Today, we're kicking off a six part series, a new series, and I hope you're excited on outreach, evangelism. It's something that I've been thinking and planning for since the start of the year, something that I've been trying to research and and think through. And, you know, it's a nice thing every now and then when it works out this way, but we're at the start of spring, first weekend of September, and what a better time there is to start a new series. I wonder if you noticed it this morning again as you drove into our church, passed our sign on the outside there on the on the street side. On that sign is our mission statement.
Can anyone tell me what our mission statement is? What does it say there? It says, Open House Christian Reformed Church, a church seeking to grow in and share the love of Christ. It's funny how you can see a sign like that and just it sort of doesn't stick with you. A church that seeks to grow in and share the love of Christ.
If I was to ask you this morning, if we are fulfilling that mission as a church, how would you rate us? How would you rate yourself as someone who is seeking to grow in and share the love of Christ? I won't get you to yell out your answers because it might be a bit embarrassing for me as pastor of a church and for yourself. But perhaps we can all agree that there is a bit of work we can do in raising our evangelistic passion. Now if you think about that mission statement, it is a double edged purpose statement, isn't it?
Both to grow in and also to share the love of Christ. Why? Because the goal of discipleship, the goal of following Christ is to make disciples. The growth process is to become a disciple making disciple. Someone who not simply follows Jesus themselves, but draws others to follow Him as well.
Now I see everyone's or a lot of people's heads are already sort of bowing under the guilt of that sort of idea. Before we beat ourselves up too much. I think generally our church is an outward facing church. In a church survey that we did about two years ago, evangelism was actually a very high core value of our church. But my hope is, as we start this new series over the next six weeks, we can train ourselves, and that is really the purpose.
It's not to say we should do evangelism and leave it there. It is to actually equip us, and it's going to be very simple and very effective. Equip ourselves with some helpful techniques to sharpen our outreach towards individuals in our lives. Now to do that, we're going to pick up on a few ideas from a book that I have recommended to a lot of people called Organic Outreach for Ordinary People. It's a great book.
You can buy it at Koorong. You can buy it from Amazon. You can buy it at Book Depository as well, I think. It's written by a guy called Kevin Harney who I interviewed as part of the discipleship project for the college that I'm working for called The Way. In fact, the guys that have some of the groups that have already done it would have seen Kevin Harney.
He's the American guy that talks very long. He has a lot of stories to tell about evangelism. Now it's a great book. It's got everything that we'll sort of touch on and, again, like all the techniques and some of the strategies to use, and it's a very easy read. So I recommend it to everyone.
But as we start, let's open to Mark 12. And we'll read a passage that I'm sure you will know and be familiar with. Mark 12:28. One of the scribes came up and heard them, this is the people, disputing with one another and seeing that he answered them well, asked Jesus, which commandment is the most important of all?
Jesus answered, the most important is, hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. The second is this, you shall love your neighbour as yourself. There is no other commandment greater than these. The scribe said to him, you are right, teacher.
You have truly said that He is one, meaning God is one, and that there is no other besides Him. And to love Him with all the heart and with all the understanding and with all the strength and to love one's neighbour as one's self is much more than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices. And when Jesus saw that he answered wisely, He said to him, you are not far from the kingdom of God. And after that, no one dared to ask Jesus any more questions. So far, our reading.
My brother and his wife this week had a bit of a horrible situation happened to them. They got burgled. Their house got broken into. They came home to that horrible feeling of seeing all their personal items strewn across the ground, drawers opened, all that sort of stuff. Thieves were hunting and that's the that's the thing that they say, the the feeling of invasion.
Thieves hunting through their personal effects to find something valuable. Now talking with them later in the week, I noticed something peculiar as they talked about the experience, and it's something I'm sure we can all understand. There were some expensive things in their house, things that were stolen, things that would be costly to replace. But the things that they were most worried about being stolen, things like my brother's wedding ring, he's newly married, or a family heirloom from my sister-in-law. These things were not stolen, thankfully, and they were so grateful for that.
Talking about the things they lost and the things that weren't stolen, it was interesting to note that the things that held far more sentimental weight, the things that hold emotional significance, these things were worried about far more than even the expensive things that were stolen. Things that had the same or more monetary value but didn't carry the same sentimental meaning. We can understand that, can't we? There are some things that are just so precious, some things that are just so emotionally weighty that we would overturn our whole house if we lost it just to find it, just to make sure we hadn't lost it. The object of your searching is so valuable that you would do whatever was needed to find it again.
Now this morning, I wanna ask, what motivates us when we come to the point of evangelising to the lost? When we reach out to those who are spiritually disconnected, what motivates us? Is it the desire to be right? And I can put up my hand and say that has been me.
