21 - Lesson 11: Evangelism, Part 2

Well, welcome to the Striving for Eternity Academy's School of Discipleship. This is our class on Introduction to Discipling. I'm going to have to start with some apologies right off the bat. I do have a cough drop in my mouth, and my voice is a tad bit raspy.

I just got back from the Super Bowl outreach, so my voice is a little bit raspy from open air preaching for three straight days, nine hours a day. Takes a little bit out of you. But I also have not slept.

Having just got back, I woke up 4 .30 yesterday. In other words, I was up all night flying back home, trying to sleep on a plane, but yeah, that didn't work so well. So I basically am saying that I am working on no sleep, which is why my hair looks so messed up, but that means anything can happen today.

The Message of Evangelism in Discipleship

All right, so, but it is fitting that I come back from the Super Bowl outreach, and today's class is going to be on evangelism. We're going to finish up the lesson on evangelism, which is what, well, I was basically doing all weekend.

And we're going to talk about, well, let's start with where we are. We are in the book, we're using the book, Growing in Grace. That's something that you can pick up at our store if you want to get your own copy, or copies for your church, or for homeschool, or whatever.

But you can get a copy of it, and that's what we're going through as a tool to disciple. Really, discipleship is about the relationship. We're using this just to kind of teach how to facilitate that. Now we are on the lesson, and on lesson number 11, lesson number 11 is Evangelism, Speaking for Our Lord.

And we talked last week on the meaning of evangelism. We talked about what it meant, what it was, what does it mean to evangelize, to be a fisher of men. We talked about the motivation, what should motivate us to evangelize, and this week, the message of evangelism.

The message of evangelism is what we talked about, or what we're going to talk about. So, as we go through the message, there are many false messages to evangelism. The most prominent one is the message that says, God loves you, and because God is love, you're going to be forgiven.

And that's a message that is what many teach, and it's wrong. It's just plain wrong. So, we need to be aware of what the true message is, and what it is that the world thinks the gospel is. And what most people think is that the message of the gospel is that God will forgive everybody.

That's just not true. Okay? The gospel, the message, is not that God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life. That's not the message either. It's not that God loves you the way you are, and He's been waiting around, just itching for you to come to Him, like He has no control over things.

That's not the gospel message either. So, there are five points that I think are essential in a gospel presentation. So, we're going to go through the message of evangelism, and as we go through it, we're going to look at these five points that I think really encapsulate almost any biblical gospel message.

Alright? So, letter A in your book is explain that they are sinners. Alright? You explain to a person they're sinners. Now, this is the first step, and yet this is a step that most of the evangelical church just kind of skips right over it.

And what they do in that is they're skipping over the gospel itself, the starting point. So, do you have a verse for that, Andrew? Well, I happen to have two that we're going to look up. Romans 3, verse 10 says, It is written, none is righteous, no, not one.

Now, if you notice there that says it is written and there's quotes, it's because this actually is a quote from the Old Testament. Alright? So, none are righteous. And then in verse 23 of that same chapter, it says, For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

What you see with that, as you see the two questions you can ask a person is how many, because I always go to this verse when people say, Well, the Bible has many interpretations. And this is what I do.

I turn to Romans 3, 10, and I say, Please read this and answer me this question. How many people does God say are born good? According to that verse. It's amazing. They all say none. That's your blank, by the way.

None. Alright? And I go, Well, gee, there's not all that many interpretations then, huh? You interpret it the same way I do. None are righteous. No, not one. How many are born sinners? According to verse 23.

All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. Well, that doesn't seem very hard to interpret. None are righteous. All are sinners. Kind of clear, huh? Why is it important to start there, though?

The reason that's important to start there, I understand that some people are more concerned with the person they're evangelizing liking them more than liking God. And when they have that attitude, they're not going to talk to that person about sin, because that might make the person uncomfortable and not feel good.

They're going to talk to the person about what God can do for them. Now, remember we talked about the motivation last week. What does that end up doing? That changes the message. Instead of being one of God getting glory, it's one of man receiving gifts.

