April 27, 2006

Welcome back. Thank-you for joining us. Today I would like to talk about some ideas from Robert Coleman's book-The Master Plan of Evangelism.

Objective and relevance are the crucial issues of evangelism work. Is it worth doing?  Does it get the job done? This is the question that should be continually asked in relation to the evangelistic activity of the church. Are our efforts to keep things going fulfilling the great commission of Christ? Do we see an ever expanding company of dedicated people reaching the world with the gospel as a result of our ministry?

 

We have to go to the New Testament and the Gospels in particular, to really see the plan of Jesus. They are the only eyewitness account of the Master at work. The Gospels were written to show us Christ and show us that by faith we can have life in his name. The revelation of that life in Christ includes the way he lived and taught others so to live.

 

We can be sure that the things that were recorded were recorded so that they could teach us how to walk in the way of the Master. That is why the scriptures are our best inerrant textbooks on evangelism. The days of Jesus’ life were but the unfolding of God’s plan to save a people out of the world for himself and to build a church of the Spirit that would never perish.

 

God wanted all men to be saved and to come to knowledge of the truth. Jesus gave himself to provide a salvation from all sin for all men. There was never a distinction between local and foreign missions. Jesus’ life was ordered by his objective. This was the vision governing His behavior. Jesus never lost sight of His goal. He had confidence in the future precisely because he lived the present according to that plan. His plan is so different from the philosophy of the modern church, that it is nothing less than revolutionary.

 

It all started when Jesus chose a few men to follow him. His concern was not with  programs to reach the multitudes, but with the men whom the multitudes would follow. Jesus started gathering these men before he ever started preaching. Men were His method of winning the world to God. It was John, Andrew, Peter, Phillip, Nathanial, James, and Matthew.

 

The early efforts of soul winning had little or no immediate effect upon the religious life of Jesus’ day. That was no matter. These early converts of the Lord were to become the leaders of His church. None of these men would impress us as being leaders of men. They were common laboring men. None of them would have been considered well off. They came from the poor section around Galilee. They were impulsive, temperamental, easily offended, and had all of the prejudices of their environment.

That's enough for today. Remember to send your comments to:

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