Why Evangelize?

Today we start a three-week series on evangelism. "Evangelism" is a word that means bringing or announcing good news. That's because "evangel" comes from the Greek word for "good news."

So, to "evangelize" someone is to bring good news to them.

The word "evangelize" actually shows up a bunch in the Greek Old Testament. One place is Psalm 40, David speaks about waiting patiently for the Lord, who heard his cry and drew him up from the pit and set his feet upon a rock. And then in verse 9 he says, "I have told the glad news of deliverance in the great congregation; behold, I have not restrained my lips, as you know, O Lord."

In the Greek translation of the Old Testament, guess what word is used there at the beginning of that verse? The word for "evangelize." I evangelized the congregation. I told them the good news of what you'd done.

In Isaiah 61 we read “The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the poor” (Isaiah 61:1). He's anointed me to evangelize the poor. To bring them good news.

That's what evangelism is. Bringing people good news.

And isn't it funny that a word that means something so great as that can strike such fear and guilt and shame into the heart of God's people?

Isn't it sad that most of us have such a hard time telling other people about what is the best and most important thing about us?

Why is that? Why don't we evangelize?

A. Why We Don't Evangelize

There's many reasons why people might not tell other people about Jesus.

In some parts of the world, being a Christian and telling other people about the gospel is dangerous. It can get you beat up or kicked out of your village or locked up in prison or killed.

Some of you come from specific cultural or ethnic backgrounds with a variety of reasons for why believing and proclaiming the gospel is not something you're supposed to do.

But if we think more broadly to the multicultural society that we live in together in Canada, should there be any reason not to evangelize? We have freedom of speech. We have freedom of religion. Nobody is stopping us from telling anybody else about Jesus.

1. Cultural Pressures

Or are they? Are there not pressures in our culture that make it feel really, really hard for Christians to talk to others about our faith?

In the culture that pervades our part of the world, you can believe what ever you want to believe in—whether that's God or Allah or Buddha or fairies—and that's great if that's what floats your boat. If that's what you chose for yourself.

You can believe whatever you want, but the key words there are "you want". That's the rule. And you break that rule whenever you tell somebody else what they are supposed to believe. You can't do that, because they get to choose for themselves what is true and what they will believe.

That's why Western culture is quite okay with some forms of Christianity. If Christianity is your thing that you believe, that helps you out, that gives you some kind of comfort and meaning, that's great for you, as long as you leave other people alone to believe in whatever they've decided works for them.

Our culture is definitely not okay with a Christian who says, "I believe that this is truth, not just for me, but also for you."

Many of you know this by experience. I've been blown away, at some of the jobs I worked at as a younger man, how okay people were with the fact that I was a Christian and even that I wanted to be a pastor. They thought that was pretty cool.

Until they found out what kind of Christian I was. Until they found out that I didn't think Christianity was just my little private spirituality, but that I believed it was true for them, too.

That's when the hostilities came out. That's when people told me to shut up and stay in my lane and mind my own business.

So that's one reason why it's hard to evangelize. Cultural pressure. Evangelism breaks the unspoken cultural rules that dictate that truth is something we decide for ourselves.

2. A Hard Message

A second reason we don't evangelize is that the good news we have to share does not sound like good news to most people.

The good news starts with the announcement that there is a God who made us and to whom we belong. We owe him all of our loyalty and worship and obedience.

That doesn't sound like good news because that challenges the idea that I'm in charge of my own life and world.

But it gets worse. The gospel goes on to tell us that your desire to be in charge of your own little world, your resistance to obeying and worshipping your Creator, is not okay. It's a crime, and you've been found guilty in heaven's courts, and the penalty is death in hell forever.

That does not sound like good news at all.

Next, the gospel goes on to tell us about Jesus, who fulfilled thousands of years of preparation and prophecy to be the one who did what we could never do and who died on the cross to pay for our crimes.

This part of the gospel might actually be the least offensive to some people. Someone who loved us enough to die for us sounds pretty good, and that's why it's really tempting to just focus on this part of the gospel and ignore all the other parts. But we can't. Because Jesus dying on the cross for our sins only makes sense when we know who we are and who God is and what sin is and what our sins deserve.

And it only makes sense when we really understand that the cross is about our total inability to save ourselves. We are bad to the bone and can't do anything to improve ourselves in God's eyes. We need rescue and that's a hard pill to swallow for people who grew up believing the kitten poster on their classroom wall that told them they could do anything they put their minds to.

