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Ask a room full of Christians "What is the gospel" and you'll likely be stunned at the variety of responses.  This sad truth only speaks to the pandemic of gospel ignorance in evangelical churches today.  The word "gospel" itself means "good news" or "blessed message" but one might not know it given the myriad misrepresentations of it in America today.

By now churches and Christians ought to know that simply showing up and hearing a sermon once a week, and perhaps even sitting through a Sunday School-type class, just will not cut it if the aim is to "present every man complete in Christ" (Col 1:28).  Thousands upon thousands of people fill churches every week, but when asked, they either cannot say anything meaningful about the gospel, or what little they do say is quite shallow.

Christian parents for generations now have `rank`ly expected a sermon a week and a 30-minute Youth Bible study a week to equip their children for Christian living.  The 75% drop-out rate among collegiates raised in Christian churches says this system is broken.  And, it's broken because it was never biblical in the first place.  God has made it clear parents are the primary Bible teachers of children (Deut 6; Eph 6).  The church, then, must equip parents to do their jobs well to God's glory.

Nothing is of greater importance in this task than helping our children, by God's grace, put down deep gospel roots.  This happens in the simplest of ways - by the Spirit applying the Word as it is taught and modeled day-by-day.  And so, we (parents and churches) must have a deep grasp of the gospel ourselves, if we are going to teach and live it!

Let's start by realizing there are two main ways the church has traditionally used the word "gospel."  First, it can refer to "the whole counsel of God" given to us in the Bible.  In this sense, Genesis to Revelation is "the gospel."  Second, and more commonly, the "gospel" refers to that paramount message of the Bible that explains how a holy God has made a way for unholy people to be made right with Him through the person and work of His Son, Jesus.

For the next several weeks, we will focus our attention on this second sense of "the gospel."  I hope by this effort to help Christian parents and / or children to get a better handle on the basic gospel message, to have an easy to remember outline of the gospel message at their disposal, and to point you to further resources to help you drink more deeply from the gospel well.

Before we dive in, however, let's state a few things the gospel is not:

1.  The gospel is not "God loves you and has a great plan for your life."  This statement is so much non-sense to a person who has no knowledge of who God is, nor any desire to really know Him as He is.

2.  The gospel is not social activism.  The salvation that comes to sinners in and through the Holy Spirit's application of the gospel may well lead to various kinds of wholesome, moral activism, but activism in itself is most certainly not the gospel.

3.  The gospel is not "your best life now."  Rather, the gospel of the Bible is "your best life later" (Rom 8:18).

4.  The gospel is not even "repent and believe in Jesus."  Though these words are directly biblical, they do not give a full representation of the message that is the gospel.  Rather, they are simply the gospel commands, or the required response to the message that is the gospel.

5.  The gospel is not man's message.  It is God's gospel (Rom 1:1).  We are not free to tamper with it or make it more palatable to sinners' tastebuds.

So, let us allow God to tell us in His own words what is the gospel.  When we do, we shall see that in its essence, the gospel is a message about God, about mankind, and about Jesus the Christ.  This outline is not new; it is ancient and has been followed by prophets of old, Apostles of the church, and by today's heralds of the good news.