Good morning. If you still have your copy of God's Word, hopefully turn to Matthew 28. Also keep a finger in 2 Timothy 2, verse 2. If you weren't able to be with us last week, we're doing something a little different for January and we're walking through topically the idea of vision. We talked about the Proverbs passage where there is no vision. The people don't have restraint, but happy or blessed are those who follow after the law of God. just a sense that we need direction, we need guidance, and that God in His gracious compassion has given us direction and guidance for those things that are necessary and valuable in the Christian life. And so last time we looked at a proper vision for worship. Today we look at a vision for proper evangelism and discipleship. So evangelism and discipleship. It always is a bit of an unsettling couplet of topics. It's in fact two of the scariest things in truth in the practice of the Christian religion. When you ask most people, you know, what is the thing that you struggle with most positively in your Christian faith? And usually if you ask enough of the right kinds of questions with most people, it narrows down to, and this isn't true for everyone, but it's true for most, it narrows down to, I'm really uncomfortable telling somebody else that they're a sinner who needs a savior. Evangelism. And I'm really uncomfortable settling into a smaller group of people and being held accountable by them for my growth in Christ likeness, which is discipleship. Most people, if they're oppressed, these are the things that are the most unsettling in the Christian religion, the thing that they struggle with the most. Yet the scripture lays out very plainly that they should be the most common, normal, and abundant things that we're engaged in as Christians. It should be just almost second nature for us to want to let other people know of the joyous news of Jesus and to simultaneously allow other people to kind of shine a light onto our lives to make sure that we're becoming more like Christ would want us to be. So what makes these things so uncomfortable for us? Why are we so hesitant to be engaged in evangelism and discipleship? What should it look like for us? And so that's what we're going to look at today. So we're going to start with evangelism. What is evangelism? Matthew 28, 19, and 20. Those of you who are savvy will say, listen, that's not a passage about evangelism. He's talking about making disciples. And I get that. It should be technically a discipleship passage. But the reality of it is, is that in order for someone to become a disciple, which that passage talks about making disciples, in order for someone to become a disciple, the first step of that process is someone must have practiced evangelism with them. They must have shared the gospel with the lost. And God in His grace will have caused them to repent and believe. And they come into the kingdom as a newborn child in Christ. And then the discipleship process begins. The step one of discipleship is conversion, which begins through the process of evangelism. So evangelism, basically, we're going to strip evangelism down to the most basic definition that we could get. Evangelism is basically the speaking of the gospel to those outside of the faith. That's what evangelism is. Now, over the years and even here, I've had some people ask me, Philip, it doesn't seem like when you're preaching on Sunday mornings that you spend a lot of time doing what in the olden days were known as evangelistic sermons. Why is that? Because the assumption of a public worship service is the people who have shown up already know the gospel. and that they're here for part of their discipleship process they're here for corporate worship and so there's not a need to speak the gospel to those who are outside of the faith the assumption is is that every most everyone anyway who has shown up is already a part of the faith and that there's not a need to call them to a first moment of repentance and new belief in Christ. Now that's not always the case. Obviously we have people that come in all the time who don't necessarily know the Lord and it's wonderful when God demonstrates Christ to them. But evangelism is something that is typically not done in a formal corporate worship service. Evangelism is actually most readily an out there kind of thing. Whether it's done in the home, whether it's done in the workplace, whether it's done in the school, whether it's done in the common square, wherever it might be, it is more of an out there kind of thing. It's taking Jesus to the people who need Him. So why would we include, as I asked the question a moment ago, a discussion of evangelism in a verse that's technically about making disciples? To reiterate what I said a second ago, evangelism is the first step in the discipleship process. Someone cannot grow in Christlikeness if they are not in Christ. And that's what discipleship is about. It's about becoming more like Jesus. Well, if you're outside of the faith, if you have not repented of your sins, if you've not believed in Christ, if you've not entered in through the narrow gate, you cannot become more like something that you aren't. It's just one of those kinds of things. You know, you can't go to the zoo and ask, well, why is it the lion's not more like the antelope? Well, because he's not an antelope. He's a carnivore, that one's an herbivore. A radical transformation will have to happen to one of those two animals for them to start becoming like each other. And