Sovereign Grace Bible Church
These are the sermons and teachings of Sovereign Grace Bible Church in Biggsville, Illinois. We exist to fulfill the Great Commission through the Great Commandment within Gospel Community.
Sovereign Grace Bible Church
The Call to Faithful Evangelism
Are you keeping the keys to heaven in your pocket? In this powerful message on faithful evangelism, we confront the uncomfortable truth that most Christians find it easier to attend church, give financially, or serve in ministry than to engage someone in a conversation about Jesus.
The reason is simple: evangelism is difficult. As J. Max Stiles brilliantly put it, "It's not that evangelism has been tried and found wanting. It's that evangelism has been found difficult and untried." This uncomfortable reality challenges us to examine our priorities and purposes as followers of Christ.
Drawing from Romans 10, 1 Peter 3, and 2 Corinthians 5, we explore the biblical foundation for evangelism not as an optional activity for the specially gifted, but as a commission for every believer. God doesn't demand eloquence or perfection—only willingness and faithfulness. When we understand ourselves as ambassadors carrying a message of reconciliation from the King, evangelism transforms from a dreaded task into a profound privilege.
The message confronts common obstacles like fear of rejection, feelings of inadequacy, and misunderstanding our role in the salvation process. We learn that effective evangelism requires preparation, humility, respect, and the wisdom to contextualize the gospel for different audiences without compromising its truth.
A former Muslim who converted to Christianity once asked his Christian friends with tears in his eyes, "Why did you not love me enough to tell me?" That haunting question should motivate us to overcome our hesitations and share the only message that can save people from eternal separation from God. Whether you've never shared your faith or have been doing so for decades, this message will equip and encourage you to become more faithful in this essential Christian calling.
Amen, good morning. Go ahead and turn with me in your Bibles to Romans, chapter 10. We're getting closer and closer to our launch and actually it'll be the month after our launch that we'll finally get into, verse by verse, preaching through books of the Bible, which is one of the characteristics of this church. But we are in a very important foundational series currently on who we are, the distinctives, the guiding principles upon which this church will be built, established and continue for the generations to come. We began with expository preaching because we believe that when God's word is open, god is speaking and he wrote it exactly how he wanted it. He doesn't need us to get creative with it or fancy. He knew what he was doing. We continue from there on how we're going to do ministry from a generational standpoint. And now, today we are going to talk about faithful evangelism.
Speaker 1:Evangelism is one of those words that many people like they associate with the church and I love the quote. I love the quote that's on the front of your binder packet here. It's from J Max Stiles. He wrote a great little book, red Book on Evangelism I handed out a couple years ago. He said it's not that evangelism has been tried and found wanting. It's that evangelism has been found difficult and untried, and that would be true. You and I. We find it very easy, in a sense, to attend on a Sunday morning. We find it easier to give financially, we find it easy to come and sweat bullets in service to the church than we do starting a conversation of about. So where are you in Jesus today? Who is Jesus Christ to you? That is a whole other level of uncomfortable. But hopefully, today my goal in all of this is to expound for you is to expose God's word to you on evangelism and that it actually should not be. We can fall for the sinful uh caricature that's built here and we say it's uncomfortable to go and tell them these things. But we'll end on second corinthians five and we'll learn that you and I are ambassadors of the Most High King whom the world is at war with and is going to die according to, and we bring peace from that King and say the King who will rule, who does reign, who will bring everyone to account, who you are currently at war with, that King. I bring a message from him and it's not one of damnation but one of salvation. That's not uncomfortable, my friends. That is the definition of being a comforting presence to the world. But you and I again, when it comes to evangelism, we have this inner wrestling match of the fear of man and the fear of God. So, hopefully, the goal today is that, as we expose these things, it equips us, encourages us and empowers us to be able to speak God's truth to the world around us.
Speaker 1:One of the reasons why you see churches die off over time is because they just believe that if they have the right programs I mean, we're America, we are a program special If we have the right programs and the right procedures, the right policies, we will have a large church, a great church, an effective church, and 50 years from now it will still be doing exactly what it is supposed to do. The church ran into an issue with that because there was this huge jesus movement in the culture about 50 years ago. Some of you might remember that 50, 60 years ago it began and so it became trendy, in a sense, to seek after christ, to be Christian, and so flocks of people came into church and churches that only had 100 people all of a sudden had 500 people at them and they weren't sure what to do with all these hippies, or all these people that are very different than what were the typical church people at the time. I'm here to tell you today that that time has come and gone and we now live in a post-modern, post-christian society where the closest thing that culture will get to Christianity is some sort of macho stoicism of the world. Can't get me down.
