Living out Evangelism | Biblical and Theological Foundations

Hey everybody, this is Pastor John Ewart from Inglewood

Baptist Church in Rocky Mountain, North Carolina.

Thank you so much for tuning in to 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. I just want to welcome those who

are here live as well as those who'll be listening to this

later. I do want to give a bit of a

disclaimer at the beginning of this entire series and session.

I may do this every single session.

This is a stair stepping study. Although I do believe each time

we're together, there'll be something special and individual

that you can learn. You're really benefit the most

by being in all of them. And if you can't be physically

present, that you would listen, at least because part of what I

try to do in this process is help people, many of whom have

never shared their faith personally with somebody else

verbally. People sometimes have been

afraid to do it. We're going to talk about some

of those personal barriers later.

And how do I actually move from talking about this or that to

Jesus? And that's a main part of that.

That's not tonight, but it's coming.

But we need each step to get there.

And, and I don't believe that step three works without step

one. And so that's, that's what you

need to understand. You need every single one of

these in a sequence to help you, I believe to be the most

effective. And so thank you for for being

here. And, and I just, I also want to

thank those, thank you guys up there, our guy, not sure how

many of you are up there. Thank you very much, Justin.

We are going to be using slides during this series as well as

handouts. And so you'll, you'll be able to

see those. So thank you so much.

But we are talking about, as Pastor Charles said, we really

are emphasizing one of our seven essentials of discipleship where

we talk about living out evangelism in boldness and love.

And, and it's this is also, to be honest with you, a subset of

things that I have taught on both undergraduate and graduate

levels in the past. Don't let that throw you off.

I'm also writing a book right now about this very subject

matter. And so I appreciate you being

here, and I think this will be a significant time together.

So let's dive in. There's a quote on your handout.

You'll see it. There was a Jewish rabbi, and

this is several years ago now, named Joseph Abramowitz, and he

was a Jewish rabbi. Who was actually?

Responding to Southern Baptists, we made the press, as we often

do, very often for negative reasons instead of positive

reasons, which is always fascinating to me because

there's so many positive things that should be in the news about

what Southern Baptists do. But there was some controversy

because a president of the Southern Baptist Convention was

talking about how we still need to evangelize Jewish people, and

that was controversial. You know, do Jewish people

really need the gospel? They're the gods, chosen people.

So why in the world would we think we need to do evangelism?

How dare we? Kind of concept and and this

Jewish rabbi actually came to our defense and he said this.

He said any religion that does not consider itself valuable

enough to share with non believers is fated to crumble

from within. So in the words he understood,

didn't necessarily agree with our content or agree with our

concepts, but he understood that if we really did believe what we

say, we believe that this is something we're supposed to

share with other people and that if we don't, that we're doomed

to extinction, frankly. And so one of the questions we

start off with is, are we crumbling as as evangelicals, as

Baptists, as by biblical believers?

Are we truly crumbling? Because if I share with you the

statistics that I'm getting ready to share with you, they

ought to be, they ought to be daunting.

They ought to be alarming, frankly, because if if we

recognize how little evangelism is actually taking place, it's a

little bit terrifying. And we'll get to that more in a

moment. So our hope for this whole

thing, my hope for you, and I've said it multiple times in other

places already, my goal here is not necessarily to teach you how

to do evangelism, you know, although we're going to talk

about that, I promise. We're going to talk about some

of the most famous gospel tools you've ever known.

You'll know some of them. Some of you have probably used

some of them. I'm going to bring a whole.

Box. O'tools and we're going to

critically analyze some of the most famous tracks and some of

the most famous tools. What's great about them?

What's not what what would I recommend as the best tools for

our culture today? That'll be a part of a session

also talking about how how do we actually memorize a gospel

presentation toward the end, although I've I've already said

this is not about memorizing some 32 point gospel outline and

and not at all. This is about how do I have a

conversation? How do I have a dialogue with

non believers? How do I have a relationship

with people? But so our hope is to become

more evangelistic. This is, this is not about just

learning some new method because unfortunately the programmatic

methodology of evangelism has not been that effective.

It often ends up being something you do at 7:00 on Tuesday night,

but you're not doing any other time.

And and that's not what we're talking about.

We're talking about being versus doing.

We're we're talking about who am I?

What's my identity? As a believer, as a disciple of

Jesus Christ, this. Is something I am, I live out

evangelism with boldness and love in my life.

It's not just something I do now.

I'm not opposed to 7:00 Tuesday nights because sometimes the

programmatic stuff gives us, gives us opportunities and

training and whatnot. And I know this church has done

some of those processes in the past.

I know every one of them. I promise I have all the lapel

pins. But but what I'm really talking

about is who are you as a follower of Christ and how

natural is it for you to talk about Him?

And I'm going to give you some helps, I hope along the way to

make it more natural. To where it's not.

Awkward, it doesn't seem. Weird it doesn't.

It isn't something to be afraid of necessarily.

So we'll talk about that. But so to start, we just got to

lay some foundations, and tonight's fairly foundational.

It's absolutely necessary for us to do this so that we can build.

So being evangelistic involves 2 key relationships.

And I've mentioned these at other times too, but we need to

just talk about them for a second, for a second.

So, so being evangelistic involves a relationship, first

of all, an intentional relationship with God and his

people. And and note that I'm not just

talking about a relationship with God, that you know what,

sometimes I have students and they take the test and they get

this. Wrong, because they'll talk

about a relationship with God, and then they're going to talk

about a relationship with lost people.

And, and that's not what I'm saying, you don't every word

matters. This is a relationship.

This isn't just a, a vertical relationship.

This is also a relationship with the church.

And so this is my relationship with God and his people.

And to really be evangelistic, you, you're going to have a hard

time if you're doing it all by yourself.

You need a place to bring them. You need a community to help

you. You need a place of

encouragement. You need a place of training.

And, and the church is that headquarters of training and

encouragement. You need a community to bring

your new friend to for discipleship afterwards too.

So this is really important. But the second relationship,

which is equally important, is that intentional relationship

with the world and it's people and, and the problem we have in

many of our programs for evangelism denominationally or,

or just across the spectrum since probably the 1970s.

And I, there's a reason why I say that I'm a student of this

history. And there it goes back to the

late 1960s, early 1970's. The problem we have with some of

these programmatic approaches is that we start with relationship

#2 and, and, and we thank the whole goal.

