God has called us as a people
to be holy. And the holiness of the church, the expression
of righteousness that we have as a people, is a direct reflection
of the work of God through His grace. It is that which God does
in His people. To say that God creates a people
for His own glory and saves them by His grace, saves them through
the blood of Jesus Christ, that we might live as the world lives,
is not worthy of praise. but that we as the church are
to stand apart from the world. Not in legalism, not in self-righteousness,
but in the powerful, magnificent righteousness of Jesus Christ,
which sets us apart, that as people look at us and say, oh
look, the holier than thou's, they are mocking the very face
of Christ who gives us such holiness. Keep that in mind as we prepare
next week to start in Thessalonians. because these are a people who
were also very immature in the faith. They were infants in the
faith. There were no professional evangelists.
There were no professional shepherds. There were no professional elders.
There were no trained theologians. These were people who were left
to, let's say, the wolves, and these individuals were the poster
child of failure in the ministry of the world. If there were ever
a church to fail because of its infancy, the church of Thessalonica
should have been that church. They did not know what they were
to do. They did not know how they were to teach. They did
not know anything except Christ and Him crucified. And by the
power of God, through His Word, He created a people that stood
apart not only in their own place, but they stood apart from the
region. They stood apart from the culture. They stood apart
in the country. that their very life was a testimony
of the gospel of Jesus, and that those other places where Paul
and the apostles went, they were reached by the words of the news
of the transformation of the Christians in Thessalonica. And
so this morning, I want to deal with, not out of Thessalonians,
I want to go to one of my favorite passages that's not in John.
2 Corinthians chapter 4. And I want you to put one thumb
there, and I want you to put another thumb in Acts chapter
26, and then put another thumb in Matthew 28. 2 Corinthians 4, Acts 26, Matthew
28. And so, yeah, you're going to need some
more thumbs. But what I want to talk about today is the absolute
certainty of evangelism in the life of the church. Everyone of us here, everyone
who will ever hear this sermon, as long as the Lord preserves
it, will say to themselves, those who are in Christ, I need to
share my faith. I know I'm supposed to share my faith. I know I'm
supposed to reach the lost with the gospel. But yet, statistics have shown
us that most congregations not only do not do that, but do not
know how to do that. Now, if I were to go through
my, if I haven't shredded them or thrown them away, if I were
to go through all of my files, I could find certification after
certification after certification after certification of not just
the method, but also the instruction of teaching evangelistic strategy.
And what that looks like is you might, some of you who have been
part of the Baptist circles over the last three decades might
understand evangelism explosion. EE is what we call it in short.
And you were given a little outline and a couple of little things
to do in the scripture and then you close the deal and you snatch
the hook and you pull the net and then there's another called
the net. Now there's one called the story.
One of the most popular evangelistic strategies of the Baptist history
has been faith. The faith outline. F-A-I-T-H. I can do that in three different
languages, believe it or not, but in other languages it doesn't
spell faith, it spells something else. So you can go, you can
learn these strategies. At the age of 11, I was taught
the Roman road. I could do it out the back of
my hand. I could do it in a coma. And
for years and years and years, the Church of Jesus Christ, or
so-called church, has been teaching people strategies for evangelism. When there is no prescription
for a strategy for evangelism in the entire Word of God, from
start to finish, there is no strategy, there is no plan, there
is no program, there is no prop. There is nothing! Nothing! So that if we do that which Scripture
has not prescribed, we are doing what is superlative to Scripture,
which is unbiblical, which is godless, which is demonic. So then make the connection to
that argument that all of the years I spent under the tutelage
of so-called great men of God, teaching me these methods of
evangelism, they taught me the devil's work. There's only one door to get
in this building. And there's only one door to
get to the Father. And His name is Jesus Christ. And one of the greatest misnomers
of the local church in this country is that we exist for the purpose
of reaching the lost. Did you hear me? A couple of things I want you
to understand. We'll talk about Matthew 28, 19 through the end.
What does it say? Well, it starts out with the
understanding, this is at the ascension of Jesus Christ, after
His resurrection, and He was alive on the earth, or present
on the earth, for 40 days. And before 500 witnesses, He
says these words to His disciples. He says, all authority in heaven
and earth has been given unto Me. Therefore, go make disciples
by teaching them to obey everything that I've commanded you. Baptizing
them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy
Spirit. And surely I will be with you until the very end of
age. That is what we call the Great Commission. We call it
the Great Commission because somewhere in our English Bibles,
somebody got really creative and they put above the term there
in Matthew 28, the Great Commission. They blocked it off and they
put it there. So it says the Great Commission, so therefore
we call it the Great Commission. A commission is this. A commission
is that if you have a skill and an ability to do something, and
I need that which you can provide, then I call you and I say, hey,
what would you charge me to do that? That's commissioning. So
the Great Commission, by the standard of the definition of
the word in our culture, is that God needs us to do something
for Him. So in turn, He calls and tells
us that He will be with us forever if we give Him what He needs,
which is our obedience to teach people to obey Christ. That is
not biblical. God needs me like He needs this
microphone to be heard. God needs the strength of my
body like He needs an ant to go move a mountain. It's not the great commission.
It's the great declaration of Jesus Christ, the living God
of heaven, who is eternal, the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning
and the end, the first and the last. He is holy, righteous,
magnificent, immutable, omniscient, omnipotent. He is the King of
kings, the Lord of lords, and He has declared from His own
Word in His absolute providence before the foundation of the
world that He would prepare a people for Himself, that through the
words of their mouth, they would preach the words that He gave
them, and through His power and through His Spirit, He would
birth the people who were dead from the dead, from the grave,
and make them alive in Himself. This is the power of God, the
power of the gospel, the power of Christ, the power of the cross.
This is evangelism and it is not about us. It is not about
mankind. It is not about doing certain
cool, quick, classy things to get people engaged in some kind
of relationship that we might wiggle in a little Jesus. It's
not about that. It's about direct, bold, pure,
simple proclamation of the truth that God is holy, we are wicked,
we deserve the judgment of hell, and that God in His mercy because
of His great love with which He loved us before there was
anything, He said, let there be light, that He would create
something to shine the real light into the world, that in the darkness,
light would become life. so that we would praise Him for
His glorious grace. That is the purpose of the church. Nothing else, and there is nothing
more. And so, in Matthew 28, it is
a great declaration of Jesus Christ. As you are going, He
commands us. So rather than a great commission,
it is the great commandment. Go make disciples." And you know
what? It's still not the purpose of
the church. The purpose of the church, as I've already said,
is to give God glory. You might say, well, making disciples
does that. Yes, but we mess up. We put the cart before the horse. We let the tail wag the dog.
