The Gospel Motivates the giving of ourselves to a community (2 Cor. 8:8-9) Paul is encouraging the Corinthians to excel in the act of the grace of giving (v. 7). The way he motivates them is not by addressing their willpower through their guilt (legalism). He doesn’t just say, “Look at all of the people in the world hurting...how could you not help them?!?!?” Instead he tells them to look at Christ and his example of sacrifice in the Gospel. If we are gripped by the humility of Christ in sacrificing for us by taking on human flesh and becoming “poor” then we will have no problem becoming poor for others.
The Gospel Drives our Love for One Another (1 John 4:7-12) The only way we know how to love others is when we believe in the amazing love of God for us. You can try to love others. You can try to curb your man-centeredness and love of yourself, however, the only way that we can truly love people is by understanding what love is and how it has been applied to us. “In this is love” – God’s act of sending Christ to die for us is the very definition of love. Now show me a people who understand that kind of love that was lavished on them, and you will see a people who have no problem loving others. You see the reason we have such a hard time loving others is because we don’t fully realize how much God loved us. If we did, then our lives would overflow with love. So in your battle to love people don’t just wake up tomorrow and determine that you are going to love people today...wake up tomorrow and remind yourself of how much God loved you...then see what happens.
I hope you’re starting to see a picture of why the Gospel is so important to God's view of community in Flint. It is our faith in the Gospel that shapes everything we do and gives us the power to do it. As we begin to understand the Gospel in Scripture and its impact on our lives we realize that our lives have a radically different identity than we had before. New identity – When we think about our identity we define ourselves by who we are individually, however, because of the Gospel we have a new identity. We no longer define ourselves by who we are as individuals but by who we are as Children of God and as members of the body of Christ. You cannot divorce our identity from Christ and you cannot divorce our identity from the body of Christ. We are no longer children of wrath, we are children of God (Rom. 8:1). And we are no longer individuals we are a people. We are a community, we are the living Gospel.
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