It’s essential as believers that we know how to clearly articulate the good news of the gospel. And as much as the message of the gospel is for the lost and for evangelizing, it’s also for the saved and we should be preaching the gospel daily to ourselves. And so, even if it takes memorizing at first, Psalm 119, God’s word is sweeter than honey and it will only become of greater treasure to you. And so, this is how I learned to share the gospel. I hope it encourages you and I hope it equips you to share it faithfully as well.
And so, the message of the gospel is best understood in four parts. So you have God, Man, Christ and Response.
God
God is the creator of heaven and earth. He is a holy, righteous, real, good, just, and loving father. He is a triune God. God the father, God the son, and God the holy spirit. He is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent.
Man
Man’s chief problem is not how much money we make. It’s not our politics, but it’s sin. And the reason that sin is so significant is because it separates us from God. Romans 3:23 says, “For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.” And so this applies to all of humanity and no one is exempt from this reality. And even the things that we would deem as small is still significant enough to separate us from God.
And so you have a holy and perfect God. You have a broken and fallen man. And now we need a solution because without a solution, we’re on a one-way track toward a dark day of judgment. But God in his loving kindness and in his mercy says “I will send my son Jesus Christ to die in their place.”
And the reason that there has to be death and the shedding of blood is because sin requires payment. Romans 6:23 says the wages of sin is death and God is a holy God. And so he’d be unjust to say that sin is no big deal. And instead he looks on us and says, “I love my creation so much I will send my son, Jesus Christ, to die in their place.”
And so that brings us to Christ,
Christ
Fully God, fully man. Came from heaven, lived a holy, perfect, sinless life that we can never live. died a brutal, complete, and painful death on a Roman cross, taking on the full wrath of God, paying for sins past, present, and future. And the devil thought that he won, but Christ rose from the grave 3 days later as a declaration to say that death has no victory.
Death has no sting. 2 Corinthians 5:21, he made him to be sin, who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. And so now the father says,
“If you put your faith in my son and you believe he rose from the grave, I no longer see you in your sin, but I look through my son Jesus Christ on the cross and I see you washed, cleansed, forgiven, mine.”
And that is how we enter heaven. Not faith in ourselves or in our good works or anything that we can offer, but faith in Christ alone.
Response
Joshua 24:15, choose this day whom you will serve. Will you put your faith in Christ? Will you repent of your sins? Will you say,
“God, you are my Lord. You are my Savior. I give you my hopes, my dreams, my success, my failure. You’re my fears, my guilt, my shame, my sin. God, please save me. Give me a new heart and reconcile me to you.”
And for those who put their faith in Christ and they repent and believe, then death will not be the end, but death will be the beginning of eternal life.
And that is the message of the gospel, my friends. May we never grow old or weary or tired or calloused to the trans-formative power of the good news of Christ.
