Video Transcript: Connection 7 - The World Part 1

All right, so we have been looking at the seven connections in terms of the  whole communication process. We've looked at one your personal walk,  marriage, family, small group, church Kingdom. The last connection is  connection seven, which is the world. And when we talk about the world, we're  talking about the world that is not connected to Christ. So the first six  connections are all about connecting to God, our personal walk our marriage,  walk, family, friendships, small group, church kingdom. But when we think about  the world, or we're talking about people who don't have that, so how do we  communicate the faith that we have the first six connections? How do we  communicate that to the world? Connections seven, the world, okay. Basic  Communication path for the world is still talking, listening repeatedly. If you want  to share your faith with someone, it takes talking, listening, repeatedly. There's  many different forms of that. But it all boils down to talking, listening repeatedly.  And repeatedly part with talking and listening is how you develop a relationship.  Develop a relationship with someone by talking and listening. And over a period  of time, you repeat that pattern. Now you have a connection. And when you  have a connection, your ability to share your faith is greatly enhanced. So  methods of evangelism and maybe you know some of these, but I think it'd be  good review to sort of put them all together. There's lifestyle evangelism, that's  where I try to live the Christian life, I try to be the hands and feet of Jesus to  people. And my life style makes a witness to people and people whose lives are  nothing but chaos, and they look at my life and they see that I have something  that might lead to some conversation. Service. Evangelism is where you go out  and you find needs, sometimes physical needs or needs that they have with  their family or their marriage, and you go out and you try to help people in Jesus Name Jesus healed people, brought life to people. And because of that, they  were interested in the message that he had event evangelism. This is the you  know, the Crusades that you might have. Our church puts out a Christmas  concert every year. Last year, we had three shows. It's a great community thing.  It''s at Christmas time, there's a parade in our town, the parade ends up in our  parking lot. We have a chili dinner, and then we have one of the nights of our  concert is that night, so we invite the community. So it's an event to sort of pull  people in fishing pool evangelism. I think that's quite popular. gets its name from from, if you think about the whole thing of fishing, you know, you're gonna go  fishing. Jesus called us to be fishers of men. And well, how are you going to  catch people now in some ways, people are already out there. It's a big ocean.  The ocean called the world and Christians should be equipped and learn how to  go out into the ocean and catch the fish. But sometimes that's a daunting task.  And so what churches like to do is create little fishing pools. Now a fishing pool  doesn't have any fish. You've got to somehow entice people to get into your  pool. And so if you're in the United States, a lot of churches will build a gym for  example, a big building where you can play sports, basketball, dodgeball, and, 

and whatever sports people want to do in a gym. So the church spends a lot of  money builds this gym for a fishing pool, but there's no fish in it. So now they  gotta go out into the community and say, who wants to play basketball and they  try to get people to come into the gym, try to get the fish to get into the pool.  And, you know, but now you still have to fish. You still have to teach your people  how to fish. So there's, you know, gyms people start any topic that you can think of quilting and crafts, all kinds of different sports. A lot of guys are into cars and  mechanics and fixing cars and fixing up old cars. And so you, you have a club  for that. So you have this sort of focused interest group starting a thing. It's like a pool. But now you have to go out and get people that are interested in this topic  to come to this thing or join this thing. But they're still, they're just fish, you still  have to, you still have to have your people, you know, go in there and fish, but,  but they're sort of in your little contained pool. And so it might. So a lot of people  at least think it's easier. My personal opinion about fishing pool evangelism, it  takes so much energy to maintain the pool. mean, you have build this gym,  hundreds of 1000s of dollars, then you got to try to entice people to come and  play basketball, then your people that are playing beside these new people, if  they're not good at a fishing, you spent hundreds of 1000s of dollars, you putting all this time and effort into something and your people still don't know how to  fish, or they don't fish very well. So it seems to me if you just teach your people  how to fish, the community is already maintaining pools. They already have the  place where people play basketball, I play a sport called pickleball. That exists  already, we don't have to build the court, we don't have to build the pool, the  pool has already been built by the community. I just have to get people to go  with me to go play pickleball and get to know these people and fish. In other  words, the pools are already there. We don't have to put all our effort and time  into building and maintaining the pool. Door to Door evangelism. It used to be  quite popular here in the United States is not as popular anymore, the Jehovah  Witnesses still do it. They send out people door to door. I think it could be  effective. We'll talk more about that later street preaching evangelism. Maybe  some of you are into this. It can be very effective, you just go to a park and you  just start talking. It's the way people used to do it. You know, when Paul went to  Athens, that's what people did. There would be this person talking about this,  there'd be this person talking about that. And so Paul got up, and he just started  talking. And he got followers that way. I think different cultures are more open to  it than other cultures, our culture probably isn't as open to that. Anything that  doesn't form a relationship generally doesn't last very long. So what do you what are you going to do in your street preaching. So if a church went off, and they  had an organized plan to do that, it might be effective tract evangelism. Some  people like to hand out tracts. A tract is just a short little. I have one here, I  wrote. We'll talk about that later, too. But I wrote one called walk with God for six days and see if he shows up. It's just a small little thing. What I like about this 