How do I get the gospel to lost people?

Now that might that, that sounds great, doesn't it?

I want to get the, the gospel to lost people.

But we're making an assumption. What's the assumption that we're

making that, that we're walking with God in the 1st place and

we're actually going to have the power and the words to say that

we need to say in order to lead him to him.

Relationship number one has to proceed relationship #2 and

that's what's missing. We need the discipleship piece

as a part of this. Don't separate discipleship and

evangelism. They're not separate things.

That one is just the fulfillment of the other and leads to the

other and fulfills the other and leads to the other in a never

ending cycle. And that's why you'll often hear

me say that if you don't like to share the gospel, I really like

to study the Bible or I really like to teach people.

I appreciated that passion. But if you never share your

faith. You're an immature disciple.

And I'll stand by that statement.

Because you're incomplete. Let me show you this in

Scripture, one of the simplest verses, Matthew 419.

Jesus says follow me and I will make you fishers of men and you

can see the two relationships. Now I recognize.

This is a physical. Thing drop your fishing Nets and

come follow me. But the principle still applies.

Before I can become a Fisher of men, I got to follow Jesus.

Or in a familiar passage in Matthew 22 when you look at the

2 great commandments. And you shall love the Lord with

your God, with all your heart, and with all your soul and with

all your mind. Relationship number one.

Then, then and only then will you be ready to will you be able

to, will you be equipped to love your neighbors yourself?

You're never going to be able to love your neighbor the way

you're supposed to love your neighbor if you're not in love

with God first. It's just not going to happen

that. Way it's a part of our spiritual

nature to be able to do this. Or John 15, five.

I'm divine. You are the branches.

He who abides in me and I in him, He bears much fruit.

We actually see bearing that fruit is relationship #2 I can

bear fruit, but the only way this works for apart from me you

can do nothing. We're not going to bear fruit,

we're not going to abide, we're not going to do any of these

things if we're not in an intentional relationship with

God and his people. One of my favorite verses to to

demonstrate this is first Peter 3:15 because we often quote half

1 Peter 3:15

the verse and first Peter 315 says, but sanctify Christ as

Lord in your hearts. Relationship number one, always

being ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you to give an

account for the hope that is in you, yet with gentleness and

respect. And so it's always interesting

to me how we, how we stop doing this.

And we often think, we often just quote the second part of

the verse where we talk about, where we talk about always being

ready to make a defense, right? And we recognize that sometimes

we miss out on the whole point. And so if we don't have Christ

as Lord in our hearts, we're not going to be able to make that

defense right. And so another passage, which is

even more familiar perhaps, is Matthew chapter 28, which we

Matthew 28 · chapter mention

talked about here recently and on on Sunday.

And we talked about the fact that even in the Great

Commission, we see these bookends that determine for us

whether or not we're going to be able to do this.

And so this idea that that all authority has been given to me

in heaven and on earth, which would be a relationship #1

issue, go there for and make disciples of all the nations,

baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the

Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe this relationship #2 and

then all that I commanded you. And lo, I am with you always,

even to the end of the age. Back to relationship #1 So we

see this, this interconnectivity, this inner

wovenness of these two relationships and how important

it is that we're in both of them.

So our authority to go, because I've shared some of this with

you before, but our authority to go and the content with which we

go comes from relationship number one.

And this is going to become vital later.

This, this is actually the key of how I share my faith.

And I'm going to show you that later on in a, in a little

while, not tonight, but when we talk about how do I actually

lead that conversation to Christ, It is absolutely

depended upon this. And I'll show you this, that

because in our culture today, authentic matters, relevant

matters, real matters. It's and it's got to be right

now. It's not just about what

happened to you when you were 8. And we're going to talk a lot

about that. We're going to do a personal

testimony workshop one night. Some of you have maybe have

never written your testimony or never shared your testimony with

anybody before. We're going to have a workshop

where I'm going to guide you step by step on how to write a

testimony and how to share it with somebody.

So this is going to get very practical.

We'll do a lot of workshoppy type things.

And by the way, our students are doing exactly the same thing.

They're paralleling this study over in The Edge.

So our authority to go and the content with which we go come

from relationship number one. But being evangelistic begins

with the overflow of relationship #1 into the lives

or into our from our lives into relationship #2 So relationship

#2 depends upon relationship number one.

In fact, the more we're engaged, don't get lost in this, but the

more we're engaged in relationship #1 the more you

will be engaged in relationship #2.

I don't have to guess about that.

I got too many studies that prove that.

I can show you statistically that's true.

And so the more I'm in love with Jesus, the more I'm abiding in

him, the more I'm involved in spiritual disciplines, the more

I'm growing in my discipleship, the much more likely.

Hood there is that I would actually share my faith with

somebody else. It's rare that a weak Christian

talks about Jesus to somebody, OK?

And so this is crucial for us. And so we have to have this very

intentional relationship with the world based upon this very

intentional relationship with God in the church.

And don't, don't let that slide away.

You might think, OK, I got that to move on.

You know, you're going to need that building block later.

I promise you, I will come back to relationship number one and

relationship number two language over and over and over and over

and over again. It's vital that you understand

that. So where do we begin?

We begin where I always begin. We begin with the mission of

God. So Missio day the the Latin

version of that simply means that that God has on mission and

as you've heard us articulate a billion times and we'll

articulated a billion more because one of the rules of

church leadership is simply this about the time you're tired of

saying it is just about the time they start to listen.

The mission of God is to bring glory to himself and for us to

join Him in redeeming the nations.

Now let me quote a couple of Messiologists and and

theologians for you, Moltman and Agard.

There you see a couple of names. How many as can you have in one

name? As you can tell, he's

Scandinavian. Listen to this quote.

Though this is important, it is not the church that has a

mission of salvation to fulfill in the world.

This is not our mission, it's God's.

It is the mission of the Son and the Spirit through the Father.

That includes the church. So mission is a movement from

God to the world. The church is viewed as an

instrument for that mission. There is church because there is

mission, not vice versa. So the mission does not exist

just because we're here. We don't own that.

It's the and that's why you hear us articulated as the mission of

God. Inglewood has a vision, but God

has the mission. And so we recognize that our

ultimate mission is to bring glory to God.

