Have you ever been tongue tied when trying to share the gospel? Have you ever tried to share your faith, get off topic, and end up down some rabbit trail where you are as confused as your listener? Why is it that the very message that we have embraced, the message that has transformed our lives, the message that we would confess is the most important news we have ever heard, is often so difficult to share with someone else?

If you’ve wrestled with these questions, you are not alone. Most Christians, if honest, would probably agree that they should be sharing the gospel more often than they are, and one of the main reasons they don’t share their faith is that they don’t know what to say.

Greg Gilbert, an assistant pastor at Capitol Hill Baptist Church in Washington DC, has written an excellent little book simply called What is the Gospel? In just over 100 pages, Gilbert offers a clear presentation and explanation of the essential elements of the gospel message. I highly recommend this book!

In the process of answering the question What is the Gospel?, Gilbert also hopes to accomplish a few other things, as he states in his introduction…

First, if you are a Christian, I pray that this little book—and more importantly, the glorious truths it attempts to articulate—will cause your heart to swell with joy and praise toward Jesus Christ for what he has accomplished for you.

Second, I hope that reading this book will give you a deeper confidence as you talk to others about the good news of Jesus.

Third, I pray that you will see the importance of this gospel for the life of the church, and that as a result you will work to make sure that this gospel is preached, sung, prayed, taught, proclaimed, and heard in every aspect of your church’s life.

Fourth, I hope this book will help to shore up the edges of the gospel in your mind and heart.

Finally, if you’re not a Christian, then I pray that by reading this book you will be provoked to think hard about the good news of Jesus Christ.

For the sake of His name,

Pastor Dave

* This is a “guest post” by Dr. Doug Bookman.  Dr. Bookman is the professor of New Testament Exposition at Shepherd’s Theological Seminary in North Carolina.  He is also my teacher and dear friend.  Dr. Bookman has given me permission to post some of his articles on the person of Christ and I thought it appropriate to start with this reflection on Christmas.

The reality of the incarnation is so central to our faith that for two millennia every expression of Christianity that could make any claim to orthodoxy has busied itself articulating and defending and honoring that sublime verity. Nor could there be a more noble or God-honoring busy-ness to which we might give ourselves!  But might it be that in the course of those two thousand years we have become altogether too accustomed  to the notion of the God-man, that we have lost something of the wonder that ought to grip us as we contemplate that reality?  Even as the season especially given to the celebration of the nativity of our Lord passes, it is appropriate to take a moment to consciously contemplate the bottomless mystery intrinsic to that narrative.

I wonder whether God has ever set before men any truth that more thoroughly drives then to their knees in humble submission than this: The Word became flesh! How it scandalized the sensibilities of the Jewish generation to whom the man Jesus was initially revealed.  And well it might have.  Throughout her history, Israel was surrounded by pagan peoples who professed belief in whole companies of pretender gods.  Those puny “wanna-be” deities were said to live just outside of town on this or that mountain; they were wickedly and selfishly regarded as gods, but in fact they were nothing more than men-blown-big.  They lusted big and battled big, but in no sense did they transcend the things of this earth.  To the contrary, Yahweh, the God of Israel, had revealed Himself as holy, as transcendent, as ontologically separate from this universe in all of its parts, as the Maker of all that exists outside of Himself.  In short, central to all that the God of Israel revealed concerning Himself is this: Yahweh God is not a man!  And yet here was a man standing before that generation of Israel claiming to be God!  It is almost impossible for men today to appreciate how desperately difficult it must have been to bow the knee to such a claim.  But Jesus did many signs (Ac 2:22), and even given the claim to deity all that Jesus taught was entirely consistent with that which God had revealed in days gone by (Ac 17:11; Isa 8:20).  Thus were men brought to their knees in humble submission to the blessed but unspeakably difficult truth: indeed, the Word has become flesh!

