Today on the Evangelist Podcast, Surprising Gospel Strategy number two. The Evangelists Podcast. Encouragement to speak life to a needy world. With Glenn Scrivener and Andy Brinkley.
SPEAKER_00Welcome back to the Evangelist Podcast. We're looking at uh we're going through a series looking at surprising gospel strategies. Last time we looked at closing the door of the church. Yes. Shutting the doors. Shut that door. Bolt it. And uh keeping out of the church. Yes. And into the community. Yeah. And uh this time we're looking at moving on.
SPEAKER_02Move on, Andy. Just move on.
SPEAKER_00Okay.
SPEAKER_02Episode three. Yes, I'll let you know what move on means in a second. But um I just um somebody uh here in the office has a study bible. Um, which, you know, I'm never so sure about these study Bibles because you know you know that point in the Bible study and somebody's brought their own NIV study Bible or something, and and they just end up, you know, reading out the bottom third of the page to everybody else, and you know. And some some of those comments are are very good. I remember what my favorite NIV study Bible comments is um in Genesis 15, you know, the word of the Lord takes Abram outside to show him the stars. We all know who the word of the Lord is. Hey, hey, the word of the Lord takes him out stargazing. It's Jesus, right? And uh and he says, you know, count the stars, if indeed you can count them, so shall your offspring be. And there's a little note in the NIV study bible. And you look down, and the note against that verse says, There are over eight thousand stars in the near eastern sky. I don't think you're quite, you know, grasping, you know. There will be eight thousand members of the church, you know, I think. Yeah, so study Bibles are a little bit hit and miss, but in this study Bible um she showed me uh this list of all the people that Jesus talked with. Don't you love this as a list of all the people that Jesus talked with? A despised tax collector, an insane hermit, the Roman governor, a young boy, a prominent religious leader, a homemaker, an expert in religious law, a criminal, a synagogue leader, a fisherman, um a king, a poor widow, a Roman captain, a group of children, a prophet, an adulterous woman, the Jewish High Council, a sick woman, a rich man, a blind beggar, Jewish political leaders, a group of women, the high priest, an outcast with leprosy, a government official, a young girl, a traitor, a helpless and paralyzed man, an angry mob of soldiers and guards, a woman from a foreign land, a doubting follower, an enemy who hated him, and a Samaritan woman. Isn't that beautiful? That's amazing, yeah. It's beautiful. Right across all walks of life. Like people you people used to say about Barack Obama that that somehow he had this sort of smooth air of grace, and like he w he never looked out of out of place like wherever he was, whereas you know, Theresa May or Ed Miliband looked out of place wherever they were. They, you know, uniformly out of place, fish out of water wherever they were. Barack Obama had that sort of smooth grace to be able to sort of enter into any situation. But how much more Jesus Christ just talking with everyone from the top of society to the very bottom and just and moving between them and and able to bring the lofty down and to lift the lowly up. And uh yeah, it's just a a beautiful aspect of the character of Christ.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, we'll put it on the show notes because it's got sort of all the references as well to everyone that's that uh Jesus spoke to. It's it's quite a good sermon series.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it could be a good sermon series. People Jesus spoke to, and and you know, and and I don't want to I don't want to move instantly to Jesus is our example, who are we speaking to? Yeah. Because I'm always preaching against preaching like that. But um having basked in the warm glow of this is what Jesus is like, isn't he amazing? Um it is a challenge, I think, to us in in terms of you know, I'm I'm happy with people who look like me and talk like me and and like the same things that I like. And Jesus just seems to have this incredible poise and incredible confidence, this certainty of his relationship with his father, this fullness of the spirit that allows him to just step into the world and you know, he deals with Jairus the the synagogue leader and the woman with the flow of blood in in the very same incident in Mark chapter five. And you just think, actually, the woman with the flow of blood wouldn't even be allowed into Jairus' synagogue. Those two people would never be seen dead together, right? And yet Jesus is is with them and able to um yeah, what is it about Jesus that enables him to do that? Uh and you know, are there things that we can learn in terms of yeah, engaging with people as people uh and not just engaging with people because they share the same taste in music or films or they're in the same socioeconomic strata as us. Uh yeah, so I I find it both inspiring and challenging.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Yeah. I also uh shared that um with some family on WhatsApp and uh a f a few comments made, but I I was reminded how it was like the mission that you did in Durham, the story, the story mission. Yeah, yeah where you have people from different walks of life and then you know you sort of you speak into people's lives, and I thought that was interesting.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, because literally on the Tuesday night we had And you thought it was your strategy. Yeah, no, not at all. Yeah, so yeah, we had um On the Tuesday night we had uh Ryan Lennon who you know was sort of on the fringes of paramilitary organizations and and into drug running and gang life before he was converted, and and then we had Ken Costa the next night, you know, a banker and you know, chairman of Lazard Bank and you know, great friends with Mohammed Al-Fayed and you know Yeah, the same Jesus continues to meet with people right across the world, from the top of society to to what we think of as as the bottom, but he he went to the bottom and said the first should be last and the last should be first.
