Sharing the Gospel and Ministering afterwards. | Ep. 24

Evangelism Starts with a Deep Question and the Need for Good Soil

Last time, previous, you were saying, no, this is too easy. I want people on the podcast to see what they're up against so that they don't expect that it's just gonna be no battle. I'm just gonna walk in there and everybody's gonna say, yeah, I want some Jesus.

When we went to RCPC, like it seemed like we found good soil and it seemed like they had a really good response to the gospel, just the few interviews that we did. I think I did like maybe three and you did one or two.

And they were all good.

And I didn't want people to think that, oh, it's that easy, I can go out and do it. And then as soon as they run into a little bit of persecution or going off script, they're like, oh, I'm not good at this.

It's like, no, a lot of times we go out there and people don't wanna hear what we're saying or they get mad at us or throw stuff at us or throw a fit or believe something completely different. And we're not gonna get disheartened over it because the gospel still needs to go forth and we're still gonna go spread the gospel to whoever's willing to listen to it.

My name's Average Joe and I'm here with Pastor Tim Robinson.

Pastor Tim, how are you?

Yo, yo, yo, I'm doing good.

How are you doing Average Joe?

Better than I deserve, thanks for asking. So Pastor Jeff's away and as you know, he was away last week too. And Tim and I went out and did a little,.

Wasn't quite an evangelism effort.

We were trying to reach out to Jewish folks and we didn't start out with a normal evangelism question. What's a normal evangelism question or intro you would do, Pastor Tim?

Oh, a normal evangelism. You could say something like, hey, is your soul saved? What do you think about the afterlife? Things like that. Do you have anything that you normally go to, Joe?

Yeah, I like to ask people.

If they could have a private appointment with God, the creator of the universe, right? So it'd be very clear who I'm talking about. And I say, if you could ask them only one question and they're going to audibly respond, what question would you ask?

And then half of those are about that, the afterlife, right?

Okay, because some people might think those questions are too deep. And I used to be like, I don't know if I wanna just start with that. But then I realized that I love starting with something deep because if they can't answer that and they don't wanna answer like a question like that, or they can't think about death or they can't think about God or think about the afterlife, that's probably a sign that they probably wouldn't be able to even be ready for the gospel or even get to that level, a little too hard.

So you're saying you need a starting point and you wanna know where to start with them?

Yeah, exactly. So the people we probably don't wanna talk to can't even answer that question. They say, I gotta go, I don't have time for you. And that kind of just gets rid of them right away where you don't have to run around and try to bring it back to the gospel.

You're just like, okay, let me move on and try to find some better soil to work with.

Oh, you're saying the Holy Spirit isn't really involved there.

No, like what I'm saying is like, I think like it's an indicator, like if they can't answer a deep question, that their heart is just too hard, like their soil isn't. Not that I can be the judge of that, but just kind of just what I've noticed.

If they can't answer little questions like that, they're not ready for the things of God.

Right, right. So then what would they say that would launch you into your evangelism mode, your evangelism ears go on and say, hey, this guy's ready for the gospel. What do you think?

If they're ready to even answer the question, they're ready for the gospel. But if they're just like, they kind of know what you're doing, like going with, or like they're like, you know, kind of like the people you talk to, like wondering, are you from a church?

And then like, are you about abortion? Or you didn't even try to talk about it, but they try to guess where you're going.

Yeah, well, I think last week's interviews were different than a normal evangelism ministry, where I would always start with, you know, I want to know the afterlife, because, you know, I think there's a lot of Christians, and you and I, when we've gone out, we've run into people who claim they're Christians, but they're probably not saved.

I'm not saying they definitely are or not, but they certainly have some false ideas about what Christianity is, right?

Yeah.

What do you see, what's an indicator to you when you're talking to a Christian, and you're like, hmm, they really don't know the gospel, or they've got some flawed ideas about the gospel, about Christianity?

I think when you ask them, like, to share their testimony, and they don't even really know what that is, or if they try to share the testimony, and it's all about themself. Or if you ask them, like, how they were saved, anything along those lines, and they're giving the credit to themselves, or they're saying, you know, I figured it out.

