{"id":88,"date":"2009-08-15T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2009-08-15T04:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/brian-pruett\/2008\/05\/03\/simply-good-news\/"},"modified":"2009-08-28T23:39:40","modified_gmt":"2009-08-29T03:39:40","slug":"simply-good-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/brian-pruett\/2009\/08\/15\/simply-good-news\/","title":{"rendered":"Simply Good News"},"content":{"rendered":"

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A couple years ago Bailey and I went to Mexico with the youth from our home church during a missions outreach through a local Mexican church. Bailey was a mentor, and leader for the high school girls and I taught the high schoolers each day for a short course on missions. It was clear as I began preparing the course that I had to define the Gospel clearly otherwise people tend to teach it as another Gospel. I was reminded of this \u201csimple Gospel\u201d message when I read about Buk, a tribesman in the Philippines who is a new believer in Christ\u2019s finished work for him.<\/strong><\/p>\n

He was asked, \u201c”If you were to die today and stand before God, and He should ask you ‘What in the world would make you think that I should let you into Heaven?’ how would you respond to God?” This is a simple question, and one that has either been asked of you before, or you have dreaded being asked for fear that you might not have a clear answer. Most American Christians would answer the question with something like, \u201cWhen I was young, \u2018I asked Jesus into my heart\u2019 and \u2018promised to live for Him\u2019 and \u2018make Him the Lord of my Life.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

I apologize for being a bit blunt here, but that is a really bad answer and the kind I wanted to avoid the students in Mexico repeating to those they were teaching. What\u2019s wrong with it? It is full of Christian cliches and is all about the person who \u201casked Jesus into their heart\u201d…whatever that means. Basically it could be broken down into a simple belief that they were probably taught in Sunday school somewhere. It states: \u201cWhat God will do, in you, if you…\u201d<\/p>\n

To read how a Simple Gospel is Being received among tribal people around the world click below:<\/em><\/p>\n

Dinangat Tribe: Papua New Guinea<\/span><\/h2>\n

Buk from the Agta Tribe: Philippines<\/span>
\n<\/a><\/p>\n

What God WILL DO is a future event, it is subjective and uncompleted. If God will do something IN US to save us then why are still such hypocrites, and jerks? Maybe it hasn\u2019t happened yet? Maybe I didn\u2019t trust him enough, or say the right prayer? This kind of belief structure is so common in America and leads to some very insecure Christians. It is by its very nature religion: people doing something to help make themselves right with God.<\/p>\n

So what would a good answer be? Look at what Buk had to say. “I’d say to God that you already punished Jesus in full for all of my sin, and He is my only hope of getting into Heaven. I’m trusting in what He did.” Buk\u2019s answer what very simple. It was what I believe is a simple salvation message. \u201cWhat God has done, for you in Christ.\u201d<\/p>\n

It is all about Jesus isn\u2019t it? For Buk, it wasn\u2019t about any prayers, or \u201cinviting Jesus in.\u201d No, it is a finished work: what God HAS done. It is apart from anything we have done: \u201dfor you.\u201d And it is someone else that does the work: In Christ. What is left for us to do? We must rest in the fact that it is finished, completed, and there is nothing we can add to it. When we let go of our efforts to make ourselves right with God, we are in a place of vulnerability because we reach the point where we realize there really is nothing we can do. When a person is there, they can then turn to Christ\u2019s work for them and trust that it was enough to satisfy God.<\/p>\n

Paul explained it to the Ephesians nearly 2000 years ago, \u201cIt wasn’t so long ago that you were mired in that old stagnant life of sin. You let the world, which doesn’t know the first thing about living, tell you how to live. You filled your lungs with polluted unbelief, and then exhaled disobedience. We all did it, all of us doing what we felt like doing, when we felt like doing it, all of us in the same boat. It’s a wonder God didn’t lose his temper and do away with the whole lot of us. Instead, immense in mercy and with an incredible love, he embraced us. He took our sin-dead lives and made us alive in Christ. He did all this on his own, with no help from us! Then he picked us up and set us down in highest heaven in company with Jesus, our Messiah.<\/em><\/p>\n

Now God has us where he wants us, with all the time in this world and the next to shower grace and kindness upon us in Christ Jesus. Saving is all his idea, and all his work. All we do is trust him enough to let him do it. It’s God’s gift from start to finish! We don’t play the major role. If we did, we’d probably go around bragging that we’d done the whole thing! No, we neither make nor save ourselves. God does both the making and saving. He creates each of us by Christ Jesus to join him in the work he does, the good work he has gotten ready for us to do, work we had better be doing. Ephesians 2:1-10 paraphrased in the Message)<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A couple years ago Bailey and I went to Mexico with the youth from our home church during a missions outreach through a local Mexican church. Bailey was a mentor, and leader for the high school girls and I taught the high schoolers each day for a short course on missions. It was clear as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":372,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4,126],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-88","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-ministry","7":"category-shop-talk","8":"entry"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/brian-pruett\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/brian-pruett\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/brian-pruett\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/brian-pruett\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/372"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/brian-pruett\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=88"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/brian-pruett\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/brian-pruett\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=88"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/brian-pruett\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=88"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/brian-pruett\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=88"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}