Expecting God in our Evangelism

Expecting God in Our Evangelism

Acts 11:19-24

This passage we read really characterizes the history of the church as recorded in Acts: "the hand of the Lord was with them and a great number who believed turned to the Lord". The church has never experienced a greater sense of God's power, life, and supernatural growth through conversion than it did in period of the church recorded in book of Acts.

The officially complete name of the book of Acts is the Acts of the Apostles but reading through the book of Acts it isn't hard to see that it is really an account of acts produced by God moving through His apostles and His church. It is not about what the apostles did in their own strength, but neither is it an account of what God did independent of the apostles and early believers. It's a wonderful account of God's hand graciously and powerfully upon His people and one of the happy results is that thousands come to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ through their witness.

It is God moving through His people. We can't do it without His power, but He won't do it apart from His people's efforts. He has called us to be laborers. To both sow and harvest.

We're in a series entitled Expect God, and this morning I want us to focus on the role expectancy - faith - plays in our evangelism. Like any other aspect of our Christian walk, we can be faithful in our witness for Christ without being faith-filled in our witness for Christ. Important that we witness, but it's also important that we look to God in simple faith that He will use our witness - that the power of the gospel will have its effect through our imperfect attempts to evangelize.

Charles Spurgeon captured the importance of our expectation when a young preacher asked him, "Why is it that every time you preach people get saved but when I preach no one gets saved." Mr. Spurgeon said, "You don't expect people to be saved every time you preach do you?" The young people replied, "Well, no I don't." The wise preacher said, "That's just why you don't see anyone receive the Lord Jesus."

We should expect to see God save people when we share the gospel. The gospel is "the power of God for salvation to everyone believes..." (Romans 1:16) Our expectancy is in God and the gospel, not ourselves!

Let's look at several biblical ways we are to express our expectancy in God as we witness.

1. Pray to the Lord of the harvest

Matt. 9:35-38

I am convinced that Jesus saw the crowds differently than most of us do. His heart was moved with compassion on them - saw them as sheep without a shepherd, harassed and helpless. As the good Shepherd he was moved by their suffering and lostness. He loved people. He came to seek and save the lost.

I recently saw a preview for a movie that is coming out soon. I am not sure what it is about and I am not endorsing it, but it has to do with powerful, god-like beings coming to earth and one of them says,
The world will look up and shout, "save us" and I'll whisper, "no."

When I heard that, I thought how different that is from the heart of the true God. He did not whisper, "no." He sent His Son to save us through His atoning death on the cross. But the world is not looking up and saying save us - many are oblivious to the fact that they need saving. The bible says that those who die in their sin will face an eternity separated from God - hell is a real place and it is neverending. All around us are people in need of saving, who don't know it.

Jesus tells us to pray. We are to look up and cry out for God to save them. Pray to the Lord of the Harvest. Only God can open their eyes to see their need for Him. Only God can ripen their souls to feel their need and turn to the Lord. The hand of the Lord was with them and those who believed turned hearts to the Lord.

The first work of harvesting is prayer. We need to talk to God about men before we talk to men about God.
So pray and pray earnestly. Earnest prayer is powerful prayer. I remember attending a prayer meeting that was sludging along - like a chariot without wheels. Then someone began to pray with deep emotion. Cry out to the Lord and weep with emotion. All our prayers were effected - heated. As Spurgeon says, one prayer warmed with passion is worth 20 prayers packed in ice. Earnest prayer is prayer heated by a longing for what we are praying for - in this case that souls come to a saving knowledge of Christ. Earnest prayers happen when our faith in power of prayer grows. If we don't expect much from prayer we pray nice prayers. When we believe that God hears and moves in response to His people's prayers, those prayers heat up - become earnest.

Andrew Murray compares the prayers of God's people to a pipeline - the power and blessings of God are ready to flow, but like a pipeline directs the water running through it, our prayers direct where the blessing and power of God will flow. Think of those in your life that are in need of being saved. In need of the blessings of God to flow - and through prayer direct the blessings of God in their direction.

A growing love for people and passion to see people get saved begins in the prayer closet. Called to labor - to go into the fields and evangelize - but prayer bases our labor on what God can do, not on what we can do. Pray the Lord of the Harvest!

2. Plan to be used by God in evangelism

1 Cor. 9:19-23 (ESV)

For though I am free from all, I have made myself a servant to all, that I might win more of them. To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win Jews. To those under the law I became as one under the law (though not being myself under the law) that I might win those under the law. To those outside the law I became as one outside the law (not being outside the law of God but under the law of Christ) that I might win those outside the law. To the weak I became weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all people, that by all means I might save some. I do it all for the sake of the gospel, that I may share with them in its blessings.

Clearly Paul centered his life on winning souls. It was his passion and he adjusted his life in any appropriate way to be most effectively used by God to reach people with the gospel. When I think of the lack of evangelism in my life, one of the culprits is that all too often my plans are missing the expectation of being used by God to witness for Jesus. What I mean by plan to be used by God in evangelize is to prepare my heart, my thoughts, and point my prayers so that I am ready to share the gospel as effectively as possible with those around me.

