Evangelism from the Heart

by James M
(Melbourne, Victoria)

Matthew 28:18-20

I’m here to talk about evangelism, not ordinary, rehearsed evangelism...but evangelism from the heart! Evangelism means preaching the gospel, preaching means telling it like it is.

It is not because we’ve been at home in front of our mirror rehearsing, perfecting every word, but because in your heart there has been stirring this message for you to preach! For you, to ENVANGELISE!

You see, when it comes from your heart, you only have to go out there and say the first word and all of a sudden, the words that God has planted on your heart just seem to roll off your lips naturally. And your mind and body becomes one with God as he guides you.

You can feel an awesome sensation in the room, in the atmosphere, wherever you are! Before you know it, you will be knocking people down in awe from what God has spoken through you! Let me tell you, it’s one of the best feelings I’ve ever experienced!

Unfortunely, including myself, we have a problem making the first step and go boldly with our faith and talk about God or give an answer about Him to someone or to a group.

I for one will admit that I’ve avoided it a number of times while I was growing up and I still do! But, I really want to encourage you; I really do want you to start making that bold step, because the outcome will always be good!

You see, what goes in our eyes and ears, the mouth speaks, when it is embedded in our heart, the mouth won’t shut up! That’s why we are motivated to receive daily feedings of the word and to have encounters with God!

Give him your praise! He will surely teach you and bless you so you can be a blessing to others! That’s my God!

Right now, I want to use this verse for our learning tonight, so if your taking notes, jot it down, it is Matthew 28:18-20.

That’s our main verse for tonight! I’m going break it up and go to a deeper understanding of it!

1."Therefore go and make disciples."

This is our job, our purpose as messengers! I don’t expect you to go out there and become the most powerful evangeliser or preacher!

But I encourage you and I encourage myself to go out there and speak in our everyday language...not some random gibberish that no-one understands! After all, Jesus did speak of the same God in our language!

Luke 7:40-50
(A denarius was a coin worth about a day's wages.)

You know, I love reading what Jesus said! I mean, he was so simple yet no one spoke like him! He had the power to shock people but yet he is right! Every person with common sense has the right answers just like Simon did in that verse. It’s just that we don’t think about it.

Anyway back to evangelism, To me, someone who has heard the great news of our God and keeps quiet about it...that tells me that they probably haven’t fully grasped the meaning of God and Christianity.

As I heard from a remarkable young woman – "If you knew what I know about God, I would want you to tell me about him!”

That’s what we need to live by! Look closely to the ‘GO’ in the verse, Jesus is telling us as Christians, that we need to take that responsibility without worries and take that step for God and GO!

For he will surely follow us and do the rest! We only need to say that first word and then God will speak through us if we let Him! Praise God!

2. "Of All Nations."

Jesus did not say, Go home and save them or go to your church and save them or just go to a town and save them, or even just save Australia! Neither did he say save kids, or just adults or whatever! He said go and make disciples OF ALL NATIONS!

That means everybody! Every girl and boy! Every man and woman! Every Couple! Every Family! Every nationality! EVERYBODY! For God knows that he is the solution for EVERYONE! You just simply can’t keep someone out of it!

And God knows those who are saved become adopted as His own and welcomed to the family of God where we are all brothers and sisters, regardless of where we came from or who we are!

Because we are all created in his image, so how are we all different? We come from the same Heavenly Father and we all should have the same opportunity to be able to follow Him!

I’m not asking you to go straight away and save a nation! Or all nations! But go wherever God is calling you, whether it’s your family, church, friends, school, town, suburb or any other place because when you know God called you, you should know that he WILL do something.

You should also know that He has planned something big. And as I said earlier we need to GO and take that first step!

I just remind myself that this is the beginning of something big because God is working in me toward the goal of me reaching out to people. And He surely wants you to do the same.

Also I definitely don’t want you to go and try and save a town or whatever under compulsion or pressure because you want to please God, even though he didn’t ask you to go there.

What we need to do is go there because you have the love of God in your heart and it is His will. Let me show you this verse that changed my point of view.

1 John 4:19

I remember someone showed me this while they were around last year. I looked at it and said, but I just can’t love someone I don’t like, I mean it’s impossible for me to do that myself and after all how can you love everyone? No one does!

Then he replied ‘You can’t love everyone with your own heart...but you can love a lot more with God’s heart in you! I spent the next few weeks trying to change my heart for God, but I still didn’t seem to get it.

Then I started to pray, and spend more time with God, and He gave me a revelation as I started to feel his presence much more. And soon he changed my heart around for the better and I knew that I had started running towards grasping the meaning of being a real Christian.

I knew because I felt that change and I felt that love towards people whom I never thought I would love. I encourage you to do the same. I will be more than happy to talk to you about my experience so I can help you with love from brother to brother or brother to sister as we are born again of the same God!

3. "Baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you."

When I follow the verse up to that point, God tells me that instead of just preaching and going, He also says I want you to follow up with the people to help them learn the truth of God much more.

Also support, encourage and walk with them as they take their first steps in faith because the Devil will put his powers to place and try and put them off there feet. It is easy for them to fall if they don’t have any support!

Let’s look at this verse:

Luke 8:11-13

I would rather stay in one place for a year and see a whole town saved through the Holy Spirit, than move each week and only preach and not know how many have been saved and will stay with God.

For I know the town will have a deeper understanding of Christ and plant themselves in the House of God with confidence and experience a growth if I stay and help them. Then soon they will go out themselves and teach others what they have learned from the Almighty God!

4. "And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age."

This is what sealed the verse that we are studying, and it is the reminder, the promise of what He has done, is doing, is going to do, and will keep doing! This is the only reason we are willing to suffer.

2 Timothy 1:7-10

The suffering is not God’s doing! Many people blame Him but I KNOW for sure that it is the devil trying to put us off our feet for he knows how powerful God is and this proves it.

James 2:19

The only reason the devil does this is because he and his followers hate God but know they can’t hurt God so they end up hurting His creation and we end up hurting God.

But keep in mind, that God does weep when we get hurt or distracted just as a mother would cry for her child! The shortest verse in the bible is
John 11:35 – "Jesus wept."

The man that inspired me and keeps me going is the Apostle Paul! He got persecuted, tortured and criticised, but he still preached, evangelised and taught people as he knew God was with him to the VERY end of the age. Paul himself had God’s word planted onto his heart!

That’s the end of the summary of the verse and I just wanna say, all God is asking us to do is to take that first step with confidence to help open up someone’s heart to God for Him to save. This can happen just by evangelising and teaching someone because I know God will do the rest.

I know tis because in John 3:16 it says, "God so loved the world he sent his only son to save the lost!" I doubt God will hold back to save one more person. The description of the outcome is shown in this verse:

Luke 15:10

All we need to do is GO! Go and evangelise and teach them the word of God and remember that He is with you to the very end of the age through your suffering AND your glory!

Let us pray.

Note from Mark: What a powerful sermon James. And how true that we need evangelism from the heart and not just memorized words. Thanks for sharing it with us James.