Motivated By the Law Or By the Gospel? | Ask Theocast

Gospel Motivation Versus Law and Performance

What motivates you in the Christian life? People show up for church, and some people are motivated by the drill sergeant. They sit there and they yell at you, and they scream at you, and they make you feel guilty for being lazy and for not taking the Christian life serious.

And then you have other people who are motivational speakers, and you're motivated by what God might get for you, the blessings that you haven't tapped into because you haven't prayed enough or you haven't given enough.

And you have everything in between the two, between yelling and motivational speaker. And I know a lot of people who are exhausted by tactics and mechanisms to motivate them to do more for God. The Bible gives us our motivation.

And it's a word I'm gonna say here, but unfortunately, a lot of the meaning of the word is lost, and our motivation is the gospel. And people will say, I guess I know the gospel, John, but it doesn't seem to motivate me.

It doesn't really drive within me this passion. I know that it's what Jesus did to save me, but I don't feel like it fuels my passion for Jesus. I feel like I need something more than that. And some people want law, or some people want promises of blessings, and that somehow will motivate them to try harder.

The Gospel as the Motivation of Love

But how is it that good news can be the motivation to see that this life is worth living and living for the sake of God? I mean, this is what we know from 1 John 3, 16, where it says, by this we know love, that he laid down his life for us.

So he's saying the love that we have, this motivation, is connected to Jesus's death. And Paul even says, I wanna make nothing known among you except for Christ and him crucified. But why does he say that?

And this is the part of the gospel that I think that is lost, not only in our culture as far as preaching. Yes, we talk about Jesus's death. We talk about it being for our sins. But it seems to fall short of its real punch, its real purpose, that which the church has celebrated, that which the church has died for, that which the church has created confessions centering around the, this part right here, the imputed righteousness or the substitutionary atonement of Jesus Christ.

What does that mean for me today? It's not that Jesus just wiped my slate clean and now I need to do my part. And so if you are sitting here and you're watching this and you're saying, I don't think I'm really motivated by the gospel, what Jesus did for me doesn't really move me every single day.

I just want you to listen to the next few minutes. I want you to listen to what Paul has to say. And I think your understanding of the gospel is gonna change to where it's something that happened to you versus something that's happening to you now, ongoing.

It's what you wake up and thrive for each and every week. So this is Romans 5 and verse 6, he says this. For a while, we were still weak at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. We hear those words and we think weak, yeah, like I wasn't really able to fix everything that I had.

And that word weak there can be translated as incapable or it could be without strength. And when it says at the right time, Christ died for the ungodly, I think we know that word ungodly, but what we don't associate that with is we think that as someone who is kind of messed up.

Justification, Wrath, and Reconciliation in Romans 5

Well, Paul begins to explain what both of these mean. He doesn't mean weak in that you couldn't fix it. He means you are without strength to fix the status that you have find yourself in as ungodly. And he explains what he means.

So let's keep reading. He says, for one will scarcely die for a righteous person, though perhaps for a good person, one would dare even to die. But God showed his love for us and while we were sinners, Christ died for us.

So he's saying the scenario is we just went through the 20 year celebration of 9 -11. And we had over 450 people who were in the service, public service, firemen, police officers, doctors, they all ran in to help save people and they died.

They gave up their life. And they gave it up for a good cause. These were good people that they thought were being tormented because of a terrorist act. And so they gave up their life and they're saying, some people will do that because it was a good cause for good people.

But then Paul, he contrasts it with something. He says, but God shows his love for us while we were sinners, Christ died for us. Now, again, that word means, oh yeah, everybody's a sinner, everybody's a bad person.

So what's the big deal that Jesus died for sinners? You don't understand. It's not that Jesus just died for sinners. He goes on to say, since therefore we have been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God.

We understand wrath. I can remember the anger that the country felt. We wanted there to be justice served for the pain and suffering and life lost caused by the acts on 9 -11. We created within us this desire to be made right.

And that's called wrath and anger. And we wanted there to be retribution. We wanted there to be someone has to pay for the crimes that have been committed. And so we had an enemy. And the enemy was whoever those terrorists were, we wanted them to be caught and we wanted them to be paid.

And so we had an enemy within us. And this idea that enemy is being used is helpful because he uses the word wrath. You see, understanding is wrath is the outflow of anger. So Paul says here that when we are justified, we were saved from the wrath of God.

Just like that anger that we have towards somebody who hurts innocent people, innocent children, and they do things that are horribly, that violate them. And that creates within us this anger and wrath that it wants to be made right.

