For like three years now to try to use some of this more advanced technology to do sermons and things from. So this is the maiden voyage for this tablet. So I have it on paper also in case technology doesn't work the way it's supposed to. Yeah, as Pastor John mentioned, first let me say thank you Pastor John and Mary and Calvary Baptist Church for having my family and I here and thank you for this opportunity. On that back table, there are just a bunch of free books that we brought to bless you guys. There's also tracts back there. If you have any questions about any of the books, there's books on probably one of the great little gems back there. It's called Listen Up. It's a little booklet on how to listen to sermons. Hey John, I didn't even see you come in. A lot of great things back there. So please avail yourself of those resources. I'm not taking any of it home. And I don't want to. Those are to bless you guys. So the topic this weekend is we have an evangelism summit. So in this first session, I'm going to be talking about, well, what is evangelism? And why do we evangelize? So for some of you guys, this will be some basic stuff for you. Hopefully, it'll be something for you to take away that'll be helpful to you. In Adam's session, he'll be talking about how and when we evangelize. And then in the final session today, I'll be talking about what about results, trusting God, and evangelism. So I'd like to start out, if you have your Bibles with you, turn to Romans 1. Romans 1. We're just going to read verses 16 and 17. And I'll pray again as we get started. Romans 1, verses 16 and 17. Paul, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, gives us the Word of God. He says, For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes. To the Jew first and also the Greek, for in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith. As it is written, the righteous shall live by faith. Let's pray together. Heavenly Father, we do bless your name. We thank you, Lord God, for the gospel, the gospel that has redeemed many of the souls in this room. We pray that the gospel would be effectual for anyone in this room who has not been redeemed yet, that they would hear the gospel, they would hear about your power to save. and that they would have a desire to come to You, a desire that only You can put within them, Lord God. But we know that it's by faith through hearing that every person that will ever be saved will come to You. Lord, I pray for myself today, Lord, that I would get out of the way of Your Word. I pray for my brother Adam. who's such a dear friend to my family, that you would help us as we teach from your word, that you would bless these saints and build them up, equip them, Lord, for the sharing of the gospel, the good news of our Lord Jesus. Pray that the things that we would say would be in accordance with your word, and anything that we would say that was not would be disregarded. Please, God, be our help today in this time. In Jesus' name, amen. Okay, so sometimes when you want to define something or speak on a certain subject, there may be a lot of misconceptions or even false definitions of that subject. So therefore, when you want to do something like that, you have to point out the falsehoods about it and address the wrong definitions of it. So the first thing we're going to actually talk about today is what evangelism is not. Because there's a lot of things I think out there, especially in the evangelical church world, that are talked about as if they are evangelism, but they're not actually evangelism. Okay, so inviting people to church. That might surprise someone in here, I don't know. This is not to say that inviting people to church is a bad thing. But for so long in the church world, people have this idea that Well, we have a pastor, and so it's the pastor's job to evangelize. That's another misconception. It's every Christian's privilege to evangelize. But inviting someone to church is not evangelism. although it's a good thing. Things like, you know, I did evangelism on a university campus for many years and still do. And so there would be various, you know, free lemonade stands and free cookie stands and things like that. And oftentimes these were ministries that called themselves Christian ministries that were saying that was their form of evangelism, just giving away free cookies. no talk of Jesus, no literature about Jesus, not giving it away in the name of Jesus, while that might be a nice, kind, merciful thing to do, give someone a cookie, it wouldn't be merciful to give me cookies, I don't need cookies, in case anybody had any thoughts about that, but that's a nice thing, but it's not evangelism. A really popular evangelical teacher, anybody in here ever heard of Rick Warren? Rick Warren, he's got this book, In the Church the Lord Saved Man, we used to call it The Bible Light, it's called The Purpose Driven Life. Rick Warren got on national television several years ago, around this time of year, around Easter time, and he told people, they said, if you could give people any message, what message would you want the