I had lots of time to meditate on God’s word this morning, so it was a delight to focus on this expression, “the word of the truth, the gospel”.[1] I love the gospel, and I love that everything to do with God, his word, his Word, and the good news of salvation, is truth through and through. In a foreign land that loves lies, the truth is such a wonderful security.
For a while, I have been considering how churches are doing in taking our stand against the devil’s schemes by putting on the whole armor of God.[2] In particular, my attention has been on the significance of Paul beginning his description of our spiritual armor with “the belt of truth”.[3] With his focus on the church as the “one new man”,[4] I can picture what it should look like to unite as this one new man, or as the one body of Christ,[5] and surround the church with truth so we can face everything in the security of knowing and doing the will of God.
In the same way as the Roman soldier’s belt held his equipment together, the “belt of truth” is to unite the church so that everything is done according to the truth. This is because a church is already united in faith, hope, and love as the effect of “the word of the truth, the gospel”. To Paul, this is foundational. Wrap the belt of truth around the church and we will know what to do about all the devil’s schemes. Lose the truth and a church loses everything, one lie at a time.
I ended up going through one of the sections of Psalm 119 where David testifies to his love of God’s word of truth, his delight in God’s word of truth, and his certainty that he would never be ashamed of obeying and honoring God’s word of truth.[6] The fact that he was talking about the old covenant, a temporary measure to guide God’s people until the Christ arrived,[7] makes it all the more convicting to us who now have “the word of the truth, the gospel”. We have a new covenant, with new commandments directly from Jesus Christ, and we have every reason to delight in the “word of the truth, the gospel” with at least as much heartfelt reality as David expressed.
The Pastoral issue for me is, why is it that people who profess faith in Jesus Christ so often do not express joy and delight when we talk about “the word of the truth, the gospel”? Why are we not overflowing with the faith, love and hope that are inherent to the good news?
Last night I was watching a teaching video where the speaker was addressing two essentials to growing in our capacity to handle negative emotions. One thing that stood out was that we have two different sources of negative emotions. One comes from our brain interpreting a genuinely scary or painful situation and triggering the Fight-Flight-Freeze component of our response. In this case, there is an objective situation causing the negative emotions, and our brains are doing what they were designed to do to protect us.
The other source of negative emotions comes from our beliefs attributing them to situations when our brain isn’t even telling us anything is scary or painful. This would include implicit memories where we attach past trauma to present experiences. It explains why can face accusations of things going on to cause someone else to feel negative emotions when there is no objective evidence that anything has happened. The negative emotions are real, and the reasons for them being there are real, even though they do not belong to the situation that is presently unfolding.
How does this answer my question about why so many church-folk do not attach to the “word of the truth, the gospel” as if it is “good news of great joy”[8]?
Paul says that the reason the Colossian Christians emulated faith, love and hope in response to what they “have heard before in the word of the truth, the gospel”, was because they “heard it and understood the grace of God in truth”.[9]
That is such a rich statement, but the essence of it is that these believers understood the good news that the grace of God had given them their salvation. They did not filter the good news through a works-based mindset. They did not deny the grace of God by claiming God couldn’t have loved them. They weren’t constantly believing that God was disappointed in them as if they were a different class of Christian who didn’t quite qualify for the super-abounding-grace of the Plan A gospel. They simply heard the good news of great joy that there was a Savior, Jesus Christ our Lord. They understood the grace of God expressed in this good news and trusted that God had said what he meant and meant what he said.
Which means that the reason so many church-folk do NOT emulate faith, love and hope in response to what we “have heard before in the word of the truth, the gospel,” is because we have NOT “understood the grace of God in truth”.
Which is exactly what we find when people claim to have received the gospel but without ever feeling like it is “good news of great joy”. It always comes back to not understanding, or not believing, that “by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.”[10] Because there is a denial of grace towards sinners, there is no joy in how thoroughly they have been saved.
David’s example of delighting in God’s laws and precepts and commandments under the old covenant directs us in how we can return to joy under the new covenant in Jesus’ blood: by letting God change our minds FROM (repentance) any lies Satan has convinced us to believe about the grace of God in salvation, and to change our minds TO (faith) renewing our minds with “the grace of God in truth” that is revealed in the good news of great joy, the gift of our Savior, Jesus Christ our Lord.
If churches would invite their people to come together exactly where they are at, including honest admission of struggles to understand the grace of God in the good news, and everyone unites to put the belt of truth on around everyone, God would turn the divisiveness of negative emotions into a return to joy that would glorify God and shame the devil for his deceptively divisive work.
And it only takes two or three people doing this in Jesus’
name for the truth to do its transforming work, so ask God to give you a couple
or few people to unite in the belt of truth, and help each other understand the
good news of great joy that we have a perfect Savior who has pronounced his, “It
is Finished!” over God’s gift of grace. Receive it; believe it and let
yourself “rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory,”
because you know in your heart of heart that you are “obtaining the outcome
of your faith, the salvation of your souls.”[11]
© 2022 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8
Email: in2freedom@gmail.com
Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures are from the English
Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text Edition:
2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News
Publishers.)
[1]
Colossians 1:5
[2]
Ephesians 6:10-20
[3]
Ephesians 6:14
[4]
Ephesians 2:15 in context of Ephesians 2:11-22
[5]
Paul makes a strong emphasis on the “one” dynamic of our calling as he calls us
to live worthy of that calling in Ephesians 4:1-6
[6]
Psalm 119:41-48
[7]
Galatians 3:23-29
[8]
Luke 2:10-11
[9]
Colossians 1:5-6
[10]
Ephesians 2:8-9
[11]
I Peter 1:8-9
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