The Gospel Is Not a Story to Be Enjoyed: On Hearing, Doing, and the Purpose of Faith

The Gospel Is Not a Story to Be Enjoyed: On Hearing, Doing, and the Purpose of Faith

There is great joy in studying the Gospel. Its parables invite reflection, its teachings challenge the intellect, and the life of Jesus has inspired preaching, theology, art, music, and literature for centuries. Yet there is a danger hidden within this very richness: we may become fascinated by the Gospel without becoming obedient to it.

If believing the Gospel does not become a catalyst for action, Christianity can gradually become another form of intellectual or spiritual consumption. We listen to sermons, discuss interpretations, admire the character of Jesus, memorize His teachings, and experience the emotional satisfaction of hearing familiar stories. Yet when the sermon ends, our lives may continue almost exactly as before.

At that point, the Gospel risks being received much like a beloved work of imaginative literature such as Harry Potter. We may enjoy the story, admire its characters, discuss its moral conflicts, quote memorable passages, and return to it repeatedly because of the experience it gives us. There is nothing wrong with such enjoyment in literature. But the Gospel makes a fundamentally different claim upon its hearer.

The Gospel does not merely ask to be appreciated.
It asks to be followed.

Jesus did not gather disciples simply so that they might become experts on His teachings. He called them to walk behind Him, to forgive, to serve, to give, to welcome, to cross boundaries, to care for the vulnerable, and to love even when love becomes costly.

This is why Jesus asks:
“Why call ye me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say?”
—Luke 6:46

The question exposes the distance that can develop between confession and discipleship.

We can believe that mercy is beautiful without becoming merciful.
We can preach about the Good Samaritan without crossing the road.
We can study the washing of the disciples' feet without learning to kneel.

We can proclaim that Jesus welcomed strangers while constructing lives in which strangers are never welcomed.
We can preach that Christ cared for the poor while remaining personally untouched by poverty.

And we can spend decades studying the cross while carefully arranging our lives so that discipleship costs us almost nothing.

The problem is not study.
The problem is study without transformation.

The problem is not preaching.
The problem is preaching that never becomes practice.

Scripture itself refuses to separate hearing from doing. James writes:
“Be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only.”
—James 1:22

The Good Samaritan provides perhaps the clearest picture of this principle. Jesus tells the story of a wounded man beside the road. A priest passes. A Levite passes. Then a Samaritan sees the wounded stranger and has compassion.

He stops.
He approaches.
He binds the wounds.
He provides transportation.
He pays for care.
And he assumes continuing responsibility.

Jesus does not conclude by asking His listener whether he enjoyed the story. He does not ask whether the Samaritan was an interesting character. He does not ask for a theological analysis of compassion.

He says:
“Go, and do thou likewise.”
—Luke 10:37

Those words distinguish the Gospel from entertainment.
Go.

The story must leave the imagination and enter the feet.
Do.

Compassion must leave the emotions and enter the hands.
Likewise.

The life of mercy described in the story must become visible in the life of the hearer. This does not mean that salvation is earned through good works. Rather, it means that faith which truly encounters Christ cannot be content forever with admiration. The Gospel begins transforming how we see and respond to other human beings.

The hungry person becomes more than a topic.
The homeless person becomes more than a statistic.

The stranger becomes more than a category.
The wounded person becomes more than someone else's responsibility.

They become neighbors.
This is where the Gospel passes from intellectual pleasure into discipleship.

The final question after a sermon, therefore, should not merely be:
“Was that a good sermon?”

Nor merely:
“Did I learn something?”

A deeper question waits:
“What will I do differently because I heard the Gospel?”

Whom will I forgive?
Whom will I welcome?

Whose suffering will I notice?
What road will I cross?
What wound will I help bind?

What comfort will I surrender?
To whom will I become a neighbor?

Without this movement, even Christianity can become spectatorship: people gathering week after week to hear extraordinary stories about Jesus while remaining protected from the consequences of following Him.

But Christ did not say merely: Listen to Me.
He said: Follow Me.

And therefore the Gospel cannot finally be measured by how much pleasure we receive from hearing it, how beautifully we explain it, or how passionately we preach it.

Its deeper examination begins when the book closes.

The Gospel is not merely a story we return to because we enjoy hearing it. It is a summons that sends us back into the world differently.

The sermon ends.
The door opens.
The neighbor waits.

And Christ still says:
“Go, and do thou likewise.”

Emmanuel. Amen.

Pastor Steven G. Lee
St. GMC Corps
August 16, 2026

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