When Paul and Silas left Philippi, they made their way to Thessalonica. And they didn’t waste any time before they began sharing the Gospel with the people there! As we look back at how Paul evangelized in that city, we can gain some practical insights that will help us share the good news of Jesus wherever He has placed us today.
Transcription (automatically-generated):
2000 years ago, Jesus' of Nazareth died a brutal death on a Roman rose so that he could pay for the sins of the whole world. This act of divine love made it possible for sinners to come into an eternal relationship with God. A relationship that begins the moment you place your faith in Him. And just in case you're not aware of how monumental that is for us, Jesus paying for our sins is the only way that any of us can be friends with God and go to heaven. When we die, we need our sins dealt with and that's what Jesus did for us on the cross.
His dead body was taken down from the cross and he was buried in a tomb. And on the third day, he came back to life. And ever since those events took place, anyone who repents of their sin and trusts in Jesus alone for the forgiveness of their sin will be forgiven all their sin. Anyone who makes this choice to trust in Jesus as their savior also happily makes the choice to lay down control of their lives in order that they can follow Him from that moment on as Lord of their life. There's no turning back.
When you come to Jesus, you forsake your old way of living for yourself. And from the moment you believe in Him for the very first time, you begin to follow Him. You become a disciple of Jesus, you become a Christian. This is the gospel; this is the good Jews of salvation for sinners. We should have died for our own sins and all of us should have paid the penalty for them in hell forever.
But praise God, he loves us so much that he made a way for us to be forgiven. Instead, after Jesus rose from the dead, he appeared to his disciples, and he told them to take this message of salvation to the ends of the earth. This interaction that Jesus had with his disciples is so important that it's recorded for us at the end of each of the four Gospels and at the very beginning of the Book of Acts at the very end of Matthew's gospel, he writes Jesus came near and said to his disciples all authority has been given to me in Heaven and on Earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations. Baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe everything I've commanded you and remember I'm with you always to the end of the age.
At the very end of Mark's Gospel, Mark says this then Jesus said to his disciples go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned. At the end of his final chapter, the gospel writer Luke records Jesus also said to his disciples this is what it is written, the Messiah will suffer and rise from the dead the third day, and repentance for forgiveness of sins will be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things.
John shares this near the end of his Gospel, when it was evening on that first day of the week, the disciples were gathered together with the doors locked because they feared the Jews. Jesus came, stood among them, and said to them, peace be with you. Having said this, he showed them his hands and his side. So the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, peace be with you.
As the Father sent me, I also send you. And after saying this, he breathed on them and said, "Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them. If you retain the sins of any, they are retained." And in his sequel to his Gospel, Luke opens up the Book of Acts with this - Acts, chapter one, verses six to eight.
So, when they had come together, they asked him, lord, are you restoring the kingdom to Israel at this time? He said to them, it's not for you to know the times or periods that the Father has set by his own authority, but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come on you. And you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. So, the resurrected King Jesus told his disciples to take the good news of his life, death, and resurrection to the ends of the earth, sharing with as many people as possible the way for them to receive eternal life. And we have that exact same mandate to uphold in the church today.
If we are disciples of Jesus, he has given us the task to take the Gospel to the ends of the earth. We've been told what to do. The mandate is as clear as day. Take the Gospel message to everyone. But how do we do it?
How do we go about taking the Gospel message to people who so desperately need to hear it? Now, throughout the Book of Acts, we see examples of how certain individuals did this very thing. Guys like Peter and John and Philip and Paul, among others. And we can learn how to share the Gospel today in our context by watching how they did it back in theirs. This is what we're going to look at in this message tonight.
If you have a Bible, and I hope you do, please go ahead and turn with me to the Book of Acts, chapter 17, verses two to four. And in this scene, we have an example of Biblical evangelism taking place by the Apostle Paul in a place called Thessalonica. It's only three verses, but these verses are jampacked with practical information that will show us how we can share the Gospel with people today. And as we walk through this short passage, I'm going to highlight five aspects of biblical evangelism that we can take from this text. And I'm using the phrase biblical evangelism because there are lots of models of evangelism that aren't biblical.
