Unafraid Witness Ephesians 6:19-20 (Nov 20 2016) Mike Armstrong

All right.

Well, good morning, Harvest.

So good to see you out here today.

If you would turn in your Bibles right now to Ephesians chapter 6.

Ephesians 6 · chapter mention

Ephesians chapter 6.

Ephesians 6 · chapter mention

Now, um, as uh you're turning there, um I've got something I want to kind of share with you.

Uh when I was uh in Bible college, okay, I was uh fresh out of high school and uh went straight into this Bible college program at 18 years old, and uh that was up in Huntsville, Ontario.

And I remember we had this professor that came and taught us on evangelism.

And one of the assignments that he had for us was that we had to pick a partner from our class and actually go door to door in Bracebridge and share the gospel with people, uh kind of like cold calling them.

Now, um, let me tell you this.

Uh, as an 18-year-old, I didn't exactly have the most robust walk with the Lord.

And so for me, this was uh it was an undertaking, let's put it that way.

I was super nervous about this.

And I remember I went with my friend Dave, and he was uh he was like 24 at the time, he was older and and a pretty confident guy.

And so uh for the first bunch of houses, he did all the speaking.

And we would walk up and we just say, Hey, here's who we are.

We're you know college students, and and uh we want to just tell you about the good news of Jesus Christ.

And uh so he was doing that, and then we went through probably four, five, six homes uh doing that, and then he was kind of like, All right, Mike, it's your turn now.

I've done all the talking, now it's now it's your go.

And as you can imagine, I was sweating.

I was sweating bullets.

And so I walked up to, I remember walking up to this uh front step, up to this house, and um trying not to show how nervous I was, but I knock on this door and I'm waiting, okay?

I'm waiting.

And this lady comes to the door, she opens it, and what I did was I proceeded to just like at hyper speed explain who I am, who we are, and what we're doing.

Like, hey, we're summer college students, and we're here and we're walking around town, and we want to tell people about the good news of Jesus Christ.

And I went on and on for about 15 seconds, super fast like that.

And then when I was kind of done my thing, there was this moment of silence, and I look over at Dave, and he's just like, and he bursts out laughing, like in front of this woman in front of me.

And you can imagine how I was feeling about this.

I was just like, I just felt awful, right?

He is dying laughing, and this lady prays the Lord for this.

She's like, Don't worry, don't worry, I'm a Christian.

She's like, I'm a Christian.

I know exactly what you're doing, I know what this is like.

It's tough.

It's tough.

Now, at the mere thought of many of us doing something like that, um, how does that make us feel?

Right?

Probably like unsettled to some degree.

You know, it strikes, the the idea can strike fear into us, because we're we we fear rejection, we fear maybe potential persecution.

You know, we feel sometimes in many ways ill-equipped.

What am I gonna say?

How is this gonna go?

You know, we lack confidence.

And here's the thing, as Christ followers, if you've been a part of the church for any amount of time, you know that we're supposed to evangelize.

You've heard the sermons before, you've read the scriptures, you know that we're supposed to go out there uh with boldness and all of that, and you even know that on some level we're supposed to enjoy it.

It's supposed to be, it's supposed to be something that we delight in doing.

Okay, but if you're honest here today, many of us at least would probably admit, you know what, I'm just not there.

I'm not there.

This is this is challenging.

The last thing in the world I feel about this is joy.

Well, our fourth pillar at Harvest Bible Chapel is sharing the good news of Jesus Christ with boldness.

Sharing the good news of Jesus Christ with boldness or unafraid witness.

And so when it comes to evangelism and talking to others about the gospel and our salvation, this is something that we as a church, we're all in about.

We're like two feet, let's let's do this.

This is what we are uh committed to uh here as a group of people.

We're going for it.

And so this morning, what we want to do is we want to tackle this subject and this idea head on.

We want to just jump right into it so that we can just kind of, I think for all of us, get beyond the various hangups that we have with it.

Get beyond the paralyzing fear.

You know, that that that feeling ill-equipped and I'm not really sure what to say here.

Or maybe for a lot of us, it's just this overall coldness that we have towards reaching the lost for the sake of Jesus Christ.

We just don't care enough.

We want to get beyond all of that.

We want to get to a place where sharing the gospel actually is a joy.

It's something that we want to do, and then, hey, beyond just wanting to do it, we actually go do it.

That's where we want to get to, where our hearts are just, they're they're they're filled up, they're welling up with passion.

It's something that's that's burning inside of us.

I've I've got to tell a lost and dying world about salvation and how that is through Jesus Christ alone.

Okay, so that's where we're going today.

That's where we're gonna um go after.

So let's read the passage now, Ephesians chapter 6.

Ephesians 6 · chapter mention

I'm gonna read verses, it's just verse 19 uh and 20.

So follow along with me.

He says this.

He says, and also for me, that words may be given to me in opening my mouth boldly to proclaim the mystery of the gospel for which I am an ambassador in chains, that I may declare it boldly as I ought to speak.