We want it to be justified. We want it to be no longer there as an injustice. We don't want people to get away with it. And what Paul is saying here is that you are underneath God's wrath and God's not gonna let you get away with how you have violated him.

The same anger we feel towards people who violate the innocent. God says, you have violated my innocence. You have violated my holiness. And you have to understand it's so serious. God says, my wrath is upon you.

But Paul continues to help you understand and explain this. Listen to this next verse. For while we were the enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his son. So much more now, we are reconciled and saved by his life.

From Enemy to Adopted Child

So think about the progression here. He says you were weak, ungodly, sinners who are the enemy of God, waiting for God's wrath to be poured out upon you. We'll just keep using this whole illustration with 9 -11.

If we're gonna use a modern day understanding. When we went into war to justify and make right that which was horribly done to our country, the illustration that Paul is giving here is this. If a soldier from the United States walks across enemy lines and stands with the enemy and then yells at the United States, taking the barrel of the gun off of the terrorist and putting that barrel of the gun straight on him and says, do not fire your anger and wrath.

Do not bring your justice upon the terrorist. Bring it upon me. You see, that part of the gospel is hard for us to understand. We don't understand forgiveness and love like this. This is not a part of our vocabulary.

It's really hard for us to think about it. We can think, oh yeah, forgive someone who's kind of a bad person. Paul described you to be the enemy of God. His anger and wrath. God has to be pretty angry to wanna put out his justice in a place called hell.

But that's not where the story begins. It's not just that you receive the anger of God, but what he says here, much more shall we be saved by his life. The rest of the story goes like this. Okay, I'm taking on your anger towards this terrorist, but then it says that he takes the terrorist, the enemy of God, and he sends him back across the enemy lines, and as he comes across, the instructions are this.

He's now going to live in your home. He's going to be treated as if you would treat me and love me, and you are not going to require anything of it because I have paid for everything. He is to be treated as a family member forever.

You see, that's the difference about the good news. It's not just, oh yes, he took on your punishment. He took on your punishment at God's most angry moment and said, I'm not just angry with you. You're my enemy.

We all understand the context of enemy. That's been around for every culture. We all have that category, but it's when the enemy comes and lives inside the father's home, and the father goes, you're no longer my enemy.

You're my adopted child, and I will treat you as I would have treated my own son. That is the gospel. Here's what's crazy is that there is nothing required of you ever in this entire transaction. You see, you aren't giving instructions of this is what you must do to earn this or maintain this.

It's yours. This is why he says, by this we know love. The love where the father sends the son across the enemy lines to receive your punishment. You are then sent back this side, and you are then adopted and loved by the father, and you are required nothing to do so.

That is crazy. So when we talk about motivation, the motivation comes from I can't believe that God would love me in such a way where he saw me as his enemy and now treats me as his adopted child. Here's what's crazy.

Love One Another Because You Have Been Cleansed

The last part of 1 John 3, 16 says that we are then to take that love that we have received and use it as a motivation to love one another. The story could go this way. Oh, and when they get there, when the terrorist gets there and he goes from enemy to adopted child, what you tell him is that, hey, just make sure, everyone that's in that home, all those soldiers, all those terrorists who have now, your brothers who have now been adopted by, just love them.

Just love them. That's what I need you to do. And your motivation to love the brothers and sisters of Christ and to care for them and be a part of his body, which is the church, it always comes back to the motivation of what Christ did for us.

This is why the gospel has to be emphasized. It has to be brought up, all of the greatest details of what Christ has done. I mean, I quoted this last time, but 1 Peter 3, 9, when he says, if you aren't increasing in love and patience and kindness, he says, you've just been, you've forgotten you've been cleansed from your sins.

You've forgotten you went from enemy to adopted, from that which God hates to that which God loves. So my encouragement to you is, if you are struggling to know, to do, to obey God, if you're struggling to see the Christian life and to wake up every morning and think to yourself, I have no motivation to love God or to see joy in Christ, my encouragement to you is read Romans 5.

Look to what Christ has done for you. Pay attention to the details of the gospel. It's not what you must do for Jesus. It is always what Jesus has done for you. And in the end, you must always trust and rest in the sufficiency of Christ.

The Father's Will, the Son's Mission, and Joy in John 15

Last thing I'll say is, this is what Jesus says. I must be about my father's will. And it was the will of the father for him to come and lay his life down for you, the enemy, so that you could become the adopted child of God.

I hope that was encouraging for you. Trust the gospel, allow it to motivate you. And I promise you, you will have joy as promised to us in John 15.

Have a good week.