The following posting is adopted from an article by Jerry Bridges. The original article, posted in Modern Reformation magazine, is here.
Bridges argues that evangelicals commonly think that the gospel is only for unbelievers. Once someone believes the gospel, they then need to focus on discipleship, i.e. on living the Christian life. This leads to a mentality of “performance-based discipleship.”
His article is pretty searching. Take a look at the following chart and see if you don’t agree.
Performance-Based Discipleship
“As evangelicals, we tend to live performance-based lives. The more deeply committed we are to following Jesus, the more deeply ingrained the performance mindset is. We think we earn or forfeit God’s blessing by how well we live the Christian life. Take a look at the following chart – do you see yourself in one of these three groups?”
|
Group 1 |
Group 2 |
Group 3 |
| What God expects… Regular church attendance and the avoidance of major sins. |
What God expects… Practicing spiritual disciplines like prayer and Bible reading, obeying God’s Word, and doing some kind of “ministry.” |
What God expects… That I deal with sins of my heart like a critical spirit, pride, selfishness, envy, resentment, and anxiety. |
| How I’m doing . . . Pretty good, thank you. I don’t indulge in the major sins I see around me. |
How I’m doing . . . OK. You have to admit that I’m doing a lot more than most believers I see around me. |
How I’m doing . . . Not so well. I don’t have joy and I often feel guilty. I don’t always have my quiet time, sometimes I fail to witness. My heart is often cold toward God. |
| Do I still need the Gospel? I don’t need the gospel anymore, the gospel is only for sinners. |
Do I still need Gospel? I don’t need the gospel. I’m already saved. I need more discipline and more commitment. |
Do I still need Gospel? No, I have already believed the gospel. I need to work on these sins of the heart I struggle with, like pride, selfishness, & resentment. |
The Gospel and Believers
Bridges writes, “[These three groups need the gospel too], but they don’t realize it is for them. I know, because I was in the [third] group. Gradually over time, and from a deep sense of need, I came to realize that the gospel is for believers, too.”
“Eventually I learned not to look to my “own performance but to Christ’s ‘performance’ as the sole basis of his acceptance with God.”
I learned that Christians need to hear the gospel all of their lives because it is the gospel that continues to remind us that our day-to-day acceptance with the Father is not based on what we do for God but upon what Christ did for us in his sinless life and sin-bearing death.
I began to see that we stand before God today as righteous as we ever will be, even in heaven, because he has clothed us with the righteousness of his Son. Therefore, I don’t have to perform to be accepted by God. Now I am free to obey him and serve him because I am already accepted in Christ (see Rom. 8:1).
“Even when we understand that our acceptance with God is based on Christ’s work we still naturally tend to drift back into a performance mindset. Consequently, we must continually return to the gospel.
To use an expression of the late Jack Miller, we must “preach the gospel to ourselves every day.” For me that means I keep going back to Scriptures such as Isaiah 53:6, Galatians 2:20, and Romans 8:1. It means I frequently repeat the words from an old hymn, “My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus’ blood and righteousness.”
Take a look at the article to see how Bridges then deals with the need for growth in holiness.
