The Gospel Is For Christians Too

Hey, we’re Aaron and Jennifer Smith, your hosts of the Marriage After God Podcast. The gospel, the good news of salvation to the world, is the testimony of what Jesus came and did [inaudible 00:00:17]. It’s good news because it tells us that where we could only fail, Jesus could only succeed. The gospel draws us close to God and provides reconciliation. But is the power of the gospel meant only to help us believe and receive salvation? Or is the gospel something that we as believers should cling to every day of our lives?

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So we are back. This is week six.

I don’t even know. I know we’re in February.

We’re definitely in February, but this is our sixth episode of the year. I feel like we were just talking; it feels like it’s been more, but it’s six.

Cool.

We’re on week six.

Awesome.

We’re back. And before we get into this topic, do we have anything to update everyone on?

Well, one thing I wanted to encourage, something that I’ve done recently is just reach out to someone who’s a little bit farther in life stage and has older kids, more kids, and just say, “Hey, want to grab lunch sometime?” And I just told her, “My heart, I just want to glean from you, and whatever you have to share. I don’t know if this’ll look super formal or if we want to be loose with it, but I’d love to just spend more time with you.” And so she agreed to meeting with me once a month, and I think it’s going to be really encouraging. I asked her the first time we met, it was kind of like, “Okay, how are we going to do this?” And she goes, “Well, I had some ideas in mind. One of them was to go through the names of God and study them,” which I thought was really cool. And then another one was looking at prophecy and where scripture says, “Look for this or that,” and see in the world, is there anything that’s happening that … I don’t know, is there anything there? What’s going on?

Kind of having an adventure with each other.

Yeah, yeah.

The names of God and prophecy and-

We just thought it would be really exciting, so I said, “Let’s do both.” I was really excited about that. And so every time we get together, she’s going to bring a name of God, I’m going to bring a name of God, and then we’re just going to talk about, I don’t know, just whatever comes up. And then I’m also going to use that time to ask her questions, just about parenting and marriage and life. So I’m telling all of you this because I think sometimes we forget. We get comfortable in our space and-

We forget people have wisdom that we can glean from?

Yeah. And not just that, but there are people that’s older and ahead of us, but then there’s also people younger than us that look up to us and admire us and want to spend that time with us too. And so my encouragement for you guys today is just to look around and keep your eyes open and look for those opportunities where either you can be gleaning from spending special time with a more mature older Christian in your life, or can you be that for someone else?

Yeah.

I think those relationships are really important, and there’s always good that comes from it, and God uses those in special ways.

Well, I think it’s biblical, us going to each other and gleaning from each other and encouraging and exhorting one another. But it’s also a blessing to them and to you. It’s like, “Hey, would you minister to me? I look up to you and you’re in a different life stage and I’d love to hear your heart.” So that’s a good-

Yeah. And carving out that time to where it’s more intentional is really nice, because then you know it’s coming and you can write down those questions that you have or consider some of the things, like, “What should I be looking out for?”

And then you also just get some intentional hangout time with someone who love.

Yeah, which is always nice. So thank you, Aaron, for letting me do that.

You’re welcome.

We’re just doing it once a month for now for a little bit.

Yeah. So it doesn’t have to be a weekly thing per se, but-

Yeah. It can be consistent, which is good. But it could also be something loose.

Yeah. I had a good friend of ours reach out to me and he invited me to meet with him once a week. We’re doing weekly. It’s not strict, so sometimes I can’t, but we try to meet weekly. And we’re going through the word of God and we just get to have coffee together and it’s actually really fun.

Super fun. Awesome.

So this topic, it probably sounds-

Silly to talk about?

Yeah, but it’s not, and I think we’ll understand why.

I think this episode is more like a reminder, and we’re all going to go, “Oh yeah, we do need that.”

Well, I think it’s something that’s easy to slip under the radar with us as believers, is recognizing how central the gospel is to us. In our everyday life, in the mundane, in the fight, in the hard things, it’s why we’re saved. And even more so, it’s why we’re walking with God. It’s why we are wanting to be in his word. And so we just wanted to have an episode where we do a refresher course or a reminder of, “Hey guys, the gospel’s for us, just as much as it is for the lost.”

Yeah.

So that’s where we’re at with this.

