The gospel is not advice for self-improvement or how to be good but rather a declaration that Jesus is King of the universe, that you are in rebellion against God and that there is nothing you can do to restore your relationship to God on your own.
What makes the gospel “good news” is that though you deserve to be cast into hell for all of eternity for your rebellion against God, Jesus has made it possible for you to be reconciled to God through His sinless life, sacrificial death on the cross and resurrection. What is even more amazing is that not only can you be reconciled to God but you can be made a part of His family and live with Him forever in the new heavens and earth for all eternity!
Realize that the purpose of the gospel is not just to get you out of hell but to reconcile and restore you to God whom you were created by and for. If you don’t want God on His terms that means you would rather be your own god and He will honor your desire as He will not force Himself upon you. But realize if you don’t want God after you die you will not only not have God but you will not have anything that He created. You will have desires but nothing to fulfill them.
What you have to do to be reconciled and restored to God is first recognize and confess that you are in rebellion against Him. That you, in your unbelief, have turned from Him to be your own god and that you seek to find happiness, fulfillment, and purpose on your own terms in created things rather than in your Creator. You are spiritually dead and the proof of this is that you continually sin by breaking God’s laws. You lie, you steal, you cheat, you manipulate, you gossip, you covet, you lust, you fornicate, you love pleasure rather than God just to name a few.
You try to convince yourself that you are a good person by comparing yourself to others but deep down in your heart you know the truth because you sense the darkness and emptiness that is there. Don’t try to make excuses in order to justify your sins but rather admit them and take responsibility for all the choices you have made in your life and the things you have done.
After you confess your rebellion and sin then you need to surrender and turn back to God in your heart and put your trust in Jesus and all that He did for you in order for you to be restored to God. When you do this Jesus takes your sin and you get His righteousness then the Holy Spirit comes inside you to empower you to live the life God wants you to.
From this point on your life is not your own since you were bought with the price of Jesus’ life. You life is now His to do whatever He pleases to do with it. But don’t be afraid, Jesus loves you! He is King of kings and Lord of lords. So follow Him, obey Him, serve Him and worship Him. If you do, you will experience life to the full as God intended. Not an easy life but a life that brings God glory and you joy and blessing both now and in the life to come.
Here is how many Christians think of “getting saved:” You realize you’re a sinner and you need Jesus to save you. So you approach Him and ask. Of course He says, “Yes,” writes your name in the Lamb’s book of life, and gives you a “certificate” of salvation. If you begin to doubt whether or not you are really “saved,” you go back and replay the moment of your conversion.
Wrong image, I believe. Here’s the problem with it: What if you begin to ask, as I did, “Did I really feel sorry enough for my sin? Did my life change enough after I asked Him into my heart? Did I understand enough about Jesus, or my sin, or grace, when I prayed?” Uh-oh. Better ask again. Back you to go to Jesus, asking Him again to save you, and you feel better for a while. You can do this as much as you want until you meet Jesus in heaven, at which point you might finally be absolutely assured that you’re going to heaven.
That’s not how the Bible depicts salvation. Re-imagine the above example, but this time when you come to Jesus, instead of asking Him for a “certificate” of salvation, you tell Him that you believe what God’s Word says about His Lordship and His completed work at the cross. You then hop up into His arms, now depending on Him to carry you to heaven. You are leaning your weight on what He did, not on what you will do, to get you there.
If you begin to doubt whether or not you really belong to Jesus, what should you do? Do you go back in your mind to that moment when you first hopped up into His arms? You could. But perhaps it would be easier simply to think about where you are currently resting your weight. “Belief” is resting your weight on Christ’s finished work, and that is something you never stop doing. The way you know you are doing it now is not by remembering when you first started doing it, but by reflecting on the present posture of your heart. Your present posture is better proof than a past memory.
The gospel is the good news that, though we deserve judgment and hell, God has provided a way for us sinners to be restored to Himself, now and forever, through His Son Jesus if we turn in our hearts from sin to Jesus and receive by faith what He did to deal with our sin- His sinless life, sacrificial death on the cross and His resurrection.
The Gospel is the good news that God, in His great love, has provided a way for us and all the rest of His creation to be reconciled and restored to Himself. Without this provision, all we have to look forward to is judgment day, when God will judge all that we did. We will be found guilty of sin and, most importantly, of rejecting His provision for our sin. As a result we will be sent to hell where we will experience the full wrath of God for our sin. God’s provision for our sin is through His Son, Jesus Christ, who became a human being and lived a perfect sinless life, then sacrificially died on a cross for our sins, after which He was resurrected to new life and is now at the right hand of the Father waiting to return to set up his eternal kingdom. All those who have accepted God’s provision in Jesus will be adopted by God as His children and will be with Jesus forever and ever.
