Why as a Christian should I Preach the Gospel to Myself?
The Role of Scripture Meditation in our Sanctification, Part One
INTRODUCTION:
We will never tire of who God is toward us in Christ—it will be our theme throughout eternity. The slain Lamb will be the center of heaven (Rev 5:6-14; 21:22-23). Christ’s perfections are revealed in the gospel, therefore, the gospel is the very ‘food’ or manna of the church, for in the gospel we keep discovering Christ in all His offices; all His beauty; all His suitability to be our Savior.
Now, the gospel is not just the means of entering the Christian life. The gospel, the Word of grace, is God’s means of constantly renewing us (Acts 20:24, 32). The gospel ‘order’ is also retained throughout our progress in sanctification: we are stunned by our personal sin; and we are amazed at God’s grace and sufficiency toward us in Christ. Therefore, to forget this ‘gospel order’ in our Christian walk is to risk entering patterns of defeat.
We also preach the gospel to ourselves in order to learn to live upon Christ as our ‘Source Person.’ For in Christ, we keep presenting to the eye of faith that Christ is our source and supply for: sonship; status; acceptance; adoption; heir-ship; power; truth; fruitfulness; fellowship; love; wisdom from God; King; righteousness; and sanctification.
We need a constant intake of the gospel because the gospel is utterly counter-intuitive. Everything in our natures and in our natural reason loathes being an object of pity—we want our lovability, our worth, value, importance, and acceptance to flow from virtues in us and to rest upon our performance. In essence, our flesh wants to ‘be in charge of’ our own lovability and security. We were born with a satanic religion of self-help and self-sufficiency which says, “The more perfect I am the more love I will receive.” The world’s value system allies itself with this ‘natural religion’—and in terms of a person’s thought life, years of pride of life thinking cuts deeper and deeper grooves for this ‘natural religion’ to embed itself. Only the word of God’s grace can displace this mindset.
Now, in regards to just how counter-intuitive the gospel is, think of God’s redemptive plan— that Almighty God should take pleasure in bruising His Son in our place (Is 53:10). Consider that the Father treated Christ as the worst criminal who ever lived so that I could be adopted as a child of God (Gal 3:13). All of this was necessary so that I could be brought to heaven without God striking a single blow to me in wrath. It is amazing beyond words that the Son should be sent to earth to reap the eternal consequences of what I had sown—all that I might be given the infinite benefits of His obedience on my behalf (2 Thess 2:14).
This is radically counter-intuitive. Thinking this way does not come natural to us. We must train our minds to think this way by preaching the glorious gospel to ourselves. Only the Word of grace; the gospel, can change the pattern in our thought life. Only by feeding on the gospel can we begin to reckon, as a habit, that our acceptance and fellowship with God are grounded upon who Christ is and what He has done—and not on our performance.
As we feed on the gospel, the arguments from the ‘logic’ of divine grace become part of our reasoning processes. It is a blessed exercise to cut these new grooves because gospel reasoning over time becomes a way of re-educating the mind, conscience, will, and affections.
Through disciplined thinking and meditating on the Word, we cut new channels for our thought life. In doing so we gain the sweet optimism that God desires to meet with us for fellowship and intimacy, and that God is glorified in giving His people endless installments of mercy, grace and love. Christ, our sympathetic High Priest who is touched by our infirmities bids us come to the throne of grace with confidence that we might find grace and mercy to help in time of need (Heb 4:15-16). Grace then becomes the subject of our meditations—and not for our comfort alone. For the grace of God in the gospel lifts me out of self-concern to be burdened in behalf of others.
I’m reminded in the gospel that the difference between me and my unsaved neighbor is ultimately the sovereign compassion and mercy of God (1 Cor 4:7). Therefore, like Paul, I am a debtor to all men. The gospel deepens my compassion for the lost by teaching me to receive God’s supernatural love as a function of His undeserved kindness. Thus, the gospel equips me to love others supernaturally (Jn 17:21-23, 26).
