Christ Church at Grove Farm

Dan Davis: Good morning, church. Well, I'm Dan Davis. As Craig said, I'm the director of missions and evangelism here at Christ Church of Grove Farm. This week and next are centered on missions. As we said, this week is called Reach Near, which is focusing on local missions, and next Sunday is Reach Far on global missions.

It can be exciting to think about the adventures missionaries have overseas and around the world, but we have to remember that we too are the body of Christ and that we are a missionary body in a missionary context of Ohio Township, Sewickley, and the greater Pittsburgh area.

When Pastor John Guest came to be a part of this church 30 years ago, his passion was that Christ Church would not be, as he would say, just playing church on the street corner, but that we would be a center of evangelism. Today, we strive for that to be true as well. Now, Pastor John Guest is an evangelist, capital E. But with a show of hands here, who also in here is an evangelist?

Can we see some hands? A couple, okay. I see a few in the back. Great. Well, it might be a scary thought. It might be an exciting one, but I'm convinced it's a biblical one and the fact is that we are all evangelists in the eyes of God. Now, some of us have a gifting, a special gifting of evangelism and they speak in football stadiums, but we all have a calling to be intentional and to share the love of Christ with people in our lives.

Now, when we think about sharing our faith with others, we can think about our friends, our family, coworkers, neighbors. It can bring up a lot of fear initially because we don't want to hurt or damage that relationship. So I love this quote from Keith Davey that addresses this issue. He says, "Exploring with genuine interest and concern doesn't threaten relationships; it deepens them." It doesn't threaten; it deepens them.

Now, when Keith says exploring, it's first doing the work of finding out where people are spiritually and what they believe and why. Then we can come alongside them and find ways to connect the truths of the Gospel of the message of Jesus to their lives. So here's where we're going today. We're going to reflect on the passage that Craig just read in 2 Corinthians and unpack the whys and the heart of why we share our faith.

Then I'm going to transition to a small training where we'll talk about how we can in very practical ways engage with others, hopefully in that same heart of genuine interest and concern. I'm going to do so because we're going to kick off an initiative today called One Question. You'll see that in your connect card as well, but not only do we want to celebrate missions, but we want you to step into it yourselves.

We want to give you that opportunity, whether it's this week or maybe even later today. Okay, are we ready? All right, let's look at the passage again and reread it. It's 2 Corinthians 2:14 through 16. If you need to in your Bibles in front of you, it's on page 1120. I did look it up, yes. Okay.

"But thanks be to God, who always leads us in triumphal procession in Christ and through us spreads everywhere the fragrance of the knowledge of him. For we are to God the aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing. To the one we are the smell of death; to the other the fragrance of life. And who is equal to such a task?"

Okay, so this is the author Paul writing this letter to the city of Corinth, which is in modern-day Greece. Paul first started the church there; he's the founder. But unfortunately, he's had ongoing problems with the church. So this letter is one of his most passionate. He just pours out his heart to the Corinthians. He's trying to justify himself and his ministry to them.

In these first couple chapters, he's just addressing his recent ministry activities. But while he does so, the imagery Paul shares in this passage is breathtaking. When Paul mentions a triumphal procession, he's referring to a Roman Triumph. This was basically a large parade led through Rome. It was granted by the Senate or one of the Caesars and was given to generals who had won great military campaigns and acquired new territory for the glory of Rome.

Now, these celebrations would sometimes last for days and they would parade through the streets all the captives and all the prisoners of war as well as all the spoils of war too. Ironically, one of the most famous triumphs in history was after the sacking of Jerusalem. Emperor Vespasian paraded with his son Titus in 80-71. We have a picture on the screens. There's a fresco that still survives today called the Arch of Titus in Rome. You can see the sculpture captured the image of the golden menorah that came from the temple.

With these processions, they would burn incense along the route as part of the celebrations. Now, for the Romans in the crowd celebrating, the pungent smell of incense would mean life. It would mean victory and that their nation would continue to thrive. Yet, at the very same time, for the prisoners of war getting dragged along in the parade, that same exact smell smelled like death. They were either to die in the arena or die as slaves. The same smell but perceived in opposite ways.

The first thing we can take from this passage is our position in Christ's triumphal procession, and that is that we are captives of Christ. We are captives of Christ. Now Paul, even James, Peter, and John, other authors of the Bible in the New Testament, when they wrote letters, they often introduced themselves as bondservants or slaves of Christ.

Here Paul is boasting of being this captive of Christ and getting taken along in his victory procession. This may seem counterintuitive, but the message of Jesus is one that often makes these great reversals in life of how we think they should be. The biggest example of this, of course, is the cross.