And as Christians, we're not concerned with those models. We want to learn how to share the Gospel the way the Bible teaches us to and the way that it's modeled for us by the very first Christians who are doing it. So, we're going to be looking at verses two to four. But let's back up one verse just to give us some context and to bring us up to speed. Acts chapter 17, verse one says, after they - referring to Paul and Silas - passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica where there was a Jewish synagogue.
So, Paul and Silas left the city of Philippi, where, if you remember, a woman named Lydia and an unnamed jailer. And their households were saved when they heard and believed the Gospel. It came at a cost, though, as Paul and Silas were brutally beaten and imprisoned for their efforts there. After they got out of the jail, they went back to the newly founded church they had just planted at Philippi and they encouraged their new brothers and sisters in the faith, even though they were still licking their own wounds from the severe beating they got. They leave Philippi and they travel to Amphipolis and then to Apollonia and then to Thessalonica where our scene takes place.
So, I'm going to have the map put up on the screen behind me just so you can see where they're going. Philippi at the very top, center to the left, down to Amphipolis to Apollonia and to Thessalonica. It was probably a three-day journey from Philippi all the way to Thessalonica, 53 km from Philippi to Amphipolis, another 43 km from Amphipolis to Apollonia, and then 56 km on that last leg from Apollonia to Thessalonica. So that trip, just to give you a frame of mind, would be like you going from Coquitlam Center to Abbotsford, and then from Abbotsford to Chilliwack and then from Chilliwack to Hope in three days without a car. Now, we're not told that Paul and Silas spend any time ministering in either Amphipolis or Apollonia, and verse one suggests it was because there weren't any Jewish synagogues in those towns, but there was one in Thessalonica.
When they arrived in Thessalonica, they came to what was an important seaport in Paul's day, and it still is today. It was the capital of the province of Macedonia, and it was the second-largest city in Greece, with an estimated population of 200,000 people. That's about the size of the population of Port Coquitlam and Coquitlam combined. They get to Thessalonica, and we pick things up in verse two. As usual, Paul went into the synagogue and on three Sabbath days reasoned with them from the Scriptures, explaining and proving that it was necessary for the Messiah to suffer and rise from the dead.
This Jesus I'm proclaiming to you is the Messiah. Well, Paul didn't seem to waste any time, did he? He got right to work sharing the gospel. And here we can make our first observation about evangelism from the text. Go ahead and write this down.
That's the first fill-in on your outline. Biblical evangelism requires that we go and deliver the gospel to unbelievers outside of the church. We need to go to where the unbelievers are. Now obviously there wasn't any church in Thessalonica before Paul and Silas got there because the gospel hadn't reached Thessalonica until Paul and Silas got there. But that still doesn't take away anything from what we see them do.
Paul went to the synagogue. He didn't set up a separate meeting place where discussions about the Christian faith were going to take place and then hope to have the members of the synagogue come to him. It says Paul went to them. Christianity is not primarily a come-and-see religion. It's not primarily a build it and they will come religion.
At its core, Christianity is a go-and-tell religion. Paul and Silas didn't rent a space, hand out flyers and invite people to come and hear what they had to say. They went to where people were already discussing matters of spiritual significance and they brought the gospel into that arena. Now it's not bad to bring people to church. Please don't hear me say that Andrew brought his brother Peter to Jesus, and he also brought a young boy with the bread and the fish lunch to Jesus if you remember that story.
So please don't hear me say anything that you shouldn't invite people and bring them to church. Invite them, bring them, all of them. It's one of the reasons we have our world-famous potlucks here at Gospel City because it's easy to invite and bring people to church where there's delicious feasting loving on after the service. You might be here tonight because someone invited you to come to church and if that's you, we're so glad that you're Hebrew. But biblically speaking, is expecting unbelievers to come in among us is not the main method we are to employ if we're going to go out and make disciples like Jesus has told us to.
Church is primarily for Christians. Unbelievers are more than welcome to join us. But church is where Christians gather to worship Jesus. Church is where Christians come to praise Jesus. It's where we love and encourage one another in our joint pursuit of following Jesus in each and every area of our loves.
It's where we pray for one another. It's where we pray to God for the resources that we need in order to take the gospel to the ends of the earth. Church is primarily for Christians and Christians are supposed to go out into the world and bring the gospel to people out there. That's what we see the early church doing all throughout the Book of Acts. It's what we are specifically seeing Paul do in our text.
