Gospel Reset Evangelism
Evangelism has been on my heart lately.
I feel like God has used me a lot over the last few years to support,
encourage, and guide fellow Christians in their walks. I know it's
good, it's discipling, and it's obeying the Great Commission to go
out and make disciples. It's been very rewarding since it feels great
to be used effectively by God, and I have no intention of stopping
it.
However, I've been speaking to a
friendly audience. They already are saved. The Holy Spirit is already
within them. They already believe the Bible, at least most of it.
They already know that God has saved them, so when speaking to them
we can focus on the victorious Christian life – that allowing
Christ to rule your life by letting the Holy Spirit guide you in your
daily walk will lead you to joy and peace that defies all
understanding.
I am much less confident when talking
to lost people about matters of God. I'm not really sure how to
approach it or what to say. It's uncomfortable. I'm someone who likes
to be sure what I'm saying is right, so I rarely present things as
facts unless I am prepared to back it immediately if challenged. I
might know something is fact, but if I can't back it up immediately,
I don't really present it as fact. I think this makes me less bold in
my evangelism.
Fortunately, I like to read and learn,
and there is no shortage of excellent material.
Today, I am presenting my book report
on “Gospel Reset” by Ken Hamm from the Answers in Genesis team,
the organization responsible for Ark Encounter and the Creation
Museum in Williamstown, KY. It can be read in an hour or two, and it
has revealed the influence of the world on my own beliefs regarding
Creation, leading me to examine my them and begin my own research
regarding the validity of the Biblical account of Creation. I want to
tell you about it and I shall try keep my report shorter than the
actual book.
Wake up!
This book is the third thing in as many
weeks to tell me to “Wake up!” It started in Sunday School when
we looked at the message to the church at Sardis in Revelation
chapter 3. It happened again in another context, and now in Gospel
Reset. I think God is speaking to me. The pastor surprised me by asking me
to fill in with a sermon today, which I love doing. Those
circumstances lead me to believe that I am supposed to tell you what
God is telling me. WAKE UP.
Wake up to what? Wake up to the reality
that our Gospel message often seems to be falling on deaf ears.
People appear to be resistant to the message more now than ever
before. Also, of the younger generation who grew up in the church,
over half are leaving the church and never returning. Why? Do they
need the Gospel less? Is it no longer true? Are people more stupid?
Has the nature of humankind changed? No, of course not.
What has changed? I think we can agree
that the culture has changed dramatically over the last 50-75 years.
The older generations, even those who aren't Christians, have more of
a Christianized worldview, due to the significant past influence of
Christianity. But tThe members of the Millennial generation, born
between 1982-2002, even many who are Christians, don't share this
worldview. The education and culture has been secularized. Secular
humanism and moral relativism rule the day. Millennials get beat up
by the older people a lot, but criticism of the young isn't new. We
older people got beat up by our elders in the same way. Most of us
weren't “bad people” and neither are most of the Millennials.
They're aware that they should treat people respectfully, kindly, and
compassionately, often much more aware of it than the older people.
But they don't have the same Christianized worldview that the older
people had.
We can disagree about WHY this
happened, but I think we can all agree that it HAS happened. My own
opinion is that many Christians, particularly some very publicly
visible “celebrity” Christians, became much more interested in
what other people were DOING, rather than what they were knowing and
BELIEVING. I think this led them to attempt to legislate morality,
rather than to share the message of the Cross and Salvation, and then
let the Holy Spirit take care of what they were doing. I believe this
left a door open to the enemy to chip away at the Christianized
worldview in most Western nations, the very worldview that led to
great advances in prosperity and improvements to the general welfare.
This open door allowed Satan to first gain a foothold with naturally
rebellious youth, and then erode the Christian values that made up
the fabric of our society.
Read the Declaration of Independence
and the Constitution and it's evident that the writers' values and
characters were based on Christianity, even though they didn't
overtly say it. It very clearly does not say that Christianity is the
official religion of the USA; however, it is replete with Christian
language with references that make their Christian worldview clear,
such as “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are
created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain
unalienable Rights...”
Fast forward to today, and I think we
can agree the many of our leaders and cultural icons do not espouse
quite the same worldview as the Founders.
