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Welcome to the For the Gospel Podcast, where we provide sound doctrine for everyday people. I'm your host, Kosti Hinn, and I want to welcome our listeners on Apple, Spotify, and those of you enjoying this on our YouTube video podcast format and those of you who download for the gospel around the world. This is episode two of our series on the gospel. And if you haven't already, listen to episode one. That was the previous episode. It was titled What is the Gospel? Because now we're going to come at things from a more counterintuitive angle. This episode is titled What the Gospel Is Not. So we want to focus on the truth. We are a ministry focused on the truth. We are literally called for the gospel. But by the very definition of being for something, we are then against what contradicts what we are for. And so, in light of that, I want to walk you through five things the gospel is not. This could be a fun discussion for you with your family, with a small group, uh in a ministry setting, or just on your own, to be thinking through some of these ways in which the uh false gospel of, and then fill in the blank, leaks into our thinking, even as people who would say, like, we know the gospel and we believe the gospel. Let's jump in. Number one, the gospel is not yours to change. The gospel is not yours to change or mine. In Galatians chapter 1, verses 6 to 12, Paul the Apostle is rebuking the Galatians because they had, and I quote, deserted him who had called you by the grace of Christ. They were deserting the gospel. He says this in Galatians 1, 6 to 12. I'm amazed that you are so quickly deserting him who called you by the grace of Christ for a different gospel. And then he says, which is not just another account or another gospel, but there are some who are disturbing you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. He says, but if we or even an angel from heaven would preach to you a gospel contrary to what we have preached to you, basically what we've preached already, if anything changes, he is to be accursed. As we have said before. Even now I say again, if anyone, he repeats himself for emphasis, is preaching to you a gospel contrary to what you received, he is to be accursed. For am I now seeking the favor of people or of God? He's saying, What? Am I a people pleaser? No. I'm not people pleasing at all. If I were still trying to please people, he says, I would not be a bond servant of Christ. Paul the Apostle, in his rebuke, reminds the church, you cannot mess with the gospel. The gospel's not yours to change. It's God's message, not ours. We're just the proclaimers of it. In Acts chapter 13, uh, the Bible showcases the spiritual success of Paul and Barnabas and their missionary journey to the southern region of Galatia. And in the background to this passage in Galatians 1, things had taken off. The church is being strengthened, people are getting saved. I mean, think of horses at the Kentucky Derby. I mean, right out of the gate, all they had to do was keep running that way, and then they veer off course and they desert the gospel. And the word that he uses, deserting, it's not a small, like non-essential theological difference that Paul is talking about. It's the idea of total relocation, being taken from one place to a completely different place. In other words, the phrase we would use, you know, you're off the reservation, or you're not even in the ballpark. This is what Paul is saying. Look, you've completely gone off the rails. You can't mess with the gospel. You can't change location, so to speak. Paul doesn't care who brings it to you. There is no body, no angel, no supposed prophet or supposed divine being who can come and veer us off course from the gospel. May it never be. If you alter the message of God, you are in way over your head. We don't dumb down the gospel. We don't soften Jesus' PR or try to kind of throttle back on things to make it easier for people. No, we deliver the gospel. I love this Warren Wearsby quote. He says, Truth without love is brutality. So, no doubt we need to love people. But sometimes people will say, Well, man, let's just love people like that's the gospel. No, no, you have to speak the truth. And so Wearsby's full quote is truth without love is brutality. Amen. But love without truth is hypocrisy. You're not loving people when you pull punches. You're not loving people when you alter the gospel or try to soften it. No, that's not love. We need to speak the truth with love. We don't need to be a hammer, but we need to give them the full truth and nothing but the truth. And so it doesn't matter how good it feels, how good it looks, how good it sounds. If the message of the gospel is being compromised in any type of setting through a preacher in a church, have nothing to do with it. Number two, the gospel is not remorse. It's not remorse. We talked a lot in episode one about repentance and the idea of turning away from your way and turning to Christ's way. Well, a lot of people will feel bad, but they never change. They feel really guilty because they got caught. Well, the gospel, the good news is not like, hey, you just need to, you know, I know you feel bad about yourself, but that's okay. God loves you and just go on with it. No, no. There are some examples in the Bible of this. Judas, when Judas, who had betrayed the Lord, in Matthew 