Evangelism You Can Really Do

Introduction

We like to think that we’re all the same. That our experiences in life, what we’ve been through and seen and done, is pretty much what everybody’s been through, seen and done. But life has taught me that that’s not the case. For instance, when it comes to our education, going through school. I’ve talked to enough of you and enough people and compared my school experiences with your school experiences, and I’m here to tell you we ain’t the same. I grew up in a time and a place where corporal punishment wasn’t just a possibility. Wasn’t just an option. It was a regular occurrence. And I’ve even talked to people of my same generation, my age and older, and they would say, Oh, yes, yes, that we had paddlings at my school when I went to school too.

But then they usually follow it up by this sentence, but I never got one. And again, I say, we ain’t the same.

My first, we didn’t call them paddlings, by the way, we called them whoopens. My first whoopin was in the second grade. Mrs. Bridges paddled me in front of the whole class. That started a trend that continued throughout my educational experience. In fact, the last day of school, the sixth grade, Mrs. Powell informed me, again, in front of the whole class, that she had given me a whooping every day of the sixth grade. And I had the scars to prove it because Mrs. Powell didn’t use a paddle. Her weapon of choice was hickory switches. And when you got a hickory switch whipping from Mrs. Powell, she did it right there in your desk. And so the person behind you and the person in front of you also got a whooping.

Because her aim wasn’t that good. And when and where I went to school, getting sent to the principal’s office was a guaranteed whooping. And in my mind then and still, I truly believe that it was Alabama law that teachers couldn’t beat you that severely, but principals could. And so if you went to the principal’s office, you were getting a real whooping. That’s just automatically what that meant. But do you know there was a time in my educational experience where I voluntarily sent myself to the principal’s office? And let me tell you that story.

No one was to make smart aleck comments or funny comments to try to evoke laughter in the rest of the class. If you did any of those things, you would be sent to the principal’s office. And again, we knew what that meant. I think after that announcement was made, a full two seconds transpired before I just stood up and started leaving the room. Sending myself to the principal’s office. I knew it was a wise choice because as I walked by the teacher’s desk, leaving, going to the principal’s office, not a word was spoken between us, but the teacher just simply nodded their head. Like good choice.

And so I sent myself to the principal’s office because I knew that day, under those circumstances, I couldn’t do what was asked of me. That I was going to say something. And try to make my classmates laugh, and that would be inappropriate, and I would be sent to the principal’s office anyway. And so just cut out the middleman. I went myself.

It’s going to be something I’m not good at or generally comfortable with. And so our normal approach is just avoid that subject. And I think that probably, if we’re honest with ourselves as Christians this morning, that probably applies to the subject we’re going to talk about this morning, and the subject that largely dominates this fourth quarter of our annual theme. In talking about being family, we’ve said this fourth quarter was about we help our family grow. And we’ve talked about that growth takes different forms, but at least one form that was intended in that theme, sub-theme, is the idea of evangelism. That we grow in numbers, that we reach out to others. And all of us as Christians, we’ve noted through lessons and classes and different discussions, all of us have that responsibility to reach out to the lost, to evangelize.

Or I’m not doing it enough.

1. You Can Be a Light

And so this morning, as we talk about helping our family grow and reaching out, I want to talk to you about evangelism, but you don’t have to get up and go to the principal’s office because we’re going to talk about evangelism that you can do. You can really do. And so we’re going to simplify this this morning. And let me first say this is the only type of evangelism that you should be doing and can be doing. But there is one type of evangelism that everybody can do. And so are you ready to talk about that? And hopefully give yourself a way that you can fulfill and lovingly obey this obligation. So let’s talk about evangelism that you can really do. The first thing you can really do is in the Bible reading that Blake just recently read for us, and that is you can be a light.

You remember that passage. You’re the salt of the earth. You are the light of the world. And he talks about letting that light shine. Actually, do you recognize Jesus doesn’t say, let your light shine? He says, Let your light so shine. In other words, your light’s going to shine. People are going to see who you are. They’re going to know who you are. And so Jesus is saying, let that light be a good light. Let your light so shine that they may see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven. People are going to see you. They’re going to make certain adjustments and judgments and opinions about you and who you are and what you do and believe based upon those practices that they see, that light that they see in and around you.

