Indeed, the good news of Jesus Christ starts with the bad news about our sins. Before we can appreciate the power and beauty of the gospel, we must first be convicted by the holy Spirit of our sinfulness. It is no wonder the New Testament repeatedly reminds us of this crucial truth. Only those who labor and are heavy-laden should come to Jesus Christ to find the rest for their souls that only Jesus Christ can provide (Matthew 11:28). In the book of Acts, the Apostle Peter confronted the Jews about their sin of killing Jesus Christ whom God has “made him both Lord and Christ.” Upon hearing this charge, “they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?” The same applies in the epistle of Romans; the Apostle Paul started by pointing to the sin of the Gentiles (Romans 1) and the sin of the Jews (Romans 2) before he could present the gospel to them (Romans 3-11). Yes, until we admit that we are desperately sick, we cannot seek help from a physician (Mark 2:17). It is only when we come to the end of ourselves that the gospel of Jesus Christ captures our hearts. The Holy Spirit must, first of all, convict us of our miserable, spiritual condition that we were born sinners, not good (Psalm 51:5), slaves to sin (John 8:34), slaves of the fear of death (Hebrews 2:14-15), and totally depraved (Romans 3:9-18). It is only when God illuminates these truths that Jesus Christ becomes attractive, glorious, and irresistible. His active obedience, in which he was tempted in every respect as we are, yet without sin, becomes our only hope for being righteous before God (Hebrews 4:15). The good news of Jesus Christ is that Jesus Christ was conceived and born through the power of the Holy Spirit – i.e., the virgin birth – so that he can be free from the original sin (Genesis 3, Psalm 51:5, and Romans 5:12-21). And through his active and perfect obedience, he lived a life we could not live so that those who believe in him may receive his perfect obedience in exchange for their sins that led him to the death on the cross (1 Peter 2:22, John 8:46, Hebrews 4:15, Philippians 2:8, and 2 Corinthians 5:21). Through the passive obedience of Jesus Christ on the cross (1 Peter 2:24, and Luke 23:46); he also died the death we could not die as he died for our sins and not for his own sins, thus satisfying God’s justice which requires sin to be fully punished through a sinless and blameless sacrificial lamb (1 Corinthians 5:7, Hebrews 9:12, 14). Therefore, those who believe in the substitutionary death of Jesus Christ, as described above, received the free gift of eternal life, thus being saved from the penalty and power of sin, slavery to the fear of death and Satan, and eternal damnation in the lake of fire (John 8:34, Hebrews 2:14-15). The Apostle Paul wrote in Romans 6:23, “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” That’s the gospel we believe in and preach at Glorious Fellowship Church Pretoria.