To Follow is to Evangelize

To Follow is to Evangelize

Intro. Those of us in the baby boomer generation didn’t have smart phones, I-pads, laptops, Facebook, snap-chat, and Instagram to occupy our time while we were growing up. We rode our bicycles, made horses out of bean sticks, and played games like Simon says, and follow the leader.

For those who may not know what follow the leader is all about. According the Wikipedia the game “Follow the Leader” involved first the choosing of a leader or "the head of the line," then the children all line up behind the leader. The leader then moves around and all the children have to mimic the leader's actions. Any players who fail to follow or do what the leader does are out of the game. When only one person other than the leader remains, that player becomes the leader, and the game begins again with all players joining the line once again.

In biblical times, Jesus was declared by God as the leader of the church and the Savior of the world. It’s not an oversight by Jesus that He never said sign up and become one of my disciples. He never said if you say the right prayer or confess your loyalty to me, you can be saved from hell and your names will be written down in Heaven.

What He did say was, Come follow me. In He said, “And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me.”

In He told the rich young man who was seeking eternal life, “If you would be perfect, go, sell what you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.”

And in Jesus said, “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.”

According to the best authority on earth and in Heaven, which is Jesus, the saved are those who commit their lives to following Jesus. Although we begin our relationship with Christ through prayer, we must understand that such a commitment includes a lifestyle of following Jesus.

Jesus is our leader. He sets the example to follow and gives the commands to obey. There’s no other meaning to being a Christian than that of being a follower of Jesus.

If you don’t follow the leader in the game “follow the leader"you are put out of the game. If we are not truly following Jesus can we really claim to be in a saving relationship with Jesus?

I say all of this in leading up to our subject for today. In our series on “What Does the Bible Say?” we now take a look at what the Bible says about Evangelism. Why do we need to know what it says about evangelism? We need to know so that we can follow Jesus, for He was constantly evangelizing.

In the message I hope we will see importance and reasons why every true follower of Jesus should evangelize. I also hope we see the motivating and enabling factors for evangelism, along with three basic types of evangelism.

First, the motivating factor--love. Our love should motivate us.

I. Our Love Motivates Us

The key to evangelism is the heart. What I mean is that we have to love God and people, for love is the greatest motivational force in the world.

God’s love for us motivated Him to find a way to satisfy His justice and save the sinner. Jesus’ love for us motivated Him to offer Himself up as a sacrifice for us. Out of love, He died in our place and suffered for our sins. He took God’s holy wrath upon Himself, instead of letting it consume us.

Jesus’ love for us motivated Him to offer Himself up as a sacrifice for us. Out of love, He died in our place and suffered for our sins. He took God’s holy wrath upon Himself, instead of letting it consume us.

Jesus’ love for us motivated Him to offer Himself up as a sacrifice for us. He died in our place and suffered for our sins.

And it’s His love for us that should produce a love within us for Him. “We love [Christ] because he first loved us” ().

So why should we evangelize? How about our love for Jesus.

A. Our Love for Jesus

It’s our love for Jesus that makes us followers of Jesus. It’s natural to want to do things for the one we love. We want to please them. We want to honor them. By evangelizing we both honor and obey Christ. It is Christ who commands us to evangelize. It was Christ who gave us our text. It was Christ who said, “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“ ().

It is Christ who gives the example to follow in evangelism. For He said, ”For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost” (Luke 19:10).

In addition to our love for Christ, there’s our love for others.

B. Our Love for Others

Every person is made in the image of God. We have to love others if we truly love God and understand that every person, regardless of their actions and attitudes, are made in God’s image.

John put it this way, “If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen” ().

If our love for others has grown cold, we need to add some fuel to it. If a fire begins to go out, add wood to it. If your love for others grows dim, add some prayer to it. Time spent with God about the lost will stir up our love for the lost.

Love motivates us, and our faith empowers us.

II. Our Faith Empowers Us

Most Christians don’t evangelize for two reasons. Their love has grown cold for the lost or their faith has grown weak.

A. Our Faith In Christ

Our faith in Christ is vital to our evangelism. Our faith in Christ is referring to our relationship with Christ. The more real Christ is to us, the more real the lost and their eternal destiny is to us.

Jesus was passionate about the lost. He loved them. He spent time with them. He willingly endured criticism and hardships for them.

The closer we are to Christ, the greater is our concern for the lost.

But it’s not just our faith in Christ, but also our faith in Christ’s power.

B. Our Faith in Christ’s Power

Our text says in verse 18, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.”

We can do evangelism because Christ both has and provides the power we need to accomplish it. And He has promised to be with us. In fact, He has promised to never leave us. Our text says in verse 20, “… And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

The Bible says, “...we are more than conquerors through him who loved us” (Romans 8:37).

Although we can do nothing of any value without Him, on the other hand, we can do the impossible with Him. In , Jesus said to His disciples, “... if you have faith like a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move, and nothing will be impossible for you.”

The apostle Paul understood this truth, for He said in , “I can do all things through him who strengthens me.

We can live holy lives. We can be more than conquerors. We can be a light for the world and salt to the earth. We can be a witness for the Lord and do the work of an evangelist.

says, “I can do all things through him who strengthens me.

