Gospel Prism

By ‘all things’ we mean everything in our individual lives and corporate church life, including all of our conduct, thoughts, worldviews, relationships, worship, and will. Scripture reminds us that we are to do everything in view of the Gospel. The word ‘all’ is an all-encompassing word. In 1 Corinthians 9:23, Paul writes: “I do it ALL for the sake of the gospel, that I may share with them in its blessings.” What is Paul’s ‘all’ that he is referring to? Paul writes about in the preceding verses (vv. 19-22):

For though I am free from all, I have made myself a servant to all, that I might win more of them. 20 To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win Jews. To those under the law I became as one under the law (though not being myself under the law) that I might win those under the law. 21 To those outside the law I became as one outside the law (not being outside the law of God but under the law of Christ) that I might win those outside the law. 22 To the weak I became weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all people, that by all means I might save some.

In other words, Paul had done everything possible to present the light of the Gospel to people. He did not withhold his personal comfort and prosperity but instead, became a ‘servant to all’ (v. 19). He did not withhold his own righteousness and was willing to partake in Jewish customs and rituals that he had felt free to give up as a Christian. Therefore, he circumcised Timothy (Acts 16:3) so that he would not stumble the Jews. He still maintained food laws (1 Cor 8:8). He followed the special laws regarding the Temple (Acts 21:26; 25:8). Also, he was willing to give up his status as a Jew, willing to live amongst those who were not part of God’s inheritance (Romans 11). Thus, he did all things for the sake of the Gospel. He gave up his comfort, his prosperity, his status, his righteousness, everything because of the Gospel.

1 Corinthians 10:31 adds to the breadth of ‘all things’: “So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.” Christians have no room to dichotomize their lives between the ‘holy things’ and the ‘normal things.’ The holy things do not merely consist of church, missions, the Bible, prayer, and evangelism while the normal things refer to baseball games, the mall, Starbucks, the movies, school, vacationing in Oahu, etc. Paul wants us to know that whatever we do, we are to do it for His glory. Also, all things must incorporate the Gospel, must be viewed through the lens of the Gospel and must give glory to God in light of this Gospel.

For the Sake of the Gospel to God’s Glory

Also, by ‘for the sake of the Gospel to God’s glory,’ we mean that we are devoted to, even at our expense, the purpose of, in furtherance of, in response to, in hope of, in demonstration of, in honor of, the gospel, in honor and worship of the perfect and holy triune God as He has revealed Himself in His holy, inerrant Scriptures, in His good creation, and in His gracious work in redemptive history. There is a reason to our doing ‘all things.’ Christianity is not a religion of masochists. This simply is not the God of the Bible that we worship. If you had to do “all things” because it was your duty, very quickly ‘all things’ would evolve into ‘all drudgery.’ If all things were done because you were afraid of punishment, you might fear God, but you would despise Him. If all things were done because you wanted to pay God back for all the things you have done wrong, you would give yourself way too much credit when you did something well, and you would condemn yourself far too much when you failed (which you will).

No, we do all things for the sake of the Gospel to God’s glory. The sinner who understands what God has done to save him, will never fail to find enough joy in worshipping such a gracious God. Listen to what these saints have said about their impetus to do “all things”:

First there is pastor Tim Keller of Redeemer Presbyterian Church of New York:

Christianity alone among the world religions claims that God became uniquely and fully human in Jesus Christ and therefore knows firsthand despair, rejection, loneliness, poverty, bereavement, torture, and imprisonment. On the cross he went beyond even the worst human suffering and experienced cosmic rejection and pain that exceeds ours as infinitely as his knowledge and power exceeds ours. In his death, God suffers in love, identifying with the abandoned and godforsaken. Why did he do it? The Bible says that Jesus came on a rescue mission for creation. He had to pay for our sins so that someday he can end evil and suffering without ending us. (Timothy Keller, The Reason for God, (New York, NY: Dutton, 2008), 30.)

And then there is Robert Murray M’Cheyne, the 18th century Scottish pastor:

I must never think a sin too small to need immediate application to the blood of Christ. If I put away a good conscience, concerning faith I make shipwreck. I must never think my sins too great, too aggravated, too presumptuous,–as when done on my knees, or in preaching, or by a dying bed, or during dangerous illness,–to hinder me from fleeing to Christ. The weight of my sins should act like the weight of a clock: the heavier it is, it makes it go the faster.