And I'm going to that next line can be controversial, but you've

got to understand what I mean. So evangelism is not even our

goal. Now, don't get, don't don't

misunderstand me. We certainly want to see people

saved and, and our goal is to see people saved, but our

ultimate goal is to bring glory to God.

And, and there's a reason why we say it this way.

So evangelism isn't our goal, it's our means, it's our method,

it's our way to bring God glory. Why do I say it that way?

Because I can't control salvation.

So I've, I've seen this in church life to where you go out

on Tuesday night at 7 and people go out and they make all kinds

of visits and then they come back for report time and

nobody's saved and everybody's incredibly disappointed and

everybody thinks the night was a failure.

Well, the night wasn't a failure, was it?

Because Why? Because we were obedient.

We went out. That's all we can control.

All we can control is our obedience.

I can't save anybody, right? I can't make anybody doing

almost anything. They don't want to do.

All I can do is share about the one who can.

And so if you went out with your heart's intent, with every good

intent and motivation is I want to share the gospel with

somebody. I want to lead somebody closer

to Christ. Maybe it's one step closer to

Christ. And that's your intent.

And you go out and you do the very best you can.

And the power of the Holy Spirit to do that, it's a tremendous

success and it brought great glory to God.

See, so we got to be careful how we're measuring the scoreboard.

We're so bent on result, we forget that the process, it's a

ewardism. The process is just as important

as the product. And we don't believe that as

Americans sometimes because we're so product.

Oriented we we have to produce, we have to achieve something.

Well, I'm telling you, the achieving might just be helping

somebody for the first time in their life to share their

testimony. First time in their life they,

they actually had the guts to go talk to anybody about something

spiritual. First time in their life, they

actually tried to move the conversation to cry.

What a dramatic discipleship moment.

See, I, I know people who are never going to share their

faith. And if we can get them to even

think about sharing their faith, that's discipleship.

We've made progress, so we have to be careful.

Now, do I want to see people safe?

Sure I do. We love to see that.

I love to be part of the harvest.

But do I always get to be part of the harvest?

Even the Bible says I don't get to do that.

Some people are going to plant, some people are going to water,

some people are going to harvest.

But God causes the growth. The great preacher, theologian D

Martin Lloyd Jones, said this. The supreme object of a work of

evangelism is to glorify God, not to save souls.

And that may seem like an odd thing to say, but it's a truth.

And so the only he goes on. The only power that can do this

work is the Holy Spirit, not our own strength.

I, I can't save you and we and we use the language.

I LED somebody to Christ and and there's nothing wrong with the

language to it. Make sure that you recognize you

led them to Jesus and then Jesus saved them, right?

I mean, you, Andrew, Peter, write to Jesus, you know, but.

But Jesus had to do the work. All right now.

So let's talk about what is evangelism.

Sometimes it's helpful to talk about what is not.

So evangelism means a lot of things to a lot of people today.

And, and this may not, this may not resonate with you because

you, you all may have a great definition of evangelism.

But I assure you, in my world, there are people who think

everything's evangelism. And so, you know, there's

several things that evangelism is not.

Evangelism does not mean being added to a church role.

That's not evangelism. There are people who join church

roles all, all over the place who aren't even saved, right?

Evangelism doesn't mean talking about it.

There are a lot of people who talk about evangelism and don't

actually actually practice living evangelism, right?

It's not just inviting people to church.

We, we love inviting people. Nothing wrong with that's a good

thing. It's a good thing to talk about

it. It's a good thing to be added to

a church role. But that's not evangelism, not

not in our definition. It's certainly not living a good

moral life. So throw out the fake quote from

either Augustine or Saint Francis of Assisi.

Neither one of them actually said the words.

I'm going to preach the gospel, and if I have to, I'll use

words. That's actually not a quote from

either one of them and throw that out.

That is not evangelism, and I'm going to show you what it is.

I'm not saying it's not important.

Showing is important, but it's not.

Evangelism. I'll show you in a minute.

Expecting others to do it is not evangelism.

Preacher, I got a lost friend. I wish you'd come over and share

the gospel. Well, why don't you share the

gospel with them, right? They're your friend.

I'm busy. No, I'm kidding.

Be glad to come share the gospel.

With your friend, by the way. But but it does occur to me.

So have you tried? Yeah, let me give you a couple

of definitions. Just a.

Just a. Two or three.

Here, so John Stott, these are some theologians and then

they'll be me. So you go from the top down to

the bottom here real quickly. But John Stott says evangelism

means announcing or proclaiming the good news of Jesus.

See how simple that is? Now see that's going to be my

definition of evangelism will be very narrow.

I'm going to talk about pre evangelism.

I'm going to talk about post evangelism.

Evangelism itself is a very narrow thing.

I am actually verbally sharing the gospel with somebody.

That's the only, that's the only way the word evangelism is going

to get used by me. So I am proclaiming I'm using

words. I am actually sharing with

somebody. Ji Packer, another theologian,

would say it's an act of communication with a view of

conversion. Sounds like Packer.

But in other words, I'm communicating to somebody.

I'm speaking to somebody, right? A very famous definition is from

Bill Bright, the founder of Campus Crusade and, and he talks

about this. He says it's simply sharing

Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit and leaving the results

to God. And I openly and always give

credit to Bill Bright where I steal part of his thought into

my definition. I always give credit to him.

I don't plagiarize. I do it in class, I do it in

writing anytime I talk about this.

Because here's. Here.

Well, let me give you my. Soapbox first I forgot I got to

get off my soapbox so so. Bill Bright talks about

effective witnessing. So I disagree with Bill I I I, I

have no Bill's incredible and dead now with Jesus, but what a

phenomenal person. I don't like, and I've said this

to some of you before, don't use the word witnessing around me.

Stop it. I'm kidding to some degree.

Not that big a deal, but often let's go out witnessing.

Really. No, this is a soapbox of mine.

So we are called to be witnesses.

Noun. Acts 18.

OK. If we have been saved, if you've

been saved, you've already witnessed His grace.

What are you witnessing? You've already witnessed.

So the other day I was driving down Winstead Ave. and about got

killed. You about lost your pastor about

two days ago. So I'm driving down Winstead,

coming to the church, and I'm in that lane all the way over,

three lanes or whatever it is. And I'm all the way over before

we get to sunset, before the two left turn lanes.

