“I did not prove disobedient to the heavenly vision, but kept declaring both to those of Damascus first, and also at Jerusalem and then throughout the region of Judea, and even to the Gentiles, that they should repent and turn to God, performing deeds appropriate to repentance” (Acts 26:19-20).
The preacher, N. T. Wright, illustrated the good news of the saving gospel of Jesus Christ in an interesting manner. Suppose you are sitting quietly in a café with a couple of friends enjoying food and conversation. Suddenly, the door opens, and in comes a stranger with a wild, excited look on his face. “Good news!” he shouts, “you’ll never guess. It’s the greatest news you could ever imagine.” What in the world could he be talking about? What could his good news possibly be to warrant such an intrusion? Why would he think that his good news justifies barging into a quiet coffee shop, creating a commotion, and telling virtual strangers about it? Wright suggested three possible scenarios. First, perhaps doctors had just informed him they had found a cure for his daughter’s fatal disease that was slowly killing her. That would, indeed be grand news, but does it reach the level of requiring him to interrupt a café and tell complete strangers? Second, suggested Wright, the local high school football team had just defeated their age-old rivals across town. In most towns across our country that would be great news to celebrate. However, in most areas of the country, Friday nights are for high school football games, and most everybody attends and cheers for their children. Why leave the celebration to barge into a coffee shop and tell complete strangers who probably do not know any of the players and, considering they are in a café, are probably not football fans at all? Third, perhaps the region is struck with high unemployment and poverty, and people discovered huge new reserves of coal, oil, and gas. Suddenly, there will be new jobs and a new start for everyone. Now, of the three scenarios, this one might justify bursting into a café and telling complete strangers the good news. Those three events are similar to the good news of the gospel (https://www.preachingtoday.com/illustrations/2015/march/8030915.html).
For starters, the whole human race is struck with the same disease that is slowly killing every person. It is the disease called sin. The Bible tells us in Romans 3:23: “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” In Romans 6:23, we read: “The wages of sin is death.” The good news is that God developed the cure for sin in the death of Jesus Christ on the cross as payment for sin and His resurrection from the dead as promise of life. Moreover, when a person experiences the cure through repentance of sin, belief in Jesus’ death and resurrection as payment and promise for his sins and eternal life, that news is the best news in the world and worthy of telling everyone including complete strangers. Next, Jesus and Satan are age-old rivals, particularly, since Jesus discharged Satan of his heavenly duties along with a third of the angels for rising up in rebellion against God and seeking His position, and sent them into the earth to ply their deceitful schemes. Moreover, on the cross and in His resurrection, Jesus defeated Satan, thereby, limiting the Devil’s dirty work in the life of every person who belongs to Jesus through faith. Finally, just like unemployment and poverty, lostness often fills people’s lives with hopelessness, discontentment, and aimlessness. However, the good news of salvation in Jesus Christ fills people’s lives with hope, contentment, and purpose, when people believe and surrender themselves wholly to Jesus to become all that He plans for them to be.
However, here is the kicker. For that good news to reach those who are lost and perishing in our world requires that those who have already heard and been transformed by it, to guard the gospel of Jesus Christ and stay on mission. Jesus’ last words to His disciples are found in Matthew 28:18-20: “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” I want you to imagine such a task. Multitudes of Christ-followers, each with his and her own opinions and ambitions, likes and dislikes, charged with working together to get the good news of the one and only way to rescued from eternal damnation, brought into right standing with God, and given eternal life in Heaven. Oh, the conflicts, internal and external, that are sure to come within the family of God along with distractions that must be overcome in Christ’s favor, so God’s people can accomplish Christ’s great commission, and see God’s forever family growing on earth in the present age.
Pay close attention to the apostle Paul’s testimony to King Agrippa in Acts 26:19-20: “I did not prove disobedient to the heavenly vision, but kept declaring both to those of Damascus first, and also at Jerusalem and then throughout the region of Judea, and even to the Gentiles, that they should repent and turn to God, performing deeds appropriate to repentance” (Acts 26:19-20). He said that he held himself to strict obedience to God’s call to share the gospel of Jesus with everyone he could find and in every place he could reach. In short, Paul stayed gospel-engaged, and he stayed true to the message of Christ. He did not water-down the message, distort the message, subtract from the message, or add to the message.
