Gospel Doctrine vs. Gospel Culture (Church Intention #1)

One of the projects I took on during my sabbatical this summer was a complete rebuild of my bicycle.

The bike was seventeen years old. It creaked constantly, parts were failing, and it badly needed help. Nearly every component had to be replaced, so I decided to strip it all the way down and repaint the frame. It had been blue and silver. I like black — as you can tell from my shirts — so I painted it black and started putting new components on.

Before you assume I am handy, I should tell you what actually carried me through that project: online videos and one of our elders. If he were not in agricultural consulting, that man would own a bike shop. He knows his stuff. He lent me tools I could not have done it without, gave me a few parts, and kept encouraging me.

But he could not stand there and do it with me — he is a husband and a dad, and he had his own kitchen remodel going. So he could not babysit me while I tried to figure out how a bike goes back together. Which meant I watched videos, and rewatched videos, and rewatched them again. It probably took me four times as long as it would have taken him. But after weeks of work, I finished it.

To celebrate, my wife and I went out for a short ride. And my bike would not shift correctly.

I was frustrated. I cannot tell you how many videos I had watched, and I still could not solve it. So I went home in defeat, pulled up the videos again, got nowhere, and finally called him with my head hanging: can you come help me?

He took pity on me. And I am not exaggerating — in two minutes he had it working.

The problem was that my shifter cable was not tight enough. It needed more tension. Too loose and the whole system will not work.

And here is why it was too loose. A few days earlier I had installed the cable too tight. I could barely work the shifter at all. So I loosened it — and overcorrected.

What I learned on that bike is that too little tension is bad, and too much tension is also bad.

That is a lot like life. There are areas where we genuinely need some tension — but too much of it and nothing shifts, and things start breaking.

We Know Something About Too Much Tension

Let me give you an example, and brace yourself, because this will come as a total shock: there is a lot of tension in politics right now.

I know. You had no idea. It turns out the two parties do not much like each other, and there is not a great deal of trust flowing between them.

Now here is a sentence that is genuinely hard for someone like me to say: we actually need some tension in the political realm. Because if you put every elected official in one room and they agreed one hundred percent of the time on everything, with no friction at all, we would not get the best ideas. Some tension is what lets thoughtful leaders wrestle toward what is actually best for a nation, a state, an organization.

But I do not think anyone here would say we are currently suffering from a shortage of political tension.

The week before the election I read an article that interviewed five supporters of one candidate and five of the other. What they had in common was that every single one of them had lost family members or close friends over political disagreement. One mother was highlighted whose son told her, “You are no longer my mom,” and cut off the relationship entirely — because they could not agree on which candidate was better.

That is too much tension. Nothing shifted. It broke.

And it is not only politics. There is enormous tension right now over the pandemic. Over issues of race. Over any number of things. And all of us have felt it personally. If you are married, you have felt tension. If you are a kid with a parent, you have felt tension. If you have a job or go to school, you have felt tension.

Some people actually enjoy it. They like the conflict.

Just this past week, in a service club I belong to, someone contacted us demanding we stop using a particular name for one of our fundraisers because he claimed it infringed on his business. It was absolutely ludicrous — we are a nonprofit; nobody is making money here. One member asked our executive committee for permission to go after him. They said yes. And she won. He dropped it entirely. Afterward she admitted to the group that it had been fun. She liked the tension. She liked the battle, and she came out victorious.

That is not me at all. I do not like tension. I am a peacemaker. My parents named me aptly — my name means peace. I want to be at peace with everyone. I want to like everyone, and I want everyone to like me.

I have also recently realized I do not like mystery, which surprised me, because as a kid I wanted to be a detective and devoured every kids’ mystery series I could find. I still read murder mysteries — I just finished one. But about halfway through I noticed I was anxious. The book was good, and I did not like it, because I wanted to get to the end. I wanted it resolved.

