Brightening the Gospel Bulb
April 18, 2008
During my university days I attended a church that constantly called us to “preach the gospel to yourself.” You can imagine all the puzzled responses I had to that mantra, and hopefully sympathize with the fact that it took me about 10 years to begin piecing together what the pastor was talking about.
This week another piece of the puzzle fell into place as I listened to an interview with one of my living heroes, Sinclair Ferguson (yes, he’s wondrously Scottish). Here is what the pastor-theologian said. “Part of the first principles of the gospel are these categories, sin and grace…The sin is mine and therefore natural for me to see. It’s grace that isn’t natural to me and therefore difficult to see. Therefore I am going to struggle to bring the sin I am so familiar with to the grace I am unfamiliar with. And therefore I need to find ways given to me in Scripture of discovering the graciousness of God.”
While this was not the initial “light turning on” experience for me, Ferguson’s emphasis on the unnatural, unfamiliar nature of grace turned up the dimmer switch and brightened up the bulb significantly. Here’s how I process his insight. The gospel, or the news about Jesus Christ, tells me two things about the sin that I live with every day. First, it tells me that God’s righteous judgment against my sin means I will be sentenced to an eternity in Hell on the final day. Second, it tells me that God has made a provision for averting that judgment by placing his wrath toward my sin upon his crucified Son. When I trust in the crucified and risen Christ, God’s wrath is not only satisfied, he now looks upon me with with all the authentic favor and love that he has for his own Son.
While the first piece makes sense, the second, the grace of the gospel, is quite unnatural. It is not like falling in love, where a young man and woman are mutually attracted to one another. While I can wake up in the morning and know a few reasons why Rachael wanted to enter a covenant relationship with me, I cannot for the life of me figure out why God would do the same. He needs nothing, and all I have to offer him is my rebellious heart.
But Christ has died for my sins. God has initiated a relationship with me. Grace has been given. So when I wake up in the morning with a new awareness of my sinful proclivities, I must move through the gospel’s message of judgment to the reality of grace. I must preach to myself, “Christ died for your sins” and “Christ was raised for your justification” and “in Christ you are no longer condemned” and “Christ suffered once for sins that he might bring you to God.” Because God’s grace is so unnatural to what I feel I deserve, I must preach the gospel to myself every day.
Though it may take a decade to figure out, let us wrestle with the outrageously glorious gospel of grace and preach it daily to our sinful hearts that we might enjoy all the benefits that are ours in Christ.