Series: Marks of a Healthy Church Text: Selected Scripture Message #6 Introduction
Evangelism can be a scary subject. Suppose I said, today instead of listening to a sermon during this worship service, I want each of you to take your family with you, knock on some doors and find at least three different people home and evangelize our community! What do you suppose that means? What would you say? Where would you go? (Or would you simply go home and hide)?
As we have talked about the marks of a healthy church, the past two weeks and today’s consideration are closely related. The Gospel is the message we share with people who need to be evangelized. Conversion is the result of people who are evangelized and who believe the Gospel. Evangelism is the process of giving those who are unconverted the message of the Gospel so that they might be converted.
Unfortunately over the past few decades in the church, the Gospel message has been incorrectly understood and inadequately presented; conversion has been misunderstood as being more of human persuasion than divine intervention; evangelism has been viewed as a corporate church purpose rather than an individual Christian responsibility. So the church, which is supposed to be a gathering of believers for the passionate worship of our great God and Savior, and for the equipping of believers to serve the Lord and people, has become a Gospel rally designed for the unbeliever to be introduced to the Lord Jesus. In doing so, the church ends up for the most part preaching to the choir, failing to lead the people in worship, missing the opportunity to equip the saints for ministry, and taking away the responsibility of individual believers from their God-given assignment!
Let’s try to understand this issue of evangelism and see what place it does have in a healthy church. We will unpack this idea by attempting to answer a series of questions.
I. WHO SHOULD EVANGELIZE? What do you think of when you hear the words evangelist? Evangelism? Should it be left to the professionals? Is it ignored because of inadequacy, apathy, ignorance, or fear?
God’s perspective
1. It is not difficult to see that throughout the Bible there was the divine purpose of bringing together a people from every tribe and tongue and nation as a unique people of God.
2. Jesus appeared to make that plain to his disciples at the end of the Gospel accounts. They responded by making Christ known. The early church practiced what the apostles had modeled. Notice the church of Thessalonica as a grand example (1 Thessalonians 1:6-8).
Paul’s perspective
1. The record of Paul’s missionary journeys speaks volumes concerning his commitment to making Christ known.
2. Direct statements such as those found in Romans 9 and 10 speak of his passion for proclaiming to Gospel to the lost.
3. Paul’s insistence that the churches be faithful in the proclamation of the Gospel is certainly clear. Evangelism was not left up to church leaders, though neither were they left out. (“Do the work of an evangelist”). For all who are redeemed, it became a privilege and a responsibility to make Christ known. That may be done in a variety of ways, but evangelism was never intended to be ignored by the individual believer or taken over by someone else. Consider the record of the followers of Jesus in these selected verses in Acts (Acts 5:42; 8:1-4; 8:25; 11:19-21).
II. HOW SHOULD WE EVANGELIZE?
Tell people with honesty that if they repent and believe they will be saved – but it will be costly. (See Dever, p. 112, quote from Robert Schuller)! If you remember when we talked about the Gospel, the Gospel is the good news, but the good news also has with it the bad news about sin and judgment. To leave out the bad news when telling the good news is not really telling the good news! If we are altering the good news, then it is not the good news and thus it is not the power of God unto salvation and no one will be converted with a faulty message!
Tell people with urgency that if they repent and believe they will be saved – but the time is now. See 2 Corinthians 5:18-6:10.
Tell people with joy that if they repent and believe the Good News they will be saved. However difficult it may be, it is all worth it! Hebrews 11.
Tell people the above using the Bible (Acts 8. Remember that the Word is powerful! It is the message of the Word that is the power of God unto salvation)
Show people the power of the Gospel in individual and corporate changed lives. This is a call to a corporate, consistent testimony – Matthew 5:16; 1 Peter 2:12.
Talk to God earnestly about the people to whom we are telling the Gospel.
III. WHAT IS EVANGELISM?
It is not imposition. We are not imposing our belief system on others. The message of evangelism is not just our opinion. They are facts of the Christian Gospel. (1 Corinthians 3:5-7). Christianity is a work of God and cannot occur with coercion. (Dever’s story with a Muslim friend, pp. 117-119).
It is not personal testimony – A personal testimony may or may not contain the content of the Gospel.
It is not social action or political involvement (It is not liberation theology).
It is not apologetics (We may in fact answer questions and give a defense for our faith in the process of evangelization, but apologetics itself is not evangelism). Whitcomb’s experience at Princeton (See Apologetics Notes)
It is not the number of converts. (See 2 Corinthians 2:15-16; Matthew 13:1-23). Dever, p. 123. We make known the message. What they do with it is what they do with it. We cannot make disciples. But we can make known the message and watch as God gives the increase!
IV. WHY SHOULD WE EVANGELIZE?
A love for obedience (How not to do it! – Dever, pp. 125-126. Also see p. 127.).
A love for the lost – Do I really care about people who are lost and do I really believe that God has ordained that the method by which He draws people to Himself is that of believers making known the Gospel?
C. A love for God – Ultimately what I love I talk about. If I truly love the Lord Jesus and I understand that I was rescued by Him even though I had nothing to offer as a sworn enemy of His, and that He paid the price of sin which is death and withstood the full force of the wrath of God against sin – and He did that for me, how could I not love Him and thus how could I not speak of Him?
Conclusion
1. Whitefield and the “Hell-fire Club.” (127-128)
2. It is time to evangelize. We have the message – the Gospel. We have the motive – the love of God. We have the mission – a whole world in desperate need but a certain answer found in Christ. The only thing missing is obedience! Let’s get to it! |
