Honest Evangelism, Part Three

In my last two blog posts I have shared some tips on how to go about evangelism. I have sought to be honest about the difficulty of sharing the gospel with others. Very few Christians find it easy.

The last thing we need to cover for how to go about honest evangelism is guidance for how to share the gospel itself honestly. In what follows I set forth the approach I have followed for years, one that I have found easy to remember and relatively easy to use (ah, but remember my last two posts—evangelism is often hard!). I call it CPR evangelism, not only because it is about saving the lives of others eternally, but also because it involves three main movements that can be remembered by these three letters. Let’s look at it with the goal of providing a way to explain the gospel to someone else.

Cultivate Relationships:

• Jesus taught us that the greatest commandment we have in regard to other people is to love them (Matthew 22:39). This involves meeting needs they have—regardless of what the needs are and regardless of the cost (e.g. Luke 10:29-37; Hebrews 13:16; James 1:27; 1 John 3:16-18).  The result is that this honors God (2 Corinthians 9:13).

• We should not be surprised, then, that evangelism is best done in the context of loving relationship (John 13:34-35; 1 Peter 3:1-2).  It is often in such friendship or closeness that we have the greatest opportunities to introduce someone to Jesus Christ (John 1:40-42).  Whether it is their seeing a difference or a hope in us that will make them inquire about what makes us different (1 Peter 3:15) or whether it places us in the situation in which we can be present when they face a crisis or start asking questions, such close relationships are often the soil in which fruitful evangelism takes place.

• This means that we begin evangelism by the simple means of getting involved with a person(s) who does not know Jesus Christ as Savior and praying for them to trust Jesus Christ as Savior with the result that they become a kingdom laborer.

• Though cultivating relationships is important, it never truly becomes evangelism until we share the gospel.  This leads to the second part of CPR evangelism…

Plant The Seed:

• The seed is the Word of God, the gospel (Mt. 13:3, 19).  Here is a simple, yet biblical, five point presentation of the gospel which correlates with the five fingers on our hand.

1. God created us to and commands us to honor Him.

The thumb is used since it points up and reminds us that the first point is focused upon God and why we want our lives to be “on the way up for God,” not down merely for us.

God did not create us merely to exist, but to live for a great and eternal purpose—putting Him and His greatness on display through how we live (Ps. 8:5; Isaiah 43:7).  This is why He commands us to glorify Him in all we do (1 Cor. 10:31).  It is also why we spend so much time seeking for significance and making sure our years on this earth count for something. 

Illustration:  Whenever we hear about someone accomplishing a heroic feat or whenever we read of a doctor saving a life or of someone finding a cure for a dreaded disease, it resonates with us since we have been created for something (someone) great.  Yet, we have lost sight of this great purpose for which we were created. This is seen when we focus upon our second truth…

2. We all fail to honor God as we should.

The forefinger is used since it often points in judgment.  Here it is pointing at each of us to remind us we all have fallen short of the mark.

Romans 3:23 states this simply:  “For all have sinned and fall short of God’s glory.” In other words, God’s purpose for us, His target, is to glorify Him.  This includes loving and obeying Him.  Yet, no man truly does this. We all miss the mark as a misguided arrow misses the target.

Illustration:  This means all of us, you and me—there are no exceptions.  Many of us think this is not a big deal, yet, when we realize that sin involves thoughts, words, and deeds—and also it involves doing what God says not to do and not doing what He says to do—we see that we could be couch potatoes and still sin many times a day.  In fact, we would think we were pretty amazing, if we sinned only 3 times a day.  Yet, over the course of a year that would be over 1,000 sins and over the course of a lifetime it would be 70, 80, or 90 thousand sins.  What judge in a court of law, in his right mind, would overlook that many offences?  How much more will the perfect God of the universe not overlook our sin! 

