An Evangelism Flowchart or Who is My Brother?

Well, let's uh, let's open our prayer. Lord we praise you for this beautiful morning. We're thankful to have the opportunity to gather together to look at your word and father to have fellowship to encourage one another to exhort one another to Be reminded afresh of the great things that you have done on our behalf father, we're just so thankful to Have been reconciled to you through the work of your son Jesus Christ and it's in his name.

We pray. Amen. Well, good morning. This morning. What I thought we might do is in keeping With what pastor Mike has been teaching about and what he would be teaching about if he was gonna be here this morning.

Is we're going to talk. I'm going to give you. It would be great if I had a had an overhead here so that I could do. I don't have one ready but if I had one an evangelism flowchart. Pastor Mike actually suggested this and in fact, I think what we're gonna do is we walk through this morning.

We're going to be asking ourselves Who is my brother? We've often heard the you know in my book my my brother's keeper. Well, how about who is my brother Jesus said who are? My brothers and sisters who is my mother?

We're gonna ask the question. Who's my brother my brother in Christ? It's like as I thought about this. It reminded me of maybe like a scene from a movie. Imagine this. You've spent the whole day. You've been down in Worcester with Bruce and the guys spent the whole day Evangelizing preaching the gospel to unsaved people and at the end of the day, you're exhausted.

You're exhilarated things have gone really well. You're just pleased at how the Lord has equipped you to preach the gospel at all these people and This person that you spent the entire day with sharing the gospel to unbelievers turns to you and says wow, wasn't that great?

You know, yeah, it was awesome. One of the best days I've ever had and then he says, you know It was so exciting when I go home tonight I'm gonna look in the Bible and see if all that stuff you said is really true.

What do you do then? He's go haha, you know, I I encourage you brother. That's great. Give him a hug and send him on his way. There's a problem. There's a disconnect. I think one one passage that just kind of brings this to light and it's something that can especially in today's day and age kind of creep up on us.

Sneak up on us so that we don't even Recognize the situation we're in until something like that happens. 2nd Corinthians 6 14 and 15. Do not be bound together with unbelievers for what partnership have righteousness and lawlessness or what fellowship has light with darkness or what harmony has Christ with Belial or What has a believer in?

Common with an unbeliever and What's the most commonly used? Application for this verse or these verses don't marry an unbeliever. Is that true? Yes, is that all Paul was addressing here it was even addressing that I mean if I think if we look to the context This isn't about marriage directly the bigger point is That in spiritual endeavors we ought not to link ourselves With unbelievers and is marriage a spiritual endeavor.

Yes, and therefore people apply this to marriage. But this really this when Mike mentioned this to me It's been something that's kind of been running through my head. Anyway, as some of you know, I have been on occasion known to be involved in things on the internet and posting in this one forum and I I've tried to Just ignore it as much as I could but a a topic came up a few weeks ago.

Actually a couple months ago right before Easter resurrection Sunday and you know, it just said the resurrection and So I just let it go. I ignored it people kept posting and you know. It's kind of interesting to watch what unbelievers will say about the resurrection.

You know, how can that be once you're dead you're dead my grandpa's still dead, you know blah blah blah blah well, you know your grandpa and the Lord might be different things, but Anyway, it's one believer unbeliever after another putting down their opinions and finally some guy writes and he goes.

You guys all babbling about. He goes he either believe the Bible you don't and he just starts, you know doing that sort of thing and I go right on. You know and it's about time for me to jump in and just kind of be his wingman you know shooting down the enemy aircraft and.

So we get going and then he writes something and he goes he sends me a little email you preach it. That's great you know good job and then he posts something in the forum and he says something like, you know, the most important thing is That you get baptized so that you can go to heaven and I wrote him offline.

I said brother I Said I I don't want to Debate doctrine in front of unbelievers and you know, frankly you can hold to the efficacy of. That means it works the efficacy of baptism as much as you want cling to it with all your might.

But don't present that as if it's going to save these unbelievers. Don't do that. And he says well, you know, you're right we shouldn't debate doctrine. You know in front of unbelievers and then he goes ahead and starts doing it.

So, but I just thought and as I exchanged emails with him It became more and more apparent to me that this guy probably isn't a believer at all. He said in one of the emails that I sent to him. I said I really have no you know, cuz he sends all these passages that allegedly prove that baptism saves and Washes away sins and I go that's interesting because most of them don't even mention baptism.

