What is the Gospel?
God, being totally perfect and righteous, creatively made and designed everything in awesome, absolute splendor so that all of creation would worship Him and magnify His name. Because of the rebellion of Adam and Eve (the first created people), all of humanity and creation are now broken, entirely tainted and with humanity corrupted by sin to the core, everything is in dire need of restoration and redemption. Now all people are born with a sinful nature and willingly rebel against the holy God and are fully deserving of and destined for damnation and a conscious hell. However, in His unfathomable kindness, God sent His Son Jesus to restore and redeem humanity, ultimately making all things new. Jesus came to the earth as fully God and fully man, tempted in every way that we are and yet he did not sin. He lived the perfect life no one else could, and was brutally murdered on the cross in our place and for our sins. He was placed in a tomb for three days, then raised to life where He is now seated next to God in Heaven. He overcame sin, Satan, and death, while purchasing new life for all who turn from sin and trust entirely in Him for hope and salvation.
This Good News through Jesus is totally an act of grace from a compassionate and merciful God to the undeserving. No one can come to God through religious works or good deeds, but only through trusting that what Jesus accomplished on the Cross on their behalf can make them right with God. In other words, being loved by God is not earned through obedience; rather, one who has been accepted by God's grace through faith in Jesus is called to and enabled to obey. This Gospel is both the way a person enters into the family of God and the necessary source of their continual growth as a follower of Jesus. It is simple enough for a child to understand, yet deep enough for one to meditate on throughout life with a constant need and craving for more.