Latest / Gospel Talks Podcast / #70 - Should you immediately share the gospel in every conversation?
Transcript
- 0:00Hey, welcome everybody to Gospel Talks podcast where we help Christians all over the world become more effective in relational evangelism and discipleship.
- 0:08I'm George Bonocca and with me today on this week of Thanksgiving is Jeff Musgrave and we're really excited to be uh getting together on, I think what is the 70th episode of
- 0:22Gospel Talks podcast.
- 0:24Isn't that cool?
- 0:26I don't know if you know this, Jeff, we have almost 5,000 unique listeners and we've just crossed about 15,000 downloads.
- 0:36so we have about, in the last month we had a uh new, I think 489 new listeners added to the show.
- 0:45And so it's just really, really incredible what God is doing.
- 0:48We thank all of you guys.
- 0:49You guys are the ones.
- 0:50that have made that happen by leaving us reviews.
- 0:53getting, we have nothing but five stars.
- 0:55Of course, now that I say that, somebody listening is gonna give us a one star.
- 0:59But we have nothing but five stars and you guys giving us a rating, putting something in the comment section, that's the thing that propels us up in all the podcast directories
- 1:09and makes us more visible.
- 1:11And our goal is we don't monetize this podcast, we don't make any money off of it.
- 1:15The whole idea is to
- 1:17um is to go out there and be an encouragement to laborers in the harvest and equip them.
- 1:21And that's the whole purpose of the exchange ministry is an equipping ministry, equipping the saints and coming alongside churches.
- 1:28And so thank you guys so much.
- 1:30We're thankful this season to look back on the year and see everything that God is doing at the exchange and around the world and in His church and through His people.
- 1:39And we love you guys very, very much.
- 1:41I love the episode topic for today.
- 1:44I wanna get right into it.
- 1:45um
- 1:46I was sitting at an exchange seminar listening to Jeff teach and two thoughts crossed my mind and we're going to talk about the first one today.
- 1:53Next week we're going to talk about the second one.
- 1:56The one we're going to talk about today is it crossed my mind that the need to immediately give the gospel in every conversation is actually a degradation of God's sovereignty.
- 2:06And I was thinking of the person, and there's people like this in every church, and I think there's some people that are just wired like this because
- 2:13They have zeal for evangelism that comes out of their pores.
- 2:17And so it's not a bad thing.
- 2:18I'm not talking about like it's an evil thing at all.
- 2:20But I did think about this from a theological perspective.
- 2:23If you're in every conversation you have, you just have to at some point, just artificially or forcefully or otherwise, just insert the gospel.
- 2:32You have to.
- 2:34Every unbeliever you talk with, no matter whether you know them or not,
- 2:39in every conversation you just have to get to the gospel, you just have to talk about the gospel.
- 2:44Is that a degradation of God's sovereignty?
- 2:48ah My thought process was sometimes I felt guilty not getting the gospel to somebody who I only met once.
- 2:57And the thought that plagues my mind is, what if I just messed up their salvation?
- 3:02And so that's what I want to ask you, Jeff, is how would you answer that?
- 3:06Yeah, well, I think that did I mess up their salvation, that's where you're really getting into that degradation of the sovereignty of God, God calls people God woos people, he's
- 3:19the one who is shepherding all of that.
- 3:22And I think there's this balance.
- 3:25And that's what we want to talk about the next two weeks is this balance that God is sovereign, he controls everything, but that he chooses to use
- 3:35The fact that he chooses to use us doesn't make him dependent upon us.
- 3:42It just makes us have the ability to impact eternity.
- 3:47I mean, it's, it doesn't degrade God's sovereignty.
- 3:51If I make a mistake, because I do, mean, none of us are perfect.
- 3:55We do miss opportunities.
- 3:57We do sin, and our sin is
- 4:02real.
- 4:02It's not like it was part of God's sovereign plan.
- 4:05It was my choice.
- 4:06But God in his sovereignty weaves all of that together and even uses these errors on our part to accomplish his perfect will.
- 4:15So I think that we put way too much on our own shoulders when we when we uh think I'm going to mess up somebody else's chance to get to heaven.
- 4:26That's that's in God's hands.