27, verses 3 through 5, the Bible records, he felt remorse. He felt remorse. Judas did. And what did he do? The Bible says he returned the 30 pieces of silver to the chief priests and the elders, saying, I've sinned by betraying innocent blood. But they said, What's that to us? See to that yourself. And he threw the pieces of silver into the sanctuary and departed. And he went away and he hanged himself. Matthew does not use the word repentant. He could have. But he uses a word meaning regret. In other words, Judas got busted. He got caught, and that made him sorry. He wasn't actually going to change. He didn't want to change. He wasn't experiencing a hatred for his sin, the sin that had entangled him. He knew he sent the Son of God to the cross. So he tries to throw back the blood money bribe that he took, and then maybe that would fix it. And then when that doesn't work, he goes and kills himself. That is remorse. That's not the gospel. The gospel isn't feeling really bad about yourself or feeling even bad that you did something and got caught. It is a total change of mind. It's repentance. Now I want to contrast that with Peter, by the way, who was just as sinful and was also a betrayer. He turned his back on Jesus, and it was predicted that he would. In Matthew chapter 26, verse 75, it says, and Peter remembered the statement that Jesus had made. Before a rooster crows, you will deny me three times. And he went out and wept bitterly. That picture is after Peter. I mean, he he curses when he's telling these servants who are talking to him, like, weren't you with Jesus? You sound like a Galilean. I'm pretty sure you're one of his guys. And he he throws a fit. No, I don't even know the man. Jesus predicted Peter's denial. He allowed Satan to sift him. And then he also prayed that his faith would not fail. And John chapter 21 captures this beautiful moment where Peter's restored. He jumps out of the boat and he sees Jesus after Jesus had risen from the dead. And I want you to picture Peter in that moment. He's frantically swimming to shore. He goes up to Jesus and Jesus restores him. See, Peter was also very bitter over his sin. He felt a sense of remorse and regret, no doubt, but it was combined with or accompanied by repentance. He changed his mind. He wanted to run to Christ. And Judas could have. Feeling bad isn't the gospel. Just kind of being like, man, I shouldn't have done that. Or uh, yeah, I, you know, I get I got caught. No, it is a deep turbulence within your heart that something has to change. And you see Jesus as a sinner. We all do. And instead of running from him or making excuses or trying to buy some kind of uh salvation or buy some sort of forgiveness, Peter just rushes the Lord, weeps bitterly. He knows and he just wants Christ. So sorry I got busted versus sorry for my sin, two very different things. Hatred of sin and hatred of consequences, two very different things. Sadness over lost opportunities versus brokenness over interrupted fellowship with God, two very different things. And so the gospel is not remorse. The good news is that if you repent of your sin and turn to Christ, you will be forgiven. Number three, the gospel is not easy. The gospel is not easy. This is important because a lot of uh kind of American evangelicalism has a bit of an easy believism or an easy gospel. Again, not that you have to do things to be saved, but discipleship is not like cruise control now that you prayed a prayer and said, Jesus, come into my heart. Let's talk about this further. Luke chapter 14, verses 25 to 35. One of my favorite passages to remind myself that the gospel's not easy. It's going to be difficult to follow Jesus. Now, large crowds were going along with him. Luke 14, 25 says, and I want to just stop there. Why are large crowds following Jesus? Well, they're getting fed, he's fed the 5,000, they're getting healed, he's done a ton of miracles, he's casted out demons, and so naturally you have sort of this uh revival centered around one man, and there's free food. So picture nowadays, you know, I just I line up all the food trucks and I can do a bunch of miracles, kind of gonna draw a crowd, and everyone's looking for something who doesn't want that free food and miracles. That's great. People are gonna flock to that meeting in droves. And so he turns to them and he says, This, this is verse 26. If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own mother, father, wife, children, brothers, sisters, yes, and then he says, even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. Those are heavy words. In verse 27, he says, Whoever doesn't carry his own cross and come after me can't be my disciple either. And so the whole point of this section is if you don't come after me, if I'm not everything to you, you can't even call yourself a disciple. This is like the worst approach for drawing a crowd ever. This is not seeker sensitive, it's crowd control, Jesus style. You've got everybody showing up for the free food, the miracles, the fascination. By the way, small town boy, okay, the the guy from Nazareth, Joe and Mary's kid, hits the big time. He's sort of a local celebrity now. Everybody's saying this is Joseph and Mary's kid? No way. He went viral, if you want to use again today's vernacular. He's the talk of the town. And it's the good life, right? Like this is ministry. Here we go, here I am. All the Jews are expecting