SPEAKER_00Well, on a on a very smooth sort of transition now into the Andy into the subject of the FM radio and the podcast. He he spoke to some people and then he he moved on. He didn't sort of hang around if they didn't accept what he said.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah, which is fascinating to me. So this is this is our big surprising strategy for today. Um moving on. Um and there's there's there's a few ways that we fail to do this. Um and one one of the ways is we actually want to remain and continue to persuade the person we're talking to that we are smart and we are clever for having trusted in Jesus. And they don't quite understand how clever we are and you know how rational our decision for Jesus really is, and we really want to ram home that fact so that they might uh you know aspire to the heights of cleverness that we have attained. Um and I do see that so often in in terms of the moving on. But before we get into that, let me just say what I'm not meaning when I say move on. Okay. You know, um my sister is coming over from Australia next week, and um, you know, and and we've had lots of gospel chats in the past, and she's identified as a Christian in the past and doesn't anymore. Um and I'm not saying that because you know she no longer identifies as a Christian, I should move on, you know. Um she's still my sister, I'm still a brother, I still love her. I do not mean you should move on from the relationship.
SPEAKER_00Right.
SPEAKER_02Um and there'll be all sorts of people in your life um who've heard the gospel a thousand times and they don't want to hear it from you right now. And I don't mean that you should stop loving them, and I don't mean that you should, you know, divorce them if you're married to them, or you know, leave the family or um move out of the neighborhood. Um I don't mean that. You're not to move on from loving people who God has placed in your life. But there are times um when maybe even with your loved ones, you just move on from that topic of conversation for now. Um so Rico Tyson's book Honest Evangelism just you know talks about how you know you raise the topic and and you know, you you you sort of say, what does Christmas mean to you if it's Christmas time? And and if they go quiet, he says, you go quiet. And that's that's a sense of moving on. That's that's really a sense of of um you've you've in a small way opened the door of the conversation a crack. And if if they're not joyfully opening the door themselves, then you just leave it. And you go on and you continue to love them and you um yeah, continue to invest in the relationship. But maybe maybe you leave it until Easter, maybe you leave it maybe you leave it even a a whole year, who knows what that relationship is. But really the the um the the scriptures that are informing this is um well there's Mark chapter four, the parable of the sower, you know, just fascinating how Jesus is sowing on all the soil types. And you know, he doesn't he doesn't just say um only try to identify good soil and sow on them. He actually, you know, he actually says be profligate, scatter the seed because you never know. Um But you know he does tell us that there are three soil types that are gonna have negative reactions, and then he tells us that there's a soil type that's gonna have a positive reaction because he wants us to kind of get our joy from that fourth soil type that will give us the you know the encouragement to to just keep going with scattering on the other three soil types. But he doesn't want us, you know, continually to kind of you know stamping on the seed on the on the path saying, live, live, live. Um at that point, you know, Jesus' advice in Matthew 10, you know, shake the dust off your feet really does come into play, and that there are really times when you should shake the dust off your feet. Or Matthew chapter seven, Jesus says, you know, don't forever cast pearls before swine. If if then if if you're giving them great gospel nuggets and and they're not interested, you know, don't give it to them right now. Um But I think we find that hard, and I I think I think we kind of think, um, I'm not being an evangelist if I'm not constantly pounding on the same person. And often this this happens in in marriages between Christians and non-Christians, and and I I think it's a wisdom issue that the Christian partner learns over time that actually, you know, to constantly be on at the partner is just not a great strategy. You know, a tap is great when it's on and it's it's working properly when it's off, when it's constantly dripping, it's just annoying. Right? Um and so you know, you run the tap a little bit and then you switch it off. You run the tap a little bit and you switch it off, yeah.