world to hear? And he said, well, I'd just tell people to give Jesus a try. You know, try him out for 40 days, And if you don't like what you found, then, you know, just throw them back, kind of. You know, but the Word of God says, do not put the Lord to the test. Jesus is not someone to be tested. He's someone to be worshipped and adored and followed after. Another thing that sometimes gets confused for evangelism is our personal testimony of our having been saved. Now, our testimony can be evangelism if it includes the gospel in it. But have any of you guys ever heard like one of these testimonies where maybe the Lord saved somebody out of a really rough life and there was way more about sin and the way they were living and everything like that in that life. There's hardly really even mention of Jesus or his power or anything like that. So if you're going to share your testimony with someone of how God saved you, that's a good thing. If you've experienced the power of God for salvation in your life, just make sure that you include the gospel in it. Sometimes I've heard testimonies that I wondered if it was actually a Christian testimony because there was nothing about Jesus in it. You know, AA or NA can turn somebody away from problems in their life, like alcohol and drugs, but it won't necessarily redeem their soul if it's got nothing of Jesus to it. The Apostle Paul, I think, is a great example. He had several opportunities as he was arrested and imprisoned to share his testimony of what God did in changing his life. In Acts 22, he says, I persecuted the way to death. The early Christians were called followers of the way. Jesus himself said, I am the way. the truth and the life. Paul continued on, he said, when God struck him down on the road to Damascus, he heard a voice that said, I'm Jesus of Nazareth, who you are persecuting. And then at the end of that defense that he gives for his ministry, he says, the God of our fathers appointed you to know his will, This is what God proclaimed to him, to see the righteous one and hear a voice from his mouth for you'll be a witness for him to everyone of what you have seen and heard. Okay, so Paul speaks of Jesus in his next defense. He says that he speaks of the way again and he says, and it is with respect to this, this resurrection of the dead that I'm on trial for you today. Well, there weren't people, not anybody was just running around claiming to be resurrected from the dead. They knew he was speaking of Jesus when he said, I'm on trial because I'm out preaching the resurrection from the dead. In his third defense before King Agrippa, here's an interesting thing. He says that God made him a messenger to the Gentiles that they should repent and turn to God, performing deeds in keeping with their repentance. In the very next verse, this is Acts 26, he says, I went and told them to repent and turn to God and continue repenting and perform good works and keep their repentance. And then he says in verse 21, for this reason, the Jews seized me in the temple and tried to kill me. So he says, I told them to repent and they tried to kill me. Nowadays, there's a preacher, probably a lot of you have heard of Steve Lawson, he said, the problem with preachers today is nobody wants to kill them anymore. Nowadays, if someone's out preaching, usually you give a testimony, someone assaulted me, or spit on me, or maligned me, a lot of times people, even within the church, will look at you like, well, what did you do to bring that on? The Apostle Paul, when he first was converted, thank you, honey. When he first was converted, the first place he went and preached in, they plotted to kill him. And his friends had to lower him in a basket down the wall of the city to get out and escape. More things that are not the Gospel. Social work. Social justice work or political involvement. are not evangelism. Again, these things may complement evangelism, but they're not evangelism unless there's the proclamation of the gospel. Because evangelism, the word comes from the evangel, the euangelion. We're going to get to that in a minute. Even Christian apologetics are not necessarily evangelism if they don't include the gospel. Anybody ever heard the... there's a famous quote from a guy named St. Francis of Assisi. It's, preach the gospel, if necessary use words. Anybody ever heard that? It's a pretty famous quote. Well, friends, brothers, sisters, you can't preach the gospel without warrants. It's impossible. The gospel is a spoken message about who Jesus is and what he's done. Lastly, another thing that is not evangelism is the results that you see from your evangelistic efforts are not evangelism themselves. One pastor said it this way, quote, we don't fail in our evangelism if we faithfully tell the gospel to someone who is not converted. We fail only if we don't faithfully tell the gospel at all. Evangelism itself isn't converting people. It's telling them that they need to be converted and how they can be. So we spent a little time there on what evangelism is not. Now let's get to our subject. What is evangelism? Alright, Proverbs 