And yet the longer I am in ministry, the longer I follow Jesus, the longer I am simply alive, the more I discover that there are things in life where the tension is supposed to be there. I have to get comfortable with it and leave it alone. Because if you resolve the tension, the thing stops working.

Two Tensions Inside Christianity

Take the doctrine of God. Christians hold that God is Triune — one God in three persons. That is a tension. How can there be one God, and also God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit?

Because it is uncomfortable, people try to resolve it. Some collapse toward the oneness: there is really only one God who sometimes shows up as the Father, sometimes as the Son, sometimes as the Spirit. That is called modalism — God simply switching modes. But it is not what Scripture teaches. Scripture repeatedly shows one God existing as three persons, entirely unified.

Others collapse the other direction and effectively end up with three gods, losing the oneness. That is heresy too.

One God. Three persons. We live in the tension.

Or take Scripture itself. Christians believe the Bible is the inspired word of God — and that God worked through human authors. That is a tension. How does a perfect God write through imperfect people?

Some resolve it by emphasizing God’s authorship so heavily that the human writers become almost entranced, unaware, taking dictation. But when you study the text you see their distinct backgrounds and personalities and styles all over it. The human authors genuinely had a part.

And yet compare this to other human works and the Bible is unlike anything else — sixty-six books, roughly forty authors, and a cohesion that human coordination cannot explain. There had to be a God behind it. It is God-breathed.

We live in the tension.

Church in Tension

Which is why I want to begin a short series I am calling Church in Tension — a bit of a play on words, because over three weeks we are going to look at things that are held in tension, and how we live in that tension intentionally.

If you are a first-time guest, you picked a great Sunday, because you are about to hear who we want to be as a church. We are not perfect and we do not get it all right — a good deal of that is because I am the pastor. But you will hear the aim.

And this matters for our church family too, because now that we have a building, that building can quietly start reshaping how we see ourselves. I do not want us to make that mistake. God gave us a mission and we have to stay on it. A building is a sending station to help us go — not a comfortable place we simply come to.

Today’s tension: gospel doctrine and gospel culture.

Some Definitions

The gospel

Here is our definition: the gospel is the ongoing story of God redeeming broken and imperfect people and restoring them into the perfect and complete image of Jesus.

We call it an ongoing story because it is not merely something that happened back there that we glance at and say, “Huh, a guy died and rose again, that is remarkable — anyway, off to work.”

You know those movie shots where something detonates and you can see the shockwave ripple outward? That is how we see the gospel. When you tap into it, it explodes outward through all of time, all of history, all of culture — and it is still working today.

The story goes like this. A loving God creates humanity. Genesis 1:26–27 — the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit say, “Let us make man in our image.” Look at creation and you see remarkable things. Look at animals and you find personality, even intelligence. But there is nothing like humans, because the image of God is in us.

When Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit, that image became distorted — marred, blurred, cracked. It is still there, but not as God intended.

God wanted to restore it. But the penalty of sin was death. So rather than making all of humanity pay that penalty, God came down — God the Son — and went to the cross and died in our place. And when we put our faith in that story, God begins the restoration process in us. He takes broken, imperfect people and restores them into the image of Jesus, so that we love like Jesus loved and live like Jesus lived.

So when I say “gospel” today, I do not mean gospel music. I do not mean gospel choirs. I am not referring to the four Gospels — Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. I mean this story, which we believe still changes lives.

Gospel doctrine

“Doctrine” simply means a set of beliefs. So your gospel doctrine is what you believe about the gospel — which means I just laid out ours when I defined it.

And I do not think we have some special claim on the gospel, as though it is ours and everyone else has it wrong. I believe that if you went to the large majority of churches that call themselves Christian churches and sat down with the pastor or key leaders and asked — what do you believe about Jesus? about the cross? do you believe He rose from the dead? — most would say yes, this happened, it is true, and it still makes a difference.

Yes, some churches drift. Some talk about money too much. Some chase the miraculous to the exclusion of everything else. Some become so focused on community service that they lose the Jesus part. A few get far enough off the basics of orthodox Christianity to land in genuine heresy. But most churches that call themselves Christian have a gospel doctrine, even if it is not always pronounced.

