Part 2 - Evangelism & The Believer (Lesson # 11 Fundamentals of the Faith)

All right, we're continuing with our study of the essentials of evangelism.

This is part three. So evangelism and the believer on the second page, we ended with the essentials of evangelism.

And we said, what must a person, this is the question. What must a person believe about Jesus Christ for salvation?

You know, this is true. There are people who say, well, yes, I believe in Jesus, but they don't mean the same thing that you mean.

They might be talking about a different Jesus. That's one possibility. But when we say, believe in Jesus, put your faith in Jesus, some people view him as the wise moral teacher, but he's just a, an enlightened man, a good man, but not

God. Other people think he's this or that. But the statement here, what must a person believe about Jesus Christ for salvation?

Number one, you must believe that Jesus is God. We went through the Caesarea Philippi confession in Matthew 16, where Jesus said to his disciples, who do men say that I, the son of man am.

And they said, well, some say that you're Elijah or John the Baptist or this person.

Who do you say that I am? And Peter said, thou art the Christ, the son of the living

God. And that was the profession of faith that Jesus was looking for. That's the profession of faith that saves that you believe that Jesus is the son of God.

And by saying son of God, that makes him equal with God. So in other words, in order to be saved, a person must believe in the deity of Christ.

That's really the bottom line. Also, we must believe that Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life, the only way to God.

There's just a whole bunch of people that call themselves evangelicals, but they think that this religion is a path to God and, well, you can get to heaven through this way and just being sincere or a good person.

Well, think about that mindset back in the first century, imagine that there's

Peter and John and the apostles and they're teaching the church, but all the people in the church think that Baal worship is a legitimate path to God too.

Would that fly in the early? No, but that's essentially what you're saying today when you say that other religions get you to God.

So that would just be evidence that a person didn't really understand the gospel if they think

Baal worship or Islam or some other religion or other path is legitimate.

So you need to believe that Jesus is divine. Need to believe that Jesus is the only way of God and closely connected with that.

Acts four 12, that Jesus is the only way of salvation because if you think you can be saved by your good works or do something else again, that just shows you haven't understood the gospel.

Okay. Questions, comments, reactions. Does that make sense?

That was very well stated. Okay. Thank you. All right, let's go on to the next one.

Be the following are key verses in sharing the gospel message.

Look up each verse and briefly summarize the main point.

So you've done this on your own, right? You have homework, so we don't need to necessarily turn, spend time and turn to these verses.

These are also some verses I would recommend that you memorize if you haven't already, but Romans three 23 says that what all have sinned and have come short of the glory of God.

Romans six 23 says for the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Jesus Christ, our

Lord. And you can already see that this is what we call the Romans road.

So this is a very well known and I would argue effective way to evangelize or to share the gospel.

Start out with people realizing they need to realize they're a sinner. They need to realize the bad news.

Then they see their need for the good news of salvation. Marcus, you had a hand up. Well, I also agree with the importance of memorizing all of these so that you can, so that you can, and when you, so that you can speak the words that God speaks, his word is so much more important than anything that we could say.

So when you quote scripture and if anyone would like help, because I find you need someone else to help you memorize.

I have Giles and I have Mark the player beside me. And especially if you would be willing to do it in King James, I would be willing to give anyone my phone number and we could spend 15 minutes a week or 30 minutes a week doing it because I enjoy reviewing all of these.

And we need to get in conversations with people on this. Yeah, I'm just getting short just because I'm so old.

Yeah. Okay. While you're silencing your, your phone, but this, yeah, this is the importance of memorizing scripture.

So when you get into one of these conversations, it just, it just flows out because you know it so well, all of sin and have come short of the glory of God.

The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God. So if you do that, um, it makes you more effective because you already know what to say, and then you can, you can simply share it.

Just one piece of advice for memorizing scripture. Well, Marcus gave the advice of having an accountability partner, somebody who will kind of hold your feet to the fire maybe, and just help you out and encourage you.

And, uh, you can do that with them. That that's one piece of advice. Another one is choose a translation and stick with it.

