A Clear Gospel Outline

Pastor Andy Davis preaches a clear gospel outline Paul provides in 1 Corinthians to equip us for evangelism. 

– SERMON TRANSCRIPT  – 

Well, this is again, an unusual month for us as we’re focusing on evangelism. And as I think about this issue of evangelism, the topic of evangelism, I’ll say that as I look at my Christian life, few things, if anything, has ever brought me as much joy in my Christian walk as being there when the Lord brings someone to faith in Christ. Isn’t that an exciting moment? And maybe you’ve never had that experience before, but I would urge you to plead with God for that, and say, “God, sometime in the next year, I would love to be there when you save someone. I would love to be there as you bring someone and rescue them from the dominion of darkness and bring them into the kingdom of the Son of your love. I would love to be there at that time. So God, make me an instrument in your hands and the joy of that.”

And as I look at various people, I know some people have the gift of evangelism and others, all of us, I think just have the responsibility of evangelism. There is a difference between those two. Friends, just because you don’t have the gift doesn’t mean you don’t have the responsibility. I mean, you know that we all have the responsibility for Christian giving. I hope you realize that. Even though there are some with the special gift of giving, and we, all of us, have faith who are justified by faith, but some have the gift of faith. I think all of us have the responsibility to be faithful in hospitality, opening our homes to others, but some just have the gift of hospitality. And so some of us have the gift of evangelism.

And one brother I know that really just has the gift of evangelism is Mack Stiles. He’s a good friend of mine. A number of you know him personally, and he’s written some books on evangelism. He is the most, I want to say, natural evangelist, but I want to say supernatural evangelist I know, comfortable making friends, sharing Christ boldly. And he’s written a book and I would commend it to you, Marks of a Messenger. And it’s one of these rare books that as you read it, you find yourself encouraged in evangelism, not feeling guilty. You feel like, “Hey, I actually think I could do this if God gives me grace.” And he just opens your eyes to see certain things. And at the end of that book, he gives a story about an opportunity that he had to lead someone to faith in Christ.

Now, Mack works in a very unusual setting in the Persian Gulf, in the UAE, the United Arab Emirates, he works there in Dubai and he has the opportunity to minister to people from all over the world. People come from all over the world to work in Dubai. It’s a very international city. And he has the chance to lead many people to Christ with that gift that he has. Well, this is an individual, he talks about it in Marks of a Messenger about a man named Basanta from Nepal. And so this man was waiting for Mack at the end of a worship service there in Dubai, just standing there waiting. And Mack was just looking for someone to minister to and didn’t see anyone. It’s time to go and he goes around and there behind some chairs that are stacked, there’s this individual. And he looked at him. He’s about the age of his son, Mack’s son, and really thin individual. And he’s holding in his hand a tattered Bible, an old Bible. The young man said to Mack, “My name is Basanta. I am from Nepal.” And without saying another word, he said some words that all of you, I think, would yearn to hear when it comes to this issue of evangelism. “Can you tell me how to become a Christian?” So ask God for an encounter like that. “Can you tell me how to become a Christian?” And Mack answered, “Yes. I can.”

Just pause for a moment. Can you? Would you be able to answer that? Would you know what to say? Well, that’s the purpose of this morning. I want to help you with that. I want to help you know what to say at that point. I think it’s a responsibility of a local church and the elders in a local church to get you ready for such low hanging fruit. That is cake. You have to be able to know what to say then. All right, so let’s get ready for those. Let’s ask God for those. And he’s not always going to give you that, but he may give you something like that. Can you tell me how to become a Christian? Yes, I can. He then shared a simple four-part outline with the headings we have today, God, man, Christ, response. And that’s where we’re going to focus on today. God, man, Christ, response. And he wrote out this outline on a piece of paper, God, man, Christ, response. And at the end of explaining the points and the issues related to God and man and Christ. And then he called him to a response. He said, “Are you ready to turn your life over to Christ?” Basanta said, “Yes, I am, but first I have a story to tell you.” And Mack answered, “Okay.” He said, “Do you see this Bible?” He held up that Bible he’d been holding in his hand and he said, “My brother works in Saudi Arabia. Someone gave him this Bible and in reading it, he became a Christian.” Mack thought, “This is incredible. There aren’t many Bibles in Saudi Arabia, and that’s amazing.” Well, the Basanta continued. He said, “My brother then sent this Bible to my parents back in Nepal, and both of them became Christians as well, and now they have a group of Christians meeting in their home. Then they sent the Bible to me, and my brother and my parents both say, I have to become a Christian. And so that’s why I was here to talk to you today.” And so Mack looked with new respect at that old Bible and thought God is using that Bible and God is using the truths that flow from the scripture.

