The Alternative

Guest (Male): Hey, we should hear the word and see the word. Dr. Tony Evans says the way we live needs to reinforce the message we proclaim. They should hear the gospel from us and see the gospel through us. This is The Alternative broadcast, featuring the timeless biblical teachings from the archives of Dr. Tony Evans.

There's plenty of bad news in the world today, but some of the worst news is that we're not sharing enough of the good news. Dr. Evans says that should change, and he'll tell us how we can do it. Let's join him.

Dr. Tony Evans: There is, brothers and sisters, a disease that has infected the whole human race. It's called sin, and it's affected every man, every woman, every boy, and every girl. And it is terminal.

However, there is a cure. The cure is the blood of Jesus Christ. Most in this room, if not all, have injected the vaccine and have received the Savior and have been forgiven by the blood. Now, my question: what would you say about a person who was cured from a terminal disease and would keep it to themselves? That's exactly what we do when we fail to witness. When we fail to share Christ, we fail to offer the vaccine for terminal disease.

What's the core message that is our message? If we have received the cure that we should be sharing that other people might be made well, Paul gives it to us in 1 Corinthians 15. He says that the message we preach is that Christ died for your worst disease, for our sins.

Why is that important? Because it is sin that separates men from God. It is sin that causes men to die physically and die eternally. It is sin that brings about the terminal declaration by a holy God. And only Christ can deal with sin. And so he says that Christ died for our sins.

Now, please notice that the message we share centers around a person, not a program. It centers around Christ. Evangelism has at its core a message: the death for sin, your terminal disease. Your mothers, your fathers, your sisters, your brothers, your aunts, your uncles, mine, the same, are dying. They have a disease in their soul that is killing them and that will take them to eternal abyss unless you inject a vaccine. The vaccine is the good news that the sin issue has been dealt with by the blood of Jesus Christ.

But let me give you one other element before I move on. You have not shared the gospel unless you do it with the intent to convert the hearer to faith. It is not enough to say, "John, Jesus died for you and he arose for you. Think about it." It's not enough.

Just like it's not enough for a doctor to hold up a needle and say, "I've got good news. In this needle is your cure for the disease that you have. Think about it." That's not good news. That's only partial good news. It's only good news when I inject it. Until you get to the point where you call for a decision, you have not presented the full gospel.

Second Corinthians 5: the motivation for sharing Christ. There are three listed in 2 Corinthians 5. One, the fear of Christ. He says in verse 9, "Therefore, also we have as our ambition, whether at home or absent, to be pleasing to him. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may be recompensed for his deeds in the body according to what he has done, whether good or bad." Therefore, knowing the fear of the Lord, we persuade men.

Persuading men to make a decision for Christ, intent. He says, Paul says, one of the motivations is the fear of Christ. Brothers and sisters, there are two sides of our Lord in this issue. There is the love side, which everybody wants when you hear people say, "Well, God wouldn't do that, he's a God of love."

But anybody who tells you that has not told you the whole story. God is not only a God of love. God's wrath is to the equal degree of his love. Let me say that again: God's wrath is equal to his love. So heaven lasts forever, hell lasts forever. The reason why those two exist is because of the two sides of God, if I can use that phrase, and I think you understand what I'm saying.

God doesn't mind deferring to his love, but he cannot defer to his love and ignore his wrath because that is as much a part of him as his love. So he has to relate equally to both because that's who he is. He is made up of this. So he, knowing the fear of God, this fear of God motivated Paul, this serious side of God, so to speak.

Verse 9 he says it motivated him to please the Lord. We labor to please God. Now why is he saying that? Don't be men pleasers. He says, "My ambition is to please the Lord." Now why was that his ambition? Verse 10, "Because we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ and we're going to be recompensed by Christ for what we did."

And when you and I stand before Christ, people will be nowhere to be found, okay? Because they've got to stand when their turn comes. So, people can't help you, people can't hurt you. You stand naked before Christ yourself to be rewarded for that which you did was good, that is had value for eternity, and that which you did was bad, was worthless for eternity.

