On Pentecost following Jesus’ resurrection, a large crowd in Jerusalem heard Peter preach the gospel of Christ. Many were “cut to the heart,” and no one in the history of human inquiry has ever asked a better question than they did: What shall we do?
What is the meaning of the titles associated with the name of Jesus in the New Testament? Over sixty times He is called the “Lord Jesus Christ”? To see fully who Jesus is in the gospel message, we need to understand all three of these designations.
God is at the center of both our problem and its solution. The gospel is not primarily about our broken social relationships. These are but symptoms of the real problem: our broken relationship with God. That is what the gospel wants to fix.
We were created for perfect joy with God, a joy not subject to change and decay. By our sin, the human race broke that perfection, but we still yearn for it. And in Christ, that is what is offered to us: restoration of the life we were designed for.
Light is wonderful, but if we don’t respond to light obediently, the light will condemn us. “And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil” (John 3:19).
As in Jesus’ day, people today still “come to Jesus” for a confusing range of reasons. So let’s ask this: in the New Testament, who were those who came to Jesus and were received by Him? If we expect Jesus’ welcome, how (and why) should we come?
We can’t receive the benefits of the gospel ourselves and not want to do something to share those benefits with other people. In some kind of personal way, we should want to reach those around us with the message that has brought us such great joy.
Learning God’s character is a growth process that takes time. In Christ, we “are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another” (2 Corinthians 3:18). Surely we must not give up before the process has reached its goal.
We would not have been baptized into Christ if we had not decided to die with Him. It was a choice. And our old self will not stay dead if we refuse to let go of that life and let it stay in the past. We must deny ourselves and take up our cross.
There is something special about the act of baptism. Whether we understand God’s reasons or not, He has made baptism the doorway separating the old from the new. In the gospel of Christ, it is in baptism that our sins are washed away (Acts 22:16).
