Letters to the Churches Part 5

Let's pray. Help us to grow in the knowledge of you, dear son, our Lord Jesus Christ and remain firm in the confession of his blessed word. Give us the love to be of one mind and to serve one another in Christ.

Then we will not be afraid of that which is disagreeable nor of the rage of the arsonist Satan whose torch is almost extinguished. Dear Father, guard us so that his craftiness may not take the place of our pure faith.

Grant that our cross and our suffering may lead to a blessed and sure hope of the coming of our Savior Jesus Christ for whom we wait daily. Amen. Okay, we are going to. We'll see if we're able to do this.

I think we should. We're going to attempt to continue our walk through the book of Revelation. So if you have your Bible open up to Revelation 2, we'll do a little bit of review.

And.

And.

Work that out and I'm trying to make the camera here a little bit more conducive for those of you who are joining us online. Steven, you can hear me okay, right? Yeah. All right. Very good. All right.

Practical Evangelism: Preach the Gospel, Not Apologetic Pressure

Let's take a look at questions first. We had a question come up in the chat window. Thank you for the sermon. What is the best way to witness to an unbeliever, especially if she a is a family member, b refuses to subscribe to any kind of quote doctrine, and three is across the country.

Thanks for your help. I'm going to make this as clear as possible. I cannot think of a surefire way to witness to somebody that is guaranteed to not upset them. So you'll note that when it comes to family gatherings like at Christmas.

And.

At Christmas and Easter or Thanksgiving that oftentimes the worst family conversations are the ones that steer into either religion or politics. So if I could make one suggestion and that is avoid having those conversations at that time.

And also she's a you know, and what do you do if not only an unbeliever or what if they're charismatic? That's a whole that's a whole other issue. So with the unbeliever I'm going to recommend that you take a couple of words to mind or at least a passage to mind in the book of Romans.

And.

And the passage that we take in mind is is this Romans 1 16 and 17. I am not ashamed of the gospel. The gospel is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes. The Jew first and also to the Greek.

For in it in the gospel the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith as it is written the righteous shall live by faith. So the idea here is is that we must recognize that God works through means and that the gospel itself is the means by which God raises people from the dead.

So that's kind of point number one. Point number two along these lines also comes from Romans chapter 10 and this frames a proper understanding of evangelism.

And.

We get these wonderful gospel promises and consider what is written here in Romans chapter 10.

I'll.

Start at verse 9 which seems like an odd place to do it. But the context of what I want to get to is a little farther down in this passage. The text says if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and you 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 is and is saved. For the scripture says everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame. This is a great text by the way and one that provides comfort and assurance for all of us Christians.

Do you believe in Christ? Well, then note then the promises that you will never be put to shame. So there is no distinction between Jew and Greek for the same Lord he is the Lord of all bestowing his riches on all who call on him.

For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. So Paul asks the question how then will they call on him whom they have not believed? How are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard?

And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news. But they have not all obeyed the gospel for Isaiah says Lord who has believed what he has heard from us.

And then here's your important text. This one's the cross reference to what we just read in Romans 1. Faith comes from hearing and hearing through the word of Christ. Faith comes from hearing and hearing through the word of Christ.

So I would if we're going to talk about evangelism, I.

Must.

Kind of impress this upon you. And that is it is not your job It is not your job to convince anybody.

That.

That the gospel is true. It is not your job to convince anybody that they have to believe the claims of Christianity. You got to understand that When it comes to those things. That we as human beings because of our sinful natures are incapable on our own steam to believe these things.

So God works through means through the preaching of the gospel. The holy spirit then Creates in us faith or convicts us of our sins and gives us faith.

So.

You know, I I'm trained as a Christian apologist uh in in defending the Christian faith, and I recognize that Apologetic arguments do not have the power to convince somebody of Christianity being true.

