Abounding Grace

Guest (Male): Next on Abounding Grace, learn how to share the gospel effectively.

So, there you are, seated next to someone on a plane or at the family dinner table, and a golden opportunity presents itself to share the gospel. What do you say, and how do you say it? Well, if you're not quite sure, stick around, as today's Abounding Grace will prove to be very helpful.

Pastor Ed Taylor is continuing a series called "Be the Church." We're learning what it means to be the church, and a big part of that is lived out by lovingly evangelizing, caring for, and serving the world in which you live. Here's Pastor Ed in Acts Chapter 1, verse 8.

Pastor Ed Taylor: How about this, number four? Another practical: always have a Bible with you. Always have a Bible with you. That sounds simple enough, but have a Bible. This book, this is the only book on the planet Earth that is alive and powerful, sharper than any two-edged sword, that can cut asunder right to the heart of the matter in people's lives. This is the only book in the world that can save a soul. The only book, there is no other book. This is it. There isn't another one.

The reason why you have a Bible is because you are demonstrating visibly the authority by which you speak. Like you come to someone's life, you go, "I'm not making this up." Well, you just got, "I don't believe in organized religion." You can answer that. Neither do I. I don't want you to be involved in some organized religion. I want you to meet Jesus. I want you to understand His love for you. I want you to understand a God that loved you so much, He saw your hopeless estate. It's actually in one of the songs that we sing. That He sent His only begotten Son, Jesus, to live for you and die for you.

This man lived a perfect life. That's what the Bible will show us. He lived a perfect life, but the people alive at the time, His reward for perfection was torture and crucifixion. The love of Jesus, we have never met anyone like Jesus before. People give us shadows and shades of Jesus, but we've never met anyone perfect in all His ways. God in human flesh.

But if you can imagine having God in human flesh and being rewarded with lies, deceit, crucifixion. Crucifixion was the most brutal way for someone to die. It wasn't designed to kill someone fast, it was designed to kill them slowly, after which, prior to the crucifixion, a person was beaten almost to death. Jesus did all that for you. We're not talking organized religion here, and I apologize for all the failures of organized religion, all the failures of our church. If you got involved with our church, you're not going to come to a perfect church, perfect group of people. Life is messy, and it stays messy until the coming of the Lord.

However, one of the things about the messes of our lives is God begins to clean them up, and we're so much cleaner than we were yesterday, so much cleaner than we were 20 years ago. You just have these real conversations, but the Bible is your authority. One of the things I like to do when I'm sharing, if the opportunity comes, is I like to turn the Bible around and I'll point to them and I'll say, "Just read that for me." So that if they're with me, if the conversation's leading that way, I'll say, "Just read this. This is so amazing. This is so cool." As they're reading the Bible, it's coming out of their own lips.

It also shows this isn't my opinion. Well, because you're a pastor, you have to do this. No, I'm a follower of Jesus just like I want you to be. This is my life, this is not my job, it’s my life. So I think you should have Bibles everywhere. I have a Bible in my car in that middle section there because if I'm out and about and I get called on a hospital visit or I've got to be in an appointment and I don't have my Bible with me, I just pull it out of the car. I have it with me. Obviously I have Bibles here in the office, but when I was working in the corporate world, I had a Bible on my desk, I had a Bible in my desk, I had a Bible in my car, just in case.

I know some of your environments, you go, "No, Ed, you don't understand. HR said we can never have a Bible on our desk." Okay, that's all right. You can respect that. If you're in that kind of environment, instead of getting all mad about it and I'm going to put my Bible on my desk, and then your boss is going to say, "Well, go get a desk somewhere else," and then you lose everything for that, you don't need to. Just start memorizing the Bible.

And then a Bible's at your desk. You can start talking to people about the Bible, with the Bible, and they don't even need to know. You're just giving them the truth that's lived out in your life. When you tell somebody, "Do you know that there's a God in heaven that loves you?" You're starting to quote to them John 3:16. You haven't quoted it like, "According to the Bible in Saint John chapter..." You can be natural.

But if you have the opportunity, for some of you, this can be life-changing for you being used at work. You have the ability, just put a Bible on your desk. You don't have to say anything. Just put it on your desk. Maybe even put it on your desk open and pray that what's seen on your desk would provoke someone. Because people, they really struggle with life and they really want answers. They see a Bible on your desk and it's an answer to the prayer where you say, "Lord, would you please set it up?" They see a Bible and they come to you and go, "Hey, it looks like you're religious. You probably go to church. Can I talk to you?"

You're going to see in the book of Acts as you read ahead, there were times where the people listening, their response to what was said was, "What must we do to be saved?" There was no invitation. They gave it themselves. You want to know why? Because God is working on people right now as I speak. They're ready. The harvest is truly plentiful, but the laborers are few. Not for long, because we pray the Lord of the harvest.

