LESSON TWO:
WHAT THE GOSPEL IS AND ISN’T
A. Teaching and Questions
Question: Does a believer have to do a good deed for an unsaved person in order to evangelize that person? Remember, we’re not talking about method or the best way to evangelize, yet.
No, a believer does not have to do a good deed for an unsaved person in order to evangelize that person.
Question: Can an unsaved person get saved without being the recipient of a good deed from a believer?
Obviously, yes, or the salvation of the lost would depend on believers! Not a good idea.
So, doing good deeds is not part of the Gospel.
Question: Did Jesus do good deeds? Yes! Tons of them. Why did He do them?
Mark 1:35-38. He did them in order to draw people’s attention to His message.
Re-read verse 38: “Let us go elsewhere, to the towns nearby, so that I may preach there also; for THAT is what I came out for.”
Jesus did not come to make everybody’s life easier, or He would have cured everybody with one command, “Hardships, be gone!” and every person in the world would have a comfortable life. Jesus didn’t do any good deeds outside of Israel.
Why not? Because He didn’t care about anybody else? No, but because the good deeds He did in Israel were enough to convince the world that His gospel message was true.
So what is the message of the Gospel? Three parts.
Parts 1 & 2. First Corinthians 15:3-4. "For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, 5 and that He appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve"
Part 3. Mark 1:4. "John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins."
First Corinthians 16:22. "If anyone does not love the Lord, he is to be accursed."
Another passage: Romans 10:9. “If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.”
So the Gospel is NOT about ANYBODY doing good deeds. And although good deeds can have a place in an evangelistic method, those good deeds are not part of the gospel.
Remember Paul’s experience in prison which he wrote about in Philippians 1:12-18? The guards were making fun of the gospel, but people were getting saved from what the guards were saying! The message, not the method.
Why am I emphasizing this?
Do you know who Francis of Assisi was?
He was a Catholic priest who founded the religious order of the Franciscans. He lived in Assisi, Italy, in 1181-1226. Somebody misquoted him as saying, “Preach the gospel at all times. Use words if necessary.”
In the first place, Francis never said that. Read this article to learn that: Works and Words: Why You Can't Preach the Gospel with Deeds
In the second place, the gospel message is a verbal or written message and has to be communicated in writing or speaking (or touch for the blind). Unsaved people cannot get saved by watching a Christian do good deeds. But they can get saved by hearing or reading the message of the gospel whether Christians do good deeds or not.
Question: Can a person who is stranded on a desert island get saved by
reading a New Testament that just dropped out of the sky?
Obviously, yes. Believers do not preach the gospel with their actions alone. Their good deeds point toward the gospel message. Their good deeds are not the message. The power of the gospel does not lie within us. It lies in the message of the gospel.
Some believers claim that if Christians would live more godly
lives, more people would get saved. If that's the case, then God can't save people because Christians aren't good
enough.
Hogwash. The access to the gospel and the power of the gospel do not depend on the strengths or weaknesses of believers. This is extremely important when we enter the world of evangelism.
A side note.
Some believers spend all their time in social work, a
worthy cause that will always be praised by the world. Evangelism will
never be praised by the world. Telling people that Jesus is the only way
into heaven will be despised by the world. Some missionaries have
actually replaced evangelism with more comfortable “ministries” of
social work. If we have to choose between evangelism and any other type
of ministry, which one would Jesus tell us to choose? Read the following verses and let them help you decide. Matthew 28:19-20; Mark 16:15-18; Luke 24:46-49; John
17:18; John 20:21-23; Acts 1:8; Acts 10:42. I wonder if God is
pleased with believers who help lots of people, but omit the gospel
along the way? I wonder if any Christian organization that “educates”
believers, but leaves out evangelism, is obeying those seven passages of
Scripture? “Holistic” Christianity is not holistic without the verbal message of the Gospel.
B. Assignments
1. Which one is biblical evangelism?
A) Leaving a Bible on a table in the lobby of a hotel for someone to randomly pick up and read
Or
B) Doing something nice for an unsaved friend
A clearer question: which one contains the message of the Gospel?
Which one should you do?
2. For lesson two: Think about these questions.
A) Does God need believers to evangelize the unsaved?
B) Does God love everybody?
C) Does He love everybody equally?
D) Does God want everybody saved?
E) What does God do to get everybody saved?
F) Does everybody get saved?
G) Why not?