Evangelism Basics

 “Evangelism Basics”

 Message @ Jericho Ridge Community Church – Sunday, Feb 26, 2012

Text: Acts 28:16-31 // Series: “Now Is the Time”

Well good morning and welcome here.  My name is Pastor Brad Sumner and I’m a part of the teaching and leadership team here at JRCC.  And today we are finally going to do it!  We’re finishing off the book of Acts.  We first started Acts in 2009 but after a two year hiatus and a two month teaching series thru January and February, we have arrived at Acts 28.  Now some of you will nitpick and say “but Brad, its not fair to skip from Acts 22 where we were last week all the way to Acts 28 where we are this week.”  And you are partially right.  So let me give you the Coles notes on what you missed.  So last week, we leave Paul after he speaks to an angry mob on the steps of the temple and, no surprise here, he get arrested.  Go to jail, do not pass Go, do not collect $200.  Paul appears before the Jewish high counsel, that doesn’t go too well cause he pits two groups against each other. Then, he narrowly escapes a plot against his life by 40 dudes who, decide that instead of giving up oh, say coffee or chocolate for Lent, they are going to give up letting Paul live.  But things are so dangerous and so political, that the Romans garrison commander in Jerusalem sends Paul up the line to like a regional court in Caesarea.  Here, Paul gives his defences before the Roman governor Felix.  Felix wants a bribe to let Paul go, Paul doesn’t give him one and so when Felix retires or is transferred, he leaves Paul in jail.  So the new dude takes over, his name is Festus.  And Paul does again what we’ve seen him do over and over again… he shares his story and the message of the gospel with both Festus, and then with King Agrippa and his wife Bernice.  Paul shares with all of these people essentially the exact same story we heard him share last week so since our series emphasis is that Now is the Time to share your story, you can see why we skip over these largely repetitive segments.  So, Paul presents his case, they are pretty sure he is innocent but they aren’t quite sure what to do with him so Paul appeals to the supreme court of his day, the emperor himself, Caesar.  So they send him on his way.  And in chapter 27, Paul sails for Rome, there’s a powerful storm that destroys the ship but God in his grace saves everyone on board. After wintering there, they set sail and Paul finally comes to Rome 

And when he arrives, Paul does what he has a practice of doing: sharing his story and God’s story.  We’re going to read the text and as I read, I want you to ask yourself “how do you think Paul’s methodology and his message here in Acts 28 are different from the usual North American evangelistic presentation and strategies?”  Because there’s a lot for us to learn and perhaps to unlearn about Evangelism Basics from this last chapter of Acts.  Let’s read together: Acts 28:16-31

Let me remind you why we began this series.  At the start of January, I highlighted for you a few elements we were going to emphasize over the course of our time together:  We were going to Learn…

1. The challenges & joys of cross cultural mission
2. The urgency of mission
3. A focus on declaration, not solely on decision
4. How to share your story

And here in Acts 28, we have all of these themes packed into one little text!  As a master story teller, Paul focuses on 3 stories: God’s story (we might use the short hand phrase “the gospel” to describe this), the story of his listeners, which we talked about last week; and his own story.  This is 3 Story evangelism.  And the thing I love about this text is that it lays out some ground rules or some helpful basics for you and I around the topic of evangelism, which can sound scary and hyper-spiritual and all of that stuff.  But when we break it down, what Paul is doing here and throughout the book of Acts is declaring the story.  And if you are a follower of God in the way of Jesus, you and I are called and empowered by the Spirit to do the same.  So let’s look at some of what we can learn about evangelism basics from Paul in this text, alright?  You may have some thoughts already and there’s a place for notes on page 38 of your momentum journal and a place for doodling and coloring on page 39 – your choice!  

