Analyzing and Using Gospel Tools | Dr. John Ewart

Hey everybody, this is Pastor John Ewart from Inglewood

Baptist Church in Rocky Mountain, North Carolina.

Thank you so much for tuning into our podcast.

You're going to hear from God today as we share from his word

about important issues facing your life that can guide you

according to the Bible. So I just want to welcome

everybody who's here presently physically with me.

I don't, you know, I'm curious to know this week if we actually

get some snow. I think that would be

interesting. I'm hearing that possibility,

but I don't know what that means in North Carolina.

The, the very first year we moved here, we moved from

farther N to North Carolina and we had snow and school was

closed and our kids were so excited and we lived on campus

at Southeastern for almost a year because we couldn't sell

our house from where we moved. And so we lived in about a 750

square foot little apartment with two kids and a dog and, and

we're very close to one another, but it was snowing.

There's no school. The kids are excited.

There's a hill right outside of where we're staying.

They're they're thrilled about what's going to happen.

And by the time they got out of bed and went outside, there was

nothing on the ground. So snow in North Carolina, and

I'm always curious, what does that mean?

Does it really mean anything white or not?

So we'll see. Who knows, Dude, be in prayer

because some of our folks are actually participating in the

graduation of Southeastern, which is supposed to be Friday

morning. And so we'll see what happens

there. Dylan's wife Holly is

graduating. So if you see Holly Anderson,

give her a pat on the back and congratulate her.

But I want to welcome everybody to this.

Let's review for just a moment because I am making some

assumptions. So as you get to what we're

talking about in this session, I am assuming that you have

listened or participated in the other sessions.

And so that doesn't mean you had to, but it would be helpful if

you did because I am thinking of a stair stepping approach to

this. So I do hope that you're

building intentional relationships with lost people

in your life, that you're also praying for them even before

you're necessarily even talking to them.

You're talking to God about them before you're talking to them

about God. And also all during that time

you're working on moving the the conversations to Christ in ways

that we've talked about before. I always think that's a vital

part of this experience of being evangelistic.

And then, and then you're also ready to share your personal

testimony that we've talked about before and previous times.

So if you haven't, you haven't picked up on any of that, go

back and listen to some of the other pieces and put it all

together and you'll kind of see the area.

Here's the one I really need to work on maybe in my life.

It'll be helpful to you. In this session, we weren't.

We want to talk about gospel tools.

I'm going to be careful about it because I'm not just here to

show you tools or to recommend certain tools.

I want us to be able to analyse tools.

How do I critically analyse a gospel presentation?

That's really the idea here. So in a sense, think of this as

Part 1. Next session will be Part 2 of

what is the gospel? What has to be in the gospel?

What does somebody actually need to hear to be saved and what are

ways to share that with them? One of the ways to share that is

to use some a tool of some kind. And the next time we're talking

about doing it from memory and, and both of those things could

be done, could be done and you could have both skill sets.

But what we really need to talk about is what is it they need to

hear? And so I'm going to use some

examples later of some some well known gospel tools.

I'm also going to probably show you some things you've never

seen before because there's some weird ones out there and talk

about some of the pluses and minuses, what's missing, what's

not missing. And then I'll probably make a

couple of recommendations for our current cultural situation

as to a couple of different approaches that might be

helpful. So let's talk about this.

So as we're talking about some of these things, initially, I

recognize that almost every single written tract or tool

probably has an app today. Virtually everything is online.

In fact, other than the oddest, most unique things here would

all be online. All the classic gospel

presentations are online somewhere.

Most of the tools that are put out denominationally have apps

and or online tool and and then there are some unique things

online. Some of what we're going to talk

about are going to sound like we're talking about a little

written booklet, the old fashioned track, but recognize

that all of that would also translate into a website or an

app of some kind for almost everything.

One of the assignments that I've often done in class is, and I've

mentioned this to you before, is to go look up the go find the

three best gospel presentations you can find online, and then go

find the three worst gospel presentations you can find

online. And if you'll Google or search,

however you search bad gospel presentations or horrible

evangelistic presentations, you'll get hundreds of thousands

of hits. That didn't mean they're all

bad. That's an interpretation.

But some of them are pretty bad. And when I say bad, that might

be too strong of a language. They're lousy.

Is that better? So I use the Hebrew wretched.

No, that's really not true. Some of them, some of them are

incomplete, and some of them are just so old fashioned that most

people in our culture today would never stop to pay

attention to them. They're so poorly put together.

They're so old fashioned, thrown together.

Most people are not looking for the old praying ham sculpture,

sculpture with organ music in the background and King James

text on about A5 font scrolling quickly on a screen.

So there are better ways to do it.

And I know people who are in full time online evangelistic

ministry. That's what they do for a living

and everything's completely online.

And so they're talking to people all around the world.

They do it online all the time, and so there's a lot of

interesting things out there. There are also even websites and

Oregon apps where you could videotape your testimony, plug

it in, send that link to your friend.

They could hear your testimony and see your testimony.

And then it leads them into a pretty good gospel presentation

that's already there. It's a template.

So your, your, your video gets plugged in and there's a

template around that, that that's also kind of helpful.

So you might you maybe somebody didn't live close to you or if

you're a little too shy to, to share the testimony with them,

would you, would you go to this and at least listen to the

message I have here for you? I'd love if you do that and they

have those kinds of things now. So lots of stuff on there.

So let's just talk about this for a few minutes.

And so let's talk about some reasons for using a gospel tool.

Now again, it's going to, it's going to sound like this is

about written things, but these are pretty generic to where this

could apply to almost anything I just mentioned.

One of the things that's helpful about a tool is the organization

of content. In other words, I, I don't have

to sit here. I don't, I, you know, I may not

have that memorized yet or I may have a hard time remembering

things like that. So, so here's a, here's an

outline I can follow in writing either online or in my hand.

And so the organization of content is often helpful.

It'll take me from kind of the beginning of a gospel

presentation to an end. There's a beginning and an end

keeps me keeps me that way. And so it's helpful.

Another thing about a lot of gospel tools is it, it's

something you can leave behind. This is something I use it more.

We'll keep standing over here. I think it's the computer.

We, we, we've, we've tested this theory before about, about this

and we think it's this. So it's something I can leave

behind. So I don't, I don't, it would be

rare for me to sit down with somebody with some kind of

booklet and read through it with them.

That would probably not be what I would normally do.

