Leadership Development Models (Leadership Series 3 of 6)

In this article, we're going to be taking a look at leadership development models. We're seeking to answer the question, how does a church leader develop greater personal maturity and ministry effectiveness?

There are several models that have been developed, two that actually are focusing on the same practical applications would be one by Ted Ward called the Fence Model, one by Robert Clinton called the Railroad Track model. Both of these models are communicating three very fundamental dynamics that are almost always a part of effective leadership development.

We'll use Clinton's model, the Railroad Track, for this session. Those three dynamics are number one, instruction. This is either in a formal or non-formal environment where you learn concepts or ideas or principles or doctrines. The second dynamic is experience. This is actually being in the field doing ministry experience, and then this really the most significant because you can actually have instruction and no experience. Or you can have experience and no instruction, or you can have both of them going on at the same time but not connecting.

That's often the problem with traditional field education. What's being learned in the classroom, one set of concepts and ideas, and yet, the experience on the field is not connected to the concepts or the theology or whatever the principles are in the classroom. And so, the real key dynamic here is the idea of periodic reflection and application with a mentor or a coach or a supervisor, and this doesn't necessarily need to be one person. It could be several.

But the concept is, periodic times where, to use another metaphor, someone helps you connect the dots between the theory and the reality of your experience. You may recall my reference to a quote I like very much from John Frame, "Theology is application. If it does not edify, it is worthless." And the concept here would instruction in theory or concepts or ideas or doctrine that is not actually applied to life, and ministry is worthless.

Now what's interesting is when studies have been done of Jesus' development of the disciples, it's very, very clear that as Robert Coleman says this first quote, "His concern was not with programs to reach the multitudes, but with men whom the multitudes would follow." And there's much to learn from his methodology of developing leaders. Coleman goes on to say, "Having called his men, Jesus made a practice of being with them. This was the essence of his training program, just letting his disciples follow him."

Coleman goes on to say, "Knowledge was gained by association before it was understood by explanation." And then one more excerpt from his book 'Master Plan of Evangelism', "If we do not make the journey from theories and ideals to concrete situations, then the concrete situations will be lost under a smog of words." You can see here that, although Coleman might not even be familiar with this model, he is making the same point, and that is, knowledge must be connected with experience normally under a mentor or a coach or a supervisor in the field. 

Now, it's very interesting when you look at this passage in Acts 4. It's somewhat striking as you think of education and ministry preparation. In Acts 4 we read, "Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John," and now note this, "and perceived that they were uneducated, common men, they were astonished." And then notice this next phrase, and or but, it could translated, "They recognized that they had been with Jesus." What a contrast between those who are formally educated and have not been with Jesus, and those who are uneducated and have, showing the outpouring of God's Holy Spirit on them by their boldness.

I shared with you earlier an ancient Chinese proverb that also taps into these dynamics, bears repeating here, "I do, you watch. I do, you help. You do, and I help. You do, and I watch." Another Chinese proverb I want to share with you here that applies, a new one in this series, "I hear, and I forget. I see, and I remember. I do, and I understand."

Leadership Development Methods (Leadership Series 2 of 6)

In this article, we are going to be taking a look at leadership development methods. Within the field of education, a very common differentiation is made between three methods of learning or three methods of education. One is formal educational methods. The other one would be non-formal and the third one is informal. Let's look just briefly at each of these categories.

Formal education, this is usually related to a school, college, university. Formal education is, it's normally full time, not always but normally. It's long term. There's normally some form of accreditation with admission standards and requirements that need to be met with a standard curriculum. It's usually leading to some kind of a diploma or a degree that someone gets, that's offered through the school. It's normally content centered and it can be very costly.

Now formal education is usually seen as isolated from the student's normal context. It's primarily teaching and curriculum centered and highly governed. This type of learning is the type of learning you'd normally think about in schools, colleges, universities, graduate schools and other educational institutions.

A second method of education or learning is non-formal. Now, non-formal education is normally part time, as opposed to formal being full time. Instead of long term, it's short term. It is not accredited whereas formal is accredited. There's easy access. There's not a barrier in terms of not having the credentials or the background necessary to be received into a school or an educational program.

It's personalized in terms of the curriculum and the methodology. It's usually offered through distance education, through conferences, seminars, apprenticeships and it usually occurs in the learner's normal context. Again, in contrast with formal education where it's usually not, and it is affordable whereas formal education is usually expensive. The key point here, just as before is that, it's primarily learner or learning-centered, where formal education is primarily teacher or teaching or curriculum centered.

Now the third category is informal education methods. Informal methods are unstructured. They're spontaneous. They're highly relational. They're a way of life. There is no curriculum or credits. It doesn't lead to any diploma or a degree. It's just simply a teacher, a mentor working with someone that needs help and needs development with a skill or some area of life, and the teacher, the mentor is simply someone with more experience. It's highly learner and learning-centered like non-formal education, but the focus here, there is no program at all. It is just simply a focus on walking through life with someone and learning in time and in life, in light of contexts that arise.

