What is the Gospel? (short version)

Somehow I was chosen to preach at my Grandmother's funeral three years ago and I am sending this same message to another loved one tomorrow, so I figured I would share it with everyone. If you want a longer and more detailed explanation of the gospel, you can click on the links at the top right of the page.

Where will you spend eternity?  And why?  It’s an important question that many of us either choose to ignore or put on the backburner for far too long.  The word gospel means “good news,” and it is the most wonderful message that we can ever hear.  God’s salvation is the best gift that we can ever receive. 

The Bible makes it clear that we are not saved by our works or anything we have done. There’s no checklist or “to do list” that we can check off, so how are we saved? We see many “shortcuts to salvation” being taught in churches today, but if we look at the Bible and at 2,000 years of church history, we will find out that these recent inventions are unbiblical. Now they are great for statistical purposes—saying we got this # of people saved this week, yet are they really saved if they still do the same sinful things as before? And if hardly any of them even still go to church?

The power of God is great and it will result in a changed life. My best friend died seven years ago and he “prayed a prayer” one time earlier in his life that had no effect on how he lived the rest of his life. The Bible says in Matthew 7 that, “You will know them by their fruits,” which means that you will know them by their lifestyle. My best friend was an amazing person but he lived his life without much regard for God and overall it is apparent that his life wasn’t really ever changed by God. And this problem is all too common in churches today as there are many people like him who make meaningless decisions and treat salvation like getting a flu shot, where you can get it one time so you can live the rest of their lives in sin. So raising your hand, praying a magic prayer, going to church at least twice a month, or even giving all of your money to the poor are no guarantees of getting into heaven. We certainly cannot depend our eternity on these flimsy things. 

So what is the biblical message of salvation? This message is called the gospel and this word gospel means “good news,” but before we can appreciate and understand the good news, we must understand the bad news about who we are and who God is. The gospel message can be broken down into 7 parts and I will talk briefly about each one. 

1. God is Holy. We know that means God is sinless but it actually means more than that. The primary meaning of the word is transcendent. That means that God flies far above us and is not like us at all. It also means that He hates sin and must destroy any sin that is in direct rebellion against Him. 

2. God is Just. This means that He is a righteous judge who will justly and rightly judge and punish sin. Let’s say you came in to your home one day and you catch a murderer in the act of killing a family member, and you punched him and beat him up and caught him until the police could come to arrest him. All the evidence is there to lock this guy up for life. Then after many months the case finally goes to court and the judge said, “Look, I am a loving judge, that’s why I forgive you and will let you free.” What would you do? You would be so upset, you would write your congressman, the Governor, the President, and demand that justice be done. 

So for any judge to be just, He must punish sin. And that is exactly what God is. He is a just judge who will punish any and all sin against His holiness. 

3. The Depravity and Sinfulness of Man. Ever since Adam and Eve sinned, we are born with a sinful nature that permeates and affects every part of our being so that sin is all we are able to do. We are born spiritually dead and as slaves to sin and slaves to the devil. We cannot understand the things of God unless He opens up our eyes and frees us from the bondage of our sin. 

You can’t understand the “good news” unless you first understand the “bad news” of what your sins deserve.  Since God is sinless, separate from sin, and hates your sin and because He is just and must punish sin, you are condemned to an eternity in hell because all you can ever do is sin; and this is because of the depravity that you were born with.    

4. The Great Dilemma. If God is just, which means that He must punish sin, how can He allow sinful men into Heaven? If he just gives people a free pass, He is no better than the wicked judge who let the murderer off scot free that we just talked about. Surely the devil had a problem with this. We can imagine Satan being bold enough to point the finger and accuse holy God of not holding sinners accountable, “Where’s your justice, God! You’re letting David into heaven?! Didn’t he commit adultery?! And murder?! Are you kidding me?!” 

So how can God forgive the wicked and still be just? 

5. God’s Action – Motivated by Love – God sent a redeemer to save us from the eternal damnation that our sins deserve. There is nothing good in us to cause God to love us. He loves us because He loves us. It is all one-sided. It is all of His will and choosing. 

6. How God Redeemed Mankind – God sent a substitute for us—His own Son, Jesus Christ, who being man lived a perfect life and who also being God, was able to take our punishment and drink the cup of God the Father’s great wrath against sin. There was a trade—He traded us His perfect, righteous life and we traded Him our sin and the punishment that our sin deserves. God’s love is so great that He would choose to make a trade like this. 

We are saved not because of what men did to Jesus on the cross in beating Him up. We are saved by what God the Father did to Jesus in casting all of the punishment for our sin on Him. His physical punishment from men was bad but His spiritual punishment from God the Father was far, far worse. 

