Today on the Evangelist Podcast, we're looking at the Gospel Presentation 321.
SPEAKER_00The Evangelist Podcast from Revival. Find out what's new in telling people the good news about God, the world, and you. With Andy Brinkley and Glenn Scrivener.
SPEAKER_02Welcome back to the Evangelist Podcast. Now, in these recent podcasts, we've been looking at the Gospel Presentation 321, and we've done an introduction, we've done three, we've done two, and now we come to number one. That's right. By a process of elimination. So uh with me is Glenn Scrivener, the evangelist here at Revival. I'm uh Andy Brinkley, the media producer. If you're a regular listener, you might know that I've been asking for a rating and review on iTunes. Um it helps us get seen by more people. Uh if you'd like to do that, that would be excellent. Just go to revivalmedia.org slash iTunes. Uh if you listen on Stitcher Radio, you can also uh share rate and review on there, I believe. And if you'd like to do that, you can go to revivalmedia.org slash stitcher, and that will take you directly to the Stitcher page. So we're gonna listen to uh the one part of the 321 gospel presentation, and uh hear Glenn's Dulcet tones explain this part of the presentation.
SPEAKER_03One. You are one with Adam. Will you be one with Jesus? The human condition is Adam's condition. As chips off the old block, we share in his selfishness, his death, his disconnection from God. One with Adam, we have no life in ourselves and no hope for the future. But Jesus comes to offer a stunning oneness with himself. Like with the Christmas tree, we can be snipped out of the Adam tree and grafted into the Christ tree. Or think of another picture of oneness. We can be one with Jesus, like in a marriage. Imagine a marriage between a prince and a pauper. She's filthy and poor with a shameful name and a hopeless future. Yet the prince loves her and offers himself to her in marriage. As soon as they're united, what happens? He takes all her debts, she gets all his riches. He covers over her shameful name and gives her his name. She's invited into his life, his family, his inheritance. Through her prince, she can call the king Daddy, and all because of their marriage union. It's just like that with Jesus. If we receive him, all that is ours, our sin and curse, becomes his. He pays it all off on the cross. And all that is his, his righteousness and inheritance, becomes ours. If we're one with Jesus, right now we're adopted into the family. We have his spirit as our spirit. We have his father as our father. We belong to his brothers and sisters in the church. We call on the same Father and hear his love spoken to us. You are my child who I love. With you I am well pleased. These are our privileges now, and when Christ returns, we will also share in his physical, immortal life. He will raise us bodily and set the world to rights. On that day, God will judge the world, forever confirming his no to Adam and His yes to Christ. You are one with Adam, but there's no future in that life. And with arms outstretched, Jesus makes a proposal. He offers you himself, his very life, his family, his future. He's yours if you'll have him. Be one with Jesus. The three invite you in. The two determine the world. Will you be one with the Son of God?
SPEAKER_02So that's one from 321, the gospel presentation by Glenn Scrivener. Glenn, union with Christ. It's quite an in-depth theological subject. Is it a bit too deep for first contact evangelism?
SPEAKER_03Uh yeah, uh people have said that to me. Uh people have said, oh, I love the 321, and you know, I I asked them further about it, and then they say, Yeah, but I'm not so sure about Trinity really in evangelism. And by the way, I'm not really sure about Adam and Christ and that whole two thing, and and really union with Christ, that whole oneness thing, that's a bit deep. But I really love 3-2-1. And I'm like, well, what do you like about it then? Like, you like that it's orange? What do you like? I don't know. Um, but yeah, people have said, well, look at the sermons in Acts and that kind of thing. Um, there's not really a union with Christ thing going on. One thing I'd say is that actually there kind of is in in sort of uh Acts 17. You've got the first time that Paul's actually taking the gospel to the Gentiles, the the first time that we're actually told what he says to the Gentiles, and and he kind of does an Adam and Christ thing. He says, From one man God made every race of men, and through one man God's God's going to judge the world. So he he definitely does two and a bit of one in in Acts 17. Just that he doesn't call it 321. He doesn't call it three-two. That's that's the only criticism I'd have of the Apostle Paul, is uh no. Um but interestingly, when Paul goes on to write his letters 150 times, he talks about union with Christ. He talks about being in Christ, and it is the fundamental description of what it is to be a Christian. So if it's the fundamental description about what it is to be a Christian, then I d I don't see any reason why we shouldn't talk about it. You know, it's it's not something I can't unite myself to Jesus, that's true. But if I'm telling someone what a Christian is, a Christian is somebody who is united to Jesus, one with Jesus in Christ. And once we once we say that, I think it unpacks for them what the Christian life is and what it is we're inviting them into.