Dale Partridge - Why Every Christian Must Share the Gospel

00:00:00.000 In this episode of Real Christianity, I talk about our brand new gospel project,

00:00:03.660 mailthegospel.org. But more than that, I talk about the three reasons 90% of Christians

00:00:08.720 don't share the gospel and what you need to do to change that. So stay tuned as we look

00:00:13.760 to scripture and learn about our Christian duty to evangelize. All that and more coming up right now.

00:00:30.000 Welcome to Real Christianity. My name is Dale Partridge. Today's episode

00:00:39.520 is titled, Why Every Christian Must Share the Gospel. Now, as you know, this show is an audio

00:00:45.820 and video ministry of relearn.org. If you're watching the video recording of this episode,

00:00:50.860 please be sure to subscribe or follow for more biblical content. If you're listening to an

00:00:54.920 Apple Podcasts, Google Play, or Spotify.

00:00:57.280 Again, thank you for your faithfulness.

00:00:59.340 You can also follow our ministry

00:01:00.520 on just about every social media platform,

00:01:03.040 and we would love to have you on that journey.

00:01:05.260 As you know, there are not many Christians

00:01:07.080 or any ministries, really, in the public eye

00:01:09.780 that are committed to biblical truth, but we are.

00:01:12.620 In fact, last week, I posted an important post 0.58

00:01:14.640 giving both the history and the foolishness 1.00

00:01:17.360 of the gay pride rainbow flag movement. 0.97

00:01:19.980 You can view that on our Instagram account.

00:01:21.820 Our handle is at relearnhq.

00:01:24.260 Let's go ahead and dive into today's episode.

00:01:27.240 I want to start us off with three passages of scripture.

00:01:31.120 The Great Commission is where we're going to begin in Matthew 28, 18 through 20.

00:01:35.980 It says,

00:01:36.920 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and

00:01:42.080 of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded

00:01:46.460 you.

00:01:47.000 And behold, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.

00:01:50.860 Okay, we're going to be reading this passage of scripture as well as two more.

00:01:55.320 So just stay with me here.

00:01:56.740 Mark 16, 15, a shorter version of the Great Commission.

00:02:01.100 It says, and he said to them, quote,

00:02:03.100 go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation, end quote.

00:02:08.440 The next one is going to be from Romans.

00:02:10.040 So we're going to be looking at the gospel as duty from the perspective of Paul.

00:02:15.420 So it's Romans 10, 13 through 15.

00:02:18.180 it says, for everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. How then will they call

00:02:24.920 on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him on whom they have not

00:02:30.020 heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they

00:02:36.600 are sent? As it is written, how beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news.

00:02:41.900 Now we know that just a few verses later in Romans 10, 17, it says, for faith comes by hearing

00:02:47.000 and hearing by the word of Christ. We know that the gospel is the midwife to new birth, right?

00:02:54.160 It's the means of salvation. It's the reason that Paul said he's not ashamed of the gospel

00:02:59.520 because it's the power of God unto salvation for everyone who believes. This is vital that

00:03:04.900 we understand the seriousness of the gospel. Now I've noticed that a lot of people struggle

00:03:09.560 with sharing the gospel because they forgot what it's like to be lost. They forgot what it's like

00:03:14.840 to live like the world, to feel like the world, to do what the world does, to walk and behave

00:03:21.080 in harmful and hurtful ways, to be addicted, to have problems of, you know, whatever it may be,

00:03:29.060 and the bad thinking about just about everything. We have forgotten what it feels like and what it

00:03:36.120 is like to be lost. And that's why we have diminished our desire to seek the lost like

00:03:42.780 Christ seeks the lost. And so right now, the statistics are that 90% of Christians don't

00:03:50.120 share the gospel. Only 10% of Christians share the gospel with another person once per year.

00:03:56.000 Now, what that means is a lot of people share their testimony. A lot of people share their faith.