So carry a Bible. Put it in your office, put it in your glove compartment, put it in that middle section. Have a Bible available. I know you can use your phone, and I've used my phone for sure. I know you can use your iPad, and you can use your iPad. I do too. But here's the thing. If you're in a waiting room, you've got an hour and a half wait at the doctor and you've got a phone, people don't know that's the Bible. You're reading, you've got an hour and a half and you've got your iPad up like that, they don't know you're reading the Bible. But if you're sitting in the waiting room with a Bible open in front of you, there's no question what you're doing.

There is a spiritual invasion of God into that waiting room. You have brought the presence of Almighty God right there into Kaiser, right there, just because you have to wait an hour and a half. Now you could play Angry Birds and be mad for the wait and be all upset on your iPad, or you could take the word of God, build yourself up, speak to everyone in that room. God is here. And it's even an invitation. It's like, God is here. Go ahead and talk to me about it. I dare you. Come on up, this is my life. There's something about the Bible.

Are you with me so far? All right, here we go. Number five: be ready to share your testimony. One of the most powerful tools in sharing your faith is sharing the story of how God changed your life. It is the gospel in living color. The gospel in living color is your story. But actually, your testimony is not your story. It is His story. Don't ever forget that. A real testimony will always highlight the power and presence of God, not you.

You want it to be short, not long. So when you're sharing your testimony, you don't want to take people back to the womb. Well, I was born back in, and then I grew up on a farm and then I moved to the big city. Okay, we appreciate all that, but we don't need that as part of your testimony. Make it short and concise. In the business world, they talk about when you have a pitch or anything, that you have an elevator version. An elevator version where you just get it out fast. Back in the day, we'd call that the Reader's Digest version, a condensed version. Now our elevator only does two floors here, so it better be fast.

Quick. So I have a piece of paper and this is how you do your testimony if you've never shared your testimony before. This is how you prepare it. I would do an eight and a half by eleven, but this is what this represents. In your blank piece of paper, three rectangle boxes, equal size. You've got a box at the top, a box in the middle, and a box on the bottom. Three. That's your testimony.

Box number one: who you were. You don't have to go really super deep, but give people an idea of just how bad your life was apart from Christ. Now, if you were born in a Christian home, you were raised in a Christian home, your testimony will see because everyone that's born again has either been saved out of sin, that would be a difficult testimony, difficult box, or saved from sin. So either way, it's a powerful testimony. I think some of you that were born in a Christian home actually have a more powerful testimony resisting temptation than some of us that just went for it without self-control. But nonetheless, it's our story, it's your story. That's the first box.

The reason why you have boxes is going to limit you what you can write. So don't get all smart and try and write as small as you can so you can fit as much. Just be real and just write what you can in the box, saying this is where I got into it. I was a drug addict, I was this, I was angry, whatever it was that your life was filled with sin.

Second box is how God met you. What is it that changed? Hey, you're going through a difficult time, buddy was praying for you, grandma called you up, somebody sent you a Bible, friend invited you to church. What was the turning point that exposed you to the gospel, to hearing that your sins could be forgiven?

And then the final box would be on the bottom. The final box would be what's your life now? What's your life now? What's God been doing now? This was your life apart from Christ. This is how God invaded your life, box two. And then the final one was, okay, now what? Look at your life now. Look what God has done. And that can keep going and keep going and keep going.

Here's the thing about your testimony. Why is it so important? Well, when you're talking to people, if you launch out about, well, I'm a Christian and I believe the Bible, most likely someone's going to go, "I don't believe that. I don't believe in the Bible." Or, "You believe in the Bible, you believe fairy tales?" And then the conversation goes off. And then you start out and go, "I believe in creator God, that God created the world in seven days." They go, "Oh, come on, man, what kind of fool are you?" and they start arguing with you about it. "I believe in Noah and a worldwide flood." "You believe in Noah? I believe in Jonah," and they just boom, boom right after you.

But when you share your testimony, most people won't argue with you. And the people that do, "Oh, I don't believe your life was that bad. I don't believe you." I'm like, "Dude, I was there. You weren't there. I was there. This is my life." They won't argue with your story. Now, they may have a hard time believing it, they may, but this is the thing about your testimony. Not only will it take a barrier down, you know why people have defense mechanisms? Because they've had many believers before you really hurt them.

