The supremacy of Christ in evangelism

If I asked you right now to identify the core of the gospel, what would you say it is? Or if I asked you to preach the gospel, how would you do it? I think for most of us we would talk about the message of salvation, how through the shed blood of Jesus on the cross we can be forgiven of all of our sins. And this truly is good news worth sharing. But I think our evangelism needs to aim higher.

The problem with this is that it’s very man centred. The centre of the story is our problem and the solution to that problem. It’s about how we must respond in repentance and faith to have our sins forgiven. We become the centre of the narrative.

When Paul was speaking to the Corinthians, he said that Christ is the centre of our message. 1 Cor 15:3-4 declares:

³ For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, ⁴ that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures,”

Paul declares that the centre of the gospel is Christ, His death, His burial and His resurrection. These things are important to our salvation, but the impact on us isn’t the centre of the message.

It’s far easier to think about how the gospel message impacts us. The gospel is the most radical thing that has ever happened to any of us – we moved from death and condemnation to forgiveness and everlasting life. We should tell non-Christians this in our evangelism, but I fear that if we stop there, we undersell the gospel message. If we stop there, we risk adding to the confusion of those we speak to – thinking they ought to be the centre of God’s priorities.

No, Jesus is the hero of the story. Our evangelism needs to make much of Him.

The Bible consistently magnifies the glory of Jesus and calls us to proclaim that glory in our lives.

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.” – John 1:14

To this he called you through our gospel, so that you may obtain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.” – 2 Thes 2:14

(See also 1 Pet 2:9, John 17:1-5, Rev 5:12-13, Col 1:27, 2 Cor 4:4-6)

So how do we do that? How do we make sure that our evangelism focuses on Christ more than it focuses on us?

We focus on Christ’s right to rule.

The start of our problem is that we reject the rule of Jesus in our lives. Right back in the garden, the temptation was to be like God (Gen 3:5). That same temptation has afflicted every single person since Adam and Eve. This is God’s universe, not ours. When we talk about sin, instead of focusing on the actions that we commit or the things we say, we need to focus on the fact that these things are a violation against the one who made us (Rom 1:21-23). When we identify the problem as being rebellion against our Creator, we correctly orient the gospel as being ultimately about Jesus.

In a practical sense, this means that when we explain to people about sin and its problem, we have to focus on our rebellion against God, not simply on the things that we’ve done wrong. That means exposing the sin (attitude) behind the sins (actions).

We focus on Christ as the only one who can save.

Most of us don’t have as much difficulty with this bit. If we’re preaching the Gospel rightly, we will explain very clearly that no amount of good works or religious effort can ever wipe away the penalty for the bad things that we’ve done. The difficulty occurs when we go to explain the idea of repentance. If we’ve not made it clear that sin is primarily rebellion against God, then repentance might be misinterpreted as simply clean up your act. We know that’s not the right answer, but has the person we’ve spoken to understood that? If we’re not careful, the gospel becomes ‘stop sinning so that God will let you into heaven’. No, we must make sure that Jesus is the hero of the story, and explain clearly how His death pays the penalty that we cannot possibly pay. Unfortunately, repentance has been explained very poorly in many of our evangelistic efforts. It has either become works-righteousness (clean up your act) which is legalism, or easy-believism (change your thinking), which is licentiousness.

In a practical sense, this means we must explain carefully what repentance means. Repentance means to acknowledge that you’ve been living in rebellion against the Almighty Creator of the universe, and to turn away from that rebellion. It is to move from rebellion to willing submission which results in living differently and cleaning up our lives. The good works of a Christian are the fruit of repentance, the fruit of a life that desires to honour Jesus in everything (Eph 2:8-10, Col 1:9-10).

We focus on being with Christ as the goal of eternity.

Too often in our evangelistic efforts we make heaven and all its benefits (no more tears, no more sickness, etc) the reason to come to Christ. But that’s missing the point. We should come to Jesus because we want Jesus. So often when we picture heaven, we picture streets of gold and all of the joy that we experience there. Those are realities, but when the Bible pictures heaven, it pictures Jesus at the centre of all things (Rev 5:9-14, 21:3-4, 22-23, Phil 2:9-11). If we’re not careful in our evangelism, we will create a situation where people want heaven, but they have little interest in the one who rules heaven.

Practically speaking, this means that we need to lift up Jesus at every opportunity. It means we need to focus on just how amazing it was for the infinite, all powerful God to enter our world and live as one of us to die in our place. It’s worthwhile to ask a person how much they would love Jesus, if Jesus has done such an amazing thing for them. Going to heaven isn’t simply avoiding hell. Going to heaven is about being with the one who is King of Kings and Lord of Lords for the rest of eternity. Being forgiven and going to heaven is the opportunity to rejoice and worship Him. It’s not that the forgiveness of our sins is irrelevant, simply that it pales in comparison to the glory of Christ.

I’m not suggesting that we have to radically change the way we share our faith. I’m just suggesting that we need to carefully consider who is the hero of the story when we share our faith. When we have eyes fixed upon Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith (Heb 12:2), when we desire His glory above all things, that will come out in our evangelism.

– Andrew Walkington, OAC Ministries Australia