And any other old cliché you can think of that shows a mishap
of order. And Matthew 28 is a great commandment.
This is what will be. Christ will be with us to the
very end of age. We will make disciples as we go. We teach
people. That's what making disciples
is. We teach the lost to obey Christ. We teach the lost to
trust in Christ. We teach the lost about the glory
of Christ. And as they come and express
faith in Christ, we receive them into the body of Christ, and
then publicly they express their faith through the waters of baptism.
A picture of the covenant of Christ, a picture of the covenant
of the church to receive those who have come to faith. And Christ is with us forever. And a lot of us sit here and
they hear that because we have been taught so differently through
the world. Notice I said the world. It's
not the Word that's taught us anything different. The Word
of God is not contradictory. We've been taught differently
through the world. Because we've been taught differently through
the world, friends, we have conflict. I hear it. I know that what he's
saying is true. Now what? What do we do? What is evangelism? What should
it be? Well, evangelism is sharing the
good news of Jesus Christ. That's simply put. Sharing Christ. Sharing. Telling. Proclaiming. Speaking of Christ. You share a recipe, you don't
show somebody the dish. Here it is. Take a picture of
it. You go home and make it. Well, what's in it? Figure it
out. Is it a chicken dish? Is it a
macaroni dish? Is it dirt covered with cheese?
What is it? I don't know. Even a recipe has to be shared,
has to be written out, has to be explained. The good news of
Jesus Christ has to be explained. You can't just live right and
expect people to get saved. You can't not use words and say
you're sharing Christ. You can live in Christ without
words. Good, because your profession and your sharing should not disagree
with your living. But when it comes to the Great Commission,
what is it exactly? What is evangelism? Where and
by whom should it be done? And through my years, my short
time on this earth, I've heard many excuses of why people don't
share their faith. I've heard many examples of cool
and creative ways to share their faith. I mean, I'm an illusionist.
I've been doing illusions since I was six years old and was really
big into it in my 20s. I mean, I could walk into a mall,
hand out a track, people are like, get away from me, you freak.
Shoot fire from my hands. Oh, I've got an audience. I'm like, look, people are coming
and they're watching. Oh, well, let's do some tricks, hand out
some cards, do some cool stuff related to the gospel, and then
preach. You know what they do? They walk
away. That guy's a freak. But he shoots fire. That's cool. It doesn't get people involved
in the gospel. Let's have a hot dog supper.
People want hot dogs. Yes. Everybody loves a good free
hot dog. Nitrates included. Free of charge. And we'd get the hot dogs, and
everybody loves the hot dogs, and say, now guess what? You
ate bread, but the true bread of life is Jesus Christ. If you
don't eat of Christ and drink of His blood, you will perish
forever in the judgment of God. Believe on Christ today. Don't
put your hope in the stomach of your flesh, but put your hope
in the truth of Christ. Man, that guy's a freak. Thanks
for the hot dog. Children's ministry. Oh, if we
could get kids, we could get people. You sure could. I've
never seen a non-attended beauty pageant. I've never seen a poorly
attended child's christening, or what do we call them in the
Baptist circle? Dedication. Never seen one. I mean, people
that you didn't even know were related to each other show up.
I mean, they're bringing animals to church. Who's that? That's
my cousin, Godey. I mean, you know. Folks that
never even should be here, they're showing up because something's
going on with the kids. And people go, wow, look at all
the people coming. Let's do that once a month. Let's have something.
Let's do something for children. Because if children jump up and
down and scream in the toy store, they get what they want. Maybe
they'll jump down and scream at home to go to church and then
we'll get the people in church. You can put people in church
all you want. It will not put them in Christ. And then you sit there and you
go, you know what? Everything that you love more than everything
else in life, we're going to throw it all away because I'm
going to give you something more glorious, more beautiful, more
valuable. I'm going to show you Christ
and His Word. And you're going to be blown
away and you're going to take everything in this world and you're going
to throw it in the trash. And they go, man, where's my fun
time? Where's my ministry? No, you were feeding people temporal
food so that they would feel comfortable on their way to hell.
It's not evangelism, folks. If you want to eat, just say,
hey, let's eat. Don't play like it's something that God has called
us to do. So, a few presumptions. If you don't know where I stand
yet, let me explain it clearly. Every person who has ever breathed
is an evangelist. Every person. Who has ever lived
is an apologist. Was an evangelist? The word evangel
is the Greek transliteration of the word good news. We call
it gospel because back in our word history, they used to call
it the speech of God, then God speak and God spoke. Now it's
gospel. Southerners probably created
that word because we just cut out a couple of consonants and
we're just there. Dawson. Maybe Luke came up with it. Brother
Luke. He's preaching at Rogers this
morning. But everybody is an evangelist. Because every single
one of us in this room, all of us have things in our life that
are good news. And everything in our life that
is good news, we share drastically, overwhelmingly too much. I have to check out my new shoes,
check out my new shirt, check out my new glasses, check out
my new hairdo. Or lack of hairdo, as I saw.
Check it out. Check out my new tires. Check
out my new job. Let me tell you what happened
to me yesterday. Let me show you that show I watched on TV. Have you gone to the parkers? You can't get in there. I sat
there 20 minutes Friday because I couldn't get out of the parking
lot. So I just parked and started talking to people. It's ridiculous. Oh, their drinks
are good. Well, that chicken's good. Oh,
have you ever been to the Six Flags? It's awesome. This new ride.
Have you ever seen that cartoon? Have you ever played this game?
You see what I'm saying. What about this song? Let me let you
hear this song. We're all evangelist people.
We share everything that we love more than anything that we love.
