Excerpt
from: Postcards from Corinth, Chapter 8
PROVISION AND POWER FOR A GROWING HEART
John
Owen realized that the essence of sanctification is “nothing but the implanting,
writing, and realizing of the gospel in our souls.” As followers of Christ we
must discover the gospel’s power each day. Perhaps the familiar has become
unfamiliar to you. The gospel is for the lost and the found. It offers
salvation not only from sin’s penalty (past), but sin’s power (present) and sin’s
presence (future). The goal of the gospel is not merely to forgive repentant
sinners, but to change them into true worshipers of God and authentic lovers of
people.
Tim
Keller coined this definition of the gospel: “The gospel is that you are more
sinful and flawed than you ever dared believe yet can be more accepted and loved
than you ever dared hope at the same time because Jesus Christ lived and died
in your place.”
PRACTICES OF A GROWING HEART
Jonathan
Edwards declared, “The secret of the Christian life is to allow the gospel to
filter into your life both rationally and experientially.”
Let’s
look at the words of Paul to see how the gospel gets filtered down into our
lives. “So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live
(walk) in Him, rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you
were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness” (Colossians 2:6-7).
First,
the heart that grows believes and walks in the gospel. The gospel is not just a
gate I walk through once but a path I should walk each day. Remember the
timeless blessings of the gospel.
I
AM FORGIVEN!
God canceled my debt I am not in jail. I am released
(Colossians 1:13).
I
AM ACCEPTED!
God is for me. To be accepted means all of who you
are, good and bad, is received by another without condemnation. “There is now
no condemnation for those who belong to Jesus” (Romans 8:1). Christ’s perfect
righteousness has been credited to my account through Him (2 Corinthians 5:21).
God is truthful with me. He reveals my sin to me but He is not angry with me.
As a result, I can be honest with God without fear of rejection. I can rest in
Him and trust Him.
I
AM UNITED!
Because we are united to Jesus through faith, God
accepts us each day as whole and complete, even though our lives may still be
full of inconsistencies.
I
AM ADOPTED!
I am a child of God with all the rights and
privileges of a son (1 John 3:1-2). I do not have to control life, trying to
make it work. I have access to the Creator and the source of life. I have
entrée to the lap of my father, His provision and His discipline for my growth.
I
AM FREE!
I have a new master and the gospel has the power to
change me. There is hope for change. I am free from the bondage to the law. I
do not need to prove myself worthy. The law tutors me to Christ and replaces
bondage with an appeal to living on the basis of relationship rather than
performance and good works.
I
AM NOT ALONE!
I have His presence through the Holy Spirit. He is
able to counsel, comfort, and empower me to live the life God designed for me
(John 16:5-15). As I live by and depend on the Spirit, I will not gratify the
desires of the sinful nature (Galatians 5:16).
The
gospel is the fuel of a redeemed life. The gospel moves me to God, life, and
back to his His divine design. We fill our tanks with that fuel by believing and
walking in it. As believers, when we “rehearse and delight in the many
privileges that are ours in Christ,” we are in effect preaching the gospel to
ourselves.
In
the daily grind of life, I remind myself of the gospel. When I am feeling like
a failure and hearing words of condemnation, I remind myself that I am accepted
by Christ’s perfect obedience. When I feel fearful that my financial needs will
not be met or that God wants to punish me, I cling to my adoption, recognizing
I am a son, not an orphan. When I feel like I am held in bondage to lust, I
embrace my redemption. I have been delivered, am not alone and have others to
run to with my needs.
As
the gospel filters into our lives, it will expose sin and idolatry, which leads
us to a second practice of a growing heart. The heart that grows repents and
believes the gospel. Jesus announced, “The time has come. The kingdom of God is
near. Repent and believe the good news!” (Mark 1:15). Martin Luther notes that
when Jesus said to repent, “He willed that the whole life of believers should
be one of repentance” (first of Martin Luther’s ninety-five Theses nailed to the
Wittenberg Door in 1517).
What
are we to repent of? One of the greatest threats to a cohesive heart is
idolatry. Idolatry can be defined as seeking something other than God as the
source of life and depending on something other than God and His provision for
life. Paul believed a primary reason hearts are not transformed is that the
affections of people’s hearts have been captured by idols. These grip them and
steal their heart’s affection away from God (cf. Ephesians 5:3-5).
