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I have been reading Tim Chester and Steve Timmis’ book Everyday Church this last week. In chapter 2, everyday community, they explain the need to live like missionaries in our own communities. In order to live like a missionary, we must ask the questions missionaries ask.
Reaching our communities with the gospel, means we need to know our neighborhoods, it’s people, and their stories, values, worldview, and culture. Asking these questions will help us to know and understand our communities better. It’s going to take some work, but it is worth it in order to reach our cities, communities, and neighborhoods. So let’s get to work answering these questions and living like missionaries in our own backyards.
Timmis & Chester, Everyday Church, 42-43.
In my last post in this series, I presented a Modified Romans Road method. It centered around the idea of bad news and good news. Today, I will briefly discuss the Way of the Master.
The Way of the Master is used and taught by Kurt Cameron and Ray Comfort. It is a method that works best in cultures where its members desire to be considered a good person. The Bible Belt, for instance, is one such culture. That is not to say The Way of the Master would not be useful outside the Bible Belt. It is just that those in the Bible Belt often gravitate toward a desire to be considered a good person, whereas those outside of it have typically rejected this idea and don’t care about being considered good. Those are sweeping judgments and are not backed up by hard facts, so give this method a try wherever you live.
The Purpose
The point of The Way of the Master is to show those who desire to be good that they are not as good as they thought, but that they are actually sinners. By using this method, we can hopefully cause people to see where they stand with God.
The Method
The Way of the Master takes the Ten Commandments and Jesus’ teaching from the Sermon on the Mount and combines them.
For instance, you may ask someone a question like one of the following:
(1) Have ever committed adultery?
Now, most people have not actually committed the act, but Jesus heightens the expectation in His Sermon by telling us that those who have looked at a women with lust have committed adultery in their heart.
(2) Have ever murdered someone?
Now most people have never physically murdered anyone, but Jesus again heightens the expectation in His Sermon by telling us that those who hate are guilty of murder.
How does a thought relate to the physical act?
The idea is that if there were no outward restraints – social, legal, etc – we would commit the physical act. Since there are outward restraints, we typically refrain from committing the actual act. Instead, we think about doing it. Jesus tells us that those thoughts are equal to the actual act.
Why does that make us sinners?
Jesus is measuring our heart, not whether or not we have the ability to exercise physical restraint. In doing so, Jesus is showing us that our heart is corrupt, and we are inherently sinful.
What does our sin do?
Our sin is what separates us from God. God cannot have a relationship with a sinner because He is holy. In order for God to have a relationship with us, we must be perfect, but we are not perfect. Our sinful actions prove that we are not perfect. So then, no matter how many good things we do, we can never be good enough to mend our own relationship with God because those who are not perfect can never make themselves perfect.
Think about it like this: I attended the University of Georgia for my undergrad. They calculated GPA on a 4.0 system. Those who had a 4.0 never made below an A in any of their classes, they were perfect students.
If you happened to slip up and make a B in just one class, you would never be able to bring your GPA back up to a 4.0 no matter how many A’s you made. The best you could hope for was a 3.99. Even though you were close to that perfect 4.0, you could never attain it. No matter how hard you worked, it was always just out of reach.
Our relationship is like that with God. No matter how good we try to be, our relationship with Him will always be out of reach because we are not perfect and we can never be perfect. Not just because we have committed a sin once in our life, but because we, as humans, are inherently sinful. In other words, we are born imperfect. Sinners from our mother’s womb we come.
Without going to much further, I hope you get the picture that this technique is meant to help you show others that they are not as good as they thought. They are not good because they are sinners. The reason they sin is because they are inherently sinful. It is their sin that separates them from God. Sin they cannot get rid of on their own no matter how hard they try because it is part of our nature. Only Jesus Christ can cover our sin with His blood. Thus, restoring our relationship with the Father.
In my last post in this series, I started a discussion on different gospel presentation methods. The purpose in learning these methods is to increase our confidence and comfort level with sharing the gospel, so we will talk with more people about Christ.
Today, I will discuss what amounts to a modified Romans Road presentation.
Romans 3:23 – All have sinned. (Bad news)
Sin is defined as an outright rejection of God’s rule over our lives. As our Creator, God has the right to rule over us, but we often reject God’s rule. In place of His rule, we setup our own rule.
Imagine a rebel force coming together and attacking a king’s castle. They over through the king’s rule and setup their own rule, while at the same time subjecting the king to their service.
This is similar to what it means to sin against God. You see, sinners are not just breaking rules in the king’s kingdom, they are the rebel force overthrowing the castle and setting up their own rule. Lest you believe you are not about of that rebel force, Romans 3:23 makes it clear we all are apart of the rebel force because we all are sinners.
Romans 6:23 – The penalty for sin is death. (Bad news)
Let me provide you with an illustration to help you understand this and explain it to others. If I paid you fifty dollars to work for me today, the fifty dollars would be your wage. It would be what you earned for working. Romans 6:23 tells us our wage as sinners is not fifty dollars, but death.
Romans 5:8 – Christ died for our sin. (Good News)
Let’s say you are in the hospital dying of cancer and I come to you and say, “I want to do something for you. I’ll take the cancer cells from your body and put them into my body.” What would happen to me? The usual reply is, “You would die.” You would be right. I would die. What would happen to you? You would live. The reason you would live is because I took your cancer and died in your place. The thing that was causing you death was taken by me in the hospital, placed upon myself, and I died as your substitute.
The Bible tells us Christ came into the world to do just that. He took the sin that was causing our death, placed it upon Himself, and died in our place. He was our substitute. And on the third day, when He rose from the dead, He proved right then and there that He had conquered death [1].