They just don't. So what is it that convinces somebody that Christianity is true? That what is the holy spirit and he does it through the preaching of the gospel. So in that regard then if I can give kind of a general a general idea regarding evangelism.

Regardless of whether or not they are family members or not Your goal is to preach the gospel to them. Your goal is to tell them that christ has died for their sins. And that he has risen from the grave and that in christ There is full forgiveness and pardon before god and here's the thing.

Everybody still has the law of god written on their hearts and they know that they have fallen short. It's a lot easier to convince somebody that they've fallen short of god's glory than to convince them that god pardons freely.

In fact, the gospel is something that is only believed by an action of the holy spirit. So your goal then is to.

To.

Have a conversation Where you can clearly look somebody square in the eye and say listen christ died for your sins repent of your wickedness And be forgiven. That's really the goal here. And that's what the gospel is.

So.

You you don't have to convince them that god exists. Number one. Everybody knows that god exists and i'll give you another text. Romans is a is a great passage in this regard. Romans 1 again, you know talking about how everybody Pretty much suppresses the truth in unrighteousness.

Here's what it says as we continue in romans 1 the wrath of god is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men. Who by their righteousness they suppress unrighteousness they suppress the truth.

This is what we do. Um again, you don't believe me just try making some good biblical statements on facebook. You know and and see how long before they put you in facebook jail, okay. It's you know, or the people that uh, you are friends with take issue.

And I don't mean just like oh i'm i'm a little concerned for you, honey. No, it's like they go to war with you. All right uh, you know because of the things that you've said. So note that the human beings they suppress the truth in their unrighteousness.

And the text then says what can be known about god is plain to them because god has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes namely his eternal power and divine nature have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world and the things That have been made so that men are without excuse.

In other words God doesn't believe in atheists. God doesn't believe atheists exist. They don't. Everybody already knows god exists. So if you're dealing with an unbeliever who is Uh an atheist and kind of obsessed with the concept this is a person who is obsessed with Basically suppressing the truth and unrighteousness.

I mean, I don't believe in santa claus. I haven't for a long. I know I just hold on there. There was an outcry Dave I thought you were past that too. Anyway, um, but I I haven't believed in santa claus in decades.

And yet I do not have a blog dedicated to proving that santa claus does not exist. I don't have a youtube channel that is obsessing with all the evidence that santa claus doesn't exist. The funny thing is and this is this this is the interesting thing.

Is that atheists are obsessed? With denying that god exists and not just any god. You'll note they don't spend any time on shiva or vishnu. They don't spend any time on allah. The the god that they are obsessed with.

Is the christian god? Just think about that. Okay. And yet when people when when when people invoke a deity when they're cursing, all right, you know, I i'll point out that Bill cosby used to have a stick that he did talking about when he was a kid his father would let out profanities and and would yell at him and Say that his name was jesus christ and his brother's name was gd.

I won't even say it and one time the father mixed it up and accidentally called The one kid gd and he said but dad i'm jesus christ, you know, it it's a hilarious stick and unfortunately Bill cosby has proved out to be a pretty lousy person, you know, we've lost a good comic in that regard.

But all that being said when people when people are cussing and invoking a deity they don't sit there and go oh buddha. You know, I don't know anybody who goes Allah curse you, you know, it's nothing like that.

All right. It's always the christian god who gets uh invoked in these regards and that's a fascinating thing. And so you'll note then If you recognize that everybody already knows That a god exists. They're suppressing the truth and unrighteousness and it's not a generic deity that they know exists.

They actually know. Who the who the correct god is? This makes it super simple super simple so when I have conversations with atheists today, and they request to talk to me from time to time, which is uh, you know, just.

Um.

And I guess it's one of the things that happens as a result of my youtube channel and my podcast. My conversations with atheists are pretty short nowadays. I used to believe that I you know needed to be ready to defend you know the existence of god and all this kind of stuff and Recognizing that the scripture makes it clear.

