School Of Evangelism Session # 5

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Sunday School School Of Evangelism Session # 5 Date: 03/20/2022 Teacher: Pastor Brian Garcia

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Let me pray, Father, we come before you in the precious name of Jesus, our Lord and Savior, under whose blood and flow we are saved from our sins and deliver us from such a great wrath onto such a great salvation.
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We pray, God, now that you'd help us to turn our hearts and our attention to the material this morning so that we may be watchmen on the towers, telling individuals everywhere that Jesus Christ is indeed
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Lord and the only way to salvation. May you bless us in that endeavor, in Jesus' name, amen. All right, brothers and sisters, turn to the last page of chapter three.
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We're gonna look over the homework aspect of last week, and this is a participatory aspect of our class, and the homework, if you remember, was to pair up with someone in class and come up with a demonstration of the way of the master, create a setting, circumstance, and be prepared to act it out in class next
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Sunday. So we don't have time for everyone to share, but I'd like to open it up, if anyone prepared for such a demonstration, raise your hand, we'd love to get you to come and share.
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Don't you all raise your hands all at once, either. Vaughn, Miriam, excellent.
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Why don't you guys, would you guys feel comfortable coming up to the front of the stage? And we've got this mic here, and why don't you take the floor?
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What's the scenario that we're looking at right now? So the scenario is just, I'm walking around evangelizing, asking people questions about life and heaven, and stuff.
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And you're a non -believer? Yeah, I figured I'd just be a fairly straightforward, like, secular type, haven't thought much about salvation, you know?
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All right, we'll go for it. Okay. Good morning. Good morning.
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How are you doing today? I'm chilling, how are you? I'm doing pretty well, it's pretty chilly out today. Yes, I agree,
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I'm cold. Yeah. I was walking around just asking people questions about just God and life.
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Interesting. Yeah. Have you ever thought about, like, God in any way? I mean, not really, my parents are
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Christian, but you know. Your parents are Christian? Yeah. Okay, and are you Christian, or?
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I'm, you know, I just haven't really thought about it much. I guess I'd say I am. Okay, and what do you think it means to be a
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Christian? You know, like, I mean, there's Jesus, and, you know, he did good things, so you just gotta be like him, be a good person, you know?
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Okay, so you think Christianity is mostly about being a good person? I think so, maybe.
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Okay. You wanna take a test to see if you're a good person? I mean,
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I'd say maybe, I think I'm a good person, for sure. You said you're a Christian, you grew up as a
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Christian, right? Yeah, something like that. We didn't really go to church or anything, but. Oh, okay. You guys didn't go to church?
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No, not really. Okay. Have you ever heard of the Ten Commandments? Yeah, I have.
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Can you name some of the Ten Commandments for me? I mean, I know some of the straightforward ones, like, you know, does thou shalt not kill, or steal.
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Yeah, those are some of them. Can you name maybe one or two more? Maybe, there's no lying.
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Oh, that's kind of close, yeah. Okay. Let's measure you by the
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Ten Commandments and see where we stand, okay? Okay. That's kind of God's moral standard, right?
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Sure. And so, thou shalt not kill. Have you ever killed anyone?
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No. Okay, that's good. Jesus said that if you call somebody a fool, if you have anger against someone, that you've murdered them in your heart.
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Have you ever had anger against someone? Yeah. Okay, then, by Jesus' standards, you've murdered in your heart.
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Oh, okay. That's Jesus' standards. The person that we said was good before, you remember?
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Yeah. Okay. Have you ever lusted after someone? I mean, yeah.
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Okay, yeah. And by Jesus' standards, similarly, you've committed adultery in your heart.
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Okay. And we can keep going to the other Ten Commandments, but just by your own admission, two of those
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Ten Commandments you've broken. And God's moral standard is perfect. Jesus requires us to be perfect as his
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Heavenly Father is perfect. That's a verse you might have heard in church before. And so, by that standard, do you think
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God would condemn you or he would forgive you? I mean,
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God forgives, so he would forgive, right? Yeah, God does forgive, but he does have a moral law, and that moral law is perfect.
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And he is perfect, and he can't really be in the presence of things that are unperfect or people that are unperfect.
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And so, if you have, similarly, like in our court of law, God would condemn you by the sin that you've committed, not just by, not simply by, deciding to forgive you.
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And so, in your case, do you think that God would condemn you? I mean, since I've broken some of his laws,
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I guess he wouldn't have to. Okay, and do you think you would go to heaven or hell? Well, if God's condemning me, then
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I guess I'm going to hell, right? Yeah, you say that with such joy.
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No, I mean, it is kind of a bummer, I don't know. Okay, all right.
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Yeah. So yeah, by your own admission, you're saying you're going to go to hell.