What I would say is this booklet has a great summary of what we

just talked about. And so take that home and read

that as well or go to this link online and, and read that.

That's probably more what, what I would do, but but you don't

have to. In the old days, we were trained

to sit down with them and walk right through it.

And so you, we can do that too. Obviously.

You know, one of the great advantages of a tool of some

kind is that no memories required for many of them.

Some of them still require memory.

And I'll talk about some of the different kinds later.

But for a lot of, you know, yeah, if it's all written out

for you. And some are much more thorough

than others, which is why we need to analyse them a little

bit to think about what's missing from some of those

tools. But it, it certainly is helpful.

You don't have to have something, you know the whole

thing memorized because you have it right there in writing.

It's kind of like the way I do a wedding, you know, when we do

weddings, I don't have that memorized.

I have a written in a book and I tell the bride and groom, you

don't have to remember anything. Just listen to me.

I have it all written down in the book, right?

So I'll tell you, step forward, move, right, hold her hand, look

at her, not me. You know those kinds, those

things, you know, I'm not taking the ring from you.

No, no, you give it to her. Those kinds of things.

One of my favorite wedding stories was we had an indoor,

I'll get off of this, but this is worth it.

So we're, we're in Oklahoma City.

There's an indoor garden in Oklahoma City.

It's a big glass thing. It's really famous.

I can't remember the name of it, the Crystal Garden or something

like that. And it's huge.

I mean, it's huge. It's, it's bigger than this

room. It's a huge thing like a

football field and, and all kinds of plants.

There's a river in there. There's a, it's a, it's a, a

miniature environment, waterfalls, the whole bit.

So it's a place for people love to get weddings.

They like in the winter, especially, people love to get

married in there. And there's a, a bridge right

over a waterfall and there's a place over here for people to

sit and there's a place over here for the string quartet or

whatever you got going. And so I'm doing this, doing

this wedding, the string, the string quartet's going and, you

know, grandma's sobbing over here and we're standing on this

little bridge over the waterfall and, and it's about 1000%

humidity in there in the winter time.

And so, you know, it's a little bit thick in there, almost a fog

inside. And, and I learned the hard way.

I changed my, I changed my method after this ceremony.

So I reached out to get the rings because I like to hold up

a ring and talk about, you know, here's the symbol, the wedding

ring and what it means. I promise we're going to talk

about evangelism in a minute, but here's the wedding ring.

Here's what I mean. And I reach and, and the, and

the best man's going to hand me the rings.

And then I'm going to talk about that and give him back out that

kind of idea, you know, And he starts to hand me the ring and

he drops it and this is a slatted bridge and a waterfall.

That ring goes straight down, hits the slat, bounces straight

up in the air and I catch it mid air.

That's right. Thank you very much.

Good night everybody. Been nice knowing you.

Good to see you. It's those cat like reflexes.

After that, I have a big book with the rings on the book.

I have no idea why I told that story, but anyway, so the other

thing that it will do, which is what I did not just do is keep

the conversation on track. So a gospel tool will actually

help you kind of stay focused. You know, I appreciate your 42

questions about the Trinity, but let's let's let's right now, can

we stay focused on what we're talking about.

We'll come back to that in a minute kind of idea.

So often it can help you do that and then and then a good one

will lead to a conclusion. Some of them don't, which is

part of the analysis is does it actually lead to a point of

decision? Does it actually lead to a point

of response and things like that?

And how does it do that? Some do better than that, at

that than other things. So those are some of the things.

And then and then to keep going, just think about how do we

actually use these gospel tools? So here's just a few things.

These aren't all the things. There could be a whole lot more

things, but here are a few things to think about.

These can be an effective way to have a personal witness in an

impersonal world. If you know how to use them.

If you don't know how to use them, they can come across as

very canned and you're just memorizing some presentation.

You know, it's more of a sales pitch almost than it is you

actually sharing. And so part of what you need to

do, remember this hopefully is not step one.

It might because this is person X and a stranger and this is the

first conversation you've ever had.

But hopefully you've been praying and building a

relationship and leading up to this to where you can just

honestly say, listen, I need help sharing what I want to

share with you. Let me use this tool to help me.

Just tell them that. Just be honest.

Just be authentic and, and we can stop and talk and ask

questions along the way if we need to kind of thing.

So don't, don't fake it. Just say, I don't know what I'm

doing. So let me use this, you know, if

I needed more or less. So they can be, but they're not

always. Again, they can initiate, they

can supplement and they can compliment your witness, your,

your testimony. I, I, I generally don't have

them take the place of it, but they can certainly sometimes be

the initiator and all some of those ideas as well as that

compliment I talked about earlier.

But I do think there's some principles we need to keep in

mind. And so let's talk about some

best practices, some better principles to think about when

we're using a gospel tool. So the first thing is always

pray. Always be praying.

Don't forget these earlier steps, always be praying When

you hand these things out, you can't win a soul to Christ and

neither can a tool. These tools don't save people.

These tools hopefully present the word of God in a way that

helps people to hear it. And the Holy Spirit works

through that and saves them. So these are just tools for us.

And so always remember that, that it's up to the Holy Spirit.

So we want to be sure and be in touch with him and be praying

even while we're thinking about handing these things out.

And I'll talk more about handing things out in a minute.

The next one is just ask the Lord to lead you to the right

people. This is back to praying the

right way. I, I am not going to

indiscriminately throw tracks out of a window.

That is a methodology that has been used in Africa.

They, they're, they've been known there in past times for

certain people with great intentions kind of drive through

the village and just dump the box as they're driving through

the village and they go flashing through the wind and, and, and,

and hopefully somebody picks that up and is saved along the

way. Or here's a stack in the in the

truck stop bathroom. Most of the time I don't call

that evangelism. Most of the time I call that

littering. And so, and most of the time I

think it's what ends up with most of those tools.

They're probably going to go in the trash and you're going to

irritate the truck stop owner, but and then and then ask God to

help you select the right tool. So part of what part of what I

would suggest to you is that you have a couple of them that you

know how to use. You'll have a favorite.

I hope I have favorites. I'll share those with you, but

you might have a couple of different ways and, and your

context is going to determine that.

And we'll talk a lot about that in a minute because sometimes I

might be in a situation because of language or because of

culture, children, different situations.

