THE GOOD NEWS IS...

A Heads Up!

When I saw how long this newsletter ended up being, I thought it would be a good idea to condense it a little, but I felt like the Lord was telling me not to do that.

So this is going to be a longer one—Sorry in advance!

It seems that when we think of the gospel, our minds immediately go to the truth that Jesus saved us from hell and now we get to go to heaven. (Of which I am super grateful!)

Although that is part of it, the gospel extends way beyond our eternal destinations, and Jesus’ death accomplished so much more than maybe we sometimes realize.

It’s my heart for today to review the message of the gospel and what it actually means for believers and nonbelievers; because the reality is that the gospel isn’t just a hope for the future, but also a promise for today—that the Kingdom of God is here and now.

In The Garden

In order to do a study of the gospel, it only feels right to go all the way back to the beginning of time when God created the first two people, Adam and Eve.

We briefly talked about it last week:

In the garden, Adam was in perfect relationship with the Father, he had something to rule over under God’s authority, and a partner to rule over it with.

This pattern has followed humanity for thousands of years in part, but when Jesus comes back to establish His Kingdom, we will experience it in its fullness.

Everything was going well for Adam and Eve as they lived freely before God, but soon enough, the devil reared his slimy head to wreak havoc.

In Genesis 3, the devil went to Eve and tricked her in two ways:

In the following verses, Eve begins to ponder in her mind what the enemy said and she determines that the tree was good for food, beautiful, and it could make her wise.

The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil seemed right, but God gave Adam and Eve one rule—and it was to not eat from that tree.

Scripture tells us though that Eve ate from the tree and gave some to Adam, and immediately their eyes were open and they became aware of their nakedness—and their first inclination was hiding and trying to cover themselves.

The long story short here is that a curse was brought upon mankind because of our rebellion and disobedience.

Adam and Eve had to leave the garden, but not before God made clothing to cover them with, foreshadowing what Jesus would soon do for believers.

The Corruption of Man

At Adam and Eve’s decision to disobey God, sin entered mankind and separated us spiritually and physically from God. Every human born into this world after Adam and Eve would have a sin nature—the aspect of humanity that makes us rebel against God.

That’s really all sin is: Rebellion against God and His law. It is natural and instinctive to the human condition and there is nothing we can do on our own to try and be better. Not one person in history, except for Christ, hasn’t broken at least one of God’s laws.

Jesus Himself said in Matthew 5 that He did not come to abolish the law of God, but to fulfill it. He never sinned against God once and He kept the law to a T.

The first half of Romans 6:23 tells us that the wages of sin is death. In other words, the consequences of sin is both a physical death (our earthly bodies passing away) and a spiritual death (eternal separation from God.)

This is the plight of man. Sin hinders us from experiencing what we had with God in the Garden of Eden—perfect fellowship. It makes us enemies of God and doomed to separation from Him, our source of life, forever in hell.

The Hope For ManKind

But the good news is Romans 6:23 doesn’t end there.

The good news of the gospel is that God had a plan from the beginning to reconcile us to Himself and save us from a spiritual death, and it started with this:

Before Christ died on the cross, the way the people of God had to ask for forgiveness was through the sacrifice of animals.

Genesis and Exodus highlight moments where the people of God gave up offerings and sacrifices to the Lord, but the first time we see God give detailed instructions on the sin offering is in Leviticus 4.

Verse 31 goes on to say that the priest would remove the animal’s fat and burn it on the altar on behalf of an individual, and God would forgive that person who sinned.

But before God gives those instructions, we see a different, prophetic sacrifice happen in Exodus 12.

In this passage of scripture, the Children of Israel are still in Egypt and God commands them to take a clean and spotless lamb (a perfect one), kill it, and put its blood on the doorposts of where they live.

Then in verse 12, God tells them what would happen.

God makes it clear that when His people trust Him and put the lamb’s blood on their doorposts, He would not strike their firstborn child, but pass over them.

These passages prophetically point to the moment in time when Jesus, the perfect and spotless lamb, would take on the wrath of God for us—and those that would confess with their mouths and believe in their hearts that Jesus is who He says He is (symbolically putting His blood on the doorposts of their hearts) would be saved from the wrath of God, which would pass over them.