But before there was a God-man, there was a God-baby. Here is a helpless child, recently born into ignominy and want, lying in a stone manger. Luke’s staggeringly sublime telling of the story of that birth includes the poignant remembrance that “Mary treasured up all these things, pondering them in her heart” (2:19).  What things she had to ponder!  The visit of an angel with the message that she, a peasant maiden residing in the most despised village in all of the land, would bear the promised Messiah.  The unmistakable recognition of the Baby newly gestating in her womb by another yet unborn child who had been growing for six months in the womb of Mary’s aged cousin, Elizabeth. The experience of giving birth to a child while she was yet a virgin.  The arrival of a company of shepherds to the humble place where the Baby had been born, and the story told by those shepherds of a company of angels who had assured them that they would find that royal Babe resting in an animal’s feeding trough. The young woman could not deny the reality of all that, and yet her soul/spirit staggered at it nonetheless.  And would we not be advantaged to ponder the bottomless wonder of those events, and especially the marvel of the central event of the narrative, the eternal Word made flesh!  Embrace that truth – celebrate it, share it, defend it!  But in all of that, vigilantly guard your spirit so that you never for a moment get used to it.

W.G.T. Shedd was a theological professor back in the late 1800s.  I was first reluctantly turned on to his writings when I was required to read his massive Systematic Theology, while in seminary. I have since come to enjoy his conservative theology and writing style. The following is an essay he wrote regarding evangelism.

–Pastor Dave

The Certain Success of Evangelism

W. G. T. Shedd

Inasmuch as each and every disciple of Christ is bound to contribute his share towards the evangelization of the globe, it becomes an interesting and important question, “Is the work feasible?” May it not be that the church is attempting too much? The greater part of the world is still pagan and totally ignorant of God in Christ. And a considerable part of nominal Christendom consists of unrenewed men who are as distant from heaven as the heathen, so far as the new birth is concerned.

How can the church at large, and the individual Christian, be certain that they are not undertaking a work that is intrinsically impossible of performance? No laborer desires to spend his strength for naught. It was one of the torments of pagan hell perpetually to roll a stone up a hill, and just as it reached the summit, perpetually to see it slip from the hands and roll back to the bottom.

We propose to mention some reasons that make it certain that evangelistic labor will succeed. The effort of the church to preach Christ crucified will no more fail of its effect than the rain will fail to water the earth and cause the seeds that are sown in it to germinate (Isa. 55:10).

We argue and derive the certainty of success in evangelistic labor, in the first place, from the nature of God’s truth. There is something in the quality and characteristics of the doctrine which we are commanded to preach to every creature that promises and prophesies a triumph.

We need to keep this fact in view if we would see any ground of certainty for the success of the Christian evangelist. Unless he is commissioned to teach something that is superhuman; something that did not originate with the sphere of earth and of man; something that is not found in the literatures of the world; he will spend his strength for naught. The apostles of human reason, the inventors of human systems, and their disciples, have labored for six thousand years without radically changing a single individual man, or converting any of the sin and misery of earth into the holiness and happiness of heaven. And if the Christian herald does not go entirely beyond their sphere and proclaim truths from another and higher world, he will only repeat their futile endeavor. He must teach the Word and commandments of God�a higher doctrine than the commandments of man, a wisdom superior to that of any people, Hebrew or Hindu, Greek or Roman.

God’s Special Interest in His Word

We argue the certain success of evangelistic labor, in the second place, from the fact that God feels a special interest in his own Word.

This fact is clearly taught in Isaiah 55. “My word,” says God by his prophet, “shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.” Here is personal interest and personal supervision. These doctrines relating to the salvation and destiny of man are not sent forth from heaven as lonely messengers to make their way as best they can. The Third Person of the Trinity goes with them. He exerts an influence through them that is undefinable but is almighty and irresistible within its own sphere and in its own way. For there is not a human heart upon the globe, whose hardness cannot be penetrated by the combined operation of the Word and Spirit of God.