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And does that concern you in any way? Yeah, it's a little bit concerning. Yeah, so Jesus Christ, he came, what
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Jesus Christ did, he wasn't just a good person. He was a good person in his life, but he was a good person so that you would not have to suffer the penalty for your sins.
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He died on the cross so that you would not have to suffer, and his good life is attributed to you now.
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And so if you would simply believe and trust in his work on the cross and in his life, you would have everlasting life.
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Are you willing to do that today? Is that how that works? Yeah. Okay. All right, thank you.
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All right, now, the part that I didn't tell you what we're going to do next is that we're actually going to critique your wonderful acting.
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And what were some things that you noticed from that interaction that was really great?
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Maybe some areas that could have been improved, or what are some observations from that interaction?
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Sarah? Right, that's right.
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Christian? What's that? Yeah, you did a good job.
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Anyone else have any thoughts or? Well, let me offer a really simple, guys, really simple critique that will really help you, anyone in that circumstance, which is basically, you want to plan for about a two -minute interaction.
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People in this world have very short attention spans, and if you're stopping someone on the boardwalk, or you're stopping someone at the store, guess what?
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You know, what's the first thing that people want to do? They're walking, they want to keep walking, they don't want to be delayed in their schedule, or whatever circumstance they find themselves in, right?
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So you want to plan for a quick interaction, and so you want to get kind of to the heart of what it is that you're there for pretty quick.
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Let me give you a really easy way of doing it. It's called an icebreaker, okay? You probably have this in your schools and corporations.
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They do icebreakers before meetings. Well, let me give you a quick icebreaker. Let me set up an example.
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Most of you guys, if you know me, I don't drink alcohol, but I do like to go to the bar.
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And the reason I like to go to the bar is because it's a great place to witness. And I once went to the bar, and there was a bartender, and I asked the bartender, what's the weirdest question you've ever gotten as a bartender?
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And they're like, oh, that's a good question, let me think about that. And then they respond, I say, I bet you I can one -up that. What do you think happens to you when you die, right?
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Boom, just like that. You're getting straight to the heart of why you're there. You wanna know where they're gonna spend eternity.
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And you wanna get to the heart of that discussion, which is Christ and the gospel. And so, an easy way of breaking that ice very quickly in any circumstance, it's just being poignant and asking them a direct question.
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Ma 'am, sir, what do you think happens to you when you die? And make sure you're not creepy about it either. Like, are you threatening me?
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Right? You don't wanna be creepy about it. But you just wanna be very direct and poignant and say, quick question.
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And one of the things that we have in our disposal as well, I'm gonna be ordering a couple of these, is have you guys ever seen million dollar tracks before?
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Yeah, and those you have to be really careful with because those can be really poorly misused.
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Don't ever leave those as a tip. Let me just tell you that right now. Don't leave it as a restaurant as a tip unless you're gonna actually put a lot of cash next to it, for real.
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So a million dollar track basically has a million dollar question in the back. And the question is basically, what do you think happens to you when you die?
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Or where are you gonna spend eternity? And so really direct, quick question that gets you straight to the matter that's at hand.
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Any other thoughts or questions in regard to observations from Fawn Miriam's acting?
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Yes. Yeah. That's right.
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Yeah, that's actually a great point.
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The fact that they ask, hey, do you have a Christian background? Because then you get more or less an idea of where it is they're coming from, what level of knowledge they have, and how you can then approach them in a way that will be impactful.
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If, for instance, I'm gonna speak to someone differently, say if they say, I'm an atheist, or I grew up Muslim, or I grew up Catholic, I can kind of know where to hit the points that will be the most impactful.
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The most effective at that given time and context. Gretchen? That's right.
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That's right. Excellent. Anyone else have a question or thought or observation?
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How about anyone else have a demonstration they'd like to give? Anyone else have a demonstration?
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No? Well, I'm not surprised. Well, here's what we're gonna do, though. I want someone to volunteer to do a demonstration with me.
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Who'd like to volunteer for that? Gretchen?
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Come on up. All right. What's that? You're gonna be interacting with me.
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Do you want to do that, or you can pass? Whichever you'd like.
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You'd be the unbeliever? Let's go. Yeah, all right.
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All right. All right. Now, I want you guys to give us a scenario. What's the scenario?
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Line at the grocery store. Ooh, so you know what that means. You've only got seconds.
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You've only got seconds. She's got children next to her. Okay. And they're fussy.
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Okay. So, line at the grocery store. Kids being fussy. Sounds like a really realistic scenario.
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I've been in that line many times. Guys, you're being fussy right now. Please, relax.
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Okay. And what should be the hook in a scenario like that?
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Or should I just come up with one? What should be the hook? So, what should be the introduction?
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How would one break into that conversation? I've had a couple of experiences like this, so allow me to woo you in how to approach someone in this circumstance.
