Revolutionizing Evangelism: Unveiling the Joy in Sharing the Gospel through JI Packer's Teachings

Ever wonder why evangelism feels like a burden rather than a joy? Could it be that we've misunderstood the concept entirely? In this special Sunday episode of Truth Trek, we delve into the profound teachings of JI Packer in his acclaimed book, 'Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God'. With every page, we unravel Packer's distinct perspective on predestination, evangelism, and the sovereignty of God, illuminating our understanding of these seemingly complex topics.

We don’t just stop at understanding; we challenge our attitudes towards sharing the Gospel. As we reflect on the love of Christ and our responsibilities as believers, we're encouraged to see evangelism as an honor and a pleasure, not an obligation. In essence, we're talking about a complete transformation in the way we perceive and practice evangelism. By the end of the episode, expect to be inspired to rise above fear and pride, putting the salvation of others before our reputation. We climax the episode with a heartfelt prayer for a heightened awareness of those in need of His gospel message and the valor to share it. Brace yourself for a faith-strengthening ride that revolutionizes your approach to evangelism.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Welcome to our special bonus episode of Truth Trek, a Sunday episode where we've been praying together for evangelism. Over the past several Sundays we've been praying for our hearts to be broken, for the lost, that we would be aware of opportunities the Lord is putting in our paths to share the gospel and that we would be praying about those opportunities and for those people to come to Christ. Today we continue that prayer journey and we are going to look at JI Packer's great book, evangelism and the Sovereignty of God, and then we're going to take some time to pray together for evangelistic opportunities on this special Sunday bonus episode of Truth Trek. There are two JI Packer books that I often recommend to people that I find to be very, very helpful. One is Knowing God. That's probably his most popular book or most well-known book, but JI Packer also wrote a great book called Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God and he addressed the topic of the fact that God does predestined people to salvation. It's clear in scripture and yet we need to be out there on mission doing our job as evangelists, reaching others for Christ. It's not a super thick book and in it Packer makes many great points about evangelism. What is evangelism? He talks about what is the proper elements of a gospel presentation, and he makes a biblical case on why we need to evangelize. Even understanding that God is sovereign over salvation and that God has predestined certain people to believe, we still need to be out there because we don't know who those people are, that God has chosen, and so we are to present the gospel freely to everyone, and so there's a number of great points that Packer makes in the book. Well, I'm going to read a few quotes here from Packer's book and just some things that I've highlighted at this time. I've been reading it. I've read it over the years a few times and recently been going back into it.

Speaker 1: 2:16

One of the things that Packer talks about is what is the motive for evangelizing? And a lot of times we would hear right off the bat while the motive is if we love people, we share the gospel with him, packer argues that that's not a bad motive, but it should not be the primary motive. The first motive, packer says, is primary and fundamental. The chief end of man is to glorify God. The biblical rule of life is to do all to the glory of God. 1st Corinthians 1031. Men glorify God by obeying his word and fulfilling his revealed will. Similarly, the first and great commandment is you shall love the Lord, your God. We show love to the Father and the Son, who have so richly loved us, by keeping their commandments. And of course, packer goes on to point out that part of those commandments are the commandments to go and teach others about the gospel, making disciples. That's the great commission.

Speaker 1: 3:17

Then Packer says the second motive that should prompt us to assiduous evangelism is love for our neighbor and the desire to see our fellow humans saved. The wish to win the lost for Christ should be, and indeed is, the natural, spontaneous outflow of love in the heart of everyone who has been born again. Our Lord confirms the Old Testament demand that we should love our neighbor as ourselves. As we have opportunity, writes Paul, let us do good to everyone. Galatians 6-10. What greater need has any man than the need to know Christ? What greater good can we do to any man than to set before him the knowledge of Christ? Insofar as we really love our neighbor as ourselves, we shall of necessity want him to enjoy the salvation which is so precious to us. This, indeed, should not be a thing that we need to think about, let alone argue about. The impulse to evangelism should spring up spontaneously in us as we see our neighbor's need for Christ. Packer continues a little bit later saying May I stress again if we ourselves have known anything of the love of Christ for us, and if our hearts have felt any measure of gratitude for the grace that has saved us from death and hell, then this attitude of compassion and care for our spiritually needy fellow man ought to come naturally and spontaneously to us. It was in connection with aggressive evangelism that Paul declared that the love of Christ controls us 2 Corinthians 5-14.