Our first Evangelism Basic comes up right away upon Paul’s arrival.  He makes contact with the Jewish religious leaders in the city and in verse 20 he says “I would like to get acquainted” with you. Evangelism Basic #1 is very basic but it’s fundamental to what follows: #1 – Show Respect

• Get to know people before you preach at them (28:20)

Paul shares a bit of his story, taking care not to vilianize the Jewish leadership in Jerusalem who got him in this mess in the first place.  And he asks for permission to have a dialogue with them.  And he’s up front about the nature of the conversation.  Paul is not interested in a kind of bait and switch approach.  He is interested in a real conversation that demonstrates respects and care for his listeners.  But in each of our evangelism basics, we’re going to see that there is a  problem.  And The Problem: here is that

• Most Christians haven’t earned the right to be heard

They demonstrate no care for the story or situation of the person in whom they are in conversation with and as a result, they violate I Peter 3:15-16 which says “And if someone asks about your Christian hope, always be ready to explain it. 16 But do this in a gentle and respectful way.” 

This doesn’t mean that when God prompts you to share about His story or your story with a stranger that you shy away because “oh, I haven’t earned the right to be heard” but it does mean a few things.  I worked in the hospitality industry for 6 years and was a server for part of those years at a Keg restaurant back east.  Our restaurant made a couple of decisions, one of which was to NOT be open on Sunday for lunch because of the horrible, horrible reputation that church people had.  They would come in, be very demanding, and then instead of leaving a generous tip, they would skimp and leave a tract instead.  Not cool.  I never want to hear this about JRCC people.  You lose the right to be heard when you are stingy and cheap, amongst other things.  We could park it there awhile but we won’t.  I’ll simply say that investing in relationships where the person actually wants to ask about the hope you have in Jesus and living your life in such a way that prompts people to ask questions is the foundation for evangelism basic #1.  Show respect.  Any questions about that? 

OK on to evangelism basic #2… Which is “Speak Up”

From verse 23 – 31, there are six separate words used to describe Paul’s telling of the story. 

• Paul “explains & testifies, persuades, speaks (v 23), proclaims and teaches (31)”

The idea is the Paul is in a dialogue, not a monologue with these people but he is speaking with them.  The notion of proclamation, for example, has to do with an appeal to a person’s will and volition.  And the idea of teaching is to present a reasonable and thorough case for something you believe that is based not on vapours, but on solid and historical evidence.  It appeals to the mind.  And this is where I think that some of us, myself included, get tripped up.  And I’m going to blame St. Francis of Assisi here.  Perhaps you’ve heard his famous injunction “Preach the gospel at all times, if necessary use words” And I get what he’s trying to say…  That our lives and our actions out to embody and advance the gospel.  That we ought to be on the front lines of working for justice and peace.  That we ought to take holiness seriously and rid ourselves of lying and sexual sin so that our lives radiant the goodness of the God who has saved us.  I get all of that, but hear me on this one…  The Problem: with that line of thinking is that

• The gospel requires declaration not just deeds

If all my neighbours know is that you and I are “nice” people, that doesn’t make it hard for people on my street to go to hell.  Yes, the gospel must be embodied and lived out, but it must also be proclaimed, explained, testified to and taught.  We must speak to people and persuade them…  This is worldview re-shaping work that we have been called to which requires that we take not stay silent but that we speak up. 

[Shawn’s story?]

But speaking up doesn’t mean that the only goal is to get into conversation with people and push them towards making a decision.  That’s not what Paul does here, is it?  Look at the incredibly wide variety of responses that he receives. 

In his dialogue with the Jews in verses 23-28, we see at least three responses to Paul’s story and God’s story:

• Some were persuaded (verse 24) – using only the Old Testament and the full day of dialogue, Paul is able to lead some to saving faith.
• Some argued (verse 25) – and I love this.  They argued amongst themselves.  They aren’t even arguing with or at Paul! 
• Some had hard hearts – verse 24 says they did not believe. 

