^ABOVE: Last Thursday night Josh wore one of our new t-shirts to the Derek Webb and Sandra McCracken Concert in Lexington, Kentucky.

>RIGHT: Here is the front of the shirt.

I’ve been toying with some conversation starter shirts all summer and finally decided to get a couple made. I have been wearing one that says, “I Deserve Eternal Consious Torture!” and getting inquisitive looks! I have a few more ideas that I’ll roll out in the months to come. These are just shirts that I would personally wear.

If you’re interested in purchasing one you can check them out here.

Static licked around Julie’s fingers as her hand pressed against the television screen. Desperate for life change, her response to the evangelist signaled a sincere desire to try this Jesus thing out. “If you want true happiness, friend, won’t you just put your hand on mine and repeat these words,” he invited. “Jesus, I believe that you died for me and rose again. I accept you into my life. Amen. {dramatic pause} Friend, if you said that prayer with me, you are saved. Believe it and begin to see real happiness in your life.” Julie wanted to be happy again.

Right before our eyes, what passes as “the gospel” in America’s pulpits is in reality the good news of life enhancement. Increasingly, grand promises are made that appeal to man’s insatiable desire for self-gratification. Billboards, neon church signs, and flashy websites proudly tout sermons like “Spice-up Your Sex Life!”, “Get Out of Debt”, and “How to Deal With Difficult People.” A word of advice… grab an airplane sickness bag or learn to enjoy the sickening sweet taste of the modern gospel as we look at a few case studies from across America.

First up is The Revolution Church of Canton, Georgia. Pastor Gary Lamb’s current attempt to be relevant is a sermon series called “All In”. It is a not-so-cute play on the Texas Hold’em ultimate bluff of all or nothing. In the first sermon, “What To Do When Life Deals You A Bad Hand,” Pastor Lamb challenged the congregation to invite their friends because “it’s a party every week” at Revolution. Instead of simply preaching God’s Word, the time set aside for equipping the Church has been usurped by a gambling metaphor! In fact, on September 26th, the series concluded with a Church-wide Texas Hold’em Tournament at the nearby Jocks and Jills Bar. At least they had the restraint to not host the event in the sanctuary!

According to Pastor Lamb’s blog, on any given Sunday, other church planters sit in on his services to see how it’s done. Save the gas. Here is the winning formula for pre-mega church pastors: Step one, appeal to man’s flesh by transforming the pulpit and platform into a physical example of the primary illustration. Go all out and dress the part. If it’s Texas Hold’em dress like a dealer! Step two, generate buzz for the new series by shooting a video on location. A casino will do. Be sure to hand out customized playing cards with the Church’s logo on it as well. Step three, draw applications that key in on segmented portions of the series theme. Perhaps each card suit represents different types of people. Finally, step four, keep all those “Bible Thumpers” at bay by quoting a verse. “If I be lifted up, I will draw [all types of people cards] to myself!”

Next, meet Pastor Cole Phillips, and his Connection Church over in Kyle, Texas. Pastor Cole is a church planting coach with Purpose Driven Planting (PDP). The goal of PDP is to “guide other church leaders to start healthy, thriving churches.” Apparently his current idea of a “healthy” church is to abandon Scriptural authority and devote four Sundays this last September to overcoming obstacles in a bad employment situation. The sermon series entitled “The Office: Work Doesn’t Have to Suck” promises to help listeners identify their perfect job, deal with crummy co-workers, show their faith at work, and be successful on the job. What a promise! Who would not want a piece of that?

The underlying principles behind the slick efforts of pastors like this are twofold. First, the purpose of the weekly gathering of saints is primarily evangelism. The thought is that if we make our services attractive to the world they will come and eventually meet Jesus. At best this is a bait and switch tactic and at worst they are never truly confronted with the barbs of the Gospel and receive false assurance of salvation. Second, the more people that come to church the more successful it is. Somewhere along the line validation for a successful ministry has drifted from the fidelity of the message to a head count.

The final example comes from Pastor Gene Wolfenbarger’s The Gathering Church of Sevierville, TN. He stunned his congregation last week by mailing out fifty thousand flyers inviting the community to come hear him preach a sermon series called “Red Hot Sex!” He said in a CNN interview that “The bottom line is that if I had put ‘Holiness’ here or I put ‘Have a Good Marriage,’ no one would have showed up.” There is no doubt that “sex” as a marketing ploy works. Sex does sell. It is the ultimate appeal to man’s flesh and as a means to pew stuffing, it is clearly on the table. Check out the sermon titles in this four week series: “Sex! What Makes It Red Hot”; “A Crowded Bed”; “Relighting the Fire”; and “Honey, I Don’t Have a Headache”.

