Using the words gospel, grace, and Jesus in context does not make you a gospel-centered Christian

I was raised in the Church.  In gospel believing churches.  In gospel believing churches that believed Jesus was the only way to God.  In churches that believed we were saved by grace through faith and not by our own works.

But I was not raised in gospel-centered churches.

What is the difference?  At first, I thought the difference centered around Calvinism and reformed doctrine.  The churches in which I was raised and attended into adulthood were mostly Baptist (dispensational, KJV only Baptist if you are familiar with those terms).  When I discovered Martin Luther and the reformation, I thought that was the solution to the ills I had witnessed in gospel believing, though not gospel centered, churches growing up.  But it doesn’t take long running in reformed circles to figure out that they (we) often aren’t any more gospel centered than the independent Baptist crowd.  We might be able to articulate the doctrines of grace with great eloquence (complete with Scripture references and Calvin quotes), but that just makes our distractions from gospel-centered ministry that much more troubling. 

I now understand that a pastor can say gospel, grace, and Jesus in sermons as much as he wants, but that doesn’t make him gospel centered.  That doesn’t mean he understands grace.  That doesn’t show an awareness of the fullness of whom Jesus is and what He came to live out before us. 

The gospel isn’t a word.  It’s a paradigm-shifting lens through which we view everything else.  It isn’t something we do to change ourselves.  It’s something done for us, in which we dwell daily.  The gospel changes everything.  The gospel INFORMS everything.  The gospel is the pair of glasses that sits on our nose as we leave Sunday service changing how we view ourselves, our marriage problems, our marriage successes, our disobedient children, our obedient children, the people we don’t want to be like, and the people we do want to be like.

The gospel enlightens us (I did not save myself).  The gospel teaches us  (Neither can they).  The gospel inspires us (Love them unconditionally the way Christ loved me).  The gospel gives us hope (They aren’t past repair).  The gospel gives us power.  (The same force that raised Christ from the dead is at work in me and them).  The gospel changes everything. 

The gospel keeps us from thinking too highly of ourselves.  It keeps us from thinking too highly of others.  It protects us from self-condemnation when we fail.  It equips us to catch others when they do.  It gives us hope that transcends car accidents and relationship failures.  It gives perspective to painful hindsight of mistakes with our husband or children, coworker or roommate.  It just simply changes EVERYTHING.  But it won’t change everything until you learn to look at everything through the lens it provides.  And that means more than throwing the words around, even in proper context.