Witnessing – Every Believer an Ambassador

October 21, 2006

I’m going to go through a basic overview of what evangelism is, the biblical basis for evangelism, and a couple of different approaches that you can use in presenting the Gospel to an unbeliever.

Part of the purpose of the person who has the gift of evangelism, according to Ephesians 4, is to equip the saints to do the work of the ministry.  Someone with the gift of evangelism is not somebody who just has a spiritually enabled gift at witnessing, but he trains the rest of us so that we can get past the uneasiness, the fears, anxieties, worries and problems that we have when we are trying to communicate the Gospel to somebody.  We sit there thinking through 10 minutes of conversation that I really need to figure out how to give this person the Gospel.  Then they leave, and we say, “Why did I blow it again?”  We have all had that experience, and that is just part of, I think, spiritual growth and spiritual life.

I want to talk about the basis and meaning and real power of evangelism.  I will talk about what evangelism is and is not and how we can make the Gospel clear. I will say a few things about answering people’s questions, objections, concerns, and then close with key verses that you should learn and memorize so that you can have those just right at your fingertips when you are communicating the Gospel.  Then I’ll have a couple of suggestions on some things that you can use to communicate a little more clearly.

We will start with the meaning of evangelism.  Our English word “evangelism” comes directly from the Greek verb euangelizo.  “Evangelism” in English is a noun.  That prefix eu in Greek always has the idea of something that is good or beneficial.  The double g in the Greek always is pronounced like an ng.  The verb means to announce, to tell, to proclaim, and so it means to tell somebody good news.  The point of the Gospel is telling people good news for the purpose that they will believe in Jesus Christ.

It is not just drive-by witnessing – drive by and shoot them with the Gospel gun and then move on or give them a tract.  I know under some circumstances that may be all the time and opportunity that people have.  But that is not witnessing.  It is not just sitting down and saying, “You need to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved.”  Witnessing is telling them good news for the purpose that they will believe in Jesus Christ.  This often entails more than just a 10-minute conversation.  Sometimes it may take 30 years of a relationship with someone before they finally trust Christ as Savior.

Paul demonstrates the purpose of this in two statements he makes.  One in Acts 14:15, “Men, why are you doing these things?  We also are men with the same nature as you, and preach to you that you should turn from these useless things to the living God, who made the heaven, the earth, the sea, and all things that are in them.”  There is an end goal to bring closure (in sales terminology, though giving the Gospel is not salesmanship) and to a decision point.

That is where people are often weak and closing out with that question, “Do you believe this?”  That is what Jesus says to Martha in John 11:25-27, “I am the resurrection and the life.  He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live.  And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die.  Do you believe this?  She said to Him, ‘Yes, Lord, I believe that You are the Christ….’ ”  It is asking that question, and sometimes people are just hesitant to bring it to that closure.

Acts 26:29, “And Paul said, ‘I would to God that not only you, but also all who hear me today, might become both almost and altogether such as I am, except for the chains.’ ”  There is a purpose and that is to bring them to a decision point in the Gospel.  We also recognize just from the meaning of the word that we are giving people good news.  Sometimes you look at Christian’s witness and wonder if they are really excited about this.  This is really good news?

Think about what goes on in our lives.  You have a job promotion or you win the lottery or you get a new car or you pay off your mortgage or you get to retire.  This is exciting, and you want to tell somebody about it.  The most exciting thing that ever happened in your life or my life was that day that you trusted Christ as Savior and understood the Gospel.

I remember that I was 6 years old, and I was so excited when I understood the Gospel that I couldn’t wait to get out the front door and tell my best friend down the street that Jesus Christ died for him.  I’m going to go to heaven, and you can too!  Somehow 20, 30, 40 years later as we grow up and experience a little rejection or hostility to the Gospel, we are not quite as enthusiastic and as excited about communicating the good news of Jesus Christ.  But it is the best news that we can ever communicate to people.

The reason, I think, that we have that hesitancy is because it is more than just telling people good news such as the fact that you got a new car or a promotion or whatever it might be.  But this good news puts you right in the target zone of the angelic conflict, right in the middle of spiritual warfare.  There is rejection.  If you tell people any other good news that happens in your life, like you just got a promotion,   no one is going to shoot you for that, except maybe the person who did not get the promotion.