00:04:02.080 A lot of people share a Bible scripture. A lot of people talk about Jesus, but those things are good,

00:04:07.580 but they are not the gospel. We need to actually be committed to what's called a bad news, good

00:04:12.080 news gospel. We have to remember that the good news is only so good because the bad news is so

00:04:17.380 bad. And we need to be willing to share the bad news because without the bad news, you won't want

00:04:21.820 the good news. And so people need to hear the bad news. And the bad news is that we were born

00:04:27.560 sinners. We are born sinners. And we're born sinners. Sin is not just an act. It's also a

00:04:33.760 condition. And we don't learn how to sin. We're born with this condition to sin. And the wages

00:04:40.720 of sin is death. And somebody needs to die for our sin, according to scripture. And the reason

00:04:46.560 we've sinned is because we've broken God's law. And God's law is in the 10 commandments and nobody's

00:04:51.560 been able to keep it. Nobody can keep it. That's the reason we tell our kids the 10 commandments

00:04:54.760 is so that they can realize that they can't keep it and they need a savior. And we need to be found

00:04:59.300 righteous before God because we are unrighteous. And in order to be found righteous before God,

00:05:04.340 we need righteousness, but we can't be righteous on our own. We need someone else's righteousness.

00:05:09.980 We need someone to pay the price for our sins,

00:05:12.280 to die the death that we deserve

00:05:14.080 so that we can be forgiven,

00:05:17.460 but also we need righteousness.

00:05:19.420 And this is the reality of the cross.

00:05:21.960 Jesus comes, dies for the sins of his people.

00:05:25.280 We give our sin to Jesus.

00:05:27.220 Jesus gives his righteousness to us through faith.

00:05:30.580 This is the gospel, 0.85

00:05:31.780 but that's a bad news, good news gospel.

00:05:33.380 The bad news is that if you don't repent

00:05:35.700 and trust in Christ for his righteousness,

00:05:37.900 you will be guilty and you will spend eternity in hell

00:05:41.640 because you've sinned against an eternal God.

00:05:44.440 That's the bad news.

00:05:45.980 It should make everybody that hears that message tremble.

00:05:49.640 The reality is, is that we have shifted that gospel message

00:05:53.240 to this Jesus loves you and everything about you.

00:05:57.760 Jesus wants to be in your life message.

00:06:00.520 And it's a repentance-free gospel

00:06:02.180 that has left many people in the church with false hope.

00:06:07.000 You know, I think it was Dr. Steve Lawson said the only thing worse than not having the assurance

00:06:12.180 of salvation is having the false assurance of salvation. And sadly, here in the United States,

00:06:17.660 in the West, we have so many individuals in the church that have came to the church,

00:06:20.840 but never came to Christ. And they are falsely assured in their salvation. So we have this

00:06:26.140 problem that only 10% of Christians are sharing the gospel. How do we activate the 90%? How do

00:06:33.860 we activate the 90%? But more than that, what are the three reasons for why Christians are not 1.00

00:06:40.520 sharing the gospel? What's the problem? What's in the way? And there's three primary reasons that

00:06:46.920 we've done in our research. The first one is people's fear of rejection. We fear the rejection

00:06:53.380 of somebody when we preach the bad news gospel. If you want to tell them that they're sinners and

00:06:57.940 that their sin is going to send them to hell unless they repent of their sin and go trust in

00:07:02.820 Jesus Christ. That message can be intimidating for people to deliver, especially if you're

00:07:07.400 introverted, especially if you're timid. But we know that God doesn't give us a spirit of fear,

00:07:12.660 right? But of power, a love, and a sound mind. And so we have to remember that the fear of

00:07:17.840 rejection, while it is a primary reason for not sharing the gospel, the fear of man is actually

00:07:23.220 sin. We need to trust God and his sovereignty in our lives. But that's the number one reason.

00:07:27.840 The second reason is that people doubt their ability to eloquently present the gospel.

00:07:33.900 And I'm not going to say just eloquently, but accurately.

00:07:36.060 Because we live in a church era where so many Christians have not actually heard expository

00:07:43.400 preaching verse by verse, year after year, decade after decade, building up sound doctrine,

00:07:48.640 they're not able to communicate the mechanics of the gospel.

00:07:51.260 We have to understand that a gospel explanation really is a byproduct of sound doctrine.

00:07:58.140 When you understand your theological basics and your doctrinal basics, you can explain

00:08:03.820 the gospel regardless of the questions or the defenses that come at you.

00:08:07.700 And so we need to be able to strengthen individual biblical and theological literacy, which again

00:08:13.500 is the mission of what we do here at relearn.org.