It was finally on the Cross when Christ drank the cup of the Father’s wrath for sins that God said to Satan, the great accuser, “There it is! You see that? There’s my justice!” It was with this act that God forever shut up Satan’s accusations of His injustice because the price for sins had been fully paid through the amazing sacrifice of His beloved Son. 

The cup is a figurative term in the Bible about God’s wrath, but Christ’s cup was far worse than we can imagine. The punishment for one man and his sin is an eternity in hell, so the cup that Jesus drank down contained the punishment equal to one eternity of hell for every single believer that ever lived. We can’t even begin to imagine how much of God’s wrath was in that cup. 

The resurrection is an important part of salvation. This is when Christ died on the cross and then rose again. 1 Corinthians 15:17 says, “If Christ has not been raised, your faith is worthless; you are still in your sins.” If there is no resurrection, then our lives have been a colossal waste and we will be forever separated from God for an eternity in hell without any hope. The resurrection is an absolutely essential part of the gospel message and without it, there is no gospel. It showed that Jesus was truly God and that God the Father had accepted Jesus’ sacrifice for sin. The resurrection is so important, that without it, we have no proof that our sins were even paid for. 

7. Salvation – the first thing we must know about salvation is that is impossible! If we are born sinful and spiritually dead then we cannot choose to come to life on our own. Only God can do this. Luke 18:26-27 says, “They who heard it said, ‘Then who can be saved?’ But He said, ‘The things that are impossible with men are possible with God.’" 

Next, salvation is a gift. It is not something we can earn or choose on our own. God is entirely in control of giving this gift of salvation, not us. God does everything in salvation. He takes our sin and trades it for His righteousness, and it is His Holy Spirit that transforms us and gives us a new heart. 

The final part of salvation is two important words: repent and believe. These were the very first words of Christ’s ministry from Mark 1:14-15: “Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of God, and saying, ‘The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.’" 

It is important to note that "repent and believe" is a command, not a request. Most pastors at churches beg you to please pray this little prayer and let Jesus in your heart. They make Jesus out to be this pathetic person who is begging for your approval. Well…He doesn’t need your approval and He isn’t asking you to repent and believe, He is telling you! He is warning you to flee from the wrath of God that will result in an eternity in hell for those who reject Him. 

But God’s love is great—He is not a God who wants to punish all of His creation to hell. 1 Timothy 2:4 says God, "desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth." Ezekiel 18:32 says, "'For I have no pleasure in the death of anyone who dies,' declares the LORD GOD. 'Therefore, repent and live.'" 

Ok, so back to repent and believe. To repent means to humbly admit our sin and to turn away from our sins and from any hope in ourselves. To believe means to turn to Christ. It’s like teaching a child to walk. They want to come and walk to you, but first they must let go of the chair they are holding on to. They have to let go before they come to you. We are the same. We must let go of the things of this world and let go of our own “righteousness” and turn to Christ. The world says things like we shouldn’t burn bridges or put all of our eggs in one basket, but actually that’s exactly what the gospel tells us to do. 

Luke 18:9-14 is my favorite parable in the Bible and it may be the best example of what repentance truly is. It says, “[Jesus] told this parable to some people who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and viewed others with contempt: “Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. “The Pharisee stood and was praying this to himself: ‘God, I thank You that I am not like other people: swindlers, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. ‘I fast twice a week; I pay tithes of all that I get.’ “But the tax collector, standing some distance away, was even unwilling to lift up his eyes to heaven, but was beating his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, the sinner!’ “I tell you, this man went to his house justified rather than the other; for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted.” 

So there you have it. The gospel message, the very first words of Christ Himself are to repent and believe. Now there is one more dilemma in the Bible. If we are born sinful and spiritually dead, how can we repent and believe? We cannot. We just said that salvation is impossible for us and we said that God has to do everything in salvation. So what hope do any of us have to be saved? We have none. It is only by the mercy of God. Just like the tax collector, we must humble ourselves and plead for the mercy of God to save us. Not because we deserve it, but because of God and His amazing grace, mercy, and love. 

To review, salvation is not a magic prayer or a promise of wealth and prosperity, despite the bad preaching we often hear today. The gospel starts with the incredible holiness of God who is a consuming fire, who is sovereign over all, who is so far above us, who alone is sinless, separate from sin, and hates our sin and sees it as treason against Him that must be punished. Our only hope of salvation is to beg for the grace and mercy of the holy God that we have sinned against. 

If you are uncertain of your eternity and want to know Christ, I don’t have a magic prayer for you to repeat, all I can tell you to do is what the tax collector did and pray, “God be merciful to me, a sinner,” and pray for God to give you a new heart to repent from your sin and to believe and trust in Him and what He did to pay for your sins.