Let's pray.

Lord God, we come before you, and I think I can speak just in terms of how we generally feel about this, Lord.

We are we are nervous when it comes to um evangelism.

We are unsettled about it, we um we feel like we don't know how to actually do this well, and so for many of us, we just don't do it.

And God, I pray that we would sense in here, in our hearts, uh, today a holy conviction about this, Lord, and an increasing desire to go and uh tell the good news of Jesus Christ to the nations, Lord.

Would you allow us to be a church that does this?

Lord, I pray that you would work beyond our our hangups, Lord, and encourage us in this.

Lord, that's what we need so much, Lord, that our church would do amazing things uh for you and in you.

Lord, we pray all of this in Christ's name.

Amen.

Amen.

So if you haven't noticed um at this point so far, what we're really trying to do here this morning is is uh address the elephant in the room.

The elephant in the room, okay, and that is that that evangelism is crucial, right?

It's it's a kind of a big deal according to Jesus Christ, uh, but we're kind of freaked out about it.

We're freaked out about it in many ways.

Now, I realize that that's not everybody.

Some of you are gifted in this, some of you find it very comfortable and uh and easy, and and that is a huge blessing.

But generally speaking, that's just not the case, not in North America.

Now, hear this, understand this.

Okay, the problem is not that we have fear.

Okay, the problem's not that we have fear, the problem is that we allow our fear to paralyze us and to stop us from doing this super important thing that Christ calls us to do.

Now, I don't know if you noticed that as we read that scripture, but it highlights the word boldly.

Two times it uses that in two verses.

Really key word for you to highlight.

Maybe you'd circle out or you would underline that uh in your Bible here today.

And I think what that does is it shows us something that kind of encourages me.

It shows me that even the Apostle Paul felt fear.

Right?

We think of him as this just like warrior guy who just had no weaknesses and no fear whatsoever.

And you know what?

I just don't think that was the case.

Right?

He was a human every bit as much as us.

And he's like, he's praying for he's praying for boldness, and and that's what he wants.

He didn't allow that fear, though, to stop him.

You know, what that fear did was it it caused him to rely on the Lord even more.

He's like, Lord, I need you, I need you to help me to work beyond my fear and give me this cool uh this boldness, this courage, this confidence to share the gospel no matter what.

You know, I think it's been so fun as we've kind of gone through this series to kind of dream about what I think our church can become.

And I see this church, I see Harvest New Market becoming a church where we grow in immense boldness in this area.

And that we would take the good news of the gospel out into our city and beyond, and that God would use us to flip this city upside down, the way that he did it with the disciples back in the early church.

That to me excites me as we get it fired up about this.

And so let's jump into it here.

We got uh three things this morning.

Our church will boldly share Christ when we recognize the role that prayer plays.

We recognize the role that prayer plays.

Now, last week, of course, what do we talk about?

We talked about our our prayer pillar.

That's the third pillar, uh, which uh just so happens uh to come from the verse right before these ones that we just uh read this morning.

It comes from verse 18.

And I find that pretty handy because it means that you already know the context.

Right?

You know that he's talking about uh prayer.

And so Paul says here, take a look at verse 19 again.

He says, and also for me.

Now you you you link that back to verse 18.

He's talking about prayer.

Right?

He's meaning like, hey, hey, don't forget to pray for me as I engage others for Jesus Christ.

Okay, see, Paul knew that his ability to take the good news out into the nations hinged entirely on prayer.

Why did he know that?

Well, it's because he knew he was a human like all of us.

He knew that that there would be times where his f his flesh would rear its ugly head and and he would, you know, it would threaten his courage.

He knew that that was gonna happen.

He knew that, you know, temptation would be there to force him to care much more about his own comfort than the eternity of others.

Okay, he he also knew that he wasn't all that great with words.

Right?

I think the scriptures talk about it in a few different places, that he wasn't all that eloquent of a guy.

Now, hey, do can we relate to those three things?

Yeah.

Yeah, I think we can.

We feel that very much so.

So, Paul, he prayed and he got uh this church in Ephesus to pray for him.

And and likewise, we need to do the same thing.

We need to be praying for ourselves.

We need to see that to get beyond our hangups, um, it starts with prayer.

And we need to be praying for for each other as we do this, that we would become bold witnesses.

Now, what this all reminds me of is one of, I think, like the most inspiring stories uh in the New Testament.

And it comes from uh Acts chapter 3 and 4.

Acts 3 · chapter mention

You don't need to turn there.

I'm gonna kind of walk you through it.

You can write it down if you want and read it on your own time.

Uh but in uh those two chapters, what you have is you have uh Peter and John, and what they were doing is they were uh sharing the gospel, they were proclaiming it uh to the Jews, and they were sharing what Christ has done, and they were being very bold about that.

And then do you remember what happened?

They as they were sharing it, the religious leaders of the day, they got their backs up about it, and they didn't like at all what these guys were doing.

And so they actually seized them and threw them into prison for the night.

