The Light of the Gospel
Download MP3If y'all would open your bibles to second Corinthians chapter 4. 2nd Corinthians chapter 4 and Matthew chapter 13. 2nd Corinthians 4 and Matthew chapter 13. And I'm gonna read from the passage in Matthew first. We'll begin reading in verse 1.
Joel Brooks:That same day, Jesus went out of the house and sat beside the sea. And great crowds gathered about him so that he got into a boat and sat down. And the whole crowd stood on the beach, And he told them many things in parables, saying, a sower went out to sow. And as he sowed, some seeds fell along the path, and the birds came and devoured them. Other seeds fell on the rocky ground where they did not have much soil, and immediately they sprang up since they had no depth of soil.
Joel Brooks:But when the sun rose, they were scorched. And since they had no roots, they withered away. The thorns grew up and choked them. Other seeds fell on the good soil and produced grain. Some a hundredfold, some 60, some 30.
Joel Brooks:He who has ears, let him hear. If you turn to second Corinthians chapter 4, we'll read the first six verses. Therefore, having this ministry by the mercy of god, we do not lose heart. But we have renounced disgraceful, underhanded ways. We refuse to practice cunning or to tamper with God's word.
Joel Brooks:But by the open statement of truth, we would commend ourselves to everyone's conscience in the sight of god. And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled only to those who are perishing. In their case, the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of god. For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ is lord. With ourselves as your servants for Jesus' sake.
Joel Brooks:For god who said, let light shine out of darkness, has shown in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. Pray with me. Our father, we pray that you would bless the very reading of your word, and that even now the seed of your word would find good soil and would begin to grow. And in the days weeks months ahead, we would see fruit. Lord, no one here needs to hear from me.
Joel Brooks:We need to hear from you. So in this moment, I pray that my words would fall to the ground and blow away and be remembered no more. But Lord, may your words remain, and may they change us. And we pray this in the strong name of Jesus. Amen.
Joel Brooks:I recently read an article, on evangelism from an atheist website. It was called counter evangelism, and it was written under the pseudonym of the pagan wolf. So the pagan wolf, he he wrote this, and he said that the point of his article was to expose all of the Christian evangelism tactics. So that you could then counter these tactics. And it it was a fascinating article.
Joel Brooks:Like any good article, the first thing that the author does is he defines his terms. And so he he defines evangelism as this. Evangelism is the systematic use of propaganda in order to push a person's product, which is their evangelical ideology. Next, the article states that its purpose in writing this is to, quote, neutralize the evangelist by making people immune to the tricks that he uses. If you cripple their tactics, their ministry crumbles.
Joel Brooks:If their ministry crumbles, then they lose supporters and cannot get new ones. Remember, for each new convert, not only votes for the evangelical movement, but they'll also give money to the church, which in turn pays the lobbyists in Washington. I thought that was kind of funny. The article then goes on to describe the tricks that evangelists use. It says, first, you gotta be aware of the classic bait and switch trick.
Joel Brooks:In this tactic, quote, the evangelist lures its mark in by advertising something unusual or perhaps benign. For example, free water on a hot day. Or free pizza. Or come to our Super Bowl party. Or perhaps have a haunted house, also known as a hell house or a judgment house.
Joel Brooks:You should avoid anything given out free at a country fair or festival that's put on by a church. And next, the article says to beware of what it calls subvertising, which is the practice of making spoofs or parodies of corporate or political advertisements in order to make a statement. In other words, beware of their bumper stickers or their t shirts, which take some corporate logo and then switch it. It's kinda really cool, like this bloods for you. Not as common.
Joel Brooks:No. That was that was in my day back in college. This blood's for you. The article goes on to discuss things like the evangelical tracks that are disguised as $20 bills for you to pick up, and other obvious tricks which Christians use to fool their marks. I I could read on, but but hopefully, you you get the point.
Joel Brooks:I found it a fascinating article, and I was surprised that I agreed with almost all of it. I mean, I agreed with almost all of it. Over the years, I have seen about every evangelism tool that that you could see. I have been hit in the head with the evangelism frisbee with the 4 spiritual laws printed on it. I've I've been to a judgment house during the Halloween season.
Joel Brooks:And I can remember vividly going, and you actually had to sign a waiver beforehand as he went in. And the the temperature was cranked up as hot as it could be. And I went in a room that was supposed to be hell. And I actually had children in chains, and they would come up to me on my legs like this, and they would say, I'm so thirsty. I'm so thirsty.
