For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son. (John 3:16)
You and I are staking our lives on the gospel of Jesus Christ. But what is the gospel of Jesus Christ exactly?Â
One mega Christian influencer defines the gospel as âthe good news that Jesus came to earth to make it possible for all of us to live forever with Him in heaven.â In one of the bestselling books of all time, one pastor declares that â[God] wants all his lost children found! Thatâs the whole reason Jesus came to earthâ on Christmas Day.
These statements are examples of what I call The Abridged Gospel, which can be summarized like this:Â
The Abridged Gospel: Jesus came to save people from their sins.
While every word of that statement is gloriously true, there are three major problems with defining the gospel in this way.
First, The Abridged Gospel is incomplete. It distills the good news of Godâs Word into a two-act dramaâhumans sinned; Christ redeemed usâand functionally neglects the rest of the b...
Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain. (1 Corinthians 15:58)
Iâve said this multiple times throughout this series, but allow me to say it once more: The Great Commission to âmake disciplesâ is indeed great! But itâs far from the only thing Christ has called us to do. And there are serious problems with treating it as such. Weâve seen three of those problems thus far in this series:
Hereâs the fourth problem with treating the Great Commission as the only commission: It blocks you and me from seeing how our work matters for eternityâhow, in the words of the Apostle Paul, our âlabor in the Lord is not in vain.â
If the Great Commission is the only commission, then our work has value only when leveraged to th...
The Lord directs the steps of the godly. He delights in every detail of their lives. (Psalm 37:23)
The Great Commission is indeed great. But as weâve been exploring in this series, there is great danger in treating the Great Commission as the only one Jesus left us.Â
One of those dangers is that it ironically makes us less effective at the Great Commission. Why? Because it makes Christians feel guilty for working in the very places most likely to make disciples!
Dr. Michael Green, an expert on the explosion of Christianity in the first few centuries, says that the historical evidence âmakes it abundantly clear that in contrast to the present day, when Christianity is . . . dispensed by a professional clergy . . . in the early days the faith was spontaneously spread by informal evangelists,â who shared the gospel âin homes and wine shops, on walks, and around market stalls.âÂ
That was true in the early church, and likely to be true for the foreseeable future as non-Christians are mo...
As you go, proclaim this message: âThe kingdom of heaven has come near.â Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those who have leprosy, drive out demons. Freely you have received; freely give.âŚAnd if anyone gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones who is my disciple, truly I tell you, that person will certainly not lose their reward. (Matthew 10:7-8, 42)
When Jesus called his disciples to âproclaimâ that his kingdom had come, he instructed them to âheal,â âcleanse,â and âgive.â Not just evangelize and âsave souls.â
Because of that, Iâm confident that Scott Harrison and his team at charity: water are doing âkingdom workâ by giving clean water to millions of the worldâs poorest image-bearers.Â
But some Christians disagree. For example, a wealthy Christian weâll call Bill once told Scott: âWe're not going to give to charity: water because you're not a Christian organization. If those people don't know Jesus, they're going to burn in hell anyway. You need to be giving ...
After his suffering, [Jesus] presented himself to them and gave many convincing proofs that he was alive. He appeared to them over a period of forty days and spoke about the kingdom of God. (Acts 1:3)
Last week, we saw that for the very first time in Church history, many Christians today have interpreted the âGreat Commissionâ to âmake disciplesâ as the singular mission of the Christian life.
If thatâs true, then most of your work is meaningless. The product youâre building, the beauty youâre creating, the car youâre repairingânone of it matters unless you can leverage those things to the instrumental end of âsharing the gospel.â
Believer, this is an egregious lie. And a crazy dangerous one for reasons weâll explore over the next four weeks. Hereâs the first problem with treating the Great Commission as the only commission Jesus left us: Jesus himself never did!
Todayâs passage tells us that Jesus spent forty days speaking âabout the kingdom of Godâ after his resurrection. I did th...
Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age. (Matthew 28:19â20)Â
One of the deepest and most dangerous lies in the Church today is that this passageâoften labeled the âGreat Commissionââis the singular mission of the Christian life.
