The Gospel

This has been a summer colored by the gospel.

You would think we would say that more often, right?

Supposedly, that's what we Christians are all about. That's what has changed us, what influences how we live, how we make decisions.

And I think a lot of us are influenced regularly by the Bible, or by the body of Christ, or by some other random truth we're learning.

But not nearly enough by the gospel.

This summer I'm attending a Bible study that's going through the Tim Keller book "Gospel in Life" (it's my first introduction to Tim Keller, but I hear good things), and I think it has helped me put words to things I see going on in the rest of my life.

Over and over this summer I've heard from college students that what they've learned this summer is what a huge capacity they have for sin.

Wow.

These are the college students you want your kids to grow up to be like. They are confident and dynamic and compassionate and love Jesus with all their hearts, and, by most of our standards, have it all together. To use the language from Tim Keller, they've learned to do "religion" very well.

But what the gospel teaches is that our relationship with Jesus is not about having it all together. In fact, "having it all together" is not even possible. We are broken. There is nothing we can do to earn God's salvation, or love, or even approval. "For by grace are you saved through faith, and this is not of yourselves, it is the gift of God."

I'm reminded of the lyrics in Derek Webb's song "I Repent" that say, "I repent of paying for what I get for free."

Yes, we were created for good works, and the Christian life should bear outward fruit of what has been changed inwardly.

BUT.

In the same way that nothing we can do can separate us from the love of God, nothing we can do can make us more deserving. It is a gift.

We are broken and dirty and every one of us is capable of great sin, and Christ loves us anyway, freely, exactly where we are.