The Gospel is What Changes Us

Yesterday we started a new series called The Gospel Changes Everything. Our hope in this series is for us to wade deeply into the pool of the gospel, see it from many angles and facets, much like a diamond, and learn what it means to build our lives around the realities that the gospel makes true in our lives.

Yesterday we started with Isaiah 6.1-8. We said the gospel is what changes us and that God woos us as we experience his love, forgiveness, mercy, and restoration in the gospel.

At the end I gave 5 ways to help us experience the gospel. Of course there are many more, but I gave five as a starting place for us. They were:

Prioritize time with Jesus.

We are all busy. That’s just a reality for most of us. So if we’re serious about Jesus, we are going to have to schedule time with him. Build it into your routine. Get your Bible out. Pray. Listen. (You an refer to our series of posts on prayer for help in that area.)

Invite someone to a conversation about the gospel and its implications.

Pretty self-explanatory. In addition to our conversations about sports, kids, family, work, and life, let’s look for ways to intentionally ask questions and deeply discuss the mercy of God, his forgiveness, ourselves, and how the gospel affects all of life.

Discuss it among your Missional community.

Again, pretty self-explanatory, but God has given us each other for our own growth and for his glory among us. At Remedy, we’re organized in and around Missional Communities. Press in deeply and pursue Bible-saturated (gospel-rich) spiritual growth.

Read gospel-rich books and listen to gospel-rich music.

There are lots of good “Christian” books and songs. We’re for those things. What we want to encourage you toward are the deep end of these resources, books and songs that don’t just talk some about Christianity or God or life, but that are filled with references to the life, death, resurrection, and reign of Jesus and the implications that has for all of life.

See our Recommended Reading page for book ideas.

Prioritize worship gathering participation.

One of the main purposes of us gathering on Sundays is to hear, be reminded of, and delight ourselves in the love, mercy, forgiveness, and restoration of God in Jesus. We need this. Life is hard, and the days can be long and challenging. We need to regularly hear the life-giving news of the gospel proclaimed to us and over us.

The songs we sing are songs of our faith, and they remind and encourage our hearts. They move us with the truth of the gospel, giving us weekly back to Jesus. So we would encourage you to make worship gathering participation not just a good intention, but a priority.

Some Helpful Gospel Reading

As we talk about these things, we hope and we pray that experiencing the gospel will cause a dramatic shift in our lives. And as we embark on this journey, it’s important that we don’t just talk about the gospel, but that we actually press deeply into it–and the best place to do that is in Scripture. So here are a few passage to get you started in reading, meditating, and dwelling on the gospel:

• Isaiah 6.1-8 (yesterday’s passage)
• Jn. 3.16-21
• Ephesians 2.1-10
• Romans 3.10-26
• Romans 8.1-11
• Jn. 10.7-11
• Colossians 2.9-14
• 1 Jn. 1.8-2.6