Confident Evangelism #2A

Welcome to the Truth Pulpit with Don Green, Founding Pastor of Truth Community Church in Cincinnati, Ohio.

Hello, I'm Bill Wright. Thanks for joining us as we continue teaching God's people God's Word. Don begins a new message today, so without further delay, let's join him right now in the Truth Pulpit. Last time, last week, we considered some scriptural matters that affect the matter of evangelism, of how you share the gospel with the lost. And what we're trying to do is just lay a very basic foundation, review some things that are familiar and hopefully encourage each of our hearts so that we would develop a God-centered, Scripture-centered confidence that flows from a biblical understanding of key issues when God puts us in a position to declare our faith before unbelievers, whether it's in a one-on-one situation or a group setting or whatever the case, we want to have a God-centered confidence in our evangelism. And I emphasize God-centered, a gospel-centered, a Bible-centered confidence.

We have no confidence in our own cleverness, no confidence in ourselves. We want to have a confidence where God places the power, and that's in the Scriptures and in the power of the cross. The Apostle Paul talked about this whole matter of his confidence and his eagerness on a number of occasions. I want to read just a couple of passages to you.

You can turn there if you want, but I don't know if you'll be able to keep up or not. But at the very start of the book of Romans, in Romans chapter 1 verse 14, Romans chapter 1 verse 14, Paul said, I am under obligation both to Greeks and to barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish. So, for my part, I am eager to preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome. For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.

And then at the end of his life, in 2 Timothy chapter 1, beginning in verse 7, as he's encouraging Timothy, as he's passing the baton on to Timothy, soon Paul will be dead. He says to Timothy this, For God has not given us a spirit of timidity, but of power and love and discipline. Therefore, do not be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, or of me his prisoner, but join with me in suffering for the gospel according to the power of God.

That's pretty interesting, isn't it? Where he says don't be ashamed, he talks about the power of God and he talks about it in the context of suffering for the gospel. We don't need to be afraid of suffering for the gospel. Sometimes that's what breaks the vial and releases the fragrance of the gospel when the pressure comes on. And so if you find yourself facing that kind of pressure, don't run from it. Don't let that close your lips.

Speak all the more. If the gospel brings you suffering and you suffer according to the power of God, you serve a savior who suffered on your behalf, through many tears and bearing your sins on the cross. We don't run from suffering.

We embrace it. If the master suffered, so will the disciple. We don't want to run from that, beloved.

That's where our power is. And so in verse 12 of 2 Timothy chapter 1, Paul could say this, For this reason I also suffer these things, but I am not ashamed, for I know whom I have believed and I am convinced that he is able to guard what I have entrusted to him until that day. Absolute confidence in the preserving power of God, absolute confidence, absolute unbended spirit in the face of suffering, in the face of even death. If that can be true of Paul in the midst of such difficulties, beloved, I want to suggest to you… Nah, I don't want to suggest it. I want to insist upon it. How's that?

I don't want to be a weasel up here. Eagerness, power, and confidence should mark us as we proclaim the Gospel. We have nothing to be ashamed of. We have the only message as true believers in Christ. We have the only message that can deliver people from eternal damnation. And our souls have been redeemed by the blood of Christ shed on our behalf. That sinless Lord voluntarily laid down his life to purchase our souls and remove us from the kingdom of darkness and put us into the kingdom of his marvelous light. What do we have to be ashamed of?

That's unthinkable. We're not ashamed of the Gospel. To the contrary, we proclaim Christ, we proclaim the Gospel with a supernatural conviction that comes from the testimony of God as he has revealed it in the Bible and is confirmed through the inner witness of the Holy Spirit. So when we speak, we speak in the weakness of our flesh, we speak not in confidence of our own natural abilities, but we speak in utter confidence of the power of the Gospel and the glory of the cross and the glory of our great Lord Jesus Christ. And we never back down from that.

The only shame is when we back away from that when we have opportunity to speak. But speaking the truth about Christ, God forbid that we would ever be ashamed. So today what I want to do is finish this two-part series. I want to finish these five truths that I want you to remember as you proclaim your faith in Christ so that you would have greater confidence and greater boldness in your witness. Five truths to remember as you proclaim your faith in Christ. Last time we looked at two of them, and the first point was this.

I'm just going to review these very quickly and commend the CD to you if you weren't here last week. The first point we looked at was remember the sufficiency of the Scriptures. The Scriptures are sufficient to lead someone to Christ. God has revealed that as everything that is necessary for the salvation of his soul, he is revealed in the Scriptures.

2 Timothy 3 verse 15. Paul said to Timothy, from childhood you have known the sacred writings which are able to give you the wisdom that leads to salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. The Scriptures are sufficient to open the minds of an unbeliever to his lost state and the redeeming power of Christ.

You can't improve upon that. The Scriptures are perfect for salvation. We also said in verse 16 of 2 Timothy chapter 3, which is a slightly different nuance, is that the Scriptures are sufficient to make you adequate as you witness.

