Believe it or not doing something as simple as giving the Gospel in
every sermon can literally transform your church. Although I now lead an
evangelism training ministry for teenagers called
Dare 2 Share, for ten years I was the preaching pastor at a church I helped to plant in the Denver area.
The very first Sunday I made a public commitment to give the Gospel in
every service at some point during the sermon. What happened as a
result? People began to bring their yet-to-be-reached friends,
neighbors, classmates and co-workers to church!
Within ten years God blessed our church with over a thousand people
attending on a regular basis, the vast majority of which came to Jesus
through the people of our church. Our mission savvy congregation knew
that every Sunday the Gospel would be clearly given so they relentlessly
and relationally invited their co-workers, friends and neighbors to
come check out our church.
Today the church is over 3,000 strong and is making and multiplying
disciples in a massive way. My life-long friend, co-church planter and
the current lead pastor of this
Gospel advancing
church, Rick Long, continues to “gospelize” every sermon and has seen
outstanding results. This church is well known in our city for its
excitement for evangelism.
So, in addition to building your church with new disciples, why preach
the Gospel in every sermon? Here are four more solid reasons:
1. It honors Jesus.
Describing his preaching style Charles Spurgeon once said,
“I take my text and make a beeline for the cross.”
The scarlet thread of redemption, which starts in Genesis and goes all
the way through to Revelation, takes every reader straight to Jesus, his
blood stained cross and an empty tomb. It is the preacher’s job to
study a passage, find that thread, pull it and then preach it.
There’s not a page of Scripture that doesn’t point to Jesus in some
way. So to be true and accurate expositors and faithful and effective
preachers demands that we explain the Gospel in every sermon. To fail to
do so is like a lawyer making a case without a closing argument or a
comedian who sets up a joke but never gives the punch line.
We honor Jesus when we honor his Gospel. We honor his gospel when we
preach it clearly (Colossians 4:4), compellingly (2 Corinthians 5:11)
and consistently (1 Corinthians 2:2.)
2. It transforms the Christian.
1 Corinthians 1:18 makes it clear that
“The preaching of the cross is foolishness to the perishing but to those of us who are being saved it is the power of God.”
I love this passage because it refers to Christians as those
“who are being saved.” Sure, we’ve already been saved from the penalty of sin (eternal death in hell) but we are also
being saved from the power of sin in our day-to-day lives.
This means that there’s never a point in a Christian’s life when the
Gospel should get old. It is new every morning. It is needed every
night. The same Gospel that saves us also sanctifies us.
Why else would Jesus instruct his disciples in Matthew 26:26-28 to
consistently remember his broken body and shed blood through the
ordinance of communion? His shed blood and broken body on the cross are
to be central to our church services.
Some believe (like me) that when the disciples broke bread in Acts
2:42-47 it was a daily thing. By the time we get to the church of
Corinth in 1 Corinthians 11:17-34 it seems like Communion is at the
minimum a part of the weekly gathering of believers.
My point isn’t to say how often you should do communion in your church
services. Do as the Spirit of the Lord directs you. My point is that, if
it was done weekly in the early church (which there is every indication
that it was) then the Gospel was given in every service. Those
unbelievers attending their services (1 Corinthians 14:24,25) would
always be exposed to the Gospel message when communion was given.
Communion shows the lost person that the way of salvation comes through
the cross and reminds the believer that the pathway to sanctification
is through the cross! Giving the Gospel in every sermon does the same
powerful thing.
3. It “gospelizes” the church.
Tell me if this doesn’t sound exciting,
“After they prayed, the
place where they were meeting was shaken. And they were all filled with
the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God boldly. All the
believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of their
possessions was their own, but they shared everything they had. With
great power the apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the
Lord Jesus. And God’s grace was so powerfully at work in them all that
there were no needy persons among them.” Acts 4:31-34
The focus on mission by the early church led to their gatherings being
fueled by prayer, filled with the Spirit, and flowing with excitement!
There was an atmosphere of anticipation for the miraculous! The early
believers were fully gospelized and they were committed to gospelize
others!
Their focus on
advancing the Gospel
produced a brand of deep-seeded unity that most pastors would only dare
dream of! It resulted in jaw-dropping generosity and Christ-like
selflessness among the early believers that caused the watching world to
pause. When the people in your congregation rally around the Gospel
message and mission they will begin to get “
gospelized!” This will accelerate this same kind of unity, generosity and selflessness that defined the early church.
4. It moves people from death to life.
“I am sending you to them to open their eyes and turn them from
darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, so that they may
receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified
by faith in me.” Acts 26:17,18
When we give the Gospel we are literally being used by God to bring the
lost from death to life, from darkness to light, and from the power of
Satan to the kingdom of God. Think about it this way, if you had the
cure to cancer and there were those in your life who had the cure to
cancer, would you tell them? Not only would you tell them the cure you’d
do everything in your persuasive powers to get them to take it. If they
resisted you’d persist until they ingested or injected the cure.
In the same way there are those who attend your church who are ravaged
by the cancer of sin. Call out to God on behalf of their souls and then
do everything in your persuasive powers to get them to say “yes” to the
cure…Jesus!
Does all this mean that the only thing you preach on Sunday morning is
the Gospel? Of course not! But it means that, no matter whatever subject
you are preaching on, you make a salvation segue to Christ and him
crucified at some point and extend to the audience the opportunity to
put their faith and trust in Jesus.
You, like Spurgeon, take your text and make a beeline for the cross!