And in some churches it is unmistakable. You can usually spot the doctrine-heavy churches because everything centers on preaching — often with an enormous wooden pulpit to hammer on. They have classes. They have discipleship programs. They are entirely about helping you grow theologically and develop that vertical relationship with God.

Gospel culture

By “culture” I simply mean the environment you find yourself in.

A church strong in gospel culture accepts people right where they are — because the gospel teaches that while we were still sinners Christ died for us. God accepted me. So if God can accept a sinner like me, I can accept others.

Those churches will take you no matter your background, your skin color, the clothes you walked in wearing, how much money you make, how many kids you have, whether you are single or divorced or anything else. Because if God accepted them, they will accept you.

And those churches tend to be vibrant and full of joy — which makes sense, since “gospel” simply means good news. They are excited to share good news with people.

The Danger on Each Side

As I describe those two, some of you know immediately which one you prefer. Some of you gravitate toward doctrine-heavy churches. Others of you want the strong culture. We have preferences — and so do churches. Churches drift toward one pole or the other and lose the tension.

Both drifts are dangerous.

Doctrine without culture produces hypocrisy

Think it through. You have a church teaching the love of God — how God loved you so much that Jesus went to a cross, died for your sins, and now accepts you. But the culture communicates something else: we do not accept you until you believe exactly like us, dress exactly like us, act like us, watch what we watch.

You do not feel accepted. It feels legalistic. It feels like a room full of hypocrites.

Culture without doctrine produces a flimsy church

Flip it. You have a culture that says welcome, you are accepted, come on in — but nobody is grounding you in the gospel.

Then hard things come, as they do. And you feel like you were sold a bill of goods. You thought everything would go well if you just believed this. Now life is difficult and it is much harder to summon the same joy as everyone else on a Sunday morning. Your faith never went deep, so when the hard thing hits, you eventually drift out of the church — and some people drift out of the faith entirely, because they were never given roots.

Their faith was flimsy. And I would argue the church was flimsy.

Both together produces a dynamic church

When a church holds gospel doctrine and gospel culture, there is power in that place. That is a church where you learn this staggering, life-changing gospel resonating through all of history — and you also experience it, in person, in how people treat you. And when the hard seasons come, that church carries you through them, and your faith comes out more robust. You become dynamic. And collectively that church makes a difference in the world.

Now, I am talking to intelligent people, so you are already thinking: I see where this is going. You are saying our church lives in that tension.

You are right, and you are wrong. That is who we want to be. It is not perfectly who we are.

There are stretches where we lean hard into gospel doctrine and the vibrancy is just not there — we are going through the motions. There have been other stretches where we have had a wonderful gospel culture, genuinely loving and supporting and accepting one another, while not taking the gospel seriously enough to actually grow in it.

But this is the aim. I want us to live in that tension — not because I think it will make us a cool church, and not because it will make us better than the churches around us so everyone will want to join. I want us to live in it because God calls us to.

Titus 2 and 3

I will be honest: I struggled to pick a passage this week — not because I could not find one, but because there were too many.

We have been working through Mark since February. We paused during my sabbatical, picked it back up, and we will be back in Mark in the new year. I like preaching through a book verse by verse, section by section, for two reasons. First, it does not let us skip the uncomfortable parts. There are portions of Scripture that make us squirm because they cut against where our culture sits — and if we believe this is genuinely inspired by God, we have to wrestle with it. Rather than spinning the Bible to say what we want, we have to figure out how to bring our lives in line with what God has already said. Second, it makes my life easier, because I do not sit down each week wondering what to preach. The passage is already chosen.

But sometimes a topic is important enough to break away, and I think this one is.

I considered John 8 — the woman caught in adultery, dragged before Jesus by men quoting the Old Testament law about stoning. Jesus displays gospel culture by forgiving her and persuading her accusers to walk away. And He holds gospel doctrine when He tells her to go and sin no more.

