Good News
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We are all familiar with the old "Good news, bad news" jokes, aren’t we? Someone says to us, "Well I’ve got good news…," and we automatically assume that there is bad news too. At Windsor Baptist, we believe that we have Good news to share with you. We believe that there is an All-powerful God who made the universe and everything within it. We believe that He is the creator of mankind. Most of us in our heart of hearts would probably admit that we believe there is something more to this world; that there has to be meaning beyond this life. When we look at the intricacies of the world around us, not least of all the miracle of the human body, it points to the design of a Creator. However, in this case too, we have to deal with the bad news… | ||||||||||||||||
| If
this is true, if there is a God who created the world,
why are things so messed up? None of us can deny that
there is a problem with the world today. Earthquakes
killing thousands in Turkey, famine and wars, killings
and intimidation in our own country. How has it all gone
wrong? I remember once hearing a singer describe the answer to this problem, "The heart of the human problem, is the problem of the human heart." God created a perfect world; he created humans as perfect. The problem was we rebelled against God and disobeyed him. Each of us in our heart knows only too well the corruption within us. We do things we know to be wrong, we continually fall short of the standards that we set ourselves. How much more then do we do wrong against the God who made this world and fall short of His standards? |
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When
we buy a new appliance or piece of equipment, it is very
important to look at the manufacturer’s
instructions. As they made it, they know how it is to be
used correctly. For us to decide to do it our own way and
ignore those instructions is obviously foolish. So it is
in our lives: as God made us, He has declared how we are
to live our lives and has given us
"instructions" for how we are to do this. The bad news is that we can’t! You know as well as I do that sometimes no matter how hard we try to stop doing something that we know is wrong, no matter how hard we try to do better, we will still fail and let ourselves down. So too with God: again and again we fall short of the mark. |
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| God,
being God, is a fair and just God. That means that
wrongdoing must be punished. If it were otherwise, he
would not be fair and just. God is a perfect God, and
therefore if He accepted things which were not perfect,
He would not then be perfect. So it is that God’s
standards are perfection, 100%, anything less, no matter
how close we try to get – it is not good enough. So we can’t be good enough for God, because we can’t be perfect. And God will punish wrongdoing. This is definitely bad news! |
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Thankfully
that is by no means the end of the story. God didn’t
just turn His back on His creation and say, "They
will get what is coming to them." He intervened! God sent His only Son, Jesus into this world. Can you imagine it, the Son of God leaving the majesty of heaven to come to this imperfect troubled earth? And not only that, he came as a poor carpenter! But Jesus was perfect, a man who did nothing wrong, a man that God could accept. Jesus taught us much about God, about how we should live, He did miracles that attested to who He was…but this again would not be enough for us to come to God. |
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| The Son of
God, was arrested, tried on false charges and sentenced
to death. It seemed as if God’s plan had gone all
wrong. For Jesus was crucified on a cross – the Son
of God suffered the most agonising death. The perfect man
– punished. Again this is not the end of the
story… 3 days later, Jesus rose from the dead. Amazing as it sounds, when you consider the evidence, this is the only explanation that is possible to explain the empty tomb. Jesus the perfect man, acceptable to God, suffered punishment, died, and rose – in all this He conquered death, He paid the punishment that man’s wrongdoing demanded – He made it possible for rebellious mankind to come back to God. |
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So
that’s it you might say. Great, Jesus has solved the
problem, now lets get back to our own living. Not so
fast! The most famous verse in the Bible explains something vital to us, John 3:16: "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have everlasting life." And in verse 18: |
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| So we see
that those who believe in Jesus, who put their trust in
Him, who acknowledge their wrongdoing against God, who
turn away from rebel living – they are the ones who
will have the everlasting life that Jesus made possible
through dying and rising again. This is the best news
that we will ever hear for it tells us how we can live as
we were meant to live, how we can have a relationship
with the God who made us and how we can be delivered from
the fear of death as we know that we will have eternal
life with God in heaven. But…those who do not believe are still God’s enemies, their wrongdoing has not yet been punished and they still have the fear of death and condemnation in their lives. |
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It can be
easy for us to try and ignore this but just like the
world does not disappear when the ostrich sticks its head
in the sand, so the true facts of the matter don’t
go away no matter how hard we try to ignore them. There
are 2 kinds of people in this world:
Which kind do you fall into? |
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If you want to know more about the Good News of Jesus, please