Speaker 1:I have a Bible verse so that whenever I tell someone to bleep off, I can say I'm standing up for what's right. Christianity is so much more than conservative America. It is so much more than rescuing the family from the whatever society. It is a mission that begins and ends according to God's standard. It is a mission that is greater than a building, it is greater than a project, it is greater than even a people. And so today, as we go through this, I don't want you to go through it saying, okay, well, I'm not an evangelist, I'm not going to go talk to nobody on the street and be like hi, you come here, let me tell you something. Most of you will not be street preachers Maybe Jason, but that would probably be it.
Speaker 1:We get to this point where we can think of evangelism in only those contexts. Let's see what God's word has to say so. Number one we'll see what I call the method of evangelism in Romans, chapter 10, verses 14 through 15. Let me remind you that this is God's holy word. It says how, then, will they call on him in whom they have not believed, and how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent as it is written?
Speaker 1:How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news? You see, the good news. Here is the word where we get evangel from, which is where you get evangelism from. So you can really just say evangelism is good news-ism, it's good news-ing. That's what evangelism is. How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news-ism? It's good news-ing. That's what evangelism is. How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news? This is the idea of back in the day, when there was war. They didn't have text messages or live streaming. So if there was a war over yonder ways, you had no idea what was happening, and so you'd have a runner that would come to bring news, and the idea being that you were really happy to see the good news person running and you were not happy to see the bad news person running. And then we even see in the Bible where there's a characteristic where usually they would pick the kind of person that would run to go and that would key the person that's going to see them running to them on, whether it was good news or bad news. You can see that a lot in the Old Testament.
Speaker 1:Actually, there is this sense in which, my friends, we look at all these questions and Paul is leading us logically down a path. How will they call on him in whom they have not believed? So what's required? What's required that they believe? How are they going to do that whom they have not believed? So what's required? What's required that they believe? How are they going to do that? Well, how are they to believe in the person they've never heard of? Like, that's a really good point, paul, you're talking to somebody that's not me, but I'm really glad you're talking because that's logical and I get it. And how are they to hear without someone preaching and everyone like ah see, I'm not a preacher, this is great, this is so good. And how are they to preach unless they are sent, meaning that there's a need for training, that preachers are not just born and bred and then they go, but they are trained in righteousness and equipped for good works.
Speaker 1:The word for preach there is just the word to proclaim, to herald. This is not a positional verb, this is not like the elders of the church only can do this verb. This is a all Christians are expected to proclaim, to herald the good news. And now you might say I'm an introvert, I'm shy, I have no friends, I work all the time, I hate people. Dan, you don't understand. And in all of those, you and I have to always take our experience and say this matters, but it never matters more than God's word. My excuses, do not excuse me from what God's expectation is, his expectation of me as I proclaim the good news, that I herald it. I'm like the town square guy yelling the news to everybody. And again you would say again, dan, you got the wrong person. I ain't going to no town square, I ain't yelling at nobody, I'm good, all right. The crazy guy with the sign, that's not me, okay, and that's okay.
Speaker 1:What we see here is just the method. This is the beginning. The method is that someone has to be sent and you and I have to wrestle with this question because there are people. So, again, instead of allowing it to be this ambiguous, how then will they? You have someone in your life who's not saved. It might be kids or grandkids, coworkers, it might be your neighbor, I don't know. You have someone who's not saved in your life, so when you read this verse, I want you to put their name in. How will so-and-so call on God if they don't believe? How will this person believe in him if they've never heard? And what you should hear in the background is Isaiah 6, 8 in your head, where God is saying who will go for us? And as you say this person's name again and again through this text, eventually, hopefully, god will break your heart to the point of breaking through the uncomfortability and you will say here am I send me, because guess what he's already sent you? There are hundreds of people just in this room that you can all talk to that I will never get to talk to.