Today I will spend some time
highlighting the chasm that exists between our Christian worldview
and the secularized worldview. I think you already believe it exists;
I want to give you some ideas so you can show other people it exists.
Then, being the pragmatist, I will spend more time on what we do
about it.
The Chasm
The author of Gospel Reset suggests
that Millennials speak a different language. I suggest that it is
nothing new that younger generations speak a different language than
their elders. But what's different about it this time is that the two
groups don't agree on foundational ideas. In a bygone era, say “God”
in a public school, and there was little doubt that you meant the
Creator referenced in the Declaration of Independence. Today, mention
God in a public school and the response is likely to be either
hostility or confusion. “Which one? The Christian God? One of the
Hindu gods? The Muslim god? The New Age god within each of us?”
If, in a public school of the olden
days, you said that we were going to “read a Bible story”, most
expected a historical account. Today, after you get through the
subsequent lawsuits and injunctions, people would think “fiction”
or “fairy tale”. At best, they would put it equivalent to one of
Aesop's fables. They do not think “authoritative, trustworthy,
infallible, and inerrant”, largely because secular culture and
schools have indoctrinated them against it.
Maybe you're thinking “That's crazy!
God is God, there's no confusion.” Here are a few examples from the
author of words having different meanings to different groups. He
grew up in Australia and moved to the US. He tells stories about when
his car battery “went flat”, when he needed “petrol”, and
when he, yes HE, told someone over the phone that he was “nursing a
baby”! He meant that his battery was dead, he needed gas (but it's
a liquid, he said!) and he was simply HOLDING a baby. Even when
speaking the same language, if we don't understand how words are
being used in context, we have serious difficulty in communicating.
If we do not understand this, we won't understand the divide between
the worldviews, or how to communicate the Gospel to the younger
generation.
Researchers from the Answers in Genesis
team found well over half of young people who say they are born again
believe that good works will save you and that gay marriage is fine.
This leads me to agree with the author that a main reason they are
leaving the church is that they are confused. Their parents, Sunday
school teachers, and pastors have not taught them how to answer to
the skeptics' difficult questions. We haven't taught them
apologetics.
Not only that, many churches are
teaching them that it's okay to treat Genesis as a collection of
fables, not history. But how you view Genesis dictates how you
interpret the rest of the Bible. If you don't believe the accounts
in Genesis really happened, you can't see why you need a Savior, and
that God promised that He'd take care of it.
Outside of churches, in public schools
and in the culture, people are taught that the Bible is a myth and
that it's okay to ridicule people who believe otherwise.
Two approaches to preaching
So what are we to do? Many faithful
Christians tell us to “Preach the Gospel!” While that's true,
what exactly does it mean to “preach the Gospel”? Most Christians
flip right to the last third of the Bible and start with Jesus, which
in bygone eras, worked just fine since they already know about the
first part. But you wouldn't do that with any other book, would you?
Would you flip to the end of a mystery novel, read the end and say
you understood the the criminal's motives or the methods of the
investigator? The author of “Gospel Reset” compares this to
starting to build a house by building the roof, then trying to build
the walls. Instead he presents a radical idea – start at the
beginning!
He makes a strong case for this whole
idea of differing foundational worldviews by comparing two episodes
from the book of Acts. He compares Peter's sermon in Acts 2 to Paul's
in Acts 17.
In Acts 2, Peter is talking to Jews.
Jews understood that God is the Creator in Genesis. They understood
sin, Adam and Eve, and the Fall. They regularly sacrificed at the
temple because of sin. They understood the need for a sacrifice, and
they knew about the promise of the coming Messiah in Genesis 3:15.
Our Western culture used to be like the one in Acts 2.
Notice that Peter appeals to their
knowledge of the prophet Joel and to the Psalms of David.
In Acts 17:18 Paul speaks to the Greeks
in Athens. He starts by talking about Jesus just like Peter did, but
Paul got quite a different result. “And also some of the Epicurean
and Stoic philosophers were conversing with him. Some were saying,
“What would this idle babbler wish to say?” Others, “He seems
to be a proclaimer of strange deities,”—because he was preaching
Jesus and the resurrection.”
