What would you say is the one thing that hurts our society more than anything else? I would say it is us; the people. We are seeing more and more violence in the streets of America, and we are building more and more jails to put the criminals in, but the violence just keeps growing.
And to make matters worse, just as quickly as we build another jail, it becomes overcrowded and to fit the new criminals in we must let a few more out early, way before their sentences are complete.
With America’s growing rate of lawsuits, it has resulted in our stepping all over the victims so we can hurry over to the criminal and offer him protection against somebody hurting his feelings or violating his rights. When we sit down and analyze the problem, it seems insurmountable. It seems so overwhelming that we might as well just give up before we even start trying to solve it.
But as much as we see the wave of lawlessness sweeping this country, something else is also happening. Did you notice there is the first stirrings of a breeze starting to blow? It is the same wind, that came rushing in on the Day of Pentecost. It is the Holy Spirit, and He is filling people all over this nation with the hope and power to make a difference in America for God.
The Holy Spirit is starting a revival in this country and He is using Christians to do it. As children of God, we have experienced the saving grace of salvation and now it is up to us to take this knowledge and help save our nation. But to do that, we must do something that Jesus has already called us to do, and that is to spread the Word through something called evangelism. That is a fancy religious word, but it really means telling somebody else what you already know. From that perspective, it doesn’t look so scary. Now, we are all used to folks spreading the word, aren’t we? The problem is, while most people are spreading the word; it isn’t the word of God they are spreading. Too often, it is the word of materialism.
For example, we have all received those solicitation calls that only seem to only come at dinner time. We answer the phone and we hear somebody who is obviously reading from a script in front of them as they try to sound like it is just natural conversation. How annoying is that? The only thing that makes you want to do is hang up, right?
But have you ever had somebody try to sell you something and you can tell they absolutely believe what they are saying? You may choose not to buy it, but you are intrigued enough to listen to every word, aren’t you? When telling somebody about Jesus, we must be sincere, and we must be excited about what we are sincere about – or we will have no success at all.
I will share a true story about myself. When I was in my senior year of high school, I only went to school for half a day. I was out by 11:00 am and I had two part-time jobs. I worked as a janitor at a Chevrolet dealership from noon until 4:00 pm, and then I worked as a janitor at the Air Force Base barber shop from 5:00 pm until 9:00 pm.
I decided that I needed a job that was more befitting a young man of the world, so I scoured the want-ads, and finally answered this ad about a really cool job selling vacuum cleaners! I called and the secretary told me this job offered prestige; the ability to set my own hours; and the potential for unlimited income! My heart soared! I had found my chosen career. I was going to be rich!
It didn’t take me very long at all to discover what selling was all about. The first door I knocked on, a lady answered and I said, “You don’t want to buy a vacuum, do you Lady?” Can you guess what she said? She smiled and said, “No”, and then she shut the door in my face. What went wrong? I was delivering a line without any sincerity or personal knowledge to back it up. And because of that, I felt no excitement whatsoever about what I was doing or why I was doing it.
Today, we are going to be talking about evangelism; and how we misunderstand it to the point of fearing it.
1) LET’S TALK ABOUT THE MISCONCEPTIONS
Most churchgoers expect the pastor to do all the evangelizing. There seems to be the misconception that not everybody has to do it. I would think the Word of God speaks for itself.
In MATTHEW 28:19-20, Jesus gave us a command.
‘Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.’
This command does not say, “some of you go..” and it doesn’t say, “if you feel like it, go…” The command that Jesus gave is for all of us, and that command was to go and make disciples. Now, for those of you who profess to follow Jesus, let me ask this: When is the last time you obeyed His command and “went”?
I had a man in Arizona tell me that all he needed to do was to come to church every Sunday and listen to the sermons, that he didn’t have to have any involvement other than that. I told him if he wanted to do that, that is fine, but he should start thinking up a really good excuse now to tell the Lord why he refused to be obedient. He later said he had never realized he was actually supposed to be active in the kingdom. We live and learn, don’t we? I respect that man. He was sincere in his faith. When we left, he was handing out leaflets at a mall in Mesa. I wish all Christians would choose to be as sincere as that man was.
To clear up any misconceptions about what the Bible tells us to do; all Christian must be obedient. In 1 PETER 4:17, it gives us something we need to think about.
‘For it is time for judgment to begin with the family of God; and if it begins with us, what will the outcome be for those who do not obey the Gospel of God?’
God told us to go and make disciples. He did not tell us to stay within our churches and not reach out. Yet, too many are satisfied to go to church as a social obligation and not as a disciple. That verse tells us judgment is beginning with Christians, so we had better make sure that when it gets around to us, we are fully prepared to either rejoice that we were obedient, or ready to tell our Lord that we were not obedient … because we simply chose not to be.
