OUR MESSAGE
Our message begins and ends with Jesus, the risen Christ. He is the savior of the world sent by God to redeem us to himself, to restore his image in us and thus recover our human identity, to gather us into his family, the church, and to commission us to represent him as his ambassadors in this world in anticipation of his return.
In the beginning God made men and women in his image and likeness. That means many things, but in some way we resemble God and, with our capacity for language and reason, are capable for a special relationship with him. His intention was for humans to be like him, to have a relationship with him, and to represent him as overseers of his creation.
The notorious “fall” of Adam and Eve is also emblematic of what every individual experiences when we choose to ignore God’s wisdom and strive for blessing independent of him. In our self-orientation and as a consequence for sin, we are condemned, and separated from God. As a consequence, we experience diminished relationships first with God himself, then with each other, and finally, the rest of creation. God calls the consequence “death.” We are born spiritually dead and all of us know the consequences of alienation, moral slavery, exile from a blessed life, and death. We need a savior.
Jesus is many things—God incarnate, the perfect man, our redeemer. He is God’s ultimate answer to the human dilemma. Jesus lived the full life of man in submission to God, the Father, to demonstrate perfect humanity. He died on the cross as our atoning sacrifice to take God’s wrath, to provide a path for reconciliation with God and each other, and to restore us to our intended purpose of glorifying God. Jesus's death propitiates God's just wrath for our sin; his resurrected life saves us and offers a reversal of sin's consequence: eternal life, adoption, freedom, and love.
God’s Spirit who raised Jesus from the dead, now works to regenerate humans, that is, to give them spiritual birth. He does this through leading us to recognize our sin and guilt and the sufficiency of Christ’s sacrificial death in our place for forgiveness and reconciliation with God. He then makes us into a new creation giving us a new nature that desires and effectively does God’s will.
Jesus said that the works he did were the works that the Father did through him; likewise, Christians recognize that they are uniquely able to glorify or reveal God, to do God's works, by letting God work through them. Through the redemptive work of Christ the image of God is restored to humanity. We are again spiritually alive, able to commune with God, and are his ambassadors in this world representing the Kingdom of God.
Certainly, a “now and not yet” aspect to salvation exists—conversion or spiritual birth restores to God’s image to live in relationship with God now, but we also await a coming day, the "not yet," when Jesus will return to make all things new. In this time of transition, we experience God’s nature and presence and represent him. We are maturing now from one degree of glory to the next as we anticipate, in a future kingdom, our complete transformation through a bodily resurrection when we will follow Christ to live with him in eternal bliss.
Our message at ReachItaly emphasizes the saving life of Christ, that we do not have to wait to die to experience the power of the resurrection life. Paul emphasizes that those who trust Christ and have experienced spiritual birth, have also been crucified with Christ and raised up with him to new life. He lives in us! We are glorified and so reflect the image of God. We seek to capture this teaching of life change in the now that leads us to cultivate communities marked by love and evangelistic ministry to bring the lost into a saving relationship with Jesus.