I ask that question a lot these days, I write this, I am watching the Seattle Seahawks’ 15 minute video (The Making of a Champion) in which players share their testimonies and one player presents the gospel and offers the viewers the opportunity to be saved after Seahawks players tell about how they realized life was bigger than just the here and now.. 

You’re not by yourself.  God is in control and if you believe in him everything will work out.

It’s never too late to ‘give your life over’.

We’ve all messed up.

Jared Wilson says he became a Christian when Jesus came to him in a dream and it moved him to change his ways.

Jesus came to rescue people because he couldn’t bear the thought of eternity without us.

To give the video credit, “All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.” (Rom 3:23) was quoted.

“If you’re thinking ‘I want to respond to the love of Jesus, say this prayer with me.”

““Say Jesus, I invite you into my life. I want to make you Lord of my life,” Gresham recited. “I acknowledge that I have sinned, I’ve messed up and I want to accept what you did on the cross on my behalf, so that I can have fellowship with you.”

“If you said this prayer today, just know that you are part of the family.”

So where’s the gospel? Romans 3:23 was about as close as it came. Surely we all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, but sin was presented as having ‘messed up’.  There wasn’t a single indication that sin was a much deeper problem than ‘having messed up’, and of course the dreaded ‘R’ word (repent) didn’t make the cut..

Where was the gospel? AWOL once again, and all I heard was ‘your best life now – lite” that Paul preached

Sadly, this short video was stock in trade for  what passes for evangelism these days. Find a celebrity of some sort and tell folks how much Jesus loves them and can’t live without them. If you hit the right chord, someone will feel so loved that they’ll say the little prayer and ‘presto’ they are a Christian.

Why do we keep doing this? It’s been going on for a long long time. The only answer is that we have placed the sovereignty of man, and his ‘free’ will above the sovereignty of God. Simply put, we are telling people they can save themselves.

On the bright side (if there is one), maybe someone will listen to it and God, in His providence, will lead that person to someone who will do the ‘Paul Harvey’ and provide ‘the rest of the story’.

As for the video that will probably get a LOT of play in Christian circles – it missed the ‘gospel’ point.