experience to be able to stand
before people and say, thus saith the Lord, God, I tremble in my
shoes and my knees and the depths of my soul and the core of my
being. Every molecule of my DNA trembles before you and that
I've been called to the task of charging listeners with hearing
you. Father, I pray that my ears have
heard. And just as Brother Jeff has
brought a message, Father, that is unparalleled, I look forward
to hearing the finish of that message this afternoon. I pray
your grace upon the hearts and ears of all of us as we try to
digest that impossibly. If you would just help us to
salivate in a supernatural way that we might be able to to have
a palate over the next decade to be able to work that into
our lives. And father, as I talk about the power of the word,
In the church, there's so much to say, but ultimately our focus
today is that we are to look at the way in which we share
our faith relationally, professionally. Father, in many ways, and so,
God, I am not an expert. And I do not have anything but
my own understanding of how it works in my life, but Father,
I do know one thing that is immutable, and that is your word. And so
your word and its examples there will give us everything that
we need for life, for evangelism, for reaching, for teaching, for
preaching and for your glory. And it is for that purpose that
we stand here today. And it is in that vein of thought
and in that line of worship that we come in the name of Christ,
our sovereign, sufficient king and savior. We pray. Amen. Well,
this will be a little different for me. It's like preaching slash
lecture slash whatever. And then coming on the heels
of Brother Jeff, what do you say? But thank you. And now it's time for part two. I'd like for you to consider
the whole purpose of our time here together this weekend. And
that you have come for some reason or another as it relates to evangelism. The evangel, the good news, if
you will, a lot of times I believe that people have boiled that
down into its English translation to such a degree that it has
lost its meaning, it has lost its power infinitely in the world. What do I mean by that? Well,
I mean that people talk about evangelism without having any
power of evangelism. And people talk about being evangelistic
while they sit on their butts in the pews, soaking in the sun
rays of some artificial lamp that they hope will tan their
hide and give them some glorious white teeth. When it comes to
evangelism, I can speak from experience in many areas of life.
I started out as a open air preacher as a teenager, preaching in the
lunchroom of my church. to the demise of pink slips after
pink slip after pink slip, standing and boycotting godless activities
at our school, racial diversion, racial things that took place.
I was one. I was the white most talented
in my school and Roderick Williams was the black most talented in
my school. We could not have mixed superlatives, no mixed
kings, no mixed queens, no mixed prongs, no mixed homecomings. There was a definite black-white
delineation there. If you were Asian or Hispanic,
oh well, you could not participate at all, for you weren't a critical
mass. And so I've cut my teeth early
in standing and preaching and debating, and I have been a fool
my whole life. I've been hated as long as I've
been alive by many people. But I'll tell you this, I'm glad
that God does not hate me. And I'm glad that He saw it fit
to save me from my sin and from my ignorance. And if He sees
it fit, He'll continue to keep me ignorant that I might display
His glory in preaching of His Word. I have a lot of little
sayings and phrases that I'll throw out today. I have not made
any more notes, but this, which is very rare for me, usually
it's 25, 35 pages of text, but I've only got three hours, so
I have to keep it under the time frame. I do want to pray for
the brother, Jeff, Steve, Jeff. OK, Jeff, Jeff, Steve, his wife
has a migraine headache. And so just in our spirit and
as we pray today, just continue to pray for her head to be healed. If it be the Lord's will that
he might be able to stay and she might be able to join him
for a conference. But anyway, the evangelist, the evangelist
has been boiled down to the good news. What is the good news?
What good news is, is that God loves you. And as we've heard
already, it seems to be the cliche of the day has a plan for your
life. Brother Jeff, the plan is for
God to throw you into hell. It's probably one of the most
unpolitically sound statements that's ever been given to the
world. But I'll tell you one thing that
the world has missed, and that's the holiness of God. in preaching
and in teaching the Word. When we come before the Word,
we tremble, or we should. When we come to worship, we should
not come to church, but the church comes together to stancorum Deo. I like to use Latin phrases,
but it means before the eyes of God or in the face of God.
And that we stand and we live and we think and we breathe and
we eat and we sleep in front of God's face. And even while
our conscious mind is not aware, God sees and revealed to Him
is the subconscious and the unconscious mind. And that ought to scare
us to death. We ought to understand the reality
of God and His holiness. We ought to see the great vastness
in which He created the universe to display Himself. And before
He ever created at all, He purposed that He would send Himself as
a human to die for a people that He saved for Himself, that His
glory might be seen in the judgment against wickedness and in the
salvation against an undeserving people as a just God that is
holy and as a merciful God that is loving. I'm one of these that
do not think that you can divide God's natures and characteristics.
