Yeah, yeah. Welcome to If Not Forgot, stories of hopelessness that turn to hope. Here is your host, Mike Zwick. Hey, this is If Not For God with Mike Zwick, and I am back with the folks from Cross Exchange. CrossExchange.org is the website.
C-R-O-S-S-X. C-A-N-G-E dot org, www.crossexchange.org, and they are doing evangelism. And it's exciting. They're seeing some good stuff. I've heard some stories.
But one of the things I was thinking about is people say, well, why do we do evangelism? Because Jesus told us to do evangelism. Matthew 28, 19 through 20, Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded them. And behold, I am with you to the end of the age. 1 Peter 3:15, but in your hearts, honor Christ the Lord is holy.
Always being prepared. To make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that you have within you, yet do it with gentleness and respect. And I could go on and on and on and on. There's a Bible verse that actually says to do the work of an evangelist. But when I was thinking about this, I thought about a guy named Pendalette, who's a devout atheist.
And many years ago, he was finishing up one of his shows. And what happened was this. There was a Christian man who came up to Penn Jolette at the end of the show. He gave him a Bible. He started to evangelize the guy.
He started to proselytize and share his faith of Jesus Christ. And that Penn Jelette needed to get saved. And Pen Jillette said this, I'll never forget it. He said, it was a beautiful thing. He said, and the truth is, he says, if you're a Christian, and you believe that eternal life is possible.
He said, how much do you have to hate someone not to share something like that with them? Or if you believe that, I could go to hell. He said, There is some point where if you're in the middle of the road, he said, even if you don't believe that a truck is coming at you at 80 miles an hour, He said, if I see that truck coming at you, there comes a point where I tackle you and get you out of the way. And he said, this is so much more important than that. But Daniel, what pushes you every day to wake up and to share your faith?
Yeah, I would say my own journey of Understanding how lost I was and the importance of the salvation in which Christ provides, and also the importance of being grounded in truth. As the title of this network, the Truth Network, about the importance of being grounded in Christ, He's the embodiment, the indwelling of the truth itself. And I would say, what pushes me to go out and share my faith, even when it's hostile, even when it's difficult, is the importance of knowing the gift and mercy that I received and wanting to share that with others and then being able to see that fruit in their life. Yeah, what about you, Manuel? Yeah, what drives me is just a passion for God's word.
God's word has told me that I am a child of him and I'm called to call others into this beautiful new family. And I guess, number one, it's God told you to, like you said. Number two, I. I'm an adopted kid, and being an adopted into a brand new home that loves me, despite how Chaotic, I was as a kid, to know that God does that for every single individual on the planet Earth, that He brings them into His family through grace, through faith. Um that's a beautiful thing and I want to call as many people as possible to that beautiful hope that I have.
Well now one of the things that we were talking about a little bit before the show And I think you mentioned this manual. You said that there's a right way to do evangelism. And then there's a wrong way to do evangelism. And I want to say this as well. You know, you may not do it the same way that Michael Zwick does it.
You may not do it the same way that Manuel does it. You may not do it the same way that Daniel does it. But if you're having success and if it's working for you, that's great. And keep doing what you're doing. But there is a wrong way and there's a way to turn people off.
One of the things that I've seen, Manuel, is that if you do something good for somebody, they may tell one or two people. But if you put somebody in a bad mood or you really turn somebody off, they may tell 50 or 60 people. And so we want to be loving, we want to be kind. But I want to ask you this first, Manuel. What is the wrong way to do evangelism?
Yeah, the wrong way for sure is to do it without love. Number one is but I think is 1 Corinthians chapter 13 is the love chapter and tells you if you have all these things to glorify God with and have not love, you are nothing. And if you do not have love first and foremost for the person that you are talking to, for the person that you are seeking to minister to, if you're looking at somebody as a project, you're looking at somebody as a thing, if you're looking at somebody as, oh, this is a mission that I need to complete, which all those things are not necessarily bad things, but if you do not have love for the person you're talking to, you will fail. And it will, and sure, by God's grace, he can do whatever, he can use whatever he wants to for his own glory. If you talk to the wind and some crazy person says something and God chooses to use that for his glory, to God be the glory.
But you, for your own edification as a child of God, you will fail and you've done it improperly if you do not love the individual you're talking to. Absolutely, and I have a friend of mine named Jeff Hoover, and he says, Mike, he said, People can argue with your logic. He said, but it's hard for people to argue with your testimony. And so, one of the things that I've learned over the years, Daniel, is to share my testimony with people. And I tell them that I was lost.
I was depressed. I mean, when I was younger, I actually went to a mental hospital for a while. I had all sorts of difficulties in my life and trouble, but then when I came to Jesus Christ, He took all that stuff away.
