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Summary

In this enlightening lecture, Jason Ridgeway emphasizes the importance of evangelism, drawing inspiration from the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. He begins by highlighting Jesus as the ultimate example of evangelism, referencing key biblical passages that encourage believers to spread the gospel. Ridgeway stresses that evangelism is not limited to distant lands but is a daily responsibility that can be fulfilled within one’s own community. He discusses the various groups Jesus interacted with, such as Pharisees, Sadducees, zealots, tax collectors, and Samaritans, illustrating how Jesus broke societal barriers to reach all people, regardless of their background or beliefs.

Ridgeway further explores the cultural contexts of evangelism, categorizing them into guilt-innocent, shame-honor, and fear-power cultures. He emphasizes that every individual, regardless of their cultural background, has a soul that needs saving. The lecture concludes with a powerful reminder that fear should not deter believers from sharing the gospel, as Jesus has all power and authority. Ridgeway encourages listeners to keep pushing forward in their evangelistic efforts, embodying the teachings of Christ in their daily lives.

Takeaways

Jesus is the ultimate example of evangelism.
We are called to go into all the world and preach the gospel.
Every person has a soul that needs saving.
Cultural understanding is key in evangelism.
Fear should not deter us from sharing the gospel.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to Evangelism and Jesus’ Example
01:01 The Mission of Jesus and Our Call to Action
05:47 Understanding the Groups Jesus Interacted With
11:43 Cultural Contexts in Evangelism
21:35 The Power of Jesus in Overcoming Fear

Transcript

Jason Ridgeway (00:02)
Good morning church. It’s good to see everyone here. I’m glad that you have come to this wonderful lectureship. There’s going to be a lot of great lessons dealing with evangelism this week. I hope that you’re able to come and be a part of most if not all of those sessions. In the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God. And the word became flesh and dwelt among us.

and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. There has been no greater example of evangelism, of goodness, of greatness than Jesus Christ. No one has come before him that is perfect, and no one has come after him who is perfect.

Jesus though gives us a great example throughout his life, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. In fact, Peter penned for to this you were called because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example that you should follow his steps. First Peter chapter two, verse 21. Jesus also, he left us an example.

of evangelism. You know the lessons that we’re going to look at throughout this week can all come back to Jesus Christ and his great mission on this earth. Where he came, he lived that perfect life, he died on that cross and was buried in that borrowed tomb and he arose from the grave victorious. He then walked 40 days on the earth and ascended back into heaven to sit at the right hand of the throne of God.

Now while on this earth there was a three to three and a half year mission, work that he did and there are many things that we can look at that work. The people that he interacted with and the ways that he interacted with them to help us in our evangelism efforts. The word missionary is defined by one as anyone who communicates the gospel

in a cross-cultural setting, whether he or she is an African serving in India or a Latin American serving in Spain. If we think about, you know, Jesus’ commands, in Mark 16 and verse 15, Jesus says, go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. In Matthew chapter 28, verses 18 through 20, Jesus says, all authority has been given to me, both in heaven and on earth.

Go therefore, make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I’ve commanded you and lo, I’m with you always, even to the end of the age. He wants us to go, not just sit back. ⁓ I really appreciated the first lesson this morning, great encouraging words.

Kind of a charge to us to get out and go. Now sometimes we might not be able to go to all different places outside of our country. We might not even make it out of our neighborhood, but that’s our world that we gotta go into and preach the gospel. We’ve gotta do that every single day. And if we can go to the rest of the city, if we can go to the state, go to the state. If we can go to the country,

The United States, go to all in this country. And if we have opportunity to go into different parts of the world, go. But wherever you go, preach. You know in Acts chapter 8, in verse 4 it says they went everywhere preaching the Word. This was after they were being persecuted in Jerusalem. And they were kind of spreading out from Jerusalem to go to Samaria and all Judea and ultimately into the rest of the modern world.

And it’s the idea that they went everywhere preaching Jesus. They would go to town and they would say, hey, have you heard about Jesus? No, well, let me tell you about Jesus the Christ, the Son of the living God. And if they were rejected, they would go on to the next house and the next town and the next city. And they would stop and they would again tell people, do you know who Jesus is? He is the Son of the living God. And let me tell you about him.

