Last week, I had the opportunity to check out some of Christian hip-hop’s best performers as Reach Records’ Higher Learning Tour made its stop in Washington, DC. The headliner of the concert was LeCrae, with opening acts Propaganda, Dee-1, and comedian Bone Hampton. Not surprisingly, this concert exceeded my expectations. For me, it was a great mixture of old and new favorites.

Okay, full disclosure: I’m not the biggest hip-hop fan out there. In fact, I barely listen to it, even the Christian stuff. Yet even though I reside firmly behind the 8-ball when it comes to the Christian rap scene, I’m always encouraged to encounter faithful Christians who are using their talents to produce music that is actually very good. For too long, Christian music in America has just been downright bad. Hip-hop, has been no exception. Anyone who has lived through–nay, suffered through–the the 80’s and 90’s knows exactly what ‘m talking about.  I won’t even name any of the worst offenders, because I’m sure you already know who they are. And if you don’t, it’s probably best to spare you.

Thankfully, the past decade has seen the emergence of several Christian hip-hop artist who can go toe-to-toe with any mainstream, secular rapper out there. Not only have these artists become an acceptable alternative for Christians, but many of them have become the new standard for Christian music. The value of producing high quality Christian art is tremendous. On the one hand, Christians are being challenged to strive for excellence in their field and to understand the God-glorifying effect of a high work ethic in stewarding our gifts. On the other hand, non-Christians who would otherwise avoid gospel-centered art are encountering Christian art forms they actually enjoy, and as a result, man are wrestling with the truths of the gospel as never before.

So, who are some of these game-changing artists in Christian hip-hop? Well, if you are relatively new to gospel-centered hip-hop, perhaps it would be helpful for me to introduce you to the artists I saw the other recently at the Higher Learning concert.  Though this list represents only a tiny sample size of what’s out there, I think it provides a goo “starter kit” for you iPod.

 

LECRAE

Hailing from from Houston, Texas, LeCrae has changed the game for Christian rap. Having spent much of his teenage years as a drug dealer and gang-banger, LeCrae brings a raw grit to his music in which he honestly recounts his past while celebrating the powerful, life-giving grace of God to save even the worst of sinners. LeCrae is credited as being one of the forerunners of the emerging Reformed Hip-hop movement. LaCrae has released six studio albums, including his 2012 release Gravity, which earned him a 2013 Grammy Award for Best Gospel Album.

MG’s pick: Falling Down (featuring Swoope & Trip Lee)

 

PROPAGANDA

Propaganda is a Los Angeles based blend of spoken word, neo-soul, and old-school hip-hop. It makes sense, therefore, to know that he has shared the stages with the likes of KRS ONE and De La Soul. If one thing could be said about Propaganda, it is that he is authentic in every way. His music is a gripping exposition of the gospel and the vanity of life apart from Christ. Strap your helmet on tight. Propaganda doesn’t pull any punches.

MG’s pick: Lean

 

DEE-1

Born and raised in New Orleans, Dee-1 brings with him a transparency that is compelling from the start. Musically, Dee-1 offers a classic New Orleans rap flavor. But he packs a gospel-centered punch that leaves audiences with no doubt about where his hope lies. Dee-1 is already doing a lot through his music to proclaim Christ in some dark areas. If this guy keeps doing what he’s doing, I wouldn’t be surprised if he ends up joining LeCrae someday in the Grammy club.

MG’s pick: One Man Army

 

 

 

Here’s something awesome I found. Have you ever heard of Nicki Bluhm and the Gramblers? I hadn’t heard of them until very recently, but it turns out that they are a pretty good band based out of San Francisco. Besides recording some decent tracks of their own, this band has an interesting hobby: van sessions. While on tour, the band spends hours in their van driving to gigs in various cities. To pass the time, they play their own renditions of classic pop hits, and they post videos of it online for everyone’s enjoyment. Here’s a nice rendition they did of Hall and Oates’ “I Can’t Go For That”:

 

What are the benefits of trusting in Jesus Christ?

If you are a Christian, it is likely that you have considered this question quite a bit. Perhaps you have even been asked this question by a curious or skeptical non-Christian. It seems that this is the key question with which we are faced on a daily basis, especially in a world where there are so many options.

