--- title: The Gospel of Jesus Christ date: 2025-11-10T09:14:00-07:00 author: Matt Bloomfield canonical_url: "https://www.mlj.one/church/talks/the-gospel-of-jesus-christ" section: Blog --- [ ← Church Talks ](https://www.mlj.one/church/talks) Talk November 10, 2025 # The Gospel of Jesus Christ I gave this talk on October 20th, 2024 in the Snowflake 4th Ward Sacrament Meeting at the Temple View Chapel in Snowflake, Arizona, per an assignment from President Todd Burk. I was very impressed by the Bishop/Youth Council meeting I attended in that ward that morning and the way Bishop Gary Brimhall engaged the youth, letting them lead and make the decisions for their programs. --- ### What color are we? At the most recent homecoming game… How many times have we dressed them up for Lobo Friday? How much of our gear is blue and white? Their entire schools are painted blue. And yet, somehow, they missed it. How often, as a family, do we go over the gospel principles of salvation? And, is it enough? ### What is the gospel of Jesus Christ? It wasn’t until my mission that I really felt like I understood the gospel. If you’d have asked me before that I would have told you it had something to do with going to church, reading your scriptures, keeping the word of wisdom, law of chastity, and hopefully baptism. The missionary purpose, and the 4th article of faith, make it pretty clear: 1. Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ 2. Repentance 3. Baptism 4. Laying on of hands for the gift of the Holy Ghost 5. Enduring to the End What about all the rest? What about modesty? What about attending our meetings? If we aren’t doing those fundamentals, nothing else matters. Never saying a swear word isn’t going to get you into heaven by itself. #### Faith What is faith and why is that so important? Because we all make mistakes. We all need a savior. And it is through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ that we live the gospel. If we didn’t believe he could help us, why would we go through the trouble? My first faith was given to me by my parents. I remember them often bearing witness of the power of repentance in their lives and how grateful they were to feel the peace of the atonement. I remember, as a 13 year old who felt like he was already lost, kneeling in prayer in my bedroom and pleading with the Lord to please forgive me of my many sins. And I’ll never forget the incredible peace that rushed over me as I felt those sins swept away in His atoning sacrifice. As Isaiah taught, “though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow.” #### Repentance What is life if not a giant testing ground? In my line of work, testing is incredibly important. We hire Quality Assurance and Test Engineers specifically to test the efficacy and quality of the code we write. We know we are going to make mistakes, that there are cases we are not going to think of, and these people find them in our test environments. Then they send them back to us to fix, and we try again. There is no shame in this process. In fact, if there are no bugs in a first release they become suspicious of their own tooling. So it is with life. If we didn’t need to repent so much the scriptures probably wouldn’t talk about it so often. Indeed, as was said in conference a few years ago, “repentance is not a backup plan; it is the plan!” “For, behold, I command all men everywhere to repent. … “For, behold, the Lord your Redeemer suffered death in the flesh; wherefore he suffered the pain of all men, that all men might repent and come unto him. “And he hath risen again from the dead, that he might bring all men unto him, on conditions of repentance.” “And you shall fall down and worship the Father in my name. “… You must repent and be baptized, in the name of Jesus Christ.” Sometimes, repentance requires more than yourself to be successful. This is where the love and assistance of a bishop will help you through. It can be embarrassing to need to work with priesthood authority to finalize the repentance process, but those feelings are not from God. If there is anything amiss in your life that pulls at you in quiet moments, take the opportunity to feel the ultimate peace of the Lord Jesus Christ as you counsel with your bishop and allow him to help you. #### Baptism Baptism is a natural next step after repentance. It, ultimately, is very simple. It’s a symbolic death of the natural man inside us and a rebirth of ourselves as children of Christ. King Benjamin declared, “Because of the covenant which ye have made ye shall be called the children of Christ, his sons, and his daughters; for behold, this day he hath spiritually begotten you; for ye say that your hearts are changed through faith on his name; therefore, ye are born of him and have become his sons and his daughters.” #### Gift of the Holy Ghost “Ask the Father in my name in faith, believing that you shall receive, and you shall have the Holy Ghost.” “And now, after … you have received this, you must keep my commandments in all things.” What an incredible gift it is to have guidance from and a connection to our Heavenly Father as we go throughout our daily lives. Are we taking advantage of that? #### Endure to the End It all comes down to this, right? Enduring to the end. Probably 90% of you have already gone through those first four steps: Faith, Repentance, Baptism, and Receiving the Gift of the Holy Ghost. As Nephi asks, “And now, my beloved brethren, after ye have gotten into this strait and narrow path, I would ask if all is done? Behold, I say unto you, Nay; for ye have not come thus far save it were by the word of Christ with unshaken faith in him, relying wholly upon the merits of him who is mighty to save. Wherefore, ye must press forward with a steadfastness in Christ, having a perfect brightness of hope, and a love of God and of all men. Wherefore, if ye shall press forward, feasting upon the word of Christ, and endure to the end, behold, thus saith the Father: Ye shall have eternal life. In my family we like to teach this by walking together. Each step represents a step of the gospel principles: Faith, Repentance, Baptism, Holy Ghost. Then we make a mistake, it takes us backwards, or sidewise, or sometimes we fall all the way over. But then, we get back up! We have faith that the Lord will continue to love us and that we are always worth saving. We keep moving forward, realizing that, despite life’s challenges, we are moving closer to God faster than we are falling away. #### So, about those colors When we read the scriptures we find these five principles taught repeatedly throughout. Why would that be? Because, like my confused little Lobos, we need constant repetition and reminders of the path. As Elder Eyring said in the most recent General Conference: “Teaching simply allows us to share the saving doctrine early on, while children remain untouched by the deceiver’s temptations that will later confront them, long before the truths they need to learn are drowned out by the noise of social media, peers, and their own personal struggles. We should seize every opportunity to share the teachings of Jesus Christ with children. These teaching moments are precious and far fewer compared to the relentless efforts of opposing forces. For every hour spent instilling doctrine into a child’s life, there are countless hours of opposition filled with messages and images that challenge or ignore those saving truths. Some of you may wonder whether it might be better to draw your children closer to you through having fun, or you may ask whether the child may start to feel overwhelmed by your teachings. Instead, we should consider, “With so little time and so few opportunities, what words of doctrine can I share that will strengthen them against the inevitable challenges to their faith?” The words you share today could be the ones they carry with them, and today will soon pass. I bear my testimony that Christ is our Savior. He wants to heal us. He has already done the necessary work for our salvation and it is up to us to have faith in His name that we might be saved. I know that his offer of repentance and peace in this life is real. I say these things in his Holy Name, even Jesus Christ, amen.