I read a disturbing story of two young gypsy girls who drowned at an Italian beach, and while the girls were crying for help and then as their bodies lay on the beach waiting to be picked up sunbathers just went on with their sunbathing. They were indifferent to the plight of these two young gypsy girls - the girls' cries didn't interrupt their plans for a day at the beach.

That kind of indifference shocks us - but the sad truth is that we can be equally indifferent to the eternal danger that those around us are in, and our plans too often reflect a day at the beach with no effort to enter the water to save those who are drowning.

I remember someone sharing that they once saw a picture that really touched them. It was a picture of Jesus saving someone from the raging waves and pulling them to safety. It touched them to remember how Jesus saved them from drowning in their sin. But they said they then saw another picture that touched them far more deeply. It was a picture of Jesus once again saving someone from the raging waves, but that person being saved by Jesus was reaching back to pull someone else out of raging waves.

When I say plan, I mean that we evaluate the priority we give to what's really important to us. May our plans reflect the heart of our Savior - who always looked on the crowds with compassion. He could never stand indifferent. He was moved with compassion. And he gave his life to save them.

Those of us who have been saved by God's grace enjoy the blessings of God - but we must not think Jesus saves us to sit at the beach and ignore those drowning around us. He didn't. We must not.

Our plans reflect our priorities. Do we plan to be used by God to bring the good news of Jesus to the lost? Is that important to us? I want each of us to ask, is it important to me?

3. Proclaim

When Jesus came, he came proclaiming the good news of the kingdom. The greek word is kerygma - to announce or to herald. In the gospel we have good news to herald.

This whole idea of proclaiming has been one I've been thinking a lot about lately. Many of us have found, I think, people to be politely indifferent to the gospel. Prayer is a necessary component to moving that indifference. But I have also been wondering: are we actually proclaiming the good news?

As I explain what I mean, I feel as though we are walking a balance beam - it is easy to fall to one side of the balance beam or the other. Falling to one side of the balance beam are those who obnoxiously shove the Bible and gospel down people's throats. They don't give people space, They don't respect other people's differing beliefs (we can believe someone is wrong and still respect their beliefs), they offend needlessly - but it's not the gospel that is bringing offense, it's the arrogance and obnoxiousness of the people bringing it. Honestly, I don't think anyone in this room is likely to easily fall off the balance beam in that direction.

But we can find ourselves falling off in the other direction. We can be so afraid of offending, or so desirous to be liked, that we don't proclaim the good news clearly.

I was talking with Alex and Jessica on the way to the wedding, and we were talking about how the desire to empathize with people when they share about the difficulty they are experiencing can silence the proclamation. We can spend an hour listening and mumbling empathetic sentiments, but never clearly point their attention to God, and never clearly state that their greatest need is for a Savior, not a better job or spouse or health. And walk away feeling like we did not inject hope in the conversation. Empathy cannot save anyone. Only Christ can.

Alex made the point that we can almost adopt an "agnostic" demeanor, we act as though their problems are the biggest thing rather than God being the biggest thing.

As long as we're being honest, though I know much of this is motivated by our sincere desire not to fall of the balance beam on the side of shoving the gospel down people's throats - which is not fruitful or helpful, at the same time I have to wonder how much of this is motivated by fear of man.

Fear of man can lead us to empathize rather than proclaim. Proclaiming risks offending. Empathy rarely does. We need to grow in the boldness of the Spirit to springboard from where their lives are at to the spiritual - where they are at with God. That is our biggest need - and all our troubles are spiritual at their source.

Part of our planning is to think through ways to transition the conversation to God. Effective ways to do that and ineffective ways to do that. But essentially we need to ask, where do you think God is in all your troubles?

And what I have found is that most people, when asked, think they are ok with God. But it's more that He is their lucky rabbits foot ("I pray to God every morning") than that they have a clear understanding of their sin, God's holiness, Jesus' death on the cross for sin, the need to repent and believe in Christ, and the hope of the resurrection. That is the gospel and we need to be prepared to speak that - to proclaim that - to people.

As one person recently said to me, we don't want people leaving us just thinking that we are nice people. We don't want people leaving this church just thinking we are a nice church (we do hope people think that!) but we want people leaving having heard the gospel proclaimed.

Doing this risks offense. The gospel confronts us and there is no way to avoid that and still proclaim the gospel. But we can confront with humility, grace, respect, and kindness. If someone doesn't want to hear we stop. But we press the gospel truths that sin is our biggest problem, and that we are not in good relationship with God just because we go to church or try to do good works or pray every day. God is holy and His standard is perfect holiness and we could never attain that.

We need to point to Christ and his death on the cross.

Sometimes I think the most unreached people-group in the world are the ones next door.

The primary mission field for most of us is not far away, it's in the routine of our daily lives. God doesn't save us to be passive spectators. He saves us and then sends us out into the world to tell other people about Jesus. Each of us is called to play a part in God's mission to save sinners-the same sinners we meet on a daily basis.

God's kingdom-his inbreaking, redemptive rule-is advancing all around us. Paul says in Colossians 1, "He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins" (vv. 13-14). What an incredible picture. God is doing the work of transferring people from the clutches of Satan and this world into a new kingdom. His kingdom. Don't you want to be involved in that? ~ Eric Simmons