And what are they trying to do?

They're trying to throw them off their game, they're trying to rattle them, they're trying to cause them to stop.

And so the next morning they pull them out and they bring them before the council and they kind of verbally try to rough them up a little bit, and they're trying to threaten them.

And again, they're trying to put an end to all of this.

And so what do they do?

What do they do?

Well, as they're released, they end up gathering with all of their friends, and they pray.

Only what they do is they don't pray for their protection, they don't pray for their safety.

They're like, they're they're not like, hey, Lord, just help us to feel warm and safe and secure in our little cocoon.

Right?

They don't pray for that.

They pray this, verse 29.

I'm just gonna read it.

They say this, and now, Lord, look upon their threats and grant your servants to continue to speak your word with all boldness.

Verse 31.

And when they had prayed, the place in which they were gathered together was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and listen, continued to speak the word of God with boldness.

Wow.

Wow, oh that we would have that kind of a response when we are threatened.

That we're like, Lord, we want to dig in even more.

We want more boldness to come from you.

Lord, would you fill us with your Holy Spirit so we can continue in this mission?

Listen, church, if you if you kind of struggle with this and you and you fear this whole sharing Christ thing, realize this.

Realize that prayer is the pathway through your fear.

Prayer is the pathway.

If you want to be done with this this dread, this anxiety, this worry that you kind of have every time a message like this pops up, and you have this guilt, even that I'm not doing this well, and your temptation just kind of brush it aside.

Don't do that.

Be like these disciples and pray for boldness.

Be like Paul and ask for that.

Pray that courage would triumph over your fear.

Okay, and understand this: boldness is not something that we conjure up ourselves.

This is not something that you try and hype yourself up about.

Boldness is given to us through the Holy Spirit.

And that's what we do.

We need to ask Him for it.

So ask Him.

And hey, as you're praying for your church, and I trust that you're doing that, you're praying for all of us here.

Pray that we would be unified in this, in this charge to share the gospel with all boldness.

Pray that our church, we would be all in when it comes to this.

That we would be a church willing to go where God calls us to go.

And all of that really leads us to the next thing here.

Our church will boldly share Christ when we're when we willingly declare the message.

When we willingly declare uh the message.

Verse 19 again.

He says, and also for me, that words may be given to me, and then this part here, in opening my mouth boldly.

Okay, notice how Paul here is he's a willing witness.

He's a willing witness.

He actually wants to open his mouth.

You notice that?

Don't miss that.

He's like, Yeah, I want to be able to say the right words.

I want the Lord to use me.

I'm I'm willing to be uh used as a tool in your hands, God.

I want to declare the message.

Now, have you ever tried to do something that you don't really want to do?

You ever tried that?

I think the obvious thing that kind of comes to mind for me is dieting.

Right?

You ever been in that place?

I mean, we're getting closer and closer to January, which is like the classic time.

Yeah, I'm gonna do better this year when it comes to dieting.

And maybe for you, um, it's been you've kind of felt guilt tripped into it.

You're like, yeah, I don't feel that good physically, or you know, I just want to shed a few LBs, and and maybe for you it's like your spouse, your wife, you know, something like that.

Like, hey, you know, you need you can probably, you know, use you know, a diet in your life, and so you know, you decide, yeah, I'm gonna take this on, but you know, okay, you know that, hey, I don't really want to do this.

Right?

I'm gonna go ahead and try, and so the whole thing is forced, and what happens like two days into it?

You quit.

Right?

You quit.

Bye-bye, diet.

I guess we'll try again uh next January.

Right?

That's what that's kind of how we approach all of this for sure.

Okay, dieting only works if you want to do it.

Okay, same thing goes uh with evangelism.

We only evangelize if we actually want to.

If we actually want to.

Okay, so so how can we get to the place where you know evangelism goes from this thing where I feel guilt-tripped by the pastor to go do it?

And it goes from being in that place to, you know, I I I want to.

Right?

My uh my heart is for this, I'm all in about it.

How can we get to that place where we're willing?

Well, you gotta see here that the key is found right in the text.

You see that?

Take a look here.

It requires we think a little bit deeply about this, but but look what he says.

Paul says, pray that words may be given to me.

Pray that words may be given to me.

What I believe this really shows us here is that is that Paul trusted the Lord.

He trusted that God would give him the words necessary whenever he got into a situation where he could share Christ.

He trusted the Lord.

He he trusted that the Lord would give him words in those uh moments.

Right?

And this deep trust that he had in Christ speaks to the kind of relationship that he had with God.

He he was close to the Lord.

He was close to him, he he loved God, he was he was surrendered to him.

He was kind of like, Lord, whatever you say, wherever you say, go, I will go, and I will do it your your way.

Okay, in the same way for us, you know, as you and I grow closer to Christ, our our willingness to share with others what God has done in us, what what will happen as we grow closer to him is that we'll begin to sort of bubble up within our hearts and then overflow into passion and excitement about evangelism.

