FIVE-FOLD PURPOSE OF CHURCH
TO BRING PEOPLE TO CHRIST
DR. JIM DIXON
FEBRURARY 3,1991
ACTS 2:36-47
In 1895 at Butler University in Indianapolis, Indiana, a college student named Robert Blakely was having intellectual struggles in accepting the Christian faith. He just couldn’t believe the Bible’s testimony to Jesus Christ.
So, a local Presbyterian church wanted to help him, and they sent one of their elders to meet with this college student. The elder was 62 years old. He’d been a deacon and a Sunday school teacher for many years prior to becoming an elder, and he had a deep love for Jesus Christ. So, the elder went to Butler University and to the student’s dorm and to the student’s room. It was 7:00 at night. For six hours this elder tried to answer the student’s questions as best he could and to share the love of Christ. Finally, at 1:00 AM the elder said, do you want to ask Jesus Christ to come into your heart? Do you want to become a Christian? Do you want to invite Jesus Christ to be your Lord and to be your Savior? And the student said, “I do.”
For Robert Blakely, for that student, it was a great moment. The moment of his new birth. The moment he became a Christian. The moment he entered the family of God. And that moment was all the more exciting because the elder who led him to Jesus Christ was actually, incredibly, the ex-president of the United States, Benjamin Harrison. Benjamin Harrison was a devout Christian. He loved Jesus Christ as a Presbyterian elder, deacon and Sunday school teacher.
He had become the 23rd president of the United States when he defeated Grover Cleveland in 1888. Benjamin Harrison’s administration had seen many amazing things in the life of our nation. While he was president, six states joined the union. While he was president, the decade called the “Gay 90’s” was launched. While he was President, Yosemite National Park was established. While he was president, basketball was invented by James Naismith. Many inventions were patented from the diesel engine to the zipper.
In the course of Benjamin Harrison’s life, he had many exciting and great experiences. But at the conclusion of his life before he died in 1901, at the age of 68, Benjamin Harrison said, “Without a doubt, the most thrilling moment of my life, the greatest moment of my life, was that moment I led that college student to faith in Jesus Christ. That was the greatest moment of my life when I was able to introduce that college student to Jesus Christ.”
Well, I hope you know, that’s how we feel around here. We have no greater joy. Nothing gives us greater satisfaction, greater joy, greater happiness than to see a man or woman, an adult or child embrace Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. Nothing makes us more excited than to see somebody fall in love with Jesus Christ and commit their life to Christ, as Savior and Lord.
That’s part of what we’re all about. We want to exalt Christ. We want to bring people to Christ. Evangelism. The word evangelism comes from the Greek word “ooangeleon”, and this word is sometimes translated “gospel”. It literally means good news. You see, evangelism means to share the good news of salvation through faith in Jesus Christ. This is one of the great purposes of Cherry Hills Community Church. Now, this morning I would like to respond to two questions. And the first question is, “Why?” Why does Cherry Hills Community Church seek so greatly to lead people to Christ? Why are we so concerned with evangelism?
I know that you’ve all heard of concentration camps. Concentration camps or places where political enemies, real or imagined, are imprisoned, usually without trial. It was the British who first used the term concentration camp around the year 1900 during the Boar Wars in Africa, when the British concentrated prisoners into camps and called them concentration camps. Of course, Joseph Stalin, following 1928, placed millions of people in concentration camps, and even the United States and Canada during World War II placed thousands of people of Japanese background and nationality into concentration camps. But by far the most famous concentration camps, or perhaps I should say infamous, in all of history were the Nazi concentration camps that were used and developed before and during World War II.
Perhaps you’ve heard of Belsen, the Nazi concentration camp at Bergen-Belsen. The first concentration camp liberated by the Allied forces. It was April 15th, 1945, when British forces went into Bergen-Belsen, and they found 10,000 unburied dead. 10,000 bodies just lying on the ground and thrown into piles. But they liberated 40,000, living, 40,000, many of them starving, many of them sick and diseased but liberated.
Maybe you’ve heard of Buchenwald. Buchenwald was a famous Nazi concentration camp near Weimar, Germany. Prisoners at Buchenwald worked as slave laborers in arms factories. It is a fact that more than 100,000 people starved to death at Buchenwald. But you see, on April 21st, 1945, the American forces liberated 21,000 men and women from that concentration camp.
And I’m sure that almost all of you have heard of Dachau. Dachau was 10 miles from Munich. This concentration camp built in 1933 as an extermination center for Jews and political prisoners. In 1943 they built arms factories at Dachau so the prisoners could work as slave laborers there. And of course, they conducted those brutal medical experiments the Nazis did at Dachau. 3,500 Jews were killed in those medical experiments, and thousands more starved to death and died of disease and infection. But the American forces, on April 29th, 1945, liberated 32,000 men and women at Dachau.
