Telling the Good News

You know, there are times in moments of quiet reflection when I think about whether or not I have any regrets. I don't know if you do that or not, but there are times when I think, you know, if this were my last day on earth, would I have any regrets about the way I've lived my life, the way I've interacted with my family, the way I've conducted my ministry, would I have any regrets? And the purpose of that little exercise is not to morbidly reflect on the past. The purpose is to say, if I answer any of those questions, yes, what do I do about it now? What do I change from this day on so that it's different from today on? That's the purpose of that kind of thing. And I think it's a healthy exercise for us at times. But I'm sure that life's most haunting regret is to have someone that you knew who has gone out into eternity and you never told them about Jesus Christ. Even though you may have had opportunity to do that, you never told them about Christ. I think that would be life's most haunting regret. We can't turn back the clock. We can't change that for those who may have gone on, but we can change it for those that we interact with now. How many times do we see people maybe day in and day out and we talk with them about everything. We talk with them about the weather. We talk with them about football and politics and family and all kinds of stuff, but we never, never have talked with them about Jesus Christ. That's a lot more important than football and politics and weather and even family because it's the only thing that will make a difference for eternity. But how many times do we interact with people day after day, even year after year, and we never have mentioned, never even given an indication of the fact that we know Jesus as our Savior. Maybe you have hoped that God would bring along some more polished and qualified life saver to rescue them, forgetting that it is God who has placed you next to them. He's put you in the water next to them to be there at life saver. Maybe you have felt that, well, I just kind of hope my testimony, my lifestyle, will mean enough to them to where they'll come to Christ. But people will never understand what Christ did for them on the cross by just watching us. Now as we saw last week, this is a show and tell type of deal here, giving out the gospel. Evangelism is a show and tell. We do have to show with our lives. Jesus said, you are our salt, you are light, your lifestyle is to recommend the Savior to other people. It's to back up what you say, but we can't depend on lifestyle alone. We have to also tell people the gospel. We have to share with our lips the fact that Jesus came and died for them on the cross. Last week we looked at the show part of that formula, show and tell. This morning we're going to look at the tell part. We're going to talk about telling the good news to someone else, sitting across the table, across a cup of coffee, and telling someone what it means to know in a personal way, in a personal relationship, but Lord Jesus as your Savior. Let's begin with an Old Testament story of telling good news. In 2 Kings chapter 7, there is a great story about telling news, telling good news that needed to be told. And we're going to use that story as an illustration of what it means to share the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ. So find 2 Kings chapter 7 in your Bible. Please we'll look at that for a few minutes this morning. This is the story of the king of Aram or Syria besieging the city of Samaria, which was the capital city of the northern kingdom of Israel. And to lay siege to a city meant that you attacked that city, but you surrounded it and you kept anyone from coming and going. Eventually all supplies would dry up and people would begin to starve to death. That's kind of an incentive to surrender. So that was the purpose of a siege. The city had been laid siege to and it was a bad situation. In fact, the first scene of this story in chapter 7 verses 3 and 4 is really one of a hopeless desperation. It's a hopeless desperation. Now actually before we get to verses 3 and 4 we need to go back to chapter 6 to see how hopeless it really was because chapter 6 beginning in verse 24 describes for us the desperation inside the city of Samaria. Let's take a look at that first back in chapter 6 verse 24. Sometime later bin Hadeh, king of Aram, mobilized his entire army and marched up and laid siege to Samaria. In verse 25 there was a great famine in the city. The siege lasted so long that a donkey's head sold for 80 shackles of silver. Now I'm not going to try to translate the currency into modern terms to show how expensive everything was. But just think for a moment, a donkey's head is worth a great sum of money. It's going for top dollar, a donkey's head. Now I don't know how many of you eat donkey's head. I know some of you eat hog brains. I've got some questions about you. There are better ways to get smart. A donkey's head. First of all a donkey's