The desire to argue them out of their position into mine. The desire to be right, to prove others wrong. Is it a desire that is manipulated or moved by a sense of guilt? You know, God has said I need to do this. All good Christians do this, so I need to do this.
Well, I wanna tell you this morning that none of these motivations are right. And none of these motivations will last for very long at all. The greatest motivator, as with the whole Christian faith, is love. Love for God, love for people. Outreach that is powerful, and this is why we start with it.
Outreach that is powerful and effective is something that becomes a way of life. Centred, grounded, motivated, driven by love. During the course of this series, we'll look at all sorts of handy techniques for presenting the gospel. While I'm at it, I may as well mention that our small groups, if they are willing, will be given study guides on each week's topic as well to discuss in their small groups to sort of get more mileage out of this as well. But ultimately, we can know all of these techniques, but genuine effective outreach does not begin with a method.
Genuine effective outreach doesn't come with an angle on a gospel presentation. It doesn't happen at a really good church outreach event. Effective evangelism and outreach begins with us. It begins in our hearts. We read that in a passage this morning.
In Mark, we read that Jesus is being challenged by a teacher of the law. Basically, a theologian. And he's talked about what is the greatest commandment in the whole of scripture that God has given us. In other words, what is it that gets to the heart of being an obedient servant of God? And Jesus replies by giving the law of love.
He says in verse 30 that discipleship is summed up in love that runs two ways, horizontal and vertical. Love the Lord your God with your heart, with your soul, with your mind, with your strength. And the second is this, love your neighbour as yourself. There are no greater commandments than these two. Now why does Jesus sum up obedience to God with these two statements?
Think about it. So much is written in the Bible. So many commands are given. Why these two? Love towards God and love towards people.
Because of this. If our lives and words and actions are animated by a heart full of love, then we will by default be living lives that honour God. We have to be careful here not to do poor exegesis. Exegesis is a big word meaning interpreting of the Bible by thinking or saying that Jesus is talking about evangelism here. He's not.
He's not talking that in the context, if we read it, he's not talking about outreach necessarily here. But we do see Jesus talking about a principle of obedience. And in Matthew 28, Jesus gives a command that He expects obedience to, where He says to the church, go and make disciples of all the nations. Baptising them and teaching them all that I have commanded you. In fact, Neil and I, we went to the same Bible college together many, many years ago.
And Matthew 28, because the Bible college there is a missionary Bible college, it came up every lecture we had. Matthew 28. This is what God calls us to be. This is what Jesus called us to do as His church. That's a command.
It is an option to obey or disobey. But if our love for God and our love for Christ is low, our motivation to obedience is also low. And that is what Mark 12 is getting at. Think about all the various ways that different commands are given. We're commanded, for example, to meet together as a people of God to worship Him and to encourage one another.
Hebrews 10. Now when our love for God and His people is weak, attending public worship will be a burden. It will be a chore. However, when we are filled, and we tasted that a little bit this morning again, when we are filled with awe of the amazing grace of God and what He has poured out into our lives, then worshipping together becomes a joy. Our love.
Our love for Him makes us long to meet with God and to worship Him. Our love for others inspires us to encourage them to worship our God together, to be excited for how my sister next to me is experiencing God's love now. Take the commandment to pray. Many times throughout scripture, we are commanded to pray. Now when we love God and oh, when we sorry.
When we don't and that love cools, our relationship with Him seems distant. Prayer becomes hard work now. But when our hearts are captivated, when it is enamoured by God's sacrificial love in Jesus Christ, I will be moved to love my saviour. I will be so moved and so grateful and so liberated with love because of what the love He has given me means for me. So you see, this is why Jesus sums up obedience to God by the command to love.
He knows that when our heart is right, then the burden of the gospel becomes light. In fact, it isn't a burden. It falls away and it is replaced by thankful allegiance. Grateful faithfulness. And this love for God, like I said, we can love God for being creator.
We can love God for His sustenance and His provision for us, but ultimately, this love is anchored in the gospel. It is bolted down in the incredible love of God for us first. Ephesians 2, that magnificent summary of the gospel puts it this way. That we were once dead in our transgressions. Dead.
Blinded by sin. Slaves to Satan's schemes, his every will we accomplished. We continuously felt the sting of sin. We hated the pain of it in our lives, but we were powerless to do anything about it. And whether you've been a Christian most of your life or whether you've only become a Christian later in your life, you've both experienced this personally or you've witnessed it in the lives of those you love around you who don't know Him.