The cross was the worst way that you could be killed by Romans. The cross symbolized shame and death. It was agonizing and embarrassing as you were stripped and made fun of as you died. Yet, of all the places and all the times that Jesus could have come, he chose to go there and he chose to go to the cross.

You see this great reversal. It's illustrated well in Hebrews chapter 12, verse two. It says, "Looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God." Jesus won. He won the greatest victory by his death. We now celebrate the cross because it provides the path of salvation and a relationship with us and God, not only for us but for billions of people around the world.

The great reversal of the cross even echoes into this passage that we're looking at today. The Roman Triumph meant to be the final humiliation and subjection of prisoners of war, and again the Gospel turns this on its head. Paul celebrates that Christ has defeated sin, our old master, and has now made us God's possession and leads us in his victory in this world. We are captives of Christ.

This new identity gives us new purpose. This new purpose even too often transforms us and creates a significant reversal in our own lives. I saw this most vividly when I was doing some college ministry here in Pittsburgh. I got to meet a student named James. James was known as the craziest player on his college football team.

He was a freshman. He had partied pretty hard in college and the accumulation of bad choices was now catching up to him, and he was on the brink of being expelled from school. I was able to meet him at a sandwich shop close to campus in the spring. He was feeling down and frustrated because he just couldn't get out of that cycle of self-destructive ways.

I was able to share the Gospel with him and he was very responsive, but he was really afraid because he was looking towards the summer and all his non-Christian friends were waiting for him who wanted to party with him back home. James needed a taste of a new way to live. It was a long shot, but I pitched a 10-week-long missions trip to Ocean City, New Jersey, and it was only two weeks away.

I told you James was crazy, right? And he actually did it. He actually went. He joined 60-70 other Christian college students and staff and he was in daily fellowship with those believers. He was in weekly Bible studies. He even went out sharing on the beaches multiple times a week with students and staff and it revolutionized his life.

So much so that he helped lead the football Bible study that very next fall, and he led that study for the rest of his time in college. Can you imagine all his football buddies that first team meeting when he made the announcement for a Bible study? Did James just say Bible study? He did. He was under new leadership. He was a captive of Christ and it changed the way he lived in all ways.

This identity gave him a new purpose. We see this in verse 14 for ourselves as well. It says, "and through us," Jesus here, "spreads everywhere the fragrance of the knowledge of him." Not only are we captives of Christ, but we are carriers of the Gospel. We are carriers of the Gospel. Now, this passage is one of my favorites and it motivates me to share my faith in several ways.

First, this passage clearly defines our purpose in this world, that we are to spread the aroma of the knowledge of him. Second, the fact that God wants this knowledge to be spread everywhere means that this message is for everyone. It's for everyone. God loves everyone and wants them to know him.

There's a reality that everyone is on a spiritual journey. They may be moving closer to God or farther away, but they are on a spiritual journey. God is at work in the lives of people, like James even, and he wants to use us. If you need purpose or direction in your life, let this verse capture your heart as it's captured mine.

Another motivation is that evangelism is worship to God. If you look back on verses 14 and 15, in verse 14, it mentions the fragrance of Christ, which kind of refers to that incense in those triumphal processions. But in verse 15, the English changes from fragrance to aroma, and that's intentional. The words in Greek also change. Paul moves from one powerful image to another.

The word for aroma attaches itself to Old Testament sacrifices. These were described as a pleasing aroma to God in the Old Testament. Example of this is in Exodus, this is chapter 29, verse 18, and it says, "and burn the whole ram on the altar. It is a burnt offering to the Lord. It is a pleasing aroma, a food offering to the Lord."

My son was recently reading through the Old Testament and asked me, he's like, "Isn't God above needing food or earthly smells?" And that was a great question. I think these ongoing offerings and sacrifices by the Jews were representative of a sacrificial faith that was alive in them and that was what was pleasing to God.

Think about the time it took to walk an animal to the temple, the cost of that animal, and having the faith that this would atone or be forgiveness for them. It was all an incredible demonstration of faith. Paul picks up on this and says as we live our lives and share our faith, it's worship to him. It's sacrificial. It's a demonstration of faith and it's a pleasing aroma.

Can I also just say that evangelism does wonders for our own spiritual walks as well? It's like a performance-enhancing drug, but legal. When I get the opportunity to share my faith with others and they understand the Gospel and I see that they get it, I am praising God like never before. My worship is amplified.