There are no atheists um now when somebody says that they're an atheist and. And they want to play the game with me. I basically say listen. I already know, you know, god exists. I don't need to prove it to you.

So I have a message from god and I get right to the gospel. And basically I just tell them listen. You're a sinner. I'm a sinner. I'm not saying that i'm any better than you are. You're a sinner and i'm a sinner and here's the good news christ has died for your sin.

And god did you know sent his son because of his great love for you. He's had mercy on you and sending you christ and so the message is from god is simple repent of your wickedness. Repent of all the games you're playing in unbelief.

And be forgiven and be reconciled to god and you have eternal life as a gift by god. And and that's and then i'll say message delivered. And you'll know the gospel is the power of god unto salvation. Period full stop.

The end right so when you deliver the message note that it is god who works faith in people. And i'll i'll always remember uh back in the day when my son was young enough to be a cub scout and uh, you know, and uh, we actually started I started a cub scout pack in our neighborhood because.

In southern california the suburbs pop up like mushrooms. And so we lived in a suburb that had you know only recently been built out. And and so we didn't even have a cub scout pack in our in our in our area.

So we started a cub scout pack and we went from zero cub scouts to 50 in like two weeks. You know that that's a lot of cub scouts. That's all I gotta say. That's a lot. That's a lot of cub scouts. That's a lot of insanity and a lot of that insanity took place in my house okay, so, uh, you know, we we took the uh, You know, I I we had a den mother and barb assisted with that I was the pack leader.

But uh, so we had we had the den for my son's age meeting in our home.

And this.

We got to meet this woman from you know the neighborhood over from ours and she would bring her son and he was the same age as josh and. And always and again barb and her would get into these conversations about just about anything cooking, you know politics, whatever.

And uh, and and so one time she stayed afterwards because she liked to talk. Yeah, have you ever noticed about that? Some people they just like to talk and you can't shake them off. Okay, so this yeah, so this lady she liked to talk and um, and so.

All the other mothers had left and and josh was playing with her son. And uh, and you know, and she she steered the conversation into religion. And uh, you know, she goes. I see you guys are religious.

What do you guys believe? And and so I just Preach the gospel to her. No joke. I mean it was this it was there was there was nothing profound about anything. I said it was kind of mostly along the lines of well We believe number one that uh, we were created by god.

And that humanity has fallen into sin and rebelled against god but god in his great love and mercy has sent his son to bleed and to die for our sins and He's calling us to repent and to be forgiven and we have eternal life as a gift.

I mean it was pretty much that's it and that's about how long I I spent on laying out the gospel to her and uh. And she goes she asked a couple of follow-up questions. And then she goes, you know what?

I think I believe that. You do. It was like god just took a switch and just flipped it on and I didn't even see that coming, you know I was thinking she was gonna go home and just kind of you know. Mull it over and then come back angry the next week.

I don't know. I didn't know what to expect. I did but I all I did was preach the gospel and you know, and she wasn't even a religious person at all. She started attending church with us went to the catechism classes was baptized.

She's still a faithful member of a confessional lutheran church in lake elsinore to this day.

And.

All I did was tell her that jesus loved her and bled and died for her. That's it. You know, you know so. Nothing amazing as far as what I said, and that's the point when it comes to evangelism you have good news to tell people.

And the good news is the power of god into salvation. So faith comes by hearing. Hearing through the word of christ. So the idea then is this is when it comes to evangelism. You do not have the power to convince anybody of nothing.

All right, and you just you that power does not it's not given to you. The power is in the preaching of the gospel.

Trust.

What god's word says and Deliver good news and here's the best part. It actually is really good news. So it's pretty easy to talk about. It's it's really not that hard to say christ died for your sins.

God loves you. He sent his only begotten son that whoever believes in him wouldn't perish but have eternal life including you. And uh, or one of my favorite ways if you really want to boil it down. It says in scripture christ died for the ungodly and you qualify.