11.30 says, So I'm going to give you several definitions of evangelism. The word euangelizo is used 52 times in the New Testament. And the literal meaning is to bring good news or to announce glad tidings. Specifically, the glad tidings of the coming of the kingdom of God and salvation to be obtained in it through Jesus Christ and the things that relate to this salvation. I wouldn't recommend Google as an information source necessarily, but I decided I would Google evangelism. And I actually like their definition. It is the spreading of the Christian gospel by public preaching or personal witness. I thought, wow, that's pretty good for Google. I wouldn't advocate that, like getting much information from them. The Baptist Faith and Message of 2000. I actually really love their definition of evangelism. It says this, listen to this carefully, it's really good. It is the duty and privilege of every follower of Christ and of every church of the Lord Jesus Christ to endeavor to make disciples of all nations. The new birth of a man's spirit by God's Holy Spirit means the birth of love for others. We're going to get to that more later. Missionary effort on the part of all rests thus upon the spiritual necessity of the regenerate life and is expressly and repeatedly commanded in the teachings of Jesus. The Lord Jesus Christ has commanded the preaching of the gospel to all nations. It is the duty of every child of God to seek constantly to win the lost of Christ by verbal witness undergirded by a Christian lifestyle and by other methods in harmony with the gospel of Christ. What do you guys think? I thought it was pretty good. Pretty good, I really liked it. Another definition I found is you can tell the gospel to someone by sharing these several simple truths. One, let's always remember this, the gospel begins with God, and so evangelism should begin with God. So, the first thing we need to tell people is that God is holy. He's the holy creator of all the universe. Especially when we're dealing with a culture now, which is a culture of non-offense, a culture that's got like a God who's like a genie in a bottle. You know, He's just there when I need something, or He's there when I got a problem, I rub the little genie bottle and, oh God, help me now. But that's not who the God of Scripture is. He's a holy God. He created all things. He created you and me. The next thing we need to tell them is that they're sinners who deserve God's righteous, eternal wrath. And there's nothing wrong with saying, I was born in the same boat you were in. We were all born, the Bible says in Ephesians 2, by nature, children of wrath like the rest of mankind. The next thing we need to tell them is after they've heard that God is holy and we're sinful, they need to hear about one who wasn't sinful. It's Jesus. who is fully God and fully man. He lived a sinless life and He died on the cross to bear God's wrath in place of all who would believe in Him. And He rose from the grave in order to give His people eternal life. And lastly, is that the only way to be saved from eternal punishment in hell and be reconciled to God is to repent of your sin and trust in the work of Jesus for your salvation. So evangelism is just basically telling others this basic message. Alright, so that's what is evangelism. It sounds pretty simple. I've literally got probably 20 scripture references here that support the Bible showing evangelism as a spoken message. That you can't preach the gospel without words. So I'll list them off for you. If you're taking notes, you can write them down. Romans 10, verses 10-17. Mark 16, 15. Colossians 1, 28. Colossians 4, 2-4. A whole slew of them from Acts. Acts 2, 14. 3, 11-26. Chapter 4, verses 5-12. Chapter 8, verses 4-8. Chapter 10, verses 34-43. Chapter 13, verses 16-52. On and on and on. Ephesians 6, 19-20. 1 Corinthians 1, 17. Ezekiel 3, 17-20. The gospel is a spoken message, therefore to evangelize we must open our mouths and speak. Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of Christ. And how will they hear without someone preaching to them? Or proclaiming to them? So, that is what evangelism is. And I want to say too, I'm intending for there to be interaction. So if you've got a question, comment, anything like that, please don't be afraid or shy to raise it. Now next, why do we evangelize? So I'm putting that question out there for y'all. And when I teach, I'll just say this. I tell my Sunday school class all the time, when I ask a question and everybody just sits there looking at me, I say, I'll wait. So, why do we evangelize, brethren? Good, John. So people will be saved. Jason says because we're commanded to. Yeah. There's not only one right answer to this question. Thank you, Hannah. To glorify God. Yeah for our sanctification Yeah, good all good answers anyone else haven't have something they'd like to share Amen amen praise the Lord you don't hear that in a lot of churches today be a doer of the word not a hearer only I Deceiving yourselves, James says, right? Like, if you're not a doer, you're just a hearer, you're deceived. Yeah, praise the Lord. I think those are all great answers. Yeah, I would say, first and foremost, 1 Corinthians 10.31, whether you eat or drink or all that you do, do for the glory of God. So whether it's evangelism or anything else we do, I would say the first and primary goal is to glorify God. And we know that God is glorified through the proclamation of His Son. Yeah, we're commanded to. Amen. I mean, we look at, you know, Matthew. And he says, All authority in heaven on earth has been given to me. Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. And a lot of times that gets chopped off there. But he actually says in teaching them, to obey all the things I've commanded you, right? So it's not just to evangelize and leave them there, but to make disciples and teach and train those disciples. In Luke, he says it, in Luke 24, he says, that repentance for the forgiveness of sin shall be proclaimed in my name to all nations. Acts 1, verse 8, Jesus, before He ascends, after His resurrection, He spent 40 days ministering to His apostles. He's proclaimed the things of the Kingdom of God to them, and He looks at them before He ascends, before the Holy Spirit comes at Pentecost, and He says, when you receive the Holy Spirit, you will, it's important, right, because it's a definite word, you will receive power, And if you've got a special gift, you'll be my witness. Is that what he says? No, he says to every Christian, you will receive power and you will be my witnesses. and Jerusalem, and Judea, and Samaria, and to the end of the earth. So, evangelism is not optional for the Christian. I would say, maybe some of us grew up in a church, I grew up in a church where there was like a soul winners group, and those guys were really serious about evangelism, and a lot of times they kind of would I would say maybe Browbeat's a little bit strong on the term, but they would kind of put a lot of pressure on other people to come out and do some soul winning with them. And it would almost be like, just really kind of hang as guilt over your head or something if you were going to do that. Number one, we are all called to evangelize, but it may not all look the same. what we do, right? We're called to be his witnesses wherever we are. So that means you're called to be his witness at the water cooler at your job, or out on the street corner preaching like, you know, I do, or Adam does, or John does, you know, or, you know, at the DMV, when you're getting your license renewed, you could easily hand someone a gospel tract, right? So there's all kind of ways to witness. I don't think it's super productive to try to, well, number one, I'll say this, you shouldn't have to be guilted into witnessing, right? Because I believe the chief reasons for witnessing are tied up in the law of Christ, to love God and love your neighbor. And I believe when God saves a person, He births that love in them. And I believe that He puts that spirit in us, right? When you receive the Holy Spirit, you will receive power. Part of that power includes the ability to love God and to love our neighbor, which we did not have without the Spirit. So, if somebody's having to guilt you into being an ambassador for Christ, which the Bible says every Christian is, then that might be something you need to examine in your own heart. You know? And the first thing I would do is if I had somebody having to hound me like, hey, are you talking to anybody about Jesus? Or do you want to come join us when we talk to people about Jesus? And I'm always like, no, no, no. And then I started to feel guilty because I'm not going. Well, the first thing I might say is, God, why don't I want to talk to people about Jesus? And I'd ask Him to put that desire there. Sometimes, yeah. We look at a church, like in Revelation, where Jesus is speaking to the churches, and He's pretty complimentary of the church in Ephesus, but He says, here's the thing I have against you, is you actually have lost your first love. Sometimes our love grows cold. And we have to ask God to... There's a wonderful message if you probably just Google or something or go on John MacArthur's website called, Rekindling Your Love for Christ. You know, if you ever feel cold in your faith, which can happen to any one of us, it's happened to me, that's a great message to pick up and listen to. But I would say the two chief reasons, well, number one reason, overarching over all of it, to glorify God, And then under that umbrella, because you love God, because why? We love Him because He first loved us. You know, sometimes we can look out there in the lost world and we can get our hearts hard toward lost people. I mean, let's be honest. You know, in Psalm 119, the psalmist says, Hot indignation seizes me because of the wicked who forsake your law. You know, I mean, there is such a thing as righteous indignation. But it has to be tempered with compassion for people who are blind and pitiful. So a pastor friend of mine, one time he was encouraging me as I was about to go on a preaching trip, and he said, Hey brother, remember, when you go out there and you preach to those people, they're