Christians are supposed to go where the unbelievers are, and so why don't we make it a practice of going on a regular basis then? If we're not in the practice of going to people to share the gospel with them, I have to warn you, there's no good reason for not doing it. Here are a few of the reasons I can think of. Again, none of them are good. Number one ignorance.
Maybe you've been a Christian for a long time, and you've never been taught that Christians are supposed to go and share the Gospel with unbelievers. If you've never heard that you should do that, then I guess no one should expect you to do that. But that's not a realistic reason for anyone who reads their Bible on a regular basis and or who comes to Gospel City on a regular basis. We talk about going to people with the gospel all the time, so we can't play the ignorance card here. Number two, someone might say, well, I don't have the spiritual gift of evangelism.
I know you don't have it because nobody has it. That's because evangelism isn't a spiritual gift. It's a command that we are all supposed to follow. Now, God gives evangelists to the church. We read that in Ephesians, chapter four, and I'm not going to take you to that passage right now because we're going to come back to it in a little bit later.
But just because you may not be an evangelist, that doesn't mean you shouldn't do any evangelism. Number three, it's the fear of man. We might not make a practice of going to new people with the Gospel because we're scared of what someone may think, say, or do if we try. So, because of our fears of what may happen, we don't bother trying at all. Number four, personal trials.
You might be dealing with so much on your plate right now that you rationalize that there is no way you can invest time and energy into secondary issues like sharing the Gospel. Now, if that's you, then I sympathize with you. I do. Trials are hard, and I hope you're not trying to endure them alone. But can I remind everyone what just happened to Paul and Silas before they left Philippi to come to Thessalonica?
They were beaten with sticks, and they almost died, and then they traveled 100 miles to come to a new town to share the gospel. And I don't say that to shame any of us, but we have to let their example impact us and challenge us and motivate us. Personal trials should not stop us from sharing the gospel. Number five - selfishness. This one stings.
But you know what they say the truth hurts sometimes. Being used by God to bring the Gospel to people who haven't heard it is very hard work. It will cost you time, energy, money, and maybe even our life. And if you could spend your time, energy, money, and your life doing something easier and more comfortable, and much more enjoyable, then why wouldn't you? You can't effectively make disciples and pursue the other passions in your life too.
So, what do a lot of people do in light of that dilemma? They opt not to go down the path that leads to making disciples. And if we're honest, we choose the path of least resistance more often than not. Not because we should make that choice, but because that's what we want to do. So ignorance, lack of gifting, fear of man, personal trials, and selfishness.
Now, are any of these reasons good reasons for not sharing the Gospel? Are any of these reasons good reasons for not letting someone know how they can have their sins forgiven so that they can make a detour out of hell and go to Heaven forever instead? Now, Paul had a single mind when it came to sharing the Gospel. He was going to do it no matter what. It most high personally and may that inspire us and may God grant us that same kind of zeal today with the wisdom to know how and when and where and to whom we are to go with the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Now, you might be totally unaware of this next point, so be prepared to be a little surprised. Write this down reasonable dialogue is possible when sharing the Gospel reasonable dialogue is possible when you're sharing the Gospel with people. Verse two. As usual, Paul went into the synagogue and on three Sabbath days reasoned with them from the Scriptures, explaining and proving that it was necessary for the Messiah to suffer and rose from the dead. This Jesus I'm proclaiming to you is the Messiah.
Now, some people think that the only possible outcomes when sharing the gospel are one people are indifferent and not interested at all. Two, people are hostile towards you. Three, people are overcome by the power of God and are radically saved on the spot. But there's a fourth option believe it or not. Some people are willing to engage you further.
Some people will actually talk about it and want to hear what you have to say to them about Jesus. Paul had a willing audience in the synagogue. In Thessalonica, the text says he was able to reason with them, he was able to explain things to them, and he was able to prove that the things he was saying were true. The word for reasoned in our text is the Greek word dialegamai. And this is where we get our English word dialogue.