He says, "I'm scared of that day." Knowing the fear of God, that day when I have to stand before him to give an account for my life, I'm scared of that day. Because I'm scared of that day, I'm not going to spend all of my time pleasing people and miss that day. I'm not going to spend so much time pleasing people that when I stand before Christ he's going to say, "You spent all those years pleasing those folks, you never got around to pleasing me, and you have nothing to show here at the judgment because you loved people a little bit too much."

First Peter 4:17 and 18: "For it is time for judgment to begin in the household of God, and if it begins with us first, what will be the outcome for those who do not obey the gospel of God? For if it is with difficulty that the righteous is saved, what will become of the godless man and sinner?" He says this is serious business, not to be taken lightly. So we persuade men.

The second motivation, found in verse 14, is the love of Christ. Well, you see, we talked about the fear of the Lord, now we're talking about the love of the Lord, because both are equally God. We are to fear him because of his wrath, we are to rejoice in him because of his love. Psalm 2:11 says, "Serve the Lord with fear and rejoice with trembling." For the love of Christ controls us.

The Bible says we love him because he first loved us. The love of Christ has to do with the fact that we should seek to please him because of what he did for us. Which means if you don't know what he did, or if you don't remember what he did, or if you fail to appreciate what he did, his love won't control you.

Or to put it another way, the more in love you are, the more you'll talk about him. The less in love you are, the less you'll talk about him. Show me a person who shares Christ regularly, I show you a person who's in love. You know when a person's in love, don't you? They show you pictures you don't want to see. They talk about a person you don't know, have no interest in knowing. They be sharing stuff, talking and talking and talking. Quiet people get loud when they get in love, right?

Why? Because love will always dominate conversation. So you know what our lack of sharing Christ means? Lack of love. Paul says, "This love is controlling me." So the more you fall in love with Jesus, the more you'll talk about him. So pursuing a relationship, pursuing a passion, pursuing an intimacy will automatically increase evangelism.

He says the love of Christ, verse 14, was because men have died and he died for all, that those who live should no longer live to themselves, verse 15, but for him who died and rose again on their behalf. God died for you and saved you that you might no longer live for you. Now that's deep.

Because we live in the me-generation. I live for me, you live for you. "Am I happy?" This is the big one. "Am I happy? I'm not happy." You're not happy. "But God wants me happy." We always get in this with married couples. Here's the line we get with married couples: "I'm not happy anymore in this relationship."

And then they get spiritual: "God doesn't want me unhappy." Okay? This is called a syllogism: "I'm not happy in this relationship, God doesn't want me unhappy, therefore, it must be the will of God for me to leave this relationship." Not.

He says that you might no longer live unto yourself. God says, now you live unto him. And it is only when you move beyond your happiness—certainly God doesn't want you miserable as a way of living. I don't mean that. But what I am saying is that your happiness is really not his first concern.

He saved you to make him happy. He saved you according to this verse that you might live for him, that you might please him, but for him who died and rose again on their behalf. And if we could get Christians to begin living for him, then he would become your happiness. He would become your joy. But because we're fighting for our own joy, we don't get his joy, so we're only as joyful as we can continue making ourselves joyful. But if we live for him, if his glory is more important than our happiness, then we will know real happiness.

Guest (Male): Dr. Evans will return in a moment with more of today's message. First though, if you've been listening to this broadcast for any length of time, you're probably aware that Tony has hosted a number of teaching trips to the Holy Land. Now, if you've ever wanted to travel to Israel with him but haven't been able to make that happen, well, here's a fantastic opportunity to experience a little of what that's like.

Photos of one of his trips, along with Tony's talks and insights, have been captured and published in a large, high-quality picture book called Experiencing Israel. As we've been hearing today, Dr. Evans' current teaching series is all about developing personal intimacy with Jesus. Well, this keepsake book will help you do that as you discover for yourself the places the Lord visited during his time on earth.

