August Book of the Month

Each month at Stones Crossing we highlight a featured book of the month. It often connects to the sermon series, a class or study, or something in the life of the church.

For August, our featured book is Gospel Deeps: Reveling in the Excellencies of Jesus by Jared Wilson. This book connects to our August class, Gospel Foundations. It not only helps the reader better understand what the gospel message is, but each chapters walks through how the gospel applies to some aspect of our life. How does the gospel relate to suffering? How does the gospel affect our view of God? How does the gospel give us joy in the ordinary? How does the gospel help us deal with temptation or guilt? These kinds of questions are covered by Jared Wilson in this book.

The cover of the book has a diamond because the gospel has many facets to it. The more we hold it up, examine it, and see it from different angles, the more it's beauty shines. "There is one gospel, as there is one Jesus, but there are many facets to this gospel, as there are infinite excellencies in Jesus. The further into the gospel we go, then, the bigger it gets. There is no way for us to wear it out."

You can order a copy of this book online or we will have a few copies for sale at the Resources Wall at Stones Crossing during August.

QUOTES

Here are just a few quotes from the book to give you a taste of both Wilson's writing style and the content.

“If the gospel is not the ABC’s of the Christian life but the A to Z, we can expect that the gospel is for all of life, not just the moment of conversion. The gospel’s saving work is deep work. It is deep tissue massage, spiritual reparative therapy, and radical reconstructive surgery.”

“Our look into the depths of the gospel cannot be merely to know information, as if deciphering some secret code, but instead to seek more and more to be awed by what God has done for us in Christ, what God is doing for us in Christ, and what God will do for us in Christ. Plumbing the depths of the gospel is exultational pursuit, or it is a pointless one.”

“From his fullness, John 1:16 tells us, we receive grace upon grace. In the gospel there is grace for every need, because it comes through an all-sufficient Savior who is the God of steadfast love.”

"When we are bored, it can be only because we have stopped looking at Jesus. He can't be boring. If we find him boring, it's because we are boring. The deficiency is ours, not his."


Runner-up
While the book of the month was chosen based on votes from Facebook and Instagram on the Stones Institute Account, the runner-up was a book related to our August sermon series on the armor of God in Ephesians 6. If you're wanting a book for that series, I recommend The Whole Armor of God: How Christ's Victory Strengthens Us for Spiritual Warfare by Iain Duguid.