Effective Evangelism Acts 15:36-16:5
I know that today is Father’s Day and I should be preaching about the kind of men God is looking for. But I believe this message speaks to that issue and if every man in this room had the kind of passion for the lost that Paul had, we wouldn’t be seeing the things we see on the news. We wouldn’t have people with enough evil in their hearts to walk into a church and murder 9 innocent people.
If we, men, would receive, in our hearts, the truth of this message we wouldn’t need to preach about the NEED for godly fathers.
I don’t preach the way I do so any of you might feel as if I’m trying to beat you up because that’s not my goal. My goal is to wake US up to the reality of what the church is becoming and to see the need for us to get back to being the true church.
So the first essential for evangelism that we looked at, last week was the need for the right kind of passion. Last week I asked what drives you. I wanted you think about what you’re passionate about. I said Paul’s passion was, and our passion should be, reaching the lost.
The second essential for effective evangelism must be:
2. Having The Right Priority
Our priority should be keeping people out of hell!
Everything else is second to this one goal, yet we seem to be more concerned about parties and fellowships. We are more concerned about the next time we’ll eat than winning the lost.
I read about a community of people who lived along a dangerous sea-coast where shipwrecks were a constant occurrence. A small group of people decided to organize a rescue operation and do something about all the drowning people near their city. Soon they built a small life-saving station and the devoted members of the rescue team kept a diligent watch over the sea. Their little town became famous because of the many lives that were saved and more people joined the team, until a new building was needed.
It was much larger than the 1st building, and was beautifully furnished and decorated. But as more and more comforts were added, for the member’s the rescue station slowly became a clubhouse and some of the members began to lose interest in the rescue operation.
But then a shipwreck occurred, and the survivors were brought to the clubhouse for first aid. During the next several days, the elegant clubhouse became considerably soiled, by such things as blood stains, mud and the smell of salt water lingered in the carpet and the cushions.
At the next meeting there was a split in the membership. It seems that most of the members felt that the life-saving operation was a hindrance to their social life. Those who disagreed were told they could just leave and start another operation further down the coast. As the years went by, history repeated itself, and today, that seacoast is lined with a number of exclusive clubhouses but no one in the area seems too concerned with rescuing the perishing.
You know, there’s a church on almost every corner of every little community in Florence County. Some offer so many bells and whistles that it becomes easy to lose our priorities. With all the fun and games offered by many they become nothing more than a clubhouse.
I want us to understand that we, at EBC, are no different, if we lose our priority.
That great preacher, Charles Haddon Spurgeon once said, “If sinners will be damned, at least let them leap into hell over our bodies. And if they will perish, let them perish with our arms about their knees, imploring them to stay. If hell must be filled, let not one go there unwarned and un-prayed for.”
That should be the attitude of EBC!
We need to have a passion for the lost. We need to have the right priority and finally, if we are to experience effective evangelism, we must,
3. Share The Right Message. Look at Acts 16:4-5.
We must have passion for the lost, we must have our priorities in order, but, hear me church, NONE of that will matter if we don’t have the right message.
**I stood in village after village, being shown membership cards to the “New Apostolic Church” that had come to the same area of Kenya I was in. The N.A.C. went into the villages and simply filled out membership cards for the villagers. After that they dipped their finger in a cup of water, drew a cross on the forehead of every card holder. This was salvation in their eyes and not one person had been told that Jesus is the only way.
The right message is that salvation is by grace alone, thru faith alone, in Christ alone! Paul said in, [Eph 2:8-9 NIV] 8 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith--and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God-- 9 not by works, so that no one can boast.
It is Jesus Christ plus nothing and minus nothing.
That’s the right message, and when you put your heart and tears into the work and combine it with love, souls WILL be saved.
[Psalm 126:5-6 NIV] “5 Those wh0o sow with tears will reap with songs of joy.
6 Those who go out weeping, carrying seed to sow, will return with songs of joy, carrying sheaves with them.”
Fanny Crosby wrote many of the hymns we love to sing. She, once, visited the Macaulay Rescue Mission in NYC and asked, “is there a young man here who doesn’t have a mother?” One young man timidly raised his hand. He explained she died when he was very young. She asked him to come to the front. She gave him a big hug and kissed him on the cheek. It touched her heart so much that she went home that night and wrote these words, “rescue the perishing, care for the dying, snatch them in pity from sin and the grave, weep o’er the erring one, lift up the fallen, tell them of Jesus the Mighty to save.”
Years later Ira Sankey was singing for D.L. Moody in St. Louis. Before he sang the song, he told this story. As he told the story a middle-aged man jumped up and shouted, “It was me! I’m the young man she wrote about. She kissed me. I could never get away from that moment.”
He explained that as a result of her compassion, he became a Christian and straightened out his life.
We often sing that old hymn called “Rescue the Perishing” but do we live it?
Do we have the right passion? Are we awake? Do we have the right priority?
Finally, are we sharing the right message? What Jesus do you preach?
The church is to be about rescuing the perishing and caring for the dying.
Are we snatching them in pity from sin and the grave? Are we weeping over those who’ve gone astray? Are we lifting the fallen, telling them of Jesus the Mighty to save?
I don’t want EBC to mean Elim Bible Club and if we have a passion for the lost, if we maintain the right priority and share the right message; we will always be Elim Bible Church. A place to call home.
A place where the vilest of sinners can find hope, peace and most of all… Jesus the Mighty to save.
Let’s pray…