God doing something for man. Gimme, gimme, gimme, gimme, gimme. I want to get something from God. That's not the gospel. We have to first recognize who we are compared to God. God is holy. We are not.

Okay? That's basically what we're trying to say here. After a person, and the way to do that is with the Ten Commandments. You can go through the Ten Commandments, because nowadays people don't know what sin is.

Sin is breaking the law. It's violating one of God's laws. And you can look through the Ten Commandments. Nine of those ten were repeated in the New Testament. And so you can look at those and say, okay, this is what God says we should do.

Do we do these things? If we break these laws, then, well, what happens to someone that breaks laws? They're a criminal and there's a penalty. And that's the second thing. And people often want to skip over this.

But if you skipped over the first one, the first point, you're probably going to skip over the second point. And that is to explain that their sin brings the penalty of death. This is Romans 6, 23. And it says, for the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Jesus Christ our Lord.

Now, there's three kinds of death that's referred to in the Bible. People often think of just death, but there's three different types. The first type is a state that every one of us are born into, which is called a spiritual death.

And remember, this is in your notes below this, but remembering that death in Scripture simply means separation. So when we go through this, spiritual separation, spiritual death, right? We see this in Ephesians 2, 1 and 5.

And you were dead in your trespasses and sins even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together in Christ by grace. By grace you have been saved. Now, what you see there is that God is talking about a spiritual death.

Now, it's saying you're dead, but you're obviously not writing to people, oh, you're dead physically because they're still alive physically. So it can't be talking physical death. What death is it? It's talking about a spiritual death.

We're born sinners with a spiritual separation from God. Okay? So we're born spiritually dead. All right? So that's the first type of death. The second type of death is physical death. Physical death.

Well, you know, we know physical death, but just so we can put in a Bible verse to it, thus were all the days of Adam. He lived 930 days and he died. Now, right there, did you notice, son? He lived how long?

930 years. And then he died. You go, dude, wait a minute. Didn't God say if you ate of the fruit, you would die? Now, some people will go, oh, well, that started the dying process. It did, but he said they would die, not they would be dying.

I think that the moment they ate of the fruit, they became spiritually dead. That was immediate. Did they start dying? Yes, they started. Sin entered the world, corruption, and therefore they had the dying process began, but I would say they died immediately spiritually.

So there's a spiritual separation, spiritual death, physical death, and then eternal death. Let's look at that in Romans 10. Romans 10. This is now eternal death. It says, and the devil who had deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and sulfur where the beast and false prophet were, and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever.

Then I saw a great white throne and him who was seated on it. From his presence, earth and sky fled away, and no place was found for them. And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and the books were opened again, and another book was opened, which is the book of life.

The dead were judged by what was written in the books according to what they had done. Those are the works. Verse 13, and the sea gave up the dead who were in it. Death and Hades who gave up the dead who were in them, they were judged, each of them, according to what they had done.

Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire, and anyone whose name is not found written in the book of life was thrown into the lake of fire. So you see, this is a second death, an eternal death.

So when we talk about death, there's three different aspects of it. Spiritual death is what we're all born into. Spiritual death simply means a separation. The spiritual separation is the condition of man from his physical birth until his spiritual birth.

So he's separate from God. He is in a sinful state with a sin nature. And he's born that way, but not all men live out their whole life that way. At spiritual birth, they're no longer spiritually dead.

Physical death is simply man's soul departing from his body, a separation of body and soul. Eternal death is separation for all of eternity from God. And so that is eternal death. So we all suffer spiritual death.

Some of us are born again, and that one can be over. Physical death, most of us will suffer. What do you mean most of us? Well, some, like Enoch, didn't seem to suffer death. Okay? If you believe in a rapture, then those people won't suffer death.

But at least most suffer physical death. But all whose names are not written in the book of life, in other words, those who do not repent and put trust in Jesus Christ alone, they suffer eternal death.

And so it's helpful sometimes to explain these three types of death so that when someone does come upon reading like Genesis and saying, wait a minute, how could Adam have lived 930 years if he's supposed to have been dead?

