Monday Morning Munch No. 29 – The Explicit Gospel

I’ve been reading The Explicit Gospel by Matt Chandler for a couple days now and I love this book. The easy read is solid truth and I wanted to share a little chunk with you. It copied funny from the PDF (which you can get by clicking here), but you’ll still get it.

I restrained myself from “bolding” anything, because I want the Spirit to show you what He wants you to see, not what Sophie thought was really important.

May God give us grace to see God for who He is.

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It has been my experience that most evangelicals believe
Christians are in a bargaining position. We carry an insidious prosperity gospel around in our dark, little, entitled hearts. We come to the throne and say, “I’ll do this, and you’ll do that. And if I do this
for you, then you’ll do that for me.”
In the end God says, “You keep trying to pay me off with stuff that’s already mine.” Some of us even try to bargain with our lives.
But God says, “Please. I’ll take that life if I want it. I’m God.”
We presume upon our service. “I’ll serve you, God!” we say.
But he replies, “I’m not served by human hands as though I need anything (Acts 17:25). What are you going to do, give me something to eat? What are you going to do, paint my house? What are you going to give to me, as if I’m lacking?”

The profitable result in these exchanges is the revealing of idolatry and pride within us. We want to live as though the Christian life is a 50/50 project we undertake with God, like faith is some kind
of cosmic vending machine. And we’re reinforced in this idolatry
by bad preachers, by ministers with no respect for the Scriptures,
by talking heads who teach out of emotion instead of texts, who
tickle ears with no evident fear of the God who curses bringers of
alternative gospels (Gal. 1:8–9). He owes us nothing.
And we have nothing to give to him that he doesn’t already
own outright.

The customary response to this, of course, is to ask about the
place of following God and serving his cause. There is plenty of
call for this in the Bible. But the reality is that all God has to do is
reveal himself to you, and you’ll gladly join the mission in service
to his kingdom. He doesn’t force the issue; he just has to reveal
himself as he is: mighty, wondrous, gracious, loving, and radically
saving. No man goes back to saltine crackers when he’s had “let
mignon.

And even this truth is further revelation of God’s grace, because
it shows that he doesn’t need us; rather, he wants us. When we who
call ourselves Christians realize how utterly self-sufficient God is
all within himself—the three in one—the gift of Christ to us and
for us becomes all the more astonishing. And we will want it this
way. Because a God who is ultimately most focused on his own
glory will be about the business of restoring us, who are all broken
images of him. His glory demands it. So we should be thankful for
a self-sufficient God whose self-regard is glorious.

-Matt Chandler, The Explicit Gospel, God’s Perfect Self-Sufficiency, pp. 30-32