I believe they're all encompassing and interwoven in such a way
that if you see God's wrath, you see His love. And vice versa. So like I tell my children, I
have four children, God's loving wrath is just as loving as His
loving mercy. For a wicked God, it lets sin
go because He cares not about righteousness. And so I would
suggest to you as we begin to talk about evangelism in a, I
hate to use the word, in a practical way, you'll see my pragmatism
is very impractical for most of the world. I'd like you to
turn to 2 Corinthians chapter 4. This is my pet text. I think
any theme, any theology, any doctrine, anything that you could
throw me a topic, I can take you to this text. I can find
it. And if it doesn't fit, I'll isogete it in such a way, the
way I see Jesus. I'll show you. No, but in all
seriousness, this text is very important. It's important for
many things, but I believe It's important because we are, as
Paul begins to talk about to the Corinthians in chapter three
there, the new covenant and God's call to him as he talks about
in all of his epistles. And we are in Colossians on Sunday
mornings, chapter one, where he says that he, Paul, was made
a minister by the grace of God. Therefore, he suffers for the
sake of him being a minister by the grace of God. And I'll
tell you now, friends, that if you aren't willing to suffer
in every way, you cannot share the evangel. There is no cakewalk
evangelism. There is no toilet track evangelism
that has any power. You know what a toilet track
is? You ever go to the men's bathroom and you see the track
laying on top of the toilet? That guy went home thinking he'd
done something for Jesus that day, I can promise you. I'm not
going to laugh about tracks. I think we ought to dump them
out of airplanes. But I'll be honest with you, I've seen in
my life as an evangelist, open air preacher, as an evangelist
for three years. That's sort of all I did in ministry
because I really felt the call of God. I worked with churches,
but what I really wanted to do was hold on to that fork. I enjoyed
eating the things of the world. I enjoyed the fact that I was
able to provide for my family in a nice, comfortable way. So
as a business owner, I held my business and preached on the
side. You see what that means? You see what that looks like?
It's an abomination. If God's called you, walk away,
man. Walk away from the world and starve. Show your children
what it means to eat rice cakes and go door to door to try to
sell stuff that you have gotten out of your storage unit so that
you can buy food. Teach your children. Teach your
children what it means to suffer for Christ. But I'll tell you,
even in the context of evangelism, The world at large, I grew up
in South Georgia. I'm headed back there on September
the 5th to plant a church in my home area after 15 years of
leaving. And it's a frightening reality. These people know me by face
alone in name. They have no idea who I am and
they're going to have a hard time stomaching. I know one of
the things that I've been praying since I've met Jeff is getting
Jeff to Georgia to stand in the streets with me and proclaim
the gospel. and a racially divided, pharisaical, religious area of
the world where everybody's a Christian. And if you don't believe me,
ask them. But yet 80 percent or better
of people in the region are unchurched. And the people that put their
fist in the air and point you in the face are the Christians
who serve as deacons and preachers and pastors. I preached February
a year ago, 2010, in a church in the area, and
I did a seven-day or five-day thing, did about seven sermons,
did an open Q&A on Saturday on the issue of just Romans 1, Romans
3, 1 Peter 1. Just preached that text. Nothing
else. Didn't even get up there and do my little commentary.
I just preached the text, and it nearly split the church. And
then the pastor a few months later decided he would openly
rebuke me as a heretic, and I was banned from the property. It
cost a staff member their job. And I warned him before I came.
I said, this is going to either split your church or cause revival. Well, it did both. And it did
both. And the sad thing is, is that
even the pastor then preached a series on the evils of Calvinism
once I got done. You know what it did? It fired
up his congregation to the point he resigned two weeks ago. They're
hungry for the gospel, the world. We had breakfast this morning
and it looks like this oftentimes in evangelism. And this will
be something I want you to see is oftentimes if we first understand
the holiness of God and his justice, then we understand the reality
of the gospel and how important and urgent it is that we proclaim
it, because number one, people are perishing. But if you believe
in a sovereign God, you know his plan. And so the purpose
of preaching, yes, is because there are people perishing. But
most importantly, the purpose of preaching and the purpose
of sharing our faith is that we are glorifying God through
it. And it is a command of God to us. And it is an encouragement
to the world. And it is an equipping of the
church. The power of the word of God in the church is when
the church then takes the word that they bathe in and then they
battle with and they breathe it out, they breathe it out to
the world at large. You want the grace of God? It
must come through the Gospel. It must come through the Word
of God. No counsel. I have a degree in counseling.
No counsel will save a man. No counsel will give man off
drugs. No counsel will solve a marriage. It's Christ alone
that saves. It's Christ alone that gets away
from addiction. And it's Christ alone that puts
a man in submission to the Lord and helps him surrender and die
to himself so that the Gospel is portrayed in his marriage.
And so as we see this and as we see ourselves as evangelistic,
what does it mean? What does it truly mean for us
to go and teach and share? Well, number one, we have to
have it. Was Matthew 28, for all authority in heaven and earth
has been given to me. Therefore, see, there's a causal word there. Because, it's a conditional statement,
all authority is mine, Jesus says. Therefore, go make disciples. In the Greek, the way that should
really be translated is, as you are going, making disciples. Teaching them to obey everything
I've taught you. Baptizing them in the name of
the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. And I will
be with you forever. It's almost, I like to say, not
the Great Commission. but the great declaration. If
we are the children of God, we will be sharing our faith. And
here's one of my little phrases. Every human being in the world
is an apologist. And every living human being
in the world is an evangelist. My wife works in the technology
area of the world. She has done that for many years.
She works in social media. She works in online marketing.
And at one time, her job title was evangelist. We have so debased the true meaning
of the Good News down to a little story that now the secular world
and the technological industry of America have borrowed the
word evangelist to put on the business cards of their marketing
experts. It's disgusting. And that's what it comes down
to. But yet we see that God's children will make disciples. What does that mean for us? What
does that mean for us as we leave here in a half hour and we go
into a restaurant? Are we supposed to stand on the
table and preach the gospel if God calls you to? Get thrown
out. But, you know, I haven't seen
that as the norm. It doesn't say that all men are
called to stand on tables and preach the gospel, but it does
say that all God's children will make disciples of other people
of all nations. What does that mean? It's not
a universalism. It's not an issue of saying the
whole speaking world is going to come to faith eventually.