That’s why it’s so important that we study Christ. I know when I was in preaching school up in West Virginia, we studied, we had a focus on the life of Christ because it was essential. There are classes, I know at different universities, like at Fried-Hardeman, that have a whole class on the life of Christ where you dig deep. When we think about this sentence or this command,

to go. And when you look at this verse, Mark 16 verse 15, the word go is a transportation method. Jesus tells us that we’ve got to go. That’s how we are to transport. Sort of like we get in our cars and we go from point A to point B. In two, that’s the roadway. All the world is the delivery center. And preach, that’s the delivery method.

The gospel is the product that we take. And every creature is the consumer. And we want everyone to consume the word, don’t we? We want everyone to listen and to hear, but not all will. I wanna introduce to you some people in Jesus’ life. The people, his life here on this earth. Some different ones we can see from this. He met Pharisees, Sadducees, Zealots.

tax collectors and sinners and Samaritans. And I wanna look through each one of these groups and hopefully if we have time get to some also some cultural ideas. First of all, the Pharisees. they were an interesting group, weren’t they? The Pharisees were ones that kind of followed Jesus everywhere he went. It seemed like he would show up in a town and start preaching and the Pharisees would show up.

and they would start at trying to ask him questions. They would kind of interrupt everything that’s going on and try to get Jesus kind of pinned into a corner where they felt like he couldn’t get out. But every time Jesus got out, they were about obeying the law. They would add to the law. There were many Pharisees though who became followers of Christ. In John chapter three, we are introduced to a man by the name of Nicodemus.

He comes to Jesus and it’s interesting right away he says, we know you were from God. We know. And then Jesus and Nicodemus have a discussion about being born again. Of course Nicodemus has a lot of confusion, but Jesus talks directly to individuals. It doesn’t matter how highly they are or how we would say how lowly they are.

according to society. Of course we know that all are equal in God’s sight. For in Galatians chapter 3 and verse 28, for there is neither male nor female, bond or free, ⁓ Jew or Greek, for we are all one in Christ Jesus.

Of course, our country, like to kind of put people into different categories. We like to divide when Jesus unites.

The Pharisees as say we’re a sect of Jews who tried to stop Jesus in his mission. They would follow Jesus around the countryside constantly harassing him. There are people, there are going to be people in your lives that are going to try to stop you from preaching the gospel. Just like they tried to stop Jesus from preaching the gospel. But don’t let them. You got to keep on keeping on. You cannot stop preaching the gospel if one

door slams into your face, go to the next door. We sometimes get discouraged because one door has slammed and say, well, no one’s going to listen to me. No one’s going to hear what I have to say. But maybe the next door will. You think about the people that kind of slammed the door in Jesus’ face that wouldn’t listen to him, that hated him and ultimately crucified him.

which I think is quite interesting sometimes if you think about it. The people that hated Jesus, they hated him so much, but yet they fulfilled God’s plan. They did exactly everything that the Old Testament prophesied about. the hate blinded them to God’s will and they fell right into and followed that.

There was another Pharisee by the name of Joseph of Arimathea. He is said in John chapter 19 verse 38, says, being a disciple of Jesus, of course, secretly for fear of the Jews, anyone that was caught kind of, you know, following Jesus would kind of be thrown out, thrown out of the synagogue, thrown out of the temple, thrown out everywhere that they might go.

And of course, one of the maybe most famous of the Pharisees that we know is the Apostle Paul, who was a Pharisee according to Philippians chapter three, and we also know in the book of Acts, he was given this authority to go into Damascus and to take more Christians out of their homes, whether it be male or female, fathers, mothers, whole families, and to put them in prison.

But on the way to Damascus in Acts chapter nine, Jesus stops him and said, what are you doing? Why are you doing this? And when we think about Saul, Saul said that he did this with in all good conscience. He thought he was obeying God. And Jesus turned him around. You know, there’s a lot of people out there that today that they think that they’re obeying God. They think that they’re living right.

