I’m so grateful for Jeff Vanderstelt’s heart for making it easy to talk about the gospel. Many people desire to share the gospel, but can’t figure out where to get started. The ultimate goal is for the Lord to form us into people who can’t help but talk about the gospel, to turn every conversation towards the Lord. Gospel Fluency is a great read for anyone who desires to grow in having gospel conversations. I think it would be a great small group book to work through together to hold each other accountable to having those conversations. If we are going to share the hope of Christ, we have to have the hope of Christ and an understanding of how that changes everything.

I highlighted several things while reading and those notes are posted below…

  • Gospel fluency is developed by being immersed into a Jesus-saturated community. A Jesus-saturated community knows and speaks the gospel every day into everything, so that all parts of our lives grow up into Christ and are eventually fully transformed by and submitted to Jesus Christ, who is everything for us (Eph. 1:22–23; 4:15; Col. 1:15–20).
  • One of the reasons Jesus came—​​​and one of the reasons why the gospel is such good news—​​​was to reveal the truth about God and to bring us into relationship with him. In John 14:6–7, Jesus said: “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you had known me, you would have known my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.”

    Philip, one of Jesus’s disciples, responded to him by saying, “Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us.” Jesus replied: “Have I been with you so long, and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father” (John 14:8–9). Philip didn’t get it. He had already seen God. God was with him in the flesh—​​​in the body of Jesus. Jesus is the image of the invisible God—​​​the fullness of deity in bodily form (Col. 1:15, 19).

    If you want to know what God is like, look at Jesus.

    That is why Jesus began this discussion with his disciples by saying, “Believe in God; believe also in me” (John 14:1).

    It comes down to faith.

    What do you believe about God? What do you believe he is like? What do you believe he has done?

    In the gospel, we have the revelation of what God is like and what God has done. God is revealed through Jesus’s life, Jesus’s ministry, Jesus’s death, and Jesus’s resurrection.

    To believe the gospel is to believe in who God is and what God does, as revealed in the person and work of Jesus Christ. And you can know if you are believing rightly because if you are, your behavior will be righteous. It will resemble Jesus’s character and way of life. Your behavior reveals your beliefs. As Jesus says in John 14:12, “Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do.”

    Another way to think about this is that you reflect and resemble who or what you worship. Just as Jesus’s works revealed what God is like, so our works reveal the object of our worship—​​​they are an outward expression of the god we are worshiping at the moment.

    Are you forgiving toward others who sin against you, or do you hold grudges and resent others? Do you know and put your faith in the God who forgives or in one who withholds forgiveness?

    Are you generous with your time, talents, and treasures, or do you hold and hoard what you have? Do you know and put your faith in the One who generously gave you his one and only Son, or are you trusting in another god?

    Do you have peace in the midst of struggle, or do you live in a constant state of fear and anxiety?

    You worship either a sovereign, powerful God or an ineffectual, weak god.

    Your life reveals your faith in the god you worship because what you believe shows up in your behaviors.

    What is your God like? What do you believe about God?

    Growing in gospel fluency requires growing in our knowledge of God as he is revealed in and through Jesus Christ.
  • I’ve discovered that you love most what you talk about most.
  • Gospel fluency is developed both in sharing our stories and in thanking the one who wrote them.
  • Proverbs 20:5 says, “The purpose in a man’s heart is like deep water, but a man of understanding will draw it out.” We need to become people of understanding—​​​people who seek to understand others before we expect them to understand us and what we believe. We need to learn how to ask more questions and draw out what is deep inside people’s souls. We need to learn to slow down and listen closely to the longings of their hearts. We need to learn their stories. In short, we need to care more about winning people to Jesus than about winning arguments.

    Gospel fluency isn’t just about talking. It’s about listening as well. This requires love, patience, and wisdom.
  • My regular counsel to Christians these days is to spend more time listening than talking if they want to be able to share the gospel of Jesus in a way that meaningfully speaks to the hearts of others.
  • Many are going to other wells to find water. Let’s be willing to slow down in order to lovingly show them how Jesus is standing ready to uniquely satisfy their thirst.
  • Creation: In what do they find their identity or sense of purpose and significance? Fall: Whom or what is the fundamental problem they blame for the things that are broken in their lives? Redemption: Whom or what are they looking to as their savior to rescue or deliver them? New Creation: What does transformation look like and what is their ultimate hope for the future?
  • Gospel fluency won’t happen through you until it happens to you. You talk most about what you love most. I pray that I have helped you love Jesus more.
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