I am standing here right now in Istanbul. You might be able to see over my right shoulder the Hagia Sophia. I don't know if you can hear it, but right now I can actually hear calls to prayer — Muslim calls to prayer all around, some from over there, some from over there. I went yesterday to the Hagia Sophia, which once upon a time was a Christian church, but then Muslims took it over, and now it's a mosque. A temple dedicated to worshiping idols, you might say. A lot of that has been happening in this place for two thousand years, in the land of Turkey, where the Apostle Paul continued his ministry and took the gospel throughout this region.
It makes me think of the book of Acts and his arrival in Ephesus, which is a few hours away from here down toward the coast. You know the story in chapter 19 — he shows up, and he's been preaching the gospel, and an idol maker named Demetrius recognizes that Paul's preaching of the gospel is actually causing trouble for him. Demetrius says to his fellow Artemis idol-makers: "This trade of ours is coming into disrepute." He's upset. He says they're preaching that a god made with hands is not a god. In other words, Paul is preaching the gospel, and that gospel begins to have an effect — in this case, even an economic effect, and eventually a political effect, a riot.
And so the question I'm having as I'm looking around a city like this, seeing mosques that were once churches, is: what kind of effect is the gospel having in our lives? Which means we need to back it up and ask: what kind of gospel are we preaching? Are we preaching a gospel that calls for repentance and faith — the obedience of faith? Are we preaching a full, robust gospel? Are we teaching everything Christ commands? Am I seeking to obey everything Christ commands?
If changing this world is our goal, we've lost the gospel. We are called to preach the kingdom of heaven.
Now, finally — we're not doing that work, we're not preaching the gospel, for the sake of economic or political or worldly effects of any kind. If changing this world is our goal, we've lost the gospel. Ultimately, we're called to preach the kingdom of heaven, because we know there will be a new heavens and a new earth. And we're calling people to be saved into it, and to worship the God of the new heavens and the new earth.
What I want to leave you with is a recognition that the gospel should be changing our lives — it should be having an effect. But also the fact that God has revealed himself to us in his word and in history. Standing around here in Istanbul, thinking about the gospel's effects — and sometimes its apparent lack of effects when Christians have been unfaithful — makes me mindful of that. Christianity depends on the revelation of God, and it depends on the revelation of God in history, and on whether or not those things are true. So think about the truth of God's word, and the truth of God's word in history.