You know, it's a here's a frightening thing try this sometime see how much doctrine you can pull out of the white spaces of Scripture. It can get pretty big if you want to just say well, that must mean I can extrapolate.

Therefore you can import a lot of things into the Bible that aren't there and that's what this guy was doing. So I said listen I don't want to argue about a doctrine that hardly any Christians write back or believe in anyway, and he writes back and he says Hardly any Christians millions of Lutherans and Catholics believe that baptism saves.

I Said well, I was talking about biblical Christians. I Didn't say that that's what I wanted to say. I didn't say that. But here's the question. How do you figure out who is an unbeliever? And who is a believer?

Where do you draw the line? How do you know and what does it matter? What does it matter if the person that you're talking with is a believer or an unbeliever it eternally matters absolutely. Now, what are some questions that might come up?

Well, I don't know, you know, that guy says he's a Christian now if I start evangelizing him, what's he gonna think? How's he gonna respond? Look this I look this up on the internet. So, you know, it's authoritative 76 76 point five and it came from Wikipedia, which is.

Yeah, what more could you want? Seventy six point five percent. This is in 2001. So things may have gotten even better. Seventy six point five percent. That's a hundred and fifty nine million. Although I think there are closer to three hundred million, but seventy six point five million or Seventy six point five percent of Americans identify themselves as Christian.

So you can be talking to somebody and. And let me just say let me having been In the real world with a real job for a number of years, you know. There are so many there are only so many different topics that come up during the course of conversation.

With people, you know, what do you talk about? Especially, you know in my previous profession. We weren't allowed to talk. This was pretty funny. The department guidelines you want to talk allowed to talk about.

Let's see relationships will say you weren't allowed to talk about politics and. You weren't allowed to talk about religion. Well, you pretty quickly find out that there really isn't much you can talk about sports movies.

You know, but almost anybody that you talk to if you if you engage with them long enough. You're gonna find out that they've got some ideas about Either spiritual things or eternal things or the origins of the earth or something of that nature somewhere along the line.

They are going to present to you bigger ideas. And the question today is how do you then zero in? How do you figure out? Who is a Christian and what do you say to them when you figure out whether they are or are not?

At what point do you go from being somebody's friend? Somebody's Conversation partner to their preacher to somebody who is giving them the gospel. At what point does your concern for their soul outweigh your desire to be nice?

To be liked. So where do Christians people who call themselves Christians? Where do they stray from Christianity? Where are some places where we might see people wander away from the truth? The authority of the Bible number one.

Ding ding ding. That's 47. I agree. That's big. What else the deity of Christ or their views of Jesus in general. The cross what did he accomplish? I'm sorry. Yeah, whether there's a hell or not certainly.

Who is God. Yeah, and you know what generally speaking the the picture of God is what higher power grandfather. I mean, I put down benevolent grandpa. You know, it gives you whatever you want. You make a mistake.

Hey, we all make mistakes. Which brings me around my next one, what do people think about sin? What's the you know prevailing view among Christians about sin? Everybody sins. It's no big deal. I'm a good person.

You're a good person. We all make mistakes. Or you know what? I'm Genetically predisposed to this the other thing. But let me give you some Concrete examples and these are again all pull off the internet.

So, you know, they're authoritative. This is from the United Church of Christ website, so this actually is authoritative this was a news release. The Reverend Mike Schoonemeyer and I apologize to him if I mispronounce his name.

He is the minister of the United Church of Christ minister for lesbian gay bisexual and transgender concerns. Today this is June 8th. So this is recent released a statement supporting the outcome of the Senate vote on June 7th against the federal marriage amendment.

Here's what he said. I applaud the US senators who have voted against the federal marriage amendment for the courage they demonstrated and Urge the members of the house to demonstrate similar courage and conviction if and when the fair Federal marriage act comes before them in yesterday's votes the United States Senate acted to respect the US Constitution and its long history of expanding rights rather than Restricting them.

They respected the American people all Americans by not moving forward with a constitutional amendment That would have established one particular Religious view of marriage as the law for every person in America.

It's a minister United Church of Christ who would no doubt call himself a Christian. He seems to have a defective view of something or two or three or four or five things. So, would you Grant him the ground of being a Christian or would you evangelize him?

