Do you believe the gospel?

Do you believe the gospel?

Specifically, do you believe the power of the gospel to change and transform the lives of those who believe the gospel?

I don’t ask the question rhetorically; I ask it actually.  Do you believe the gospel has the ability to save anyone and transform his life?

Do you believe that the gospel can:

• Save your uncle Billy who is a profane drunk?
• Save your homosexual son?
• Save your father who is 78-years-old and has always insisted that the church and Bible are crutches for people who are weak?  And your Daddy (he insists) is not weak.
• Save your Muslim neighbor?
• Save the family of Kirstin, the classmate of your first-grade son?  The mother is in jail for check fraud, the father is unemployed and usually high, and Kirstin and her siblings live with their grandparents, who have an assortment of health issues, and while willing guardians, are not particularly nurturing and caring of the children.
• Save the woman in the cell next to Kirstin’s mother?  That woman is in prison for the murder of her live-in boyfriend.

One of the reasons that we are hesitant to share the gospel, as Thabiti Anyabwile noted in his address at the recent T4G event (“Will Your Gospel Transform a Terrorist?”), is because we really don’t believe that the gospel can save sinners who are the “hard cases.”  We would probably always say that we believe the gospel can save anyone, but in our hearts, we don’t really believe it.

But the story of Saul/Paul in Acts 9 is a reminder that God is in the business of saving the hard cases.  He saves thieves (see the account of Christ’s crucifixion in Luke 23) and He saves murders and people who are haters of the gospel (see Saul/Paul’s testimony).

For evidence of the transforming work of the gospel, note these sets of verses from Acts 9:

“Now Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest, and asked for letters from him to the synagogues at Damascus, so that if he found any belonging to the Way, both men and women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem.” (Acts 9:1–2)

“And he [Saul] was with them, moving about freely in Jerusalem, speaking out boldly in the name of the Lord. And he was talking and arguing with the Hellenistic Jews; but they were attempting to put him to death.” (Acts 9:28–29)

Saul, who had been a persecutor of believers and was glad to see them put to death (cf. 8:1), was now one who was willing to be persecuted and suffer and die himself for the sake of Christ.

This is the power of the gospel.  It saves the worst of sinners — even the worst of sinners in your life and mine.  Do not be hesitant to communicate the gospel; it can change lives.