In this fact, then, we find a second ground of certainty of success for evangelistic endeavor. You may proclaim all your days, your own ideas, or those of your fellow men, but you will say with Grotius, at the close of a long and industrious career: “I have spent my life in laboriously doing nothing.” But if you have passed your days in teaching the unevangelized and conveying into their dark and blinded understandings the truths of the law and gospel, you may say, at the close of life, as you sum up your work: “I have erected a monument more durable than brass. I have taught the Word of God that liveth and abideth forever, to many human souls.”

The same law that rules in the individual experience prevails in the larger sphere of mission. There must be a ceasing to look at the creature and an absorbing, empowering looking to the Creator and Redeemer. No sinner obtains peace until he sees that God’s grace is greater than his sins. So long as his sins look larger than God’s mercy, so long he must despair. Precisely so is it with efforts to save the souls of men. The church will not be instrumental in evangelizing the globe, unless it believes that God the Holy Spirit is more mighty than man’s corruption. So long as the work looks too great to be accomplished; so long as the ignorance, vice, brutality, and apathy of the sinful masses all around seem insuperable by any power human or divine; so long there will be no courageous and confident labor for human welfare. No missionary would ever have gone upon his errand of love, had his eye been taken from God and fixed solely upon man and man’s hopeless condition.

Do you think that the apostles would have started out from the little corner of Palestine to convert the Greco-Roman world to a new religion if their vision had been confined to earth? Apart from the power and promise of God, the preaching of such a religion as Christianity, to such a population as that of paganism, is the sheerest quixotism. It crosses all the inclinations and condemns all the pleasures of guilty man. The preaching of the gospel finds its justification, its wisdom, and its triumph, only in the attitude and relation which the infinite and almighty God sustains to it. It is his religion, and therefore it must ultimately become a universal religion.

Excerpted from Professor Shedd’s Sermons to the Spiritual Man (1884). Reprinted from New Horizons, May 2003.

“The one who offers thanksgiving as his sacrifice glorifies me;

to one who orders his way rightly I will show the salvation of God!”

Psalm 50:23

Thanksgiving is coming. There are so many things I love about Thanksgiving: the kids being home from school, time with family, preparing a big meal and then slowing down long enough to enjoy it. All of these things are good.

There are scores of verses in the Bible about giving thanks. One of the verses that always makes me stop, pause and reflect is the verse above from Psalm 50, “The one who offers thanksgiving as his sacrifice glorifies me”. The giving of thanks brings glory to God. Being thankful honors God. Being thankful magnifies (makes much of) God. Why? Why does it honor God to be a thankful person? Because it puts God in the right place in out lives. Thanksgiving recognizes that God is the giver of good gifts. Thanksgiving brings glory to God because it shows God to be big!

But there is a flip side to this reality and one that I believe strikes at the heart of the lack of gratitude so often present in our lives. To be thankful, I must be humbled. To be a thankful person, I must recognize I am not self-sufficient. Thanksgiving flows form a heart that has been humbled. This is at the heart of the second half of this verse; Salvation comes to the one who is thankful because thanksgiving is evidence of a life that has been properly ordered. Thanksgiving is evidence of someone who has acknowledged their need for God, their need for salvation, their need for a Savior.

This is not a trite word of thanksgiving offered up to God one day of the year. This is the humbling reality of ordering my life rightly under the hand of an all mighty God whose salvation I desperately need. Offering thanksgiving is evidence of a heart that has been humbled by the reality of what Christ has done on the cross. Giving thanks is characteristic of a heart that brings glory to God because it has recognized its own insufficiency, its own weakness and has turned to the cross.

To say “thank you” to God is profound, it is humbling and it brings Him glory.

