Did Jesus Preach the Gospel?

This past week, I had the privilege of attending a conference in Dallas with about 1500 Presbyterian pastors and elders. One of the reasons I attend these conferences is because I find them both challenging and inspirational, and this year was no exception.

The main speaker was a pastor and writer from Australia, the Land Down Under, and some of the things he said certainly turned some of my traditional thinking on its head. For instance, he challenged us with the question, Did Jesus ever preach the Gospel?

My initial reaction was that the question was absurd. Of course Jesus preached the Gospel! What else would he preach, and what else did he come for? As the speaker unpacked his thoughts, I began to understand what he meant.

Many of us tend to narrow the gospel down to the limited understanding of personal, individual salvation. Don’t get me wrong; I think that is a very important part of the Gospel message, but sometimes we talk and act like it’s the only part. I believe that Jesus died a sacrificial and atoning death, and was raised by God to live again. I believe that faith in that event is crucial for personal salvation. Jesus paid the price for my sins, and everybody else’s. But is that all there is to the Gospel message? If it is, you can see the point that Jesus never really preached that message. That is the post-Easter message. Except for intimate meetings with his disciples, Jesus’ preaching was prior to his death and resurrection.

Admittedly, Jesus did talk about his own death, but mostly he was either not believed or misunderstood. The idea of substitutionary atonement doesn’t figure high in the public ministry of our Lord. But if Jesus didn’t preach what we normally consider the gospel message, what did he preach?

A thorough study of the Gospels quickly reveals that Jesus’ message was primarily about the Kingdom of God. According to Mark, in 1:14 (as well other gospel texts, MT 4:17) the essence of Jesus’ message was, “The time is fulfilled, the kingdom of God has come near; repent and believe the good news.” So the good news, the Gospel, is that the Kingdom of God has come near, it has arrived!

That thought challenged me to think differently about the gospel message. What does it mean for the Kingdom of God to be here, among us? How should we live and act as citizens of that kingdom?

As I said, these conferences are both challenging and inspirational. The challenge for me was this new way of looking at the gospel message, and doing so has inspired me to work on a new series of sermons for this fall that looks at the message of Jesus, the nearness of the Kingdom of God, and how we can and should live in its light.

As you make your plans for the fall, I hope you will include this study on the Kingdom preaching of Jesus. I think it will be a good one.

What is Our Church's Attitude?

Last week I was at a presbytery gathering, and one of my pastoral colleagues said, “Well, now that you have been in Sand Springs for over a year, are you starting to get some real ministry done?”

I have to admit that I was a little taken aback, and didn’t quite know what to say. I wanted to say, “Starting to? We have been doing some great ministry for quite some time!” But as soon as I thought it, I wondered if it was true.

Sure, we have done some great things; our worship attendance numbers are up, giving has been up, even through the hot summer months, Bible school was incredible, we have people involved in weekly Bible study, we are reaching out to our local community and overseas in mission. These are all laudable accomplishments, and I am proud that we are doing them.

It’s just that sometimes I wonder about the attitude we bring when we come to the church. It is so hard not to see church as just one more in a list of things to do, along with sports, yard work, and summer vacations. Who has time for it all?  Sometimes church attendance ends up at the bottom of our priority lists.

In some ways the church is like a business; there are bills to be paid, customers to reach, and services to render. I know more than a few pastors who think of themselves as spiritual CEOs.

Jack Rogers in his book, Claiming the Center, observes that it has only been in recent history that the church has become so corporate-minded. As late as the 1800s, the Presbyterian Church had no national staff or program. It has only been as the church has entered the twentieth century that “churches adopted the organizational model of corporate bureaucracy,” (p. 48). At its height in the 1950s, the journal Presbyterian Life had more subscribers than Newsweek. This model began to break down in the 1960s when the national church leadership became less in tune with its constituents in the pew. The Presbyterian Church has not had a year of net gain in membership since.

The church is not a business, and when we think of it in that way, we misunderstand the very nature of what it means to be the Body of Christ. The church is a spiritual community. As Christ’s body we grow, we heal, we support one another, and we feed one another. That’s a whole different ball game.

There are so many habits and attitudes we hold, some of them without even realizing we have them. I love the J. B. Phillips translation of Romans 12:2 where he says, “Don’t let the world squeeze you into its mold.” How often do we uncritically accept the things that the world and the culture around us says, never stopping to consider how it may be undermining the work of God in the church?

One of my pastor friends made reference this week to the fact that so many of our churches are inwardly focused. We get so caught up in our own needs and desires that we forget the primary job of the church – to go out into the world and make disciples.

Next week, I will be attending a pastor’s conference for a few days (don’t worry, I’ll be back by Sunday) that is looking at this very thing. The conference is entitled, “From Consumerism to Community,” and I hope to bring back some ideas how we can live the life Christ has called us to in the way he has called us to live it.