When we are equipped to defend the faith, we are a tool for bringing the lost to Christ and a help for the saints around us. But there's another kind of person we may meet.
Some unbelievers honestly ask questions wanting to understand why we believe what we believe and perhaps join us in the family of God. Other unbelievers, though, are not just non-Christians, they’re anti-Christians. These people are convinced that Christianity is synonymous with brain-death. They find every aspect of our faith absurd and think it is their responsibility to make everyone else see the light.
When Christians encounter these people out in the world, a battle of sorts should occur – a loving, grace-filled battle, but a battle no less. We should show them and all bystanders that Christianity is based on solid truth and that the skeptic is the one who has built himself a house of cards. Typically, however, Christians run for the hills or, worse, get trounced. Everyone sees that the Christian – and therefore Christianity – is intellectually inferior. The world sees these encounters and comes away convinced that Christianity is for the weak and the stupid. Lots of these encounters occur at the water cooler at work, but many of them occur in full public view.
One of the most infamous was the so called “Scopes Monkey Trial” where the teaching of evolution in schools was debated. The prosecution was Williams Jennings Bryant, a good man by all accounts and a believer. In comparing Darwinian evolution to the biblical view of creation, Bryant could have called theologians, apologists, and scientists. Instead, he called himself. He made a fool of himself, lost the case, and cemented in the minds of the other side the notion that anyone who dares question their pet theory is an ignorant rube that only just developed opposable thumbs.
We are at a point where society as a whole is starting to look at Christians – especially the evangelical variety – as mindless dolts. This is bad because it is untrue, but worse than that, it keeps people from coming to Christ because they either don’t want that association or they reject the gospel out of hand – because we are, after all, mindless dolts.
Being able to skillfully defend the faith is necessary to be the salt and light we are supposed to be in this society. We cannot affect this world positively if this world rejects everything we say out of hand. It is also necessary because we lose the ability to reach some people with the gospel as long as we have the unfortunate reputation we have.
People need to know that we have a thoughtful faith. If they examine the faith and can’t believe, it’s sad but their choice. If they don’t believe because we’ve let them think faith is unreasonable, though, that’s a tragedy of our making.
You may be thinking, “We need a practical religion, not theology and philosophy.” I want you to realize that this is very practical stuff. When a young mother wants to know why her baby died, that’s terribly practical theology. When your cousin is flirting with joining the Mormons, theology suddenly becomes very practical. When your friend doesn’t want to hear the gospel because he “doesn’t believe in anything he can’t see,” apologetics just jumped from philosophical conversation to deadly serious pre-evangelism. When you’re questioning why God is allowing unpleasant things in your life, a little theology – that God is sovereign, that God is all-powerful, and that God is good – becomes very practical.
You may be thinking that you’ll bring those people to church with you or give them a good book. But the odds are that most of them will not want to come to church with you – and if they did, would they necessarily find the answers they need in that week’s sermon? And while some will, many will not read the book – they’ll be polite and take it from you, but what are the odds that they’ll read it? Pretty slim. They’re going to be dependent on you to be their resource. And you need to have it readily available – on the top of your head if at all possible – because you never know what kind of opportunities you’re going to get.
You may be thinking that you’re not smart enough or educated enough to study this stuff. If so, that is patently untrue. More than that, you have to realize that the average person you’re going to talk to will know less that you. You don’t have to have a Ph.D. in philosophy or theology or anything else to study or use this kind of information. The average unbeliever doesn’t have one. He has some basic ideas regarding moral relativism, has been told that evolution removes the need for God, and may have seen a Jesus Seminar TV special or magazine article. Average believers can, with a little effort, equip themselves to deal with these issues and lead the unbeliever toward, if not to, Christ. You might at some point in your life find someone who has made attacking Christianity a hobby or even a career – let someone else deal with that one. But the vast majority of the people in your life will not be like that, and you can help them.
In all of this, remember that you cannot argue someone into the Kingdom. Only God can work on a person’s heart and bring them to Him. But we can help overcome their objections, questions, and fears and clear the way for them to come to faith.
I’ve tried to convince you of the need to study theology and apologetics. Here’s my last attempt … today. The unbelievers out there are watching us to learn whether or not our faith is real. They are watching our lives first and foremost, but then they will have questions. How we handle those questions may well determine how they will decide the most important decision they can make – the fate of their souls. No pressure.
Monday, November 17, 2014
Thursday, November 13, 2014
Making Him Known: Defending the Faith
We are here to know God and to make him known. To effectively make him known, we need to be godly men and women who are ready, willing, and able to share the faith, defend the faith, and apply the faith to our world.
Defending the faith is a vital part of making Christ known. It's also the most controversial among Christians. To some it's too confrontational, to some unnecessary. To the apostle, though, it was essential:
"Dear friends, although I was very eager to write to you about the salvation we share, I felt compelled to write and urge you to contend for the faith that was once for all entrusted to God’s holy people. For certain individuals whose condemnation was written about long ago have secretly slipped in among you. They are ungodly people, who pervert the grace of our God into a license for immorality and deny Jesus Christ our only Sovereign and Lord" (Jude 3-4).
Notice what Jude says here. He wanted to write to his readers about our salvation! Instead he had to send them a timely warning – be prepared to defend the faith. He says “contend” for the faith. What does he mean? He means to fight for the faith. He wants us to strain, struggle, sweat; this word is the root for our word “agonize.”
