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06.22.08

12th Sunday in Ordinary Time

SERMON SERIES: THE WORK OF THE CHURCH

PART 3: EVANGELISM

ISAIAH 52:7-10; 1 CORINTHIANS 9:19-23

• Proclaiming the Good News
• Needs-based Evangelism
• “Most of the growing churches across America can define their growth in terms of their ability to meet the real needs of persons in our society.”
• This is the basic premise Robert D. Pierson presents in his book, Needs-Based Evangelism: Becoming a Good Samaritan Church
• Using the parable of the Good Samaritan as the model for the church’s ministry, Pierson presents a compelling argument about how ministering to the needs of real people in our community will help the church attain the five core values of the church that Jesus defined in the Great Commandments and the Great Commission
• Those core values are worship, ministry, evangelism, fellowship and discipleship
• Each of these core values is interconnected and one leads naturally into the other
• In order for the church to be effective in fulfilling the purpose God has established for it and the mission Jesus gave to the church, these core values must be at the center of everything the church does
• The purpose of worship is to glorify God—to give our unending thanks and praise to God for all that God has done for us
• As we worship God, we pledge our love to God with all of our heart, soul strength, and mind
• And as we surrender our total being to God in worship, we begin to hear God’s word and understand God’s will for our lives
• Worship, then, prepares us for ministry—it equips us to leave this place where we gather for worship and go out into the world to express our love for God by loving others as we love ourselves
• And we express that love through action, by ministering to the practical needs of others, serving Jesus Christ in our ministry
• Ministry and Evangelism
• The third core value of the church is given in the first eight words of Jesus’ Great Commission: “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations.” (Matthew 28:19)
• In these words, Jesus declares that evangelism is a critical part of the work of the church, and evangelism is a natural outgrowth of loving God with all of our being and loving neighbors as ourselves
• If the love of God has truly taken hold of us and we genuinely seek to express that love in our relationship to others, it’s only natural that we‘ll want to share with them the good news of God’s love for us as it is expressed in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus
• The word “evangelist” means “messenger,” so the church is called (and so are each of us who are part of the church) to be the messenger of God
• As Rick Warren says in The Purpose-Driven Church, “The church exists to communicate God’s word…Evangelism is more than our responsibility; it is our great privilege.  We are invited to be a part of bringing people into God’s eternal family…As long as there is one person in the world who does not know Christ, the church has a mandate to keep growing.  Growth is not optional; it is commanded by Jesus.  We should not seek church growth for our own benefit, but because God wants people saved.”
• Granted, evangelism has become kind of a dirty word in many mainline churches today
• That’s because so many of us have experienced the Bible-thumping, pushy, “I’m right and you’re wrong” approach to evangelism that is literally intended to “scare the hell” out of people
• While that type of evangelism may have worked in the past, (quite ineffectively, I might add) that approach will not work today
• The alternative to dragging people kicking and screaming into the kingdom of God is loving them into the kingdom of God
• What moves people today to listen to and respond to the message of the gospel is honest and genuine expressions of love
• In the postmodern era in which we live, rational arguments have run their course
• In response to our rational arguments, our current younger generations respond, “So what? Why should I believe that?  What difference will it make in my life?”
• What they are looking for is genuineness and sincerity in our commitment
• They need to see that faith can actually change the way we live
• They aren’t looking for rational arguments; they’re looking for meaningful relationships—relationships genuinely based in love
• In a recent survey among college students, the majority of the respondents, while they had a high regard for Jesus, believe that Christians have corrupted Jesus’ teachings
• Many of them go so far as to say that they have never met a true Christian
• Loving people into the kingdom of God is far more effective than scaring people into the kingdom of God
• We express the love of God for people as we identify and meet the needs in people’s lives
• Ministry and evangelism go hand in hand
• As we genuinely respond to people’s needs, we express in our actions the love of God
• As others experience that love through the meeting of their needs, they are more likely open to hearing the good news of Jesus and accepting him as their Savior
• Returning to Pierson’s book, Pierson says, “One of the tragedies of Christians today is that so often we provide help but never tell about the love of God.  We give food to the homeless and never share with them the joy and the personal growth that comes from knowing the power of God in our lives.  We offer a senior citizen program and provide exercise classes for the aging and yet we never give them an invitation or opportunity to be a part of Sunday School classes and prayer groups and worship services.  We have become apologetic about evangelism, and, consequently our care is superficial and, in most cases, it seems hypocritical.  When people do not respect those who are helping, they show that disrespect in their rejection of the ideas and institutions of those who help.  Helping is an opportunity to show love…When help and evangelism are brought together, love and care become one and the same, and people come to know Christ through the caring ministries of the church.”
