Introduction

Evangelism is like strong horseradish: people praise it with tears in their eyes.

There are other word associations we could make with the concept of evangelism. For some people, evangelism is an evangelical mugging mission, where we go into a phone booth, come out with a big red S on our chests, and charge out into a neighborhood, seldom our own, to win it for Christ.

For others, it's some kind of evangelical ambush where we lure the honest, unsuspecting victim to some type of an event, lock the doors, and sing twenty-two verses of Just as I Am.

Some people think of evangelism as a bombing mission where, from protective cloud cover at 30,000 feet, we fill backyards with gospel bombs.

For others, evangelism is herding fish into the stained glass aquarium where the big fisherman throws the lure from the pulpit.

I want to suggest a different approach—a biblical one.

We'll read from 1 Corinthians 9 where the word "love" has a very interesting contextual bedfellow following it, here and throughout the Scripture. The bedfellow is the word "neighbor."

Remember the ancient shema of Israel: "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, with all thy mind with all thy strength, and thy neighbor as thyself."

We're big on the first part of that verse. Most of us are neighbors to someone geographically. Very few are neighbors to anyone spiritually. I don't know of a church that can sustain 5 percent of its people going out regularly to share their faith. We praise God for those people who are gifted. But we think of evangelism as those people going out on Tuesday night to share their faith, as though evangelism is a project we do on a particular evening of the week.

Instead, evangelism is opening up the webs of our relationships and making our home an open circle where the universals of God's character can be displayed through the particulars of our everyday life. Evangelism is process.

According to research, the average Christian has no non-Christian friends after they've known the Lord for two years. We're forced into all kinds of contrived evangelism programs because of that single fact.

The word "neighbor" comes from both Greek and Latin roots meaning literally "draw near." We say we're nigh to Fullerton. That means we're getting close. To be a neighbor means to develop the capacity to draw near.

The greatest barriers to evangelism are not theological; they're cultural. That next door neighbor doesn't have a theological axe to grind with you. Christians have become a little holy huddle, without the ability to bridge back to that non-Christian culture.

In 1 Corinthians 9 Paul gives some clues about how to build that bridge. Paul became a neighbor to a motley crew in the port town of Corinth. Now that was quite an undertaking. Here are some of his principles.

Redemptive people abandon rights

First, if you're going to be a redemptive person who hears God say, "Well done, thou good and faithful servant," and if you're going to be a faithful steward of the gifts that God has given to you, there's going to have to be an abandonment of rights.

Certainly you've a right to go to the beach or Disneyland or the mountains. You have a right to be with your family to watch Monday night TV. Nobody is going to argue with that. But if you're going to be involved redemptively in the lives of people, you're going to have to make some commitments to that goal.

When my wife and I went to Dallas Seminary, we decided we wouldn't live in the "cemetery" housing. Instead, we lived in the high-class, red-light district. If you want to get an introduction to life itself, that's the place to be. We made a commitment to take one non-Christian person, couple or individual, out to dinner once a week. Did we ever get a liberal education. But what fun; we had people coming to know the Lord right and left in that place, because we simply loved them. We opened our home to them.

Wanda, the gal who lived next door to us, was a prostitute during the week and a Sunday school teacher on the weekends. She'd often come staggering into our house wearing her negligee with hair looking as if she'd stuck her fingers in a light socket. She'd have a beer can in one hand and an ashtray in the other. She'd come through our door about dinner time. Ruth would sit her down at the table to give her a cup of coffee and some food. Next morning Wanda wouldn't even remember she'd been there.

If you're going to mix it up with people and be a redemptive person, you have to be like our Lord and recognize this as a top priority.

Notice how often the issue of rights comes up in 1 Corinthians 9. In verse 4, it asks, "Don't we have the right to food and drink?" The answer is yes. "Don't we have the right to have a wife?" Yes. "Don't we have the right of financial support?" Sure.

Paul says in verse 12, "But we did not use this right. On the contrary, we put up with anything rather than hinder the gospel of Christ." In verse 15 he says, "I haven't used any of these rights."

In verse 18 the issue of rights comes up again. And the answer to every one of these rhetorical questions Paul asks is that we have these rights, but we're about the king's business, and we have to be willing to say, "Hey, I'll set aside some of these rights."