Why did he write this to them? Because people had slipped into their church who were false teachers – they were perverting the teaching of God’s grace and denying that Christ is who he is.
Jude’s instruction to them was to stand up to these false teachers. He’s not telling us to be contentious, but we must, gracefully, protect the faith. What is “the faith?” It is the teaching of Jesus and the apostles that has been handed down.
It’s interesting to compare Jude’s world to ours. The Church was born in a time of great religious diversity. There were at least four great philosophical movements, a variety of cults, a number of local traditional religions, and pressure from the state to conform to the approved religious practices. There were atheists, pantheists, monotheists, and polytheists. There were those who said that you had to follow their religion, and there were syncretists who said all religions were basically the same. In short, Jude’s world was a lot like ours.
In the history of the church, there were literally a thousand years where a person could go his whole life without meeting someone who didn’t at least claim to be a Christian. That day is gone. We live in a world with great religious diversity, and like the early church, we have people who are trying to bring that religious diversity into the Church. Jude says, “Don’t let them!”
To successfully contend for the faith, we have to know what we believe and why. Based on the errors Jude describes these false teachers spreading, we can identify two fields of study in this matter: theology and apologetics. By theology, I mean knowing what we believe and why based on the scriptures – for example, knowing the proper teachings regarding grace. By apologetics, I mean knowing why we believe, the foundation for what we believe, based on scriptural and non-scriptural information – for example, knowing the biblical and extra-biblical evidence for the resurrection of Christ.
Jude was not writing to pastors – he was writing to simple believers. Every believer has a scriptural mandate to study to be able to defend the faith. Besides that scriptural mandate, there are other reasons to prepare yourself to defend the faith.
We talked about the fact that we are here to represent Christ – we are His ambassadors. We cannot represent Him effectively unless we know His position on the matter at hand. Can you imagine the ambassador to the UN from the US going into a vote without knowing the president’s stand on the issue? Our job as an ambassador for Christ requires that we have at least a basic familiarity with theology.
There was a time when the average believer was an amateur theologian. It was considered important for everyone to know the nature of God and the nature of salvation and things like that. Then, a couple of hundred years ago, people started leaving that stuff to the preacher. And now we are in a situation where the preacher can get up in front of his congregation and teach completely unscriptural things, and no one calls him on it because no one knows. A.W. Tozer said,
Based on the message of Jude and on the nature of our calling as an ambassador, we all need to have a basic knowledge of theology and apologetics. We also have an obligation to study to defend the faith based on our calling as witnesses of the Gospel. When we share the gospel with people, it is always possible that they’re going to ask why they should believe it. It may take the form of how can a good God send people to hell or how could the incarnation be possible. It might be more of questioning whether God even exists. Sometimes objections will come up during the gospel, and sometimes you’ll hit them well before you’re able to share the gospel itself. Apologetics can be part of presenting the gospel, and it can be pre-evangelism.
The unbelievers most likely to ask apologetic questions of you are your children. Kids naturally ask questions like “who made God” and “how to we know Jesus rose from the dead.” It’s in their nature. But if we can’t give them good answers to those questions we run the risk of either giving them an immature, easily destroyed faith or even not having them come to faith at all.
J.P. Moreland tells the story of a woman he knows whose son, though a believer, was surrounded by unbelievers who provided him with lots of hard questions to ask his mother. She couldn’t answer them. His response was that if her faith was really important to her, she would have made the time to find out the answers – after all, she had time to watch tv and pursue her hobbies. Her inability to answer some of the tough questions skeptics throw at Christianity made her son wonder if her faith mattered at all.
This world is after our children. At some point they’re going to be asking those hard questions, and they’re going to need answers. I said before that it’s okay to say, “I don’t know but I’ll find out,” but if you never know, your kids are going to start wondering if your faith is really important to you, and if it should be important to them.
When you’ve studied and can answer the hard questions, though, you will be more confident about sharing your faith with your friends and neighbors – and your children.
Sometimes we defend the faith for the sake of the unbelievers; sometimes we defend the faith for the sake of believers. You’ve probably heard of The Da Vinci Code. That one book was responsible for more angst on the part of believers than anything else in recent memory. Why? Because it told them that their faith was founded on fiction, and they were defenseless against the accusation. Don’t you know the Devil giggled when that thing came out? What person who is questioning his faith is going to be sharing the gospel?
When you prepare yourself to defend the faith, you build up defenses for yourself, and you become a resource for those believers around you who have not so prepared.
For the sake of both the unbelievers and the believers around you, commit to learning to defend the faith.
Defending the faith is a vital part of making Christ known. It's also the most controversial among Christians. To some it's too confrontational, to some unnecessary. To the apostle, though, it was essential:
"Dear friends, although I was very eager to write to you about the salvation we share, I felt compelled to write and urge you to contend for the faith that was once for all entrusted to God’s holy people. For certain individuals whose condemnation was written about long ago have secretly slipped in among you. They are ungodly people, who pervert the grace of our God into a license for immorality and deny Jesus Christ our only Sovereign and Lord" (Jude 3-4).
