Discerning The Gospel Difference

I recently listened to a sermon on the biblical call to forgiveness.  The pastor carefully worked through the parable of the unforgiving servant in Matthew 18, and then persuasively laid out the case for all Christ-followers to live lives marked by a forgiving attitude.  He ended with two stories and an exhortation.

The first was personal about a broken relationship with a friend that was joyfully restored after he chose to extend forgiveness for an offense.  The other was about a friend who put off forgiveness and reconciliation with a person.  When that person died unexpectedly, the opportunity for an experience like the first story was lost forever.  This pastor closed with a clear and moving exhortation to pursue reconciliation and extend forgiveness to people that very afternoon.

I'm guessing that there were a lot of phone calls and visits that afternoon - this is a very large church - and that a number of people experienced renewed relationship where there had only been alienation before.  

Argue good or bad, helpful or unhelpful, but this is certainly not the Gospel.  I was stunned that a sermon could be preached on forgiveness without reference to the cross of Jesus and the cost to Him of offering us forgiveness.  In this sermon, Jesus was the teacher and He told us all clearly what to do. 

But there was never a connection made that our experience of forgiveness from Jesus is the empowering motivation for us to forgive others.  There was no reference whatsoever to the cost of the forgiveness that Jesus offers.  And finally, no hint that forgiving others may call us to pay a cost as well.

No grace needed here.  Jesus - it could be anyone else for that matter - teaches us what to do.  We do it.  We reap the benefits in our life.  Now go do it.  When I preached like this I remember people thanking me for "practical Bible teaching."  Practical maybe, but I'm still shaken to my core at how often I covered the Gospel of grace under a blanket of moralism.  Grace was for coming to faith in Christ - the New Birth.  But now it was about getting on with the serious - deep - things of Christian maturity.  Living the right way in every aspect of life.

Gospel means "good news."  It is an announcement to be received and celebrated, not a self-help plan to be implemented.  It tells me what Jesus did to rescue me from my brokenness and to give me a life that I could never produce any other way.  It's not my conformity to His Will that makes me behave differently.  It's me being transformed by Him.  And the source of that transformation is the cross.

Preachers are sometimes able to motivate people to forgive someone.  But when the offense is huge?  Or when the offender intends to continue?  Or when I can't find it in myself to want anything but violence for that person?

The Gospel is different because it depends on what God has done.  At the cross, I was forgiven, so that by His grace my heart could be changed and made forgiving like His.  A forgiving heart forgives others.  And that is the Gospel Difference.

One final note: Am I opposed to all those "renewed relationships" from that afternoon after that sermon?  No, I'm not.  Any renewed relationship is to be appreciated in a world as broken as ours.  I've also seen God take such beginnings and make better and more gracious things come of them.

But I'm old, and like Joni Mitchell, I've looked at life from both sides now.  And I know that such beginnings are prone to die.  Decisions made under pressure, or motivated by guilt or empowered by reward will always need pressure or guilt or reward to be maintained.  It's no wonder that the pressure, guilt and rewards continue to be ratcheted higher and higher each week in some churches.  Or maybe you bring in a fresh crop of people from low-pressure churches to make high-pressure decisions in your church.  If more come than leave, you've got a growing church.

By contrast, decisions that are made by a new heart will continue to stand because their source has not changed.  New circumstances that require new decisions will be made from that same heart, regardless of the presence or absence of external pressure.  Sure, there is a process here.  My heart is "being transformed" one slow step at a time.  Many times, the transformation of one aspect of my heart then lets me see more clearly another aspect that stands in need of Gospel transformation. 

But there is a clear difference in both process and outcome between moralism and the Gospel.  Discerning that difference will guard our hearts and make us a people of blessing in a broken and moralistic world.