Joel Brooks:And then you're you're ushered into this room, and you see this dark shadow approaching you, and it's Lucifer. And he knows your name. And he was going, Joel, Joel, I want to torture you for all eternity. I'm not making this stuff up. Alright?
Joel Brooks:And then immediately, you're ushered into this cool room, and you're sat down across the table from somebody who says, if you were to die tonight, do you know where your soul would be? I'm like, I I feel called to the ministry, but I don't know anymore. I mean, like, I I mean, after this, actually, the real question I had was, how did Lucifer get my name? I mean, really, how did he know? And they're like, the waiver.
Joel Brooks:Okay. Alright. So it made me want to sign a different name, a really long name, and do it again and see what Lucifer said. But but I I've I've seen every tactic like that. And so I can understand what what he was writing about.
Joel Brooks:How would Paul, the apostle Paul have responded to these tactics? He says so in verse 2. We have renounced disgraceful, underhanded ways. We refuse to practice cunning or to tamper with God's word. But by open statement of the truth, we would commend ourselves to everyone's conscience in the sight of god.
Joel Brooks:Paul actually begins this section, if you wanna go back to verse 1, by saying, therefore, having the this ministry by the mercy of God, we do not lose heart. And every time you hear therefore, I I hear one of my old Bible teachers' voice saying, whenever you come across a therefore, ask what it is therefore. And so when Paul writes this therefore, he means, in light of everything I have just told you in chapter 3. Everything that I've told you about how God has given us his spirit, and it's his spirit that lets us see Jesus clearly. And when we see Jesus clearly, our hearts are transformed.
Joel Brooks:We're giving these these new hearts. It says, in light of this, we do not lose heart. So because of the work of the spirit, we do not lose heart. Because of the work of the spirit, we do not use any underhanded ways. We don't use any of those underhanded tactics to try to win souls for Jesus, because we believe in the work of the spirit.
Joel Brooks:We don't have to resort to any of these things because the spirit of god is far more powerful than any of those things. Paul says that because of this work of the spirit, we have renounced disgraceful, underhanded ways. We refuse to practice cunning or to tamper with God's word. It's actually very similar to what Paul said before he started talking about the spirit of God. So so the very end of chapter 2, look at verse 17.
Joel Brooks:He says this, for we are not like so many, peddlers of god's word. But as men of sincerity and as commissioned by god in the sight of god, we speak in Christ. So in chapter 4, Paul says he's not gonna practice or he's not tampered with god's word. He's not gonna practice cunning with god's word. And here he says he's not going to pedal it because of the spirit of God.
Joel Brooks:But, let's look at what these terms mean to practice cunning, to tamper, to peddle. The word peddle, it's a fun word. It it was used to describe someone who was on the streets who would do things like water down wine to sell it. And they would water down the wine for a couple of reasons. Sometimes it was for profit.
Joel Brooks:You could really stretch out the wine. You could you could make a whole lot more money if you watered down the wine. And sometimes, they would they would water it down in order to just to make it more digestible. Their their wine would be easier to swallow. So when Paul says he's not a peddler of god's word, he's saying, I will not water down god's word.
Joel Brooks:I'm not I'm not gonna preach or teach some health, wealth, prosperity gospel, try to get rich off this. I'm I'm not gonna do that. And I'm not gonna water down god's truth in order to make it more digestible for the masses. I'm simply gonna proclaim, this is god's truth. I'm not a peddler.
Joel Brooks:I'm not gonna make it more marketable. I'm not gonna do something to take the edge off the truth for you. I will not water it down. This peddling is very similar to tampering with god's word. When you when you tamper with something, you you change it or you modify it.
Joel Brooks:You know, perhaps you're trying to do something good with it, but but tampering has a bad connotation. Something bad always happens when you tamper with something. It always makes it worse. And you could tamper tamper with god's word the same way you can pedal god's word. You can you can do things like reduce the bible to just mere bite sized morality lessons and feed your congregation.
Joel Brooks:So so instead of trying to understand what a what a certain biblical text means or says about god and teaches us about all redemptive history and tells us about the gospel, you could just kinda break it down into a little moral lesson and give it to people. That's tampering. Yeah. And, you know, I was, in Indonesia one time with with with some preachers. And one of the preachers, he he was preaching.
Joel Brooks:And all it was was moralistic sermon after moralistic sermon, just little bite sized chunks. And he would preach on the walls of Jericho. And immediately, he reads that, and he just jumps to a easy application. He's like, so what are the walls of Jericho in your life? Is it drugs?
