We are in Chapter 3 of Total Church, and this is the chapter on evangelism. So, if you have your books, turn to page 53. It's not just Chapter 3 and the questions. We're going to open with the scripture verse that they gave us. Would someone like to read for us from the New Testament, 1 Thessalonians 2.8? Lucy, can you get that for me? Not just their lives, but the Gospel, but their lives as well. What do you think of that scripture? We loved you so much that we are delighted to share with you not only the gospel, but our lives as well, because you've become so dear to us. Any thoughts on that? really deep. If you have the book, turn to page 61. They show a diagram there, and it's called the Three Strands of Evangelism. It tells you what they are, but it doesn't give an explanation, but the three strands of evangelism are building relationships, which of course means love, sharing the gospel, which means the Word, and introducing people to the Church, which is the community. do you think would seem the most natural to you?" What they talk about in this chapter is the idea of bringing the gospel to people, but also building relationships and bringing people into the community. And the thrust of the chapter is the idea that we're not all going to be good at all three of these, and most of us probably won't be good at two of them, but we may be good at one of them. So, of the three, building relationships, sharing the gospel, or introducing people to the Church, which one of these areas do you think would come most naturally to you? And then which one, perhaps, do you think might come the least naturally to you? And how do you think you can be used by the Lord to evangelize His people? The book is pretty specific that it doesn't necessarily have to be in any particular order. But yet, do you think you feel most at home introducing people to the Church? I think I can introduce a lot of the other Church members. Well, possibly, or it could go the other way around. Any other thoughts? I have to agree with John. Introducing people to the community would become natural to me, and I would look to do that first. Yeah, I would look to build relationships. So I'm probably the other way, to build relationships within the community, and then possibly share the word, and then possibly introduce them to the church. That would be my way to do things. I've been thinking about community a lot, and thinking about relationships. The hardest relationships and the most precious and the... but the ones that are the hardest are like marriage and children. They're because you're so intertwined. It's easier, like it said, it's easier to love somebody from a distance than to get so intertwined with somebody that you know they're good and they're not so good. and yet you still love them, it's easy to love. Do you know that? I mean, I've been really thinking about that a lot, because, you know, but to really get committed to a group, and then to really get to know them, and still love them, I think that's a really purest form of love that we can have. You mean, in other words, warts and all, so to speak? Warts and all, within the church, and within the community, but primarily within the church, to love each other first, and get to know each other, but at the same time, once again, it doesn't all go It's easy to say you love people, but not get involved with them. Basically, I think that's what I'm trying to say. Any other thoughts? That's good. Yeah, that's true. I guess it depends on the individual. You know, like John and I feel more comfortable introducing people to the community, and then building relationships, and then sharing the Gospel. You know, like Katie feels the other way, and maybe others do too. It's how we apply our spiritual gifts as to how we prioritize these three concepts. Right. Well, I might invite somebody to my house and start building relationships, but then invite Lucy over, Steve over, and next thing I know they're in there in a box full with these people that I never knew. Because they're other people that are more comfortable sharing a desk. Well, yeah. I mean, it's not like I'm so comfortable, but maybe we'll reach an opportunity first. You should build a relationship first before sharing the gospel. You need to care about the person first, rather than just putting, just banging them over the head with the gospel. Yeah, that's a good lead-in for the little blurb that I'm going to read to you guys here from page 53, if you have your book, you can follow along. And then we'll go back to this three-strand thing. By the way, not that anyone was curious, but for myself, I'd say building relationships is where I would take my stone suit would be as well. The other two things, not quite as much. John was playing squash with an unbelieving colleague who had recently joined the company. They had had a couple of brief chats over coffee in the cafeteria. Simon was new to the area and so welcomed the chance to do something social, and John seemed to be an okay sort of bloke. During the game, Simon got hit by a ball and began jumping about in the court in pain. Over a drink in the lounge after the game, John and his workmate talked about their match. The incident with the ball was mentioned, and John responded, It's a hard ball when it comes at that speed. It's happened to me loads. I once knew someone who got it straight in the eye. But have you ever noticed how God seems to play hardball with us in life? It's often far more painful than a squash ball hitting you. Downsizing, bereavement, rejection, the list is endless. How do you respond, Simon, when life hits you like a punch to the kidneys?" Any thoughts on that? That's a way to form a relationship. I always think that God has to be so much in it. I mean, you can have relationships with people, but when you're sharing the Gospel, I mean, it really has to be the Holy Spirit, for me. I've always felt that way. I feel led at times, I don't feel led. You know what I mean? It's not something I can just... I mean, I've gone through a lot