I Need More Gospel (3): What Does the Gospel Do & What Are You Doing With It?

November 30, 2008

I Need More Gospel! (Sermon 4)

What Does the Gospel Do & What Are You Doing With It?
(continued)

1 Corinthians 15:1-2

Church in the Boro

Sunday Morning
November 30, 2008
Rob Wilkerson

Introduction

I know from the words of Jesus that one of the most frightening things in all of history to hear from His mouth,
“depart from me, I don’t know who you are.” And while I don’t want to be known or remembered as a doom
and gloom pastor, there is something within me that continues to react to the culture of Christianity we have
here in America. For those who like to be called by the label Christian and live in America, I’m afraid they may
fall under the same suspicion as others do who call themselves “Protestants” or “Muslims” or “Christians” in
other parts of the world, yet still war against each other totally oblivious of what their label actually means. For
example, when I first heard of the war in Albania many years ago, and learned it was a fight between Muslims
and Christians, I did just a little investigation and found out that these were just cultural labels. These labels
don’t actually describe the way these people in opposition with each other truly live. It simply means that the
parties on either side were merely raised in a Christian or semi-Christian environment or were raised in a Islamic
or semi-Islamic environment. Both parties were nominal Christians and Muslims, meaning they were Christian
in name only.

And this is often the way it is throughout the rest of the world. The label “Christian” is a nominal one, describing
where a person comes from. To be sure, in certain parts of the world where Christianity is outlawed, there you
will find much more resemblance to biblical Christianity. But where it once flourished, there is only left today
some slight semblance of it, and it primarily serves to identify ones religious background more than it does
actually guide a person in their life.

Much of this is due to a severe misunderstanding on what Christianity actually is. If you get that part right, then
you get its message right. That message includes things like repentance, judgment, perfect obedience, faith, etc.
all of which are things much less preferred to the greater desires for things like happiness, mercy, grace, etc.
Further, unbiblical concepts of baptism, conversion, regeneration, sin, etc. are all among the enemies to the
biblical gospel. Yet these false ideas and unbiblical concepts have held sway among people for generations so
that there is little if any correct understanding of the biblical gospel anymore. I believe this is due to two forces
at work in every culture.

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The first force is the people. Paul forewarned Timothy and us today that, “a time is coming when people will no
longer listen to right teaching. They will follow their own desires and will look for teachers who will tell them
whatever they want to hear. They will reject the truth and follow strange myths” (2 Timothy 4:3-4). I would put
things like baptismal regeneration, penance, libertarianism, antinomianism, pelaganism, and semi-pelagianism
all as examples of the kinds of strange myths people want to hear and follow. People, by nature, are fallen
creatures, and as such want a religion, doctrine, and teaching that de-emphasizes their sin and emphasizes the
lie that they are fine just the way they are.

The second force is the pastor. The first force determines the second force, according to the passage. People
who want to hear what they want to hear, will find teachers to teach accordingly. That means that instead of
getting a pastor who tells them what God says, challenging them, rebuking them, correcting them, leading them,
shepherding them, all from Scripture, they choose instead a pastor who makes them feel good about
themselves and strokes their egos and upholds their traditions. I’m afraid that this is who controls most of our
denominations in our country today, and perhaps in the rest of the world. Where are the pastors who will do as
Paul told Timothy just a verse earlier: “Preach the word of God. Be persistent, whether the time is favorable or
not. Patiently correct, rebuke, and encourage your people with good teaching” (2 Timothy 4:2). Where are
these kinds of pastors?