My problem was this totally messed me up. I grew up with the King James version and I memorized all these verses in the

King James version. And then somebody turned me on to the NIV and then I read through the

NIV and memorized a few in the NIV. Then I I've settled on the new King James version for the past 10 years or more.

But when you're, when you're reading all these different translations, it's hard because then you start to blend the two.

And I would just recommend picking one translation and sticking with it, but that's just my advice.

Okay. So this, we're talking about sharing the gospel with people. So we start out all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

The wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus, our

Lord. Romans five, eight, the God demonstrates his own love toward us and that while we were yet sinners,

Christ died for us. See, even here with MacArthur, I think Romans six, 20, that's not the

King James, but I think Romans five, eight is. So even they're mixing it up a little bit, but whatever. First Peter two, 24, he himself bore our sins in his body on the cross so that we might die to sin and live to righteousness for by his wounds, you were healed.

And then Romans 10, nine, that if you would confess with your mouth, Jesus as Lord and believe in your heart that God has raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

And then John one, 12, as many as received him to them, he gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in his name.

So you can kind of see there's a process. You start out with the bad news, start out with the problem of sin and then the consequence of sin and then

God showing his love towards sinners or what God did about it.

And, uh, that's one reason, of course he throws in first Peter and John. So this technically isn't the

Romans road, but it's very similar. It's just good. The point is it's good to have a thought out way of explaining from scripture what the gospel is.

So any comments on this section? And I would just reinforce this idea.

When you share the gospel, you're going to use your own words and explain it in a certain way because people, they might not understand, they might ask questions, but start out by using

Bible verses because if we're just winging it and explaining it with our own terminology, we're inclined to kind of jumble things up a little bit.

So I would, I would give them clear verses of scripture, at least to start with. Okay.

Most people do not understand these truths. So, uh, let, let's see if we agree with this.

Most people, do you think this means most people in the church or just most people in general?

Well, let's read through it. Most people do not understand these truths that number one, man cannot save himself.

Number two, that God is holy and righteous and he hates sin. Number three,

Jesus Christ is God. Number four, Christ's death on the cross was for our sins.

And then number five, Christ offers heaven as a free gift of God. And then it has verses attached to each one.

So is this true that most people don't get it? They don't understand that man cannot save himself.

Now, hopefully in an evangelical Bible believing church, everybody understands that, or at least almost everybody would understand.

Okay. But to people in the wider culture, understand that man cannot save himself.

No. Why is that? How do, how do we know that that's true? Yeah. Okay.

That's one answer. Um, right.

Yes. I think the majority of people, if they believe in any concept of salvation at all, they believe that it depends on them and what they do.

Uh, we looked at Freemasonry on Wednesday night, two weeks ago, and it talked about how through, uh, service and the rituals of Freemasonry, man can make himself a better man.

Now, maybe they don't teach salvation in the same way that we do. Uh, well they don't, but, uh, the idea is just almost universal that salvation is you doing your best doing good works.

And that's what justifies you in the eyes of God. That's that basically summarizes every religion on earth except biblical

Christianity. Stacey, you had a hand up. I was just going to add to Linda's statement.

I guess maybe it just means the same thing, but most people say, well, I'm a good person, right?

The self, it's all about idolization. I think I'm a good person.

Yeah, I can make the excuse of that. And you know, so because of that, I'll be,

I won't go to hell because of that. Yeah, now that's so true.

Uh, Joyce, that's the natural human response needs to change us.

So we, we think about him, we think his way. Yeah. And this statement, you know,

I'm a good person. See that itself is self -righteousness. Most people in the world, if you ask them, what's, what's self -righteousness or who, who, who's self -righteous.

Do you know anyone who's self -righteous? You know what they would say? They say, yeah, it's all these Christians that think they're no, no, no.

It's Bible. Believing Christians are not self -righteous. Well, I mean, maybe there are some who are, but, uh, the two wouldn't work together because to be a

Christian and to understand the gospel, you have to realize that there's nothing good in you that I'm a sinner without the grace of God.

I have no hope. That's the opposite of self -righteousness, but oftentimes Christians get accused of that, but actually it's the people who say, well,

I think I'm going to heaven because I'm a good person. That's self -righteousness because you're saying,

I, the self am a good person. I do the right things.

