What’s Your Gospel Response Plan (GRP)?

Growing up in North Alabama, I remember going through specific routines in the event of an emergency. I doubt there was a kid who did not know why or when you need to stop, drop, and roll. We were trained in protocols in the event of a tornado, calmly lining up in the hallway and securing our heads from potential debris. We knew how to exit the buildings in case of a fire in a single-file line to safe zones outside. All of these procedures were responses to various kinds of potential disasters we could encounter while in school.

Now what, do you think, are the possibilities that I as a kid in elementary school would actually need to follow through on those drills? How often would a tornado tear through our building? How often would a fire consume the classrooms? Hardly ever, it at all, right? But we were still trained in how to respond in the very unlikely event that they might occur.

What if I told you that on a daily basis you are going to be faced with potential crises or disasters that required a response from you? What if it was not a distant potentiality but an eminent reality? How would you prepare yourself for such situations? Would you be trained to know how to respond?

Let me break this down and make the case why every follower of Jesus must have a gospel response plan (GRP).

Have you ever been hurt by someone else?Have you ever been criticized?Have you ever been offended?Has someone ever sinned against you?Have you sinned against someone else?Has your day ever taken one unexpected turn after another?Have other people let you down or betrayed your trust?Have you faced days of disappointment and despair?Have you experienced frustration and anger at the failure of others or yourself?

These are just a few questions addressing realities you and I face on a daily basis, and with every question/situation, a response will manifest from your life. But what kind of response will it be? We have a choice to respond out of our sinful nature (Gen. 3) or out of our new identity in Christ. Will our response be driven by guilt and shame, hiding and pretending, blaming and fearing like Adam and Eve in Genesis 3? Or will our response arise from repentance and faith out of a heart resting in God’s acceptance of you in Christ?

You are a sinner living among sinners. You are a desperately needy person rubbing shoulders with desperately needy people. What weak, needy sinners need in every moment is to look to a strong, sufficient Savior. That’s what we do when we respond to the gospel–we turn from looking to ourselves (whether out of self-pity or self-righteousness) in repentance and we look to Christ in renewed faith and trust.

The problem we have today, I fear, is that most Christians do not have a developed gospel response plan and, therefore, there is no functional repentance and faith response when things happen (internally or externally) in their lives. The default, then, is to look somewhere other than Jesus in our response. And this, I find, is a massive discipleship breakdown for believers.

Someone is going to sin against you. Will you handle that situation with a response that honors the gospel? Will you pursue reconciliation through forgiveness and view that person through the lens of grace? Or will you come across self-righteous and force that person to make atonement for their sin by working their way back into a right relationship with you based on their efforts?

You are going to sing against someone else. Will you handle that situation with a response that honors the gospel? Will you make excuses for your sin? Rationalize it? Blame others for it? Or will you own it, humbly confessing it to God and those whom you sinned against, seeking forgiveness? Will you hide away playing the victim card in self-pity, sulking in your failure, or will you take your sin to the throne of grace to your merciful High Priest?

Paul said, “as you received Christ Jesus the Lord so walk in him…” (Col. 2:6). You receive Jesus by repentance and faith, and you walk in that same repentance and faith. That is to say, this is how we “learn Christ” (Eph. 5:20) and “put on our new self” (i.e., our new identity in Christ). I think the most practically and helpful tool that Christians have today is to be trained to know how to respond to various situations they will encounter in a way that commends the gospel and flows out of a heart fully resting and secure in Jesus. We are not talking about potential dangers here. We’re talking about actual, real-life situations happening every day where Christians will either act out the old man of Genesis 3 or the new man being renewed by the Holy Spirit.

Think back in your life where sin has impacted your relationship with God and others. Are there people that are no longer in your life because of the functional absence of a gospel-driven response? Sadly, I can say that is true for me, and I suspect that if we are cognizant enough, nearly everyone would consent to that reality. But we don’t have to continue that way!

So what is your Gospel Response Plan?

You are sinner living in a fallen world. You are going to be hurt, betrayed, frustrated, prideful, annoyed, judgmental, pitiful, and so much more. It’s going to happen. But are you going to be trained as a follower of Jesus Christ to know, almost instinctively, how to respond with the gospel through premeditated prescriptions of specific ways to walk in repentance and faith?

Perhaps what we need to do each morning is prepare ourselves with some “gospel drills”. Think about one possible situation a gospel response will be required of you. For example, you are at a restaurant and your server is extremely slow and the food is cold. The server asks you if there is anything else you need, and you are tempted to treat her like her actions deserve. But instead, you respond by saying, “Thank you for serving me today, and by the way, as I pray over my food I would like to know if there is anything I can pray for you about?” Who knows? The server may already be feeling guilty and embarrassed by their service and surprised by your gracious response. They could be going through a terrible crisis in their lives, and they open up to you and provide an opportunity for you to minister to them (and perhaps introduce them to Jesus).

Why that gospel drill? Because you will get bad service and cold food. You will be tempted to act out of the old Adam and not out of the risen Christ. And this is one of countless other ways we need to “learn Christ” and “put on the new self” with a strategy to approach whatever comes our way to walk in repentance and faith and show the transforming power of Christ’s abundant grace actively working in our lives.

What Gospel Communities Can Learn from The Transfiguration

I’ve been slowly working through the Gospel of Luke, reading, and rereading chapters and focusing on various sections at a time. This morning, I focused on Luke 9:28-36, the passage on the transfiguration of Jesus. As I reflected on this text, I realized that what was happening was a heavenly form of gospel community, with God the Father, God the Son, Moses, Elijah, and Peter, James, and John.

What I found particularly impacting to me in this text was the topic of the community discussion. Verse 30 says that Moses and Elijah were talking with Jesus, and the centerpiece of that discussion was “his departure” or exodus through the cross. Moses (representing the Law) and Elijah (representing the Prophets) are figureheads of redemptive history up until the time of Jesus, and much like all of the Scriptures, they made the conversation about Jesus and His work on the cross.

Gospel communities can learn much from this conversation. We can learn from Moses and Elijah that all of Scripture testifies about Jesus (Luke 24:27). Moses and Elijah knew this. They were not interested in talking about types and shadows; they were interested in what those types and shadows pointed to–Jesus. This in no way diminishes Old Testament Scripture or the role Moses and Elijah played in redemptive history. In fact, it heightens it, knowing their stories are interwoven in the bigger story of God’s redemptive purposes in history culminating in Christ.

But not only does it culminate in Christ, it climaxes in Christ. When the cloud overtook the disciples, and God chose to speak, the Father declared that it is all about His beloved Son. And when God spoke, Jesus was all alone–alone because there is no one else like Him. Alone because Jesus has supremacy over all things and superior to all prophets, kings, and priests. Alone because Jesus is preeminent and holds a place in history that demands our unconditional loyalty and submission as Lord and King.

Moses spoke about Jesus. Elijah spoke about Jesus. The Father spoke about Jesus and gave a heavenly charge to everyone else to listen to Jesus. At no other point in the earthly life of Jesus was there a more heavenly moment, and it is evident to everyone that this community was all about Jesus. In fact, when Peter wanted to make tents for Elijah and Moses was when they disappeared, leaving them with no one but Jesus.

As simple as it may sound, what we can learn from the Transfiguration is this: Christian community that pleases the Father and honors His Word is all about Jesus–who He is, what He has done, and what that matters. Christian community is preoccupied with Jesus because heaven is preoccupied with Jesus. We don’t get over Jesus. We are never bored with Jesus. We don’t keep silent about Jesus. We don’t change the channel or turn it down. Instead, we rediscover again and again by the Spirit’s work in our lives more and more the beauty and brilliance of our Savior. To the degree that our conversations center on Jesus, we can say we functionally have a gospel community. To the degree that we adore and treasure Jesus, we can keep our community from lesser lovers and broken cisterns.

If we could have a conversation today with the greatest figures in the history of redemption, they would be talking about Jesus–His life, death, and resurrection. But if people could have a conversation today with you and me, what would we what we want to talk about?

Definite Atonement Is at the Heart of the Gospel

Definite atonement (also called particular redemption or unlimited atonement) is one of those perennial sticking points among evangelicals. Whenever Evangelicals who are inclined toward the doctrines of grace go through the perfunctory feeling-out process, they’ll often head toward the 4- or 5-point Calvinist identifier. This isn’t really an issue among those who subscribe to the historic Reformed confessions. Nor does it dominate much theological conversation. However, it’s a common point of discussion among evangelicals.

Yet, in my experience, the conversation often ends with a bit of cajoling and an implicit agreement to disagree. I’ve been a part of many of these conversations, still I question whether these passing exchanges have done justice to the matter. Definite atonement is not a secondary issue; it is essential to the gospel. For whom did Christ die? Moreover, what is the precise nature of the atonement?

Is it the case that Christ’s death merely made salvation possible? Or did Christ’s death actually purchase redemption? Was there a fundamental exchange on the cross or merely an opening of the door unto the forgiveness of sins? These fundamental questions must be answered rigorously in light of the whole counsel of God. So the next time you come to an impasse with a 4-point (or 5-point) Calvinist, consider that these views run much deeper than your taste in sports, musical styles, or even political parties. They extend to the essence of Christianity.

If you’d like to go deeper in your understanding of definite atonement, I highly recommend the book From Heaven He Came and Sought Her: Definite Atonement in Historical, Biblical, Theological, and Pastoral Perspective (Crossway) edited by David Gibson and Jonathan Gibson. We recently interviewed them along with Carl Trueman on Christ the Center episode 307. David Gibson recently had an exchange with Andrew Wilson on the subject. Read up on it. You should also look at John Murray’s important book Redemption Accomplished and Applied, wherein he skillfully treats the definite work of Christ to its ongoing application by the Holy Spirit.