of evangelism. It's just so unnatural to me to always think, oh, you're coming to close to me and I've got to talk about Christ. It doesn't feel comfortable to me. Well, Katie said something like that last week, and she said, well, I don't worry about it. When God gives the circumstances, and then you have the confidence. Because I think a lot of times, if we don't have the confidence of the Lord, or the door is open, we can sometimes Make a mess of things, I know I do. But we can make a mess of things, that's the other thing. We don't have to worry about being perfect. We don't have to worry about having an answer to every single question that they have about that African person that lives behind, you know, 25 mountains that nobody goes to, you know. But, you know, I really, really believe that in order to share the gospel, you have to have some kind of relationship with the person. Or, you know, there is a tendency to drive somebody away from the Lord, too. That certainly happens in my family. So, you know, it took a long time for David to come back to the Lord, because somebody was terribly, terribly pushy with him. So... I feel more comfortable sharing the gospel with somebody here than out there. Well, yes, but you're amongst brothers and sisters. You're speaking here being that you're church family, right? Yeah, we can all relate to that. I mean, anybody new that comes in here, too. But that's the gift that you have, and John, of saying, come to our church. Because I think of Andrew. That was totally Andrew. Andrew, come on over here. Yeah, the other side. Jesus. And I think if you guys are having that gift, you're Andrew's. You know, you talk to people, well, not the Baptist. Why don't you try it? I mean, I've had people come here and come again. But it's not for them. I mean, it's okay. You may not have a lot of people come to your home. I had a lot of people come to my home for various reasons. Hardly anybody comes to my home. We have a nurse who comes, a social worker who comes, and they go. Oh, we'd love to come to your house and go, it's so peaceful here. And then we talked about the gospel, you know, but it's like, you know, it's been something that they've come and they haven't come. So, you know, and then when they start saying things like that, well, you know, there's a reason, although I don't believe it's always peaceful in my house, and I'm a culprit. What do you guys think about that story, though? I mean, in other words, Wouldn't you say, with this particular story, the guy hadn't really earned the right to speak to him like that? Wouldn't you think? He didn't really know him, and he's throwing a hardball about God right away. I don't know. You know, God just works with people in different ways. I mean, you see people out on the street, and when I was a kid, I used to say, well, how could anybody do that? You know, they'll be like Jeremiah, Ezekiel. So, I don't know if I can actually say whether he was totally wrong or not, or God just kind of led him in that, and that guy was going to die sooner than that one. I don't know. The book emphasizes the idea of the relationship of people. In other words, when we go into this a bit farther, which I'm not sure if we'll get to this tonight or not, it shows other ways to be able to reach out to this person, which was basically by building a relationship with them. Yeah, I understand what you mean, but do you understand what I'm saying? I do. And I've thought about those types of things in the past, and though I might perhaps give you some benefit of the doubt, I think overall that we would want people, if they're going to be offended, to be offended at the cross and not at the deliverer of the message of the cross. That's just me, but I'm coming from what I think is a contemporary culture where people would expect certain things and not expect certain things. I even forgot what he said, actually. I forgot what he said, actually. Basically, he talks about getting hit with a ball. It's hardball when it comes to depth speed. It's happened to me before. Have you ever noticed how God plays hardball with us in life? It's often far more painful than a ball hitting you, downsizing, bereavement, rejection. How do you respond when life hits you like a punch to the kidneys? And it's kind of a hardball question for somebody that you wouldn't really know at all. I wouldn't say something like that to... I mean, I know a lot of people from my business, but I wouldn't speak like that to them unless I'd known... It's a respect thing, I think. And I also wanted to mention this. Lucy and I were discussing the message... not the message, but the book tonight, and Lucy came up with what I thought was a really good little blurb as well, which was, what happens if you know them so well that you don't evangelize them? Well, I was thinking more of family. Sometimes it's more difficult because you have such a long history with them. Well, they say... It's still like the two extremes, like hitting them over the head or not saying very much at all. But if they say to you, don't preach to me, then you need to respect that. Exactly. And let God do whatever shockingly that needs to be done. Right. Because God has promised that his word would not return void. Because I have that with my atheist brother. But God also did not save everybody. Right. But we don't know who he saved. Exactly. Exactly. But there is a boundary of respect that we need to have with people. We have that situation right now with our niece and children because They're not believers, and we respect that. We're the parents, but at the same time, the daughter's been asking questions or saying things. I don't know if we're going to maybe have to have a talk with the mom and say, what are we going to do here? Well, we absolutely want to be respectful. Yeah, we absolutely want to be respectful. On page 54 in the book, I want to read a quote from here. If you have that, you can follow along. It's right down, it's the second paragraph up from the bottom. There's a tendency in some