Y'all with me? She comes from a parking lot

over here off the road to the right.

And I'm glad I saw her because she obviously didn't care if she

saw me or not. And she just kept on coming and

I thought, surely she's not going to.

And she did. Inches in front of me.

I slam on my brakes and honk my horn.

And I promise you, to this day, this human being has no idea was

ever there. They were lost in their little

world. Right now, if I had an accident,

you go out here and you witness an accident.

You witness your pastor in a in a wreck on Winstead Ave.

You don't need to witness that again, do you?

No, you've already seen it. You've already experienced it.

I'm trying to make a I'm, I'm overstating a point I'm trying

to make. Obviously, I'm really not hung

up on the word witnessing, but, but the point being is this,

this is not a choice any longer. You have witnessed it.

You don't get to choose whether you're a witness.

You witnessed it. If you've been saved, you have

witnessed the grace and salvation of Jesus Christ.

You don't have a choice anymore. You are a witness.

That's not the question anymore. So if you've been saved, you've

witnessed. When we share with others, we

are not witnessing. We are what?

Yeah, we're testifying. That's what a witness does.

Now think about that. I'm using my mouth.

I grew up in a multi generational lawyer's house.

Right now I know what a witness is.

A witness is somebody who has first hand or expert knowledge

of something and they're going to share that.

They're going to speak words about what they've experienced.

So don't go witnessing. What are you witnessing?

You going? I'm going to go witnessing.

What are you going to witness? I guess you going to argue why?

I'm going to witness the Holy Spirit saving somebody.

I'll give you that. That's fine.

If you want to. You want to chop it into little

pieces. Anyway, I'm off the soapbox now.

The question is simply this, will we remain silent or will we

testify? And that's the question.

And most of us remain silent. I'll talk about that again in a

minute. So here's my definition.

It's a little long, sorry. I think I wrote it down for you.

You can get the hand out, but it says here's what I believe

evangelism is. I am intentionally preparing for

and pursuing opportunities to personally share the gospel of

Jesus Christ with those who are unsaved in the power of the Holy

Spirit while leaving the results to God.

Thank you, Bill Bright, but there's a reason why I say these

words. There's an intentionality to

this. I don't believe this is going to

happen by accident. I don't think this is going to

be a natural default mechanism until you make it 1.

There's an intentionality to preparation.

And we're going to talk about how do I prepare for personal

evangelism so that when I go out into the day, I'm not shocked

when the opportunity comes. I've been looking for the

opportunity. I've been praying for the

opportunity. I've been begging God-given the

opportunity, right? I'm looking for that person to

talk to. I'm praying for the lost person

every single day. I'm praying for my neighbour's

spiritual health so when I see my neighbor, I'm not shocked

when we can get into a spiritual conversation.

I'm begging for the spiritual conversation.

I'm intentionally preparing for and pursuing opportunities.

Most of us don't live that way. Most of us have our own To Do

List. We think it's a good day when we

made progress on our personal To Do List.

And so we hope we get up in the morning, We push the button, the

Batcave opens up, we go out in the Batmobile, we go, do you

know, we go fight crime. We come back in and we push the

button and then we go back into the Batcave and Alfred has

dinner ready. Good day.

And we may have missed everybody.

God wanted us to meet that day. We may have missed every

opportunity along the way because we weren't looking for

it. We weren't thinking about it.

This is key. If you don't remember this part,

this intentionality aspect, you're going to miss it.

This is what's missing. In a lot of people's lives.

Remember what Paul wrote he said in Romans 116.

I am not ashamed of the gospel because it's the power of God

for the salvation of everyone who believes, first for the Jews

and then for the Gentiles. So I'm not ashamed of this.

I'm intentionally pursuing this. But if I'm going to do this, I

need to know what the gospel is. So what is the gospel?

And, and that, and we can't overlook that.

So I'm, I'm not ashamed of this thing called the gospel.

I'm, I'm, I'm pursuing and preparing opportunities to share

this thing called the gospel. I better know what this thing

that called the gospel is. So what is the gospel?

If we're not clear on this, then we won't live out evangelism

with boldness and love. We might share something, but

we're not sharing the whole story.

And so part of what we're going to talk about, we'll do a little

now, but we're going to talk about this much more later.

What must be in a gospel presentation.

We're going to talk about that down the road in one of these

sessions. What's the bare minimum?

And that's not my goal. My goal is not to share the bare

minimum. My show.

My goal is to share the whole gospel.

But what is the bare minimum if I've got just a few minutes?

What must a person know in order to be saved, right?

And so we're going to talk about that.

We're going to talk about 90 something Bible stories and

figure out which ones we need to share the gospel one of the in

one of these sessions. Oh, it's going to be so much

fun. Can't wait.

But in the meantime, just in a general sense, the gospel in

English, we get this word God spell or God's story.

It's old English and that's where that English word gospel

comes from, just means God's story, right?

The Greek word for gospel and the Greek word for evangelism or

evangelize are very similar. It's, it's very similar to the

word for Angel angelos and, and things like that to where it

means to bring or to announce or to proclaim good news.

Now look at those verbs. It doesn't just mean I'm living

a good life. It doesn't mean I'm nice to

people. It means that I'm actually

proclaiming I'm, I'm sharing something with them verbally,

right? And then when we think about the

content of the gospel, one of the best places to go is, is in

First Corinthians chapter 15. And I've alluded to 1st

1 Corinthians 15 · chapter mention

Corinthians 13 or 15 before, sorry, in the sense that if you

want a summary of the gospel, then go to 1st Corinthians 15.

It also will give you a great summary of of not only that, but

it it goes into expands even to who all saw that and who who all

saw Jesus after the resurrection, etcetera.

But verses 3 and 4, I'll just keep it to those two verses for

I delivered to you as a first importance what I also received

that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures

that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in

accordance with the scriptures. So everything's done according

to the scriptures. Talk about that more Sunday and

and we're going to see that then it talks about how many people

he appeared to etcetera. And so we need to understand

that the basics of the gospel mean that I'm talking about

Jesus. I'm talking about what Jesus did

talking about the cross. I'm talking about an empty tomb.

I make my students write out a gospel presentation as part of

their final word for word. My finals are not true and false

multiple choice matching tests. They are essay type things like

writing another paper and they have to write out longhand how

they would share the gospel with somebody.

