Abraham Lincoln once told a story about an eastern king who had gathered his wise men together and he gave them a task. He asked them to come up with a single statement that would apply in every circumstance, in good times and in bad times, in important times and in insignificant times. No matter what happened, this statement was supposed to apply. So the king's wise men went and conferred, and they returned to the king with a statement that they believed fit the criteria. Now, my purpose in opening with this story is not to introduce the particular statement that the King's wise men came up with, but I can't have you Googling it either while I'm trying to preach. So I'm going to share it with you anyway. The statement that the King's wise men presented him with was this, this too shall pass. Now, there's a certain wisdom in that, similar to what Solomon wrote in Ecclesiastes, a time to weep, a time to laugh, a time to mourn, and a time to dance, and so on. When things are horrible, don't despair, this too shall pass. When things are going great, don't become proud or complacent, because this too shall pass. But as I said, that is not what we're going to explore this morning. There's a better line that answers the king's request, a line that fits every circumstance that we will ever encounter in this life. And it is the title of the sermon this morning. How does the gospel apply to that? It's a sentence, a question in this case, that not only fits every situation, it's also a question that we should be asking in every situation. We should be working to understand how the gospel applies to anything we encounter. And then we should be operating in submission to the gospel in all things. Now, there are some people in the greater church who may find that confusing, who believe that the gospel only has a narrow application as the means by which someone has their sins forgiven and becomes born again, but with no application beyond that initial conversion. I remember, perhaps 20 years ago, maybe more, listening to Tim Johnson preach one Sunday morning. And in this sermon, he preached the gospel. in detail. He laid the foundation for the need. He explained the work that the Lord Jesus accomplished, how salvation is received and applied by grace, through faith, and the new life that we then have in Him. And it was a blessing to hear But then, after the service, as the congregation was drinking coffee in the fellowship hall, I overheard a man complaining about that sermon, and specifically about the time spent presenting the gospel. We've heard that before. We get it. But we're past that now. Pastor needs to move on and preach to Christians about how to live their lives now that they're saved. That man saw no application for the gospel after conversion. And I think that may be how a lot of people view the gospel. Maybe that's how you view the gospel, that the gospel is how you get saved, and that's it. But this is not what the Apostle Paul understood or what he taught. Look at Paul's letter to the Colossians. In chapter 1, starting at verse 4, notice first that Paul is writing to believers here, to those who have already come to saving faith in the Lord Jesus. He says directly in verse four, since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus. In verse five, he writes of the hope laid up for you in heaven. He makes it clear that he is specifically addressing Christians here. And then he begins to talk about The gospel. First, he says that in the whole world, the gospel is bearing fruit and increasing. And we understand that to mean that new people are hearing the gospel and believing, and they're being saved. But then, Paul says that the gospel is also bearing fruit and increasing among you. Now, among you doesn't mean they're unsaved friends and neighbors. This doesn't mean that these Christians that Paul is writing to are then preaching the gospel to the lost and the lost are responding to it and being saved. that the gospel is bearing fruit and increasing among those who are already saved means that it has application for them in their lives. And Paul says that this has been happening since the day you heard it and understood the grace of God in truth. The gospel at work bearing fruit and increasing is an ongoing work that begins when you are saved and continues on from there. Or consider what Paul writes in his letter to the Galatians. In chapter one, verse six, he rebukes the Galatians for deserting him who called you and turning to a different gospel. What's he saying here? What is he accusing the Galatians of? He's not suggesting that they are renouncing the way that they first came to Christ. He's not saying that they're attempting to go back and try to become saved in some different way now, based on some different gospel. He's saying that as they continue on, after their conversion, they are doing so based on a different gospel. Trying to apply a different gospel in their lives today, now that they're saved. Paul is saying that they should be continuing to apply the same gospel, the one and only gospel in their lives as believers. And he explains this further in chapter three. Beginning there in verse one, he points out how they came to faith in Christ. Jesus was proclaimed to them, publicly portrayed as crucified. That is, the gospel was preached to them. And they received their salvation by hearing with faith. They responded in faith to the gospel that was preached, and they were saved. But then, in verse 3, Paul says, are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh? He's