Hey everybody, this is Pastor John Ewart from Englewood
Baptist Church in Rocky Mountain, North Carolina.
Thank you so much for tuning into our podcast.
You're going to hear from God today as we share from his word
about important issues facing your life that can guide you
according to the Bible. Well, so those I just want to
thank you all for being here. Live with me.
It's always good to see all of you here.
And, and then I also want to thank those who are listening
online to the podcasts that we're generating out of this.
I also want to just remind everyone that there's some new
podcasts that'll be coming out very, very soon.
We're actually recording a podcast about engaging the
Bible. How do I do that on a personal
level? In other words, how do I have
the very best personal Bible study?
How do I know how to interpret Scripture and apply Scripture in
my life? And then how do I know how to
teach other people? That's going to be coming out in
a podcast soon. In fact, Pastor Jordan and I
recorded one episode today with Danny Akin, and others will be
joining us for that. So you'll all be watching for
that as well as those who are listening to this.
We have folks who are serving. In fact, we appreciate very much
the number that we've had some increase in those who are
serving like an marijuana's program.
And so we, we, we, we thank them, but they're not in here,
they're over there. But we appreciate all the of you
who are serving that way. And I know some people need to
listen to this recording because right now they're in other
places serving around the building.
So, so very thankful for for that.
You know, if I was going to sit there and say, and I tried to
say this Sunday that if I thought there was a session, you
really needed to make sure that you were paying attention to
this is this is one of two of them.
All of them are important. And just to give you an idea of
what's coming, because remember, I'm stair stepping this process
down the road to several of you have asked me these questions
down the road I am going to address how do I share with
people from special backgrounds or special life situations.
For example, how do I share with family?
Sometimes that's hard. How do I share with Co workers,
but also how would I share from somebody from a different
religion? And then also how would I share
with somebody from an alternative lifestyle that is
not necessarily with the one that we're living.
And so I know several people who are working with people who are
in various communities and identities.
And so how do I share the gospel with them as well.
So we're going to be talking about that and more down the
road, but we want to get there. So if you've missed the
episodes, you need to go back and listen because we did a
biblical and theological foundation.
We've also talked about some pre evangelism.
How do I actually develop relationships with lost people?
And I appreciated there were people who came up to me who
were very convicted about that. And it's just we're open and
transparent sharing that I'm not doing that enough.
And then also, how do we pray for our lost friends and family?
So now we're in a place where we're in a conversation or we're
in a relationship with a lost person.
That's the state that we're talking about.
So now what do I do? And one of the biggest hurdles
for a lot of people, not maybe, maybe not you, because we also
talked about the personal barriers last time that we have
concerning fear, apathy, busyness, introspection,
etcetera, and ignorance. How do I overcome some of these
barriers that keep me from sharing my faith?
And so part of what we're talking about now, So now I'm
here in this relationship with a lost person.
I'm primarily talking about people that you see on a regular
basis, although it could be that person X that I hope you're
praying for, that we talked about last time, that person
that you'll meet today, that person you don't know, that
person I that you're praying that God would put into your
path, I hope. But we're also just talking
about your neighbor. We're talking about your Co
worker, we're talking about your family member.
We're talking about somebody you might seem more than once, you
know, so I'm in this relationship.
So how do, how do we do this? So part of what we're talking
about is how do I then lead this conversation to Christ?
So how do we move from praying for the lost?
How do I move from that and talking about the weather or
whatever it is to actually sharing Christ?
And so you just need to recognize, and I'm, I'm going to
take this slowly because you can't rush through this.
That second point on the that you're seeing is incredibly
important. I'm presuming that you're
praying, I'm presuming that you're actually intentionally
trying to build this relationship.
I'm not sure that what I'm about to say to you will work if
you're not doing that. And so you've got to understand
that each step is crucial to this.
I, I can't save people, I can't convict people, I can't make
people want to be saved, right? In fact, if I could do that, it
would be fake. And so God the Holy Spirit has
to do this, which means that the Holy Spirit has to be all over
this situation, which means I better be praying and better be
understanding the biblical and theological foundations under
girding all of this situation. Does that all make sense?
So this relationship, number one drives relationship #2 my
relationship with God and His people drives my relationship
with the world and its people. And that's going to come up here
in just a second in a huge practical way.
And I may trap you in a minute. So get ready because we're,
we're stair stepping our way into this.
So I'm presuming that you're praying hard for whoever this
is, whether that's your buddy, your neighbor, or person X.
You've been praying for them and you're praying that way.
So your heart and your mind, you're ready.
You're, you're, you're in a good spot with God.
And so you're going to be the best conduit of power that you
can possibly be. And that's important.
The conduit needs to be clear. And if God's going to use you,
you need to be usable. So there there's a profound
theological statement. So let me show you a model that
a friend of mine that I've mentioned to you before, Tim
Booker, who also talked to us in the last episode about our
barriers, but he also has an outline.
This isn't my outline, but I just want to give it to you
because you might find this one more helpful than what I'm going
to say. And he talks about exploring,
stimulating, and sharing. So in other words, you explore
the relationship with this person.
You're getting to know them. And these are the everything
about this is true and everything about this is good.
In other words, I actually am in a relationship with this person.
This isn't just a target. This isn't just project #32 this
is a real human being. Jesus didn't treat people like
project #32 neither does Paul. He, he, he's, he's actually
trying to engage with them in a real human relationship.
And so I'm getting to know them. I'm asking them questions, I'm
listening. And that word listen is huge in
this. In fact, if we're going to talk
about evangelism in a pre Christian post postmodern
culture, listening is one of the greatest tools and it's one that
we don't pay enough attention to because we're so monologically
driven. Listen to me, listen to me.
And we're trying to present, we're trying to do content dump
and sometimes we need to be quiet.
I have a big sign in my office. It's down on the floor so it
doesn't offend anybody who walks in there because it's not
directed towards you. It's directed toward me.
It's a big old metal sign on a bottom shelf in my office.
Is never miss a good chance to shut up.
OK, so you're you often need to ask yourself the question, why
am I talking? Why am I not listening?
All right, because that that's an authentic relationship.
And so I need to listen and then I'm going to stimulate.
In other words, I'm trying to raise the interest in spiritual
matters with simple questions and then I'm going to share.
I want to respond to their needs and I want to seek to apply the
gospel where they are, where in where they're living, what based
upon what I'm learning about them.
It's going to help me know how to share with them the truths of
the gospel. Now, I'm going to break this out
in much more detail and it's going to take a long time.
Now, it's going to take a minute to do it.
So what you're going to notice on your listening guide and and
this is no accident that this outline spells out what reach
every outline I use spells out. Guess what?
Yeah, that's because it's easy for me to remember.