wicked, and they're evil, they're depraved. And He said, and also remember that they're blind, and they're lost, they can't see their lost condition, and they're unable, in and of themselves, to do anything to change it. So the only thing you've got is love for your Savior, love for them, and the sword of the Word of God. So that's why do we evangelize. Now, here's the next question. for you guys. Why don't we evangelize? Why don't we evangelize? There you go. I thought I might step on some people's toes. Amen. Yeah. Sure, I think that can definitely be a hindrance to evangelism. And I would say, don't go out sharing the word with known, unconfessed sin. Right? I mean, I kind of liken that maybe a little bit to like, you wouldn't approach the Lord's table with unconfessed sin, right? Because Paul directly says you'd be eating in an unworthy manner and bringing a curse on yourself. He tells the church in Corinth, this is why a bunch of y'all are like sick. because you're blaspheming the Lord's table, right? So I wouldn't go out necessarily, if we have known sin in our lives that we're unrepentant of, that might be a right hindrance to evangelism. We need to ask God, you know, to help us in that area. But I do think also, like Brother Richard said, we might feel unworthy, but what we have to remember is, in 1 John 1, he says, if we confess our sins, He is righteous and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Sometimes the enemy can do a good job of helping us remember a sin that we've already repented of and confessed. You know? I mean, I don't know if any of y'all have ever experienced this. Maybe Adam has or John has. You know, sometimes right before you go out to preach at a ball game or preach at an abortion clinic or something like that, that might be a time where you got snippy with your wife. You know, or there was some kind of tension going on with your wife as you're trying to get out the door. And I've been on the way to where I was preaching, and the Spirit convicts me, and I've got to call my wife and say, I'm sorry. And I've got to make it right with God and make it right with her. Or I'm going to be burdened out there. The Spirit convicts the world of sin, righteousness, and judgment, but I believe He convicts us as well. Yeah, so some good answers so far. Laziness can definitely be, I mean, apathy and laziness. I mean, we're living some comfortable lives here in Western culture. Go ahead, John. Yeah, I think definitely there can be a lack of training. Well, this is a story I was going to share later, but I'll share a quick story. You guys will hear me preach tomorrow. There probably won't be one story. I'm not really a story guy, but sometimes I think they are applicable. So, my pastor one time invited me to a a pastor's luncheon group that he was part of that met monthly, and he asked me to talk about the ministry that the Lord has entrusted to our family. And I went and I talked to these brothers, good brothers, men of the word, expository preachers. They checked off all the boxes that you'd want for a pastor. And so when I was done speaking about this evangelism ministry, several of them said, hey, could you come to our church and do a training for evangelism? And I said, well, sure, I could come and do a day-long Way of the Master training or something like what we're doing here today and stuff like that. I said, but let me ask you guys a question. Well, first of all, let me not forget, most of them said things like, oh, we already did Way of the Master, the basic course, we did the intermediate course, we did this evangelism training, we did that evangelism training. I mean, these guys were good at discipling their people. They were good men of God. And I said, so you guys have already done all that. You know, I don't really know what further training I could provide you within the walls of the church. I said, may I suggest, since I'm putting forth to you guys here today, that the two greatest motivations for evangelism should be love for God and love for neighbor, may I suggest that it could be a series for your people that's needed, the training they might need is a series on loving God and loving their neighbor, and the one another's of scripture. You know, maybe it's a, and apathy. I mean, if we should seek first the Kingdom of God and do things for the glory of God, then if we're not evangelizing, we know God is glorified in evangelism, doesn't it say that we have a lack of zeal for God's glory? You know, one of the petitions in the Lord's Prayer is, Hallowed be thy name. And I heard a man named John Piper preach a sermon one time. This whole sermon was on lamenting that the Lord's name was not hallowed. amongst the people that he lived among. And I thought, wow, man, that's that's deep. You know, I mean, do you ever look around Manchester or McMinnville or Winchester or Nashville and lament? And could it bring you to tears that so many people don't hallow the Lord's name right around your own community? I mean, that's something, I'll be honest, I don't think... I probably don't think of that on the average day. But I need