The Gospel & Personal Evangelism
Author: Mark Dever
Read to Completion 6/11/12
William Costello
By
far the finest entry-level book on Evangelism I have read. This book was enjoyable and edifying;
the words sparked interest, inquiry and yet even joyful (and sometimes) painful
personal inventory. I laughed, I
related, I had “exhale moments” of hilarity and a few “inhale moments” when I
repented and nearly cried. Mark Dever
is a master communicator, he is warmly transparent, thoughtful and to the point
without being unnecessarily sharp.
This is the best entry-level book on Evangelism.
The
thesis of the book is simple – evangelism is the mission of the church individually. The responsibility emphasis is squarely on the shoulders of
the individual, no Christian gets a “get out of Evangelism” free card. The message is instructive for individual
Christians, reminding them rather graciously of who they are in this
world. This is a book about the
role of light-bearers in a world darkened by sin, the responsibility of the
children of light to the children of the world. This is about the message of God to be proclaimed by the
children of God to children of wrath (Eph 2:3), that they too might become
children of God (Jn 1:12).
Finally, this is about the normal lifestyle of those enrolled in heaven
but who are not quite there yet. This is a personal primer, a reminder of the
mission to a very forgetful people.
Why We Don’t Evangelize
We
all have clever reasons and conscience-numbing rationales as to why our failure
to share the gospel is well, not even an issue. Mark Dever concedes, “But if you’re anything like me, you’re
probably not quite so blunt about your failures in evangelism. You’ve altered your mental
records. In fact, even at the time
you’re not witnessing, you’re busy spinning, justifying, rationalizing, and
explaining to your conscience why it was really wise and faithful and kind and
obedient not to share the gospel with
a particular person at that time and in that situation” (Dever, 19). We are all experts at excusing ourselves
from the mission, or am I the only one?
Excuses
are a sham and a shame. We must
repent of them now while purposing in our hearts to accept God’s global mission
for the nations personally.
Dever
draws out our own self-love when he addresses our common resistance to
evangelism because of how it will affect our own image. He shows us how I love myself more than
I love the lost! How easy it is to
love my image in the world more than God’s image in the world! Dever recounts, “Maybe we are too
polite to be faithful to God in this area. Maybe we are more concerned about people’s response than
God’s glory. Maybe we are more
concerned about their feelings than God’s … Good manners are no excuse for unfaithfulness
to God, but we have, too often, used them so” (Dever, 25).
Evangelism
means death to self. We must
repent of self-love and pray “more love to thee our great and merciful Savior!”
He
cuts deeper with a word on our own love for self over and above love for
others. “We share the gospel
because we love people. And we
don’t share the gospel because we don’t love people. Instead, we wrongly fear them. We don’t want to cause awkwardness. We want their respect, and after all,
we figure, if we try to share the gospel with them, we’ll look foolish! And so we are quiet. We protect our pride at the cost of
their souls. In the name of not
wanting to look weird, we are content to be complicit in their being lost. As one friend said, “I don’t want to be
the stereotypical Christian on a plane” (Dever, 27).
Evangelism
is a test of our love. If only 2%
of the visible church have ever shared their faith with someone else, we need
to examine if we really do love God.
Spurgeon recounts how in his early days as a Christian, he showed His
love for God by sharing the gospel.
He recounts his early days as a soul winner,
I used to write texts on little
scraps of paper, and drop them anywhere, that some poor creatures might pick
them up, and receive them as messages of mercy to their souls. I could scarcely
content myself even for five minutes without trying to do something for Christ.
If I walked along the street, I must have a few tracts with me; if I went into
a railway carriage, I must drop a tract out of the window[!]; if I had a
moment's leisure, I must be upon my knees or at my Bible; if I were in company,
I must turn the subject of conversation to Christ, that I might serve my
Master. It may be that, in the young dawn of my Christian life, I did imprudent
things in order to serve the cause of Christ, but I Still say, give me back
that time again, with all its imprudence and with all its hastiness, if I may but have the same love to my
Master, the same overwhelming influence in my spirit, making me obey my Lord's
commands because it was a pleasure to me to do anything to serve my God.” Love
for the Savior springs our otherwise selfish persons to action.
He is famous for these
probing words, “Have you no wish for others to be saved? Then you
are not saved yourself, you can be sure of that.”
The Message: What is the
Gospel?
I
will start by explaining what the gospel is not.
I remember asking this question to a room full of teenagers while I was serving
as their youth pastor. I was
amazed by the answers I heard, “The Word of God,” “the Bible,” “Jesus loves
you” and many more. I think one
student was able to articulate the contents of the gospel while many of her
friends in the room had been in church for years! Sadly, this is not uncommon. I think many seem to know the way to get to their favorite
restaurant more accurately than they do the way to get to heaven. How sad.
The
gospel is “the Word of God” so is Genesis 1:1. The gospel is more than “the
word of God.” The gospel is found
in the Bible but the 66 canonical books are not the gospel either. “Jesus loves you” is certainly a sweet
component of the gospel (John 15:13) but not the whole by any stretch. So what is the gospel?
If
I could reduce the gospel to 10 words it would be this, “The Lord Jesus Christ
died for sinners and rose again.”
This is the message of 1 Cor 15:3, 4. Here Paul lays out clearly the contents of the gospel, God’s
saving work on behalf of the sinner through His Son Jesus.
The
gospel is good news, great news! Dever’s
paragraph explaining the gospel is pure gold. He writes, “The good news is that the one and
only God, who is holy, made us in his image to know him. But we sinned
and cut ourselves off from him. In his great love, God became a man in
Jesus, lived a perfect life, and died on the cross, thus fulfilling the law
himself and taking on himself the punishment for the sins of all those who would
ever turn and trust in him. He rose again from the dead, showing that God
accepted Christ’s sacrifice and that God’s wrath against us had been
exhausted. He now calls us to repent of our sins and to trust in Christ
alone for our forgiveness. If we repent of our sins and trust in Christ,
we are born again into new life, an eternal life with God” (Dever, 43).
Conclusion:
This
book helps the church-planter to see the reality for gospel proclamation in
every Christian’s life. The hard
“work of an evangelist” belongs to the sheep as well as the shepherd. I will use this book to remind myself
that:
·
Evangelism is
the mission of the church
·
Evangelism is
everyone’s mission, it is not to be farmed out to the “paid professional pastor”
·
Excuses not to
evangelize are many but none hold water
·
Evangelizing is
the communication of the gospel in verbal or written form, anything less is not
evangelism
·
Salvation is the
work of God (we simply sow the seed, while God alone makes it grow, and as we
go we sow
·
The purest
motivation for evangelism is love for God and love for neighbor.
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