Well, we clearly won the legal battle!
We showed that they are wrong!
We proved that we are right!
Now we can just demand our right to be accepted!
Can’t we?
No!
The Gospel isn’t about legalism.
It isn’t about proving that others are wrong.
It isn’t about proving that we are right.
It isn’t about demanding our rights.
But, it is about some very good news
Many of us have heard the Gospel referred to as "The Good News," but what does that mean?
John 3:16-18 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God's one and only Son.
Can you grasp the enormity of this? The "Good News" is that God loves us beyond measure and wants a personal relationship with us! Instead of focusing on all that the law required us to avoid, Jesus focused on the key things it requires us to do…Love!
Matthew 22:36-40 Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law? Jesus replied: Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself. All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.
Just in case we missed it He nailed it again in Mark 12:28-31 and, just in case we are truly dense, He served it up yet another time in Luke 10:26-28. Then, just so we were ultra clear He used John to reemphasize His Gospel of Love for all to be our signature as Christians…
John 13:34-35 A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.
John 15:9-12 As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father's commands and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.
What Jesus was telling us as loud and clear and repetitively as possible is that the Gospel is about love. He loves us. That’s why He came. He wants a loving relationship with us. That is the desire of His heart. He considers us His kids. He wants us to love His other kids. The most important instruction that Jesus left His disciples was this command to love one another. He had loved them without reservation and without limit and expected them to do the same. He expects the same of anyone who chooses to follow Him.
If you have difficulty grasping the magnitude of God’s love and His grace, His unmerited favor, I strongly urge you get a copy of -- What’s So Amazing About Grace? by Philip Yancey. He related a story about a prostitute who was in a wretched state. When asked if she had considered going to a church, she replied, "Why would I ever go there? I was already feeling terrible about myself. They’d just make me feel worse." That caused him to pause and reflect…
"What struck me about my friend’s story is that women much like this prostitute fled toward Jesus, not away from him. The worse a person felt about herself, the more likely she saw Jesus as a refuge. Has the church lost that gift? Evidently the down-and-out, who flocked to Jesus when he lived on earth, no longer feel welcome among his followers. What has happened?
I grew up with the image of a mathematical God who weighed my good and bad deeds on a set of scales and always found me wanting. Somehow I missed the God of the Gospels, a God of mercy and generosity…God tears up the mathematical tables and introduces the new math of grace, the most surprising, twisting, unexpected-ending word in the English language…Grace means there is nothing we can do to make God love us more…And grace means there is nothing we can do to make God love us less…
At the center of Jesus’ parables of grace stands a God who takes the initiative toward us: a lovesick father who runs to meet the prodigal, a landlord who cancels a debt too large for any servant to reimburse, an employer who pays eleventh-hour workers the same as the first-hour crew, a banquet-giver who goes out to the highways and byways in search of undeserving guests."
Yancey sees legalism as the greatest threat to grace and envisions churches as places where grace is "on tap" and readily available to everyone who needs it. Why shouldn’t we tap into God’s love & grace? God loves us. He loves us just the way we are. He doesn’t demand that we become someone else first to be acceptable. He just wants us to love Him back. He’ll work out the details later. He wants a relationship with us.
The classic definition of a Christian is a person who follows Christ. If a Christian wants to know what is expected of them, the gospels are the authoritative account of what He said and did. These materials were meant to teach us and show us the way. My challenge to you is to read the Gospels and become a student of Jesus. As you read, notice how often He talks about love. Notice the compassion with which He treats sinners.
The true "good news" of the Gospel is God’s love and compassion for His children as demonstrated by His grace that frees transgendered people from all condemnation.