I think that's a pretty obvious one. This is from the evangelical Evangelical Lutheran Church of America the New England Synod, so this is our backyard here. This is their little statement from their website as stewards of the gospel in a world filled with death.

We joyfully embrace our baptismal call and that just struck me of course because my conversation with this Lutheran how important it is to be baptized and here's what they say that they are going to do this year.

They are going to pray unceasingly Good they are going to give extravagantly Good. I mean that's biblical. They are going to insist on justice. Put a question mark by that. I'm not really sure what that means.

It could be good could not be so good and then they are going to trust in partnership. Now, please explain to me what that means. I don't understand. But walking together they say we will these are their goals for the year.

Invite 20 ,000 more people to worship each Sunday. Okay. Double what we now give away. Okay. Strengthen our ties with and support of the evangelical Lutheran Church in Jerusalem and the Holy Land. Sounds like they want to get involved in some they're more involved in some kind of missionary activity maybe.

Then they want to link every seeker and youth every pastor and congregation with partners in faith and mission, whatever. And then they say this is our abundant life to share Jesus died that they might have life more abundantly.

And that is the idea they have of what the more abundant life is. Now some of that might be okay. But like I said, I think if you get down to the nitty-gritty when they talk about The baptismal call what is that?

What does it mean how is it possible that there is a gracious God who calls people through Baptism that if you're not baptized. You don't go to heaven from a local church that I won't identify because this is just pretty whacked.

But I I would like to have their building with With acceptance of Wide-ranging opinion with complete respect for the freedom of conscience of every member and without dogmatic authorities or hierarchies.

What does that mean? Without dogmatic authorities nothing above you saying that something is necessarily right or wrong. Complete freedom of conscience with love for God and Our neighbors and a sense of Christian responsibility for fairness justice openness and the inclusion of all God's children without using the Bible as a tool of coercion or A proof text for narrow-minded dogma.

What are they trying to say? We're. What's it? Yeah, the Bible is not our authority. Thank you very much. Where it agrees with us? We like it where it doesn't agree with us. Don't be so narrow. Narrow-minded that's old.

You know how old the Bible is. Why would you listen to that about those kind of things? The world has changed. Step into the new reality. We're Christians. We love God. We love people. It just so happens that we love people more than we love some 2 ,000 year old document now in those three examples alone and Notice I didn't have to go to Scientology Christian science Mormonism the Watchtower anything that we might readily say was a cult.

These are all people who would call themselves Christians who would expect to be received as Christians. Who say they love Christ? So what is our response when we meet somebody and they say hi Steve, please meet you.

My name is so-and-so and by the way, I'm a Christian. What do we do? What do you do? I'm sorry probe. What does it mean to be a Christian? That's interesting. What does that mean? Could you say is it legitimate to say.

You know, I'm glad to hear that. But you know, there are so many people out there today that say they're Christians. Then sometimes I don't even know what that means. Why don't you tell me what you mean by that?

What are you gonna hear? Let me tell you what you probably Won't hear and you stop me. If you think I'm incorrect. Well by being a Christian, I mean that prior to being saved I was dead in my sins and trespasses.

Completely unable to respond to the good news. God graciously caused me to be born again through his word Imparted faith to me and transferred me from the domain of darkness into the kingdom of his Son.

Because of this work of God I have been baptized in obedience to him and out of a desire to identify publicly with him. I Have a love for his son his word and his people so I seek to obey him love and service Church.

Proclaim the gospel to unbelievers and to submit to the elders. He has appointed at the church. I've joined you think you're gonna hear that. I Doubt it very much because I wrote it yesterday but I Mean do you think you're gonna sit there and hear somebody say?

This is what I believe and they're just gonna go through the whole gospel step-by-step and you're gonna go whoo check check check check perfect. The guy really is a believer. What's more likely to happen?

I'm a Christian and I Attend Church on Sunday, I attend the Catholic Church. I'm a student at Seventh-day Adventist College. I go to the local reading room of the Christian science whatever you know.

Well, I used to be a Christian and now I've kind of become an uber Christian by adding on Scientology. I once saw the head guy for Scientology actually say that you could be a Christian out of Scientologist.