And we share it often. And we share it with passion. And I thought I'd found some
camaraderie among some of our homeschool students a couple
of weeks ago, and I walk in there playing chess, and I'm like,
hey! So I'm talking chess theory, and they're looking at me like
I'm crazy. They said, dude, you're like
a chess Nazi. Get away from me. I'm like, no,
let's start a league. Hey, let's just pack it up. No, I can be an evangelist for
chess. It grows the brain. It's the
closest thing to warfare you'll ever get. Except you go drive
through Parker's, don't you? But everyone is an evangelist.
Everyone is an apologist. An apologist makes a defense
for what they believe is true. And friends, if you want to see
apologetics in its purest form, election year. Oh, this candidate. Well, that candidate. Let me
tell you, every candidate, and I'm not going to preach on politics,
Because you would not like me. Every candidate that's ever elected
is done so by the will of God. And you can vote, and every person
in the world can vote for the same person. And God can turn
that vote over and put who He wants in there. And so you vote
as though it doesn't matter, and you'll be fine. But you know that God has every
king and every kingdom in His hand. He will crush them all
before the day is done. And also, there is no nation
of people under any government that are God's people. There
is the church who is Israel, who are those who are in Christ
Jesus. And that's it. And friends, we're going to suffer
either way. And there is no condemnation for we who are in Christ. Not
through a government, not through a king, not through persecution.
That is for our good and we rejoice. But you want to see an apologist?
Just ask somebody what they think about politics. You know what?
You don't have to. They're going to tell you. They're
going to come up to you and say, so who are you voting for? To
which I say, I'm not answering that question. Seriously, I've
got a lot of people I need to stay neutral to. You wouldn't
like my answer anyway. I might write in Jesus in there.
You can do that. By the way, that's a wasted vote. It's never a wasted vote to vote
for Jesus, y'all. It may not get on the ballot,
but it's never a wasted vote. And I'm being funny, a little.
So everybody defends and shares what they believe in. Jesus says
it very clearly in Luke 6.45, it says, "...for out of the abundance
of the heart the mouth speaks." You want to know what people
love? It's what they talk about. You know what people love? It's what
they share. You know what people love? It's
what they invest their time in. And friends, that's the church.
We ought to be known for Christ. We ought to be known as people
who understand that the greatest element of our lives is affection
in Christ and for Christ and by Christ. And that we live for
His glory. We fight the war against the
flesh. And we shine as light before
men that they may see our good works and glorify our Father
who is in heaven. All people are evangelists. Another
thing that I want you to understand, as I've already said, I want
to clarify it, is that the purpose of the church is not evangelism.
The purpose of a church, of the body of Christ, is to give glory
to God, to the praise of His glorious grace. In Ephesians
1, starting in verse 11, it tells us that. Those four, five, four
verses. In Him we have obtained an inheritance,
having been predestined according to the purpose of Him who works
all things according to the counsel of His will, so that we who are
the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of His glory. In Him also when you heard the
word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, the same thing,
and believed in Him, because you heard, You are sealed with
the promised Holy Spirit who is the guarantee of this inheritance
until we receive or acquire possession of it to the praise of His glory. God has saved a people so that
He may receive praise to the name that is due Him. Ezekiel
36, as we looked at Tuesday night in some of our questions. Ezekiel
36, Israel never obeyed God. They never did. And He put them
in slavery. He put them in bondage. He took
them over. The Babylonians, the Chaldeans,
you name it, the Syrians, they all came in and they destroyed.
Why? Because God sent them there to destroy these people, to put
them in slavery, to show them the consequence of unbelief.
But never ever did God forsake them And He says in Ezekiel 36, it
is not for your sake that I'm about to act, but for the sake
of My great glorious name, which you have defamed among the nations. God saves for one purpose, and
that is that He would receive the glory and the honor and the
praise and the affection and the majesty that is His. That's why we exist as the church. And a lot of people say, I don't
like that God. What Bible are you reading, pray tell? What text, what revelation of
God of Himself has caught your ears and eyes? God then is praised and glorified
in evangelism because people are saved in order that they
might give Him glory. So evangelism is part of the
actions of that purpose. You see the difference? And secondly,
another action of that purpose is that we live as holy people,
sold out and obedient to Christ, together with supernatural affection.
We live together in holy striving, and we reach out to win others
to be part of the body. So we reach out, and we reach
in, as we reach up. Sound familiar? In worship. Because God gets the praise through
it all. Where did this start? Where did
this evangelism begin? It began in the Garden of Eden.
And Adam and Eve were created by God, and He put them in the
Garden, and He gave them dominion over, and He says, multiply,
subdue the earth. You can have everything in the
cosmos. Imagine that. This whole earth
is yours. They couldn't have gotten outer
space, but if they could, Adam would have tried to plant corn
up there. Because men are going to take over everything. That's
just our nature. Subdue. Rule. He says, do not eat of the trees
in the center of the garden unless you die. And the devil came in
to Eve and he tempted her because she saw that the fruit of those
trees were just as luscious as the fruit of these trees. And
knowing that, the deceiver came and asked Eve, have you considered
this fruit? To which she says, God said,
if we touch it, we shall surely die. Did God really say? And the first deceit was there. God is withholding something
from you. God is keeping you from seeing something that He
sees, that if you were to see, you'd be like God. True statement.
And God was keeping that from Adam and Eve for their good,
for their holiness. And Adam and Eve were deceived,
and they ate of the fruit, and they died, and they saw that
they were naked, and they were ashamed, and they hid, and they
covered their own nakedness. And Jesus Christ, walking in
the cool of the day, called out to Adam, and Adam says, I hid,
for I was naked. Who told you you were naked?
The woman you gave me. Eve, have you done this? The
serpent you put in the garden deceived me and I ate of the
fruit and my eyes were opened and now I'm naked and I'm scared
and ashamed." And God took an animal and He killed it and He
made skins from that animal to cover the iniquity and the shame
of Adam and Eve as an antitype of Jesus, the Lamb of God that
takes away the sins of the world. And then he proclaimed a curse. He'd already told them what was
going to happen. If you eat of this, if you disobey me, if you
go against that which I told you was for your good, you will
surely die. And he said, here is the sentence
of death. You will suffer by the sweat
of your brow. You will labor and the world
will not subject itself to your rule any longer. You will suffer
or you will not eat. and your days will be numbered,
and you will grow old, and your child labor will be difficult,
and you, woman, will want to rule your husband, but he shall
rule over you." And then Jesus, speaking to Adam
and Eve, preached the gospel. and from the seed of the woman
shall come one to crush the head of the serpent. I will give you
covering through My Son." You see how the Father spoke that?
