Praise Jesus for the Gift of the Gospel
We’re less than a week away from Christmas, and let me tell you…
This time of year is so much sweeter as an adult because the gift of the gospel is so much sweeter than physical gifts.
If you were anything like me as a kid, you spent the whole month of December thinking about what presents you were going to open on the 25th.
And if you were anything like my husband as a kid, you spent the whole night of Christmas Eve tracking Santa on some random website (lol)…
But now…
We find our comfort and joy in something so much greater: the birth of Jesus—and the hope of the gospel.
So for this blog, I want to zoom out 10,000 feet and break down what the gospel is.
The original Greek word for gospel—euangelion—translates to “good news” or “a good announcement.”
But what kind of good news are we talking about here?
Paul sums it up in 1 Timothy 1:15, “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.”
To save sinners…
THAT’S why Jesus came—to rescue us from our sin and shame. That’s the core message of the gospel.
Without the gospel, we’re shackled to the weight of our sin forever.
Paul tells us in Romans: “But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness” (Romans 6:17-18).
So the gospel rescues us from our sin…but what else does it do?
The gospel gives us a new identity. Without the gospel, we don’t have the Holy Spirit to help make us more like Christ.
“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come” (2 Corinthians 5:17).
The gospel saves us from eternal separation from the very God who made us. Without it, we’re separated from God forever (a terrifying thought).
“They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might” (2 Thessalonians 1:9).
The gospel frees us from our worry and anxiety. When you look at life through the lens of the gospel, the peace of God will guard your hearts.
“And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:7).
The gospel frees us from our inherent fear of death. When you believe in Jesus, you live forever.
Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?” (John 11:25).
“For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 6:23).
The gospel gives us something better to put our hope in. Without the gospel, we put our hope in things that will either 1) fail us or 2) never satisfy us: money, our spouse, our children, our health, our job, our home, our dreams, etc.
“Thus says the Lord: “Cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his strength, whose heart turns away from the Lord. He is like a shrub in the desert, and shall not see any good come. He shall dwell in the parched places of the wilderness, in an uninhabited salt land. “Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, whose trust is the Lord. He is like a tree planted by water, that sends out its roots by the stream, and does not fear when heat comes, for its leaves remain green, and is not anxious in the year of drought, for it does not cease to bear fruit” (Jeremiah 17:5-8).
The gospel FULFILLS us. Nothing on this earth can satisfy the desires of our hearts apart from Jesus.
“Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever” (Psalm 73:25-26).
Without Jesus, we remain the sinners that humans have always been. We stay stuck in our sin and then proceed to carry around the collateral damage of it until we die.
With Jesus, we’re made new. We are forgiven and brought into eternal life with Him.
