at the, in your outline, at the top of the outline that I will read when we get there. I'm going to intersperse those throughout the message, those verses and a couple other ones. Christ Bible Church has been involved with, over these many years that we've been in existence, quite a few evangelistic opportunities. in the corporate life of the church. Very early on, we were involved with the Bay Area Rescue Mission. Going there, we still are. We have had individuals who have gone street preaching. Prior to the pandemic, for almost 20 years, we were involved with two prisons, state prisons, San Quentin and Jamestown Prison, where a couple times a month, Several of us would go later once a month, but always there for almost 20 years. I see several people who helped at the Chinese New Year's Parade where we went there to hand out tracts. Had quite a big turnout to hand out tracts there. The Gospel Fest. Of course, our brother Gerard who, in addition to street preaching, goes over to Cal Berkeley on a regular basis, several times a week. Today we have, it turns out, we have another evangelistic opportunity that we're gonna talk about in the subsequent business meeting. And the message is really tailored to that issue. And so the message is gonna kind of be narrowly focused on the idea of evangelism. Obviously there's much to say about evangelism, but I'm gonna be very narrowly focused. And you can see from your outline in the bulletin that we have two points. We're gonna talk about the role of the evangelist in the life of the church, and then we're gonna talk about the church, or the role of the church, in the life of the evangelist. And though the message is quite, maybe narrowly focused, it has application, I believe, to all of us, not just to what we wanna talk about at the meeting. So in the first place, this morning, we're going to look at these four subpoints as we think about the role of the evangelist in the life of the church. We're going to talk about the existence of this role or the stated role. Secondly, the need. Thirdly, the example of Philip the evangelist. And as we trace through the life of Philip the evangelist, we're going to see several characteristics or traits about this evangelist What makes an evangelist? What do they do? How do they act? What do they think? And then fourthly, under this point, we're gonna look at some precepts for evangelism that are gonna kind of broaden our thinking a little bit about this. And then secondly, and more briefly, we'll talk about the role of the church in the life of the evangelist. First of all, the role of the evangelist in the life of the church. Before we talk about a very specific spiritual gift or calling or role, we acknowledge that the whole idea of evangelism is really broadly stated, especially in the New Testament, actually throughout the Bible, but especially in the New Testament. If we were to try to come up with a very simple definition of what an evangelist is, We would say it is simply someone who brings the good tidings of the gospel, the good news of the gospel, glad tidings of salvation through the Lord Jesus Christ. They're a messenger with the good news of the gospel. One of my favorite verses that illustrate this definition is in Luke chapter 2, where those angels appeared to the shepherds by night. Remember, those shepherds were very fearful, and the angel said simply this, fear not. Behold, I bring you good tidings. That word in the original is almost identical to the word evangelist. I bring you good tidings of great joy which shall be for all people. What is that news? For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord. That message is good tidings. It's the good news of the gospel. Implied in what the angels said is a lot of gospel truth. The need for a Savior, the incarnation of God himself, and many, many things. But again, good tidings, that's what an evangelist does. They bring the good news of the gospel. Of course, you're thinking about, I'm sure, the Great Commission. Matthew 28, verse 19, go you therefore into all and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. That was not, in the first case, that was speaking to the apostles, but of course, the apostles could not go into all the world. And so by way of extension, the great commission is, under the authority of the Son of God, was that we are to go and bring this good news, teaching, baptizing, et cetera. You are, again under this broad thinking of evangelism, you are an ambassador for Christ. Now then, we as ambassadors for Christ, it was as though God did beseech you by us, we pray you in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God. Paul here says a tremendous truth, and really, we are all ambassadors for Christ. We're ambassadors because the love of Christ has constrained us, he says. were ambassadors because he said that he has committed to us the word of reconciliation. If you think about an earthly ambassador, they don't wake up in the morning and put a suit on and go to the office and now they were an ambassador. They are an ambassador 24-7. And their task is to represent with dignity, with honesty, without their own agenda, very proactively, they are to represent their country. And this is what a Christian, whether lifestyle, the printed page that we might hand out, the word, this idea of you as an ambassador, as an evangelist, involved and worried about evangelism, this very broad way touches us all. But