Now I still had problems. And there still are issues in my life. But my life is a whole lot better with Jesus. Than it was before. And I'd say, even more importantly than that, no matter how tough.
this world gets. Romans 8.18 is one of my go-to verses. Where it says, For I consider the present sufferings that we're going through right now as nothing compared to the glory that shall be revealed within us.
So I know that no matter how tough things get, eventually I'm going to be in heaven with Jesus forever. And hey, life ain't that bad anymore. How about you, Daniel? Yeah, I would say that just like you, I was lost. I was without Christ.
I remember one time, some of the listeners, it may even seem strange, but I remember going through a period shortly before coming to Christ where I struggled with knowing whether what I saw in this physical world was real. How do I know that what I see, touch, and feel around me is objectively real, or if it's just an illusion of my imagination? I had gotten so deep and struggling in my depression and sin that I was struggling with how to determine. Truth versus a lie and reality versus a falsehood. And one of the things, as Mike was sharing, When you share your testimony, when you share what God did in your life, it opens the door for other people to share about their life, not just for believers to share with you and vice versa, but also unbelievers.
When you share with them what you've been through and what the Lord delivered you from, I've had many opportunities where the Lord. Because I felt A conviction in my soul that it was important for me to share what God delivered me from and what God did in my life, that it allowed the person that I was talking to that was an unbeliever to feel comfortable and. bearing their heart to me. Yeah, definitely and I'm gonna get manual to to sit over here because These guys have a lot of good stuff to talk about. We've got another 19 minutes, but man, well, what do you do?
What is some of the success that you have when you're doing evangelism yourself? Yeah, so the question of success is also an interesting one. The question is how do you measure success? And when it comes to the measure with which we measure, unless we measure to the task and the standard that God has given us.
So success in evangelism. The only success there ever be fully is the salvation of the whole world. That's the ultimate success, and that won't happen until the resurrection. That will not happen until the second coming of Christ, in which the world is given to Him into full fruition and the Full justice is administered to all evil. Like, we're all expecting that as Christians.
That's just standard Christianity. Um but when we think about personal success so God's working all things for His glory and our good. And so, if that's the case, if God will do all things for His glory and our good, how are we edified in the obedience to Christ? How are we edified in that? And if we'll be edified in that, it takes love, community, care.
And when you see success in evangelism, it's a matter of have I communicated the good news of Christ to this individual, that they comprehend the good news. And then once they comprehended it, the job is actually completed. Because you've shared the gospel, you shared the evangel of God, the good news of his kingdom, the good news of forgiveness of sins. And if they can comprehend that, you've communicated clearly about that. then your job in the act of Telling the good news is complete.
Now, sure, after that, we can talk about discipleship, and we will get to that in a moment. But What they do with that, or what God's Spirit chooses to do with their heart because of the work you've done, that's fully given over to God. And so we do our task in full resting in Christ. Is that right, Daniel? Yeah, that's right.
I mean, I remember many times where I've shared the gospel with people, talked to people, bared my heart to people about their need for Christ and them needing to come to his salvation. In the moment. They listened to me. They seemed to really receive what I was saying, but they didn't at that moment bow the knee to Christ. And one of the things that we have to rest in God's hands is some.
Scatter seeds, some water, but God gives the increase. And just understanding that if we are servants of the Lord Most High, He is the one that brings all things to pass in His time and His way. And not to be discouraged that if someone you share the message of Christ with, if you're discipling even them, if you're meeting with them on an ongoing basis and discipling them, if you don't see an immediate change, not to be discouraged, just to keep praying for them, keep ministering to them, and trusting God that He will. be working in their hearts as you are ministering as his vessel.
Now, I want to shift the conversation a little bit to we talk about doing evangelism correct.
Now, when people hear the term evangelism, you hear the idea that go out and tell people the good news of Christ. And as much as that is a great calling and a beautiful thing, the Great Commission in Matthew chapter 28 is one about discipleship. That's the main focus of what Matthew 28 is about, what Christ is commissioning his disciples to do. And so, evangelism is the first step in that process. But I want to talk about the philosophy that we have thereof because something that has been interesting to me in a lot of churches that I've been into and people that I've talked to, one of the things that I always hear.
Here is this idea of a relationship evangelism. About you want to make a relationship with somebody. And we talk about you want to be received well, you want to have love for somebody, you want someone to feel comfortable, and also the fact that they feel that you care about them before they receive anything from you. All those are good things. But that's not what relation evangelism is.
Uh there's a phrase that's popular and it has a good reason to exist. Because there is a message that's true in it. For example, the message is uh peop Knowing w when you know about evangelism, it's the idea that people know b they don't care they know I'm achieved this right. The fun part is, people don't care how much you know until they know how much you care, and is a true statement. But the thing about it is, the good news is not just an idea or a feeling.
