14“Now after John had been taken into custody, Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of God, 15and saying, ‘The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.’” (Mark 9:14-15)
Heavenly Father, Your “Beloved Son” (c.f. Mark 1:11), who is also our Savior, gave us a mandate to be His “witnesses” (c.f. Acts 1:8). Among other things, that means at some point we need to verbalize the Gospel to others. So often though, because of fear and weakness, our minds go blank – our tongues become tied – and we don’t know what to say. Use the preaching of Your word today to help us get the essentials of the Gospel more firmly in mind – so when we have an opportunity to converse with others about Christ, we can tell them what we know with clarity and accuracy – always relying on our Savior’s promise that “it will be given (us) in that hour what (we) are to say” (c.f. Matthew 10:19). For we ask these things in Jesus’ name – Amen.
(A) A BRIEF INTRODUCTION
(1) This morning’s message is the twenty-seventh of the year on the subject of evangelism and/or being Christ’s “witnesses” (c.f. Acts 1:8). I know that’s probably more information than you needed – however, the good news (no pun intended) is that I only plan to do three more messages after today. The down side is that even after thirty messages many important things related to our Savior’s mandate to be His witnesses will have been left unsaid.
(2) When we hear the word “witness”, we usually think of someone who tells others what they know – who “proclaims” what they have “seen and heard” (c.f. I John 1:3a) (to use a biblical definition). In other words, a “witness” is someone who speaks up about an important matter – who testifies verbally in a court of law – and/or has something valuable to say and says it.
(3) In a similar fashion, if we Christians are going to fulfill our Savior’s mandate to be His witnesses (c.f. Acts 1:8) there comes a time when we need to speak up – when we need to tell those with whom we’ve been building a relationship or friendship what we know about Christ and/or God’s plan of salvation.
(4) So, the question we’re going to attempt to address in these final four messages is, “What should we include in our Gospel conversations?”1 I’ve chosen the word “conversation” deliberately, because I see the friendship method of evangelism as more of a give-and-take exchange – more of a back-and-forth discussion – as opposed to the one-sided “I’ll-do-the-talking-you-do-the-listening” kind of stereo-typical “presentation” often associated with other witnessing methods.
(5) Furthermore, it will probably take several of these back-and-forth “conversations” before we’re able to get everything across we need to – so in that regard, what I’m going to be sharing with you differs from many condensed versions of the Gospel which can often be “presented” in fifteen minutes or less.
(6) On the other hand, what I’m going to give you over the next four weeks IS an abridged version of the Gospel – in this regard, that each point can (and should) be expanded on, depending on the circumstances – especially since we can no longer assume the people we’re conversing with today have an accurate and/or even a working knowledge of what the Scriptures really teach.
(B) THE BARE MINIMUM1 (PART ONE)
(1) Here, then, is what some would consider the bare minimum1 that still gets most, if not all of the gospel across. First, people need to understand (not perfectly, but at least in some basic way) that God is the Sovereign Ruler and Creator of all things1 – including themselves (c.f. Genesis 1:27; Psalm 100:3a; Job 42:2; Daniel 4:35).
(a) We live in a time when many people are interested in exploring spirituality, even if they’re not particularly interested in the spiritual truths found in Scripture.1 We live in a time when many people are fascinated by things like world religions, mysticism, the occult, or psychic phenomenon without necessarily being attracted to the Scriptures and/or what God has to say about Himself within its pages.
(b) Listen carefully the next time your non-believing friends or acquaintances talk about God, and you’ll quickly discover many of them know little or nothing about Him – that the One Daniel called “the Most High God” (c.f. Daniel 5:18) “who changes … times and … epochs … removes kings and establishes kings; (and) gives wisdom to wise men and knowledge to men of understanding” (c.f. Daniel 2:21), is not a God with whom they are familiar. Listen carefully and you will find out many non-believers have become “futile in their speculations” about God, in part, because they have “suppress(ed) the truth” regarding who He really is and/or what He’s really like, just as Romans chapter one says (c.f. Romans 1:18-22).
(c) Therefore, until we find out differently, we need to approach every initial Gospel conversation with our non-believing friends from the premise that they have little or no true knowledge regarding the God of Scripture1 – that their ideas about Him are essentially man-made, as opposed to being based on what the Bible actually says – that their “God” is not the Great and Holy One of the Old and New Testaments, but the product of their own foolish heart and/or spiritually darkened mind (c.f. Romans 1:21).
