By Staff
If you've read the previous three articles on the gospel, what it is and how it works, you may be asking, "Is it necessary to know the gospel in this detail." In one sense, no it isn't. You can deeply love and serve Jesus without ever thinking how the gospel is God's power to save you. However, in reflecting upon this glorious gospel, God may grant you an even deeper humility (even faith is a gift) and a greater passion for Jesus, as you understand the depth of His commitment to you in the gospel.
This leads to our fourth point. How the gospel continues to work throughout our lives. When we use the term, gospel, we immediately think of the unsaved. We say, "He or she needs to believe in the gospel." This is true. The unsaved need to hear and to respond to the gospel. The passage we've been discussing reads, "But the righteous man shall live by faith." He shall live by faith, and not just enter by faith!
The gospel is more than a faith-door to enter: it's the faith-path to travel as well. What do I mean? When we believe in the gospel we turn from our sin, in repentance and we turn to Christ, in reliance. But does our sin problem end once we are believers? Don't we see that sin goes much deeper than we ever imagined? Don't we need repentance and faith every day? We associate sinfulness with notorious behaviors such as drunkenness, unfaithfulness, dishonesty and the like. These are but symptoms of sin. Sin is doing anything good or bad for any other reason than for God's glory and because we love Him. When as Christians we think that our good works merit God's favor, this is sin, called self-righteousness. When our ministries, even preaching and teaching the gospel, are done for man's approval or from fear or greed or pride, this is sin. How often do we make excuses for our behavior because we do not rely wholly upon Christ's righteousness rather than our own?
What do we need as Christians? We need the gospel. We need to repent of our self-righteousness and self-sufficiency and our unbelief. We need to turn afresh to Jesus, asking Him to renew our faith in His righteousness for us and His promise to us. We never outgrow our need for the gospel. Have you? Repent and trust in Jesus. This is the gospel!