I considered Paul’s letters generally, since so many of them open with gospel doctrine — here is what the gospel is — and then turn to gospel culture — and here is what should come out of it. Ephesians. Colossians. I even considered an overview of Romans.

But I landed on Titus, because Titus is a letter written to a pastor. Titus was leading a church on the island of Crete, where all sorts of pressures were bearing down on them. So Paul writes to say: do not forget the kind of church you need to be, the church God is calling you to be. And in chapters 2 and 3 Paul is essentially telling him to build a church that lives in the tension between gospel doctrine and gospel culture.

Doctrine, then culture

Titus 2:11 — “For the grace of God has appeared…”

Pause on “grace.” That word can also be rendered gift. God has given us a gift, and the gift is Jesus — the forgiveness of sins through His death on the cross. This is grace from Him, and it has appeared to us.

And notice what it does: it brings “salvation for all people.”

Sometimes we act as if Christianity here is for white people. No. Christianity is for all people. In Revelation — and I am about to spoil the ending — God wins, and around His throne are people from every tongue, tribe, and nation who have put their faith in Christ. This gospel is not reserved for a certain economic class who dress a certain way and have everything tidied up. It is available to anyone who will confess Jesus.

That is gospel doctrine. Now watch verse 12 shift into culture: this grace trains us “to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions.”

Our world would love nothing more than for us to dive headlong into exactly that — chasing whatever feels good in the moment. And Paul says no: this gospel calls us to something better. We do not surrender to every impulse, because that will not make us the people we actually want to be. Instead the gospel trains us to live “self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age.”

See what he is doing? If you hold the doctrine that the grace of God has appeared bringing salvation to all people, it should produce a culture — one where ungodliness is renounced, where worldly passions are not chased, where we live with self-control and with joy, radically differently from how we lived apart from Christ.

Culture, then doctrine

Now look at chapter 3, where Paul reverses the order.

Verse 1: “Remind them to be submissive to rulers and authorities.”

That one is hard right now. Some of you have struggled for four years to submit to the current administration. Others of you, with the networks now declaring a winner, are dreading the next four years.

But if you are going to live a gospel-centered life — if you say you follow Jesus — then your true leader is God. And because you trust a sovereign God, you can trust that He has put in place whom He wants in place. So you can be submissive to rulers and authorities.

And if you want to object that Paul had no idea what our politics would look like — remember who Paul actually had. Nero. The emperor who, historians tell us, lit Christians on fire to illuminate his gardens. Who many believe approved the burning of Rome for his own building projects and then blamed Christians to deflect suspicion. He hated Christians. And Paul is telling Jesus-followers to be submissive and respectful even under a man like that.

He continues: be obedient, be ready for every good work — and then this one: “to speak evil of no one.”

Our political leaders need to hear that. Those ads that ran nonstop on television spoke evil of everyone. May we be different. Speak evil of no one. Avoid quarreling. Be gentle. Show perfect courtesy toward all people.

I do not know about you, but that is the kind of church I want to be part of. I have already confessed I do not like tension and I do not like conflict. I want to be somewhere people are gentle. Somewhere they show perfect courtesy toward everyone. Somewhere that no matter who walks through the door, they are loved and accepted.

We may not agree politically. We may not agree about their lifestyle. We may not agree on all sorts of things. And we can still be friends. We can still show respect. We can still show kindness — because God loves them, and Jesus died for them, and He brings salvation to all people.

And then Paul pivots straight back into doctrine. Verse 4: “But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior.”

He is telling Titus: the people of Crete — known for brutality — need to see a life-changing gospel. Show them love and acceptance. Live radically unlike them. But the way that culture gets established is by being rooted in the doctrine: that God saved us not because of any righteous works of ours, but entirely because of who He is and what He has done.

That is the gospel. And it can change the world.

So What Does This Have to Do With You?

