The Gospel Coalition

In May, Kim and I traveled to Dallas in order to be interviewed by James Robison for his TV show, Life Today. The interview was taped then and is airing today all over the country. Kim and I had the privilege of sharing our stories and speaking about my latest book and the need for Christians to become unfashionable.

You can check air times and channels here. Please pray that many will be reached by our testimony to God’s amazing grace in our lives and heed the call to live unfashionably. 

Update: If you missed the interview on TV, you can watch it online here.

In Spring of 2010 my next book Surprised by Grace: God’s Relentless Pursuit of Rebels, will be released by Crossway publishers. The book is based on my sermons from Jonah. Here is the publishers description:

As Christians today keep struggling to fully grasp the gospel’s incredible breadth and power—both for themselves and for the changing world around them—Surprised by Grace carries a liberating message that forces us to come to grips with the shocking extent of God’s compassion and mercy.

This astounding truth is something God pressed into the epic life-story of a man who defiantly resisted it. His true story is retold in Surprised by Grace, a gripping presentation that will open your eyes wider than ever to God’s relentless and inexhaustible grace.

We are trying to choose between two very different covers. Click here to see the covers and let me know what you think.

I spent a lot of time this summer reading and re-reading some important books on the gospel. One that I especially commend to you is Jerry Bridges’ excellent book Transforming Grace. As is the case with everything Jerry writes, it is delectably deep and down to earth. I read these sentences again this morning and they really reminded me of just how easily I can drift into a performance driven relationship with God. He writes:

My observation of Christendom is that most of us tend to base our relationship with God on our performance instead of on His grace. If we’ve performed well–whatever “well” is on our opinion–then we expect God to bless us. If we haven’t done so well, our expectations are reduced accordingly. In this sense, we live by works rather than by grace. We are saved by grace, but we are living by the “sweat” of our own performance.

Moreover, we are always challenging ourselves and one another to “try harder.” We seem to believe success in the Christian life (however we define success) is basically up to us: our commitment, our discipline, and our zeal, with some help from God along the way. We give lip service to the attitude of the Apostle Paul, “But by the grace of God I am what I am” (1 Corinthians 15:10), but our unspoken motto is, “God helps those who help themselves.”

The realization that my daily relationship with God is based on the infinite merit of Christ instead of my own performance is a very freeing and joyous experience.

Amen.

As many of you have heard me say many times, the difference between living for God and living for anything else is that when we live for anything else we do so to gain acceptance but when we live for God we do so because we are already accepted. Real freedom (the freedom that only the Gospel grants) is living for something because we already have favor instead of living for something in order to gain favor.

With this same theme of self-centered, enslaving performance in mind, my friend Kevin DeYoung wrote these singing and stinging words on his blog this morning: 

No doubt some Christians need to be shaken out of their lethargy. I try to do that every Sunday morning and evening. But there are also a whole bunch of Christians who need to be set free from their performance-minded, law-keeping, world-changing, participate-with-God-in-recreating-the-cosmos shackles. I promise you, some of the best people in your churches are getting tired. They don’t need another rah-rah pep talk. They don’t need to hear more statistics and more stories Sunday after Sunday about how bad everything is in the world. They need to hear about Christ’s death and resurrection. They need to hear how we are justified by faith apart from works of the law. They need to hear the old, old story once more. Because the secret of the gospel is that we actually do more when we hear less about all we need to do for God and hear more about all that God has already done for us. 

Amen! Amen!!

I LOVE THE GOSPEL! 

“It is the normal state of the human heart to try to build its identity around something besides God.” Soren Kierkegaard

“Spiritual pride is the illusion that you are competant to run your own life, achieve your own sense of self worth, and find a purpose big enough to give you meaning in life without God.” Tim Keller

“Idolatry is worshipping anything that ought to be used, or using anything that is meant to be worshipped.” St. Augustine 

“An idol is anything we trust in for deliverance in the place of Jesus and his grace.” Scotty Smith

By the way, idolatry is not just a problem for non-Christians; it’s a problem for Christians too (read 1 John 5:21). We Christians are also guilty of trusting in something–or someone–smaller than God to give our lives meaning and significance.  We look to our achievements, our reputation, our relationships, our strengths, our place in society, our stuff, our smarts, our good looks, and on and on it goes.

So, let’s not make the mistake of thinking the above quotes don’t apply to Christians. They do. What are your idols? What are you trusting in other than Jesus to gain acceptance and approval–to give your life meaning and to make life worth living? 

Yesterday I began a new sermon series. I will be taking a few weeks to define who we are, what we’re going to do and why we’re going to do it, and where we’re going as a local church. I explained that our one new church is going to be organized into three parts: upreach (everything we do as a church when it comes to worship), inreach (everything we do as a church when it comes to discipleship), and outreach (everything we do as a church in service to the world locally, nationally, and internationally).