I. Central to Evangelism: Getting the Gospel Message Right

That’s one of the most amazing stories I’ve ever heard. I would love for an opportunity like that. But whether God gives us an easy chance like that or other more difficult chances, we need to know the content of the message that we preach. We need to know the content of the gospel, central to evangelism. True evangelism is getting the message right, getting the gospel message right. Biblical evangelism is not, in the end, finally, about technique. It’s so easy to think evangelism training is about tactics and techniques and a dialogue that you memorize. And then when they say this, then you know that and all that kind of thing. Mack Stiles said in Marks of a Messenger that a man he was seeking a train in evangelism after the seminar said, “This was so incredibly encouraging to me. Usually when I’m trained in evangelism, I feel like I’m being trained to be an insurance salesman.” And Mack said, “Look, there’s nothing wrong with insurance or selling insurance, but there should be differences between evangelism and being an insurance salesman. To be an effective evangelist, you have to pitch the message with a careful appeal to self-interest and promote a program with pizazz and overcome hesitancies with a winsome manner and avoid any offenses or problems in the delivery. Answer objections with humor, instill fears of losing out, manipulate the conversation, get it to a point of decision where they can sign on the dotted line with the sinner’s prayer and then hone your skills at closing the deal.” Mack said, “That may be fine for selling insurance or a used car, but that’s not what it takes to lead someone to faith in Christ.”

A number of us have seen a booklet on evangelism written by a man named C.S. Lovett, not C.S. Lewis, but C.S. Lovett. And it’s right from the 1950s. It has these interesting black and white photos of these two guys in suits standing, the lost guy and the guy, the evangelist. And at one point he says, “At this point, you’ve shared all of the gospel message. Now you need to lead him in the sinner’s prayer. And what you want to do is put your hand on his shoulder with slight pressure pushing downward. Say, ‘I want you to join with me in prayer.’ Say it in a slightly commanding tone. Look down and begin at that point to pray. He will feel, [and this literally says this in the booklet], a psychological pressure to join you in prayer.” Well friends, he may have a psychological pressure, but he may still be lost. And psychological pressure isn’t going to save anyone. What saves people? I tell you what saves people, the gospel and the gospel alone. The gospel, Romans 1:16, “…is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile.”  We need the gospel and we need to be clear on what the gospel message is. And so that’s what today is all about. 

“We need the gospel and we need to be clear on what the gospel message is.”

And I’m operating from a premise, just in general, here in March, this is the evangelism training focus month or whatever you want to say that, but I want you folks to be reminded this morning of the gospel for many reasons, not just for that one. You heard what Kevin read in verses one and two,1 Corinthians 15:1-2. There, the apostle Paul says this, “Now, brothers, I want to remind you of the gospel.” So just stop there. Paul felt the need to remind the Corinthian Christians of the gospel. So that teaches me as an elder of a local church, there is an ongoing need to remind the people of the gospel. So let me continue. He says, “Now, brothers, I want to remind you of the gospel I preach to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand. By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you.” So I want to do this for multiple reasons. I want to remind you of the gospel first because it’s vital that each one of you who is listening to me today believe it’s message for the salvation of your souls. That issue is more important than any evangelism training we might want to do right now, that each one of you, you who are eternal beings, each one of you, man or woman, boy or girl, each one of you will spend eternity in Heaven or Hell, and you need to believe this gospel message that I’m going to preach this morning. So my first most important reason for doing this is because I don’t want anyone to leave this room here today in an unconverted state. I want you to believe in Jesus for the forgiveness of your sins. 

Secondly, I say to you that none of you who are Christians today will ever be done with the gospel while you live in this world. I quoted this at the beginning of my Galatians series, but Tim Keller said the gospel is not the basics of the Christian faith that you then grow up out of. We never get beyond the gospel in our Christian life to something more advanced. The gospel is not the ABCs of Christianity but the A to Z of Christianity. Now, you may be on letter C, you may be on letter J or letter Q, but you’re still going to need the gospel until the day you die. You need to be under the hearing of this message. Thirdly, I believe that the more that we as evangelists are drinking in the sweetness of the gospel, the better evangelists we’re going to be. When you are with people and you have soaked in the grace of God in Christ, and you have a sense of that infinite kindness He has shown you, and you have a sense of the greatness of the danger that you were in, but you have been delivered out of, and the greatness of the joy that awaits you in heaven and all of these gospel themes, you’re just going to be a better evangelist. 

“The gospel is not the ABCs of Christianity but the A to Z of Christianity.”

