It all starts with God. Before there was anything else, there’s God. One God in three persons: Father, Son & Spirit. We call it the Trinity (if you’re struggling to understand how that works, you’re in good company). For all of eternity the Father, Son and Spirit have existed, loving and delighting in and with each other. Out of the overflow of that love and delight, the Triune (three-in-one) God created everything—the Heavens and the Earth, the visible and the invisible.
After creating everything else, God said, “Let us make humanity in our image.” So He made the first man (i.e. Adam) and the first woman (i.e. Eve) in His image as visible representations of Himself. They were similar to each other and yet different; equally bearing His image, yet distinct—like two corresponding puzzle pieces that when joined together had this amazing ability to bear fruit and multiply. He told them to use this superpower to multiply and spread out over the whole of the planet. God was on a mission to cover the earth with the image of His awesomeness.
Unfortunately, the man and the woman began to question God’s goodness and doubt whether He could be trusted. Concluding that God was holding out on them, they decided to disobey God. They rejected His authority and began choosing for themselves what was right and wrong. Since God is the source of life, rejecting Him is the same as choosing death. God had warned them that making this choice would lead to death, but they didn’t believe Him. They cut themselves off from the source of life.
The two humans went on to multiply and fill the earth with more and more people, but humanity was now marred by selfishness and pride (aka, sin). Even though we still have the capacity to bear God’s image, our innate propensity toward sin prohibits us from reflecting God’s glory properly. We’re like a bunch of darkened lightbulbs spread out over the globe but disconnected from the power source. And just as God promised, death looms over us all.
While it would have been fully within God’s right to simply leave us in our own mess, His unfailing love was not so easily deterred. He continued to pursue humanity providing a way to life and freedom and restoration. But humanity continued to fail (you can read all about it in your Bible; it’s a pretty good read). Eventually God Himself came in the flesh. Jesus Christ (aka, God the Son, aka, the second person of the Trinity) was born as a human being. He is fully God and yet fully human (another one of those mysteries that’s hard to wrap your mind around).
Jesus is the perfect image of God. He fully trusted the Father. He fully obeyed. He never sinned. And then He did the unthinkable. Instead of clinging to the rights and privileges of being God, and instead of enjoying His status as a perfect human being, He decided to trade His life for ours. About 2,000 years ago on a Friday, the perfect Son of God was nailed to a cross where His life slowly drained from His body. Then His lifeless body was laid in a borrowed tomb. All this because He loved us too much to let death have its way with us. Jesus’ friend and student, John, said it best: “For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.”
But Jesus didn’t stay dead.
The following Sunday, Jesus’ heart began to beat again and His lungs began to breathe as He came back to life. Over the next 40 days Jesus met up with over 500 of His followers and called together eleven of His most devoted followers and gave them a mission. It was the same mission He gave to Adam and Eve at the beginning, to be fruitful and multiply and cover the earth. This time, however, the multiplication wouldn’t come through procreation; instead it would come through transformation. They would be reconnecting the lightbulbs to the power source. Jesus told them to go and share this Good News (aka, the gospel) that anyone—ANYONE!—can be forgiven of their sins if they trust in Him. And when we trust in Him, we’re adopted into God’s family and get to call God “our Father.” We don’t have to do anything to earn it (we couldn’t if we tried). It’s a free gift that Jesus purchased for us with His own life. Not everyone will choose to accept this gift. Sadly, many will choose to live and die apart from the forgiveness that Jesus offers. Yet there will be some from every corner of the globe and every language and remote people group who will hear the message of Jesus from followers like you and they too will trust in Him and follow Him.
But wait, the Good News gets even better. Forty days after Jesus (aka, God the Son) rose from the dead, He ascended into heaven, and a week and a half after that, the Holy Spirit (aka, God the Spirit) came down upon those first followers of Jesus. He gave them supernatural power to obey God’s commands and live out the mission that Jesus gave them to bring the Good News to the nations.
And everyone who put their faith in Jesus also began to receive the Holy Spirit in their lives. For some this manifested in crazy miracles, for others it wasn’t as obvious, but for everyone there is a supernatural ability to resist sin and live out Jesus’ mission. If you trust in Jesus, then you are a Spirit-empowered missionary that God is sending out to the world to bear His image and share His message of forgiveness.
Before Jesus left, He also promised that He’s coming back. When He returns, He’s going to restore everything—a new heaven and a new earth, completely free of the death and brokenness and heartache that plagues our current reality. And everyone who trusts in Jesus and the work He did for them on the cross will inherit that new world with the God who desperately loves them.