The Good News

I want to speak to you today about a very important subject. It is subject which will affect where you find yourself within the next 100 years, and that subject concerns the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. The gospel of grace concerns how that Christ died for our sins, was buried and rose again the third day according to the scriptures. The message of what those gospel facts accomplished is the good news that God wants you to hear. What makes the gospel good news is that it is the message of God to us in light of some very bad news—in fact, the worse news that we could ever hear. That terrible news is that all have sinned and come short of the glory of God (Rom. 3:23). Fundamentally, what that means is that every person who has ever lived (outside of Christ Himself) is a sinner before God, and that is not only true of men in general, but that is individually & personally true of you and also of me.

You see, you & I are sinners. That is the root of our problem. Any other problem that you might think you have is simply the fruit problem that is born out of that root problem of personal sin. The reason that we commit sin and the reason that we do not and cannot live up to God’s standard of perfect righteousness is because our hearts (our inner most beings) are stained with sin.

This is a problem because the wages of sin is death (Rom. 6:23). The Bible tells us this, and death is a matter of separation. When a person physically dies, his spirt and soul are separated from his body. This is when the physical life ceases. Death is a matter of separation. Well on an eternal scale, sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death. It brings about a separation between our eternal soul and the life of the eternal God who created us. Sin is incompatible with the life and holiness of God. Therefore, the wages that our sin pays to us is an eternal separation from God, or eternal death.

Now that is bad news, friend! All have sinned and come short of the glory of God, and the wages of sin is death. That is the predicament that you & I find ourselves in before God. Now I supposed that someone reading this might take issue with the declaration that he is a sinner, but I think that if you are willing to be honest with yourself, you’ll have to admit that it is manifestly true.

Consider this, the first commandment in God’s law says: Thou shalt have no other gods before me (Exo. 20:3). There is only one God, folks—and if God is truly God, basic logic tells you that there can only be one. If there are many gods, then there is no God. A polytheistic belief system leads to nowhere because ultimately everything is relative dependent upon which god you choose, and there is no absolute authority in regard to morality, behavior and eternity in a multi-god system. The very concept of God demands sovereignty & unity, or else you are no longer dealing with the concept of “God.” God is sovereign.

Now that does not mean that God micromanages and preordains every detail of our lives so that our choices are irrelevant, but the sovereignty of the Creator means that as God, He is the absolute final authority concerning all things. The inescapable fact of our existence is that the word of that sovereign Creator governs this universe, and that truth remains whether or not his creatures acknowledge Him as God or not. God’s word is inescapable in God’s universe. Any being who seeks to exist apart from the word of the Creator will inevitably self-destruct. We cannot escape the sovereign law of the Creator, and we know it! We cannot exist apart from His word!

Now the rub in that for man is this: the sovereign word of the Creator has declared by His word that you & I are hopelessly sinful and eternal separated from His life. We saw that a moment ago. For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. That is the Sovereign’s righteous decree!

Now what is your reaction to that? Do you dispute it? Do you have some argument that you would like to offer in contradiction to what the sovereign Creator has declared? If you do, is that not a manifestation of what is truly in your heart concerning the person of God? Have you not broken the very first commandment in setting up your word against His? Your problem is the very same as Adam & Eve’s—you desire to be “as gods” knowing good and evil. You want to be able to call the shots as your own god. You will not submit yourself to the Sovereign’s standard of good and evil & listen to Him when He says that you have come short. No, you want to argue because you want the final say in whether or not you are or justified based upon your standards of good and evil. You want to be God! You desire to be the sovereign of your own heart and life. You have other gods before the Sovereign in direct disobedience the very first commandment.

You are a sinner, and it is evident because you refuse to glorify God as God. Until you are willing to shut your mouth, and allow God’s law to bring you to an acknowledgement of your guilt as a sinful rebel against God, you will be on a road of total and complete self-destruction ending in the eternal torments of the lake of fire. You need to humble yourself, shut your mouth, and acknowledge your inescapable guilt before Him.

Now if that’s where you are at in your heart—the Sovereign God has some good news He would like to share with you.

Rom. 5:6-8 - For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die: yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die. But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

Now friend, there is no excuse for your sin. You’re guilty! You deserve the punishment of a rebel who has raised your hand against the Most High. But the glorious gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ declares to you today, that the Sovereign God against whom you have sinned loves you. He does not want you to receive the punishment and eternal death that you deserve. So in His great love, God sent His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, into this world for the purpose of shedding His blood, dying on the cross in your place, so that your sin and rebellion could be forgiven. Christ Jesus took all your iniquity upon Him as He hung upon the cross, the wrath that you deserved to receive for all eternity was poured out upon Him, and He bore your sin debt so that God could forgive you. He paid for your sins with His death. He was taken down from the cross and placed in a borrowed tomb. But on the third day, He rose again. He finished all the was necessary for your to be saved and given eternal life in Him.

This glorious gift of God’s love; this wonderful and complete payment secured for you by the Son of God is offered to you right now on the simple basis of faith in Christ and what He accomplished on your behalf. Rom. 3:26 says that God is the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus. That’s all it takes to be saved! Believe in Jesus as your all-sufficient Savior. God’s not looking for you clean your life up or to get water-baptized or to confess your sins or to pray a prayer or do any of that stuff religion tells you to do. What God’s justice is looking for is a heart response of faith to what His Son accomplished in your place on the cross.

Acts 16:31 – Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved.

Eph. 2:8 – For by grace are ye saved through faith.

Rom. 5:1 – Therefore being justified by faith we have peace with God.

That’s the good news of the gospel, folks! Jesus paid it all, all to Him I owe! Have you trusted Him as your Savior? You can do that right now! Respond in faith to God’s good news & trust Christ now!