This weekend, my church had a youth event called Impact. It's similar to what other churches call Disciple Now. The theme at Impact this year was "Good News Changes Everything."
In light of the Gospel, this really is true. The Gospel changes everything.
The Gospel isn't just about how we are saved. It isn't just a cute little list of steps that gets us to heaven.
The Gospel is the great story of God's incomprehensible, incredible, mind-blowing miracle designed before the beginning of time and fashioned entirely out of love.
The Gospel the front page headline that we don't even deserve to be alive to read that says "SIN IS DEFEATED, WE ARE FREE."
It is the victory in a war mankind fought and continuously lost from the early chapters of Genesis to approximately 33 A.D.
It is the story of Jesus Christ, who, according to Ephesians 2:1-9, didn't merely save us, but makes us alive.
The Gospel is a massive, flashing arrow back to the King of the Universe who made you and me and everybody else and the world we live in for the sole purpose of his glory, which is our sole satisfaction. It is only through Jesus's blood and righteousness that we are made righteous before God. Through this God is glorified, and through this and only this we are satisfied. Not only that, but now we are truly alive and truly free.
We are free to enjoy God's creation as it was intended.
We are free to feel unspeakable sorrow and rest in Christ.
We are free to feel indescribable joy and sing loudest praises to our King.
We are free to love one another unconditionally.
We are free to build each other up.
We are free to proclaim this good news of freedom from the rooftops and along with the mountains.
We are free from sin,
free from death,
free from hell.
We are free to live eternally with our creator.
We are free to someday see our savior face to face.
We are free to enter the courts of the King unashamedly robed in Jesus's righteousness.
We are free to rejoice,
free to love,
free to hope.
Good news changes everything.
"We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. For one who has died has been set free from sin. Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus." -Romans 6:6-11