• The church must respond to the needs of people, and while doing so, we must also share the motivation for our help—we love others because Jesus loves us
• Through our ministry of caring we must also take advantage of the opportunities ministry brings to share with others our faith in Jesus
• Effective Evangelism
• God’s Call to be Evangelists
• Isaiah 52:7-10 is God’s call to Israel to be evangelists
• As God spoke these words to Israel, the people of Israel were in captivity in Babylon
• The verses just prior to our reading contain God’s call to “get ready”
• God is about to redeem them from their captivity, and their responsibility was to proclaim to the world the Good News of God’s redemption
• They were to proclaim to the world how God acted on their behalf to save them from their sin
• The good news is that salvation has come, and they are called to proclaim God’s blessing to all
• As the passage continues, the excitement builds
• Watchmen join in the song as they witness the coming of God
• Then the ruins of Jerusalem sing for joy
• The ruins may be the bricks and mortar of the buildings of Jerusalem that had been destroyed, but the ruins may also refer to the people themselves whose lives have been devastated by sin
• The Lord has come to bring them comfort and salvation
• In all of this, God reveal’s God’s might--“The Lord will lay bare his holy arm in the sight of all the nations.”
• Through the salvation of Israel, all the nations of the earth will see God’s strength, for salvation is not reserved for Israel alone, it is for everyone
• God works through God’s people to bring hope to the world
• As Israel was called to be evangelists, so is God’s church called today
• Being Angels to Others
• The root of the word “evangelist” is “evangel,” a word often used in the Bible for “angel”
• In fact, in the middle of the word “evangelist” we find the word “angel”
• So the work of an evangelist is the holy work of being an angel to others
• The work of angels is described in various places throughout the Bible
• The work of an angel is to deliver a message and reveal God’s will to others, as Gabriel delivered God’s message and revealed God’s will that Mary was chosen to be the mother of Jesus
• The work of an angel is to provide protection—Psalm 91:11-12
• The work of an angel is to minister to the needs of others—Hebrews 1:14 and Matthew 4:11
• These are the tasks we are to perform as we proclaim the good news to others
• We are called to be angels to others
• The question is, “How do we do that?  How can we be angels to others?”
• The apostle Paul gives us the clearest example of how to be effective evangelists
• Paul was the most effective evangelist in the history of the Christian Church, leading more people to faith in Christ than anyone else
• The book of Acts tells the stories of his missionary journeys and tells us how he shared the good news with the Philippian jailer, how he preached to the dispersed Jews in Antioch, to a pagan crowd in Lystra, and to the highly educated people of Athens
• It also tells how Paul provided a defense of his faith in front of a Jewish mob in Jerusalem after his arrest, and shared the story of his faith in front of the Roman governor, Festus, and Agrippa, the Emperor of Rome
• These are just a few of the many examples of the opportunities Paul had to share his faith, and everywhere Paul preached, his words were effective
• People would respond in faith and trust Jesus as their Savior
• Paul gives us the key to his effectiveness in 1 Corinthians 9:22: “I have become all things to all people so that by all possible means I might save some.”
• The key to Paul’s effectiveness was his dedicated flexibility
• He was willing to take risks and move beyond his cultural base
• To the Jew he was a Jew; to the Gentile, a Gentile; to the slave, a slave; to the rich he was rich; to the poor he was poor
• In other words, he was willing to adapt to his listeners
• He knew his audience and he knew their needs, and he was able to separate the essentials from the nonessentials in the proclamation of the gospel without compromising the message
• Paul was neither compromising nor rigid
• One who easily compromises does not know where to stand, and Paul knew very clearly where he stood and refused to compromise on the truth of the gospel
• One who is rigid does not know where to bend, yet Paul, while firm in his convictions, was flexible enough to relate the gospel to everyone
• He was not locked into tradition or the dictates of his Jewish culture
• He knew this gospel was for everyone, so he took the time to know and understand people, and he applied the gospel effectively to people’s needs
• The 21st century church would do well to learn the lessons for effective evangelism that Paul practiced
• Sadly, the church finds security in cultural rigidity
• We find comfort in time-honored traditions, familiar structures, and well-traveled paths
• The way we’ve always done it is the only way to do it
• But locking ourselves into the past restricts the power of the Holy Spirit, who is ever working to lead us in new and exciting ways
• The Spirit constantly calls us and challenges us to leave the past behind, to take risks, to be open to surprise
• The message of the gospel is as much for the people of the 21st century as it was for the people of the first century
• Our challenge is to find new and exciting ways to communicate it as we minister to the needs of others and touch and change people’s lives as we share with them the love of God