to. I need to. So, yes, it could be a lack of training. And if that's... I think there's many fine ways out there to address that. I would commend things like the Way of the Master to you, but I suggested to these brothers that I didn't think for their people the issue was a lack of training. I thought it was a lack of love. But lack of training can be an issue. And that might kind of dovetail into kind of one of the things that I want to bring up about not evangelizing. Sometimes people tell me they're afraid. You know, they could have various fears, right? So I'll share with you Proverbs 29, 25. The fear of man lays a snare, but whoever trusts in the Lord is safe. I heard one brother said, so he goes out to these abortion clinics and shares the gospel and pleads with women to love their children. And he said, you know, things had happened to him. He'd been spit upon or, you know, somebody threw a drink out the window. So he was encouraging other people to be out there and they said, well, is it safe? And he said, I don't really know how to answer that. But I thought I could help him out. An old pastor friend of mine, many years ago, he told me the safest place to be is in the will of God. My wife's heard this story, and I know she knows I overheard it now, but there was someone speaking to my wife one day, this was probably a couple years ago, and they said something to her like, aren't you afraid that one day somebody's just gonna pull out a gun and shoot your husband? Because I spend time ministering the gospel in a lot of forsaken places. Places where some other people don't want to go. And I'll never forget, she didn't know I was overhearing at the time, but I was so encouraged. I'm always encouraged by my wife's faith. I think she has a far greater faith than mine. It's a gift from God. She literally looked at that person and said, you know what, I'd never even think about that. She said, because I know that no one could ever touch one hair on my husband's head unless God permitted it. And I was so thankful that that was the case. So we can fear. My question to you would be, if you have fear in evangelism, my first question would be, have you sincerely prayed and asked God to take that fear away? You know, like, I'm not going to lie, when I used to go out on those university campuses, I mean, all these kids want to talk about these days is evolution. They want to go by and yell dinosaurs or something like that. Sometimes I walk on the campus of the University of Georgia, I minister there two or three times a week for six or seven years, and I would pace back and forth for ten minutes pleading with God to take the fear of just handing the first gospel tract that day out. Because the natural man in me, the flesh that remains in me, is extremely cowardly. This is why Romans 8, 13 says, If by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the flesh, you'll live. Pastor John was talking about that earlier. John Owen wrote a whole book called The Mortification of Sin on that one verse. It's like an 80 page book on one verse of the Bible. It's amazing, you know. But we've gotta be, you know, when He puts that power in us, you will receive power, you'll be my witnesses. By that power, the power of the Holy Spirit, we can put that fear to death. And then another question would be, what are we afraid of really? When we're saying we're afraid to talk to people about Jesus, I mean, are we afraid we're gonna what, look stupid? I mean, well God promised that we would look stupid. In 1 Corinthians 1 he says, the preaching of the cross is foolishness. Right? It's foolishness to the unbelieving. But to us who are being saved, it's the power of God. It's foolishness to those who are perishing. The word there, actually in the Greek, is moroni. That's where we get the word moron from. So he basically says, you go out and preach the cross, you're going to look like a moron to all the unbelievers that you preach to. But he also said, just a couple verses later that God chose through the moronic message that we preach to save those who believe. I mean, it's God's ordained means for salvation. What else are we afraid of? I mean, I think sometimes, you know, we're really living in this culture of the greatest sin you could almost ever commit in today's Western culture is to offend someone. you know, or disagree with them. Matter of fact, I've spent a lot of time evangelizing over in London, England, and they actually had a law, Section 5 of the Public Order Act, that if you said something in public that caused someone harassment, alarm, or offense, you would be subject to arrest. And I actually have friends that have been arrested for preaching under that said order. But we know that at least in the United States, you still have the right to be offended. It's not against the law to be offended or to offend. At this point, we have to remember the cross is an offense. I was talking with Brother Richard on the way in with this. We have to ask God for the grace to not add offense to the gospel message by our own words or behavior. But listen, let's be honest. Sometimes people