Gospel Outline

Weekly Update – August 20th, 2026 

On Sunday, we had Brent Longenecker with us to lead an Evangelism Workshop. He began during our equipping hour sharing a bit about his testimony and what the heart of an evangelist looks like. From there, in our worship service, he shared from Acts 8:26-35 and explained to us the call of an evangelist. Sunday night was the practical outworking of Sunday morning as we sought to answer the address how to evangelize. It was in this session that Brent shared with us his go to outline for proclaiming the gospel with others. It is: God, Man, Jesus, You. What you find here is the basic outline of what we ought to communicate and what others need to know when it comes to a full explanation of the gospel. Therefore, let me flesh this out a bit more for you.

God – When we speak of God, we must first and foremost recognize that he is the one and only God who is the holy, perfect and creator of the universe. He is vast beyond our comprehension in knowledge, power and perfections. There is no comparing anything to him. This is called God’s transcendence. He is far beyond us. At the same time, God desires to draw near to us. He works on behalf of his people, he shows himself to be good, righteous and just. And ultimately, he shows his desire to be near to us by sending his son to come down and dwell among us. This is called God’s imminence. So, then God is holy and separate from us, but in love, desires a relationship with us. (1 John 1:5, Rev. 4:11, Rom. 2:5-8)

Man – God made men and women in his image for the purpose of displaying his character and his likeness to the world that he created. Men and women are the pinnacle of all of creation and full of value and worth. The problem is that through sin, we fall short of the glory we were initially created to display. We still image God, but imperfectly, as if through a frosted mirror now. In simple terms, we have broken the law of God, rebelled against his purposes and have made ourselves enemies with God. This condemns us to death and eternal punishment. (Gen. 1:26-28, Ps. 51:5, Rom. 3:23; Eph. 2:1-3)

Jesus – In love, Jesus Christ, who is God the Son, came to us as a man, to come and dwell among us, for the purpose of providing forgiveness and redemption for our sin, in order that we as sinful men and women might be brought back to God. He lived a perfectly sinless life that we could not live. He died on the cross for sinners like you and me, taking the punishment for sin that we all deserve to pay.  Then, he rose from the dead on the third day defeating death itself. Now, by virtue of his victorious resurrection, Jesus reigns next to God the father over all things and on the last day will have all things put in submission under his feet. (John 1:1, 1 Tim. 2:5, Heb. 7:26, Rom. 3:21-26, 2 Cor. 5:21, 1 Cor. 15:20-22)

You – As we consider God in his perfections and glory, and ourselves in our sin and rebellion, the only response we can have is to cry out to him to show mercy to us through his son Jesus Christ. We as sinners are to have sorrow over our sins and turn away from them. This is called repentance. At the same time, we should turn to Jesus Christ in faith, believing that he lived the perfect life that we could not live and took the punishment for our sins on the cross. Only then can we have forgiveness which leads to eternal life and a right relationship with God.  (Mark 1:15, Acts 20:21, Rom. 10:9-10)) 

This is the gospel message. As Christians, we should know it, love it and meditate on it every single day. It is the truth behind our hope and the defense behind our faith. May we not find ourselves silent or confused in opportunities to communicate the gospel with others, nor find ourselves doubting what it means for us to know God. Instead, as we reflect on our evangelism workshop from Sunday, let’s pray for the lost that the Lord has placed in our lives, but let’s also be prepared to proclaim the saving truths of the gospel at every opportunity made available to us.  

Serving Him with You,

Pastor Michael Nelson