having said that, There isn't a scripture, a very, I will say, a special spiritual gift, certainly a burden, a calling. It might not be an office. There's debate from the commentators, is it an office, is it? But the Bible talks about someone who has spiritually been gifted as an evangelist who goes over and above the normal sphere of evangelistic effort. I do believe it is a spiritual gift. I do believe it is a special calling, and I believe consequent with that calling is the burden that moves that evangelist to do what he does. The first scripture I have, Ephesians chapter four, verse 11 and 12. After God, after Christ ascended on high, it says he gave gifts unto men. He gave some apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ. He gave some evangelists. This gift seems to be talking about this particular man who, as a gospel laborer, will go into the fields of the world with the very specific task of bringing the good news, the glad tidings the gospel. He's uniquely qualified to evangelize. We're going to look at some of the characteristics of an evangelist, but there's one that really kind of jumps out, I believe, and in my mind immediately sets this man apart as an evangelist. And that is he is an extension of the church. He is called by God. He often is called by the church to go into areas outside of the church, to places where the word is not known, to places where the word is needed. And in this sense, they're distinguished from pastors and teachers. The evangelist itinerates from place to place outside the church. to bring the word of God to either where he is directed by his home church or where God has directed him to go and where he has firsthand knowledge that the word of God needs to be brought. We think of individuals like George Whitefield, who as an evangelist would bring God's word to places where they needed to hear the word of God. Sometimes he was shut out from churches because they did not like his gospel preaching. That did not stop him. He would preach in open fields. He would go to the marketplace. He would bring God's word. And history has shown us his great success. Sometimes we think of missionaries as evangelists. But it's a spiritual gift to undertake a spiritual labor by the power of God. Today, often there is a different connotation of what an evangelist does. There is perhaps a revival meeting set, and a special speaker who's called an evangelist will come in. They'll typically have a person who does special music with him. And they arrange these meetings because either the pastor is hoping that this evangelist will say the things that he's afraid to say, Or he wants this evangelist who has this charisma or this personality to get the people charged up and ignited and wants something to happen. That's not the biblical definition of who an evangelist is. An evangelist itinerants, he goes out here and there to preach the gospel. What separates him from the pastor teacher is God has said the pastor teacher's duty station is the church. It's a stationary location. The pastor teacher is to be here with the flock, to teach, to exhort, to admonish, and to grow under the power of the Holy Spirit, to grow the church in spiritual growth, whereas the evangelist goes out hither, tither, and yawn. That's just one aspect of an evangelist that in my mind sets him apart. We as laymen, laypeople, we have these concentric circles of family, friends, and neighbors or coworkers that we try to evangelize. But the evangelist goes outside of those concentric circles. God has gifted him to do that. In the broader context of the world, the evangelist goes out. When Pastor Joe and myself ministered at the prisons, we were not there as a pastor. We were there as an evangelist. We were going outside of our normal sphere of influence. We didn't live in prison, although we might have belonged there. Those individuals were not someone we saw on a normal basis, although we did get to know some of them on a first name basis who were faithful to come to that church. But we were not there as a pastor. We were trying to do the work of an evangelist going outside of our sphere of influence. Our brother Gerard, when he goes to Cal Berkeley, he goes there to witness as an evangelist. He does not live there. He lives down in Fremont, Newark. He doesn't go to school at Berkeley. He goes outside of his normal sphere of influence to witness to the truth there. This is what a Holy Spirit-called evangelist does. He goes into the broader context of the world to bring the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Ephesians 4, verse 11, it's a stated spiritual gift. Secondly, the need. Is there a need for evangelists, biblical evangelists, in today's world? Let me give you two thoughts. And of course you would say, well, of course there's a need. First thing I'd like to say is if you look at Matthew chapter nine, verses 37 and 38, you know this verse, you don't need to turn there, but Jesus had told his disciples, he said, the harvest truly is plenteous. but the laborers are few. Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest that he would send forth laborers into his harvest. You cannot mistake the imagery here that our Lord is using. He first was talking about sheep without a shepherd, and then he switches the imagery to talk about fields that are ready for the harvest. In John 4, he says the fields are white unto the harvest, which is really interesting because it's the context of the Samaritan woman. He's saying there's Gentiles that need to be reaped and harvested in. But think about this word that the Lord told the disciples. He said to them directly, pray that the Lord of the harvest, that he would send laborers into his harvest. He did not tell the apostles in the 70, hey, you're not doing enough work as an evangelist. He did not tell them, you need to get a better method. He said, pray that God would raise up others. Because the work is too big. Other dedicated laborers as harvesters need to be put and thrust into the field. It's really interesting. It's the Lord of the harvest. God should be sought for laborers because the harvest is too big. It's his harvest. There's a need for gospel laborers, really in the broad sense, deacons, pastors, elders, teachers, and evangelists. And if you survey churches out there today, you'll see significant numbers of pastor, teachers, elders, deacons, people who's serving with their gifts of hospitality and mercy, but are there evangelists? We have some huckster evangelists, we have some gimmicky evangelists, but do we have some biblical evangelists? Jesus said, pray that God would send out laborers into that field that's ready to be harvested, outside of their sphere of influence, into my vineyard. But second thing I wanna say about the need, if you think back about our Ephesians passage, he gave some apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors, teachers, for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ. We ask the question, why all of this gospel machinery? Is it efficient? Is there another way, another business model that we can come up with to get this work done? But the very next verse tells us what God's end game is, what the long-term goal is. He says, all of this people need to be gifted and thrust into the ministry because we have to all come in the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ." In other words, the end goal is so spiritually tremendous. It's such of a high calling. There has to be, by necessity, much labor to even begin to get this work done. These five callings, or gifts are absolutely essential. And all five of these working together support each other, feed off of each other, so that the Christian can come to the knowledge of the Son of God, and to a perfect man, and unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. You think about our Lord's imagery of the harvest. We know that that imagery is used often throughout the Bible, and the connotation is planting, maybe plowing first, then planting, and then watering, and pruning, and fruit bearing, and harvesting eventually. A lot of aspects of the same work to get the final fruit. Again, I believe the scripture isolates an evangelist as one who, different from the rest of us, has this singular spiritual gift to go outside of those normal concentric circles of witnessing to bring the good news. And the need for an evangelist, obviously evangelism in general, but this evangelist, the need, is great. He is an answer to the prayer that God would grant laborers into his vineyard. So thirdly, I want to talk about the example of Philip the Evangelist. And if we think about Philip the Evangelist and we trace his life through in the book of Acts, We'll find these other characteristics of what an evangelist does, how he thinks, how he acts, what his makeup is, besides just going outside of the normal sphere of influence. In Acts chapter 21 and verse 8, It designates Philip as an evangelist. We read, and the next day, we that were of Paul's company departed and came unto Caesarea, and we entered into the house of Philip the evangelist, which was one of the seven, and we abode with him. Philip the evangelist. The Bible highlights a few things about him, and we need to think about these relative to Philip as an evangelist. Philip is first mentioned in the book of Acts chapter six, where he was actually one of the first deacons. The deacons were chosen to attend the temporal affairs of the church in Jerusalem, so that the murmurings would stop, and also so that the elders could give themselves to prayer and the word of God. And so the deacons were called to wait tables, to take care of logistical, administrative, functional type things. And for someone to do that, they need to be spiritually minded. They're willing to weigh tables. If it means the word of God will progress and make an invo, they'll sweep the floor. They'll do whatever it takes. so that somebody else could bring the word of God. So we deduce that Stephen was a very spiritual man. He was concerned about the glory of God in the church. And the Bible tells us that these deacons, the elders gave this responsibility to the church, and they said, you look out among yourself. And they gave two qualifications. This person has to be filled with the Holy Ghost, and they have to have wisdom. And I think there's a third one, of course, they had to have a reputation among the brethren, because the brethren were the one that said, hey, this individual can do this specific work. But these two traits, I think, or three traits, characterize an evangelist. They characterized Philip the evangelist, full of the Holy Ghost, Wisdom, and they had a reputation among the brethren to be this very kind of an individual. You know, an evangelist needs wisdom. An evangelist is not a street preacher whose persona is to take no hostages and be like a bull in a China shop. And