OK, there's no trickery. That's just sheer, you know,
limited brain power. So to to help me and remember
these things, I spell this out to where I can kind of remember
this and pray through this. So what I'm about to show you
isn't a isn't necessarily a technique or a method.
This is this is actually, these are prayer requests, but this is
also just who you need to become.
Because again, my goal isn't to teach you to do evangelism.
My goal is to teach you how to live it, how to be it, which is
why we talk about the essential of discipleship being living out
of evangelism with with that sense of boldness.
So we want to talk about that boldness and love.
So when we talk about leading a conversation to Christ, let's
just start at the very beginning.
We're not this, this first point I'm going to share with you is
not about spiritual things. So I want us to recognize the
opportunity. And you might think this is
silly, but it's not. I'm telling you, I've shared
this with you before. I've often believed, still
believe that one of the greatest courses I could ever teach is
how to have, how to have sane human conversations with other
human beings. And our culture today that is
almost foreign anymore, right? And so how can we have good
things? So part of what I'm praying,
remember, I'm praying before this, right?
Everybody got that You're not praying.
I don't know if his works you, you understand the Bible is
telling us to do this. We talked about that episode 1.
We're praying. We're, we're, we're asking God
to help us with the fear, the nervousness, the ignorance, the,
the, the introspection, which if you missed that, it just means I
don't think I'm good enough to do this.
I saw a prayer request on our prayer list tonight where
somebody was praying for somebody who didn't think they
were worthy to be saved. That's introspection.
I'm too bad I'm too much of A Sinner for God to use me to do
anything like this, right? So I'm recognizing the
opportunity. I'm asking God to sharpen my
spiritual senses. And this is where if you pray
with that prayer guide I've given you in the past to where I
start my day or I start my focus by praying for lost people by
name. I'm praying for person.
Next I'm going to meet. So when I hit the gas station or
when I hit the restaurant or when I'm at the Walmarts, as we
used to say back home, at back home, you get up of the morning
and you go to the Walmarts. And so, even though there's only
one of them that, you know, goes to where we're from, but there's
like, and, and it was a small one, but anyway, so you go to
Walmart, but wherever I'm going, I want to encounter person X
And, and I don't, I don't want to just treat them like person
XII see them in a different light.
Who, why am I meeting this person?
So, so we're, we're in Nashville the other day and I dropped
Teresa off because she wants to mail her mommy a big box of
encouragement. Her mom has Parkinson's and, and
is not doing great. So we just wanted to mail her a
big box of encouragement. That's what Teresa put together.
And so we go to the post office and of course, you know, I just
want to sit in the truck while she goes in and mails the box
because I figured it's going to take her about 45 minutes.
So I'm sitting in the truck. It was a good sized box and
she's only in there for a few minutes and she comes out, she
goes, you got to come in here. You need to come in here as I
throw my wedding ring on the floor.
You got to come here. It's better than my belt.
So you've been here for that day.
Yeah, it's better than my belt. But anyway, so, so, so she says
you need to come in and meet these folks.
And I'm like, what has she done? You know, and of course I go in
there and she's, you know, Englewood, Englewood, Englewood.
Y'all need to come to Englewood. Everybody needs to come to
Englewood. Everybody, you know, you're
Inglewood. And so I'm like, so you're the
pastor of Englewood. And of course I'm in my ball cap
and T-shirt and like, yeah, I'm the pastor of Englewood.
Come watch Quasimodo preach. But anyway, so, but I mean,
she's just all over it, see. And then we're at one of the
diners, I won't say which one because everybody has their
favorite. And you think Dallas Cowboys got
me in trouble. I should just name a diner.
And so we're at one of those meeting one of the new
waitresses, because we meet all the waitresses and they all know
who I am and they all stop at the table and they're asking us
for, you know, we're checking on prayer requests and their
husbands and, and everybody who's sick and their families
and all this stuff at these places.
So how am I seeing these people? How am I going through life?
Am I going through life so rapidly to where I'm absolutely
missing out on the billions of opportunities that God's
throwing right in my pathway, right.
Because I'm so I'm so wound up with me.
I'm so wound up with my To Do List, Then I'm just, I'm just
missing it. So I want to recognize the
opportunity. So I've got to deal with a
burden. And there's that word you got to
pray because I don't believe. I mean, I wish I could.
I wish I could take burden and just stuff it inside of you.
If I could do that, I would. You wouldn't like it, but I'd do
it. I'd hold you down and I'd stuff
it in there. But it doesn't do any good and
just makes you mad. So the Holy Spirit has to do
that. The Holy Spirit has to make you
care and the Holy Spirit has to have and has to sharpen your
senses. And I believe that you all care.
You wouldn't be here listening to this, right?
So we're all in this boat. So we want to do this.
We, we want to, we want to be proactive.
Now, one of the ways to help you, and this is one of the
reasons why we have entry level outreach type process is like
reach. Reach isn't necessarily
evangelism. Reach is just inviting people to
come to church, just inviting people to join your connect
groups and some of your connect groups don't have enough room
already because of it. We've had a 40 plus percent
increase in our connect group attendance.
And so, so one of the things that we're seeing is we're,
we're trying to figure out schedules in space.
And so, but it's just not reach. It's just, you know, hey, we're
having a good time. Come and join us with our good
time. You need to meet this group of
people. They'll love you, you'll love
them. Let's have a good time together.
So it's just outreach. But by participating in that,
what it does is it shifts our mindset from an inward focus to
an outward focus. That's it.
I'm praying for people, inviting people, encouraging people to be
here. When we will make 1000 contexts,
we're going to figure out that 500 of them probably go to other
churches or, or, or something else.
And that'd be great. We need to know that so that we
won't bother for me, we need to know that, right?
We need to figure this out and in this one time kind of deal.
And so we need everybody on board, but it's just outward
focus, loving people, encouraging people to come.
But it when you do that, it helps the mindset to pray.
It helps the mindset to reach out.
It helps that mindset a little bit.
And and then just remember the abiding connection.
Never forget. And I've worn this verse out
with you a little bit probably. But John 15 five, just don't
forget this abiding connection that we are simply a, a, a part
of the vine, right? He's the vine.
We're just an extension of him. That's all that we, we're just
the branches and whoever abides in, in him and, and, and he
abides in us, then we can bear fruit.
And that really is the key. It's relationship #1 the more
I'm in with him and the more he's in me, the more fruit
that's going to get more going to get born, bared, bared born
going to be there. All right, I'm telling you, I'm
from Oklahoma. So I think we, we borned it or
something. But anyway, so more fruit, you
know, it's going to come and, and, but apart from him, we
can't do anything. And we've got to recognize this
is, this is truth. This isn't just a verse thrown
in there for, for, for the heck of it.
