…it is your indispensable duty to preaching Christ and not yourself, that is, with sincerity and ardor to aim at displaying the glories of His person and the riches of His grace, the spirituality of His kingdom and the excellence of His government—not your own ingenuity or eloquence, your parts or learning.
Guard then, my brothers, against the most pernicious evil; guard, as for your very life, against converting the gospel ministry into a vehicle to exhibit your own excellence, against prostituting the doctrine of Christ crucified to the gratification of your pride or that it may be a pander to your praise. -Abraham Booth
As Jesus Said About Gay People…
This picture is making its rounds and I am compelled to offer a little commentary. There is a pamphlet making its rounds too—both implying that Jesus said nothing gay people.
To this I respond…
Sure he did. He said all kinds of things about gay people, and straight people, and bisexual people, and even people who prefer animals. Jesus says to all people—whether gay, straight, or whatever—that they need to repent or perish. He lets all people know that their self-righteousness is nothing in the kingdom of God but the work of God is to believe upon Jesus Christ. He lets all people know that their fundamental identity is not leveled to a sexual choice/orientation/or whatever you want to call it. People’s fundamental identity is as creature in relation to Creator. He calls the shots—not you or I. And He considers us rebels that need to repent.
If you are not trusting in Christ for salvation I’m not really concerned at this point with arguing about whether homosexuality is right or wrong. Because I could convince you that it is wrong—or you could convince me that it is okay—and either way if you are not trusting in Christ you either go to hell for homosexuality and a host of other sins (if I’m right) or you go to hell innocent of the charge of homosexuality but guilty of other offenses. It really doesn’t matter.
I do know that you and I share common ground in that we are both prideful and given to self-righteousness, defensiveness, and deceptive hearts that worry more about justifying self than trusting in Christ. I also know that we both were created by God in His image. And I also know that the only way for us to not engage in God-belittling and joy-robbing rebellion and idolatry is for God to work in our hearts in such a way that we see Christ as more precious and beautiful than fleeting pleasures that may be tasteful morsels for a season but wind up empty in the end.
I urge you to trust in Christ and his own righteousness and not your own. The chief reason that you are walking around holding signs and telling people that being homosexual is not wrong is because you are wanting to be found innocent. The issue isn’t whether homosexuality is right or it is wrong. The key issue for you is to know that the only way that you will be declared innocent is through the finished work of Jesus Christ. That’s why he says repent or perish to gay, straight, bi-sexual, and everywhere in-between or left to right of that.
They Never Told Me That…
A desperate Charles Spurgeon went hoping from church to church to come to understand how he must be saved. But instead as he tells it:
One man preached Divine sovereignty, but what was that sublime truth to a poor sinner who wished to know what he must do to be saved. There was another admirable man who always preached about the law, but what was the use of plowing up ground that needed to be sown. Another was a practical preacher…but it was very much like a commanding officer teaching the maneuvers to a set of men without feet…what I wanted to know was, ‘How can I get my sins forgiven?’ and they never told me that. (Charles Spurgeon, quoted by Arnold Dallimore in Spurgeon: A New Biography, 18)
Finally our glorious Lord led Spurgeon to a small Primitive Methodist chapel to hear the preaching of what he called a man that was “really stupid”. He was not trained in preaching—in fact he was not even the pastor. The pastor was “snowed up”. But this man stuck to the text and said over and over again—“Look unto Jesus”. You can read the full story in Spurgeon’s words here. God used this simple sermon to convert Spurgeon.
Now there are a two errors that we could make in considering Spurgeon’s story. The first error is to dismiss what Spurgeon is saying and continue with myopic preaching (or even day to day speech). Every preacher, Sunday school teacher, friend, counselor, spouse, co-worker, can be guilty of proclaiming truths that are around the cross but never actually proclaiming the gospel itself.
Every preacher should heed what Spurgeon lamented in his searching for an answer to the fundamental question, ‘how can I get my sins forgiven?’. Of course there is more to the gospel and more to the Christian life. But having a right relationship with God is fundamental to everything else. So we must be very careful that in all of our preaching and proclaiming we don’t talk about the gospel but actually explain the gospel. (I know I’ve been guilty of this far too many times).
The second error is to overemphasize Spurgeon’s experience to the neglect of preaching the whole counsel of God. I’ve heard some preachers say things like, “I just preach the gospel”. And what that means is that week in and week out the entirety of the sermon is about answering the question—“How do I get saved”. Meanwhile, you have hundreds of sheep that are starving to death, unequipped for their own gospel proclamation, and not hearing how the gospel and its implications impacts every sphere of life.
