Some of the ideas in this sermon come from "Essentials in Discipleship," by Francis Cosgrove.
Tonight is the last week of our 8 week study on discipleship. We began to wrap up the study last week by finishing up with evangelism. Tonight we will finish our look at evangelism and hopefully go from here being more comfortable in our roles as disciples, more disciplined in our walks with God, and ready to go and make disciples. Our message and our challenge tonight comes from Matthew 9:37-38, “Jesus said, the harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.” We know that evangelism is important, because there are not near enough workers for the harvest that is available. There are many more unbelievers then there are believers.
Last week we talked about how to get started in evangelism. The key thing we talked about was the fact that evangelism is about building relationships and loving people as God loves us. If we don’t show love to others, it will be hard to convert them to Christianity. So first and foremost we must love people and take the time to get to know them. Once you do that, you have opened up the door to begin sharing the good news with them. As we said last week, one of the best ways to start doing that is by sharing your testimony. Share how God has worked in your life and how your life is different because of Christ. We also talked about being in constant prayer so that you will be ready to do evangelism. Pray for boldness, so that God can use you. Pray that God will lead people into your life that you can witness to. Pray that God will reveal someone or some people to you that you can effectively witness to. Continue in prayer throughout the whole process, because God is the only one that can empower us to do this great task. Finally we closed last week by saying that doing all of this should be natural and not some sort of formula. There is no specific formula to evangelism, there is no right way to do it. But, now that I’ve made that clear to you, I want to share some ways that can make evangelism easy. These aren’t necessarily the best way to do evangelism, but they are 2 different ways that can be very effective.
I want to share two effective plans with you for how to get to the meat of evangelism. Loving someone and sharing your testimony with them is the best way to start, but at some point you have to speak the truth to them and tell them what Christianity is all about and why it is so important to accept Christ as your savior. As long as the plan that you use truthfully portrays the gospel and the price that Jesus Christ paid for our sins and the saving power that his blood has on our lives, then you will be effectively evangelizing. However it’s important to have a plan because it will enable you to be prepared at all times to witness. It will enable you to have a biblical presentation point by point without leaving something essential out. It will provide direction because often times it is easy to get off on a tangent. You don’t want to live and die by the plan, but you should have a plan so you can be the most effective witness possible.
The first plan I want to share with you is a simple presentation of the gospel using six main points. This is an easy plan that uses six words to represent six essential concepts from the gospels.
The first is DISEASE. You need to begin by sharing with a seeker that we are all infected with the disease of sin. It is an indisputable fact that all human beings are in a constant struggle with sin and that nobody can be free from sin. You can use Romans 3:23 to back this point up. “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”
The second point is DEATH. Sin will always lead to a spiritual death. Once we become engulfed in sin our bodies and our minds surrender to its power and instead of allowing God to be in control, we have allowed sin to take control. You can use Romans 5:12 to back this up, “Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned.” You can also use Romans 6:23, “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
The third point is JUDGEMENT. Because God is holy and righteous, he cannot overlook our sins. We will be judged for our sins and our actions. Hebrews 9:27 says, “Man is destined to die once, and after that face judgment.” We must make it clear to others that we do worship a jealous God who desires all of our attention and discipline and when we fail to do this because of our sin he will be prepared to judge us for our actions.
The fourth point is DELIVERER. Jesus Christ died for our sins and he can deliver us from the penalty of our sins. The penalty has already been paid by Jesus on the cross at Calvary, but many people do not realize the freedom that we have because of his sacrifice. A good scripture to back this point up is Romans 5:8, “God shows his love for us in this, while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Also 1 Peter 2:24, “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed.”
The fifth point for you to remember is DECLARATION. The bible declares to us that this salvation cannot be earned, because it is a free gift from God to those who accept it by faith. No matter how good we are and how great we strive to be, we cannot earn our way to heaven. This is declared to us in Ephesians 2:8-9, “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith, and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God, not by works, so that no one can boast.” Also Titus 3:5, “He saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit. “
The final point to teach when sharing the gospel is DELIVERANCE. Our deliverance comes when we receive Jesus Christ into our life by a prayer of commitment to him. Romans 10:9 tells us, “That if you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” You must make it clear though, that we cannot be saved until we accept this free gift of salvation that Jesus offers us.
Once a person understands what the Bible teaches and has received the Savior by faith, the new believer should be assured that God has indeed saved him or her. You should always conclude any sort of gospel presentation by sharing some assurance scriptures. A couple of good ones are John 5:24, “I tell you the truth, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life.” 1 John 5:11-13 says, “And this is the testimony: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life. I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life.”
Another effective gospel presentation is the bridge illustration. Some of you may have seen it before, but for those that haven’t I want to teach it to you. This is something easy you can do in a restaurant on a napkin and in some cases if you don’t have a writing utensil you can even just explain the illustration to them, though it’s most effective if you can write it out. Begin by writing the word God on the right side of a sheet of paper and the word man on the left side. Then draw two cliffs with a chasm in between the two. Ask and write the question what is God like? Write the answers underneath the question. Then ask and write “what is man like?” Write the answers below. At this point you have yet to use your bible so use scriptures like Romans 3:23 and 6:23 to describe man as sinners and spiritually dead. Then ask the question, “what does man do in an effort to build a bridge across his sin to God?” List all of these efforts in the chasm and point out that they all fall short of bridging the gap between God and us. Ephesians 2:8-9 can be used here. Next draw the cross in the chasm as a symbol to show that God has bridged the chasm between him and us by sending his son to die on the cross for us. Point out that we must hear the word and believe it to cross the bridge. At the conclusion of your presentation ask the seeker where he or she is on the illustration. He may be on man’s side in a hopeless condition or he may be trying to cross the bridge. He could be anywhere, but this will help you know where this particular person is.
