A Crash Course on Evangelism & Discipleship: The Gospel Is for Everyone

The following message from Pastor Greg Laurie is made possible by Harvest Partners, helping people everywhere know God. To find out how to know God personally, go to knowgod.org. K-N-O-W, knowgod.org.

Hey, would you do me a favor? Share this message with someone who needs to hear it. The Gospel is not designed for you to keep to yourself. The Gospel is designed for you to share. And one of the great things about sharing is it helps in your own spiritual growth. And if you don't listen to me, you will stagnate spiritually. The Great Commission was given to all believers. And today, Pastor Greg Laurie points out sharing our faith keeps our own faith alive.

You have a choice. You can evangelize or you can fossilize. About 30 million real Christmas trees decorated homes this past Christmas.

And about 30 million Christmas trees became kindling not long after the holiday. Well, there's a spiritual parallel. Today, Pastor Greg Laurie points out how to keep our faith from drying out. We'll learn how to keep it rekindled by sharing the hope we have with others. Glad you're along for a new beginning as Pastor Greg brings some practical pointers on effective evangelism.

It's a good opportunity to take notes. When we talk about sharing our faith or preaching, a lot of us get very uptight. There's one thing that believers and nonbelievers have in common. They're both uptight about evangelism. Nonbelievers are uptight about being evangelized.

And believers are uptight about evangelizing them. Ok. So we're in a new series. We're calling it Faith 101. And the title of this message is A Crash Course on Evangelism and Discipleship.

Let's remember a point from our message last time. It was simply this. To be a growing Christian, you must go into all the world and preach the gospel. We call it the Great Commission. There's two variations of it. One is in the gospel of Mark. The other is in the gospel of Matthew. Mark's gospel simply states it this way.

Mark 16, 15. Jesus says, go into all the world and preach the gospel to everyone. Matthew's version states it this way in Matthew 28. And that's our text for this message by the way. We read in Matthew 28 verse 16, And lo I am with you always even to the end of the age. Amen.

That's the Great Commission. To go into all the world and preach the gospel and make disciples of all nations. Preach the gospel and make disciples.

Point number two. These words are directed to every follower of Jesus Christ. Not just the so-called professionals, the pastors, the evangelists, the missionaries. Everybody is supposed to do it. We are all called to go to all people everywhere. So here's my question for you. Are you doing your part to fulfill the Great Commission? Point number three.

This one might surprise you. To not share the gospel can be a sin. You might say, Greg you've gone too far. Well understand that sin has many definitions. There's a sin of commission and sin of omission. A sin of commission is when you break a commandment.

When you cross a line. When you do a wrong thing. A sin of omission is when you don't do a right thing. The Bible says to him that knows to do good and does not do it. To him it is sin. So how could failing to share my faith possibly ever be a sin?

Let me illustrate. Let's say that you were in a house that caught fire. And you rushed out to save your own life but you knew there were other people in there. Innocent people who could not get out and you didn't lift a finger to help them. You didn't even call the fire department. You just walked off and acted as though it didn't happen. Is that wrong?

Yes it is. That's even a criminal act. Or let's say you're a doctor and you run tests on a person. And found out they have a certain problem. And you know a course of antibiotics could correct it.

Or a simple surgery would make it right. But you're uncomfortable telling people bad news. It's kind of awkward for you. So you don't tell them anything and you say you're good to go. Go on your two month vacation. Enjoy yourself.

You're an irresponsible doctor. Ok so those are illustrations that say how much worse is it for me to know the way to heaven. The way for a person to be forgiven of their sin. And find the meaning and purpose of their life and not tell them. You see that's how not sharing the gospel could potentially be a sin. Why is this important?

Point number four. The primary way people come to Jesus is through hearing the gospel. Romans 10 14 says, How can they call on Him to save them unless they have believed in Him? How can they believe in Him if they have never heard about them? And how can they hear about Him unless someone tells them?

Go to everyone you can and share the gospel. Now what is the gospel? We throw that word around a lot as Christians. What does it actually mean?

Well I'm going to define it in a moment. But we want to get this one right. Because if we don't get the gospel right everything else is wrong.

Point number five. We're not only to preach the gospel. We are to make disciples.