him just to establish his kingdom right then and there, overthrow Rome. He's gonna make everything easier for us, right? We follow Jesus, just get into his entourage, and it's all good. No, the gospel's not easy street. You could say it this way uh the gospel is free, but discipleship will cost you, or you could say it this way, salvation is free, but discipleship is costly. Paul the Apostle was shipwrecked, beaten, tossed into prison, falsely accused, uh, beaten some more. He gets deserted and then eventually gets killed. Stephen in Acts 7, stoned to death. As for the disciples, eleven of the original twelve, besides Judas, who killed himself, all killed for preaching the gospel. You look at the early church when Peter writes 1 Peter, why is he encouraging them? Well, they're being persecuted. The saints at Philippi, you know, like Lydia and the jailer and all of them who are saved in Acts chapter 16, when the church at Philippi gets established. Why is he telling them all about having joy and being anxious for nothing? Because things got harder when they started to follow Jesus. Tell the missionaries around the world, hey, it's going to be easy. You know, just just give you your life to Jesus and and he'll give you whatever. No. Tell that to pastors in China being ushered away into re-education camps or put into prison for preaching the gospel. The gospel's not easy. Again, the message of salvation, the message of the gospel is free. But to follow Jesus, to believe the gospel, and then live for the gospel, it's not going to be an easy life. By the way, not only is following Jesus not going to be easy, but the gospel itself is not always easy to accept. 1 Corinthians 1.18 says, For the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing. In other words, the world, as they die and go to hell and they just want their way and they love their sin, this message we preach is a joke to them. It's like, what? Get out of here with all your religion. But to those who are being saved, Paul says it's the power of God. And so the world's going to hate you for living for the gospel, but it doesn't change the power and the purpose that God has given you. Following Jesus isn't easy. And in a lot of ways, you win by losing, meaning you lose your life and you will gain life indeed. You gain by giving, you give up yourself and you gain what no one can take. Jesus died for you, so you live for him. Again, salvation is free, but discipleship is costly. And the gospel will make it easy to get into heaven, per se, by believing in Christ by faith. You don't need to work your way there, but it's hard to live on earth. And so we need to remember that. I think we have forgotten how hard it really is to be a real Christian because we take the easy road or we hide our faith or we live a kind of compartmentalized Christianity where we're really quote unquote on fire in circles that are very Christian and then otherwise we're lukewarm. That's not being a disciple. That's not what the gospel is all about. The gospel very much has become kind of a cheap thrill in the amusement park of life. And so if you want to follow Jesus, great, but he's got a cross with your name on it. Number four, the gospel is not living the American dream. This flows kind of out of that last point. In Luke 12, 16, Jesus is telling a parable. He says this the land of a certain rich man was very productive. And he began reasoning to himself, saying, What shall I do since I have no place to store all my crops? And he said, This is what I'll do. I will tear down my barns. I'm going to build bigger ones, and there I will store all of my grain and all of my goods, and I will say to my soul, Soul, you have many goods laid up for many years to come. Take your ease, eat, drink, and be merry. But God said to him, You fool, this very night your soul is required of you. And now who will own what you have prepared? So is the man who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God. And eventually in Luke twelve, thirty-four, Jesus says, Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. Jesus is giving us a picture of someone who's so wrapped up in building their empire on earth, they've not got anything to look forward to in heaven. They're stuck on the things of this world. Their bank accounts full, but their soul is empty. I mean, this is the state of so many people's spiritual condition. And it'd be easy to pick on the prosperity gospel right here and all the rich preachers flying in their private planes and all that. But I want to look at ourselves in the mirror. What I would call prosperity gospel light or the diet version, which is not this outlandish crazy version that we see on these reality shows or on some news expose. No, it's kind of in all of our hearts that the gospel saves us and then we obey God, and then life ends up getting fiscally better, and we achieve comfort in the middle class or upper class high life. And every kind of next thing you're praying for is going to come true because you follow Jesus and you give your money and you're doing the right things and you're conservative. And that so often creeps into our mentality. And we believe that the gospel, I mean, believing in Jesus Christ is going to lead generally to the American dream. People sell that around the world, which is why so many people in third world countries love the prosperity gospel because they think the Americans