Yeah. And it is really powerful. The gospel is so powerful. And like you introed with, Aaron, it’s the testimony of what Jesus came and did for us, and it humbles us and it reminds us of how small we are. And so for me, in those moments of going on with your daily life or butting up against a marriage issue or having to go through hardships or circumstantial things that just leave you feeling depleted or uncertain or frustrated, the power of the gospel is reminding … this is why we want to talk about this today, is because for us in our marriage, you specifically Aaron, have been really good to me in reminding me to keep my eyes focused on Christ and to remember what he did for us, to remember what truly matters.

And to be honest, it’s not that I’ve brought that up and done those things as I have it all figured out. Like, “Hey, I’m good on my side, but I’m going to help you be good on your side.” To be honest, in a lot of the hardships in our marriage and a lot of the issues that we’ve gone through and just pretty much in any issue we ever go through, whether children or friends or anything, I realize I don’t actually know what to do. And so I default. I’ve learned over the last handful of years, “Oh, I’m just going to go back to what I believe about the gospel, because I actually don’t know how to fix this. I don’t know what the deal is. All I know is Jesus loves me. All I know is I’m a sinner and I need a savior.” And so I go back to that as my answer to the situation.

And anytime we’ve failed, I’ve failed, you’ve failed, wrestling with sin in our parenting, relationships, even our own personal views of ourselves, which we’ve kind of hit on these subjects in different podcasts, going back to the foundation of what Jesus has done and how we couldn’t do it for ourselves, how he came for us, how he loves us, how going to the Father sends his holy spirit into us to help us, man, it makes all those things, first of all, be seen from a different perspective. A righter perspective. It shrinks their power. Like, “Oh, this thing feels so big.” Well actually, it’s not that big in context to the gospel.

It’s like perspective.

Yeah. And I’m going to rest right now in this truth and I’m going to ask God to help me, starting from this point. It’s almost like I’ve always got to keep going back to that.

That’s the foundation.

Yeah, that foundation.

It’s a cornerstone. Years ago, when we were doing ministry together as a young couple, we had a really good talk about how … because there was a lot of discussion around, “Well, what giftings do you have, or do they have? And how do people find their place in church or in ministry and feel comfortable doing what they want to do?” Some people are really good at evangelism and sharing the gospel to the lost. And-

We spent time doing that very thing as missionaries.

Yeah. I guess what I’m getting at, there’s a lot of different opportunities to serve and be a part of God’s body. But we had this really long talk about how we felt called to specifically minister to Christians. We looked around and were like, “There’s all these Christians, but for some reason they’re unhealthy spiritually. They need help just as much as the next person-

Well, I think what happened is how much help we received from believers.

We were so broken. We were caught in this identity war of feeling like, “This is who we’re supposed to be, over here-

Yeah. “Our life doesn’t line up to this truth.”

“But that’s not what’s happening.” And so that’s right. There was this crisis of, “Who are we and what do we need?” And it was the power of the gospel that fixed us and helped us.

Now, and we’re not saying this in the sense that we don’t feel any desire or obligation or wanting to preach the gospel to the lost. That’s part of our lives. But-

No. I’m just saying it because you hear those words together a lot. You hear gospel and you think evangelism.

Yeah.

And that’s where we were at when we were having this conversation. And I just thought it was so interesting-

But much of our ministry has been preaching the gospel to believers. And we’re the ones that have been saved by the gospel, but we’re also to be transformed by it and renewed by it. So those are the things, it’s part of sanctification, that the gospel does to us. This truth of our inequity, this truth of our shortcomings and the truth of God’s son and his righteousness and his perfection and his propitiation. And so we have, we’ve seen that as a mystery, and that’s kind of what we’re doing now.

Well, like I said, that this episode is going to be a reminder, or an aha, like, “Oh yeah, we must not forget.” But just because people are following God and are Christian, it doesn’t mean that they live this happy perfect life. Or in another way to put it or to illustrate it, if a sick person comes into the hospital and gets what they need and leaves, it doesn’t mean that they’re not going to end up in the hospital again. You know what I’m saying? There’s going to be circumstances. There’s going to be hardships. There’s going to be really difficult or even suffering things. They need the gospel. They need the power of Christ to say, “Hey, don’t forget this truth. Don’t forget the word of God.”

