Over the past decade a floodwater of cultural change in our country has occurred, leaving a massive impact on the church in America. Twenty years ago, there was a push to address the issue of mercy ministry and evangelism in our churches. Much of this was, no doubt, a helpful corrective to a perceived deficiency in local churches.
Today, the loudest voices speak incessantly about issues related to social justice, intersectionality, and human flourishing. Time will most certainly tell whether this was a needed corrective or a toxic corrosive for the church. Movements and organizations spring up almost as fast as they whither. The leaders of many social and para-ecclesial syndicates wish to influence the church in such a way that the church will embrace the obligations they press on her.
There is a noticeable lack of focus on the Gospel in many churches today.
When I sit back and read the deluge of thoughts and opinions online about what the church ought to be doing, I sense a noticeable lack of focus on the Gospel. In the many Twitter rants that recur on a daily basis, there is a discernible deficiency with regard to Scripture and the Gospel. Any intellectually honest assessment of the content of so much that is bandied about on the Internet must necessarily lead to the conclusion that people are bored with the Gospel.
Either they don’t believe that it is “the power of God unto salvation for those who believe,” or they have convinced themselves that the Gospel is simply one among many messages that ought to take front seat in the message and ministry of the church. In either case, the only conclusion we can draw from the fact that the preaching of the Gospel is no longer the center of gravity in the message and ministry of many churches in our day is that people don’t believe the Gospel works. They are not astonished by the glory, majesty, unspeakable greatness of the message of Christ crucified and risen.
The central message of Scripture is the message of the Gospel.
When we turn to the Scriptures, we get everything necessary for life and godliness. We hear God’s voice in Scripture. “The Holy Spirit says,” “The Spirit said through…,” and “As the Spirit says,” are some of the most commonly used introductions to Old Testament citations in the New Testament. The whole of the Bible is the whole of God’s word. It is God speaking by the Holy Spirit to the church. The church is perfected by the washing of the water of the word and the proclamation of the whole counsel of God given by those men God has called and equipped to faithfully preach and teach the Gospel. Christ is the only head of the church and as such is the sole authority for how the church is to function in the world.
Jesus is also the great High Priest of his church and the perfect sacrifice for the salvation of the souls of his people. The central message of Scripture is the message of the Gospel—the good news of what God has done through the death and resurrection of Jesus for the salvation of his people. Surely, the message of the cross impacts more than simply the forgiveness of the sins of an individual, but it is not less than that. In fact, whenever the Gospel in preached by the apostles, that is the central message of the cross.
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The Savior has taken away the sin of our hypocrisy by his sincere obedience. Who but Jesus could keep the commands of God with such sinless sincerity? Then, having perfectly done what he taught in absolute sincerity, Jesus left us with the most potent example to follow.

Jesus constantly warned about hypocrisy throughout his earthly ministry. Whether it was the institutionalized hypocrisy of the Pharisees (Matt. 6:2, 5, 16; 15:7; 16:3; 22:18; 23:13-15, 23-29), or the leavening effects that such hypocrisy had on professing believers (Luke 12:1), Jesus recurrently emphasized that we are ever in danger of falling into hypocrisy.
Since such hypocrisy was most prevalent among the religious leaders in Israel in Jesus’ day, pastors and others engaged in public ministry are far from immune to such hypocrisy in our own day.
Christian leaders need to have a deep determination to avoid falling into the trap of hypocrisy.
When the apostle Paul wrote his epistles, he often dealt with the issue of sincerity and hypocrisy in ministry. The same apostle who said, “what I will to do, that I do not practice; but what I hate, that I do…For the good that I will to do, I do not do; but the evil I will not to do, that I practice. Now if I do what I will not to do, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me” (Rom. 7:15-20) also said, “I discipline my body and bring it into subjection, lest, when I have preached to others, I myself should become disqualified” (1 Cor. 9:27; all Scripture quotations from NKJV).
Paul, at one and the same time, acknowledged the principle of indwelling sin in his own Christian experience and a deep determination to avoid falling into the trap of hypocrisy. There was a devout resolution in the heart of the apostle to put hypocrisy to death daily–even as he recognized the irreconcilable warfare between the flesh and the Spirit that raged in his heart.
There was not one insincere bone in the body of Jesus.
And, while it is true that all Christians must have the same resolution as the apostle Paul, there was only One who never knew anything of the reality of indwelling sin–the Lord Jesus Christ. There is only One who perfectly abstained from every form of sin and hypocrisy. There was not one insincere bone in the body of Jesus. Jesus never taught others something that he did not perfectly exemplify in his own experience. This is perhaps nowhere better seen than in his teaching in the Sermon on the Mount. No one ever had a pure heart like Christ. Jesus never lusted after a woman, never lied, never had a hateful thought or affection. Jesus was perfectly pure in heart. Jesus loved his Father with all of his heart, mind, soul, and strength.
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