Introduction
Gospel Encounters
Gospel encounters happen all the time. And they happen in a lot of different ways. Like snowflakes or DNA, no two people have identical stories, and yet in many ways, they’re all the same, aren’t they?
I was a confused and scared sixteen-year-old kid when I had my gospel encounter. Like so many people I’ve met over the years, I grew up in a “Christian” home with parents who had come to faith in Christ. I’d been in good churches my whole life—churches where people loved me, taught me what the Bible said, and challenged me to live my life for God and walk by faith. I’m so thankful for that great heritage. Because of that privilege, I don’t ever remember a time in my life when I didn’t know that God loved me and sent his only Son, Jesus, to die on the cross for my sins. But even though I knew those things, I had never received in a personal way the gift God offered me. Not until one amazing night in Bernville, Pennsylvania.
It was August of 1994 (I’m dating myself, I know), and I was attending a Christian camp with my church youth group. As a teenager I was wrestling with so many questions: Who was I? What was my life really about? What did I really believe? Would my parents’ faith be my faith? Big questions. There were some more typical teenage questions, too—about girls in general, and one or two in particular about friends and family.
Perhaps you remember the angst of being a teenager. Everything felt so uncertain and unsettled. I was just trying to find some answers to life. And there in southeast Pennsylvania, in a little chapel on the back side of a pig farm, I heard a message I had heard a thousand times before. But that night something was different. The message was closer to home this time. More personal. It was as if God was talking to me. And I was finally listening.
That night God told me about his love for me: that even though I was a sinner who didn’t measure up to his standard of perfection, and even though my heart stubbornly rebelled against him, he loved me anyway. He loved me not because of what I had done or failed to do but because I was his creation, made in his image. And what he wanted was for me to become all he created me to be. To show me his love, he sent Jesus, his only Son, to die for my sins and shortcomings and give me eternal life instead of the punishment I deserved for breaking his laws.
After listening to the gospel message, I walked out of that little chapel into the hot, humid Pennsylvania night, sat down in the dark under a little tree, breathed deeply, filling my lungs with that pig farm air, and responded. I cried my heart out to God, told him that I agreed with him: I was a sinner who had missed his standard of perfection, I was rebellious and stubborn, and I was in desperate need. I knew that no matter how hard I tried, I’d never be able to fix these problems on my own. I thanked Jesus for dying on the cross for me and asked him to save me from my sins and from the penalty that was coming my way. At that moment, as I lay facedown in the grass under my tree, God rescued me from my sin and gave me a new life. It was a good night indeed.
That’s my story. That’s how I encountered the gospel—the good news about Jesus. But it’s not the only way those encounters work. Everyone’s story is different. Some people hear their pastors proclaim the gospel from the pulpit at church, or in some other church setting, and they respond to an invitation to come forward during the service. Some hear the gospel from their parents over the course of their childhoods and respond in faith. Some read the gospel story in the pages of the Bible and are drawn to Jesus.
I have friends who have come to faith in Christ through tragic and desperate circumstances—in prisons, homeless shelters, hospital rooms, and the list goes on. The light of the gospel shone on them in the midst of some very dark situations. Still others have heard the good news from friends, relatives, neighbors, coworkers, roommates, teammates, or a stranger on a street corner.
While the gospel comes to each of us differently, the message is the same: We’re all sinners separated from a holy God. Because of our sin, we’re under a death sentence, and we can’t fix the problem by simply trying to be good. But out of his great love for us, God sent his Son, Jesus, to pay the penalty for our sins. Jesus died on the cross to reconcile us to God, and he was raised from the dead to give us new life in him. If we accept Jesus by faith, God forgives our sins and promises us eternal life. That’s good news! And that’s the message of the gospel.
Jesus died on the cross to reconcile us to God,
and he was raised from the dead to give us new life in him. . . .
That’s good news!
Have you had a gospel encounter? (Maybe you just did!) Did it lead you to place your faith in Jesus Christ or at least begin a journey toward faith? Whether your encounter with the gospel is fresh in your mind or tucked away in some dusty corner of your memory, it’s your story, and it’s unique.
The truth is, I could write a book about all the unique gospel encounters I’ve heard of over the years (maybe I will someday). But the purpose of this e-book is to give you a basic working knowledge of the gospel message and a deeper understanding of what God has done for you in Christ. For those of you who already have a firm grasp of the gospel, I hope this fresh encounter will breathe new life into your walk with Christ.
You may be wondering why we need another book about the gospel when there’s plenty of good literature on the topic already. After all, what more is there to say? As King Solomon wrote in Ecclesiastes 1:9, “There’s nothing new under the sun,” so why go back over old ground? Good questions, and if you’ll hang with me a bit longer, I’ll explain.