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Oh, no. Oh, like the woman at the well scenario.
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Okay. Woman at the well scenario. Perfect. Okay.
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All right. There you go. Good, so you're at the line. Excuse me, ma 'am.
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I saw that you have a beautiful piece of cake there. Where'd you get that? Oh. Which aisle was that?
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The bakery section. The bakery section? Yes. Awesome. That's really, really delicious looking. Can I ask you a quick question, though?
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Sure. What do you think happens to you when you die? Oh, my. I mean,
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I think there's some sort of afterlife. You think there's an afterlife? Yeah.
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That's good to know. Did you know that? Hey, I know that you're,
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I know I'm a complete stranger. Your kids are running around. I don't want to take too much of your time, but I just want to ask you if you would be okay to take this track here, and this track answers the questions that you're, that I just raised about what happens to someone when they die.
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Would you be interested in reading this? Oh, sure. Excellent. Thank you very much. Okay. Boom, that's it.
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All right, was that rocket science? You know why?
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Because in a scenario like that, do you really have 20 minutes to spend with someone? Thank you, Gretchen. At the grocery line?
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No. But you know what I tend to do is I either have, let's see,
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I think I ran out of them. Yeah. Yeah, I ran out of them, which is a good sign.
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Little cards, either of mine, or there's little evangelism tracks. Have you guys ever heard of, what's this website called?
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Realtruth .org. There's a website that produces these tiny little cards that are really, really fun to use for evangelism.
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I'll look them up, and I'll also provide you guys the link if you wanna see some of them.
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But really simple, quick handouts. They're great for, for instance, if you're at the driveway or drive -thru at like McDonald's or something, and you wanna leave something with them, you just do it quickly.
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Again, it's an opportunity to put seeds. Now, are you gonna have an opportunity to lead someone to confession of faith in Christ with 30 seconds at the grocery line?
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No. You know what I like to do with the cashiers, too? If you're ever at the grocery store, and the cashier says, how are you doing?
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You know what response I give them that always elicits a reaction? Better than I deserve, how are you?
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Right? Better than I deserve. I heard one lady say, that's really interesting.
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Why would you put it that way? I said, well, let me tell you why. And so there's so many fast ways in which we can share the gospel.
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Let's try one more. Anyone else be willing to do one more example, and we'll change the scenario?
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You wanna come up? All right, come on up. Okay. So do we wanna just fast -forward to the decision part, then?
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That would be interesting to me, yeah. Okay, all right. So here is a scenario. You're preacher or I'm preacher?
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Either way. Okay, well, I'm the preacher. Actually, I want you to be the preacher for a second, and then we'll go back and forth.
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We'll watch me struggle. Yeah. And let's see if we can do that. So I grew up in the
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Mormon church, keep it similar to reality. Grew up in the Mormon church, been inactive, and you're telling me about Jesus, and so we just went through the 10
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Commandments. You've admitted you're a liar, et cetera. Okay, so by your own admission, you're a liar, you're a thief.
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So the thing is, you're not a good person, I'm not a good person, no one's a good person. Everybody has broken the 10
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Commandments. Bible says that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. So do you know what
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God did to forgive people, the way he made a forgiveness? Yeah, well, according to my upbringing,
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Jesus died for sinners. Right, and so how does his death provide forgiveness?
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Because a lot of people, they know it has something to do with the cross, but they don't understand exactly what, so I'd like to ask you that.
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I don't know, I guess the Jesus dying for you is that he went in your place, or I'm not sure exactly how to put it, but I just know that supposedly that's supposed to help you go to heaven somehow.
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Yeah, in your place is a great phrase, because see, we deserve death, we deserve punishment. The wages of sin is death, as it says in Romans 6, 23.
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But the free gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ, our Lord. So Jesus Christ died so that all those who trust in him, instead of them having to be punished with death, he was punished death in their place.
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And the way to be saved is to trust in that sacrifice. Have you ever done that?
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Have you ever trusted in Jesus Christ? Yeah, I mean, I think so. I mean, sometimes I've put my,
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I've asked God to help me or forgive me of my sins, and I'd like to think that he honored that somehow.
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Right, right. All that's good. Romans 10, nine says that if you confess with your mouth that Jesus Christ is
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Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you'll be saved. So a lot of people have confessed with their mouth that Jesus Christ is
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Lord, but they haven't really believed in their heart. And that comes out in what they believe about Jesus.
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You know, you said you had a Mormon upbringing. What Mormons believe about Jesus is not that he is eternal
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God, but that he has some other lesser status, that he's not the one that the
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Bible speaks of, who in the beginning was with God and was God. So one who confesses with their mouth that Jesus is
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Lord, but doesn't believe that he is Lord in the full sense that the Bible says, hasn't really trusted in him.
