Time of Refreshing?

You hear it all the time. Jesus loves you, and he wants to save your marriage, heal your back, treat your depression, etc. He's God, so he can do it. And as I said, he loves you. So if you want him to save your marriage, heal your back ("I'm getting the word 'back pain'"), get relief from depression, etc., just come forward and let us pray for you. Isn't God incredible!

There, that's what they call "the gospel" these days. But of course it is not the Gospel. Clearly, you don't have to be preaching the "prosperity gospel" to be preaching a "me-centered" message. In my experience, there are many church-goers who simply don't understand what the gospel is, because they have never really been told what it is in their own churches. Since the very concept of sin is strictly downplayed (it wouldn't be "winsome," don't you know), the concept of the necessity of an atonement for sin therefore seems rather like an outdated and distasteful doctrine. Many people have come to my own church because they are attracted to just this kind of deliberately Gospel-less message. It even seems to stir the heart and to lift the spirit, however briefly. And in the end it leaves people deeply the same. It is not a transformative word!

Of course, it is not hard to find nutshell descriptions of the Gospel, the true Gospel, in the New Testament. For example, just the morning I was reading the opening verses of John's Revelation. That's where we read that Jesus is the first and last, the one who was and is and is to come, and the ruler of the kings of the earth; and at the end of this doxology we read:

To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood and made us a kingdom, priests to his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.

Hmmm, there's a lot to sink your teeth into there, not least of which is that bit about freeing us from our sin. Apparently, it's a part of the very essence of what Jesus wanted to reveal about himself to John and through him to the seven churches.

Well, but that's just the passage I happened to read this morning, and not even the best I might have cited. How about another example? Try Peter's little talk in Solomon's Portico (Acts 3:11-26). At the end he says this:

And now, brothers, I know that you acted in ignorance, as did also your rulers. But what God foretold by the mouth of all the prophets, that his Christ would suffer, he thus fulfilled. Repent therefore, and turn again, that your sins may be blotted out, that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that he may send the Christ appointed for you, Jesus, whom heaven must receive until the time for restoring all the things about which God spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets long ago. Moses said, ‘The Lord God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your brothers. You shall listen to him in whatever he tells you. And it shall be that every soul who does not listen to that prophet shall be destroyed from the people.’ And all the prophets who have spoken, from Samuel and those who came after him, also proclaimed these days. You are the sons of the prophets and of the covenant that God made with your fathers, saying to Abraham, ‘And in your offspring shall all the families of the earth be blessed.’ God, having raised up his servant, sent him to you first, to bless you by turning every one of you from your wickedness.

Peter doesn't beat around the bush, does he? The problem is sin, human wickedness. A "time of refreshing" is what we desperately need. A turning in repentance to the all-encompassing One, who was, still is, and always shall be, King.