GIFTS OF THE SPIRIT – GIFTS OF EVANGELISM
DR. JIM DIXON
ACTS 8:26-40
AUGUST 25, 1985
His name was Phillip. He lived more than 1900 years ago. One of the strangest people in the whole of the New Testament. Phillip was part of the original the seven deaconate, the seven initial deacons, chosen in the holy city of Jerusalem. Phillip had four daughters. All were single. All were virgins. All prophesied. After the death of Steven, it was Phillip who took the gospel north into Samaria. It was Phillip who converted Simon of Sumeria to an active faith in Jesus Christ. It was Philip who converted the Ethiopian eunuch, the minister of Condassi, the queen of all Ethiopia, and it was Phillip whom we are told evangelized the entire northern portion of the African continent. He traveled much, sometimes, at least on one occasion, he traveled supernaturally—the Bible tells us quote God lifted Phillip up from Jerusalem on the Gaza road and set him down by the Mediterranean coast on the ancient philistine city of Azotas. He traveled a great distance in a moment in time by the power of God. The power of God was upon Phillip. The power of God was stop on him to evangelize the world. We don’t know how Phillip died. Some believe that he died a martyr’s death, strung from a pillar in the city of Hierapolis and the land of Persia. Some believe that that was another Phillip but this we know. This Phillip is the only person in the Bible who was given the title “evangelist.”
The name Phillip means “lover of horses” but this Phillip loved the gospel far, far more and he took the gospel to the far corners of the ancient biblical world. The Bible tells us that there were many evangelists in the days of Phillip though Phillip is the only one who is identified by name. The Bible tells us that in every generation in every part of the world, God gives a gift, and that gift is called the gift of evangelism.
In order to help you understand this gift of evangelism, I feel led to share three brief teachings with you this morning. And the first teaching concerns the meaning of evangelistic. What does evangelism mean? It comes from the Greek word evangelion, a compound Greek word from “eu” meaning good and “angelion” meaning message. Literally the word evangelion means the “good message” or the “good news” and so it is that the gospel is the good news. It is the good message given to the world.
We live in a world that is filled with bad news. If we watch television newscast, we see bad news. We read the newspapers and we read bad news. Have you ever wondered what a major metropolitan newspaper would be like if it only printed good news? How would it fair? That absolutely happened. In the year 1900, the Topeka Daily Capital hired a man named Dr. Charles M. Sheldon as editor-in-chief and they decided to print nothing but good news. Charles M. Sheldon was a congregational minister who had written a book in 1896, four years earlier, entitled “What Would Jesus Do?” The book subsequently was entitled “In His Steps” and I know many of you read that book. Thirty million copies of that book have been sold in this world. It’s one of the greatest selling Christian books in the history of the world. Charles M. Sheldon had begun to criticize the Topeka State Capital, the largest newspaper in the state of Kansas for printing bad news constantly, and so the owners of that newspaper did an amazing thing. They asked Charles M. Sheldon to come and be the editor-in-chief for one month as an experiment and see what would happen. And so he came into the newsroom of that major metropolitan newspaper. He came saying that he would run the newspaper by the dictates of Christ. He banned alcohol, smoking, profanity from the newsrooms. He removed all advertising from the newspapers that dealt with products that he considered to be morally or unethical or ethically questionable. He played down crime and bad news, and he emphasized human interest stories—rescue stories, endearing events, helpful editorials. Reporters came from all over the United States just to see what was going to happen with this experiment, and an incredible thing happened.
When Charles M. Sheldon became editor in chief of the Topeka Daily Capital, they had only 15,000 daily subscribers. One month later they actually had 367,000 daily subscribers. Hard to believe but true. Critics of Charles Sheldon said that the growth in the newspaper’s popularity had simply to do with novelty and publicity, and certainly those things were factors, but I believe it was true then—it’s true today—people are awfully hungry for good news. We read about bad news all the time. We can pick up our newspapers and read about the crash of Delta flight 191 in Texas and the loss of 134 lives. We pick up our newspaper and we can read about the JAL flight two weeks ago that crashed into a Japanese mountain, flight 123, killing 520 people. We can pick up our newspapers and read about the 737 that crashed outside of Manchester in England, taking 54 lives just this past week, or we can read about the Air India plane that crashed on the Irish coast, taking the lives of more than 340 people. We can pick up our newspapers or turn on our television sets and read about the horrible hailstorm in Cheyenne, the homes that were destroyed, the lives that were taken. We can read about the horrible train crash outside of Boulder. We read about murder we read about rape and theft we read about terrorist actively all over the world and radical revolutionary groups that threaten the stability of third world nations. There’s plenty of bad news to read.