It describes not a formal sermon, but a discussion, a back and forth during which Paul repeatedly fielded questions from his hearers. That was the way he commonly ministered in the synagogues. The same Greek word comes up again later in Acts chapters 18 and 19 to describe how Paul engaged his audience. Effective Christian witnessing includes being able to answer questions about our faith. The apostle Peter wrote about this.
He says to Christians in 1 Peter, chapter three, verse 15 but in your hearts, regard Christian the Lord as holy, ready at any time to give a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason, for the hope that's in you. And Scripture provides the answers to such questions. The foundation of Paul's apologetic method was not the emptiness of human wisdom, or the extra-biblical traditions so revered by the Jews. Instead, Paul reasoned with them from the Old Testament Scriptures. He proved his case from the very source the Jews revered, explaining and giving evidence from the Bible that the Christ had to suffer and rose from the dead.
Luke, who's the author of the Book of Acts, doesn't give us the details of Paul's arguments in the synagogue in Thessalonica. If we had to guess, Paul may have referred to the types of in the sacrificial system of Moses' law, and he probably appealed. It appealed to passages like Psalm 22 and Isaiah 53 to prove the Messiah had to die, and to places like Psalm 16 to show that the Messiah would rise from the dead. I put a reference to those passages on your outline for you to look them up this week, having shown them that the Old Testament prophesied the death and resurrection of the Messiah. Paul's powerful conclusion in verse three was that this Jesus' whom I'm proclaiming to you is the Christ Jesus alone fulfilled those prophecies, having, as Paul would later write to the Corinthians, died for our sins according to the Scriptures and been buried and raised on the third day according to the Scriptures.
Now, there's a couple of things we need to keep in mind in light of this reasoning that Paul is doing. In verses two to three, we need to remember Paul is talking to both Jews and Gentiles who would have been familiar with the Old Testament Scriptures. He's reasoning with them on the basis of their knowledge of the Bible. Now, it's going to be way different for us when we share the Gospel with people in our culture today because the vast majority of people in our city today are biblically illiterate. You need to know this.
Virtually no one reads the Bible or knows what it teaches. Those in the synagogue back in Thessalonica knew the Bible most important today don't. So, we need to take that into account when we consider our evangelism methods. Later in Acts 17, we're going to see an example of how Paul shares the Gospel with people in Athens who have no knowledge of the Bible. And I won't take you there now because we're going to be looking at that section in a week or two.
But you can know this for now. You can use reasoning with both kinds of people. You can dialogue with those who know the Bible and with those who don't. And here's why you can reason with people when sharing the gospel with them, whoever they are, because Christianity is a reasonable system of belief. Christianity is the most comprehensive and livable worldview that exists.
It's reasonable to believe that the universe didn't come into existence on its own from out of nowhere. It's reasonable to believe that the universe was created by God. It's reasonable to believe that human beings are the pinnacle of creation. We are better than dogs and cats and amoebas and anything else in the world. It's reasonable to believe that since God created everything that has been made, that he gets to determine how human beings are to live on his planet.
It's reasonable to believe that a personal God would speak to the human beings that he has made in his own image, telling us how to live, telling us who he is and what he's like, and telling us how he is going to fix everything that is broken. It's reasonable to believe that the brokenness we experience in this world came from somewhere too. It's reasonable to believe that our problems today are tied exclusively to our rejection of God. It's reasonable to believe that the God who exists outside of time and space can know exactly how human history is going to unfold before even one single day ever came to pass. It's reasonable to believe that at certain points throughout human history, God spoke in advance the exact details surrounding his plan of salvation.
People wrote those promises down, and there are hundreds of them. And all of them that could have come to pass have with 100% accuracy. It's reasonable to believe that if God said he was going to send a savior into the world to crush Satan and make a way for sinners to be saved, and that this savior would be born in a certain town in a certain way. And he would grow up to do certain things and die in a certain way and then rise in a certain way where there were hundreds of eyewitnesses to confirm that that happened exactly like God said it would. Hundreds of years before any of these things came to pass.
It's reasonable to believe that we can know who this savior is and what this savior has done. It's reasonable to believe what someone tells us about life after death if they actually died and then came back to life. It's reasonable to believe in Jesus Christ. It's reasonable for you to put your trust in Him. It's reasonable to follow Him with our life.
