The Message we Share (Evangelism 101)

Open your Bibles to Romans chapter 3, please. Romans chapter 3. And just hold your finger there, put a bookmark there, and we're gonna read a couple of verses from Romans 3 in a minute or two. But first let's do a brief review from our last time together when we considered our motivation for sharing the gospel. Remember that? Actually, before we do that even, can I just say that Pastor Chris' sermon this morning was a perfect segue into what we're looking at tonight. By the way, like last time, tonight's message isn't so much of a sermon as it is a training session or a lecture, if you will.

Anyway, Brother Chris' point this morning at the very end of his message that about the correctness of fear prompting a sinner to run to the cross was just right. But modern evangelism doesn't want to make anyone feel uncomfortable, much less afraid. And I've said before that the modern message is like seeing a blind man walking toward the edge of a thousand foot cliff, towards certain death, and rather than warn him of what's coming and pleading with him to stop and turn around, which might really offend him and upset him.

So rather than risk offending him, the modern message is like giving him a new set of earbuds and a ham sandwich and a warm jacket to make sure he's comfortable and entertained and sending him on his way. Baptists in the South have long been known for being great workers, selfless workers who swoop in following tragedy and rebuild flooded homes, feed hundreds or even thousands of people, gather up clothes, provide groceries, and on and on, which are all wonderful things to do, they really are.

But the late pastor Adrian Rogers rightly said that doing all of that without sharing the gospel is doing nothing more than making the world a better place to go to hell from. We don't wanna do that. We don't wanna just make the world a better place from which to go to hell. We wanna be used by God to turn blind folks away from thousand foot cliffs. Hebrews 10.31 says in the LSB, it is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God. Other translations say a fearful thing, fearful, terrifying. It says that, look it up for yourself, Hebrews 10.31. Well, if it says that, why would we wanna hide that?

Why would we wanna shy away from that message or be embarrassed about it or something? Fear, listen to me, fear is the friend of sinners, folks. Fear can drive them to the Savior. We wanna be used by God to introduce lost men, women, boys and girls to the Savior. You ever think about that word, Savior? What does that mean? Of course it means one who saves, right?

Christ is referred to as Savior dozens of times, more than 20, I just cursory counted this afternoon, I probably missed some in the LSB, but over 20 in the New Testament, the first of which is in Luke 2.11, which says, "For today in the city of David, "there has been born for you a Savior, "who is Christ the Lord." So here's a question, Savior from what? The late great R.C.

Sproul said that when he was teaching at seminary, occasionally a zealous student would see him walking across campus, not recognize him, not know who he was and attempt to evangelize him by walking up to him and saying, "Excuse me, sir, are you saved?" And of course, R.C., ever the teacher and ever a little mischievous, would always respond this way, "Save from what?" So what he'd ask him. He went on to say it was rare that a student could answer that correctly. So how about you? Can you answer that correctly right now? Christ is certainly Savior. He certainly saves sinners. Question is, he saves them from what exactly?

If you listen to the modern evangelistic message, you might think he saves them from disappointing career choices. You might think he saves from poor self-esteem, or he saves from bad family situations or other such things. Now, can Christ have a positive impact on all those? Absolutely. But what does the Bible say that the Savior saves from? Well, the clear teaching of Scripture is that the Savior came to save sinners from the wrath of God in the coming final judgment.

I don't remember if it was Sproul or MacArthur or somebody who said, "God saves us from himself, by himself, to himself, for himself." Tonight, we're gonna look into our responsibility to help sinners understand that. But first, let's quickly review what we talked about last time, since it's been a couple of weeks, our motivation for evangelizing, our motivation for sharing grace. You'll recall we looked at a piece by my friend Ray Comfort, in which he listed 10 reasons why Christians should be sharing the gospel frequently. Remember those? Let's just run through them quickly as a reminder. Reason number one, we've been commanded to do so.

Okay, we can stop there. We've been commanded to do so. But there are more reasons. Number two, hell exists. If hell didn't exist, why bother? But it does exist, and it's forever. Reason three, we should strive to love our neighbor as much as we love ourselves, which means being willing to get out of our comfort zones. Number four, obedience is evidence of salvation. Number five, to remain in silence is sin. Number six, evangelism deepens our walk with God and our dependence on Him. Number seven, I love this, it causes us to search the scriptures, because you wanna be ready to give an answer to those who have questions, right?