And in verse 26-27, Paul quotes from the book is Isaiah 6:9-10 where at the start of his own ministry, the Old Testament prophet is warned by God not to expect a favourable response from his own people.  Jesus himself also experienced this (Matthew 13, Mark 4:12, Luke 8:10 – he came unto his own but his own received Him not.  Paul says this is because of a self-inflicted condition in their hearts: hardness of heart.  Think about trying to plant a seed in soil that is crusty, dry.  Thick, thick clay and rocky.  No matter how hard you desire for that seed to take root and grow, no matter how many shovels you break on it, the ground is hard as a rock.  What you say, they will not understand.  What they see, they will not comprehend.  It’s not that they can’t understand what they hear, it’s that they have chosen to wilfully and deliberately close their eyes (verse 27) so they God’s can’t do the work He so deeply wants and desires to do in their lives, a work of healing and salvation.  Because God is not a bully.  He doesn’t force himself into people’s lives.  The implications of this are challenging, however, and I’m indebted in my thinking to Intervarsity Press’ commentary on Acts for influencing my thinking on this…  You see, a person with a hard heart has perceived saving truth without choosing to appropriate it.  There is nothing defective in the message, but the audience has chosen to listen but not hear.  To receive but not respond.  And so Paul quotes Isaiah to challenge his listeners and to remind them that their ancestors resistance to God’s message is paralleled by the Jews active and current rejection of the gospel of Jesus.  Unless outward perception is matched by inward spiritual insight, hearing and seeing are in vain. So Paul contrasts not the mission or the message, but the responses of the Jews and the Gentiles.  If his own people for whom he has a huge heart (just read Romans 9-11), are going to remain firm and entrenched in their hardness of heart, then Paul will partner with God’s parallel activity in the world of the Gentiles. 

And this highlights for us the sad reality that sometimes happens when we fail to take into account that there will be a wide variety of responses to the gospel.  The Problem: becomes that we count the wrong things:

• Technique-based evangelism focuses so much on making decisions that anything less is failure

We ask questions like “how many people prayed the prayer or put up their hand?” which is a focus on decisions as opposed to asking the question “how many people have moved from a place of hardness in their hearts to a place of hearing, understanding and living out the gospel?”  This is a question of discipleship.  And I want to encourage some of you today to move the goal posts of what we have come to call personal evangelism.  Some of you feel discouraged because you haven’t “led anyone to Christ” this year.  But friends, some of you are working in places where the soil is incredibly hard.  Maybe its in your family environment where the past actions of Christians have created significant barriers to gospel receptivity.  Perhaps your workplace is just crass and hard or filled with people with a wide variety of alternate worldviews or religious systems.  In some of these places, the ground is so hard that you might never live to see a person cross the line of faith.  BUT your work in that place and in the life of your neighbour or family member might be a work of softening and prayer.  Your witness and work might move them from a minus 10 to a minus 9 and that is a HUGE step to celebrate!  But the problem with nose counting is that we only focus on the people who pray the prayer as opposed to those who work on being and making disciples of those who are far, far from God.  Paul instructs Timothy to do the work on an evangelist but in terms of the results, pray hard, work hard at being respectful and speaking up but don’t get discouraged if people aren’t falling to their knees in repentance.  Your work might be to move them from closed ears to open ears so that they can hear the message.  From a hard heart to a slightly less hard heart so that seeds can be planted.  From blinded eyes, to at least ackindelge that God is alive and active in their world…  This is significant work and I wonder if we would do well to find better ways to celebrate it.  Perhaps by counting conversations as opposed to conversations, but certainly focusing on disciples as opposed to simply decisions. 

And this brings us to our last Evangelism Basic, which we hinted at previously.  #4 – Be Clear On Your Message.

