Christianity is a religion of salvation. We start off separated from God. Cut off from the life source by our sinful rebellious natures, and “by nature we are children of wrath” (Eph 2:3). We are born stuck in sin and unable to come out from under it, and so we are born deserving of God’s just judgment. We all deserve, just as our sin and His holiness demand, to be completely separated from His presence. To die and be cut off just as He warned in Genesis 2:17. Not only do we deserve this Hell, but rather, because of our sinful nature, we freely chose it. We are born, as Paul says, “under sin.” Meaning “there is no one righteous enough. No, not even one. There is no one who understands God, no one who even seeks God. We have all turned to our own ways of independence and have all together become unprofitable” (Rom 3:9:12). So there is no one even looking for God or heading in the right direction. So when you question if anyone really wants the Gospel, the answer is no. Nobody wants it because nobody’s even looking for it.

This is the exclusive claim Jesus made when He said “I am the way” (John 14:6). While all of humanity looks for a way independent of God, whether it be the way of their own righteousness or a way of merely coping with the pain and hopelessness that there is no way, Paul says “But now the righteousness of God apart from all human effort and searching has been revealed” (Rom 3:21). That righteousness was and is found in Jesus Christ. And that is the very definition of the word grace – unsought, unearned, undeserved. So when we are brought from darkness into light, we are brought from death to life (Eph 2:4), and as we continue further and further into this new life we discover more and more that “it is a gift from God.” We discover it is by “grace that we have been saved” (Eph 2:8). Nothing from ourselves. Nothing we were looking for, but sheer grace.

The Gospel is not a pitch we are selling. It is “the power of God to save” (Rom 1:16) that we are allowed to see and participate in. This is the bold and often confrontational message the disciples offered their world, and they did it with the knowledge that it was God’s work and they were mere sowers of His Gospel message. The results are and always have been His.