You know, I grew up in church, and I just always believed, but, you know, I don't even go to church anymore. I kind of can worship God on my own at home. Things like that, where really what they should be saying is like, yeah, God saved my soul.

I was going the wrong way, and if it wasn't for God sending the right person in my life at the exact right moment, and His Holy Spirit opening up my heart and opening up my mind to hearing the gospel, and me realizing I was broken over my sin, and then God calling me to believe in His Son, and I heard that Jesus paid for the punishment of my sin, and I really believe that He rose from the dead.

So based on that faith in Jesus is the only reason they, that's like what a real, I think, Christian, an educated Christian would say, that Jesus saved them. It wasn't them who saved themselves, or, you know, their own interpretation of the Bible or life.

It's what God did for them, not what they did for God or did for anybody else.

What would you call those people who claim to be Christians but don't really know the gospel, or they're not going to a church, or they're not, you know, it's like they think they're Christians, right?

But they're really not plugged in. What do you call those people?

I call them undiscipled Christians, maybe, or maybe Christians. Like they're just not discipled. So they might have experienced salvation or experienced God to some degree, but no one came alongside them and kind of showed them how to live that Christian life.

But at the same time, if they are born-again Christians and they have the Holy Spirit, the Spirit should be leading them to read God's Word and to know more about God and to be hanging out with Christians and to get into a good church.

Those are things that you think they would figure out and God would lead them to, but some people don't ever make it there. And that's why God gave the church, you know, evangelists, teachers, and pastors, and all these different gifts.

So I think that maybe the church has just not done a good enough job of discipling. Maybe we do good at evangelism, but getting them to church is another battle.

That's great, that's great. So, all right, so let's put that on the board here and say we wanna come back to that discipleship thing, right, because I so agree with you. I don't think I was discipled well.

And I'm sure a lot of people say that. I think a lot of people say that. You know, they didn't go through a formal process. They just showed up somewhere and a formal process could have been good. So, but when you're evangelizing someone, what's your first goal?

What are you trying to figure out?

My first goal, I mean, ultimately the goal is to share of Jesus Christ, share the good news. So like, sometimes you wanna talk about bad news and trying to get them realize that they're a sinner. I think that's the number one thing that you have to do.

But then what Pastor Jeff taught me to do is kind of have something like a step in your head you wanna get to. And the first step would be like the person of Christ. You wanna talk about who Jesus is because there's a lot of people out there that might not know who Jesus is.

Believe it or not, we've met people on Tearing Down High Places probably that has never even heard the name of Jesus before, which is crazy. And, you know, we went to Princeton one time and met a girl that was from China who never even heard the name of Jesus and we got to share with her.

So talking about who Jesus is, that he's the son of God, the Christ, the son of the living God who came and died on the cross. But some people would say, oh, I know who Jesus is. He's a prophet and things like that, but that's not all he is.

So we wanna make clear, Jesus is God in flesh. So we wanna try to communicate this is who Jesus is. And then secondly, what Jesus did, that he died on the cross and he rose from the dead. So the work of Christ.

And then we wanna point them to the scriptures that, you know, we know this, it's not because we just made it up and we're part of a club that we all just decided to believe this one day. It's all written for us in the Bible.

It's all according to scripture and scripture can prove itself to be true. And there's prophecies in the Old Testament that lead to what comes next in the New Testament. And it's all one big book written by the Holy Spirit.

And then you wanna give them something, you wanna let them know what God is offering them. It's not just we do this for fun and we get nothing from it. We have eternal life because of what God has done for us.

Relationship with Jesus because of what God has done for us. Our sins are wiped clean because of what God has done for us. So it's, you get a lot and you get life more abundantly here now and walking around, being able to see the world through the correct lens and being guided by the Holy Spirit.

And you're not lost. You're not wondering what happens when I die. You're not wondering all these questions and you're not suppressing questions like that. You have purpose in life that now you're living with God and for God.

That's awesome. So do you have different ways to get them to see their sinfulness? Because you mentioned that you want them to see their sinfulness. But what if they say, oh yeah, I'm a really good person.

I kept all the commandments.

