On January 2, 2023, in a Monday night football playoff game between the Buffalo Bills and the Cincinnati Bengals, 24-year-old Damar Hamlin collapsed on the field after being tackled by a Bengals wide receiver. Prayers around the globe went up as Damar hung in the balance between life and death. Ski Mydynski, a senior engineer whose team had developed the best automated external defibrillator (AED) at the time, commented.
In cases like this of sudden cardiac arrest when one’s heart goes into ventricular fibrillation, the only way to save a person’s life is to have an AED available and used within the first 10 minutes to save the person’s life. Damar was unconscious from no blood flow, and it was only through the efforts of others that knew he was in trouble that his life was saved. It’s similar to believers in Christ who reach out to their non-Christian friends and bring the good news of Jesus through the gospel to save individuals from eternal damnation even if they don’t even know it. The person who is about to meet their maker is like someone collapsing from sudden cardiac arrest, the person bringing the good news of the gospel is like a person bringing a life-saving AED to their side. The delivery of the shock is like the Holy Spirit entering someone’s life and cleansing them of all their sin once they have chosen to follow Him. The Lord has chosen to use individuals to bring the life-saving message of Jesus Christ to those who are lost.
What Is Evangelism?
Evangelism is believers telling people about God’s love for them in Jesus Christ. Luke 2:10 says, “Behold I bring you good news of great joy, which will be for all the people.” The Greek word for “good news” is euangelion (eu=good; angelion=news). The gospel is literally good news. In ancient war times, a distance runner brought messages from a far-off battle to a city to let the residents know what was happening. The runners were called evangelists—“those who bring good news.”
Matthew 4:23 (NKJV) says, “Jesus went about all Galilee, . . . preaching the gospel of the kingdom.” The gospel encompasses the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Every Christian is called to be a witness for Christ. First John 1:1 (ESV) says, “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched—this we proclaim concerning the Word of life.”
Romans 1:16 (ESV) says, “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.”
The gospel contains both good news and bad news. We short-circuit the gospel when we tell only the good news or only the bad news. We must tell both.
What Is the Bad News?
A doctor tells a patient in the hospital, “We got your test results back, and I have bad news and very bad news.” The patient replies, “Oh no! Tell me, please.” The doctor replies, “The bad news is you have about 24 hours to live. The very bad news is that I was supposed to tell you yesterday.”
What is the “bad news” of the gospel? It’s that we’ve all fallen short of God’s moral standards. Romans 3:23 (ESV) says, “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” The word for “sin” is this Greek word ἁμαρτία. It’s also an archery term for when someone doesn’t hit the target—or more simply, misses the mark. Sin means to fall short of the mark—God’s standard of perfection. Ephesians 2:1–3 says that everyone without Christ is dead in their transgressions and deserving of God’s wrath.
James 2:10 (ESV) says, “For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become guilty of all of it.”
When I hike and talk to a hiker on the trail, I often turn the conversation to spiritual matters and ask, “Suppose you hiked up Mount Everest and used a chain instead of a rope. If each link represented a commandment of God, how many links would have to break in order for you to fall?” Their answer is always “one.” Just one sin in thought, word, or deed is enough to disqualify a person from heaven. The only person who has ever lived a perfect, sinless life is Jesus who died a perfect death on our behalf.
The Coffin Corner
In the early 1980s, National Football League (NFL) punters often kicked the ball to the end of the opponent’s end zone—called the “coffin corner”—to pin the opponent inside the one-yard line and make it very difficult for the opposing team to score a touch- down. In evangelism, kicking the ball to the “coffin corner” means getting people to see they have sinned before a holy God and that there are consequences for their sins. Here are some of the many verses in Scripture that show people have sinned before God.
Romans 3:10—“There is none righteous, not even one.”
Romans 3:23—“For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”
James 2:10—“For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles in one point, he has become guilty of all.”
James 4:17– “Therefore, to the one who knows the right thing to do and does not do it, to him it is sin.”