SPEAKER_00There's there's also the sense in the parable of the sower, you know, that there's nothing to do once you've sown the seed. Right. Um as you say, you know, stamping on the path or whatever. The seed has its has its own goodness. You know, all the information that's needed for growing is there. Quite literally. You just need to scatter it. Um you know, you haven't got to stay there as can I see any shoots yet?
SPEAKER_02Orating it for for why aren't you more receptive? Um Jesus has not given us a plan B. It's fascinating with Mark Ford. The number of people have come up to me and and they've told me about their their you know, plan B. Um, you know, I used I used to scatter seed on the soil, but then I realised this that really what we need to do is to is to dig up the weeds from the soil. And so that my ministry is not really gospel preaching, my ministry is more getting rid of bad ideas, and that's what my weeding is. Which is fascinating because in the parallel to Mark chapter 4, Matthew 13, Jesus explicitly says, Don't dig up the weeds, for goodness sakes, leave the weeds. That'll be done later. That'll be done later. And you know, I've I I've I met another person who said to me, you know, then after having tried to get rid of the weeds, I then realized the reason why my seed sowing wasn't working is there were too many stones in the soils. And so then my my strategy was to just remove the stones and and and for her that meant lobbying government about certain biblical issues and and that sort of thing. And I think that has a place, but that's not what Jesus is talking about in in Mark chapter four. Plan A is sow the seed, plan B is sow the seed, plan C is sow the seed, plan D is sow the seed. And you know, and and the four soil types is like, you know, when when people are hardened, utterly hardened, well, sow the seed. When people are um you know choked by worry, sow the seed. When when people look interested and then fall away, sow the seed. But you don't have to keep on sowing the seed to that same person in that moment. There is a time for moving on, and as Rico says, when they go quiet, you go quiet. And what's fascinating is, you know, I I mentioned the the example of uh a Christian partner of a non-Christian in in their marriage. Isn't it fascinating that in 1 Peter 3, you know, here's here's like the verse on personal evangel uh uh evangelism. 1 Peter 3 verse 15, you know, always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. So it's like, you know, have words at the ready when's when people ask. And yet in that very same chapter, it begins, verse one, wives in the same way, be submissive to your husbands, so that if any of them do not believe the word, they may be won over without words by the behaviour of their wives. Which is fascinating that you know, so it's not as though Peter is saying, never use words or words are useless like he's telling everybody to be ready with words. But I think he's seen enough, you know, non-Christian spouses converted, and we've seen enough non-Christian spouses converted to know that actually over the long haul um silences can speak volumes. And and maybe there's a maybe there's a time to turn the tap on and to speak of Jesus, and maybe there's a time to turn the tap off and model Christ to those whom we love. Um and and and the in-between thing of the constant dripping. Maybe not that so much.
SPEAKER_00Another thing that's interesting about the parable of the sower is that you know, the increase of the small one per cent or whatever that hear the word and accept it and bear fruit, you know, the the increase is almost makes up for all the more than makes up for it, doesn't it? Like for the rest, you know, you can spend all your time trying to get plant seed in among the rocks and make it fruitful. Right. But actually, you know, the the fruitfulness comes from from the other people that need to hear.
