4 Core Components of the Gospel

How can we simplify. Right? The world is overloaded. Info is a blur. All whizzing past our screens at thumb-flick speed. We intake a bazillion bits of banter each day. And do we process it all?

… Sure, but not entirely. We breeze through the day. Checking how many apps? (Hint: a larger number than just 4 years ago, remember how peaceful those days were?)

Simple. Takes thought. To simplify. What a wonderful world that would be.

Boring, but simple.

How then can we, or even should we simplify the gospel? Whittle it down to the core, key components. Then evaluate those core components for maximum strength of building-out the structure of connection with the world … with our world … with God’s whole world.

Why? Because the Gospel by design must go. Helping the gospel go is fun. We can be involved. Gospel-going-forth is not a 100% God-exclusive activity. God graciously allows us kids to tag-along and participate on a meaningful level where we actually feel like we are working with Dad, doing Dad-level stuff. That’s fun.

Why simplify the gospel? Because beauty is simple. Confusion is rough. Breathing is good. There are just two parts to breathing: in and out. Wishing the Gospel were that condensable. But how simple should we make the Gospel? Because obviously the whole truth must be present.

Let’s start by taking a broad look at today’s people. Today, people are … experiencing life in quite a variety of ways. Entertainment everywhere. Busy with work. Rushed in traffic and going places. What a scramble-fest. Running somewhere from sunup to sundown. Scattered energy everywhere. People crave clarity.

So here it is:

1. God

2. Sin

3. Separation

4. Salvation

Done.

Core.

Expand.

• God must be one ingredient. A clear understanding of Who God declares Himself to be. Correct? Without God in the equation, the other parts of the gospel have no bearing. God is core. Cannot delete Him from the Gospel.

• Sin becomes clearer when we comprehend Who God is. God is different. God is not a man that He should behave like us. Our sin becomes exceeding sinful in our own perception only when we see the magnificence and difference between ourselves and the Divine Being.

Movies have a script. A plot-line. There must be some conflict to resolve, else the story floats without resonance. The Gospel must reveal a conflict, the resolution of which is magnetic and nearly unexplainable apart from experiencing it. A “gospel” without magnifying a clear conflict is not holistic or transparent.

Elevate the persona of the evil villain, exploring his root motives and backstory, and the audience becomes enraptured with examining ways the bad guy will interact with his timely meeting with his moral opposite.

Sin is essential. Core to the Gospel. Some presenters of the Gospel skim over a blasé, basic, cardboard definition of sin, minimizing it’s scope and saturation within our self and throughout society. When sin is diminished, so is sin’s solution. The good guy becomes boring.

Expand on the concept of sin from several angles and watch the vibrant story-teller usher the audience into another level of perception — a fresh and pure view of how the problem is real. Sin really does complicate life. Where there is no clear problem, there is no compelling solution. I don’t need fixing. I’m content to float along. All good. Unless … I explore the possibility that I am not “all good.”

• God

• Sin

• Separation becomes self-evident. The distance between God and where I belong is the measure of my sin. Recognizing my state is admitting I am miles from God, even further. Separation is natural. Sin separates. So what? Welp … separation is a painful problem. Separation of life’s most precious relational bonds is but a foretaste sip of the tsunami of emotional separation we have coming in the spiritual realm. Divorce is separation. That hurts, immeasurably so. And divorce is partly a picture of the pain of being separated from God. Possibly life’s most traumatic pain is the atomic tearing-apart of two souls welded together in matrimony for eons. Separation is how some go numb: just disengage from certain activities or cut off certain individuals from our surroundings. Separation is designed to be painful. Why the pain? Because our design is contrary to splitting of souls.

Simplicity is beauty. The Gospel is most glorious.

Holding forth the bright and purest, simple Gospel makes the observer pause in wonder.

The Gospel is God, sin, separation, and salvation.

Not skipping ahead.

Systematic. Not more than four cores. Four is a healthy, segmented number. Four parts. We can handle that. Salvation is rescue from a thing. From what thing? Good question. There must be a thing to be rescued from. From separation we have been lifted into a position of safety / salvation.

