In a previous post we discussed the balance of honesty, urgency, and joy in our evangelism. In this post we will give five specific suggestions on how we should evangelize.
Evangelize With Honesty And Urgency And Joy
How should we evangelize? There is a certain balance that we want to strive for in our evangelism, a balance of honesty and urgency and joy. Too often we have only one, or at best, two, of these aspects rather than all three. The balance is important. These three together most appropriately represent the gospel.
HONESTY
First, we tell people with honesty that if they repent and believe, they will be saved. But they will need to repent, and it will be costly. We must be accurate in what we say, not holding any important parts back that seem to us awkward or off-putting.
Evangelism: Teaching The Gospel With The Aim To Persuade
A GOSPEL EXPLANATION
Our Creator God is holy, just, and loving. We are his people, made in his image. Though we were once in fellowship with God and loved by him, we are now cut off from him. That separation of God and his people started with a rebellion by our ancestors. At root, the rebellion was our choice not to believe God and to attempt to make ourselves God instead. That treasonous rebellion failed, and the judgment was eternal death. Horribly, the sin of rebellion is passed on from generation to generation as a curse: all people inherit both the sin and the judgment. Our sin nature makes it impossible for anyone to earn his way back to God.
5 Myths And 5 Truths About Forgiveness
Nothing is more important for us than to know what forgiveness is as well as what it isn’t. So what I propose in this study is to look first at five myths about forgiveness; that is to say, five lies many of us have embraced about what it means to forgive another person. Then I will turn to five truths about forgiveness, or five essential elements apart from which true forgiveness will never take place.
Forgiveness Prayer
After we discussed forgiveness yesterday the Holy Spirit may convict you that it’s time to forgive someone who has sinned against you or you will in the future. The following forgiveness prayer can be used as a template to guide you in your own prayer to God. You may adapt this one, or read it as your own prayer, filling in the specific offense and name of the one you are forgiving.
Five Indicators Of Individualism
In Western culture, individualism is like a windshield or a pair of glasses. We’re so used to “seeing through” it that we don’t even see it. We need some help to recognize how our self-centeredness actually manifests itself. Below are some indicators of individualism, some ways it may express itself based on who you are and how you’re wired.
Portrait Of Biblical Repentance
Here is a portrait of biblical repentance seen through six stages to equip you to live a life marked by repentance and belief–turning to and worshipping Jesus. It is taken from Mike Wilkerson’s book Redemption.
CONVICTION
You have to be convinced by the Holy Spirit working through God’s Word that you are guilty of sin. If you move too quickly past this point, you will spin in the cul-de-sac of self-deception because you will end up telling yourself and others that you are repenting of something that you aren’t even convinced is wrong. We do this often because we love looking repentant more than we actually want to love God or others.
Sermons
DNA SERIES
This summer we are walking through who we are and what we are about with the hopes of instilling and beginning to live out our DNA as a church plant. You can find sermons of this series below.
Pretending And Performing
What do you count on to give you a sense of “personal credibility” (validity, acceptance, good standing)?
As God thinks of you right now, what is the look on his face?
Your answers to those two questions will typically reveal something besides Jesus in which you are finding your righteousness. When we are not firmly rooted in the gospel, we rely on false sources of righteousness to build our reputation and give us a sense of worth and value—to make us feel ok.
Breaking The Rules Of Legalism
How The Cross Rescues You From The Performance Trap by CJ Mahaney
One of the greatest hindrances to keeping the gospel central in our lives is our creeping tendency toward legalism. It’s an age-old foe to God’s plan of salvation through faith alone. From the earliest days of the church, legalism has thrown Christians off course and sidetracked them all over the place. And it’s just as active and destructive today as it ever was.
It’s important to understand that a legalist isn’t just someone with higher standards or more rules than you. A lot of us wrongly stereotype a legalistic person as one who doesn’t go to the movies, or who thinks that any music with a beat is evil. Legalism is much more subtle and serious than that. Here’s a simple definition that I use: Legalism is seeking to achieve forgiveness from God and acceptance by God through obedience to God.