This week’s post in our Gospel Jump-Start Series shows how preaching the gospel to ourselves moves us toward others. It is the gospel that saves and it is the gospel that motivates and fuels the the Christian life. Listen to how Mark Dever, in his book Discipling, explains how the gospel moves us toward others. He wrote:
The motive for discipling others begins in the love of God and nothing less. He has loved us in Christ, and so we love him. And we do this in part by loving those he has placed around us (See Mark 12:30-31; 1 John 4:19-21). (pg. 16)
Notice, as we understand that God loves us in Christ (the gospel), it moves us to love God and others. Dever continued:
Being a disciple of Jesus means orienting our lives toward others, just as Jesus did. It means laboring for the sake of others. This love for others is at the heart of disicpling. We set our sights on serving others for Christ’s sake, just as Christ came into the world not be served, but to serve and give his life as a ransom for many (Mark 10:45). (pg. 27, emphasis mine)
The gospel produces the fruit of us loving God and others. One way this love is displayed is by us seeking to disciple one another within the church. Dever defines discipling others as “doing deliberate spiritual good to help them follow Christ” (pg. 17). Listen to the warning Dever gives in another book if we aren’t seeing this love for one another manifest in our lives. He says:
You can have wonderfully rich quiet times, but if that doesn’t translate into how you treat other people, something is wrong. The normal, natural way for Christians to express our love to God is not merely in singing hymns to him, though that is wonderful. It is also giving ourselves in love to others.
Churches should be centers for such loving activity. It’s where heaven’s love shows up, first in the pronouncement of Christ’s love for us in the gospel, and second in our love for insiders and outsiders alike. (Understanding the Great Commission, pg. 13, emphasis mine)
As we preach the gospel to ourselves, may it move us toward one another more and more.
Written by Matt Baker