These two forces combine to form a sort of perfect doctrinal storm in a church and its denomination. Since the
direction of the world and its inhabitants is always downward, we should not be surprised that every two, three,
or four generations we find ourselves at a place where we must scrap what we are trying to handle and start
over again afresh. This is most certainly the place where many of my generation are finding themselves in the
last forty years. Denominations and their churches have grown increasingly cold toward sound doctrine, biblical
teaching and preaching, and the real gospel. Churches are regularly ousting godly men from their numbers and
opting instead for someone who will make peace by making them feel good. They really don’t want to hear
from God, but they want a man, or woman, to stand up in front of them week after week and tell them what
they want to hear and say it’s from God. And when church after church after church goes in this direction, year
after year after year, pretty soon an entire denomination is polluted by this sort of thing, and the time comes to
scrap involvement in it and start something afresh. And that usually means going back to the Scriptures to find
out what they say and formulating attempts to get it right.

The heart of the matter here, whether we’re talking about the force of the people or the force of the pastor, is
the gospel of Jesus Christ. When a church and a pastor refuse to make that the focus of their time, attention,
money, energy, discussion, energy, and ministry, they all go astray quickly. When this disappears sin enters the
scene rather quickly. And how can it not, since the very thing that God designed and instituted to oppose and
defeat sin has been neglected or driven out altogether? But when the gospel does go, we find a church full of
people whose lives are full of chaos, sin, conflict, confusion, destruction, wickedness, and all manner of evil,
which is what we find in Corinth, of course. You can get a lot wrong in your Christian life, in your theology, and
in your doctrine, but still get the gospel right. But if you get the gospel wrong, everything else you’ve got is
wrong also, no matter how right or biblical it appears.

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For example, you can not commit murder or adultery. But if you get the gospel wrong, your obedience to those
two commands of God mean nothing. And this is precisely the very point that gets so very many nonChristians
so angry with Christianity. They feel as if they’ve been somehow deeply wronged and that a grave injustice has
been committed if the good they think they do goes unnoticed or rejected. And this reaction points to the
precise root of the problem: self-righteousness. We all think we are better than we really are, and we all want
each other to know that we are doing better than we really are. Rejected any supposed good thing we do and
we’re angry enough to mob and kill!

But the gospel teaches that a regenerated heart is the only acceptable root from which not committing adultery
and murder come. You see, you can choose not to do some particular sin if you want to. But if that choice is not
rooted in a desire to enjoy God’s will and please Him forever in everything you do, then that choice is not
acceptable to God. You’ve chosen it for some reason other than a pursuit of enjoying God, and this makes that
supposedly good thing an unacceptable thing to God. He delights in your obedience only when your obedience
is rooted in Him and in what His Son has already done for you. To try to do anything in the Bible without any
reference to real love for Jesus Christ is really just “dissing” God’s Son. And if you “dis” His Son and still say that
the parts of His Word you obey should be acceptable to Him, it’s a joke worthy of the greatest mockery. It’s
foolish and illogical to think that you can ignore the person and work of Jesus Christ on your behalf, only to turn
around and pick and choose which parts of the Bible you will and won’t do and then think it’s acceptable to the
Father, only to get cursing angry with God when He rejects it all.

Herein lies the heart and soul of my introduction this morning. Too many people believe themselves to be
Christians but have disregarded the gospel of Jesus Christ, the only true Word of God. As a result, too many
Christians believe themselves to be Christians, but believe it to be so in vain. Their belief is empty, worthless,
and void of any real meaning or value. And this is where we pick up in our passage where we left off last week.

“1 Let me now remind you, dear brothers and sisters,* of the Good News I preached to you
before. You welcomed it then, and you still stand firm in it.2 It is this Good News that saves
you if you continue to believe the message I told you—unless, of course, you believed
something that was never true in the first place” (NLT, emphasis added).

If you have the ESV, the translation reads this way.

“1 Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in
which you stand, 2 and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached
to you—unless you believed in vain” (emphasis added).

A. Review: The First Thing You Must Do With the Gospel: Persevere.

Our focus here this morning is on the latter half of verse 2. Last week I spent quite a bit of time showing you the
biblical truth about the necessity of holding fast, persevering, and maintaining your walk in Jesus Christ, no
matter what comes your way. I labored to show you that only those who persevere to the end will be saved.