Okay, so understand that that people who are effective in evangelism are people who love God with all their hearts.

That's what it's really about.

If you love the Lord, if you are close to him, if you trust him, you will go where he calls you to go.

Okay, they're they're people who love the Lord, their passionate love for Christ is what drives their passionate love for the lost.

You know, a really important question that we need to ask here, you know, as we look through all this, you know, Paul's talking about, you know, the words maybe given to me and all of that is, you know, what exactly is the message that we need to be bringing out uh into the world?

And you notice how he says here uh that he wants to open his mouth boldly, but why?

Or what to do what with it, is to proclaim the mystery of the gospel.

To proclaim the mystery of the gospel.

Now you might remember earlier this year we did a series through the book of Colossians and we talked about that word mystery and what that is all about.

Really, it just means something that was previously unknown that has now been made known.

Okay, meaning that salvation, once thought as this, you know, military victory thing for Jews where they would triumph over other nations and own a bunch of land and property.

That's what they thought salvation was.

It's been revealed through the person and work of Jesus Christ as actually victory over sin and restored relationship with our Creator God.

Okay, that is the message that we are to declare.

That's the message that we're supposed to take out into the world.

Now, if you want to like strip it right down and give what's just a kind of the gospel in a very simple and a very basic sense.

Well, you can jot down 1 Timothy 1.15.

I love this.

Okay, this is the gospel in one verse.

Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners of whom I am the foremost.

What a verse.

Right?

That is the gospel.

That is the message that we want to declare.

Now, I know what you're thinking.

You're thinking though, okay, that's great, that's one verse, but how do I actually, practically speaking, have a conversation with somebody about this?

Right?

Like, how how do I actually do this?

How do I even, how do I start a conversation with my neighbor about these things?

All he ever wants to talk about is the leaves.

You know, how do I have this conversation with that person at work who's just bitter and and complaining?

What are the things in the message that I should be emphasizing?

What are some of the things that I maybe don't have to hammer on so the conversation doesn't have to take five hours?

You know, what are what are the things that I've gotta go at?

How do I handle objections?

You know, as people maybe throw those at me.

I don't know everything.

How am I supposed to deal with that?

You know, another question we have is how do I how do I kind of close the conversation?

Right?

Like what if the person actually wants to trust Jesus?

What do I do?

You know, or what if they're just they're not interested or they're not ready?

Again, how do I actually share the gospel with somebody?

You ever had some of those questions?

Those things you wonder, right?

How can I grow confident in my ability to proclaim the message?

Well, I don't know about you, but I am all for simple and clear.

You all for that?

I uh I love simplicity, I love clarity, and so what I want to do right now is I just want to kind of help you.

I want to I want to give you some tools that you can put in your belt that you can pull out uh whenever you have an opportunity uh to proclaim uh the message here, and so that you can take these, you can actually be effective uh in sharing the good news of Jesus Christ uh with somebody.

Now, there are different ways that uh that you can share the gospel.

You've perhaps heard of the Romans Road, which can be very effective.

Uh one of the ways, uh one of the things that I really like is uh by a group of people called Way of the Master.

Uh wayofemaster.com is a website that you can go and check out.

I find their way of having a conversation with somebody uh just super helpful.

It's uh it's it's simple, it's clear, it's direct, so you can jot that down, you can go check that out uh at s uh at some point here.

Uh but here's what I want to do, and we're gonna have this up on the screen for you a clear, effective, and biblical approach.

To evangelism.

Okay, kind of five things, five steps that you can take and you can handle and you can implement right away.

Alright, so the first thing here, you see that there?

Look for red apples.

What's that all about?

Like, what does that mean?

Red apples?

I thought we were talking about witnessing.

Okay, when I when I say red apples, what I mean is people who are ripe to hearing the gospel.

People who are who want to hear the good news, people who have a softness to them.

It might be the person who's like, hey, what does your church believe about this?

Or maybe it's someone who is like, they're going through something difficult, and they're just, they're questioning, like, what's life even all about?

And you sense there's a softness there to receive the message that you have.

It's someone that's ready, somebody that wants it.

That's a red apple, someone that is right.

Okay, the opposite would be a green apple.

This is someone who is not ready to hear the gospel, someone who wants maybe no interest in it.

It might be someone who just kind of shuts down the conversation as soon as you try to go there.

It might be someone who's pretty antagonistic about it, or someone who's just, you know, they're kind of cold, right, and they're not ready.

I would say, look for the red apples.

Pray that the Lord would lead you to red apples.

That's what I've been praying a lot lately.

Lord, bring people into my life who need to hear this.

Because here's what you don't want to do: you don't want to bruise the fruit.

Right?

Why put yourself, why put the other person through the pain of trying to jam the gospel down their throat when they're just not ready to receive it?

Because here's the thing that we need to remember.

We need to remember that it's the Holy Spirit that saves.

It's the Holy Spirit that will bring conviction into the heart of a person and give them the realization, who will open their eyes and show them that they need Jesus.

It's not, it's not you.

