27. The Gospel Eradicates Passivity

Quick Recap: The Gospel is foundational to our tech because it impacts everything we do. We've discussed previously how the Gospel is a "been done", it's good news of what God's already done for us. It's not a list of to-dos so God will love us or take pity on us. He already loves you and me, even though we were his enemies (not just lost puppies with good intentions - Romans 5:8, Ephesians 2:4-5). So we don't earn salvation, Jesus did. This means we can be assured of our wholeness and eternal life not because we look at our life and say "Yes, I'm awesome, I'm certain God loves me because of me" but we can with real clarity say "Yes, I'm terrible - and I'm certain God loves me because of Jesus." See episodes 1 and 2 for more on this! In today's episode we're going to talk about the action of the Gospel. It's true we don't act in order to earn God's love (see above), but God's love must push us to action - we love because Christ first loved us (1 John 4:19). We'll look today at the four things we're empowered to do in faith (which is a verb) because of God's love for us: pray make disciples repent forgive trustI didn't have a chance to go into this on the podcast, so I'll put it here: God shows us that love is an action, not just a feeling. God's love from heaven was real, but it was only powerful in defeating sin, Satan, and Death when it came as Jesus, the Son of God, as a human who would live, die, and rise again to physically bring us new life. It was the same love, God's feelings for us didn't change, but it had to actually happen to win us the victory. The only difference between the Old Testament and the New Testament is a new covenant in Jesus' name - we still serve the same God. It took action to get that new covenant - and Love came down to establish it. Not a love of warm feelies, but a love of action - even action to an innocent death on a cross. What held him there? It wasn't nails (Matthew 26:53). It was love. Not soft, push-over, do-what-you-like because I don't want to offend you love, but a love more than willing to offend if it meant choosing the highest good for the other person. Jesus set his godhood aside like a robe (Philippians 2:7) and became fully man - not because he wanted a challenge, but because he wanted many siblings in the kingdom of God (Romans 8:29). So we also love - not to make ourselves or others "feel" good, but to extend the love that looks to others good and not our own. It's the same good that God establishes for all who love him. It's a love that keeps God a father, not a genie. He knows how to give good gifts (Matthew 7:11), not simply fulfill wishes, and he is working all things together for the good of those who love him (Romans 8:28) - to those who do the will of his Son (John 14:15).