Good question. This answers it. You don't have to play gymnastics with the text to make it answer it either. So we want to explain to them that they are a sinner. Now, you don't have to call them a sinner, but you can ask questions and using the Ten Commandments to let them judge themselves if they're a sinner.

Once they understand they're a sinner, you want to ask them if they understand the penalty of it. Are you guilty? Okay, where would you go? Heaven or hell? Well, if we're going to be honest, we would deserve hell.

Okay. Now, if you have someone to that point, they're understanding that. I would be guilty. I would deserve hell. We explain that they cannot save themselves by their heritage, by their works, or by anything else that they trust.

All right, let's look at Ephesians 2 .8 and 9. For by grace you have been saved through faith and this is not of your own, it is a gift of God, not of works lest any man should boast. We're going to see that again.

Let's look at that right here in Titus 3 .5. He saved us not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit.

So what you see in those... Oh, sorry, we have one more. That's right, we have Romans 4 .4. Thank you. Now, to those who... Now, to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift, but what he is due.

The reason that one becomes important is because if the wages of sin is death, as we're going to see in a moment, well, wages is something due to a person. It's not a gift. Grace and mercy, that's a gift.

God gives it. We don't deserve it. It's a gift. I'm getting ahead of myself, by the way, with the gospel message, but that's okay. But when we look at... When we sin, there's a wage. There's a consequence.

Now, we cannot save ourselves, and yet this is what every religion teaches. Okay? Every single world religion teaches you can work your way to heaven. Do we have John 1 .12? No? Okay. John 1 .12. Read John 1 .12 -14, and you're going to see he says there that not everyone is a child of God.

He basically says, only those who have received Christ have the right to be called a child of God, not by blood, not by the will of man, not by the flesh, but of God. What that means is that it gives you three different ways that most people think they're going to earn eternal life.

By blood. In other words, their lineage. I was born a Jew. I'm God's chosen people. That's what I believed when I was growing up. That's what I was taught. And so some people believe because they were born in a family that had a certain belief that that would be enough for them to be in a right state.

Others believe in works. The majority of people think that if they do enough good, it'll outweigh the bad, and yet our good doesn't outweigh the bad. Okay? So we can't rest on our good works, as those verses say.

If it was based on good works, we'd be able to boast. If it was based on following the law, Galatians 2 .21 says, Christ wouldn't have needed to die. He could have just... The law, it's there. And the third way is just that I desire it.

Just have this will. I desire it. And I always think of, if you ever read Pilgrim's Progress, Ignorance in Pilgrim's Progress, he just wants to go to heaven. He doesn't want to follow the rules. He doesn't want to get their certificate.

He just wants to kind of march on his way. He doesn't want to take the rough road. No, no, no. He's going to take the easy path and thinks he knows better. And he gets all the way to the gate of Mount Zion in the book of Pilgrim's Progress, and Christian looks and sees that even at the gate, there's a pathway to hell.

There's a trapdoor that leads right to hell, and ignorance took it. Ignorance fell into it. He thought he was okay, and he got the surprise. He had a strong desire, but that wasn't enough. Okay? So we have to explain what sin is, that they're a sinner.

We need to explain that there's a punishment for sin, penalty, and then we must explain that their works are not going to save them. Now, if they're tracking with you, it's going to be like, well, then how do you get saved, right?

I mean, you want to get them to that point of what must I do to be saved, like the Philippian jailer said. Well, letter D, explain to them that Christ can save them. Christ can save them. All right? Romans 5, 8 says this, That's so great, isn't it?

Let's look at 1 Corinthians 15. What I also received, that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures. All right? And then when we look at that, we end up seeing, sorry, He, Jesus Christ, He died to pay the penalty for their what?

Their sin. That's your blank there. Their sin. Christ came to be the punishment of sin. That's mind-boggling. Okay, we're going to get to it in just a minute, in more. But actually, you know, it does.