One of the sacrifices you may have to make is to limit your social calendar a little bit. My wife and I made a commitment that whatever neighborhood we move into, our friends are going to come out of the non-Christian community. That doesn't mean we're not friends with Christians. But it means we're going to focus on non-Christian people. We're going to love them and become the social specialist in that neighborhood, tie different people groups together, and build the follow-up matrix before we lead any of them to the Lord.

What happens? They come to know the Lord, and they become super friends. We're their spiritual parents. A special relationship develops.

Redemptive people accept responsibility

Not only is there an abandonment of rights, but second, there has to be an acceptance of responsibility. I believe one of the first keys in becoming a redemptive neighbor is the recognition and the acceptance before God that you are a neighbor. God probably won't be shipping a missionary from Japan, India, South America, Central America, Tanzania, or anywhere. You're it.

As long as we play games around the mulberry bush on this issue, we don't make the kind of commitments that move us in that direction. This is not something to be feared. It's something to be welcomed. You have the privilege of being the bearer of the best message that any individual will ever receive in his or her entire life.

Remember this is good news, not bad news, and you're the message. You're told to be a shining star, fragrant aroma, a living epistle read by every person. Evangelism is allowing the non-Christian to turn the pages of the book of your life, read the fine print and hear the music of the gospel.

Most of our evangelism training programs teach people how to say words, as though evangelism is a mouth that moves on cue. Instead, I think of teaching them to play the music of their lives by opening up the home circle and including neighbors in social events. You can have block parties, or Christmas parties, and do all kinds of things together like fishing or hunting or going to the beach. In these settings, they observe you and get close to you.

They know you're not perfect. Where two or three are gathered together, someone spills his milk. It's in our brokenness and failure that we're often most powerful in terms of evangelism. The Bible does not say to let our perfection be made known. It says we should let our progress be made known. Progress implies you haven't arrived. So often we try and convince the non-Christian community that we have our kids by immaculate conception. They know that's not true. Your neighbors want to see somebody who's real, who's making progress in a positive direction.

Redemptive people anticipate rewards

The first principle is abandonment of rights and the second is acceptance of responsibility. Third: the anticipation of rewards; there is a payday. God plants his carrots all through Scripture, and this passage is no exception. The issue of reward comes up four or five times in this context. In verse 18 Paul talks about rewards. Then look at verse 24: "Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize." That's God speaking.

"I'm not supposed to think about reward," you say. Why not? God is telling you to when he says, "Run in such a way to get the prize." It does make a difference how we live. There is a payday someday. We're going to reap more than we've sown. Isn't that great? Isn't that scary? You can't even give a person a cup of water in the name of Jesus Christ but what God says, "I'll never forget this." He's not going to be in debt to you.

Redemptive people adopt a servant's role

The fourth principle is to adopt a servant's role. This is dynamite. If this principle alone can get hold of you, it will revolutionize your approach toward being a witness. Verse 19 says, "Though I'm free and belong to no man, I make myself a slave to everyone, to win as many as possible."

Although I'm my own man, I voluntarily make myself a slave to everyone. Why? To win as many as possible. There is a direct correlation between my effectiveness in evangelism and my ability to serve. This helps me to see that I'm not supposed to move out into my neighborhood with a mental attitude that I'm some kind of missionary who puts on a little pith helmet and white Bermuda shorts and carries a big, black Schofield Bible under my arm, moving out into the neighborhood, looking down on them to save them.

No, I'm going to move out into that neighborhood not looking down on them to save them but looking up to them to serve them. You see, it's worth your time to build relationships with non-Christians even if they never trust the Lord. They're not a project. Listen, I don't want to be your project, believe me. And you don't want to be my project. It's not to be a relationship with a hook. If you'll provide a context and love people for what they are, you'll provide the most powerful context in which they will hear the music of the gospel.

The key thing we have to understand is that sin has blown all our circuit breakers. None of us are servants by nature. God tells us very clearly in the living parable of our Lord in John 13, "You're a towel wearer and a basin bearer." Those are the people who will be on God's ten best-dressed list. Napoleon said, "A man becomes the man of his uniform." You don't have to have anything from Neiman-Marcus. All you need is a faded, patched, worn, towel from J.C. Penney. Who cares? Get the message? You go out to serve.

