One of the things I’ve noticed about our church as we’ve been building a launch team, casting vision and launching a new church has been the refocusing of what is most important. When you begin a new work like this is forces you back to the drawing board. Probably the most important foundation for us is that we are a gospel-centred church. It has been great to preach on what that looks like and frame all we do around the gospel.
The very first sermon ever preached at Anchor church was on Luke 15. The story of the 2 sons redefines what sin is and how the gospel rescues us. The punch line of Jesus’ parable is that the older brother is in as much need of the Father’s grace as the younger. Tim Keller has been so helpful in forming our thinking on this. You can reject Jesus like the younger brother in your rebellion, or you can reject Jesus like the older brother in your righteousness. Both are methods of saving yourself. We love a verse like Colossian 2:2 that says the gospel is not only the way into the faith but the way we continue in the faith.
But here’s a caution for us. I don’t want our push for being gospel-centred to become older brotherly. In our attempts to cling to this core value we can inadvertently create two classes of Christian; those who are truly gospel centred and those who aren’t.
One line we’ve used to communicate our vision is that we need an awakening to the gospel in our church before we ever hope to see an awakening to the gospel in our city. What we mean by this is not that we need all the people in the church to become Christians. We mean that we need a deepening understanding and appreciation of the gospel for both our salvation and our sanctification.
There is a danger in being too gospel centred, which in the end isn’t gospel centred at all.