Illustration: Some of us might say, “Yes, that might be true, but what if I do more good things than bad?”  To answer that, let’s suppose that we fixed a five egg omelet for someone.  The first four eggs we put in are fine.  However, the fifth we find out is rotten when we crack it.  What if we said, “Not to worry, the first four were fine.  They’ll make up for the bad

one.”  Of course we would not do that and we would not serve such an omelet to family or friends.  How much more must we see that a lot of good things will not make up for the sin we commit?  This is especially true when we understand that God’s requirement for us is not just to be pretty good or to be more good than bad. It is to be perfect (Matthew 5:48). 

So, sin truly is a big deal.  This is made even clearer when we understand the third truth…

3. God’s judgment is upon mankind because of this sin.

The middle or “great” finger is used since it addresses the nature of our great God.

It is customary to speak of God as love and the Bible does speak of Him in that way (1 John 4:8).  Yet, the same Bible which speaks of Him as love also says that He will in no way allow the guilty to go unpunished (Exodus 34:6-7).  The Bible says, “the wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23).

Illustration: This is like a coin.  If I held out a quarter to you and told you to pick up the heads without the tails, you would not be able to do it.  To pick up the one quarter you must have both sides of the coin.  So it is with God.  He is always and at the same time, both loving and just. We can’t have one without the other.

Sin separates us from God, from His life-transforming power, from His grace, from His saving and eternal blessings.  This is true in this life and the life to come. 

 It is a good thing that God judges sin.  If He merely looked the other way when people are brutally murdered, raped, and hurt, it would suggest that He did care or value life. 

Yet, what is the solution?  How can we be saved and truly know God?  Our fourth important truth tells us…

4. God sent His Son to save sinners from God’s judgment.

The fourth finger, the marriage ring finger, is used to speak of the Son since He is the groom, the husband, who gave His life for His bride.

Since sin brings the penalty of death (separation from God) and since God’s standard is perfection, we must see that the only way of salvation is for the perfect man, the God-man, to live and die in our place.  The gap between us and God can be bridged only by Jesus Christ paying the penalty for sin and His perfect life being credited to us (Romans 5:8; 2 Corinthians 5:21; 1 Peter 3:8). 

5. We must repent and trust Jesus Christ as savior to be saved.

The fifth and final finger represents faith since the pinky completes the process of the hand grabbing on to something.  Faith and repentance comprise how we grab on to the free gift of salvation.

This saving work of Jesus Christ is a free gift (Ephesians 2:8-9; Titus 2:25) which must be received by faith (John 1:12).  It is not just a faith of mere head knowledge.  After all, even the demons know he died, they know God exists, yet they are not saved (James 2:19).  When we come to see we cannot save our self and are grieved we have sinned against God (Acts 2:37-38), we must transfer our trust from what we do to what Christ has done for us. 

Illustration:  It is similar to when we walk in a room and sit down in a chair.  Whenever we do that, we transfer our trust from our legs and feet (for holding up our body) to that chair.  We do so because we believe it will hold us up. Yet, the difference between mere head faith and full trusting is sitting down—transferring our trust to the chair.  So, it is with Jesus Christ.  The difference between mere head faith and saving trust is transferring our “weight” from our own works to His work.

Those who do this are forgiven and have eternal life (John 5:24).

Explain: Once we have trusted Jesus Christ as our Savior, we will grow in our new faith, our new relationship with God, by reading our Bible (Joshua 1:8; John 17:17), praying (Philippians 4:6-7), and by uniting with a Bible-teaching Church which joyfully follows and loves God and others to His glory (Hebrews 10:24-25).

The third part of CPR evangelism is this, we…

Reap The Harvest:

• Once we have shared Jesus Christ with someone(s), this is only the beginning.  If they have not trusted Christ as their Savior, we must pray for them and work with them toward this end.  If they are willing to read through the Gospel of Mark or John with you, do that.

• Once you believe they have truly received and rested upon Christ alone for salvation, continue to meet with them weekly, reading the Bible with them and making sure they understand what they are reading on their own.