Gospel Wakefullness

It shapes how we read Scripture, how we approach change, and how we see our identity.

I am pretty sure God wanted me to meet Jared Wilson. And last week I did.

Several of Jared’s books are the most dog-eared and highlighted books on my bookshelf including, Gospel-driven Church, Gospel-Driven Ministry, Explicit Gospel, The Pastor’s Justification, Imperfect Disciple, and his latest, Lest We Drift.

As you can tell by his book titles, Jared is a champion of gospel-centrality. He has been one of the key voices in the gospel-centered movement that took off in the mid 2000s stemming from his encounter with the gospel which he refers to as “gospel-wakefulness.”

Jared's content along with John Piper, Paul Tripp, Tim Keller and many others led to my own “gospel-wakefulness” that led me to plant a church purposefully named Gospel City Church in Granger, Indiana in 2009.

About three weeks ago, it seemed God was repeatedly putting Jared’s voice and eventually his face in front of me. First, I heard him on an episode of Trevin Wax’s Reconstructing Faith podcast. Then, I heard him on an episode of FamilyLife Today’s podcast. Next, Andrea told me that he was in the lineup of speakers with us on the FamilyLife Love Like You Mean It cruise.

I told her that if we ran into him, I might act like a fanboy. And, I did. As soon as we walked onto the boat we were seated right beside him and his wife, Becky. Within 5 seconds, Andrea and Becky were best friends. I waited 5 minutes, but I made sure to express my gratitude for how his work had impacted me.

Later in the week we found ourselves seated together again, this time on a panel in front of a thousand husbands and wives fielding questions on marriage. As you might imagine, between me and Jared, the answer to every question was the same…some aspect of the gospel.

As Tim Keller has said, “If the gospel is not the answer to your problem, you don’t understand your problem.”

But what exactly is gospel-centrality? Jared lists three marks of gospel-centrality that, when embraced, create gospel wakefulness.

1. The whole Bible is about Jesus. For too long, I read the bible as if it was a book about me. I would go to the bible looking for inspiration, advice, and daily assignments. But the Bible is not about me. It was written for me but it is not written about me. And even the parts that were written before and after Jesus' short time on earth are written to point me to him. The only way to correctly interpret and understand the bible is to see it as the revelation of the person and work of Jesus. The gospel is not good advice to be followed. It’s good news to be believed.

2. People change by grace, not by law. My default technique for getting people to be more like Jesus is show them all the ways they are not, shame them, and then tell them to try harder and do better. My sermons too often sounded like a Christian law exam designed for people to see what a failure they were. That is the way I preached for years until I was confronted with the gospel of grace. As Sam Albery says, “If a believer isn’t turning from sin, he doesn’t need more tasing from the preacher; he needs more exposure to the grace of God.”

3. Our ultimate validation is found not in ourselves, but in Christ. My failure to daily re-believe the gospel has led to far too much anxiety over my lack of productivity. But if I really believe Christ has done all the work on my behalf necessary to declare me righteous before God, why do I worry? Why do I obsess over my weaknesses and try to hide them from others if I believe the gospel truth that his grace is sufficient for me and his power is made perfect in my weakness? The only way to start and end the day is re-believing my validation is in Christ’s performance, not mine.

Believing the gospel is not a one-time event but a continual awakening. God continues to use voices like Jared's to awaken me to the transformative power of the gospel. It's the power that shapes how we read Scripture, how we approach change, and how we see our identity.