Part of the challenge, I think is that if I lined up 100 Christians and asked them the question “what is the gospel?”  I’d get 100 different answers.  Listen to some of them… I want you to guess who said them:

• The good news is that God wants to show you his incredible favour.   (new wine), get rid of your old wine skins (negative mindsets). 
• What is the gospel?  That God’s face will always be turned towards you (he loves you and is turned in your direction). (Both by Joel Osteen)

This is part of the gospel, but not the whole of it.  And the problem is that if you invite somebody to come to faith on the basis of a partial gospel or a weak gospel or simply on the basis of what Jesus can do for them, this leads to an anemic and shallow faith.  Because as soon as Jesus hasn’t done anything for me lately or I feel that God’s face isn’t turned towards me because of the challenges of my life, then my faith shrivels up and dies.  But even in these short verses, Paul presents a robust and holistic gospel.  Look with me at The Gospel according to Paul:

The first thing Paul says is that

• Jesus is the Messiah (v.20, 23) – He is the hope and fulfillment of the longings and prophecies of the Old Testament.  We’ve been reading all this past week in our Momentum Journaling in Exodus and Leviticus and yes, it can get tedious because of the high degree of detail on the sacrificial system (for those who are lost or who have bailed out, stay tuned: next week we’re launching a second reading plan with our new journal!).  But Paul roots Jesus’ story and our story in the story of Israel.  Jesus is the perfect sacrifice.  God is not only creator, but also a God who makes a covenant with people and is busy throughout the Old Testament building and drawing people into community.  Israel is a model to bless the nations but they mess up just like you and I do and so God sends a true Israelite, a second Adam, who will set things right.  And so Paul’s gospel validates the totality of God’s story throughout history culminating with the declaration that   
• The Kingdom of God is here – this is part of what we lose when we get strictly and narrowly focused on what we have come to call “personal salvation through justification by faith”. 

I love the fact that in verse 23 and then again in verse 31, Paul knits together not only a gospel which validates history, but proclamation of the Kingdom of God AND teaching about the Lord Jesus Christ. 

There are some branches of the modern church that talk a lot about the Kingdom of God being here and now and working and partnering with seeing God’s rule and reign come to our world by caring for the earth and standing for justice and peace and working with the poor and oppressed.  This would be the case of our certain streams of Anabaptism. And of course this is wonderful and absolutely necessary but if we did all of these things, would we be faithful to the gospel?  Not as Paul presents it.  He says twice: The kingdom of God is here and advancing AND   - Jesus is Saviour and Lord

Why does he knit these two together?  Well, there are streams of the contemporary church who are hyper focused on the cross, sometimes at the expense of the life, death, burial resurrection and glorification of Jesus.  The danger with only focusing on the cross that it can seem that the gospel is only about me getting my sins wiped away and going to heaven.  In this case, the gospel can become very truncated and individualistic.  Historically, we as Mennonite Brethren have been able to carefully walk in the middle of these realities and to declare and live out a gospel that expresses the vital necessity and power of both coming to Jesus but also living with and for Jesus. 

But perhaps The Problem: here is that

• We’re not familiar enough with the gospel ourselves to share it with others

But fear not, friends, over the next 6 weeks, as we begin our next preaching series, we are going to ask and answer that question “What is the gospel?”  and we’re going to equip and expand our knowledge of the depth and the richness of God’s story of creation, redemption and restoration so stay tuned! 

In the meantime, as we close out our time here today, I want to bring us back to how Luke finishes his two part book.  It seems to conclude fairly abruptly, doesn’t it?  Chained to a Roman soldier, Paul spends at least two years practicing hospitality and engaging in discussion and declaration with all who visit him.  During this time he likely wrote the books of Ephesians, Philippians and Colossians, Philemon.  Tradition has it that he was released after two years, continued on his journeys, only to return to the city of Rome a second time and to be martyred under the emperor Nero sometime between AD 64-67.  But though Paul remains in chains, Luke wants us to understand that the message is unchained and advancing with power.  The books of Luke and Acts form an orderly history of the early Christian movement from Jerusalem to Rome.  From its Jewish enclave to the very heart of the Roman Empire.  From Jesus’ birth, life, death and resurrection to the powerful, trans-cultural and universal implications of that event.  And nothing can oppose it.  Now is the time, friends, for you and me to write the next chapter.  To be so gripped with the message of the kingdom of God and the person of Jesus that we can’t help but declare it to a watching world in the power and authority of the Spirit.  It’s our time.  Let’s pray together.