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If someone were to ask you, what is the gospel? How fast would you be able to answer them? Maybe you could stumble upon an answer, but could you answer in a way that was simple and memorable? We’d like to help you get better at it. The gospel message can be stated in many ways, but here is a good example:
- God made the world good.
- We have all broken God’s laws and the punishment for our crime is eternal death.
- God loved us so much that without ceasing to be God he became the man Jesus Christ and died as a payment for sin and rose from the dead.
- All who turn and trust in Him alone will live forever with him.
This may seem like a lot but each of those components are important. People won’t care about turning to trust in Jesus if they don’t know what he did, but people won’t care about what Jesus did unless they know why he did it. God made the world good and we messed it up. Let’s not take it for granted that people understand and know this.
As Christians, sharing the gospel is of utmost importance. Yet tragically, we’re not awesome at sharing it. People who have been Christians all of their life still struggle with grasping the power of this message. Part of the reason for this is of course that there is always room for us to mature. We never stop learning and growing as Christians. However, part of the reason why we struggle with sharing the gospel is, tragically, because our Christian culture doesn’t even know what it is.
There are videos and shows where they ask people to name the title of one book. Just one book. And they can’t do it. What would happen if we were to do something similar with asking people in the Church what the gospel is?
More importantly, even when we learn what the gospel is by definition, many of us still don’t understand its absolutely unmatched power, in both saving and changing the world around us.
The gospel is incredibly unbelievable too, so we think that we have to find ways to persuade people to believe, but the gospel itself is the power of God to cause us to believe.
Our duty is to share it, It’s God’s part to open eyes and ears to believe it.
That takes a lot of pressure off.
Another reason we don’t share the gospel message is that we almost see the gospel as something we learn once, maybe in Sunday school, then we assume everyone knows it, and then move on to find deeper, more interesting things in the Bible. That’s a tragedy.
The gospel is how Christians are made, and Christians are what make up the church, and the church is like God’s body moving and doing good in the world. The church is where we receive both spiritual and physical help. So the gospel is what motivates prayer and generosity and pure religion, helping orphans and widows. So the gospel is the answer for my financial needs and concerns whether that’s an actual physical blessing or with the contentment that comes from the gospel of peace. (Ephesians 6) The gospel is the answer for my daughter’s sickness, whether that’s from gospel believing prayers or for contentment or for the hope of the resurrection. The gospel message itself contains the answer for the world’s demands for justice: evil is punished, either in hell or by Jesus on the cross.
As our world shifts and changes and different needs come and go, the gospel has always been the answer and nothing is going to change that. The gospel isn’t one of the trees in the forest of the Bible. It’s the whole forest.
So the gospel is the answer, not just for salvation, but for everything else we could possibly need or want. In Romans 1:16 God’s Word through the Apostle Paul says, “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes…”
It is the power of God! Let that sink in for just a moment. What is God’s power for the saving of lives, and the subsequent the changing of hearts, from being dead in sin to being born again, from being transformed from a creature headed toward death, into a new creation? It’s the gospel!
God’s Word again in 1 Corinthians 1:18 says, “For the word of the cross…” What is the word of the cross? It’s the gospel message! “… is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.” So, if there is anyone saved, or being saved, they are being saved by the gospel. And people who are saved are those who are praying and doing God’s work through the Spirit in the world.
Again in Romans 10:17 God’s Word says, “So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.” In other words, faith, which we know is how a person is saved, (Ephesians 2:8) comes from nothing else but the gospel, either spoken and heard or read from the word of Christ.
And how many of us need stronger faith? If faith comes from the Gospel, we ought to be a bit more serious about sharing it. Jesus said, “Go into all the world and proclaim…” what? The 10 reasons not to give up on your dream?” How about…. “Practical solutions to the world’s problems?” Those are all good things. We’ve all spoken about, and benefited from those kinds of things. But just like building a house is a necessary and wonderful work, that you can see with your eyes, and seems to provide so much good– it doesn’t save souls or strengthen them and it doesn’t spiritually change the world. Building a house, by itself, is spiritually empty. A house is a good thing. A needed thing. Spiritually worthless.
I can hear people reasoning that houses allow us to rest and live so we can share the gospel. But actually, if we want to go back even further, without the good news of the gospel, there would be no houses, because humanity wouldn’t exist. The world would have ended with the sin of Adam and Eve. But the gospel message arrives immediately, even in Genesis, with the promised seed who would crush the head of our enemy.
Jesus said, “Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation.” That’s the only thing we’re ever called to proclaim. In our ministry, we sometimes only touch on a piece of the gospel, and that’s okay. Sometimes we just talk about how there is a God, or that He is good, or that we should have faith.
Ideally though, we can cover the whole gospel in a couple sentences, any time we teach about the Bible.
The gospel is a very specific message. We often confuse it with other things. Someone once said, “preach the gospel at all times and use words if necessary.” But actually, if we’re not using words, we’re not preaching the gospel. That’s a pretty radical statement because its very counter cultural. The gospel is good news, not good works or deeds, or good sentiments, or good behavior, or good will, it’s not all our love and our actions. It’s a message.
For repetition and help with memorization, again, this is the gospel, the power of God:
- God created the world good.
- We have all sinned and the punishment is eternal death.
- God loved us so much He came to the world, without ceasing to be God, became the man Jesus Christ, and laid his life down on a cross as a payment for sin, and rose from the dead.
- All who turn and trust in him will also rise to eternal life.
The Bible says there is something miraculous that happens when that message is spoken and heard. Somewhere the Holy Spirit has moved. Hearts heard the voice of God and leapt within. Someone reading this today may have just been saved. That’s how instantly this happens. John 3:8 says “The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”
Again, it “blows where it wishes!” And that is just the start. God’s Word says Christians are actually a new creation; the old is gone, the new has come. So if we want more good in the world, let’s speak the gospel message regularly.
Those who hear the gospel and are saved and transformed into a new tree that will bear good fruit. True believers bear the fruit of the Spirit.
The gospel is what makes us even want to study the entirety of God’s Word. The world does not bear that fruit. If we want to change the world, let’s share the gospel. The gospel is not just to get us saved so we can move on. It’s not just the starting point, it’s the whole process. The gospel is the power of God to sanctify and continually transform the world around us.
If a person isn’t excited about the good news, they don’t understand it yet. We can pray for that person that they would receive understanding. The gospel changes us. It’s the answer for change in our world.
So again, to be clear, the gospel is not the smile and the friendship you give to your unbelieving neighbor. The gospel is not the hospitality you give to church members or strangers. The gospel is not giving to the poor, or upholding the cause of the needy. The gospel is not love, peace, joy, patience, gentleness or self control.
All of those things are the fruit of the gospel message already having its way on a cold dead heart making it new and warm and grateful.
We waste our time by telling people to stop acting foolishly in this way, or that way, if we’re not sharing the gospel with them.
God made this world good. He made us good. And all of us have broken God’s law, again and again. Without a remedy we are hopelessly lost, forever. But God loved us so much that without ceasing to be God he became a man, died on the cross as a payment for sin, and rose from the grave so that all who turn and place their trust in Him alone will live forever.
Let’s share that news every day, to ourselves, to our friends and neighbors and coworkers and families and children and grandchildren.
That’s what’s going to bless and heal this planet today.
“I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God…” (Romans 1:16)
“the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.” (1 Corinthians 1:18)
Adorn the Gospel 