Introduction:
A. The endeavor of evangelism is one that is so very close to the heart of God.
1. On one occasion, when Jesus was clarifying His purpose and mission, He said, “For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save the lost.” (Luke 19:10)
2. As disciples of Jesus, who are committed to the mission of Jesus, it is so important for us to prepare ourselves and apply ourselves in the ministry of seeking and saving the lost.
B. One day a five-year old boy ran to answer the telephone, and answering it said, “Hello.”
1. A woman asked him, “Is your mother home?”
2. “Yes,” the boy replied, “but she is changing the baby’s diaper and can’t come to the phone right now. May I take a message?”
3. “Yes,” said the lady as she was impressed by the little boy, “tell her Mary Jones called.”
4. “How do you spell Mary?” the boy asked.
5. “M-A-R-Y,” came the woman’s reply.
6. A long pause followed, and the little boy asked, “How do you make an M?”
C. See, this little guy was very willing to share the message with his mother, but he simply wasn’t able.
1. Those of us who wish to reach unbelievers for Christ need to be both willing and able.
2. To be one without the other is not helpful.
a. We can be able to share our faith, but not willing to do so, and maybe that’s where some of us have been.
b. Or we can be willing to share our faith, but are not be able to do so.
3. The last thing I want to see happen in our church family, is for us to be convicted by Jesus’ command to make disciples, and then not have a clue as to how to begin to do so.
4. So, I want to help us to be more prepared to share our faith by giving us some simple ways to begin to share the good news with others.
5. I believe that if we will devote ourselves to developing just a few simple attitudes and actions, we will be more able to be used by God in reaching the lost.
D. To help us develop these attitudes and actions, I want to use the Old Testament person of Nehemiah as an example and an illustration.
1. You might be thinking: “What in the world does Nehemiah have to do with evangelism?”
2. But I trust that you see the connection as we proceed.
E. So, who was this man named Nehemiah?
1. He was a Jew, but he was far from his Jewish homeland, because he was a descendent of the Jews who were taken into exile during the 70 years of God’s punishment of Israel.
2. Nehemiah was placed by God in an important position - he was cupbearer to the king of Persia.
3. But even though he is loyal to the king of Persia, deep in his heart he had a greater loyalty – he was devoted to Jehovah God, and to God’s people the Jews.
4. Nehemiah was very concerned about his people and his homeland, so he asked his brother who had just come from Judah how things were going back there, and the report was devastating.
5. Just as you would cry if you heard that your hometown lay in ruins, he sat down and wept.
F. Jerusalem, the once magnificent city, the capital of the nation of Israel, still laid in ruins.
1. Early in the 6th century B.C., Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon, had invaded Judah and left it devastated.
2. Jerusalem was destroyed and Solomon’s temple was stripped of its sacred items and burned to the ground.
3. In three separate deportations, thousands of Jews were taken to Babylon as prisoners.
G. For those taken in captivity, everything must have felt hopeless.
1. They were marched 500 miles east, far from their homeland and their dreams.
2. There in Babylon, they must have begun to question their God, fearing that He had forever turned against them.
3. But then in their hopelessness, the prophets of God began to hear the voice of God and began to fill the people with hope of restoration.
4. The Babylonian empire became unstable with the death of Nebuchadnezzar in 562 B.C.
5. By the year 539 B.C., Cyrus, King of Persia conquered Babylon.
H. One year later, King Cyrus of Persia issued the Edict of Restoration allowing the Jews to return to their homeland and rebuild both Jerusalem and the temple.
1. After many delays, the temple was finally rebuilt and dedicated in 515 B.C., but despite the predictions and prayers, the new age for the Jews did not materialize.
2. Jerusalem still lay in ruins and the Israelites were not up-holding the Law of God.
I. This brief history lesson brings us back to Nehemiah.
1. The year was 446 B.C. - It was almost 100 years since the Jews had been allowed to return and rebuild, and yet the great city of God still laid in ruins.
2. For Nehemiah, this state of affairs brought only one reaction - grief.
3. Nehemiah 1:4 says: When I heard these words, I sat down and wept. I mourned for a number of days, fasting and praying before the God of the heavens.
4. This brings me to our first point and first step in being prepared to seek the lost.
I. Not much will happen evangelistically until we begin to GRIEVE.
A. Let me ask you, “Is your heart filled with concern for the lost?”
1. Do you have a burden on your heart for the souls of people?
2. Are you conscious of the fact that people around you are not right with God and are in danger of eternal condemnation?
B. When Dwight L. Moody was in London during one of his famous evangelistic tours, several British ministers visited him.
1. They asked him how he could be so effective in reaching people when he was so poorly educated.
2. Moody took the three men to the window of his hotel room and asked each in turn what they saw when they looked out his window.
