Good News
Sharing the good news of Jesus
to grow new disciples of Christ
The Good News
As Christians we have wonderful news. Jesus Christ has come to save us. He came to stop us being enemies of God to make us children of God. Our problem is that we have turned our backs on Him and live lives ignoring His will (the Bible calls this sin). Because of this God is angry with us - He cannot allow our rebellion to continue forever. Yet God still loves us. So He sent Jesus. Jesus was the only person to ever live a perfectly good life, but He died a horrible death on the cross. This was God’s plan of love, for on the cross He did a swap. He took Jesus’ perfect life and swapped it with our sinful lives. So Jesus died for our sin, but those who trust in Jesus become perfect in God’s eyes: “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” (2 Corinthians 5:21 , NIV) The result is that through trusting in Jesus instead of being enemies of God we become children of God and so instead of facing God’s anger we have his blessing - in particular eternal life. God raised Jesus from the dead proving that Jesus was indeed the one sent by Him, but that also God has power over even death so that we can be confident of His promise of eternal life. All we have to do is to trust in what Jesus has done for us, confident that He has forgiven all our past sins and to start a new life seeking to live for God. In short to become a disciple of Christ.
To see a simple and clear presentation of this good news try this website:
www.matthiasmedia.com.au/2wtl/
Or why not join us on our next Christianity Explored course? All are welcome and it is a great course for those who already know something about Jesus and Christianity or for those who know nothing. Click here to find out more: Christianity Explored.
St. Luke’s Mission
The good news is so important for everyone and at St. Luke’s we want as many to hear it as possible. Our hope and prayer is that through sharing this great news others will turn to become disciples of Jesus too. Indeed, this is what Jesus commands His church to do: “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you."(Matthew 28:19-20 )
How do we do this?
So, we encourage every member of the church to “…always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect…” (1 Peter 3:15 , NIV). We want people to share the good news as individuals, but also as part of the work of our growth teams. One of our ongoing aims is to offer every household in our parish a copy of the Jesus Video, a film about the life of Jesus based on Luke’s gospel. Also, for those that are interested, whether they have much knowledge about Jesus or Christianity or not, we regularly run a course called Christianity Explored.