And I threaten them within an inch of their graduation that if

if you don't have something about a cross and you don't have

something about an empty tomb, you ain't sharing the gospel.

And so I make them write it out. They also have to do weekly

evangelism reports in my class where they actually have to go

out and share the gospel one-on-one or personally with

people so that they'll actually know how to do that.

And you can't avoid that class. So people who go to seminary

always take it in their last semester.

It's hilarious. But anyway, so, but the other

thing we got to think about when we think about the gospel, what

do the cross and what do the resurrection really mean?

And we go back to some of the theological conversations that

we've been having. And there's a reason why we've

been having theological conversations.

I connect dots. And so to understand that we

have two great problems. We've got a sin problem, we've

got a death problem, the cross and the resurrection.

They're dealing with these problems, right?

And we're going to talk a whole lot more about that content

later. What do I really need to know to

tell somebody? And, and, and I find to be

honest with you, that's often not the biggest problem,

especially those of you who've been in church for a while, a

lot of, you know, some of that content, the biggest problem is

getting there. How do I get there to where I

can actually talk about the gospel to somebody to where

they're not slamming the door or they're not mad at me throwing

coffee on me at the coffee shop or whatever.

So we want to talk about this and sometimes we mix in this

idea of the Great Commission. You know, we want to fulfill the

Great Commission as disciples and we want to do that, but

we've got to recognize that the whole Great Commission, the idea

of the Great Commission, this whole Great Commission includes

pre evangelism, evangelism and post evangelism.

And if I were to sit here and tell you the difference between

missions and evangelism, that's part of it.

In missions you do all three. Evangelism is the middle part.

Very specifically right. And so when we talk about Great

Commission, the Great Commission fulfillment in its purest form

is a natural overflowing and outpouring of our response to

God's grace and mission. Frankly, it's our relationship

#1 being poured out into relationship #2 and I promise

you that pouring will dry up quickly.

If relationship number one is not strong, you have nothing to

pour. You'll have nothing to talk

about, right? One of my favorite passages of

in all the Bible of evangelism is John Chapter 9.

John 9 · chapter mention

This guy's born blind. Jesus heals him.

The religious leaders don't like that because they didn't seem to

like anything. And so they interrogate the

man's mommy and daddy and they're terrified.

And they say, listen, he's old enough to talk for himself.

You will ask him, we don't want anything to do with this.

And so then they get the the guy up there and it says, well, tell

us what's going on. And the you are paraphrasing the

whole thing simply this, you guys are going to figure this

out for yourselves and do whatever you think's right.

Here's what I know. I was blind and now I see.

And that dude Jesus did it. That's evangelism to a large

degree. It's your testimony.

That's your testimony. Now you got to tell him how and

why we've got to talk about a cross and a resurrection, but

you talk about a testimony. So when we talk about these

things, Scripture teaches us theologically that evangelism

doesn't start. It doesn't begin with the

desires and schemes of man. This is a God driven thing.

So this is not anthropological, it's theological.

So salvation has to come from God.

And, and I believe with all of my heart that God is way ahead

of, listen, here's how, here's how crazy I am.

I don't think you would come here in the rain physically to

this session if God didn't draw you here tonight.

I just believe that I believe in a God who orchestrates history.

You just wait till my Christmas series and we talk about

Galatians and the fullness of time and what that really means.

What does the fullness of time mean?

I'm going to talk about that in December.

So God's orchestrating. So let's talk about this.

So we need to be able to find evangelism in Scripture.

Is this biblical? Is it biblical for us to share

our faith? So one of the things that we go

do is we recognize that from Genesis to Revelation, we see

God creating man for relationship with him.

And so redemption is found throughout Scripture.

In fact, that's the basis to a large degree of what we would

call the grand narrative. So the Bible documents God

working throughout history in this grand or meta narrative.

And don't let that phrase throw you.

It just means big story in this big story that usually consists

of at least four parts. And there are multiple ways

there are different words that people use, but it's but that

usually these four parts and some of the best gospel tools

today actually share this. They're going to actually take

you all the way back to creation, which we we've talked

about before how important that is in today's culture.

We've probably got to start in Genesis, not in John.

And so the first part is creation that God created, and

that's part of redemption. You may not think of it that

way, but I tried to share that with you not too long ago.

We don't deserve life. We don't deserve existence.

Now, see, this is where the problem of evil conversation

comes back into place because we get mad because we think we're

owed something or we think we deserve something, or we think

we don't deserve something. You don't deserve anything.

You don't deserve to exist. Now that may sound harsh and

weird to you, but it's the truth.

God decided to create out of His incredible nature of grace and

love because He knew when He created we were going to screw

everything up, and so we don't even deserve to be here.

You don't deserve to breathe. So start with that part of grace

and redemption, right? That wasn't a gospel

presentation. That was just the theological

truth. The second part of that is the

fall, because we all sin. And so to to recognize who this

God is, the nature of this God, what God has done, and then the

nature of sin and the nature of man is all part of a whole

gospel presentation. We've messed up.

We're all sinners. We all fall short to the glory

of God. We have a problem, we have a

need, we have a gap, we have a a price to pay.

We have a penalty that's going to be judged.

Something has to happen to fix this.

We can't fix this ourselves. And somehow that that'll be in a

gospel mix. So then the third part's

redemption. God always had a plan.

He had a plan before creation. He's always planned on this.

He always knew redemption was necessary.

He always knew this was going to happen.

And then the 4th part is restoration.

There's going to come a time when it's all fixed and my knee

won't hurt anymore when it rains.

You know. But far much more glorious than

that. So, so the big story is the

whole point of the Bible. Don't miss that, that that meta

narrative, that grand narrative is the whole point.

So I know we chopped the Bible up into different books.

We chopped the Bible up into different authors.

We chopped the Bible up into different contexts.

And, and those are good hermeneutical ways to study it.

But we also have to recognize that this is a whole and it's a

miraculous whole. There's no way in the world this

should all make sense. There's no one the way where in

the world this ought to flow with the thousands of years and

authors and places and languages and situations.

But that's one of the miracles of Scripture.

That is one story. And so that big story being the

whole point, then knowing this helps us to understand the

various parts. That's one of the ways that we

interpret Scripture. Don't interpret.

In fact, I was sharing this today.