They think so many different things. know, Paul told Timothy that there are people that are always learning, but they never come to the knowledge of the truth. Well, we have the truth. I think a lot of it is they skip things or they say, well, you know what? I just don’t like what Jesus said about that. I just don’t like what Paul said about that. Well, it doesn’t matter what I like or what I don’t like. It’s what God’s word says.

and I’ve got to obey it. And I’ve got to follow Jesus no matter what in order to get to heaven. Now another group that Jesus dealt with was the Sadducees.

Now you might see in the two that there’s this guilt innocence and I’ll talk about that here in just a little bit. But the Sadducees were a group of people who denied the resurrection and angels. Josephus wrote that Sadducees have a nasty attitude in their relations with their peers, are as rude as to foreigners. Sadducees weren’t a very nice group. Of course, you know, it seems like

the Pharisees at times, they weren’t a very nice group either. There’s no record in the New Testament of a Sadducee becoming a follower of Christ. And if I’m wrong on that, correct me, but I can’t seem to find one. Not to say that no Sadducee ever obeyed the gospel, but we don’t have necessarily a record of a Sadducee like we do a Pharisee, and that many Pharisees obeyed. Many today will never have an open heart in hearing the gospel.

You might work and you might struggle and you might strive really hard to reach that person, but they just won’t come to the knowledge of the truth. I suggest pray, especially if it’s a family member. I can tell you that my father-in-law took him over 20 years. My mother-in-law, baptized her in the year 2000, she passed away in 2002.

of a disease, a brain disorder, but she obeyed the gospel. And when I baptized her, my wife turned to her father and said, all right, you’re next. He says, well, I’m just not ready. Well, that took about 20 years. And fortunately, about the time of COVID, he, after years and years of talking to him, my daughter, he loves his granddaughter and his grandson, my children.

granddaughter, or my daughter wrote him a note, a letter. And he kept that letter and he kept reading it. And finally one day out of the blue, he calls and says, I want to be baptized, but the church, and this was during COVID, this particular congregation had closed their doors for COVID. And he said, can I be baptized in my hot tub? And my wife said, yes, if there’s enough water. And would my grandson do it?

And my son Hayden says, absolutely. And they drove down at that time, they were living in Port Charlotte and he baptized him. But there are times, there are other times, I have other family members that went to their grave never obeying the gospel. Maybe you know people like that as well. But that doesn’t stop us and that doesn’t hinder us. It didn’t hinder Jesus. It didn’t stop Jesus, he kept going and he kept preaching. There were zealots.

Zealots were a violent group of individuals dedicated to the old law and willing to fight against anything Roman. They were not supportive of tax collectors whom they considered traitors for working for the enemy. And one of Jesus’ own apostles was a zealot, Simon the Zealot. Now I want to connect them to the tax collectors because I want us to notice something about Jesus and his ministry.

But tax collectors were considered vile individuals who would cheat their people, the Jews. They were hated by many sects in Israel. One author wrote, not only suspected of dishonesty, but in most cases, dishonesty was the rule. Matthew was a tax collector. But it’s interesting, Jesus is known to bring people together.

And if you look at his apostles, you have a zealot and a tax collector. They’re both working for Jesus simultaneously. When we take Jesus to the world, we unite the world. When the world tries to do things, they get it wrong and they divide us. They separate us. They make us argue and try to get us to argue against each other and to hate each other.

We see that in our country, we see that all around the world. But every time Jesus is introduced, that brings about peace. That brings about unity. I already quoted the verse back in Galatians chapter three in verse 28, where we are all one in Christ Jesus.

And I’m going to, I’m looking forward to that if the Lord wills, I’ll be able to hear like Brother Caldwell, James Caldwell, who does mission work down in Costa Rica. I’ve been to Costa Rica 12 times on mission trips. You know, of course he’s living there. But what’s fascinating is when you go down and you’re in a foreign country and they’re singing songs in a different language that you know in English.

And you think about how beautiful heaven is going to be when we’re all together. I don’t have to be an American Christian or a Christian American or a Costa Rican Christian or something like that. I’m commanded to be a Christian.