Of course, the most famous Nazi concentration camp was Auschwitz. Auschwitz was built in June of 1940 in Poland. It was a year later, in June of 1941, that four massive gas chambers were built at Auschwitz, and Auschwitz became an extermination center. According to the testimony of the director of Auschwitz at the Nuremberg War trials, 2.5 million Jews were exterminated in those gas chambers, and 500,000 additional Jewish men and women starved to death at Auschwitz. The Nazis had more than 20 concentration camps, and from 1933 to 1945, more than 8 million were placed in those concentration camps. Nazi Germany exterminated around 6 million Jews, most of them in concentration camps.
It’s beyond imagination, and yet there was a great privilege for the Allied forces. A great privilege to be able to go into those concentration camps and liberate the living hundreds of thousands of men and women who were under oppression. The Allied forces were able to go in there with good news and say, “the enemy’s been defeated, the enemy’s been defeated, and we’re here to set you free.” How in the world could you ever say to the Allied forces, “Why?” We couldn’t ask why? We would never ask why? We know why. They went into those concentration camps because they wanted to liberate those people. They wanted to give them life. They wanted to rescue them from death and from the grip of death.
See, the Bible tells us that there is an oppressor far greater than Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany ever was, and that oppressor is Satan and the forces of darkness. And the Bible tells us, this world is in bondage. Do you believe that? The Bible says all the men and women of this world are in bondage. Satan is the ruler of this world, and they are in bondage to Satan, whether they know it or not. And they are in bondage to sin, and they are in bondage to death. And Jesus Christ said, He has come to set the prisoners free, and that is what evangelism is all about. If you ask why, if you ask why as a church, Cherry Hills Community Church seeks to evangelize and to bring people to Jesus Christ, then you probably don’t really believe the world is in bondage.
You see, if you believe that Buddha can forgive sins, you don’t need to bring people to Christ. If you believe Muhammad can forgive sins or some Hindu avatar or some eastern religionist guru, if you believe that, then you might say, “Why bring people to Christ?” If you don’t believe in the reality of sin, if you don’t believe in the reality of hell, if you’re a synergist and you believe all the religions are the same, then you might say, “Why bring people to Christ?” But if you believe the gospel, if you believe the Bible’s testimony to Jesus Christ that He is the way and He is the truth, and He is the life and no one comes to the Father, but by Him, if you believe that there is no other name under heaven given among men, whereby we may be saved, if you believe that he who has the Son has life and he who has not the Son has not life, you’ll desperately want to bring people to Christ. You’ll desperately want to evangelize.
“God loved the world so much that he gave his only begotten Son that whoever believes in Him will not perish, but have everlasting life.” As a church, we don’t want to see people perish. We want to see people find everlasting life. We want by the power of Christ to set the prisoners free. So, we share Christ and we preach Christ.
The second question I wanted to respond to this morning, that’s the question, “How, how does Cherry Hills Community Church seek to bring people to Christ?” I’d give four responses to this briefly. First of all, we want to bring people to Christ through you. We pray, we hope that each of you who are truly Christians, each of you who truly believe in Jesus Christ, we pray that you’ll want to do the work of an evangelist. We pray that you’ll understand that the great commission is for you. It has been given to you and entrusted to you. We pray that you will know and believe that you have been called to be Christ’s witnesses.
We’ve had classes at our church on how to share your faith. Very few of you have taken those classes. We will continue in the time to come to offer classes on how to share your faith. Do you know how to? Do you know how to take somebody by the hand and just lead them to the throne of God? Can you introduce somebody to Jesus Christ and explain salvation through faith? We want all of you to be able to do that so that when you leave our sanctuary on Sunday morning or Wednesday night, you go out into the darkness as light and you are able, and our church is able through you, to evangelize this community.
Secondly, I would respond that we seek to lead people to Christ through our preaching and teaching and through the proclamation of the word. Almost nine years ago when Bob and I felt called by God to be part of starting this church, we both felt called to preach and teach the word of God, faithfully, trusting and believing that His word would not return to Him void. The charge given to us is exactly the same charge that the Apostle Paul gave to Timothy almost 2000 years ago. “I charge you in the presence of God and the Lord Jesus Christ, who is to judge the living in the dead, preach the word. Preach the word. Be urgent in season and out of season. Convince, rebuke and exalt. Be unfailing in patience and in your teaching. The time is coming when people will no longer endure sound teaching, but having itching years, they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own liking, and they’ll turn away from listening to the truth and wander into myth. But as for you, always be steady, endure suffering. Do the work of an evangelist and fulfill your ministry.” That is the charge that is laid upon us, and we simply want to be faithful.