Do we recognize that our obedience, our conforming to the will and the demands of God carries with it at least three different purposes. Number one is we do what God tells us to do because we want to please God. That should be first and foremost in our mind. Secondly, there may be a selfish motivation. I want to go to heaven. So I’m going to do what God tells me to do and not do what he tells me not to do because I want to go to heaven. But there’s a third stated reason in Scripture that we do this, and that is the influence that it can have on others. Our everything should be evangelistic when it comes to letting our light shine. Our words. Look with me in the book of Ephesians.

Ephesians chapter 4. We don’t have time this morning to go through them all, but suffice it to say that your research would bear out what my research has shown, and that is so many times when Scripture talks about us doing the right thing, it talks about it in the context of others are watching. Not just pleasing God, not just punching our ticket to heaven, but it has an influence on what others see and think and know and whether or not they glorify our Father. Ephesians 4, verse 29, he talks about what we say. Let no corrupt word proceed out of your mouth, but what is good for necessary edification, that it may impart grace to the hearers. You know, some evangelism that you can really do is just be a good Christian.

Let your light shine. Let it shine through the words that you say. Be that, and I’m going to tell you, you know, we we bemoan and decry the fact that our society is becoming less and less godly, less and less moral.

I’ve told you, again, about my experiences in my lifetime. The idea of what we might call filthy language was as a child, there’s always been cussing. But when I was a child and where I was a child, you wouldn’t do it in certain company at least. There was a lady present. And I’ve all told you that it took me a while as a young preacher when I’d go in the barber shop and the barber would say, Hey preacher. He wasn’t greeting me, he was issuing a warning to everybody else in the barbershop. What’s your language? There’s a preacher in here. And so for that little period of time when I was getting my hair cut, they would behave, their speech would change. And I know when I left, it went back to their normal way.

And we decry that that’s just gone now. It doesn’t matter who’s in the room. People are going to use filthy language and do all those kind of things and all. But I’m going to tell you there is a positive in that. And that is that you will stand out more. Your light is going to shine brighter the darker the world gets. And so if you choose to still speak with grace, it’s going to be noticed even more now than ever. Your actions, your morality, the things that you do and don’t do around your fellow man, your co-workers, your classmates in school is going to stand out even more. Your light is going to shine brighter. Your priorities, when you, as Jesus said, seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, your fellow man’s going to see that.

How you react to problems? We think just the basic things that Scripture says. Jesus said in Matthew chapter 18, if your brother has sinned against you, what do you do? You go to him and you seek to restore him. Paul would add, you go to him in a spirit of gentleness. Just the way we react to problems in life. Is letting our light shine. And people are going to see that. And that’s a form of evangelism that you can really do is be the light.

2. Find Your Voice

Now let’s go back to that principle that Jesus said in our Bible reading. Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven. Now, how’s that going to happen? What’s the mechanics of that? Are they going to see my good works and not glorify me, but glorify my Father? Well, somewhere in there, they’re going to have to learn that I am a believer. That I’m not doing this because I want a better society and I want to make this world a better place. I’m doing this because I have faith in God. Somehow, some way, through some means, they have to have that knowledge if they’re going to glorify God when they see my good works. And I’m going to tell you, the best way they can have that knowledge is if I share that knowledge with them.

If I find my voice. Paul said in Ephesians 4 and verse 15 that we are to speak the truth in love. And what I want to encourage you to do is something that you can do because you do it in other arenas of life, and that is that spiritual speak, spiritual topics and conversations should naturally flow out of the Christian. It should be just second nature to us. That in a conversation that we’re going to speak about spiritual matters. Even in subtle ways.

One thing you normally never have to ask. Are you a grandparent? Because most grandparents will volunteer that information pretty easily. If you want to just draw it out of them, talk about how some other baby or child is cute. And they’re just waiting for a pause to say, you think that kid’s cute? You ought to see my grandchildren. Used to they’d whip out the billfold with the old, remember the extended all the pictures. Now it’s the phone. And they’ve got a folder of grandkids, and they’ll just swipe through that phone and show you all the pictures of their beautiful, talented, intelligent grandchildren. That’s just natural to them. Sports fans are that way. The Sunday after the Saturday game, the four years are going to be full of conversations about football, isn’t it?

