How to Share Christ with Someone (Part 4 of 4)

becoming a christian is not something we should enter into lightly. In fact, as we'll hear today from Alistair Begg, we want to make sure people count the cost and know how difficult it will be to follow Jesus. Now that may sound contradictory in the middle of a study about evangelism, but we'll hear the reasons why today on Truth for Life as we continue our series called Crossing the Barriers. What I'm about to say is about methodology and I want dreadfully to underscore the fact that when we are least expecting it, least planning on it, least ready for it, least willing to do it, God may choose to intervene and surprise us despite ourselves.

We are not the key. He simply gives us the privilege of being a part of what he chooses to do. Only God can bring about conviction of sin, and that conviction of sin is far more than merely an acknowledgment that sin exists. People may be prepared to acknowledge the existence of sin without ever themselves being convicted of their own condition.

So the condition is as agreed upon. The diagnosis brings us to sin. Thirdly, we might speak about the remedy. What is the remedy?

Is there an answer to this? And again, we would take our Bibles and we would turn them to an Old Testament picture. We might say to the individual, I don't know if you ever have read the Old Testament prophets, some of the stuff is really hard to understand, but every so often there's something in it that just hits you right between the eyes. Let me share one of these hit-you-between-the-eyes verses. And then we turn them to Isaiah 53 verse 6.

And we would say, look, this is a pictorial explanation of our human condition, of the diagnosis we've just agreed upon. This is what it says, We all like sheep have gone astray. Each of us has turned to his own way, And the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

If the person is alert and is interested and is following the conversation, they're going to almost inevitably say, And who is he? Who is the him? You're going to answer, Well, I'm glad you asked, because the he is Jesus. I wonder, have you ever thought about Jesus? Well, isn't he just a prophet?

Isn't he just one along a line on a continuum of religious leaders, depending on their level of ability? What are we going to do? Well, we're going to open our Bibles. We're going to say, You know what? You remember the Christmas stories?

Sure you do. You've heard them so many times. And you'll turn with them.

And you'll say, You know what? For example, in Matthew's Gospel, in chapter 1 and verse 21, we read these words concerning Jesus, that Mary will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins. We've said things are messed up. We've said the Bible says the problem is sin, that it's a disease that we can't shake, that we need somebody to shake it for us. The Old Testament prophets said that there was one who would come who could do just that, and here we discover in Matthew's Gospel that the very name Jesus means Savior of our sins.

So in other words, for us to begin to think of Jesus simply as a good man or a hero or a kind of religious leader, somebody that ranks up there with some of the others—Gandhi and the likes—is an interesting notion, but it doesn't follow the biblical record. And then we might go on from there and direct them from Christmas to Easter. Say, you probably know the Easter story as well. Do you remember that cry of Jesus from the cross?

And we turn to it. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Another person might say, No, I don't remember the cry. You're going to have to tell them about it. They might say, Yeah, I do remember that. I never understood it.

What was going on there anyway? And you're going to say, I'm glad you asked. Because he was shouting like that, because in that moment he was bearing the penalty for your sin and for mine, the hell that we deserve, the judgment that we might face, the condemnation that is upon our lives, Jesus Christ bore when he died upon the cross. By this time, the people are going to be saying, You know, you are bringing some strange teachings to my ears. You're going to say, Well, wait a minute, I just got another one for you.

Let me give you the fourth. Because not only do we have a human condition that is in need of explanation, not only does the Bible give us a diagnosis of the problem, namely sin, not only does the Bible say, But there is a remedy in Jesus, but the Bible also says that in order for us to grasp this in its fullness, we must personally respond to God's offer to us in Jesus in Jesus Christ. In other words, that his solution is not mechanical, nor is it impersonal. That forgiveness is not conferred upon us automatically. But quite straightforwardly, there are steps involved in coming to have our sin forgiven. Now, it may be at this point of the journey we've completely bamboozled people. This is where our great wisdom is going to have to come in, and knowing when to stop, and when to sideline it, when to allow ourselves to go down another direction. But nevertheless, if we have the opportunity and a listening ear, we want to go on and say something like this. You know, if ever you were to come to know Jesus in this way, there are steps that need to be taken.

Let me tell you what they are. Number one, you need to admit that in God's sight you are a helpless sinner. Someone said, Well, you know, I don't think that I am a sinner.

And certainly not a sinner like some of the sinners I know, says the individual. I'm not a bum. I'm not fiddling my income tax. I'm not beating my wife.

I'm not stealing from the petty cash. What is our answer to that? Our answer is simply this, that there may be a difference in the degree to which men and women have sinned, but there is no difference in the fact that men and women have sinned. We may not have sinned as much as we might, but we have sinned enough to be condemned and lost. And we can never know forgiveness till, first, we admit our helpless, sinful condition. Secondly, we must believe that Jesus Christ died on the cross to be the very Savior that we've just admitted that we need.

And again, we want to be using our Bibles with great care. Verses we learned in 1 Peter in our studies, 1 Peter 3, verse 18. For Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. To admit that Jesus, to believe that Jesus is the very one who died in order that we might be brought to God.

