The Gospel

God so loved the world, not because we are lovable but because he is love (1 John 4:16).

Every other hope is based, explicitly or implicitly, on how deserving we are. Only the Christian gospel is based—clearly, boldly, and insistently—on how loving God is to the undeserving.

He loves life, grace and holiness into us; he loves us into covenant, loves us into heaven.7 That is the church’s gospel doctrine. It cleanses us and renews us.

To put it yet another way, what matters most about you in God’s sight is not the bad or good things you’ve done but your trust and openness to Christ versus your self-trust and defensiveness toward Christ.

It is only in a church that we are members of Christ and of one another, moving forward together like a well-coordinated body (1 Cor. 12:12–27). It is together that we suffer and thrive. It is together that we worship and grow and serve, according to the Word of God. That’s what your church is—ground zero for the new kind of community Christ is cre

What he notices, and what pleases him, is our churches’ passion for Christ crucified. But down here on earth, among people, it’s often a different story. People’s opinions of us gravitate toward two opposite extremes. And the clearer our churches are about Christ, the more polarizing we will be.

That church needs a fresh rediscovery of his gospel in all its beauty. It needs to prayerfully reconsider everything it believes and practices. Nothing is gained by merely repackaging the church in forms more attractive to outsiders.

Here is the insight embedded in these verses. The only answer to one culture is another culture—not just a concept, but a counterculture. A church should offer the world such a counterculture, a living embodiment of the gospel. The culture we live in is “a pillar and buttress” for many false gospels. For instance, one of the destructive lies that i

Too often we regard God’s power as an added ingredient that turbocharges our own efforts.