It's not just their resistance to the gospel. It's not just that they're suppressing the truth in unrighteousness, that is true. But sometimes you're paying the price for the last eight people that tried to shove the Bible down their throat. I know you aren't trying to do that, but they've experienced that. They've experienced. I was talking to someone recently, they experienced a very legalistic home and it hurt them. They've been carrying that their whole life. So that when they hear something, they hear me talking, go, "Oh, you just sound like my mom did 30 years ago." And I have to take the time to unpack that for them. me and your mom are using the same language, but we mean two different things. The grace of God is very different than what.

So you're dealing sometimes this is not and you get somebody gets defensive with you, what do you do? You get defensive, and then you think, I'm going to prove it to them. I'm going to show them, and it doesn't lead to anything.

But your testimony, you want to know the other thing about your testimony? This is something supernatural. You can't plan this. This is what the Lord does. A lot of times God will bring you people that have a very similar testimony than you. And when they hear your story, whether they say it or not, they're like, man, maybe there's hope for me. Maybe there's hope for me. So don't be so quickly offended by defense mechanisms. Just pray the Lord will take them away. And don't you become so angry and frustrated with them that you start attacking them. Don't do that. It's okay. God is in the midst. He loves them, He loves you. Share your testimony.

And then finally, this is the second half of our time today, number six: if you want to share the gospel, you need to know how to share the gospel biblically. Biblically. There's a lot of ways to do that, but we're going to use the Romans Road as a tool, so that you already know you can get a copy of it, you can print it out, you can put it in your Bible, you can write it down. What I did when I learned the Romans Road is I went to the very first verse. I didn't try to memorize them all, I just went to the first verse, Romans Chapter 3, verse 23. And I memorized that one.

Then in my Bible, I wrote a little arrow and I said, "Go to Chapter 6, Go to Chapter 5, Go to Chapter 10," so I could learn it that way. So I just learned one in my Bible. So I had it with me. I still have the notes right here in my Bible of learning the Romans Road as a new believer, and you want to learn how to share the gospel biblically. Because there are many different approaches, many different things, but there's so many fragmented ideas on how to share the gospel that we need a clear and steady path for someone we're speaking to, to go from spiritual death into spiritual life.

So here's the second list. Number one: learning how to share the gospel biblically. You need to establish the need to be saved. You need to establish the need to be saved. The first step in sharing the good news actually begins with bad news. The bad news of sin. Helping a person realize they're a sinner can be a very difficult thing to do. In fact, it's impossible to do humanly. It's totally a work of the Holy Spirit, and His word is key. So we start out in Romans chapter three. It's a beautiful truth. It says, verse 23, "All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God." All of us have sinned. And you want to make sure you emphasize the word "all." You're a sinner and I'm a sinner. We have all failed.

Now, I know the word "sin" is very offensive. Almost most people will turn you off right away. So I have a different approach at times when I notice there's a little anxiety around sin, and I'll just talk about perfection and mistakes. I'll just talk about perfection. Are you a perfect? Oh, nobody's perfect. I know, that's right. You're not like perfect. I'm not perfect, you're not perfect. I've made some really big mistakes in my life. Have you made any mistakes? Usually people will, of course I have. Of course I have. I made a mistake yesterday. I made a mistake when I was a kid. And you're just talking about our imperfections. That's really the essence.

That you're not perfect, even as I'm speaking to you today, some of you right now, you need to realize and just admit out loud that you're an imperfect person. That you have failed. I know it's painful, but it's the truth. That you have made mistakes. So here's the thing about mistakes. You ready? What we call mistakes, what culture calls mistakes, the Bible calls sin. Sin is actually a greater mistake than the typical ones that we make. Because sin is a mistake toward a holy and a righteous God. I mean we're talking about your eternity here. We're talking about after 60, 70, 80, 90 years of life on Earth, you will meet your Maker. I will. I will meet God face to face, and all of us will meet Him having sinned against Him. Every single one of us. There's just no way around it.

The Greek word for sin comes to us from the realm of archery. You know a guy pulling back a bow and arrow, shooting at a target. The word "sin" in the Greek just simply means to miss the mark. You were aiming at it, you were trying. Because that speaks to almost always when you're sharing with people, you know what their response is? "Hey, I'm a good person." And that really is a sincere response. It doesn't stumble me at all. Truly today, if you would say, "Ed, I know I made mistakes, but I am a good person," I would say thank you for being a good person. Thank you. This world needs more good people doing more good things. It's good to be good.

However, when it comes to measuring your life in goodness, who is it that you're comparing yourself to? Because we can always find the worst person in our family, we can always find the worst person in this world and go, "Well, compared to him, I'm good." Yeah, pretty much the world is good compared to them. Yes. But how about compared to the perfection of Christ? Where do you measure there? Well, nobody is like Jesus. I know, that's the whole point.

