Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Gospel centered life, gospel centered discipleship, gospel centered preaching. This phrase, gospel centered, is thrown around a lot by a lot of christians. But what does it mean exactly? What does it mean for a christian to live a gospel centered life? Or really is the answer just that the gospel is the door to get into the christian life? And then there's just a bunch of things you ought to do to be a Christian, whether it's act a certain way, think a certain way, vote a certain way. I'm Eric Rasmussen. This is the concerning hymn podcast. And today we have on Mike Eels. He joins us back again on the podcast to talk about the gospel centered life. What does it mean for christians to live a life centered around the gospel? It's a great conversation. If you listen to us on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, we'd really appreciate it if you gave us a rating or a review. And if you watch these episodes on YouTube, we'd be very thankful if you'd liked and subscribed to our channel. Remember, the concerning hymn podcast is brought to you by Emmaus Bible College. Here at Emmaus, it's our goal to impact the world for Christ in everything we do, whether that's educating young men and women in the classroom by teaching them bible and theology, or by preparing them for professional careers like education and business.
Or it's through ministries like concerning him or our conference that we have every year in May called iron sharpens iron. For more information about Emmaus, please visit Emmaus.edu. If you'd like to listen to other podcast episodes like this one, or read biblically centered articles or listen to biblically focused sermons, please visit concerninghim.com.
All right, we are here with Mike Eels. Welcome, Mike.
[00:01:43] Speaker B: Thank you. Good to be with you again.
[00:01:45] Speaker A: Thank you. We already kind of heard your story. In fact, the last time you were on the podcast was really, the whole thing was your story in a lot of ways.
[00:01:53] Speaker B: And yeah, what God's doing in my life.
[00:01:54] Speaker A: Sure, exactly. And kind of specifically looking at it, what is it like to have Tourette's and living the christian life? But in it, we got to hear a lot of your stories. So I would say a lot of times when we have people on the podcast, we kind of walk, hey, who are you? But for those listening, go back and listen to Mike's last episode and Tourette's in the christian life. It was a great conversation.
[00:02:14] Speaker B: I really, I still have it and God is still good, so he's still using my weaknesses and showing his strength.
[00:02:21] Speaker A: Amen.
[00:02:21] Speaker B: It was fun.
[00:02:22] Speaker A: I'm excited today to talk about gospel centered life. What does that mean?
This is a passion of yours, if I understand. If that's.
[00:02:31] Speaker B: Yeah, it's really changed my life and the way I approach ministry and discipleship.
[00:02:36] Speaker A: And I think that there's a, you know, with a lot of christians out there, there's maybe a misunderstanding of the purpose of the gospel.
[00:02:43] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:02:44] Speaker A: Kind of where I want to start and hear your thoughts on this. I feel like a lot of christians view the gospel as.
This is my entrance in.
[00:02:53] Speaker B: Exactly.
[00:02:53] Speaker A: This is the door. The right. Christ calls himself the door. So there's certainly an aspect in which the gospel is a door. Right. And being transferred from domain of darkness into the kingdom of Christ. Right. That's colossians one. And so there is this aspect in which the gospel is a door, but a lot of people might think of it as just a door. Right. Like, oh, I already know the gospel. I already know about Jesus and his death on the cross. I want to move on to other stuff.
[00:03:22] Speaker B: Those are the abcs let's go to more important.
[00:03:25] Speaker A: And why. Just to. Just right off the bat, why is that a wrong way to view the purpose of the gospel?
[00:03:31] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, just to keep fleshing out what you're saying. I see that, too. Where people, they don't see the gospel as a home. They see it as a hotel. They see it as an initial entrance, a gateway, as opposed to a pathway for the christian life. It's like, well, I'm saved the fundamentals and let's move on. But when I look at the epistles, I mean, when I look at the Old New Testament revelation, but when I look at Paul especially and the other writers of the New Testament, it is how we come to know God. The gospel is an announcement. It's good news about what Christ has done. We respond to it in repentance and faith. We come into a right relationship with God. But then I see Paul speaking to the Romans in the beginning of romans one, and he can't wait to get back and preach the gospel to the roman church. He can't wait to continue to remind them of who God is and what he's done and then flesh out the implications of God's grace in our lives.