Notice what Jude says here. He wanted to write to his readers about our salvation! Instead he had to send them a timely warning – be prepared to defend the faith. He says “contend” for the faith. What does he mean? He means to fight for the faith. He wants us to strain, struggle, sweat; this word is the root for our word “agonize.”
Why did he write this to them? Because people had slipped into their church who were false teachers – they were perverting the teaching of God’s grace and denying that Christ is who he is.
Jude’s instruction to them was to stand up to these false teachers. He’s not telling us to be contentious, but we must, gracefully, protect the faith. What is “the faith?” It is the teaching of Jesus and the apostles that has been handed down.
It’s interesting to compare Jude’s world to ours. The Church was born in a time of great religious diversity. There were at least four great philosophical movements, a variety of cults, a number of local traditional religions, and pressure from the state to conform to the approved religious practices. There were atheists, pantheists, monotheists, and polytheists. There were those who said that you had to follow their religion, and there were syncretists who said all religions were basically the same. In short, Jude’s world was a lot like ours.
In the history of the church, there were literally a thousand years where a person could go his whole life without meeting someone who didn’t at least claim to be a Christian. That day is gone. We live in a world with great religious diversity, and like the early church, we have people who are trying to bring that religious diversity into the Church. Jude says, “Don’t let them!”
To successfully contend for the faith, we have to know what we believe and why. Based on the errors Jude describes these false teachers spreading, we can identify two fields of study in this matter: theology and apologetics. By theology, I mean knowing what we believe and why based on the scriptures – for example, knowing the proper teachings regarding grace. By apologetics, I mean knowing why we believe, the foundation for what we believe, based on scriptural and non-scriptural information – for example, knowing the biblical and extra-biblical evidence for the resurrection of Christ.
Jude was not writing to pastors – he was writing to simple believers. Every believer has a scriptural mandate to study to be able to defend the faith. Besides that scriptural mandate, there are other reasons to prepare yourself to defend the faith.
We talked about the fact that we are here to represent Christ – we are His ambassadors. We cannot represent Him effectively unless we know His position on the matter at hand. Can you imagine the ambassador to the UN from the US going into a vote without knowing the president’s stand on the issue? Our job as an ambassador for Christ requires that we have at least a basic familiarity with theology.
There was a time when the average believer was an amateur theologian. It was considered important for everyone to know the nature of God and the nature of salvation and things like that. Then, a couple of hundred years ago, people started leaving that stuff to the preacher. And now we are in a situation where the preacher can get up in front of his congregation and teach completely unscriptural things, and no one calls him on it because no one knows. A.W. Tozer said,
"It would be impossible to overemphasize the importance of sound doctrine in the life of a Christian. Right thinking about all spiritual matters is imperative if we would have right living. As men do not gather grapes of thorns nor figs of thistles, so sound character does not grow out of unsound teaching."Sound character does not grow out of unsound teaching. We’ve got a lot of unsound teaching running around today, and I think we can see it in the character of many Christians today – Christians who are representing Christ rather badly to the world around them.
Based on the message of Jude and on the nature of our calling as an ambassador, we all need to have a basic knowledge of theology and apologetics. We also have an obligation to study to defend the faith based on our calling as witnesses of the Gospel. When we share the gospel with people, it is always possible that they’re going to ask why they should believe it. It may take the form of how can a good God send people to hell or how could the incarnation be possible. It might be more of questioning whether God even exists. Sometimes objections will come up during the gospel, and sometimes you’ll hit them well before you’re able to share the gospel itself. Apologetics can be part of presenting the gospel, and it can be pre-evangelism.
The unbelievers most likely to ask apologetic questions of you are your children. Kids naturally ask questions like “who made God” and “how to we know Jesus rose from the dead.” It’s in their nature. But if we can’t give them good answers to those questions we run the risk of either giving them an immature, easily destroyed faith or even not having them come to faith at all.
J.P. Moreland tells the story of a woman he knows whose son, though a believer, was surrounded by unbelievers who provided him with lots of hard questions to ask his mother. She couldn’t answer them. His response was that if her faith was really important to her, she would have made the time to find out the answers – after all, she had time to watch tv and pursue her hobbies. Her inability to answer some of the tough questions skeptics throw at Christianity made her son wonder if her faith mattered at all.
This world is after our children. At some point they’re going to be asking those hard questions, and they’re going to need answers. I said before that it’s okay to say, “I don’t know but I’ll find out,” but if you never know, your kids are going to start wondering if your faith is really important to you, and if it should be important to them.
When you’ve studied and can answer the hard questions, though, you will be more confident about sharing your faith with your friends and neighbors – and your children.
Sometimes we defend the faith for the sake of the unbelievers; sometimes we defend the faith for the sake of believers. You’ve probably heard of The Da Vinci Code. That one book was responsible for more angst on the part of believers than anything else in recent memory. Why? Because it told them that their faith was founded on fiction, and they were defenseless against the accusation. Don’t you know the Devil giggled when that thing came out? What person who is questioning his faith is going to be sharing the gospel?
When you prepare yourself to defend the faith, you build up defenses for yourself, and you become a resource for those believers around you who have not so prepared.
For the sake of both the unbelievers and the believers around you, commit to learning to defend the faith.
