IRVING—Johnny Hunt, NAMB senior vice president for evangelism and leadership, challenged the Empower audience during the Tuesday morning session, Feb. 23, to evangelize with a purpose.

Hunt alluded to the Southern Baptist Convention’s Who’s Your One campaign of one-on-one evangelism, telling listeners that statistics show 85 percent of people in evangelical churches had been invited by others.

“Do you have a friend, relative, work associate or neighbor that you’re being intentional [about] … the rest of this year?” Hunt asked, issuing the following counsel: “Pray and let God work in their lives first, then … make an appointment. Find the time to share the gospel.”

Hunt said he had just interviewed a 16-year-old girl from South Carolina who had recently led three of her best friends to Christ.

Turning to Mark 2, Hunt opened with the question, “What happens when Jesus is in the house?” 

Mark 2 shows Jesus at his “home headquarters” of Capernaum, Hunt said. People heard Jesus was in the house and showed up to hear him.

“Can you think of anything better that can be said about your church [than] that Jesus is in the house?” Hunt asked.

As Jesus preached to the crowded room in Mark 2, four men opened the home’s roof to lower their paralyzed friend, who soon heard from the Lord: “Son, your sins are forgiven.”

Asking listeners where they were when God “spoke those eternal words” into their souls, Hunt recalled his own conversion at age 20, on a snowy Sunday night when as a high school dropout managing a pool hall, he heard God’s call. Hunt found both entry into the family of God and fellowship with him, a truth the scribes of Mark 2 do not see.

“Forgiveness is the foundation of fellowship with Jesus Christ,” Hunt said.

While the scribes in Mark 2 describe Jesus’ statements as blasphemy, Jesus asks which is harder: to tell a man to walk or to tell him his sins are forgiven? The Lord next makes a “purposeful statement” paraphrased by Hunt: “I’ve done what I’ve done because there’s something I want you to know … that the Son of man has power on earth to forgive sin.”

The time is short, Hunt said, emphasizing the urgency of responding to Christ. 

“The only place you can get your sins forgiven is while you’re on earth,” he said. “Every major religion in the world other than Christianity believes that you can get your sins forgiven after you leave the earth.” 

Capernaum was Jesus’ home city, his headquarters on the northwest shore of the sea of Galilee where much of his ministry activity occurred in this “town of opportunity,” Hunt said, admitting that for the most part, the hometown remained unresponsive to the Lord.

Jesus even gave a “personal rebuke” to Capernaum in Matthew 11:20, predicting its downfall, Hunt noted.

What happens when Jesus is in the house? Hunt offered the following observations from Mark 2.

1. The Word is preached (Mark 2:1-2). There is a “drawing power about Jesus,” as seen in Mark 2, where Jesus also showed “dynamic preaching” by “feeding them the Word of God.” Hunt referenced Mark 12:37, where the “common man” heard Jesus gladly. “At the end of the day, we are all common folk,” Hunt said, adding that when Jesus preached, he drew a crowd, the marginalized who became confident. Jesus also drew criticism.
2. Faith was persistent (Mark 2:3-4). Four men zeroed in on one, Hunt said: “There’s always many who will never reach Jesus unless someone takes them. If there were more bringing believers, there would be more saved sinners.” The friends “put feet to their faith” and brought their friend to Jesus. 
3. Forgiveness is present (Mark 2:5) Jesus forgives the man’s sins. “Forgiveness is the greatest miracle that Jesus will ever perform,” Hunt said. “It meets the greatest need … costs the greatest price … brings the greatest blessing … brings the most lasting result.” 
4. Doubt is on the prowl (Mark 2:6-11). The scribes accused Jesus of cursing God. The Jews connected sin and suffering, Hunt explained. “Suffering was the result of sin to the Jewish people,” said Hunt, referencing Eliphaz, Job’s comforter. 

Amid recollections of his own life as a believer, Hunt said that as of Feb. 23, his mother had been with Jesus 36 years. Even though his family moved frequently, she is “now a permanent resident of heaven.”

Not so for many, he lamented, cautioning that “The church must stay active. The body of Christ must stay active. Nobody else is dispensing hope.”

Turning to the current pandemic, statistics suggest that of 500,000 Americans dead of COVID, 85 percent may be in a “Christless eternity,” Hunt said. COVID has also changed life expectancy. “We’ve lost a year” because of COVID, Hunt said, citing current studies showing life expectancy is now 77, rather than 78.

