I
Want to Start Sharing the Gospel, But Now What?
Posted
on October 17, 2012 by Chris Hohnholz
If
you have been reading my articles lately, you have probably noticed a very
consistent theme, that being that Christians are commanded to share the gospel
with the lost. I have been writing these articles for the very purpose of
awakening the church to the desperate need in our world for the glorious gospel
of Jesus Christ to be preached. It has been my sincere hope and prayer that
these articles may have caused even a small number of Christians to stop and
evaluate whether they have been obedient to the command of our Lord and Savior,
Jesus Christ. If you are one that has realized he or she has not been doing so,
but realize you need to be, you may be asking, “What do I do now? Just how do I
go about doing this?” It is my hope and prayer that over the next few articles
I can answer these questions and help equip you to biblically share the great
and glorious message that Jesus Christ came to save sinners. Today, there are
three things I want to encourage you to do as you go about preparing yourself
to evangelize the lost.
First
and foremost, before we ever wade out into the world to share the gospel, we
need to be about the business of praying to God. A Christian must pray that God would give him wisdom, boldness and an
unquenching thirst to preach the gospel to the lost. Christians must pray
for humility, confessing their sins and repenting of them, and praying that
they would not seek their own recognition and glory. Rather, Christians should
pray that they would seek only to glorify the Lord by preaching His truth, not
seeking to persuade with our own vain philosophies, but by speaking His
revealed Word. Christians must pray for the Lord to break through the hardened,
stony hearts of sinners and that He would reveal their need for Christ as their
Savior. That He would cause the scales to fall from the eyes of the lost and
cause them to see Christ in all His glory. Christians should also pray for
steadfastness, an unwavering desire to preach the true gospel, no matter the
opposition, or even persecution, that they may face. We must pray that we never
become weary in doing good even when the world seeks to shut us up, when our
friends and family tell us to stop being “so preachy” and even when our local
churches refuse to support us because we are “judgmental.” We must pray that we
would never stop sharing the gospel because we seek to please God alone and
desire to bring a lost and dying world to Him. Prayer is one of our most potent
and valuable weapons because it causes us to come to the throne of grace,
seeking the power and equipping of our sovereign Lord. Never seek to accomplish the task of evangelism under your own “power.”
Rather seek the power of God Himself to do the work.
Secondly,
Christians need to become thoroughly equipped in the study of the scriptures.
Human wisdom and philosophy can accomplish precious little when it comes to
proclamation of the gospel. Remember that those who are lost are slaves to sin
and are spiritually dead. Our words alone will never penetrate the rocky soil
of an unregenerate heart. Only the Words of God Himself can break up that stone
and make the heart into fertile soil. Therefore, we must be diligent to study
the Bible daily, but not just to find scriptures that bolster our arguments.
Such study accomplishes little because we are not seeking the actual context
and application of God’s Word. If we fail to discern the true meaning of a
passage, we may end up ripping scriptures out of context and doing damage to
the message itself. Rather, we should study that we might grow in all wisdom
and understanding. We should study so
that our lives are so impacted by the Word, that every aspect of how we live
changes to reflect the image of our Savior. In doing so, not only will we
gain the words necessary to share with the lost, we will actually demonstrate
that we believe them because our lives will reflect it. All the objections and
obstacles that man can offer against God find their demise in the very words of
our Lord. Study, memorize and learn to apply all of the scriptures on a daily
basis.
Third,
remember that you were once a lost and condemned sinner too. Remember that you
had sinned against the very Creator who gave you life and breath through your
wicked works. Remember that you had broken His laws, that you had been a liar,
a thief, an idolator, a blashpember, one who lusted and fornicated, who
harbored unjust anger in your heart, one who had sought only to please himself
above all others. That in your sinned darkened stated, had you died and stood
before God, who is perfectly righteous and holy, you would have been judged
guilty and rightly condemned to an eternity it Hell. Yet, while you were still a sinner, God sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to
die for you on the cross. That Christ lived the life of perfect obedience
to the law that you could not. That He willingly went to the cross to suffer a
brutal and humiliating death, the one that you deserved. That three days later,
He rose again, defeating death and giving you a promise of eternal life.
Remember that one day, God sent someone to you to share this glorious message
of salvation. That He opened your eyes and softened your heart. That God
miraculously granted you repentance and faith and caused you to be born again.
And as you remember these things, glorify the Lord through worship and praise.
Remember that you were once dead and He made you alive. Rejoice that God took
an unworthy sinner like you (and me) and adopted you as His child. Then, in
your praise and adoration of Him, seek to obey His command to preach this
glorious message to others.