(d) So when we talk with people about God, we need to speak of as many of His glorious attributes as possible – not just the one or two non-believers enjoy emphasizing (like His love and forgiveness), to the exclusion of others (like His justice and wrath) – thereby getting a distorted or even idolatrous idea of who He is.
God has many attributes non-believers need to hear about, even if they end up rejecting our witness – attributes like His holiness, majesty, and omnipotence – attributes like His sovereignty, patience, and goodness – attributes like His mercy, grace, and wrath – attributes like His justice, His omniscience, and even His transcendance.1
(e) Nor should we be afraid that a discussion of God’s attributes will raise thorny questions, like: “If God is so sovereign and good, why did Hurricane Katrina destroy all those peoples’ homes and/or take so many peoples’ lives?”
We need to be prepared to give biblical answers, regardless of what non-believers may initially think – like the fact that (#1) we don’t always know why God does the things He does (c.f. Isaiah 40:28e) – (#2) that Scripture says His ways are higher than ours (c.f. Isaiah 55:8-9) – (#3) that we live in a fallen world, in which man’s sin has negatively impacted the whole creation (c.f. Romans 8:20-22) – and yet, (#4) God Himself takes full responsibility for those things we call calamities (c.f. Isaiah 45:5-7) – indeed, (#5) our sovereign God is able to (and does) bring good out life’s difficulties, especially for His redeemed people (c.f. Genesis 50:20; Romans 8:28).
(f) Sometimes the problem with the kinds of questions non-believers ask is that we haven’t figured out the answers ourselves – in which case, the best thing to say is, “I don’t know; that’s puzzles me, too.”
Other times, however, the problem is we have the same doubts about God many of our non-believing friends have – that we have these doubts because our own understanding of who God is and what’s He’s like is deficient. Sometimes we have doubts because we haven’t been taught properly – other times the reason is because up to now we’ve been unwilling to believe the truth about Him ourselves. In such cases, an honest answer to a non-believer’s “thorny” question might be: “I’ve wonder about that myself” – or, “I haven’t figured that one out yet, either. But, here’s what I do know …” – and then move to some aspect of who God is we’re more knowledgeable about, and/or have fewer problems believing.
As an aside, I might add that when we’re not conversing with non-believers, we need to work on settling some of our own doubts – which is done primarily by praying for illumination, coupled with intensifying our own study of God’s word (both privately and corporately).
(g) Back to our point – conversing with our non-believing friends about who God is (specifically that He’s our Sovereign Ruler and Creator, and that this is true for non-believers as well as believers!) (conversing with non-believers about this) is an important foundation to build our witness on – for as we do, we’ll be making known the Living God in Whom the Scripture says, “we (all) live and move and have our being” (c.f. Acts 17:28, NKJV)1 – which means we must look to Him for every need here on earth, as well as any reasonable hope of life after death. As one writer said: “A wrong understanding of God will inevitably lead to a wrong understanding of everything that follows.”1
(h) Remember, too, that God inspired men to write the sixty-six books found in the Bible. Furthermore, those sixty-six inerrant books not only lay out God’s plan of salvation for sinful men line by line (c.f. II Timothy 3:15), they also reveal many things about God Himself – things about who He really is, and what He’s really like.
In fact, Scripture indicates God has revealed various things about His nature through creation (c.f. Psalm 19:1; Romans 1:20), and through His Son, Jesus Christ (c.f. Hebrews 1:1-3). Hence, there are actually three witnesses (c.f. Deuteronomy 19:15) – Scripture, Creation, and Jesus. Therefore, if God has gone to all the trouble (so to speak) of giving us three such powerful witnesses regarding Himself, you and I shouldn’t be overly anxious to rush through this first aspect of the Gospel1 – or even worse, as so often happens, skip it altogether (in part because we have wrongly assumed people already know who God is and/or what He’s like).
(i) If I may backtrack for a moment, someone has said that “for a long time Christians have give non-believers the impression God is only love.”1 Unfortunately, most non-believers’ concept of “love” is so distorted by things like eroticism, sentimentalism, emotionalism, and (what I will call) “Santa Clause-ism” as to be almost useless so far as making the message of the Gospel clear is concerned. Hence, the attribute of God’s love has to be carefully explained from Scripture – both in terms of what it IS (c.f. I John 4:10) as well as what it is NOT (c.f. Acts 17:30-31).