- 4:27Having said that, what a privilege.
- 4:29that God chooses to use us to, to be able to impact people for eternity and to be able to have uh eternal friendships in heaven with people who are there because we had the
- 4:41privilege of giving them the gospel.
- 4:42That's, that's really amazing.
- 4:46I do want to kind of play the devil's advocate for just a moment.
- 4:49Not, not that I am anyway, downgrading what I just said and what you're thinking about.
- 4:56But
- 4:56back into the mind of the person who feels like I have got to give the gospel to every single person in every single conversation that I have.
- 5:04And I think the reality is God has called us to give the gospel to every creature.
- 5:13I mean, that's that's the command of scripture that to go into all the world and give the gospel to every creation, every creature.
- 5:21ah So I feel like we
- 5:24have to examine that uh concept and just kind of ask ourselves, number one, is that possible?
- 5:33I mean, God gave us command, is it possible for me to obey that command?
- 5:40And I guess I have three different thoughts.
- 5:42And number one, certainly not as an individual.
- 5:46I think all of us have to admit that.
- 5:47Would you agree with me, George, that
- 5:49Right.
- 5:49As an individual, there's no way I'm going to be able to give the gospel to every single creature on the earth.
- 5:55Yeah.
- 5:56And so if did God call me to do something that is impossible, and then I think no, God placed me in a church.
- 6:04And so then I have to ask my question myself the question, is it possible for a local church to give the gospel to every single creature?
- 6:14And again, I think the answer is probably not.
- 6:17uh So then I think we have to go a little broader and say, is it possible for Christianity on earth today to give the gospel to every creature on earth today?
- 6:32And I think the answer is very absolutely yes.
- 6:36I love that illustration that we use ah in the exchange seminar of if you've got two determined disciple makers,
- 6:46And they determine that they are going to give the gospel and train that person that they lead to Christ to be able to grow in Christ and lead other people to Christ.
- 6:57If they were to do that twice a year, one person every six months, by the time 16 years comes up, over 8 billion people have been impacted by the gospel because of the power of
- 7:12multiplication.
- 7:13And I think that the key is, if we as believers are personally being responsible, and that's the other side of this equation is the human responsibility of humans.
- 7:24If we're being responsible to lead the people God puts in our life to Christ and disciple them and train them to lead people to Christ and disciple them, then we absolutely do have
- 7:35the ability to lead the world or to give the world the gospel.
- 7:39in our lifetime and in the next 16 years, God's given us the opportunity to get that done.
- 7:45If we work together as the whole of the church, the universal church, everybody doing what God called us to do.
- 7:53Yep, and it's been the vehicle, the church has been the vehicle for 2,000 years for getting the gospel into the world.
- 8:01you know, um sure there have been at times people that by themselves have reached tens of thousands, you know, in their preaching ministry.
- 8:09I think of like a George Whitefield.
- 8:11I think of the Wesley brothers.
- 8:13think of, you know, uh but none of that is sustained.
- 8:19None of that multiplication actually happens with
- 8:22out the church.
- 8:23so that church is the glue ah for gospel movement in the world.
- 8:28And so the best revivals, the ones that really last are the ones they go and plant churches, not just where you go hit a country with an evangelistic campaign, but you
- 8:37actually plant churches in that country.
- 8:39Think of Burma, think of the missionary there.
- 8:42uh boy, what's his name?
- 8:44I forgot the...
- 8:45Yes, Judson.
- 8:47And so Judson...
- 8:48only saw maybe, I think a little less than 50 people come to Christ before he was in the ground.
- 8:53And then by the time he was in the ground, that's it, that's all that had to come Christ.
- 8:57But 100 years later, there was something like almost 100 churches planted out of that.
- 9:02And it's because he focused on truth and the church.
- 9:05And so that's the power of what you're talking about, what the universal church and local churches can do in the world when it comes to sharing the gospel.
- 9:14Absolutely.
- 9:14I had privilege of being in Myanmar in 2000.
- 9:20And I was up in the foot of the chen hills.
- 9:26ah And we were preaching to pastors and we had a uh auditorium full of about 1000 pastors that we were preaching to what a what a privilege.
