A Gospel Perspective

This week I created a teaching for our girls Bible study that I wanted to share.

What is the gospel? The gospel is the good news of God loving and saving lost mankind through the ministry, word and deed of His son Jesus Christ.

The gospel is the story God has been writing since the beginning of time and his plan to save and redeem His people. There are four parts to this story.

Creation - God made everything and He made it good. He made the earth, animals, planets and humans. Everything was the way it should be.

Fall - God had one rule, the humans were not to eat from the tree of good and evil. They disobeyed and sin cursed the entire world. Now everything in creation is broken.

Redemption - Every story needs a hero, and this is where our hero enters the story. The penalty for sin is death. Jesus came and lived a perfect life and died that death for us. He took the penalty of sin and the judgement on himself. When we accept him as our savior and hero we are free from death.

Consummation - Jesus returned to heaven and sent his holy spirit to live with us. But he is coming again and he will set the world back to the way it should be. We will live in the new heavens and new earth and the fairy tale ends with happily ever after.

These are the four parts to the story. The cool part is that we can have a gospel perspective on every area of our life. What does it mean that our relationships, work, bodies, sports were created good, broken by sin, redeemed by Christ and will be made new in the resurrection.

Here's a gospel perspective I created for the girls. How to look at these areas of our life that Christ has redeemed. Through a gospel lens.

Gospel Perspective

School: God created us to work and cultivate the world. This is what Adam and Eve were doing in the garden. Because of the fall work is hard and difficult. School is boring, assignments are stressful. But Christ has redeemed school work. When we accept Jesus as our savior He is our Lord and we don’t need to work to prove ourselves through our grades. He is our king and we do our work to glorify him alone. This means we work hard but we don’t need to be over worked or stressed about failing. We are free to do our school work to glorify him alone.

Relationships/Friendships: We were made for relationships. God designed us for friendships and romantic relationships. Because of the fall relationships are broken. We see this when people lie, cheat and hurt one another. We see friendships end or marriages broken by divorce. We also look to relationships to give us meaning, love and purpose. However, Christ has redeemed relationships. When we know how loved we are by Jesus we are free to love others without seeking anything in return. We can love unconditionally. When we know how forgiven we are in Christ we are free to forgive people who hurt us and heal broken relationships. We are free to forgive and free to love.

Future: God has given us a wonderful life, but because of sin we can worry about our futures. We have anxiety about plans going wrong or making the wrong decision. When Christ is our savior and our Lord he holds the future and his plan will never go wrong. In Christ we are fully loved and known by a good Father who wants the best for us. This frees us from worry and anxiety about our future. We are free to have our plans go wrong and free to fail because His plan never goes wrong.

Body: Our bodies were made good, because of the fall they have been corrupted by sin. Our bodies fail and get sick, we also obsess over our bodies and the way they look. Christ has died to redeem your body. When you accept Jesus as your savior he comes and dwells in your body by the Holy Spirit. You are now a temple and dwelling place for God to live. This means that our body is no longer ours, it was bought with a price. We are now free to take care of our bodies. We are free to not obsess about the way they look. Free to have a treat and free to work out when we want.

Try this out yourself! Take an area of your life and view it through a gospel perspective.