It boggles my mind. You know, 2 Corinthians 5, 20, 21, He who knew no sin became sin that we might become the righteousness of God. Martin Luther called that the great transaction. God becomes a man to pay the punishment of men.

That's amazing. Amazing. That's what He did. He came to be that penalty. All right? We read, what, 15, 3? Here's 1 Corinthians 15, 4. That He was buried and He rose on the third day according to the Scriptures.

So this tells us that the resurrection, we've got to preach about the resurrection of the dead. All right? We also see this in Romans 10, 9, and 10. Because if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.

For with the heart one believes and is justified, with the mouth one confesses and is saved. So, the resurrection from the dead. Why is the resurrection so important? Well, actually, if you read all of 1 Corinthians 15, you're going to see that Paul makes the point that all of Christianity hinges on the resurrection.

If the resurrection is false, then all of Christianity falls apart. And so we must explain the resurrection because that is what validates everything that Jesus said about Himself, that He has the authority to forgive sin.

All right? Third point under explaining that Christ can save is that He is Lord over all. He's the Lord. He's God. You can look up Romans 14, 11, and 12. We're not going to do it now. But He's God. He is Lord.

We don't make Him Lord. He is Lord. So, with that in mind, let's go to step number five or point number five, letter E. What you see there is it says explain the need to receive Christ. So if you explain to someone that they're a sinner and they understand that, explain the penalty of sin and they understand that, they can't save themselves and they understand that, only Christ can save and they understand that, then what you need to do is say, all right, you've got to do something.

You've got to receive Christ. We saw that actually in the previous verse in Romans 10, 9, and 10. But they need to repent of their sin and turn away from whatever they were trusting in for salvation. They've got to turn away from their sin.

All right? Why don't we look at Luke 24. Luke 24, 47. And that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in His name to all the nations beginning from Jerusalem. Acts 17, we see the same.

The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now He commands all people everywhere to repent. And then we saw this last week, 2 Peter 3, 9. The Lord is not slow, as some count slowness, but patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.

So what that says is that we must repent. That's something that must be done. We must teach repentance. If we just tell people, hey, just receive Christ, you know, you can live any way you want, just say, I believe in Jesus and you're done.

And that's what a lot of people end up thinking. It's not it. We have to repent. Repent is a word that means to do a 180. It's to change a mind. You were thinking this, now you're thinking that. And your mind is going to change the way you behave.

So if you have a different view of sin, now you see it as wicked and evil, you're going to stop doing it. Not to save yourself, the motivation is different. Not to save you, but because you love God, because of what He did for you.

Two is that they must receive Christ. That's the blank there. They must receive Christ. I mentioned John 1 .12, that those who receive Christ have the right to be called a child of God. We read Romans 10, 9, and 10.

You could throw verse 13 in there, but we got to receive Christ as Savior. That's the first thing we have to receive Him as. We have to receive Him as Savior, the one who will save us from our sin. And then we have to explain to the person that we have to receive Him as Lord.

In other words, He is God. It's not that we make Him God. He is God, but we have to recognize Him in His rightful place. So now, that is the five points that should be part of a good gospel message. Let me give you, before we get to answering some of the common objections that we often have to deal with.

What I want to do is give you some practical suggestions. So here's some practical suggestions for you. When evangelizing, be sure they understand how to be saved. Some people are just so excited that someone's going to, oh, you're going to pray to receive Christ?

Okay, I'm so excited about that. We want to see people come to Christ, but we don't want to create false converts. So make sure they understand. Actually, I tend to try to convince someone out of salvation if they understand.

Do you really understand what I'm saying? Do you count the cost? You're going to suddenly become an enemy of the world. I mean, things are going to go bad in your life. You're going to lose friends, maybe even family.

People are going to be upset with you. Ask if they fully understand. Ask them if they would like to be saved, if they have an understanding of what it means. And ask them to pray. Don't lead them in a prayer.

If someone knows that they did something wrong in someone's sight, they don't need someone to tell them what to say. They know I need to ask forgiveness, right? So what are some things you want to remind them that they would be praying for?