That enslavement, that helplessness. But not only did our lostness in sin impact our lives now, it robbed us of any hope for the future as well. Ephesians 2:3 declares that outside of our allegiance to Jesus, we are objects awaiting God's wrath. In other words, our sin and our rebellion had offended this holy and just God who created us, therefore owns us, but will one day hold all of us accountable for our lives. And whether we believe Him or not, every single person on this planet will face that God one day.
And at the start of Ephesians 2, we read those verses and it's not pretty. It is terrifying. And if God hadn't done something about it, if Jesus hadn't willingly given up glory to become human, if He hadn't willingly laid down His life for us on the cross, absorbing the punishment of our sin, then the picture at the start of Ephesians of the blind leading the blind, always found in perpetual darkness, consumed by evil for all eternity. That would be our fate and the fate of every single human being in all of human history. But there is hope.
And an act of love that brings grown men to tears and perplexes even the greatest minds. God transformed that bleak situation when He sent His Son to seek and save the lost. In Ephesians 2:4, we read, but because of His great love for us, God who is rich in mercy made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in our transgressions. It is purely by grace, Paul says, that we have been saved. Sheer grace.
God took our hopelessness. God saw our lostness, our deadness, our rebellion in sin, and He transformed it into life and salvation. He lavishly poured out His love on us in Jesus. He flooded our lives with His mercy and compassion. And when we think carefully about it yes.
God deserves our love because He is our creator. Yes. God deserves our praise and our love because He is our provider. But above all, friend, God deserves our lives, our hearts, and our minds, and our strength because He's our saviour. What motivates me to obey God's command for outreach is because I love Him so much, because He loved me so much.
But it doesn't stop there because Jesus just screws that down even more and he moves on to the second, the second half of that command, love for others. He says the second command is like it. Love your neighbour as yourself. Love your neighbour as yourself. Now this command has this amazing dynamic to it, doesn't it?
And it's been the the the centrepiece of philosophical debates and ethics for two thousand years. This dynamic of loving others like you would like to be loved. It will affect how we treat business clients as Christians. This dynamic, I don't like being ripped off, so I'm not gonna rip others off. Husbands and wives, I don't like being neglected.
I'm not gonna neglect my wife or my husband. Or our children. I don't like being yelled at, so I won't yell at others. And the implications of this verse, so wide ranging but ultimately at its sharpest when we reflect on how we think about the lost around us.
For some of us, this may be harder than for others, but for a moment, for a moment, try to imagine a time before your salvation, before you knew the joy of God, before you knew the peace that God has planted in your life. Think about the emptiness. If you are and were wholeheartedly believing that this world is all you have. Think about the anxiety. Think about the fear.
For person who does not know God personally, or perhaps thinks He's out there, but He is some distant far off figure that will one day look at my entire life and make a call on me. Now imagine that your dear friend knew what you knew. They would know the gospel and the peace that is yours in Christ. That friend of yours, if they knew all that you know about God and if you swap places with them, and they knew the gospel and you didn't, would you want them to tell you? That unsafe friend of yours, would you want them to tell you if they knew and you didn't?
Or would you say, just be quiet? We would want them to speak up. Absolutely, we would. We sometimes talk ourselves out of the motivation for outreach or evangelism by thinking it is unloving to impose my beliefs on someone else. But let's check reality again.
How unloving would it be to know the way to eternal life and never share that with them? Love your neighbour as yourself. Love your neighbour as yourself. Do unto others as you would have them do to you. I wanna comfort you today that your outreach, if it is genuinely motivated by love, will never be rejected.
At least, you will never be hated. I genuinely believe that. It can be motivated by false things, like I said, being right, but that is a false motivation. If your evangelism is motivated by love, they will sense that. They will know that.
This truth came home to me in a powerful way in a video that I watched many years ago by a man called Penn Jillette, who posted a fascinating video. I can't remember if I've shared it at church before. A fascinating video of himself. It's like a vlog that he did. Jillette is a pretty famous or well known magician in Las Vegas especially, I think.
But he's a hardcore atheist, and he has these debates and these discussions, and he's very upfront about his atheism. But in this short video that we're gonna play, he reflects on a moment when after a show, a Christian came to him, giving him a Bible, and started sharing the gospel with him. Hardcore atheist, and this is what he had to say about it. I want to talk to you about this. I get home from the show, and at the end of the show, as I've mentioned before, we go out and we talk to folks and, you know, sign an occasional autograph and shake hands and so on.
And there was one guy waiting over to the side in the, what I call the hover position after I was all done, big guy, probably about my age. Big guy. And he had been the guy who has picks the joke during our psychic comedian section of the show. So we had the props from that in his hand because we'd give those away. He had the joke book and the envelope and the paper and stuff.
