Effective Evangelism

How Can We Be More Effective in Evangelism?

While not much has been announced as of yet, the elders have determined to emphasize the role of evangelism in the congregation, and to execute their plan, we will be having an evangelism class this summer to prepare for our “Fishers of Men” class this fall. Moreover, our lectureship begins this weekend, and because our theme centers on questions that non-Christian seekers are often asking, we can utilize this format to accommodate our need and joy to share the gospel with others.

Why do we often fail in evangelism? Reasons could include fear of embarrassment (as opposed to shame of Christ) and fear of resentment, rejection and controversy. In addition, we very often assume that people will not be interested before we even ask—by so doing, we overlook some who may be interested that we misjudge. Finally, we as Christians need to convince ourselves in the power of the gospel and the condition of lost souls. What are some practical ways of being more effective in evangelism? First, we need to find a method that suits our talent. According to Jesus, we all have at least one talent (Matt. 25:14-30). I know that the word “talent” indicates a financial term, but the Bible is clear that God has given us all abilities (at least one ability) to carry out the mission of the church—to preach and teach the gospel to those who are lost (Luke 19:10; Matt. 28:19; Mark 16:15). Therefore, we must begin by searching inwardly to see what abilities we have that match well with evangelism. If we are outgoing individuals, then conducting Bible studies will not be difficult. If we are shy, then we may want to become involved in things such as distributing and grading Bible correspondence courses, distributing tracts and such like that involve less personal contact. If we love to be sociable, then we may use our abilities of hospitality to focus on evangelistic efforts. Whatever ability we may have, we need to get busy and use it for evangelistic causes!

Second, we need to revive our enthusiasm for Christianity. The psalmist declared it best: “Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation; and uphold me with thy free spirit. Then will I teach transgressors thy ways; and sinners shall be converted unto thee” (Ps. 51:12-13). We need to radiate with a joy of salvation! When people in the world who are facing problems of every nature see the true joy and contentment of the Christian life, they will want to know what makes the difference!

Finally, we need to demonstrate Christianity at its finest! The apostle Peter makes a powerful statement concerning the non-Christian husbands of Christian wives: “… they may without the word be gained by the behavior of their wives” (1 Pet. 3:1 ASV). Evangelism can take place by simply demonstrating the fruit of the Spirit (cf. Gal. 5:22-23). This will take an exhibition of the change that God has made in our lives (Rom. 12:1-2). I hope that these practical points will help all of us to become more evangelistic, and may God bless our efforts to sow the seed of the kingdom!

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Popularity Contest

The Pharisees desperately wanted to be popular during Jesus’ time on earth. They were fond of the nice seats in the synagogues. They loved the wealth that their students gave them. They enjoyed making a show of their prayers. They delighted in binding their man‐made traditions on those whom they could get to follow them (Matt. 23). Oh, how they loved to be popular! When Jesus appeared on the scene, their popularity was threatened. They wanted so badly to look good that they killed the Son of God in order to retain their status and fame.

More and more, it seems, religious groups are exhibiting a desire to be popular like the Pharisees. It seems as though every week I hear of a different religion receiving “revelations,” finding a hidden passage, or blatantly changing doctrine so that they can fit into popular culture. I can see how this would be possible since many are man-made religions. But those that profess to be Christian are destroying the teachings that Christ and the apostles stood for in their quest to be popular. Just like the Pharisees, they will do whatever they can to gain a following. Jesus rightly quoted Isaiah in Mark 7:6-7 when He said “…This people honors Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me. 7 And in vain they worship Me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.”

On the other hand, some eccentric churches establish terrible traditions to ensure that they are hated. They think that the more people dislike them, the better they are serving Christ in seeming correlation to John 15:19. Sadly these people are confused as well.

We as followers of Christ should not be concerned with popular opinion. We should be concerned about Christ’s truth! We should seek to please Him, not men. When others had been delivering a perverted and changed gospel, Paul explained why he taught the true gospel: “For do I now persuade men, or God? Or do I seek to please men? For if I still pleased men, I would not be a bondservant of Christ. 11 But I make known to you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached by me is not according to man” (Gal. 1:10–‐11). The gospel given to him was from Christ (v. 12)!

The world thinks that we should change Christ’s doctrine for the sake of people and popularity. Whatever happened to changing our lives to match Christ’s doctrine (1 Cor. 6:9-11; Gal. 2:20)?

Brethren – in all things we need to do what’s right! Not what will tickle people’s ears.

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God’s Promises

God’s Promises: Eternal Life, a Crown and Rest

There is one thing which our God has never done—He has never told a lie. Because every promise He has ever made is certain, we can build our lives knowing that He has never told a lie and He cannot tell one (Tit. 1:2)! When you read the Bible, just remember that the promises in it are from the One who has always kept His promises.