Because, especially if you’re team one. Now, if my team loses, you won’t hear anything. But if my team won, we’re going to be talking. It just kind of naturally flows out of that conversation. How many conversations have been started with? Did you watch that game? It just naturally flows out of us. It should be that way for Christians, shouldn’t it? I think about the example of Jesus. Remember, Jesus, we won’t turn over there in John chapter 4. He meets this woman at a well. He’s thirsty. She has access to water. And so they’re talking about water. But it’s not very long that Jesus turns that conversation into talking about a different type of water, a different type of satisfaction that can come from drinking the living water.

And he so easily turns that conversation. What we can do is we can just talk about God’s word. We can give God glory for the things in our lives. Somebody says, hey, congratulations, I hear you, whatever. We can say, thank God. God is good. We can tell people, we can tell our friends and neighbors that we’ll be praying for them when we hear of something that they’re going through. When we see our friends and neighbors in the community grieving over something, we can point them to God and give examples of how others have gotten through what they’re going through because of their faith. We can speak positively about our congregation. Now, are there negative things about our congregation? Oh, I’m sure there are.

So speak positively about your faith, about the congregation. Speak positively about the simple things in your life. Say simple things about your faith. I think I’ve told this story before. But when we lived in Florence, Alabama, before we moved here, between my house and the church building where my office was was a Circle K gas station. And Circle K made the mistake of saying, if you bought this cup, you got free refills. And so it was on my route every, so every day I would stop and get my free refill of Coke Zero. And every day I would see the same cashier. And all I’d have to do is just show that cup and acknowledge, and she’d wave, and I would walk out. If she wasn’t too busy with different things, I would just show my mug there.

And she would always say the same thing. She would say, have a blessed day. She could have said, have a good day. Thank you, sir. Enjoy your Coke. But she said, have a blessed day.

That’s different than saying have a good day or good luck. And I remember at one time getting in my truck after that interaction, that familiar interaction. And I sat there a while. And I was embarrassed. Because of our little interaction that we had between me getting that free Coke refill and her acknowledging that. That one of us I knew was a professing Christian.

In fact, one of us was a Christian who had devoted his life to the preaching of that Christian message. But only one of us in those daily interactions had in any way verbally acknowledged that.

No word spoken. I wasn’t ugly to her. I didn’t call her a name. I didn’t throw the coke in her face, but I just that was it. From that little interaction, she had no idea who I was, what I did, whether I had faith or no faith. And yet she had found a small little subtle way, I think, to say, I believe in God. She had done that and not I.

3. Come and See

To go in there, get my free refill, and have a short conversation with that lady to let her know that I wanted her to have a blessed day. You see, there’s just small little ways that you can find your voice and share the truth of God’s word in small ways. A third thing that you can really do after you let your light shine and you find your voice to communicate your faith in whatever way you feel comfortable doing is that you can do what Philip did to Nathaniel. Remember the story of Philip and Philip finds Jesus and he’s excited and goes to Nathaniel and says, Nathaniel, we found him. We found him. And Nathaniel says, Can any good thing come out of Nazareth? Philip says, come and see.

He doesn’t sit down and have this deep Bible study and go through all the scriptures of messianic prophecy and prove anything. He just says, Come and see for yourself. And that’s exactly what Nathaniel did. And he became a follower of Jesus as well. And you know something you can do? Something you can say? Come and see. Doesn’t take a depth of Bible knowledge. Doesn’t take a whole lot of courage, even just to say, come and see.

Do you know that research shows this all this is from Barna Research Group, research shows that 25% of people who do not attend church services would visit if somebody would ask them. Twenty fent of those people who aren’t going to church anywhere this morning would visit at least once. If you had just ask them.

The other statistics kind of hurt my feelings a little bit because it shows just how little the preacher means in this equation. 3% of people who have visited religious assemblies, 3% said we came because of the preacher. We heard he was good. That percentage is probably lower here. 4%, not much higher. 4% said I attended because the preacher asked me to come.