Now this was obviously the primary educational method of Jesus that he used in the training of his disciples. There was teaching. There were times that he would preach and teach to crowds, but yet it seems like, from the scriptures, that most of the learning of the disciples was in what we would call an informal method process.

Now there are times when the lines between each of these methods of learning are just not that clear. They can be blurred. In other words, it isn't always as cut and dry as it seems, but these definitions, I think can help you have a general idea of each method of learning and impact how you learn and develop as leaders, as well as how you help develop leaders in your ministry. Now finally, I want you to note how these three educational methods can be seen as three developmental training levels of a teacher.

Now notice here, level one is teaching content to the learner. You see the teacher at level one bringing content as the arrow goes from the lower right to the upper left. This is curriculum centered. Then level two, as you see a significant turn being made back to the right. That would be facilitating. This is when the teacher moves from teaching content to the learner to facilitating the learner's needs. This would be learner centered or non-formal, where the first would be more formal.

Then level three, the next turn would be the teacher really taking on more of the role of a mentor, accompanying the learner, walking through life. That would be informal. So if you look at this now through the earlier grid, you can see level one is formal, with the focus on content. Level two is non-formal, with the focus on the learner and learning and informal, the third level, walking through life.

So it's very significant to see how this turning of the corner takes place when, as you can think of yourself as a teacher, you learn to shift from level one, that is merely focusing on teaching content to someone, transmitting information. That's the curriculum centered, to level two, facilitating, becoming learner centered. Then to level three, accompanying or walking through life as Jesus did with the disciples. Now I want you to note how in all of these shifts, you see a shift from the formal, level one, to the non-formal, level two, to the informal, level three.

Now forms of all three learning methods are normally needed in developing leaders holistically. It would be a misunderstanding to think that one of these levels or one of these methods of learning was actually superior to the other. They are all just different methods that need to be used appropriately and most effectively. It could be summed up in a, in a sense in the old Chinese ancient proverb that the essence of informal learning is "I do and you watch. I do, you help. You do, I help." And then, "You do and I watch." Then what's often forgotten is the last step, which is "You do and another watches."

Leadership Development Principles (Leadership Series 1 of 6)

Leadership Development Principles Part 1

 In this article, we're going to be surveying seven leadership development principles. One is the concept of the sovereignty of God in leadership development. The next one is the primacy of holistic development. Then we'll take a look at the importance of Christian community, I'm referring here to the Church. And then the value of extracurricular learning, that's learning outside of a classroom or outside of a seminar, a teaching context. The next one, the need for individualized learning, the concept here is one size does not fit all. The need for relationship learning, this is the critical importance of what's sometimes called apprenticeship or having a mentor or having a coach. Then the need for intentionality, the need for intentional learning, having clearly defined, measurable outcomes and means and processes, moving you toward those outcomes that are critical for being an effective leader.

Let's begin with a look at the concept of the sovereignty of God. There's just not a checklist or a magic template for developing leaders. I wish there were, and I'm sure you do too, but everyone just does not become a mature, well-equipped pastor or church leader, church planter, a mature minister of the Gospel in the same way. God in his sovereignty sometimes moves in some truly mysterious ways, in the way he raises up emerging leaders and equips them to be godly and prepared for very effective ministry in his Church, sometimes with no formal education at all, it's just amazing. And sometimes with great degrees of formal education and training, it's across the spectrum.

Nevertheless, there are some valuable generalizations and principles, that's what we're looking at here, which can and which should be made and understood and grasped by leaders to understand their own development as a leader, as well as to be effective in raising up other leaders, learning what the best means are for equipping leaders in the church. Here, the big idea is that there really is no checklist, there is no set of steps that you follow, it's in the sovereignty of God, but there are still principles and generalizations that will greatly benefit leaders if they understand them.

Let's look at that, the first one being the primacy of holistic development. Now the three training competency categories represented here of knowledge and affections and behavior, are three inseparably interwoven capacities or faculties of the human soul. John Owen called these components or different parts of the human soul a trinity of faculties. Knowledge, that would be synonymous with understanding. The concept of affections, that would be the heart of motivation. Behaviors would be the will, volition, acting and reacting.

Now, all three of these human capacities need to be vitally and very intentionally engaged in the development of mature, effective church leaders. The term heart in Scripture, and character, often used in discourse, should be understood as being primarily synonymous, as overarching terms that encompass all three of these faculties, all three of these emphases. Now the affirmation of this doing and knowing and being paradigm is not intended to imply that all three of these faculties of the human soul receive equal emphasis in the biblical portrayal of leaders in the church.

In fact, the biblical texts stress most often the primacy of personal character. We see this especially prominent in the apostle Paul's description of an overseer or an elder in 1 Timothy 3:1-7, Titus 1:5-9, and several other passages in the New Testament, the concept here being that a character is primary in leadership development, not merely as is often thought just someone's behavior or just someone's knowledge or just someone's heart passion or something like that.

But the affirmation of the primacy of character in leadership development also does not mean that Christian character can or should somehow be developed apart from growth in theology, which would be knowing in ministry practice which is doing. For Christian leaders to be true theologians, they must be godly people. We should not understand theology as just one of the things that leaders must know, but what they must learn to do in the context of their ongoing personal and ministry development. John Frame wrote, "Theology is application. If it does not edify, it is worthless."