So it drives you to the Word. It deepens our prayer life, because it deepens your dependence on the Lord. Reason 10, we've been commanded to imitate Paul. And Paul was a madman sharing the gospel everywhere he went. And then if you recall, I added reason number 11, which is that the gospel is the power of God unto salvation. So there you have 11 compelling reasons why every single Christian should be sharing the gospel regularly. And remember, all we really should need is reason number one, right? We've been commanded to do so, so we should do so, period.

Well, remember too that we discussed the fact that although we have all these compelling reasons to do the work of evangelism, most of us don't do so very often or ever. Do you remember what we said about why Christians don't share the gospel more consistently or at all? We looked at some common obstacles identified by John Piper's ministry desiring God, and here they are again. Obstacle number one, lack of gospel knowledge. Just don't feel equipped to know what to say. Obstacle number two, apathy. Obstacle number three, fear of man more than fear of God. Obstacle four, lack of compassion. We have forgotten what it was like to be lost.

You remember the knockout punch from Charles Spurgeon? He said, "Have you no wish for others to be saved? "Then you're not saved yourself. "You can be sure of that." We probably ought all put that on our refrigerators. We might not eat as often. That might be a good way for me to lose weight. After we considered these obstacles, we looked at some ways in which we can together help each other to overcome them and be more faithful in our call to share the gospel. We looked at four steps to becoming Christians who share grace more. Step one, pray together for the lost. We do that here and we need to do it more.

We need, every time we gather together, we should pray for the lost. Step number two, recall the gospel together. Remind each other of the details of the gospel. Remind each other what Christ has done for us. Step number three, apply the gospel together. That means hold each other accountable when we're not living up to the ideals of the gospel. Step number four, prove the power of the gospel together, which kind of goes along with reason number 11 before that the power is in the gospel. With fellow believers, we must remind each other of the sufficiency of God's word to do his work for his purposes.

If we are confident in the ability of the gospel to transform lives, we can boldly and indiscriminately proclaim this good news with sacrificial love to the lost in the hope that some will be saved. Remember Romans 1.16? It's the gospel that is the power of God to salvation. And listen, knowing that provides great freedom because that means it's not all on my shoulders. The salvation of others does not rely on how smart I am or how clever or persuasive or engaging I can be. None of that. Nope, the salvation of others is in God's hands completely. It's the gospel that matters and all the Lord asks me to do is to be faithful.

That's our concern, to be found faithful with that with which he has entrusted us. He will not say on that day, well done, good and successful servant. Will he? No. What do we wanna hear him say? Well done, good and what? Faithful servant. We need to pray that he would enable us to be faithful and we need to repent for not being faithful already. Now we ended our last meeting together on our motivation to share grace with this highly convicting quote from Charles Spurgeon that I'd like to read again. If sinners will be damned, at least let them leap to hell over our bodies.

And if they will perish, let them perish with our arms about their knees imploring them to stay. If hell must be filled, at least let it be filled in the teeth of our exertions and let not one go there unwarned and unprayed for. All right, that's a pretty complete review of what we looked at last time regarding our motivation for sharing grace. So tonight we want to consider the message we share when we are sharing grace. What is the message we need to be communicating and are there messages that we need to be sure we aren't sharing or communicating?

So go ahead, you got your finger in Romans chapter three, turn there, Romans chapter three and let's read verses 19 and 20 this evening. 19 and 20 and I'm reading from the LSB. Paul said, "Now we know that whatever the law says, it speaks to those who are in the law so that every mouth may be shut and all the world may become accountable to God because by the works of the law, no flesh will be justified in his sight for through the law comes the knowledge of sin." Now we see in these verses a couple of important characteristics of the law of God but before we point those out and I'm sure you've already seen them, already noticed them, I want to spend just a moment talking about the three uses of God's law.

Maybe you could say the three purposes of God's law. Now the three uses of the law are not to be confused with the threefold division of the law. The three divisions of the law are the moral law, the ceremonial law and the civil law. The moral law is contained in its most concise written form in the 10 commandments which concern our duties toward God and man. The ceremonial law such as those concerning the priests and the sacrifices were typical ordinances that prefigured the person and work of Christ. These ceremonial laws are now done away with since Christ offered the once and for all sacrifice of himself on the cross.