[00:04:32] Speaker A: So then what is. Maybe we should talk about. There's a lot of ways we could go, but I want to talk about a gospel worldview. I know worldview is something that you and I have talked about before. I had a podcast with Mr. Roy Cozen. He's a professor here to. Yeah, back in the fall, and we talked about what is a worldview? And he was kind of talking about in general, if this concept's foreign to you, what is it? But maybe getting specific a little bit more today, what would be a gospel centered worldview?
[00:05:00] Speaker B: Yeah. Well, let me just say this. I think I read a great article by a gentleman named Dane Ortland, and you can find this article. It's called what is all this gospel centered talk about? And he know this is kind of a new buzzword, the gospel centered life, the gospel centered preaching. And he said there are really two ways that he sees this language being used as a christian worldview. Like, we have a gospel centered worldview. It's like worldview is a lens, a pair of glasses through which we see and interpret all of life.
And so that's part of what it is. It's also used in the sense of gospel centered discipleship, gospel centered growth. Christians aren't behaving. People aren't behaving. So how do we change them? Through moralism, behavior modification, moral policing? Or do we motivate them with the gospel? But to your question, what is this worldview? Well, I think it's helpful to make some distinctions. We talk about the gospel announcement, which is really zoomed in on in one corinthians 15, verse three through five. You know, this is the gospel we preached you by which you were saved. Paul says that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures. He was buried. He was raised on the third day according to the scriptures. Boil it down. Christ died for our sins and rose again. That's the announcement. But for the announcement to make sense, there has to be a worldview, a gospel story, a gospel context, a scaffolding for the gospel. And basically, that is our meta narrative. Creation, fall, redemption, restoration. And that's how we look at life. So you won't get the announcement right if you don't get the backstory right. So if you don't get the fall right, man is not just marred by sin, but man is spiritually dead. Man is a slave to sin. The fall has ruined us. We're corpses. If you don't get that, it's going to shape the way you bring in the announcement. It's not just man is.
Some worldviews. See, man is not spiritually dead. He's just kind of sick because of the fall.
And so the announcement has changed. Here's some good advice about what you have to do to cooperate with God for salvation. Whereas I think in a biblical revelation, we're hearing that man is a slave to sin, dead to God, has no ability spiritually.
Man is dead, a corpse. And so the announcement is Christ has to take that initiative and rescue you by grace, pure grace. And there's only one way to respond to grace. Only add two to the heart that complements grace is faith, repentant faith. So you have to have the worldview in place.
[00:07:48] Speaker A: It's fascinating. Last summer I was reading William Kelly, old brother and author.
[00:07:52] Speaker B: That's old school.
[00:07:53] Speaker A: Yeah.
And he had this. I remember I wrote it all down. He had a few paragraphs. He basically started off, if you misunderstand the fall, and he just went through all the implications of, like, you misunderstand the gospel, you misunderstand the christian life, you misunderstand who Christ is and his purpose and our future hope and all of these things. And he was just listing out every single thing. If you don't properly understand what happened at the fall, what our sin, nature is, then everything else is loss.
[00:08:26] Speaker B: And at the same time, if you don't get creation right either, I think when you're sharing the gospel with especially people who are biblically illiterate, like Paul does in acts 17 on Mars Hill, if you don't go and say, listen, you have a creator who has rights over you that you're made for and you've offended him. If you don't let them see the holiness of the creator God, then they don't see what sin is. They can't understand what sin is. I'm held accountable. I'm liable to a holy God who's made me. He has rights over me. He has the rights to judge me, and I have put him on the back burner. I've put everything else in front of him. So you got to get creation right, you got to get the fall right. And then the redemption story, it becomes good news, not just more good advice. And of course, the rest of the story is he restores us restoration.