And thirdly, I must accept by faith the forgiveness and cleansing that his death has made available to me. Now, you see, this is very different, loved ones, from asking people if they have a felt need in their life. You understand this? Because we can get responses out of people on the basis of questions like, are you unhappy and would you like to be happy? Let me tell you how to be happy. So, we might tell people how to be happy, but we never told them how to be saved. And we might never have told them that they even need to be saved. And if they discover that the way to become truly happy is to admit their helpless condition before God, to believe that Jesus Christ is the only answer to sin, and to confess freely their need of him and ask him in repentance and in faith to save him, they may not want to be happy that way. They want to be happy, but not badly enough to turn over the reins of their life to the lordship of Jesus Christ. They may want to know a freedom from a guilty conscience, but not enough to have Jesus Christ control them from this day onward. And that, you see, is the fault, dear ones, of so much slick evangelism that we bring people on the basis of felt need to conclusions about what they want, but they're never saved. They wanted someone to fix them up, but they did not want a savior to reign on the throne of their lives. And so, we must be very careful, and we must be very clear, lest we produce, as it were, in our enthusiasm false births, in our desire—a genuine desire—to see lives transformed.

Now, I said that I would give another approach, but I'm not going to give that other approach, at least not this evening. What I want to give to you are these three further questions, which I have found so helpful since I got them from Leith Samuel. And you may have read Little's How to Give Away Your Faith, and he got them from Leith Samuel as well.

And Leith Samuel was the pastor of Above Bar Church in Southampton, greatly used of God as a pastor and an amazing evangelist, especially amongst the student population. Leith Samuel says that once he has shared the gospel in this way, whatever his method of presentation, however he has got across these essential truths, there are three questions which he has used, which he has found tremendously helpful. Question number one is this, that when you reach that point of the conversation where the guy is starting to look out the window, or the lady is looking down and wondering if she can find an excuse to leave, or just what to do, or she may be deeply convicted, and she doesn't have an angle from which to go on, ask this question, Have you personally trusted Jesus Christ, or are you still on the way? It's a useful question, because it allows the opportunity to answer in the affirmative or in the negative. It's not a threatening question, because the individual may choose to say, Actually, I'm still on the way. They may say, I'm grateful for you sharing this.

I never heard this before in my life. And it's a helpful question, because it defines Christian as one who has personally trusted Jesus Christ and may well produce the answer, Yeah, I'm still on the way. Question two, How far along the way are you? And it may well be that at this point is the point of great need for sensitivity. Because often when we share our faith, when the Spirit of God has done his work, when the door of opportunity has opened up, it will be at that point that the onslaught of the evil one is greatest. For he is just about to witness another of his fans ushered in to the kingdom of Christ, and all hell breaks loose in those moments. The telephone rings, the dog tears up the linoleum in the kitchen, the lights fall over, a guy reverses into your office wall.

Who knows what it is? Don't be surprised at anything that happens in that moment. Be prepared for it.

And if you have friends who are observing what's going on, always be praying in those circumstances. But when you ask the question, How far along the way are you? It is at that point that you may find the opportunity comes and the necessity comes to deal with real difficulties in people's lives.

In my experience, it's often at that point that for no apparent reason they will start to talk about their father or about their sister who was drowned or about someone that they'd known or about something that happened to them in their life. You're at the very epicenter of the individual soul, as it were. And loved ones, in that moment, we need to be hypersensitive to the prompting of the Spirit of God and to his wisdom that we may not stumble in like some kind of spiritual obstetrician who's more content to produce babies than he is to be sensitive to the condition of the mother. But the individual may well say, you know, Well, I'm at the point where I'd love to go home and think about it. And then you want to be prepared to say, Well, that's fine and well, but I want you to know that the Bible always speaks in the present tense. And I want you to know I say that not to threaten you, not to press you, but because we never know when the opportunity will ever come again, when the door of our hearts may be swinging open, when our souls are open to the Word of Christ.

We never know that we may be able to reproduce this exact moment over again. So if you must leave, then that's fine. And then I would give them a booklet to take, encourage them to pray in the privacy of their own home, encourage them to call me if I might help them, encourage them in any way at all. And then the third question is, if the individual says, Well, I believe that I'm far along the way. You're not the first person who told me this. It's at that point you hear individuals that you never expected hearing it from.

Guys in your office will tell you, You know what? My grandmother used to tell me stuff like this. Friends will say, You know, my brother is actually like you. You know, my sister's involved in a student ministry at university, and funnily enough, she wrote to me just six weeks ago, and she said, You know, John, I would that you would turn your life over to Jesus Christ. And suddenly you know that your steps are ordered of the Lord. And you would ask the third question, Would you like to become a real Christian and be sure of it? Loved ones, in those moments, it's like you ought to take your shoes off, because you're standing on holy ground. It's in these moments that all our slick methodology hits the wall. It's in those moments that God alone can do what we are unable to do. And when the answer to that question is, Yes, I would like to become a real Christian, then go right back to point number four, under the response of man, and lead them through clearly concerning admitting sin, believing in Christ, and then add another one, counting the cost.