The civil law consists of those laws given to Israel as a unique political state. For example, the cities of refuge in Joshua chapter 20, verses seven to nine. The civil law has expired because it had to do with Israel in its unique place under the Mosaic covenant. Neither the ceremonial law or the civil law is binding any longer which leaves the moral law. And it is the moral law we're talking about when we talk about the three uses of the law. So what are the three uses or purposes of the moral law of God? They are the political use, the pedagogical use and the normative use. Don't worry, we'll define these terms as we go.

First, the political use. Paul says in 1 Timothy chapter one, verses eight to 11, 1 Timothy chapter one, verses eight to 11, but we know that the law is good if one uses it lawfully. Knowing this, that the law is not made for a righteous person but for those who are lawless and rebellious, for the ungodly and sinners, for the unholy and godless, for those who kill their fathers and mothers, for murderers, for sexually immoral persons, for homosexuals, for kidnappers, for liars, for perjurers and whatever else is contrary to sound teaching according to the gospel of the glory of the blessed God with which I have been entrusted.

The political use of the moral law serves to restrain sin and encourage order in a community. It is the standard according to which wise rulers are to make and enforce the laws of their nations. It's been said, incorrectly said, you can't legislate morality. That's what all laws are, legislating morality, right? And that's the political use of the law of God. The second use of the moral law is the pedagogical use, but I wanna come back to that in a minute because it has a direct bearing on our topic this evening, so we'll come right back to this.

The third or normative use of the law is grounded in texts such as Romans 7.22, Romans 12.2, and Titus 2.11-14. Romans 7.22, Romans 12.2, and Titus 2.11-14. This use of the moral law serves the regenerate born-again believer not as a means of justification, but as a norm that defines the way of righteousness. So the Ten Commandments have a political use. They should serve to restrain sin and to provide a pattern or standard for man-made laws. They also have a normative use in that Christians can look to the law of God as a guideline of righteous behavior, behavior that is normative for a Christian.

But what is this other use of the law we mentioned before? The pedagogical use, what in the world is that? Well, pedagogical is a big word that basically means pertaining to teaching or fit for a teacher, really simplified definitions. Turn to Galatians chapter three, please. Galatians chapter three, and find verse 21. Galatians chapter three, and we'll read from verse 21 through verse 27. Galatians three, verses 21 to 27. And again, I'm in the LSB here. Paul said, "Is the law then contrary to the promises of God? "May it never be. "For if a law had been given which was able to impart life, "then righteousness would indeed be by the law.

"But the scripture has shut up everyone under sin "so that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ "might be given to those who believe. "But before faith came, we were held in custody under the law "being shut up for the coming faith to be revealed." Verse 24, "Therefore the law has become our tutor "unto Christ so that we may be justified by faith." Verse 25, "But now that faith has come, "we are no longer under a tutor. "For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. "For all of you who were baptized into Christ "have clothed yourselves with Christ." Did you hear the word tutor there in verses 24 and 25?

The ESV uses the word guardian in both places and the King James uses schoolmaster. The Greek word from which we get tutor, guardian and schoolmaster referred to a trusted slave whose job it was to watch over a child, to discipline that child, to train that child, to get them to school and back. And they were usually pretty harsh, or often pretty harsh. Here's what Spurgeon had to say about the person that this word describes. The, and we'll just say tutor, guardian or schoolmaster, was a slave who was employed by the father of a family to take his boy to school and bring him home again.

He often also was permitted to whip the boy if he did not learn his lessons well. Spurgeon goes on to say, "Just so the law whipped us to Christ "and taught us that we could not be saved except by Christ. "The law acts as a tutor, guardian, schoolmaster "by teaching us our obligations to God, "by showing us our sinfulness, by sweeping away "all of our excuses." Now flip back to Romans 3, verses 19 and 20, or just listen if you want. Romans 3, verses 19 to 20.

Now we know that whatever the law says, it speaks to those who are in the law, some translations under the law, so that every mouth may be shut, some translation stopped, and all the world may become accountable to God. Other translations, guilty before God. Because by the works of the law, no flesh will be justified in his sight, for through the law comes the knowledge of sin. Notice the last phrase in verse 20 there. Through the law comes the knowledge of sin.