God requires that people repent of sin thoroughly, believe in Jesus’ substitutionary, sacrificial death on the cross and glorious resurrection from the dead, and receive Jesus as Lord. The proof of Christ’s Lordship is borne out in character transformation, a turn toward righteous living, and kingdom fruit that results from allowing Jesus to live His life in and through us. All of this is wrapped up in Paul’s insistence on “performing deeds appropriate to repentance.”
Listen carefully and prayerfully to the message that the Holy Spirit pressed into Apostle Paul’s heart and out of his pen onto parchment and then kept safe and unaltered for over two thousand years now, so you and I would have the chance to hear it, believe it, be transformed by it, share it, and live it. In Galatians 1:8-9, Paul said, “If we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to what we have preached to you, he is to be accursed! As we have said before, so I say again now, if any man is preaching to you a gospel contrary to what you received, he is to be accursed!” Moreover, the Bible tells us in 1 Timothy 2:4-6 that God desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God, and one mediator also between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself as a ransom for all, the testimony given at the proper time.”
So, dear ones, the true gospel begins with our Holy and Righteous God taking upon Himself the burden of satisfying His own wrath and justice against the sins of all humanity by crucifying Jesus Christ, the Son of God, on a cross in our place. Isaiah 53:6 says, “All of us like sheep have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; but the LORD has caused the iniquity of us all to fall on Him (Jesus).” 1 John 2:2 informs us: “He (Jesus) is the propitiation (satisfaction) for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for those of the whole world.”
Take to heart the last warning God left in the Bible found in Revelation 22:18-19: “I testify to everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: if anyone adds to them, God will add to him the plagues which are written in this book; and if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away his part from the tree of life and from the holy city, which are written in this book.” Beloved, this is the gospel, and any other message is a counterfeit that Satan uses to deceive selfish, egotistical, rebellious people, so they believe in a salvation they do not have. The truth is that we live in a world filled with people who, as Adrian Rogers once said, “strut around like peacocks like they are too good to be damned.” The Bible clearly declares in Ephesians 2:8-9 that any person, man or woman, who is truly saved is saved one way: “By grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.”
Make sure you hear the Bible correctly. God says that not one person, no, not one, who is saved or who will ever be saved, is saved by any good thing he or she has done. They are saved by God’s unmerited favor, when they hear the true gospel, and place their faith totally in Jesus. Furthermore, from the moment a person is truly saved, they begin to live righteously proving their repentance from sin by exhibiting heavenly behavior, obeying Jesus commands, and doing the good works that God has planned for them. Ephesians 2:10 says plainly that the true Christian is God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.”
We live in a crooked and perverse world, where unholy, unregenerate people are, either knowingly or unknowingly, enemies of God. Jesus said in Matthew 12:30: “He who is not with Me is against Me.” From James 4:4, we learn: “Do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.” These unbelieving rebels and enemies of God cry out for justice based on their own twisted, selfish understanding, while they are completely ignorant of the definition of true justice outlined in God’s Holy Word. There is no true, undefiled justice in the world today. The only place where true justice exists is in Hell. Every person in Hell today and those who will one day inhabit Hell for eternity are, in fact, experiencing the true justice they deserve. Moreover, every person who has ever lived and died, and every person alive today deserves that same justice.
There is no possible way that we can say that the people in Heaven today and every person alive today who is truly saved and will one day go to Heaven experiences true justice. The truth is that no person in Heaven deserves to be there, and we alive do not deserve to go to Heaven. After God brings an end to the world as we know it and ushers in the New Heaven and Earth, where He will be with all the people who are truly saved in Jesus, Heaven will be filled with people who did not do one single righteous act or deed to deserve Heaven but, undoubtedly, are there for one reason—the pure, holy, love and grace of Almighty God expressed in Christ Jesus. This is the gospel that we must guard with our lives. We must never add to or take away from, and we must never, ever seek to make the gospel more palatable for the unconverted, rebellious mind and heart of unbelievers. We must guard this gospel with every ounce of strength the Holy Spirit provides. This is the gospel for which we must remain steadfastly, fearlessly, and decisively engaged and on mission.
Beloved, right now, today, surrender every bit of selfishness and pride, and make certain you are truly saved in Jesus Christ according to the Bible’s revelation. Then, go out into this desperately wicked world as Jesus did, seeking to save all who are lost, and remain gospel engaged.