The Gospel at Work

If you keep even half an eye on Christian publishing, then you know that gospel-centeredness is a major theme today, and especially so for publishers targeting their books at the New Calvinists. While this is undoubtedly a trend, and one that will at some point begin to slow, the point is clear: the gospel matters, and it matters to everything. There is no area of life outside the purview of the gospel. The gospel matters in the pulpit, in the home and in the family. The gospel matters at work as well.

The Gospel at Work is a new book from Greg Gilbert and Sebastian Traeger and its big idea is this: You work for the king, and this changes everything. No matter what you do, your work has value because you are doing it for the Lord and who you work for is far more important than the details of what you do. This means that there is no such thing as a meaningless job and no such thing as a job that is insignificant.

Much of the book is structured around two of the ways that we can allow our work to become sinful. Each represents an extreme. For some the temptation is idleness at work while for others the temptation is idolatry of work. Some hope to find their significance and worth in the work they do so that work becomes “the primary object of our passions, our energy, and our love. We end up worshiping our job.” But then others “can slip into being idle in our work. When we fail to see God’s purposes in our work, we don’t really care much about it. We fail to give any attention to it, or we despise it and generally neglect our responsibility to serve as if we are serving the Lord.” And, sadly, both of these extremes are celebrated in our culture.

The challenge of The Gospel at Work is to avoid those extremes, and the way to do that is to work out the implications of the gospel in what you do.“ If you are a Christian, we want to challenge you to begin connecting the reality of what God has done for you in Christ to your job, thinking carefully about how this applies to and changes the way you think about your work.”

Now some of the gospel-focused books I have read fall a little bit short in actually connecting the gospel to the subject at hand. Thankfully, that is not the case here. The gospel tells us that we have a new master, a new assignment, a new confidence, and new rewards and in all of those ways it counters the temptation to make too much, or too little, of work. Let me provide an extended quote which helps show how carefully these authors have thought this through:

Because of Jesus’ work on the cross on our behalf, because he lives and reigns right now, we have identity, belonging, love, acceptance, forgiveness, adoption, justification, and reward. It is all ours for all eternity. Because that’s true, we are gloriously freed from having to pursue those things (or, rather, cheap imitations of them) through our work. Do you see? We don’t need our work to provide an identity for us. We already have an identity in Christ. We don’t need it to give us a place to belong. We already have been adopted by God because of Jesus, and we belong to his redeemed family. We don’t need work to make us loved or liked or accepted, nor do we need it to prove to ourselves that we’re worthwhile. Why? Because all of that has already been secured for us by Jesus! So where does that leave our work? What role does that leave for it to play in our lives? Simple. It leaves our work liberated from the impossible demand to provide something for us that it was never meant to provide and from the excuse that it doesn’t matter, and we are set free to live lives of joyful, heartfelt service to our King!

As the authors progress through their subject, they provide a brief, but sound, theology of work, and then progress to practical matters: choosing a career; finding that difficult balance between work, family and church; handling difficult bosses and co-workers; being a Christian boss; and sharing the gospel at work. In every case they work outward from the gospel into practical counsel and guidance.

Where the book impacted me deepest is in its discussion of success. The authors redefine success, drawing it away from money, power, influence, change, or a respectable standard of living. From a biblical perspective, success is far simpler: it is measured in faithfulness. We are not all equally talented and we do not have equal opportunities, so we need to be very, very careful not to measure ourselves against one another. That can be a fatal mistake. Instead, we are to measure success by faithfulness to God in the things he has called us to do. That was very freeing to me and very encouraging.

The Gospel at Work is a powerful and helpful book exactly because the gospel really does matter at work, just as it matters at home and in the church and everywhere else. And since we all work somewhere, sometime, this is a book we would all do well to read.

The Law and Gospel By Ernest Reisinger

If you are not familiar with Ernest Reisinger, you should be! He was one of R.C. Sprouls dearest friends and would stand outside many of the Southern Baptist seminaries handing out- James P Boyce's "Abstract of Theology". During his life, he was calling back Southern Baptists to their roots. Namely, returning back to their heritage of Calvinism.

Importance

Why is the subject of "law and gospel" important? Let me state six reasons: 1.Because there is no point of divine truth upon which ministers and Christians make greater mistakes than upon the proper relationship which exists between the law and the gospel.

2.Because there can be no true evangelical holiness, either in heart or life, except it proceed from faith working by love; and no true faith, either of the law or the gospel, unless the leading distinction between the one and the other are spiritually discerned. The law and the gospel are set before us in the Bible as one undivided system of truth, yet an unchangeable line of distinction is drawn between them. There is also an inseparable connection and relationship. Unfortunately, some see the difference between them but not the relationship; however, the man who knows the relative position of the law and the gospel has the keys of the situation in understanding the Bible and its doctrine.

3.Because a proper understanding between the law and the gospel is the mark of a minister who rightly divides the word of truth. Charles Bridges summed up this mark of a true minister: "The mark of a minister `approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed', is, that he `rightly divides the word of truth.' This implies a full and direct application of the gospel to the mass of his unconverted hearers, combines with a body of spiritual instruction to the several classes of Christians. His system will be marked by Scriptural symmetry and comprehensiveness. It will embrace the whole revelation of God, in its doctrinal instructions, experimental privileges and practical results. This revelation is divided into two parts--the Law and the Gospel--essentially distinct from each other; though so intimately connected, that no accurate knowledge of either can be obtained without the other...." (The Christian Ministry, [London: Banner of Truth Trust, 1967], p. 222).

The law, like Christ, has always been crucified between two thieves--Antinomianism on the one side and Legalism on the other side. The antinomian sees no relationship between the law and the gospel except that of being free. The legalist fails to understand that vital distinction between the two.

Some preach the law instead of the gospel. Some modify them and preach neither the law nor the gospel. Some think the law is the gospel, and some think the gospel is the law; those who hold these views are not clear on either.

But others ask, Has not the law been fully abrogated by the coming of Christ into the world? Would you bring us under that heavy yoke of bondage which none has ever been able to bear? Does not the New Testament expressly declare that we are not under the law but under grace? That Christ was made under the law to free His people therefrom? Is not an attempt to over-awe men's conscience by the authority of the Decalogue a legalistic imposition, altogether at variance with that Christian liberty which the Savior has brought in by His obedience unto death? We answer: so far from the law being abolished by the coming of Christ into this world, He Himself emphatically stated "Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets [or the enforcers thereof]. I did not come to destroy, but to fulfill. For assuredly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law, till all is fulfilled" (Matt. 5:17, 18). True, the Christian is not under the law as a covenant of works nor as a ministration of condemnation, but he is under it as a rule of life and an objective standard of righteousness for all people for all times. This makes it important.

4.Because the power of a holy life needs to be accompanied by instruction in the pattern of it. In what does sanctified behavior consist? It consists in pleasing God. What is it that pleases God? The doing of His will. Where is His will to be discerned? In His holy law. The law, then, is the Christian's rule of life, and the believer finds that he delights in the law of God after the inward man (Rom. 7:22). The Christian is not lawless but "under the law to Christ", a phrase from Paul which would be more accurately rendered "in the law of Christ" (1 Cor. 9:21). Sin is lawlessness, and salvation is the bringing of the lawless one into his true relation to God, within the blessedness of His holy law. The law of Moses is not other than the law of Christ; it is an objective standard just as Christ is our pattern.

5.Because the Ten Commandments were uniquely honored by God, founded in love, and are obeyed out of affection for the One who provided redemption. A. W. Pink, writing about the uniqueness of the Ten Commandments, said, "Their uniqueness appears first in that this revelation of God at Sinai--which was to serve for all coming ages as the grand expression of his holiness and the summation of man's duty--was attended with such awe-inspiring phenomena that the very manner of their publication plainly showed that God Himself assigned to the Decalogue peculiar importance. The Ten Commandments were uttered by God in an audible voice, with the fearful adjuncts of clouds and darkness, thunders and lightenings and the sound of a trumpet, and they were the only parts of Divine Revelation so spoken--none of the ceremonial or civil precepts were thus distinguished. Those Ten Words, and they alone, were written by the finger of God upon tables of stone, and they alone were deposited in the holy ark for safe keeping. Thus, in the unique honor conferred upon the Decalogue itself we nay perceive its paramount importance in the Divine government." (The Ten Commandments, ([Swengel Pennsylvania: Reiner Publications 1961], p.5).

6.Because there is a need for a fixed, objective, moral standard. The moral law carries permanent validity since it is an objective standard uniquely sanctioned by God and goes straight to the root of our moral problems. It lays its finger on the church's deepest need in evangelism as well as in the Christian life: sanctification. The Ten Commandments are desperately needed not only in the church but also in society. We live in a lawless age at the end of the twentieth century; lawlessness reigns in the home, in the church, in the school, and in the land. The Scriptures tell us that "righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people." The Ten Commandments are the only true standard of righteousness.

Your Testimony Is Not the Gospel

So they again called the man who was blind, and said to him, “Give God the glory! We know that this Man is a sinner.” He answered and said, “Whether He is a sinner or not I do not know. One thing I know: that though I was blind, now I see” (John 9:24–25).

This statement, “Give God the glory!” seems positive until we read the remainder of the sentence, in which the Pharisees revealed that they had concluded that Jesus was a sinner and therefore could not have performed the miracle. They were saying that the man should give glory to God, not to Jesus. The man was straightforward with them, saying: “I don’t know whether He’s a sinner. I don’t even know Him. All I know is this: once I was blind and now I see.”

