St. John Studies

These sermon topics can get a pastor fired. 

After explaining all the Biblical reasons that we need to give glory to God in Chapter One of The Explicit Gospel, Matt Chandler spends Chapter Two on man’s woefully weak relationship with our Creator.  Christians need to worship God, really give our hearts and minds to God, but we don’t often feel an overwhelming need to do that.  Christians need to give God thanks for all the blessings bestowed upon our lives but we like to take credit for what we have [we are “hard workers”].  Christians act like we are not sinful, fallen creatures when the Bible spells out that we are and we should spend our lives in a struggle to keep sin at bay.  We deserve justice for our failings and God give us undeserved mercy.  We conveniently forget that–how much we need God’s grace.

Then we get to justifiable wrath.  Oh no, not that!  Chandler has hinted he is going there.  He has already described when Jesus is coming back to earth and is going to gather His wheat into the barn.  There He is going to thresh the wheat, letting the chaff fall on the floor to be burned.  That chaff and the burning: that’s a direct reference to hell.  And just in case you don’t understand, the sinners are the chaff.   Earlier in Chapter Two he writes “How can a loving, a just God create and fill a place like hell?” [44]. Many Christians hear words like this and answer, “A loving God would not create Hell.  A loving God would certainly not put me in hell.  I am ok with God [at least in a minimal way].”

The bottom line:  many Christians today don’t want to hear about going to hell at all.  Pastors who address this topic too much [or any at all] can be in danger of losing their pastorate.  Today’s Christians run from a church where the pastor preaches about going to hell.

What brings in the new members?  Here is the most popular message: “God is love and He loves you!  We all sin but God forgives us all!  God is the great benevolent Father in heaven above, nothing to fear there; just go about your lives and everything will be ok because He really cares.”

Is that popular message the “explicit Gospel?”  Chandler writes no, we “belittle” God too much.  “The correct response to the severity of God, then, is not to dismiss, deny and denigrate [His severity] but rather to repent of our self-regard and throw ourselves back into His glorious self-regard” [45].

Then Chandler goes there…

He talks about hell and how we can find ourselves there for eternity.

You know, that place for God’s justifiable wrath…

He begins with a reference to Matthew 18: 8-9.  I can hear Christians say “no, you can’t take that Scripture literally.”  You know this one; the hand or foot causes one to sin, chop it off.  The eye causes you to gaze upon something you know you should not gaze upon, you pluck it out.  That is too harsh, but this Scripture raises the horribly tough question: is it more important to do anything you can to avoid hell or just assume hell does not exist?  If you had to choose between an eye and going to hell, what would you do?  Would Christians today choose to lose an eye?  [I doubt it].  Chandler writes, it is better to avoid anything that will keep us from God’s eternal kingdom than to do sinful things and count on Him to excuse our behavior.

Too many of today’s Christians have forgotten that the bar is high for the Christian life.  God has expectations for us and those expectations do not jive with contemporary “laid back” American culture.

I love what Chandler says about God’s blessings. We should give God the glory for the blessings we receive in life but do we?  In today’s materialistic culture we do everything we can to get the best stuff we can.  Ask the Christian on the street who thinks they own their own stuff.  I suspect very few will reply that God owns it all.  Chandler says it best: “all that we possess was given to us by God, through God and for the glory of God.  When we act like we own these things, like they were given to us by ourselves for the glory of ourselves, we belittle the name of God.”  Then he goes there:  “The universe isn’t Burger King; we don’t get to have everything made our way” [46-47].  When we read in Scripture that we should share our blessings with those less fortunate, are Christians inclined to do this in today’s culture?  I seriously doubt that many know they are supposed to do that.  What if we don’t?

Matthew 25: 41-46:   [Jesus talking]  “Then He will say to those on His left, ‘Depart from Me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.  For I was hungry and you gave Me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave Me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite Me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe Me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after Me.’  “They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help You?’  “He will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for Me.’  “Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.”

There is that threat of hell again…

Chandler is explaining God’s justifiable wrath.  Focus on the word “justifiable.”  If we behave according to today’s worldly stands, what do we deserve?  We deserve God’s wrath, no matter how many popular preachers sermonize about the awesome nature of God’s mercy for us sinners.  I wonder how many readers stop reading Chandler’s book after pages forty-five to forty-eight.  The news about what will really happen to the Christian who does not follow God’s [Jesus’] teachings is hard to bear, maybe too hard to consider.  We all fall short and Chandler says God will reckon with us in the end. 

There is a famous parable Jesus tells in the Bible about the poor man Lazarus who sits at the gate of the city every day, covered in sores, needing scraps from a rich man’s table in order to survive.  A rich man sees Lazarus in his awful condition and does little to help him even though he could. Lazarus eventually dies and is carried away to eternal life by the angels.  The rich man also dies and is cast down to hell.  The rich man lives eternally in the flames of hell and asks Abraham for help from Lazarus “allow Lazarus to dip the end of his finger in water to cool my tongue for I am in anguish in this flame.”  Abraham explains to the rich man when you were alive, you were comforted with your riches and Lazarus had only bad things.  Now you are in anguish and he is being comforted.

People who allow the culture to determine their values [yes there is such a thing as “cultural” Christians] put themselves in jeopardy of eternal separation from God.  The possibility of torment. Life in a place of fire. 

Sermons on this can indeed get a pastor fired.  Writing books like this can hurt a writer’s book sales Matt Chandler.

However, Chandler thinks he is being true to the Word of God…merely explaining The Explicit Gospel.

