Why is that? Jesus prioritized the ministry of the Word. We see this. We've seen this in Mark. So let me, we'll draw it back to the series just to put this home. In Mark 1, starting in verse 35, it says, They found him and said to him, Jesus, everyone is looking for you. Now remember, Jesus had been healing people. He had been casting out demons. And so this crowd has gathered. The disciples say, hey, there is a crowd of people looking for you to heal, to do mighty works. And Jesus said this. Let us go on to the next towns, that I may preach there also, for that is why I came out. That's why I came, Jesus said. He cares about physical needs. He cares about all of those ministries. But Jesus puts out here, right on base level, he says, the reason I came is to preach. We want to be like Jesus, right? We want to have lives that look like Jesus. And we need to see that in his ministry, in his life, he had priorities. And right at the very top was the proclamation of the truth. And so we want to be a people who are known for our boldness in proclaiming the truth. So let's get really practical. Let's bring it down. I want to ask two questions this morning. The first question is this, what impedes our evangelism? What impedes it? What gets in the way? Right, because we want to do it, so what are the obstacles that stand in front of us? Pastor Jody, if you know him, he leads worship at FBC campus. He's a passionate runner, and he's been trying to make me a passionate runner, and it's not happening, and it never will. But he told me a story about a friend or a blog he'd read, I'm not sure. It was someone who was training for a marathon, and he had all these excuses. And he was having a hard time getting up in the morning because he was so lazy. And so what this guy did is he put his excuse right there on the table. He said, I don't run because I'm lazy. I don't run because I don't like to wake up early. And then he dealt with his excuse. He decided, I'm going to go to bed in my gym gear. I'm going to put my shoes right beside the bed. And when I wake up in the morning, I literally just have to roll into my shoes and out the door. And that's what he did. And it worked. I think there's some wisdom there that we can gain. He put his excuses right in plain sight and he dealt with them. That's what I'd like to do this morning. What impedes our evangelism? What stops us? First, the first impediment I want to identify is the fear of man. The fear of man, because honestly, some of us are absolutely terrified of the world. We are terrified that they will come to know what we believe. and that they will turn from us, right? We're terrified. Now, we can put forward some of the easier parts of our faith, right? It's easy to tell the world, you know, Jesus loves you. That's easy. But we know that if they dig deeper into us, if they ask those probing questions, they will come to see the parts of our faith that they won't like. They will come to realize that we, let's put it hypothetical. If your coworker were to come to you and were to say, hey, does God love me? And you would respond, yes. Well, that's an easy question to answer, right? If you were to go a step further and to say, but I've heard that if you don't put your trust in Jesus Christ, you'll spend an eternity in hell. Does that mean that I'm gonna spend an eternity in hell? Well, now that's a tricky question to answer, right? And we know that if they probe right down to the core, they might see something in us that they don't like. We fear that. And that fear of man is not helpful. It hinders us. It stalls us. It's a barrier. It's gotta go. I was comforted when I read in Ephesians 6, the Apostle Paul, probably the outside of Jesus, of course, the greatest evangelist in the history of the world, the greatest missionary, and here he is in Ephesians 6, he's writing to this church that he loves, and he asks them to do this. These are his words, he says, to that end, keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints, praying for all the saints, he says, and also for me. Now what's his prayer request? It says, pray that words may be given to me in opening my mouth boldly to proclaim the mystery of the gospel. For which I am an ambassador in chains. Pray that I may declare it boldly as I ought to speak. Isn't that interesting? The fearless Apostle Paul writing to the church says, I have a prayer request. Pray that I won't be a coward. Pray that I will not be a coward. Here's an account of his life that he wrote to the church in Corinth. Here's the Apostle Paul. If you're new, you've never thought about him. This is the guy who asked for this request. He said, five times I received at the hands of the Jews the 40 lashes less one. Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked. A night and a day I was adrift at sea on frequent journeys in danger from rivers, danger from robbers, danger from my own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brothers. There's nowhere he can go. He's constantly in danger, in toil and hardship. through many a sleepless night in hunger and thirst, often without food. in cold and exposure and dare I say if anyone ever had an excuse for just shutting his mouth it was the Apostle Paul right he knows I'm every time I proclaim this gospel people throw rocks at me and hit me with sticks he knows I'm in prison because of this gospel and yet he says to the church in Ephesus he says please pray for me that I will speak with boldness that I won't be a coward That encourages me and that reminds me we need to be prayerful because it is hard. What are you afraid of? What are your fears? Are you afraid that the world will think less of you? It will, by the way. Are you afraid that you might lose your job or your influence? You might. Are you afraid that the people that you love will turn on you, will mock you, will hate you? Listen, Jesus said this to his followers. He said, brother will deliver brother over to death and the father his child. Children will rise against parents and have them put to death. And you will be hated by all for my name's sake. But the one who endures to the end will be saved. And he goes on in verse 26 to say, so have no fear of them. Easier said than done. Have no fear of them. They will turn against you. If you follow me, we follow a crucified Savior. They murdered our Savior. And if we follow Him and learn to live like Him, they will hate us as well. But Jesus says, the one who endures to the end will be saved. Have no fear of them. The second thing that impedes our evangelism is ignorance. ignorance. I mean sometimes it's just our perceived ignorance because we all have these things that we feel like we don't know and I worry that many of us never share the gospel because we feel like we don't know what to say. What could I possibly say? And hear this, if you're here today and you are truly a follower of Jesus, I want to tell you this, you know what to say. Maybe not as perfectly as you'd like to. Maybe you don't have all of the content figured out, but I'm saying this with confidence. If you are a follower of Jesus, then you have content enough to tell the world. Tell them what you put your trust in. Even if it's simple, even if you were saved yesterday and all you have is this little nugget, just tell them what you have. It's the hope of the world. Tell them, I was a sinner. The Bible says we were all sinners. But I put my trust in Jesus Christ and He paid my death for me. And now I'm gonna spend an eternity with Him forever in glory. That's great, if that's what you've got, then share it. But what I would say is share what you have. Share what you have. One of the things that I've noticed in the church, and it kind of came out of the attractional church thing that started in the 90s, but it's still here all the time. We began to believe this lie that evangelism is the job of the professionals. And so we started paying pastors big bucks, and we started hiring really fancy music teams, and investing in comfortable seats and fancy lights. Believing that all we need to do is to bring our friends to the professional evangelists. And if we can just get them there, then the professional evangelists will do the job. And even now, I wonder, if I were to ask you, when is the last time that you evangelized? Many of us would think in our mind of the last time we invited someone to church. And I just want to say that that's wrong. We should invite our friends to church. But that's not evangelism. That's inviting someone to church. Evangelism is telling them the truth of the gospel. And can I tell you something? Every single one of us can do that, and needs to do that, and should do that. I am not the only evangelist at Redeemer, and I am not the most gifted evangelist at Redeemer. And neither is Pastor Paul. I live with a woman who is more gifted in evangelism than me. She is. I've watched as the Holy Spirit just uses her and she could be getting a haircut or buying a coffee and somehow she tells someone about sin and God and Jesus Christ and they get saved and we baptize them. And I'm like, how did that happen? She's gifted. And we're not all gifted the same way. Billy Graham was particularly gifted and we probably don't have any Billy Grahams here today. but all of us is called to work with what we have and to tell people the truth. I'm gonna do something that I might regret. I do that all the time. Today's Youth Sunday, and when I've worked with the youth program, one of the things we did is we challenged them to share the gospel. We just said, hey, you've got two minutes, share the gospel. We wanted them to see that you can do this. And now, I want you to see that we can do this. And so, youth, I love you so much, and I'm sorry I didn't tell them this was gonna happen. I wanna issue a challenge. I want to see if one of you would be willing to give a two-minute presentation of the gospel to the church. And here's why. I'm not trying to put you on a pedestal, but there's a lot of people who feel like they could never do it and they're scared. But if a youth can stand up in front of 80 people with no notice and share the gospel, then I think that would encourage a lot of people. So I'm just going to throw it out there. I'll wait for five seconds and if this