When I maybe have a tough conversation and I see the confusion and brokenness in their lives, it drives me to fervent prayer for them more. When they ask difficult questions that I don't know, it drives me back to the scriptures to find the answers for them.

A few years ago at Carnegie Mellon, my wife met a freshman there named Kina. She was from New York City. She had never been inside a church or even cracked open a Bible, but she had a grandma who had been spiritual and she was interested. She met with my wife once a week to read through the Gospel of John.

As they wrestled with Jesus's words and Jesus's actions, she finally got to a place where she said, "Alicia, I think Jesus is God." Let me tell you, there's the Bible verses look brand new when you look at them through the eyes of a new believer. Evangelism breathes life into a stale faith. It breathes life into a stale faith.

Okay, so even though there are strong motivations for evangelism—it's worship to God, it gives us purpose and meaning, it's for everyone—yet there can still be challenges because it can be intimidated by the gravity of the moment. When someone's eternity is on the line and I'm asking you to be a representative of Jesus and quote-unquote "close that deal," it can become overwhelmed by that.

So we need to think of evangelism not as this one monumental event, but by many moments and part of a process and a conversation. I have a graphic up on the screen that kind of illustrates all these dots are kind of touchpoints in a relationship. The white dots represent conversations in which you don't talk about spiritual matters, but the red ones you do.

So maybe it's actually sharing the complete Gospel. Maybe it's just asking questions and what they believe. It maybe it's sharing what God is teaching you. But if we think about the people in our lives and the conversations we have with them if they don't know Jesus, if we don't have many of these red dot kind of conversations, then those one moments that they do come up become monumental.

I think the biggest thing that we can do to be the fragrance of Christ to the world is that we bring up these spiritual matters more and we normalize the topic of God. Not to be annoying with it, so to speak, but it's just a part of who we are as captives of Christ. He gets a part of my interests and a part of my focus no matter what conversation I'm in, and it will just come up.

Think about it like this. My daughter, my middle daughter Gwen, is getting her driver's license. She just got her permit, and she had to pass the written test for that. Now, she doesn't need to—I mean, she needed to know some of the basics, which brake was—which pedal was the brake was an important one. But my daughter doesn't get her license until after she completes about 60 hours of actual driving.

Why? Because you can know all the details about a car, you can know how to take a car apart and put it back together again, but if you've never been behind the wheel, all that knowledge won't help you. You need to know what that first awkward hit of the gas and slam on the brakes feels like. Then you need to do it again and again until it becomes normal, becomes more gradual and smooth.

Evangelism is similar. You can sit in a million classes and learn all the theological apologetics, but it won't compare to just getting behind the wheel and actually doing it. Think about this too. This is kind of a wild thought. All of you who have been driving for a couple years are experts in driving. Now, some of you might—your family might argue with you being experts in driving or not, but it almost becomes second nature.

Believe me, evangelism can become just as smooth in your life with practice. But when we get into evangelism, we will always face these several—I call them sound barriers in our lives. These sound barriers are the moments in these conversations where you feel it in your gut, you have butterflies, and it takes a little extra effort or a step of faith to kind of move through them.

Okay, so this first sound barrier is just initiating a conversation. As an introvert like myself, it's sometimes hard to kind of gain that little bit of a spiritual muscle to get past saying, "Hey, how are you doing today?" But that's the first step. For example, I remember being in a restaurant with a friend not too long ago and we were in line for the register and they said where I was in line was about a half hour from the register.

So I gave a not-so-excited look to the guy in front of me, but I noticed that I had a half hour to kill, right? So I kind of went past the butterflies and asked the guy in front of me. I was like, "Hey, what—how was your day today? Tell me about yourself." And so I got to know about him, got to know about his family and his career. And so that's just initiating that first sound barrier of starting a conversation.

The second sound barrier is moving from conversation to a spiritual conversation. Back to my example, I asked him—or I was able—the conversation kind of slowed a little bit and I was able to mention that my friend and I knew each other from church. I asked him if he had a spiritual background or if he ever went to church.

And so he mentioned that he was more of a person of science, but that he was able to go to—with his wife to church sometimes. And so we were able to talk about that and learn more about his story from that. So that's moving into a spiritual conversation. Then moving from spiritual, another sound barrier is moving to sharing kind of the heart of the message of Jesus, the Gospel.

In example, approaching—in the restaurant, as I was talking to the gentleman in the restaurant, we were getting closer to the register. And so I was running out of time, but I had a couple questions ready that I often ask. One of them is from his experience of church, what did he think the main message of Christianity was? Or if that didn't work, I was going to ask him if he believed there was an afterlife and what determined which way you would go.