So, you know, it's that's a that's another fun way of putting it. But the point is preach the gospel and you never know what god the holy spirit is going to do. So you get the idea then so that works then with everybody.

Now when you're dealing with somebody who is in an erring church same principle applies. And that is is that you do not have the power to convince them that they are believing false doctrine. That's it's above your pay grade.

It's above my pay grade. Only god the holy spirit can do that and guess what he does it through means he does it through the word of god so I say it over and over again, and i'm kind of uh, you know, i'm.

It's like beating the same drum every week. But the idea is real simple is that facilitate the collision between what god's word really says. And what they're believing falsely, which is going to require you to do some research and be able to have an educated dispassionate conversation with them.

And be able to say, you know, you believe this or you've been taught this or your favorite teacher said that. But god's word says this. All right, and find that where those contradiction points are and then ask a simple question.

How do you explain the contradiction? And then shut up.

Okay.

That's the that's the hardest part. Shut up. Don't say anything else. Let them answer the question and don't help them. Let them stumble over the word of god. You know, so you show the contradiction. Read out the text show that it's a contradiction and ask them simply.

How do you explain the contradiction?

And.

You'd be amazed to see what god's word can do and i've seen it work in my own life because that's How how god delivered my wife and I out of the out of the latter rain movement Using that same thing. It's the god's word.

And by the way, if you haven't figured it out yet There is no secret when it comes to fighting for the faith. It all i'm doing is facilitating the collision between god's word and what some and what today's popular Preachers and teachers are teaching.

That's false.

And.

I'm, very selective in in the segments that I cover because i'm looking for an excuse. To preach the word because the power is in the word. Um, yeah, let's see. Let me find this text real quick because I I always find this to be helpful.

Um.

Apollos, hang on a second here. I'm gonna do a hunt for him. Um, did I spell him wrong. Uh, there we go. All right, and I'm looking for him in the epistles really quick. First corinthians. All right. First corinthians.

One. I guess it's there. All right. One.

Core.

I'm gonna actually go to first corinthians three. Here's what it says. First corinthians three. I brothers I could not address you as spiritual people but as people of the flesh. As infants in christ and by the way that kind of divulges the fact that when it comes to christianity This is an important bit.

There are people who are mature christians and there are people who are infant christians and infant christians. Are a little challenging to deal with and they wet themselves. So, you know you'd be ready to help clean up the mess is the best way I can put it if you're a mature christian.

He says so I fed you with milk not with solid food. You're not. You weren't ready for it. And even now you're not yet ready for you're still of the flesh. For while there is jealousy. And strife among you.

Are you not of the flesh and behaving only in a human way. For when one says I follow paul. Another says I follow paulis. Are you not? Being merely.

Human.

So what then is a paulist? What is paul? Servants. Servants through whom you believed as the lord assigned to each. I planted a paulist. Watered. But god gave the growth so neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything.

But only god. Who gives the growth? So you'll know this this is a very helpful thing, too. So the thing I like about when you let scripture kind of teach you this is that if you've been in evangelicalism.

There's a lot of pressure to do evangelism. And you're you're oftentimes made to feel inferior or given guilt trips because who have you shared? Who who have you led to the lord this week, you know, and it's like a sales meeting, you know.

You know, you're thinking do I get a commission check if i've led two people to the lord this week, you know. Uh, but the thing at the end of the day, here's the thing. You can't convince anybody that jesus is lord.

God does that. And so all you have is a gospel to present and god's going to do the work. And you'll know one plants and another waters and that's the that's the other bit of this is that. That that metaphor makes it very clear that sometimes somebody hears the word of god and it's like a seed that is planted that needs watering and You may not even be the person that waters it.

Some other person may have preached the gospel to somebody that you know. And you might be given the opportunity to water that seed. By telling people more about christ. But at the end of the day neither he who plants or he who waters is anything.

