Gospel

The gospel is the good news of Jesus Christ.

To understand the gospel you have to understand the grand meta-narrative of the Scriptures. The Bible is about God, and God's mission in the world to reconcile, redeem, and restore all things to Himself. The narrative has four parts.

I. Creation
II. Fall
III. Redemption
IV. Restoration

I. Creation (Genesis 1&2)
In the beginning, God. Before all things there was our Trinitarian God. A God of one essence, but existing in three distinct persons of Father, Son, and Spirit. The Christian God is a communal God, a relational God, a God who at His very essence is deep community and relationship. This is a God of love--the Father, Son, and Spirit are continually honoring and loving each other. The universe, in the Christian understanding, has love at its very center. This Trinitarian God then created man and woman not out of necessity or because He was incomplete, but in order to share this deep community and love with human beings--that we might enjoy this type of rich and honoring relationship.
So God created all things in heaven and on earth, to the deeps of the sea up to the highest peaks of the mountains. God created all of these things. The Scriptures then proclaim that God made human beings, created them in His very image. All people have been created with the imprint of a Father God who loves them and cares for them. He created our first parents (Adam and Eve), to be in relationship with Him in the Garden of Eden. This is the perfect and beautiful world the the Lord God made.
The Garden was the world that God intended. Where man and woman, husband and wife lived without shame or fear and in complete unity and intimacy with each other. Where man and woman lived in complete unity and intimacy with their God, and looked to Him to supply all of their worth, meaning, and purpose. Where man and woman cared for creation and the environment and honored it as a gift that God had given to them for their joy and purpose.
This is the world that God made. A world of perfect shalom and rhythm and peace. This was life in the Garden, all of man's wants, needs, and desires fulfilled in and through God.

II. Fall (Genesis 3)
But all did not continue this way. In Genesis 3 the Scripture explains how everything went terribly wrong. How did the world go from the Garden to the brokenness that we see today? What happened to the world that God made?
Enter one of the most important chapters of Scripture--the story of how humans got themselves in this mess by running away from God. There lived a serpent in the Garden, and this serpent convinced Adam and Eve that the commands of God were not sufficient for them. God had commanded Adam and Eve to not eat the fruit from a certain tree in the Garden. The serpent pushed Adam and Eve to see that God was forbidding them from doing something they really wanted to do, that God was preventing them from truly enjoying the Garden.
That God was somehow--restricting their happiness and joy.
Adam and Eve believed the lie of the serpent and they ate this fruit and rebelled against the command of God for their lives.
Now everything turned broken. Man and woman have sinned, they have loved something else more than God. They have put something else in the place of God and worshipped that 'thing' instead of God. This is sin.
Fruit over a loving God. Their way over God's way.
And now death and separation spreads to all things. Man and woman become separated from the intimacy they shared with one another, they become separated from the relationship that they had with God, and they become separated from the joy they had over stewarding the creation. Where there was freedom and joy and delight there is now enslavement, shame, and duty.
The Garden has fallen and everything is broken.
But...

III. Redemption (Genesis 3-Revelation 20)
God comes in pursuit of man even after man has run from God. Even in Genesis 3 God promises that there will be One who is coming who will ultimately crush the head of this serpent, who will be able to make all the sin and shame and brokenness go away forever.
The Bible continues on after Genesis 3 with the story of God's people, the people of Israel, a people of God's own possession who God loves and cares for. Through this people all the people groups and nations of the world will be blessed and ultimately through the people of Israel there will be a Savior--one who rescues people from their sins and brings them back into relationship with God.
Throughout the Old Testament, the people must continue to offer sacrifices to the Lord every single year in order to have their sins forgiven. But the Scriptures continue to proclaim that there is one coming who will end the sacrificial system by becoming the sacrifice himself.
God sends His son Jesus Christ for us.
Jesus dies in our place. On the cross Jesus takes all of our sin upon Himself and puts it to death through His death. This is the gospel message--that while we were still sinners, still far from God, still running from God--God sent His Son for us to bring us back into relationship with Him.
Through the sacrifice of Christ on our behalf we have redemption for our sins and reconciliation back to our Father God.
All of our shame, our brokenness, our guilt, our falling short, even our good works are removed through our trusting in Christ for our salvation and rescue.
The gospel is the good news that no matter how broken and bad you are you can experience the grace of God in and through Jesus Christ.
The gospel is also the good (and liberating) news that you can never be good enough, you can never be moral enough, you can never be religious enough to earn your way back to God, to save yourself.
God has provided the way home for us--by sending us His son, full of mercy and grace to deliver us.

IV. Restoration (Revelation 21-22)
But the world remains broken. The Fall is still, in many ways, all around us. Though Christ has come, we still yearn for all things to be put right again. The Scriptures tell us that God is coming again to make all things new, to restore this world to the way it used to be--except this time it will be even better than before.
God is creating a city, a new Jerusalem, for all those who have trusted in Christ where we will live with God forever and ever. This is the world that is coming and this is the world that Christians are actively trying to see this broken world become more like. God has given His people a mission--to seek the restoration and reconciliation of all people, cities, and nations back to God.
The full restoration of the world is coming soon, but until then God has commanded His people to work for justice, seek renewal, and share the gospel message with all.
We proclaim the good news that the world is broken and that something is wrong, that God has sent Jesus to fix it and to rescue people, and that Jesus is coming back again to restore all things.
It's really true. It's really happening.

It's the grand narrative of the Bible. It's the glorious story we find ourselves in.
And it's all about a God who is calling us (you and me) to Himself again.