When you give someone the Gospel, that all of a sudden focuses all the spiritual forces in the universe right in that instant, and there can be rejection.  Somebody you have known all your life that you considered a friend and now everything is on the line.  We feel that, and sometimes that causes us to be fearful, anxious, and concerned about those negative reactions.  One of the greatest things that interferes with our giving the Gospel is there is a certain level of anxiety and a certain fear factor.

Why is it that we experience this fear, anxiety, and trepidation when we get a chance to give the Gospel?  It is like stage fright because we understand the importance of it.  If we really care about somebody, we realize what is at stake.  It is just like anything else of importance, we get nerves and butterflies in our stomach.  That is just part of the adrenaline that comes, and we should learn to use that to make us more effective in what we do.  The same way that an actor or actress does or an athlete or any person when they  are out in front of an audience.

Another more negative reason that we become anxious and concerned is just that self-absorption. We are afraid of rejection, afraid of generating some sort of hostility.  We are afraid if we witness to a coworker, and they reject the Gospel, that may impact the way they relate to us at work, and there will be negative consequences.

Sometimes we are fearful of losing a friendship.  You come to a knowledge of Jesus Christ and salvation.  You have lifelong friends or have a good friendship with a coworker, but you know they are not saved.  You also know perhaps from statements that they make along the way that if you were to give them a Gospel, you are afraid that that would be the end of the friendship.  So you are hesitant and fearful to put what you have as a friendship on the line.  We need to stop and say what is more important:  Maintain this friendship without them getting the Gospel or give them the Gospel so they know what the issues are and can be saved.

Another fear factor is just a fear of adequacy.  We are uncertain because we do not do it enough.  All of a sudden we have the opportunity to give the Gospel, and you say, “I haven’t done this before, I don’t know what to say, what if they ask me a question I can’t answer, what if they really get mad at me?”  The only way to get the experience or learn how to do it well is to do it.  When you do it, you are going to make mistakes, and you learn from those mistakes.  We all do.

Every time I witness to someone, I am playing Monday Morning Quarterback for three days afterward.  They said this, I should have said that, why didn’t I think of this.  That is how we become better at it, so that the next time we are giving the Gospel to somebody, we are a little more prepared and should be a little more confident.

Probably the most prominent reason that we are fearful is just because of the consequences.  I wanted to read you a story from the latest edition of the Voice of the Martyrs newsletter, which deals with North Korea.  This is the story of Esther. 

“Our contacts met with Esther in an old rundown apartment.  Esther is about 40 years old but looks much older.  Both of her parents died of starvation in North Korea.  Esther left North Korea for China and had lived there for seven years when our contacts heard her story.  Esther was an illegal refugee in China.  She hid in the mountains working on a fish farm, and then she found out that some of the workers wanted to sell her as a slave in China.  She had met a man at the fish farm who was a believer in Jesus Christ and told him about the plan to sell her, so they ran away together.  They had no money, no food, and it was extremely cold in the Chinese winter.  Hiding out in an old rundown house, she began to inquire about the Lord.  They asked the man’s older sister to bring a Bible, and Esther trusted Christ as her Savior.  Whenever she would meet other Koreans, she told them about Jesus Christ.  Soon she was leading a group of about 40 people.  Most of them were construction workers.  She didn’t know how to do any work in construction, but she learned and worked alongside them.  Over the months, the number of believers grew.  Eventually the group had to split up and meet in different places because it was so large.  One day as Esther was returning on a bus from an errand, she came upon a roadblock where soldiers were conducting random checks.  The soldiers knew immediately that she was in China illegally, and she was repatriated to North Korea.  There she was beaten and tortured almost to the point of death.  After she recovered, she escaped again to China.  Whenever she prayed about North Korea, she was convinced that she needed to return to North Korea to share the Gospel.  The man on this month’s cover helped Esther to go back across the border.  Voice of the Martyrs’ contacts visited Esther three days before she returned to North Korea.  Her heart was very heavy, but she was going to share the Gospel with her nation.  Like Esther from the Bible, she said, “If I perish, I perish.”  Though afraid, Esther was returning out of obedience.  After three months, we received a letter.  Esther was doing well but traveling so much that all ten of her toenails had fallen off.  Like the Apostle Paul, she bore the marks of Christ for her nation.  She is grateful to be in North Korea, but she said she is in a difficult place.  One of Esther’s coworkers matches her spirit.  Her contacts call her Sunflower Girl because her face is always directed toward the Son.”