What it means is that don't discriminate and just teach and disciple those
who are like you, who look like you and who like you. You are
to share without Prejudice without discrimination to everyone who
comes in any way. I like I talk about gas pump
evangelism. Gas pump evangelism, the gas
pump is one of the greatest places. I'll get to the text in a second.
One of the greatest places. To share your faith, why? Because
it is one of the most disgruntled locations in America. I love
complainers because I always have joy. What does the Scripture
say? Do everything without grumbling
and complaining. You know, part of your evangelistic efforts
is that you have joy when gas is five dollars a gallon. And
I love it when somebody's standing out there, you know, it's hard
to do in Newark now because the law passed, you have to hold
your own gas pump. Here's the thing, put your wallet in there
and you can walk. You just put your wallet in,
you twist it, and you can walk. I never have cash in my wallet,
so somebody jacks it, so what? So, you sit there and you look
at, man, gas is getting high. Just say that. Yeah, I can't
believe Obama this and Schwarzenegger this and blah, blah, blah. The
whole world's going to hell. You said a mouthful, buddy. You're
absolutely right. And except by God's sovereign
grace, you and I are going to be in hell too. Isn't it good
we don't have to depend upon Obama and the government? You
know what doesn't work in America? The government. You know why?
Because God has ordained the government to ultimately fail
so that His kingdom would prevail. You see, that's all it takes.
There's opportunities to share your faith in many ways. Let's
look at 2 Corinthians chapter 4. This ministry by the grace
of God. Paul says, therefore, having
this ministry by the mercy of God, listen to these words and
be encouraged, church. We do not lose heart. And here's where God got me many
years ago. But we have renounced disgraceful,
underhanded ways. We refuse to practice cunning
or to tamper with God's Word. But by the open statement of
the truth, we would commend ourselves to everyone's conscience in the
sight of God. Now let me stop there, the two
verses here. This is a different type of sermon than what I normally
do, and I've got like four of the texts I need to talk about.
Number one, I want us to see here is that this ministry is
given to us by God. And it's not just given. It's
given by His mercy. There's a gracious giving of
the evangel to the church. And therefore, we are commanded
and called and equipped and prepared and perplexed at the same time
to go out and share this gospel. In any way that God is deemed
fit to equip us in our spot, in our space, in our talents,
in our temperament, we are to function as the person that we
are to share the gospel in every aspect of our lives. Why? Because
it is a gift of God by His mercy that we've been given. Now, yes,
there's a little bit of a pretext in what I'm saying because this
text specifically, he's talking about the apostolic role, but
I think it transcends into the church of America today. And
not only America, but to the church at large all over. And what does he do? He says,
we have not lost heart, but we have renounced disgraceful, underhanded
ways. Now, when we see that, we go,
wow, OK, so Paul and the apostles and we as disciples and evangelists
ought to actually go and make sure that we live clean. Let's
see, that's first Timothy. That list there of what Paul
teaches in Timothy, that list of who are the qualifications
of an elder. It's also really amazing through
my years of ministry how people say, well, you know, pastors
ought to have such and such. You're right, but so should you.
Do you realize that I can go into the New Testament and every
qualification for an elder I can find and show specifically and
didactically where that same qualification applies to everyone
who professes Christ? Every man who says they are a
child of God must govern and rule their house with humility.
Not just a pastor, but if you're a man who does it, you cannot
preach the Word. Every man must be above reproach. Every man must be able to teach. I'm not called to teach. Who
said that? No, you're commanded to. You're
commanded to. And so as we look here, we refuse
to practice cunning. So he explains, see, what the
underhanded ways are. We refuse to what we have announced,
disgraceful underhanded ways. I can like to say and I'm playing
with a little bit. And we do that by refusing to practice
cunning or to tamper with God's word. So we're not going to use
God's word with a three point out, nothing wrong with three
points, if you can preach that short. I know some brothers who
preach three hours in three points. But, I mean, this pragmatism
that comes across in America. You know why the evangelist is
so powerless in America? Because we want to share our
faith in a way that it enlightens and encourages people's lives.
You know, don't worry about that. Don't worry about gasses. God
is in control. God loves you. All have truths.
Partial truths. You know, can I just pray for
you? Can I just pray for you?" You know, and I used to do this.
I used to disguise my prayers as sermons. And then I realized
I'm not talking to God, but I'm talking to this guy. Let me tell
this guy, and then let me pray to God. Let me not play with
prayer. So don't pray with prayer. And
I'm still guilty of it sometimes, even in this pulpit. Oh, I forgot
to say that. Let me say it in my prayer so
that so and so will hear it. Oh, Lord, forgive me. And the
pastors in the room are going, yeah, you got me. But this cunning,
we don't tamper with God's Word. We don't use cunning ways to
draw people to a Jesus and then we switch it on them. We don't
do like Safeway and say we got five gallons of milk for a dollar,
but they sell out the first 30 minutes. But while you're here,
pick up about $300 worth of bread. We don't bait and switch people.
And after being an evangelist for three years, then I begin
to be trained in the purpose driven movement. by people that
came from Willow Creek Church and came from Saddleback Church.