The gospel is vital to the ‘treasure principle.’ As a man thinks in his heart so is he (Prov 23:7). The mind of a man always returns to what he esteems as his treasure. No wonder Jonathan Edwards described true religion as existing primarily in the affections. In Matthew six Jesus drove home the treasure principle—explaining in just a few words how life-directing and life-dominating a man’s treasure really is. A man: reviews his treasure; displays his treasure; adds to his treasure; speaks of his treasure; follows his treasure; and is ruled by his treasure (Matt 6:19-21).
A man’s treasure determines his life direction, his ‘happiness formula,’ his ‘score card’ in life, his goals—all of these flow from what he perceives as true treasure. Only the gospel gives the new ‘organ’ of sight that allows a man to see above the horizon of this world so as to gaze upon his true treasure in heaven. Only the gospel installs a spiritual faculty of sight that gives a savor for eternal things (Eph 1:15-21; 1 Cor 2:12).
The centrality of the gospel in ministry and preaching is not a new idea; Paul made it his goal to preach the gospel to believing congregations. One of Paul’s key desires was to come to Rome to preach the gospel to believers there (Rom 1:7, 15). In addition, Paul was determined to preach nothing but Christ and Him crucified among the Corinthians (1 Cor 1:17; 2:2).
Preaching the gospel to ourselves is a spiritual discipline that is learned. This discipline is not simply general thoughts of Christ and grace, the discipline of preaching the gospel to one’s self involves specific ways that Christ’s redemptive work answers our need and ruin as sinners. To preach the gospel to oneself is to always be about the business of ‘matching’ Christ’s Person, work, and resources with our spiritual poverty, ruin, and need.
These points of contact between our need and Christ’s sufficiency, may be designated “access points” for preaching gospel specifics. By that I mean that we find “access” to subjects for gospel meditation by thinking through and contemplating God’s saving activity toward us in these specifics. In this lesson we will look at the first three of the following six gospel “access points.”
- The Gospel is the VOICE of Christ’s love to His sheep
- The Gospel is the VERDICT of God’s justice at the cross
- The Gospel is the VALUE of justification by faith through grace
- The Gospel is the VIEW of God’s glory in the face of Christ
- The Gospel is the VANTAGE point whereby we see the kingdom
- The Gospel is the VICTORY won by Christ at Calvary
I. The Gospel is the VOICE of Christ’s love to His sheep
Christ as redeeming shepherd restores our ability to be taught of God: “You were continually straying like sheep, but now you have returned to the Shepherd and Guardian of your souls” (1 Pet 2:25). Christ is the believer’s ultimate shepherd, or pastor; when He saves us, He renews our teach-ability and guide-ability (Ps 23). “My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me” (Jn 10:27). The sheep cherish their Savior as He is revealed in the gospel.
Under the Spirit’s conviction, they were crushed over their sin—and by an act of divine grace they were enabled to ‘hear’ the voice of Christ in the Word of Grace, the gospel (Jn 10:2-5, 16). The gospel is addressed to faith alone (not to the righteous, or the worthy; but to the guilty, the weary, the defiled, the helpless, the condemned, the broken, and the foolish). By an act of sovereign mercy, God grants the new birth to His people. The new birth, or regeneration, creates ‘spiritual lungs’ by which we ‘breathe’ the gospel promises of God.
The gospel is truly the ‘voice’ of Christ’s love. Christ’s love controls the child of God (2 Cor 5:14-15). The crowning evidence of the Father’s love is that He sent Christ to be the slain lamb—the propitiation for our sins (1 Jn 4:9-10). Christ’s love for us was there even while we were helpless enemies (Rom 5:8). Christ’s love for His people is without dimension (Eph 3:16-19).
We refer to Christ’s love as His ‘voice’ because Christ’s love is not a bare proposition; it is personal and transforming. The ‘voice’ is Christ’s Word in the Scripture speaking to the newly created faith that has been planted in the bosom of His child by the new birth. This love is not theoretical for the believer—it is a reality that the believer experiences (Rom 5:5).
But, it is not merely a generalized sentiment or apprehension that God loves us—it is joined to the comprehension that God has moved heaven and earth to clear away every obstacle that stood in the way of a love relationship with Him.