And that's why we'd like to send you a copy of Experiencing Israel as our gift when you make a contribution toward Tony's ministry. Also, as a bonus, we'll also include his current eight-part sermon series, Pursuing Christ. To get all the details, just visit tonyevans.org or call our resource center at 1-800-800-3222. That's tonyevans.org or call 1-800-800-3222, where resource team members are standing by around the clock to help with your request. Right now, Dr. Evans is back with more of today's lesson. Let's join him.

Dr. Tony Evans: He says the love of Christ controls me. How can I not persuade men? But notice this—this is deep. Everybody quotes it, but I'm not sure many people understand it. Verse 16: "Therefore, now, we recognize no man according to the flesh; even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet we know him thus no longer. Therefore, if any man is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come. Now, all these things are from God."

He says in verse 16, we don't look at people externally anymore. We know no man after the flesh. That means after external factors. Whether a man is a Democrat or Republican is irrelevant to us now. Whether a man is black or white is irrelevant to us now. Whether a man is rich or poor is irrelevant to us now, because we do not relate to people according to the flesh.

We now relate to people according to whether they are in or outside of Christ. If they're outside of Christ, we want to get them in. If they're inside of Christ, we want to grow them up. But we no longer allow external factors to govern us.

He is saying that he looks at life from a whole new perspective, from a whole new dimension. He looks at life through the sunglasses of Jesus Christ from a spiritual worldview. Colossians 3:1: "Seeking those things which are above, using heaven as my gauge for living here on earth."

And that's why we have all these problems we can't fix because people do not want, even Christians, do not want to look at earth's problems through heavenly sunglasses. They want to look after things after the flesh. That's why you have racism in the church, that's why you have classism in the church, that's why you have culturalism in the church, that's why you have major breakdowns because people want to look at things through those old glasses that can't focus anymore in this new realm because it is a realm of a whole new creation.

And all things are of God. God is the standard in this realm. So, he's going to persuade men, he's going to preach the gospel. Why? Number one, because of the fear of Christ; number two, because of the love of Christ; and thirdly, in this section, because of the commission of Christ.

Boy, so much here. He says in verse 17 or 18, "Now all things are from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation." Reconciliation means to change thoroughly. In Jesus Christ, God has reconciled the world to himself. Now follow this.

Every man, woman, boy, and girl by the death of Christ has been reconciled to him. God has changed his relationship to them. Where he used to be their enemy, he is now their friend by virtue of the death of Christ. Now, there's a whole theology here that I don't have time to get into.

The reason that a baby goes to heaven when a baby dies at one day old or something is because the baby has already been reconciled. Now follow this now. The baby was reconciled by the work that Christ already did. A person born insane, who has no sense of cognitive ability, if that person's born insane, that person dies, that person immediately goes to heaven. Why? Because the person has already been reconciled.

The death of Christ totally dealt with original sin. Original sin means the sin you are born with. All original sin was addressed by the death of Christ. Well, now that raises a question: if the whole world has been reconciled, then why does anybody go to hell since everybody's been reconciled? Because you can refuse the reconciliation, which no child has done.

That's where we get the age of accountability. Age of accountability comes in because when you make your conscious choice to sin—once you make your conscious, knowledgeable choice to sin—then you're your own accountability at that point. That's why the Bible says men are condemned because they believe not on him. In other words, you have to say no to God before the reconciliation that he has done in Christ is not applicable to you. That's why everybody else is covered.

We have been given the ministry or commission to be reconcilers, to get men to God because God's already turned to men. Through the death of Christ, God took the initiative and says, "Here's my hand. Take it." We're trying to get men to stretch forth their hand to God through Christ.

We are reconcilers. What is the message? Verse 19: "That God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not counting trespasses against them, and he has committed to us the word of reconciliation." That's good news! Good news is that God has already dealt with your sin, he's not going to hold your sin against you, but you've got to accept the payment that he paid. It's good news.