Longer Definition
The Gospel for us begins with the fact that we are separated from God due to our sin of disobeying Him and not giving Him His rightful place in our lives and hearts. Instead we have chosen to be our own gods and to do what we want regardless of what God says.
We were created for God’s good pleasure, to have a loving relationship with Him. But for love to exist there needs to be the ability to choose to love or not, so God gave us the ability to choose. Sadly, we chose to reject God and to disobey Him, just like Satan did in eternity past. His pride was his downfall as he was the most glorious of all that God created. Instead of appreciating what God had done for him he decided in his heart that he should be worshipped like the Most High. Tragically, we have fallen in his footsteps of wanting to be our own gods.
Imagine this from God’s perspective! Before anything existed God was. He is spirit, invisible and eternal, without beginning and without end. Even though He exists outside of time He is present everywhere through all time and space. He is infinite in knowledge and wisdom and His ways are beyond our ability to understand. He is all-powerful and able to do anything and everything that He wills to do that is in harmony with His nature. He is beautiful, true, good and perfect in every way never changing.
By His will all things that exist were created. He is sovereign over His entire creation and does as He pleases at all times. He alone is the source and giver of life, full of goodness to all that He has created. As He alone is life and the source of life, He is also love and the source of love. God is one in nature but exist in three divine persons- Father, Son and Holy Spirit. For love to exist there needs to be relationship and in the Trinity there has always been perfect harmony and love.
God is holy, righteous and just; He lives in unapproachable light, the light of His majesty and splendor. He is jealous for His glory for He alone is glorious. Sin cannot exist in His presence. He hates sin and because of His nature He brings judgment against it and destroys it by His righteous angry wrath.
While God is holy, righteous and just He is also infinite in love, mercy, grace, kindness, compassion, faithfulness, and patience. In humility He seeks to see His creation become all that He intended it to be.
What we deserve for our rejection and rebellion against God is judgment and hell. Everyone of us is guilty with no exception. We can’t blame others; we are responsible for the choices we have made in our lives. This is indeed bad news.
The bad news even gets worse! There is nothing we can do ourselves to restore our relationship with God. We can’t be good enough or do enough good things or be religious enough to earn our way to Him.
Because of that, what awaits us after the Lord Jesus returns and sets up His kingdom, is a day where we will have to stand before Him and give an account of our lives. We will be judged for our disobedience to God and for our rejection of Jesus which is God’s only provision for our sin. He will show us all the times He tried to reach out to us with His great love and how we rejected it and instead hardened our hearts towards Him. Then He will tell us to leave Him and go to Hell where we will be separated from Him forever and where we will receive the full wrath of His judgment for our sin. There we will also spend all of eternity living with the knowledge that we rejected Jesus, the Father’s great expression of love for us.
But there is good news, the greatest, most awesome news ever! God loves us and does not want any of us to go to Hell. That is why He has provided a way for us to be restored in our relationship with Him through His Son.
He sent His Son, Jesus, to live a perfect life and to die on a cross. While on the cross God placed the sin of the entire world upon Him and then poured out His wrath on His own Son for every sin. By this Jesus paid the price for every sin. On the cross He died then was buried and three days later He rose from the dead proving He was without any sin of His own and that God’s wrath was fully satisfied for sin.
Those that recognize their sin against God and confess it to Him and then turn in their hearts from their disobedient rebellious ways and turn to Jesus, receiving by faith what He did on the cross for their sin and making Him their Lord, will be forgiven of their sin and God will send His Holy Spirit to live within them making them spiritually alive and His children to be with Him forever.
Some day soon Jesus is going to return and set up His kingdom here on the earth where He will rule in righteousness and truth. When He comes, all those who have turned from their sin and placed their faith in Jesus, will be with Him and will rule with Him in His glorious kingdom. At the time of His coming all those that are His will be transformed in the blink of an eye to be like Him, without sin and immortal. We will have physical bodies, yet they will also be spiritual bodies.
Eventually all of the creation will burn in a blazing fire then God will create a new heaven and earth. At that time the new Jerusalem will come down from heaven from God. God will live with men, He will be their God and they will be His people. He will wipe every tear and there will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain. He will restore all things and make them new.
On February 4, 2009 I wrote a new post titled The Gospel - A New Definition.Everything will be as God had originally intended from the very beginning. To the praise of His glory and grace!
You will find links to the resources of the 10 week gospel series I did in January-March 2009 here: Gospel Series ResourcesHere is a post I wrote that is my second most viewed one-
Here is the newest teaching series I am doing on the gospel. At our church in Bucharest I teach the last Sunday of the month on the gospel. Then when I get time I video an English only version.
Sorry I haven't had time to do the English only versions so here is the link to the English with Romanian translation.