3. One by one, the men described the buildings, the park below, the people in the park.
4. Then they turned to Moody and asked, “What do you see?”
5. He replied with tears in his eyes, “I see countless thousands of souls that will one day spend eternity in hell if they do not find the Savior.”
C. Obviously, D.L. Moody saw people differently than the average observer does.
1. And because he saw eternal souls where others saw only people strolling in the park, Moody approached life with a different agenda.
2. Moody had a burden on his heart for lost people.
3. Their plight grieved him, and caused him to approach them with a heart of concern and urgency.
4. Charles Swindoll has suggested that we should: “Rise and shine friend, for everyone you meet today is on heaven’s most wanted list.”
D. Brother and sisters: the lost really are lost, but God wants them to be saved.
1. Of course, Satan would have us believe otherwise about both those facts.
2. Satan continues to whisper: to any who will listen…“people are okay…people are basically good, and God will go easy on them…sin is not as serious as some think, God doesn’t expect that much from people…there are many paths to God, one way is as good as another.”
3. The truth of the matter is that there is only one way to God.
4. Jesus said, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” (Jn 14:6).
5. Paul wrote, “God is just: He will pay back trouble to those who trouble you and give relief to you who are troubled, and to us as well. This will happen when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven in blazing fire with his powerful angels. He will punish those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. They will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the majesty of his power.” (2 Thess 4:6-9)
6. All people have many needs, but no need is greater than the need for salvation.
E. As disciples of Jesus, if we are going to be engaged in seeking the lost, it must begin with an on-going consciousness of the lostness of the lost.
1. That mindset will prompt the next simple, but very important step.
II. Not much will happen evangelistically until we PRAY.
A. Nehemiah’s grief for the plight of his people drove him to his knees in prayer.
1. Nehemiah chapter one records his wonderful prayer.
2. He prayed with praise for God, he prayed with confession for his own sins and the sins of his people, and he also prayed the promises of God.
3. Finally he prayed for the ability to do something to help his people.
B. What is convicting to me about Nehemiah’s prayers is the fact that he was persistent.
1. He prayed with fasting and mourning.
2. And he prayed with endurance.
3. Chapters 1 and 2 of Nehemiah are separated by four months.
4. Nehemiah kept after it in prayer, every day for 4 months.
C. His example is a good one for us with regard to evangelism.
1. The burden on our hearts for the lost should compel us to pray for their salvation and for our part in introducing them to Jesus.
2. Andrew Murray, the noted author on prayer wrote, “The man who mobilizes the church to pray will make the greatest contribution in history to world evangelization.”
3. Sidlow Baxter said, “Men may spurn our appeals, reject our message, oppose our arguments, and despise our persons, but they are helpless against our prayers.”
4. Do we believe what God said through James: “The prayer of a righteous person is very powerful in its effect”? (James 5:16)
5. There is a spiritual war going on for the hearts of people, and prayer is one of our greatest weapons.
6. There is no telling how much good we can do in preparing lost people for salvation simply through our prayers on their behalf.
7. When we are faithful in prayer for the lost, both those we know, and those we do not know, it is amazing how the doors of opportunity will finally open.
8. So, I would encourage all of us to make a list of people we hope God will influence through us and begin to pray for them on a daily basis.
9. This leads to our last simple, but vital step.
III. Not much will happen evangelistically until we SPEAK.
A. When the door of opportunity opens, we must walk through it.
1. For Nehemiah, the opportunity came one day when he was doing his job before the king.
2. Nehemiah chapter 2 says: 1 During the month of Nisan in the twentieth year of King Artaxerxes, when wine was set before him, I took the wine and gave it to the king. I had never been sad in his presence, 2 so the king said to me, “Why do you look so sad, when you aren’t sick? This is nothing but sadness of heart.”
I was overwhelmed with fear 3 and replied to the king, “May the king live forever! Why should I not be sad when the city where my ancestors are buried lies in ruins and its gates have been destroyed by fire?”
4 Then the king asked me, “What is your request?”
So I prayed to the God of the heavens 5 and answered the king, “If it pleases the king, and if your servant has found favor with you, send me to Judah and to the city where my ancestors are buried, so that I may rebuild it.” (Neh. 2:1-5)
3. Now consider for a moment, would this situation have presented itself had Nehemiah not been grieving and praying about Jerusalem? No.
4. But is it possible that Nehemiah could have dropped the ball at this critical moment? Indeed.
5. AS the king asked him what was wrong, fear could have gotten the best of him.
6. He could have clamed up and missed this great opportunity, but he didn’t.
7. Nehemiah shot off a quick prayer to heaven and proceeded to speak his request.
B. If we begin to have a heart for the lost, and if we begin to really pray for the lost, then we must begin to be aware of the opportunities that God gives us and then take advantage of them.