That's righteousness. So I'm a good person is a self -righteous statement. If you're saying that your goodness is making you acceptable before God, that's self -righteous.

Larry, I'm a good person compared to who, right?

The lousy neighbor, don't point at me, you know, are you comparing yourself to other people or are you comparing yourself to Christ who is the true one that we have to compare ourselves to where we will see that we really

Romans three 23 falls short. Right. Well, they're probably not comparing themselves to Christ.

Uh, or if they were, they don't understand who he is. Um, yeah, but that's, that's so easy that you can justify yourself by saying, well, look at this guy.

I'm not as bad as him. Well, yeah, that might be true, but so what? That proves one thing that you're not as bad as him, but you're not as good as this person and you're definitely not as good as Jesus.

So yeah. What's the standard? God is the standard. Jesus Christ is the standard.

God's standard is perfection, which we all fall short of Marcus. I'm reading

Jeremiah currently and he, he had a rough goal of it being an evangelist.

We ended up in prison and beaten and all and rejected and so forth and begin to begin to wonder why

I haven't been, but he did say the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked who can know it.

Um, and because you tell somebody that it's like insulting someone when you do tell them that you have to admit it, you just plain have to admit it.

Right. Yep. So most people do not understand this idea that man cannot save himself.

And the scripture references Mark 10, 26 and 27. Okay. The next statement, most people, do they understand that God is holy and righteous and that he hates sin?

Um, I don't, I don't think so. Uh, most, most people out there,

I don't think even know what the word holy means. They know it's like tied to like religion and Christianity, but I don't think they know what the word holy means.

Righteous. Again, I think when most people hear the word righteous or righteousness, they automatically think of self -righteousness and then they have a warped idea of what that means.

Did most people think that God hates sin? Okay. Here's where I don't think a lot of churches understand this because this is not the message that I'm hearing from even the popular evangelical pastors of this generation.

I don't, I don't hear this message from most. Do you?

I don't. What's the emphasis today? God is love and okay.

Yeah. God doesn't support sin, but sin really isn't that it's not that bad.

Things are not as bad as some would make it out to be. So I don't know.

Some people obviously do understand this. Many do not, but the scripture references

Psalm five, who'd like to look up Psalm five, four, four, and five. I mean,

I've, I've heard people that went through Bible college and seminary and they are told by their professors, do not use words like sin, wrath, judgment, hell.

Like, do not talk about this if you want to grow your church. And obviously a lot of people, um, take that advice because I mean, when's the last time you've heard

Joel Osteen preach a sermon against sin and condemnation and hell, I don't think it's ever happened.

And yet he's the most famous evangelical preacher in the United States. And he sort of sets the tone for a lot of smaller churches.

So some people understand it. Some don't who would like to read Psalm five, four, and five.

Jen. For thou art not a God that hath pleasure in wickedness, either shall evil dwell in thee.

The foolish shall not stand in thy sight, thou hagest all workers of iniquity. Okay. If you, if you even heard a sermon on that verse, that God hates all workers of iniquity,

I mean, that's a new, the idea that God hates anybody is just not a message you find even within evangelicalism.

And yet you heard, that's what the Bible said. And if you, if you have your Bible open, you see that. So just the concept that God actually hates some people.

I mean, there, there are probably millions of professing evangelicals that would not even entertain that possibility.

And yet that's what the Bible says. So you kind of have to figure out, okay, what's going on here. Marcus. And at the same time,

Romans five, eight, we went over before it said, God, you know, proves his love, demonstrates his love, commended his love in that while we were yet sinners,

Christ died for us. So they say, oh, he died for us. Oh, he loves us. Oh, he died for us.

Even though we're sinners, he loves sinners. It's important to know that, that he loves sinners.

That's the good news. Yeah. Bad news is we're sinners, right? Good news is he loves sinners, but he doesn't love sin and, and the wages of sin is death, not just death at the end of your life.

I'm talking about death in your relationships, death and just death and, and everything.

