Five Principles of Personal Evangelism

ANNOUNCEMENTS

Welcome to New Beginnings

I will be off the next two Sundays

This is what I am asking you to do. Come and support the young man who will be filling in the pulpit: Dakota Garrett. It is much more encouraging to preach to a room full of people than a handful. You will bless him simply by showing up.

The next two Wednesdays:

We will have Bible study this Wednesday and will be in Rev 21 and talking about the new heaven and new earth.

The following Wednesday we will not have service.

Nov 20th is our Bonhoeffer movie at 6:20 at the Regal off Tony Town. This will replace our Wednesday night Bible study So there will be no church that evening. Tickets for the movie are $7.50 each and it is due today. We have 8 going right now.

INTRODUCTION

WHAT IS EVANGELISM? (9 marks definition) Evangelism is one person telling another person the good news of how they can be reconciled to God through faith in Jesus Christ. In short, evangelism is sharing our faith with unbelievers.

Evangelism is the calling of every member of the church. We are called to be on mission with Christ.

Church’s that do not evangelize will die. It may not even be noticeable for quite some time, but make no mistake a church that does not share its faith is a dying church.

These two things are even more important for a church plant than an established church. It doesn't begin with the resources or people or families like an established church often has. Therefore in order to grow and become a healthy functioning body we must be dedicated to bring others to Jesus.

CONTEXT

In our passage today, Jesus leaves the place where He was baptizing and heads to Galilee. And on this journey he comes across a Samaritan woman at the well of Jacob and models for us what personal evangelism looks like in His own life.

What we are going to is pull out five principles today that we can apply to our own lives

PRAYER: Lord, would you help us to see the necessity of evangelism in our personal lives and the great glory it brings to you when the gospel message is shared to the world. Would your Holy Spirit reign in this place today, shaping and molding our hearts as we open Your Word and look at Your life. Amen.

John 4:4–7 NASB95

And He had to pass through Samaria. So He came to a city of Samaria called Sychar, near the parcel of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph; and Jacob’s well was there. So Jesus, being wearied from His journey, was sitting thus by the well. It was about the sixth hour. There came a woman of Samaria to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give Me a drink.”

1) God gives gospel opportunities in our day to day lives

Explanation: I want you to notice what Jesus is doing in these verses. He has left Judea and is headed into Galilee. And the only way to get to Galilee from Judea is to pass through Samaria. So while He is going about His everyday business, and because He is fully human, He becomes tired from His journey and sits down to rest. And about that time a Samaritan woman comes to well where Jesus is seated.

Now Jesus did not go to Samaria to share the gospel. He was going about His everyday business on a trip headed somewhere. He was not looking to share the gospel with this woman, she just happened to show up at the place where He was resting.

But Jesus did not ignore her, nor did He get up and leave because she was considered a “lesser than” to the world, He began to engage her with an intent to share the gospel with her.

THIS IS A DIVINE APPOINTMENT SET UP BY GOD.

Jesus JUST HAPPENED to arrive at Jacob’s Well on His journey about the same time this woman JUST HAPPENED to go the well to get some water. It’s not hard to see the divine hand of God behind all of this.

Application:

And God often does the same thing in our lives. He will present gospel sharing opportunities to us in our lives who need to hear the good news. And the responsibility then is on us to step out of our comfort zone and tell that persona about Jesus, our testimony, about Christianity, about eternal life; whatever the Holy Spirit leads us to share.

I cannot count the number of times God has placed me on an air place in a seat I did not want to sit in with an opportunity to share my faith.

I cannot tell you the number of times God has sent people to my house and given me an opportunity to tell them about how Jesus saved me.

God gives gospel opportunities in our day to day lives.

IT SEEMS TO ME THAT THE MODERN CHURCH CULTURE HAS ALMOST DONE AWAY WITH THIS. In the modern church, we most often see evangelism as something that happens here on Sunday mornings.

We must have events at the church to reach the lost.

We must go out with the church to knock on doors to reach the lost.

We leave it up to the church to reach the lost and if the church is not reaching the lost then it is the churches fault.

But that is not really true biblically. It is the job of each is us individually to take the gospel into our personal lives and share it And bring them into the church. The primary function of the church is not to become a mission center, but to equip the saints for the work of the ministry! And an important part of that ministry is taking the gospel into our personal lives and sharing with all those God brings to us.

What a difference it would make if we all left today and became evangelists looking for opportunities to tell people the good news that God reconciles sinners by faith in Jesus Christ! What a difference it would make if we made evangelism a lifestyle!

