Don’t Call it Personal Evangelism

Introduction

Morning. I’d also like to welcome our visitors. If you are looking for a church home, we’d love to talk with you. In that regard, I want you to know I’m not the regular preacher. And as Scott said, tonight we’re starting a four special four-part series with Jonathan Banning, who is a regular preacher. He couldn’t make it this morning, so the elders thought that this would be a good time for one of us to bring a lesson about our goal, our motto for the year. And so that’s that’s me.

So John reminded me this morning that the last time I preached, I met I announced that my sermon would take 24 minutes. And he said I came in at 23 and a half. And then he asked me how long it was going to take this morning, and I said, Well, the last times I ran the last two times I ran through it was 24 minutes. So apparently I can’t preach a lesson other than 24 minutes. So anyhow, hang in there. I’m calling this don’t call it personal evangelism, and I’ll explain about that in a minute. you know, our theme for the year is go therefore and make disciples. And notice the operative word go. it’s not an option, it’s a command, and it’s something each one of us is responsible for doing.

So, how many lessons have you heard over the year from the pulpit about personal evangelism or personal work? Or how many lessons or classes have you seen offered on personal work that only a handful of people show up for? and what have the what have been the results of those lessons or classes? Maybe you’ve heard. I could approach this any number of ways. I could talk about having a wrong view of the church, which is manifested by the thinking that the church becomes an agency that hires someone to do the work of personal evangelism. Or the church exists for the sole purpose of serving its members. Or it exists only when it assembles. Now we all know none of those are correct views of the Bible.

Or we could discuss a lack of understanding of individual responsibilities, or a failure to understand that the success of the local church demands individual effort.

I’m sure you’ve heard lessons on all those kind of things. So what can I say that would be any different than anything you’ve heard in the past? What I want to do this morning is maybe change our perspective. When someone mentions the term personal evangelism or personal work, that often elicits a number of responses.

1. Building Relationships

So let’s say you meet someone new. What’s the first thing that you do? Maybe it’s a co-worker or a schoolmate or a neighbor. You introduce yourself, right? And then if you’re like me, you ask them to repeat their name three or four times so you will remember it in five minutes. But you start asking questions to get to know this person, right? Are you married? You know, do you live in the area? you know, how many kids do you have? Maybe if you’re in school, you ask what their classes are. You know, you start getting to know this person to try to build a relationship. There’s lots of questions you can ask. The point is for us to be genuinely interested in other people. And as time goes on, the questions get deeper, possibly.

You know, you may ask what their hobbies are, you may ask, you know, other things that would give you more insight into who this person is and help you get to know them better. isn’t that how friendships develop? and shouldn’t a spiritual question be at the top of the list once we have gained someone’s trust? Maybe you already have a relationship like that with someone and you’ve never broached the subject of Jesus or the Bible or God, maybe this is the time. I’m sure almost everyone here has close relationships with people that aren’t members of the Lord’s church. So when George, the guy who taught us the gospel, meets someone new, his first thing to do is to ignore their lifestyle or their habits or their appearance.

2. George: A Soul That Needs Saving

He doesn’t have and don’t we sometimes do that? Don’t we sometimes make judgments on people based upon their appearance or their lifestyle or their habits? You know, why don’t we let them decide? To George, when he meets someone new, this is a soul that needs saving. And then he starts thinking about what is the best approach for me to develop a relationship with this person. He doesn’t have a cookie cutter formula because every person’s different, every person’s in a different place. And he’s converted a lot of people this way. so let’s look at some examples. I’m gonna start with a personal one and then two from the Bible. So Jackie and I. I’m not gonna tell our whole story, probably at least three-fourths of you have heard that one or two times or more, but I am gonna talk about how George developed a relationship.

And by the way, I forgot to say I’m calling this building relationships, in case you didn’t see. So he looks at this as a soul that needs saving. And so Jackie and I, when I had a job at the time that required me to do a lot of entertaining. In fact, I was graded by my company. I was in sales, I was graded by my company, believe it or not, on how much money I spent on entertaining. In other words, I had to develop relationships, and so we lived near San Francisco, there were a ton of really good restaurants, there were plays that came there right off of Broadway and things like that. So, for in order for me to spend enough money, I would invite a customer and his wife out with Jackie and I, and we’d go eat at a nice restaurant or we’d go to a play or something like that.

