Well, good evening. Welcome back to Calvary, and I'd like to invite you to open your Bibles to Acts chapter 8. When you came in this evening, you should have gotten a sheet for our current study. It's called Keys for Personal Evangelism. And you also should have gotten a little card, too. If you didn't get a little card, don't sweat it. We'll get those to you after. I'll give you an opportunity to get those. Acts chapter 5. It was probably back around 2012 or 13, maybe 2011. I had an acquaintance, one of my former professors from college, make contact with me. He was now at this point in another ministry teaching in a grad school. And he asked me, Jim, if I could get you a contact inside of Beijing in China to go teach at a seminary there, would you go in? You won't know a soul when you get there. I just need you to know this. You just need to trust me. This is a guy asking me to trust him. I need you to get a plane ticket to Beijing and plan on being there two weeks, 10 days to two weeks. And I can't tell you who you're going to meet, but they'll look for you. Will you teach this class? Oh, and by the way, when you go there, you're going to have to stay at the, they were meeting in a second floor, it was actually above a Kung Fu school. which that was kind of fun. And they said, but you're going to have to go in there early in the morning, and you can't come out until dinner time when it's getting dark. And you'll be escorted in and out, and you just need to have a low profile. And then you might be asked to speak at a church on those Sundays. You'll know that morning if you're speaking. I mean, it's just like, wow, I feel like James Bond, you know? And I don't know what I'm getting myself into. I don't know a soul there. And I told the guy, yes, I'll go. I'll go. And so I got the plane ticket, and I'm telling you, that's a daunting task to fly all the way to Beijing. You don't know a soul there. You don't know who to look for. All you know is you brought the notes that you're supposed to teach in this seminary for a week, just over a week. And so all I knew to do was the next thing. Just do the next thing. I got the plane ticket. And it came time for the trip. I got on the plane and I flew to China, to Beijing. And I went through customs, which is kind of interesting. And then I got through customs and I went out, if you've been to Beijing, I went outside the separating wall out to where there's just a crowd of people waiting to pick up people that just flew in. And I just remembered from the movies, you're supposed to look for a card with your name on it and someone's holding up your card. Well, sure enough, my name showed up in Beijing on a card. And it was three, I would say, older college students, two girls and a guy. And I guess they had seen a picture of me, so they were waving to me like I'm a long lost cousin and pointing at the sign and only one of them spoke good English. And that was the next thing. I got there and I walked towards them, right? And then the next thing was, where are you taking me? Where am I sleeping? They took me to this hotel in the fourth circle away from the center of Beijing. And I got to my room, and then they said, well, we'll pick you up in the morning. Just be ready. And it was a series of just doing the next thing. I remember when Sunday rolled around, I didn't know if I was going to church or not. So I got ready. And there was a knock at my door, like at 8.30, and it was two other guys I didn't know. And only one of them spoke English, and they said, come with us. And I got to go to an underground church, and not a state church there, not a, what's it called, three-self church in China. It wasn't a government church, it was a quiet church. It was just, it was an amazing trip. I remember halfway through the class, a pastor shows up, my age, and I hadn't met him before, and I guess he was some well-known pastor in the area, and he says, yeah, we like to interrupt the seminary classes and have a communion service with the students. I'm like, cool, how cool is that? I couldn't understand a word he said as he led the communion service, but I understood the bread and the cup. It was just an amazing time. But you know what? On paper, it looked intimidating. Paper looked intimidating. And you just have to settle into the groove of doing the next thing. You've got to have a plan, and the plan is just do the next thing. But when it comes to personal evangelism, we've spent three of our studies talking about obstacles to personal evangelism, and I think we've covered the bases on that. We've talked about obstacles that the local church throws at personal evangelism. We've talked about obstacles as we interact with dead people, unsaved people. We've talked about obstacles that we introduce as believers into the whole thing. We've talked the obstacles all the way through, I think. Starting tonight, and the next couple of studies that I get to lead on this topic, I want to talk to you about the key elements of personal evangelism. Or in other words, what's your plan? The plan when it comes to personal evangelism is just do the next thing. On paper, it can sound and look intimidating. Me, I've got to talk to strangers, or I've got to talk to family members and loved ones and friends about the gospel. I've got to go to Eastern Michigan University's coffee shop. On paper, it's daunting. So here's the plan. Just do the next thing. And this is not only appropriate to talk this way in personal evangelism. Many of you are involved in biblical counseling. Well, you know, in biblical counseling, we're taught about the key elements of biblical counseling. Whenever you're counseling someone, you have certain key elements that must be in place no matter what topic you're counseling. And I want to suggest to you that it's the same for personal evangelism. There are key elements that need to be in place. Now a lot of times when we talk about personal evangelism, we want to jump right to, what do I say? What do I say? We want to jump right to the moments where we are actually exchanging nouns and verbs with an unsaved person. And that's an important conversation to have. But I want to say that's not the next thing. The next thing is for you and for me, for you and for I, to put thought into what needs to be in place in our lives between right now and that point where we engage someone in a conversation. In other words, we're going to talk about what to say during the conversation. We're even going to talk about, we're going to have a whole study about what to do after the conversation's over. But the next thing is right now, prior to the contact with the unsaved person. What's your plan? What are the key elements that I want to