Monday, October 6, 2014
The Gospel
We can't make Christ known to people if we can't explain the gospel to them. It's not hard to do, but it does require a little preparation. There are many gospel presentations out there of varying quality, and just about anything is better than nothing. The old Roman Road approach has led countless souls to the Lord. The Four Spiritual Laws approach has some good things going for it. The FAITH outline can be useful. Evangelism Explosion teaches a lengthy, detailed version that can easily be pared down for time. Get comfortable with something. Be able to share the good news in sixty seconds if you have to or six minutes if you've got it.
The version I currently use is based off Evangelism Explosion's gospel presentation with some modifications where I disagree with their approach. (I say "currently." I reserve the right to change everything next week if I rethink something or find a better approach.) I reproduce my version below.
In my presentation, the bold text can be presented alone if pressed for time, the normal text can be added to explain if time allows, and the italic text gives examples and explanations that can be added if necessary and if time permits. [Square brackets] are comments to the reader from me.
----
Have you ever wondered how good you have to be to be good enough to get into heaven? Jesus told us exactly how good you have to be; he said, “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Mt 5:48).
This is bad news, because none of us is perfect. As the Bible says, everyone has sinned and fallen short of God’s standard (Rom 3:23).
Do you know what sin is? Sin is anything that doesn't line up with God's standards. It can be things we do that we shouldn't. It can be things we don't do that we should.
Have you ever told a lie? [Obviously they have.] Then according to God’s standards you are a liar. Have you ever stolen anything, even something small? "Borrowed something without permission? [Hopefully they'll admit it.] Have you ever lusted? Have you ever hated anyone? Have you ever taken God’s name in vain? Did you ever disobey your parents? Have you ever seen someone who needed help that you didn’t help?
I’m not saying you’re an awful person, but we have to look at sin through God’s eyes. If I only sinned three times a day, most people would say I'm a pretty good person. If I only lied or was selfish or lusted three times a day, that doesn't seem to be that bad. But three sins a day is over 1000 a year and in an average lifetime that adds up to over 70,000 sins. Someone who's broken the laws 70,000 times isn't "a pretty good person"; they're a hardened criminal.
But even just one sins taints us. Think about an omelet. If I made you can omelet with four good eggs and one bad one, you wouldn't want to eat it. You wouldn't want to drink a glass of water with just one drop of poison in it. That little bit spoils the whole.
If we just commit one sin, we’re ruined. And in the course of our lifetimes, we commit thousands. We’re not just criminals; we’re hardened habitual offenders.
Do you think people who commit crimes should be punished? [Sure they do.] God does too. If He let someone get away with just one crime – one sin – He would not be a holy God worthy of worship. We have all sinned – a lot. And God is a God of justice, so He has to punish our sin.
We will all stand before God one day and answer for the life we’ve lived. For our sins, we’ll be sentenced to hell. We don’t know exactly what hell will be like, but Jesus described it as somewhere no one wants to go – a place of great agony that will never, ever end.
Now, God does not want anyone to go to hell, but He has to punish sin. So He created a way for us to escape hell. Would you like me to tell you about it?
Because God doesn’t want anyone to go to hell, He became a man. Jesus lived the perfect life that we can’t. Then He died as a sacrifice – paying the price for our sins – and rose from the dead to give us everlasting life in heaven.
Imagine sin as like a blanket draped over you like you were pretending to be a ghost. When God looks at us, he sees that blanket of sin. It stands between us and God. When Jesus died, he took the blanket and wore it. God saw our sin as being punished with Christ on the cross. As the scripture says, “We all, like sheep, have gone astray … and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all” (Is 53:6).
Jesus offers the forgiveness of sins and everlasting life to us as a free gift. This gift is received by faith.
Faith is the key that opens the door to heaven. But what do I mean by faith? [Maybe hold up a key ring.] Two keys may look alike, but only one is going to open a door. It doesn't matter how much I believe the wrong key will open the door, it won't. The right kind of faith will open the door; the wrong kid will not. Saving faith is not believing God or Jesus exists. It's not even believing Jesus rose from the dead. It's not trusting Jesus with things or issues in life -- your health, finances, safety, even your family.
Saving faith is trusting in Jesus Christ alone for eternal life. (Acts 16:31)
It's like a chair. I can believe a chair will hold me up. I can put my things on a chair and let it hold them up. That's not trusting the chair. I can sit on the edge of the chair, most of my weight on my toes in case the chair collapses. That's not trusting the chair. When I sit on the chair and pull my legs up under me, I am depending on the chair to hold me up.
Saving faith isn't doing something. It's receiving something. It's a beggar taking bread from an outstretched hand.
Saving faith is trusting that Jesus alone will get you into heaven.
Does this make sense to you?
Would you like to receive the gift of forgiveness of sins and everlasting life?
Let me clarify what this involves:
Transfer your trust from your good deeds to what Jesus did.
Receive the resurrected and living Christ as savior.
Receive Christ as Lord -- that is, to decide to live with him as king of your life.
Decide you aren't going to live the same way, that you want to live to please God from here on out.
-----
From there you run into the question of whether a "sinner's prayer" is necessary. I think it can help people focus, but it's not magic words. It is faith in Christ that saves.
Whatever approach you want to use, practice it, get comfortable with it, and employ it.
The version I currently use is based off Evangelism Explosion's gospel presentation with some modifications where I disagree with their approach. (I say "currently." I reserve the right to change everything next week if I rethink something or find a better approach.) I reproduce my version below.