You see how God spoke that? I will give you covering through
My Son. Hold fast until that day, believing
what I say. So in this purpose of being the
church, this original idea of sharing the good news of God
started with God. And the Scripture teaches us
that God had ordained this before the foundations of the earth. And this is seen. This reality
of the purposes of the church are seen in several ways. Let
me give you some things to think about as we move on to the text at
hand. 2 Corinthians 4 and Acts 26. I want you to remember, Jesus
is the head of the church. Jesus says in Luke 19, that He
came to seek and save the lost. And He does and has done just
that. So therefore, where the head
is, the church is the body. And what the head does, the church
does. What the head knows, the church knows. What Christ is,
the church is becoming. So the church does that which
its head does. So the church is seeking out
and saving the lost. They're not saving, but they
are involved in the proclamation of the head who saves and seeks. So we who are the body does what
the body does. If we don't do what the body
does, then we're not the body. Is that okay? Can we go with
that? Christ died for the ungodly.
And in the parable of the sower... No, not the sower. It's the rich
young ruler. speaking to Jesus, calls Him
God, calls Him good, worships before Him. What must I do to
inherit eternal life? This is what you must do. You
must be holy. You must keep all the law. And
this man in his blindness says, I have done just that. Jesus
tests that by saying, take all that you are, all that you have,
and give it to everyone who deserves it not. The man left, dejected,
for he had much wealth. And Jesus says, it is easier
to shove a one-ton animal through a sewing needle's eye than it
is for the rich to enter the Kingdom of Heaven, to which the
response of the disciples was, then who, listen, who can be
saved? You get that? And Jesus says, that which is impossible
with man is possible with God. Jesus Christ the head, the church
is the body, the church, the body goes where the head goes,
does what the head does, loves what the head loves, and is,
in fact, one with the head. And Jesus says that it is not
possible for men to come to Him except that God do it. In John
chapter 6 it says that no one can come to Me except the Father
give them to Me. And that all that come to Me
I will never cast away. Jesus says in John 10 that My
sheep know My voice. They hear it and they obey it.
They come by the obedience of faith and the obedience and the
striving of holiness. We who are the children of God,
we hear the voice of our Shepherd. So therefore, in this sense,
as we strive for holiness, we don't want to confuse striving
for holiness as benevolence and goodness. Many good people will
stand in judgment. Many benevolent, loving people
will stand in judgment. Because they do not put their
hope in Jesus Christ alone. They put their hope in the fruit
of their own righteousness, the fruit in their own love, the
fruit in their own affection, the fruit in their benevolence,
the fruit in their feeding, the fruit in their ministry, the
fruit of their preaching, the fruit of their teaching, just
like Nicodemus. Good deeds of benevolence are
not what the world says they are. They are not programs. They
are not platforms. They are not passion. They are
not purposes. They are powerful displays of
obedience which is inclusive of evangelism, of outreach, of
preaching the gospel. because of a supernatural, glorious,
spontaneous affection that the church has not just for Christ,
not just for each other, but for the lost. Do you not have
a heart for the lost? You don't have a heart for Christ. How dare we not have a heart
for the very one we used to be. 2 Corinthians chapter 4. There
needs to be a willingness, as John would say to Nicodemus,
that people love the darkness. Friends, there's a lot of lightiness
about our darkness. We shade it in to make it look
light. Don't think darkness in John 3 is wicked, filthy, lucre. It also includes incredibly righteous
behavior. 2 Corinthians chapter 4. Therefore,
that word aggravates me. Let's go to the first three chapters.
Therefore, having this ministry by the mercy of God, we do not
lose heart. but we have renounced disgraceful,
underhanded ways. We refuse to practice cunning
or to tamper with God's Word, but by open statement of the
truth, we would commend ourselves to everyone's conscience in the
sight of God. And if our gospel is veiled,
it is veiled to those who are perishing. In their case, the
God of this world has blinded the minds of unbelievers to keep
them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ,
who is the image of God. For what we proclaim is not of
ourselves, But Jesus Christ is Lord with ourselves as your slaves
for the sake of Christ. For God who said, let light shine
out of darkness, has shone in our hearts to give the light
of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ."
Now when you think of this text, you may not think of evangelism,
but that's the point of the text. That's what it's talking about.
It's more evangelism than Matthew 28 will ever be. Matthew 28 is
a commandment of Christ to do what Paul then prescribes in
2 Corinthians chapter 4. You see that? This is the prescription. This is what disciple making
starts with. You might say, man, we got a
lot of text today. I'm going to show you Acts 26 in a few minutes
and show you the outcome of someone who was incredibly worldly and
judaistically righteous, obedient and holy with all the precepts
of God as far as he could ever be, and yet was transformed by
the gospel of Jesus and what he did with it. Several things,
try to take this in six specific points based on the six verses
that are here. The first verse that we see here,
having this ministry by the mercy of God, we do not lose heart.
Now if I were expositing this text, it would take us about
eight weeks. No kidding. Because we would spend some time
about the mercy of God and the reality of the joy that comes
in the midst of suffering and persecution as you do the work
of the ministry. That's what this verse 1 is talking
about. That it's the power of God and His ministry that calls
us to a suffering and persecuted ministry. Friends, when people
love you, and love your ministry, and love your church, but aren't
coming to Christ, and aren't following the light of the gospel,
you must not be doing it correctly. You must not be teaching it correctly.
