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Because we have resisted God and rebelled against him, we are living in darkness, harming ourselves and spoiling creation. We are rightly separated from God and marked for judgment.

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“No one is righteous—not even one. No one is truly wise; no one is seeking God. All have turned away; all have become useless. No one does good, not a single one.” (Rom 3:10-12 NLT)

Despite our rebellion, God in his mercy sent Jesus Christ to die in our place, the sinless for the sinful, so that God’s righteousness might be satisfied and we might be healed and reconciled to him.

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All of us, like sheep, have strayed away. We have left God's paths to follow our own. Yet the LORD laid on him the sins of us all. (Isa 53:6 NLT)

By laying his life down to purchase our pardon, Jesus opened the door for God’s spirit to once again dwell with us. When we accept Christ, the Holy Spirit comes to live in us. He opens our blind eyes so we can see and transforms us from the inside out so we can live for God.

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This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun! (2Cor 5:17 NLT)

By accepting the pardon offered through Christ, and living in the life transforming power of the Holy Spirit, we no longer need to fear death. We know that God, who began a good work in us, will carry it to completion and take us to be with him forever.

And I am certain that God, who began the good work within you, will continue his work until it is finally finished on the day when Christ Jesus returns. (Php 1:6 NLT)

If God has done all of this for us and we still rebel and resist him, what more can he do than has already been done? What more can we expect than the judgment due us?

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For God loved the world so much that he gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. There is no judgment against anyone who believes in him. But anyone who does not believe in him has already been judged for not believing in God’s one and only Son. And the judgment is based on this fact: God’s light came into the world, but people loved the darkness more than the light, for their actions were evil. (Jn 3:16-19 NLT)

Because many have not yet heard or understood the good news, they continue in darkness, going their own way and remaining under the judgment of God. Christ can release them from guilt and the Holy Spirit can guide them into life. How can we not offer them the hope held out by Christ?

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And God has given us this task of reconciling people to him. For God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, no longer counting people’s sins against them. And he gave us this wonderful message of reconciliation. So we are Christ’s ambassadors; God is making his appeal through us. We speak for Christ when we plead, “Come back to God!” (2Cor 5:18b-20 NLT)