But let's let's look at Luke 18 verses 18 and 25 a very familiar passage where Jesus hears the claims of someone and Then challenges them on those claims and a certain ruler questioned him saying good teacher what shall I do to inherit eternal life.

And Jesus said to him Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone. You know the commandments. Do not commit adultery. Do not murder do not steal do not bear false witness honor your father and mother.

And he said All these things I have kept from my youth. And when Jesus heard this he said to him One thing you still lack sell all that you possess and distribute it to the poor and You shall have treasure in heaven and come follow me.

But when he had heard these things he became very sad for he was extremely rich and Jesus looked at him and said how hard it is for those who are wealthy to enter the kingdom of God. For it is easier for a kingdom to go or for a camel to go through the eye of a needle Than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.

How could we apply that? How can we do what pastor Dave said. How can we probe? What did the Lord do here? He said I hear what you're saying, and then what did he do. He went right to the heart of the matter?

He went right to the guy's weak point that could be a little harsh. He turned him away. He went right where he knew it was going to hurt the most if you substitute. There how hard it is for those who are wealthy to enter the kingdom of God.

How hard it is for those who value anything other than Jesus Christ to enter the kingdom of God. How hard is it for someone who values? Diversity more than they value the Bible. How hard is it for somebody who values?

Freedom of conscience more than they do the freedom of God. Jesus Christ did not simply accept the claims of this rich young ruler. Why would we then accept just blindly accept the claims of anybody? Who claims to be a Christian?

I can't even I can't even begin to tell you and I'm sure that you all have a myriad of Experiences with people who say I'm a Christian. This is where I go to church and yet. What does it mean? How does it live out?

The question before us then is in Taking people's claims at face value. Are we in effect? Ushering them to the very gates of hell. Are we just blindly accepting what they say and just kind of escorting putting our arms around them as it were and taking them?

Right to the very portals of hell. We have a responsibility that goes far beyond that we can't just wait. See what happens and trust in someone's statement. Now again, we're not gonna find too many people who are going to lay things out perfectly for us.

We may not agree with everything that they say, but what are the bare minimums on? Being a Christian, how do you know when someone is a Christian and isn't a Christian at what point do you say? You know what?

I don't want to offend this guy, but I need to give him the gospel. When is that? How do you know? Any ideas thoughts suggestions Brian? Okay, you have to clearly define what the gospel is mark key. I mean again as I said earlier, I think so many people have a misunderstanding of sin.

That it's no big deal that somehow God either grades on a curve or He's going to he overlooks a multitude of things. That he's gonna pat them on the head and say what a bad little boy you were but go on to your eternal reward.

There's a grievous misunderstanding of sin. What kind of questions can you ask of people to kind of get a gauge for where they are? Bruce and and that is a good spot to go to you know. If you were to die tonight now, I always preface it because I always want to seem like I'm a nice guy.

So I'll always preface it by saying believe me I I'm not hoping this happens or anything. You know, I don't want you to think that I'm wishing any ill on you or anything. But if you were to die tonight and you were to appear before God and he was to say to you Fred Bill George Joan, whatever the name is.

Why should I let you into my heaven? What would you say and among people who say that they are Christians? I'm not talking about people who say I've never been to church. I don't believe in God. I'm talking about people who say they are Christians.

90 plus percent will say what? Because I'm a good person. Because I've done more good things than bad things. Because the things that I have done. Really in the big scheme of things aren't so bad because I've never done murder.

I've never committed adultery. I've never stolen anything. That's why God should let me in the heaven. The message is because I'm good enough and God likes me, right? So what do you do then? Brian and that you know, there's a real conversation starter or stopper.

Do you know you have to be perfect to get into heaven? Perfect. What are you talking about? Perfect. God demands perfection people really aren't ready for that. Are they sorry Pat? That's when they change the subject a lot.

You'll hear that a lot. Yeah. You know the room will get real quiet or it's like so how about those Red Sox. What about that Manny Ramirez whoo. What's up with papal bond, you know kinds of good stuff.

Brian, I'm sorry Bruce. Well, that's a good way of preaching the gospel to you give them the you know, you're giving your answer and you just go. Well, that's interesting. No, let me just give you the answer.

I give and you give them the whole gospel, you know. So it's kind of like we had years ago we had some unsafe family in the house, and I was just a new believer and The guy who was Mentoring me was over for dinner and it was a big holiday and all that.