Joel Brooks:Is it materialism? God wants to do away with those things. And and you're screaming, thinking, well, what's the point of the story? Don't don't just jump it to to this easy application in my life. Don't just, I can, in one minute, look and give you 3 points in a poem.
Joel Brooks:Okay? That's not what I want. Tell me what this says about God. Or or a pastor can be teaching on David and Goliath. And, you know, easy three points in, a poem there.
Joel Brooks:You know? Or just one point. God gives you strength to slay your giants. You need to slay your giants. Application point there.
Joel Brooks:So go and do that. What are the giants in your life? Instead of thinking, what does this teach about God? What does this teach about our need for him, and how we're the ones sick in fear. We're the ones on the sideline.
Joel Brooks:We're the ones who need a savior to come and to rescue And how it teaches us about redemptive history. It teaches us about God and our need for the gospel. But we water it down. Paul says he will have none of it. Another way that you pedal or you tamper with god's word is just to completely take verses out of context.
Joel Brooks:Philippians 413, everybody knows it. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. And, apparently, it's supposed to give you strength to rip a phone book in half. Because when the power team came to my youth group growing up, that's what they had, Philippians 413. And they could just rip those things in half.
Joel Brooks:Instead of thinking, you know what? It's about when we suffer for the sake of Christ. He could get us through that. We can endure any suffering for the sake of Jesus. Probably the most common way to pedal or to tamper is to just selectively teach whatever parts of the bible you want.
Joel Brooks:You reduce it to the points that you just kinda feel comfortable talking about. And so you don't wanna talk about hell. You certainly don't want to talk about having to pick up your cross and follow Jesus. Let's just stick to the God is love. I really like the God is love, and so that's I'm just kind of my a game.
Joel Brooks:I'm just gonna kinda keep going to that, and that's tampering. Paul also uses the word cunning. He refuses to practice cunning. It's interesting. He's gonna use this word later in chapter 11 when he's talking about some similar things.
Joel Brooks:In chapter 11, he he mentions Eve was deceived by Satan. Satan deceived Eve by his cunning. And if you remember back into Genesis how exactly Satan deceived Eve, what he did was he took the word of God, the things God said, and he just slightly changed it. Did did god really say that you can't eat from any of these trees? And that's what being cunning is, is you just you you still cut out the word of god, but just slightly changed for your purposes.
Joel Brooks:So Paul here, he says, because of the work of the spirit, I don't need to pedal. I don't need to practice cunning, and I don't need to tamper with God's word. I do not need to resort to shameful, underhanded tactics because it's the spirit of God who changes people. And when people resort, to using all these evangelism tactics, what it shows is that they do not believe in the power of god to save, that they don't believe it. They think, you know, god, you know, starting off with the gospel is a pretty good thing, but you're gonna need a little bit of help here.
Joel Brooks:So let me kinda do my thing. Let me kinda modify that message a little bit. Make it a little more palatable to the masses. Let me help you out, god. But Paul understood that god's word does not need help.
Joel Brooks:It doesn't need to be dressed up. Doesn't need to be made more palable palatable. It doesn't need tampering with because there's nothing wrong with it. God's word is completely sufficient, and it accomplishes the exact thing that he wants accomplished with it when it is proclaimed. Isaiah 55 says this.
Joel Brooks:My word that goes out from my my mouth, it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it. God's truth when declared always accomplishes his purposes. This is why Paul says in verse 2, that it's by an open statement of truth that we commend ourselves. He saw his job was simply to tell God's truth. Tell God's truth and let the spirit of God do his work.
Joel Brooks:So hear me on this. We are not salesmen. We are heralds. We're not salesman. We're we're heralds.
Joel Brooks:We don't try to sell Jesus to people using what whatever kind of tactic that we have to use. Listen. When Jesus gave the great commission, he didn't tell you to be a salesman. He told you to be a herald of the gospel, to go out and simply proclaim the gospel. Not not to hawk some product, but to declare who he is.
Joel Brooks:We've we've looked at this in the past, but it bears repeating. Just the word gospel itself is so informative on this. The word gospel, which might be translated in your bible as good news, sometimes it's just left gospel. The Greek word is euangelion. It's where we get the word evangelism, euangelion.
Joel Brooks:And the word first simply meant this, a declaration from the king. A declaration from the king. When the king would declare something and send it out to the land, it was called the Euangelion. It it it would send forth heralds with his ewingelion, perhaps to tell of a new law that he had signed into being or maybe news from the war front. And and since the king was good, the news that he gave, of course, would be good news.