00:08:15.420 We want to strengthen your understanding of Scripture, of God, of the gospel, of the cross.

00:08:22.360 The third reason people don't share the gospel is because they're worried about the apologetic

00:08:27.540 questions that come after a discussion of the gospel as a result. And this is understandable.

00:08:34.920 You know, are they prepared for the discussions about moral relativism or evolution or the

00:08:40.640 dinosaurs or whatever it may be. You layer all three of those things on top of each other and

00:08:46.500 you've got a pretty big, or I should say a pretty thick wall to get through on why Christians are

00:08:52.300 not sharing the gospel. So this is a problem. We need to overcome it. Now, as an entrepreneur, 0.96

00:08:58.000 you guys know, if you don't know, before I was in ministry, I spent, what, 15 years as an

00:09:05.020 entrepreneur building up businesses and entrepreneurs solve problems. Now, not every

00:09:09.820 problem is worth solving. The best problems to solve are the problems that are urgent, required,

00:09:15.940 and painful. And the Great Commission is urgent, it's required, and for many Christians it can be 0.98

00:09:23.000 painful. And so we wanted to solve that urgent, required, and painful problem. And so we wanted

00:09:28.720 to create a way for any Christian to share the gospel with anyone, anywhere. And we did this by

00:09:34.740 producing a couple things. Number one is that we produced some theologically accurate, bold,

00:09:39.600 presentations of the gospel. Now, again, when you think about a gospel tract, most gospel tracts

00:09:46.380 are either really ugly or they're not palatable or accessible. A lot of them are either doom and

00:09:53.760 gloom on one side or they're Jesus loves everything about you on the other side. So we wanted to

00:09:57.760 create a beautiful, clear, concise, theologically accurate, faithful, bold presentation of the

00:10:08.260 gospel. So we wrote these gospel tracts. They're like little booklets, and they can be read in

00:10:13.900 just a short period of time, between about eight to 15 minutes, depending on how fast an individual

00:10:18.820 reads. And we wrote these things with a handful of individuals. All of them are seminarians. We

00:10:25.560 have a theological advisory board who reviews this on our board, or several men that have their PhD

00:10:30.100 in theology or systematic theology and have reviewed these things. We have looked at these

00:10:35.380 tracts to make sure that they are a faithful, accurate presentation of the gospel. They're also

00:10:40.920 positioned in a way of a sermon. We learned historically that most people come to Christ

00:10:45.880 through a sermon. Throughout church history, preaching is essential. And so we wanted to

00:10:51.340 really make these little booklet tracts like a sermon being preached. And so that's the first

00:10:59.060 thing we did is we created these theologically accurate tracts. The second thing that we did

00:11:03.020 is we made them beautiful.

00:11:05.800 Most tracks are designed to be thrown away

00:11:08.820 because you give them away

00:11:09.900 and you expect someone to throw them away.

00:11:11.260 We made these tracks

00:11:12.300 so that they're absolutely beautiful.

00:11:14.180 If you're watching this on the video,

00:11:16.060 you can see it here on this episode.

00:11:19.480 I'm holding one up right now.

00:11:20.700 Here's one of the tracks right here.

00:11:21.960 This is a message of joy,

00:11:23.680 the gospel, the message of joy.

00:11:25.240 This one is a gospel, the message of hope.

00:11:28.560 And then you can see this one.

00:11:29.580 This is our primary gospel track.

00:11:31.080 and this is a gospel, a message of love.

00:11:33.740 Now, if you're wondering what the difference

00:11:34.880 between these three tracks is,

00:11:36.840 really it's, they're the same core gospel message

00:11:40.180 and the message of love is our primary tract,

00:11:43.120 but we have two other ones,

00:11:44.640 the message of joy and the message of hope.

00:11:46.640 These are tailored to specific circumstances.

00:11:49.520 Now, these are for people,

00:11:50.500 maybe the message of hope is for someone

00:11:51.740 that's maybe struggling with depression or anxiety.

00:11:54.100 And we wrote an introduction and a conclusion

00:11:56.460 that really meets people at where they're at

00:11:59.660 in that specific issue.

00:12:01.080 The gospel, a message of joy, is for people that might be going through a tragic moment,

00:12:06.640 difficult trials, chronic illness, grave diagnosis, someone just died.