…further reflections on Romans 1:16 – 17(ESV)

“For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.”“

“I greatly longed to understand Paul’s Epistle to the Romans and nothing stood in the way but that one expression, ‘the justice of God,’ [Rom. 1:17] because I took it to mean that justice whereby God is just and deals justly in punishing the unjust. My situation was that, although an impeccable monk, I stood before God as a sinner troubled in conscience, and I had no confidence that my merit would assuage him. Therefore I did not love a just and angry God, but rather hated and murmured against him.
Yet I clung to the dear Paul and had a great yearning to know what he meant. Night and day I pondered until I saw the connection between the justice of God and the statement that ‘the just shall live by his faith’ [Rom. 1:17]. Then I grasped that the justice of God is that righteousness by which through grace and sheer mercy God justifies us through faith. Thereupon I felt myself to be reborn and to have gone through open doors into paradise. The whole of Scripture took on a new meaning, and whereas the ‘justice of God’ had filled me with hate, now it became to me inexpressively sweet in greater love. This passage of Paul became to me a gate of heaven.”

— Martin Luther
Luther’s Works, Vol 34, ed. Helmut L. Lehmann
(Minneapolis, MN.: Fortress Press, 1960), 337

“When our conscience won’t quiet down as it should, when we’ve taken ourselves over and over to Calvary in repentance, we’ve got to declare to our self-condemning hearts, ‘My righteousness isn’t made up of repentance, my good record, or even my faith. No, I’ve got the righteousness of God. If that’s not enough for you, you proud, demanding conscience, nothing will be! Now, silence yourself before the love of this great God. Rather than spend time thinking about your demands, I now choose to rejoice in all God’s done for me.’”

— Elyse M. Fitzpatrick and Dennis E. Johnson
Counsel From the Cross
(Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway Books, 2009), 120

What makes you pound the table? Is there a particular issue close to your heart, that really makes you passionate? As you look at our world, do you see things that just make your soul cry out, “This is not right! This is not the way it is supposed to be!”? On a recent plane trip I was talking with a fellow passenger who was filming a documentary for PBS on family law, particularly our divorce court system. As we talked, I could sense how this project has taken a toll on his soul. This man has been recording story after story of heartache and misery. As far as I knew he was not a believer, but he had witnessed up close the ugliness of sin.

Recently, I have had the joy of teaching through the book of Daniel. What a great book! In the midst of Israel’s darkest days, God, in his glorious, sovereignty, shines through bringing hope to Daniel and to his people.

In chapter nine, we see what makes Daniel pound the table, we see what he is most passionate about.  Daniel has witnessed the destruction of the nation of Israel. Because of their wickedness and rebellion, God’s specially chosen people had been taken captive and had been living for several decades under the subjection of pagan kings who worship false gods. Daniel has held high rank in the courts of some of the most powerful kings in human history including the infamous Nebuchadnezzar. He has seen God demonstrate his sovereign power and rule over all nations, people and languages, yet God’s people, Daniel’s people are still exiles.

Then in chapter nine, as Daniel is reading the Scriptures, he realizes that the time of exile was coming to an end. Soon the Hebrews would return to the Promised Land. In response, Daniel prays.  Daniel’s reading of the Scripture, motivates him to pray and informs his prayers.

The content of Daniel’s prayer is fascinating. He does not call for the destruction of Israel’s enemies.  He does not ask for prosperity for himself or for his people. Rather, he humbles himself before God, and confesses the sins of his people.

He declares in verse seven, “To you, O Lord, belongs righteousness, but to us open shame…” and later in verses eight and nine, “To us, O Lord, belongs open shame…to the Lord our God belong mercy and forgiveness.” Daniel recognizes that all these things have happened because of Israel’s unfaithfulness. Yet, Daniel knows that God is faithful and keeps his promises.

So, at the end of his prayer, as Daniel calls out to God to hear his pleas for mercy, he states “O Lord, hear; O Lord, forgive. O Lord, pay attention and act. Delay not, for your own sake, O my God, because your city and your people are called by your name.”

Daniel calls out for mercy and forgiveness, not because he wants the goodies of God’s blessings, but he calls out to God, because God’s name, God’s reputation is at stake. This was Daniel’s primary concern.