It is god who gives the growth. So all the pressure is taken off. It's like I get to tell people about jesus and I don't need to worry about the results. Don't worry about closing the sale. Uh, and you know, it's not your job to close the sale.

That's not how this works. In fact, there isn't a sale to be closed. God raises people from the dead. So you get the idea good questions and so you'll then note back in our gospel text today I made a big to-do in the sermon about the fact.

That the.

These scribes these these these religious leaders. They had all the evidence in the world That the son of god himself was standing before them. The children got it and were Shouting out. Who's that the son of david?

I mean, you know and they're doing this in the temple and these these people are indignant again. I'll come back to the the phrase because it was such a weird sentence. Hang on a second. Matthew 21.

Um.

Let me scroll down here. All right, so Let's see.

All right.

This is the question. All right, let me back it up here because this is it was in the context. All right here it is. Yeah. Verse 15 when the chief priests And the scribes saw the wonderful things That jesus did.

What a great sentence, right? Okay. They saw the wonderful things that jesus did and uh, thalmusia and uh.

You know.

Wonderful or amazing. This is a a fact. This is a very strong word. Um In the in the children crying out hosanna to the son of david. They were indignant indignant who on earth is indignant When they see Some fellow being brought into the temple on a mat who's lame.

He can't walk and jesus Heals him and he's jumping for joy. I mean People who are lame who are given the ability of the walk are not stoic about it. They don't go.

Thank you. Jesus.

That was really kind of you to give me my ability to walk back. You know, I I think i'm going to sit here and ponder the meaning of the universe now for the next five minutes.

No.

Somebody who's been lame their whole life. They've been given they've been given they've been given the ability to walk. They're going. I can walk.

I can walk and everyone's going. This is an amazing thing, but you're gonna know.

These religious leaders.

They.

Had all the evidence in the world. The son of god was standing before them and they were indignant at the wonderful things. Jesus did. Stop doing wonderful things. Jesus. How dare you? That's the nature of unbelief and you're gonna know in jesus's response to them.

And jesus's response to them regarding. Um.

Regarding.

John the baptist he says i'll ask you a question. Uh the baptism of john from where did it come from from heaven or from man? Jesus is basically saying listen guys. Um, you haven't even gotten to square one yet.

Um, so we're gonna have to go all the way back to square one. Remember that guy who was yelling at you at the at the river jordan telling you to repent that guy. Was was he sent from god or was he from man, which was it?

And the issue is is that they didn't believe he was from god. That's unbelief for you. So you can't reason with unbelief don't reason with unbelief now. Where does apologetics then fit as for christianity and that I think that's a valid question here.

Because you're going to note that there are the there are unending attacks against christianity, you know um, you know every generation of philosophers. You know, they they take their turn and make christianity and jesus christ into their whipping boys.

And and so you you have to answer. Uh, you have to answer the uh, the philosophers and the atheists to some degree but you're not answering them for the purpose of.

Um.

Of making it so that they'll believe that's not the purpose purpose of apologetics is to take Thoughts captive and to basically throw down arguments that are exalting themselves over christ. It's a function of the law.

So, you know when somebody comes along and says there's no proof that god exists you sit there and go. Really? There's no proof that god exists. Number one. You already know god exists. But let me give you proof.

Jesus christ claimed to be god in human flesh. And he proved his claim by rising from the dead on the third day after he was crucified. That's proof and the and the and the eyewitnesses Have written of their accounts of the of handling the the risen.

Touching and eating with the risen jesus and even his opponents recognized that the tomb was empty. All right, that's evidence. All right, so all the evidence comes back to christ. But the thing is is that you don't sit there and say so there now you have to believe they're not going to do that.

Evidence is doesn't convince people the holy spirit is the one who convinces people. So then you have to turn around and then you got to preach the gospel. So you you you give evidence for the purpose of defending the faith.

So that those who are christians do not have their faith stolen from them and also so that uh that you can give a you know, a. That's a biblical idea, but you have to preach the gospel if you expect somebody to believe right I think one of the the saddest Saddest accounts and all of the annals of christian apologetics is the is the story of anthony flue.