00:12:12.600 And this, again, meets somebody in the midst of those difficult trials.

00:12:15.540 So we have these circumstantially relevant presentations of the gospel that are absolutely

00:12:19.480 beautiful.

00:12:20.660 They fit in your hand.

00:12:21.720 You wouldn't want to throw them away.

00:12:23.540 They're what we call a raw touch cover with even a gold foiling on the cover.

00:12:29.220 I mean, these things are absolutely beautiful.

00:12:31.920 They're little booklets and they're worth checking out.

00:12:36.000 The third thing that really changed the game

00:12:37.960 that we did with these tracks

00:12:39.320 is that we made them mailable.

00:12:42.280 We will mail them for you to anybody you want.

00:12:47.620 And so that's why we created mailthegospel.org.

00:12:51.680 Essentially, you can go there

00:12:52.780 and you can enter the information, your information.

00:12:57.280 you can choose which tract you would like to send, and then you can enter the recipient's

00:13:02.920 information. And you can put anybody you'd like in there, which means you need to go get their

00:13:08.600 address. But you can actually send this personalized, meaning you can write them a note.

00:13:13.460 You can also send it anonymously, which we found about 50% of people so far have been sending them

00:13:19.400 anonymously. We do encourage you guys to send it personalized if you can, because we want you to

00:13:25.100 nurture that appetite for evangelistic outreach. We know that there are those circumstances in

00:13:30.480 which you maybe will benefit from sending it anonymously. Maybe there is some relational

00:13:34.880 turmoil there, whatever it may be, but we do want to encourage you guys to personalize it if you

00:13:40.460 guys can. The other thing is that you can include either a gospel of John, which just for a couple

00:13:46.340 bucks, I'm holding it up here in the video. Again, you can see this gospel of John. You can include,

00:13:50.280 you can also include a full ESV thin line Bible. And this is a beautiful Bible. And I think we

00:13:58.620 include these for about 10 bucks. I'm not sure if that's going to stay that cheap, but wow,

00:14:03.500 come on. You can't buy a Bible this nice for 10 bucks anywhere. And so we include that there.

00:14:08.460 And then when you mail this off, you just pay for shipping and we will mail the gospel for you

00:14:14.040 to anyone anywhere. Now we are currently just launching. We're launching with the United States.

00:14:19.240 We will be opening up international shipping.

00:14:21.480 If you want to buy some of these tracks

00:14:23.840 just so that you can keep them in your car,

00:14:26.000 keep them in your backpack, you can absolutely do so.

00:14:30.480 I keep these tracks in my car.

00:14:32.060 I go and try to get my hair cut from different barbers

00:14:34.940 once a month so that I can go

00:14:36.700 just share the gospel with my barber.

00:14:38.900 I'm stuck in the chair.

00:14:40.080 They're stuck with me.

00:14:41.180 I give them a gospel presentation.

00:14:42.680 And if I can't finish,

00:14:43.520 I wanna give them one of these tracks.

00:14:45.060 And so having these tracks, you can buy those as well.

00:14:48.580 Pretty soon you'll be able to buy

00:14:49.720 what we call track packs right now.

00:14:52.240 Depending on when you're listening to this,

00:14:54.140 you'll only be able to get track packs

00:14:55.860 if you actually mail the gospel to someone at checkout.

00:14:58.880 You can add a pack of 10 or a pack of 25

00:15:01.640 or a pack of 50 that you can keep again in your car.

00:15:05.520 We don't make any profit off this.

00:15:07.820 We're a nonprofit.

00:15:09.000 All of the money from these tracks

00:15:10.660 go back into the ministry to provide the salaries

00:15:15.300 for individuals that are packing tracks

00:15:17.260 or doing the web development or running this,

00:15:20.360 buying more tracks, whatever it may be,

00:15:22.320 buying shipping supplies.

00:15:23.640 So this is 100% all the profits back into what we're doing.

00:15:27.440 And so we would love your help there.

00:15:29.360 Another thing I wanted to show you

00:15:30.340 if you're watching the video,

00:15:31.260 look at the packaging that we get to.

00:15:33.140 This is what these individuals

00:15:34.760 receive their gospel tract in.

