This transcript is automatic generated word by word of the podcast episode.

Hello, I just want to make sure this is working hello, hello friends. This is Fernanda Longo, if you don’t know me and today I want to talk to you guys about something that is in my heart, and God put a burden in my heart after me praying for so long that God would break my heart for what break has and this is no joke. God really put many burdens in my heart. But one of them is what I want to talk to you guys today is if you’ve listened to any of this episodes here in the podcast if you know me if you know me, either in person or through social media, you probably know that I’ve been leading local in person Bible studies for the past five years. I’ve led so many different studies with so many different women. And one thing that I found very common in the Christian community, with women that have been going to church, many of them their whole life, a lot of them longer than what I have been going to church because I was not raised in church. And so a lot of this women, they go to church, they’ve been in church for many, many years. Their whole life. They go every Sunday they serve and they still don’t know the story of the gospel. If you ask a lot of people, and I challenge you to just ask yourself right now, do I know the story of the gospel? What is the story of the gospel that I know and I find that for many Christians, the story of the Gospel is that we are born sinful and we

we have been given Jesus He died on the cross for our sins, and we receive Jesus at some point of our life. Okay, we are born Sam fo and then one day we find that we need Jesus and we receive him and then after we receive Jesus accept Jesus as our Lord and Savior. We spend the rest of our life just trying to be good just trying to evolve, as I may say, and try to get better and we read the Scripture with an idea of this is how I need to act. And I’m going to read the Scripture as kind of like a book of laws that I need to act and then when I die, I if if I’ve been good and funny if I church trust Jesus my life and if after I trust Jesus my life if I changed my behavior, and act as the Bible say, then I go to have any fight down then I go to hell. And many Christians believe there’s a story. And even though there are some things, some parts of this story that is part of the true gospel, this is not what the story of the gospel is at all. So as I hear more and more women having this question, and in the end of the day, they have a hard time like reading my Bible. I asked them what what do you want to God to show up this week? I just want to read my Bible more. And I’m like, that is simple. You can just grab your Bible and read it. But the fact that most Christians look at the Bible as a book of rules, it doesn’t make it enjoyable to read, and they don’t read it. They either do anything else than just read the book rules telling them how they have to behave. And that is the big problem, in my opinion, have this wrong view of the gospel. Because when you really understand the true gospel of Jesus Christ, you want to spend time with God. Reading your Bible is not a duty is a pleasure. And that’s why I believe that it’s so important that we walk away from this wrong the belief this incomplete belief of the gospel and look at the complete story of God in the Gospel of Jesus. As for what it is, which is an amazing gift, the best gift or the best news we have ever and will ever receive. So today, I first I want to ask you grace because I will try to get this beautiful and complex and eternal story. That is the gospel. That is the story of God. That is the story of the Bible, and I’m going to try to explain to you as fast as I can. And so you can understand the completion. So, I’m asking you grace, because first of all, I am a human. And there are a lot of things that I will not be able to say in this short time. I don’t want you to listen to this, as I’m going to pick this a specific part and just drill down on that because that’s not what we’re going to do. We’re going to look at the big picture right now in the story of God. And then my goal is that in the future, I break this down in small bites, and we can drill down in small bites of that story and get more specific on each part of it. But today is going to be a bird’s eye view of the story of God and the gospel of Jesus. Okay. And I believe that this to be the most liberating thing that you will understand. Because once we understand the big picture of the story of God and we walk away from the mean center gospel because the idea that nobody wants to talk about but the idea that I am a sinner and I need Jesus and I receive Jesus and Jesus forgive me and then I have to behave in a certain way because that’s how Jesus followers behave. It’s a lot of i Me, me, me and I, it’s not a God centered gospel. It’s i mi centered gospel, and we have to look at the gospel as God centered gospel. Okay, so let’s go ahead and get started. I don’t want to spend more of your time trying to explain myself and I’m going to first drink some water

okay, this is non edited. So you’re gonna hear water and maybe sirens and whatever else is going on on my street. Okay. So let’s just start from the beginning. When we look at Genesis one, we see what God created. We see the story of creation, we see the creation of the world, and we see what God’s design s one thing I’m sick and tired of hearing in the Christian community that is sprung is when we get something that humans create and call it God’s design, and we’re going to talk about some of that stuff. So when we look at Genesis one, we really see the real God’s design, okay? So if you open your Bible in Genesis one and you read, you’re going to see how God created the world. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the waters. And then God said, Let there be light and we go from there. So when they God create light, and he calls it good the other day, God creates the soil and the waters he calls it good, and so forth. So for six days, God created the whole world and he call it very good. Okay. So when God created humans, He created Adam, which Adam in the original language means humans, okay. God created humans. And that’s the first time in creation that God created one human. And he says, This is not good. Up to this moment. Everything was very good. And then he create one human and he says, This is not good. And I know right there, a lot of people is not gonna agree with me. But I didn’t write the Bible, okay? So you can just go and look for yourself, and you’re going to be able to read it if you don’t like you can talk to the Almighty because it was not my words. It was his. Then God created the other part of humans. So he created what we call Adam and Eve, which Adam means human in the original language and may Eve means wife, okay? And they say, Okay, now this is very good. They complete each other and this is very good, and this is a very good world. So I’m going to specific read this part here. Then God bless him Damn, which is Adam and Eve, and said, Be fruitful and multiply fill the earth and govern it. So God is telling them both Adam and Eve to have dominion to govern to rain over the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky and the animals they scurry along the ground. So God is telling both of them that they create them in God’s image, male and female in God’s image, and give both of male and female dominion over Earth. Okay. This is very important because this is one of the things that should day human sinful nature changed and call it God’s design. Okay. And we will talk more about that later. But God created this very beautiful world where God in humans walked together. It’s heaven and earth, united, there is no sin but we seem Genesis three, that scene entered the story of the Bible. True, the person I would call it Satan to the snake or whatever you want to call he has many different names. And now Adam and Eve choose to sin. What does it mean? to sin? mean that Adam and Eve chose their own way, instead of them trusting God and God’s way of doing things, this beautiful creation that God created up to that point of the story? They choose that day, you want to know what is good and evil. That’s why you call the tree of good and evil like the knowledge of good and evil, right? So they choose that day want to know they want to have the knowledge of good and evil, they want to make the decision of what is good and they do not want to trust God. They want to be God. The interesting thing about the lies of the enemy is that God already created Adam and Eve in his image. But the enemy said, you can be like God, you can be God. Well, you’re already made in His image, but the enemy why to us and make us believe that we have to make a name for ourselves. We have to choose our own way. And that was the first thing a lot of people believe that the first saying or as a sexual saying or was any was not was the scene of wanting to be God, wanting to make your own choices want to being important, okay? So when sin entered the world, it destroys that beautiful creation that God made on chapter one and two, God made everything perfect and it was very good. And we didn’t have to work and men and women respect to each other and CO lead both of them together, had dominions and they look at each other as an image bearer of God because that’s what we are. And when sin entered the world, the first thing that happened or they saw they were naked, and they were ashamed. So men and women knew that they could no longer trust each other. They didn’t look at each other, as made in the image of God anymore. They look at each other as I think what I think is right and what you think is wrong. I am more important than you and stain entered the world and the destruction is started. Okay, as you continue reading the Bible, you read more and more about how we keep messing up as humans and God keeps giving us chances. So throughout the Old Testament, God created four different covenants with the people. Okay, the first covenant was with Noah, so humans made a home as men thought that they should have dominion over women and they start having multiple wives and polygamy and they start treating women as an object, which is funny. In 2022, that I’m recording this podcast we still have this problem and some called God’s design, which clearly if we look at Genesis one creation, it was not God’s design. Men and women are made to co lead and have dominion together over Earth. But I have a lot of other episodes on that. So I’m not going to spend a lot of time there. So humans have started to go down and destroyed this beautiful world that God made so God got really sad. And the flood happened with Noah you can read on Genesis six you can read more about Noah and his family and the flood and how it all happened. Everybody on Earth died except Noah, his family and the animals that was in the ark. And even if you were not born in church, I’m sure you’ve heard that story before. So after this happened, God makes a covenant with Noah a saying I will never do this again. I will never as long as Earth exists. I’m never going to kill everybody like I did that this time with the flood. In this specific covenant, God asked nothing from humans. He just promised what he was going to do even though he knew that humans would continue to make mistakes. Okay, so after that, there’s a whole story with Noah he get super drunk, something happened in a tent with his son, and sin comes back and right and and the things start going to spiral again, and start getting bad again. So God wants to solve this problem once and for all because he knew humans were not going to straight up. And what God did is he started his plan. So he made the second covenant with Abraham, which he picked Abraham and said, you will obey me and I will make the father of nations and I will create people from you. So this second covenant was God making a promise to Abraham and Abraham had to obey God. He was a covenant on both sides. Okay. Right after that. God made another covenant but now with the whole people of Israel, which is the whole descendants of Abraham, and that happened when God gave it to Moses, the 10 commandments and the 613 laws of Torah and all that. So that third covenant was, you respect those laws and now will bless you and that’s why there is some a lot of the prosperity gospel that we read today. And it’s based on this first covenant with if I act in a certain way, I’ll be blessed because that’s how that covenant between God and Israel would work. Okay. The problem is that even the God’s faithful humans were not and are not and keep making mistakes, keep choosing to live life separate from God keep choosing to know have their own knowledge of good and evil and making the wrong decisions and making the wrong choices.