Oddly enough—or perhaps not oddly at all—we find the balance in the preaching of Spurgeon. He taught on divine sovereignty, he taught on the law, he taught on Christian living, he motivated people for missions, he preached the whole counsel of God. But he also rightly believed that every sermon and every facet of the Christian life is fundamentally about Christ and His gospel. So I think Spurgeon would say “preach divine sovereignty but do so as a means to shine a spotlight on the beauty of Christ, preach the law but only as a means of leading people to the fountain of grace, preach the Christian life but only as a result of the Lord changing a life, etc. etc.”
Simply put…when I stand before the Lord I’d be okay with somebody under my charge having their mind blown about the beautiful reality of the expansiveness of divine sovereignty and then hearing them say, “Pastor Mike never really taught us this”. But what I wouldn’t be okay with are people under my charge standing before the Lord with really sweet doctrine, a list of missions activities, and AWANA pins being shocked when the Lord of glory says, “I never knew you”. I don’t want them to go to hell being able to say, “Pastor Mike never told us how to have forgiveness of sins”.
You Know What Happens When You Assume…
“Dear, can you find my face-wash? It’s in a small bottle with a fuchsia colored lid on the dresser,” my wife lovingly requests.
I hurriedly look through a conglomeration of numerous bottles that I am totally unfamiliar with. I am only vaguely familiar with fuchsia. I know it isn’t blue, so I quickly eliminate everything in the blue family. Same goes with white, black, and maybe green and yellow. I think it’s in the purple or red family. So now I’m looking for something in a small bottle—quickly giving up hope.
“I don’t see it in here,” I shout back at her—not a mad shout, mind you, but a you’re-in-the-other-room-so-probably-can’t-hear-me shout. Perhaps this will cause her to give up hope or give me a much easier bottle to locate.
“No, I know it’s in there. It’s in that wire basket”. She thinks that narrowing my locations will somehow cause me to have girl eyes and understand what fuchsia is and what her face-wash looks like.
I quickly peruse through the previously described basket. Eliminating several options I’m soon coming to the conclusion that our daughter must have stuck this face-wash in the toilet, or perhaps a stray goat wandered into our bedroom and had lunch, or maybe my wife is just insane and this object simply does not exist. “It’s really not in here”, I lovingly inform her—and with a voice that lets her know that I’ve looked absolutely everywhere.
I mean I really know this wire basket. I’ve searched everywhere up and down, left and right. It’s really not in here. I’m going with the goat theory, because it absolutely is NOT in this wire basket.
My wife gives up hope. “That’s okay.” A few minutes later my wife walks into the bedroom, looks into the wire basket, and pulls out her fuchsia lidded face-wash that must have the ability to disappear when gazed upon by desperate men. (Which by the way is a superpower that I hope my daughter learns).
“Ohhhhhhhh, that bottle. Ohhhhhhh that’s what color fuchsia is”.
That bottle was there the whole time. I thought I knew the wire basket but I didn’t. I forgot in my maleness to actually look under other objects. I was convinced that I had exhausted my search for this fuchsia colored bandit but was quickly exposed by a wife that knew the basket and her face-wash far better than I did.
The Danger of Assuming
I share this story because there is an ever present danger in assuming the gospel in the same way that I assumed that I had searched everywhere for my wife’s face-wash. In Hebrews 2:1-3 we read a very sobering warning:
“Therefore, we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it”. For since the message declared by angels proved to be reliable, and every transgression or disobedience received a just retribution, how shall we escape if we neglect such a great salvation?
The “therefore” is there because the author of Hebrews has spent the entire first chapter showing that Christ is far superior to angels. And as verse 2 says if the message delivered by angels (the law) was reliable and if transgressing it was enough to cause legal action against you then how much worse if we neglect the gospel.
This warning is the first of five warnings (3:1-4:13, 5:11-6:12, 10:19-39, 12:12-29) that each ascends in strength and urgency. I believe it is intentional that the author of Hebrews begins his warnings with the subtle-yet-deadly drift of assuming the gospel.
I take the author of Hebrews admonition to be something similar to this: “Don’t just assume you know that wire basket, that you’ve searched everywhere, that you understand the color fuchsia, or that you even know what girly face-wash looks like. Dig Man, Dig! Turn over stuff. It’s there—right where it was said to be—if you can’t find it there the problem is that you’re dense not that the gospel is bland, unhelpful, or exhausted.”
Infidelity always starts with the wrong-headed assumption that you’ve exhausted the gospel. And to this foolishness the author of Hebrews calls us to “pay much closer attention” to the gospel.
Dig man, dig! The Spirit within you is eager to spotlight the gospel and leap for joy at the sight of Jesus. Just keep turning stuff over until the gospel is exposed.