rebuking them for not continuing to apply the same gospel in their lives in order to be perfected, or we might say sanctified. Don't miss this. The same gospel that saved you when it was applied by grace through faith is the gospel that now perfects you by grace through faith after your initial conversion and for the rest of your life. When Paul rebuked the Galatians back in chapter one for deserting him who called you and turning to a different gospel, he was saying that they stopped applying the true gospel to their lives after they were saved, and they looked for a different way to perfect themselves. They tried to perfect themselves by works, by a gospel of works. But the Apostle Paul says, no, there is no other gospel. You're perfected by the continued application of the same gospel by which you were saved. So what is the gospel? And here, I don't mean what is the content of the gospel. Usually when I pose that question, what is the gospel, I answer it by explaining about God, and sin, and judgment, about Jesus' righteous life and atoning death, and grace, and faith, and new life in Christ. And that is the gospel. That is the content of the gospel. But here, I mean the question in a broader way. What is the gospel? What does it encompass? The gospel is how God accomplishes His ultimate purpose for humanity. Everything that He does to accomplish His purpose for us is the gospel. We're given an overview of that, that entails all of this in Romans 8, verses 29 and 30. It begins in eternity past with those whom he foreknew. If you belong to him, then he foreknew you. It doesn't say he foreknew about you. It says he foreknew you. That means he related to you deliberately. He knew you before you existed. That's what foreknew means. And it says that those he foreknew, he also predestined. Now, I don't want to get hung up on predestination and election or any of that this morning. What I want to focus on is what he predestined us to, what he planned for us to be. And what it says is the thing that He planned, the thing He predestined, is for us to be conformed to the image of His Son. That is His ultimate purpose for humanity, that God would redeem a people who would be conformed to the image of His Son. Okay, it may be more accurate, and this is a worthwhile distinction, it may be more accurate to say that God's ultimate purpose for humanity is to glorify himself by conforming a people to the image of his son. But this confirmation to Christ's image is necessary for that purpose. So the gospel is how God conforms people to the image of his Son. Beginning to end, how he gets us from where we were, and in fact, from before we were anything, how he gets us from there and brings us to conformity to his Son, the Lord Jesus. So then, those he predestined, He also called. And when it says He called, it means that the Spirit does a work in your life, preparing you, illuminating you, drawing you, then regenerating you. And those He called, He also justified. Our justification began with the work that Jesus accomplished through His death. Jesus died to pay the penalty for our sin. If that didn't happen, if the penalty wasn't paid, then there is no justification. Then we're all still guilty before God. Your specific, individual justification occurred when you came to faith in Christ, when your sins were forgiven and God declared you guilt-free, justified before Him. And those He justified, He also glorified. Glorified is the completion of this process. Glorified brings us back to this point, to being conformed to the image of God's Son. And this is all gospel. The gospel is not just this narrow section where we're justified. The gospel begins when God foreknew you and planned to conform you, and it continues on until the plan is complete. In Colossians 1, verse 22, Paul says that the reason Jesus died was in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before Him. That's not fully accomplished when you are first saved. You may be positionally blameless before God, that's what justified means, but you are not holy and blameless and above reproach in every way. You are not yet conformed to the image of the Son in practical reality. And that is God's purpose for the gospel. God's purpose is not merely to forgive a bunch of rebellious people and then make them marginally more righteous in practice. God's purpose is for you to be conformed to the image of the Son, which means perfect righteousness. Jesus died in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before Him in every way. So how does that happen? What's the plan at this stage of the game? How does God bring you from that point of initial salvation, when you were justified, to where you will be fully conformed to the image of His Son? It is a process that will continue for the rest of this life. Even the Apostle Paul said of himself in Philippians 3, verse 12, not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own because Christ Jesus has made me his own. So in this life, we will never arrive at perfection. We will not be fully conformed to the image of the Son in this life. And yet, it is part of God's plan for your life that you would continue to be perfected, that you would continue to be conformed by the application of the gospel. But again, how does that work? Let's go back to Romans 8, where we found this overview of the gospel that goes from when God foreknew you in eternity past, all the way to when you will ultimately be glorified, holy and blameless, above reproach, conformed to the image of the Son. And then