an unclean animal. A donkey's head. What would you should be eating a donkey to begin with? But the head is the least edible part of the donkey. I mean what did you eat in a donkey's head? But there was such a scarcity of food that a donkey's head was bringing top dollar on the market. Now that's not all the menu. Look at the next part. And a quarter of a cab of seed pods for five shackles. Actually there's some question as to the meaning of the Hebrew words here. The Hebrew probably means doves dung. Doves dung is bringing top dollar on the food market in Samaria. That's how bad it is. No further comment needed there. But you know it gets even worse than that. Look at verse 26. As the king of Israel was passing by on the wall, a woman cried to him, help me my Lord the king. The king replied, if the Lord does not help you, where can I get help? I'll help you. From the threshing floor, from the wine press, then he asked her, what's the matter? She answered, this woman said to me, give up your son so that we may eat him today and tomorrow we'll eat my son. So we cooked my son and ate him. The next day I said to her, give up your son so that we may eat him, but she had hidden him. That's unbelievable. Cannibalism. That's how desperate the situation had become. And when the king hears that sorted story, he rips his garments in anger and mourning, and the Bible says then he begins to blame the prophet Elisha for all that's happening. This is truly a desperate situation. The desperation inside the city is so bad that people are resorting to unthinkable options to keep themselves alive. If the desperation inside the city is bad, think about the desperation outside the city. Let's go to verse 3 of chapter 7 and you find there is desperation outside the city as well. Verse 3, now there were four men with leprosy at the entrance of the city gate. Let me stop right there for just a moment. Leppers could not live inside the city. They were excluded outside, did not have contact with other people because of the highly communicable nature of that disease. And so they were dependent on the leftovers and scraps of food that people would give them. Can you imagine their desperation? What kind of leftovers do you have from donkey head? Are we talking about eyelash soup or something like that? What kind of leftovers do you have from that? And I won't even mention the other menu option. What they're saying basically is there's nothing for these men to eat. If there's desperation inside the city, or outside the city, outside is worse, these lepers have absolutely nothing to eat. And that leads me to this observation which really the text supports and that is this, hopeless conditions lead to desperate solutions. Hopeless conditions lead to desperate solutions. By the way, I was reading about a guy who was desperate. He was out of work and he couldn't find a job. He'd been everywhere through town, couldn't find a job. And so he's headed to the unemployment office to sign up and try to get some help and he walks by a zoo and he kind of looked at the sign and thought why not. I've tried everywhere else. Let me see if I don't know anything about a zoo, but let me try. So he goes inside, he speaks to the manager and asks if there are any jobs available. And the zoo manager said no, we don't have anything available. So the guy turns around and this head down begins to walk toward the door and about the time he reached the door, the zoo manager said, hey, wait a second. We had a gorilla to die yesterday. Would you be willing to dress up in a gorilla's suit and kind of take the place of the gorilla until we can get another live gorilla in here in the zoo? The guy said, sure, anything. I'll try anything. And so he does. He puts on the gorilla's suit. He gets in the gorilla area and he's just having the time of his life. Beaton on his chest, you know, rolling around, crawling all fours, laying under the tree, swinging on the limbs, convincing everybody he's a gorilla. Day one was great. It was a lot of fun. Day two, he came in and he was getting a little bit too excited about the swinging deal and he's swinging on a rope and accidentally landed over in the lion pit. Well, he looks up just in time to see this lion eyeing him and walking toward him. And so he's thinking real quick, okay, do I yell and blow my cover? Or do I say nothing and risk losing my life? And of course, he started yelling at the top of his voice. About that time, the lion is right in front of him, looks up at him and says, will you hush up or are you going to cause us both to lose our jobs? I'd say those guys were desperate. But they weren't as desperate as these lepers. Look above verse three says, they are evaluating all of their options and there are no good options. The verse says, they said to each other, why stay here until we die. If we say we'll go into the city, the famine is there and we will die. And if we stay here, we will die. So let's go over to the camp of the air of millions and surrender