Evangelism - Logical and to the point!
Pastor Jeremy has taught us for the last few weeks about living for Jesus, loving like Jesus, and leading others to Jesus. For the past two weeks we have looked at leading others to Jesus. Before Jesus ascended to heaven he gave us the greatest commandment in Matthew chapter 28:18-20, “All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples to all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you. And lo, I am with you always even to the end of the age. Amen.”
When Jesus commands us to reach people, as we looked at on Sunday, there are six types of evangelism styles that we can consider using. We’re going to look at two of them - the direct and the intellectual styles. As we look at evangelism this week, we want to remember a key point when it comes to evangelism - "Whatever you win people with, you will win people to."
Today we’re going to see how the disciples shared the gospel to many people on the day of Pentecost. In Acts 2:3, they used a direct style of evangelism when it says, “And then went when they were filled with the Holy Spirit they began to speak with other languages as a Holy Spirit gave them utterances.” On the day of Pentecost, there were so many people there from different lands and who spoke different languages, and so the only way that the gospel could get out was for it to be proclaimed in those other languages. It wasn’t gibberish, they weren’t made-up languages. They were languages that people understood. The Holy Spirit gave the disciples the ability to speak other language so that everyone there could hear the good news of the gospel that Jesus did come and he rose again so that they could be saved. As a result, there were 3000 who were saved on that day - what a great experience of evangelism!
We may not be able to speak like Billy Graham or Greg Laurie or Luis Palau or other great evangelistic leaders of our time. But God gives us the ability to speak with strength and wisdom to speak to people one by one. So don’t be afraid to talk to just one person at a time, and to speak directly to their needs in a way that speaks to them.
The other way of sharing Christ and sharing the gospel is the intellectual side, which we see often in the apostle Paul. As we see in Acts 17:17, it says, “There he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and the Gentile worshipers and in the marketplace daily with those who happened to be there.” When Paul shared the gospel, it says that he reasoned with them - he used reason and logic and showed how the gospel of Jesus made sense while using the Scriptures to support his claims. He didn't waste his time getting into fruitless and empty philosophical arguments (Colossians 2:8). We need to make sure that when we share the gospel with someone, that we don’t get into empty arguments that just go around in circles, but that don’t accomplish anything.
So today, as you go through your day, think about those who are in need and those who need Jesus; who need to hear the gospel. Pray that God would send you someone to share the gospel with today!