Fourth, because we tend to forget the gospel message. I mean, isn’t that amazing? We forget things. We need to be reminded. We are forgetful. It’s part of the flesh. It’s part of the weakness of our nature that we forget important things and therefore we need to be constantly reminded. It’s part of elder ministry, part of preaching and teaching ministry, to remind people of things they already know. I very rarely tell most of you things you’ve never heard before. Very rarely. I’m reminding you continually of things you already know and we forget. Fifth, when it comes to evangelism training, there is a difference between recognizing the gospel when you hear it and delighting in it, and being able to articulate it clearly yourself. There’s a difference. There’s a journey from yes, that’s it. I believe it. I agree. All right, now say it. Say it. And so we’re going to be working on that tonight in home fellowship. So we’re going to try to get you folks to say these things so that you feel comfortable with it.

And sixth, we must keep hearing the gospel, and this relates to an earlier statement, but we as believers must keep hearing the gospel so that we do not drift away from Jesus, so that we do not drift away from Christ. We are under constant assault by the world of flesh and the devil. And the end of that assault is that we would drift away from Christ. So it says in Hebrews 2:1, “We must pay more careful attention, therefore, to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away.” What we have heard is the gospel. So for all of those reasons, we have a reminder in front of us today. Mack says in his book, in Marks of a Messenger, it says that churches can drift away from the gospel. And that’s where I think we become Revelation three, we become the church at Sardis, the dead church that’s living on its past reputation. I don’t want that to happen. Mack says there are four stages. First, the gospel, at that local church, the gospel is accepted. Second stage, the gospel is assumed. That’s a danger for FBC. The gospel’s just assumed. We all just know it’s message, right? Let’s just assume it, and let’s talk about some other aspects. Third stage, the gospel is confused. Some aspects come in, some things are left out that should be included, and the gospel gets confused. Fourth, the gospel is lost. 

John MacArthur actually gave an illustration of this progression. He talked about an old church, a country church that had a plaque on the side of the building, and the plaque had a phrase in it that came from 1 Corinthians 1:23, which verse says, “We preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles.” The plaque on the side of the church said, “We preach Christ crucified.” But there was a vine growing up along the side of the building, and little by little, part of the plaque got obscured. So as you stood there, all you could see is, “We preach Christ.” The word crucified had been obscured. And then as time continued, all you could see is, “We preach.” A little while after that, it said, “We.” And then you could see nothing at all, which is an emblem of, I think, the lampstand being removed entirely.

So for me, I think there’s value in the elders of a local church reminding the church what the gospel message is, and for you to be continually reminding yourself as well. So that’s my goal. I want to both feed the sheep this morning and train the sheep while I reach out to those who are not yet Christ’s sheep, that you would come to faith in Christ, that you would believe in him and repent. So that’s what we’re doing now. So take the insert card in your bulletins there, take it and hold it in your hand and look at it. You can take that home with you free of charge. We didn’t laminate it because then it would be really expensive. But we have given out laminated versions of this for a while. These are not tracks. These are not meant to be handed to unbelievers. These are meant to remind you of what it is you’re going to say when you share the gospel. You could have it in front of somebody and go through it. And if they ask for it after that time, give it to them. We’ll give you some other ones. But we’re going to go through this.

II. God-Man-Christ-Response

Now, already you’ve had the main headings, and if you get nothing else from this whole day, but you get this, you’ve gotten something, a simple four-part outline to the gospel is in these four main headings, God, Man, Christ, Response. I could go antiphonal here, God, God, Man, Man, that kind of thing. But just get this uploaded in your mind, God, Man, Christ, Response. If you get that, then all you want to say in your heart is you’re sharing with somebody, you’re on a plane, you’re talking, you’re in a conversation. It’s like, all right, I want to say some things about God. I want to say some things about us as human beings. I want to say some things about Jesus and I want to call them to respond and to make a commitment. If you have that, then you have a basic roadmap of where to go. God, Man, Christ, Response. We start there. And so just memorize that. You probably already have it memorized, but just have it uploaded in your mind. 

Now, let’s go a little deeper. I want to say some things that I think are helpful to say the God heading. Now, I want you to know the four spiritual laws follows the God, Man, Christ, Response approach, Steps to Peace with God does the same, many, many gospel tracks. This isn’t original to anybody. Somebody probably thought of it first, but no one will know who that individual is until we get to heaven. But this is a very common four-part outline of the gospel. What follows are some insights that God gave me some years ago that follow the offices of God in scripture and keep you very God-centered, I think, in your gospel presentation, I think that’s helpful. Now, you can put other things under God like, for spiritual law says God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life, things like that. But I think this is maybe a little better. And the benefit of this is that you can also start from right from the beginning with someone from another country who’s never heard of anything in the Bible at all, because the first thing we’re going to say about God is that he is creator. God is the creator. He is the creator of all things, the creator of the universe, of everything. We’re going to support all this with more detail in a minute, but I’m going through it ever more detail. That’s the approach I’m preaching on today.