And so I asked him to pray and I said, you know, we've got all these unbelievers here. And so he did I'm gonna I'm gonna say he did like a 20-minute sermon and it was couched as a prayer you know as the old pre preach pray thing and I was a little concerned when he gave an invitation afterwards, but you know.

But. But those are those are good things another question you can say is Or here's another way to go about it. Where do you go to church? And they'll tell you you know, our lady of Toluca Lake or whatever it is.

And you said to Luca Lake's a real real town in LA by the way, but so you you say oh, oh really? Well, that's interesting. Now. How do they say you get to heaven? You know, how or what do they teach about how you get to heaven?

And they'll you know, sometimes they'll go. I Don't really know. You know big well Why would that be because you can go week after week after week if you're going to this church where they you know Freedom of conscience and everything else.

How do you think they tell people how to get to heaven? They don't why would they do that? Because that way there would be some kind of right way and wrong way and everything's right. I'm not gonna impose on your conscience forget that you do whatever you want and God's just gonna make it all okay in the end.

Okay, so some people have no idea how to get to heaven. They could go to church every single day. You know every single day. Well, they probably couldn't go every day, but they could go every week for their entire lives and never find out how to get to heaven.

But if you say well, how does that church teach you how to get to heaven? And well now they get to give you their spiritual views. They get to tell you how they are going to Earn their way most likely to heaven.

I Know that that's certainly and and you know one that's actually a very appealing way to evangelize people. Why? Because you're letting them give their Opinion you're letting them get their own as it were voice out there.

I Know if I had I'm not saying I would have been saved any sooner because we know that's not true. But I know if I'd been evangelized like that I would have been a lot more open to it than by giving being given a track that said hey You're a Mormon and you're going to hell.

That probably that wasn't a real conversation starter. I have to tell you you know I mean we just kind of thought oh, yeah. Okay, whatever same old same old. So these are I mean that is a question that will probably generate more conversation than maybe a lot of them would.

What other kinds of things what other sorts of probing questions to use Dave's word? What other sorts of things can you do to get the ball rolling. Is there is there ever? I would say that there's almost no conversation other than you know.

Here's your change sir. Have a nice day. I don't think there are too many conversations that we can't somehow get to a more meaningful plane. Lewis oh that wasn't a hand. Dave I Were For the tape. Dave said what's your authority for that no?

And really to set kind of summarize that in a various in number of different ways. That's what you want to you want to tell people they say well. You know this is how I'm gonna get to heaven this is how I'm gonna be right with God and you can say well that's interesting either something along the lines of would you like to know what the Bible says about that or where could I find that in the Bible or.

Well What if you're wrong or you know what does the Bible agree with you or however you want to phrase it you need to go back ultimately every truth claim needs to be verified by Scripture. So they could say whatever they want, but unless.

You know I mean in other words I've probably said this a few two or three times. I know I said it in our apologetics class. But if there are I think there are closer to 7 billion people in the world. Let's say there are 6 .8 billion people in the world right now.

If there are 6 .8 billion different opinions just like the one you've expressed can we all be right? If there are 6 .8 billion different opinions about how you get to heaven can every single one of us be correct and the answer is no.

Lewis. Okay, I see that hand. Well and and of course that's exactly right. Do you have peace with God. Well of course the answer is if the answer is Well, I don't know or I'm not sure or no. Well, you know the Bible says we can't have peace with God.

Did you know that the Bible says we can be reconciled to God. Do you know that we can know that we're his child? You know all these kind of things you can just walk them through what the Bible says. I like that though.

You know just Go on as if they agree with you even when they even when you know they don't. We all have to develop our own I'll call it style but the the. The basic ingredients always have to be there but we can take as Lewis was saying we can take just about any conversation we can move it to a spiritual issue if we really really want to.

Yes, Dallas. I should have emailed her yesterday. Because if it's on the internet, it's all it's all good. But it is. People want to well they like to talk about themselves but eventually they're going to.

Bigger issues will come up as you develop your relationships with people and we have to listen Very carefully to what people say we have to analyze what they say. We have to look for openings to turn conversations toward Gospel presentations.

People like to tell other people what they believe about the world they like to do that. Everybody has an opinion, and they certainly don't want to have their opinion put down so here's here's a here's a evangelism killer.

