Welcome to Part 4 of the mini-series on explaining the Gospel!
Part 1 introduced the series,
Part 2 answered why we need the gospel,
Part 3 explained what the gospel does to save us,
and today we will understand how the gospel is applied to us.

As was stated last week, we are saved through faith (not to be confused with by faith). In other words, it is the means through which salvation is applied to us. Therefore, we need an adequate definition of what faith actually is.

The Dictionary defines faith like this: “confidence or trust in a person or thing.”

That is a decent definition, but I think it is incomplete. Let me explain.

A few years ago I went to New Zealand and had an incredible time. One of my best memories was bungee jumping off the Kawarau Bridge. The bridge is 43 meters (141 feet) above a river and the location of the world’s first commercial bungee jump.

Bungee jumping was a life dream of mine, so I seized the opportunity. As I got strapped in, I overheard one of the workers telling a nervous jumper that in 20 years, no one has died jumping. “Of course no one has died,” I thought, “these bungees are perfectly safe. Otherwise, they could never run a business!”

Free Falling

Everyone who jumped ahead of me was visibly nervous. Some wanted to walk away, but eventually they all jumped. When it was my turn, I naturally wanted to prove my manliness by not showing any traces of fear.

When I looked over the edge, however, my manliness forgot to show up. I was terrified. The entire canyon seemed to shift and grow both wider and deeper. All of a sudden, my faith in the “perfectly safe” bungee came into question. “What if my feet slipped? What if the tension is off? What if a crocodile jumps out of the river like in that youtube video?!”

You see, faith is more than just having confidence or trust in something or someone. True faith consists of dependency on that particular thing or person. Sure, I had “faith” the bungee cord would keep me safe when I was standing on the sidelines, but it was a different story when I stood on the edge of the bridge.

When I actually jumped, I put my faith into practice and literally depended on the rope to save me. The same is true about faith in Christ. We are not called to simply stand on the sidelines and believe he has power to save. We are called to depend on him for our salvation and to live our lives in that dependency. We must recognize that our chances of saving ourselves for eternity are equal to my chances of bungee jumping without a rope and then flying out of the canyon in my own power. We simply cannot save ourselves through our own power!

There is one reason I will dwell with God in eternity, and it has nothing to do with me. Doing good works cannot pull me out of the canyon! Only the good work of Christ can. He pulled me out of the wreckage of my sin, and now I have new life in Him.

As exciting as bungee jumping was, a life with Christ is even better.

The Adventure starts with faith.

Next week, we will seek to understand how we live our lives in light of our faith.

Last week we talked about why we need the Gospel. We established the very serious problem of sin: it destroys us and rends our relationship with God. The Gospel is our only hope of resolving this problem, and today we will look at how the Gospel hope is actualized.

2 Common Errors:

When trying to understand or explain the Gospel, there are two mistakes that people often make. Both can be corrected with a proper understanding of Ephesians 2:8-9.

You're odds of saving yourself are less than lifting this mountain with your hands

1) I am saved from my sin by good works: Almost all religions endorse this view. If you want to be made right with God, you must do good works. If you do enough good works, God will forgive you and restore you into relationship with Him.  This means you get to go to Heaven!

Unfortunately, this belief is not Biblical and not true. As Romans 3:23 says, “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” If we want to be made right with God, then we must be perfect. 1 sin in an entire lifetime ruins the relationship, and no amount of good works can return you to perfection. Ephesians 2:9 clears this up, your salvation is “not a result of works.”

The good news: pressure relief! We can stop worrying about following every rule and being good, because it won’t help our case! The bad (or maybe good) news: We can do nothing to save ourselves!

2) I am saved by my faith: This mistake may seem picky, but it has important implications. Most of the time, when someone asks how you are saved, we respond “by faith.” This, however, is not true.
We are not saved by faith, we are saved by grace through faith. So what does that mean?

