Basics of Sharing the Gospel

Introduction

The lack of church growth is a problem. Banta Research Institute says that the average church today is between 85 and 100 members, and the typical church in America of all stripes only saw one addition to their membership in 2011. So this is a little old. And so one salvation, one convert for the typical church in a given year. And about half of the churches in 2011 did not have a single convert. So a lot of the churches that are growing are not growing from actually conversions, but just from more swelling than anything else. Well, this church here is a great church, but we’re not growing. And that was announced recently in the State of the Church Address, basically, that the elders brought to us. And I, you know, I must say that that should be a concern of ours.

It’s a concern of mine. Is it a concern of yours that we’re not growing? We don’t want to become stagnant, do we? We want to we want to be uh vibrant, and uh we want to be following the Lord’s command to be growing. And so let us be thinking about that, and that’s why I want to present this lesson to you this morning, and in fact, in the coming weeks, for us to be thinking about how to cause growth. This is something that I really got excited about when I saw an article in Biblical Insights by Brent Hunter, and I’ve been in contact with him this past week, and he has a vast amount of information, very helpful, on the website where he preaches that is helping to direct me in this process of laying out sort of for us a plan for the future.

1. See Yourself as a Soul Winner

In Proverbs 11 of verse 30, it says, The fruit of the righteous is a tree of life, and he who is wise wins souls. He who is wise wins souls. And so we as a congregation need to be a people of wisdom who are about the business of winning souls. And so today we’re talking about evangelism 101, learning the basics of effectively sharing the gospel. Now, I’m going to give a lot of kind of shotgun information today. I realize you’re not going to remember everything, and that’s okay. You’ll remember what stuck out to you, what jumped out at you. But I want to start just real quick with three simple steps of evangelism. And first is to see yourself as a soul winner. You cannot consistently perform in a manner which is inconsistent with the way you see yourself.

You cannot consistently perform in a manner which is inconsistent with the way you see yourself. Do you see yourself as a soul winner? Because Jesus’ disciples in John chapter 4 weren’t seeing themselves as soul winners. And that’s why after he had talked to the woman at the well and convinced her that he was the Messiah, at least she thought he very well might be. She went off to tell her friends and left her water pot right there at the well.

My food is to do the will of the Father. And then he said to them in verse 35, 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. They weren’t lifting up their eyes. They weren’t even considering this Samaritan woman. They were wondering why Jesus was even talking to her. In that moment, they were not seeing themselves as the soul winners that Jesus intended for them to be. And that’s what we need to do. Why is it that 85% of all churches are plateaued or declining in the United States? It’s not because the harvest is not plentiful. The problem is the labors are few.

And the problem is that a lot of us don’t even know that the fields are white. We say, well, people just aren’t interested anymore. Baloney. When’s the last term he heard of? Preacher say baloney. Well, I just said it. Baloney. People say, well, people aren’t interested. The fields are white. There are people out there that are interested. We just need to find them. And we need to find a way to teach them. Do you see yourself as a soul winner? I want to read to you something here from the portrait of a soul winner. Their eyes are open to the cries for help from a lost and dying world. Their eyes are ever searching for a receptive heart in which to plant the word of God.

Their lips are always ready and willing to proclaim the glory of God. Their hands are always turning the pages of God’s holy word, seeing his will for them. Their feet are on the move to carry out the words of Christ to preach the gospel to every creature. Their hearts are beating and breaking to reach the lost before it’s too late. Their heads are bowed in a prayer to the Father in heaven to give them wisdom to carry out the mission. Their faces glow with the hope that is within them. Their lives are like the light of the city set upon a hill that cannot be hid. They are the light of the world, and in Christ they live and move and have their very being.

2. Be Assured of Your Salvation

Secondly, here, be assured of your salvation. This is something we find all through the New Testament. In 1 Peter chapter 1, beginning in verse 3, blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who, according to his great mercy, has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to obtain an inheritance which is imperishable and undefiled and will not fade away, reserved in heaven for you, who are protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. Look at this language here. Words like, or phrases like living hope. Reserved in heaven for you, protected by the power of God. The idea is that if you are faithful to God, then you can rest assured that your place is reserved for you in heaven.

