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WHAT DO I SAY?

Posted in Church, Equip the Saints, Soul Winning, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on July 18, 2014| Leave a Comment »

LOVE REACHES OUT #3AM Love Reaches Out 3 Screen

What do I say?

Right through this year we have been sharing about God’s love. It’s the biggest subject of all! We have been made aware of His loving kindness, His intense desire to forgive, restore, heal and bless those in covenant with Him. That’s you, if you have bowed you heart and your knee to Jesus Christ. But this great love isn’t just for those who currently know Him. The harvest is ripe Jesus said, and we must go out into the highways and byways and tell them of His love.1 Listen, what if no one bothered to tell you? Then where would you end up? Yes, just like anyone who has not turned to Jesus with all their heart; you would be lost for all eternity in hell.

Week one we shared about the reality of heaven and hell. The stark cold hard facts about the horror of hell must surely motivate us to do all we can to save others from the fire.2 As the famous preacher Charles Spurgeon said “If you care not that others are not saved, then you are not saved, be sure of that.” 3

Week two Rhys shared about the great obsession – a love for Christ so large we can’t help share it. His passion for the lost was very evident. Today I want to answer the question – What do I say? What is it that we are to share with others about Jesus? How must one convey the gospel? – I’m glad you asked….

The first thing is that we must have a heart for the lost. I have been praying much for us that God will pour out His fire upon us and He did to the early church.4 Having a heart for the lost is the most sensible thought you will ever have. After all if you have been saved from a burning building, wouldn’t you want to save others if you are able?

Secondly we must be led by the Spirit. Listen to Jesus’ advice the day He departed from the disciples and leave them with the task of filling the whole earth with this message: Acts 1:8  But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you. And you will be my witnesses, telling people about me everywhere—in Jerusalem, throughout Judea, in Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.(NLT)     So often in our insecurity we worry about what to say. What if I say the wrong thing? What if I don’t know the answers to tough questions? This insecurity is out of place. If you were about to rescue someone from a burning building, would you worry about what to say? There are no end of methods employed by people. So many tracts, formulas and so called fool proof methods about how to witness; but Jesus said when you receive the Holy Spirit, then you will be my witnesses. So church, be led by the spirit. What does that mean? Pray and ask the Holy Spirit to lead you; then when you are with people, say what comes to your heart. The more you do this the more you will learn what His voice sounds like.

Here is some great wisdom.