- 9:37And they were using a Bible that someone showed me.
- 9:40And in the front of it, it was written.
- 9:43in the uh chin language, but in the front of it, it uh had a English uh kind of almost a thank you to add an iron Judson who was the first one who translated the Bible into
- 9:57Burmese.
- 9:58And eventually all these other translations and all these people impacted every single person in Burma, Myanmar, can trace their Christian lineage back to that
- 10:12faithful man who only led just a handful of people actually, a church building full of people to the Lord.
- 10:21And yet every single person in that country today can put their Christian lineage back to him.
- 10:27That's the faithfulness of an individual working in a local church, who then God spreads all over the world.
- 10:35That's that's the beauty of it all.
- 10:36Yep, amen, amen, I love that.
- 10:39So, yeah, go ahead.
- 10:41I was just gonna say I actually know a woman who was driving down the road.
- 10:48And uh she took the responsibility of giving the gospel to people personally.
- 10:54And she saw a man on a ladder working on an electric pole.
- 10:58So you've seen them up there.
- 10:59They put these big ladders up and they wrap them the wire with these big rubber uh things and uh she's
- 11:07immediately thought that man needs the gospel, I should stop and tell him about Jesus.
- 11:13Of course.
- 11:14She didn't do that.
- 11:15I mean, literally, she would have had to have stopped him and what he was doing, yell up at him, try to give the gospel that was an impossible situation.
- 11:25But but she literally felt guilty about that afterwards, because she assumed that that feeling that prompting
- 11:35was the Holy Spirit and that she had disobeyed.
- 11:38And I think that that's where we can recognize that the probability is, maybe I should ask it in a question, does God want me to give the gospel in every conversation that I have?
- 11:56And I think that we have to just like we have to go back to uh
- 12:02has God called us to give the gospel to every creature?
- 12:06Yes, the church as a whole.
- 12:08But is it possible for me as an individual to get that done?
- 12:11And the answer is no.
- 12:13So God doesn't want me as an individual to give the gospel to every single creature on the earth.
- 12:20He just wants me to be a part of what he's doing.
- 12:23Same thing I think is true about does God want me to give the gospel in every conversation that I have.
- 12:28And I think there's the practicality.
- 12:30of living life, that it is uh not fair for me to believe that God expects me to give the gospel in every single conversation.
- 12:44Conversely, I think that it is fair for me to think God probably does expect me to give the gospel to more people than I actually do.
- 12:56Mmm.
- 12:56that it is fair for me to recognize that there are probably times that God has called me to give the gospel and I haven't done it.
- 13:06I think that that's what repentance is all about.
- 13:09God doesn't want us to live guilty, but God does want us to recognize our guilt and to bring it to him.
- 13:15Mm-hmm.
- 13:17Yeah, yep.
- 13:18There are, um yep, there are times that you just, you do ask God for forgiveness.
- 13:23go, you know what?
- 13:24Should have been more intentional than that.
- 13:26I should have, I should have been, I should have had more urgency than that.
- 13:30uh Perfect example.
- 13:32I just wrapped up being a pastor at a church in North Phoenix and now been called to be the lead pastor at a church at the very southeast end of the Phoenix uh area.
- 13:44And uh in a going away uh lunch that my growth group had, my small group had for me, uh Inwalks and a couple that we've been trying to win to Christ, that we've been trying to
- 13:56lead to Christ, sorry, for a couple years.
- 14:00And uh I introduced them to the whole group and uh it was probably the third time they've been in a church setting with us.
- 14:09And I got pretty teary when I was introducing them and telling people that I love them.
- 14:14and how much they mean to me.
- 14:16But um the reason I was getting teary is because I was looking at them and going, um I should have had more conversation.
- 14:25And that's the time to say to the Lord, I did not do what I should have done, um but Lord, I know nobody can stop you from doing what you will do.
- 14:37Amen.
- 14:37Well, that's a great balance.
- 14:38That's a beautiful balance, George.
- 14:40Thanks for bringing that up.
- 14:41Yeah, yeah.
- 14:42And that's the question, what is the balance?
- 14:44Yeah.