that's what evangelism does. It brings about, through the grace of God, the radical transformation where we are no longer dead in our sins but we're now alive under God in Christ and we can start to become like Jesus. And so we talk about evangelism in discipleship because it is the necessary first step. Not only that, the continued speaking of the gospel is an integral part of discipleship. Once the gospel has been preached to me and I have received the grace of God and I've repented of my sins and I've believed on the Lord Jesus Christ and I have come into the kingdom of God, it's actually the speaking of the gospel, but in a slightly different way and in a slightly different context that propels discipleship forward. We don't take the gospel message of our need to believe and our need to repent and our need to to glory, to glorify Christ and God in our image bearing. We don't take that at that first step and then go set it on the shelf somewhere and say, OK, good, I'm done with that. Now I get down to the real stuff. No, that is forever some version of that, the real stuff. And so whether I've only known the Lord for a week, a month, a year, 10 years, 50 years, inconsequential, the main message that needs to keep coming back to my heart is, are you believing Are you repenting? Are you transforming? Now, it's a little bit different once you're on the road than when you're outside of the road. It's a little bit different. And there are some expectations that God has. That's called sanctification. A big fancy word for the transformative work that the Holy Spirit does of us as we begin to understand God's Word properly and apply it to our lives and all these different kinds of things. But it's the continued speaking of the gospel. It's part of this discipleship process. Now, I want us very specifically to consider this passage. We've all seen it a lot, Matthew 28, 19 through 20. But I want us to kind of walk through it and point out a few things that sometimes we miss. I want you to notice, and it's harder to notice in our English translations, but I want you to notice something. that there's only one command verb in here. There seems like there's three or four of them, but there's actually only one real commanding verb in this text, and it's not to go. I've been to plenty of missionary commissioning services for people and places like that. The seminary that I went to was a very mission-minded seminary and sent a lot of people to the mission field. And I've heard a lot of sermons, sadly, where the emphasis is on the command to go. And it's always frustrating to me when I hear that because even if you don't have any exposure to the Greek language, you can do a really quick Google search and say, what does the word go mean in Matthew chapter 28 verse 19? And everyone will tell you that it's a participle, it's not a command verb. The better way to translate it is as you are going. In other words, as you're living your life, as you're going through your daily activities, wherever God happens to have you, What are you supposed to be about? Then we get the verb, we get the command verb, make disciples. So the thing that we are called to do wherever we are and whatever we're doing and wherever we're going is to make disciples. Well, how do you make disciples? Well, the first step is you've got to tell them the gospel. And God in his kindness has to draw them into the kingdom. So evangelism must necessarily take place wherever it is that we are going. Now, I want you to be encouraged by that this morning. We'll get to more of this later in the service. But I want you to be encouraged by that this morning. And a lot of people sometimes get frustrated with this perspective. But listen, my quote unquote job is to be a pastor of a church. And so if anything, it's going to sound like I'm belittling what I do. No. As you are going wherever that is, make disciples. So if God, for whatever reason, compels you to be going to a foreign nation, make disciples there as a missionary. Wonderful. If God compels you to go into some sort of vocational ministry and send you to a place that you didn't grow up in to go and help lead a group of people somewhere else like what we did coming from Tennessee to Texas, then make disciples. If God compels you to stay in your same hometown that you grew up in and to get a job as a teacher or a banker, or whatever it may be, and to start a family, then as you are going there, make disciples. One is not superior to the other. It doesn't matter if you're the stay-at-home mom, if you're the CEO, if you're the CFO, if you're the guy that plays in the rock and roll band, if you're the college student, if you're a teenager trying to find your way, if you are in Christ, Wherever He has you, as you are going, in that place make disciples. So, for you really rung out, worn out, little bitty babies at home moms, say, I'm not going anywhere, we're staying at the house. God has, in His great kindness, blessed you with someone else to be with 23 out of the 24 hours of the day. And if we hold to our beliefs about depravity, at some point. That person that you're with will become cognizantly aware, and you will, too, of their need of evangelism. So as you're going. At your house. With the one person God's locked you in there with make disciples. Say, but that just doesn't mean I want to do the stuff that gets it, that's the stuff. That's the stuff. A bunch of years ago, I had a young man and he's doing some church planning stuff in Illinois now, but he was maybe 15 