The Explicit Gospel

Weekly Update – February 10th, 2022

On Sunday evenings, we have been going through a study called The Explicit Gospel.  As the study explains, and as many of you have surely noticed, is that there are a lot of people out there, some of whom claim to be Christians, who have no idea what the gospel actually is.  On a regular basis I will have conversations with people who confirm this claim.  One conversation may be a man telling me that he needs to do more in life to please God.  Another might be a man who walks me through an entire system of works that the Catholic Church requires.  Or one might be with a person who simply tells me that they were baptized as a child which allowed them to be “secure” with their position in heaven. Whatever the case may be, we need to be “ready in season and out of season” (2 Tim. 4:2) to recite the gospel to ourselves for our own assurance and endurance, but we should also be ready in a moment’s notice to share this gospel message with friends, family, and co-workers in any opportunity. 

There are many different approaches that we can take to communicate the gospel message.  There are approaches that involve acrostics, diagrams, pictures, or tracts that no doubt prove to be helpful and beneficial.  Whatever method is chosen, for it to be faithful, it must contain at least 4 points.  These points come through in the trajectory of the Bible as it unfolds before us when we read and become familiar with it.  The Bible is not just a guidebook of history that provides good moral principles to whoever would be open to following them.  No, instead the 4 points of the gospel message are seen throughout the unfolding of the Scriptures.  These points are:  God, Man, Christ, Reponses.  Consider what is meant by these 4 points.

God – When we speak of God, we must first and foremost recognize that he is the one and only God who is the holy, perfect and creator of the universe.  He is vast beyond our comprehension in knowledge, power and perfections.  There is no comparing anything to him.  This is called God’s transcendence.  He is far beyond us.  At the same time, God desires to draw near to us.  He works on behalf of his people, he shows himself to be good, righteous and just.  And ultimately he shows his desire to be near to us by sending his son to come down and dwell among us.  This is called God’s imminence.  So then God is holy and separate from us, but in love, desires a relationship with us.

Man – God made men and women in his image for the purpose of displaying his character and his likeness to the world that he created.  Men and women are the pinnacle of all of creation and full of value and worth.  The problem is that through sin, we fall short of the glory we were initially created to display.  We still image God, but imperfectly, as if through a frosted mirror now. In simple terms, we have broken the law of God, rebelled against his purposes and have made ourselves enemies with God.  This condemns us to death and eternal punishment. 

Christ – In love, Jesus Christ, who is God the Son, came to us as a man, to come and dwell among us, for the purpose of providing forgiveness and redemption for our sin, in order that we as sinful men and women might be brought back to God. He lived a perfectly sinless life that we could not live.  He died on the cross for sinners like you and me, taking the punishment for sin that we all deserve to pay.  Then, he rose from the dead on the third day defeating death itself.  Now, by virtue of his victorious resurrection, Jesus reigns next to God the father over all things and on the last day will have all things put in submission under his feet.

Response – As we consider God in his perfections and glory, and ourselves in our sin and rebellion, the only response we can have is to cry out to him to show mercy to us through his son Jesus Christ.  We as sinners are to have sorrow over our sins and turn away from them.  This is called repentance.  At the same time, we should turn to Jesus Christ in faith, believing that he lived the perfect life that we could not live and took the punishment for our sins on the cross.  Only then can we have forgiveness which leads to eternal life and a right relationship with God.   

This is the gospel message.  As Christians, we should know it, love it and meditate on it every single day.  It is the truth behind our hope and the defense behind our faith.  May we not find ourselves silent or confused in opportunities to communicate the gospel with others, nor find ourselves doubting what it means for us to know God.  Instead, I pray that you find yourself celebrate this message with joy as you consider God’s grace in saving you, but also, I pray that you will remember it with greater clarity, so that you might communicate it with those God has placed in your life. 

Serving Him with You,
Pastor Michael Nelson