On today's edition of 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_01Welcome back to the Evangelist Podcast. This is the show where we encourage you in your witness to your friends, your family, and even complete strangers. If you like listening each week, we'd really appreciate a rating and review on iTunes. It helps us get seen by more people. Just go to revivalmedia.org slash iTunes. We'd be very grateful if you could leave us a review and rating there. So Glenn, we're starting a new series this time looking at 321. Can you tell us what three two one is?
SPEAKER_02321 is a way of explaining the gospel that talks about God, the world, and you. It talks about God's threeness and the world's two-ness and your oneness. So the three truths are God is three persons united in love. That's the truth of three. Truth of two is that the world is shaped by two representatives, Adam and Jesus. And then one is you are born one with Adam. Will you be one with Jesus? That's the sort of the gospel presentation. And currently it exists as a five-minute sort of gospel video, and I guess we can have a link to that on the on the program page. And it exists as a course, so various churches are doing it as a three-week evangelistic course. I'm currently uh writing the book, um, 321, then there's the t-shirts and lunchbox and yeah. Um bumper stickers and yeah.
SPEAKER_01You need one of the wristbands, you know. So the unfoldable wristbands so that people can like a triangular one.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Witness on the triangular and then, yeah, on each p side is the We'll talk later. Okay. No, there is actually a actually working on a tract that is a pyramid. Well, it's it's triangular, but it folds up into a pyramid, so you can uh put it on the table and then as you spin it around you see the different uh the different truths. Huh? Huh? Always thinking about that idea. Always thinking.
SPEAKER_01So a gospel presentation that has Jesus at the center.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So it's Jesus-centered evangelism, and and we're sort of having a look at an introduction to 321 before we start three next week.
SPEAKER_02That's right. Because I think I think Jesus introduces us to the three. You know, the Son of God shows us his Father and His Spirit. He introduces us to God. Uh, Jesus shows us the true nature of the world, uh, because it's Adam and Christ. Uh Jesus um shows us who we really are. Disconnected from him in Adam, connected to him in in him. So it's it's Jesus who is our window onto all these things. And and and deliberately I wrote the the presentation in that way, um, because I so often evangelism that begins without Jesus really struggles to uh crowbar Jesus in later. If you start your gospel presentation without Jesus, it's gonna be really difficult later on to say, oh, and by the way, Jesus came and solved everything. Oh really? Who's this Jesus guy? Well, you know, he's God. Oh, why didn't you mention him when you mentioned God? Well, I didn't want to confuse things. Well, you're confusing me now. Or they say, you know, Jesus came to solve everything. Who's Jesus? Oh well, he he's kind of the scapegoat that that deals with all the problems. And then like, oh man, that's that's not fair, is it? Like if he's not God and he just gets zapped with all this stuff, how is that fair? So starting with Jesus is just so very, very important. Um and continuing with Jesus and and focusing on Jesus with everything everything else in evangelism is i it's the thing that simplified my evangelism more than anything else. So it it's it's the it's the drum that I bang a lot.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. There's a real need for it, I think, today, because I mean I we had some friends that uh there was they met some young people, they were I think they were neighbours or just you know, at the end of their garden or something, and uh they said, Have you heard about this this man called Jesus? Because it was about round Easter time and you know they'd got the Easter eggs and everything and they'd learnt at school that it was something to do with Jesus. Yeah. And I sort of said, Who who is this Jesus? They complete didn't have any idea about about who Jesus was at all. Yeah. Um and hardly heard of his name, you know. Yeah. Um so it's it's definitely something that that is needed.
SPEAKER_02And how scary is that? When when, you know, to know Jesus is to know the living God, um, to be absolutely ignorant of him. Wow, yeah.