Like Pastor Wolfenbarger, more and more pastors are buying into church growth models that de-emphasize the Gospel barbs of God’s wrath, eternal conscious torture and repentance in favor of self-improvement. The what-do-I-get-out-of-the-deal life enhancement gospel is proudly offered on the altar of relevancy Sunday after Sunday.

Isn’t this precisely what the Apostle Paul warned us would happen in his second letter to Timothy? “For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths.” (2 Timothy 4:3-4 ESV)

17He said to him the third time, “Simon, son of John, do you love Me?” Peter was grieved because He said to him the third time, “Do you love Me?” And he said to Him, “Lord, You know all things; You know that I love You.” Jesus said to him, ” Tend My sheep. 18 “Truly, truly, I say to you, when you were younger, you used to gird yourself and walk wherever you wished; but when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands and someone else will gird you, and bring you where you do not wish to go.” 19 Now this He said, signifying by what kind of death he would glorify God. And when He had spoken this, He said to him, ” Follow Me!”

John 21:17-19

“The only account that we have of the martyrdom of the Apostle Peter is from the early Christian writer Hegesippus. His account includes a miraculous appearance by Christ. When Peter was old (John 21:18), Nero planned to put him to death. When the disciples heard of this, they begged Peter to flee the city [said to be Rome], which he did. But when he got to the city gate, he saw Christ walking toward him. Peter fell to his knees and said, “Lord, where are you going?” Christ answered, “I’ve come to be crucified again.” By this, Peter understood that it was his time to suffer the death of Jesus which would glorify God (John 21:19). So he went back to the city. After being captured and taken to his place of martyrdom, he requested that he be crucified in an upside down position because he did not consider himself worthy to be crucified in the same position as his Lord.”

Fox’s Book of Martyrs, Page 7.

The goal of these posts have been to tackle just a few cliches that are common in hopes of drawing attention to our language that it may reform. Because our language about the gospel has become less than accurate in portraying the truth. This was not to be a novel of cliches but more like the introduction to that novel. There are many more out there that could use addressing but for those of you reading this, you probably understand the problem and are also seeking to correct them in your life and the life of your local church. I think it will have to start there. I heard all of these cliches from pastors or from people who heard them from their pastors. So with that in mind, I would like to leave you with a quote from Martin Luther. In the context of this quote, Luther is talking about studying greek and hebrew but I couldn’t help but think of these cliches as I read it. I think that it applies to this topic as well. God bless!

“Languages are the scabbard that contain the sword of the Spirit; they are the casket which contains the priceless jewels of antique thought; they are the vessel that holds the wine; and as the gospel says, they are the baskets in which the loaves and fishes are kept to feed the multitude….As dear as the gospel is to us all, let us as hard contend with it’s language.”

Cliche #3: “Ask Jesus into your heart”

This cliche was referenced in a comment by Timm so we will go ahead and take a look at it.

Try to imagine what it would be like to being standing in front of the apostle Peter as he explains what just happened at the day of Pentecost. Peter gives a great explaination and then you ask him, “what must I do to be saved?” And Peter responds, “ask Jesus into your heart”.

Now, Peter didn’t respond this way but what if he had? I am not sure of the origin of this cliche but the longer I think about it, the less I get it. In western society, the heart is the seat of the emotions. The old testament writers would call this seat of the emotions the bowels. Now that could ruin a lot of good love songs! But what is the biblical response to Christ? Is it to ask Jesus into our hearts?

This always confused me as a child. I really thought that Jesus would come and live in my heart, the blood-pumping organ. I was quite a bit older before I realized that such a thing is silly. I even thought that if someone had a heart transplant that they would have to ask Jesus into their new heart. Why would I think like that? Any kid with half a brain would know that Jesus doesn’t physically take up residence in your organs. As silly as that sounds, it is only the reaction to a less-than-clear cliche. In reality, my conclusion to that statement is no more absurd than the statement itself. Jesus and the apostles never responded with “ask Jesus into your heart”. It was always, in some form or fashion, “repent and believe the gospel”.

