The word gospel literally means almost too good to be true news! This means if what we are hearing from the pulpit or when we read the Bible doesn’t seem too good to believe, it probably isn’t the full gospel! The full gospel is the over the top good news of God’s unmerited love and favor! To illustrate this point, check out this passage from 2 Samuel 23:
2 “The Spirit of the Lord spoke by me,
And His word was on my tongue.
3 The God of Israel said,
The Rock of Israel spoke to me:
‘He who rules over men must be just,
Ruling in the fear of God.
4 And he shall be like the light of the morning when the sun rises,
A morning without clouds,
Like the tender grass springing out of the earth,
By clear shining after rain.’
5 “Although my house is not so with God,
Yet He has made with me an everlasting covenant,
Ordered in all things and secure.
For this is all my salvation and all my desire;
Will He not make it increase?
David said this at the end of his life. The statements he made in this passage were prophetic of Jesus. Jesus is the Rock of Israel and He is like the light of the morning when the sun rises. This passage highlights that God made an everlasting covenant with David because of Jesus and everything He would do right one day.
David knew he didn’t qualify for God’s blessing because he was a liar, an adulterer, and a murderer. This is why he said, “my house is not so with God.” David meant “My house is not like Jesus’s house. My house isn’t in order. I don’t have it altogether, but I am being blessed with an everlasting covenant because of the Perfect One who is to come!”
In verse 5 David said that God ordered His everlasting covenant in all things in David’s life and made them secure. This included David’s salvation and all of the rest of his desires. This passage closes by stating that God was going to cause things to increase on David’s behalf. Why? Because David was good? Absolutely not! God was going to increase David because God is so good! That’s the gospel truth!
The way this applies to us is we need to realize that when Jesus went to the cross He made a covenant with the Father. According to Isaiah 22:5 Jesus was the peg fastened in a secure place. The promises God has made to you and me hinge entirely on His performance and not ours. I’m emphatic about stating when Jesus went to the cross He made covenant with the Father because I want to emphasize we did not make a covenant with the Father. Jesus did and He secured it entirely with His performance. He is the peg in a secure place, not us. This means we aren’t part of the blessing equation. The only work required of us is to simply trust in His goodness. That’s it! We get in on the covenant simply by believing. As we rest in His goodness we get to enjoy all He has made available to us!
Lastly, it’s very important to remember that God initiated the entire process of covenant, not us. It was His idea which is why He sent Jesus. This means our seeking God is really just a response to the fact that He has always been seeking us. He went first because He loves us more than we can ever love Him. When we learn to rest in that kind of unconditional and passionate love, we can’t help but receive and increase in every area of our lives! WHAT AN AWESOME PROMISE! AND THAT’S THE GOSPEL TRUTH!
I sure do hope this article blessed you, because it blessed the heck out of me as I wrote it. If you’d like to learn more on the New Covenant, check out this message I taught at Grace Life Church!