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Again, American Christianity is too infatuated with instant gratification so that it has little if any concept of what
it means to truly hang in there and persevere in the same direction for a long time. Too many Christians were
like the rocky or thorny ground on which the seed of the gospel was cast. For those folks, their Christianity was
fleeting, momentary, temporary, and didn’t stand the test of time and tribulation and trial. Sure, there was joy.
But there was no perseverance and consequently no growth and no fruit. I challenged you last week to consider
whether you were one of those who merely thinks your heart is the good soil when in fact it may be more
reflective of the rocky or thorny soil. I said enough about that there, so you’re welcome to go back and
download the sermon or read the manuscript online later.

Moving on to the last two points of the text, I want to point your attention to the last phrases of verse 2: “if you
hold fast to the word I preached to you – unless you believed in vain.” Following the text I end my exposition on
verses one and two with the following two points.

 Make sure it’s the right gospel you are holding fast to.
 Make sure it’s the right faith you are using to believe the gospel.

Let’s begin our exposition of these two phrases and points.

B. The Second Thing You Must Do With the Gospel: Make Sure It’s the Right Gospel.

I pointed out in my introduction that much, if not most of the problem Christianity has throughout the world
today is a failure to get the gospel right to begin with. What is more, for true Christians today, so much of the
sin we experience in our lives is a failure to remember the gospel. However, even here much of that is even
rooted in a failure to get the gospel right to begin with. And much of that is due to the fact that we are driven
by our culture to either believe things about the gospel that are not biblical, or we are driven by our feelings and
emotions and inherent laziness. Notice Paul said in 15:2, “if you hold fast to the word I preached to you…”
Missing the word that Paul preached could mean the difference in life or death for the Corinthian “Christian.”
And it could mean the same thing for us today.

But isn’t it interesting that the solution for both is exactly the same. Whether you are in a church somewhere in
some other country or in this one that hasn’t got the gospel right at all, or whether you are a genuine Christian
who sins, you all need the true gospel of Jesus Christ. It is as much the remedy for ignorance as it is for
disobedience as it is for spiritual weakness as it is for confusion. Get that right, and all the rest will ultimately fall
in place and make sense. But again, this means getting it right. That’s why Paul differentiated between other
“words” which had been preached to the Corinthians, and “the word which I preached unto you.” It was the
gospel Paul preached, as opposed to the sort of gospel which other so-called apostles had preached there in
Corinth before.

There are so many versions of “Christianity” today that I don’t even care to review them with you. You know
them all from the motivational Christianity, to the health, wealth, and prosperity Christianity. There’s
Christianity that believes homosexuality and Jesus are compatible, and there’s a version that believes that

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there’s only one version of the Bible you can read. And there’s everything in between. The fact of the matter is
that the church of Christ in America, at least, is largely deceived about what biblical Christianity is. They’ve
attached so many different things to the gospel, some biblical and some not, that Christianity is like play-dough.
You can make of it whatever you like, and then call it Jesus and bow down to it. Christians in America are idol-
worshippers in this way. But try to tell folks what the biblical gospel, and much of the time it runs so counter to
their hearts, it is so thorny and prickly, that they reject it and turn instead to embrace their play-dough
Christianity. Oh, they may like something you said, and so they’ll take what they like and stick it on their play-
dough version of Christianity. But essentially they merely adorn their idol with Christian accoutrements. May
God discipline us severely if we stray from the biblical gospel!

And that is why it is so crucial to hold fast to it, once you’ve got it. You must maintain it, keep it close to you,
review it regularly, meditate upon it. This isn’t a matter you mature away from and on to bigger and better
things in the Christian life. The gospel IS your Christian life. Failure to maintain that is why real Christians
struggle with sin. Failure to receive or welcome or embrace that is why non-Christians struggle with Christianity.

