There are many ways of presenting the gospel and you need to stick with one and get used to it. In this chapter, I will explain to you pretty much what the gospel message is, and different ways people present it.
The Gospel
Four (4) parts
God, Us, Christ And, You.
- God
He has 4 attributes: loving, holy and just. He extends love to us even though we keep sinning and disobeying him. In holiness, he is so pure that when that pure shining light is shined on us, our sins are all exposed. Injustice, he doesn’t wink at broken law. It must be punished.
- Us
God created us perfectly till we sinned and we started to do evil. His holiness exposes our sinfulness, and the penalty of death is looming over everyone in this world both physical and spiritual death.
- Christ
Christ is God and man at the same time. In love, as God, he devised a way to save man, and as the man, he executed the plan in himself. It fulfilled the holiness and justice part of him so that our sins were now paid for. If anyone accepted the payment, they would be forgiven.
- You
If you can accept that payment, you are forgiven.
Questions About The Role Of Christ
Why doesn’t he just forgive and forget? It’s like having a car and smashing into my car. I can forgive you, but someone has to pay for the dent. That’s Jesus.
Why Christ, an innocent bystander pay for the debt? He isn’t an innocent bystander but God himself in the flesh. He paid the debt himself.
Philippians 2:6-8
Illustrations To Make The Message Clear
Do Vs. Done
All religions you do things to get to God and for him to forgive you and earn his favor. The problem is you never know when you have done enough like a salesman with a quota he doesn’t know.
Worse Romans 3:23 says we can never meet that quota, but Christianity had spelled us DONE because what is needed is already done by Jesus Christ when he came to die for our sins and lived a perfect life and paid for our penalty by dying and raising up on the 3rd day.
To become a Christian, you need to humbly accept this gift of forgiveness and commit to following his leadership. When you do that, he adopts you into his family and changes you from the inside out.
The Roman Road:
- Romans 3:23
- Romans 6:23
- Romans 5:8
- Romans 10:13
- Ephesians 2:8-9
- John 5:24
Has anyone ever taken a Bible and shown you how you can know if you are going to Heaven?
May I?
1. The Bible contains both bad news and good news. The bad news is something about you, and the right news is something about God.
2. You are a sinner, Romans 3:23, explain sin and illustrate with the rock.
3. The bad news gets even worse, the penalty for sin is death, Romans 6:23, tell wages.
4. You agree this is bad news. When God realized that nothing we can do could bring us to him, he decided to come to you.
5. Christ died for you, Romans 5:8 and explained with cancer. He rose up on day 3 to prove that it had been conquered.
6. You can be saved through faith, Ephesians 2:8-9, explain save, grace and faith. Illustrate with the chair.
7. If you place your trust in Christ alone who died for you then will you receive heaven as a gift.
8. Is there anything that is keeping you from trusting Christ right now?
9. Would you want to pray or have me pray with you?
10. Please repeat how you receive the gift of heaven again to me.
11. Assurance of salvation, John 5:24 and go over the verbs.
Sports Illustration
Describe how that competition gets into an all-sports hall of fame and makes it that they need to hit 1.0 or have a 1.0 score for 5 consecutive years. There will be no one. Link that with Romans 3:23.
Jesus subbed us and came to do that so if we receive him, we receive the gift of salvation.
Airport Illustration
Some people know a lot about aviation, airports, statistics about planes, you may know and speak to the pilots, and all but when you don’t board a plane to fly, it’s no good. The real deal is on getting on the aircraft. That’s giving your life to the one who died for you.
The Personal Story Illustration
Do you have your own testimony of how you came to give your life to Jesus Christ?