This is the fact, this is a real verse and it's a real truth that
apart from him, we really can't. So this first point is just real
that recognize the fact that what I'm praying for is that
Holy Spirit, you will hit me upside the head and help me to
recognize that this is an opportunity, right?
And I'm not just going to slide by it so fast.
And God, I'm asking you to do that.
In fact, I'm begging you to do that.
I, I want your connect groups to beg God that there will be brand
new people there Sunday, that that's the kind of prayer I want
us to see. I don't care how crowded it is.
I don't care how many years we got to stuff in there.
You're begging more people to come study the word of God.
But in the same way, Lord, help me to recognize, wait a minute,
I'm in this conversation with this person.
I need to do something with this conversation.
This is a moment, this is an opportunity.
The bells ringing off on my soul and my spirit here.
All right, big boy, I've given you this opportunity.
Don't miss this because I'm, I'm telling you in our world today
and, and, and then, and then somebody was telling me the
other day that they were, they were very convicted to the point
of emotionally convicted that they knew they had missed one
and they were talking to me. But I, I should and I knew I
should. And I as soon as it was over, I
realized. And So what we want to do is
just be proactive enough to where we don't miss as many of
them. All right, simple .1.
We're not even, we're not even talking about a cross yet.
We're not even talking about the Bible yet.
We're just recognizing opportunities.
Now. Step 2 then.
So then that means that I want to actually begin to engage in
conversation that this may seem like a dumb moment, but it's not
for our culture today. We, we actually need to talk to
people. And in our world today, that's
often weird. I was in this conversation today
about how in some parts of our culture today, it is weird to
talk to a stranger, period. Now, here in our culture, that's
not as weird. The South is still known for
talking to strangers, but in some parts of our country today
that you don't. And so to actually engage in
conversation. I was in an airport bookstore
one time, my second home and, and a guy was talking to me and,
and I, you know, he was across, you know, you had a kind of a
thing and he was right over there.
But because I'm tall, you know, I'm, I'm here and he's over and
he's talking to me. So I'm carrying on this whole
conversation with this guy. So finally I thought, well, let
me walk around the bookcase to see, you know, to actually meet
this guy. And I realized he has his, his
earbud in and he hadn't been talking to me at all.
In fact, he looks at me and he goes, so I really wasn't in a
conversation. I thought, man, look, you know,
Holy Spirit, here we go. Because he was actually, the
responses in this conversation were actually matching my
anyway. So I can't be afraid and I won't
be as afraid if I have good theology, which is why the
biblical and theological foundations matter.
Because if I believe that God is ahead of me and God is already
working in this person's life, you got to decide how much you
believe in God. I believe in a sovereign.
In fact, I read Psalm 139 in our staff devotion this morning.
And I believe in a sovereign God who knows my days before I was
ever born got them numbered. He's got them figured out.
And so I believe in divine appointments.
I, I don't believe that I'm, I'm meeting Phil, I don't believe
I'm talking to Phil by accident. So if I'm, if I meet person X or
we're engaged in, in a conversation, I'm talking to my
neighbor, that's not an accident, that's an
orchestration. And so I don't want to be afraid
if I'm praying that way, I'm asking for these things.
And I really want, I'm really going to believe that.
And so I, I want God's ahead of me.
I don't need to be afraid. I'm not meeting them by
accident. So then I have to learn how to
be a real human being. That's a struggle for me because
I'm weird. But, but to figure out how to be
natural, but also intentional, right?
And and that's, that's part of that class.
I need to teach sometime how not to be an awkward geek, weird
person, Christian, right? But, but I, I want to be
natural. I, I want to be intentional and
I need to be equipped, which is what you are doing.
And over these next few weeks you're going to have the tools,
you're going to have the whole bat belt ready to go with the
various things you need, various methods, various tools, various
presentation. That's not usually the issue.
What we're getting ready to talk about is usually the issue.
And so I, I want to be equipped. So then I'm actually in a
conversation with a person and I want to ask the right questions.
Now, we're still not talking about spiritual stuff yet.
Don't be thrown by it. We're still not talking about
spiritual stuff, but I want to move from the mundane to the
more important. Now, I'm not talking about the
gospel yet. Don't get ahead of me.
I promise you we're going to get to that.
But this step right here, it's crucial.
I promise you, this is as much my evangelistic methodology as
anything I could ever share with you.
I actually, and my dad beat this into me, bless his heart.
My dad was a small town lawyer for a practice for well over 50
years, worked with blue collar regular folk.
And he knew how to talk to regular folk.
And for all his interesting parts, he was, he was very good
at talking to people and, and, and, but what he really was good
at is listening. And so he would engage people in
conversation. We would travel, we traveled the
world together and he and he beat into me literally one time.
Beat into me how you ought to ask questions and how you'll be
interested in where people are from and get them to tell you
their stories because people love to talk about themselves.
And so how do I build bridges in common areas?
And this, this is where I live. So this is one of my first.
So I want to find out if they're married.
I want to find out if your husband, your father, your
grandfather, you like sports, what's going on?
What do you do for a living? I want to learn all these things
because I'm going to find commonalities between me and
that other person. I don't care what their
background is. They could be a Hindu, they
could be a Buddhist, they could be a Muslim, they could be an
atheist. But if they're a grandpa, I got
a bridge, see? And it's a real one.
That's not a made-up thing. This is who you really are.
One of the things I often say to people is when I get further
into this, we're actually talking about the gospel and
they start getting uncomfortable and they'll say, remember, you
started this, you, you started all this, You know, you answered
the questions. You're the one that told me
this. And, and, and we're in a, we're
in a mini relationship already. See.
And so one of the things that we're going to do is we're going
to talk about building bridges and common experiences, even
hobbies. You play golf or you don't play
golf or whatever you do. You know, this is important for
me. You may not use any of this, but
at least listen to what I'm getting ready to tell you
because I'm going to make the connection now here in a few
minutes because if I can understand something common in
common, you like football, You like college football, man, we
can talk all day like Danny Aiken.
Today we were talking about how to engage the Bible.
Then I got him off on Georgia football and that was it.
We were gone. He'd still be talking.
All right. And then I wanted to try to
remove any stones. So there's a verse that hangs in
my office. It's a verse that God used to
call me out of seminary or out of pastoral life, into seminary
life, and then drove me all around the world and back.
And it's Isaiah 6210. I've shared this verse with you
before. I won't go into all the details
of this verse. They're coming back from the
Babylonian exile. This is about the rebuilding of
Jerusalem. Think of Ezra, Nehemiah, by the
way, I'm going to preach through the book of Nehemiah starting in
January, and then we're going to go to the book of Romans.
That's next year. So Nehemiah and Romans are going
to take up most of 2026 on Sunday morning.
And so, but one of the things that we learned in that story
is, is they had to rebuild. A lot of it was in rubble.