• Salvation is directly bound to a state of separation, from which we naturally seek escape. For separation is painful. The pain of separation is recognizing our sin put us in such a state. Sin becomes the problem. And we cannot elsewise reconcile our state of sin, for indeed we are sinners without and within, above and under our skin.

Sin only makes sense when examined in the Light. Had there been no True Light, there would be no knowledge of sin. Sin becomes smelly when placed next to the sweet Rose of Sharon. Sin becomes dim only when compared to the Son. Sin becomes something we squint at like a complex math equation, trying to reconcile from every which way alone, without help, then finally admitting we cannot resolve the balance due apart from outside assistance. Sin is seen the more we look at the identity of God. For God is not sin. We are not God. The gap betwixt us and God is everything sinful. The higher He is lifted up, the more responsibility we sense for our state. We are undone. He is perfect. We cannot attain to His level. He is pure. We are not. He is significantly different in such a broad spectrum of ways that our little brain just runs a loop.

Simplify the Gospel.

And it becomes clear.

A beautiful message.

Salvation from separation, due to sin, because of the difference between me and God.

Or reverse the four cores. Build the blocks backward and they say the same thing.

God is quite different from me, and that span expands into the fullness of my irreconcilable sin, which sin drives me toward a position of being separated both now and eternally, which separation then makes me want to seek and cry out for salvation somehow.

Transferring truth should start small.

Pass the ball.

4 core concepts.

Here’s the 4-points and a-poem. Then we’re a-going home.

People can hear that.

Reception is welcome.

Upon simplicity is profundity developed.

Imagine pondering one of the four points of the Gospel for an hour. Quite possible, for each concept is deep and wide.

Keep the message clean.

Personality tends to fill in the gaps with pet concepts, all of which are just the threads connecting the pillars four. Quite obviously I cannot resolve sin on my own, once I truly am immersed in the full depravity of the sinful soul, heart, mind, and body. The concept that God loves me and sent a Saviour becomes self-evident and Scripture-evident as we ponder the four cores.

Please know also that in the previous generation, skipping over core one was possible. For who in the 1980s needed a presenter to cover the obviously accepted fact that God was God. Duh. We all knew that. Not today, however. The definition of God has been diluted and decimated. His name means far less today that it did a decade ago, to the common person. Ask the feller on the street, “Who is God to you?” and take good notes. Just go along for the ride. You will hear tales of webbing, scrambled from every possible far-flung philosophy all patched together. You cannot know what to expect today. The “concept” of God has been stretched. We hear about the God-particle, the God-frequency, the God-in-everything, the Godness of self-realization, the third eye in our brain being the means of communication with God. And the rabbit-hole swirls onward. God has been diluted. What common school promotes singularity of Deity? For from this first core … the concept of Who God truly is … flows forth the other three components of the glorious Gospel. No God = no Gospel. Right?

Imagine being on the opposing team. Infused with liberal ideology, trying to attack and replace this idea of Godhood. God becomes the problem, blocking the progress of the progressive movement. So instead of appearing to attack God face-first, let’s just deceive by re-imagining a new version of “god” on our level, and then steamroll right over this fabricated straw-man to gain our objective of controlling our section of the world. The hunger for control is immense. Re-define God and the Gospel loses power.

Elevate God, and sin becomes a problem worthy of our attention, which then results in coming head-on into the awareness that I am separating myself from the true Source of lasting Joy, Peace, fathomless Love and all the rest of things my being truly craves. Elevate God, gain clarity on sin, sense the separation, and get hungry for a solution. Salvation becomes obvious. The only means of escape is Someone else taking my place and paying the immense bill I cannot resolve single-handedly. I cannot even pay a penny toward the balance due. My “money” is no good in this scenario. I need a Great Saviour!

Summary: let’s keep the Gospel pure. Let’s present the truth in love, clearly. Keep God central.

From the core of pursuing a clear view of God, we also gain a clear vision of ourselves. Isaiah experienced bedazzling clarity in chapter 6: “I saw also the Lord … Holy, holy, holy, is the LORD of hosts: the whole earth is full of His glory. Then said I, Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips: for mine eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts.” Then Isaiah embraced the necessary cleansing, “Lo, this hath touched thy lips; and thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin purged.”

We wrap-up with a sentiment expressed through the Divine Author moving the pen of Paul:

“But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ” 2 Cor 11:3.