It has become conventional wisdom in most Gospel-loving circles to advise believers to preach the gospel to ourselves as a means of helping us love the gospel more and also as a means to defeat and hate sin. The idea is that preaching the gospel to ourselves reminds us of the precious promises we have in the gospel thereby destroying unbelief and creating a heart of worship. I don’t know about you, but hearing the gospel is water to my soul. A couple of Sunday mornings ago, when our preaching pastor was concluding his series on the Sermon on the Mount, he read, as part of his sermon, the entire Sermon on the Mount. There is just something about corporate reading of the Scriptures that is precious and powerful. Likewise, when I think on the passages of the Bible rich with gospel truth, it waters my soul. During those moments, I absolutely feast on the promises of God and am encouraged and emboldened to defeat sin. I need those times and I am in constant need of being reminded of the promises of the gospel.
So, preaching to the gospel to myself is one of the best ways I have found to be reminded of those precious promises when I’m not in corporate worship with fellow brothers and sisters in Christ. What I usually do is think about what I would share with a non-believer were I in a witnessing encounter. What would I say to him or her that would cause them to love the gospel? What precious truths about the gospel would I want them to fall in love with? Those are likely the very things I need constant reminding of myself. Here are some things I think on in order to help focus my mind:
-I need not fear death because Jesus died and resurrected, defeating death and proving his sovereignty
-The sin that I am struggling with is already defeated because Jesus died and resurrected, bringing victory over sin—the very fact that Jesus resurrected proves his deity as well as his perfection in character and nature
-There is no sin too large for God to forgive. Jesus’ death would have been in vain if there was something his blood could not atone for
-God does not look at me in an angry manner because Jesus is the Just and the Justifier. Therefore, being fully justified in Christ, I am NEVER looked at by God in anger or dis-satisfaction
-Being fully justified by Christ, I have Jesus’ righteousness as my robe and the Father sees nothing else in me ultimately. He’s not ignorant of my sins, but he’s loving and understanding because Jesus himself was tempted as we are (yet, he did not sin). Still, he knows our weakness and longs to deliver us from those weaknesses and sins
-Because Jesus has sovereignly regenerated my heart, I don’t have to eat the dust of sin, but I can drink from the fountain of living water
-I hated Jesus, the eternal fountain of life, because my sin caused me to count the very God I needed as an enemy. Yet, God in his grace and mercy destroyed my rebellious heart and granted me a new heart that desires and is capable of enjoying and longing for God.
I could type on and on. My words, I admit, are not the most artistic or captivating, but these are things I think about when I want to know and be reminded of the precious promises of the gospel. John Owen says be killing your sin or it will be killing you. There is no better sin killer than to think on the precious truths of the gospel and what God saved us from. Why should I preach the gospel to myself? Because my very life depends on it.