Or what you want to be listening for. I usually ask them to pray. And if they don't pray, including these elements, I try to explain the gospel again and say, I don't want you to trust in a prayer. I want to make sure you're understanding of what we're saying.

But if they're not admitting their sinfulness, if they're not asking Christ to save them, for Christ to do the work, affirming his lordship over their life, that he's the one in control, not them. They're not coming to God on their terms, but on his terms.

Affirming their belief in his death, burial, resurrection, because that's what Romans 10, 9, and 10 says we need to do. Repenting from their sin and their trust in self for salvation. So this is what you want to hear when they pray.

Okay? You want to listen for some of those things. So let's go to answering some objectives, objections. Because when you are dealing with, especially a newer believer, you're discipling someone new, they're going to have objections that are going to come up.

Maybe some of them they've had. Maybe not. But they're going to get them. We all get them when we go out and evangelize and we hear these things. And so we're going to give you some scripture verses. And because we have so many questions we're going to try and cover, I'm not going to read the verses, but you want to encourage the student that you're discipling to read the verses.

And you want to go through, when it comes to this one, take your time. Make sure they fully understand the answers. Not just that they have a verse to look it up, but give them the answers and explain the answers to each of these.

Common Objections to the Gospel

So the first objection, I'm a good person. Well you can go to Romans 3, 10 and 23. You can go to Revelation 21, 8. And you can go to James 2, 10. I don't have time to go through all these and if you have the syllabus, those are all in your syllabus, in your Grown in Grace book.

But basically that's teaching that no one's good, no not one. I mean we're all sinners. We all fall short of the glory of God. All of us. And there's none who are righteous, no not one. If you break any one part of the law, that's what James 2, 10 says, if you break any part of the law, you're guilty of all.

Revelation 2, 21, 8 is that all these, there's this long list of different things, back biters, gossips, sexually immoral, da, da, da, da, da. And all liars will go into a lake of fire. So these show that we're not a good person.

We're born sinful. We're born with a propensity toward evil. Okay? Not now, some other time. I'll believe when I'm older. I heard that this past weekend. I'm too young to become a Christian. I understand the gospel, I'm just, I mean maybe when I'm 80, I'll do it.

You see when I'm older, they want to live their life because they, what they're really saying in that is I'm afraid I'm going to miss out on some fun. Well actually when you become a believer, you realize those things weren't fun, they were enslaving.

All you're missing out is slavery. Not a big thing. But some verses. You can look at Proverbs 27, 1 and 2. Sorry, Proverbs 27, 1 and then 2 Corinthians 6, 2. 2 Corinthians says now is the day of salvation.

Now's the appointed time. Don't wait, don't put it off. Putting it off doesn't help. Putting it off is just going to make you, you know, that much closer to the day you're going to die and you don't know when that's going to be.

I mean I'll ask a person that says, hey I got plenty of time. What day are you going to die? Well I don't know. How do you know you're going to be 80 years old? You don't. You don't know if you're going to be another minute old.

160 ,000 people die every day. It's going to, one day's going to be you and one day's going to be me and most of us are going to be caught off guard by surprise. So we don't know. We may not have time.

I mean you could be in a car accident. You don't have time to repent. It happens in a split second and you're gone. Another argument, objection that some make is I don't feel ready. Well you can go to Ephesians 2 .8 .9.

You can go to John 6 .37. It doesn't matter how you feel. Okay? It doesn't matter how you feel. Okay? It's something that God does. You just need to obey. You need to submit to God. Okay? I have too much to give up.

Ah! The things, all the toys or the sin that I enjoy. Matthew 6 .33 talks about seeking first the kingdom of God and all His righteousness and then all these things will be added unto you. You can also look at Revelation 20 .11 -15.

What are you really giving up? Death? I mean, wouldn't you rather have life versus death? Another objection. Maybe some of you have had these objections. I'm afraid I can't live it. Galatians 2 .20 I've been crucified with Christ.

It's no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me. Philippians 1 .6 and also 2 .14 teach us that it's Christ who's going to live through us. So, you're never going to live it. You can't live it on your own.