if they sparse. We live if they kill us, then we die. Basically they've got three options and none of them are good. If we stay here, we have no food. We'll die. If we go into the city, there's famine there, we die. If we go to the enemy, the air of millions will probably die. But there is at least a chance that if we throw ourselves on the mercy of the enemy, they might do something for us, throw a few scraps out or something. So they feel like there's a little glimmer of hope there, a little bit of hope in that option. So they decide that's what they're going to do. But hopeless situations lead to desperate solutions. And I would suggest to you this morning that we are like those lepers. We come into this world, in fact, in a hopeless, desperate condition. Ever since our first father, Adam, send in the Garden of Eden. Everyone who has been born since that time comes into this world with a nature that opposes God that draws us away from God. In fact, the Bible says that makes us the enemy of God. We are separated from God by sin. And because of that, we are in a hopeless situation. We're like those lepers with an incurable disease and no remedy in sight. We are hopeless to be able to remedy our own situation. That's exactly where we are. The Bible teaches that we cannot save ourselves. We cannot be good enough in God's eyes to earn our way into heaven. And so as far as we're concerned, it's absolutely hopeless. We are just like those lepers. And you know what that kind of hopelessness produces? Hopeless conditions lead to desperate solutions, right? And so people are looking for anything to try to find some kind of peace and fulfillment and purpose to think that somehow I've made things right with my maker. You know, when I die, maybe I'll make it into heaven. People are trying all kinds of solutions. Or just to find some kind of fulfillment in life. And so people look to relationships. People look to pouring themselves into their work. People look into massing as much of this world's possessions as they can get some people even look to religion to try to satisfy that deep emptiness inside. And what they find is that none of it works. They are absolutely hopeless. It doesn't look like any of their options are good. We are just like those lepers. Hopeless desperation. But the story doesn't end there. Their choice as to what they're going to do, the option actually produces for them. The next scene in this story, which is a happy discovery. What they discover is absolutely amazing in verses five through seven. They discover first of all an empty camp. Look at what happens in verse five. At dusk they got up and went to the camp of the Arameans. When they reached the edge of the camp, not a man was there. For the Lord had caused the Arameans to hear the sound of chariots and horses and a great army so that they said to one another, look, the king of Israel has hired the Hittite and Egyptian kings to attack us. So they got up and fled in the dusk and abandoned their tents and their horses and donkeys. They left the camp as it was and ran for their lives. You know, I think God has a sense of humor. I really do. You know, when God's enemies say, we're going to take over. You know what God says? Well, look at this verse in Psalm 2, verse four. In a very similar setting, the Bible says, the one and thrown in heaven laughs. The Lord scoffs at them. And enemies say we don't want, and in that context in Psalm 2, it's we don't want the Lord's anointed to rule over us. We don't want Jesus Christ to be our king. We don't want God's purpose in playing for this world. We want to do our own thing. We want our own way. We want to pull off our own deal in history. The Bible says God laughs. God just laughs and He has them in derision. And I think sometimes the Lord pulls things that are funny when He's laughing at these armies. This is certainly one of them. He causes them to hear horses, chariots, the sound of armies attacking, and there are no armies attacking. Everybody starving over in some area. But they hear all that. They hear stuff that's not there. And they run scared. And I'm sure the Lord was laughing from heaven watching them run. Happy discovery, an empty camp. But there's another sense in which they didn't find an empty camp. They found a full camp because look at what happens in verse 8. In verse 8, the men who had leprosy reached the edge of the camp and entered one of the tents. They ate and drank and carried away silver, gold, and clothes and went off and hid them. They returned and entered another tent and took some things from it and hid them also. Wow, what a discovery. What a happy discovery. Not only are all the soldiers gone, but they left everything. They left food cooking. They left food in their tents. They left all their possessions. So these guys just start gorging themselves in the first tent they come to. Then they take a bunch of the stuff and take it out and hide it and say, you know, we're not going to let anybody know we got the