Yeah, so if you watched our episodes before you know that we like to do the way of the master. I mean, I learned it from Philip the Evangelist that goes to our church and he, I think learned it from Ray Comfort but that's why we ask the questions of like how many lies have you ever told?

And then, oh, if they're honest, they probably say a lot or I don't even know, I can't count. But if they're probably not understanding they probably say, oh, I don't tell lies. And then if you ask them, have you ever stolen anything?

Some people might not have ever stolen anything or they can't remember stealing anything but really the honest ones say, yeah, I've stolen a few things in life. And then you ask questions about that. And then eventually they see that, oh, I'm actually not as good as I thought.

Yeah.

You know, if you go through all 10 commandments and then, you know, and they're like, oh, well I kept, you know, three out of 10 of them or something like that. And then, so, you know, do you think that's good enough?

And the answer is no, because if you look at the world and you look at people that you're around you might be able to look at them and say, you know what, I think I'm a little better than them. I think I'm a little bit more moral than them.

I think I'm a more of a genuine person that, you know, is more respectable than they are. If you look at them, you might, yeah, you might think you're a good person especially in the generation that we live in.

You might think, oh, I'm smarter than these people. I'm better than these people. People like me more, whatever it is, it's still the thing that you need to look at and it's Christ and you don't compare to him.

And even in Pastor John's sermon on Sunday, he was saying like, think of all the humble and the most humiliating thing or like the best thing you did in life, it doesn't match what Jesus has done. So you're not as good as you think you are.

I think that's the first step that you have to come to and realize that Jesus is better than you and Jesus is better than anyone that you've ever met.

Well, he's perfect and the standard is perfection, right? You know, I think when Pastor Jeff comes back we're gonna do Romans three, we're gonna hit verse 10, he's gonna say, no one's good, not even one.

No one has tried, no one seeks after God and we're all just lost, we're all lost. So, but you get a lot of different answers out there when you're trying to talk to people. First of all, you get those people that say they're a Christian.

Some of them say, hey, I'm a Christian. In fact, I love Jesus. I wanna be just like him. I wanna be a God like him someday.

Yeah.

We ran into a couple of them last week that didn't make the video.

Right, right, yeah.

That was a couple of Mormons we were chatting with. That didn't, their local, what was it? Their local leadership did not want them making videos. So you guys, you're part of our local leadership, Tim.

Is it okay for us to make videos and share the gospel on television and podcast?

Not only is it allowed, it's encouraged.

I think it's really suspect when you're not, you're out there evangelizing, right? Because that's what they claim to be doing. These are two, we're talking to two Mormon missionaries claiming to be evangelizing, but oh, don't put us on any media.

Yeah.

Red flag, red flag.

Yeah, that's a red flag because

What does that tell you, Tim?

That tells me that they maybe don't believe fully what they believe in, and they're just obeying a bunch of rules. They're not being guided by the spirit or really telling anyone truth and want the gospel to go out.

Because if they had a gospel that can save people, they would want that to be on the podcast and they would want that to be seen. But because I think they were unsure of what they even believed and just were, I think, doing it to follow the rules and look good maybe in front of other people, they were doing that on the street.

And a little bit of me does respect them because they were young guys willing to go to a new state and do this, but I don't think that they were fully doing it for the right reasons.

Yeah, we wanna be obedient, but we don't wanna be obedient with the wrong motivation, right?

Yeah, yep, yeah.

They certainly, they do certainly believe that at some point they can become gods too, and it's really focused on selfishness and not selflessness.

Yeah.

But let's talk about when you're, so when you do get someone, and so we couldn't get the Mormons to get past step one, which is seeing your own sinfulness, right? So what's the next step? And before you get to the next step, what do you think, what do you see in someone when they do realize, ooh, I'm not as good as I thought?

You see that?

That's when you wanna introduce them to the good news, the gospel, that there's one who can deal with someone like that. There's someone that can forgive you for that. And I think you wanna say, well, there's a penalty for that.

You don't just get to be bad and live a sinful life, and then your life is over and you get eternal life. It doesn't work like that. You can't live a sinful life and not have that debt or that sin paid for.

So Jesus is the one that pays for that sin. If he doesn't pay for that and you don't believe in him and his sacrifice wasn't good enough, then you're gonna have to pay for that, whether you know it or not, that you're gonna have to pay that penalty in hell.

