The Art and Necessity of Preaching the Gospel to Myself
We first published our document “Portrait of a Maturing Disciple” in October, 2021. That document fleshes out how we want to see ourselves and our people growing in Christ. Occasionally, we have used the pages of this blog to drill down on one of the statements in that document.
Today we’re looking at what the maturing disciple needs to Know.
KNOW: The love of Christ compels me to understand the gospel not just as an initial spiritual experience but as an ongoing reality in my spiritual life. I recognize that I am just as dependent on God’s grace in my daily walk as I was when I first put my trust in Christ, so I must continue to “preach the Gospel to myself.”
I couldn’t figure it out for many years, the bleak outlook that would settle over me between Christmas and springtime. This was decades ago, long before I had ever heard of “seasonal affective disorder” (with the ironic acronym SAD).
But it was true. For weeks at a time I would come to feel that I was looking at the world through dung-colored glasses.
Bleak.
Hopeless.
That toxic mindset was a breeding ground for cynicism and despair. If I ever let those thoughts have their way, I would find myself mired in self-pity and anxiety.
But once I identified this pattern – once I understood that my bleak outlook was a predictable, temporary state of mind – I wasn’t blindsided by it anymore.
And that awareness was life-changing: I now understood that my feelings of despair were not the way things are, they were just the way things seemed at the moment. I learned how to look past the glum feelings of the moment and take hold of deeper truths that were life-sustaining.
I often must do the same thing in the herky-jerky progress of my own spiritual life. I must learn how to preach the gospel to myself.
Why do I need to preach the gospel to myself?
After all, I believed the gospel when I first put my faith in Christ. Why do I need to again go over those basics of how I found grace in Christ?
We need to often preach the gospel to ourselves because we are forgetful, and we all need frequent reminders of things we already know to be true.
This is not just true in our spiritual lives; this is a truth we live with every day:
When our spouse is cross with us, we sometimes need to remind ourselves of our spouse’s deep love for us. And we must sometimes give our beloved the benefit of the doubt – pressure at work, physical pain, etc. – and refrain from responding in kind.
When a plan seems to be going awry, we sometimes need to remind ourselves that we knew that setbacks could be expected, and a setback isn’t necessarily a catastrophe.
When Christians disappoint us by handling conflict poorly, we need to remind ourselves that God’s Spirit is also grieved and that He is still doing His patient work in their lives. And ours.
Did you see the pattern?
This is a life skill we use all the time. When I see something discouraging, I remind myself of the good news that runs deep underground, the things that are always true, whether or not I am aware of them. Preaching the gospel myself means bringing those truths to the surface and rehearsing them so that I don’t let my warped perspective lead me into despair.
When I “preach the gospel to myself,” I am reminding myself of the best news ever recorded in the annals of human history (and this is no hyperbole): Jesus has conquered the power of sin and death.
By his Resurrection from the dead, Jesus declared victory over the dark powers that have plagued this broken world since the moment Adam and Eve shook their fists in God’s face.
That is the gospel – the Good News about Jesus – that I often need to bring to mind.
I like to use two key questions to preach the gospel to myself:
1. What does the gospel mean in this situation?
2. What does the gospel call for me to do in this situation?
I have need of the gospel in every needful life circumstance – when I am tempted, when I have sinned, when someone has offended me, when I am bewildered…. In every conceivable circumstance, the gospel is relevant.
But what does the gospel mean when I am low and discouraged and everything seems hopeless?
When I am discouraged, the gospel reminds me that this is not the final chapter. The gospel – what God has done for us in Christ – means that our Sovereign God is working out His Plan to make all things right, that someday all will be right: justice will be done, and all nature will be restored to its default settings of flourishing and harmony.
And what does the gospel call for me to do when I am discouraged and everything seems hopeless?
When I am discouraged, the gospel calls me to persevere, to trust God even when my feelings are cloudy, even when circumstances seem overwhelming.
When I preach the gospel to myself, I am rehearsing once more what it means that Christ has come, Christ has conquered death itself, and Christ is coming again.
My problem, of course, is that I am forgetful. I sometimes think and act as if Christ hasn’t come and accomplished all that, as if Christ hasn’t promised to Return and set things right. And when those deep and precious truths aren’t before my mind’s eye, what I see around me and within me can be pretty discouraging.
So, yes, I do often have to preach the gospel to myself.
Daily.
Persevere, Paul Pyle Discipleship Pastor