Gospel-Shaped Prayer

Gospel-Shaped Prayer

Along with about 1300 other people the weekend before last Pastor and I went to listen, learn and worship at the Gospel Coalition in Boston. Some of the great Pastors of our time were there including D.A. Carson, Tim Keller, and of course John Piper. It was a great time of fellowship and learning, to be live in a room hearing these men speak,  versus listening to pre-recorded sermons was at times goose pimple inducing. But it was not for the fame of these men, or the crowd of believers, or the excitement of a multitude of literature waiting at the bookstore that one got goose pimples. It was the message! The unified, Gospel centered message of Jesus that oozed out of every lesson and sermon and of course the music that was the cause of excitement.

While each speaker had their own style of speaking, Keller the calm dignified elder, Piper the impassioned intellectual, and Carson the colorful wise sage; their lectures all had the Gospel in common. Gospel, Gospel, Gospel. What is it?

As Keller said “The Gospel is news not advice”, Piper expanded on that somewhat talking about a Gospel centered mind and while I don’t have an hour to recite the entire quote properly so let me say “we need a right mind of God to stoke the white hot coals in our heart for God” and I will, God willing, never forget Carson’s advice to “gossip the Gospel”. So what is the Gospel? Can I successfully and justifiably and completely explain it in the time we have? I will give it a shot.

The Gospel is that “Jesus died for our sins so that when we accept Him in faith as our personal Lord and Savior we may be saved” and while true and awesome I think we sometimes take it for granted and fail to see the actual horrible awesomeness of Jesus’ Death. It was not just the death of Jesus that saved us, it was that through His death that He was forsaken by the Father, and it was through propitiation that He took on the sins of the whole world when He died.

On being forsaken by the Father, Jesus cried out on the cross “Eloi, Eloi lama sabecthani” “My God, My God why have you forsaken me” The triune God has, as far as I know, been living in Holy union, a perfect Trinity of love for all eternity and for the first time the Father has turned his back on His Son on the cross. It is a sense of rejection that I’m sure no human being can fully comprehend, but try thinking of the greatest love in your life telling you they no longer love you and multiply it times infinity.

On propitiation for our sin, well where do I start? 1 John 2:2 ESV “He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world.” From ESV Study Bible we find “Propitiation literally means to make favorable and specifically includes the idea of dealing with God’s wrath against sinners.” So Jesus died on the cross and dealt with God’s wrath that should have been meted out onto all the sinners of the whole world for all time, by which we now look favorable to God. Wow can I repeat that?

As Joe Biden would say …”that’s a big …deal”

Now think of the time you sinned against someone you loved, and the Holy Spirit convicted you, your heart hurt, your bones ached, maybe to the point of feeling physically ill. Now imagine the ungodly things some criminals do, it’s too early in the morning to list them, but Jesus took on those sins too, and dealt with God’s wrath for them. Did you know that “Son of Sam” is now a professed Christian and has a prison ministry, and no longer seeks parole? Jesus did that! God did that!

Without the Gospel there is no “Good News” so give thanks for the Gospel when you pray, always!