This is how Paul reasoned with those in the synagogue and Thessalonica and the same reasoning holds true for us today. So, keep that in mind when you're sharing the good news about Jesus with people. So, let's pick things up now in verse four. Some of them were persuaded and joined Paul and Silas, including a large number of God-fearing Greeks, as well as a number of the leading women. So, here's your next fill-in on your outline.
Biblical evangelism can and should be persuasive. It should be persuasive. That's what the text says. It says some of them were persuaded, and persuaded means convinced, urged, won over. And in order for someone to have been persuaded, it means that someone else had to be doing the persuading and that someone in Thessalonica was.
Paul and I want us to take a step further from simply sharing the gospel with someone. I want to suggest to you that we can and that we should try to persuade people to consider it and believe it. Now, we can't make anyone believe the good news about Jesus, and we shouldn't try to force anyone to accept what we say if they don't want to. But we shouldn't give up easily at the first sign that someone isn't totally interested in the gospel. Why?
Because there's too much on the line for us just to roll over and quit at the first sign of hesitation, indifference, or resistance. If you share the gospel, someone might say to you, thanks, but no thanks, I'm not interested. And if they say that in our mind, you might be relieved thinking, Phew. That was close. I was beginning to worry that I'd actually have to talk with them about Jesus.
But since they don't really want to, I guess I'm off the hook. I tried. We can't fold that easily. If people die without receiving forgiveness for their sins, they're going to end up standing before the judgment seat of Christ. They're going to give him an account of their life.
Their guilt will be plain to them and to God, and he will judge them properly for their wickedness. They will be sent to hell forever, where they will serve their sentence for hating God and sinning against his rule and reign over their life. That's what will happen if they don't get their sins dealt with before they die. And you and I are just going to let someone walk off into an eternity of torment without trying to persuade them to change their mind so that they can avoid that.
If you were walking by a house and you saw someone sleeping in that house, and that house was caught on fire, a raging fire, would you not try everything in your power to wake them up so that they can get out of the house in time? I'd scream, I'd bang on the windows and the doors, get out, get out, live, don't die. I'd do anything to get them to realize the danger they are in so they can get out of there in time. You wouldn't walk by and not try to warn them, would you? And that's how we have to be with those who don't have Jesus'.
We need to persuade them to believe in him.
Go ahead and write this down. Our next fill-in - relational evangelism is not necessary to share the gospel. Relational evangelism is not necessary to share the gospel. You may be asking yourself, what's relational evangelism? Let me tell you.
It's an evangelism methodology that emphasizes the advantages of building friendship relationships with unbelievers as a basis for sharing the gospel with them. People who like to employ this model of evangelism like to use popular phrases like this one to justify their methods. People don't care about how much you know until they know how much you care. They figure that you can't gain a listening ear for the gospel until you show some act of kindness first or until you establish a friendship with the person you want to share the gospel with. Only then have you earned the right to speak significant spiritual realities into their life.
Now, here's an extreme example of what relational evangelism looks like when it doesn't work. Okay, let's say you want to share the gospel with a coworker. Because of that, you want to find ways to get to know them better. So, you start having lunch with them at work, and you're learning more about them all the time. Early on, as you're forming a new relationship with them, you want to share the gospel, but you are afraid that it might bring this budding friendship to a screeching halt.
You convince yourself that you'll share the gospel with them. After you get to know them a little bit better, time passes. More lunches at work are shared. Your families meet each other one day, and everyone becomes friends. You begin hanging out on weekends.
You start going on vacations together. Still no gospel conversations, but you're building a great relationship, and you're having a great time doing it. You're there to see their kids grow up. You're invited to their kids' wedding. You're there for the first grandbabies that come on the scene.
You're there as a great friend for decades until one day your friend is in the hospital dying. You've never shared the gospel with them up to this point, and now they are on death's doorstep, about to cross over into eternity. Will this finally be the time that you share the gospel with your friend? You want to, but you reason to yourself that might not be something they want to hear right now. You don't want the last conversation that you have with your friend to be a downer.