  1. Share your God story. We used to call it your testimony, but that word seems old fashioned now. This is your story about what Jesus means to you. It’s the story of how you know Jesus is real and/or what He has done for you. Never be ashamed of your story. It is your eyewitness account and it’s irrefutable! Some people may say they don’t believe the bible but very few people will ever say to you that they don’t believe your story.
  2. Ask questions. Ask people, “What do you think about Jesus?” or “Why don’t people go to church?” Then Listen. Really Listen. You value people when you listen to them. Then they will give you permission to speak to them and they will listen. Listen for the personal stories. When people share their pain, you know you’re on the right track. They are opening up. You care about them and you have the answer! Jesus is always the answer.
  3. What is the Gospel message? In one word – Jesus. In one sentence: Jesus died for you. In one brief explanation it is this: God is Holy. That means He is perfect in every way, without any sin or wrong doing. Also He is just and that means He must make a judgement to punish any and all wrong doing. Imagine if an earthly judge were to let someone off from murder because they had done good things as well. It’s unthinkable, and so we see that God being good and just must punish us also for the wrongs we have committed. Romans 3:23 says we have all sinned and come short of the glory (standard) of God. And further more Romans 6:23 says the wages (or the penalty) of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life. But God so loved mankind that He sent Jesus, His only begotten Son, to die in our place, instead of us so that our penalty would be carried by another.  At his point it’s helpful to share a metaphor – a story in modern context to illustrate how this works. – For example. Say you went through a red light and you received a ticket in the mail and your fine was $300. But you don’t have the money, and so you might be forced to go to gaol. Then I come over to your house and I notice the ticket and I take a note of the number. Later I call the Police or Fines Victoria and pay the fine for you without you knowing. Later again, you call the Police and ask is there any way to pay off the fine and you are told, “No, it’s paid! Someone called Craig came and paid the fine for you. You’re free to go. Now you’re happy! You were guilty and you didn’t pay. Craig was innocent of that crime and he did pay. It’s like that with Jesus.    Repentance is an old fashioned word that means a change of mind. A person must have a change of mind first before they can believe in Jesus. They must change from saying, “I don’t need God.” to “I am a sinner and I need God’s forgiveness.” There must be a realisation that I can’t make it on my own. Without Jesus I am done for. This realisation is a free gift of God as a revelation and is granted to people in order that they can believe. We must pray for people we are sharing with, that God will touch them with His grace and give them this gift. The message of the gospel must include the advice that only by faith can this free gift of salvation be received. A person must believe that Jesus died for them and that He rose again.5 When a person has changed their mind, then encourage them to believe that Jesus died for them, and lead them in a prayer surrendering to Jesus. The words are not as crucial as the intent of their heart to leave the old life and come to Jesus and begin a new life.
  4. In general sharing with others may graduate through these various kinds of communication:
    1. Use teasers. For example, drop into a conversation statements like, “My pastor is a tremendous communicator.” Or “Have you ever wondered how some people can be so evil like these ones that shot down the Malaysian plane?” or “No I can’t go to that event on Sunday, I’m going to the most exciting place in town.”
    2. Give the gift of prayer. “Can I pray for you?” Whenever a person shares a problem or trouble or pain, then ask this very innocuous question.
    3. Use tracts. There’s one we have given out to day and it’s also available on the website and the face book page.
    4. Use an invitation card. Be inventive and use those in lots of different ways.
    5. Tell your God story. Tell it often, tell it in short and long forms.
    6. Share the gospel message as outlined above.

Next month we will be sharing about prayer. It is so very important to pray for your lost friends and loved ones. It is God’s work of the Holy Spirit to draw people to the Father. Yet here must be a preacher to communicate His message. This month is all about communicating this message and next month will be about praying for them.

How are these messages affecting you? You are either moved or unmoved. I am praying for you and for myself that God moves us to reach this community around us because the majority of them are truly lost. Will you join me?

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

1. Does the plight of lost people get to you?

2. Have you ever felt like you were not getting through to someone? What can you do about that?

3. How much are you relying on the Holy Spirit to assist you?

4. Still it does take a long time for some; right?

5. How much is God’s work and how much is our work?

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ARE YOU GOIN’ WHERE I’M GOIN’?

Posted in Church, Equip the Saints, Soul Winning, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on July 6, 2014| Leave a Comment »

LOVE REACHES OUT #1AMreaches out

In this life, how do you see yourself? As a pilgrim? As a foreigner journeying through to a better and eternal future? a Or does this world so fill your vista that you hardly think of eternity? Listen to this amazing verse: Eccles 3:11 He has made everything beautiful in its time. He also has planted eternity in men’s hearts and minds [a divinely implanted sense of a purpose working through the ages which nothing under the sun but God alone can satisfy], yet so that men cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end.

Ultimately what matters is people. Everything else is temporary. 2 Cor 4:18 Since we consider and look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen; for the things that are visible are temporal (brief and fleeting), but the things that are invisible are deathless and everlasting. All your stuff that you worked so hard for, all the possessions, the house, the cars, the clothes etc. will all vanish in a puff of smoke one day; and all you have left is you and your loved ones.

What will you be doing in a million years from now? Seriously! If you say, “I’ll be in heaven.”, then how glad are you about that? You could be in the other place. Eternity is such a long time!! It’s all a bit hard for the human mind to comprehend; right?