Make it as difficult as possible for them to become a Christian. You say, What? Yeah? I had a young man come here Sunday after Sunday. We used to meet and talk together. The first day he came to talk to me, he was really angry with me because of his religious background, and he told me that I was a number of things that are unmentionable. The second time he came to talk to me, he backed off a little bit on that. And he used to come every so often on a Sunday evening and say, I think I might become a Christian tonight. And I used to say to him, You're not ready yet. Go home.

And he used to stop and say, Why is that? I said, Because the night that you become a Christian, you must become a Christian. You won't be able to go home till you give your life to Jesus Christ. And that night came, not under my ministry, but under the ministry of another in the area.

And he and his little wife, who was invited to a guest service by one of our fellowship, who came and heard the gospel, who became a Christian, who brought our boyfriend, are today happily married and faithfully involved in a church in the south. But make them count the cost. Ask them if they're ready for a revolution. Ask them if they're prepared to say no to sin, to say no to self, and to say no to secrecy. Remember what Jesus did with the rich, young ruler.

He sent him away sorrowful, for one thing stood between him and an experience of faith. Admit sin, believe in Jesus, count the cost, and then get down on your knees with them and say, Why don't we pray together and lead them to Jesus Christ? And then get down on your knees just as Andrew did his brother. There may be somebody here tonight. In fact, I've been praying to that end as I speak, as I've been sharing how we might share the gospel with someone. I have actually been sharing the gospel with you. Can I ask you tonight, have you trusted in Jesus Christ as your personal Savior, or are you still on the way?

Can I ask you, how far along the way are you? Can I ask you, would you like to trust Jesus Christ as your Savior tonight, become a Christian, and know for sure? Then let's bow together in prayer. The kind of prayer that we might lead another in, that we might use ourselves tonight if we find ourselves spoken to by God in this study to enable us to speak to others. I remember I took my friends to a Billy Graham crusade in Leeds to get them saved, and God allowed me to take them there, but he had me take them there to sort me out, not them.

It may be that there are some tonight learning a methodology who have never met the Master. What might we pray? We might pray like this. Dear Lord Jesus, I admit that I am a helpless sinner before you.

I've tried to clean up my act so many times, and I fail. I believe that the Bible is true when it says that you are the Savior for my sin. I've considered the revolution that will come should I close with your offer of salvation. And I ask you to come, forgive me, enable me to turn from sin and to turn in faith to you. Fill me with your Holy Spirit. Give me a desire for your word. Give me a desire to share good news with others.

Number me amongst those who are your own. And the Bible encourages us to believe that when we cry in those kinds of ways to God, that he does save, that he does fulfill his promise, and that he will keep us. Freely, freely we have received. Therefore freely and freely may we give. For we pray in Jesus' name.

Amen. You're listening to Alistair Begg on Truth for Life. As we share our faith with others, we need to keep in mind the importance of taking the next steps after someone trusts Christ. We have a new discipleship course from Truth for Life that we think will be a great help. It's called The Basics of the Christian Faith. This is a course designed to guide you and someone else or a small group step by step through the core Christian beliefs. There's a workbook available for each person. Each week, you listen to a message from Alistair, and then you get together to talk about what you've learned.

All of the teaching is done by Alistair. You simply soak it in and lead through the discussion. There are 13 lessons in total. Each includes a passage of scripture to read. Each week, you both listen to a message from Alistair on a topic that is foundational to Christianity. The Basics of the Christian Faith is a concise study.

It's an easy way for you to more fully understand the grace of Jesus. You can purchase a pair of workbooks together at our cost of just $16 online at truthforlife.org evangelism. And if you're finding yourself saying, I don't know if I'm ready to talk with someone one-on-one about the gospel, you can still take part in Jesus' great commission to take the gospel to the ends of the earth by becoming a Truth Partner. Truth for Life Truth Partners give monthly. They decide the amount of their donation, and it is their generosity that makes this daily program possible. And it makes it possible for us to offer excellent biblical resources at our cost or even for free. So if you have benefited from the resources and the teaching you hear on Truth for Life, would you think about maybe paying it forward today? You can become a global evangelist when you join this essential team of Truth Partners.

The number to call is 888-588-7884 or you can easily sign up online at truthforlife.org slash truthpartner. When you do, we'll say thank you by offering you a copy of the book Confronting Jesus, Nine Encounters with the Hero of the Gospel. This is a book from Rebecca McLaughlin. Given that Jesus is central to the good news we aim to share, this book explores nine characteristics of Christ. It's a great supplement to our current study in evangelism. As you read this book you'll be better prepared to explain who Jesus is and why we can trust in his saving power. Request your copy when you join the Truth Partner team or when you give a one-time donation at truthforlife.org slash donate. I'm Bob Lapine. We hope you have a wonderful weekend. Monday we'll learn how to deal with the difficult questions that often arise when we're talking with others about the Gospel. The Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life where the Learning is for Living.