Dismantling the Lie of Self-Centered Salvation

Remember the lies many of us grew up believing?

• Margarine is better for us than butter. Not even close to true!
• Sugar makes us hyperactive. There are many reasons to cut down on sugar, but hyperactivity isn’t one of them.
• Wait at least an hour after eating before going swimming. The alleged concern was that after eating, our bodies sent blood to our stomachs to digest our food, depriving our limbs of blood, which could lead to cramps and drowning. The Mayo Clinic tells us this is false.
• You lose more body heat through your head. Nope. Hats are helpful, but no more than coats or gloves.
• Cracking your knuckles will give you arthritis. Cracking your knuckles may aggravate your spouse and co-workers, but it won’t cause arthritis.

While margarine might, in large quantities, compromise our health, and waiting to go swimming could delay a little fun, these lies are relatively harmless.

Paul warns us of spiritually malicious lies that can compromise and misdirect our faith. They are deliberately sown into the world and even the church to distract us from our true faith.

Christians can’t afford to believe a lie. Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth and the life” (John 14:6), and he warns us that Satan is the father of lies (John 8:44). Any lie we believe pulls us away from the full reality of living life in Christ.

Paul urges, “Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind” (Romans 12:2 NIV).

“Do not conform” is an admission that the world has an agenda for us; it wants to fit us into the same mold — a life devoid of God, independent of God, or even working against God. The powers of this age can and will gather to deceive us, with the result that if we adopt a lie, we could live our entire lives with the wrong values, purposes, and beliefs.

We are reborn to think and live a new life. Too many believers have been “born again,” getting wet in baptism, but they are trying to live by the same rules, values, and purposes of their old life, apart from Christ. They are not “reborn” in their thinking. This robs them of much joy, spiritual fulfillment, and witness.

As an example, I’d like to address a common lie that I heard in church.

Why Did Jesus Die?

A faithful life in Christ depends in large part on our understanding not just the facts of Jesus’ death, but the point of Jesus’ death. There’s a difference between the “facts” and the “point” of an event.

Journalist and filmmaker Nora Ephron discussed an assignment given by a journalism professor to help his students distinguish between facts and points. Here are the relevant facts:

“Kenneth Peters, the principal of Beverly Hills High School, announced today that the entire high school faculty will travel to Sacramento next Thursday for a colloquium on new teaching methods. Among the speakers will be anthropologist Margaret Mead, college president Dr. Robert Maynard Hutchins, and California governor Edmund ‘Pat’ Brown.”

With that information, the professor asked the students to write the lede (the opening sentence of an article). One suggested, “Margaret Mead, college president Dr. Robert Hutchins and California governor Pat Brown……”

Wrong.

Another started out, “Next Thursday, the high school faculty will…”

Wrong again.

According to Ephron, here’s the best lede: “There will be no class on Thursday.”

The “lede” shouldn’t refer just to the facts, but to the point of the facts. With all the faculty out, the school can’t hold classes. What the students most need to know, and most want to know, is that they get the day off.

Before we go on, ask yourself, what is the proper lede for why Christ died?

A False Lede

Here is perhaps the most popular “false lede” about Golgotha:

“Jesus lived a perfect life, died on a cross, and rose from the dead so that our sins could be forgiven and we could live with him in heaven.”

Every word in the above sentence is true, but it misses the point. Take a closer look at Golgotha. Jesus demonstrates the “lede” for us by how he doesn’t respond to cruel taunts. Amid the most glorious and magnificent accomplishment in the history of the world, people mocked Jesus as he was being crucified, saying these words: “If you are the Son of God, come down from the cross” (Matthew 27:40)

These people are mocking Jesus. “Prove your power! Why would you stay up there if you didn’t have to?” In their minds, Jesus’ refusal to come down from overwhelming suffering proves that he couldn’t.

But here’s the truth: it is because Jesus was the son of God that he wouldn’t come down from the cross. Staying on the cross to finish his work was proof of his divinity, not a refutation of it.

The old way of thinking that we must dismantle — the lie we must discard — is this: “Why do something that hurts? That makes no sense. Prove you’re superior by doing what’s best for you.”

Jesus proved he was superior by doing what was best for us, not for him, demonstrating that he looks at life and obedience drastically differently than we do.

Everyone watching the crucifixion knew the facts: Jesus was being tortured and, in a physical sense, was rapidly dying. Only Jesus understood the point. Jesus is the only one to whom it made sense that he should stay on the cross instead of getting down from it (even though he could).

That points us toward the true lede of Golgotha.

A True Lede

Here’s a lede that looks beyond individual comfort and explains why Jesus endured the scorn, shame, and torture of the cross:

Jesus died so that we would all live as he lived — not for our own interests, but to advance the Kingdom of God.

I didn’t come up with this lede. The apostle Paul did. Paul writes in 2 Cor. 5:15 (NIV): “And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again.”

The point of Jesus’ death is that “those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again.” Following the resurrection of Jesus, God sent His Holy Spirit to empower us, so that we might participate in His work to remake a fallen world. We live a life of worship and sacrificial service as he brings forth his new kingdom. That’s the full Gospel.

Christ didn’t die just that so you could go to heaven; he died so that you would bring heaven to earth. What we need to dismantle and then learn is this: Life isn’t solely about securing personal comfort in eternity. Life is about fulfilling your divine mission on earth. That’s the point of Golgotha.

The headline: Jesus died on the cross and rose from the dead.

The lede: Jesus died so that we would all live as he lived.