stuff for ourselves. Then they come back. Second tent. Same thing. Gorge themselves. Take off a bunch of stuff. Start hiding it. For later, they'll know where it is and they can dig it up. You know, kind of one of those western things where the guys break out of jail and they've got the treasure hidden somewhere and they're going to go find it. That's that kind of thing. We'll come back to this later. We've got all this treasure hidden. We are like those lepers. There may come a day in your life. Hopefully for many of you, most of you in this auditorium, that day has come where you find a happy discovery, the end to your search for spiritual meaning and relationship and forgiveness and eternal life when you recognize that Jesus died for your sins on the cross. He became your substitute to make a way for you to come back to God. That day comes when you receive Christ as your Savior and you realize what blessings there are in Christ. I've been blessed with everything, not only eternal life, but everything that God has to give me that's promised in His Word. There's so much there and we start gorgeing ourselves. We just start feasting on all the goodness and the riches of God's Word and we keep it for ourselves and we're not even thinking about those people back in Samaria who are dying, who are starving, who don't have what God has graciously given to us. I think sometimes we're just like those lepers. That's not the end of the story either. Thankfully they didn't stop there. The third scene of the story is a heartfelt determination, something changes in verse nine and what brings it about is their guilt. Look at chapter of verse nine, first part of the verse. Then they said to each other, we're not doing right. This is a day of good news and we're keeping it to ourselves. If we wait until daylight punishment will overtake us. Let me stop right there in the middle of the verse. You can see the guilt. Here they are gorgeing themselves, taking stuff off and digging a hole, hiding it so they can come back and get it later and then all of a sudden they're looking at each other. This is not right. We've got good news. We've seen what has happened here and all of this and there are people back in Samaria that are starving. It's not right and if we wait till morning we'll be punished. I'm not sure if they thought the king's going to get up and look out on over the city wall. Realize there's no troop movement out there. Go out and find out the same thing. These guys have found out and they're going to be in big trouble because they didn't share it. Or maybe, maybe, maybe their conscience was guilty enough to say, you know, I think God's going to get us for this. The word for punishment here is the same Hebrew word that's used for God's punishment consistently throughout the Old Testament. And so it could well be that those twinges of conscience were, what we're doing is not right. We're going to be judged for this. And so that guilt led them to their decision in the last part of verse 9. Read it there. Let's go at once and report this to the royal palace so they went and called out to the city gatekeepers and told them we went into the air me and camp and not a man was there. Not a sound of anyone, only tethered horses and dockets and the tents left just as they were. The rest of the chapter goes on to tell how the story spread to the king and the city finds all of those riches out in the tents. And of course the famine is over. There's enough for everybody. Now I wonder at this point, are we like those lepers? Are we like them? Do we realize that it's not right to keep the good news to ourselves? Do we realize that it's not right to gorge ourselves on a feast of the riches of God's word and all of his blessings that he has for us without thinking of people across the road or next to us at work who don't know Christ? Is it right for us to keep that to ourselves while there are others who are spiritually starving? Do we recognize that Jesus did not die just for us, that we are not the ultimate end of God's mercy, that God wanted that message to spread to everybody? Do we realize that? And if so, are we like the lepers in coming to that realization knowing that if we are not faithful and obedient to the command of God to share our faith, then we too will be judged someday. We too will stand before God and suffer loss of reward and shameful moments because we have let people slip into eternity without making one effort to tell them about Jesus Christ. Are we like the lepers? And do we realize that it's not the messenger that counts? It's the message. I mean, these guys were lepers. Who's going to listen to them? They might have reasoned, you know, who nobody will listen to us, nobody will let us end to tell the good news. People will think we're just trying to get something for nothing. Nobody's going to listen to us. Why even bother? Let's just get what we can get. They could have reasoned that, but they didn't. They realized that the message was far more