The Gospel has power.

The Gospel is fueled by love.

The Gospel redeems suffering.

The Gospel makes us like Jesus.

The Gospel brings us hope.

"The life of men is a long march through the night surrounded by invisible foes, tortured by weariness and pain towards a goal that few can hope to reach and where none may tarry long."

--Bertrand Russel

"It is hopelessness even more than pain that crushes the soul."

--William Styron

The gospel is the good news of what God has done through the person and work of Jesus Christ, especially what he accomplished through his death, burial and resurrection.

1 Thessalonians 4:13-5:11

But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters, about those who have died, so that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope.

(v18) Therefore encourage one another with these words.

Our Lord will return.

(v16) For the Lord himself, with a cry of command, with the archangel’s call and with the sound of God’s trumpet, will descend from heaven, and the dead in Christ will rise first.

The resurrection is real.

(v14) For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have died.

(v16) . . . and the dead in Christ will rise first.

1 Corinthians 15:17

And if Christ has not been raised, then your faith is useless and you are still guilty of your sins.

1 Corinthians 15:20

But in fact, Christ has been raised from the dead. He is the first of a great harvest of all who have died.

A reunion is coming.

(v17) Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up in the clouds together with them to meet the Lord in the air; and so we will be with the Lord forever.

Matthew 24:30–31

. . . And they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And he will send out his angels with the mighty blast of a trumpet, and they will gather his chosen ones from all over the world—from the farthest ends of the earth and heaven.

Every static season we find ourselves in today, ends.

(v18) Therefore encourage one another with these words.