So first, simple, God, Man, Christ, Response. Now, the main headings without scripture support and then we’ll support it, so that’s the approach we’re taking. 

So, God is creator of all things. Because God is the creator, He has the right to rule over it. Right? There’s a logic to this. He is the king of the universe. He actively rules over it and as a subset of that, he is a law giver. He has the right to give laws by which we must live in his universe. And finally, in connection with that, he is the judge and he has the right to judge the universe based on the laws that he is given because he is the king, because he is the creator. So that’s just the offices of God. You could say four offices or three offices, whatever you want to say, but creator, king, lawgiver, and judge. Secondly, we want to talk about man. Man, and now we’re going to line up man with the four offices that we just gave. Man is creature or created by God the creator. Secondly, we are rebellious against God the king, as proven by, thirdly, the fact that we are transgressors of God’s laws and therefore under judgment by God the judge. Do you see the logic? It’s just unfolding here. So we’ve lined up man with God’s various roles.

Thirdly, we want to talk about Christ, about Jesus Christ. And the title that we add here is God the savior. Not just creator, not just king, a law-giver, a judge, but savior. Amen! This is good news that Jesus Christ is the savior of the world. Now, much of the gospel is biography. We want to go through the life of Jesus. How can they call on one they’ve never heard of? Right? So they need to hear about him. And so what do we want to say? Well, we want to talk about his essential nature as God-Man, his incarnation. We want to say that he is fully God and fully human. We want to talk about his miraculous life, the miracles that he did. One of my favorite parts of evangelism is telling miracle stories. I would really recommend that you memorize a good miracle story and get ready to tell it. Maybe Lazarus being raised from the dead, or Jesus walking on water or stilling the storm, the feeding of the 5,000. I love the fact that he raised the widow’s son from the grave. It’s mentioned only in Luke’s gospel, I think, but his tenderness and compassion to that widow saying to her, “Don’t cry”, and how he touched the casket, and they all stood there. And then he said, “Young man, get up.” And he got up. Oh, wouldn’t you love to be there? The looks on faces. But as you tell these miracle stories, I don’t know how you can be afraid at that moment in evangelism anymore. You’re telling a miracle story and you’re like, “Hey, look, I’m going to worship. Whether you do or not, I’m into this. This is awesome. Jesus is great.”

Miracles. Sinless. Jesus lived a sinless life. We have to be clear about that. He committed no sin. We’ll get to that scripturally, but the sinlessness of Jesus. Then, of course, we need to talk about his substitutionary death. Jesus died on the cross in our place. And of course, we must mention his resurrection. He was raised from the dead on the third day, and he has come to give us salvation gifts, full forgiveness of sins and eternal life with God, both now and forever. He comes to offer these things, but now comes response. So God, Man, Christ, and now comes response. You must call them to respond. And I break this into two parts. What you, the hearer, the person you’re evangelizing, what that person must do and what they must not do. This all comes from the Philippian jailer’s statement, “What must I do to be saved?” What you must do is repent and believe, Mark 1:15. We’ll get to that. But you must repent of your sins and believe in Jesus for the forgiveness of your sins. This you must do. This is the work of God that they believe in the one that he has sent. This is the only work you can do as a lost person. Believe, just believe in Jesus. That’s what you must do.

What you must not do? You must not work for it or wait for it. What do I mean by that? Well, don’t think that you can be justified or forgiven by your works. Your works can never justify you. You must not cling to works. Why should you mention that as an evangelist? It’s the number one thing that Satan’s trying to sell them. If they are in any way troubled about their sins, the only alternative to the gospel is self-salvation through good works of various types. You must not do that. Good works cannot save you and you must not wait for it. So this is where, as I just mentioned in the BFL class, this is where evangelism gets a little uncomfortable. You must not leave them the feeling that it’s okay to not repent and believe. It’s your job as evangelists to end badly in that level. If they will not repent and believe, it’s meant to feel awkward at that moment, and you are to be, as Bob put it in the class, a saver aroma of death and a death for them at that moment. “It’s not okay for you. And I’ll pray for you. I’m going to plead with you. I’m going to plead with you.” I have told people on airplanes that I’m going to pray that they will not be able to sleep tonight because they haven’t repented and believed. We’re saying that we don’t know that they’re even going to be alive later today or tomorrow. We don’t know how much time they have. Today is the day of salvation, so don’t wait for it. Don’t assume that you’ll have another chance.