Well, there’s many listening now that love God, that have been following him for many years and need to hear this again, to be reminded that God loves them so much. That their sin, that they maybe feel condemned or guilty over currently, was forgiven on the cross. And that his spirit is in them, empowering them to walk in holiness, to repent, to turn to him, to recognize their forgiveness. And that’s why we’re doing this. And we’ve seen this over and over again in relationships in our lives, and we tend to realize that we can give all the advice in the world, like, “Hey, do these practical things,” which are not necessarily wrong. But in reality, until someone remembers or gets back to that point of, “Man, I’m saved by grace and I need that grace right now,” it’s hard for them to get to that part of the practical, because they feel so judged or condemned. And that’s what the gospel does, is it frees us from those things so that we can be transformed and walk with God.

So what do we mean when we say the gospel is for Christians? Because we’ve kind of been hitting on this. Of course, the gospel’s for everyone. This is the good news to the world. The bad news is we all are sinners. We’ve transgressed against the creator, the perfect one, and we deserve hell. We deserve judgment for it, because we have literally broken the law of the creator of the universe. But praise God that even from day one, from the Garden of Eden to Abraham and Isaac to Jesus Christ, there was a plan. And his plan for salvation was his son Jesus and his perfect life being traded for our imperfect life. What a crazy good news that is.

And so yes, for the lost it’s like, “Hey, God sent his son Jesus to die for those sins that you have that guilt and shame over.” But Romans 1:16 in the first part of it says, “For I’m not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes.” So the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes. So the salvation’s there, the power is the gospel.

The crux is who believes.

And then who believes. Yeah. The receiving of that gift, the receiving of that salvation through that power is by believing in it. So we believe. Praise God, we believe in the gospel. We’ve received that power and that salvation. But now, as believers, man, we need to be reminded every day, sometimes moment by moment in certain days. We’ve gone through seasons, Jennifer, that I just recall my own struggles, my own issues. And I’m like, “None of this feels like it lines up with what it should be lining up with. Why isn’t it easier? Why am I not feeling what I should be feeling or experiencing what I should be feeling or experiencing as a believer?”

And just being reminded of the gospel … I remember one time when I was struggling with my addiction to pornography, you came to me and you literally preached the gospel to me. You said, “Aaron, you are not believing what the truth is. And the truth is that Jesus has died for these sins, and you’re not trumped by it.” You preached to me, and it was a pretty transformative moment in my life. It was you reminding me of that truth. Because for some reason, there was parts of this understanding of the gospel that I wasn’t believing. And that’s why we need, as believers, to our brothers and sisters in Christ-

To our spouses.

To our spouses.

To our children.

Okay. To be making that the foundation of where we start with our spouse. So you could be frustrated at me because I’ve done X, Y, Z, and you’re totally justified in it. But if you take a step back and realize, “I need to remind my husband of what he actually believes, because that’s what dictates his life. Not me coming to him and saying I’m angry or that you hurt me,” which those could come also. But the true reason is you are a believer that believes in this truth, and this should dictate and drive and motivate, because this is what you believe. And so when we’re tempted, we’re sad, hurt, scared, lonely, angry, weak, you fill in the blank, the thing we need is the gospel. It’s to be reminded that all of that is why Jesus came, and that he and what he did is sufficient in that moment for those things.

And just to add to that, when you have eyes for your spouse or another couple who’s hurting, or a friend or a family member, someone in your life who you see is being tempted, is sad, is hurting, is scared, is lonely, is angry, weak, or fill in the blank, like you just said, because there’s times when we’re in that space that we need to be reminded of the gospel, but then there’s times that we recognize it in other people and we need to be willing to share the gospel and to go back to that foundational truth of reminding them, “Hey, we are all sinners. I have failed. So-and-so has failed. We’ve all failed. Christ didn’t fail.” And there’s power in that.

So the reason we’re sharing this is not just that the person you’re reminding of the gospel, your spouse, and bringing the gospel back up and pointing them to it and encouraging them in it. But like you were just saying, when we have that posture, if I’m going to look at my wife and be like, “Man, okay Lord, help me remind her of your goodness. Help me remind her.” It totally transforms my own perspective of the situation.

Because you can have your own opinions. You can see things-

Or I’m frustrated. Maybe I’m bothered. Maybe you offended me. There’s lots of things that happens in our marriage, and we take it from a very personal-

Personal thing. Yeah.

The gospel takes the person of me out of it and puts the person of Jesus in it. Our friend-

With a good dose of humility.

Yeah. Our friend Nate from our fellowship, he always says, “Practice putting Jesus between you. Seeing Jesus in the place of your spouse or in the place of your friend.” And it’s really cool.

