Transcribed from Sermons by Bruce Peterson at Grace Chapel in Scottsbluff, NE. The video of this sermon can be found by clicking this link.
For a printable list of the primary verses to use when sharing the Gospel via this method, click on this link.
How do I end up going to Heaven when I die?
I’ve had the privilege—not bragging at all it’s just in a lot of ways a career choice—but I’ve had the privilege of leading hundreds and hundreds of people to Christ and I’ll tell you this right now, it is profoundly easy. It’s not quick, it’s usually a two and half hour or longer conversation because the Gospel is not something you just say it’s not a “repeat after me” prayer. No one is going to Heaven by just doing a repeat after me prayer.
When I was in Chicago at Sally’s and mine first apartment we had a landlord whose nephew went to a Christian college and he was on the football team. That football team would go to Europe during the summer and do scrimmages and show other colleges football and then they would bring that team or the other sports team onto the field and lead them into a repeat after me prayer and they would come back to the states and report on how many people got saved. And I asked if they understood English and they’d say, “Oh no they don’t understand English.” I’m like, “Wait a minute, you honestly think that repeating the words in a language you don’t know gets people saved?”
“The Gospel is not a magic trick. It’s truth. There is a real problem and there’s a real solution and getting saved is recognizing the problem and choosing the solution. You choose it. To choose it you have to understand it. ”
That’s ridiculous on so many levels, God is not a magician, the Gospel is not a magic trick. It’s truth. There is a real problem and there’s a real solution and getting saved is recognizing the problem and choosing the solution. You choose it. To choose it you have to understand it. As you talk to anyone the goal is to have a conversation that they understand.
If you look at how the people in the Bible share the Gospel--If you look at Paul in the book of Romans: he is writing to a church he’s never been to and he says, “I am going to tell you the Gospel.” And he starts by saying, “The Gospel is the power of God to save,” and then he takes three chapters and proves everyone in the world guilty, he condemns everyone first.
You first have to see the problem before you want the solution. No one ever, in anything in life, goes for a solution unless they see the problem. The problem has to be heavy. So when you are explaining the Gospel to people, you have to spend a significant amount of time crushing them.
I tell you this, truly before the Gospel got a grip on my soul, I was making a terrible mess of my life. I was destroying people in my path. I was destroying my own soul, stealing everything I could, and smoking everything that could be smoked. It was bad. I was dying and I was taking the world with me. Then the Gospel took me from the grave to be a mouthpiece for God.
What the Gospel can do is profound. And we don’t have the right to look at people and go, “Oh they won’t like the Gospel. I can’t explain it to them, they won’t accept it, they won’t believe it, they won’t appreciate it, they don’t want to be free from their life. They love their life.” Not true, we are all looking for something deep and meaningful that gives purpose and joy and meaning and a destiny for our lives, something bigger than ourselves that we can get involved in. Everyone you know wants the Gospel. You just may not know how to teach it to them.
They want freedom. They want meaning and purpose. They want to wake up and know what life's about. They do, they want it, they want it bad. You want it bad, you all do.
This sermon series is about how we share the Gospel. It’s huge, it’s monumental. So, I hope you take this series to heart.
Alright, so we're gonna read Revelation and I'm going to explain to you why we need the Gospel.
Revelation 20:11-15 (NIV)
Then I saw a great white throne and him who was seated on it. The earth and the heavens fled from his presence, and there was no place for them. And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Another book was opened, which is the book of life. The dead were judged according to what they had done as recorded in the books. The sea gave up the dead that were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead that were in them, and each person was judged according to what they had done. Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. The lake of fire is the second death. Anyone whose name was not found written in the book of life was thrown into the lake of fire.
These verses take place at the end of the Millennium. At the end of time.
There are four ages of humanity, four ways God has “ringed” out of this Earth as many people as he can for salvation—so his kingdom is as big as possible.
He first used his reputation, until his reputation could save no more.
Then he shifted to Abraham, to using the Jewish Nation as his means of communicating who he is to the world. Through the Old Testament we see tons of people get saved—mostly Gentiles, by the way. The Jews seem to be a bit rebellious but the Gentiles seem to come right along.
At the end of the Old Testament his Nation is done and he shifts to his People. That's us, the “Church Age”, some from every nation. He spread his Nation out into individual people, so now we are the people of God. He's using the church to save as many as he can through our age.
Next, he will shift to his King—Jesus. And Jesus will reign on the earth, God himself, for as long as people are being saved. And that too will have a timeline, it will have an expiration date.
People will eventually choose against the Kingship of Jesus. You can't go higher than God ruling on Earth. So, then it's all over, and we have this scene from Revelation. This is when the time is up.43
Then I saw a great white throne and him who was seated on it. The earth and the heavens fled from his presence, and there was no place for them.