important than the messenger. You may be sitting here this morning and thinking, you know, I'd love to be able to tell other people about Christ. I'm just not sure I know enough. I need to learn a little bit more. You know, the devil will keep you saying that till the day you die. You'll never know enough if you feel like that's an excuse. You'll never feel like you know enough. Some people feel like they have to be a walking theological encyclopedia that can just spout off answers to anybody that might ever have about the faith before they can tell someone about Jesus. It's not true. It's just not true. It's an excuse that will keep you from ever sharing your faith. Some people think, well, you know, I just don't have the personality for that. You've got to be some kind of salesman type person to do that. No, you don't. You don't have to be super salesman type personality. All you have to do is know that you have tasted and seen the grace of God in Jesus Christ and you want to share that with somebody else. Yeah, you may stumble over your words a little bit. You may have to go back and say, yeah, I don't really know the answer to that, but I'll find out. But you can share what you know about Jesus Christ. The real sin is when we are silent, when we are silent, when we say nothing, when we don't make any effort. That's when we stand the possibility of judgment, punishment by God. By 27th, 1998, Michael Fortier was sentenced to 12 years in prison because of silence. Michael Fortier was a good army friend, a good buddy of Timothy McVey. And the other guy, I forget his name, the other guy who were guilty of the Oklahoma City bombings. They offered P. Murray federal building. 68 people killed, including 19 children in a daycare, 500 people injured. The worst terrorist attack carried out by an American citizen ever in our history. And Michael Fortier knew all about it. He knew all about the plans and he never told anybody. He told a packed courtroom on that day on May 27th, 1998, as he sobbed, he wept and asked for their forgiveness for the families that had suffered losses. And then he told a reporter afterwards, sometimes I dream that I'm the hero, that I go tell the police what I know, but I didn't. I didn't. 12 years in prison because he didn't tell what he knew. Now don't take that wrong. I'm not saying that God's going to send us somewhere like a purgatory or something to punish us if we don't tell people about our Savior. But I think some of us when we get to heaven are going to realize how many opportunities we missed, how many chances we had that we just blew. Just let go on by us and we never shared our faith. We never told anyone about the relationship we had with Jesus or what that meant to us. And there will be some sadness, I believe, there will be some regret. And I think there will be some loss of reward at the judgment seat of Christ because of our silence when we had the opportunity. Are we like those lepers? Will we wake up and say this is not right? Look at what we've got. Other people need to hear about this. This is good news. They need to hear it. Are we like the lepers? Well if we want to be like the lepers, then how do we go about telling people the good news? Now in this series on evangelism and coming weeks we're going to say a lot more about how to actually share your faith. We'll use some biblical examples, particularly Jesus and John 4. We'll talk about some very practical things about sharing your faith. But I want to give some kind of introductory principles this morning about sharing our faith. Some practical steps on where to start. Number one, pray the open prayer. Pray the open prayer. If you want to get started, you don't know where to start. A good place to start is with prayer. And a good prayer to pray is to pray that the Lord will open three things. And these are all three scriptural. Number one, pray, Lord, open the door. It's a good prayer to pray. Lord, open the door. Give me opportunities. You know, Paul talked about that in Colossians chapter 4 where he said to the Colossians, and pray for us too that God may open a door for our message so that we may proclaim the mystery of Christ for which I am in chains. Paul asked a church to pray that he would have open doors. Now what is an open door? An open door is a natural opportunity to share your faith. It may be brought about by some discussion you're having with someone else and they bring up something in the news. You know, and how difficult and now crazy this world is and there's an open door. You know, you can either agree and say, man, it is terrible. Gas prices, terrorism, what's happening in the Middle East. Oh, it's crazy world, isn't it? Or you can jump on that opportunity and talk about the fact that, you know, someday it's going to get better. Oh, really? What do you know? I don't know. Well, I know someone is going to come someday and you can begin to talk about the Lord Jesus. There are lots of opportunities like that. It may be something that's