- 14:44And I think I think ultimately, we have to look around and say, Okay, where has God, we're talking about the sovereignty of God, where has God sovereignly placed me?
- 14:56And so if you don't mind, I think it would be wise for us to just kind of delineate some of these places so that we can have a practical expectation of ourselves.
- 15:09So where
- 15:09does God want me to give the gospel?
- 15:11Where am I humanly responsible?
- 15:14And the very first place I think of where I look around and say God sovereignly placed me here is my neighborhood.
- 15:23You know, you're you're leaving one and you're getting into one.
- 15:26So I'm sure this is a thought in your mind right now.
- 15:28Yep, that's exactly it.
- 15:31Where we're buying a house right now, my house is built and the next two houses are being built and the rest of the street are empty lots, brand, brand new community.
- 15:42And I'm just sitting there thinking, this is where God has put me with a bunch of new neighbors.
- 15:48And I basically gonna become like a mover for the next couple of years of my life where I just follow U-Haul trucks into my neighborhood and help people unload.
- 15:56I mean, that's...
- 15:56That's God's providence.
- 15:58the house that He opened for us.
- 16:00So, um that's just, you take that as it comes.
- 16:03He shows you that.
- 16:04Yeah.
- 16:05And it's, it's interesting because even let's just assume that you're talking about someone who lives in a built out neighborhood and you look around and you, know, in my
- 16:16neighborhood, there's probably 1000 homes.
- 16:19And so I, I'm not going to get to all 1000 of those in a relational manner.
- 16:27But that doesn't mean I think sometimes because I can't do something for everyone.
- 16:32it keeps me from doing anything for someone.
- 16:35And I think that what I have to do is I have to start that's where that fine five lists comes in.
- 16:41And I think that if we would just look around us, and start picking out the good thing about you is you're going to be able to build that fine five list a little at a time.
- 16:51Because as those homes get built, you'll be able to add that next person to your fine five list.
- 16:57Right, right, and I don't think I'll reach all 900-something homes in my community, but I think I could start to build relationships with people on my street.
- 17:08Maybe we could have block parties once or twice a year.
- 17:11Those are just some of the things you look at where God's placed you sovereignly in his sovereignty, and out of that, you draw your ideas, I think is kind of what we're getting
- 17:19at.
- 17:20And, and again, let me get back to this fine five list, because I personally believe that the fine five list has helped me to be uh purposeful and strategic about getting the
- 17:37gospel to people because when I see someone that I'm burdened for, and I get them on my fine five list, then
- 17:45I start planning, okay, what are my next steps with these people?
- 17:49um When it comes to neighborhood, we have to recognize the next step may be I'm going to move them into their uh new house, I'm going to help them uh winterize their sprinkler
- 18:06system.
- 18:06I'm in Colorado, we do that out here in Colorado.
- 18:09I'm going to help them clean up the leaves that are falling.
- 18:14ah in their yard, those are those are good next steps.
- 18:18But frankly, those are not the kinds of activities that are going to allow me to get into a soul level conversation.
- 18:26So I'm going to have to have more next steps.
- 18:29And eventually, I'm going to have to put myself in a conducive environment for a soul level conversation.
- 18:36Yep, yep, think that's the progression there is very important.
- 18:40It's one of the things we heard in the webinar we just did is that some of the content that people, you know, want to get into specifically is that turning point.
- 18:49But um I agree with you.
- 18:51uh You're taking your hints from the landscape that God has put you on.
- 18:55Yeah, I think one of the things that people think of these days financially is leveraging themselves.
- 19:01And really, what we're doing is we're leveraging our opportunities to be able to get to a place where we have an opportunity to talk to them about their soul needs.
- 19:11I've been thinking about this concept of soul needs, every human has them.
- 19:16God created them for him.
- 19:20But but people don't know that they need him.
- 19:23And if I just walk up to them and say, you need God, they're gonna immediately think to themselves, this guy's crazy.
- 19:31I don't need that.
- 19:32don't even, mean, it's a, in their mind, this is a figment of someone's imagination.
- 19:36Why would I need a figment?
- 19:38uh And they don't understand.