By
equipping ourselves in these three areas – prayer, study and worship – we
prepare ourselves for the spiritual warfare of saving souls. We are equipped
with God’s power rather than our own and we are using His weapons in this
battle. The preaching of the gospel is not an effort to improve lives, change
minds or rescue the culture. The preaching of the gospel is two things: first,
it is the glorification of our great God and Savior; second, it is a rescue
mission to save souls on a path to Hell. Therefore, we dare not treat this
lightly. Let us be fully prepared, with all God has to offer us, before we step
foot onto the battlefield.
In
my next article, I intend to speak on the biblical presentation of the gospel
and to point out the errors of modern evangelical “evangelism.”
I
Want to Start Sharing the Gospel, Part 2
Posted
on October 24, 2012 by Chris Hohnholz
http://defendingcontending.com/
In
my last article, I shared three things that I believe every Christian must be
doing before they step out into the world to start sharing the gospel of Jesus
Christ: study the Word of God, pray, and give worship and praise to the Lord
who saved you. All three of these things are the necessities of any Christian
walk. There can be no growth and maturing without them. And they are absolutely
essential in preparing one’s self for the spiritual warfare that is the saving
of souls. Today, in the theme of preparing ourselves for witnessing, I want to
address some rather unbiblical methods that are being employed by Christians,
ministries and churches that should be avoided. Believe it or not, it really
does make a difference about how you share your faith. The methods that I want
to share today are very popular, but they are antithetical to the gospel and
have often been responsible for creating false converts, those who profess a
faith in Christ, but have never truly repented and put their faith in Him. If
we are to be obedient to the command to preach the gospel, then we want to
avoid those methods that are not in line with God’s word.
God
Has a Wonderful Plan for Your Life
Perhaps
one of the most common evangelistic approaches today is for the Christian to
approach an unrepentant, unregenerate sinner and to explain to him or her that
God deeply and truly loves that person and has a “wonderful plan” for their
life. The pitch usually states that all the joys of this world are
insufficient, always leaving us wanting more. We chase after the elusive
concept of happiness, but are never really satisfied. But if the sinner will
just “accept Jesus” who died for their sins (a concept only briefly mentioned
and never explained) then God will grant them peace, love and joy in abundance,
fulfilling all the wants and desires the world never could. The sinner is then
encouraged to pray a prayer, to make Jesus their Lord, and then is told without
question that they are a Christian and to never, ever doubt it.
This
approach sounds so kind and loving, ensuring the lost person that the promises
of God will be extended to them without question, so how could there be
anything wrong with it? Unfortunately, there is a lot wrong. Let’s start with
the fact that the presentation that God “loves the sinner” is inaccurate. A
sinner, by definition, is a lawbreaker and rebel against the Lord who created
him or her. Remember that God is holy and righteous, so much so that a guilty
sinner cannot stand in His presence and not be destroyed. In fact, Psalm 7: 11
states, “God is a just judge, and is angry with the wicked every day.” It is a
false statement to tell a sinner that God loves them when the’re standing in a
rebellious state before Him. Such a claim leaves the sinner believing God likes
them “for whom they are” and that their sins are not really an abomination
before Him. If they do not understand the nature of their sin, sinners will not
repent before a holy God.
Another
problem is the promise that God has a wonderful plan for the sinner. This is
problematic on many levels. First off, in their sinful state, the only plan God
has for them is judgment. Certainly, this in not “wonderful.” Secondly, if a
person truly becomes a Christian, Jesus taught His followers, “Most assuredly,
I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master; nor is he who is sent
greater than he who sent him,” (John 13: 16). If Christ is the Christian’s
master, and Christ was so hated by the world that He was persecuted and
crucified, what is the promise for the Christian? Followers of Christ can
expect the world to hate and persecute them, and that life in this world will
not be comfortable for them. The promises of peace and having an “abundant
life” for the Christian are not tied to worldly comforts, but having peace with
God through Christ’s shed blood and by no longer being shackled to our sinful
nature. Yet, to the unregenerate sinner, such a promise of a “wonderful life”
is devoid of such meaning because they lack understanding of their sinful state
and coming judgment. Christians dare not
use the fruits of salvation as a draw card to entice the unbeliever into
becoming a Christian.
Just
Let People See Jesus in You
In
our current, post-modern culture, telling someone that their life is considered
sinful before God and they are pending His righteous judgment is probably the
worst “sin” a person can commit. In fact, telling people that your beliefs are
right and theirs are wrong is equally terrible in the eyes of society. So the
church has developed a much less assertive method of evangelism. This is the
“live your life in such a way that people just have to ask you about it”
method. I have heard on many occasions from professing Christians that we
shouldn’t be pushy or preachy with unbelievers. We should just live good and
kind lives. This will clearly lead those around us to see there is something
different about us and cause them to ask us what it is. When they do, then we
can tell them that Jesus gives us that joy and peace that the rest of the world
lacks. Unfortunately, when you press the issue, most Christians will admit that
this rarely, if ever happens.