Like if your sin wasn't so serious, then why did an innocent man have to die for you? Why was His innocent blood shed for you? Well, the Bible tells us that. That God so loved you. His rescue of your life and mine was because He loves you. So we've all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. We need to establish the issue of sin. You see, calling sin a disease makes it sound like it's fatal. There's no hope there. And calling sin a dysfunction sounds like it's unchangeable and you're stuck with the way you were born and the family you were born into, and there's no hope there. Calling sin an addiction makes it sound like you'll never have control over that behavior your whole life.

But calling sin what it is reminds us that sin is forgivable and literally can be forsaken. You don't have to live the rest of your life thinking that that behavior is just a disease or a dysfunction or an addiction you'll never get. No, God is ready to forgive you, deliver you, and make you a new creation of Christ even now. This becomes a part of your conversation.

Not only that, we need to also establish the penalty of sin. And that's where you're going to take someone to Romans chapter six, verse 23. "The wages of sin is death" for all of us. But then the very next part of that verse in verse B, in the second part, "but the gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord." And so we learn in Romans chapter five that Christ died for our sins, verse eight. And then we're going to take them along to the second part of chapter six, verse 23, that He's given us life. That the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God.

That salvation is a gift to be received. And then you'll finally end up in Romans chapter 10 where you teach them that they need to confess their sins. Romans 10:9 and 10. I know most of you never get up on the stage or see the pulpit, but right here on the pulpit, I asked my assistant Cassandra to put this on the pulpit for me, and it's Romans 10:9 and 10. Why? So that every time I stand here, every time a guest pastor or anybody stands behind this pulpit, they remember that the sole purpose of us being here is to bring you to a place where you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and you believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead. That's more important than any Bible study, any song we sing. It's to have the assurance that God has forgiven you of your sins. The supernatural, sovereign work of God, the Spirit, bringing conviction upon your heart and your response through repentance and the choice to follow Him.

The two verses that probably all your friends and family know, they are around the world everywhere I've traveled around the world, believers and unbelievers alike have one or both of these plaques in some way on their wall. A plaque of Psalm 23 and a plaque of John 3:16. And those are both so God was so wise obviously making sure that these were the most memorable verses because they're the gospel in miniature. You learn of the good shepherd and you learn of the God who loves you and sent the good shepherd to die for you. Those are all tools in your toolbox.

Once you have established sin, once you've used this, again, I don't think you're going to sit down and go, "This is the gospel," and you just read these sheets, all right? Read these sheets, and this one's really bad, and this one. It's natural. You're just going to have conversation. You're going to listen. You're going to have a conversation with them. A lot of our conversations, they're going to lead to the second one. You want to think of the second conversation. You want to think of the third conversation. You want to be patient like God is patient. If God is patient, not willing that any should perish, then He's going to give us the same patience. We don't have to be impatient with people. We don't know how God's going to use us.

As you're sharing with them, this is the key that many people miss, and that's this. Number one, you've shown them sin. Number two, you've shown them that Jesus died for their sins. And then thirdly, you need to ask them in that second: is there anything today that's preventing you from receiving Jesus as your Lord and Savior? I mean, you want to get saved right now? You want to pray to receive the Lord? You want your sins forgiven? Are you ready? You can use any of the language.

One of the reasons you don't ask that is because you're afraid they'll say yes. And if they say yes, you're like, then what do I do? It’s like, I don't know. But look, in this little thing, there's even we put a prayer that you can help them with. Listen, prayers don't save people, so you don't have to have the exact words. Churches don't save people, so they don't have to be in this room. Pastors and priests don't save people, absolutely never ever. But you can help them follow the pattern.

Here's the scripture, the little prayer we put: Thank You, Jesus, for dying on a cross for me. I believe You are the Son of God and that You lived, died, and came to life again. Forgive me of all of my sins against You and help me to obey and follow You all the days of my life. In Jesus' name, amen.

Can be simple as that. You're helping someone obey Romans 10. Confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus. Believe in your heart God raised Him from the dead. There's no formula to it. You're simply doing what Andrew did. Get them to Jesus. Walk them through the scriptures.

Guest (Male): Today on Abounding Grace, we've been learning how to share the gospel biblically, using the Romans Road. We hope you've found this to be helpful, and maybe you'd like a permanent reminder of the truths discussed today. Just stop by aboundinggraceradio.com or visit oneplace.com. Also, look for Abounding Grace wherever you get your podcasts.

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You know, storms come and go in our lives, and when the storm hits, there's something you need to know. Pastor Chuck Smith unveils that for us in a book we'd like to get into your hands. It's aptly titled "When the Storm Hits." When you give a donation of $25 or more to Abounding Grace, you're invited to request a copy of this helpful book. Give us a call at 877-30-GRACE. That's 877-30-GRACE. You can also order the book online at calvaryco.store.

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