So if you want to have life and life more abundant, quit sinning and sin shall no more have dominion over you.

Man, am I preaching all sky. Well, someone, even, even that, well, hey, you need to stop sinning.

Well, yes. I mean, that, that is the message to repent and turn from sin. But a person to be right with God has to believe upon the starts with believing upon putting your trust in Christ.

That's what saves a person. And then the rest of your life is sanctification and overcoming sin and all the rest.

But yeah, this is just not a message that God hates all workers of iniquity. And then he loves the world so much that he sent

Christ to die on the cross. And those who receive Christ are the special objects of his love.

I mean, this is, it's like I said, it's just not something that you only hear one side these days.

Uh, Colossians two nine. Do most people understand that Jesus Christ is God? I think evangelicals who are saved, while I know evangelicals who are saved understand this.

Do most people out there understand that? Well, they don't believe it. Do they, do they even understand this is what the

Bible teaches though? What do you think? I think it's a mix.

I think a lot of people understand that that's the beliefs of the Christian church, but might be half and half.

I don't, I don't know. Do most people understand that Christ's death on the cross was for our sins?

Yeah. I think a lot of people understand that. Uh, but there is a whole movement of maybe liberal or progressive

Christianity that doesn't view the cross as Jesus dying for our sin. They, they say

Jesus was an example. Um, so I, I think that's a mixture too.

Romans six 23 that Christ offers heaven as a free gift of God. Well, that kind of goes back to the first one.

No, most people don't see it as a free gift. They believe you have to work for it. And that's

Romans six 23. All right. Any final comments or questions on this? Joyce.

Um, I was just thinking that people, well, most people, I think they will discipline their children for the sins that they say, you try to instill moral behavior, you know, you wonder how much they think about their own, um, sin in their own ways of living.

Sure. You can't talk like that to you. Well, I think a lot of people don't even discipline their kids anymore or try to instill moral behavior.

So if they don't even want to do that with their own children, then, you know, the comparison of God being a heavenly father and disciplining his children, like if you don't even do that in real life, the idea that God would do that, that's all out the window.

But yes, a generation or two ago that was understood. And, um,

I just don't think it is now. Things have changed. Uh, Larry.

Yeah. Yeah. And doesn't the scripture say that he who spares the rod hates his child?

Yes. Right. So a good parent is now, obviously there's parents that are abusive and go overboard.

And that's, that's a whole other problem. That's bad too. But yeah, um, that's what the

Bible says. And I will admit that I disciplined children with the wrong attitude.

I did it out of anger, which is never right, uh, to discipline in that mode.

And, uh, but to do it in love, how God disciplines us, right.

And then, you know, then we get the picture. Yeah. Yeah.

There was a story I saw this week. I don't know if it was the Lieutenant governor of Minnesota.

Did anyone see this? I think it was Minnesota. Don't quote me on that, but she came out, did a press conference.

Basically she was saying, if your little kid, if your child could be what? Six, seven, eight, nine years old.

If your child says, you know, mommy, daddy, I'm, you know, they're a girl or they're a boy and they say,

I feel like I'm, I'm a girl, but I feel like I'm a boy and they want to have reassignment surgery.

If you're a good parent, you will not prevent them. Basically the message she was sending is good.

Parents listen to their children. Good parents do what their children want. Of course.

I mean, that's, I don't, I don't even have the words, but that that's a pretty con maybe that's an extreme case with putting their children through a sex change operation that is an extreme case.

But just the idea of a lot of parents are controlled by their kids. Their kids are the ones calling the shots in the home.

And you know, that's true. And that is not, you know, that's not biblical.

Marcus, the scripture prior to the scripture that Larry quoted is foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child.

Yeah. And if you don't believe that come and, uh, uh, and be a school bus driver.

We can both share hundreds of sign in bonus. Yeah. So, yeah, well it's not biblical and you're not doing the kids any favors and I don't know what that has to do with evangelism, but let's get back.

It was tied in somehow. Um, okay. Number four strategy for evangelism.

Witness by your life. Number one, it says, what kind of life should we live and how should we appear to the world?