The cross also only makes sense when we know what happens next: that Jesus rose from the dead and has been crowned king of the universe, and has been given all authority in heaven and on earth, and he commands all people everywhere to turn and trust him and follow Him.

That does not sound like good news to people in our world. Stop running my own life? Give up control over what I do and what I decide? Hand over my whole identity to another king entirely? Make things awkward with my family and friends?

That sounds like bad news to most people. And so the gospel is hard to share, because it has so many sharp corners. It breaks all the cultural rules we've been trained to follow. The message and the act of sharing the message feels awkward—as awkward as walking out our front door with no clothes on.

And so we try to find our way around it. We try and be good people. We try and be respectable neighbours and build good relationships. And we just wait for the day when people will come to us and ask us to tell them about what we believe.

But it doesn't work. It doesn't work because our friends and neighbours have no problem with us being good decent Christians who keep our beliefs to ourselves—in fact, that's exactly who they want us to be.

And it doesn't work because even in the few remote cases where someone asks us what we believe, it still feels awkward. At least, that's been my experience. Even when people are genuinely curious, we're still breaking cultural rules to deliver the goods.

So where does that leave us? Given all of these factors we've talked about, why should anybody evangelize?

B. Why Evangelize?

When we look to God's word, we can see many reasons why Christians should evangelize in spite of the cost and struggle. Today we're going to look mainly at the Apostle Paul and his teaching and example in the book of Romans.

We look at Romans because the whole book is really framed by evangelism. Starting in verse 13, Paul writes, “I do not want you to be unaware, brothers, that I have often intended to come to you (but thus far have been prevented), in order that I may reap some harvest among you as well as among the rest of the Gentiles. I am under obligation both to Greeks and to barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish. So I am eager to preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome. For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, ‘The righteous shall live by faith’” (Romans 1:13–17).

In this passage, Paul is explaining why he wants to visit the Christians in Rome. Paul has preached the gospel all over the Roman empire but he's never been to the capital city, Rome itself.

He has several reasons for wanting to go there. But key among them is his desire to preach the gospel—to evangelize—in and beyond Rome.

Whether people were cultured Greeks or uncultured barbarians, whether they thought themselves wise or were among the foolish masses—in other words, whether they were high class or low class, rich or poor, the kind of people you meet at a fancy restaurant or the kind of people you meet in the alley out back—Paul had an obligation to preach the gospel to them all.

But not just an obligation. In verse 15 he says he's eager to preach the gospel to those who are in Rome. He's eager to evangelize the Romans.

A. Because the Gospel Is Powerful

And then right away, in verse 16, he says "For I am not ashamed of the gospel." Notice the word "for." He is eager to evangelize the Romans because he is not ashamed of the gospel.

Paul seems to understand that it would be possible to be ashamed of the good news, and to have that shame stop you from proclaiming it. We've talked about a few of the ways in which the gospel "breaks the rules" in our culture. And the message of the gospel broke all the rules and more in the cultures of Paul's day.

The heart of the gospel—Christ crucified—was about as ridiculous a message as you could imagine in that day. A king on a cross would have sounded like foolishness anywhere in the empire, but no place more so than Rome.

Rome was the home of the great emperor, full of temples and theatres and fountains. Everywhere you looked were columns and structures and momuments that boasted in the glory of Rome. From here the great Caesar ruled over the world.

And you want to go there and proclaim a new king—a new king who was executed on a cross in a far-away province, like the garbage that they threw out of the city and left to rot in the ditches? Are you kidding me?

I remember once visiting the Alzheimer ward of a senior's home, and there was a man there who would confidently introduce himself by saying, "I'm Caesar." And we laugh, because it's funny in a sad kind of a way. This man was the picture of powerlessness. That he thought he was anything powerful was almost too sad to be funny.

That's how the Romans would have thought about the message that a homeless man on a cross was a king, let alone a king greater than Caesar. It was the stuff of jokes.

Literally. There was graffiti in ancient Rome of a man bowing down to a figure on a cross with a donkey's head, with the words "Alexa Menos worships his god." It was the kind of thing people would laugh about at their dinner parties. "Can you believe that new religious sect coming out of Judea? I thought I'd heard everything."

And not only that, but the belief that He rose from the dead was just plain silly to them. If Jesus had learned anything from Plato or the philosophers, he would have been happy to shed his mortal body and return to the pure spiritual realm. Coming back and taking up a body forever—are you kidding me?

