A group of our best friends spent three days with 7,000 people in Louisville, KY at the Together for the Gospel conference. We spent our time together with Jason, Tammy, Rusty, Kelley, Jeremy, Glen, Steve, Josh, Tommy, and Justin, hearing the gospel, singing the gospel, praying the gospel, and fellowshipping in the gospel.
We were reminded that the gospel is to be the foundation and focus of our lives and our churches. We were encouraged in the gospel. We were emboldened by the gospel. We were thinking and singing about the gospel. How good it was to be with our dear friends—and how good it was for us all to be Together for the Gospel.
Our greatest need is the gospel—God’s gracious work of redemption through the person and work of his Son, Jesus the Christ. We need the gospel. Folks in our church need the gospel. People in our community need the gospel. The almost 7 billion people on the planet need the gospel.
Indeed, “For Christ suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit” (1 Peter 3:18).
Indeed, “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21).
Throughout Together for the Gospel, our minds were often turned to ourselves, our three boys, and our church. Our thoughts were also very much with our fourth son, Benjamin (who turned one-year-old on April 13 in Ethiopia!) We are waiting any minute to get the call telling us that we will soon travel to go and get him.
God has given us a heart for adoption, but we are even more amazed at the heart that God has given us for himself and the gospel. We want God, but we want to want God a lot more than we currently want him!
For us, the gospel is motivating our adoption of Benjamin. We want the gospel to motivate our every thought, word and action. We want to give Benjamin a “better” life. We want to give him a “good” home. We want to bring him into our family. But more than all those things, we are praying for Benjamin to hear the gospel and embrace the gospel.
“So faith comes from hearing, and hearing from the word of Christ” (Romans 11:17).
Bringing him into our home will guarantee that he hears the gospel, and we are praying that the entire Brady Bunch might one day be Together in the Gospel.
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