Notes from Sunday 3 March, 2013..
Speaker: Pastor Nnamdi Ihejimba
Key Passages: 2 Corinthians 5: 11-16, Genesis 18:18-19, Luke 5
The sermon began with the church singing the hymn “Take my life and let it be”.
Pastor Nnamdi began by stating the reason Family month precedes the month of Evangelism; God instituted the Family before Evangelism. Thus, for every family that bestows honour within, the natural next step is to bestow honour to other families and individuals. For members of families where there is a culture of love, etiquette and respect, treating others well would be easy. On the other hand members of families where dishonour and disobedience exist cannot evangelise. He explained that because the family today is not evangelised, evangelism has become a difficult task for the church.
Evangelism is defined as “persuasion”. Putting it simply, evangelism is everything a Christian does or says with an aim to persuade people to come to Faith. Pastor Nnamdi stated that God first instituted evangelism with the children of Israel by instructing Abraham to teach the way of the Lord so that generations after him might be blessed. Thus, passing the message of the gospel from one generation to another, and compliance with the word of God is an important tool for evangelism. The generations after Abraham, Isaac and Jacob disconnected from the truth of the word of God as a result of improper hand-over from one generation to the next. He stressed that this should be avoided in our generation.
He introduced the congregation to two basic components of Evangelism:
- Teaching/Speaking
- Being/Doing
It follows that consciously or unconsciously, everyone is an Evangelist. Evangelism should not be an outward show, but the total sum of the life a person lives. Our lives as Christians can communicate Christ to the world, or can send the wrong message about Christ. The work of evangelism is continuous, done day after day
- Transformation/change of belief leading to culture change
- Hope in living/Hope renewed
- Elimination of fear of an uncertain future
- Living a life of purpose
- Establishes God’s kingdom on earth
- World peace, prosperity and good governance
Pastor Nnamdi further emphasized that evangelism is about preaching the love of Christ and that it is the inside, not the outside that matters. As Christians, what we preach should be what we do. Our lifestyles should preach Christ.
The nature of Evangelism in today’s world
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- God wants all his works to be reconciled to him thereby establishing the kingdom of God on earth. In teaching our Lord’s Prayer, Jesus taught us to pray for God’s kingdom to come on earth: as things are done in heaven they shall also be done on earth (Matthew 6:9-13).
- Jesus compels us to reach the world for him
- His love has taught us how to honour him by persuading the world to be reconciled to him
- His love has shown us the terror of his anger against the sins of the sinning world
- His love has made us dispensers of hope
- His love has shown us that ultimately, the kingdom of this world shall become the kingdom of our God and his Christ
What Evangelism is NOT
- It is not a message of condemnation
- It is not taking advantage of people’s weaknesses and pressuring them to submission
- It is not posting unguarded messages
- It is not publicity
Action Points
- Develop passion for a new world where righteousness reigns
- Ask for power from the Holy Spirit to combat the spirits of this present world
- Be patient to wait and see the seed sown grow, germinate and bear fruit
- Persevere especially when it looks as if everything is going awry
- Stand by each other
- Be wise as a serpent
- Be like yeast: influence and expand
- Evangelise your own life
- Become a change agent
- Make a decision to live a holy life
- Read the book Change Agent by O.S Hilman
Evangelism is an everyday thing, everywhere, from every Christian to everyone