Jack Evans told me a story that he heard a number of years ago in prison ministry of an evangelist who shared the gospel completely with someone. The person did not repent and believe. The evangelist said, “I’m going to pray that God will wake you up at 3:45 AM.” Well, that evening, God woke him up 3:45 AM and a prison guard making his rounds was walking by at just that moment. The guy called out. He said, “What time is it?” He said, “Quarter to four.” He said, “Is that the same as 3:45 AM?” He said, “Yeah, that’s the same.” Where upon he slipped down on his knees and gave his life to Christ. Okay? Well look, I’d rather they be troubled here on earth while there’s time to do something about it than trouble forever in Hell where they remember opportunities, especially opportunities they had to repent and believe. All right, so that’s God, Man, Christ, Response with sub-themes now.

You should be able, I think at this point, to share the gospel in one minute or in five minutes. One minute, God, Man, Christ, Response. Just go through it. God is creator. Because he’s creator, he has the right to rule. Because he’s a ruler, he has the right to make laws and he has made laws and he has the right to judge us. We, as human beings, were created by God and we should have been under God’s rulership. He is the king of all things, but we have rebelled against him because of our sins. We have transgressed God’s holy laws, and we are under God’s judgment, and we have no way of saving ourselves. And therefore, thanks be to God, he sent Jesus into the world. He was born of a virgin. He was fully human. He was fully God. He lived a perfectly sinless life and he did incredible miracles. But most of all, he died on the cross in our place, taking the judgment we deserved, and then he died. But on the third day, God raised him from the dead showing that the payment had been made and was acceptable to him. And if we repent and believe, if you repent and believe, you can have eternal life. Won’t you come to Christ? Come to faith in Christ. I don’t know how long that was, but that’s about a minute. So you can do that. Or you could expand, five minutes, talk a little bit more.

Now, I want to share with you how you can share the gospel in 38 minutes or an hour. Let’s go into some more detail on this. Ok? So now we’re going to go into the most detail and this will take us to the end. Let’s go back over the first section. God. First, supporting scripture. God the creator. Any of you know a verse on that? I’m thinking you already have this one. This is a freebie. This is part of the original equipment, I guess. Genesis 1:1. In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Start at the beginning. Why not? God made all things. God is the creator. Therefore, what does that teach you about God? I love to talk about how God’s love is displayed in creation. This is a beautiful thing to talk about. Maybe one of my favorite verses on this is Acts 14:17. There Paul, in preaching the gospel to some Gentile, some pagans, speaks about natural theology, what we call just what God is doing around them all the time. So you can use this with a Chinese grad student or visiting scholar from another country, from Russia or something. People that have never heard the gospel. You can use this right away. Listen to Acts 14:17. “[God]… has not left himself without testimony: He has shown kindness by giving you rain from heaven and crops in their seasons; he provides you with plenty of food and fills your hearts with joy.” Isn’t that a great verse? God is just kind to you by giving you rain and sunshine and blessings. Talk about the kindness of God as creator.

But secondly, because God is the creator and made all things in heaven and earth, he is also king. He has the right to rule over all things. Friends, the more you emphasize the kingship of God, the more shameful sins starts to become. It’s like we are eating God’s food and living in God’s living-room and we never give him thanks or praise him or live for him. That’s wrong. This is God’s world. God is our king. You see, that will make a pull on people back toward God, which is the ultimate end of repentance. They come back to God the king. So talk about God the king. And there’s so many verses you could choose. I like Psalm forty-seven, seven, but you could choose another one. Just find other verses that you like better. But again, I am recommending memorization. Memorize these. Get them ready. Psalm 47:7, “For God is the King of all the earth; sing to him a psalm of praise.” Isn’t that great? God is king of all the earth. That says it about as simply as you’ll find anywhere in the Bible. 

Therefore, God is sovereign. That means he actively rules Psalm 103:19, “The LORD has established his throne in heaven, and his kingdom rules over all.” So, God is sovereign and therefore because God the creator, the king, rules over all things, he has the right to make laws by which we must live in his universe. He has the right to do that. Now, there are many laws in the Bible, but probably the most famous listing of laws in the Bible is the 10 Commandments. 

Now, I would recommend that you memorize, and I said this a few weeks ago, that you memorize a simplified outline of the 10 Commandments. It’s amazing how many Christians can’t recite the 10 commandments. So I would urge you to memorize it. I was well into my life as a Christian, actually beyond seminary, before I memorized a simplified outline of the 10 Commandments. We were doing catechism with our kids in Japan. And so I memorized this. First Commandment, “I am the Lord your God who brought you out of Egypt out of the land of slavery, you shall have no other gods beside me.” Second Commandment, “You shall not make any idols or worship any idols.” Third Commandment, “You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain.” Fourth Commandment, “Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Do all your work in six days and rest on the seventh. For God made heaven and earth in six days and rested on the seventh.” Fifth Commandment, “Honor your father and mother.” Sixth Commandment, “You shall not murder.” Seventh Commandment “You shall not commit adultery.” Eighth Commandment, “You shall not steal.” Ninth Commandment, “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.” And the 10th Commandment, “You shall not covet.” 