Matthew 5:48—“Therefore you are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”
Most people believe they are essentially good. A 2003 Barna survey showed that most Americans do not expect to experience hell first-hand, and just half of 1 percent expect to go to hell upon their death.
Jesus spoke a lot about heaven, but He also spoke a great deal about hell.
Greg Laurie of Harvest Ministries said, “To promise Heaven and not warn of Hell is to offer forgiveness without repentance.” If people reject our message, we need to warn them (Revelation 20:15).
Matthew 25:41 says that hell was made for the devil and his angels. In a real sense, God does not send people to hell. People choose to go to hell by ignoring or rejecting God and His amazing offer of forgiveness.
Repentance and Faith
People need to admit they have sinned and desire to turn from their sins to God. Acts 3:19 (ESV) says, “Repent therefore, and turn back, that your sins may be blotted out.” Mark 1:15 (ESV) says, “Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel of God, and say- ing, ‘repent and believe in the gospel.’”
Repentance involves turning away from your sin and in faith turning to God for forgiveness with a sincere desire to follow the Lord.
The Amazing Good News
There’s the bad news of the gospel, but there’s also the incredibly good news. I sometimes ask people if they know what the most famous verse in the Bible is.
A few people say John 3:16, but only a few can quote it. I ask them if they know what it means. It’s the gospel in a nutshell. “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16 ESV). The infinite God-Man Jesus Christ loved us so much that He came to earth to die a horrible, painful death on the cross so we could have the opportunity to spend eternity with Him. The Apostle Paul summed it up well in Galatians 2:20 (ESV) where he said Jesus “loved me and gave Himself for me.” Romans 5:8 (ESV) says, “But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”
God offers us amazing grace! An acronym for grace is God’s Riches at Christ’s Expense. We deserve judgment. We deserve hell. But Jesus in His infinite love and mercy paid our sins’ debt by dying on the cross in our place. We are able to leave the courtroom of God’s judgment and receive His offer of eternal life by faith.
John MacArthur, pastor of Grace Community Church in Sun Valley, California, said the greatest verse in the Bible on the gospel is 2 Corinthians 5:21, which says, “He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” Jesus bore the punishment we deserve. Our sin and guilt were charged to Christ, and through faith, Christ’s righteousness is credited to us. Now we can stand before God sinless, just as Jesus is sinless. Martin Luther called this the Great Exchange.
Christianity is based on the word DONE. Jesus paid the full price for our sins. When a person receives God’s grace, they are changing their default destination from hell to heaven. The thief, who was dying on a cross next to Jesus, asked Him, “Jesus, remember me when You come into Your kingdom” (Luke 23:42). The thief repented of his sin, received the free gift of eternal life, and became a trophy of God’s grace.
Ask the Lord for divine opportunities to share the good news today. Author Lee Strobel in his book The Unexpected Adventure wrote, “God might take this seemingly routine day and surprise me with an opportunity to tell someone about the good news that has the power to turn their life inside out. Our role is this: to be ready and willing—because God is always able.”
Second Corinthians 6:2 says, “Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation.” The last breath a person takes may be the last breath God permits them to have.
When someone comes to Christ in God’s timing, we’re snatching people out of the fire. Jude 23 says, “Save others, snatching them out of the fire.”
Always Be Ready
Second Timothy 4:2 (ESV) says, “Preach the word; be ready in season, out of season.”
While I was the Pastor of Evangelism at a large church, a fellow pastor mentioned that while his wife was standing in line to get her driver’s license, she was talking to a woman who was a sales rep for a cosmetics company. The rep had a rule that every time she was within three feet of a person, she would talk about cosmetics. How much more do we as believers in Christ need to look for opportunities to talk about the good news.
Bill Bright, former president of Campus Crusade for Christ whose ministry has impacted hundreds of millions for Christ, made it a policy that when he was with someone for two to five minutes, he always shared the gospel. Jesus was on a mission to populate heaven. “For the son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost” (Luke 19:10 (ESV). Acts 1:8 (ESV) says, “You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” That includes our family, our coworkers, our neighbors, and everyone.