What we have been learning in the messages preached all year is that God loves you so much and His magnificent loving kindness has come and rescued you, redeemed you and set you free. It’s a natural step to see that God loves each and every person on the planet and some know that and some don’t know that yet. John 3:16  For God so greatly loved and dearly prized the world that He [even] gave up His only begotten (unique) Son, so that whoever believes in (trusts in, clings to, relies on) Him shall not perish (come to destruction, be lost) but have eternal (everlasting) life.(AMP)

All around us are precious people who are perishing. In Australia, we are an especially heathen bunch. Although 61% write on the census that their religion is Christian, only 13% attend any kind of church monthly or more often and of those we can only guess the percentage that is born again. Some estimates of the Born Again population are as low as 5%. Perhaps attending church is a poor measure of whether a person is born again. We should rather choose the measure that one of the greatest preachers in history used: “Have you no wish for others to be saved? Then you’re not saved yourself, be sure of that!” ― Charles H. Spurgeon. What’s our percentage now?

As you look around at your loved ones, work mates, neighbours, do you consider their eternal destiny? Does it drive you to prayer and cause you to consider how to share the answer to life with them? If not, then let’s look at the scriptures and see the convincing reality of what lies before us in heaven and hell.

Hell is real

Luke 6:19-31

19 There was a certain rich man who [habitually] clothed himself in purple and fine linen and [m]revelled and feasted and made merry in splendour every day.

20 And at his gate there [n]was [carelessly] dropped down and left a certain [o]utterly destitute man named Lazarus, [reduced to begging alms and] covered with [[p]ulcerated] sores.

21 He [eagerly] desired to be satisfied with what fell from the rich man’s table; moreover, the dogs even came and licked his sores.

22 And it occurred that the man [reduced to] begging died and was carried by the angels to Abraham’s bosom. The rich man also died and was buried.

23 And in Hades (the realm of the dead), being in torment, he lifted up his eyes and saw Abraham far away, and Lazarus in his bosom.

24 And he cried out and said, Father Abraham, have pity and mercy on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am in anguish in this flame.

25 But Abraham said, Child, remember that you in your lifetime fully received [what is due you in] comforts and delights, and Lazarus in like manner the discomforts and distresses; but now he is comforted here and you are in anguish.

26 And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been fixed, in order that those who want to pass from this [place] to you may not be able, and no one may pass from there to us.

27 And [the man] said, Then, father, I beseech you to send him to my father’s house—

28 For I have five brothers—so that he may give [solemn] testimony and warn them, lest they too come into this place of torment.

29 But Abraham said, They have Moses and the Prophets; let them hear and listen to them.

30 But he answered, No, father Abraham, but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent ([q]change their minds for the better and heartily amend their ways, with abhorrence of their past sins).

31 He said to him, If they do not hear and listen to Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be persuaded and convinced and believe [even] if someone should rise from the dead.

Rev 21:8 But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars–their place will be in the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death.(NIV)

Matt 13:49-50 49 This is how it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come and separate the wicked from the righteous 50 and throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. (NIV)

Rev 14:11 And the smoke of their torment ascends forever and ever; and they have no respite (no pause, no intermission, no rest, no peace) day or night—these who pay homage to the beast and to his image and whoever receives the stamp of his name upon him.

All these verses clearly show that eternity without salvation is horrifying and inconceivably worse due to the fact that it goes on for ever and ever without respite.

General William Booth founder of the Salvation Army church movement was quoted as saying as he trained his preachers and Christian workers. “If I could, I would dangle you over hell for 5 minutes to see the cries of the damned.”   People without a Knowledge of God and even some Christians find this truth so shocking that they fall into wrong believing saying that God could not be as cruel as to send people there forever, or that God will give people a second chance. Some have believed in a purgatory, where people work off their sins and eventually make it to heaven; but all these ideas are false.

Listen again to William Booth – “Not called!” did you say? “Not heard the call,” I think you should say. Put your ear down to the Bible, and hear Him bid you go and pull sinners out of the fire of sin. Put your ear down to the burdened, agonized heart of humanity, and listen to its pitiful wail for help. Go stand by the gates of hell, and hear the damned entreat you to go to their father’s house and bid their brothers and sisters and servants and masters not come there. Then look Christ in the face — whose mercy you have professed to obey — and tell Him whether you will join heart and soul and body and circumstances in the march to publish His mercy to the world.”

