The Gospel In Life
- Larry Kirk
- Feb 20, 2007
A few years ago Jerry Bridges, a major leader and author with the Navigator's ministry organization spoke to a group of hundreds of Christians. "Imagine", he said, "drawing a time line of your life. A dot on the extreme left represents your birth; a dot on the extreme right represents your death. Picture a cross in the center. The cross symbolizes the point in time when you received Christ as your Savior. That" he said, "is the most important point on the line."
Then he said: "What one word would summarize your greatest need from the day of your birth to that moment of your conversion?" And He said, "The answer would be the gospel, the good news of forgiveness and eternal life through faith in Christ. Before coming to Christ the gospel is what you needed the most." Then He asked, "What about from the time of your conversion to the end of your life? What is the thing you need most."
He said, "How about discipleship?" Most of his hearers agreed with that. But he went on to explain that this is what he used to believe, but he now is convinced that what we need the most from the time of our conversion to faith in Christ until the very last breath we take is still the gospel. Not because being a disciple and a follower of Christ is not important, but because it is only by continually going back to the truths of the gospel and believing them to be true and taking them to heart that we water the roots of spiritual growth that enable us to be true followers, disciples of Jesus.
Colossians 2:6-7 So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live in him, 7 rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness.
Destructive Myths about The Christian Life
1. We begin the Christian life by believing, we live the Christian life by trying.
2. We are saved by grace, we grow by works.
3. We receive initial forgiveness through faith in Christ, we earn daily acceptance through obedience to God.
What Christianity isn't and what it is.
1. Christianity is not moralism.
2. Christianity is not "trying harder".
3. Christianity is spiritual transformation through the power of the gospel in a personal relationship with Christ.
Through Christ and the Gospel we experience the power of spiritual transformation.
Galatians 3:1 You foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? Before your very eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed as crucified. 2 I would like to learn just one thing from you: Did you receive the Spirit by observing the law, or by believing what you heard? 3 Are you so foolish? After beginning with the Spirit, are you now trying to attain your goal by human effort? 4 Have you suffered so much for nothing--if it really was for nothing? 5 Does God give you his Spirit and work miracles among you because you observe the law, or because you believe what you heard?
The Holy Spirit empowers the whole Christian life in response to faith. Galatians 3:2-5
The truth is sometimes we think we can live the Christian life without Christ if we just try harder. What God wants us to understand is that most of the time when you think you need is renewed effort what you really need first is to renew your faith!
The Bible constantly reminds us that faith can do marvelous things, not because of it's own power but because it is by radical acts and attitudes of faith that we grasp the promises of God and receive the power and the presence of Christ .
The Little Difference In Attitude Between Depending On Your Efforts Or Depending On The Holy Spirit Makes All The Difference In The World to God.
In the Bible attitude is essential! Take for instance the example of prayer, fasting and giving. What could ever be wrong with things like that? Jesus said that if you did any of those things for the hidden motive of being seen and admired by men those seemingly sacrificial human efforts at godliness would be worthless in the eyes of God. 1 Corinthians 13 says that you can have all knowledge, and be supernaturally gifted in prophecy, and you can even give all your possessions to feed the poor ... but if you do that without the hidden inner attitude of love... it is all worthless in the eyes of God. In the same way...you can have discipline, and determination, and natural talent, and diligence, but if you do not have a heart attitude of faith and dependence there will be no release of God's power to move you toward the goal!
It is faith in Christ that releases the love of Christ in our lives.
Galatians 5:5-6 But by faith we eagerly await through the Spirit the righteousness for which we hope. 6 For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value. The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love. The Bible often refers to the chain reaction of God's love for us, which is only known and felt by faith, producing real love in us. 1 John 4:19 says, We love because he first loved us. Our love is secondary....God's love is primary.
Martin Luther said: "Even a stone lying in the sun will grow warm." The reason just trying harder is so harmful and unhelpful is because it leaves out the all-important step of believing the truth about God's love for you. In fact, just trying harder shifts your attention off of Christ onto yourself and often leaves you so focused on your failures that you feel farther away from God's love and therefore less connected to the power of that love to warm your heart. There is no power in just trying harder to be a more loving person when you don't feel much love.
