What Is The Gospel?

Crises often reveal our inadequate understanding of God's eternal truth.

I’m still kicking myself for this one.

It was the spring of the year 2017. I had not started preaching in pulpits, yet. I didn’t belong there. No formal training. No seminary. No discipleship. No understudy. Nothing.

Just a kid of 23 years old that thought he could change the church world and save sinners with nothing more than his bible and a couple “HAY-man”, shoutin’-good one liners.

I preached it all. Taking back what the devil stole, the enmity between the church and the world, the problem that Pentecost revealed, the security that comes with sanctimony. You name it.

I had it right, according to some. I could get red in the face, holler real loud, dance and kick, throw my arm back like Billy Sunday, project my voice like Warren Wiersbe, alliterate like a poet laureate – I was on my way.
Then it happened.

A young man approached me and began to ask questions. Good questions. Questions like you read about in scripture.
“What must I do to be saved?”
“What is the kingdom of God?”
I froze.
Fear swept over me like the chill of a thousand winter winds.
I had absolutely no idea.

After pacifying the man as best I could, I went home in a fright.
You’re not going to believe this. You may even laugh.
But when I got home I opened my laptop and googled “What is the gospel?”
You see, I had the talking points down, the pattern of speech was easy, the particulars of the decorum were second nature.
Sanctification? Got it. Holy Ghost baptism? Done. Christ’s second coming? I can preach that.
But what is the gospel?

My ears running hot with embarrassment, I rushed to commentaries, I sped read through lexicons, the words all blended together and I found myself at a literal existential crisis.

In this desperation, I hit my knees and – through tears of grief – simply prayed and asked God, Himself, what is the gospel?

The weeks that followed found me in deep thought. Christ came, lived, died, and rose again. He will come back some day. I know all of this. But what is the gospel?
It perplexed me. It scared me. It amazed me how I had been raised on the pew of the church, heard preaching all of my life, lived in the house of a pastor and teacher, was baptized by a godly man, attended church regularly, even felt the call of the ministry – but yet I knew NOTHING about the gospel.

After much digging, prayer, and even fasting, God revealed His gospel to me in His Word.

In Acts chapter sixteen, Paul and Silas are confronted by a man who sincerely wished to be saved. Seeing the delivering power of God and the compassion of the Apostles, this man asked simply “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?”
Their answer was simple: “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.”

How had I missed it? All that time, I had overlooked the greatest truth contained in scripture. Over twenty years I had missed out on the singular most important thing in the bible.

It isn’t just knowing these things – the life, death, and resurrection of Christ – but rather it is all about faith. Believing in him, trusting in him, having faith in him.
See, many folks in the church today do not know the gospel. They think they do. They act like they do. They sing like they do. They may even preach with confidence as if they do. But once they are presented with the question “What is the gospel?” many of them realize that their foundation is not built on Christ alone, but on everything else.

Rules, regulations, disciplines, decorums, principles, traditions – they all have their place. But these are not the gospel.

The difference between folks like you and me and the others out there is simple: we had it wrong, but we are honest enough to admit that and be changed by the truth