Oh, that's dumb. You know that that's probably not going to work. But what we when we're talking with people who say that they're Christians. There are certain checkpoints where we'll just kind of listen to them.

We'll go. Okay. That's good. That's good. That's good. But when the train starts going off the track. You have to be ready, and you can't just be ready with your own opinion. What do you have to be ready with?

With the Bible. You can't I can't go to my Lutheran friend and just say you know what I I don't I don't see how you could possibly say it is that baptism saves. And Just leave it at that. What I can do though is cut and paste the entire list of scriptures.

We had the other night a Bible study and That was very effective so. Well, and you know what can't what can you? Say to something like that you could say well look. Here's here's a question for you for example the gospel of John was the gospel of John written to priests only.

You know and the answer is well, no, I don't think so not in the preface John never told us that you know we should only Read this book if we're priests and yet. What did he tell us he said? That these things have been written that you may believe Jesus is the Christ the Son of God and that believing you may have life in his name in John 20 31 so The book of the Bible has been written for us, and I mean that is in a number of places.

We could see that where those who read it are blessed. We can see that in Revelation 1 and Psalm 1 a number of places and There is never any Psalm 19. I mean you can Psalm 119. There is never any injunction against reading the Bible.

And and here's what I would say to him. I'd say listen. You believe that God exists right and he'd say he absolutely. Because he's a Catholic he goes to church or anything like that. He says now If God exists, and he has given us the Bible for what purpose?

Why do we have the Bible? Anybody want to answer that question? Why do we have the Bible? Instructions so that God we can know what God wants us to know so we know what to do. I'd say more generally speaking so that we can know God and so we can know man.

It is God's self-revelation to us, and it's his revelation of us to us. I mean we find out more about ourselves in the Bible anywhere else. Our self-esteem takes mortal wounds when we read the Bible.

But if we have this Bible so that we can know God. So that we can understand our own condition so that we can see the eternal Working of Christ the eternal working of the Trinity. Then why would that only be for priests to know if every single person's soul is at stake?

Why would that only be for priests? Everybody needs to know what's in this book. And I would you know I would just encourage him to to read the book. Period. I mean that and I understand where that mindset is coming from because when you think about it here we Before the printing press before Wycliffe before these men the the basic position of the Catholic Church was In order to preserve unity we must lock up the Bible and not allow anybody to have it because if everybody has it then there'll be all these different opinions the church will break apart and What a horrifying thing that will be.

When people actually know what the Bible says and they can reason things out for themselves who knows what will happen certainly they won't. They won't believe what we want them to believe. I mean, it's it's much like Last year Janet and I went to Mexico and we got to see a couple of these Mayan temples and The the the leaders of this one area where they had this temple where the I think it was twice a year probably on the Yeah those days The Sun the Sun at a specific time would appear right through this window and it would do all this hocus-pocus stuff and They made the people believe that they can control the Sun.

So the people were enslaved because they thought oh these guys have power over the Sun we better listen to them in that same kind of way, it's just this hierarchical. You know all power is invested in the elites kind of Thing that the Catholic Church did in in all through the Middle Ages where they kept the truth from the people they Took to themselves The Word of God they kept it from the people.

And we don't live in that kind of world anymore, but we want to encourage people to read the Bible. Catholics everybody when you evangelize people, what do you want to be able to do? Not only quote scripture, but you want to be able to show them scripture.

It's very helpful to be able to do that. You want to tell them to go home and read the Gospel of John. Anything else any other questions any other situations situations that you've been in or you're in right now I think that there are just it it it's just been remarkable to me to see how God Uses people who are willing To tell the truth who are willing to stand up and say I know that you think you're okay.

And I understand that I'm just kind of curious to see how you would you know how you can rationalize that against what the Bible says how you would equate your belief system with what the Bible says and I think that people who are confronted by the Bible Either have to they have to do one of two things.

It's well, that's your opinion. That's your interpretation of the Bible. We hear that sometimes or They make the Bible Unauthoritative it doesn't have complete authority over them. So it has to be one or the other they can't just look at it.

See what it says and says well and say well, I believe that and I also believe what I believe. They have to cancel it out. They have to negate it. So my encouragement to you this morning is to not Accept it at face value when somebody says I am a Christian.