So God made the fourth covenant with David King David, where he said, if we’re human to stay faithful, God would give a king that was from David’s line, that would stay forever. It would rain forever. Okay. Once again, humans did not keep up with the covenant. And but God did because God is faithful. So that’s where Jesus come into the story. Okay, we have four covenants there were three of them require our participation and we did not participate. God who was doing the group project all alone, okay. And he brought Jesus which is God incarnated on Earth in the body of a human. So Jesus could fill in the gap for us. So everything in this covenant that we didn’t do, Jesus could fill in the gap. So Jesus came to earth, God on Earth, lived a perfect life and died on the cross. So I know this is very confusing because I remember when I first started hearing about the gospel, I’m like, okay, so how does that cross work like how he cleans our sins because of the cross. So to explain this a little bit more, I’m going to go back to when God did the third covenant with Israel, and gave the last 613 laws and the 10 commandments. God sad. I know you guys are not going to keep up with this. So I’m going to give you a way to still have relationship with me. So once a year, then Jewish people, the Jewish community would sacrifice animals and somehow in God’s economy, the blood of that animal would cleansing them from that sense of that year. So once a year they would meet at the temple in Jerusalem and have the whole all the sacrifices and everybody would be cleansed and there was many different laws and things that they had to do in a certain way. So the idea that the blood would cleanse us humans is not it does not start in Jesus. It starts back then in the covenant with Israel. Okay, so Jesus was that ultimate sacrifice. So instead of you having to go every year and sacrifice an animal or two or 10, or whatever for your sins, Jesus paid that full sacrifice, past, present and future is the only sacrifice we need. And we are completely free from the sense of our past, present and future. So if you look at those four covenants, Jesus fulfilled all the covenants everything that we were supposed to do, Jesus did he paid for. So we got a new covenant and the new covenant which it comes in the New Testament is that Jesus came, died on the cross his blood was the ultimate sacrifice to clean the sins of the world. And the only thing that we have to do our part is because covenant is believe in Jesus. That’s our part. When we hear people saying, You have to believe in Jesus and change our behavior. That’s not part of the covenant. And I will get there I am not just give permission for everybody to just sin everywhere. That’s not what the Bible does. Bad. Jesus bless anything is false gospel. So Jesus class, behavior modification, false gospel, Jesus plus anything is false gospel. So we have to understand that the New Covenant is that we believe in Jesus that He is the Son of God. He’s God incarnated on earth, He died on the cross pay for all of our sins, and the sins are paid for. That’s the covenant. Okay. And from now on, if you look, I’m going to take a pause here. And then I’m going to skip to the book, the end of the book of Revelation. So in the end of the book, Revelation, the last chapter, God reveals His plan for the future, which is bring the new heaven and new worlds make all things kneel here on Earth.