We are so duped by our culture, and even by our Christian subcultures, as variegated as they are, that moving
on to studying “deeper” things in the Word of God is a sign of maturity. And mature “Christians” are marked by
how much they know, how much they’ve studied, how much they’ve read, who they’ve read, who they’ve sat
under, whose sermons they listen to, etc. Yet strangely, we don’t measure maturity by how well they hold fast
to, maintain, and persevere in the simplicity of the fundamentals in the gospel. This is why we often have more
Christians who are Christians in their heads than in their hearts. That means, they talk a lot about what they
know, but have very little to discuss when it comes to intimate experiences and encounters with the person of
God Himself. And that is due to a neglect of maintaining the basic spiritual disciplines in the Christian life, all of
which center on the gospel.

Now, with my soapbox out of the way, what exactly did Paul mean by “the word I preached to you”? He’s about
to tell us in the next few verses. In fact, verses 3-8 comprise a summary of the gospel message that Paul
preached to the Corinthians, and it served as a sort of creed or code which the early church used thereafter to
mark God’s intended structure or formulation of the gospel. Lord willing, it is my desire to spend several weeks
on that structure so that we know what the biblical gospel is and thereby ensure that Church in the Boro is build
on it and according to it. But if you’ll allow me, I’d like to briefly outline that biblical gospel for you now.

 The Blueprint and Foundation: The Bible - “According to the Scriptures” (vv. 3, 4).

The foundation on which the gospel was laid is four thousand plus years thick. And it is the Bible, as we read in
Paul’s creed twice: “according to the Scriptures.” The death and resurrection of Jesus Christ were foretold by
the Scriptures, and His death and resurrection therefore fulfilled the Scriptures. Without the Scriptures, there is
no foundation for the death and resurrection of Christ, and therefore, no faith at all and consequently no
Christianity. Without the Bible and its accuracy and fulfillments we would be the most miserably deceived souls
on the planet in all of history.

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 The Toe Plates: Historical Facts - “Christ died…and…was buried, and…was raised on the third
day.” (vv. 3,4)

After the foundation is poured, a framer begins to construct the house by referring to the blueprints and
mounting the toe plates. These are 2x4’s power fastened to the concrete on which the rest of the framework is
built. In Christianity, the toe plates which are fastened to our foundation of Scripture correspond to the
factuality of the person of Jesus Christ and His death and resurrection. There actually was a person named Jesus
Christ, and He actually died and was actually raised from the dead. Everything we believe is built upon these toe
plates. Try to frame a house without toe plates, and there’s no way to fasten the rest of the studs securely to
the foundation. And trying to have Christianity without securing it to the factual death and resurrection of Jesus
is guaranteeing the collapse of that kind of Christianity. It cannot and will not ever be able to stand without
being fastened securely and inseparably from the factuality of Jesus’ death and resurrection.

 The Squared Corners: Propitiation, Substitution, Limitation, and Expiation – “Christ died for
our sins” (v. 3)

A builder begins framing by first erecting the outside walls. And all walls are absolutely dependent upon how
square the corners are. “Squaring” refers to the act of making sure that the corners are exactly at a precise
ninety degree angle. If a corner is off even one or two degrees, then the other end of that wall will not be in line
with the toe plates and will therefore not match the drawing on the blueprint. Making sure a corner is square is
absolutely essential to making sure the rest of the house is built according to specification.

When we read the words “died for our sins” we read four words which provide a definitive, concrete, and clear
understanding of the gospel which act as its four corners. If these corners are not squared with the blueprint,
the foundation, the Scriptures, then other parts of the gospel will be out of kilter and alignment which will cause
instability and ultimately fear and confusion. I see these four corners as the four walls of doctrine corresponding
to each word in the verse.

o Corner 1: “Christ died for our sins” = propitiation. The death of Jesus Christ actually
accomplished something objective on the cross before anything objective happened to me.

o Corner 2: “Christ died for our sins” = substitution. The death of Jesus Christ was on behalf of
someone else, instead of someone else, and thus, it was for someone else. He was acting in
someone else’s place when He died on the cross.

o Corner 3: “Christ died for our sins” = limitation. If the death of Jesus Christ on behalf of sinners
was an act that accomplished something objectively, it is therefore limited in its scope and
purpose. Jesus death was aimed at something specific for a specific reason.