This attitude of Daniel’s caused me to stop and think about my prayers. What motivates my prayers? Do I want the goodies, or am I primarily concerned about God’s glory? I am also struck by how Daniel includes himself in Israel’s sin. He’s not pointing fingers.

As we pray for our nation, is this our attitude? And are we motivated by a passion to see God most glorified, or do we simply want the goodies? – ”Lord heal our land…so that our kids can pray in school, or we can get rid of pornography, or abortion, or drugs and crime, etc., etc.”

To value anything less than the glory of God, is valuing something else as higher than God. To place anything above God is nothing less than idolatry.

Soli Deo Gloria…glory to God alone!

– Pastor Dave

For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.Romans 1:16

“Outside of heaven, the power of God in its highest density is found inside the gospel. This must be so, for the Bible twice describes the gospel as “the power of God.” Nothing else in all of Scripture is ever described in this way, except for the Person of Jesus Christ.

Such a description indicates that the gospel is not only powerful, but that it is the ultimate entity in which God’s power resides and does its greatest work. Indeed, God’s power is seen in erupting volcanos, in the unimaginably hot boil of our massive sun, and in the lightning speed of a recently discovered star seen streaking through the heavens at 1.5 million miles per hour.

Yet in Scripture such wonders are never labeled “the power of God.” How powerful, then, must the gospel be that it would merit such a title! And how great is the salvation it could accomplish in my life, if I would only embrace it by faith and give it a central place in my thoughts each day!”

- Milton Vincent, The Gospel Primer

I read the news of Steve Jobs’ death last night on the monitor of my Apple computer.  It was surreal.  I imagined a man driving home from his factory job, in his Model A Ford, to hear about the death of Henry Ford on the radio.  These men are so distant from us, and yet have had a tremendous impact on our daily lives.

By all accounts, Steve Jobs did not know Jesus.  I am confident that God could have saved him in the final moments of his life.  I am confident in a gospel that is able to save the thief on the cross as easily as it can save the person who spends his life growing up in church.  I don’t know who was with Jobs when he died and what they might have shared with him, but I know this: if he was saved, it was not because of all of his great accomplishments, it was not because of his great wealth, and it was not because of his creativity or his benevolence or his enthusiasm or his impact.  If he was saved, it was because he had surrendered himself in the end to his Creator and trusted in the provision of Christ on the cross as sufficient for salvation.  The gospel is the same for everyone.

Death always provides opportunity to reflect and reevaluate.  Here are a few articles from around the Christian blogosphere remembering the life of Steve Jobs.  They remind us of the brevity of life, God’s common grace, the need for evangelism, and the hope of the gospel.

Justin Taylor

Al Mohler

Stephen Altrogge

This will be different for some of you but I would encourage you to listen through to the end. It is a clear, creative, accurate and helpful presentation of the gospel.

G.O.S.P.E.L. from Humble Beast Records on Vimeo.

I have written in this setting previously about the impact D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones has had on my life.  He has written two books in particular that have been life changing for me, Preaching and Preachers and Spiritual Depression.  It is the second book I want to draw your attention to in relation to our topic, “Preaching the Gospel to yourself”.  This is one of those few books I refer people to as a “must read”, especially those raised in Christian homes and churches.

Lloyd-Jones is going after the issue of Spiritual Depression.  He defines this in the first chapter as an “unhappiness of our soul”, a “disquiet”, “lack of ease”, a tense and troubled state”.    Have you ever felt this?  Can you relate?  He then begins to address the causes and cures (i.e. – the subtitle of the book) in the subsequent chapters.