The most important thing to do, no matter what plan you follow is to bring the seeker to a place of decision. No matter what plan you follow, don’t ever just leave someone with the facts, always take them to the point of decision. Make sure the person you have shared the gospel with understands four basic things:
1. He must believe that he is a sinner
2. He must know that judgment is sure to come and that there is a penalty for his sin.
3. He must believe that Jesus Christ came to this earth and died on the cross for his sins.
4. He must know that he needs to repent of his sins and put his trust and faith in Jesus Christ alone.
If he understands all of this ask the final question, “Would you like to receive this gift of eternal life?” If he says yes, then lead him in a prayer of confession of all his sin, have him declare his belief in Jesus Christ as his personal Lord and Savior, have him seek forgiveness for his sins and give thanks for the gift of eternal life that God has given.
It’s possible that this could be the seeker’s very first time to pray, so it’s important that you pray this prayer with them. The best thing to do is make it a prayer in which they repeat what you say. It might sound something like this. God I confess that I have sinned against you and that I fall short of your righteousness. I know that I need you in my life to bridge the gap that sin has put between God and I. I personally accept you as my Lord and Savior and ask you to come into my life. I ask you to forgive me for my sins and forgive me for (have believer pray silently for forgiveness of his sins). God I thank you for coming into my life and for the gift of eternal life that you have promised me. Amen.
This is just a simple example of what a prayer might sound like when you pray with someone to ask God into their life. There are many books out there on evangelism, there are studies and there are courses in evangelism. I could have probably done an entire series just on evangelism, but obviously there’s not enough time for that. I hope that you at least understand the basics and from here will continue to increase your knowledge of evangelism and you will continue to increase your practice of evangelism. The goal is to make evangelism a way of life. If you follow the steps we have talked about, evangelism will become a lifestyle for you, without you even knowing it. It requires putting it all into practice though.
To witness by loving others and serving them out of God’s love is wonderful, but to do so without ever revealing the source of your love is not evangelism. To preach the gospel and share the good news is a great thing, but to do that alone without reflecting God’s love in all of your actions is insufficient. And to be in constant prayer for those around you and for God to touch people’s lives is a wonderful action, but to do that without ever personally sharing the gospel is not evangelism. We must make evangelism a lifestyle and to do so, we must put it all into practice on a daily basis in our lives.
Who thinks they are ready to go and witness to others? Right now I want you to break into pairs, if you are sitting next to your significant other or your best friend, don’t pair up with them, pair up with someone you may not know quite as well. Take turns and one of you be the seeker and one of you be the disciple. If you are the seeker, ask the question, “Why do I need Jesus? I strive to be a good person in my life, so why should I accept Jesus as my one and only savior?” As the disciple, you need to try to effectively answer this question and as the seeker, try to play the role by asking questions and challenging the disciple to effectively witness to you. Now reverse the roles and this time the seeker will ask the question, “There are so many different religions out there and many do good things and are good people, so why should I choose Christianity?”
You are God’s disciple, and you are God’s disciple, and you are God’s disciple. He wants us to partnership with him to win as many souls for Christ as we can. Wherever you are at in your walk with God, I challenge you to continue growing and never stop. If you have never accepted Christ in your life, I encourage you to do it now. Ask Jesus to come into your heart and start your relationship with him now. If you are a Christian, but you are struggling with something or maybe you have strayed from the path God has called you, ask God to bring you back right now. Ask God to forgive you for the roadblock you have put up between you and him and recommit your life to serving him right now.
We have a couple of weeks off between now and when school starts. Some of you may be taking intercession, some of you may be working, and some of you may be vacationing. Whatever you are doing, use the time to be rejuvenated in your walk with God. We will have over 4,000 new freshman and transfer students moving into the dorms on August 22nd. There will be many more students coming back that same week to get ready for school. Most of you are lucky, because you are already grounded in your faith and you already feel at home here at OU, but many of these students will be scared and many will be searching for something to give meaning to them in this new life that they are beginning. It is our job to reach out to them and pull them in. Whether you are on the leadership team here at Wesley, whether you work for the University during the school year, or whether you are involved with Greek life here at OU, there will be 100’s of ministry opportunities. Are you ready for the challenge?
This fall is going to be an exciting time not only at OU, but here at the Wesley Foundation. We have the potential to fill that sanctuary to standing room only every Tuesday night and we have the potential to reach 100s of students through our Sunday night events and our small groups. We will be starting a seeker study or possibly two in the dorms this fall and we will also be starting the Alpha course. You may not be familiar with either of these, but both are evangelism courses for seekers that give us the opportunity to reach out to non-believers and you will be hearing more about both of these as the school year starts. I know that God has great things in store for our ministry, but it will take everyone in this room to make it happen. Are you prepared to be God’s disciple and God’s representative to the OU campus and the world at large?