So I think that introducing them to the gospel of like Jesus can save you and this is good. Like he took the penalty for us. His blood was shed. This was God on high. He came to be a human and live a life that we couldn't live.

And he did all that because of love. Love motivated him to come to the earth and die for sinners. So for God so loved the world that he gave his only son.

How do you draw people out to make sure they're understanding that they're really lost, that there's no way they can pull themselves, like you said, pull themselves up by their bootstraps. There's nothing they can do.

How do you confirm that they get that before giving them the good news? How do you confirm that they know the bad news?

I think they admit that they're not good. Like some people would say, oh, I kept all the good news and I think I'm fine with living my own life and God will just judge me at the end and their heart really isn't in it.

But if they're kind of focused in and saying like, wow, like I never thought about that before. This kind of makes sense. I think you can tell and gauge, like I think this person is tracking with me. This person might not be tracking with me anymore.

Like some people you might be talking to and they just wanna talk your ear off and keep talking about things and they're not really, you can't really get to the point with them or they're not really saying and you don't have to talk to them long.

Like if they don't wanna hear what you're saying and they're not interested in hearing the gospel and things aren't connecting, you can be really direct with them and say, hey, I'm here. I'm trying to save your soul.

I want you to hear this information. Are you interested in having your soul saved? Are you interested in having your sins forgiven or conversation going nowhere? So I'm learning to be a little bit more direct.

Like this is like, your soul is at stake. Your soul is on the line. So I'm trying to talk with people more about like trying to get them to see this is a danger. Your life is in danger. So, and Jesus is the one that can save you.

So I think when we're out evangelizing, we're taking video, we're talking to total strangers and we might be a little more aggressive with them because we might not get an opportunity to see them again in the future, right?

Yeah.

What advice do you have for folks that are witnessing to their mom, their dad, their other family members, people that they have ongoing relationships with?

Right, yeah.

So advice there would be, I think living, because you're gonna see them, you don't need to share the gospel with them and try to get them saved. You don't need to try to get them discipled and you don't need to get them living perfect in the first five minutes because you're gonna see them every day.

So I think the way you live your life, that they can see that you believe what you believe and you're living it out because you believe it. I think that's very good. But I think looking for those opportunities to still share and glorify God and not be afraid is key.

But if you're talking to your friend or family member and it seems like they don't wanna talk to you about it, comes a time where I think you do have to stop talking about it just because of scriptures like don't give your pearls to pigs.

Like if they don't see the value in it, they're not going to treat it as such. Like you don't give a pearl to a pig because they're just gonna splash the pearl around in mud. Like this is treasure. So if they're not gonna value that, until they value that and you plant little seeds to see if they're interested, you can't just talk to them about it every single day because it's not going to be good for them overall.

But that doesn't mean never talk to them and be afraid. You're still looking for that opportunity because you love them and you want them to be saved. So like, I think error on the side of trying to get them saved and over talk, but just be mindful of like, if it's someone like a coworker or a family member that you see five times a week, you don't need to constantly be talking about the gospel every single moment when they don't wanna talk about it.

So I think that's a little bit key. But the other side of that is don't not talk about it because it might hurt their feeling or something like that. You have to still say, this is what I'm about. And if you do ask me certain questions, answer it in a biblical way, answer it, this is what I believe because of the Bible.

And you can still say things like that subtly.

Speaking the Gospel in Everyday Life and Through Divine Appointments

Yeah, well, how about things that come up in everyday life? I mean, there's certain ways that we, especially as the culture drifts away from Christianity in general, there's plenty of opportunities for us to say, well, I can't participate, do that, or I disagree with because God says, right?

So you can introduce those in with your family, but sometimes, I mean, that even starts some fires, right?

Yeah, I think God has an appointed time for those who he calls to believe. And I got a quick story for you if you wanna hear it, Joe.

Love it.

Okay, so I'm driving to, this is last week, I'm driving to a friend's graduation party and I run out of gas. I just was having a moment and I ran out of gas across the street from a gas station and went to the gas station, filled up.

