Too Amazing to Keep to Yourself

By Kenneth E Wilson and Stuart Briscoe

Seasoned pastor Stuart Briscoe examines each of the Minor Prophets, providing both helpful historical context, and demonstrating the relevance of each prophet's message to believers today. If you want to take God's words from the Minor Prophets seriously, this book will help enrich your Bible study.

• Language: English
• Publisher: CLC Publications
• Release date: Nov 7, 2022
• ISBN: 9781619581555

Book preview

INTRODUCTION

Istill remember the knot in the pit of my fifteen-year-old stomach.

My big sister was recounting to our family a horrifying experience that had occurred at her friend’s church. She had just returned home from an out-of-state trip on which she had been visiting her best friend from grade school. While she and her friend were at church, several people had aggressively confronted my sister with the question, Are you saved? As she relived the experience in sharing the story with us, her shock at being subjected to such a blunt and mysterious query was clear to see. When I was growing up, those words were perplexing and unfamiliar to my family; we were appalled at the insensitive treatment my sister had so unsuspectingly received.

Meanwhile, unknown to anyone, I was wrestling with the evangelistic claims of one of my tenth-grade classmates. Jay Davis had been sharing the gospel with me for several months. He had explained to me that God loved me completely and passionately, that I was powerless to make myself right with God or to earn my way to heaven, that Jesus’ death on the cross had taken the hit for my sin and that I should personally receive Jesus and His free gift of salvation.

As I struggled with Jay’s assertions and considered my sister’s unpleasant experience, several fears plagued me: If I buy into all that Jay is telling me, will I too have to talk to people about God? The mere thought sent chills up my spine. Even worse, I thought, would I be obligated to hit people over the head with this message? Would I have to become aggressive and offensive, confrontational and arrogant?

For several months these questions gnawed at the fabric of my heart. Being a Christian and knowing God personally seemed inviting and appealing to me. But the thought of evangelizing people was both terrifying and repulsive.

What was I to do?

God absolutely brings people into your life whom you, in turn, can lead to Him. I’m certain that there are people in your world right now who would be ready and eager to respond to God’s good news if only someone would share it with them. People such as

• your neighbor who struggles with demanding expectations of others and yet has not accepted the Savior who can help her surrender her need to control.

• your coworker who feels trapped in his job, his marriage and almost everything else in his life and who expresses little to no hope for this life or the next.

• the person who often sits in the same pew with you at church but who seems to have no spiritual grounding as his or her life crumbles apart all around.

• the lonely widower in your community who has no one to talk with about his fear of dying and his uncertainty about eternal matters.

• your best friend who can share with you anything that is on her heart but who also seems to have a void in her heart that only God will be able to fill.

• your family member who seems so spiritually needy but also somewhat resistant to a spiritual conversation.

Can you think of others? Who are the people in your life—in your family or neighborhood, your workplace or school, your church or community—who need the Lord? In whose life might God want to use you?

Followers of Christ are the primary means through which God has chosen the gospel message to be spread to a world that so desperately needs it. Why aren’t more followers of Christ bringing their friends to Him?

Studies show that only 2 percent of all Christians regularly share their faith in Christ.¹ Why is this so? Why are we so reluctant to communicate the greatest message this world has ever known? If God’s grace is so amazing, why do we keep it to ourselves?

What Rebecca Manley Pippert observed several decades ago rings true today: Christians and non-Christians have something in common: we’re both uptight about evangelism.² People are often paralyzed by apprehension and fear at the mere thought of talking about spiritual things.

There are several common obstacles that come up when we consider bringing our friends to Christ:

• I wouldn’t know how to communicate the gospel with a friend.

• I don’t really see the need to bring people to Christ.

• I don’t know how to initiate a conversation about spiritual things.

• I’m afraid I might offend someone or that I’ll be rejected.

• I don’t have enough answers, and I don’t know enough about the Bible.

Take a moment to reflect on the obstacles in your life right now that keep you from bringing your friends to Christ. Record some of them below.

As you begin your journey through this book and through God’s Word, you may wish to pause for a few moments to talk with God and to tell Him what’s on your mind and heart.

Lord, You already know me through and through. You know that the mere mention of evangelism fills me with fear and apprehension. But I also desperately want my life to count, and I want to be used by You to bring people into a relationship with You. Your grace is far too amazing for me to keep to myself. Please equip me with a clear presentation of the gospel message, impassion me with a compelling burden and longing to bring my friends to You, and empower me to make my life a vibrant witness for You. Please bring into my life people who I can bring to You. And then open my spiritual eyes to clearly see and recognize them. Give me boldness and passion, blended with gentleness and compassion. Thank You for hearing my prayer, and I look forward to receiving Your answer, in Jesus’ name. Amen.

An Interactive Guidebook

This book combines the benefits of both a guidebook and a small-group discussion guide.

Too Amazing to Keep to Yourself addresses the six fundamental questions of any serious inquiry: who, what, when, where, why and how.

Chapters 1 and 2 look at what exactly is the content of the gospel message. Chapters 3 and 4 examine why we should even bother seeking to bring people to Christ. Chapter 5 addresses who we are called to reach. Chapters 6 through 10 identify how we can bring our friends to Christ, based on the examples and guidance of Jesus, the apostles and the Holy Spirit. Chapter 11 looks at where we should go. And finally, chapter 12 suggests when we should begin. Each chapter equips us to overcome a common obstacle to sharing our faith.