Joel Brooks:The Ewan Gilean was good news. Now hear this, the the herald of this UN Gilean, the herald of the gospel, he didn't need to resort to any tactics. He didn't need to try to trick people into believing this gospel. He didn't have to spice it up. He didn't have to make it more appealing.
Joel Brooks:He didn't have to soften it. He needed to simply declare, here's the message. When he declared the message, it it was law. The presentation didn't matter. The Herald didn't have to be good looking.
Joel Brooks:He didn't have to have, like, a great booming voice. He didn't have to be eloquent. None of this mattered because the the the power of the UN Gellion was not in the messenger, it was in the one who sent the message. The power was in the king. That's where the power came from.
Joel Brooks:The power of the gospel does not come from us. It does not come from our presentation. It does not come from our gifts. It does not come from our strengths. The power of the gospel comes from god.
Joel Brooks:So we don't have to add anything to that. I love how Paul describes his own gospel presentation to the Corinthians. He does it in his first letter. Let me just read to you. It's from chapter 2.
Joel Brooks:He says, when I came to you brothers, I did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of god with lofty speech or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. And I was with you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling. And my speech and my message were not implausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the spirit and of power so that your faith may not rest in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God. That is astounding to me when you when you think of the great apostle Paul.
Joel Brooks:He says that when he went into a village or when he went to the Corinthians and he was telling them the gospel, he was shaking like a leaf. He was so scared. His his presentation, it wasn't great as we would think of greatness. It says it wasn't a lofty speech, and it didn't even really make much sense or wasn't wise, at least in the eyes of the world. But Paul says he intentionally came this way.
Joel Brooks:He intentionally came this way to present the gospel to him this way. He said, the reason I did so is so that your faith might not rest on the wisdom of men, But your faith would rest on the power of God. Paul was actually scared that people would think, if I use my if I use my gifts, if I use my strength, if I use a great speech, if I wow them with my wisdom, if I just blow them away, then they might accept Christ. But it might be because only they're emotionally driven from me. It might be just because of my rhetorical skills.
Joel Brooks:Let me get out of the way. That way, when the when the spirit of God convicts them, when they believe the gospel, they'll never say, well, it was I don't know. It was just kinda caught up in the moment that when he was speaking. There's nothing else like a hanger had on except for the power of God showed up and changed my heart. And so Paul would get out of the way.
Joel Brooks:He did not want their faith to rest on him, on any of his tactics, but to rest on God. And so hear me as a herald of the gospel, and if you're a Christian, you're a herald of the gospel. It does not matter if your voice shakes. It doesn't matter if you're scared. It doesn't matter if you tremble.
Joel Brooks:Doesn't matter if you get your words all muddled and it's just really not the best presentation because it doesn't depend on you. Depends on the power of god. This is what Paul talks about next, verses 4 through 6, back to chapter 4. Says in their case, the god of this world has blinded the minds of unbelievers to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of god. For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus is lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus' sake.
Joel Brooks:For god who said, let light shine out of darkness, has shown in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. Here, Paul says, when we clearly present the gospel, Some people see the light, some people remain in darkness. It's what happens. Some people are blinded or veiled by Satan, and other people have their eyes of their heart opened and they see god. It's very similar to the parable that we read to open the service or before the message when we read of the sower and the seed in Matthew 13.
Joel Brooks:There, you know, you have the the 4 different situations there of of the seed being sowed. It's not a it's not a particularly difficult parable to understand when you read it. You've got the seed. Well, the seed represents god's word or god's gospel. You've got the sower.
Joel Brooks:That's the person who spreads the gospel. And you've got the soils. That's the people who hear the gospel. Okay? It's it's it's a pretty easy parable.
Joel Brooks:Straightforward. We sow the seed of the gospel. Some people receive it. Some people don't. This isn't a parable about percentages.
Joel Brooks:You're not supposed to walk away from this. If I get this right, it means 1 out of every 4 is gonna become a Christian. That's that's not what the parable's about, nor is this a parable about using 4 different evangelism methods. You know, we we can use it shows us this way to share your faith, this way to share your way share your faith this way, and this one works. So it presents 4 different methods, and then it shows you the one that really works.
Joel Brooks:That's that's not what this is about because the same method is used on all 4 soils. The sower just scatters seed. Same method. The gospel was was was simply it was proclaimed to all, but yet just one received it. And the one who received it didn't receive it because they were given a better gospel presentation.