It’s hard to furrow your eyebrow-

Yeah, Jesus.

Or make a face when you see him.

And that’s what the gospel does. That’s the first power of this, is when you put the gospel on the tip of your tongue, if you think about the Old Testament law or the word of God, that the priests were told to put it on the frontlets of their foreheads. They had these little boxes on their heads with scripture in it. And it was this idea that it’s before them. It’s right in front of them. We do the same thing with the gospel. If that’s the thing that’s on the tip of my mouth, it’s on the tip of my tongue, it’s going to change how I look at the entire situation. Instead of me just wanting to be justified, instead of me just wanting to fix the problem or make you understand or make you change, I’m going to say, “Oh, Jesus, they need you. They’re forgetting.” And then it actually softens my heart, changes the whole situation. It turns it from a ‘me and you’ to a ‘you and Jesus.’ You and the creator of the universe. So that’s a pretty huge thing. Why don’t you read Hebrews 3, 12 through 13?

“Take care brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil unbelieving heart leading you to fall away from the living God. But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called today, that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.”

So this is the next reason we’re sharing this. The gospel, the truth of God’s word and who Jesus is and what we are-

Which is active and alive.

It’s active and alive. When we as believers are walking in this life, there’s so many things coming against us. We have our own flesh, we have the craziness of the world, we have an actual spiritual enemy. We have all these things that want to come against us. And on top of that, there’s sin, which is deceitful. “Hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.” And as first John reminds us all, that if anyone says he has no sin, he’s a liar.

You’re a liar. Yeah.

So there’s something that we need to be protecting each other against. Being deceived. That sin isn’t creeping in, that we’re not allowing it to get a foothold, that we’re not allowing it to grow and mature and turn into this thing that turns into death and then just clouds us and deceives us and blinds our eyes from seeing the truth. So the gospel is that way of exhorting one another every day, as long as it is called today, that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.

If any of you are listening right now and God’s pricking your heart and you’re feeling like, “I do have some hardness in my heart toward my spouse, toward my children, toward a friend or toward myself, there’s a hardness,” it’s because we get deceived by our sin and it clouds us and it hardens that soft heart that God’s put in us. And the gospel is the way of fighting that; exhorting one another, reminding each other every day of who God is, who we are, what Christ has done, as a protective measure, as a way of defeating this deceitfulness of sin, guarding against the hardening of our hearts. And we don’t want that. I’m sure you know someone, that you’ve seen that, where you’re like, “Man, that person used to be so light. They used to be so loving. They used to be so excited. They were so full of God’s word. And now they seem hard. They’re angry, they’re bitter, they’re ashamed. They’re hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.” This is what creeps in. And so if we’re not being vigilant and being like, “Hey, have you forgotten who you are? Who lives in you? What spirit God’s given you?” We need to be doing this way more.

Well, and I feel like you can only do that and share that if you believe it. And so those kinds of words aren’t going to come out of you if you yourself are struggling to believe. And so this might just be an encouragement for you to examine your own heart and say, “What have I been believing? Have I been walking in unbelief?”

And that’s what the first warning is; “Take care brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil unbelieving heart.” An evil unbelieving heart. It’s not that an unbelieving heart without evil is okay. No, it’s an evil unbelieving heart. When we’re not believing the gospel, that is essentially the idea of evil. You’re separating yourself from the goodest good. There it is. “I’m not going to believe this good.” And sometimes we don’t do it on purpose. Again, deceitfulness of sin. Unbelieving heart, deceitfulness of sin. That unbelief can creep in when we’re not being vigilant, when we’re forgetting the truth of the gospel, when we are angry, when we’re letting sin take root, when we’re walking in unrepentant sin. That happens. And there’s warning after warning after warning in scripture for believers specifically on how we engage with sin, how we are to be quick to repent, how we are to not let it have a foothold, how we are not to be deceived by it. And reminding each other of the gospel is a way of doing that for each other.

Yeah. And this idea of it being a protective thing; Ephesian 6:17 tells us to put on the helmet of salvation. The helmet protects our head and our minds and our thoughts, and the gospel reminds us of what it means to be saved.

Well, and think about this. The head is one of the most vulnerable and most deadly spots to be hit, right? So the helmet protects the skull, the brain, the spinal cord, your face, your eyes to help you see, your mouth is what helps you eat and breathe. Your-

Biologically, your brain tells you everything.

Yeah. If your brain gets hit, everything stops working.

How you think is how you will live your life.