[00:09:22] Speaker A: So then that restoration that happens, right, happens initially after we're saved and the new birth, new creation, and then ultimately when we see him face to face and we're in our glorified bodies. Right. But this restoration, how is the restoration gospel centered? Then you talked about these imperatives in scripture and talk about living the gospel centered life, just trying to transition to that idea of the gospel for somebody who's biblically illiterate, and you give them all of this. But then when they get the gospel and they see that they're a sinner and they see what Christ has done and they accept it and they love it.
How is it that it's the gospel that's changing their life and is the center of their worldview and not just, oh, now it's time to, I'm a Christian now, so I should go to church and I should vote this way and I should do these things and all of whatever it is and all these things that we identify as being the christian way of doing things or the christian mindset.
Why is it more, the gospel is the focus, if that makes sense.
[00:10:32] Speaker B: I think the gospel becomes the engine for the christian life. So christians aren't behaving. We tend to do moralism, religion. We give good advice about what they have to do, clean up, try harder.
That message doesn't work with unbelievers. Right, because they're spiritually dead.
They need the word of God and the spirit of God to bring heart change, to do a great work in their lives. But when it comes to believers, we sometimes think that now we've had the gospel elementary, now we move on to the, we put ourselves back under law, like law becomes the bread and butter, where we give ourselves more rules and more behavior modification. We just attack behavior rather than go back to the heart and preach the gospel to our hearts.
There's a skit, it's a comedic skit with Bob Newhart in it. It's called the stop it skit. I don't know if you've ever seen that.
[00:11:31] Speaker A: I don't think so.
[00:11:32] Speaker B: But it's clean. You could find it on YouTube. It's funny. This young lady comes into his office. Bob Newhart's playing a, a psychologist, and she comes in with all these bad habits and problems.
She has self destructive relationships with men. She also constantly thinks about being buried alive in a box. And so she's full of anxiety. And he said, oh, well, I can solve this for you with two words. You pay me $5 and I'll give you two words. And this is my therapy. He says, you might want to write these down. Here it is. Stop it. Just stop it.
And she goes, eventually you tell me to stop it, but you're not giving me the resources. I don't have the strength. How do I. I don't have the motivation to stop. I don't have the resources to stop. And that's what we do often with religion and even jokel. Churches play the moralism game. We just go after people's behavior. We just give them more rules. We make Christianity negatives. Don't drink, smoke or chew or date girls. That do we give all these lists and lists of dues? And there certainly are commands all over scripture, but they're rooted, those imperatives, those commands are rooted in indicatives. Statements about what Christ has done for us, statements about who we are in Christ, statements about who Christ is for us in the past, present and the future. So, for example, how does Paul call the roman believers to change and to grow and to transform? He says, romans twelve one.
He says, offer your bodies as living sacrifices, give your whole life as worship. But what does he ground that command in a gospel indicative? Therefore, in light of God's mercies, I urge you, by the mercies of God, I urge you to offer your bodies as living sacrifices. So he has spent eleven chapters in Romans fleshing out the gospel of grace, God's mercy to jews and gentiles alike, in spite of our depravity and sin. And he says, in light of that mercy, I urge you to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice. Give your life over to Christ.
Don't offer the members of your bodies to sin anymore.
That's, I think one of the ways that we motivate people to change and grow is keep preaching the gospel to our hearts rather than just stop it. Stop it. Try harder.
You want a christian life that's done out of gratitude, not just purely out of fear. And I think there are other ways the Bible motivates us with a sense of a fear of God and accountability before our father, who is a just judge the beam of judgment seat. I think that's clearly taught in two corinthians five, our christian lives will be evaluated and we can lose or gain reward. But it's not just negatives, it's not just blank commands. It's imperatives rooted in gospel indicatives.