There’s no place for them because we're having a giant “start over”.
And I saw the dead, great and small,
Who's dead at this point? Everybody, everyone's dead. We’re all dead.
standing before the throne, and books were opened. Another book was opened, which is the book of life.
This is a very important verse. The books were opened and another book was opened. We have a pile of plural books and a separate single book. Keep that picture in your mind: a pile of books, and a separate single Book of Life.
The dead were judged according to what they had done as recorded in the books.
Scary.
The sea gave up the dead that were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead that were in them, and each person was judged according to what they had done. Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. The lake of fire is the second death. Anyone whose name was not found written in the book of life was thrown into the lake of fire.
“ And here’s the giant problem: there are books that are being kept on every single thing you think, say, and do, and you will answer for every single thing.
There’s also a book of names, the Book of Life, and it only has names. Here’s the good news: you either have a pile of books or you have a name in the Book of Life, you don’t have both. ”
Okay, that's why we’ve got to talk about—the Gospel. This is the scene. Everyone stands before God someday, everyone, all the dead, no one escapes, every single person. And here's the giant problem: there are books that are being kept on every single thing you think, say, and do, and you will answer for every single thing.
There's also a book of names, the Book of Life, and it only has names. Here's the good news: you either have a pile of books or you have a name in the Book of Life, you don't have both.
The question is, how in the world do we get our name in the Book of Life and get our pile of books which have recorded everything we’ve done, wiped out?
This is what you need to explain to people. So, I'm going to teach you how to.
Revelations wraps everything up. Everyone stands before God. God has rung everyone out of the earth who can get into the Book of Life and now it's time to go into eternity.
We see in Revelations chapters 21 and 22 that Death is no more.
Those who have their name in The Book of Life enter into Heaven and Paradise. That's how the whole thing wraps up: We all get our day in court and that's going to be a terrible day, for all of us, including Believers. Because, the verse that says God wipes all tears from their eyes and there's no more sadness, is after the Great White Throne Judgment. It is not when you die and go to Heaven, that's not when your grief ends. Even God has said that on the day of judgment we will see people we love and did not talk to about the Gospel and they will be damned and we will not just be sad, we will be wrecked over our silence. That should wreck you; that should wreck you right now.
It is after that when God wipes away all our tears.
Okay, let's explain the Gospel. Fair warning, this sermon only ends on the negative, there's no good news today, because when you're explaining the Gospel to somebody you have to wreck them. I'm going to try to show you how I try to do that.
This is exactly how it sounds when I talk to people about the Gospel. It takes at least two and a half hours. I can't get it done in less than that and I typically record our conversation when I witness to people. Then when they get saved I can give them a recording of their own salvation and they love it. It's pretty meaningful and it's a good tool because then I also have those, and you could actually listen to me explain the Gospel to someone, but it sounds exactly like this sermon.
Usually when I’m talking to someone I personalize it, but this will be an overview.
So, you start with the problem.
If you think of Jesus’s life as the Gospel message, it starts with the Sermon on the Mount. Everyone is crushed in the Sermon on the Mount. And it ends with his death and resurrection. That's the sermon of Jesus.
If you think of Paul, you would start in Romans 1 where it wrecks everyone, and then go to chapter 3 verse 21 where it talks about righteousness as a gift from God. But he doesn’t start with that because everyone would be confused.
You have to take your time with people to explain it and you don’t have to do it all in one setting. And you don’t give the answer--that Jesus is the solution--until they ask.
If you spend long enough just crushing people, they will eventually say, “Okay, what’s the solution to this?”
When they ask, they are ready, but don't give them the answer before they ask or they won’t truly hear it. It won’t make sense. Don't give the answer first, start with the problem, they have to understand the problem before they will care about the answer.
Here's the problem: God says we need to be holy. Be holy.
Most people in the world are going to say, “Yeah, I'm pretty good.”
“ Most people you talk to are starting from a place where they think that they’re in the top half of humanity as far as goodness and that this is good enough. You have to wreck that mentality, because God wrecks it. He says we have to be holy.”
That is their starting place. They're going to think one of two things: “Yeah, I’m probably going to Heaven when I die.” Or, “Well, I’m not bad enough to go to Hell. Not that bad. I don’t deserve Hell.”
Those are really the same thing. Most people you talk to are starting from a place where they think that they're in the top half of humanity as far as goodness and that this is good enough. You have to wreck that mentality, because God wrecks it. He says we have to be holy.
Hebrews 12: 14-15 (NIV)
“Make every effort to live in peace with everyone and to be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord. See to it that no one falls short of the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many.”