Thus, the believer experiences Christ’s love by faith in the revelation of Christ in the Word. Christ manifests His love when the believer is dwelling upon and contemplating God’s saving acts toward us in Christ (Rom 15:13). This includes meditating upon all of the ramifications of union with Christ (Gal 2:20).
Central to God’s plan to communicate His love to us is the doctrine of adoption (1 Jn 3:1). The believer is held in the Father’s heart of love (Eph 2:4). The Spirit of God manifests this love to the child of God. The Spirit of Christ is the ‘Spirit of sonship’—that means that the indwelling Spirit produces in the believer the disposition and the consciousness that we are sons of God loved by the Father (Rom 8:14-17; Gal 4:6-7).
To know His love is to be controlled by His love. To be the object of this ‘other worldly’ exotic love (1 Jn 3:1) is to be transformed by that love. To be animated by this love is to be driven with a holy unction to pass on that love to God and to others—to receive His love engenders the desire to reciprocate that love. “We love because He first loved us” (1 Jn 4:10, 19). Feeding on the gospel is the means by which we perceive and deepen our understanding of God’s love for us in Christ.
To receive the good news of the gospel is NOT merely the acceptance of the historical facts of Jesus’ life. No, to become saved is to have ‘seen’ the glory of God in the face of Christ (2 Cor 4:4-6). It is to behold by faith the divine identity of the Good Shepherd. A saved person has Christ revealed to him as the Lord of Glory; the Jehovah of the Old Testament—for no one can say ‘Jesus is Lord but by the Holy Spirit’ (1 Cor 12:3). Even the Apostle Peter could not say “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God” apart from the revelation of the Father (Matt 16:16-17). Paul’s own testimony extolled God as the One who ‘revealed Christ in me’ (Gal 1:16).
The upshot of this gospel ‘access point’ is that the believer has every warrant to go to God for love daily. We often go to God in prayer for our needs; for strength; to fulfill our Christian duty; but do we go to God for love? We can and should. The gospel gives us permission to keep going to God for love and grace—the gospel does so because it tells me that Christ has borne all my liabilities; therefore I can never be disqualified for new installments of divine love and grace.
II. The Gospel is the VERDICT of God’s justice at the cross
“It is finished” were Christ’s last words from the cross. We must remember that the cross was a kind of courtroom in which the justice due the trampled law of God was addressed decisively. Absolute justice had to be accomplished in the case of the sinner’s guilt. Before the sinner could be freely accepted by God, that sinner’s transgressions had to be judged in the body and soul of Another. Christ’s work of propitiation was a ‘verdict’—He took the wrath of God due our sins and absorbed it into His own person (Rom 3:24-26).
Nothing can bring a person’s conscience to a full stop—to a place of absolute peace and rest except the justice which satisfies God Almighty. And, nothing satisfies God on behalf of the sinner except the finished work of Christ. Therefore, under God’s moral government, a person will never have a clear conscience UNTIL they hear by faith the verdict of God’s justice accomplished at the cross (Heb 9:14).
The conscience of man is ‘wired’ for strict justice—it is suspicious of mercy and compassion. How true this is—the conscience of man is tied to law—to crime and punishment. It is like a private eye who is hired to collect dirt on you. In our fleshly reasoning it is remarkable how much emotional energy we dissipate trying to quiet our conscience with arguments: “I’m generous, considerate, a hard worker, a provider, well-liked, kind, a servant, etc.” The most common way man seeks to ‘bribe’ and balance the conscience into silence is by comparing self to others (something which Scripture declares to be folly—2 Corinthians 10:12). To seek to balance the books of conscience by any other means than the blood of Christ tends to put us in a cycle of pride and despair. Like a swinging pendulum, we move between the two extremes.
The blood of Christ alone has the power to cleanse the conscience down to the smallest crevice (Heb 9:14). We need to preach the Gospel to ourselves each day because we sin each day. There is no effective ‘book keeping’ for the conscience other than the blood of Christ. The comfort we need in order to serve, love, and worship will only be there if our consciences are clear. One divine from Scotland noted that if even one sin is bouncing around in the conscience it can kill your joy, numb your confidence before God, weaken your resolve to holiness, and shake your assurance of salvation. No wonder Paul claimed that he always kept a clear conscience (Acts 24:16)! Without a clear conscience we won’t be optimistic about usefulness; about blessing and answered prayer.