You know, it's totally destroyed by the Babylonians.
And that, and this is a prophecy of that imagery.
So Isaiah says you got to go through, go through or another
translation would say pass through, pass through the gates.
The gates were destroyed. They had to go back out.
They had to rebuild so the people could come.
I've told you this before in different settings.
So they go through, go through the gates, prepare the way for
the people, build up, build up the highway.
But they had to clear it of stones.
This would be chunks of the wall that had fallen down.
And we're blocking the gates, blocking the roadways, blocking
the way in. They had to clear all these
obstacles out of the way so that the people who had not returned
yet could get into the city. And that's part of our job.
Part of our job is we can't just sit inside of here.
We got to go back through the gates, we got to build a
highway, we got to build the path for people who haven't come
yet to come. And we got to move the stones
out of the way. And this was tons of rock.
So they couldn't do that. They had to do that together.
They had to work together to do that.
And so we want to remove any stones.
And so in our conversations with people, we may hear why they
don't like church or why they don't like Christianity, all
these different things, or why they don't like you.
But but we got to do everything we can to try to build a bridge
with them in commonality. This isn't about an argument.
I don't try to argue people into Christianity.
I don't. I try to love them and share
honestly with them about my Savior who can save them.
And so one of the things we want to do is build commonality, not
have obstacles. So any obstacle I can get out of
the way. This, the cross is a big enough
stumbling block in and of itself.
Let that be the only one and let anything in my life get out of
the way. So not only am I doing this, but
as I continue to ask the right questions, I'm trying to
determine life needs. So what's going on in your life?
And I'm, I'm learning to listen. I'm telling you, I'm going to
say that word over and over and over again.
It's a key to postmodern evangelism in our culture today.
People are not interested in the sales pitch.
They're interested in you actually being interested in
them and caring about them. And so I want to determine life
needs and I'm trying to earn permission through respectful
relationship to actually have a conversation with him on a
deeper level, which is coming. I promise.
We're getting there. All of this can take 10 minutes
in my in my world, it might take 10 visits too with somebody.
You know, remember I talked about before the different
levels of lostness. Not everybody's the same lost,
you know, You have U ones and U fives.
You have, you have people who are farther away from the gospel
than others. You have some people who are
probably here tonight who aren't saved.
You have people who'll be here on Sunday morning who aren't
saved, but they're coming to church already.
And then you have people who are complete, a complete atheist and
agnostic, hostile people toward anything in terms of the church
or Christianity. That's a very small percentage
of our population, by the way, as I've shared with you before.
And so, so not everybody's the same.
So, so sometimes this is going to take 10 minutes, sometimes
this is going to take 10 visits, right.
And, and one of the great testimonies that one of our dear
sisters shared with us last week was how she prayed for her lost
brother since 2009 to since 2009.
And he was just saved last week. So we don't give up ever, ever,
but we're trying to figure out and, and we want to earn this,
this permission through respectful relationship, but we
also need to remember that God gives us the authority and the
right, and I've talked about that before.
We have the authority to share about Jesus.
We have the right to share about Jesus.
And if anybody asks you who gives you the right to talk
about this, Jesus does. And he has all authority in
heaven and on earth, whether you believe that or not.
But but in First Corinthians Chapter 9, Paul talks about this
a little bit. He says, listen, for though I am
free from all, I've made myself a servant to all.
Don't skip over that. In other words, in our culture
today, this is a this is foreign language because part of what
our culture's fighting so hard for is everybody believes they
have the personal right to something.
And it's my right to have that. In fact, every TV commercials
going to tell you, you deserve it.
And so and So what the problem is, is this leaks over into our
psyche as a culture to where somehow you're invading my
right. Well, Paul's saying, listen,
I've given up my rights. I want to serve.
I want to serve all. I'm a servant to all that I
might win more of them. So to the Jews I became as a Jew
in order to win Jews. Now, that didn't work for all of
us. It works for him because that
was his background to those under the law.
I became as one under the law, though not being myself under
the law, that I might win those under the law.
He has a background as a Pharisee to those outside the
law, I became as one outside the law.
He was apostle to the Gentiles, not being outside the law of
God, but under the law of Christ, that I might win those
outside the law. To the weak.
I became weak that I might win the weak.
I have become all things to all people that by all means I might
save some, and I do it all for the sake of the gospel that I
may share with them in its blessings.
And so in missions, we call this contextualization.
In our culture today, we've I call this a fight because so few
are willing to do this. How far are you willing to go to
serve a lost person? You following me?
I'm not talking about compromising your belief.
It's just the opposite of that. It's because of your belief
you're willing to do this. How far are you willing to go to
engage in a conversation and to love somebody who might be
unlovable, who might actually throw the love right back in
your face? How far will we go?
Because here's the here it is right here.
Here's here's the point. We want to connect with
spiritual matters. Now.
Don't start here necessarily. Now, if you're doing with AU one
who's already coming to church, they're already in your connect
group. You can start probably right
here, right? There are certain people in your
life who they're ripe and ready for most people that you're just
now talking to. You need to go all the way back
to the biblical and theological foundations to be praying for
them, overcoming barriers, developing a relationship, and
then leading the conversation to Christ along the way.
And part of the mistake that we've made as a Southern Baptist
denomination, frankly, and as the Church of America, which is
horrible at evangelism, horrible at evangelism statistically, is
that sometimes this is where we think we got to start.
And they're not ready for that. And and we offend more than we
attract because it's listen to me, I've memorized a 32 point
gospel outline with 16 illustrations and 14 sub points.
I'm on sub Point C, illustration B listen to me.
And it's just, it's robotically mechanical and they know that.
Is this real? I mean, are you real?
Is this authentic? See, now I'm not saying that all
gospel presentations that way. We're going to talk about gospel
presentation. I got a whole box of gospel
presentation we're going to talk about.
We're also going to talk about how to analyze, critically
analyze gospel presentations. What are the better ones?
How do I know that? How do I not know that?
What's the best one I can use? We're going to talk about gospel
content. What must a person know to be
saved? It's coming, but right now,
let's share about and invite them to connect, group and
church. Submit their name and
information to reach. This isn't an infomercial, this
is reality. You might need to start by just
inviting them to join you in your spiritual journey.
You would be a well, maybe you wouldn't, but there are people
especially, and this is going to.
I'll mention this again later, not tonight, but other times
when you're talking to somebody from another religious
background, you might be shocked at how willing and excited they
would be to come see what a Christian Church is like that.
That's true of most Muslims. That's true of many Hindus.
It's true of many Buddhists in the United States of America.
They're curious and they'd actually like to know what you
all do inside the hidden temple. And many of them don't know they
can come here without you bringing them.
They don't know they can just be here.