Evangelism is a process. The first phase of the process is cultivation. That's busting up the weeds and the soil. Cultivation is an appeal to the heart through the building of a relationship. Some of you will never become reapers. The Bible says that, so don't let anybody put a trip on you because you're not out there reaping. But don't go to the other extreme and check yourself out of evangelism enterprise. Maybe you're a cultivator. That's just loving people.

Mormons understand this. They just developed a program where they monitor the maternity wards of hospitals. When a mother has a baby, they show up as quickly as they can to say, "Sally, we just saw that cute little thing. We're from the Mormon church, and we'd love to bring meals for you and your family for the first week after you come home." Those Mormons understand something about evangelism.

You say to me, "Aldrich, if that's evangelism, if I can make a contribution by doing that, count me in." If the women in this church would develop that kind of a program, you would see more people come to know Jesus Christ than I believe any other program you have in existence at this particular point. That's playing the music.

I'd like to have a dollar for every meal my wife has prepared for families where a kid gets sick or the wife is gone or some circumstance has developed. She doesn't tape a Four Spiritual Laws booklet on the tray. She just takes the food over, but it's incredible how God uses that.

Ruthie prepared meals for one family of five for three or four days because all of them were sick. That gal called in tears, and the husband called later and actually cried on the phone. They said, "We've been married for fifteen years, and we've never had anybody do that for us before."

Second is sowing. Some of you would be good at sowing. Sowing is an appeal to the mind through the communication of revelation. You're dropping seeds. You're giving them one of Chuck Swindoll's books or taking them to see Chariots of Fire. You're going to a Christmas musical. You're just planting seeds, planting seeds, planting seeds.

Reaping is the final phase. In the reaping phase is an appeal to the will—not the heart, not the mind, but to the will. We're looking for a response. God has gifted certain people in the area of reaping. We tend to make evangelism equal to reaping. So many who are not gifted in reaping feel very guilty and check themselves out of the evangelism enterprise. Don't do that. The Bible is very clear: some sow, some cultivate, some water, and God gives the increase.

But all of us have a responsibility before God to be redemptive neighbors and to love people.

In my neighborhood is a neat couple across the street who are a key couple. When they trust the Lord, the gospel is going down a web of relationships, and I think there'll be 15 or 20 couples who'll trust the Lord within a very short period of time. This has been our experience.

The husband, Phil, travels a lot. He's a sales representative, and he's on the road a lot. So somehow I've ended up being Mr. Fix-It. I've been over there to unplug toilets. Twice I've been over there to fix their garbage disposal unit. I wish they'd get a new one! The last time I was there, it was such a bad deal that I had to take all the molding out around the dishwasher and pull the dishwasher out. I was lying there on my back, all wet, with water and food all over everything.

Right in the middle of it, I started laughing out loud. I just said, "God, you've got an incredible sense of humor, because I'd been praying for opportunities to serve, and you're sure giving them to me. I wish sometimes you'd keep your big fist out of that garbage disposal unit." I knew good and well why it was clogged up. Servants have no rights.

I've had opportunities to see people trust the Lord by waxing cars. Our neighbor in Newport had a heart problem. I used to wax his car for him all the time. I didn't ever say anything. I didn't tune the radio buttons to the Christian station so every time he pushed it came up to Chuck Swindoll.

I have had neighbors trust the Lord by my playing tennis with them, by building sunshades, by putting in sprinkling systems. If you're a mechanic, if you can do these different kinds of skills, incredible opportunities are yours by just being available.

Let me tell a little secret. Let your neighbors serve you. It's not a one-way deal. Remember the time our Lord was thirsty? It had been a long day, and when they came to this little village of Sychar, they found a well. The disciples went to get some goodies at the local 7-Eleven. Jesus was all alone and thirsty. He could have snapped his fingers and had an ice cold RC if he'd wanted to. No. A five-times-married woman comes walking up to the well. The Lord says, "Would you do me a favor?"

So often we visualize ourselves as kind of a Don Quixote fencing with the spiritual windmills. Our armor is on. We're antiseptic and tough. We're soldiers of the cross, and we don't need anybody, particularly these non-Christian heathens. My friends, they can contribute an awful lot to your life.

