"Evangelism"

Sermon Transcript for September 3, 2000

By Rev. Dan Sinkhorn

Scripture Reading: 1 Corinthians 1:18-31

 

The first thing I want to do this morning is to tell you some good news. The best news the world has ever heard. It’s the gospel good news. It’s the greatest gift the world has ever received. And I just can’t help it, I’ve got to tell you about it! Now you may know the story of humanity. But in case you don’t, I’m going to give you a short version of it right now. It seems that God who created the universe and everything that is, began with little things like grass and flowers and stuff, and worked His way all the way up to human beings. He gave to human beings the unique gift which is the gift of free will to choose whether to obey God and remain in harmony with God or not. And you may have heard that they chose not to be in harmony with God. And so the sin of humanity began simply because we turn away from God and refuse to do God’s will and choose our own will instead. And so God said, "Okay that’s fine. You can do that because that’s the way I made you." And humanity went through these thousands of years pretty much doing as humanity pleased.

And God wasn’t through with us yet so God created a relationship between Him and a certain people who in the Old Testament we know that God had that relationship with the Jews, the Hebrews, the Israelites. And through that relationship God taught the rest of the world exactly what God was like and how God is. And God knew that though they had the will to choose not to obey Him, some of them desired to be in a relationship with Him and to be forgiven of their sin and they needed a way to do it. And God gave them the law through Moses. And so the people of God were able to be at peace with God through their sacrificial offerings. They brought the very best of what they had before God and they asked God to take it as a sacrificial offering for their sin. And that worked pretty well. Except that the law became increasingly more complicated and eventually it got to where they were worshiping the law and not God.

And then came Jesus. Who was God’s Son. Who is God’s Son in that he is fully God and fully human. He was born just like us from a woman and he grew up in a little town not that much different from our town. And He lived the life like the one that we live and He experienced all that we experience in our humanness. And so He could say that He had been there and done that. But He is fully God. And so He understands the very nature of God because He’s been there and done that too. And so Jesus went about teaching us about the real nature of who God is. Jesus went about the business of explaining to us, through the way that He lived, the way that He served, and the words that He said, about the real intention that God had for God’s relationship with us---humanity.

And then when the time was right, Jesus allowed himself, the one perfect human that ever existed, to be offered as a sacrifice for the sins of all people. So that the process of sacrificial offerings for our sins ended with Him. By Jesus’ death on the cross we are all able to be forgiven of our sins. And we don’t ever have to worry about that again. When we accept that Jesus Christ died on the cross for us, we are forgiven of our sins. And we know longer have to fear the wrath of God, a just punishment that a holy God could inflict on us out of love for us because for the sake of those who seek God’s justice, God must be just. And so we must ask for His forgiveness. And He has given us a perfect way through Jesus.

But it doesn’t stop there. Jesus, after dying on the cross, laid in the tomb for three days and then arose from the dead. And do you know what? He came back, if for nothing else, to tell us that there was a place that we could look forward to being in our death. That because we are forgiven, we can expect to go to paradise. And He’s been there and done that too. And we know it because He is alive and well today. And He ascended into heaven shortly after that where He waits for us. Where He has prepared a place for us. And where He will return from not too soon down the road, I hope. We say, "Come quickly, Lord Jesus," because He says He will come back to take us all home and make everything better and make the world the perfect place that God intended it to be. And we can be reunited with our lost loved ones who have already gone to their paradise. And we can look forward to a world of no suffering and no harm and no hurting.

That is good news, isn’t it? That is the greatest good news that the world has ever known. I can’t help it! I have to tell you about that! It’s evangelism. Evangelism literally means to share the good news. To tell people the good news of Jesus Christ, the salvation for humanity. That is when you are evangelizing. When you tell that to other people. And when I use that term evangelism, I’m well aware that it strikes a little bit of fear in some of our hearts, doesn’t it? As soon as you hear evangelism, of course, you conger up images that make you uncomfortable, I’m sure. And you say, "Well, that’s fine and well for preachers, but I don’t do evangelism." Well, you know, we all probably say that as a way to help us relax about the idea of doing evangelism. It’s what we pay the preacher to do. And yet once in awhile we feel that urge to do it and we can’t help ourselves. It’s that overflowing presence of the Holy Spirit within us that makes us want to go out and do it. And that urge will drive us to try to tell others about Jesus and the good thing that has been done for humanity.