We were having a conversation. Don't take a verse without a

context. And and it's not just this

context, it's this context, it's this context, it's that context.

How does that one verse fit into the whole Bible?

Now, you may not think this will be cool and I'll come up with a

really cool name. So don't worry, I'll make

Michelle do that or something. But but our Avery will come up

with a really cool name. But in January and midweek, how

do we actually study and interpret the Bible, not only

personally, but how would we teach the Bible to somebody else

in in a really solid way? What are the questions I ought

to be asking in my personal Bible study?

What are the questions I'd all be asking in my connect group?

What are the questions I ought to be asking when he stands up

here and screams at me in a sermon?

What, what do I really need to do to take a piece of the Bible

and understand how it fits into the whole?

So we're going to talk about engaging the Bible.

After the first of the year. So when we recognize this, that,

that, that, that this is that, this helps us understand the

various parts, then we have to ask, how does this story

actually build? How does it become something?

And so that big story becomes something and to understand how

it builds, first we got to ask how does it end?

So we're actually going to go to the end and work backwards.

Call that scope and sequence in education, you call that

backward planning. So how does it end?

And then how do we get to that end?

Right. So you, you go to Revelation 5

or Revelation 7. Either one of them will work.

And you see these great throne room images at the end of time

and who all's there, People from every tongue, tribe and nation.

That's the goal. That's the end game, right?

To bring God glory to redeem the nation's.

We're helping those people to get there.

We're going to learn about people who were in a place and

have started a church. That's the culmination that we

see. So that's the ending.

And if that's how we bring glory to God, then why we engage in

evangelism becomes significant to us.

And so if that's the end, we got to recognize how do we get to

the beginning, right? So, so the, the culmination, our

goal, this is how we bring glory to God.

This is why we engage in evangelism to help with this end

game. So now we ask, so if that's the

end, where's the beginning? Where do we begin?

So where do we begin? Well, let's go to the Old

Testament. Evangelism in the Old Testament.

Who'd a thunk it? So let's talk about redemption

in the Old Testament for a moment.

We'll we'll go through about 2000 years of history here in

about 5 minutes just to walk. Through this right?

So we see Genesis and we see hit the demonstration of our need

for a Savior from the very first book in the Garden of Eden, we

see the flood stories. Later we see the patriarch

stories. But even in the Garden of Eden,

when you go all the way back to Genesis 315, and I've talked to

you about this before, the proto evangelium where we see the very

first mention, the initial promise of salvation where the

where the offspring of the woman is going to stomp on the head of

the serpent talking about Jesus. So from the very beginning,

salvation is needed. The Christ would come.

And so it's always been a part of the story, right?

So instead of destroying us, which God could have easily

done, it would have been easy. Snuff.

We're all gone. There were just two of them.

That'd have been easy. I'd have done it.

I mean, think about it. That wouldn't just give me

another handful of dirt. We'll try this again.

You know what I'm saying? But he wasn't caught off guard

by sin. And again, you got to rest on

that for a second. God was not caught off guard by

sin, and he still created us. He's a redemptive God.

And so from the very beginning, instead of destroying us, he

promises A Messiah. And what's really going to be

the twist of the story is it's God Incarnate who dies.

Nobody else teaches that. Nobody else comes close to that.

That's why it's the truth, one of the reasons.

So then we go on. Do you see the creation in the

fall? And then you continue in the Old

Testament. We won't do every book because

we don't have time. But think about how Exodus

continues the story. Think about redemption and

Exodus, the freedom from Egypt of the people, that the fact

they end up in Sinai and they get the law and they go out into

the wilderness wanderings. And so you see the law and the

Tabernacle and this whole system of blood sacrifice that is

developed, developed in this in with these people so that their

sins could be atoned for Garden of Eden.

Blood had to be sacrificed to cover them.

Blood always covers sin. It always has, always will.

And then the the Old Testament continues as you see redemption

throughout the Old Testament where you walk through what I

call the cycle of the judges to where to where the people sin.

And then there's an oppressor. And then they cry out and they

whine and they argue and they gripe.

And if I was God, I'd have wiped them out then.

But he doesn't because then he sends a deliverer and they get

delivered and they return to God for about two seconds.

And then they start sinning again.

And you can sit there and say shame on you Hebrews, Shame on

you Hebrews. And then I look in the mirror

and I go, I'm not going to say anymore because I've got the

Holy Spirit living in me and I still sin.

They didn't have that. They didn't have the whole

Bible. They didn't know what I know.

So it's pretty. Fascinating.

And it continues. So then you see the Tabernacle

and then eventually the temple. So this sacrificial system

continues, I mean grows, becomes complicated even to becoming a

problem eventually. And then even the exile comes

along later. You see the exile in the

prophets to where God says, listen, you guys have got to

learn and I'm going to keep teaching you lessons one way or

the other. I'll use Assyria, I'll use

Babylon, I'll use prophet after prophet.

Listen, I've been studying the minor prophets in my personal

quiet time and let me tell you something, after a while you're

just going to go, whoa, is because I'm in every single

chapter. Somebody's getting it because

they sin and they can be. It can be redundant and it's

reading. But then when you recognize the

lesson and you apply it to yourself, and you recognize the

lost people around you who live in woe and they're living in

judgement, and a permanent exile is coming if something isn't

done, if we don't warn them, right?

And so you see 3 themes of the Old Testament.

I didn't create these three themes.

There are other scholars and and people who've done this.

And so the first thing that you see is what's called the

universality of God's intent. Now don't let this throw you

off. This isn't universalism.

What this means in the Old Testament is, is that God wanted

all the nations to know him. He wanted all the nations to

know who he was. He wanted his name and his his

who he was to be known by the nations.

And if you read the Old Testament in, in honesty, you'll

see that this was a purpose. They were to be a light to the

Gentiles. And we'll see that again in a

second. But he wanted all the nations to

read the Psalms. And you'll see this over and

over and over again. Because the second point is, is

that the purpose of God's people was to be a light for the

Gentiles. In fact, this coming Sunday in

the sermon, I'm going to quote from the first missionary

journeys where they quote this passage to some people they were

teaching. And then the third thing that

you see is what's called the narrowing of the means of

deliverance. Don't let these words throw you.

This just means that he moves from a people to a person.