let's back up a verse to verse 28. Romans 8 28 it's a verse that you're no doubt familiar with and We know it says that for those who love God all Things work together for good for those who are called according to his purpose now how we understand this verse is will be largely determined by what we think Paul means when he writes good. All things work together for good. I think a lot of people read this and they understand good here in a broad way. Anything that is generally beneficial. And the word can be used that way. When Jesus, in the Sermon on the Mount, says that you who are evil know how to give your children good gifts, He means good in this broad way. Things that are generally beneficial. So many apply that same broad definition of good here in Romans. If God physically heals me, gives me health, that's good. If God provides for my physical needs, food, housing, things like that, that's good. If God gives me healthy relationships that are a joy, that's good. And those things are good. And many other things are good as well. And we should value those things and thank God for them. That's not the good that Paul's talking about here in Romans 8. Not in the context of this chapter. Here, Paul means something very specific when he writes good. Let's look at some of the verses that lead up to this. Verse 18, for instance. For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us." The good here is the glory that is to be revealed to us. Or as some translations have it, the glory to be revealed in us. When we're glorified, when Jesus presents us holy and blameless and above reproach, conformed to the image of the Son, that is good. And then in the next verses, it talks about how creation is groaning to be set free from its bondage to corruption and to obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. The good here is moving from corruption to glory. And it says in verse 23, not only creation, but we ourselves. We groan inwardly for this. We have the spirit. We are saved, but we lob. for that perfection. We long to be conformed to the image of the Son. And that is the good that Paul means in verse 28. The things that are left to be accomplished in our lives, after we're saved, so that we can be presented holy and blameless and above reproach, that's the good that he means. We know that for us, for those who love God, God is working all things together for that good. For those who love God, for those who have been called according to His purpose, His purpose to conform us to the image of His Son, God is working all things together for that good, for that purpose. Essentially, you are God's project from eternity past, from when He foreknew you, when He related to you, and He formed this plan for you to be conformed to the image of His Son. And so now, at this point in your salvation, God has designed a custom program for you. He has chosen everything in your life. All things, it says. And he has arranged them to accomplish this purpose in you. To get you from where you are now ever closer to perfection in Christ. I think we understand this, and we think this way about trials, at least in theory. Because James tells us in his epistle that God uses trials to produce steadfastness. And it says, so that we may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing. And that's true of the big trials, illnesses, and needs that are coming up short. and conflicts in relationships, and losses that we suffer. These are trials, and God uses them to perfect us. But it's not just the big trials. Aggravations and irritations and disappointments, lost keys, the guy who cut you off in traffic, The guy who lets you know that he's not happy that you cut him off in traffic? Accidentally, I'm sure. God doesn't cause our sinful reactions to these situations, when that happens, but he certainly does bring about the situations as part of his program to sanctify you and perfect you. And it's not just the trials. It's also his provision for you that he works through to perfect you. Providing food, a home, health. God uses his provision to create trust in us. And it's so much more than that. The comfort and encouragement that we receive from others. The teaching, the counsel, the rebuke. the fulfillment that you get from work, or the toil of your work, and even your recreation and your entertainment. We know that for those who love God, all things work together for good, specifically for the good of being conformed to the image of the Son. All things. every individual instance in your life of every one of these things and so much more is a piece of God's customized plan for you to make you increasingly holy and blameless and above reproach. God takes all things, all things that come into your life and he arranges them like a composer writing a symphony. And then he plays every note at the perfect time and in the perfect way, all working together with every other note to accomplish precisely what he desires, conforming you to the image of his son. God is big enough to do this. He's wise enough to conceive a plan that works all things in your life together for your perfection. At the same time, He's working all things in my life together for my perfection, even though there's significant overlap between the things in your life and in my life. And then add to that everyone else who he's redeemed. He's wise enough to make the plan. He's powerful enough to pull it off. He's loving enough to want to do it. And he's committed to holiness so that he will see it through. However, It's important that we