we've all probably seen the YouTube videos of several street preachers, and I think Gee, if I was asking questions about why am I here, and who is God, and how can I be right with God, and is there a heaven? I wouldn't want to ask that person. They'd buy my head off. I want to have someone who, and the person who evangelized me, he had wisdom, and he was patient with me, and he didn't want to see immediate results. He would give me some scripture, he said, think about that, and I'll come back tomorrow, we'll talk some more. They have to have wisdom. Next we meet, we meet Philip the Evangelist after the martyrdom of Stephen. It says Philip the Evangelist went to the city of Samaria where he preached, quote, with much success, Simon Magus being one of his converts. Okay, so now Philip the Evangelist goes into the city of Samaria to preach the gospel. And if you know the story about Simon Magus, he used sorcery He was somebody in the city, and he had a large following. And under the power and work of God, the preaching of this evangelist, Philip, the people were brought into the kingdom of God before Simon Magus. But then Simon Magus, this great individual, he thought, who had many followers, scripture says he was held in high regard, he became a believer. And what's implied about Philip the Evangelist was that he was bold to go into this type of place to preach. And he had this winsome personality, and he was equipped to be used by the Holy Spirit to share the word. Think about an individual who goes into this type of a scenario, where there's already an individual who's the king, as it were, and followers, and Philip is able to go and convince of the kingdom of God to such a degree that even Simon Magus, who later had a few problems, but he was a believer, was joined into the household of faith. Afterwards, the scripture says that the angel of the Lord directed Philip the evangelist to go to that road between Jerusalem and Gaza, and there he met the Ethiopian eunuch. That tremendous story where this individual is reading Isaiah 53 and Philip the evangelist sees this open door. Here's a person who's reading, maybe out loud even, Isaiah 53. At the very least, it's a believer and he can have some fellowship with him. At the very worst, he's not a believer and he runs up to him and said, do you understand what you're reading? And as you know that story, he directed him into the kingdom of God, and then he baptized him. Here we see Philip, able, knowledgeable in the word of God, in the Old Testament. He was encouraging. He was positive. Again, Philip was not intimidated to say, here he is reading the Bible, and he has to say, I don't know what I'm reading. But he was not afraid to say that to Philip. Philip must have had this demeanor, a spirit-led demeanor, to be approachable. Scripture goes on to say, as we talk about Philip the Evangelist, that the spirit caught him away to Ashdod. And it says, passing through there, he preached in all of the cities until he came to Caesarea. So here we see that it was his manner of life. There was this constancy. It was normal for Philip to preach the gospel. This is just what he did. This is who he was. This was in his spiritual DNA as he passed through these cities to preach the gospel. And then later, the verse that I started off with in Acts 21 where he is called Philip the Evangelist and Paul has heard of his reputation and wants to go in and abide with him. I believe when you do just a cursory study of Philip the Evangelist, you see these characteristics that God has gifted this individual to do a very specific task. He's working outside of his normal sphere of influence very naturally, gifted to do so, servant-minded, led by the Spirit of God, knowledgeable of the Word of God. Philip could probably preach the gospel from any chapter of any book in the Bible. He was seeking to build up the church. He was able to disciple others. He had discernment, he had wisdom, he was bold. This is the role of the evangelist. Philip is a great example. Fourthly, under our main point, some principles and precepts of evangelism, what an evangelist does just by way of precept. And here, I'd like you to turn, if you would, to Ecclesiastes chapter 11. And I'll, by way of application, make a few points here. But obviously, as you're turning there, an evangelist is not trying to make a Calvinist. An evangelist is not trying to force his personal pet peeves or his doctrinal soapboxes upon this individual. He wants to preach the word and leave room for the Holy Spirit to work in an individual's life. Leave room for the Holy Spirit. Not force the issue, like beating a piece of metal with a hammer, trying to get it into a form. scatter the seed, stand back and see what the Holy Spirit does. This evangelist is not trying to make a name for himself. He's not trying to get a following for himself. He doesn't want to create this street creature persona. But just a couple of precepts for evangelism that the evangelist uses, I believe. Ecclesiastes chapter 11, verse one. Cast thy bread upon the waters. For thou shalt find it after many days. Give a portion to seven and also to eight. For thou knowest not what evil shall be upon the earth. If the clouds are full of rain, they empty themselves upon the earth. If the tree falls towards the south or towards the north in the place where the tree falls, there it shall be. He that observes the wind will not sow, and he that regards