happening in your family or their family that they begin to talk with you about. Or it may be some hurt in their lives. Everybody hurts at some time or another. And we know the person that can help people with hurts. And maybe you've struggled or are struggling now with the same hurt. You can talk to them about, hey, I don't always deal with this well, but I know someone who does help me when I pray. Talk with them about Jesus. Look for open doors. Lord, open the door. Give me natural opportunities to share my faith. Tell others about Christ. Second open prayer to pray is Lord, open their heart. Open their heart. Acts 16, 14. When Paul was in Philippi, it says one of those listening was a woman named Lydia, a dealer in purple cloth from the city of Thayah, who was a worshiper of God. The Lord opened her heart to respond to Paul's message. Now we have to recognize that we don't get anywhere with anyone unless God's doing a work in the heart. God is the one who opens the heart. We don't open hearts. We're faithful to share the message, but God opens the heart. Sometimes you share the message with people who have closed hearts. But if we are praying consistently, Lord, open their hearts. What I have seen is that whenever God opens a door, you can almost count on the fact there's a heart on the other side of that that's beginning to open as well. Those two kind of go together. So when you see an open door, just expect the Holy Spirit's working in that person's heart too. He has any number of ways of doing that. Maybe something they have been thinking about, someone else has been talking to them, something that's happened in their family, they're really searching for answers. It could be that their heart is beginning to pry open. Ask for God to give you people who have open hearts and lead you to opportunities to share Christ with them. I was talking last week, after our morning service with our missionaries that were here last week, Chris and Debbie Johnson. And Debbie said, I got a story to share with you. And I wish I had it last week. It had been a great illustration, so I'm going to use it this week. Debbie told me when they came home from Hungary to begin reporting to their churches on their furlough ministry, they settled into a place there in Charlotte where their home church is. And they found that the neighbor on one side of them was, there were unbelievers, husband and wife. They got to know them, invited them over for a meal, time or two. And they found out that both of them had just lost their jobs. The man was employed in the airline industry had just been laid off. The woman had just lost her job about a week before. And so Chris and Debbie asked them, would it be okay if we pray with you about new jobs? And they kind of looked at him and said, yeah, sure. I mean, and they began to talk about spiritual things, found out they had a religious background, but didn't know anything about a personal relationship with Christ. And so they committed, we're going to pray for you that God will open up jobs. Within a couple of weeks, they both had jobs. And the Lord was beginning to open their hearts a little bit. Well, it just so happened, the neighbors on the other side of this unsaved couple were also believers. And one day the guy, he just got in his job that week, hadn't been paid yet. He comes home on Friday evening. And just in passing, he said to the other neighbor, he said, I don't, I haven't got enough gas to get back to work on Monday. I don't know, and I haven't been paid yet. We're plumbed down the, I don't know where I'm going to get gas. And the other neighbor just happened to know a church, not too far from there, that was that Saturday going to be giving out $15 worth of gas to anybody that needed it. Good Bible-believing church. And they were going to provide gas for any needy folks in Charlotte and give them a Bible along with it. And so the guy said, hey, I know this place. Why don't you go down there tomorrow and take your wife's car, your car, go down there and get some gas. Just a couple of blocks down the road here. And so they did. They went and got gas, brought the Bible home. And when Chris and Debbie found out about that, they began talking with them again. And they said, you know, isn't it amazing how personal God can be? He takes an interest not only in the world as a whole, but in you. You got a job, that was an answer to prayer. You got gas. You got this Bible here now that tells you how you have a personal relationship with God and their hearts were beginning to open. In a matter of just a few days, Debbie had led both that husband and wife to Christ using the Bible that was given to them by that of the church. There were a number of circumstances that were brought into their lives that God used to open their hearts, but it took someone who said, I see an open door. I'm going to step through it. So open the door, open their hearts, and then the third open prayer to pray is open my mouth. Open my mouth, Lord, please. When