Question: How do we evangelize when works-based salvation has been preached before us? ~T.D.

Answer: Thanks for your question. To be blunt, you will almost always have to evangelize people who have already been taught works salvation. Works salvation seems to be the default belief of all humanity, including many within Christendom. That’s why they need to be evangelized.

However, evangelizing a cultural Christian who believes in works salvation is a little bit different than evangelizing someone who has never heard of Christianity at all.

However, here are seven suggestions.

1. Assess what they already know about Jesus. Ask questions about what they have been taught about His life, death, and resurrection. If they need to learn who Jesus is or have big gaps in their knowledge about Him, teach about the Lord.

2. Be prepared to preach about sin. Someone who believes in works salvation needs a greater conviction of their total sinfulness before believing in a total Savior. Unbelievers tend to deny their sinfulness (cf. 1 John 1:8). Show them that Jesus made it clear that the moral standard God expects is for everyone to be perfect as the Father is perfect (Matthew 5:48). His evaluation is that no one is good but God (mark 10:18). Or, as Paul said, we have all sinned and fall short of the glory of God, i.e., of His perfection (Romans 3:23). Ungodly people cannot expect to be saved based on their behavior.

4. Preach the message of grace clearly. Make sure that people understand that Jesus lived a perfect life, died on the cross for sin, and rose again from the dead. Explain that Jesus did everything necessary to provide salvation for the world. He did that so that we can be saved by grace through faith in Him, apart from any works we could do (cf. Ephesians 2:8-9). Justification is by faith apart from works (Galatians 2:16).

5. Listen for the right objections. A promising sign that someone has understood that salvation really is a free gift is when they ask a question like this: “What should we say then? Should we continue in sin so that grace may multiply?” (Romans 6:1). If someone objects that grace promotes sin, they have probably understood what you are saying, even though they don’t yet believe it’s true.

6. Teach by contrast. God’s grace can be a hard concept to grasp. Legalism is so deeply entrenched in our thinking that it is very hard for people to believe that salvation is free. Sometimes people will nod their heads and say they agree with you when they actually don’t understand what you’re saying. It can help their learning process to teach the gospel by contrasting the right answer with the wrong one—to distinguish truth and error. If you tell them that basing salvation on their works is a false gospel, they might better understand that salvation is by faith apart from works.

7. Trust God with the results. It’s not your responsibility to make people believe. You don’t have that power. You can demolish bad arguments against the gospel (cf. 2 Corinthians 10:5). But you can’t give anyone faith. That’s not within your power. Faith comes by hearing the Word of God (Romans 10:17). So give them the gospel, and let God handle the rest.

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