The Functional Centrality of the Gospel

When asked, "What is the greatest, most crying need in the church today?", Mike Bullmore, senior pastor of CrossWay Community Church in Bristol, WI, answered in the following manner.

"One of the greatest challenges, yet one of the most important tasks, of pastoral ministry is to help people actually see the connections between the gospel and the thinking and behavior that make up their everyday lives. We know well the centrality of the gospel message but in order for it to have a functional centrality it must be clearly, carefully and consistently connected to the real issues - issues of thought and conduct - of people's lives."

Therefore, to meet this need, Pastor Bullmore has proposed the following diagram.


Let me try to unpack this for you.

The diagram consists of three circles - Gospel, Gospel Truths, and Gospel Conduct. It is no accident that the gospel is at the center of the diagram. The gospel is central to everything. It is central to Scripture, history, and the very core of our Christian lives. Without the gospel as center, God's people are prone to replace it with self, experience, good works, thus leading to idolatry, mysticism, and legalism. Therefore, it is crucial that the gospel take the place of center in our thoughts, actions, and lives.

From the gospel flow gospel truths. These are the doctrinal implications of the gospel. For example, Romans 8:1 says, "There is, therefore, now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus." Do you see the doctrinal implication here that Paul is proclaiming from the gospel? He stands in gospel and pronounces that because of the gospel (that is what the "therefore" is there for), we do not stand before God condemned. Other gospel truths include our peace with God (Romans 5:1), our grounds for drawing near to God (Hebrews 4:15-16), and our justification before a holy God (Romans 3:23-25). The gospel lead us to right thinking, aka Gospel Truth.

Once the gospel has created Gospel Truth, it then proceeds to flow into and create Gospel Conduct. Gospel conduct is the behavioral implication of the gospel. For example, Ephesians 4:32 says to "[forgive] one another, as God in Christ forgave you." Here is a restatement of the gospel. God, in sending in His Son to the cross as our substitute, now pronounces forgiveness over us for our sins committed against Him. Therefore, we are to forgive others in the same manner. So forgiveness flows from the gospel. And not only forgivenes... Loving your husband or wife flows from the gospel (Ephesians 5:25). Generosity flows from the gospel (2 Corinthians 8:7,9). Sexual purity flows from the gospel (1 Corinthians 6:18-20). And on and on the list continues. As Mike Bullmore so aptly put it, "Ultimately, all Christian behavior should flow out of the gospel." This, according to Bullmore, is how the gospel acts as the functional center of our lives and ministry.

The gospel goes out to the ears of those that would believe, creates gospel truths in their minds, hearts, and affections, and then rightly and powerfully transforms the actions of the hearer. "The gospel empowers everything else that is connected to it." The transforming power of the gospel is infinite. So let's find more connections between the gospel, gospel truths, and gospel conduct in order to encourage our brothers and sisters in Christ.

The audio of Bullmore's teaching can be found here.