Where do I start? What do I include? What is important? How long should it be? These are questions that often cross our minds when we think about sharing the gospel with our non-Christian friends, coworkers or family.
Most Christians see sharing the gospel as a daunting task, which why we put together this article. With this article, we aim to equip you to share the gospel with the people in your world, in a way that is truthful, concise and persuasive.
The bare essentials of the gospel:
We are all sinners
Romans 3:23 “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God”
Sin is the act of rebellion against God and what he stands for. Explaining the notion of sin to a non-Christian can be difficult especially when they say, “I’m a good person. I give to the poor, I don’t go around killing people and I love my family and I would do anything for them.” A lot of people think of sin as the violation of the Ten Commandments.
The truth is that sin, as defined in the original language of the Bible, means “to miss the mark”. The mark, in this case, is the standard of perfection established by God and evidenced by Jesus. Viewed in this light we are all sinners.
The fact that we are all sinners must be communicated when sharing the gospel with a non-believer. Only when a person understands the gravity of sin do they understand that they are in need of forgiveness in order to be put right with God.
The death of Christ on the cross to pay for all sin
After explaining that we are all sinners you can then begin to describe the need for forgiveness. A just and perfect God could not simply sweep sin under the carpet and go on running a perfect universe. God had to deal with the injustice of sin.
At this point, you can introduce Jesus, the Son of God, who came into the world to die for our sins. His death on the cross was necessary because otherwise we would have had to face God’s judgment and his anger caused by us missing the mark.
Martin Luther said that as God Jesus could not die, so he became man in order to die. On the cross, he accepted the sin of man against himself. As a perfectly innocent man, Jesus took on the punishment that should have been ours.
The resurrection of Christ to provide life everlasting for those who follow Him
The resurrection is vital to the message of the gospel for two reasons. First, the resurrection proves that Jesus is the Son of God—that he wasn’t just a prophet or a crazy man, but that he was the Son of God himself. Only the One who created life can resurrect it after death.
Second, the resurrection of Jesus shows that death is not the end for human beings, which is one of the foundational layers of our faith. Our Lord has defeated death, is alive today and promises that we will also be alive with him for eternity, that death is only a passage between this life and our eternal existence.
The offer of the free gift of salvation to all
The good news of the gospel is that we were once sinners, far away from God; but Jesus came to earth, died for our sins and rose from the dead. Because of him, we are forgiven and saved.
The final thing that you need to mention when you share the gospel with someone is the fact that the gift of salvation is available to everyone. God is inclusive. He loves every single one of us and wants us all to be in his Kingdom.
The Bible is clear that “if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved” Romans 10:9. In evangelism, it is important the we tell the people we are talking to that it doesn’t matter how old they are, what nationality they belong to, what their income is, what they have done in life—as long as they believe in their heart and confess with their mouth that Jesus is Lord and God raised him from the dead, they are saved.
The gospel is rich, broad, deep and wide. It has a lot of depth to it, and it contains more than just the four points we mentioned above. However, these four points are your starting points. They will make a way for you to share even more from the gospel.
Next time you have an opportunity to share the good news of the gospel, think about the bare essentials of the gospel: we were all sinners, Jesus came and died for us, he was resurrected and is alive today, and offers salvation to all who believe in him.
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Clear, concise points that we need to communicate to share the gospel.