Into most of our lives, a little bit of good news comes. I’ve had good news in my life when I was on the Angeles Crest highway years ago, outside of Pasadena, California, and Barbara turned over to me and for the first time she said, “I love you, Jim,” that was good news! When Barb gave birth to Heather after 20 hours of labor and an emergency caesarean section and the doctors came out and said, “you have a healthy little girl and your wife is doing fine,” that was good news! When a surgeon took a tumor out of the back of my neck that he said looks suspicious and he called me on the phone a few days later and said, “Jim the tumor is benign”, that was good news! When the Broncos win, that’s a miracle!
I know many of you in your businesses, when you have successful transactions that are financially beneficial, that for you is good news, but you see, there is no news better in this whole world than the gospel. It’s the best news because we live in a world that is riddled by the effects of sin. Sin separates us from the Father. Sin has brought disease and death to the creation. Every day 200,000 people die on this earth. Every year 70 million people die, and we finally reached a point in our life when someone close to us dies, a good friend, a member of her family, a loved one. A tragic world, but into this world, the best of all good news has been given and that is the gospel. God’s solution for sin and God’s solution for death. The good news of the gospel tells us that Jesus Christ died on Calvary’s cross, taking your sins and my sins upon himself, paying the penalty for our sins. The good news tells us that Jesus Christ rose from the dead and power and great glory that death could not hold him, that he conquered death and offers eternal life. The good news tells us that if you would believe in Jesus Christ, we would receive him as our Lord and our savior of life, our sins are forgiven us, death is conquered and we will live forever and ever. You couldn’t have better news than that, and that is why the gospel is called the good news. That’s why the angel announced to the shepherds 2000 years ago, “do not fear for behold I bring you good news of a great joy that shall come to all the people, for unto you is born this day in the city of David a savior who is Christ the Lord.” That’s the meaning of evangelion, evangelism, the gospel. The meaning is the good news, Jesus Christ, and those who are called to be evangelists take that news to the world.
My second teaching this morning concerns not the meaning of evangelism but the power of it. There’s a special anointing that this good news has, a special power that it carries with it. The apostle Paul said, “I’m not ashamed of the gospel of Christ It’s the power of God unto salvation.” Throughout history we’ve seen this power of God manifested in the good news of the gospel.
Billy Graham didn’t want to be an evangelist he wanted to be a baseball player. He played for a few minor league teams, but God called him to the gospel ministry, and he began to practice preaching standing on a stump in a Florida swap. Pretty soon he was preaching to large audiences and the power of God was supernaturally manifested. From 1945 to 1975 over a 30-year period, Billy Graham spoke to 43,750,000 people, 1,717,000 of those people came forward and gave their lives to Jesus Christ as Lord and savior. In the past ten years, Billy Graham has continued to preach and more than a million people in these past ten years have accepted Christ through the ministry of Billy Graham as he’s preached the gospel. Millions more have accepted Christ through his ministry on television and in books.
Billy Sunday didn’t want to be an evangelist. He wanted to be a baseball player and he played baseball in the year 1911 for the Chicago White Sox. Believe it or not in 1911 they were called the Chicago Whitestockings. He was said to be the only baseball player in his time who could go around all the bases and return home in 14 seconds, but he was even more amazing in the pulpit. Billy Sunday preached more than 20,000 sermons—more than 1,300,000 people gave their lives to Jesus as Billy Sunday spoke
Dwight L Moody didn’t want to be an evangelist. He wanted to be a businessman and above all else, he wanted to be a millionaire. And he did become a millionaire but not in any earthly business. A single hymnal that Dwight L Moody published made more than $1,000,000 but you see, Moody never kept any of the money. He gave it all away for the furtherance of the Kingdom of Christ and his greatest joy was preaching the gospel. He preached it with power.
More than a million people accepted Christ through the ministry of Dwight L Moody as he preached and conducted crusades in America and in Britain and shook two continents for Christ.