suggest and strongly nudge you to include in your life as you prepare and turn up the soil of your life to be an effective witness? You know, we're really excited, and rightfully so, for what God's allowed us to do in renovating our facilities. The former decor served us for decades and served us well, and even a Christian school. But it was time to just kind of get a blank slate and let's think from a blank slate what can we do to renovate this area and the lobbies. But in a very real sense, the more important renovation that needs to happen in Jim's life and in your life is not the sheetrock here in the buildings. The most important renovation needs to be our intentional interaction with the unsafe people in Washtenaw and Wayne County. There's a sense where we're talking about renovation tonight. and it's with our witness. So let's get our plan in place. Let's just get ready to do the next thing. What are the key elements that need to be in place tonight in what we'll call prior to the contact? All right? And I want to give you four. All right? Here we go. First of all, prior to the contact, that's like right now, this moment, you and I must have open eyes. Open eyes. And again, I'm going to be in more of a classroom mindset tonight, more than an exposition of one text, but I want you to track with me. What we need are open eyes. And here's what I mean by that, and I put it in your notes. See your mundane daily context through a new perspective. If you're like me, many of you have already entered into your planning stages of this coming week, allowing the faces that you know you're going to see on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, on your campus, at your work, even in your ministry. You've already started to work through those faces and different reasons you need to interact with them this week. Well, I'm praying that God would allow Jim to have fresh, open eyes to see these contacts with a new perspective. So you say, what do you mean by that? Well, theologically, I put here in your notes, this is bringing your confidence in God's sovereignty to intersect with your responsibility to witness. or I'm saying it this way theologically, whatever steps you take this week through your responsibilities, if you believe that God is sovereign, then God and His good hand of providence has orchestrated your steps and your context this week to be around certain unsafe people that I'm not going to be around. and I'm gonna be around certain unsaved people that you will not be around. Theologically, that's a rich truth that we need to lay a whole of in a fresh way. Your Bible is open to Acts chapter 8 and here's a real obvious example of God orchestrating someone's steps for the sake of having a gospel witness and it was with a stranger. is with a stranger. Let me remind you of this as we start reading in verse 25. So when they had solemnly testified and spoken the word of the Lord, they started back to Jerusalem and were preaching the gospel to many villages of the Samaritans. But an angel of the Lord spoke to Philip saying, get up and go south to the road that descends from Jerusalem to Gaza. This is a desert road. So he got up and he went. And there was an Ethiopian eunuch, what do you know about that? An Ethiopian eunuch, a court official of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, who was in charge of all her treasure, and he had come to Jerusalem to worship. Now we're gonna see, he wasn't regenerated yet. But I believe God was already working in his heart and creating a thirst and an interest in the one true God worshiped at Jerusalem. Verse 28, and he was returning and sitting in his chariot and was reading the prophet Isaiah. Then the spirit said to Philip, go up and join this chariot. And Philip ran up and heard him reading Isaiah the prophet. And he said, do you understand what you are reading? Boy, what a coincidence. Here's a stranger. coming out of curiosity from visiting Jerusalem and looking in closely, leaning in hard to see what the God they worship, that they call the one true God. He has a copy of the scroll of Isaiah, and at that point, the Spirit brings Philip into his chariot and says, hey, do you understand what you're reading? Verse 30, Philip ran up and heard him reading, oh, I already read that, verse 31, and he said, well, how could I understand it unless someone guides me? You talk about a slow pitch over the middle of the plate. And he invited Philip to come up and sit with him. Now the passage of scripture which he was reading was this, he was led as a sheep to the slaughter, and as a lamb before it shears his silence so he does not open his mouth. In humiliation his judgment was taken away, who will relate this generation for his life is removed from the earth. And Ethiopian looks up at Philip in the eyes and he says, please tell me, of whom does the prophet say this? Is he talking about himself or of someone else? And then Philip opened his mouth and beginning from this scripture, he preached Jesus to him. And as they went along the road, they came to some water, and the eunuch said, look, water, what prevents me from being baptized? And Philip said, if you believe with all your heart, you may. And he answered and said, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. And he ordered the chariot to stop, and they both went down into the water, Philip as well as the eunuch, and he baptized him. And when he came up out of the water, the spirit of the Lord snatched Philip away, and the eunuch no longer saw him, but he went on his way rejoicing. And Philip found himself at Azotus, and as he passed through, he kept preaching the gospel to all the cities until he came to Caesarea." It's like, wow, what a story! I mean, how can you read that and sleep in an hour, you know? I mean, the Spirit has taken him out of revival that's going on in the Samaritan cities, and he says, trust me, Philip, I have an assignment for you, it's on a desert road. And he meets up with this person who's inquiring about the true God, and he happens to be reading Isaiah, and he happens to be reading a messianic text of Isaiah, talking about Jesus coming. And then he says, I need someone to explain this to me. It's like, wow, that's low-hanging fruit. And then after he's done there, he takes him off and sends him preaching again. I love this story for so many reasons, and not the least of which is, I see God clearly ordering Philip's steps from cities to desert roads and back into cities. Philip is exactly where God has him planted and he's bearing fruit, wherever that is. You say, well that's in Acts chapter 8 and that's Philip from the first generation of the church. Now I'm back to talking about you. And I don't