The good news actually is a message. And you have a message to share. And so when we share that message, The philosophy behind it is that I'm number one, obeying Christ and telling someone that message. And the relationship? comes secondary.
Because There's another phrase that's very popular about evangelism: that you just simply live the gospel, right? You're supposed to just. How you act and what you do. You live it out, and then, when necessary, use words. Um And that's the thing about evangelism.
Evangelism, number one, is words.
So that phrase is true that you need a relationship, but relationship is a secondary process through discipleship to help others. What do you think about that, Daniel? Yeah, I would agree. I mean, the thing that stands out in what you said, one would be in regards to listening, hearing what the other person is saying, what their objections to the message of Christianity is, and actually listening to what they're saying, not thinking you know what they're saying and assuming it, and then going forward. And one of the things about discipleship that's important is you're actually sitting down with them, hearing them out, and discerning what they are not, not just what they are saying, but what they're not saying, and then being able to minister to them in the places that they're being guarded in and letting the Lord shine that light into their hearts.
One of the things that I've noticed about many people is... when they have objections to Christianity, s it i there is s serious intellectual objections at times that people propose and people use to press against Christianity. But at the heart of it, ultimately, It's a sin nature. It's a sin nature problem. It's people wanting to hold on to their sinful desires and wanting to not.
Not let the Spirit of Christ, the Spirit of God Himself penetrate their hearts and about the importance of that, breaking down the wall of separation between us and God and allowing that. And I would also say to what you were saying, Emmanuel, there's many times where If you Assume what someone's saying and you don't listen to what they're actually saying, you actually miss the point and you'll lose them altogether.
So, that's do you have any thoughts on that? Yeah, that's really, really good. Like, when we are doing this practice of evangelism, I think when we want to do this with different people, if you're gonna care about them, know where they're coming from, and actually listen to them. You have to know where they're coming from. And I'm very careful with this too, because this can be taken in a variety of different ways too, the idea of contextualization.
Now, when I like what Zwick said about the, when you're in a different, wherever you are, you may have a different way of doing evangelism. It does not necessarily mean you're doing it right or wrong, but there are right and wrong ways to do this. The wrong way to do it is to not do it, of course, that's the number one way. But think about it: if you're going to, let's say, the middle of Nigeria or middle of China. And then you go out and just start full blast: hey, this is the good news of Jesus Christ, how he lived, died, and rose again.
you're putting people in a ton of danger. That's the immediate thing that happens. And then it's like, oh. Evangelism takes a different shape. And then, if you're in the United States, this is something I want us all to understand: we have a stewardship, a freedom to share our faith.
And if we are stewards of that, we need to use that to its full potential. In every aspect of our life, if we find an area to which we start talking about our faith, that's a joyous thing. If you're a comic book fan or if you're a movie fan and you find different times that you want to talk to your friends about how awesome this is. How much of that conversation could be dominated by Christ, the goodness of Christ's scripture, and what He's done for you and others around you. Because if something that is super important in your life matters to you more than anything else, it's going to come out in what you talk about.
What do you think, Daniel? Yeah, I would say so. I mean, one of the things that I've learned in the process of doing evangelism and discipleship is using opportunities. To Intermingle The message of Christ and a biblical Christian worldview into the topics that someone might be interested in who's not a believer, or even someone who's a new believer but isn't very discipled in the faith. And one of those examples would be comics and the Marvel universe and all of those types of comic.
uh stories and analogies it's I didn't grow up with reading and really focusing in that area. That wasn't one of my interests or passions. But actually, Through different individuals that Manuel and I have ministered to and engaged with, that's actually been an opportunity where we can talk about the different worldviews that are actually embedded into a lot of these different fiction Stories and storylines, some that are very Eastern religiously focused, that talks about Taoism and Buddhist concepts of the nature of reality, or in other ones that bring other myths of Norris and Germanic mythology. in those conversations, they're very influenced by Those different worldviews that are embedded into that. But through that, I've actually learned, even in my own walk of faith, and learning how to share my faith, is.
The message never should change, but the method in regards to how you incorporate engaging in. Worldview discussions about the meaning of life and creation and the stewardship of this world and the meaningfulness that it means to have a relationship with your transcendent creator. You can use that in different forms for different means. There was a recently, we were evangelizing, and I'll just throw it back to Manuel in just a moment, but he was actually able to share his faith and share the message with a gentleman who was dressed up like Santa Claus. Which was a really cool opportunity.