With these simple words, the man bore witness to Christ. He testified about the redemptive work of Christ. However, he did not preach the gospel. What am I getting at? In the evangelical Christian community, we sometimes employ language that is not always sound or biblical. You’ve heard the lingo. It goes something like this: “I plan to become an evangelist so I can bear witness to Christ.” Or sometimes we say, “I had a chance to witness the other day,” meaning, “I shared the gospel with someone.” We tend to use the terms evangelism and witnessing interchangeably, but they are not synonymous. Any time I call attention to the person and work of Christ, I am bearing witness to Christ. But that is not the same thing as preaching the gospel.

More than thirty years ago, I learned the evangelism technique taught by Evangelism Explosion, and I trained more than 250 people in that program and led them through evangelism efforts in Ohio. One of the finest aspects of that program is that everyone who goes through it must write out and memorize his or her testimony. Your testimony is your story of how you became a Christian. I think it’s very important that Christians are able to articulate to other people how and why they became believers. We all should have a prepared testimony, and we should be willing to share it at the drop of a hat.

But we shouldn’t confuse our personal testimonies with the gospel. Sharing our personal testimonies is not evangelism. It’s merely pre-evangelism, sort of a warm-up for evangelism. Our testimonies may or may not be significant or meaningful to those with whom we are speaking. There are lots of folks who can relate to my story; they say, “Yeah, I know what he’s talking about because I used to live like that too.” But not everyone can relate to my story. In any case, the gospel is not what happened to R.C. Sproul. God makes no promise that He will use my story as His power unto salvation. The gospel is not about me. The gospel is about Jesus. It is the proclamation of the person and work of Christ, and of how a person can appropriate the benefits of the work of Christ by faith alone.

We see this from our passage in John’s Gospel. The healed man could say, “I once was blind, but now I see,” and that was a wonderful testimony. But it was not the gospel. The man could not tell the Pharisees about Jesus’ saving work and about how they could be delivered from their sins by faith in Him. So we need to learn not only our testimonies but the concrete elements and content of the biblical gospel. Evangelism takes place when the evangel is proclaimed and announced to people—that is the gospel.

The Gospel According to Joshua

In the latest issue of Modern Reformation, I have an article on “The Gospel according to Joshua” (which subscribers can read here).

In the closing section, I look at why the physical-spiritual contrast is a true but inadequate way to compare the work of Joshua and Jesus (who share the same name).

Some interpreters look at Joshua and Jesus through the contrast of physical fulfillment and spiritual fulfillment.

Joshua, they note, is promised covenant prosperity: protection from God’s enemies and success in all his endeavors (Josh. 1:5-8). Jesus, however, gives up physical comfort and protection in order to serve as our final sacrifice.

Joshua leads the conquest of a physical land through physical war; Jesus rules a spiritual kingdom where we fight with spiritual weapons as “sojourners and exiles” (1 Pet. 1:21).

This observation is true, so far as it goes.

It helps us to remember that in this world we are not promised physical safety or success.

It reinforces the crucial truth that “we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places” (Eph. 6:12).

But the physical-spiritual contrast is ultimately inadequate.

We must remember that the story is not finished.

There is another act to come in this divine drama.

Christ will return and he will physically (as well as spiritually) defeat all of his enemies once and for all. “Unlike the wars of old that led only to more bloodshed and misery, Christ’s global judgment and victory when he comes again will truly be the war to end all wars (Matt. 3:11-12; 24:27-25:46; Rev. 17:1-20:15).”*

We will enter into the Promised Land, which is no longer restricted to a strip of land in the Middle East but is now expanded to include the whole earth (cf. Matt. 5:5; Rom. 4:13).

Christ himself will wipe every tear from the eyes of our new resurrection bodies as we live securely in his presence forevermore (Rev. 21:4).

One greater than Joshua has appeared and will one day return again.

And on that day, all will see that the battle truly does belong to the Lord.

[* Michael Horton, "Notes on Joshua," ESV Gospel Transformation Bible (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2013).]

Steven Lawson's Impromptu Gospel Presentation

“The Gospel is very simply Jesus Christ. Who among us is tired of hearing of the Lord Jesus Christ? He is the Son of God, the Son of Man. Sent into this world to be born of a virgin that He might be sinless, that He might be born under the law, to keep the very law that you and I break day after day, after day. The perfect, sinless, Son of God has perfectly met all the requirements of God’s law, and is ready to give His righteousness to us that we would have a perfect standing before God. That He went to a cross; there He was lifted up to die. There upon that cross, the sins of everyone who would believe in Him were transferred to Him. And Him who knew no sin God made to be sin for us that we might become the righteousness of God. The great exchange of the cross—the worst about me laid upon Him, the best about Him now to be laid upon me as He shed His blood upon that cross.

He reconciled sinful man to holy God. There is no other way for us to have a relationship with an infinitely holy God except through the blood of the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ. And it was by his sin-bearing, substitutionary, vicarious death upon that cross, it was as if He took sinful man in one hand, and holy God in the other hand and brought the two together through His death. By that death He satisfied the righteous anger of God and appeased His wrath towards all who would believe in Him.

There is now therefore no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Therefore being justified by faith we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. It was through that death that He redeemed sinners out of the slave market of sin, and redeemed us out of the tyranny of Satan’s grip upon our lives. It was by that death that Jesus Christ has provided now salvation free for all who will call upon His name. He was taken down from that cross, He said, “It is finished.” Not I am finished—“It is finished.”

He had completed the mission of salvation that He had come into this world to accomplish. He was buried in the rich man’s tomb and on the third day the power that was inherent in Him—the Son of God—He raised Himself from the dead. He came walking out of that tomb a risen, living, victorious, Savior. He ascended back to heaven, He is now seated at the right hand of God the Father, and whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. He is mighty to save to the uttermost all who call upon Him.

To call upon the Lord Jesus Christ is to look away from yourself, to look away from religion, to look away from your church, to look away from your denomination, to look away from your baptism and your church membership, and all of your good works, and to look exclusively to the Lord Jesus Christ.

He says, “Him who comes unto me I will in no wise cast out.” He loves to save sinners. He is the friend of sinners. He came to seek and to save that which is lost. He came not for the righteous, He came for the unrighteous. He is a good physician. He came not for the well but for those who are sick.

Will you tell him this moment what a sinner you are, how sick you are by sin?—that you’re unable to save yourself. Would you call upon Him? Say, Lord Jesus save me. I am a wretched hell-bound sinner, but your grace is being offered to sinners like me. And if you will call upon His name this very moment I promise you by the authority of the word of God that He will save you—that He will save you today. He will wash your sins away. You will be clean and pure from the top of your head to the bottom of your feet.

He says, “Come, let us reason together. Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be white as snow. Though they be red like crimson they shall be white as wool.” If you will call upon Him, He will give you His righteousness. It is a free gift. There is nothing you can do to earn it. There’s nothing that you can do to merit it. He will clothe you with the perfect garments of His righteousness. And as God looks upon you there will be a covering for your sin. He will see only the perfect righteousness of Jesus Christ covering the entirety of who you are—your sin sick soul. You will find acceptance with God, and one day when you die He will take you into the very presence of the Father and present you faultless before the throne of God.

He says, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father but through Me.” Peter said there is salvation in no other name. For there is no other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved. Paul says there is one God and one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus. Who gave himself, a ransom for all a testimony born at the proper time.

If you turn away from this free offer of the gospel there is no hope for your soul. You will be trampling underfoot the precious blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. I want to say to you hell cannot be hot enough for you to hear this message, to hear this truth, and to refuse the Lord Jesus Christ who suffered and bled and died upon Calvary’s cross to save sinners.

If you refuse the gospel your blood is on your own hands and you will suffer in hell forever under the torment of the wrath of God. You will be among the torment of the damned, and you will never find relief for your soul.

But today the gates of paradise are swung open to you, and you may come in and you may enter. And Jesus says, “Come unto Me all you who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn of Me for you will find rest for your souls. For My burden is easy and My yoke is light.” How hard it is for you to continue to live a life of sin. How glorious it would be to come into the yoke of the Lord Jesus Christ and to receive His salvation. This is a decisive moment in your life. You may never have an opportunity like this again where the gospel is so clearly being presented to you, and so I beg you, I urge you, if you are not saved, if you are not committed, to this moment commit your life to Jesus Christ. He will receive you, He will save you, He will wash you, and one day He will take you to heaven where you will spend all eternity with Him.

This is the greatest offer that has ever been made to anyone on this earth. This is the glorious good news of salvation in Jesus Christ. So I would urge you this moment if you have never believed upon Jesus Christ, in your heart of hearts to say, Lord Jesus I am a sinner, and you are a Savior; I am a great sinner, you are a great Savior, and I now this moment as an act of my will, I commit all that I am to you. If you have never done that, I would urge you to do so this very moment.

Lloyd-Jones on The Gospel and the Charge of Antinomianism

A professor in seminary first directed me to Martyn Lloyd-Jones’ well-known statements–at the beginning of his commentary on Romans 6:1–about the true preaching of the Gospel always being liable to the charge of Antinomianism. The relationship between Romans 5:21 and 6:1 made this idea all the more convincing to me. This was not, however, true for all who were introduced to this quote in class that day. I distinctly remembering debating this issue with several students after class. In a zeal to protect the Gospel from any charge of license in the name of grace, they rightly appealed to such places as Titus 2:11-14, John 15:9-14 and 1 John 1:3-6. Notwithstanding, Lloyd-Jones convincingly developed his argument from both the contextual connection between Rom. 5:21 to 6:1 and from the Apostle Paul’s argument in Romans 3:7-8. There Paul acknowledged that the charge of Antinomianism was wrongfully being leveled at his preaching of the free grace of God in the Gospel when he wrote:

For if the truth of God has increased through my lie to His glory, why am I also still judged as a sinner? And why not say, “Let us do evil that good may come”?—as we are slanderously reported and as some affirm that we say. Their condemnation is just.