Promises are future until He fulfills them. He promised Abraham that his descendants would be oppressed in a foreign land but would come out with great substance. When the Jews left Egypt, it was devastated. There were no crops—the locusts had destroyed them. There were no cattle—the fifth plague had killed them. There was little silver and gold—the Egyptians had given their jewelry to Israel. God had promised it, then waited 400 years and fulfilled His promises. He gave them all He promised (Josh. 21:43-45).

He has promised us eternal life. When we become Christians, God promises us that we will never die. “And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die” (John 11:26). We have eternal life, but it is conditional. We must keep living in Him and believing in Him. Hebrews 10:23 describes it as the “hope of eternal life.”  Paul describes hope in these words, “Hope that is seen is not hope; for why does one still hope for what He sees” (Rom. 8:24). Eternal life is promised to us but we must “hold fast . . . without wavering” (Heb. 10:23). We will receive the promise “after we have done His will” (Heb. 10:36).

He has promised us a crown of life. “Blessed is the man who endures temptation; for when he has been approved, he will receive the crown of life which the Lord has promised to those who love Him” (James 1:12). Look at it carefully. We must endure and be approved, then we shall receive the crown.

He has promised us a rest. Hebrews chapters three and four show how those who left Egypt failed to receive the rest prepared for them since the foundation of the world. Later, David urged the people of his day to seek that rest (Psalm 91 as quoted in Hebrews 3). God had the rest prepared, but neither Jews of Moses’ day nor those of David’s day received it. They had the Sabbath, but not the rest which remains. This is why chapter four urges us to recognize the promise of rest lies before us (v. 1) and must keep believing (v. 4) and keep laboring to enter into it (v. 11). The rest that remains for us is future. We have the promise of it, but it lies before us.

God, who cannot lie, has promised us eternal life, a crown and eternal rest. Heaven awaits us. “Let us hold fast the confession of our faith without wavering” (Heb. 10:23). It is ours! It is as certain as the promises of He who cannot lie!

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The Abundant Life

What sort of life do you want to live? Many people would respond to this question by saying something in the fashion of: “I want to live a good, fulfilling life that has meaning and purpose!” This would be a life that offered its share of challenges, no doubt, but would reward the person with a maximum of self-satisfaction, peace, love, and joy and a minimum of self-doubt, guilt, and despair. But where can you find this kind of life? Some in the world say that it can be found through the acquisition of much secular learning and study of philosophy. Others claim that it is reserved for the wealthy and the famous. Some will even maintain that it can be discovered only after completing some great deed or self-sacrificing work. Solomon, the wise king of Israel and son of David, searched for the meaning of life. Like many in the world, he thought it could be found in secular knowledge, wealth, pleasure, or work. He pursued the things in life that supposedly provided “meaning,” “peace of mind,” and “happiness” and discovered, to his great frustration and disappointment, that they all came up empty. They were all found wanting! Solomon could find neither meaning nor satisfaction in the pursuit of knowledge. Rather, he learned that: “For in much wisdom is much grief, And he who increases knowledge increases sorrow” (Ecclesiastes 1:18) [NKJV]. Neither could he find what he was looking for in wealth, possessions, pleasures, or great accomplishments. In Ecclesiastes 2:11, he reports: “Then I looked on all the works that my hands had done and on the labor in which I had toiled; And indeed all was vanity and grasping for the wind. There was no profit under the sun.”

Don’t we see this in the world today? People hope to find happiness and satisfaction in their quest for material wealth, fame, and notoriety and yet end up miserable and frustrated. They then turn to various things to ease their pain and disappointment. Sadly, their problems only get worse. They turn to drugs and become addicted. They turn to alcohol and become alcoholics. They may even bury themselves in their secular work and become “workaholics.” None of these things provide the answer.

Eventually, Solomon came to the correct and wise conclusion concerning the true meaning of life. He concluded that one’s true purpose was to: “Fear God and keep His commandments, For this is man’s all” (Ecclesiastes 12:13). God, our Creator, knows what is best for us and how we can have a life of happiness and fulfillment. We just need to recognize our Maker and obey His will. We need to follow His paths! Solomon’s earthly father, the psalmist David, stated it very well in Psalm 16:11, “You will show me the path of life; In your presence is fullness of joy; At your right hand are pleasures forevermore.”

In His great love, God gave us His Son Jesus Christ who came to this world to offer us salvation. Through Christ, and only through Him, can we have a proper relationship with God the Father and a life filled with true meaning and purpose (John 14:6). Christ offers us an “abundant” life. He states in John 10:10, “…I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.” This word “abundantly” is translated from the Greek term PERISSOS which means: “superabundant or …superior.” (1) In Christ, we do not just merely exist or survive. We live a better life, a happier life! We live a “superior” life of a quality that is so far above and so far exceeds anything that this sinful world can offer. And unlike many in this world, we know why we are here and how we are to properly live this life. Let us praise God for the wonderful blessing of His Son Jesus and the abundant life that we can have in Him!

References
(1) James Strong, A Concise Dictionary Of The Words In The Greek Testament, in Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance Of The Bible (Peabody, Massachusetts: Hendrickson Publishers, 1990), 57.  Used by permission.  All rights reserved.