Speaker 1:Imagine if each of us was faithful to share the good news with just the people in our circle, and let's say, 10% of those people God saved in the next year, and then we kept it going and those people have a different circle than you, and they were faithful. Now we see how the church grows. It's not through a program, it's not through having the flashiest music and lights and sound system, it's not through having a really beautiful building or plenty of space, easy parking. No, god grows his church through his people being on mission and sharing the good news to a dying and desperate world. And when we don't see them like that, we miss it. We miss it.
Speaker 1:The method of evangelism is that someone has to be trained and that someone is. Every Christian that's ever existed is conscripted. You are a part of the Lord's army. If you don't remember that song, we can sing it later. You're a part of the Lord's army and you may not have the greatest gifting in the world. God doesn't require you to have the greatest gifting in the world. He requires two things of you A willingness and a faithfulness. And that's it. And there's freedom in that. Because I'm not performing. It's the same thing with gifts, right? If I'm gifted to sing and I'm going to give my gift to the Lord, guess what I'm not doing? I'm not performing If I mess up. That's good. Everyone remembers we're all human and real humans come here. You come in with a sweaty shirt good, me too Like there's no performance of any kind.
Speaker 1:What is required of christians is a willingness and a faithfulness, and that is it. So you take what god has given you, even if it's just half of a friend, and you say okay, god, how can I steward this relationship? Well, what do you require of me? That leads us to the mode of evangelism that we see in 1 Peter, chapter 3, verses 14 and 15. It says but even if you should suffer for righteousness sake, you will be blessed. Have no fear of them, nor be troubled, but in your hearts, honor Christ, the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason, for the hope that is in you. Yet do it with gentleness and respect. So we see this portion of life where, as a Christian, I am expecting to suffer for righteousness sake, and you would say that's not fair. And I'd say amen, what else Like that's not fair? And I'd say amen, what else Like? That's where we're at.
Speaker 1:You're going to have moments where you're in public and people ask you to do something, and you got to be awkward and say no, thank you, or my kids don't go and do that, or we don't go and see movies like that. I'm sorry, and guess what? The crazy social pressure that you felt when you were in middle school, it doesn't go away. You don't want to tell that person, you're not going to go see that movie. You don't want to tell that person, you're not going out to the bar tonight. You don't want to do those things. Why, bar tonight? You don't want to do those things? Why? Because I'm scared of you. I'm scared of what you think of me, even though I see you once a month for 30 seconds. I'm worried about what you're going to say.
Speaker 1:And so we have this temptation to lose our integrity completely, To lose our integrity completely, and this happens so often in the church, where we have our church Christian posture. I look this way and act this way over here, and when I'm over here with my friends, I act this way, and when I'm at work, I do these things. And none of those people are the same people Like. If my work friends met my friends' friends and met my church friends all at the same time, they'd all be like what are you doing? That's not you. That's a problem. And evangelism will never work if people don't see the gospel has changed me in all aspects of my life. I have to be the same person here, there and everywhere. To quote Dr Seuss. Now there are three things we expect here. Okay, there's suffering, but there's three things expected of us. What is the first one? It's a preparedness.
Speaker 1:If I told you that you had to give a commencement speech in front of 2,000 people next month, how many times do you think you would? You had to right, there's a gun to your head and there's no choice because I mean you're like I wouldn't do it. You had to do it. How many times would you practice it? I mean you'd have that sucker memory. You'd be like in the mirror, like, okay, I want to do my face like this whenever I make that point, like you would have this down. You'd be recording yourself, playing the recording back. People would think you're nuts. Preparing for this commencement speech.
Speaker 1:How little weight we put on evangelism that I could ask you when's the last time you practiced sharing the gospel with somebody? And most of us would either say never or I don't know. This is the bread and butter of life. This is the good news that saves people from damnation and hell for all of eternity. You and I have the keys. We have the keys to heaven and we could share it with people, but we're scared that they're going to look at the keys and be offended, and so we just keep it to ourselves. And God says I did not give you the keys so you could put on cruise control and make it to heaven by yourself. You have a plus one. Who are you bringing? Who are you bringing? Who are you bringing to heaven? Don't tell me, I made it. Tell me who you're bringing. That's your job, and we put a greater weight in this fantastic concept of an idea that will never happen, of a commencement speech to thousands of people, than we do in the eternal souls of the co-worker that we are beginning to have a relationship with a little bit. That person is going to die and go to hell if they do not believe in Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. That's it. That's the end.