They don't know that, don't think they know that, don't
think that that what we're sitting here, this big old
building and they'll know and they'll just come.
They don't know they can. You got to throw this out of
your head. It's a new normal out there and
many of them wouldn't know if they would even be welcome or
not. I don't know how many times I
have conversations where people would say to me looking like I
look, I can come to your church and I want to be able to say
yes. Sometimes in my history, I've
wondered if I could honestly say yes, would they just be looked
upon? Listen, I've had brand new
Teresa Lat. I've had brand new Christians
who were saved, biker background, biker background,
people who were saved and they had their kids had never been in
church in their entire life. And they ran relay races in the
in the in the balcony during the sermon.
They didn't know what to do. They've never been in church.
What price will we pay? What tolerance will we have for
them versus US, Right? So we, we, we want to submit
their name. We want to ask for prayer
requests and turn those in as well.
Seriously, we want to pray for them.
We want connect groups to reach out to them.
You've got somebody in your life that you want somebody to reach
out to put them in reach. John Rosal, Rosal, Rosal, you
got to say that right way. Rosal, He'll put that into a
connect group and a whole group of other people reach out to
them. Then we want to share.
Honestly, here we go. Here it is right here.
Now, what's the second word? Honestly.
Now here's where the rubber meets the road.
I have no idea what that saying means, but here's here's where
it hits. If you can't do this, honestly,
this isn't going to work and I'm going to share what it is I want
to share honestly how the Lord blesses you and helps you in
those areas of common bridges that you just built.
So in other words, I'm a paw paw.
That's that's in some circles, that's all I am.
So the greatest title, the highest title I could possess to
a couple of the kids here, I'm paw paw.
I'm pastor paw paw. OK, but at home, but at home
with my grandkids, I'm just paw paw.
They have no idea what my name is.
I'm just Paw paw. They could care less what I that
I stand on that plat that they could care less.
I'm just paw paw. And so if I meet somebody else
who's a Paw Paw, or maybe they're AG Paw, or maybe they're
grandpa, or maybe they're Dib Dib, or whatever the weird name
you get from your grandkids, I can honestly say sometimes I'm
scared to death for my grandchildren.
Sometimes I don't know what this world's going to be like for my
grandchildren. It's a scary world.
And I don't know how I could face that fear if it wasn't for
the fact that I know the Lord Jesus Christ as my Savior and
Lord. In fact, just this morning in my
personal quiet time, when I was reading through Psalm 139 before
I shared it with the staff, I was reminded of this God who's
in complete control. And that helps my anxiety.
That's as honest and natural as I can be, right?
I, I, I don't know how I would have ever made it in my marriage
this far because I'm not easy if it wasn't for the fact that I
have the word of God and the Spirit of God living inside of
me. And I just say those things to
people because we've been talking about being married or
we've been talking about being a grandparent.
We can even talk about sports. You know, I, I at one time was
playing fairly high level sports and I blew my knee and it caused
me to spiral into a depression and into a really dark place in
my life. And I don't know how I would
have ever recovered from that except God save me and pulled me
out. I, that's exactly how I talk on
airplanes. That's exactly how I talk in
airports. That's exactly how I talk to to
people I encounter after I have that little relationship with
them, we build a common bridge. I, I don't know how you doing
it. I, I can, I, I, I can remember a
surgeon on a plane. We had this kind of, I don't
know. I don't know how you do deal
with that, how you deal with the pressure.
I, I, how do you deal with that pressure without some strength
in your life like he can provide.
See, I'm not even talking about the gospel yet.
I'm just sharing a testimony sort of all right.
But I want to connect that honestly of how the Lord blesses
me in those common areas. But you got to recognize, and I
mean, I made land here for 30 minutes.
I won't because we can't. But you can't do this unless
relationship number one is strong.
It's not real if God didn't just show you that.
It's not real if God's really not doing that in your life.
So if you're not abiding in him and you're not walking in him, I
don't know how powerful your personal evangelism could ever
be. This has to be real and it's
uncanny. My friends, I'm telling you
where I I can honestly say just this morning in my personal
Bible study, God showed me this. But that means that you actually
have a personal Bible study. Lesson 1 is vital.
Relationship number one has to pour into relationship #2 for
this to be natural, for this to have power.
It doesn't make sense. Listen, the the most natural
blew my mind and I've shared this story with some of you
before. Monroe Hembree I, I, I don't
understand Monroe Hembree. He's dead now and he's with
Jesus and one day I'm going to go to heaven.
I'll understand. Monroe Hembree What?
He wasn't in my church, but he was in our association.
And we were the larger church at times.
And we would do mission trips where we'd have all the churches
of the association work together on a mission trip because these
little bitty churches could never send a team, but they
could send one or two. And then we'd make sure we had a
team. So we had these associational
teams. We went all over the world
together and Monroe Hembry, he's 70 something years old when I
first met him, never been on a trip, wanted to go on a trip.
You always knew brother Monroe was in that room because he was
man. You could always hear him back
there. And I've shared this with some
of you. Monroe Hembry built houses for a
living. And Monroe Hembry was
illiterate. He couldn't read.
He was saved as an adult, almost a senior adult.
And when he was saved, he asked God, and this is because of the
church he went to. He asked God to give him the
ability to read the King James Version Bible when he was saved.
I don't ask me to explain it. Can't don't care if you believe
me or not because I've sit there across I've spent hours and days
with Monroe Hembree and across the table and watch this before
my very eyes. He could open a King James
Version Bible and read, read King James, thou and thy I mean
just all over the place. You put a newspaper in front of
him. He couldn't read a word.
You put the NIV version of the Bible in front of him.
He couldn't read a word, but he could read the King James.
And he asked for the King James because that was the version of
the the Bible that church used that he went to.
He didn't know there was another one.
I took Monroe Hembree 14 hours down the Amazon from Manaus and
to a place called Boa Vista de Hamos, where I don't know that
they'd ever seen anybody with our skin color before.
And we slept in hammocks on a boat for a week and did
evangelism and some construction, all kind of stuff
in this village. Medical, a lot of medical.
And I've never seen a pied piper for the gospel like Monroe
Hembree with a group of people that didn't even speak English.
He'd have a little translator with him and Monroe would walk
around. He'd just talk about Jesus.
I'm telling this just like a crowd, an entourage, following
Monroe all over this little village and just coming to know
Christ, the most natural, authentic, heartfelt believer
you could ever imagine. Because this was real.
And he studied his Bible every morning.
I watched him and he prayed like a warrior.
And so you can't do this unless relationship number one is real
to you. This means you're actually
having this. You are engaging the Bible with
a humble and teachable spirit, which is what our midweek's
going to be about in January. We're going to talk about how
did we get the Bible in the 1st place?
Why is our Bible different than say the Catholic Bible?