How
are we to deal with idols? Jesus says we are to apply the practice of repenting
and believing. Paul sees repentance and faith as two sides of the same coin
(Ephesians 4:22-24). Repentance is a change in direction, moving away from the
destructive path back toward God’s ways of life. Paul does not tell people to
do the right thing because it is right, but so they will live (Romans 8:13;
Deuteronomy 6:20-25). Repentance is always a move away from death to life.
To
drain its power, one must recognize that the idol’s path is one of death,
hunger, and emptiness. Idolatry is driven and perpetuated by being cut off from
the life of God (Ephesians 4:18-19). When separated from the life of God, we
seek to fill the vacuum in idolatrous ways. The life of God includes: support,
connection, honesty, healing, confession, repentance, correction, discipline.
So when people are hurting (and stuck in idolatry) they need to find healing
through God and His people.
I
am learning to ask myself: In what ways am I disconnected from the life of God
and His people? In what ways can I rest in Him to fill my emptiness? The bottom
line is that “the just shall live by faith.” By faith we believe God is the
source and rest in Him.
Yet,
the practice of repenting and believing the gospel is not just an individual
practice. Sanctification always happens in a family setting—the body of Christ
(Hebrews 10:24-25). It has been said, “If you want to go fast, go alone; but if
you want to go far, go together!”
I
recall an incident where during a special family time I said some hurtful words
to my wife. Though I confessed my sin to Jesus and to my wife, I still felt bad
as a dad and husband. My youngest daughter, sensing my need for grace, quickly
reminded me: “Dad it’s okay. You are forgiven and Jesus really loves you
anyway!” That simple act freed me up to say thanks to her and truthfully
acknowledge my need to grow in my speech and love. When you have grace, it
allows you to bring the real you into the light without being rejected. God is
not put out by our sin, nor is He surprised. In fact, He yearns for honesty and
for us to bring it into the light.
God
designed us for relationship with Him and others. God wants to minister His
grace to us from others. Those who only study the facts of the grace of God and
do not experience other people loving and forgiving them will fall short in
their realization of grace. James 5:16 and 1 John 1:9 show the importance of
confessing our sins to both God and others to experience healing. Hiding only
hinders the healing process.
The
body of Christ is critical in the healing of addictions and idolatry. Often
alienation drives addictive behavior. Paul calls it the “continual lust for
more” caused by being “separated from the life of God” (Ephesians 4:18-19).
Henry Cloud notes,
“As people are cut off from others and their souls
are starved for connectedness, the need for love turns into an insatiable
hunger for something (idolatry). It can be a substance, sex, food, shopping, or
gambling, but these never satisfy, because the real need is for connectedness
to God and others, and to God through others. When people receive that, the
power of addiction is broken.”
The practices for
discipleship are clear: Preach the gospel; emphasize repenting and believing;
stay connected to one another; don’t hide but face the truth and confess sin;
give and receive grace and forgiveness; tell and celebrate how God is redeeming
and restoring you.
CONCLUSION
Keep
the gospel the main thing in your discipleship. It is easy to forget that the
gospel is not just for the lost but for the laborer as well. The gospel is
simple and yet powerfully promotes growth and spiritual formation. Perhaps our
familiarity has bred unfamiliarity. Isn’t it time to taste again and delight in
the Lord and the gospel?
The
Christian life is nothing more than grabbing hold of the gospel every day and
finding that it is not only true, but also it works. We never outgrow our need
for the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Cloud
adds, “There are no new ways of dealing with sin, for God gave us the Way a
long time ago. There is no rocket science, only the gospel. But what a gospel
it is! It is the medicine for the sickness we all possess, and that really is
good news.”
Disciples
of Jesus should be the most repentant people of all and the freest. Why? Because we know the gospel.
John
Bunyan, the author of Pilgrim’s Progress penned a simple poem for himself that
captures what I have sought to write about:
Run John Run. The law
commands.
But gives neither feet
nor hands.
Better news the gospel
brings:
It bids me fly and gives me wings.
Let’s fly and help
others fly with a renewed emphasis on the gospel in our discipleship.