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and this is opposed to something a bit like a shop where you go in and you purchase uh for yourself salvation, yes, and you you buy it as a product, you walk away with it. Yes. This is something that's got a completely different sort of emphasis.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, a different feel, isn't it? If you're offering a person Jesus and you're saying be one with the person, your gospel's gonna look one way. If you're saying actually the gospel is Jesus has stuff for you, and the stuff he has for you is, you know, forgiveness and eternal life and the Holy Spirit and a feeling of purpose, and um at that stage you're just selling a package deal kind of evangelism. And it's a little bit like, you know, going to Phones for You. If you've ever been to the Phones for You shop, they are the most aggressive salespeople you've ever met in your life. You you stick a toe inside that shop and they've yanked you inside and they ask you, you know, what provider are you with, and how many minutes do you get and how many gigs of whatever and and the answer I don't know does not wash with them. They they want to pin you down and they want to offer the right package for you of stuff. And sometimes evangelism is conducted a little bit like that. It's sort of the hard sell. And the reason why it's a hard sell is because people think of it as a package deal that they're offering. You know, here's Jesus, okay, and he gets you out of hell, and he gives you gets you into heaven, and he gives you forgiveness, and he gives you the Holy Spirit, and he gives you a sense of purpose and the Father's love, and you know, do you want do you want this package? All for the low, low price of repentance and faith, you know. But it changes evangelism when instead you're basically saying, Well, here's Jesus himself. Do you want him? Yeah. And I think that simplifies evangelism quite a lot.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_03So quite often I I do a comparison. Imagine imagine a movie um uh like a Robin Hood type film set in the Middle Ages, and you've got some snooty lord like the Sheriff of Nottingham, and and uh this snooty lord sits on a throne, and uh there's a servant girl who does some things for him, and so he flings her uh a pouch of silver. And the servant girl, you know, takes the pouch of silver and runs away from the palace to go and enjoy the silver. That's kind of one view of salvation, that that that God kind of flings a a a package towards us of gospel goodies. And we, because we've done the right thing, whether it you know we've walked down an aisle, we've you know prayed a prayer, we've ticked a card, we've we've you know done the repentance and faith thing, because we've served God in some way, we get the package, and then we take the package and we go and enjoy it elsewhere. Um actually the gospel is the Lord out of love marries the servant girl and gives himself to her, and when he gives himself to her, then he says, All that I am, I give to you, all that I have I share with you. And she gets everything, you know, such a more gracious and giving um offer. And then the gospel's not so much the the package deal that we get. Um it's more it's more being one with Jesus. You know, I I often say to people, you know, Christians, I say, you know, what's the best thing that we get out of our union with Christ? What's the best thing that we get? And people say, Oh, we you know, we get eternal life, we get forgiveness, we get heaven, you know. I said, Well, we're not gold diggers, are we? You know, we don't we don't marry him for his money, do we? Um The best thing we get from union with Jesus is Jesus. And again, I think that really simplifies our evangelism because I might not know all the ins and outs of the gospel. I might not know all the answers to all the questions that people ask me about the gospel and what about this question, what about that question? But I do know Jesus. You know, I know him. And if I know him, I know the heart of it. And and I think that can be very liberating as we try to equip people to share Christ. We don't need them to do the hard sell. We don't need to equip them to answer every question under the sun. Number one thing is, do you know Jesus? And if you know Jesus, you can say something about him in evangelism. You can, you know, often in evangelism training I'll just get people to think about the sentence, that's what I love about Jesus. How do you finish that sentence? If you don't have a an ending to that sentence, it's that doesn't make you a bad evangelist, it makes you a bad Christian. You know, it makes you like there's a there's a problem there with your Christianity. It's not just a problem that you're not, you know, the world's greatest evangelist. There's a problem with your Christianity if you can't finish the sentence, that's what I love about Jesus. But if you can finish that sentence, you can be an evangelist. And you can be a wonderful evangelist, because you'll get to the heart of the matter very quickly, because it's about him, not a package.
SPEAKER_02So what happens when we don't talk about union with Christ? I mean, what sort of things result?