The next principle is the importance of Christian community. Now the Lord normally develops leaders in the community, more particularly in the community of the church. This is why the development of ministry leaders must include a very vital substantive ongoing experience of Christian community in the church with a high priority on the leader's development with the leaders in that church, and the members in that church, a real sharing of lives. Leaders can only learn how to lead by being in a learning community, a local church, where they can actually experience biblical standards that cover all their relationships. That's because learning like most of life is essentially a social process where individuals challenge and affirm each other, and often have conflict and need to experience resolution all in an ongoing relational context. And so this is a component that must be central.

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Leadership Development Principles Part 2

The leader needs to understand the value of extracurricular learning, that God normally develops leaders as they are leading. The testing of a leader's giftedness, the affirmation of God's call and the ongoing development of an emerging leader's gifts all occur best and should be primarily developed in the context of ministry.

Now, many emerging leaders who have the privilege of attending a Bible institute, a college, or a seminary still need to understand that they will normally learn- and they usually say this, often years later- as much or more in preparation for ministry outside the classroom as inside, especially when they're seeking to apply outside what they've learned inside.

This is why it's so important for church leaders preparing for ministry in a school environment, in an educational institution to always also have a very clearly-defined and administered, we might call it, an extracurricular learning plan for the holistic development, and we'll come back to that later.

The next concept is the need for individualized learning. The personal background and ministry experience of emerging leaders very broadly. So, some students begin at the same time alongside other students preparing for the ministry as a church leader, and they have a very high degree of personal and spiritual maturity. Others arrive at the same point of preparation for ministry in a college or an institute or a seminary and they're very immature personally, spiritually, theologically, often relationally. And some students have formal training before they come for training to be a church leader. Others have years of experience in the business world.

Each individual student is unique and is therefore best equipped for ministry by education and learning processes that can be as individualized as reasonably possible. This, again, is the concept that one size does not fit all because everyone's coming with unique wounds, unique background, and unique experiences and therefore ... There are some baseline similarities but there are often many more unique needs that need to be addressed specifically and individually for effective leadership development.

The next to last principle is the need for relational learning. Very frequently, as seen in Scripture and in life and subsequent history of the church, God seems to normally use mature leaders to nurture the growth of emerging leaders. An example would be the Apostle Paul's relationship with younger Timothy. Now this is not to denigrate the value of learning from one's peers, that's important. In fact, peer mentoring is also a very effective way to develop emerging leaders. It's one of the most neglected way. Studies are showing significant learning, almost equal to learning from subject matter experts and teachers from emerging leaders that are peers.

But people normally grow in wisdom through the guidance of those who are more experienced. You know, it's interesting, in previous periods of history, very natural, relational, and vocational networks made very normal the younger, less-experienced people to always be entering in some form of apprenticeship or being mentored. It was just a way of life and a way of culture. That's just not that common today.

The bottom line here is that leaders do not develop in a vacuum. Instead, leaders are most often developed in the ongoing give and take of face to face relationships, especially those who have gone before them and who have been in effective ministry pouring back into them.

And the last one, I'm just calling the need for intentional learning. Developing leaders in knowledge and skill and character the way we've described it here can be accomplished most effectively when the goal of that development is very clearly and succinctly expressed as a part of an intentional plan- and I'm choosing my words carefully- with measurable outcomes, and this is whether it's written or not. The more precisely the final product, we might say, of a mature, Christian leader can be described, the better emerging leaders can be nurtured toward that end.

The path toward the goal can be traversed if the point at which the training of an emerging leader begins, determined by an assessment of any sort, and then ends described in terms of some measurable criteria, is more clearly recognized. Now, the problem is that in many or most programs for developing church leaders, the final product is just, quite frankly, not very clearly defined. It's the old adage, you aim at nothing and you hit it every time. Worse than that, the process that is supposed to lead to that final product of a mature, well-equipped church leader, just frankly, too often fails to do that.

 It's been said that the goal of teaching is to make learning possible. The real question is not whether teaching is taking place when you're in a classroom or when you see a classroom, but whether learning is taking place, and whether that learning is truly equipping church leaders to do the work of the ministry that they've been called by God to do.

Methods of Evangelism (Evangelism Series 6 of 6)

Preaching Evangelism

John Stott writes, “When we contrast much of contemporary evangelism with the Apostle Paul's, its shallowness is immediately shown up.”

Years ago, Tim Keller did a very helpful study of the evangelistic methods of the Apostle Paul in the book of Acts. We’ll draw from some of these key insights below.

Let's start with what Keller calls Paul’s “preaching evangelism” seen in Acts 17:17 where Paul is shown reasoning in the synagogue with the Jews and the God-fearing Greeks. We see a similar evangelistic method of Paul used by him in both Athens and Corinth, where he always began in synagogue worship because of his core commitment to win his people, bringing the gospel to the “Jew first” (Rom 10), and also where he focused on winning the God-fearing Greeks who converted to Judaism. These were the religious seekers of Paul’s day.

