Matt Chandler - Gospel Simplicity

If you have your Bibles, go ahead and grab those; that will be our primary passage this morning. While you’re turning there, I wanted to give you another kind of fun update from the vape store down the way. I never thought they would prepare me for that sentence in seminary, so that’s a new sentence for me. If you were here last week, you heard the story we are all in with a ministry called Young Lives. It’s a ministry for teenage moms and dads. One of the things we’ve done since we bought the corner is create space on the east side where we established a free store for these moms and dads, providing high-quality items like diapers, formula, car seats, and strollers. However, the space that was open was next to the vape store, and so we moved in there. Probably not the best place to put it, but it’s fine; it is what it is. The Lord’s the Lord. We had a big group there a couple of weeks ago, and a woman came into the vape store to get a little vape juice—I think that’s what it’s called; if I’m wrong, I don’t care; I just want to call it vape juice. She goes up and asks what’s going on next door, and the owner of the vape store said, «Well, it’s this thing for teen moms.» This woman teared up a little bit, and in her car is her great-niece, who has been homeless and had a baby as a teenager. So, the owner of the vape store walks them over and introduces this young woman to the other young ladies and the women and men who are running this ministry. Now, this week, the owner of the vape store put a table up by the register with a little sign that says «The Baby Store,» with information about our ministry and a tip jar if you want to support these teen moms. How amazing is that? I mean, that’s crazy! I mean, how fun is this? The owner of the vape store is calling it «The Baby Store»! So, man, the Lord is just on the move. There are a million of these little things happening all the time, but this one has just blown my mind all week long. You can see he feels compelled to serve and help. I’m not sure he’s a believer; in fact, I’m fairly certain he’s not a believer yet, but you can start to see this thing in him—a dislike for the darkness of the world and a desire to do something about it. He’s entering into the war we know about without fully realizing it. The Bible calls a man like this a man of peace and says that we’re to find those who are men of peace and help them fill out the paradigm.

Here’s where we’re going today; I just want to talk to you about the simplicity of the Gospel. This week, it’s the simplicity of the Gospel; next week, it’s the power of the Gospel. Honestly, we will be moving on into Advent, which bends the brain a little bit. I want to start my sermon with just this sentence, which has been used throughout Christian history. If you have a Catholic background or know some of the church fathers, you might know that Jerome said it, Augustine said it—some version of this sentence. I’m going to quote Augustine because that’s my guy. Augustine said this: «The gospel is shallow enough for a child not to drown yet deep enough for an elephant to swim.» Now, I have experienced this firsthand. Let me explain how that is. My wife became a Christian; she fell in love with Jesus when she was 8 years old—that’s a third grader! So, the gospel can not only be comprehended by a third grader, but a love relationship with God can be born from someone who may or may not know how to tie her or his shoes yet, right? This is the gospel being shallow enough that a child won’t drown. Yet there are some of you—some members of our church—who have double PhDs and needed to dive deep into the historical information. You needed to understand presuppositional apologetics; you needed to make sense of it all. You went on a two-year journey of research before the Holy Spirit opened your heart to believe the simple message of the gospel. You’re the elephants, and there was room enough for you to swim. Sweet LC was in third grade, and she didn’t drown. The good news is that, over the last—I won’t specify the number of years for my own safety—she has simply grown in her delight and love for King Jesus. Even after 30 years, after a series of years, her feet haven’t touched the bottom. This is the beauty of the gospel. Now, again, if you were here last week, I talked about my own lineage of faith—that Jeff Faircloth, whom I played football with—and by that, I mean I was on the team he was on—his grandparents kind of adopted him from a train wreck of a family situation and shared the gospel with him.