the clouds will not reap. As thou knowest not what is the way of the Spirit, nor how the bones do grow in the womb of her that is with child, even so thou knowest not the works of God who maketh all. In the morning sow thy seed, and in the evening withhold not thine hand, For thou knowest not which shall prosper, either this or that, or whether they both alike shall be good. I believe that we can draw, at least by way of application, some think this is talking about charity, you should be charitable to others so you get charity back. I don't think that's what it's talking about. I think that we can, at the very least, by way of application, draw some thoughts here about evangelism and sharing the word. Just three very briefly. We evangelize with a promise. Cast your bread upon the waters, and after many days you will find it. In other words, your labor is not in vain in the Lord. If we sow the spiritual seed, If we sow the seed of the word of God and not our pet peeves or not a systematic theology, not our opinions or our topics, if we sow the word of God, it cannot return to him void. If we sow the true bread, not the fluffy white wonder bread of modern evangelism, if we sow the true bread, after many days, I have to wait? I have to be patient? I have to depend upon God, it's come to that? Yes, after many days thou shalt find it. There's not a lot of Ethiopian eunuchs who you're just gonna happen to bump into that are reading Isaiah 53 that you can jump all over, right? True conversion is a very hard thing, right? It's really difficult when you have to count the cost. You have to reject previously held religious ideas and concepts. There's personal soul searching. My friend who evangelized me, he knew that I was going through a lot of soul searching and asking questions because I had been brought up in another religion. And I had to reject certain stuff and try to see where this gospel fit into my life. There was this seed planted and germinating. and the watering, and the fertilizing, and then the growth. We evangelize, an evangelist goes out there with this promise. I think he's able to grasp this promise maybe better than others. You will find it after many days. Psalm 126, verse five, they that sow in tears shall reap in joy. He that goeth forth weeping and bearing precious seed shall doubtless come again, there it is, with rejoicing, bringing his, note, change, sheaves with him. He sows the seed, he comes back with the sheaves, the harvest. We evangelize with a promise. Cast thy bread upon the water, for thou shalt find it. after many days. Second precept, we witness with liberality, with liberality. Give a portion to seven, give a portion to eight. If the clouds are full of rain, here's a natural phenomena that has a spiritual parallel. If the clouds are full of rain, they empty themselves, they have to. An evangelist, and all of us should to some degree, if we are full of the word of God and the Holy Spirit and God's burden, We just have to let it go. And that's what the evangelist does. He sows in the morning, verse six. He sows in the evening with liberality. He does not bury his talent. He does not bury the word of God. But by the way, remember when our Lord is talking in Matthew 25 about the talents, he gives someone 10, then he gives someone five, and he gives someone one, and then he comes to see later what has been accrued? What was the sin of the guy who buried the one talent? Two glaring sins are on the surface. Yeah, he buried the talent, he should not have done that. But the first sin is he calls the Lord wicked. He said, you're a harsh taskmaster. You're rough. You're austere. You're rigid. You're stern. You're harsh. Really? The master had just given out all these talents. And when he gave the one the one, He was probably expecting just to be doubled from one to two. He wasn't expecting some hard thing for the one who had the one talent. Likewise, when we witness, not only are we not burying our talent, but we have to have in our mind's eye the benevolence of God, the goodness of God that leads to repentance, the love of God. And again, I don't want to pick on street preachers. But very often, they come across as though God is an austere man. He's stern, he's rigid, he's rough. That's a translation of all this word. But they go out with this promise and with liberality because they know God is a good God. God sent me into the field because in this field, there are some that are ready to be harvested. And he wants them into his garner. We witness with liberality. Thirdly, we witness with a trust in God, because we've been trusted with the seed of the word. God has made us stewards of the mysteries of Christ. The Christian, the evangelist, is someone who has been put in trust. He's been given seed. He cannot store the seed up just for himself. He cannot delay in sowing the seed. He has to work while it's day, because night's coming when nobody can work. He has to sow it all into the soil. He cannot discriminate looking for good soil, right? Oh, the parable of the seed on the ground. There's four grounds and only one produces, maybe two, but I'm gonna just look for the good ground to sow the seed. He can't do that. He has to sow indiscriminately. Three times in these six verses, God says, you do not know. Thou knowest not which shall be good. Thou knowest not how God works. Thou knowest not. And so he with entrusted, he trusts God for the disposing of the seed. The