How To Witness (1)

Our Bible Study Wednesday night was attempting to answer the question, "How do you witness to people?" This is a topic I certainly desire to know more about and practice more efficiently and faithfully. I have gleaned some information from Mark Dever's "Personal Evangelism." Here are the notes from Lesson 1:

How To Witness To People or Personal Evangelism (1)
(Matt. 24:14; John 1:7, 8; Acts 1:8; 8:4)

I. What are we to witness concerning or proclaim? Answer: The gospel of Jesus Christ (Mark 16:15).
[Evangelism---”The spreading of the gospel by preaching or personal witness.”]

A. The gospel is not:
1) Talking about conservative politics/cultural values/social change
2) Our personal testimony (Mark 5:20)
3) Apologetics (1 Peter 3:15)
4) Attempting to get people to: do better and live rightly, obey the 10 Commandments, go to church
5) Expressing that Jesus: has a plan for your life, is your friend, wants you to be happy, etc.
6) Defending or proclaiming the doctrines of grace (1 Corinthians 3:1, 2)

B. The gospel is:
1) Good news that Jesus came into the world to save sinners (1 Timothy 1:15)
2) Jesus died for our sins, was buried, and raised again (1 Corinthians 15:3, 4)
3) “There is one true and living God. God created us for His own glory and in His own image, but we ‘all have sinned’ and offended God’s justice. The Bible teaches that ‘the wages of sin is death.’ By our sins and transgressions we have separated ourselves from God and are deserving of everlasting punishment. But God, because of his great love and mercy, sent His own Son into the world to die for our sins. Jesus became a man and died on a cross, ‘the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God.’ Jesus was buried and rose again after three days. He ascended to heaven and promised to return in the future. Now God calls upon us to repent and believe the gospel. God said, ‘He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him.’ God promised that whosoever believeth in Jesus shall receive forgiveness of sins (Acts 10:43) and all that believe are justified from all things (Acts 13:39).

***Mark Dever, The Gospel & Personal Evangelism “We don’t fail in our evangelism if we faithfully tell the gospel to someone who is not subsequently converted; we fail only if we do not faithfully tell the gospel at all.”