And by the way, we're going to talk about all those special

groups in another session. I'm going to talk about how do

we share with people from different backgrounds, different

lifestyles, different religions, different age groups, all that

kind of stuff's coming up. So, so because of all that,

there might be a tool that's better, like some of them are

designed for children, some of them are designed for people who

may not know English, etcetera. And we'll talk a little bit

about that later and then obviously ask God to help the

listener understand what it is you're, you're trying to share.

And so the second thing, we just want to use tools that are

appropriate. And so try to find the one that

fits the need of the person. Each person is different.

And again, we're trying to contextualize tools.

I'm, I'm not a one-size-fits-all evangelistic methodology kind of

person. And if you are great, if it

works for you, great. And if you're really living that

out and it's working real, real well, keep doing it.

That's just not who I am. I, I, I, I like having my Batman

belt full of all kinds of tools and all kinds of options.

Bless your heart. So each person's different #3II

certainly want to talk with the person first, if possible.

That might seem common sense to you, but but sometimes there is

just kind of this, you know, I've seen people on short term

mission trips and it's really kind of interesting to watch

them. They never share the gospel when

they're home and then they have a backpack on and then and they

go to the airport and as soon as the airport door closes, they

start handing tracks out to everybody.

And they do it the whole time they're on the mission trip.

And then when they get home, they quit as soon as they walk

back out the door in their hometown.

I've seen that a number of times.

And that again, that indiscriminate handing out of

tools is not my favorite methodology.

Not saying that ever worked. God can do all kinds of things.

He uses talking, talking donkeys.

I mean, look at me, I'm an example.

So here we go. So I want to talk to him because

what I want to do is I'm back to leading that conversation to

Christ point because everything connects here.

I want to, I want to, I want to learn their needs.

I want to try to stimulate their interest.

I want to try to steer the conversation toward the gospel

first before I, I, I, I bring some tool out or something.

I'm still walking through these steps, if at all possible, that

I've, I've talked to you about #4 don't force tools on people.

That's just kind of the idea that we've already talked about.

They use the word promiscuously. I just thought was good just

because I never get to use that word.

So, so don't be promiscuous with your tools, you know, don't,

don't force them all people. In fact, the next slide says

usually it's better distribute a few carefully and judiciously

than to just hand out a bunch of them.

Now, I'm not saying it's never worked.

I'm not saying it's horrible. I'm just saying that's not my

favorite methodology. Remember the definition I want

to intentionally prepare for and pursue.

And so I'm intentionally preparing to try to show the

gospel in the best way possible #5 use attractive gospel tools

that this may seem flippant to you, it may seem earthly or

carnal to you a little bit, but it's, but it's not.

If you want somebody to actually use a tool, it's got to look

like it was at least created in the 20th century, you know, at

least by the 1990s. And some of our tools do not

look that way. Most of the people in our

culture today are not going to be King James Version people.

They're not. They're going to have a hard

time understanding King James Version, for example.

So you might need a more modern translation.

You want something that's colorful.

They're used to that. Our world is visual.

The vast majority of learners in our culture today are visual

learners. That's not a guess.

And so they're used to getting snippets on their phones.

And so to think about how they're actually going to be

something that would interest them enough to actually look at

it. And I recognize it's on the

power of the Holy Spirit. We're dependent upon the Holy

Spirit to do all this. I get all that, but let's do our

best to to be prepared. So tracks that catch their

attention, tracks that are well written, tracks that are semi

attractive. They're not wadded up in your

pocket. They're actually something

that's that that would be suitable to hand to somebody.

And then the last one in this one is just in the bulk of our

time is going to be in this next session.

But but the last one here, get creative there.

Again, there's a variety of tools out there.

I'm going to show you different types.

Some of them for some of you will be weird.

They really weird will because some of these are very

postmodern. Most of our tools are not

postmodern. You got to think about it.

And I know you, those words don't necessarily mean anything.

In fact, it was AJI Packer or Dia Carson who said the

postmodern is one of the greatest throwaway words of all

time because nobody knows what it means.

It means after modern. So you got to think about most

of these gospel tools were written by moderns, by people

back in the 20th century. And that that may seem weird to

you to say that, but back in the 20th century is a long time ago.

It's 2026 almost, so 2000 is 25 plus years ago.

And you got to understand that there's a whole population out

there that never knew the 20th century.

They never knew 911. They've never not known the

Internet, they've never not known cell phones, They've never

not known any of that. It's their whole life.

And so for us to reach this culture as a whole, many of

these tools are written in a very modern way.

And I'm going to I'm going to break that down for you later

very clearly. But some of these are going to

seem weird, like I would never do that.

That just seems weird. And when we get to those, you

can say it out loud, that just seems weird.

Let's practice that. That just seems weird.

Thank you very much. That was half hearted, but I

appreciate it. So let's talk about because this

is really what I want us to think about, because I want you

to be equipped enough, theologically astute enough,

biblically well founded enough to be able to take a gospel tool

and say, well, the basics are OK, but it's missing this and

this and this and this. So if I use this tool, I would

need to define this. I would need to define that.

I would need because it's assuming this and assuming that,

or it's just so general that it really doesn't share what we

might consider the whole gospel. So in our next session, we're

going to really define the whole gospel even more clearly, which

will help you come back to this and evaluate even more clearly.

We just don't have time to do it all in one session because we're

going to talk about Bible stories next time and scriptural

content and what must be in the Gospel presentation, right?

So we want to come back, but here are a few things we need to

think about. Here's a series of questions

that me and others have put together.

These are not all original with me.

So but these are fairly, some of these are fairly common sense,

but I don't know if you'd ever thought about them all to to

analyse something. For example, is the nature of

God defined to just assume God is a very modern thing to do and

our world out there doesn't do that anymore.

You that's not my God, my God's blank.

I mean, just listen to the media, listen to somebody.

You know, we're we're going to pray that God does something.

But what do you mean by that? What God are you talking about?

Because we're so we got to go all the way back to our summer.

There's a reason why I shared that theological foundation with

you. We got to go all the way back to

talk about our isms and syncretism and pluralism and

universalism and all the, all these people are going to deism.

They're all going to say they believe in God.

They're all going to use God as a word.

But their definition of God and our definition of a biblical

Jehovah, Yahweh are going to be very different things.

And so are we explaining the nature of God.

You can go sit there and say, well, how is that?

How can a little tool do that exactly?

That's part of the whole point of the session.

Most of them won't. Most of them can't.

Or you'd, you'd be carrying around a book.