When you hear these pleading words, do you think that’s how they spoke in an era long ago, or do you think that’s outdated language and form that doesn’t work today; or is it just that we have fallen so far from biblical truth in our generation that we fall for soft wishy washy beliefs about God that are not supported by scripture?

Heaven

Heaven on the other hand is awesomely wonderful. Imagine infinite joy! Life with a capital L.

Rev 21:4-5 He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”  He who was seated on the throne said, “I am making everything new!”

Rev 22:3-4 No longer will there be any curse. The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city, and his servants will serve him.  They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads.  There will be no more night. They will not need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun, for the Lord God will give them light. And they will reign for ever and ever.

John 14: 2-3 In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you.  And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.

Matt  25:20-21 And he who had received the five talents came and brought him five more, saying, Master, you entrusted to me five talents; see, here I have gained five talents more.

21 His master said to him, Well done, you upright (honorable, admirable) and faithful servant! You have been faithful and trustworthy over a little; I will put you in charge of much. Enter into and share the joy (the delight, the [c]blessedness) which your master enjoys.

Convinced that people without Christ are going there?

One error I find many Christians fall into is that somehow good people will get into heaven. They believe that most people around them are going to make it somehow because God is loving and merciful. This view is dangerous especially to those around them who are not born again yet. Let me ask you a very simple question. If there was any way at all that a person could make it to heaven on their own, did Jesus need to come and die on the cross?

Jesus Himself stated very clearly: John 14:6 Jesus said to him, I am the Way and the Truth and the Life; no one comes to the Father except by (through) Me.(AMP)

Jesus was moved by the plight of broken people. His heart for lost people will become our heart too if we walk with Him. Look at His reaction in the gospels Matt 9:35-38 And Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the good news (the Gospel) of the kingdom and curing all kinds of disease and every weakness and infirmity. 36 When He saw the throngs, He was moved with pity and sympathy for them, because they were bewildered (harassed and distressed and dejected and helpless), like sheep without a shepherd. 37 Then He said to His disciples, The harvest is indeed plentiful, but the laborers are few. 38 So pray to the Lord of the harvest to force out and thrust laborers into His harvest.

What should be our reaction? Perhaps some may be so deeply concerned that they become a certified bible carrying, tract giving, bible bashing preacher to everyone around them, and it isn’t very fruitful. That’s overboard and that’s not love in action. The sad thing is that many Christians are the opposite, there’s almost no evidence of witness in their lives, it’s like they want to enjoy the benefits of salvation and not care that all manner of people around them are perishing.

So how are we to live?

  • Recognise the truth that faith in Christ alone saves a person from eternity in hell.
  • Decide to pray for those people in your world who do not know Jesus yet, that God will have mercy on them and show them the truth.
  • Love people, serve them and share your heart with them at every opportunity.
  • Trust that the Holy Spirit will lead you to people and will give you the words to say.
  • Share your testimony and the God stories that give evidence of God at work among us.
  • Invite as many people as you can to join you church or UC group or a family picnic or a night at the movies or the church trivia night etc. etc.

This month we are focusing on the “How To” of sharing your faith. We will be equipping you with practical help to know how to share your faith, what to say to people who are far from God and how to begin a great conversation about your testimony and how God loves the person you’re speaking to. In all our Urban Connect groups we will be helping you to learn skills about sharing your testimony, and what the gospel message is that we need to share with people.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

1. Do you think Spurgeon’s measure of whether a person is born again or not is a fair one? (Whether you care that others are lost)

2. How do you see non Christians?

3. What about people of other faiths, are they lost too? (Acts 4:12)

4. If Jesus really is the only way to heaven, why do so many other faiths exist?

5. If Jesus really is the only way to heaven how should we live?

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