Later in 1 Cor 1:23, he writes “but
we preach Christ crucified, to Jews a stumbling block and to Gentiles
foolishness,”. Why was Christ crucified foolishness to Greeks?
Because they had no concept of a single Creator God, no history of
Adam and Eve, the Fall, or the entrance of sin and death into the
world. They didn't understand the sacrificial system or the need for
a sacrifice. So the idea that Christ was sacrificed to save them from
their sins and restore the relationship with the Creator God was
“foolishness”. They weren't necessarily looking down their noses
and laughing condescendingly (as evidenced by their continued
interest in Acts 17:19), it was foolishness because they didn't have
the foundation needed for it to make any sense to them.
So what did Paul do?
Notice: some sneered, some wanted to
hear more, and some were saved.
Today, Western culture is an Acts 17
culture. Everything around us is “Greek”. Media and entertainment
is “Greek”, schools are “Greek”, so 90% of the time, our kids
are among and influenced by “Greeks”. People in our culture today
are “Greeks” but we preach and evangelize like they're “Jews”.
We say “repent and trust Jesus”, but this is foolishness to them
because they don't understand. They might reject the message
outright, but it might be simply that they don't understand.
Truthfully, from a worldly human perspective, the message doesn't
make sense. It only makes sense to someone who understands
Genesis.
How did Christians allow our Acts 2
culture to turn into an Acts 17 culture? I shared my opinion earlier,
but the author of Gospel Reset suggests something different. He says
that many Christians have stopped trying, saying that we are in the
End Times, and saying “This is expected, bring it on!” But this
is fatalism, it's not not Biblical. They think the worse it gets, the
sooner until Jesus returns, so we can just wait.
Some say that today it's as bad as in
Noah's time. But this response isn't supported in Scripture. Genesis
6:5 tells us that only 8 people got on the ark. There are more than 8
Christians in this room, let alone in the whole world. Regardless,
Noah didn't just wait. Waiting isn't the right response. Philippians
2:15 tells you to “...prove yourselves to be blameless and
innocent, children of God above reproach in the midst of a crooked
and perverse generation, among whom you appear as lights in the
world,” and Paul told the Romans to put on the armor of light, not
to sit back and let everything go down the toilet. As times get
darker, Christians must shine more brightly. This is an opportunity
to work, not to wait.
What are we to do?
The author of Gospel Reset challenges
us to “Contend for the Faith. Give answers for what you believe.
Preach the Gospel .” He presents as support Jude 1:3, 1 Peter 3:15,
and Mark 16:15, respectively. He also says that leaders who are
straddling the chasm between the worldviews must pick a side, and
references Joshua 24:15: “If it is disagreeable in your sight to
serve the Lord, choose for yourselves today whom you will serve:
whether the gods which your fathers served which were beyond the
River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you are living; but
as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”
The Gospel has not changed. The way we
present it must. You've heard it said “the Bible is one story,”
but I say to you, “present it that way.” Today's “Greeks” are
on the wrong road. How do we get them onto the right one? Paul needed
to start at the beginning of the Bible in Athens. We can follow his
example.
I suggest that we can only do this and
contend for the faith, by being ready to give the answers for what we
believe. For today's “Greeks”, saying “the Bible says so”
isn't an effective way to contend for the faith. We need to educate
ourselves on their arguments, and understand how science supports
what is written in Genesis. But always remember, our goal isn't to
“be right” and smack them down, it's to lead people to Christ.
Remember that Peter said to do it “with gentleness and reverence”.
Examples where science supports Genesis
I'll give you two examples where
science supports what's in Genesis, and refer you to
www.answersingenesis.org
for the details of these and many more.
Fossils are found all over the earth.
These are the remains of life that were somehow preserved intact. It
doesn't look like new fossils are being created today. Why not? When
a creature dies, what usually happens? Scavengers come and... dispose
of it. It doesn't stay intact. In order to stay intact, it has to be
buried – quickly. Most of the fossils are found in the same layer
of the Earth. A global flood is an excellent explanation for how lots
and lots of creatures could be quickly buried and thus preserved.