To preach the gospel to your self is to labor to have the verdict of the cross as the loudest verdict in the conscience. When the verdict of conscience is brought in line with the verdict of heaven —there is overflowing joy, peace, hope, and comfort. But how many believers really enjoy this on a daily basis? How many Christians have as their goal to bring their conscience in line with the verdict of heaven at Calvary? We rob ourselves of comfort by our apathy on this point.
Now as we trod this vale of tears, what remains of indwelling sin acts up and defiles us. We fall to temptation and the guilt of sin throws mud in the eye of faith. We become temporarily blinded to God’s verdict at the cross. God’s decisive work through Christ at Calvary becomes remote. That’s exactly when experience at preaching the gospel is so valuable. We must enthrone the gospel in our conscience again so that the gospel is allowed to ‘make the call’ and allow Christ’s peace to reign (Col 3:15). That habit of gospel preaching allows us to run to the atonement for cleansing without delay. The Spirit of God is not interested in our efforts at self-atonement. He delights in restitution and repentance; but He points to Christ alone for atonement and cleansing.
The Spirit is solution oriented—He never tires of pointing to the blood. I like what one of the Puritan divines said. Guilt harasses us—robs our peace—accuses us—calls for a verdict. But how are we to tell the convicting work of the Spirit from the accusing machinations of the devil?
The answer is simple, the Spirit will always point to the blood so that we may repent, be pardoned and restored to fellowship with the Lord. By contrast, the devil is like an irritating horsefly. He accuses without a solution—he wants the child of God to descend into fear, uncertainty, doubt, alienation, and despondency. Therefore, learn to preach the gospel to yourself and you will instinctively run to the atonement when you fail. When we attempt to turn remorse and regret into ‘atonement,’ we are not submitting to the verdict of God at Calvary.
A clear conscience is the godly man’s tool. He keeps it clean and honed for service. He is always ‘educating’ his conscience by the Word and the gospel. He feeds on what God has done in Christ and what God requires of the believer. He obeys through Christ’s power and enablement. Sadly I know many men who profess Christ, yet take better care of their vehicles and their yards than they do their own souls. But I think I know why. Caring for one’s relationship with the Lord is not a casual endeavor; it takes the lion’s share of our attention; it reminds us of our constant dependence upon Christ and His grace. Also, drawing near to Christ is closely related to being subdued by Him.
To draw near to Christ is to have the Lord expose what He wants changed in our lives. It is to give Him such full access to the soul that He can rearrange the priorities of life and heart to His specifications. Many believers aren’t sure they want to get that close to the Lord! To draw near to Christ through the Gospel is not merely to seek our own soul comfort—it is to be ruled by Christ; examined by Him; and surrendered to Him. It is to understand that Christ is our King who rules over us—who sovereignly chooses the trials by which He perfects and sanctifies and lovingly rules His people.
This is of course why conscience is very much a barometer of our intimacy with Christ. The Spirit is constantly at work in the believer. It is our task to cooperate with His sanctifying purposes (Phil 2:12-13; James 4:5).
To live with a troubled conscience is to live with a grieved Spirit. A sullied conscience will drag you into the ‘gray castle of self.’ By ‘gray castle’ I mean that we go inward, scribbling on the walls of our mind all of our disputes about our eligibility, goodness, worth, badness, acceptance, rejection. The gray castle is a counterproductive place to be.
There is no exit out of the castle of self but the gospel preached to self. As long as I listen to self instead of preaching the gospel to myself, I stay confined in the gray castle of self. What is the answer? Look to the cross again and embrace God’s verdict there. Enthrone the gospel in your conscience as ‘umpire’ to make the call—until you are able say to your conscience—God’s verdict brings the light and cleansing I need today (1 Jn 1:7-9). The gospel preached is God’s invitation to come out of our dank hiding places and back into the sunlight of His fellowship (1 Jn 1:6-9).