Speaker 1:There's a great quote by this apologist who passed away a couple years ago, a handful of years ago. He was a Muslim all of his life, growing up, and when he was in college or he was a young adult, someone finally shared the gospel with him and his life was forever changed. And he told some of his friends hey, I'm changed, I'm new, I believe in Jesus. This is amazing. And he said that some of his friends looked at him and said, oh yeah, no, we're Christians too. And he looked at them with tear-filled eyes and said why did you not love me enough to tell me? Why did you keep this from me? What if I had died? It was great. I've never thought of those things before. So you can imagine I'm listening to this interview and I'm like, ooh, I'm bad. This is not going good for me. But he has a point, which is if you had the news to save someone's soul and you called yourself their friend and you never shared it over years.
Speaker 1:I'm not saying you got to go tomorrow. I'm not saying like better leave church today. And I'm not saying like you better leave church today and speed dial five people. It's not what we're saying. But we are saying there needs to be an urgency, a preparedness. People are more ready to receive the gospel than you think, because God is the one that's preparing their hearts. God is the one that saves their hearts. God is the one who does the work. You and I, we throw some seed out and God does what he does. Don't overestimate or underestimate your responsibility, in that God is in charge, god is good, god's got this, but you still have a job to do. So we're to be prepared.
Speaker 1:But there is a mode of evangelism as well. We see those last two words there. Yeah, to do it. So give this defense. And as soon as we think of the word defense, we think defensive. Right, like I'm going to tell you what, like Muslims are stupid. Here's why, like it's like no, no, no, no, no, don't do that. That's not how we win people. That's not how we win people. How do we win the world? Give a defense, do it with gentleness and respect. And if you hung around Dan Ashton at all, you better have this stuck in your head. The gentleness is best communicated as humility. It is the fruit of the Spirit. How are we going to win the world? What's the mode of evangelism? It's preparedness, humility and respect.
Speaker 1:I don't come down on you and say you're an idiot or this is stupid, or your religion makes no sense. I don't come down on someone and I say well, what do you think about, like, after death? What are you going to do after then and they say, I don't know. We don't say like, I can't believe you, you never thought about that. We're seeking to win the world. We want to bring as many people with us to heaven as possible. To do that, we're prepared.
Speaker 1:We're humble, meaning we don't think we're higher than them. In fact, the longer you're a Christian, the more you realize. Like, if I was in your shoes, I probably would have been a worse sinner, honestly, like, let's be very honest, real, quickly. I remember how much self-control I had in my situation. If I was in yours, like I would have probably done worse, but by the grace of God I am here. That's humility. I don't take pride in my salvation, I boast in Christ alone. I don't take pride in my salvation, I boast in Christ alone. Look what Jesus did and he can do it for you too. I'm humble in that and I am respectful in that.
Speaker 1:Continuing, what's the manner of evangelism? 1 Corinthians, 2,. 1 through 5, paul says and I, when I came to you, brothers, talking to the Corinthian church, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom, for I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus, christ and him crucified, and I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling, and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom but in demonstration of the spirit and of power, so that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God. This is what we get wrong about evangelism. You and I think if I'm just eloquent enough and I got my pitch down just right and I sound just like Ray Comfort from Living Waters and I got this thing down pat and I can talk to anybody on the street, then God will bless my evangelism. And you and I have to remind ourselves of this. This happened to me two years ago.
Speaker 1:Again, I've told the story before. I'm in my study with a young man and he like, is like having some heart issues, and we're going back and forth and I'm like do you know what the gospel is? And he goes no. And I'm like have you, do you, do you know what the gospel is? And he goes no. I'm like you grew up in church. How do you not know what the gospel is? He goes I don't know. I was like are you okay if I share it with you? He goes no, okay, good, so I share the gospel and I'm like passionate and I'm like pleading with him and I'm like you gotta make a decision. I mean, I feel like jonathan, jonathan Edwards, with like the spider on the edge of the cliff and there's like fire and I'm like you're hanging on by a string and we get to the end of it. I'm like so and he goes.
