For the Spring and Summer terms (May through August), we are going to start a whole new series on our Friday night ACCESS gatherings for our students. This series is based on Jerry Bridges’ book, The Gospel for Real Life. Jerry Bridges has written so many books on holiness, godliness, and grace that has made a difference in my life.
The Gospel message is one of those things that people know it in their minds but it is hard to really understand it in the heart, which is where true transformation needs to happen. This is part of the reason why today we don’t have the radical disciples that we read about in the Bible and hear about throughout history.
We are going to seriously address various topics that will help us have a deeper understanding and appreciation of the Gospel. Then eventually, the Gospel will begin to play itself out in our daily lives whether it is in our classrooms, workplace, family, or in society.
Here is what is written on the inside flap of the book:
The gospel of Jesus Christ is the most explosive news of freedom the world has ever heard. Yet, why do so many of His followers experience so little of the gospel’s liberating power? Regrets over our past haunt us, fear and anxiety clutch at us, subtle legalism oppresses us, outright sin entangles us, and we spend much of the day without even thinking of God.
Jerry Bridges maintains that the poverty of actual Christian experience is the result of an impoverished understanding of the depths of the gospel itself. The key is not to try a little harder, but to know more fully the incredible work of Christ on the cross – and to live in a more vital awareness of that grace day by day.
Jerry does not flinch from the hard facts of human sin and God’s wrath – not exactly popular concepts today. But understanding them is absolutely crucial. For without a knowledge of the depth of our sin, we cannot experience “the unsearchable riches of Christ” that are available to us in the gospel. And when we know those riches, we are empowered to live every day “glorying in a sense of acceptance and the experience of grace.”
This gospel is not just for the afterlife, but for today – it is the gospel for real life.