“I’m way into the last quarter of my life,” he said. “There’s an urgency,” with a somber reminder that there is a “path that leads from earth to heaven,” and not the other way around. 

IRVING—Monday evening’s main stage session at this year’s Empower conference—which took place in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic and in the wake of Winter Storm Uri—kicked off with a keynote message from Costi Hinn, executive pastor of discipleship at Redeemer Bible Church in Gilbert, Arizona. 

Hinn delivered a sermon from Romans 1:16-17 in which he focused on the necessity of being unashamed of the gospel.

“The gospel is power. There’s no way around that, there’s no other message you need to preach to get that,” Hinn said. “The gospel is power.”

He shared his testimony of working in the healing ministry of his famous televangelist uncle, Benny Hinn, and expecting to be his ultimate successor, having been brought up to believe that he was a part of the greatest ministry family of all time.

“Everything that had been prophesied over my life seemed to be coming true. I was told that I was the anointed, the next in line as the oldest Hinn boy in the heritage of faith. My uncle, Benny Hinn, was the first in line in his family, and seeing as I was the first Costi in the next generation,” he said, “I was number one.

“And I was told that his mantle would fall on my life like Elijah and Elisha and that I would have a healing ministry that would span the globe, that the healings I would experience would be a hundredfold greater than his or any other faith healing evangelist who had ever come before.”

Hinn told of visiting Greece on a ministry trip and thinking to himself that all he had to do was receive the blessing of his ministry inheritance and he would be set. But as he looked out over the Aegean Sea, which he linked to the missionary journeys of Paul, he said there was just one problem.

“I wasn’t preaching the same gospel as Paul. I didn’t believe the same gospel as Paul,” Hinn said. Of his misunderstanding, he said, “The gospel meant money. If you believed in Jesus, he would make you healthy, wealthy and happy.”

After working in his uncle’s ministry for a time, he ended up at Dallas Baptist University to play baseball, and he said it was there that the Lord began to plant seeds of the true gospel.

One of the most significant influences on his life during that time was his baseball coach, who told him about a God who was sovereign—a concept Hinn found foreign at the time.

“I thought, what is this guy talking about? God is sovereign? I’m sovereign. I name it, I claim it, I give money, I profess by faith,” Hinn said. 

He described ending up on staff at a church plant after college that decided to make the shift to expository preaching and being assigned to preach through the healing at the pool at Bethesda in John 5.

In preparing for the sermon, he was struck at the simplicity of the text and the absence of so many of the extraneous things he had been taught accompanied healing.

 “Jesus heals him immediately, with a word,” Hinn said of this “powerful example of Jesus healing a man [not] because the merits of his life, but simply because he’s a sovereign, compassionate Lord.” 

In that moment, Hinn said, “it was like everything made sense.” He immediately repented of his sins and his belief in a false gospel and committed that he would seek the truth and preach the gospel of the Bible.

“It’s actually pretty simple. You don’t have to manufacture a lot. If you just preach the Word, the Word will do the work,” Hinn said. “I had turned Jesus into a show. I had assumed his anointing, I had assumed that I knew him, but I was in danger at that very moment of continuing my life and becoming one of the Matthew 7:23 moments, where I say ‘Lord, Lord,’ but he says ‘Depart from me, I don’t know who you are.’”

Hinn closed the session by emphasizing three things about the gospel: we must not be ashamed of the gospel; we must be unwilling to change the gospel, and we must be undeterred by suffering for the gospel.

“There’s a generation rising. They need you, they need me, to tell them the truth, tell them what they’re in for, and give them the true power of the gospel that will carry them through,” he exclaimed. 

“If you look throughout Baptist history, you’ll see heroes that were so crazy that they were willing to die for the gospel. What happened? We got comfortable. We became so content, and you know what this generation wants more than anything else? They want someone who will tell them the truth.”

Hinn challenged the audience to not forget their first love.

“When we begin to abandon that foundation, like it or not we are no different than the prosperity gospel preachers that have abandoned the message of the true gospel. So if you want real power, push the throttle back where it belongs,” he said. “Remember who you belong to, and remember you are not from here, alien, sojourner, foreign resident. You are a citizen of heaven, and you serve the king and the coming kingdom.”