The Lord uses us in that process, absolutely.

But it's the Holy Spirit that does it.

So look for people where the Holy Spirit is clearly working in their life.

Pray for discernment on these things.

Pray that the Lord would lead you to these types of people.

Red apples, that's the first one.

Second one, they get the conversation moving from the physical to the spiritual.

Get the conversation moving from the physical to the spiritual.

You may be like, well, what's that all about?

Well, this is really like, how do you actually get into a conversation about Jesus?

How do you actually do this?

Because again, I'll go back to the guy who only wants to talk about the leaves, right?

And for you, they might be, you know, the conversation might come out with a neighbor out in the uh driveway, like, hey, you go in, you go into the leaf, if there was a leaf game on Sunday, you go into the leaf game, and for you, you can talk about the leaves, but then branch it into the spiritual by saying, actually, I'm gonna be going to church in the morning.

And you see how now you've all of a sudden opened up the door to talk about, to ask them, like, hey, have you ever been to church before?

What's your what's your church background?

Do you have any?

And you get you get into this ability to be able to now talk about from the physical into the spiritual.

And you gotta think about this, and you gotta come up with like creative ways to get into that.

Maybe for you, it's like, yeah, you know, this people often ask, how do you doing this weekend?

Or how was your week?

Oh yeah, my week was really good.

I had this really great time.

We had a bunch of people over from our church, over our place, or you know, we were in a small group, or our kids were going to a birthday party of somebody that they know at church.

And so you and for me as a pastor, I feel like I got it a little bit easy.

People are always like, Yeah, what do you do?

I'm like, I'm actually a pastor of a church in Newmarket.

It's always hilarious to watch the reactions too.

Right?

Because they're like, oh great! You know, the higher their voice goes, you know, the less the more of a green apple they are.

Right?

Or it's just like, let's just shut this down.

I don't want to talk about it.

Oh, good, cool.

Uh, what else is going on in your life?

Like they don't want to talk about it.

But but figure out a way that you can talk about just everyday things and go into your spiritual walk and use that as a springboard uh to start uh conversations.

Okay, here's the third one.

Here's the third one, really getting into the meat of it here.

Okay, you gotta help them realize that they're not actually good.

You have to help them realize that they're not an act they're not actually a good person.

Okay, if you were to ask the average person out on the street or somebody just you know at your work or whatever, hey, do you think do you think people are inherently good or inherently bad?

What do you think their answer is gonna be?

Good.

Right?

People think that they are that they are good.

And uh here's the thing though Romans 3 verse 10 uh says that no one is good, not even one.

Romans 3:10

Right?

And the scriptures make it really clear that inherently it's actually flipped around.

Humanity is actually broken, and we are lost uh because of our sin.

And so you're you're working to help people understand um the reality that they're they're not as as good as they think they are.

They're actually far more lost, broken, and hurting uh than they realize.

And so you might just get into the question, just ask them, hey, would you would you consider yourself like a good person?

Would you consider yourself a good person?

Now, again, most people are gonna say, yeah, sure.

Right?

And then they and then they start to kind of justify themselves.

And and one of the questions I love is, oh yeah, can I can I ask you um a couple of questions to see if that's true?

Now, how do you think people are gonna respond to that?

For the most part, they're gonna be intrigued.

They're gonna be like, well, yeah, totally.

I want to see if this is true.

Let me take a little aside from all of this.

What if you get an objection?

You know, what if someone comes at you and they're like, no, I don't want to talk about this?

What if someone comes at you and says, yeah, well, I don't believe the Bible?

You know, what are you gonna do?

What are you gonna say at that point?

Okay, something that someone told me once that was so helpful, this is a line that I uh try to use every single time.

It's uh it's this.

If someone says, I don't believe the Bible, um, what I like to say is just, hey, let's just say for, and you can you can even say, like, yeah, that's that's cool.

I understand that you don't believe the Bible, but let's just say for the sake of argument that you do.

How are people gonna respond to that?

They're gonna be like, oh, okay.

Right?

Boom! You've just gotten around the argument.

Right?

You've you've surpassed the intellect, which sounds kind of funny, but you're trying to get around to the heart where the Holy Spirit can bring conviction.

You're trying to get around the arguments that they have, and everyone's got some kind of thing.

They're like, yeah, well, what about dinosaurs?

You know, what's what's up with those and and meteors and evolution and all of these things that are threatening to just throw your whole conversation with them into the ditch?

Don't get caught up in all of that, at least not in that moment.

And what you could say to them is, you say, you know, that's that's a really good question.

And I'd love to talk about that.

Can we get can we just kind of finish where we're going here first, and then we can get to that afterwards?

You see how you're just like you're not you're not shutting them down.

You're helping them real to focus on what really matters, the most important thing.

And if and listen, if you don't have the answer, you know, so many of us don't have answers about dinosaurs and about you know evolution, about meteors, and about all kinds of other random things that they may bring up.