So that's moving from spiritual topics to the Gospel. And then another barrier is asking people to respond to the Gospel. It's one thing to know the information of the Gospel, but then it's another thing to help them come to a point of decision.

For instance, last Saturday or two Saturdays ago during the Table Project—that's where we went out as a church and gave out hams and had spiritual conversations with people. One of the first people I was able to talk to, she was there on Neville Island. We were able to give her a ham and get into a spiritual and Gospel conversation.

But as we approached kind of going through sharing the Gospel, we got to that place where I could ask her to respond. And so I was able to ask for her, what is keeping you from making a decision to follow Jesus today? For her, she communicated that it was all new to her and she needed to get more familiar with it before she made that kind of commitment, which was a good answer. We encouraged her in the few more of those next steps.

Then the last thing is when we ask people to respond to the Gospel, we can still have an opportunity to press on and ask them to continue that conversation with us. That again, it's a conversation of many moments and not one monumental event. And so we can continue to have that ongoing conversation with them about where they're at.

So these sound barriers can provide almost a roadmap for us of what it looks like to be evangelists and having these conversations. Now once we start to have these conversations, you will find people are in very different places spiritually. Paul experienced this too, as we saw in the 2 Corinthians passage. He said the fragrance of Christ was perceived differently by those who were perishing and by those who were being saved.

This is a reality that because you're a Christian, there's a reality that some people will think that you smell like death. That's just something I can't really sugarcoat. That's just a reality. But we shouldn't be surprised by that. But to others, you will smell like life. To others, you will smell like life, and that's encouraging.

On the screen is a pie chart I want to share with you that kind of gives you categories of what people between this death and life can look like in different places spiritually. It can be from people who are hostile to the faith to people who are apathetic to people who are open and seeking or even believers.

I think what's encouraging by thinking about as we engage with people, we'll talk to people from all different parts of that pie chart. We will talk to people who are open and seeking the Lord, and I think that's encouraging. But regardless of where people are at on that pie chart, they have the ability to move closer to being a follower of Jesus.

My prayer is that wherever someone is on that chart, my conversation can be a plus-one experience for them, that I can move them closer. I've seen at times where I've had conversations with people who probably fall into that hostile category, that being able to listen to them well, be kind and gracious, and still offer reasons for my faith, I've seen some of them soften. And I trust and pray that they'll be in a different place the next time someone engages with them about Jesus.

With this, I think it's important to define successful evangelism. Successful evangelism is taking a step of faith, flexing that faith muscle, in the power of the Holy Spirit to present the claims of Christ and leaving the results to God, leaving the results to God. We need to celebrate our faithfulness in getting behind the wheel and getting practice and being faithful in pursuing and sharing with others, but that aspect of results, that's God's department of him being able to change hearts and minds.

With that, I want to help you in being faithful in the process of bringing up these spiritual matters and start to get these conversations going. That's why for the rest of April, for the next three weeks, we want to kick off this One Question initiative. The heart behind this is to give you those easy intros and getting you behind the wheel, so to speak.

The one question is this: "If you could ask God one question, what would it be?" If you could ask God one question, what would it be? You could intro this with someone by saying, "Hey, our church is encouraging us to find out what people think about God. Can I ask you a question to help understand?"

So first, you're asking permission to ask the question. That's very considerate of you. But also, this initial ask is a good, simple gauge of where the person's at, and it can start the convo. When they do give you a question back, don't immediately try to answer the question that they asked. You want them to feel heard, and so repeat back that question to them, maybe restate it, and give them some time to expand.

For example, one possible example could be: "Why does God allow bad things to happen to good people?" You can say, "That's a great question. So if I understand you correctly, you think it's unfair that people suffer when they don't deserve it. Is that right?" You give them the space to share more.

When you start to do this and get into this space, you can start asking other questions to understand more of where they are. Questions like, "I'm curious, do you have a faith now, or did you at one point? Where are you now with faith? And did these kinds of questions push you away?" Here you're learning and getting more of their background.

Now if it's possible, you can also offer a response to potentially move you more towards those Gospel conversations. You could say something like, "I'm not sure why God allows some bad things to happen, but I know that God cares. One of the main purposes of Jesus was to come to earth was to die on the cross and suffer. I think that's directly connected to human suffering as well. Do you know why Jesus had to come and die?"

I think as Christians, we can often bring lots of questions of pain and evil and suffering to the foot of the cross because our God is not aloof or separate from that, but he came and entered into it and experienced all of that and more.