or 16 years old and his name is Landon. And he came to me and he said, you know, I feel like I feel like I need to. I feel like I need to plug into vocational ministry when I'm older. I don't know if it's missions or if it's going to be pastoral stuff or church planning. I just don't know what that's going to look like." And he made a statement to me. He said, you know, I want to have a ministry that touches a lot of people like Billy Graham has. I want to share the gospel with a lot of people. And you know what? There's nothing wrong with desiring to see God reach a lot of people. That's beautiful. Wonderful. And I looked at him with all sincerity and I asked him, I said, Landon, that's great. And I hope God lets you touch a lot of people's lives. I said, but if God has a different plan for you. And if instead of giving you a Billy Graham type ministry. He gives you a ministry like Jeremiah. Where everybody that he told the word of the Lord to hated him for it. And he saw no one turn to God. And at the end of it, he had to write the book of Lamentations because he got thrown in a hole and the whole city got burned down around him because people rejected the message so much. Will you still be glad that God had you go where he had you go? Because friends, hear me this morning, it doesn't matter if you're a missionary out in the foreign nation learning a foreign tongue, or if you're the stay-at-home mom, and the end results technically don't matter either if thousands and thousands, like on the day of Pentecost, come to know the Lord, or the whole city burns down around you. It's as you are going, you do the human work that you're supposed to do and try and make disciples. And it starts with evangelism. No one is greater than the other. The mandate is the same for all of us to be about making disciples. So that's what that that's the command verb. That's the command verb as you're going. And notice the first step that's supposed to happen in this making of disciples process. They're supposed to be baptizing that takes place. This is why we know that this passage is leaning heavily on the idea of evangelism as the first step of disciple making, because Jesus is assuming here that as you're going and you start making disciples, the disciples that you're going to be making probably don't know the Lord yet. And once they do know the Lord, they come into the faith by way of the outward picture and sign and symbol of baptism. Convert it, you've trusted in the Lord, you believe in the Lord, you're baptized, you're buried with Christ in His death, raised to walk in newness of life, public declaration to all those around you, I've cast off my old life, it's been washed away, I've been covered with a new life and this is the life that I'm walking into. And so there's this picture of evangelism tied in with discipleship. And then what's the next thing that's supposed to happen in this discipleship evangelism process? So you baptize them in the name of the Father and Son, the Holy Spirit. And then we get to verse 20, teaching them to observe all I have commanded you. Now, by the way, all of these verbs are not command verbs except for making disciples. All of the rest of them are supporting verbs. They're either participles or they're past tense verbs or they're just state of being verbs. Basically, they're explaining to you what it means when you're doing the action of making disciples. You're baptizing people, you're teaching people doctrine and practice. That's what's supposed to be happening. So in this process of doing evangelism and discipleship, the step one is we need to be talking to people who don't know Jesus about their need to know Jesus. He said, well, Philip, I do that all the time and nobody ever comes to know the Lord through my effort to do that. I want to share with you something personal. And I know it's always dangerous to share personal things in sermons. But I want this to be an encouragement to some of you. I'm going to start out by saying something that might sound braggish and I don't mean for it to. Because I'm going to follow it up with something that could be incredibly disheartening. So I'm trying to give you a compare and contrast of something that's happened in my life. I have literally, this is not an exaggeration and Amanda can attest to this because she's known me for so long. I have literally shared the gospel with not less than 50,000 or more people in my lifetime. Not less than that. I've lost count. Now that's the braggish part. It sounds like I'm bragging. I have probably ever seen someone come to repent like with me telling them the gospel. I'm sharing the gospel with them in that moment. They've come to realize they need the Lord and they call out on Jesus and faith 20 times or less my whole life. I get it when you say, but I try to tell people about Jesus and nobody ever. I get it. I understand your dilemma. We are not called upon to be the dictators of the results. We are called upon, the Apostle Paul says, to till up the ground, to plant the seed, to put some water on it. There are different steps. But who brings the increase? What does he say? God. I cannot make anyone call out on the name of the Lord and be saved. I can't do it. I can till up the dirt. I can throw in some seeds. I can put some water on some seeds that might already be there, but I cannot make it grow. That is a sovereign work of God. God has not ever called me or you to get hung up in the results. He's called us to be faithful in the act of evangelism that when he