Let me say that again. We're not only to preach the gospel. We are to make disciples. Remember He says in Matthew that we are to make disciples of all nations. I mean to only preach the gospel and not make a disciple would be like a doctor delivering a baby.

And then giving the baby a little box of Pampers with a little handle. Ok kid. It's a tough world out there.

I've got to go but I hope it works out for you. Bye. No you need to help the little baby. The baby needs to be nurtured and protected and cared for. And when someone accepts Jesus they are like a little baby. But they are a baby Christian. And they need to be discipled. What does that mean to disciple someone? It means help them to get up on their feet spiritually. And come to a place of maturity. And then encourage them to repeat the process. You know we have a great tool here at Harvest that we make available to people.

And I mention it pretty much every time you see us. It's called the New Believers Bible. Let me explain what this is. This is the New Testament. It's filled with hundreds and hundreds of notes that I wrote geared to a new believer.

I wrote them in a very easy to understand way. Almost as though we're sitting down over a cup of coffee. And I'm just going through the basics of the Christian life with them. So this is a resource we offer to people.

You ought to get a bunch of these and have them on hand. And then hopefully get a new believer or a young believer in your life and do what you can for them. But somewhere along the line we have separated evangelism and discipleship.

And we should not do it because it's all part of the Great Commission. Think of Saul of Tarsus. He came to faith in Christ. Saul of Tarsus was a notorious Christian killer. He was hunting down followers of Jesus, torturing them, putting them in prison. And Saul of Tarsus was responsible for the death of the first martyr of the Christian church, Stephen. But while he was on his way to arrest more Christians, who does he meet on the Damascus road? He meets Jesus. Who says, why are you fighting with me Saul? And Saul believes in Jesus. So when it comes out that Saul is now a Christian, no one believes it. It would be like announcing, oh Howard Stern just became a Christian and he is going to a Bible study now. Or oh Bill Maher. He is a strong follower of Jesus Christ. Or hey Lady Gaga is leading worship over here at this church service.

We would say, what are you talking about? Unexpected people. And don't think that God cannot reach any of those people. He could reach them and anybody else.

But people weren't believing it. So the Lord directs a man named Ananias to go to the newly converted Saul. It is recorded in Acts 9. And God says to Ananias, go visit Saul.

He is a brother and he is in prayer. So Ananias went and helped Saul and introduced him to people. Later on a guy named Barnabas came along and encouraged Saul later to become Paul as well. Now we don't know that much about Ananias and Barnabas. But we know a lot about the apostle Paul.

And so here is my point. God wants to use you to be an Ananias to a Saul. He wants to use you to be a Barnabas to a Paul. He wants to use you to be an Andrew to a Peter. He wants to use you maybe behind the scenes to help someone that needs to grow in their faith.

Don't be overwhelmed by this. Discipling someone just means to show them what a Christian looks like. Maybe this is one of the reasons we don't want a new believer in our life.

Because we don't want them to examine us. Oh this is how a Christian drives. Oh this is what a Christian watches on TV. Oh this is what a Christian does in their free time. I don't want them judging me.

No you need to be an example for them. Let me tell you something. After I accepted Christ at the age of 17 on my high school campus I was really oblivious to what I had done. The school bell rang. Lunch was over. I did not realize what had just happened to me. Nobody was there saying, Oh Greg here is a new believer's Bible. Why don't you read this? No one was there to say, Greg why don't you come to church on Sunday with us.

No one was there to do anything. I just walked away not really sure of what I had done. But thank God there was a guy named Mark who came up to me a day or so later. He said, Hi is your name Greg? I said, Yeah.

He said, My name is Mark. Okay. He said, Hey I saw that you went forward and prayed to ask Christ into your life the other day at our lunchtime Bible study.

I was sort of defensive and I said, Yeah what of it? He goes, Well I think that's great. Okay. Well I want you to come to church with me.

Mark said. I said, I don't want to do that. No Greg I want you to come to church. I don't want to go to church with you Mark.

I really don't. And he goes, Okay where do you live? I'm going to come pick you up. No I don't want you to come to my house and pick me up.