That's the reality. You trust God. You submit to God and He brings you through it. Don't be afraid of being a hypocrite. The hypocrite is someone who says they're a good person and they're not. As a Christian, we know we're going to fail.

So, failure isn't... It's not an option. It's not something... We don't have forgiveness. That's the thing. We have somewhere we can go. We can always go and ask forgiveness of God. Let me get going because I won't get through all these.

God is love and He would not damn any of you or send anyone to hell. Matthew 25 41 and 46. Revelation 20 10 -15. Okay? It's just not true. God is going to send people to hell because Psalm 711 says He's a just judge and angry with the wicked every day.

I don't believe there is a hell. Well, you can look at Luke 16 19 -30 Revelation Again, 10 20 -10 and you can look at 21 -8 and it really doesn't matter what you believe. You don't believe in hell? That's nice.

That doesn't make it true. It matters what reality is. Hell exists. You may not want to believe it but it's there. Which one's next? I'll have a second chance. Hebrews 9 -27. It's a point out that the man wants to die and then the judgment or in Luke 16 19 -30 you have the case where the rich man wanted a second chance but he wasn't going to get it.

I hear this on the street all the time especially in the South. Well, I'm already religious. I'm already a Christian. Right? Titus 3 -5. Galatians 2 -16. Ephesians 2 -8 -9. It's not by your religious works that you get saved.

Someone says, well, I'm already religious. They're saying, I do works. I do these works and that's not going to cut it. I'm too great a sinner. So we go from I'm too good person to I'm too great a sinner.

Some people actually do argue that. I can't be forgiven. God can never forgive me because why? They don't forgive themselves for something they did. 1 Timothy 1 -15 Isaiah 1 -18 and Luke 23 can give an answer to that.

My friends and relatives won't understand. You might be right. Matthew 10 -32 -38. 2 Timothy 2 -12. They may not understand. You may lose those relationships. But what's more important to you? Your eternal soul or your family?

You'd rather give up your soul for your family than you're really not believing it. I've always been a Christian. I was born one. 1 John or sorry, John 1 -12. No, you weren't born a child of God. Right?

You have to receive Christ. Also John 3 -3 Ephesians 2 -1 -3 and 2 Corinthians 5 -17 can give an answer to that. But we need to be born again. I believe death ends it all. After death, there's nothing.

Really? That's not what Luke 12 -4 -5 says. Hebrews 9 -27. Revelation 20 -11 -15. We've had some of these a couple of times. So you see, some of these verses, if you want to memorize them, you can just memorize the ones as I have that fit into multiple categories here.

So you don't have to go through them all and memorize all of them. Start with the ones that you see in the questions that you get most often or the ones that answer the most objections. How do we know there is a God?

Well, Psalm 19 -1 -6 Romans 1 -19 -20. 2 Timothy 3 -16 God says He told everyone that He exists. So I'll trust His word for it. We already know God exists. I don't have to prove it. And quite frankly, there's no proof that they're going to accept anyway.

There's no proof that they're going to accept as real. And then, last one. How do you know the Bible is true? Well, 2 Timothy 3 -16 says God inspired it. That's just some answers to questions you get.

Now, how do you know the Bible is true? What they're really doing as they're questioning is trustworthiness. And typically, they've never even studied it. They'll say, oh, it's been copied and edited.

It has been copied. And there have been mistakes and accidental changes. You know, someone's copying this line, sees the word here, then he skips down to this line because he sees the word there. Okay?

And so sometimes that can happen. That's a mistake. That's a variant that can happen. And, you know, that's something that you have to be able to understand. But when you see, what they're really questioning is, sometimes they'll argue it this way.

You can't trust the Bible because men wrote it. Well, men wrote everything that we know. Right? And they'll say those things are trustworthy. They'll believe in Darwin's theory of evolution. Well, he wrote that.

It's a theory that he came up with. Well, people before him. But, you know. So you can deal with that to say that it's not man who wrote the Bible. It's God through man. Therefore, because God cannot lie, the Bible can be trusted.