You see, my gospel encounter began under a little tree at camp on a hot summer night in 1994, but it didn’t end there. Gospel stories never do. That encounter was only the beginning. But what was coming for me was more than I had bargained for. I went home to my church and shared with everyone what Jesus had done in my heart and how I had responded to the gospel. Then I got back to living my sixteen-year-old life. I didn’t spend much time thinking about God. I didn’t invest much energy learning about him, reading the Bible, or growing in my faith. That was too much work, and in my mind there didn’t seem to be much of a point. After all, I was already “in the family,” so what more was there to being a Christian?
At the time, I fell into a common trap I’ve seen others fall into many times since: I began to think of my gospel encounter as a kind of ceremonial rite of passage, like a high school graduation. I had walked across the stage (or down the aisle), had received my diploma (or the saving grace of Jesus), and was now on my way to live my life without looking back.
What happened next wasn’t unpredictable. The truth is, not much happened at all. I stumbled my way through those early days of my newfound faith. Spiritual growth came slowly, if it came at all. Spiritual disciplines, such as praying and reading my Bible, were tough to establish. I tried hard but couldn’t do them consistently. And sharing my faith with friends and family members was too intimidating, not to mention that I really didn’t understand much of it myself yet. Loving people as Christ loved them and walking in the power of God’s Spirit weren’t coming easy either.
I attended church and really liked the people, but my faith was, as it is for so many Christians, a recreational faith—a sort of hobby I dabbled in. Saying it that way is a bit discouraging, even today, but that’s what it became. Beyond that, though, something bigger was occurring that I wouldn’t spot until a few years later: I had gladly trusted Jesus to save me from my sins, but I wasn’t developing the kind of love for him that the Bible described. My relationship with God was stagnant, and that made spiritual disciplines like praying, reading my Bible, and attending church a bit more of a chore than they really ought to have been. I realize now that my stagnant relationship with God was more about me than him. I was going through the motions, doing all the right things, but somehow I had lost connection with Jesus and that gospel encounter I’d had with him at camp.
I had trusted Jesus to save me and had committed my life to him, but my faith wasn’t the joy-filled, growing relationship with God that I’d heard others talk about. I wondered if there was something wrong with me. Maybe I hadn’t done “it” right. Maybe my prayer of faith didn’t take. I wondered whether this life of spiritual stagnancy would continue. Thankfully, it didn’t. And for that I owe a huge debt of gratitude to the visionary son of a bootlegger in Lynchburg, Virginia.
Gospel Reminders
Through some painful and divinely influenced experiences—like outright disobeying God’s prompting, suffering through a bout with mononucleosis, and nearly failing out of Penn State University—I ended up at Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University in the fall of 1997, ready to pursue God while getting my education. (If you haven’t guessed it yet, Dr. Falwell was the son of that bootlegger in Lynchburg.)
A wonderful thing happened during that time: En route to my bachelor’s degree, I found that deep, rich love for Jesus I’d been looking for. To this day I believe that’s the main reason God led me to LU (that, and meeting my wonderful wife). But that love for Jesus didn’t come because of a class I took or a book I read. The remedy for me was so much bigger yet simpler than all of that. God used my time at Liberty—the professors who guided me, the vision of Dr. Falwell and his larger-than-life dreams about what God would do with people who surrendered to him, and the godly, young men who had become my friends—to remind me of the things about my faith that were primary. They were the things of “first importance” that the apostle Paul wrote about in 1 Corinthians 15:1–4:
I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you—unless you believed in vain. For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, [and] that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures. (Emphasis added)
Through these “gospel reminders,” a profound change took place in my heart. I understood and appreciated in new ways what Jesus had accomplished for me, and this fresh understanding stirred my heart to love and worship him. I saw myself for who I really was—not a pretty good guy whom God was blessed to have on his team, but an absolute wreck apart from his free gift of grace. Reading and studying my Bible became a joy rather than a chore, and I was growing in my knowledge of the Scriptures. But it wasn’t some “new” information that brought about this transformation. What made all the difference was continually returning to those things of “first importance,” alongside other gospel pilgrims who were also growing in their faith and developing that same love for God.
I’ve found that a lot of good people in churches today are locked in that same cycle of “mechanical” religious devotion I fell into, if you can even call it that. I know my story isn’t an isolated one. Many of my friends and, I suspect, many of you have been exactly where I was: in need of gospel reminders. Maybe that’s why you’re reading this book, hoping it might ignite a spark that will get you moving in the right direction, back toward a vibrant relationship with the Jesus you first encountered in the gospel. If so, this e-book is for you.
Even if you haven’t had a gospel encounter, this e-book is for you, too. The gospel is for all of us, rookies and veterans alike!
As we turn our attention to those things of “first importance” that the apostle Paul talked about and encounter the beautiful gospel of Jesus, my prayer is that you would develop a deep sense of gratitude for the work God’s Son accomplished for you, and that the good news would ignite—or reignite—faith in your heart. Don’t stop reading now. This encounter with the gospel just might change everything!