Our Gospel Vision

This Galatians Gospel series has been a really important milestone for me and Renewal. Our vision is to renew lives in Christ to transform our city and the world. Now we’ve come to greater clarity on what “renewing lives in Christ” means. We want to see people experience the Gospel, both for those who hear the Gospel for the first time, and for those have been Christians all their lives. We are transformed by the Gospel, by our Gospel-relationship with Christ. We start in the Gospel and we live in the Gospel.

The words and phrases sound way too familiar and cliché, but I think we have a lot to grow in regarding understanding and living in the Gospel. I suspect many of us struggle with being deeply transformed, inwardly freed, and genuinely loving.

To be put it more bluntly, I feel that most of us do not understand or live in the Gospel.

We have numerous blindspots in understanding the gospel.

Most of us grew up in families and churches that were very performance based: We grew up in churches where we felt it was about doing good things and not doing bad things. Don’t smoke, don’t go to parties, go to church, do your QT’s. God had a lot of expectations and was hard to please. There was an overcast of guilt, fear, and shame.

We grew up in homes where we had to bring home the grades, do the chores, follow the rules, etc. Some of us are still trying to “earn” the approval of our parents.

One church member mentioned how as she reviewed that sheet of Bible promises, she looked at the first one: The LORD is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and rich in love. (Ps 145:8)

She confessed, I don’t believe this. This is not the God of my childhood, my family, the church I grew up in. I don’t know this God.

This performance basis has been the same at school and work: you have to earn your grades, make the sales, bring in the contracts, publish your papers, improve the test scores. Some of us have been rewarded by our talents and effort, others feel inadequate.

Our whole life has been a performance/merit-based paradigm. And its not a small thing to learn a different way to live.

For some of us, we feel our lives have shown us that God has not gracious and compassionate. In fact, life has been painful and disappointing. Maybe it’s with broken relationships, childhood experiences, health or finances, it seems God hasn’t answered our prayers. He’s let us down, He is hard to trust.

One person shared, yes, it’s hard to really trust. As a child she asked God to help his parents as they fought and fought. Today, she hates fighting/conflicts. I said, you have to trust that God can use those conflicts for good. She said, It’s hard to trust. God didn’t save my parents’ marriage—they got divorced. I don’t know if I do trust God.

I just returned from Chicago where I preached at a church retreat. It was a great retreat, and it was a joy for me to preach the Gospel to them. I became further confirmed—there are so many churches, so many Christians that do not understand or live in the gospel.

I suspect that for many of us, we do not have a good and great God in whom we trust. We do find our comfort or hope in who He is and what He does. I hear this discrepancy in how we pray, how we respond to problems, how we respond when we don’t get what we want, how we counsel one another. For too many of us, our God is weak, small and distant.

Our study in Galatians has been a long series, but I recognize that it will take us a lot longer to learn how to live in the Gospel. We have significant differences between our view of God and the Bible’s view of God, our view of ourselves and the Bible’s view of ourselves.

Vision for the church

To be transformed by the Gospel

From the ‘living to get’ to ‘living because we’ve already received.’

From ‘living by self-reliant effort’ to ‘living by faith’

From ‘my story and what I do,’ to ‘God’s story and what He does.’

What does that look like?

We have such a great, mighty, gracious, righteous, holy and loving God . . .

Love, joy, peace, etc.

To not be undone by troubles (strangely living above the problems of the world; not that we don’t have problems, but those problems are not so threatening, so destructive. We have inner strength, maturity, hope. We have a foundation not made of sand but solid rock.

Some live above their circumstances and their inadequacies.

What happens to you when you lose your cell phone, lose your job, have a dark season in your marriage, have sickness threaten the life of a loved one?

Do you have a God in your life that is bigger than your problems?

Do you have a gospel that has freed us?

To be thankful (joyful, inner peace). We never get over how good God has been and still is to us. We really feel rich,

Do we complain more than give thanks?

Do you feel life has been unfair, or that God has been amazingly generous?

To be kind and generous

Do we still try to “get”, or have we already “received” so much that we freed to love?

Do you find yourself more inclined to pray for others, to give of your time/money, to share the joy and hope that you’ve found? Or have you not found joy and hope?

