02/08/2010
Author: John Powell
As a teen and college student, I was ashamed of the word “Gospel” or at least some of the ways it was used. “The Gospel truth”, “Gospel music” and other associated references like “TV evangelist”, added to the confusion. If we’re to overcome being ashamed of the Gospel, we must understand it!
Summaries of the Gospel are good. The Gospel is the announcement that the Kingdom of God has come in Christ and we are invited to enter it by faith. My favorite is 1st. Corinthians 15:1-4. 1“… the gospel I preached … which you received, in which you stand, 2 and by which you are being saved…3 For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day ...” (ESV)
On the other hand Reductionism is not good. Reducing big ideas to simplistic substitutes like: “Loving Jesus is the whole thing” is reductionism. When we oversimplify we eliminate essential truth like the story of the mice who took turns investigating a piano, one boiling it down to “strings” and another saying the sound is really just “hammers” while all are ignoring the musician playing it!
The Gospel is Good News, literally. (Eu = good +angelia=message). Isaiah 52:7 “How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news who publishes peace, who brings good news of happiness, who publishes salvation, who says to Zion, "Your God reigns.“”
Jesus said that in Him the Kingdom of God had come. That was good news to people oppressed by the Kingdom of Rome. What are we oppressed by? Each Generation must think it thru for itself. What makes it good news to me and my peers and how can I experience and communicate it as good news?
So to preach the Gospel of the Kingdom is invite people to enter the Kingdom where God rules, protects and transforms us. We enter by receiving Jesus’ righteousness by faith.
The Gospel describes the trade Jesus made. 2 Corinthians 5:20-21 (ESV)”…we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you …be reconciled to God. 21 For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”
Finally, the Gospel must not be confused with its’ fruit. Peace, power and obedience are all fruit of the Gospel. When people enter the Kingdom of God by receiving the Good News that Christ has paid the price for their forgiveness and invites them to live in His presence now and forever, peace, power and freedom will result. Being nice won’t get them into the Kingdom. Only Jesus’ blood and righteousness can do that. He justifies us, then He works with us on sanctifying us.
The tragic earthquake in Haiti has highlighted the fruit of the Gospel that is showing up in acts of mercy shown by both Haitian and ex-patriot Christians. Let’s pray that people will “see our good works and glorify your Father in heaven” and enter the Kingdom of God themselves.
So I challenge you to begin thinking more about the Gospel, the Good News of the Kingdom of God here now in Jesus and coming in fullness at His return. Be thinking about what it looks like to live in His Kingdom and invite others inside with you. What freedoms are you experiencing? What aspects of security in Christ have you sensed lately? Be thinking about how to express it like the good news it really is. That’s a lifetime proposition, just as Jesus intended it to be.
