Basic Gospel
ONE
Recently, a 19yo from Cincinnati died in a tragic accident. It devastated not only his family, but also an entire community. The most encouraging thing I’ve read about this young man was not his many accolades as an athlete or as a student, though those are good and there were many. What stood out was that one article I read used the word “faithful” to describe him and remarked how he treated people. My family and I prayed for his soul, that God would forgive any trespasses and welcome him home to the Kingdom. We prayed for his mother and siblings, who lost the father of this family just ten short years before this tragedy. We begged God for consolation for them. I then took the opportunity to remind my children again that as followers of Jesus we have no reason to fear death and reminded them of the basic Gospel Message, the Good News of Jesus. I would like to do the same for us today. It is essentially:
1. We are made for relationship with God.
2. Our Relationship with God has been broken through Sin.
3. In the fullness of time, God sent His Son to bring us back into relationship
4. This relationship is for everyone.
5. You must choose.
It is good for us to be reminded of this: Good people do not go to Heaven. People in relationship with Jesus go to Heaven. Because of Jesus, we cannot only be good, we can be holy and become like God.
TWO
You are made for relationship with God. It has been so since our father, Adam. It says that Adam was created in the “image and likeness of God”. These can seem like strange words until we read in Genesis 5:3 that Adam had a son “in his own likeness, after his image”. Scripture helps us to interpret scripture. Adam had a filial relationship with God. You are made to share in that relationship. In fact, this relationship is inscribed so deeply in the human heart that you and I are restless, irritable, and discontent without it. Being a son or daughter of God is your deepest identity. You are made for eternal union with God. Nothing short of that will ever satisfy the human heart, your heart.
THREE
Our Relationship with God was broken through sin. This happened both in Adam & Eve’s Original Sin, and in your own personal sins. In the garden there was a perfect harmony, but with the introduction of sin, it was much like a record scratching – the music stopped, everything that was bright became dimmer, shame covered the human race. So we are born in this state of exile. Much like if your Great Grandfather committed a crime and was asked to leave Kentucky, now all of your family are born outside of the great blue grass state. It is so with us. We are now born outside of the state of perfection we once knew. Our intellect, which was made to see and know the good, has become darkened. Our passions/emotions/desires, which were designed to propel us toward the good and away from the bad, have become disordered. And our will, which is the power to choose the good, has now become weakened. The relationship between man and woman was wounded. The Harmony between man and creation was destroyed, and now creation rebels and “groans”, as St Paul says. Lastly, death has entered the world, both physical and spiritual death. St Paul speaks of our state before coming to know Christ as our being “dead through trespasses and sins” and “children of wrath” (Ephesians 2:1-3). This accounts for why so much is wrong in the world, but ultimately, it accounts for why so much was wrong in me.
FOUR
In the fullness of time, God sent His Son to bring us back into relationship with Himself. God faced what St Athanasius called the “Divine Dilemma”. He had to decide. Would He allow his creation to be marred by sin and lost forever to death, or would he become a liar and forego the consequences he said would happen? He did the one thing He could in order to be neither a liar nor a monster. He came as a baby born into a broken world. He lived a fully human life in all things, except sin. He undid and set right all that Adam had done wrong. He did not come with an army, but rather in humility, conquering Death by the one means that Satan never expected – by Death itself. He allowed himself to be swallowed by Hades, but Death couldn’t hold Him. Entering into our deepest needs and suffering, He rose gloriously triumphant. In History, it was not a moment too late, or too soon. God sent his son to bring us back to Himself.
FIVE
This relationship is for everyone. Today we hear a lot about, “Well that’s good for you, but my truth is different.” Christ left no question when He said, “I am the WAY, the Truth, and the Life; no one comes to the Father, but by me.” (Jn 14:6) Christ is the Savior of All and he gives to each of us sufficient grace to know Him, love Him, serve Him, and most importantly, to be with Him for all eternity. But God is love and love is free. It cannot be forced. We must choose. You must choose. Will you surrender your life to Him?