tract, because I wrote it, I'm gonna like it right. But what I like about it is, is it  doesn't try to save anybody. Sometimes tracts are designed to do the whole  thing, this piece of paper is the whole presentation of the gospel. And I'm hoping that when you read this thing that you will become a Christian. And, and then a  lot of times because you're trying to do the whole evangelistic process with a  small little piece of paper, it comes off cheap and a little cheesy, and I don't think it respects the person that you're giving it to. What I'm trying to do with this one  is I'm just trying to facilitate a dialogue. I want this to be sort of a teaser, the  thing that gets you thinking that gets you wondering, that gets you questioning,  so that now, you know, this is sort of like tilling the soil a little bit. But now it  prepares the way for me to come and talk to you. And now we have a  conversation. In other words, the piece of paper is just to facilitate a relationship. And it's in the relationship that you know, I want to share Christ. Relational  evangelism that sort of leads to relational evangelism. That's the most powerful  form of evangelism that there is. You have a relationship with Somebody, they  see what Christ has done in your life. They see what church does in your life.  And, and, and, and they then contrast that with their chaotic life and maybe now  their open to it. But they have a lot of questions. And it's in the, you know, a safe  relationship that you can discuss these things. personal evangelism. There's  public evangelism, you know, events. personal evangelism is when I personally  talk to somebody else and share my faith. All right, traditional methods of  personal evangelism. The four spiritual laws meant a quite popular method,  would you say, in terms of sharing your faith, there's four points. So it's very  simple. Any Christian can know this, and memorize it's easy to do. Number one,  God loves you, 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 eternal  life. Okay, that's number one. Number two, man is sinful and separated from  God. Romans 3:23, For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.  Romans 6:23, For the wages of sin is death. God loves. But there's the problem  of sin. Number three, Jesus Christ is God's only provision for sin. But God  demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were sinners, Christ died  for us. While we were sinners. So we don't have to get our lives together before  we come to Christ. You don't have to be perfect, before God will accept us.  Jesus died for us while we were sinners. And then number four, we must accept  Jesus as Savior and Lord, if we confess, if you confess with your mouth, Jesus  is Lord and believe in your heart, that God raised Him from the dead, you shall  be saved. So it's a very simple, it's really basic doctrine, boiled down to four  points. So it's not only a great communication tool, but it's a great way for every  Christian to understand what it is that they believe. It's, it's the basics of the  gospel. It's the basics of what the Bible teaches. All right, the Roman road. This  is an interesting one, too. I produce new testaments that, that ministries in I  helped them put their own cover on it so that you know, the horseshoe people, 

