Relational Evangelism

What is the Purpose of the Church?

Well good morning everyone and welcome to Burr Oak. If you are visiting for the first time today or viewing this online I am Pastor Ben and it is such a joy to be with you today. Well today we end the series that we have been working on since the beginning of the year, what is the purpose of the Church?

And what are they say them for me: exalt God, edify the saints, and evangelize the lost. We have taken much of the last 3 and half months to get our minds around what it is as a church we are to be doing. This calibrates us so that everything we do flows through and from these purposes. And when it comes to these purposes are we to elevate one over the others? No, we are to have an equal emphasis on all of them. And how do we accomplish that? By each person getting involved, learning their Spiritual Gifts and having a hunger for the Spirit to use them.

Three weeks ago we started our final purpose by looking towards the Great Commission. From that passage we saw how each of the purposes are present, exalting Jesus because he is rightly due the worship that is given to God. Taking the message to all people groups immersing them in understanding what God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit has done for them. Once they have professed faith, then doing life with them as they grown in their knowledge and understanding of Jesus and his ways.

As we have looked at these purposes I hope you have noticed who inter connected they are. When we look at Isa 6 for how one comes to exalt God, we saw there as a result offering yourself in service to God by being willing to be sent to the people. By caring about the same things that God cares about. As we looked at edifying the saints we saw that one of the offices that Jesus has gifted the church is those who are specifically equipped with taking his message to the lost and training others to do so as well. What we need to understand from all this is that evangelism is not an add-on. It is not an “oh by the way you might want to consider.” This is very much a command to the church. And how do we know this?

Ezekiel 18:23 ESV

23 Have I any pleasure in the death of the wicked, declares the Lord God, and not rather that he should turn from his way and live?

John 3:16–17 ESV

16 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.

2 Peter 3:9 ESV

9 The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.

The Scriptures are clear that God desires for all to come to know him. That he has commissioned his children to take that message. Yet, this tends to be the first area that we slack off on. This tends to be the area that we are most hesitant to engage in when it comes to actively living out our faith. Regardless of the reasons, we are not released from this command.

The intent of our message today is to help set our minds on how to go about evangelism, where we first honor God, second it seems most natural to us, and finally that we are encouraged through our engagement in it.

But before that let us have our hearts and minds brought to attention with our focus verse.

Ephesians 4:15–16 ESV

15 Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, 16 from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.

Please pray with me.

Father you have blessed us with another day to be able to come together. We ask your blessing upon this time and this message. Lord may you draw us near to you. May you open our hearts and minds to receive your word. Lord this is your service and we long to encounter you. May you be glorified. Amen

Well our message for today is going to look a little different. Instead of having one text that we will work through we will survey a couple different texts to come to understand some different aspects to evangelism. The title of our message for today is Relational Evangelism: Taking the Gospel to the World. Our message for today closely builds off of the previous message in this series so let us again look to the Great commission. If you brought your own Bible or want to follow along on your device please turn to Matt 28:19-20. If you are using the blur pew Bible it is on page 926 or you can follow along on the screen.

Let us hear the word of the Lord.

Matthew 28:19–20 ESV

19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

May the Lord bless the reading of his word.

Evangelism. Unfortunately, when most Christians hear that word there tends to be an anxiousness that raises up inside of them. There is a fear of what am I going to be asked to do now. There is a a fear of being pushed out of your comfort zone. There is a fear of engaging with people you do not know. There is a fear of engaging with people you do know. There is a fear of being rejected.

Sometimes these fears are born out of the unknown. Sometimes they are born out of previous experiences. Often when we hear that term of evangelism we tend to think of having to go door to door handing out pamphlets. We think of street preaching at public events. We tend to think of evangelism as an orchestrated effort or program rather than daily living.

Before we get too deep into the nitty gritty of how to do evangelism, there are something that I want to clear up first. As I just mentioned when we think of evangelism we think of programs. Part of this is because of how we understand this term. When we hear this term we believe it to correlate directly to the work of testifying to unbelievers. And while that could be an aspect of evangelism that is not the totality.

When it comes to dealing with biblical terms one hurdle that needs to be dealt with is the fact that our English Bible has been translated from Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek. Some of our terms are translations, some of them are transliterations. The struggle with the term evangelism is that its root word evangel is a transliteration. Meaning this is the English spelling of the Greek word.

evangel = ευαγγελ

The struggle is that not only do we use the transliteration of this Greek word, but we also use the translation. The translation of the Greek word evangel is gospel. See gospel and evangelism come from the same Greek word yet, we have different understandings for each term in the English. To help clear this up D. A. Carson clarifies that this is gospel ministry. By this he means.

“Gospel ministry is ministry that is faithful to the gospel, that announces the gospel and applies the gospel and encourages people to believe the gospel and thus live out the gospel.”