The application that's often missed today is the significant role of public corporate worship and preaching in evangelism. Many are understandably hesitant to see the public worship of believers as a primary evangelistic methodology because Lord’s Day worship is primarily for believers.

This often raises controversial questions regarding whether we should be more seeker-oriented or believer-oriented in worship? But the real question is whether or not the Gospel is being faithfully presented in the worship and preaching.

This is because the biblical gospel is good news for both believers and unbelievers. To unbelievers it’s good news that they can be delivered from sin's penalty. It's also good news for believers that they can be delivered from sin's domineering power over their lives. It's fundamentally the same message. The gospel presents a person, the person and work of Jesus, and we invite all our hearers to come and trust in him, that that they might be delivered, as they draw near to him in repentance and faith.

This is why the call for us to decide whether we are seeker-oriented or believer-oriented in worship and preaching is illegitimate. If our worship and preaching are truly gospel-centered, they will transform both seekers and believers.

The question is often asked, “What does a sermon look like today with both the believer and the seeker in the public worship?”

Let’s look at a brief example in preaching Ephesians 6, “Fathers, do not exasperate your children, but raise them in the nurture and the admonition of the Lord.” When preaching this text our task is to communicate God’s expectations of fathers. What is God’s standard for fathers? It’s perfection. God calls fathers to love their children perfectly. Examples from the text include they don't exasperate their children but raise them in the nurture and the admonition of the Lord.

When both believers and unbelievers hear this same message, they are crushed by the depth of their failure to love their children according to God’s standards. They become aware of the sin and need for God’s forgiveness and grace.

But we don’t just stop there in our preaching. We go to the sin beneath the sin. Why are these fathers not loving their children like God commands? It’s because they are idolaters. They are worshipers of success in their work. They have no time for their children not just because they need money, but because they need affirmation they get at work. They find their whole life and identity in their work

The gospel sermon then presents them, not mere principles to live by in terms of their attempts to try harder to be a good father through their prayerful self-effort. No. We present to them the good news of a person, a Savior. In the sermon we present to them a person who will not just forgive them, but as they continue to draw near to him, he will empower them to love their children in a way they’ve never loved them before.

And so we invite all fathers, believers and unbelievers, to come to Jesus in repentance and faith. And we promise them that he will deliver them, he will forgive them, and he will empower them to change.

Now, let's say the Holy Spirit is really at work through this preaching of Ephesians 6. What happens to the unbeliever when he repents and draws near to Christ in faith? He's converted. He’s justified.

But what happens to the failing father who similarly repents, the one who is a believer, someone who has already been converted and justified? Is he converted and justified again? No. He has already been saved from sin’s penalty and forgiven. But now, as he draws near to Christ in ongoing repentance and faith, he is being saved from sin’s domineering, idolatrous power of his life that is keeping him from being a more loving father.

What’s exciting about this is that, as a preacher, you are totally free from having to discern and focus on either believers or unbelievers. Instead your primary focus is on preaching the good news of the gospel to both the lost and the found.

We must recover the biblical concept of preaching as a primary means by which the lost are meant to come to faith in Christ. This doesn't deny that all believers are responsible to be personal witnesses in all their relationships in life. But this helps us understand that evangelism is also meant to be very communal. And it can help us recapture the practice of intentionally bringing lost people we know and love to worship with us so they’ll be under the God-ordained means of grace called the preaching of the gospel.

Preaching evangelism is usually a vital part of what Ed Clowney used to call “Doxological Evangelism.”

Using 1 Corinthians 14, Clowney calls us to recognize that it’s appropriate for the unbelieving seeker to come into our worship services, even when they don’t understand everything we do and say as believers in worship. And we should not feel that we need to alter all our words and practices so everything makes sense to the unbeliever.

Clowney’s encouragement is for believer’s worship to always be authentic and God-centered. So that, even if unbelieving seekers do not understand everything we do in worship, they become deeply impressed with the existential reality that God is in our midst, even with much mystery to them. Clowney calls this doxological evangelism.

So, on a practical level now, be careful about trying to dumb everything down in worship to appeal to lost people. If the worship is authentic, if the nature of the gospel is faithfully proclaimed to both believer and unbeliever, it is okay for there to be degrees of mystery. Don't fall prey to dumbing everything down into contemporary jargon. Instead, focus on authenticity and transparency in your worship.

As you do, recapture the richness and the beauty of the preaching of the word and doxological evangelism as a primary means of reaching people who are outside of Christ.

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Contact, Friendship, & Public Forum Evangelism

Having studied Paul’s method of preaching evangelism, we turn now to take a brief overview of his other methods, including what Keller calls “Contact Evangelism,” “Friendship Evangelism,” and “Public Forum Evangelism.”

Note these texts of Scripture:

“He (Paul) reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and the God-fearing Greeks as well as in the marketplace day by day with those who happened to be there.”

It’s clear by the phrase, “with those who happened to be there” that one of Paul’s evangelistic methods is what is often called today, “Street Evangelism.” The same man who focused on preaching in synagogues on the Sabbath could also be found in the marketplace on other days sharing the gospel with total strangers.

