Share the Gospel

If we believe Trinity is a gospel-preaching, Bible-believing congregation, then (by default) we also believe idle faith is unbiblical.

Last week, I referred to this yellow book and the curiosity millennials have about faith. 86% of millennials will welcome a conversation about Christianity if somebody would begin the conversation.

Let me show you another book by John Dickerson. This book says that 90% of evangelicals have never shared the gospel with an unbeliever. Later in the book, it says 95% of evangelicals embrace a philosophy where the only people responsible to share the gospel is vocational clergy. A 2016 Lifeway study revealed comparable numbers.

I want to be very frank. Both pieces of data are extremely anti-gospel and unbiblical. Both pieces of data lead me to believe that EITHER a large majority of professing Christians are not truly Christians or they don’t believe Jesus offers enough to make a difference in a person’s life.

This week, I watched a Jeff Foxworthy video about the purpose of life. He was speaking at a men’s conference. At the end, he said, “Friends, we don’t get a practice lap around the track. We get one lap and shame on us if we don’t give everything we have.”

The nearly 45,000 people around us, 77% of our community, need us to give everything that we have for the sake of the gospel.

We could read verses that tell us to share the gospel. There is Matthew 28:19, Acts 1:8, and Deuteronomy 6:7. Really, God should only need to give us one verse. God telling us to do something once should be enough for action.

I think Christians who don’t share the gospel might have a oneness issue. It would be difficult to help others see their place with Jesus if we don’t see our own place with Jesus.

God’s design for mankind is oneness with Him

Genesis 1:26–28 - “Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. And God blessed them.””

The humans that resemble my face and bear my name have rights and privileges that other people do not have. They can interrupt meetings. They can walk in our house and open the refrigerator. They get a house key. They have access to our vehicles when they need them. We will send them money. We will take them on vacation. I will even take extra allergy medicine for them. When they were younger, the list of things we did for them was endless and often under-appreciated.

I am not alone. How often do you say something like, “I can’t do that, because the kids or grandkids…” People that resemble your face and bear your name have special rights and privileges. People that resemble God’s image were meant to have a oneness with God. Our gender, our personality, our marriage, our family, our career, our hobbies, our capacity to learn, and how we rest - all of them meant to be an expose` of our oneness with God. The six types of people that we learned about last week were designed the same way. People that have not yet met Jesus were designed to be an expose of God’s oneness.

Genesis 3:8 - “they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day…”

How long does it take to live with person before you can hear the distinct sound of their walk? Adam and Eve knew the sound of God’s footstep because they had oneness. They would normally get excited about hearing God walking through the garden. They anticipated their leisure time with the Lord. They were living exactly the way they were designed to live. They were living how you and I were designed to live.

Our brokenness creates havoc on our oneness

Let’s keep reading. Genesis 3:8–13 “8 And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. 9 But the Lord God called to the man and said to him, “Where are you?” 10 And he said, “I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself.” 11 He said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?” 12 The man said, “The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate.” 13 Then the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this that you have done?” The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.””

There are two types of brokenness in the Bible. One is being humbled; we aren’t talking about that one. We’re talking about being spiritually fractured. Wounded. Hurt. Injured. You understand?

They hid themselves from God’s presence because oneness was already broken. It is likely you have a personal story that is relatable. Their oneness was not broken when they took a bite of that fruit. Eating the fruit was a symptom of a brokenness that already happened.

If the oneness didn’t fracture when Eve had a piece of fruit in her hand, when did it crack? Eve’s oneness with the Lord was fractured at the same time it is fractured for you and me, and every person we interact with. Look back at verse 1.

Genesis 3:1 - “Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?””

Two interesting points here. First, it appears that Eve didn’t think talking to a serpent was weird or abnormal. Second, it doesn’t matter how the serpent finished the question. The serpent wasn’t going after the tree or the fruit. The serpent was going after “can you trust God’s words.” Will Eve give mental space to question the validity of what God said, especially when she wasn’t alive when he said it? When Eve engaged the conversation, the oneness was fractured.

That’s why Eve’s oneness with the Lord was fractured at the same time it is for you, me and the people we know. We weren’t alive when God’s Word was put on paper. We didn’t walk with Moses and the prophets. We didn’t chase around the disciples. We weren’t alive when Stephen was stoned. As soon as any person allows mental space that questions the validity of what God said, their oneness dissipates.

We know that Adam and Eve ushered sin into the world. Every person needs a Savior.

Romans 3:10 - “it is written: “There is none righteous, no, not one;”

Romans 3:23 - “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”

Romans 5:8 “but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

Romans 6:23 - “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Acts 4:12 - “And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.””

1 John 1:9 - “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”

2 Peter 1:3–4 - “His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire.”

Romans 8:1 - “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”

The gospel restores so we can pursue oneness with God

1 Corinthians 15:1–11 - “Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you—unless you believed in vain. For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me. For I am the least of the apostles, unworthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me. Whether then it was I or they, so we preach and so you believed.”

For those of us who have received the gospel and become believers, we have been saved. We have the privilege of a restored oneness with the Lord. I’m sure there are times in your life when you don’t feel close to God; the oneness fades away. How do pursue a faded oneness as a believer? Three answers.

First, cling to the simplicity of God’s Word. Don’t add or subtract. Don’t analyze. Don’t critique. Don’t use social media as a commentary. Open your Bible and read it. Hold fast to pages of Scripture. Cling to them. Continue to believe them. Let’s the basics of the gospel occupy your soul.

Second, lean into a grace-filled, humility-based life. Paul gives a list of people that Jesus appeared to after his resurrection and he was the self-proclaimed least of them all. He considered himself at the bottom of the list. Not just considered himself, but placed himself there. If all that Paul did before accepted Christ made him unworthy, all that he did after should be enough to place him in Heaven’s hall of fame. This verse tells us that he would not accept the invitation. He would have no part of being honored for his efforts in the cause of the Christ and he wrote 13 books of the New Testament.

Third, do something that shows validity to God’s grace in your life. Not working to receive it. Not paying God back. Not work-based salvation. Here, vain means “untrue, foolish and without purpose.” When the gospel restores us to oneness with God, we receive a new dose of grace daily. As we go through our day, our actions show validity to God’s grace. Do my actions align with a grace-filled purpose? Do my actions show the gospel and grace is valid? Do my actions show that God made a foolish decision by extending salvation and grace to me?

Application

If we believe Trinity is a gospel-preaching, Bible-believing congregation,  then (by default) we also believe idle faith is unbiblical. An idle faith becomes an idle church. The reach of our church reflects the reach of our life.

What is your NEXT STEP to ensure your faith is biblical and pursuing oneness with God?