Matt Chandler on The Gospel at the Right Now Conference

Last weekend, I, along with a few of my coworkers, attended the Right Now Conference in Irving.  We have returned knowing that things can’t go on as they have been, that there really is real need for real change within the American Church.  I will be writing more here about what we heard at the conference, partially as a means of helping myself to process everything, and partly because we need to be pointing each other back to the narrow path that leads to life.

For now, though, I want to add my recollections to some notes taken by Jayson John (thanks, John, for posting this!) on his blog as he was listening to Matt Chandler talk about the Gospel.  First, please go and read his post.

Have you read it?  Okay…here I go.

1 Cor 15:1-6 Paul tells them to return to the gospel, this is of first importance

One of the many disasters occurring in the church in Corinth was that one of the people there was having sex with his father’s wife, and everyone was cool with it.  The Corinthian church was becoming immoral, and Paul’s response to this was to tell them that the Gospel was of first importance.  It wasn’t of first importance to tell them about their need to turn from sin.  That was second, having first gone through the Gospel.

The scary part is not that our wickedness is wicked. The scary part is that our good is nothing but filthy rags to him, it’s still wickedness.

I’ve heard this a million times, but it always hits me with force.  On the day that I feel like I’ve been really good, really Christ-like, and squeaky clean, feeding poor homeless children dying of AIDS and adopting 5 of them, witnessing to 70 people who all gave their lives to Christ, healing 3 people of cancer (not that I’ve ever had that day), on that day, all of my righteous acts were as filthy rags – or to translate the greek of that verse literally, my righteous acts were as used tampons.  That’s how holy God is.  My best stuff is offensive to His holiness.

Jesus Christ comes and reconciles all things to God, and when Gods work of reconciliation is complete all things will be as he originally intended.

Jesus’ work of reconciliation doesn’t only apply to human souls, but to all of God’s creation.  Colossians 1:20 points out that Jesus died “to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.”

It’s not just about meeting felt needs. What is going to heal dirty wicked hearts? The Cross!

Otherwise it’s like taking a glass of water and throwing it in the ocean.  Then you say the ocean is now clean and billions can come and drink from it.  It’s the same thing if we are meeting people’s felt needs without bringing them to the cross.

It’s not just about giving them food clothing and shelter.  It’s not just about helping them through tough times and counseling them.  It’s not just about being a friend to them.  It’s about the gospel, and that is what will transform lives.

Matt’s point was that we do a lot of things and talk about a lot of things that are tangential to the Gospel.  He  said that if you have to put a word in front of the Gospel (like “social Gospel”), then you’ve left the Gospel.  The Church can find itself in the middle of a grenade war in which you have people on one side who insist that we need to be all about social justice, feeding the poor, curing diseases, but not caring much about doctrine and theology, and people on the other side who care a lot about cleaning our act up, about repenting, about knowing your theology well, but who wind up not loving the people around them and meeting their needs.  One side wants to fix the problems of poverty, sickness, and loneliness.  The other wants to fix the problems of immorality and heresy.

Immorality and heresy find their sources in the sinful condition of the human heart.  Poverty, sickness, and loneliness find their sources in the sinful condition of the human heart.  We rebelled against God, we left Him, and we took all of creation with us.  Everything is messed up and has fallen short of the glory of God – so much so that your very best efforts are offensiveness to God.  The message of the Gospel is that Jesus left His throne to hang on a Cross, to take upon Himself all of our offensiveness and disgust, to absorb the wrath of God for us, and to give us His righteousness in exchange.

We can fix externals without Christ.  We can feed the poor, we can stop cussing, we can give medicine to people, we can learn theology.  We can’t fix the unseen brokenness that separates everything from God, and unless that happens, everything else is futility.  Only God can fix that, and He did, and He is.  That’s the Gospel.

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