SA Ep92 - Articles of Faith #15 Evangelism and Missions

SA Ep92 - Articles of Faith #15 Evangelism and Missions

In this episode, we examine the doctrine of evangelism and missions. The Bible teaches that every believer and every church has a responsibility to take the Gospel to the lost. We will look at the Great Commission, the message we are called to preach, and the role of the local church in reaching both the nearby and the far away. This episode also addresses the urgency of the Gospel and the importance of prayer, giving, and going. The Gospel that came to us was meant to go through us.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:03

Welcome to the Seeking Approval Podcast. I'm Dr. Chris Smelster from Gilead Baptist Church. You know life moves fast, and faith is not meant to be rushed. I want to take some time and slow down with you and have some honest conversations from the Word of God about daily living. So join me here today on Seeking Approval. If the gospel is true, then it cannot stay silent. If faith cometh by hearing, and how will they hear without a preacher? And if Christ is the only way, then we who know the gospel, who believe, must tell them. So the question is not whether people need the gospel, the question is whether we will deliver it to them. Evangelism and missions are not optional parts of a Christian life. They are a necessity. They're the heartbeat of the church, trying to reach those who are lost, going into the highways and hedges. Now there's multiple ways that we'll do that, and looking at this next article of faith, which is evangelism and missions, we find that there's many ways that we can get the gospel out. And as the world progresses, we also can progress in our um ways of producing the gospel to getting it out, letting others hear about it. Now in uh ancient days it was uh by word of mouth and by foot. Paul traveled and he would travel in uh many roads, he walked many miles. Um but as time progressed and the printing press, we were able to print things and move and send, and travel became uh easier, and uh now people were able to fly around the country and and drive cars and uh get into areas where they weren't able to reach before. And now with the uh internet highway, we're able to reach places that we never thought we could reach around the world. We're able to get in places that are uh almost inaccessible uh by uh a Westerner or uh by someone who uh just does not know the area. Uh and with the internet now we're able to do more, like what we're doing today. And we're we're so fortunate to be able to use the things that God has given us to be able to reach the world. I don't know, maybe uh fifty years ago or more, it would have been a strange thought for someone to read the book of Revelation and see that the whole world was going to see the two witnesses uh who were gonna be murdered in the streets of Jerusalem. Uh, how will they hear about that? I mean, uh the newspaper, you know, it would take time for it to travel and to get uh across the oceans and things of that nature, but now with uh live stream, uh it's almost instantaneous that news can travel around the world, around the globe. So we have these the benefits. Now, I will say that uh there are some very sinful things about the internet and the social media and anything that God produces for good, the devil will use it for evil. And uh he will use it almost in the exact opposite way. And again, it goes all the way back to the garden. God gave the tree of knowledge of good of good and evil. He said, Do not eat, Satan said eat. Uh God said, Do not touch, Satan says touch. God says, do not look, Satan says look. Uh there's there's many things that uh Satan will take that God has given us and use it the exact opposite. So the this the internet and social media is no different. We are to use these things, not that that we are commanded by Scripture to, you know, thou shalt use Facebook uh to spread the gospel, but he does tell us in Matthew 28 that uh all power is given to me in heaven and earth. Go ye therefore and teach all nations. Well, we can teach all nations with uh Facebook and YouTube and other social media sites. Uh, our own website, Sermon Audio, is a is a beautiful site, podcasts the way we're doing it today with whatever uh streaming service you're using for your podcast. Uh we we produce it and put it out through a uh a hosting company called uh Buzz Sprout, and it it sends it out to every platform uh imaginable. I don't know how many of those there's 20 or 25, I don't know, uh platforms that it goes out on. So things that are used for good. Now the problem is the information that goes out, and then those who use it for harm. Let's deal with those who use it for harm. People will use the internet, as we know, to tear down, to criticize, ridicule, to spread uh false propaganda, foul language, uh uh murder and death and hatred. Uh they'll use it for pornography, uh, so many other things that the internet will be used for that is not good, that is anti-good, that is uh anti-God and Scripture and Bible. Uh those things are they become enticing and tempting, and that's what Satan wants us uh to turn our eyes to because it's about those three things that we always go back to. It's the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life. And and those things are very hard to fight against. But then those there's those who are using the internet that are putting out false or um whether on purpose or whether by uh ignorance that are putting out false gospel. Things that sound good but uh that they're not good, uh works-based salvation, things of that nature, and they're able to give you snippets and clips, or uh able to sit and reason with no one challenging what they're saying, uh and they they can give you a false uh gospel message, and that's not good either. But we can use these platforms that God has blessed us with for good. And we're trying to do that with our church. We're so blessed that our sermon audio is in a hundred and uh about 140 countries now, uh regularly every month where we're hitting over a hundred countries every month, and uh there's some of those uh places where we we might get hit one month and we we don't another, but then we've got those a hundred or so that are that are consistent every month uh that we hit. And uh and Singapore right now is leading the charge, uh almost doubling every other country uh every month. Uh this podcast now is in uh I can't remember how many countries that we're in now, and uh we're in hundreds of cities. It it goes by countries, but then it also gives you cities. Uh, we're in hundreds of cities now. Uh it's just it's a blessing to be able to do this and