(j) Moreover, “love” is not God’s only attribute – nor, as some would argue, is it even His most central or most important attribute.2 To counterbalance the mistaken notion many non-believer’s have about God, we Christians need to do everything we can to make sure our friends hear about some of His other attributes – like holiness, for example, which has tremendous implications for the Gospel – since the Scripture says, “(His) eyes are too pure to approve evil, and (that He) can not look on wickedness with favor” (c.f. Habakkuk 1:13a).
Another attribute we ought not avoid, just because we’re afraid how people may react, is God’s wrath. It too has tremendous implications for the Gospel – since the Bible says “the wrath of God abides on” everyone who does believe in Christ AND obey His commands (c.f. John 3:36)2 – which is another way of saying God’s wrath abides on everyone who has not “repented of their sins and believed the Gospel” (c.f. Mark 1:15).
(k) Along these same lines, no where does Scripture say (or even imply that), “God loves the sinner but hates his sin”.2 On the contrary, it says: “You (God) hate all who do iniquity” (c.f. Psalm 5:5) – and again: 11“God is a righteous judge, and a God who has indignation every day. 12If a man does not repent, He will sharpen His sword; He has bent His bow and made it ready. 13He has … prepared for Himself deadly weapons … (and) His arrows (are) fiery shafts” (c.f. Psalm 7:11-13) – and once more: “The Lord tests the righteous and the wicked, and the one who loves violence His soul hates” (c.f. Psalm 11:5).
(l) The point is not to take our non-believing friends through a check-list of God’s attributes. As a matter of fact, some of His attributes may never come up in our conversations – or they may not need to be discussed, because by God’s grace, the person we’re talking with already accepts them. The point I’m trying to make is this – as we converse with our non-believing friends, and discover what they believe about God, by Christ’s enabling grace we need to make sure they hear about who He really is, because an accurate understanding of God is essential to understanding “the gospel of God” (c.f. Mark 1:14).
(2) Second, people need to know (again not perfectly, for not even Christians know everything [I Corinthians 13:12a], but in some basic accurate way) (people need to know) about God’s holiness, along with man’s sin and depravity2 (c.f. Exodus 15:11; Habakkuk 1:13; Romans 1:28-32; Ephesians 2:1-3).
(a) Most of us know the word “gospel” (c.f. Mark 1:15) means “good news”.3 It is more than just a cliché, however, to say that in order for people to appreciate the “good news”, they need to know about the “bad news” – that the truth about the “bad news” is what puts the “good news” into perspective – that the “bad news” is what makes the “good news” good!
(b) So what is the “bad news”? The “bad news” is that all people are born into this world as sinners. Among other things that means we come into this world without any natural affection for God2 – without any desire to please Him, serve Him, or obey Him – nor do we have the ability to save ourselves even if we wanted to, in part, because we are spiritually dead (c.f. Colossians 2:13a). Hence, we read passages in Scripture like these – 1“They are corrupt, they have committed abominable deeds; there is no one who does good. 2The Lord has looked down from heaven ... to see if there are any who understand, who seek after God. 3They have all turned aside, together they have become corrupt; there is no one who does good, not even one” (c.f. Psalm 14:1-3) – and again: “you were … separate(d) from Christ, excluded from the commonwealth of Israel … strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world” (c.f. Ephesians 2:13) – and once more: “all of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a filthy garment … all of us wither like a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away” (c.f. Isaiah 64:6).
(c) The “bad news” is made even worse by the fact God is holy – which means, among other things, that He is pure and perfect – that there’s no sin or defect in Him – that everything He does is right, and good, and just – that He does not “wink at” sin, or overlook it – nor will He allow anything sinful and/or corrupted by sin into His presence.
That means, because we are sinners by nature as well as practice, we are far more offensive, and loathsome, and disgusting, and repulsive to God than we can possibly imagine. Indeed, if we saw ourselves the same way God sees us, we would agree with His assessment!
Scripture says only the man or woman who has “clean hands and a pure heart” can “stand in God’s holy presence” (c.f. Psalm 24:3). That effectively eliminates everyone (including ourselves before we were saved), because Scripture also says, “ALL have sinned and fall(en) short of the glory of God” (c.f. Romans 3:23) – which means that apart from faith in Jesus Christ our “hands” are NOT “clean” – and/or that apart from “repenting and believing the gospel” (c.f. Mark 1:15), our “hearts” are anything but “pure”.
