Thus says the LORD: “Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, let not the mighty man boast in his might, let not the rich man boast in his riches, but let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the LORD who practices steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth. For in these things I delight, declares the LORD.” | Jeremiah 9:23–24
In Philippians 3 (which I preached on Sunday), Paul is very concerned for the purity of the gospel. His concern is that as we add to the gospel to make it more, we diminish its power. Human attempts to embellish the gospel actually put things in the way of its simplicity. What we think is more, is actually less.
As God says in Jeremiah 9: the only thing we have to boast about is that we KNOW the Lord. The gospel is the story of why we don’t know the Lord (our sin has separated us from Him), what Jesus has done to redeem us (life, death, and resurrection), and how the Holy Spirit is revealing this truth to us through His the Word. The gospel is about what God is doing and how He is helping us to see His work. It must be noted, THIS is what God delights in. Not what we do, but that we acknowledge what He has done.
The power of the gospel is that it is DONE. Paul reminds us of this in the first chapter of Romans, saying:
For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.” | Romans 1:16–17
The power of God for salvation (and the redemption of all things) flows from what Jesus did at the cross. Anything good that we are able to do comes from the fact that Jesus has already done all that NEEDS to be done. Salvation is secure because Jesus deemed it finished.
Does this let us off the hook? Shall we sin all the more that grace may abound?
Of course not. Our life is not about securing salvation; it is about worshipping our God. Every moment of your life is an opportunity to live out gratitude to Jesus for His overwhelming gift to you. This worship will not be easy. While at times, a joyous response to the gospel is natural, the rest of our time on this earth will be battling the fleshly desire to find our justification in ourselves: in who we are, in what we do, or in how others see us. So how do we keep from getting caught up in this?
We come back to the cross, again, and again, and again. We do this, because it is the cross that reveals to us the power of God for those who believe. It is at the foot of the cross that we are reminded that anything we ever do either reveals our faith in Jesus work or our faithlessness. It is at the cross that we once again enter into the story of sin, separation, and salvation, and how they all terminate at the wonderful, tragic mysterious tree. The cross is how we keep from terminating on ourselves.
We come to the cross through the means God has given us: prayer, Bible reading, gathering together as a church, and participating in the sacraments (Communion and Baptism). While these ‘small’ things do not always seem enough, they are a reminder to us that it is not our enough that matters.
Jesus is enough; this is why we can have JOY, not matter what.