Personal Evangelism

Lesson 18

Welcome back to the personal evangelism class. And we are going to be having our last
session for this course today. As we talk about the topic of discipleship. And so, we are
going to call it the commitment of personal evangelism. Where we are teaching them to
observe all things whatsoever Christ has commanded them. And really, what it is, is just
committing to them the things of God. So, what is your role as a disciple maker now? If you
are going to be committing to them all things, you need to be a seasoned saint to do this. It
is something that you need to take seriously. So, what is your personal responsibility now?
First, you need to see the individual as they are now. We may only see a single individual,
but God sees the masses.

I find it incredible, the testimonies of someone that got saved, and then they serve the Lord
and you see the gospel multiplying through them. And so, understand each person who
you reach with the gospel that gets saved. There is the potential for many more to follow
them and salvation. A single seed has the potential to bring forth a forest. How many seeds
are in an avocado? And so, we may see that one little seed and think, well, I do not know.
But there is a world of potential in each person. And Christians are designed to reproduce.
That means it is not enough for a Christian to simply be nice to people or to minister to
their needs. Now, that is a good thing to do, and we ought to be nice, and we must minister
to people’s needs.

But that is not our only purpose. Okay. It is not just to meet people’s needs or be content as
a faithful tither in church. And so, we show up and we come to church, and we sit in the
pew, and we tithe, and maybe occasionally we say Amen, we sing the songs. But that is not
what it is to be a Christian. A tree that bears fruit does not partake of its fruit, okay, it is for
someone else. Jesus Christ, when He plants the gospel seed in our hearts, the expectation is
that it will bear fruit. Well, what is in that fruit, more seeds, a part of the fruit is for
nutrition. The other part is for reproduction. That fruit holds those seeds. So, for example, if
I were to walk up to an apple tree, I might look at the apple tree and I say, Boy, that looks
good. But that is not the purpose of an apple. I may walk up to the apple tree. And as I get
closer, I can smell the scent of the apple and I say, Man, that smells good. And it does.

But that is not the purpose of the apple. I may go over to the apple tree, and I can pick one
fruit, and maybe I do not touch the smoothness of the apple. And I guess that is nice, but
that is not the purpose of the fruit. And so okay, I take a bite of the apple and I enjoy the
sweetness; I enjoy the nutrition. And I say surely this is the point of the fruit. No, it is not
the point of the fruit, not from the trees perspective, if you look inside of that apple where it
is been bit, you are going to see some seeds in it, the point of the goodness of that fruit, the
beauty of it, the smell of it, all those things are designed so that people would come and
take it, and those seeds would be spread. And it is my belief that, the blessings that God has
given to us the joy, the patience, the way that we are supposed to behave as Christians, they
are meant to be attractive, so that people will come and partake of the seed, which is the
gospel.

So, there is no need for seedless Christians. We ought to be witnessing to others, we ought
to be engaging in personal evangelism. And it is our personal responsibility. Your purpose
is to find the next man up and prepare them. I think of the long line of faithful men and
women since the time of Jesus Christ, through the disciples and through the missionaries
all the way down. They have been faithful in witnessing and committing the gospel to the
next generation, for 1000s of years, until finally it comes up to me. I do not want to be the
last chain that stretches back to Jesus Christ, where I am the break in the chain where
everyone behind me has been faithful. But now I will not be faithful in passing it on to the
next generation.

You have a personal responsibility to witness. There is something that you can study. It is
called the bystander effect. And it is better for you to get stabbed, or only one person sees
you, than in a crowd of people seeing you. Because typically what happens with the
bystander effect is if there is a crowd of people around and they see someone who, oh, man,
that guy got stabbed, well, somebody should do something, well, somebody is going to call
and so it actually takes longer for someone to respond for someone to help in a crowd of
people than it does when there is just one person because when there is that one person,
they see, oh, I have to do something because there is nobody else until they take immediate
action.

As Christians, sometimes it is easy to think, well, someone else is going to witness to them,
someone is going to give them the gospel. And so, we wait for everybody else to do it. And
everyone is just waiting around as the world is dying and going to hell. Because we do not
see it as our own personal responsibility. No, I must reach the people that I can reach. I
must be a witness to them. I must disciple them. I must do what I can do to the best of my
ability. And I cannot expect somebody else to do it. Because if everyone is expecting
someone else to do it, no one is going to end up doing it. Remember the hate filled and self-
defensive response of Cain? Am I my brother’s keeper? The answer is yes. Hey, we are
supposed to love the brethren. We are supposed to take care of our brethren.