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King Jesus

Scripturally speaking, the “church” and the “Kingdom” are synonyms for the same institution. Those today who refuse to accept, acknowledge, and respect the church of Christ (Romans 16:16), which is Christ’s Kingdom (Matthew 16:18-19), precisely as King Jesus established it through His handpicked apostles (John 14:15-23; Acts 2:1-4, 37-47; 2nd Peter 1:20-21; John 17:6-17) as recorded from Acts 2 through Revelation 22, are rebelling against what King Jesus Himself decreed, and thus against His Lordship and complete authority (Matthew 28:18-20; Colossians 1:11-23), and therefore, against the King Himself. (It is simply absurd to believe that it is possible to rebel outright against what any king has decreed, and still be considered as loyal to that king – see Daniel 3 & 6!) Their rejection of Christ’s divine decrees and all-out authority is extremely similar to what God’s Old Testament people desired and eventually did as recorded in 1st Samuel 8:4-19, and the end result for today’s rebellious children will be no less severe.

While Israel’s leadership (1st Samuel 8:4) wanted to be like “…all the other nations…” (vs. 5) around them, instead of following God’s established pattern (and thus honoring Him as God), any of today’s more liberal church of Christ leadership that wants to be like all the other denominations around them with instrumental music, expanded “in the assembly” female leadership roles, salvation supposedly occurring before and/or even without baptism, and fellowshipping the Biblically unimmersed and unsaved instead of lovingly and scripturally leading them to the Truth, have rejected Jesus Christ as their King just as surely as the Jews rejected God as their King (vs. 7). And all of them will suffer at the hands of the God they’ve rejected, in ways that we cannot even begin to imagine (vs. 18, also see 2nd Peter 2, Hebrews 10:26-31).

One of the key phrases utilized continually by today’s rebelling children, is how they “…just want to be followers of Jesus;” a statement which they seemingly have absolutely no clue about how to implement in their lives. They want the head (which is Christ), without the body, which is His church (Ephesians 1:22-23); and a headless body is dead no matter how you look at it! But what would you expect from a group of self-titled  “change agents,” when the Bible clearly and specifically says that neither God, His Son, nor His word are open to or subject to change of any kind (Malachi 3:6; Hebrews 13:8; Psalm 119:89)? That is probably why, for those who wish to stay faithful to almighty God, His only begotten Son, and His divinely-inspired Word, God goes so far as to even directly and divinely warn them to, “fear the Lord,” and to “not associate with those given to change; for their calamity will rise suddenly, and who knows the ruin [that] can bring” (Proverbs 24:21-22)? (For a very frightening, parallel, side by side comparison of the apostate leaders of Jeremiah’s day who were blatantly leading God’s people then astray, with our simply updated version of their modern-day counterparts and cousins today known as the “change-agents,” please see http://www.clevelandcoc.com/?page_id=148.

Scripturally, to truly follow Christ, one must walk as He did: 1st John 2:3-6. So, how did He walk?

-In obedience to God’s Commands (1 John 2:3).

-In obedience to God’s Truth (1 John 2:4; see also John 17:17).

-With God’s will as the one true sustenance and most important consideration in His life (John 4:31-34).

-Pleasing God instead of Himself (John 5:30).

-Doing God’s will (John 6:38) no matter the cost or consequences (Matthew 26:36-44).

-Teaching only what God decreed (John 7:16-18, 8:28-29; 2nd Peter 1:20-22; 2nd Timothy 3:16-4:4), exactly as God wanted (John 14:30-31).

Scripturally, that is precisely, exactly, and exclusively what those who are truly following Jesus are to do: Matthew 7:21-23, 12:50; Luke 12:47; John 14:15-23. For anyone to claim to follow Jesus, and yet teach anything other than what God decreed in His Word, or worse still, to teach those things which counteract and/or contradict any part of it, are, according to God Himself, “hypocrites,” “liars,” and “hypocritical liars”- God’s words, not mine: Matthew 15:7-9; John 8:42-47; 1st John 2:3-6; 1st Timothy 4:1-3. And God says that their worship is in vain; Matthew 15:3-14.

The questions we must answer are: Who is truly our King? Who are we really following? Who will be King in the congregation we currently serve in years to come? Who will our children be following when we’re gone?  We need to decide individually not only where we are, but where we’re going to be down the road. Will Jesus still be King in our congregations when we’re no longer around? Each one of us must personally accept the God-given responsibility to see that He is.

We also need to decide whether or not we truly have the Christian love, strength, and concern for any and all of our oft times zealous but sometimes still biblically ignorant and/or uninformed brethren (Romans 10:1-3), who are being unwittingly led astray by their own immediate religious leadership (Jeremiah, chapters 5 and 6, which are a must-see), to seek to help them back onto the straight and narrow (Matthew 7:13-23) if possible; because if we don’t have it, then we’d better question our own convictions and obedience, and repent (See Jude 12-19, which has to do with them; and then verses 20-23 which has to do with us).

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