Dial In with Jonny Ardavanis - Mark Spence - What is the Gospel and How Do I Share It?

Episode Date: January 16, 2024

In this episode Jonny Ardavanis sits down Mark Spence, the SVP of Living Waters Ministries and asks him to share the main hindrances and objections he receives while he shares the Gospel. As an evangelist, Mark faithfully preaches on the streets in an attempt to reach the lost. As believers we are called to share the gospel (1 Peter 3:15), we are commissioned as Christ’s ambassadors - but so often, we don’t know where to start or what to say. How do we faithfully articulate the gospel? Is there a method to employ when witnessing to someone? In this regard, Jonny Ardavanis sits down with Mark Spence, VP of Living Waters Ministries and asks him, “What is the Gospel and how do I share it?”Watch VideosVisit the Website Follow on InstagramFollow on Twitter

Hey folks, my name is Johnny Artavanis and this is Dial-In. In this episode, I sit down with Mark Spence, the Vice President of Living Waters Ministries, which is an evangelistic ministry, and I ask him a simple question that is so often neglected. What is the gospel and how do we share it? I want you to think with me if you're in an elevator or if you're just in a grocery store and you were to bump into someone, how would you share the gospel? What would you share the gospel? What would you condense the message of Jesus Christ to? And how would you go about sharing that with the individual you are encountering? Mark Spence is going to help us out in this regard.

Let's dial in. Mark, thanks for sitting down. I want to ask you a very important question for anyone who claims to be a Christian, and that is, what is the gospel and how do we share it? Meaning, like, it's not just enough to know the truth. We are called as Christians to be ambassadors of the truth and to proclaim the gospel. So what is the gospel and how do we share it? Yeah, important question.

The Apostle Paul said he's not ashamed of the gospel. So whatever it is, let's know what it is because it's the power of God unto salvation. So the word gospel is the Greek word euangelion, right? It's used 77 times in the New Testament. It simply means good news. Warren Wiersbe said it's only good news if it gets there in time. Or we were saved by the good news. Warren Wiersbe said, it's only good news if it gets there in time. Or we were saved by the good news, now it's your turn to return the favor, Wiersbe went on to say. I will say this, that it's almost entirely impossible to give a complete gospel presentation,

but it's okay to give a sufficient gospel presentation. The Bible will give us a complete gospel presentation, right? So when I start talking about the life, death, burial, resurrection of Jesus Christ, and I leave out the nature of man, the total depravity of man, or the nature of God, you get a pass. You get a pass because you've given a sufficient message. John Piper, inside of his book, God is the Gospel, he lays out 13 different points that should be included in a gospel presentation. And one of them is that God brings reconciliation between man and his fellow man. Something that people don't

readily share when they're sharing the gospel, right? So as we look at what Paul wrote to the church at Corinth, right? It's the death, burial, resurrection of Jesus Christ. Well, who's Jesus? You go into a town and you say, hey, do you know Jesus? Well, yeah, there's a thousand Jesuses perhaps over here. Which Jesus are you referring to? So the Jesus of the Bible said he is the way, the truth, and the life, and nobody comes to the Father but through him. He had the ability to lay His life down and to

raise His body back up. So the points that I would share if I was going to share a gospel presentation is I would start off with who God is. We tend to start off with who man is, but I like elevating God and talking about how great God is. So when I'm going through the commandments, specifically the first and through the third commandment, you know, let me talk to you about God because you've missed the mark on who God is. You have an idolatrous understanding of who God is. And then you've used God's name in vain. And listen, the Bible says that only his enemies use his name in vain.

And the whole time I'm using scripture after scripture to talk about the attribute and the character of God. And then I'm going to talk about maybe a couple other commandments with lying and stealing. John Stott said, you cannot properly preach the gospel if you do not properly preach Christ crucified. So then I start talking about Jesus Christ, and there is going to be a difference between man and God. The commandments shows that we are totally depraved. Jesus Christ, who was our perfect sacrifice, who paved the way, who made a way where there seems to be no way, gives us that

access into heaven. So I talk about salvifically. I talk about grace, that we are saved by grace through faith, that God sees nothing inherently good inside of us to save us. We're not lovely, therefore he saves us. Because he is love, he does save us. And then mercy, God holding back that which we do deserve. Thomas Watson, great Puritan, he said, every time we are taking a breath, we are sucking in the mercy of God. God has a very long fuse, but that fuse is running out and there's no guarantee of an exhale. So grace is getting what you don't deserve.

Mercy is God holding back that which you deserve. And justice is getting exactly what you deserve. And you do not want justice because it is hell to pay. The eyes of the Lord are in every place keeping watch of the good as well as the evil. So grace, mercy, faith, the resurrection. Yeah. The only true story where the hero dies for the villain. Yeah.

And then you could talk about the ascension, Jesus rising again, sitting at the hero dies for the villain and then you could talk about the ascension jesus rising again sitting at the right hand of the father and he ever lives to make intercession for his people yeah we can talk about being created in the image of god we can talk about the eyewitness accounts we could talk about the prophecies that jesus fulfilled this is why i say it's almost impossible to give a complete, because where do you stop? But a sufficient would be the life, death, burial, resurrection of what happened to Jesus Christ, who was the Son of God and God the Son. Yeah.