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So if you were to put your faith in Jesus Christ today to be saved from the eternal punishment that's to come, what that would look like is -
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But does that seem kind of, I don't know, I'm sure that seems kind of fair, right? Because you're just saying, all I have to do is believe in Jesus. All I have to do is put my faith in Jesus and that'll solve everything.
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Where, you know, that's why I don't like religion is because it sometimes sets up, it seems like almost like a fairytale.
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Like God's gonna do all these wonderful things if I just accept Jesus into my heart. I mean, what good is that gonna be for me?
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Do you think there should be something more required of you? Is that what you're getting at? Yeah, I think, you know, obviously you've got to do your part.
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God's not gonna come down. You know, God only helps those who help themselves. Why, let me step back for a second and ask you, why would
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God save people? Why is he interested in that at all? Yeah, I don't know.
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You're the preacher. Sure, okay. So what the Bible says is that he does this for his glory, that all of this is to the praise of his glorious grace.
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I've been listening to a great sermon series in Ephesians that's all about this. And the fact that God is saving for his glory means that if he were to choose something, some other way of salvation where, okay, you trust in him and then you also do these good works, it's not fully to the praise of God's glory.
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It's the praise of man's glory. And I would have a reason to boast over the next person who didn't do as much good works.
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So God has structured this in a way that he truly is glorified. And if God were to do this in a different way, he would not be as glorified.
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He would not be as God -like. So what do I have to do? Yeah, you have to confess with your mouth that Jesus is
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Lord and believe that in your heart. Now, like I said, many people have confessed it with their mouth and they haven't believed it with their heart.
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So this is not something I can do for you. It's not something where I can give you all the magic words to say. But what that would look like is you confessing your sin that you're in need of a savior.
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And that sin would include these false beliefs that you've been taught about Jesus. That would include not just submission of your good works, but submission of your thoughts too to what the word of God says.
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And as you confess to him, you acknowledge that you have erred in this matter, that you have sinned against God because the first commandment was to have no other gods before me.
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And that's what you've had when you've had a different Jesus. Okay. And so, and then - I have to start heading out, but if you, yeah, is there anything you can give me that I can maybe consider or?
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I don't, but, yeah, there's church service every morning at 11 o 'clock,
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Silicon Valley Reformed Baptist Church. All right, I appreciate it. Thank you. All right, let's break down this interaction real quick.
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So Pastor Conrad did a great job sharing the gospel. I mean, he did a great job.
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Now, I guess one point of interaction that is important is that, is the closing, which is the part you said you kind of had questions about.
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So here's a good strategy for closing. When we're thinking about, of course, you'll have individuals who might be like me.
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Well, I've got, this has been really interesting, but I have to go, had the same issue with a guy at the abortion clinic the other week where we were having a great conversation as Uber came.
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So it really cut down the time that I had to share the gospel with him. It's really important that we have some type of track or information that we can give folks on the fly.
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And especially, even more importantly, is asking them the right questions. So I'd ask a question like, do you have a
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Bible at home? Really simple. And I'd say, hey, can I just ask you to write this down or text this on your phone so that you can go back home and read this?
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That's if a person isn't, if he's kind of on his way out, he's not ready to maybe make a confession or a decision, because it's actually,
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I mean, to be honest with you, it's very rare, it's very rare you'll get anyone make a decision for Christ during a first interaction like that.
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I mean, it's super rare. I've seen it happen. I've been a part of stuff like that, but it's rare. And so give them something so they can go back and ponder, to research, to go into God's word, because really the answer is the word of God.
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That's what we're pointing them to. And then, of course, you can say, hey, we got a church service, all that stuff. Those are all good things, but we always point them to Christ, always point them to the word of God.
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Now, in terms of actually bringing someone to make a decision for Christ, the questions need to be a little bit more direct and more to the point.
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So if we're gonna break down the way of the master strategy, essentially what it is is you have an icebreaker, which is the question.
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Then you have the moral law as the agent by which you're going to, the individual's gonna self -expose themselves, because we're not exposing them, the word of God is, and they're just comparing their lives to God's moral law.
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And so once you go to law, you go to gospel. Gospel, death, resurrection of Jesus, and then you offer an invitation.
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Come on to Christ. Come to Christ so you may be saved today. Your sins can be washed. And so what
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I would do in a scenario like that, let me flip it over. Now you're the unbeliever and I'm the evangelist.
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So Conley, me and I have been talking for a couple minutes and you have, I'm not judging you, but your own confession, you're a lying thief, blasphemous, adulterer at heart, and on the day of judgment, are you gonna be deserving of heaven or hell?
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Hell, by everything you just said. And does that concern you at all? I guess it does a little, yeah.
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And it should concern you. I'm concerned for you. I don't know you, I've only just met you five minutes ago, but I care for you,
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I love you, and I want you to have eternal life of Jesus. And the Bible says that if you confess of your mouth that Jesus is
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Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, it says you will be saved.