Love thy neighbor as thyself. We have the Good Samaritan example, where we help others.
And so yes, you are your brother’s keeper. Do not assume that someone else is going to get
the job done. Preachers will often sound the alarm to tell lost souls. But it is few that answer
that call. Now, in being a disciple maker, you have your personal responsibility. This is
something that you need to do here. But it takes a lot of painstaking research. It is
important to study the Bible, to know it and live by it to the best of our abilities. Now, you
do not have to wait until you have got the scriptures memorized before you can be a
witness or before you can be a disciple maker. But you need to be a student of the word.
You need to study the Bible and understand it to lead others through it.
And so, it is something that takes a lot of time, a lot of practice, a lot of research. However,
pews are filled with men and women who study the Bible, who will never reproduce,
okay? And the reason is that they see the study of the Bible as an opportunity to simply
learn more, or to become better Christians. They kind of see the Bible as a self-help book.
And this is how to help me live my life. And that is just consumer Christianity, where it is
focused on self-improvement, self-help and self-satisfaction. But once again, it goes
contrary to the very nature of Christ. It is not about us; it is about others; it is about God.

And so, the point of the Bible is not just so that we can improve our own lives. And yes, it
does that to an astounding degree. But it is so that people will know God, so that we can
follow Him, so that God will get the glory. That is the point of it, not just to improve our
lives. What is the end goal of our devotional lives to improve this life? Or to improve the
next? Is it better? Do I study the Bible to help me with my problems on a day-to-day basis
which it does? Or is it to help face the problems that God has sent me to minister to? I have
a job to do. And so, God is equipping me for that job. I am not the end product, somebody
else is. Also, our painstaking research in the Bible should be to trace the very outline of
Christ with our lives down to the most minute detail where we are trying to be like him.
What would Christ do in this situation? How would Christ behave? How would He talk?
How would He reach this person?

Luke 2:49 says, “And he said unto them, How is it that ye sought me? wist ye not that I
must be about my Father’s business?” What I find very interesting is that most people that
say, well, where is Christ? And what we need to do is instead of trying to get Christ to
show up to our job, we need to show up to the job of God, and show up in his work and get
busy in his work and follow after him in his business. The point of this class is not just so
that you can get a certificate at the end of it and say, look, I got this certificate, Global
Baptist Bible College. Hey, once again, nice side effects. Sure. But the point is not to get a
piece of paper, the point of this class is that you are better prepared and equipped to
witness and minister in the lives of everyone around you. If you do not use this to impart to
others, we have wasted each other’s time. Okay, it is a waste of time. If you are not reaching
out to other people with the gospel.

The personal evangelism class is a complete waste because you are not evangelizing. You
are not going out. And so, take this class, study, find the tools that you need to reach
someone else with the gospel, because again, you are not the end goal. We are trying to
reach through to someone else. And there is always someone else. How can we be satisfied
with just ourselves? When it comes to salvation, there are billions of people on the planet.
There is always someone else that we need to be reaching out to. Now to reach out to them,
we are going to need some very resources. We need to put things to make them easily
understood by the person we are discipling.

I hope we have put things in order so that it is easy to be understood, so that you can see
the flow from, first trying to get in contact with someone, to committing to them the gospel
of Jesus Christ, all the way through salvation, until we get to the point of discipleship. But
we cannot leave it up to random chance. They will just figure it out. No, we need to have a
plan for discipleship, a systematic curriculum for maximum efficiency. Time is short. We
cannot spend 50 sessions on a training you guys, and we cannot do 50 sessions on training
anybody else, we need to know what we are talking about and try to get across as quickly
and as intelligently as we can. Luke 6:40 says, “the disciple is not above his master, but
every one that is perfect shall be as his master.” Anything that you are building requires not
only pieces, but the correct order, okay? And that is why one on one is critical.