And I'm not going to sit here and bash the people there, but
I will tell you the experience with those who trained me from
those places and in these philosophies. Those people actually taught
me that you lure the lost by any means necessary to justify
the means if the end comes when they're on their face in an altar.
Well, let me tell you what God did after three years of evangelism,
after speaking in front of thousands of people and seeing hundreds
and hundreds of people at the altar call. I was on a college
campus one day, and it was the third engagement, three years
in a row, and I saw a good group of the same kids that were freshmen
who were now juniors at the altar. I'm like, what is this? And I
walk, and afterwards I'm talking with them. Man, we thought we
were saved, but today it was real! And that began to bother
me. I'm like, what is going on? What
am I doing? Why am I so ineffective in evangelism? I'm preaching every day. Why
am I so ineffective? What's going on in my life? Because
I'm preaching and cunning. And I'm very good. My dad says
I could sell ice to an Eskimo, glasses to a blind man. Because I can look and after
just relating with people, I can feel things. It's just an uncanny
thing. Maybe it's supernatural. Maybe it's demonic. I pray that
it's not. Maybe it's part of God's giftedness in me. Maybe
I'm just a shrew. But I could look out in the audience. I could see. The same thing with
people. I'd be sitting there minding
my own business all my life and people would come up and want
to have a conversation with me. I don't know who they are. It drives me insane.
You know, all I want to do is sit here and eat. Can you let
me eat? You know, people will come up
out of the blue, would you pray for me? I mean, I'm in Colorado,
I've never been there, except to stop and get gas. Would you
pray for me? What makes you think I will pray
for you? You've got a cross around your neck. I just figured you'd
pray for me. You have a Bible in your bag.
See, people know stuff like that. And the fact that I have passages
of text on the side of my vehicles. So, the point being is that I
learned. that it's not cunning and underhanded
ways. You don't have to have a gimmick
to talk about Christ. But I'll tell you, as an apologist
and an evangelist, everybody is one. And this is how I know,
because an apologist is one who defends what they know is true.
They stand in the gap and they stand up and they say, you need
to understand this is true and I will go to my grave to hold
to that. That's an apologist. I want to
help you understand your arguments are flawed. These arguments are
better. Here's the evidence. This is an apologist. You don't
think that's true that everybody's an apologist? Talk about their
president. They'll defend him to the fist.
Talk about their baby. Here's one thing. I have all
these little one-liners. They're actually tweets now.
We used to call them quotes. I call them tweets. We tweet
this stuff out, and it causes great divides on the Internet.
But the point is, you want to find out what somebody's idols
are, just call their baby ugly. I think it would be even like,
from a marketing standpoint, I did some marketing work back
in the corporate days. I thought about even putting
bulletin boards back home to plant the new church. Just big
bulletin boards. It's real cheap to do marketing. I mean, you
can put a bulletin board up for a couple of dollars. I'm not a bulletin board, one
of those billboards. And put something about, is your baby
ugly? Just to get people thinking. Or get a picture of a real ugly
baby and say, have you ever seen one this ugly? But that's not,
that's a cunning way, that's an underhanded way. How about
direct, how do we do it? What does Paul say? But by the
open statement of the truth. Now listen, the open statement
of the truth, look what he says, by the open statement of the
truth, that's what they're doing, but look at the condition, look
at the result of that. We would commend ourselves to everyone's
conscience. I mean, we have nothing to prove here. I don't care what
you say to me. I used to have some Calvinist
brothers back in the early 2000s that would always tell me that
I was wrong, and I was really dividing the church, and I was
doing bad things, and I would laugh at them. The first time
I heard Christian hedonism, I was the director of a youth camp
of a couple of thousand students at Liberty University. And he
gave me the teaching outline, and I saw this Christian hedonism
crap, and I started rolling through it, and I threw it in the trash.
I said, you're not teaching this crap here. Nobody's going to show up for this. He
taught in any way, just change the name. And holy moly, am I
not one of the biggest Christian hedonists that ever walked the
planet? Because Christ is the only way to find joy, and it
should be my pursuit to enjoy Him. That is why I was created. It's the chief end of man. And
so we might say to ourselves, well, you know, if we don't do
these things, we're going to push people away. Praise God.
So evangelism always pushes more away than it brings people Truth
always divides. Jesus. Oh, Jesus is such a peaceful... Where is He peaceful? He's peaceful
when He's teaching. He's peaceful when He's dying.
But He's not peaceful with the religious zealots of the day.
You think it's peaceful to run in and ruin a man's economy?
And run all of his animals off and throw his gold out to the
beggars to pick up? You think it's peaceful to destroy his
private property? Do not turn my father's house into a den
of thieves." He had zeal for his father's house. The very
first sign. And what did the Jews say? Where's the sign? When it's the old blue-collar
comedy tour, here's your sign. See, if Jesus came out today,
that's what He'd be quoting. That's why God saw it fit to come at
the perfect time. He saw it fit to come when the
world was not as depraved as it is today. And so here we are, we commend
ourselves, our conscience on the side of God and everyone
else. And the problem is, what happens if the gospel is veiled?
Verse 3, if the gospel is veiled, what about those who reject it?
Well, are we going to have to reach after them? Well, here's
the thing. We made the analogy today at breakfast about always
wanting to run after people who are rejecting the truth and starting
to become apostate. And you just run after them.
