Do You Know What Christ Said the Gospel Is?
Last month I posed the question: What would happen if we were willing to take prayer “out of the prayer closet” and into the marketplace?
I also posited that if we were willing to do so and share that power with others on the spot, they might want to learn how to tap into that power themselves.
And even want you to teach them that as well!
It might necessitate that you actually proclaim the Gospel to them. And I dare you to ask yourself a question, and attempt to answer it.
Do you actually know what the Gospel is?
And how would you go about stating it?
No Lack of Models to Pull From
There is no lack of well-worn models for us to pull from in explaining the Gospel of Jesus Christ to others.
A popular one for years has been called the “Roman Road” model. The accompanying graphic pictures this popular approach to declaring the Gospel.1
Similar to that is the approach shared in this graphic 2
As you notice it details three propositional conditions:
1.Our problem, which is sin and death.
2.God’s remedy, which is Christ.
3.Our response which includes believe, confess, repent and baptism.
There are other models as well, many of which have been used successfully to awaken people to God’s love for us in Jesus.
But How Did Jesus Preach the Gospel?
A breakthrough in understanding how Jesus preached the Gospel changed not only my preaching but also my approach to sharing the good news God wanted to share with the world.
And as wonderful as many have found the above models to be, none of the above steps were mentioned. It was a totally new approach, and it’s an approach I’d like to help us flesh out as we hopefully become more successful in sharing the Gospel in Marketplace settings.
Let’s go to the book of Mark and see how Jesus preached the Good News.
Mark 1
New International Version
John the Baptist Prepares the Way
1 The beginning of the good news about Jesus the Messiah, the Son of God …
Pause right here.
What does Mark, who probably was communicating the sermons of Peter, say the “good news” was all about?
The simple answer, if you take it directly from the text, is this: “The good news,” he says, was simply “about Jesus the Messiah, the Son of God.”
Period. It was simply the good news that the Son of God had come. Period. It was about recognizing that he was the Son of God. Period. And about what he did by simply coming to the earth. And the simple news that God’s Son had truly come to the earth.
And notice what happens in the next few verses (4-8). John the Baptist appears in the wilderness. He preaches the baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins and baptizes them in water. He promises that someone greater than he would come, and that he would literally baptize them in the Holy Spirit of God (imagine being immersed permanently into the “ocean of life” that God is.
Jesus, the restored model of humanity, the new Adam, the new creation, emerges out of the waters of baptism himself as he was baptized on behalf of all (verses 9-10). The heavens are “torn open”—and that’s a pretty significant event because the impenetrable barrier between this reality and God’s reality is forever made open for the created order. The Holy Spirit (free God WiFi) is seen descending remaining on a human being (Jesus, the New Adam, who would be and become and do and share everything the earthy Adam failed to do and share to infect humanity not with original sin, but original life) (verses 10-11). On our behalf, the “New Adam” does everything right that we have done wrong in the face of Satan’s best shot (verses 12-13).
And finally, Jesus, the New Adam, the Way, the Truth, and the Life, comes back to his brother and sister humans and declares his version of the Gospel.
Jesus Announces His Version of the Good News
14 After John was put in prison, Jesus went into Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God. 15 “The time has come,” he said. “The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!”
“The time has finally come!”
“The Kingdom of God is no longer far away, or inaccessible, or remote and forever alien from us.”
“The Kingdom of God has come near!”
God is much closer to you than you think!
“Repent,” he urges, “and believe the good news.”
In this case, it’s not even “Repent of your oft-repeated failures and inability to stop sinning!”
It’s not even seeing yourself as worthless and detached from God.
It’s more like repenting of your negative lack of hope!
Repent of your false view of your ineligibility to be loved by God.
Repent of thinking that the God that we’ve sinned against hates us so much that we have to jump through hopes to make Him like us again.
God has brought the Kingdom of Heaven near! At hand! To the world! And you!
Repent! And start living like this is true!
What really happened when God sent his son, and how can share the good news in ways that it really sounds like good news and it inspires people to the point that they can’t wait to confess their sins and join Jesus in His Spirit-filled life, the life he intended for us all in the Garden of Eden with the Tree of Life?
That’s what we’ll look at in the next few installments of this series. But for now, just keep in mind. When Jesus preached the Gospel, he didn’t preach the Roman Road. He didn’t draw graphs with chasms and bridges that visualized for us our worthlessness and inaccessibility.
He said, in effect, “Sing Hallelujah, come on get happy.”
The Kingdom of Heaven is not far away! An unstoppable rift in the time-space continuum has been opened.
It’s now near!
1: Roman_Road-2000×1200-1-1536×922.png (1536×922) (shareromansroad.com)
2: Hopewell AME Church – Salvation