know where you're going to be. You may think that your calendar or your boss is telling you where you're going to be on Monday through Friday this week. Who you're going to have lunch with, who you're going to be in meetings with, who will be a new person that you meet this week you've never interacted with before. And I got news for you, your calendar might be telling you that and your boss might be telling you that, but over and above all of that, God is directing your steps this week theologically. And what I'm saying is that we must have new eyes, open eyes to look in our days as familiar as they are and as predictable as they may seem and say, God has me here with these people right now to be a gospel witness. You know, I think of what Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5.16, let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven. There it is. There it is. So that's theologically. That's what I mean theologically by open eyes. Practically, I need you to think through something. Practically, I put this in your notes, this is a fresh perspective into two realms of your daily context in 2018. Now, this is stating the obvious, but let's go ahead and do it. As you interact with people, you're doing it usually primarily in two platforms. Number one, face-to-face contacts, or I might even say voice-to-voice contacts. It might be on the phone. But also, number two is what we'll call virtual contacts. or through technology. You might be involved in this through social media, you might be involved in this in a chat room, you might be involved in this in some other platform of communication over the internet, but you and I spend a lot of time face to face or electronically in touch with people. And now a lot can be said And I'm still holding myself back from preaching a couple sermons on the dangers of the distractions of social media and electronics. But I also want to say on the other side of that coin, they present a lot of amazing opportunities for the witnessing lifestyle, for sharing the gospel. So as you think through your Monday through Friday contacts, not just with people you're in a room with, but also people you are in electronic contact with. Sometimes when I go through this material in a classroom, it's not uncommon to assign that night for them to engage intentionally, electronically, through social media or a chat room for the sake of sharing the gospel and then come back the next morning and tell us how it went. If you're into soccer, it might be going to a chat room dealing with one of the American teams or European teams. If you're into hunting, it might be a hunting contact. So we need open eyes, theologically, practically, but let's get specific. Specifically, this transforms how you view your unique, and then you see that acrostic. I bring this acrostic up all the time with you. I get it from Evangelism Explosion, and I think it's right. It's the F-R-A-N-S, or the frans, okay? You should know how to fill this in by now, right? The F are your friends, right? The R is your what? Your relatives. The A is your associates. These are the people you work with. The N are your neighbors. And the S is dealing with strangers. Now what's going on with your friends? And here's the point that Evangelism Explosion is making. Your friends that you have this week are different from mine. The relatives you have are different than mine. The people you work with today, for the most part, are different than mine. Your neighbors are definitely different than mine. Even the strangers you meet this week will be different than the strangers I meet this week. And I think it's wise in how evangelism explosion encourages us to realize and to, listen, own the friends of your week. Don't expect someone else to impact your friends. Now, God's big enough that there's gonna be salt and light with real believers in the lives of your friends, I get that, but I'm talking here about your ownership of those relationships. Your friends, your relatives, your associates, your neighbors, your strangers. Can I quote the great Puritan thinker, probably for the 30th time in this evangelism series? The great Puritan thinker is Sir Ernie of Bowman. And I love his statement. Our church doesn't have a community. Our church has communities. We are to reach the communities we live in that we drive away from to come here, to be encouraged, to equip, to worship, to minister to each other, and then we go back into our communities. And if you look on a map of the communities represented by our church family, we are all over the Ecorse Corridor, and we are way out into two different counties, I believe it's only two counties, different townships, different cities. I mean, don't limit yourself by thinking Calvary Baptist Church's footprint for the gospel is limited to our address and our real estate footprint. Think much bigger, because that's the truth. I like Kent Hughes in his book, Disciplines of a Godly Man, when he writes these words, we must understand that we have a sovereign God who orders all of life, including our relationships. And that our friendships, as well as casual encounters, are not a list of social accidents. It's good stuff. God has placed us in our particular families, neighborhoods, and workplaces for a reason. He has put us next to people He wants to influence for Christ. Everyone we encounter is an eternal soul of immense value whom we ought to regard with the same weight with which God regards them. He's right. So what needs to be in place before the contact? Which means like tonight, open eyes. fresh eyes to see the people were already around, were already planted in the midst of. But what's a second key element prior to the contact, which is right now? Letter B, a simple presentation. A simple presentation. And here's what I mean by a simple presentation. Have a ready answer before the question. have a ready answer before the question. In other words, know what nouns and verbs you're going to string together to communicate the gospel before that conversation even starts. You say, well, I don't like that. That's too confining. That's too ritual. That's too much of a machine approach or a memorized sales pitch approach. I like to just kind of go with the flow. Well, let me ask you a question. I understand going with the flow, and a lot of gospel conversations happen with going with the flow, but really, how has that been working for you? We can say, well, I don't want to be confined, I just want to kind of slide in and just do the gospel, and if they ask about it, I'll explain. Okay, what do you explain to them? That's what I'm asking. Now, I'm being a little hard on us, and especially on the guy on this side of the new pulpit. A lot