The gospel, not the law, must stay enthroned in the conscience of the believer. In Martin Luther’s wonderful commentary on the book of Galatians, the Reformer’s states in his opening declaration how important it is to have the gospel reign in the conscience unopposed by the law:
We have said before that the law in a Christian ought not pass its bounds, but ought to have dominion only over the flesh, which is in subjection to it, and remaineth under it. But if it shall presume to creep into the conscience, and there seek to reign, see thou play the cunning logician, and make the true division [between the passive righteousness we receive from Christ and the active righteousness we owe God’s law]. Say thou: ‘O law, thou wouldest climb up into the kingdom of my conscience, and there reprove it of sin, and take from me the joy of my heart, which I have by faith in Christ, and drive me to desperation that I may be without hope, and utterly perish. Keep within thy bounds, and exercise thy power upon the flesh: for I am baptized, and by the gospel am called to the partaking of righteousness and everlasting life (Martin Luther, Commentary on Galatians, Kregel, 1978, p. xvii).
Martin Luther’s quote above is particularly relevant because in order for us to enjoy the grace of Christ reigning, we must keep the gospel enthroned in the conscience as uncontested king.
III. The Gospel is the VALUE of justification by faith through grace
In His incarnation and passion, Christ identified with our dilemma and ruin. He became radically identified with us (yet without sin) that we might become radically identified with Him. Christ entered the great cog works of God’s justice in order to be crushed for us. He lived the life of a perfect disciple—all to affect the most magnificent exchange in time or eternity. “. . . So that we might become the righteousness of God in Him” (2 Cor 5:21).
The justification of believers does NOT rest on this, that they have in themselves a quality of new righteousness, which they would venture to subject to a legal examination of the strict judgment of God; but that, by and through the merits of the Redeemer, in whom they believe, they are not to undergo such judgments, but are dealt with as if they had in themselves exact legal righteousness” (Bishop John Davenant).
The wonder of justification is that Christ traded places with us so that under God’s government Christ might become ‘officially’ guilty of the sins of His people. My sin was imputed to Christ so that He might bear it up to the cross and judge it in His own Person. To be ‘justified in Christ’ is to have my sin removed and to have Christ’s perfect righteousness given to me in its place (Rom 3:23-26).
Justification gives us a new identity. Having been given this new identity of sonship in Christ; I therefore reject the world’s offers to establish my identity through my performance in the world. Yes, I have an earthly place of employment, a vocation and calling; but my identity in Christ is who I really am. The more in tune I am to the gospel; the more consistently I will live out my identity in Christ. God is the ‘Architect’ of this great exchange which took place in our justification. Its purpose is to bring us to God and to give God’s joy and glory to us. My sin imputed to Christ and Christ’s righteousness imputed to me means that I am fitted for communion with God and ultimately for life in His presence (Rom 5:1-11).
Paul is the only N.T. writer who uses the word ‘reconciliation.’ He uses the word reconciliation to describe the relational benefits of having been justified by God (declared righteous for Christ’s sake). Reconciliation brought us from a place of alienation and estrangement to a place of nearness to God (Eph 2:13-18ff.). Reconciliation speaks of relationship restored.
Like the gospel message itself, the message of justification and reconciliation in Christ is not just to get us into Christianity. The doctrine of justification describes how we are joined to Christ. We have brought our sin to Him and we go to Him for righteousness. As Puritan author John Owen says in His book, Communion with God, when we bring our sin to Christ and go to Him for righteousness, we are having communion with God.
What a blessed thought that the exchange of sin for righteousness continues throughout our earthly life—Christ taking our sin away and giving us His righteousness. This is the continual use of Christ for the reasons God gave Him. In giving us Christ, God has provided every incentive for maintaining our relationship with Him.
Christ is the very sphere in which the believer lives, moves, and has his being. To be ‘in Christ’ as our sphere of life is to have every benefit found in His Person. We are accepted in the Beloved. It is by union with Christ that the infinite benefits of His life, death, resurrection, and High Priesthood become ours. Now all of these benefits flow from our being “in Christ”—right standing, favor, and acceptance. The believer lives in the sphere of Christ. That means that God’s grace is the over-arching canopy that governs all of God’s dealings with His child (it is grace reigning; Rom 5:21, it is grace abounding; 5:15, it is grace in which we stand; 5:2).
