A few months ago I invited some friends to join us for worship and study at Clarion.  The husband’s response was interesting.  He said, “You know, Gary, we’ve heard all the stories, and just how many different ways can you preach something anyway?  So on the basis of spending most of our adult lives going to church, we just aren’t doing it now.”  In essence what he was saying to me was, “Been there, done that.”

Really?  I must confess I went through my own season of church absenteeism after I retired from City View Christian Fellowship.  But I also think I see the error in my absence and, perhaps, in the error of my friend’s response.  It is simply this—we all need the gospel consistently shared and preached to us. 

Paul is writing to believers in Rome and says, “I am so eager to preach the gospel also to you who are in Rome” (Romans 1:15).  Paul believed that these believers needed to hear the gospel.  Why?  It’s because the gospel is so counter-intuitive, so counter-cultural.  The gospel doesn’t always mesh with out common sense.  And the gospel sure doesn’t mesh with the world system that bombards us daily.  It’s like we need to hear it again and again to keep our stability, our spiritual balance. 

Take the gospel of grace for example.  I’m sixty-eight and have been a minister of this gospel for forty-plus years.  If anyone should have a grip on grace, it should be I.  Even so, I still lose sight of the gospel fact that God’s grace is unconditional.  It’s hard for me to wrap my brain around that truth.  Everything I see on this side trumpets conditional grace, kind of a quid-quo-pro approach that suggests when you scratch my back, and I’ll scratch yours.  I need to hear the gospel of grace to reinforce my unconditional tendencies.  I find that when I do I get refreshed and reinforced with God’s grace, and I gain a sense of freedom, peace, and thankfulness that is not always operating at full capacity.

Our individual stories have been shaped by many things over the years.  Various events, particular influences, and certainly people have tailored our story—some for good, some not so good.  One of the biggest influencers upon our story is sin.  Sin is so deceptive, so radically destructive that we have an affinity with guilt, shame, anxiety, condemnation, self-centeredness, ad infinitim, ah naseum.  As the gospel of truth permeates these areas, they lessen in intensity and authority over us.  Of course, this all takes time—time to marinate in the word of God, time to receive and apply the gospel.  And guess what, I’m still working stuff out after sixty-eight years!  I suspect I still will be when I kiss this world good-bye and enter into the complete reality of the gospel.  But in the meantime, I need to hear it again and apply and reapply.  I’m thankful that God gently brings us along.  I seem to be one of his slower ones.

I need to be reminded again and again “that there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” I need to hear again those words that he loves me unconditionally.  I need to be challenged to remember that those who love Jesus will keep his commandments (focus on the relationship dummy).  I need the Spirit and the Word’s correction when I get off the path.  So maybe that’s why the Hebrew writer admonishes us to “forsake not the assembling of yourselves together.”  Been there, done that?  Yeap!

I think I’ll go to church next Sunday!

Stay focused my friend,

Gary