The Gospel offers healing & reconciliation through repentance & confession of sin. If Christians are unwilling to do the latter, we have no right to expect the former.
I see many folks calling for the Gospel to be preached today, and I wonder if they have even the slightest sense of what they're asking.
When the Gospel is truly preached, it comes for you first.
It does not concern itself with your neighbor until it has wrecked & humbled you before your God.
So let the Gospel be preached today, let the true Gospel of Jesus Christ ring through our land today. But know this, it must devastate before it heals.
It must bring the proud low & make the satisfied hungry. It must strip the righteous of all the good they claim. It must make us weak in order to make us dependent on God and God alone.
And once it does, once we are truly humbled and repentant, God will do his restoring work. This is the Gospel.
The Gospel will put you to death in order to raise you to new life. Do not think you will escape with anything less.
*with your neighbor's sins*
As we come to worship today, we face a choice: Will we submit ourselves to the God of Heaven or will we continue to use his name as cover for our sins?
The Gospel calls us to confess & repent. Do this & live.