So we often needed a babysitter. we just had one small child at the time, and we needed a babysitter. And I won’t tell the story about how we got that babysitter, it’s another whole story having to do with God’s providence. But she happened to be a member, a daughter of a member of the Lord’s church. So whenever I went to pick Lisa up, of course, I was invited into their home by the parents, George and Ada, while she got ready. And so they started getting to know me. George was a jogger, and he changed his jogging path. He I found out later, he added a mile to his jogging path so he could come by our house on Saturday mornings in the hopes of catching me outside.

Now there’s a pretty good chance he was gonna catch me outside because we had bought a five-piece unfinished wood bedroom set, and I spent every Saturday for months sanding and staining out in the garage. And so there’s a pretty good chance George would catch me outside, which he often did. then he discovered that he that Jackie and I played softball. We were a lot younger then. and then he f and the church had a softball team. So he invited us to join the church softball team. So and let me backtrack too. I meant to say something else about his jogging. Think about that for a minute. He had to alter his jogging path with not knowing if what he was doing was gonna bear any fruit or not.

You know, he was he was committed to trying to develop this relationship. So anyway, he found out we played softball, he invited us to join the softball team. So what he would have had to do is tell the and he didn’t play golf and he didn’t play softball, so he could have said, Oh, I don’t have anything in common with these people, but he didn’t. He looked for other people that maybe had something in common with us. So the softball team. He would have had to tell people on the church softball team, I’ve invited two strangers to come and play, which means two of you are gonna have to sit down. and then he discovered that I played golf. The preacher and his brother played golf every Saturday morning, so he set me up with him.

So he was building multiple relationships, not just his own. so when the day came and it took months for him where he thought, it was probably six months or more, where he thought we were at the point of broaching the Bible, he called me up. We had a relationship at that point, right? I trusted him because I got to know him very well. I knew exactly what he was doing when he called me one day and said, I would like to see if you and Jackie are interested in previewing a film strip series on the Bible. Now I’m s I know most of you don’t know what a film strip is, but if you Google old technology, it might show up. and so I knew exactly what he was doing.

Yeah, you know, and even though I saw through his approach, I trusted him and I knew him. And so, you know, when I hung up the phone and agreed to preview this film strip series, I told Jackie, George wants us to join his church. but that didn’t matter, right? I knew what he was, I knew what he was doing, but again, like I said, we already had a relationship. And so and kids, I want to tell you that during all this time, Lisa, our babysitter, who was 11 years old, every single time we hired her, she invited us to services. That’s all she knew. She just knew to invite people. She knew that we already had another church. She knew that you know, she wasn’t put off by the fact that we were adults.

She just kept asking. Even though, you know, we there weren’t any visible signs that we were going to respond. But back to George. So the point is you can enlist help in building relationships. Find something out about someone that you know a member here is good at or into and introduce them. Enlist their help. I’ve been pulled into many Bible studies by people who have a relationship with someone, but they’re not comfortable, you know, conducting the Bible study themselves. And I’m sure some of you have as well. And I know many of you have done that. You’ve invited people to services, you’ve invited people to the Chili Cook-Off or one of the other events that we have to get together to help them meet other people and build other relationships.

3. Four Men Bring Their Friend to Jesus

So let’s look at a biblical example. One you probably wouldn’t think of in this regard. I’m gonna read the story of the healing of the paralytic and mark the second chapter and see if we can make some connections.

Several days afterward, it was heard that he was at home. And many were gathered together so that there was no longer room even at the door. And he was speaking the word to them. And they came, bringing to him a paralytic carried by where was I? Four men. And being unable to get to him because of the crowd, they removed the roof above him. And when they had dug an opening, they let down the pallet on which the paralytic was lying. And Jesus, seeing their faith, said to the paralytic, My son, your sins are forgiven. But there were some of the scribes sitting there and reasoning in their hearts. Why does this man speak that way? He is blasphemy. Who can forgive sins but God alone?