So instead, you rehash old stories with them, share a few more laughs, then they're gone without ever hearing about the gospel of Jesus Christ and that it could have saved their souls. If you wait for some perfect moment to share the gospel only after you've built up enough relational equity with someone, you might end up waiting until there's no more time left. Now, I'm not down on building friendships with people who aren't Christians so that you can share the gospel with them. I'm for that. But how long do we have to wait until we can talk with someone about Jesus?
Consider what Paul did when he got to Thessalonica. Did Paul wait to build friendships with those in the synagogue before he shared the gospel with them? The text indicates in verse two that he spent three Sabbath days ministering to them. That's three consecutive Saturdays, that's two weeks. That's wham bam, thank you ma'am.
Gospel delivered. He went in and in only two weeks he led a bunch of people to the Lord. Now two weeks is not enough time to build meaningful friendships, but apparently, it is enough time to share the gospel with someone. And you know what? I think it's just a guess, but I think Paul probably ended up developing some pretty sweet friendships with the new believers after they got saved.
Okay, so Paul, he swooped into town, didn't spend any time making friends. I'm sure he wasn't a jerk. It's just that he didn't waste time making new besties before he got to work sharing the gospel. Now not everyone in Thessalonica was persuaded successfully by Paul to believe in Jesus, but some were. And what did they do after they turned their life over to Christ?
They joined the church Derbe four. Some of them were persuaded and joined Paul and Silas, including a large number of God-fearing Greeks as well as a number of the leading women. So go ahead and write this down. After a person believes the gospel and becomes a disciple of Jesus, they should join a local church.
When Paul shared the gospel in Thessalonica and men and women believed it and were saved, Paul didn't go, this is great, you have Jesus now. Now get out of here and go figure out what to do next on your own. No. As soon as people become Christians, they are joined to a local body of believers. That is where the Christian life is lived out.
Some people may be tempted to think that the job of making disciples is done once you lead someone to Christ and they become a Christian, evangelism towards that individual is technically complete once they're saved. But the discipleship process with them has only just begun. At the end of Matthew's gospel, we've already read this. When Jesus commissioned his disciples to go and make disciples, he told them to baptize them and to teach them to obey everything that Jesus had commanded. New disciples are taught how to follow and obey Jesus by other disciples in the church.
This takes place in the context of a local church. Disciples making disciples who make disciples. This is what we evangelize people into. Those in the synagogue who became Christian and joined. Paul and Silas went on to be discipled by them too.
The Bible knows nothing of people becoming followers of Jesus who live independently of the local church. It knows nothing of that. And yet it's so curious to me that so many people today who are followers of Christ have a spiritual allergy to joining a church, and I'm talking specifically about becoming a member of a local church. We see the pattern plainly in our text. People were persuaded to believe the Gospel, and after they believed the Gospel, they joined the newly planted church in Thessalonica.
I'm going to switch gears just a little bit here. I'm going to ask you a rhetorical question. Do you want to see everyone in our city engaged with the Gospel of Jesus Christ? Of course you do. It was a rhetorical question, but thank you, David.
That's good. Did you know that Christians joining a Jesus-worshipping, Bible-believing, local church is an evangelism cheat code that has the potential to spread the Gospel through a city like wildfire? Remember earlier I mentioned that evangelism isn't a spiritual gift, but that Jesus gives evangelists to the church? Remember I said that? Now, why does he do that?
Does he give evangelists to a local church so that these evangelists can give everyone else in the church a break by doing all the evangelism themselves? Nope. Read what Paul writes to the church in Ephesus explaining why God gives evangelists to the church. Ephesians, chapter four, verses eleven and twelve. It's on your outline.
And he, Jesus Himself, gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers to equip the saints for the work of ministry to build up the body of Christ. Now, do you see the connection between the gift of the evangelist and the church? Jesus gives evangelists to the church so that the evangelists can equip the members of the church to do the work of the ministry. What work of ministry would an evangelist equip other Christians to do? You get one guess.
It's the work of evangelism. Now, I'm an evangelist. I'm hardwired to do this by God. You might not be hardwired that way, and that's okay. Part of my job as an elder of Gospel City who is an evangelist is to help equip the members of Gospel City to grow in their ability to share the Gospel so that all of us can do it.