I had to buy a gas jug, fill it up with gas, go back to my car, fill it up. And then I came back to the gas station to fill up my car. And I'm just like sitting there, getting my gas filled up and I'm fooling with the tank that I have trying to close that up.

And like, I sensed this guy looking at me and I'm just like, what does this guy want? And he's the worker at the gas station. And I sense he's looking at me, staring at me. And I'm like, oh my gosh, I'm just trying to do this.

What does this guy want? And normally my radar's up, I want to talk to people. This is the one time where I'm like, will this guy just leave me alone? Why is he hovering over me? And then I'm like, all right, well, I kind of go into my car, put this in there and then he gets closer and I can kind of see he's mustering up the courage to talk to me.

And he comes up and he's like, are you a minister? And I'm like, yes, I am. And he's like, because I saw your shirt. It said prison ministry on it. I'm like, yeah, yeah, this is a ministry that I did.

And he's like, I think you can help me. I'm like, okay. And he's like, yeah, because like, I'm really messed up. And like, it looks like you might be a pastor. I'm like, I am a pastor. He's like, yeah, but you don't look like a typical pastor.

I'm like, okay, this is why I have the long hair. And I'm like, okay. And he's telling me like, yeah, dude, I think I need to talk to you. I'm like, all right, we can talk. He's like, I'll be right back.

I gotta go work.

He's working at the gas station. He fills up another car, comes over and he's like,.

Yeah, I'm a Jew.

I'm like, okay. So I'm talking to him about, you know, I'm like, okay, great, I love Jewish people. He's like, you do? Like, and he's wondering like Christians and Jews, they can get along. I'm like, well, yeah, Jewish people started Christianity.

And I'm talking to him about, you know, Jesus being a Jew and how, you know, there's prophecies in the Old Testament that point to Christ. And he's like, wow, how come Jewish people don't like Christians then?

I'm like, I don't know. I think because their heart is hard. And he's like, yeah, because it kind of makes sense that, you know, Jesus was a Jew and then he started Christianity. And, you know, this kind of makes sense to me.

I'm like, really? And he's like, yeah, like, I think I get along better with Christians than Jews anyway. Anyway, so I'm talking with him and, you know, I give him information about the church and then I see him later that night, I run into him again.

And he's like, he's walking home, you know, to his car and I run into him later on. And then I'm with Mayor and we're talking to him. We invite him to church. And I invite so many people to church and I'm gonna say 99 of them never come.

And like, what I'm saying is like, this was a divine appointment because I didn't even wanna talk to the guy, but he's asking me questions. That's always a good sign. Got to walk him through the gospel and what do you know?

He shows up to church one day and I was just so happy to see him because like, I'm happy if anyone accepts the invite to come to church. And then it just so happened, you know, I run out of gas and I talked to him.

He's a Jew.

I talked to him about Christianity. He's like, all right, I wanna come to church. And then it just so happens that he meets like, Drew and Jill Deacon of all people, like the perfect people you wanna meet.

And then, you know, Drew invites him to the barbecue. He comes back the next day. He's hanging out with Christians. Like that's, to me, that's just God appointed, you know, a divine appointment. Like God calls people certain times in their life.

And, you know, you can talk to friends and family and they don't come to church, but you meet a gas station attendant that you don't even wanna talk to. And there they are at church. Like that's special to me.

I will, and it's, you know, we've got to get busy because it is, it's about a one in a hundred ratio, people that you invite to church that actually come, you know, so yeah, you gotta get busy. But that doesn't mean those seeds don't bear fruit down the road anyway.

I mean, I know that, I know I didn't go to church the first time I heard the gospel. I heard it a bunch of times, rejected it a bunch of times, you know, before I finally went to church, you know, so.

Yeah, how about you? Did it take a few people? I mean, you heard the gospel the first time,.

You just said, I'm gonna be a pastor.

You're right, it's a little bit of a process. It's not like everything clicks off once and you download everything that's in the Bible right in your head and you can live a Christian life. That's why you need people to come into your life and you need, you know, God needs to open up your heart to even understand the littlest thing about the gospel.

So you're never really gonna fully understand it until he wakes you up and he regenerates you as a Christian. And then you can hear the gospel and believe it. But once you believe it, doesn't mean that you know exactly how to live.

