(This is part 1 in a series on evangelism)
Think about your ministry over recent years.
Does it feel like fruit in your evangelism is slowing down?
Has it becoming more difficult for you to determine who has truly come into a saving relationship with Christ?
If that’s been true in your ministry, you might be searching for answers. You might think you need a new process. You could convince yourself cultivating stronger relationships early on would help.
However, in my experience, the most common reason people aren’t coming to Christ in your ministry is because you’re not really sharing the Gospel.
As I’ve evaluated evangelism in my own ministry and across many others I’ve noticed there are 3 truths that tend to be the first to go in much of our Gospel conversations. Tiptoeing around these points might win you favor in building relationships. It might even lead to larger ministry attendance. However, without these 3 your evangelism will lack power and fail to lead people to Christ. Without them it weakens, and in some cases, totally misses the Gospel.
Paul’s prayer in Colossians 4:4 is that he would declare the Gospel clearly, as he should. That’s my prayer for myself and all of you as we explore these topics together. We’ll look at these over the next 3 weeks.
The first Missing Evangelism Ingredient is…SIN
When I stepped back and evaluated, my own evangelism had turned into something that sounded like, “turn from sin because sin causes problems in your life, leaves you unfulfilled, and Jesus will make your life better.”
Obviously, I don’t say that exact thing but the main idea that was being communicated was: “Sin isn’t fulfilling.”
Of course, acknowledging sin’s lack of fulfillment is a far cry from understanding sin biblically. When the Apostles first started preaching the Gospel they didn’t tell the Jews they were living an unfulfilled life. They told them they had killed God (Acts 3:15)!
We do a disservice to our students when we make fulfillment or satisfaction the primary focus of our discussions of sin. Sin is rebellion against God. Sin is idolatry.
A Bad Illustration
There is a common illustration we often use when talking about sin. We’ll explain the Greek word for sin means to “miss the mark.” It’s like an arrow shooting at a bullseye and missing the target. God has given us a target of righteousness, we say, and when we don’t live up to that we call that sin.
Yes, one of the words for sin, harmatia, can mean to “miss the mark” or “wander.” However, this bullseye illustration misses the mark of what sin really is. It implies we’re trying to live a righteous life but just get a little off sometimes. Why would God punish that?
There are at least 12 major words for sin in Greek. They range in meanings from transgression, lawlessness, disobedience, immorality, unrighteousness, and ungodliness.
Sin is the total rejection of God’s rule and authority, not just slipping up sometimes.
Our culture has become so tolerant we’re hesitant to call things sin anymore. For one, we fear we’ll be labeled judgmental. On the other hand, it can take an argument to convince someone an act is actually a sin.
I’ve been in conversations where guys refused to admit adultery, cheating, and lying were really sins. They tried to come up with possible scenarios where each could be justified. We can think skipping over “controversial” topics like that makes evangelism easier.
Or we’ll redirect the questions towards things on which we know there is agreement.
Most of my Gospel conversations were reduced to something like this:
I’d ask guys, “How many people in your fraternity do you think have sinned?”
“Everyone,” they’d say.
“Right.”
Then I’d move right along to the next point. It’s easy to get people to admit everyone has sinned, but harder to get them to recognize the seriousness of sin in their life.
I wasn’t helping guys see sin as serious. When sin isn’t serious, who needs a Savior?
When you read the Gospels the people who encounter Christ and are saved are always people who recognize their sinfulness.
Since that point, I now stop after they say “everyone” and say something like:
“You know that’s right. And for that reason, it’s easy to think sin must not be that serious. Everyone sins, right? It’s not that big of a deal, we think. But look at what this verse says. The wages of sin is DEATH. Sin leads to death. And it doesn’t say only really bad sin leads to death. It also doesn’t say lots and lots of sins lead to death. It says it is the result of one sin against God. Sin poisons us and totally cuts us off from God. James tells us if we sin at one point we’re as guilty as if we broke all the law.
Put it into Practice
For evangelism to be biblical, sin must be emphasized.
I’m slowing down more when I’m getting to this part of the conversation. I’m back to using the Law and commandments to help reveal our sinfulness and separation from God.
I’ve tweaked some of the illustrations and cut others to try to help emphasize the seriousness of our condition.
Someone has used the analogy that offering salvation to someone who doesn’t know they’re lost is like tossing a life preserver to a man sitting on the edge of the pier and trying to convince him he is drowning.
There are lost friends and students on our campuses who really are drowning. God has chosen us to be the means for the Holy Spirit to bring about that conviction so that they will reach out for a Savior.
Reflect:
- What are some ways you bring up sin in your Gospel conversations?
- When sin is downplayed it affects the way I talk about…
Next week we’ll look through the second truth that often gets left out and talk about how to address it in our Gospel conversations.