You must be providing something for them that satisfies their
flesh, that tickles their ears. Because only the sheep of Christ
love the gospel. Hear that, church. If the world
loves the gospel that we preach, it is not the gospel. Do you
hear that? It's not the gospel. If we come to the idea of John
3, 16, without 17, 18, 19, and 20, then we are missing the point
of the gospel. We have put the love of God for
them, and they above the glory of Christ. Who wouldn't love
that message? It's the message of the fall
of Satan. I'm going to be like God. It's the message that Satan
gave Eve. I'm going to be like God. If
I eat, I'll know something God doesn't know. If I put me as the object
of God's absolute purpose, I'm above God. Who doesn't feel good
about that? The whole idea of grace is that
I'm not worthy. And I stay humble in that position
knowing that I am someone because Christ sacrificed His life for
me. But I don't deserve it. You see
that. We don't deserve salvation. God is under no obligation to
save one soul. Not one. But He did. He saved many. He saved few. And the majority of the world
will die. in their sins. Ministry of the gospel is God's
doing. That's the point of verse 1. And so we are working in the
power of that which God is doing. When you share your faith, you
have the ministry. You don't have to have the call,
like I do, to shepherd the flock, or like Jesse does to open air
preach, or like the Smiths do to intervene in the life of a
very, very... Hopefully in a few weeks, I haven't
told them this, I'd like for them to share with the church
what they do. They intervene, putting light into a very dark
community. That's on top of the absolute
simple call of every believer to evangelize the world. That's
on top of. That's not evangelism at its
core. That's extra, and it's glorious. God calls some of us to those
things. But we're no better than anyone
else. We're all equally bound to do the work of God and to
share the work of God. What is it that we must be doing
to do the works of God?" they cried to Jesus in John 6. This
is the work of God that you believe on the Son whom He has sent. And so we don't lose heart because
God is at work. We don't have fear because God
is at work. Secondly, but we do not but we have renounced
disgraceful, underhanded ways." I look at these three points.
We refuse to be cunning. We refuse to tamper with God's
Word. These three points in this text as a way of explaining that
it is madness to guard humanism and call it the gospel. What
do I mean by that? It is madness to use creativity, programs,
visual aids, expressions, anything else It is madness to butcher
the Bible. It is madness to twist the Scripture
and think that it's going to produce salvation. Some people
would say, well, if one gets saved in all these efforts, if
one gets saved, it's in spite of those efforts. Well, at least the Word of God
is preached. Satan preaches it right now as we speak. Satan's
preaching in 99% of every congregation. He looks like me. How do you know that? The devil
used the Word of God with Jesus! Verbatim! He preached the Word
of God to the very Logos! How stupid! That would have been
something to talk about Tuesday. That answered that question fairly
well, didn't it? He's dumb! He's blind. Just because the
Bible is used doesn't make it biblical. Is it the truth of
the text? Is it the truth of the Gospel?
We don't need a Roman road of pretext to teach people how to
get saved. The whole idea of the Roman road
is it jumps off a cliff of humanism. What's the Roman road? It ends
with, confess with your mouth and believe in your heart. Would
you pray this prayer? And we pray them right into hell. That's stepping on my salvation.
No, it's not. It's stepping on your idolatry. Salvation comes from putting
away idols by the grace and mercy of God. Your hope is in not anything
that's ever come out of your mouth, but in everything that
came out of the mouth of Jesus Christ when He said, it is finished.
See the difference? It's madness. We're not going
to guard humanism, Paul says. We're going to renounce disgraceful
ways. We're not going to come in under a different guise. We're
not going to come in acting like we're trying to help pave sidewalks
and clean up floods. We're not going to come in with
some eye doctors and some dentists and pretend like we're going
to do this and they're going to sneak some gospel tracts into
the children's cookies. We're going to come in and say,
hey y'all, disaster has come. Hey y'all, famine has come. But
even if we give you all the food of the world, even if we build
you the Taj Mahal as your bathroom, there is no escape from the wrath
of God on sin. And Jesus Christ Himself took
the judgment of the Father. And if you do not believe His
work is enough for you, you perish. And they take them and they chop
off their heads. Oh, they're getting away with
our humanitarianism. Our benevolence. That's why people get up in arms
when somebody says, well, the Pope is not Christian. He's not
Christian! He's Satan! He is a child of
the devil! He believes in the holiness of
the Catholic Church. He believes that he is the vicar,
the replacement of Christ. He believes that when he sits
on the chair of St. Peter in the Vatican, that he
is absolutely divine and authoritative to change the very words of an
immutable, unchangeable, eternal God. And I don't care how many
friends who are Catholic, and they are the most sweet, the
sweetest and God-like people I have ever met. They put the
evangelical and protestant church to shame in their efforts to
love the world. But they will love the world,
and the world will go to hell with them in their loving circle
of benevolence. It doesn't work that way, y'all. We're renouncing this underhandedness. We renounce this disgracefulness.
We refuse to be cunning. We're not going to trick people.
We're not going to offer something. We're not going to have a rock
band up here. Oh, that's a cool church! Listen, if my Jesus is
cooler than yours, go to that one. There's nothing very cool
about the righteous, divine, holy, beautiful, ineffable, glorious
God who hung on a cross and died. It doesn't fit too well, does
it? Oh, I remember the t-shirt phase,
Jesus is my homeboy. I remember those. My brother's
laughing, yeah. and had Jesus, you know, Uncle
Billy is what me and Luke call him, the white Jesus from the
70s, 60s, whatever, with some raggae do. Jesus is my homeboy. Or WWJD, that was about the extent
of most people's Christianity. And what would Jesus do? Jesus
would rebuke self-righteousness. And they'd say, well, no, no,
Jesus would love the sinner. He'd love the sinner and then, therefore,
He would be self-righteousness. You know, it's God's grace. It
was Jesus' love for the Pharisees when He said, come, drink, be
satisfied. That's grace. It was grace to say to Nicodemus,
you can't see me and you can't enter my kingdom, except you're
born of God. That's loving. We're not going to be cunning.
We're not going to tamper with God's Word. We're not going to
twist God's Word and give you a three to four point outline
with some fill in the blanks. So you can go home and stick
it in the refrigerator and work real hard this week to follow
the rules. Being born of God is not about
following the rules. Paul would even say the letter
kills. But the Spirit gives life. And
John would couple with that in his first epistle and say that
the law of God is not a burden to the believer. Why? Because
we love Christ. And Christ's law is a reflection
of His beauty. So we want to be like Christ.
We want to follow Christ. And if we sin, we have an advocate
with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. This is the point
of the gospel. Hyper-grace folks, tamper with
the Word of God. You want to be a bar hopper?
