The good news is that God has come after us to give us a second chance to know him and to experience his love and life.
He did this by sending Jesus. There is something about sin that is like slamming the front door behind you -- it locks you out! If we are locked out of a right relationship with God, then we need a key to open that door to let us in again?
For reasons that only God fully knows, this second chance to know God required Jesus to live a perfect life, to die and rise again from the dead. How does this work? the short answer is that Jesus took our place.
When Jesus died on the cross, somehow the death that you and I deserve as the result of our sin was taken by Jesus, God's own Son, and you and I were acquitted. Peter, a friend and follower of Jesus, puts it this way:
'For Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God.' (1 Peter 3:18)
The life and death of Jesus shows God's extreme love for us. His resurrection from the dead shows that he was successful - sin and death were defeated!
So God has given us the key to open the door again: the door into a loving relationship with God.
But a key has to be used, and that is what Point 4 is about...