Charles Finney didn’t want to be an evangelist. He wanted to be a lawyer, and he was a lawyer. He didn’t believe in Jesus Christ. He didn’t know anything about the Bible. He studied his law books, and he would often see references to the scriptures and so he bought himself a Bible. He didn’t want anyone to know it at first and he covered the Bible up with various law books. One day he took the Bible and started to read it. He was 25 years old. He gave his life to Christ. God called him to do the work of an evangelist and the power of God came upon him, and he began to preach the gospel with power. At one crusade, Charles Finney saw 50,000 people come forward and accept Christ and hundreds of thousands of additional people accepted Christ through the course of his ministry and life.
The apostle Peter didn’t want to be in evangelist. He wanted to be a fisherman, but Christ called him by the sea of Galilee. Peter gave his life to Christ and was called to the full-time service of the Kingdom of God. Peter had many gifts but among those gifts certainly was the gift of evangelism. The Bible tells us in the second chapter of the book of acts that the apostle Peter stood up before a large audience in the city of Jerusalem. He preached a sermon, and he concluded his sermon by saying “let all the House of Israel therefore know assuredly that God made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you have crucified.” And the Bible says that when Peter sat down quote the multitudes were cut to the heart and they cried out to Peter and the rest of the apostle saying, “what shall we do?” and Peter said “repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins and you shall receive the Holy Spirit. This promises to you and your children’s children—to all whom the Lord our God calls.”
The Bible says he continued to testify with many other words and he exhorted them saying, “Save yourselves from this crooked and perverse generation.” The bible says that those who received His word were baptized and there were added that day 3,000 souls. They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching, to fellowship, to breaking of bread and to prayer. Three thousand people accepted Christ at one service where Peter spoke. The Gift of Evangelism. The power of God manifested in and through the Gospel.
Everyone in this world who has the gift of Evangelism loves to share the gospel. That’s part of what it means to have this gift. If you have this gift, you highest joy is sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ, and if you have this gift, when you speak, it’s effectual. You see results. People begin to believe in Christ. Now not everyone was the Gift of Evangelism conducts crusades. Not everyone who has the Gift of Evangelism is a public speaker. Not everyone who has the Gift of Evangelism is going to become famous like the Apostle Peter, or Billy Graham, Billy Sunday, Dwight L. Moody, or Charles Finny, but everyone who has this gift will share the gospel effectually. Some people who have this gift share the gospel in their relationships at work, in their neighborhood, but I think what the Lord wants us to understand today is even if you don’t have this gift, even if you don’t have the Gift of Evangelism, you are still called to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ. You may not be as effectual as someone who has the Gift of Evangelism, but you will have some effect. Christ promises that and fruit will come because you were faithful. And you can have confidence as you share the gospel even if you don’t have this gift, you can have confidence because the power of God is in the message. The power of God is upon the good news, the evangelion.
You know in Jamaica there’s a plant, a strange plant that they call the life plant. They call it the life plant because you virtually cannot kill it. No matter what you do, the plant lives. You can chop the plant off. You can cut a leaf off the plant, tie a string through it, suspend it from a string and the leaf will begin to send forth rootlets and they will actually draw sustenance from the moisture of the air and the rootlets will grow and new leaves will begin to form and the plant will grow suspended in air drawing moisture from its surroundings. The life plant. And the Gospel is just like that. It’s got power upon it. You can’t kill it. It grows in every generation in every part of the world no matter what mankind does to it.
The Roman Empire tried to kill the gospel and it couldn’t. By the time Constantine came to the throne in Rome, the gospel had conquered the Roman Empire. The Soviet Union has tried to kill the gospel but there are millions of Christians today in the Soviet Union, many of them worshipping in underground churches. China and India– they’ve tried to kill the gospel. They couldn’t do it. The gospel lives because the power of God is upon this message.
