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STRATEGY FOR EVANGELISM FROM II CORINTHIANS 4 From Pastor Bruce Ray

STRATEGY FOR EVANGELISM
FROM II CORINTHIANS 4


STRATEGY #1: “We will not surrender in cowardice, or give up in discouragement” (v. 1)! We don’t give in to evil; we don’t lose courage.


STRATEGY #2: “We will not tamper with the message” (v. 2a)! The problem is not the seed, it’s the soil.


STRATEGY #3: “We will not manipulate people” (v. 2b)! A less offensive gospel is no gospel.


STRATEGY #4: “We will never forget that the real obstacle is satanic blindness” (vv. 3-4)! People can’t see until God re-creates them. Again, we see that the problem is not the message we bring, it is the blindness and deadness of those to whom we bring it.


STRATEGY #5: “We will commit ourselves to serving people with the gospel”
(v. 5)! Though there is a place for meeting temporal, human deprivations, "gospelizing" will always be our ultimate service to humanity. Our love for it, will mainly consist in discharging our debt to them through evangelism


STRATEGY #6: “We believe that salvation is God’s re-creative work” (v. 6)! Through it, He again triumphs over the chaotic work of Satan.


STRATEGY #7: “Though servants of God, we are flawed and weak at our best, so that God’s incredible value and power may have the limelight” (v. 7)! He is the point, we are not, neither is the person being evangelized.


STRATEGY #8: “We will not seek popularity, but will suffer to serve” (vv 8-12)! Neither physical relaxation, human opinion, nor material prosperity will lure us from our privilege to share in the "harvest."



STRATEGY #9: “We will show our faith by evangelism” (v. 13)! Words abound; words of Christ and the gospel do not.


STRATEGY #10: “We will have the motives of the glory of God, the increase of His adoring throng, and our reflection of His resurrection life“ (v. 14)! Evangelism is motivated by many good things, but these are the best.


STRATEGY #11: “We will evangelize the unconverted because their salvation increases the thanksgiving that brings glory to God” (v. 15)! Evangelism isn’t the only way to glorify God, but it’s one of the best.


STRATEGY #12: “We will expect, in doing the work of evangelism, to experience the deprivation of our external selves, while we experience the nurture of our interior self ” (v. 16)! The natural life doesn’t just ebb away, it is helped along by the work of evangelism. The soul doesn’t just naturally grow fat, it is fed in part by the work of evangelism.


STRATEGY #13: “We will embrace these external, chosen sufferings in the cause of Christ, as momentary in comparison to eternity, and insignificant when weighed against their reward” (v. 17! There’s something in store for him who serves God in the gospel - deprivation in this life, incomparable glory in the next.


STRATEGY #14: “ We affirm #13 to be true only for those who fix their eyes of faith on unseen, spiritual realities, rather than visible, earthly ones” (v. 18)! The promise of verse 17 is not given as general to all affliction (as true as that may be), but to that affliction that is somehow related in the mind of God to His cause of worldwide evangelization.

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