But, I made it very clear that all of our efforts in reaching up, reaching in, and reaching out are a response to–and fueled by–the fact that God, in Christ, has already reached down.

The gospel is the story of God in Christ reaching down to a sinful world and our tri-fold response to the gospel (or, the gospel-centered life) is a life lived reaching up, reaching in, and reaching out. God intends the reality and power of the gospel to mold and shape us at every point and in every way–defining the way we think, feel, and live as a local church. 

My seminary friend Bob Thune (pastor of Coram Deo Church in Omaha, Nebraska) has written something to describe his church that I found very helpful to me as I describe our one new church. He explains that every church has a “DNA” – a set of deeply rooted values or characteristics that define it. As one new church committed to learn from the past, live in the present, and look to the future, we can describe Coral Ridge’s DNA as “gospel-centered.” So what does that mean, exactly?

As Bob rightly says, “Churches often obscure the glory of the gospel by reducing it to something less than it is. Some understand the gospel only as doctrinal content to be believed. Others diminish it to a personal, subjective experience of God’s presence. Still others see it as a social cause to be championed. The gospel is none of these, and yet it is all of these. A truly gospel-centered church understands and embraces the fullness of the gospel as content, community, and cause.”

GOSPEL CONTENT
The Gospel is a message that is to be preached or proclaimed (Mark 1:14; Acts 14:21; Rom 1:15; 1 Peter 1:12). It is the story of God’s redemption of his fallen creation. It is the good news that God has acted in history to conquer evil and reconcile sinners to himself through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus (1 Cor 15:1-12). A gospel-centered church is one where the gospel is proclaimed clearly, consistently, and compellingly (1 Cor 9:16-23).

GOSPEL COMMUNITY
The gospel is not just a message to be believed, but a power to be experienced (Rom 1:16). The gospel shapes a new community as those who were formerly God’s enemies are reconciled to Him (Rom 5:10) and adopted into his family (Gal 4:4-7). The church is not a place, but a people – a community that is continually being reformed and renewed by the transforming power of the gospel (Col. 1:6).

GOSPEL CAUSE
The gospel is a call to action – a declaration that “the kingdom of God is at hand” (Mark 1:15). God is not just interested in the salvation of humans, but in the restoration of all of creation to its original “good” (Gen 1:31; Rom 8:19-22). A gospel-centered church will be active in the work of mercy, justice, and cultural renewal, praying and working against the effects of sin so that God’s will might be done “on earth as it is in heaven” (Matt 6:10).

Thanks Bob, for putting it so well–so biblically.

My friend Justin Taylor (via Ray Ortlund) reprinted the dialogue below between John Chrysostom (ca. 347-407) and the empress Eudoxia when Chrysostom was brought before her and threatened with banishment if he insisted on his Christian independence as a preacher.

“You cannot banish me, for this world is my Father’s house.”

“But I will kill you,” said the empress.

“No, you cannot, for my life is hid with Christ in God,” said John.

“I will take away your treasures.”

“No, you cannot, for my treasure is in heaven and my heart is there.”

“But I will drive you away from your friends and you will have no one left.”

“No, you cannot, for I have a Friend in heaven from whom you cannot separate me. I defy you, for there is nothing you can do to harm me.”

Chrysostom knew the utter freedom of knowing and believing that Christ plus nothing equals everything!

My friend Darryl Dash notes that every church is a dying church in one of three ways:

• Some churches are literally dying. They are slowly losing people and will likely shut down.
• Some churches are glitzy and successful. They look vibrant and alive, but they’re really only alive to themselves and their institution. They look alive, but they’re dying and they don’t know it.
• Then there’s the church that could be big or small, glitzy or drab, that dies to itself daily – that has taken up the cross and is more concerned with following Christ, no matter what it costs, than its survival.

All churches are dying. Only the third type of church, however, will experience a resurrection. What kind of church are we?

Idolatry is centering our attention and affection on something, or someone, smaller than God. In fact, most idols are good things in our lives that we turn into ultimate things–things that take God’s place as we unconciously depend on them to give our lives meaning. In the prayer below, the late, great Charles Spurgeon begs God to remove our idols–anything that hinders ultimate allegiance to Christ. It would be good for all of us–everyday–to pray this prayer since, as John Calvin once said, “Our hearts are idol making factories.”   

Lord Jesus,
take from us now
everything that would hinder the closest communion with God.
Any wish or desire that might hamper us in prayer
remove, we pray you.
Any memory of either sorrow or care
that might hinder the fixing of our affection wholly on our God,
take it away now.
What have we to do with idols anymore?
You have seen and observed us.
You know where the difficulty lies.
Help us against it,
and may we now come boldly,
not in the holy place alone,
but in the holiest of all,
where we should not dare to come
if our great Lord had not torn the veil,
sprinkled the mercy seat with his own blood,
and asked us to enter.

- Charles Spurgeon