of times we say, well, I don't want to be confined, I just want to go with the flow, and the fact is, we're not going with any flow. And we're saying, I don't want to be pressed into a mold in my personal evangelism. The fact is, it could be that we haven't shared our faith in over a year. So can we just, let's agree to put this resistance to an existing presentation of the gospel, let's put that resistance to the side for the next few minutes. Can I talk with you about this? What I mean here, I got a couple bullet points I want to press through with you. Always remember that structure produces freedom. Structure produces freedom. I remember when I had the joy of being a chaplain with the Chesapeake City of Chesapeake Police. I was one of 15 chaplains for the city. And I don't know how Ipsy does it or Washtenaw Sheriff does it, but Chesapeake spoiled us chaplains. I mean, they gave us badges, ID cards. We had a key to get into the police headquarters, except for just a few rooms. They gave us nice shirts with our names sewn on them and badges sewn on them. They gave us, they required that we wear this stuff too. We had tactical pants, tactical boots. I had a coat that was so cool if you had sunglasses on. You just looked so tough in it. It was a police coat. And any time that you were riding with the police, you also had to carry a really lethal flashlight, okay, hanging on your belt. Man, I could really sport that thing. And then you had to wear a bulletproof vest. If you were ever dressed out, you had, in riding along, you had to wear that, even if you were just doing a kind of a charity appearance or something. Even if you were doing a death notice, you had to have bulletproof gear on because they made you look so much like a police officer that if someone was out to get the police, they might mistake you for one. And then they put chaplain. They put chaplain in big white letters across the back of our bulletproof vests. So if the bad guys were there, they would know not to shoot us first because we were unarmed, right? So they were looking out for us. But I remember driving around on one of the shifts with these guys, with a police officer. He was a Marine, a retired Marine. And they got a call, and they said, yeah, there's a potential break-in at this apartment complex, these townhomes, and we need you to go over and clear the house, and then we'll notify. There's no one home now, and we'll have to notify the homeowners that their front door was open. And the guy says, okay, we're on our way. And lights went on, and we went over there, and then another car met us there, and there were two officers, and they were getting out, and they said, you coming? I'm like, huh, yeah, let's do this. And so we went in the house, and they said, OK, what we need you to do is just stand here at the front door. And if someone tries to get out, just tell us. And then one went downstairs and they were clearing the room, guns out and doing all that they're doing, trying to make noise. And the other one went upstairs and they're going, clearing the rooms, they clear the whole house, they say it's clear, and then they come down. And the thing that struck me while I'm watching this is these two police officers were just talking to each other, just yakking. Where are you going to get a coffee after this? You know, here's where we're going to meet at lunch today for our discount. And they're just talking while they are just going through and clearing a house. You say, oh man, it sounds like you'd have to concentrate if you were clearing a house. No, I'm going to tell you something. Those guys are so well trained that they can just go through with muscle memory, clear a house, and talk about where they're going to meet for lunch. I love that. They had such freedom, listen, because they had been through such structure and training. And I need to remind us all that that's true when it comes to evangelism. Structure produces freedom. So the next bullet point, I just want to make this statement. Be open, please, to existing presentations of the gospel. It was very popular for about the last 15-20 years to say, I don't like that presentation, it's too canned. Now I've seen good presentations of the gospel, I've seen them all delivered in a very canned, cold manner. But just because that has been done, or could be done, doesn't mean that has to be your story. Some of the well-known evangelism explanations are things like the Romans Road, where you have five verses from the book of Romans. Yeah, five verses that you just work through, from sin to the wages of sin. You know those verses, the Romans Road. Another gospel presentation, which I think is a very good one, it's called Evantel. And it's put together by Dr. Larry Moyer, who used to be with Dallas Theological Seminary. It's a good presentation. I like it because it's real simple. And they get you to remember it this way. It's broken up into two halves, good news or bad news and good news. The bad news has everything to do with you or with God. The good news has everything. I'm sorry. I'm messing it up. It's good news and bad news. Bad news and good news. I'm off my notes here. Bad news is you're a sinner and death is coming. Good news is Jesus died on a cross and you can be saved through faith. That's it. And each point has two sub points, two illustrations and two verses. That's it. You memorize that and you're good to go. That's what I used to teach our teenagers before I would take them on mission trips to Western New York where we would be involved in personal evangelism on the street. Of course, there's Evangelism Explosion, which is very in-depth. It is, without apology. Some of you have been through Evangelism Explosion training. It takes about 12 weeks to master the material. When I went out to become certified as a trainer and a teacher in EE, they packed it all in the one week. It about wore me out. But it's a great presentation. And I have found out that whether it's the Romans Road, or Evantel, or the Bridge, or Evangelism Explosion, the more I master one of them, the more freedom I have to adjust it based on who I'm talking to. But I have something to adjust, see? I'm not trying to start over with every person. Another good approach is the story. The story takes you all the way from the Garden of Eden to the New Heavens and New Earth. And there's four points there. You have creation, you have fall, you have rescue, and you have the re-creation. And you can master that as well. I'm just making an appeal that you stay open to an existing presentation. And I'll even say here in the next bullet point, be willing to craft your own presentation. Be willing to craft your own presentation. I actually require