SPEAKER_01So we're looking at some of the distractions that distract from Jesus at the centre uh of our evangelism. Um talking about religion. Yeah. How that can be uh an obstacle.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah. So somebody says, you know, well, the archbishop has just said this about the banking sector, what do you think? Well you know um you might have an interesting conversation at that point. It won't be a particularly gospel conversation. Um or whatever, the all sorts of all sorts of religious talk that you can have that gets you nowhere in evangelistic terms. The classic case of the woman at the at the well in uh John chapter 4. They they're having a spiritual conversation, and there's Jesus trying to offer her the living waters of his spirit, and she keeps saying, Actually, you know, you Jews think that the right mountain is over there. We think the right mountain's over there. What you know, do you want to weigh in on this religious argument? No, says Jesus. No, no, not at all. Well, I mean he does answer her question, interestingly enough, doesn't he? He does he does. He does sort of say, Well, no, you're wrong. Um, salvation is from the Jews, you need to come to me. But yeah, he's he's always bringing it to himself, and we should always be bringing it to Jesus. But yeah, religion can be a real distraction.
SPEAKER_01And people teaching about sort of morality and things, you know, rather than Christ who demonstrates God's pattern. Grace. Yeah. So you've got the sort of the the moral crusader that that uh goes around and says, you know, or you've you've got to be good, you've got to, you know, never never cheat, never lie, never steal. Yep, yeah. Uh preaching sort of a a message of goodness rather than the one who is wholly good that's taken our our goodness.
SPEAKER_02Taken our badness and badness. Given us his goodness. Yeah, I mean, yeah, what's the Christian position on this, that, or the other? Um, whenever a non-Christian asks you that question, they are assuming that this is the centre of what you believe. And it almost doesn't matter how much you say it's not the centre, yeah. It will be the centre. For whatever not and so whatever the non-Christian says, what's the Christian stance on this, that, or the other? You've got to be so clear on, okay, I'll I'll answer your question, but just so you know, this is not the centre. Jesus Christ and Him crucified is absolutely the centre. But again, you know, issues of religion and issues of morality can be a real d distraction.
SPEAKER_01And doing works to reach God, you've got to pray five times a day, or you've got to do this particular ritual or whatever. I mean, even in the church, we can say you must have a quiet time, you know, you must go to the prayer meeting, you must do this, and that that can sort of give give the wrong completely the wrong picture.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah, exactly. And so if you ask your non-Christian friends, what do you think really is at the heart of Christian faith? Um hopefully they'd say Jesus. Yeah. But yeah, quite quite often they the you could forgive them for thinking if they just looked at us and looked at what we concern ourselves with, they could be forgiven for thinking that it was about all those things that you that you mentioned.
SPEAKER_01That would be an interesting sort of conversation starter, wouldn't it?
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01What do you think that Christianity is the main thing about Christianity?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah. What do you think is at the heart of Christian faith? I wonder what they would say. Yes. Probably love thy neighbour.
SPEAKER_01I don't know. Which hmm. And then another distraction, i uh perhaps you can explain this a bit, but uh talking about God. Yes. How can that be a distraction? Well, which God are you talking about?
SPEAKER_02You know, that's the thing. Um and you know, so so discussions about is there a creator or not? And and what about the fine-tuning of the universe and all these sorts of debates that can be had? Um you could you can have hours and hours and hours of discussion uh about some whether there there might exist some kind of God and you've gotten nowhere in terms of intelligent designer. Is there an intelligent designer or not? Is there a uh an uncaused cause? Is there an unmoved mover? Is you know is there than that which none greater can be conceived? Um the old ontological argument uh uh tells you about. So and it just doesn't get you anywhere. It doesn't get you anywhere. I w I was um on Saturday doing a uh men's breakfast, and my title for the men's breakfast was Which God Don't You Believe In? And it was it was an evangelistic thing, and they were to bring non-Christian friends and and uh and it's yeah, just basically making the point that uh you know if you don't believe in God, that's not the end of the conversation. Which God don't you believe in? And if you do believe in God, that's not the end of the matter either. Which God do you believe in? Um unless we're talking about the Jesus Gods, who cares? It's the it's it's Jesus who we have to be absolutely, uh relentlessly, resolutely focused upon.
SPEAKER_01Um because he is the image of the invisible God.
