“The gospel is not only the most important message in all of history; it is the ONLY essential message in all of history. Yet we allow thousands of professing Christians to live their entire lives without clearly understanding it and experiencing the joy of living by it.” –Jerry Bridges
I received a text from a friend a few weeks back that said, “What idiot let me graduate Sunday School?” At first, I laughed because it was so random and struck me as comical. And then I realized how sobering her point was. Where along the line of our years of church attendance- did we go through all the right motions, learn all the right stories, memorize all the right Bible verses and perfect our spiritual disciplines- and think we “got it.”?
Another way of saying it was: Who let me “graduate” the gospel?
Well, I could blame it on a lot of people and things. But truth to be told- who let me graduate the gospel? Answer=I did.So this morning I’m going back to kindergarten, and I’ll confess I might just be here awhile. And maybe, just maybe that’s a good thing.
Ephesians 2:13- “But now in Christ Jesus you who were once far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.”
See, there’s this scene called the Cross. Where they grab Jesus, spit on Him, slap Him, mock Him, rip the beard off his face, smack him with sticks, peel the skin of his back, strip him naked, nail him to the cross while even more people come out to mock him and hurl insults at him.. and then as his lungs fill with blood-they run a spear under his ribcage and leave him there to rot. And in that moment- that is about my sin. About how God sees my sin. And in reaction to all of that, God is filled with grief, with anger- filled with wrath- and ALL OF THAT gets taken out on Jesus.
Because of that scene and the blood of Christ covering my life, Romans 8 says any accusation made in the throneroom against me- the Father says “That was paid for in the cross of Christ. Jesus Christ died for all that. I poured all my wrath on Jesus for that sin. Justified. Paid in full. She doesn’t owe that.”
“Justified. Paid in full. Declared righteous.” The gospel. What I couldn’t pay- paid in full. What I was completely unable to do, no matter what I did or how hard I tried-Jesus did. Through the cross He reconciled me to Himself. So how did I “graduate” the gospel? Somewhere after being justified- I got this crazy, mixed up notion that the gospel wasn’t relevant anymore. That mature Christians are supposed to “move on” from the Cross. That “Ok I got the whole cross and salvation thing and now growing and sanctification is something else completely different.”
But- “the gospel is not the first ‘step’ in a ‘stairway’ of truths, rather, it is more like the ‘hub’ in the ‘wheel’ of truth. The gospel is not the A-B-C-‘s but the A-Z of Christianity. The gospel is not the minimum required doctrine necessary to enter the kingdom, but the way we make ALL progress in the kingdom.” –Tim Keller
Somehow my standing before God can become about my behavior and how “good” or “bad” I did on a daily basis. How I enter the throneroom depends on my performance of that day in my spiritual disciplines. How “pleased” God is with me, must depend on how hard I have worked and labored for Him, right? I hope you can see the major red flag in all of that. The word “I.” That somehow “I” am able to do something. Somehow “I” am able to save myself and change myself. That for some reason, I don’t really “need” the cross anymore.
The truth is, I am in immense need of the gospel on a moment by moment basis. There is NEVER a moment in time I will get beyond that. Ever. To ever think so is sin and must be repented of. And that can do one of two things- cause us to run straight into the arms of a Savior or cause us to run in the opposite direction. The weight of our own inability to save, transform, and conquer sin can either crush us- or cause us to run in joy and celebration at the foot of the Cross.
One will lead to cycles of defeat and despair and the other to victory, worship, and freedom in Jesus Christ. 2 Corinthians 5:21. Romans 5:6-11.May we grow in the maturity of Christ and change at the rate God wants us to. May we recognize more and more the depths of our own depravity and feel the weight and seriousness of sin. But in that- may it cause us to see the immensity of the gospel over it all.
“Remember Jesus Christ, raised from the dead, descended from David. This is my gospel.” (2 Timothy 2:8)
That is our hope, our encouragement, our proclamation. Let us never graduate from the gospel.