tell me I'm afraid somebody will get angry, or I'm afraid they'll get offended. I struggle with it sometimes. I could go on and get screamed at by a group of 100 college students, but I don't want necessarily the guy that lives right next door to me thinking I'm the crazy Jesus guy. So we could struggle with all kinds of fears. But let me just say this. We talk to people in all spheres of life, whether it's the cashier at the store, the waiter at the restaurant, the person at our job. We talk to people about sports and our favorite sports teams. Oftentimes we talk to people about who we're voting for. We talk about all these things, you know. We run around, hey, did you hear about my 50 cent raise I got? We don't care if they want to hear about it or not. It just starts, it just comes out, right? To be born again, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ to a living hope, is the pinnacle of human experience. It's the absolute greatest thing any human being could ever experience in this life. So when people say to me that they're a Christian and they never witness, I'm kind of thinking like, okay, so you've experienced the greatest thing that could ever happen to a person. and you just never tell anyone about it, but you spend a lot of time telling people about all this other stuff that's pretty trivial and doesn't matter. I mean, well, I'll say it this way, you know, Charles Spurgeon, I can't get in trouble for quoting Charles Spurgeon, right? Because if I said it this way, people might get offended, but Charles Spurgeon said it this way, every Christian is either a missionary or an imposter. Oh man, let that one sit for a minute. Let's keep going. So if we fear in evangelism, this will be the last question, and then I'll kind of have a little bit of review before we move on. But my question would be, do we believe what Jesus said in the Great Commission in Matthew 28? See, I chopped it off earlier. I was kind of seeing if anybody would notice. When He said, teaching them to obey all that I've commanded you, what did He say after that? I'll be with you always to the end of the earth. There'd be times when I was going out to share the gospel alone, and my wife would have to tell me, you're not going alone. You're going with Jesus. You know, I mean, if God is for us, who could be against us? You know, I mean, so, and have you ever noticed too, that word, think about how thrilling this is. The Great Commission. Commission is a compound word. Right? Co-mission. Have you ever thought about that? I never really thought about that. A friend pointed that out to me. And he said, yeah, can you imagine? Isn't it a wondrous thing that the God of the universe, who could have saved people by any means He chose to. He could have had a rock talk to Him. He did have a donkey talk to a guy. Right? He could have saved people any way He wanted, but He chose to allow us the privilege of being part of the co-mission, His mission with us, to be His ambassadors, to preach the gospel to the ends of the earth. I mean, that should humble us. That should thrill us. That should spur us to do that work. I mean, the thought that God would use people that Even Paul, post-salvation, he said, there's nothing good in me. That is in my flesh. That he would use, the Bible says, those who are low and despised in the world. Even the things that are not. People that Paul said, we've become like the scum of the earth. And that he would use us as part of his plan to redeem the people that he's chosen for himself. Any comments, thoughts, questions so far? Okay, we're just going to spend a little time reviewing on this first section of what is evangelism, why do we evangelize. So, definition of evangelism. The written or verbal sharing of the Gospel message. I would even say this, you put a Bible in someone's hand, That's a form of evangelist. Because you're giving them the very Word of God. I mean, sometimes, when I'm maybe having a rough day, I go out to preach. I might be having a rough day. Maybe I did have a dust-up with my wife or spoke harshly to one of my kids or something like that. And I'm just like, I don't know what to preach today. I'll start and just open my Bible and start reading it out loud. And believe you me, my friends, it is exactly what it calls itself, living and active, sharper than a two-edged sword, discerning the thoughts and intentions of people's heart, penetrating the division of soul and spirit. I've been out reading the Bible in the middle of downtown Athens, where I couldn't see a soul as far as I could see, and start reading the Bible, and the next thing, somebody's standing right next to me, hey, I want to talk to you. I didn't do that. The Word of God did that. What He's called us to do is be faithful, to be obedient. He hasn't called us to alter the message, right? In the Scriptures, the word that's used for preachers is heralds. The herald of the king doesn't change the king's message. He just goes out and says, This is the message from the king. Here's what it is. Like it or not, take it or leave it, happy or sad, here's the message. So, I'm gonna