And immediately Jesus, aware in his spirit that they were reasoning that way within themselves, said to them, Why are you reasoning about these things in your hearts? Which is easier to say to the paralytic, your sins are forgiven, or to say, Arise and take up your palate and walk. But in order that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins, he said to the paralytic, I say to you, rise, take up your palate and walk. So consider the four men who brought this paralytic to Jesus. Their mission was to bring their sick friend to Jesus for him to be healed. That’s our mission. Our mission is to bring sin sick people to Jesus for them to be healed.

They worked collectively, they cooperated with each other to achieve their goal. And they invited others to help. There were four of them. It took it took more than just one of them. They worked individually, not one of them gave up or loafed. And they re they worked to remove the obstacles that stood in their way to get this man to Jesus. First it was too crowded to get in. I mean, they could have just turned around, or they could have just waited outside and hoped to catch Jesus, you know, after. But they found another way, right? They got up, they removed the roof, first of all, and then they dug a hole in it. So they were persistent. They were going to find a way to bring this man to Jesus.

They cared enough about this man to let nothing stand in their way. Second biblical example.

4. Philip Was Unprejudiced

I know you know the story, I’m going to read it anyway, because I have to make 24 minutes. So Acts the eighth chapter, starting in verse 15. I’m sorry, verse 25 through verse 39. And so when they had solemnly testified and spoken the word of the Lord, they started back to Jerusalem and were preaching the gospel to many villages of the Samaritans. But an angel of the Lord spoke to Philip, saying, Arise and go south to the road that descends from Jerusalem to Gaza. This is a desert road. And he arose and went. And behold, there was an Ethiopian eunuch, a court official of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, who was in charge of all her treasure. And he had come to Jerusalem to worship.

And he was returning and sitting in his chariot and was reading the prophet Isaiah. And the Spirit said to Philip, Go up and join this chariot. And when Philip had run up, he heard him reading Isaiah the prophet and said, You understand what you are reading. And he said, Well, how could I unless someone guides me? And he invited Philip to come up and sit with him. And now the passage of scripture which he was reading was this. He was led as a sheep to slaughter, and as a lamb before its shearer is silent. So he does not open his mouth. Excuse me, and I’ve been having to clear my throat for weeks, so figured this was going to happen. Sorry.

So in humiliation, his judgment was taken away. Who shall relate his generation? For his life is removed from the earth. And the eunuch answered Philip and said, Please tell me, of whom does the prophet say this? Of himself or of someone else? And Philip opened his mouth, and beginning from this scripture, he preached Jesus to him. Excuse me. And as they went along the road, they came to some water, and the eunuch said, Look, water, what prevents me from being baptized. And Philip said, If you believe with all your heart, you may. And he answered and said, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. And he ordered the chariot to stop. And they both went down into the water, Philip as well as the eunuch, and he baptized him.

And when they had come up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord snatched Philip away, and the eunuch saw him no more, but went on his way, rejoicing. Philip was unprejudiced. I’m sorry.

Just like George. The Ethiopian, although he was a proselyte, was still considered an outcast in the full sense of the word. If you read Deuteronomy 23, verse 1, eunuchs were expressly forbidden from even entering the assembly. Since he was not entirely Jewish, he was in the same category as the Gentiles. And so remember, this is prior to Peter preaching the first sermon to the Gentiles, which is two chapters later in Acts, the tenth chapter. No ordinary Jew would talk to this man about his soul. I mean, consider that it took a miracle for Peter to go speak to Cornelius in the tenth chapter of Acts. Yet, without hesitation, Philip went to teach a Gentile. He ignored his lifestyle, his situation. I realize the Spirit told him to go, but he could have pulled a Jonah and gone the other way.

Instead, he didn’t. He went and talked to this man. And he asked questions. First question he asked him was, do you understand what you are reading? So that was not only an icebreaker question, but it showed real concern. So once you get to the point where you have a solid relationship with someone, what kind of questions can you ask them to gauge their interest in spiritual things? There’s a lot, there are a lot of questions.

5. Just Being an Example? Not Knowing Enough?

You could say, I’ve been meaning to ask you, where do you go to church? If you’re a woman, you could say, We have a women’s weekly Bible study group. I’d like to invite you to come as my guest. You could say, I’m curious, what are your views on the Bible? Is there any number of things you could you could ask? Or you could just do what Lisa did. You could just invite them. Invite them to services. Just don’t ask a yes or no question. So, do you believe in God? Probably not a good question because you want to get them to talk. So let me address two pertinent subjects. What about just being an example? Yes, we need to be examples. The Bible teaches us we need to let our light shine and be an example to other people.