quarters today to promote a kind of evangelism without a proclamation. Acts of service are done, or people are invited to experience Christian worship. But without words of explanation, these are like signposts pointing nowhere, or worse still, signposts pointing to our good works. The gospel is good news, a message to be proclaimed, a truth to be taught. a word to be spoken, and a story to be told. Thoughts on that. In other words, you can be developing relationships and all, but if you're never being intentional about the Gospel, then, to some degree, these things we invite them to can just be like signposts, and they don't go, where is that pointing to? I don't know. But what do you guys think of that quote from the book? Without words of explanation, The proclamation or our church service, acts of service, whatever, it's like signposts pointing nowhere or pointing to our good works. The gospel's good news, a message to be proclaimed, a truth to be taught, word to be spoken, and a story to be told. It's not going to come intuitively to people. I'll throw this out there as well. You guys probably have heard this saying before. This is Francis of Assisi. Supposedly, it said this. Preach the gospel always, if necessary, use words. That may be, here's the right response to that bit of wisdom with this. That may be a great medieval soundbite, but falls short of what the Bible teaches about evangelism. There has not been a division yet in the church. Let's not go there. He was a believer in Christ. I like what you said on Sunday, that the gospel is about who God is, who Jesus God is, and what He does. I like that. Well, I plan on repeating this when I get a chance to. The gospel, good advice, or good news, and why? Good advice? Is the gospel good advice, or is the gospel good news? And why is it not good advice? I don't even suppose. Really? Can you back that up? You know, the difference between advice and news here. Think about it for a minute. I'm talking about the gospel. Go ahead. How is what Christ did good advice? Galatians or Ephesians, where you put on the whole armor of God, isn't that advice? That's not the gospel. That's something we would do as a result of the gospel. I thought that was considered the gospel. Well, what is the gospel? Life of Christ. What else? Well, can you recite the gospel for me? I'm at the risk of putting you on the spot right here. Sure you can, you know the gospel. Christ died for our sins, he was buried, he rose again on the third day. Whoever believes in him has eternal life. In other words, we through faith transfer all our wickedness and evil and sin to Christ. Christ's good life, Christ's perfect life, his sinless life is credited to us as righteousness. The gospel is good news. That's good news for those of us who are sinners, of which none of us aren't. Second question, though. Sure. Is Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John considered the section of the gospels? They're considered the gospels. They are considered the gospels. Yes, I think they're sometimes called the four gospels. Sometimes they're called evangelists as well. You know the gospel, Paul. I mean, you may think that you're... I'm just not able to articulate it. Yeah, you may want to think about it a little bit, because it's really real simple, actually. There's a profound... I mean, you may be thinking about things as a result of the gospel, but the gospel itself, in a sense, is simple. It's simple enough that a child can understand it, but deep enough that a theologian can drown in it. Yeah, the proverbs would be advice. But the gospel itself is who God is and what he did for us. Galatians isn't part of the gospel. Galatians is written as a result of the gospel. The gospel is something someone did. I trust the entire New Testament is the gospel. No, in a sense it's not. I mean, you have the epistles, the writings of Paul. I'm sorry, you were going to say something else. I was just going to say that. 1 Corinthians 15 says in verse 3, For what I received, I pass on to you as of first importance, that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the scriptures. That's the gospel. First Corinthians 15. If you want to find it in here, it's very straightforward and simple. And they say it every Sunday. But Corinthians isn't considered part of the gospel, right? The gospel is something separate. Yeah, he's thinking of the four Gospels, that's what he always says. Oh, he's thinking of the four Gospels? Yeah, that's what he's thinking of. In other words, if you can't consider Galatians part of the Gospels, then you can't consider 1 and 2 Corinthians part of the Gospels, too, right? Perhaps the word Gospel, we have to give it due interpretation. Gospel means good news. You're confusing letters with the Gospels, but the Gospels be something that was accomplished in time, space, and history. So, it's a fact of history. It's not religion, so to speak. It's not, let's say, do this, or be this. It's something that someone did. Christ was the second Adam. As the second Adam, Christ stood on our behalf, and on behalf of all those throughout all time and all history who will believe on Christ, who God, as you said before, has ordained to believe. Okay, so what part of the New Testament is Gospels? The four Gospels. That's it? Yeah, but the Gospels will be interspersed throughout all the writings, Paul. It's not as if, you know, don't be wooden in the way you think about it. The Gospel will be plenty of things, like I'm trying to find a spot here in Romans where I can just... I probably don't know my Bible enough, frankly, but here. Chapter 5, the beginning, "...since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand, and we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God." In a sense, that's the gospel message there, where we have our hope through faith in the glory of God through the work of Christ. It's the work that Christ did, that's the gospel. I think it's more of a thing of semantics I'm getting with Paul. This is the Bible, but the gospel