And I spent the whole first half of my ministry running after
people while a whole bunch of hungry birds sit there with their
mouths open, starving to death. And I remember back as a boy
when we have puppy litters. And dog raising is a big deal
down there. I mean, that could be a good
three months worth of income if you have a good litter. And
what you do is you have a runt. And what you have to do sometimes
is you have to go in there and pull the healthy puppies off
the mom and let the runt get a turn to get some milk. But
if you're not careful, you'll put that runt on there so much
that two or three of the other pups will die because they'll
die of malnutrition. I'm saying that like a mom bird.
If she saw all the four or five open mouths, if she saw that
one bird with his head laid on the side of the nest and all
she did was spend her time force feeding this one, the others
would die. We cannot go after those who turn and render us.
and trample the gospel underfoot time after time after time. When
God puts them there, we preach to them. We share with them.
We disciple them. But we don't tamper with the
Word of God. We rightly divide the Word of
truth and we boldly state it so that because we know that
it is the power of God and nothing that we do and no process or
no instrument of man is going to convince them to see Christ
except they be born again. And how will they be born again
if we preach? Oh, so your preaching saves.
No, my preaching scares the crud out of people. God saves. God saves. So if our gospel is
veiled, look what he says, it is only veiled to those who are
perishing. How are they perishing? Because in their case, the God
of the world has blinded the eyes, or excuse me, 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, Paul says, is not of ourselves. It's not
of ourselves. So as we are living our lives
in this world, we are not proclaiming anything that is of ourselves.
And I believe we ought to study, and I study, and I study. I study
so much that I have to get up and go lift weights and put on
weighted vests some weeks so that I don't just gain a bunch
of weight back. But we have to study and we have to yearn to
eat the Word of God, but we also have to be active in teaching
and shepherding and proclaiming the Gospel at any time the Holy
Spirit leads us to do so. And so we are not of ourselves,
we do not proclaim this, but Christ as Lord with ourselves
as your slaves. Dulas, Diakonos, I don't know
what form it is there, but as your slaves for the sake of Christ. What does Paul say in verse 24
of chapter one we just got? We're actually right in the middle
of the four part series on this in Colossians. For I rejoice
in my sufferings for your sake, that in my flesh I am filling
up what is lacking in the suffering of Christ for the sake of his
body, that is the church. So we suffer in the evangelism
for the sake of the elect, for the sake of the body of Christ,
so that we might rightly proclaim to the world Christ and His power,
not of our own. And this is on the side of one
of my vans. For God who said, let light shine out of darkness
has shone in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge
of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. That is probably
my favorite text in the whole entire Word of God. Because that
is where I want my life. to be. And friends, I pray that
that is your passion and there's a lot. And that's what the power
of the word in the church is that. Is that we're able to take
what God has given us, and I love what Paul says later, right after
the next verse, he says, and we have this treasure, what treasure?
The gospel, the evangel, the good news of Jesus, which is
God himself, not just the story of him. It's God. God became
man. He created us that he might redeem
us. First Thessalonians 5, what does that say? For we were not
destined for wrath, but for mercy and grace. This is we have this
treasure in jars of clay to show that the surpassing power belongs
to God and not to us. And then he talks about being
afflicted and being given over to death and being destroyed,
but not I mean, just trampled and downtrodden. But we're not
destroyed in our bodies and our flesh are decayed. But our soul
is being renewed. Our spirit is being renewed in
the power of Christ. So if nothing else you learn is it is a command
of God. It is a call of God. It is the
equipping of God. It is it is the creation of God
to share your faith. It is the Ephesians 310 where
Paul says, for the purpose of the church is to display the
manifold wisdom of God to the cosmos. And there's a paraphrase
there because it says to the rulers and authorities of the
heavenly places, but the word there in the Greek says cosmos. To the universe. And I like to
suggest that if we're not doing that through the absolute reflection
of God's recreative power and rebirth and regeneration, salvation,
justification, whatever you want to call it, if we're not displaying
that as God's wisdom, then the lack thereof, as James says,
to him who knows to do right and does not, to him this is
sin, then we're making God to be a fool in the eyes of the
world. Let me tell you what a son does not do. He does not make
his father look foolish. So we share in our faith. We
share in our faith at all. And we see that not everybody
is called. Friends, not everyone of you are called a pastor. Not
everyone of you are called to be a teacher. Not everyone of
you are called, in that specific sense, to be an evangelist. But
let me tell you, when you are, you will walk away from everything
because there is nothing else you can do. And even when you
have these little seasons in your life that you think you're
going to get creative and go and get a job so you can be a little
more in the community, God will shut that door on you so fast.
He'll break you. It's like my history teacher
told me once in high school, don't let the doorknob hit you
where the good Lord splits you. When you talk out or act up in
his class, go on. That's about how God works with
the man called of God who wants to stay in the world. And I'm
not saying in love with the world, but just be connected, be connected
in a way where, you know, OK, I'm going to be obedient. That's
like saying, all right, God, I'm going to I'm going to trust
you by faith, but I'm going to keep my property in error and
leave a couple of folks here. So when I get done doing what
you're going to do, I got some place to come back. Don't come back. Don't
hold on to the fork. And don't hold on to the fork
relationally. Don't hold on to the fork maritally. And I'm not
a proposal of splitting up marriages. I believe that's an abomination.