This issue gives stories of numerous believers in North Korea who go back again and again to give the Gospel.  Most of them end up dead; some end up in prison, tortured and beaten.  So when we think about rejection, hostility to giving the Gospel, the minor fears that you and I have of giving the Gospel in this country are nothing compared to the historical rejection that numerous Christians have experienced down through the ages.  We need to realize that the God that we serve has given us the spirit of power and courage and not a spirit of timidity.  The issue is giving the Gospel, and the real power and agent is the Holy Spirit.

So when we are fearful, what do we do and how do we handle that?  The solution is two-fold.  The first thing you should do is pray.  We need to deal with the sin of fear and worry and put the situation in the Lord’s hands and just relax.  We need to realize that we are not the ones to close the deal.  It is not up to us to ultimately be the convincing agent, to be the one that is going to tighten that argument so that this person cannot do anything other than trust in Jesus Christ.  We have to recognize that the real power in evangelism is not us.

Even if we screw up, even if we do not have the right answers, we are part of a process.  Paul talks about one person who comes along and plants the seed, another person waters, another cultivates, and another person bears the fruit.  We never know where we are in that chain.  You may be the first person to give them the Gospel.  They are going to listen and probably reject it; they have not heard it before.  Somebody else is going to come along, and based on what you have already given them that person is going to be a little more receptive.  You never know where you are in the chain.  You may be the last person in the chain.  Giving them the Gospel, they may say, “You know I have heard that before; I want to trust Christ as my Savior.”  Just relax and rely upon the Holy Spirit.

Paul says in 1 Corinthians 2:3-4, “I was with you in weakness, in fear, and in much trembling.  Any my speech and my preaching were not with persuasive words of human wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power.”  This is the Apostle Paul.  If Paul faces the fear, the anxiety, the trembling; so do we.  But we do not let that control our decision-making; we make the right decision despite the fact that we may be anxious.  It is not about constructing an air-tight case that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, and that you have to trust Him as Savior.  We do not have to give them an air-tight case on the validity of the Bible, the inerrancy of the Scriptures, solve every doctrinal issue, prove that creation is better than evolution.  You just need to have the facts of the Gospel as clear as possible.

It is God the Holy Spirit who is the sovereign executive in witnessing.  He is the one who is working in and through the situation.  He is the one who is working in the life of the person to whom you are witnessing.

This takes us to a key passage in John 16:7-11.  John 16:7 tells us what God the Holy Spirit is doing when we are witnessing.  Jesus said to His disciples, “Nevertheless I tell you the truth.  It is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you, but if I depart, I will send Him to you.”  This is the Paraclete, the Holy Spirit who is the one who enables, strengthens, and empowers us.

John 16:8-11.  “And when He has come, He will convict the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment: of sin, because they do not believe in Me; of righteousness, because I go to My Father and you see Me no more; of judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged.”

When He comes, He is going to do three things.  First of all, He is going to convict the world concerning sin.  That means that when you are giving the Gospel to somebody, God the Holy Spirit is at work in that individual convicting them (a legal term), revealing to them that they are guilty before the bar of God’s justice.  If we are not giving scriptures and information related to the guilt and condemnation of sin, then the Holy Spirit does not have any tool to work with there. 

Second, He will convicting the world concerning righteousness, that is, they do not have righteousness.  That is the issue in salvation.  They need righteousness to have a relationship with God.

Third, He will convict the world of judgment.

Jesus explains in verse 9 about sin.  The issue is faith in Christ and not how many sins you have committed.  Christ died and paid the penalty for all the sins, so that sin is not the issue anymore.  It is not about whatever you have done in the past that makes you ashamed or feel guilty; it is not about focusing on the sins that a person has committed in his life.  It is a focus on the fact that the sin has been paid for, the penalty has been paid for, and the issue now is what are you going to do about Jesus Christ?

