Now What? Day 4 – Do I believe the Gospel matters for my life?
Do I believe the Gospel matters for my life?
Days 1-3 have been bringing us to ask perhaps the most important question of all, “Do I believe this matters for my life?” This God, this Jesus, this broken, sinful man in need of righteousness, does it matter for me? If God is not who says He is, if you are not who God says you are, and if Jesus is not who the Bible says He is, then no. None of it matters.
However, let us look at Romans 5:8
“but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”
This one verse speaks volumes. From it we see that God is loving, yet standing in judgment over His creation. We see man captive to sin unable to break its chains. We see Jesus dying for man who could not help himself. Yes, it matters. All of it–God, man, sin, Jesus–matters.
Why? Romans 5:9-11
“Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.”
From this passage we learn:
- God acts as righteous Judge over His creation
- Because of sin, we are seperated from and, in fact, enemies of God.
- Jesus was who the Bible says He was. He was able to reconcile sinful man to a holy, righteous God through his life, death, and resurrection.
- There is joy to be found in our righteous standing before God. Jesus did not give His life for us to have a guilt-riddled relationship with God, constantly worrying when He is going to tell us we’re still not good enough.
Through Jesus’ death, we can enjoy a relationship with God in which we are confident in His love for us and joyful. That, my friends, is a very good why!
So, what now?
After the Apostle Peter’s famous proclamation of the Gospel in Acts 2, we see this response from his listeners:
“Brothers, what shall we do?” And Peter said to them, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself.” And with many other words he bore witness and continued to exhort them, saying, “Save yourselves from this crooked generation.” So those who received his word were baptized, and there were added that day about three thousand souls.
We see TWO aspects of how we should respond to this Good News.
WE MUST REPENT OF OUR SIN
To repent means to turn away from sin. When we turn from our sin, we recognize that all of sin’s promises are empty and cannot satisfy. They only lead us more disappointment, frustration and emptiness.
WE MUST IDENTIFY WITH JESUS
There is more to believing the Gospel than just repenting of our sin. It’s not enough to just turn “away” from sin, we must also turn “to” someone. Peter instructs his audience to be “baptized.” This is not suggesting that baptism saves us but rather we must completely identify with Jesus’s life, death and resurrection for our complete identity.
The question we all must ultimately consider is, “Does this matter to my life?”
What is stopping you from trusting and following Jesus right now?