SPEAKER_03Um there's a great book, and um maybe we could put a link to it. It's um it's by Rory Shiner called One Forever, and uh it's only 77 pages long, um, but it's a beautiful little book about being one with Jesus, and he uses this illustration of oneness with Jesus. He says, um, you know, if you go to the airport and you see a plane and you you want to catch the plane to Sydney or somewhere, you know. Um, and uh and he sort of says, What relationship do you need to have to that plane in order to get to Sydney? Um would it help you if you got to the airport and you saw the plane take off and you got really inspired and you thought, I believe I can fly? Like, would that help you? No, not very much. You know, would it help you if you sort of saw the plane take off, you took its bearing, you got out of compass, and you started running as fast as your little legs could carry you? Would that help you? Would it help to be inspired by the plane? Would it help to be under the plane? Would it help to be following the plane? Uh no, you need to have the relationship of being in the plane. And then whatever happens to the plane happens to you. You you're not very good at getting to Sydney by yourself. The plane is, if you're in the plane, what happens to the plane happens to you. Same with Christ. Yes, there's all sorts of language about following Jesus and being inspired by Jesus and and yeah, following after the example of Jesus and and all that sort of stuff. But at the end of the day, unless we're in Jesus, then we're not going to heaven, are we? Because I can't get to heaven by myself. But he has. And if I'm in him, then what's happened to Jesus has happened to me. The trouble with doing evangelism or or any kind of gospeling, if we don't talk in sort of union with Christ terms, we just start talking only in terms of following Jesus. Only in in in terms of him being an example to us. And those are true things and they're right things, but they're not the heart of the Christian faith. And actually if it if it's just about following Jesus or submitting to Jesus or being under Jesus, um, then our gospel starts to sound a little bit Islamic. It starts to sound a little bit just like submission is the bottom line. That Jesus is a power over me and I need to submit to him. It's true that I do. It's true that I do. But unless that's coming out of a real sense of being united to Jesus, then I'm gonna spin the gospel in a in a quite legalistic um way. So that that's another reason why I think union with Christ is really important. And and if we don't talk in union with Christ as well, and another outflow is um let's say that somebody comes to Christ. Like we've shared our gospel, we haven't really spoken in terms of oneness with Jesus. We've just sort of said, Jesus did this one thing called salvation, you need to do this thing called repentance and faith, and boom, okay, great, you're saved. Okay, let's let's imagine that they they repent and believe and they're saved. Then then the new Christian says, What now? And at that stage, you often find the evangelist shifting gears massively and saying, Great, yeah, all you needed to do was trust in Jesus and you're saved. Now that you've trusted Jesus, here are the 17 things you need to do. You need to come to church and you need to read your Bible every day and you need to pray every day. Are you in an accountability group? And what about this, and what about that, and what about that? And the the the the new Christian would be forgiven for thinking, hang on, you've you've just shifted the goalposts there. Suddenly there there's all these other things to do, and the Christian life actually looks different to what it looks like to be saved. And what it looks like to be saved didn't really prepare me for what the Christian life was. What I'm loving about doing 321 with people is by the time you've explained that the Christian life is oneness with Jesus, you've actually explained to them what the Christian life is. And if they want to be one with Jesus, then of course of course church is a natural outflow of this. Because if I'm one with Jesus, suddenly I'm also one with all the other people who are one with Jesus. You know, if Jesus the Son has brought me into the family of God, then of course, like I'm saved into church. Of course I am. It's just it's just a natural thing. And of course, if being one with Jesus means now I hear the Father's verdict, you are my child who I love with you I'm well pleased, then of course the Bible makes a lot of sense. Actually, ongoing in my Christian life, I want to hear the Father tell me that. So here's the Bible. Great, that's good news. You know, and and in Jesus, being now a child of my heavenly father as I walk through this world, well of course I want to pray to him. Of course I want to, you know, in the name of Jesus, pray our Father in heaven. Like And so suddenly the Christian life makes organic sense, and it's not a shift of gears between you are saved, and now here's church and Bible and prayer. It's now, well obviously salvation looks like church and Bible and prayer, actually. So that I think that's another that's another benefit.
SPEAKER_02I mean, i i I suppose this is an answer in a way to to people who would say that if you just offer salvation freely, then it's too dangerous because people just take salvation and go off and use it to sin and this is our free ticket to do whatever we want. Yeah. Um have you heard that sort of people say that to you?