We are like the barber who was an elder in his church and for years had felt the call to do evangelism. But he just couldn’t get up the nerve. He was so afraid he’d do it badly. He was so sure that you had to be special to do it right. And so, one day in his nervousness he went to the barber shop, opened the store and said, "The next time somebody walks in my door I’m going to evangelize him." And so a fellow he didn’t know came in a few minutes later and asked for a shave and a hair cut. The barber made up his mind, I’m going to evangelize this guy. And he was nervous about it. And so he put the little paper thing around his neck, you know. And he put his little apron or his cape around the fellows shoulders and tied it in the back. And he lathered him up with a nice hot lather, spun him around and he grabbed his big long straight razor and he nervously said, "Are...are you ready to meet the Lord?" You know, the last thing he saw was his cape flapping in the wind behind the guy as he went down the street.

There’s the danger we all encounter when we take evangelism maybe not as seriously as we should. When we think our evangelism has to be done a certain way, in a certain time, in a certain place. But evangelism is not like that. Yes, I know that we think of evangelism in modern terms as being, perhaps, Billy Graham at a large stadium with 40-50,000 people receiving the gospel through his preaching. Or maybe we think of a good old-fashioned tent meeting where some preacher stands up there and says, "Ha" after every sentence. Maybe we think of evangelism as being some really driven person we know who gets in your face and it seems like he’s looking for another notch on his belt. Maybe that’s what we think of as evangelism and maybe that’s why we are a little afraid to do it.

But the fact is, that our evangelism is nothing more than the expression from our heart of what God is doing within us. It is an expression of our relationship with Christ. It’s overflowing, and we can’t help it. I want to share some scripture with you here. You don’t need to follow along, but one day you may want to take a look at 1 Thessalonians where Paul is describing to them about the nature of what’s happening to us. And Paul says to them that "...we have received the good news of the gospel through power in the Word and the through Holy Spirit and that it comes with much confident overflow." You’ll find that at 1 Thessalonians, Chapter 1, Verse 5. "Much confident overflow". Paul is telling us that once that Holy Spirit get’s within us, we can’t help ourselves.

You know, it’s kind of like James Thurber wrote about his mother or his grandmother, I can’t remember how it went, I read it so many years ago. But she was one of those people who was experiencing electricity in her home as a new thing, and she was very fearful of it. And so she tried to make sure that she always had a plug in every outlet and a light bulb in every socket because she was sure that any excess electricity might ooze out into her home. And it made her uncomfortable to think that could happen. But it shouldn’t make us uncomfortable to thing that the Holy Spirit is oozing out of us because there’s so much of it when God comes into our lives. When we except our salvation through Jesus Christ, we are filled with the Holy Spirit, the power of the Word, and it confidently overflows from within us.

I want to invite you to hear another translation of one of the verses from our scripture reading today. In our 1 Corinthians reading, verse 21, has a little bit different flavor to it if you hear it from Eugene Peterson’s, "The Message", which is a kind of a modern translation of the Bible. It’s written in kind of like a novel. It’s a wonderful way to hear the word in a story form. But listen to Verse 21 the way Peterson translates it: "Since the world and all its fancy wisdom never had a clue when it came to knowing God, God in His wisdom could delight in using what the world considered dumb preaching. Of all things, to bring those who trust Him in to the way of salvation." Well, I take a lot of comfort from that let me tell you. I’m glad to know dumb preaching is going to get people saved, because I should be able to save plenty. The fact is, that what that translation helps us understand more effectively, is that we shouldn’t worry about the quality of our words or the skill with which we present them. That we, evangelist all of us, simply need to tell people about our relationship with Christ and what God has done for us. We need to give the gift that rightly should keep on giving--the gift of salvation. That is truly what it’s all about. That we give from wherever we are with whatever words God gives us and whatever wisdom we have to do it. Because as 1 Corinthians tells us, that God delights in our lack of ability. That God delights in taking smart people from our world and bringing them to their knees and the power of His grace through the simple words of simple preaching.

It is an uncomplicated peace and joy that is the witness of everyone who has been saved by Jesus Christ that the overflow just can’t help but bring people along with it. And that is the real spirit of evangelism, I believe. John Wesley understood that. You may recall that Mr. Wesley is the founder of Methodism and we are here as a result of his work. And Wesley used to say to people about preaching, "Look, just go from town to town and give them the Word of God, give them the gospel good news. If they don’t get it don’t worry about it. Move on to the next town." You see, he understood that it was the Holy Spirit that was at work here. He understood that the grace of God is sufficient in and of itself to do the work that needs to be done. And that it isn’t about the preacher. And so Wesley would simply give them the gospel and move on. And if they didn’t receive it, he just assumed that the Spirit had not made them receptive enough yet and he’d come back another day. Sounds like a confident way to approach evangelism to me.