00:15:37.580 It's a beautiful package.

00:15:38.560 It says on the outside, someone loves you.

00:15:40.840 There's no reason somebody's not gonna answer

00:15:43.000 or open that package.

00:15:44.920 And so we want you guys to check out mailthegospel.org.

00:15:48.800 If you also want to just support us financially,

00:15:53.160 we do need help buying more gospel tracks.

00:15:56.160 We put about $30,000 into buying our first round of tracks.

00:15:59.780 And so we need your donations for those of you

00:16:01.460 that are faithful and interested in supporting us that way.

00:16:04.340 We would love to have your faithful support that way as well.

00:16:10.280 So again, this is a really awesome resource

00:16:13.460 and we want to encourage you guys

00:16:14.540 because again, we don't want to replace evangelism.

00:16:17.400 This isn't meaning that you shouldn't stop evangelizing

00:16:19.400 when you have an opportunity to do so.

00:16:21.640 You need to do that.

00:16:23.400 But we need to be prepared to do that.

00:16:26.600 So we want to first again, overcome the fear of man.

00:16:28.740 We want to understand theological doctrine.

00:16:31.420 And we want to be ready for some of those common questions

00:16:33.920 that are going to come at us in the defense of the gospel.

00:16:38.260 1 Peter 3.15 says,

00:16:39.500 Always be ready to give a defense for the hope that is in you.

00:16:43.600 We're called to be ready in season and out of season

00:16:46.080 to give a defense for the gospel,

00:16:48.720 to give a defense for the hope, right?

00:16:50.300 And the hope in us is Christ Jesus.

00:16:52.540 So we need to be ready.

00:16:53.880 I don't care if you're the stay-at-home mom

00:16:55.380 or if you're the electrician or if you're the pastor,

00:16:57.920 you need to be ready to answer those questions

00:17:01.080 about the gospel when someone sees that in your life,

00:17:05.380 also by the prompting of the spirit.

00:17:07.280 Now, I understand that not every individual

00:17:08.780 is an evangelist like myself,

00:17:10.300 but every individual has the duty and opportunity

00:17:13.000 and responsibility to fulfill the gospel ministry.

00:17:18.060 We are all ministers at some degree.

00:17:20.580 And whenever the Spirit's prompting us

00:17:22.460 to preach the gospel, proclaim the gospel,

00:17:25.140 herald the gospel somewhere,

00:17:26.700 we need to be willing to do that.

00:17:28.800 So again, you can always do that at mailthegospel.org.

00:17:32.520 It's a resource, it's a tool for you guys.

00:17:34.460 We hope to see you guys use that on a regular basis,

00:17:37.080 maybe five, 10 times a year.

00:17:39.360 Go get your addresses,

00:17:40.980 figure out what you're going to say and get ready to mail the gospel. Again, check out the website,

00:17:47.920 mailthegospel.org. On this episode, we're going to just end it there. We're going to get back

00:17:52.740 into our discussion about Romans chapter two, verses one through five, next episode. So stay

00:17:58.700 tuned for that. Thank you for listening to this episode of Real Christianity. I hope that this

00:18:02.340 was an edifying episode for your walk with Christ. I hope that this resource that we've created

00:18:06.780 is a great resource for your walk with Christ.

00:18:09.580 If you haven't subscribed to our channel here on YouTube,

00:18:12.360 please do that, or our podcast.

00:18:14.100 If you're not a subscriber,

00:18:14.980 you're just listening to this episode,

00:18:16.400 we would love to have you subscribe

00:18:17.720 for every week dropping biblical truth.

00:18:21.980 Lastly, would you just prayerfully consider

00:18:24.160 supporting what we're doing just on social media?

00:18:27.040 Getting in there, following us,

00:18:28.940 finding out what we're doing.

00:18:30.100 Give us your email, go to relearn.org.

00:18:32.040 We've got a bunch of different products in the store,

00:18:33.880 different books you can buy.

00:18:34.860 We would love to have you on the journey with us.

00:18:38.480 On that note, my name is Dale Partridge.

00:18:40.380 Thanks for listening to this episode of Real Christianity.

00:18:42.600 I'll see you next week.

Dale Partridge - June 28, 2022

Why Every Christian Must Share the Gospel

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