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And so the easy part is confessing of your mouth. An actor can read those words off the pages of a script, but the hard part is what?
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The believing part. The believing, and the believing in your heart. And so the Bible says, though, if you come on to him, he will give you eternal life.
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And all you have to do, the Bible says, is to repent of your sins. Do you know what the word repent means? To turn.
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To turn, that's right. It means to turn away, to turn from something, and to trust, put all your trust in Jesus.
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Just like if you were on a plane that was going down, you would want to put on that parachute. You wouldn't think and contemplate, hmm,
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I think that parachute might help me. You'd put on that parachute, knowing that it is your only way to salvation off that plane.
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Jesus Christ is the only way to heaven. And so my question to you, my friend, is when will you make that commitment to follow
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Jesus? I think I'm gonna have to think about it more. I mean, like you said, the believing part is the hard part.
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It is. It's not something I can just. Absolutely. Yeah. Well, Conley, here's. I don't have to mull it over. And that's totally fine,
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Conley, but I want you to know this, too, that the Bible says that there's a day appointed for man to die, and then face judgment.
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And we don't know when that day is appointed for us. You can, you're a perfectly young, healthy young man, but you can head home today and get hit by a bus, and we don't know that.
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And so I want you to know that if you die today without confessing Jesus Christ as your Savior, you would die in your sins, and I don't want that for you.
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And so if you desire to have eternal life, you can do that right here, right now.
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I do desire eternal life, but yeah, I'm not sure what to say to all that.
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Okay, well, that's good right there. So let's break that down, that interaction real quick. So again, you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink, right?
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And we don't know what God, in His sovereign decree and will, is doing in this person's life, on the other side that we're contending with.
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And we don't wanna seem too pushy, but we also wanna come off as authentic, which we are.
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We authentically want these individuals to come to know Jesus. And so the imploring aspect is,
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I really want you to know Jesus. And if you die today in your sins, according to what you just learned and realized, you will go to hell, okay?
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And so, and if they're not ready to make a decision, that's totally fine. At that point, you switch gears and say, well,
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I'd love to leave you this information here, and then maybe commit to getting their phone number, commit to inviting them to church, because sometimes the
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Lord is drawing individuals, but He's not yet saved them or regenerated them, given them the gift of faith.
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And so though He's drawing them, we wanna be part of that process in helping them to realize the fullness of Christ and His gospel.
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Does that kinda help? It does. I think one of the big takeaways here, we should have something on hand. That's right.
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Yeah. I did have a card, but I figured it'd be more interesting if I pretended like I didn't, because it's a harder situation to deal with.
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That's right, that's right. That's right. All right, well, thank you, Conley. Excellent. Yeah. All right.
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Any thoughts or questions so far on the scenarios that we've had? Okay. Why, yes.
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What kind of sign? Oh, like signs, like actual signs.
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Okay. Yeah, I mean, if we do signs, they have to be intentionally well, you wanna break down the stereotype, because you think of a
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Christian with a sign, what do you think of? Fire brimstone,
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Westboro Baptist Church. So, you're almost at a disadvantage when you're a Christian and you're evangelizing and you have a sign, okay?
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You're almost at a disadvantage. And so, if you're doing a sign, make sure that it is not in bold red where it's like, you know, dripping blood on the side.
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You know, you wanna not do any of that. And this might sound secret sensitive,
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I assure you it's not. But you want something that emphasizes the truth of God's love for the sinner.
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So, like a Romans 5, 8 text would be perfect for that, or something along that line. Because again, you're also breaking the stereotypes of other individuals and what they've seen from Christian evangelism of that sort.
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And our message is that, is of course, for in this way that God loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, right?
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And so, a John 3, 16 text would be perfect as well. So, things like that where it's not abrasive and it's not condemning, but that we're sharing the, you know,
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Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5, verse 14, that the love of Christ compels us to preach this gospel.
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Okay, it's not the fear of hell, which is a motivating factor for the
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Christian, of course. But that's secondary to the love of God working in us, that which is pleasing in this sight.
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Is that gonna help? Yes. Okay, perfect. That's totally fine.
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Yeah, I say, hey, okay, that's totally fine. God bless you, right? Can't force it. Even here at the bread line, when
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I run the time or I think when I first came or second time I came, and I was at the bread line and I was talking to someone there and I said, hey, so do you go to church in the area?
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They're like, no, I don't go to church. And I said, well, that's okay. He's like, yeah, it is okay. I'm like, yeah, all right,
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God bless. Yeah, you know? You can't, you know, your job is not to be confrontational.
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But, you know, I also wanna stress the importance of the fact that when you're interacting with individuals, you are representing
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Christ. And you don't know how your interaction, as benign as it may seem, can have effects on a person in the future, maybe even onto eternal life.