close with a few quotes and then some... I'm getting to now, I'm gonna start calling these... I usually have questions at the end of my messages. Now I'm gonna start calling them challenge questions. Because I want to challenge it. You know, the Bible says, let us not neglect to stir one another up to love and good works. Evangelism is a loving work, and it's a good work. And I want to be here and stir you up to it. Charles Spurgeon, I can't imagine, I'm certainly, I probably can't quote him the way he said him, but he said, lost, lost, lost, Better a whole world on fire than one soul lost. Better every star quenched and the skies a wreck than a single soul to be lost. Man, that we would have that passion for souls. He said, have you no wish for others to be saved? Then you're not saved yourself. Be sure of that. Calvin said it this way, When we know God to be our Father, should we not desire that He be known as such by all? And if we do not have this passion that all creatures pay Him homage, is it not a sign that His glory means little to us? C.T. Studd. Any of you guys ever heard of that guy? He was a cricket player from a wealthy family and he forsook all of his wealth and fame and all that he had to go be a missionary in Africa. He said this, I don't know, I just love this, man. This reminds me of like something an old country preacher would say. He says, some want to live within the sound of a church or a chapel bell. I want to run a rescue shop within a yard of hell. Last quote, George Whitfield. George Whitfield, they said he used to weep and plead with people to come to the Lord, literally weep. He would say things to them like, if you won't weep for your wretched soul, I will. I'll weep for it. So once he said to his hearers, if your souls were not immortal and you in danger of losing them, I would not speak to you this way, meaning this passionately. but the love of your souls constrains me to speak. I think this would constrain me to speak to you forever. I want that. I don't know about y'all, I want that. So challenge questions. Couple of these, these first couple should be pretty easy. Do you love God? Do you love your neighbor? Have you in the past viewed evangelism as a message that must be spoken? That people can't just see the gospel in you? Now, yes, we should live lives that adorn the gospel. But no one ever got saved without hearing the message of Jesus. I asked it earlier, but I'll ask it again. If you have fear in evangelism, have you sincerely prayed and asked God to enable you to overcome that fear for the sake of His glory and out of a love for the lost people around you? And when I say things like, have you sincerely asked Him? If there's something you don't want to do, that you know is an obedience to God, or you know it's God's will, you saw it on the pages of Scripture, which evangelism obviously is, and you don't want to do it, when I say sincerely ask Him, I'm talking about getting on our faces. and fasting and praying and saying, God, I know that I'm supposed to do this and I don't want to. And I need you to change my desire. I need you to transform me by the renewing of my mind and conform me to what your word says. That's what I mean when I say, have you sincerely asked? And then the last question is, who do you know right now in your life that you could be evangelizing, and you aren't, and when will you do it? Sometimes you've got to make a goal. You could pray for my mother and father-in-law. They're lost. They've been married for 48 years, and they're having a lot of problems in their marriage. It looks like their marriage may even dissolve. Can you imagine that for 48 years? And those are probably the hardest people to share the gospel with, for me. Because it honestly feels like it's talking to a wall. And so, I have to do things, like when we're going to be with my mother and father-in-law, I have to put a gospel tract in my pocket. or I have to even, I will shamelessly say, I do use my kids to accomplish the task sometimes. Put a gospel booklet or a Bible in one of my kids' hands to say, here, Grandma, or here, Grandpa, because, I mean, they're in their, you know, getting up there, they're in their mid-70s. I mean, that's not super old, but every time I see them could be the last time I see them. But really, it's the same way for every single person in our life. A lot of you guys know Adam well and he tragically lost his father about a year and a half ago. I mean, none of us saw that coming. He saw his dad that morning and had this wonderful conversation with his dad that morning about eternity. At that moment, there's no way he thought that would be the last time he'd see his dad living. You know? So we can't just think, well, you know, it's our old hardened in-laws or parents. They're the only people that need to hear the gospel. Because any one of us could perish in our sin at any moment. Not us Christians, but any of these people around us. And the only way they could be delivered from death and hell is through the gospel. So, who can you be evangelizing when we do it? Adam's turn. Thank y'all for listening.