Victorious Believer

This post is the fourth of a 4 part series.

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 and Part 4

My first three posts in this series as one could tell all focused on the truth of the gospel; from the sinfulness of man to his need of redemption to Jesus Christ who redeems man through His blood. The reason I spent this time going through the gospel in these posts is because frighteningly most Christians don’t know the gospel or how to articulate it. If you have read Jerry Bridges book “The discipline of Grace” you would have probably been as shocked as I when he mentions that at a certain evangelical conference a questionnaire was given to define the gospel and only one person got it close to right!

The fact is you can’t preach what you don’t know. Unless you have a firm understanding of the gospel yourself you will be hesitant to share that understanding with others. That is the problem with a lot of evangelism courses out today. I see churches teaching methods to their congregation when what they really need to learn is the gospel message itself! (Another problem I would argue is the belief in decisional regeneration but I digress) Methodology changes from culture to culture and from one generation to another but the gospel truth is timeless.

We need to know what the gospel is to share it. We need to know it like we know are names and addresses. Without the knowledge of the gospel itself we will do evangelism course after course in vain and people still won’t go out and share the hope that lies within them!

Even more important is the fact that since we don’t know the gospel we won’t live the gospel. We will  fall into one of 2 extremes. We will either firstly be so discouraged by our own sinfulness we will be useless for service. We will live in sin and see no hope we may even live in constant fear of our condition not knowing if we are in the faith or not. Otherwise if it is not discouragement due to our sinfulness we will fall into a high view of ourselves and a low view of sin. In other words we will take sin lightly thinking we are essentially good people slipping up. Both conclusions are false and are not pleasing to our God.

The gospel is a constant reminder of our own depravity and the forgiveness we have in Christ. It keeps the scales balanced and when we live our life in light of the gospel we will live a life in victory. Without a gospel centered life we cannot live our Christian lives in victory, the gospel is the key to live victoriously. We may fail a thousand times, we may break promises to ourselves and we may find ourselves yet again drinking from those broken cisterns but if we turn back to God, confess our sins, remember the price paid and the forgiveness guaranteed; we will a life of victory in our Savior Jesus Christ.

“The gospel was a message of some complexity, needing to be learned before it could be lived by and understood before it could be applied. It needed, therefore, to be taught”

J.I. Packer “Evangelism & the Sovereignty of God”

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