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And I'll give you an example of that. When I was 14 years old, I was a Jehovah's Witness at that point, and I went to a
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Walmart. I was 14 or 15, and I went to a Walmart and there were these Christian guys. This is like when the Nintendo Wii came out, and I wanted to play it at the
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Walmart. They had a kiosk, and there were these other two guys. They're hanging out, playing, and then they started asking me questions like, oh, you know about this game?
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I'm like, yeah, yeah, and we just started talking about it. And then they're like, so are you a Christian? And I said, well,
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I'm a Jehovah's Witness, so yeah, I'm a Christian. I'm a true Christian. But then they started to share the gospel with me, and I just thought these guys were nuts.
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I thought they were just crazy. And they're like, can we pray for you? And usually a
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Jehovah's Witness doesn't, they're not cool with that. They don't say yes to those type of things. But before I could even get an answer through, one guy just starts praying.
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And so I just like politely just kind of bowed my head, just looking at these guys, and I'm like, these guys are nuts. But after that interaction really impressed me.
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I was like, man, these Christians, I gotta give them credit. And so I can't say that that's like what brought me to Jesus, but those small little interactions like that are things where I think the
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Lord truly was drawing and giving me a witness. And so I'm very thankful for those type of interactions that I've had when
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I was lost. What's that? Oh yeah, absolutely, absolutely.
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And so that's just a wonderful witness of the power of prayer. So any other quick thoughts or we're gonna move forward?
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Okay, we're gonna go chapter four. We only got like 15 minutes to go through it, but it's actually a pretty short chapter.
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And so for the sake of time, I'm going to read through this, and then we'll do some quick discussions on it.
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Answering Objections. We live in a world that is hostile towards God and his word.
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It should not then come as any surprise that when you share the gospel with unbelievers that you will hear many objections toward true belief in God.
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The Bible says, but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you, yet do it with gentleness and respect.
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We are under sacred obligation to set apart Christ in our hearts as holy by always being prepared to make a defense and reason for the hope that is in us, and to do it gently with humility and respect.
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The Greek word for defense in this verse is apologia, which is where we get the word apologetics.
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God's word is instructing us who desire to honor Christ as Lord must partake in the Christian art of apologetics, the defense of the
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Christian gospel. Now we will not be able to examine every objection or attack that we may be faced in the ministry, but in this lesson you'll be equipped with the skills and reasoning powers to be able to make an adequate response in defense for the hope within us.
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So here's some quick things I wanna highlight again. Is the world that we live in nice or hostile towards Christians?
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Hostile, okay? So know that when we go out ministering, we are going into hostile territory, okay?
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It's hostile. It may even be your backyard, it may even be your neighborhood, but it is hostile towards your gospel, towards your faith system.
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And so let that never be lost on you. Just because we live in America doesn't mean that everything is peachy and we live in this
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Zion of Christianity. We don't.
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We live in a hostile world. And as a result of that, we need to know that we're under attack, but we're also under the watchful eye of unbelievers who are looking for reasons to misalign you and to speak poorly of Christ.
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And so, what is the word apologia?
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What does that mean? What does the word apologia mean? Defense. Why are we to make a defense for the gospel?
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Why are we to make a defense for the gospel? Okay. That's true, but principally why?
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That's a good reason. Still not the principal reason. Okay.
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That's true. And then John. Go ahead, Albert. That's right.
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That's God's truth. Those are all true.
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But principally, go ahead, Pastor. To honor Christ. To honor
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Christ as Lord in your hearts. Okay. That's why we do it. We want to honor him.
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He's called us. This is a divine command. First Peter chapter three, verse 15 again says, but in your hearts, honor
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Christ the Lord as holy. Always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks for the reason for the hope that is in you.
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And so, it is a holy obligation that we have to set
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Christ apart. I'm gonna continue reading. In order to provide a defense for the gospel, we must learn and study the
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Bible regularly. Second Timothy 2 .15 says, study to show thyself approved unto
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God, a workman that needeth not be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.
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The Bible is our authority for all things, and only the scriptures can change the hearts of those who are lost.
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Hebrews 4 .12 says, for the word of God is living and active, sharper than a two -edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.
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So all objections to the truth of God can be combated with a true understanding of God's word, regardless of what the objection may be.
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Below, we will discuss three common objections to Christianity in class. Number one, I don't believe in God, I believe in science.
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These are all very common objections that you're gonna find in the mission field. Why should we trust the
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Bible? It was written by man. There are a lot of religions. Why do you think yours is the true one?
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So of all the, so basically in this apologetic scenario, these are the three most popular objections you're gonna get, or some variation of these.
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So in this world, we will face many objections. It is important to remember that the Bible is an accurate and reliable account of history and theology.