But I'm going to tell you this, if your wife or your husband is
more valuable to you than Christ, I shudder for you. Because your
marriage, the only purpose for your marriage is that Christ
is seen in it. Because you're going to die and
you're no longer going to be married. So why are you working
like the devil, really, to keep that marriage so great and enjoyable
in the context of pushing away the gospel. It's for the sake
of the gospel, the reason that God gave the marriage to start
with. Another portion of Scripture that I really love, and I'll
move on because I didn't know I had this much to talk about.
In Acts chapter 20, I obviously
have this on the side of my van. Verse 24, but I do not account
my life of any value, nor as precious to myself. Paul says,
if only I may finish my course in the ministry that I received
from the Lord Jesus to testify to the gospel of the grace of
God. Is that why we live our lives
or do we live our lives to do church stuff? Friends, God hates
church stuff. Let me tell you that. He hates
it. I think most of the vile Satanism
that drives into the church and most of the vile improper theology
that's driven into the church is driven into the church by
pragmatic programs that come in and plague the people of God. And we say, oh, look at our ministry,
look at our ministry, look at our ministry, look at, you see,
just by the very characteristic of saying look at our ministry
shows the pride from the depths of hell. It's really awful. And then people
give their money and what do we do? We give money to programs.
Man, this program is so big. Man, we fed 50,000 people last
year and we spent 40 million dollars. Where are these people? They're down there waiting on
their next meal. Where's the gospel? Well, we
don't want to offend them. That's it. Cram poison down their
throats and tell them they're fine. That's real loving. Feed people. I'm not saying not.
But don't call that ministry. When did Jesus feed people? He
fed them to show His power, and then He took it away and said,
you follow me because you've got your belly full of the loaves.
Do not labor for the bread that perishes, but labor for the food
that endures to eternal life. Give us this bread. He goes,
I'm the bread. They're like, forget you. We're
hungry. And Jesus said, you're hungry
for the wrong stuff. Do not count my life. See, our life is not
our own. When we're out in the world, we can't be worried about
what's going to be good for us, really. Church, evangelism is
about a dying because God has recreated us. It is not I who
live, but Christ who lives within me, that I live this life by
faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. That's
not the zealous Christian. That's not the crazy Christian.
That's the normal Christian. The normal Christian is the one
who either is loved or hated because of their stance for the
gospel. The normal Christian is the one who is willing to
eat dirt for Christ. The normal Christian is the one
who is willing to sever ties with loved ones because they
will not back down on truth. And just like I share with our
elders and our elders in training, we don't do this, we don't cause
enemies because of our tactics and our approach, but through
humility and through tears we come and proclaim the truth of
the gospel. And they'll hate us anyway. You said this yesterday.
I could just sit up here and say, Jeff said this, Jeff said
this. But you said that people will love you to death until
you start claiming Christ. Christ. And I'll tell you, church, God
wants our lives. And God has the lives of His
children. The question is, are we really
going out and sharing our faith effectively? Effectively. And that's chapter seven, you
don't have to turn now to sort of give you the story, you know,
the whole of Scripture is reiterated there by Stephen. And here's
Stephen. Innocent before man. Against
the charges that were given. And Stephen is dragged up on
charges that were paid by the Pharisees, by the way, the religious
zealots, the shepherds of those who were giving watch over the
care of Israel, God's chosen people. And that's where Jesus
says in John's Gospel, the thief comes over the wall. You thief
and you wolf, remember? And so in that, here is Stephen
and he's been brought before the Pharisees and there's a young
man named Saul there who oversees this entire Trump fake trial
and they stone him and kill him. And I said, what's that got to
do about sharing? Well, Stephen shared his faith. In the face of persecution,
he shared his faith. There's an example of evangelism
right there. He knew his audience, and he knew what he was about
to say was going to cause him to die, and he even called them murderers.
He actually called it out in front of him what rhetoric God
gave that man to say, and not only have you killed all the
prophets, what prophet have you not killed? And then the one
that they point to, you've killed him. And now, in his mind, he's
thinking, and now you're going to kill me? And what does he
do? He says, I see the Son of Man
standing by the right side of the Father. One of my mentors
told me years ago, he says he envisions that as how Christ
receives the martyrs, receives the saints, that although his
work is finished in justifying the church and his work is finished
in salvation and redemption of man, he still stands because
his unfinished work of collecting his people and punishing sin
is yet to be done. And it just blows me away. But
you know, he goes on to tell me this mentor, he said, Stephen's
not really the hero of this story. The hero of this story is chapter
8 of Acts. And there arose on that
day a great persecution against the church in Jerusalem, and
they were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria
except the apostles. Look at verse 2. I never saw
this before, this guy showed me. It's amazing what we miss. After having many classes in
the book of Acts, even the professors didn't see this very interesting
theologically, just because it didn't have a good hermeneutic.
Nothing wrong with that, but they missed the worship. Devout
men buried Stephen. Who are they? Nobody knows who
they are. But they were devout to Christ. They touched the body
of a condemned man in a Jewish community, therefore giving themselves
the sentence of death. Two reasons. One, they touched
a dead body. Two, they properly buried a condemned
man who was a legally found criminal. And they didn't do it under the
cover of darkness. Look at this. Devout men buried Stephen and made great
lamentation over him. Do you know what that means?