might just fall flat. Yes, that's my man. All right. Okay, so you're a brave man and you'll forgive me someday, but it is not this day. All right, Josh, let me set the table for you. All right, so you're at school. Your friend comes to you and he says, man, you spend so much time at church. I don't understand. You read your Bible. What is this whole thing about? What is the point? You got two minutes. One, because I believe in Christ and believe in a God, but it's also a kind of gratitude for Christ in me. But first you need to know, you know, there is a God, and I believe in a God that He is large and in charge of everything. I am not that God. So I can't run my life, and I couldn't even try to do it properly. And then you, you know, I also recognize that I am a sinner, that I have fallen short of the will of God, as it says in Romans, and we all have. Fantastic. Dude, fantastic. Dude, you rocked it. You're great. Evangelism is not the job of the professional. That's a lie. So let's put that to death, okay? It's a lie. We can do this. Tell them what you know. Tell them what you put your trust in. You are not as ignorant as you think you are. And P.S., we're all a little bit ignorant of something. I'm certainly ignorant of much. This is an enormous book, and God has filled it with wonderful truths, and we will spend a lifetime learning it. So instead of letting that awareness of what we don't know cripple us, Instead, let's use that as fuel to commit to a life of learning. Thirdly, one last thing that impedes our evangelism is idolatry. Idolatry. It's a broad category, right? Because we make all kinds of idols. The human heart is an idol factory. We take lesser things and we make them God things. We take good and bad things, we lift them up, put them in the place of God. And every time we do, we discover that they fall short. And if God is not first and foremost in our hearts and minds, then we will never engage in evangelism. So I've got two idols that come to my mind, two idols that particularly are a challenge for us here in North America, and that particularly stand in the way of our evangelism. The first is the idol of comfort. And we need to purge this idol from our hearts on a daily basis. We are some of the wealthiest people that this world has ever seen. All of us. Even if you're here today and you'd say, I am the poorest person in the building, I would say you are still one of the wealthiest people that this world has ever seen. We have food on our table, clothes on our backs, roofs over our heads. We're wealthy, and let me just say, we should thank God for providing for our needs and for giving us the resources to bless others. That's a gift. Money in itself is not evil, but let's not be naive. Let's not forget that wealth and comfort are deceptively dangerous. Let's put that on the table. Jesus said this. Again, I tell you, it's easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God. There's nothing inherently evil about money, but there is something evil about believing that we can do everything for ourselves. And when you've got a bank account full of money, it's easy to start thinking that way. It's also evil to become enamored with the treasures of this world and to start storing up things on earth to make our lives as comfortable and fun as possible. The Bible has something to say about people who live that way. Philippians 3.19 says this. Those people, it says, their end is destruction. Their God is their belly. They glory in their shame with minds set on earthly things. Dr. Martin Lloyd-Jones, possibly my favorite preacher, he warned about this kind of living. He said, it's because of the selfishness of their hearts, their love of ease and comfort. their desire to look after themselves first and last and always, that they've turned their backs upon God and wandered away from His laws and settled down to enjoy life in their own place and in their own way in this present and evil world. Money's not evil. But if we begin to lift up this idol of comfort and leisure, and it is a daily battle for us not to, we will never engage with the world. We're gonna live our cushy, comfortable lives while the world perishes around us. We can't live that way. And the other idol that particularly stands in our way is the idol of the admiration of man. I mentioned already the fear of man, but I would say one of our greatest fears with man is not that they will beat us, it's not that man will kill us, it's that man will stop praising us. We love the praises of man. We love to be thought highly of. And if I could make a confession, this was one of my greatest challenges as a young person, and I wrestle with it to this day. I prided myself. That's what's scary about it. I thought this was an admirable trait. I thought if I go to church, people love me, think I'm great. When I go to the school, people love me, think I'm great. When I go into the culture, people love me, they think I'm so nice. There is nobody in the world who finds something offensive in me. And I patted myself on the back until I opened God's word where Jesus says, woe to you when all people speak well of you. For