And finally, the group here is the Samaritans, an ethnic group that could find peace with neither the Romans nor the Jews, a mixed race of Israelites and foreign people. In Luke chapter 10, 25 through 37, Jesus would make known that even the most hated and despised people are loved by God and should be treated as our neighbor, the parable of the good Samaritan. Since childhood,

I have never understood why people hate others based on something the other person had no control over. It has always confused me. Never understood it. Never understood why someone that’s born in one country or one ethnic race or whatever is hated by someone else that’s born in another country and is of another ethnic race, why they can’t get along.

while we can’t get along with each other. I don’t understand that. It doesn’t make sense to me and it doesn’t make sense to me as a Christian either. In fact, once again, Jesus can bring people together. When we look in John chapter four, Jesus meets and teaches a Samaritan woman at the well. Look at this, what this woman said, or what Jesus first says, he says, but he needed to go through Samaria. That’s what,

John writes in a verse nine, then the woman of Samaria said to him, how is it that you being a Jew, ask a drink from me, a Samaritan woman, for Jews have no dealings with Samaritans. You see, Jesus would deal with anyone. Do you know why that Jesus would go to every single person and background? Because every single person has a soul that needs saving.

There’s not a single person out there that doesn’t need saving. It doesn’t matter what country they live in, it doesn’t matter where they’re from or what their belief system is right now, they need Jesus in their life. When we think about Muslims, we think about Hindus, Buddhists, other world religions, other denominational individuals, they all need Jesus.

I don’t know if my wife is watching, she’s in Tennessee with our daughter, but I have to say something positive if she is, that way I can gain points, alright?

When Osama Bin Laden was killed, we were sitting watching television and watching the news about it. And in my own heart, I felt what joy and relief that he has killed my wife. Though she turned and she said, it’s sad. I said, what do mean it’s sad? They killed Osama Bin Laden, one of the worst terrorists of all time. And she said, he’s lost forever.

But that punched me right in the gut. He’s lost forever. And it was at that moment, you know what, I’m gonna change my whole thought, my whole process of thinking when it comes to people, any person. It doesn’t matter what they look like, where they’re from, unless they’re Michigan fans, then they have a soul.

I’m not sure about Brother Steven.

I’m a Ohio State fan, so. No, everyone has a soul that needs saving. Everyone needs Jesus. And we must be willing to go out and preach. To go into all the world. I wanna take a few moments, I’m not sure how much time I’ll be able to have in this section here. But when we think about the world, there are different cultural groups. And Jesus approached and went to every cultural group.

And there are three major cultural groups. First is a cultural group called the guilt innocent. And you live in the guilt innocent culture. The United States and Canada, most of Europe is a guilt innocent culture.

The guilt innocent culture says that the notions of right and wrong are foundational pillars in guilt innocent culture. Society creates rules and laws to identify what actions are right and what actions are wrong. We have a book that gives us direction. It tells us what things are right and what things are wrong.

And if we are living in the world, we’re guilty of our sins and we need forgiveness. Jesus provided that forgiveness when he died on the cross. He shed his blood so that all of us might obtain salvation for our sins. Now, we have to separate ourselves from the world after believing in Jesus, make the good confession.

and go into the water grave of baptism to have all our sins washed away by God, Colossians 2 verse 12, and have our sins washed away, Acts 22, 16, and then be raised out of that water grave to walk in a new life. And then we have innocence, we have purity. And if we make a mistake and we sin, we come back to God. For in First John 1 and verse 9, if we confess our sins, God.

faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Not some, not a little, but all unrighteousness. That’s in Christ. You know Ephesians 1.13, or maybe I’ve got that wrong, 1.3, 1.13, I think it’s 1.3, that all spiritual blessings are found in Christ. That one I get kind of backwards sometimes in my head. I get a lot of things backwards in my head.

family tells me. Well, let’s look at that. I’m going to skip through a few things here. These are in the book. But the second group is actually the largest group in the world. is a shame honor culture. Muslims would be involved in this. Many Jewish backgrounds would also be involved in this. Shame produces feelings of humiliation, disproval, and abandonment. Today,

Many suffer the shame of what they have done or the life that they have been projected into. A Muslim family, if they have a daughter that marries or becomes a Christian, let’s just say she converts to Christianity, she is shamed by the whole family. She is kicked out of the family. She cannot have dealings with the family. That happened a lot in the first century.

