The gospel transforms an individual from the realm of separation from God’s blessings into a personal relationship with God. This personal impact of the gospel is often taught by preachers
But the gospel does more than just have an individual impact on a person. The gospel creates a counter-culture called the church. The church not just a collection of individual Christians but a community, a culture. Those who only believe in an individual gospel often miss the communal implications.
Individual Christianity is quite simple, but living with other Christians in a world that both hates Jesus and needs Jesus is very complex. Such living is the essence of true discipleship and requires a community of grace and truth to achieve.
The Apostle Peter urged the church as “sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul. Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation.” (1 Pet 2:11-12) Notice, on one hand Peter is urging for abstinence and on the other hand is urging engagement. Thus are the complexities I am talking about.
Peter recognized that there are dangers of both cultural accommodation and cultural withdrawal. No one sees the good deeds of those who withdraw from the world. On the other hand, people who accommodate the culture are never persecuted. We’re to go in deeply, but to stay very different.
As a counter-culture we should be both priestly and servant-hearted. Those who want to be legalistic and have an us-against-them mentality tend not to be priestly. Those who are only interested in social issues tend not to talk about hell and wrath.
Yet, in his first letter Peter depicts an effective, persecuted counterculture. If properly living the gospel of grace and truth, the church will always be both attracting people and facing persecution.
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Jason Robertson is a husband and a father and a pastor. He is dedicated to leading and equipping his the Church with God’s word and biblical theology for life ministry, using a combination of pastoral, church planting and evangelism experience. He holds a Master of Divinity from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. He is experienced in church planting, evangelism, missions, and the training of pastors and Bible teachers.
Jason has been preaching the gospel since 1985, serving the first ten years of ministry as a Southern Baptist itinerant evangelist out of Milldale Baptist Church in Zachary, LA which ordained him in 1993. He has preached in hundreds of churches in over 30 States and 4 countries. He planted churches in Siberia, Russia in the summers of 1993 and 1994. He founded Murrieta Valley Church in California, which he planted in cooperation with the SBC NAMB in 2001. He also teaches ministry students at California Baptist University.
You can hear his sermons and read his manuscripts on sermonaudio.com. Just follow the link to "sermons" at the top of this page.