In my presentation, the bold text can be presented alone if pressed for time, the normal text can be added to explain if time allows, and the italic text gives examples and explanations that can be added if necessary and if time permits. [Square brackets] are comments to the reader from me.
----
Have you ever wondered how good you have to be to be good enough to get into heaven? Jesus told us exactly how good you have to be; he said, “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Mt 5:48).
This is bad news, because none of us is perfect. As the Bible says, everyone has sinned and fallen short of God’s standard (Rom 3:23).
Do you know what sin is? Sin is anything that doesn't line up with God's standards. It can be things we do that we shouldn't. It can be things we don't do that we should.
Have you ever told a lie? [Obviously they have.] Then according to God’s standards you are a liar. Have you ever stolen anything, even something small? "Borrowed something without permission? [Hopefully they'll admit it.] Have you ever lusted? Have you ever hated anyone? Have you ever taken God’s name in vain? Did you ever disobey your parents? Have you ever seen someone who needed help that you didn’t help?
I’m not saying you’re an awful person, but we have to look at sin through God’s eyes. If I only sinned three times a day, most people would say I'm a pretty good person. If I only lied or was selfish or lusted three times a day, that doesn't seem to be that bad. But three sins a day is over 1000 a year and in an average lifetime that adds up to over 70,000 sins. Someone who's broken the laws 70,000 times isn't "a pretty good person"; they're a hardened criminal.
But even just one sins taints us. Think about an omelet. If I made you can omelet with four good eggs and one bad one, you wouldn't want to eat it. You wouldn't want to drink a glass of water with just one drop of poison in it. That little bit spoils the whole.
If we just commit one sin, we’re ruined. And in the course of our lifetimes, we commit thousands. We’re not just criminals; we’re hardened habitual offenders.
Do you think people who commit crimes should be punished? [Sure they do.] God does too. If He let someone get away with just one crime – one sin – He would not be a holy God worthy of worship. We have all sinned – a lot. And God is a God of justice, so He has to punish our sin.
We will all stand before God one day and answer for the life we’ve lived. For our sins, we’ll be sentenced to hell. We don’t know exactly what hell will be like, but Jesus described it as somewhere no one wants to go – a place of great agony that will never, ever end.
Now, God does not want anyone to go to hell, but He has to punish sin. So He created a way for us to escape hell. Would you like me to tell you about it?
Because God doesn’t want anyone to go to hell, He became a man. Jesus lived the perfect life that we can’t. Then He died as a sacrifice – paying the price for our sins – and rose from the dead to give us everlasting life in heaven.
Imagine sin as like a blanket draped over you like you were pretending to be a ghost. When God looks at us, he sees that blanket of sin. It stands between us and God. When Jesus died, he took the blanket and wore it. God saw our sin as being punished with Christ on the cross. As the scripture says, “We all, like sheep, have gone astray … and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all” (Is 53:6).
Jesus offers the forgiveness of sins and everlasting life to us as a free gift. This gift is received by faith.
Faith is the key that opens the door to heaven. But what do I mean by faith? [Maybe hold up a key ring.] Two keys may look alike, but only one is going to open a door. It doesn't matter how much I believe the wrong key will open the door, it won't. The right kind of faith will open the door; the wrong kid will not. Saving faith is not believing God or Jesus exists. It's not even believing Jesus rose from the dead. It's not trusting Jesus with things or issues in life -- your health, finances, safety, even your family.
Saving faith is trusting in Jesus Christ alone for eternal life. (Acts 16:31)
It's like a chair. I can believe a chair will hold me up. I can put my things on a chair and let it hold them up. That's not trusting the chair. I can sit on the edge of the chair, most of my weight on my toes in case the chair collapses. That's not trusting the chair. When I sit on the chair and pull my legs up under me, I am depending on the chair to hold me up.
Saving faith isn't doing something. It's receiving something. It's a beggar taking bread from an outstretched hand.
Saving faith is trusting that Jesus alone will get you into heaven.
Does this make sense to you?
Would you like to receive the gift of forgiveness of sins and everlasting life?
Let me clarify what this involves:
Transfer your trust from your good deeds to what Jesus did.
Receive the resurrected and living Christ as savior.
Receive Christ as Lord -- that is, to decide to live with him as king of your life.
Decide you aren't going to live the same way, that you want to live to please God from here on out.
-----
From there you run into the question of whether a "sinner's prayer" is necessary. I think it can help people focus, but it's not magic words. It is faith in Christ that saves.
Whatever approach you want to use, practice it, get comfortable with it, and employ it.
Thursday, August 21, 2014
Why Don't We Share the Gospel?
So we’ve talked about the nature of the Gospel, and we all know that we should be out there sharing it. So the question is, why aren’t we?
One common reason people give for not sharing the gospel is that they don’t know what to say. You do know the basics, but it can still be difficult to put it also into a coherent presentation. What can we do about that?