Go ahead and do it for a couple of decades. God's with you. Share a few tracks while you're
there. Throwing back a couple of vodkas. Dancing with somebody
else's wife. Just be evangelistic. Show them that Christians are
cool. And how do they get to those conclusions? They tamper
and twist with the Word of God. And what does it say there? It
says, by open statement of the truth, by open statement of the
truth, by open statement of the truth, we commend ourselves.
We stand before you saying we are right before God. You listen
to what we say. In Romans 10, it tells us that
no one can come to salvation except that someone go tell them
about it. Blessed are the feet. of those
who preach the gospel of peace. Paul says in Ephesians 6 that
we are to have readiness and eagerness which is given to us
by the gospel of peace, which we are to put on, in a metaphor,
like shoes. That everywhere we go, we are
equipped and ready with the gospel of peace. So we boldly state
the truth, he says in verse 2. And we're not going to water
it down. We're not going to massage it. See, I was really good. Let
me give you some things. Maybe you'll see. I'm not the
perfectionist you think I am, of the perfect picture. I used
to be able to take a crowd and read it, and play to the crowd,
and bring them to a place to where there would be a response
to what I was teaching. Salesman. I would throw the truth. Nobody
moved. Well, let's do it this way. Try
to get it back around to the truth. They never came to the
truth. They came through the emotions
of that which I hurled at them and lured them with. I didn't
even know it was wrong until I saw this bold, direct statement
of the truth. But you know what I was scared
of? Just what verse 3 teaches. Nobody's responding. Nobody's
weeping. Nobody's crying. Nobody's up
here lining up to talk about what must we do to be saved.
No one's even circling A. I mean, we made it easy. If you
feel like the Lord has called you, you want to learn more about
what it means to be saved, would you circle A? That's how you
do it when you've got a thousand people out there. Nobody's circling. I must not
have done it right. I must not have said it right.
I must not have proclaimed it correctly. Nothing's happening. But the Bible teaches here, Paul
says, well, our gospel is veiled to some people. And if it is
veiled, it's only veiled to those who are perishing. So we're not
worried about the fact that they can't see. On our end, that's
God's doing. So as we share the gospel, as
we share the simple truth of Christ, and then somebody goes,
yeah, whatever, it's not our problem. We don't have to close the deal.
There's no contract to sign. There's no verbal agreement with
you and God that has to take place. Salvation is not a point in history,
but a present reality that goes for all of eternity. And it's
worked out in Christ particularly and perfectly. So, we know that
people cannot see. It is veiled only to those who
are perishing. Verse 4, look at it. This marginal
response toward the gospel by those who are perishing. It says,
Satan has blinded them so they cannot see and they cannot believe. Well, that's sort of crazy. Why
would God allow that? We don't know why God does what
He does. But in the sower, there we go, I knew I had that in my
mind for something. In the parable of the sower, it tells us that
the devil is allowed, as the birds, to come and pick the Word
of God out of a rejoicing heart. In Hebrews chapter 6, it talks
about those who are part of the church and experience the power
of the Word of God, and the power of the Holy Spirit, and the power
of the age to come and to fall away. It says, therefore now
remains no sacrifice for sin. Why? Because they don't believe
in Christ, though they are fully aware of Him. And they tried the church for
a while, they tried the righteous living for a while, they tried
the pastoral ministry for a while, they tried the seminary for a
while, they tried missions for a while, they tried Sunday school
for a while, it didn't work for them, so after two or three years,
or two or three decades, they just fell away. The Bible says
God seals them for destruction. They never were of Christ, though
they were around Him. They cannot see because their
minds have been blinded. They cannot know because they cannot
see. What is it that they cannot see?
Look at that. The light of the gospel, which is the glory of
God, of Christ, who is the image of God. That's evangelism. We are to
shine the light of the glory of Christ, who is the image of
God. Jesus says in John 17, this is
eternal life, that they know you, the one true God and the
Son whom you have sent. Knowing God is understanding,
is seeing, is beholding, is believing. His self-revelation through Jesus
Christ, who is the living Word. This is the gospel, and the enemy
of God is a pawn in the hand of God's supremacy to blind those
who cannot believe. They cannot see, and they cannot
be saved. Isaiah chapter 6, God showed
Isaiah the wickedness of the people of God. And Isaiah in
response says, oh, woe is me. I am undone. A man of unclean
lips amongst a people of unclean lips. Send me, O Lord, that I
may preach to them Your goodness, that they may believe. And God
says, I will send you, but I will not let them believe. Do you
remember that? Isaiah chapter 6. I will send you, but I will
not let them see lest they perceive. I will not let them hear lest
they believe. Because if they see and believe, then they'll
repent and I'll have to save them. And I'm not going to save
them. I won't let them be saved. They've turned their back on
Me too long and too hard. And it's My decree." And that was for the day of Isaiah.
Jesus then proclaims after the rising of Nicodemus, What does
he say? Many of you don't understand,
but today Isaiah's words are fulfilled in your hearing. Seeing
but not perceiving. Hearing but not understanding.
Your hearts are stoned. Your mind and your senses are
dulled. You cannot see. You cannot believe. Because you know who I am and
you refuse. If somebody doesn't respond to
our evangelistic words, God is keeping them from seeing. But now what? That's a tragic
horror story. That's terrible. So if somebody
just, what do I do now? It shows it's all in the hand
of God. And verse 5 says, "...for what we proclaim is not of ourselves."
We're not able to do this. It's not our message. It's not
our understanding. It's not our academics. It's just Christ. And we're a slave to you that
you might see the gospel and be empowered and be encouraged
and be equipped every day by the power of God's grace. We
are your slaves. for the sake of your salvation.
This is not our doing. This is the doing of God. What
we preach is the doing of God, and the result of it is the doing
of God. And then in verse 6, goodness, it's one of my favorite
passages of text. I quoted it so much in California
that the day I left there, they gave me a redwood shim with it
burned on it. It is not of ourselves. But Jesus Christ is Lord. For
God who said, let light shine out of darkness. Now think about
the blinding of the enemy by the will and the power of God.