Somebody other than the preacher invited me to come. So invite them. Invite them to special studies that we have. Invite them to Bible class. Work in the conversation. Somebody says, you know, I don’t know about. You say, Oh, we’re studying that at church. Come and see. Someone speaks about grieving over the loss of loved ones. Say, we’ll pray for you. In fact, come and see.

4. Embrace Them and Welcome Them

Lastly, something that you can do, and this may be the easiest thing that you can do is that you can, when they do come and see, embrace them and welcome them. Do you know that the Bible talks about this? Turn over to James chapter 2. The Bible specifically talks about how we are to treat a visitor in our assembly. James chapter 2, verse 1, my brethren, do not hold the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory, with partiality. For if one should come into your assembly with gold rings and fine apparel, and there should also come in a poor man in filthy clothes, and just to summarize, the writer says, you treat him the same. You welcome them. You don’t show partiality or preference to the rich man.

You treat any visitor like a welcome guest. The Bible talks about this of how we are to treat visitors. So this is introspection time, self-examination, gut check time. How do you treat visitors in our assembly? Compare it, if you’re a normal person, compare it to how you treat visitors in your home. Can you imagine some visitor coming into your home and you never even acknowledge that they’re there? You just talk to your family. We wouldn’t do that. We go out of our way.

Have you ever thought about how hard it is to be a visitor? Being in a visit, being a visitor from the community in one of our assemblies, is like walking onto a stage during a play. Where everybody else knows their place and their lines but you imagine that scenario. You walk out onto the stage in a play, and you don’t know any of the lines, where you’re supposed to. That’s exactly how a visitor feels in our assembly. They don’t even know where the auditorium is. And so, how do we implement the principles of James 2 of making our assembly? I’m going to tell you, again, it’s the little thing. Speak to them. I’m going to tell you one of the simplest but most profound gestures I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen it here, but the first time I ever saw it, it was just mind-blowing to me how simple it was, but yet how profound it was.

Had members who saw the visitors in the parking lot, didn’t recognize them, and so spoke to them. Found out they they were visitors. And they said with some excitement, because I witnessed this, oh good. Come sit with us. Recognize how simple and profound that was.

Was it made them feel welcome? And it let them off the hook with the first step of awkwardness. Where do I sit? And am I sitting in the wrong place? And will I be reprimanded for sitting in somebody else’s? They didn’t just say come and see, they said come and sit with us. We need to make our worship assemblies first and foremost that which prays and honor God. But do you recognize one of the ways that we can praise and honor, and I would argue, even worship God, is by embracing and welcoming those who are here for some reason. They’re seeking something. We can let our light shine in this assembly. Now, to that point, let me add a personal statement. It may be that some Sunday morning you and I are engaged in conversation.

And in walks a visitor. I may walk away from our conversation. Please don’t take that person off. Doesn’t mean I don’t like you, doesn’t mean you’ve got bad breath, doesn’t mean I’m not interested in the story you’re telling me. But please understand, I don’t mean this in a bad way. You’re always here. We’ll talk next time. There may be times when I, and I think I speak for the shepherds, may have to just say, hang on just a minute. And walk away. Please assume. Please assume the best and say, oh, okay. There’s a visitor. But also practice that yourself. Prioritize our visitors. Embrace them and welcome them. And here’s a good little tip that I’ll pass along as well. Learn how to pass them off to someone else.

Conclusion

As you’re in conversation greeting that visitor, and someone else walks down the aisle, just say, hey, have you met my new friend? And give their name. Not one of the four things that we’ve talked about this morning are reason for you to say, I’m out. I can’t do that. None of these things required you to engage in some deep theological discussion with someone in fear that they might ask a Bible question that you don’t have the answer to. None of this really creates a whole lot of awkwardness in your life. These are things that you can easily do and practice. Let’s help our family grow. Let’s do the simple things that we can all do to bring honor and glory to God. It may be that there’s someone in our audience this morning who needs to render obedience to the gospel or needs to rededicate their life and their commitment as a Christian to the life of a Christian.

Can we help you in any of those ways? Can we pray for you? Assist you in your obedience. Can we be there for you in any way? Let that be known right now. As together we stand and as we sing.