the NASCAR people, the policemen, the firemen, all these different groups, they want to do evangelism. They want a Bible with their cover on it, so I help them  do it. Well, one of the New Testaments that we do have, it's called a marked  edition. And it follows this Roman road and it does what the four spiritual laws  does, but does it all in the book of Romans. Romans 3:10, as it is written, There  is none righteous, not even one. So the sense that we are sinners, we, we need  something Romans 3:23, For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.  Romans 5:12 Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world and  death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned, so all  these passages are reiterating that, that there's a problem here. Okay. And  remember, you know, when I was talking, well, that session is coming up, but we talked about sermons. The best way to get your to get the attention of an  audience is to start with a problem. People want problems solved. So we have a problem with sin. Romans 6:23. Okay, here we go. For the wages of sin is  death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus, our Lord. So now it's sort of segue. There's still talk about sin. There's the problem. But now we're  getting a little sense of the solution. Romans 5:8. But God demonstrates His  own love towards us, in that while we were sinners, Christ died for us. So that  same verse that we saw on the four spiritual laws, Romans 10:9-10 If you  confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised  Him from the dead you shall be saved For with the heart man believes, resulting in righteousness and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation. So we  moved from sin. Through to, you know, what is the solution? Well, it's Jesus.  Well, how do we connect the Jesus, the Jesus solution to our lives? Well, you  have to confess You have to believe Romans 10:13, for whoever will call upon  the name of the Lord will be saved. So if you had a New Testament and you  wanted to share the gospel with someone, someone, you could just take the  book of Romans, you could have all those verses underlined, and just go  through the whole thing. The bridge, the bridge is just like these others, they're  all doing the same thing. We got the sin problem. You can see on the screen  here, the sin problem. Here's Romans 23, Romans 6:23, we have a new one,  Hebrews, but we have, we've got man here on one side, and we've got God on  the other. And we have this big chasm. It's like a valley. And, and because of sin, you know, people want heaven. They want a good life. They want all the things  that sort of God represents. But they're stuck over here on this side of the valley. So how are we going to cross this valley. And what's neat about this is, if you're  talking to someone, you're in a restaurant, or whatever, you can just draw on a  napkin. And you simply just, you know, here's one side of a valley, here's the  other side of a valley, man because of sin is on this side. But he wants the good  things of God. And the tendency for human beings is to build their own bridge.  Okay, so that they want to build a bridge across to God, and how do you build a  bridge across to God? You do it by being good. So most people have this idea 

of, you know, salvation. You know, I'm not worthy of it. I'm a sinner. So I've got to clean up my act, if I'm good, you know, and I only have to be as good as the  average person that I see out there. I don't kill people, I try to be nice, I'm not  perfect with that. I try to be nice to people, I give to some charitable, charitable  causes. I try to be a good person. And if I'm sort of in the average, then maybe I  can, you know, be worthy of getting across that chasm to God. But the problem  is God says, you know, no matter what we do, even our righteous deeds are like filthy rags before God. There's always, you know, a conflicted motivation. We try  to do good things, but sometimes we're just doing that for ourselves. We're  trying to earn our way to God. And so we always fall short. In other words, we  can't build a bridge across this chasm. So how are we going to get it's a problem that we cannot solve. And that's why God gave us his son Jesus to die on the  cross for us. He built the bridge that we never could. Alright, evangelism  explosion, this was Dr. James Kennedy, Fort Lauderdale, Florida. He had a  television program. He died several years ago. This is the form of evangelism  that I first learned it was in the 70s. He wrote a book entitled, evangelism  explosion. And basically, it it was a a, a way of just asking a couple of questions.  And, and really, what I got out of it was this is a great pre evangelism thing to  lead into these other things that I showed you leads into the four spiritual laws,  or the bridge, or the Roman road, whatever it might be. And so I think it's a great lead in. There's two questions. Number one, so you meet someone, you're  talking to someone. I think back in the 70s, you actually knocked on doors. Back in 1975, I was 18 years old, I went to Ogden, Utah, with a group of young people and the pastor sent us out into knock on doors and We were taught this. And the first thing you were supposed to do is knock on someone's door. And I forget  how you're supposed to get into the house. But once in the house, you were  supposed to just talk about, you know, the paintings on the wall, or, you know,  the wow, it's an interesting rug that you have, and always make some small talk, but eventually get to these two questions, and I'm gonna share with you. But just as an aside, I remember the, you know, we were taught this, we were sent out.  You know, I'm 18 years old, I've never done anything like this. And I remember  the first door that another gal that she's probably 17, she was my partner. And  we remember we went to the first door, and I remember knocking on that first  door. And I'll tell you, I pray like I had never prayed before. Dear God, please,  please let it be that no one comes to the door. I just, I just, I didn't I didn't, you  know, I'm not. I'm an introvert. Number one. And so this was like the worst thing  that you could ask me to do. Anyway, someone opened the door. And it was a  lady. And she let us in. And I remember sitting in her living room, and talking  about the pictures, the wall, she had some needlepoint, there's some yarn thing.  And so I asked her about that. And we talked about, you know, the carpet and  the couch. And, you know, we talked about everything, I could think of it, but I  could never get to these two questions. I just was like, How do I get from the 