SPEAKER_02Yes. And I see that in in very experienced evangelists, y you know, there's a guy um in Eastbourne called Brian who goes out on the streets, uh, a very experienced evangelist who just you know when when a JW you know comes across him or he comes across a JW in his evangelism, he's he just he just says, God bless you, I'll pray for you. And does not, you know, does not engage, you know, for for longer than two minutes with that person and moves on. And I'm learning more and more to do that, but I'm such a proud idiot that I want to win the argument with the JW. And meanwhile, there are scores of people walking up and down the streets. Scores of people, and I'm missing all of those for the sake of winning an argument with an avowed enemy of the truth that I'm trying to proclaim, an entrenched enemy who has all already, you know, made his vote, you know, against the divinity of Christ. And I but I want to win the argument. And this is why I say moving on can be quite hard. It can be quite hard for people like me who like to win arguments. Um and so I I'm really struck by the Apostle Paul in the Areopagus. So there he is in in Acts 17, and he's preaching to all the clever, clever, you know, types, all the Stoics and the um Epicurean philosophers, and and and when he gets to the end of his sermon in Acts 17, some believe, some sneered, um, some said, We want to hear you again. What did Paul do? He left. He left. And someone like me is like thinking, No, Paul, this is this is your chance to establish establish yourself at the very centre of the cultured civilized world in Athens, to to you know, to have Areopagus ministries, you know, to to be, you know, to be lauded as this philosopher who can win an argument against a stoic. Have you heard of Paul? Yeah, he can out-argue the Epicureans, what an amazing philosopher. You know, Paul could have done that, he could have stayed there, and he and he's like, Well, some people believe, brilliant, let's get you hooked into church, but I'm I'm out of here. And he doesn't need to win the arguments. He just like you say, you know, the gospel's already got all the information for life in it, and he sows the seed and he has trust that the seed will bring life, and he's able to sow the seed and move on. So I that's it's a word for me. You know, I'm preaching to myself here. You know, Glenn, don't be so wise in your own eyes that you need to win arguments when actually moving on would mean that you move from a soil type that has declared itself to be hard and you have the potential now to scatter seed on on far far more soils. Move on, Glenn! Move on. And I think and I think I'm learning it. I think I'm I'm I'm trying to learn it. Because I think you know, the other thing that you you mentioned about Mark chapter four is you know, from one perspective, you see three quarters of the responses end up being negative. Some of them initially look good, but three-quarters of them eventually look like they've rejected um the word. Only a quarter are responsive. And if you look at that statistic, you get disheartened. But if you continue to sow the seed and sow the seed and sow the seed, actually the fruitful soil type has a 10,000% yield. A hundredfold increase is is incredibly productive. That's a ten thousand percent yield. And then all the other um descriptions in in Mark chapter four, all these other parables are of this mustard seed that grows into this massive plant. And there is massive growth if we can get ourselves out of our rut of trying to win the argument with the hard soil type and actually get scattering the way Jesus has told us to. So move on, Glenn. Move on.
SPEAKER_00Okay, so that's uh surprising gospel strategy number two. And you'll have to wait and uh We'll all have to wait. We'll have to wait to hear number three, yes. That uh we'd better leave it there for the moment. To keep listening to the Evangelist Podcast, make sure that you subscribe. Um and if you enjoy the podcast regularly, please do leave us a rating review on iTunes and Stitcher. We'd be very pleased if you could do that. Just go to speaklife.org.uk slash TEP and uh all the information there for doing that is there. We're not quite sure when the next podcast is coming out because uh we've got uh summer events and holidays coming up, but uh we hope to be back in the not too distant future. Um do check out our Patreon campaign, something that we're looking at at the moment. Um you can see that on the podcast page. Uh again, speaklife.org.uk slash tep. But I think that's it for for now.
SPEAKER_02I think that's a wrap. Move on, Andy. Move on.
SPEAKER_00Move on.