role of the evangelist in the life of the church. It's a stated role, spiritual gift or calling. There is a need. Philip the evangelist I think is a tremendous pattern. And some of the precepts that this evangelist uses, he understands that he goes forth with a promise. He goes to spread the word liberally. And he knows that he's been entrusted with this gift and with the word to share. Well now, and more briefly, the role of the church in the life of the evangelist. And so if the evangelist works out of a church, if he is a part of a body, we can assume that there is some relationship between the role of the church and the life of the evangelist. And I have two there in the outline, going and holding. So let me use an example from church history as far as going. I hope you've heard the name of William Carey. who's been called the father of modern missions. William Carey was in England. He was a cobbler. He was a teacher at a school. He was also a pastor of a small church there in England. In 1785, he was appointed as the headmaster of the school while he was a Baptist preacher and pastor. And William Carey, on one hand, was reading books like Jonathan Edwards' account of the life of David Brainerd, who was a missionary to the Indians. And at the same time as he was teaching the kids geography, he was considering countries like India and Africa and parts of South America where the word of God had never gone. And he started asking himself the question, how can God's word go there? What could God do by way of evangelism? Well, William Carey was a particular Baptist. He was in somewhat of a hyper-Calvinistic group of Baptists. And this group believed that because of the doctrines of grace, the doctrines of Calvinism, Men were not to use means to spread the word, because God had already predestinated those unto eternal life. And if we were to use means, then we are undermining God. And it's a waste of time, because God is already doing the whole thing. And all of this, of course, is not true. God does use means. So anyway, there was a particular gathering of these Baptist ministers at Northampton, and they were talking about several things, and the whole idea of missions came up. And this famous encounter where William Carey stood up, and he wanted to talk about the duty of Christians to attempt to spread the gospel among the heathen nations. And it was like a bombshell. This young man was shouted down. The scheme was impractical. No one knew these foreign languages. And someone, I think it was John Ryland, said, sit down, young man. When God wants to convert the heathen, he'll do it without your help or mine. And it was totally out of character. Puritan divine was there, Andrew Fuller. Andrew Fuller did not publicly chastise William Carey, but he later said that he was thinking of that verse that says, if God would open up the windows of heaven, how can this thing be? It was impossible, as a human would think, he was saying. But William Carey's zeal could not be quenched, and he continued to bring forward this idea that we should go. Is it difficult? Yeah. Is it impossible? Yeah. William Carey had a lot more questions than answers, but he was trying to begin to understand, how can we go? Then William Carey preached that famous sermon from Isaiah 54, verse two and three. Enlarge the place of thy tent. Let them stretch forth the curtains of thy inhabitations. Do not spare. Lengthen thy cords and strengthen thy stakes. For thou shalt break forth on the right hand and on the left. and thy seed shall inherit the Gentiles and make the desolate cities to be inhabited. And he had two points from that sermon. Expect great things from God. Attempt great things for God. That same year, he published a little pamphlet entitled An Inquiry into the Obligations of Christians to Use Means for the conversion of the heathen. Again, most of Cary's contemporaries believed that the Great Commission only belonged to the apostles. But William Cary kept urging and asking and trying to get people to think about using human means under the providence of God, under the power of God, to spread the gospel. If you think about it, it's so spiritually perfect that God uses imperfect means to share his word because man gets no glory at all. All the glory goes to God. For after that, in the wisdom of God, the world by wisdom did not know God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. God has chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty, and the base things of the world and the things which are despised, God has chosen. yea, and the things which are not, to bring to naught the things that are, that no flesh should glory in his presence." God uses the imperfect yous and mes to accomplish something that is so otherworldly that there is no way any of us could take any credit or any glory for doing gospel work. God does use means. When God called Abram out of Ur of the Chaldees, Abram had to walk out of Ur of the Chaldees. If you want to be obedient to that scripture admonition to let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, when you wake up in the morning, you have to open the book and read the book and memorize, meditate, study the book. God uses means. Eventually, William Carey overcame the resistance of the missionary effort to accomplish. They founded a society, which this missionary society is still in existence today. And William Carey did go to India in 1834. He went there and died