You wouldn't have a, you wouldn't have a track, you'd

have an encyclopedia, right? Because there are entire books

written on the doctrine of God, right?

So how can you help define the nature of God?

Similarly, what is sin? This is going to be a big deal

and I'm going to hit this again in future sessions.

I'm going to talk about apologetically.

Here's a here's a short list of things.

You better know what you believe about and you better be able to

explain to somebody what you believe about it.

And we'll do that. That's coming up later on in

another session because and what kind of at the end of all this,

we'll hit that hard because how is sin defined?

Is sin presented as primarily an offense against God or something

else? Is sin presented in a way that

goes beyond outward sin to inward sin?

In other words, it's not just this thing you do.

This is what you think this is, this is how you feel.

See, this is a sin nature. It's not just the fact that I

ever do something bad, right? So because what's going to

happen in our culture today, our world today, is we're going to

get into definitions of good and bad and they're self defined.

I don't think that's bad, right? In fact, I was.

You've probably see them too. I was reading a news article

just today or yesterday where a student gets a 0 on a paper

because they were presenting a Christian worldview about

gender. And the person grading the

person grading the paper who identifies with plural pronouns

and not a specific gender pronoun just hammers the student

because the student and, and the paper was how to share her your

opinion. The paper was the assignment was

actually to share your perception and opinion.

So but you're not allowed to do that unless it agrees with that

person's opinion perception. See.

And so that, and that's a world we're living in now to where

they they have definitions. We better have definitions.

And what does that mean? What is sin?

And we've talked about some of that in the past, and it goes

on, you know, even more significantly.

And we'll talk a whole lot about this next time together.

How is salvation defined? You know, how is salvation

defined? Is salvation by grace through

faith? Is that made clear?

Because because most of the world doesn't believe that.

Most of the world believes in a holy scale.

They're on a wholly balanced system of karma or some version

of good or bad, according to my definition, as I've said before.

So if I've done more good things versus bad things, I might make

it. And that was one of the things

about even Cambiz and I were talking about a couple of weeks

ago when he was here sharing about Muslims or we were talking

about Muslims. And he goes, that's part of the

problem with Islam and Islam you can never know if you're saved

and that, and that's something that I need to know because if

I'm sharing with a Muslim, I need to know that.

So one of the things I want to talk about is assurance, because

I do know. I do know for sure.

And so, and the Bible tells me I can know for sure.

Almost nobody else in the world believes that.

And so that's a big deal. It's one of those markers in

apologetics we'll talk about now how I talk about, it's

important. The graciousness with how I talk

about, that's important. But at the same time, I need to

point that out. So is salvation clearly tied to

1's faith relationship with God or to a more ritualistic or

emotional experience? Because you're also going to

have people out here who think they're Christians, right,

Especially in North Carolina. And but for some of them, that

was a very, it was the emotional experience when they were at

children's camp and they base their entire salvific experience

on the emotion or the opposite is true.

Sometimes parents don't believe their child was actually saved

because their child didn't cry enough.

I mean, those are real conversations in our world.

And so, or it's about ritual. It's again, it's about did I do

the sacraments the right way? And as long as I do, as long as

I do the, the sacraments the right way, I'm good.

So as long as I do the work the right way and I go through the

ritual the right way, everything's OK, you know, And

that, that's not, that's not even in a Christian context that

could be in a animistic kind that, that could be Wiccan.

As long as I've cleansed myself with the smoke in the water or

whatever it might be in the right way, I'm fine.

I had bad thoughts today, but I went outside and I burned some

sage and I cleanse myself with the smoke.

And now my karma's fine. My aura is good.

I've manifested beauty and goodness.

And since I've manifested it, it must be true.

Thank you. Thank you very much.

I appreciate that. Amen.

All right, so so. And is salvation the next one?

Is salvation actually presented as the restoration of the human

God relationship for all of life or something else?

In other words, what what is this?

What is this thing called salvation?

What does it do? What does it produce?

You've heard me talk about that a number of time.

What's the function of salvation in your life?

What does it actually produce? Which is why we talk about what

we talk about in the personal testimony by accepting Christ.

This is what it means. But here's what it means today.

There's a function here. There's there's a product here.

There's an effect here in my life.

And that's why those words are so important out here, to tell

that story of how it really does change my life.

Because we all probably know people who claim to be born

again, who are probably church members, and yet they don't

participate in anything. They don't participate in

church. They don't participate in

spiritual disciplines. They produce no fruit in their

life. There's no evidence whatsoever

other than they might be sitting in a chair on a Sunday, but out

in the real world, there's no evidence.

In fact, the people who know them in their life don't have

any clue at all that they identify as a Christian.

I'm not making those stories up. These are people I know who

shared that with me. And so and so is, is this really

salvation? See.

So then another one which would be obvious is how is Jesus

defined? You know, who is this?

And This is why we did a whole session on this earlier this

year. So who is Jesus?

If you hadn't heard that session, you can go back.

It'll be online. You can listen to it because we

need to know who Jesus really is.

What do I believe about Jesus? Why does it matter?

And so is he really God Incarnate this time of year

where Christmas time as this is being recorded.

So we recognize that that, you know, he's God Incarnate and

he's also the bridge, which is often a common example that's

used in gospel presentations. He's the bridge between man and

God. Or, or is he something else,

someone else, Right. And so we have to clearly define

that because, because this time of year, people will talk to you

about Jesus, but you know how they're going to want to talk to

you about Jesus. They're going to want to talk to

you about a nativity scene. And they don't know why he came

and what he did afterwards. And so then the other one is

just, is the necessity for the gospel stressed or not?

Is Jesus presented as the only way of salvation?

So in other words, you're lost and you need this, right?

This isn't just a wonderful story that happened to me.

This is something that affects you and everybody, and you need

this. And there's only one way to get

salvation, and that's through Jesus Christ.

And to be able to really point that out really becomes the

crutch of the matter. And so it is, is the fact that

Christ is Lord that next slide says is Christ Lord of your

life? Is future obedience to Him

something that's really clearly stated?

And then you get into the ideas of confession and repentance and

faith. Are those things made clear by

the tool. So all these definitions, not

every tool does a good job of spelling all that out.

That doesn't mean it's a bad tool, It just means you need to

know how to fill in the gaps and to recognize that if I just hand

that to somebody without filling in the gaps, they're not getting

the whole story. And so we want to make sure as

often as we can that we're sharing the whole gospel with

somebody from beginning to end. Now, there are obviously

probably 20 other things we could talk about as far as what

about this, what about this, what about this?

