What is the Gospel?

The question, What is the gospel? has been answered in many, many ways. The gospel of Jesus Christ is both beautifully simple and wonderfully sophisticated!  Here and now we'll offer the beautifully simple answer. Our hope is that, as you continue to worship with us and get to know us, you'll discover more of the wonderfully sophisticated facets of the gospel.

Gospel means good news. But what news? The news that people don't have to remain alienated from their creator. The news that God in His mercy and grace offers to forgive all our rebellion against Him through the life and sacrificial death of His one and only divine eternal son, Jesus Christ. The news that if we respond to the gracious gift of forgiveness and restored relationship with God by trusting wholly in Jesus Christ and all that He has done for us we will be rescued from the damning consequences of continued rebellion against Him. The news that through faith in Jesus Christ we can know God, here, now and forever.

There are many other aspects of this great good news. But let's take a step back.

The gospel really begins with the one true God who really exists. He is the designer, creator, and sustainer of all there is, including each one of us. We see reflections of God's nature as we reflect on creation in all its splendor, majesty, variety, complexity, creativity, etc. Not only has God shown us some of what He is like in His creation, but He has also revealed all we need to know about Him in order to have a relationship with Him in written form in the Bible. So the gospel begins with God, who He is in all His goodness & excellencies.

All that He made was absolutely wonderful. However when the first people rebelled against Him, defying Him they brought upon themselves and the whole creation a corruption that alienated them and the whole world from God. We experience that corruption, that pollution every day in our own hearts, minds, and bodies. And we experience the devastation of human rebellion in our relationships with others, in our societies, and in the tragedies in our physical world. Our relationship with God was broken by our rebellion. Our rebellion against God not only alienated us from God, but resulted in corruption that permeates every aspect of who we are and all the world.

This brief backdrop enables us to conclude our beautifully simple explanation of the gospel by saying that the gospel is about restoration and redemption.

Even though we rebel against His rightful rule over us (after all He made us!). He seeks us out. He offers to restore us; to redeem our lives from the death and corruption that rightly result from defiance of our gracious creator. And He offers all this not based upon anything we can do to ever deserve. He offers all this because of what His son Jesus Christ has done. He offers to treat us not as we deserve, but to treat us as Jesus deserves.

The great good news, the gospel, is that if we will submit to our creator, by relying upon the life of Jesus Christ and his sacrificial death, God will redeem our lives. He will restore our relationship with Him. He will forgive all our rebellion. He will rescue us from what our rebellion deserves. He will lavish His grace and love upon us, and our hearts will sing with joy as they were designed to. All this and more because of Jesus Christ.

Join us here at Naperville Presbyterian Church anytime, as together we endeavor to increasingly apprehend all that God has done for us and live in response to His love and grace poured out into our lives through the gospel of Jesus Christ.