And not only that, but the way Paul proclaimed the gospel was crazy. If the high-culture Greek people were going to believe anything, they expected a professional public speaker to woo them with persuasive wisdom. Make a case. Prove your point. And do it with the polished flair that they'd perfected over hundreds of years of practice.

And here comes Paul. “For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles” (1 Corinthians 1:22–23).

But Paul continues to evangelize, because the gospel is not just foolishness. Remember how that passage in 1 Corinthians keeps going? “But to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men” (1 Corinthians 1:24–25).

It's like he'd said earlier: “For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God” (1 Corinthians 1:18).

And that's exactly the same point he makes here in Romans 1: “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek” (Romans 1:16).

Notice that word "for" again. Paul is not just psyching himself up when he says he's not ashamed. He is not ashamed of the gospel for this reason: through this message, deemed foolish by some, God's power to save is revealed. To those who believe, the gospel is the power of God for salvation.

That's how people get saved. It's not our fancy arguments or slick marketing campaigns. God calls them, and the message of a Messiah on a cross cuts to their heart and they see it as beautiful and true.

See, the gospel message doesn't seem foolish to people because the gospel is foolish. It seems foolish to people because people are foolish.Rome with all of it's power, the Greeks with all of their wisdom, Canadians of all backgrounds with all of our different messed-up ideas—we're the foolish ones. We're the silly ones. We're the ones who don't see the powerful gospel for what it is.

We're like lumberjacks cutting down trees with axes and saws, and someone shows us a chainsaw, and we laugh at them because why would you want a saw that bulky and heavy, with a floppy blade that doesn't even stay in one spot when you try to drag it back and forth against a tree trunk?

But when God calls someone to salvation, it's like he puts gas in the tank and pulls the cord and all of a sudden this thing roars to life and we see and know the power of the gospel to save.

And so Paul is eager to evangelize because the gospel is powerful, and that power overcomes any potential shame. They can laugh all they want, but in the end they're the foolish ones. The gospel is real power and real wisdom.

2. Because the Gospel Is True

Second, we see that Paul evangelizes because he knows that the gospel is true. It is real. He believes that what God has done in Christ is objectively true for all people of all times and places and therefore, no matter what people think, they need to hear this.

Now this point isn't something so much that Paul states directly, but one that he assumes at every point. Verse 16—the gospel is the power of God for salvation. It just is. Verse 17—in the gospel, God's righteousness is revealed from faith for faith. God objectively reveals his righteousness through the gospel.

Then, verse 18: “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth” (Romans 1:18). This is his launching-off point to explain what the message of the gospel is, and why we need it. And he carefully shows, from verse 18 onwards, that God's wrath is being revealed from heaven against the sin of people who recognize that a great creator made them but refuse to give Him the thanks and worship that they deserve.

Verse 19: “For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them.” But instead, verse 23, "they exchanged the truth about God for a lie."

You see Paul building his case that the gospel is not just one new philosophy among many for people to choose from and pick from if they decide they like it. "I am eager to proclaim the gospel to you in Rome because it's such a positive message and I think it can really add a lot of value to people's lives and give them purpose and stuff."

No, none of that. Paul is absolutely convinced that the gospel is true. There is a God who made us and deserves our worship and obedience, and that's true, whether people want it to be or not. We've suppressed that truth, and we deserve his judgement, whether we like hearing that or not.

Jesus came and lived and died and rose again as our prophet, priest, and king and is the only way for us to be reconciled to God, and that is true, whether or not people want it to be true or not. He commands all people everywhere to repent and believe the gospel, and this is true.

That's why he's not afraid to tell people that they're wrong. All throughout the book of Acts, we see Paul and the other apostles telling the Jews that they were wrong about Jesus, and telling the Gentiles they were wrong about… pretty much everything.

They proclaimed that because Jesus is true, they needed to change their life and the way they thought about everything. That's the basic meaning of repentance—a whole conversion of life that starts with a change of thinking.

Think of how scared we are to do this in Canada. I get the sense from the New Testament that it was just as awkward back then to tell people that they are wrong and need to change their way of thinking and life. But it's not like we made this up. God commands all people everywhere to repent (Acts 19:30). That is an objective truth.

And so the question for us is, who decides what's true? The creator of heaven and earth, or our neighbours? Will we believe that "God commands all people everywhere to repent" or the fantasy of "that's true for you, but not for me"?

"Let God be true though every one were a liar," says Romans 3:4. God decides what's true. And so we evangelize because the gospel is true.