And therefore, if there is hope in the future, there is power in the present. And we can stand firm in this living hope which God has given us to have and have confidence that we’re going to heaven. You know, the truth of the matter is if you don’t have confidence in heaven, there is a problem. Either the problem is you’re not living right and you haven’t done what God asked you to do, or you’re not trusting in the grace of God to save you. And I found that many of my brethren, through the years of my preaching, don’t even know if they’re saved. No wonder we’re not doing more evangelism. Verses 8 and 9 say, and though you have not seen him, you love him. And though you do not see him now but believe in him, you greatly rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory, obtaining as the outcome of your faith the salvation of your souls.

So it’s this great rejoicing with joy inexpressible and full of glory that we ought to be able to have and share in Christ. Amen? And that’s what we are called to do. Once we have that joy of salvation, it will be much more natural to share the gospel with others. As David prayed, restore to me the joy of your salvation and sustain me with the willing spirit, then I will teach transgressors your ways, and sinners will be converted to you. And so it is an effective motivator. I think that sometimes we forget that the word gospel means good news. We forget that it’s good. We forget that there’s an excitement about this. There’s something that we have to give to others that is hope. And when you forget that, when to you the Christian life is a life of drudgery, when to you it’s just a matter of making sure you get to church when you’re supposed to get to church and just struggling through and really not having much joy in your salvation, then you’re not going to share the gospel with others.

3. Get the Proper Tools and Training

You don’t have anything to offer to them that is even hopeful. But we need to first capture that hope within ourselves. Number three here is get the proper tools and training. You know, earlier we were saying, I want to be a soul winner for Jesus. I believe that you do want to be a soul winner, whether you are or not. You want to be.

And we simply need to have the right tools and the right training. You know, the truth of the matter is a lot of the tools that worked decades ago don’t work today. If you say, well, my primary method is going to be door knocking. You better have a strong backbone. And you’re going to get a lot of no’s and very little success. That’s one of the least effective means of methods. But hey, it does work to some degree. But is that the most effective way and method of reaching the loss in the 21st century? It’s been a very popular method, and I’ve used it for years to have a series of five or six lessons that you present to people. And that works great if you can get people to agree to, you know, five or six Thursday nights in a row.

But brethren, we’re not living in that world anymore. People are too busy to do that. As a rule, that’s almost impossible to do, and I almost wish that it was still that way because I prefer the method that I had always used. Mr. Harkrider has an excellent five lesson series, and he still uses it and uses it effectively. I had a uh series of seven tracks that I developed my own that I used to share with people, and it works if you can get people to to agree to that many studies. But with today’s busy uh world, busy culture, one of the most effective methods is asking for just one hour of their time. Just one hour, and to develop a lesson that is uh impactful and powerful and packed and that teaches about Jesus and why he died on the cross and teaches what to do to be saved in the first sitting.

4. Where Do We Get Started as a Church?

The truth is you might not have more than one opportunity with these individuals. Even if they say, I’ll meet with you every week. You might only get that one shot. And so this really is an effective method for today’s world. And one of the best tools for doing that is a lesson that has been developed by Ken Craig and Helena uh Alabama that is called the big picture of the Bible. I’ve preached that here, so a lot of you heard that, and if you haven’t heard that, it’s on our website if you want to go and listen to it. And I’ll be talking later about this uh big picture of the Bible. Now, where do we get started as a church? You know, the preacher’s job is not to do all the evangelism of uh of the church.

I can’t. There’s no way I can do all of the things I’m supposed to do and do all the evangelism that needs to be done among us. And so we need to all be involved in one way or the other. So, where do we kind of start in just getting this ball rolling? Well, one of the first ways to start is with effective marketing. Uh, I think that it would be wise to come up with a short uh church motto to put on our website and and on uh church materials. Uh, for example, the uh Johnson Avenue Church of Christ, this is in the San Diego area. Their motto is where God’s family builds eternal homes. And it’s not just a cute saying, it’s kind of a summary of what we’re about.

And it’s a consistent way to communicate to the community of who we are and what we do. And they even have a nice little logo that is associated with that church. And I think that those are some smart things to do. Another aspect of this effective marketing, I think would be to update our website as a tool for the big picture of the Bible. Now we have the big picture of the Bible and we have a section, but it’s nothing like what’s on the Kirkland Church of Christ website. This is where Brent Hunter preaches in Kirkland, Washington. And if you go to their website and put your mouse right over big picture, you will see a lot of stuff. You’ve got seekers and soul winners and e-teams and big picture correspondents and big picture and foreign language versions.

