i've got ways to make you sing my songs

the ones i ain't written yet

Paul's Epistle to the Galatians, chapter 3, verses 1-9 and 23-29:

Paul’s dealing with Christianity’s original AND perennial problem. And the issue, as you might expect, has to do with willpower. As you probably wouldn’t expect, though, the problem isn’t a lack of willpower. It’s the excessiveness of it! 

When it comes to anything, even faith, we always think the motor that’s going to get the whole thing up and running is willpower. As it turns out, though, our efforts are the cold water that puts the fire of the Gospel out every time. 

The way it happened for the folks in Galatia was that they were trying to straighten up their lives now that they had found God. And while that may sound well and good, Paul insists their actions were not bearing witness to the Gospel. Instead, they were undermining it.

We’re prone think that once we receive a gift, the Gospel included, it’s our job not to blow it. Or, at least, be grateful enough for it. But that’s to take a gift and turn it into a contract. “You’ve given me ‘x,’ and now I repay you with ‘y.’ Contractual logic, though, is the logic of the law. And the law is like dirty oil to the baptismal waters of the Gospel. They don’t mix.

Any expectation you add to the Gospel, be it reforming your life or just appreciating it enough, is to take the announcement of God’s “Great Faithfulness” and turn it into a trojan horse for a bunch of “shoulds” and “oughts.” And the net effect of all this is to make the Gospel into merely one more job description in the never-ending series of obligations of life.

What makes the Gospel the Gospel, though, is that it's really Good News! That there’s nothing you need to add to it! That it comes with no strings attached! That it’s given without consideration of qualification or potential for repayment! When God gives, there are no prerequisites or caveats. The gift is complete in and of itself!

This is what the English word “gospel” means, by the way. Gospel comes to us from the Greek word “euangelion.” It’s where we get words like evangelical. Now, the word Evangelical has a decidedly bad wrap these days. There are so-called Christians out there who are using this word as shorthand for close-minded, combative, arrogant, and mean-spiritedness. At its heart, though, evangelical just means “Good News.” Literally. 

The “eu” prefix at the beginning of the word is the same as the “eu” in words like EUlogy and EUphoria. Eulogy, meaning the good word spoken at a funeral. And euphoria, meaning that good feeling that overwhelms. “EU” means good. And the word “angelion” that makes up the rest of the evangelical, angelical, is where we get the word “angel,” actually! Angel simply means messenger! So an “eu-angelion” or “ev-angelion” is someone who brings news that is good!

The Gospel is the shockingly Good news that in Jesus Christ’s death, every last qualification for God’s acceptance has been met once and for all! Therefore, all those ways we try and prove God’s love for us before or after the fact are now totally unnecessary and unwarranted! Trying to wrench something we must do to deserve the Gospel or at least not mess it up is to deny the very nature of the Gospel itself! To act as if God’s promises aren’t enough. As if God needs our help.

To this entrenched mentality, Paul throws down the gauntlet. Any and every last thing you might try and do to show how worthy you are of God’s love has been laid to rest in Jesus’ empty tomb! When God gives the goods in Jesus Christ, God doesn’t hold back! God isn’t waiting for you to get it together or be thankful enough before God’s going to give with both hands! 

And that, my friends, is what’s newsworthy about the “Good News!” For something to actually be news, it must have an impact on your life. For instance, unless you’re an astronomer or astronaut, the fact that Pluto is not a planet is not news. That’s just a fact. If, however, you had dedicated your life to colonizing Pluto, finding out Pluto was not a planet would be more than a fact. It would be news. Albeit, bad news.

What makes the Gospel newsworthy is that it actually impacts your life! The Gospel transforms your life from an endless series of hurdles into an unbroken chain of gifts! The Gospel takes that ultimate finish line we’re all trying to reach and simply carries you past it! We all want to hear God say, “well done, good and trustworthy servant.” But on account of being clothed with Christ in your baptism, that’s already been said over you! And so much more!

It’s a little like the Wizard of Oz. Remember that movie? The story of farm girl Dorothy who longs for exotic locals and thrilling escapades instead of her humdrum life on the family farm. After she’s knocked out by debris from a Kansas twister, Dorothy dreams of a high adventure in the wonderful Land of Oz. It all ends with Dorothy waking up upon her own bed surrounded by her own family. Looking around, she realizes she’s had all the ingredients for the adventure she had longed for all along!

This is how it is between you and God now on account of the Gospel! By the Pentecost winds that blew at your baptism, you’ve been lifted up and dropped down into the wonderful world of faith. And what’s more, there’s nothing you’ve done to merit your place here, and there’s nothing you can do to lose it, either. Sure, you can piddle it away with a bunch of unnecessary effort. But why would you want to do that???

Why don’t you, instead, just go out there and enjoy it? I can’t help but suspect this disposition will prove to be a whole lot more grateful to God and good to your fellow neighbors than trying to gin up a proper attitude and enough gratitude! White knuckling your way through faith never works. And worse still, it turns God’s eternal grace into something as small and pathetic as attempting not to blow it.

And with that, you’ve hit upon the very heartbeat of God, the pulse of the Christian life! That eternal one-way love of God! The love of God that comes to you the same way today as it did the first time, as it will the last time, too! Unbidden and unearned! Go, you are loved. And loved all the way, too! And you will find that is more than enough for you to “safely arrive at home.”