I must admit, I struggled for a long time with this phrase. I can remember telling people that in order to be saved they must “ask Jesus into their heart” all the while thinking “whatever that means…”. I think we need to start using biblical language if we are going to get the gospel right. Every culture can understand repentance and faith. It just takes some explaining and it may take time. Cliches seem to be ways of shortening the gospel. But they do not just shorten it, they rob it of it’s truth.

Cliché #2: “Doing business with God”

This one is not as prevalent as a “relationship with Jesus” but you have most likely heard it at some point. Again, the point of these posts are not to be critical of those who mean well but to encourage us to use better language when we communicate the truths of the gospel. It is so easy to use this terminology but we can’t assume that people know what we mean even if they have grown up in the Bible belt.

What does it mean to do business with God? What does the idea of a business deal portray? Well, I think of two men in suits sitting at a table negotiating in hopes of reaching an agreement. To me, it portrays two men on equal ground with different assets that they will bring to the table in order to persuade the other. Kind of a “quid-pro-quo” or “I’ll scratch your back, you scratch mine” mentality. I will give you something if you will give me something. That sort of thing.

The problem with using this language is that we have nothing to negotiate with. We don’t have any assets. Sin is all we have and it is not an asset. In fact, we are liable for a host of problems because of it. We are spiritually bankrupt. Our sin has served us an eviction notice and we are trespassers. Our spirits have been foreclosed from birth. We have nothing to do business with, we are beggars.

Here is an objection that sometimes will come when you speak like this: “We offer God our praise, worship, obedience, and life. We do have something to offer. We are not completely in the red. We can bring him more glory.” To this I respond with Jesus’ own words in John 17. “Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed.” The reality is, God is completely glorious without us. We do not add to his glory. He was completely glorious before this world was made and he will be completely glorious when he comes again and wraps things up. The salvation of our souls, our worship of him, and our obedience to him are expressions of his glory by grace, they do not add to it.

To tell someone to “do business with God” is to speak an impossible task. What is meant by that phrase (I think) is to repent of our sins and submit the Lordship of Christ. But that cliché falls short as most of our language will. Again, I am speaking to myself as much as anybody. I hope these posts are helpful. I don’t think that we can spend too much time thinking about how to communicate the gospel clearly.

Something that has been bothering me a while is the language we use to communicate the truths of Christianity. Those common cliches. It bothers me because I hear them come out of my mouth and then ask myself, “Did that make any sense?” or “Where did we ever get that phrase?” “Did those words best communicate what I was trying to say?” So, with that in mind I am going to be posting a series of thoughts on some of these cliches in hopes that it will spur you on to re-think how you talk about the gospel. Because honestly, most of what we often say doesn’t make much sense. I do not wish to offend you if you use these cliches but I pray that you will take this in the spirit it is offered.

Cliche 1: “A relationship with Jesus”

I wanted to start with this one because it is probably the most common. When we share the gospel with non-believers, “a relationship with Jesus” makes absolutely no sense. They are already in a relationship with Jesus. All mankind stands in relation to Jesus. Some have a relationship of grace and some have a realtionship of impending wrath. Regarldess of who you are, you stand in relation to Jesus in one form or another. Now I know what is intended by this phrase and it is describing our realtion to Christ after conversion. But let me share this true story with you:

A friend of mine (Susie from here on out) was describing how hard it was to convince her friend (Jennifer from here on out) of needing a relationship with Jesus. Susie said that she couldn’t make Jennifer understand that. Jennifer had grown up in a Church of Christ congregation and believed that what she needed was to be a good person. Susie told me that when she talked to Jennifer about a relationship with Jesus, Jennifer never could quite grasp what she was talking about. There was no mention of sin and repentance and the need for the righteousness of Christ being credited to her life, there was only talk about generic faith and a relationship with Jesus. “you need a relationship with Jesus”. Doesn’t make much sense does it? How could it?

I must confess that I have used that cliche as much as anybody. I am speaking to myself here. Scripture never exhorts us to call people to a “relationship with Jesus” but to call sinners to faith and repentance and joyful, cross-centered obedience. I am deeply humbled as I sit and think about all the times that I attempted to share the gospel but couldn’t figure out why this square peg wouldn’t fit into those round holes. Praise God for his sovereign mercy! J. I. Packer once said something to the affect that “God honors a needle of truth in a haystack of lies”. I pray for two things for us this morning. That God would teach us better language to communicate the truth and that he would indeed bless the needles of truth found in our cliches. God Bless.