Lloyd-Jones first developed the idea that the true preaching of the Gospel will always be susceptible to the charge of Antinomianism in his sermon on Romans 3:3:

A very good way of testing any view that you may hold is this one: Is this view humbling to me, glorifying to God? If it is, it is probably right. You won’t go far wrong if whatever view you are holding is glorifying to God, humbling to man. But if your view seems to glorify you and to query God, well (there’s no need to argue or to go into details) it’s wrong. It’s a very good universal rule–that! And, my last word of all is, again, a word primarily to preachers–indeed it’s a word to everybody in the sense that if ever you are putting the Gospel to another person, you’ve got a very good test whether you are preaching the Gospel in the right way. What’s that? Well, let me put it like this to you: If your presentation of the Gospel does not expose it to the charge of Antinomianism you are probably not putting it correctly. What do I mean by that? Just this: The Gospel, you see, comes as this free gift of God–irrespective of what man does. Now, the moment you say a thing like that, you are liable to provoke somebody to say, “Well, if that is so it doesn’t matter what I do.” The Apostle takes up that argument more than once in this great epistle. “What then,” he says at the beginning of chapter 6, “shall we do evil–commit sin–that grace might abound?” He’s just been saying: “where sin abounded grace does much more abound.” “Very well,” says someone. “This is a marvelous doctrine, this ‘Go and get drunk, do what you like the grace of God will put you right.’” Antinomianism. Now, this doctrine of the Scriptures–this justification by faith only, this free grace of God in salvation–is always exposed to that charge of Antinomianism. Paul was charged with it. He said, “You know, some people say that’s what I’m preaching.” Paul’s preaching was charged with Antinomianism…So I say, it is a very good test of preaching. You see–what is not evangelical preaching is this: It’s the kind of preaching that says to people, “Now, if you live a good life; if you don’t commit certain sins; and if you do good to others; and if you become a church member and attend regularly and are busy and active you will be a fine Christian and you’ll go to Heaven. That’s the opposite of Evangelical preaching–and it isn’t exposed to the charge of Antinomianism because…it is telling men to save themselves by their good works…And it’s not the Gospel–because the Gospel always exposes itself to this misunderstanding from the standpoint of Antinomianism. So, let all of us test our preaching, our conversation, our talk to others about the Gospel by that particular test…If you don’t make people say things like that sometimes, if you’re not misunderstood and slanderously reported from the standpoint of Antinomianism it’s because you don’t believe the Gospel truly and you don’t preach it truly.1

Again, in his comments on Romans 6:1, Lloyd-Jones made similar statements about the true preaching always being susceptible to this charge:

First of all, let me make a comment, to me a very important and vital comment. The true preaching of the gospel of salvation by grace alone always leads to the possibility of this charge being brought against it. There is no better test as to whether a man is really preaching the New Testament gospel of salvation than this, that some people might misunderstand it and misinterpret it to mean that it really amounts to this, that because you are saved by grace alone it does not matter at all what you do; you can go on sinning as much as you like because it will redound all the more to the glory of grace. If my preaching and presentation of the gospel of salvation does not expose it to that misunderstanding, then it is not the gospel. Let me show you what I mean.

If a man preaches justification by works, no one would ever raise this question. If a man’s preaching is, ‘If you want to be Christians, and if you want to go to heaven, you must stop committing sins, you must take up good works, and if you do so regularly and constantly, and do not fail to keep on at it, you will make yourselves Christians, you will reconcile yourselves to God and you will go to heaven’. Obviously a man who preaches in that strain would never be liable to this misunderstanding. Nobody would say to such a man, ‘Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound?’, because the man’s whole emphasis is just this, that if you go on sinning you are certain to be damned, and only if you stop sinning can you save yourselves. So that misunderstanding could never arise . . . . . .

Nobody has ever brought this charge against the Church of Rome, but it was brought frequently against Martin Luther; indeed that was precisely what the Church of Rome said about the preaching of Martin Luther. They said, ‘This man who was a priest has changed the doctrine in order to justify his own marriage and his own lust’, and so on. ‘This man’, they said, ‘is an antinomian; and that is heresy.’ That is the very charge they brought against him. It was also brought George Whitfield two hundred years ago. It is the charge that formal dead Christianity – if there is such a thing – has always brought against this startling, staggering message, that God ‘justifies the ungodly’ . . .

That is my comment and it is a very important comment for preachers. I would say to all preachers: If your preaching of salvation has not been misunderstood in that way, then you had better examine your sermons again, and you had better make sure that you are really preaching the salvation that is offered in the New Testament to the ungodly, the sinner, to those who are dead in trespasses and sins, to those who are enemies of God. There is this kind of dangerous element about the true presentation of the doctrine of salvation.2

1. An excerpt from Lloyd-Jones’ sermon, “The Faithfulness of God Without Effect?”

2. Martyn Lloyd-Jones Romans: Exposition of Chapter 6 (Carlisle, PA: The Banner of Truth Trust, 1989) pp. 8-9

New Year, Old Gospel

We are inveterate page, leaf, corner turners. We mark our every ending, note every new beginning. Our time marking, however, usually fails to live up to the hype. January 1 is usually rather much like December 31. Perhaps more to the point, January 1 this year is much like January 1 last year. What we want in our lives is neither a series of random and unique events, nor the flattened monotony of the same old same old. Instead we want the temporal equivalent of a favorite, worn sweater with a bold and dashing new tie. Everything old is old still, everything new is new still.

Today is something far more exciting than a new year—it’s a new day. This is the day the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it (Psalm 118: 24). The beauty of the day is not that it is new, but that we are being made new. The glory of the day is not that it marks a change, but that we are being changed. The blessing of the day is not that it is a day off, but that it is His day.

The glory of the day is not that it marks a change, but that we are being changed

Do we spit shine our “holi-days” because we have lost the sparkle of the gospel? If the gospel is merely that our sins are forgiven, that should be enough to drive us to fireworks, champagne, and kisses at midnight. If, however, that was all the gospel gave us, having rejoiced in our forgiveness, what more would we have to do, but wait? If the gospel merely makes our eternity secure, it makes our right now irrelevant.

The gospel, however, is not just that our sins are forgiven, but that we are being cleansed of all unrighteousness (I John 1:9). The gospel is not just that He was raised from the dead, but raised to a throne. He is even now, in this, the year of our Lord, bringing all things under subjection. He is even now washing us, His wayward, spotted bride, moving us closer to that day when we will be without blot or blemish.

The new year before us is in one sense a mystery. We cannot predict what stories will be in the headlines. We can’t be certain of our own plans. Victories and tragedies lie before us. But they are yet still wrapped up, waiting for a new day to unfold. What we can know, however, is that in this year, as in the past year, Jesus will love us faithfully. He will be about the greatest story ever told—remaking us into His image. We do not as the new year turns move from a tired old Father Time to a new born babe. Instead the one born a babe in a manger tirelessly goes before us, blazing a trail to the new heavens and the new earth. He was there at the beginning. He is taking us to the end. And lo, He is with us always, even to the end of days. Resolve to give thanks, and to remember.

Individual Personalities and the Gospel

One of the aspects of biblical revelation that has received quit a bit of attention in the Reformed church during the last Century and a half is that of God’s use of human personalities, languages and contexts in the inspiration of Scripture.1 There is, in this human element, a beautiful diversity found within the unity of the Divine revelation of the whole of the Scripture. While much has been written on this (and I’m certain that more will be written) one of the truths about personality that has not often been emphasized is the fact that God uses different personalities in the church today–even as He did in the apostolic days. In his Reformed Dogmatics: Holy Spirit, Church and New Creation, Herman Bavinck made the following important observation about human personality and the saving work of Christ:

Regeneration does not erase individuality, personality or character, but sanctifies it and puts it at the service of God’s name. The community of believers is the new humanity that bears within itself a wide range of variety and distinction and manifests the richest diversity in unity.1

Before entering in on the subject of personality it will be helpful for us to note that there are two fundamental errors in how believers view one another in the church in regard to personality. The first has to do with having an expectation that all believers must fit a certain personality caricature. This may come in the form of an expectation that all believers should have a soft spoken, reserved personality; or, it may reside in a stereotype of an outspoken and socially fearless person. A second error with which we are confronted has to do with being dismissive about the nature of sin in the personality. Just as effortlessly imposing a personality expectation on others, we can as equally write off sinful characteristics as being merely part of a personality–thereby nullifying Bavinck’s observation that God takes a human personality, “sanctifies it and puts it to the service” of His name. Because this is a subject of enormous breadth, it will help us to limit our consideration to the biblical data regarding the personality of the Savior and the Apostles. By so doing, we will be better suited to navigate through this difficult yet important subject.

