by Ben Davenport

The unsinkable Paul, in his first letter to the church at Corinth, stated with relish that the Gospel, and only the Gospel, was the power of God unto salvation.

Most of us have heard that the word Gospel means “good news”; and that is exactly correct. The Gospel is good news! But how can the simple hearing of “good news” possibly be the road to salvation? To find that you have just inherited a fortune is good news indeed; but as we all know money cannot even buy happiness much less salvation. To hear from your doctor that you have a clean bill of health is a good bit of news to receive; but even this will tarnish with time, for it is appointed unto every man once to live and once to die and then, there will come the judgment. Present health is hardly an evidence of salvation or proof that you possess eternal life.

One day our health will finally fail us. And on that day we will each stand before our maker to answer for the deeds done in our bodies. Without Christ, every fleeting fragment of temporal good news that we so gleefully grasped and clung to as a means of happiness and contentment, will pale and whither in comparison to the enormity of our sins against God, our crimes against our neighbor, and our impending punishment in an eternal hell.

In light of this, I must ask not only, what kind of news leads to salvation, but what kind of salvation is it that we actually we need?

At the end of your days, when all has been said and done, and your life on this Earth expires for lack of ability to draw another breath, what kind of salvation do you want to have? When the books are opened and your life, actions, thoughts, and secrets are all laid bare to the judgment of a holy God what is it in that moment that you want to be saved from? Poverty? Sickness? Inconvenience? No! No! No! A thousand times no! Every man and women on that day will pine for only one thing - salvation from their sins! Salvation from that ignoble record of deeds and thoughts so carefully hidden and covered in life that exposes the truth about who we really are! “What was I thinking? What was I doing?” will be the cry of every heart. The things that each of us would be willing to give or do in order to have the record purged will know no limit, but we will stand at our own judgment penniless as paupers with nothing to offer an offended God but tears. In His presence, our best works will appear as dung, and our feigned righteousness as worthless, filthy rags. How could we have ever believed that a few good deeds could ever outweigh the bulk of our sin, erase years of rebellion, or atone for a life of treason?  Oh, to return to life, Oh, for a chance to retrace our steps and to live very differently.

Live Differently? Hasn’t that already been tried?

Every New Years Eve people all over this planet make resolutions to “live differently” and year after year they fail. “I’m going to eat less.” “I’ll drink less.” “I want to love more.” I will to be faithful to my wife this year.”  I’ll be less selfish and spend more time with my kids instead of my hobbies.” I’m going to forgive.” I am finally going to get my life together.” The list goes on and on. Why do we make these resolutions? Because in spite of our denial that there is any such thing as right or wrong, deep down inside, humans have a God given conscience and our conscience, whether we want to hear it or not, speaks the truth. It speaks to us at night when our friends are gone, when the music has died; when the drugs and alcohol have worn off - or for the church going - after the thrill and fervor of religion has faded away. It speaks and with that voice comes an ache that all the religion, good works, money, alcohol, and sex in the world cannot quench! It is an ache that innately knows that we were created for more than this: more the life of an animal, eating drinking and trying to make merry until the day death comes and sweeps us all away! It’s an ache that knows New Years resolutions are a joke the world over, and that the new year will be exactly like the old because we’ve promised change before and have found that change lies well beyond our reach.

Live differently? History, both yours, mine and the worlds’ has proven that men and women are born separated from God and that we go lying, cursing, stealing, hating, and killing from the womb. Our race cannot change, or save itself from this endless circle of misery and destruction because we have become slaves to our bodies, our lusts and our passions and have lost the ability to do right and shun evil.

But listen.

Listen to the greatest news the world has ever heard!

Listen to the happiest news that has ever fallen upon mortal ears and the most joyous ever proclaimed by angelic tongue!

Listen to what Mathew recorded in the first chapter of the first book of the New Testament. You know, the gospel of Mathew? The “good news” of Mathew?

Mathew’s good news was that there is hope for the sin enslaved Human race! For an angel appeared to a man named Joseph and told him that his soon to be wife, Mary, would bring forth a son and that he was to name the child Jesus, “For he shall save his people from their sins.”

Jesus will save us from our sins. What a thought! Not just from the effects of our sins like guilt, depression, anxiety, fear, and shame but from the source of all these things, the sins themselves! Glory to God!

He came to save us from our sins! Not just from hell and punishment but from the very sins that make us deserving of such punishment and unfit for a holy heaven.

Jesus came to actually save us from our sins not to just forgive us in our sins! The popular Christian bumper sticker reads, “Christians Aren’t Perfect We’re Just Forgiven”. Now, I’m fine saying that Christians aren’t perfect but, “Just forgiven”? Just forgiven? The angel did not say that Joseph was to name the child Jesus, “For he shall just forgive his people from their sins.” The angel said, and I imagine with a smile on his face, “He shall save his people from their sins.” Praise God!

This is just what Luke said in the fourth chapter of the third book of the New Testament. You know, the gospel of Luke? The “good news” of Luke?

Luke’s good news was that there was hope for the sin enslaved Human race! For that very same child that Joseph named Jesus; who was born of the virgin Mary, one day stood as a full grown man in a synagogue in the little town of Nazareth. And as all eyes were on Him, and I imagine with a smile on his face, in a loud voice He proclaimed, to every man, woman, boy and girl, and to every trembling demon of hell, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to preach the Gospel (The good news!) to the poor; He hath sent me to heal the broken hearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised”.