So Jesus, one day will return and with his return, all things will be made new, there will be no more pain, there’s will been almost more sorrow. You will be better with no not only will restore the Garden of Eden, that beautiful creation on Genesis one there very good creation, you will be even better than that, because at creation, there was a possibility of sin because the fallen angel, Satan had an entrance there, this new creation. Oh, Satan, oh sin, all demons are not allowed inside. So they will be outside. So we inside of this new creation will be only things good. Okay. So that is the goal. Restore Eden and make it perfect. That is there is a lot of discussion about how and what will happen is Satan and his demons will be put outside of this new creation, which by the way will happen on earth. Jesus will come to earth like this not that we’re going to have any will happen here. And having an Earth will be re unified. Like it was on Genesis one. We will be walking in the presence of God at all times like he was in Genesis one and any evil will be locked outside of the presence of God. So it’s not that Hell is a place that you are going to burn down in a furnace. How is any place outside of this beautiful creation that has not does not have God’s presence? Okay, so now that we understand what is in the end of the book of Revelation, they end of the story which is actually a new beginning. We all go back to Jesus. So when Jesus came here, before he got on the cross, he announced that many times, that kingdom of God is here. I am the kingdom of God. I am the king of the Jews. So he’s saying the kingdom of God arrived on Earth, and I am the king. What Jesus is saying is that we as Christians, when we believe in our sins are forgiven. We are not supposed to try to act good enough until we die and go to heaven. We are supposed to leave here on Earth, in the kingdom of heaven. And that’s why he gives us the Holy Spirit, which also is not much talked about in the church. We need to be spirit led Christians. The Holy Spirit is the Trinity. God the Father, God the Son and the Holy Spirit. That church considers the Trinity. God the Father, God, the son in the bible. The bible is not part of the Trinity. It’s God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. The Bible is a love letter from God to us, so we can get to know him and grow in relationship with him. It’s not part of the Trinity, and it’s not a constitution. It’s a love letter from God to us. So Jesus says we are the kingdom if you believe in me, you’re going to fish for people. Right now. The world is dark, and wet with the power of the Holy Spirit. We have the chance of making tiny little drops tiny little areas of heaven here on earth. Because the Holy Spirit gives us the fruit of the Spirit. Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, self control. So going back to the idea that Jesus plus change that behavior as fast as possible, I’m not saying that we are allowed to sin and do whatever we want. But what will change is not our working hard to change and do whatever I’m saying in the Bible. But the Spirit of God inside of us will show us what is wrong and what is right. The Spirit of God inside of us will give us love and compassion to other people.

I know because this was a change that happened in my heart. I did not have compassion for people before I received the Spirit of God. Now I cannot see a person suffering. It breaks my heart. I cannot even watch movies with suffering. Because it breaks my heart so the love and compassion for others is to the power of the Holy Spirit. It’s not me trying to change my behavior to be more loving. The joy of my salvation is through the power of the Holy Spirit. It’s not me choosing happiness every day in the morning. The patience that I have with my kids is because it’s a fruit of the Holy Spirit. It’s not because I am a calm person that meditate for three hours a day. So we need to understand that our behavior change is not forced by us. It slowly happens with the power of the Holy Spirit and the reason that happens slowly. It’s because we get a new spirit but we don’t have a new brain in our brain saves all of our life experiences. So it takes a little bit of work and a little bit of action to rewire our brain and that’s what Paul talks about, when he writes be transformed by the renewing of your mind that allowed the Holy Spirit to renew your mind so you can bring heaven to earth as lowly that’s our goal as Christ followers, to bring that new creation help God partner with God in the restoration of Eden. There is one thing also there’s many things that people don’t talk about like today. I probably already mentioned five or six. But another thing that people don’t talk about is how after the sixth day, everything that God moved on earth, he chose to partner with humans. He could do anything. He created the whole universe in a blink of an eye with his words. He could just change things, but he chooses to partner with us. He made us in His image for a purpose. So we are creative just like him because we are made in His image. And after Jesus, we even receive he’s a Spirit, the Holy Spirit. So we can do more. A lot of people when I’m doing Bible studies, they tell me, I just wish God would speak to me like they did and then like God did in the Old Testament with the people. And I’m like he does even better. The people had to wait for the Holy Spirit to come sometimes it would take hundreds of years. We have the Holy Spirit inside of us. Any minute right now as you speak. As you go to the bathroom. As you sleep. The Holy Spirit is with you if you receive Jesus salvation. So with the power of the Holy Spirit and being made in God’s image and call to exercise dominion over Earth, with the fruit of the Spirit, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, self control. We are to partner with God and the restoration of Eden. So when Jesus does return and make all things new we have more people that will be participating in this new creation with us. That is going to be a new beginning and the Bible stops there. It doesn’t tell us what is going to happen after that. But all that we know is that is going to be very, very good.