SPEAKER_03Yes, exactly. Sort of people sort of say you don't want to preach a free gospel because they'll just take that as a get out of hell free card and they'll run off and sin. So don't preach a gospel that's too free now. You know, raise the bar a bit, make sure that people are really, really serious about repenting, and that way they won't take the Mickey and they won't go off and sin lots. I think the answer to that is to define salvation properly. Salvation again is not the snooty lord flicking the silver at the servant girl, and the servant girl taking the silver and running away from the palace to enjoy the silver and not her lord. Salvation is being one with her Lord. But it is a free salvation. The Lord really does offer himself in marriage for free to the servant girl. So the answer to licentiousness is not to preach a more expensive gospel, it's actually to preach the free salvation of Jesus, but it's to define salvation as what it really is. Salvation is what it really is, is Jesus being offered to you.
SPEAKER_02So as believers in faith alone, do we have like a place for repentance? I mean the the word says that you know, without repentance there cannot be any forgiveness. So so where is a place for Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Well I think that's the right way to start. As faith alone people, we can't say that repentance and faith are two hurdles that the non-Christian must leap over. First hurdle, believing in Jesus. Second hurdle, setting their life in order. Because at that point we're denying faith alone. We're denying that we're saved by faith alone. In fact, we're denying that we're saved by Christ alone at that stage, because we're we're saying that, yeah, Christ did the dying for me bit, but I've got to do my bit in terms of cleaning up my act. So we can't say that about what repentance is, but we don't need to because all throughout, for instance, acts, it's just synonymous. Faith and repentance are just like sometimes Peter says repent and believe, sometimes he says repent and be baptized, sometimes he says just repent, sometimes he just says believe. As you go through Acts, you you see all these different combinations. And that's that's just because faith and repentance are two sides of the same coin. And it's kind it's a coin that God gives to you as well in the gospel. In fact, it's not a coin, it's Jesus, isn't it? In the gospel, the Father says, Here have Jesus. And if we receive him, then that is what repenting and believing is because suddenly I am not my own master, I'm not my own lord, I'm not the servant girl doing her own thing. Now I've got a Lord. You know? Now I'm united to this Jesus person. And I haven't done anything in order to get it united to this Jesus person. I'm not even that much in charge of my own life. Um suddenly he's just been offered to me, and and I have this other direction in my life instantly. And and once people get the marriage illustration, I think they they see what what kind of repentance we're talking about. We're not talking about doing this, that, or the other. We're talking about a whole of life revolution. When you get married, your vows are really quite simple. You know, all that I am I give you, all that I have I share with you. That's quite a simple vow, but it's absolutely all-encompassing. Your vows don't say, I will take out the garbage on Monday nights, and I will do the washing up, and I will you like You must have had different vows. Yeah, that's right. Mary wrote your vows for you, did you? Yeah, we don't tend to be quite s that specific in our vows, but what we do tend to say is I'm yours and you're mine. That's what repentance really is. Jesus, I'm yours and you're mine. I I no longer belong to myself. You've been given to me, and now I belong to you. So actually, people people have sometimes come to me and said, you know, where's repentance in 321? And then I've started talking about this oneness stuff, and they've gone, oh my goodness, that's a lot more comprehensive than I've ever thought about in terms of repentance. Because genuinely, when we think about repentance in evangelism, we think about, well, okay, this person needs to sort out that one issue in their life, and they do need to sort out that one issue in their life, but they're not kind of in a position to sort out that issue yet. Um, they need Jesus in their life in order not just to sort out that issue, but to reorient their whole lives. Um so repentance is a gift that's given in the gospel, uh, and I think it it's made sense of when we t speak in terms of oneness with Jesus.
SPEAKER_02So, Glenn, how does uh oneness with Christ help us to be better evangelists?