Darkness. There's no hope for people in
darkness except what? That God shines the light on
them. How does he do that? Through
the preaching of the gospel of Jesus Christ. That's it. You
know people who are lost today, church, you need to proclaim
the gospel to those people until God takes your tongue from your
body. And if you can text, Facebook, Twitter, chat, whatever, all
these things, write a letter, you need to write until your
hands fall off. And as every effort, every opportunity,
you continue to tell them the good news of Jesus Christ. Don't
try to counsel an unbeliever with discipling them in the ways
of the doctrine of the Word. Teach them Christ. For until
they believe, they cannot change. They cannot have a joy, as Brother
Jesse preached two Sundays ago, that is inexpressible. It's not a horror story, it's
a mercy story. Look at it. For God who said,
let light shine out of darkness. You know what that's a reference
to? The beginning. In the beginning. In the beginning. Let there be light. In the beginning was God. And the light was the life of
men. This is the judgment. The light
has come into the darkness, but people love the darkness rather
than the light. And they don't come, but all
who come to the light do so, so that it may be clearly seen
that their works have been carried out in God. God shines through the preaching
of the gospel when He is ready. And we just are supposed to proclaim
it. Majestic glory is the light of
Christ shining in the minds and the hearts of mankind through
Christ alone. Because God has shown. He is the one who shines. We
do not. shine except to reflect His brightness. And you might think, wow, what
does that mean for me? What am I supposed to take out
of this? Well, you're supposed to take this very simple reality. The
gospel is God's. You are God's. Proclaim that
which you are through Christ, and God will bring some to faith,
and He will harden others, sometimes to bring them to faith through
another opportunity. It's His doing. One of the simplest things that
you could ever do is to not engage unbelievers with apologetic quarrels,
worldly debates, of which I used to spend 80% of my time, but
to say those are good questions and there are a lot of answers,
but until you can see the light of the gospel of Christ, you
couldn't understand them if I tried. to which those who are truly
being called of God to seek the truth will say, please help me,
try. But you say that to somebody who's heady and haughty, they'll
yell at you. I don't know all things, but
I know all things, in that Christ has saved me from a just wrath,
He is the God of heaven who came to earth. He came from the womb
that He created. He lived a holy and perfect life.
And only by His death, burial, and resurrection do I have hope
to stand before God justified. Is your hope in Christ? Is your
life in Christ? Is your worth in Christ? Is your
calling in Christ? If it's not, you aren't in Christ. And I say this often, but one
of the greatest obstacles of coming to faith is the pride
of thinking somebody's going to think I haven't been a Christian
for 30 years. If I say that I'm saved now, you'd rather be saved
now or never. We have time, I want to read
it. Acts 26. I wanted to use it as
an example anyway. Paul's accused by the Jews, arrested. And all throughout Acts, for
the first 11 verses of Acts 26, he stands before King Agrippa.
In verse 1, the king says, you have permission to speak for
yourself. And Paul stretched out his hand and made his defense. And
look what he says. I consider myself fortunate that
it is before you, King Agrippa, I'm going to make my defense
today against all the accusations of the Jews, especially because
you are familiar with the customs and controversy of the Jews.
Therefore, I beg you to listen patiently to me." Agrippa was
a very devout Jew, historically. My manner of life, what is Paul
doing? He's giving his testimony. This is what I was. This is what
I pursued. And this is where I was going.
My matter of life from my youth spent from the beginning among
my own nation and in Jerusalem is known by all the Jews. They
have known for a long time, if they are willing to testify,
that according to the strictest party of our religion, that is
the Pharisees, I lived. And now I stand here on trial
because my hope is in the promise made by God to our forefathers,
to which our twelve tribes hope to obtain. as they earnestly
worship night and day. And for this hope I am accused
by Jews, O King." Why is it thought incredible by any of you that
God raises the dead? I myself am convinced that I
ought to do many things in opposing the name of Jesus of Nazareth.
And I did so in Jerusalem. Not only locked up many of the
saints in prison after receiving authority from the chief priests,
but when they were put to death, I cast my vote against them. And I punished them often in
the synagogues and tried to make them blaspheme in enraging fury
against them. I persecuted them even to foreign
cities. In this connection, verse 12,
I journeyed to Damascus with the authority and commission
of the chief priest. At midday, O King, I saw on the way a light
from heaven brighter than the sun that shone around me, and
those who journeyed with me And when we had fallen to the
ground, I heard a voice saying to me in the Hebrew language,
Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? It is hard for you to kick
against the goads. And I said, who are you, Lord?
And the Lord said, I am Jesus whom you are persecuting. But
rise and stand upon your feet, for I have appeared to you for
this purpose, to anoint you as a slave and witness to the things
in which you have seen me and to those in which I will appear
to you. delivering you from your people and from the Gentiles
to whom I am sending you, to open their eyes so that they
may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to
God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those
who are sanctified by faith in Me." And he goes on to say, "...I was
not disobedient to the heavenly vision, but declared first to those in
Damascus." And he goes on, and he goes on, And in verse 24 he
says, and as he was saying these things in his defense, Festus
said with a loud voice, Paul, you're out of your mind. Your
great learning is driving you out of your mind. But Paul said,
I am not out of my mind, most excellent Festus, but I am speaking
true and rational words, for the king knows about these things,
and to him I speak boldly. For I am persuaded that none
of these things has escaped his notice, for this has not been
done in a corner. King Agrippa, do you believe
the prophets? You see what he's doing? to the king. Do you believe the
prophets that you say you believe? I know that you believe." And
Agrippa said to Paul, in a short time, would you dare persuade
me to be a Christian? And Paul said, whether short
or long, I would to God that not only you, but also all who
hear me this day might become such as I am, except for these
chains. And the king rose, and the governor,
and Bernice, and those who were sitting with them. And they went
and had withdrawn. They said to one another, this man is doing
nothing to deserve death or imprisonment. And Agrippa said to Festus, this
man could have been free had he not appealed to Caesar. And
he stayed in prison two more years, waiting for a trial, so
that he could preach the gospel to the highest king." The point is clear. Paul's gospel
ministry was given him supernaturally by God in an instant. He renounced
everything that he knew. He renounced everything that
he loved. He turned away everything that
he ever thought true and trusted in the one true who is the way,
who is the truth, who is the life, who is Jesus Christ. And
He embraced with joy a suffering that came with the persecution
so that He could preach not just to the Gentiles who were hated
by His people, but who were considered unworthy and unholy, only of
judgment, were they worthy. so that he could then appeal
as a Roman citizen in the right time, so that he could speak
to the king of his own people, and then the king of the Roman
Empire, Caesar. And he tells Caesar that he must
repent and believe in the gospel of Jesus Christ, lest he perishes
and stands before the king of kings in judgment, for he himself
is no king. And that's the context of the
waiting game that Paul was looking forward to when he wrote to the
letter of the Philippians. To live as Christ, to die is
far better. Our evangelistic strategy, Paul,
this was not his strategy. He did not put this together. Nowhere he went was the strategy
that he put together working. God had a different strategy.