there in 1834, having never left. Going. The evangelist has in his spiritual DNA that he wants to go. Despite obstacles, despite fears and doubts, despite disagreeing brethren, they want to go. At our subsequent business meeting, we're gonna tell you there's an individual in this church who wants to go. And to that we say, amen. Somebody wants to go. Going. What about holding? So Andrew Fuller was the guy who said, He didn't know how this could work out. He didn't publicly chastise William Carey, but he said in his mind, if the windows of heaven are open, how can we do this thing? Andrew Fuller, who was a Puritan divine, tremendous preacher, godly man, he eventually saw what William Carey saw. And he had this conversation with William Carey. He said this, there's a gold mine, a gospel gold mine in India, but it goes as deep as the center of the earth. Who will venture to go and explore it? And William Carey said this, I will go down if you will hold the rope. They needed somebody holding the rope so he could go down. This is what the church is called to do in the life of the evangelist, hold the ropes, help, be there to support. Andrew Fuller, held the ropes by becoming the president of this Baptist Missionary Society. He traveled around raising people's awareness. He raised some money. He got people focused on missionary endeavor. Holding. The church holds the rope by sending, by praying, by giving. First of all, sending. How shall they call upon him whom they've not heard or believed? How shall they believe on him whom they've not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach except they are sent? As it is written, and I think this is a quote from Isaiah 32, as it is written, how beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace and bring glad tidings of good things. Sending, the church is to recognize the spiritual gift in this calling, and the church is to set apart, and the church is to send. Praying, the church needs to very consistently pray for the evangelist who is doing that work out there. We normally think of 2 Thessalonians 3.1, Paul saying, finally, my brethren, pray for us that the word of the Lord may have free course and run and be glorified. That's a very easy prayer to pray. Yeah, that the word preached would be owned of God, and it would run and be glorified. And we forget the next verse. The next verse says, and that we can be delivered from unreasonable and wicked men, because all men have not faith. The evangelist is going out there, and there's some wicked people out there. There's wicked people in prison, and there's wicked people at Cal Berkeley, and morally wrong, And people on the street, they're unreasonable. Paul said, pray for us that both the word would go forth and that we can be delivered from unreasonable men, wicked men, so that we can continue the work of an evangelist. Lastly, giving. We don't like to talk about money because there's so much shameless begging for money in pulpits today. We never preach that I recall. I remember once or twice in 25 years where a sermon has been shared on money. We don't pass the plate. We don't know who gives what. But Paul quite often talked about raising money to support because the evangelist has, as Paul said, living expenses. He has sending expenses. He has all these expenses. And we don't want him to have to work necessarily so that he can give himself to the ministry. Now Paul said, I don't always exercise that opportunity, that gift. I'm going to make tents because that's how God has wired me. And the money that you're going to give me, let's give it to an evangelist so they can do the work of the gospel. But Paul, in several places, I have the verses if you want to get them later, Paul said we should support financially the evangelist. The evangelist is not going to be on some gravy train driving a BMW and making a lot of money. The evangelist needs a subsistence so that he can go and give himself to the labor. So I tried to very compactly talk about the role of the evangelist in the life of the church, and the role of the church in the life of the evangelist. I think behind all of this we see the tremendous love and goodness of God. When you were evangelized by whoever evangelized you, who ultimately was the evangelist? It was God, the Holy Spirit, who used an individual, maybe a tract, Maybe the internet, as much good as the internet does, God uses people, one-on-one encounters, one with a small group. The fields are widened to the harvest. I have to confess, sometime I look at the fields and I say, I don't see any whiteness out there. Everyone is going their own way. Everyone is saying they don't need God. Those are the ones that do need God. The ones who are ignorant, foolish, Let's continue to pray that God would raise up laborers for his harvest, and that we as a church can have some small part in that. Let's pray. Father, thank you for your love to us, and you used individuals in our life to witness to the truth, the glad tidings of great joy. And it is a great joy. They were glad tidings, even though for some of us it took a while to see it. Father, as we now are at a crossroads now of understanding the work of an evangelist and an individual in our midst who wants to go in our role. Oh, we pray, Lord, that you would guide us, that you would equip us and help us to do your work the way you want it done, and that you would get all the glory for it. We ask this in Jesus' name, amen.