Philippians two 14 and 15. Okay. It says, do all things without grumbling or disputing so that you will prove yourselves to be blameless and innocent children of God above reproach in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation among whom you appear as lights in the world.

Okay. How many people are convicted by this couple? But this is the, obviously as believers, we don't want to be known as people that are always, always griping and complaining.

We're not thankful. We're all, we're always arguing with everybody and at odds with everyone else.

Um, there's a lot that could be said about having a good testimony. You know, maybe you grumble and you complain to your spouse or to your best friend, and that's better to get it out there maybe than to just the world.

It's, it's probably not good to go on Facebook and air out your grievances to everyone in anyone, but yeah, do all things without grumbling or disputing.

Okay. Any comments here? The point is our people know us, they watch us, they hear us, and we just want to be, some people have no self -awareness, right?

They just say and do things. It's like, what, what are you thinking? So we want to always be aware that people are, even if it doesn't look like they're paying attention or listening to us, they are.

So we want to, we want to have a good, good testimony. And no, nobody's perfect in this area, but it's something we need to be mindful of because if we don't have a good testimony, people, if they have a negative impression of us personally, then they're probably not going to listen to what we have to say religiously, right?

So now if they have a negative view of us, because we believe the Bible, okay. Well, I mean, that's going to happen.

There is something about being persecuted for righteousness sakes, but we don't want to just be a jerk because that's going, if you're a jerk in life, uh, you are not going to be very effective at witnessing.

Larry, I was just thinking about, it comes down to our attitudes and if we do have a negative attitude and then we will view everything with that negative attitude.

But if you have a positive attitude and look for the good in everything, it's there.

It's sometimes hard to find and you got to look for it, but it's there.

And boy, by changing, having an attitude change like that,

I mean, makes a whole difference in your life and your heart and it shows on your face.

Yeah, this is a powerful statement in the book. It says others will see your redeemer through your redeemed life.

That's true. Marcus, we have to be controlled from the inside out, not the outside in, we know the world and the flesh, even our own flesh, our own mouths, uh, or what we see and what we hear, if that is going to be what affects our thinking and our mind, it's out of the abundance of the heart that the mouth speaks.

So we've got to start inside. That means wait. And of course, you know how

I feel about body, soul, and spirit. In our spirit, that place inside us, which

I think is deeper than the soul, but might be part of the soul, is what needs to control us, the

Holy Spirit in our spirit, that same thing that says, well, are you saved? And you say, yes,

I'm saved. Well, why are you saved? Because I'm trusting in the Lord Jesus that when he died, he died for me, that every sin

I did was somehow, I don't know how, but somehow, and, uh, that's, uh, that place where we say the

Holy Spirit, bear witness with our spirit that we are the children of God and that's, that's where we need to be controlled from the inside out.

Yeah. Yep. Okay. Read Matthew 5 16. What do people notice that makes a

Christian's life shine? They notice good works. They may see your good works and glorify your father, which is in heaven.

What will be the result? Well, I just said it. They'll glorify your father.

God gets the glory. And then according to Colossians chapter four, verse six, how should you speak to others?

It says, let your speech always be with grace as though seasoned with salt.

So we should be gracious to other people.

Okay. Yes. That's Ephesians 4 29 too. And I remember him by the alphabetical letters

E F G edifying, fitting, and gracious, right?

And obviously it's one thing to hear this. It's another thing to do it, to implement it.

Let me just encourage you in this way. If you ever feel like, you know, you sit through church one week after another and you thought, well, you know,

I've, I've heard this before. I know this. And I don't really feel like this is working for me. We're slowly being conformed to something.

So if you, if you're off in the world, doing the things of the world, watching TV, you're slowly being conformed.

Your life doesn't change and your thinking doesn't turn around in a month. It's a long process.

So just being in church week after week, month after month, year after year, this stuff is being taught.

It's being reinforced and you're slowly, some people are more quickly conformed, but you're slowly being conformed to the image of Christ.

And after a long period of time, this stuff, it's just instant. And you're thinking it's natural.

You automatically know it. Whereas if you spent the last 10 years out in the world, you you'd be thinking completely different.