So those are 10 very well-known commandments in the Bible that God has given and he gave them to Israel, but there’s a sense in which these commandments are written on the hearts of people all over the world. Jesus then went and summarized all of the commandments in the Bible in two great commandments. The first and greatest commandment is this, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.” And the second commandment is this, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” So these are the laws that God has given us by which we must live. Now, by the way, we’re still in the God section. We’re just listing the laws. I tell you, if the Lord’s working on them, they’re already going to be feeling convicted of their sin just as they hear those commandments. It’s already going to start happening.

Then you say God is judge as well. Not only is he creator and king and law giver, but he also is judge of all the earth. Psalm 96:13, “…the LORD… comes to judge the earth. He will judge the world in righteousness and the people in his faithfulness.” There is a day coming called Judgment Day in which he will bring us to an account for how we have lived in his universe, how we have lived under his laws. God the judge is a holy judge. In fact, Habakkuk 1:13 is a good verse. In the version I memorized it says, “Your eyes are too pure to look on evil; you cannot tolerate wrong.” I love that one. 1 John 1:5 is good. “…God is light; in him there is no darkness at all.” Or, Isaiah 6:3, “…Holy, holy, holy is the LORD Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory.” This is the God section. 

Secondly, we need to know some things about us as human beings. This is the Man section. First, man is created by God the creator. It says that very plainly in Genesis 1:27. “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.” We were created in the image of God. That means we’re special to God. We’re unique among all the things that God’s made. We were created to be like God. We were created to have a relationship with God and we were created to serve God. That’s what it means, that we’re created in the image of God and we’re special. However, the bad news is this. Every one of us is rebellious against God the king. We have violated God’s laws. We are universally rebellious. 

Now friends, I like Romans 3:10-12 at this moment. Romans 3:23 is helpful, very well known, and you can do that. “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” The thing I like about Romans 3:10-12 is how specific and detailed it is. “As it is written: ‘There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God. All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one.” Do you see how useful that might be? No one righteous. No one’s seeking God. No one doing any good. No one. And it is very clear in that language, isn’t it? Not even one. We are rebellious against God’s laws. So you would say, “You remember, we went through those 10 commandments? Those are familiar to you. Let me talk about a few of them. Okay? Let’s talk about murder.” Jesus, in the Sermon on the Mount said, “You have heard that it was said, you shall not murder.” It says in effect, “I say, if you’re even angry with your brother, you’re in danger of the fire of hell.” And Jesus said, “You have heard that it was said, you shall not commit adultery. But I tell you that if you even look at a woman lustfully, you’ve already committed adultery in your heart.”

We should know from the 10th Commandment, “You shall not covet”, that God is looking at the heart. Coveting is something you do with your heart. And so Jesus is just extending it to all of the commandments. He’s looking at the heart. So even if you haven’t murdered somebody, even if you haven’t actually committed adultery, if you’ve ever been angry or lusted, you’re in danger of hell. And Jesus said on the day of judgment you’ll have to give, Matthew 12:36, you’ll have,” …to give an account on the day of judgment for every careless word [you] they have spoken.” So there’s going to be a meticulous judgment of what you’ve done. And remember the two great commandments as well. Have you loved the Lord your God with all your heart, every moment of your life, and have you loved your neighbor and poured yourself out for the benefit of your neighbor?

Well, at this point, what’s going to happen as you’re talking to somebody, they’re going to say, “That’s crazy. Nobody’s perfect.” And when they say that you’re doing your work. Alright? You’re on the right track. Do they need to be morally perfect to go to heaven? Oh yes they do. Matthew 5:48 says, “You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” God is light. And in him there’s no darkness at all. And if you are darkness, if you are a sinner unforgiven, you will be cast outside into the darkness, Jesus said, where there’s weeping and gnashing of teeth. It says in Romans 6:23, “The wages of sin is death.” And we don’t just mean physical death, but eternal death in hell. So we do mention that threat as Jesus often did. 