“Be holy, without holiness no one will see the Lord.” Holiness. That's the standard if you want to see God. What do you have to be? Holy.
Okay, that's rough.
1 Peter 1:14-16 (NIV)
“As obedient children, do not conform to the evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance. But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; for it is written: “‘Be holy, because I am holy.’”
Who is saying this? God. How holy should you be? Holy like God. There’s the problem.
Paul points out this problem plainly in Chapter 3 of Romans; this is his concluding thought at the end of his argument where he is crushing people:
Romans 3:9-20 (NIV)
What shall we conclude then? Do we have any advantage? Not at all! For we have already made the charge that Jews and Gentiles alike are all under the power of sin. As it is written:
“There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands; there is no one who seeks God. All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one.”
“Their throats are open graves; their tongues practice deceit.”
“The poison of vipers is on their lips.”
“Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness.”
“Their feet are swift to shed blood; ruin and misery mark their ways, and the way of peace they do not know.”
“There is no fear of God before their eyes.”
Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be silenced and the whole world held accountable to God. Therefore no one will be declared righteous in God’s sight by the works of the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of our sin.
Here’s a summary of these verses: Paul says, “Here’s what I’ve just done, I’ve made a charge that the Jews and the Gentiles alike are all under the power of sin, as it is written.”
Now Paul’s just going to quote all over the Biblical text, “There’s no one who’s righteous. There’s not even one.”
So, the person sitting across from you is not righteous. They might think they are, so what are you going to do? You’re going to do some work, you’re going to walk them through their life to see if they are really righteous.
“There's no one righteous…there's no one who understands…”
What's your goal? To help them understand. What do they have to understand? That they're not righteous.
That's the start of the Gospel. Paul starts his argument by proclaiming that everyone falls short of God’s requirement. No one is holy. He does all of this before he gets to the good news. Don’t waste your time explaining Jesus until you have helped them understand that they have a problem which they can’t solve. It’s right there in the text.
Therefore no one
How many people? …no one
will be declared righteous.
Righteous means “good enough” in God’s sight by the works of the law. Which means by what you do. How many people are going to Heaven because of how good they are? Nobody.
Everyone you know who thinks they are good enough to go to Heaven, is not going. And at the Great White Throne Judgement you will see them and they will see you and that’s going to be a horrible “day”. And it’s not a “day” like 24-hours, it’s a very long time. Everyone gets their day in court.
…rather, through the law we become conscious of our sin.
“Why did God give us the rules? So we would know we need a savior.”
Why did God give us the rules? So we would know we need a savior.
What do we tend to do as humans? We look at the rules and we declare ourselves good enough. And doing this will destroy many many people whom we love. And that is somewhat on us, because it is our job to tell them the truth.
Hebrews 4:12-13 (NIV)
For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account.
You are not getting away with anything. We are all sinners.
People don't like that phrase, that “we are all sinners”. What is sin? It's missing the bullseye; it's missing the mark. What is the bullseye? Holiness. And how many times have you hit the bullseye? Zero. How many times has anyone hit the bullseye? Zero. How many times do you have to hit the bullseye to be holy? Every single time. Every time, in every relationship, in every situation, in every thought and attitude. What is missing the mark? What is sin? Not having the same thoughts, words, and deeds that Jesus, himself, would have in every single situation.
We are all wrecked.
Now you’ve got to talk about it,. You’ve got to talk about it a little bit; you’ve got to make it real.
So, I almost always bring up stuff like this illustration—I have the privilege of doing counseling, so I get to say this to people:
People will say this, “Listen, I don't deserve to go to Hell because I'm not…” and they will list some of the sins that they think people should go to Hell for, “…I'm not Hitler. I'm not a murderer. I'm not a serial rapist. I'm not…” You know, whatever the list is that they'll have.
So, I say to them stuff like this:
You know what, I get to counsel people sometimes, and here's what I'll tell you from my experience: In a marriage where someone commits one of the big sins in marriage, infidelity—where someone cheats on the other one—I'll give you tons of examples of people who have committed adultery in their relationship and that relationship not only survives it, but it's better afterwards.
Now to be clear, it's not the infidelity that makes the marriage better. Infidelity is a huge problem. But, it's the work that gets done in the relationship to recover from the infidelity which can actually make that relationship a better relationship than it was to begin with. This is pretty regular.