This, of course, has tremendous implications for our work. Because if the Great Commission to âsave soulsâ and âmake disciplesâ is the only thing that matters for eternity, then most of us are wasting most of our time.
This is what many of us are being told explicitly by church leaders! In the words of one influential pastor, âThe consequences of your mission [and here heâs talking exclusively about the Great Commission] will last forever; the consequences of your job will not.â
But hereâs whatâs fascinating: Treating the Great Commission as the only commission Je...
You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives. (Genesis 50:20)
Josephâs brothers sold him into slavery which led him to Egypt and his unjust incarceration. But God orchestrated these events to eventually put Joseph in a position of power second only to Pharaoh.Â
When his brothers needed Joseph to save their lives, they understandably feared that Joseph would choose to retaliate. But Joseph did the unexpected. He forgave them and claimed that âGod intendedâ all his hardship âfor good.âÂ
Of course, itâs unlikely that Joseph ever described his circumstances as a slave and prisoner as âgood.â But looking back over the course of many years, he could see how God used his suffering for a greater redemptive purpose.Â
One day, you and I will be able to do the same, if not on this side of eternity, then the other. That truth doesnât make the pain we feel today any less real or horrible. But it does give us hope.
What har...
Then Joseph said to his brothers, âCome close to meâŚ.I am your brother Joseph, the one you sold into Egypt! And now, do not be distressed and do not be angry with yourselves for selling me here, because it was to save lives that God sent me ahead of youâŚ.But God sent me ahead of you to preserve for you a remnant on earth and to save your lives by a great deliverance. (Genesis 45:4-5, 7)
After Joseph was released from prison, he was appointed by Pharaoh to lead Egypt through a seven-year famine. Now, Joseph is one of the highest ranking government officials in Egypt, and through Godâs power, an exceptionally good one.Â
For seven years, Joseph organized efforts to store up Egyptâs agricultural abundance. And when the famine hit, Egypt was so well prepared that âall the world came to Egypt to buy grain from Joseph, because the famine was severe everywhereâ (Genesis 41:57). As todayâs passage reveals, âall the worldâ included Jacobâs other sons, Josephâs long-lost brothers.
Now remember...
Pharaoh said to Joseph, âI had a dream, and no one can interpret it. But I have heard it said of you that when you hear a dream you can interpret it.â âI cannot do it,â Joseph replied to Pharaoh, âbut God will give Pharaoh the answer he desires.â (Genesis 41:15-16)
Joseph was in prison unjustly. So when the guards told him that the Pharaoh needed his skills, Joseph must have sensed some hope that maybe, just maybe, his talents as a dream interpreter could earn him a literal get out of jail free card.
With that context, we almost expect Joseph to trumpet his own abilities to Pharaoh. But when Pharaoh gives him that opportunity, Joseph deflects the glory that could have so easily been his.
What remarkable humility! Even though he was in the fight of his life where the temptation to glorify himself through his work must have been strong, Joseph recognized that it is God, not us, who produces results through our work. And thus, he alone deserves the glory.
Ironically, it was that humil...
Josephâs master took him and put him in prison, the place where the kingâs prisoners were confined. But while Joseph was there in the prison, the Lord was with him (Genesis 39:20-21a)
Joseph, the treasured son of Jacob, was sold into slavery by his brothers and eventually wound up in Egypt working for Potiphar, an Egyptian official. And right from the start, Joseph proves to be exceptionally good at his job. Genesis 39:2-3 tells us that âThe Lord was with Joseph so that he prospered...the Lord gave him success in everything he did.âÂ
Seeing this, âPotiphar put [Joseph] in charge of his household, and he entrusted to his care everything he ownedâ (Genesis 39:4). But after refusing to go to bed with Potipharâs wife, Joseph is wrongly accused of sexual harassment and thrown in prison.Â
In sum, Joseph goes from a state of helplessness as a slave, to a position of power in the palace, back to a place of great weakness as a prisoner. And yet, âthere in the prison, the Lord was with him.â
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