The Savior

It is right for us to start with a consideration of the Son of God for the mere fact that Jesus was the only man who lived a perfect life to the end. His personality, while uniquely crafted to Himself, was nevertheless a personality untainted by sin. Jesus appeared at times to be introverted and at other times to be extroverted. He manifested the characteristics of wisdom outlined in the Proverbs in each and every situation in which He found Himself. His words and His actions always came with perfect wisdom and uprightness. He was not a man who vented all His feelings (Prov. 29:11); neither was He a man who “hid hatred” (Prov. 10:18). He was seen to be the wise man who “spared his words” and who was “of a calm spirit” (Prov. 17:27-28) as well as the wise man who “opened his mouth in the gate” (Prov. 24:7). He was never impulsive so as to “exult folly” (Prov. 14:29); but He never “isolated himself” and so sought His own desire (Prov. 18:1). There were times when Jesus was so warm and affectionate that His own disciples felt comfortable enough to lean back on His breast (John 13:25; 21:20); while at other times Jesus was driving the money changers out of the Temple with a whip of chords (John 2:15) in righteous anger. He always knew when to speak a soft word (Prov. 14:1), and always knew when it was time for hard words (Prov. 27:5). He perfectly embodied the best characteristics of an introvert and an extrovert. There were times when he was boldly engaging the multitudes and times when He was pulling away and hiding Himself. It seems to me that Jesus had the most balanced personality of anyone born from the fall of Adam to the consummation. There is a great need for this subject to be explored more deeply. Three of the richest studies on aspects of the subject of the inner life of Christ are B.B. Warfield’s “The Emotional Life of Our Lord,” William Blaikie’s Glimpses of the Inner Life of our Lord and Robert Law’s The Emotions of Jesus.

The Apostles

When we move from Jesus to those He chose to minister side by side with Him, we discover that Jesus appears to have paired the disciples up according to their personality types. Whether it was putting Simon the zealot with the doubtful Thomas, or outspoken Peter with warm and affectionate John, Jesus paired strengths and weaknesses to bring balance to the band of disciples. Peter needed John, even though there were times when he was jealous of John’s affectionate personality in relation to Jesus (John 21:21).

Of course, when we start thinking about the personality of the disciples recorded in the Gospels, our minds are almost involuntarily drawn back to Peter. There was absolutely nothing mysterious about the personality of the one who functioned as a “chief-among-equals” in the Apostolic band. We see all the flaws of a Simon Peter, but we also stand amazed at his boldness and readiness of mind to confess, follow and lay down his life for the sake of Christ. In the introductory section of his volume on Simon Peter, Hugh Martin cited August Neander’s History of the Planting and Training of the Christian Church by the Apostles in which Neander made the following statement about Peter’s personality and how it was sanctified for use in God’s kingdom:

What Peter became by the power of the divine life was in a measure determined by his natural peculiarities. A capacity for action, rapid in its movements, seizing with a firm grasp on its object, and carrying on his designs with ardor, was his leading characteristic, by which he effected so much in the service of the Gospel. But the fire of his powerful nature needed first to be transformed by the flame of divine love, and to be refined from the impurities of selfishness, to render him undaunted in the publication of the Gospel. By the natural constitution of his mind, he was indeed disposed to surrender himself at the moment entirely to the impression which seized him, without being turned aside by those considerations which would hold back more timorous spirits, and to express with energy what would move many minds; but he was easily misled by a rash self-confidence to say more, and to venture more, than he could accomplish; and though he quickly and ardently seized on an object, he allowed himself too easily to relinquish it, by yielding-to the force of another sudden and powerful impression.2

The Lord used Peter’s personality for the unique purposes that he had for him. Peter–and not John–was the one who led the way in bringing the Gospel to the Jews in the early years of the New Covenant church (as is seen in the first half of the book of Acts). In part, Peter’s personality made him a more suitable choice–though that personality had to be greatly sanctified by the Holy Spirit. It was the same Peter who had cowardly denied Jesus outside of the High Priest’s courtyard, who–after the outpouring of the Holy Spirit–boldly professed Him within the palace where the Savior had been tried.

The other leading figure in the evangelization of the world had an equally bold personality. The apostle Paul was a type-A personality, driven to succeed and uncompromising in his principles. It was this personality that–prior to his conversion–had led him to zealously persecute the church of God, and yet, which–after his conversion–was employed in the greatest church planting movement the world has ever seen. Paul was aware of his own personality and how it was used both against and for the Kingdom of God.  Geerhardus Vos  gave us a glimpse into the mind of the apostle Paul and the admiration he had for Isaiah’s sanctified personality. Vos explained:

Paul seems to have felt something of the congeniality of Isaiah’s mind to his own. He quotes from him often and not seldom with that fine spiritual insight which penetrates beyond the surface meaning of a passage into the innermost mind of the author and divines the subtle shade of his momentary thought and feeling. “Isaiah is very bold” (Rom. 10:20), he exclaims with evident appreciation of a noble trait exemplified to a high degree in his own character.

Paul also had a tenderness about him. Derek Thomas made the following astute observation about Paul’s tears before the elders in Ephesus:

I don’t often associate Paul with outward emotions. He’s type-A; he’s always right; he has an opinion about everything; and woe betide you if you cross him as John Mark learned; but there’s a tenderness about the Apostle Paul; there’s an affection about him; there’s a sense in which there is a very real, tangible bond here between a minister and his elders. I think that it would be safe to say, that in our Presbyterian polity, few things are as important as our relationship with our elders.

Whatever else we may say about personalities in the church, the following seem to be in accord with the clear teaching of the Apostles:

1. We must embrace who God made us and pray that God will sanctify and use us according the strengths of our individual personalities. 

While Peter and Paul had bold, type-A personalities, Barnabas–by way of contrast–was more even-keeled. Barnabas does seem to have had a conflict-loving personality. His desire to make peace may have been part of his natural disposition that–once sanctified further by the Gospel and the Spirit of God–was instrumental in introducing the newly converted Paul to the fledgling church. It is certainly that which led him to settle in to second place as the son of Encouragement. Everyone needed a Barnabas, but not everyone had the uniquely crafted personality of Barnabas. If Barnabas had Peter or Paul’s personality he certainly would have been leading the way on the evangelistic frontier of the world. In the words of Sinclair Ferguson, Barnabas was a man who learned  ”Played Second Fiddle Well.”

2. We must guard against sinful abuses of our personalities. This is where the Proverbs are so helpful. Each of us has uniquely crafter personalities. Generally our greatest personal strengths will also be our greatest weaknesses because of sin. Whether we are an extrovert who dominates conversations, or an introvert who keeps quite when we ought to open our mouths, all of us need to diligently search the Scriptures, carefully examine our personalities and prayerfully ask God to sanctify and mature us in the Gospel. 

3. We must seek to benefit others in the church through our God-given, Gospel-sanctified personalities. Finding our place in the church is one of the most important things we could do. There is nothing worse or more damaging than someone trying to fill a role that they have neither been called or equipped to fill. If God has given you a more retreating personality, church planting is probably not the best fit for you. If God has given you a more type-A, Alpha-male personality being a number 2 or 3 guy on staff at a church is probably not the place where you should be. There may be value in moving from the broad categories of introvert/extrovert and type-A/type-B to the more careful delineations of such personality tests as the “Myers-Briggs” type indicator (In which I fall closest to the ENTJ description) or the Kolbe index to help you think through these things. Knowing who we are and where we should be used is extremely valuable to greater fruitful service in the church.

4. We must embrace the fact that we need others in the church. Our Lord Jesus knit us together into a body of believers with all the strengths and weaknesses of different personalities. While Christ had a personality perfectly sanctified by the presence of the Holy Spirit in His life and ministry, we–by way of contrast–will always have imbalanced and sin-tainted personalities. We need to learn to bear with one another and pray for one another. I am sure that Simon Peter probably got some eye rolls from members of the church, but when he was arrested “constant prayer was made for him by the church.” The church needs extroverts and introverts, those who have a sort of natural boldness and those with a natural gentleness–all sanctified by the word and Spirit of God. It is far to easy to like people who are like us and to grow frustrated with those whose personalities are different than ours.

1. Several of the more helpful works on this subject are E.J. Young’s “The Human Writers of the Scripture” from Thy Word is Truth, B.B. Warfield, “The Divine and Human in the Bible,” in Selected Shorter Writings,2:546 and Warfield’s The Inspiration and Authority of the Bible (London, 1959); Paul Wells “The Doctrine of Scripture: Only A Human Problem” in

The Biggest Hole in Our Gospel Is the Gospel Itself

This frank and appealing book surveys worldwide poverty and argues that the American failure to take up God’s mandate to address poverty is “the hole in our gospel.” Without wanting to diminish the obligation Christians have to help the poor, and with nothing but admiration for Mr Stearns’s personal pilgrimage, his argument would have been far more helpful and compelling had he observed three things:

First, “what God expects of us” (his subtitle) is, by definition, not the gospel. This is not the great news of what God has done for us in Christ Jesus. Had Mr Stearns cast his treatment of poverty as one of the things to be addressed by the second greatest commandment, or as one of several entailments of the gospel, I could have recommended his book with much greater confidence. As it is, the book will contribute to declining clarity as to what the gospel is.

Second, even while acknowledging—indeed, insisting on the importance of highlighting—the genuine needs that Mr Stearns depicts in his book, it is disturbing not to hear similar anguish over human alienation from God. The focus of his book is so narrowly poverty that the sweep of what the gospel addresses is lost to view. Men and women stand under God’s judgment, and this God of love mandates that by the means of heralding the gospel they will be saved not only in this life but in the life to come. Where is the anguish that contemplates a Christ-less eternity, that cries, “Repent! Turn away from all your offenses. . . . Why will you die, people of Israel? For I take no pleasure in the death of anyone” (Ezek 18:30-32). The analysis of the problem is too small, and the gospel is correspondingly reduced.

Third, some studies have shown that Christians spend about five times more mission dollars on issues related to poverty than they do on evangelism and church planting. At one time, “holistic ministry” was an expression intended to move Christians beyond proclamation to include deeds of mercy. Increasingly, however, “holistic ministry” refers to deeds of mercy without any proclamation of the gospel—and that is not holistic. It is not even halfistic, since the deeds of mercy are not the gospel: they are entailments of the gospel. Although I know many Christians who happily combine fidelity to the gospel, evangelism, church planting, and energetic service to the needy, and although I know some who call themselves Christians who formally espouse the gospel but who live out few of its entailments, I also know Christians who, in the name of a “holistic” gospel, focus all their energy on presence, wells in the Sahel, fighting disease, and distributing food to the poor, but who never, or only very rarely, articulate the gospel, preach the gospel, announce the gospel, to anyone. Judging by the distribution of American mission dollars, the biggest hole in our gospel is the gospel itself.