I don't know if you're familiar with this fellow. Anthony flue was an avowed atheist. He was a very ardent and strident.

Uh.

A hater of christianity and an atheist who who spent a lot of time debating christian theologians over the existence of god.

And.

At some point, uh. The arguments for the existence of god rattled anthony flue. And he went from being an atheist to a theist.

Yay.

There's a lot of theists in hell.

Okay.

There's a difference between believing that a god exists And believing that jesus is god in human flesh who bled and died for your sins. So again, the goal is never to convince somebody that god exists.

Everybody already knows that. The goal is to convince them That jesus has bled and died for their sins and you can't convince anybody of that. The holy spirit does that through the preaching of the gospel.

Okay. All right, so. Lyricist. Exactly. Many of the atheist agnostic friends Embrace islam and different forms of new age spirituality, etc with open arms, but there's something about christianity that triggers them.

Exactly.

Yeah, because because jesus exists that's the reason why. So it's fascinating how passionate they can be. You'd think that they'd have better ways to spend their time and energy If they truly believe the earthly time is all that they have.

Yeah, how do they say it yolo? You only live once they they claim which is false by the way. Um, so, uh Louis says that's a good point. So my sister believes in a higher power that we're all connected to.

Thank you so much pastor. And by the way, I never believed in santa claus either. I I can't say that I actually did. I was kind of bummed when I kind of put two and two together.

Yeah, I.

One of my favorite paintings of norman rockwell is the one that he has of the kid who discovers the santa claus suit and his dad's.

Wardrobe.

You know, oh no.

Anyway.

Um sylvester says I used to think because I didn't know all the apologetic responses to atheist arguments I couldn't witness to people I didn't properly understand the power of the gospel. Once I learned it here with fighting for the faith I actually gave the gospel to my first stranger and didn't have any anxiety over it.

I would have I would have in the past when I thought I needed all the answers. You don't need any answers. That's the best part. I mean a kid. You know and a 10 year old kid who knows the gospel could actually preach the gospel to an atheist philosopher.

And and and that's the thing the power is in the gospel. So lyra says it's it's really reassuring to hear that it's enough to share the gospel and that's. And that it's all in the in god's hands. I can be frustrated.

It can be frustrating trying to give good rational arguments for believing in christianity. When it doesn't seem to get through luis. My brother is into zen buddhism now and i've been worried about him.

This teaching really helped me and understand this also. Then is this that uh, your prayers are vital in this regard. Continue to pray for them. Um, I made the point a few weeks ago and i'll re-emphasize the point along these lines.

Is that.

Uh.

When you read texts in scripture that say that if you pray anything according to the will of god, he hears you. Or you pray anything according to the will of god, you know that he'll grant that you sit there.

You know, you know back in the day when I read passages like that in the gospel.

So really.

If I pray anything according to the will of god's find out if god's will. If I own a uh, you know. An aston martin which by the way is an extremely beautiful vehicle. It's it's like art on wheels, but really cool.

Art like james bond kind of art, you know, I can see myself like james bond. Can't you guys?

No.

Don't be so indignant dave. But the the but the the idea is I used to bring up lord Lord won't you buy me an aston martin, you know something like in the course that never showed up and at my door. You know, it's it's terrible.

I was expecting it just to manifest or whatever so, um, yeah, so it is I I drive a 13 14 year old vehicle. Yay. But hey, it works but uh, but the point is is that in scripture It clearly says it is not god's will that any should perish.

It is his will that people repent and come to a knowledge of the truth and they're forgiven. So there's so few passages that explicitly say this is god's will. That you should take that to mind and to heart.

And so I one of my favorite prayers for people that I care for who are unbelievers or are wandering from the faith. One of my favorite prayers is i'll sit there and go. Well god you say if I pray anything according to your will.