Motive 1: Obedience to God’s Command

Our first motive for evangelism is simply obedience to God’s command.

J.I. Packer writes, "Always and everywhere, the servants of Christ are under orders to evangelize."

The primary reason we're to be involved in evangelism is because God commands us to.

We are the church militant and we are, as Paul called Timothy, good soldiers of Jesus Christ. We are under orders. And disobedience is a serious offense. Always and everywhere, the servants of Christ are under orders to evangelize.

Gospel Obligation

We all this concept our gospel obligation. "I am obligated," Paul writes, “both to the Greeks and to the non-Greeks, both to the wise and to the foolish."

John Murray puts it this way: "The non-negotiable responsibility binding on all those who receive the benefit of God's covenant with Abraham, is to share those same benefits with the other families or the nations of the earth."

This concept that we evangelize because God commands us to should not be jettisoned from our motives in the name of grace or mercy.

Instead the motivation of obedience should be seen as legitimate but insufficient. In other words, a mere duty to evangelize the lost is a legitimate motivation but it is an insufficient motivation.

Why is that?

Why would I want you to have in your motivational artillery to evangelize, this foundation reason that God commands you, that you’re under orders from Christ as your commander and chief to evangelize?

Motive 2: Compassion for the Lost

I haven't reached this state of spiritual maturity we find in the Apostle Paul when he writes:

"I speak the truth in Christ. I am not lying. My conscience confirms it in the Holy Spirit." Paul writes, "I have great sorrow and," Another translation reads, "I have unceasing anguish in my heart.” Paul goes on: “For I could wish that I myself were cursed.” He’s saying he could wish that he was cut off from Christ, that he would receive the wrath of God. “For the sake of my brothers, those of my own people or my own race, who are outside of Christ."

Paul is not a sterile, theological academic. Look at his words: great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. Paul evangelized because he had a deep compassion for those who are outside of Christ.

Mere obligation or duty is often not enough. You can easily forget about people and give up on them.  And when we give up on people, we are actually forgetting the lostness of the lost, and our heart’s brokenness grows very cold and very hard.

One of the goals of this course is to have the scales fall from our eyes, believe again in the lostness of the lost, to believe again in the power of the gospel to save anyone.

We are going to be asking God to give us a new broken heart for those who are outside of Christ in all our networks of relationships. We’re asking God to give us, not just an intellectual understanding, but something close to great sorrow and unceasing anguish, in terms of our renewed heart affections.

Jesus, in Luke chapter 15, confronts the reality of the hypocrisy in his day in the religious leaders, and their cold, sterile nature of their religion. He responds by telling them stories. Oftentimes, we just narrow in on one particular parable, and forget the context of these religious people condemning Jesus because he hangs out with tax-gatherers and sinners.

Jesus responds to them by telling them three stories about a lost sheep, a lost coin, and a lost son.

Hybels writes, “One of my favorite scriptures that shows Jesus' emphasis on the ultimate importance of people is Luke 15. According to this passage, the religious leaders were upset because Jesus, who claimed to be the holy Son of God, was hanging around with sinners. He shared meals with cheating tax collectors, arrogant merchants, filthy-mouthed tent makers, even prostitutes. When Jesus heard the scribes and the Pharisees grumbling about all his unacceptable associations, he decided to let them know once and for all just how much he loved, and how much he had compassion for, the very sinners that they despised.”

"And so he told them three moving stories: a lost sheep, a lost coin, and a lost son. In each of the stories, something," hear this, "something of great value is lost, and it matters so much that it warrants either an all-out search, or an anguished vigil. When at last the sheep and the coin are found and the son returns home, the respective households burst into songs of rejoicing. Jesus says, 'In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.'"

In the whole context of Luke 15, what is the overarching message?

It’s basically that lost people matter to God. Hybels writes,

"Lost, wayward, rebellious, cursing people matter to God so much that He wants us to actively pursue them. He wants us to search them out and bring them to Him. Authentic evangelism flows from a mindset that acknowledges the ultimate value of people, forgotten people, lost people, wandering people, up-and-outers, down-and-outers, all people. The highest value is to love them, to serve them, to reach out to them. Everything else goes up in smoke."