The New Testament also reveals that Paul’s focus on evangelism was much more outside the synagogue than inside the synagogue, and most often in people’s homes he knew. In Acts we find these kinds of descriptions: “Paul left the synagogue and went next door to the house of Titius Justus, a worshiper of God.” And Paul writes, “You know that I have taught you publicly and from house to house I have declared to both Jews and Greeks that they must turn to God in repentance in our Lord, Jesus Christ.”

We need to rethink the power of hospitality in our homes as an evangelistic methodology. It’s amazing how people who hardly know each other are often willing to join you in your home for a meal and talk for hours to you and total strangers sharing their lives.

Have you noticed that in 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1, that one of the requirements of an elder, a pastor and church planter, is being hospitable. This is because there is great power in a home that is warm and open, displaying the welcoming love of God to unbelievers. 

If we can get over the need to turn “every conversation to Jesus” with people we invite into our homes, new doors can open into the lives of people. And you're just going to have dinner with them. You're not going to take every conversation and turn it to Jesus. Instead your focus is more on asking them real questions and truly listening to their answers and not just waiting for them to give their answers so you can talk next.

Please don't misread me, I am not saying that the Holy Spirit does not or will not work when you always bring up the gospel when you meet with unbelievers. I’m just saying that it can be a huge step for many people to actually be free from the illegitimate pressure to have to talk about Jesus for an evening so they can just just show people the welcoming love of God and love them deeply and well by mostly listening.

One final evangelistic method we see Paul using is called, “Public Forum Evangelism.” Paul would sometimes engage in public discussions on various topics as a means of bringing the gospel into the discussions. One of the most well-known times is recorded in Acts 17 when Paul met with philosophers at Mars Hill.

Following this method, some church planters have used the public platforms of book discussions at local bookstores to graciously, winsomely, and wisely bring the realities of the gospel into the discussions.

A Message About Repentance and Faith (Evangelism Series 5 of 6)

Gospel Affirmations and Promises

Gospel Events

The good news is that in order to satisfy himself, to manifest the fullness of his glory, the eternal second person of the Godhead took on humanity in his birth. Then he lived a sinless life for us and died a sinner's death in our place. He lived the life we should have lived and died the death we deserved to die. And on the third day he was raised from the dead. Later he ascended on high to the right hand of God. And one day he is returning to make all things new. There is an already and a not yet in the gospel.

Please be very careful to follow this logic: Because of what Jesus did (Gospel Events), Jesus is now Lord and Savior (Gospel Affirmations). Because of what Jesus did, in his birth, life, death, resurrection, and ascension (Gospel Events) the good news is that God has now made him Lord–the one who can now demand submission and Savior–the one who can bestow salvation (Gospel Affirmations).

Gospel Promises

And because Jesus is now Lord and Savior, he can make promises that are absolutely astonishing:

New Status

He can promise forgiveness and a new status before God based on the perfect record Jesus earned for us with his life of obedience.

New Nature

He can also promise us a new nature. This is the promise of a new heart with new affections and desires he gives us by placing his promised Holy Spirit in us.

New World

And he can promise us a new world. The ascended Christ, as Savior and Lord promises us the restoration of all fallen creation when he returns to make all things new.

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Gospel Demands of Repentance and Faith

Because of what Jesus did, God has made him Lord and Savior. We can also say he is Prophet, Priest and King. And as our Prophet, Priest and King, he can make promises of a new record, a new heart, and a new world. And each of those promises contains many other rich promises.

This raises the questions, “How can I appropriate these promises in my life? What is the means by which these promises become a reality in my life? How can I receive God’s forgiveness, a new status, a new heart, and a new world to come?”

In the New Testament you find references to three key words through which God means for these promises to become realities in our lives: faith, repentance, and obedience. John Stott calls these the Gospel Demands 

In many passages of Scripture you’ll find an emphasis on only one of these words. For instance, looking at only the words of Jesus in John 6, we would think the only imperative is for us to believe, to have faith.

But then in other passages, like Mark 1:15, Jesus calls us to “repent and believe” this good news that the Kingdom of God is at hand. So in this passage it’s not just faith but also repentance. And in other passages of Scripture, we find the call to “obey” as the key imperative.

It’s important to understand that when we are referring to repentance, faith and obedience, one assertion is really central – that is it through faith alone, sola fide, and Christ alone, that these gospel promises of God become ours.

So how do repentance and obedience fit into that primacy of sola fide, "faith alone?”

It’s helpful to understand the nature of biblical repentance, faith, and obedience and see how they relate to each other. For example, to have faith is to obey God. God now commands everyone, everywhere, to repent. And to repent is also to obey God.

The biblical concept of repentance is that it is one side of faith. Repentance is turning away from something and faith is turning to something and trusting in it. This is why repentance and faith should be seen as two sides of the same coin. As we are turning from our sin, self-trust, and idols in repentance, we are also, at the same time, turning to Christ in faith and personal trust. And while we’re repenting and believing we are obeying God.