causes it to grow, leads to discipleship. That's what he's called us to be, to be faithful. And what frustrates us, and it's what frustrates me, is that in our pride. We want to be able to tell the stories of how many people have been converted because of our sharing the gospel with them. Because those stories are way cooler than the other ones are. They just are, you know. When you hear the guy that stands up and talks about, you know, we went to this thing and we did a street preaching deal and 500 people received the Lord, that's cool story. But that wasn't me. That wasn't you. We are called to be faithful even when we don't see results. We're supposed to do it God's way. And just because we don't see the results we want to see doesn't give us a pass to stop doing it God's way. He still calls us to declare, Peter says, the excellencies of Him who has called us out of darkness and into marvelous light. That's what we're supposed to be about. I'm supposed to make a big deal of Jesus as I'm going. Now, once people have been baptized, God has brought an increase. God has brought people into the kingdom. Salvation has occurred in those people's lives. Now we have a different responsibility. And it's the actual discipleship process, which takes us over to 2 Timothy 2, verse 2. So hopefully you still have that there. And I want us to turn there and see. What's the best way for discipleship to take place? All right. So we know that we're supposed to share the gospel. We're supposed to talk about the Lord. We're supposed to make much of Jesus, but we can't make anybody come into the kingdom. But once people do come into the kingdom and they're over where we are and we're all full of the Holy spirit and we're part of the body of Christ, what is that supposed to look like? What is discipleship? What is the continuation of making disciples supposed to look like? What's the best way? for that to take place. 2 Timothy 2 tells us very plain, gives us a vision for discipleship. The things that you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses, entrust these to faithful men who will also be able to teach others. That is the vision for discipleship. There's four key discipleship methods that the scripture lays out for us, and all of them are needed. Four. There's four key discipleship methods. We are supposed to be a part of all of them. If you want the most well-rounded discipleship experience, we're supposed to be involved in all of these if we can be. Now, I understand sometimes we can't be. Providentially, we are hindered from time to time from being able to be involved in all of these. But as we are able, if we participate regularly in these four discipleship principles, it will be best for us in our effort to become like Jesus. Alright, so number one is the one that we talked about last time. It's the discipleship method of the one to the many. We call it corporate worship and hearing the teaching of the apostolic word. Partly what's happening here in our corporate worship service is whenever anyone stands up here with the scripture and they open it up and they declare the truths of God's word to a large group of people, it is a version of discipleship. It's the one to the many teaching truths about God's word and transformative principles that we need to learn. Discipleship is actually incorporated into corporate worship. That's how important God views it to be. So there's the one to the many. It happens often on our Wednesday night classes when we have specialized classes and large group of people come in to hear someone talk through or teach through some sort of idea. The second one that we need is one to some. Not one to many, but one to some. This opens itself up for more discussion and more engagement. It's the principle that we find in Acts 2 after all those people are converted. And it says that they kept gathering every day and going from house to house. That's one to some. The disciples and the apostles and those who were the teachers in the church would go into people's homes and they would teach them in smaller group settings in their homes. things that they needed to learn, things they needed to know. And it usually included prayer and it usually included discussions about the word and that sort of thing. You need to be engaged with a smaller group of people so that they know who you are and you know who they are and they understand the struggles of your life and you understand the struggles of their life and they're able to pray for you and they're able to minister to you and they're able to try to help meet your needs. Even Jesus followed this model of leadership. And next time we're actually talking about a vision for proper leadership in the church. Jesus followed this vision of leadership. Had 120 original disciples. We know this. Sent them out two by two. Occasionally we hear about 70 of those doing some different things that the 120 all didn't do. He had 12 of them that were the inner circle guys, three of them that were the closest to him, and one that was called the one that he loved. Even Jesus follows this spreading out the work type of ministry and discipleship. Moses, remember the story about Moses and his father-in-law came to him and said, look man, you've got to stop doing it like this. Moses was hearing every problem from the desert wandering Israelites. Every problem. All by himself. The guesstimation that we have is two plus million people. One guy. And his father said, don't do that. Divide them up into groups, tens and fifties and