Many have drawn attention to the biblical illiteracy of the unchurched, especially those under the age of 30. These are people said to be without the biblical categories to understand the full Gospel, and among the hardest ideas to get across is the idea of sin. But if any presentation of the Gospel is to make sense, people must be very clear on the fact that they have offended God and their rebellion is absolutely disastrous for them and others. After all, no one will agree with a solution unless they agree about the problem.
This blog has a side link to the most helpful Gospel presentation that I have ever seen. The so called "Two Ways to Live" Gospel presentation is both logical and connects people to the history of redemption, providing the necessary categories to help them understand the fullness of the Good News. The presentation also begins with who God is. Let me take readers through the basic flow of thought in what is arguably the best Gospel presentation for today.
1. Who is God? God is our loving Creator and the Ruler of the whole world. God has made the world good, and He alone is able to define RIGHT and WRONG. God lays absolute claim on all of our lives as our Maker.
2. Who are we? From one man, God has made all people. God made us to be like Him. We were made to rule this world under God's loving authority, and we are always absolutely dependent on God for everything.
3. What went wrong? We rebelled against God and continue in our active rebellion against Him. We sought to live our lives apart from God and willfully rejected His loving authority. God let us have our way, and this rebellion has led to all the self-destructive patterns that we witness in our lives. Our way is doomed to failure and only promises to make a mess of our own lives and the lives of others. What is even worse is that our turning away from God has rightfully placed us under the judgment of God, which is the worst misery imaginable.
4. What does God do about sin? This is the best part! God takes sin very seriously and must punish sin. But God has not left us behind to fend for ourselves.
5. Who is Jesus and what did Jesus do? God sought us out by sending His one and only Son for our sins. Jesus Christ comes as our Savior and His life, death, and resurrection are substitutionary. He is both fully God and fully man. He is the full and perfect expression of God to us, and our perfect representative in the presence of God. He lives the perfect life that we never could hope to live and dies the death we should have died. God approved of what Christ did for us and shows us this by raising Jesus from the dead and placing Him in the supreme place of authority over all things. This Good News is completely outside of us and consists in what God did for us in the person and work of Christ. But this good news demands a response.
6. What are we to do? We can either continue to reject God or we can believe what God has done for us and submit to His loving authority. God commands all people to turn from their waywardness, look to Him in faith, and freely receive all the promises that are stored up in Jesus Christ. God desires to restore broken people back to proper relationship with Him. What God is now doing in the world is nothing less than bringing about a new creation. All those who believe in Him are given the right to be called children of God and are saved into the community of the redeemed. God commits Himself to us by sending His Holy Spirit to live in us and change us from the inside out, as we walk with Him. God's personal presence and communion with His people is God's guarantee that the best is yet to come!
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