The basic worldview of a person or a culture is an answer to the question, “What is really wrong with the world (or people or life), and how can it be fixed?” As noted earlier, every culture and generation has a worldview or narrative. The job of the pastor is to enter sympathetically into the worldview story of the culture, yet challenge and retell the culture’s story so its people that see their story will only be fulfilled in Jesus.
The Gospel As Alternative To Religion
Show that religious people are running from God as much as the nonreligious. Religion and irreligion are just two different ways of accomplishing the same thing—being one’s own savior and lord. Religion operates on the principle that “If I live like this, I’ll be saved or blessed.” The gospel operates on the principle that “I am saved or blessed in Christ; therefore, I will live like this.”
Religion motivates through fear and pride, but the gospel motivates through grace and joy. These are two radically different paths, although the adherents of each sit in church pews together each week, both striving to be good but for completely different reasons. Religion produces either superiority, if we’ve lived up to our standards, or inferiority if we haven’t, but either way we are driven by radical insecurity. Religion also leads us to exclude others who are not as righteous as we are. The difference between a Pharisee and a Christian is not repentance for sins. Pharisees repent of sins. A Christian, however, repents of self-righteousness and self-salvation. We need to repent not only for the bad things we’ve done, but also for the reasons we’ve done all the good things—to control God and save ourselves. To understand our inherent self-salvation strategies is to realize radical conversion. It puts our identities and all our relationships on new footing.
Every culture tends toward its own kind of religion and self-salvation structures. Traditional culture makes a savior out of family and being good. Modern culture makes a savior out of individual fulfillment. Postmodern culture makes a savior out of group identity and inclusion. All, however, will lead to exclusion and radical insecurity. Those from traditional cultures need this message, or they will settle into moralism and self-righteousness. Those with modern and postmodern worldviews need to hear this message, since while they may think they have rejected Christianity, they have actually rejected some form of religion. If they are not given the chance to understand the difference between religion and the gospel, they will never give real Christian faith a chance.
Religion is the default mode of the human heart. Christians who know the gospel in principle continually revert to religion. They believe the gospel at one level but at deeper levels continue to operate as if they are saved by works; they continue to base their standing with God and their view of themselves on spiritual and moral performance. This leads to anxiety, pride, inferiority, anger, and spiritual deadness.
The Gospel As Alternative to Other Identity Structures
Show that the secular or nonreligious are just as spiritually enslaved as the religious. Idolatry is building our identity—finding our greatest meaning, significance, and security—on something besides God. Everyone centers his or her life on something, and whatever that is becomes by definition and function our god (something we adore and serve with our whole heart) and our savior (something we must have to feel spiritually and emotionally significant). Even the most seemingly nonreligious people are living lives of worship and are working for their “salvation,” although not expressing it in these terms.
Inwardly, this way of forming identity leads to slavery, because we are driven to achieve the things we must have to be happy. If we build our lives on human approval, we are slaves to the opinion of others. If we build our lives on academic or economic or artistic achievement, we are slaves to our careers. In any case, we do not control ourselves; rather, we are controlled by what we live for. When we make even the best things (family, work, romance, etc.) into ultimate things and ways to gain joy and significance, then they drive us into the ground because we must have them. If we lose a good thing, it makes us sad. If, however, we lose an ultimate thing (an idol), it devastates us.
Outwardly, this way of forming identity leads us to oppress and exclude “the other,” because we must disdain those who do not have the same identity factors we have. If we build our identity on being very hardworking or moral, we must disdain those who we perceive to be lazy or immoral. If we build our identity on social class or race, we must disdain those of different classes or ethnicities. But the gospel shows us that Jesus is the only Savior and Lord who will fulfill us and will forgive us when we fail. If we live for career success and fail, our career will not forgive us. Rather, our failure will punish us with self-disdain. But Jesus gave his life as a ransom for us; this ransom is the payment that releases us from captivity and slavery.