carpet? To asking about your faith? And so I didn't. We, I think she gave us  some pie, we ate some pie. And then we left. never shared my faith. And I  remember that night thinking. Lord, I came all the way here to Ogden, Utah, to  learn how to share my faith. And here's my first shot at it, and I did nothing. Give me another chance. So the next day, the next day, I remember we knocked on  some door we came in. And I'll tell you how I was gonna share these two  questions. And it didn't matter what the circumstances were, I think there was  three little kids running around and screaming and creating havoc, but I was  gonna ask these questions. Well, what are these two questions, they are great  questions. But I'm going to add, I'm going to tell you how it works. And then I'll  come back to this story. To two questions. Number one, do you know for sure  that you're going to heaven? If you ask that of most people, most people will say know, no I'm not sure I'm not 100%. Sure. I mean, I'm very hopeful. I, you know,  but I'm not 100%? Sure. So when people would say that your response is well  you can be sure. Question number two. If you were to die tonight, and God were to ask you, why should I let you into heaven? What would you say? You might  think about it for yourself. If you were to die today, and you stood before a God,  and God said, Why should I let you into heaven? What would you say? It's an  interesting question. You know, when we're done with this, I suggest that you  find somebody and ask them this question. Most people you will find, will say I  go to church. I mean, I don't go all the time when I go to church. I don't read my  Bible like I should, but you know, I'm a good person. I'm probably better than  average. And so the list all the things that sort of qualify them for getting into  heaven. And you see what they're doing. Remember that chasm, we have sin on one side of the valley we have God on the other? The tendency is to try to build  your own bridge and that's what people will tell you. They'll talk to you about the  bridge that they're building. And that leads them to the gospel that you going to  church doesn't save you. Praying doesn't save you. Being a good person  doesn't save you Say that you're building a bridge, but it's only going halfway.  You're not going to make it you need Jesus. it's trusting in what he did for you.  That is the heart of the gospel. That's where your security, if you accept Jesus  Christ as your Lord and Savior, if someone asked you, do you know for sure that you're going to heaven? You can say yes, absolutely, not because of what I've  done, but because of what he has done for me. So they're really a good segue  to share the gospel. Now, the limitation is that you're assuming that the person's  problem with the whole God thing is that they're confused about grace. They  think they've got to earn it. You don't have to earn it, it's free. It's a gift of God.  You're assuming that their problem, the thing that's holding them back and  connecting to God, and Christianity, and all that is because they have a  misconstrued view of the race. So again, remember, I went to the first door, I  didn't do anything. That night, I pray, Lord, give me another chance. Next day,  we go to this place. The mother, you know, lets us in the kids. She's She's 

refrying the refried beans in the kitchen, we're standing in the kitchen, kids are  running around. And I'm like, do you know for sure that you're going to heaven?  I'm going down this trail, I'm going to share this method with you. And you know,  this is my second chance God has given me another chance I'm going to do  this. And she graciously is going to listen. I'm going to talk, and so on. So we talk and then finally we go. And that night, I'm thinking I came into this person's  house. I assume that their problem is they don't understand grace. So now I'm  going to give them the solution to which I think their problem is without knowing  her without listening to her story, for all I knew her husband just left her the day  before. She has no idea how she's going to manage and take care of these kids  and pay the bills. I have no idea what her real needs are. I'm coming in  assuming that's a lot of evangelism. We come in with our thing. We assume this  is your problem. And we assume this is what you need without listening first,  what is your real problem? And how does the gospel address the problem that  you're experiencing? Right now? The next time we're going to continue we're  going to spend actually three sessions on this whole How do you communicate  your faith in the connection called the world