(d) So what can we do to get these truths across to our non-believing friends? How do we help them see the “great gulf” (c.f. Luke 16:26, NKJV) that exists between an infinitely holy God and corrupt depraved sinners?
We know that without the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit (c.f. John 3:3-8), these truths will remain “concealed from them” (c.f. Luke 9:45) no matter what we say or do. But, since we don’t know who the Holy Spirit is going to reveal these things to, and who He’s not, we move forward and do whatever Christ graciously enables us to do.
(e) With that in mind, as we converse with our non-believing friends we can try and show them, for example, how God made man “in the beginning”2 (c.f. Genesis 1:1) – how He made men and women in His own “image” and “likeness” (c.f. Genesis 1:26-27) – how He made them “upright” (c.f. Ecclesiastes 7:29b), which means they were not sinners by nature or practice – how He placed them in an environment described as “very good” (c.f. Genesis 1:31a), and (so far as we know) gave them just one simple command to obey (c.f. Genesis 2:16-17).
(f) We can continue by pointing out that the Fall of mankind described in Genesis chapter three was far more devastating than most people realize – that without any coercion on God’s part, Adam and Eve chose to reject Him by sinning against His command (c.f. Genesis 3:1-6) – which in turn plunged all mankind into sin and death (c.f. Romans 5:12). Ever since the Fall, men and women have been rejecting God’s various testimonies regarding Himself – choosing, instead, to believe an assortment of lies, rather than the truth (c.f. Romans 1:21).
(g) Hence, all men and women are idolaters – because they refuse to worship the true God as He has revealed Himself to them through creation, and Scripture, and Jesus Christ. In their lost condition, all men are idolaters – because they invariably choose to worship other “gods”, like money, sex, work, material possessions, power and/or popularity.4 Even when lost people claim to worship God, and/or go through the motions of worshipping Him, they are simply worshipping a “god” of their own imagination – not the true God as He has revealed Himself to us. As someone has said: “In the beginning, God made man in His own image – and ever since that day, sinful men have been trying to return the favor.”4
(h) As we said a moment ago, the Fall of man was indeed great – in part because our rejection of God has resulted in His rejection of us, in this regard, that for the most part (see Genesis 20:6 for an exception) He allows sinful men and women to live out their lives in an ever accelerating downward spiral (c.f. Psalm 81:12) – living life according to the vain and foolish desires of our sinful hearts (c.f. Romans 1:28) – doing one thing after another that is utterly detestable to Him,4 because He is holy.
(i) We can also try and explain that, contrary to those who say people aren’t responsible for many of the things they do, Scripture says men and women ARE responsible for ALL their sinful behavior – and that unless they “repent and believe in the gospel” (c.f. Mark 1:15), they will suffer God’s just punishment (c.f. Proverbs 10:16b) for having offended Him by sinning against Him (c.f. Psalm 51:4).
(j) Furthermore, deep down sinful men and women know many of these things are true – for we read in the Book of Romans that, “although they know the ordinance of God (says) those who practice such things are worthy of death, they not only do (them themselves, they) also give (their) approval to (others) who practice them” (c.f. Romans 1:32) – and yet, because we are spiritually dead (c.f. Ephesians 2:1), we are powerless to change – powerless to stop sinning – powerless start obeying God’s commands – powerless to do anything but keep right on offending God, and incurring more and more of His wrath!
(k) That’s the “bad news” – and it’s really far worse than my brief, feeble attempt to described it. The “good news” is, God has made a provision whereby sinful, offensive people can be forgiven and changed – whereby people can be redeemed and made clean – whereby the threat of God’s wrath can be removed and replaced by His saving grace. Indeed, that “provision” has a name – Jesus of Nazareth, who is the Christ. Hence, the Scripture says: “In (Christ) we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our (sins), according to the riches of His grace which He (has) lavished (up)on us” (c.f. Ephesians 1:7-8).
BIBLIOGRAPHY
1Nesbitt: A Summary of the Gospel Message; p. 1 (see
web site: www.the-highway.com/gospel Pilgrim.html.
2IBID; p. 2.
3Bible Companion Series: Strong’s Concordance; Word
#2097, #2098.
4Nesbitt: Ibid; p. 3.