Beware the Incomplete Gospel

· There are facts associated with serving Christ, but sometimes we distort those facts to fit into our desires of what WE want it to mean to serve Christ.

· That distortion can happen innocently (we blew it, but didn’t mean to), or volitionally (we manipulated it because we wanted to).

My Uncle Kermit told me this story many years ago about the owner of an old-fashioned corner grocery store in a small country town who was fond of quoting a passage of Scripture after each sale.

· He had three old friends that would sit around a pot-bellied stove, playing checkers on a faded board.

· His ability to produce a Scripture for all occasions never ceased to amuse the old timers, and they would listen to see what verse he would come up with that was relevant to the sale made.

· A lady purchased some material and he said, “She seeketh wool, and flax, and worketh willingly with her hands.” Proverbs 31:13)

· A man bought a bag of flour and he said, “Man does not live by bread alone, but every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.” (Matt 4:4)

· A little boy bought some candy and as he rung it up he quoted, “Suffer the little children to come unto me.” (Matt 19:14)

· It was nearly closing time one evening when the chimes over the door jangled loudly.

· A well-dressed young man, obviously a stranger from one of the larger towns down the road, entered.

· “Can I help you?” offered the proprietor.

· “I need a blanket for my horse,” said the man.

· “He’s out in his trailer and it’s too cold for just one. Bring me the nicest one you’ve got!”

· The store owner went in the back store room and came back with a brown blanket, “That’ll be five dollars.”

· “Five dollars? You’ve got to be kidding!”, said the man. “This horse is a thoroughbred. He gets only the best! He wouldn’t stand still for an old five-dollar blanket.”

· Without comment, the store owner took back the blanket, then merely selected a different color of the same blanket and brought it out.

· “This one’s $25 dollars.”

· “Now, look,” said the young man, “Perhaps I didn’t make myself clear. This isn’t just any old horse! He’s worth thousands! Now I want the best, most expensive blanket you’ve got! Understand?”

· The owner once more went into the store room, pulled out another color of the very same blanket and brought it back.

· “This is the only one left, and it’s $100 dollars.”

· “Now that’s more like it!” enthused the young man as he paid.

· Then, throwing the five dollar blanket over his shoulder, he left.

· The old timers stared silently at the shopkeeper as they waited to see what possible Scripture he could come up with for that sale!

· Going behind the register, he rung up the hundred dollars and quoting Matthew 25:35 said, “He was a stranger, and I took him in.”

We are sometimes guilty of the very same thing; misapplying the concepts of God for our own benefit!

· I feel certain that’s not what Jesus meant when he spoke of the need to take in strangers!

· In Matthew 25, Jesus is very concerned about our attitude (and actions) toward those who are in need.

· He was not instructing us to rip off strangers

· And while that was a humorous story, we do the same kind of thing, if we’re not careful, studied, and sincere in our walk.

We must learn to rightly divide the Word of God. Not doing so can lead to varying degrees of danger to our lives, or those we influence.

EXAMPLE: Take this verse…

Philippians 4:13 NIV

13 I can do all this through him who gives me strength.

· This short verse is often quoted by sports teams, bumper stickers and taglines as a rally cry to accomplish great things like running a marathon, climbing a mountain, winning the championship, finishing the remodel on the kitchen, etc.

· However, this short—and powerful—passage gets its meaning amidst the context of contentment.

· Paul is writing this letter to the church in Philippi to let them know that God has taught him to be content in times of plenty and in times of desperation (he’s writing this letter in prison).

· So, in its proper meaning, this verse is a tribute to a man who learned to follow God in any circumstance.

· Whatever came Paul’s way, he handled with faith.

· It could be stoning, prison, shipwreck, beatings, etc.

· This passage is not a clarion call to go out and accomplish great feats of strength, but a beautiful reminder to pursue faith and trust God in the midst of the ups and downs of a life given fully to the cause of Christ.

· So, when can you appropriately quote this verse?

· If you get put in prison for preaching Christ, beaten, and learn to live with little food or possessions, and you find yourself content because you have Christ, well, this verse should definitely be quoted.

You see, when I was young I had an understanding of what it meant to be a follower of Jesus.

· I knew I needed Jesus to take away my sins, and I knew I wanted to be in Heaven one day when I left this mortal coil.

· But, I had a long way to go to understand much more than that.

· What I had only meant that I had the before taken care of – my past sins were forgiven.

· I had the after taken care of – Heaven lies in my future.

· But what about the in between?

· As we all learn, there is a lot of in-between.

So, there are times in our lives when our gospel needs correcting; there are issues that arise because we have misunderstood what it means to belong to Jesus.

· One such time occurred in Acts…

· In Acts, Apollos and others were baptized under the gospel of John, but were told they represented an incomplete gospel.

Acts 18:24–28 NIV

24 Meanwhile a Jew named Apollos, a native of Alexandria, came to Ephesus. He was a learned man, with a thorough knowledge of the Scriptures. 25 He had been instructed in the way of the Lord, and he spoke with great fervor and taught about Jesus accurately, though he knew only the baptism of John. 26 He began to speak boldly in the synagogue. When Priscilla and Aquila heard him, they invited him to their home and explained to him the way of God more adequately. 27 When Apollos wanted to go to Achaia, the brothers and sisters encouraged him and wrote to the disciples there to welcome him. When he arrived, he was a great help to those who by grace had believed. 28 For he vigorously refuted his Jewish opponents in public debate, proving from the Scriptures that Jesus was the Messiah.