this in one of my classes. I'll say I want you, it's a two-part paper. First part, I want you to critique either Evangelism Explosion or Evantel or Way of the Master is another one that's pretty helpful. I want you to critique it and then I want you to write your own. That's the second half of the paper. And as I was thinking through this today, I remembered that I practice what I preach. My junior year of college, I read a book I told you about, I think, a couple weeks ago, by John MacArthur, in 1988, it's called The Gospel According to Jesus. And I was evangelistic before then, on a personal level, but that book kind of just rocked my world. And I totally changed the whole approach. I didn't want the approach to be merely, you don't want to get burned for a long time, do you? So listen to me. I wanted it to be, listen how awesome and holy God is, and how God is referred to as God our Savior in Scripture. It just got in my head, and so it changed the way I was witnessing. And then I got into grad school, and I was thinking, you know what, I want to write my own track based on that. And I did, and I found it right before the service tonight. It's called, so I guess this would be 25 years old. No, this would be about 27, 28 years old. I simply call it, Please Allow Me a Moment to Introduce You to God. And I wrote my own track so that I could say to people that were new to me, or a stranger, or someone that was serving at the table, or just a new friend, I could say, hey, can I give you something that I've written? It's one thing to turn away something that looks like a piece of literature that's mass produced. It's another thing to say, you wrote that? Yeah, I'll take that. And what I do is I simply go through God's holiness, God's love, and God's terms. Three points, right there. And then, and I was talking to Michelle and Rick this evening before the service, when I found this file in my office tonight and found this track, I found another one I wrote. I forgot I'd written a second track. I hope I don't embarrass my wife, but when we were going to have twins, so I'm 25 years old. We're 25, right? 24, 25-ish. And she's pregnant with twins. And Lori just grew straight out right here, right here. And she could be hiding in a doorway and I could still see her, you know what I'm saying? And the twins were coming out. And I was amazed, first time we had kids, I was amazed how we'd be at a grocery store and people had complete freedom to walk up to her obviously realizing there's more than one in there, and start touching her stomach. I was like, I guess that's the South, right? But people would say, oh, you're pregnant, and then, and there's more than one, you know, that kind of thing. And then when the girls were born, we had a double-decker stroller, not double-decker, but a front-and-back stroller. And we'd push them around the grocery stores, or the mall, or the neighborhood, and people were always stopping us. They were always saying, are they twins? I was like, I don't know, let's take a look at them. You know? They look a lot alike. They both have the same smile, the same nose, they're dressed the same, but just different colors. Yeah, I think they're twins, you know? And we'd have fun with people. But I was astounded with how frequently we were stopped. Everywhere. I'm like, why don't we make this an evangelistic moment? Because they're coming to us, right? And so I wrote a little track, a little trifold track, with two teddy bears on the front. It says, and the title is, Yes, They Are Twins, Thank You For Your Kind Remarks. And we carried these in our wallet and our purse and we'd hand them out at the grocery store or wherever someone would, and we handed a lot of these out. It was pink paper. And I give the story of our daughter's birth on June 26, 1992, and I say, what a joy that they've brought to our lives. Double joy, that is. You've probably heard stories about how rough rearing twins must be. Well, it isn't really that bad, to be quite honest with you. It has been a great deal of fun for us as their parents. Granted, the first three months don't allow for much sleep. That's nothing that a little coffee cannot fix. Yada, yada, yada. And then I say, you know, Jesus Christ had something to say about multiple births. And then I'm into John 3 for the rest of the track. Telling them how they can come to Christ. I'm not, you know what, I found both of those. I've forgotten about those. And I'm just saying, why don't you think about writing your own? One that you can carry around in a very portable sense. Don't write a 15 page paper. Or write something that is extremely simple. and it forces you to think of the nouns and verbs you're going to use, okay? Another bullet point, whatever presentation you prefer, whether it's one that you wrote for yourself or whether it's one like Evangelism Explosion or Evantel or Way of the Master, I say this, whatever presentation you prefer, be sure it is flexible enough to either, quote, tweet or preach. How many characters can be in a tweet? Right? I don't do Twitter anymore. You what? I have one, but I don't use it. 140 characters, and that includes a space, right? Can you give the gospel in 140 keystrokes? Evangelism Explosion, if just done in a conversational manner, takes about 25 minutes, and that's including give and take. But I can give it to you in 90 seconds as well. It's that flexible. Whatever presentation you prefer or that you create, you should be able to give it in just a few keystrokes in a passing comment or I say preach. It hasn't been a few times that I've just preached the Evantel presentation or the Evangelism Explosion presentation at a funeral service in a full-blown 40 minutes. Make it so that you can give it quickly or in a conversational manner, or even in a teaching a lesson manner. And so let's push on here. Whatever presentation you use, and here's what I think are the main ingredients that need to be in any good presentation. Whatever presentation you use, it must be driven by the text, the text of scripture, punctuated with only appropriate illustrations, don't overpopulate it with stories. especially stories about you. Give a few to be personal, but don't overdo it. And it must include your personal testimony. We'll talk more about that. And it should conclude, and I'm very strong on this, I'm very stubborn on this last point, it must conclude with a clear invitation to repent and believe. You understand, and we mention this on a regular basis, the gospel is not a suggestion. The gospel of Jesus Christ is a command to repent from your sin and believe in Jesus. And if it's a command, then I think it's wholly appropriate, if I know that God has sovereignly orchestrated