So, what is the plan? We need to plan for discipling. Someone understands that, hey, they
need to be like the master Jesus Christ. So, what do we do? Well, first, and this is going to
sound maybe like strange indoctrinating. Now indoctrinating typically has a negative
connotation. But understanding doctrine is good. That is the truth. We are trying to get into
somebody. So we are indoctrinating, right? And that is to get them believing if this is the
truth, and get them to believe the truth. So, you give them doctrine, and so they believe it in
their mind, and then enlist them. So, getting them involved. Okay, so now that you have
the truth, let us take this next step in obedience. So, one thing that I typically do,
particularly with the young men after they have made a profession of faith, is I continue
meeting with them.

And what we do is for an hour each week, we go through, and I just try to teach them Bible
doctrine, I try to answer their questions and try to take them along, okay, here is why you
need to get baptized. Here is why you need to be faithful in church. Here is how you do a
personal devotion. Here is what we are waiting for with the return of Jesus Christ. Also,
things that are inappropriate for a Christian. What is holiness? And we go through and
teach these things. And what we are doing is we are indoctrinating. We are giving them
good doctrine. And then from there, we started listing. Now, hey, why do not you serve
this area? They will kind of be a blessing if you can minister in this area, and we get them
busy serving God. Once they serve, you can start saying, okay, well, there are some
weaknesses here. Let us try to build up this area. And you see the potential that God has in
them, that spiritual gifting that He has equipped them with and enabled them with, and
you build on that.

And so, they become stronger; they become better at their job. And then finally deploying
them, getting them going, where they do not need me anymore. We are okay. Serve God,
where we do not meet on a weekly basis anymore, but maybe we reach out every couple of
months. They have that strength to stand on their own two feet, when that babe in Christ
has grown, and so now, they are functioning, prospering adult Christian, and we need
persistent reproduction. So, that one is all grown up, and they have moved on. And that
was the plan is that they would be able to continue serving Christ without me. Well, now,
what do I do? Well, you find somebody else. So, keep going, get somebody else and start
witnessing to them and start reaching them. And do not quit. Galatians 6:9 says, “And let
us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not.”
Sometimes we get discouraged. We try to witness to somebody, and maybe we even lead
them to the Lord, and you invest in them, and then they just drop off. And it can
discourage, or maybe they hurt you as well. The reality is, people are sinners, they are
going to hurt you. Jesus Christ made himself vulnerable for us. And that is a wonderful
thing. Without that, we would not have salvation. And so, understand that when working
with people, you are going to have to be vulnerable to them as well. And it is going to be
hard. Do something hard. Anything in this life that is worthwhile is hard. And so do
something hard. Make the time to get the resources and invest in somebody else. John 12:24
says, “Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it
abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.”

Now to be a disciple maker and to train and equip disciples. You are going to have to die to
self. If you just keep it to yourself. Yeah, you might stay. This little grain is all nice and safe
in the bin. But you must plant it in the ground. You must die to self to see multiplication
come. So, what is your role as a disciple maker? Well, first personal responsibility taking it
upon yourself, okay, because of the commission of God to go and invest in somebody else
takes painstaking research knowing what you are talking about as you are investing in that
person. It also takes precise resources. Okay, having a plan. As you invest in this individual
and persistent reproduction, you keep them going even though it gets hard.

So, with commitment, we need to understand, okay, what is a disciple? And that is very
important because it is critical to understanding God’s multiplication table. There are two
different terms for someone who is saved. We have believers, and then we also have
disciples. Now, most churches are focused on getting more believers in Jesus Christ, and
then adding them to the membership, okay? And so, you try to get people and you try to
bring as many as you can in and you get them to cry out to God and salvation, okay, but
they are believers? But they are also not really students of God, they are not really
following him.

They do not really have that personal relationship with Jesus Christ, where they are
learning of him. So let me ask you a question. What was the focus of Jesus’ ministry? Was
He focused on the mass of the crowds that would come in and getting those added as
believers? Or was his ministry more focused on the 12 disciples? I would argue that more of
His ministry was focused on preparing and equipping those 12 disciples. Because He knew
He only had three and a half, or about three years before He would be crucified, buried,
right? And then He was going to depart. And so, He spent a lot of time training those
disciples. Now, was He worried about the masses as well? Absolutely, yes, He was
preaching to them. He was witnessing to them. But most of His attention was on those
disciples.