It is primarily in chapters two and four that he focuses on the necessity and role of the gospel in the life of the believer.   He does not specifically use the phrase Bridges uses, “preach the gospel to yourself” but he does speak of preaching to yourself in the context of speaking about the gospel and also of the necessity of being gripped by the gospel.  Here are some samples:

At the end of chapter 1, addressing in broad terms the cure for spiritual depression he writes,

 ”The main art in the matter of spiritual living is to know how to handle yourself.  You have to take yourself in hand, you have to address yourself, preach to yourself, question yourself.  You must say to your soul, ‘Why art thou cast down…?  You must turn on yourself, upbraid yourself, condemn yourself, exhort yourself and say to your self, ‘ Hope thou in God…’  And then you must go on to remind yourself of God, Who God is, and what God is and what God has done, and what God has pledged himself to do.” (p. 21)

In chapter 2 he speaks to why he believes spiritual depression is so common among those who have been brought up in Christian homes.  He points out that they observe a countenance in others that they themselves often desire but can’t get:

 ”well, I can not say that I am like that.  That person has got something that I have not got…they take up Christian biographies and…they admit at once that they are not like them.  They know that they have never been like them, and that there is something which those people obviously enjoyed which they themselves have never had.” (p. 24 – 25)

“There are large numbers of people in this unhappy situation.  The Christian life seems to them to be a constant problem, and they are always asking the same question. ‘Why cannot I get there?…” (p. 25)

He then introduces one of the fundamental issues he is going to develop in the book and is a problem I see so often among those who have been raised in church:

 “They (those raised in Christian homes) often concentrate on the question of sanctification, but it does not help them because they have not understood justification. Having assumed that they are on the right road, they assume that all they have to do is continue on it.” (p. 25)

He then illustrates and describes his point leading to what he says are the key principles to experiencing a joyful Christian life. First, a Genuine conviction of sin and second, understanding God’s way of salvation in Christ.

He spends a few pages on this second point, essentially explaining the gospel and then writes,

“ The essence of the Christian salvation is to say that He is good enough and I am in Him”(p. 34)…you must “acknowledge readily and say clearly that you look to Christ and to Christ alone and to nothing and no one else, that you stop looking at particular sins and particular people.  Look at nothing and nobody but look entirely to Christ and say

‘My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus blood and righteousness…’

Would you like to be rid of this spiritual depression?  The first thing you have to do is to say farewell now once and for ever to your past.  Realize it has been covered and blotted out in Christ.  Never look back at your sins again. Say, ‘It is finished, it is covered by the blood of Christ’.  It is only then that true happiness and joy are possible for you.  What you need is not to make resolutions to live a better life, to start fasting and sweating and praying.  No! you just begin to say

‘I rest my faith on him alone

Who died for my transgressions to atone’” (p. 35)

 In chapter 4 he goes more specifically after the issue of the gospel. Here are a couple of my favorite gems:

 “Spiritual depression or unhappiness in the Christian life is very often due to our failure to realize the greatness of the gospel… (p. 54) we also fail to realize that the whole man must likewise be involved in it and by it…now one of the greatest glories of the gospel is this, that it takes up the whole man…We are partial in response to this great gospel.”(p. 56)

He then describes the person who has only been intellectually or theologically gripped by the gospel and ends that paragraph with this quote:

 “It is a terrible thing when a man reaches that point when he knows he must die, and the gospel which he has argued about and reasoned about and even defended does not seem to help him because it has never gripped him.  It was just an intellectual hobby.” (p. 57)

He then speaks of the fact that the gospel must take up our whole being.  It is not simply emotions, mysticism, aesthetics, the sinner’s prayer or just the will.

“There are those people who decide to take up Christianity instead of being taken up by Christianity.  They have never known the feeling of constraint, this feeling of, I can do no other, so help me, God’(p. 59)

By the way, he blames us preachers…

“Lop-sided Christians are generally produced by preachers or evangelists whose doctrine lacks balance, or rotundity, or wholeness.”

The battle against spiritual depression is one that we all face.  Depression in all its forms is on the rise and the world offers no real answers.  God does.  He gives us the gospel.  Jones does a masterful job of challenging us to be gripped by the gospel in the battle against depression. To be “taken up” by the gospel and reminding ourselves daily of the glories of the cross.

To God be the glory!

- Pastor Steve