Ephesians 2:8-9 – You can be saved through faith. (Good News)
Grace is defined as unmerited or undeserved favor. Salvation holds the idea of being rescued or delivered from the penalty of sin. Faith means to trust, with the idea of trusting something you cannot see. Repent of our sin means to turn from, so as to never do again. Now that we have those definitions out of the way, let’s see how that works itself out.
Think about it like this: When you sit down in a chair, you trust it will hold you. You don’t come into a room and examine the chair to see how it is built before you sit down. You just sit down. You are simply exercising faith (trust) that the chair will hold you.
When we put our faith in Jesus, we are doing something similar. We are trusting that He will save us. We are not trusting in our church membership, our good life, or our baptism, but we trust in Jesus alone.
So then, to receive God’s unmerited grace and salvation, we need to exercise faith in Jesus, believing He is our Lord and Savior. As well as we need to repent of our sins.
After leading someone through these Scriptures, the next thing we should do is ask: Is there anything keeping you from trusting in Jesus as your Savior?
(1) If they say yes, then you ask them what it is and field their questions.
(2) If they say no, then you should ask them a few diagnostic questions to see if they were tracking with you.
The answers to these questions will tell you if the person was tracking with you. More importantly, it will tell you if the person you are talking to has understood the gospel and is now a Christian.
Modified Romans Road is taken from: R. Larry Moyer, Show Me How To Share the Gospel, 27-31.
[1] R. Larry Moyer, Show Me How To Share the Gospel, 29.
In my last few posts, I expounded on Larry R. Moyer’s Plow and Pursue method. The focus of those posts was to help us see the natural progression a conversation can take to get to talking about the gospel. If you have not had a chance to read those posts, check out Part 1 and Part 2.
Today, I am going to move our discussion on evangelism a little further by starting a series on gospel presentation methods. Before we turn to the first method, I need to explain the advantage of using methods to present the gospel.
The first thing I want you to understand is that using a specific method is not required when presenting the gospel. Even though it is not required it can be helpful. Having a few methods down helps in at least two ways:
(1) It increases our confident.
(2) It increases our comfort level.
Hopefully, by increasing our confidence and comfort level, we will engage more people with the gospel; thus, fulfilling our God-given task to make disciples. With that said, let’s turn to the first of several methods.
This first method focuses on the biblical storyline. As we talk through the story of the Bible, we not only are able to explain key concepts that tell us why we need the gospel, but also the gospel itself. Here is the method:
Creation – People need to know they were created by a personal being. As well as they need to know who their Creator is before they will agree or even understand that their relationship with their Creator is broken. It is then our task to explain creation as laid forth in Genesis 1 and 2.
Fall – People need to know why and how sin came to be in the world. This means it is our task to explain the fall of Adam and Eve in Genesis 3.
Broken Community – People need to know that they are sinners, who are separated from God because of their sin. As well as they need to know the world is the way it is because of sin. We can best do this by explaining that we live in a broken community. One that was not meant to be, but is because of sin coming into the world through the Fall.
Redemption – People need to know there is hope. It then becomes our job to explain that our relationship with God can be reconciled, the world can be changed, they can be released from the bondage of their sin, and they can experience eternal life instead of eternal damnation. This all occurs through Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross.
Colossians 1:20 tells us that Christ reconciles all things to Himself through His blood. When we admit we are sinners, believe Jesus is our Savior and Lord, and confess those things, we are saved. We are redeemed from death to life through Jesus Christ. We need to explain these concepts to those we are talking to about the gospel.
New Community – People need to know that their belief in Jesus changes their lives and places them in the kingdom of God, even though they live in the world now. We need to explain that the church is God’s kingdom on earth. That those in the church are believers and live differently than the world. They live in this way because Jesus changes the hearts of those who believe in Him and forms a new community with them. A community that is tasked to reflect and glorify God.
Return – People need to know that Jesus will return and judge the world one day. All those who do not believe in Jesus as their Lord and Savior, will be judged at His return and sentenced to eternal damnation. Conversely, those who do believe will not be sentenced to eternal damnation, but will experience eternal life.
Re-created Community – People need to know what the future holds. A Re-created community free from sin where we live with our Savior for all of eternity is in-store for the believer. Here it is important to make it clear that only those who believe in Jesus as their Lord and Savior will be apart of this new community.
As you talk with someone it is important to walk them through each of these communities and events so they will have a full understanding of why they need the gospel, how they are saved from their sins, and what benefits they receive as believers.
In my last post, I presented R. Larry Moyer’s Plow and Pursue method found in his book: Show Me How to Share the Gospel. Moyer’s method tells us that we should plow into a conversation, enjoying it immensely. As we do, we should focus on three areas: (1) Family, (2) Job, and (3) Background. Focusing on these three areas should give us insight into the worldview of our conversation partner, as well as it should give us hooks by which we can turn the conversation from the ordinary to the spiritual.
In this post, I want to take it a step further by offering a few questions to help us get from talking about spiritual things to the gospel.
The following questions may help move the conversation from spiritual things to the gospel:
(1) Do you enjoy reading about religious topics or subjects?
(2) Have you become involved in any church in your area?
(3) Have you ever examined some of the teachings of the Bible?
(4) With so many interests, are you interested in the Bible?
(5) Why do you think a lot of people across the world have interests in some kind of religion or another?
(6) From time to time a lot of people talk about Christ and Christians. Who, in your opinion, is Jesus Christ?
Not all of us have the gift of evangelism, most of us have to work at it. My hope and prayer is that these questions will help you evangelize the lost, and spur you on to fulfill the Great Commission.
R. Larry Moyer, Show Me How To Share the Gospel, 21-25.
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