Did it do this? And and you should do that.

I want you to do this. Think about did it define this?

Think about systematic theology. Think about some of the

doctrines we talked about in theology one O 1 and here.

So what are some of these key doctrines?

Did did this help specify this? And and again, I don't

necessarily expect the tool to do that.

It would be pretty heavy, but is it going to help for that to

happen? Then you come back to the

question of what must they know in order to be saved?

Because they may not have to have every single thing

explained in every single detail, but what do they have to

have explained in the basic points of the gospel in order

for salvation to be genuine? And we're going to spend a lot

of time on that in the next session, for sure.

But whether or not I can explain the Trinity in a gospel track,

you know, when there are shells and volumes that don't do a

great job of doing it or versus do I believe in God?

Do I believe that Jesus is God? Do I believe the Holy Spirit is

God and that they work together to save me and, and, and so they

think through what this takes. Now remember always this, which

is this is where it always becomes fat.

I, I, I always say this, I'm, I'm actually surprised anybody

gets saved. I mean, think about, think about

that. Think about the complexity, the

complexity of the knowledge base that salvation might require,

yet the simplicity of the Gospel that actually saves.

So it really is quite a paradox and and I think it's part of the

mystery of God, which is why we rest on the fact I don't save

people, you don't save people, God saves people.

So this is a faith act. I want to do the best I can at

providing the best information I can.

And then you know, my definition of evangelism, I'm going to

intentionally prepare for, I'm going to intentionally pursue

opportunities to personally share the gospel with people who

don't know Jesus Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit.

Then I'm going to leave the results to God.

He has to make it work. And sometimes in our world

today, it'll take more than one encounter.

You know, it may not all happen at once.

There may be AQ and a that happens discussion that happens,

which is where the relational dynamic comes back into play to

where it ought to be OK for them to ask questions and for us to,

it ought to be a safe place for them to ask questions.

It's also a safe place. Some of the greatest theological

words I ever have taught anybody in seminary life or leadership

around the world is I don't know.

I don't know. It's a great question.

I don't know the answer. I always find it fascinating

that you think people like me ought to have all the answers.

I just find that fascinating. I'm not going to send the sin of

omnicompetence. Only Jesus had all the answers.

So we can look together. But let's talk about some of

these tools for a minute. They're different categories of

tools. You have tracks that we've

talked about. I've mentioned online is not on

on your list. It ought to be.

All these things can be online. So any of these can translate to

to online. Good thing we don't videotape

these things. It's just hot.

So all these things can translate.

I couldn't have done it again if I I bet if I tried, I couldn't

hit that ring again, but caught it right in mid air cat like

reflexes. So you have tracks, little

booklets and I'll talk about those in a minute.

Cubes, which you may or may not be intimately familiar with,

colours, photos, story sets, all kinds of web and mobile stuff.

I guess it is on there, sorry, and and various training things.

Let me talk about these. I'm going to describe these in

detail because people are listening to audio.

So don't worry if you're listening, keep listening.

I'm going to describe some of these things.

Let me share some things that I don't recommend.

I'm not a big fan of the $1,000,000 bill.

Who here has never seen the $1,000,000 bill before?

Raise your hand. No, no, get them up.

Thank you. Several people.

So this is a fake $1,000,000 bill.

It looks like it's printed on the same kind of paper that

currency is printed upon. It's fake.

The whole thing's fake and on the back in microscopic -4 font,

you have a couple of words about Scripture doesn't even show the

gospel. It's not good at all.

The contents not even good. If the content was good, you

know you, and I'm not kidding you.

You think I'm kidding? People will drop it on the

sidewalk and hide in the Bush to see if anybody picks it up.

People leave them as tips for the waiters and waitresses.

Guess what they don't like? They don't like the fake

$1,000,000 bills. I had a waitress talk to me in

the lobby. The larynx.

Thank you for videotaping. You're smart.

That's so in the larynx. The smart.

That's hilarious. That the, the, the, what do you

call that? The lobby?

And she's a waitress. And she said, you know who the

worst tippers in the world are? Church people.

That's it. On Sundays, because the worst

tips are Sunday lunch. So we all be the best tippers,

you know. Now, I'm not saying don't leave

information with your waiter or waitress, but leave them a nice

tip along with it. But anyway, this this is A to

me, this is deceptive. It's a scam.

I don't like it, don't recommend it.

I'm not going to not like a lot of things, but but the other one

I just think thinks kind of interesting.

So so if I if I hold this up, I know you can't see it all the

way down front, somebody down front.

What does that word say? Says death in a weird font.

But all you got to do just turn to life.

And now it says life. So it's a it's an optical

illusion. You, you go death to life.

So you do that. He's actually filming to help

you all. That's kind of nice.

Thank you. So you're doing that, that

that's probably, and it's a Roman Rd. on the back, which

we'll talk about that in a minute.

All right. And then they're just

interesting ones. I've got tracks in different

languages. I've got NASCAR tracks, I've got

baseball tracks, I've got basketball tracks.

I got a track for the Iditarod dog sledding competition.

So to even have even have sledders and mushers inside of

it is quite the thing that you can have.

So and the content's not horrible.

It's just some of these are kind of gimmicky, event driven,

etcetera and whatever. Analyze them a whole different

genre and I'll come back to tracks in a minute are colors.

So there are multi colored soccer balls, there are multi

colored bracelets. So you can get Schwarzkopf

crystals in different colors to show the gospel necklaces.

The wristband, anything in the world.

And then one of the most famous is what's called the wordless

book. Anybody remember the wordless

book? All right, you can get I bet you

can do this. You sometimes get used it gets

used at VBS. What would black stand for?

Sin and death. What would red stand for?

The blood of Jesus, white forgiveness and then the streets

of gold and growth. The greens actually for growth.

They come in all sizes, all shapes, all colors, different

colors for different things, all kinds of color stuff.

If you can take the colors and you can put the words to that

and make it help you to share the gospel with somebody, knock

yourself out. Probably not going to be my

number one tool. The Evangea Cube, world famous,

the Evange cube, I can't even do it.

There are videos and instructions and it's like the

Rubik's Cube of the gospel. So you, you flip it around and

it makes different pictures and there's an order to it.

I, I'm never any good at the order.