Speaker 1: 4:55

It is a tragic and ugly thing when Christians lack desire and are actually reluctant to share the precious knowledge that they have with others whose need of it is just as great as their own. It was natural for Andrew, when he found the Messiah, to go off and tell his brother Simon, and for Philip to hurry off to break the good news to his friend Nathaniel. They did not need to be told to do this. They did it naturally and spontaneously, just as one would naturally and spontaneously share with one's family and friends any other piece of news that vitally affected them. There is something very wrong with us If we do not ourselves find it natural to act in this way. Let us be quite clear about it it is a great privilege to evangelize. It is a wonderful thing to be able to tell others of the love of Christ, knowing that there is nothing that they need more urgently to know and no knowledge in the world that can do them so much good. We should not, therefore, be reluctant and backward to evangelize on the personal and individual level. We should be glad and happy to do it. We should not look for excuses for wriggling out of our obligation when occasion offers to talk to others about the Lord Jesus Christ.

Speaker 1: 6:10

If we find ourselves shrinking from this responsibility and trying to evade it, we need to face ourselves with the fact that in this we are yielding to sin and Satan. It is, as is usual. It is the fear of being thought odd and ridiculous or of losing popularity in certain circles that holds us back. We need to ask ourselves in the presence of God ought these things to stop us loving our neighbor? If it is a false shame which is not shame at all, but pride and disguise that keeps our tongue from Christian witness when we are with other people, we need to press on our conscience this question which matters more our reputation or their salvation. We cannot be complacent about this gangrene of conceit and cowardice when we weigh up our lives in the presence of God. What we need to do is ask for grace, to be surely ashamed of ourselves and to pray that we may so overflow in love for God, that we will overflow in love for our fellow man and so find it an easy and natural and joyful thing to share with them the good news of Christ. What I just read is a great section of JI Packer's book Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God, and I highly recommend that you take a look at that book if you have the opportunity.

Speaker 1: 7:31

Let's take a moment now and pray together once more that the Lord would open our eyes towards those in need of His gospel message and liven our hearts to share it and to help us and empower us to do it as well. Let's pray, father, god, we thank you once again for the great salvation you have provided to us, and it's a mystery to us, lord, when we read words like predestination in Scripture he predestined us. What does that mean, lord? We marvel at these words and sometimes it's hard for us to understand it, but no matter what our understanding of that is Lord, we still have a requirement to obey your commands, and your command is to make disciples. That means we have to share the gospel. It means we have to look at the people around us and see what opportunities we'll have to share the gospel with them.

Speaker 1: 8:25

So, lord, as we marvel at your salvation and your grace and your mercy, we also, at the same time, once again, must hang our heads in shame at the times that we've lost the opportunities, or just chosen not to take the opportunities that You've given us, to share Christ with others. Lord, we repent of this and we ask that you would help us to turn from this sin and turn towards a heart that's more evangelistic and more in line with and in more in keeping with your desire for us to serve you and, lord, we thank you. We thank you that you give us many more opportunities when we turn aside from our sin and turn towards righteousness. We thank you, lord, that you forgive easily and you give us great patience as you deal with us in our lives. And because we're thankful for this, lord, we ask you to help us. Please help us, lord, as we see other people around us, to be aware of them to see their need for Christ, to understand how lost they are and how their eternity is at stake. And, lord, give us the energy and the desire to serve you well, to honor you with our lives.

Speaker 1: 9:40

Even as JI Packer said, lord, our primary motive for evangelism ought to be to glorify you with our lives, and glorifying you with our lives means obeying the commands that You've given us, including the command to evangelize. Lord, we realize this is something that we can't do without your empowerment. So please, lord, help us, empower us with your Holy Spirit. Bring us to mind, when we are presenting the gospel to others, those things that faithful people have taught us over the years. Help us to put together the gospel in a coherent way and present it to people so that they can understand. And, most of all, lord, let us trust your word and trust your gospel that you will save people through it, and we know that we don't always know who's going to receive it, but you do, lord, and so we go and we try to present it to everyone we have the opportunity to. So, god, we thank you again. Thank you for this Truth Track podcast, the opportunity for people all over the place to listen to this together, be praying together and to be opening our eyes together for opportunities to reach people with the gospel of Jesus Christ, lord, we ask for all of this in the precious name of our Lord and Savior, jesus Christ. Amen.

Speaker 1: 11:04

Friends, thanks for following along with the podcast and listening to the quotes from JI Packer's book and praying with me this afternoon or morning or whenever it is that you're listening to the podcast. I'm very thankful for all of you that are listening faithfully, and I want to remind you that we'll have one more week, next Sunday, with the bonus episodes. The regular episodes of Truth Track will continue to come out on Wednesdays. Next Sunday will be the last Sunday in our 40 days of prayer for evangelism, and then the following Sunday, december 3rd, is the first Sunday of Advent and I've got some very special bonus episodes that will come out each Sunday throughout the Advent season that I hope that you'll enjoy, as I've enjoyed putting them together and already have recorded some of them, and they will be releasing each Sunday, and the regular Truth Track episodes will also continue to be released each Wednesday. Please share this podcast with others if you like, and we will see you on the next episode of Truth Track. God bless you.