Jesus and the Good News

      The gospel is the good news that both rescue and renewal, help and hope, are available to us in this life - that the rebellion and suffering which we experience and in which we participate matter to the God who made us.  

       The Bible tells us that we are made in the image of our triune God who knows and loves us.  Human beings were created to reflect his character in relationship with him and with one another.  More than that, we are formed and fashioned to rule and to reign over the earth.

       Yet we also know that the world just doesn’t work that way today.  That’s because rather than receive God’s good and wise design for our lives, we have become sinners within the world over which he made us to rule.  That sinful rebellion against our infinitely good and glorious Creator earns us his eternal just and conscious punishment.  

       But God, because he is just and yet has great love for us, became one of us in the person of the Son, the Lord Jesus Christ.  He lived a perfect life, and he died a sacrificial death on the cross to absorb the penalty for anyone who would turn from their sin and put their faith in him.  Moreover, on the third day, he rose from the grave, dealing a death blow to death itself. 

       In the gospel of Christ, God not only forgives us and frees us from sin’s penalty but also increasingly frees us from sin’s power in this life through the work of his Spirit - and one day, he’ll free us from sin’s very presence when Jesus returns in glory to this earth.  Until that day, the Great Commission of Christ’s church is to be and make disciples of Jesus.  To learn more about the contours of the mission and vision of our local church, and what it means to come alongside our community, click here.