Going to a Church for the First Time: The Gospel Assumed

It has been said that the first generation believes the gospel, the second assumes the gospel, the third forgets and the fourth denies. I recently visited a church where the people were caring and the gospel was assumed. This is how I remember the church I grew up in, although I might not have been paying proper attention, listening instead with a rebellious, hard heart.

When the gospel is assumed, the explicit and demonstrated teaching of the church focuses primarily on people's response. We are taught that God is awesome and good and that he loves us, but we are not told how we know this is true. We are told we can have a relationship with God, but we are not taught how or why this relationship is possible, or what part we have to play. The emphasis is on us loving and praising God. This is not wrong, but it is incomplete. It would be so easy to explain the how and why that is the gospel - that creates the possibility of and reason for our response. The heartbreaking thing is that if this is not explained, we may fail to know God at all and certainly not in his fullness. As a consequence, praise and love becomes forced or misguided. We don't understand what Jesus has saved us from or to, and we don't know the surety of our forgiveness and of our eternal life. We don't know the reason God the Father sent his Son, in our past, for our future – for his glory. This knowledge should be at the centre of all we know.

When the gospel is assumed, we also fail to be taught how to find this knowledge. This too is a tragedy because we end up praising a God each Sunday that we never hear from or speak to for the rest of the week. We forget that we must first approach him in repentance and faith. We forget that because of the gospel, God will continue the work he has begun in us. We forget that for this to happen, we need to get to know him by reading his Word. And we forget that our growth also depends on our praying to him, sharing our lives with him and depending on the God who has shown himself to be dependable. These actions should be the fabric of our lives.

As a result of all this we lose the reason and the courage to kneel in repentance before the cross; we lose the assurance of our forgiveness; we lose reliance on the Holy Spirit's sanctifying work in us; we lose hope in the bright future that eclipses this sorry world and we lose the desire to do all things only for God's glory. Instead, Christianity is reduced to experiencing God now, like so many other religions and spiritualities.

There is nothing wrong with experiencing God now, but this experience is only gained when Christianity is rightly understood and lived. In true Christianity, God's decisive work in our world in the past and his promise of a future teaches us how to come into relationship with him and gives us great joy now. As we learn more about his unchanging character and his work, we know him better, we love him more and we experience his love for us. Knowing God, we end up with nothing but heartfelt praise and love for him.