See whether it is evangelism as we understand it as outreach, or edification as we understand it as discipleship, they both serve as gospel ministry. How you apply gospel ministry is based on where a person lands on the spectrum of biblical personhood. Now what do I mean by that?

See as we read the Scriptures we can come to find that there are four types of people. there are the Lost, the Saved, the Prodigal, and the False Teacher/Wicked.

LOST - those who have not heard Rom 10:14

SAVED - those who have confessed Rom 10:9

PRODIGAL - those who were once part Luke 15:11-32

FALSE TEACHER/WICKED - those who seek to destroy 2 Pet 2:1; Rom 16:19

Since we are looking specifically to outreach we will consider principles specifically for reaching the lost.

Sharing Within Close Relationships

For this point we are going to look at what Paul did most commonly when it came to the outreach of gospel ministry.

Acts 17:2–3 ESV

2 And Paul went in, as was his custom, and on three Sabbath days he reasoned with them from the Scriptures, 3 explaining and proving that it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead, and saying, “This Jesus, whom I proclaim to you, is the Christ.”

As Paul traveled from place to place he had a habit for how he began his outreach endeavors. He started by going into the synagogues and persuading the Jews from their Scriptures on how Jesus is the Messiah. While this example is from his time in Thessalonica we see this pattern often. Within this pattern there are a few principles that we can learn.

First Paul started with those that he had something in common with. By Paul first going to the Jews he was starting with those that he had a natural closer relationship with. They shared a common heritage, they shared a common view to life , and as mentioned a few weeks back, their common point of authority was the Scriptures.

It was thee commonalities that Paul shared with the Jews that allowed for this type of evangelism to be seen as reasoning. Through this what is understood is that Paul entered into a dialogue or rather a conversation with the Jews pointing to how Jesus is the Messiah.

I want us to consider for a moment what this looks like in our settings. Is this us going into what maybe considered liberal churches and arguing with them over theological view points? No, I would say probably not. But is that not what we see Paul doing? Going into established places of worship and arguing with them on the correct view? The thing that we need to remember is that in the first century under Roman rule Jews were a minority group. Yes they had the right to assemble but that right was under Roman law. Christians had even less rights then the Jews as they were persecuted by both Jews and Romans.

With this Paul began by going to those that he had the most in common with, the Jews. Two millennia later we do not struggle with this issue. Christians are free to assemble and converse as they please. For us to go into a differing church and argue with them would create a point of division, outside of a pre-planned debate that serves for mutual edification on the points we are allowed to disagree on.

So then what does this type of evangelism look like? Could it possibly look like having coffee with a friend who needs help navigating through a situation? But what does this type of evangelism take? First it takes knowing your Bible. To clarify that does not mean you have to be a Bible scholar, but you do need to be familiar with your Bible. With the overall narrative of it. You should know some of the major themes so that you can converse and point people to the answers found within the pages.

In commenting on this point Jay Adams states,

“ This opening means that he so explained the meaning of the passages to which he referred that the listener could see for himself what God was saying in them.”

Jay E. Adams, Acts, The Christian Counselor’s Commentary (Cordova, TN: Institute for Nouthetic Studies, 2020), 110.

We need to know God’s word. Without knowing God’s word which reveal to his people his ways, we are hopeless in our efforts of gospel ministry.

The second thing that this type of evangelism takes is relationship. It should go without saying that without a relationship with someone you rarely earn a right to speak into their life. The closer we are in relationship with someone usually the greater degree we can have of commenting on life’s issues. The greater opportunity gospel ministry we can have. Now this is not always the case. Sometimes the closeness of immediate family hinder the gospel message. And this can be a difficult thing to navigate. Those that live in the closes proximity of us have a front row seat to our sins.

Yet, if we take our faith seriously they also ought to have a front row seat to our dependence on Jesus. To grace and forgiveness. To how we interact with our Lord and Savior. See those living with us may be deaf to the message we say, but it ought to be undeniable in the way we live.

Finally, we see that when it does come to outreach for those who are closes to us, we need to be willing to invest the time. Paul spent three weeks in the synagogue. Now compared to other places Paul went that may not seem like he spent very long there. Yet, we can see that Paul was intentional in entering into conversation with the Jews. He wanted for them to come to the same understanding that Jesus was the Messiah.

We need to understand that relationship evangelism takes work. It takes an intentionality to love others. To invest time in them to help them understand the Scriptures. One of the biggest break downs for church outreach is the lack of time Christians believe they have. We keep ourselves busy with tasks that are meaningless. We waste hours of time of things that we could do without. Then when the church comes calling to get involved we find ourselves to be too busy.

