are blessed indeed.

I am often struck by the things
Jesus didn’t say as much as the things he did. For instance, Jesus never said
the word
grace
. Not once. Since Jesus is grace personified, this is
remarkable. It’s as if Mozart never said the word
music
or Picasso never
said
paint
.

Jesus may not
have said it but he surely showed it. His sacrifice on the cross was the
greatest demonstration of love and grace the world has ever seen. On the cross
he wrapped his arms around a hurting world and gave us a great big hug. That’s
love. And on the cross he bore our sins and sorrows so that we might be whole.
That’s grace.

Jesus’ whole
life testified to the awesome grace of God. On the night he was born, a great
company of angels appeared, singing God’s praises:

Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace
to those on whom his favor rests. (Luke 2:14)

Perhaps you worry that God is
selective with his favor. “Maybe God will bless me, maybe he won’t. I’d better
behave myself and hope for the best.” Maybe you have prayed, “God, if only you
would send an angel to tell me.” He already did! He sent a whole company of
angels. The angel said this good news was for “all the people” (Luke 2:10). Are
you
people
? Then God’s favor is for you. Let it rest on you and be at
peace.

One of the
ways Jesus revealed grace was by proclaiming the indiscriminate love of his
Father. Jesus didn’t say, “For God so loved the rule-keepers and do-gooders.”
He said, “For God so loved the
world
...” God loves everyone. He loves
Jews and Gentiles, white folk and colored folk. He loves Catholics and
Protestants, cowboys and Indians, gays and straights. God loves
you
.

Jesus
demonstrated the radical love of God by hanging out with
anyone and everyone. It didn’t matter whether you were a big wheel in the
synagogue or a crooked civil servant. If you opened your door to Jesus, he’d
break bread with you. That’s how he rolls, and that’s grace.

Another way
Jesus revealed the grace of God was by telling stories. Some of his stories
were scandalous, like the one about the father who forgave and then partied with
his prodigal son.
God is like that?! Incredible!
Others were metaphors freighted
with meaning. “The kingdom of heaven is like a merchant looking for pearls of
great price” (Matthew 13:45). This seems like a nothing-story until you realize
Jesus is talking about himself. He is the merchant who gives up all he has to
purchase us his treasured pearl.
You died for me, Jesus? I’m your treasure?!
I’m blown away.

Another way
Jesus revealed grace was by showing unconditional forgiveness.

Some men brought to him a paralyzed man, lying on a
mat. When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the man, “Take heart, son; your
sins are forgiven.” (Matthew 9:2)

Jesus seems to contradict
himself. Didn’t Jesus say we would be forgiven only if we first forgave others?
Yet the paralytic forgave no one. There is no record of him forgiving those who
had sinned against him. Yet Jesus forgave him anyway. That’s unexpected. That’s
undeserved favor. That’s grace.

It’s as if
Jesus came to show us two ways to live. “You can live under the law where you
reap what you sow, or you can live under grace where you reap what
I
sow. Your choice.” To the religious and self-righteous, Jesus emphasized the
law. “You want to go that route? Fine. But go the whole way and be perfect as
your Father in heaven is perfect.” But to sinners and the sick, Jesus revealed
grace. “You’re healed. You’re forgiven. Peace be with you.”

The grace of Jesus does not sit
well with our religious urge for self-improvement. Our innate desire to impress
God with our goodness collides with his desire to impress us with his. Religion
demands that we
try
, but grace inspires us to
trust
.

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and
only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
(John 3:16)

Look carefully at the end of
that verse. There is a full stop—a period. Thank God for that period! It is the
greatest period in the history of periods. That period declares the surprising
grace of God. It preempts all the ifs, buts, and maybes. What conditions does
Jesus attach to the gift of God? None. The Son has already been given. What
requirements must be met before God will bless us? There are none. The
blessings have been given and unwrapped. The only thing you can do with grace
is respond.

Respond
positively to what God has done, and that’s called faith. Faith is simply being
persuaded that God is good and that he loves you. Respond negatively, and
that’s called unbelief. It’s refusing to receive the grace of a good God. Since
we hunger for love and grace, it’s actually harder to refuse than receive. You
have to push away from the table of his abundance and resist the sweet aroma of
his feast. And then, because you are still hungry, you have to work for food
that doesn’t satisfy. It takes a lot of effort to be an unbeliever.

We were made
for grace like we were made for food. Without it we’ll die. The good news is
that grace is on the table, and there’s no cover charge and no dress code. Come
as you are and eat what is good.

