. Feeling gutsy? Spencer Perkins wrote the following: “Christianity, doesn’t require any power when its only challenge is doing something that already comes naturally. But it will take a powerful gospel—a gospel with guts—to enable us to love across all the barriers we erect to edify our own kind and protect us from our insecurities.”
On Sabbath we continued to unpack the disciple’s call to love like Jesus by confronting the issue of racism. Rewind to 1 John 4:7-21 and see what a gospel with guts looks like. If the Gospel is not strong enough to change us—to cause us to love fellow believers—what would make an unbeliever think the Gospel was worth anything at all?
What kind of gospel do most see when it comes to race, politics, or religion? A gospel with guts has no room for racism. It also allows for no division in the body of Christ on the basis of these things. (See Eph. 2:14; 1 Cor. 10:17; Gal. 3:28.)
To the extent that you want to separate yourself from those of another race, class or creed, or harbor any ill will or malice toward your fellow beings, you show that you do not belong to Christ. Prejudice and racist views let everyone know who are NOT Christ’s disciples.
Love requires more than political correctness; more than tolerance. It requires death to self and submission to yet another command of Christ: “You must be born again.” A Gospel with Guts goes beyond surface “tokenism” and produces a new creation.
Selling the new creation short is why our Gospel has no guts. We haven’t fully understood the plan and power of redemption. The goal of redemption is not limited to the forgiveness of sin, but includes the restoration of broken humanity. God’s purpose was not just to pay the fine, but to remove all evidence of criminality from the record. God doesn’t just remove the lien (the legal claim satan has against us), but restores us to our original glory before the fall. The greatest glory to be restored is His character in us, and the oneness He prayed for His church to have (John 17).
Racism, classism, sexism, and all the rest, are overthrown by the blood of the Lamb, as a new race of people rise from the tomb with Christ–
“a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people” (1 Peter 2:9). The old ways of thinking, the old loyalties, the old grudges, the old ways of relating to those different from us are passed away!
The purpose of redemption is “to bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ” (Eph. 1:10). Christ “is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood shed on the cross (Col. 1:18-20).
Will Christians of all ethnicities and political persuasions have the courage to love one another as Christ loved us? Will we all go beyond “thoughts and prayers” and “not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth”?
This gospel of guts, though, is for all disciples. No one gets a pass when it comes to Christlikeness. To promote hate on the one hand, or to retaliate against it with violence on the other, is to mock and ultimately deny the One who, though “He was afflicted,…opened not His mouth” (Isa. 54:7).
Here are some ways to start living a gospel with guts:
- Confess your own prejudice. Be honest enough with God to admit your biases and insecurities.
- Seek to understand even before you are understood. Listen, without defensiveness, to people’s stories. Hear their pain without judgment.
- Bless those who curse you. Do not return evil for evil in person or on the Internet.
- Reject all forms of hate speech. Don’t use slurs yourself, and don’t sanction them by your silence when they are used on others. (See Eph. 4:29.)
- Spend productive time with others of a different ethnic or socio-economic group.
- Defend the defenseless. Don’t tolerate injustice to any group. As Dr. King said, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”
- As Christ forgave you, forgive.
Follow Jesus and live a gospel with guts!—Pastor Randy