Verse 16, all Scripture is inspired by God, profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness, so that the man of God, the person who would speak the Gospel, the person who would stand up for Christ in the midst of opposition, the person who would stand up in the midst of suffering, stand up in the midst of deception, in the midst of compromise, and say, I will stand for Christ, I will proclaim his blood for that kind of man, the man of God. Scriptures make him adequate, equipped for every good work. Beloved, rest your confidence in the Bible. The Scriptures are adequate. The Scriptures are sufficient. The Scriptures are abundant.

And you line yourself up under them and behind them, as it were. You put the Scriptures out and depend on the power of the Gospel. Secondly, we said, as you proclaim the Gospel, that you have to remember the seriousness of sin, the seriousness of sin that is lodged in the human heart of the unbeliever that you are trying to share your faith with. We went into pretty significant detail to simply realize that you face a major hurdle as you share your faith.

It's not your own weakness. It's not that there's any defect in the Scripture, but the hurdle that you face is the heart of the unbeliever, the heart of one who loves darkness more than the light, who refuses to come to the light lest his evil deeds be exposed. John chapter 3 says, the unbeliever cannot evaluate spiritual things properly unless the Spirit of God helps him. 1 Corinthians 2.14 says, 1 Corinthians 2.14, if you're just keeping track of these verses, A natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him. And he cannot understand them because they are spiritually appraised. You might as well go up and talk to the wall, as it were, because the wall is going to understand as much as the unbeliever does unless the Spirit of God aids him. You have to remember the seriousness of sin so that you will again throw your dependence upon the power of the Gospel, the power of the cross, the power of the Holy Spirit to open that darkened mind. What we said was, left to himself, the sinner is not an equal partner in the pursuit of truth.

It's not that he just needs enough evidence built up for him and he'll say, oh, well, of course, I yield to that. You can give every evidence to a hardened sinner and he'll just throw it over his shoulder and reject it because he wants to protect his independence from God and his love for sin. So it's not surprising with a heart so gripped by sin, so gripped by the devil, so blind to truth, it's not surprising when an unbeliever rejects your witness.

I want you to kind of lay hold of that, as it were, because I know what it's like. You know, you share the Gospel and someone walks away and they kind of just brush you off and that's a little discouraging, you know, because you want to see fruit from it. Well, you have to understand why that is. Hardened in sin, they're not going to listen. And when you think about it like that, the effect of sin on the mind and will of the unbeliever could almost drive you to despair and you say, what's the point? If they're so dead in sin, why do we even bother? How will my words ever get through to someone who is opposed to those words in his heart?

Here's where you come to the third point as we move into new material for today. Here's point number three, remember the saving Gospel. Remember the saving Gospel. Obviously, with the way the Bible describes the mind of an unbeliever, you can't have any confidence that he on his own is going to respond and that he's going to say, oh, well, yes, of course, left to himself.

And we all know by our own personal experience, most of us would agree that our own efforts to witness are weak and lacking and flawed. And so I don't have any confidence in myself to be effective in sharing the Gospel. I don't have any confidence in the person I'm trying to share with because I know what the Bible says about his unbelieving heart and what that should do to you. What that should do to you is make you despair of confidence in any human means.

Did you get that? Despair of confidence of any human means. I don't have any confidence in the unbeliever.

I don't have any confidence in my own ability. But, beloved, that is not where our power lies. When you despair of that, then you start to transfer your dependence and your confidence into the power of God as he's revealed it in the Gospel.

Yes, you are weak. Yes, sinners are blind and dead to the truth. But, that's a glorious B-U-T. A glorious but. But, there is supernatural power in the Gospel that transcends human limitations. Things that are impossible with men are possible with God. And I want you to turn to 1 Corinthians, and we'll spend a little bit of time here. 1 Corinthians chapter 1. In this Gospel message that men revile, that they consider foolish, in this word of the cross is where your confidence should lie. You have to remember the saving Gospel.

1 Corinthians chapter 1 beginning in verse 18, where Paul said, For the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and the cleverness of the clever I will set aside. Where is the wise man? Where is the scribe?

Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since in the wisdom of God, the world through its wisdom did not come to know God, get this, God was well pleased through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe. For indeed, Jews ask for signs and Greeks search for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified. To Jews a stumbling block and to Gentiles foolishness, but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men and the weakness of God is stronger than men. I want you to focus your attention, beloved, on verses 22 and 23 as you think about dealing with a world of unbelievers, dealing with people who reject Christ in your own circle of witness and influence.

Look at what it says. Jews ask for signs and Greeks search for wisdom. What he's saying is when I go to preach the Gospel, I'm facing an audience that has their own agenda for the discussion. Jews want signs. They want miraculous wonders that would authenticate a messianic claim.