I mean, they’ve gone all out. And it’s a very effective tool for evangelism. When you click on that top one there, uh it says, and you might not be able to read that, that’s okay. Welcome to this section of our website, which serves as a resource and guide for using the big picture of the Bible by Ken Craig as an effective way to share the gospel in today’s hurried age. It says harried, but I’m pretty sure it’s supposed to mean hurried. Are you seeking are you someone seeking to understand the gospel and the proper response to it? Are you interested in learning not just the what about the death of Jesus, but the why? Then look no further. This presentation is done in an hour or less.

It explains how the whole Bible fits together, what the true gospel is, and how it is the power of God into salvation. The Christians at Kirkland, Washington, and other parts of the country as well, meet in small groups and one-on-one with those interested in learning and hearing this presentation. We are pleased to offer the big picture of the Bible presentation by appointment at a time that is convenient for you. And so if you’re a visitor and you come upon that website, then now you have a way to say, hey, I want to set up a study. And there are people in that church that are trained and ready to do the studies. Not just the preacher, but a lot of the members as well. I I see that in the vision that I have for the future of this church.

I see that as something I hope and I believe can uh can happen. Later down there on the page it says, on the other hand, if you are a soul winner and would like to learn more about how to use this tool in reaching seekers with the gospel, please visit the soul winners section for a plethora of information designed to help you and your congregation in your efforts. That’s a section for people like you and me who are already converted and we are wanting to share the gospel. I mean, there is a wealth of information that is proven and effective because Brent Hunter specializes in evangelism. If you’re a church leader and would like to learn how to effectively use e-teams, which is basically evangelism teams to help cultivate an evangelistic culture in your congregation and keep folks motivated in their evangelistic efforts, visit the e-teams section.

So, as I said, it’s an effective way to use the website, not just for the lost, but also for those of us who want to share the gospel with others to have some guidance and direction as to how to do that. Here’s an example of the correspondence, the first correspondence course. I mean the first lesson in the correspondence course. There are six lessons. And you just go through and and uh you just email the answers to the church website and get a response going so that somebody can learn the gospel there remotely, wherever they might be anywhere in the world. I think this would be an excellent tool to have on our website. Now, a second major aspect of getting started as a church is I think to come up with a vision statement.

A vision is a clearly articulated, results-oriented picture of a future that we intend to create. And this is what we need to have. Any organization that is successful has a vision statement. And we don’t have one. And we need one. I think we really do. On the Kirkland uh Church of Christ website, they have their vision statement right there on the home page. And it says, at Kirkland, we are people redeemed by Christ’s blood, who seek to worship God reverently in truth, who glorify God through our unconditional love, caring, and service of one another. We are growing in knowledge of truth and in joy and commitment, sharing our hope with others so that God’s light is reflected in our lives, thus shining in a dark world.

You know how they came up with that? The leadership didn’t say, hey, I think this would be a good vision, and so let’s just tell the congregation that’s what our vision is. The leadership, the elders, took six months to meet with individuals. Every member that would agree to meet with them. And to get their opinion, what do you think should be in this vision statement? And as far as it lined up with scripture, they tried to work all of that into this one paragraph. Now, I hope we can do that here, but I don’t hope that it takes six months. I think we can do it in one day with sort of a form that we hand out that you fill out. And so I want to encourage us to be thinking about a vision statement for this congregation.

5. Five States of Evangelistic Maturity

I think that would be a wise step. You think about how effective a vision statement is. It clearly defines who we are and what we’re about. And it helps to form and shape how we see ourselves. As we are consistently reminded from the pulpit, from the announcer, from the elders, from the leaders of all stripes, all of us up here, reminded that this is what we’re trying to accomplish, and this is who we are. And through hearing that over and over, we will begin to see ourselves that way and to be reminded of what our goals are in the community and within our own group here. Now, before we can determine where to go, we must first determine where we are. So let’s do some honest self-evaluation as we talk about pursuing evangelistic maturity.

There are really five states of evangelistic maturity. The first one is avoidance. Avoidance is when you never teach the gospel to anybody. You avoid talking religion because it makes you uncomfortable. And you know, in 2012, one source reports that 95% of confessed Christians said that in the prior year they had not shared their faith with anyone. 95%, according to that survey. I don’t know if that’s true among us. I don’t think that’s true. But it’s likely that there is a large number, a large portion of this congregation that within the last 12 months has not shared their faith with a single person. Think about that. Just evaluate yourself for a minute. Is that you? Avoidance. This is where most people already are, is in this category of avoidance.