How I Forgot the Gospel

I forget the gospel. It’s one of the most maddening things about living with a truth-distorting sin nature. Let me give you a recent example.

A few weeks ago I said to my wife, “I’m feeling gospel fatigue. I’m tired of hearing ‘gospel’ in just about everything.” She looked at me funny. I explained that I was probably just feeling jaded by the commercialization of the gospel or how it seems like a trendy bandwagon. She didn’t buy that. She knows me well. She suggested I probe deeper. She was right, as usual.

So I asked myself what this “gospel fatigue” is. Am I really weary of hearing that Jesus became sin for me (2 Corinthians 5:21), cancelled my full sin debt (Colossians 2:14), and has promised me an eternal life of increasing love and joy in knowing God (John 17:3)?

No, that’s not it.

Have I gorged on the “gospel” so that, like not wanting another bite of turkey on Thanksgiving afternoon, my appetite is sated?

No, that’s not it either.

Here’s what I found when I probed: being so privileged to hear frequent exhortations to apply the gospel, the term’s meaning has begun to switch from resting fully on the grace of God to something else I have to learn to do better. I need to be a more gospel-driven husband, a more gospel-driven parent, a more gospel-driven neighbor, a more gospel-driven employee and boss. I need to do gospel-driven evangelism, lead gospel-driven small groups, and on and on.

See the irony? My “gospel” to-do list is getting long. So when another book comes out on how to apply the gospel to ___ it taps into guilt-induced discouragement that there’s another area in which I’m not gospel-driven enough.

Oh good grief! Jon, are you really turning the gospel into law? Have you forgotten (again) that the gospel is not something you need to do better, but a Person you need to know better — a Person whose grace is completely sufficient for you (2 Corinthians 12:9)?

When I saw this, the first book I reached for was God Is the Gospel. It’s far and away my favorite extra-biblical book on the gospel because it reminds me what the very core of it is. The best news in the universe for failing sinners like me is that “Christ… suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God” (1 Peter 3:18). Because of Jesus, I get God in all his fullness forever! The best gift of the cross is not forgiveness, but God. And God is not something to do better; he’s someone who promises to provide all I need “according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:19).

I share this with you because we all forget the gospel in different ways, and God is the Gospel is such a cool, refreshing glass of grace-water. In fact, we want churches and groups and schools to be able to get it cheap so they can give it to their folks. If you’re interested, click here to purchase cases (64 copies) for $129 ($2 ea.).

If you’re feeling “gospel fatigue,” it means the gospel is ceasing to mean the gospel. I highly recommend this book as an antidote.

How to Share a Believable Gospel

When the gospel is communicated in preachy, impersonal, intolerant, know-it-all ways, people find it hard to believe. Typically, this style of evangelism is reduced to information. We content ourselves with “name-dropping” Jesus or telling people doctrine, but rarely do we draw near enough to people to know how the gospel applies to their actual lives. People want to know why the gospel is worth believing. In the information age, people are used to seeing through words. Most evangelism offers a sound bite gospel, which is easily screened, distrusted, and dismissed. In order for people to see something of substance in our words, our gospel communication needs depth.

When I met Ben I was immediately confronted with the need for depth. Ben had been through hell and back as an addict and he was worn out, at the end of his rope, and ready for a new start. Name-dropping Jesus wouldn’t cut it. First, he needed to see and feel the gospel. I desperately wanted to embody the love of Christ and I prayed he would feel and see it. Instead of correcting his life choices, I needed to understand his choices.

Sitting at rehab with him, I asked him questions: “What was your childhood like? When the church rejected you, did you experience rejection from your parents also? How did that make you feel? What was your drug community like? What were you looking for in this journey?” I asked these questions because I cared for Ben. This wasn’t an evangelistic formula; it was a budding relationship with a man in the image of God. He was an addict who was struggling to make sense of his life. I expressed empathy, concern, and compassion. He shared that he was adopted by good parents but struggled with a sense of loneliness and rejection. He began using drugs at age nine. Eventually we got down to the heart of the matter. “Ben, what have you been searching for?” He talked about loneliness and disappointment. I asked him how he thought God could figure into his longings. He wasn’t sure.

There was a strong sense that he was tired of the old life. He wanted to escape the broken, cemetery life. He wanted a new start. He wanted to know that a brighter future was possible. I thought: “What gospel metaphor is most appropriate for Ben’s current challenges?” Ben wasn’t yearning for justification by faith but he was dying to hear the gospel of new creation. Discerning some of his longings, I knew the promise of new creation could make the gospel a little more believable. He needed to know that there was a grace that could run deeper than all his failures and remake him from the inside out.

Understandably, a cloud of skepticism still hung over him. At the risk of rejection, I told him something like: “Ben, I know you’re tired and worn out. I know this isn’t what you hoped for your life and I want you to know that God loves you. He wants to make you new. He wants to exile the old life and give you a new life in Jesus. Jesus died to give you this life, to forgive you and shower you with his grace. He wants you to come back home to enjoy his love, acceptance and peace. Instead of trusting in the escape of drugs and the fleeting acceptance of a drug community, he wants you to trust in Christ to become a new creation, to be remade from the inside out.”

He needed to know that his old man could be exiled and a new man could emerge (1 Corinthians 5:17–18; cf. Colossians 3:9–10; Ephesians 4:20–24; Galatians 6:15). If nothing else, I knew the hope of new creation would be desirable and, most of all, I knew it was true. We talked about his struggle to believe it, to believe in God and to trust the person of Christ. I asked if he would be willing to talk to God about it. He said yes. We got him a Bible and prayed.

A shallow gospel wouldn’t cut it with Ben, not with what he’d been through. His addiction ran deep and he needed a deep gospel. Hearing the information of Jesus’s death on the cross would be screened and dismissed. He needed to know how Jesus’s life and death is good news in his life. He needed a believable gospel.

Two years later, Ben stood up in one of our Sunday church gatherings. Healthy, calm, and composed, he kicked the doors off of his private struggles and shared the story of his addiction and recovery. You could hear a pin drop. When asked, “How has God’s grace been generous to you?” Ben responded: “Just being able to start new.” New creation! For Ben, God’s grace equals being new, liberated from the old life to experience an entirely new life in Christ. The old man exiled; the new man arrived! Belief in the gospel of new creation has made Ben new. The hope of new creation resonated with his longings; it pulled him towards Jesus.

There are struggles and hopes, fears and dreams that sit on the surface of people’s stories. If we listen well, with dependence on the Holy Spirit, we can discern which gospel metaphors people need to hear most. We can communicate a believable gospel. Using the gospel for how we share the gospel, we commend five ways forward for believable evangelism:

To those searching for acceptance in all the wrong places, we can point them to perfect acceptance in the gospel of justification. To those searching for fulfilling relationships, we can point them to profound, personal union with Christ. To those who struggle with tolerance, we can show them the uniqueness of Christ in the gospel of redemption. To those who fear disapproval or demand the applause of others, we can share the gospel of adoption, which offers an enduring approval and produces humble confidence. To anyone longing for a new start, there is the hope of new creation.

People need to know how the gospel is good news to them. Will you continue to recite canned presentations and avoid listening? Or will you love people enough to offer them a believable gospel?

What to Do with a Told Gospel

It was a beautiful Saturday morning, the kind nobody in Minnesota takes for granted. The sun was running strong, the air was happy, the sky had never been more blue. My family and I were finishing up breakfast outside when I opened the Bible for some kid-friendly devotional thoughts.

On this particular morning our four-year-old was digging it. Maybe it was the change of scenery, or maybe the Fruit Loops, but something had her leaning forward, all ears. I was sharing about what it means to be messengers for Jesus in 2 Corinthians 5:20–21. The reason we had moved here, I explained, is because God wants our neighbors to know him. Plain and simple. We have good news, really good news — the kind of news that compels us to tell it. Amen then, and breakfast was over.

Within ten minutes we closed down the cereal and laced up our shoes for a stroll around the block.

Elizabeth (our four-year-old) took one step out the front door and gladly bellowed, "Neighbors! Hey, neighbors! Come out! We're here to tell you about God!"

People heard her.

I've sat on this scene for months because, to be honest, I've not been sure what to do with it. What was she thinking? Was she street-preaching? Doesn't she get the value of relationships? Was she trying to give attractional ministry one last hooray? I've mulled that picture over several times and tried to stamp it as cute but misguided. Admirable, but not serious. Deconstructing the zeal of a four-year-old — I know, it's embarrassing.

But here we are now. I think I get it. The fact of the matter, blaring the loudest that morning, is that a little girl bridged the most necessary application from what I said to how she takes walks. That is, she connected what the Bible teaches to how she really lives (and her dad has a lot to learn).

Every Christian knows there is something about the gospel that drives us to tell it. There is some indivisible connection between believing it and making it known. It is good news, after all, and news is just that — news. Perhaps it would help, then, to re-highlight this simplest, most fundamental reason why we speak the gospel to others: because the gospel is essentially a told gospel.

There is good theological rationale here. One could start with what it means that God is a communicative agent. That he speaks and has always spoken in the intra-Trinitarian majesty of the Father and the Son by the Spirit. The knowledge of God's identity has always diffused itself. And undoubtedly, if this principle is found in his eternal essence, it will be detected in the preeminent word of who he is. More could be said here, but let's get to the Bible. Consider two texts.

