I would like to talk today about what the Bible says about evangelism.

In some ways, the story starts in Genesis, because the gospel itself starts in Genesis. There's God, and there's human beings, and there's sin, and there's the promise of a Savior. That's Genesis 3. And when we come down to the time of Abraham, we see the promise that God will bless all nations through the seed of Abraham. God's rescue plan is designed for all nations, and that is why the gospel is supposed to go to all nations. This New Testament theme has its roots in Genesis 12.

And ancient Israel had the gospel preached to them, too — not in as much detail as we know now, of course, but the promise of a Messiah was given, and the good news was preached to them, says Hebrews.

But as you might have guessed, I am not going to explore all the Old Testament for its hints of evangelism. I am going to concentrate on the New Testament, because that is where we find commands that apply most directly to us.

Maybe we should begin with a definition of evangelism: Evangelism is spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ. It doesn't have to be preaching — it could be a simple conversation between one person and another. It doesn't even have to be talking — evangelism can be done with printed materials, books, articles, and tracts. But I think it always has to include words of some sort. It can't just be a good example — it has to include some words so that Jesus is in the message.

OK, now that we have defined what evangelism is, can you think of a place in the Bible that commands us to evangelize? What verse comes to mind, a verse that tells us to spread the good news about Jesus?

Matthew 28:19 is probably what most people think of. It's called the Great Commission, because it is written as a command from Jesus to his disciples: Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, ²⁰and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.

This verse doesn't even mention the word gospel, but it is what Jesus is talking about. We make disciples by preaching the gospel. Other verses tell us what the message is, but here Jesus is giving his disciples a specific command: Go and make disciples of all nations. Evangelism is a command.

However, who was this command given to?

Is it for the apostles only? No. For one thing, we see in the book of Acts that various other people also preached the good news. Philip, for example, preached the gospel to the Ethiopian eunuch. And when the church in Jerusalem was persecuted, Acts tells us that the apostles stayed in Jerusalem, but the members scattered, preaching the word wherever they went (8:4). So evangelism was done by ordinary Christians. Anybody who has heard the gospel and accepted it can share the gospel. They don't have to know everything about the gospel — probably no one does — but they can at least share as much as they know. They can tell people what they believe about Jesus.

Now, another reason that we know that this command is not just for apostles is verse 20: the apostles were supposed to teach all future disciples the commands of Jesus, and that would include the command to evangelize. This is a self-replicating command, a command that continues for all generations.

But there is a problem. Can you preach the gospel to all nations? Can you go into all nations and make disciples? Can you baptize them? Well, no, an individual person cannot do all this. The Great Commission is given to the church, not to every person within it.

But that doesn't mean you are off the hook — because you are the church — the church is the people who attend, not the building we are in. We as a church have the duty to preach the gospel. That does not mean the pastor only, or only a few selected folks. Rather, it means that we all have to work together, because the commission is given to all of us as a group. Evangelism is a team project, not an individual project.

You see, suppose that Jayson shares the gospel with a friend, and the friend accepts Christ as Savior. Wonderful! — but is the Commission done? No, of course not. The commission is to make that person a disciple, and to baptize that person, and to teach that person what Jesus commanded. Now, in order to do that, Jayson will need to either start his own church, or get that person involved in a church — and then other people get involved in fulfilling Jesus' commission for that person. It is a team effort.

Or suppose that Carolina shares the gospel with a friend and the person says, Well, I don't know about this, and Carolina invites the person to church, and the person comes and meets several people and hears several messages and finally goes to Mr. Dizon and asks to be baptized. So who gets the credit for this conversion?

Well, nobody gets "credit." The Holy Spirit is the one who does the work, and we all cooperate with him as he does his work. It is the whole atmosphere of the church — the example set by the children, the example set by the parents, the example of people in the lunch line — it is all these things working together that helped the person learn more about Christ and say, Yes, I want that, too. It is all of us working together, each of us according to our spiritual gifts.

Ephesians 4:16 says that the church grows as we each do our part. "From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work."

OK, evangelism is a team effort. But that still doesn't let anybody off the hook. 1 Peter 3:15 says, "Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect." Now that is a command that applies to every Christian.

So it leads to a simple question: Are you prepared? Have you ever thought about what you would say if someone asked why you are a Christian? Each of us should be prepared, and it's not that hard. We need to do it.

Now, what you say is going to be different than what I say. I can tell people that I felt a big sense of guilt, that I had done some things that were wrong — were really wrong, not just a matter of opinion. I had hurt people, and I hadn't been honest even with myself, and I had made such a mess of my life that I finally admitted that I needed outside help. And the good news for me is that Jesus paid the penalty of my sins, as bad as they were, and I don't need to be burdened by guilt. And the good news is that Jesus is alive and is willing to be my Lord, to help change what I am, to give me direction and purpose in life. He doesn't make all my problems and weaknesses go away, but he helps me through them and gives me hope in eternal life and eternal happiness. I believe that what Jesus did for me is true, and I trust him that his promises are also true — and that's about a one-minute answer as to why I'm a Christian.