I must not only wash in Christ’s blood, but clothe me in Christ’s obedience. For every sin of omission in self, I may find a divinely perfect obedience ready for me in Christ. For every sin of commission in self, I may find not only a stripe or a wound in Christ, but also a perfect rendering of the opposite obedience in my place, so that the law is magnified, its curse more than carried, its demand more than answered. (Andrew Bonar, The Memoirs of Robert Murray McCheyne, 151-152)

Finally, author Jerry Bridges speaks on the Gospel as the impetus to do all things:

The gospel, applied to our hearts every day, frees us to be brutally honest with ourselves and with God. The assurance of His total forgiveness of our sins through the blood of Christ means we don’t have to play defensive games anymore. We don’t have to rationalize and excuse our sins. . . . We can call sin exactly what it is, regardless of how ugly and shameful it may be, because we know that Jesus bore that sin in His body on the cross. With the assurance of total forgiveness through Christ, we have no reason to hide from our sins anymore. ( Jerry Bridges, The Discipline of Grace, (Colorado Springs, Co: NavPress, 1994), 22-23.

To do all things for the sake of obligation, debt repayment, self-glorification, therapy leads to despair, guilt, shame, and eventual destruction. Its joy is so fleeting. What these man attest to is what the witness of Scripture proclaims is that all things for the sake of the Gospel to God’s glory is the greatest path to indescribable joy. Listen to David in Psalm 96 to see this reality:

Sing to the Lord, bless his name; tell of his salvation from day to day. 3 Declare his glory among the nations, his marvelous works among all the peoples! 4 For great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised; he is to be feared above all gods. 5 For all the gods of the peoples are worthless idols, but the Lord made the heavens. 6 Splendor and majesty are before him; strength and beauty are in his sanctuary. Let the heavens be glad, and let the earth rejoice; let the sea roar, and all that fills it.

As David declares, the Gospel, God’s salvation of the world, leads Him to rejoice and worship and give praise and glory to God. So, by the Gospel, we mean the good news of Jesus Christ who as God the Son, sent by God the Father our merciful Creator, lived a perfect life, was crucified on a cross, died, and rose again as a ransom and substitute for our sins and to avert God’s wrath from us; by Christ’s finished work, we are declared righteous before God, welcomed as the Father’s adopted children, and empowered by the Holy Spirit to live joyfully with the Triune God in this present life and for all eternity.

There is so much richness in the Gospel of grace, that even if we were to spend every moment speaking of it for the rest of our lives, we would still have only scratched the surface on understanding the wealth of the Gospel. Thus, it is the finished work of Christ, along with understanding just how devastating sin truly is, something that J. C. Ryle notes that “will astonish us so much, when we awake in the resurrection day, as the view we shall have of sin, and the retrospect we shall take of our own countless shortcomings and defects,” (J. C. Ryle, Holiness, that gives us the power and joy to deal with every sin of our hearts and every temptation the Enemy. It cannot be stated any better than Octavius Winslow’s words on the power of the Gospel:

We can only effectually deal with sin as we deal with Him who was slain for sin. Jesus the crucified is as much our sanctification as He is our redemption. The Spirit’s sprinkling of the blood that has pardoned all, cleansed all, cancelled all our sins, intensifies the motive and energizes the soul to repel its attacks, and to rest not from the conflict until the nail has been driven home which fastens every lust to the cross of Jesus. Oh, what motive, what power, in the great, the essential work of personal holiness does the cross of Jesus supply! How should we hate sin, battle with sin, resist and overcome it, who have a personal and saving interest in the great and solemn transactions of Calvary!

In essence, there is no better antidote to sin and its outgrowth, whether that is self-pity, self-centeredness, sexual lust, greed, unkindness, laziness, addiction, anger, pride, depression, loneliness, than to fully realize the deadly evil of sin and the transformative power of what Christ has accomplished by the cross. And nothing gives glory to God more than His Son and His finished work on the cross. And it is here that we must stop and dwell on the glory of God in light of the Gospel.

To define God’s glory is a very difficult task. However, in our humble and feeble efforts, we have used this phrase in an attempt to define God’s glory:

In honor and worship of the perfect and holy triune God as He has revealed Himself in His holy, inerrant Scriptures, in His good creation, and His gracious work in redemptive history.

That is, God is absolutely wonderful, magnificent, awesome, worthy, splendid, and every superlative adjective in the dictionary. He is through all time, in all creation, and through His redeeming story. And as John Piper fully details in His book Desiring God, “God’s ultimate goal therefore is to preserve and display His infinite and awesome greatness and worth, that is, His glory.” (John Piper, Desiring God, 42) Many verses reflect this truth. You can go to Piper’s work to find those texts. But turning to Psalm 96:7-9, we can see a picture of what our hearts should feel in light of a holy God:

Ascribe to the Lord, O families of the peoples, ascribe to the Lord glory and strength! 8 Ascribe to the Lord the glory due his name; bring an offering, and come into his courts! 9 Worship the Lord in the splendor of holiness; tremble before him, all the earth!