As humans we tend to calibrate our lives around seasons. And not the calendar season either. We have football season, basketball season, Christmas season, hunting season, planting season, harvest season. With kids this this is the same. They have school season and summer season. If they are in sports they have training season and competition season. If you want them to really excel at sports they have the school sports season and then they have the travel league season as well. What ends up happening if you are a Christian family is you end up having a church season. This season might be a month or two long in between all the other activities. And for the most part you render yourself useless to the church because this is to be your break from everything else.

I cannot tell you how many kids I have seen sacrificed to the god of college scholarship. They are pushed and pushed to be the best they can in a sport to have a never ending training or competing schedule so they might earn a scholarship to a D3 or D2 school. Imagine if as much time was invested into one another’s walk with Christ. Imagine if as much time was invested in growing in your spiritual gifts. Maybe our country would not be in the current decline that it is in.

All this starts with relationship. And this relationship aspect carries through the next aspect of outreach.

Sharing with Strangers

I appreciate the scene towards the beginning of the movie Forrest Gump when Forrest first goes to get on the bus and he tells the driver that his momma has told him never to takes rides from strangers. After a brief introduction of himself and bus driver Dorthy Harris, Forrest concludes that they are no longer strangers and he can now ride the bus. It is amazing at what can be accomplished within the bounds of a relationship no matter how new it might be.

In continuing to look at reaching the lost with the gospel, the next aspect is going to be with those that do not share the commonalities of those mentioned in the previous point. Let’s take a look at Paul while he is in Athens.

Acts 17:16–17 ESV

16 Now while Paul was waiting for them at Athens, his spirit was provoked within him as he saw that the city was full of idols. 17 So he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and the devout persons, and in the marketplace every day with those who happened to be there.

Acts 17:21 ESV

21 Now all the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there would spend their time in nothing except telling or hearing something new.

Acts 17:22–23 ESV

22 So Paul, standing in the midst of the Areopagus, said: “Men of Athens, I perceive that in every way you are very religious. 23 For as I passed along and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription: ‘To the unknown god.’ What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you.

Again we see Paul in verse 17 do what he has always done, start with those that share the most in common. But then we see Paul make a shift, we see him entering into conversation with those that were in the market place. What we need to recall about Athens was that at this time it was considered to be the cultural and intellectual capital of the world, as Walter Elwell put it. As Luke points out to the reader in verse 21 the culture of Athens was such that people spent their days discussing the different philosophical issues. Striving to see who could bring the newest teaching that they could debate about. Yet, not everything was simply allowed. There was a governing body.

Paul’s teaching cut to the center of the two major religions of Athens at the time, Stoicism and Epicurism. Stoics were pantheistic in thought. Meaning they believed that all of nature, including humans was some form of god. The Epicureans were atheistic in nature meaning they believed in no god and sought the pleasure of life as the highest fulfillment. Because of Paul’s message he was taken before the governing body of religions, the Areopagus. It was this same body that centuries earlier had condemned Socrates to death because of proclaiming a new religion.

Yet, what can we learn from how Paul interacted with this body. When it comes to evangelism and outreach this passage is one of the more popular ones to look at. It is often called the Mars Hill model as this place were Paul was taken was known as Mars Hill after the Roman god of war, Mars. What we see in this model is that Paul took time to get to know the culture and the people of the area. To see what they were like so that he could show how the gospel applied to them.

This is an area where the American church seems to be lacking outside of foreign missions. We tend to be so caught up in how it used to be that really looking at the landscape of the culture around us, we are just plain missing. We are not seeing how people are still very religious today but are putting their devotion in the wrong place. We fail to understand the ins and outs of their beliefs so that we can point them towards the gospel. This is the model that Paul set through this passage. But to do this it again takes a relationship and an intentionality.

See within this discourse here with the Areopagus Paul enters into the conversation with them on their level. John Pohil explains that Paul’s language here has the ring of Greek philosophy to it. But the purpose of this was that,

“Paul was attempting to build what bridges he could to reach the Athenian intellectuals.”

John B. Polhill, Acts, vol. 26 of The New American Commentary (Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 1992), 370.

See intentional evangelism, intentional outreach, consists of the believer going and building a bridge that is called a relationship. By this bridge the gospel gets carried across through the believers words and actions. This relationship bridge then helps to carry that person from the state of lost to saved.

In light of all this you may find yourself going, okay I can see this. I understand from Scripture this is what I am to be doing. Yet, I am hesitant. I am hesitant because I do not feel like I know enough to be able to do this. My first response would be do not use that as an excuse. If you feel God prompting you to share with someone trust that he will lead you through that situation. Second, I can help you with the training aspect.

