Meet my good friend Louis Tamburro! Louis loves the gospel. He is someone I can say along with Paul….”I thank my God in all my remembrance of you, always in every prayer of mine for you all making my prayer with joy, because of your partnership in the gospel.” Philippians 1:3-5
Louis planted Vessel this year. Their first meeting was January 19, 2014. If you do not have a home church and you live in the UCF / Oviedo area, click on the logo above for more information and go check out Vessel this Sunday.
The Gospel Must Be Proclaimed!
Christianity in our world today has been hijacked by acts of kindness
Romans 10:14 states, “How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them?”
Notice that the text states, how can they hear without someone “preaching” to them, without someone speaking or communicating the good news of Jesus Christ to them. So no, it’s not preach the Gospel and use words if necessary, rather it’s preach the Gospel because words are necessary. The Gospel must be proclaimed and if all you are doing is a bunch of random acts of kindness, then you aren’t advancing the gospel, rather you are simply doing random acts of kindness. We can serve people all we want, but what good does it do if we are serving them straight to hell? The Gospel must be PROCLAIMED!
This is essentially where a lot of churches get off track. It’s that we will find ourselves doing a bunch of events and projects for the community, with very little mention of the Gospel. We will do a bunch of service projects and events and chalk it up as advancing the Gospel, yet never once was the Gospel proclaimed. You could argue that such things are a segue or even a bridge builder for the Gospel to be proclaimed, but it’s not an advancement of the Gospel. So when I say that Christianity has been hijacked by acts of kindness, what I mean is that we have replaced proclamation of the Gospel with random acts of kindness saying, “Preach the Gospel, use words if necessary,” and that’s simply untrue. Random acts of kindness, good deeds, events and the like are not a proclamation of the Gospel. Should we do acts of kindness? Yes! Indeed! In fact, we are called to. But let’s not confuse acts of kindness with proclamation of the Gospel. Sooner or later you are going to have to move beyond free turkey dinners and having a beer with your buddies, to actually opening your mouth and sharing the Gospel. The Gospel must be PROCLAIMED!
Or Check out: 6 Minutes With John Piper And the Gospel
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Thank you! Thank you! This one has been burning in my heart, I just didn’t know how to say it without sounding like an insensitive lunatic. Well said.
Jason, I couldn’t agree with you more! How do you say…. acts of kindness are….”not all that…” without sounding like… well a jerk? I think we easily get duped into thinking because we did an act of kindness we have been evangelistic. At least that is what my sinful heart wants to believe. It feeds my selfish / comfort loving me to think that way. Thanks for serving us with this post Louis!