I don't want to go to church with you. Well Mark wouldn't take no for an answer. Next thing I know he's at my house picking me up. And he takes me to church. Mark introduced me to the church. He introduced me to his Christian family. He took the time to explain the basics to me. In short he began to disciple me. And I could have fallen through the cracks.

And there's a lot of people that do fall through the cracks. Will you be a mark to one of those people? Will you fulfill the great commission? Pastor Greg Laurie will have the second half of his message in just a moment. It's a blessing when we hear that people are listening to Pastor Greg's messages on the radio. Pastor Greg, I listen to A New Beginning every morning on KPDQ Radio in Portland, Oregon. It's a wonderful way to start my day. Thank you for sending me your Christmas card last year with the pictures of your family. It's a good reminder to pray for you and your family.

God bless you. Are you being impacted by the teaching here on A New Beginning? If so, why not drop Pastor Greg an email and let him know? Send it to gregatharvest.org.

Do it today while you're thinking about it. Again, that's gregatharvest.org. Well, we're talking today about our role in fulfilling the great commission. Pastor Greg is presenting a message today titled, A Crash Course on Evangelism and Discipleship. There's another reason we should seek to fulfill the great commission. Do it for your own good. See, God has given us these blessings that we experience as Christians to share, not to be hoarded.

You are blessed to be a blessing. You ever see those shows on TV of people who hoard stuff? They have like floor-to-ceiling newspapers from days gone by. They usually have a lot of cats.

I don't know why the cats and the newspapers go together, but they often do. But this is crazy. Now, I'm sort of a micro hoarder.

I don't have my home filled with all those things, but I do save a lot of stuff. We can be this way with our faith. I just want to hear another Bible study.

I just want to grow more and learn more. That's good. Do that. But it's not designed for you to keep to yourself. The gospel is designed for you to share.

One of the great things about sharing is it helps in your own spiritual growth. Say, I don't get it. Well, what would it be like if you only ate and you never exercised? You literally sat in a giant chair and you never moved.

I have a friend who has this weird thing. It's like a pod. It's sort of like a massage chair meets a pod. You lay in it and it closes up on your arms and on your legs.

All these rollers are going back and forth. Oh, yeah. It's great.

I have to admit I was in it for one week. No, not really. But we want to just get into our little Christian pod. Bring me a meal now and I'll eat my meal. You need to get out of your pod. You need to get to work. You need to take what God has given you to other people.

If you don't, listen to me. You will stagnate spiritually. You have a choice. You can evangelize or you can fossilize. If you only take in and you never share your faith, it's detrimental to you spiritually. Listen to this. A new believer needs an older believer in their life to stabilize them.

An older believer needs a younger believer in their life to energize them. Take cartoons as an example. I like to watch cartoons with my grandkids. Generally, when they're not around, I don't watch cartoons. But when they come over, they say, Papa, can we watch a cartoon? I'll enter into their world and I'll laugh at the cartoons and enjoy them. But I'm enjoying them because they're enjoying them. I'm seeing them through the eyes of a child. What happens when you have a new believer in your life is you begin to rediscover truths you've forgotten about. As they're discovering them for the first time, you're saying, wow, that is amazing, isn't it? I don't know if I'm as appreciative to God as much as I should be for what He has done for me.

So you need it as much as they need it because we often forget things that really matter. Now I keep saying preach the gospel. What is the gospel?

We way overcomplicate this, people. The gospel, literally defined, is good news. The gospel teaches that we're all separated from God by our sin. The gospel teaches that there's nothing we can do to satisfy the righteous demands of God on our own. The gospel teaches not that I'm good but that I'm bad and I'm separated from God.

But the gospel also teaches that 2,000 years ago God sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to die on the cross for our sins. And He rose again from the dead. And if I will turn from my sin and ask Christ to come into my life, He will forgive me. He'll fill that hole in my heart. He'll give me the purpose and direction in life I've been seeking.

And best of all, He'll give me the absolute assurance of heaven for the afterlife. That's the gospel. We need to share that with people.

Point number six. We need to seek to lead others to Christ. We need to seek to lead others to Christ. Now the Bible does teach that this is a work of the Holy Spirit. No man comes to the Father unless the Spirit draws him.

That's true. But God reaches people through people. And I think one of the reasons we've never led another person to Christ is we have not asked them the question. We can call it popping the question. Let's apply it to marriage.