Many families would kick out their family members who obeyed the gospel, whether they were Roman, Greek, or Jewish, and great shame was placed upon them for their belief. Well, Jesus brings about honor. In Romans chapter three, in verse 23, all have fallen short of the glory of God, all have sinned, excuse me, and fallen short of the glory of God, all of us.

Jesus has brought about the way back to honor. Sin brings about shame in our life, but Jesus has provided a way back to honor. And finally, and I’ll go through again some of these.

The final culture is fear, power. The culture is bound by the fear of spirits which inhabit the physical world and trees, weather, people, illnesses, et cetera. In other words, a lot of our island countries like Jamaica, maybe Haiti, other places like that, maybe different places in Africa, they live their life on a fear that the spirits, spirit world is going to maybe,

know, engulf them and take them over or punish them for something. The way that we reach these individuals, these people, we say that Jesus has all power. And that you can look into the Scriptures and you can see such Scriptures as Matthew, or excuse me, Mark.

Mark chapter four, starting in verse 35, on the same day when evening had come, he said to them, let us cross over to the other side. Now when they had left the multitude, they took him along in the boat as he was, and other little boats were also with him. And a great windstorm arose and the waves beat into the boat so that it was already filling. But,

He was in the stern asleep on a pillow. And they awoke him and said to him, teacher, do you not care that we are perishing? Then he arose and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, peace, be still. And the wind ceased and there was a great calm. But he said to them, why are you so fearful? How is it that you have no faith?

They feared exceedingly and said to one another, who can this be that even the wind and the sea obey him? Jesus has all power. Remember Jesus was in the beginning with God the Father and God the Holy Spirit creating all things. Again, I quoted the very beginning, John one verse one.

In the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God.

It’s interesting how these disciples did not trust in Christ fully. They lacked faith. Jesus didn’t come to die in a boating accident. That’s why Jesus would be so peaceful laying ⁓ on the boat asleep with all the winds and everything going on around him. The disciples are fearful, they’re afraid, they’re scared to death and they say, Jesus is perishing.

Jesus is like, no you’re not, because I’m with you. Sometimes we get fear of things that go on around us and we let that manipulate us into taking our eye away from God. In Philippians chapter four and verse six it says, be anxious for nothing, but in all things through prayer and supplication let your requests be made known to God and the peace of God which surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts.

and minds through Christ Jesus. The idea, it’s all right to worry about maybe your child going through surgery, but we turn to God during those times. Never away from God. They were turning away from Jesus and looking at all the things that were going on around them, the storm.

took their eyes off Christ.

Jesus has the power, you know in Revelation 2 and verse 10 he’s talking to the church of Smyrna, he’s going through a lot of trials, a lot of tribulation. But Jesus says don’t worry, what you’re going through is only temporary. Even if it lasts your whole life, it’s not gonna go beyond that. Because he says to the end, be faithful until death and I will give you the crown of life.

Your reward is waiting for you. Focus on it. In Romans 8 verse 18, the sufferings that we’re going through are not worthy to be compared with the glory that’s waiting for us. We’re going to be glorified. Glorification waits.

We sometimes focus on the negative, but through Jesus and His evangelism and His teaching taught not only to disciples, but ultimately us today.

that there is no fear of what man can do to us or what the world can do to us. Our fear is of God. Remember Jesus says who can kill both body and soul in hell fire. What can man do to me? What is the absolute worst thing that man can do to me? The absolute worst thing that man could do to me is kill me. You know what? I’m gonna be,

like what Paul said.

me to live as Christ, die as gain. I want to go to heaven. I hope you do too, and I hope that you will take the examples of Jesus Christ with you everywhere you go, and share them, and reach out. Stop.

Keep on keeping on. Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. Thank you.