The Guts of the Gospel
1. Introduction:
One of the most difficult tasks the church is called on to do is to share the Good News with others. It is difficult for several reasons. Firstly, to share the Gospel one must have an audience or at least a person who is willing to listen. People these days don't just listen to anyone and when they do listen they don't listen to everything. To gain a listening audience is simply not an easy thing.
Secondly, to share the Gospel we must be motivated to share it; we must have a desire to share it and we must think that it is important to share it. Now the Bible is clear about this. In the NT the Gospel is the hope of the world. The big question is… do we believe this!?
Thirdly in order to share the Gospel we must know what the Gospel is; what is its chief concern, what is its chief character. In other words we must know what the guts of the Gospel is about.
We believe that if we are not committed to bringing others into the kingdom of God then all that we have received as Christians is for nothing. Jesus said… 'as you have freely received, freely give.'
But there's another very good reason why the Gospel must be shared with others. In John 11 Jesus say these words…
"I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies;"
One of the things we learn from Jesus is that God is life - from Him all life proceeds and to Him it returns. And the nature of life is to… live to procreate - to go on living. The Gospel wasn't given to die but to live and to grow in the lives of the people who accept it. We share the faith as a part of this life of the Gospel. So how does that happen?
2. Give me the guts of the Gospel in a sentence…
*Following Christ's example
*Having a relationship with God
*Knowing the truth
*Loving Christ/others
*Knowing meaning of life (see Jeremy)
What first attracted you to Christ?
*Truth
*Lovingness
*Humanity
*Grace
*Gentleness
*Perseverance
*Faithfulness
*Challenging
*Mates
We are looking for someone who is completely trustworthy and whom we can trust with our whole lives. And God is looking simply to give that love and acceptance. Every heart is yearning for these things.
3. Do we have an answer? Can you account for your faith?
Sharing our faith then requires that we understand the person of Christ. We are not sharing just a precept - we are sharing a person. It starts with our own encounter with Christ and the transformation within and overflows into loving and compassionate lives.
But it's also knowing what we believe and desiring to share it:
If someone asked you what would you say? What part of your story, your passion, your love for Jesus would you share?
In building relationships and sharing the Gospel we can be:
- too aggressive: have a message which basically says you need God or you are going to hell. The turn or burn, drive through approach which tends to build walls instead of encouraging people to seek for God.
- too passive: I build relationship, get to know someone, live a Christian lifestyle, but may spend years or decades waiting for an opportunity to say something more. I feel very insecure and shy about putting my beliefs on someone else. The excuse may be: I don't have the gift of evangelism.
- balanced: God wants to love people through me. I can build relationships and proactively look for opportunities and doors to share. This is balanced, relational, love based, starts with where a person is at, and listens to what God is already doing; but does do something.
Sadly, most Christians are in the witness protection scheme. Too scared to witness. Not proactive. Don't really know what they believe and haven't got the skills to share it in a healthy manner.
We need to upskill and for this we need a desire, we need to know what we believe and we need to know how to share it.
Scriptures: Gen 1: 26-31, Psalm 8, Jn 3: 16-21 , Romans 7: 14-8:2, Revelation 3: 15
Come up with a set of 5 points which summarises the guts of the Gospel: what we might want to say to someone with whom we wanted to engage spiritually.