And how much more effective will we be as a church if every member is giving themselves to growing in sharing the Gospel in their lives? Exponentially more effective than if it was just one or two people doing it. Think of how it would have played out in Thessalonica if the new Christians weren't joined to the church where Paul and Silas could equip them for the work of ministry. What if the new believers just floated around town individually without any connection to discipleship in the church? It suggested that Paul and Silas stayed no longer than six months in Thessalonica.
What would have happened to the evangelistic efforts there when Paul and Silas left, if no one was equipped to lead someone else to Christ? What would have happened if the Christians at Thessalonica didn't grow in their ability to share the Gospel after Paul and Silas left? Well, I'll tell you what would have happened. The church would have fizzled and died out. But praise God, that's not what happened.
Listen to what Paul says to the Christians in Thessalonica in the first letter he wrote to them after he had left there. He says this in 1 Thessalonians, chapter one, halfway through verse five. You know how we lived among you for our benefit, and you yourselves became imitators of us and of the Lord when, in spite of severe persecution, you welcomed the message with joy from the Holy Spirit. And as a result, you became an example to all the believers in Macedonia and Akea, for the word of the Lord rang out from you not only in Macedonia and Achaia but in every place that your faith in God has gone. Our now, there are many biblical reasons for you to join a local church if you are a Christian.
One of those reasons is so that you can be equipped to minister the Gospel of Jesus Christ to people who desperately need to hear it from you.
So, we've seen from our text that biblical evangelism includes going, reasoning, persuading, joining, and that relational evangelism is not necessary in order to share the Gospel. Now, there might be some of you who are thinking to yourselves, so fine and dandy BJ nice talk about evangelism, but we get serious here for one moment, please. We're talking about the big A, Apostle Paul here, and none of us is the Apostle Paul. None of us is hardwired just to walk into a new space and start telling people how they can be saved. That's true.
We're not Paul. But let's consider a couple of things about Paul and see how his evangelistic strategies can relate to our potential evangelistic strategies. First, as awesome as Paul is, and he is awesome, at the end of the day, he's just a human being, just like we are. His feet didn't float off the ground when he walked. We shouldn't be paralyzed into idleness when we compare ourselves with the great men and women that we read about in the Bible.
We shouldn't look at their lives and then conclude that we can't do what they did just the opposite. The Old Testament prophet Elijah performed some incredible miracles in his day. And listen to how James talks about him. This is on your outline. Elijah was a human being as we are, and he prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and for three years and six months, it did not rain on the land.
Then he prayed again, and the sky gave rain, and the land produced its fruit. The people we see do great things in the Bible don't do those things because of their own greatness. They were able to do those great things because of God's greatness. They weren't the Marvel Avengers. They were just normal people like we are who God did great things through.
God uses regular people to accomplish incredible things. This is throughout the entire Bible. Listen to what Paul wrote to the Corinthians also on your outline. One Corinthians, chapter one, verse 26. Brothers and sisters, consider your calling.
Not many were wise from a human perspective, not many powerful, not many of noble birth. Instead, God has chosen what is foolish in the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen what is weak in the world to shame the strong. God has chosen what is insignificant and despised in the world, what is viewed as nothing to bring to nothing what is viewed as something so that no. 1 may boast in his presence. In a way, it's actually a good thing that if you don't think you have what it takes to bring the gospel message to people who haven't heard it, because then when you end up doing it, and when they believe the message that you share with them, you won't be tempted to think that any of that was because of you.
You will know better than anyone that the only reason that evangelistic encounter happened is because God is good, and he was gracious to use you in a mighty way. Now, second, you might be wondering if you need to go on a mission trip where you travel hundreds of miles to bring the Gospel to places has never been before, for you to do biblical evangelism like Paul did. Now, you might need to do that. There's people in this room that God might call you to do that, and if he does, then you need to go. You have to obey God, but he doesn't call most Christians to go like that.
And you can still participate in Biblical evangelism just like Paul did, even if you never leave town to do it. Here's how you need to know that there are two types of going we see Paul engage in. Number one, he goes to new cities, new provinces, new countries with the Gospel, he does that. But two, he goes to places within a city where he could engage with unbelievers. When Paul got to Thessalonica, he ministered within Thessalonica you're in Port Coquitlam, Coquitlam, or Port Moody or Burnaby or Langley or Pitt Meadows or Maple Ridge or Surrey or Langley, in whatever town you are in, you can do evangelism in that town.