Modern and postmodern people must be given this perfectly biblical definition of sin. If we define sin only as “breaking God’s law,” contemporary people will not be able to identify themselves as sinners. They will say, for example, “Who is to say that extramarital sin is wrong? I don’t think it is wrong to have sex if you really love one another.” But if we define sin more broadly—as false identity and idolatry, as making anything, even a good thing, into an ultimate thing—then we give modern and postmodern listeners a concept of sin they are familiar with (addiction) and cannot so easily dismiss as irrelevant.
The Gospel As True Identity Structure
Show how Christ’s redemption restores identity and community. Both religious moralism and nonreligious idolatry lead to an unstable identity, superiority, and exclusion of those who are different from us. The gospel gives us an unassailably confident and gentle identity, which frees us to embrace “the other” in love. Religion and non-religion lead to an unstable identity (insecurity resulting in either arrogant superiority or fearful inferiority), because significance is bound up in performance or achievement. This means we are humble but not confident when failing our standards, or confident but proud when living up to standards. We will never be sure we’ve arrived, however, so we are always driven and nervous. But the gospel makes us humble because we are such sinners that Christ had to die for us, and yet also makes us bold because we are so loved that Jesus was glad to die for us. We are sinfully and hopelessly wretched, yet also unbelievably loved and accepted.
Religion and non-religion lead to superiority and disdain toward “the other.” If our identity is based on being productive and efficient, we feel superior to those we consider lazy or inefficient. If our identity is based on being open-minded and liberal, we feel superior to those we consider conservatives. It all leads to exclusion. But the gospel is that on the cross Christ fulfilled God’s righteous law (unlike the relativist mindset, there are absolute moral standards by which you evaluate others), and on the cross he did it all for me (unlike the moralist mindset, there can be no superiority or haughtiness toward anyone, since we are saved by sheer grace). At the heart of the gospel is not a teacher whose standards we live up to, but a savior who died for his enemies and who embraced “the other,” including us.
Modern people, in particular, are concerned with finding the freedom to discover their individual identities. Postmodern people, in particular, are concerned with how we can live at peace in a pluralistic world. There is no religion with a more powerful example for accepting others than the Christian faith. It is the only faith that has at its heart a man dying for his enemies, forgiving them rather than destroying them. This must be presented to our culture as an unparalleled resource for living in peace in a pluralistic society.
The Gospel As the Key to Joy and Transformation
Why do we do the wrong things we do? Look at the Ten Commandments. The first and most primary commandment is to have no other gods besides God. The implication is that we would never break one of the other nine commandments unless we are breaking the first commandment. We don’t lie, commit adultery, or steal unless we first make something other than Jesus more fundamental to our happiness. A lack of joy in what Jesus has done for us, or unbelief, is always the root behind our failures to live as we should.
When we lie, for example, it is because our reputation is more foundational to our sense of self and happiness than the love of Christ. We always sin because at that moment we don’t really believe the gospel—that we are completely accepted in Christ. We are looking to something else to be what only Jesus can be to us. We are trusting something else as savior. Put another way, it is always a lack of joy—the absence of deep joy and rest in Christ’s love and work for us—that is the reason we do wrong. If we were content enough, we would not need to sin.
Christians may believe the gospel at one level but at deeper levels continue to look to other things besides Jesus to feel justified. Even after we are converted by the gospel, we still go back to operating on this religious principle, unless we deliberately and repeatedly set it to gospel mode. The gospel, then, is not just the elementary ABCs of the Christian life, but the comprehensive A to Z of the Christian life. This is radical! We don’t believe the gospel to become saved, and then move on to more advanced principles to grow. All of our personal problems and church problems arise when we do not continually go back to the gospel, believe it to be true, and work it out in our lives.
Therefore, we must realize our powerlessness to change our hearts through willpower, moral reformation, or even theological application. Ultimately, our hearts can only change as we allow the gospel to become the basic operating mode of our hearts—to change the main things we put our hearts’ greatest hopes in, the main things we find our hearts’ deepest joys and glories in. Both modern and postmodern people have rejected the
Christian faith because of what they perceive to be its inner joylessness. The gospel motivation for moral behavior fits neither the traditionalist’s duty-driven view of life nor the postmodern’s self-driven view of life. It breaks the categories, because it calls people to die to themselves and yet it promises inner joy.
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