recognize that these things in themselves do not make you holy and blameless and above reproach. These things in themselves do not conform you to the image of the Son. We may get the idea that the experience of going through a trial, or experiencing God's provision, or of understanding His truth, that those things are what affect this change in my life. But they're not. If they were, then why did Jesus need to die? No, it's the power of the gospel that is applied to your life while you are experiencing these things. God executes this plan that works all things together to prepare you and nurture you and discipline you so that the gospel can have its intended effect on your life. But the gospel is the power. That's what Paul says in Romans 1.16. For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes. The gospel is the power, the power of God for salvation. And that brings us to our question. How does the gospel apply to that? That's the question that you should ask in every situation, because every situation has a gospel application. In fact, every situation that you face as a believer is put there by God expressly for the purpose of facilitating the application of the gospel in your life. So ask, how? How does the gospel apply to that? I want to talk in very practical terms about how we should approach that question. But first, I want to consider how the gospel was first applied in our lives at the moment of our conversion. Because the way that it continues to be applied is much like the way that it was first applied. I'm going to suggest three things, just broadly speaking, three things that happened when you were saved. Now, there's a whole lot that happened to you spiritually, and I'm not going to get into that, but these are three things that applied when you came to faith in Christ. You came to terms with your sin. You saw yourself as the sinner that you are, and you understood the offense, and you understood the consequences of that sin. At least in some simple way, you did. Second, you came to some understanding of Christ's righteousness. A moment ago, we saw in Romans 1.16 that the gospel is the power of God for salvation. In Romans 1.17, it continues that in the gospel, the righteousness of God is revealed. The gospel does that. It reveals the righteousness of God. Both of these things are part of responding to the gospel, seeing your sin and seeing Christ's righteousness, and then understanding the vast gulf that separates the two. And third, You choose righteousness by faith. And when I say by faith, I mean that you trust Christ to make you righteous. You put your faith in Him. You don't choose righteousness by your own effort. You don't reach for righteousness on your own. That would be the opposite of the gospel. you willingly turn away from sin, you turn to Christ's righteousness, but you recognize that it's only possible by grace through faith. My contention this morning is that the same way you applied the gospel initially when you were converted is the way that you apply the gospel in every situation in your life today. You see the sin, whether that's an outward sin that you've already fallen into, or a sin of the heart that's hiding in the shadows, or the potential for sin that your flesh would love to indulge in. You apply the gospel first by seeing the sin. Second, you see the righteous possibilities. You discern from God's Word and the Holy Spirit's activity in your life based on that Word. What righteousness would look like in this situation? And third, you turn from the sin and walk in the righteousness by faith. Walking in righteousness by faith is a very different thing from walking in righteousness by effort or by resolve. This is not just digging deep within yourself and disciplining yourself to do what you know is right. This is recognizing that the sin that remains in your flesh can only be defeated by the power of the gospel, the victory that Jesus won over sin on the cross, and trusting that he will do that for you. It involves confession, repentance, but it's always grounded in faith in Jesus. He does the work. This faith is stepping into righteousness, knowing full well that your flesh is going to fight you every step of the way, and knowing that you don't have the willpower to defeat it by your own effort, but trusting God that the victory that Jesus won on the cross, the power of the gospel, is at work in you and is able to keep you from stumbling, and that that is your only hope for righteousness. So let's apply it. I'm not going to go into a lot of detail, but I want to just give you some ideas for how this works. You're experiencing a trial, a health trial, a financial trial, a personal conflict with someone. Maybe someone's let you down or treated you unfairly. What's the sin danger here? Bitterness? Grumbling? Dissension if you blame someone else for your trouble? Maybe covetousness. Covetousness of those who are having an easier go of it right now. And it's all sin. What would righteousness look like in the midst of a trial? Trust? Reliance on God? Patience? Prayer? Humility? Humility in that you don't insist that you deserve better than you get because none of us do? In fact, all of us deserve far worse than anything that we get. But only a humble person can see that. So then how does faith apply? Well, faith is going to be similar in every one of these examples. It comes from the recognition that left to myself, I can't overcome the bitterness and the grumbling and the dissension and the covetousness. I can't. They are crouching at the door. They