To be addicted to God

How much do we savor God’s word?

How much do we enjoy His presence and we find rest for our souls?

Part of my purpose is to have us question whether we understand the Gospel? I think most of us are not living in the Gospel. Some of us may not understand what it means theologically/conceptually, but even if you do, that’s a different thing from actually living in it.

But I have a vision that by His grace, we could get there.

My suggestion is to meditate on God’s promises.

I’ve been counseling different people in recent months and repeatedly I’ve seen how the gospel addresses our various issues.

One person grew up in a dangerous world. His father was not a bad father, but he was a rather abusive husband, verbally and physically to his mother. And his mother seemed helpless in defending herself. It didn’t seem like she really tried. He never knew when things would erupt, and he felt helpless in trying to stop the abuse. He grew up in a world where he learned you have to protect yourself. There are a lot of dangers and no one is going to protect you. You have to demand respect, fight for respect, and trust no one.

This mindset has caused some serious relational problems. He has trouble forgiving others, trusting others. His basic mindset is, you might be able to hurt me once, but I will not let you hurt me twice. This is a dangerous world, and I’ve got to protect myself.

And so I told this person, you problem is that you don’t believe the gospel. You don’t believe there is a good Heavenly Father who is your Defender, your Advocate, your Fortress. Your internal world is not the Gospel world. Like Mt 6, you have to worry about all your needs because you don’t have a good, strong Heavenly Father who cares for you.

I encouraged him (and many others), to read the Psalms. Because the Psalms are so honest about living in a dangerous and broken world, filled with enemies who are trying to destroy you. But the Psalms have a Mighty and Good God, who is our fortress, refuge, strong tower, Deliverer and Defender. The Psalms are a great picture of what it looks like to live in the Gospel, to live by faith, to live with a good and mighty God while living in a real world of dangers and problems.

Another person wishes/demands her husband love, cherish, and protect her the way she wants to be. He seems far from the man she wants him to be for her. She fears her husband may actually not be capable of loving her the way she wants to be loved. She feels deeply hurt, deeply resentful, and feels herself falling into a pit of despair.

So I told this person, you don’t believe the gospel. You don’t believe that Christ is the real lover of your soul, the one you were made for. You don’t really believe He is enough or that He satisfies. You don’t experience His incomprehensible, divine grace and love so you demand it from your husband. Your soul is not resting in Him. You’re in the “living to get” not the “living because you’ve already received.”

Another person has had his share of problems, but in the midst of it, he had a spiritual breakthrough and has “experienced the gospel.” He found God’s Word to be so sweet, He showed grace in his relationships. He says although his problems were deeply painful and distressing, he now sees how perhaps he needed to have gone through them to come to this point in his relationship with God. And so he thanks God for the trials (Ro 8:28).

On one occasion, he shared how although there were still problems, he was excited about the future. He said, I’m kind of excited to see what God has in store for me next.

For him, He has a good, big, faithful, loving God, who keeps his promises and has been writing a great rescue story.

To minister the Gospel to one another through our gifts and passions

We need to “preach the Gospel to ourselves,” and we need to “preach the Gospel to one another.”

We are transformed and we become agents of transformation.

We are transformed individually and we are transformed corporately. We live as a community that has been transformed by the Gospel.

I recognize that for some people, preaching and teaching are not the main ways we’re going to realize the gospel. God has designed the church with a diversity of gifts and passions, and it is through a holistic and comprehensive church ministry that we’ll together reach maturity in the Gospel.

Individuals/gifts. Eph 4 speaks about how when the body of Christ does their part, the whole body grows together until we all reach unity in the faith and maturity in the fullness of Christ.

It is through a community of encouragers, interceders, counselors, people with a heart for hospitality, mercy, missions, evangelism, etc., that’s how some of us will gain a bigger picture of who God is and what He has and does for us. We grow in the Gospel, and we grow corporately as each part does its work. We put those together: we grow corporately in the Gospel.

It is through a community that displays grace, humility, generosity, and a deep love and wonder for their Savior and God that some of us will see the gospel come alive.

I think the praise teams have an incredible ministry to help us see the greatness and goodness of our God through praise.