Joel Brooks:You know? Wow. You know, that I received it because you you did all the bells and the whistles. You know? It was just man, it was a beautiful, beautiful argument.
Joel Brooks:And that's why I received this. That's that's not the point of this. Nobody was given a better presentation. Nobody received it because the gospel was made more entertaining or more appealing. Same gospel.
Joel Brooks:Same presentation. The only difference is the soil. One soil was made ready to receive it. That's that's that's the difference. One of the hearts was opened up and could understand and receive the gospel.
Joel Brooks:And this is what Paul is talking about when he says, some people are blind, they have a veil over their eyes, and they can't see the gospel. Others, through the power of the spirit, have the veil removed, and they can they can see. And he compares that to creation itself. It's like God says, let there be light in his creative power. Boom.
Joel Brooks:There's light. So just as God did that in Genesis, he created light through his spoken word. He does the same with us. He speaks his word and boom, there is light in our heart. Same thing.
Joel Brooks:All an act of god. And Paul says, this is our confidence. It's our confidence when we're sharing our faith. It's that when we scatter the seed, some respond. When we share the gospel, some respond.
Joel Brooks:We don't have to manipulate it. It will have its effect. I've received a a letter this past week from someone that, who came to know the lord through one of my sermons, and I absolutely love what they wrote. I don't have the letter with me, so I'll just I'll paraphrase it. I I love what he wrote.
Joel Brooks:It was in the middle of a message. He didn't know the Lord, and he said that God took something and just lifted the veil from his heart. Now this is my favorite part. He goes, I honestly don't remember anything about the sermon. I don't remember anything about their said your words fell away, and they they they blew away.
Joel Brooks:Said, but it was the scripture. So where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. Scripture, an open declaration of god's truth. God took that and wouldn't let him get away with it and just kept pounding it in his heart and pounding it in his heart to where he said it's all he could think about, Simple open declaration of truth until god finally drew him to himself. Didn't even remember what I said, but the scripture was clear.
Joel Brooks:You know, if if this is not happening, if if you know, like, I've never led anybody to the lord. You know, Gosh. I'm really not even sharing my faith. I don't see the spirit of God working in power. Might I suggest a possible reason why?
Joel Brooks:Possible. It comes from verse 5. When Paul says, for what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ is lord. I think many of us proclaim ourselves. Now we might use the name Jesus, but because we're trusting in some underhanded tactics, we're trusting in some kind of emotional manipulation, we're trusting that I've got to give the best presentation, I've got to do this, or it's all up on me, that means we're we're trusting in ourselves.
Joel Brooks:We're preaching ourselves. Listen. If if you're talking with somebody and you feel like, oh my gosh. I don't even know if this is the right time for me to share this. I've got nothing to offer.
Joel Brooks:I'm scared to death to do this. It's probably the right time. Because that's when you do present that open truth that the spirit of god God says, yes. Finally, you're out of the way. And you're not preaching yourself and the spirit of God who loves to lift up the name of Jesus and make him real in a person's life.
Joel Brooks:When you get out of the way and you simply kinda say, and Jesus the spirit of God comes and says, yes. And he works and he moves. Think of your own conversion. That's how it happened. It wasn't because you put 2 +2 together.
Joel Brooks:Like, oh, yeah. This kinda makes sense. I think I'm now gonna make this decision. It wasn't because you you studied all the different religions of the world and you put them out on a table and you looked at the pros and the cons, and you're like, Yes. And he changed her heart.
Joel Brooks:And Paul says, that's why I don't lose hope, and I can declare that gospel. And it's why you should not lose hope, and you should declare that gospel. It doesn't need to be tampered with. It doesn't need to be meddled with. You don't need to be a peddler of it.
Joel Brooks:You don't need to try to deceive people. You just need to, in fear and trembling, present and watch the spirit of god move. Pray with me. Father, I pray that you would forgive me of all the times I've preached myself. All the times where I've thought I need to do a little entertainment here, I I this needs a little bit more here, I better not bring this up to the people that's about you.
Joel Brooks:There's there's times I I've done that and I repent. Never has that brought people to you. God, teach us how to get out of the way of your gospel, to simply be a herald. Simply be a herald and let the authority rest in the king who sends the message, not in the messenger. When I look around this room, I see a lot of potential heralds.
Joel Brooks:God, I pray through your spirit, you would equip them to be such all for your glory. Jesus. And we pray this in your name. Amen.
