Your Calling and the Gospel

A few months ago I preached a sermon on the call of Peter (Luke 5:1-11). Now, I thought that I had preached the gospel. And in one sense, I did. I made it clear that when we come up against Jesus we see that we are sinners. But I also said that when we repent, Jesus leans in and says to us "Don't be afraid" which signifies that rather than sending us to hell, he will save us by his work on the cross. That is the gospel. But it isn't the holistic gospel. What I mean is that the gospel doesn't just speak into the first part of our life. It doesn't just save us, it is not just once and done. In truth, "angels long to look" upon the gospel because it is the glorious news that everything has changed. The death and resurrection of Christ flipped the universe on its head. And part of that flipping was our relationship with God.

Paul says that we are "new creations." But that doesn't mean that we've been given a do-over (or a 'mulligan' as so many preachers preach). If all Jesus did by dying was give us a second chance--if all he did was replace our souls with new ones--we'd immediately screw it all up again. If you read all of 2 Corinthians 5:17, you'd see that the hinge is not us, but Christ. It is the fact that we are new creations in him. And all that means is that what is required of us now is not our own righteousness, but Jesus' (see also 2 Corinthians 5:21). This is the gospel, the good news that you don't have to perform anymore, only believe. And more importantly for this discussion, this is true eternally. The righteousness of Jesus is not like training wheels. We don't stand in him for a while and then get to go out on our own when we learn enough. Thousands of years of Israel turning her back to God proved that we will never be good enough. What is needed is eternal protection, eternal change. And Christ supplies that.

Now when you understand this you start to see the gospel everywhere. Every moral exhortation, for example, is always wedded with the gospel. Take Colossians 3:2-3. Paul says simply, "Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth." Ok, why? "For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God." Without the gospel, you will go right back to doing works-righteousness. But Paul says that the problem is not that you aren't trying hard enough. The problem is that you don't believe what Christ has done for you. Simply put, the life of the believer is an excercise in believeing the gospel more thoroughly, more deeply.

Now back to the call of Peter. When I originally preached the sermon, I preached the gospel as the thing that saves you and then said "Now go put it into action and catch men to life." The problem was that I had asked them to be saved by grace initially, but be saved by works thereafter. It was a moralistic end to an otherwise gospel-centered sermon. How should I have ended it? Well, I think that I should have said that the only way you'll be able to heed the call God has on you is if you believe that Jesus accepted his. There is only one person in history, I would have said, who has truly and fully accepted his call. And his call was to drink from the cup of wrath. And this changes everything. When we think of Jesus who died on our behalf to catch men to life, we are given the power to do the same. And only then will we be able to endure the beatings and brusings of a life devoted to Jesus. In hardest of times, we can look to him who loved us and accepted the call no one else could have heeded. This is what will sustain us. And though it is a lesson not easily learned, I know it will sustain me.