They're great videos about this, by the way, online in parts of

the world. This is the number one gospel

tool. I was trying to see if I could

get to here we go. Here's the cross.

So if you know what you're doing, I I know people who can

manipulate this just like a Rubik's Cube.

Now where? Tell me a context where a

wordless book or something like the Rubik's Cube or a storying

cloth, which is simply a piece of cloth often used by

missionaries, especially out in developing nations, where they

can unfold the cloth, lay it on the ground, and it it has images

of Bible stories. For some of you, you're ready.

Flannel graphs, are you? OK, All right.

So for some of you, there used to be these things and they cut

out pieces of flannel and they would stick them on the board

and they would make Bible stories out of it.

So some of you have no idea what a flannel graph is.

Anyway, so these these, this is storing cloth.

So a storing cloth, a, a Rubik's Cube, an Evanji cube.

And by the way, these come in all kinds of sizes.

They have demonstration ones that are 6 feet tall.

And then you can also have they'll fit on your key chain.

So all kinds of, there's also videos of all this.

In what context? What audience would something

without words like that be very helpful?

Oral orality situations to where you have people who either don't

read or can't read your language.

Who else? Children.

Those are the two I think of the most.

They're probably some other ones.

And so, and these are actually very well used tools.

People in certain contexts use these all the time.

When I'm in Malaysia and I've tried to teach this, I just turn

it over to the students and they're just sitting there, you

know, and the gospel is being shared and there's instructions

with them that have all the words you might need to share a

fairly complete gospel presentation.

So if you have the gospel memorize, which we'll talk about

next time, and you know the words to say, those kinds of

tools can be very helpful. Again, in Vacation Bible School,

we've often used colours to share like that.

And then you have kind of these things.

Let's talk about some classic tracks for a minute.

How many of you know the four spiritual laws?

OK, bunch of them round for 462 years.

Have no idea how old the four spiritual laws are.

They're it's not that old, but it's pretty old.

Been around a long time. In fact, one of these came from

Friendly Immanuel Baptist Church in Sallisaw, OK, one of my early

pastorates right there. So I've kept it all these years.

My favorite track now. So anybody remember the four

spiritual laws? All right, anybody never heard

the four spiritual laws? Thank you very much.

So it's a basic gospel presentation.

We'll see it sort of next time together again.

Law one, God loves you and offers a wonderful plan for your

life. OK.

Law two, man is sinful and separated from God.

Therefore he cannot know and experience God's love and plan

for his life. And there's Scripture between

each of these points. Law 3, Jesus Christ is God's

only provision for man's sin. Through him you can know and

experience God's love and plan for your life.

Again, Scripture, Law four, we must individually receive Jesus

Christ as Savior and Lord. Then we can know and experience

God's love and plan for our lives.

And then there's there's some verses and then there's some a

prayer, a sinner's prayer, and a little bit of follow up.

OK, the basic classic gospel presentation.

What's wrong with that? What's critically from an

analysis standpoint? Something you might wonder

about? Follow through.

What else? Say that again.

Warmth. That's it.

That's good. I hadn't thought about that kind

of laws. Law one.

Law two. Yeah.

Huh. Note eternity.

How it all began. Who's God?

What sin? It's assuming It's assuming a

biblical background. It's assuming that I care what

the Bible says. It's assuming I care who God is.

It's assuming I know who God is. Now certain contexts and

cultures, it might work fine in a church saturated context.

There's enough knowledge base to where some a gospel presentation

like this might be fine in a lot of context in the world today,

they have no idea what you're talking about and you just got

to understand that that's what's going on out there now.

And so we also could have the Roman Rd. where you use verses

throughout Romans. Again, wonder uses God's words.

Fantastic, but it's making the same assumption.

Most classic got Billy Graham steps to peace with God.

Same thing again, nothing wrong with the tool, but you better

understand God's purpose for your life.

Peace and life. Who's God?

What God? Which God?

That's not my God, so you're going to have to understand how.

What do I need to explain to people along the way right now?

There's a couple of them today, and there's many of them.

Some of these are written by Reformed people.

So in other words, this one's called grace.

It's written by some friends of mine who are stronger in

Reformed theology, and they don't like the idea that we're

accepting Christ. They like the idea that Christ

is accepting us. So it's written that way.

So just recognize those perspectives.

The eternal life track, which was is probably still is

produced by the North American Mission Board, is actually the

old evangelism explosion presentation, which then became

the CWT presentation. And I know those things may not

mean a thing to any of you all, but there was a time in the 20th

century where these were the most popular evangelism

programs. And this, this is one of the

most thorough gospel tracts in the sense that it's longer and

explains more than a lot of other ones do, but it's still

very much a modern version. And you're going to understand

this more when I show you a postmodern one in a minute.

You're going to say what? This is what?

Thank you very much. One that you all use.

I know you do 3 circles. It's a moderate, more modern

current version and it's based upon the whole idea is it's

based upon a coffee shop conversation where you're

writing on a napkin and you're writing certain things in on a

napkin and it talks about God's design.

But at least it starts off by saying we live in a broken world

surrounded by broken lives, broken relationships, broken

systems, etcetera. It is at least providing some

context. And so you have God's design,

you have brokenness, you have the gospel and and recovery,

salvation, etcetera, circles back around.

And so in this and what we see in today's world because of

denominationalism, there's books, there's there's videos,

there's kits, entire kits that you can buy for training with

thumb drives and videos and C DS and everything in the world to

train you from our North American mission board,

especially in that another one they had a while back was called

who's your one? Anybody here?

Do who's your one? The idea is who's that one

person you know who's not saved and then ways to reach them.

So you have denominational things too as well.

Let me show you a couple others. I don't mind three circles.

If I'm going to use a basic, pretty normal gospel

presentation, I would probably go to three circles.

It's as good as any and it's it looks nice.

There's a lot of support tools, things online you can send

people to. So the Three Circles or the life

if, as it's often called, the Three Circles Life Conversation

Guide is probably pretty good. I'll be honest with you, I

actually like the story better. Not necessarily from all the

content, but the story. And there's apps and websites

and videos and all kinds of tools for the story.

And what the story does is the story tells the meta narrative.

That's the whole point. It tells the whole story.

So it starts with creation. And so it goes all the way back

to beginning and it walks through at least 4 stages of the

grand narrative. So you've got, you've got,

you've got the creation. Let me read their words because

they're a little different than some of the other words.