Some Christians feel they aren’t quite ready to “go and make disciples.” Now, I understand that when a person first converts to Christianity, there is a learning curve, and during that time they aren’t ready in most cases. But if you have been a Christian for more than a year, you are ready to go share what you have experienced.
And look at it this way: God is not going to tell you to do something you are not qualified to do. Whatever He commands of you, He has already made sure you have what it takes to do it. There is an old saying that says, “God dos not call the qualified – He qualifies the called.”
In 2 TIMOTHY 1:7, Paul tells Timothy –
‘For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power; of love; and of self-discipline.’
Most Christians have never evangelized because they fear it.
2) LET’S TALK ABOUT THAT FEAR
What is it about evangelizing that we fear the most? We think that we don’t have enough knowledge to go and tell others about Christ. But in reality, we do.
In 2 TIMOTHY 3:16-17, we are told,
‘All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for ever good work.’
The devil plants fear into us and that fear keeps us from doing what God wants us to do. And what do we do? We find ways to justify it! We might be satisfying ourselves with our justifications, but I don’t really think God is going to listen to them come Judgment Day, do you? In today’s society, we find it easier to tell somebody their breath stinks than to tell them how to save their soul.
The most important thing we can do to make sure we are properly equipped, is to simply read the Bible. Many good books can be read about the Bible, but in order to get the fullest benefit from them, we must still read the Bible first. That should be the number one book to read on all of our lists. But all too often, it becomes the last book on our lists.
In PSALM 119:18-24, it talks about a proper attitude for studying God’s Word.
‘Open my eyes that I may see wonderful things in Your law. I am a stranger on earth; do not hide Your commands from me. My souls is consumed with longing for Your laws at all times.
You rebuke the arrogant who are cursed and who stray from Your commands. Remove from me scorn and contempt, for I keep your statutes. Though rulers sit together and slander me, Your servant will meditate on Your decrees. Your statues are my delight; they are my counselors.’
Do you think the author was a dedicated servant of God? Have you thought of yourself as a good Christian? Let’s compare and see where we stand.
He pleads with God to show him more of God’s laws. Do we feel this way? His soul is consumed with wanting to know those laws. Are we consumed with that same fire? He says he keeps God’s commandments, and he says he meditates on God’s Word. Do we keep God’s commandments? How about the commandment to go and evangelize by making disciples?
In 1 TIMOTHY 4:13, Paul writes to Timothy and tells him –
‘Until I come, devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture, to preaching and to teaching.’
So, to get rid of the fear that binds us and keeps us from doing God’s work, it becomes vital that we read the Bible, not to just read it, but to search it for whatever we can glean from it. To study it. And then to use that information to tell others about Jesus. God wants us to search His word. He wants us to call out to Him with questions.
In JEREMIAH 33:3, God tells each one of us,
‘Call to Me and I will answer you, and will tell you great and hidden things that you have not known.’
But even though we do this, there is another question to be asked. That question is, ‘How do we put it all together so we can evangelize?’
3) NOW, LET’S TALK ABOUT “HOW”
Before we be interested enough to learn how to evangelize, we must understand the power in evangelism. Back around the early 1900’s, there was a traveling preacher named Mordicai Hamm. He was well known and he was going to be preaching a tent revival in the Carolinas. A young man told his friend about Jesus and suggested he go to that revival. His friend went to the revival that night. He also went forward to accept Christ and give his life to Jesus. He was the only convert that night. That may not sound like much, but you will see just important evangelism is when you hear that the young man’s name was Billy Graham.
Now, what would have happened if Billy Graham’s friend decided not to evangelize to him? Can you see just how important evangelizing is? Because one person chose to be obedient and evangelize, millions have come to Christ who may not have otherwise.
How about you? Are you wishing that God would bless you more? Are there problems in your life? Do you evangelize? You ask how these are all connected. Let me show you. God has given us a command. He fully expects us to do what He told us to do, just like you expect your kids to obey your commands.
When we refuse to obey God, we will not get His blessings like we would if we obeyed Him, just like your kids will not get your full blessings when they disobey you. You want more of God’s blessings in your life? You want God to answer more of you prayers about your loved ones? Then start being obedient.
I mentioned studying the Bible. That is an essential. Studying the Bible will give us the knowledge we need and the boldness we need to take the name of Jesus with us. It will be with that knowledge and boldness that we overcome the fear of witnessing to others.
But after we have all that down pat, we still must know ‘how’ to witness, don’t we? Here is the best advice I can give when it comes to telling others about Jesus. Forget about all the Bible verses you know and forget about how other people tell you to do it. My advice is simply to prepare your heart by studying the Bible regularly, praying that God leads you, and then to just tell others what Jesus has done for you.