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o Corner 4: “Christ died for our sins” = expiation. Jesus actually forgave and removed sins, putting
them away once and for all.

 The Roof: The Application of What was Objectively Accomplished – “by which you are being
saved…” (v. 2)

With the four walls constructed and squared up, the roof can be placed squarely on top of the four walls with
ease and certainty. So it is with the gospel. When the four doctrinal walls are constructed biblically, an
application of these doctrines can be made to a Christian with ease and certainty. Just as a house with no roof is
really no house at all, the factual and objective death and resurrection of Jesus Christ with an application to you
is really no good news at all. The gospel must of necessity include an application to you and I of what was
objectively accomplished two thousand years ago. If it never gets applied to me today, it’s a useless event and is
not any shade or kind of real good to me today, and hence, not good news to me.

 The Door: The Free Offer of the Gospel to All Who Believe – “the gospel…that you received
and on which you stand” (v. 1).

A house is no house at all without a way to get in. And the gospel is not a biblical gospel unless there is a way to
come into it. The door is open to all who will accept how it is constructed, determine that it is a safe place to
live, and enter into it to take up residence. This is what it means to believe. It is a beautiful house. The building
plan was shown to me. A cutaway of its four thousand year thick foundation was made available for viewing in
the Scriptures. I saw how the factual death and resurrection of Jesus corresponded with the blueprint and
foundation in the Scriptures. I then saw how sturdy and eternally unshakable the walls were, and how the roof
was securely in place and could never be blown away even in the most severe hurricanes, storms, or
earthquakes of my life. And after seeing all of this I couldn’t help myself but enter in by the front door. And this
same door stands open all day, every day, until each person’s dying breath….if they will only choose to enter it
and enjoy the house.

Now just as a house may be sided with vinyl, hardy board, brick, concrete, or wood, the biblical structure of the
gospel may be sided with Baptist, Methodist, Presbyterian, Anglican, Lutheran, or Pentecostalism. Most
denominations began as merely a different type of siding preferred on the same biblical structure of the gospel.
Today, however, most denominations are spiritually decaying because the biblical structure has rotted out from
underneath and behind the siding, making the house little more than a façade. And as such, it is doomed to
collapse in on itself, killing everyone inside, sending them to certain eternal death, I’m afraid. To be sure, this is
not true of all churches in each denomination. No, no. We praise God that there are many, MANY who have
held fast to the word which was preached to them in the Scriptures, and those Christians in those churches are
like rooms within the house which cannot and will not collapse when the rest of the house around them does.
We praise God for these rooms and trust that Church in the Boro is such a room.

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What I point your attention toward now is why those in these façades will be destroyed along with the house
when the judgment day of Christ comes. Paul alludes to it in the latter part of verse 2. They have believed in
vain. And this leads to the third and final thing you must do with the gospel, according to 1 Corinthians 15:2.

C. The Third Thing You Must Do With the Gospel: Believe it with Saving Faith

When a church begins to associate itself with its siding more than its structure, it begins its failure to be a biblical
church. Put any sort of siding you want on a house, but if it isn’t framed right, it will ultimately collapse. And
put any sort of denominational look on the gospel you want, if it isn’t the biblical gospel, it isn’t a biblical church.
Unfortunately this is the direction many churches go, these days. And I suppose it’s always been this way.
Humans, as sinners by nature, are always looking for systems, frameworks, and structures that make them feel
better about themselves. We love systems and structures we can follow that make us feel things are better and
that make us at least look better in the eyes of other people.

The problem, however, is that when we associate our faith with the externals of a church rather than the
internal structure – the gospel – we enter the house in vain. So many persons have deluded themselves into
thinking they are safe because they are going to church, when they go to church simply because they think it’s
the right thing to do. They don’t go to church because they are captivated by the beauty of the glory and love of
God in the person and work of Jesus Christ for undeserving sinners. They go to church because it has some
semblance of religiosity, and feeling that this must be associated with God, they visit, attend, join, and even get
involved. Yet often none of this attendance and involvement is because of the structure itself, but merely
because of the external siding – the programs, the focus groups, the friends, the opportunities, and the overall
good feeling that attendance and involvement bring to the soul when doing something seemingly religious or
good.