He explains about righteousness in verse 10.  This is the night before He went to the cross.  On the cross, 2 Corinthians 5:21, “For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”  That is the purpose: We lack righteousness, and a creature that does not have righteousness cannot have a relationship with God.  The sins may be paid for, but you do not have the kind of righteousness necessary to have a relationship with God.

When you believe in Jesus as your Savior, at that instant, God credits to your account, imputes to you, gives you and covers you with the righteousness of Christ so that what God looks at is Christ’s righteousness, not yours, and declares you to be just.  That is what we mean by justification by faith alone.

John 16:11, “Of judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged.” The victory has been won at the cross.  That solved the problem.

God the Holy Spirit is the one who is working behind the scenes with your witnessing.  So if you are talking about inviting Jesus into your heart or talking about some of the other non-biblical ways people try to communicate the Gospel, then it is off center, it is off target.  God the Holy Spirit is going to be focusing on three things:  they do not believe in Jesus, they need righteousness, and the battle is won.  It is complete, finished, sufficient, and that needs to be the focal point of what we communicate in the Gospel.

The first way to deal with the fear factor is to realize it is not up to you; it is up to the Holy Spirit.  We are just a conduit. We just have the privilege of being the mouthpiece.  We just have to know what to say and how to communicate it.  The problem with the unbeliever is not that they do not have enough rational information.  It is not an empirical issue; it is a spiritual issue.  They are suppressing the knowledge of God in unrighteousness because they do not want to have to deal with the justice of God.  They are trying to keep God’s justice as far away from them as possible.  What we are doing is communicating to them that there is the justice of God that has to be dealt with, and Christ dealt with it on the cross.  We can be adjusted to the justice of God by faith in Christ.

The second way to deal with fear is that we have to be familiar enough with our own information where we are comfortable explaining the Gospel.  If you are not comfortable with what you are doing like an actor or actress who has not learned their lines, then you are really nervous.  If you are a pastor and have not done your homework and get into the pulpit, then you are nervous.  But if you have a command of your material and know what you are doing, then you can relax because you know that the Holy Spirit is in control, you know the content you are trying to communicate, and you know that even if you do not know the answer, you can always check it out and try to find an answer to that question or a book to read that will help them.

We have to know the content of the Gospel, which means we have to understand what evangelism is and what it is not.  In terms of what evangelism is not, it is not social action, it is not helping people, it is not soup kitchens or building habitats for humanity.  It is not that those things are wrong, and in some cases, they can be aids to evangelism, but that in and of itself is not evangelism.

There are two basic kinds of evangelism.  There is the non-verbal witness of the life, and there is the verbal witness with our lips.  Some Christians say, “My life is a witness.”  No one is going to hear that they have to believe in Jesus Christ just by watching you.  That may provide you with a platform, but, in my experience, there are a few people in your life who might at some crisis point say, “I have been watching you, and when you hit a crisis point, you are able to just go through it in a relaxed manner.  Why is that?”  But there are a whole lot of people who are not going to ever ask that.  They may observe that, but they are not going to have the opportunity or the courage to come right out and ask you that.

The witness of the life simply provides a foundation, and it can destroy your foundation if there is not some sort of consistency of application in your life.  If you go down to the cleaners, and they do not have your cleaning, and you ream out the lady, then the next day you want to give her a tract, you probably do not have the basis for communicating the Gospel.

We need to make the Gospel clear.  Paul makes the foundation of the Gospel clear in 1 Cor. 15:3-4, “For I delivered  to you first of all that which I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures.”  “Delivered” means I gave this to you, I entrusted this to you, I handed this over to you.  “Received” is the Greek word paralambano, which is an idiom for approval or acceptance.  So what he is saying is “I gave to you first of all what I accepted, what I believed.”  Lambano is a synonym in the New Testament for belief in Christ.  These verses are not saying this is what you have to believe in order to be saved.  You do not have to believe in the burial and the resurrection.  He is giving the basis for salvation, which is Christ died for our sins.  That was the focal point of his message.

In 1 Corinthians 15:1, “Moreover, brethren, I declare to you the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received and in which you stand.”  It is the same word for receive as in 1 Cor. 15:3.

John 1:11-12, “He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him.  But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name.”