So you have creation. You have what, what went wrong?

You have a session on the, the fall, the rescue, the

restoration. And so it tells the whole story.

And again, there's all kinds of material that goes along with

that to, to help. So it's, it's a little more

helpful, I think, because when you start dealing with these

questions of of who's God and etcetera, this at least goes all

the way back to Genesis rather than starting in Romans or John.

Then there's Campus Crusade for Christ, bless their hearts, who

deal with college campuses. They produce, and this isn't

even the latest version of some of these things.

These are older editions of them, but they produce more

postmodern tools. This particular tool is called

Solarium, SOUL areum Solarium. Now, there are instructions as

to how to use them, but the basic idea of solarium is just a

series of photographs about it. Anything or everything.

This is a clock. This is 2 old people holding

hands. I'll show them to the screen.

Somebody walking up an escalator, a girl playing with

balloons. I mean, just everyday

photographs. OK, You sit there.

What in the world does this have to do with anything?

Well, the idea is, is that. And this, I'm telling you, I

know many college students who use this, you go to a college

campus, spread a blanket out on the ground, spread these photos

out, or go to the student union or whatever, the student center

at a table and somebody will pick up a, a photo.

And then there's a series of questions.

What does that photo mean to you?

And you're, you're, you begin to dialogue with them about their

worldview and you begin to dialogue with them about their

belief system. And there's a guided questioning

process to lead them back into a gospel conversation.

Now, you may sit there and say, I would never do that because

that's weird. But you've got to understand

that's much more where a whole generation is living today.

They want to have dialogue. They want to tell stories and

they want to talk about their story, right?

They want you interested in them as a human being and to learn

about them. Now, even more interesting, and

I can never hold these things without them sliding out of my

hand. And there again are instruction,

instruction pieces to this. Again, this is a campus cruise,

a crew thing, and it's a deck of cards.

Now, there's another version of this that's newer than this, but

these are called the perspective cards.

It's a whole deck of cards. So, so there are a bunch of

every one of these. Some of the cards are the

meaning and purpose of life, like this one talks about

descendants. Others might mean, might say

wealth. So all these different worldview

ideas of why are we here? What's the meaning of life to

the world out there would be on on the orange cards and they're

all there. Then you've got your, the nature

of God. This one's agnosticism and there

would be a whole different, you know, different views about God,

right that you would have then you have source of spiritual

truth. This one says hard evidence and

there'd be a series of all the all the all the weird looking

orangey thingies colors. They would all be about sources

of truth. And then you have human nature.

This one says broken and there's all different ones that talk

about the different kinds of human nature.

And then you have Jesus is and it and you know, and it's

everything from lunatic to spiritual being to son of God,

all kinds of stuff, right? And then you have you even have

a prayer, you have prayer cards and you have training cards,

etcetera to go with it. Here's the idea that you would

have these in these different categories.

Now pick one from that pile and see which one you think is

right. And in a sense, you're this

person creating a hand. Think of a card hand, think of a

poker hand. And in in before it's over, they

have these series of cards that best describes them that I have

learned more about you in that moment then probably 2 hours of

conversation because this is what you believe.

I know what you think the meaning of life is.

I know who you think God is. I know who you think Jesus is.

I know what your world view is. And then there's instructions as

to how to springboard off of that into discussions leading

the back to the gospel. Now you see the difference in

these kinds of tools. Some of these are SH listen to

me. They're the presentation.

Others are the dialogue post postmodern pre Christian America

is dialogical. If you don't listen, think about

this. They saw me.

I was seen. I was heard those kinds of

phrases. You'll see them on TV all the

time. It was nice to be heard.

It was nice to be seen, right. And that that's a very, that's a

very important process because I mean, you, you we're living in a

world now where people actually believe with all of their heart

that because they have a website or a posting of some kind or a

podcast of something, they're a published author.

Are you? I'm a published author.

Really. Well, yeah, I have a podcast.

I've got 14 followers, You know that.

It's fantastic. I thought I was going to lose 1

at Thanksgiving because Aunt Mary was mad at me.

But we're, we're hanging in there.

I'm not, I live with this. I've lived with this for the

last two decades of my life with this, this group of people who

who believe this. Now, fortunately most of them

were Christians. But out in this world today,

there are people in a certain generation especially.

And if you don't listen to them, that's disrespectful and rude.

And This is why many people in certain generations thinks,

think it's actually wrong. It's actually rude to share the

gospel with somebody and those are Christians.

Supposedly certain age group among Christians will say that

it's wrong. It's rude to force the gospel on

somebody. Now, it tells you a lot about

their theology. See, I'm not saying that they're

members of Inglewood. They might be, but I'm not going

to say that. So, but but so there are people

out there who believe that. And So what we've got to

recognize is, is that we're looking at human value versus

gospel value and how we bring these two things together in a

contextual way. And So what we what, regardless

of the tool you use, I do think there are certain got tools that

are much better than others. Some of these are just Gene and

I were talking about this earlier.

Some of these I just can't figure out.

This is the old answer one, what's the answer?

I can't figure out how to fold that.

This is like an evange cube. I have no idea how to do that.

You know, you've it forms across.

That's cool. But anyway, and the wristband

things never work because nothing will fit over my hand.

So I don't I don't, you know, if you all people with small hands

and wrists, there you go. But for me, that's as close as I

get. So here's the gospel.

So so there's certain tools that are better for me than for

others because I, you know, fat hands, I guess.

But but anyway, so, so regardless of which method you

use, what we've got to 0 in on is what's the content I prefer

and I believe in our culture today, and I mean Rocky

Mountain, North Carolina culture.

I don't mean some weird city someplace.

Because remember, I've shared with you before in other

contexts, we have a higher unchurched rate within 10 miles

of this building than Seattle, WA has.

I'm going to pause and we've got 10s of thousands of more people

moving in here. And I can't, I can't imagine

them being much different. They might be, but I can't, I

can't depend upon that. And so for us to reach this

world, we've got to know what we believe about certain things.

I've got to know what I believe about God.

I've got to know what I believe about the nature of sin.

I've got to know what I believe about man because those things

go hand in hand. My, my theology of man and my

theology of sin going hand in hand.

Because is man good? Is man innately good?

Because that's exactly what the media will teach us.

And that's part of the problem. Part of the problem with so many

questions in our world today is that belief right there that

because I'm innately good, I deserve something already.