[00:14:40] Speaker A: My wife and I work at a camp in the summers, and I've taught this passage, James four, the beginning of James four. And James is telling these jewish believers that he's writing to, he's talking about, this is a section where he says, you pray and you don't receive, or you ask and you don't receive because you ask for the wrong motives. Don't, you know, friendship with the world? Does that mean with then? So he kind of lists a bunch of these things that they're doing wrong. And I'll do a Bible study and I'll just give that section and I'll ask, what do you guys think James's solution is? Oh, it probably tells him to do these things better. And then the next verse I'll show it and this is something along the lines of, but God gives a greater grace. And then James goes into this is draw near to God and he'll draw near to you. He goes into these commandments of what to do but after I've loved it because it's such a good example of how the gospel changes us, right? It's calling out the sin and it's not just do these things better or you better fix them. What are you doing? It's rest and rely on the grace of God, the gospel message. And then as a response to that, here's the guidance for how you ought to fix your life, if that makes sense. It's similar to what you're talking about with Paul in Romans twelve.
[00:15:58] Speaker B: Oh yeah, for sure. I think you see that even in Romans six.
He's calling for these christians to realize who they are in Christ now. And he know, shall we go on sinning so grace may increase? Like what's the right response to grace? Is it just live like the devil now? I mean we can just now take advantage of God's grace. He says, shall we go on sinning so grace may increase. By no means. We've died to sin.
[00:16:24] Speaker A: God forbid. I love that. Yeah, God forbid.
[00:16:27] Speaker B: Meganoita, right? What a ghastly thought the Englishman would say. So he says, I want you to say no to sin. Offer your bodies to God, not as instruments to unrighteousness. Stop living like slaves because here's the gospel truth about you. This is God's grace in your life. Here's the gospel indicative, if you will. You're dead to sin. When you put your faith in Christ, you are united to the benefits of his death and resurrection. And now you're no longer a slave to sin, you're a slave to Christ. You've been raised up to new life, you're dead to sin. This is who you are in Christ because of his grace. Now therefore, go live out your emancipation.
I like to tell the kids about the story about the emancipation proclamation. Abraham Lincoln signed a document into place that would legally set slaves free. In the south, a war had been fought, blood had been spilt to secure their freedom.
Many of those slaves could walk off the plantation, but a lot of them did not practice their new position. They didn't live in light of the good news. And so a lot of them stayed on the plantation and lived out that old slavery. But because of who I am in Christ and his grace and his mercy, because of the good news, what happens to me in Christ? Well, now I can live out my emancipation, my chains have fallen off. I can run and serve the Lord.
[00:18:03] Speaker A: So then, when you're in relationships with other people and you want to talk about, specifically discipleship, how does this gospel centered focus, this gospel centered life, how do we have gospel centered discipleship, essentially, what does that look like in those types of relationships?
[00:18:21] Speaker B: That's a big topic. But I mean, just practically speaking, of course, I can think about with my Tristate students, the students at our church, the students from years of being a youth leader.
Of course, we give them boundaries. We give rules, we give discipline, we give consequences. That's all part of discipleship, teaching, instruction. But I've seen that well timed grace in young people's lives and in adults lives brings change. I've seen that. I've had kids who I thought, man, this kid is trouble. This kid professes to know the Lord. But my word, they're just not living out who they are in Christ. They're a rebel. And you say with well timed grace, I still love you.
I'm going to hold you accountable. I'm not going to give up on you. We're going to keep moving ahead. And in months or years later, you see that they've been inspired by that grace to change. My kids at Tristate get so sick of me telling this using this illustration, but it's Jean Veljan, this story in Victor Hugo's Le Mez, right where Jean Veljan is this criminal, 19 years in a french prison. He's released. He goes and he goes to several respectable establishments looking for food and a place to stay. Everyone turns him down. You're a wretch. You're a number. You're a former convict. Until he knocks on one door. It's the door of a preacher, if you will. And the man lets him into the home and feeds him, puts him up for the night. And how does Jean Valjean repay the mercy and the grace of the preacher in the night? He steals the silverware and he hotfoots it out of town. He gets caught. He lies to the police. Oh, the preacher gave me the silverware. They bring him to the house to check out his story. And the preacher shocks Jean Beljean. And he goes along with the story.
[00:20:17] Speaker A: Oh, yeah.