Now we are trying to reach the entire population of the world. We talked about that in the
very first lesson. That is the goal is the world. Our focus needs to be turned from making
decisions, to building disciples. The Bible talks about believers. Okay, it always uses the
word added. Now it is exciting. People are added to the church. It is a cause of great joy.
Acts 2:41 says, “Then they that gladly received his word were baptized: and the same day
there were added unto them about three thousand souls.” So, they received the word, and
now added 3000 souls. Wonderful praise God for it, and they were added to the church.
And it is a good thing to have an addition. This is nothing against addition, it is just not
enough.

The Lord added to the church daily such as be saved. Addition is good, but we really need
multiplication. Multiplication comes not through belief, or believers, but through disciples.
Acts 6:1 says, “And in those days, when the number of the disciples was multiplied, there
arose a murmuring of the Grecians against the Hebrews, because their widows were
neglected in the daily ministration.”

Now notice this: whenever the lost became believers, and we are talking about increasing, it
uses the word addition; they were added. However, when the Bible talks about saved
disciples increasing, it always uses the word multiplication. The Word of God increased,
and the number of the disciples multiplied in Jerusalem greatly, and a great company of the
priests were obedient to the faith. So again, we see disciples and they are multiplying now
greatly. Because if you have one disciple, they can train another disciple. 2 Timothy 2:2
says, “And the things that thou hast heard of me among many witnesses, the same commit
thou to faithful men, who shall be able to teach others also.”

When we are talking about discipleship, we are talking about committing things of God to
faithful men, not unfaithful. To those who are going to teach others as well. So, they are
going to pass on the faith just as you have passed on the faith. It is not enough for me to
pass on the faith. And then you have a believer and then it stops. Can they become disciples
so that they can make other disciples that they can multiply, and we can see more souls
saved, not just today, but in future subsequent generations. So here is multiplication in
action. A disciple is not done until they are capable of training more disciples, who are
capable of training more disciples, and it continues and on and on and on. So, we are not
interested only in spiritual children, but in grandchildren, great grandchildren.

And then, okay, many sit in this pew, and you just sit there. And that is all you do. And that
is your service to God, is to sit in this pew. Now, they need to invest in somebody else.
Also, do not make them completely dependent on you. They need to depend on God. It is a
nice ego boost to have someone come to you for all their problems. But you need to teach
them to find the answers for themselves in the Bible and to lean on Christ. Now, here is
why this is such a big deal with discipleship.

Let us just imagine we have two saints, okay? And we are going to call the soul winner. So,
when 2022 this preacher was called into ministry, so we imagine that this is not he starts
today. And he goes into full-time ministry. He preaches every day without fail; he never
takes a day off in his entire life. And then somehow, miraculously, by the grace of God, he
reaches 100,000 men and women for Jesus Christ daily. And so, every day 100,000. By the
end of the week, 700,000, every single year, he would have 36.5 million. And we will say
solid, and faithful attending Christians that go on, they sit in the pew, and they show up in
church and they sing the songs, and they are, you do not have good standards. And, they
are wonderful, truly save people, 36.5 million people. Fantastic. Okay, and then he has been
doing this for 80 years. So, for 80 years, he has faithfully served, so let us just say that he
gets called when he is 20. And he goes all the way until he is 100. And on his 100th
birthday, he dies after preaching in the last 100,000 gets saved, and so in 2102, he would
die. And we would know him as the greatest preacher of all time. There has been no one
better. He was the best.

Forget the prince of preachers. This guy is the king of preachers. And his ministry would
have reached 2.9 billion people across the planet. We look at that and say, wow, can you
imagine 3 billion people saved? Is this even remotely possible? The numbers as we are
looking at, like 100,000, every day, day after day, no getting sick, nothing going wrong,
100,000 a day. How in the world could anybody do that? The fact is, it is impossible. This
cannot be done. How in the world, with the logistics of traveling from place to place, there
are 100,000 people? The math does not check out. And 2.9 billion people would be just
astonishing. The 2018 world population was 7.7 billion. Okay, that is about 30% of the
population now in 2022. So, 38% of the population is 8 billion. But in 2098, we estimate the
world population to be at 11.1 billion, and that is conservative. It is possible that there could
be 14 billion people.