this meeting and this conversation, whether it's for two minutes or two hours, it's wholly appropriate to explain the gospel and say, and what are you going to do about it? Will you repent and believe and accept this free gift of eternal life? I don't find that to be hard sales, and you definitely won't call Jesus a salesman. Jesus laid it on the line and he said, you must believe, you must be born again. J.I. Packer, in his classic book called Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God, might say a few things that you're not expecting him to say, as more of a reformed thinker. Sometimes we think, well, the reform guys think that you can't pressure anyone to be saved because God's got to work in their heart and they'll just do it. Well, listen to what he's saying here. Quote, how then should evangelism be defined? The New Testament answer is very simple. According to the New Testament, evangelism is just preaching the gospel, the evangel. Evangelizing, therefore, is not simply a matter of teaching and instructing and imparting information to the mind. There is more to it than that. Evangelism includes the endeavor, listen, to elicit a response to the truth taught. It is communication with a view to conversion. It is a matter not merely of informing, but also of inviting. Let me give you my opinion on this one. It is here in your notes. Here's my personal opinion. Having several is good. Mastering one is best. Just master one approach. And as it comes out, it comes out with your nouns and verbs, but you're hitting these points and you're using these helpful illustrations. Master one. I've been trained, obviously, in the Romans Road. I've used that for years and years. I've gone through the basic and intermediate training with Way of the Master, and I'll use one of their videos to show you their presentation as an example later this fall. I've been through the training and have taught Evantel, and I've been through the training with Evangelism Explosion and have been a teacher trainer in that since 1997. For me personally, though I know several good gospel presentations, I have chosen years ago, over 20 years ago now, to master one, and it's Evangelism Explosion. It was a good fit for me. It's a good fit for how I like to line up an argument. I appreciate that it was birthed out of a strong confidence in God's sovereignty and salvation, yet it still makes a heartfelt plea. for them to be rescued from the wrath of God and to place their faith in Jesus and repent of their sin. So I've chosen for Jim, if you push me in a corner and say witness to me right now, what's going to come out is EE, Evangelism Explosion. It doesn't have to be the same for you, but I'm just saying, I'm glad you're aware of several, but master one. And if you master one, you're going to have great freedom with it to adjust to any situation, any amount of time. There's something important I put in your notes. You must practice it with other believers on a regular basis and on OJT. Now, those of you in the business world, what does OJT stand for? On-the-job training. This is the beauty, I think, of having a formal evangelism class on, say, a Thursday night or a Saturday morning, where we come, we learn, we quiz each other, we're hard on each other, and then we go out and we listen to each other do it with unsaved people. That's on-the-job training. That's the best way. Just reading one more book, visiting one more website alone does not cut it. It's helpful, but you must practice it. That's where I think Paul's right here in Colossians 4, 5, and 6, where he says, conduct yourselves with wisdom toward outsiders, making the most of the opportunity, Let your speech always be with grace as though seasoned with salt, so that you will know how you should respond to each person. And Peter agrees in 1 Peter 3.15, sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts, always being ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you, yet with gentleness and reverence. I mean, just own those two passages by Paul and Peter. That's Colossians 4, 5, and 6 in 1 Peter 3.15. They're talking about thinking through how you express the hope that's in you. Don't rely on just winging it. Now, you know what? God's going to put us all in situations where we have to wing it, we're back on our heels, we didn't see it coming, and that's just to remind us that He's bigger than anything in us, and He'll still use us and people will get saved. But don't do that the whole time. Master an approach. Proverbs 16 talks about adding persuasiveness to your lips. Well, thirdly, what else do you need to have in place prior to the contact? It's what I call a tangible footprint. A tangible footprint. And here's what I mean. Have a resource in your quote-unquote pocket to leave with the person whether or not they repent and believe when you witness to them. Be loaded is what I'm trying to say. Have your gospel gun loaded as one evangelist used to say. I don't know that that illustration is popular today. Be ready to hand someone gospel literature of some sort, whether they respond to your presentation or whether they reject it. I call it a tangible footprint that you're ready to make even before you have the conversation. And I want to make four suggestions to you, okay? Number one is a very obvious one, have a gospel track. Number one is a track, a gospel track. Now, if Calvary was similar to the Baptist churches I grew up in in Michigan, Calvary Baptist of Roseville, First Baptist Church of Clarkston, and Dixie Baptist Church in Clarkston, we always had this huge track rack in the back. Remember those? I mean, it was just huge. Like, it felt like it was like six feet long and five feet tall. And there were tracks for everything. There were tracks to give to a stranger at the gas station. There were tracts to give to the stranger at the gas station's mother. There were tracts for everything, left-handed bowlers. I mean, there were tracts for very specific. And I'm not knocking that, but I'd like to pare back to consider rich gospel tracts that would be appropriate for any situation. And so we're not sitting here wondering, which one do I use now? you're actually pulling one out and using it that you are personally familiar with, and I recommend that you pull a tract out that follows the same gospel presentation that you give orally. So if you never get to give it to them, and you can get them to take that home with them, they're still going to get the gospel. If you give the gospel to them, and they don't respond yet, give them that tract still, and as they go home and read through it, they're going to hear it for a second time. I think that gospel tracts still have a place in our churches and