What is the gospel?  The gospel of Christ is a message.  It is a message of faith, hope, and love.  It is a message of facts—the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ.  It is a message of commands and instructions—all New Testament teaching.  The gospel is God’s plan of salvation and the means by which all are saved (Romans 1:16).  It is by the gospel that people are called into fellowship with God.

2 Thessalonians 2:13–14 (ESV)
¹³ But we ought always to give thanks to God for you, brothers beloved by the Lord, because God chose you as the firstfruits to be saved, through sanctification by the Spirit and belief in the truth.  ¹⁴ To this he called you through our gospel, so that you may obtain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Thank God for the gospel.  By it, we can be saved by faith as opposed to works of the law.  There is a huge difference between these two methods of salvation.  To be saved by the law one must live a perfect life.  Whenever Paul used such language such as “being doers of the law” (Romans 2:13), or “the person who does the commandments” (Romans 10:5) he was speaking of perfect doing.  In other words, to be saved by the law requires perfect or sinless living.  This is why Paul said in another place, “Now it is evident that no one is justified before God by the law…” (Galatians 3:11).  Why is this evident?  It is because the law requires sinless living, and we have all already sinned (Romans 3:23).

The gospel presents a better way.  A way that does not demand that we never sin.  Instead, the gospel teaches us that we can be saved even though we have sinned because it offers us the soul-cleansing blood of Christ as a solution.  When a person repents and is baptized, his sins are forgiven and washed away by the blood of Christ (Acts 2:38; 22:16).  The only thing a person willing to obey the gospel has to do is believe in Jesus, and then, moved by that faith, follow the instructions outlined in the Word of God.  What a blessing it is to have our sins covered by merely having an obedient faith.

Romans 4:6–8 (ESV)
⁶ just as David also speaks of the blessing of the one to whom God counts righteousness apart from works: ⁷ “Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven, and whose sins are covered; ⁸ blessed is the man against whom the Lord will not count his sin.”

Notice, it is not the person who never breaks the law that is blessed.  That person would be saved by merit; unfortunately, no such person, other than Jesus Christ, has ever lived.  The blessed person is the one who has broken the law but is saved because his lawless deeds are forgiven; in other words, the person who has obeyed the gospel.  That person now stands before God as if he has not sinned.

Romans 8:1–4 (ESV)
¹ There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.  ² For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death.  ³ For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, ⁴ in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. 

We should be thankful, not just on a day like today that we call Thanksgiving, but every day we live, having been saved by the grace of God.  The requirements of the law (that is, sinless living) have been fulfilled in us.  In the eyes of God, we are blameless (Ephesians 1:4), for He remembers our sins no more (Hebrews 8:12; 10:17).  While you wind down tonight, don’t forget to thank God for the gospel.

As you wind down for the night, think about these things.