Now, Mark, I think a lot of people will give credence to the reality of the love of God, but I think a lot of people are shallow or deficient in their understanding of why Jesus had to come to die. And you talked about this in regards to understanding the good news necessitates, we understand the bad news and that being that we are under God's justice, not just that God's justice isn't bad news. I think too, like sometimes I'll go to people and I'll say, uh, I'll ask him like, do you really want a God that is indifferent towards evil? The bad news is that we are evil and that we're under God's justice. But how do you help someone understand why Jesus had to die? And is that an integral component of sharing the gospel, like that God's holy and he's just and sin has to be poured out? God's wrath is never not poured out. It's not a pardon. You've used

the term like a magical wand. It's not just dismissing people's sin. Every sin is punished. Like how much detail do you go into that? Yeah. Well, corruption runs in our blood. Matthew Henry said, Joseph Aline, he said, every unconverted man would kill God if he could just get to him again. Or as I had mentioned at another time, Jonathan Edwards, he said, God sees nothing lovely in man to turn his heart, but he sees plenty in man to turn his stomach. And this is why we go through the commandments. I'm going to go through the commandments just enough to extract a need from the individual. Remember, when the Apostle Paul was reasoning with Felix in the book of Acts, it says that he reasoned with him concerning righteousness, judgment, and self-control.

Remember what the primary role of the Holy Spirit is in the life of the nonbeliever. It's to convict of sin, judgment, and righteousness. So we see it on display with the Apostle Paul reasoning with righteousness, judgment, and self-control. He drove home self-control. So when I'm talking to an individual, I'm looking for that sin that so easily besets them, and I'm going to lay a weight upon their shoulders that they cannot bear. Like a screaming of their conscience. That is absolutely right, to where they would say, well, what can I do?

And I ask them that. I go, look, does this make sense to you that if God gives you justice that you'll end up in hell? And they'll go, yeah, that makes sense. I mean, we will punish criminals in civil and federal courts when they break civil and federal laws. How much more God punishing criminals that break his law? The eyes of the Lord are in every place keeping watch of the good as well as the evil. So it would make sense for God to punish individuals in his prison, which is a place called hell. Now, it's a fair objection for somebody to ask, hell?

That's eternity? That's a long time. Why is it so long? And the example that I like to use with that is imagine if you opened up a newspaper, the LA Times, and you have no context as to what happened, but you see the headline that says, man is given a $30 fine. You can safely come to the conclusion that whatever he did was not very heinous. You turn the page, man given 32 consecutive life sentences with no possibility of parole. Whatever he did, without any context, you know, it was very heinous. If I lie to my dog, he can't do anything to me. I lie to my wife, I'm sleeping on the couch. I lie to a judge,

I'm going to prison. Same punishment or same crime, it's just a lie, but the punishment is different because it's who it's against. When we sin, it will always be primarily vertical before it'll ever be horizontal. Therefore, our just reward is an eternity in hell where there'll be weeping and gnashing of teeth, unless we come to Christ on his terms. So the picture is either Jesus Christ is our substitute who suffered in himself the wrath of the Father, and in so doing, he satisfied the demands of the law, or we got to do it ourselves in hell. I don't want to do that. I'm going through Christ. I'm skipping the line and going to the front. Yeah, I think I've also heard it said, I think it might be RC, that talks about how hell is not, it's not eternal punishment for a temporal amount of sin.

People in hell continue to hate God and continue to reject God. But even what you're saying regarding the measure of the offenses, measured in regards to who the offense is against is so important because there is a different degree of punishment between a dog, a wife, a judge, and the creator of the universe.

Mark, just lastly, let's say I'm listening and I know that I've been left here on earth to be an ambassador for Christ, but I lack the boldness. You said Paul is not ashamed, but at times I don't want to say I'm ashamed, but I am fearful and I am nervous and I don't feel like I'm gifted at it. How would you encourage someone in that regard? It's not a matter of being gifted. It's like saying, I'm gifted at it. How would you encourage someone in that regard? Yeah, it's not a matter of being gifted. It's like saying, I'm not gifted to feed the poor or to help that person who just fell down. The Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 2, verses 1 to 5, he's laying out his resume for the church. And he says, hey, listen, when I was with you, I had weakness. I had fear. I had much trembling. I did not come with eloquency of speech.

Yeah. The author of one third of the New Testament is saying I'm not the guy for the job, I can't do it. In talking to the church at Ephesus, he says, pray for me that I might have boldness to open up my mouth as I ought to speak. So it's not a matter of being bold or being courageous. An act of courage is not necessarily done by those who feel brave when they do it.

True courage is he who feels the fear and he does it anyways. It's not the absence of fear, it's the conquering of it. So when a firefighter runs into a burning building, if we were to quickly pause and say, but what are your feelings right now? They're irrelevant. He's doing what he is called and commanded to do.

Spurgeon said, the one reason why people are left on this planet is to save souls. And by the power of the Spirit, that's what we need to do. So when somebody says, I'm not bold enough, I say, well, get over yourself. You know, Piper said, you are not your own. You've been bought with a price. And what lies before you is a stewardship from the owner for the owner. Now go. Go, go, go, go. We're just enamored with the man inside the mirror. What do they got? Listen, there is no such thing as a cool Christian. We cannot impress people with Jesus when we're still trying to impress them with ourselves. We need to get over ourselves. God

already has. The power and the authority lies in the message, not the messenger. So that nobody pats themselves on the back and say, what a great job I did. The converter. Look at me. Totally. Right. It's about him. Christ in us, the hope of glory. No, I love what you're saying even about Paul. Like he's not, yeah, the most prolific author of all time. And he is not in a fraudulent way, self-deprecating. He's actually viewing himself

with humility and he prays for boldness. Even with Peter and John, I think they get out of jail in Acts 4 and they pray for more courage that they might continue to do that. No, but that is so helpful because I think sometimes people are trigger shy because they don't know how. They don't know how to go about it. So I think even the way that you've helped us understand the gospel, a sufficient presentation rather than a complete presentation, because I think it's Tozer who says it takes a whole Bible to make a whole Christian. But we can give enough regarding the death, burial, life of Jesus for them to understand the character of God, our nature, and our profound need for a Savior. And so, Mark, that's so helpful. So thankful for your time.

Yeah. Amen.