So what is the Gospel?

Aug 27, 2009 12:15 PM
So what is the Gospel?
by makestraight

I’ve decided to take another break after this post, before I post anything new. I’ll try to check comments randomly and respond to them when I can, but I need a break to focus on other very important aspects of my life.

As much as I have found freedom in Christ and a new love for God, I find that the energies spent here are quite exhausting. To be honest, I am not 100% sure if this is a ‘good’ task in God’s eyes [but I am more than 50% sure definitely]

I am somewhat torn in wondering if this is good in that it validates the truth of the spiritual abuse at Gracepoint Fellowship Church [aka Gracepoint Berkeley], and that it protects future people from potentially encountering the same – Or if this is merely promoting a kind of ‘in-fighting’ among believers, which Paul is against.

Again, I don’t fully know. Maybe it can only be judged in hindsight.

I try to view it from the perspective of asking myself if such a website would have helped me if it existed any earlier. For me, I think it would have. I can say that much confidently. I know a couple of commenters have thanked me for this site, and for any help that you received that drew you closer to God, I give glory to Him. In light of this, I do see this as a sort of ministry in a small way.

I thought I would just talk about the Gospel in this post, because in the end, that’s the basis of my charge against Pastor Ed and Kelly Kang and the directors there.

So what is the Gospel?



There’s that well known tract out there that describes it very simply – the 4 spiritual laws

1. God LOVES you and offers a wonderful PLAN for your life.

2. Man is SINFUL and SEPARATED from God. Therefore, he cannot know and experience God’s love and plan for his life.

3. Jesus Christ is God’s ONLY provision for man’s sin. Through Him you can know and experience God’s love and plan for your life.

4. We must individually RECEIVE Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord; then we can know and experience God’s love and plan for our lives.

Then of course, the prayer [which need not be recited verbatim]

“Lord Jesus, I need You. Thank You for dying on the cross for my sins. I open the door of my life and receive You as my Savior and Lord. Thank You for forgiving my sins and giving me eternal life. Take control of the throne of my life. Make me the kind of person You want me to be.”

[for more info you can read this site: www.godlovestheworld.com]

I really appreciate whoever came up with these 4 spiritual laws. It lays out the Gospel clearly.

The Gospel literally translated is “good news”. The good news is that EVERY one of us can be saved from our sins and from its penalty of death, and share eternal life with God!

Romans 6:23
For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Sin basically is the “I” problem [directly from course 101 at GFC]. It means having oneself as the center of his/her life and taking the place of God.

God is the rightful owner of our lives, and this means that He should be the center. This is what it means to Jesus as our Lord. And Jesus gave us the Holy Spirit to be with us.

John 15
16And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever— 17the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you.

Sin doesn’t only manifest itself in the obvious morally wrong deeds, such as hatred, jealousy, assault, murder, drug abuse, and the like.

Sin also can manifest itself in self-righteousness and legalism.

How?

Instead of relying upon God with the guidance of the Holy Spirit, we start relying upon our own self-will, systems and laws. Of course, they should be partially involved in striving to be holy, and having a good relationship with God. But when they are the only factors, then we depend upon laws rather than grace, and this is what we essentially call legalism.

OlderNWiser has already posted on this, and you can read for yourself the book of Romans and Galatians.

We read in the gospels about the legalistic teachers of the law, pharisees and chief priests. They didn’t understand the heart of God – they were so entrenched in Do’s and Don’ts of the laws, that they really didn’t care much about God at all. They rather cared more about what the laws did for themselves – give them a sense of significance and self-glory, along with a smug feelings of self-righteousness.

Jesus called them “white-washed tombs”.

Matthew 23
26Blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside also will be clean.

27″Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of dead men’s bones and everything unclean. 28In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness.

Jesus clarified the gist and intent of the law in Matthew 22:36-39:

36″Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” 37Jesus replied: ” ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ 38This is the first and greatest commandment. 39And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’

We read in the gospels that their main problem with the Jewish leaders with Jesus was their jealousy of him. They could not stand that God was getting more glory than themselves!

I strongly believe that Gracepoint Fellowship Church is entrenched in legalism, and in doing so, they are harming God’s sheep.

Rather than living in grace, and allowing individuals to foster their individual relationship with God by teaching their sheep in grace, they dominate their members with laws, and a culture of fear, guilt and debt to quickly try to make their members look good on the outside [they mistake this as growth]. And granted, look good they do, on the outside.

But in reality, different people have different timelines for how fast they are going to grow, and people definitely don’t grow through laws, systems, or a culture of fear, guilt and debt.

Don’t get me wrong – this is not to give excuse to lazy Christians who don’t really want to grow in their relationship with God, but at GFC, it’s almost like people are lined up to follow schedules all the time. From their weekly schedule, to how soon one should go from member to core member, to staff intern, to staff, it’s like the military. In real life, people grow on their own time perhaps like different plants do. Also, people have different backgrounds and different life experiences. They cannot be forced to be placed under a cookie-cutter of what GFC deems to be a “good Christian” – they produce templated Christians who merely behave well on the outside at best, but are immature and fearful on the inside.

New Christians should be taught and nurtured, but as they grow, they should be allowed to be themselves, make their own decisions based on their own biblical understanding and convictions, while teaching them to consider good advice. They should even be allowed to make a good deal of mistakes so that they can grow, so that their decisions become their own, and the lessons learned are more personal.

But in the culture at GFC, people are so afraid of making mistakes, because they are so afraid of being corrected. Correction [or love for truth as they call it] is such a high value there, disproportionate to grace in my opinion, and just not done in propriety often.

This is more healthy nurturing of a Christian. Did s/he commit an egregious sin like adultery or murder or even stealing? Yes, rebuke such a person! But don’t rebuke a person for not washing your dishes, or not saying Happy Birthday in person!

Furthermore, GFC places rigid boundaries around what a Christian can or cannot do to the point of extreme legalism. Leaders will express “concern” that someone wants to serve at another church for a weekend, like there’s something wrong with it, and a GFC Christian’s ministry is only for anything having to do with GFC itself. This is NOT healthy.

How do you know, GFC leaders, how God wants to lead one Christian or another? Are you stating that you are God and that you know He wants that person only at GFC or affiliated branch churches for the rest of one’s life? Do you dare say you know God’s will for each and evey individual? Do you not believe that God does convict individuals also, and not just via the church as a whole?

I’ll give the Kangs the benefit of the doubt that they meant well initially. Maybe somewhere along the line, things got twisted. The focus went from God to Gracepoint Fellowship Church. It went from glorifying God and nurturing His sheep faithfully in grace, to glorifying itself, and controlling the sheep to make Gracepoint look good.

I pray that the veil may be lifted from the eyes of Pastor Ed and Kelly Kang, and all the directors there.

Why is it that Christians on the outside can see this, but they cannot? Or do they refuse to?

May God’s grace be with you all.