1. Some of them may be very obvious like in the case of Nehemiah when the king asked him, “What’s wrong?” and “What’s your request?”
2. Someone may ask us a very direct question about ourselves: “What makes you such a joyful person?” Or “How do you stay positive and hopeful when you are suffering so greatly?”
a. Questions like those are golden opportunities to testify about the Lord.
b. Peter tells us to “Be prepared to give an answer to anyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope you have.” (1 Peter 3:15)
3. Unfortunately, the majority of the open doors that we will come across will be far less obvious.
a. The door maybe a hidden one or may be open just a crack.
4. Many times, we will have to look for ways to turn conversations toward the spiritual.
5. We will have to look for opportunities when we can minister to others.
6. And we will have to create environments where relationships can develop and matters can be discussed by inviting someone to lunch, or into our homes for dinner, or to an event or activity.
C. But regardless of what the opportunity is or how widely the door is open, at some point, we are going to have to speak.
1. We will have to utter the words that contain a spiritual message.
2. It may be an answer to a question. It may be to make an observation. It may be to ask a question, or give an invitation, but whatever it is it will be something we speak.
3. And I know that saying the words that need to be said can be very scary, but that is where we must trust the Lord.
4. Nehemiah was very much afraid, but he spoke up anyhow, and so must we.
D. There are two simple things that I would like to encourage us to be ready to say to people.
1. They are both simple questions, but they can make all the difference in the world.
E. The 1st question we can be ready to ask is: “Would you like to come with me to visit my church?”
1. Someone has called this the “come and see” method.
2. The New Testament shows 40 people, each suffering from disease who were helped by Jesus.
a. Of this number, 34 were either brought to Jesus by friends, or he was taken to them.
b. In only 6 cases did people find their way to Jesus without assistance.
3. John the Baptizer pointed Andrew to Jesus, and then Andrew invited Peter to “come and see.”
4. After Matthew was converted, he invited many of his friends to come and see Jesus (Lk 5:29).
5. The woman at the well who came to faith ran to town and told everyone, “Come and see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Christ?” (Jn 4:29)
6. Those people came and saw and many of them believed.
7. If we can just get people here to see God’s Son and God’s family, then many will believe.
F. A 2nd question we can be ready to ask is: “Would you like to read and study the Bible with me?”
1. There are many ways to approach the task of sharing the Gospel and all of them work to some degree.
a. I have developed and made available a study called the “Seeking God” study that I think is easy to use, but there are many other very good studies a person can use.
2. But there is an even more simple or basic method that I would like to suggest – we can just read the Bible together with someone.
a. We can simply start with one of the Gospels - I would suggest that you try using either the Gospel of Mark or the Gospel of John.
b. Simply read through a gospel, an hour or a chapter at time, asking the questions: “What is Jesus Like? What do we learn about Jesus? Why should a person believe in Jesus?”
3. I believe that if people will read the Bible, then they will see what Jesus is like, and many of them will like Him, and come to love Him and believe in Him.
4. The beauty of this method is that we don’t have to memorize anything, nor do we have to jump around from passage to passage.
a. Instead, we will be showing them, connectedly, in their own Bible, what Jesus is like.
b. I believe that if we will put people in touch with Jesus, He will do the rest.
5. The Bible says: So faith comes from what is heard, and what is heard comes through the message about Christ. (Romans 10:17)
6. John wrote these words at the end of his gospel: 30 Jesus performed many other signs in the presence of his disciples that are not written in this book. 31 But these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name. (Jn. 20:30-31)
Conclusion:
A. So, what have we learned today?
1. Hopefully we have realized that although reaching the lost may not be easy, it does not have to be complex.
2. We can start with this very simple plan: Grieve, pray, and speak.
3. Let’s develop a burden for the lostness of people, let’s begin praying for lost people, and then let’s be ready to speak when God gives us opportunity.
4. When we speak we can invite people to visit our church and/or begin studying the Bible with us.
B. On one occasion Jesus said to the disciples, “Open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest.” (Jn 4:35) There are many lost people around us!
1. On another occasion he said to, “Ask the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into his harvest field.” (Mt. 9:38) Pray that God send more workers into the field, including us!
2. Jesus came to seek and to save the lost, and because disciples of Jesus are to follow Him and be like him, therefore, as His disciples we must also be engaged in seeking the lost.
C. If you are lost and in need of God’s salvation, we would love to help you become a Christian, a follower of Jesus.
D. If you are a Christian, then I hope you will want to tell others about your Savior.
