Evangelism Excuses
One of my favorite hymns about evangelism is called “Hear the Call of the Kingdom” by Kieth Getty and Stuart Townend.
Listen to the third verse and the chorus:
Hear the call of the Kingdom to reach out to the lost;
With the Father’s compassion, in the wonder of the cross.
Bringing peace and forgiveness and a hope yet to come.
Let the nations put their trust in Him.
King of heaven, we will answer the call;
we will follow, bringing hope to the world,
filled with passion, filled with power to proclaim
salvation in Jesus’ name.
As the church of Jesus Christ, we have been sent on a mission to make disciples of all nations. And making disciples starts with the proclamation of the gospel, the good news that though all humanity is dead in their sin because of rebellion against God, God the Son took humanity to himself, becoming just as we are except for the sin which kills us. That Son, Jesus, lived perfectly according to God’s holy law, but suffered the punishment of sin that he did not deserve in our place, so that by trusting in his person and work, we can be forgiven of that sin and reconciled once again to God.
That is not the entirety of disciple-making — as I’ve said before I lament the fact that we’ve often collapsed the big picture of disciple-making into convert-making, where we preach to them and dunk them and our job is done. There is much more to disciple-making than just evangelism, but disciple-making cannot start without that foundation of proclaiming the good news of Jesus to a lost world.
But, as any pastor knows, the easiest way to make a Christian feel like a failure is to ask them a simple question: How well are you being obedient to the mission of evangelism? Shoulders slump. Heads sag and eyes hit the floor.
I believe that you know that we are called to the practice of evangelism. But, if I were to take a straw poll and ask everyone when was the last time you had an intentional conversation with someone else where you clearly laid out the truth of the gospel — That God is a holy Judge and that you have sinned against Him, but Jesus died so that sinners may be forgiven of their sins if they will repent and believe in Him — can you even remember?
Don’t get me wrong, that’s not the be all end of the Christian life. You have not failed as a Christian if all your conversations don’t end that way. But we’ve got to ask ourselves…have any of my conversations gone that way?
Go ahead and turn in your Bibles to John 4, that’s page 605 of the pew Bible.
As individual believers, we are called to share the gospel of Jesus nonbelievers, but if we’re honest with ourselves, we have created within ourselves a whole host of excuses as to why we cannot or do not.
In our text this morning, I want us to see how Jesus speaks to his disciples and confronts some of those excuses.
Here’s our big idea from our text:
Jesus refutes our excuses for not sharing the gospel with nonbelievers and challenges us to share the gospel right now.
Let’s read, starting in verse 27:
John 4:27–38 CSB
Just then his disciples arrived, and they were amazed that he was talking with a woman. Yet no one said, “What do you want?” or “Why are you talking with her?”
Then the woman left her water jar, went into town, and told the people,
“Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Messiah?”
They left the town and made their way to him.
In the meantime the disciples kept urging him, “Rabbi, eat something.”
But he said, “I have food to eat that you don’t know about.”
The disciples said to one another, “Could someone have brought him something to eat?”
“My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work,” Jesus told them.
“Don’t you say, ‘There are still four more months, and then comes the harvest’? Listen to what I’m telling you: Open your eyes and look at the fields, because they are ready for harvest.
The reaper is already receiving pay and gathering fruit for eternal life, so that the sower and reaper can rejoice together.
For in this case the saying is true: ‘One sows and another reaps.’
I sent you to reap what you didn’t labor for; others have labored, and you have benefited from their labor.”
Let’s pray:
Jesus refutes our excuses for not sharing the gospel with nonbelievers and challenges us to share the gospel right now.
I want to talk about 5 excuses that we as Christians are quick to put forth as reasons why we do not share the gospel:
They Won’t Listen
First, we may have convinced ourselves that people we tell won’t listen.
In our narrative, the disciples have just returned from their shopping trip in town, and they’re shocked to see Jesus talking with this woman. They wonder why Jesus would waste time talking with, of all people, this Samaritan woman. She doesn’t count. She doesn’t know anything. She’s not worth it.
Look at the question they wanted to ask Jesus, but didn’t in verse 27: “Why are you talking with her?” (v. 27).
It is not our place to decide whether or not someone will respond to the gospel. Our call is to share it with everyone. The gospel doesn’t discriminate. Neither should we. But it’s really easy for us to judge ahead of time how we think someone will respond to the good news about Jesus Christ.
“They’re too set in their sin. They’d never repent.”
“I’ve tried with them before so many times, but nothing’s happened.”
“I don’t think they’d fit in well at our church, so I’m going to leave it to someone they might feel more comfortable with.”
