What is the gospel message?
1 – We are all sinners and cannot have fellowship or eternity with God covered in the filth of sin. (And by the way, all sin is filthy. God didn’t assign a rating scale to sin.)
2 – God created us to be in fellowship with him…for eternity. So he devised a plan to get us out of the mess we’re in.
3 – He sent Jesus to step in and take our punishment for us. To pay the price for our sin and make it so that we never have to stand trial for it again.
4 – And he raised him from the grave to give us all a victory over the finality of death!
Here’s the kicker…Once we hear that message, we’ve got to do something with it. Do we recognize that Jesus is our only hope and make him Lord and Savior of our life? Or do we decide that we somehow have the power on our own to accomplish what Christ accomplished on the cross?
Not long after Jesus ascended to heaven, Peter and the other apostles set out to spread the gospel to everyone as Jesus had instructed them to do. (Acts 1:8)
“So let everyone in Israel know for certain that God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, to be both Lord and Messiah!” (Acts 2:36 NLT)
As Peter spoke to the people, he acknowledged that when they rejected Jesus and turned him over to be crucified, they did it out of ignorance. And through that series of events, God fulfilled what the prophets had been foretelling for centuries. Then Peter declared to them that now it was time for them to repent. (Acts 3:14-19)
Peter and the other apostles dedicated their lives to telling as many as possible their firsthand account of God’s redemption plan fulfilled.
There is salvation in no one else! God has given no other name under heaven by which we must be saved.” (Acts 4:12 NLT)
And the question posed to first century Jews and Gentiles is being posed to us today. It’s the only question in which our answer holds eternal significance.
Who is Jesus to you?