So when anything happens that I don't like, I didn't deserve

that, you know, that's the evil problem.

Again, why do bad things happen to quote UN quote good people

where the problem is, is that sentence wrong?

And so why, why doesn't God punish sinners more is a better

question. And so God's gracious and he

gives us time and he gives us life even when we don't deserve

it. But I better know what I believe

about that. I better know what I believe

about the fall, and then I better understand the process

that God went through. And this Sunday in the sermon

that I'm going to preach at the beginning of Easter called The

Perfect Plan, I'm going to talk about why.

Why then? Why there?

Of all the human history, the thousands of years that took

place, why did Jesus come in 1st century Palestine at that moment

in time? I'm going to talk to you on

Sunday about Galatians 4 and what the fullness of time means

from a whole bunch of different angles.

Why then? Why there, right?

What was different about history at that moment?

So the fact that God's orchestrating all this and then

really significantly is who is Jesus?

I wish we emphasized the incarnation more than we do, I

feel like at times. And then why the cross, why the

resurrection? And then sometimes we stop and

we get stopped right there. We've got to talk about

repentance. We've got to talk about

confession. We've got to talk about grace

and faith and belief and what that means and how do you do

that right? And whether you like the

sinner's prayer, you don't like the sinner's prayer, whatever

the sinner's prayer means, what are you going to do to help that

person get to that place? And then what discipleship is

just as important, right? So next time we get together,

we're going to talk about, I have, I have from this set right

here, from the America's Affinity of the International

Mission Board. I stole it from them.

They know I have it from Lima, Peru, this little box 93 Bible

stories, I think it is, or something like that.

And we're going to talk about which of these contents would I

share with somebody. And we're going to not, we're

going to not going to walk through all 93 stories next

time, but we are going to talk about how, how does that help me

shape what the gospel ought to be and what I have to share with

you. So are we in here?

We are. So I'm back way over here in pre

evangelism and I'm intentionally seeking to have a very

intentional relationship with a lost person in my life, but I'm

also praying everyday for him and I'm also praying for the

stranger that that person XI don't even know yet.

Now I I'm assuming you're doing all that.

If you want to live evangelistically, if you really

want to live this essential of discipleship out, every part of

this is essential. So I'm really praying that way.

So I'm praying for my friend, I'm praying for my neighbor, I'm

praying for the guy that I'm going to meet at the gas station

or whatever I'm going to do today.

Then I'm intentionally engaging in conversation.

I'm dialoguing with them. And remember, we talk about

listening. I'm listening, I'm learning

about them. And so the same thing that these

perspectives cards do or the solarium pictures do, I'm just

doing it in conversation. I'm learning about you.

Who are you? Why are you?

Why do you think we're here? I mean, what, what's going on in

your life and how can I build common bridges with you?

If I get a grandpa, I got you, I get a husband, I've got you, I

get a father, I got, we got, I got a bridge.

You, you, you like college football.

You, you, you have no hope. How do you build common bridges

so that you can dialogue with them and then and then

authentically, authentically apply what's going on in the

function of Christianity in your life?

Here's what Christianity is actually producing in my life

today. Because remember, I'm in

relationship #1 down here, I'm intentionally engaged in a

relationship with God and His people.

And I'm passionate about that. I'm in the Word, I'm in prayer,

I'm in church, I'm worshipping, I'm serving, I'm fellowshipping

all the essentials. There's a reason why we're

learning all these things. I'm doing all that.

I'm engaged in that. And now I'm in an overflow

situation to where it's the most natural thing in the world to

sit here and talk about. You know, last Sunday we heard a

spiritual giant in our pulpit who just shared about hope and

love of people made me weep as he talked about his love for a

lepers woman. And so we talked about and, and

how God blessed through that. And it's just the most natural

conversation in the world I could have in that bridge.

Would you like to know why I believe that?

Here's my testimony, and my testimony gets applied

contextually to wherever you are.

Depending upon who you are, what your life situation is, that

might be the more, more part of the testimony I would share.

And then would you like to know how that happened to me?

Boom, gospel presentation. You may not have time for all

that, but I want to intentionally prepare for all

that. I want to intentionally pursue

all that. I want to do the best job I can

because this isn't an event for me.

This is life. This is who I want to be, not

just something I want to do. It's not just for each week.

It's not just because I have a reach assignment for my Connect

group. I'm doing this because I love

Jesus and I want people to be in heaven and I want them to have a

life right now that has meaning and purpose.

Because I look at this world and I watch the media and I look at

the news. And you know, when I watch the

news that we were talking about this earlier today, something

bad happens, a tragedy happens. And I know some people, their

reaction might be I'm scared or I'm worried.

My reaction, I think Teresa will tell you I'm mad and I'm sad.

I don't have to be worried. I don't have to be scared, but I

sure am sad that that's happening to those people who

don't know Jesus. And I'm mad because Satan is at

work and sin is at work and stupid bad choices are at work,

and sometimes they're mine, you know?

And So what can I do to help offset that?

What can I do? Who can I be?

How can I live to show and to share, right.

So when we get together next time, come prepared for a little

theology. One O 1 again, because we got to

break down who God is again, we're going to tie everything

together. Who who's God and all these

different things. We're going to talk

apologetically. And we're also at at some point,

if not next time, then soon after, we're going to talk about

it. Then then what about this?

What about my gay friend or my gay Co worker or, or, or what

about what about my uncle who's an alcoholic or, or, or how do I

share with some of my next door neighbor who's a Hindu or a

Buddhist? Right?

Or an atheist. So we're going to talk about

some of those specifics. OK, weird enough Solarium

perspectives cards. There you go.

Or you could always use one of Harry Fowler's bookmarks.

Amen. Amen.

There you go. Let's pray together.

Father, thank you so much for Harry Fowler and company who

love you so much. They want to tell everybody

about you. And so, Father, help us.

Help us with our own personalities, our own

experiences, our own preferences, even maybe

opinions. Help us, Father, to find the

right methods and tools not to save people.

Father, the right method and tool to save people for us to

absolutely love you and depend upon you and believe in you.

But Father, for us to best prepare for us to best pursue,

help us, Father, to be best equipped.

So thank you, Father, for that. Now bless us as we go out to do

that now in Christ's name, Amen. God bless you all.

Thank you. Thank you so much for listening

today. And I also hope that you'll go

to [email protected]

as well as our app and find many other resources that will bless

you and your families. Thank you once again.