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Most attacks on God and the Bible come from fundamental misunderstandings regarding God's revelation of himself in scripture.
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In order to answer back to questions and criticism of the revelation of God, we need not shrink back from using the word of God as our basis and presupposition.
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When answering objections, the goal isn't merely to give an answer, but to give the hope that is within you, which is salvation and forgiveness of sins by being born again through Jesus.
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The Bible warns us to avoid foolish questions because they start arguments. Many fall into the trap of jumping at every objection to the gospel.
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However, these questions can often be arguments in disguise meant to sidetrack you from the weightier matters of the law.
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And so here's a common mistake people make is that when they're evangelizing someone or sharing the gospel, they get stuck in the weeds.
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Like, oh, you must be a Trump supporter, or you don't believe in gay marriage, or it always descends into something that's outside of the weightier matters of the law.
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And what it is is it's a deflection. Individuals, the culture, without them even knowing it, have been trained to deflect the truths of the gospel.
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Because again, we live in a hostile territory of whom the one who's in charge is the prince of the power of the air, saying the devil, who is the god of this age, is blind to the minds of the unbelievers, so they may not see the light of the glorious gospel of Christ.
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Therefore, we have to remember that not to fall for the bait or the sidetracks that individuals will try to lead us through.
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So while apologetics, arguments for God existence, creation versus evolution, et cetera, are legitimate in evangelism, they should merely be bait with the law of God being the hook that brings conviction, the conviction of sin.
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Those who witness solely in the realm of apologetical arguments may just get an intellectual decision rather than a repentant conversion.
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The sinner may come to a point of acknowledging that the Bible is the word of God and Jesus is Lord, but even the devil knows that.
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Always pull the sinner back to his responsibility before God on judgment day, as Jesus did in Luke 3, verse one through five.
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That's exactly what we did with the scenario with Conley, right? Bringing him back to judgment day.
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If you were to die today in your sins, where would you go, right? So always bringing them back to the weightier matters of the law.
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So with this in mind, we can always draw the conversation back to the law and sinner's need of a savior by using the way of the master tactic we learned in the previous chapter.
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Any questions so far? Okay. Sometimes, if not often, we will not have an adequate answer or response to the sinner's quarrel, and that is okay.
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But regardless of whether we can engage in healthy debate or not, our responsibility is to preach the gospel faithfully, for as Paul wrote in Romans 1, 16, the gospel is the power of God unto salvation for everyone who believes.
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The power isn't in our argument or defense. You need to hear that again, folks. The power isn't in our arguments or defense, but our power is in the gospel, which leads sinners onto salvation.
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Because what's the power of God unto salvation? The gospel. At the end of the day, it isn't the intellect that is keeping the sinner from God, it is their spiritually depraved hearts, and that is what the gospel addresses.
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And so remember that it's not people's intellect that's keeping them from Christ. It's not this intellectual arguments that are keeping them from Christ.
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You know, the Bible teaches very clearly every person who bears the image of God knows that there is a
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God. Every atheist knows that there's a God. It's been imprinted in them.
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And if they say they don't, they live as if there is a God. They live as if there's an objective standard.
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They live as if there's a sense of right and wrong and morality. And so they are living inconsistently with the theology or the philosophy that they have adopted.
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So our response to them is always to take them back to the law and the gospel. Now, on the first three objections, we're gonna go back to that real quick.
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The reason why I don't expound on that because the purpose is that we would expound it during class, but we are running a little bit short on time.
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We got maybe another 10 minutes. But let me address this one. I don't believe in God, I believe in science. How many folks have you interacted with have said something to that degree, right?
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Very common, especially amongst our young people today. They say, oh, it's all about science.
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It's not about God. We don't need God. Now is that, how would you respond to that?
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Yeah, yeah. Now, yeah, go ahead. That's right.
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Science. That's exactly where I was gonna head to because there are certain things that science cannot account for.
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Reasoning is not accounted by science. Science presupposes human reasoning.
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It presupposes truth. It presupposes mathematical consistencies. It presupposes morality.
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These are all presuppositions. So everyone has a set of presuppositions. Mine just happens to be that the
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Bible's the word of God and that the word of God is true. That's right.
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Absolutely, absolutely, absolutely. You're 100 % right on that. Someone else had their hand up around here? You did, okay.
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Yeah, so he asked him, is there absolute truth? It's like, no.
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Are you absolutely sure? Yes, well, there you go. Hmm, that's right.
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That's right, amen, good point, good point. And so when a person says,
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I don't believe in God, I believe in science, you bring them back to the law and morality, okay?
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Because everyone lives as if there is objective morality and a simple test of that is like, if I punched you in the face, how would that feel?
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Would you be upset? Would you be angry? Would you have righteous indignation? Why, you're just a piece of blob, just matter interacting in space and who cares if you get punched in the face, right?