3. Because People Need to Hear the Gospel to Be Saved

There's a third reason in the book of Romans for why Paul evangelizes. It's because he knows that people need to hear the gospel to be saved. And he cares about people.

“I am under obligation both to Greeks and to barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish. So I am eager to preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome” he says (Romans 1:14–15).

And that's because he knows that those who are in Rome are under God's wrath and need God's salvation.

He knows that “For as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous” (Romans 5:19), and he wants to see that happen.

In chapter 9 he talks about the great sorrow and unceasing anguish in his heart for his unbelieving Jewish kinsmen, even wishing that he could be cut off from Christ if it meant they might be saved (Rom 9:2-3).

In chapter 10 he quotes from Joel 2 that "everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved," and then goes on to ask: “How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent?’” (Romans 10:14–15).

In chapter 15 he personalizes this when writes, “and thus I make it my ambition to preach the gospel, not where Christ has already been named, lest I build on someone else’s foundation, but as it is written, ‘Those who have never been told of him will see, and those who have never heard will understand’” (Romans 15:20–21).

See—he knows that there is no way for people to be saved apart from believing in the gospel, and he wants to see more and more people see and understand, and so he evangelizes. He announces the good news that people might be saved.

Atheist performer Penn Jilette posted a video years ago about a man who came up and gave him a Bible after a show. And he said that he wasn't offended by the gesture—he actually respected the man. What he can't respect, he said, is Christians who don't evangelize. If we really believe that the gospel is true, how much do we have to hate someone to keep it a secret from them?

Paul evangelized, and so must we, because people need to hear the gospel to be saved.

4. Because God Deserves the Glory

But that was not Paul's highest and deepest motivation. In the end, he announced the gospel because he loved God, and he wanted to see God receiving the worship that He deserves from as many people as possible.

And that's what the gospel is about. In 1:5, he shares how his mission is to "bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of his name among all the nations." His mission was for the sake of Jesus' fame and renown.

In verse 17, the gospel revealed God's righteousness for us to see. Our great sin, in the rest of chapter 1, is suppressing the truth about God and refusing to give him the glory He deserves. All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God (3:23).

But in the gospel, God rescues us from this sin and reveals His glory. The gospel reveals His righteousness (3:21). The cross shows us His love (5:8). God is making us look more like Jesus so that Jesus shines out all the brighter as our firstborn brother (8:28-29).

God sovereignly chooses some and not others for salvation because He desires to shows his wrath, and to make known His power and the riches of his glory (9:22-23).

Christ came "in order that the Gentiles might glorify God for his mercy" (Rom 15:9).

And summing up all of his teaching on the gospel, he writes in 11:36 “For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.’”

History really is his story. History rolls on in order that God might be glorified in all things. And right now that's happening through the gospel. Christ delays His return so that more will believe so that God will receive more glory forever.

And that means evangelism is not the church's side hustle. It's our main gig. This is literally why we are here. To make known His glory in the gospel.

So this is why we evangelize. The gospel is powerful, the gospel is true, people need to hear it to be saved, and God is worthy of the glory that comes from it.

Now there is more to say, which is why we're taking three weeks on this topic. Next week we're asking the question, "Who should evangelize?"—and, spoiler alert, the answer is "all of us"—and then the next week Josh Bondoc is going to help us understand how we can evangelize.

But my prayer for us this morning is that the Holy Spirit would work in our hearts through His word to make us want to evangelize. To make us want to bring the good news to people.

My prayer is that He would give us the heart of David in Psalm 40 who said, “I have told the glad news of deliverance [I have evangelized!] *in the great congregation; behold, I have not restrained my lips, as you know, O Lord. I have not hidden your deliverance within my heart; I have spoken of your faithfulness and your salvation; I have not concealed your steadfast love and your faithfulness from the great congregation” (Psalm 40:9–10).

If you know Jesus, you've been delivered. Like David, you've experienced the rescuing love of God. And like David, you have two options. You can either hide and conceal God's love, buttoning your lips. Or you can evangelize.

And guess what we get to do together now? We get to practice. Because as often as we eat this bread and drink this cup, we proclaim His death until He comes. We get to tell one another, with words and with deeds, that Christ has died, Christ is risen, and Christ will come again. And may God give us a passion for His glory that makes it impossible for us to keep this here. May our proclaiming here spill over into Spirit-filled proclamation everywhere.