And so it’s not a coincidence that the helmet of salvation is a part of the full armor of God. Our salvation, the gospel message, the thing that saves our souls, protects our body and keeps us functioning to keep ministering, to keep doing exactly what God asked us to do. And so it’s protecting it. And you’ve got to protect your mind and not allow disbelief or unbelief to come in. But also, like you said, Jennifer, what are we believing? Because we believe something. We had a whole episode on belief and the power of belief. If you haven’t listened to that, just go into wherever you listen to podcasts and search under Marriage After God, belief or believing and you’ll find it. But it’s amazing that what we believe just dictates every decision we make in our life. And so you should think about that.

And talking about the armor of God, if you back up just a couple of verses, it talks about the putting on your feet the readiness given by the gospel of peace. So from your head to your toes, you’re covered.

Yeah. Well, and shodding your feet with the readiness given by the gospel of peace. So your feet are ready because of the gospel of peace. That news, that salvation makes you able to be ready to move forward with God.

Well, I also mentioned earlier that it’s foundational. So your feet standing on a foundation of solid rock.

Oh, that’s good. I didn’t even think about that. Yeah. So we’re literally standing on the gospel. Because when I’m standing before God, I’m not going to be like, “Oh, look what I did, God.”

No way.

I’m going to be like, “Thank you, Lord, for what you did, because I wouldn’t be here without that.”

Right.

And the other reason we’re bringing this up, probably the most important one, is everyone listening, including us speaking, we need to remember where our hope lies. Where our hope comes from. Because without hope, we are hopeless, and it’s easy for us to fall into despair, to fall into anger. But the gospel offers us the hope of eternal life. The gospel is what reminds us that though we were sinners, he died for us. That where we could not do it, he did it, like I was talking about in the beginning. And we need to remember that, because often I know you struggle with this, but I struggle with this. It’s like, “Oh, I failed again. Oh, I’m never going to make it. Oh, I got frustrated again with my friend. Oh, I misspoke again.” And the enemy’s constantly reminding me of who I am in the flesh.

Yeah. And sometimes it’s, “Oh, they messed up again,” speaking of your spouse. Because in that whole deceitfulness of sin, sometimes we don’t see ourselves so clearly, but sometimes we are striving to walk in righteousness and do the right thing, and we get caught up because our spouse isn’t. And instead of having eyes of compassion that has a heart to draw them closer to Christ in any capacity, we start to get bitter and we start to get hardened by the unfruitfulness we’re seeing, and it’s frustrating and there’s anger and there’s a bitter root. So-

If anyone’s ever read your book, The Unveiled Wife, and we also bring it up a little bit in Marriage After God, it’s the gospel that saved our marriage. We were both in despair, both felt like giving up, both angry with each other, angry with ourselves, angry with God. We were so like, “Why is this happening to us? I thought we did everything right. We were missionaries. We saved ourselves for marriage. Why do we feel so miserable?” And I just remember the Lord reminding me of the gospel. He’s like, “Is there anything that you weren’t forgiven of, Aaron?” And I’m like, “No.” He’s like, “Then forgive your wife and love her anyway.” And I was like, “Oh, okay. Well, when you put it that way, Lord.” He made it so clear to me what Jesus did for me on the cross.

Something that the gospel has helped me understand too is that having a relationship with God is not transactional in the sense that, I mentioned this earlier, but now that I follow you, I’m going to have this perfect lavish life or how I want it to be. Or maybe I don’t even want all this grand stuff to happen to me, but I just want this simple life where nothing bad ever happens. Whatever the thing is that I have in my head of ideal. And when those things don’t happen or when hardships come, it’s like, “Why is this happening? Why are you letting this happen? This is your fault.” And kind of pointing the finger back to him. And the gospel has really humbled me in that sense of who am I to even judge what you’re doing or not doing? I don’t trust you. That’s what it comes down to.

Yeah. And there’s the freedom the gospel brings to us. This is a word that I’ve been sharing a lot with our church, and it’s been something that God’s been teaching me a lot about, is just actually what he wants us to be free from. And like you were saying, as long as these things all fall in line, then we’re good. But as soon as they’re not, then we’re not good. That’s not freedom. That’s bondage. “As long as my spouse serves me in this way and acts this way,” that’s not freedom. That’s bondage. Being able to have confidence and security and hope and peace in God regardless of what your spouse does, regardless of how your job goes, regardless of your relationships with your friends. Not that you don’t care about any of those things, but they’re not what your life is-

Dictates it. Yeah.