But, with a marriage which is just about to break, when it's on its last—literally—its last leg, one person has just been talked into going to counseling and they don't even want to be there—when it's that desperate, it's usually not a big offense. It's little ones; it's a million little cuts. It's every single day of their whole relationship someone is ignored. The other person always, every day, throws them under the bus. When it comes to decisions, one of them never considers what the other might want. They don’t share their values; they don’t share their views. They never talk to them. They never appreciate them. They never love them. They always speak down to them. When they are having a conversation, they are always throwing the other one under the bus. They use their name as a byword and a curse word and a joke. They are nothing to them. They’ve never appreciated them a single day of their life. One person is just trashed every moment of the entire relationship.
Recovering that relationship…that is almost impossible.
The pattern is so deep, it's so deep, and the wounds are so deep. The distance between them is so vast. One of them has just never ever been appreciated by the other one. That marriage is rough.
And I only say that to you to say, listen, if perhaps only one time in your life you bowed down to an idol…God might even go, “Okay, one time you had one big miss…” And maybe he could move past that.
But, here's the facts according to Paul, according to God…let’s just look at your life…how often do you think about God?
No, seriously, how often do you think about him? How often do you consider God first before you make a decision in your life? He wrote you a letter, how much of it have you read? How often do you read it? How often do you pray? How often are you building your life on God?
He says, “No one seeks me.” How hard are you seeking Him? Seriously, tell me how much time per day do you seek Him? When was the last time you went to church? When's the last time you actually sacrificed a significant part of your life for the plan of God? When you considered your retirement, when you considered your job, when you considered your career choice, when you considered anything important in your life, how often did you first ask, is this what God wants for me? The truth is, you don't do it, ever.
Here's the truth, anytime you've decided to do something, if God would have stopped you in that moment and said, “Listen, I don't want you to do this.” You would instinctively and instantly say, “I don't care what you want, this is what I want, and this is what I'm going to do.” You do it every single day.
If He was literally following you around, there would be moments in the day where you are about to think or say something, and if he stopped you, just like he stopped Cain, and said to Cain, “Listen, don't do it. Sin is crouching at your door, it's going to get you.”
You would say, “I don't care; I'm going to look at the porn. I don't care; I'm going to watch that woman walk away and I'm going to imagine what her butt looks like naked. I'm going to imagine myself winning a billion dollars and I'm going to imagine myself naked on a beach somewhere drunk. I'm just gonna imagine myself with someone else every time I go home. I'm going to put a different face on my spouse every time. I'm just not gonna care. I don't care if I use bad language. I don't care what jokes you don’t want me to tell. I don't care what jokes you don’t want me to laugh at. I don't care.”
Everyone does this and we do it all day every day. Every day. Every day. Every day. Every single day, we throw God under the bus. We use his name as a curse word all the time. And then we want to say to God, “Oh, but I'm a pretty good person and you should love me unconditionally and just let me into your family and be happy I'm here.”
It's ridiculous! Absolutely, utterly, ridiculous! To have the audacity to call ourselves good, is to have the foolish thought that we are graded on a bell curve and we are all in an underperforming school where someone has to pass the class, so, no one does the homework, but someone has to pass. I think I'm going to get a B in this class. I'm not even gonna have to try. I just have to try a little harder than that guy.
I want to know. Seriously, you take a minute now and just try to convince me…you’re not convincing God right now, just go ahead and try to convince me that you're a good person and really should deserve to go to Heaven. I'd love to hear it.
Let me have your spouse in the room when you tell me these things, because I'd love to see their reaction to how you are good enough to go to Heaven.
Listen, God says there is an angel in Heaven watching your life who knows your attitudes and he's writing them down, every one of them. And you are going to be held accountable to them.
Isaiah 64:6 (NIV)
All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags; we all shrivel up like a leaf, and like the wind our sins sweep us away.
In the Bible “unclean” means unacceptable. How many of us are unacceptable? All of us, and all of our righteous acts are like menstrual rags to God.
Yep that's what it says, your cleaned up American version of the Bible will say “filthy rags” or something like that, but the Hebrews had to read what God said and He calls your “good” deeds menstrual rags.
This is how it goes in marriage counseling:
This person’s spouse is trying to explain to them how they feel totally totally ignored and this person over here says something like, “How can you feel that way? I took the garbage out just yesterday?”
And what does this other person feel about that? Is that good?
“What we think of as good is just Baseline Behavior. It’s what is expected...That’s not being good, that’s your job. ”
See, here's the thing, this is why this is so important, because what we think of as good is just Baseline Behavior. It’s what is expected. That’s the shocking thing that you have to get across. That’s not being good, that’s your job. It’s your job to love them. That is your one job--to love. You can’t point to moments where you loved, even if it’s big, you can’t point to it as good. It’s the Baseline.
