Over the past few weeks, I have been explaining the major portions of the Gospel: God’s message to mankind on his malady of sin, the severity of it, and the solution, the way out. Now I want to get to the heart of what triggered this series: who does the Gospel reach and how does it affect their lives in those areas? I want to make clear that the Gospel is for everyone, in every type of situation. The Gospel exposes every one of man’s problems with one word: sin. It reveals the solution to that one problem: Jesus Christ. Sin is the thinking, actions, and lifestyle of one’s own way instead of God’s way. Salvation is the surrender and denial of self and submitting oneself to Jesus Christ.
The first group I will address that the Gospel reaches is the most obvious one for those in Christian circles to identify: the repentant sinner. The repentant sinner is someone who has realized the severity of their sin and the consequences of it. They understand they have broken God’s law and thus offended the Lord of Glory and made themselves a stench in His nostrils. They also understand the severity of the consequences and realize that they will not just spend eternity in hell for it, suffering most greatly, but they will never have any chance of fellowship with God ever again. They will never be able to experience life to its fullest. The repentant sinner understands he has already done this, and it grieves him so much to the point that he will literally change his lifestyle and his thinking to get away from it.
The result of a sinner who has realized the severity of his sin is sheer brokenness. The sinner will have reached rock bottom, realizing and understanding that he is in a pit with no hope of getting out of his own. He is at the end of his rope, the end of his pride, the end of any self-effort, and in total desperation, he will cling to the only hope that is offered. If he arrives at this point, he will also very likely have tried all other options already. To be broken like this will mean he will have either experienced it himself or seen it in others to know that the other routes will not work. He will not try alcohol or drugs. He will not go to any false or pretense of religion that merely tries to sweep away the guilt he feels. He will go to the very one he offended the most: God the Father. The clearest example of this is David in Psalm 51 where he confesses his sin against Bathsheba and Uriah before God.
To reach this state of brokenness, it will be God who bears such witness to his guilt, and it will drive him to his knees, if not his face to the ground. Paris Reidhead speaks of John Wesley in England and John Wesley Redfield in Yale, CT, that when they preached their multi-hour sermons about the holiness of God and the severity and depravity of sin, that hundreds to even thousands of people would be so weighted down with the guilt of sin that it drove them to unconsciousness. This was the impact of Jonathan Edwards’ sermon “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.” There was nothing special about these preachers’ delivery, but it was the preaching under the anointing from heaven to bring sinners into brokenness so they may repent. Unlike the crusades of today, people did repent and changed their lives.
The Gospel changes lives. Jesus died so that the just punishment we deserve for our sins was taken upon Himself in our place. He put His own righteousness upon us as though we never sinned to begin with. But this exchange is not a “Get Out of Hell Free” card. It is also an exchange of mindsets, an exchange of lifestyles, and an exchange of interests, drives, and motivations. The sinful lifestyle is to be put to death as Jesus died. In its place, the new life of Christ is born in us and comes with the resurrection of Jesus.
No clearer example of this can be seen than the Apostle Paul. He was an evil man who thought his religion was sufficient to make him right with God. He sought to arrest and murder those who professed the name of Christ, the very messiah his own faith proclaimed. Then Jesus knocked him on his backside and blinded him. In that state of brokenness, when Paul met Jesus, he saw his own sin and he became a new man. He would no longer be identified as Saul of Tarsus but as Paul the Apostle.
But there is something else about Paul that marks someone who has been saved after having his sin fully exposed and coming to know Jesus Christ. The repentant sinner is not crushed by his own sin just one time; he is repeatedly and ever increasingly aware of his sin and its severity. Paul started out boasting about how great a Savior Jesus was, but he continually became more aware of just how severe his sin was and would consider himself the chief of all sinners. Paul knew his weaknesses, and he also knew how much he sinned AFTER he became a believer. And he bemoaned himself how he could be saved from sin, how he could know what right and wrong truly was, and he would still sin. And he recognized that it was never in and of himself that he could ever do right, but only Christ in action, through him, that he could be saved. Paul’s rant in Romans 7 is not that we are hopeless in our sin, but that in our own strength we are hopeless. That is why we need a Savior, and we need to rely on Him wholly and completely. We will never overcome sin on our own even after salvation. Only Jesus can overcome sin. And only by denying self and dying to self on a daily, hourly basis, will we see victory.
Jesus died for the repentant sinner. He died for those broken by the weight of their sin and who know their only hope is found in Jesus. He died for that prodigal son who came to his senses and realized his sinful lifestyle destroyed him and shamed his family’s name. He died so that these people may have a new life, that their sinful past may be a thing of the past, and that they may now live new lives in the hope and glory of the King.
But the repentant sinner is not the only one whom Jesus died for. The Gospel is God’s message to mankind, and it will not return void. There are others whom the Gospel reaches too. Stay tuned for the next few weeks as there are more for whom the Gospel comes to save.
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