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Everyone has an innate sense of right and wrong, right? And you know when you're wronged.
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Someone steals from you, someone hurts you, someone takes from you, you know that you've been wronged.
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And so all those things go out the window very quickly when you bring it back to the law and morality.
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And which is again, which is what the law is exposing. And so again, that is, you can address it very briefly and say, well yeah, like someone said,
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I think it was Conley, you know, science leads to, or I think it was Ken, science leads to a knowledge of God because God is the author of science and all things are going according to his will and his precepts and his laws.
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But then quickly come back to the heart of the matter. Because is the heart of the matter science versus God? No, that's not the heart of the matter.
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That's a great discussion to have, but it's a subcategory to what is truly the heart of the matter which is the gospel and man's response to it.
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Another question, why should we trust the Bible? It was written by man. How would you go around this objection?
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How would you take it? Albert? That's true, that's true.
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If you're speaking to a trendy looking young lady, just ask her if she reads the horoscopes, right?
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And you trust that over the word of God? Yeah. Ask them what their favorite book is and who wrote it.
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Then you ask if that was a man. Fish don't write books, you know? Yeah, that's right.
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Yeah. And what do you think is the heart behind that question or that objection? So if someone says the word of God, I mean that the
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Bible is written by man, what are they actually saying? Say again? I don't have to listen to it.
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Yeah, well the presupposition there is that if it was written by man, it must be fallible, okay?
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It must be filled with error because they know that they're human and there's errors, right?
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In human literature and thought and philosophy. You had your hand up, Emmanuel? Go ahead.
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Yeah, that's right. Okay.
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You know, the answer that we want to give, we want to give a defense for the faith that was once and for all entrusted to saints.
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And so 1 Peter chapter, is it chapter one verse 20 and 21?
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It says that no scripture or no process came by human will or interpretation, but men were inspired as they were carried along by the
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Holy Spirit. And so it tells us the mechanism by which Holy Scripture came to us. It was God using man, but through the agency of the
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Holy Spirit to bring forth truth and illumination. I would simply point to fulfill prophecy.
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You know, my quick thing that I always say to folks when they're bringing up the Bible as an objection, I say, you know, imagine, you know, the
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Bible took about 1500 years to be written by over 40 different authors.
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And I said, if you were to start writing a book today and it wouldn't be done until 1500 years into the future, do you think that book would be, would have the same message, the same story, the same
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DNA and the person would probably say, no, that'd be impossible. And I'd say, well, that's what we have in the word of God from Genesis to Revelation, a consistent revelation of God through his word.
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And then quickly just go through the promises of God in prophecy and saying, we can look throughout
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Scripture and find all these fulfilled prophecies. There's truly no book in the world like this because the
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God of Scripture has spoken and we can look back at history and see how his word was fulfilled just as he said it would be.
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Yeah. That's great, that's right. Yeah, most people have not read the
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Bible, right? And they've probably read like snippets and things on Reddit or something, but they've actually never read the
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Scriptures. And so, but you make a defense for it and you then you bring them back again to the law and the gospel.
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And you know what else this Bible says? It tells us the true condition of man. It tells us about your condition.
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Would you mind if I ask you a couple questions? And you take them to the 10 commandments. Lead them, show them the need for the
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Savior. And again, if the presupposition that I hold is true, which is
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Romans 1 being true, which Romans 1 says that everyone knows that there's a
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God, that there's a creator by the things that is evident by the things created and that God has placed in us a conscience by which he is speaking to us directly, we need then to bring them to this law and convict them of their sins, allow the
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Holy Spirit to convict them of the sins by taking them through the law. Last one real quick. There are a lot of religions.
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Why do you think yours is a true one? How would you respond to that one? Albert? Excellent, yes.
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That's a good point too. Amen, grace.
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John? Amen. That's right.
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That's right. Yeah, so I love what we're saying. Go ahead, last one.
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Yeah, that could be helpful for sure. But here's what I want you to focus on and it's the person, work, and centrality of Jesus Christ and his resurrection from the dead.
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So how do we know our religion is a true religion? It's because the founder of Islam is dead.
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The founder of Buddhism is dead. The founder of Mormonism is dead.
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The founder of Jehovah Witnesses is dead. The founder of Christianity died and he rose again, amen?
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And that's why we can say with confidence that ours is the true faith because our
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Savior is risen and he's risen indeed, amen? Let me pray. God, we thank you this morning for your goodness as you lead us in this teaching.
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We pray, God, that you would enlighten us of a desire, a fire, a passion to share the things of God so that we may bring this glorious good news of the kingdom of God to a dying and watching world.
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Lord God, help us in that endeavor as we desire to make disciples for your kingdom's sake.
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And we ask these things in Jesus' name, amen. All right, we'll see you guys promptly in, for sure.