I think the counseling ministry has an incredible ministry to help see how the gospel applies to the very real and difficult troubles of life.

I think welcomers and ushers can be the face of the gospel (first impression) to newcomers and guests.

I think accountabilities groups, hospitality people, intercessors all are to use their gifts to point to and reflect the greatness and goodness of our God.

I know one person who has such an amazing gift for hospitality. She thinks of thoughtful, personalized details that make you feel so thought of, so wanted. She makes me feel like the son of a King, like a citizen of heaven, like a child of glory. Her hospitality (and her spiritual maturity) remind me of One who has gone to prepare a place for us and will come back to take us to be with Him.

A Gospel culture:

Galatians 6 gives us pieces of this picture: we restore the wayward brother, we give to those who teach us the Bible. We’re to carry one another’s burdens.

If someone is arrested for domestic violence or has a gambling addiction or has a pregnancy out of marriage:

1. We confront the sin.

We don’t sweep it under the rug or pretend it didn’t happen. We recognize the seriousness of the crime and the pain inflicted on another.

We desire for our brother to come to repentance, to sincerely ask God and others for forgiveness.

2. We love the sinner.

We show undeserved grace. We show embrace and partnership, acceptance.

We don’t show contempt or rejection or disdain. We show kindness.

We help the person through the court procedures or the financial crisis or the needs of a baby.

And for that person, it is the experience of the Gospel that speaks so much louder than sermons.

Parents

Some of us grew up with God being boring, strict, demanding.

Some of us feel like God’s been unfair to us, He wasn’t there to deliver us in our childhood traumas.

What kind of world do we want our kids to grow up in?

We want them to see the world is ugly, fallen, broken. We don’t want to deny reality or overly shelter them. Parable of weeds, God has permitted us to live in a dangerous place.

We want them to see a God who is bigger and stronger, who is loving and faithful. We want them to grow up in the security, joy, freedom that they are safe with us and with Him. Again, the Psalms do this so well: honesty about life’s troubles, hope about our God.

These first two pieces go hand-in-hand.

We are transformed by the gospel, and so we minister to one another in gospel freedom.

As we receive ministry from one another, we are transformed by the gospel.

To be agents of the Gospel to the world

We have something to share. Like the guy with a strong power drill that sees all these loose screws, we have a life-giving Gospel and see so many living in bondage, darkness and despair. And because you believe that God is good and sweet, you want to share Him. It is the evangelism of the delight.

I recently moved to a new house and have become friends with my immediate neighbors. There’s a side of me that is happy to finally have nonChristian relationships (it’s not been easy for me). I’m not the best at connecting with nonChristians. But I feel like it’s not just a message I have to share. I have a God, a Savior, a Provider, a Refuge, a Comforter. I have hope to offer because I’ve tasted of that hope in my life.

If the gospel to you is just a ticket to heaven, then your evangelism is about getting people to get their free ticket to heaven. But if your gospel is a faith relationship with Christ, resting and delighting in His goodness and love, then your evangelism is about giving hope, comfort, joy and freedom for this life and the life to come.

We can’t offer what we don’t have ourselves. We can’t shine what we do not see. We can only give what we have.

If we’re not genuinely excited about Christ, about the Gospel, about the God who has come to rescue us, then there is little probability that we’ll want to share Christ with others. And if we do, it will be not be sincere nor convincing.

But if we’re living in the Gospel, if our community is in the Gospel, then evangelism, missions, outreach will be sincere and convincing. It will be natural, authentic, and powerful.

God has given us so many talents and gifts. We have education and so many opportunities. Every now and then I am reminded about how privileged we are.

But the greatest thing we have to offer to the world is not our money or talents or service. The greatest thing we have is Christ and His gospel.

God has placed us in webs of relationships and positions of influence. This part of my visions is that we have something to give to the people right beside us—we have the Gospel of Jesus Christ and our lives as evidence of its power. It is not just that we have the gospel for ourselves. It is that, having tasted and lived in the gospel, we are now servants, ambassadors of that gospel.

Preach the Gospel to yourself

Preach the Gospel to one another

Preach the Gospel to the world