“Receive” in verse 12 is the root verb lambano.  The word receive or to accept is parallel or synonymous with believing.  These are the biblical terms that are used for salvation: believing in Christ, receiving the gift of salvation, accepting the truth that He died on the cross for your sins.  It is not inviting Jesus into your life, it is not making a commitment to Jesus, it is not walking an aisle or raising your hand or filling out a card or having any sort of experience.  It is simply believing that Jesus Christ died for your sins as a substitute; He paid the penalty.  That is what has to be communicated; that is the core of the Gospel.

Paul says this in 1 Corinthians 2:1-2, “And I, brethren, when I came to you, did not come with excellence of speech or of wisdom declaring to you the testimony of God.  For I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified.”  That is the focal point; it is always the cross.

When we give the Gospel, the Gospel is good news, but to tell people good news implies they have to understand first and foremost the bad news.  They have to understand what that condemnation is all about.  Sometimes people debate this.  I have heard people say, “You just tell them what Christ did for them.  It is not necessary for them to understand that they are a sinner and under condemnation.”  That is just not true.

Let’s use our Old Testament analogies for this.  In the Old Testament when you had the Passover, which is the greatest picture in the Old Testament of salvation and redemption, the solution was to put the blood of the sacrificed lamb on the doorposts of the house.  The Lord would pass over.  If people were not aware that the Lord was coming, why would they want to apply the blood?  If you do not know there is a problem, that there is coming condemnation or judgment, that there is an issue of separation from God, then there is no recognition of why you need to do this – because I am already condemned.

The Scripture makes that clear.  Every time you see Paul giving the Gospel, he starts off by saying we were dead in our trespasses and sins, such as in Ephesians 2:1-7, which is a great explanation of the Gospel.  There has to be a recognition of the problem before there is an understanding of the need for that solution. 

Romans 3:23, “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”

Ephesians 2:1, “And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins.”

So the problem is spiritual death and separation from God.  But we have to do here is when we are talking about Scripture and use the words like sin and condemnation and Christ and Christ died for our sins, we have to define those terms.  We no longer live in a culture where we can take it for granted that people understand what a sin is or understand who Christ is or understand what the death is here.  They think first and foremost in terms of physical death, but, as Paul is saying, he is talking to biologically living people and saying they were dead in their trespasses and sins.  So we have to explain these things and what the problem is: that spiritual death is separation from God and that the problem derives from a lack of the same kind of righteousness that God has.  We have to understand that even our best deeds and highest morality are just like filthy rags in God’s sight (Isaiah 64:6).

Some people think, “Can I correct this through good works or is religious observation enough?”  We need to address passages, such as Ephesians 2:8-9, “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.”  We need to talk about what a gift is - that this is free and you do not need to do anything to earn or deserve it.

Have you observed how our culture is destroying the meaning of a gift today?  You get something in the mail that says you have won a free prize.  But you have to do something to get it; you have to come to the showroom and go through a sales spiel.  It is not free!  Gifts are not free anymore.  We have to stop and back up and explain what a gift is: it is free and you do nothing to earn it.

Another good passage to pull in together with this is Titus 3:5, “Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit.”

So what is the solution?  John 3:16, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.”  The issue is not the sin you committed; the issue is believing in Jesus Christ.

Romans 5:8, “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

Why did He die for us?  2 Corinthians 5:21, “For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”  At this instant that we trust in Christ, His righteousness becomes our righteousness.  Not that we become righteous, but we gain His righteousness and that is the basis for our salvation.

What must we do?  John 3:18, “He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.” 

John 3:36, “He who believes in the Son has everlasting life; and he who does not believe the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him.”

Acts 16:31, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved.”  What does it mean to believe?  It means to trust, to rely upon Jesus.  That means that God gives us a free gift, and what we do is accept it and rely upon it.

Do not get sidetracked by false issues.  Sin is not an issue in salvation.  It is not about what they have done or how bad they have been.  Some people are really overwhelmed with guilt, and if you start giving them the Gospel, you may be surprised when people just start gushing with this stuff.  They are just overwhelmed with things that they have done or things that have happened to them.  But it is not about them; it is not about what they have done – it is about Jesus Christ.

