Our Simple Message
God has given us a simple yet profound message to deliver: the gospel. We don’t need to candy-coat it, gloss it over, add or subtract anything from it. We must present it as God presents it in His Word.
A technical definition of the word gospel is “good news.” Yet, to truly appreciate the good news of God’s love and forgiveness in Jesus Christ, one must first understand the bad news about sin and judgment.
The bad news is that we all stand as sinners before a Holy God. No matter who we are, we have all sinned—sometimes in ignorance, but often on purpose. For that reason, we are condemned:
“For whoever shall keep the whole law, and yet stumble in one point, he is guilty of all” (James 2:10).
Seeing our complete weakness and inability to do anything to alleviate our wretched condition, God did the ultimate for us: “While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8).
Paul gives a summation of the gospel message in 1 Corinthians: “Now, brothers, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you have received and on which you have taken your stand. By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain. For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that He was buried, that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures” (1 Corinthians 15:1–4 NIV).
The cornerstone of the gospel message is the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
The apostle Paul was a brilliant orator and communicator. He was thoroughly schooled in biblical law, as well as in the wisdom of Greece. Yet, he never leaned upon his intellect in his preaching. Instead, he stuck to the basics of the gospel message.
“When I came to you, brothers, I did not come with eloquence or superior wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God. For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified” (1 Corinthians 2:1–2).
“For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel—not with words of human wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power” (1 Corinthians 1:17).
