Revival: How to Share the Gospel - Mark DeYounge
The 5 P's of Sharing the Gospel
Person of God
Proclaiming Christ
Posture of Christ
People to Love
Practical Steps
Person of God
Our inspiration to Proclaim Christ comes from the Person of God.
Isaiah 6:1-8
In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord, high and exalted, seated on a throne; and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him were seraphim, each with six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying. And they were calling to one another:“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty, the whole earth is full of his glory.”
At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke.“Woe to me!” I cried. “I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty.” Then one of the seraphim flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar.
7 With it he touched my mouth and said, “See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for.” Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?”And I said, “Here am I. Send me!”
The Lord first touched Isaiah, then Isaiah said "Here am I. Send me!".
It starts with a clear picture of Who God is for Who He Is. Not Who God is for who we want Him to be.
Jesus continues this notion of who God is. Jesus told many parables about who God is. Luke 15:4-7 Then Jesus told them this parable: “Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Doesn’t he leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it? And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders and goes home. Then he calls his friends and neighbors together and says, ‘Rejoice with me; I have found my lost sheep.’ I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent.
God is the kind of God who radically runs after one lost sheep. Jesus is so missional. Isaiah shows us how holy God is, the Jesus embodies who missional He is.
Our inspiration to share the gospel starts with understanding that God reached out and touched Isaiah. And Jesus ran after the sheep. God is in the business of being a missionary. The mission of God preexisted the Church.
The gospel of Matthew ends with this: then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”
We sometimes get stuck thinking we are then sent FROM the presence of God, but we need to remind ourselves that the commission is a great invitation for us to JOIN him. He is already before us and he is inviting us to join him in his redeeming work.
Proclaiming Christ is not just a means to an end - Jesus isn't just this "golden ticket" that gets us to heaven. Francis Chan puts it this way - "What if you could have all the glories of heaven, but God wasn't there. Would you still want it?" Heaven is so glorious because the person of God resides there! We want to proclaim Christ because we want others to know the person of God.
Proclaiming Christ
Romans 10:13-15 says " for, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can anyone preach unless they are sent? As it is written: “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!”
Christ doesn't wait for us to measure up or clean up, but he meets us in our brokenness and gives us his righteousness.
In Acts 1:8, Jesus tells the disciples that the Holy Spirit will come upon them giving them power and they will be His witnesses. Jesus is telling them to go to their every day places, the places they travel, and to even their enemies and tell them the gospel!
How do we witness?
Eye witness: Do we testify to what God is doing in our every day life?
Character witness: Do we testify regularly to the various dimensions of God's character?
Expert witness: Do we testify to what God says in scripture?
We are called to be faithful with what God has given us. We may not see fruit instantly, but we are called to be faithful in walking in the manner the Lord has called us to!
Posture of Christ
Christ didn't come to this world to be served, he came to serve. As we share the gospel, are we so inspired by this missionary God, are we willing to give up our rights? Jesus commands us to love one another the way that he has loved us. Are we willing to wash the feet of those around us? The Word (Jesus, the eternal God) became flesh and lived among us. Do we, like Jesus, step towards those who need the gospel?
People to Love
Sharing the gospel isn't about "winning people to Christ" in the sense that we merely want numbers and see it as a tally mark. It is about truly loving the person so that you have a desire for them to know the person of God. 1 Thessalonians 2:8, "Because we loved you so much, we were delighted to share with you not only the gospel of God but our lives as well." We should delight in who they are as image bearers of God.
Practical Steps
1. Write down the name(s) of 1 or 2 or 3 people that the Lord puts on your heart to share the gospel with in the next week.
2. With those names in mind, how can you bear witness to those people? What is a characteristic of God that you can share with them? (Character witness)
3. What is a verse from the Bible that you can share with that person? (Expert witness)
4. What is something going on in your own life or that you've seen God do in someone close to you's life that you can share with this person? (eyewitness)
5. Take your personal story and consider sharing your own testimony in these four pieces: creation, fall, redemption, restoration.
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