[00:20:18] Speaker B: I sent him on his way to go sell the silverware, and I told you to take the candlesticks. Know, why didn't you do that? And Jean Valjean is shaking. He's just so caught off guard by the grace, not only the mercy of the preacher, he doesn't give him what he deserves. The law is standing right there in front of him. He could have gotten what he deserved, but he also adds on, and I told you to take the candlesticks, too. And Jean Beljean leaves. That scene kind of goes back to his past, but then, as he continues to do his old life, he's bothered by that. And you hear that he can't live any longer the same way after he's been shown that mercy and that unconditional, no strings attached kindness from the preacher, it took the heart of an old, hard hearted man and melted it. And that's the story of Zacchaeus. I love the story of Zacchaeus. It's one of my favorites. As Jesus is walking through Jericho, and he makes a beeline right to a tree where the worst man in town is the vertically challenged guy, Zacchaeus. He's a chief tax collector. I mean, tax collectors are bad, but I mean, imagine if you're the chief tax collector. You're the worst man in town. And Jesus goes right to him, looks up, calls him by name, I think this is divine appointment, and says, I must stay at your house today. And Zacchaeus comes down and receives him joyfully. And the next scene is him saying to Jesus, I want to change.
I've done nothing but take. I want to give to the poor now, half of my goods. I'm going to go above and beyond what the law requires. I want to pay back four times what I have stolen from know. And so I want to give back. And Jesus says, salvations come to this house. I see evidence of a heart transformed by grace. You're a son of Abraham. You're a man of faith. And we now see how grace has transformed Zacchaeus. So the funny thing is, I grew up thinking the story of Zacchaeus. I grew up in a church that preached moralism, good advice about what I have to do to earn my way to God. I grew up thinking the story was, well, my Sunday school teacher told me, with, I think, flannel graph, you can be a zacchaeus, too. You can climb your trees and earn Jesus love. But it's not a story about a good man seeking Jesus. It's a story about a good savior seeking a bad man. Jesus comes down and meets him where he's at in grace and mercy, says, I must fellowship with you, and it changes him. And I've seen that to be the case, that well timed grace in people's lives, it creates gratitude. And then people, they go, I want to do good works. Not so God will love me. I want to do good works because he already does. Or like Aw Tozer said, we do good works walking away from the cross. We don't walk up bringing our good works to the cross.
We come in our brokenness to the foot of the cross, and we walk away wanting to do good works. So I think that's the key to biblical ethics, is the gospel of grace.
[00:23:28] Speaker A: So, getting a little bit more practical here, you have got a discipleship type of relationship with somebody, mentoring somebody. You call it that, right? Professing believer, and it's time to give them advice, just advice about life. You should do this. You shouldn't be doing this. All these types of things practically. How do you communicate that in a way that doesn't communicate moralism, but communicates that this should be gospel motivated life change? Or do you give that practical advice, or do you just talk about the gospel? And that's it.
[00:24:05] Speaker B: Let me give you a concrete example. So you've got a young person, and they're interested in a dating situation.
How do I come in with a gospel centered worldview, a biblical worldview. And how do I motivate them properly with the gospel to do this relationship in a way that pleases God? So one thing you would say is, listen, the gospel teaches us that we are so desperately lost, we need God's no strings attached. Grace, the fall.
It's left us with these hearts that are idle factories. And so our tendency and our sin is to go and make that guy or that girl our justification, our meaning, our significance, our purpose, that person becomes our idol. Or we're so concerned about what the person across the dinner table thinks of us, we're broken or we're worried or we're panicked. We are not at peace. But if you believe that God in Christ loves you in spite of your sin, in spite of your idolatry, then it doesn't matter what the person across the table thinks of you. All that matters is what Jesus thinks of you in Christ. He is my righteousness. And so that frees you up. It liberates you to just be at peace, to just focus on the other person, not find your identity in the person. That's the problem with dating, I guess that sometimes happens at Emmaus Bible College. Young people meet each other in the fall, and they get really serious, and then there's a breakup, and they lose their identity, and they're depressed and their world falls apart. It's because they've made that person a God substitute. And boyfriends and girlfriends make terrible gods.
