Two Questions That Never Go Away: Part Two

Last week we considered two vital questions that function as the operating system of Christian life and thought. It is as we contemplate these two questions that we grow in our understanding of who Jesus is and what God has given us in Christ.

Those two underlying and inter-related matters inform every other concern in our spiritual lives. Growing in our faith means growing in our understanding of these two questions:

1. What does the Gospel mean?
2. What does the Gospel call for us to do?

The Gospel is the Good News about what Christ has done on our behalf: Jesus invaded human history, lived and taught about the Kingdom, died in our place, rose again, and will return. It is good news – very good news, in fact – that the Gospel is about what Christ has already done, not about what I’m supposed to do.

Last week we explored what the Gospel means for us. What the Gospel means in the life of this believer is that I am an adopted child of God and other believers are my spiritual siblings. The Gospel means that God is constantly working to make right what is wrong in my character. The Gospel means that someday God will make all things right not only in my life but also in our life together and even in the natural order.

Let us think now about what the Gospel calls for us to do.
 
We cannot escape the fact that following Jesus means more than rescue. When I put my faith in Jesus to save me, I also follow Christ as Lord. He said so himself when he asked this very reasonable question: “Why do you call me ‘Lord’ when you don’t do what I say?” (Luke 6:46).

Learning to obey Jesus is a life-long pursuit, and fortunately God’s Spirit is a patient and persistent Teacher. But we must never overlook the fact that the Gospel carries with it a set of built-in expectations of an adopted son or daughter in the household of God.

So what then does the Gospel call for us to do?

1. Let’s start with the obvious one, something that Jesus reiterated even in his model prayer: the Gospel requires that I forgive my offender. If I am a Christ-follower, I cannot look at forgiveness as some kind of optional extra credit for high achievers. Forgiving others is a nonnegotiable ethical implication of the Gospel.

It was the only part of his model prayer that Jesus felt he needed to emphasize. You remember Jesus’s startling words: “…forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors…. For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.” (Matthew 6:12, 14-15).

Forgiving people who offend me is part and parcel of receiving God’s forgiveness. I simply don’t have the option of receiving the grace of God with one open hand and refusing to extend grace to my offender with the other closed fist.

Please don’t misunderstand. This is not about the exaggerated distortions that are often confused with forgiveness: acting as if nothing had happened or unconditionally restoring trust and affection. Forgiveness has a more modest ambition, though it is still difficult: forgiveness is about letting go of my right to retaliate, it is about not wishing ill on those who have hurt me.

Sometimes relationships are broken so deeply that reconciliation is impossible. But if I am a Christ-follower, forgiveness on my part is nonnegotiable.

The Gospel means that I, the offender, stand forgiven before God, so it calls for me to forgive before my own offenders.

2. The Gospel calls for me to persevere.

If I am a Christ-follower, if I have embraced the Gospel, it is always too soon to give up.
The Gospel isn’t just about what Christ has done in the past (dying for my sins and rising again), it’s also about what God is doing in Christ now and in the future. What God is doing now in Christ is just as important as what he has already done: He is gathering a people for Himself, the great multitude John saw in his vision surrounding the throne and singing their praises.

The Good News, the Gospel, is that in Christ, God is building His people toward that future. In fact, it is the future-orientation of the Gospel that makes it so compelling. Jesus didn’t die merely to restore the status quo. God has promised to make all things new, and Jesus’s death on my behalf means that I don’t get left out of that cosmic renewal of all things, including my own wicked heart.

This means that it’s always too soon to give up on myself, notwithstanding my three-steps-forward-two-steps-back progress in becoming like Jesus. And it’s always too soon to give up on what God is doing in someone else’s life, no matter how long and deep his or her struggle and rebellion.

You get the picture.
 
The Good News about what Jesus has done for me carries with it implications about the way I live my life. The Gospel is the Good News that God loves me just as I am. He plucks me out of slavery to sin and makes me His adopted child. My new status in the household of God brings with it not only privileges but also expectations. I am no longer a slave. Now I begin learning how to act like a child of the King, a member of His family.

But there’s more good news: the Gospel also means that God’s Spirit is at work in our hearts making it easier for us to behave like His children. Let us persevere as He shapes in us a new kind of life: forgiving as we’ve been forgiven, persevering even when we’re discouraged, bringing our failures to Him instead of hiding them, and loving and caring for our brothers and sisters in Christ.

Persevere,
Paul Pyle
Pastor of Discipleship