so their fathers did to the false prophets. Woe to you if this culture doesn't see anything offensive in you. We follow a crucified Christ. We serve a God who says, it is my way, and my way is the only way, and if you do not follow my way, you will spend an eternity apart from me. We serve a God who has said things that our world hates about marriage, and sex, and gender, and autonomy. And if the world can't see anything offensive inside of us, then we have missed the mark. And Jesus would say, woe to you. Galatians 1, the Apostle Paul, he said this, if I were desiring to please men, then I would not be a servant of Christ. If my life's ambition was to please men, I wouldn't be following Jesus. That's a good word. You cannot serve two masters, church. You cannot serve two masters, Levi. You cannot be a people pleaser and an evangelist. You cannot. Something has to go. So if these are our barriers, we've put those on the table, I wanna shift our attention now to the things that should empower us. Because you could break down the fence and move all the obstacles out of the way so that a horse can run, but if he's got no legs, he's gonna stay in the field, right? If you can take the car out of the garage and get all the obstacles out of the way, but if there's no gas in the car, it doesn't move, right? So we've removed the obstacles, but now what fuels us? What empowers evangelism? This past year, I joined a gym in town, partly because I want to build relationships with the world, but mostly because my metabolism realizes I'm not a teenager anymore. And so I joined this gym, and when you're at the gym, you learn something about motivation. Not all motivation is created equal. You learn that in January. You know what I mean, I won't even get into it. But each and every one of us, if we're a believer, if we're a follower of Christ, we know that we should share the gospel. We know it's true. But like a New Year's resolution, we find ourselves fired up and ready to take on the world on Sunday, and then Monday comes along, and whatever it was that was fueling us is gone, right? And the courage is gone. We need a fuel that lasts, right? We can't be fueling ourselves with trying to impress people. Here, hear this, I wanna be careful, I just, as I look out now, we can't be fueling ourselves with trying to earn God's love either. Hear this. We're talking about evangelism. This is response to the grace of God. This doesn't earn it. So don't feel like, man, I better go share the gospel so that God loves me more. First, that's not true. God loves you because of what Jesus did on the cross. But secondly, we share the gospel, not out of guilt for earning love, but in response. So here, let me put forward three things that should fuel our evangelism. The first is this, fear of God. It felt foreign to me writing that, it feels foreign saying it, because the word fear sounds negative. But actually, a healthy fear is a great motivator. I have an exam coming up a week from Tuesday. My teacher has a reputation for being really tough, for writing really tough exams, and I am afraid of sitting down, looking at the questions and not having an answer. And my fear is motivating me to study. The problem with fear is that we're inclined to fear the wrong things or rather the wrong person. Here's what Jesus said. Remember in Matthew, we talked about how the world is gonna hate you. Jesus said people are gonna turn on you, people that you love are gonna hate you. He went on to say this. He said, do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. He goes on. Rather, fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell. He says, fear of man is gonna cripple your mission, but fear of God is gonna breathe life into it. In Ezekiel, Ezekiel was a watchman for God's people. It was his job to sound the alarm when the emergency was coming. And here's what God said to Ezekiel, you shall surely die. And you, Ezekiel, give him no warning, nor speak to warn the wicked from his wicked way in order to save his life. That wicked person shall die for his iniquity, but his blood I will require at your hand. God said to Ezekiel, it's your job to tell them when the crisis is coming, and I'm telling you right now, Ezekiel, that my judgment is coming for this people. And if you don't warn them, that is on you. This past week, we logged into Facebook or whatever we did on the social media, and we came face to face with these awful, horrific videos of children suffering from chemical warfare. And it rattled the world. These things happen all the time, but isn't it different when you're in your living room and you see it right in front of your face? It's children, what did they do? And there was just outrage, as there should be. Can you imagine if we were to find out today that the United Nations knew that the strike was coming, and they had plenty of time to warn them, and they could have evacuated, but they didn't. They just held on to that news and did nothing. Can you imagine the outrage? We would lose our minds. You know what I'm gonna say. Christian, infinitely more devastating than chemical warfare is an eternity in