Paul said in Romans chapter seven, verse seven, "I would not have come to no sin except through the law." And look in verse 19 there, where it says, "so that every mouth may be shut, "and all the world may become accountable "or guilty before God." What does Paul mean by every mouth may be shut or stopped? The Amplified says it this way, "so that the excuses of every mouth "may be silenced from protesting." So that the excuses of every mouth may be silenced from protesting. Spurgeon said, quote, "that is the true condition of the whole world, "guilty before God.

"This is the right attitude for the whole human race "to stand with its finger on its lip, "having nothing to say as to why it should not be condemned." The 19th century world, as well as the world of the first century, and we should add the 21st century in there, "all the world," Spurgeon said, "in all time has become guilty before God." Dr. Martin Lloyd-Jones said, quote, "you do not begin to be a Christian "until your mouth is shut, "until it's stopped, "and you are speechless and have nothing to say.

"You put up your arguments "and produce all your righteousness, "then the law speaks, "and it all withers to nothing, "becomes filthy rags and dung, "and you have nothing to say." Now then, anybody wondering what any of this has to do with evangelism? (laughs) That would be a legitimate question to ask at this point, but I'm happy to report the answer is it has a lot to do with evangelism. I love this quote from John Stott. He says, "We cannot come to Christ to be justified "until we have first been to Moses to be condemned. "But once we have gone to Moses," he says, "and acknowledged our sin, guilt, and condemnation, "we must not stay there.

"We must let Moses send us to Christ." I love that. However, modern evangelism has abandoned that pattern. Ray Comfort says this, quote, "The tragedy of modern evangelism "is that around the turn of the century, "it forsook the law in its capacity to convert the soul "to drive sinners to Christ. "And modern evangelism had to therefore "find another reason for sinners to respond to the gospel, "and the issue that modern evangelism chose "to attract sinners was the issue of life enhancement.

"The gospel degenerated into Jesus Christ "will give you peace, joy, love, "fulfillment, and lasting happiness." Some of which are legitimate fruits of salvation, but not legitimate calling cards for salvation. And I personally think the modern gospel has degenerated even further than that. In some presentations, the gospel has become nothing more than Jesus is better than beer. And that's sad. The problem with modern evangelism is that it has abandoned Moses. Modern evangelistic methods attempt to tell people about a savior without first helping them understand that they need a savior, and from what they need to be saved.

Modern evangelism sometimes tries to offer people a cure, offer a cure to people who don't think they're sick. And what's worse, sometimes modern evangelism tells people they're not sick, and tells them that they're just fine, just as they are, with no mention of sin, no mention of judgment, no mention of hell. And the results have been disastrous. Our message has got to be the old message, the biblical message, the message of the early church, the evangelistic message that was shared up until 100 years or so ago. And that is a message that helps a sinner to see his or her need of a savior before pointing him or her to the savior.

Spurgeon once said, "They must be slain by the law "before they can be made alive by the gospel." He also said this in one of his sermons, absolutely, his vocabulary was similar to Shakespeare's in size, and he just had such a way with words. Listen to this, Spurgeon said, "I do not believe that any man can preach the gospel "who does not preach the law. "The law is the needle, and you cannot draw "the silken thread of the gospel through a man's heart "unless you first send the needle of the law "to make way for it.

"If men do not understand the law, "they will not feel that they are sinners, "and if they are not consciously sinners, "they will never value the sin offering. "There's no healing a man till the law has wounded him, "no making him alive till the law has slain him." Martin Luther said, "The first duty of the gospel preacher "is to declare God's law and show the nature of sin." Puritan John Bunyan put it this way, "The man who does not know the nature of the law "cannot know the nature of sin, "and he who does not know the nature of sin "cannot know the nature of the Savior." Here's Martin Lloyd-Jones.

The trouble with people who are not seeking a Savior and for salvation is that they do not understand the nature of sin. It is the peculiar function of the law to bring such an understanding to a man's mind and conscience. That is why great evangelical preachers 300 years ago, 400 now, in the time of the Puritans, and 200 years ago, 300 now, in the time of Whitfield and others, always engaged in what they called a preliminary law work. In describing the great early American theologian, Jonathan Edwards, R.C.

