The Gospel: A-Z, not the ABC's

Below is a post I did several months ago. I am re-posting in light of our focus on the Gospel and my comments a few weeks ago when we introduced our class series on the Gospel this Fall. He states well here the need in the church today to apply the Gospel to all of life.

Tullian Tchividjian, pastor of Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church (and grandson of Billy Graham), has written a new book, Surprised By Grace: God’s Relentless Pursuit of Rebels , which uses the book of Jonah to illustrate God's amazing grace. Here is a great excerpt from the book that illustrates how our view of the Gospel's impact to our lives is often limited to only a past tense experience, or something only non-believers need to hear, and not integral to how we live each and every day:

He writes:

I once assumed the gospel was simply what non-Christians must
believe in order to be saved, but after they believe it, they advance to deeper
theological waters. Jonah helped me realize that the gospel isn’t the first step
in a stairway of truths but more like the hub in a wheel of truth. As Tim Keller
explains it, the gospel isn’t simply the ABCs of Christianity, but the
A-through-Z. The gospel doesn’t just ignite the Christian life; it’s the fuel
that keeps Christians going every day. Once God rescues sinners, his plan isn’t
to steer them beyond the gospel but to move them more deeply into it. After all,
the only antidote to sin is the gospel—and since Christians remain sinners even
after they’re converted, the gospel must be the medicine a Christian takes every
day. Since we never leave off sinning, we can never leave the gospel.

This idea that the gospel is just as much for Christians as for non-Christians may
seem like a new idea to many, but, in fact, it is really a very old idea. In his
letter to the Christians of Colossae, the apostle Paul quickly portrays the
gospel as the instrument of all continued growth and spiritual progress for
believers after conversion: “All over the world,” he writes, “this gospel is
bearing fruit and growing, just as it has been doing among you since the day you
heard it and understood God’s grace in all its truth” (Col. 1:6 NIV).

After meditating on Paul’s words here, a friend once told me that all our problems in
life stem from our failure to apply the gospel. This means we can’t really move
forward unless we learn more thoroughly the gospel’s content and how to apply it
to all of life. Real change does not and cannot come independently of the
gospel, which is the good news that even though we’re more defective and lost
than we ever imagined, we can be more accepted and loved than we ever dared
hope, because Jesus Christ lived, died, and rose again for sinners like you and
me. God intends this reality to mold and shape us at every point in every way.
It should define the way we think, feel, and live.

Martin Luther often employed the phrase simul Justus et peccator to describe his condition as a Christian. It means “simultaneously justified and sinful.” He understood that while he’d already been saved (through justification) from sin’s penalty, he was in daily need of salvation from sin’s power. And since the gospel is the “power of God for salvation” (Rom. 1:16), he knew that even for the most saintly of saints the gospel is wholly relevant and vitally necessary—day in and day out.
This means that heralded preachers need the gospel just as much as hardened
pagans. (16-17)