Hi all,
What is the
gospel and why should we be so concerned about it?. Paul said this about
it, 'For I am not ashamed of the gospel for it is the power of God unto
salvation to everyone who believes.' (Romans 1:16) This is why we should
be all about the gospel for IT is the POWER of God which SAVES lost people who
are 'in the act of perishing (1 Cor. 1:18).
Some today are
downplaying the gospel saying we need to be more concerned with justice and
social needs. I agree that the church has not done a good job of caring
for the downtrodden and needy ones and we must improve our efforts to care and
help all those we can. BUT our primary calling as a church is not social
justice nor physical improvements in cultures and families. We are first
and foremost ambassadors for Christ bringing His message of the gospel - the
truly good news --- “All this is
from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry
of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world
to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us
the message of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ,
God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be
reconciled to God.” (2 Cor. 5:18-20)
Please don’t
miss this – ‘the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to
us who are being saved it is the power of God’ (1 Cor. 1:18). We must not lose sight of the true
power of the church. It IS the
good news, the gospel.
So church –
Christ-followers – do you know what the gospel is? Can you articulate the gospel? Are you always ‘prepared to make a defense to anyone who
asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you’? (1 Peter 3:15).
Here are a
couple of helps if you are struggling with what exactly needs to be included to
be considered ‘the gospel’?
First, click HERE
to listen to a great summary (literally 1 minute) of what the gospel is. Thanks to The Cross Current (TCC) for
this link.
Next click
HERE to read a printable version of the gospel (TCC link again).
And click HERE
to listen to a little more extended summary (3.5 minutes) of the gospel I gave this past
spring in one of our services.
And finally I would
STRONGLY recommend you all take the great training session made available by
The Cross Current through our E4 (Encounter 4) training
session at Harvest London. We will be scheduling one of these in the coming months. I have
personally attended (along with two of our teenagers) taken the TCC training
and found it most helpful and a great investment of a day of training. If you are interested in this e-mail
and tell us to add your name to the list to be invited when the class is scheduled.
Norm