Sharing the Gospel: The Path to Salvation

We all know that we need to share the gospel, but we have a culture that has rejected their need for salvation. But our responsibility is to make sure that people hear the good news. But you may not know which scriptures to go to to help a person understand salvation and the gospel message. [00:00:10]

Let's start by asking the person you're talking to the question: how do they think a person gets to heaven? Or you can put it another way: would they like to be sure that they are going to heaven? Either way, that opens the door for them to give you permission to share with them how they can be saved, how they can know where they will spend eternity. [00:00:51]

You can start with the bad news of why the gospel is needed in the first place, and that is Romans 3:23: for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. Most people will recognize that they have sinned in their lives, that they have broken one of the Ten Commandments or all of the Ten Commandments. [00:01:19]

So people need salvation because God is perfect and it cannot accept imperfection, and all of us are imperfect with sinners. But that opens the door for step two, which is the good news. The good news is in Romans 5:8: but God demonstrated his own love for us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. [00:01:50]

The reason why that's good news is, number one, God loves sinners. We've established all are sinners, but God loves sinners, so he loves all people, particularly the person who you're talking to. He loved them so much that he died on the cross. Jesus Christ, God's Son, died on the cross to pay for their sins. [00:02:09]

Yes, the bad news: we're all sinners. But the great news is God loves sinners, and he paid the price for every sinner, which is everyone, since all have sinned. So that means the person you're talking to can be reassured that God loves them no matter what sins they have committed. [00:02:28]

Then step 3, you want to clarify something: Romans 4:4 and 5. You want to make this crystal clear that they cannot earn their own salvation. It says in Romans 4 verses 4 and 5: now to the one who works, his wage is not credited as a favor, but as what is due. [00:03:13]

But to the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is credited for righteousness. Salvation cannot be earned. If salvation could be earned, you explain, then Jesus wouldn't have had to die. God could have just waited for us to earn it. [00:03:49]

Just as credit placed on an account places something in the account that the person doesn't already have financially, when something is credited to that account, God credits the perfection of Jesus to the account of the sinner who believes in Jesus for their personal salvation. [00:04:27]

When a person believes in Jesus, this hearses for their personal salvation and doesn't try to earn it themselves, God credits the sinner with the righteousness, the perfection of Jesus, so that in God's eyes, that sinner now has a perfect credit score. They have now been credited with the righteousness of Jesus Christ. [00:04:47]

Some supplemental verses you may want to use, one that's well known: John 3:16, for God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life. For second Corinthians 5:21, he who knew no sin, Jesus, became sin for us. [00:05:18]

Then you can invite the person to trust Christ. You can invite them to pray with you a prayer that they are transferring their trust in Jesus Christ apart from their works to receive the free gift of forgiveness of sins and eternal life. [00:05:34]