So do spouses. They make terrible gods. But when you show people their idolatrous hearts and then God's grace and the unconditional acceptance you find in Christ, that just frees you up to love that person. Well, with a Christ centered love, and it frees you from the weight of having to earn their approval, and it frees that person. You've made an idol from having to carry the weight of being your God.
The gospel, it just speaks into everything. It should shape the way you do your marriage. Husbands love your wives as Christ loved them.
[00:26:33] Speaker A: Exactly. I was going to say, it's fascinating you use the example of a romantic relationship because everywhere in the New Testament that we have commandments for how to interact in a romantic relationship, it is explicitly gospel centered advice. I mean, Galatians five, Peter. It's like rooted in, this is who Christ is and what he's done. This is how you ought to interact with one another. So the whole purpose of how should I interact with my spouse is, which I think we could probably apply to dating, but is when you ask yourself that question and you're thinking about it biblically, your mind should immediately go to the gospel, and it should be the gospel that is kind of driving that, right? Does that make sense?
[00:27:18] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, absolutely. I mean, it's not just marriage. It's Philippians two. Don't be conceited.
Put others in front of yourself.
What model do we have of selfless, sacrificial love?
Well, here's the incarnation. Although he exists in the very form of God, he didn't regard that equality of God as something to use to his own advantage. But he made himself low. He emptied himself to the point of death, even death on a cross. And so the model is Christ in the gospel. No one's ever come so low because no one's ever come from so high. And you see that humility, that selfless love, and you go, oh, that's how I'm supposed to treat other people. So again, no more selfish ambition, vain conceit. That's a command that's rooted in the gospel.
It oversimplifies things a little bit. I understand that. But I want to err on the side of grace. And I see how that well timed grace in our lives, it stirs our hearts in an affection for Jesus rather than just, I've got to behave. I used to try and be moral police. I used to work at a grocery store to supplement our income when I did pastoral ministry in Atlantic, Iowa. And when I first got there, you got people stocking shelves with you in hy vee grocery store and you got unbelievers there. They're swearing and they're talking crudely about customers and they have bad attitudes. And at first I just wanted to know, shake my fist and be the moral place. And then I realized they need Jesus and he'll change their want tos. Don't put the cart before the horse. They need God's grace to transform them.
And then they'll become a new creation, and then we can call them to life change.
[00:29:11] Speaker A: An important aspect of discipleship is what occurs in the local church. I did it prepare you for this, but you talked earlier about having a Sunday school teacher when you're young, essentially teach you moralism, right? And if we talk about teaching and preaching in the local church, and how do we teach what? Scripture. Especially if you think about churches that choose to do expository preaching, how do you preach and teach moral, not moralism, right. How do you preach and teach in a way that's gospel centered while you're just working your way through a book or working your way through the passage?
[00:29:49] Speaker B: Gospel centered preaching? Christ centered preaching? Absolutely. That's one of the other buzes. But I think there's something really healthy about that. I mean, you want to say, what's the author's intention? What's the author saying? But it's so nice if you can tie that passage back to the bigger story, tie it back to Christ and how he fulfills that command or how that passage points ahead to wrote this. I copied this off because I was hoping for an opportunity to share this, but there is a great book written by Tullian Chavigian. He's the grandson of Billy Graham, and he's had some struggles recently, but nevertheless, he wrote a great book called surprised by Grace. And he talks about that gospel centered, Christ centered preaching.
It's concerning him, right?
[00:30:44] Speaker A: Absolutely.
[00:30:45] Speaker B: Christ in all the scriptures. He says this. He says, we tend to moralize the Bible and play the moral place. But he said how sad it is when people mistake the Bible for a self help book of moral stories to emulate. Contrary to popular thought, the Bible is not a record of blessed good, but rather of the blessed. The Bible is not a witness to the best people making it up to God. It's a witness to God making it down to the worst people. Far from being a book full of moral heroes whom we are commanded to emulate, what we discover is that the so called heroes of the Bible are not really heroes at all. They fall. They fail. They make huge mistakes. They turn from the Lord. They get afraid. They're selfish, they're deceptive, they're egotistical, they're unreliable. The Bible is a long story, one long story of God's mercy meeting our rebellion with his rescue, our sin with his salvation. It's God meeting our guilt with his grace, our badness with his goodness. And this is the best part of the quote. I think the overwhelming focus of the Bible is not the work of the redeemed, but the work of the Redeemer, which means that the Bible is not first a recipe book for christian living, but a revelation book of Jesus, who is the answer to our unchristian living.