They marched down the stinking streets, wailing and crying and
lamenting over the fact that the man of God had died. But Saul was ravaging the church
and entering house after house. He dragged off men and women
and committed them to prison. You know the story of Saul of
Tarsus. And now those who were scattered,
they went about preaching the Word. I don't know about you,
but if people were trying to kill me for what I did, wouldn't
you just try to be a little bit less conspicuous? Now, what does that apply for
you? How does that apply to you? How has God called you? Are you
willing to stand under that? I'll tell you, I say it a lot.
I said it many years ago in Back East when I was there and I stood
in the pulpit in front of a large congregation. I said, you know
what's going to bring revival? When some people who are zealous
against Christ start burning church buildings. I said, because
here's what will happen. When the persecution of the church
comes, the pacifists will rebuild their buildings and the body
of Christ will preach the gospel. Boy, that really ticks some people
off. Because we had a really nice piece of property. But I
believe that's what's going to take. And so when that in Acts
26, we know the story of Paul and I'm almost done with the
story of Paul, God converts him in Acts chapter nine. And he
was on his way to have the apostles committed to prison and killed
and martyred. But yet Christ stopped him and
saved him in spite of his desire to kill Christians. If there's
no other pretext of sovereign election, justification by faith
alone that throws out the new perspective, that does it. In fact, I had a very, very dear
person tell me last year, and they were arguing with me the
doctrines of grace. And I said, you know, I'm not going to try to argue
theologically for you to think and believe the same way I did.
I had to be shown these things just through the study of the
Word without footnotes. And then I began to realize just
how much I persecuted people for so many years who stood for
truth. It reminded me of a little bit
like being Saul. So I came to the understanding
and I said, here's the thing, you read John's Gospel and then
you read the book of Acts and you tell me what you think. And
they called me back a little bit later. and said, I just don't
know how to get over Saul's conversion. And then immediately, what did
Saul do? He goes out and puts his life on the line. He said,
he's going to be killed like in the first few weeks. They're
going to have to hide him and get him out of town. Here he was, the poster child
of the Pharisees. The tribe of Benjamin probably
had more PhDs than there are walls to hang them on in equivalent
study. As a matter of fact, in Acts
26, when he's before King Agrippa, what does Festus say? You're
mad! He says, your studies have made you mad, Paul. And that's a closing point. Is that we see the life here
in the Gospels, in the New Testament, of men of God like Stephen who
preached and proclaimed, the apostles who preached and proclaimed,
Saul who was transformed and preached and proclaimed to his
demise. And even to the point that God
ordains, and this is what I want you to hear, God ordains the
worst of sufferings in our lives for the sake of the gospel. Every
pain you feel is by the hand of God for His glory. Do you
embrace that? Rejoice? See, that's a theology
that many people never heard, and it baffles me. Because even
as an Armenian decisional regenerationist evangelist, that's a big word.
I had a tag. I understood that. That even the suffering of life
was for his purpose. Even the Proverbs says that he
ordains the wicked for the day of evil. So as Paul was in prison
for two years waiting for trial or five, how long was that? And then he gets before King
Agrippa, and then they find him sort of innocent. He says, I
was here so that I could proclaim this testimony to you. Well,
and what do they say after they leave? Had he not appealed to
Caesar, he'd be an innocent man. He'd be free to go after already
being in prison for years. And so then he goes and waits
two years in Rome. And it's all by the hand of God.
Now, we know that after the fact. Paul knew that divinely through
a vision that God gave him. You're going to stay in jail
so that you can get to Rome. under the protection of the Romans.
Why? Because if he had not been in prison and he had not been
under the protection of the Romans, the Jews would have had him and
they'd have mailed his body parts across Palestine. I can promise
you, he'd have been bird food. They'd have probably burned him
in ritualistic ways they learned from the Egyptians many years
ago, just to prevent resurrection. They weren't idiots. That's why
they wanted to kill Lazarus. Get rid of the evidence. I find
it funny that people want to kill a man who'd just come back
from the dead. In Paul's dealings, God ordained he suffer for the
sake of the gospel. So when we see that, we see all
that Paul has dealt with. And I'll close this text. Onesimus,
isn't that the name? Philemon's servant? Yeah, that's
right. And Paul writes to Philemon in
response to the fact he's stolen from him. And he says, I'll repay
this. And you respect Him, I'm paraphrasing,
as though He were me. Verse 6, I pray, and this might
be the end of it, so forgive me. I pray that you may be more
active in sharing your faith, that you have a full understanding
of all good things you have in Christ Jesus. You know what the word there
is? Sharing. In the Greek, I love English. It makes me want to just dance.
Koinonia. Koinonia. All things in common. So you know what Paul's telling
Philemon? As you grow in your understanding
of the grace of God, you will share your faith. And as you
share your faith, you will grow in an understanding of all good
things that you are and that you have. What does Paul say?
That you have blessed be the God and the Father of our Lord
Jesus Christ who has given us every spiritual blessing. Ephesians. In the heavenly realms. What causes us not to share our
faith. How do we do that? Well, as an
apologist who defends what we care for, do we really care for
Christ? As an evangelist, an evangelist
who shares what they really love. Everybody's an evangelist for
their kids. Oh, look at my kids. And these are really ugly kids.
They'll be on my billboard. But look at my children. Oh,
you know what my son did last week? Oh, you know what my daughter
did last week? Oh, you know I had a straight-A student? See, that's an evangelist.
Let me share with you what I love. Let me share with you what's
close to my heart. Let me show you my hogs. Yeah, we share what we love. Let me show you my new iPad.