I was reading volume six of The Works of John Flavel recently, and in his sermon entitled,
“The Possibility and Necessity of Conversion” Flavel writes of the frequent and fatal
mistakes people make about conversion and the gospel. I want you to note first that
Flavel lived from 1627-1691, then note second that this volume was published in 1820,
some two hundred plus years later; and note third the correspondence and continuation
of these same mistakes to us today, almost four hundred years later. Flavel names three
main mistakes (pp. 535-537). These are three mistakes that lead people to believe in vain,
to delude themselves that their faith is genuine when in fact it is not.

1. Baptismal regeneration.

“There is a notion spread among men, and almost every where obtaining, that the scriptures
mean nothing else by conversion, but to be baptized in our infancy into the visible church; and
that this ordinance having passed upon them long ago, they are sufficiently converted already;
and that men make but a needless stir and bustle in the world, about any other, or further
conversion” (p. 536).

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How different is it today? Not at all. There is still an association of baptism with conversion in many religions
and denominations today including Catholicism, Anglicanism, Episcopalianism, Lutheranism, Greek Orthodoxy,
liberal Presbyterianism, and the Church of Christ just to name a few.

The parallel to that in our circles are the Baptists who believe something very similar if not altogether the same.
While they would vehemently deny infant baptism, their conversion is in essence the same sort of idea, namely,
that once I’ve been baptized (as an adult, albeit) I am now converted and will remain as such.

I love Flavel’s response to this sort of thinking. He basically quotes Mark 16:16 which says,

“anyone who believes and is baptized will be saved. But anyone who refuses to believe will be
condemned” (NLT). Baptism without faith doesn’t signify anything about your salvation. But
faith, without baptism (even where it’s impossible) secures your salvation. It was the same in
the OT with circumcision. It doesn’t count for anything unless your heart is circumcised. Why
else would Jesus have pressed so hard on Nicodemus in John 3:3, 5, an 7 about the necessity of
being born again. This was a man who had been circumcised for decades and was depending on
this to make him right with God. Flavel writes, “Your dangerous dependence upon your belief
that your baptism is what saves you is what has given such a deep offense and prejudice to
many non-Christians (though without just cause) against baptism and Christianity” (p. 536,
edited for modern English).

2. Common profession of Christianity.

According to Flavel in his day,

“Some think, the common profession of Christianity makes men Christians enough; they are no
Heathens, Muslims, or idolatrous Catholics; but Protestants, within the shadow of the true
church; that is, professed reformed Christians” (p. 536).

Oh, how we struggle with this same thing today! Even we who are among the group Flavel here names –
“professed reformed Christians”! How desperate I am for all of you here today, including myself, that we would
not damn ourselves to hell with a profession of the doctrines of grace and reformed theology. Listen to Flavel’s
response, which is one I’ve offered many a time from this pulpit.

“But, friends, I beg you to consider that convicting text in 1 Corinthians 4:20. ‘For the Kingdom
of God is not just fancy talk; it is living by God’s power’ (NLT). There are many here who with
their words confess Christ but in their works deny Him. And why were the foolish virgins (that
is, professed reformed Christians) shut out of the kingdom of God, if the lamp of their verbal
profession, without the oil of internal godliness, were enough for our salvation (Matt. 25:3, 12).
Believe it, people, many will claim acquaintance with Christ based upon this sort of thing, and
expect favor from Him on judgment day, only to hear Him profess He never knew them (Matt.

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7:22). Christ would not have emphasized that we should labor even in agony to enter at the
narrow, straight gate if baptism in our infancy, or verbal profession of reformed Christianity
were the only difficulties they had to encounter on their way to heaven” (p. 536, edited for
modern English).