So my encouragement to use, if you don't see some radical change within, you know, some people will get,

I'm going to get into this and I'm going to start going to church and people are all fired up for about a month. And then they're not seeing that those results in their life.

And then they drop out. Well, we're in it for the long haul. Amen. Following Christ is a lifelong process.

So you are being conformed to something or someone. So it's just the patient, you know, teaching and sound doctrine and having it reinforced and being around others who, who believe as you do that, that's what's important.

Okay. B it says, pray as Paul prayed for others, what was on his heart?

Romans 10 one, what was on his heart was their salvation. For what request did

Paul ask the Colossians to pray Colossians four, three, and four, that God will open up to us a door for the word so that we may speak forth the mystery of Christ, that I may make it clear in the way

I ought to speak. So opening doors of opportunities to share Christ.

And then number three, when speaking the word of God to others, especially in threatening situations, what should we ask

God to give us? Acts four 29. Oh, boldness or confidence.

First Timothy two, one and three and four says, first of all, then I urge that entreaties and prayers, petitions, and thanksgivings be made on behalf of all men.

This is good and acceptable in the sight of God, our savior who desires all men to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth.

Okay. So C it says, use God's word. What will God's word do?

According to Hebrews four, 12 says the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two edged sword and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit of joints and marrow is a marrow or marrow marrow.

Okay. And able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.

So use God's word when witnessing to somebody use Bible verses, that's where the power is in the word of God to how did

Paul use scripture and witnessing act 17, two and three, he reasoned with them from the scriptures explaining and giving evidence.

And obviously you cannot do that unless you first, what you can't reason with someone from the scriptures, unless you know the scriptures.

So that's why we're here to learn. What are the scriptures able to do?

Second Timothy three 15 to give you the wisdom that leads to salvation through faith, which is in Christ Jesus.

And then it says, we must be ready to speak of Christ in any situation.

We must know the essentials of the gospel. We must have confidence in God and his word.

And then first Peter three 15. There's that verse again, we've talked about a few times over the past few weeks, always be ready to make a defense, to give an answer, to give an account for the hope that is in you.

Okay. So then we learn, we have the words, we know the verses and then it says, pray and look for opportunities.

See, if we're looking for opportunities, the opportunities are there. It's just a question of, are we ready?

And are we looking for them? So how can you be ready? Well, you've got to know, you've got to know the gospel.

You've got to know the verses, know basically what you would say. And that's something that you can think of right now.

Just think to yourself, okay, let's say tonight or tomorrow at work, I'm given the opportunity to talk to this person.

If that happened, what would I say? You can just think right now where you are, what, how would

I start? What would be the first words out of my mouth? What scriptures would

I go to? What would I say now? If you're thinking to yourself, yeah, well, that's a good question.

I have no, I'm not sure what I would say. Get sure, get sure this afternoon, just kind of come up with something of just a place to start the first few times you do it.

Yeah. You might stumble over your words and you might be, but the fact is you're doing it. And the more you do it, the more, what's the word boldness or confidence.

You're never going to have the boldness if you're not prepared. And if you're not praying and you're not doing it, you need that experience.

Marcus John three 16. Surely everybody knows John three 16.

Go ahead. Go ahead. Start there. I got a big red t -shirt with great big letters. John three golden 16.

True story. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think I would have a different approach with different people.

That's just me. But, but when you get down to the message of the gospel, that's always the same because the gospel is what saves a person.

So how, how you start and how you approach it might be different depending on the person, depending on the situation.

But the message has to always be the same. It has to be the gospel. And then the application, it says list several people whom you want to reach for Christ, pray regularly for those people and prepare for the opportunity to share the word of God with them.

Allow God to do his convicting work and trust him. And if you do share the gospel, somebody, and they don't believe it and accept it.

Right. Don't get mad at it. Don't get frustrated, you know, open up a door and maybe you're only able to share a little bit and then something happens or they don't want it to you vote, but you've got the door open a crack.

So don't expect it to all happen all at once, but we need to look for those opportunities.

And it says, remember, exemplify Christ likeness, witness to people with your life and your message will be more clearly understood.