This understanding frees us from a moralistic or a legalistic understanding of obedience. This is what the Puritans used to call, “Gospel obedience.” In the first thesis of the 95 Theses, Martin Luther wrote that when Jesus said, 'To repent,' he meant that all of life is repentance. Luther understood that if you're truly repenting, you must also be believing.  And if you're truly repenting and believing, you are obeying.

At the commencement of his ministry recorded in Mark 1, Jesus said “The time has come. The Kingdom of God is near. Repent, and believe the Good News.” The call of Jesus is for us to repent and believe the Good News that our God reigns, through his Son, who has taken on humanity, lived a sinless life, died a sinner’s death, been raised from the dead, ascended on high. And he promises us that the spoils that are his will be ours, if we simply repent and believe.

Notice how Jesus is not calling us to pray and receive him, but to repent and believe him. There's no place in the New Testament where people are called on to pray to receive Christ. They are called to repent and believe.

A meritorious understanding of the nature of faith is saying, “If I offer to God my faith and trust in him, he will take that good work of my faith and give me forgiveness, a new record, a new heart, and a new world to come.” A lot of people actually think of their faith like this, as somehow meritorious to God. They arrogantly think and sometimes say, “I have been good enough to believe, why can't you be good enough to believe?”

Faith and repentance are not meritorious. They are instrumental. It is through the mystical means of repentance and faith by which we appropriate the promises of Christ. Remember, it’s not meritorious. It’s instrumental.

True, biblical repentance involves renouncing yourself as being adequate in any way to do that which could make you acceptable to God. It involves a confession to God of your sinfulness, of your guilt, an attitude of mind that desires to turn away from your sins. True repentance involves turning away from your sinful self so you might turn to Jesus Christ in faith.

In the New Testament, when people heard this good news, the bible tells us they were pierced to the heart, and they said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “Brethren, what shall we do?” Peter responded by calling them to repent and be baptized (Acts 2).

So what is faith?

True, biblical, saving faith is not just intellectual assent. Lutherans call this fides, which is simply “I believe something. I believe something is true.” Faith that saves, delivers, and appropriates the promises of God in Christ is not merely intellectual assent. And it's not merely trusting in God's general provision. This is the reason why 20% of the people in the world, one-fifth of the world population is nominal Christian. They wrongly believe that mere intellectual assent is true saving faith.

It’s common for merely nominal Christians to say something like: “I believe that Jesus is the Son of God. And when I’ve had problems in life, I have prayed to him, and trusted him.” They're saying they believe that Jesus is the Son of God and they’ve trusted him all their lives to help them. The problem is someone can do that still not be a true believer in Jesus Christ. 

The brother of Jesus, James tells us that even the demons believe. He writes, “You believe that God is one? You do well. The demons believe, and shudder.” So it's just not intellectual faith, fides. It's what the Reformers called personal trust, fiducia. It's not merely believing in propositions about Jesus. It’s trusting in him as a resurrected, living ascended Lord and Savior.

When you repent and believe in a biblical way, you are not just believing propositions or promises, you are trusting in a resurrected and ascended person. It's not by trusting in the orthodoxy of Gospel truth. You are saved by trusting in a person.

A Message About Christ and Salvation (Evangelism Series 4 of 6)

Message of Christ’s Saving Life

We begin looking now at what we’re calling the Gospel Events, beginning with Jesus’ birth. This is the theological doctrine of the incarnation.

His Birth

When describing Jesus’ birth, people often say, “God became a man.” There's a sense in which that's true. But you need to understand that in the incarnation, the Triune God didn't become a man. Instead it was the second person of the Trinity, the eternal Son of God who took on humanity, meaning a human soul and body. The eternal Son of God humbled himself and assumed the fullness of humanity but without sin.

His Life

One of the reasons the eternal Son of God took on the fullness of humanity is so that he might live a sinless life in our place. At Jesus’ baptism, when John the Baptist was hesitant to baptize Jesus, Jesus said to him, “Let it be so now to fulfill all righteousness.”

John the Baptist is looking at him in astonishment and saying, ”Me, baptize you?” It’s important to realize that Jesus came to do what Adam, and we who are in the lineage of Adam because of the imputation of Adam's sin, failed to do. Jesus came to live a sinless life in our place.

Notice what Paul writes in Romans 5: “Through the obedience of the one man, the many will be made (or declared) righteous.” The concept here that is often missing in the contemporary gospel is that Jesus saves you just as much by his sacrificial life as by his sacrificial death.

Jonathan Edwards put it this way: “Every act of Christ's obedience was propitious.” To propitiate is to satiate something. In his death Jesus satiated the wrath of God we deserved. And God did this to manifest the fullness of His holy justness.

To understand the gospel means to understand not only the good news of Christ's death for you, but also understand the good news of his life for you. He saved you just as much by his life as by his death.

Hear this good news: in every way that we have faced the reality of God's moral commands, been tempted to sin and failed, he has come to that same place, was tempted and suffered horribly resisting that same temptation, but he won, in other words he was severely tempted but without sin, Hebrews 2 and 4 tells us.

And therefore, through a process of many years of suffering against sin, he earned a perfect record resisting temptation and obeying God in our place.