hell apart from God. The Bible says the flames of their torment will rise forever. There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Infinitely more perilous than an incoming attack is a life lived in open rebellion to God and there are people living that way all around us. And God says, we will be held accountable. We will stand before him and give an account for all of the times that out of our fear of man, love of comfort, all of those times that we remained silent. That stirs up in me a healthy fear. Proverbs says, the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom. I know it doesn't make God love me more to share the gospel, but I know that I will give an account. And on that day, I want to be found faithful. Secondly, our evangelism needs to be empowered by a love for mankind. Obviously, flowing out of what we just said, if we love the world, if we love the South Ward, if we love our neighbors, then we're going to tell them the gospel. Because it is good news. I remember a few weeks ago when we studied Jesus And when he healed the paralytic, if you remember, this man was paralyzed. He was living in a culture where physical labor was everything, and he's paralyzed. He's in a desperate position. So his friends carry him, and they dig a hole through the roof, and they lower him down to Jesus. And then Jesus, looking at this paralyzed man in his desperate need, remember what he says? He says, son, your sins are forgiven. Isn't that interesting? This man has come because he needs to be healed. He needs to walk, he needs to work. Jesus looks at this man and in love, he sees his greatest need. He sees what lies under the surface. You are separated from God in your sin, but son, your sins are forgiven. That's an excellent model for us. True Christian love looks beyond the needs that the world perceives and looks right to the need that they don't see. Isn't it easy to give a homeless person some change? I go to school in Toronto and have plenty of opportunities and it's easy to give a homeless person change. I think of a man, I gave him change and I felt compelled I should share with him. But I didn't share the gospel with him. Why is it so easy to give him change but so hard to give him the gospel? I'll tell you why. It's because he knows he needs money but he doesn't know that he needs Jesus. And how will he know unless we tell him? If we truly love the world, then we need to go beyond the needs that they know they have into the needs that they don't even see, but that are more immediate, more urgent. We've got to get right to the root. And if we love people, then we will. And if we love people, that will fuel our evangelism. But lastly, as we conclude, I would say this last motivation, this last empowerment is everything. If you don't have this last one, you've got nothing. You can love people, right? You can be fueled by fear of God, but if you don't have this, then you're not going to do evangelism. It is a love for God. We need to be empowered by a love for God. Let me share a personal story. A few weeks ago, I was just really discouraged. I tend to be like that sometimes. I was just really down, and it was a Tuesday, and I was borrowing Pastor Evan and Miranda's car, and I had parked it on the street. I don't even know why, and I woke up and it had a parking ticket on it, and someone had backed into it so there's a hole in it, and it was a frustrating way to start the day. And I had this mountain of homework that was due in the evening, and I wasn't even close to being done. And so I'm working away, and then I remembered that I had made a commitment to share the gospel at a soup kitchen. And I felt like that is the last thing I want to do right now. I want to be under a rock right now. But I went. I went to the soup kitchen, and on that particular day, it was just as rambunctious as I've seen it. It was full, it was noisy, and there was a one-year-old boy. There's never a one-year-old. But this day, there was a one-year-old boy, and as soon as I begin to preach, he starts wailing and screaming. And he screamed the entire time. And if you've been in a room with a wailing one-year-old, you know that all eyes were on him. I was speaking to no one. Except there was one person who was listening. One little lady. And she was listening. This little old lady has told me with every opportunity that she's had that she can't stand me. She does not like me. And normally I just laugh it off. But on this one day, as I was just feeling so discouraged, and I was preaching on the forgiveness, that we can receive in Jesus Christ. And nobody's listening, wailing little boy, except one little lady sitting right in front of me. And no lie, she's looking me in the eye as I'm speaking to this seemingly empty room. And she is saying, nobody's listening to you. Go home. Nobody likes you. I hate you. Go home. And it seems funny when you look back at it now, but in that moment I was crushed. I was frustrated. I stopped. I remember mid-sermon, I stopped. I put my hands on the table. And in that moment, I needed a greater fuel than a love for mankind. Because honestly, in that moment, I