The good news of Jesus is for everyone and we are to sow the seed of the gospel indiscriminately. Don’t let your own preconceptions determine who you speak to about Jesus. The gospel is an urgent message—it is life and death— and that demands we share it freely with all people. The urgency of the gospel forbids us to make the excuse that people won’t listen. We must tell.
I Don’t Know Enough
Another excuse: we often tell ourselves that we don’t know enough or have all the answers to potential questions.
Have you ever considered talking about Jesus with someone then hesitated because you worried about whether they might ask you some question that you didn’t have an answer to? And you said to yourself…ah, I need to leave that to someone who knows more than me.
I love the contrast between the disciples’ reaction to Jesus’ conversation and the woman’s reaction. She doesn’t stop to worry about whether or not she knew everything…I mean, we clearly see from the text that she absolutely did NOT know everything. She barely knew anything! But when she heard the good news of living water, she ran back into town so quickly that she left her water jar at the well.
Don’t let fear of not knowing enough deter you from telling what you do know — the goodness of Jesus.
It’s OK if you don’t know the answers to all the potential questions. Preach the gospel — it is the power of God for salvation, not your knowledge. Preach the gospel.
I Don’t Have Enough Time
Third excuse we tell ourselves: I don’t have enough time. I’m too busy.
The disciples had bought some food in the town, and they offer some to Jesus to eat. His response is strange, look at verse 32:
John 4:32 CSB
But he said, “I have food to eat that you don’t know about.”
The disciples are confused and try to understand what Jesus means. So, Jesus clarifies a little bit, verse 34:
John 4:34 CSB
“My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work,” Jesus told them.
Jesus is so absorbed with engaging this Samaritan woman that he doesn’t want to stop and eat. He doesn’t want to get distracted by anything else.
He is demonstrating the urgency of the gospel. It’s not something we get to when we feel like it. It’s not something that takes a backseat even to eating lunch.
What things are distracting you from our mission? What distracts us from sharing the message of eternal life with those all around us who are spiritually dying?
Facebook?
Video Games?
TV?
Sports?
Vacations?
Don’t get me wrong, none of those are bad — anymore than eating is bad. But all of those can become a distraction.
John Calvin, a theologian of the Protestant Reformation wrote this about Jesus in this passage: “By his example, he shows us that the kingdom of God should have priority over all bodily comforts.”
Jesus’s food was to accomplish the work God gave him to do. That work was “to advance God’s kingdom, to restore lost souls to life, to spread the light of the gospel, and to bring salvation to the world,” Calvin continued.
Too many individual Christians and too many churches have gotten distracted from the mission God has given them.
The older a church gets, the easier it is to get distracted. We start filling up our calendar with programs. Programs that haven’t seen a new face in 10 years.
Sunday morning worship. Sunday evening service. Wednesday night prayer. Thursday discipleship training. Choir practice. Sunday School. Deacons Meeting. Woman’s Missionary Union. Saturday book study. Revival. After school program. Vacation Bible School.
It’s no wonder we’re not out there doing the work of the gospel because we’re in here pretending to do the work of the gospel. We’re keeping busy without actually doing anything for the Kingdom.
The church, Gore Springs Baptist Church does not exist to pay its bills and make you feel good about yourself. Gore Springs Baptist Church exists to show the incomparable glory of Jesus Christ to the world — by — gathering together on the Lord’s Day, resting and encouraging one another in the Lord, then going back out into the world to proclaim freedom for the captive in the name of Jesus Christ.
If we don’t have enough time, it’s because we’re focused on the wrong things — and possibly too absorbed in our own comfort and preference about how things ought to be done. Perhaps it’s time to take a very hard look at your schedules and our attitudes.
I Have Plenty of Time
Fourth excuse: I have plenty of time.
In verse 35, Jesus asks the disciples a pointed question: “Don’t you say, ‘There are still four more months, and then comes the harvest’?”. He’s saying, “Do you guys think you need to wait before reaping the fruit of the gospel? Are you hoping it will come later? You’re wrong; look at the Samaritans coming right now. What are you waiting for? The time is now!”
Jesus is driving the urgency of the gospel home to the hearts of his disciples. We don’t wait for a different time or a better time; the harvest is now. Go, do the work of sharing the gospel right now.