The expectation in marriage is to love each other more than your own life. That’s what you promised at the wedding. The other person is the most important. And you’re down here wanting credit for things that aren’t even reaching halfway to that expectation?
Here's what's happening, you take out the garbage and then you hold it over my head like, “Look what I did?” That's not good, that's actually bad! It’s filthy rags to them; that's not love!
And that's the game we play with God. It's the game I'm afraid you're playing with God. I think you think you're good and I'm telling you you're wrecked.
Right here's where I'll kind of shift and go into just numbers.
I'll say, “Listen, now that you've kind of got this idea of humanity’s lack of holiness, how many times a day do you think you don't hit the bullseye?”
Even if you have a thought about doing something bad, you are guilty of it. Or if you have the wrong attitude—attitudes are important too.
Now, I'll spend a little time on attitudes.
Picture a racist, picture Hitler in a room with all the people he loves. In that moment he's not actively being racist he loves everyone in that room. Does he, in that moment, cease to be a racist? No. Is he less guilty at that moment than at any other moment? No, he's not off the hook.
Here's why that's important, because we are all greedy. I don't care if that, at this moment, you're putting something into the offering plate. I don't care if you just gave the homeless guy at Walmart 20 bucks. That's not what I'm talking about. What I'm talking about is you're never ever any single moment of your life off the hook for being greedy. After all, you only gave him 20 bucks.
Then I'll go to what Jesus said when he was asked what's the most important Commandment (Matthew 22:36-40).
He said it was to love God with all your heart, soul, and mind. To love God with everything you are, with all of your passions--your heart--and your soul, and your thoughts. So, with your passions, your attitudes, and every thought, love God.
Then he said the second one is very much like the first one. It's to love your neighbor as yourself.
Then, of course, Jesus’ audience asked Him, “Well, who’s my neighbor?”
Jesus answered with a story (The Good Samaritan—Luke 10:25-37) and the point of that story is that everyone is your neighbor, including your enemies. As you get a handle on loving God with everything you are, then you are supposed to love everyone else with everything you are.
I'd love to hear the story of the day that proves you love God more than anything else in this world and I would love one example, just one example, one in your whole life, one single example where you have truly loved your enemy as much as you love yourself. Because I tell you this, when I tell you my kid has cancer you will not pray for him nearly as much as you'll pray for your own kid, and you love me, but you don't even love me as much as you love yourself. And I'll tell you this, if your spouse gets cancer you won't even pray for them as much as you'll pray for yourself when you get cancer, because you suck at loving.
If I'm wrong I'm all ears. Tell me how good you are, convince me, tell me. But, I'm not the audience, I'm going to be in the audience, but you're going to explain it to God in front of everyone, including the people that you claim to love, and they'll be called as Witnesses. It seems to me that you are in for a world of hurt.
And let me explain the consequences to you:
Revelation 20:11-15 (NIV)
Then I saw a great white throne and him who was seated on it. The earth and the heavens fled from his presence, and there was no place for them. And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Another book was opened, which is the book of life. The dead were judged according to what they had done as recorded in the books. The sea gave up the dead that were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead that were in them, and each person was judged according to what they had done. Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. The lake of fire is the second death. Anyone whose name was not found written in the book of life was thrown into the lake of fire.
David Howard Hitchcock's oil painting 'Halemaumau, Lake of Fire', 1888
You have an angel who is gauging every attitude and thought you have and you're going to stand before God and the consequences are terrible. Anyone whose name is not found written in the Book of Life is thrown into the Lake of Fire.
“If you get your name in The Book of Life, none of this is in your future.”
I don't want that for you. I love you. I want you to know that right in this passage where God puts this warning He holds out an amazing possibility for you, even now. He gives you the chance to get your name in the Book of Life, because if you get your name in The Book of Life, none of this is in your future.
What will the person you're evangelizing to do at this moment? If you've taken your time and done it well, they will go, “How do I do that?”
Now they are ready for the good news.
Take your time with this first part, their eternity is at stake.
If you aren't saved, your eternity is at stake. I hope you felt wrecked today.
Take your time; this was a half hour, but I take way longer to explain the Gospel to people in real life.
I make it personal. I make it hurt. Sometimes there's tears. Just go slowly. You're not in a hurry. The only thing that cuts it off is their death. Take your time, make them want the solution. Until you sense that asking for the solution is on their lips, stay on this subject.
In “How to Lead Someone to Christ (Part 2)” we will start talking about the answer. Click here for Part 2.
This series of blog posts titled, “Holding on to Reason”, is named after Amanda’s favorite C.S. Lewis quote: “Faith is the art of holding on to things your reason has once accepted, in spite of your changing moods.”
Click here for more things written or transcribed by Amanda Hovseth.