is just this That's the definition of the message. The message is interspersed throughout the whole Bible, but it's just that message of who God is and what he did for us. And because of that, then, you know, we get advice. Advice on how to live. How then shall we live? And that's in the Bible. Okay. Now, what I'm trying to ascertain is The first four books of the New Testament are the Gospel, right? But the rest of it isn't. It's all the Bible stuff. I know, in a sense, Katie. Yes, what Katie's saying is correct. It's basically this whole Bible is the story of redemption. Right. And so, in a sense, that's the Gospel. You could say, in one sense, the Gospel is the entire Bible. Yeah, what I'm trying to nail down is the first four Gospels. The Gospels of Mark, Matthew, Luke, and John are the Gospels, and the rest of it isn't the Gospels in the New Testament. That's what I'm trying to nail down. Yeah, I would say that's... Well, they're apostolic letters as a result of the Gospels. And the Gospels will be interspersed throughout places in there, like Lucy read from Corinthians. There is a Gospel in Corinthians, and the Gospels in Romans, and Gospels in... all interspersed throughout the legends, but the entire... the Gospel is a fact. And that's the thing I would be trying to emphasize to you now. So, if you're witnessing, let's say, to one of your non-Christian friends, they say, well, that's good for you, but not good for me. And everybody can believe what they want to believe, and God's too big to fit in one religion. And, well, that's what Christ says, I like Buddha, and I like Mohammed, and I like whoever. The thing that makes Christianity absolutely unique is the person and the work of Christ, which was done at a certain point in history. I got that. What I'm trying to nail down is, the first four Gospels are black, and the rest of the New Testament is white. No, don't think of it that way. You're trying to say that, but the way you people are explaining it is, you've got black, and then you've got white, and then somewhere in the middle you've got gray areas, and it's all open to interpretation. And I'm trying to nail it down in black and white, and I'm like... And I'm getting a lot of gray areas thrown at me. The first four books are not Gospels. What are they? The first four books of the New Testament are the first four books of the New Testament. The Gospel is interspersed throughout the whole Bible, but they're not called Gospels. The book of John is not called Gospel. It's called the Gospel of John, but it's not like they're separated out. I never did ask that. It's just that in the Catholicism where I grew up, it was, now we'll read according to the Gospel of John. And that's why I asked that. But even in Matthew, I mean, it says, judge not that you be not judged. I mean, that's advice. But I think the whole thing about the gospel, and don't even get hung up on Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, just once again, I mean, it's such a divine statement. Could be said. Even if it says the good news according to John. Not the good news according to John. The good news according to that, but there are some areas that aren't Jesus. Right, and then they have the ones that specifically, they get into the life of Jesus more, according to Jesus. Hey, hang on a second. I'm going to tell you exactly what the King James says. Are you ready for this? The gospel according to St. John. So what has he given you? The good news according to St. John. Not only that, let's see, this is the English Standard Version. What does the version say? It says the same thing. The gospel according to St. John. I've always thought of it like the Catholics, you know, the gospel of St. John. But if it's just for courting. So, as far as the black and white interpretation of all, you're not going to get that of even theological viewpoints. If people, you know, you have systems of reform thought, you have systems of evangelical thought, you have Lutheran thought, you know, Catholic, etc. people can disagree about many things. I think what unites the people is the Gospel itself. It's related, but it's a result of something that Christ did, so therefore... Therefore. Oh wait, therefore. Okay, therefore means there's something ahead of it. And the thing ahead of it, what is it, Christ? God. In God, Christ is. And therefore, then, because of the Gospel, This is how we do it. Yes, that's good. Yes, that is very good. Yes, I hope that helps. So the gospel is only good news, it's not good advice. That is correct. Okay. Well, that was good. I think you shouldn't be asking questions like that at 8 o'clock in the morning. I've got some great news for you. Christ died for your sins, and if you believe on Him, you'll have everlasting life because of what He did. That's news. That's good news. Advice in other words, like, I don't think anyone should work past 10 o'clock at night, but then someone else might say, well, Josh, I go to start working at 11 o'clock, so I think I'm going to disregard Steve's advice. I don't have three cups of coffee and I'm good to go. I'll get off at 8 in the morning. So, you know what I mean? There's a difference. Anybody who disregards the advice of putting on a full armor of God has a wound on their head. We're not talking about disregarding that kind of advice, Paul. Don't make me understand. I hope you're not misunderstanding that. And with that, I think we're going to... We could go on with this, but we will close in prayer. So let's close. Father, we thank you for this time. We pray that we might consider the things that have been discussed. We thank you for Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior. who suffered, died, and was buried, and on the third day rose again, indeed, according to the Scriptures, and that we might have everlasting life in Him by faith. Not our faith, but faith in Him and what He did. This is indeed great news. We are thankful for Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, and we pray these things in His name. Amen.