The first time I ever shared the gospel was when I was in high school at a Billy Graham Crusade. I had never told anybody about Jesus Christ before. I went through the training for the Billy Graham Crusade when he was speaking at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum in the 60s. I was nervous. I remember after I’d gone through the training, we had that big night. The first night of the crusade in the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum was packed. I was sitting there, and Billy Graham had just completed his message. It came time for me to do something. He called for people to come forward and accept Christ. Thousands of people came forward. I think a lot of people, when they watch television, don’t realize that half of those people going forward are counselors. We were taught to look for somebody who didn’t have a counselor’s badge and follow that person down front, stand with them and that’s what I did. I picked somebody out of the crowd going down the aisle and I followed them all the way down onto the grassy field. I stood with them there in front of the platform area where Dr. Graham was speaking. Dr. Graham said to the people, “Standing next to you is a counselor who is going to explain to you the decision you’ve just made and the meaning of the gospel.” My heart was pounding so hard I felt like it was just going to come right out of my chest. The man I had chosen was a Japanese man. He turned to me, and it turned out he didn’t speak English. I thought “Oh boy, I’m off the hook!” But they found someone else who could speak Japanese and they gave another man to me, and he was a man in his 50’s-60’s, a businessman in a pinstriped suit. I felt really intimidated just being a high school kid. I was so nervous. My voice was shaking. I remember the literature was just shaking in my hand, vibrating. I was so nervous I don’t even know what I said, and I doubt if he understood what I said. I tried to tell him about Jesus Christ and what the gospel meant. We said a little prayer together, I remember that. When we were done 1 just wanted to get out of there. I was so shook, and I was supposed to give him the literature but I walked away with it. He gave me his card. I went home. I told my mom what had happened, how embarrassed I was, and she said, “Son, don’t worry about it. The power’s not in you. The power is in the Lord and it’s in the gospel.”
The weeks passed and became months, and after a couple of months, I was really worried about how this man was doing, if I hadn’t destroyed what God had tried to do. I had his card and I called him up. It was one of the most amazing moments in my life when this man told me that he would eternally be in my debt. He thanked me for that moment down on the field at the Los Angeles Coliseum when I shared with him the gospel and he said his life has never been the same. He told me that he was firmly established in a church of Christians and loved the Lord. He said he just wanted to thank me. I know that what happened on that field had nothing to do with me. It didn’t happen because of me. It happened in spite of me. But you see, that’s the power that is upon this message called the good news and God wants you to know that. That’s why you can go forth even if you don’t have the Gift of Evangelism, you can go forth and share Christ with people at work or in your neighborhood. Anyone the Holy Spirit leads you to, you can share Christ. You don’t have to be eloquent. You don’t even have to be confident. All you have to be is willing. God will use you because He has power—the power of the gospel.
Finally, I want to spend a moment thinking about the purpose of the gospel. You might think the purpose of evangelism is obvious—to lead people to Christ and that is its initial purpose, but it has a far deeper purpose—a far more ultimate purpose because God has an infinite plan for the universe. Evangelism is at the heart of this plan.
There’ a group of people who lived a long time ago called the Tasmanians and anthropologists tell us that they were a physically distinct race. They lived 150 miles south of Australia on a little island called Tasmania. When British settlers first arrived there in the year 1803, they found 20,000 Tasmanians on that island, all of them with curly dark hair and with reddish brown faces. The men sharpened knives or sharpened sticks and obsidian knives to hunt kangaroo and wallaby. The women dove into the water surrounding the island searching for shellfish. The Tasmanians were a primitive people. They didn’t make permanent homes. They didn’t know how to kindle fire. They didn’t make baskets or pottery but they were a peaceful people, and their basic societal unit was the family. When the British settlers first arrived in 1803, the Tasmanians welcomed these strangers with smiles on their faces, but a horrible thing happened on May 3, 1804.
Three hundred Tasmanians were on a kangaroo hunt and as they ran, they drew near to the outskirts of a small British settlement. A Lieutenant Moore was in charge of the British settlement and when he saw the Tasmanians coming, he panicked. He misunderstood. He thought they were attacking his village and so he ordered—he commanded the cannons to be fired. It’s hard to describe what followed. Some Tasmanians were blown apart—arms and legs taken off their bodies. Those Tasmanians who survived picked up the dead and wounded and carried them away and it was the beginning of a horrible war between the Tasmanians and the British. It was a war the Tasmanians could never win. By the year 1820, there were only 1,000 Tasmanians left on the island, 12,000 British settlers, and the British settlers had begun to view the Tasmanians as subhuman and they would conduct Tasmanian hunts, complete with hounds and special hats and jackets. They limited themselves. They could only kill a few Tasmanians at a time in order to be able to maintain the sport. They abused the Tasmanians who were left to live, and they castrated many of the Tasmanian men and boys and they gang raped many of the Tasmanian women. The Britishers brought syphilis to the Tasmanian people and it became epidemic among them. By the year 1838, there were only 167 Tasmanians left on that island or anywhere else in the world. It was then that the British government decided to preserve them, set aside a place for them on the island, a desolate place and these 167 Tasmanians tried to survive in an environment that was not natural for them. Still disease-riddled, they continued to die out ad the last Tasmanian male died in the year 1861. His name was William Billy King Lang. He died at the age of 34. The last Tasmanian women died in the year 1878. Her name was Truestawny. She spent her final years helping Christian missionaries living on a British pension. When she died, that was the end of a race. Tasmanians don’t exist anymore. They’re not on the earth. They are extinct.