The best thing you can do is to learn a good gospel presentation – memorize it – and then practice it. A very effective way to do that is by going through a training program like Evangelism Explosion. EE and programs like it will teach you a gospel presentation complete with appropriate verses and illustrations, and then they will take you out and make you practice it on real people. Presenting the gospel is something you cannot learn purely from a book – you’ve got to get out there and do it. A training program will send you out with someone who’s experienced at sharing the gospel, and you’ll go through the traditional mentorship pattern – watch them, help them, they help you, then they watch you. By the end you should be comfortable with the gospel presentation and how to steer conversations toward spiritual matters.
You don’t have to go through a formal program, but they are very helpful – especially when they give you hands-on training with someone watching over your shoulder. But if that’s not for you, you can still learn a good gospel presentation and practice it. But the key is practice – you’re highly unlikely to read a presentation out of a book and go right out and witness to people.
Besides not knowing what to say, many times people are just scared. This is another place that an evangelism training program can help. Knowing a good presentation and practicing with it can make you confident in your ability to share the gospel.
But a lot of times we’re just embarrassed. It’s a sad part of our sin nature that we’re embarrassed of the gospel. Generally we’re a bit ashamed of that embarrassment – and we should be. If a person’s house were on fire, we wouldn’t be embarrassed to let them know, but when the danger is to their immortal soul, we turn yellow. We should shame ourselves over that embarrassment and focus on the price Christ Jesus paid for us and the danger that they’re in. And then you just have to suck it up and do it.
Every hour 5,417 go to meet their Maker. Blatant emotional manipulation? Yep. I’m going to be totally shameless about this – we have to take their plight personally, or we will let fear or self-centeredness keep us from giving them what they need.
But what if you’ve got a reason to be embarrassed? What if you’re ashamed of the life you’ve led? That’s why we started this out talking about godliness. But if you’ve made mistakes, the best thing to do is confess those mistakes, change your ways, and move on. And if they ask, remind them that we’re not perfect, but we’re striving to be more like Jesus.
A lot of people are afraid to share the gospel because they’re afraid they’ll mess it up. The truth is, you probably will every now and then – especially at first. But God can still use that. That doesn’t mean you can tell them the wrong gospel, but if you mess up the right one, the Spirit is still there.
The story’s told that a woman criticized D.L. Moody for his methods of attempting to win people to the Lord. Moody replied, “I agree with you. I don’t like the way I do it either. Tell me, how do you do it?” The woman replied, “I don’t do it.” Moody retorted, “Then I like my way of doing it better than your way of not doing it.” It’s far better to do it badly than to not do it.
So what if they ask you a question that you can’t answer? Later we’re going to talk about preparing for those questions, but someone will probably ask you something you can’t answer. That’s ok! “I don’t know but I’ll find out” is a perfectly acceptable answer. If you’re not sure you’ll ever see them again (maybe you’re at an airport or something), tell them where they might be able to find out – a book or website or something.
What if they don’t believe in God or don’t believe in the Bible or something? Again, that’s something we’ll get into later, but let’s just say that sometimes you may have to do a little apologetics as pre-evangelism.
Realistically, we’re all going to miss opportunities. That’s just part of human nature. It’s not about being perfect; it’s about doing better than you did yesterday.
Next time I'm going to share my standard gospel presentation.
One common reason people give for not sharing the gospel is that they don’t know what to say. You do know the basics, but it can still be difficult to put it also into a coherent presentation. What can we do about that?
The best thing you can do is to learn a good gospel presentation – memorize it – and then practice it. A very effective way to do that is by going through a training program like Evangelism Explosion. EE and programs like it will teach you a gospel presentation complete with appropriate verses and illustrations, and then they will take you out and make you practice it on real people. Presenting the gospel is something you cannot learn purely from a book – you’ve got to get out there and do it. A training program will send you out with someone who’s experienced at sharing the gospel, and you’ll go through the traditional mentorship pattern – watch them, help them, they help you, then they watch you. By the end you should be comfortable with the gospel presentation and how to steer conversations toward spiritual matters.
You don’t have to go through a formal program, but they are very helpful – especially when they give you hands-on training with someone watching over your shoulder. But if that’s not for you, you can still learn a good gospel presentation and practice it. But the key is practice – you’re highly unlikely to read a presentation out of a book and go right out and witness to people.
Besides not knowing what to say, many times people are just scared. This is another place that an evangelism training program can help. Knowing a good presentation and practicing with it can make you confident in your ability to share the gospel.
But a lot of times we’re just embarrassed. It’s a sad part of our sin nature that we’re embarrassed of the gospel. Generally we’re a bit ashamed of that embarrassment – and we should be. If a person’s house were on fire, we wouldn’t be embarrassed to let them know, but when the danger is to their immortal soul, we turn yellow. We should shame ourselves over that embarrassment and focus on the price Christ Jesus paid for us and the danger that they’re in. And then you just have to suck it up and do it.
Every hour 5,417 go to meet their Maker. Blatant emotional manipulation? Yep. I’m going to be totally shameless about this – we have to take their plight personally, or we will let fear or self-centeredness keep us from giving them what they need.
But what if you’ve got a reason to be embarrassed? What if you’re ashamed of the life you’ve led? That’s why we started this out talking about godliness. But if you’ve made mistakes, the best thing to do is confess those mistakes, change your ways, and move on. And if they ask, remind them that we’re not perfect, but we’re striving to be more like Jesus.
A lot of people are afraid to share the gospel because they’re afraid they’ll mess it up. The truth is, you probably will every now and then – especially at first. But God can still use that. That doesn’t mean you can tell them the wrong gospel, but if you mess up the right one, the Spirit is still there.