hundreds, and get some leaders over those people. You take the really big ones, or the conflicts between the other leaders. But even in the Old Testament, two million people wandering around in the desert, you know what their system of trying to make sure everybody understood how to properly apply the law of God to them while they were trying to get to the promised land? Let's break everybody down into smaller groups, so that everybody's life can be properly ministered to. Hey, here in Sylvania, you're going to hear some more about it at the end of the service. We're breaking into some more small group ministry that we've been trying to launch. We have Sunday morning Bible study classes. We have Wednesday night Bible study classes. We have lots of opportunities for you to get plugged into a smaller group of people and to be in their life and for them to be in your life. The next one is one to one. I cannot express to you how valuable it is, even if it's just sporadic, even if it's just occasional, even it's like once a month, once every couple of months for you to have somebody. And you have to be careful that it's not your best bosom buddy, because sometimes we get blinders on and we don't call our friends out the way that we need to, but it needs to be somebody that you trust enough that's going to speak real truth into your life. I've got a few people like this that I meet with on fairly regular basis. And I sit down with them and we just kind of wrangle through life. And we kind of throw the problems out on the table and they help us see the blind spots that we've got. I cannot tell you how valuable it is. for you to sit down. Sometimes it can be somebody who's a peer, like on this level. Sometimes maybe you're the one that's more the teacher and they're the student. Sometimes maybe you need to sit underneath somebody and they need to help guide you. You know, the old discipleship gurus used to say everybody needs a Timothy, somebody they're teaching, a Barabbas, somebody that they're walking alongside with, and a Paul, somebody who's teaching them. And there's so much truth to that. So much truth to that. And then the last discipleship one, and this is, this is, it seems kind of odd because discipleship seems such a communal thing, but there must be isolated discipleship. There must be alone discipleship. You actually have to wrestle with God by yourself in the discipleship process. You cannot rely solely on the one to the many, the one to some, and the one to one to get you through your discipleship effort. There are times when you need to be all alone with God. Jesus gave us that model as well. Even with all the stuff He had going on, He would get off by Himself, it says, and He would pray, and He would think about the things of the Lord. And then that's what you bring to the table in all those other settings, is that time that you've spent with God on your own. This is the discipleship method that is laid out for us throughout the Scripture. There must be, as it says here in 2 Timothy 2-2, I've given you this teaching, entrust it to faithful men who then teach other people also. There must be an intentionality about disciple makers. We must be intentional in the process. There must be It's not just getting together and hanging out and shooting the breeze. It's, we're going to get together, we're going to pray with each other, we're going to challenge each other, we're going to open a word together, we're going to talk through issues, we're going to think about how life actually comes underneath the authority of God's Word. There must be an intentionality behind what is being done in the discipleship process. You have to be a disciple and make disciples, as it said in the previous section, where you are, where you are. And I know some of you are thinking, you know, I would love that, but I just don't know. And I'm going to be a little rude and I apologize. I'm going to go ahead and apologize for the rudeness that I'm about to exhibit here. But I've heard it for years and years and years, not just here, everywhere. I hear it from friends that are in ministry. I hear it from places that I've been, places my friends have been. Anytime I get together with guys that are kind of helping to head up ministry stuff, whether they're pastors or missionaries or para-church group organizations or whatever it might be, I hear the same story everywhere. And it's just the way that it is. And so here's the rudeness. I hear all the time, and so have my friends. Well, you know, I just, I don't know anybody that well. I don't know how to get plugged in. It seems like all the other people are already kind of plugged in with folks and it's kind of hard to get into their groups. And I just kind of feel like an outsider and I would really love an experience like this, but I just don't know where to start. And it just doesn't seem like anybody's really going to open up for that. And so I guess I'll have to go somewhere else so I can find it. Hogwash. You are chiefly responsible for your discipleship. You know you need to be discipled. The scripture has called this clear. We are all to become conformed to the image of Jesus. This is the process that we're supposed to go to make that happen. And so when you come and you join yourself together with a group of believers saying, I'm going to be held accountable by you and I'm going to hold you accountable. The impetus is now on you to go to someone and say, I want this process to happen in my life. Where do I need to get plugged in to make