This is why, in a strict sense, God cannot ever love unconditionally or he would be unjust. Let me try to clarify. The Christian understanding of God is not that God can do anything. There are several things the Bible teaches that God cannot do. God cannot lie. God cannot be tempted. God cannot change. And it’s also not possible for God to love unconditionally or He would no longer be just.

As a seminary professor, I would often tell the students that if I preach in their future churches they should know ahead of time what my sermon title will be. It will be

“God's Conditional Love” with a subtitle “How we can only be saved by good works.”

Throughout the Old Testament and New Testament, God has always and only saved people by good works. That’s because God can only save people by good works.

But the good news is that it's not your good works. We can only be saved by the good works of Jesus Christ.

In other words, God cannot grant, what we call today, amnesty. And a lot of people misunderstand that the good news of the gospel is that God somehow winks at sin, or like a political leader, just grants amnesty.

Never forget, there are certain things God can't do. He can't change. He can't lie. He can't be God and not be God. He can't be tempted. And he can't grant amnesty. You know what unconditional love normally communicates to people? Amnesty.

And people wrongly say things like, “You know what grace is?” We've been legalistic and moralistic, and now we're discovering grace. Basically, “Do you not know the depth of God's amnesty for you?”

Why do you think this kind of statement makes me angry?

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Message of Christ’s Saving Death

One of my theological mentors, and my primary advisor for my doctoral dissertation was a Systematic Theologian named Roger Nicole. I’ll never forget him saying to me and many others, “Dear brother, hold dear the biblical concept of Jesus Christ’s substitutionary atonement because it is at the very heart of the nature of the Gospel.”

So far, we’ve looked at Jesus’ active obedience for us. Now we're looking at what's traditionally, historically, and theologically called his passive obedience for us, his laying down his life under God’s just wrath in our place.

Isaiah writes, “He was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. The punishment that brought us peace was upon him and by his wounds, we are healed.”

When John Stott was asked, “What is the most succinct summary of the Gospel? He said it's the good news of “God's self-satisfaction, through God’s self-substitution.”

The dilemma, the profoundest of problems, was solved. You know how it was solved? God satisfied his own justice by substituting himself. That is the mystery of the gospel.

And Stott says that is the heart of the gospel.

In the gospel we not only see the volitional intent of the eternal Son willingly taking on humanity and laying down his life to take on himself the just punishment we deserve.

We also see the volitional intent of the father. Hear the good news: In Romans 8:32 we read “He (the Father) who did not spare his own son but gave him up for us all. How will he not also with him graciously give us all things?”

Understand Paul’s reasoning here. He’s asking the question, “How will the God who satisfied himself by substituting his one and only Son, for whom he had the deepest, incomprehensible, eternal love, and on whom he poured out the fullness of his wrath, how would he do that for you and somehow not give you something else you greatly need, like enough money, or somehow leave you hanging, or somehow not be coming through for you?”

Do you see the power of that? That good news has power and will change your whole life. That's the transforming power of the gospel.

Notice the Father did not spare him, but even more than that, he actively, intentionally gave him up for us. This is the good news of the Father in the gospel. Jesus didn't just give himself up. The Father didn't just allow him to die for us. The Father intentionally gave him up so that the curse that fell on him would then be literally and actually impossible to ever fall on you. That’s astonishing grace. That’s radical love.

This is why, for you to think that when you're in Christ, that you're also under God’s curse, is an affront to the very work of Christ for you.

It's in this context where we need to understand the absolute fury of God's just wrath. In the garden, Jesus knelt down and prayed, “Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me.”

Throughout the Old Testament, the cup was the imagery of the fullness of the wrath of God. And to drink from this cup was an existential picture of willingly, intentionally taking this hot coal to your chest.

To drink the cup to the dregs would be to have the fullness and the fury of the wrath poured out on you. Notice that even the thought of it, just the thought of it, caused Jesus’ dramatic reaction in the garden that included him sweating drops of blood.

Try to imagine the actual reality. You can't. It's beyond comprehension.

This is why I have serious problems with Mel Gibson's movie, “The Passion of the Christ.” The movie was trying to show us the depth of God's love by how much Jesus was willing to suffer under the wrath of the Roman government of his day, not under the infinitely far greater wrath of the Father.

People were weeping in the theaters as they saw the character of Jesus whipped and as nails go through his hands and feet, and as he's spit on and tortured. The message of the movie is “Behold, this is the love of God for you in Jesus!”

Do you realize that what you see in the most grotesque of all the movie scenes of Jesus suffering under the wrath of the Romans means almost nothing in comparison to the wrath of God? This is only the wrath of man on Jesus. It’s what took place in the darkness, following the wrath of man, that should make us weep.

After incurring the wrath of man, Jesus experienced the unparalleled fury that makes physical torture look like absolutely nothing. He experienced the outpouring of a level of unparalleled fury we cannot comprehend. This is what should make people weep.

And the Father did this intentionally, on purpose. The Father didn't just let sinful people do this to Jesus. The Father offered him up and poured out the fullness of his wrath on Jesus that you and I deserve so it would actually be impossible for him to ever pour out his fury on you.

