THIS IS THE GOSPEL.

We need to go back to the beginning. We need to remember what we believe, why we believe it, and why it matters.

That's why today, we're going back to the basics of our Christian faith. We're going to be talking about what the Gospel is and meditating on it, so that we are continually grateful for what Christ really did for us and are prepared to share that with others. I never want to lose sight of how powerful the Gospel is and how it directly impacts me every single day.

So let's jump right in.

---

Ever since the beginning of time, God has always been. But He desired a world with us in it, a relationship with His creation. So, in six days, He created the entire universe - land, water, sky, sun, moon, animals, plants, and us. The world was absolutely perfect, flawlessly formed by the hands of the Almighty God. People were perfect too, righteous and holy and made in the image of God. Because we were perfect, we got to dwell intimately with God, walking alongside Him and being in a relationship with Him.

Yet, God gave us free will. He allowed us the choice to make our own decisions. And one day, the devil walked onto the scene as a serpent. He tempted Adam and Eve, the first people, to break the one rule God set for them.

And they broke it.

Because God is holy and perfect, we could no longer dwell with Him as intimately as before. We became sinful, and that sin created a divide between us and God. Every person from then on has inherited that sin nature. Throughout much of history, there was this struggle between people and God; we sinned, were separated from God, but because God is gracious, He offered forgiveness and drew us closer to Him again. This cycle happened over and over and over again. God set up a system of offering sacrifices so that it would be right between us and God, but because we are so sinful and imperfect, the sacrifices couldn't come close to fully paying for the cost of our failures.

But then, Jesus came.

Jesus is the son of God, born to a virgin girl. He was perfect because He was conceived by the Holy Spirit, not of man, and He is equal to God. He lived for 33 years, and not once in His life did He sin, fail, or make a mistake. Jesus lived His life out of love, serving the people around Him and healing those who were broken from the inside out. He reached out to the lonely and the lost, those everyone else rejected, and loved them.

He loved them, and us, to the point of the cross, where He was crucified and died an ugly, humiliating death. The kind of death they reserved for the worst criminals.

On the cross, Jesus bore the weight of every failure, every sin we've ever committed. He experienced separation from His Father and endured a death that was beyond physically and spiritually excruciating. He died the death we deserve, because in light of God's perfect nature, that is the punishment our sins called for.

But because Jesus was perfect, and because He sacrificed Himself on our behalf and paid the price we owed, we can now be reconciled with God. We can be in a close, intimate relationship with God because Jesus closed the gap that our failures created. Jesus now offers abundant life, full of freedom and joy and peace. He gives us a new identity, where we are no longer defined by our mistakes or our past or our flaws. And with this gift comes the privilege and hope of living in eternity with Him in heaven.

This is life changing.

Everything about how we live our life changes because it becomes more about Him than me. Our focus should shift to loving God and loving people out of a humble response for everything He has done for us. I want to honor the God Almighty with my life because He saved my life. Nothing of this world has a grip on me anymore - no depression, no anxiety, no sin, no insecurity, absolutely nothing - and so I fix my eyes on heaven and the things that will matter in eternity.

My friends, that is the Gospel.

And of course, this doesn't include all of the details. There are so many aspects of the Bible and God's gift for us that I didn't mention, but I wanted to get back to the basics. This is the core of our Christian belief, the foundation that shapes everything else about our faith and our life.

I'd challenge you to spend some time just meditating on this truth and reflecting on what Christ has done for you. It's easy to get caught up in the theology and deep study of the Bible, which is amazing and so important, but we can't forget the cross. We can't forget how meaningful and powerful what Jesus did for us is.

As we meditate on this, as we preach the truth to ourselves, we will become more prepared to share the Gospel with others. It will be ingrained in our hearts and our mind, and we can tell others the truth about the sacrifice Jesus made for them, too.

The Gospel tears down walls and lies and attacks from the enemy. It is powerful and transformative and essential, and I never want to lose sight of it.