to know what content is going out, uh, what what we are trying to preach uh and and to teach about the scripture, uh, that is uh whosoever will you know come, uh give your life to Christ. There's no uh strings attached, there's no, you know, you've got to do this or check these boxes or uh say this uh incantation or pop a do better pill or a 12-step program or nothing like that. It's you it's if if you believe that Jesus Christ uh uh uh was was born of a virgin, died uh a vicarious death, uh was uh laid in a grave and rose again on the third day, then then you can be saved. And that's the message that we try to get out. Uh we try to rightly divide the word. So the local church plays a very central role in the work of getting the gospel out. In the book of Acts, the churches we see sending out missionaries, they're supporting missionaries, they're praying for them, they're partnering and spreading the gospel. Uh missions is not separate from the church, it flows through the church. It's a it's a uh it's almost a mandate of the church according to Matthew chapter number 28 with the Great Commission. It's a it's a mandate of each person, it's a mandate of the church. If you want your family to be blessed, take on a personal mission, uh missionary with your family. And if you need the recommendation of a good one, I'll give you a good one. Matter of fact, I'll give it to you right now. Uh Dr. Mike Bagwell. He's not a missionary overseas, he's not going into uh you know villages uh in uh third world countries, but he preaches the gospel uh uh and has an online platform of uh of teaching and preaching. Uh he's uh one of the one of the smartest men uh I know from Tunnel Hill, Georgia, uh, as far as in the scripture. Uh he's a uh just a beautifully spirited man uh that you that you would love. That's a man that you could you could support him uh each month in his travels. He preaches probably 48 out of the 52 weeks in in place he's traveling all the time. Uh someone like that. Take someone like that on with your own family, not just through the church, and you'll see your family being blessed. And there's different ways to get involved in missions. Uh some are called to go. They leave their homes, they take everything they they they can, they they sell it, they give it up, or they they pack it in a bag and they they take the gospel and they physically go. Others are called to give, support work by working uh financially with your church uh or through your own family. Some are called to pray, maybe you can't give financially, maybe you are just uh strapped now. That's where we get into the faith promise giving, but maybe you just you can't. Maybe you're just praying, uh lifting those up that are on the front lines. Uh some are called to be involved. Uh but however it is, whatever your whatever your level of involvement, we are called to be involved in the missions. But there's also obstacles that come in the way of that. The fear is one of the greatest ones. Fear of the unknown, fear of rejection, uh fear of uh someone laughing at you when you try to present them the gospel message. Uh there's there's the fear of saying the wrong thing, the fear of being misunderstood, the fear of losing friends or losing credibility or being rejected based on your beliefs. But the message we carry is not ours to decide when we delineate this. The message that we carry, it's God's, and it's our responsibility to cast the seed and let Him produce the results. It's it's faithfulness is in the sharing of it, not in the deciding whether we want to share it or not. The results belong to God, as the Bible says, we are to uh to cast the seed into water, and God will produce for us. He will cause it to grow. Another obstacle is our distraction. We become so focused on other things in life. Churches have become so enamored with personal growth and self-growth and self-help and internal uh finances and uh growing their own brand and uh ministries and things of that nature that they forget that our ultimate goal is to edify the saints. That's edify one another. Uh, that's to correct, to exhort uh one another, uh, to have fellowship with one another. But then on top of that, get the gospel out, the simple message of the gospel. It does not have to be complicated, overworked, it doesn't need to be uh explained uh to the finite detail. We just need to preach them Jesus. That's what Paul told Timothy, that's what Philip did with the Ethiopian eunuch, preach them Jesus. And that's what we need to do, but we come so distracted and enamored with all these other things that we we lose sight of those things. So, what does this mean for you as far as this article of faith? That means if you are saved, if you know Jesus Christ, you have a responsibility. You are you have a responsibility to witness that truth to other people. It may not be uh again in a third world country, it may be at the gas station when you stop today asking the person to pump beside you. Do you know Jesus Christ? And what's the worst they're gonna say? No, and I don't want to. Well, I'm sorry to hear that, I'll be praying for you. I've heard that many times. No, and I don't want to, don't talk about that stuff. Sorry to bother you, I'll pray for you. You don't have to get into a theological debate with them. It's very simple. If they say, Yeah, I would like to know more about him, then just tell them what you know about Jesus. I mean, you don't have to have, you know, chapter and verse in front of you. You don't have to have the Romans roads memorized. Just tell them what you know about him. It's very simple. The mission begins in our heart and and flows out of us, and it flows through the church, it flows through us personally, through our families. So as we look at this article of faith and evangelism and mission, they're not side issues in and concerning the Christian life. They are central to why we're here. And one day this church is gonna be taken out of the world. And we we're dealing with that in Revelation on our Sunday night series. But until that day, it's our it's our job to carry that message as far as it can go. The question is whether we take that mission serious, whether evangelism and missions is a central part of our life because the gospel came to us, and now we're meant to take it on to the next person. Thank you for joining us today on Seeking Approval. You know our faith oftentimes grows in quiet places. I hope today's conversation gave you something worth carrying throughout the rest of this day. And join me, Dr. Chris Smelser, again next time as we continue thinking, learning, and walking together. Until then, grace and peace to you from Seeking Approval at Gilead Baptist Church.