1 Timothy 3:16,

Great indeed, we confess, is the mystery of godliness: He was manifested in the flesh, vindicated by the Spirit, seen by angels, proclaimed among the nations, believed on in the world, taken up in glory. (emphasis added)

This is a succinct dose of doctrine, perhaps a creedal formulation from the early church, maybe even a hymn. But whether that's the case or not, it's at least a memorable Pauline expression that distills the identity of Jesus into doxological prose. And essential to this confession of Jesus is that he is proclaimed among the nations. He is a spoken Jesus. A heralded King. One, in fact, who is heard and believed.

Colossians 1:21–23,

And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him, if indeed you continue in the faith, stable and steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the gospel that you heard, which has been proclaimed in all creation under heaven, and of which I, Paul, became a minister. (emphasis added)

Look closely at that phrase "the gospel that you heard, which has been proclaimed in all creation under heaven." Here’s one of those rare exceptions where it helps to take a peak at the original language. John Piper explains,

The Greek for the phrase “which has been proclaimed” is tou keruchthentos). This is a substantival participle which we could render “the proclaimed one” in English. It is in apposition with “the gospel” (tou euangeliou . . . tou keruchthentos) — “the gospel . . . the proclaimed one.” (Has the Gospel Been Preached to the Whole Creation Already?)

Basically, Paul calls the gospel the "proclaimed-in-all-creation gospel." He refers to the gospel as what it is. The gospel is proclaimed. It is told. We don't get to opt out for a more myopic brand. There’s no less expensive version without that feature. There's not a gospel for social butterflies and then another for introverts. Everyone of us has only ever believed the told gospel, if we’ve believed the real gospel at all.

And the simplest, most natural implication of believing this gospel is that we ourselves tell it. We tell the good news in which we hope because hoping in told good news inevitably compels our telling it, too.

So then why don't we? According to a recent survey from Lifeway Research, we Christians don't seem to be telling people about Jesus very much. If we believe a "proclaimed-in-all-creation gospel," but we don’t proclaim it ourselves, what gives?

Training, resources, equipping, examples — all of these are good and important. And we've seen a fair share of them the last twenty years. But what if it's simpler that that? (I’m speaking as a poor evangelist here.) Might it be that we don't tell the gospel because we're missing something in how we understand it? Maybe the lack of our telling it points to a deficiency in our grasp of its inherent toldness? Maybe we've skimmed over the gospel's built-in compulsion to not just believe, but believe and speak. Maybe the real need is not additional components of training, but deeper wonders to mine, depths by which to be overcome — so that the step from gospel to mission is not a moving beyond but a moving further in.

Do you know what God has done?

Remember the story of the sinful woman who washed Jesus's feet with her tears. She fell before him in awe, bewildered by his presence and mercy. And no one else got it. "This man isn't a prophet," the Pharisee criticized, "he doesn't know who this woman is!" The disciples may have been baffled, too, until Jesus tells a story.

Two men owed debts, one debt was a day's wage, the other a year's income. The debt of both men were cancelled, and Jesus asks which of these men would love the lender more. Peter responds, "The one, I suppose, for whom he cancelled the larger debt" (Luke 7:43). Then we begin to see. . . The cluelessness of those bystanders corresponds to their ignorance of mercy. The crowd didn't understand the woman's devotion because they didn't understand what it means to be forgiven. That's why they responded so dumbly, so critical, so jaw-dropped and confused. Here was a reality — a beautiful, holy reality — that they could not wrap their heads around because they haven't tasted the depths of Jesus's grace.

And maybe that's our problem with evangelism. We don't tell the told gospel because we've loss sight of what it means to be forgiven. All this talk of mission might as well be a broken prostitute washing Jesus's feet. It is nonsense to us unless we remember our debt. Unless we're flooded again with the news that it's cancelled — the news that it's cancelled, which we heard, which we were told.

The news that makes us step out the front doors of comfort and civility, and say, "Neighbor! Hey, neighbor! I’m here to tell you about God!"

The Grunt Work of the Gospel

"I am concerned," writes David Platt, "about a general vagueness that has existed in contemporary Christianity regarding the next step..."

We have seen that God blesses us so that his glory might be made known in all nations. But an all-important question remains. How do we make God's glory known in all nations? If God has given us his grace so that we might take his gospel to the ends of the earth, then how do we do that? (Radical, 87)

Platt goes on to cast a vision for disciplemaking in the local church — a vision that is further developed by David Mathis in the appendix of Finish the Mission (Crossway, 2012). Mathis calls disciplemaking "blue-collar Christianity."

[It's the] rolling up your sleeves, putting on your mud boots, and doing the grunt work that moves the gospel forward. . . . There are very few frills. Rare accolades. Low hype. It's jolly hard work that doesn't grab headlines or come off as fascinating to the masses. (171)

Expounding 2 Timothy 2:1–7, he summons readers to jump into "the grunt work of gospel advance through personal, intentional, relational, patient, gospel-centered disciplemaking." Here's the outline:

I. Christians are called to make disciples (verse 2) Disciplemaking demands intentionalityThere is a context of deep relationshipThe content centers on the gospel

II. Disciplemaking is hard work and brings suffering (verses 3–7) Single-mindedness (verse 4)Discipline (verse 5)Hard work (verse 6)

III. The key to discplemaking is gospel grace (verse 1) "Jesus is the ultimate empowerer of disciplemaking. And Jesus is the one whose cross covers all our many failures in, and through that cross energizes us for, making disciples who make other disciples of his lavish grace." (181)

Summers Are for Gospel Reminders

Tragically for too many Christians, summer is the season of spiritual drift. As the days get longer and hotter we are tempted towards spiritual laziness. Which is why we cannot take a season off from making every effort to grow in godliness.

We must always — at all times — stay plugged into our power source of the gospel. Not only do we stay plugged in, we are exhorted to press on, to move forward, to strive ahead, and to make every effort.

The Apostle Peter focuses our attention on Christ-like qualities in 2 Peter 1:3–7. If these qualities are not ours and if they are not increasing, if we are not moving forward, then we may be drifting. Or to use Peter’s metaphor, we may be growing blind.

For whoever lacks these qualities is so nearsighted that he is blind, having forgotten that he was cleansed from his former sins. (2 Peter 1:9)

Which is to say that if we stop growing in Christ-likeness we are nearsighted and have lost sight of the future and all the promises of God. We’ve forgotten, Peter says, that we were cleansed from our former sins. We've forgotten our cleansing from sin and the union with Christ it represents. When we stop moving forward in Christ, we run the risk of growing blind to the past and future work of God in Christ. We run the risk of being cut off from the power. And so we drift to destruction with no gospel and no hope.

That’s a breathtaking warning from Peter.

But following this warning is one of the precious and very great promises God uses to plug us into his divine power. That’s how he intends to use it.

Peter's words apply to summer:

Therefore I intend always to remind you of these qualities, though you know them and are established in the truth that you have. I think it right, as long as I am in this body, to stir you up by way of reminder, since I know that the putting off of my body will be soon, as our Lord Jesus Christ made clear to me. And I will make every effort so that after my departure you may be able at any time to recall these things. (2 Peter 1:12–15)

Peter devoted the short time he had left on earth to stir up the saints by way of reminder, and if it was worthy of his few remaining days on earth, it is worth the rest of ours as well. It is a calling worthy of our summer.

But no matter how well we know the gospel, we need to hear it over and over because we are prone to drift from it. Summer is a season when we are especially likely to drift, and Peter is eager to warn us of this spiritual danger.

On the one hand, we believe the precious truth that a genuine Christian cannot lose his or her salvation. God is faithful and will preserve his own. But this perseverance is not automatic. Very often God preserves us by extending his grace through other saints. Saints who remind us of the truth we already know. We forget, we fall asleep, we get weary and so stop making every effort, which means we float on the tide of temptation and worldliness from time to time. And it’s when we drift we need to stir up one another by way of reminder.

We need to hear the words:

Wake up.

The gospel is true.

Jesus died so that you can be forgiven your sins and so that you can be set free of your sins.

Plug into the divine power source and receive the grace to press on in personal holiness.

We all need to hear that in one form or another from time to time. Eternity is at stake in how we live our life together. That’s not an overstatement. Our relationships have eternal significance because we are called to live together, stirring up one another by way of reminder, helping each other make our calling and election sure. And we don't take the summers off from this precious duty.

When you see a brother or sister drifting, don’t let them go. Don’t assume they know the truth and will remember it and come back on their own. Go out to them and tell them the truth of the precious gospel of Jesus Christ once again. It is likely they forgot.

The ministry of gospel-reminder is a significant ministry we offer one another. So as we enter this summer season, we do not take a vacation from making every effort to be more like Jesus, and we don’t take a vacation from stirring up one another by way of reminder. This summer we press on as we do in all seasons, by God’s power, to make our calling and election sure.

That Awkward Moment When We Speak the Gospel

Evangelism is counter-cultural. It's true everywhere on the planet, but perhaps it's especially so in our increasingly post-Christian Western society. We live in a polite culture, for the most part. Talk about religion? You just don't go there. Talk about how many tornadoes have come through, and how the team is doing, and how the city has new recycling bins. But Jesus Christ, crucified for sinners and risen from the dead? You just don't go there. So they say.

For the time being, it seems the greatest threat to gospel-telling in such a society is not that we will be hauled before the city council, beaten, and have our property taken away. What we are really dealing with is some awkwardness.

Awkwardness is perhaps the biggest threat to evangelism for far too many of us.

I've done a little research and can confirm to you that there is not one documented case of someone dying, or even being severely injured, by awkwardness. Not one.