In addition to being a guidebook, Too Amazing to Keep to Yourself also features a built-in small-group discussion guide to give you and/or your small group an opportunity to interact with the content. In the Call to Action section at the end of each chapter, you’ll find the following:

Icebreakers—a few questions to get your small group started

Digging Deeper—the meat of the study; this will guide you or your small group to central portions of the Bible

Life Application—discussion questions that focus on applying the chapter to your everyday lives

For small-group leaders, Appendix E offers practical suggestions for using this book most effectively within a small-group setting.

You are about to embark upon a great adventure. Enjoy your journey as you discover what the Bible says about our wonderful privilege and our awesome responsibility of bringing our friends to Christ.

PART 1

What Is the Gospel Message?

GOSPEL.

It’s a word we hear often. Gospel truth. Gospel music. Gospel preacher. But what exactly is the gospel? What does the word really mean? What exactly is it that we are called to share with other people?

These first two chapters present the gospel message through story and explanation. As you read them, try to create your own personal gospel presentation toolbox of stories, illustrations, Scripture verses, questions and creative ideas to help you explain the gospel to the people in your world.

1

GOOD NEWS AND BAD NEWS

You have made us for Yourself, O God, and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in You.

Augustine

For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. - Romans 6:23

Jesus loved to tell stories. He told stories to anchor spiritual truths in the hearts of those He loved. Some of His stories described what godliness looks like, some described the kingdom of God, and some described what salvation is all about.

As we begin this discussion about sharing the good news, it is essential that we define and fully grasp exactly what the gospel is and what we are called to share.

In order for people to receive the gospel as good news, they must first fully grasp the gravity of the bad news as well. Several years ago, I received a modern-day story via e-mail that completely sets the stage for understanding both the bad news and the good news of the gospel message. The e-mail told an unusual story.

***

The day is over, and you are driving home. Your thoughts turn to your wife and two children. You smile as you think about those three people in your life whom you are totally crazy about. They are truly the joy and delight of your world.

As you tune in on your radio, you hear a short announcement about a little village in India where some villagers have died suddenly, strangely, of a flu that has never been seen before. Three or four people are dead, and doctors are being sent in to investigate.

You don’t think much about it, but on Sunday, as you drive home from church, you hear another radio spot. This time it’s not just three villagers dead but 30,000 in the back hills of this particular area of India. It’s on TV that night as CNN runs a brief story about it. People from the disease center in Atlanta are heading there because this strain has never been seen before.

By Monday morning, it’s the lead story. It’s not just in India now. It’s spread to Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran. Before you know it, you’re hearing this story everywhere. People have coined this disease the mystery flu.

In his address to the nation, the president of the United States says that he and everyone else are praying and hoping that all will go well over there. But everyone, including you, is now wondering, How are we going to contain this? That’s when the president of France makes an announcement that shocks all of Europe: I am going to have to close the borders of France, he says. There will be no flights arriving from India, Pakistan or any of the countries where this disease has been found.

That night you’re glued to the TV before going to bed. Your jaw hits your chest when a weeping woman’s words are translated from a French news program into English: There’s a man lying in a hospital in Paris dying of the mystery flu. It has come to Europe.

Panic strikes!

As best experts can tell, once a person contracts this mystery flu, it lies dormant for a week. Then he or she has four days of unbelievable, horrific symptoms. Then the person dies.

It’s Tuesday morning when the president makes the following announcement: Due to a national security risk, all flights to and from Europe and Asia have been canceled. If your loved ones are overseas, I’m sorry. They cannot come back until we find a cure for this thing.

On Wednesday night you are at a church prayer meeting when somebody runs in from the parking lot and says, Turn on a radio, turn on a radio! While the church listens, the announcement everyone feared is made: Two women are lying in a Long Island hospital dying from the mystery flu, says the voice.

Within hours it seems that this thing sweeps across the country. People are working around the clock trying to find an antidote. Nothing is working! California. Oregon. Arizona. Florida. Massachusetts. The mystery flu has swept the borders.

As daylight falls, you tuck your children into bed. Knowing that something unusual is going on in the world around them, they are unsettled. Cradling them in your arms, you seek to comfort their troubled spirits. With each tender kiss to their brow and every gentle caress of their cheek, you express your abiding love for them.¹

A Father’s Love

So it is with our Father and us. God knows and understands firsthand the love of the father in our story. The Bible says that …God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. (John 3:16). As the father in our story loved his child, God loves you.

God loves you passionately. God loves you completely. He loves you as though you were the only person in the whole world to love. You are His beloved creation, and there is nothing you could ever do to make God love you more—or less.

Jesus declared, The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly. (10:10). God wants our lives to be full and abundant, and He desires that our lives be characterized by peace and hope. He wants a personal relationship with us as we journey through life. He wants us to know Him personally and intimately.

Since God planned for us to have peace and an abundant life right now, why are some people not experiencing this?

Our Mystery Flu

Here’s the reality: a mystery flu has invaded planet Earth, and the Bible says that every human being is infected with this deadly disease.

We can take a simple test to confirm whether we test positive for this disease. In the goodness scale² below, place an X where you feel you belong.

Then take a minute or two to think of instances in which you’ve missed the mark and fallen short of how God would want you to live. Without writing any words, place a dot in the following box for each instance you can think of.

If you placed your X even a fraction of an inch from the top of the goodness scale, or if you placed even one dot in the box, then you too are infected with this disease.

The Bible identifies this mystery flu: sin. It tells us that …all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God (Rom. 3:23).

A Hopeless Prognosis

The Bible also gives the prognosis for our disease: For the wages of sin is death (6:23). A pure God and an impure people are simply not compatible. Our disease ultimately leads to our death, both physical and spiritual. It separates us from God both in this life and throughout eternity.

All God