Salvation is A Free Gift From God - By Faith in Christ

The Gospel explained as a Twitter message:

God is holy. You are not. God gives you faith about what Christ has done. You don’t deserve this. This is grace. You respond. The result is eternal life for you and glory to God.

What is the Gospel?

The word for Gospel in the original language of the New Testament means “good news.” But before we can truly understand how good it really is, we must first recognize some bad news.

Bad news (Ephesians 2:1-2)

1. You are Dead (“Dead” means a “total separation from God.”)

2. You worship the wrong god.

3. We are addicted to evil desires.

4. God is mad at this.

The Bible also makes it very clear that we are completely unable to eliminate God’s anger toward us – because we are 100% spiritually dead (Romans 3:23, Romans 6:23, Ephesians 2:8-9). It is only because of what He did, that we can be made spiritually alive. So the “Good News” is all about 1) What God did 2) What we do in response, and 3) What we get. So here it is, laid out in its three parts:

Good news (Acts 2:22-47)

I. Revelation: What God Did

1. Jesus is Immanuel, God with us. He is diety; the Second Person of the Trinity, Who lived on earth as a perfectly Spirit filled human. Acts 2:22

2. He was killed, fulfilling God’s plan. Acts 2:23

3. He was raised Acts 2:24-33 – nine verses on the resurrection (cross only got one)

4. He was exalted as Lord and Christ. Acts 2:34-36

5. Holy Spirit came. Acts 2:38

II. Response: What we do

1. Repent! (That means: change your mind about who is God around here. The result is a change of behavior.) Acts 2:38

2. Accept the message by faith. (Trust that what God says is true.) Acts 2:38

3. Proclaim through baptism that you have been saved. (Baptism does not save you, but it is God’s ordained way of saying “I’m a Jesus follower.”) Acts 2:38

III. Results: What we get

1. Forgiveness of all sins. God declares us to be in “right standing” with Him (not because of our efforts, but because of God’s incredible grace.) Forgiveness and being made right with God is by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone. Acts 2:32

2. Indwelling Holy Spirit and implanted new heart. Our basic values and deepest likes change from within us. Acts 2:38

3. New supernatural covenant community with other believers. Acts 2:39-41

4. New mission (to serve Christ on earth.) Acts 2:42-47

5. A new destination: an eternal home in Heaven with Christ forever.