We were at a festival right near Elon and for the fall and in preparation for Christmas, and there was this gentleman walking around dressed up like Santa Claus, and he was not a believer. And he was, Manuel and I were able to engage with him and use the historic figure of St. Nicholas, one of the church fathers in the early church, actually as a starting point of conversation and bringing awareness of he's representing somebody that actually goes back to the early church, but he doesn't know the contextualization of who that individual is. What's your thoughts, Manuel? Yeah, that was definitely a unique interaction.
But meeting people, using the environment around you to Talk about Christianity and life is so powerful. And I love that interaction. It was Quite exciting to have had someone else that I was just talking to about the gospel that got to witness that. And that was really encouraging. That even if the individual himself that was pretending to Play the role of Saint Nicholas and yet not know anything about historic Christianity or who.
His Saint Nick is, he was able to at least listen for a moment about who Saint Nicholas is and the God that Saint Nicholas worshipped. And that was really encouraging to see. And someone else was there that I was talking to got to see us engage in that. And that brings me to another segment I want to get into before the close of the show. The other verse that Mike Zwick mentioned.
was in first Peter chapter number three. Over Peter chapter number 3, we have the text about apologetics, a word where apologia shows up. And it's about giving a reasoned defense for the faith. But it's interesting, you look at the whole chapter, in fact the whole book of 1 Peter, The whole idea of it is that suffering is an apologetic. Suffering is the witness of Christians.
And we look at Nigeria, you look at China, you look at different places around the world, you see suffering. as the witness of Christianity. As someone who's a hint she mentioned earlier about being in seminary, where I'm going through these classes in church history, and one of the things about the classes is I see again and again and again suffering. as the Testimony of the Christian church. It's what we keep seeing, and how God utilizes our faithfulness and loyalty to His Word, to His glory.
And I think when we think about apologetics, we might think that, oh, only the special ops, very intelligent Christians engage in that practice. The thing about it is, it's a tool to get to evangelism. When you're engaging in conversations, you want to be able to confront. Their worldview, you can even hold them consistent to their own worldview, and to show how Christianity actually fills in the gaps. And not only fills in the gas, but actually is a better way of understanding the world.
What's your thoughts on Christian Worldview, Daniel? Yeah, as we wrap up the program, I would just encourage other people to think about. There's two Two important words that is embedded throughout the Old and New Testament that we see time and time again that Paul, Peter, Jesus, even in the Old Testament, Jeremiah and others, Ezekiel used in these concepts. It's apologetic, showing the rational truthfulness of the Christian faith, and also what some may not be aware of is the term polemics, which is to show the inconsistencies in other non-Christian worldviews. And we see that with Peter and Paul, and them talking both to Jew and Gentile non-believers and having a consistent full rounded worldview that the idea that God is our Creator and we are the creation.
The idea of a Todd. Two-world division: that God is our Creator and we are the creation, and not the other way around. We didn't come up with the idea of God. God is the one that designed and gave us purpose and plan in this world and in His creation, and the importance of Helping people to discern and listen to what they They themselves currently believe. Real briefly, before we wrap up our time.
Manuel and I have had the opportunity to minister and talk to many different people from every spectrum of religious belief, from Muslim and Mormon, atheist and Satanist and every other spectrum. And one of the things that's important Is helping people just like Jesus and just like Paul did. They help people. to listen to what they actually believed. And when sometimes you ask questions, Jesus asked questions to individuals.
Paul, Peter asked questions to help people to see. the inconsistencies in their own Fallen worldviews and their own fallen state that they can't say to themselves that no matter what. Other non-Christians say about Jesus, ultimately, every other religion has. A view of Jesus, and if that Jesus is not the historic Jesus of the Bible and the one that came, died, and rose again, then they're actually believing a false gospel, false narrative. And so, helping them to see both the truthfulness of Christianity, but on the other side, just like Paul or Peter did, or Jesus, helping them to see by their own words when you actually help them and guide them to think consistently about what they believe, help them to see that.
Their worldview, whatever that worldview is, ultimately is a in it will always fall apart on its own because it internally is not consistent. Christianity, the biblical gospel, Old Testament, New Testament, together, 66 books of scripture, has a consistency unpaired to any other. Religion or worldview. Yeah, guys, I think that's a great place to wrap up. We thank you guys for listening, and truly, if you, I want you to take.
Take take a role in your church. Get involved with your church, wherever they're about to administer to people. Talk to your pastor about how you can share your faith. and work with others to grow in that, to develop that skill, because you have to do it and practice it to get better at it.
So I pray you guys are doing that. Thank you so much for hanging out with the show. And the last thing I'll mention, we're cross-exchange. I'm Manuel Pittman. I'm Daniel Merrill.
And we cross-exchange. You can learn more about us at www.crossexchange.org. Thank you guys so much for listening. Thank you again. Bless them.
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