We can do it, but we may not do it the same way as others. We are all different. Some of us have the personality of a lion and others the personality of a teddy bear. This is why God has provided different methods for differing personalities. The various methods enable us to do evangelism.

III. Our Methods Enable Us

I’m sure there are others, but what I see are three different types or methods for doing evangelism. The one that we are most familiar with, and the one that many equate with evangelism is the confrontational one.

A. Confrontational

It’s what I call cold turkey evangelism. It’s where you walk up to a person, maybe a complete stranger and share the gospel and press the person to make a decision to accept Christ as their Lord and Savior.

This is what most older Christians were taught as the only kind of evangelism. It’s the kind that is used to knock on doors and seek decisions from those inside.

I have done confrontational evangelism, but I’m not made for this kind of evangelism. I don’t have the personality for it, but I can make myself do it when necessary.

People who can do this kind of evangelism are those who have the gift of evangelism which the Bible refers to. The church needs these kinds of workers. The apostles Peter and Paul did confrontational evangelism. Unfortunately, our churches have very few people equipped with the kind of personality needed to do confrontational evangelism.

This leads us to the next type of evangelism, invitational evangelism.

B. Invitational

This kind can and should be done by every follower of Christ. Don’t let my choice of words throw you off. By invitational, I mean, we simply invite people to come and hear about Jesus. We may invite them to our church services where they can hear the gospel. We may invite them to a special event at our church. We may give them a tract and invite them to read about Jesus.

As church leaders here at Concord, we try to help you with this type of evangelism. We do it by providing special events or services that make it easier for you to invite others to. But in order to take advantage these services, you have to plan on being here. You have to take seriously evangelism, along with church attendance.

Be intentional about being here in worship service. Be intentional about inviting others to join you. In other words, be Christ committed, be Christ conscious. Be intentional about the Christian life. Christians should take church attendance and evangelism more seriously than they do their jobs. In fact, Christians can do no otherwise if they are following Jesus, because that’s what Jesus did.

He was in the synagogue every Sabbath. He invited people to follow Him wherever He went.

We need to be like Andrew, Peter’s brother. After hearing Jesus speak, Andrew went to get his brother, Peter, and bring him to hear Jesus speak. Are you like Andrew? Every believer can be and should be like Andrew.

Far too many today embrace Convenient Christianity, which is not what following Jesus is all about. Casual and non-intentional evangelism is not Biblical evangelism.

This Christmas season we are dong some of the same things along with something different. We will have our Thanksgiving meal and service next Sunday night that you can invite your non-church friends and family members to come to. But of course, you will need to be here if you’re going to invite them to come.

We will be having our annual Christmas Concert performed by Childress Family on December 3rd that you can invite others to.

We will be having our annual Christmas program that you can invite others to.

The something different is a series of Sunday morning Christmas messages that will focus on “What Child is This.” These messages will look at how Joseph, Mary, the shepherds, and the wise men saw the baby Jesus.

The messages will include video clips from the Skit Guys. We have provided promotional materials that are located in the foyer to assist you in inviting others to these services that will begin on the last Sunday of this month and conclude with our Christmas Eve candlelight service.

There is no excuse for not taking advantage of this method of evangelizing. Begin praying for opportunities to invite others to our events and services this Christmas season, and then do it.

Pick up some of the cards we’ve provided and keep them with you and then hand them out as God provides the opportunities.

Last of all there’s the inspirational type of evangelism.

C. Inspirational

What I mean by inspirational is that your life inspires others to want to come to church or get to know your Jesus. When you go above and beyond the call of duty to help a fellow worker, neighbor, or stranger, God uses your actions and your love to impact their lives.

Howard Hendricks, a well-known minister, speaker, and seminary professor writes in his book “Say It With Love,” how the love of a perfect stranger changed his life. He said, "I was nine years old, a little terror. I was out playing marbles one day, when a man named Walt came along and invited me to Sunday School. There was nothing appealing to me about anything with “school” in it, so he made me another proposition—one I liked a lot better. “Wanna play a game of marbles with me?” he asked. He then said, “After he’d wiped me out in a couple games of marbles, he inquired, “Wanna learn how to play this game better?”

He then said, “by the time he’d taught me how to ply marbles over the next few days, he’d built such a relationship with me that I’d have gone anywhere he suggested. You know what that meant?” I ended up in his Sunday School class with a dozen other boys, most of whom he’d magnetized in very much the same way. Of the 13 boys in that class, nine were from broken home, and five were Roman Catholics. Eleven of those boys ended up in vocational Christian work.” He then added, “thank God of a man like Walt, who “said it with love.”

Walt was an inspiration to those little boys and consequently, they would follow him anywhere>

In conclusion let me just say this.

Conclusion:

A mechanic who never works on cars or trucks, is he or she a real mechanic? A hunter, who never hunts, is he or she a real hunter? A plumber, who never works on plumbing, is he or she a real plumber? And finally, a follower of Christ who never does any evangelism, is he or she a true follower of Christ?

If you claim to a follower of Christ, then follower Him. Follow Him in giving. Follow Him in attending church every Sunday. Follow Him in loving others. Follow Him in evangelizing.

Let’s pray.