If you were on a sinking ship
and had a choice of going into the water wearing an anchor or a life preserver,
which would you choose? I know, it’s a silly question. Yet this is the choice
we make when we choose which gospel to be believe. Many so-called gospels are
preached, but only one reveals God’s saving power, and that is the gospel of
God’s grace.

Tragically,
the gospel of grace is not always preached in its pure form. This can leave you
confused about your standing with God. In your confusion, you may even abandon
God’s grace for inferior alternatives. That’s like swapping a life preserver
for an anchor. As Paul said to the Galatians, it’s not a smart move.

I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the
one who called you to live in the grace of Christ and are turning to a
different gospel—which is really no gospel at all. Evidently some people are
throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert the gospel of Christ.
(Galatians 1:6–7)

What does it mean to pervert
the gospel of Christ? The Greek word for the verb
pervert
can be
translated as
turn around
. A perverted gospel is a turned-around gospel.
It is a gospel which turns your focus away from Jesus onto something else. If the
gospel of grace reveals
Christ alone
, then a perverted gospel is
Christ
plus something
. It’s the somethings that sink you.
[17]

The New
Testament writers list many things that can distract you from sincere and pure
devotion to Christ. Here are ten of them:

1. Human
effort, i.e., performance-oriented Christianity (Galatians 3:3).
“Gotta get busy for Jesus. Gotta work for my
salvation. Gotta start producing fruit or he’ll lop me.” Except that you don’t,
and he won’t. The work of the flesh is no substitute for the life of the
spirit.

2. Empty
traditions (Colossians 2:8).
“That’s
just the way we do things around here. If you’re going to be a part of us,
you’d better get
used to it.” Traditions are nice,
but don’t use them to exclude people from the love and grace we all need.
Freely you have received, freely give.

3. Worldly
philosophy, like karma (Colossians 2:8).
“God won’t reject me, I’m basically a good person. At least I’m no worse than
the next guy.” Yet your best is not good enough. All have fallen short of God’s
glory, and none of us stand but by grace alone. Shrug off those smelly rags of
self-righteousness and put on the robe of his righteousness.

4. Angel
worship (Colossians 2:18).
“I get
heavenly visions. I see angels.” That’s nice, but don’t get distracted. Fix
your eyes on Jesus. Haven’t you read that angels don’t like to be worshiped
(Revelation 19:10)? You wouldn’t want to make an angel mad now, would you?

5. Rules
and regulations (Colossians 2:21–23).
Smoking will kill you, but it won’t condemn you. Drinking to excess is
unhealthy and stupid, but Jesus still loves you. Rules and regulations have an
appearance of wisdom, but they don’t work because we are not rule-keepers by
nature. We are the children of God, not robots. We are creatures of faith, not
formulas. We were designed to operate from relational trust, not rules.

6.
Self-denial and abstinence (Colossians 2:23).
Self-denial may be good for your budget, but it won’t make you holy.
Jesus makes you holy. And fasting may make you thinner, but it won’t draw you
closer to God. In union with Christ, you’re already as close as you’ll ever be.

7. Endless
genealogies (1 Timothy 1:4).
So you
think you got sick because your grandfather was a freemason? But weren’t you
adopted into a new family when you believed? Stop holding your future hostage
to the past. Talk to your curses about Jesus, who became a curse for us so that
we might receive the blessings of Abraham (Galatians 3:13–14).

8. Fables
and myths (1 Timothy 1:4).
Did Adam
have a second wife? Were the Nephilim angel-spawn? Does it matter? I think not.
Such controversies do nothing to promote faith in God.

9. Sin
consciousness (Hebrews 10:22).
If you
are more conscious of your sin than you are of his righteousness, it’s like
saying Jesus’ sacrifice was insufficient. The good news is that God’s grace is
greater than your sin. His worthiness is greater than your unworthiness.

10.
Civilian affairs (2 Timothy 2:4).
“We’ve got to win this election for Jesus.” Except we don’t. Jesus isn’t
running for office. He’s already Lord of all. Jesus said the anxieties of this
age and the deceitfulness of riches can choke the word of grace in your life,
making it unfruitful. Don’t let the temporary cares of this world divert you
from the eternal joys of his.

A perverted gospel will burden
you with anchors that diminish your trust in Jesus. We are to be Christ
conscious, not self-conscious. To the degree you are focusing on
your
sins,
your
behavior, and
your
labor, you are not focused on him.
You have been turned around and have fallen from grace.

So ditch the
anchors and cling to Jesus with both hands. He is all you need.