Like sure, you have the spirit and you have the law written on your heart, but until you see the word in the Bible, I don't think that you're gonna be motivated until you're around other Christians. It's very, very hard to grow in Christ.

Because when I got saved, it was through listening to preachers on the radio and I loved listening to them, but it wasn't like my life changed like that and I just stopped sinning. It was a little bit of a process and me understanding like, well, I'm still a sinner, but now I'm a saint and I have the spirit, but I'm still in this body of flesh.

So until you have someone to be able to explain all that to you and God does lead you places, like I met Pastor Jeff at a gym and he was the one that ultimately discipled me. So, I mean, I was blessed to meet Pastor Jeff, but I don't think it was like me saying, oh, that's the guy that's gonna help me or Jeff saying, let me help that guy over there.

It was like, God orchestrated it so that we did meet and then here we are doing ministry together and a podcast together. Like, it's cool to see how God works. But had I never listened to that call and rejected it in my whole life, like, I don't know where my life would be.

I don't think I would be married to the girl I wanna be married to or working at this job that I love or meeting all these awesome people and who are really like family, all these church members.

What Discipleship Is and Why Christians Need It

Yeah, let's talk about the discipleship part then because remember we tacked that up on the wall and let's pull it down, let's dig into that. So what is discipleship and why is it so important?

Discipleship, well, if you think about discipleship, a word that's kind of similar is discipline. So I think it starts with discipline and disciplining yourself to read the scriptures, disciplining yourself to pray, disciplining yourself to come to church and ultimately learn to kill sin and make war on sin and to live by faith.

So I think devoting yourself to prayer, disciplining yourself to reading the scriptures and walking with others that are trying to be like Christ, watching Christ. So like someone like Paul, he says, imitate me as I imitate Christ.

So I think it's just finding someone who's imitating Christ who might be a little bit further down the road than you, walking with the Lord, walking with Christ. So I think it's good to have someone in your life that might be a little bit more wise, that might know a little bit more about the Bible, that might be living for God longer and maybe better than you are.

Like someone like, you know, if you're Timothy, you have someone like Paul in your life. If you're Paul, you have someone like Timothy that you wanna be discipling. So I think you should always be discipled by somebody and looking to disciple somebody else.

I love that you just said that.

Because that's what I was gonna ask you. Well, I was gonna ask you, I mean, but you don't need to be discipled anymore. Once you're a pastor, you're done, right? You just, you know everything, right?

No, on the contrary, like that's why I still, I meet with Pastor John Laskin like once every couple weeks and he still disciples me. So, and then I think just hanging out with Jeff and hanging out with you, I think a lot of times you guys are discipling me.

So I think it's almost like, you know, you also meet people that are kind of on your level and people that love the Lord and you learn from them too. So it's just an awesome community that God has made with his church.

I love that. You said, you need to have someone's discipling you at the same time you're discipling someone else. It's always both, right?

Maybe up to 12 of them, but at least one.

That's a good number. So how about some advice for people who are, just in case we get some, there's a couple of people we talked to recently, you mentioned the Jewish father there. I mean, we were trying to reach out to Jews last week and hadn't, I don't think we had a lot of success with Jews, but we did have, we met one guy who said he was a backslider and, you know, had some good, a little bit of fruit there.

Maybe he'll show up at church, I don't know. But people who are trying to, maybe he wasn't discipled for a long time, needs to get back in that rhythm. What are some suggestions for folks who are looking for someone to help them disciple?

I mean, are there people out there that are looking for opportunities to disciple and where can they find them?

I think the only place to find that, or I mean, the best place to find that is finding a good Bible-believing church and going there. And if you can't find someone willing to disciple you there, then go look for another church because there's churches out there that wanna disciple you, that they love to, they wanna come alongside you and help you and help you grow in Christ and bring you to Christ and show you what it's like to walk with the Lord.

So I think I found that here at Cornerstone Church. This is the first church that I started coming to, so it wasn't like I needed to go to this church, this church, this church and finally find one. So it was kind of like, you know, it felt like God called me to this church, but other people might be on a search, like, where do I go?