Carbon dating is used to determine the
age of things in and on the Earth. Volcanic rock's age relative to
when it was last molten lava. However, rock that we know the age of
because we know when the volcano erupted shows up as much older. Mt.
St. Helen's erupted in 1980, but tests age the rock around 300,000
years. Proponents of carbon dating say that's because the methods
don't work on young rock. But the only way to know for sure the age
of anything is to witness its creation or find a written account of
someone who did. So how can they say the rocks are millions of years
old? Carbon dating! I encourage you to check this one out on
www.answersingenesis.com
for a more thorough look at the assumptions made in carbon dating and
the circular reasoning used by its proponents.
“Practical DeGreeking”
I'll close with a summary of what the
author of Gospel Reset calls “Practical DeGreeking”.
He recalls a time after speaking at a
conference when a young man said to him “I'm homosexual and believe
in gay marriage. What do you think?” Rather than telling the young
man that he was sinning and must repent, he recognized this probably
wouldn't work since the man was probably “Greek”. First he needs
to understand the young man's worldview. The man says he's not
Christian, so the author tells the young man that he wants to explain
why he has the worldview he does and how he approaches the issue. He
starts with the Bible, and the man says he doesn't believe the Bible
and rejects religion. The author responds that he does believe the
Bible, and would like to understand why the man doesn't believe it's
the revealed Word of God as the author does. The young man answers
that he believes science, and the author asks for some examples to
illustrate so he could have the chance to answer them.
He first sought to find out what
answers he can give to help the young man understand why the author
believed as he did. The discussion continued for a while and the
author was able to show how his worldview is built on Genesis. The
man could see the clash wasn't really about how they viewed marriage
or homosexuality, but about the difference between their starting
points. Then the author was able to explain the Gospel, beginning in
Genesis with Adam and Eve and the Fall, thus establishing the need
for a Savior.
If the young man had said he was a
Christian, he would have challenged him from the Bible, beginning in
Genesis. He said when he does this the other person usually says they
don't take the Bible literally like the author does. They usually
claim there is scientific evidence that disproves Genesis as literal
history. Then the author does his best to show that science has not
in fact, disproved the Bible.
His point is that we can't assume that
they're “Jews” and thus will understand the typical terminology
or why Christians believe the way they do. So we first have to
determine if they are really “Greeks”, understand where they are
coming from, and why they believe what they do, so they don't get the
impression we're simply trying to impose our beliefs on them.
Get this – we have to ask them
questions and listen to their answers in order to determine what it
is that they need to hear. We can't just preach at them! We need to
come along side them and they need to feel it.
Conclusion
So what have I said today? First I said
we needed to wake up and see that today's culture is more like Paul's
Greeks in Acts 17 than Peter's Jews in Acts 2. With “Jews” we can
start with Jesus and the Good News, because they already understand
God, the Fall, sin, and the need for a sacrifice. With “Greeks”,
we must start in Genesis and explain God, Adam and Eve, the Fall,
sin, and the need for a sacrifice, because they don't already
understand it. If we started with the Cross, it would be foolishness
to them.
Then I repeated the author's call to
action. We can't just “wait for Christ's return”, because we
really don't have any idea when that will be. Sure, we're in the End
Times. We're closer to His return now than we were 20 years ago, but
that's because 20 years have passed. We are to be a light in the
darkness, not just sit around and wait.
I hope that I have convinced you that
with the Holy Spirit's guidance, we can and must try to reach today's
“Greeks” by changing the way we present the Gospel, by starting
in Genesis to build the needed foundation. I gave you a few examples
of responses to some common challenges to the veracity of the
accounts in Genesis, and I pointed you to some resources to learn
more. I think it's critical to educate ourselves so we can contend
for the faith and be prepared to defend what you believe. Again, I
issue the challenge to prepare yourselves.
Finally, I summarized the author's
example of how to approach the task of evangelizing to those without
the foundation that the Christian worldview lays.
This study has personally challenged me
to examine my own beliefs. I feel like I'm in the process of having
the impurities burned away so that I'm only left with pure gold. I
think most of the impurities in this one area are gone, but that the
gold is still in a liquid form, waiting for the Master Craftsman to
pour it into His mold. I invite you to join me.