2) What we have to offer the world is the wonderful gift of God

John 4:8–10 NASB95

For His disciples had gone away into the city to buy food. Therefore the Samaritan woman said to Him, “How is it that You, being a Jew, ask me for a drink since I am a Samaritan woman?” (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.) Jesus answered and said to her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, ‘Give Me a drink,’ you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.”

Explanation:

What is the fear that most of us have when sharing the gospel message? It is that we will be rejected or ridiculed for our beliefs. And we often shy away from sharing our faith because of some kind of fear.

But notice what Jesus calls salvation here: “the gift of God”

Now how many of you hate it when someone says they want to give you a gift? 🎁

The only kind of gifts that we do not like are the ones that have strings attached! Hey I want to come and help you out friend, and after they help you out say I would just like to ask you for one thing in return: That you come and serve me for the next seven years!

That’s what Laban did to Jacob! Here is my daughter Jacob, but gave him the wrong one. And then to get the one he wanted had to serve Laban another 7 years!

That’s not a gift! A gift is something to someone at no cost, free of charge.

And that’s what you are doing when you share the gospel.

It is the free gift of God

Ephesians 2:8 NASB95

For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God;

Salvation is not earned, it cannot be worked for, it can only be given!

And we have been called as messengers to give out this free gift of grace from God!

And that is the way we should see it, As offering the world God’s Gift!

It is NOT a curse! It is NOT “bad news”

It is NOT a bad message!

It is NOT a condemning message!

The world is condemned already!

It IS a saving message that offers the free gift of God to anyone who BELIEVES.

Then Jesus says, “If you knew the gift of God….” And that implies that this woman did not know what she thought she knew, but Jesus knew

And that is the heartbeat of those who have the drive to share their faith

They know the depth and beauty of what a great gift salvation truly is

They know what it means to be forgiven, changed, loved, cared for, watched over, moved from death to life, given hope they have never had

And there so nothing on earth like being in Christ

A danger for those who have received this gift of God for years is to forget how great a gift it is

That we can be so focused on the difficulties in this life, that we no longer ponder in amazement the greatness of God’s gift that was given to us

And that can breed ungratefulness and even resentment, and cause us to lose our drive to share our faith

Maybe that’s you

And maybe this is your reminder that what we have in Jesus IS A GIFT FAR GREATER THAN ANYTHING THIS WORLD HAS TO OFFER!

AND THERE IS NOTHING BETTER IN THIS LIFE THAN WALKING IN ETERNAL LIFE

3) Effective Evangelism is Personal

John 4:15–18 NASB95

The woman said to Him, “Sir, give me this water, so I will not be thirsty nor come all the way here to draw.” He said to her, “Go, call your husband and come here.” The woman answered and said, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You have correctly said, ‘I have no husband’; for you have had five husbands, and the one whom you now have is not your husband; this you have said truly.”

Explanation: I want you to notice this woman’s response to Jesus is sarcastic: “Sir, if you really have this magical water then give me some so I do not have to come back to this well everyday!”

And the world will sometimes respond this way when you talk to them about Jesus.

They laugh, they joke, they try to make it not as serious as it is and often because they do not see the relevance of the gospel! They do not understand why the message we share is important to them:

It’s just religion

It’s just a place that wants me to come and give money

It’s just an old myth that people hold onto as a crutch

But Jesus sees right through this and gets the heart of the matter: He makes it personal!

Look how Jesus responds, “Go, call your husband and come here.” Jesus changes this conversation from the water in the well and living water and why this woman so desperately needs this living water, and why the gospel applies directly to her life.

Why does Jesus tell her to go get her husband?

Jesus is not interested in speaking to him, He is raising the issue of the woman’s sin. She does not have a husband, (and Jesus knows that), but yet she lives with a man (And Jesus knows that as well)

Hebrews 13:4 NASB95

Marriage is to be held in honor among all, and the marriage bed is to be undefiled; for fornicators and adulterers God will judge.

It is a sin to cohabitate with another outside the boundary of marriage.

And even though culture my accept it and even praise it, God will judge it and that is why it mattered to the Samaritan woman

What I love so much about this is that Jesus does not beat around the bush, but gets right down to the point that the biggest need in this woman’s life is not well water but to have her sin problem quenched. She is not even aware of this greater need until Jesus reveals it her.

Bridge: There is something that every person in the world has in common with this Samaritan woman. That is the desperate need to drink from the cleansing living water of Jesus Christ.

It does not matter how moral, how religious, how well put together on the outside someone may seem, they all need the forgiveness that only Jesus can give.

When we share the gospel, we want to shine the penetrating light of Jesus Christ into the darkness of people’s lives. This is exactly what Jesus was doing, he bringing to the surface this woman’s need to be forgiven!