You don't have to leave town to share the Gospel. There are people in our town who need to hear the Gospel, and you can be the one who brings it to them. Now, where might be Jesus sending you to go with the Gospel? Maybe to someone who's in your household, maybe to a friend, a classmate, or a coworker. Maybe you sense the Holy Spirit telling you to go over and talk to a complete stranger about Jesus.
Initiate a conversation about Jesus. Ask questions about what people think about Jesus. Ask them. If you can, tell them some good news. Paul always started in Jewish synagogues.
Where will God have you start so Christian, you can do this. With God's help and by his power, you can go share the gospel with someone. So, I'm going to ask the worship team to come back up and as they get ready to lead us in worship, let me share some starting points for you to consider. These are going to be really quick if you want to grow in your ability to share the gospel, this is not an exhaustive list, but it's an actionable one. Number one, when you write down names on our connect card for people you want Jesus to save, pray and ask God how he might use you to share the gospel with them.
Just begin praying that because that's how they're going to get saved. Someone's going to have to share the gospel with them. Why can't that person be you? And just so you know, that when Jeff and I pray for your connect cards every week and you write down names, we're praying this. We're praying, Lord, save these people.
But Lord, empower this person to bring the gospel to them. So just join us in praying that prayer and watch what God might do in your life. Number two, if you're a member of Gospel City Church, consider enrolling in our pipeline Discipleship Course. Next time it starts up again, we train disciples of Jesus who are members of Gospel City to fulfill the great commission. And number three, if you're not a member, that's really easy.
Do what the brand-new believers in Thessalonica did just become. One, there's a spot on your connect card that you can check off if you want some information about what it looks like to become a member of Gospel City Church. So, with that said, I'm going to pray for us as we prepare our hearts to worship Jesus.
Father, I just thank you for your word, and I thank you for the two groups of people that can be impacted by this portion of Your word. I think of my brothers and sisters who are in this room with me right now, and I pray, Lord, that you let this word, whatever part of it needs to land on their heart, let that part land on their heart. Speak to them, Lord. Encourage, motivate, stimulate. But Lord, if people need to go, if people need to begin growing in their reasoning through the gospel, if we need to start persuading people, maybe we need to join the church.
Whatever it is, whatever the next step of action is, Lord, I pray that by your spirit you lead us very plainly what Your will is for us. And let our answer, whatever it is that you're asking of us, let our answer be predetermined. Let it be yes. Whatever you want from me, Jesus is yes. So do that for my brothers and sisters here tonight.
But, Lord, I pray for friends who are here, guests who are here, anyone who is here tonight who doesn't have a relationship with you yet. They may have heard things about you before, they may have never heard anything about you before. But in a message about evangelism, Lord, I pray that they hear the Gospel tonight. I pray they respond to it. I pray, Jesus, that you would work supernaturally, all your miracles are supernatural.
But, Lord, do a miracle in their heart right now where they sit. Open what the Bible calls the eyes of their heart, Jesus, do this even as I'm praying, please, and let these people see and feel the weight of their sin. Let it crush them. Let it not feel nice, because it's so severe that we sin against the Holy God. Let them become despondent and broken.
God, I've sinned against you, and if you don't do something, I know I'm going to hell forever. Show them that. But I pray, Lord, that in light of them seeing that You would swoop in that Your light and Your love and Your grace would permeate their heart and You would open up their eyes of their heart to let them behold the Son of God hanging on the cross, paying for all of their sin. Jesus, you paid for it all so that they don't have to pay for it themselves. And people have heard this a thousand times.
And I pray, Jesus, that tonight they might see it for the first time, for real. Let them say to you in faith, Jesus, I believe that you did everything that was required for me to be forgiven, and I believe it. And I trust you with my life. Will you take my life, Jesus, right now, where we sit? Have me forgive me and be my God, please, Jesus, show Your mercy on anyone here who doesn't know you and bring them into Your kingdom right now.
We pray. Lead them to yourself. Lead them to you, Jesus. We pray.
I ask you to do this, Lord, for your glory and for all of those people's greatest joy. Do that in Jesus', in our name. Amen. Man amen.