A holy God deserves worship. And this worship is never at odds with our deepest joy and satisfaction. Instead, God in His infinite wisdom and mercy and grace, sovereignly uses salvation as a manifestation of His own glory. And He does this through His Son Jesus Christ. In 2 Corinthians 4:4, Paul makes this most amazing statement: “In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.” The light is the Gospel which is the glory of Christ who is the image of God. God is glorified through His Son as exemplified through the Gospel! We see this throughout the Bible.

Romans 3:25 substantiates this when Paul writes: “Whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousnesss, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins.” In other words, the Gospel shows God’s righteousness and one could say that this is a restatement of God using the Gospel for His glory. 1 Corinthians 10:31 says that when I do all things in worship, I do it to the glory of God. And then 2 Corinthians 4:6 teaches, “For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” Amazingly, we know the glory of God through Jesus. And Jesus makes this incredible statement about Himself in John 16:5: “And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed.” The Father loves to glorify the Son and has done so from before the beginning of time. Or as John Piper notes: “The work of Christ for the glory of God leads inevitably to the conclusion that God’s purpose for His new redeemed people, the church, is that our life goal should be to glorify God in Christ.” (John Piper, Desiring God).

The Gospel, God the Son, and God’s glory are inseparable. Each works together to accomplish God’s ultimate end, to bring glory to Himself. And nothing will stop this from happening as God’s plan to save sinners facing His just wrath has been accomplished through His beloved Son. So when God is glorified through His Son and the Gospel of grace, we receive joy and our deepest satisfaction. (Please see John Piper’s Desiring God for a much fuller discussion on this topic.)

For Our Joy

The third part of our vision statement then is ‘for our joy.’ By this, we mean for our deepest, eternal happiness and satisfaction, including our present freedom and peace. God is incredibly gracious. He doesn’t want us to worship Him by gritting our teeth and grinding out our faith. Every person who has cherished and loved the Gospel has written about just how happy a Christian should be. For example, many think John Calvin is this morose, stolid theologian. But Calvin wrote these words: “We will be like a ship’s sail that has been stretched and filled by the breeze! Thus, our hearts will run to obey him, like a ship driven along by its sail, when we know that God delights in us and accepts our works, not wanting us to be compelled into servitude. He is happy for us to be his children, and that we desire to obey him.”

God wants our utmost happiness which might not always be circumstantial or material success and health. Sometimes for us to receive true and utmost happiness and joy, we need to have less of wealth and health, not more. Just ask the Israelites in the desert. They were taught the hard way because they never wanted to trust God in anything and they were never satisfied, no matter what blessings they received. Therefore, God would show them that it was their trust in material blessings or what they believed to be blessings that actually kept them from their utmost joy, which was Himself. As long as they followed God for what they thought God would provide for them, they would never be happy. Instead, they needed to follow God for Himself as the greatest blessing of all.

Listen to the Psalms on this subject:

But let all who take refuge in you rejoice; let them ever sing for joy, and spread your protection over them, that those who love your name may exult in you. (Psalm 5:11)

As for me, I shall behold your face in righteousness; when I awake, I shall be satisfied with your likeness. (Psalm 17:15)

Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart. (Psalm 37:3)

Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you. 26 My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. (Ps 73:25-26)

God wants us to enjoy Him and in doing so, we will find a joyous delight that will never fade. Psalm 84:10 promises that God will bring you heartful, utmost joy when you trust Him: “For a day in your courts is better than a thousand elsewhere. I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of wickedness.” There are far too many people who think joy comes in a job change, a better husband, a wife to marry, winning the lottery, owning a home, having well-adjusted kids, better grades, etc. But not one of those things ever seems to bring joy even when those things are obtained.

Joy is found in the Gospel of Christ that exists for the purpose of magnifying God’s glory. And when this joy is understood and internalized and realized and genuine and sincere, we will as Micah 6:8 tells us, “love kindness.” John Piper notes we won’t do kindness, but we will love kindness. (John Piper,Desiring God, 305) This is a critical distinction. Paul tells us in Romans 12:8 that we will do acts of mercy “with cheerfulness.” And we will give as the Macedonians, from their cheerful hearts (2 Cor 9). The Gospel leads us to love others and serve others to God’s glory for our joy.

So how then shall we live? Our 8 values flesh out different ways we as a church desire to live out this great Gospel in joy as we love God and serve others.