just stop at this point and bring up the fact that there's a thing out there called lifestyle
evangelism.
Have you heard of this?
And this is a term that I would stay away from because of the fact that lifestyle evangelism
is this idea that you don't need to preach the gospel.
You just live your life in a godly way.
You just be a good testimony, sort of like I'm talking about here.
You live a clean life.
You're the best worker on the job.
You're very respectful.
And when you do that, people are supposedly just going to kind of fall on their knees
before you and say, "What must I do to be saved?"
And it's called lifestyle evangelism.
Well, here's the problem with that.
When you do this, you will have some people that will come to you and ask you how to be
saved.
It's true.
If you live a godly Christian life and you're a really good testimony at your job, you will
have people come to you and say, "You know what?
I admire your lifestyle.
I want to know about your religion.
I want to know about Jesus Christ because you have shown me such an amazing testimony."
But let me tell you something, that's rare.
It's something that happens every few years or something.
And that's not what God's called us to do.
You know, the early church, the Bible said, "Daily in the temple and in every house they
cease not to teach and preach Jesus Christ."
I mean, they're daily.
Every house people are out preaching and knocking doors.
You know, God hasn't called us to win somebody the Lord every few years when they come ask
us.
No, the Bible says we, as Christ was, are here to seek and to save that which was lost.
We're supposed to go seek them and we're supposed to go into all the world and preach the gospel
to every creature.
The Bible says that we should open our mouth boldly to make known the mystery of the gospel.
Notice what it says here in verse 10 at the end of this passage telling you how important
it is that you have a good testimony and that you're a pattern of good works and they can
look at you as an example and that you're not purloining and that you're being respectful
and that you're a good worker.
He says halfway through verse 10 that they may adorn the doctrine of God.
What is adornment?
It's a decoration.
It's the icing on the cake.
What's the main course?
The doctrine.
So what good is the adornment if there's no doctrine?
I mean, think about it, what if I was just really nice to someone, really helped someone
out, I was just such a great Samaritan unto them, and then I never shared with them the
gospel of Jesus Christ?
Well then what good is my testimony doing then if I show them a great testimony but
then I never preach them salvation?
I never give them the gospel.
The adornment has to adorn something, it adorns the doctrine.
So having a good testimony is not a replacement for preaching the gospel.
It's just an adornment, okay?
To make people more likely to listen to you and to make people have a better view of Christianity
going into it.
You know, it reminds me of when my wife makes schnitzel because my wife cooks a lot of German
food obviously.
She grew up in Germany and so we have, who knows what schnitzel is?
I'm not talking about the hot dog place, Wiener schnitzel.
But schnitzel is a breaded meat cutlet, it could be like a breaded veal cutlet, it could
be a breaded pork cutlet, which is what we actually eat.
So it's really good, it's one of my favorite meals when she makes schnitzel and potatoes
and cauliflower, and she makes this amazing cauliflower sauce that goes over everything,
it's the best meal ever.
And when you eat schnitzel, you love that breaded coating on the outside of the meat,
you savor it, and kind of on the edges of the meat where there's that extra coating
is kind of some of the best bites, where you get some of that extra fried breading on the
edge of your meat.
But here's the thing, when my wife's done making the schnitzel, and she puts this coating
on all the schnitzels, she'll take all that leftover coating, the batter, and the coating
is so good, oh the coating's the best part!
But she'll take that coating all by itself, and she'll fry it up as one final, just to
use it up, because you know, she has all this extra flour and breadcrumbs and egg, so she
makes it all together, and cooks it up.
So it's like a decoy, because there's no meat in it.
It's just the adornment, it's just the breading, but there's no meat.
And every once in a while, I'll accidentally grab that one, put it on my plate, bite into
it, and it's like, ugh, there's nothing there, ugh.
And it's like, well, wait a minute, Pastor Anderson, I thought you loved that adornment.
Yeah, but you want there to be meat inside of it, or it's not the same.
I mean, what if somebody just gave you a plate with just a bunch of frosting on it?
No cake.
Now, even if the frosting's your favorite part, even if you like a little extra frosting,
you don't want just frosting, do you?
You want cake.
And we need some meat on the bone of our gospel, not just all fluff, not just all adornment.
Look at what I'm ador- you're adorning nothing.
What good's the adornment if there's nothing inside?
The gospel was never presented.
And some people, they just use this as an excuse to skip preaching the gospel.
Oh, I just do lifestyle events.
I'm just letting my light shine.
No, we need to shine forth the word of life.
You know, you've got to shine the word and then adorn it with a godly life.
Adorn it with a good testimony.
Adorn it by being the best worker.
But preach the word.
Open your mouth boldly to make known the mystery of the gospel.