Let me tell you what men are trying to do. Men are trying to settle for religion. You know what religion is? Religion is a man's feeble attempt to reconcile himself with God. That's what religion is. Religion is your feeble attempt to be okay with God, and God says everything you do cannot add up to one iota of solving the sin problem. That's why I had to come down. If you could do it yourself, Jesus wouldn't have had to die, he just could have waited on you.

Do you know most people don't know that? Most people you talk to are trying to work their way to heaven because nobody has explained to them God heaven has worked their way down to them. Heaven has come to you, you don't have to work your way up to him. Jesus came down to take you up. You don't have to earn your way. It's a free gift. You must receive the reconciliation of God, not create the reconciliation on your own.

He closes this section by saying, "Therefore, we are ambassadors"—an ambassador represents one nation to another nation—"of Christ, as though God were entreating through us." God's talking through you when you share Christ. "We beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. He who knew no sin became sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in him." That's called imputation, crediting to your account.

What God does is he credited your sin to Christ's account on the cross, and if you receive Jesus Christ, he credits Christ's righteousness to you. So it's two things that happen, not one. He doesn't only forgive your sins, that's only half a story. He also credits to your account the goodness of Christ, so that when you go to heaven, you go as good as Christ is. When God looks at you, he looks through Jesus Christ that covers your sin so he doesn't see your sin; he can take you to glory.

Finally, the methods of evangelism. Let's quickly look at that. John 1. We've hinted at it, but John 1—well, let me read a verse first. Let me read John 17:18 and then let me go to John 1. "As thou didst send me into the world, I have also sent them into the world." Father, as you sent me, I'm sending them. The method of evangelism.

Now, how did God send Jesus? Now turn back to chapter 1. "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." First of all, verbalization: the Word. He spoke it. Jesus Christ is the verbalization of God. He is the spokesperson of God. Hebrews 1: God has spoken today through his Son.

But please notice something in verse 14: "And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory, glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth." That's visualization. Verse 1, verbalization, spoken. Verse 14, visualization, seen.

You and I are to take the message of Jesus Christ and speak it and live it. We are to take the message of Jesus Christ and let it be heard and let it be seen. It is two, not one. People should hear the word and see the word. Just like according to the scripture, and he was buried; according to the scripture, but five hundred saw him. Jesus didn't just give biblical data; he gave visible demonstration.

So, the method of our evangelism should always include both: what we tell people and what people can see. They should hear the gospel from us and see the gospel through us. It is verbal and visual. Many people see evangelism as herding fish into the stained glass aquarium of the church, so let the big fisherman, usually the pastor, can cast out this huge net and fish for them. No, God's question is: who have you shared me with lately? Who are you witnessing?

Guest (Male): Dr. Tony Evans on how we can present the good news to others. And if you'd like to find out more about who Christ is and how you can get to know him better, just ask for your copy of Tony's eight-part lesson series called Pursuing Christ. It includes a full-length version of today's message and is available right now with our thanks when you make a contribution to help us keep this broadcast coming your way.

Along with it, we'll also include Experiencing Israel, the gift-worthy hardcover picture book I told you about earlier. This special combo offer is only available for a short time, so we encourage you to contact us right away. You can get all the details at tonyevans.org or call our resource center at 1-800-800-3222, where team members are standing by to help with your request day and night.

When you review a business online, one of the things you rate is the quality of their service. Well, tomorrow, Dr. Evans will tell us about some important biblical benchmarks that measure how well we're serving the Lord. Right now, he's back with a final note on today's lesson.

Dr. Tony Evans: First Peter 3:15 says that we should be ready to give an answer to anybody who asks us about the hope that's in us. We should be ready to speak it because it's in us, the hope that is in us. It is our hope, and it's visually our hope. They can see it's our hope. They know.

Jesus told the disciples in Acts 1, he said, "Go to Jerusalem." He says, "And wait before me, tarry before me. Become full of the Holy Spirit, and when you do, other folks will know about it." And of course, that was Pentecost. "You shall be my witnesses." You won't need a program, you won't need an outline, you won't need nothing because when you get full of me, you're going to talk. It's going to come out, it's going to erupt like a volcano. You won't be embarrassed.