What does it look like to be involved in others accepting Christ? For others to accept Christ, we must call out those around us to truly repent and believe. This gospel work is only possible through the Spirit of God prompting hearts. In this video, Pastor David Platt explains the work of the gospel in new believers’ hearts.
- The Essence of the Gospel
- The Sharing of the Gospel
So a biblical response to the gospel is fundamentally to repent and believe, to turn from sin and self and trust in Jesus the Savior and Lord. So this is the essence of the gospel call. And whenever I share the gospel, whenever we share the gospel, we call people to do this, to repent and believe. Now, at the core, that involves a crying out to God and repentance saying, “Oh, I’m turning from my sin and I’m trusting in Jesus, Savior and Lord of my life.”
And that’s where Romans 10 says, “Everyone who calls the name of the Lord will be saved.” And so, when I’m sharing the gospel with somebody, or even when I’m preaching and proclaiming the gospel, I want to call people to cry out to God for salvation. That doesn’t mean I need to say, “Okay. And if you want to do that, then say these words, follow me or repeat these words after me.”
It’s not that that’s even necessarily bad, but the reality is if somebody realizes that there are sinner before Holy God and that Christ has paid the price for their sin on the cross, and they’re broken over their sin and ready to trust in Christ as the Lord of their life, and they’re saying, “Yes.” At that point, it’s not really a matter of do they say the right words. It’s inviting them, that I invite you to call out to Christ for salvation and let them do that. Pray for them. Pray after they call out to salvation. At the same time, be willing to let them be alone with God if they need to be. And encourage them in that. Don’t just leave them, “Okay, well, let’s take it or leave it.”
How Do We Respond to the Gospel?
We urge people to cry out for salvation. We urge people to repent and believe, but in the process, we want to be careful not to manipulate in that in a way that we give them a box to check. And, okay, now that they’ve done this, they’ve checked this box off that we’ve told them they need to check off. Now they’re saved and everything’s okay. No, we want the spirit to give that kind of assurance as he does this work in their hearts.
We share the gospel, we call them to repent, believe, call out to God for salvation, and we let the Spirit of God create that work in that person. And it’s a beautiful supernatural thing when that happens. And it’s the grace of God that we get to be a part of calling people to repentance and faith and belief in Christ. And I can’t think of anything more exhilarating than seeing somebody’s life transformed for all of eternity right in front of you.
This is something I want to be careful even in talking about praying a prayer or inviting Christ in your life and some of the different things that people might get hung up on. This is a beautiful thing that happens. We just want to be as biblical as possible in calling people to commitment to Christ.
David Platt serves as a pastor in metro Washington, D.C. He is the founder of Radical.
David received his Ph.D. from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and is the author of Don’t Hold Back, Radical, Follow Me, Counter Culture, Something Needs to Change, Before You Vote, as well as the multiple volumes of the Christ-Centered Exposition Commentary series.
Along with his wife and children, he lives in the Washington, D.C. metro area.
