pilgrim people

Pilgrim People's recommended book for the month of October is Mike Horton's latest release on Baker, The Gospel-Driven Life: Being Good News People in a Bad News World. I admit that, at first, I wasn’t all that interested in reading it (shhh, don’t tell him I said that). When I obtained my copy, I scanned the table of contents and thought, “Well, I know what he’s going to say in each of these chapters.” I mean, it isn’t as if Horton’s material is new to me. I have read every book (and I’m pretty sure every magazine and journal article) he has ever published. I have read his entire dissertation on Thomas Goodwin. I have probably heard every episode of the White Horse Inn since about ‘97 or ‘98. I studied under him at WSC from 2000-04. And I have the rare privilege of interacting with him on an almost weekly basis as a fellow minister and friend at Christ URC. So, one might cut me some slack for assuming that I already know where he is going in each of his chapters of Gospel-Driven and being tempted to leave it on the shelf and move on to other reading.

Well, now that I am about halfway through it, I realize that I was only partially correct in my assumption. Yes, Horton pretty much goes where I figured he would go in each of his chapters. He builds a case for the Gospel being the source for our sanctification, the fuel for driving the Christian life, and the wind in the sails that moves the boat across the water.

Now, if you have read/listened to Horton for any amount of time but you haven’t yet read Gospel-Driven, then I know what you may be thinking, because it is probably the same thing I was thinking when I received my copy: “What? A whole book on Horton’s analogy of the Gospel acting like wind in the sails of the Christian? I already know that, love that, and seek to live by that. What else is there to read?”

Think again. While I am only about half-way through it (and skipped ahead to read the last two chapters), I am convinced that this is quite possibly the best thing Mike has ever written. In some ways, it is a culmination of all his writings crafted into clear, pastoral language that passionately communicates the thing that concerns Horton the most: Christians hearing the Gospel proclaimed weekly in the means of grace and all that that does for us. The first lines of his introduction make the book’s objective crystal clear:

“The goal of this book is to reorient our faith and practice as Christians and churches toward the gospel: that is, the announcement of God’s victory over sin and death in his Son, Jesus Christ. The first six chapters explore that breaking news from heaven, while the rest of the book focuses on the kind of community that this gospel generates in the world. It is not merely that there is a gospel and then a community made up of people who believe it; the gospel creates the kind of community that is even now an imperfect preview of the kingdom’s marriage feast that awaits us. The church is its own culture, not only with its distinct story and doctrine, but with its own “politics” and means. Consistent with the message that it proclaims, the church is receiving its life, identity, growth, and expansion from above rather than creating these for itself and from its own resources.” (11)

In other words, the Gospel – the breaking news of the Person and Work of Christ in history – does the work of building Christ’s church and giving life to its members who, in this age, remain pilgrims. Because we are still pilgrims and are not yet glorified, the news of the Gospel will always sound rather foreign to us, even though we are Christians. In Chapter 1, which he titles “The Front-Page God: Checking the Headlines,” Horton points out that

“to the extent that we remain pilgrims in this life, the gospel will remain strange even to us. Until the day we die, we will struggle to believe the bad news and Good News that God announces to us. We do not just naturally think that we are born in sin, spiritually dead, helpless, and unable to lift a finger to save ourselves or impress a holy God. As a result, it does not just occur to us that our greatest need is to be redeemed, justified, regenerated, sanctified, and glorified by God’s saving work in his Son and by his Spirit. If the ‘Good News’ that we proclaim is determined by what we already know – or think we know – and experience, it isn’t really news. Limited to what we already think is relevant, practical, and useful, the message will never be surprising, disorienting, and troubling. It can never throw us off balance or cause us to reevaluate our priorities and interpretations of reality.” (19)

In other words, our inner life is not the news. What we feel inside is not news. The climate and false comfort of our selfish, narcissistic caves of private experience where we love to lurk like Gollum in the shadows, is not, nor ever can be, news. But the Gospel – the Christ event in human history – is news. And its news that throws us for a loop.

The Gospel as news makes me think of that great scene in Genesis 45, in which Joseph reveals his identity to his unsuspecting brothers. Talk about news. They thought Joseph was long-gone and dead. Their consciences were still weighed down with guilt over selling their brother into slavery and breaking their father’s heart. And then there was this news: the second most powerful man in the world before whom they bowed as mere servants was their brother Joseph. He was alive and well, perhaps a little too much so for their comfort. At first, they were speechless and dismayed by his presence (45:3). They knew they deserved justice, and that Joseph had the power to execute that justice right there on the spot. Like our first parents, Adam and Eve, they wanted to run and hide from the one whom they had offended and aggrieved. They wanted to cover themselves from their shame.

But then came the surprising announcement: “Come near to me, please.” This was strange, surprising news, seeing that Joseph had every right to be angry with his brothers. He had every right to dole out punishments to his brothers for their crimes of kidnapping him, throwing him into a pit, selling him into slavery, and then lying to his father and breaking his heart. He had every right to expose their blame and execute just vengeance.

But he doesn’t claim his rights to justice. Instead, he speaks tenderly to them. He says, “Come near to me, please.” He, the one who was offended, shows mercy and grace to his offenders. He first says, “I am your brother, Joseph, whom you sold into Egypt.” Now, that much was law! And that first sentence must have terrified them even more, just as when the law is read, confirming what we already know to be true in our guilty consciences. But he didn’t stop there; he goes on: “And now do not be distressed or angry with yourselves bec you sold me here.” He knows they are smoldering wicks ready to go out, bruised reeds ready to break. He relieves their fear and brings them good news: “God has sent me here before you to preserve life…God sent me before you to preserve for you a remnant on earth, and to keep alive for you many survivors. So it was not you who sent me here, but God.”

And then he goes on to say, “Go back to Canaan, tell dad I am alive, bring him back here. You shall dwell in the land of Goshen, and you shall be near me, you and your children and your children’s children, and your flocks, your herds, and all that you have. There I will provide for you.” The brothers expected justice from Joseph, but instead they received mercy and grace. The good news Joseph announced transformed this dysfunctional family that collectively struggled with bitterness, pride, and an unforgiving spirit, to grateful heirs of a promise. Because the news Joseph announced, because of his words given to them, they had reconciliation.

This is what the Gospel does for us every Lord’s Day as we take our place with our fellow pilgrims and hear its glorious announcement again. It rocks our world. It throws us off balance. It tells us what we do not expect to hear: that a holy God accepts us because of Christ, and promises that he will provide us with eternal life. And that news transforms us into grateful pilgrims on the way, people who can serve their neighbor without expecting anything in return because in the Gospel, God has given us everything.

This is the message Horton communicates in the opening chapters of this masterpiece, Gospel-Driven. I hope to blog my way through it and share its gold with you, but you would do far better to drop everything else you are reading right now and read this. It’s good. Really good.