A Gospel Sermon

Sunday Sermon
6/6/2008

What keeps people from Christ?

There are a thousand things I could say in response to this—their hearts are not hungry for him, their lives are too full of the things of the world, their minds are darkened with sin, or they simply feel no need of God.

All these answers make sense yet one thing they all have in common is that each of them squarely places the blame upon the sinner as if the church has nothing to do with the salvation of the lost.

Consider the possibility that the church has not revealed Christ is such a way that the world would want Him and as a result the world has stayed away.

I heard her voice outside my office door. I looked at my watch, it was 7:20am and I knew I was the only one in the building. Again she said, “Hello?”

It was impossible to get outside my office door unless you have a key because there are three other doors you must pass through to get to the foyer outside my office. Who was this?

I opened the door to see a young black lady. Her eyes were swollen from crying and her forehead was bleeding. Her left arm had a gash which I thought needed immediate medical attention.

Through tears she told me she had three small children the DHS was going to take away from her tomorrow if she didn’t get diapers and food for them today.

We pulled up to her apartment complex after going to Safe Way for bandages, triple antibiotic ointment, diapers, and whatever else she wanted. I began to step out of my car to help her carry the paper bags to her apartment when she told me to stop.

“I don’t want any trouble” she said. “I don’t either.” I said, “What do you mean by that?”

“My boyfriend is in there and he might get upset to see me with another man.”

“You can’t carry these bags alone, I’m coming with you.”

We walked into her dark apartment. It looked like it had been neglected for years. My nose cringed at the molded scent hanging thick in the air, black stains checkered the eggshell carpet. A flickering, half lit chandelier dangled from the ceiling of the main room shedding dim light against the surroundings.

A baby sat naked on the carpet to the left of a stain. I heard the sounds of her two other children in another room. Back against the wall in a shadowy hallway I saw her boyfriend leaned tight up against the wall watching us. To the left of where I stood, a hole in the wall with a smear of blood was evidence of where her boyfriend had smashed her head just an hour ago.

Her mother stood at the stove in the kitchen with no expression, just an empty stare at me. I walked in and set the bag on an empty table and shook the hand of her mother. No words were exchanged.

The young lady started to cry and I asked her to step outside onto the cement patio so I could talk to her.

“Why do you stay here?”

“I have no where to go. The DHS says I need to have a place big enough for my kids and this is the only place I can make it. Besides it’s close to 82nd avenue where I work.”

“You work? Where do you work?”

“I hook on 82nd.”

Through pouring tears, and I literally mean pouring tears, she told me how her mother used to let men rape her for money starting from the age of 12, thus beginning her career as a prostitute.

She kept saying, “I’m tired, I’m so tired of it all.”

“Don’t you want your children to have a chance at a better life, to learn a better way to live?” “My church is two blocks away and there are people there who will love you and your family—why don’t you let us pick you up on Sundays or Wednesdays and bring you to place where you can find support and help?”

Without a pause to consider the offer she said, “I could never walk in a church, I don’t belong at a church, look at me.”

I tell you this because I am convinced the church has lost sight of the glory of the gospel of good news. Most of us don’t share the gospel with the lost, and when we do, we tend to share a Jesus that is way too human.

At this you may be wondering what I am talking about. Doesn’t scripture go to great lengths to reveal Christ as a man, a human being who knows what its like to suffer and have pain and feel loneliness? Isn’t this a good thing?

There is a five dollar word to describe the process or tendency of attributing human like qualities to something that is not human. Have you seen Chronicles of Narnia? Well there are talking beavers and sword fighting mice.

The word is called anthropomorphism. It’s derived from the Greek “anthropos” meaning human and “morphe” meaning shape or form.

The prostitute feared entering the doors of a church because she believed in her heart she would not be accepted. Although this feeling is directed toward the people in the building, it’s also her perception of God.

The Bible has much to say to this person.

The great challenge of being a gospel preacher, or a Christian who is convinced it is God’s will to share the gospel, is to share the whole gospel, the full gospel. You see the gospel is literally the good news.

However, this message gets lost on a culture that refuses to reflect on what the God of love and mercy has revealed about those who reject his offer of love and grace.

Only when we hear and understand what God has said about our state and our destiny, will we ever begin to see the gospel as good news.

Romans 3:20
“Listen, no one can get right with God by obeying rules. Rules only show us our weaknesses and failures.”

We tend to think my righteousness = God’s Love

We believe the righteousness that I display will engender me to God. He will look at my work and smile and say “Well done Shane. I love how obedient and holy you have made yourself. Your life is in order, welcome to my family.”

The major and fundamental problem with our thinking lies in our misunderstanding of God’s plan of redemption. It’s either a misunderstanding or an unwillingness to believe the plan.

Scripture tells us God’s plan is to provide righteousness--to give us righteousness as a gift. This righteousness does not emanate from man. Man cannot produce this righteousness. This righteousness originates with God, it is from God. God is the source of our righteousness. God is the source of the righteousness he bestows on us. It has nothing to do with our performance, absolutely nothing to do with our purity or hard work.

It is: From God apart from Law.

These five words are the most precious to me. From God apart from Law.

The righteousness we enjoy, the righteousness we receive is from God.

If it is from God it cannot come from me or anything I ever, ever do. It is not possible to get or attain or create or produce the righteousness God desires us to have. Not by humility, not by tears, not by regret, not by performance, not by effort, not by hoping, not by wishing, not by passion, not by discipline, not by prayer, not by fasting, not by longing…because it is not by man or anything man does.

Therefore the bible tells us it is from God apart from law.

It is so highly important, crucial and essential that these truths permeate the very minds and hearts of all people in order to live the Christian life.

The words ‘apart from law’ are absolutely breathtaking. They are groundbreaking and earthshaking. They are the equivalent of the Hoover Dam cracking open and the millions upon millions of gallons or water bursting through the wall released after years and years of being trapped and inaccessible from those on the other side.

Apart from law can only mean apart from performance or apart from work. The law lays down a rule which can be likened to a hurdle. If a man jumps the hurdle, he remains right with God. If the man trips over the hurdle, he is immediately condemned and separated from God.

If Paul was describing a righteousness by Law or through the Law, we must picture an endless track with hurdles, some extremely tall, some short, but all must be jumped perfectly, none can be brushed or touched or moved or avoided in any way shape or form and if at any point even the smallest portion of your shoe string glances the lowest hurdle, then no matter how far you’ve gone down the track, you must start all over again. Condemned to fall and fail every time.

This is life under the law. This is a picture of righteousness by Law.

But the message of the gospel to the tired and dejected, scraped up and bruised runner is this—no more hurdles to jump. There is a way to win the race and win the crown another away. There is One who has completed the race on your behalf!

Raise your hand if you ever feel like a runner on a track that just can’t clear all the hurdles. You look back over your life and all you can see is endless falls and trips and mistakes. Each one making you tired and leaving you scraped and bruised and discouraged. And looking forward in your life isn’t much better either because all you see is the very same thing, accept truth be told, the hurdles get higher and higher. And you, you are so tired of failing.

“This righteousness from come through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe.”


“Seek the Lord while he may be found; call on him while he is near. Let the wicked forsake his way and the evil man his thoughts. Let him turn to the LORD and he will have mercy on him and to our God for he will freely pardon.

For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the LORD.
As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”

May we never share a human gospel. May we always share the good news of salvation by grace through faith in Jesus Christ. This is the message a dying world is in need of.

Let’s not put our demands upon the sinner, but let the mercy of God pour forth to a wounded world through us.

It’s not fair. It’s the gospel. It’s the good news!