Sproul said, "Edward strongly advocated the preaching of the gospel, "but insisted that it was also necessary "to preach the law." He went on, "Without a knowledge of the law, "the good news of the gospel is perceived as no real news. "The bad news of the law is what reveals "the good news of the gospel." Edwards, this is Sproul quoting Edwards, Edwards says, "Some say it is unreasonable "to frighten people into heaven, "but I think it is reasonable to try "to frighten people away from hell." Francis Schaeffer put it this way, I love this, "If I had one hour with every man, "I would spend the first 45 minutes "talking to them about God's law, "and the last 15 minutes talking about his great salvation." That makes so much sense.

If a man is diagnosed with a deadly disease, won't the doctor spend a great deal of time and effort convincing the patient of the seriousness of the disease before presenting the cure? By doing so, the patient is eager to accept the cure and follow the doctor's orders, yes? That patient won't think lightly of the cure at all once he knows how deadly the disease is. John Wesley said, "Before I preach love, mercy, and grace, "I must preach sin, law, and judgment." J.C. Ryle said it like this, "Never does a person see any beauty in Christ as a savior "until they discover that they are a lost and ruined sinner." C.S.

Lewis, in discussing the early Christian preachers, said that the, quote, "Christian message was, "in those days, unmistakably, the Evangelium, the good news. "It promised healing to those who knew they were sick." Listen to this, Lewis continued, "We have to convince our hearers "of the unwelcome diagnosis before we can expect them "to welcome the news of the remedy." Here's that doctor analogy again. "Convinced of the disease, the patient will yearn "for the cure and not despise it." A.W. Tozer said this, "There's plenty of good news "in the Bible, but there's never any flattery "or back scratching.

"Seen one way, the Bible is a book of doom. "It condemns all men as sinners "and declares that the soul that sinneth shall die." Always it pronounces sentence against society before it offers mercy. And if we will not own the validity of the sentence, we cannot admit the need for mercy. Y'all sensing a pattern here? Here's John MacArthur. MacArthur says, "The purpose of the law "is to lay us under a curse." You say, "Well, sinners don't really understand that." Yes, they do understand that, MacArthur says, and I'll tell you why.

Because not only is the law of God written in His word, but according to Romans 2, there is the law of God written in the heart. And the law of God written in the heart is an ally to the evangelist, remember that, who is approaching the sinner on the basis of his violation of the law. This is the authoritative note in evangelism. You are violating the absolute law of God. Commentator Matthew Henry said this, "The commandments of the Lord are pure, "holy, just, and good. "By them, we discover our need of a savior "and then learn how to adorn his gospel. "They are the means which the Holy Spirit uses "in enlightening the eyes.

"They bring us to a sight and sense of our sin and misery "and direct us in the way of duty." Here's John Wesley again. "It is the ordinary method of the Spirit of God "to config sinners by the law. "It is this which, being set home on the conscience, "generally breaks the rocks in pieces. "It is more especially this part of the word of God," talking about the commandments, "which is quick and powerful, full of life and energy "and sharper than any two-edged sword." Finally, I stumbled on a Christian blogger who put it very well.

I'm not familiar with any of his other works, so he'll remain anonymous for now, but I really like this, and he said, quote, "The truth is, as sinners, we only want to hear good things. "We want to hear that we're okay. "But what we need to hear is the hard truth "that we are not okay, but under God's wrath, "unless we repent. "Thus, before we can proclaim the wonders "of God's maxilless grace to people, "we first need to make it clear to them "why they need such grace in the first place." And that means they must hear of the just demands of the law and their complete failure to live up to those perfect standards.

Now, some of you might be getting a little nervous. You might be thinking, "I'm not sure I can do that. "I'm not sure I can have such conversations with people. "That seems uncomfortable to me." I get that, I do, I understand, but I've got some good news for you. Number one, the Lord will help you. He will give you, quote, "sharing grace," to help you while you are, quote, "sharing grace." He really will. He can really help compassion swallow your fears. That needs to be a daily prayer of yours. Lord, help compassion to swallow my fears. Number two, your church will help you.

We're here to train you, to answer questions, to practice with you if you want, to provide resources to help you grow in this area. Number three, and this is my favorite thing, I think, you have an ally inside of every sinner you meet. Did you know that? Did you know what I mean when I'm talking about it? John MacArthur mentioned it in the quote just a minute ago. Listen to Romans chapter two, verses 14 to 16. Romans two, 14 to 16. "For when Gentiles who do not have the law "naturally do the things of the law, "these not having the law are a law to themselves.