I see the opportunity, when the door seems open, open my mouth. In other words, help me to be bold. You know, Paul asked the church to pray for him in that very way. Look at these verses in Ephesians 6. Paul said to the Ephesian church, pray also for me that whenever I open my mouth, words may be given me so that I will fearlessly make known the mystery of the gospel for which I am an ambassador in chains, pray that I may declare it fearlessly as I should. Now I don't know about you, but that kind of leads me to believe that maybe Paul at times, believe it or not, Paul at times was a little fearful to open his mouth and have the right words to say. So he's asking for a church to pray for him. I know I should speak it fearlessly all the time. Please pray for me that I will. It is at this point that most of us choke up. It is at this point most of us get caught in our mouth and we don't know what to say. And we become bona fide members of the chicken club. We just freeze up. We don't know what to say. And so the door seems open. There seems to be an opportunity. I don't know how to get started. Don't know what to say. We're going to try to help with some practical suggestions along the way. But one great thing to say is Lord, be praying this consistently. Lord, when the open door is there, open my mouth so that I would be able to fearlessly pray or say what you want me to say. And you know, if you're really honest about that, you'll be amazed at what God does at times, what he fills your mind and heart with that you can say that you never thought you had it in you. And you don't. It's the Holy Spirit doing that work. Do you remember the chicken club? Well, you're in good company. I think one of the charter members of the chicken club was the Apostle Paul. You know, he did say to the Corinthians in 1 Corinthians chapter 2, when I came to you, I didn't come with eloquent speech and wise words. I came in fear and trembling. And he said the excellence of the power because of that, it was demonstrated through the Holy Spirit and not through me. You know somebody else who's a member of the chicken club? De James Kennedy. You know the name? De James Kennedy? The television may be Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church has a fantastic television ministry. Good preacher. He teaches as an adjunct professor in a seminary in Florida. It's just a great written. A lot of books. He's involved in moral issues on a nationwide level. But one of the things he's most well known for is an evangelism program, a simple method of training people to witness called evangelism explosion. And I think because of that, most people think, well, De James Kennedy's always been kind of an actual of this, right? No. At one time he was a member of the chicken club. He tells himself early in his ministry, he was invited by a preacher friend to be the guest evangelist in a series of meetings in this friend's church. Just a young preacher just getting started, Kennedy is. And so he went and he said, you know, as often happened back in those days, the two preachers spent most of the day visiting in homes of people that passed or knew were unsaved and trying to witness to them. And it became clear very early on that De James Kennedy was very shy about sharing his faith. Didn't really know where to start. His pastor, his preacher just getting started, but he's really hesitant about sharing his faith on a personal level. And so the guest pastor kind of took over and led several people to Christ that week. And Kennedy said he went home humiliated from that experience and decided he would never let that happen again. That he wanted to learn how to share his faith personally, be comfortable with that. Be more natural with that. And so he really began to pray and begin to develop on his own ideas about how to share his faith. He taught those to his church and that was the beginning of evangelism explosion, which is used in dozens of countries around the world now by missionaries to train people in evangelism. So don't use that as an excuse. Well, I just don't know how to do this. I'm a little bit hesitant. I'm a shy person. Don't use that as an excuse. Pray, Lord, open the door, open their hearts, and then open my mouth. Pray the open prayer. Then the second thing we can all do very easily is this. Prepare your testimony. Prepare your testimony. A testimony is basically telling other people how you came to know Jesus as your Savior. Testimonies are powerful tools for sharing the gospel. And John 4, a woman who knew nothing, theologically, a woman of ill-reput comes to know Jesus as her Savior goes into town and says, I want to tell you what this man did for me. In John 9, a man who doesn't even know who Jesus is is healed from blindness and the Pharisees under examination, cross-examining him, the guy says, I don't know who he was. I can tell you, but this much I know I was blind. Now I see. That was his testimony. That's all he knew. That's what he gave. In Acts 