“When we consider the gospel from the ground, we see clearly the work of the cross in our lives and the lives of those around us, the capturing and resurrecting of dead hearts” [Matt Chandler, The Explicit Gospel, 16].

“We see clearly…”

That little sentence is so important for the message that Chandler is trying to present.  He is really castigating Christians today; saying that we don’t see the message of The Gospel clearly at all.  We are blinded by the messages of this world.  We don’t really know the explicit Gospel.  We just think we do.

As he began his discussion of the Gospel from the ground, he spent Chapter 1 on the topic of getting to know God [guess what, Chandler  believes we really don’t understand Him].  Now in Chapter 2 he has turned to man.  We have already discussed the idea that Christians today fail to grasp that God is not that kindly, smiling, white-haired old gentlemen in the sky.   He is not a God of eternal, constant love, ready to forgive every sin, patiently waiting for our spiritual growth as we engage in our every-day half-hearted “fruit” production.  Chandler says we need to wake up: God can be “severe.”

Another worldly message that blinds us is that we are fallen.  I know that any Christian who has been to church at all has heard a preacher say “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” [Romans, 3:23].  Can we see that Scripture clearly for what it is saying?  Chandler says we don’t see it clearly at all. 

What is Chandler’s example of the ordinary response a “regular” Christian would make about God’s inquiry regarding our everyday sinning:  “But we work so hard.  We are awesome people.  Surely we deserve something! Yes, absolutely” [43].

Again, we all sin and fall short of the glory of God.  We call ourselves “Christian,” we tick all the boxes of the things that Christians are supposed to do yet we are active sinners all the while. We can’t help it.  We are born that way, the seed of Adam.  But even though God doesn’t God owe us mercy, isn’t He going to save us anyhow?

Let’s get this straight.  God owes no one mercy; based on our behavior if God owes us anything it is His justice, even His wrath.  We have no negotiating position here.  If God chooses to save us, it is because He has extended His mercy to us and we have no right to question God’s mercy.  It is a pure gift.  He is not obligated to extend it to anyone.  I have already referred to this in a previous post but it is too good not to use again.  It is a reference from Romans about questioning the fairness of God dispensing mercy to man.  Paul says it is like clay questioning the Potter.  Why are You making what You are making we ask the Potter?  We are in no position to ask that question.  We have no right to question God’s dispensing His mercy. We have no right to question an all-powerful God.

Chandler works the Old Testament idea of Gehenna into this Chapter saying that Jesus uses that word twelve times in the Gospels.  What is a Gehenna?  It’s a dumping ground, a place where He is going to burn stinking waste materials.  John warns Christians in the Gospel that Jesus is coming to earth to gather His “wheat” into the barn.  If you can’t “see clearly,” that is a direct reference to gathering His believers together.  The “wheat” will the threshed, and the chaff will be burned.  As a Christian you don’t want to be “chaff”, to be cast into Gehenna, a putrid and repulsive place, a smoldering place of destruction and neglect [42].

However, do we deserve to be in Gehanna?  You bet we do.

“How can a loving, just God create a fill a place like hell?  That’s not fair.  It’s not right.  The punishment does not fit the crime.  If I tell one lie or steal a pack of gum or say a curse word when I stub my toe, I get eternal torment?” [44].  Chandler writes about what most Christians think about eternal sin: here it is; “It’s not fair.”

What we don’t see clearly is when we discount the enormity of God’s severity, saying “I’m not really bad” and “I deserve mostly kindness,” I am discounting the enormity of God’s holiness.  I don’t know how to say this any better.  God calls the shots.  We don’t.  Today we have it all turned around in our narcissistic world. 

God is all about His glory in this world.  We supposed to operate as Christians in the world as His behest.  We exist to bring glory to Him.  He wants it.  He deserves it.  That’s what worship is all about and I am not just talking about church-day worship; I am talking about every day of the week loving Him with all our heart, soul, mind and strength.  Some refer to it as a continual heart attitude of bowing down in reverence and humility before the supreme Lord and Creator of the universe.  This bowing down is a daily practice.

Evangelical Christians today engage in what theologian John Piper calls “God belittlement.”  Thinking that hell could not possibly be my destination for my sinning is like saying God cannot be that “mean” to me.  “He wouldn’t do such a thing.”  Justifying one’s behavior by saying things like “I’m not that bad” is pure self-justification.  Who says you are not that bad?  Who says that you are the judge of your behavior?  Let’s be frank: isn’t that a bit “above your pay grade?”

We need to see clearly the place we have in this world.  We were not put on earth to “dismiss, deny or denigrate the severity of God, but rather to repent of our self-regard and throw ourselves back into His glorious self-regard, wondering ‘How big and mighty and infinite and glorious is God.’” [45].

What keeps us from seeing clearly?  “A refusal to be satisfied with the all-sufficiency of the God of the universe” [45]. We need to get our eyes examined.  We are sinners.  We need God’s grace.  If we can’t see that, we are indeed missing the point of the explicit Gospel and we may pay the consequences.

“The Roots of Worship” [July 9, 2025] has been replaced with a “do-over post” which you can read. I am not pleased with the half-hearted effort I have put into St. John Studies this past year. I am reposting my comments on Matt Chandler’s book “The Explicit Gospel”. The do-over post is entitled “The Roots of Worship” posted on January 16, 2026.

“The Gospel on the Ground: God’s Transcendent Creativity” has been replaced with a “do-over post” which you can read. I am not pleased with the half-hearted effort I have put into St. John Studies this past year. I am reposting my comments on Matt Chandler’s book The Explicit Gospel. The do-over post is entitled “Transcendent Creativity Hurts My Brain!” posted on November 21, 2025.