IRVING—Christian counselor Gary Chapman opened the second evening session of the Empower evangelism conference Mon., Feb. 22, at the Irving Convention Center with a proclamation of the meaningful life.

“Where does life find its meaning?” Chapman, author of the bestselling The 5 Love Languages® series, asked the crowd assembled online and, socially distanced, in person.  

Chapman answered his question with the word: “relationships”—first with God and then “on the human plane.” Drawing on a long career working with married couples, he said that long-term, healthy marriages and close relationships demand that the people feel loved and appreciated, and that individuals in relationships must “deal effectively with failures.” 

None of us is perfect, Chapman reminded his listeners, offering a biblical perspective on apology and forgiveness illustrated by Scripture and folksy anecdotes.

“In order to deal with our failures, it means we have to learn to apologize and we have to learn to forgive,” Chapman said, referencing Matthew 28:13 and Isaiah 59:2.

Jesus felt strongly about the value of apology, Chapman said, quoting Matthew 3:23, wondering aloud how such commitment to reconciliation might impact churches on Sunday mornings.

Apology is a response learned from our parents, Chapman said, explaining that nearly 10 percent of the population never apologize “for anything,” and calling the adage, “real men don’t apologize,” a sentiment derived more from John Wayne than Scripture.

What followed was material from Chapman’s book When Sorry Isn’t Enough, co-authored by fellow therapist Jennifer Thomas.

Chapman said Thomas and he researched the topic for two years, surveying thousands of people from across the country, trying to determine “what a sincere apology looks like.” Answers fell into five categories, a number Chapman insisted was not intentional.

“I like five, but we weren’t looking for five,” he said of the languages of apology, summarized below, all of which are consistent with the Bible.

“If you discover anything in social research, if it’s true, it will never contradict the Scriptures. It will almost always be illustrated in the Scriptures,” he maintained.

The five languages of apology

1. Expressing regret, often with the words, “I’m sorry.” Chapman urged, “Please don’t ever use those two words alone. Tell them what you are sorry for.” Avoid adding the word “but,” to your apology to justify or qualify. Chapman illustrated the point with the account of the prodigal son from Luke 15 and the example of David in Psalm 51:17.
2. Accepting responsibility: “I was wrong. I should not have done that. I take full responsibility.” Recalling a time when he had spoken thoughtlessly to his wife, Chapman said, “Folks, what I said was not a sin. It was just stupid. …I hurt her deeply.” Teaching children to accept responsibility for their actions is “the first step” in teaching them how to apologize, he added. Nor should the confession of sin be omitted, as 1 John 1:9 teaches. The prodigal son admitted his wrongdoing, Chapman recalled, defining confession as “agreeing with God” that something is wrong.
3. Offering to make restitution: “How can I make it right?” Chapman offered the story of Zacchaeus in Luke 19 as an example of how properly to make restitution.
4. Genuinely repenting: what Chapman called, “expressing the desire to change your behavior.” In Acts 2, at Pentecost, Peter calls upon the people to repent and be baptized. “Jesus came preaching forgiveness. So did the early apostles,” Chapman reminded the audience. 
5. Requesting forgiveness: “Will you forgive me?” This fifth principle was not on Chapman’s “radar,” he admitted. “But some people are waiting for you to ask for their forgiveness,” he said.

Chapman claimed that most people have a primary language of apology, perhaps a combination of the above. We judge the sincerity of an apology by what we think an apology should be.

Despite its importance, “apology alone does not restore a relationship,” he continued. There must be response of biblical forgiveness, modeled in Ephesians 4:32 and 1 John 1:9.

“God does not forgive everyone. Folks, universalism is not taught in the Bible,” he urged. “God forgives people who confess their sins.” 

Nonetheless, “We have to learn to apologize and then forgive,” Chapman said, describing what forgiveness does not do. It does not destroy memory, nor remove pain. It does not rebuild trust, but it opens the “possibility that trust can be reborn.”

When painful memories emerge, “I believe you take it to God,” Chapman said. “Lord, you know what I’m remembering today, and you know what I’m feeling. But I thank you that I forgave them. Now help me do something good today.”

For more information on Chapman’s five languages of love and apology, visit 5lovelanguages.com.