Beautiful—But Where’s the Gospel?

Reflections on a Loma Linda University Church Service

 

By Peter Zenthoefer  

  It was the Saturday after Christmas, and I accompanied some out-of-town relatives who wanted to attend Loma Linda University Church. In reflecting on our visit, I want to explain more fully why I felt disappointed afterwards. That whole church experience was like receiving a beautiful Christmas present. The paper, ribbon, and bow were gorgeous. I had hopes for something beautiful inside. And then, when I removed the beautiful bow, ribbon, and paper and opened the box, it was empty. 

Let me explain. What was missing was the Good News Gospel message. 

The sermon was entitled “Regifting”, and it can be summarized with these three points:

1. Jesus is our example.
2. We are to work hard and make disciples in Jesus’s image.
3. Afterwards we get “rest”. 

The Bible, though, tells us that although Jesus is an example, His primary purpose in coming was to carry our sins to the cross. Although we do rest after working hard, this sort of rest is not the rest Jesus primarily came to give. There is a much more special rest that we enter when we trust Jesus as our Lord and Savior, the one who came to carry our sins to the cross. 

He came to this earth in the form of man. He carried our sins to the cross and died there in our place, and then He rose again promising to send the Holy Spirit to those who believe in Him. Jesus is not dead, but alive! Alive today! 

We don’t make disciples by changing people on the outside. Rather, when people believe in Jesus, the Holy Spirit enters them and changes their hearts. Our job as believers, as Jesus said in Matthew 28:18–20, is to tell people everything He commanded so they will believe (Jn. 20:30, 31), baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Jesus asks us to admit our sin and repent, and all those who believe and trust that He has completed everything necessary for the atonement of their sins will pass from death to life (Jn. 5:24). He will dwell in our hearts and make us His friends, and the Holy Spirit will then slowly change us from the inside out. Jesus will guide us and give us direction. He isn’t just a memory from the distant past whom we should imitate. Jesus is alive today and wants to live in our hearts. 

The fruit of believing

When the Holy Spirit lives in us, we start to enjoy the “fruit of the Spirit” which is joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self control and love (Gal. 5: 22-23). We are also given the the “gifts of the Holy Spirit”: wisdom, understanding, counsel, fortitude, knowledge, piety, fear of the Lord, faith, healing, and so forth (1 Cor. 12). In our world today where people are lonely, unfulfilled, dealing with lots of stress, confronted with evil all day long, and flooded with distracting information, believers in Jesus have the Holy Spirit comforting them, giving them peace, and pointing them in the right direction as He applies God’s word to their lives. 

Furthermore, we learn in Hebrews 4:7–11 what God says about the rest that is ours when we believe. God says that he gave the Israelites the Sabbath, but they never actually entered his special Sabbath Rest because their hearts weren’t right (Heb 4:4–8). Here is the whole passage explaining God’s rest and who receives it: 

For only we who believe can enter his rest. As for the others, God said, In my anger I took an oath: They will never enter my place of rest, even though this rest has been ready since he made the world. We know it is ready because of the place in the Scriptures where it mentions the seventh day: On the seventh day God rested from all his work. But in the other passage God said: They will never enter my place of rest. So God’s rest is there for people to enter, but those who first heard this good news failed to enter because they disobeyed God. So God set another time for entering his rest, and that time is TODAY. God announced this through David much later in the words already quoted: Today when you hear his voice, don’t harden your hearts. Now if Joshua had succeeded in giving them this rest, God would not have spoken about another day of rest still to come. So there is a special rest still waiting for the people of God. For all who have entered into God’s rest have rested from their labors, just as God did after creating the world. So let us do our best to enter that rest. But if we disobey God, as the people of Israel did, we will fail (Heb. 4:3–11).

That special Sabbath Rest God promises is the fruit of having a RELATIONSHIP with Jesus. We enter a relationship with Him when we trust His finished work of atonement, His shed blood which fully paid for our sin, and then are indwelled by the Holy Spirit who guarantees our eternal future. Rest does not come to us from trying to follow a set of rules on a certain day of the week. Rather, we can experience that Special Sabbath Rest, that special peace, today or any day of week. It is ours when we “hear his voice” and believe. That rest in Christ is eternal. 

Pastor Randy Roberts is a great speaker. His presentation was fabulous. The Loma Linda Church was beautiful. The music was exceptionally nice. But his message was missing the Good News Gospel that Jesus died for our sins, shedding His blood as a propitiation for our sins, that He was buried, and that He rose on the third day according to Scripture, breaking the curse of sin for all who believe. This Good News Gospel is the central focus of the Bible. This is the special message that we’re supposed to share with the entire world. 

I am thankful that my relatives visited us; I enjoyed being with them. These facts, though, explain why I was disappointed after church. The experience was beautiful, but the presentation lacked the true words of life.† 

 

Peter Zenthoeffer and his wife Elaine live in Portland, Oregon. Peter is a retired physician, and they have four adult children. They attend the Canby New Life Foursquare Church and continue to nurture relationships with their Adventist loved ones as they look for opportunities to share the beauty of the gospel with them.