So, I mean, I've taken kids through the Old Testament, and we often think this is just, here's another old Testament hero to emulate. And the fun part is showing them this guy is not as great as you think he is. He has failures like we do.
Noah, I mean, David, a man after God's own heart, a murderer, and an know all these heroes, but they're all broken. And who's the real hero of the Old Testament? It's Jesus, the one that, the one who will be born, the seed of the woman who will crush the serpent's head, who will bring redemption and restoration. Christ is at the center of it all. And I think good preaching, I mean, there are other ways to do it, but I think I like to bring it back to Christ and the redemption story and not leave Christ off on the fringes. I like to make the connections. It all points ahead to Christ.
[00:33:04] Speaker A: I appreciate in all of this that you haven't done what I think christians often naturally do. Kind of bringing this back to the beginning of our conversation, which is in our communication about living, to differentiate between the saved and the unsaved in a lot of ways, like we might say, well, you know what I'm talking about. Well, this person, I don't know if they're a believer, so I'm going to really make sure I give the gospel to them. This person's a believer, though. They got that figured out in discipleship or preaching or whatever. They've got the gospel figured out. So let me just encourage them how they ought to live. Let me just tell them, no, the Bible says you got to do this, not that the Bible says you got to think this way, not that way. And in a way, what you're saying is like, look, the solution to all of as the gospel, right? I mean, if you don't know the Lord, well, obviously your solution is the gospel. But if you do know the Lord and you want to grow in your sanctification, well, the solution is the gospel. I texted you earlier today, and I'm.
[00:33:57] Speaker B: Going to pull it up.
[00:33:58] Speaker A: Please.
[00:33:58] Speaker B: Yeah, I was hoping you would pull that up. It was a good encouragement.
[00:34:01] Speaker A: Somebody tweeted this today and I sent it to you just because of our conversation. It's a quote from John O. And it's holiness is nothing but the implanting, writing, and living out the gospel in our souls.
[00:34:14] Speaker B: Yes. Can you read that one more time?
[00:34:16] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely.
Holiness is nothing but the implanting, writing, and living out the gospel in our souls. That's John Owen. And I love that idea of you want to grow in your sanctification. It's not a bunch of check. It's not a big checklist. You got to start checking them all off. It's living out the gospel. It's letting the gospel grow and be cultivated in your daily walk.
[00:34:41] Speaker B: Yeah, the gospel isn't our living. It's an announcement. But how do we live in light of the announcement? And that's, I think, really important. We sometimes talk about someone said, I can't remember how it went. Something like, preach the gospel at all times and sometimes use words. Yeah, well, I don't know. I get what they mean by that. We should live in such a way that we don't undercut the gospel. The gospel is an announcement. It has content. We must preach it. But it is such a powerful message that when the Holy Spirit takes hold of it in our lives, it should have implications for our marriages and how we respond to government, what we do with our taxes, how we treat others, how we approach our parents, how we approach our mates.
The gospel. We got to keep preaching the gospel to our hearts. God's mercy is the fulcrum that moves us to offer bodies as a living sacrifice.
Good. Little bit of Owens in there. This is good for you.
[00:35:40] Speaker A: It might be the shortest sentence John Owen ever wrote.
[00:35:43] Speaker B: Yeah, for sure. Yeah, I've got volumes. Oh, yeah.
[00:35:47] Speaker A: Well, thank you for coming in today. This was great.
[00:35:49] Speaker B: It was refreshing.
[00:35:49] Speaker A: Appreciate it, Mike.
[00:35:50] Speaker B: Yeah, there's a lot of good news.
Thanks, brother.
[00:35:53] Speaker A: Thank you.
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