The Biblical Soul Care & Discipleship Conference

For many months now I have been announcing this upcoming conference in Kendallville. Often times when people hear that term conference they tend to think of a meeting just of experts within a certain field. Yet, that is not the intention of this conference. This upcoming conference is intended to equip the church with an understanding of how to disciple in general, and then specific areas that may need special attention. Biblical Soul Care is another term for Biblical Counseling. Discipleship is training someone in the way they are to go. The things is, there is not much of a difference between Biblical Counseling and Discipleship outside of the fact that counseling may be more in-depth with someone who has a little more training. But the source of the counseling is the same source for discipleship, God’s word. The premise for Biblical Counseling and Discipleship is that God’s word is sufficient. Explaining this Heath Lambert states,

“Biblical counseling, however, is unique in the belief that the Scriptures comprehensively and sufficiently show how the power of Christ relevantly and powerfully speaks to all the issues that require counseling no matter how extreme or challenging.” (Lambert, 18 June 2012).

By understanding this counseling can take place, in the pastor’s or counselor’s office, when you go out to lunch with a friend, or even sitting around your dinner table with your family.

So what will you have the opportunity to learn at this upcoming conference? The three main session will be given by Pastor Paul Tautges of Cornerstone Christian Church in Mayfield Hts, OH. This will cover the Centrality and Sufficiency of the Scriptures as they pertain to discipleship and counseling, which is the content for change. The second session will be God’s design for community which is the context for change. The last one will be how Christ is our only hope for Change which is the center for change.

There will be two breakout session with 4 options to choose from for either session. There will be one on the character of God in counseling given by me which will aim to answer the question of, can I trust you? That we ask of God and those counseling or discipling us.

The next one is the Liberating Truth of Romans 6 which will be given by Armand Tiffe. Armand was the founding pastor of Cornerstone Church in Mayfield Hts, OH. He curretnly serves as the pastor over their Biblical counseling center. He has been in ministry for nearly 40 years. Through this passage Pastor Tiffe will show the liberating truth of a believer’s union and identity in Christ as it relates to our struggle against personal sin. This session will help you grasp this faith-building truth for your personal life and communicate it to a fellow believer struggling to gain victory over personal sin.

The next one is Relational Discipleship which will be given by Bill Moore. Bill has been a missionary for the better part of 50 primarily to Brazil. He planted both a church and a biblical counseling center back in the 80’s in Brazil that are still operating today. Through Bill’s session you would come to know that relational discipleship / biblical counseling is the process of being connected in relationships that equip us and encourage others to be more like Christ. The purpose of this model is for disciples to make disciples through relationships.

Paul Tautges will also be teaching one of the morning break out sessions titled Help and Hope for life’s hurts. The focus of this one will be learning how to process through our grief.

Int he afternoon sessions there will be 4 to choose from as well. Kathy Tiffe who is the wife of Armand will be teaching a women’s only session title Biblical help for women who worry. Besides being a pastor’s wife Kathy has been a certified Biblical Counselor with ACBC for more than 20 years. Through this session Kathy will instruct the ladies on biblical understanding of worry, and learn how to help yourself, and others, overcome worry and anxious thoughts.

The next session will be given by Pastor Mike DiSanto for men only titled Hungry for Holiness. Mike is the associate pastor of First Christian Church Kendallville. Through this talk Mike will seek to given insight to men battling with purity issues. This something very close to Mikes heart as this was a battle that he walked through himself. He brings both a biblical and personal persepective.

The next section will be taught by Broc Buitaert. Broc is the counselor for Inspiration Ministries out of Auburn IN. He will be teaching those in attendance on how to disciple or counsel those dealing with addiction.

Armand will also be giving an afternoon session that will build on his morning session of the biblical process of personal change. This session will provide a clear explanation of how God has designed personal transformation to take place in a Christian’s everyday life. Additionally, you will learn how to utilize a helpful resource for your spiritual growth and for leading others along the path of spiritual growth.

Of the seven speakers 5 of them are certified counselors with ACBC. Four of them have authored or co-authored counseling and discipleship related books. All of them are actively in ministry. By this you can know that the material being presented to you that day is not theoretical, but has been proven within the presenter’s lives and the lives of those they have counseled or discipled.

So why should you consider signing up? Why should you consider giving up a Saturday in early May for this? Well first, we all have areas of our own lives that we could work on. Second, you do not have to look very far to see a world that is hurting. Many Christians feel under equipped to share their faith let alone try and walk with someone through a difficult time. We have been laying the principles for the last few months on what the church is to be doing. This conference will serve to give you some tools to navigate issues within your own life and to be able to serve others around you. You should come away from this conference feeling more confident about being able to walk through life with some one. Will you know all the answers? No, none of us do. But if you have been hungry for God to use you but not sure how to go about it. Start by attending this conference and see if some clarity can be brought about.

PASS OUT INTEREST SHEET

TALK ABOUT INSERT FOR SIGNING UP

END IN PRAYER