So now we come to a key question. How can a sinner like me ever be accepted by a holy God like him? How can that ever happen? Well, now we come to Christ. Now, we come at last to the good news. And you can’t share good news until we’ve had the bad news. You see that, don’t you? They must know that they need salvation in order to cry out for a savior. So do the law work and the law work is the 10 and two. I just would recommend the 10 and two. 10 commandments, two commandments gets everybody. Everybody. All right, everybody. If you can make it through that mesh, I’ve only met one person that looked me in the eye and told me he was sinless. It was a man in Haiti. I thought he was joking at first, but he told me he was sinless. There’s nothing I could do. I talked to him about the 10 Commandments. He basically like the rich young ruler, “All these I’ve kept since my youth.” I said, do you have a mother or a wife? I’d like to talk to one or the other. I’d like to just see what they might say, see what they say. But Jesus, we come to this marvelous title, not just God creator, God king, God lawgiver, God judge, but God the savior. He’s the only one that can save us from his judgment. He’s the only one that can save us from his wrath. And he has through his son Jesus Christ.

I love Isaiah 33:22. It’s just a beautiful, efficient verse for this outline. “For the LORD is our judge, the LORD is our lawgiver, the LORD is our king; it is he who will save us.” If that doesn’t get it done I don’t know what does. Isaiah 33:22. But saved from what? Saved from our sins, saved from death and hell, saved from judgment of God. I love to use Matthew 1:21 here. This is the angel statement to Joseph concerning his betrothed, Mary. “She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.” That’s what Jesus came to do, to save his people from their sins. Well, who was Jesus? Jesus was born of a virgin, that meant he had no human father. He had God as his father, but Mary who was human as his mother. So he was fully God and fully man. He was the son of God and the son of man. John 1:1 and 14 teaches this. “In the beginning was the Word…” and you find out the Word is Jesus, so we could just put the word Jesus in there. “In the beginning was the Word [Jesus] and the Word [Jesus] was with God and the Word [Jesus] was God.” And verse 14, “The Word [Jesus] became flesh…” “The Word [Jesus] became flesh and made his dwelling among us.” And so this teaches the incarnation. He’s fully God, fully man.

Secondly, he did miracles. So like I said, memorize a miracle story. Matthew 11:5 is a summary of miracles. You could do that too. This is what was said to the messengers of John the Baptist, remember. “The blind received sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is preached to the poor.” So just talk about Jesus’ miraculous life. And then, he was sinless. We need to talk about Jesus’s sinlessness because he could be our substitute. 1 Peter 2:22, “He committed no sin, and no deceit was found in his mouth.” Because he was sinless he was able to die in our place on the cross. 1 Peter 2:24, “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed.” 1 Peter 2:24. Again, friends, you can choose other verses if you like. I went through and found what I thought were the most efficient verses that got that point done, but there are many verses you could choose for substitutionary death. Isaiah 53, “All we, like sheep, have gone astray… and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.” And then 2 Corinthians 5:21, beautiful exchange verse on justification. “God made him [Jesus] who had [knew] no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” And so Jesus is offering us an exchange. We take all of our filthy sin and he’ll take it on himself and die under the wrath of God and he will give us his perfect obedience to the law like a beautiful, perfect robe of righteousness and we will wear it through the fires of judgment day on into eternity. We’ll be welcomed as righteous just by faith, just by believing in Jesus, 2 Corinthians 5:21.

But God didn’t leave him dead, on the third day, God raised him from the dead. First Corinthians 15:3-5. “For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised [from the dead] on the third day according to the scriptures…” Jesus has come to offer us beautiful salvation gifts, so many of them, but just focus on these two, forgiveness of sins and eternal life. Forgiveness of sins, Ephesians 1:7, “In [Christ] we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins…” All of your sins can be forgiven, past, present, future, all of them forgiven by the blood of Jesus. And eternal life is offered. Romans 6:23, “For the wages of sin as death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” By the way, on Wednesday night, Kyle Mercer did a phenomenal job sharing one verse evangelism from Romans 6:23. If you don’t want to do God, Man, Christ, Response, just do one verse evangelism out of Roman 6:23. Go to Kyle Mercer and he’ll tell you how to do it. But I mean it’s a great verse.

All right, now we’re to the response. The Philippian jailer said, “What must I do to be saved?” You need to respond to this. What you must do is in Mark 1:15, Jesus said, “The time has come. The kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news!” Repent is a U-turn. You are going in one direction, living one kind of life, now you need to turn toward God away from sin and now follow God. And you must believe the gospel. Believe. What does that mean? Believe that it’s true and believe in it for your own salvation. Think these things you’re saying to me are true, but now I want to step out like as onto a bridge or stepping onto a 747 and trusting your full weight to that airplane, trusting it’ll keep you safe as it lifts off the ground. You’re going to trust Jesus for the forgiveness of your sins and for eternal life. That’s what you must do. What you must not do? Don’t try to earn forgiveness with God. If you believe that you’re a sinner and you know that God’s laws condemn you and you can feel that guilt, the most common thing to do is to try to earn God’s favor by doing good works. But it says in Ephesians 2:8-9, “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith– and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God– not by works, so that no one can boast.” So, you must not work for it and don’t wait for it either. 