- 19:41And so what I'm finding is, this is my strategy, that if I can help each person recognize the real needs that they
- 19:52do have in their souls, and then help them see how the real God who's revealed himself to us through the Word of God can meet that need, then then I have a uh genuine pathway into
- 20:05their heart that they want to listen to.
- 20:08Yep, yep, I agree with you 100%.
- 20:11And so neighborhood is a clear place where that happens.
- 20:15I think the other thing that we can think of it is that God sovereignly put me in my workplace.
- 20:22uh That we know that I am here by the will of God.
- 20:28God in his sovereignty placed me here.
- 20:31Therefore, these people that I work with on an ongoing basis, I need to start strategically.
- 20:38planning how am I going to take the gospel to every co-worker I possibly can.
- 20:44Yep, and those are, we've talked about that in the past, there's an episode, if you guys go back, probably 10 or 15 episodes about HR nightmare.
- 20:54Is it an HR nightmare to give the gospel in your workplace?
- 20:58But man, I'm telling you as a pastor, the people that get one to Christ in the community are the people that my people know.
- 21:05And so those are the real opportunities.
- 21:09And so look around in your life and say, you know, who's right there in the cubicle next to me or whatever.
- 21:14That's how we're seeing God work right now.
- 21:17Yeah.
- 21:18And and you know, praise the Lord for television preachers for radio preachers for people who give the gospel in podcasts.
- 21:28But but the fact is that unbelievers don't often think about my need to go listen to that.
- 21:36It's when we connect with people and show care for them, that they began to recognize this person has something in their life that I don't have in my life.
- 21:46that we have the ability to connect with them in a way that other people can't.
- 21:49Yep, yep.
- 21:51It's just way more natural that way.
- 21:54And then now you have somebody you already, you have a point of familiarity when you enter a church versus walking in and feeling like everybody's a stranger.
- 22:02Yeah.
- 22:03And I think the other uh thing that we so we have a workplace, we have a neighborhood, these are very obvious places, but I think some places where maybe not so obvious is the
- 22:14gym where we work out the place where we get our haircut.
- 22:17um The place where I go to the restaurant and and this person comes and waits on our table over and over.
- 22:27um These are
- 22:29connections that we can make coffee shops where we go on a regular basis and sit and see the same people over and over.
- 22:38Sometimes these are places where God has sovereignly placed me has sovereignly placed them.
- 22:44And that's where divine appointments come in.
- 22:46We're looking for those divine appointments.
- 22:48And when we are able to talk to someone we didn't plan to talk to, I think we have to ask ourselves the question.
- 22:55I wonder if this is one of the places where God has sovereignly began to open a door for me.
- 23:00Right?
- 23:01Yes, this is where I feel like people beat themselves up for not being a solar salesman.
- 23:10ah What I mean by that is there's this mentality of like, have these numbers to hit.
- 23:16I've got this quota, right, that God has given me versus sometimes God is like, now here you want to stop and talk to this random person and try to get the gospel in in five
- 23:26seconds and you don't know them from Adam.
- 23:28but here I've put this person right next to you at the gym at the same time every week and they're always waving to you and saying hi and you've never even had a conversation with
- 23:37them because you're in gym mode, maybe you just don't have an awareness in the right areas of our life, right?
- 23:45So it's like, for me, sometimes it's picking up my head at certain times of day or in certain parts of my daily rituals and habits and ruts and getting my head out of just
- 23:57being in go mode to being aware of, hey, I see that guy every time I walk into the gym, every time I check into the gym.
- 24:05You know, maybe I should start having more and more conversation, try to build a relationship, see if he'd ever be willing to go out to tacos or workout together or
- 24:13whatever.
- 24:14That's the kind of awareness that God wants.
- 24:16Instead, where we're trying to generate opportunities out of thin air, it's kind of like, God's like, I wonder if God's sometimes sitting and having scratch in his head, here, I've
- 24:24put this person next to them.
- 24:25every day of every week and they're trying to grab this person.
- 24:31wonder what gave them the impression to do that, you know?
- 24:33Yeah, yeah.
- 24:34You know, I think that passage that we quote on a weekly basis when we do this podcast that we pray the Lord of the harvest that he sent forth laborers, that passage is preceded
- 24:48by Jesus looking at a crowd of people and not seeing the crowd, but seeing individuals because he begins to name the issues that are going on in their lives.
