"The Gospel According to Jesus"

The following is an portion of a sermon that I preached on Lordship Salvation.

We live in a day where the Gospel has been prostituted by would-be ministers of the Gospel, but who are really wolves in sheeps clothing. Your typical Gospel presentation urges the sinner to say a pray or as some preachers put it, "make a decision for Christ".

The Gospel is not about us "making a decision for Christ" it is not about us "receiving Jesus" it is about asking Christ to accept us. It is not about making Christ "Lord", He is Lord. The Gospel is not about health or wealth prosperity. Jesus said in Luke 9 that if "....anyone wishes to come after me let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me." When the people heard Jesus say these things about taking up their cross, they understood one thing, death. The cross had one imagery for those people, death. But that is not the typical gospel that you hear today. Robert Schuller has said that the problem with the Gospel is that it is more God-centered and not man-centered. He said that when a person hears that they are an unworthy sinner, it is doubtful that they will ever be able to receive the grace that is found in Christ.

Now, why some "evangelicals" may would not go that far, the Gospel is diluted. I have even heard the Gospel diluted in fundamental Baptist Churches (how sad). There is such a drive for numbers that the gospel gets cut to pieces.

The Gospel gets reduced to "receiving Jesus as Savior" or "accept Jesus" or "make a decision for Christ". There is rarely a mention about the Lordship of Christ (oops, I am in trouble now). Jesus is either Lord or He is not Savior. Romans 10:13, (In the original Greek) reads, "Whoever accepts Jesus as Lord...".

When I speak to people about the Gospel, the first place I go to is the price. Not the price that Christ paid, but the price that we must pay. That is another phrase I hear alot, "Salvation is absolutely free", not quite. It cost Christ and it costs those that repent as well. You say, "What do you mean?" Well. Jesus spoke in Luke 14 that if any person comes to Him and does not hate father, mother, brothers or sister or even his own life, he is not worthy of Christ. He further says that if you are not willing to forsake all, then you cannot be my disciple. Jesus told the rich young ruler to sell all that he has and give to the poor. In essence what does it cost us, potentially everything. If a person is not willing to loose everything to gain Christ, Jesus said, don't even bother coming to me, you are not serious nor worthy.

"Well", you say,"Who would want to accept that?" Simply, those are truly being drawn by the Holy Spirit would gladly give up everything for the sake of knowing Christ. Listen, this is not a new Gospel, it is the true Gospel. People have a hard time hearing it because they have heard the watered down gospel for so long. May we return to the truth of Lordship Salvation.