The Message of Salvation   

The Great Commission is recorded for us in Matthew 28:19-20, where Jesus said, “Go therefore and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”
The early church did that. They went everywhere telling people the good news about Jesus! In Acts chapter 3, by the power of God, Peter and John had healed a man who could not walk. As result, a crowd gathered, and Peter preached to them about the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God who sent His one and only Son Jesus, the One they had crucified just a few weeks previous.
Then in Acts chapter 4, Peter and John were thrown in jail for proclaiming the gospel, and then they were brought before the Council and told to stop speaking and teaching in the name of Jesus. But Peter and John answered and said to them, “We cannot stop speaking about what we have seen and heard” (Acts 4:20).
That’s the real key to being the kind of church that God wants us to be, the kind that brings others to Christ. When we are truly filled with the love of Christ, when we are overwhelmed by the grace and mercy of God, when this life in Him is everything to us, then we too will not be able to stop telling people about this wonderful life we have in Jesus.
The early church had a message of salvation, and it had to be proclaimed. They knew they had the responsibility to be soul-winners. Even in persecution, even when they were commanded to stop and threatened if they didn’t, they prayed for more boldness to keep sharing the good news (Acts 4:23-31).
In our world today, sometimes it's difficult to proclaim the gospel. It’s not always popular to stand up for Jesus. Proclaiming the truth is never easy in the midst of a world that is often more concerned with what people want than what God wants.
We need to be encouraged by the example we find in the early church. It certainly wasn’t popular back then to stand up for Jesus, but they did so anyway. There was nothing more important than living for the Lord and sharing that life with others. It was true then, and it’s still true today.
It is a wonderful blessing that we can gather with fellow believers many times every week and celebrate together the boundless love of our God and our Savior Jesus Christ. But that love must also compel us to reach out beyond the walls of a church building. We have the most beautiful message there has ever been, and we need to take it to the world, and let people hear the best news ever.

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