Beginning September 1, we will start a new series, God’s Good News: the Message that Amazes Angels. In this series, led by Pastor Jonathan, we will learn what the gospel is, what it is not, and how it must give shape to our lives.  

Here’s an overview of the series:

1. The Gospel and Its Counterfeits 1 (September 1)

Many messages masquerade as the gospel, and because they contain elements of the truth, they can be very convincing. Only as we understand the essential components of the gospel can we learn to identify these counterfeits.

This first lesson will deal with the following two counterfeits:
1) “The gospel is news about what we want God to do” (the prosperity gospel)
2) “The gospel is news about how Jesus lived” (the “just-live-like-Jesus” gospel).

2. The Gospel and Its Counterfeits 2 (September 8)

This lesson continues the first lesson by identifying two more common counterfeits:

3) “The gospel is news about what we must do” (legalism).
4) “the gospel means it doesn’t matter what we do” (lawlessness).

3. The Story of the Gospel (September 15)

Although the gospel is a simple message, it stands within the deep background of the Bible’s story about God and the human race. This lesson traces the narrative of Scripture along four movements: creation, fall, redemption, and restoration and exposits key New Testament passages that explain the gospel.

4. God and Sin (September 22)

This lesson expands on the first and second movements of the gospel story: God and sin. The gospel springs from God’s triune nature and his loving impulse to communicate his glory. As a willful rebellion against God, humans’ sin fractures everything good and beautiful, including life itself.

5. Christ and Faith (September 29)

This lesson expands on the third and fourth movements of the gospel story: Christ and faith. God’s solution to the “great fracture” (our sin) is to send Christ to defeat sin and death by dying in the place of sinners and rising again from the dead. The news about what he did requires a response from us: faith. Ultimately, God will restore everything so that humans will dwell with him as he originally intended.

6. A Diamond You Keep Turning (October 6)

Like a diamond with endless facets, the gospel has endless implications for how we live. This lesson overviews of ways the gospel intersects with our view of family, work, government, environment, and the church. The final item, the church, will lead into our next Sunday class series on the church as God’s wisdom on display.