The Gospel.
At Beacon Hill Church, the gospel of Jesus Christ is the center of our confession, the power of our transformation, and the fuel for our mission.
“Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you—unless you believed in vain. For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures.” - 1 Corinthians 15:1-4
What Is the Gospel?
The gospel is the good news of who Jesus is and what he has done for us. It is not advice or instruction on what you need to do to make yourself whole or to heal our broken world. Rather, it’s a proclamation of what Christ has done. It’s all about him.
And it tells us four important things:
God is holy. He is not a small or insignificant God. He is King of the world and King of your heart. And we were made for him. As the early church father Saint Augustine said, “our hearts are restless until they rest in you.”
We are sinners. But instead of giving ourselves to God in joyful obedience and dependence, we turned from him and made life about us. We told God he wasn’t our orbiting center, and this plunged our whole world into death and disintegration. Sin ruined our relationship with ourselves, with each other, with the created world, and ultimately with God.
Jesus saves. Though God is holy, and though we deserve death, God came near to save. Jesus Christ- God in flesh- came to live the life you should have lived, and die the death you should have died, so that by his grace you might be restored and be given new life.
We respond. But you need to respond to this good news in faith. Agree that you have sinned, agree that you deserve death, and then entrust yourself to this Jesus who died in your place. And when you do, you can have confidence that no more work needs to be done to heal your relationship with God. It truly is finished.