So the Hebrews were supposed to show the world this is how human

beings are supposed to walk with God.

So the purpose of the law, the purpose of the Tabernacle, the

purpose of the temple, we're supposed to show everybody this

is how you do this. Now, they did a horrible job of

it and they got punished over and over and over and over and

over again until the time you get to the New Testament.

It's all twisted and and messed up, but I actually wrote a

chapter for a book for Lifeway in a prayer series where we

analyzed prayers from the Old Testament.

And I wrote a chapter about King Solomon's prayer of dedication

of the temple. And if you don't believe that

the intent was at the temple and every part of it was not just

for the Jewish people, it was for the nations, you need to

reread the stories. Because he even says when the

when the foreigner comes and prays here, listen to them, God,

honor them, God, because they've come to honor you.

And so we recognize that it narrows.

So it narrows from a people to a Messiah is the point.

And so then you enter into the New Testament.

And in the New Testament, God continues on his sovereign

mission. Again, in Galatians 4, he talks

about the fullness of time. And we'll come back and revisit

that a lot in December. We're going to break that down.

Why did Jesus come when and where he did?

And I'm going to show you some of the reasons.

Some of them are practical, some of them are spiritual.

And you'll see how God is his perfectly orchestrating history

and culture. It's amazing what he's done.

So and then you get into the Gospels itself.

And Jesus knew his life was actually a fulfillment of the

Old Testament. Remember as he's walking on the

road to Emmaus after the resurrection and he opens their

eyes and he tells them this is how the law and the prophets all

talked about me. That's what Luke 24 is about.

The whole Bible is about me. Jesus said after his

resurrection and he and, and he pointed that out to him.

So throughout the Gospels, many, many, many Old Testament

prophecies, including the suffering servant passage of

Isaiah being fulfilled, and they're clearly referenced.

They're clearly fulfilled. This is God's mission.

This is God's story, the whole book, all of it.

And so one of the things that we get into to recognize is how

Jesus actually shared with others.

So you, you going to do a little homework right now.

Get ready. So what we going to do, I want

you to do. If you have a Bible, turn to

John chapter 4. If you have a phone, do it

John 4 · chapter mention

there. If you don't have a Bible

anywhere near you, look on with somebody because I want you to

see a case study from the ministry of Jesus.

This is the story of Jesus and the Samaritan woman at the well.

I make people do this in class. This normally takes about 3

hours. We're going to do it in about 5

minutes, but one of the things I want to demonstrate throughout

this whole series are little activities that you can do with

your small groups. You can do this with your

families. You can do this yourself to have

a little have ways to to help you to learn.

So I just want you to take a moment.

I'm going to be quiet for a few minutes.

If you want to talk together, that's fine.

You want to do it by yourself, that's fine.

I don't care. Talking together would be fun.

I'd like to hear that, but you don't have to.

And I want you to think about this passage and just be ready

to think about what are some of Christ's methodologies that He

uses with the Samaritan woman at the well.

So take a couple of minutes. I'll give you a few minutes.

We have more time than you know. Now shout loudly and I'm going

to repeat it so that it gets recorded.

Just name something. What was Jesus's methodology?

He says anything, anything He did, anything he said.

What did he do? He introduced himself.

What? He started talking to her.

Now, now, now, seriously, can you talk to somebody?

I'm telling you, I'm telling you, one of the classes that

I've always said on the masters level I need to teach, and that

may amaze you, is how to have a reasonable conversation with

another human being and our culture today, don't take that

too lightly. Think about how difficult that

seems to be today. What else?

He intentionally went that way. He intentionally went that way.

He asked for something. She has made a connection,

didn't he? Yeah.

What else? Spoke in terms she understood,

Use language, use connecting points, Knew us, knew some

history there. That's good.

Anything else? He what?

Yeah, He. He brought up there and then

talking. Started bringing up the subject

matter of God. Had her confessor sin.

That's good. Offered something appealing.

She needed what he had. Yeah, He made her wonder.

That's good. That's interesting.

Say it one more time. He did not judge her.

He did not judge her. Also didn't condone what she was

doing, but also didn't judge her harshly.

That's right. Yeah.

Used a normal thing in life to bridge and to use this as the

illustration. Now, I want you to think about

this and I want you to take this home with you.

And I want you to use this and really dwell on this a little

bit. First of all, why in the think

about the disciples later as you read the whole story, they're

like, what in the world are you doing talking to her?

She's a Samaritan and she's a woman and she's out at the wrong

time of day, which means she's up to no good.

And so judgement comes, right? And yet for him, that wasn't the

issue, was it? He saw, he saw lostness.

He saw a soul and need. He saw a person in need, right?

And you read the end of the story and see what happens.

And I want you to study that a little bit and think about the

methodologies. We'll do this in, in sessions

that I do. And we'll have a whole white

board full of things that Jesus did or said and the disciples

did or said and the woman did or said, right?

He didn't let her. He didn't let her take him off

subject. She tried, she tried to change

the subject, tried to distract, but he got her right back on

track. Didn't let that happen.

It was honest, but he was also loving, cared for her, right?

I think he probably shocked her a little bit by actually, what

are you doing talking to me? All right, so think about that

and take that with you and use that.

So we see then as the the gospels move forward, finally we

get to the book of Acts. We've talked about that a lot to

where Jesus ascends to the Father.

The Holy Spirit then steps in to continue the work.

So God displays his purposes through the church.

We've we've spent a whole series talking about that on Sunday

mornings and the gospel breaks through barriers.

Nothing can stop. It doesn't matter.

Geography doesn't matter. Ethnicity doesn't matter.

Race, geography, religion, language, different things

breakdown. The gospel transcends all of

those and it moves from one group to the next.

So these linguistic, these ethnic, these geographic

barriers can't stop the spreading of the gospel.

In fact, it's quite miraculous when you study history, how

quickly the Gospel is in every single Roman province.

Very quickly, in relative terms, if we did half as much as the

first Church did in spreading the gospel, we would cover the

nation in a heartbeat with as many as we are compared to as

few as they were. And so it's an amazing

opportunity we have. It's also an amazing lack of

participation. So one of my goals is to

increase the percentage of participation.

The staff note 100%. The staff knows that my increase

of percentages is a mantra. All right.

So the evangelism permeated the early church.

