Disciples Recognize the Importance of Personal Evangelism
- Obedience to the Great Commandment and the Great Commission are the main assignments for disciples in the Global Church!
- Save the lost and make disciples!
- Everything else is peripheral or subordinate.
- However, you can’t make a disciple until you introduce them the Jesus!
- This is where evangelism and missions become essential components of discipleship!
1. Why Are We Here?
Jesus has already done everything He was going to do! Now it is up to His Disciples (that’s us) and His Church to complete His work.
- God’s Purpose – call worshippers from every tribe, language, people, and nation.
- God’s Vision – He wants each person to have the opportunity to experience a personal knowledge of Him – it covers the whole earth. 1 Timothy 2:3-6.
- God’s Strategy – a unique solution or approach for each people group. Matthew 24:14 and 28:19.
- God’s Methodology – God uses Believers in discipleship – church growth or church planting automatically come as the result of effective discipleship.
2. Evangelism and Missions – Every Born-again Christian’s Duty (see Acts 1:8).
- Reaching our own kind – Jerusalem and Judea.
- Reaching across cultural barriers – Samaria and to the Ends of the Earth.
- Obey the word of God and enter the world of the UPGs – new missions frontiers!
3. Do you know who the first missionary was?
- It was Jesus! – He crossed every imaginable cultural barrier.
- He taught and modeled that we must love everyone, including our enemies, and share the Good News of Salvation with everyone we encounter.
4. What we need is a New Testament Theology of Church – the church and missions.
- The biblical mandate is to lead the lost to Jesus.
- The biblical mandate is to make committed and dedicated disciples.
- The biblical method is to plant productive churches – a product of effective discipleship.
5. Have you ever personally led someone to Jesus?
- For the most part, members of the Western church today expect the pastors, evangelists, selected leaders, and designated volunteers to do all the work.
- The Saints are not doing their part – and often aren’t even taught what their part is or how to effectively do it.
Why don’t most Christians share their faith with unbelievers?
- Don’t know what to say.
- Fear and unbelief.
- Hardness of heart.
- Outright disobedience to the Great Commission mandates.