When Charles Spurgeon preached this passage, he challenged his congregation with these words:
Some of you good people, who do nothing except go to church meetings, the Bible readings, and prophetic conferences, and other forms of spiritual [indulgence], would be a good deal better Christians if you would look after the poor and needy around you. If you would just tuck up your sleeves for work, and go and tell the gospel to dying men, you would find your spiritual health mightily restored, for very much of the sickness of Christians comes through their having nothing to do. All feeding and no working gives men spiritual indigestion. Be idle, careless, with nothing to live for, nothing to care for, no sinner to pray for, no backslider to lead back to the cross, no trembler to encourage, no little child to tell of a Savior, no grey-headed man to enlighten in the things of God, no object, in fact, to live for; and who wonders if you begin to groan, and to murmur, and to look within, until you are ready to die of despair?
One of the most common excuses that people give when they leave a church is that they are “not being fed.” Spurgeon puts them straight here: It’s often not that they aren’t being fed which causes the spiritual sickness, but rather that they are eating and eating and eating and not doing any spiritual exercise.
The harvest is now. And we are called to go as laborers into the field. Don’t tell yourself there is plenty of time, Jesus says go now.
I Don’t Know Any Non-Christians
One more. This is a hard one to hear…it may be a hard one to hear said out loud because you have internalized it so much that you don’t even bother saying it anymore — it’s just become the default.
But I don’t know any nonbelievers. All my friends are Christians.
It’s been shown over and over by study after study of Christians that as we age, our circles of friends become more insular and we stop trying to reach out to new people. And for Christians, that means that as we age we are exposed to fewer and fewer people who aren’t Christians.
I’m not denying that it’s true, but that still doesn’t make it a good excuse. Listen to what Jesus says to his disciples at the end of verse 35:
John 4:35 CSB
“Don’t you say, ‘There are still four more months, and then comes the harvest’? Listen to what I’m telling you: Open your eyes and look at the fields, because they are ready for harvest.
Open your eyes, he says. Open your eyes.
Go out and look. It may very well be true that all your friends are Christians…but you know what that means? It’s time to expand. It’s time to take seriously the call to go. And you cannot go and stay at the same time. To be on mission for Jesus or to continue on mission for Jesus will require that you do something different than what you have been doing. Jesus didn’t tell us to wait until people come to us, he said go and make disciples.
If everyone in your circle of engagement is a Christian, it’s time to go and find a new field. Jesus says the harvest is ready, so open your eyes and look for it.
We’ve seen several excuses for our lack of urgency in sharing the gospel. Now, let me close by giving you some encouragement from the Scriptures about faithfulness in evangelism.
Encouragement to Evangelize
Here’s the truth: It’s time to stop making excuses. It’s time to stop intending but never following through. We need action. Jesus told us the harvest time is now. Not tomorrow. Not in a week. Now! Get started now sharing the gospel with those God has uniquely placed in your circle of influence.
Hear me clearly, this is not meant to be a guilt trip. If you decide to do something out of guilt, it won’t last.
But this passage ends with encouragement to get busy (vv. 36–42).
Look at verse 36 and following:
John 4:36–42 CSB
The reaper is already receiving pay and gathering fruit for eternal life, so that the sower and reaper can rejoice together.
For in this case the saying is true: ‘One sows and another reaps.’
I sent you to reap what you didn’t labor for; others have labored, and you have benefited from their labor.”
Now many Samaritans from that town believed in him because of what the woman said when she testified, “He told me everything I ever did.”
So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them, and he stayed there two days.
Many more believed because of what he said.
And they told the woman, “We no longer believe because of what you said, since we have heard for ourselves and know that this really is the Savior of the world.”
Do you see what has happened? Men and women turned from their sin and turned to Jesus for salvation. Men and women tossed aside their jars filled with their own good works and effort and have come to drink from the fountain of living water.
This ought to be encouraging for us: When the gospel is clearly explained and faithfully shared, men and women will come to Christ. That’s the beauty of the gospel. It’s God’s good news, and God does a great work in the hearts of rebels, causing them to turn from their self-worship and turn to him in true worship.
People will come to Christ when we share the gospel, and we will get the privilege of rejoicing in their new birth with them. God will draw sinners to himself, and they will find joy in him. This reality should motivate us to labor with all our might to make Jesus Christ and his gospel known and loved throughout the world.
In his book Confessions, St. Augustine wrote this beautiful reflection about Jesus Christ, and it’s a word for us today:
You are ever active, yet always at rest. You gather all things to yourself, though you suffer no need.… You welcome those who come to you, though you never lost them. You release us from our debts, but you lose nothing thereby. You are my God, my Life, my holy Delight, but is this enough to say of you? Can any man say enough when he speaks of you? Yet woe betide those who are silent about you!
May we, by the grace of God, never be silent.