Just say, hey, listen, I'm not totally sure about that, but I'll do some some research and I'll get back to you.

Here's my email address, or let me have your email address, and I'll get I'll get in touch with you uh this week.

I think that'll show love, that will show care and appreciation uh to them, and they'll appreciate and you can get your whole conversation uh back on track with them.

Okay, so again, would you consider yourself to be a good person?

Most people are gonna say, yeah.

Yeah, I think so.

And what do they do?

They they justify themselves.

They immediately compare themselves to like Hitler, right?

They always go to the worst case scenario.

And they're like, well, I've never killed anybody, and and you know, I've never held up a liquor store, and you know, I, you know, I go to I show up on time to work uh every day, and I've never cheated on my taxes, and I try to be a loving, you know, husband and father or whatever it might be, and they start, they they talk about all the good things that they have done or tried to do uh in their life.

And so again, you say, okay, well, let me ask you some questions about this.

And this is where you would take them to the uh the Ten Commandments.

Okay, the Ten Commandments are just so, so helpful.

Now, many people think that the Ten Commandments are this list of things that if I just if I can do pretty good at all those things, maybe the Lord will just let me into heaven.

Okay, it could not be further from the truth.

Okay, the reason why God gave us the Ten Commandments is to show us how woefully short we fall of their demands.

We have all broken the Ten Commandments a million times over.

Most of us have broken half of them on our way to church here today.

Right?

And so take them to a couple of the Ten Commandments and you can ask them about this.

And again, can I ask you some questions to see if that's true, if you really are a good person?

Most people are like, yeah, sure.

You say, hey, have you ever told a lie before?

Right?

The command is, you know, thou shalt not lie.

So you're taking them to one of those.

Have you ever told a lie before?

Most people are like, well, yeah, but just white lies.

Okay, but it's a lie.

Right?

Or I've had some people say, no, I don't think I've ever told a lie.

I'm like, I think that's a lie.

Right?

So you can have some fun with it, right?

Yeah, have some fun with it for sure.

But have you ever told a lie?

If they're being honest, if they're willing to talk to you, they'll admit, yeah, okay, I've lied.

Have you ever stolen anything?

You've even taken credit for something that wasn't yours.

So you kind of hold the standard a little bit higher.

Most people are like, well, yeah, I've stolen something at some point in my life.

You know, I was just a little kid when I did it, but you know, they'll say that.

How about this?

Have you ever hated anyone?

Have you ever hated anyone?

Uh the commandment says, Thou shalt not murder.

Jesus kind of ramps up the standard and he says that anyone, if you're guilty of hating someone, it's the same as being guilty of murdering them.

And he's showing us where the bar is, and again, where we fall underneath it.

Painfully short underneath it.

So if you ever hated anyone, most people are like, yeah, yeah, I kind of hate you right now.

How about this one?

Have you ever lusted?

You ever lusted?

Have you ever looked at someone lustfully before?

And again, people are going to be, yeah, well, yeah.

Here's the other thing that I find so helpful.

Admit that you've done all these things.

Admit that to them too.

Like, I I know I've told I've told a lie, I've lusted, I've stolen stuff before.

And what you're doing is you're not you're not putting yourself on a pedestal above them where it's them here, uh, or you here and them down here.

You're putting, you're you're you're on the same level playing field.

Like, yeah, I've done all of these things.

And you're relating to them, and it's disarming them and showing you that, showing them that you guys are on the same page.

And so they've admitted maybe, you know, three, four of the of the commandments.

You haven't even gone through all of them.

You don't need to.

And so if they've admitted yes to all of these, this is where you can say, okay, well, let me catch this straight.

By your own admission, you're saying that you are a lying, thieving, murderous, adulterer.

What do you think of that?

Okay, does that sound harsh?

Honestly, does that sound harsh?

It does a little bit.

Here's the thing, though.

They've admitted it.

They've admitted it.

All you're doing in that moment is you are casting it for them in a way where they see it clearly.

You're saying, hey, this is what you've said.

I'm not saying this, this is what you have admitted.

I'm just framing it up in a way so that they would feel as the spirit, again, is working in that moment, that they would feel a sense of conviction over this.

Wow, I I I have blown it and I have fallen short of the glory of God.

Okay, if you feel uncomfortable of that, I think we just need to get over it.

We need to realize, hey, that's us too.

We have fallen short of God's glory.

We are liars and thieves and murderers, uh, murderers and adulterers.

We have done all of that.

Okay, we have blown it uh badly.

And again, if the Lord is working in their life, they might be like, wow, you know, I've never thought about it that way.

Yeah, I guess, I guess, you know, that's kind of that's kind of what I am.

And you can take them kind of through the conversation a little more.

You can say, well, if you if you were to die today, like tonight, and you were to meet Jesus face to face.

Well, hold on a second, I don't believe in Jesus.

What do you say?

Okay, well let's just say for the sake of a you know argument that you do.

Right, boom, you've gotten around that again.

If you were to meet Jesus right now, do you think that you would be innocent or guilty?