Grace, by definition, is a free and unmerited gift. This means that Jesus saves us. His death and resurrection is a free gift he gave to us, even though we do not deserve it. At the risk of sounding repeatedly repitious, our faith does not save us. Jesus’s gift saves us.

Why Did Jesus Need to Die?

Romans 6:23 says “the wages of sin is death.” Because of my sin and your sin, we deserve death. This may seem harsh, but it reflects the horrible nature of sin. God could not have simply ignored our sin. He is a just God, and will never overlook sin without bringing it to justice. The price for sin had to be paid, either by ourselves or by a worthy substitute.

Jesus, God’s son, is the only person who could fulfill the role of substitute. God, desiring to restore the relationship between himself and man, chose to send His son to die in our place. If Jesus had sinned, he could not have taken our sin upon himself in death because he himself would have deserved death. But he did not sin, and therefore he could die in our place, taking the punishment we deserved upon himself. There is a big word for this, “propitiation,” and it simply means that Jesus was our substitute and died in our place.

If Jesus did not die, our faith would get us nowhere. His gift alone saved us from our sins.

So What’s the Point of Faith?

The death of Christ does not cover the sins of everyone, however. It only covers the sins of those who, through faith, accept the gift of grace he gave. Faith, then, has a pivotal and essential role. It is the means through which we receive the salvation God gave us. We do not receive the gift of God through works, but through faith alone.

Next week, we will take a deeper look at faith and seek to understand what it truly means to believe in God.

I work with a variety of students and adults who desire to serve God. One thing I always want to make sure of is their ability to share the gospel. Some of them have been in the church for years, while others are new to the faith. I have learned that, regardless of their years in the church, you can never assume someone’s complete knowledge of the Gospel.

Most conversations tend to go something like this:

Me: OK guys, I would love for you to explain the Gospel to me.

Student Leader(s): They are four of the books of the New Testament!

Me: Yes, that is true, but when I ask about the gospel, I want to know the message of those books.

Student Leader(s): Oh! Well then it means you you have to believe if you want to be saved!

Me: Good answer! But what does it mean to believe?

Student Leader(s): It means you’ve got to have faith.

Me: Ok, so what does it mean to have faith?

Student Leader(s): It means you believe.

Me: (In attempts to end the endless circle) Let me rephrase this question, what do I need to believe?

Student Leader(s): That Jesus died for your sins on the cross.

Me: Why did he have to die and what are sins?

This conversation goes on for a while

Typically, even though students know most of the right answers, they are not equipped to effectively share them in a logical and meaningful way. In smaller groups, I can almost always get them to piece together the entire Gospel story, but it takes some time.

I have, however, also heard plenty of other responses that miss the mark. “You have to follow the 10 Commandments to get into Heaven.” “If you’re basically good and you tell the truth God will save you.” “You just have to go to church.”

Why the Unclarity?

I often wonder why some people can spend so much time in the church and still struggle to share the Gospel clearly and quickly. Here are some of the top theories:

1) No one has trained them! Simply attending church does not necessarily equip you to share the Gospel. We need someone to intentionally train us.

2) Christianese: We tend to use our own words and vocabulary that are specific to Christianity. We’ve heard the terms thousands of times, but never truly think about what they mean. Christianese terms include: believe, repent, saved, God’s son, and so many more. These terms aren’t always bad, but we must understand what they mean!

3) Too many messages: We hear approximately 14.3 gazillion messages a day in the information age. With all these ideas flying around, it can be easy to forget truth. For this reason, it is extremely important that we are constantly reminded of the simple, complete truth of the Gospel. If not, we will lose clarity on the most important message of all time.

Moving Forward

Over the next few weeks, I will be laying out the Gospel as clearly as possible. It doesn’t matter if you have never heard the Gospel or have heard it 501 times, you can never hear it too much. Every time I study it, I appreciate it and understand it more. For this reason, we teach our students the complete Gospel multiple times a year. Not surprisingly, we have found that teaching the Gospel actually helps them understand it and explain it better.

Crazy, I know, but I bet the same thing will happen for you.