The story’s told that a woman criticized D.L. Moody for his methods of attempting to win people to the Lord. Moody replied, “I agree with you. I don’t like the way I do it either. Tell me, how do you do it?” The woman replied, “I don’t do it.” Moody retorted, “Then I like my way of doing it better than your way of not doing it.” It’s far better to do it badly than to not do it.
So what if they ask you a question that you can’t answer? Later we’re going to talk about preparing for those questions, but someone will probably ask you something you can’t answer. That’s ok! “I don’t know but I’ll find out” is a perfectly acceptable answer. If you’re not sure you’ll ever see them again (maybe you’re at an airport or something), tell them where they might be able to find out – a book or website or something.
What if they don’t believe in God or don’t believe in the Bible or something? Again, that’s something we’ll get into later, but let’s just say that sometimes you may have to do a little apologetics as pre-evangelism.
Realistically, we’re all going to miss opportunities. That’s just part of human nature. It’s not about being perfect; it’s about doing better than you did yesterday.
Next time I'm going to share my standard gospel presentation.
Tuesday, July 29, 2014
Making Christ Known: Sharing the Faith
What is the worst thing that can happen to someone? To go to hell. The worst thing that can happen to someone isn’t to be lonely, poor, or sick; it isn’t to die young or outlive your children. The worst thing that can happen to someone is that they die and go to hell.
So what is the most important thing you can do for someone? It is to tell them how to escape hell. The purpose of all believers is to know Christ and make Him known. To make Christ known, we need to be godly men and women who are ready, willing, and able to share the Faith, defend the Faith, and apply the Faith to our world. After godliness, sharing the faith is the most important aspect. We can live out marvelous lives in front of our neighbors, but if we don’t tell them how to come to Christ, we have failed them – and him.
Many of us fail to share the gospel because we aren’t totally sure what it is – we don’t know what to say. But if you’re saved, you do know the gospel – you just may not feel confident in it.
The Basic Gospel
Here’s the most basic and most important question: Why do people need to be saved? What is it that gets us in trouble? Sin.
Why is that a problem? God is just. He must punish sin.
So are we without hope? No, God is merciful and sent Christ to die for our sins.
So what do we do? Trust in Christ’s death and resurrection as payment for our sins and repent from our wicked ways.
That’s it. That’s the heart of the gospel.
The Need
Let’s look a little closer now at an often under-appreciated part of the gospel: In Mark 10:17-23, a man comes to Jesus and asks, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus’ response may seem a little strange to us. Jesus didn’t say anything about having a god-shaped hole in his heart. He didn’t tell him, “I love you and have a wonderful plan for your life.” He didn’t tell him to invite Jesus into his heart. He pointed the young man to the Law. This seeker replied that he had kept all the commandments from his youth, and Jesus pointed out that he hadn’t kept the first one – his money was a god to him.
What was Jesus doing here? Is he suggesting that keeping the commandments would get someone into heaven? No; rather he is using the commandments to point out the man’s sin. Paul said, “I would not have known what sin was, except for the law” (Rom 7:7). He also says “in order that sin might be recognized as sin, [the law] produced death in me through what was good, so that through the commandment sin might become utterly sinful” (Rom 7:13).
The Modern Problem
This is very important to us today. Once, you could pretty much count on everyone being aware of the fact that they are sinners. Today, that is not true. We live in a world of moral relativism. People generally want to believe that there are no hard and fast rules – whatever you believe is good for you, but it means nothing for me. So we get hung up at the first points of the gospel – sin and the coming judgment.
Some people have responded to this by making the gospel about peace with God or completeness or a cure for loneliness. But Jesus did not come to this world to merely give us peace with God or to fill the god-shaped hole in our hearts. Sin is the disease – it is why we need peace and have a god-shaped hole. Trying to make the gospel about anything else is trying to treat the symptoms without getting at the disease. It’s not good medicine, and it’s not good theology.
It’s been said that before people can benefit from the good news they have to be bothered by the bad news. The bad news is that we are all sinners and we will all be judged by a just and holy God. Any “gospel” that does not start from that point is no gospel at all. Jesus, Paul, and Peter all called people to do two things – repent and believe. If we leave out the sin part, we leave out the repent. If we leave out the repent, we fall under Paul’s curse in Galatians 1:8 – “But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let him be eternally condemned!” That sounds harsh, but we have to realize that if people aren’t coming to Christ because they’ve realized that they cannot be good enough to stand before a holy God and survive, they don’t really think they need Christ. The modern approach at the gospel – which bypasses the whole yucky sin thing – has produced a lot of so-called Christians who think they’re fine but are really headed toward hell.
This may explain why, by and large, self-described born again Christians are almost as likely as non-Christians to cheat on their taxes – or their wives! It also helps explain why over 80% of those who make “decisions” for Christ are living like unbelievers within a year.
It is only when we realize our precarious position as “sinners in the hands of an angry God” that the cross of Christ becomes attractive.
Why am I going on about this? Because I want us all to be out there sharing the gospel, but I want to make sure we’re actually sharing the right gospel.