The
sad truth of the matter is that this method of evangelism accomplishes nothing.
While the Christian must live a life of obedience to God, without an
explanation of what the gospel is and why we obey the Lord out of love, the
sinner has nothing to differentiate our “good lives” from that of the Hindu,
the Muslim or the atheist. Their standard of “good” is a worldly standard, and
they will equate the goodness of the Christian is the same as any other
religious, or non-religious, person. In other words, they have no real reason
to believe that your “good life” is any different than anyone else’s, so there
is no need to believe there is anything special about it.
The
other problem with this is that the unsaved person is standing before God with
His holy and righteous wrath awaiting them. If we desire to see them saved from
the fires of Hell, why are we hoping to entice them with a few good works? To
borrow an analogy from Ray Comfort, if you saw a neighbor’s house on fire,
would you walk up and down the sidewalk in a happy and kind manner hoping to
draw them out? Or would you run up to the door, yelling and screaming about the
danger they were in and urging them to flee to safety? If you truly care about
the unsaved sinner, you will warn them about the danger now, while there is
still time.
Friendship
Evangelism
Friendship
evangelism is a modern concept that teaches the Christian must befriend and nurture
a relationship with a person before the subject of Jesus ever comes up. In
fact, it is stressed that the Christian must “earn the right” to share the
gospel with that person before they ever open their mouth on the subject. The
belief is that if we, as Christians, do not earn this right, then we could
drive off the person by being too “preachy” or “judgmental” and they will never
“accept Jesus.”
Such
a method denies several things. First, it denies the very power of the gospel
itself. If the gospel is the power of
God unto salvation (Romans 1:16), then I never need to dress it up, ease it in,
or earn the right to proclaim it. It is the very message of God that Jesus
Christ came into this world to save sinners. There is no more important message
to share with someone, a message that has eternal consequences. To delay
sharing it because I need to “earn the right” denies that the simple
proclamation of it is insufficient and that I must add something to it, my own
work, before it can be used.
Secondly,
it denies the manner throughout scripture we see it proclaimed. During His
earthly ministry, Christ confronted sinners with their desperate need for
salvation. In John 3, Nicodemus comes to Jesus by night with great flowing
words of praise. Christ did not even hesitate, but told him, “Most assuredly, I
say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God,” (John
3: 3) Jesus did not attempt to win this influential teacher as a friend, rather
he drove straight into the heart of the matter, wasting no time. In the
following chapter, Jesus speaks to the woman at the well in Samaria. Once
again, we see our Lord wasting no time addressing the adulterous lifestyle of a
woman who just met him. He did not attempt a long, extended effort at
befriending her, Jesus spoke plainly to her about her greatest need. And if
these examples are not enough, look to Peter at Pentecost where he addressed
the crowds and 3,000 came to repentance and faith (Acts 2). Or look to Paul on
Mars Hill in Athens where Paul spoke to a crowd of pagan philosophers (Acts
17). In neither case did either of these apostles attempt to befriend the
crowds, they simply proclaimed the gospel, trusting in the power of God to
bring salvation.
Lastly,
it denies the command of God Himself. Jesus commanded His disciples, “Go into
all the world and preach the gospel to every creature,” (Mark 16: 15) and to
“…make disciples of all the nations…” (Matthew 28:19). If we practice
friendship evangelism, as it is defined today, then we are stating we do not
have to follow this command until we feel we are good and ready. We are going
to delay the need to obey God’s command until such a time as we feel
comfortable to do so. Yet, nowhere in scripture is such a caveat given. Nowhere
does Christ command that the gospel message be delayed until a more opportune
time. In fact, we are reminded continually that we do not know the hour of
Christ’s return, or even when our last breath will be. The gospel message is
one that must be proclaimed with urgency. To delay that because we must make
them our friend first denies that God will take that person out of this life at
a time of His choosing, which could be well before that “friendship” is
established. If we practice this method, we are assuming God will allow that
person to never encounter death until we have shared the gospel with them. That
is a dangerous presumption to make. We should never delay this most important
message of all.
So
What Do I Actually Say?
There
is in fact a truly biblical method of evangelism. A method that exposes the
unregenerate sinner to his condemned state before God and his desperate need
for a Savior. In my next article I will address this method specifically.