3. Formality in religious duties.

Being formal about your duties in religion is another fatal mistake people make about their conversion. Flavel
asks,

“Have not these been the inward thoughts of your hearts? As bad as we are, though we take
liberty to swear, be drunk, and unclean sometimes, yet we say our prayers, keep our church,
and hope for heaven and salvation just as much as those who are more precise at it than we
are” (536, edited).

If there is one thing for which I am more guilty than anything else, it is this. I find it in my nature to pay more
attention to the outward than the inward, to the form rather than the function. I seem to be liable to the
thought processes that captivate me with the formalities rather than the inner realities. It is such an easy trap
to fall into. Flavel’s response is for me as much as it is for you here today.

“But tell me, people, seriously. What more are you saying or pleading for yourselves in all this
than the hypocrites did in Isaiah 58:2. ‘Yet they act so pious! They come to the Temple every
day and seem delighted to hear my laws. You would almost think this was a righteous nation
that would never abandon its God. They love to make a show of coming to me and asking me to
take action on their behalf.’ Or, to come closer to your situation, and cut off forever with one
stroke this vain plea of yours, why don’t you read and ponder God’s own censure of it in
Jeremiah 7:8-12. ‘Do you think that because the Temple is here you will never suffer? Don’t
fool yourselves! Do you really think you can steal, murder, commit adultery, lie, and worship
Baal and all those other new gods of yours, and then come here and stand before me in my
Temple and chant, “We are safe!” – only to go right back to all those evils again? Do you think
this Temple, which honors my name, is a den of thieves? I see all the evil going on there, says
the Lord. Go to the place at Shiloh where I once put the Tabernacle to honor my name. See
what I did there because of all the wickedness of my people, the Israelites.’ (pp. 536-7, edited).

Conclusion

Friends. Oh my dear friends! Do you hear the Scriptures? Is it possible that I have believed in vain? Is it
possible that your faith is in worthless and empty? I’m assuming that none of us here today wants to be those
who believe the gospel in vain.

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As I pointed out to you last week, twice in one verse here Paul uses the Greek particle ei to introduce a
condition. Two conditional particles in one verse means double-check yourself. If you hold fast to the word
which was preached to you, then you will be saved by that word, unless the reality is that your belief is empty,
your faith useless, and your profession false. This isn’t some passing word he tacks on to his statement here. It
is a second statement of condition that basically says, “you’d better make doubly sure that the work of the
gospel is a reality in your life.”

For some, this means that they believe it, but because they don’t hold fast to it, essentially wasted their time to
begin with. The walk with Jesus is so serious that one ought not undertake it unless they are deadly serious
enough about it to die for Jesus or die trying to follow Him faithfully. Where are these kinds of Christians today?

This is a two-fold call this morning to do what Peter said in 2 Peter 1, to make every effort to make sure you’re
called and chosen (2 Peter 1:10), and to pursue the gospel with all your might, taking up your cross and
following Jesus, saying “no” to yourself, loving the unlovable, giving your life for others, giving your money to
the poor, loving your wife as Christ loved the church, raising your children in the nurture and admonition of the
Lord, putting your sin to death, adding to your faith virtue, knowledge, self-control, steadfastness, godliness, and
brotherly affection. Notice what Peter says about all these: “For if these qualities are yours and increasing, they
keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. For whoever lacks these
qualities is so nearsighted that he is blind, having forgotten that he was cleansed from his former sins….for if you
practice these qualities you will never fall” (2 Peter 1: 8-10).

Have you believed in vain? Have you wasted your time with Jesus and with the gospel up til this point? Have
you relied on your profession of faith, your baptism, or your religious duties and exercises to substitute for true,
genuine, real, authentic saving faith?

Has your life reflected a wasting of your time because of your neglect to maintain the gospel, because of your
not holding fast to it, because of your not persevering in it? Do you find that your constant bondage to sinful
habits and activities reflects a possible delusion about your claim to be genuinely saved?

