The Gospel is the message of good news. It’s not just good news, it is actually the most important news because it addresses the biggest problem you have in life.

What’s your biggest problem?

Some would say their biggest problem is their financial situation, others their health, and others their family or marriage dilemma. These are all problems, but these actually are symptoms of your most fundamental problem.

When God made all things He made everything good, perfect, and without any fault of any kind. But then something happened. God had made everything perfect and without any fault and He entrusted His creation to mankind. God had given mankind rules so they would know how to live and forever enjoy the perfect world He made. But man thought he could do better than God. Man did not obey God’s laws, man sinned by breaking God’s law and seeking to be a law to himself. And this was man’s biggest problem – that he sinned by breaking God’s law. He thought he could live by his own rules instead of God’s.

This wasn’t just the first man’s and woman’s problem. This is everyone’s biggest problem as well – including you. Have you broken God’s laws? Consider these commandments: “Do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not lie.” You might think you’ve kept some of God’s laws, you might have never killed someone or committed adultery. But Jesus clarified just to what degree God requires obedience to His law. According to Jesus, to hate or to be angry against someone is to commit murder in your heart. To look at someone with sexual lust is to commit adultery in your heart.

When you look into the law of God you realize just what your biggest problem is. Your sin is your biggest problem. Your sin has wrecked your life and now because of it you stand guilty before a holy God who will judge all mankind justly. If God gave you justice for your sins, what would that be? It would be an eternity in hell.

The Good News

“For our sake He made Him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.” (2 Corinthians 5:21)

This is the good news; this is the gospel. Christ came to remove your sins from you and to give you His righteousness. Christ came to save you from the punishment of sin. He came to save you from the shame of sin, and He came to save you from sin itself. Jesus came to seek and to save sinners just like you.

Jesus takes away the punishment of sin through His substitutionary death on the cross. The heart of the gospel message is that Jesus died on the cross as a substitution for sinners who repent of their sins and believe in Him. His death on the cross wasn’t simply an example of virtue, it was more than that. He was crucified not simply because He was opposing the authoritative systems of the day. His death on the cross was a voluntary sacrifice, a payment for sin. Mankind has tallied up an infinite debt of sin which God’s justice demands payment for. And there is only one person who could pay that price: Jesus Himself.  

Without Jesus’ death on your behalf, you would have no hope of forgiveness for your sin, nor would you have any hope of deliverance from sin in your life! But praise the Lord that “God so loved the world that He sent His one and only Son, that whoever believes will not perish but have eternal life” through the death of Christ on your behalf! Jesus died to pay the price that your sin deserved!

Jesus takes away the shame of sin by clothing you in His righteousness. What was the first felt effect of sin when mankind broke God’s law in the Garden of Eden? For the first time, they felt shame for their actions. They knew intuitively that all was no longer perfect. The peace with God that they had always enjoyed was now broken. Instead of peace, they were full of shame and tried to cover themselves. But though they tried to the best of their ability, nothing they could do could cover their sin and make them righteous before God. But Jesus came, and He lived a perfect sinless life so that He could give you His righteousness as a covering. He provided for sinful humanity a covering of righteousness that covers our sin-born shame. So that it can now be said that “having been justified by faith we have peace with God.” If you place your faith in Jesus, He will cover you with His righteousness, take away the shame of your sins, and give you peace with God.  

Not only does Jesus take away the punishment of sin and the shame of sin, Jesus can also take away your sin itself. Jesus can give you, in this life, victories over the patterns of sin that are in your life! The cycles of sin and shame that have plagued you, the addictions that have defined you, and the secret (or-not-so- secret) sins that you have done do not need to have the last word. You do not need to be defined by your sin. Christ did not die on the cross and raise from the dead so that you’d remain enslaved to the sin that leads to death. He died and rose from the grave so that you could be forgiven and freed from sin and then live in the life-giving righteousness that leads to abundant and eternal life!

What now?

Through this Gospel of Jesus Christ, God is inviting you to have your sins completely forgiven and to have a completely new life and identity. Jesus said that the only way to see the kingdom of heaven is to be “born again.” The only way to have eternal and abundant life, for your sins to be forgiven and for your sinful heart to be made new, is for God to give you a new heart. That’s what being “born again” means!

This is the good news; this is the gospel. You couldn’t save yourself from your sin problem. But Jesus died on the cross and rose Himself from the dead three days later so that He could save you from the punishment of sin, the shame of sin, and the presence of sin in your life. You can be freed from sin because of Jesus. You can be born again because Jesus came to save sinners just like you. There is nothing you can do to earn His forgiveness, there is no amount of good works that will offset the punishment you deserve. Your only hope for eternal and abundant life is to cry out to God for forgiveness and for the cleansing of your heart. And He is “merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love.” And He has promised that “if you confess your sins, He is faithful and just to forgive you of your sins and to cleanse you from all unrighteousness.”

Will you confess your sins to God today and pray for Him to change your heart?

 

 

(Scriptures cited: 2 Corinthians 5:21; Romans 5:1; John 3:7, 16; Exodus 20:13-16, 34:6; 1 John 1:9)