in our culture, even. We put four very specific gospel tracts in our literature rack, in our information center out in the lobby, okay? We have one for children, and these are available for you to take for free as well. It's called Forgiven. This is put together by Truth Trackers, a children's ministry similar to Awana. We also have the stop sign track, which is a nice track. This is put together by Grace To You, where John MacArthur's the president. He didn't write this. His staff did. And it's good. It's based on traffic signs and all that. It's kind of creative. It's not my favorite, but it's a good one. Theologically, it's sound. I don't like the size of it because I can't fit it in my pocket neatly. And then we have two more. We have one that's published here in our Southeast Michigan by Detroit Baptist Theological Seminary. It's called God's Bridge to Eternal Life. Now, I think this is a sweet size. I could fit one or two of these in my wallet, in my pocket, in my glove compartment, in my car, and it's a great gospel presentation. I encourage you to take one of these home and maybe you might read this one and say, I like this one better than E.E. or Way of the Master. Great. Own it. Own it. And then you can actually take people through this, all right? Now here's my favorite, of course, and no big surprise here. It's an ugly green track with two question marks on it. Those two question marks are the symbol of evangelism explosion. They represent two questions that we use to start the conversation. And you know these questions. You've heard them here. Question number one is, have you come to the place in your spiritual life where you know for certain if you were to die, you'd go to heaven, or is that something you'd say you're still working on? Question number two, suppose you were to die today and stand before God and he were to say to you, why should I let you in my heaven? What would you say to him? Those are the two questions that launch the conversation. I like to carry this. This is what's in my car. It's one of the two things that I carry in my car because this is the exact presentation I'm going to give them orally, whether it's in two minutes or 20 minutes. but have these, okay? Way of the Master, if you like that approach, and I'll show you a demo of their ministry on video soon, too. They have their tracts. Matthias Media has good evangelism material for tracts. Number two, You might not be thinking about this, but a DVD has become kind of popular to hand out. My daughter's evangelistic team, the Galkin Evangelistic Team, and other similar teams have put together gospel DVDs. And on these DVDs, they have not only gospel songs, but they also have a gospel presentation, videos and audios. And you just hand these things out, these DVDs, and they take them home, pop them in the car, drive around town, and they're hearing and singing the gospel. Number three, website. You know, it's easy to launch a free website and create your own evangelistic one, but let me give you a little secret here. Evangelism Explosion, Way of the Master, The Story, Evantel, they all have websites all set up, where if you go to the websites, you'll click through the gospel presentation. It's pretty cool. Let me give you one that you might not have heard of before. Now you have to write down the exact address for it, but it's called The21dayjourney.com. No numbers in it. It's all letters. The21dayjourney.com. Don't go 21dayjourney.com because that's like a diet program. It has to be the21dayjourney.com. This is a web ministry, a website that several of us were involved with in Virginia Beach. And what it is, is, let's say you're eating Chinese food at the Peapod, okay, or you're at Leo's eating your salad, and you have a conversation going on with the waitress, and you say, hey, you know what, thanks for your great service, and do you like going on trips? Would you ever want to go on a 21-day journey and they'll look at you sideways? What do you mean by that? What kind of invitation is this? Say, look, the Gospel of John in the New Testament has 21 chapters. And reading one chapter a day takes you on a 21-day journey. Let me give you this card with this website on it, The 21-Day Journey. And as they go to it, on day one, it's right there in a modern translation. It gives them chapter one of John and then a few questions for them to consider. Well, why was John written? It was written so that you might believe that Jesus is the Son of God. And you're going to believe that based on what he said and what he did. I mean, the Gospel of John is a track. And if you get them into that 21-day journey, a chapter a day in John, you might not be sitting with him, but the Holy Spirit is using his word. So a website. Number four, something you might not have thought of before, a business card. Have a business card. Write your own business card up. You can go to Instaprint and create your own personal business card, right? Or Vistaprint or whatever. And I've done that for you tonight. You were handed one of these cards with your notes, right? And if you didn't get one of these, I have a box of about a hundred out at the information center tonight. Sorry about the sloppy box. I'll try to clean that up in something sharp on the new information center. What's on the front of this? Just look at the card. It has our logo. You're personally inviting someone to come sit with you and your family. Be my guest. Here's the service times. Here's our website. We're on Facebook. It has our mission statement on the bottom. If you turn it over, what's on the back? 2 Corinthians 5.21, which is the gospel in one verse. God made him who knew no sin to be sin for us that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. There it is. You say, you might be able to get into that verse with someone, but if not, it's going home with them. And you've invited them to church. I actually use my personal business card a lot like this. I'll say, hey, you know, I'm the pastor next to the giant cow. Right? And yeah, I get Snickers running. Yeah, we know the giant cow. I'll say, well, I want you to come visit. I want you to come. You already know three people in the church, me and Ernie and so-and-so, whoever we're eating lunch with. Come visit. Come sit with us, actually. We'll wait for you. And then I'll get out a business card sometimes, and I'll make sure it has the website, perhaps put an email address for me on there. And I'll say, if you have any questions about the Bible, about our church, contact me. Business cards are great invitations to church where they could even become more involved with gospel people. All right? Let's push through here. We need to tie this up. I put this in your