"In that they demonstrate the work of the law "written in their hearts, their conscience bearing witness, "and their thoughts alternately accusing "or else defending them. "On the day when, according to my gospel, "God will judge the secrets of men through Christ Jesus." Did you hear it there? God has placed a conscience inside everyone, and he has written his law onto everyone's heart. A lost man's mind, his intellect, is at enmity with God and the things of God. If you try to argue apologetics with him, he's ready. He's ready for you, he's gonna bow his neck and fight, maybe even physically.

Nothing wrong with apologetics to start a conversation, but eventually you gotta move away from there and move to the ally, talk to the ally. Because whether that man likes it or not, or even knows it or not, his conscience agrees with the law of God. And deep down, he knows it's true, and he knows he's broken that law. Conscience means, con means with, science means knowledge, with knowledge. We sin with knowledge, that's what conscience means. So what is the message that we should be sharing?

Yes, we need to be sharing that Christ died for sinners, of course, that he was buried, that he rose again and ascended to heaven and is coming back again. And that on the cross, he took the punishment for my sin, and my sin was imputed unto him and his righteousness, his perfect obedience for his entire life of all the commandments, his perfect obedience is imputed to me. Yes, we need to be sharing all of that, but all of it will be foolishness to one who doesn't understand his or her need for a savior. Why he or she needs to be saved, and from what?

So our message must contain the law of God, and our message must help listeners understand that they've broken God's law and stand condemned, deserving nothing but hell forever. And then we get the joy of telling them about the mercy that is found in Christ alone. And that doesn't mean we beat them over the head, it doesn't mean we speak angrily to them, or accusingly, none of that. We do it with compassion and love and gentleness and sincerity and love and kindness. And we let the word speak, right? Now then, that's a lot. No one expects you to have all of this down pat after one message, but there are resources that can help you.

You really need to listen to Ray Comfort's message, "Hell's best kept secret," as many times as you can, and we can point you to other resources to help you grasp the concepts we've touched upon this evening. I think Chris and I are gonna be talking, sometime we don't know when, but Grace Life Shoals has an excellent six-week evangelism study that we may look at doing in small groups sometime, putting that into rotation.

I've already emailed to everybody a link to Ray's message, but I'll send that again this week, and I'll resend a link to his YouTube channel where you can watch him put this principle of bringing the law to help establish the knowledge of sin into practice and do so with kindness and gentleness and love and sincerity, sometimes laughter, never with anger or self-righteousness. And next week is our final installment of our Sharing Grace Evangelism 101 series, and I'm not quite sure how that'll shake out, but we will put what we've learned into practice and perhaps answer some questions you might have.

We'll talk about ways to get gospel conversation started. For example, anybody ever notice my lapel pen? Raise your hand if you've ever noticed my lapel pen. It is a miniature replica of one of the 10 commandments that appears in the United States Supreme Court, and it has started quite a few conversations. Nobody ever asks you about a cross on your lapel, right? 'Cause everybody has a cross on their lapel or on their tie down here in the South. But I've gotten conversations started by wearing 10 commandments here. Most of it is, are you Jewish? If you wanna know, are you Jewish? Or are you a Torah keeper?

And it gives me a great opportunity to tell, nah, I wear that to remind me why I need a savior. And when I get to thinking kinda too much of myself, boy, I'm reminded that thou shalt not lie. By the way, how many lies have you told? Great little segue, and people don't get offended. So we'll talk about ways to start gospel conversations, to transition into them. We'll talk about things like that. Maybe some non-threatening questions you can ask people that can get a gospel conversation off on the right foot. I wanna talk about tracts, several things we wanna talk about. More information will be coming soon this week, I hope.

Finally, let me say this. Our pastor was also right this morning when he said, "We are not fishing for decisions, "or pushing for decisions. "Salvation is of the Lord, folks. "It is the Holy Spirit's job to save people. "Our job is simply to share the information "that the Spirit normally uses "to convict the world of sin, of righteousness, "and of judgment to come. "Let him take it from there, "and share the remedy for all that "in what Christ did on the cross." How freeing is that? Power's in the gospel, not in us. Let's pray.