Key Life Network

Steve Brown: We're beggars telling other beggars where we found bread. It's doc, I'm Key Life. If you're sick of guilt and manipulation, and if you're looking for an honest and thoughtful presentation of biblical truth, you've come to the right place. This is Key Life with the founder of Key Life Network, Steve Brown. Keep listening for teaching that will make you free.

Thank you, Matthew. Was that cool yesterday or what? You know, I didn't even know that we had that original broadcast. And that, you want to feel old, head up a ministry that's 40 years old and they play your voice from 40 years ago.

I already felt old as dirt, and that certainly didn't help. But I'll tell you something, I look over these 40 years of Key Life and I raise my hands in praise of a God that we didn't lose too many and maybe touched a bunch of lives and you helped us. So thank you so much for these past 40 years.

Alright, enough said. We're talking about evangelism, we talked about motivation and content to share your faith and how to do it and what to say. But we've got to say something before we get off the subject of evangelism, that the position from which we witness is really, really important.

The Christian, having been accepted and loved by God, must now go to others only as one beggar telling another beggar where to find bread. One of the worst public relations fiascos ever caused by the church is the way the church has given the impression that it is made up of good people who are in the business of making everyone else good, and I might say miserable.

Somewhere Joe Pagan and Jane Cynic have gotten the idea that we are coming to them with this message. Look how great and pure and good and committed we are. We want you to be that way too. People won't buy that for two reasons. First, because they know it's a lie. And secondly, because they already have enough problems.

Scripture says this, for by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing, it is the gift of God, not because of works, lest any man should boast. That's Ephesians 2:8. We have got to remember that before we talk about Christ.

We should go to another, not because we're good or committed or even because we were so wise to accept what Christ offered. We should always share Christ in the realization that he came to us when we couldn't come to him, that he loved us when we couldn't love him, that he's given us life when we couldn't obtain it for ourselves.

Anything less than that, any attitude other than that, will serve only to misrepresent Christ and our faith. And it's also important for Christians to realize that if anyone comes to know Christ as the result of our witness, it will only be because the Holy Spirit was operating in the situation.

Before we witness, we ought to be sure that we're filled with the spirit. And I talked about that earlier when we talked about the doctrine of the Holy Spirit. Before we speak to others about their sin, we must always speak to God about our own sin. We should confess our sin and ask him to once again fill us with his spirit.

Unless that happens before we talk to others about Christ, their knowing Christ will depend on our ability, our gifts, our talent in presenting him. That means for all means and purposes that nobody will. Also, and I'm kind of checking a checklist here at the end of this subject of evangelism.

Also, it's important for the Christian to spend some time talking to God about the person to whom the witness is directed. When possible, that person ought to be lifted before God by name in prayer, asking God's spirit to intervene to take our poor presentation and use it to glorify God.

The rule is this, before talking to friends about Christ, we should talk to Christ about our friends. I, I was on the committee for a couple of crusades that Billy Graham did in Florida. And one of the things that was really interesting in those who were preparing for the crusades and Mr. Graham's coming.

They said, find five people who are not believers and begin to pray for them right now. And then ask them to come to one of the crusade meetings. I did that. I had five people I started praying for them, and by the time Mr. Graham left town, all five of them had come to know Christ. Before talking to our friends about Christ, we should talk to Christ about our friends.

And finally, the Christian concern should not be for results. Our responsibility is to share Christ. What happens after we have done that is God's concern. Someone asked a missionary who had been serving for 20 years in a remote outpost with only two converts. What did you stay for?

The missionary said because Jesus wouldn't let me leave. That's it. That's why we're here. We're here for them to talk about Jesus in a way that is attractive and winsome and true. You think about that. Amen.

Guest (Male): Thank you, Steve. We've been working our way through the basics of the faith and today and recently delving into the essentials of evangelism. Tomorrow, we'll get into a topic that Steve says makes him wince. And just as a reminder, you can listen to all of these, welcome to the family episodes, going all the way back to June by going to keylife.org/family to listen and share.

What do you think of when you hear the word catechism? Arthur Trevan Wax thinks the centuries-old discipleship technique can be used to take on modern secular culture. We spoke with him about it on Steve Brown, et cetera. Take a listen to part of that conversation, then I'll be back to tell you about a special free offer.

Guest (Male): First, you better tell us what a catechism is.

Guest (Male) Arthur Trevan Wax: Yeah, it's a little bit of a scary word for some people, but it really is, it's just an ancient tool of discipleship that uses this formula of questions and answers. And even though the word catechism is, you know, sounds a little scary or big, or like that must just be for super Christians, it's really, if you look at the history of it, it's meant to be a simplified version of the Christian faith.

What are the main doctrines of the faith, how do you learn the basics of Christianity using this, here's a question and then here's an answer kind of format. In the early church, it was used for, you know, for people that were getting ready for baptism or people that were interested in the Christian faith. In the Reformation period, there was an explosion of catechisms. It was like just all these different groups were doing catechisms in order to, you know, to try to instruct the faithful on the basics of Christianity.

And you know, it's one of those tools in the toolbox and I think it's worth getting back out, dusting it off, maybe sharpening the edges a little bit where it can be useful again.

Guest (Female): Trevan, I was reading the introduction this morning, where you're talking about counter catechism. And I thought it was interesting because you referred to the Lutheran catechism, and Westminster Presbyterian, and Westminster, and there was, and even a Baptist catechism, which I didn't know anything about, as well as Catholic and and Episcopalian. And then you quoted Tim Keller in that introduction and said that he was right when he said we need a counter catechism that explains, refutes and renarrates the world's catechisms to Christians. So this is what you're doing, right? So what exactly is counter catechism?

Guest (Male) Arthur Trevan Wax: Well, there's a sense in which every catechism is already a counter catechism. That's one of the things Tim, I remember where I was when I was actually at a place where I heard Tim Keller say that for the first time, and what he meant by that was, if you look back even at those Reformation ones that you mentioned, those older catechisms, they were all counter. They were just counter the, you know, the dominant in that period, the medieval Roman Catholic Church of the era, and they were putting forth, you know, the Protestant understanding of the Christian faith with these affirmations and these questions and answers that were intended to counter what were some of the prevailing notions of the medieval era. That's what they were for.

So every catechism has that counter element. As culture changes though, our catechisms should change, not because the Christian faith changes, that doesn't change. That's the same yesterday, today and forever, as Jesus is. But the Christian faith doesn't change, but the cultural context in which the Christian faith is heard might change. And so some of the things we need to counter today, those areas where we are most likely to drift or be drawn into some kind of error, they're going to look different than they did in the 16th century, or the 17th century, or even the 18th century.

They're going to look different here in the United States than they may look today in China or in South Korea or in Africa. There's always a context to catechisms. So we're trying to do what Keller was calling for in the last years of his life, to present a counter catechism, some kind of way of addressing some of those cultural narratives that are so prevalent in our society today and to show where the Christian faith is different, so that we stand out. I mean, at the end of the day, that's what we want as Christians. You know, as the Apostle Paul says, shine like stars in a in a crooked and perverse generation. For us to stand out and for us to shine like stars, we've got to have that distinctiveness and we think that a counter catechism project can be one way of doing that.

Guest (Male): Fascinating stuff. Check out that entire conversation with Trevan Wax on CD for free by calling us at 1-800-Key Life. That's 1-800-539-5433. You can also email Steve at keylife.org to ask for that CD, or to mail your request, go to keylife.org/contact to find our mailing addresses for the US and Canada. Again, ask for the absolutely free CD featuring Trevan Wax.

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