Can you give an answer? Each of us should be able to give an answer. We don't have to explain every detail of our lives, or of Jesus' life, or of the Bible. We don't have to get people to agree with us. We just have to focus on how the gospel of Jesus Christ intersects our lives, on why our hope is in Jesus Christ. Every Christian should be a witness for Jesus. They don't have to be an evangelist, especially if they don't have the gift of evangelism, but we should all be able to be a witness to what Jesus means to us, or what he has done in our life.

Perhaps we can discuss how we do that, as some other time. What I want to do now is look at what the Bible says about evangelism. It says, number one, that all of us are involved. Number 2, that all of us need to be ready.

Colossians 4:6 tells us something similar: "Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone." Notice that Paul did not say to have a great argument, to be able to smash every objection and back people into a corner where they had no choice but to accept Christ. No, Paul talked about being gracious, just like Peter talked about gentleness and respect. We don't have to put people on the spot, we don't have to confront strangers. We just have to be ready to give a gentle answer. We hope it makes sense to them, and we hope they accept it, but our responsibility is to be ready to give an answer.

Some people are really good at evangelizing strangers, at going door to door, at meeting people on an airplane and bringing them to Christ before the plane reaches Baltimore. And that's great, but most of us are not gifted like that. Only 5 to 10 percent of Christians have the gift of evangelizing strangers. That doesn't let us off the hook — it just means that we have to go about it in different ways, in the way that God has gifted us. If we can't evangelize strangers, then we need to turn some strangers into friends, and in the course of the friendship we can share what Jesus has done for us. And if we are friends, then we can ask, Does this made sense? and, Would you like this in your life? or, Maybe you'd like to come to our church...

And we are going to go about it in different ways, each according to our spiritual gifts. There isn't any method that works on everybody, or any method that everybody can do well at. The person who has a gift of mercy is going to share the gospel in a different style than the person who has the gift of speaking out against sin. An accountant is going to be different than an artist. God has made us different, and we don't all have to be squeezed into the same mold. But we all have to be ready.

Some people are good at preparing the soil, at setting a good example, an example that would make a person more willing to consider Christianity. Some people are good at planting seeds. Some people are good at getting those seeds to germinate and begin growing, and some people are good at nurturing those new plants toward maturity. Now, all of us should set a good example, and all of us should be able to encourage someone to come to faith, and all of us should be able to teach new believers. But some people are better at one than another, depending on the way God has gifted us. And my main point is that we need to work together in evangelism, just as we have to work together to help the church be what the church is supposed to be. And we need to value the people who have gifts different than our own, and work together for the Great Commission, of bringing them in and building them up.

Friendship

Now, I read something interesting in the book Gentle Persuasion, by Joe Aldrich: (p. 98)

Of people who trust Christ and remain members of a local church, 80 percent of them were led to the Lord by a friend. That means that 20 percent were led to the Lord by a stranger. There's room here for both types of evangelism — talking to strangers, and sharing with friends. It's just that some people are better at one than another.

Now, another interesting finding about these people who continue attending a local church: Most of them have had over five exposures to the gospel before their conversion. The seed had to be sown several times, and each time it brought them a little closer to acceptance, until they finally got it. And when they did finally get it, they stuck with it.

Now, all this is in contrast to people who accept the gospel and then drop out of church. Most of those people — more than 70 percent — were led to the Lord by a stranger. Now, we can put those statistics together and come up with this: Evangelism to strangers reaches more people, but produces more dropouts. Evangelism to friends reaches less people at first, but it results in the most church growth. That doesn't say that it's wrong to evangelize strangers — sometimes we should — but it says that friendship evangelism is the better method of fulfilling the Great Commission, because the commission includes not just evangelizing, but also discipling and teaching. The Great Commission means not just decisions for Christ, but in practical terms, getting people into a church.

And here's one more statistic about people who make a decision for Christ but do not continue in the church: Most of them had only one or two exposures to the gospel. Yes, some people will accept the gospel the first time they hear it, but they are very likely to drop out of the church. They are far more likely to stick with it, if they are led by a friend, and if they've had time to think it through, with several explanations of the gospel.

People are also more likely to stick with it if they form friendships in the church. One study says they need six friends. That's where we as a church must work together in order to gather the harvest for the kingdom of God. We need to help those newborn plants grow and develop and bear fruit. We don't just want seedlings — we want to bring those seedlings all the way to the harvest at the end of the age. That's the Great Commission. It's not just sowing seeds — it is getting a harvest at the end. And in order to do that, we as a church need to be friendly.

One more thing: 90 percent of the people who stick with the church were dissatisfied with life before the heard the gospel. Of people who drop out, 75 percent were satisfied with life. In other words, when the gospel meets people who are aware of their needs, they are much more likely to value it and continue in it. And people who don't think they need it, don't seem to stick with it.

That means, for us, that we would do well to be sensitive to people's frame of mind. It is in times of trouble that they need friends most. It is in times of trouble that they are most receptive to the gospel. Friends can pick up on those things better than strangers can. Sometimes people are ripe for the harvest, and sometimes they're not. With a stranger, we have only one chance. With a friend, we have many chances.