Failures of love always reveal underlying failures of faith. So if love is lacking, the underlying problem is probably that faith is lacking also. The most powerful way to love more is to believe more. It is faith that expresses itself in love. You don't start with renewing your efforts, you start with refreshing your faith! You don't just start trying harder, you start by believing more! Faith has to come first, faith is the trigger, the spark, the ignition.
God's love and grace in the gospel, that's where the music comes from. Faith is listening. Love is dancing. Imagine yourself in a large house in which both deaf and hearing people are living together. They are all mixed together so you can't tell by looking who can hear and who can't. As you watch you see a man sitting in a room by himself, he's tapping his foot rhythmically and snapping his fingers and his body is swaying. You know what's happening. He's listening to music and obviously enjoying himself. His whole body wants to respond to what his ears are receiving. There's nothing strange or mysterious about it.
But now add a new person to this scene. One of the deaf persons opens the door and enters the room. He sees this man and walks over to him and begins watching. He thinks to himself, "He sure seems to be enjoying himself, I think I'll try that too." So the deaf man sits down next to the first man and begins to imitate him. Awkwardly and haltingly at first, he tries to snap his fingers, tap his toes and move like the man next to him. After a little practice the deaf man slowly begins to snap and tap and sway in time with the first man just from watching and trying. But you know even though he gets pretty good at keeping in time he shrugs and says to himself, "It's not as much fun as I thought, but I guess it's okay."
Now let's add one more factor. A third man walks into the room and what does he see? Two men apparently and outwardly doing the same thing. But is there a difference? Absolutely! All the difference in the world! The first man's hears the music and all his actions are natural responses to the music that he hears! The deaf man doesn't hear it, doesn't feel it, he is just going through the motions.
That's not what God wants for you. God wants you to hear His music. To go through life listening to His music. God wants the children to learn to hear the music of grace and of the gospel. He wants that for all of us.
Don't just try harder! Listen more carefully to the music of the gospel. Preach the gospel to yourself. Think long and hard and daily about the love of God in Christ and believe!
Applications:
1. Preach the gospel to yourself.
In His classic book: The Dynamics of Spiritual Renewal, Dr. Richard Lovelace writes this:
"I am accepted -- accepted as though my life displayed the spiritual perfection of the Messiah himself - ought to be the automatic response of our hearts whenever we wake, like the compass needle that always points north."
"I am uncertain about the value of 'Christian mantras', which attempt to build up spirituality by the repetition of phrases. But I do think we can benefit from deeply fixing in our hearts this fourfold description of what we inherit through faith in the Messiah. At the outset of each day, we should hear God saying YOU ARE ACCEPTED, because the guilt of sin is covered by the righteousness of Christ; YOU ARE FREE FROM BONDAGE TO SIN through the power of Jesus in your life; YOU ARE NOT ALONE, but accompanied by the Counselor, the Spirit of the Messiah; YOU ARE IN COMMAND, with the freedom to resist and expel the powers of darkness."
As Christian people we need to continually preach to ourselves the great truths of the gospel and what we have through simple childlike faith in Christ. In that sense we need to keep coming and keep believing in Him. Colossians 2:6-7 says: So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live in him, rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness.
Are you taking your stand and finding peace and joy daily on this foundation? Are you preaching the gospel to yourself and believing it every day of your life?
2. Live a lifestyle of repentance and faith.
A.W. Tozer, in His classic book, The Pursuit of God: said:
"God is so vastly wonderful, so utterly and completely delightful that He can, without anything other than Himself, meet and overflow the deepest demands of our total nature, mysterious and deep as that nature is."
John 7:37 On the last and greatest day of the Feast, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, "If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. 38 Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him." 39 By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive. Up to that time the Spirit had not been given, since Jesus had not yet been glorified.
Jeremiah 2:13 "My people have committed two sins: They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water."
What is all this saying really? If we drop the images of water and wells, God is still the ultimate source of joy, strength and satisfaction in life. His sufficiency to meet all of our deepest needs and thirsts, and to satisfy us is repeatedly taught in the Bible. But so also is our foolish, stubborn tendency to turn elsewhere for joy and happiness in life. How then do we drink from the fullness of God's love? Through repentance and faith. Through ongoing repentance we turn from all broken cisterns and through faith we receive and rest on Christ alone as our source of fulfillment in life.