Let me show you my new book. Let me show you my new Bible.
Oh, but none of these things are the God of the universe.
As a matter of fact, with the power of his word, he's going
to liquidate them all in the energy and destroy them and bring
them all back into the creative order for his glory. I won't have to worry about cell
coverage in the New Kingdom. Praise God. I won't have to pay
the bill either. So we're all apologists. We're
all evangelists with something. The problem is what do we love?
Yeah, we may be shy, but do we talk at all about anything to
anyone? Why is it that we can't talk to others? You know, some
people, like Tim, Tim will talk to a tree. if it'll take a track. He will. Praise God. But God hasn't called us all
to talk to trees or to anything. He's called us all to be actively
making disciples. When we go to lunch in a few
minutes, we'll go to restaurants. How are you going to make disciples
with every single person that God gives you opportunity and
the call to? Now, friends, keep in mind, you
must be sensitive to the Spirit of God. And when God puts someone in
front of you, I believe the Spirit of God is saying, Sherri Faye, The difficulty is, is knowing
how to approach it. Well, here's the thing. If you're
in the Word of God, you'll know how to approach it. If your life
is encompassed by the presence of the Holy Spirit and is filled
by the rich grace found through the Scriptures, you have something
to talk about. And you may not be quick on your
feet. You may not be quippy. You may not be anything. But
if someone starts talking to you about Christina Aguilera's
new album, I don't know if she has one or not. Somebody starts
talking about the Dallas Cowboys or the San Francisco Giants.
Somebody starts to have a conversation with you about the price of gas.
Somebody does something in some way to strike a conversation
with you. Hey, there's a door that I believe the Lord has opened
for you to respond. Does it have to turn into a 45
minute treatise on theology? No. But it might. Are we sometimes in such a big
hurry that we can't even share our faith? And you know what
else I believe, I believe the making of disciples is something
that's interpersonal on the long end. And I don't believe that
parachurch organizations, I concur with you, should be in the business
of proclaiming the gospel outside the accountability of elders
of a church. Because a Christian outside the
church is an orphan at best. And that's one of the biggest
problems I have as a pastor, is there's so many stinking orphans
that I have to try to find every time the door closes. It's the
little birds with no mouth open. And so friends, I want you to
be encouraged by the power of God's Word. Pursue the hungry. Pursue those who are silent. Pursue those who might not even
care. Don't judge them on your own.
Pursue God's call to share your faith. And when the person opens
that door, you walk in and lock it behind you. And I could give you many different
ways. We could have a Q&A on how would
you approach this issue. I can promise you there's probably
not a situation I haven't been in. Muslims in my face. Jehovah's Witnesses at my table.
for months, learning the Greek New Testament and the Gospel
of John. It was awesome. I loved it. No matter what you look at, I
had people throw rocks at me. People threatened to kill me.
All just because of just standing here and doing this, just sharing
the gospel. I had my kids thrown out of a
school because of improper theology being taught at the Christian
school and then had Or I had headbutts that ended up with
my kids getting thrown. And then had another school that we put
them in because they wouldn't tolerate them sharing their faith
amongst Muslim children. But yet they'd have days where
they would share world faiths, but not my children. They couldn't
share their faith. So then I became a fanatic. Praise
God, I love it. Are you a fanatic? Are you an
unnamed man with loud lamentations who proclaim the gospel in any
way He calls you? And I say, man, I mean mankind,
women, you're not off the hook. And my prayer for you, Church,
is that you would truly understand when Jesus says, all authority
under heaven and on earth has been given to me. Now, display
my glory. I've created you and this is
what you will look like. This is what you will do. This is
what you will see. And if you are mine, I'll be
with you forever. He didn't say if you do this, I'll be with
you. He did say that, but the condition is if you are his,
you will do this and then he will be with you forever because
you're his. Share your faith. The number one reason we don't
share our faith, people say, is fear. I believe it's affection. I believe it's affection because
we share everything else but Christ. Let's pray. Father, it is overwhelming trying to discern
what to say, when to say it, how to say it. God, I had so
many passages of text. You know my heart. But Lord,
we rest in the grace that you've given us to know that what we
have said and what Brother Jeff has said and what Dr. Delcor
has said and going to say, Lord, we just put it all into your
hands that you would put out what is good into the hearts
and minds and you would throw out what is erroneous. For we are fallible, our commentary
sometimes can tangle up the thinking of humanity. But Lord, Your Holy
Spirit is clear, and Your Word is precise, and it is sharp,
and it trims and prunes and cuts and devours the flesh. So, I
pray Your Word would just do that. I pray we would not practice
cunning ways. And Father, I pray that we would
just boldly proclaim the truth in such a way that You would
be honored and glorified. Let us stop looking for the fruit
and trying to glue apples on the tree, but Lord, help us to
just be patient. Help us to be patient. And know
that You hold us responsible for our obedience and our faithfulness
to be obedient. But Father, You are the faithful
one. And so for that, we are so thankful. Let us leave this
place now and go and share our faith. Have a dialogue. Have a word of prayer. Hand out
a track. Give out our phone number. Meet
with someone for the first time that we might begin to develop
a relationship to where we can share the gospel. And Lord, if
it is your will, you will use our sharing to bring to life
one who needs salvation. We don't go, they can't hear.
So allow us to go and stand and speak from the pulpit to the
street. In Jesus name, Amen.