SPEAKER_03I think in t in a couple of ways that spring to mind. I think one is um realizing that the gospel we believe applies to us as much as it applies to the non-Christian we're speaking to. That actually it's not like it's not like there's a system for the non-Christian called the gospel, and then there's another system called discipleship for the Christian. That both of those things are about oneness with Jesus. And so all of a sudden in the nitty-gritty of my life, oneness with Jesus has an impact that that actually can communicate to the non-Christian. Um very rarely does the non-Christian ask me the question, what must I do to be saved? Very, very rarely do they ask me that question. But, you know, our friends and family are constantly asking us, you know, how do I raise my kids? How do I handle my anger? You know, what do I do about these panic attacks? How could I possibly forgive that person? You know, why is marriage so difficult? What's the way forward in this family breakdown? You know, how do I handle this bullying boss? Um, you know, how do I cope when my my dreams are shattered? Why does food enslave me? How can I be free from this addiction? What's wrong with me? You know, people are asking deep questions about life. And if all we've got uh up our evangelistic sleeves. Is a little bridge diagram or whatever. Bridge diagram's got its place, but if that's if that's kind of it, then what connection does that have to the bullying boss, or how do I raise my kids, or why can't I handle my anger, or why am I so addicted to stuff? Doesn't it doesn't really, really connect. But if both things are about oneness with Jesus, then maybe with the Lord Jesus in my life, walking with me through these addiction problems, these anger problems, how do I raise my kids, suddenly it becomes a more organic kind of way to evangelize. And you can say, Well, that's what I love about Jesus. Because when I have my bullying boss overbearing on me, I know that Jesus, you know, when he was on trial, was silent before his accusers and entrusted himself to God who judges justly. And I know that the same Jesus is with me. That's what I love about Jesus. And and he'll walk with you through your situation if you want him to. And and suddenly suddenly it's more a more organic way of evangelizing, um, hopefully. And as you start to think in those terms, again, hopefully, it's it's a way of saying that evangelism is not the package deal, it's not the hard sell. You don't have to be a professional evangelist, you don't have to have all the words. You just need to know Jesus. And again, you know, the one of the biggest verses I ever use in evangelism training is Matthew twelve, verse thirty-four. Out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks. And and if if we're enjoying our marriage union with Jesus, then we can just talk about Jesus. You know, it's not rocket science. To the degree that we make it like rocket science, we shoot ourselves in the foot because that's not authentic. But if we know Jesus, then we can speak about him, and and the words will be feeble and faltering, but they'll be genuine because they've come out of that uh that union with Jesus.
SPEAKER_02So, Glenn, in a an evangelistic situation, how would you speak then about one? What ways would you put it?
SPEAKER_03I yeah, I think I think the marriage illustration, I I I get that out in evangelism all the time, as quickly as possible, really. I I think people get it. They kind of get the thing that as soon as the two people are united, all that's his is hers, all that's hers is his. People get that instantly. And all of a sudden you're able to to teach substitutionary atonement and you're able to teach imputation of Christ's righteousness. You know, obviously you're not using any of these terms, but as soon as you talk about your debts go to him and his riches come to you, you've taught some extremely deep theology about the graciousness of salvation, about about you know about your union with Christ, but also about substitutionary atonement, about imputation and um all this kind of stuff. So I I use I use that marriage illustration and and and wheel it out. And then all of a sudden, you've put your evangelism on the footing of it's a love story. And it's uh it's about a Lord who loves you and doesn't just want things from you, but wants you. And, you know, scary though that is, that is the gospel, and when you really understand it, it's the best news in the world.
SPEAKER_02Okay, well, uh we'll we'll finish there, Glenn. We've we've done uh three, two, and one. Uh what are we gonna do next time?
SPEAKER_03Good question. Uh next time we're we're gonna think about okay, three, two, one, it's not the simplest presentation in the world. I'll I'll grant that. There are there are lots of simpler ways of describing an aspect of the gospel. So why why be as complicated as this? And also, you know, responding to the objection, it's it doesn't start where people are. You know, it starts with Trinity, for goodness sakes. That's not that's not the question that people are asking. It doesn't start where people are. So what on earth am I playing at? What uh w why are we doing it this way? Are there any benefits to this um and what can it teach us about evangelism as a whole?
SPEAKER_02Okay. Stay tuned for hearing that next time. So thanks for listening to the Evangelist Podcast. Just before we finish, I want to tell you about our daily prayer bulletin. It's a small twenty-four-page booklet that tells thirty-one stories of what God is doing around the world. Did you know that the Church in Egypt is uniting in prayer despite the recent unrest, or that the Wei U tribe in Colombia are enrolled in Bible training? You can hear more about it in our prayer bulletin. You can get it free of charge by going to revivalmedia.org slash bulletin. So the web address for this episode where you can comment on this specific show, where you can see the video and a link to that book that Glenn mentioned, simply go to revivalmedia.org slash tep29.