There’s a lady at work that I’ve been trying to witness to. Some things have come out in our conversations that seemed to really peak her interest. Coming from a Hindu background, she was quite taken with the notion of a God that is personally interested in her. She also showed surprise and interest in the notion that you can be absolutely certain right now about what course your afterlife will take. A lot of people would press those things, urging her to pray a prayer and start a “relationship” with God. But until she accepts that she is not good enough and cannot ever be acceptable to God by her own merits, she can’t have a relationship with God. I’ll keep praying and looking for opportunities, but the gospel cannot be watered down. Hopefully she will one day see her need for a redeemer and come to Christ, but if she doesn’t, she will stand before God knowing that she was warned about that day.
Share the gospel. But share the right gospel. The real gospel. Anything else is doing more harm than good.
"OK, but I don't know how." We'll get into that next time.
So what is the most important thing you can do for someone? It is to tell them how to escape hell. The purpose of all believers is to know Christ and make Him known. To make Christ known, we need to be godly men and women who are ready, willing, and able to share the Faith, defend the Faith, and apply the Faith to our world. After godliness, sharing the faith is the most important aspect. We can live out marvelous lives in front of our neighbors, but if we don’t tell them how to come to Christ, we have failed them – and him.
Many of us fail to share the gospel because we aren’t totally sure what it is – we don’t know what to say. But if you’re saved, you do know the gospel – you just may not feel confident in it.
The Basic Gospel
Here’s the most basic and most important question: Why do people need to be saved? What is it that gets us in trouble? Sin.
Why is that a problem? God is just. He must punish sin.
So are we without hope? No, God is merciful and sent Christ to die for our sins.
So what do we do? Trust in Christ’s death and resurrection as payment for our sins and repent from our wicked ways.
That’s it. That’s the heart of the gospel.
The Need
Let’s look a little closer now at an often under-appreciated part of the gospel: In Mark 10:17-23, a man comes to Jesus and asks, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus’ response may seem a little strange to us. Jesus didn’t say anything about having a god-shaped hole in his heart. He didn’t tell him, “I love you and have a wonderful plan for your life.” He didn’t tell him to invite Jesus into his heart. He pointed the young man to the Law. This seeker replied that he had kept all the commandments from his youth, and Jesus pointed out that he hadn’t kept the first one – his money was a god to him.
What was Jesus doing here? Is he suggesting that keeping the commandments would get someone into heaven? No; rather he is using the commandments to point out the man’s sin. Paul said, “I would not have known what sin was, except for the law” (Rom 7:7). He also says “in order that sin might be recognized as sin, [the law] produced death in me through what was good, so that through the commandment sin might become utterly sinful” (Rom 7:13).
The Modern Problem
This is very important to us today. Once, you could pretty much count on everyone being aware of the fact that they are sinners. Today, that is not true. We live in a world of moral relativism. People generally want to believe that there are no hard and fast rules – whatever you believe is good for you, but it means nothing for me. So we get hung up at the first points of the gospel – sin and the coming judgment.
Some people have responded to this by making the gospel about peace with God or completeness or a cure for loneliness. But Jesus did not come to this world to merely give us peace with God or to fill the god-shaped hole in our hearts. Sin is the disease – it is why we need peace and have a god-shaped hole. Trying to make the gospel about anything else is trying to treat the symptoms without getting at the disease. It’s not good medicine, and it’s not good theology.
It’s been said that before people can benefit from the good news they have to be bothered by the bad news. The bad news is that we are all sinners and we will all be judged by a just and holy God. Any “gospel” that does not start from that point is no gospel at all. Jesus, Paul, and Peter all called people to do two things – repent and believe. If we leave out the sin part, we leave out the repent. If we leave out the repent, we fall under Paul’s curse in Galatians 1:8 – “But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let him be eternally condemned!” That sounds harsh, but we have to realize that if people aren’t coming to Christ because they’ve realized that they cannot be good enough to stand before a holy God and survive, they don’t really think they need Christ. The modern approach at the gospel – which bypasses the whole yucky sin thing – has produced a lot of so-called Christians who think they’re fine but are really headed toward hell.
This may explain why, by and large, self-described born again Christians are almost as likely as non-Christians to cheat on their taxes – or their wives! It also helps explain why over 80% of those who make “decisions” for Christ are living like unbelievers within a year.
It is only when we realize our precarious position as “sinners in the hands of an angry God” that the cross of Christ becomes attractive.
Why am I going on about this? Because I want us all to be out there sharing the gospel, but I want to make sure we’re actually sharing the right gospel.
There’s a lady at work that I’ve been trying to witness to. Some things have come out in our conversations that seemed to really peak her interest. Coming from a Hindu background, she was quite taken with the notion of a God that is personally interested in her. She also showed surprise and interest in the notion that you can be absolutely certain right now about what course your afterlife will take. A lot of people would press those things, urging her to pray a prayer and start a “relationship” with God. But until she accepts that she is not good enough and cannot ever be acceptable to God by her own merits, she can’t have a relationship with God. I’ll keep praying and looking for opportunities, but the gospel cannot be watered down. Hopefully she will one day see her need for a redeemer and come to Christ, but if she doesn’t, she will stand before God knowing that she was warned about that day.
Share the gospel. But share the right gospel. The real gospel. Anything else is doing more harm than good.
"OK, but I don't know how." We'll get into that next time.
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