must have something we don't. If we believe in this, then we too will come out of the gutter and into the palace. The gospel is not believing in God in order to get what you want. That's just transactional. That's not even a real relationship. Nobody would say that's acceptable in a healthy marriage or a healthy friendship. Why would we ever say that's acceptable or healthy when it comes to our relationship with God? The true gospel crushes this idea. The idea that Jesus is the cherry on top of my already great life. He's the icing on my cake, he's the rims on my ride, he's the bonus points on the exam that I've already nailed, and he's just sort of the extra credit. No, Jesus is everything. The real gospel, when it's a reality for us, causes us to say, if I have everything, but I don't have Jesus, I have nothing. And even if I had nothing, but I have Jesus, I have everything. And finally, number five, the gospel is not good works. The good news is not, hey, you just got to do some good stuff and believe in God and He'll let you into heaven. Nope. And the gospel, by the way, is not good works in that uh that really is what it means to share the gospel or declare the gospel. Like people will say, preach the gospel, and if necessary, use words like doing good works and doing good things is is the gospel. No. Paul says in Romans 10 17, faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of Christ. Faith doesn't come because you did some good stuff to people or for people, and they go, wow, I see the gospel in that. No, good works are important, they're the outworking of what saved people do, but the gospel is not good works. Ephesians 2, 8 to 10, you'll remember this passage from our last episode if you were listening to that one. For by grace you have been saved through faith. It is not of ourselves, it is the gift of God, not the result of works, and no one can boast. So not the result of works. And yet, Mormons and Catholics, a host of other kind of spin-off cults as well, like the Church of Scientology and all of these others, link a kind of ultimate salvation of sorts. And again, some of them will have different words that they use to uniquely define where they're all going and what this all leads to. But all of it's rooted in good works. Do the next thing, confess the next thing, declare the next thing, complete the next thing. I mean, it's just this constant rat race, leveling up again and again to either earn salvation or keep your salvation. But that's not the true gospel. Salvation is a gift, nothing is added to it, nothing taken away. You aren't saved by good works, but you're most certainly going to do good works because you have, in fact, been saved. James 1.22, a great passage and a true one. Faith without works is dead. Amen. That's great. That's true. But we understand what the scripture teaches in its totality. Faith without works is dead does not mean that you need to do works to have a living faith. But faith without works is dead means, okay, you say you have faith and then you basically live however you want. Or you claim you're going to heaven, but you live like hell. Faith without works is dead. You say you have true faith, but nothing is happening in your life. The heart transformation isn't resulting in behavior modification. James is right, and we should definitely assess our salvation in light of that and look at our lives and go, hmm, do I even look like a saved person? No, I look just like the world. Well, your faith, which you claim, has no works as evidence, therefore it's dead. But works are not what save you. You don't do the works to get the true faith. You have true faith, and true works will follow. The gospel gets so muddied and so twisted when we think that we can save ourselves or earn something from God through good works. You know what it's like? It's like hanging fruit on a tree that's already dead. You can duct tape a nice fresh apple on the branch of your life for a little while, but eventually it'll be exposed as fake when it's not rooted in true faith. And that's really what the Bible teaches. So many people are hanging fruit on trees and it's rotten. Why? Because it's not coming out of the true root of genuine salvation, a belief in the gospel and faith in Christ, and true fruit being born out of a real heart transformation. The gospel is not good works. Well, those are five hard-hitting truths about what the gospel is not. I hope they're helpful reminders as well that reinforce what we are all for when it comes to the gospel message. Next episode in the series, uh, we're gonna keep digging into the gospel and the various aspects of it. I've got a special guest as part of this series as well, and we're gonna keep taking you back to the foundation of true faith and perhaps introducing some of you to genuine faith for the first time. Uh, let me know how these resources are impacting you in the comments on YouTube, or if you're willing, drop a review on Apple to encourage others to listen. As always, thank you for listening. Thank you for watching, thank you for sharing, and thank you so much for your support. If you haven't already, make sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel here for the gospel and to learn more about our ministry or to become a monthly gospel patron, you can go to for thegospel.org. I'll be back next Monday with another episode. Keep on living for the gospel.