Now, for many of us, this requires that we turn acquaintances into friends. We need to be friendly. We need to get involved in conversations. We need to give time to other people. We need to ask questions, and listen, and listen, and listen. We don't need to argue — we don't want friends who argue with us — we just need to talk about life. We need to be patient, we need to be tolerant of their vocabulary, of their habits, of their strange ideas. We need to be observant, and we need to be adaptable. Most of all, we need to care.

As Joe Aldrich says, the Bible doesn't tell every individual Christian to evangelize. Rather, it tells us to love — and when we love somebody, we will eventually share the gospel with them. Sharing the gospel is simply one part of a much larger responsibility.

Most of us don't care really deeply about strangers. We care about friends and family, and the more we care about them, the more we will pray for them, and the more we will want them to enjoy the blessings of the gospel. And we'll realize that we can't convert them — only God can — and that will drive us into prayer for them, and the more we pray for them, the more we will say to God, "Here I am – send me. Nobody else will reach this friend with the gospel; if you want to use me, then let it be me. And set me up. Let there be a good opportunity." And then we can pray for confidence, and we can go with confidence when the opportunity is given to us. We don't have to pressure anybody — we just need to let them know where they can get a good deal — a good deal on life.

Motive

Now, why should we share the gospel, whether as individuals or as a church? What's our motive? Why do we do it?

Because we are scared that they are going to go to hell unless we reach them? That might motivate some people, but I don't think it is a valid motivation. God is not going to let us stop his plan of salvation for people he has chosen to save. If they would have accepted the gospel if they heard it, then God knows that. He is not going to send them to hell just because we didn't give them the gospel. Nobody's eternal fate is hanging on our performance, because our performance is always going to be faulty.

Well then, why should we share the gospel?

·And why do we obey?

People have three basic questions in life, says John Stott:

·What does my life mean?

·How can I get in touch with spiritual reality?

·Where can I find love?

Content

Now, if we are going to share the gospel, it seems rather important that we know what the gospel is. Just what is the message that we are supposed to be sharing? What is the core, the center, the focus?

We as a church used to emphasize the gospel of the kingdom of God, which we explained as the return of Christ and the establishment of a kingdom in which God's laws would be taught and enforced. The bad news is that the world is in a mess, and the good news is that Christ will soon straighten it out.

Well, no matter how true that is, it isn't the gospel we are supposed to preach. That is not what the apostles preached, and it is not what Jesus preached. The world is in a mess, it is true, but even more importantly to each of us, we are part of the mess, and we need something to help us with our lives right now. And the gospel gives us good news not just for the future world, but for us right here and right now.

Let's see what Jesus said we should preach. Luke 24:46: Jesus told the disciples, "This is what is written: The Christ will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, ⁴⁷and repentance and forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem."

So, what is supposed to be preached? Repentance and forgiveness of sins through Jesus. And as we read through the sermons in the book of Acts, we see that is what the apostles did in fact preach. Peter preached about Jesus. Philip preached about Jesus. Paul preached about Jesus, and about what he means for our lives right now. They said that Jesus would return, but they gave much more emphasis to his crucifixion and resurrection, and to faith and forgiveness of sins. If you want more details on that, see the booklet Good News for Bad People.

The message was the good news about Jesus Christ. It was the message of salvation, the message of grace and peace, the message of new life in Christ. It was good news for the people right then. They did not have to wait 2000 years for the good news to be effective. It made a difference in their lives right then.

The gospel is the message of salvation for everyone who believes, said Paul. Rom. 1:16-17: "I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. ¹⁷For in the gospel a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last"

And Paul defined the gospel in 1 Corinthians 15:1-4: "Now, brothers, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand. ²By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain. ³For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance : that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, ⁴that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures,"

So that's the gospel: a message by which we are saved, if we believe that Jesus died for our sins and has been raised to life. Now, obviously, there's a lot more details that could be added — the New Testament tells us many things in addition to this — but this is the core. Jesus died for our sins. That means that we have sins, and that means that our sins deserve death, and it means that Jesus accepted that penalty on himself, so that we could be saved.

Some people sketch it out like this: God - people - sin - Jesus - response. The basic idea is that everything begins with God. He is good and perfect, and he made people because he wants to give a good life to us. The problem is that our sins messed things up, created a barrier between us and God, and messed up our lives. And so God, in his love for us, sent Jesus to take care of the problem. He took care of the guilt, and as the risen Christ he is Lord of our lives, helping us learn a better way, the way of love.

And so Jesus is the solution, and now we come to the response: what are you going to do about it? Are you going to accept it, or not? Does it make sense? Is there any reason that you can't accept God's forgiveness and his leadership right now?

You see, for some of you in this room, today might be the fifth or sixth time you have heard the gospel, and perhaps because of circumstances in your life it is making more sense. Is there any reason that you can't accept Jesus as Lord and Savior right now? Come, talk to us. We'd be happy to pray with you.

OK, here's what I want to leave with you today:

1. Everybody should be prepared to give an answer

3. We need to develop friendships with other people.