Indeed, we are surrounded by a dizzying array of options in virtually every aspect of life. Perhaps you are looking for something to make you feel better about yourself–a sense of purpose, value, and accomplishment. If so, you might decide to devote yourself to advancing in your career or taking up a hobby. Perhaps you are looking for companionship and a sense of belonging. If so, you can join always join some sort of club. Whatever you are into, there’s sure to be some organization consisting of people who share your interests. Or if that doesn’t do the trick, you can focus your efforts on finding and marrying that perfect man or woman you’ve always dreamed of.

Or maybe you want to make a real difference in the world. If that’s the case, then you can get involved with supporting politicians who agree with you. Or you can donate money to various non-profit charities around the world. Or perhaps you have a deeper, darker problem for which you need help. Anger. Depression. Addiction. If so, there is a host of solutions available for you, including therapists, counselors, retreats, medications, books, videos, seminars, and 12-step programs.

The point is, there are so many options out there for virtually every aspect of life, that it is vital that we who follow Christ are crystal-clear as to why the gospel–the message of God’s salvation plan through Jesus Christ–is infinitely more valuable and effective than anything else human beings have ever seen, experienced, or imagined. Otherwise, Christianity might appear to us as nothing more than just one more option on the enormous buffet of life’s solutions.

This brings us back to our original question: What are the benefits of trusting in Jesus Christ?

To be certain, the benefits of following Christ are infinite in number. Were we to attempt to make an exhaustive list, we could fill libraries and yet never come close to grasping the full scope of everything God has freely given us in Christ. However, we can look to the Bible and find three basic categories of benefits for followers of Christ: past grace (redemption), present grace (sanctification), and future grace (restoration).

As far as I can tell, most evangelicals today seem to have a pretty firm grasp on the past and future aspects of the gospel. Just consider your own perspective on the benefits of trusting Christ. If you are like most other evangelicals, you probably tend to focus almost entirely on what faith in Jesus Christ means for your past and your future. Specifically, you celebrate two great realities:

• Redemption: Jesus died on the cross, bearing your guilt and satisfying God’s holy wrath so that God would have mercy on you, for Christ’s sake, and forgive you of all you past rebellion. No more guilt or condemnation. Only grace and forgiveness!

• Restoration: Jesus rose from the dead, and one day he will return to raise all his faithful followers to eternal life, and he will restore everything that has been broken by sin. No more suffering and death. Only worship and joy!

The church has done a great job in emphasizing the past forgiveness and future restoration that have been secured for us in Christ. The Bible is rife with promises of redemption and restoration for everyone who trusts in Jesus. Moreover, we should celebrate these wonderful truths and cling to them daily as reminders of the powerful hope we have in Christ.

Still, there is one aspect of gospel hope that is all too easy for us to overlook: the present grace of sanctification. What is sanctification all about? Simply put, God has promised us that if we trust in Jesus, then we have real hope and real power right now! We can fight our sin and experience true victory, because Christ has freed us from being controlled by our temptations and failures. We can have deep, genuine joy even while we are surrounded by suffering and difficult circumstances. Why? Because Christ has freed us from being defined by our circumstances. For followers of Christ, God uses everything–including failure and suffering–for our good.

This is the gospel here and now.

Not surprisingly, the Bible is filled with wonderful promises of present hope for Christians. Here is a passage that really gets to the heart of God’s practical provision for us in Christ here and now:

His divine nature has given us everything we need for life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, by which he has granted to us his precious promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire.

– 2 Peter 1:3-4

Peter’s point here is clear. God has equipped us with everything we need to live joyfully and courageously in this world as reflections of his own holy character. And how has God equipped us? By his divine nature–the Holy Spirit–living in us and giving us wisdom and power to change and grow more in the likeness of Jesus.

This is the gospel here and now. Whether you are dealing with lingering failures, a difficult relationship, a lost loved one, or anything else, you can experience real hope, real joy, and real change. The bad news is that you cannot do it alone. The good news is that it is all available to you right now if you will trust in Jesus Christ.

Preach the gospel at all times. Use words if necessary.