that happen? You cannot just show up on a Sunday morning in a large worship service, sit in your pew for six weeks or eight weeks or six months or whatever, and then never take a step forward to ask anybody about how does this happen in my life and then be frustrated that it didn't happen in your life. The scripture does not allow for that. And part of what has happened in Western Christianity and churches all over the United States is that Christians have embraced a cater to me type of Christianity. I show up and everyone should immediately flock to me because I'm the new person. And I don't have to take any responsibility for the fact that I'm supposed to be the one who's being transformed into the image of Jesus. And I'm just going to sit here and wait. And if it doesn't happen the way I want it to happen, well then I'll slide on down some place." No! That is not the mindset of the Christian. The mindset of the Christian is, I long to be like Jesus. And I found a church from the experience I've had in their worship service that they too want to be like Jesus. And so I'm going to ask everybody that I can, what ways can I get plugged in here to let the making me like Jesus process happen? Friend, I tell you the truth here at Sylvania, if you'll just ask enough people, how can this happen here? You will find a way. There are plenty of opportunities to get plugged in for the make me more like Jesus process to happen for you here. There are all you have to do is ask. That's all you got to do. So you have to be and make disciples where you are. The emphasis being on the B, you have to be a disciple where you are. You cannot just wait for discipleship to happen to you. You have to go and get it. We should want to go and get it. I should want to take advantage of all the things that God has said in his word will help me to be more like Jesus. That should be a longing of my heart as a Christian. So let's ask like we did last week. Let's ask some really hard questions, some questions that we need to ask of ourselves about this. Two questions, two topics, evangelism, discipleship. Question one. Do we take seriously and here I'm speaking about us at Sylvania, do we take seriously the need for the loss to hear and be supplied with opportunity to respond to the gospel? Do we take that seriously? Do we take that seriously? I do not remember his name, but there was one guy, kind of a missionary theologian that I read a long time ago, and he said this, and it's very profound. I don't necessarily know that I agree with it, but it's very challenging and profound. He said, no man should ever hear the gospel twice before every man has had the chance to hear the gospel once. I don't necessarily know if I agree with that, but it's profound. That's challenging. It makes you pause and kind of stop and go, how seriously do I take the mandated call of the Christian person to make sure that the lost have an opportunity to hear and respond to the truth that Jesus is King? How seriously do we take that? What causes us to be hesitant in sharing the gospel with other people? Because we are hesitant. On the whole, Christians, when asked, are hesitant about sharing the gospel with lost people. It's one of the biggest hang-ups that we have as Western Christians. Have we ever stopped long enough to really ask ourselves the question, why am I so hesitant in doing that? Is it lack of knowledge? Is it personal character flaws that I have that might make people question my Christianity because maybe I'm not quite living the life the way that I should and people see that? Is it personal doubts that I have about the gospel itself, which sometimes Christians have, believe me, I know, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. We can lay out a whole list of these things if we need it to. But the reality of it is, is that Christians on the whole in the Western church are hesitant to share the gospel and we need to ask ourselves the question, why, why is that? You know what? If we feel like we don't have enough training, guess what? That goes back to that discipleship thing. We said, just ask somebody. Hey, I need to learn how to share the gospel better. There are people that can help you. If it's character flaws, guess what? That's part of the discipleship process. I'm supposed to becoming more like Jesus. And I know that there's things in my life that aren't like Jesus. And if I go try to tell people about Jesus, I'm going to give them a bad view of Jesus. I need someone to help walk me through that. Guess what? People will help you. I have personal doubts about the faith. There's some things that I don't really know or understand. There's some questions that I can't answer. And I know my friends are going to ask me, guess what? That's part of the discipleship process. And there are people that can help you. But we have to ask the question. And the question that follows that one is what can be done to remove these hindrances, these hesitancies from our lives? It's not enough for us to go, you know what? I'm hesitant. And I acknowledge that. And I think I found the reason why I'm hesitant. Remember what we said last week, a vision without an action plan is just a dream. And if we are wanting a vision for proper evangelism and discipleship, we can't just dream of what we would like for it to be like. We have to ask the hard questions. And if we come to the realization this is what's causing me to hesitate to do what I know must be done according to the scripture, then what are we going to do to