How did the Bible come to be? We're going to talk about that.
Then we're going to, what do we do with this thing?
How do I actually personally interpret scripture?
How do I actually work through the hermeneutical process as a,
as a, as my personal time? I won't use that big word.
Don't worry. We're going to break it down.
How do I actually understand what the Bible's teaching and
how can I help somebody else understand?
So think about this. Just this morning, God showed
me. Now you'd be amazed how many
times because remember, he's divinely orchestrating these
meetings. You have a conversation tomorrow
afternoon, you watch how God will use the Bible verses you
read tomorrow morning. And heaven forbid you actually
believe this, He might actually use part of a sermon you heard
last Sunday, maybe the travelogue of Paul 40,000 verses
in 20 minutes. Or because the other thing you
can talk about, you might talk about this next.
And this is or, or this is how the Lord answered my prayer
about something just as legitimately man children.
You're right. And I, I remember when some of
our kids were struggling with things and how we pray and we
pray and we're so thankful how the Lord answered that.
Now, I'm going to segue in a minute, but we're just building
commonality and I'm just being honest because here's what I've
learned about lost people in the United States of America.
I've said this to you before. Most of them have never heard a
personal loving presentation of a gospel, never have.
Statistically, you can bet on the fact they've never had that.
Secondly, most of them, this fact, most lost people in
America would testify they don't even know anybody they would
consider an authentic Christian. And so that didn't mean they
don't know Christians, but they know a bunch of quiet, silent
ones maybe. And so for many of them, they,
they will have never heard anybody talk like this and mean
it. But if you don't mean it, don't
fake it. They'll smell that a mile away.
So my entire living out of angelism means you're actually
living out of angelism. This isn't a method.
This isn't something memorized. This isn't some some gizmo or
gadget or gimmick. This is a life, and either
you're walking with God and you're in his word and you're in
prayer and that's overflowing in the most natural way in the
world in all your conversations, or you got to start square one.
The problem with the with evangelism in the United States
of America is not really evangelism, it's just
discipleship. We're just not walking with God
closely enough in many cases. So, you know, not only did I see
this in my personal Bible study this morning, this is also maybe
the Lord answered my prayer about this or the next one.
Maybe there's some lesson that I learned from Doug Ezell's
Connect group last Sunday. I mean, you know, Doug got up
there and he, you know, he did sermon #1 before Brother John
got a what, you know, got got up to bat and Douglas L's teaching
this lesson. Y'all studying something and
that, and that's what stuck with you that day.
And I'm telling you on Monday morning, that lesson that you
studied, that passage that you heard in Connect, it was the,
that's the, I mean amazing. The exact passage that human
being needed that you're talking to, you watch because you're
asking for it, You're begging God for it.
God, make this fit. Make the puzzle fit.
Make what I'm doing in my personal, make this work, make
this conversation go. I'm praying for that every day.
You can't do this without that, you with me.
So just last Sunday, my preacher said.
And all I know is we're supposed to do 100% of something.
But to recognize that that we're we're in the middle of a dynamic
experience that's real and they're spiritual forces at play
and we're supposed to supposed to be obedient and be used in
this incredible chess game that's going on.
And to recognize that God is in control of the board.
Then you can go to H finally and you can help them to understand
how Christ has changed your life now.
Now we just get into a transitional conversation,
right? Would you like to know?
How would you not to know why? Why do I believe the Bible is
actually helpful to me? Why do you believe?
Why do I believe God actually answered my prayer?
Why do I believe that? It's only because of the power
that Christ gives me that I'm able to be a a decent husband or
a grandfather. You want to know how?
Now we've just transitioned into presentation.
Now next session, we're not done yet.
So sit down everybody. I'm kidding.
Those of you online, keep listening.
The next session is about personal testimony.
Now I need to warn you, next session is interactive.
Now it'll be funny to see if half of you show up.
We're going to do a personal testimony workshop.
Now, some of us need to realize it might be the very first time
a person has ever verbally shared any part of their
testimony to another person. This happens in seminary class,
but you don't want to miss. It's so much fun you'll laugh
your head off next session. It's fun.
I want to demonstrate a way for you to teach other people to do
this. I'm going to give you an outline
that's different, and we're going to work on writing out and
creating our personal testimonies, but we're also
going to demonstrate ways to share with other people.
Don't worry, it's not high pressure.
You're not going to get a microphone unless you misbehave,
so you'll be good. But I want to help them to
understand how this makes a difference in my life.
And so one of the things that we need to do this next part, I
need you to go back and to remember some things that I've
taught you before about religion.
We need to focus on the functional aspects of your
faith. Remember, religion has three
parts. This is not original with me.
I give credit to Wayne Cordeland who wrote a good book called
Neighboring Faiths. So there's, that's that
footnote. But religion has three parts.
You have the functional, the substantive and the formal.
You don't have to memorize that at all.
Just listen to what they mean. So the functional is what does
this actually produce in your life?
So Christianity ought to produce something.
And next time when we talk about our personal testimony, you're
going to begin writing. What does, what does trusting a
Christ really mean to me? It's, it's got to be more than I
don't go to hell. I'm going to heaven.
Now that's a part of it. And I'm glad for that.
I'm, I'm very thankful for that part, but that's not all
Christianity is. Where's the idea of hope, of
peace, of assurance, of purpose? See.
And so these are some of the functional aspects of what a
relationship with Jesus Christ ought to produce in your life.
There's actually positive effect in your life.
And So what I want to do is I'm, I'm really focusing on this part
right now because I, I'm telling you, statistically, that lost
person in the United States of America doesn't have that.
They don't have that. Now, they may pretend like they
do they, they can be, they're pretty good facade people, but
they don't in their heart of hearts, this is what's going to
stick with them. I can't, I can't tell you the
number of times I hear this later.
I remember when you told me this and I acted like I was just
fine, but I really wouldn't. And I knew I wouldn't.
And later that night I couldn't sleep because I realized I don't
have any peace. I don't have any hope.
I have no assurance, I have no strength.
I realized I'm trying to do this all on my own and I can't.
It becomes very similar to a cycle of addiction to where
someday, so that I'm going to quit drinking or I'm going to
quit, I'm going to quit doing drugs and I can, I can do this.
I can do this. I know you can't.
Very rarely will you. You need help.
You got to have help. You got to replace that
addiction with another addiction.
You got to have help. And so I, and so I, I want to
focus on what it produces. It gives me this assurance.
It gives me wisdom and not simply the substantive.
The substantive is the teaching. Now I'm going to get to that.
I promise. We're going to share the gospel.
We're going to share a whole gospel presentation.
I get to that. But right now I'm trying to, I'm
trying to help them to understand.
Here's the benefit of believing what I believe.
It's not just because I can name all the books of the Bible and I
can tell you what they all say that knowledge is not enough.