If you are not a follower of Jesus — thank you for being here. Maybe you were dragged along. Maybe someone is making you watch. I do not know why you are here, but I am glad you are. And you may not believe this next part, but it is entirely true: we started this church for you.

When my family moved to this town, we did not go recruit people out of other churches to help us launch something. We put our focus on people who felt spiritually disconnected — people to whom God simply felt distant — because we wanted them to know this life-changing gospel. We knew starting a church that way would be slow. That is why it has taken six years to get here. It has been worth it.

And if something has been stirring in you as you have heard this, I would encourage you to give in to that stirring and give your life to Christ. Jesus died on a cross for the forgiveness of your sins. Because He gave His life for you, I invite you now to give your life to follow Him.

When you take that step — when you confess your sin and accept the sacrifice of Jesus on your behalf — Scripture teaches that everything changes at the core of who you are. You go from spiritually disconnected to completely connected. From spiritual orphan to son or daughter of the Most High God. From alienated to family. This gospel changes everything, and it begins the restoration process, so you slowly begin to look more like Jesus — loving like He loved and living like He lived.

Our world desperately needs people who live that way, and we want you to be one of them. Most people mark that moment in prayer. So in the privacy of your own heart you can simply tell God: I know the truth now. I confess my sin. I accept the sacrifice of Jesus. I want to be Your son or daughter and follow You the rest of my days.

If you have already made that decision — and that is why you gave up a Sunday morning in the middle of a pandemic to be here in person or join online — then my question is: where are you in the tension?

Are you the person drawn toward gospel doctrine — reading Scripture, reading books, growing in understanding — while knowing your heart is not there? You have been a little mean at home. You have not been the kindest person at work. You have not been honoring toward a classmate at school.

Or are you on the gospel culture side — the warm, welcoming one, accepting everybody, showing the love of God — while knowing deep down that you do not actually know this gospel? You are kind to everyone out there, but if someone asked you to explain the gospel, you could not put words to it.

If that is you, spend some more time in the Scriptures. Read slowly through Titus 2 and 3. Go to Ephesians 2. Work through the whole book of Romans. Grow in your gospel doctrine and let your roots go deeper, while you keep living out that gospel culture.

Most of us are wired more one way than the other. So where do you need to grow, so the tension sits in a healthy place and things can shift properly?

And to those who call this church home, or who are thinking about it — will you help us be a church that lives in the tension? Will you help us live out a gospel culture while going deeper into the gospel itself? Because this is what our world needs.

I do not want us to be a hypocritical church. I do not want us to be a flimsy church. I want us to be a dynamic church, with real power resonating out of this place — and not because of a building, but because of the people.

Father, I pray You would accomplish this. Even though I believe this was the dream You gave my family when we started this church, it is ultimately Your dream — I see it in the Scriptures and I have seen it in other churches. But I cannot create a culture by myself. A culture is only established by an entire people. So help us be a people completely surrendered to Jesus, living out this gospel culture while growing in gospel doctrine.

I pray for anyone who does not know You — hear their prayer, hear their confession, let them place their faith in Jesus, and begin the restoration in them.

And I pray for those who have walked with You a long time but have not been growing — caught up in ministry, so busy working for the church that they have not rested in You; buried in work; frazzled by this pandemic; on edge from the political climate; walking through a divorce; struggling with a child. Whatever it is, we confess: we have not been living surrendered lives, so we are not living out gospel culture and we are not growing in gospel doctrine. Humble us. Give us strength to commit again to making You the center of our lives — because as much as we are hurting, there are so many others hurting too. Let us bring our pain to You, and then bring others to You as well.

Help us be a healthy church. Help us be dynamic — not for our glory. I would not care one bit if this church’s name faded, so long as the name of Jesus was known throughout this entire region. I long to see people surrendered to You. I long for revival, and we would love to be part of it. You are in control, so do with us what You need to, and with every church in our region, to accomplish Your mission of helping people find You and follow You. In Jesus’ name, amen.