You see this total penetration, total participation, everybody's

sharing, everybody's inviting. So the early church didn't just

do evangelism. They were evangelistic.

In fact, a messiologist by the name of David Garland would

point out that they were, they were spurred by a divine

compulsion. They, they couldn't hold it

back. They, they wanted the world to

know. And then suddenly you stumble

upon this former rabbi named Paul.

We're going to talk about his first missionary journey Sunday

morning. I'm going to do a whole

missionary journey and one sermon.

Don't worry, it's not even a long sermon.

Barnabas goes along too, so you'll like that part

encouraging in Acts 915, it says, but the Lord said to him,

go, for he is a chosen instrument of mine to carry my

name before the Gentiles and kings and the children of

Israel. And so his evangelism, Paul's

evangelism flows out of his passion for God and one of the

great, and I'll make it again every time I step over there,

that does it another great. So I'll step over here.

So another statement that I'll make when we talk about

testimonies is that is that Paul never survived his salvation.

That's one of his secrets. That's one of his keys.

He remembered Saul and he knew who he was and he knew what

Jesus had done and he never forgot that.

And that's a characteristic I talk about, that I want to be a

part of my life. I never want to survive my

salvation. I died.

The old me died, right? And so that was one of Paul's

strengths and his journeys encompass.

They go over a decade. It's funny when you read Acts

and everything seems so compressed.

You have a hard time sometimes understanding time frames.

You know, there were times he spent.

Years here or there. And so all those missionary

journeys took over 10 years, and they spread the gospel into at

least four major provinces around the Mediterranean world,

right? And obviously he's writing

letters to the churches along the way as well.

So let's talk about these letters for just a moment before

we end up here in a second. So one of the things that he

does, when you look at evangelism in the epistles in

the New Testament, you've got to make some recognitions.

Don't make them say something they don't say.

The the epistles were written as letters, and in fact occasional

letters to specific people for specific reasons.

Never forget that in your context, he's writing to a local

church. This is one of the oddest things

about, frankly one of the dumbest theological conclusions

I hear in the world today, that I don't need the church.

If you don't need the church, you are discounting the majority

of the New Testament because the New Testament is written to the

church and the instructions of these letters are written to

local churches and real people who had real issues in real

places. And sometimes we don't even

know, always know what the questions were.

And so we have to study and understand context.

But these were occasional letters for very specific

reasons. They weren't intended to be

systematic theologies. They were, They were intended to

deal with the immediate concerns, with the false

teaching, with the persecution, with with whatever was going on

in those churches. And so although there are

certain theological lessons we learned from them, but

interwoven are these great themes of evangelism.

Now. Now you got to understand that

evangelism is also assumed in the epistles.

You got to think about who was writing these things.

These were all written by missionaries and evangelists, by

disciples and the like. And so these are people who

assumed certain things, but the universality of God's intent is

still clearly seen. He wants everybody to know Him.

His will is that all would be saved, right?

And that none would perish. You'll see these verses.

So let me conclude with this, and I'm going to show you an

image, and I want you to get the difference between Old Testament

and New Testament. It's the difference between

centripetal and centrifugal force.

And you may not you, some of you know these words well.

Some of you, like you, get these confused.

I'm not sure which one is which. So centripetal, where's the

motion going? Anybody remember Inward,

centrifugal, outward. So centripetal means going

toward, think of a drain. You're draining water, so it's

centripetal. Toward the middle.

Centrifugal is where it's throwing it out.

Think about that weird ride. You should never ride at the

carnival on Walmart's parking lot, but you do anyway.

And so that's the difference between the Old Testament and

the New Testament. In the Old Testament, you had

this centripetal redemptive plan.

In other words, you needed to come to the law, you needed to

come to the temple, you needed to come to the Tabernacle, you

needed to come to Israel. You had to go to see these

people. That's where you would find God.

And so you were to come to them, right?

Well, in the New Testament, one of these verses we'll talk about

that we become the temple of the Holy Spirit, right?

And there's a different context to it, but the idea is quite

profound in the sense that now, because the Holy Spirit lives

inside of us, the temple now goes to you.

In the old days, you had to come to the temple.

Now the temple goes to you. And that's one of the switches

that Jesus and Paul make and that we are now supposed to go.

In the old days, it would be come, come, see, come learn,

come watch, come observe. Now we go.

Here's the problem. Most churches still operate on

Old Testament principles. You got to come here.

They know where we are. If they want what we have, they

will come here. Man, I've been told that.

And you know what's what's wrong with that?

It's wrong. It's wrong.

Not only is it wrong biblically, it's wrong practically.

They are not going to just come here, not in any sizeable number

whatsoever, not in today's world.

So we must be a New Testament church and we must go.

And So what we're going to talk about is how do I intentionally

prepare for and pursue these opportunities to go and listen,

we're not, we're not, you know, listen, I'm not opposed to cold

Turkey door knocking if that's really what you want to do.

And you want to just pick a neighborhood and go cold Turkey

door knocking and show the gospel with people.

That's not the primary method I'm going to be sharing with

you. I want to talk about the people,

you know, your neighbors, your Co workers, your classmates,

people you see on a regular basis that you have somewhat of

a relationship with. If we would just lead all of

them to Jesus, we would see the greatest revival of human

history. And so I'm not saying don't go

to the complete stranger. We'll talk about person X, but

I'm really going to be talking about what about that person

that you can see every week, maybe every day they, they have

a relationship. How, how do I, how do I use this

relationship? How do I steer and build this

relationship? So next session is real simple.

We're going to talk about how do we pray for them?

We're preparing for and in our pre evangelism, we're talking

about pre evangelism next time. How do I prepare and pursue

these by prayer? And then how do I begin to

develop a, a very intentional relationship with a lost person?

You need to have relationships with lost people, but they need

to be very intentional to where you are guiding them toward a

place where you can share. So how do I develop a pre

evangelistic, honest, authentic? We're not just trying to

manipulate people, we're trying to love them.

Well, a real relationship. But I'm also hoping that at some

point down the road I can share with you about who I really love

and why. So that'll be next time.

Does that make sense? All right, go home with your

homework and John and and talk more about how Jesus shares the

gospel. Let's pray together.

Father, we thank you so much for your love and your grace.

We don't deserve it. Thank you for it.

Let us tell other people about it in Jesus name, Amen.

God bless you all. 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.