Episode #3—Keeping the Gospel Central: The Foundation of Church Life and Christian Living

In countries with a heavily Christianised culture, there exists a dangerous assumption: that everyone in church understands the gospel. Yet if you asked ten churchgoers around the city to explain the gospel, you might receive ten different answers. This reality underscores the vital importance of keeping the gospel central in our churches and in our lives.

Keeping the gospel central means we don’t assume people know it. As Tim Keller observed, the gospel is not merely the ABCs of the Christian life—it’s the A to Z of the Christian life. The gospel is the means by which God saves sinners and sanctifies saints. We cannot move outside of the gospel without moving outside of God’s plan for the church.

Packer distilled the gospel to its essence: God saves sinners. How does he accomplish this? Through the person and work of Jesus, who lived the perfect life for us, died for our sins according to the Scriptures, was buried, and rose from the dead according to the Scriptures. This gospel is not simply what grants us entry into the kingdom—it’s vital for our ongoing Christian life.

Jerry Bridges helpfully pointed out that the gospel is always being crucified between two thieves: the thief of licentiousness (the belief that we can do whatever we want) and the thief of legalism (the belief that we’re earning God’s favour). Most Christians, unfortunately, live deeply entrenched in legalism, thinking they’re accepted by God because they’ve had a good day: They read their Bible, prayed, and behaved well. When they fail to maintain these standards, they go to bed thinking God is disappointed and they’re not accepted.

Learning to preach the gospel to ourselves daily transforms this mindset. As Bridges taught, even on our worst day, as well as on our best day, we’re accepted in Christ. This truth guards against the dangerous trap of thinking that whilst we’ve been saved because of Christ, we must now keep ourselves right with God by how we live.

The opposite error—licentiousness or antinomianism—is equally dangerous. Some claim that because they’re saved, they needn’t worry about obeying God. But if we truly understand the gospel, we recognise that Jesus Christ saves us not only from the wrath of God but from the power of sin in our daily lives. The gospel drives us towards holiness out of gratitude for saving grace, not out of slavish duty.

As Paul writes in Romans 6, “What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means!” (Romans 6:1–2). Martin Lloyd-Jones used to say that you know you’re really preaching the gospel when you’re accused of promoting licence, because you’re preaching grace so fully. Yet true gospel preaching doesn’t make us loose about sin—it makes us hate sin and want to live for Christ.

The gospel must inform every area of our lives, including our relationships. When we constantly feed on the gospel, we become slow to take vengeance and quick to show grace when others sin against us. James instructs believers to be “swift to hear, slow to speak” (James 1:19), and what drives this response is the fact that God himself is slow to wrath. He demonstrated this in the gospel by saving us from our sins.

When we’re sinned against, the gospel enables us to forgive. When we’re the sinner in a relationship, preaching the gospel to ourselves brings us back to repentance, for the gospel reminds us of the goodness of God. As Paul writes in Romans 2:4, “God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance.”

If we don’t keep the gospel central, we risk developing what Warfield called “Christless Christianity”—religion without a Saviour. When the gospel is lost, Christ is lost, because Christ is at the heart of the gospel. Churches that abandon the gospel become merely religious moral institutions, and probably not very moral for very long.

Even in conservative churches that claim to believe the word of God and the gospel, failing to keep the gospel central can result in moralistic gatherings that heap guilt upon people with no way to have that guilt removed. Congregants are told to “do right” repeatedly, but they’re left dying inside, wanting to do right yet lacking the power, or failing repeatedly without knowing how to receive forgiveness and get back into the race. Where moralism alone exists, the church loses its hope and joy, and becomes, by nature, man-centred.

This reality explains why people fall prey to cultic movements—they’re searching for hope, seeking to remove the burden of sin from their shoulders like the pilgrim in The Pilgrim’s Progress. They know intuitively that they’re sinners (Romans 1 testifies to this), but without the gospel, they don’t have the joyful good news that Jesus is the one who releases them from guilt.

We must strive to keep the gospel central in every area of life and ministry.

Pastors must look for the gospel throughout all of Scripture. Even in challenging books like Numbers, the gospel can be found by locating the essential truths: the fallen condition of man, humanity’s inability to save itself, and our only hope in God. The law condemns us—how do we escape condemnation? Our only hope is through the Saviour.

This approach is called biblical theology—recognising the progressive revelation of the gospel throughout Scripture. Wherever we’re preaching Scripture, we should be preaching Christ, and we cannot properly preach Christ without preaching the gospel.

Consider Genesis 1: “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. And God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light” (Genesis 1:1–3). Paul appears to reference this in 2 Corinthians 4, where he speaks about the light shining out of darkness into our hearts, showing us the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. Genesis 1 lays a foundation for the gospel, and metaphors like light continue throughout scripture, pointing us to Jesus.

The goal isn’t merely tacking on gospel points at the end of a message. Throughout our preaching, we must point people to the truth that salvation is of the Lord.

Beyond preaching, we must ground people in the gospel through one-to-one discipleship, reminding them constantly of the gospel, reading good books about the gospel together, and praying together. Prayer demonstrates our dependence on God—it’s humbling ourselves before him and speaking to him about ourselves, for others, and about others.

Singing truth together, partaking in the Lord’s Supper regularly, and encouraging one another to gather as a congregation all serve to keep the gospel central. The Lord’s Supper particularly reminds us of the gospel each time we participate.

Church membership provides a crucial opportunity to ensure people understand the gospel. Membership interviews should include the question: “Can you summarise the gospel?” This serves as a good indicator of where people are spiritually and demonstrates that keeping the gospel central is a priority. After all, one cannot be a member of a church without being saved and knowing the gospel.

As John MacArthur noted, there’s a greater problem than lack of assurance of salvation—it’s false assurance of salvation. Being in a church whilst lost, thinking you’re saved, is an extremely dangerous position. Membership classes should therefore begin with the question: “What is the gospel?”

Everything in church life flows from the gospel: preaching, leadership, membership, church discipline (motivated by love and a desire to restore those in sin), and discipleship (aiming to make Christ the centre of our lives). The gospel remains the power of God for salvation and the foundation of the Christian life from beginning to end.