Do you think you'd be innocent or guilty?

Now at this point, someone might say, Well, you know, I I I think I I'd be innocent, I think.

You know, like, isn't isn't your God a forgiving God?

Right?

They would say that.

And I and you know, you might ask them, you know, do you think you would you would you would deserve heaven or you would deserve hell?

And they say, well, I, you know, again, God's forgiving, so I think I think he would let me in.

I think it would be a uh it'd be all good.

Again, I'm not Hitler or anything, right?

They go back into the self-justifying thing.

And you would say, well, well, listen, like God is a God is a just God.

And because he is a just God, he has to deal with what's wrong in us.

He has to deal with sin.

It's kind of like a judge.

If there was a judge uh standing there sentencing a serial killer, and if the judge ever said, Well, you know what, I'm kind of a nice guy, and you know, I'm sure you had good intentions, and you know, I I you can go free.

You know, it's all good, serial killer.

Go for it.

What would we say about that judge?

He's corrupt, right?

He is useless, and we need somebody else in there who's gonna uphold the law.

That is what makes a judge good.

That's what we're saying here about Jesus.

And so you get the person in the place where, yeah, I guess, yeah, I guess, I guess I would deserve hell.

And you can ask, like, does that does that concern you?

Does that bother you?

You know, and so what you're doing here is you're lovingly, not harshly, you're lovingly, truthfully, and graciously helping them understand that they have a deep sin problem that they don't even realize.

They can't fix it.

They can't mask over it.

And if they're honest and the Holy Spirit is working, they should be feeling at this point like the uh the weight of conviction about all of that.

I need- I need to get this problem fixed.

So that's when you can move them into the fourth thing.

The fourth thing is just telling them what Jesus did.

I believe we know this for the most part.

We know what Christ is.

This is where you talk about the cross.

Well, Jesus came to save sinners.

He came and he lived a perfect life, the life that you and I can't live.

We can never do, we can never perform adequately for God in a way that would get him to be pleased with our record, our morality.

Jesus did all that for us.

And he went to the cross in our place so we could have our sins wiped clean, so that we could be forgiven, so that we could experience new life and joy in him.

You see, at that point, you're explaining the gospel, you're giving them the good news, you're showing them uh what the Lord uh has done, how he wants to fix what's wrong between uh and them.

You know, that you're showing them that as bad as their situation is and it's awful, okay, Christ's love is greater.

Christ's love runs deeper.

Okay, he's fixed the problem if they're willing to accept his solution.

Okay, and the person at that point, they might be ready.

They're like, yeah, I want to get this fixed right now.

And if the person is open and you get to that point in the conversation and and I need what you're what you're talking about here, okay, that would be the fifth thing.

Where you're telling them how to know Jesus personally, how to be forgiven.

This is the part where you tell them how to be a Christian.

It's where you know you just need to admit your sin before God.

You can do that in a real simple prayer.

Just understand that your sin has separated you from him, but he has paid the price, and that he wants to be your savior.

He wants you to trust him.

You can't earn this, it's a gift of grace.

Again, they they they might be ready right then and there to pray that, but they might not be.

And you know what?

That's okay.

Because salvation is in the Lord's hands.

And what you might want to say to them is, hey, you know, when you when you go from here right now in this conversation, as you're thinking about this later tonight, maybe it's when your head hits the pillow.

Think about what Christ has done for you.

And he won, he wants to be your savior if you would trust him today.

And and and that's how you can end it if they're not ready.

But here's one of the things that I love to do.

When a person is ready, uh, I love to get that person to pray.

You know, it's it's someone who's probably never prayed before and they don't know how to do it, and they're thinking, I gotta come up with fancy words, and how is my prayer gonna impress God or impress you?

It's not about that.

It's just be gritty and honest and real.

And and just get them to pray.

Just say, Lord, I've and I and some of the most powerful prayers I've ever I've ever been a witness to is people who are giving their life to Jesus.

You know, when they realize, wow, you know, I I've got sin, Lord, and this is a big problem.

Would you forgive me?

Would you be my Lord?

Would you be my savior?

Just something simple and to the point like that, incredible.

Encourage them to do that.

And hey, I think I'd be remiss if I didn't say this here today in a message like this.

If you are sitting here today and you have not done this, okay, if you if you are not a follower of Jesus Christ, if you've got if you've still got sin that God's wrath is pointed towards, I would plead with you, trust Christ today.

Just admit your sin.

We're all there.

We're all, you know, the the you know, as we like to say, the ground at the foot of the cross is level.

I'm not better than you.

Another person beside you is not better than you.

We're all on the same page, we're all bad guys.

Jesus is the only good guy.

Right?

Let's remember that.

And would you would you today trust Christ to be your Savior?

As we always say, we're available to you if you've got more questions about that.

If you're trying to figure things out, you've got some kind of burning questions, come talk to us about it, alright?

Okay, but hopefully for the rest of us, you start to see through this, these five you know, fairly simple things that evangelizing is doable.