If you haven't seen the live show, that's not worth explaining. But he had props from the show that we'd given him from the night before. He wasn't the guy that night. And he walked over to me and he said, I was here last night at the show, and I saw the show and I liked it. I wanted he was very complimentary about my use of language and complimentary about, you know, honesty and stuff.
He said nice stuff. No reason to go into it. He said nice stuff. And then he said, brought this for you. And he handed me a Gideon pocket edition.
I thought it was from the New Testament, but I also thought it was Psalms from the New Testament. Right? Psalms from the new just part of the New Testament, a little book about this big, this thick. You know? He said, I wrote in the front of it, and I wanted you to have this.
I'm kind of proselytising. And then he said, I'm a businessman. I'm I'm sane. I'm not crazy. And he looked me right in the eye and did all of this.
And it was really wonderful. I believe he knew that I was an atheist. But he was not defensive, and he looked me right in the eyes. And he was truly complimentary. It wasn't in any way it didn't seem like empty flattery.
He was really kind and nice and sane and looked me in the eyes and talked to me and then gave me this Bible. And I've always said, you know, that I I don't respect people who don't proselytise. I don't respect that at all. If you believe that there's a heaven and hell and people could be going to hell or not getting eternal life or whatever. And you think that, well, it's not really worth telling them this because it would make it socially awkward.
And atheists who think that people shouldn't proselytise, just leave me alone, keep your religion to yourself. How much do you have to hate somebody to not proselytise? How much do you have to hate somebody to believe that everlasting life is possible and not tell them that. I mean, if I believed, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that a truck was coming at you and you didn't believe it, that truck was bearing down on you, there's a certain point where I tackle you. And this is more important than that.
And I've always thought that, and I've written about that, and I've thought of it conceptually. This guy was a really good guy. He was polite and honest and sane, and he cared enough about me to proselytise and give me a Bible, which had written in it a little note to me, not very personal, but just, you know, like to show and so on. And then, like, five phone numbers for him and an email address if I wanted to get in touch. Now, I know there's no God, and one polite person living his life right doesn't change that.
But I'll tell you, he was a very, very, very good man. And that's really important. And with that kind of goodness, it's okay to have that deep of a disagreement. I still think that religion does a lot of bad stuff, but man, that was a good man who gave me that book. That's all I wanted to say.
Pretty powerful. Hey. Pretty thought provoking. Our call, our motives is to love the lost more than we love ourselves. More than we love our own fears, more than we love our own reputation.
He said it himself, how much do we have to hate somebody, Not to warn them of the bus hurtling towards them, which is the wrath of God. But Harney, Kevin Harney writes in his book, the God who came to seek and save the lost. He's inviting us into this same mission. We are not called to make the conversion of unbelievers a project to check off on our list of religious duties. Instead, we are to love people with the love of God.
When our hearts beat with the heart of the father and when a passion for lost people rises up in us, we will be compelled to search and to do all we can to reach out to those who are lost in their sin and those who are far off from God. Through God's love, we have been made objects of His grace. And now we are called to be instruments of God's grace in this world. Loving God with the heart, the soul, the mind, the strength, and loving our neighbours as ourselves. If a passionate love for God and a passionate love for others is our motivation for outreach, then it will become not a chore, not a burden, not a fear, but a privilege.
Something that comes from the overflow of the heart. Let's pray. Father, we pray for this sense of urgency, even this sense of gratitude and all and humility that that we experience now as we again have tasted, have seen, have felt the power of Your grace, the power of Your love. And father, we have so many people around us that need this gospel. And father, we've been working away and we've been chipping and we've been praying for them.
I just pray, God, that You will create in us a heart and an urgency and a deep seated love for lost people around us. Well, before we pray for those who are lost, I pray for us. And I pray that You will be working in us and that You'll be fanning into flame that desire. And father for the fears and the doubts and even the self appraisals of our ability that are probably wrong. Lord, I pray for forgiveness on those things.
I pray for an encouragement by Your Spirit, Your Holy Spirit in us to give us boldness. And father, that even if we don't know all the ins and the outs, even if we can't give explanation to all the tougher questions in life, we know that we are Yours and that You love us. And father, we know that if something is lost that is so precious to us, we will do our very best to find it again. We may not know where to begin. We may not know all the right strategies for finding what is lost, but father, we will begin.
But then secondly, Lord, we pray as we will surely do over the next few weeks. We pray for those lost friends and family members in our lives. Oh, holy God, God of mercy, be merciful. Give grace. The same grace that You've afforded us, the same grace that entered our lives before we wanted it, before we even realised we needed it.
Father, extend that same grace to these people. And help us, Lord, to be instruments, to channel, to express, to communicate what that means. Lord, we pray for Your strength, for Your continual presence in us in this journey, in this series, Lord. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.