[1] You and I have the greatest opportunity and potential to be everything God wants us to be because of the gospel. The gospel not only saves us but has a sanctifying effect upon us through the agency of God’s Word. (John 17:17, James 1:18, 1 Peter 1:23) If we consistently seek God’s Truth and apply God’s Truth to our everyday lives, if we do constant inventory against the grid of God’s Word, we will be able to examine the dissimilarities, and it should motivate us to change. The gospel is transformational (2 Corinthians 5:17), creating a new person with new aspirations and new desires to be changed into the image of Christ. (2 Corinthians 3:18). The gospel, which is described in the Bible as “the hope that is in you” 1 Peter 3:15, is literally life-changing, life-altering, life-influencing. The gospel creates a life in Christ that is totally new, totally attuned to God’s will. The gospel is entirely comprehensive in its power and ability to save anyone from sin and then transform that person from living in sin to living in righteousness. Not perfection, no! by no means! but a desire to pursue God, become like Christ, and put off sin. (Romans 13:14, Galatians 5:16)
The influence of the gospel does not end our struggle with sin; we continue to go through life struggling with sin and its destructive influence because we are still under the effects of sin’s curse. Romans chapter seven describes this struggle, and Who delivers us from this struggle. Romans 7:24 Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? 25 Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin. It is Christ, it is not of our own power or ability, but Christ who continually delivers us from the destructive effects of sin. Spiritual growth is a process; it is a transformational process that, throughout life, brings you closer to God by making you more and more like Christ. Salvation brings you into a relationship with God, who desires to live in you and through you. (John 17) God has not left you without the ability and the power to overcome sin through the continued application of the gospel throughout a lifetime. Salvation is not a one-time event when we were saved by grace from the wages of sin (Romans 6:23), but afterward, by its power (Romans 1:16-17), we are continually being saved from sin and able to live by faith, the same faith that saved us. “Our salvation does not end at new birth. We are taught by Scripture to say not only that we have been saved (Ephesians. 2:8), but also that we shall be saved (Romans 5:9–10; 13:11; 1 Peter 1:5) and even now are being saved (Philippians 2:12–13; 1 Peter 1:9).” [2] When we consider the implications of the gospel on our lives, the multitude of blessings and benefits, it should cause us to seek to capitalize upon the great confidence we have in Christ, who has through His Word, and by the Spirit, continually doing a work in us until the end. (Phillipians 1:6)
The beneficial power and sufficiency of the gospel upon a believer’s life are without measure. “In Galatians 2:14, Paul lays down a powerful principle. He deals with Peter’s racial pride and cowardice by declaring that he was not living “in line with the truth of the gospel”. From this we see that the Christian life is a process of renewing every dimension of our life– spiritual, psychological, corporate, social–by thinking, hoping, and living out the “lines” or ramifications of the gospel. The gospel is to be applied to every area of thinking, feeling, relating, working, and behaving. [3] When the gospel is lived out in every dimension of life, its full effects have the greatest of implications.
“The implications and applications of Galatians 2:14 are vast. Implication #1 The power of the gospel. First, Paul is showing us that bringing the gospel truth to bear on every area of life is the way to be changed by the power of God. “Implication #2 The sufficiency of the gospel. Second, Paul is showing that we never “get beyond the gospel” in our Christian life to something more “advanced”. The gospel is not the first “step” in a “stairway” of truths, rather, it is more like the “hub” in a “wheel” of truth. The gospel is not just the A-B-C’s but the A to Z of Christianity. The gospel is not just the minimum required doctrine necessary to enter the kingdom, but the way we make all progress in the kingdom. We are not justified by the gospel and then sanctified by obedience, but the gospel is the way we grow (Galatians 3:1-3) and are renewed Colossians 1:6. It is the solution to each problem, the key to each closed door, the power through every barrier Romans 1:16-17.[4] Consider the powerful implication of the gospel, not that it just saves, but that it also continually transforms you through a lifetime. Remember again, the gospel is not just a one-time event when you repented from sin, and asked Christ to save you from your sin, accepting Him by faith as Lord and Savior. It was also turning over of your life, your whole life, fully to Him for His glory. (Luke 9:23) It was a denial of self and a desire for Him, embracing His life to be lived through you.
You and I have the greatest opportunity and potential to be everything God wants us to be by consistently seeking and applying God’s Truth to our everyday lives. By doing a consistent and constant inventory of our lives before God, by laying our lives up against the grid of His Word. When we do this, we are able to examine the dissimilarities and be motivated to change because we love God and want to keep His commandments. John 14:15 “If you love me, you will keep my commandments. The love of God that was given so freely through the gospel that saved us (John 3:16) is the very love that inculcates within us a passionate desire to obey God. (1 John 2:3-5, 5:2-4)
The gospel, which is described in the Bible as” the hope that is in you” 1 Peter 3:15, is literally life-changing, life-altering, life-influencing, as well as totally and entirely comprehensive in its power and ability to save anyone from their sins. But this is not the end of our struggle with sin; we continue to go through life struggling with sin and its destructive effects. Happily, however, by God’s grace, the gospel carries us through those life struggles, equipping us to deal with the sin that too often besets us. God has not left us without the ability and the power to overcome sin through the gospel. Romans 7:24 Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? 25 Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.
You have the spiritual ability and power to grow and change by grace through the study of God’s sufficient Word. God’s Word actually tells us that it profits us, trains us, completes, equips, and produces “good works” in us. That is a breath of fresh air to the weary soul who is trying to do everything in their own power with very little or no results. 2 Timothy 3:16 All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, 17 that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work. It is God who works in you His good pleasure (Philippians 2:13). This means that God is actively at work in believers, giving them the will, desire, and ability to live in a way that pleases Him. To the weary soul who has “tried everything” to change, connect the dots. Your efforts are failing because you are attempting to change by your own power.
