Chapel 2025: Evangelism
Notes
Transcript
Hook:
Hook:
What was the last movie you saw that just blew your mind and you had to tell everyone they needed to go see it?
Think of a time when you watched a movie that blew your mind—something so good that you couldn't stop talking about it! You told everyone you knew because you wanted them to share in that excitement. The gospel is the ultimate blockbuster, full of hope and joy. It's an experience worth sharing! When we embrace this light-hearted attitude, we can make sharing our faith fun and engaging for everyone.
If we can share about a movie—then we can share about the Gospel!
Why should I share the gospel?
How can you not?
When we love God, and commit to serve them, there are some things in our life that should look different. There are some things that we should do out of love because of what our God has done for us.
We are starting a series for our Midweek called Daily Drills. We are going to be walking through spiritual disciplines. One of those being spending time in the word. The Center for Bible Engagement shared some statistics where they studied behaviors of people based on how many days a week they spent reading the Bible.
Sneak peek into Midweek tonight:
If you read your Bible 4 or more times a week (Bible class shouldn’t count!) you are 228% more likely to share your faith.
We are called and empowered to share the gospel.
In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
The light of the gospel is compared to the creation of light. A force initiated by God that spreads throughout the world.
We are carrying a light with the hope of helping others see it. Not a message for our benefit but a message only about Him.
C. They have to hear it somehow
For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”
How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!”
God has established and orchestrated that the growth of this message should be through His people. We are called to go to others with this message—but who?
Who should I share with?
For though I am free from all, I have made myself a servant to all, that I might win more of them. To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win Jews. 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. To those outside the law I became as one outside the law (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. I do it all for the sake of the gospel, that I may share with them in its blessings.
Our identity, outside of Christ, does not need to be our priority. Ex. if you hate country music. If you think it is the worst thing that has ever been produced. But you see someone with a _insert country artist here__. Should your opening sentence be, oh wow I hate that. No! Now do you have to love country music, no, but why would you add something else to be a barrier in your hope to share the gospel with them?
Ex. Angry guy in Carlisle. We were doing a car wash to draw attention to the church’s ministry center. Students were on the sidewalk holding signs. He was mad and claiming that they were on his property. There were some problems with this: he didn’t own the property, his dad did. Sidewalks are public property. But it wasn’t important that I was right. He makes a point about being mad about church and religion because he was a gay man. I started to share the gospel with him and talked about how we are all broken and in need of a savior. He didn’t like that—started to threaten to fight me. He said, “You think I’m broken?” “Yeah...we all are.” “Now I’m getting even angrier, I really feel like fighting you right now” I’m thinking...well this is going great… What followed was I went to the pastor we were serving with, and let him know about the conversation. Like a normal small town, he was like, i’ve known him forever and am friends with his dad. He then took it from there, I don’t know what ever came of it, but I knew he’d have more luck than me, because there was a relationship there. Which brings us to the next point being, who should we share with—>
Anyone, but especially The people you’re close to
The people you’re close to are close to you for a reason. You’re going to have a better chance at sharing something deeply important to you with some you have some sort of relationship with.
There is an added challenge in being evangelistic when in a Christian environment.
I have a lot of regret from my HS and college years of not sharing the gospel more with people around me. I shared with a few, but I can only think of one close friend who I continually shared the gospel with…over and over, who finally believed in a McDonald’s parking lot at midnight.
Who are the people you have access to now, that need to hear the Gospel? This should be a burden on all of our hearts.
After we’ve established the who, we want to start addressing the ‘how’ which can be nerve wracking! The apostle Paul, arguable the greatest missionary ever, put it like this:
How to share the Gospel?
And I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling, and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.
Yet among the mature we do impart wisdom, although it is not a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are doomed to pass away.
If this was how Paul felt about sharing the Gospel, that should make us feel a little better! We can approach this task with the same humility and weakness. We can do this through Christ’s power and not our own and know we are in an okay spot! But that doesn’t mean we can’t be prepared! So, we can practice and learn methods for sharing. But which one should you use.
It’s a lot like what people say about working out or dieting, the best method is the one that you stick with!
The method I’ve preferred for years, and you’ll see me use pieces of it in messages all of the time, is the 3 Circles Conversation Guide. It is built to be used as a way of transitioning a conversation into a gospel conversation. Because of how it is set up you can start from different points depending on the conversation. Each point has verses to support it, but it does not require reciting a handful of verses. Other bonus: there’s an app.
The 3 Circles Conversation Guide goes like this:
It starts with God’s Design. You’re setting up your worldview. That you believe that God created everything and it was good and with a perfect purpose. God has a perfect design for the world, for people, for relationships. But then people had their own way of doing things, and wanted to depart from God’s design. We call that….
Sin: Sin is anything we do that is apart from God’s design. When we try to dictate how we should live our life. How we act, how we treat others, the decisions we make for our life, and do so in a selfish manner, we are in sin. And sin, takes away from God’s Design for everything and leads to something else.
Brokenness: Sin only ever leads us into Brokenness. Leads us feeling incomplete because we are living outside of how God intended. Now, when we feel broken we seek out ways to fix our brokenness. We try popularity, money, success, substances, etc… But none of those ever lead us anywhere but to more brokenness. God recognizes that we cannot fix our own brokenness.
Gospel: So, He sent His Son, Jesus to the earth. He was fully God and fully man. He lived a sinless life and died on a cross as a sacrifice for my win and your sin and three days later he rose from the dead. In doing so, he did what he said he would do and as a result proved He was who he said he was. That’s the Gospel.
Repent and Believe: and that all who repent and believe in the Gospel; believing in who Jesus was and is and repenting, meaning recognizing our own sin, mistakes and brokenness, can find a way out of their brokenness, through the gospel.
Recover and Pursue: and recover and pursue God’s plan for their life. Live a life that is in pursuit of God’s plan for your future, your relationships, ultimately, your life.
This is the Three Circles.
Now, this wouldn’t always play out as a three minute presentation. But say someone brings up a current event about something awful. Then someone asks you, “What do you think about what’s going on with (fill in the blank)” You can respond with, “You know, I really think that stinks. I believe in God, and I know it was never his intention for things to be this way. I think the way He designed everything was perfect…and so on” or you’re talking to someone and people LOVE to talk about their “brokenness” You can acknowledge their brokenness and how it leads to nothing positive but that God’s solution for our brokenness was through the work of His Son. And you can go from there.
This is just one of many, but i appreciate that if you’re drawing it, you only have to remember 9 words, it has verses that support it if needed, it has a visual aid if necessary, and it interjects itself into a conversation so you aren’t coming out of the blue talking about Jesus stuff!
My challenge to you right now, I want us to take one minute, I want you to pray that God reveals a name to you. Pray that God lays the name of ONE person on your heart that you can share the gospel with. One person that God has put in your circle of influence that could hear the good news of Jesus. When you get to a pen and paper, I want you to write that name down on a small piece of paper, and put it in your wallet, phone case, locker, somewhere that you’ll see it, and you’ll be reminded. You’ll pray for opportunities to share, you’ll pray that they are receptive. Let’s take that one minute, really pray about it, seek out who God wants you to tell.
(Take one minute)
Now what are you supposed to do with that name? (Write it down!)
Exactly, write it down. Make it real. One step further, I want you to tell someone else who that name is and ask them to pray as well.
Let me pray for us.
Amen, you’re dismissed.