I've heard of a lot of imaginative proposals that have taken place. One that I am reminded of is a friend of mine who went out snorkeling with his fiance. Well not his fiance.

Just his girlfriend at that point. And they were underwater. And he had one of those little underwater tablets and he wrote out, Will you marry me?

So that's very imaginative. Now my wife says I never properly proposed. She says that we were sitting in a restaurant and I looked at her and I said, Well I guess we're going to get married, huh? And I thought, Really? I said that? She said, Yeah. I said, Wow. Well at least I said something. I didn't do a very good job of it. But thankfully she said yes.

And we've been married 46 years now. So hey maybe there's something to that. I don't know. But my point is simply this.

You've got to ask the question that's awkward for you to ask but do it anyway. And here's the question. Ready for it?

Would you like to accept Jesus Christ right now? I was in a restaurant a while ago with some friends. And we had a waitress come and take our order. And she said, You guys are all pastors aren't you? Yes.

Yeah we are. And so she said, What are your church services? And I said, Well they're at this time and this time. She goes, Ok. Ok. And so she's taken our order. And I don't normally do this.

Trust me. But I felt prompted by the Holy Spirit. I said, You know I'm glad you want to know when our church services are. And I'm glad you want to come to our church. But you don't have to wait until Sunday to get right with God.

Would you like to accept Jesus Christ right now? And she said, Yes I would. She's standing there you know like with her little order book. And the good news is the owner of the restaurant is a Christian who attends our church.

So I knew she wouldn't get in trouble. I said, Why don't we pray right now? She said, Pray here? Yeah let's pray. You want to pray and ask Christ to come into your life?

She said, Yeah. So we prayed. And right there the Lord came into our life.

And this is my point. You never know when the Lord will prompt you to ask that question. And I trust that a lot of us are going to be asking this question. Would you like to accept Jesus Christ right now? And I'm telling you if they say yes get ready for one of the greatest blessings you've ever experienced in life. There is great joy in sharing your faith.

Jesus said, There is joy in heaven over one sinner that comes to repentance. Let me close now with a question for some of you. Now I have been talking to Christians about sharing the gospel.

Let me talk to someone that is watching that is hearing this all for the first time. And let me ask you this. Would you like to accept Jesus Christ right now?

You say, Well yeah. What do I need to do? You need to admit you're a sinner. And acknowledge the fact that you're separated from God. And then you need to believe that Jesus died on the cross for your sin.

And rose again from the dead. And you need to ask him into your life. You see only you can do that.

I can't do that for you. But I can lead you in a prayer where you ask him into your life to be your Savior and Lord. And in a moment I'm going to pray. And I'm going to ask you that want Christ to come into your life to pray this prayer with me. So again if you want your sin forgiven. If you want to know that when you die you will go to heaven. If you want that big hole in your heart filled.

If you want your guilt taken away. If you want this relationship with God I have been talking about. I want you to pray a simple prayer with me right here right now. And as I pray this prayer you can pray it out loud if you like.

You can pray it in your heart quietly but you pray this prayer. The Bible says whoever will call upon the name of the Lord will be saved. The Bible says for God so loved the world he gave his only begotten Son. And whosoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life.

That's what you're doing right now. You're believing in Jesus. So if you want Jesus to come into your life. If you want him to forgive you of your sin. Pray this prayer with me right now. In fact pray this prayer after me.

Pray these words if you would. God I know that I'm a sinner. But I believe that Jesus Christ died on the cross for my sin. And rose again from the dead. I turn from my sin now.

And I choose to follow you Jesus. From this moment forward. Be my Savior and my Lord. Be my God and my friend. Thank you for sharing this prayer. Thank you for answering this prayer. In Jesus name I pray. Amen. An important prayer from Pastor Greg Laurie. Today on A New Beginning we've been talking about the good news.

And some have just accepted that offer of forgiveness. If you've just prayed with Pastor Greg to accept Jesus as your Savior. First of all let us welcome you into the family of God.

And second let us send you something free of charge to help you get started. It's our New Believers Growth Packet. It will answer some of the questions you might have.