Be careful, we are indeed commanded to be responsible and obey the commands of Scripture. But not by our own power or self-discipline. Spiritual growth is more than self-imposed discipline that is work-oriented. This kind of mentality is “more an ideology than a worship-driven relationship, and God’s practical call” upon our lives. It is “more a duty to be performed than a joy to be pursued.”[5] Spiritual growth implies that we are growing into the image of Christ. Jesus lives in and through us; we are in partnership with Him in the sanctification process. “What is the goal of this change? It is more than a better marriage, well-adjusted children, professional success, or freedom from a few nagging sins. God’s goal is that we would actually become like him. He doesn’t just want you to escape the fires of hell—though we praise God that through Christ you can! His goal is to free us from our slavery to sin, our bondage to self, and our functional idolatry, so that we actually take on his character!”[6] Every believer should be praying for a greater desire and ability to live a life that models Christ and pleases God. Shape your life around spiritual growth. (2 Peter 3:18) Rejoice and be joyful in small steps of growth, and don’t be driven by unreasonable expectations. Be sure to include an accountability partner to help you have a better understanding of your personal spiritual growth.
As we have seen, the gospel is the means by which a person is progressively transformed into the image of God’s Son. That is God’s eternal purpose baked into the Gospel. (Romans 8:29, 2 Corinthians 3:18) The Bible is not asking us to do something; it is encouraging us to become like Someone, that is, the Lord Jesus Christ. That’s what the gospel does, the gospel is not about doing something, it’s about becoming like Someone, the Lord Jesus Christ. That difference may seem subtle, but it is actually very significant. There is nothing necessarily wrong with teaching and guiding someone on how to do something spiritual, such as demonstrating and encouraging the fruit of the Spirit in one’s life. Galatians 5:22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. 24 And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified (literally killed) the flesh with its passions and desires. 25 If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit. But we must be on guard that the person we are encouraging to live out this fruit of the Spirit does not become a person who develops a performance-oriented mindset, learning “how to do something”, rather than learning how to become like Someone, that is the Lord Jesus Christ.
We want to guard against becoming performance-oriented by asking questions about heart motives. The heart is the real you, the place that God communes with you, the place that no one else knows except you and God. The heart is the control center for thoughts, behavior, speech, and actions.[7] This is the place, the secret place that you and God commune, that is the motivating force to live for Him. (Proverbs 4:23) God not only informs us that salvation comes from a confession and belief from the heart (Romans 10:9, 10), but that it “includes the promise that God will change his children by giving them a new heart.”[8] The new heart described in (Ezekiel 36:26) is a biblical metaphor foretelling of God replacing a “heart of stone” with a “heart of flesh”. It is realized in the new person that God creates in Christ (2 Corinthians 5:17, Ephesians 4:23-24, Colossians 3:10). “This new heart comes with new motivations, new desires, new affections, new loves, and new volitions. God changes you from the inside out when you become his child.”[9] We are not searching for ways to improve our lives, meet the expectations of other people, look good, or seem well-informed. We are seeking to reproduce Biblical truth in our lives that image Christ. We are seeking to be conformed into His image by the Word of God. We know that the Holy Spirit of God takes the Holy Word of God and makes us more like the Holy Son of God. God’s Word is transformative; it is the agent of change, and it is what moves upon our hearts to motivate us to become like Christ.
The destructive effect of being performance-oriented living leads to an exhausting merry-go-round of ever trying to live in our own self-prescribed righteousness, living our lives concerned about what others think of us, or attempting to do more and more work-oriented acts of compliance that we believe please God. But God wants our lives lived by and through the transformational effects of the Gospel. The gospel, when rightly understood and lived out in one’s life, reminds us of something important. “The gospel also reminds me that my righteous standing with God always holds firm regardless of my performance, because my standing is based solely on the work of Jesus and not mine. On my worst days of sin and failure, the gospel encourages me with God’s unrelenting grace toward me. On my best days of victory and usefulness, the gospel keeps me relating to God solely on the basis of Jesus’ righteousness and not mine.”[10] The Christian life is to be lived in harmony with the righteousness imputed in us as a result of the gospel. That righteousness is expressed by the Spirit in my everyday life. We live a righteous life modeled after Christ; the perfect model of a life lived in righteousness. (1 Peter 2:21)
Paul’s message of the gospel points to and exalts the Christ of the cross, a gospel that not only transforms a sinner but continually and progressively transforms them into the image of Jesus Christ. It is all about the gospel; it is all about the gospel that transforms lives, 1 Corinthians chapters 1 & 2. It was Martin Luther who said: “This life therefore is not righteousness, but growth in righteousness, not health, but healing, not being but becoming, not rest but exercise. We are not yet what we shall be, but we are growing toward it, the process is not yet finished, but it is going on, this is not the end, but it is the road. All does not yet gleam in glory, but all is being purified.”[11]
[1] You are free to distribute this paper as a homework assignment or use its contents for other useful means, as long as it is not altered, and credit is given to the author Brad Hilgeman.
[2] Packer, J. I.; Parrett, Gary A. Grounded in the Gospel
[3] Timothy Keller, The Centrality of the Gospel
[4] ibid
[5] Paul Tripp and Timothy Lane, How People Change,
[6] ibid
[7] Brad Hilgeman, Heart Homework Heart Study
[8] Greg Gifford, Heart & Habits: How We Change for Good
[9] ibid
[10] Milton Vincent, A Gospel Primer for Christians
[11] A small quotation from Luther’s Defense of the gospel, see Ninety-five Theses