Transcript
Between the "already" of your conversion and the "not yet" of your homegoing, you need the gospel everyday in your life. The gospel of Jesus Christ is not meant just to be an entrance into your relationship with God and an exit into eternity, but is meant to shape every aspect of your life between the "already" and the "not yet".
The Gospel Is Three Things
The gospel is three things. First, it is an identity. It defines who I am as a child of God. I love Paul saying, "It's no longer I who lives, but Christ lives in me and the life I live, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me."
That's the gospel as my identity. The gospel is a lens. It's a way of looking at and understanding everything in your life. When you understand marriage from the vantage point of the gospel, it changes the way you think about marriage or parenting or sex or money or communication or aging. All of those things take on new meaning and give you new purpose as you look at them through the lens of the gospel.
The gospel is the best diagnostic of the human condition of what we need and how we find that in the personal work of the Lord Jesus. The gospel is an identity. The gospel is a lens. And third, the gospel is a lifestyle. God calls us to live in a way that is worthy of the gospel.
The Gospel as My Wisdom and Guidance
That's Ephesians 4 and so, my way of approaching the things of life is shaped by the message and the truths of the gospel. And so, I use the gospel as my wisdom and guidance in my marriage and in my parenting, and in my use of money, and my thinking about sexuality. It's the gospel is a lifestyle. You live in light of, you live out of the gospel.
So yes, I need the gospel everyday in my life. I need that identity. I need that lens of interpretation. I need that lifestyle guidance that's only found in the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. You and I need the gospel as much today as we did the very first day we believed. And as a matter of fact, what we'll be doing in the new heavens and new earth is celebrating the gospel again and again and again in.