Did you hear that? Did you hear it? The angel told Joseph that God was sending Jesus to save us from our sins and here from Jesus’ own lips He says that the Father had anointed Him to preach the very same “good news” that the angel had delivered to Joseph so many years ago.

Take note, Jesus did not say that He was anointed to preach the good news of how He will give you wealth, health, fame, and an easy prosperous life. No! Nor was He sent to preach the so called good news of lukewarm, modern Christianity that you can now go to heaven while being “just forgiven” while in your day to day life you are still just as vile as you ever were, languishing is Sin’s dungeon of debauchery and filth!

No, Jesus came, and was anointed with the power of almighty God to preach in the ears of every sin enslaved captive the Gospel, the “good news” of deliverance and to set at liberty those that are bound!

He came to not just bring forgiveness to the drunkard who hates his very existence and the fact that he beats the wife he once loved, but to save that drunkard from his drunkenness and the power of sin over his life and to make him into a new creature where old things, the drunkenness, the depression and the rage pass away and all thing become new as a wife finds love and tenderness in a man who had for so long been a continual source of terror and pain.

Paul the apostle of grace wrote to the Corinthians and warned them saying:

Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God.

Paul says don’t be deceived by anyone who tells you otherwise, the drunkard doesn’t need to be “just forgiven” of drunkenness he needs to be saved from the sin of drunkenness or he will not enter into the kingdom of God.

Then he says in the next verse:

And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God.

“Such were some of you”. “Were” as in past tense. Some of you “were” adulterers; Some of you “were” drunkards; Some of you “were” thieves; but now you are those things no longer! Praise God!

You have been washed, but not “just washed”; you have been sanctified, but not “just sanctified”; you have been justified, but not “just justified”; you’ve been forgiven, but not “just forgiven”. And on top of all these things you’ve also been adopted, delivered, altered, translated from darkness to light, changed, set free, and brought form death to life. You’ve been born again! You are not what you were!

That is the Gospel! And that is good news!

It’s not just “good news about anything and everything, it is the good news about Jesus!

It’s not just good news about how Jesus lived a sinless life, or about how He could teach, or about how he could multiply loaves and fishes; it is the good news  about how Jesus came to save us, not simply from poverty or suffering but from our sins.

Paul calls this the Gospel of Jesus Christ unto salvation for all who believe.

That’s fantastic!

I want to shout it from the rooftops, tell it in the streets, and sing about it till the Kingdom comes! Jesus has come to save us from our sins.

The sound of that joyous message has rung across this planet for centuries as men and women who have experienced the saving power of Jesus Christ have hazarded their lives, their fame, and fortunes to bring this glorious gospel of Jesus to the ends of the Earth. And there to declare to all who have never heard the good news that 2000 years ago on a bloody cross a heavenly emancipation declaration was issued the moment that the Son of God died to set men free!

I don’t have to be a slave! You don’t have to be a slave! The thief has come for nothing else but to kill to steal and to destroy; but I have good news, Jesus has come that we might have life and that we might have it more abundantly!

What kind of news leads to salvation? The good news about Jesus.

What kind of salvation will every one of us need and want on Judgment day? The kind that Jesus came to bring; the kind that saves us from our sins both in this life and the next; the kind that breaks the New Years resolution curse and enables us to live differently today so that when the record books are opened tomorrow we need not be ashamed. A salvation that actually changes us.

So, how does hearing this “good news” about Jesus lead to practical salvation from real world sin? Well, The Bible says that this salvation comes through faith and that faith comes by hearing the Word of God. Merely hearing or memorizing or reciting or even agreeing with the Word will help you not one bit.  The Gospel of Jesus Christ is the power of God unto salvation for all who believe.

You must believe.

That’s it.

You must believe that what the Word of God says Jesus Christ came to do for you can actual be done. You must believe that it can be done today, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, by faith, and without any works lest any man should boast.

I did not say you must simply believe that Jesus existed, or that he was born of the virgin Mary that, that He died on the cross, or that He rose again on the third day. There are millions upon millions who believe these things and attend church every Sunday and are yet dead in trespasses and sins. They do not believe that Jesus can do for them what he said He was anointed to do, what the angel announced He was coming to do, or what Jesus claimed to have done when on the cross He cried, “It is finished”! And though orthodox and conservative in doctrine they may be, they do not believe or expect that Jesus will save them from their sins, nor that He will radically invade and alter their existence.

They do not believe the “good news” Jesus was anointed to preach.

They do not believe the Gospel.

You must believe.

You must believe the gospel.

Believing the Gospel of Jesus Christ is the power of God unto your salvation. We have God’s word on it. Jesus can and will save you from everything that damns you; He even now stands at the ready to pull you not only from the fires of an eternal hell but from the hell that your own sins are forging for you right now, here on earth.

Only Jesus can extinguish the ache within your soul. Nothing else will do. You must be born again. A new life is available to you at this very moment. If you look to Him you will be saved. Do you believe?

Editor’s Note:  

Ben Davenport is the pastor of Stone Mountain Church in Fort Collins, Colorado.  Visit Stone Mountain for yourself and you will find that “The Gospel” is always on Ben’s tongue.  He is, in the truest sense, a bravehearted gospelteer.  If you are interested in catching Ben’s thunderous sermons in person sometime, Stone Mountain Church’s main worship service is held at 5pm, Sunday nights, in Old Town Fort Collins at 328 Remington St, on the corner of Magnolia and Remington.  But, as I’ve warned many of you, please be aware, this guy preaches even more forcefully than he writes.