The Gospel Message (or Good News):
The gracious promise of God’s love offered freely to each and all.
We see this love in a number of ways:
1. God made a covenant through Abraham and Sarah for their descendants to be a blessing to the entire world.
Now the LORD said to Abram, "Go from your country and your kindred and our father's house to the land that I will show you. I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed." (Genesis 12:1-3 NRSV)
2. God gave Israel (the Jews, descendants of Abraham and Sarah) the law for life and a right relationship with God.
If you obey the commandments of the LORD your God that I am
commanding you today, by loving the LORD your God, walking in
his ways, and observing his commandments, decrees, and
ordinances, then you shall live and become numerous… I call
heaven and earth to witness against you today that I have set before
you life and death, blessings and curses. Choose life so that you and
your descendants may live, loving the LORD your God, obeying
him, and holding fast to him; for that means life to you…
(Deuteronomy 30:16-20 NRSV)
3. God sent Jesus Christ to reveal God’s love for people and to provide abundant life.
"For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that
everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have
eternal life. "Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to
condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved
through him. (John 3:16-17 NRSV)
Jesus says “…I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.” (John 10:10b NRSV)
4. God sent Jesus Christ to bring us (non-Jews) into relationship with God too.
So then, remember that at one time you Gentiles by birth, called "the uncircumcision" by those who are called "the circumcision" a physical circumcision made in the flesh by human hands remember that you were at that time without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. (Ephesians 2:11-13 NRSV)
Therefore, the Original covenant is fulfilled. Genesis 12 “...in you (Abraham & Sarah) all the families of the earth shall be blessed."
But, people have rejected God’s love
From the very beginning in Genesis until the present time, we people have resisted God’s love and rejected God’s path. We want to do things our own way. We want to be the rulers of our own lives. A Biblical word for this is sin).
“…for we have already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks, are under the power of sin…there is no one who has understanding, there is no one who seeks God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; there is no one who shows kindness, there is not even one." (Rom 3:9-12 NRSV)
Yet, God’s love for us did not end with our rejection of God’s love.
“But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us. “ (Rom 5:8 NRSV)
So, How do we accept God's Love? How do I become a Christian?