- 25:00They're fainting, they're with
- 25:02like sheep without a shepherd, something is going wrong in their lives.
- 25:10I really do believe that if we will, I love this phrase, it kind of keeps me on track, walk slowly through the crowd and don't see crowds, see people, individuals, and that's
- 25:21what you're talking about.
- 25:22Yep.
- 25:22Yep.
- 25:23Yep.
- 25:24And just be aware of who gots put around you.
- 25:26You know, there is that person who says I have to witness to every single person because Ezekiel 33 and I kind of wanted to end with this passage.
- 25:38God says to Ezekiel, so you son of man, I have made a watchman for the house of Israel.
- 25:46Whenever you hear a word from my mouth, you shall give them a warning from me.
- 25:52If you say to the wicked or wicked man, you shall surely die.
- 25:56And you, uh, if I say to the, to the wicked, you shall surely die and you do not speak to warn that wicked from, to turn from his way.
- 26:06That wicked man will die in his iniquity, but his blood will I require at your hand.
- 26:12And I, that phrase jumped out at me and you do not speak.
- 26:19I think it's important for us to recognize this is an Old Testament passage.
- 26:23It was aimed specifically at Ezekiel.
- 26:25It's not aimed at me, but I do think there is a principle here.
- 26:30And the principle is that when I get to heaven, God is going to hold me responsible for the opportunities they put in front of me.
- 26:40And I do think that that is a reality.
- 26:44I don't know about you, but when I hear the command,
- 26:47preach the gospel to every creature.
- 26:49When I recognize God is gonna hold me accountable for every word that I say, I have to admit that gets a little overwhelming to me.
- 27:00And so I'd like to make a suggestion.
- 27:03Rather than keeping our eyes on this overwhelming responsibility, or some people do it this way, on the overwhelming need of the lost.
- 27:15You know, there's just so many people who need Jesus and I can't get to them all.
- 27:19If I start focusing on the overwhelming responsibility, the overwhelming need, I'm going to be overwhelmed.
- 27:28But if I will keep my eyes on my gracious Savior and as He opens doors, now I'm not talking about the stuff that I feel stupid responsibility for, but when He genuinely opens
- 27:42doors,
- 27:42I walk through them.
- 27:44Then literally I'm walking hand in hand with a gracious God who is helping me all along the way to meet the needs of people that he is sovereignly calling to himself.
- 27:54That's the balance that I wanna walk in.
- 27:58I love that, means you're not by yourself when you are evangelizing.
- 28:02You are never alone.
- 28:03He is already leading you.
- 28:04He is ahead of you in that opportunity.
- 28:07He knew what was gonna happen.
- 28:08He's already there.
- 28:10so um he's in his sovereignty directing you.
- 28:14And so I think the bottom line of what we're talking about today is trust, right?
- 28:19There's a song that we sang as kids growing up in church, trust and obey for there's no other way to be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey.
- 28:26And I think next week we're going to talk about obey, this aspect as it pertains to evangelism.
- 28:32But I think this week what we're talking about is trusting in God.
- 28:36And that's where we make the mistake.
- 28:38That's where we're blasphemous even in our practice, is that we think we trust in ourselves.
- 28:45Yep.
- 28:46And this is the danger, I hate to say this, we're a ministry that trains people, but this is the danger of evangelistic training.
- 28:54is all of a sudden people can make a transition in their heart and their head where all of a sudden they go from trusting God to trusting themselves because they have a tool.
- 29:05And it's like, no, no, Only God can do this thing.
- 29:09And so just trust in God the whole way, walk with him the whole way and see what he will do.
- 29:15You just be a willing vessel.
- 29:17And that's the key for all of us.
- 29:18So, well.
- 29:19Thank you guys for listening.
- 29:20Pray with us as we pray to the Lord of the harvest that He would send forth laborers.
- 29:26The harvest is plentiful this season and it has been plentiful since Jesus left.
- 29:31It's just that the laborers are few.
- 29:33Pray for more laborers.
- 29:35We love you guys and we will see you next week.