Gospel Threads – Part 1 of 6

How do we weave the message of the Gospel into our everyday life?  Do we understand our responsibility to demonstrate the truths of the Gospel with the way we live and in the way we speak? We have the privilege, as followers of Christ, to sew what we call the gospel threads together for the sake of others as we introduce them to Christ, revealing His beauty and glory.

But in order to sew these threads together, we must know what they are.  In order to proclaim the gospel, it goes without saying that we need to know the gospel. So my hope is that through this six part series of blog posts you’ll be better equipped with the threads of the gospel and ready to begin sewing them in your own life.

This series of posts stems from a sermon series that Pastor David preached back in 2008 called “Threads,” in which he unpacked the gospel and personal evangelism.  During that series he put forth a basic definition that would hopefully answer the seemingly simple question, “What is the gospel?”  That definition came out as follows:

The just and gracious God of the universe looked upon hopelessly sinful people and sent His Son, Jesus Christ, God in the flesh, to bear His wrath against sin on the cross and to show His power over sin in the resurrection so that all who have faith in Him will be reconciled to God forever.

Out of that definition David identified five primary gospel threads.  These are threads of the gospel that are woven together throughout Scripture, and they can also be woven into the fabric of our conversations and our thoughts on a daily basis, all with the prayer that God will use these threads (in our lives and from our mouths) to introduce people to Christ. Here are the threads:

The Character of God

The Sinfulness of Man

The Sufficiency of Christ

The Necessity of Faith

The Urgency of Eternity

Over the next several weeks I’m going to devote a post to each of these threads.  To be clear from the outset, the goal is not to take the gospel and bring it down to a bare minimum.  We’re not trying to package the gospel as cleanly as possible so it’s easy to sell.  That’s not the picture.

But at the same time, we need to know the gospel and this definition gets at the core of it.  This is the foundation of what we believe.  If we don’t know the gospel then we are going to miss out, not only on what it means to share the gospel, but also on what it means to experience the grace of God on a daily basis as the gospel works out its implications in our lives.

I hope a better understanding of the gospel will cause all of us to consider how it can be woven into the fabric of our lives in the way we parent, in the way we work, in the way we hang out with friends, and in the way we interact with everyone around us.  We need to contemplate how these threads can become a natural part of who we are and how we interact with the world.

If you would like to listen to this entire “Threads” sermon series you can find it HERE.