What is the gospel?
“Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you—unless you believed in vain. For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures…” - 1 Corinthians 15:1-4
The gospel is simply this: Jesus died for our sins, He was buried, and God raised Him from the dead. It is His finished work that makes us right with God. Jesus did something for us that we could never do for ourselves.
The gospel is literally good news. It is good news that broken people like us can be in relationship with a righteous, perfect, holy, and just God. How does this take place? The 3 Circles diagram helps us understand the work of the gospel in our lives.
God’s Design
God has a design for every area of our lives—our families, marriages, money, sex life, work life, and just plain life (Gen 1-2). God designed us to be in relationship with Him, but we have all departed from that design (Gen 3). The Bible calls this sin. When Adam and Eve rebelled against God’s command in the garden, they brought God’s curse upon them and passed it on to us. We are now born with a sinful nature, so sin comes naturally to us. There is no one who gets it right all of the time. We all sin and fall short of God’s perfect design (Rom. 3:23). This sin leaves us in brokenness.
Brokenness
The concept of brokenness is easy for most of us to understand. It feels like broken relationships, addiction, depression, discouragement, guilt and shame. We all want out of brokenness, so we try to fix it. We medicate it with drugs or numb it with alcohol. We strive to be better people, hoping that somehow, someway, our good will outweigh our bad. We look for ways to alleviate our pain. When we do that, we just get more and more broken. This feels like a bad thing, but in many ways brokenness is a good thing because it’s the way God gets our attention. When we feel broken on the inside and everything’s all messed up, we know something needs to change. The Bible has a word for the change we all need…the gospel.
Gospel
The gospel simply means “good news.” The good news the Bible declares is that God has done for you and me what we could not do for ourselves. He made a way where there was no way. God the Father sent God the Son to this world. His name was Jesus. He was fully God and fully man. Jesus lived a perfect life, keeping and fulfilling the Law. Therefore, He was able to offer His life as a sacrifice on the cross to atone for our sin. The Bible says Jesus’ blood was shed for our forgiveness as He died on the cross (1 Pet 2:24). He was buried in a tomb for three days before rising from the dead and ascending back to the Father in heaven. Jesus did this so that far from God people could experience God’s design for their lives.
In order to experience God’s solution for our brokenness, the Bible declares that we must repent and believe the gospel (Mark 1:15). The change we really need comes only from Jesus. When we repent, we choose to turn away from our sin and ourselves and turn to Jesus. Instead of trusting in our ability to earn our way to heaven and a better life, we believe in Jesus’ provision through the cross. We believe that His sacrifice and resurrection is sufficient. When we confess Jesus as our Lord and Savior and put our trust in His death and resurrection, the Bible says we will be saved from our sins (Romans 10:9-10).
We are now able to pursue and recover God’s design for our lives. Jesus’ work on the cross, made it possible to have a relationship with the God who created us for Himself. Our dead spirits are resurrected to new life in Christ, so we can now pursue the relationship we were created for (2 Cor 5:17-21). As a result we can recover God’s great design for our lives. In doing so, Jesus sends us right back out into a broken world to tell others how to find their way out of brokenness.
Four Gospel Truths
Every person is a sinner and sins against God. (Rom 3:23)
Sin separates every person from God. (Rom 6:23; Eph 2:1-3)
Forgiveness and restoration from all sin are exclusively found in Jesus Christ. (John 14:6; Eph 2:4-5)
Salvation is the free gift of God available for every person, but it must be received by faith and repentance. (Acts 2:38; Eph 2:8-9).
What is your story? How does it line up with the gospel message?
Has there been a moment in your life whereby you have willingly and purposely confessed your sin to Jesus, turned from it, and asked Him to forgive you? In that moment did you by faith believe on Jesus as your Lord and Savior? If not, there is no greater need in your life than to this. Today, you need to come to Him.
Coming to Jesus involves two things. First, in faith you must turn away from your sin and self and turn to Jesus as Lord and Savior. Second, in faith you must believe the gospel message of what Jesus has done to provide forgiveness to you. You can pray in faith a simple prayer like this:
“Lord Jesus, I am a sinner who has sinned against you. The sin in my life has brought nothing but brokenness, but I understand that you created me, you love me, and you desire to be in relationship with me. Right now, I surrender and turn from my sin, and I turn to you. Please forgive me of all my sin. I believe that you died on the cross, was buried, and rose again on the third day so that I could be forgiven and made new. So, I receive you now as my Lord and Savior. Amen.”