That's what they wanted. The Gentiles, they were looking for wisdom in the form of human rhetoric, human eloquence to satisfy their intellectual pursuits. Paul knew his audience. Paul knew what they wanted. They brought, as it were, their own spiritual demands to the table. You want to preach to me, big boy? Here's what it's got to be.

Give me a sign, give me eloquence, something like that. And in the midst of that, beloved, and here's where you take your cue in your own witnessing, look at what Paul says in the midst of that environment, how he approaches that environment, verse 23, that we preach Christ crucified to Jews a stumbling block and to Gentiles foolishness, but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. He says, I understand that unregenerate people view what I'm saying as foolishness, but I understand further, deeper, more biblically that God is in unseen ways uses a spiritual power that is unleashed in the preaching of the gospel and God accomplishes his purposes by saving those that he has called through the foolishness of the message. People stand on the sidelines and mock the gospel. We don't back away from that. We don't shut up in the midst of that. We keep our mind focused on what God is doing and we understand that God, through the saving gospel, is calling out his own and we have the blessed privilege of being an instrument in that. Paul wasn't deterred by the fact that these men would only reject in their natural minds what he was saying. And to them it was complete foolishness. You're going to preach a crucified man? You're going to tell me that this crucified man is the Lord God of the universe and the only savior of mankind?

Right. That's absurd, they would say. They wanted their signs. They wanted their rhetoric. And Paul says, and here's your cue, I say it again for emphasis, Paul in effect says, I know what they want, but I am not going to give it to them, even though many of them will reject the message and think I'm foolish. I am going to give them the simple message that Jesus Christ was crucified for the sins of mankind, he was resurrected, and he is the only savior of the world. In the face of human opposition, Paul stands up like a man of God and preaches the gospel of God. And what I want you to see, beloved, is that that is your pattern when you're facing opposition, when you're facing the deadness of souls before you. It is not your job to tell unbelievers what they think they want to hear.

It's not your job to analyze the market, as it were, and say, well, this would probably play well in Peoria, or San Fernando, or whatever. No, beloved, it is your job to tell them the gospel. Stay on that message. Stay on the gospel, because God saves sinners as we preach the gospel.

He's not going to save them with anything else. And our whole fundamental premise through this, as we started this little two-part series was, is that what we're after, what we're talking about here, is being effective as a witness that would lead souls to Christ. That's what we want. And if that's your goal, if that's what you want, then you have to realize that it's Christ crucified, and that's the only message you have. But oh, is it powerful.

Oh, is it sufficient. Because God, when you honor His Word, when you humble your own self, God takes that Word, which the world despises, and in His way and in His time, He opens up hearts to believe in Christ. And it's only when you make the cross the centerpiece of your witness that you can expect God to bless your witness with power. I know that some people like to talk about all kinds of other peripheral issues, politics or evolution or whatever it is.

And as far as that goes, you know, I'm not going to say anything about that. But just understand that politics and evolution and all that other stuff doesn't save a soul. And so you have to ask yourself, what is it I'm trying to do? What is my heart's passion? What is the ultimate thing I want to do when I have this opportunity before an unbeliever? Do I want to make him a Republican?

Or do I want to see God save him from his sins? That will narrow the scope of what you want to talk about. And when you narrow the scope down to the Gospel, it's going to drive you right back to the sufficient Scriptures as that which will inform your discussion.

You won't want to talk long about anything else when you remember that point. Charles Spurgeon said this. He said, This talking about Christ crucified is said to be archaic and not at all suitable for the refinement of this wonderful age. But our mind is made up and our foot is put down. If it be foolish to preach up atonement by the blood, we will be fools. And if it be madness to stick to the old truth just as Paul delivered it, we mean to stick to it. For we are persuaded that the cross of Christ, which stumbles so many and is ridiculed by so many more, is still the power of God and the wisdom of God. Yes, Spurgeon says, just the old-fashioned truth, if you believe you will be saved, that is what we will stick to. And may God send his blessing upon it according to his own eternal purpose.

Quote. Well, my friends, before we go at the end of today's podcast, I wanted to let you know that I'm very excited to announce the upcoming release of my latest book. It's an evangelistic book titled An Easy Guide to Missing Heaven. And I think you're going to want to get a copy for yourself and also to have copies to give to others. It's a short book. It's about the size of my hand and with very short, brief chapters that make it easy for people to read. You know, I'm not a great evangelist on a one-to-one basis.

And I understand that sometimes it's hard to get a conversation started with someone you know, a friend, or even more with a person that you love within your family or the circle of your household. Well, this is a perfect book if you are like me. You can give this book easily to anyone.

They can read it in an hour, and that will set the stage for further conversations down the road. Again, the book is titled An Easy Guide to Missing Heaven, and you can find it at our website, thetruthpulpit.com. Just look for the link books on our website, thetruthpulpit.com. That's Don Green, founding pastor of Truth Community Church in Cincinnati, Ohio. Thank you so much for listening to The Truth Pulpit. Join us next time for more as we continue teaching God's people God's Word.