My first church-planting context was in an inner city, a high crime zone. I came to Christ at a secular university through aggressive evangelism ministries. So the only thing I knew about evangelism was how to witness to nice, dressed-up, educated young people on a college campus.

And here I was in one of a city's high crime zones, trying to plant a church, and trying to figure out how to do evangelism here?

To make a long story short, a man had been sent in to evaluate the church from Francis Schaeffer's denomination at the time. He met with me and we only had a few days that we could spend together and then he was going to leave. I remember meeting with him. He had been a former church planter, at a university, planted a church and had significant ministries of evangelism and discipleship.

Because I knew that his knowledge of evangelism was rich and deep, as was his experience, I asked him, “Bob, please help me understand the kind of methodology, the evangelistic method you think I should be using here.” He kind of smiled that smile that could be interpreted as smug, but it really wasn't. He wasn't mocking my question. But he knew how totally off-base my question was in a way that I hadn't learned yet.

So I'll never forget him saying to me, “Steve, evangelistic methodologies are going to come and they're going to go, and they're going to fit different contexts. My concern is not about you finding the right evangelistic methodology, curriculum, or approach to reach this inner city. May I tell you what my greatest concern is for you regarding evangelism here?” I said, “Yes. What's that?” He said, “My greatest concern is whether or not God will give you a broken heart for the lost people in this neighborhood.” And then he said, “Steve, listen to me. If God gives you a truly broken heart for all the lost and broken people in this community, almost any method will do.”

My encouragement to you is to fully recognize the lack of Pauline anguish in your heart over the lost and ask God to give you something that you can't conjure up yourself, to give you a broken heart for those outside of Christ.

Motive 3: Zeal for God’s Glory

That the task before us in evangelism is not merely to raise up converts. At its core it is to align ourselves with the ancient message of the Scriptures, calling people to turn from their idols in repentance and place their affections by faith in the one and true only God who makes himself known in Christ.

We're actually not evangelizing merely to raise up converts but to raise up worshipers. I want us to look closely at these two quotes from John Piper: “A passion for God's mission flows from a passion for God's name.” and “You cannot commend what you do not cherish.”

The premise is simple and profound. God calls us to commend Him. God commands us to commend Him. And we’ve seen that as good soldiers of Jesus Christ we are to obey God. But we are also to commend him because we have true compassion for them.

God calls us to commend Him but we don't commend Him. Why is it that we don't do evangelism? What are the real barriers to evangelism? People usually say, “It’s the fear of man.” Or some respond with, “I'm not sure what to say.” These are all true. But let’s look at the deeper reason, the real reason.

We don't commend Him, not simply because of the fear of man, or not knowing what to say. It’s ultimately because we do not cherish Him.

You can only commend that which you cherish. You have to commend what you cherish. You can't help yourself.

We see this in all kinds of experiences in life. Have you ever found an unbelievable great album or song or artist? Or a wonderful recipe that is melt in your mouth good? You are compelled to share it. You commend the recipe because you the food.

We all called to commend Christ. And we don't commend Him for a lot of reasons. But the core reason is because we don't cherish Him like we should. So, why don't we cherish Him more? It’s because we cherish idols in His place.

These are a series of life changing propositions if you'll allow them to go from your head to your heart. God calls us to commend Him. We don't commend Him because we don't cherish Him. Why don't we cherish Him? We don't cherish Him because we cherish idols in His place.

These idols we cherish aren't wooden artifacts from a primitive culture. These idols are things like the approval of man, possessions, pleasures, comfort, control. Those are the things we truly cherish because they give us security and happiness. And have you noticed that these are often the things we commend. Because we love them so much, we can't stop thinking about them or telling others about them.

So what's our response?  What’s our greatest need that we might commend Christ with new power? Is it to be reminded that we're obligated? No. Is it to be told that we should have broken hearts? It helps. But no. 

It's recognizing that God calls us to commend Him. We don't, because we don't cherish Him. We don't cherish Him because we cherish idols. So what do we need to do? We need to repent and draw near to Christ, in faith, for pardon and for power.

This is the old axiom, the real heart of the matter in evangelism is the matter of your heart. I promise you, no class, no technique, no program, no curriculum will make the changes needed.

What’s needed is a broken heart that acknowledges the only way we’re ever going to be compelled to commend Him to anybody is if we first repent of what we’re cherishing in His place and begin to cherish Him anew.