What Jesus says to this woman, is the same thing you and I must be willing to say to others: “What are you going to do about your sin?” People may want marital help, people may want help from depression, people may want financial freedom, people want to be freed from addiction, BUT all of that is because the world is under the power of sin and only the blood of Jesus Christ can free the world from sin’s power!

This is what equalizes the world!

This is what makes the gospel personal to us all!

Romans 3:23 “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,”

No one can stand before Gid and say I have never sinned!

And no one can stand before God as a practicing sinner and not be judged

Therefore God’s great offer of forgiveness by faith in Jesus Christ is applicable to all mankind!

White

Black

Brown

Yellow

Rich poor

All people are sinners and what we need to be saved from is our sin!

You may not think this is the best approach, but I assure you that anyone who comes to Jesus without turning from their sin, has never come to Jesus

The reality of the gospel is that it first deals with our sin before anything else

Can the gospel save a marriage? ABSOLUTELY

Can the gospel save someone from depression and suicide? ABSOLUTELY

The gospel can change much! But it primarily deals with our sin

4) Evangelism seeks to make true worshipers of God

John 4:19–24 NASB95

The woman said to Him, “Sir, I perceive that You are a prophet. “Our fathers worshiped in this mountain, and you people say that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship.” Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe Me, an hour is coming when neither in this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. “You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. “But an hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for such people the Father seeks to be His worshipers. “God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.”

Explanation:

Jesus tells her in verse 22: “you worship what you do not know”

Clearly she would have considered herself to be a worshiper of God

Her fathers worshiped on that mountain

She has a knowledge of the God of Abraham, Issac, and Jacob

She even believed that the Messiah was coming

BUT JESUS TELLS HER THAT TRUE WORSHIPERS WORSHIP IN SPITIT AND TRUTH AND THAT IS WHO THE FATHER SEEKS

People claim to worship God is all sorts of ways today

Many claim to be worshipers who never step foot inside an assembling of God’s people

But what does it really mean to be a worshiper of God?

They worship the Father in “spirit”

What does that mean to worship God in spirit?

Well, Jesus says in verse 24 that God’s essential nature is spirit. is spirit. He is not a flesh and being such as we are, He is a spiritual being, therefore to worship him we must do so through the spiritual.

The question is then how does that happen?

God must be connected with on a spiritual level! And that can only happen through the Holy Spirit of God!

Worship is not just the outward of going through the motions, but an inward heart given to God!

It is a person who has given their whole lives over to God and desire most to see Him glorified

Romans 12:1 NASB95

Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.

They worship the Father in “truth”

True worship is according to God’s truth. Not relative truth according to how people feel, or what people have heard from someone else, or what people perceive as spiritual.

Truth is always according to God’s truth!

Therefore true worship of God is always in line with God’s Word.

Any kin d of worship that does not line up with Scripture is not true worship

Application

This the what evangelism seeks to make: true worshipers of God.

Not people who come to go through the motions

And they do this by living and sharing God’s truth with the world regardless of the situation.

The church is the only place that the world can consistently get real truth

5) Sharing the gospel nourishes us spiritually

John 4:31–35 NASB95

Meanwhile the disciples were urging Him, saying, “Rabbi, eat.” But He said to them, “I have food to eat that you do not know about.” So the disciples were saying to one another, “No one brought Him anything to eat, did he?” Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me and to accomplish His work. “Do you not say, ‘There are yet four months, and then comes the harvest’? Behold, I say to you, lift up your eyes and look on the fields, that they are white for harvest.

Explanation: Here come the disciples, clueless as to what all had just happened With this Samaritan woman.

They offer Jesus food and He says no thats OK…..I’m completely satisfied. And they miss the spiritual meaning here and begin to wonder who brought Jesus food.

So He makes it clear that food we eat nourishes the flesh.

BUT what nourishes Jesus was not another meal, but the wonderful fulfillment that comes from seeing people come to faith in Jesus.

Application: What will satisfy your spirit more than anything is not a t-bone steak, but planting gospel seeds. What jesus said to us all is to be a fisher of men, to “Go, and make disciples”, and this will do tremendous things for our souls as well as for the souls of those whom we are talking to.

There is something that happens down deep in the soul of a man when God allows him to be a part of another’s spiritual birth.

CONCLUSION

The only thing more satisfying in this life than sharing your faith, is drinking from that well yourself.

See the offer to that Samaritan woman is the same offer that Jesus is making to us this morning: it is to come and drink of the living water of Jesus Christ.

It is to come and have your thirst satisfied for eternity!

It is to come and receive the invitation to become a true worshiper

It is to come And have your sins washed away and have new life in Jesus Christ. It is to come, and take of the free gift of God that is offered to anyone who wants it.

~PRAYER~