4, Peter and John tell the Sanhedrin who have them again examining them, questioning them about their preaching, and they say, we cannot help, but tell about the things we have seen and heard, their testimony. In Acts 22 to 26, Paul, six times in those five chapters, shares his personal testimony with different people, some of them political leaders. He wasn't preaching a message from the Old Testament. He's just sharing his testimony. Testimony can be a powerful tool. And everybody in this room who knows Jesus has a testimony. I think sometimes we think of a testimony only as the kind of spectacular things we used to hear in youth meetings, where they'd bring in some bang, speaker, great guys, been in drugs or been a pro-athlete or something like that. He's got a testimony. Well, you got a testimony, too. You don't have to have been through some wild kind of deal to have a testimony. I got saved when I was eight years old. I was a little child. I wasn't deep into drugs at that time. I wouldn't even beat my sisters at that time. Was I, Jan? I was? Oh, okay. So I did have a little something to confess, I guess. You don't have a glowing testimony to tell when you're eight years old, but I can tell some people how I came to know Jesus as my savior, and that might relate to someone that someone else's story wouldn't relate to. Everybody in this room in those Christ has a testimony. Sit down and think through how you would explain to someone else how you came to know Jesus as your savior. And then I would suggest you customize your testimony. In other words, think through how is it that my relationship with Christ has affected different parts of my life? How is it helped me with anger? How is it helped me with loneliness? How is it helped me deal with stress so that at any point when someone brings up a problem in conversation, you can tap right into your testimony and start talking about the difference Christ has made in your life. And it's not that you've got it all solved and conquered, but you're a fellow struggling, but you've found some help. Okay? Share your testimony. Number three, become a lender. Become a lender. You know, obviously there's some who are not as good talking about things and so forth. Become a lender. This is another way you can share your faith. End books and magazines and tapes and CDs and videos or whatever that may have the gospel in them. Maybe it's a magazine like from Focus on the Family about marriage and you're talking with a neighbor who's got marital problems and say, hey, I got something I think you'd be interested in reading in the magazine. Let them read that. But don't give it to them. Lend it to them so that they have to give it back to you. And when they come back to you, you have an opportunity to ask, what do you think about that? Ring a bell with you and it may provide an opportunity to witness. Become a lender and then fourthly become an inviter. Become an inviter. Know everybody can invite. Even if you're a little timid at this point about full blown sharing of your faith, which I think we can all learn to do, you can at least become an inviter and you can say to someone who has kids, hey, we got this really neat kids program on Wednesday night at our church. I love it. Why don't you try it sometime? Bring them out. I'll meet you there at the front door. I'll show you where the room is. Invite them to a church Christmas program or if you know they have some special need in their lives, invite them to a divorce care group or a grief share group or to a mother's a preschoolers ministry. Invite them to something that the church is doing that you think might connect with them. So become an inviter or just invite them to come to church with you sometime but sometimes folks are a little hesitant to make that the first step and so invite them to some specialized ministry, some target ministry of some kind. We've got something to share and we've got a lot more important stuff to share than these four lepers did. I mean that was good news. That was good news that saves some lives physically. We've got good news that can save some lives spiritually for an eternity. We cannot. We dare not keep it to ourselves. We dare not gorge ourselves on God's goodness and let other people starve to death who do not know Christ. So become a lifesaver. Become one of those each one who reaches one and make it your goal, one person at least this year. I want to reach. Invite. I want to lend something to hopefully win them to Christ this year. Let's pray together. Father help us to be willing not only to live out the good news but to tell the good news as well. Help us to pray for those open doors and open hearts and open words, open mouths to speak clearly, unashamedly, fearlessly. I pray that you would enable us to take advantage of every opportunity we can to share the message of the gospel. Lord I pray that you would move in our hearts to that end so that we may see people come to know Jesus as their Savior. We ask in His name Amen.