Right?

This is very doable.

Yeah, it takes some practice, it takes maybe some rehearsing.

You can go to that website I talked about and go through that and actually see videos of how they're doing this uh with people.

But it's very doable.

Even back to me, that night where my buddy burst out laughing in my face.

Okay, we did that a bunch more times throughout the evening.

I started to get more comfortable and I started to realize, wow, this is this is this isn't that far reaching.

Like I can do this.

And the Lord was starting to use this, and the confidence grew pretty quickly.

Jesus saves sinners.

Are you willing to declare that?

Are you willing to declare that to the lost?

All right, our church will boldly share Christ when we recognize the role that prayer plays and willingly declare the message, and then the last thing, regardless of what trouble comes my way, regardless of the trouble.

Listen, I wish that I could stand here honestly and say to you that, hey, if you if you just evangelize God's way, and you know, if you just have some courage and all of that, everything is gonna work out smoothly and you're never gonna have any problems with it, and it's all gonna be easy, and you're gonna be filled with the warm and fuzzies constantly.

I wish I could say that to you.

But I can't.

I mean, just look what Paul says, verse 19.

And also for me, I'm reading the whole thing again, the words may be given to me in opening my mouth boldly to proclaim the mystery of the gospel, listen, for which I am an ambassador in chains, that I may declare it boldly as I ought to speak.

Look, the fact the fact that Paul wrote this, obviously, from prison, hey, shouldn't be lost on us.

He suffered greatly.

He was mocked, he was tortured, he was beaten and stoned, and and all he ultimately died as a martyr.

And not just because he was a Christian and he said he was a Christian, but because he took seriously the call to evangelize.

He went out and he did it.

But you can tell kind of by what he says here that the trouble that he was experiencing, again, is he's literally chained up in prison.

That trouble did not derail his resolve.

It didn't.

It didn't cause him to shrink back, it didn't cause him to cower, it didn't cause him to say, well, somebody else will do it who's better at this than me.

No, he didn't.

It caused him to dig deeper, it made him ask for even more boldness.

Lord, do this through me.

He's like, this is how I ought to speak.

He's like, I better be doing this.

This is what the Lord has done for me.

I want other people to know about it too.

All it takes for us is, you know, a quick glance out into our world to realize that things are getting tougher and tougher for Christians.

Right?

Morality is on a nosedive in the world.

Freedoms are starting to tighten and tighten.

Do you feel that?

And hey, listen, it's only gonna get worse.

It's only gonna get worse.

And hey, you may be thinking, like, well, you know, why?

Why would why would you talk about this?

I don't really want to think about the fact that you know I could lose relationships with people over this.

You know, I I I love my family, and I I don't wanna, you know, I don't want to strain that in in any way.

You know, I don't want to think about the fact that that maybe I could lose my job over this.

You know, why why are we talking about it?

You know.

I was so encouraged to go share the gospel like two seconds ago.

Why are we talking about this now?

Well, it's because it's so good for us to count the cost.

We have to.

We have to count the cost.

Here's what we need to realize.

That sharing the gospel can be a more pleasant experience than many of us think it's going to be.

Hopefully you've kind of caught that here today.

But we also need to know that we are doing this in an increasingly hostile world.

It's getting harder.

But here's the thing, and here's what Paul really understood here.

And this is what we need to really get.

This needs to click for us as a church.

And that's that true Christians embrace the challenge in front of them.

That's what true Christians do.

Okay?

True Christians want in the game.

We don't want to be sitting on the sidelines.

We don't want to be, you know, stuck doing nothing.

We don't want to be cowering in fear.

True Christians are like, yeah, it's going to be tough, but I want in anyways.

I want in the game.

Regardless of how this plays out.

Because how it plays out is in the Lord's hands.

And I'm good with that.

I'm close enough to him.

I love him enough to trust him with the end game.

So the question is, are you good with that?

Have you counted the cost to all of this?

Have you realized that a lot is at stake?

Have you realized that there is a world heading towards an eternity in hell?

And I don't say that as guilt.

I say that as reality.

Are we going to wake up to that?

Are we going to work through the fear?

Are we going to work through the difficulty in all this?

Are we going to get educated?

Are we going to practice sharing the gospel?

Are we going to have a heart for people?

Are we going to care?

Listen, I think the Lord wants to do some really special things with this church.

I think he wants to use you.

He wants to use you to get this message out there.

He wants to give you willingness.

He wants to give you boldness as you ask him.

So, hey, are you committed to growing in this today?

Maybe you're like, you know what?

I'm not that willing.

Are you willing to be willing?

Are you willing to grow?

Are you willing to step outside of your comfort zone?

Are you willing to put your agenda, your comfort on the back burner for the sake of others?

Are you willing to do it because you love Jesus and because he loves you?

Will you commit to joining us, joining Harvest Bible Chapel in the commitment to these things?

This is our fourth pillar.

This is a huge deal.

This is what we are about as a church.

Are you going to be all in about this?