Speaker 1:So you think I should go into music then and I was like oh no, what just happened? I did it. I had all this stuff. The spice was in there, it was a perfectly crafted meal and you went skateboarding instead of eating it. What are you doing? And it reminded me, as I always need to be reminded you're not that cool, dan. You can't just like I got this. I think it's like a video game or like a sport. I got my, like my, my evangelism trait up to 99. So like now, like if I just preach the gospel, somebody like boom saved, boom saved, got it. And everyone else is like I'm a 25, but I'm working on it and when I get to 99, then everyone will be safe. When I tell them the gospel, it's like no, god saves everyone's dead in their sins. They don't have ears, they can hear eyes, they can see they. They hate God and you ain't going to change that. But God will Look what Paul intentionally did, because a lot of us again are like well, I'm not a good speaker, I'm going to stumble over my words, I'm going to forget a line.
Speaker 1:What if I forget a line, dan? What if I forget part of this? Paul says I came to you not with lofty speech or wisdom. Why Was that important? This is a Greek town. Guess what is super important for any speaker in this town Lofty speech and wisdom, that was what the Greek philosophers were known for was this hyper-elegant, eloquent speech.
Speaker 1:And Paul says I came to you as simple folk as I could. Okay, I came to you scared for my life. I came to you worried and concerned that I would fail and I would fall short. And yet I had faith in the word of God. And if I could just get the message out to you clearly that it didn't matter if I was convincing, that my job is not to be compelling or to convince you of something, or even to be concise in any given way. My goal is just to be clear. Because what happens then If I stumble over all of my words and it's just like a botched gospel pitch right. We went to throw it down the middle and we threw it to third and like, all of a sudden, we're like I don't know what happened In that moment the person's not looking at you and is like this person knows exactly what they're talking about and I'm going to trust them. The only way they'd have faith is if god worked through your mess and blessed them and saved them and kept them. That's a great spot to be in. That's a great spot to be in.
Speaker 1:The manner of evangelism is a simple and clear evangelism. That's it. That's what Paul did, and he was the super Christian. So if it was good enough for him, it's good enough for me. What is the mission of evangelism? 1 Corinthians 9, 19 through 23,. Paul says For, though I am free from all, I have made myself a servant to all that I might win more of them To the Jews. I became as a Jew in order to win Jews To those under the law. I became as one under the law, though not being myself under the law. That I might win those under the law To those outside the law. I became as one outside the law, not being outside the law of God but under the law of Christ, that I might win those outside the law To the weak. I became weak. Okay, start there at the end.
Speaker 1:The heart posture of this mission is sharing it is I have gotten this overwhelming great gift. It'd be like if you grew up poor your entire life and god just dropped 100 million dollars on your front porch, like, and you're just like okay, uh, the church needs stuff and you need stuff, right, like this is too much for me, like I'm good, I don't need that. Like, and you just start giving it away. My friends, the good news you have is overflowing inside of you daily. It's more than you can hold. So imagine how foolish we look when we have this overflowing goodness just flowing out of us and we're like you don't want any of this. I don't know how to tell you about it, so it's just fine, don't worry about it.
Speaker 1:The mission of evangelism is one where, for the sake of the gospel, I want you to share in the blessings that I have received. I'm here to tell you that before I was saved, I think I had way more money. I think I was way more popular. I think I have way more power, and I'm here to tell you that none of those things matter one bit, and if God gave me any of those things today, it would be for stewarding for his glory and saying God, who am I supposed to serve? Who am I supposed to give this to? Who am I supposed to love? He says for, though I am free from all, I have made myself a servant to all that I might win more of them. So this idea you might immediately read that and be like, see, hypocrite. He goes over to the Jews and he's like I'm a Jew and he goes over to the Greeks and he's like I'm a Greek Like this is not what's happening, okay. What is happening is we'll call it contextualizing, okay. So, in the same way that when Patrick was here visiting which, by the way, we got all our college boys back next week right after we moved all this stuff, so that's that.
Speaker 1:But Patrick was with me and I went to go speak at the mission in Galesburg you know all these homeless people and it was hilarious watching Patrick, who's known me for years he's known me since 2019, at least and Patrick goes. We're reconvening afterwards. He goes. That was like street Pastor Dan, like I've never heard you speak like that before. Like it was good, like, but there ain't no way you're going to the country church and speaking like that and I was trying to explain to him that. Number one, it wasn't really hyperintentional, but number two I want to be heard by these people.