Yeah. Actually, someone shared that on Sunday morning. I was talking about, are we going to continue trusting the Lord? Are we going to continue having rest in the Lord regardless of what happens in our lives and not letting our friends or our spouses or our kids dictate our rest in the Lord?

Yeah. That was really good.

It was really good. That’s true freedom. Paul was free. He’s in prison, worshiping the Lord. Those prison walls had nothing on him. Even though he was there in the body-

And by worldly standards, he was under shackles and chains, right?

Yeah. And it’s like, “Oh, that’s so sad.” And he’s like, “I’m here for the Lord.”

Yeah. He was able to still experience joy and peace.

And if you think about that story, and you should go back and read it, he was able to minister to, it says, the whole Praetorian Guard. He was able to witness and to preach the gospel to all the Roman soldiers, everyone, because he was in that prison. So he was thinking gospel centric. He’s like, “Oh, okay. I’m in this prison. I’m going to preach the gospel.” “Oh, I’m in my marriage that feels like a prison right now. I’m going to preach the gospel.” “Oh, I’m in this job that feels like a prison. I’m going to preach the gospel.”

Keep going. This is good. Keep going.

That’s true freedom, that the circumstances of this life, the situations we’re in, even though they may affect our flesh, don’t have to affect our hope.

Yeah.

That’s something outside of my body, because my hope is not in me. It’s in Jesus.

And hope is so vital to marriage, you guys. I can’t even tell you, back when we were having the hardest time in marriage, it would’ve been three or four years into our marriage, and I would tell people after the fact, I would say, “In order to just get through that one day, I was desperate for hope.” And it would come. God would give it in the form of an encouragement, something I saw online, a friend texting me, something I saw in his word. It was just one thing every day that kept coming that I was able to cling to and hold onto. And looking back, it was always pieces of his gospel. His truth. Not what I believed to be true. Not what I wanted. Not what the world says, whatever makes you happy. But it was his truth that gave me hope to hang in there, to hold on through hard times. And even still, when we experience challenges or frustrating things, the only thing that matters is what Jesus came and did for us. And like I said, it humbles us, it puts things in the right perspective, and it helps us see each other rightly.

Yeah. Through the gospel’s eyes. Through the truth of what Jesus did, and not what you did. Not what I did. Like-

And we all need hope. We all need that. At different times every day, we need that hope.

The gospel also, it teaches us how to live. Because when we forget who we’re living for, remember, the Bible tells us that we were purchased for a price. We are no longer our own. We have a new owner. And we forget that. And we’re like, “No, I’m going to live my way.” And then we find the fruits of that turns into something [inaudible 00:33:02]. But it teaches us how to live. The gospel provides instruction on how to live a life of faith, love, and service to others. Specifically just looking at how Jesus lived, he tells us, he says, “Do what I do.” He’s like, “You guys are worried about who’s going to be the greatest in the kingdom?” He’s like, “You’ve got to become the least.” And he’s like, “Look, I’m the king and I’m going to wrap my towel around my waist and I’m going to wash your feet.” That’s what Jesus exemplified in his life.

The gospel also provides assurance of our salvation, because the good news of salvation, the forgiveness of sins by Jesus, isn’t contingent on anything that we do. It’s done. As Jesus says, it is finished on the cross. His work is complete and perfect and fully sufficient to save us. All we’re asked to do is believe. Believe that what he did is enough. Because babe, how many times have you thought to yourself that it’s not enough? You’re like, “Well, I’m still right here where I was last week. Doesn’t seem like it’s enough to me. God, why isn’t your work working in me?” When that’s not the truth. The gospel says, “No. He who began a good work in you will be faithful to complete it.” That’s the truth. So that assurance of salvation is, “Oh, thank God my salvation isn’t resting in me. It rests in Jesus. And he asks me to believe.” That’s awesome.

So good. Another thing the gospel does is it provides a source of comfort. The gospel provides a source of comfort and strength in times of, like I said earlier, hardship, hard circumstances, for some really hard suffering.

Yeah. But Paul says a really good verse. He says, “We can comfort you with the comfort that we ourselves receive.” He was comforted by who Christ is and that he was redeemed, and then the comfort that he received also from other believers who were redeemed, that he could pass on to other believers that need comforting.

