After letting the truth I got to hear at the 2011 Gospel Coalition Conference sink in for a few days, I am more convinced than ever that Jesus Christ’s church is absolutely imperfect, yet absolutely necessary to bring the hope of salvation through Him to the world! How precious was the sound of thousands of His soldiers sing,
“Our call to war, to love the captive soul, but to rage against the captor;
And with the sword that makes the wounded whole we will fight with faith and valor.
When faced with trials on ev’ry side, we know the outcome is secure,
and Christ will have the prize for which He died–an inheritance of nations. (Keith and Kristen Getty)
The main topic of the conference was that foreshadowings and prophecies of Jesus are woven all through the Old Testament, and simply preaching behavior-altering sermons is not really preaching the Gospel!
The Gospel is that Jesus came to save sinners who CANNOT save themselves…His paying our debt, in our place…Him being our perfect Mediator between ourselves and holy God…the Father sending His Son into the world, not to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved!
Realizing that even the story of Moses leading the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt into the Promised Land is an opportunity to see a foreshadowing of Jesus leading me out of my slavery of sin into a heavenly inheritance…well, it gives me a clearer understanding of why all these stories are in Scripture in the first place! And motivation to dig deeper and still deeper into His Word, to praise Him, to line my life up with His plan, to maximize the impact my one life can have on eternity.