But when I read my kids' Twitter, I see nearly half their tweets starting with "That awkward moment when… ." Awkwardness is catastrophic, and maybe especially so among the younger generation.

Awkwardness! It's as if we imagine fire and asteroids and dragons. As if people are running through the streets yelling, "Run from the awkwardness, it's going to get you! You might feel awkward. It would be terrible if you felt awkward!"

But a little awkwardness — or even a lot of it — is such a small price to pay for enjoying the power of God's Spirit using us to be his witnesses.

I write this as no super-evangelist. I'm right there with you, naturally fearful that things might be awkward. I sit on the plane thinking, "If the guy next to me doesn't like my talking about Jesus, it's going to be awkward." Oh, no, I'll have a hard life to deal with sitting next to this guy for two whole hours being awkward.

For the Christian, there is a joy and a privilege to suffer for Jesus, even a tiny little bit. Most of us can agree that when we do step out in faith, the awkwardness really wasn't that bad in retrospect. Awkwardness seems so horrible when it's in front of us. But it's not nearly as bad behind us. All my limbs are together, I'm okay, it's really not that bad.

The aim here is not to press any kind of guilt on you. But I think when we look at this issue of gospel witness, we have a tendency to do what they do in big cities when somebody is laying on the ground. Everyone walks past the victim like they didn't notice anything. Then the cops come around the corner and wonder why nobody responded. It was because nobody wanted to get involved.

Well, if you are a born-again believer, you are involved — really, really involved. The Holy Spirit lives in your heart. You cannot be more involved. You're in the middle of it. It's happening right there in you. You are the issue, you are the scene of the crime. You're involved. We cannot dance out of the way.

Why would God make something that we long to do so difficult to do?

For some Christians, it isn't that difficult to evangelize. In fact, these tend to be confused as to why so few Christians are involved in ongoing, bold evangelism. If this is you, I want to tell you, we praise God for your boldness. And you should know, you are a bit weird. For you, awkwardness is just an abstract concept. For the rest of us, awkwardness is like a plague to be avoided at all costs. But this is an example of the different parts in the body of Christ making their specific contribution to God's glory and the advance of his kingdom. So why is something so important and integral to the Christian life so difficult for so many?

Here's one answer: God gives most of us this awareness of awkwardness so that we would never, not for a second, trust in or magnify ourselves and drift away from the magnificence of the gospel. This awareness in evangelism makes the gospel tangible. It means I need the gospel right now myself. Not only does my hearer need Jesus at this moment, but so do I!

Jesus died for disciples who do a poor job of witnessing. He died for those of us who have all too often failed to commend him because we feared it might get awkward. But he also died to give us the grace to press through the awkwardness to testify to him.

May God give us the grace to rebound from our many failures and grace not to fold in the face of awkwardness in telling others the most important news in the world.

That Awkward Moment When We Speak the Gospel

Evangelism is counter-cultural. It's true everywhere on the planet, but perhaps it's especially so in our increasingly post-Christian Western society. We live in a polite culture, for the most part. Talk about religion? You just don't go there. Talk about how many tornadoes have come through, and how the team is doing, and how the city has new recycling bins. But Jesus Christ, crucified for sinners and risen from the dead? You just don't go there. So they say.

For the time being, it seems the greatest threat to gospel-telling in such a society is not that we will be hauled before the city council, beaten, and have our property taken away. What we are really dealing with is some awkwardness.

Awkwardness is perhaps the biggest threat to evangelism for far too many of us.

I've done a little research and can confirm to you that there is not one documented case of someone dying, or even being severely injured, by awkwardness. Not one.

But when I read my kids' Twitter, I see nearly half their tweets starting with "That awkward moment when… ." Awkwardness is catastrophic, and maybe especially so among the younger generation.

Awkwardness! It's as if we imagine fire and asteroids and dragons. As if people are running through the streets yelling, "Run from the awkwardness, it's going to get you! You might feel awkward. It would be terrible if you felt awkward!"

But a little awkwardness — or even a lot of it — is such a small price to pay for enjoying the power of God's Spirit using us to be his witnesses.

I write this as no super-evangelist. I'm right there with you, naturally fearful that things might be awkward. I sit on the plane thinking, "If the guy next to me doesn't like my talking about Jesus, it's going to be awkward." Oh, no, I'll have a hard life to deal with sitting next to this guy for two whole hours being awkward.

For the Christian, there is a joy and a privilege to suffer for Jesus, even a tiny little bit. Most of us can agree that when we do step out in faith, the awkwardness really wasn't that bad in retrospect. Awkwardness seems so horrible when it's in front of us. But it's not nearly as bad behind us. All my limbs are together, I'm okay, it's really not that bad.

The aim here is not to press any kind of guilt on you. But I think when we look at this issue of gospel witness, we have a tendency to do what they do in big cities when somebody is laying on the ground. Everyone walks past the victim like they didn't notice anything. Then the cops come around the corner and wonder why nobody responded. It was because nobody wanted to get involved.

Well, if you are a born-again believer, you are involved — really, really involved. The Holy Spirit lives in your heart. You cannot be more involved. You're in the middle of it. It's happening right there in you. You are the issue, you are the scene of the crime. You're involved. We cannot dance out of the way.

Why would God make something that we long to do so difficult to do?

For some Christians, it isn't that difficult to evangelize. In fact, these tend to be confused as to why so few Christians are involved in ongoing, bold evangelism. If this is you, I want to tell you, we praise God for your boldness. And you should know, you are a bit weird. For you, awkwardness is just an abstract concept. For the rest of us, awkwardness is like a plague to be avoided at all costs. But this is an example of the different parts in the body of Christ making their specific contribution to God's glory and the advance of his kingdom. So why is something so important and integral to the Christian life so difficult for so many?

Here's one answer: God gives most of us this awareness of awkwardness so that we would never, not for a second, trust in or magnify ourselves and drift away from the magnificence of the gospel. This awareness in evangelism makes the gospel tangible. It means I need the gospel right now myself. Not only does my hearer need Jesus at this moment, but so do I!

Jesus died for disciples who do a poor job of witnessing. He died for those of us who have all too often failed to commend him because we feared it might get awkward. But he also died to give us the grace to press through the awkwardness to testify to him.

May God give us the grace to rebound from our many failures and grace not to fold in the face of awkwardness in telling others the most important news in the world.

Summers Are for Gospel Reminders

Tragically for too many Christians, summer is the season of spiritual drift. As the days get longer and hotter we are tempted towards spiritual laziness. Which is why we cannot take a season off from making every effort to grow in godliness.

We must always — at all times — stay plugged into our power source of the gospel. Not only do we stay plugged in, we are exhorted to press on, to move forward, to strive ahead, and to make every effort.

The Apostle Peter focuses our attention on Christ-like qualities in 2 Peter 1:3–7. If these qualities are not ours and if they are not increasing, if we are not moving forward, then we may be drifting. Or to use Peter’s metaphor, we may be growing blind.

For whoever lacks these qualities is so nearsighted that he is blind, having forgotten that he was cleansed from his former sins. (2 Peter 1:9)

Which is to say that if we stop growing in Christ-likeness we are nearsighted and have lost sight of the future and all the promises of God. We’ve forgotten, Peter says, that we were cleansed from our former sins. We've forgotten our cleansing from sin and the union with Christ it represents. When we stop moving forward in Christ, we run the risk of growing blind to the past and future work of God in Christ. We run the risk of being cut off from the power. And so we drift to destruction with no gospel and no hope.

That’s a breathtaking warning from Peter.

But following this warning is one of the precious and very great promises God uses to plug us into his divine power. That’s how he intends to use it.

Peter's words apply to summer:

Therefore I intend always to remind you of these qualities, though you know them and are established in the truth that you have. I think it right, as long as I am in this body, to stir you up by way of reminder, since I know that the putting off of my body will be soon, as our Lord Jesus Christ made clear to me. And I will make every effort so that after my departure you may be able at any time to recall these things. (2 Peter 1:12–15)

Peter devoted the short time he had left on earth to stir up the saints by way of reminder, and if it was worthy of his few remaining days on earth, it is worth the rest of ours as well. It is a calling worthy of our summer.

But no matter how well we know the gospel, we need to hear it over and over because we are prone to drift from it. Summer is a season when we are especially likely to drift, and Peter is eager to warn us of this spiritual danger.

On the one hand, we believe the precious truth that a genuine Christian cannot lose his or her salvation. God is faithful and will preserve his own. But this perseverance is not automatic. Very often God preserves us by extending his grace through other saints. Saints who remind us of the truth we already know. We forget, we fall asleep, we get weary and so stop making every effort, which means we float on the tide of temptation and worldliness from time to time. And it’s when we drift we need to stir up one another by way of reminder.

We need to hear the words:

Wake up.

The gospel is true.

Jesus died so that you can be forgiven your sins and so that you can be set free of your sins.

Plug into the divine power source and receive the grace to press on in personal holiness.

We all need to hear that in one form or another from time to time. Eternity is at stake in how we live our life together. That’s not an overstatement. Our relationships have eternal significance because we are called to live together, stirring up one another by way of reminder, helping each other make our calling and election sure. And we don't take the summers off from this precious duty.

When you see a brother or sister drifting, don’t let them go. Don’t assume they know the truth and will remember it and come back on their own. Go out to them and tell them the truth of the precious gospel of Jesus Christ once again. It is likely they forgot.

The ministry of gospel-reminder is a significant ministry we offer one another. So as we enter this summer season, we do not take a vacation from making every effort to be more like Jesus, and we don’t take a vacation from stirring up one another by way of reminder. This summer we press on as we do in all seasons, by God’s power, to make our calling and election sure.