SPEAKER_02Yes. And that's what that's what I preached on actually at the men's breakfast. Yeah. Yeah, which which turns on its head everything we think about God and Jesus. We think God's obvious, and Jesus we're not so sure about. You go out into the street, you ask people in the streets, you know, do you believe in God? The majority will say yes. You ask them, Do you believe that Jesus is the Son of God? Well, some say yes, some say no, some say a prophet, some say a myth, you know. Everyone's everyone's uncertain about Jesus, but fairly certain about God. And actually Colossians 1 verse 15 turns that on its head. It says, Jesus is the image of the otherwise invisible God. God's unknown. Jesus is the one who is on show. So if if we want to talk about God at all, we have to talk about his image. Otherwise, he remains inv invisible to people. So we must be absolutely obsessed with Jesus. Um and it's uh you know, and it's a good thing. It's such an attractive thing to be obsessed with Jesus. You know, Lord Byron the poet said if God's not like Jesus, he ought to be. And I really like that. I th I think I think that's a very theologically accurate statement, you know, based on Colossians 1.15 and John 118 and John fourteen verse six and all these all these verses about Jesus being the mediator. He reveals to us what God's like, and if and if we've imagined an unchrist like God, then we haven't imagined the real God. Um I was talking to a woman at uh Exeter University last year, and and um she'd come out of Iran, and um she was really, really interested asking all sorts of questions about the Bible, about Jesus. And I said, What what got you interested in in Christianity? And she said, Well, growing up in Iran, uh it didn't take me long to realise that whoever God was, he could not be the God of the Ayatollahs. And then she said, He has to be the Jesus God. Whoever else God is, he can't be the God of the Ayatollahs, he has to be the Jesus God. And absolutely he does. And the good news is he is.
SPEAKER_01When we're looking at uh some of these distractions from Jesus being the centre, we can also look at the benefits of teaching the gospel with Jesus at the centre. And the first thing we've got here is that he simplifies the gospel.
SPEAKER_02He certainly I mean, what's simplified my evangelism so much uh in the last few years has been realizing my job is to offer Christ. It's not even to offer a certain presentation of the gospel, like three to one. The whole the only point of three to one is to say, let's really make sure that Jesus shapes God, the world, and you. And when you do that, you get three and two and one. But the the real purpose in evangelism is to paint Jesus in biblical and attractive colours and to say to the world, Do you want him? Because he's offered to you. That that's what evangelism is, but and it's not so much taking people through steps. I I believe that there's creation and there's fall, and there's Jesus' redemption, and then there's the consummation when he comes back. I agree that there are those that sort of fourfold shape to the Bible's story. I agree with that, but Jesus shapes every bit of it. And it's Jesus Himself who people need, not so much doctrines about Jesus, and not so much the doctrines that spin off from knowing Jesus, it's Jesus Himself. Um it's such a such a simplifying thing. Because it it means that you know, when I get up and give an evangelistic talk, for instance, I'm not thinking, oh, okay, there are six doctrines that I need to get across. So much as you know, I I could do a really good talk and only get two of those doctrines across. Um what makes it a good talk or not a good talk is have I got Jesus across? Have I, you know, painted him in these biblical colours? And it's just amazing to think that, you know, the gospel writers, you know, from the earliest times, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John were known as gospels. They were known as, you know, the gospel, the good news according to Matthew, the good news according to Mark. And amazing that they should be known as the gospel according to Luke, the gospel according to John, when what they are are stories about Jesus. There was this time when Jesus met the leper and he reached out and he says, I'm willing, you be clean, and then he went and he called this tax collector guy, and they went and had a meal, and then these nasty guys called the Pharisees came in, and Jesus silenced them, and then Jesus went to another party, and the prostitute, can you believe a prostitute came in and the prostitute was you know at his feet? What happened next? I'll tell you what happened next. You know, that's how the gospels are written.
SPEAKER_04Stuart.
SPEAKER_02You know, and and and when Luke wants to tell you the good news, he says, Let me tell you some stories. I got some great Jesus stories. Why why don't we do evangelism like that? You know? Let me tell you my favourite Jesus story. You know, that's that's you know, that's what's more attractive, and that's what's that's what's simple. And it means that I don't I don't need to be the evangelist that has a thousand different you know illustrations and some great mother-in-law gags and s you know has the patter and could sell ice to Eskimos, and I don't I don't need that. I just need to talk about Jesus. That's what evangelism is.