If you are an evangelical Christian living in the Western Hemisphere, there is a good chance you have heard this exhortation before. Attributed to Saint Francis of Assisi (though it wasn’t until two centuries after his death that this saying was linked to him), this oft-quoted platitude serves as the basis for a common approach to Christian evangelism that suggests it is possible—and perhaps preferable—to effectively communicate the gospel solely through actions.

In other words, evangelism does not always require a verbal explanation of the gospel. If we want to communicate the gospel to people, all that is really necessary most of the time is a pattern of behavior that bears witness to the gospel.

Be kind to others. Help those who are in need. Provide for your family. Be a man of your word. Be faithful to your spouse. Don’t get drunk. Don’t cheat on your taxes. Pay all your bills on time. Love. Forgive. Embrace.

These are all wonderful things that commend the gospel. When our lives are full of these qualities, we give compelling evidence for the power and truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

But this raises a question: Is this all we need to do in order to faithfully and effectively bear witness to our God?

An examination of Scripture says no. Consider, for example, the overwhelming pattern in the New Testament of Christians verbally explaining the gospel. The book of Acts alone is replete with verbal evangelism. Here are a few examples:

• Peter in Jerusalem (Acts 2: 14-41)
• Stephen in Jerusalem (Acts 7:1-53)
• Believers scattered abroad (Acts 8:4)
• Phillip in Samaria, Jerusalem, and Azotus (Acts 8:4-40)
• Peter in Caesarea (Acts 10:34-43)
• Paul in Athens (Acts 17:16-34)

Notice how many of these passages include the phrase “he opened his mouth.” I do not think it is by accident that this phrase occurs so frequently. It seems that the writer of Acts intends to draw our attention to the fact that verbal preaching was the primary means of the gospel being spread in the first century of Christianity. Christians spoke; non-Christians heard and believed.

So the question we must answer is: Why should we expect that it would be any different today?

Well, it isn’t any different at all. Words are still primary in evangelism. The modern emphasis on actions as a primary means of evangelism is rooted in a reluctance to offend people with the very message that is intended to reconcile people to God. After all, if we’re going to people that Jesus is real, we must spend more time doing things that will attract them to the truth rather than turning them away with our harsh-sounding words.

While I appreciate the heart behind this, I think it completely misses the basic fact that the gospel message is inherently offensive to unbelieving ears. What person do you know enjoys being told that he is a guilty rebel who is hopelessly in need of a Savior? But consider for a moment—does an individual’s feelings or response to the gospel make it any less true?

We Christians need to come to terms with the fact that the world simply will not love us and embrace us for preaching the gospel. But this does not discourage us from boldly speaking the truth. To the contrary, we are motivated by the fact that preaching the gospel—regardless of how it is received—gives glory to our God.

Moreover, we know that even if some of our hearers reject the message, others who hear that same message will believe it and put their hope in Christ. Don’t believe me? Look again at Peter, Paul, and Stephen. All three of these men were openly mocked while they preached. Stephen was stoned to death! But in each of these cases, there were some people among the crowd who repented and believed.

Does that mean that we are guaranteed the same result every time we open our mouths to preach the gospel? No. But it does show us that God works miracles to cause people to repent and believe, even when we least expect it. So in faith, we open our mouths—like Peter, Paul, and Stephen—and we plead with sinners to trust in Christ for forgiveness and salvation.

Our actions are important. In fact, the book of James assures us that our actions are vital to our witness as followers of Christ. Do you claim to have faith in Jesus? Well, your life had better back that up. But in the end, that’s all actions are—evidence of the spiritual reality to which we lay claim.

As such, we must deliberately explain the gospel. We must talk about God’s holiness, our sin, and Christ’s atoning death. We must talk about repentance, faith, and sanctification. We must talk about the joys of following Christ in this life and the awesome hope we have for eternal life. We must open our mouths and talk about these things. And we must do it early and often.

Should we be wise in knowing exactly when and how to speak up? Of course. But at the end of the day, we’ve got to speak up or else we cannot really call it evangelism.

The gospel is not self-evident, though we certainly wish it were. Rather, people need to hear the gospel in order to believe it. God has ordained it this way.

