Sermon Tone Analysis

Can you relate with this situation?

You are out on door to door evangelism.

You are walking down a sidewalk up to the front door of the next house in line and as you head up to the door you get a sinking feeling in your stomach.

What are you thinking in the back of your mind?

“I hope no one answers the door.”

But you knock anyway, and after a brief pause, someone opens the door.

You launch into your well rehearsed spiel, you only have seconds in which to interact with that person, and after 15 seconds of talking you hand that person a tract or a flyer from your church, and they close the door and you walk away to the next house longing to be done with this evangelism thing.

Does that story resonate with you at all?

If not, what does come to your mind when I say the word, “evangelism”?

If you had to get up here this morning and explain to everyone how you do evangelism, what would you say?

What principles would you explain or teach people to help them effectively communicate the gospel?

Maybe to you evangelism means inviting someone to church, or handing a tract to someone at the grocery store.

Maybe it means trying to start a bible study with someone, or maybe it means becoming someone’s friend.

But do you have well thought through principles as to how you effectively communicate the gospel to someone in your Jerusalem?

Ever thought about how Jesus Christ evangelized people while He was here on this earth?

Did Jesus use a specific set of principles when he gave the gospel to people?

If so, do your evangelism principles mimic the principles that Jesus used?

In other words are you Christlike in your approach to reaching people with the gospel?

I would suggest to you this morning that we need to be willing to change our thinking when it comes to reaching people with the gospel.

I would suggest that if we actually want to become effective at reaching people for Christ- that means actually leading people to faith in Christ, and doing it personally- by the way how many people have you personally led to Christ?

If you want to become effective at actually personally leading people to faith in Jesus Christ, then we need a change in our culture of evangelism.

We need to start thinking about giving the gospel differently than we ever have before.

We need to give the gospel the same way that Jesus gave the gospel.

What better example could you ask for?

I am not asking you to change based on some fad or new fangled program- what I am suggesting is that we model the way that Jesus gave the gospel.

We must seriously think about how Christ evangelized people and copy His principles of evangelism as closely as possible.

We must be Christlike evangelists.

We must be Christlike, not only in the character of his life, but in the contet of his daily living.

How do we do that?

Or another way we could ask the question is, what are the principles of Christlike Evangelism?

I. Make people curious about spiritual things (John 3:1-9)

OK, let’s think through this story-

In v.1 what do we find out about Nicodemus’s social status?

What two things do we learn about this man?

He is a Pharisee and he is a ruler of the Jews.

He probably had everything this world had to offer- prestige, wealth, and power.

Knowing that Nicodemus enjoyed this kind of a lifestyle what is strikingly odd about v. 2?

What seems a little off here?

When a man has everything, he has no reason to fear anyone, right?

So- why then did Nicodemus come to Jesus at night?

Look at what Nicodemus tells Jesus at the end of v. 2-

“Rabbi (teacher), we know that you are a teacher come from God; for no man can do these miracles / signs that you are doing, except God be with him.”

Who did He mean by we? Apparently, some of the Pharisees acknowledged that Jesus’ miracles could only mean that in some way Jesus was connected to God the Father.

How else could Jesus do the things that he was doing?

This is a fairly positive statement from Nicodemus isn’t it?

This seems like an open door to spiritual things doesn’t it?

Jesus could use this line of conversation in many ways to talk about “spiritual” things.

But, how does Jesus respond to Nicodemus?

Now is Nicodemus a religious man?

Yes, as a leader of the Jews, he probably know the Old Testament, along with all of the commentaries on it, inside and out.

He knew all the theological jargon, he knew all of the theological debates, and he was familiar with the OT itself.

Jesus makes the statement however, “Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.”

Where does this concept of being “born again” occur in the Old Testament?

There are verses that hint at the concept of being born again like Ezekiel 36:25-26

But, the OT says nothing about being born again.

So, if the OT says nothing about this new birth, then how could Nicodemus have understood the Lord’s comment?

We can answer this question by asking another question- did Nicodemus understand what Jesus said?

Look at v. 4.

What is Nicodemus saying here?

Let me paraphrase: “Jesus, I have no idea what you are talking about!”

OK, so Jesus is going to clarify what He means right?

Wrong!

Look at v. 5-

What does that mean?

What does it mean to be born of water?

Is this physical water?

Or is this another kind of water?

What does it mean to be born of the Spirit?

Is this the Holy Spirit or another kind of spirit?

These are important questions aren’t they?

What hangs in the balance?

Entering into the kingdom of God.

Do you want to enter the kingdom of God some day?

Do you think Nicodemus wanted to enter into the kingdom of God someday?

What exactly is the kingdom of God anyway?

Well, Jesus must clarify this for Nicodemus right?

Does that answer all of your questions?

Everything clear as glass?

Can we quit here and go home?

What is going on in your thinking right now?

Why is Jesus talking about wind?

What does that have to do with entering into the Kingdom of God?

What was going on in Nicodemus’ thinking?

What is going on here?

What is Jesus doing?

Does Jesus want to lead Nicodemus to be born again?

Does Jesus want Nicodemus to be able to see and enter into the Kingdom of God? YES! Then why does Jesus say statement after statement that Nicodemus CANNOT understand?

Answer: I would suggest that this is one of the principles of Jesus’ method of evangelism.

What was the first step that Jesus used to lead someone to faith in Himself?

He caused people to become curious about spiritual things!

Here Jesus is arousing Nicodemus’s curiosity with statements that were NOT understandable!

Do you remember the cleansing of the temple?

First of all Jesus did something that the Jews did not understand.

Then they asked Jesus a question, do you remember the question?

What was Jesus’ answer to their question?

Was this a statement that the Jewish leaders understood?

So why does Jesus say things that people don’t understand?

He caused people to become curious about spiritual things!

Do you remember his conversation with Nathanael?

What was the very first thing Jesus said to Nathanael?