What happened to the Tasmanians has happened to other peoples. It happened to the Gabrielino’s in northern California. They’re no more. To the Ah-he peoples in southern California. It happened to the Arowooks people in South America, to the Guanchez people in the Canary Islands and the Natchez people in the Mississippi Valley. All of these people once flourished. All these people are no more. They are extinct.
The Bible says that Christians are a special group of people. A different group of people. The Bible says “you are a chosen race, a holy nation, a royal priesthood, God’s own people that you might declare the wonderful deeds of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light. Once you were no people. Now you are God’s people.” It is the will of God that these people, called the church, never fade from the earth and it is not simply the word of God or the will of God to preserve us from extinction but it’s His will that we might flourish and that one day we might inherit the earth, God has an eternal plan and it was in his mind’s eye from the dawn of creation and from the inception of the world. He has a plan for this people called the church. He has a plan for the people of the church that they might one stay inhabit the new heavens and the new earth. He has a plan for the People called the church that ore day we might indwell new bodies, resurrection bodies, indestructible, imperishable, glorious. As God once gave dominion to Adam and Even in Eden and to mankind on earth, so it is the eternal plan of God that the people of the church, the people of his Son, might one day be given dominion over all things—over the cosmos itself. Christ will reign through His people forever and forever and that is the plan of God. It’s the plan of God that we who are the people of Christ might one day worship in spirit area truth and perfection. It’s the plan of God that we who are the people of God will one day fellowship in unity and in peace, and it is the plan of God that for eternal ages He would snow us the immeasurable niches of His grace towards us in Christ Jesus.
That’s the plan of God and the purpose of evangelism is to bring more and more people into that plan and to bring that plan to fruition. God has called us to share His gospel with the world. That is why the Bible says in Isaiah 9, “that of the increase of Christ’s Kingdom, there will be no end.” That is why the Lord Jesus tole us to make disciples of all nations. That is why Jesus said, “You shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in Judea and Samaria and to the outermost parts of the earth.” That is why Jesus said to Peter, “I will build my church and the gates of Hell will not prevail against it.” Evangelism. We’re all called to share this good news. Two Weeks ago, and with this we’ll close, a man named Hiretsugo Kowaguchi died. He was on the JAL airplane, a 747 that crashed into that Japanese mountain. When that plane went out of control, there was another 25 minutes before the plane impacted with the mountain. During those 25 minutes, I’m sure the people who were on that plane reacted in various ways. I’m sure some people panicked and some people tried to help others and many people prayed. But Hiretsugo Kowaguchi did an amazing thing. He took out a pad of paper and decided to write farewell messages to his family, and after the crash and the wreckage, amidst the debris, they found that pad. To his wife, he said, “I love you.” He said, “Take care of the children.” He said, “It’s hard to believe our meal last night was the last meal we will have together.” He said “Goodbye.” To his children he said, “Obey your mom.” To his son he said, “Have courage.” To all of them he said he was grateful for the joy of the years that he was able to share with them. I’m sure his family took those words as precious. I’m sure with tears in their eyes they took those words to heart. If any of you knew that this would be the last day that we were to have on this earth, I’m sure that we’d want to say something special to our family and to our loved ones and it was that way with our Lord Jesus Christ before he left the earth. He had a message for HIS family. A message for His loved ones. That message is summed up in the 28th Chapter of Matthew capsulized—Verses 18 through 20. Jesus said, “All power in the heavens and on earth has been given to Me. So ye therefore into all the world and make disciples, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you and Lo, I am with you always even to the close of the age.” Shall we pray.