Speaker 1:So if I go in in a three-piece suit and a tie into the homeless shelter and say, hey, everyone, open up thy Bibles to the 13th psalmist, they're all checked out. They might throw something at me. I want to win them to the gospel. So I'm not going to make it boring for them, I'm going to engage them where they're at. In the same way that if you get like a memorized gospel pitch in your head, you're like I got my gospel elevator pitch, like I'm ready for evangelism, let's go. And like you like, see this mom who has like three small children and she's like wrestling them all in Walmart. And you're like, oh, she's one of the ones I needed to tell. And she's like wrestling the kids and you're like, excuse me, excuse me, I got to tell you something. Are you ready? And you give her the pitch while she's wrestling the three.
Speaker 1:Guess what you've not done. You've not contextualized at all the mission of your evangelism has become selfish. Okay, not selfless, it's selfish. Now I'm going to accomplish telling you this whether you like it or not, it's like you missed it. You missed it. We're winning people to the gospel, we're winning them to the truth. So what do we do?
Speaker 1:Well, when someone's struggling with depression in a moment, we want to speak the gospel to them. You know what? We don't go in, we don't go into the room all sunshine and rainbows and be like just remember the joy of the Lord is your strength, it's going to be okay. Let me tell you the gospel. Okay, you know, what someone that's struggling with a depression in a dark room doesn't want to hear is that they don't want you coming in loud, all bright, all those things. They want you to meet them where they're at. They want you to come and just sit and exercise the ministry of presence for a moment, to love them where they're at, to serve them, and as you create this relational equity, you have the ability then to speak into their life this truth. You and I all have those people. There's lots of examples you could give. The point is that I meet people where they're at in order to win them to the gospel.
Speaker 1:The gospel is not a get it done board, like a chore board, where we're just trying to get all the stars done. I got my 10 evangelisms done this week. I'm a superstar evangelist. It's like no man. Create relationship with people, love people and then tell them the truth. When God opens the door, the end.
Speaker 1:We get now to the magnitude of evangelism, the weightiness of it. 2 Corinthians 5, 17-21. Paul says Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away. Behold, the new has come. All this is from God who, through Christ, reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation that is, in Christ. God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, god making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ. We have a job to do and it's not go try to burst awkward social bubbles and like, make things happen. We're ambassadors of the most high king, we are his representatives. We're the ones that carry the torch, that carry the message that only can save people. That's it. You and I have a job description here. What is our job description he has gave us at the end there of verse 18, gave us the ministry of reconciliation.
Speaker 1:You know there's like probably a joy that people get that work in a hospital environment when they're a delivery nurse, like a labor and delivery nurse, of just getting to help this family bring a new baby into the world. So much greater should be your joy in your ministry of reconciliation as you get to lead people from death to life with God. As you get to lead people from death to life with God, as you lead them away from the useless, pointless life of struggling for money and for power and for fame and for lust and you say no, no, no, no, no. You were made for so much more than that. Those things will never satisfy you. It's like drinking seawater, but I can bring you to the living water that satisfies forever. The joy you should have being able to do that handoff is so much greater than the labor and delivery nurse Of getting to see someone's life change and getting to be an instrument of God that was used to save someone's life.
Speaker 1:This church is about so much more than this, and when it stops becoming more than just about this gathering, I will guarantee you that if we are around, in two decades there will be 12 of us, no children and no mission. If we are not outward focused, we will eventually be alone. God has planted us on mission for a reason. We're a lot like a factory that like hires all of its first workers and we're like everything's going great and we have no succession plan, no hiring process. We're just like it's going great and 50 years later we're like what happened? I thought workers were just going to show up. Who's stepping up to succeed the guy here? Nobody.
Speaker 1:You and I were made to preach the good news to the people around us. You see, lives changed forever and it all sounds exactly like this At the end of verse 20, we implore you, on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. That's it. God brings a peace message today. He brings it to you. If you don't take it today and you either die or he comes back, it will no longer be a peace message but a sword, and not like a big sword that looks scary, but like an eternal sword that divides between those who will be going to heaven forever and those who will be going to hell, those who will be in pure bliss for all of eternity and those who will suffer for all of eternity. We have to see the magnitude of this, that Christ has done all of this work and now he's just given us the papers of telling people the work he did.