Never forget that God cannot change. God cannot lie. God cannot be tempted. God cannot be God and not be God at the same time. And the good news is that God cannot punish you if you are in Christ. He cannot. He does not have the ability to punish you because he has already poured out the fullness of all the wrath you deserve on Jesus in your place. If he punished you now, that would be double jeopardy.

When the depth of that amazing grace begins to sink in, the response will be “Why would I ever disobey the one who loves me this much? I want to give him everything I am and do, not out of fear of punishment, promise of reward, or due diligence, I want to love him and love others out of the love he has showered on me in Christ.”

Then you've got the gospel.

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Message of Christ’s Saving Resurrection

The resurrection of Jesus Christ is evidence that the wrath of God has been satisfied (propitiated), the bondage of Satan and death has been broken. The resurrection is the Father's amen that the work of the Son is fully acceptable to him. And so, the good news is that he is risen. It's time to celebrate, Satan and death have been conquered. Jesus has been raised from the dead.

And that's all true, but like so many things we've seen in this course, the gospel is actually more than that. The resurrection has a much more full meaning than simply, the Father's amen or the validation of the work of the Son.

The resurrection of Jesus is also meant to shape your understanding of God’s kingdom in history as the introduction of the new age to come. This was not just an event regarding our personal salvation. It was that, but it’s even more. It was also a redemptive historical event in light of the gospel of the kingdom.

In Romans 8, the Apostle Paul teaches that when Jesus Christ was raised from the dead he was “the first born from the dead.” Understanding what Paul means is critically important in understanding the good news of the resurrection.

Why is it good news that Jesus is the first born of many to soon follow?

The Scriptures teach that when Jesus returns all things are going to be made new, including our bodies and souls. When those who are in Christ die today, their souls go to heaven and their bodies remain on earth.

But there is coming a day when Jesus will return and bring heaven back down to earth like it was at creation. He will then unite our souls with our bodies and he will give us new bodies on a new earth. As we rule on this new earth, we will not just worship but we will work without toil and with great joy for all eternity.

The good news is that the resurrected embodied and now ascended Christ is the first born of many of us to follow. He is what theologians call the “theanthropos,” the God-man, the foretaste of what is to come when Jesus returns to make all things new.

The good news is that in Jesus’ resurrection, the kingdom has finally come to earth in a way it never has before. The God-man has become the first born of what is to come. So the good news of the resurrection is not simply that death has been conquered. The good news of the resurrection is also that the new age has dawned and the first born of many is now reigning at the right hand of God. And the kingdom has already come, even though it has not yet come in all of its fullness.

Jesus said things like, “The kingdom of God is in your midst.” And “The kingdom of God is coming.” Understand that in his resurrection Jesus has given evidence of the new age, the new day has dawned.

We must be careful not to leave Jesus’ ascension out of the gospel. You hear a lot of gospel presentations today, that don’t say a thing about Jesus’ sinless life, the resurrection or ascension. The only focus is on his death. The message is, “Jesus died for you. He will change you. You need to ask him to come into your life.” It's a resurrection-less message. 

The promise of the Messiah throughout the ages was that one greater than King David was going to come and sit on the throne and rule over all things. That was the hope of the Jews, that the promised Messiah would come and he would rule from his throne over all the earth on behalf of his people. The Jews had a very limited understanding of the coming promised Messiah. His reign was not to be political but spiritual.

The good news in the early chapters of Acts is that when Jesus ascended to the right hand of God, that was the promised enthronement of the long awaited Messiah, the Son of David.  And what was the evidence that King Jesus, the Messiah, was now seated in authority over all things for carrying out God’s purposes for the world?

It was the pouring out of the Spirit of God at Pentecost. The good news is not that one day in the future he's going to come back and rule and reign. No, one day in the future the veil is going to be torn back and his present rule and reign will be manifested in all of its majesty. Jesus, the Christ, is now ruling and reigning over all things for the sake of his church.

In understanding the gospel, you must first enter into the fullness of Jesus’ humiliation all the way down to his temptations and the cross. And then, you can enter fully into his exaltation through his resurrection and ascension.

But don't stop at the cross. And don't even stop at the resurrection. Go all the way to the ascension of Jesus as Lord and King. Only then can you appreciate why Paul, in Romans 10, summarized the good news that was brought to the world by those who had beautiful feet, as “Our God reigns,” a quotation from Isaiah.

That's how the Apostle Paul understood the essence of the gospel: Our God reigns!

Most evangelicals today wouldn’t say that. They’d probably say the essence of the gospel is “God will forgive you!” which is only one of the benefits of our God reigning in Christ over all his and our enemies.

The good news is that the eternal son of God took on humanity, lived a sinless life, died a sinner’s death in my place, and he was raised from the dead showing victory over death, victory over the devil.  And in his resurrection, he inaugurated a new kingdom on earth for the first time. He was the first born among all of us. Then he was lifted up and he ascended to the right hand of God, ruling and reigning over all of his enemies and ours for the sake of the church.

The early Christians used to greet each other, “Jesus is Lord.” What it meant is, Jesus is King. He has come. He has done battle with our enemies. He had defeated them. He has conquered them. Now he rules over them. “Our God reigns!”