If someone asked you what the gospel is, would you know what to tell them?
There is a little-known fact about the current state of America—a grave reality that has been acknowledged but hardly realized. Right now, there are people numbered in the millions that have never once heard the gospel. The people I speak of look very similar to one another. They dress up. They laugh. They smile. They have families. The worst inconvenience they may experience is that they didn’t finish the laundry that weekend, they forgot to charge their phones that night, got stuck in rush-hour traffic, or their coffee didn’t taste quite right before they went to work that morning. The people I speak of, who are arguably one of the most unreached people groups in America, are the Church.
It’s the great paradox we face; that America has more churches now than it ever has, yet depression rates in teens and adults continue to rise. Death by drug overdose is also steadily increasing. An untold number of fathers are leaving their families. Prisons are overflowing. (See references below). My generation is coming to be known as “The Fatherless Generation” for many obvious reasons, but the root of it all is that no one, not even in the Church, knows who their Heavenly Father is, because people have stopped believing that Jesus—who is Himself the only way to the Father—is who He claims to be (John 14:6). The Church might be looking at all the death, destruction, and depression and asking along with the world “Where is God?” But God’s resounding voice is asking His Church, the very ones that claim to follow Him, “Where are YOU?”
The Glory Days
It was never meant to be this way. It used to be that people were so convicted by the things they saw, heard, and experienced that not even the barbarous, bone-splitting torture methods of the Romans could silence them. The question becomes, “What did they see? What did they hear?” What inspired Paul, who killed off Christians for sport, to pen most of the New Testament (Acts 9)? What caused Peter, who cowardly denied Jesus on multiple accounts, to then stand before a crowd, declare that Jesus is the Messiah, and ask people to repent and turn to Him (Acts 2)? What did Stephen see that caused him to glow like an angel and say, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them,” as he was being stoned to death (Acts 6:54-59)?
The answer is that they, and hundreds like them, had seen, heard, and experienced a Man that died on purpose, came back to life on purpose, and took His place at the right hand of the Father. They met the Truth, the Truth set them free, then they unleashed the Truth to the world around them with signs and wonders and watched an entire region turn upside down (Acts 17:6). The ancient, demonic strongholds of nations crumbled as sons and daughters of a heavenly inheritance arose, all because they had encountered this glorious Man in the flesh, or by the Spirit that raised Him. There was a day that the Holy Spirit fell like fire over 120 people in an Upper Room, and thousands were added to the kingdom of God in a day. This fire, along with the vision, was never meant to burn out or grow dim.
Where is the Power?
The problem is; the Church isn’t preaching God’s message because they can’t preach what they have yet to experience for themselves, much less have yet to hear from the pulpit. We have leaders teaching congregations that may have graduated seminary but have yet to have a personal encounter with the living God, and when leaders aren’t being led by the Spirit, then “the more coffee and cake you need to keep the church going,” as Reinhard Bonnke, a famed evangelist would say. The result, therefore, is a congregation with a “form of godliness, but without power” (2 Timothy 3:5).
The Church takes on a “form of godliness” when we teach people to believe that simply repeating a version of the “sinner’s prayer” is what secures one’s salvation, or getting baptized, or warming a pew once a week. We “deny the power” when we refuse to trust that the blood of Christ is powerful enough to not only cleanse us from all unrighteousness but to live a life so new and empowered that it’s as if you’ve been born a second time. According to Jesus, this “second birth” experience is mandatory to enter His kingdom (John 3:5), and it happens when we decide to give up our lives and our desires so He can live His life in and through us. Jesus is seen for whom He truly is, and sin is seen for what it truly is. When this happens, the cry of our hearts begins to naturally mimic the cry of John the Baptist: “He must increase. I must decrease!” (John 3:30).
You, who call yourself a Christian, have you ever heard the gospel? If someone who didn’t believe approached you and asked you to tell them what the gospel is and how it transformed your life personally, would you be able to answer them? Are you prepared to “give an answer to everyone that asks you to give a reason for the hope that is within you” (1 Peter 3:15)?
I grew up in church, and it wasn’t until around age 13 that I could confidently answer those questions and explain it to others because in one definable moment, the Holy Spirit made the gospel personal to me, and just like the apostles, my world was turned upside down. I wasn’t even in a church building when this occurred. In fact, I don’t recall ever hearing the gospel at church. If it was preached, I guess it was treated as just a matter of course, and the blood of Christ made out to be a common thing as people kept living their lives just the same as they did the day before. Today, it’s apparent that the Church is preaching the gospel without power, and the gospel without power is no gospel at all. The result is a people that claim to know Him or merely believe He exists, but their demons believe in the power of Christ more than they do (James 2:19).
What is His Word saying? Some think that it says, “Eternal life is this, that you repeat a prayer of salvation that your pastor led you to repeat and go on your way.” Others think it says, “Eternal life is this, that you get baptized, especially if all your friends have already done it.” Still, countless others think that “Eternal life is this, that you go to church at least once a week or be involved in as many church activities as possible.”