notes. This allows your conversation to continue after your departure. And this also allows your conversation to begin if you do not have enough time to engage them in a conversation. Third, this allows you, having a tangible footprint of some sort, this allows you to provide contact information for future conversations with them. Say, hey, I'd like to get together again, for a coffee maybe. And finally, this allows you to invite them to your local church. Have a tangible footprint. So what needs to be in place before the first contact, which is like tonight, open eyes, a tangible footprint, And a simple presentation, there's one more thing and then we're finished. Daily prayer. We must be praying that the Lord will allow us to have these conversations. So here's a question for God's people. Not just for us here tonight, for people in churches like ours tonight. People like me. People like you. When's the last time we prayed, Lord, would you please bring someone into my day that I can witness to this week? Just pray that prayer. When's the last time we did that? Or how about, better yet, Lord, would you open my eyes to the people you've already put into my life for me to witness to? Under daily prayer, I say the greatest preparation for personal evangelism is not on your shelf, nor on your DVD player, but rather on your knees. Mark Dever, I quoted from this book several times in our previous study on his book on evangelism, says this, I think many times we don't evangelize because we undertake everything in our own power. We attempt to leave God out of it. We forget that it is His will and pleasure for His gospel to be known. Did you get that statement? Let's read that again. We forget that it is His will and pleasure for His gospel to be known. He wants sinners saved. Simply put, we don't pray for opportunities to share the gospel, so how surprised should we be when they don't come?" Those are weighted statements that are right. But even weightier yet are what we read in the New Testament when Paul writes in Ephesians 6.19 these words, pray on my behalf that utterance may be given to me in the opening of my mouth to make known with boldness the mystery of the gospel. Why not just pray that? Ephesians 619 or why not pray Colossians chapter 4 verse 3 where Paul writes, praying at the same time for us as well that God will open up to us a door for the word so that we may speak forth the mystery of Christ. A couple of points here. Brainstorm your friends into your prayer journal. Let's get that acrostic out of our notes and into our prayer request sheet. If we had time tonight, here's what I would do. I would say, I want you to write down one name next to each of those acrostic letters, except for the strangers, because you don't know the name of the stranger you're going to meet tomorrow yet. But you can fill the other ones out, at least one. And then pray through them. Pray as I should be praying. that Paul, my neighbor, as I come out my front door to the right, or Mark, my neighbor, as I come to the left, or Noah across the street from me, that they would, that the Lord would open a door and a conversation for me to engage them in a friendship and in a gospel conversation. And then I would just kind of push that a little further. Why not devote one entire morning each week in praying through your friends? Get your list going and then say, you know what? On Monday mornings, after I read my Bible, before I run out the door, Mondays are devoted to praying for gospel contacts, gospel opportunities. I'm praying through my friends, my friends, relatives, associates, neighbors. and strangers. Hudson Taylor said, brother, if you would enter that province in China, you must go forward on your knees. And just one more point here. You're praying for your personal evangelism. unveils your theology of God's reach. It really does. How you pray about evangelism reveals what you really believe about God's reach. If you and I don't pray for evangelism, practically, we're making the statement that God can't reach Paul or Mark or Noah. But if I'm praying for Paul and Mark and Noah on my street, and you're praying for the three guys on your street, or the three women, or the three children, then you must believe that God can really reach their heart. You must really believe, I guess, if you're praying like that, that Philippians 1.29 is true, that it's not only been granted unto you to believe, but to suffer. You must really believe 2 Timothy 2.24-26, which says that God may grant repentance, leading to the knowledge of the truth, because you're praying like you believe it. You must really believe that you are saved by faith, and that not of yourselves, it's the gift of God. So we pray. We pray. You say, well, I want to be an evangelistic person. I want to do the work of an evangelist. I want to share my faith. I'm like, good, we're going to talk a lot about that. But we have to think through, all of us need to think through, are we set up now, prior to the contact, for when it happens? All four of these points will put down a major and a very powerful and helpful plan for when we have the conversation. So think through, think through, how can I get ready? And I think these four points will serve you well. Well, here's what we're going to do, right? We're going to stand and pray in just a moment and be dismissed and go into your week. and go into the homework for tonight. Here we go. You ready for this? You gonna pray? And in two weeks, we're gonna have a testimony service on Sunday night. You know what would be really awesome? Is if some hands went up to give a testimony and say, you know what, the Lord opened the door after I started praying about this. He opened the door for me to share my faith a little bit or a lot with someone. And I just wanna praise God for that. What a testimony that would be or testimonies those would be. And I hope that'll be your testimony in two weeks. Now, I have a supply of these cards. I think Dave Krause allowed me to order 2,000 a while back, and we have 2,000. I think, I don't know how many are at the desk now. Here's all I'm going to ask. Help yourself. Take them all. We'll print some more. I would just ask that you only take five at a time, and fire all those out your chamber first, okay, before you reload, just to make sure everyone can get five tonight, and then we'll make sure that we have a supply out at the information center. Hand them out. and invite people to church and give them the gospel with that one verse on the back, if the Lord allows, and then let's just start working through our friends, praying, having open eyes, and really carefully considering, what presentation am I going to master for the rest of my life?