Forget about how He turned the water into wine. Forget about how He healed the sick. All that will come in its own time. Concentrate on what you personally know, and that is how much He loves you and what He has done for you. You cannot feel real excitement over somebody else’s story, but you can be totally on fire over your own story. And when you tell your story, people will see the love in your heart for Him, and this is where you plant the seed.
You evangelize by caring for others enough to let them know how much Jesus loves you, and how much he loves them. But you must care for others and see the urgency of talking to them about Jesus.
Most churchgoers in America are more concerned with the color of the building, or the color of the carpet than they are with how many people are dying and going to hell in our communities because nobody ever talked to them about Jesus. I think American Christians need to see the reality of the situation. It is not really important how the sanctuary looks if it isn’t being used to build the kingdom of God.
Several years ago, Diana and I took her parents down around Tombstone, Arizona on a sight-seeing trip. We found a cave that supposedly hid outlaws in the old days, so we decided to go on a tour.
The guides took one group of people after another down into that deep cave. I remember standing about 30 feet under ground and picturing what would it be like if they turned out all the lights. Can you imagine the absolute darkness? And then I thought that what would really be worse is if they turned out all the lights, and then the guide said, “See ya!”
The thought of that almost sends me into a panic. But there is something even worse than that. That is how many people in our own community are going to be going to hell because we don’t care enough about them to reach out and help them.
An atheist once said that if he believed in hell as we Christians say we do, he would crawl on his hands and knees if necessary to tell everyone he could about the horror that awaits. But he said he doesn’t believe and Christians must not either, because they rarely tell anyone Heaven or Hell. He said Christians try to keep it their own little secret.
Will the Victory Singers please come forward?
A young boy had tied a fishing line on the end of a tree branch and was sitting by the river fishing. Pretty soon, a group of teen-aged boys came to fish and thrashed the water about as they threw their lines out, reeled them back in and cast them out again. Every now and then, the younger boy would pull in a fish.
One of the teenagers asked him why he was able to catch fish when they had all the fancy poles and lures and couldn’t catch anything. The boy looked up and said, “You are fishing for fun. I am fishing for dinner.”
Maybe Christians should take a lesson from that young boy. We must see the necessity of telling others about Jesus. We are to pick up our cross daily and follow Jesus. You can do that no better way than to do what He has already told you to do; and that is to ‘go’ and to ‘make disciples.
A group of fishermen formed a fisherman’s club, and pretty soon there were hundreds of members. They met every month and exchanged stories about how to best fish and where the best fishing holes were.
This club grew and before long, they actually formed a school to teach proper fishing techniques. Everyone in the school, including the faculty spent all their time talking about the best ways to catch the fish. Over the years, these men got to where that is all they did; meet to discuss fishing. They even wrote books about how to fish. But one thing happened – the more, and the longer, they talked about fishing, the less fishing they actually did.
Even though they carried their poles and tackle boxes around everywhere they went, they eventually got so busy talking about fishing and teaching people how to fish that they had no time to go fishing themselves.
Then, there was a story on Fox News about a man who had caught the largest fish in American history. The school for fishermen hurried to meet him and invited him to teach others at the school how to catch fish like that. The man accepted and began teaching at the school. Pretty soon, between his teaching job at the fishing school, writing books on how to fish, and appearing on the Tonight Show, he had no time to go fishing anymore.
You might be wondering what this has to do with Christians evangelizing, but it is a perfect example of what the church has done to God’s command. We have become so busy talking about God’s Word that we now have very little time to go do God’s Word. We have become so obsessed with how things are at church, we have long since lost interest in how things are outside the church.
Like I said earlier, we are more concerned with how comfortable we are in the church and what we are doing in the church that we don’t seem to want to go out and make new Christians anymore. In other words, the fishers of men have gotten so busy, we have stopped becoming fishers of men.
We should make His commission our mission. And we will if we really love Jesus. And that includes activity to grow within the church and evangelism outside the church.
See, the reason for the church is simply this: To offer a gathering place for Christians to fellowship and learn, so they can take what they have learned and go outside the church and build God’s kingdom. If we take the fellowship out of the picture, we have a classroom effect that is not conducive to growing in the Word. If we take the learning out of the picture, we have a group of people who cannot do God’s work. If we take going outside the church to spread the word away, we have a church that people love to go to, but doesn’t do anything at all to build God’s kingdom. You must grow deep in church, so you can grow the kingdom wide. But to do that, you must be committed and you must have both feet planted firmly in God’s kingdom.
It is my fear that too many of today’s Christians think it is okay to stand with one foot in the world and one foot in the kingdom of God. When we do that, we have no boldness for God, and when we do that, we are not serving God. And when pressure comes, we will quickly collapse back into the world – away from God.
INVITATION