Dear friend, you don’t know how long you have to live. You don’t know if you’re going to be alive tomorrow. You know what I’m saying is true. You know of sudden deaths that happen and people didn’t even know that that was their last day or their last night. I’m not trying to be dramatic. I’m just giving you a fair warning. It says in 2 Corinthians 6:2, “In the time of my favor…” this is God speaking to you. “’In the time of my favor I heard you, and in the day of salvation I helped you.’ I tell you, now is the time of God’s favor, now [today] is the day of salvation.” You don’t know that you’ll have tomorrow.

So FBC friends, evangelists, future evangelists, present evangelists, this is where you find out what their response is going to be. God offers them eternal life. There’s all kinds of other verses and things you can talk about that. But at that point, you just need to stop. And I love what Mack Stiles says at this point, this is great. Mack has just a beautiful way with people. Try this. “I think that this is an urgent matter for you. I think this is urgent for you. I think that you understand the gospel now that we’ve had this conversation, and really, what’s left for you is to place your complete faith and trust in Christ. Now, tell me what would be stopping you from doing that?” And just listen, and if they say, “Nothing”, then they’re ready to believe in Christ. Could be they already have. You say, “Wait a minute, they haven’t prayed the sinner’s prayer yet.” Can I tell you about the sinner’s prayer? Every true sinner’s prayer that’s ever been prayed has been prayed by somebody already justified. They were just justified a second before they prayed it. Because we’re justified by prayer? No, we’re justified by faith. But out of that faith will come something out of their mouth. So do I think they should pray? Yes, I do. What should they pray? Whatever they want. What do you mean, whatever? I’m on my own. No, you’re not on your own. You have a savior. What do you want? You’ve heard all these things. What do you want? Well, I’d like to not go to hell. I’d like to go to heaven. I’d like forgiveness. Then tell him. I don’t put words in people’s mouth. I don’t have a pre-printed prayer. And if they don’t know what to say, go back over some things. I would think there’d be some things in here that would make you want something, and then they’re able to call on the name of the Lord and be saved. Alright?

III. Application

I have some applications here, but there are too many of them for now. I’ll get to them in my fifth sermon. I guess what I would say to you is this, memorize this out. First of all, believe this, believe this, as I said. You may be here not for evangelism training; you may be here to be evangelized today. Could be that God brought you here to hear this gospel because you’ve never trusted in Christ. Don’t leave this place unconverted. Do you know that your sins are forgiven? Do you know that you’re going to heaven when you die? If you don’t, then call in the name of the Lord in your heart. Trust in him. Come to Christ. But then, for you as believers, drink this gospel in. I would hope this has made you happy, joyful, powerful, thankful to God, thankful to Jesus, looking forward to heaven, thankful to be delivered from hell. All of these things just should come in your heart. And then it should make you eager to be an evangelist yourself because there’s so many lost people around us. 

Memorize the outline. Just start simple. God, Man, Christ, Response. Start there. Then go sub-themes as we talked about. Be able to share the gospel in one minute. Be able to share it in five minutes. Work on being able to share it in one hour. And the way you do that last one is just start memorizing supporting scriptures. The scripture has converting power, so I recommend that you memorize scripture. Memorize scripture. Finally, I want to ask one simple application thing for yourselves. Memorize these things, whatever. Can I urge based on Ephesians 6:20 and Colossians 4:4. Paul prayed in Ephesians 6:20, “Pray that I may declare it fearlessly, as I should.” Colossians 4:4, “Pray that I may proclaim it clearly, as I should.” They’re almost the exact same expression, just different words. So pray that I may share the gospel boldly and clearly with some people. Ephesians 6:20 and Colossians 4:4.

Can I urge you, collect five Christian friends or family members who will pray that for you daily? Pray that for you daily. Say, would you please pray for me every day that I will share the gospel boldly and clearly with someone? I believe if we could get that kind of prayer support going for one another, there’s all kinds of good things that are going to come from that. And God will answer that prayer and we’ll have some opportunities. Who knows, but maybe within three or four months or less, we’ll have the testimony of somebody that says, “Well, I came up to a member of your church and ask them, can you tell me how to become a Christian?” And we’ll all laugh. And they’ll be like, “What happened here?” Because there was a specific bunch of prayers, hundred prayers for that one. And God gave it to you, an opportunity to share. Close with me in prayer. Father, I thank you for the gospel message. I thank you for what it teaches us, for its power, for its purity, for all of the things that we can learn from. And oh God, I pray, make us evangelists. Oh Lord, help us to just soak in like we’re under the rays of the sun, soak in the truth and the beauty of this gospel, but help us to go empowered to share it with others. We pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.