What is The Gospel? Part 4

Our Hope

I have taken up a good bit of your time by this point, but if you’re still with me you’re either gnashing your teeth or feeling the hope offered to you. I will try to make this quick but poignant. I would hope you have asked the question, “So if these events had to happen because God promised to save His people, then that means it was destined for Christ to die on the Cross and that wasn’t just how things unwound?”, the answer is a resounding “YES”. God is sovereign, He is sovereign over all things, what was, what is, and yet to come. We have hope in the promises of our sovereign God, but what are these promises and how do they apply to me? The promises I want to expand upon right now are the “Perseverance of the Saints”, as we like to call it, and the “unconditional election”. The doctrine of unconditional election teaches us that we are God’s people who exercise faith in Christ by grace given from God. Grace that we don’t deserve but that He gives freely. There are no strings, no actions, no number of good deeds. It doesn’t matter what sins or how many sins you have committed, the grace God gives transcends all that man is and all that man does. I bring you back to Romans 5:8, which tells us that Christ died for us while we were still sinners. That His death didn’t have any conditions, He didn’t die for us after we repented, or after we believed. He died while we were still sinners, don’t let this pass you by, the Kingdom is at hand (Matthew 3:2).

The final point I am to make, is the “Perseverance of the Saints”. This statement means that all those who receive the grace of God and have put their faith in Jesus Christ will endure in the faith until Glory. When I say until Glory, I mean when this earthly flesh dies, and the spirit goes on to be with the Lord. Regardless of the difficulties in life, regardless of the moments of weakness, the faithful believer will endure, that is a promise from God. John 6: 37-39 tells us just that and more, “All those the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never drive away. 38 For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me. 39 And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all those he has given me but raise them up at the last day.” Jesus tells us more than just the saints will endure, due to His hand, but that this is the will of the Father. What could be more powerful a statement than for the will of the eternal, sovereign God to have the saints endure till the end. If it is the will of God than it will be. God established His people before the foundation of the World, God created the Heavens and the Earth, God made a covenant with Abraham and promised redemption for man, God ordained the death, burial and resurrection of Christ, and God has determined that all His sheep shall endure.

This may be long, but it is only skin deep, yet it is more than enough for you to know the truth of God, for you to know the Gospel. You make think, this is simple, how can a story change my life, a story can’t, but Christ the King can. The depths man has pondered to find purpose and meaning do not compare the depths Christ has descended so that His people would be redeemed and endure until the last days. There is hope in Christ, there is victory in Christ. As Paul tells us in Romans 8:31-39, “(31) What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be[i] against us? (32) He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? (33) Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. (34) Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. (35) Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? (36) As it is written,

“For your sake we are being killed all the day long;

    we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.”

(37 ) No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. (38)  For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, (39) nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

I pray for all those who read this, I am not much of a writer, I am just a fellow bond servant to the Lord Christ Jesus. I pray that God would be honored in this letter and that those who read would respond earnestly and honestly to the message contained.

To Christ Be the Glory.