The Gospel message Jesus left us behind to tell the world is a very powerful message. Untouched and delivered faithfully, it can have an enormous impact on a person’s life. It’s got nothing to do with the charisma or the story telling ability of the person sharing the Gospel – rather there is power behind the message.
Apostle Paul fully understood this power when he penned..
“For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes..” Rom 1:16a
Through the story of the Gospel, God’s power can break into a persons life and bring salvation into it. However, if you were honest with yourself, the story of a man who lived more than 2000 years ago, did some miracles, was murdered, died for all our sins and was mysteriously resurrected and taken back into heaven seems a little far fetched to base your life on.
And according to the Bible, God loves the “foolishness” of the Gospel message to shatter the “wisdom” of man. To the hard hearted human, the Gospel message seems like utter nonsense – verbal diarrhea – and a great way to ridicule those “simple minded people” who place their trust in such a story.
As Christian’s, we should take delight in the fact that God has purposely designed things to be this way. He is in control and He uses the “folly” of the Gospel to separate those who will believe and those who won’t. Have a read of this…
“For 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
There it is again, “the power of God.” Embedded into the Gospel message is the power of God. This invisible power has the ability to penetrate a persons heart and soul and bring about change no natural process can explain. We’ve seen it time and time again where a person is confronted with this power – they are never the same again!
For this reason, we should never shrink back in our responsibility to share the Gospel. If we do, we are holding back the power of God to impact a persons life. Will all believe? Nope – actually most will see it as complete nonsense. But to those who God has already begun His work on, whose hearts have been been softened by the Spirit of God, the sharing of the Gospel will allow the power of God to come flooding through.
What an awesome privilege and responsibility God has left us with! Our job is to simply pass the message along, step back and watch the result. And it’s in this context that I share the following video as a great help. Please feel free to pass it along to your friends and family. The direct link can be found here.
I’m really getting a lot out of listening to podcasts these days. Being stuck in peak hour traffic is actually something I don’t mind as it gives me the chance to spend time listening to the Word and the discussion of it.
I love expository teaching as it forces the preacher to focus on the topics brought up in the text instead coming up with things himself.
And when it comes to books in the Bible, I particularly love the Gospels as they contain the words and actions of the One the whole book is built upon.
So these days I’m being blessed to enjoy the podcasts of three preachers covering three different Gospels. In order of the Gospels, these are:
John MacArthur – Mark
John MacArthur is the Lead Pastor at Grace Community Church. His ministry is extensive and is captured at Grace To You – an awesome website which contains his Pulpit podcast and includes an expository on the Gospel of Mark.
Matt Chandler – Luke
Matt is the Lead Pastor at The Village Church. Their podcast includes Matt’s expository teaching on the Gospel of Luke. Matt has been teaching on Luke for a long time and promises to complete it soon. Take your time brother!
Mark Jurisic – John
Mark is my friend and Lead Pastor at my local church – CityWest Church. Mark planted CityWest Church over 7 years ago and delivers sermon after sermon about His hero – Jesus Christ. Our podcast currently features an expository on the Gospel of John.
When print was invented, it helped spread the Bible. When radio was invented, it helped spread the Word. When TV was invented, it helped spread the Evangelist. When the internet was invented, it opened up a new way of reaching untold masses.
Enter the world of social media. Recently social media sites such as Facebook, Myspace, YouTube, Twitter etc have over taken even porn in terms of how many people use these services on the internet.
Social media is now seriously being considered the next revolution in terms of how humans communicate with one another. My question is, how are we as the Church going to use this tool?
I believe that the invention of print, radio and TV combined pale in comparison to the potential online social media has in terms reaching the world for Jesus. At the same time, I am sometimes disappointed in the lack of enthusiasm the Church has in regards to engaging the use of social media to advance the message of the Kingdom.
Sometimes we want to stay “cool” and “relevant” to our online collection of so called “friends” and miss the opportunity to spread the Word. Or maybe we are just ignorant of the potential we have at our disposal when it comes to social media.
Let me make a very clear point here. It’s not our efforts that ultimately produce real change in people – that belongs to Jesus and Him alone. After all, didn’t He say that He will build His Church. And check out the following verse to validate this even further.
“So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth” 1 Cor 3:7
Having said that, does that mean we sit on our bums and watch the world go by as we wait for God to provide growth? Um, that would be a big fat no – as the following versus say..
He who plants and he who waters are one, and each will receive his wages according to his labour. For we are God’s fellow workers. You are God’s field,God’s building. 1 Cor 3:8-9
So it’s God that produces real change and real growth of His Church. But He allows us the blessing of joining him in the process. And with social media, we are provided an unparalleled tool to spread His Good News far and wide.
Are you on Facebook and have a gazillion friends? Do you Tweet till all day long? Do yourself a favour and watch the following video and get inspired at the potential you have with Jesus in your heart and social media at your disposal.
Awesome stuff! So go nuts and put Jesus all over your social network. You just never know who God may decide to draw to Him by using your comments or links or video’s or tweets about His Son.
I came across a great video by Christian artists Caleb & Sol depicting the Gospel in an awesome way. Focussing on the story of Barabbas – the murdering insurrectionist, the video does a great job in showing how we are set free in Christ due to grace and grace alone.
Barabbas, even though he deserved to die was set free as Jesus took his place on the cross. What a wonderful picture of grace offered to us in Jesus. Even though we are fallen and broken people and deserve to die, through Jesus, we also can be set free.
Thanks to Adrian Warnock’s blog, today I got the chance to taste the awesome resource known as “The City” – the Mars Hill Church online community building tool.
Turns out the good people at Mars Hill have made available a fully functional version of the The City at The Gospel Coalition.
Adrian Warnock describes the Gospel Coalition as;
“..a growing fellowship of Christian churches, organizations and individuals who are committed to a certain kind of ministry—that which is biblically-faithful and gospel-centered.”
Sounds good to me. These guys have a tonne of material centred on exulting a biblical view on the Gospel free from some of the modern assaults on its interpretation and application. If you haven’t checked it out yet, click here for more.
The City was developed by Mars Hill and actually purchased by Zondervan and will be made available for churches in the near future. Here’s your chance to try it out and also get plugged into one of the best ministries around. Click on one of the options below to join. No matter where you join, you will have access to all the tools.
Starting to really resonate with Piper more and more these days. Just watched another one of his video’s on the “prosperity gospel” and how it contradicts the call for us to be “salty” instead.
The Gospel message Jesus left us behind to tell the world is a very powerful message. Untouched and delivered faithfully, it can have an enormous impact on a person’s life. It’s got nothing to do with the charisma or the story telling ability of the person sharing the Gospel – rather there is power behind the message.