The second state of evangelistic maturity is reluctance. This is the individual who it’s not that they will never discuss religion. They just don’t really want to. But they will if they’re sort of backed into a corner, and uh, but they’re still very fearful of rejection and so forth. Thirdly, is equipped. This is a this is a Christian who has maybe heard some lessons on evangelism. He’s had some training, he’s pretty uh knowledgeable in the scriptures, and he could share the gospel with others, but it’s more on a need to know basis in his mind. If others need to know, he’ll tell them. And so he doesn’t pursue any evangelistic opportunities, and he, if truth be told, is really still fearful of rejection. And that’s the number one fear is rejection.

The fourth state of evangelistic maturity is confident. This is one who knows that he can share the gospel with others. He maybe has had some success doing that, but really he sort of needs a church program or a push from the pulpit to go out and do it. And uh and his real fervor kind of wanes uh from time to time. But fifth is passionate. Passionate. This is a Christian who has come to the point that he’s very confident, he’s very equipped, and he’s always looking for opportunities. Everywhere he goes, anytime, anywhere with anyone to share the gospel. And he’s not afraid of rejection, not afraid of sharing the gospel with sitting down with literally anybody and sharing the gospel with them. I remember one time uh a preacher up in Indiana saying that if he had an opportunity to sit down with the president of the United States, he wouldn’t hesitate, he wouldn’t skip a beat, he would just sit down and teach the gospel to him.

And I thought, whew, I’d be scared out of my mind. Why? Just a human. If you’re confident with the message, if it is the power of God into salvation, then what would stop a person who has this passion? See? This person not only wants to share the gospel with everybody, but wants to help others learn how to share the gospel as well. And this individual is not primarily motivated, motivated by fear or guilt, but is motivated by joy. You know, sometimes we’re just motivated by guilt. We hear a sermon like this, you know, we we sing songs like I want to be a soul winner for Jesus, and we go, but I’m not, I’m not sharing the gospel with anybody. And so then maybe we just you know push ourselves to go and talk religion with somebody, and it’s very uncomfortable, and maybe we get into a debate and we don’t really know what to say, and then it’s kind of a big disaster, and then we kind of quit again.

That’s when you’re motivated by guilt. But we need to get to the point where we’re we’re motivated by joy. You see, part of the reason we carry this guilt is because we haven’t been given the proper tools to know how to teach others, and that’s what I want to help us to have. Because if you if if you just try to do it, but you don’t know what you’re doing, you’re going to fall on your face every time. And it’s not going to be very encouraging, and you’re going to want to give up. So we want to help you along in that process. Now, having said all of this, not everybody is going to be a teacher. James 3 and verse 1 says, Let not many become teachers, knowing that we will fall under stricter judgment.

And so, but everybody can be involved in this in one way or another. You might become a passionate inviter who sets up studies for others to conduct the big picture of the Bible and be passionate in your hospitality and so forth and in following up with these new converts by encouraging them and assimilating them socially into this group. Because if they don’t get associated assimilated within the first few months, they’ll probably fall away. So, passion. So very, very important. You know, most people do not just jump to number five. Most of the time you kind of got to work your way through these and build your way up slowly. But it does happen. There’s a preacher who tells a story that you know he went and did a gospel meeting at this little bitty church, this 35 member church.

And was trying to help them to get excited about evangelism and to know how to do it and everything, and teaching them the big picture of the Bible. And so some members and he went out to eat, and they were all talking, and the members were saying, Well, you know, that that method really probably works some places, but it’s not going to work here. I mean, it’s just not going to work here. And he said to the waitress, excuse me, have you heard of this? And he picked out it, pulled out his card. His big picture of the Bible card. And he said, Uh, have you ever heard of the big picture of the Bible? He said, This is being done all over the country. And it’s incredible.

And there are people who have been studying the Bible their whole lives who are learning things from this presentation and how things connect that they had never heard, heard, or learned before. You would really enjoy it. Would you like to hear this lesson? She said, Well, yeah. And he got her email address, and he he had to leave. So he wasn’t going to be able to teach the lesson, so he just left it to the some of those people that were complaining this will never work here to teach the lesson. And a lady in her 70s scrambled to get together a presentation of the big picture of the Bible to learn how to do it in one day. And she gets this presentation together, and she presents it to this waitress, and the waitress is converted.

