Sermon Tone Analysis

Thank you from all the pastors.

Introduction

(40min - 3)

Methods of evangelism

Gospel tracts

Hundred dollar bill gospel tract

Trick-or-treat tracts - ‘Are Zombies Real?’

Four Spiritual Laws

Door-to-door evangelism

Lifestyle evangelism

Law 1: God loves you and offers a wonderful plan for your life.

Law 2: Man is sinful and separated from God.

Law 3: Jesus Christ is God's only provision for man's sin.

Through Him you can know and experience God's love and plan for your life.

Law 4: We must individually receive Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord; then we can know and experience God's love and plan for our lives.

Door-to-door evangelism

Just plain dangerous today

EvangeCube

Rubik’s cube for Christians

Wordless book bracelet

Evangecube

Yellow = God wants you in heaven, Black = sin, Red = Jesus’ blood, White =purity of salvation, Green = Growth, Blue = Rapture?

Lifestyle evangelism

“Preach the gospel; use words if necessary.”

“The Gospel Blimp (AndOther Parables)” by Joseph Bayly

Group of evangelicals attempt to evangelize their neighbors by flying a blimp over their suburban homes with a gospel message.

Form a committee then a company — Begin to drop gospel tracts from blimp, then blast music from loudspeakers.

Eventually, the neighbors become Christians and the Gospel Blimp Christians are ecstatic then disappointed to learn it was not the blimp that led them to Christ but the love of another Christian couple who had spent time with them and showed them the love ofJesus.

So, what is the most effective method to reach people forJesus?

I imagine there are many different stories here about how we first heard the gospel, but what if there was ONE method that ALWAYS worked?

The beauty of the gospel is that God can use any one of these tools as a method for effective evangelism, each with their own strengths and weaknesses, but the truth of Scripture is that not one of these tools is the MOST effective method for evangelism.

The passage we are going to look at today will address this very thing, and as we are currently in our PRAYER series, you may just have a clue as to what the most effective method may be.

*However, it may be that the prayer itself might surprise you.*

Exposition

(37min - 5)

(ESV)

35 And Jesus went throughout all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction.

Jesus’ Ministry

“throughout all the cities and villages”

According to the ancient historian Josephus, there were probably at least 3 million

Teaching, proclaiming, healing

Just like Jesus, the church gathers to teach and scatters to proclaim.

36 When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.

37 Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; 38 therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.”

laborers are few = the problem

pray earnestly = the solution

We must see the crowd with compassion.

Jesus is the only one who truly had a right to see the crowd with anger, judgment, yet he had compassion.

why is earnest prayer necessary for the harvest?

why is ‘send’ = expel?

we work as we pray

the disciples were not to simply pray from afar, they were to be part of the action

cf

See with gospel empathy.

(36a)

(32min - 6)

36 When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, v

Matt

Matt 18

In Matthew 14:14, “Jesus went forth and saw a great multitude, and was moved with compassion.”

Chapter 15:32, “Jesus called His disciples to Him and said, ‘I have compassion on the multitude.’

” In Matthew 18:27, He gives a parable and says, “The lord of that servant was moved with compassion and loosed him and forgave him the debt,” and He, of course, is the Lord in the parable.

In 20:34, “Jesus had compassion on them and touched their eyes, and immediately their eyes received sight, and they followed him.”

And it isn’t just Matthew.

Mark 1:41, “Jesus was moved with compassion, put forth His hand and touched a leper.”

Chapter 5 of Mark verse 19, again, it says, “Go home to your friends and tell them what great things the Lord has done for you and hath had compassion on you.”

Word for “compassion” lit = ‘feeling in your bowels’

Similar to “Love with all my heart.”

Jesus saw the effects of sin and he was twisted inside.

Jesus still cares!

Thomas Watson said this. “We may force our Lord to punish us, but we will never have to force Him to love us.

That’s His nature.”

“We may force our Lord to punish us, but we will never have to force Him to love us.

That’s His nature.”

— Thomas Watson

This is the way Jesus loved.

He was different from all the other religious teachers.

He touched the dirty and diseased.

He loved the unlovable.

Jesus is the only one who truly had a right to see the crowd with anger, judgment, yet he had compassion.

Jesus likely healed more than actually followed him.

Yet he had compassion on them.

When you go to work, school, store, do you see people around you as souls with a story or do you see them merely as cogs in the machinery of your life?

I can’t help but think of the Gospel Blimp where the group of friends were more concerned about methods by which to bring people to Jesus than they were about the people themselves

>Name one in your circle of influence who needs Jesus.

Feel the gospel urgency.

(36b)

(26min - 6)

because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd

Did you ever stop to think about what your life might be like if you didn’t know Jesus?

How would you have had peace?

Made it through the cancer, depression, the breakup?

How could you live knowing you could die any second and NOT know what would happen next?

I know I’d be dead.

Jesus could see what the effects of sin were doing to people.

Harassed - troubled, bothered

Question is, who were the people being harassed by?

Who is troubling them?

Satan and everything he can throw at them — sickness, disease, demon-possession.

Jesus had just been healing each of these problems.