Well, and having a relationship with God and with Jesus, it’s like being known, fully known, fully loved. And it’s beautiful, and it is transforming. It’s true love.

It’s amazing. Well, you said being known, again, I’m missing the reference, but it says that we know God, rather that we’re being known by him. That he knows us. Which is a comfort. It brings us closer to him. That’s the whole ministry of the gospel, is that what Jesus did in his body has reconciled us to the Father, in turn giving his disciples and us the ministry of reconciliation, which is how does someone get reconciled to God? The gospel. So when we’re walking a certain way and we don’t feel reconciled with God, the truth is we are. In Christ, we’re fully reconciled. But we in our flesh feel not reconciled. We feel distant. “Oh, we’ve messed up again. Oh, I did this.” Running to the Savior reminds us of that reconciliation. So reminding someone of the gospel, like, “Hey, you know you’ve been redeemed. That God’s spirit is in you. That conviction you’re feeling is because he loves you.” Reminding of the gospel draws us closer to him. It’s literally the process of reconciliation with the Father. It’s being reminded of that and experiencing it over and over and over again.

So if someone’s listening right now and they, like you just explained, are feeling distant, insecure, unsure, maybe even just unbelieving of what is true, what would you tell them to go do right now? How would you share the gospel with them?

Well, what I would say is if you claim to be a believer, you say, “I love Jesus. I want to follow him. I know him.” I’m going to tell you this; God loves you. He has put his spirit inside of you. And what he’s done on the cross is fully sufficient for you. Fully sufficient. You are fully forgiven. Not forgiven for the things that you’ve said sorry for. You’re forgiven for all your sin. Otherwise, you could have no part in God. But because of what Jesus did, you are fully, perfectly reconciled to the Father. And that because Jesus loves you so much and he sits at the right hand of the Father, it says that he’s interceding day and night for us. Jesus is praying for you. He knows you better than you know yourself. He understands what you’re going through. And he wants us to continue to believe that that is true. And often it really just takes us to surrender to that truth. If I believe that, then I’m going to praise him. And I’m also going to turn from the things that I’m holding onto. I’m going to open my hands and say, “Whatever it is you want, take it.” And I’m going to follow you. And I love you. That’s what he wants from us, is just us to give back to him what he’s given to us.

So that’s the thing that we could be … and if it’s something that you want to be sharing with your own spouse, get on your knees. There’s people I know that are going through hardship and my thought is get on your knees and pray like you’ve never prayed before. Go to battle for your spouse, because you love them, because the gospel’s good. And pray that you have the opportunity to share the gospel. Pray that they will continue to believe the gospel, that they’ll be reminded of the goodness of God, that they are saved, that they will repent, that they will soften their hearts. Go to battle for them. Go to the throne room of God for your spouse. Because God is good, and he loves your spouse more than you will ever be able to love them. He just does. That’s who he is. Who we are is people that get to practice loving like that and fail at it, and then ask God to help us. And oh, “I want to be better at that because I love you and I love them.” But God does love that way.

So I don’t know. Was that-

Yeah, that was good. It’s awesome. Yeah, I just wanted them to hear it.

I want everyone to look up a song. Someone brought it up at church on Sunday. It’s called The Goodness of God. And when I was listening to it, I was just thinking to myself, “This is so good.” The goodness of God. He is so good. And so look up those lyrics and be blessed by that this week. Goodness of God.

Growth Spurt.

Yeah. So at the end of every episode, we’re doing a thing called the Growth Spurt, and it’s just to encourage you personally to take steps towards growth and also in your marriage. So this month, all of February, we’re focusing on growing by-

Because it’s the love month.

… love and action. We want to encourage you guys to try a romantic gesture for your spouse. So-

You get to define it. We’re not going to define it.

Yeah. However you want-

You’re going to define it.

No, I’m not going to. You guys-

Whatever you think would be-

Loving, kind, random act of goodness. Go love on them.

That’s a good one. All right. So we’re going to end as we always do, with prayer.

Dear Lord, thank you for reminding us of the power of your gospel. Please help us to remind each other every day of your sacrifice and that we have been set free. We pray your gospel helps us through hardships we face in marriage, giving us something to cling to together. Help us to remind one another of the power of your word, which transforms us. We pray our thoughts would remain steadfast on you, Lord. We pray we would not be overwhelmed by anxiety over circumstances or anything else we are confronted with in life. We pray your peace fills us up completely and that your light shines through us. In Jesus’ name, amen.