Our whole staff wants to be faithful. We want to teach the word in Sunday school and in counseling, in our singles ministry, youth program, in the pulpit. We want to teach the word of God faithfully trusting that his word will not return void. And we are always seeking, offering people the opportunity to receive Christ as Lord and Savior.
And my third response to how we would bring people to Christ is by the power of the Holy Spirit. We want to bring people to Christ through you, through the proclamation of the word, but by the power of the Holy Spirit. You see, without the Holy Spirit’s anointing and without the Holy Spirit’s power, nobody comes to Christ.
I don’t have the power to lead anybody to Christ. Bob doesn’t have the power. Louie, Tom, all of our staff, none of our staff has the power to lead people to Christ. Only the Holy Spirit can do that. See, the apostle Paul said, “When I came to you, I didn’t come with lofty words, human wisdom, but in the demonstration and power of the Holy Spirit.” Jesus said to his disciples, “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you shall be my witnesses.”
There is no witness without the power of the Holy Spirit. So, we pray. We pray always, and we ask you to pray without ceasing for this church, for the ministry of this church, that the Holy Spirit’s power and anointing would be always upon us. Christ is the vine. We are the branches. Apart from him, we can do nothing. And His power is released through the ministry of the Holy Spirit. So, pray always for the Holy Spirit’s anointing on our church, on our ministry, and on your ministry as you go forth into the community in Christ’s name.
Finally, I would respond to this question of how we would seek to lead people to Christ by simply saying that, that we really want to be seeker friendly as a church. Kind of a strange term, seeker friendly, kind of a buzz phrase that is used today. But we do want to be seeker friendly because we want to lead people to Christ, and because we want to evangelize the community. We as a church seek to be seeker friendly. We want to welcome people here. That’s not true of all churches.
Have you heard of the Forbidden City? I’m sure you have, Beijing, China. Barb and I were there a few years ago, the Forbidden City. It was built almost 600 years ago by the Ming Rulers who founded the Ming Dynasty. It’s called the Forbidden City because the royal family wouldn’t allow anyone else inside. And they built this great high wall around the Forbidden City and then a protective moat that surrounded the wall. And they were still afraid maybe somebody would tunnel under the moat and under the wall and come up inside the 250 acres of the Forbidden City so, they laid stone all over the grounds of the Forbidden City, 5 feet deep so no one could burrow up. They didn’t want anyone inside. They didn’t really need to worry about that, however, because the Forbidden City was surrounded by the Imperial City, and the Imperial City had a great wall. And the Imperial City was surrounded by what they called the Inner City, and it had a great wall with 9 imposing gates.
I mean, I think it’s safe to say the royal family was not seeker friendly. Visitors were not welcome, and they would sit in their Supreme Hall or their Hall of Supreme Harmony. A royal family would issue a decree, but it was a harmony of seclusion in isolation. And there are churches like that. There are churches like that. Their buildings are like forbidden cities. They don’t have high walls necessarily or moats surely, but people get the idea when they come that they’re really not welcome. This is for the royal family, and of course, as Christians, we are a royal family, sons and daughters of God, through Christ, destined to reign and rule with Christ forever and ever. We are a royal family. But you see, we’re always to be loving and friendly to the unbelieving, and non-Christians should be able to come here and feel welcome. And we’ve sought to have a church like that where non-believers can come and feel welcome and hear the gospel.
When someone says to me, “You know, I’m not a Christian, but I kind of like your stories.” I’m really glad when somebody says that. I mean, I don’t think, oh, well, if you’re not a Christian, what are you doing here? I’m glad they’re here. And my prayer is, and my hope is, that somehow even through the stories they might come to know and love Jesus Christ. And when people come up to us, they say, “You know, we’re not Christians, but we love the music. We feel so good when we sing and when we hear the music,” we love to hear that, and we pray and we hope that somehow through the music, they might come to love and know Jesus Christ. And when people come and they say, “You know, we’re not Christians, but we come because our kids like the youth program or the Sunday School,” we love to hear that. And we pray their kids will love Christ and commit their lives to him, and that ultimately mom and dad will too. So, we live as a church to see people come to Christ, to exalt Christ and bring people to Christ. I hope you understand. I hope our purpose is your purpose.
The apostle Paul said, “I’ve become all things to all men that I might by all means save some, I do all for the sake of the gospel.” I Corinthians, Chapter 9 What’s true of Paul is true of all us. We do all for the sake of the gospel. We’re not ashamed of the gospel. It’s the power of God under salvation.
Let’s close with a word of prayer.
Lord Jesus, truly, you are the vine and we are the branches, and Lord, apart from you, we can do nothing. Lord, as a church, we long to bear fruit for your kingdom’s sake. Lord, take not your spirit from us anointing us always, Lord Jesus. You have come to set the prisoners free. We proclaim you to our community and to the nations. We would serve you. We love you. Use our church, build our church. We pray these things in your great and matchless name. Amen.