God gave up His firstborn for you and I.

The good news is that because Jesus took on the wrath of God, we can be reconciled to the Father and have a relationship with Him here on earth and in eternity.

When Jesus arrived on the scene to start His earthly ministry, the Jewish people and His early disciples thought that the Messiah would destroy the Romans who were oppressing them at the time.

But Jesus made it clear that His Kingdom is not of this world.

When we think of the Kingdom of God or the Kingdom of heaven, we may think of heaven itself only, but the Kingdom of God is not just a place—it’s a people.

Before Jesus went public with His ministry, His cousin John the Baptist, began preaching about the Kingdom saying, “Repent, for the Kingdom of heaven is at hand!”

Then in Mark 1, we see Jesus preach the same thing.

Both of their messages began with repentance because the Kingdom of God is rooted in repentance.

Repentance means to be aware of your sinfulness and helplessness, and then to “change your mind” by turning from sin to God.

A repentant heart isn’t perfect, but it’s surrendered to the Lord and His ways above our own.

This is what the Kingdom of God is. It’s not only God’s sovereignty and rule over all of creation or the coming physical Kingdom we will one day see. It’s also God’s rule over us—beings who have free will, but can decide to submit to the rule of Christ over and hearts and lives.

We often hear during altar calls an invitation to ask Jesus into our hearts and make Him Lord of our lives. Everything we are and everything we have is offered up to Him as we say, “Your Kingdom come and Your Will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”

In order to be a part of the Kingdom of God here on earth and in the time to come, Jesus tells us exactly what needs to happen in John 3 as He is speaking with a Pharisee named Nicodemus.

Nicodemus was confused by this and asked how one could be “born again.” (Valid question!) Jesus responded by telling him, “That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.”

1 Peter 1 tells us this.

To be born again is to be born of the incorruptible seed, the Word of God, through the Holy Spirit.

Because of Adam’s sin, we were born with the sin nature into this fallen world and were alienated from God. But because of Jesus’ LIFE AND DEATH AND RESURRECTION, those who believe in Him are born again by the incorruptible seed, which is Him—the Word of God.

If you have been born again, Jesus lives on the inside of you, and when you surrender to the work He is doing in you, your life will bear fruit and spread to everyone around you. This is how the Kingdom of God grows.

The dwelling place of God is no longer in the tabernacles—He dwells in us. We are walking sanctuaries of God and wherever we go, there’s an opportunity for someone to experience God through us.

This is why Jesus gave His disciples the Great Commission before He ascended into heaven.

Galatians says that we are crucified with Christ and it’s no longer we who live, but He who lives in us.

How great is it that God is building His Kingdom through us?

Everything that Jesus did in His life, death, and resurrection was to bring us back to the relationship we had with God in the Garden—where we were close to Him and we ruled over the earth with Him as His children.

God is merciful and loving and wishes for all of us to be with Him in eternity. (2 Peter 3:9)

One day Christ will return, raise up His people into glorified bodies, establish His Kingdom, and His saints will rule and reign with Him forever. (1 Corinthians 15:20-23, Daniel 7:27)

This is the message of the Gospel—that humanity was doomed to eternal separation from God after sinning against Him, but God, being rich in mercy, sent His only Son Jesus Christ to live a perfect and sinless life, fulfilling the law (which we could not), and dying in our place, so that whoever believes that He is the Son of God will have everlasting life with God.

In John 17, Jesus says that eternal life is to know the one true God and the One He sent, talking about Himself.

Eternal life doesn’t begin on the other side of eternity—it begins here and now when a believer is saved. To know God and have a relationship with Him through Christ is eternal life.

So what are we to do now? Jesus gave us the Great Commission to go and make disciples, so that’s what we do!

Wherever we find ourselves, God can have His way in us and through us to reach and save the lost. 

The Good News is that though we were once dead, we are now alive in Christ and eternity is now. Here on earth, we get to live and walk with God all the way to the new heaven and new earth.

I hope this blessed you in some way!

Hannah