Without being baptized by the Holy Spirit, there is no salvation, no Christianity, and no understanding of what it means to live life for/in Christ.

Once Apollos was fully informed, he was able to vigorously (and correctly) deal with the jewish objections to Jesus, and prove that Jesus was the Messiah!

Sometimes, our own version of what it means to live for Christ needs adjustment; we are not experiencing the whole picture, or the whole life.

· For some, the tendency is sometimes to embrace the rules side of this life and get stuck in legalism that steals our joy, our freedom, and most horribly, any compassion we might otherwise have for people in their tough circumstances.

· For others, the tendency is to forget that God has any standards at all, and embrace a social justice gospel that seems right because there is compassion for others, but there is no holiness, and no standard of behavior that leads to permissiveness.

· In one life we are sinning by ignoring the needs and condition of people, and in the other life we are just sinning because it’s all about social justice and not our own behavior.

· The gospel Jesus announced caused people to run after him, climb trees to get a look at him, go without food just to stay around him, tear the roof off of houses just so they could get close to him.

· The gospel we preach today, if we’re not careful can mostly cause people's eyes to glaze over.

Allow the Holy Spirit to do a gut check in you today, to adjust your gospel if need be.

· MAKE SURE your gospel is complete!

· Resist sin AND help/love people!

CLOSE: I dealt with a young lady last week who used to be a part of my youth group over 15 years ago, and has since moved away who now has an understanding of what it means to be a Christian, but she didn’t have a FULL understanding; and it manifested this way:

· She was having trouble in her life, and she just didn’t understand why.

· You see, when she was young she made most people in her life miserable (including her then youth pastor); she was angry (with good reason, as with many young people), she was abusive to almost everyone in her life, and she was the typical rebellious teen, only she was better at it than anyone I’ve ever known, if you know what I mean.

· She has grown up now, she’s responsible, and she has even long since apologized to me for being so disrespectful and abusive all those years ago, and I believe she has truly changed.

· But while she has changed, and now she is married with a child, and, as the young people say today, she’s “adulting,” she can’t understand why she’s facing tough times, financially and physically.

· Her words to me were something like this, “I’m living right! I’m studying my Bible! I’m good to people! I’m a good mom and wife! Why did I get sick, and why do I have these financial troubles?”

· And I told her, “What you just described to me is a concept within Hindi, a false religion, called karma. It basically says that if you do good things, good things happen, but if you do bad things, bad things happen. And modern Christians have adopted this false doctrine from a false religion as scriptural. In fact,” I told her, “the Bible says the rain falls on the just and the unjust. We are a part of a world in motion, and if we step out in front of a truck on the interstate, we will likely die, and not be spared just because we are Christians. The impact of the semi on my body will not be diminished because I gave a homeless person holding a sign on the side of the road a dollar the other day” (I didn’t say that last part about the semi…)

· The function and mechanics of stepping out in front of a truck are not found in the spiritual realm, they are found in the realm of physics and biology.

· I told her, “You are sick because you have a disease, or condition that exists in this fallen world; you are having financial difficulty because you have been out of work while you were in the hospital, your insurance isn’t that great, and you have a bunch of hospital bills and prescriptions as a result. It’s not a spiritual issue; it’s a natural one.”

· She responded after a few minutes (because this was all on Messenger), “Huh, I guess you’re right.”

· Her understanding had increased.

· Where she was once in danger of being angry at God because of her false theology, she was now able to see it for what it was, the way of the world, and we ALL deal with it!”

· The end result was she went back to work, Susan and I helped her a bit with her prescriptions, and she’s still trying to overcome all the hurdles laced in her way, but at least now she doesn’t think it’s God’s fault.

· She said at one point, “You must think I’m horrible for the way I treated you and Susan all those years ago, and now I’m asking you for money.”

· I said, “No! I consider you a success story because you are a mom, a wife, and you’re trying to understand what it means to serve God in a pretty brutal, crumby world. And, you’re still allowing me to help you all these years later because God brought us together.”

· Here’s what’s spiritual about all that; here’s how God works (and it’s not always quick, think Moses’ call)…

· I was a terribly inexperienced youth pastor who was ill-equipped for her particular kind of teenage pain, and she was an angry young girl who didn’t understand why the world had dealt her the hand it had.”

· 16 years ago, or so, I wasn’t able to help her yet, and she wouldn’t have heard me through all her pain if I had been.

· All these years later, I was able to guide her to better understanding of what it means to be God’s.

· All these years later, I understood why God allowed me to go through wht I went through with this teen; I spent the first 3 months of my first full-time ministry position looking for a new job!

Is your gospel complete?

Are you viewing this life through the correct gospel lens?

Are you getting ALL OF IT right, and not just the parts that resonate most with you?

Allow God to complete His work in you as you read, study His Word, as you live out loud with other people of God, as you get ever closer and closer to Jesus.