SPEAKER_01And it's showing Jesus and and you're basically introducing people to a person, you know, it's relational. Yeah, exactly. Um rather than you know, here's here's all the texts. Yeah. You know, um read the doctrines for yourself and then do you assent to those doctrines?
SPEAKER_02How many of those doctrines do you assent to? Tick the boxes. Can you tick those boxes? You know, as as if, you know, at the pearly gates, you know, there'll be an angel with a with a clipboard saying, so uh the book Do you agree, disagree, strongly disagree? No, no, it's it's it's all about Jesus. What kind of faith are we trying to inculcate in people? What kind of faith are we trying to produce as we preach our gospel? Are we just trying to get people to assent to that truth, that truth, and that truth? No. What we're what we're actually trying to do is offer Jesus to the person where they say, you know what, I don't know about X, Y, and Z, but I I think I can trust this Jesus. And if he says so and so, then I guess that's that's what the matter is.
SPEAKER_01Because when you've got the person of Jesus, yeah, the doctrines follow. Yeah. Atonement means at one-ment, you know, and when you're at one with Jesus, you know the doctrines follow on, you know.
SPEAKER_02Exact exactly. And and you could you can have all sorts of debates about what happens with the atonement, and they're important to have. But if your theory of atonement doesn't end up with you being at one with the Lord, then there's something wrong. We w we were talking before about um the the Day of Atonement, and you know, you could you could argue all you like about whether the scapegoat was more important than the goat devoted to the Lord, or whether the bull was more important as a sacrifice, and you could have all these different models of what's going on with the sacrifice. The real deal is there is Aaron carrying the blood into the Lord's presence, and he's carrying his people on on his heart with him, so that they are at one with the Lord. Um so we need to be far more focused on our high priest, Jesus, than we are on the mechanisms and the and and all that kind of stuff. And I I I believe in penal substitutionary atonement and all other big words like that. And I believe it's important to get that doctrine clear in our our thinking and to communicate it in various ways as we speak. But what a travesty if we have the doctrine of penal substitutionary atonement, and yet we don't offer the person of Christ, the person who actually atones for us. That's that's at the centre of evangelism.
SPEAKER_01Okay, well, this is an intriguing start to the uh to the 321 outline. So are we gonna get a bit of a sneak peek into three?
SPEAKER_02Sneak peek into next week. We're thinking about how if if God is the Jesus God, as my Iranian friend called him, what does that mean? Well, Jesus, the Son of God, brings us to the Father and introduces us to the Spirit who fills him. As as as you are focused on Jesus, you get Trinity. It's very interesting. I I think at the moment Trinity is kind of flavor of the month, and people love the idea of Trinity, but I think somehow people are kind of getting Trinity, but not getting that Trinity means Jesus. They're kind of getting that Trinity is this lovely idea that God's a community of love, and we all like love. Love's lovely. Um we love love, great. But Trinity more concretely is the Son of God, Jesus, has revealed to us his Father by the whole by the Holy Spirit. And and what Trinity means is that God is the God of Jesus. So again, next next week as we as we think about three, God is three persons united in love, we'll think about how God being the God of Jesus is the starting point for our gospel, and from there we'll flow out some really Jesus-shaped good news.
SPEAKER_01Okay, well that's uh really something to look forward to for next time. If you have any comments about today's show, or if you've got any questions that you'd like to ask Glenn or myself, or you'd simply like to share it, you can go to revivalmedia.org slash TEP26. Thanks for listening to the Evangelist Podcast. Just before we finish, I want to tell you about our free daily prayer bulletin. It's a small twenty-four-page booklet that tells thirty-one stories of what God's doing around the world. Did you know that the church in Egypt is uniting in prayer despite the recent unrest, or that the Weiu 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. Again, the web address for this episode where you can see that video of 321 as an animation. Just go to this episode's show notes, which are revivalmedia.org slash tep twenty six.