Now we can evangelize for a lot of reasons. And I suggest that all of them are pretty valuable and have their value in that they come from the word of God. We are commanded after all to "Go and make disciples". Jesus said to do that. And I think that’s a pretty good idea, obeying Jesus’ Word. We do that in many ways here at Grace Church. But we don’t necessarily do it out of a sense of obligation or a sense of gratitude. We may do it because we want to perpetuate the joy and relief that we feel having been saved from certain punishment for our sinful nature. But I’d like to read to you a story that I think sums up very well what the real essence of evangelism is. The reason that I do it and I hope one reason why you may be inspired to do some evangelism.

This comes from the journals of A.D. Earl dated 1888 and it is from his incidence used in prayer meetings. And I really want you to listen to what’s happening in this story. It’s written in kind of an old English so bear with me. "A man of great ability in reading supposed himself invulnerable to any argument Christians could bring in favor of Christianity. Able ministers had endeavored to convince him, but he would laugh them down. A very able, pious lawyer had been sent to reason with him but it was all of no avail until a humble Christian satisfied him. He was greatly concerned for his salvation. I will give his experience in his own language as related by himself in a prayer meeting. I stand, said Mr. R, to tell you the story of my conversion. His lips trembled slightly as he spoke and his bosom heaved with suppressed emotion. I am as a brand plucked out of the burning. The change in me is an astonishment to myself and all brought about by the grace of God and that unanswerable argument. It was a cold morning in January and I had just begun my labor at my anvil in my shop when I looked out and saw Mr. B approaching. He dismounted quickly and entered. As he drew near I saw he was agitated. His lip was full of earnestness. His eyes were beginning with tears. He took me by the hand. His breast heaved with emotion. And with indescribable tenderness he said, "Mr. R, I am greatly concerned for your salvation. Greatly concerned for your salvation." And he burst into tears. He stood with my hand grasped in his. He struggled to regain self-possession. He often assayed to speak but not a word could he utter. And finding that he could say no more, he turned, went out of the shop, got on his horse and rode slowly away. "Greatly concerned for my salvation," said I. And I stood and forgot to bring down my hammer. There I stood with it upraised. "Concerned for my salvation?" I went to my house. My poor pious wife, whom I had always ridiculed for her religion, exclaimed, "Why, Mr. R, what is the matter with you? "I don’t know", said I, filled with agony and overwhelmed with a sense of sin. "Old Mr. B has ridden two miles this cold morning to tell me that he was greatly concerned for my salvation. What shall I do? What shall I do?" "I do not know what you can do," said my astonished wife. "I do not know what better you can do than to get on your horse and go and see him. He can give you better counsel than I and tell you what you must do to be saved." I mounted my horse and pursued after him. I found him alone in that same little room where he had spent the night in prayer for my soul. Where he had shed many tears over such a reprobate as I and had besought God to have mercy upon me. "I am come, " said I to him, "to tell you that I am greatly concerned for my own salvation." "Praise, be God," said the aged man. "It is a faithful saying and worthy of all expectation that Jesus Christ came in to the world to save sinners even the chief." And he began at that same scripture and preached to me Jesus. On that same floor we knelt and together we prayed and we did not separate that day until God spoke peace to my soul. I’ve often been requested to look at the evidence of the truth of religion. But blessed be God I have evidence for its truth here, and laid his hands upon his heart, which nothing can gainsayer resist. I’ve often been led to look at this and that argument for the truth of Christianity, but I could overturn, and as I thought, completely demolish and annihilate them all. But I stand here tonight thankful to acknowledge that God sent an argument to my conscious at heart which could not be answered or resisted when the weeping Christian came to tell me how greatly concerned he was for my salvation. God taught him that argument when he spent the night before Him in prayer for my soul."

Please don’t resist the urging of the Holy Spirit to go and bring others into knowledge of God. Trust that the Holy Spirit is at work and that the grace of God is sufficient in and of itself to do the rest. Simply be greatly concerned for the salvation of others. Feel the sense of urgency in that. For only God knows when time will be up and we will not have the opportunity again.

Beloved brothers and sisters I challenge you this morning. If you’ve heard these words of the gospel for the first time, if today is the first day that you really understood what God has done for you, please respond to that. Don’t waste any time. If God has called you to accept that gift of salvation, accept it today and please come and tell me or Reverend Mike about it so we can rejoice with you. And for the rest of us, who have already experienced that gift of salvation, we’re being called too. We’re being called to receive the new commission to go out and make disciples, to go and share the gospel of good news with the rest of the world. And there will be many opportunities to do that within this church and through the ministries of this church, but you have within you all that is necessary to bring the gospel to others. You have the spirit of God and you have some dumb preaching that is guaranteed to get the job done. And may God add His blessing to the hearing of His Word.