When Paul says in Romans 13:14, “Put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh,” he is saying that we must reckon Christ as our sphere, our life, our dwelling place, and our righteousness. But notice the order in these verses: first we are to reckon that we have life in Him and are organically joined to Him; THEN, then trample the world’s offers of sinful pleasure.
How we need to preach the gospel to ourselves—that God has transported across time and eternity His own joy and given it to us in Christ. We cannot exhaust the subject of who God is toward us in Christ. As John Flavel said, Christ is the fountain of life. Unlike earthly sources of supply; when we draw upon His infinite wealth it does not draw down on the principle. God is glorified when we make withdrawals from His infinite treasuries of grace to us in Christ.
God’s plan to glorify His grace is almost more than our intellects can bear (Eph 1:5-12). Wonder of wonders, through the pouring out of grace in Christ, God has revealed Himself as just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus (Rom 3:24-26). It means that in the Person of Christ, God has joined together His eternal plan to glorify Himself with our eternal well being and blessedness.
This matchless grace has not been dispensed by God out of an eyedropper; He has poured out His grace in an unending Niagara Falls of grace supply. John Piper labors to tell us in his book, Future Grace, that God’s grace will be there for every circumstance and exigency that the child of God will face.
CONCLUSION:
We have seen that feeding upon Christ as He is displayed and offered in the gospel is the spiritual discipline of the godly. These six ‘access points’ are intended to help ‘kick start’ us in our venture of learning to preach the gospel to ourselves. It’s vital we learn to do so, for the gospel is the very ‘food’ of the church—in the gospel are found all of the reasons God gave Christ. In the good news those reasons of God giving us Christ are opened up to us.
Our part in preaching the gospel to self is to view these treasures by faith and then meditate on them until we are able to explain them to our own souls. We should always be matching His all-sufficient Savior-hood with our sinner-ship—always dwelling upon how His redeeming work is a perfect fit for our ruin (Heb 7:25-27).
Preaching the gospel to our selves has a sanctifying effect—contemplating God’s saving activity towards us in Christ means that our identity in Him will exert a greater sway upon our choices. Thus, to define ourselves as Christ does as a son, a conqueror, an heir, and an overcomer, means that we are becoming what we really are. This is infinitely more than simply personal spiritual improvement because the God-ordained way of knowing God is to contemplate His saving actions toward us in Christ. It is to investigate all that God is toward us in Christ and who we are in Him (Phil 3:7-16).
Preaching the gospel to ourselves is the answer to one of the biggest problems in the Christian life—that problem being, we tend to listen to ourselves rather than speaking God’s truth to our selves.
Our problem: we have not taken this spiritual discipline of preaching the gospel to ourselves seriously. As consequence, we are in the habit of listening to ourselves rather than speaking to ourselves. When we listen to ourselves instead of speaking to ourselves; we normally get the carnal ‘noise’ of yearnings; cravings; fantasies; discontentment; anxieties; guilt; comparisons with others; self-recriminations; and regrets.
Can you identify with that? At this juncture is precisely when we need to resume the habit of renewing our minds by meditating on the gospel. The Word of God says much about the life of the mind. Meditating on the Scripture releases the power of the Word to rearrange my inner world in accordance with the will of God. The psalmists continually sought to have their hearts controlled by God’s truth—they desired to have their faculties of soul aligned and in orbit around God’s revelation. “Teach me Thy way, O Lord; I will walk in Thy truth; Unite my heart to fear Thy name” (Ps 86:11).
So much in our Christian walk depends upon our daily feeding upon God’s grace. When we preach the gospel to ourselves we are feeding upon grace. “It is only the gospel that will keep us living by grace. And it is only grace that will give us the courage and motivation to mortify sin and to keep seeking to make right choices even when we fail so often” (Jerry Bridges, The Discipline of Grace, Navpress, 1994, p. 200).