The Gospel is Everything

And I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the Testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling, and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.


1 Corinthians 2:1-5, ESV

This is just something I've been mulling lately. I'm tired of being impressed with flashy lights, spotless music, manicured artists and speakers. I'm tired of worrying about the atmosphere, the ambiance, and the setup. I'm tired of worrying about programs, style, and events. These things have their place, but their place should never occupy the same place as the Gospel.

The Gospel is everything.

It pervades our love lives, our jobs, our work ethic, our friendships, our homes, and our families. It's there whether we live by it or not. If we're not for Him, we're against Him. Every choice we make, believers and nonbelievers, is a choice for or against the Gospel.

The Gospel is not a social gospel that seeks to right the wrongs of society without ever mentioning God. Or heck, maybe the social gospel does mention some ambiguous "god" but it never mentions Jesus. Lots of people believe in "god" but a precious few actually cling to Jesus as the head and authority figure over their lives.

The Gospel is a bloody, hideous, scandalous, offensive thing. The Gospel is that we murdered God. We murdered Jesus. Every single one of us. Our crimes in the face of a holy, blameless, loving God drove nails through his hands and feet into a medium of execution so vile that a citizen of the Roman state wasn't even permitted to be killed that way.

The Gospel is a scandal in the sense that it makes no sense for God to do what He did for us. I know I walk around with a sense of entitlement, like salvation is normal. Like it's somehow the default or is just expected. Nothing can be farther from the truth! For Jesus to extend his hand in friendship and love, He, God, had to die a brutal, gruesome death. At any time He could have eradicated planet Earth with a word and started over, and He would've been completely just in doing it.

I got annoyed at people a few times this weekend on Ride for Christ. It may have been because I was running on zero hours of sleep for almost 2 days, but that doesn't really matter. I was impatient with them then, and I was impatient with the lady in the drive through tonight after almost 10 hours of sleep. I have no excuse. I'm rotten to the core.

My mind is broken. I think things I don't want to think. I want things I don't want to want. I get mad at things I shouldn't get mad at. I DON'T get mad at things I SHOULD get mad at. But instead of God doing what He should do and damning me to Hell, a place of conscious eternal torment, He instead chooses to die and pays the price for what I do.

The Gospel is all we have. Yesterday was Reformation Day. It was on that day that many years ago that a man named Martin Luther posted the 95 Theses to the door of a church. It was the day that a man stood up and said the Gospel is everything.

The Gospel IS everything.

Don't tell me 7 steps on how to live better. Don't tell me about larger buildings, or more people in pews, or more money in accounts. Does that sound hippie-ish? Maybe. I don't really care. I understand that those are important matters, and there are places for them. But they should never be the focus of what happens in the church. The church is a place that the Gospel is proclaimed day in and day out.

How do I live better? More Jesus. How do I deal with anger? More Jesus. How do I deal with impatience? More Jesus. How do I deal with sadness? More Jesus. How do I deal with being scared? More Jesus. How do I deal with loneliness? More Jesus. How do I deal with pride? More Jesus. How do I deal with apathy? More Jesus.

The Gospel is everything.

Sometimes it makes me just want to scream! I want to hear more about Jesus! I don't want to ever get past the cross! There is nothing deeper. There is nothing more complex. There is nothing about the cross that we'll ever be able to understand fully on this mortal plane except that it's sufficient to pay the price because of the Christ who hung upon it. We'll never dig deep enough into Jesus' healing power. We'll never dig deep enough into His authority, His humility, His might, His assault on the gates of hell and bondage to sin and depravity. We'll never reach the point at which we can say, "Ok, I've got the cross. On to the good stuff."

The Gospel is everything.