And help you build a strong foundation for your faith. So ask for the New Believers Growth Packet as you write A New Beginning. Box 4000, Riverside, CA 92514. Or call 1-800-821-3300. We can take your call anytime around the clock at 1-800-821-3300. Or go online to harvest.org and click Know God.

If you missed any part of today's study you can get a replay by going to harvest.org. And by the way at that website you can also find out more about getting copies of the New Believers Bible. Pastor Greg mentioned a little earlier. Well it's a real thrill to have baseball great Darrell Strawberry with us. We're making available his brand new book called Turn Your Season Around. And you know Darrell I'm sure you can see God's hand on your life.

You know protecting you in the bad times. And certainly giving you the talent to reach the highest heights in your sports career. Do you think you were born for the game?

Or did God just help you sort of bloom where you were planted? I think I was born to play baseball. I was gifted to play all type of sports. But baseball I just had an eye for and I had that one on one competition that I liked. I liked looking down at a pitcher on the mound who's staring at me and just feel like he could just throw a fastball by me.

And I said it's not going to happen you know. And that was really a big thing about you know who I was and everything. And I think I think baseball taught me about the man that I would become and my faith. Because baseball is all about discipline. You got to train yourself. You got to be disciplined. And I remember when the Lord called me he says okay you played baseball for all those years.

You know how you got there. You were very disciplined. So you have to do the same thing and discipline yourself in the biblical principles.

You have to learn how to train yourself and learn how to study. You learn how to saturate yourself in the word. You learn how to separate yourself from everybody. Baseball was the same way. I had to separate myself from everybody when I had to go train and workout by myself. I had to go to the ball field. I had to go run the bases. I had to go talk to myself.

Go on first to third you know with nobody around. And it's the same way in God's word. You know you got to get in that quiet place and do the things that you need to do to be able to hear God because you can't hear God if there's a lot of noise around. I can't hear the crowd when I was working out.

So I would eventually hear the crowd when I'm playing but I would blank them out because I was used to like working out on my own and running the bases going first and third and being on the on deck circle and scoring and doing all the things I did on the baseball field. So that's basically what I did in my journey with God. I just bought my journey from baseball and God used the gift that I had in baseball to do the same thing coming into ministry to bring about discipline and you know it just brought me to a greater place and greater understanding just like I was when I when I was playing baseball with the word of God is being able to spend that quality time. You know you have to make that time by yourself not with anyone else.

I think a lot of times people think you have to do it with everybody else. No the church is important. It's important to go to church and have your notepad and your Bible and write down notes and take it back home and eat on it after the pastor feeds you. I did a lot of that when I started growing and to the man that God wanted me to be. But the baseball part of knowing who I was going to be I had confidence in that so I had to have the same kind of confidence going into my spiritual wall. You know the Apostle Paul seemed to be a bit of a sports fan himself because he used sports analogies a lot and one thing that he said is that one who is an athlete and fighting he needs to discipline himself and that's what you're talking about. You disciplined yourself and that prepared you for when the game was actually happening and one definition I heard of the Christian life is long obedience in the same direction.

You know some people live from experience to experience and the reality is there are times you'll have an emotional experience and there are times when you won't but you get up each and every day and live the Christian life by faith. And so we want to send you a copy of Darryl's brand new book that is called Turn Your Season Around subtitled How God Transforms Your Life. It was my privilege to write the forward for this new book by Darryl and we want to get you your own copy that we will send to you for your gift of any size to help us continue to teach God's word and to proclaim the gospel. Yeah that's right and your investment is so important as we work toward the goal of reaching more people than we ever have before. You know more than 150,000 people made professions of faith through Pastor Greg's ministry last year but we're wanting to reach even more with this life-changing good news. And your investment right now will help change lives. So when you send your donation today be sure to ask for the new book Turn Your Season Around. You can write us at a new beginning box 4000 Riverside, CA 92514 or call 1-800-821-3300.

That's 1-800-821-3300 or go online to harvest.org. You know reasons for worry and anxiety are all around us but the Lord has an antidote. Pastor Greg discusses that next time as his series Faith 101 continues. Join us here on A New Beginning with Pastor Greg Laurie. The preceding message from Greg Laurie was made possible by Harvest Partners, helping people everywhere know God. Sign up for Pastor Greg's free daily email devotions at harvest.org.