What the Word actually says is this: “Now this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom You have sent” (John 17:3). Did you know that the word know in this verse is the Greek word ginosko, which means “to know by experience; experientially know”? That means the Church isn’t called to just learn about Him, but for each individual to know Him by experience. He wouldn’t have made it a requirement if it weren’t possible, and the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit have all made it possible to experientially know Him just like the people in the Bible did. God shows no partiality [favoritism; with Him, no one person is more important than another] (Romans 2:11), so if He showed no favoritism in the early church and He moved among them as mightily as He did, imagine what He still wants to do with a life today that would partner with Him to continue ushering in His glory to the earth!
The Gospel of Power
So, what is “the gospel”? Some think it’s preaching fire and brimstone on a street corner, making it seem as if God can’t wait to send people to hell. People on the other end of the spectrum are preaching a gospel of compromise, saying you can live however you want as long as you believe in Jesus and that God accepts everything you do. Neither is true. The gospel is one of reconciliation to the Father, through Christ, by His Spirit, and such was the plan before the world was created (Revelations 13:8).
The word says that “for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). Everyone is guilty of breaking His laws, and though His requirement is holiness, God does not desire that anyone would perish (2 Peter 3:9). Therefore, He sent an extension of Himself, Jesus, and wrapped Him in flesh to satisfy the requirement that we could never fulfill on our own, and He showed us what flesh and blood look like in perfect union with the Father. Because His holiness requires justice, the wrath of God has to be satisfied, but instead of pouring it out on sinful, deserving mankind, He poured it out on His sinless, undeserving, beloved Son. The Father made His own Son a sinner and separated Himself from Him for a time so that those who would believe in Him wouldn’t be counted as sinners, die a sinner’s death, and experience this separation. It’s important to realize that Jesus didn’t just do this for you, but He did it instead of you. Then, having been condemned to hell, His assignment of retrieving the keys to death and hell was complete three days later.
The Holy Spirit, who was there when mankind was created, raised Jesus from the dead, proving that He was stronger than the power of sin and death. Now, if we trust in Jesus for our salvation, like a defendant trusts an attorney to successfully defend his case before the judge, we don’t have to experience eternal separation from God. Our debts can be canceled, and we can walk out of the courtroom as a free man/woman. However, we don’t walk out living the same way that landed us in the courthouse to begin with. Peter says that “He Himself bore our sins in his body on a tree so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness (Peter 2:24), and Paul reminds us that we “have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me” (Galatians 2:20).
If you put your trust in Christ and make Him Lord or “owner” of your life, that means He now has the right to live His life in you and through you to help set other people free from their sins by telling them what He did for them, and signs and wonders will follow you to confirm His message, just as it was with the apostles. Through you, not only does He get to keep building His kingdom, but He gets to keep growing the family He’s always wanted since He walked with Adam and Eve in the cool of the day. He used to dwell in temples, but His desire has always been to dwell and make His home on the inside of us. The prophets of old have longed for the days we live in now (Matthew 13:17, 1 Peter 1:10), and it is not to be taken lightly. He’s serious about His relationship with you, and it’s time that we give the Lamb the reward of His suffering.
The Charge
If you are a Christian, but you don’t follow the first commandment of loving Jesus with all of your mind, heart, soul, and strength, ask the Holy Spirit to reveal the gospel to you personally because His favorite thing to do is reveal Jesus to people. Even though I’ve been in relationship and right-standing with Him for quite some time, the Holy Spirit is still showing me that I’m not too good for the gospel. He shows me what my sin did to the Son of God, but how willingly He gave Himself up for me anyway so that my sins could be washed clean, and we could walk side by side in the perfect love that casts out all fear.
Jesus said that the one who forgives much loves much (Luke 4:47), so I pray that the reader receives a revelation of what they have been forgiven of, so they can love Him rightly and walk in a way that is worthy of the Lord, bearing fruit in every good work, and ever-increasing in the knowledge of God (Colossians 1:10). It’s time to not only go to church but to be the Church. There’s a dying world out there, both inside and outside of church buildings. Paul even says, “Creation [all nature] waits eagerly for the children of God to be revealed, for the creation was subjected to frustration and futility, not willingly [because of some intentional fault on its part], but by the will of Him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will also be freed from its bondage to decay [and gain entrance] into the glorious freedom of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation has been moaning together as in the pains of childbirth until now” (Romans 8:19-22).
So I ask again, if someone asked you to give them the gospel, would you be able to tell them and tell them from experience?
1. https://www.mentalhealthamerica.net/issues/state-mental-health-america
2. https://www.drugabuse.gov/related-topics/trends-statistics/overdose-death-rates
3. https://thefatherlessgeneration.wordpress.com/statistics/
This is an updated edition of a post originally published on AwesomeSierra
Featured Image by Jan Alexander from Pixabay
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