These are the crucial questions I’d ask you to consider carefully this morning, my dear friends! Have you
believed in vain? Is your faith empty? Are you holding fast to remnants of an illusion of faith? Are you holding
on tight to illegitimate affirmations of your faith? Are you holding fast to your own idolatrous or idyllic version
of Christianity?

The call this morning is simple. Examine yourselves to see whether or not you are in the faith. Examine yourself
using the clearest, biblical reflections of the gospel in a person’s life. Don’t examine yourself using cultural
Christianity’s versions of the gospel. Don’t examine yourself by what kind of Bible version you’re using, whether
you’re a Calvinist or Arminian, whether you do homeschool or public school, whether you’re in debt or debt-
free, whether you listen to secular music or only Christian music, whether you read theology or fiction, whether
you listen to Paul Washer or Johnny Hunt, whether you smoke or not, whether you drink or not, or any other
reflection of Christianity which comes to us from our culture rather than from the Bible. These are not and
never can be determining factors in seeing whether or not you have believed in vain. The proper determining

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I Need More Gospel (3): What Does the Gospel Do & What Are You Doing With It? November 30, 2008

factors are found in the text of Scripture. Do you know what they are? If not, why not? If not, how long will you
go before finding these things out? The possibility of your faith being in vain should frighten you to the core.
The possibility that you have not been holding fast, maintaining, and persevering in the gospel should also
greatly concern you above every other concern in your life right now, job and school and future included. THIS
is your future.

There is only one recourse for your soul if you have forgotten the word of the gospel preached to you, and if you
have believed in vain. I leave you with more of Flavel’s exhortations.

“You have heard that conversion doesn’t consist in these external things. It is at your eternal
peril of you trust in them. But true conversion is the turning of the whole man to God (Acts
26:18). It is nothing less than the total change of the inward temper and frame of the heart, and
the external course of the life (Isa. 55:8). It is not the cold confession, but the real forsaking of
sin, in which we will find mercy (Prov. 28:13). Your heart and will, love and delight, must turn
sin out, and take Christ in, or you are no gospel-convert at all. A true convert loathes every sin
and loathes himself for sinning (Ezek. 36:31). But a general confessing of sin is consistent with
the full dominion of sin. What is more, in all true conversion there is a positive turning unto
God, a whole heart-choice of him, for your supreme and ultimate happiness and portion (Psa.
73:25), and of the Lord Jesus Christ, as your Prince and Savior (Acts 5:31). And answerably, it
will devote your whole life to his service and glory (Phil. 1:21). And therefore, it brings out the
new man, and the whole frame of your heart and life are marvelously changed and altered (2
Cor. 5:17). ‘What this means is that those who become Christians become new persons. They
are not the same anymore, for the old life is gone. A new life has begun!’

“It may be that you think such a change as this is impossible to happen to you. And so it is
indeed, until the day of God’s power comes on you (Psa. 110:3). What! To forsake with loathing
your old friends, and lifestyle, which you have so long lived with and delighted in? And to
embrace with highest pleasures a strict godliness which you previously loathed and ridiculed?
This would be a strange alteration indeed! But as strange as it seems to be, it will be effected in
a moment, when God fulfills that gracious promise (as I hope he is now doing) to you, in Ezekiel
36:26. ‘And I will give you a new heart with new and right desires, and I will put a new spirit in
you. I will take out your stony heart of sin and give you a new, obedient heart.’ Operations
follow nature. When the heart of a wild animal was given to that great king Nebuchadnezzar
(Dan. 5:21), he lived with the while donkeys, and they fed him with grass, as if he was a cow.
But let his senses return to him again and he will blush to think of the kind of company he kept
and his way of life. And so will you think of yours also. As marvelous a change as this has
already passed upon sinners as eminent and notorious as yourselves (Gal. 1:22). The God of
the hearts of all men can with ease and speed produce all of this by His almighty power by
which He is able to subdue all things to Himself” (pp. 537-8, edited, emphasis added).

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