But just being an example and never bringing up Jesus or the Bible, in my opinion, is not enough. Sure, sometimes that works, but don’t we all know a lot of good righteous people who are good examples, but they don’t aren’t members of the Lord’s church? You have to have conversations. You’re gonna have to open your mouth and talk to people. I believe personally, this is a crutch too many of us fall back on, so that we don’t have to actually talk to people. We have to develop relationships. What about not knowing enough? Brothers and sisters, I believe that’s a cop out. What do you need to know? You need to know the five steps of salvation? You need to know where the book of Acts is in the Bible.

If you knew enough to respond to the gospel, that’s all you need to know. Whatever you believed that convinced you to give your life to Jesus. That’s all you need to know. Or again, you can just invite people. And if you get asked a question you don’t know the answer to, that’s your answer. You know, I don’t know the answer to that, but why don’t you and I both study that, and the next time we get together, we can talk about it. People will respect you for saying, I don’t know. And I and I the other thing is the majority of you sitting in here today know more about the Bible than almost anyone you’re going to run into. so where do we go from here?

6. You Have to Have a Plan

Do it maybe we need a class on building relationships. But do we really? I mean, isn’t that what we do every day? when we meet people. You don’t need to be trained how to do that, you just need to be reminded of what the end goal is of every conversation we have. Listen, I understand the term personal evangelism isn’t going away. In fact, Craig’s probably cringing because we have a class he’s going to teach called personal evangelism coming up. All I’m trying to do is help it be less intimidating and maybe change our perspective. So the elders want to provide a tool to help in this regard. A couple of weeks ago, I came across a Bible correspondence course from a church, the Lord’s Church in North Carolina.

So it’s not if you’re not familiar with Bible correspondence courses, it’s no different from any other online course. You sign up for a class, you’re sent questions, you respond, and you’re graded on your answers. excuse me. It’s an easy way to get someone to study the Bible or invite them to study the Bible. So we will be putting these well, we got permission from this church in North Carolina to copy the courses that they have provided. And I’m taking them on my own just to you know reassure myself that the truth is being taught. And in fact, if any of you want to take any of them, just let me know and I’ll send you the link. And you can take them and they will send you back your responses.

But I talked to a deacon at that church in North Carolina, and he said this started off as a local work, but we now have students all over the world. Isn’t that what we want to do? Sow the seed no matter where people are. And so the introductory courses, initial classes people would take start off with a course on God, and then authority, old and new testament. I won’t read through all these. You can read them yourself, but as you can see, it covers the plan of salvation, it covers what the church is all about, corrects misconceptions about what a church is all about, talks about the second coming and the judgment, you know, where you’re going to spend eternity. And then beyond the introductory courses, they have intermediate Bible studies, they have, and all of these have 15 classes per course.

And then old and new testament surveys.com website, the exterior facing website. If you have been out there, you realize that there’s pictures out there that are I don’t know, 15 years old. A lot of old information. So we’re going to be redoing that. And as part of that, one of the tabs at the top will be Bible correspondence course, so people can click on that. Once we get that live, we’ll need help from some of you to help grade courses when people send in their responses and that sort of thing. So the thing is, you have to have a plan. Nothing’s going to change. You know, after what I have to say or the class that’s coming up, nothing’s going to change unless you have a plan yourself.

Conclusion

Just pick one person, one person you want to talk to about the gospel in 2026. Write their name down. Pray for them every day. Pray that they’ll be receptive and start there. and then figure out, like George did, what is the best approach for this person for me to bring up the Bible or God? Thank you for listening. We haven’t talked today about what it takes to be saved, but if you’ve studied enough to know that you have to publicly confess Jesus as your Savior, you have to repent of your sins and be baptized for the forgiveness of your sins, you know enough. We can help you begin your journey with Christ. It’s the same journey everybody here is on. We help each other stay on the straight and narrow road, and we can help you do that too.

If we can help, why don’t you come as we stand and say?