Also, when you ask that one question to others, others may not be able to think of a question. That's okay. It can be a lot. You have a couple options here. You can either ask them if they're willing to think about it and get back to you, or you could just go ahead and press in with some more questions. You could say something like, "That is a big question and it can be hard to come up with one. But I'm curious, in your case, is God someone you think about often or not at all?" And go from there.

Once you ask them those questions, guess what? You're behind the wheel and you're in spiritual conversations, which is exciting. Let's talk about the Gospel. We've mentioned that word a lot. But as you explore where people are spiritually, we can explore if they know and understand that message of Jesus, which is so important. Some people can and live around Christianity but still not know that message, and they have to know the message before they can believe it.

Somewhere in the process of that conversation, I'll ask questions like, "From what you've experienced of Christianity, do you know what the main message is? Could you tell me? Or do you know what Christians believe?" Or a classic question I ask is, "If you were to die today and go before the gates of heaven and God asks you, 'Why should I let you in?' what would you say?"

Now, if they say that they're a really, really, really nice guy, you know that maybe they don't quite get the heart of that Gospel message. In that kind of scenario, you can offer that, "Actually, my answer to that question is a little different. Can I share that with you and get your thoughts?"

An outline I use to share the Gospel is an adaptation of the Four Spiritual Laws called The Four. With it, there's four symbols, four Bible verses, and four questions. Sometimes I use it through an actual outline; sometimes I have it just memorized and I just share it naturally.

But with the questions, I think are important because it makes sharing the Gospel a conversation and not a presentation when I'm interacting with those questions. Let me just quickly go over this.

One is that God loves us. John 3:16: "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have everlasting life." A question I ask here is, "Is it easy or hard to believe that God loves you?" And you'll get varied responses on that.

Two: Sin separates us. Romans 3:23: "All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." "How would you define sin?" I think sin is actually a very churchy word, and so we need to help define that. That it's not the big-ticket items like murder and bank robbery, but it's more of that inner brokenness and selfishness that affects all aspects of my life and it separates me from God.

Point three: Jesus rescues us. 1 Peter 3:18: "Christ suffered for our sins once for all time. He never sinned, but he died for sinners to bring you safely home to God." Question I ask there is, "Why did Jesus have to die?" It's really easy to point them back to this passage, that he had to suffer for us, to take our place and to pay for the punishment of our sins.

Lastly, will I trust Jesus? So here this four even helps us bring people to a point of decision. John 1:12 says, "But to all who believed him and accepted him, he gave the right to become children of God." We get adopted into his family. A question I ask there is, "What must we do to be made right with God?"

Again, it's not about earning it, try to work our way to please God, but it's by believing and accepting what Jesus did for us. If you've just been visiting with us and are newer to the church, even too, I would ask if you are interested in learning more about having that relationship with Jesus, please talk to me, Pastor Craig, one of the staff. We love to talk to you more about who he is and what he wants.

Well, today I've given you lots of examples of questions. I know there's been a lot of questions shared, but these questions and more I've included on a document and I put it into the resources on our webpage. And so there's a little link on the top of your sermon notes that you can access that and get the questions so you can review those as we go over these next few weeks.

As we go over these coming weeks and ask people this question, "If they could ask God one question, what would it be?" and you get responses from them, on the other side of the connect card, I have a QR code by the One Question marker. That's a Google form, and I would love to record—because even too for me personally, I'd love to know what are the most asked questions people are asking about God? It could be so helpful. As well as it'd be a good way to engage and celebrate how many people were able to connect with.

Then while you have that connect card in your hand, I would encourage you to write down some names of people. A while ago, we had written our "Ones" on the stage here, people that we're in relationship with but they don't know Jesus. We've been praying for them and wanting them to come to him. So this would be a great way, this One Question, to ask them and many others and engage with them.

I want to finish with going back to 2 Corinthians chapter two. Paul ends with a question here. In the end of verse 16, he says, "And who is equal to such a task? Who is equal to such a task?" It is so easy to ask this question of ourselves. "Who do you think you are that you're going to try and tell people about Jesus?"

You may not feel worthy. You may not feel qualified. You may not feel that God can use you. Well, Paul has an answer to those questions. A few verses later in the next chapter, chapter 3, verses 4 and 5, Paul says this, "Such confidence as this is ours through Christ before God. Not that we are competent in ourselves to claim anything for ourselves, but our competence comes from God. Our competence comes from God."

Sure, we're not worthy, but Jesus is. He's claimed us for his own. We are his captives. We are his carriers of the Gospel and our worth and our identity and our purpose comes from him. We are his instruments in this world, carrying the fragrance of the knowledge of him everywhere.