FAITH IN ACTION
The word “gospel” literally means “good news.” It is the good news that the angels heralded at Jesus’ birth (Luke 2:10–11), the good news that Jesus consistently proclaimed throughout his ministry (Mark 1:14–15), and the good news promised beforehand in the entire Bible concerning Jesus Christ, the Son of God (Rom 1:1–4). This good news is what we must embrace if we are to experience salvation. This good news is the defining message of our church, and must be the heart and purpose of everything we are and everything we do.
The gospel begins with creation. God created us for a purpose: to know him and make him known. Once we realize that we are created beings and have a purpose, the gospel message tells us what’s wrong, why we don’t live for God like we were created to do. We have separated ourselves from him and his purposes through our sin, bringing death and hell upon ourselves and all of creation. To bring us back to himself and rescue us from death and hell, God the Father sends God the Son, Jesus Christ, to live a perfect life in our place, die the death we deserve for our sin, and rise from the dead to bring us life from death. When we believe that Jesus did this for us, turn from all other ways of living, and follow him as our Savior and King, his life, death, and resurrection becomes ours. Our relationship with God is restored, and we are free once again to live with him and for him. We become citizens of God’s kingdom, living lives of anticipation as we look forward to the kingdom coming in all of its glory.
As a church, we must not only confess faith in this gospel, but continually examine ourselves to make sure we are believing and living it out in everything we do. Our goal, our mission, is to believe the gospel with everything that we are (to know God), and then live out the gospel in everything that we do (to make God known). We are called to be gospel-centered and gospel-focused in both our beliefs and practices. It’s only as we continually come before Christ with all humility, devotion, repentance, and faith that we will be the church he has called us out to be and make the impact on Tallahassee he has called us to make.
So for the next seven weeks on Sunday morning we will be focusing on this intersection of gospel belief and gospel practice, what it means to embrace gospel truth, and have a gospel culture. We will begin with a sermon on one of the most-loved and quoted verses of Scripture, John 3:16, and in the coming weeks we will spend some time together in Ephesians, Revelation, 1 Timothy, Galatians, 2 Corinthians, and the Gospel of Mark.
As we focus on our mission and consider how we are called to put the gospel into action, please pray and ask God how he wants to move you into a further embrace of his gospel, and then how he wants to move our church to do the same. God saves us to do great things for him, and I know he has some great things in store for us. They will only happen, however, when we all come together around the cross, resurrection, and kingdom of Jesus Christ.