References
Gospel Reset by Ken Hamm, published 2018
Acts 2:14-36
Peter’s Sermon
14 But Peter, taking his stand with the
eleven, raised his voice and declared to them: “Men of Judea and
all you who live in Jerusalem, let this be known to you and give heed
to my words. 15 For these men are not drunk, as you suppose, for it
is only the third hour of the day; 16 but this is what was spoken of
through the prophet Joel:
17 ‘And it shall be in the last
days,’ God says,
‘That I will pour forth of My Spirit
on all mankind;
And your sons and your daughters shall
prophesy,
And your young men shall see visions,
And your old men shall dream dreams;
18 Even on My bondslaves, both men and
women,
I will in those days pour forth of My
Spirit
And they shall prophesy.
19 ‘And I will grant wonders in the
sky above
And signs on the earth below,
Blood, and fire, and vapor of smoke.
20 ‘The sun will be turned into
darkness
And the moon into blood,
Before the great and glorious day of
the Lord shall come.
21 ‘And it shall be that everyone who
calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.’
22 “Men of Israel, listen to these
words: Jesus the Nazarene, a man attested to you by God with miracles
and wonders and signs which God performed through Him in your midst,
just as you yourselves know— 23 this Man, delivered over by the
predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God, you nailed to a cross by
the hands of godless men and put Him to death. 24 But God raised Him
up again, putting an end to the agony of death, since it was
impossible for Him to be held in its power. 25 For David says of Him,
‘I saw the Lord always in my
presence;
For He is at my right hand, so that I
will not be shaken.
26 ‘Therefore my heart was glad and
my tongue exulted;
Moreover my flesh also will live in
hope;
27 Because You will not abandon my soul
to Hades,
Nor allow Your Holy One to undergo
decay.
28 ‘You have made known to me the
ways of life;
You will make me full of gladness with
Your presence.’
29 “Brethren, I may confidently say
to you regarding the patriarch David that he both died and was
buried, and his tomb is with us to this day. 30 And so, because he
was a prophet and knew that God had sworn to him with an oath to seat
one of his descendants on his throne, 31 he looked ahead and spoke of
the resurrection of the Christ, that He was neither abandoned to
Hades, nor did His flesh suffer decay. 32 This Jesus God raised up
again, to which we are all witnesses. 33 Therefore having been
exalted to the right hand of God, and having received from the Father
the promise of the Holy Spirit, He has poured forth this which you
both see and hear. 34 For it was not David who ascended into heaven,
but he himself says:
‘The Lord said to my Lord,
“Sit at My right hand,
35 Until I make Your enemies a
footstool for Your feet.”’
36 Therefore let all the house of
Israel know for certain that God has made Him both Lord and
Christ—this Jesus whom you crucified.”
Acts 17:22-34
Sermon on Mars Hill
22 So Paul stood in the midst of the
Areopagus and said, “Men of Athens, I observe that you are very
religious in all respects. 23 For while I was passing through and
examining the objects of your worship, I also found an altar with
this inscription, ‘TO AN UNKNOWN GOD.’ Therefore what you worship
in ignorance, this I proclaim to you. 24 The God who made the world
and all things in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not
dwell in temples made with hands; 25 nor is He served by human hands,
as though He needed anything, since He Himself gives to all people
life and breath and all things; 26 and He made from one man every
nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having
determined their appointed times and the boundaries of their
habitation, 27 that they would seek God, if perhaps they might grope
for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us; 28
for in Him we live and move and exist, as even some of your own poets
have said, ‘For we also are His children.’ 29 Being then the
children of God, we ought not to think that the Divine Nature is like
gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and thought of
man. 30 Therefore having overlooked the times of ignorance, God is
now declaring to men that all people everywhere should repent, 31
because He has fixed a day in which He will judge the world in
righteousness through a Man whom He has appointed, having furnished
proof to all men by raising Him from the dead.”
32 Now when they heard of the
resurrection of the dead, some began to sneer, but others said, “We
shall hear you again concerning this.” 33 So Paul went out of their
midst. 34 But some men joined him and believed, among whom also were
Dionysius the Areopagite and a woman named Damaris and others with
them.