remove those hindrances? What action plan are we going to put in place for those things to be moved out of the way? The discipleship question. Are we engaged in the discipleship process currently right now? Everyone needs to ask that of themselves. We need to all have an honest evaluation. Am I engaged in the one on many like in this room? Am I engaged in the one on some? Am I engaged in the one on one? Am I engaged in my time alone with God? Am I actively engaged in all of the best scenarios for the discipleship process to take place in my life? And then we have to ask the other question. What, if anything, is hindering me from engaging in all of these beneficial methods of growing in Christ? Sometimes they're legitimate, providential things that keep you from being able to do all of these things. Health issues. Those are legitimate sometimes. Sometimes people are just not well enough to do all of that. There are a handful of people Not many, but a handful of people who legitimately have real-world time constraints that keep all of those things from happening the way that you would like for it to. I know everyone in the room, including myself, just immediately assumed that that's me and that my time constraints are the ones hindering. Oh, he's clearly talking about me because he must know how busy I am. I was thinking more of the single mom who works four jobs. and then tries to take care of her three kids without any support because she doesn't live anywhere near her family. Someone like that, guess what? They probably have some pretty legitimate time constraints that are keeping them from engaging in every one of these processes. And they're probably going to try to do the best they can. Most of us, if we're honest, waste a very significant amount of time on things that actually don't matter. I don't like the guilt trip stories that come out sometimes on the internet. But I did read one the other day. I can't remember if it was from the Gospel Coalition or from Desiring God. I think it was from Desiring God. And it had a little bit of guilt trace to it, but it was just trying to make the point. It said the average Western American Christian, average, not exceptional, average, the average Western American Christian, If they would trade in the time that they spend on just social media, not like real internet you got to do for your job or even TV entertainment like watching a show, just social media, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, the average American Western Christian, if they traded in just their social media time, could use that time to read through the entire Bible five weeks. That's how much time the average Western American Christian spends on social media. Now sometimes social media is important. Like some really valuable, believe it or not, some really valuable things do happen on social media from time to time. They do. But a lot of times it's just not that big of a deal. It's a way to just kill time and brain cells and I'm tired but I don't want to go to sleep type moments, you know. That's what that is. And I'm not a big fan of those guilt trip type moments like that, but sometimes we need to ask hard questions. What is in the way of me having the time to engage in discipleship like this? Is it worth cutting some things out of my life or removing some roadblocks or pushing some hindrances to the side so that I can follow through with an action plan of having a vision for right evangelism and right discipleship in my life? Is it worth it to me To be on point with Jesus in these ways to really ask hard questions of myself. To put myself out there and ask hard questions of other people so that I can get plugged in the way that I need to get plugged in. And friends, that's what needs to happen. We don't live, at least not right now, in a cultural environment like they did in the first century when Christianity was new. We don't live in an environment like some of our persecuted and oppressed friends do in the northern block of Africa that's Muslim-dominated, or in Hindu-dominated India, or places like that. We don't live where to get by as a Christian you have to do this, or you actually really won't make it. Sadly, the cultural kindness that God has shown us in The Western Church in America has created all of these things as almost optional for our personal well-being. If I don't go to corporate worship, my week is usually all right. If I don't engage in group discipleship, my week is usually okay. If I don't engage in one-on-one discipleship, it usually doesn't alter the greater course of my life. If I don't spend some alone time with God, I might feel a bit of that nagging tug of the spirit, but I still get to do my job, and I still get to have my family, and I still get to kind of engage life the way it generally is engaged. These things have become culturally optional for us. And it has adversely affected our view of how important they actually are to our spiritual well-being. Because we can skip them and miss them and neglect them, and for a season anyway, not really feel the pain of it. Because that's not the world that we live in. And so we have to be very introspective. We have to ask ourselves hard questions about these things. And I don't know about you, but my desire for a place like Sylvania is for us to have a proper vision of evangelism and discipleship. A longing, as we sang last week, a longing to see God's churches full. A longing to see people vibrant in their love and walk with the Lord. A longing to see needs met in