And then it also, I also don't want to just focus on the
formal, which means how are we doing this?
It's, it's not just about whether or not I go to a
Southern Baptist church and I go to a church or not.
And, and whether or not I, I, I, I, I go to a, a small group or
not. It's not just about those
structures either. Yet, although be glad for you to
join me. I'd like to show you, but my
main focus. I'm not saying you're excluding
all this. You're not a heretic and you're
not hiding anything. You're honest and if you get
asked questions to answer them. But what I'm trying to show you
is being saved changed me. Being being saved is
transformative. And if you need hope in this
world, because this world will grind you up and spit you out,
and if you want hope and you want strength, there's only one
place you're going to find it. That's how I talk to people
because they don't have that. And and by that point, they're
usually honest with me and say, man, I don't, I don't have that
in my life. I wish I did, but I don't.
And then I'm going to continue to talk to them about how to get
that. So again, I want to next, I want
to bring them to my connect group.
I want to bring them to my worship time.
I want them to see what we do. I want them to meet you.
They need to recognize that not all Christians are crazy people,
that Christians can be normal people who are really living a
life, loving the Lord, doing the best they can, perfect sinners,
messed up, broken. But we can bring it all here and
help one another in the headquarters of encouragement,
right? And then I want to share my
personal testimony with Him as soon as I can.
So I want to share with him my story here.
Here's why this happened to me. See.
And we're going to talk about that in great detail.
That's the whole next time together.
How do I share not only about how did, how did I realize I
needed to be saved and how was I saved?
I mentioned this to some of you before, but also what does that
produce in my life? But also what is Jesus doing for
me today? And that last point will be
invalid if you're not in relationship #1 you have to be
abiding in Christ and Christ has to be abiding in you for you to
live evangelistically. This is not just a program.
This is not just Monday night at 7.
This is not a 16 week memorization test.
This is who we are. Imperfect, broken, hurting,
sometimes wrong, sometimes misled.
We're really trying to do the best we can under the grace and
the Lordship of Jesus Christ. And so I get forgiveness in this
too, you know, because part of what they're going to think I'm
going to throw on them is that I'm holier than you, but somehow
I'm better than you. I'm not better than you.
I'm in a better spot than you're in because I know the best one.
So I want to share with them. I want to bring them with me.
I want to share their testimony. And then obviously I want to get
to the point. This next one, I want to share
the gospel and we're going to talk in big terms about that.
What does that mean? We've got to know what that
means because we've got to share a whole gospel with them.
We can't just share part of the gospel.
We need to get, and you may not get to do that all in one visit,
but in other words, they need to understand certain key doctrinal
points. You wonder why somebody taught
you doctrine all summer. Duh.
All the dots connect. Everything I do for you is
connected. We needed to do theological
triage so we can understand what's most important and we can
share about that. So I want to focus on those
things and I want to share the gospel.
And then I've obviously got a show too.
I mean, Christ needs to be a part of my life.
And so my hypocrisy needs to be minimal.
And when, when it's evident I need to apologize and seek
forgiveness, and I've said this before, depending upon how far
away from the gospel they are, be ready.
They might just need to see you go through crisis.
And so be careful about how hard you reject crisis because
sometimes that might be exactly what God's using to bring
somebody to him. There are people overseas right
now who know Jesus because of crisis.
That doesn't mean we wish it upon anybody.
It doesn't mean we stop praying to get out of it because we
don't know how is to pray. That's the only way we can
honestly pray. But we also recognize what God
can do. First Thessalonians 15 says
this. I love this verse.
The rest of them are no good. This one's good.
It's funny when we talk like that because our gospel came to
you not only in Word, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit
and with full conviction. You know what kind of men we
proved to be among you for your sake.
They earned the right through these relational dynamics.
They not only heard them, but they saw them.
There was consistency in their life and they loved them.
So here's a couple of things to remember.
Number one, as we work through this, we too often in today's
culture, you need to expect more multiple encounters and perhaps
less single encounters. That doesn't mean we're not
praying for person X. It doesn't mean we're not
praying for that single encounter.
But statistically anyway, people are going to need to hear
something more than once in our culture today.
Now, Jesus could return at any time.
So the urgency level's high, but it's very often that that person
that you're sharing with may not get saved that first time.
Don't be destroyed by that. Just recognize they're working
through things and you might need to talk to them again.
You might only get so far the first time in that relationship
because who you know, that might be AU4U5 way away from the
gospel. They don't want anything to do
with that. But odds for them to get saved
in a single encounter are small. Doesn't mean it never happens.
God's miraculous, but I don't necessarily expect that.
So I've got to. I've got to bring them.
I've got to bring them closer, right?
I've known people who said they would never and they are right.
We also need to be a good listener.
There's that word again. You thought I said connect
groups enough or 100% enough. Be a good listener.
Be my next one. Be less self-centered.
There's a theological truth there.
And part of the problem is that sometimes we like talking about
ourselves more than we like listening to others.
We need to make sure that our own pride and ego are not part
of it. So we want to be more
dialogical, less monological. This is just part of the
postmodern culture. They, they, they like stories,
they like authenticity. They, we got to be real.
And so that that means we, we can't just be some kind of fake
production. Some, some great sales pitch
isn't going to get it done. They need to see reality.
And so this is going to be a dialogue where we're talking,
we're learning about each other, we're we're listening to one
another. So this is more story, less
presentation. Doesn't mean we're not going to
present the gospel, but the way we present the gospel becomes
important. And so, and this may or may not
make sense, moderns communicate in a certain way versus
postmoderns. This is one reason
generationally some of you don't understand each other and so we
I have to teach students how to write this way in academic
writing too. So story then proposition, not
proposition then story. I really need to switch the way
I preach and be a better preacher because most of the
time what they need. Think about how Jesus taught.
How did Jesus often teach with what stories?
Parables. So he'd share the story, then
he'd share the principles you're supposed to get out of the
story. Too often in evangelism, we're
sharing a principle. God loves you and has a great
plan for your life. And what we really need to do is
start with the story and then hit the principal.
I mean the yeah, so you start with start with the story, not
the proper, the proposition. I can write preposition.
I'm all over the place right now.
Sorry. So that may seem weird.
You may not quite understand that.
We'll talk about that more in the weeks ahead.
We also need to next one. We need to ask good questions
and don't give lots of information that may seem
counterintuitive to you, but in these initial encounters, you
need to learn who they are and they need to, they're going to
respect you for that. You saw me, you hear these words
in our culture. They saw me.
They heard me, right? And, and, and as much as I that
might drive you crazy, that's reality out there.
And we've got to understand that.
We've got to listen and get and ask good questions.
So this is consideration, not argumentation.