The point: God is remaking the world through the sacrifice and resurrection of Jesus and has sent his Holy Spirit to empower us to participate in building his new kingdom.

If we make personal salvation the lede (“trust in Jesus so that you can be saved”) we miss the point. It’s true, but it’s not the full gospel. It’s self-centered. Jesus died to make us kingdom-centered.

Here’s what we must dismantle: We have redefined the gospel primarily as “God will save you” rather than “God will enlist you.” Instead of teaching “we must live for God,” sermons are mostly centered around “Christ died for us.” Both are true, of course. Both are essential and glorious — and Christ’s death is a necessary precondition of the other. Christ did die for us, but the point is that He did so that we can live for God.

Marrying Salvation and Service

I don’t want us to underplay the importance, glory, and good news of salvation. Far from it. I just want us to learn to marry salvation and service so that we don’t miss the point of salvation. The genius of Paul’s thought is that he marries salvation and service — not service to be saved (which is why we often undervalue the notion of service), but service because we are saved.

If we want a brilliant faith and a brilliant church, we must marry salvation and service. Some churches focus on one; some on the other. “The Gospel is about salvation.” “The Gospel is about service.” Both positions are true, but not exclusively.

Service doesn’t save us. But salvation doesn’t sideline us.

‘Come Down From That Cross!’

Why is self-centered salvation so important to dismantle and service so important to learn?

If you are God’s servant, the day will come when some people eventually say, “Come down from that cross!” and think they are doing you a favor.

In your pain or predicament, some of Jesus’ words may seem harsh to you. They may seem to undercut your immediate happiness and push you toward discomfort, perhaps even guilt. Though our Lord and King couldn’t have been clearer: “Whoever does not take up their cross and follow me is not worthy of me” (Matt. 10:38 NIV) still they will say to you, “God loves you so much he must want you to come down from the cross.”

Self-centered salvation makes you see God’s will through the lens of personal benefit, entitlement, and your own comfort. There was no personal benefit to Jesus on the cross. There was no sense of entitlement that could keep him on the cross. There was no comfort bleeding out of him as he died on that cross. That cross had nothing to do with his own salvation.

But he stayed on it all the same, out of service.

A physician told me about the travail of being a general practitioner. Her office spends almost as much time with insurance companies and wrangling over low Medicaid reimbursements as it does treating patients. To meet her expenses, she often sees fifty patients a day. She graduated from med school with hundreds of thousands of dollars in student loan debt, but because she is a doctor, everyone assumes she is rich. They suggest she should work for less than half of what she earns or even for free. After all, what kind of Christian seeks to profit off the sickness of others?

This “spin” on her motives is grotesque, but it gets worse. Many of her patients have gone onto Web M.D. before the appointment and have already diagnosed themselves and talk condescendingly to her if she disagrees. They’ll question her credentials, imply that she has sold out to “big pharma,” and threaten her with a one-star review. And then there are the clever drug addicts who know how to present certain symptoms to get painkillers and will respond with frightful anger if they don’t get the prescription they want.

On top of all that, if she makes one mistake or misses one diagnosis (remember, she’s seeing dozens of patients a day), she’s likely to be sued for millions of dollars and threatened with the revocation of her license to practice medicine.

It would be easy for her to say, “I don’t need this!” and just walk away. She’s doing a good work but is accused of operating out of bad motives. She willingly exposes herself to all kinds of pathogens but is accused of being selfish.

Who could blame her for wanting to come down off that cross? She could perhaps be happier and less frustrated and work fewer hours … except this is what she is convinced God has called her to do, along with the four weeks a year that she volunteers her services at a medical mission overseas (even for this she’s accused by some of having a “white savior complex”).

If you’re a Christ-follower and you know this is what God has called you to do, you won’t listen to the crowds who tempt you with “Come down from that cross.” Instead, you’ll listen to a different Scripture, Paul’s words to Timothy: “Endure hardship … discharge all the duties of your ministry” (2 Tim. 4:5 NIV).

The Life You Were Reborn to Live

Teachers, coaches, police officers, child protective services workers, pastors, etc. — take note. Just because the pay is low and the expectations are high, and the people you serve are as likely to resent you as appreciate you, and may even try to sue you instead of pay you, that doesn’t mean you should jump off the cross. If the “point” of Golgotha is my eternal destiny, my cross isn’t relevant. I can come down from it and nothing is lost. But if you understand the lede of Golgotha, instead of saying, “You’re right! I should come down from this cross” you’ll say, “No, it’s because I belong to God that I bear this cross.”

You have been called to something bigger, more glorious, and ultimately far more fulfilling than simply resting in your own salvation and certainly than building your own kingdom. Whether your kingdom is centered around personal wealth, romance, comfort, family, or retirement, if it’s primarily your kingdom, you’re missing the mark. You were made for more than that kingdom. All of us are called to seek first the Kingdom of God (Matt. 6:33).

Let’s dismantle a selfish description of the Gospel, and learn to make the point of the Gospel what God’s inspired writer of Scripture calls it: “And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again” (2 Cor. 5:15 NIV).

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Do you feel restless and frustrated with the Christian life? In The Life You Were Reborn to Live: Dismantling 12 Lies That Rob Your Intimacy with God, pastor and bestselling author Gary Thomas will help you dismantle twelve common lies Christians believe that cripple intimacy with God, enabling you to experience the rich, satisfying relationship your soul seeks.

Renewing our minds will renew our lives. Discover the flourishing, joyful life you were reborn to live by dismantling strongholds of falsehood and embracing the truth that sets us free.