an organic, foundational way because people have somebody who's plugged into their lives. That's what I desire to see. I hope that's what you desire to see. I want it for my life. I want it for your life. I want it for the larger life of this congregation. I know the elders do too. So let's take a few minutes and let's pray. Let's pray for the transformative work of God in our lives. I'd invite you, if you would, turn the kneelers down in front of you as we have a time of directed prayer. And we're going to focus in today on the two things that we've discussed this morning. We're going to talk about and pray about and think about and ponder evangelism and discipleship. As you begin a time of personal prayer. I want you to start with. The severity. Of the lostness of the world that we live in. I want you to think from large to small as you pray. I want you to consider. the near one and a half billion Muslims that are in the world, in essentially every country. I want you to think about the hundreds of millions of Hindus, the tens of millions of, they would check the other religions box, The now, last I saw, tens of millions of just non-religious people, agnostic and atheist. that even if you included all Christians, and we know that not all people who claim Christ have Christ, but if you included all Christians together, that nearly three-fourths or more of the planet still denies the name of Jesus. And then I want you to make it smaller. I want you to consider people that you know. Call their names out to God. Who don't know the Lord. That each of us ask God in our way. To supply an opportunity for us to plant seed, to till soil, to water. Let us ask God to supply a divine opportunity for us to be the answer to the problem. And in moments of prayer like this, let's do what ought to be done when we're thinking about lost souls and let us beg and plead with God to be gracious to them and draw them from death to life. And I want to take it a little deeper. Not everyone will this apply, but most of us, most of us, we know of someone, whether it's a world leader or someone even closer than that, a business acquaintance or just a general acquaintance in the community or a family member, That maybe we are harboring an ill will toward it, but we know that that person doesn't know the Lord. But yet we harbor ill will toward them. It's very difficult. To continue harboring ill will toward the lost when you're praying for them to become your brother or your sister. So if you have someone like that in this moment, pray genuinely for a change of heart toward them to where you don't view them in a way of ill will, but you long for their well-being that they might come to know Christ. And now the discipleship part. We'll start from small to big with this one and pray. That God would change each of our hearts, that we would be personally open to the discipleship methods that God has given us, that we would actively look for and long for those chances to be in and with people's lives and for them to be in and with our lives. That we wouldn't use excuses and that we wouldn't have hindrances, we would lay all that down and we would step outside of ourselves and we would ask for the help that we need. Let's pray that we would make a genuine commitment. To as many of the methods as we can. The one to many in corporate worship, the one to some in small group and larger classes, the one to one as we find accountability people and the time that we spend alone with God, that we would make a genuine commitment to be made into the image of Jesus the way that he has for us to be made into his image. Many of us have those opportunities. What a blessing. Let us stop long enough to thank God for the people who are in our lives that are helping us to become more like the Lord. Thank God. Call them out by name. Father God, we. We acknowledge that only you can save. We acknowledge that there is no salvation apart from you. We acknowledge that only you can bring those who are dead and transform them into life. We know that only you can take those who are enemies. Make them to be your children and citizens of your kingdom. Brothers of your son, Jesus. And Father, we know that the primary and chief way that you draw people into the kingdom is by dying sinners, telling other dying sinners that Jesus gives life. Father, let us be marked out as a people who regularly and consistently proclaim the excellencies of your son, Jesus. Not just around the world, but across the street. The next cubicle over the next desk beside us. Let us each be a beacon of light for the hope that is the gospel of Jesus. And father, in your grace and in your kindness and in your compassion, when people come into your kingdom because you have drawn them in, let us be about making disciples. Let us be available to help. Let us be open to being helped by others. Let us not sit on the sidelines, but let us take full advantage of every opportunity that you supply that we might be made more like your son. That we can learn to love each other. That we can learn to be compassionate and gracious and slow to anger, full of loving kindness. That we might be good image bearers. the world might look and marvel and know that we have been with Jesus. We thank you in advance for what you will do with this as we strive to be the Christians that you would have us to be as we long to have a proper vision of evangelism and discipleship in our lives. In Jesus name. Amen. If the men are going to help with the offering, would please come at this time.