Matt Chandler - The Nature of the Gospel

If you have your Bibles, go ahead and grab them. If you’re starting to get nervous about how long that bumper video is going to last by the time we reach Acts 28, don’t worry about it; it’s not going to be 40 minutes long with me just coming out here and then heading back. The reason we’re showing you what we’re showing in that bumper video is that if you’ve been with us for the eight weeks that we’ve discussed Acts, then you’ve heard us cover all of that. But if this is your first morning with us, we didn’t want you to feel like you’re an hour late to the movie wondering who is who. So, that’s just a brief overview of where we’ve been and what we’ve covered in the historical timeline of our series.

What I want to do today is focus on Acts chapter 15. So if you have your Bibles, let’s grab those. We’re going to cover just 35 verses, which is nothing compared to the four chapters we just went through. I want to approach this the way I usually preach, which is to walk through it line by line and discuss it.

One of the things I picked up on about two years into ministry is that there seems to be something inside of us—maybe our flesh, pride, or something similar—that makes us take the best news in the universe and, out of fear or a sense of control, add to it. In doing so, we literally twist the greatest news in the universe into something that becomes useless and not good news at all. Over the past 20 years, there have been several moments where I’ve thought, «This is wrong.» I mean, I understand it, but it’s just wrong.

The first of those moments was at what’s called a True Love Waits rally. I attended a True Love Waits rally that promotes keeping oneself pure until the wedding night. A well-known itinerant speaker got up and started his sermon by pulling out a rose, smelling it, and talking about how pretty it was. He then threw it out into the crowd and began giving a bunch of statistics on venereal diseases. He said, «Hey, I want you to smell this; make sure you touch its petals and get a good whiff.» He kept going, but everything was fear-based. He talked about the bad things that can happen and what it’s like to have a child as a teenager.

About 30 minutes into his message, he said, «Now, where’s my rose?» Some poor kid brought up a completely damaged rose—broken, with all its petals wilted. God bless him; the speaker held it up and said, «Now, who would want this?» Do you see what I’m saying? Now, let’s be fair to him. I know you’re all gospel people; I heard you gasp. But let’s be fair to him. The drive that led to his pathetic example of Jesus was a desire for his own daughters and sons to live morally upright lives. That desire is a good one. I’ve yet to meet a father with daughters who says, «I want her to have all the experiences she can before settling down.» I haven’t even met the dad who says, «I want my son to get all that out of his system before he settles down.»

The desire for moral purity is a good thing; it’s a good thing to want that for our children. Where he went wrong was in losing confidence in the gospel’s ability to shape and mold the souls of young men and women. Instead, he attached fear, control, and—God help him—shame to the greatest news in the universe. For anyone in the crowd who had crossed that line, that was devastating news. Who would want this awful outcome?

The second moment occurred here at the village, and it sparked a shift in how I did ministry. It was a Saturday night, and I walked in for Celebration Weekend where we were doing a bunch of baptisms. As I was walking to my seat, a heavyset young man approached me and hugged me. If I hug you, here’s what I like to do: If you’re a woman, we’re hugging, and you can try to roll on me, but I’m going to try to roll with you.