The great message that we call the gospel begins, then, not with us, or our need, or even the meeting of that need, but with the writer of the news and the sender of its heralds: God himself.

If you're not confident in the authority of the Scriptures, you will be a slave to what sounds right.

Church is missing transcendence. My generation was raised on a religion of moral control. Do this. Don't do that. And a lot of self-help religion. Feel better. Get out of debt. Six ways to overcome your fears. Seven ways not to lust. Ultimately that message didn't work. It was empty. There was no transcendence. The omniscient, omnipresent, all-powerful God of the universe wasn't the focus.

I'm accepted by God and it has nothing to do with me.

My sin in the past: forgiven. My current struggles: covered. My future failures: paid in full all by the marvelous, infinite, matchless grace found in the atoning work of the cross of Jesus Christ.

God does not regret saving you. There is no sin which you commit which is beyond the cross of Christ.

If you're a beast in the pulpit but a coward in your neighborhood, something has gone wrong.