I’m preaching this upcoming Sunday from John 3:16-18. It’s a marvelous passage. As I’ve spent time meditating on these three verses of Scripture, I’ve been particularly struck by verse 16:

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that
whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal
life.

Sound familiar? Perhaps that’s because you got so used to seeing this verse on banners and T-shirts at football games back in the 70’s and 80’s. (Note: Tebow’s bringing it back!)

For Christians, however, this verse much is more than a catchphrase at sporting events. This verse represents the very foundation of what it means to be a Christian. It describes the amazing love of an eternal, transcendent God who had every right to condemn us to eternal punishment because of our rebellion against him. Yet because of that love, he instead chose to forgive us of our rebellion by punishing his perfect Son Jesus in our place. God has saved us not because of any good we have done, but completely on the basis of his own love for us, which he displayed by inflicting our punishment on Jesus. And we receive this staggering gift of God’s love simply by believing. Amazing!

Yet as wonderful and awesome as God’s love is, the story doesn’t end there. No, the story continues with Christians—those rebels who have been saved from the terrible condemnation we deserved—displaying this same love in the way we love others. As God’s ransomed people, we are to live every aspect of our lives out of a deep sense of gratitude toward God. We love because we have been loved by God. We forgive because we have been forgiven by God. And as we live in this way, we display God’s character to the world. When people see what we’re like, they see what God is like.

As such, I think John 3:16 has some very important things to teach us not only about how God loves us, but also about what it means for us to really love others. There are so many lessons here, but I will discuss just two: Love makes costly sacrifices, and love saves from destruction.

Love makes costly sacrifices.

The most obvious lesson we see in John 3:16 is that God’s love for us is marked by deep, personal sacrifice. Because he loved us, he gave his only Son. Think about that for a moment. If you’re a parent, consider the idea of willingly handing over any of your children to sure death for the sake of saving someone who has done nothing but despise you. Well, that’s what only a shadow of what God did for us.

And that’s not mention that God sacrificed his only Son for us. Though this certainly points to the fact that God only has one Son, I don’t think that’s all it does. It underscores the unique goodness of that Son. Jesus, we are told throughout the Bible, perfectly reflects God’s own character in every way. Like the Father, the Son is eternal. Like the Father, the Son is all-knowing and all-powerful. Like the Father, the Son is perfectly wise, just, and good. Yet God willingly sacrificed Jesus in order to spare us from judgment. And Jesus, for his part, voluntarily hung on a cross to reconcile us to God.

As followers of Jesus, this is what our love is supposed to look like. So how are you doing with that? If I’m honest, I’d have to save I’m usually doing a poor job at it. How willing am I to set aside my own rights for the sake of reconciling with someone who has deeply wronged me? How quick am I to voluntarily take the bullet for someone else to accept the blame when there is conflict?

I can only do this is by remembering the enormous cost at which God forgave me. Contrary to what many people in the world believe, God does not simply forgive us because he knows we’re trying our best. No, that’s not at all how God forgives. Because of his justice, he was determined to punish our sin. And because he loved us so much, he punished our sin on the cross where Jesus died. That is real love.

Love saves from destruction.

This leads us to a second lesson: if we really love others, we work to save them from destruction. In the verse, we see that God, driven by his love for us, saved us from certain destruction that awaited us. He did this by sacrificing his Son, but there are countless ways we can, and should, work to protect and rescue others we love.

What does this look like? Well, I think the best way to get to the heart of the matter is to consider how we relate to opponents. How do you think about those who ridicule you or slander you? Do you wish them harm, or do you pray for them? And what about that co-worker who gets all those opportunities you deserve? Do you look for ways to help and encourage him, or do you look for ways to undermine him?

As Christians, we must always remember that reflecting the goodness of our God means praying and working for the good of others—even those who threaten us, hurt us or hate us.

This is Hard Stuff

I may be able to guess you’re thinking at this point: “Man, that is all so much easier said than done!”
I agree. And I don’t want you to think I’m saying these things because I think I’ve gotten it right. Following Christ is difficult, and it often feels unnatural. But I’m thankful to have a God whose love for me didn’t end with the cross. He keeps reminding me of his mercy, and he will do the same for you if you’ll trust him.

Oh, how he loves us!