Speaker 1:Christianity is the only religion that doesn't tell you what to do in order to be saved, but tells you what's been done by God for you to be saved. We have the good news you don't have to work for the salvation. That's why Jesus says my yoke is easy, my burden is light. Why Come to me all you who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest, because salvation is not by works, but by grace, through faith. There's only one name upon which people will be saved. That's Jesus Christ.
Speaker 1:Now we have the means of evangelism real quick, and then we'll have a summary statement at the end. Colossians 4, 5, and 6 says walk in wisdom toward outsiders, making the best use of their time, of the time. Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person. Very simply, the means of evangelism is to have wisdom on the inside and a gracious speech on the outside. How do we deal with the world? Well, we have wisdom and discernment on the inside that only comes from God's word and from God gifting it to us, and we have gracious speech Seasoned with salt is the idea of not only preserving but making something palatable. So we speak in a way that people want to listen, right? So if I was up here preaching and I had like an angry face the whole time and I was throwing stuff at you, you would be like I don't want to listen to that. But probably it depends on what kind of week you have. Now you and I have a job to do and if we take it seriously, then we will pray that God would give us the words to speak and the wisdom to know what to speak and how to speak to the world he's put around us.
Speaker 1:So what is evangelism? I got two quotes for you from Mark Dever here that are great. The call to evangelism is a call to turn our lives outward, from focusing on ourselves and our needs to focusing on God and on others made in his image who are still at enmity with him. That means to be at war with God, alienated from him and in need of salvation from sin and guilt. The next quote says the Christian call to evangelism is a call not simply to persuade people to make decisions, but rather to proclaim to them the good news of salvation in Christ, to call them to repentance and to give God the glory for regeneration and conversion. We don't fail in our evangelism if we faithfully present the gospel and yet the person is not converted. We fail only if we don't faithfully present the gospel at all. That's my encouragement to you today. Again, I don't want you to speed dial in five people on the way out of here, but I do want you to take time to seriously consider who in your life needs the gospel, who needs the hope of Christ, and then start making a plan for how you're going to share with them. Pray that God would open up a door for you to be able to sneak in part of the gospel, to communicate it in love, to communicate it in humility. My dear friends, this is why we do all the things we do is so that he gets the glory by his church multiplying, not by growing bigger programs or a bigger facility, but by multiplying Christians. That's the goal. As a part of that, there's a tool for you in the back. Scott can hand it out to you on the way out.
Speaker 1:I have very typically in my beginning discipleship I've said this before model. I will have a what is the gospel? Little tract and I'll ask them beforehand. The person I'm meeting with, okay, can you tell me what the gospel is? And 95% of people cannot. And I'm like, okay, that sounds good, read this. And then tell me the gospel and about 50% of people after reading it can do a decent job. So the gospel tract, you can hand it out if you want to. You can get some extras. We have I got 100 over there or something like that, so there's plenty. If you want to grab a handful, go get them, tiger, but I want all of you to grab at least one for you so that you can test yourself and say, do I actually know how to communicate this? And if you don't, then you can read over this quick tract and practice again.
Speaker 1:At the very least, let us be ready to share the good news.
Speaker 1:Let us pray.
Speaker 1:Oh Father, we thank you for your word that says that you keep us, that you hold us, that you are so patient with us as we stumble forward in this life.
Speaker 1:Lord, I ask that you would help us to be a church built on evangelism.
Speaker 1:That wouldn't just be a coined phrase, but it would be a practical reality of our church.
Speaker 1:That we would look to the children of this congregation and of this community and say, how can we preach the gospel to them?
Speaker 1:Did we look at the shut-ins and the needy and the hurting and the broken and all of the people in this community, in this county, in this area, and we would say, how can we love them, how can we build relationship with them, how can we pray for a door to be open for us to share the good news? Lord, help us in our weakness to be prepared to share the good news, to practice that we may know. And, lord, ultimately, whether you save one person through our lives or hundreds of people through our lives and our ministries, lord, we ask that you would help each of us to be faithful, to share the good news, to be faithful to tell the next generation of your good works. Thank you, lord, that you are a good God, that you reign, that you are in control and that we're not preaching a gospel of works where we tell people all the things they must do to be saved, but we rather say look what God has already done for you to be saved. In Jesus' name, we pray Amen.
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