Acts 20:21 “I have had one message for jews an greeks alike—the necessity of repenting from sin and turning to God, and of having faith in our Lord Jesus”
Here Paul is saying his goodbyes to the folks in Ephesus. In his goodbye, Paul lays it on the line what the message of the gospel really is. In essence Paul says, “don’t focus on the meaningless things that will get you away from the main thing; never forget that the main thing, the message is that we must admit our brokenness and turn to God (through Jesus Christ) for forgiveness and healing from the sin of our lives that we might begin to live a brand new life. This faith that through Jesus Christ, God restores us back into a relationship with Him that we might have a new life is the gospel to be preached.
Gosh, I wish that “claim to be Christians” in my culture today would really take this verse to heart. We are constantly getting sidetracked into focusing our energy on things other than the gospel. We try to stay away from repentance and replace it with a feeling of “I’m ok, you’re ok; we are all going to be ok.” On the flip side we continue to act with judgment instead of grace and our churches resemble the Pharisees legalism that Jesus so desperately preached against. I imagine a Church that took God’s holiness seriously and new that the only way we can even begin to resemble Jesus is through the truth of this verse. I imagine a Church that has one message, “the necessity of repentance; the experiencing of forgiveness; and restoration into relationship with God all through faith in Jesus Christ.”
Lord, help me not to get sidetracked, but empower me through your grace to have one message for the world and may that one message be one of repentance, forgiveness, and restoration. Amen!
God asks me to be proclaim one simple message and to stay away from complexity.