This is soft, not loud. This is guided tours, not ticket
sales. They want you to invite them to
join you in an authentic life journey.
Walk alongside of me, see what I'm experiencing.
Join me in this journey. In fact, Chuck Kelly, who was
the president of New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary for
many years, I believe this was actually his doctoral
dissertation years ago. But he there's a great quote out
of a book that Doctor Kelly wrote and he basically says
Southern Baptists are a harvest oriented denomination living
oriented in an unseeded generation.
Some of us are so used to even the two week long revival, the
week long revival, the three day revival, the weekend revival,
the Holy Ghost tent revival, whatever it was where you would
see all these people come forward at once.
And that's what we grew up on. That's what we're used to.
Some of you in church life, how many of those do you see
anymore? And it's not because the
methodology is good or bad part of us because the culture has
changed and you can buy that or not, but I promise you it's
true. And that what we're going to see
is, is that this generation out there, they they need to
understand a lot of things we talked about all summer long in
our doctrinal, in our theology one O 1 theological triage
series, Who is God? What's the Bible?
Why should I believe in Jesus? And so these conversations and
definitions are going to be part of the conversation that often
have to take place rather than simply assuming that I can start
with the Romans road and that you're going to understand that
we're all sinners and fall short of the glory of God.
What's a Sinner and who's God? And these people out there don't
all get it. And you might say, well that's
too hard and that's not worth it.
Well, that's decision you got to make.
But I can't neglect the calling that says that I have to go.
And so I've got to figure out how I can become all things to
all men without compromising the truth.
So I've got to figure out the best way to package this gospel.
So you we need to think in terms of interpersonal relationships.
How am I interacting with this person one-on-one?
How am I engaging in this person, this person?
Because one of the things that we've got to be careful about
here in Englewood is Englewood in the past has been known for
some really big events. But I'll also tell you what
Englewood's been known for is 0 to lousy follow up on those
really big events. And some of you know that's
true. So we can have thousands of
people come to something, but if we don't do anything with those
thousands of people, it doesn't amount to much.
So what we're going to do is we're going to make 1001 on one
personal contacts. We're going to go back almost
apologetically, not really been almost and say, I'm sorry that
it's taken us two years to do this.
But we're going to come back and make contact with these people
who've come to see us at some of these large events.
Now here's here's my question, the same question I asked the
staff because I get, I get eyes that roll at me.
Underestimate God. That'll be fun.
What if this is successful? You're going to get in your
letter about the budget this week that our worship attendance
is over 30% higher. Our connect group's over 40%
higher, 200 and something people want to go on mission trips.
We have hundreds of people showing up to this.
Now you know where this was a year ago and I'm not driven by
these numbers at all, but you realize that if you maintain a
30 something percent annual growth rate, I've done that in
churches, that this church will be doubled in size in 3 1/2
years. What are you going to do with
them? Where are they going to meet?
See, what if this is successful? Now some of you may sit there.
Well, I hope not. I'll miss my parking spot.
Somebody going to have to learn how to park in the back.
By the way, some of you need to start doing that now.
I heard Sunday morning that out front was bad at one point.
So who we going to be? It's missions month.
So, you know, I'm not going to let up.
I'm going to keep beating the horse.
It may be lying dead in the dish, but I'm going to keep
beating it. Listen, I love you and I
appreciate so much. It's always funny because you
are the ones that are here. So thank you very much for being
here and for listening to this. And and I'm telling you, you
don't want to miss next time. It'll be so much fun.
You will learn something. And I'm not going to force
anybody to participate in some way they don't want to.
So you come next week, it will be more participatory
potentially if you want it to be.
But we're going to actually talk about how do I take this
personal testimony and make it into this, this ability to
present it. And I'm going to show you how to
do that in in less than 4 minutes.
But then I'm also going to show you how to have a longer
version. If you have time, you don't have
to try to do it. I actually have a 2 minute
version. But then after that, we're going
to actually talk about how do we continue to stair step?
So how do I actually share a gospel?
What does that mean? We're going to walk through that
together. What does it mean?
How do I, how do I use Scripture to share the gospel?
What all needs to be in the gospel presentation and then
we're going to talk about these special groups that we need to
deal with. How do I share the gospel with a
child? How do I share the gospel with
that family member, right? Or these people from other
backgrounds. You know, I've, I've mentioned
this to some of you before, but one of the things that I found
with some of my students in school was, was that I'd had,
you know, we had these weekly evangelism reports that I've
mentioned to you before. And, and they'd go home and
they'd share with relatives. And I've mentioned one of them
before, but others would come back and their relatives were
really upset with them, not because they shared the gospel
because, but because it had taken so long.
And the fact that they realized you knew all this and you didn't
tell me part of that study that I mentioned to you last time, A2
year study of of contacting unchurched people in every
single state and in Canada for two years for a research
project. Not only did we talk to people
who talked about their next door neighbor going to church.
I mentioned that I think last time, but for example, 11 real
conversation was I work with Christians.
I know they're Christians. They got their cubicle all
decorated with Christian stuff and they have Christian music
playing down there. And I'm going through a horrible
divorce. How come not one time, not one
time did you Christians come two cubicles down and tell me you
were praying for me and trying to help me.
Why not? They know I'm going through the
worst time of my life. There's a burden that we must
have an awareness that we must have.
And, and, and those Christians over there, probably they're,
they're not intentionally trying to be mean to him.
I know that they're just not thinking about it.
They're just not aware. They're not.
They haven't sharpened their spiritual senses to be sensitive
enough to what's going on around them.
Let me tell you, friends, if a church like this doesn't do
this, nobody's going to do it. And one day, I'm afraid what
we're, what we're going to learn and the opportunities we missed
and the people who should have been there with us.
So let's take as many as we can. Let's take them away from Satan
and let's take them with us. Father, thank you for that
privilege. Thank you for that opportunity.
Thank you, Father, for so much for these people.
All these many people who've come on a dark, cold night to
hear this in here. Thank you for those that are
listening online right now. Some are driving, some are
walking, some are sitting at home.
And I pray, Father, even right now, you, just, you just blitz
our brains and our spirits with the face and the name of a lost
person. And the Father, you won't let it
go. The Father.
We won't be able to shake that face.
We won't be able to shake that name until we've started at
least some kind of relationship, some kind of prayer life, some
kind of awareness, some type of conversation with that person.
Give us the opportunity and make us aware of it.
And Father, I thank you for that.
And Lord, I look forward to the harvest that I totally and
firmly believe is coming our way.
And thank you for allowing us to be a part of it in Christ's
name, Amen. God bless you all.
Thank you all so much. Thank you so much for listening
today. And I also hope that you'll go
to ourwebsite@englewoodbaptist.com
as well as our app and find many other resources that will bless
you and your families. Thank you once again.