6. The Big Picture of the Bible

And at the time I heard the sermon that gave that illustration, that lady was still faithful and inviting friends and family to come to church, and she was there every time. And so it really can happen. You can jump from a one to a five. And it doesn’t happen all the time, but it can be done. Even if you’re a lady in her 70s, who, by her own admission, had never done evangelism before. See, the big picture of the Bible makes it easier for the common person to be able to teach that one lesson at least. So let me talk a little bit about the big picture of the Bible. You heard me preach a couple of lessons on was Jesus forsaken. I do not believe that he was forsaken.

Now, if you listen to some preachers teach on the big picture of the Bible, very, very good, effective men, you will often hear them talk about Jesus being forsaken. Or you will hear it talked about at least some by many preachers. You will not hear me do that. I do not believe that that’s accurate. I don’t believe Jesus was forsaken, and I don’t believe that’s important to the to the presentation. But that teaching is not in any of the material, and so it’s not necessary at all. But I just wanted to kind of give that disclaimer up front. This is a powerful presentation. I love the presentation. I’ve done it dozens of times privately and I’ve done it many times publicly. It is a one lesson approach.

Some people say, well, I have a problem with a one lesson approach. But you see, a one-lesson approach is different than a one shot approach. You see how that’s different? A one shot approach is just we’re gonna get you baptized, we’re gonna get you dunked, and then good luck. No, that’s not biblical at all. Jesus in Matthew 28 in the Great Commission said basically, teach, baptize, teach. And so continuing to teach is absolutely vital. So this is a one lesson approach, and where we have a whole system set up to follow up with the individual. And uh really, that’s a biblical approach. I don’t have time to go into it, but you can think of the Ethiopian eunuch, or you can think of Lydia, or you can think of the jailer.

They were all converted with a one lesson approach. Even the 3,000 present on the day of Pentecost. That was a one-lesson approach that taught about Jesus and taught about baptism all in one lesson. And so, if anything’s biblical, that’s biblical. But follow through is vital. This is a very, very effective tool. From those who present it often, they say that it has about a 50% success rate. That’s phenomenal. That’s really amazing. It is field tested and proven to work, and it is used all over the country. A man in Northern California involved in a prison ministry, working 32 hours a week, had for years converted on average three to five people a year using the traditional methods. When he switched to the big picture of the Bible, he got 75 conversions in one year.

He went from five to 75. God causing the increase. To God be the glory. Dan DeGarmo started a church in Ohio with about nine people, and in eight years using the big picture as the primary, really exclusive evangelistic model, the church grew to be a hundred and ten members in eight years. The church at Ember Hills in Atlanta began using flip charts of the big picture of the Bible after Ken Craig came there. Within three months of getting the members to do this, they had converted 15 people, and the elders had to say, stop evangelizing. We’ve got too many new people, we’ve got to assimilate them, and we’ve got to follow up on them. And so please stop evangelizing for a little. Can you imagine that?

Six months later, they had kind of gotten it going, and they said, okay, now let’s start evangelism again. And within three more months, they had another 15 baptisms. Or the first time, actually, the first three months was 18, and the second time they went at it was 15. Now I haven’t had near that kind of numbers in presenting it, first of all. Since I’ve been here in a year, I’ve presented the big picture of the Bible to 21 individuals from the community that were not members of the church. I have not had a 50% success rate, but I’ve had about a 30% success rate. Of those 21, six were baptized. To God be the glory. God caused the increase. I was just planting and watering. But even then, you say, a 30% success rate’s pretty good.

Conclusion

What if you knew when you sat down with somebody and you were going to teach them this that you had a one in three shot of them becoming a Christian? Or maybe even a one in two shot at them becoming saved. That there’s really no method that is known to be that effective. And so I encourage us to be thinking about that, and I’ll be talking about this more in the weeks to come. The fruit of the righteous is a tree of life, and he who is wise wins souls. Would you bow your head with me in a word of prayer? Our Father and God, we glorify your name, and we praise you, Lord. We thank you for your grace. Be with us, Father, and help us that we will become more courageous and that we will become more wise to become soul winners.

Through your Son, we pray. Amen.