wanted to say, enjoy your food, you're going to go to hell. I wanted to say it, and I'm not, I wanted to, and it was wrong. But you're mocking God, you're mocking me, this food's being given to you in Jesus' name, I'm trying to show love to you, I could have done a hundred things, I was so frustrated. And in that moment, if my only fuel was just loving people, that fuel would not have gotten me through. But in that moment, I stopped, and I just felt this overwhelming voice in my head saying, she is worthy of my praise. She deserves my praise. I just thought, God formed you before you said a word. He made you. He's brought you here. He's given you your strength. He's giving you food to eat. He causes the sun to shine on you, and you mock Him, but He deserves your praise. And so help me. I'm going to come here every week, and I'm going to tell you that. I'm going to tell you that God is great and greatly to be praised and He deserves your praise. I didn't say that. I just continued with the sermon. But as I climbed into my car and thought, am I ever going to go back? The resounding answer was yes. Yes, because God deserves the praises of every man and woman and boy and girl in this city. And I love Him. And I want the world to see how wonderful he is. We say, I don't know if I can do evangelism. I don't know if I can share good news. And I would say, that's baloney. You can share good news. It is so easy for us to share good news. We just share the wrong good news. How many men were sharing the good news this morning of their favorite sports team who's made the playoffs? Or sharing the good news of some 19-year-old who scored 40 goals? How easy is it for me to share the good news of how cute and adorable my children are with strangers in an elevator? It was easy. It's easy to share good news about essential oils or our favorite product or about our favorite workout routine. It's easy. We do it all the time. Why don't we share the gospel? I think it's because we've ceased to see how wonderful it is. a love for God will fuel evangelism in our hearts my prayer my hope for us as a church and my hope for myself and it's a daily wrestle is that part of our DNA part of what makes us tick in this place is that we will be bold in telling the world the good news of Jesus Christ I want that for us and there's no program that I can run there's no magic sauce that I can pour on All I can do is I can turn my heart and my affections and my attentions, and I can urge you to turn our hearts and our affections to the God who made us, who is worthy of praise. He is wonderful and awesome, and when we see Him, we will remember. I wanna just point you at the very end here to Peter and John, these apostles. If you remember, Jesus says on the night that he was betrayed, Peter denied Jesus three times, cowardly, cowardly. People said, weren't you with Jesus? And he says, no, I never knew the man. I never knew, I swear. This same Peter, after Pentecost, is standing boldly before people who want to see him dead, and they're speaking the truth with courage, And here's what the people who were persecuting them said, when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, hear this, and perceived that they were uneducated, common men, ignorant men, just simple men, but they saw the boldness, they were astonished, and they recognized that they had been with Jesus. Something changed in these men. They had been with Jesus, and that changed everything. If we're gonna, if our DNA, if our very fabric is gonna shift to be passionate evangelists, then what's gonna need to change is that people are gonna need to look at us and see our boldness, even though we're simple, ordinary people, they'll see a fire in us and they will say, those people have been with God. They've seen Him. They know who their God is. They know that He is great and greatly to be praised. Oh, that we would believe that in our hearts. That's my prayer for us as a people. I hope that resonates with you. And this is our calling. And he is our motivation. So let this increasingly become our passion. Oh God, make it so. Let's pray together. Heavenly Father, thank you for your word. Lord, I pray if I've added anything, if I've given my own thoughts that were unhelpful, let them fall to the floor, but let your word remain. And Lord, I pray that you would just grow us to love you and to know you more. Thank you, Father, that you love us even now. Even the person in this room who has never shared the gospel, if we have put our trust in Jesus Christ, then we are loved. You look at us and you see Jesus. We thank you that we don't strive to earn love, to earn salvation. It's been given to us, but we want to respond. God, I want to respond. We want to see our city transformed. We want to see the people living in our backyards come to know you. I come to spend an eternity with you, come to be spared from damnation and hell, and come to worship the one true God. I pray that you would make that just a part of our very fabric, and only you can do it. So we come to you humbly, and we pray, let it be so. And I ask it in Jesus' mighty name, and everyone said, amen.