So, it is not 38% of the population, that means only about 21 to 26% of the population
would have been reached. And as the population increases, the amount of people getting
the reach percentage wise, is falling further behind. And you could never preach to
everybody without everyone getting saved. So, it is impossible for the entire world to be
reached using this addition. Okay? And by the way, who could take over that ministry, if
that guy could do it for 80 years, like there has never been before and unlike him, and so
who is going to fill in those shoes? And so, it is not really possible, and it does not do
enough, okay, that believers being added just the math does not check out.

But what about this? What about a disciple maker? So, let us say in 2022, okay, a church
member, just a regular church member, not a pastor, not a preacher, not a missionary, just a
church member, leads someone to the Lord. Okay, thanks for their personal testimony. And
because of their effort in personal evangelism and witnessing. Then for one year, they did
nothing but focus on discipling that single individual teaching them and training them and
investing in them everything that God had taught them over the years, and just committing
that to that one person, and then also training them to reach and disciple someone else. So,
in 2023, and now we have this lady. And let us say there was another lady that reached out.
Now we have two people in 2023. So, one year goes by, one convert, okay? And so, they
both go out, but they each find another person. And so, in 2024, now there are four people.
Okay, by the year 2055, she will have reached and discipled a grand total of 33 disciples all
in her local area. So, 33 years and 33 people? Is this possible? Well, yeah, that does not
sound too hard at all. Just to reach out to 33 people and take the time to teach them the
things that God has already shown you.

That is not calling for anything kind of incredible or astounding. The other preacher with
100,000 people that he is going to be preaching constantly. I do not know when he has time
for anything else. But discipling one person. There is a training program I do; it is called the
ABCs of Christian growth. It is 28 lessons. And so, by the time you reach someone with the
Lord, and then you disciple them. You could get everything done in about 40 weeks, if you
really took your time, and you missed a couple lessons, that gives you another couple
months off, and that is just an hour a week. And so, spending that time with one person is
doable. And then you just do that once every year.

That does not sound too hard at all. Only reaching 33 people for Christ in your lifetime.
That sounds very doable. Now, 33 converts and 33 years does not sound like much. As a
pastor, they might consider this ministry a failure. If I was a missionary some place, and
every year I sent a report, and my report was the same thing every year. Hey, one saved
discipling. One saved discipling? No, Pastor Mackie, you have been in the ministry for 10
years now. And only 10 People have been won, thanks to your ministry. Yeah. But they are
not believers. They are disciples, and they are reaching others as well. So, she does not have
33 converts; she does not have 33 believers; she has 33 disciples. And if each one can reach
one, then they multiply.

Because Christianity doubles yearly, the doubling would happen, they would be
multiplying so fast that in just a short amount of time, everyone will be saved in 33 years,
and the first person that she converted, and discipled would only need to reach 32 people,
and the next generation will only have to reach 31 people and the next one would have to
reach only 30 people. And you see it multiplying in each generation. It gets easier; it gets
simpler. And it grows and expands to where the entire planet could not be saved through
the ministry of just each one reaching one discipling.

And again, if the population doubled in 50 years, it does not matter, because Christianity
doubles yearly. And so, it does not matter if it takes 50 years for the world to double, if each
one is reaching one, every year. It is way too fast. People will get saved left and right now,
is it likely? No. It is not because it is not possible. But the book of Revelation mentions
when Jesus Christ returns, will He find faith on the earth? I think about discipleship and
the investment in others. And it is not that hard. It is very doable to reach them with the
gospel and invest in them so they can reach somebody else. I have made it my life’s goal
where I want to reach and teach 33 people so that I can say, well; I did my part and trying
to make 33 disciples to follow Jesus Christ after my passing, that are going to be faithful
and continuing the work of salvation, but surely find faith on the earth. I wonder about
that.

And I want to be faithful in committing faith to others. A single disciple can truly change
the world. If they do not stay a single disciple. Matthew 13:23 says, “But he that received
seed into the good ground is he that heareth the word, and understandeth it; which also
beareth fruit, and bringeth forth, some an hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty.” No, a
single grain of rice has the potential to feed the entire world, and really, little is much when
God is in it. It cannot be overstated how powerful the role of a disciple maker really is in
changing the world, and the potential that a disciple maker has. Well, this has been our
personal evangelism class, and I just want to thank you so much for coming through this
class with us. We will continue on with discipleship.