There Is No Bad News In The Good News

I don’t know anyone who doesn’t like hearing good news. How do you react when you’re told good news? How does hearing good news make you feel? The gospel is good news, it’s not good news mixed with bad news. Much of what is sold as “the gospel” is not the gospel at all but an inferior substitute for the real thing. There is an easy way to distinguish the authentic true gospel from the counterfeit. The true gospel is 100% good news. There’s no bad news in the good news. If the gospel you’re hearing makes you feel insecure, guilty, and condemned, then it’s not the gospel.
I heard a sermon recently, so typical of so many sermons these days, a sermon I would call, “The gospel of good news and bad news.” The sermon went something like this: “Yes, it is true that God loves us, but you still must be obedient and not sin or you will be “cut off and out of fellowship with God.”  This type of mixture of good news and bad news is killing us.  A little bit of grace to make you feel loved; a little bit of condemnation to make you behave. That is not the gospel of the New Testament. “There is therefore now NO condemnation.” (Romans 8.1) Not a little; NO, none, not any condemnation. It is all about good news, good news and more good news.
Romans 1:16 (NKJV)
For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also for the Greek.
Apostle Paul said he was not ashamed of the Gospel. Why? “For it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believes.” The gospel is the power of God, without the true Gospel, there is no power. The gospel is the power that transforms and saves men. Paul called the true gospel the message of the Grace of Christ. Jesus was the perfect representation of God (Heb. 1:3). He said if we have seen Him, then we have seen the Father (John 14:9). If people knew how good God is, they would love Him and live for Him. But God has been so slandered that most people don’t know Him as the good God He really is.
I read a blog the other day written by someone who said he was “troubled that the church no longer fears God” and that there is an “overemphasizing of the goodness of God.” Think about that. We have “overemphasized” the goodness of God. That’s like saying, “God’s good, but He’s not that good. The blog went on to warn its readers about the dangers of preachers that tickle your ears. I want to use my blog to warn you about stone-throwers. A person who uses the Law of the Old Covenant to tell you what they want you to hear, and typically does so with all the fire of an Old Testament prophet.
A stone-thrower may appear respectable and religious, but they’re nothing more than a bully with a Bible. The Bible in the hands of a graceless preacher is a lethal weapon that ministers death (2 Cor 3:7). Jesus encountered many religious stone-throwers; men like those in John chapter eight who wanted to stone the woman caught in adultery, yet Jesus gave her the gift of no condemnation. His gift is what empowered her to go and do this sin no more. Jesus forgave a woman whom the Law condemned to death (John 8:1-11). It is the good news of God’s goodness that leads people to repentance, not holding people over hell on a rotten stick (Rom 2:4 NKJV). Our responsibility today is to preach the good news, more good news and then more good news. Not good news mixed with bad news. We need to stop playing (preaching) “good cop bad cop”. Just show them the love of God that is in Christ Jesus.