will devour me if I don't get help. In myself, I can't truly rely on God. I can't be patient. I can't be humble. Even if I can affect some outward appearance of it, it's just a facade. But I will believe that God can make me righteous. Even in this, if I'm struggling with bitterness, I will confess that sin, and then I will pour myself into the Psalms, and I will trust that God can change my heart through it by the power of the gospel. The power of the gospel will change me by faith when I turn away from sin and turn to righteousness. That's how the gospel. might apply in a trial. But the gospel also applies in times of affluence. When you're blessed with health, when your needs are met, maybe much more than just your needs. What is the sin? Or what's the potential for sin here? Pride? Thinking you've attained it yourself? Believing you deserve it? Or self-reliance? If you took credit for gaining the affluence, then certainly you should be able to maintain it, even increase it. Hoarding, hoarding is coveting when it's applied to your own possessions. And excess, indulgence. God makes you a steward of the things that he entrusts you to, but you will give and account. What then does righteousness look like in affluence? Humility. Again, in this case, recognizing that all that you have is from God. Stewardship. Managing the things that God has given you for his glory and for the sake of his kingdom. And trust and reliance on God despite your own apparent success in life. And faith is much the same in affluence as it is in trial. Trusting God to produce in me the righteousness that doesn't come naturally, and to rescue me from the sin that tempts me, and walking in righteousness confident that he will sustain me. What about the pleasure and enjoyment of life? The hobbies that you enjoy, the arts, work that you find fulfilling. Anything big or small in this life that enriches your life. The sin is to make those things a God. Idols in your life, to chase after them and serve them. Righteousness is to be grateful, grateful to God for these things, and to enjoy the gifts that He has given in a way that brings Him glory. God wants you to enjoy the good gifts that He gives. Appropriately, but that's not natural for us. Our flesh prefers to make idols and to enslave ourselves to them. That's where faith comes in. God can free you from that bondage. He can fill you with gratitude and lead you in a way that honors him by the power of the gospel. when you put your faith in Him. We can go on. This applies to every kind of circumstance in all of your life, to all things. All things work together for good, for the good that is conforming you to the image of His Son. That is His purpose. and he calls you to it. Be mindful of this. Everything in your life, God has put there for the purpose of conforming you to the image of his son. Don't allow yourselves to be distracted from this. Don't tell yourself that the main reason that you're going through a trial, or experiencing anything for that matter, is for someone else's benefit. That the reason that you're being tried is so that you can help others when they go through trials. Now, God may use you in that way at some point. In fact, he very likely will. But the primary reason for your trial is to conform you to the image of God's Son. Don't deflect that by making your trial about helping someone else deal with their trial. And don't let this turn into a works-based sanctification where you learn a lesson from your trials and from your other experiences, and then you seek to apply that lesson by your own efforts. Guard against that. The Apostle Paul was given a thorn in the flesh. Now, people have suggested several possibilities for what that might have been. But it was significant enough that he asked God three times to take it away. And what was the purpose of it? It wasn't to make Paul a better minister of the gospel. At least, that wasn't Paul's focus when he wrote about it. It probably did have that effect, but Paul wasn't distracted by it. The purpose was to keep me from becoming conceited, Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 12. It was to keep him from sin, to make him righteous, to present him holy and blameless and above reproach, to conform him to the image of the Son. And how was that going to happen in Paul's life? Was it through Paul's own effort? Through his own strength as he faced the trial? No. God said to Paul, my grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness. Therefore, Paul says, I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. It is through the application of the gospel the power of God that sin would die and righteousness would reign in Paul. How does the gospel apply to that? I'm convinced that this question should define your life. Every Christian counseling session should be controlled by this question. Every time your children or grandchildren or your friends or anyone asks you about something in life, this question should be at the front of your mind. How does the gospel apply to that? Whether you express it in those terms or not, it should be there. And most important, for you, this question should define how you respond to everything around you, everything you encounter, everything you experience, everything that affects you in any way. Where is the sin in this? Where is the righteousness? How can the gospel be applied by faith? Be mindful of this in everything. God is working all things together for your good according to His purpose to conform you to the image of His Son. Let's pray.