Do not argue.  It is so easy sometimes for some of us to get caught up in “I know more about this than you do, and I am going to prove that I am right.”  It is not an argument and do not let that happen.  It is not about who is right and who can convince the other person that they have a better argument.

Avoid false issues like various cultural taboos, personal opinions, politics.  One of the worst things you can do is let something divert into some political issue.  What about the Christian Right or what do you think about Jerry Falwell or what do you think about abortion?  They may ask questions about creation vs. evolution.  You can say, “I am not sure about all those things, but let’s see what the Bible says about this.”  Bring the issue back.

There are real legitimate questions that people are asking and that they are wrestling with.  “How can you really believe in a God, a loving God who allows all this horrible sin to take place?”  If that is a real issue for them, then you have to address it in some way.  If they make an issue out of creation, you can say, “We can come back to that.”  Try to go around it, but if it is a problem, you can tell them you can come back and talk about it later.  Just try to set the objections aside and focus on the Gospel. 

But how do you handle those things?  Probably the best book to get on any of these things is Josh McDowell’s big book, The New Evidence That Demands a Verdict.  Also C.S. Lewis’ book, Mere Christianity.  Paul Little’s classic called Know Why You Believe.  This book is a really simple, small book with short chapters and gives very good answers to various questions that people may ask.

Always make sure you do not add anything to faith alone in Christ alone.  And then do not adopt a rigid form of evangelism.  Just relax; it is a conversation with people.  You know the core issue: believe in Jesus Christ as your Savior.  Every person is different, and you cannot just have one canned approach that you just go through mechanically.  A lot of us start that way because that is how you get started doing a lot of things in life until you learn.

One approach I have used for years was the old Roman Road, although the problem is that a couple of verses that were used do not really apply, so I have modified it.

Romans 3:23, “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” 

Romans 5:8, “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

John 3:16, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.”

Titus 3:5, “Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit.”

Acts 16:31, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved.”

These are five good verses to begin with.  Get those memorized.  You can take anybody anywhere in the Gospel with those five verses.

If they get saved, then what?  Then you should tell them about 1 John 1:9, “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness”

In terms of an assurance of salvation, the fact that they cannot lose their salvation, let them know about Romans 8:38-39, “For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

(Bridge illustration which is similar to the barrier we have used)  Originally, God created man, and God had fellowship with man because God had righteousness.  When God created man, man had the same righteousness and was created in the image and likeness of God.  So there was perfect rapport and perfect harmony.  Then something happened – man disobeyed God and that created disharmony, and man no longer had perfect righteousness; he was minus R.  There was a sin problem that separated man.  Instead of having an open relationship, now there is a chasm and a barrier between God and man.  God’s perfect righteousness cannot have fellowship with man’s minus-R, with his lack of righteousness because all of his righteousnesses are as filthy rags. 

So God solved the sin problem at the cross.  There Jesus Christ died on the cross for our sins; it wipes out the sin problem.  It is not an issue.  When we trust Christ as our Savior, then we are given the perfect righteousness of Jesus Christ, and we have eternal life. 

Another thing that people get concerned about is a question of how do you get started?  You can ask people various questions.  Do you have any spiritual beliefs?  Whatever they say cannot be wrong because it is whatever they believe.  You are just trying to get information.

You can ask them, “Who do you think Jesus is?”  I had a great time the first year that the Davinci Code came out.  I was consistently sitting next to someone on an airplane who was reading the book.  I asked them what they thought about the book. You can ask people if they believe in a heaven or hell, if they died today where would they go, what do they think happens when they die.

A question that focuses and finds out if they are even interested in talking is the question, “If what you believed was not true, would you want someone to tell you?”  If they give you any indication that they will go forward, you can show them what the Bible says.  If you have a pocket New Testament, let them read the different verses. 

Here is a tool that is available at various Christian bookstores.  The Evangacube comes in large or small versions and is just pictures.  It is a great tool in communicating the Gospel to kids.

What has hit me in the last few years is that Muslims and Jehovah Witnesses, for example, are so well trained.  Whatever you say, they have a pat answer for that.  They are drilled and trained in it.  We just do not do that in the evangelical community because we believe in volition and free explanation of the Gospel and the power of God.  We have the truth, but we have a responsibility to communicate that.