Redemptive people adapt to cultural requirements

The next principle is adapting to the cultural requirements. Notice how often the word "become" occurs in these texts. Ask yourself why. Paul says to win the Jew he becomes like a Jew. To win those under the law, he became like one under the law. To win those outside of the Jewish law, he became like one who's living outside the Jewish law. To win the weak, he became weak.

What's the secret? The secret is people do things for their reasons, not your reasons. The secret is that more important than the information you communicate is the identity you assume.

If you go into a neighbor's house and there are floor-to-ceiling antlers on the wall and you don't know what to talk about, you've got a problem. You want to win a deer hunter, you talk about deer hunting.

I taught a Bible study in Highland Park in Dallas. That's an area where you could drive through and get mink rash. The president of an oil company was in that study, and I said to him one day, "Leland, I'd love to go out some day and let you teach me all about the oil business."

He sent his chauffeured Cadillac over to pick me up. We went to Mineral Wells, and all these little Texas towns whose name I can't even pronounce. He taught me about fractional dissolution towers and a whole bunch of stuff about the oil business. To win an oil man, you become an oil man. I took an interest in his world. He took an interest in my world and committed his life to Christ. Can you do that? Sure you can.

We all have different size comfort zones. Some suffer from hardening of the categories and have no ability to penetrate deeply in the non-Christian community.

C.T Studd, the great missionary statesman, said most Christians are content to sit under the shade of the eaves of the church. "As for me," he said, "give me a rescue station one yard from the gates of hell itself."

We need a few people like the Lord Jesus Christ. These people are willing to go where the beer cans and the poker chips are and are willing to associate with some of those people the religious community can't handle.

The religious community was on Christ's back all the time because he wouldn't launder his lifestyle. They wanted him to play the games the Pharisees play, and he refused to do it. He said, "Listen I'm introducing a lifestyle that's so radical you can't put new wine back in the old wineskins. It'll blow them apart. So don't try and put me back into your old wineskins."

The greatest curse of the church today is legalism, which is an ugly, spiritual frontal lobotomy that leaves people alive but not living. A lot of people claim truth and produce ugliness. God has called you and me to go out where the lost sheep is. We've got the 99 in the barn. Follow that lost one. He doesn't always go in antiseptic places.

Some people in this community have an ability to penetrate much more deeply into the non-Christian community than you do. Believe me, your proscribed lifestyle is not a mark of the fact that you are more spiritual. Most of us want to polarize, following John the Baptist's lifestyle. John withdrew. John was known for what he didn't do. John was designed to be a theological argument to confront the religious establishment and to tell the people they were wrong.

Conclusion

Christ came to deal with the common folks like you and me. Our Lord was under attack by the disciples and by the Pharisees in Luke 7, and he says, "Hey, guys, I can't win, can I? You guys are all for hardening of the categories. Boy, you've got all these little laws going, and you're ascetics. John the Baptist comes along and outdoes all of you, playing your own game. John is out there wearing camel skins and eating locusts. John came not eating and drinking, and you guys say he's demon possessed. I came eating and drinking, and you say I'm a drunkard, a glutton. You say I'm a friend of sinners."

Only the last accusation is really true. He wasn't a glutton; he wasn't a drunkard. He was a friend of sinners. If you're going to be a redemptive person, all you've got to be is just a little bit more like the Lord.

For Your Reflection

Personal growth: How has this sermon fed your own soul? ___________________________________________

Skill growth: What did this sermon teach you about how to preach? ____________________________________________________________________________

Exegesis and exposition: Highlight the paragraphs in this sermon that helped you better understand Scripture. How does the sermon model ways you could provide helpful biblical exposition for your hearers? ____________________________________________________________________________

Theological Ideas: What biblical principles in this sermon would you like to develop in a sermon? How would you adapt these ideas to reflect your own understanding of Scripture, the Christian life, and the unique message that God is putting on your heart? ____________________________________________________________________________

Outline: How would you improve on this outline by changing the wording, or by adding or subtracting points? _____________________________________________________________________

Application: What is the main application of this sermon? What is the main application of the message you sense God wants you to bring to your hearers? ____________________________________________________________________________

Illustrations: Which illustrations in this sermon would relate well with your hearers? Which cannot be used with your hearers, but they suggest illustrations that could work with your hearers? ____________________________________________________________________________

Credit: Do you plan to use the content of this sermon to a degree that obligates you to give credit? If so, when and how will you do it?