In every town and every place He ever went, He would be abused,
He would be persecuted, He would be hated, He would be imprisoned,
He would be beaten, and eventually He would be put to death. It's not about our evangelistic
strategy, but God has supremely declared that He will speak through
us. His Word. Will you suffer for
the Gospel? It's a good question. Will you suffer? Most people live together as
the so-called church because they gather in order to do something. But we do not live as a people
gathering to do something. We don't live as a people to
gather to be something. We do not live as a people gathering
to go someplace. We live as a people because Christ
has raised us to life in Himself. We live as a people who are alive
for the glory of God in life, and we are alive for the glory
of God in death. Though we die, yet we live. That's
the latter part of 2 Corinthians 4. Read it. Consider Matthew 28. Consider
the outcome of such things. Consider what it is that God
has called us to do, to teach the good news of Him through
His Son, teaching others to obey by faith all that Christ has
commanded. Christ is with us. Church, you have to share the
simple truth everywhere. And we don't need to look for
lost people. The power of the Gospel is at work in your own
hearts and minds this very moment to help you overcome the guilt
of, I need to share my faith more. It is the Gospel of Christ,
the grace of God, that gives you no condemnation for that
lack of obedience thus far. There have been many times, many
days, that I share the faith. And if I were to put all the
times I've shared the gospel on a tick mark, I would have
many, many times where I've shared the gospel versus the very few
times I didn't. And people go, lookie there,
James is such a great evangelist. He's so obedient. No, I'm not.
How many times do you have to disobey to become disobedient?
How much do you have to steal to become a thief? How many people
do you have to kill to become a murderer? And I'll tell you, on those rare
occasions throughout my life where I felt the Holy Spirit
of God, three of them, I say rare occasions, where I was pressed,
almost commanded in my spirit, you need to share your faith
right now with that guy. I did not. Three times. Three times. In all three times, those people
died within 24 hours. Two by suicide and one by accident,
heart attack. Now, which do you think I focus
on more? All those successful journeys of evangelistic expression
or those three failures? I focus on those three failures.
But by the mercy of God, that's out of my hands. So what do I
do? Wallow in my guilt or stand in
Christ? Friends, it's not hard, though
it is fearful, to share your faith. And I want to be more,
as we move into Thessalonians next week, I want to be more
developed in our understanding of how to do that. even offering opportunities,
but we don't need training. We need coaching. We need encouragement. There's a better word. Encouragement
to share our faith. And you know what's more encouraging
than plans and techniques and understandings? It's for people
to share what they have done. How God has used them to share
the gospel. How they've failed and succeeded.
That we do it together as a people. that that which we love most,
who should be Christ, is coming off of our lips and out of our
lives every day as often as possible. Because friends, we live not
only in a fallen world as redeemed people, we suffer the fallen
consequences of this life. We suffer in our hearts and our
minds and our bodies and our finances and our marriages with
our children and our jobs. We suffer with our automobiles
and our houses and the grass and everything else that you
think of. It's going to cost us something. It's going to cause
us pain. And so we need to learn to share our faith with each
other. And we have that same thing in common. Though we are
redeemed, we suffer just like the rest of the world suffers.
And people are looking for their way to God. And the only way
to God is Jesus Christ. And the only way to Christ is
through the hearing of their Word. So beloved, this day pray that
God would give you the heart and the zeal and the passion
to share your faith. When you open your mouth with the first
syllable that comes out, God will take over. I promise you.
And then people, you'll get through and you'll be like, I'm so sorry
that I just preached for 40 minutes. You may say, well, I don't want
to do that. You don't have to do that. But that's what happens
to me. People standing out there at the gas pump. I need to go to work. Don't be like anybody else. Be
you. In Christ. And share Him. Are you in Christ
as we close this service today? Do you believe this very moment,
this very day, this very second, that your only hope is in Christ,
His work, His life, His death, His resurrection, that there
is nothing else you could do that would satisfy God's judgment
against you because Christ has done it all? Do you believe on
Christ this moment? And I wish I could give you magic
words. I wish I could give you a checklist. It would be so easy.
I wish I could tell you how to do certain things, but friends,
it is a work of God, and you who feel secure in your faith,
please test that it is truly faith in Christ. And then rest
in that. Struggle with it, fight, and
then rest in it. But for those of us who may sit
here today and in the depths of our heart, we think, I'm not
in Christ. The cry is clear, O God, save
me by Your mercy. And if He doesn't today, you
better cry out tomorrow. And the next day, and the next
day, and the next day. And if you feel the draw of God
to pursue Christ, this is the vehicle through which you'll
find Him. And my parting shot will be this.
We who are in Christ, who fell in our expression of evangelism,
I don't think it's fear that does it. I think it's famine. I think we are starving to death
because we get this word for one hour and then we leave it
in the car all week. Don't starve. Lose your job for
your Bible. What is it better to be living
in a ditch with Christ or living in a mansion without Him? Let's
pray. God, we are so glad. We have joy. We have peace. We have understanding that surpasses
all understanding. We thank You that Your Gospel
is clear for us. We thank You that You've given
us a heart to understand. And Lord, my spirit is troubled
because I feel that some of us are just burdened by a lack of
obedience, or burdened by a lack of zeal. Father, help us to quit
looking at what we can do to change that, and help us to rest
in the sovereignty of Your grace in Jesus Christ, knowing that
if we are not eating of the Word, we can expect no nutrition and
no life within us. So Lord, we thank You that You've
given us the truth. Lord, send us into this world
to proclaim the gospel of life, that many would come to faith.
And help us to preach it to our own souls, and to our own homes,
and to our own church, that we might be full of life. In these
things we pray in the sovereign name of Jesus. Amen.